 The hour of 1245 Hamming arrived and passed The Santa Cruz City Council will come to order and the clerk will call the roll Thank You mayor council members Newsom present Brown here Watkins here Brunner present Present vice mayor Golder and Mary Keeley. I'm also here Madam vice mayor welcome. Thank you for showing up We are on public comment regarding our closed session. We have a couple of items on closed session today This would be the opportunity for anyone who's with us in chambers or online who would like to comment on the items on our closed Session, this is your opportunity to do so. Let me ask if there's anyone with us in chambers today Wishes to do that seen and hearing none. Miss Bush. Do we have anyone online? Nobody online? No, we do not What we are doing now is we will adjourn to our closed session take up a couple of items. We will be back. I Suspect 45 minutes or so from now. We stand adjourned in a closed session Recording stop Intention of clarifying Language and cleaning it up things were changed in the downtown plan and The outcome of rearranging those things is that not only zone B where the hotel the luxury hotel is to be was zoned for additional height but the entire Pacific Avenue on both sides all of zone a was also re-zoned for higher heights and The way this happened. I I was left with the impression that city council actually and mayor Keeley did not understand What they were actually voting on? Councilmember Watkins said I approve Just a moment zone B. You can make any oral communication you want I would ask you to refrain from trying to interpret what was in council members mind So why don't you state what your opinion is? so this It gives an impression that either this Council did not understand what they're actually voting on but in the minutes of today's meeting that you are about to approve it very clearly states that zone a was increased as well as zone B and If this council approves those minutes without taking out Part H You will leave the public with the impression that you're complicit in this Obscure way of rezoning more than was allowed public comment and That does not create trust with the public it creates Concern thank you Certainly good afternoon Good after noon mayor Keeley and council members You know that my name is Rhonda reina and I'm an impacted mother who has experienced domestic violence and abuse And I'd like to point out that the 251 million dollar Campaign that abuse there's no excuse for domestic abuse is ineffective and wasteful of taxpayer money and I wanted to congratulate all of you especially you council member sandy Brown that you guys are now all famous once again as so is officer now sergeant Ruben Badeo seen here abusing a domestic violence victim in Opposition and complete oxymoron to how victims of domestic violence are supposed to be treated the Santa Cruz PDs walking around with these bumper stickers and passing this stuff out and the new Documentary features the kidnapping of Maya and Sebastian Lang and we can see Ruben Badeo in there participating in facilitating their violent kidnapping all of you have seen the video of my daughter's violent kidnapping and I just want to say that We need to cease this program because it's ineffective I really don't understand how you get up every day in the morning and look in the mirror When you've allowed this to happen and you've basically given this cop a hall pass when George Floyd Who was allegedly murdered by Derek Chauvin and you've got spray paint outside? Marking Black Lives Matter when he was strangled in front of the public nationwide I want to know why this didn't make local news when the whole world knows about this all Media outside of this community which again Santa Cruz is featured in this documentary There's lots of pretty pictures and it feels like we're Satan Cruz not Santa Cruz. Are you guys embarrassed? I mean, what's the city manager doing? Do you have the power to terminate him and hire someone new who's gonna hire honest police officers and and terminate Abusive men who that man nearly killed my daughter Thank you anyone else online we'll take the next person online then we'll hear from you. We're gonna alternate back and forth Thank You person online. Good afternoon Okay, thank you. This is good a last meeting detailed grant application proposal called up preserving and promoting housing affordability and climate resilience Strangely or purposely was not included in the council packet when you blindly approved it the vague items brief summary lacked real discussion or questions Had no presentation. I wonder if you even read it It turns out the grant application contains serious but vague commitments to the state One of your many promise deliverables to the state was a long-term affordable housing climate resilient resiliency Funding stream either by ballot measure or at budget expense spent according to us and as yet Undefined fund governance meant document among other vague contractual promises The grant purpose does not require such a commitment the details missing commitments to the so-called Decarbonization roadmaps funding price controlled housing development inclusion of unelected regional bodies Corporations and lavishly compensated CBOs being compensated to what value exactly Stop for their one-sided input where no property owners spoke where you pay climate tenant activists big bucks calling them stakeholders Paying people 175 each to get engaged. Well, it's all sneaky leftist socialist Trojan Horsery Sure, everybody prefers a cheaper whatever many including cultural Marxists along with those who think they will benefit at no personal cost Are okay with this free market of served price controlled housing Even less people favor the further bribing of otherwise elected developers with public asset subsidies of public land and density bonuses But when the public themselves sees the manipulation of what eventually becomes a coercive forcing of them to fund other Unknown others housing and definitely without even absolute assurances It always goes to the most deserving and they're not here illegally on support hidden in a buddy system infrastructure grant package It's probably not gonna go over as well as you think with the public no matter how many extensive manipulative workshops you hold the CBO Thank You mr. Philip good afternoon Thank you. I apologize for my shaky voice. I'm not great at public speaking, but today I come to speak for those who cannot Ladies and gentlemen of the council. Thank you for this opportunity to address you today I stand before you with a heavy heart having witnessed unimaginable suffering that compels us to act urgently Today I bring to your attention the dire situation faced by the people of Gaza This morning I bore witness to 30 premature babies Huddled together surrounded by a makeshift wall of aluminum foil desperate to retain any warmth as all fuel for the incubators at El Shifa hospital has been denied Thousands are held hospital hostage in this hospital subject to gunfire even the slightest movement by Israeli drones I've seen fathers carrying the rain remains of their children in grocery bags crying out to their god for solace their babies deemed blessed martyrs Mother's whales echo over the shattered remains of homes and children Countless children bloodied and missing limbs are rushed into hospitals their cries of pain and confusion piercing the air in The rubble children scream for parents who will never come All of this is funded by our US tax dollars As a mother and a human being my heart and mind will never forget what I've seen and learned and I ask the Palestinian people for forgiveness that it took 11,000 of their loved ones 50 percent being children to be murdered in Order for me to wake up and even now as I speak untold numbers remain under the rebel What will it take for the rest of the world to wake up in? 2020 our community rallied for Black Lives Matter I saw our city protect the words painted on the street outside as it was desecrated each time I witnessed hundreds march our streets and the police station stormed every year our city supports and protects LGBT individuals And we proudly proclaim ourselves a sanctuary city or immigrants and we honor indigenous people of this land and supporting the Palestinian cause To the people of Gaza we affirm our commitment to justice equality and the fundamental right to live free from oppression I implore the council to take a public stance in favor of the Palestinian community people and to our US government Can you spend billions of dollars towards this genocide this act of genocide before our eyes take a stance a public stance to our state Representatives the world and the Palestinian people hear our voices there when theirs cannot be. Thank you Thank you Anyone else online miss Bush will take the next person online that will be with you person online. Good afternoon Hello, can you hear me? Yes Hello council hello Yeah, I guess I guess there's got to be hundreds of people may be watching this I I just want to talk a little bit about the high density development in downtown Santa Cruz And I'm a specific problem with a specific building. I have a general problem with the general pattern So the Sentinel this is Brad Snyder. By the way, that was evident to Bonnie, but not necessarily counsel. I I the The the pace and pattern, you know, which you're building. I mean, I don't think there's a single Large city where that that amount of high density development looks normal In in Santa Cruz and in Santa Cruz County, I just don't feel like the economy can support it I feel like the people working at those construction sites might have a chance to rent one of those units for say half a year At what their price? And that's that sounds sarcastic. I'm sorry, but yeah I really do feel like the pattern is like the the Sentinel that that Paragon that that pillar of journalistic integrity, you know, they'll put out this kind of tantalizing Article about a new development that you know, everybody, you know de facto is in support of and and then and then it gets Um fast-tracked, you know, and so there's just more and more development I feel at some point you have to put the brakes. I have to say like look enough is enough You have a thousand cubicles for people to live in and they're all overpriced. So only half of them are gonna be Dwellings. I mean, that's that's my cynical. That's a little bit cynical, but I do feel it There's a certain accuracy to what I'm saying. Okay. I have 17 seconds. So I hope everyone had a good Halloween and happy Thanksgiving. Bye Thank you. Good afternoon I'm gonna indicate that I'm back there safety and freedom for all children. I know this is Kind of organized this last minute. There's not much of us, but you know, there's been a lot of protests calling for a ceasefire And that's what we want. We want freedom safety for all children Israelis and Palestinians and You know how with the bombing with the bombing that Israel has been doing that so many children have already died So many people have already died and so many more will continue to die and this is all again with US government support So we would call on you to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire. It's been done in Richmond as we know and We can be second or third other city councils are trying to do that it's and that as I think my friend mentioned we could that would help to support Jimmy Panetta and Biden and also doing the right thing and calling for a ceasefire You may it may seem that they were far away from this, but I think of a lot of city councils called for ceasefire That would really help our leaders do the right thing so many more children are going to die but there's so many civilians so Densely packed in Gaza human rights watch and as you international have both said for years and the UN that It's a grave humanitarian crisis that is an open-air prison We could go on about that, but right now. We're just talking about a ceasefire It's really important. We get it done now. Okay. Thank you Thank you very much. Anyone else online miss wish Anyone else wish to address us on oral communication? Seen in hearing none. We will move on to item three This is an arts and economic prosperity study results miss Lipscomb. Good afternoon Good after afternoon mayor and members of the council Bonnie Lipscomb director of economic development and housing and with me today is Jim Brown executive director of Arts Council Santa Cruz County and I know you all know Jim. He's definitely a leader in our community and he's going to Give an overview of the arts and economic prosperity survey results But first I just wanted to set the stage and talk about our sort of contributions and the importance of art in our community From the city of Santa Cruz We've long recognized the power of the arts in contributing to the health and well-being in our community And this goes all the way back to the tannery and the closure of the tannery and the investment of the city To remediate that site which did have contamination and to turn that into a thriving arts community and that's actually where The arts council is today as their home is one of our anchor tenants We do provide ongoing sustaining and grant funding to the arts council every year for art projects throughout our community as well as they play a Pivotal role in helping us be a leadership on the tannery arts center campus as well so from programming to being a council and City liaison to marketing and communications within the tannery We also support the arts through our own percent for our program at the city and Have a very vibrant and very active arts commission and Jim actually presented last week to our arts commission the same study so with that I will turn it over to Jim and He will give you the overview of the survey results. Thank you. Miss. Lipscham. Good afternoon, sir Good afternoon mayor Keely and council members. Thank you Bonnie for that wonderful introduction just wanted to orient you to the handouts I handed out there is a a Infographic that covers the the county of Santa Cruz So those numbers are county oriented and then the the stapled sheets are are basically a summary of all the three eats arts to the Economic prosperity studies that we did across the county Just want to say a huge. Thank you to the city for supporting this study It's important work and especially to Kathy mints whose whose support and council has been super helpful Next slide, please So for those those of you who are less familiar with the arts council We see ourselves as the mycelial network of the arts ecosystem We mostly work behind the scenes to keep our arts ecosystem connected well resourced and vibrant The primary point of this study is to show that the arts are not just a nice thing to have They aren't a luxury to invest in when we have enough resources to do so They're an they're an essential resource that makes our communities more livable Defines a sense of place and improves community cohesion it and They generate significant economic impact this report conceived by and managed by Americans for the arts and Conducted by over 300 partner organizations across the across the country seeks to quantify that economic impact next slide in The city of Santa Cruz the nonprofit sector the nonprofit arts sector generates about 38 million dollars in economic activity This includes direct spending by arts arts organizations on salaries supplies venue rental and taxes It also includes audience spending when they go out to eat or to buy a buy a drink when they go to an event Or to pay for fuel to travel a hotel stay Or to hire childcare It doesn't include any of the for-profit arts activities, so that's things like the catalyst or artisans gallery All of this arts and economic impact generate 981 jobs in the city of Santa Cruz and that includes jobs for artists But also jobs for arts administrators waiters store clerks babysitters and hoteliers The study estimates that the arts and cultures Sector generates about two million dollars intact local tax revenue Which of course goes back to councils like yours to invest in infrastructure that supports a healthy community eight million dollars of the thirty eight million dollars is audience spending and This spending is over and above the ticket price on things like those drinks out next slide, please As what he mentioned the city of Santa Cruz invest directly in the arts in fiscal year 23 They you invested three hundred and thirty thousand dollars in the arts through various programs listed on the slide I think of this investment as seed capital that organizations like the arts council and other nonprofit organizations across the city Used to generate tens of millions of dollars in economic activity But the modest investment that you make is multiplied a hundred and fifteen times Next slide, please We did separate studies as you see in your in your sheets For the county of Santa Cruz for the city of Santa Cruz and for the city of Watsonville The bar on the left shows the full economic impact of the entire county Next to that you'll see that over fifty percent of the economic impact of the arts is generated in the city of Santa Cruz Watsonville is about thirteen percent and the remaining areas of the county are about thirty percent The data is somewhat skewed The impact of organizations like the arts council that are headquartered in Santa Cruz is counted in Santa Cruz So and we do work county-wide. So there's a little bit of a skew But the disparity is clear Historically, there has been less investment in the arts in Watsonville with increased investment underway through the arts council As well as the city of Watsonville's percent for the arts program, which is new to them just in the past year We hope to see that disparity shrink But regardless civic investment in the arts pays off many fold and waste both both measurable and immeasurable Next slide This chart compares Santa Cruz city audience spending with regions across the country of similar populations You'll notice that Santa Cruz spending is about average compared to the region's shown But when you consider the high cost of doing business and living in the central coast of California These numbers start to feel a little bit on the low side Based on this data and the data that we have for the county for the county-wide work We think there's a real opportunity to partner with organizations like business Santa Cruz and with hotel years to drive more arts and cultural tourism In the area and increase that that that visitor spending last slide So thank you to the city of Santa Cruz for for your decades of investment in the arts With all the changes underway in the city I encourage you to always look for ways to increase investment in the arts so that the city retains its Vibrance creativity and sense of place. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Mr. Brown. Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful Presentation, let me ask if there are council members who have questions and comments on this item. I will say this I'm gonna use this as a carom shot. I Love what you do and I think this is part of the beating heart of the city of Santa Cruz our local economy I think it is one of the aspects that makes us so attract Magnetically attractive to people whether they're locating here in the city of Santa Cruz to reside here to do business Whatever it may be and in that regard here comes the carom shot I think this is really quite important to emphasize as we are considering The expansion of our downtown area. I happen to believe that most people are going to experience That downtown expansion not by living there some small relatively small number But during the period of time that expansion takes place and is there Millions of people are going to experience that downtown expansion area and for me For all the talk of units and stories what most people are going to experience is being on ground level What is it? We're doing in that ground level that is our tick artistic provides an entertaining artistic experience for people Whether or not they live there 90 something percent of people are going to experience now are now expanded downtown are going to experience it that way So I'm gonna thank you for letting me preach on your dime I totally agree with you. Are you are critically important to that happening? Thank you for your presentation allowing me to tag on to it. You are critical as well Thank you so much. Thank you work We're on item four. This is a mayoral proclamation Declaring November 25th as small business Saturday. I'm going to defer to councilmember call entire job Thank you mayor I Have the honor of presenting this mayoral proclamation, and I am going to go ahead and read it There's a lot of juicy stuff in here Whereas since its inception in 2010 small business Saturday falling between Black Friday and Cyber Monday has illuminated the Significance of supporting small independently owned businesses across the country And whereas small businesses business Saturday is a day dedicated to supporting the diverse range of local businesses That help create jobs boost the economy and keep communities thriving across the country Whereas the city of Santa Cruz celebrates our small businesses and the contributions that they make to our local economy and community Whereas small businesses rely on the holiday shopping season for much of their revenue and the support of local shoppers to their businesses Each year to survive and whereas 85 percent of Santa Cruz businesses are small businesses employing nine people or less I'm gonna repeat that 85 percent Whereas there are over 500 retail businesses in Santa Cruz providing nearly 4800 jobs and whereas purchasing goods and services from local small businesses keeps those dollars local and contributes to a more vibrant and sustainable economy and Whereas the city of Santa Cruz encourages all residents and visitors to shop and dine locally and to recognize the impact that we Can make when we support local small businesses and whereas businesses across the country We'll be celebrating small business Saturday and encouraging shoppers to shop local on behalf of our mayor Fred Keeley We hereby proclaim Saturday November 25th 2023 as small business Saturday in the city of Santa Cruz and Encourage all citizens to join us in shopping local today and throughout the year. So I see Bonnie's here There's lips and good afternoon again. Thank you mayor and thank you councilmember Calentari Johnson We are a proud supporter of small business Saturday and it does fall as councilmember Calentari Johnson mentioned two days after Thanksgiving this year on Saturday And it's a great time to support our local businesses whether they're in the downtown the midtown Westside Mission Street throughout the city to kick off your holiday shopping This is the critical period really of the whole year for our small local businesses. So we really Encourage, you know our our community to get out and shop on on Saturday as in past years We are supporting small business Saturday and participating with the downtown association to provide a unique and fun downtown shopping experience And Rebecca unit our economic development manager is just going to pass out a few of our Choose Santa Cruz bags that will be donating to the downtown association as part of that promotional event And some of our latest very colorful sunglasses Thanks again for supporting small business Thank you so much miss Lipscomb for your work and the work of your team I know what I'll be doing after I digested my Thanksgiving meal. So thank you a little come present Thank you very much I have to make a quick comment here and say that the the sunglasses in your swag bag are Wonderful, I gave mine away. I got a pair and I gave them away. So just yes. I'm so stoked Thank you all very very much The only correction I'd like to make is as you were dividing the city up You mentioned something called Midtown which is a manufactured idea And mention Eastside Westside and Eastside anything else is made up Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate it and For those of you that have ever mentioned Eastside in the last 11 months here or Midtown Recognize that anytime you say Midtown, I'm going to go on this rant. So thank you very much All right being an Eastside resident Who some people allege I live in Midtown there is no such place Number five we are on friends the library is going to present a check which we always love For the Brantz of 40 in Garfield Park Libraries, mr. Howard, Ms. O'Driscoll and mr. Cotter. Good afternoon Thank you for being here Thank you mayor and thank you council. Good afternoon My name is Janice O'Driscoll. I'm the current president of the friends of the Santa Cruz public libraries This is Eric Howard. Who is the interim library director? The friends of the library are advocates for good and excellent library service That runs all the way from being sure that we have good store times preschool children a place for people to go when they need to research to establish a new business and a Chance to do homework whether you're a fourth grader or you're a college We're also fundraisers And we fundraise for programs that make it possible for teenagers to come to the library to write poetry We make it possible For people in the community to come to the library at noon to hear classical music And we do capital campaigns you may have heard Since the establishment in the passage of measure s in 2016 the friends and their chapters have raised well over three million dollars For these for the renovation for the establishment of new branches Over the next few months You will see the opening of a new Aptos branch library And you will see the establishment of the live oak annex There's one more capital campaign to come For the downtown branch library which serves as both a local branch for the city of Santa Cruz and the hub for all the branches in the system and Outreach services But today We're here to celebrate Garfield Park and Brant Sephardi branch libraries Brant Sephardi by the way on the east side In our last major capital campaign was in 2020 an eventful year We didn't know what was going to happen when COVID exploded We didn't know how we were going to talk to people when we were all in lockdown and yet We managed to raise over one million dollars Just support the Garfield Park the Brant Sephardi and the Aptos branches The Garfield Park and Brant Sephardi campaigns were beautifully run by Martha Dexter Martha and her committee and the generous donors who Responded to her committee's work Made it possible to honor Martha's mother who was a long time resident of the Garfield Park area and a very loyal library user and We were also able to honor the public work of Mike Rodkin Who worked very hard when Garfield Park was threatened with closure? He galvanized the community so that would not happen At the Brant Sephardi branch library the family the friends and the colleagues of Allison Endert Were able to establish a memorial Children's room a beautiful new open children's room to honor Allison and The importance she had in our community So when people look at libraries They see books They see computers We see people We see the library staff who makes everything work We see a local government who makes it possible for those libraries to exist We see the voters who always support the libraries when they come to the ballot box in this community We see the generous individuals and businesses who shared the resources So we can have ten amazing Contemporary public libraries in this county And we see the people who need these libraries You needed to find a job To do their homework to learn to read Find a good book to have a community gathering space so they can attack some of the problems and issues In the community Or what we have here is to check with a lot of lovely numbers on it and When you look at those numbers I encourage you to see the people who made those numbers possible and Necessary and on behalf of those people We would like to present you with this check for $461,000 I just want to say many of you know that Janice was in my position before she retired So she's gone from working six days a week to working seven days a week as a volunteer So we are eternally grateful for her passion and wisdom There's no Driscoll and others. Thank you so much for what you do every day I am at the view that public libraries are Secular cathedrals. This is how we keep reason and observable facts at the front of our minds in the world and God love you and thank you for what you do every day to keep that going It's critically important. It's not a It is an essential critical element to the democracy not some optional thing out on the edges It's one of the cores for our democracy is an informed public and thank you for what you do every day to help make that happen Make the the democracy stronger and better because of it. Thank you all so much. Let me ask I suspect there may be other comments Okay No, we're all good. Thank you. Thank you very very much all right Don't feel compelled to stay one more second if you don't want to We're pleasure. We appreciate your politeness We are on presiding Officer announcements. I'm going to refer to Ms. Brunner Foreign announcement miss Brunner. Thank you mayor Keely Bonnie Bush, thank you. I'm sharing a flyer here on the screen November 13th through the 20th is United Against Hate Week United Against Hate Week was created by a group of civic leaders and direct response to the sharp rise and expressions of hate in our communities and Santa Cruz County United for safe and inclusive communities Wants to empower local residents to take action in our communities and alter the course of this growing intolerance When we come together to work against hate we can restore respect and civil discourse Embrace the strength of diversity and build inclusive and equitable communities for all and as you all know a couple of years ago This council declared racism a public health crisis. We've Written a racial equity resolution. We're really working on various Racial and social justice issues in in this body and in our city and we want to support all Residents in our city, so I encourage anyone who's interested to attend any of these free events One of our partners is the Santa Cruz Public Libraries and the entire list of events is on the Santa Cruz Public Libraries Website, so I encourage you to go there. I also want to share that it is Simultaneously the week of Transgender Awareness Week Transgender Awareness Week is a national nationally recognized week to You know recognize and bring action to trans community by educating the public about transgender people sharing stories experiences and advancing Advocacy around issues of prejudice discrimination and violence that affect the transgender community so with that the last event of United Against Hate Week will end with a Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil Which will be held in Santa Cruz So I encourage everyone to check out the list of items and thank you for allowing the time to share Thank You councilmember. We are on item number excuse me. We're on statement of disqualifications any member having disqualifying We're good additions and deletions city managers recognize We'll actually defer to the city clerk. Thank you. Yes item 19 Which is the ordinance requiring delivery company to provide a service enabling customers the tip delivery drivers is pulled and continued to the Next meeting, which is November 28 November 28 to meeting Yeah, and if I miss you member Colin Tari Johnson. Thank you, mayor Yes, myself councilmember Watkins and councilmember Bruner who are the subcommittee working on this have received communication from industry representatives So we are wanting to continue this to the November 28th to give us additional time to do further legal analysis and address industry concerns Thank you very much. Such will be the order City attorney any Report out of closed session sir. Yes. Thank you Mayor Keely members of the city council city council met this afternoon at 1245 p.m. In the courtyard conference room There were two items of business before the council item one was liability claims The two claimants are Barbara Jean Lawrence and Zeta Mauro Those claims are also listed for action this afternoon as item 12 on your consent agenda. There were also item two Significant exposure to litigation. There were two matters that were on the agenda council conferred with legal counsel There was no reportable action Thank you, sir On the meeting calendar No changes no changes on the meeting calendar. Thank you We are on the consent agenda These are for those of you unfamiliar with it. We will be taking up items 7 through 16 inclusive on one motion This is Going to be the opportunity for council members I'm gonna start with the council members to see if you wish to pull an item comment on an item or have questions on an item I'll start on my left Miss Brunner Miss condor Johnson miss Brunner. I'm sorry. Did I go to? We had an item in oral communications which referenced an item on our agenda So oral communications supposed to be not on our agenda, right? But there was a Speaker who spoke to the minutes about the minutes and there was a question in the minutes. So I just wanted to See if at some point that could be Addressed and it sounded like it was maybe a planning Question and I'll look I'm looking at city manager Yes, council member Brunner We will have staff reach out to To the member of the public that raised the questions regarding the minutes and the council's approvals of that item Thank you so much It's gone charge on madam vice mayor's record class. I just have a comment on eight Okay, I just wanted to comment that the budget hearing that's scheduled for May 29th It's the last week for Santa Cruz City schools and that Wednesday Typically, there's promotion ceremonies for middle school and elementary school that might affect staff or council members in ability to attend We might consider Changing that date. Okay, we'll take a look at that. Thank you for that comment further comment Ms. Brown to recognize Thank You mayor This is just a quick comment on item 16, which is striping improvements at San Lorenzo Boulevard and I just wanted to thank the public works staff the public works department and the transportation and public works commission for Your work to ensure that These kind of safety improvements pedestrian and bicycle safety ADA compliance are built into that project and just in general appreciate how public works is is moving forward with bike and Ped infrastructure improvements as repaving is done as as broader work is done. It's just really great to see it happening And so I wanted to call it out here. Thank you. Thank you council member council member Newsom Okay, seeing here and none No remaining items. Let me go out to the public see if there's anyone who wishes to make a comment You can do so on any and all items up to three minutes Good afternoon, sir Thank You mayor Keely Charlie Eadie. I Wasn't going to say anything today, but I'm here on behalf of item 13 118 or a long circle. That's a A beautiful example of what's called mid-century modern rustic by Joe Escherich who was a marvelous architect and founded the firm Escherich Holmes a dodge and Davis which is in San Francisco and designed many of the Buildings at UCSC so they have a big Presence in this town. So we're happy to see that but more importantly. I wanted to Congratulate mayor Keely for ranting against the term midtown Thank you Well now I have two people okay, this is mr. Edie while you're I want to thank you mr. Edie for your years of Service to our community in the area of economic development. Thank you for all the fine work. You've done over the years, sir your Especially brilliant about geography Um Let me ask if anyone else who is with us wishes comment on the consent agenda seen here in none the matters back before the council motion will Be in order by Councilmember Watkins is there a second second also by councilmember Newsom Debater discussion seen here in none the clerk will call the roll Councilmember is Newsom. Hi, Brown. Hi Hi Brunner. Hi Helen Toria Johnson. Hi base mayor Golder. Hi and Mary Keeley. Hi motion passes and sordid we are on item 17 Excuse me for one moment We're on item 17 These are amendments to title 18 and municipal code have a range of issues here including greenhouse gas emissions and so on We will be receiving a staff presentation from dr. Weiss West And there will be associated planning department comments as well dr. Weiss West. Good afternoon. Good afternoon mayor and council members I am here today with John McLucas the senior plans examiner from the planning department I also want to introduce for hard farm on and Taylor Taylor from TRC Who have been supporting us on this effort? I also just want to acknowledge that Clara Stanger who co-wrote the agenda report with me as out of maternity leave So she is not here today So Let's jump into it Just to Refresh you. I'm sorry the clerk has to make a setting before I can share the screen. Here we are. Thank you So it's just some policy background on why we're bringing this item to council first of all Resolution NS 30-042 Adopted a community-wide goal of carbon neutrality by 2035 and a legal target of a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030 from 1990 levels that was part of the adoption of our climate action plan in September of last year also adopted in 2020 was ordinance 2026 which was our natural gas prohibition in new construction requiring all new buildings to be all electric with limited exceptions Which we've been implementing successfully since 2020 I'm not going to be getting into we've because we have done so extensively kind of the how and why but I'll say a couple things about this Number one. This is a major greenhouse gas emissions reduction measure that's called out in our climate action plan It also has the co-benefits of increased public safety by reducing the number of fires and buildings As well as an improvement to indoor air quality. Why electrification? Well, electric is 50% renewable energy right now by 2030 It'll be a hundred percent renewable energy And so that will allow us to take down these natural gas peaker plants that are emitting so much greenhouse gas emissions Just a little bit of background Okay, so with respect to our natural gas ban, we have to talk about the Ninth Circuit ruling so The California Restaurant Association Suited the city of Berkeley and it's been going through a lawsuit essentially recent ruling found that California's all I'm sorry Berkeley's all electric new buildings ordinance, which is very similar to our natural gas Prohibition was actually preempted by the Federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 or EPCA and therefore was invalid However, they did not issue a stare in Junction and Berkeley continues to implement their natural gas ban to this day Also, we then out of an abundance of caution brought to you resolution NS 30 156 in June which temporarily suspended the enforcement of our prohibition in of natural gas Infrastructure and new buildings. I do want to mention that there were over 1200 units that came through permitting as all electric during that three-year time period which is substantial for us In terms of greenhouse gas reductions that we really need in order to meet the target that I mentioned the legal target so We needed an alternative approach and we indicated such in June when we came We know that The Berkeley versus CRA California Restaurant Association is not likely to be resolved in a timely manner So we can't wait for that. We also know there are no imminent statewide fixes for this issue despite a lot of lobbying and advocacy going on at the state level and And in fact the city city has already started to receive mixed fuel building permit applications Again, where we are concerned about the greenhouse gas emissions from those those buildings So our Proposed alternative is really to adopt an increased building energy performance Requirement as an amendment to the California energy code and this is called a reach code. You'll hear me reference this It is performance based And because the Berkeley suit does limit how we can regulate emissions And because the California energy code expressly allows local amendments so long as they are consistent with state law and federal law and our cost effective This approach that I'm going to share with you now has already been adopted by San Luis Obispo and city of San Jose And there are at least two to three other jurisdictions that are looking at putting this in place as well So just a little bit of basics so that when we get into the proposal you the proposed ordinance You will be fluent in what we're talking about So the California energy code does allow reducing emissions by regulating energy demand caused by buildings so the performance as They mentioned the reach code refers to the local amendments To the energy standards that again cost effectively reduce energy from new buildings again in compliance with state and federal law and Lastly source energy, which is the the piece that we are looking to regulate here It represents the underlying fuel sources such as coal gas or solar that's used to power buildings and systems So let's get into the meat of it Okay, so Okay, so what you see on the screen here you can see is called the energy design rating and for every new building a designer will have to Input all of the various components of the building to determine the energy design rating and whether the building is in compliance with the energy code So as you can see there is a line that calls the standard design so the standard design that meets the Energy code and the proposed design would be the design that whomever is bringing forward a new building would put in place that would Would run that model for and on the right-hand side where you can see these red boxes are what's called the compliance margins and The compliance margins are the difference between the standard design and the proposed design There are three components to this energy design rating source energy or EDR one The efficiency EDR or EDR to efficiency and total EDR, which is EDR total So if we look at the compliance margin for source energy, which is what we'll be regulating This however is is just an example under the current code You can see that 29.7 minus 26.7 is a three and that means because the Proposed design Exceeds the standard design so there's a positive number in this row with the with the red Box here that means that it meets compliance with the energy code and that's what this pass Indicates here, so that's what we're going to be looking at here. I want to make really clear that this Ordinance only applies to new buildings. It does not apply to renovations remodels Or additions, okay, so here's the proposed reach code then So This is another example of what what you just saw the report for the EDR That's run by a designer that's required to be submitted with their permit Application and you can see that for this hypothetical proposed design That the difference between the source energy of the standard design and the proposed design is 9.1 For single-family homes, we want a compliance margin of at least nine under this ordinance So this proposed design because it has a source energy score of nine point one Would it exceed the source energy? Compliance margin of nine and so it would be in compliance so you can see here We are only talking about source energy. We are not talking about efficiency EDR or total EDR So These are what the proposed standards look like and I'm going to walk you through each of these building types and show a couple Examples of how compliance can be achieved with various component configurations So for single-family, I've already mentioned that the EDR one or the source energy Must be at least nine points for the other types of buildings This is on a percentage basis not a points basis for multifamily low Rise you must exceed the standard source energy requirement by ten percent For high rise by four percent for non-residential buildings seven percent And we have an additional requirement which is an electric ready requirement for non-res and multifamily residential buildings with central water heating and that is to illustrate Reserved physical space and ventilation pass for future all electric equipment and ensure that the panel and transformer have capacity for such Now I want to walk you through this in several examples So this first example is for a single-family building and you can see under a standard design So meeting the the energy code as it is right now That can pass with this type of a configuration of appliances and components You see there's a heat pump electric heat pump water heater LED lighting an efficient building envelope still has a mixed fuel gas furnace and rooftop solar panels are required here So this would meet a standard design however for the reach code if this should be adopted in Order to achieve a source energy score of over nine points We would need to swap out the gas furnace with a heat pump HVAC unit And that would get a compliance with the ordinance I'll give you a second example So going back to the standard design where we have the heat pump water heater LED lighting building envelope gas furnace and rooftop solar Applicants can retain a mixed fuel building. So you see the gas furnace stays but instead they would need to to Install a battery storage system and that would enable them to score above a nine on Their compliance margin and would meet the ordinance So to at least two different compliance pathways and there are others For a low-rise multifamily Again for the standard design building. That's that's zero because that's what we're comparing to For there are two at least two ways to reach compliance for a low-rise multifamily building Which again is meeting that that 10% above the standard design Number one we can add a heat pump HVAC unit that gets us there or Applicants can retain a mixed fuel building keep the gas furnace Add more efficiency whether that's to the building envelope or otherwise Add some additional storage and a battery system and they can exceed that 10% compliance margin For high-rise very similar In the first example adding the heat pump HVAC will get you to a 7% increase in the compliance and In the second example you could keep your gas furnace So keep the mixed fuel add some efficiency and additional solar and get to That 4% I think that's supposed to be 7% that maybe didn't get changed. Oh No, this one's for great. Yes. Sorry about that and I do want to mention that You know in terms of and this is a question We've got during some of our engagement is what are you expecting to come through as far as buildings are concerned? And we know that there are going to be very few single family and much more of the the Multifamily and the non-residential so just on scale Okay, and here is our last one. This one is a non-residential building again the compliance EDR must be greater than seven And Again, you can add a heat heat pump HVAC and reach the seven Another pathway is to keep the gas furnace add efficiency and additional solar and you will exceed that seven percent And there are other combinations as to how these compliance margins can be reached so With that cost effectiveness is another criteria the California Energy Commission Will not approve that which is a next step for us is to get approval from the Energy Commission They will not approve this ordinance without being able to demonstrate that it is cost-effective the city has evaluated this and The California energy codes and standard statewide utility program does develop cost-effectiveness studies that demonstrate this and We find that the proposed amendment that we're bringing forward today is more efficient than the base code and Is cost-effective on a time-dependent evaluation basis, which is a composite measure of the actual cost of energy for each electricity natural gas propane Appliance or equipment to the utility customers and society at large over 30 years So another question that we've gotten quite a bit of is you know, what about what about rebates and so forth Generally all electric buildings are cheaper to build than natural gas. You're not running the natural gas line And there are substantial resources available both for new construction and for existing buildings Which we are not covering today, but I think it's worth mentioning because I know some people are interested in that I've listed on the screen here, and I'm not going to repeat all these But there are substantial rebates. This will be on our website shortly if it's not already today And we know that with the inflation reduction act there will be a lot more coming that will be passed through the state I also want to note that the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments is also standing up at the beginning of next year What's called a local renewable energy network? funded by the public the IOU's and PG&E specifically and there will be more rebates and technical assistance and other kinds of supportive actions coming forward and Ambeg will be managing that rent. It's called is the acronym So in terms of engagement, I think you all know that throughout 2019 to 2020 for our natural gas prohibition we We completed extensive engagement on this topic and then again also With our climate action plan adoption through 2021 and 2022 Last year we continued to conduct engagement as we were gearing up to tackle existing buildings this year We of course have been sidetracked by this But in support of this specific reach code we did Conducted developers round table with developers architects engineers design professionals and property owners We also got great feedback from our community climate action task force And we also took this to the Planning Commission for feedback, although it was not a requirement So our next steps today are The following the first hearing of the ordinance obviously is today the second hearing should it be Past it would be November 28th We anticipate two to three months to receive approval from the California Energy Commission And we propose that this would go into effect March 1st of 2024 and of course if the Berkeley Ruling is vacated we would go back to our natural gas prohibition because that is the strongest greenhouse gas emissions reduction ordinance between the two of them I Just want to finally state that we can't meet our legal target for our climate action plan Without having an ordinance in place that replaces our natural gas prohibition And so it's important for us to adopt this or something as strong or similar to it As robust in in the near future So our recommendation then is as stated in the agenda report And we are happy to take any questions that you might have on this ordinance Thank you very much dr. Weiswester. Let me begin by asking if council members do in fact have questions around here council member Brown is record really a Kind of curiosity In terms of that I think they're the the eds percentages What? How do what do we to what do we attribute the difference in the percentages like wire? Buildings with more stories have a lower percentage. I'm just trying to I think I have an idea But I want to make sure I understand that I think I'm going to defer to Farhad from TRC. He can give I think the most simple Explanation thank you Council my name is farad farm on with TRC. We're in a environmental engineering consultancy Thank you so much for spending the time on this item today The different percentages are based on the cost-effectiveness analysis that dr. Weiswester mentioned They vary based on packages and it's just dependent on what the energy code requires for a typical building Versus what was found to be cost-effective through the studies? Thank you. I was just trying to figure out if it Scale of buildings and things like that mattered, but I think I think I get it now. Thank you For the questions comments the vice mayor is Questions, thank you for taking my questions over over the weekend, too. I appreciate it So my first question is of I think in the stack report said a thousand But you said 1200 today of the units that have been submitted since 2020 after the Ninth Circuit decision were any of those resubmitted and put natural gas So, do you know I? Don't know the answer to that question And do you think it was to save money on the Constructory do you know hang on just moment so I heard you, but I'm not sure the record heard you Just a handful of those types resubmitted and do you know why? Because then then I follow up to that is that It said that The study would determine that it's cheaper not to have gas But I was wondering how they determined it would be cheaper like what would be the reason it's cheaper to build without natural gas Well, as I mentioned there one of the reasons is you don't have to run the natural gas infrastructure to the house and within the house Beyond that I think it's dependent on you know the building type and the type of appliances. I don't know if John or Farhad have anything to add to that Yes, that's true for single-family homes and multi-family buildings with central water heaters There is actually an upfront cost for that But the studies find that that over the lifetime of these buildings 30 years it does turn out to be cost effective So beneficial for the tenants Okay, yeah, I have a lot of questions because I we've received a lot of correspondence from developers and from Electricians architects designers and title 24 energy consultants over the weekend. So so one of the developers I guess essentially like said the opposite of that that it was Significantly more expensive to build With all electric with the upfront costs, but that it makes sense what you're saying So you're saying over the lifetime of the building it would the cost would be and that's if we have the projected same energy Costs right like because they do fluctuate Studies do include some escalation rates based on near-term economic forecasts, but longer than five years. It gets really difficult. Okay The I'm just wondering too. I did see the The meeting that you had for October 23 In October 23 you said I saw 14 people were there Were those that industry professionals or were those members of the public they were industry professionals Designers developers engineers. Did you have PG&E as any part of that because this is another question? No, we did not but a PG&E did come to our natural gas prohibition ordinance Hearing in support. So they are supportive of electrification Got it So the question I have is then asking PG&E if If they have any plans to expedite How long it would take once your roof stop solar is installed to like when you can actually start operating your system because right now People are reporting back to me. It takes nine to twelve months and I found that to be my experience as well Where you're still for the interconnection right to happen Yeah, is that about what they expect or would they think we'd be able to start expediting that? I'm gonna defer to the one of these two on that because I'm not in the day-to-day I do know that there was something that just came through the state legislature that would compel PG&E and other IOUs to Be more expeditious in their the panel I'm sorry the transformer upgrades and I'm not sure if that extends to the PV interconnection as well But I want to turn to my colleagues on that I believe the issue is around interconnections in general regardless of a mixed fuel versus an all-electric building. So I Do but I do believe there are some longer turnaround times with PG&E currently, but that's not necessarily an issue Would relate to this ordinance in particular But it would yes. Well, I mean I think it would just Delay If you can't operate Then it would delay construction costs if you can't turn your power back on right like it would just be sitting there That's correct. Yeah, but for example a mixed fuel home would have a 200 amp panel and a you know 10 PV panels on the roof yeah while an all-electric building would have a same 200 amp panel and maybe Well, actually it code just requires the same 10 10 panels So it's not actually changing the number of panels or the connection size for a 2,000 or 3,000 square foot home as an example But excuse me go ahead. No you go ahead, but to be clear the interconnection is both for gas and electric So a new construction Irrespective if you have a mixed fuel or an all-electric building you're still facing the same interconnection time Okay, excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. No, excuse me. Let me explain how this works here No, I don't I I'm gonna explain it to everybody So if you want to make a comment there'll be an opportunity and I'll recognize you at the podium Glad to do that back to you sorry Again, I'm talking about the interconnection of the building There may be some additional time with a transformer We just don't know but interconnection in general is delayed with PG&E right now And and and and and just so the public understands it doesn't matter if we're with Central Coast Community Electric PG&E has to ultimately do that right that's correct. Okay, and then the other question that I have is Can we ensure that In this I guess goes back to PG&E if we were to go fully electric, I mean I get those alerts Saying flex the power like that. We will be able to Not overpower the grid if we're turning off gas appliances and going all electric just I know the state wants to go there But if we went there ahead by enacting a reach code instead of kind of going with the flow in this the state We'd be okay. Well, just to be clear this allows mixed fuel buildings So there is a choice. So this isn't an all-electric requirement. This ordinance is not it does allow mixed fuels But I I think you're speaking to things like public safety power shutoffs and so on You know, I think it's important to remember that modern stoves for example for modern water heaters they require an electric Ignition So you wouldn't be able to use those anyway Also, it's unsafe to operate those without an exhaust fan So there's some more kind of I think context to that question, but again this Ordinance is not requiring all-electric unlike our natural gas prohibition It does allow mixed fuels Hold day, but I have one more question of the buildings that have been submitted that are all electric. How many points over-standard Exact term how many points over a standard were the typical projects and like And then how were those amended performance points determined when you increased them for this ordinance Yeah, we don't have that data Okay, that that would be a lot of data to pull But on average like where most projects like ten points over half a point over no idea I don't know the answer to that. How did you guys determine the number of points for this? As far how to explain the cost effectiveness study Thank you, and then I'll let my colleagues. Sorry. Thank you Thank You council member for that question So the studies take a prescriptive building to the energy code Prescriptive in all facets so windows insulation You know every component of the building and it switches the gas appliance to electric to achieve the margins proposed today In practice some of the buildings that get submitted to the city may use that credit that exists and the studies depict to trade off Some of those efficiencies by installing some worse windows or insulation or those kinds of things by reducing efficiency elsewhere The state already has an electric preferred code that was by design That's the margin. They were capturing as part of this proposal I'm going to go here that I'm going here Okay, councilmember Watkins is recognized Thank you for the presentation. I just had one or had two questions one was in regards to one of the scenarios that you shared which was the scenario in which the Individual or the builder could have mixed gas and electric One of which would be to keep the gas would require that they have a Battery and so I'm wondering just knowing the cost of the battery if that's an automatic potential Deturrent from wanting to even do gas because it would be so expensive. Do you know what I mean? Is that that is that question clear? It is clear Again, the cost effectiveness is over the Over time, right? It's not just the initial cost. Okay. I see so you're factoring it that way and that it would be an upfront Significant cost but over time if that was something they chose to do that would make sense Okay, and then you also reference and I remember reading it and I just can't find it at the moment and the legal kind of Validity of our strategy if this isn't in place I wonder if you could just share a little bit more about that or what's at risk with us not having something like this in place for our climate action strategies So two questions there What's at risk if we don't adopt something like just look a little bit more context to that for kind of why this is important to happen This is important for us to have in place because we modeled the enforcement of our natural gas prohibition In our target that we adopted So right now we are off track to meet our target because we've had a gap of six months And we are getting these mixed fuel buildings So it's important for us to adopt this increased performance standard in order to make up that gap and make sure We don't lose any more as we work towards that legal target by 2030. Okay. Thank you That's what I heard. I just want to make sure sure. Thank you Councilmember call to our Johnson is recognized Great. Thank you for the presentation and I know this is really technical and you guys probably all get it all But I appreciate you guys your patience with us So I'm gonna just maybe pick up the thread from where vice mayor Golder left it around those compliance Margin standards. I want to understand these better How I think we well, I won't speak for you What I heard in your question is how feasible is it to meet those compliance standard margins? And so have we seen Local applicants that have been able to meet those and my follow-up question to that is am I understanding correctly that the margins exceed what the state requires and if so Are we I might be answering my own question Are we proposing that our margins exceed state requires because we have fallen behind so that's a lot of questions in one Then I have some more questions Okay, so first question is how feasible Yes, right, so I did share with you at least two compliance pathways for every building type So it is feasible and there are other combinations that could make that Meet the compliance margin you asked secondly about local applicants and have we seen local applicants that have Well, I mean this isn't code yet But have we seen local applicants that have been able to meet or could meet those Margin compliance margin standards. I don't see those day-to-day, so I don't know the answer to that I don't know if John would know that either No, we I mean we generally just look at it whatever the code is at the time we review it I'm gonna need you get a little closure. Thank you We look at whatever code is an effect when we review or when the permit is applied for so the fact that this Ordinance is not yet in place. There would be nothing for us to check on that. There's various ways people can meet compliance and The source metric is just one component of that Would it be possible to look at the source metric for I don't know the last six months to a year to pull that Information you could but you I think far had Alluded to this earlier. You can't really separate that from the rest of that Because they may have done something over here that that Made their compliance margin on the other table less than it would be otherwise I think I understand okay, so then the next part was Why are why are our proposals higher than what the state? requirement is Because we're asking for increased performance in the building so that we can drive greater greenhouse gas emissions reductions Okay, okay. Thank you then Then the other sort of comment question I have is I think you you've made it clear that This is only for new buildings moving forward, but there's some very confusing language in the Ordinance, there's several sections where it refers to a requirements of this section 130.0 through 130.6 also applied additions and alterations to existing buildings and I understand that that's because of the state code but if you could one clarify that and then to Could we should we move forward? Could we provide language that really explicitly upfront? says that This is for exit for new buildings moving forward Yes, I'm going to pass it to John on this, but the language was simply retained from the existing code It does not apply to existing buildings renovations and so forth And there was one part that you other that you mentioned could we provide explicit language? Yes, part of the ordinance that basically says Ignore this. I mean not really, but yes, we can do that I think we might even be prepared to do so today looks like mr. Butler had a comment on that Good afternoon, mr. Butler Thank You mayor and good afternoon mayor and council members leave out there the planning and community development director And thank you for that question councilmember Calentari Johnson and for sending that to us in advance I can certainly understand why there was confusion around that when as you pointed out there are a number of Locations in fact we identified for locations where it's the existing code language calls the Additions and alterations out and potential applications in each of those four locations. I Would propose that we add the following note to clarify this Just a simple statement saying that nothing in the local amendments affects additions or alterations to existing buildings I did Confer with our technical experts here Both John and Farhad and I think that that is going to be Sufficient because we are not affecting any other none of our other local amendments affect those additions or alterations and So I believe that would address the concern without adding any Challenges to the to the way that ordinance would be implemented Thank You mr. Bartlett those are my questions for now for the questions comments Councilmember Bruner's record And I'm glad I'm here at the end because some of my questions were answered and just continuing Lee Butler, I'm gonna continue where this left off Because that was part of my question in receiving correspondence. Thank you for making it clear was new construction there was confusion from people who read the agenda packet that it would affect existing buildings and concern over not having PG&E or General contractors or people that would really know As part of the process and also concern over potentially evicting tenants there were just a lot of concerns and so when we get to the point of Existing buildings somewhere in the future. I imagine I hope that those suggestions can be taken into consideration and The suggestion you just made on nothing in the local amendment affects additions or alterations to existing buildings Could it just say existing buildings? Why do you have to add additions or alterations because then it still leaves that Kind of question sure The The reason why I had at that in the proposed language is because in each instance where there was confusion in the language that's pulled from the current energy code and I can I can read one of those section 141 point See the requirements of section 140 point one through 140 point one Applied to newly constructed buildings and it goes on to say section 141 Specifies which requirements of 140 point one through 140 point one I'll also apply to additions or alterations to existing buildings And so that's where I believe the confusion arose for members of the community who are reading the ordinance carefully is because they were saying they were Leaving that to mean that Something was going to affect additions or alterations This The changes that we are making in each of those sections do not affect additions or alterations and that Takes a lot of digging through the code. I was relying on my Technical experts to do that digging and to follow that trail and to show me that yes There aren't any changes that are Implement that are included on accident and We've confirmed that that's the case and therefore we can have this I don't see an issue with just taking out the additions and alterations I'll look to the technical experts. It's it's more consistent with the code the way the code I'll leave it up to you all to But I think you understand the intent of where we're coming from and I'm sorry. I missed who you were I'm John McLucas and who are you the deputy building official? Okay? Thank you Thank you Further Completed complete. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions comments a couple of questions quickly I'm sorry Go ahead I'm so sorry I Heard dr. Wise West say that we have to do this in order to meet our legal requirements. How are other jurisdictions? Meeting their legal requirements like around the state. That's a Big question. I don't know Not every jurisdiction has a legal target. We do And other jurisdictions either have adopted a natural gas prohibition Many of them did not suspend theirs like we did or they have an electric preferred ordinance that they already Adopted or will be adopting something like this It does differ community to community. There are different stack of measures You know for every community as to how to meet that That legal target and this is a big chunk of ours and this is because of what we The policy that we adopted to try to meet those state Attributes that's 20 30. Okay. Got it. And then my final question I don't want to put chief OD on the spot back there But my question is about battery storage and this just had me thinking when we were eliminating parking requirements Batteries for these projects are typically not stored in Inside right they're like in garages or outdoors or but they can't they have to be covered that they can't just be in the elements, correct? More or less Or in the garage, I mean that there's there's it depends on what scale what what type of project you're talking about and what I'm just thinking of a residential single family or a duplex like that doesn't but we're no longer requiring Off-street parking or covered parking like we had in the past That's all changed since 2020 and then these battery these Tesla batteries or these Tesla power walls They're fairly large and if you get two or three of them, where can you safely store them if you can't get them wet and Are those in the designs that are submitted? Yeah, they would have to comply with the manufacturers installation instructions and the California electrical code as far as installation Okay You rest the chief to come forward. I well, I was just seeing I about Am I right that and maybe you don't know the answer. They can't be stored out in the Elements, that's a good question Rob Odie fire chief So there again, mr. Rikluckus is correct that it has to fall under the the electrical code the fire code But more importantly the manufacturer's recommendation and so I can't speak to Tesla and the other power walls I have seen them installed exterior and interior on a garage And again, I don't know the specifics of what differentiates the acceptability of interior and exterior, but I have seen them in both settings A lot of the bigger installations. You'll see Basically something that looks like a like a container a cargo container That'll be the battery system Good afternoon. I counsel of Matt Fenwell principal planner. I can just speak anecdotally on this that's member Golder I had a solar and battery system installed last year on my home and my battery is outside Fully met permitting requirements fire building Everything it comes just and I like a fire or a weatherproof case and My inner connection with PG&E was about two and a half months So pretty fairly quick Thank you To some extent it seems that We've got a couple of different public policy goals. We're trying to balance here. One is this council is obviously very interested in housing affordability is we're moving through time and we have a large commitment to affordable housing development construction and occupancy and If I understood it correctly One of the arguments in favor of the additional cost component is that if you look at the life cycle of it over time This is at least No less efficient than or it's no more less good You can recover this over over a period of time in your savings on your energy bill Is that essentially correct you make the capital improvement here? That's expensive, but over time you can recover that because your energy bill is less. Is that right? Thank you, Mary. Yes, it is and Also that in some instances the cost of construction could be less be less at the outcome, right? Okay, so on those items. I I suspect this may be true. I don't know it to be true That you put a hard capital cost in up front the Builder of that single-family home and the owner of the single-family home and the old developer of a multi-family Structure etc. They have that capital cost up front Then they are going to price the product whether it's the sale of the home or it's the rent of the rental unit and so on To recover their costs as quickly as possible. I assume and although It is true I'm willing to stipulate that it's true That over time whoever is paying that bill which in the case of the homeowners of the homeowner in the case of the Render it's a pass-through. They're going to pay it over time But that first instance of attempting to recover the capital cost by the owner of the multi-family unit For example, they're going to plug that in early I suspect same way they are all other capital costs that they have to regard to recover those as quickly as possible so The the issue I have here is the increased cost at the front end and What that does to housing affordability? It may be that your answer to that is it's almost Indistinguishable over time or it may be that an individual developer wants to recover that more quickly Which then increases the cost of the product am I not viewing you're shaking you you're not in your head not shaking You're not in your head. Why don't you come forward? We'll talk about this for a minute and maybe mr. Butler to Good afternoon sir. I mayor I think your Thought process is very sound. I do have some numbers pulled here from the cost-effectiveness analysis There are upfront cost increases associated with these packages Over time they do have net present value Savings over time, but it's difficult to ascertain exactly what the business model is going to be for a given developer and for a particular tenant, so That's just give us. I'm asking this in the range of Current costs. Let's say somebody wants to build a Three-bedroom two-bath home fully compliant today And now we adopt this ordinance So we have a pretty good idea The cost of money the cost of construction the cost of building materials the cost of labor the cost of property, etc We have it's not completely ambiguous. It's going to change parcel to parcel building to building I understand that but it's a no relatively knowable idea What that cost is going to be? Is this a 1% increase in cost? Is this a point five percent? Is this a 12% of any idea? Sure what this does to a because the reason I ask is you've done good work You've done good work in saying let us show you various building types and examples of how you could get to goal So my question then is if you know that much Do you know the rest of this about the cost issues here? I'll take you through That thought process a three-bed two-bath home 2,500 square feet Cost to constructs $300 a square foot roughly That's that's accurate, but it's counting lamb costs Not counting construction cost construction is $300 a square foot That comes out to about 750 thousand dollars to build it to build that home The magnitude of costs that we see for a single-family home for the all-electric building is about thirty five hundred dollars in savings for avoiding that gas pipe Versus around seventy five hundred dollars cost increase For that mixed fuel building and having that battery So we're talking let's just say let's just say it's even ten thousand dollars or fifteen thousand dollars So fifteen divide by seven fifty two percent So it's about roughly I'm not going to hold you to that one to two percent roughly it's in the couple of percent range though Right at the outside. So we adopt this Admittedly over time this lots of right now I'm also assuming that they're I think you indicated this that In order to achieve compliance someone comes in they do this they pick one of these alternative paths to get there to achieve our local ordinance and That has a capital cost associated with it of some kind Am I right did I hear it correctly that there are ways you can go to? Recover some of that capital cost There are state or other programs which can help Bring the government in as a partner in this increased cost or the public utility You said did I get that right or did I not get that right? I? Didn't catch the exact last part. I heard the utility. I'm sorry. I was conferring with mr. Butler But I was going with it is whether it's the IOU or it's the energy commission or you know the person in the moon the I'm assuming there are paths. I say okay. I want to do this the Most electric option here possible. That's how I want to do it and I have a 2% hard cost increase my cost of building because of that is there a Program or programs you through the public utilities Commission or the energy commission or the investor owned utilities for me because I'm helping them Hit their targets as well by doing this So are they coming in and saying we're going to give you an economic incentive to do the right thing on this There is an all-electric rate through Central Coast community energy. So yes there I think that the The figures that Farhad was referencing do account for the existing incentives that exist right now though, right? No, they don't so there are all of the incentives that I included Which are substantial and one last point that I'd like to make is that For a an all-electric building We currently have a requirement of all electric buildings So we are not asking for anything or there would not be a cost increase associated with that Unless you have a mixed fuel building with the upfront costs, right because that's what we already have in place So I just want to make sure that was clear is that we're only talking about the mixed fuel building That has an additional cost over what we have right now in place for our ordinance. Thank you Are you out of comment? I was just going to highlight that point a little bit more Because As far how I'd mentioned on a single family if you're going all-electric then it actually is a reduced cost Compared to the standard, but then if you're meeting our reach code and you're using a mixed fuel That's where he had the 7800 8000 10,000 you know, that's the the cost as councilmember Watkins was referring to the expense of battery storage Or something else if you're doing that mixed fuel, you've got to do that extra level But there are some cost savings if you're not installing the gas pipe And so that's where you get that small $3,500 savings or something on a single family. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Watkins is recognized I Question it was sort of the question I was getting at with the 2030 goal so certainly we want to meet our greenhouse gas, you know reduction But I also know that as a leader we are able to access grants as a result of our work That's really you know ahead and I'm wondering if we aren't able to meet that Is there any risk at not being able to receive grants or be eligible for certain things if we're not meeting that goal? No, there is not. Okay. Thank you By council, let me open this to public comment anyone who's with us today wishes to comment on this item Please come forward and let me ask miss bush. Do we have anyone online at this time? Miss see us come on. Here we go. Good afternoon Good afternoon mayor and council We've strongly supported the previous ordinance for all electric and we strongly support this congratulate Tiffany on some pivoting there to Deal with the fact that this lawsuit sort of derailed the original and hope we can get back to this as soon as possible and I do want to remind people that climate the climate crisis is Like it gets worse every day if you keep reading It you're not gonna find stuff that says oh we can forget about this. It's not a big deal It certainly is a big deal and it's certainly gonna hurt our children grandchildren And we need to do everything we possibly can in this particular case buildings are something this city can't control 70% of our emissions are from vehicles and that's a lot harder and while I see a lot of bikes I seem like I see just as many cars, but I'm hoping But we have a long way to go on that and so we cannot afford to slack on this particular one Which is within your control and if there are inconveniences or possible Problems for lower-income people It would be a good investment if necessary for the city to chip in so that that does not come Become an equity issue because it shouldn't so Please support this and please for move forward and lots of good interesting questions. Thank you Thank you What we're going to do is toggle back and forth between people in the chambers and folks online We'll take one online, then you're up next after the person online First online good afternoon Hello, this is good again Hey, one of the fundamental flaws in America is that laws and regulations are now written instead of by legislators By outside interests or unrestrained unelected bureaucrats that the public cannot vote out Here we go again instead of just going along with already unreasonable anti natural gas state regulations Our resident untouchable unelected bureaucrat wants to go all-in with an extremely totalitarian judicial end around forcing Natural gas used to be made unaffordable since it couldn't be banned outright the cost of building and operating housing with this ordinance We'll add plenty to the upfront cost along with your outrageous green building fees and all the rest Chasing efficiency is a diminishing returns game and an increasingly costly process And at some point we just need more energy and you want to eliminate what provides 40 of our energy As to these so-called studies used as justification. I actually read them They are clearly written by biased utilities with vested self-interest and they are not objective nor are they peer-reviewed studies They make it clear they can't justify these so-called reach as in reach into your wallet Proposals, especially in our climate zone based on what we normally think of as costs such as utility bills We receive instead they have created models amortizing far-reaching cost factors over 30 year time span Involving hundreds of assumptions, which may not be valid over time. In fact, I know a lot of them are not I'll wager much with the narrows not a one of you can actually explain in detail to the soon to be Decarbonized midtown beach flat residents so that they understand Exactly how and where the numbers came to be in this new fangled time-dependent valuation energy cost comparison chart Because that information is not actually in those documents. It makes biased assumptions about everything For instance, the natural gas prices will go up to 4.6 annually and electricity only up 1.6 until 2030 And then they drop and stay low In reality natural gas prices have varied over time by an order of magnitude And we're 400 higher when these studies were done compared to 2020 Interest rates have been very wildly technology evolves and what a typical home is can change The reality is government electrification mandates like rooftop solar And these do nothing duplicate electric fuel appliance spare capabilities Fairly increased costs to be unaffordable if you want to use gas Actual projects can always be fairly compared to housing models And you want to push these mandate penalties even further that our climate change zombie apocalypse state does Oh, exactly the data and weightings from one-sided biased assumptions produced This mysterious tdv model energy valuation comparison Well, they don't exactly say all this costs and loss of freedom because of the agenda of fear power and control That chooses to ignore that the entire co2 crisis hoopla denies the fact that humans are not and never have been and certainly a little sad cruise If not the entire world I would just like to mention the disclaimer that is in all of these studies It says fill in the blank utility name makes no warranty express or implied or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy completeness or usefulness of any data information method product policy Nor process disclosed in this document that letter boxes come with better product plans Thanks Thank you, sir Good afternoon Hello consul. It's been a long time since coven. I think since I've been in jackwell and griffith 42 year resident educator in the area I I want to speak for this main reach Um I think there's probably even a benefit in your insurance your homeowner's insurance Um Rate because if you don't have any natural gas you are less Up to have a fire in the home Or a blow-up or a leak from your national gas Which we know can even cause explosions and has within the last few years In california causing death and and neighborhood fires. Where was that big one? All right, the other thing I wanted to point out is just that natural gas is methane And we know that I mean largely it's methane And we know that methane is what 38 times worse than carbon dioxide And we know that every time we have where to where does our natural gas come from? Probably out of state or at least Far far hundreds of miles from here And we know that there is Methane leaking all the way along the pipelines. We have not been able to control that So when you think about Climate change and how it's a worldwide thing We can't just our measurements that we've Dealing with for this are for how much What you're using in your house costs But it's not taking into account the fact that you have a natural gas pipeline With a certain pressure and amount that it's trying to supply here And that that means there's methane leaking all the way along So when we I don't know whether it's a factor of 10 or 50 or only two But we know that the amount of climate change actually From natural gas use as opposed to electricity, especially when it's good green electricity It's far far greater than what we measure it to be at the building level So I really support and hope that you will go along with this Thank you. Well, thank you so much. Ms. Bush anyone else online We're going to toggle back and forth here. So we'll be with you in just a moment person online. Good afternoon Good afternoon. Hey, good afternoon everyone. This is a deep Kennedy calling in You saw my comments from the planning commission today. I'm calling just as a citizen And this is what I do in my day job. So I'm super passionate about it Got to say this is totally critical I'm on big projects in Santa Cruz right now that are going to go for this loophole if we leave it open I want to restate that this is really simple. We're doing one thing We had to take a break and we're going to get back to doing it, but this is plugging in that hole It's nothing new. It's nothing special beyond what we were doing earlier Before the lawsuit came I don't really care about the little projects. I don't think they're very affected, you know I'm very sensitive to cost, of course, but it's the big buildings I'm worried about each 200 unit apartment building with a gas connection is a big deal for me I'm as a Santa cruising. So I just wanted to go back to a few things. I'm seeing the timer there The builder doesn't care about people's utility bills. Like that's the key thing, right? So they're just looking at first cost But we all affordability wise do care about that, especially for lower income folks Um, my anecdote is that my family spent $1,600 on natural gas I actually call it toxic methane not natural gas last winter. That's crazy. And so we spent 20 grand on a On a solar pv system. Very happy to have that capital available. It'll cost us 13 grand after the rebates Do the math like that thing is going to pay itself off so fast. It's just incredible. So that's my little example there But my point is all like the future is where we got to be now Just based on cost for ongoing utility costs for everybody So what else the PG&E thing I hear you but it's kind of a red herring. That's not our problem We can't control them. PG&E hookups are slow Whether you're doing natural gas, they're slow if you're doing regular electricity. They're slow if you're doing pv so it's kind of like The whole system is just slow, which is a problem. I didn't have that problem I was energized right away and interconnected. But again, I'm just a small house So report from the day job We looked at the downtown library project, which I'm working on. It's not done with design We're at about like 100 dd on that project And it's not having a problem with this at all the council person asked if Current projects are meeting that edr one score and the answer is yes. That's no problem whatsoever on a big project like that And I don't know about cost. I doubt it costs more at the end of the day The the plumbers and everyone will charge you extra, you know, that's just how things work Um, we also do a lot of like edu's little additions and a couple of single-family homes in the city And I talked to a guy who does that work. He said, you know You can still get by with a gas furnace or a gas water heater if that's your goal But this is going to make it really hard to do both of those things and still sneak through the system So, you know, that's fine. We just want to push people a little bit and not too far I'm getting my ding here Let me finish with two quick thoughts I remember when solar panels were crazy and everyone was worried about them catching on fire and stuff That was like nine years ago And now it's mandatory on all new buildings like I mean I was in those meetings where people were like Oh god, the solar panels are going to catch on fire. The fire department's gonna gonna kill us So we're clear with each other So we're clear with each other. You got about five seconds Am I done? All right, cool. I'm done. We're in leaders. We're leaders here in Santa Cruz right on tiffani. Let's take it with our Thank you very much. I wish we'd go further. Thanks No, thank you. Thank you Good afternoon Mayor kealy and council members. My name is susan cavallieri. I just want to Make a short Some short points on the climate situation In 2023 has been the warmest year on record From january to september The main the mean global temperature was 1.4 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels The goal of the paris climate agreement as you I'm sure know Was to keep the mean global temperature well below two degrees and preferably To limit the increase to 1.5 degrees centigrade We are dangerously close to the 1.5 degree limit Methane or natural gas is 80 times more harmful than co2 in the atmosphere Please pass the ordinance to decrease methane And begin to control Global warming in Santa Cruz We don't have much time To drastically reduce emissions. Thank you. Well, thank you very much Ms. Bush anyone else online We'll take the next person online. Good afternoon Good afternoon, uh, mayor and council members. My name is Peter bagnell. I've been, um In the building construction industry for over 40 years here in Santa Cruz My company's been in business here for much longer than that even Um, I support the efforts of this ordinance to reduce the greenhouse emissions and help prepare Buildings and homes to accommodate future energy systems And as the energy code already requires most new homes and buildings to be almost all electric or close to all electric Um, I think we're on the right track. Um, I think the council's asking the right questions here Um of this ordinance and getting clarification on some of the items Um, but I'm going to restate some of them. Um, just because I think it's important for um, the average citizen Um, that may be thinking about, um, doing ADU or a new home because the costs are so high Are the complications of this reach code? Um, absolutely necessary and worthwhile Um, because it's going to be problematic for a lot of the users of this ordinance because of the additional costs Are the points, um The points or percentages above the energy compliance baseline Um, even possible to achieve on all projects And I I say that You know, most things are possible, but sometimes they come with a cost that is Extreme and and I think in some of the cases here They may be extreme. I have several brand new homes that have been built in Santa Cruz City of Santa Cruz County of Santa Cruz in the last couple of years Um, some of them all electric and none of them had even the all electric homes Haven't really been above the required percentages Required by by maybe one to two percentage points not not anything much more than that. So I'm worried if um You know that we're trying to get these extra nine points for a residential project and and um You know a percentage for multifamily So at what what costs for this additional work? Is it proportionate? Can the citizens of Santa Cruz really afford this these costs? These questions really need to be clearly answered And defined in some of the cases before moving forward One of my just quickly one of my suggestions would be to lower the percentage points and To a lower levels For most people to comply Thank you Thank you, sir. Good afternoon Hello, and thank you council members My name is Sophia Schwartzki and I am a customer accounts manager with central coast community energy or 3ce And i'm here today to express 3ce's support for the city's reach code efforts Your city has emerged as a climate leader through the adoption of your climate action program And the establishment of community-wide greenhouse gas reduction goals Including achieving a 40 percent reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2035 among other initiatives Adoption of the proposed code amendment Incentivizing electrification aligns with the city's greenhouse gas reduction goals Is cost-effective and is further supported by rebates and incentives offered by 3ce to encourage the electrification of accessory dwelling units and affordable housing 3ce's governing boards have identified electrification as a strategic goal Recognizing that all electric buildings are cost-effective highly efficient provide cleaner indoor air quality And provide substantially lower operational emissions than buildings that use gas appliances As individuals the most significant action we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions And enhanced air quality is to transition from fossil fuel appliances in and vehicles to all electric alternatives Currently 3ce supplies 50 clean and renewable energy to our customers And we are on track to reach 60 clean and renewable energy by the year 2025 which is five years ahead of the state of california's goal Our strategic commitment is to meet 100 of our energy demand with clean and renewable resources by the year 2030 which is a full 15 years ahead of the goal set by our state And this is in perfect alignment with your sustainable municipal government measure m2 to procure carbon-free or 100 renewable electricity Or municipal operations by 2030 Together the city of santa cruz and 3ce are poised to achieve our climate and clean energy objectives And we enthusiastically support this reach code effort. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon Thank you very much. Please pass our thanks and appreciation on to your colleagues and Your organization mr. Huffaker serves on the Technical board I serve on the policy board and that agency does great work every day We have anyone else online? Nobody with their hand raised very good. Thank you. Good afternoon, sir I'm james blimquist. I own a plus green energy service. We have been doing title 24 in green building documentation Here in santa cruz county for over 40 years We model close to 1,000 dwelling units a year out of our office So if anybody knows what and why and how it's going to get to the ground, it's probably us And I commend these guys for their work. They have great studies But I've been doing it longer than most of them have been alive Okay, and I know what people are doing and what they actually see in the field because also as a hers rater And a hundred year contractor for my family. We've been out there a long time Um for mr. Golders the reason that doesn't apply to Additions and alterations is the metric is not there for the source energy when you do an addition or alteration The source metric energy metric total metric is only available to new construction So the nine percent in the source energy is going to be very Extremely expensive and difficult to meet with a mixed fuel building So my question to this council and to the city is Why did you bother just go back to what you had? Santa Cruz county has an all-electric ordinance for homes new construction Santa Clara county polo waltz San Mateo san carlos. They're everywhere city of san azey You have to abandon the gas line at the street In the middle of the street if you tear down a home in san azey and build a new one in its place If you want to meet your 2035 just go back to what you had Setting the standard of a source metric With a gas infrastructure is going to force people into Heavill heavy heavy solar and battery commitments that aren't even necessary in small ad us You can't get it in a small ad you without adding solar But the state and their wonderful wisdom this year said hey if it's a small ad you You don't have to put solar on it anymore because it was deemed too expensive The second phase of this is the cost effective study is one thing But it's my interpretation and been my experience over the last 40 years that any above code program That's submitted to the state of california, whether it be in a green program or an energy program Must be deemed effective by the demographic of the community Can your community pay the money for that increased value that they have to put into those homes going in? Not whether it pays off in 30 years. That's a whole different story Okay, and then i want to close really quickly That this is also being met climate change is also being met with the cal green code And this city has a green code that is super outdated and it should be looking at that as well Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else online Good afternoon, sir My my principal concern was already addressed. I thought it applied to existing billings as well And um, I would like I have a seven unit Multi-residential property with a very modern electrical system But I can tell you it would probably cost a couple hundred thousand dollars if I had to go Pull out all the gas And I I didn't buy any of you guys to tour it with me and I can I can show you I in it's term terms of 3c and rebates I did go through their concierge service Just to try to get two EV chargers They wanted it was it was a nightmare. It wasn't concierge But in any case Bottom line it was going to be $53,000 plus I would have to pay for a whole bunch of paving For two ev chargers. That's that's not anything Water heaters fe used nothing. So I think you guys really need Before you re-institute any existing building ordinances You really need to get with some people who are on the ground who have real world experience and not just sitting in an office doing some studies So I can tell you it's not going to be smooth. It's not going to be fun Also, you've been fed some Misinformation from staff and I know they do a good job, but I just want to be real with you guys 2045 as a 3c rep said that's when we're going to go 100 renewable if we can and that's dependent that's The estimation is we're going to have to triple our electricity production in the state and Get rid of diablo which accounts for like about 10 percent of our production. So it's ambitious Even the people who are pushing it agree. It's ambitious It's reliant on offshore wind of which we don't have any right now. So whether we get there or not. I don't know Dr. Wisewest said 2030 that's not true if she's counting on 3ce which the 3ce rep just said we don't get A single watt of energy from 3ce. They don't produce any this is their map They don't produce there's no generating facilities for 3ce in the tri-county area There's one battery facility. So we're getting electricity from the grid. So if you think 3c is great, maybe they are but We're not directly consuming what 3ce generates. So You know, we're just getting stuff off the grid So as far as and that gets to my other point about even with existing with new buildings 40 of elect of electricity is produced with fossil fuels with natural gas in california At those plants is it's about 30 efficient. That means You lose about 70 of the energy embedded in the natural gas just in the production. There's further losses in In transmission and distribution a modern forest air unit is about 95 to 98 percent efficient So until we do actually get to much closer to 100 renewable It's most likely we're going to be burning more greenhouse gas by ripping out 95 f a use and putting in heat pumps and Just be real quick here Staff also told you at a previous meeting that heat pumps were 350 efficient that it's only talking about At the point of use it's not accounting for those transmission or generation losses Also heat pumps are only that efficient at relatively warm temperatures. So I think you need I mean I drive an electric car. I have a pv array. I have a solar hot water system I agree we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions But we need to be really critical about how we do it and we don't want to be the leaders in greenwashing We want to be the leaders in really being green and so I think you really need to think about this more carefully Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks for your input Anybody else online miss bush anyone else in chambers wish to matters back before the council miss browns recognized I'll move the staff recommendation Or first reading of this ordinance. Would you like me to read it out? No, I don't think you need to I think it's included. There's a motion. Is there a second? Motion dies for lack of a second Oh, well, you need to you need to say second when I asked for it. We got a second or are you doing it? I'll second the motion and a second open on the motion I have a question if I may now let's do this open on the motion then we'll recognize you for a question Sure. Well, I will just say that you know, I've been following this very closely. I was I learned a lot about reach codes prior to our actual natural gas prohibition ordinance I'm very I'm very supportive of moving forward in Any and all ways that we can we are in Dire crisis. I'm not gonna wax forth about that But we have to do everything we possibly can To you promote alternatives to natural gas to reduce carbon emissions If anybody has a question about that, um, you know, I think right now the science is very clear And so, you know, I I don't necessarily feel the need to kind of re litigate the question of whether or not we're moving in this direction I recognize that this does Mean that the the pathways create some kind of administrative and and other complications But it is the right thing to do and so I'm very supportive of that I um, I would have been happy to stick with the maintaining our prohibition on the books. Um, but given the You know advice that we received from legal counsel Was willing to go along in this case. Um, I think that our staff have worked very hard to find A path forward and I appreciate it Further on this My question is in regards to the proposed language that, um, lee butler, uh Offered is that incorporated in the motion that you're proposing I didn't I did not incorporate it. Um, but I am happy to entertain thoughts on that if That's of interest. Yeah, my preference is just a clean But I that's fine with me To change the language to have more clarity around how this does not apply to existing buildings as suggested by Oh, okay. Sorry. Yeah, okay. So let me let's slow it down here there's a friendly amendment offered to direct staff In bringing this back for the next reading to have Statements in the ordinance which make it clear That this ordinance does not apply to remodels or expansions of existing structures of any kind I accept Ms. Bush, you have that we're good Okay further on this. Yeah further. Ms. Comtar Johnson is recognized I was gonna make that friendly amendment So it's been made. Um, but I will just make a couple comments now if that's appropriate. Um I hear the concerns that some community members have brought forward in terms of What does it really look like on the grounds? That's that's was the nature of the questions that I asked is is it feasible? Have we seen Folks who've been able to implement parts of this and and I understand that this reach code is a new component So we haven't been able to test it So, um, I guess it's a question and a comment is How will we track this closely? How will we engage the boots on the ground folks to make sure that implementation is feasible And that it the cost isn't prohibitive for building of affordable housing Um, I'm I'm gonna be inclined to support this with that friendly amendment that was made but I do um I hear the concerns of the community and and want to be sure that we're working closely with the community to To make sure we can that implementation is feasible I guess it's not really a question to comment. Thank you for the questions or comments I do I could hear you inhaling So I just want to be clear if we adopt this today this replaces but if the Decision With the ninth circuit goes the other way the other one replaces or this one still stays in place The intent is that we would rescind this ordinance and go back to the natural gas prohibition because that is the strongest Greenhouse gas emissions reduction and what was modeled for our complaints with our target Would it come back before us? Yes, of course I want to make sure I understand that which it is coming back before it would come back before us Should the case be resolved Such that we would want to go back to our natural gas prohibition We would come back to council to rescind this ordinance if indeed it is adopted And remove the suspension from the natural gas prohibition that would require council action to do so Thank you. You're welcome for the questions comments Mr. Condati, did you have something on this? I'm sorry. You had your just briefly that would in effect be a new ordinance Thank you. Thank you Let me ask another question. We we have gotten input so The this is our first reading The the ordinance will require a second reading when it returns to us Correct. That's right. And when that second reading is on our agenda The friendly amendment will be adopted that'll that'll be before us as well This will all be here in the second reading of the ordinance, correct That's right. I understood the motion to include the language that was suggested by the planning Yes, and we would adopt that today so that when we see the second reading of the ordinance that would be in it Correct. Okay. Is it would it also be correct that at the second reading Is there an opportunity at second reading to make any changes in the ordinance and if there is what would that then do to the readings That would require it to be brought back for another Second reading for final adoption. That's a win effect. There's two bites at the apple on this ordinance today When it comes back for second reading with the friendly amendment And if that is further amended on second reading next time Then we would repeat that process for yet another second reading because we will have amended the ordinance Is that correct? That is correct. The reason I'm doing that is to make sure that others who are here Who think that we should make additional amendments to the ordinance you have that opportunity to do so We may or may not accept those but you have the opportunity to offer such changes. Is that correct? That's right Thank you very much for the debate or discussion. I intend to support the motion today Uh, I am open minded about whether we can make this a better ordinance I want to thank the staff. I think there's a very technical work Obviously and to find a path the way you did Where what we wanted to do and a court making You know a trial court decision and how we continue on Thank you. That that's not the easiest thing in the world to do. You've done a great job on that And i'm not going to put a comma that erases that I mean that that is wonderful work I do think that at least for my part of this i'm going to be open minded about whether there are other amendments we could take which would Keep faith with the spirit of this ordinance And and and so when this comes back Understand that that at least as one member of the council I reserve the right to make other arguments at the time. We have second reading Next time this comes back further questions or comments Seeing hearing none the clerk will call the roll Councilmember newson. Hi brown. Hi Hi Trudder. Hi. Calentary johnson. Hi face mayor golder Hi and mayor kewley. Hi Thank you very much. Thank you council. Excellent work all around public members who provided input. Thank you Keep providing it We're on item 18. This is development impact fees annual report for the child care and public service impact fees Miss pierce. Good afternoon Well, good afternoon mayor and members of the city council My name is vivian pierce and I am with the planning and community development department I'm also grateful for the fire and police department and the office of economic development housing for joining me here today I am pleased to be able to give you an annual update for the fiscal year 2023 Child care and public safety impact fee report for fire and police The fees were effective in june 2021 and the impact fee goes towards some of the public safety For fire and police as well as for child care The revenues collected for the past three fiscal years since 2021 are summarized here by the fiscal years So starting with the child care impact fee You have we've collected for this fiscal year 51 thousand dollars For a ending balance of seventy two thousand dollars For the public safety impact fee for police. We have collected 90 thousand dollars for an ending balance of a hundred and nine thousand dollars Then also for the impact fee for fire. We've collected eighty six thousand dollars this year for our ending balance of a hundred and seven thousand dollars Now for the fees for the public safety fire and police do intend to use these funds towards vehicles apparatuses Upgrades and using those funds towards those improvements and serving the future residents and employees As a result and then also the child care impact fees as city council considered last year After allocation towards the child care component of the library affordable housing project The rest of the funds will go towards a facility a child care facility assessment Thank you Also, there is a requirement to spend the funds within five years. So we're looking at 2026 as when we need to Realize these funds Now the question before you today is going to also be the exemption of the 100 affordable housing And when the council did approve this in june of 2021 um 100 affordable housing was exempt from the mornin so Um, I also wanted to highlight here that since 2021 there have been four projects Um that have been exempted and so we did uh estimates of what these numbers would look like and so for public safety For the ones that have already been exempted that would have been 260 thousand dollars for public safety It would have been 70 thousand dollars for child care impact fee Now looking at the projects in the pipeline that we know of presently We have four projects coming down and for child care for public safety fees That would be 445 thousand dollars that would be exempt currently And also 120 thousand dollars for child care Now these projects will increase demand for public safety And also impacts for our departments of fire and police as well as child care We wanted to create 100 affordable housing and create the incentive for that And so we have the question before city council today from june 2021 Would you be interested um in evaluating this exemption and do you want to uh continue collection of maybe some or all Or just consider an exemption from the child care and public safety impact fee ordinance Thank you. That concludes my presentation and thank you to fire police and economic development housing for joining me today. Thank you, miss Pearson Either chiefs wish to make some opening comments. If not, that's fine. Not compelling you do but if you wish to Okay, anyone else Thank you, mayor, uh rob odie fire chief And council, thank you for the opportunity again. I think um Miss Pearson Gave a pretty compelling, um, you know great informative presentation And um, I think she made a good point that I think um chief esclante would agree that again, it's not so much The the fact that you know, is it affordable? Is it not affordable? It's the sheer number of these units and the square footage and those only tell part of the story I mean some of those we're talking I think in total those eight projects over 400 units And I believe it's 375,000 square feet. So again from a fire perspective. That's a legitimate concern But along with that the other piece of that story is the size and scope of these structures And it sort of is changing the dynamic at least the landscape for the fire department and how we respond to these So the people that are in these buildings, we are going from low and mid-rise to mid and high-rise All very necessary for what we're trying to achieve as a city, but again, I think we need to be very um Um, we need to react in such a way that is realistic as we've seen in previous requests for Additional funding for fire apparatus the cost for these this equipment has gone up 25 And in some cases even 52 for a variety of reasons And so I'm just trying to make sure that we are being proactive in funding these efforts in the future I'm happy to answer any questions in regards to this presentation and how it affects fire specifically if you do Chief thank you, sir Ms. Calentari-Johnson, we're ready. Okay. I do have some questions specific to the Concerns you brought up chief od Or maybe you can respond. I don't know who would respond Do we have we see how much we could have generated with these four projects that were affordable housing? Is there a way to determine what the cost impact? Of just even those four projects are I'm not sure I understand the question in terms of the what we've missed out on What What has what would it cost? um, the fire department the police department to service Let's say those four projects. Is that I mean, maybe we don't have that number now, but is that can we determine that? That's a great question. And I would actually I think that would help us evaluate, you know for the future But I think I'll leave that Director Butler. Thank you. Mr. Butler. Good afternoon again Thank you. So when this was Originally put into place we did a nexus study and we evaluated upcoming costs for the police and fire departments and we based the upcoming costs on the service population service population being number of residents and Also a number of employees We discount the number of employees because they typically demand fewer services than residents do As is typical as part of a nexus study And we look at that overall costs divided by what our expected service population is and then we translate that the costs per service population to square footage and so In terms of the increment We have set forth the fees in a manner that is expected to To represent the incremental costs that those individuals would contribute to the additional fees from police and fire so I know that that's kind of complicated but What it amounts to is, you know, their service demands their needs from the police department to get new vehicles And so forth but not all of those vehicles and and such are attributable to the new residents And and the nexus study tries to account for that and So that's where we have the per square foot fee. So Long way of saying the the amount of money that we Forgo through the exemptions Is estimated to be the amount of money that we would spend but it's just on the capital expenses It's not services. So impact fees are Providing for capital expenditures Not for the service increases So you actually please um, you actually got to my other question I I sent an email advance asking you this mr. Butler How did we land on those fees? And I think you just explained that because I Notice that hotels were much less than other types of Um Buildings so I so I think you just described that but if you want to just synthesize Yeah, thanks. Thanks for sending that in advance so that I could do some digging in advance hotels have a number of employees The employee density, I will call it is about one employee per 1,000 square feet And the other uses The offices for example were One per I'm going from memory 250 square feet or something retail was one per 300 square feet And so because on a per square foot basis hotels have fewer employees They resultingly have a lower per square foot cost So it's all about the number of employees And that's equated to the service that's needed And I'm just thinking about If we were to do something around this affordable housing and having impact fees with affordable housing um, obviously there's concerns about deterring or Inability for affordable housing developers to be able to build with these additional impact fees So how do we minimize those impacts? And and I'm just wondering and thinking out loud if There are any ways for us to look at how those Um Dollars have landed with the square footage in the service. I mean you did an extensive nexus study But is there a way to look at it more have a more equitable approach? And I don't know that there is but again thinking out loud if we are to do um look at Putting impact fees on a 400% affordable housing. What are some other ways we can generate that? That's a thought and a question. Um, and then sort of along those lines um, I would be interested in Hearing what it would look like if we had Sort of a sliding scale or we charge some Level or percentage of an impact fee for affordable housing rather than the full cost. So what would that look like? um and then the other Again, thinking out loud thought is just our affordable housing trust fund and I'm we've probably over committed what's in there But uh, where is there opportunity to Tap into that for these purposes Thank you more thoughts than sure. Yeah. Um, and just a quick response on a couple of those. Um one we would Look at the question before the council right now is really do you want us to look at options? we We don't want to go off and and do Some studies and analysis and hear the different options and we've talked with the affordable housing developers and this is what they say if it's not in the council's interest to To revisit this exemption So that's really what we're asking and yes, we would certainly bring back those Those options for the council should you want us to do that? Second as far as the affordable housing trust fund this was a conversation that the economic development director economic and housing developer Economic development and housing director Bonnie Lipscomb and I were having earlier today with respect to Some of these potential challenges right a affordable housing developer comes along and they Have a gap and so then there's a request for the affordable housing trust fund to fill that gap And so then are we really just transferring money from one fund to another? And and so those are questions that we will most definitely have to explore and understand before we make a decision on something like this and Those conversations will take time. We don't want to spend that time if the council doesn't have an appetite for it That's why we're here. Thank you. I guess I'll just finish by saying I have an interest in exploring and Um I don't think at this point I don't think I would be in support of full impact phase on affordable 100 affordable housing But I'd be interested in exploring what the options are Thank you councilmember Watkins is recognized Yes, thank you. Um, I too would be interested in exploring options. I think it's definitely something we should look at I had a question in regards to any other impact fees. Are these the only two that we have applied to? our new buildings we have transportation impact fees are typically a hefty one. We also have system development charges associated with the water and It's okay. I guess my question is are those applied to the affordable projects as well or are those also exempt for them? Those are applied to the the affordable projects and We have a provision in our code that allows for Developers to 100 affordable housing developers and I see rosemary minard is is on as well But we have a provision in our code that allows for developers to 100 affordable projects to request fee deferrals and such we have to be careful about that when it comes to Certain impact fees because then the city would have to backfill with public safety You know, we're spending general fund money on that anyway, but you can't have One developer cover the costs for an affordable housing Okay It looks like our award-winning water director would like to make a comment. Good afternoon miss minard afternoon mayor council members. I just wanted to mention that That uh, we got it correct about water having system and development charges waste water also has system development charges and uh, he is correct that we have had a practice of Those those charges particularly being requested to be waived or deferred by some affordable housing projects in the past the 100 water street project for example and One or two more that bonnie probably recognizes And would kind of expect for more of that to be coming. I think so that is that is an issue for us to Russell with Thank you. I I appreciate you bringing this forward I think this is really important and I think as we move in the direction of more subsidized affordable housing We want to think about what that means for our infrastructure and many forms Um, so having us analyzed what could be applied here that makes sense for our community I think it's a great direction to go in my only other question is does that require an additional nexus study or anything like that? Or would it simply just be staff time and analysis? Thanks for that question At this point, we've got the nexus study that establishes the rates As they are right now One thing that I will point out since you asked the question about additional nexus studies is as chief od referenced costs have gone up substantially and We we did that nexus study even though it's only a few years old now There's there's been very high inflation so We could at some point in time Revisit that and we would likely end up at A higher per square foot rate across the board, right? Because you know the fire apparatus that was 80,000 That was 800,000 at one point is now Is now a million right right Yeah, I mean I appreciate that context I think that's really important information and we should be aware of that and I also think that this should inform The state in terms of some of the impacts local communities are experiencing associated with increased demand for housing production And so however we can translate that to our state representatives and lobbyists at that level to advocate on behalf of our cities And getting supports for these types of things. I think is another avenue for us to pursue at some point, but anyways That's all my questions. So thank you Thank you councilmember the vice mayor is recognized I have just one question. I'm I the child care impact fees Can someone um, let me know Where do those go in the city? Thanks for that question. So the um Most recent direction that we have is for those child care impact fees to go towards the child care facility that we have in the affordable housing library project and the way that we were initially planning to spend the first batch of funds was to do a child care needs assessment And then based on that child care needs assessment, we would then institute a program whereby we Provide those provide that funding to facilitate either The expansion of existing facilities or the rehabilitation or the continuation of existing Child care facilities or the production of new child care facilities. We'd be depending on the Findings in that needs assessment to help us understand where and what types and how we expand child care resources in the city That is now Sort of the second step. So after we move forward with the Dedication of funds just to the child care portion in the library project Then we would move on to saving up those funds again to go towards that needs assessment We'd then be bringing it back to the council for you to see that needs assessment and provide direction in terms of how we would Dull that money out The county does have a program related to this and so we could leverage the county's program in terms of the The process but that would be something that we would present to the council After we bring the child care needs assessment forward Okay, thank you. Of course. Thank you. Ms. Contar. John, so I think you had an initial question Thank you. Yeah, I just want to confirm two things. I want to confirm that the child care impact fee doesn't have that five year Time limit that the public health public safety, excuse me public safety one does It does have that five year limit. Yes, I believe all impact fees do there is an opportunity to make specified findings That allow for an extension of that five years is my understanding And those have to be done in advance of the five year timeline of the Collection of those fees Okay, is that is that your understanding as well Tony? Yes, great. Thanks. So I'm gonna see that we're tracking that closely. Yeah, okay The other thing that I will assume but I want to just say explicitly as as part of our exploration that we will be reaching out and talking to affordable housing organizations and groups and advocates and Developers just want to say that absolutely assuming we we find that there is a general desire on behalf Of the council then yes, we would be doing that outreach We'd be coordinating with our economic development team and talking with affordable housing developers to understand implications and explore the options, you know Full charges partial charges Are there certain exemptions in some instances versus others and so forth? Thank you. That's it For the questions comments Okay So a couple of questions mr. Butler We're talking am I right? We're talking right now about that percentage Of housing that's going to be constructed That is affordable and currently we provide am I right on this? They are exempt in hundred percent projects. There's an exemption From these two particular fees. Is that correct? That's correct public safety and child care Say it again public safety fees and child care. So so public safety encompasses the fire and police And the child care. Okay. So those two fees If you're building 100 affordable you're exempt under current current ordinance So the question if I understand it before us is do we want to change that? Do we want to say that 100 affordable projects pay something towards that and what is that something? And and so on and if we give you that direction you'll go out There'll be a lot of answers to that back you come and then the council gets some choices so And and if I'm looking out over the planning horizon for the next eight years Roughly 80 percent of what's going to be constructed will be market rate Uh, I suspect or some substantial portion is going to be in let me let me start this again We're planning for roughly 4 000 housing units to be built over the next eight years Some of those will be in projects that are 100 affordable, but not very many is my guess 100 percent affordable housing It's really hard to build right It is although we we end up getting decent chunks, you know, we've got 124 units in one project 80 in another 65 in another and so that those do add up Over time admittedly. Yeah, they do My issue here is that we are going to get A substantial amount There's going to be three quarters of a billion dollars of investment in Santa Cruz in the next eight years around housing generally And because of that we are going to get a lot of revenue in on the child care impact fee and the public safety impact fee From those that are currently covered. Nobody's talking here about changing any of that It's it's about the hundred percent affordable. Is that correct? That's correct. And we are going to get the impact fee on all the others on everything else correct. Well, so I will tell you I'm deeply skeptical about adding one more penny of cost To affordable housing projects one more penny to any unit Because every time we do it we've done it twice today We've heard it twice today. If you take this stuff in isolation None of it's a terrible impact fee. It's going to break the bank on putting together unaffordable housing project, but if you add what we just did on On uh electricity Now you add in you say well, we're going to start thinking about putting these people in some way shape or form These kind of housing units are supposed to be affordable and then we separately Maybe have two other items in the next couple of months and then three more after that And not one of them individually is going to make it impossible to do affordable housing But it is going to each one of them is going to incrementally increase the cost of building affordable housing And so I'll tell you one person here that I'm going to get out voted on this But but I get it that you're going to go out and you're going to study this I am deeply skeptical and reluctant to add one more penny Of the cost of building affordable housing anywhere in the city of santa cruz So uh as at least it comes to my vote which you probably aren't going to need on this motion But when the actual substance comes back here, I hope that there's a recognition That this absolutely makes affordable housing less affordable It's axiomatically true And so I before the council goes forward on this it's the conversation today Is not about whether or not we're going to have enough money for child care and public safety Because the general fund takes care of your and and that's our That's a decision we have to make at budget time whether it's capital outlayer operations expenses And so to find a fund for you. I have no trouble with that. We have one It's on the market rate housing that's built I get that and that makes sense and I won't vote to change that to make it less so for you on the affordable housing issue as it relates to child care impact fee And on the public safety side, I don't want to do that I don't think there's a compelling argument yet that somehow we're not able to do what we need in public safety or over in child care Other than going to the 100 affordable and saying we're going to get more of this from you I I don't think that to me. It's not a compelling argument yet That somehow we're not going to have what we need unless we go over here and start charging some form of impact fee To 100 affordable projects. So I'm not asking for a response. I'm sharing with you what my thought is on this Matters back before the council. Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anyone who wishes to comment on this? Okay, matters back before the council I'll move the um, I'll move the recommendation to accept the report and then also to Have staff explore as outlined in the recommendation of the of the agenda report There's a motion. Is there a second? I'll second that motion and a second by the vice mayor debate or discussion on this matter Ms. Brown Well, I um, I wasn't going to say anything because I think we're pretty ready to Move through this item, but I I did want to comment mayor on the in response to the comments you made because I think they're You know very important ones the you know in my mind what what I see here is If we do make changes As director Butler suggested and I'm sure Director Lipscomb is also thinking about We may just end up moving the where the subsidy comes from or the the support comes from and if that's what the council decides They want to do You know, I don't have strong feelings one way or another about that But I do think that your point about the decision we're making Will cost affordable housing developers more I mean it will cost money and it's got to come from somewhere And it's unlikely to make a project You know not viable the given the amounts, but it will mean that they're going to come to us for the affordable housing trust fund To subsidize it. So just be thinking about that. Um as we Proceed, uh, hopefully with caution For the comment madden voice mayor I would like to say the same could be said for our last item And from my perspective, I think this is more important Um, because it pertains to the citizens that are living here and will be living You know Here for moving into the the new developments where The idea of um greenhouse gas emissions, there's other things that could be done, right? So, um, I think this is very important and should absolutely we should consider it A little bit of discussion soon hearing none Thank you. If I could just get clarification Is this applying to both the public safety impact fee and the child care impact fee? Correct. Thank you The staff recommendation neglected to include the child care impact fee. So I wanted to make sure I thought that was the case for that clarification. I didn't realize it wasn't included in the recommendation. Yes for both Great. Thank you. We inadvertently left that out when we changed the report I want to make miss miss bush is clear on the motion No, I don't know what the difference. Okay. Mr. Butler come back here. Let's make sure we know what the motion is The um second part aside from accepting the report is to provide uh, so recommend that this or direct the staff to um Look at the potential applicability of the public safety impact fee and child care impact fee to 100 affordable housing projects Exactly. Thank you for that Thank you pause for one second Mr. Newsom, please proceed. I was uh, thank you. Mary keely. I was just going to quickly say I'm I'm inclined to Very cautiously support The action as it is, but I will associate myself with Mayor's keely's comment to an extent of I am very skeptical that any options will not increase affordable housing and I'm not Or the construction will increase the cost of constructing affordable housing and I As myself, I'm not interested in any options that will increase the cost of constructing affordable housing or will become a pediment of Constructing affordable housing For the debate or discussion miss bush Why should you change now? I know Miss bush, do you have the motion? We have the motion correctly. Okay clerk will call the roll Council member is new son. Hi brown. Hi watchkins. Hi runner Hi Calentary johnson. Hi by smear golder. Hi and mary keely Motion passes into order item 19 has been continued to virtue few that a future date Mr. City attorney, do we have further business come before us? We do not miss bush for the business come before us A motion to adjourn is in order and the vice mayor reluctantly makes such a motion And mr. Newsome seconds it equally as reluctantly clerk will call the roll All those in favor Opposed adjourned