 Good afternoon. I'd like to call the April 25th 2022 housing authority regular meeting to order. Um, due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders and 25 to 20 and and 2920, which suspend certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the county of Sonoma To shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19 the housing authority commissioners will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using zoom webinar commissioners and staff are participating from remote locations and or practicing appropriate social distancing. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item five public comment or during our public hearing items will be able to do so by raising their hand and will be given the ability to address the commission. For housekeeping I'd like to remind commissioners to keep their audio on mute unless they are speaking commissioners other than the chair can mute themselves. Staff will remain muted until needing to speak. As members of the public join the meeting you will be participating as an agenda attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panelists will be viewed during the meeting. Please stand from a telephone and choose to speak during the public comments portion of today's agenda for privacy concerns. The host will be renaming your viewable phone number to resident and the last four digits of your phone number. The City of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. We will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions and are well staffed to monitor that everyone is participating respectfully, or they will be removed if necessary. We will also immediately end the meeting. So the public comment. Zoom host can you please explain the public comments will be heard at today's meeting. At each agenda item the item is presented. The chair will ask for housing authority member comments and then open it up for public comment. Once the chair has called for public comment the chair will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. If you are calling in to listen to the meeting audibly you can dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on the public who have raised their hands. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on the screen for the commission and the public to see. Once all live public comments have been heard, the meeting host will read email public comments. If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item but also submitted an email, your email public comment will not be read during the meeting. Additionally, there is one public comment period on today's agenda to speak on non agenda matters item five. This is the time when any person may address the housing authority on matters not listed on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the housing authority. Hey, we'll move on to roll call. Okay, let's go ahead and do the roll call for attendance. Commissioner Burke here. Commissioner Downey is absent. Commissioner McWhorter here. Commissioner Rawhouser here. Commissioner LaPenna here. Vice Chair Owen here and chair test here. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present with the exception of Commissioner Downey. Thank you. We'll move on to statements of abstention. Does any commissioner have any statements of abstention today? Seeing none, we'll move forward. Study session item 4.1. Thank you item 4.1 is a study session review of the fiscal year 2223 proposed housing authority budget. Kate Goldfein administrative services officer and myself Megan Bassenger will be presenting. Next slide please. The mission of the housing authority is to ensure adequate, decent, safe and sanitary housing for qualified residents within Santa Rosa consistent with federal, state and local loss. Next slide please. The way we've structured this presentation is we're going to give you a review of the accomplishments that we are projecting through the end of the fiscal year. This is the 30th of 2022 for both rental assistance and housing trust. So I'll start with the accomplishments of the rental housing assistance team, which is also known as the section eight group. So as you may recall, we initiated the emergency housing voucher program last summer, which included entering into an MOU with the snow accounting continuum of care for referrals to the program. We have 231 vouchers. We are in the process and anticipate by the end of the fiscal year, completing over 1600 inspections of units that are subsidized by rental assistance. And these are postponed due to waivers provided by HUD to address COVID-19. We have continued with the implementation of the home funded tenant based rental assistance program. And as you may recall this was initiated back in the spring of 2020 to help address households that had an immediate reduction of their income due to job losses in that time period. So we've also had numerous project based voucher awards. And so some of the projects that we have completed recently are the Windsor Veterans Village where we have 53 veteran targeted project based vouchers. We have 10 at ultimate run apartments, which is located in the Sonoma Valley. And then we have eight at Sage Commons, which is a newly completed project on the corner of college and Cleveland. And this category is you'll notice there are two projects outside of the city limits. And that is because the Santa Rosa Housing Authority serves as the countywide administrator for the veteran bash vouchers. We also committed project based vouchers to two new projects, which are the Burbank Avenue apartments located in Southwest Santa Rosa. And then as you may recall, we split an award between 3,575 Mendocino Avenue. And this is at the site of the former journeys and mobile home part. So we have 13 project based vouchers that will be going towards phase two of that project. Next slide please. One of the strategic goals and initiatives that we are anticipating in the upcoming fiscal year for the rental housing assistance division is 100% lease up of our emergency housing vouchers. We currently have 35 households and we are in various stages of leasing and application review for the remainder of the 131. We're also increasing the leasing for the housing choice voucher program. The goal of the program is to have 98% utilization right now we're in the low 90s, and that is consistent with housing for authorities throughout California so we will be working to get our leasing rate up in the next fiscal year. So we will be providing assistance to more households through the TV program. As you may recall we had a waiting list specifically for this program, open this spring so we'll be pulling additional households from that list and providing them with assistance. And then finally, we'll be continuing to utilize our resources to assist and support new affordable housing developments or existing developments who will be incorporating project based vouchers into their financing structure. Next slide please. Now moving on to some of the anticipated accomplishments for the housing trust. We are working on developing the home ARP allocation plan. This is a COVID assistance program or funds that were coming through the COVID assistance program. We have $2.7 million that we need to target towards homeless households. And right now we are in the consultation process with the Sonoma County continuum of care. We anticipate the plan being complete hopefully in the summer of 2022 and HUD has put some rather detailed consultation and plan development process on this particular talk to funding so we are working through that process. And we have completed compliance monitoring on over 4000 units and this includes quarterly and annual reporting for those projects that we have regulatory agreements on, and then having onsite inspection for a fair number of those units. We've also received a five year award which will total over $4.2 million of the permanent local housing fund from the state of California, the Housing Authority awarded the first year of funding to two projects in the fall of 2021. And then we are working through the funding process on three projects, and that'd be the Herron Veterans Village, additional funding to Burbank Avenue, and then most recently Housing Authority awarded or committed $1.6 million to Phase 2 of Journeys End. So we are working through that process right now. Next slide please. And then for the trust, the strategic goals and initiatives for the upcoming fiscal year will be to continue to manage the low portfolio which is currently has a value of over $155 million and about 5000 units. We'll continue to solicit applications for new affordable housing projects or rehab. We pursue additional funding sources available through local, state and federal governments. And then we'll also continue the administration of our CDBG DR resources. And this is the 38.4 million that we received to address the impacts of the Tubbsfire and the Housing Authority has approved to go towards five projects, three of which are currently under construction. And then as I mentioned with the home ARP, we're continuing the management of our COVID related funding. This also includes the community development block grant coronavirus, which is the CDB funding that we have used to address programs for low income households and for additional homeless resources. Next slide please. Now to turn the presentation over to Kate who will dive into the expenditures and revenue and will be available for questions at the end of the presentation. Thank you Megan and good afternoon chair test and commissioners. I'm Kate Goldstein the administrative services officer for the housing and community services department and happy to be presenting the fiscal year 2223 proposed budget today. We follow HUD regulations program and funding mandates city and housing authority policy and city leadership directives to formulate the authorities annual budget. By revealing the budget today and then approving it in June in advance of the city council. You're directing us to expend these funds to further the authorities goals in accordance with federal state and local law. There are three program areas within the authority budget administration rental housing assistance and the housing trust, and I'll discuss each in detail in the coming slides. This shows the budget at the total budget at its highest level and the proposed 2223 budget is much higher than the 2120 the 2122 adopted budget up 24%. And I show the comparison to the adopted budget because it highlights how much has changed in one year, and the authority receives information on the current budget in the quarterly financial reports. In the rental assistance program, the emergency housing voucher program was added that's funded by the American Rescue Plan Act. And in the existing housing choice voucher program, HUD increased our administrative allowance and rental costs increase as well. In the housing trust, real property transfer tax from the city general fund and loan repayments increased significantly over last year. We'll begin with the administration budget, which is a little under $1.6 million. All housing and community services department programs that utilize these services pay for a portion of the cost based on their percent of salaries. Costs include overhead and information technology support liability insurance admin salaries and benefits and services and supplies. The trust and rental assistance programs are budgeted to pay about 1.5 million of this expense, and that appears as allocated costs in their budget. Next slide please. This slide shows the year over year comparison for the admin budget, and over 98% of this budget is uncontrollable costs, meaning that we are informed of our share of these costs as a part of the larger city organization. And these costs include salaries and benefits for admin staff at about $112,000. This includes a small portion of a marketing and outreach coordinator who helps us advertise things such as waiting list openings notices of funding availability public meetings press releases and other items that arise. For salaries and benefits, city employees are unionized. So those costs are negotiated with city management. Once they're agreed upon, they are required to pay that amount. And city employees received costs of living increases for the first time in a few years. So salaries went up statewide for all positions. Next is services and supplies at a little over 69,000 this year. Of that 48,000 is shared services that include the housing authorities annual audit costs, copier costs, vehicle expenses such as maintenance gas and replacement fund for the department car and shredding services for disposal of confidential documents. And services and supplies that are controllable about 21,000 a little over 1% represents costs such as professional organization memberships and dues, meeting costs conferences and training and subscriptions for the director and admin staff, and general office supplies used by the whole department with paper pens, etc. So the department share of city liability insurance is 95,000. This increased significantly over 2122. So I met with the city's risk manager to find out why and there are a few main reasons. So the city is part of the California joint powers risk management authority, along with about 100 other public entities in the state. These entities pull resources to find the best deals for coverage insurance is coverage for cyber pollution, liability property machinery auto physical damage and others, and insurance companies are leaving California, which is limiting the market, and the remaining companies still offering public entity insurance are raising rates. The city has gone to market and looked at other pools however the one that we are in still has the lowest prices and least amount of increase. So the risk manager budgets for liability insurance in October for implementation the following July 10 months later for the 21 22 budget rates were calculated in October 2020 for implementation in July 2021 and a lot changed during those months. During that time, actual insurance rates increased 50%, but the 21 22 budget was not increased at that time. Then in October 2021, when the risk manager was calculating rates for the 2223 budget, it had increased another 30%. The city also increased its self insured retention which is what it would pay for damages before insurance kicks in from 500,000 to a million to try to lower its premiums. But part of this includes having $2 million on hand. So that was also collected this year, and that 95,000 that you see is the department share of all these increased costs. So moving on to information technology. That's 255,000 this year. This includes a host of things hardware, such as servers, computers, monitors, phones, desk printers and scanners and also the needs of the commissioners such as ipads. This includes software used by each division rental housing assistance program has a custom system to track all data related to over 2200 clients. The housing trust has a loan management system tracking that $155 million loan product, or over 500 loans, and a big piece of that includes help desk and programming support. This is extremely important last year. As we added the emergency housing voucher and tenant based rental assistance programs. They each require their own reporting, which is separate and different than the existing housing choice voucher program. So we worked closely with it to update our software system and create those new reports. We also partnered with it this year to create an electronic waiting list which has increased efficiency and reduce our paper waste significantly. Finally, this also includes citywide software including the Microsoft suite internal and external websites meeting agenda assembly publishing and broadcasting software. Remote meeting software such as zoom like we're on now. HR software for employee recruitment and hiring cash receding budgeting accounts payable accounting purchasing, etc. And then finally the largest expense overhead at about a million dollars. This includes support from other city departments, such as finance for accounting and assistant. And assistance with our federal reporting and auditing which is significant accounts payable for the rental assistance payments that go out totally and learns monthly accounts receivable and cash receding for processing loan payments, plus like purchasing payroll and benefits, etc. It includes costs for the city attorney's office, such as support for these meetings agenda review contract and loan document review and other services. It includes human resources and employee benefits including panishing the covert restrictions of the past few years and remote work, recruitment and hiring discipline leave of absences disability short and long term disability and risk management costs. It also includes building use maintenance janitorial and those kind of costs, and it increased 6% over last year primarily due to the salary increases for city staff. Next slide please. All right, now we'll focus on the funding sources available to the authorities programs. This is an amazing year of funding with a lot of resources available. So the majority for both programs remains federal 85% rail housing assistance program receives nearly 39 million combined for both the housing choice voucher and emergency housing voucher programs and then a very small portion around 10,000 of restitution reimbursements from clients who have underpaid their portion of the rent or landlords who have been overpaid. The housing trust receives three federal grants CDBG home and hopla. And we have not yet received those final allocations from HUD, but based on recent notices we anticipate CDBG decreasing slightly home staying flat and hopla increasing and hopla is housing opportunities for persons with HIV and AIDS, and we recently updated the form, the allocation formula. So we're slated to receive a larger allocation, but it will be based on the total amount of funding that Congress allocated to the program. So we're really hopeful that these allocations will be released in May so that we'll be able to include them in the final budget in June at the budget hearings. And then non federal funding is just 15% of the budget and include state grants real property transfer tax loan repayments impact fees compliance monitoring and property rental fees. Next slide please. All right, and this slide shows summary expenditures by category and I apologize I noticed an error on the slide so at the bottom where it says plus admin funding, our actual admin amount is 1,574,741 that's last year's amount, but the grand total is correct. So rental assistance is the authorities largest suspense by far well over 35 million 67% of the budget housing authority passes through those funds from the federal government to landlords. We also utilize a portion of home funding for tenant based rental assistance and that is also passed through the landlords loan activity is over 10.6 million this year, as we are utilizing all the new funding that's available plus carry over from prior years. So sub recipient funding at a little over 500,000 is federal hop will funding which will learn the exact amount hopefully by May and local fair housing funding going to service providers. So the services is the portion of that grant that the city council is directed to homeless services for many years. And then the next expense is salaries benefits and services and supplies for the staff who work directly for the trust and voucher programs, equivalent to 1.1 full time staff members. And finally allocated costs of 1.5 million represent the portion of admin that's paid to the trust is paid by the trust and and rental assistance programs. Next slide please. Alright, now we'll review the housing choice voucher program in detail this includes emergency housing vouchers. So federal funding increase for both admin and rental assistance payments this year. So, in late March, HUD announced the 2022 administrative rates for the voucher programs and these increased notably the most since I have been preparing the housing budget, seven or eight years. We received a per unit per month amount, which HUD then pro rates based on the available funding appropriated by Congress, the per unit per month amount increased $10 over last year. The duration increased from 82% to 88% for the housing choice voucher program for the emergency housing choice voucher program. We receive 100% of our admin allowance. In 2021-22 we received 82% of a smaller amount for the hcv program in 2023 we're receiving 88% of a larger amount for housing choice vouchers and 100% of a larger amount for the emergency housing voucher program. So, if you look at expense salaries and benefits are increasing because we're utilizing not additional HUD admin funding. We added two positions, one a limited term housing technician primarily focused on those inspections we talked about earlier, and a program specialist who will supervise staff and provide higher level program support. So we also continue to unwind from the city reorganization of several years ago. At one point the director of each of housing and community services was budgeted 80% to homeless services. Now that is budgeted equally to the rental assistance program housing trust and homeless services. The director position that's been vacant for several years was eliminated, and the housing choice voucher program is also utilizing a portion of a trust program specialist to assist with project based vouchers. We did also increase services and supplies to utilize that full amount of admin allowance in both both voucher programs and allocated costs increase along with salaries. The rental assistance increased as well due to higher per unit costs for Santa Rosa clients and poor in clients. So housing rental housing assistance manager Rebecca Lane and I reviewed trends and actual expense for the past few years, and we increased Santa Rosa client rental assistance 5% from $1,200 per unit per month to 1260. We also reviewed rental rental assistance for Santa Rosa clients come to Santa Rosa from other housing jurisdictions. The original housing authority sends their rental assistance in a portion of their admin fee to Santa Rosa to make those vouchers. We reviewed actual expenses over the past year, and we increased poor in rental assistance 5% as well from 1400 per month per unit per month to 1470. We also reviewed the average 275 poor in clients monthly with 99% of those coming from the county of Sonoma and poor in clients tend to have more turnover and therefore newer higher rental contracts, and they tend to come to Santa Rosa for the multi family unit rental housing which is also slightly higher cost. Next slide please. This slide just summarizes what I explained in the previous slide so we can move on. All right, thank you. All right, this slide details the housing trust budget. So the trust is funded by 15 different federal state and local funds, two of which were added recently home ARP American Rescue Plan Act and CDBG DR, the disaster recovery funds. Each of those funds has its own regulations. Federal and state are the most highly regulated local funds somewhat less. For local revenue this year we have 7.9 million available. This includes federal funding which we anticipate being about 2.7 million for CDBG home and home and we're still waiting to get those final allocations. As Megan noted the trust received the state permanent local housing allocation grant for approximately 1.1 million in fiscal year 2223. We received 694,000 for that grant earlier this year so it's not included in the adopted budget but you've seen it in the quarterly financial updates. We're budgeting to receive 2.5 million in loan repayments this year and we budget the actual loan repayments received between July and December of the fiscal year. This year we received 2.4 million in that six month period and that's almost entirely from the Lantana project loan pay downs and just as a comparison last year at that time we received about 400,000 during the same period. The trust also receives impact fees, budgeted at 1.4 million in 2223. These are the fees that housing developers pay when their market rate housing impacts the surrounding area and the city has designated those for affordable housing. And then finally compliance monitoring fees at 150,000 and property rental income for Brookwood at around 9,000 round out the funding for the trust. In new transfers. This is exciting. The city general fund real property transfer tax is 2.25 million this year. So per council policy a percentage of real property transfer tax is allocated to housing and homeless services each year and increases 5%. So the overall RPTT estimate increased from 3.5 million in 2122 to 5 million in 2223 and the share to housing and homeless services increased from 40% to 45%. Most importantly, in 2223, the city chose to fund the entirety of homeless services with American Rescue Plan Act funding. So that means the housing authority got the entire allotment of real property transfer tax, which is amazing. Uncommitted carryover is the next category that also increased about 1.6 million. This is made up of loan repayments that came in between January and June of the previous year. Funding that was uncommitted from projects that couldn't move forward impact fees that came in over budget or unexpended admin budget. So we received 830,000 more in loan repayments by June of 21 that we had by June of 2020. We also received 440,000 more in impact fees than projecting. And we had significant unused admin budget due to vacancies in the trust. At one point there were two filled positions out of six for multiple months. So now looking at expenditures how we expend all that funding. Salaries and benefits increased because we added an additional housing technician to assist with compliance monitoring. And as I mentioned earlier, the director charges increased because that position is now charging equally between the trust rental assistance and homeless programs. The deputy director was eliminated and a quarter of a program specialist assistance rental housing with project-based vouchers. Services and supplies decreased slightly based on a review of actual expense and anticipated upcoming needs and allocated costs increased slightly. So the project admin is that portion of federal home and CDBG that can be used for salaries and benefits related to specific projects. It reduces the amount that we can allocate towards new projects. So while we don't often use it, we do need it to be available. And any unused project admin rolls into the following years uncommitted carryover. The loan activity increased significantly due to all the increases in funding I discussed earlier. Subrecipient funding is that federal HOPWA amount and fair housing portion going to those service providers and that'll be updated once we get the final allocation. We are again using home for tenant-based rental assistance and budgeting of 600,000. So that's based on the actual costs for our existing clients, plus the addition of 20 to 25 clients from the waiting list, which just closed at the end of March. And then CDBG public services, as we said, are used at homeless shelters per city council and that allocation will change as well once we get to final. Next slide please. This slide just reiterates what I discussed on the previous slide, but one thing to note the trust budgeted reserve is at 404,000 and that meets the threshold required by housing authority policy. So next slide please. And then finally the next steps in the budget process. So we'll review the entire department budget with the city council in May, along with all the other city departments. We'll be back in front of you on June 20 for the authority budget hearings, and then we'll return to council on June 21 for final approval of the 2223 budget. So this concludes the presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Okay, thank you very much. Any questions from commissioners. Hi, sir. Actually I had kind of a comment about the services and supplies that they wanted to lower it like $3,000, but the offices haven't been open this last year. So I guess that might be one of the paper clips and the staples and the paper that would have been utilized throughout the year were utilized. So I thought that was an odd place. You know, I guess maybe that might be the only place to cut. So we have been in the office this entire time we, we, we weren't because so much of the data that we work with is confidential. We were in the office and the utilization was the same. So then would the staff be required to bring their own staples and pens and paper and. No, never. We have enough funding to cover that. I know it's a little thing of is just kind of. Yeah, don't want to take advantage of. So thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Burke. Thank you. Great job, Kate. A lot of information, a lot of hard work. Very nicely presented. So thank you for that. If I, or somebody else wanted to see the entire department's budget. Is that available online at this point? It's not available online at this point, but I believe the city charter states that the finance department needs to have at least a draft of the budget available by June 1st on the city's website. So you can take a look there and then also the, when we go, we will go to city council on May 10th and 11th. Okay. So the city charter states that the finance department will also have their agenda packet and background. So you'd be able to see if you looked at that agenda item, you'd be able to see a bunch of information as well. Okay. Thank you. Vice chair on. Thank you. Kate, when you're going through the salaries and benefits number, what percentage of salaries are the benefit piece? So if I'm understanding your current, your question correctly, benefits are generally around 61% of salaries. Is that, is that what you're asking? That's what I'm looking for. Okay, but I will say that varies for positions. So a higher paying position with benefits for one person, their benefits, maybe like 25%, but a lower paying salary with family benefits. We have some people that are upwards of 90%. So if you were to look at for the total and salary and benefits between the rental assistant budget and the housing trust budget, what percentage would salaries be of the total? If we're looking at that 3. Either one. No, I don't have that immediately, but I'd be happy to get it to you. Okay. Thank you. Sure. It's just when I was doing budgeting process and prior roles that's what we would look at. Yeah, absolutely. And then on the real property transfer tax, the amount of the real property transfer transfer tax in total is 5 million. Yeah. Yes. And we're getting 2 million 250 of that. Yeah, 45%. And then the balance is going where? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So just to the city general fund, the policy, the council policy, they approved, gosh, maybe October of 19 or October of 20 increases the amount of housing and homeless to housing and homeless services by 5% annually until it reaches a hundred and maybe 10 or so fiscal years. So it just stays in the city's general fund. Okay. But an even bigger percent because none of it had to go to homeless services this year. We got the whole amount of ARP funded the housing, the homeless services. Yes. And what is ARP again? American Rescue Plan Act. And that's only for one year. Is that correct? We think that it's going to cover about two and a half years of those costs. So this is the first time that the city has done anything like this. And we are planning to use American Rescue Plan Act funding for two and a half years. And during that time, the authority will continue to receive as far as I know right now, will continue to receive that larger portion of our PTT. Okay. And so what, what is that dollar amount that our PTs is ARP is funding. So it's funding the entirety of homeless services less the small amount we get from the county and the community foundation. If you want to give me just a second, I can give you that. And that amount does homeless services exceed the cost of homework services exceeds the amount of our PTT that's allocated and the city general fund makes up the rest. And so Kate actually have that in front of me. So over the course of the two and a half years where we're expecting the we refer to it as the ARP plan. It's going to cover $9.45 million in homeless expenses. And that's administration and the contracts for the various programs and services that are operated throughout the city. And that's not the total cost. That's just the allocations coming from that funding source. That would be the total cost. Is the 9.45 the revenue number the expense number. That's the estimated expenditure amount for homeless services for two and a half years. Okay, thank you and Kate great job on putting this all together in the background information. Thanks. Very good job. Thank you again, Kate. Excellent. Thank you. We'll now move on. Are there any other questions by commissioners today? I don't see any. Okay, we're going to move on for public comment. We are now taking public comments on item 4.1. If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand. If you were dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. Chair test. I've seen no hands raised at this time. Thank you. This point, we will move forward with item 4.2 study session. Thank you. Item 4.2 is a study session. Standard was a forward land use and circulation alternatives and housing element update. We have two presenters from the planning and economic development department. Amy Nicholson senior planner and Amy Lyle supervising planner. So I will now turn it over to the Amys. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us today. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for joining us today and getting your input. And thank you to your recording secretary for sharing the presentation. We weren't sure if that would be our role or yours. So we'll just let you know as we need the slides advanced. So just to start, this presentation today is two parts. So we're going to be looking at our general plan update and providing you some information on where we're at. So we're going to be looking at our general plan update. So we're going to be looking at land use and circulation alternatives. And then we also want to take some time to talk about our housing element, which is part of our larger project, but is on a little bit of a faster track. Next slide, please. So we'll just do a very brief overview of what a general plan is. Next slide, please. So we're going to be looking at the general plan update. And then we're going to be looking at how we can access, which was about eight months ago now. And so the general plan is really in our long range policy document for the city. And so it encompasses and touches almost every aspect of our community. So part of it is really looking at the physical components of our community and the city. Next slide, please. But then there's another piece that's really looking at how we interact and build community. So educational opportunity, job, housing balance, access to the services and health and all of those things that make up what we feel when we live here. Next slide, please. So what we are doing as part of this general plan process is getting input from the community at each spot and each time we have work done. And so we call this process the Santa Rosa forward process. And we have, that's our branding for the, for the name of our general plan update. And but the goal is to really understand how we can improve Santa Rosa and what does that outlook look like in 2050. And then how do we create policy to be able to accomplish that goal? Next slide. So this process is somewhat long. We only update the general plan once every 10 years. Sometimes it takes a lot, many more years for there to be an opportunity for an update. So we're really fortunate here at Santa Rosa to have the funding and we are also supplemented with some grant funding through Kaiser Permanente to hire a equity and public health planner to look even deeper at health policy and environmental justice. So Beatrice is our equity and health public health planner and she will be presenting with Amy and myself today as well. And so we did start this process back in the summer of 2020. And we hope to conclude and bring a general plan forward for adoption next spring summer in 2023. So we're almost midway through the process right now. And so there will be a lot more to come. And so we'll look forward to touching base with you as this progresses. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. And I did just want it to note, we do have a website where you can gather all the information, background documents, and our alternatives that we'll be talking about today. And this is a great place to stay involved. So if you sign up for updates through our website, you'll get notified when we have new outreach opportunities or our surveys is there produced as well. Next slide. So with that, I'll introduce Amy Nicholson, who is our project manager for the general plan update. And she's a senior planner on our long range planning team. Next slide. And I'll turn it over to Amy. Thank you, Amy, and good afternoon chair and commissioners. Thank you for having us. So just moving forward to discuss the alternatives in a bit more detail. This slide shows the cover of the alternatives workbook. And this was prepared following review by the city, the city's general plan technical advisory committee, which is comprised of primarily city staff members with technical expertise in a wide range of areas. And following review by the city's community advisory committee. This workbook presents and analyzes three different land use and circulation scenarios, which I'll be discussing shortly. And these scenarios or alternatives provide different options for how the community can grow and change into the future. And each of these alternatives presents solutions to address challenges and opportunities. Next slide, please. So the workbook contains a wealth of information and it is posted on the project web page, which Amy just mentioned. It includes an overview of the existing conditions report, which was completed a little over a year ago. And also includes a summary of current equity challenges facing many neighborhoods throughout the city. Next slide, please. The alternatives workbook also includes the community's vision statement, which was developed last summer. And together this vision statement, existing conditions report and the current equity considerations formed the three different alternatives. Next slide, please. So the workbook also contains a summary on how each of the three alternatives were developed and analyzed. And it includes assumptions regarding anticipated housing growth based on projections from a state and region. Next slide, please. The first alternative alternative one also called central corridors really focuses future commercial and residential development in the city's downtown. So this is consistent with the recently adopted downtown specific plan. And anticipates that about 54% of the new housing would be concentrated either downtown or along central transit lines, which feed into the downtown. And then non-residential development would, would follow the pattern of housing development. Next slide, please. Oh, if you can go back on slide, perfect. Thank you. Alternative two also called neighborhood main streets is really envisioning various neighborhood nodes or centers spread throughout the city. And then housing would be concentrated around these areas. This would allow for people to really meet their daily needs within their own neighborhood and would focus about 55% of the housing growth within these areas around shopping centers or neighborhood centers. Next slide, please. And then alternative three called distributed housing looks at housing and non-residential development really being dispersed throughout the city. This is sort of similar to how the city is currently developed. And one piece about this alternative is that because new housing would be more spread out, people may need to travel further distances by way of private vehicle to access daily goods and services. Next slide, please. So the workbook includes a comparison of each alternative. In particular, it addresses how each alternative really makes progress toward various issues raised by the community and including on the topics of economic development and housing. Next slide. Efficient and sustainable development and mobility. Next slide. And community resilience and safety. Next slide. And then lastly, the workbook provides a summary on how each alternative supports community equity. And this includes policy consideration. So it really goes beyond just what we're talking about with land use, but how each of these alternatives might result in various policies, which would be included in the general plan to help promote the community. Next slide, please. So we are sort of wrapping up our community outreach for the alternatives phase of this general plan project. And we did have the pleasure of engaging with the community in a variety of different ways. And so I'm going to turn it over to our equity and public health planner, the trees and she's going to speak a little bit more about these various bullet points on the slide. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for having us here. We realize that community outreach in relationship to the conversation that Amy just mentioned in her, her last part of the presentation is really relevant for, for how we approach equity on every process of the, of the general plan of updates. So we wanted to add a little bit more of information in this slide. And for community outreach in general, there was a community involvement strategy created for the general plan. And for the first two phases of the general plan, which were the community involvement strategy, as well as the creation of the vision, we had to do this online. And fortunately, as Amy mentioned, the last phase of the engagement for alternatives actually was able to be done in person. But as in terms of the activities that we have done to engage the community and to create spaces for community outreach, we started with community workshops. The first 10 workshops were done online. And in our stage, our current stage of alternatives, we had five in-person workshops. We were very mindful about the, the differences and the barriers that we have in our community for, for specific communities to attend meetings and, and to attend different types of, of events organized by the city. So what we did was to select specific locations of what we call equity priority communities. These are areas of the city where there is a high concentration of poverty, as well as a high percentage of, of people of color living in those areas. So four out of the five workshops were organized in this communities and with the support of different community advisory committee members, we have a community advisory committee where the community members who were selected come from two different places. One, they were selected by the city council, one, one, one for district. And on the other side, we made a selection of community members who could actually help us spread the word and help us do community outreach. And in this, in this context, we also created a new in-person way of reaching out to the community. And we started doing pop-up events. So we basically brought our table and our chairs and our maps to every place in the community. And we have been doing at this point, we have more than 12 pop-ups that have been addressing different invitations to events, but also to community organized spaces where we have attended schools, we have attended meetings from, from the community itself. And we try to, to even go to grocery stores and we have in our plan, the farmers market and the transit mall. So this way we are mindful that we are addressing specifically the communities that we usually miss when we, when we have this type of, of some meetings or when we are organizing events that happen usually in the city hall. And we currently have another space that is called the virtual open house. This is actually a space where we have all the materials from that we're presenting during the workshops, but that we're giving the community an opportunity to, to experience online. And this virtual open house has videos on each of every topic that Amy just presented to you. And we recorded them both in English and Spanish. I have to say that all the community outreach that we have done has been done in both English and Spanish. And we have all the materials available on our website, as well as, as our virtual open house, including the videos. And everything has been done on both languages, both English and Spanish. And for our current community outreach, we have a web-based survey. This is not the first survey that we have had. This is actually the third one. And in the past we have had more than 1500 responses. And finally, but not less important, what we have figured out is that we have to go to where the community is actually gathering. And we have been attending meetings with different community organizations. And this is for us a way to address the barriers that we have with the community in terms of not feeling comfortable attending government events for different reasons. And so we have done everything in our power to reach out to the community and to also be mindful of the barriers that exist today. And it is not mentioned on the community outreach slide, but we are actually having additional focus groups with specific communities that we call equity priority communities. As this week, we will have one with people with disabilities and one with farm workers. And we are addressing the specific communities because we know because of time limitations as well as, in some cases, immigration status and other reasons, they usually don't show up to events organized by the city. So we're being very mindful and intentional about addressing their opinions and trying to reach out to them too. So this would be on my side, the community outreach, but if there is any questions in the next minutes, I'll be available for responding. And thank you so much for your attention. Thank you so much, Patrice. And this is pretty much the conclusion of the component that we wanted to talk to you about related to the general plan and the alternatives. Our next steps on this process include continuing to meet with our boards of commissions here at the city. Working with Beatrice to do more meetings with our community groups. And then we will have a joint session with the planning commission and city council. And that will be May 24th. And so at that meeting, we'll be getting additional input from those decision makers, but also reporting out what we've heard from our work over the last few months. So I wanted to pause here to see if there are questions related to the general plan alternatives before we jump into the housing element. Commissioner Rawhouser. I just was curious as to what is courtyard housing. I was wondering if there was a type of housing. Oh, related to the survey. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. I was listening to different types of housing. And I hadn't heard of courtyard housing. So I was carried. That was. So we did try to anticipate the different types of housing that exists in Santa Rosa for that housing survey, but also provided an option for people to state if there was a type of housing they lived in, but they didn't. So what type of housing could relate to. Sometimes it's called garden housing where you have different units that are surrounding open space. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you. Vice chair, Owen. Thank you. So I'm going through the alternatives or central corridor neighborhood main streets and distributed housing. So for all three alternatives, which one seemed to provide the most housing units? Or was that part of your analysis? So for all three alternatives, we actually anticipate the same amount of growth. So we're just looking at different scenarios. Two. For the same amount. So we're anticipating 36,000. Housing units. From looking at the 2050 horizon year. And then I follow up question is. Well, these are. Different alternatives. It still comes down to available land. So if you look at where there's available land as zone for housing. How does that zoning overlay into these three different alternatives? That's a great question because obviously we're not going to be able to start from scratch. And we do have our existing housing, our existing network of uses in the city. So this is the opportunity to think through whether we have been. Creating the community in the right framework. And to change that if necessary. So we do look at underutilized or vacant land. When we get a little bit further down in the process. But this stage, we're really looking at. We're looking at, you know, kind of a 30,000 foot view of how we want to see. New housing oriented. So we won't be. For instance, we do see in development potential in some areas, but we are looking to discover where we should increase development opportunity. So we're looking at, you know, we're not going to be able to control the market, but we can set up new general plan land use and new zoning. To move our community towards a certain vision. And so this will be happening incredibly incrementally over time. But this is really setting up a new. Framework for zoning. So after the general plan update, we're going to look at some of the areas that we're looking at. The first alternative where a lot of that growth is focused downtown or in those major transit corridors. Those areas would. See a greater amount of high density housing available. And then we would not. Ups on any properties in the surrounding areas. Whereas alternative three on the extreme. So we're going to look at. Opportunity throughout the city and kind of a distributed model. So it's really a matter of how do we want to move forward. And increase opportunity for these new 36,000 units. That are projected. Okay. And that's good to hear how, because there's the hypothetical for what type. It gets down to the very pragmatic of what, where's the available land. And we're doing center city center growth. It's reuse versus brand new development. So just wanted to see how that was factory. And because as we look at this and we're looking at housing elements. How does that play into what's going to happen with. With. Affordable housing and what will happen with. In Luffy's versus having to build on site. And I go back probably 10 plus years when. If it was project was 15 acres or more, you had to build on site versus paying in Luffy and. Projects of that size are just becoming fewer and fewer with urban growth. Boundaries and open space district. And such so it's. It's good to see that while this is good with the three alternatives. The reality is there's not that much land within the city of Santa Rosa. They can lend itself to new development, especially when you bring in. CTS issues to California Tiger Soundmander. So you're, you're absolutely right. And this general plan update. Is somewhat fixed because we don't anticipate. Adding new lands within our city limits. So it is really looking at our existing geography. And so there, there are some big policy conversations and decisions to be made on, on what kind of scenario. Or alternative that you want or the community wants. And I will say in the housing element discussion, we'll get into a little more specifics on how we look at. Specific inventory and sites for the housing element. Cause that document and that element does require a greater level of precision. And it is updated more often. Thank you very much. Mission or raw house or another question. Yes, my concern is. I like the idea of being able to spread out our community more. But if we. I was wondering if we have money to upgrade our current transportation system to better serve. These, these units that are going to be a little bit farther from the transit hubs and the, and the, and the bus lines. Yes, that's a great point as well. So. If people can't get around, it doesn't really serve them. To have, you know, the, the community spread out, but then we don't want the tight congestion down, down. So as part of the work for the alternatives, we utilized a lot of local expertise. So we do have a traffic consultant on board as one of our sub consultants. And so they did run a traffic model for each of our scenarios. And online, you can see how did those alternatives stack up against each other as far as how, how they relate to our bike and pedestrian network, which ones are going to require more infrastructure or more investment in infrastructure to be able to accomplish those things. So on each of the major issues that Amy went through, you'll see a breakdown of just kind of understanding how one might be better than the other in terms of air quality, environmental impacts and traffic and various other things. You're right though. Yeah, cause I'm in a situation where I'm living now that it's not even safe for me to go for a walk or for a bike ride because of the mass construction that's going on around me. So a year ago, all the things I could have done for my health are just limited now and I'd have to get in my car and drive somewhere and feel safe to go for a walk. And that's part of some of the work that Beatrice is working on is looking at areas that have decreased access to open space or looking at the equity between where our investments have been made currently as far as bike and pedestrian networks, sidewalks. So really a lot of those aspects that really relate to your health and being able to live in your community and feel safe. Yeah, I have to walk approximately a quarter mile to get to a crosswalk to cross the street. Can I ask which area of the city? I'm on Juana Springs Drive right across from Costco and they're putting in that five story monolith next door to me. And it's a sore spot. And on Yolanda, they're totally, you know, building up that too. So it's been a whole summer of inside with the windows closed and the dust and the noise and the, you know, the construction of the trucks. And it's just, you know, where's, where's people thin and just what I'm kind of hearing from my cohorts in the, the, like long-term Santa Rosa people and some friends that live in downtown is they're really concerned about the aggressive nature of the vertical building that it feels like really, really being imposed upon in our community. And so I really liked the idea that we're going to start using, you know, existing buildings and places to build on and, you know, so. I appreciate your comments and if you're able to help us get more people to our website and our survey, it will be open for a little bit longer. If you have neighbors that would like to provide their input as well. Lovely. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Commissioner Burke. Yes, thank you. Just going back to the presentation of the three alternatives. There were nodes where, if I understand it correctly, there was to be kind of a more of a concentration of services and kind of commercial development associated with residential development that would decrease the need to travel to their parts of the city as much. I don't recall one of those nodes being in the, in the Easterly part of the city, say, say along Montecito Boulevard and, and Calistoga road, or I don't remember seeing one in Oakmont. Has that been discussed? Is that a consideration? Yeah. And we do have more detailed maps on our website that could give you just a little bit more detail on where those could potentially be. All of those are conceptual at this time. And what we will probably end up with at the end of this process is a blend of alternatives and additional components, such as what you're talking about. The note, then the number two alternative does include some retail and business centers in, it does note, note the Oakmont location where there's currently some retail. And then the Montecito shopping center where Oliver's is and that vacant property that surrounds Oliver's. So there are a couple, but if you have other ideas on where we could locate another center that would serve existing community or new community, that would be a really key component for us to, to know about. Thank you. The Montecito site, certainly the, where Oliver's is certainly as an opportunity for the type of thing that we're discussing today. Thank you. Thank you. Amy, do we have more? We do. So if you're ready, I can continue on with the rest of the presentation, which is directly about our housing elements. Thank you. And if you could advance, maybe two slides. Thank you so much. So, so this piece of our presentation, we wanted to give you some more detail of what we're doing related to our housing element. So this is one of the mandatory elements of our general plan. We just happen to be updating our comprehensive general plan. At the same time, our housing element is due. State law has a lot of. Requirements related to state to housing and when it occurs and when we plan for our housing. So housing element has to be updated every eight years. So we actually have a deadline to adopt a housing element by 2023. And so our housing element is on a little bit of a faster track. And we are going to be releasing a public draft in the next few weeks. So with that, we can move on to the next slide. So the housing element is a policy document, but it does include a lot of that precision that we talked about a little bit ago. So it does include an inventory of land. So we have to show that we can, that we have adequate sites available for the amount of allocation that we are provided. And we'll get into that. Allocation in a little bit here. So it does include the bold policies and programs that you're typically used to seeing as part of a policy document. But it also requires us to look at what happened in our previous housing element, what programs were successful, what, which ones weren't, and then what are the constraints to building housing. And we actually have to create programs to overcome those constraints. So another piece that's relatively new for this cycle of housing element work is our assessment of fair housing. You all are probably more aware than most that we are required by the federal government to have fair housing work done, but the state now requires each jurisdiction to have to go even a little bit further than what the federal government requires. So we do have a document that will be incorporated called affirmatively furthering fair housing. And it, and the state law actually requires us to do a pretty high level of outreach and engagement with our vulnerable populations and those that we are trying to serve as part of this housing element. Next slide. So for our engagement strategy, we use a lot of different avenues. One, it was helpful that we are updating our general plan update. So we were already doing work with our community and we'd be Teresa's help. We already had connections with our vulnerable populations or those that don't usually participate. We also created a pop-up events and online surveys that were directly related to housing. So you'll see in your agenda packet today, you're the first ones to receive our condensed version of what we heard from our online housing survey. So we will be synthesizing that further and posting that on our website soon. And then also we are part of a collaborative with jurisdictions from Napa and Sonoma counties. And that funding is coming through a grant we received from association of Bay Area governments, a bag. And through, through our collaborative, there have been also outreach done. There was an equity task force and they have also been doing pop-ups and various things to gather input on housing. Because as we know, people may not understand when you're in a city or an unincorporated area and communities aren't really defined by those lines as you feel it personally. So we are doing collaborative outreach with the community on all things. Next slide. So I talked about that allocation. So what I was mentioning was our regional housing needs allocation. And so this process has gone on for the last year or so. So the state actually decides how many housing units the state needs to produce. And then doles out those numbers to regional governments. So we are part of the Bay Area region. So we are part of a bank association of barrier governments. And so our regional government was told that they needed to figure out a methodology to distribute almost half a million units. And so they created a process in order to create a methodology and then assign RENA to local jurisdictions. So for us, that means we need to find enough sites to accommodate this number of units. Next slide, please. And so this is how it shook out for this housing cycle. And so we obviously have a large population and are the largest urban city in Sonoma County. So we have been allocated 31% of those units. Our allocation actually went down slightly. And then the other jurisdictions did see some increases, including the unincorporated County. Next slide. So our allocation is broken down into different income categories. So as you know, we do produce housing at these income categories. So there is a defined number that we need to hit for a defined goal. So this helps us identify which sites and which programs will be utilized to be able to hit these goals. Next slide, please. And then as I mentioned related to fair housing, the new bill that will be impacting this housing element includes all of these components. So we are taking a deep dive on fair housing, but also looking at geographic equity. So looking at some of the past issues and past decisions that have been made in our community and creating programs to alleviate or overcome and to assist those populations that may have been disadvantaged through previous policy efforts. Next slide, please. And then, so this section is just giving you a snapshot of our community as it exists today. Next slide. So this information is part of what we look at when we create new policy and what is required within our housing element. So to start, these are the income categories. I know you all may actually be more aware of what it means when it's very low income versus low income, but there are very discrete maximum household incomes or affordable housing prices that are dictated by the state and the federal governments. Next slide. And so right now, this is, and this is actually, data is a little bit old, but in general, this is how our household income distribution stands right now. So we do have a sector about half of our community that is above moderate. And then you do see the breakdown of the need of those that are from extremely low to moderate. Next slide. And then we also look to see how do our existing, how does our existing housing stock relate to the need in our community? And so this, this slide really shows what, where are we at? We know that prices are extremely high right now. But what are those maximum affordable prices as far as rent and home sales? So as you can see, this slide really provides that breakdown and then based on the income category, what are those rents and what are those sales prices that are considered to be within reach? Next slide. And this just gives you a little bit of breakdown of the medium sales. Next slide. And rental rates. Next slide. So one piece that we look at is who is affected by the increase in housing costs that we've been, that has been occurring here in Sonoma County and in Santa Rosa. And so what we see is that there is a large amount of our population that are overpaying for what their income is. And then some that are actually severely overpaying. So these are the folks in our community that really are in the highest need of additional units that are within reach that they can afford. Next slide. And then this slide really just shows the current housing types. So kind of in the same framework as who do we have in our community at different income rates? This is looking at how what does our housing type look like right now? Most of our city is single family detached. We have certainly seen an increase in accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units. But they do not match the need in our community, which is far outpacing. So we do have a fair number of multifamily opportunities. So that's about 19%. And then obviously a small amount of mobile home or RV communities. Next slide. And so one other aspect that's overlooked is overcrowding. This is a very hard number to dig into. And our, we, we always see the census numbers being debated because it's not actually clear if the census numbers are reflective of the accuracy of overcrowding. But this is what we know for a community based on census, as far as the percentage of overcrowding based on one person per room and then 1.5 persons per room. You'll see in our housing survey that we did over the last few months that there, we did ask this question as well. And it was very eye-opening to see those results as well. Next slide. So we also focus on populations with special needs. So this is the status through 2019, but we do have a large percentage of people who are female headed single parents, extremely low income, people with disabilities that, and that 17% of residents who are seniors, that number will be exponentially growing over the length of our general plan update. And certainly our housing element timeline of eight years. So these are things that we are all looking at. It's part of the policies and programs being developed in our housing element. Next slide. So as far as the community feedback on what we've heard, we've been documenting everything and all of our workshops. And you have this housing survey. And we did do a virtual housing element workshop. And we actually continue to do focus group conversations. And so what Beatrice was talking about earlier, our work on the general plan. We've also been getting a lot of feedback related to housing, simply because it is so much part of our, our need. And our crisis here in Sonoma County at this time. Next slide. So as I noted, our schedule is a little bit of a fast track. And so we will be releasing our housing element public draft in the next few weeks here. And then we will be having a study session with the planning commission May. That's actually May 26. And then our city council. And then we will be having a study session. And then we will be having a study session will be held on June 21st. So those will not be. Decision making up opportunities. Those will be getting input. And the, that will allow us to submit our draft housing element. To the state. And the state actually reviews that. And then provides us comments. So we can make sure that our housing element needs every component of the process. So once we receive our input back from the state, we will revise the document, put it back out for public comment, and then go through a formal adoption process in January. So let's see. Next slide. I think that's the last slide though. But with that, I'm happy to answer any more questions related to housing or alternatives. Thank you, Amy. I don't know if you were part of the earlier part of our meeting when we talk about what's coming online for what projects and the funding sources we've had, we've gone through the budget and the CDBG DR funds that we've had. There are a lot of. And Megan can elaborate. There are a lot of affordable housing units coming online next within currently within the next couple of years. That are unprecedented as far as I know in terms of the city Santa Rosa and the amount of units are coming online because of the increase in 9% tax credits that have been available and other funding sources. The fires have been really detrimental to their community. But the turnaround on that is the sources of funding that are one time and disaster recovery have been very beneficial. So my question is when you're looking at your housing element and what we have now in terms of types of housing, do you project forward based upon and look back to say this is what we have now. This is the housing permits that have been permitted with the last few years because the big situation in California and Santa Rosa is no different. Is that just enough housing units have not been built? Period. And it doesn't matter what range. It's not been enough built. So if you can go back and say this is what our rena numbers are supposed to be a fair housing. This is what we've done in housing permits. And this is what's coming online. And Megan and her team can provide you with that information to show you from an affordable housing piece that's coming online. Because I think that would be beneficial to show backwards and forwards as to how the city is progressing in what are being built. So I didn't see that in your presentation. I'm just making a recommendation that the data points are there between planning and development for housing permits. The housing authority in terms of the units coming online with what's been approved and when those are supposed to anticipate to come online. And I would think that the piece that's really missing on housing element is what's known as the missing middle which is the 80% to 120% of median income. And that's the part that doesn't get the subsidies but doesn't pencil in terms of the amount of costs it takes in land and entitlements and time to be able to make it affordable to provide housing units at a price that's the 80-20 median income at 30% of median income. So that's more of a commentary and a question as to whether or not you can put that slide in your presentation. Yes, thank you so much. As I was presenting, I realized that slide is not in there. We do have that information and can certainly provide that to you. We do track the housing units produced and report that annually to the state. And we do work closely with your staff team on that work and policy work. So in this last calendar year, we actually produced far greater number of units and we have in previous years and you're right that we don't anticipate that level of production to continue. But unfortunately we have no authority over the allocation that we receive. So all we can do is make sure that we have adequate sites planned appropriately and do everything we can to create programs to help those numbers be realized and, you know, make ourselves eligible for grants. So by meeting our allocation on an annual basis and showing that we are keeping up with our allocation, that does make us eligible for additional grant money. So it is in our best interests to produce those units and continue to do everything we can. But there are many jurisdictions in California that have been receiving allocations double or triple what they had in the previous cycle. And so we're in a very good position moving into the next cycle. That means we still have to produce 700 plus units at that income range breakdown over the next cycle to be able to meet that allocation. And that's what keeps us eligible for certain types of grants and funding. And then I also wanted to take the opportunity because you mentioned missing middle to note another initiative that our team is working on. So Amy Nicholson is also our project lead on our missing middle ordinance work, which is tracking on similar timeline as our general plan. So Amy, I'm going to give you an opportunity to just note that work and maybe provide the website so they can follow that work. Thank you so much Amy. So we, at just last week had a community workshop on this missing middle housing work that we're doing. So we've been working for, I would say almost a year with Optico's design. So they're based out of Berkeley and they've done a lot of missing middle housing work across the country, but many cities within California. And what they did was they've provided an existing conditions that would be appropriate for missing middle housing. And they've also provided a recommendation report to us at the end of last year, which looks at the various lots that are located within the city to determine if the size of those lots and if the location of those lots would be appropriate for missing middle housing. One of the ways that they describe missing middle housing is, is not really based on income per se, just because they're not, but they tend to be smaller units or so in, in an essence affordable by design. And they also allow for what we call gentle density within a lot of our existing neighborhoods. So these buildings are very similar in, in size and mass to detach single family houses. So they're typically no greater than two stories, but based on the, the lot size, the way that they're developed is really in keeping with a more low density environment. So we are going to continue our missing middle housing community outreach. We'll have presentations with various review authorities over the next, I would say two months. And then as we progress with our general plan update, we'll weave in the public comment that we've heard. And are on track to adopt missing middle regulations. So this will allow more of this type of housing across the city. And we do have a project webpage, which is srcity.org forward slash missing middle housing. So I certainly encourage you to, to check that out. We have some great information on, on that page. Thank you. Commissioner Burke. Thank you. Very interesting discussion so far. I really appreciate all the work that's been done in the comments from the members of the commission. One thing that I was looking for. Thread all of this is that, I mean, I first of all, I realized, and I think Amy, you alluded to it when you started off the presentation on the fact that the housing element. Is a much more specific kind of document that leads to programs, which is kind of in contrast to the general plan. Housing elements, not so general. And that's been my experience as well. So with that in mind. And also noting the findings that you've come up with. On overcrowded housing in the community. Which are similar to findings that came out of another study, which was done by generation housing. They talked about overcrowding being a significant issue, particularly in Santa Rosa throughout the county. I guess Santa Rosa kind of stuck out in the work that. H housing consultants had done. That kind of goes along with. I guess the relationship of neighborhoods throughout the county. And I think that's been a big part of the community that are under huge stress. And, you know, the problems there are unfortunately. Kind of unequal to lots of the other neighborhoods in the community. And those, and those neighborhoods from my observations aren't necessarily getting better. Maybe they're growing and they're more impacted. And I know that the police department in the past has done a lot of work on that. And I think that. As concluded. I really need attention because of the problems of. Probably overcrowded. I would guess. You know, maybe. Calls for service from the police department. Just a whole host of things. And. So. I guess my question is. What. Do you anticipate will come out of the housing element. In terms of. A good assessment of. Of housing conditions. And then pinpointing neighborhoods. That really. Need to be. A focus. On all of the departments of the city. And the community. Before those problems grow. Out of control. And become a huge, a much larger problem. I don't know. I think it's a lot more. Than they already are. Is there, is there a focus on that? And to what degree is that being addressed? Thank you. Yeah. And I'm going to put Beatrice on the spot too to help me answer this, but. I will say that we. Don't have a lot of great data. We actually were looking at grant opportunity with. Generation housing. To get. To get a better idea of the problem. We are guessing that it is a lot bigger than what census tells us. And we can guess on the neighborhoods that are most impacted, but that is one area of their housing element work where. There will be program set up. And that we will have to continue to facilitate. Over the life of the housing element. To get better data. And to get better data. And then to actually create solutions. But I know Beatrice has touched this topic as well. So I'm going to let her. Reply as well. Thank you, Amy. As for data. Related. I think we have the census, which is the last update that we had had. And what we know, as Amy mentioned, was that there's specific groups of people too. That have that are suffering a forward crowding. And I would say based on studies that other cities have done, that it's communities of color. And that is our farm worker community. We have to be very mindful that in terms of statistics on, on homelessness, and I, I. Have been reviewing the data that we have from the, from the census. We don't have as many homeless population in the Latino community, but we definitely have over crowding. So that's what's, what is happening. We have a lot of people who are sharing space. And I'm talking specifically about. About farm workers because we know the, the. That there are spaces where we're more than 20 or 30 people leave. In one specific house and they do work for, for, for different farm farming activities or outdoor activities. So that's what we know. And it's not based on data that we have. We have just specific information coming from, from workshops and as well as, as we are going to get information from focus groups. So we would, we would like to, to get this feedback in terms of, of data. Surveys are not useful in this terms because we know. Targeting the specific communities is really hard. So yeah, I think. If we wanted to do specific research in this, it's definitely possible, but it's definitely expensive too. So I think we can rely on what, on what. On the research that has been done. In other cities and continue targeting specific outreach to those communities. And I think it's important to identify why this is happening. And I think. Talking about barriers that are. Not letting some communities access housing. And I think for specifically farm worker community, there's, there's. Plenty of things, but one of them is a language career. The second one, I would say is immigration status. And we definitely have a fair amount of people who are distrustful of government for this. Two best reasons. So I would add this to, to our list as well as income. We have a very. Interesting. Data set that is provided by the state of California in terms of immigrants and refugees. And how the composition of, of their income is going. So housing. That people who are overburdened by, by housing expenses are mostly. Latino and black. Communities as well as as immigrants and the highest percentage is for undocumented immigrants. So this data is available publicly and I am happy to share it with you too. But yeah, that's what we know right now. I'd be very interested in. Talking to you at some point in time on that issue and, and I really suggest that if you haven't done so already, checking in with the police department. Cause they, in the past anyway, have had some really good information on areas that. From their perspective, you know, you know, maybe landlords are praying on families and maybe they're going to have some really good information on that. So, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, you know, from their perspective, you know, you know, maybe landlords are praying on families and maybe there's overcrowding conditions or maybe there's unsafe housing conditions. And those kind of combined to create a really. Unsafe environment for everybody in those neighborhoods and close by those neighborhoods. And, you know, all kinds of things, drugs and violence and all those things go along with it. Yeah. So what you're saying is I didn't really miss finding anything there because right now we don't have really good information. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Matrice and Amy Lyle. Amy Nick, Nicholson. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks so much. Thank you. Now we'll move forward for public comments. We are now taking public comments on item 4.2. If you wish to make. A comment via zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine, raise your hand. And you will have three minutes. Chair test. I see no hands raised at this time. Thank you. Next item on our agenda is item number five public comments on non-agenda items. We are now taking public comments on item five. This is the time when any person may address the housing authority on matters not listed on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the housing authority. If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Chair test. I see no hands raised at this time. Thank you. Next item on our agenda is approval of minutes. Of March 28th, 2022. Are there any changes? I see no hands raised. So we will approve the minutes as approved and prepared. Item number seven chairman commissioner reports. Any reports from commissioners? Commissioner Burke. Thank you. Just wanted to comment that. I was able to attend a. A visit the site visit. I know that. Chair test. You were able to do it too on a separate day as to. Commissioner. I visited the her and veterans village on Friday. In the morning. And I want to thank. Angela who joined us and also the staff. On site. Mary is their first name. I forget her last name, but. It was very informative. And I really was amazed at the. Excellent work that. Mary and her staff are doing. In a very difficult situation, but they seem to be totally committed to it. And are. Really providing an important. Service to our community. And I guess the last comment I would make is that the. The site. Like lots of older buildings. Could use even more tender loving care than it's gotten so far. And like to. Kind of pursue that at some point in time at the appropriate time. And also I want to thank Angela who. Had indicated she'd be sending me some information because probably in my packet somewhere. I have a. A site. Plan of what is being proposed on her. Veterans village. But I've forgotten what that is. So I'm. Kind of curious. To revisit that as well. So those are my comments. Thank you. I too found the site visit really helpful. I also found that the veterans who were there were very polite. I was doing a little bit of video taping. And they were very polite. And one of them. We were asked, Mary had asked if she could go in and see their room. And initially he said, oh no, it's a mess. And then later he came back and said, I apologize. It's better now. Anyway. It was really a good site visit. And I was surprised that. The residents who are there are only there for approximately six months. And obviously a high focus on services. So that they can move them forward and look for a job. Find a place to live, et cetera. So it was very informative. The next thing I'd like to include in this, this particular item is. The mayor's meeting that I attended. The city golf course has issued a request for proposals from operators. To see what comes up in terms of. How much it's going to cost to have that operation. Redone and. Revisited. And including the restaurant. At the time of the meeting. They were at this time still reviewing some of those sub medals. Good piece of news is the Wednesday night market will be back in May. And just a plug today for the merit awards. It's this time of year that. If you know someone, an individual or an organization. Who is worthy. Volunteer. That makes Santa Rosa a better place. The applications are now or nominations are now on. Online at. Merit awards. And it's called SR city. Merit awards. And I believe the nomination period closes in early July. But we're not going to have it until December of this. When you add to that. We have some reports. Right now we'll open this up. Excuse me. Commissioner McCorter. You had a question. Not so much a question. But more of a comment. By the veterans place on her and too. And. I like the place and I like what they said. With their plan is for the future. because I'm a veteran, a veteran is a man and a woman. Now, there's no woman facility for veterans out here in Santa Rosa. The nearest one that I found out was in Sacramento. And I was just wondering what is the city gonna do to try to help women veterans in this city? That's a really good point. I can refer you after this meeting to Mary who did the site tour for us. I met her. Oh, you did. I came, literally I came, I had an IAP with my granddaughter at her school so I was running behind, but I came right after y'all left. And did you ask her that question? Yeah, and she was kind of hoping they would change it too. Oh, okay. So there's some research. If I can interject, I've made a note and I can reach out to our service providers and see what their statistics and sentiments are. Just from the city's perspective, we don't have a position or any reason why there's not female veteran facilities. As you know, we solicit for applications and we respond to those that we receive. Right. No, I think it's a good project. It was just when I hear the term veteran, I always think in terms of men and women, not just men. And that's every veteran place that I've seen in Sonoma County has just quickly just met. Yeah, thank you. Commissioner Allen. As a comment to Commissioner McWhorter, Windsor Veterans Village is something, I don't know if it's open yet or not, but that is run by the same people, veterans housing that runs the Herne project. Yes, yes. And I think that is men and women. The same company has a project at the Old Mather Air Force Base that Mercy Housing has done. It's a hundred units of permanent housing. There's transitional housing there that's men, women and transgender. So it's out there, but I don't have an answer for whether or not. And I agree wholeheartedly with Commissioner McWhorter that it should be men and women. And we can return, Rebecca Lane just reached out. We can also return at the next meeting. It provides you some statistics just on the demographics of our VASH clients. And those are vouchers that we have for veterans through the VA. So we can provide you demographics for that population. And it's about 400 plus voucher holders. Thank you. Thank you. We are now going to open it for public comments on item 7.1. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you were dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. Chair Tess, I see no hands raised at this time. Okay. Thank you. We'll move forward then with item number eight, committee reports. There are no committee reports on this particular agenda. Item number nine, executive director reports and communication items. So a touch to your agenda is a memo and an updated affordable housing pipeline. We will be endeavoring to update this monthly and include it in your packet. You may notice that for this month's update, we have included some additional information. So it's getting to be a slightly compressed document, but we have some project status information. So we're pulling this from our permitting system so we can provide you more up-to-date information on the status of either the building permits or the application. And I anticipate when we have our current solicitation closed in the next couple of weeks, we'll have a fair number of applications to add to the pipeline. So I'd be happy to answer any questions on this. Okay. Vice chair, all in. Thank you. I was wondering is as we have projects that open up, we could have a category not to expand this thing, but to show what's opened up within the last 24 months or so, a Dutton Flats project has opened up. Also the Dan Coe project on college in Cleveland has opened up. So I think that's important to show what's received funding or project-based vouchers to be able to show what has opened up as well as pipeline. Thank you, vice chair. And I've made a note and we will in our next month's update will be on page two, a list of projects that have recently opened up and we'll try and track those for 24 months or until the list, as we've indicated in previous comments, until the list becomes too exhaustive because of the incredible number of projects we have underway right now. Thank you, Megan. Commissioner Burke. Thank you. Just as a follow-up to that, isn't there a list that already exists of existing projects in Santa Rosa? Correct. There is a list on our website that you can access and it has projects that are in Santa Rosa and then we also have a link to the county's list. But to go back to vice chair Owens' point, it doesn't provide an indication of what has recently come online and is newly available to the public. So as soon as a project goes from in construction to complete and occupied, I guess it goes to that other list. But again, and that goes back historically, probably forever as long as units have been produced. But anyway, so yeah, I think what you've done with the chart has just been fabulous. I mean, it's so helpful, but keeping it kind of short and concise is also a good thing to try to do, what kind of word it is. So my comments are sage common location. That's not in the city of Santa Rosa, right? Sage commons is in the city of Santa Rosa. That is the project on the corner of college in Cleveland. The other one that's on the list is orchard commons, which is also in the city of Santa Rosa and that's on Boyd Street. So sage commons that does show up on the list because I was looking for it and I just maybe I didn't pick it up. I don't know. I think that also goes back to vice chair Owens' point is that was a newly completed project. So it's now off the list because it was. Okay. Okay. Makes sense. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And then remind me, so Bennett Valley project and it talks about SB 35 approval. Is that where the state has the ability and certain circumstances are meant to kind of override the city's approval process to a degree? To agree. So this is Senate bill 35 and this was approved several years ago and what the state did was create some criteria in which projects can be ministerially approved. So if a project meets the requirements for ministerial approval and is providing affordable units and I want to say at the top of my head, it's 10%. So in this case, Bennett Valley clearly exceeds that percentage then they can achieve ministerial approval. So Mahonia falls into that category and they have that approval. And so this would be another. How close is the Bennett Valley project to breaking around? Do you know? The Bennett Valley project is in the process of obtaining its final funding sources. They have been awarded MHP funds and they are on the list of projects to receive construction assistance through the red. And so they just need to finish their project gap and then the city needs to complete the transaction of selling the property to the developer. Okay. I saw very helpful. Appreciate it. I'd like to make a comment, just a comment that I have seen. And that is when I've driven by the former Bennett Valley senior center now going to be the Burbank project or excuse me, the free bird project. I think they're going to be calling it. There's a lot of homeless who are camping right on the street with recreational vehicles, tents, et cetera. And I wasn't sure if the city is aware of that. And there's quite an encampment there. With that, I see no other questions and I'll move this open to open public comment or item 9.1. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. Chair Tess, I see no hands raised at this time. Thank you. Item number 10, consent items. There are no consent items on this agenda. And item 11, report items. There are no report items on this agenda. And at this point, we're on item 12 and to adjourn the meeting. Thank you everybody. And staff, thanks so much. Thank you.