 Chair Rogers can you do an audio and video check for me? All right. How's that? Thank you very much and councilmember O'Crepkey. Can you also do an audio and video check for me? Check one two three Thank you very much Director Hartman, can you do an audio and video check for me? Good morning. Hi. Thank you. All right with that I do recognize the quorum of the board. Let's go ahead call to order. Can we do a roll call vote, please? Let the record reflect that all members are present Excellent Morning Eddie. Good morning, sir. How are you? I'm doing well. Let's start with public comments for non-agenda items If you have a comment on something that falls within the jurisdiction of our economic development subcommittee But it isn't on today's agenda going to hit the raise hand feature on your zone It's confirming that I do not see any hands. We'll move on to our new business for the day That's item 3.1 our enhanced infrastructure finance district Right, you said take it away Hi there. Okay. So I think we're going to be promoting a number of other people on our team while I'm speaking But I'll get us started So firstly welcome to this latest iteration of Oops my I'm sorry my mouth stuck working and the need to Move something. Okay. Um, so yeah, so welcome to this latest iteration of the economic development subcommittee It has been we've had this subcommittee for as long as I've been with the city and I've been with the city about 18 years But it has changed them So I just want to give a quick overview before I start because two of the three of you are new to the committee And that is first I want to tell you what our general purposes and at a future meeting date. We can certainly Revisit this But it was recently and we took a hiatus of the subcommittee just before Our during covet and then started up just I think in 2022 again But the general purpose of the economic development subcommittee Is to guide preliminary Is to provide preliminary guidance to staff on complex issues related to council goals With the objective of creating equitable and inclusive economic opportunity and growth Through policies and programs that empower economic stability Encourage job development and retention and the creation of great places And so that leads in a little bit to what we're talking about Which is ginds and lani if you could bring up the slides we can get started on those Give me one second to pull those up. Okay um, well, so while she's pulling those up, um, there's a slide, uh that introduces you to uh our consultant dta and Uh, I forgot to tell you lani when you get there Our consultant's name is Lenny Zerati. So she should be on the Um On the call as well and should be promoted. So anyway, so um Our consultant firm dta Is led by david tossig Who's the president ceo? He can't be here today, but um, or he at least can't be on until at least 10 o'clock but in his stead We have dta's vice president lani zerati and She is has been with county about a year, but before that she was the special districts manager for the county riverside where she led them through a number of Eid formation. So um, we're the lucky to have her And then rounding up the dta team is um, court need saying who is one of their project managers And just by way of background for dta They have or in the or are in the process of forming at least eight districts Not including senator roses. So they have quite a bit of Of experience behind them and um Lani if you have a hard time pulling up your slides, I can pull up mine if that's easier I just got them. Okay. Apologies. It took me a minute to find them I'm gonna keep talking because um, the other folks on our team Who are on and you'll probably see them promoted here and we have I think at least one if not both of our assistant city managers Daria Gunston and jason nut Claire hartman is on and we also have our finance CFO allen and then two of our additional consultants at the city Brought on separate from dta And that's robert gambler who's our finance Consultant and chris lynch who's our legal consultant Both of them have also worked on a ton of the ids and I believe chris lynch was one of the offers of the Of the bill that created it in the first place And i'm going to keep talking and we'll just whip through these slides because we're going to go high level You can go the next slide Let's go down to the next one as well Yeah, okay Let's start here. So, um, I'm going to be pretty high level with these slides because I think you guys Generally know them and I want to make sure that we have enough time to get to the q&a's at the end of it. So um, firstly An eifd or enhanced infrastructure finance district is a financing tool that uses tax increment revenues so very specifically and to be super clear a tax increment revenue Uh, the tax increment revenues Um in an eifd are the same Advalorem, uh property taxes that are already being paid by the property owner So it's important to know that there are no new taxes. Um, and no additional property taxes are imposed Um, so that's the crux of what this is um and revenue Any ids are generated by community growth for example through new development or improvements to the district Next slide Sorry, uh, okay So if these were created sort of as a replacement to the old redevelopment districts um They're unlike redevelopment districts that there are no requirements for blight findings. So in essence The threshold for establishing a new ifd or a new district in this way are not the same And in theory If we wanted to any area within the city could be included in the eifd But that said we are you know most interested in the areas with a lot of opportunity and you know, uh One of the things that adds a lot of value to an eifd is is for the county to participate um, so in order to get that we also want to have Um, we want to be able to show the value of the district also benefits the county So that they they pay into the the district as well Next slide So the main things you need to know for now regarding forming a district is that the council's first action is going to be to adopt a resolution of intention And this resolution of intention includes the district boundaries and a list of projects or improvements to be constructed, but also the The fiscal impact of of what we're proposing At this same meeting Which I forgot to look when it is but I believe it's in april The council also needs to adopt a resolution establishing the public finance authority And the public finance authority is a five member board That that consists of two council members one supervisor and two members of general public The the the pfa or the public finance authority can be Larger if you want it to but this is standard what The five is the standard size that we've been seeing across the board and it's going to be the most manageable So it's the it's the public finance authority or the pfa that will then direct the preparation of The infrastructure finance plan and lead it through the public hearings. So again sort of in comparison to You know redevelopment districts of old. It's not if I recall not too dissimilar to what redevelopment agencies did So it's after that public hearing And any fine-tuning of the plan as a result of those public hearings that the board of supervisors and the council Will then each adopt A resolution approving this infrastructure finance plan next slide okay, so There is not a vote that's required To pass the i of p but What's most important to note is Well, actually if if there's a certain threshold as the the first bold point says is there's a certain threshold of protest Then a vote would be needed to to pursue the formation of the of the district I'm up with the important notes for our dates for council to remember is that we do need to if we want to Have the base year for tax generation established for the fiscal year 23 24 So the fiscal year coming up The deadlines we have to make is to approve through the resolution of intention by june 30th and then to make sure that we File the statement of boundary change to the state board of equalization by December 1st So those are hard deadlines in order to for us to meet all the public hearings and all the other things that go into to creating the district So even though the base year for the tax increment generation will be fiscal year 23 24 As we understand it in our jurisdiction is has been seen in all the others that have DTA is worked with The assessments are not actually filed by the county until January For us, this would be January 2024. So any of the projects within 2023 That were built And eligible after the they were filed for 2022 would be eligible to Would be participating in the the pay for the tax expenses. Hopefully that makes sense. We can talk about that in a minute Okay, so next slide So, um, eventually, uh, when enough revenue has been generated bonds can be issued This generally takes about, you know, at least five years to get to that point. Um, but But bond generation is an option an option for the act these next slide All right, so here's where we start getting into projects and then we're going to talk about maps So this is a general list of project improvements that could be that are eligible for consideration in the infrastructure finance plan um The thing about projects that you need to know is that the money can be spent On any public improvements that provide community benefit, but they have to be they have to have a useful life Of 15 years or more. Um, so at this point some of the Some of the bigger projects that we've been talking about And this includes with members of the The public advisory group, many of whom are on the call and will be weighing in on this So we had we haven't landed on anything, but this is where we wanted to spend some of the discussion But a transit mall, we know we need to address Issues with their transit mall. It's too small. I think other improvements need to be made to it we have the Possibility of pursuing the MTC wayfinding that our transit department has been working on Back in 2010 we actually created a street furniture palette Program and it included things like bollards and street improvements So we have an entire plan that has been quantified that we've never Entirely implemented. We could pull some projects from that We also have an interest in both, you know, the city and the public Advisory group has talked about the medicine of corridor As well as the santa rosa avenue corridor that would fall within the district Claire's on hand, she can talk a little bit about, you know, the the Quarter of plans that we have or that we're interested in pursuing Um There are additional improvements to courthouse square And that could be eligible and that have been raised as an interest Um four street corridor. Um, again, uh, that was one of the both in row square and courthouse square Those were that was one of the main quarters that was included in the street furniture palette program That addressed streetscape and bestry and, you know walkability bike ability um The other thing that came up are some of our corridor areas like jgway comstock mall and then also better Moveability between Row square courthouse square sides Third to like seventh or tenth street B street has some some major Opportunities as well Next slide Okay, so here's where we start getting into maps and boundaries. So this is the downtown stationery specific plan map and this is the The area that we had Originally considered when we're looking at a broad scope of what what we thought would be a terrible boundary map for an eifd next slide We also looked at what is the Qualified opportunity zone map. Um, so this is the one that was filed with the The federal government where we have um, a number of large projects that are taking advantage of the Opportunity zone funds. Um, so we overlaid that and so again I think what this just shows that we were doubling down on where we think the boundaries are But and where we think the opportunities are next slide But this is the map that we're landing on. Um, so what this did is we felt that the Downtown stationery specific plan, which is what you see in the Colorful outline on here is a little too large. Um, so we wanted to to Pull the map in a little bit in order to best capture where we feel the opportunities are And the best increments are so We have this is not entirely saying but but just as a point of reference We have actually established two community benefit districts and in those districts similar to those districts We wanted to take out the single predominantly single family housing areas. So This map is consistent with some of the other districts that we've developed And again, it aligns with a number of our policies that we've we put together to sort of condense the the eifd district to commercial industrial light industrial and public and institutional lands so looking at we've got it marked up looking at The section that's marked a which is in walley gardens like that third street corridor olive park There are some light industrial areas in that area that we're not including but Um In walley gardens is mostly um multifamily or single family residential And we feel like it just took us a little bit further out to the core that we wanted to deal with But the section that's labeled b that's at the bottom, which is the robits road area Um, we would like to hold that for consideration in the for the potential of a roseland area Eifd So that's why those areas at the bottom left of the map are not included And then going up to the area that's marked e the west end that is almost entirely Residential And so like with sections d and then the cherry street, which is c We wanted to exclude the predominantly residential areas. The only exception to that Is at the bottom when you're looking at sabbatical avenue the sofa district area Juilliard Those areas it would be it was we felt a little bit too difficult for us to sort of carve out around the sites That are the commercial areas on both a street And santa rosa avenue And then the other exception that is the multifamily residential that you see that's close to the tip off of berkwood and sonoma We felt that we could if we wanted to we could probably do some fine carving there But we did identify opportunity sites in that area as well. Next slide That's it. So we can go back to uh, we we can either take the slides down or or keep the map slide up for discussion But that is your high overview of the eisd All right. I really appreciate it risa. I'll look to To councilmember colleagues. We'll see if anybody has questions to start Yeah, I have one quick question Go ahead jump on it um Do we have a clear map of what the proposed eisd is? Because that last map you showed and then saying the carbon up here and there can Is not only just slightly confusing to me, but it's going to be very confusing for people that are Um, yeah, we will uh, we need to create one for gis That was our down and dirty map Um, but we can uh, absolutely. We'll get something clear and it'll be produced by a gis team Was that your question? All right eddie Thank you, sir. Uh, you spoke of the difference of excluding roberts lane and What do we have a proposed time of where we actually come up with uh with with map for the original area? It's one thing that did stick out for me is how the map kept getting smaller and smaller Leaving roberts lane specifically out of the picture Yeah, I mean, uh, the roberts road area, um, you know, again If being at the base of sabbatical, um, we felt that when we get to the roseland area um Eifd if that is something that council wishes to pursue That it would be better to uh, there's a lot of opportunity there that has the potential to go Move a little bit more faster. So it would add the value to roseland We don't at this time have a timeline for it. Um, but it doesn't need to be prolonged This is our first time going through it. We thought that it would be best to pursue Something that we knew that we have two community benefit districts and we have a good buy-in from this district and And the political will to to move forward on this one. So we thought we would try our first yet district with the easier uh left And if I may ask a question a little bit more of a higher level And because of your experience in in the in the area of sabbatical road from the attestation period the the attestation of Or actually the rezoning of roberts lane and i'm sorry it's roberts road, but forever is known as roberts lane roberts lane Being incorporated into the railroad area or in the zoning. Um, how has that hindered? roberts. I want to try switch here roberts road from from its redevelopment goals, especially with the change in in in in The population density of the zoning differences. Yeah, let me have um claire speak to that Yeah, thank you for the question. Um, yeah roberts road area is a collection of parcels. Yeah, and uh one of the things that we tried to accomplish with the most recent downtown station area specific plan was to really build an opportunity As well as flexibility. So there's a balance there. Um, one of the things we're aware of is the properties Have question if we have reached too high for the opportunity like we have too high of a floor area ratio requirement So that's something we'll work with the property owners on There's different opportunities to Make special findings if they can't reach that high or if need be we can revisit the land use designation for it, but Yeah, we have not seen a proposal yet That's gotten to the point of an entitlement review So that is an area of concern for us because our intent was to stimulate Investment on those sites and so we are still interested in doing that In partnership with those owners Absolutely and claire again, thank you for the clarification You know, it's one of the things that I am definitely looking to educate myself on On other zoning districts and and the limitations and opportunity that each one of them do create so appreciated. Thank you So I've got a couple questions, right? You said So first you mentioned that a protest vote 50% of the the folks in the district is that by land value or is that by parcel? You're on mute Lenny's on let me see if she can answer that Yeah, so I remember there was a distinction when we did the improvement district I can't remember which direction it went On a per parcel Per parcel. Yes And does city owned land? Will we will we be included as a potential vote per parcel that we own? This is chris lynch from john's hall Maybe I can answer the question the protest is a is a based on landowners and residents that are over 18 uh, and the city owned parcels would be included if the landowner were to include Would if the city were don't all of the land to be included with the ifd otherwise the city's land does not count it um I want to see if we can promote lenny to a panelist so you can be here But lenny just fyi you'll be it seems like you'll be kicked off for a second, but you'll be brought back on so don't freak Okay, so lenny's coming back on. Sorry. Just wanted to get that Yeah, I'm specifically also wondering um just to kind of lay it out chris and Lenny when you get on uh, you know, we have the the smart station that's in there Uh, will the smart board have to make a decision about whether or not to join any potential protest vote? I'm just trying to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row before we leave the meeting Okay, well, so just to make sure it's clear the The third public hearing is where there's a protest vote Um, it determines whether there's a majority protest and that is based on a combined number of landowners and residents in the area who are at least 18 years of age Uh, and then landowners are defined in the statute to only include Uh, public agencies if they own all of the land within the ifd So any public agency who owns land in the cifd will not be considered a landowner for purposes of that protest Okay, cool. That's great to know And then uh, right you said can you walk through you did it at a very high level But can you walk through what the county's role in this process is? Yes, but let me let uh, Lenny was going to add to something. Oh, sorry. Go ahead Lenny I also just wanted to mention that um, the tax increment that would be to the um, public Properties and or um, institutional properties. We're not collecting any revenue because they're taxed obviously They're not they don't have a tax. So just wanted that to be clear Appreciate that. Okay. And then the county's role. So chris will probably be able to help me with this as well but um really um We want the county to participate because that's where they've got the bulk of the um of the property tax revenue, right? So um, their ability to uh, or their willingness to participate at whatever level They uh want to it would be critical to us if they don't participate Then um, there's a question as to whether or not uh, creating a district would be um, you know the value to us. Um, so uh Lenny you can hop in here too for me, but um, really that what the county does the first action the county will do That's in public is to review and approve the infrastructure finance plan. Um, They we will have to ask one of their at least one of their um, Board of Supervisors supervisors to participate on the public finance authority. Um, so they'll be able to weigh in on The process all the way through but the first action of the full board is the resolution that approves the infrastructure finance plan um The it doesn't mean to say that there's not going to be a lot of work done by the city manager's office and from elected to elected on um preparing the county to get to that place So that's the other place with the uh, that's the um The counties involved Did I miss anything Lenny? No, very well said And rice, I know that we started working on this. I think back in 2018 Can you just speak a little bit to the level of outreach or integration that we've done with? Uh, not just the the property owners in the district Uh, but also the our county partners Sure. Yeah, the um, you'll probably hear this today from some of the members who participated in the public advisory group. Um, and it's really um Members very active members from both the community benefit districts In row square and corpus square. So, um, they're one of the driving forces of this They're incredibly active and incredibly informed When it comes to the county, um, you know, we actually started talking about this in earnest when it was very new when the AFDs or or any tax increment finance was very new Back in 2017 or actually 2018 as a result of the fire. So, um, it was part and parcel to the development of the renewal enterprise district Uh, and our discussions with them. It was part of our discussions when we would make our trips up to the state To talk about fire recovery And, you know, the AFD. Yes, we've we've always looked at both Roslyn and downtown as the first districts and specifically downtown versus any other area because at the time We really wanted to promote broader cross section of housing opportunities And options within our city and we felt that that's where we could get the the most bang for a buck And at that time, uh, as you recall in the creation of the renewal enterprise district, we were in conversations like weekly with the county and including a number of council members and supervisors, um, so the discussions were early and somewhat frequent but the most formal were done in 2019 Uh, and 2020 early 2020 when myself, um, Michelle Whitman and uh, I think at the time David Geun met with every supervisor as well as the county assessor to discuss participation. Um, all of them were interested some more than others and I would say at that time uh, the the ones that had perhaps the most caution were supervisor Hopkins and Supervisor Rabbit. Um, and they said they were interested. They weren't sure at what level and were discussing a slightly lower level of participation than the other three supervisors. Um, in addition, former county administrator Cheryl, uh, I've already forgotten her last name So she, um, also was part of the conversations but it was more, um, a city manager to city manager I understand at this point that the new city of the new county administrator is less than familiar with it. Um, was not was not updated by Cheryl on it specifically. Uh, and, um, nor were the other county administration staff Okay I appreciate that. Um, let's go ahead go to if there are no other questions from my colleague All right, let's go ahead go to public comment if you're interested in providing comment go ahead hit the raise hand feature on your zoom I think it's also star nine if you're on phone Chair Rogers, I don't see any hands raised. Um, and there was also no email or voicemail received Oh That looks like we've got one I figured we'd have at least one Michelle Whitman, um, I sent you a prompt to unmute yourself. Can you please state your name for the record? Michelle Whitman with the renewal enterprise district and red housing fund. Thank you, Risa for um, outlining the renewal and enterprise districts participation in this effort is this, um, is something we're excited about and look forward to helping the city build support, um, particularly with the county administrator and the county supervisors I do I agree with Risa that it's going to take some elected to elected um relationship building as well as between the city manager assistant city manager and the new county administrator I have a lunch planned with the new county administrator on march 4th And I can promise you this will be a topic of conversation. Thank you All right, I don't see any other hand. So I'll go ahead bring it back to the board Risa just to make sure we're getting everything that we need out of this meeting for everything to move forward smoothly What type of direction would be helpful or comments would be helpful from council members? After you unmute No, rookie. Um, for us, it's really a matter of Solidifying the map. Um staff feels very comfortable with the map. I know council member of crock you couldn't really see it adequately We can pull it up. Um, but we're interested in Uh, releasing DTA to go full full bore on the um, on the ISP and the map is needed for that And then the other thing is if there are projects that you're interested in within the district if we could discuss that as well Okay, Keith. Do you want to start? Um, yeah, like I said, I think I can follow the map and I don't want to hold this up. I say come back with a clear map that uh, that's just Unnecessary. So, um, yeah, I'm good with the map. Um in terms of projects, I I don't have any specific that I'm Partial to or or jump in front of me, but other than that. Yeah, I'm giving you forward any Thank you, sir. Uh, same for me. I guess, uh, Molly The project will be the Mendocino corridor I would definitely like to see that happen from courthouse square to College Avenue. It's something that that excited me when I first seen it and uh, I would like to see that move forward, but definitely support I understand that that the rally is downtown center as it is the heart It is it is the life beat of every other economic sector of our city So downtown centers. It does well. I know that all other shopping centers and all of the corridors do just as good. Thank you All right, and I'm supportive as well Have been since 2018 and I really appreciate all of the work folks are doing to get this across the finish line to make sure we get the Resolution of intention and the public finance authority established in the time that we need to and I know Risa and Dariel I know you guys are working hard with the the mayor and the city manager to get everything scheduled appropriately so that We'll hit those deadlines Outside of that what I heard was continue to have conversations with members of the board of supervisors I have had a conversation with the chair About this to try to make sure that They're synced up as well to hit the timelines that we need and I know other council members if you could put in phone calls as well That would be great Lenny was there anything else you needed to get started on the IP then No, I think I sent you that email We'd like to get the assessor parcel numbers so we can do it cross-track and then just for the council members We will be putting together the boundary map, which will go together with the resolution of intention So it will be much clearer by the time we get to that point just for your information All right. Thank you. And then just one more thing. I want to thank everybody who's been participating the where we're square association the dao the red this really has been a number of Community groups that have been pushing this forward and so thank you for sticking with it It looks like we're on a good plan to get this across the finish line Well, that was very easy. Thank you very much You'll be hearing from us and we'll see I think at this point we'll have our next meeting is in march So we'll go back on our same every other month schedule unless we need special meetings otherwise Yeah, and please let us know if we need a special meeting to try to push anything And get things to move a little bit faster. I know everybody's really anxious to make sure we don't miss any of those deadlines and get this established You know, I can tell you that I think our internal team is We were together we were pushing it and I think we'll be fine Excellent. All right with that. We're going to go ahead and adjourn. I'll see you guys later today at the council meeting Thanks so much. Thanks everybody