[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Thank you. I'm going to do it. Thank you. I'm going to have to go. I'm going to do bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to you you you I'm you I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the brief delay. This is the City of, of every Hill City Council adjourned regular meeting and parking authority meeting today is June 27th. It's a little after 7pm and if we can start with the Pledge of Allegiance and if I can have Robbie Anderson please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. The United States of America. And to the development of the rich of stands, one nation under God, is invisible. We're going to be dangerous after the war. If we could have the clerk call the roll, please. Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor up right now. Council Member Korman. Here. Council Member Mirish. Here. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Here. Mayor Friedman. Here. Do we? Let me interrupt the roll call if I may and do one other thing if I can and then we'll go back to the role call. Tonight I'd like to take a few minutes to remember the life of a true Beverly Hills treasure. Phil Savinick, accomplished writer and producer and president of the Beverly Hills Historical Society passed away last week. Those of us who had the privilege of knowing Phil know that he truly loved Beverly Hills. He loved Beverly Hills. Every time I spoke with him, I learned something new about our city that I hadn't known before. He graduated from Beverly High in 1969 and attended UCLA graduating with a degree in cinema and television arts. During 35 years as a producer and documentarian. He received recognition with three Emmy nominations, including as co-producer of Donald Duck's 50th birthday and great moments in Disney Animation and for editing the 75th annual Academy Awards. The list of his acclaimed work and accomplishments is endless, but we should know that Phil produced the centennial documentary, the stars who saved our city, which focused on the campaign led by eight prominent Beverly Hills residents to keep our independence from Los Angeles. The outpouring of love from across the community has been tremendous over the last few days. Tonight we have Robbie Anderson with us to say a few words about his dear friend and we would like to hear from Robbie. Who is? Good evening, Council. Nice to see you. I'm going to kind of read through this right now. I'm Robbie Anderson, you guys know me. And I'm representing the Beverly Hills Historical Society. Robbie can just talk right now to the mic. Thank you. Okay. I'm Robbie Anderson, his board member of the Beverly Hills Historical Society and longtime friend of Phil Sabnick. I thank the council for inviting me here to speak tonight. It's a sad time for our city. We lost a valuable member of our community. So I'd like to take this time to acknowledge what an outstanding citizen Phil was. Phil comes from a family with a tradition of service to Beverly Hills. His dad Ben Norton was mayor during the 84 Olympics and his mom Rose Norton whose birthday a Saturday worked hard for Beverly Hills including the eight years on the planning commission. Rose asked me to thank everybody for the flowers that she has received but she needs no more flowers. She asked me to use something to your charity and put it in Phil's name. Phil and I bonded over when the 100th anniversary was coming around in 2014. I had my books and he had movies and the 250 people that he interviewed that's gonna be on file with the city forever. And we've worked together to help people understand the Beverly Hills is the most famous small town in the world. Sorry. Underfills leadership, the Beverly Hills Historical Society made huge strides in our mission to preserve honor and share the rich history of Beverly Hills in its residents. Along the way we've amassed an archive of tens of thousands of historic photos, recordings and documents which are available to all of you. Phil and I shared the belief that the archive only has value if it can be easily accessed by anyone anywhere. That's why we created our website. We also created an award-winning mobile app, the Beverly Hills experience, and if you haven't gone there, please do. It was Phil Iced you to put our history in the park with the QR codes that you see around the fountain and up at the Wil Rogers Park. He was an amazing storyteller. I mean, you've all got stories of experiences with Phil, I'm sure. Pointing out this and that and he was a great guy. Phil was an amazing storyteller. His tours were legendary and Phil spearheaded the celebration of the 100th anniversary of his independence, but with screening as a gray stone, the stars who saved Beverly Hills. Phil dared to dream, Bick, and we made many of his dreams a reality, but we're not done, not by a long shot. I'd like to introduce the Historical Society's Executive Director, Kevin Miller, who will be running the day-to-day operation of the Beverly Hills Historical Society. We are not going anywhere. We've got things planned for the Olympics and for the World Cup. And we've shared with you previously some of our ideas for reception for the housing for the, I'll send them to you. And here's the best part. Everything we do is for fun and for free and for Phil. Thank you for listening. Applause We extend our deepest condolences to Phil's mother, Rose Norton, to his life partner, Suzanne Hurtfelder, who is with us here tonight, and to all his friends and family. Please join us in a moment of silence as we honor the life and legacy of Phil Savinick. Thank you. If we can go back for the roll call and start the roll call again. Councillor Member Wells. She's logging in as we speak. Okay. Councillor Member Corman. Here. Councillor Member Mirosh. Here. Vice Mayor Zarian. Still here. Mayor Friedman. Here. Should I start with... With me. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Okay and now for parking authority, Director Wells. Here. Director Korman. Here. Director Mirish. Here. Vice Chair Nazarian. Here. And Chair Friedman. Here. Okay if I could have my colleagues meet me down below and we have a couple presentations. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay, so I am very pleased to acknowledge two of our new city commissioners and would like to ask us all to welcome them if they would both come up. Our commissioners are Tara Riceberg and Benjamin Ritterbush. Okay. Thank you, thank you. So our commissioners pay plays such a critically important role in our city government. So I want to thank you both for committing your time and experience to the city of Beverly Hills and if we just get a couple comments from you start with you. I just want to thank you for this it is such an honor to be a part of a commission in Beverly Hills. It is the small city with a big heart and it is a pleasure to work with community services and really just step up to say I love this city and anything I can do to help make it better. I'm here to do it. So thank you. It's a real big. And if I may, can I just say Ditto? It's an honor and privilege to accept us and work with the city. It's fantastic. I enjoy every moment of working with public works and Sean on the back there. And I continue to show up and help make an improvement. Improvements. Very good, thank you. So we're going to take a photo. I'm going to take the certificates back from you because we're going to have them signed by our city clerk once she comes back. So would. But they'll do in the picture. Yes. Okay, I think that's it. Look back. Okay. So, uh, TextBH, text messages on any city-related topic may be sent to 310-596-4265. City staff will acknowledge receipt of the text message within one business day, however, resolution of issues may take longer. If you would like to receive updated text alerts from the Beverly Hills Police Department, please text BHPD alert to 888-777. Next, BHPD Alert to 888-777. Text alerts will keep you informed of any police activity within the city. We'll now go to oral communications. The telephone call in number is 310-288-2288. three one oh two eight eight two two eight eight and we will take any slips on any non-agendas. We do not. Okay. So we will then would read item D1. Thank you. I move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows item D1 approval of lease modification agreement 10th amendment of lease with Margaret Kavorkian DBA Beverly cleaners at 309 North Cresson Drive second and We could have the role Director Wells Director Korman yes director Mirish vice chair and Nazarian yes chair of freedom the Director Wells Director Korman yes director Mirish vice chair Nazarian yes chair Friedman yes And we'll now move to item e And I have been requested by staff to pull item number four, which will be rescheduled to a new date. And I have a comment on number E6. Do we have any other comment cards on any consent items? We do not. Okay. So why don't we hear the comment on E6 and then we'll read the rest of the consent calendar. If I could have Verena, Blyle and Myra Lurie. Good evening. I'm here to just express deep gratitude for the consideration of renewed partnership funding through the Community Assistance Grant Fund to Maple Counseling Center. And just wanted to personally stand before you, on behalf of 300,000 people, Maple Counseling has supported it all due to the City of Beverly Hills. We were founded when concerned parents and Beverly Hills wanted to tackle mental health issues of adolescents and it was considered to be a commission and then became an own nonprofit that's thriving to this day and we're just so honored and in deep gratitude for the ability to service the constituents of the City of Beverly Hills. And recognizing that mental health services continue to be incredibly vital and that you have recognized that for your constituents. Now I give it to Myra. Hi, I'm Myra Lurie Vice Chair of the Board of Maple Counseling and I too wanted to thank you very much for this partnership and for the generous grant that is going to be well spent and critically needed to provide affordable or free comprehensive quality mental health care for people of all ages and stages. And this grant exemplifies the dedication to mental health and general wellness for all of our community members that is part of Beverly Hills and so much a core value of our city. So we do want to thank you so much. Thank you and thank you for wearing this hat today. Tomorrow you're going to be wearing a different hat. There are so many hats that you wear in our community. So thank you, Myra and thank you for all the be wearing a different hat. There are so many hats that you wear in our community. So thank you, Myra, and thank you All the work that you do too. Thank you Okay, so there being no minutes to read we can go through this. I'm gonna ask Councilmember Miroshy if you can read the entire Consent agenda study with number one, skipping number four, and all the way through nine. Okay. I move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows. One, review of budgeted demands paid covering dates June 11, 2024 to June 17, 2024. Two payroll disbursement report covering dates June 11, 2024 to June 17, 2024. Ordinance of the City of Beverly Hills, three adopting and amending the state mid-cycle updates to the 22 California Green Building Standards Code. And amending title nine of the Beverly Hills Municipal Code and approving a CEQA exemption determination, second reading for adoption. Approval of five cultural heritage commission appointments, Lori Green Gordon, Andy Lickt, and Alan Robert Block. Six recommendations of the City Council lia's on Human Relations Commission Committee for allocation of community assistance grants funding, CAGF for fiscal year 2024-2025, and authorization for the city manager to execute all 23 fiscal year 2024-2025 CAGF agreements in an amount not to exceed $1,113,500, and authorization for the city manager to execute five fiscal year 2024, 2025, critical service provider agreements in a total amount not to exceed $1,292,644, and authorization for the city manager to approve all purchase orders for the foregoing agreements. Seven, recommendation to continue safety and hospitality services to the residents and visitors of Beverly Hills. Authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with BBA, B-CA, Inc, DBA, blocked by block California for safety and hospitality and basseter services in the not to exceed amount of $1,185,249. For the first nine months of fiscal year 2024-2025, and approval of purchase order in the amount of $1,185,249 for fiscal year 2024-2025 for BVB-CA-A-NK, DBA Block-by-Block California, and request for the mayor to establish a City Council ad hoc committee to review and provide direction on the scope of work for the Beverly Hills Ambassador Program. Eight, authorize the litigation committee to make insurance procurement recommendations and authorize the city manager to bind insurance coverage in the not-to-excitement of $15,250,000 and authorize a purchase order to alliant insurance services for the insurance premiums and broker fees for fiscal year 2024 2025 and the not to exceed amount of $15,250,000 Nine acceptance of the contract work for Robertson Boulevard sidewalk improvements project by environmental construction Inc in the final amount of $4,802,675 and in the final amount of $4,802,675 and 17 cents, an authorization of City Clerk to record notice of completion. Second. And if we have the rule. Council Member Wells. Yeah. Council Member Korman. Yes. Council Member Mirish. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. Mayor Friedman. Yes. Yes vice mayor Nazarian yes mayor Friedman yes Okay going on to item number f1 amendment of an existing covenant to remove the Medical use prohibition in the existing commercial building located at 9150 Wilshire Boulevard may we have an oral report on this matter from the assistant director of community development city planner, Massaukear. Good afternoon, Council and Honorable Mayor Freeman. This is a very quick staff report. It's a simple procedural issue. So the property owners submitted a request to modify an existing covenant to remove a prohibition on medical uses in a commercial building. We were preparing for a hearing. The city mailed the noticing taking care of our part of the process. The applicant was required to post on site to meet the municipal code noticing requirements by June 7th. The site was not posted. Staff went out and verified and the site was not posted. So the recommendation is to continue the project to date uncertain. We can go take care of the noticing. We need to collect additional fees from the applicant in order to send the mailing out again. And we can reschedule this for a future council meeting. Thank you. Thank you. So is there anyone in the council chambers who would like to be heard on this matter? I don't have any speaker slips yet. Doesn't look like I'm getting anything telephonically, electronically. I do not have anyone on Zoom nor written. Are there any City Council questions of staff? Seeing none. Any comments from any members of the Council? Seeing none, at the request of staff and absent objection, the subject 9151-Wilscher-Bullvard project is continued by order of the mayor to a date uncertain. Staff will re-notice the project in accordance with city requirements for a future hearing date. Going on to item number F2. An appeal of staffs October 13, 2023, incomplete application determination, pursuant to California Government Code Section 65943C, pertaining to the review of an application for a proposed 19 story residential and commercial mixed use building at 125 to 129 South Linden Drive and a resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills denying an appeal of staffs October 13, 2023 in complete application determination and upholding the city's incomplete application determination finding the action exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. the city clerk once she gets back to her seat. What is this the time and place for it. This is a time and place set for a public hearing to consider an appeal of staff's October 13, 2023 in complete application determination pursuant to California Government Code Section 65943c pertaining to the review of an application for a proposed 19 story residential and commercial mixed use building at 125-129 Southland in drive and a Resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills denying of an appeal of staffs October 13, 2023 incomplete application October 13, 2023, incomplete application, determination, and upholding the city's incomplete application determination, finding the action exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. But the records show that the notice of this hearing was published as required by law. The records and files of the community development department and the report of the Assistant Director of Community Development, slash city planner, concerning this matter, and the report of the assistant director of community development slash city planner concerning this matter, shall be entered into the record. Now is also the time for council members to enter into the record, any communications or other evidence, not currently in the record, that council members have received before this evening's hearing. So we'll start with council member Wells. So we'll start with Council Member Wells. I have none to report. Council Member Corbyn. I've had no communications about this matter than with members of staff. Council Member Mirish. Nothing to report. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Also nothing to report. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Also nothing to report. And I have nothing to report. May we have an oral report on this matter from the Assistant Director of Community Development City Planner. Thank you. So this is an appeal of an incomplete application determination and incomplete letter completed by city staff So why are we here? The government code provides a provision that states that a public agency shall provide a process for the applicant to appeal a applicant to appeal a incomplete determination in writing to the governing body of the agency. In the case of Beverly Hills, we do provide that process. It is BHMC Title I, Chapter 4, appeal and review procedures and specifically appeal of administrative decisions to council. So that incomplete letter is an administrative decision and it's getting administrative decisions to council. So that incomplete letter is an administrative decision and it's getting appealed to council. So as background on this particular project in October of 2022, a preliminary application was filed by a law firm on behalf of 9300 Wilshire, that preliminary application identified a project with 170-foot height, 200 dwelling units, and subterranean parking. So it was a residential project. A preliminary application was filed to vest the rights of the project to be processed pursuant to the rules in effect when the PA was submitted. And this is something that's in a state rule, the Housing Accountability Act. It is preliminary application is a method to lock in certain rules. And you need to submit your formal project within 180 days of that preliminary application. So the applicant did submit a formal application called a development plan review in April of 2023. That project was 200 feet tall, had 165 dwelling units, and now a hotel has been added as well as a restaurant. So staff completed a review of that formal application in May. In September, the applicant responded to those comments and resubmitted their application. And within a month, staff reviewed that resubmital and deemed the project incomplete again. So about a month after that, an appeal of that October level letter was submitted. Subsequent to that, the applicant kept working on their project and submitted another version of the project in January. And actually after that, they submitted the appeal fees for that appeal of the second letter. So staff continued to work on the project and in February completed their review and deemed the project incomplete again. And then the applicant submitted a fourth time and staff completed that review. And throughout this process the amount of incomplete items was reduced. So what is Builders Remedy? It is certain provisions in the Housing Accountability Act that must be made in order for a local agency to disprove a qualifying housing development project. So in certain circumstances, the Builders Remedy provisions may limit a local agency's authority to disprove a project if it has affordable units, even if that project is inconsistent with the general planning zoning regulations. So it is a provision in state law that allows for folks to apply for certain types of projects. So in their appeal provision, their appeal petition, the applicant lists the following rationals for their appeal. Their first rationale is the project maintains vested rights pursuant to the Housing Crisis Act. And the second is the Builders Remedy Provision of the Housing Accountability Act applies to the project. So running in detail through the items in their appeal petition, the applicant asserts that the project maintains vested rights pursuant to the Housing Crisis Act. They say that the preliminary application that was submitted in October remains valid, despite the DPR project being different than the PA project. Just to reiterate, the PA project was a multi-family project. The DPR project is a mixed use project that includes a hotel. So the applicant asserts that the DPR project does not exceed the 20% threshold in change in units or floraia from the PA project that would invalidate the PA. And the applicant asserts that they are entitled to unlimited 90 day periods in which to address incomplete items for each of the city's 30 day review periods. So this is the applicant's assertions. From staff's perspective, the project does not maintain the vested rights pursuant to the Housing Crisis Act. It is a different project. The PA was a different project than the one the DPR project that was submitted within 180 days with substantially different uses. There is a preliminary application requirement that the proposed land uses by number of units in square feet using the categories in the applicable zoning ordinance be provided. The PA did not include commercial uses. It was only a multifamily. Hotel and restaurant uses were not contemplated in the PA. So from staff's perspective, the PA allows for a 20% adjustment in the number of units, but nothing in state law allows for the introduction of new land uses in a formal application that were not identified in a PA. So the applicant had the option of submitting a new PA for the mixed use project prior to the City Council of the adoption of the housing element, which occurred in March of this year. And they could have submitted prior to the state certification of the housing element, which occurred in May, to remedy to the issue. But the applicant did not submit a new PA prior to either one of those states. So secondly, the timely submittal of information. From staff's perspective, the PA has expired and have no further effect because the formal project was not complete within a 90-day period that's called out in state law. So this is a government code section that identifies that 90-day period and it identifies it as the 90 day period. This is a 90 day period that provides you an opportunity to respond to the city's comments. State law does not provide an unlimited, unlimited 90 day review periods after each incomplete determination. So secondly, the Builders Remedy provisions of the Housing Accountability Act applied to the project. So from the applicant's perspective, the city has requested the applicant to file a general plan amendment, a zone change, and zone text amendment to address the project's inconsistency with the various zoning and general plan provisions. So the applicant asserts that they're not required pursuant to the Housing Accountability Act to address the outstanding zoning and land use issues. From the city's perspective, nothing in the HAA limits the city's ability to request for the applicant to file a general plan amendment, zone text amendment, and zone change application to cure inconsistency with inland use by the proposed project. So HCD, and that was the perspective of staff when we made the comments in October. And actually there was a letter to Compton that be affirms that that was a good perspective to have. In that letter, the question to HCD was, does the HAA prevent a city from requiring that a project application include a request to amend the general plan zoning code in order to avoid illegal non-conformity if when the project is approved. The short answer by HCD was no provision in the HAA prevents a local government from requesting a general plan zoning code amendment in order to avoid illegal non-conformity. This is not saying that you can't apply for this based on the Builders Remedy. This is just saying that we can ask for an application. So interestingly enough, like yesterday, HCD wrote a new letter and they addressed it to Beverly Hills and they said, a jurisdiction that refuses to process or approve a project subject to the builder's remedy due to the applicant's refusal to submit a general plan zone change requested or required by a jurisdiction to resolve such an inconsistency violates the intent of the HAA. So this is a different perspective than the Compton letter. So in October, I think that from the staff's perspective, I mean it seems to be fair to be asking for the general plan amendment and Zone Text Amendment, so that we could resolve any inconsistencies, analyze it, and protect the do right process of neighbors. So state law, this is regarding the appeal petition filing. State law requires that public agencies provide a process by which an applicant can appeal the city's determination That an application is incomplete. So as I said earlier in this presentation The government code section says the public agency shall provide a process for the applicant to appeal that decision and writing On to the governing body of the agency So we do have that And title one chapter four article one of the agency. So we do have that. And Title 1, Chapter 4, Article 1, requires that appeal petitions be filed within 14 calendar days after the decision. So this appeal petition was filed in November 31 days after the incomplete determination. And actually the applicant didn't pay their fees until 90 days after the incomplete determination. So I mean this section of the code, you've had other items come before council that where people have paid their required fees, have filed their appeal within 14 days, of decisions that are not decisions of the planning commission or the architectural commission or staff decisions and they've been agendized in the past. And in fact the city council also follows Title 1 chapter 4 on a regular basis when you call up items and the council is always called up those items within 30 days. So after the appeal filing, the applicant continue to submit for additional rounds of reviews that occurred in January and May. And in those subsequent reviews by city staff, we found that additional items were completed by the applicant and we submitted and we issued in complete determinations in February and June of this year. So staff recommends that Council hold the public hearing to consider the appeal of staff's October determination that the application for the proposed mixed use development at Linden is incomplete and adopt a resolution that's attached. Thank you. Thank you very much and I will now open the public hearing on this matter. I have some speaker slips and we'll go in the order they were given to me. First speaker is the and we'll go in the order they were given to me. First speaker is Ken Goldman. And we're going to limit the speaking time to the three minutes. But if you can finish up sooner than that, it's appreciated. There are a number of speaker cards, and I believe there's some electronic also and telephone it, but you do have to make a few seconds over but my generous wife Has agreed to provide that extra seconds from her time allotted That's if we get it done. Thank you mayor. Thank you council members. Good evening I'm here representing the Southwest Beverly Hills Homeowners Association approximately 440 homes in the Southwest corner of our city where this project is located. Why are we here and why do we feel so strongly opposed to the developer's greedy plans for 19 stories 200 high, 165 dwelling units, plus 73 hotel rooms and a restaurant. Because none of the developers greedy plans for 200 feet in height conform to the city's 55 foot height limit. Because none of the developers greedy plans for only 127 parking spaces meet the city's requirements for 529 parking spaces for this project including the fact that the developer has provided zero, zero replacement parking for the office building adjacent to this project. Because none of the developer's greedy plans comply with the city's density requirements for this parcel, which would limit the number of dwelling units to 25, not 165 plus a hotel. And this proposed out-of-scale, non-compliant over development of 19 stories would be next to a two-story apartment building. With other buildings on the street, two, three, and four stories, an elementary school, and dozens of one-and-two-story single-family residences on the two and 300 blocks. This developer's application is incomplete as you have heard so eloquently from staff. It's May 9th, 2024 application does not contain all of the information required and requested. Right here, I was gonna quote the letter from the State Department of Housing and Community Development to the City of Compton, but staff has read it. I don't think you need to hear it twice, but it confirms the fact that the City is allowed to request additional information. And think of the environmental effects, including the substantial increase in traffic on Lyndon, Charlieville, and adjacent streets, already heavily trafficked. And the streets overwhelmed with the effect of the proposed underparking, which is massively underparked. This project is deeply flawed and will materially adversely affect the quality of residential life for the hundreds of residents living on the one, two, and 300 block of Lyndon. The students at Good Shepherd and the adjacent streets. All of us urge that you remain firm in the position that this developer's application is incomplete, does not qualify for builder's remedy, and must return with a plan that complies with our cities, general plan and zoning requirements. We are counting on you. And I want at the end to thank Edgar Royo and the planning staff and the planning department of this city for their thorough, meticulous and persuasive work in responding to this developer's outrageous proposal and the dozens of submissions and studies that the developer presented. Thank you and once again we're counting on you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I should have said this before, this speaking time is really for people who do, who cannot wait till later on and are given an opportunity to speak now. So I'm going to ask, I made the assumption can on your behalf that you wanted to do that early, but any other speakers who would like to speak early because they need to leave. Seeing none others? Oh, we do. Okay, please come forward. and if you can please state your name. Manová and I reside at 141 South London Drive, Unit 301, 90212. Yes, and hi. When I first heard of this building to be built in our little beautiful, peaceful community, I was absolutely shocked and just flabbergasted. We already, like a 19 story building on 125 to 129 Lyndon dry. Wow. Like I said, I resided in 141 blah, blah, blah. And I'm starting to feel like an aunt in our community. It feels like the walls are caving in and we have no word. And you know, just a little off note. Some people say this will bring up the property values of our units. I disagree. I think this whole project will actually bring down the property values because nobody wants to live in a chaotic, very a hectic place. They want a peaceful place to live and raise their children and all of that, especially in Beverly Hills. Now this building has 165 rental units and 73 hotel rooms and only 126 parking places. How do you think that will impact Lyndon Drive? We barely have enough permit parking available right now. I cannot imagine having any less because of this influx of all these people that would be in this new building. So much traffic is already on our street with the school drop-offs, pickups, and all the residential permit parking. I can barely get out of my parking garage as there are so many cars coming from left and right in each direction, it's an accident waiting to happen. And really, the four corners of Wilshire and Lyndon are crazy with traffic and congestion already. People are doing illegal turns all the time and endangering, how do you say, pedestrian, pedestrians. and endangering, how do you say, pedestrian, pedestrians? I cannot imagine any more noise of all this hustle and bustle of a hotel in all the extra car pollution, all the extra trash created in the alleys for pickup from hotel restaurants and the residents. There is no room right now. We don't need any more new transients in the neighborhood, especially with the school on the street. Crime is increasing, and we don't need more potential crime in the neighborhood. The school in itself is very loud enough, but I've come to live with it over the years, but still very loud. Anyway, I would greatly appreciate your empathy regarding our greatest concerns regarding this project. This would be a nightmare for Linda Drive. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any of these? This hotel belongs downtown or Marvista or where? Century City. Century City. Those are zone for all these things. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any other members of the public who need or want to leave early and provide public comment? Sir, come on and please provide your name. Hi, my name is Stuart Kaplan. I live in the 200 block of South London. I also work in the Mickey Fine Pharmacy Building on 435 North Rocksbury. 165 apartments, 73 hotel rooms, a hotel, I mean, at least one car, a parental apartment, probably two cars. That's almost at 1.5 cars per unit, that's almost 250 cars. The hotel, assuming only half the people need cars, that's 37 cars, the employees that are needed, that's probably another 100 cars, you're looking at 400 cars. I stop by, I walk to work. Why do I walk to work, by the way? I can't get out of my freaking parking, way in the morning. My wife, my kids have to go to school. Sometimes it could take them literally a minute, two minutes, just to wait for the traffic to stop. Charlieville is backed up two blocks going east west. North again, Lyndon is completely backed up because it's a cut-through street that has a light that allows you to turn right and left. So more people come up Lyndon that are gonna come up other streets which only allow you to turn one direction right. I stop by the parking lot that this will replace. These are the pictures you welcome to look at it by 8 o'clock, 8.15 this morning, every single spot was full. Not only was every spot full, but every pathway to every spot was full. And cars were waiting to go in. They were already 97 cars, I counted them, in the parking lot already. Where are these cars going to go? Well, where are they coming from? There's not enough parking in the medical area north of Wilshire. The Bedford Lot, the two hour free parking is always full. We've already lost parking spaces due to loading zones, drop off zones and restaurants. So where are people parking? The people that can't even park in the medical building are now parking in the lots there. You're gonna have 400 cars. You're only gonna have, what was it? 120 something spots. Where are the other 300 people gonna go? And where are the 100 people that are already parking in this spot, and that doesn't even include the cars that go in and out, which probably accounts for probably another 100 to 150 cars. We have already a quality of life that's adversely affected because of all the drop-offs, et cetera. I understand that people want work, people want to build, but we are permanent residents here where tax paying, property tax, paying residents, and our quality of life will be adversely affected forever. Okay, well, that's basically it. It's going to really be a terrible thing. I understand the cars that are there, but we're not even replacing the parking lot. That's going to be completely gone. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other speakers who would like to provide early comments? Sir, come on up. My name is Edward DeBiroins. I'm from 141 South London, Union 305. A couple of years ago, my wife and I bought this condominium unit in a beautiful plain area of Beverly Hills close to Rodeo Drive, close to downtown, yet very peaceful, single two-story homes, five-story max apartment buildings, condominium buildings, and all of a sudden we see this little sign that we didn't pay attention too much until my daughter pointed out, my daughter was a lawyer, says, have you seen this? And then we're looking at it and I'm like, what 19 floors? Show me a single building in Beverly Hills, 19 floors. At least one that I can see a mile away and started, you know, talking to Edgar, who was very kind to explain. Basically, like everybody said before me, 165 residential units, the general one before me said, you gotta figure about one and a half parking stalls per unit, that's right there, 250 parking stalls. 73 hotel rooms, that's let's say, half of that another 3540 Park installs then retail spaces including restaurants restaurants require the highest I believe is One parking stall for every 15 square feet of dining room plus the employees so to for this project to only have 125 parking spaces is ridiculous. I mean, we're going to create a situation that it's just and tolerable. So anyways, that to us is one of the worst problems. We also, I'm an architect as well, so we pay attention to things. This building is sitting immediately next to a seismic fault and the plants show that there's an area, the builder, it's not allowed to build. So what they did, they increased the dimension of the upper floors to increased density. So the upper floors are wider than the lower floors. So basically you have cantilever floors. So that creates kind of like the feeling of living next to an inverted pyramid. Very scary. And then the other basically going back to 19 stories, totally disproportionate for an area, The other basically going back to 19 stories, totally disproportionate for an area, a city that we all love, the small town feel of houses that are two stories. Like I said, maximum of five story, 55 feet high buildings. Also I'm gonna have this monstrous tower that's basically is gonna take all our privacy away. They're gonna be able to look into our backyards and balconies and basically we're gonna have zero privacy. So we urge you to please deny this project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker I have who needs to speak early is Gail Schreiber. I'll get him out. Hello, I want to thank the City Council and the Planning Department for their efforts to protect the quality of life we enjoy in the 100 block of South London Drive. quality of life we enjoy in the 100 block of South London drive. There's a group of homeowners and residents in the 100 block who are united against this 19th story monstrosity and we've some of us have come tonight to represent that there's a community of people that may not be here tonight but there's a community that is very upset about this. Many could not be here in person due to previously planned vacations. Others are older and not savvy on a computer, so have not sent in emails and aren't familiar with Zoom to participate tonight. Everyone is extremely upset about this proposal and the impact it would have on our residential neighborhood. We join everyone who was spoken tonight in their comments about the traffic and the safety for the children coming and going to elementary school across the street and to their church a few blocks away. South Lyndon is a narrow street and has cars and delivery trucks and repair vehicles parked all day long. When exiting the driveway in front of our building currently our vision is blocked by the parked vehicles on both sides. It cannot support the large impact of additional traffic and no available parking. Again, we sincerely thank the City Council for their efforts to stop this project. Thank you. Thank you. Another early speaker in the very back there. Good afternoon, Council. My name is Jacob Cohen. I own the property at 133 through 135 South London Drive. I appreciate everyone's comment here. I think everyone is talking about the height, the density, which are clear. Anyone knows that a project of this magnitude doesn't belong in that neighborhood. But I want to reiterate to everyone here that there's a policy here. You have guidelines, you have dates that things need to be requested, submitted, and responded to. The applicant has not done that. So I think it makes it very clear what your decision should be. One more thing to keep in mind is we renovated next door, we made it beautiful, we kept it, we kept with the context of the city. I don't think some of the neighbors appreciated the renovation going on. We did our best to get it done as quickly as possible and I hope they appreciate the outcome of what it looks like now. And they'll have new neighbors soon, not 173 new neighbors. Another thing to keep in mind is just to put some context behind this developer or whoever it is that's planning this project is they did not abate the weeds on that property. They've done half of it. Why have they done half of it so they can pack it with cars for parking? I don't know why they're parking in an empty lot. So that should tell you a little story about intentions and where this developer is coming from. So yes, should they be building on an active earthquake fault? 19 stories? No. Should they be building a 19 story project next to two story and three story complexes? No. Anyways, I'll let everyone speak about what they feel about the project, but I don't care what's on paper with the project because what they've submitted is not complete and they missed their appeal period. So it's very clear cut. Thank you for your time, everyone. Sorry I have to run, and sorry I haven't been more active in this. Thank you for your time. Thank you, thank you for being here. I have one more really speaker, card if anybody else. I will ask at the, well, if there's one person right there, please come up. And state your name and name only. Thank you, Laura. and state your name and name only. My name is Christine Gargoye. I live at 201 South Linden Drive. I live at the corner of Linden and Charlieville. My parking garage opens into Charlieville. Not only do we have Good Shepherd School where there's traffic drop-offs pickups, we've got Beverly Hills High School and we have Century City Park driving east on, I'm sorry, west on Charlieville. Some mornings it takes me two, three minutes to get out of my parking garage, and it's bumper to bumper, and people are not cooperative or kind, and they don't let you in. The other point I wanted to make was about Lyndon Drive. Not only is that street narrow, where then most of the streets in that district, but when I drive on Wilshire Boulevard going east and turn right on Lyndon Drive, that right angle is much larger than any other right angle of any street. So that makes it much more difficult to get on to Lyndon Drive than from Wilshire Boulevard. That has to be a consideration when thinking about approving this project. Also my friend Stuart who gave his report, he's a doctor in Beverly Hills. He says his patients complain all the time they can't find parking. And we were already heard how difficult it is to find parking in that area and how people often will park in a no parking zone and hopefully they don't get a ticket. And obviously that happens quite a bit. So there are so many issues with this that they had planned a hotel on the opposite side of the street just north of the school and that was stopped. This has got to be another hotel and unit building that needs to be stopped and I hope you do that. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next and so far the last early speaker is Anna Bach. Good evening. I hadn't planned to speak, but as the other speakers spoke, I thought maybe it would be helpful if I just added one thing. Most of the people that have spoken are either from the 100 block or the 200 block of Lyndon. I'm from the 300 block, and that's the furthest south before you get to Olympic. But I wanted to say that I have spoken to a number of my neighbors on our block across the street for me and next to me. And all of us are as concerned as the people that are going to be closer to this building if you were to approve it. We don't have the level of problems that some of these people are describing, but we do already on the 300 block have the same parking issues that are being described already. This is without anything else going up. It's difficult for us to get out of our driveway, especially if there's a later afternoon traffic that's coming from Olympic. It turns north. It goes up towards Wilshire because that's the only traffic signal that allows a left turn onto Wilshire. So it's just like an army parade of cars coming up the street for about a couple of hours until it dies down again. And I will tell you, they're not going slow if they can move. There's a lot of cars that can't move fast, but it's not safe, it's bad. And I'm not going to go on anymore and be repetitive, but the other concern that some of my neighbors have voiced to me is the fact that they're worried that if a building of this size goes up on Walshure and Lyndon, that it's just going to lead going to be the first step in other builders trying to build huge buildings. And it will just destroy the neighborhood that's north, I'm sorry, south of Walshure. And we're very, very concerned. Thank you. Ms. Bach, I have to ask this question. Please excuse me for doing it. That's OK. Ms. Bach, do you live on the same block as the blocks? As the what? As the blocks? No, that's OK. It was this. Oh, I'm on the 300 blocks. OK. OK. They do. They live there too. Okay, that was the last early speaker I had. So I am now going to ask the applicant or their representative if they'd like to be heard on this matter. Welcome sir. Good evening Mr. Mayor and Council members. May I have 10 minutes to present our appeal justification? That'll be fine, sure. Thank you sir. Appreciate that. Good evening. My name is Dave Rand. I am a land use attorney. My firm at Rand pastor in Nelson represents the applicant. We are here tonight, council members, because we have been working in good faith for over a year now, attempting to advance this land use application and cross the very first hurdle in what is typically a very long process, which is the completeness stage. And we believe at this point that the incompleteness determination violates a number of state housing laws and should be allowed to proceed. We are not here about the merits of the project, parking, height, density. Those are all things that can be discussed and vetted later in the process. Tonight is just literally about process. Yesterday, the State Housing and Community Development Department sent the City of Beverly Hills a letter indicating that they agree with our position. And the City's refusal to deem this application complete and allow this project to advance, violates both the State Housing Accountability Act and the State Permanent Stream Lining Act. I wanna say that I have a tremendous degree of respect for your planning department staff and your city attorney's office. However, we fundamentally disagree with the positions outlined in the staff report and communicated to you tonight, starting with the positions outlined in the staff report and communicated to you tonight. Starting with the fact that this appeal that we're here tonight discussing the merits of was somehow filed untimely. The provision that Mr. Alkyer mentioned to cite for untimeliness, Beverly Hills Municipal Code Section 1-4-101, is clear and express that it does not apply to ministerial decisions. The determination of whether a land use application is complete or not is the ultimate ministerial determination. That code provision also says that is only relevant for actions governed under the Beverly Hills municipal code. The appeal we were here discussing tonight is a specific appeal right offered under state law under the State Permit Streamlining Act. That provision, citing a 14-day appeal period, has no applicability to this appeal tonight whatsoever, which is why we are here and why the fact that this appeal has been in process for over six months. If appeals are untimely, they are not accepted by cities. They are rejected or if they are accepted, they are rejected shortly thereafter. This appeal was filed. Appeal fees paid and accepted. We have written communications indicating the appeal would be processed. This council continued the appeal hearing not once but twice, and here we are discussing the item on the merits. In no possible way could the arc of that process result in a appeal that could be considered filed untimely. We also firmly believe that we have completed all of the required items, legally, that we are compelled to submit to the city in order to be deemed complete. The four outstanding, so-called outstanding items identified in the staff report are all items that we have provided in terms of information, or items in which we believe the staff has conflated code compliance, which is not required for a Builders Remedy project, with information that can be requested at the complete stage. Or items that have been requested as supplemental items after the first and complete letter, which is also prohibited under the Permit Streamlining Act. But the real reason we are here and the real reason we availed ourselves of this state law appeal right is not because we wanted to, but because it is obvious, Council, that there is a large, canyan-wide gulf of difference between us on some key fundamental legal points. One, that this is a Builders Remedy project, that the city had an on-compliant housing element when we filed our vesting SB 330 preliminary application. In this city, not only did HCD repeatedly confirm that when we filed our preliminary application, the city's housing element was out of compliance, but uniquely a court of law has confirmed that. As you know, judgekin's decision was issued after our preliminary application was filed and that decision made expressly clear that prior to the city was out of compliance. And the consequences Judge Ken noted is the ability to file applications that are inconsistent with the general plan and or zoning and still be governed by the limited discretion offered under the State Housing Accountability Act. Yes, this project changed and morphed. A hotel component was added. However, the law is clear as HCD's letter alluded to yesterday, that a change in land use does not render a preliminary application void. As HCD said, there are only two reasons why a preliminary application could be avoided due to project changes. Those are outlined in government code section 65941.1c, a change in unit count or square footage by 20% or more. Staff has confirmed through our repeated correspondence that neither of those two change thresholds have been breached. Accordingly, this vesting application is still alive. When the legislature adopted the law that created the preliminary application, it acknowledged that it was preliminary. It was early in the process. Changes to projects were inevitable. That's what always happens, whether it's new land uses, whether it's changes in height. And that's why a flexible mechanism was set up to only allow two red lines that can't be breached, neither of which has been exceeded in this case and as a result, notwithstanding the changes our application is still very much alive. Staff has taken the position, which I must admit, I have not seen in any other city, that the Permit Streamlining Act and the HAA allow an applicant only a one-time 90-day shot clock to complete all of the myriad of items that are requested from a city, by a city to an applicant. The law that ushered in the 90-day timeframe is called the Housing Crisis Act of 2019. It is simply illogical to assume that a law that was done for the primary purpose of spurring housing production and making it easier to process housing projects would have set up such a disadvantageous processing system for housing projects. The 90 days fits within the construct of the Permit Streamlion Act, which as HCD has noted in several memorandum is an iterative process. It repeats itself. And that is what has occurred here. And through that process, as Mr. Alkairn noted, we have managed to check off a number of the items on the list. But we still agree, disagree about some fundamental items. One of which is that a general plan and manner zone change may be requested by the city and used as a basis for disapproval or deeming the application incomplete. Yesterday's HCD letter made expressly clear that neither can be the case. In fact, they went so far as to say to deny the application of a Builders Remedy project like this. In fact, actually this project for the applicant's failure to submit a general plan and its own change application would lead to a quote, absurd outcome end quote. They went on to say that deeming the application incomplete for the reasons of a lack of a general plan of amendment zone change application also violates the Permit Stream Line Act. And in that later, they instructed and directed the city to approve this appeal as a result. approve this appeal as a result. I want to end Council by putting aside the legal saber rattling. We're deeply that we have to come here and do this tonight. When we filed this application, we're not oblivious to the fact that the city does not like the Builders Remedy provision. I get it. At the same time, this project can offer some significant benefits to the city in the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the building of the city is not appropriate at this location, then where is it possibly located? But as we said, when we first met with your staff, this is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Even though this tool, the state law, is less than well received by cities, including Beverly Hills, we are not saying that we are unwilling to work with the city. In fact, the opposite. We would like to have the conversation about landing at a project that could work for both Beverly Hills and the applicant. Maybe that can happen. But all of the myriad of legal objections that your excellent city attorneys have put on the record for you, you can still use later down the road. Should you choose? Why not allow this project to at least go forward, at least cross the first processing step and hurdle to allow the conversation to go forward? What's the harm? Maybe we're in the same place and it's a project you ultimately decide is most appropriate to disapprove, but maybe we can get to an outcome that works for both sides. We respectfully request, at a fairness, an appeal into your good judgment, that you allow that conversation and process to happen and grant our appeal this evening as the state has suggested you must do. Thank you appreciate the opportunity to present before you this evening as the state has suggested you must do. Thank you appreciate the opportunity to present before you this evening. Thank you very much. I am going to go now back to public comment. I have speaker cards here and first speaker is Cynthia clements. Good evening, Beverly Hills City Council members. My name is Cynthia Clemens and I am here on behalf of Abundant Housing LA to express our support for the proposed 165 unit mixed use development, which includes 33 affordable units. 125 to 129 Linden Drive. This project presents a significant opportunity to address Los Angeles counties pressing need for affordable housing while revitalizing an underutilized space. We urge the city to approve the project's application and allow it to proceed without further delay. This project will enhance the surrounding community by replacing surface parking lots with living spaces, a 73-room hotel, and a restaurant. The project will also move parking to a two-level underground parking structure and not result in any residential displacement. Grocery stores, shopping, restaurants, schools, and Beverly Gardens park are within walking distance, making this an excellent location for new housing. Transforming the current parking lot into a vibrant space represents a forward-thinking approach to urban planning. The proposed development at Lyndon Dry represents a crucial and time-sensitive step towards meeting our housing obligations and promoting economic growth. We urge the City Council to approve this project and demonstrate Beverly Hills commitment to inclusive and sustainable development. Further, failure to approve the project undermines Beverly Hills compliance with state housing laws and risk legal consequences as highlighted by Californians for home ownership. Further more to echo the California Department of Housing and Community Development or HCD. For the proposed project on Lyndon Drive, the City Council should grant the appeal and direct city staff to process the project without further delay. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, I have this Clayton Becker. Good evening. Good evening, members of the council. My name is Clayton Becker. I am a PhD researcher at UCLA and live just south of here in Pico, Robertson. I stand here before you tonight to urge you in the strongest possible terms to approve this appeal. Not just because, as HCD has notified the city, you are legally required to do so under the Housing Accountability Act and will be in violation of California housing, well should you choose not to, but also because it is simply the right thing to do. Now I could stand up here tonight and pontificate about how the research is exceptionally clear that building more housing decreases displacement and ameliorates the impacts of rent increases. I could speak at length about how infill development of this type is good for city budgets, alleviate traffic pressure, and decreases carbon emissions. I could spend all of my time talking about how we live in a regional housing market and every home that Beverly Hills does not build represents somebody who is going to get priced out of South LA, or Boyle Heights, or Chinatown, or Palms. But what I really want to talk about tonight is who you are hearing from at this meeting and more importantly, who you aren't hearing from. Tonight, the opponents that you've heard from and will hear more from, I am sure, are not representative of the community as a whole. Once again, the research on this is exceptionally clear. The kind of person who is able to make it to a 7 p. 7pm city council meeting on a Thursday night is on average, wider, wealthier, older, and more likely to be a homeowner than the community at large. I want you to consider the folks who have spoken in opposition to this development thus far and see whether that rings true for you. I also want you to take note of the fact that those who are here to speak in favor of this development were willing to wait. Evidently, opponents of this project have better things to do. By contrast, the kind of person you are unlikely to hear much from tonight are the workers who would benefit from the hotel portion of this project. They're the tenants who would be able to live in the affordable housing units included in the project, which, as noted, would more than double the number of affordable non-senior units in the city. They are people who are not yet your constituents because you and many of the current residents of the city don't seem to have deemed them worthy of being coming your neighbors. No one here seems to think that it blew up the neighborhood to build their current homes, their current condos, their current places of residence, but they seem content to pull up the ladder behind them and prevent more homes from being built. Please keep all of that in mind tonight when you make your decision. Thank you. Our next speaker is Andrew Solomon. Good evening, Honourable Mayor and City Council members. Thank you. My name is Andrew Solomon, and I'm a neighbor of yours in West Hollywood, and I'm here tonight to speak in strong support of the project at 125 Linden Drive. I urge the council to uphold the appeal and accept the application as complete. This project is significant in addressing our regional housing crisis with 165 units, 33 of which are affordable. This is a substantial contribution to your affordable housing stock. I believe this more than doubles the amount, the current number of non-senior affordable housing within Beverly Hills. Though I may live on the other side of Dohini, the West Side Cities are part of an important regional housing network. And new housing in Beverly Hills helps alleviate the housing crisis everywhere. I've been to the project site, I've walked it, I drove past it tonight. It's a surface parking lot just south of Wilshire. And though we may be here tonight because of this loophole that we all know now as Builders Remedy, there's nothing out of ordinary with this project in the site location based upon where it is from your commercial district. 10 years from now, this won't be a monstrosity of a building that sticks out like a sore thumb. I hate to use the term character of the neighborhood when we talk about housing, but this proposed project very much fits in with the neighborhood. One day, you'll have residents that work in your commercial district or at your schools who will want to live in those apartments so that they can walk to work. That's workforce housing. And one day you'll have out of town family guests who visit you and they'll wanna stay in this hotel because it's next to everything. That's the goal of Smart City. Your staff report tonight is moot based upon the letter you received yesterday from HCD. So please don't rely on staff's recommendation in that report. Do you really want the same headlines for Beverly Hills that we've seen for Lock and Yacht of Flint Ridge or the headlines that we've seen for Huntington Beach. There will be national articles written about your decision here tonight. So I urge the council to recognize the importance of this project in your city's compliance with the Housing Accountability Act. Please uphold the appeal and accept the application as complete. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker card I have is Lori Goldman. Hi, good evening, all of you. I had intended to say one sentence and it was just gonna be that I hope you will stand firm in opposing greedy developers, but after listening to some of these people, I think we need to be reminded. This is a 19 story building. This does not fit in with a neighborhood even close, and I hope that you will stand firm in helping your residents and not letting this project go through. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker card I have is Milton Hyman. Thank you, Council. I live in South London Drive, just down the block from the post-development. Some of the speakers don't seem to have much experience with London. Don't seem to have come up that street trying to make a turn. Been blocked by the, I won't name any of, but the delivery trucks that park right in front of Wilshire Boulevard and then block the two lanes that are turning right and left. If you have, as I came to this meeting at quarter to seven. I could barely get through because of the traffic running up, Lyndon Drive. This is a neighborhood that I've lived in for since 1970. It is a special neighborhood, both with the single family homes and the multifamily homes in the 100 block. This would be a disaster. Putting aside, and I'm a lawyer, I'm not a real estate lawyer, thank goodness, anymore. But I thought that the, I was persuaded by the staffs But I thought that the, I was persuaded by the staffs response. They're dealing with each of the issues and not persuaded by almost a knee jerk reaction from the applicant. No, we don't have to do this. No, we can do whatever we want. No, we don't have to. No, we can do whatever we want. No, we don't have to. No, we have an exception. It didn't work with me, and I hope it doesn't work with you. So I ask you, please, reject this. Find an incomplete. If the applicant wants to come back with a new project that is consistent with the principles and the flavor and the feeling of Beverly Hills, let the applicant come back with a new complete and compliant project. We had a hotel, as was mentioned earlier, proposed for Southland, the 100 block didn't happen, thank goodness. We still have the good shepherd. Sometimes it's a pain, but it's still part of our DNA that's been there and the kids going through. And for the people who live in 100, 200, 300, it's important that our life be protected. So I thank you and I ask you to consider no rejected. Thank you, sir. Next speaker card I have is Sheila Hyman. And then after that I only have two other speaker cards. So if anybody else would like to be heard if they can bring up their speaker card to our clerk. Hi. We've lived in our house over 55 years, as my husband mentioned. Big changes in traffic, thanks to ways, etc. We have had many projects to calm the traffic. calm the traffic. This will not calm the traffic. It will make it impossible. It is scary getting out of our driveway. It is scary. It shouldn't be that way. This will make it 10 times worse. I don't want to live in New York. I have chosen to live in California. I don't want to live in New York where the sun is blocked by huge buildings. It's not right for our community. It is scary. I ask you to look at that location, look at the traffic and consider what that kind of project would do to our neighborhood. The whole southwest side. Terrible. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Next speaker card I have is Richard Burns. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council. Thank you for this valuable time of year So my name is Richard Burns. I'm a representative of the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters. The developer has committed to work with contractors that will hire locally and utilize apprentices from state certified apprenticeship training programs. We would like to express our support for this project as we will be able to work with the developers and the and utilize apprentices from state certified apprenticeship training programs. We would like to express our support for this project as we believe that it will benefit the environment and the local economy by participating protocols that will protect workers' health and safety and incorporate etiquette environmental migrations. When this project is passed. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. Next speaker card is Judy Okan. Hard following the lawyer. Hello. Good evening. I'm wondering if and considering this project, whether there was any kind of traffic management plan done and the effects it would have on Wilshire Boulevard all the way down. When we consider the cumulative effect of the, in light of the other proposed projects that are on the board, is this just going to add to the overall impossible traffic situation. I do believe it will. It seems like it's the first step. This project does not only affect Lyndon Drive. In fact, it is a gateway to the other out of code projects, which will damage this entire way of life for our homeowners. From Wilshire, Boulevard, to El Camino, to Camden, to Rodeo, to Pact, to South Bedford, to Roxbury, to Macardi, and to Lyndon. It's absolutely out of code, out of common sense for a safe and treasured area where we have peace and quiet safety will be disrupted. I'm sure we'll have more crime, more traffic and less of a feeling of security. I hope you really seriously consider this for there are as Ken Coleman said, over 400 homes in this area, 400 people who invested their safety of their abode and consider that you really need to pay attention to the overall escape of what's being proposed here. Thank you. Thank you very much And then the last speaker card I have on less something else comes up soon is Jake Manister Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. Good evening, staff. Thank you for giving me the time to speak. I live in this neighborhood and it's with some real heartfelt feelings that I hear my neighbors concerns about this project. We hear these concerns about lots of underthought of and overgrown projects, but I'd like to focus on the process here. I don't think the project has merit, however, I think that the process doesn't have merit either. I don't know if everybody's aware here, but the HAA is under consideration for revision. As we speak in Sacramento, there are three assembly members who are under fire in their own communities for re-election. It's brought an incredible amount of confusion to a variety of institutions around the state as to how they are supposed to react to a variety of institutions around the state as to how they are supposed to react to a variety of different applications. I'd also like to point out that the HD-HD responded in 24 hours, apparently, to a Pellens Council. That's a very interesting timeline to have a curve when we waited months for responses. So responses weren't timely in fact at one point the response was overdue from the HCD. I'd just like to point out with some familiarity with lobbying in Sacramento. The HDD is not the final authority on anything. There are opinion and opinion letters, frankly, carry zero weight with regard to the legislature. And I would encourage this council to consider a discussion with the folks that actually are in charge of Sacramento as opposed to their delegates and bureaucrats. I heard a Pellens council state something that I have never heard a land use lawyer ever state, which is that in consideration of a building application that code compliance is irrelevant. That is a stunning revelation from this applicant's counsel. That tells me that there is absolutely no reverence despite the kind words that he might have stowed upon you. There is no respect for what has occurred over the last 50 to 60 years with the development of case law, common law, code compliance, building safety that protects all of us and has protected all of us for decades. That established law, even if it were to be leap-progged because of this state's inability to address an urgent need that occurred many decades ago, which is the lack of affordable housing and lack of housing generally, does not need to be foisted upon individual communities with some ramshackle approach to building processes. I would encourage this applicant to adapt, revise their plan, come back, reapply with something that this community probably would get behind. We're not against housing here, we're not against affordable housing here. We're against processes that are broken because they result only in a heap of dust. And that has occurred here numerous times. Mr. Mayor, if you give me 10 more seconds, please. I would prefer not to see a rushed builders remedy application. And I do have a last question for everyone here. And that is simply this. Applicants' council seems very, very interested in having something approved here. We've had many situations where entitlements are approved and sold to the highest bidder. Ask yourselves whether the individual that's pushing this may actually have no intention of building it, but intent on profiteering off of the demise of the city of Beverly Hills and its building codes. This to me is another common form that we've seen before of profiteering in the state of California. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, not saying no other speaker cards here, I will go on to any phone or video on this matter. phone or video on this matter? First, we have Jose Radio on phone. Please unmute yourself. Jose Radio. It appears we have a Jordan Cisan who is currently on the screen. Please unmute yourself. Good evening, everyone. I'm Dr. Lohler, my name is Jordan Saffer. I'm a land-easy coach, I'm thinking on behalf of the United Kingdom local elected, represents more than 30,000 hometown hospitality workers throughout Southern California. I'll be very sure. Well, we're going to generally support ever the housing project, particularly those including the Portaway Unit. We are concerned to see how the HAA Housing Accountability Act is being used. This is a lot of path to help build housing during the housing crisis. Tonight, you're seeing it being used for the project. So it's constantly changed after the fact that reduce housing in furtherance of a 73-reunit commercial hotel. A thousand more of the additional three more story that's adding an entire new commercial use with 73 hotel rooms that are same like a significant change. So, two, this is significant for a project SQL analysis to ensure that all potential project impacts are adequately addressed, which is going to impact potential adjacent residents, all below the other city stakeholders. All these regions, which were outlined in our very brief comelette earlier tonight, local 11 support staff's recommendation of this council to neither appeal in our very brief comelette earlier tonight. Local 11 support staff's recommendation of this council deny the appeal and require a complete application to ensure an adequate environmental review of this project. Please deny that appeal, require a complete application and follow the early process of a full complete application. Thank you for your time. You know, continue to rest my time. Thank you. Thank you for your time. You know, I'll continue to like my time. Thank you. Next we have Jason bias. Jason bias, please unmute yourself. Yes, can you hear me? Yes go ahead. Okay great thank you Honorable Council my name is Jason Bias and I'm a proud member of Labour's International Union of North America local 300 and I along with the other 20,000 members of our union who live in Los Angeles County fully support this project moving forward. We have an honorable developer who has made the profit sacrifice of paying $cop dollars for the greatest workforce in this world, the American Union tradesmen, which will ensure that this project is built to the very highest standard. All safety measures will be implemented and all the workers will be able to accumulate the hours necessary to keep their benefits intact and will have the opportunity for additional training in our facilities for certifications and new skills. This project will also provide the opportunity for new men and women to start a career in union construction. As a project like this opened the door for me many years ago and completely changed the lives of me and my family for the better. Now in closing, I have lived here on the west side my whole life or generation. We are in a desperate need for housing and because of this most of those who are rental property owners maliciously manipulate rental prices leaving those less fortunate to live heavy financial burdens to be able to live and raise their children in beautiful Beverly Hill. We cannot stop the need for housing and inevitable citizen growth and forced local couples to one child policies to accommodate the comfort of a very small group. The need for housing and good paying jobs is a serious issue happening right now and it's not gonna go away. But a project like this is addressing the immediate issue. Please, council, address the reality of our situation and see how this project will benefit. Everyone is a whole and puts this project through. Thank you so much, God bless. Thank you. Jose R God bless. Thank you. Jose, Radio is back online. Please unmute yourself. Jose, Radio, please unmute yourself. It's your turn to speak. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. John of the Library of the Union. I'd like to start by thanking you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. I have a couple of reasons I was eager to speak on this project. These projects meet a lot to us. It means our families are fed and have a roof over their heads. It means we have health care and can take care of our kids. And it especially means our apprentices from our state recognized apprenticeship program, obtain the knowledge and experience needed to ensure very successful career path in this industry. We stand behind this developer who is committed to higher skilled and trained union workforce and we build to the highest standards and we cannot be more proud and grateful for that opportunity. On behalf of our members and our families we hope you approve this project and we can get to work and continue to serve in our community. Thank you. Thank you and thank you for your service, sir. Thank you, sir. Next in line, we have Ralph Velador. Ralph Velador, please unmute your mic. My name is Ralph Velador and I'm speaking on behalf of the Southern California District Council of Laborers, Laborers International Youth in North America. My colleagues and myself are in full support of the appeal and the project before you. This project will create good paying jobs and benefits for citizens in the surrounding area. And we have a grand opportunity tonight. This developer is bringing in private money with zero liability on a tax base to put people to work. Imagine that. They're taking private money and infusing it right here in the community. It is incumbent on us to support good jobs in the community, not only building these projects, but providing the much needed housing for young working people who'd like to call Beverly Hills home. Not approving this project will leave avoiding the community and have a devastating effect on families who depend on this work to support our families. Please consider how today's decision will affect working families. And thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Thank you. Next, we have Jay Garcia. Jay Garcia, please unmute yourself to speak. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Yes, good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Jose Garcia, and I'm also a member of the Labor's International Union, North America. And like all my colleagues have spoken, these jobs are truly life changers. There are starts of apprenticeship for young kids in the community that won't be able to go to college and need somewhere to turn to become a good member of the community. And for the workers that are indebted into their union right now, such as I am. And for me, most importantly, if I could land one of these jobs, it would mean that I could finish my career as the skilled tradesman, proud, proud skilled tradesman that has worked throughout the California state. And I would retire with the pension, I'm not sure if you're sure that you're not skilled tradesmen that has worked throughout the California state. And I would retire with the pension with medical benefits that I have earned with my hard hard earned hands. And I truly would appreciate the chance to work on this project. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. The next speaker we have listed is Orrin Hader. Orrin Hader, please unmute yourself. So you're turned to speak. Travel me hell, that's where I want to beg, give me, give me. Give me, give me living Give me. Live in and be able to help. Hey, everybody. Tonight you've heard from a lot of very, very privileged people who already live here. What about the people whose lives would be made so much better by living here? The people who work in Beverly Hills, without the commute an hour and a half from the island empire or from Lancaster, the people who clean your houses or police your streets or teach your kids. We guess what? They deserve to be here as much as you do. And we should give them that opportunity. But please approve this filming. It's 33 affordable homes without having to use any public funding. It's also the law and it's also the right thing to do. Thank you. Thank you. Next color. We can try again Jose Redillo. Jose Redillo, please unmute yourself to speak. Hello, thank you very much. Yes. Yes, go ahead. My name is Leo. And I am a proud member of La Yuna, Laverson, TN, and Wingo, America. And I fully support this project moving forward. And our members are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to initiate and contribute to this remarkable project. These project are vital tools as they enable us to meet our financial obligation and provide for our loved ones. Our members are certified skilled trained workers recognized by the State of California so you can assure that this project will be done professionally on time and most importantly, safely. And I invite you also to support this project and thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. I don't see anyone else listed on the Zoom comment. Okay, let me, I have one more oral communication from the audience and then we'll go to emails after that. Lynn Brookman. Hi everyone, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us. I wanna thank the leadership of Southwest Beverly Hills, Ken Goldman and everybody here who has spent so much for taking the time to meet with us. I want to thank the leadership of Southwest Beverly Hills, Ken Goldman, and everybody here who has spent so much time in energy plowing through all the written materials about what's going on. But what's going on here is not just about Lyndon Drive or McCarty or Roxbury. This is about a developer that put forth a project but did not do his due diligence and reach out to the community as to what kind of project would work in our neighborhood. Instead, he put out an application that has been incomplete and there is frustration that this incomplete application has not been approved and Beverly Hills has done something wrong by not approving it. Maybe the fact is he didn't do his homework to come up with something that would work for the community. And instead of negotiating with us right now, this application needs to be dismissed and not approved and this developer needs to go back and come with a different proposal. But he needed to do this homework, and this would happen on your street or any street in any city. And that to me is the issue of what we're facing. So thank you, and I strongly suggest that you deny this application and that you do consider the fact that this developer could get this project through and boot like it to somebody else to build. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other video or phone? Yes, I have one more person on phone, Danielle Levy. Danielle, please unmute yourself to speak. Danielle Levy, please unmute yourself to speak. Yes. Do you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Good. Thank you so much. First of all, I wanted to thank the city for opposing the project on the, you these projects in front of all the council. This is, I'm a homeowner in South New Dan, and I'm absolutely opposed to this project. Ninety floor in this street is just outfragrant. There is no space, there is no, there is a lot of, you know, people, kids that are, you know, walking on the street. And it is going to be just absolutely crazy. I hear that a lot of people, you know, want to have world, you know, through this project, there is over places where they can find a job and not to think the street that will become just a mess. The whole block will be absolutely amelette. So I really think this project will be denied. And we will not have something that is built on a phone that could eventually fall on Earth, like the millennial power that is leading on the other buildings in South Africa. Thank you so much and for your attention. Thank you. It doesn't appear that we have any more public zoom comments. Okay, so we're going to go to emails now and I understand there are many emails, so I am going to ask that the City Clerk summarize the emails and give us a report on those numbers. We received a total of, I believe, 14 emails. The first time reading are against there were nine people. Rosa Berman, Fernseiser, Bobby Fells, Allen Block, Heather Fells, Jordan Ciso. I believe he spoke. Marjorie Blatt, Michelle Bloomberg, Jerry and Sandy Jolton. And the following comments are against the project which have shared generally. Please do not allow this, please do not allow this building to be built. Additionally they have shared a project of this scope and magnitude 19 stories high, totally out of proportion at this location on Lyndon between Wilshire and Charlieville. Steps away from the good Shepherd Elementary School and a few blocks away from Beverly Hills High School would significantly and adversely impact the character of our neighborhood already heavily trafficked and the quality of life are residents of our residents. As the 1,128 page report shows, the city has informed the applicant several times that its application is incomplete especially noting in one of its communications that because they resubmitted their application with substantially different features the initial application under the builders remedy was no longer effective and the reliance on pronouncements by the HAA is unfounded we are not against improvements within our city but within, adhering to a reasonable height limitation while preventing additional traffic gridlock. development would seriously affect the quality of our residential life over the entire southwest area. The build-up proposal on this Lyndon site compounds and augments many of the concerns of our residents and the site is not appropriate for a mixed use development of a high traffic structure with residents and guests coming and going at all times of day and evening. Ingress, egress, and navigating our automobiles at this portion of our very narrow street is challenging enough for various reasons. During construction, we envision there will be many times each day that we will not be allowed access to drive on the street, similar to what transpired with the Rosewood project currently, and the one with its reduction in lanes. Parents need to have easy access for pickup and drop off of their children on London and Charlieville at the Good Shepherd Catholic School. Living through the construction and the traffic such a huge project would bring is a hardship you can protect us against. I urge you to do so. We are four generations living in Beverly Hills since the 1960s. Needless to stay, there have been a great deal of changes within this time frame. However, the Lyndon project is absolutely nothing to enhance or improve our city. What does this project give back to my neighborhood? I implore you to convince me why this massive overdevelopment that is in congruent with our community standards should be erected. And here are the following comments were submitted in support. I believe there were five. The comments were beyond the requested word count to be read aloud so they have been shortened due to time. Their comments will be remained in their entirety as part of the record. The first one is from James Lloyd from Cal HDF. This project will enhance the surrounding community by replacing surface parking lots with living spaces, a 73 hotel room, a 73 room hotel, and a restaurant. The project will also move parking to a two level underground parking structure and not result in any residential displacement. Grocery store, shop being residents, I'm sorry, restaurants, schools and Beverly Gardens Park are within walking distance, making this an excellent location for new housing. Transforming the current parking light into a vibrant space represents a forward thinking approach to urban planning. Why I am be why law is a 501 C3 nonprofit corporation whose mission is to increase the accessibility and affordability of housing in California. Why I am B Y Law sues municipalities when they fail to comply with state housing laws including the Housing Accountability Act. Sonya Tross is the next comment from YIMB Law. YIMB Law is a 501C3 nonprofit corporation whose mission is to increase accessibility and affordability of housing in California. YIMB Law, MBY Law, Sues municipalities when they fail to comply with state housing laws, including the Housing Accountability Act. As you know, the City Council has an obligation to abide, an obligation to abide by all relevant state housing laws when evaluating the above caption proposal, including the HAA Housing Accountability Act. Should the city fail to follow the law, why I am be why law will not hesitate to file suit to ensure that the law is enforced. The third support comment is from Azine Con Malik, Jamie Del Rio, Tammy Kay and Abrams from Abundant Housing LA. The proposed development at 1-5-1-2-9 South London Drive represents a crucial and time sensitive step towards meeting our city's housing obligations and promoting economic growth. I urge the City Council to approve this project and demonstrate Beverly Hills' commitment to inclusive and sustainable development. Failure to approve this project undermines our compliance with state housing laws and risks legal consequences as highlighted by Californians for home ownership. The next public comment is from Dave Ran from Ran Pastor and Nelson LLP. His comment was too long to read but submitted in person comments. Mr. Ran, his comment was too long to read, but submitted in person comments. Mr. Rand, Mr. Rand gave his comments. Yes, his written comment will be included in its entirety as part of the record. The last comment I have is from Michael Gelfand, from Californians for Home Ownership. As you know, Californians for Home Ownership is a 501C3 organization devoted to using impact litigation to address California's housing crisis. This letter follows up on our October 10, 2023, and February 2020-24 letters regarding the proposed development at 1-25-1-29 South London Drive. These letters established are standing to challenge a denial of the application under subdivision K2 of the Housing Accountability Act HAA. Government Code Section 65589.5. Now that the city stands at the precipice of denying the application, we are notifying you that we intend to initiate litigation against the city under the HAA tomorrow if it does so. And that is the end of the summarization of written comments. Okay, thank you. So now we will ask the applicant appellant if they wish to provide a response and rebuttal to or closing remarks. Can you public comment? Too any. Yeah Can you public comment? Too any. Yeah. Yeah, to public comment. Do you wish to provide any responses? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We just encourage you to approve the appeal and allow the project to continue as I stated earlier. Thank you. Thank you. And there being no response or re rebuttal we will go to And go to councilmember questions of the staff or members of the public Applicant Staff applicant members of the public any Oh, any questions at all? Yes. Start with Council Member Wells. Okay, thank you. Well, first I just would like to re-state actually to the bed that tonight we are not here to approve or deny the project. We are here for a hearing to evaluate and to a hearing to the appeal of the city staff denial and the city staff. Excuse me. In my head together. The city staff, the letter of incompletion that was dated on October 13th of 2020. One second of 2023. So and to so listen to that. So I just want to make that really clear. We're not here to approve or deny the project. This is about whether or not the application is complete as of the October 13th, 23 letter from the city determining and city, the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city I'm committed to implementing that certified housing element. And as we look at projects, it's important for us because we are committed to completing implementing our housing element. Further, I just would like to say that I've read the staff report as well as the many letters from the applicant and as well from our city staff and from our community, as well from our city staff and from our community as well as the letters from the HTV as recently as yesterday's letter and as well as the applicant's letter as recently as yesterday and I do have a small talk. So with that I'd like to ask you some questions please. Go ahead, Council Member Wells. Mr. Alkayer is here. And with regard to the area application, can you talk a little bit about what the statute is with regard to completing that application and as well as the timeline set for the for both the applicant and for the city. Yes and actually if we could ask the city attorney as well. But the preliminary application has a list of requirements that's spelled out in the statute. And as identified in the staff report for this, one of those items is number four on that list is the proposed land uses by number of units and square feet of residential and non-residential development using the categories in the applicable zoning ordinance. So the actual formally submitted application did not include the same land uses. But as far as timeline goes, you have 180 days after your preliminary application to submit your formal application. And once you get that submitted, you have 90 days to respond to comments. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council members. I don't have anything to add but I'll just be here in case I can add other questions. Okay. Can for our staff or for our legal council from the city attorney, I mean can you speak a little bit about the 90 days in that response time? Sure. Again, as Mr. Alkair said, under the preliminary application statutes, those when a preliminary application is filed, meeting all of the requirements under the statute that has the effect of vesting rights to the rules in effect at that time. In order to perfect those rights, the statute requires the submitt of the formal application, I'll refer to it as, the entire state of that needs to be submitted within 180 days. Under the Standard Permit Streamlining Act, once an application is submitted, it is subject to a 30-day review period by the city. And the city needs to determine whether that application is complete or incomplete. It determines that it is incomplete, then it needs to identify all of the items. The reasons why the application is incomplete. And in a, now shifting back to a formal application filed to perfect the rights under a preliminary application. Once that application is deemed incomplete, there's a 90 day period within which the applicant needs to submit all of those outstanding items and obtain complete application. The applicant has argued that's a rolling 90 day period that recommences each time an incompleteness letter is issued as we as pointed out in the staff report. The language in the statute with respect to the 30 day periods for your typical city review. There's a language talking about how that is a repetitive cycle. That language was not used by the legislature when they crafted the later enacted 90 day period. There's a reference staff mentioned in the report. The singular 90-day period, and that hopefully answers the question. It does. And then just to confirm, the applicant submitted a preliminary application on October 24th of 2022 and if I understand correctly 180 days later they had people who are admitted their formal development plan review. Is that correct? Yes they did submit it within 180 days. So they were going by the timeline that you're seeing about. Following that, the city sent their first letter of incomplete determination on May 12th of 2023, which is 30 days later. And in that letter of incomplete determination, can you confirm that the city, well, first of all, that the applications that filed on April 14, 2023, the DPR, was vastly different from what the preliminary application project that was identified at that time. Can you talk about that difference? Yes, there was an addition of a hotel use that did not exist in the preliminary application. That hotel use was about 48,000 square feet of the building. And the building increased in size to 212,000 square feet. And it also included a restaurant? Yes, hotel and restaurant. the first letter of income to the termination on May 12th. The city identified for the applicant that the scope was largely inconsistent with the original preliminary application. The first letter of income to the termination on May 12th. The city identified for the applicant that the scope was largely inconsistent with the original preliminary application. The city identified for the applicant that the scope was largely inconsistent with the original preliminary application. We identified that there was different pictures. Yes. And that that was an issue that should be cured. Yeah, and that it was an issue to be cured. As well with regard to the other missing information, was it checklist provided? Yes, these are long letter letters, the incomplete letters, and they itemized all the items that needed to be resolved. Would you say that the review of the DPR and providing I mean, it's a administrative determination. I mean, we review projects. That's what planers do. And so we need to look at that. As far as the term ministerial, I don't think so, but I'll ask the city of the city to be able to be able to do that. I mean, I think that's a very good idea. I think that's a very good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's what planners do and so we need to look at it as far as the term ministerial I don't think so but I'll ask the city attorney to respond on that. Thank you Mr. Mayor members of the city council. I think that there's an argument that this type of function typically would be ministerial. I don't think that's necessarily always the case. There can be some discretion that can be exercised when looking at these so I don't think that's necessarily always the case. There can be some discretion that can be exercised when looking at these. So I wouldn't necessarily say it is unqualified every time a ministerial process. And many of the Builders Remedy applications are better similar to this. There are Builders Remedy projects on file and some preliminary applications and others have formally submitted applications and they have received review letters. When the applicant responded, they responded to the first letter of incomplete determination, they responded after that on I believe August the 9th. But actually the city didn't receive a total September 15th. So actually the agreed upon date was September 15th of 2023. Following that, the city responded with a second incomplete determination letter on October the 13th of 2023. on October the 13th of 2023. Is this the date when the application needed to be complete or finalized? And I would ask the city attorney. It would have been 30 days after, excuse me, 90 days after the initial completeness determination and that date. You give me. The first letter was May the 12th, I believe. Correct. the . . August 10th, 2023 is 90 days after the initial submittal. After the initial incompleteness determination. Incompleteness determination, I'm sorry. Um, and what did the applicant file? I believe you said that the applicant file, I believe you said that the applicant did not file timely their appeal. And can you talk, just reiterate why that was only the 14-day timeline? So I'll take that Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. So under the State statute, and this is the Permit Stream Lining Act with respect to the incompleteness reviews and determinations. Under that, oh, sorry. Is that better? Okay. So again, under the Permit Stream Lining Act, and this is the review process that is required of the city each time information is submitted. The city has a 30 day period to review an application, make the completeness determination. That determination, any of those completeness determinations, must be appealable and that's under state law and pursuant to a local appeal process. So the appeal process provided here is the city's typical appeal process in the code, and that's a 14 day appeal period after the decision. So it is our interpretation that under state law that the city must provide an appeal process. There is the standard appeal process for when no other appeal process is dictated in the code. And this is that process and the 14 day appeal period would apply. That 14 day appeal period would have been the October 13th plus 14 days, so end of October. And the appeal was not filed until November. And then also it is the city's standard practice that the appeal fee must be required. It's required and must be paid. At the time the appeal is filed, there's a process where a smaller fee can be paid and the balance paid 35 days later. But in any event those payment procedures need to be followed in order for the appeal to be timely filed. Thank you. With regard to the, well actually, I'm just you this first. The application is the application complete today. No, and I'll also defer to staff, but at this point, no. And how many items are still, are how many items have been identified that are still incomplete. We can check but yeah it has been reduced and I can respond if you want to move on in then. Yeah that's fine. I guess my other question would be this from the first time that you responded, I believe that there's been four responses from the city with an incomplete determination letter. There's been four incomplete determination letters that I understand that correctly. And that the applicant has responded to three of those and each time they provided more information that was missing. Is that correct? Staff, we're working on the other question. I'll answer that. Yes, that is correct. For example, if I, you know, if I understand this correctly, the latest response from the applicant would have been on May the 9th of 2024, when they were resubmitting based off of the February 9th city as third and complete determination letter. They provided the shade and shadow study as well as I'm looking at this correctly. It is the shade and shadow, the plans, they provided the plans that detailed regarding the rubbish storage and calculations as well as the shadow regarding the alley dedication and relationships to landscape plans with on May 9th. And I believe on January the 10th they submitted the site walls and and or offenses and on January 10th as well they submitted the Waxi that was January 10th. So if I understand frankly that continued to provide the information that you initially identified as what was incomplete. Oh council member Wells. Yes they have 13 items still outstanding of the 38 that were in the first letter With I saw the letter from the two letter letters that were written by the One was with regard to content. Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't speaking of October I'm sorry that that because they've gone through multiple rounds of review, this is their current situation and we'll go back and get the count for October. Thank you. But going back to the HCD letters, there was one that I saw for Compton and I saw as well the one yesterday from the HCD with regard to Beverly Hills. And you look, tell me, and this is for our city attorney, does this opinion letter from the HCD is it binding? No, neither. Okay. Thank you. Let me see. Actually, I have a couple questions for the applicant. Hi, Councilmember. Yes? Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you. You acknowledge that the project that was identified in the original preliminary application compared to the DPR vastly different. Is that true? I acknowledge that they are different that commercial land uses were introduced but we maintain that that change legally does not forfeit our vested right but I do acknowledge the change councilwoman yes I do. And is there case law or is there an authority that has has ruled on that? Authority being HCD has acknowledged that there are two ways in which a SB 330 investing application can be forfeited and that was referenced in the letter to the city. Neither of those two changes involved the introduction of new uses. The law is new. This is a housing crisis act of 2019. As I mentioned in my remarks, Council Member, the point of the law was to encourage housing and to create an early vested right process where applicants could rely on rules early on what the understanding that projects will change in morph. And so that is why the only change identified in the law are a change in 20% in unit counter square footage or more. And those are the only two things called out by the legislature that would forfeit vested rights. Do you, let me see one second. When the applicant filed for the appeal, they were informed of the 14-day timeframe. We were not informed of the 14-day timeframe. Why was it in the Beverly Hills municipal code? The Beverly Hills municipal code says that the 14-day timeframe applies to actions under the municipal code and does not apply to ministerial actions. Clearly the determination of completeness and whether items on a checklist have been submitted or not is ministerial. And the appeal is derivative of state law, not local law or your municipal code. So the code section clearly doesn't apply and more over council member the application or excuse me the appeal was processed, paid for, fees not refunded and we're here tonight discussing the merits of it. So we first learned about the city's position that there was a 14 day time frame three days ago and the staff report was released notwithstanding the fact that we've had our appeal pending for six months. With regards to the appeal that you submitted, you filed the appeal at least 31 days after the incomplete determination letter. However, you didn't pay the fees until January the 11th or 2024. Is that correct? That is correct. Part of the reason for that is we were informed of your somewhat unique process that you have to have two hearings to schedule an appeal first, hearing before the city council to set the date. And then second, the appeal on the merits, which we're here tonight. We filed the appeal over the holidays, over the Thanksgiving holidays. And in discussions with staff, it seemed very clear there were agenda management issues that could have made it challenging to schedule those two hearings within a 60-day period because there was no urgency at that point to go forward with the appeal. We were happy to delay the time frame after filing the appeal in which we actually paid the fee. And again, because there was no 14-day time frame invoked at any point in that time, we thought and still believe that there was nothing inappropriate about that and certainly nothing that would disqualify the appeal that you're hearing tonight. On January the 10th, the day before you paid the fee, the applicant submitted response to the second and complete determination letter, which is the October 13th, 23. Why would you do that if you were already filing an appeal and you were paying the fees the next day? Thank you for that. I appreciate it, because I did want to clarify this. We filed the appeal and we're quite clear in our appeal statement that we were appealing the big significant legal differences that became very apparent over the builders remedy and state housing law between our two back and fourths over the incomplete determination. It was very clear this application was never going to move forward unless we resolve those questions and essentially called the question and brought that before you, the decision-maker, had we not responded to the incomplete letter that was pending, we would have risked, and I have no doubt your city attorneys would have invoked the fact that we failed to respond within our 90-day period and thus lost our vested rights on that basis. So the only prudent thing for us to do would be to continue to respond. And that proved fruitful because we were able to, as your staff indicated, cross items off the list. It still didn't change the fact that we have these very significant legal items that we're still disagreeing on. And that's really the basis of the appeal and what we put in our appeal statement. Thank you. Council Member Wells, we do have numbers for you now. So in October, it was 13 application checklist items plus additional general plan items. Today that is down to four application checklist items plus general plan related items on the incomplete letter. With regard to the 14-day appeal time, and this is for staff, my understanding is that the advocates are to be aware of what that Beverly Hills municipal code is. Is that correct? If you're an applicant in a jurisdiction, you would think that you would look to the rules of the jurisdiction, which are spelled out in a jurisdiction, you would think that you would look to the rules of the jurisdiction, which are spelled out in a municipal code. Thank you. the letter references the application for a general plan amendment and zone changes. And I know that that was one of the items that was put on the very first response and I think you're such a quick responses with regard to the application. Are there other billers remedy projects that have that same, that you have requested the same and they have provided that information? Yes. Yeah, I'll still remember, I'm sorry. This is Dave, the applicant. So, would you like me to sit down? Or do you still have more questions for me? I'm happy to of course stand here if you do. I'm looking at these questions. But those would be my questions for now. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member. Councillor Mournows, you're yielding time now to Council Member Corwin. Thank you, Mayor Friedman. First does staff have any response to what was just said by Mr. Rand or anything that was said in his letter. They want to address at this point before I go forward. I believe we do. At least there are several points in the letter that I don't think we've had a chance to address yet. Some of them were raised just a moment ago by Council Member Wells. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Excuse me. Councilmember Korman. We've known each other too long. We have indeed. Thank you. So I think just hit some of the highlights. I'm not going to go through all of the responses, many of which were included in the staff report. I won't reiterate those. But I think I would just start by saying we appreciate Mr. Rand's advocacy on behalf of his client. These are new statutes, they're complicated, the facts are complicated. And the city has been acting in good faith to try and navigate these and continues to do so. And so with that, I think, you know, first and foremost, the projects described in the preliminary application and the formal application, just they're not the same. And the statute for preliminary applications, as staff mentioned, requires the identification of the uses in the project. And to suggest that the only way a project could be modified to lose that vesting status is to exceed the 20% thresholds either up or down with respect to the unit count or the building square footage would have the effect of writing out of the statute or rendering as surplusage the requirement to identify the uses in the first place. If that was the only criteria, then the applicant could not identify uses, could come forward and say, okay, now I started out with a residential project, but now I'm going to do a residential project with a surgery center or a smelter or in this case a hotel in conjunction with expanding the building area within the 20% that is allowed. And that just can't be what was envisioned under the statute when it requires the identification of the uses in the preliminary application. So I think we have a fundamental disagreement with the applicant on this interpretation that if it's not the same project because it is a series of different uses, even though there's some overlap with their spectrum residential, it's a different project. This is a mixed use project with a hotel and residential component. It's not a residential project, so the uses are different. And I just note that the applicant had ample time. First, in complete letter, identified this issue. The city still had a lengthy process to go through to get to adopting a certified housing element and getting the HCD certification letter. And there was ample time for the applicant to violate new preliminary application identifying those uses and remedying that issue. They didn't do that. So again, the position is that they have, the preliminary application has lapsed because they did not file a project that was the same as or within the parameters of the use that identified and explained in the preliminary application. We've talked about the appeal not being timely. And I guess I would just say the applicant's argument here is that this appeal process, the 14-day appeal process, this appeal process doesn't apply if you accept that it's ministerial. If this appeal process doesn't apply, then there would be no alternate appeal process, and the city would not have a process with which to comply with the state law mandate to provide an appeal process. So this is the appeal process. It is also an outgrowth of code requirements to file a development plan review application and process that. And so that, we believe, is the link to the code. And for those reasons that it has to be that this is the appeal process that is available to them. And the time requirements come along with that since it's not like you pick and choose which elements of the appeal process should apply. With respect to the Mootness argument, again there were two subsequent submittals that changed the status of the application from what the status was on October. The third, the incompleteness letter that's the subject of the appeal. So they have complied with additional and supplied additional information. Those two decisions also were appealable. They were not appeal within the time frames. And those decisions are final now. The applicant argues that the builder's remedy and the preliminary application vested rights issues aren't relevant. First, nothing in the Housing Accountability Act says that the typical processing requirements don't apply and HCD's Compton Letter clearly says that, and their Beverly Hills letter sort of says that. They say for other reasons maybe that there's a different result, but it's not the statute that says There's some other process that applies here. It's a typical processing that That would apply the statute doesn't change that And I would say the fact that HCD itself has Arguably reached two different conclusions on the same questions certainly shows that the city has been in the position for a long time. The Compton letter confirmed that approach. Now with the letter directed at Beverly Hills, they have put a Different gloss on that. The city has a good faith argument and its interpretation and the way it's been proceeding. It had taken that position for a long time. The Compton letter confirmed that approach. directed at Beverly Hills, they've put a different gloss on that. Even if it was determined that the DPR project was the same project as the preliminary application project, which again, it's not. It wasn't complete within the 90 day period from initial completeness determination and we've talked about the different interpretations that the applicant team has versus what the city has. And again, I think in context here, this is a new statute. It established a very early vesting process. It set time length so that applicants would need to move quickly. And that in light of that, a never-ending cycle of an applicant, not suggesting it's this applicant, but an applicant could misuse the statute under the interpretation that's been offered. An applicant could file an application within 180 days, get their incompleteness letter, maybe there's 20 items that are incomplete, they wait till the 89th day under the applicant's interpretation, they drop a little bit of information, the city has 30 days to review that, they say thank you, you've taken care of items one and two, how about items three through 20? And then they would sit on their hands for another 89 days, drop in a little bit more information. This could go on at infinitum. And I think the legislature, when they were looking at this, they put a strict timeline so that folks would move quickly in some balance of the limitation on the agencies right to adopt new regulations and address issues that are important to the community instead of having someone who would be able to lock a set of regulations in place and then continue to forest all the city from enforcing any later enacted rules or regulations. And we think there's some legislative intent that supports that interpretation. I think we talked about in their letter they talk about the Compton Beverly Hills technical advice letters, but I think we've covered that topic. The final of the applications, the general plan application zoning application amendments would allow for the processing of the project, allow for processing of the SEQUA review, California Environmental Quality Act, that is expressly reserved as applicable to projects that are processed under the Housing Accountability Act, and that at that point, the decision makers would have the ability to look at the full array of issues, applications, and a builder's remedy context. Consider not only the application that is before, you know, the core application, but also the legislative changes that would resolve any inconsistencies that would allow for due process full hearings of those issues. And at the end of the day, I think under a builder's remedy situation, there are a couple of scenarios for the decision makers. One of those is to approve the project, approve the legislative changes, and move forward. Another option could be depending on the facts of the record at that time. And as we're talking here, we are not at that point, but at that point with the facts and the record fully developed, the council decision maker could find itself in the position where they are not inclined to make the legislative changes, but under the Housing Accountability Act for a Builders Remedy project, maybe constrained in its ability to deny the project because of those inconsistencies. And then the third option, depending on the record, could deny the project and need to do that in a way that could be defensible under the Housing Accountability Act. And so I think again this is about the process, this is about having all of the applications filed, processed, considered through the process, process considered through the process and then a full array of the issues available in present for the decision makers at the end of that process when it would be appropriate to make a decision on the merits. So again this is a procedural question I think Mr. Rand suggested that as well. This is about procedure. And again, we think that the law allows the city to require these applications. And I would just state for a typical application, whether they have a preliminary application or not, without the builder's remedy gloss, a normal application would have to address the inconsistencies through a amendment or a zone change in conjunction with their application. And I would say we see this on a semi-regular basis in Beverly Hills where an applicant comes in, the project doesn't comply with all of the codes and the applicant may suggest a code amendment, the general plan amendment, in order to move that process forward. So that is not an atypical experience in Beverly Hills. And I think in conclusion, we don't believe a determination that an application is incomplete. Constitutes a disapproval of the project. There is a defined term in the Housing Accountability Act about disapproval, what disapproval means. And there are many different things that disapproval means. And there are many different things that disapproval means in the statute. Deeming an application in complete on these grounds is not listed as one of those definitions of a disapproval. And again, we're not here about the merits. We're about the process. And I think maybe just one more reminder or statement that again, particularly with the inconsistent letters that HCD has issued on this topic. That the city certainly isn't proceeding in bad faith. And I think those are the items I had on my list. I think perhaps you could address in the HCD letter they mentioned the Permanent Streamlining Act. And whether or not there was a need to require the legislative approvals as a checklist item. Thank you. Yes. On the Permit Streamlining Act as a kind of threshold question doesn't apply to legislative applications technically. So it is anomalous that you would have to on a, pause a adjudicative non-legislative application form, list that you have to file legislative applications when, again, under the Permit Streamlining Act, it doesn't apply to those, it applies strictly to the adjudicative type matters, the DPR applications, the things that aren't changing the zoning or the general plan. And so to require that would just be inconsistent with the scope of the permit streamlining act. Councillor McCormann, does that answer your question? I know that's a long answer, but it was long. Thank you. I mean, I appreciate the information. So Mr. Rand. Come up. Good evening. I hear you're an excellent land use attorney and I must say I thought your letters were clear and well written and I thought your presentations night was informative and concise. Thank you very much councilmember. I'm definitely afraid of what's coming next. I'm not going to rehash a lot of the different positions everyone has but I do want to ask you some questions about some of the positions that you've taken. Please. So first of all, preliminary, just had a curiosity because you're a landess lawyer. When you describe a property in a legal document, how do you typically describe it? I mean, what attributes do you describe? The address, the parcel number, assessor's parcel number, and maybe the track number and lot number is that though you normally do it? Those are some basic property information I have them sure. Okay, I thought so. There's been a lot of discussions tonight about provisions of government code section 65, 9, 4, 1.1. That's part of the housing crisis act of 2019, right? That's correct. So I thought, I want to ask you some questions about that. I thought staff was going to Have a slide with that up there because we've had a lot of discussion But there was no slide so I have some paper copies just for everyone's reference so perhaps we could distribute them And when to mr. Ran the council? No, you're in trouble when you're going over statute or language. Councillor here. You're not in trouble. You haven't gotten the principal's office. Good looking at C. Councillor, can I zoom? No, I haven't gotten there yet. I know one of the reasons we've had a lot of discussion about this code section is because a preliminary application creates certain investing rights at the time the application is filed. And in this instance, your client's position is that it created the right to proceed as a build-as-remedy project because at the time the preliminary application was filed, we did not have a certified housing element. That basically accurate? Agreed. Okay. And it's your position that although the preliminary application had a change of use between compared to the final complete DPR application, a complete DPR application. That really wasn't, that there was no harm to FALP basically and the deployment application is still valid today and still applies to the project. Actually describes the project. It accurately describes the project sufficiently to maintain our legal leave, vested right. Thank you. Okay, that's correct. And so, and that comes from you make a statement in your letter that other than a preliminary application expiring because the full application is not submitted within 180 days as required. The only other thing that renders a preliminary application invalid is if the project has been changed beyond what was permitted in government code section 65, 941.1 subdivision, so you did anticipate that. Which talks about you have to resubmit or make change if you ask for an increase in unit count or square footage of 20% or more, right? Correct. And your authority for that is a footnote in the letter sent to the Michael Forbes yesterday, where it says, the project vested the non-compliant, this was the HCD's position, the project vested the non-compliant status of the housing element at the time of Submital in October 2022. Footnote, this assumes that the preliminary application is not expired and the project has not been changed beyond what is permitted in government code section 659494.141.1 subdivision seat. That's the authority, right? I think the authority is applying language of the statute reinforced by that footnote in the HCD letter of yesterday, correct. This doesn't say whether a preliminary application would be valid if information required is completely omitted from the preliminary application, does it? This footnote, it doesn't discuss a preliminary application where actual required information was omitted. This footnote does not, but there is a difference I would submit councilmember to submitting a preliminary application. Remember, when to submitting a preliminary application. Remember when you submit a preliminary application, it is accompanied by plans. So it's a description, there's informational requested in their plans. You have to submit all of the statutory required items at that moment in time consistent with the plans. That's question one, threshold question one. That was done. Threshold question two, what changes then, knock you out of investing? Does reducing parking knock you out of investing? Not in the statute. That could change all the time. What about height? You go up, you go down, does that knock you out? Not indicated by the statute. I see nothing in here about a change in land use. Now, there is one major red line that we haven't discussed yet, which is no change at all could occur, particularly with the introduction of a commercial use, that resulted in more than one third of the project square footage being commercial, because that would render the project inconsistent with the definition of a housing development project in the HA completely. So that's the ultimate red line. But other than that, there's 25 different things that are asked for in a preliminary application. And the way the statutory framework is set up as any number of them could change because projects change, particularly at such an early preliminary stage. They just can't change by 20% or more with respect to unit count square footage is measured by the California Building Code in 65941.1C. And you say anything else can change? I can say the projects can change. It has to be a housing development project. Two-thirds square footage, no more than one-third commercial square footage. Other than the change in C, anything else can change. That's your position. no more than one third commercial square footage. Other than the change in C, anything else can change? That's your position. I guess, I don't see what, I see nothing else in the statute prohibiting any other change. Calling out a council member, why would the statute make the point to say that these two things are no-go zones? These two things, compromise and forfeit your resting. If it was uses, wouldn't they have added that? Do you have any, and there's no case law supporting your, your legal. This is your stone was absolutely correct. This is all new stuff. I mean, this was recent law, but we have what I believe is fairly clear statutory language. And that I believe is the way that HCD is interpreting it, not only generally, but in this specific case, with respect to this specific project. So fair enough. So let me just say that let me just point out that government cut the section 659-4.1.1A1 requires an applicant to include the project's parcel number legal description address. So it requires the applicant to say what the property is, right? Could you change the property from a preliminary application, the full application, still have the preliminary application, you ballot? Could you say that you're going to build a project on Bedford and then change it to Beverly Drive? As a litigator, council member, let's go a skilled attorney in your own right, you've heard of the canon, legal canon of the doctrine of interpretation of absurdity. There's a certain point where, you know, it becomes so absurd and outrageous. Could I file this project in West Hollywood and still claim I have a vested right? No. No. Can I file it on Bedford? No. Fair enough. So let me ask you this. So you've got the government code section for one of you. So where in this government code section does it say that the requirement in 6594 1.1a1 is more important than the other 16 requirements than 65941.1a. I look at it differently. I see them as two different frameworks. 65941.1a, the point provisioning you're mentioning, are saying all these things are really, really important to submit a preliminary application is complete. Give us all this critical information to start the process at the earliest stage with the preliminary application. And you got to do that, and we did that. And then, given the long arc of the process, a year and two months later, without being even deemed complete, things naturally change. And if we were amazingly allowed to proceed with this project and go through public hearings and the California Environmental Quality Act review, things would change even more. That is a completely common sense allowance. But the legislature said it can't be unlimited. Only two things can keep you from maintaining your vested right with respect to project changes. Information that must be submitted to start to vest red lines that can't be crossed for project changes that compromise vesting. Very different things to very different sections of the statute. And well, okay, so that's your position I get it, but just in form, I'm just just educate me. Where in this government code section does it say the requirement of say 65, 941.1A1, which you admit you could not make a material change on, is more important or should be treated differently than the requirement in 65, 941.1A4, where you must identify the proposed non-residential uses. Just tell me where differentiates those two requirements under A. Well, it doesn't. But it's two different concepts, as I say. It's information that must be submitted for the preliminary application. Again, and we're just going to probably have to disagree, agree to disagree. But then it's changes. So what are you required to submit to start? Because there has to be a starting, even with the preliminary application, at the very, very early inception of this project, there has to be a starting point. So obviously cities need to be informed of certain information. But then again, as you know, Council member, projects do change. And the legislature in the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, not the Let's Make Housing really really hard to process an easy to lose vested rights act of 2019, will set up to allow some flexibility. And you're right, it does, I can't point to you a provision that says, you're allowed to change your commercial land uses and introduce hotels. But it also is really clear that only two things are called out. So if only two things are called out, it sort of logically follows, and it's certainly as a matter of statutory construction, that those are the only two things. What, I will have to just go on that. But I am glad that you recognize that the 17 elements described in subparagraph A are all critical. And I just wanted to point out. Critical to start and to submit. That's fine. So I just want to point out that this provision is part of the Housing Crisis Act, right? It is. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So the Housing Crisis Act only applies to developments in residential components, right? The Housing Crisis Act applies to define housing projects, which can include projects that have to have residential components, right? The Housing Crisis Act applies to define housing projects, which can include projects that have to have residents component, right? At least two-thirds square footage. So when going to A sub four again, so when that requires an applicant to describe the proposed land uses, isn't the sole purpose of that requirement to describe uses other than residential? At that moment in time, yes, but again, not to say that that particular item cannot change. And again, the big item, the big definitional requirement is that you have to meet the definition of housing development projects. So I could not have, my client could not have introduced a project that had 50% commercial land use. That would have rendered the project inconsistent with the HA entirely. So you have to read that definition in context with these sets of requirements, in context with the following provision that allows certain changes and not others. Right. And all I'm saying is, what makes you think, what authority you have beyond just, I guess maybe somewhat wishful thinking, I think, that somehow, that when A4 asks you describe land uses, which clearly means non-residential uses, and actually specifically requires disclosure of non-residential uses and actually specifically requires disclosure of non-residential uses. Somehow, that's not so critical that if you change it, it doesn't matter later on. A-5 asked for the proposed number of parking spaces. If we submitted the preliminary application with 126 parking spaces and then revised our application to have 125 parking spaces or 127 parking spaces. Under your logic, we would be disqualified from vesting. Agreed. So what I would say is that's a possibility, yes. That's because, but then again, the solution is pretty simple, isn't it? The solution is just filed in the Replimiting Application. Oh, I'm glad you asked that. Thank you very much because it's not quite that simple. So, this is just filed in the preliminary application. Oh, I'm glad you asked that. Thank you very much because it's not quite that simple. At the time we filed our investing preliminary application, the city was taking the position that HCD's lack of certification was effectively irrelevant and that you were substantially compliant, I should forgive me, that the city had a substantially compliant housing element as a matter of law, notwithstanding HCD's letter. HCD told you yesterday you have to grant our appeal. I can see the tea leaves and predict we're not going to get there. I'm guessing this is not the first time the city has disagreed with HCD's guidance, directives, and gone a different direction. If I filed on behalf of my client a new preliminary application, that dollars to donuts that I would receive a letter from again your very skilled city attorneys who don't misbeat, that things have changed. You've advanced your housing element. And while you may have been non-compliant in our first preliminary application, you've now updated it and you know, advanced it. And so legally compliant, no, maybe not yesterday, but today, absolutely. And even though HCD has still had you out of compliance, that wasn't the indicator that you were going on. So this notion that it could have just been cleaned up with a new preliminary application a lot more complicated than that. This notion that it could have just been cleaned up with a new preliminary application, a lot more complicated than that. Although, as you know, that the main reason at that point in time where the city had taken the position at the preliminary application didn't match up with your full application was the change in use, you could have solved that problem by following a new preliminary application when you didn't. So I was wondering why? No, no, for the same reason. At that point in time, that change actually occurred when my client decided that that was a change you wanted to institute. It was time had passed. And so the city, again, was not abiding by HCD's recommendation. And so as a matter of law, you were saying, our housing element is compliant. If you had advanced your housing element, you would have said it's that much more compliant. So it was not as simple as just refreshing the preliminary application and submitting it. And I also come back to my original point, which we didn't have to. We didn't have to, based on the statutory language. We still don't have to. We didn't have to, based on the statutory language, we still don't have to. Other cities that have looked at this question have seen it, not as you were seeing it. So again, this may respectfully surges be something that we will not be able to agree on. But ultimately, I think the statutory language and the construct of the Housing Crisis Act bears out the flexibility that I think we are allowed to take advantage of because we didn't change the project by 20% or more with respect to units and or square footage. So when the city said that we were in substantial compliance at the time, did we respond to you? Did you believe them? No, okay. And was in fact there was there a case that was percolating and spearcord that indicate we had not gotten our housing on one certified, right? So if you didn't believe the YNAT just found their preliminary application? I find this this entire line of inquiry fascinating. Are you saying that I should have ignored the city's stated position that your housing element was legally compliant? I should have relied on the forthcoming loss the city's stated position that your housing element was legally compliant. I should have relied on the forthcoming loss the city incurred by judge kin's decision and should have refiled a preliminary application that would have not been called out in any way as prejudicial to our position in this application. Sir, that is just not the way this process has played out. And so we made a determination both based on the law as it's written and the city's position with respect to how it was viewing compliance and where we were at in the process and we still feel very comfortable legally that our vested rights are secured and that this application should be deemed complete tonight. Based on the fact that the change in use was not material and did not render the Promenade Application in valid. Based on the fact that it is not one of the enumerated items that this legislature calls out as forfitting vested rights. All right, let's move on. So one of the other issues has come up tonight is the appeal process. And your position is that the municipal code appeal process should not apply to this particular appeal. And you refer to a California government code section saying that's where your right to appeal comes from. But in fact, unfortunately, I don't have that in front of me. I did, but I can't seem to find it. In fact, that provision only provides the right of appeal and says that the city is supposed to provide a process. So as you've heard tonight, the city only has one appeal process. So how should the city have processed your appeal? You feel? Exactly how they did it until three days ago when we learned that the new position that it was filed in timely. Well, but the process was that we required a filing fee. Should we not be required that? We paid it. No, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm saying should I mean exactly what process do you think you were filing it following if you weren't following the municipal code? The city's municipal code by its absolute own language in terms doesn't apply to ministerial actions. You don't have a process like this in the state law. So we did what any applicant would do. We turned to your staff and said we'd like to appeal. Here's the government code provision. We'd like to avail ourselves of what do we do? You need to pay a fee. We have a process that requires us to go before the city council and schedule it. And then a decision on the merits. It has to happen in 60 days because that's state law, not local code. And we said, okay, tell us the appeal fee. We paid the appeal fee. At no point in time, we were told sir that the application was untimely. The money was collected and banked. We then had multiple continuances, which the city had to agree to. Six months occurred, and we spent time and effort advancing this appeal. And three days ago, when the staff report was out. We were told there's a 14-day deadline. A 14-day deadline in a code provision that says no right of appeal to the council from any administrative decision. Maybe an official of the city pursuant to any of the provisions of this code shall exist when such decision is ministerial. That, that, sir, raises substantial due process questions. We can disagree about new state laws, and there's not case law, and your attorneys make good arguments. I'd like to think we're advancing some good arguments, but that is fundamentally unfair. Fundamentally unfair, not consistent with your code or state law and an unbecoming argument to be quite candid. So as a land use attorney and someone who practices municipal municipalities, would it be true that normally the applicant is charged with knowledge of the municipal code? I had knowledge of the municipal code. I knew exactly what this provision said. Okay. In fact, we looked at it because we wanted to better understand this process of coming to the council for scheduling as a first step and then the decision on the merits. And because I had knowledge of the provision, I was convinced that we were not up against the 14-day deadline, which was reinforced when the city accepted and processed this appeal. All right. We'll move on. So, I just, but we did that. All right. There's been a lot of back and forth about the decision requirement to submit a general plan in its own zoning amendment application. And there was other information that there was other information that was requested. And never provided initially in response to the SIS letters. And we talked about some of those. Some of them were in some of the address in your recent letter that we said are still outstanding and you explain why you think they're not outstanding. But in other instances, your client did provide additional information to response to the decision response to the responsive letters, right? We did. We did what we could. Right, okay. And in fact, on page four of your January 10th, 2024 letter in response to the city's second and complete letter, you specifically acknowledged that the project materials have been modified to response to the city's second and complete letter, you specifically acknowledge that the project materials have been modified to response to specific comments noted in the city's second and complete letter. Other than those city comments requiring zoning code compliance, they need to file additional and necessary entitlements. That's a quote from your, I mean that. That sounds correct, right? Yeah, I don't have it in front of me, but I trust you. Okay, yeah. And your client continued to make additional revisions in response to the city's third and complete letter of February 9th. Correct. And a number of those revisions were made in connection with your response to that letter on May 9th of this year. That's right. And among those revisions, they were made on May 9th where the addition of the Rubbid storage calculations and the addition of details regarding an alley dedication and a shade and shadow study. Those were all items that were requested initially, right? And they're on the list of checklists that the city provides. And so my question is why did it take so long to provide that information? Well, so we provided the information that we could, but it is a little hard to spend a ton of money and effort on devising these plans, which we then submit, and then are told that they're not perfected enough and we need to revise. When we're staring at these huge issues of disagreement that are going to prevent the application based on the city's multiple written communications from ever being deemed complete, certainly ever being approved. So we felt the need to call the question on those big items. We then made the decision because we were getting in complete letters that in the interest of moving it forward, we will do what we can. And what I would say to you, Council Member, is if the paint color on the HVAC equipment are critical to you, you can grant our appeal tonight with a condition that we submit the finest color palette of any mechanical equipment you've ever seen. If the paving plan on the front yard setback is really what this is about tonight, then you got it. Grant the appeal, conditioned, will give you the most detailed paving plans the City of Beverly Hills has ever seen. That's not what it's about. You and I both know that. And so that's why we felt the need to bring the appeal to you tonight. All right. Thank you for your forthright, Antisdmy questions. Thank you very much, Council Member. I have nothing more at this point. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Mirish. Okay. As long as Mr. Rand is there, I'll start with you because I do then have some questions for some staff and for some of the speakers. You mentioned the decision by Judge Kim when it came to Beverly Hills and her housing element. Do you agree with his decision that the city was out of compliance? I do. I do. I do. You agree with his decision that the city was out of compliance? I do. I do. Did you also agree with his decision on SB 9? No. You didn't. I did not. And why not? Because I thought that was incredible hair splitting and the decision on SB 9 that the findings weren't specific enough because the statute mentioned affordable housing and not market rate housing when the production in my view, since you asked me my view, the all housing results in greater affordability as a supply demand proposition. So I do disagree with that position. The attorney general is appealing. My expectation is it will be reversed, but I certainly could be wrong. Well, does it, though? I mean, if you to use another example, if you build more porches, will that cause the price of Prius' to be reduced? I think that's an apples to Orn just comparison when we're talking about living spaces. Those fruits. When we're talking about homes. Well, to luxury give you an idea. In Beverly Hills, we have the Rosewood condos being built, one Beverly Hills in our city. I think the cheapest condo at one Beverly Hills is going to be $12 million. Is that going to somehow trickle down and create housing affordability? In and of itself, no. But in mass, a significant increase in the production of housing as a basic supply demand principle, I do believe it will. And the project before you tonight not really before you but Includes 30 plus affordable Dead restricted units because it is a builder's remedy and has to include 20% so Yeah, we can argue about the benefits or not of the market rate component But there's a significant affordability benefit associated with the 20% de-districted That's that's a separate thing because it's de-restricted So but I guess my point is if Judge Kin was wrong on the one decision, might he not have been wrong on the other one too? I, you're asking one man's opinion. I think if you're asking me to call balls and strikes, he got it right with respect to the noncompliance of the city's housing element. And we can talk about that. I disagree with the decision he reached on SB 9, but he's not infallible. I know human is. Well, okay. So initially the project was 100% housing, correct? Yes. So in the latest iteration, it's only 67% housing, correct? They're about, that is correct. It is 2-thirds housing. So 67%. And that's to you, that's not a significant difference. The legal test is not, is it a significant difference? Councilman, there's no point in the statute that says there's a substantial compliance test, a significant difference test. There's one, actually two tests that we've discussed extensively. I know you mentioned it the 20% and the- Right. So whether I think it's a substantial difference, whether someone else doesn't, that has no legal relevance to the question of the status of our vested rights whatsoever. We see our friends here from labor. Does this mean this project is being, would be built under a PLA? I can't speak to that given that so early, we are not even deemed complete. But the owner and developer has definitely had conversations with labor and intends to use union labor. And that's of course why they're here. You're not willing to commit now to a PLA if the project at some point is approved. I don't have the authority to do that. It's not even my place. I know just by virtue of conversations that the owner will be working with union carpenters and union laborers. Well that's different though than a PLA isn't it? It is one thing to do the apprentice program and all of that but I'm guessing that our friends in labor would prefer a PLA because it's more beneficial to them all around. Yes it is different but as you saw here tonight council member there is clearly union labor support for this project if that's what you're getting at. No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that since there is labor, you might want to, you know, go the whole nine yards and make sure that this is and commit to it be. If we did that tonight, would you deem our application complete and allow the project to move forward? There are certainly two different issues. There are certainly two different issues, aren't they? I mean, if you're not judging the project at all. If it's on the table, because it's coming up in the context of a completeness determination hearing, if that's what it will take, then we can talk about that. Well, I would tell you it has sadly, not sadly, it just doesn't have anything to do with completeness, but as someone who supports PLAs and Labor, I'm just taking advantage of the fact that you've got so many labor people here to make that suggestion. Okay, and again, maybe that's something that as the process continues can be discussed. You referenced the HCD letter. My question to you is, did you draft that letter? No, no. I'd go ahead and wish, if I could, even if we go down to flames tonight, if I could take credit for that and this public hearing. So you're very good for the firm. You haven't spoken with HCD. Oh, we absolutely spoke with HCD and we submitted an extensive legal justification as to why we believe that the Compton letter was incorrect and why we believe in this context, the general plan amendment, zone change wasn't allowed. HCD has a process, a portal literally set up where anybody can submit any kind of request, justification, we did that as advocates, but absolutely not did we write this letter, under no circumstances. So there's no part of the letter. If I looked at your letter to them and their letter to us they wouldn't have lifted any of your phrases I would encourage you to do that okay so In terms of content. I mean is your is your letter to them a public document? Yes, it is I'd be happy to provide it to you and and while we discussed some of the substantive issues that were identified in the letter to you to the City of Beverly Hills yesterday. They wrote their own letter. Okay, but I don't much or want our staff report came out, but this is a direct result or reaction of the staff report. Who was it who said, I think it's very true that I think Jake Manister, how long we've been waiting in some cases to get responses from HCD, you know, literally calling them and begging them for response. And what staff report may be out on Friday? So let's say on Monday, I mean, this is, you know, this is amazing responsiveness on the part of HCD, which we could have only dreamed of. Maybe you can tell us what your secret is. Well, it's not like we reached out last week and it resulted in the letter this week. When the letter that was issued to the City of Compton was, we knew about that that same day. And I felt that that letter missed the mark in many respects. And we took the opportunity, that's months ago, to submit fairly detailed legal objections and information in the hopes that the state would, if not reconsider, clarify. Were you representing the developer in Compton? No. Okay. Because as said as far as I know this was just something that appeared in our staff report which was published on Friday afternoon. So you know I don't know maybe you you have you know the elements of Nostradamus knowing that our staff was going to somehow cite the Compton letter, which okay. There were advocates, housing advocates all over the state that were very concerned about the Compton letter. HDD got a myriad of voluntary legal opinions about that. What were the other developers' concerns? Well, it was a legal concern that the letter needed to be clarified because it suggested, which has been clearly clarified in the letter issued yesterday, that a general plan amendment zone change could possibly be used as the basis to disapprove a Builders Remedies Project, which of course is fundamentally at odds with the HAA and the Builders Remedy provision. The HAA letter to Compton did say that general plan amendments and zone changes requested in the context of Builders Remedy Projects cannot cost applicants excessive amounts of money and incur delays. Well, I thought it says it just can't make the project infeasible. No, it says it can't result in delays. And to our point is, one of our points was that a general plan of amendment zone change that doesn't cost money or delays is not a thing. Well, you just said it didn't cost money, but I don't know, I'm making a figure up. But if a developer is making 100% profit and it reduces it to 95, that still costs money, but that would be by all measures, still reasonable, wouldn't it? It's not a reasonable test. It's, it's more, I understand the city charges, recently charged an applicant about $100,000 for general plan amendment It's a large, recently charged an applicant about $100,000 for general plan amendment application. That's a significant amount of money. I would argue that bigger adverse effects to the project would be the delays rather than the cost. But that sort of legislative action would cause significant delays. And we felt that it is fundamentally inconsistent with the entire construct of the Housing Accountability Act. And again, I'm just asking since we have you here, some questions in general, not all of them necessarily related to the question of timeliness, what are your thoughts on impact fees? I think they can be a significant impediment to housing production. But if you ever saw the movie, the producers, as he says, can't make plays without checkies. Cost a lot of money to run a city. So developments cause additional costs. How are reasonable? How are the bills to pay for it? Fair enough. I mean, we're veering a bit off topic, but reasonably proportionate impact fees are one thing. We know of cities that use impact fees as a deliberate attempt to stymie housing production. And so I would say there needs to be impact fee reform in California when it comes to housing. Isn't that why there should be nexus studies that show that there's a reasonable nexus between the fees? And I once heard somebody say lies, damn lies, and nexus studies. But yes. OK. So we'll tell that to our friends at Kaiser Martin. One last question. Have you been in touch with any of the other organizations that have commented today? Like Abundant Housing? I am in touch with Housing Advocates all over the state. Our firm does a lot of housing and we are involved in a lot of the new housing related laws. We work with advocates including some of the groups that have submitted letters to you. Okay, thank you. If I may ask the gentleman from labor, would you mind answering a couple of questions, please? Thank you. Wouldn't mind coming up. Thank you so much. I'm guessing that as, you know, not specifically with this project, but in general, I'm guessing that as, you know, not specifically with this project, but in general, I'm guessing that you probably are appreciative of when you are working with PLAs, is that correct? Yes. I'm curious just because I'd like to know, you know, your members and all of that. I'm guessing that a lot of them, if they don't own their own homes, they might like to own homes. Would that be a fair thing to say? Correct. Yeah. And the project and wages and salary and pensions could help you. If I may ask, what do you think not just yourself? If I may ask, what do you think, not just yourself? Do you think most of your members would prefer to own their homes or to rent? I would like to think they'd like to own their homes. You know, because pretty much I grew up in a household where my family owned a home. Did you have a yard? Excuse me? Did you have a yard? Yes. And do you think a lot of your members, again, if given the choice, would they prefer to own a home with a yard and little space? My members, they want a place where they can go. They can turn the light on and lock the door. Okay. It doesn't necessarily have to be the what I grew up with, a pool, a yard. You know, they want a place that's clean and safe. And some of them, they just want to come home from work and then put things away and then walk down the street and you know go to their favorite deli. So for some of them it might be the neighborhoods more important and for other ones it might be they like having a little more space maybe they like to have a yard a pool I don't know maybe I'd have to save 50 50 okay good no I mean I mean that's because our our members they're Soma live way far out you know and to mecula and they'll drive over here and then That's where that's where by the way you see our fire chief He he lives out close to tobacco Lesson yeah a lot a lot of our city employees. It's a question of a balance to I want to maybe have a bigger piece of Property and live a little bit further out or you know as you say it's very personal but yeah no I understand Where you're coming from and things have changed you know know, we want to be able to, well, actually everybody, they want the least amount of travel. And if they can buy a place or rent a place and maybe shorten that commute, or you know, your local hire, people that live in the city, they have the opportunity to build a building like this. Or something smaller, something bigger, and then make the transition to stay here, by here, or move out. But aren't a lot of your jobs sort of like you're going where the jobs are. This one would be here, you may have another job out by Tatectil. You may have a job out in Rosemite. It's for the carpenters, isn't that sort of, you know, it's not like you're going to the same office each day. You're working on projects wherever they may be, correct? It just depends. You know, because we're building hospitals, and they're not all over the place. Stadiums, they're not all over the place. Well, ones in Inglewood, ones in. Well, when I say, you know, they're, excuse me, they're selected places. Got it. Well, thank you. And thank you for showing up and also thank you to your colleagues who appeared on the video. I appreciate it. And as someone who lived in Sweden for many years, I'm very appreciative of labor. I kind of sometimes wish that America had the same kind of more harmonious relationship between labor and business, but thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question for Dave's now. I mean I may be interpreting it wrong but from my perspective the way that Mr. Rand described his argument when it is a ministerial act or a builder's, which is a builder's remedy project, it seems like it's simply not possible period for an application to be incomplete. So, but even if something is ministerial, if it's incomplete, it's incomplete. Is that, or am I missing something? No, I think that's right. If the criteria aren't met, then it wouldn't be. Ministerial approval doesn't mean that you have to mind read what is missing, correct? Correct, and I want to be careful about approval here. I'm ministerial determination. I know you suggested that there are some discretionary aspects, but I'm saying even if it were ministerial, you still have to fill out the forms, correct? So this project now has a number of hotel rooms, but couldn't you consider hotel to be a form of lodging? I mean there are people who live in hotels, correct? You know, the old school, there are people who even live in hotels these days, why would the hotel rooms be exempt from the 20% affordability covenant? I think the general approach that this city in most cities would take is that hotel rooms are not accommodations. They're for the park. You live in them? Correct. I mean, it's some people may. A day, a week, a month, a year, or whatever. But I mean, it's not like it is you said, a smelting plant, it's not a mortuary, it's not like it is you said a smelting plant, it's not a mortuary, it's not a, you know, department store or something like that. It is fundamentally a place where people sleep and shower and if they do or whatever, correct? Yes, so I think just generally in the cities code that's been treated not as a residential use that is under a commercial use or a- Well, but we're hearing that the cities code doesn't really matter. There's another standard out there and other things we're hearing that. So, all right, well, for now, I think those were my questions. I really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, thank you very much. Well, I think a lot of the questions that I would have already been addressed. I want to start off by saying that we're here to determine if the application is complete or not. And that's pretty much the extent of it. I wanted to thank all of the residents that came out and all of the various parties who participated. We are a city that is committed to completing and obviously we have our housing, but to implement our housing initiatives. And right now, this is about the merit of the case and not about the details of it. So I don't want to get too detailed into it. And I also appreciate a lot of the labor parties being here. I think that it's really late. And most of them have to start off early in the morning tomorrow. So thank you for taking the time to come and express your concerns. So it looks like the appeal wasn't completed in time based on the preliminary application. And one of the things that I find very curious is that HCD provided a letter to the city within 24 hours and it's taken us a significant amount of time to get a response. I'm curious as to how that would come about. So, the application needs to be provided in order for this to be considered and we have certain proceedings that are set up in our city. I think a lot of the questions that I've had have already been addressed and I'd like to pass it on to the mayor. Sure, thank you. If I can have Mr. Rand, again, you've rested long enough. Some of these are going to be repetitive. I'm going to hit them on a little bit of a different angle. But I suspect I'm going to get the same answer. So when was the concept of having hotels, when did it formulate in the process? Was it something that came along just all of a sudden, hey, let's add hotel rooms, or was it something that they just kept in their back pocket for a while? No, not so much a back pocket. I think as my client continued to study the site and think of opportunities, and he's a guy that always has new ideas. He started to get more and more interested in the idea of a really high end boutico tell of that location. And I think LVMH and some other things were getting him focused on that. And so the more he thought about it, the more he liked it and decided that he wanted to incorporate it into the project. Things that would be a great location for it. And it's really an opportunity here. We have this period of time, short period of time that he was looking at or potentially thought he was looking at and comes up with a project that looks like it's all residential in an area that is single, moderately multi-family and decides 19 stories is appropriate, right? I understand you have concerns about the height mayor. I appreciate that. His feeling is that a couple of things, right off Wilshire Boulevard, there's a lot of intensity on Wilshire Boulevard and that this is not an inappropriate location for height. In addition, as was mentioned, there's a lot of intensity on Wilshire Boulevard and that this is not an inappropriate location for height. In addition, as was mentioned, there's a fault line and there's been a fault study approved for the project. And so there's a significant setback that needs to be observed. So to achieve the density and intensity for a project, there is some height that is required, naturally, less footprint, the need to go up. But ultimately, he feels that it is going to be a good location for this kind of density. And from a broader perspective, with respect to our housing crisis, which we've talked a lot about tonight, and all the statutes that have been enacted to advance that, this is jobs, this is density, this is intensity, this is transit, this is major corridor. Ultimately, if these land uses in density and housing has to go someplace, that we believe this is an appropriate location. It's also potentially a very large profit for the developer, correct? It's no secret that developers need to make money. It's no secret that developers need to make money. A lot of projects don't make money, but to the extent that the project were to be approved and presumably it would be a successful business venture. So, I don't think that's that thing. I don't think that's in consistent with the goals of producing housing, but. It was just one of the things that you hadn't listed as one of the reasons that it was there. I just wanted to highlight that part of it. If the developer wanted to put, I don't know, the latest Louis Vuitton store and use three floors of the project for a retail store, such as that, a high end store. Would that be permitted under the current HCD laws? If a new land use was introduced that didn't result in a change in 20% or more of square footage or unit count, and that new commercial land use still maintained, the minimum two-third residential square footage or unit count, and that new commercial land use still maintained the minimum two-third residential square footage required to be considered a housing development project under the HAA. Then yes, that is a project change mayor that could occur. Now, this is so early in the process, even though it's been a year. What happens here is there'd be a sequel process If the application would be deemed complete and go through code compliance review, the next step would be sequel. That's another opportunity where you have to study the project in detail. And all the land uses have different environmental implications, as you know. And so changes after that would create potential issues under an entirely different state law, which is the California Environmental Quality Act. But yes, at this early stage from the preliminary application to just the application, at this infant piece part of the process, those kinds of changes are permissible under state law without for fitting vested rights. So I think we talked about absurdity at some point. What would your clients absurdity be in having some sort of use in that building that would not be appropriate? Are you saying it's just a 20% rule? And everything else goes in terms of the application process At this point in time and everything has to be delayed for a sequel or some other type of regulation I think commercial land uses could be included changed again as long as it's less than one third square footage I think that can happen and I don't think that such a change would be at all absurd. We could have a nightclub use up three of those floors, also that wouldn't, that would be permitted under process. I can rest assured you I don't think there'll be a nightclub introduced in the building. I'm just wondering, one, I mean, you've said that is the only restriction is a 20% use. And it's just hard for me to believe that that is the only use. And I think that, you know, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing that Councilmember Corman went through in terms of the other section. But it's just hard for me to really grapple with that concept that it's just that and nothing else. As I mentioned, to your point, the absurdity point, if things got really crazy, there's another mechanism in the California Environmental Quality Act to check what would be the inevitable environmental impacts associated of that kind of crazy introduction. And if that would result in significant impacts, it couldn't be mitigated, then the city would have the ability to underseek what it makes certain findings to check those land uses. So there are other mechanisms in the law mayor that would put a cabin on the kind of craziness that I think you're talking about on your hypotheticals. Here we're not talking about anything that wild. We're talking about a minor ancillary, and my colleague reminded me, the project's still 77% residential. So a minor component of the building as a commercial land use, one which is very consistent with the vibrancy and intensity along Wilshire Boulevard. It's not that wild of a change, and again, we do think it's permitted under the law. It's not on Wilshire Boulevard. Well, it's one property off. It's a stone's throw from Wilshire Boulevard. Well, but maybe one stone's throw from Wilshire Boulevard, but it's also a stone's throw from a religious, an office building across the street. You've got a parking lot in the other side of the street. This is a surface parking lot. It was as indicated earlier, mayor. This is not units or homes that are being displaced. Transit priority area, some of the most intense generous transit in the vicinity. Employment of the gazoo. There's a land use case to be made for both the uses and the intensity of the proposed project at this location. I know that's not what we're talking about tonight, but since it's interesting. We're not, and again, you're saying it's a stone throw away from Wilshire Boulevard. It's also a stone throw away from a single family residence area. from a single family residence area. In terms of the rolling 90 days, how many 90 day periods could there be? That I go on and add infinitum? You can go keep going as long as there's completeness items that are responded to, as long as the city keeps telling you you're not complete, then you can not complete. Then you can keep going. The notion that a developer, and this was mentioned earlier, I can't remember who. It may have been Mr. Snow, I don't remember exactly, but the notion that it would somehow be a strategic tactic that a developer would employ to drag this out intentionally in a series of never-ending 90-day review processes to never get complete, to never start the project actual process and earnest. To your point, Mayor, earlier, there's a business aspect to this. That would be the dumbest business maneuver ever employed by any developer ever. That's just fundamentally inconsistent with how people who build things look at the world. So that's just not something that happens. You can't imagine a situation where it would be advantageous for a property owner to drag it out because he or she can't get financing, has financial difficulties, or anything like that. There's no such problem. All I do, Mayor, is work with these developers. It's the reason for my premature hair loss. And they, some of them can't obtain financing. That could be a real issue, you're right. But they always, always want to get the approval in hand. If they can't retain financing, then they may have to sit on that approval. They may not be able to, but they always want to get the project approved. They never want to delay the process. They certainly never want to drag out the point in which the application is even complete. Pay people like me to, you know, have to write letters. I mean, that is a losing business proposition. Let's go to the HCD letter. There's two letters, as I understand it, the Compton letter and the Beverly Hills letter, Beverly Hills letter just came in. I may even have a copy of the Beverly Hills letter. Let me see if I do. But my question on that is, is the author or the signature, I should say, because we don't know who authored it, we just really know who signed off on it. Is that the same person who signed off on both letters, on both the Beverly Hills letter and on the Compton letter? Correct. So, either she's flipped or there are subtle differences that occurred between the two letters. She got beat up. Something like that. But there, there, there. I think it was a clarification. The first Compton letters suggested that general plan amendments and zone changes can be part of the builders remedy, part of the builders remedy project. Then I think HCD have the opportunity to think more about the practical implications and we're presented with a set of facts involving this project where it suggested that the city was poised to disapprove a project and not deem it complete because that is what all the city letters have said. Unless the city compelled the applicant to file a general plan amendment in zone change. And when HCD looked at the issue in that context, I think they reached the conclusion that that, as they said in the letter, would be absurd. So this was a clarification of the original letter based on an actual set of real-life circumstances and a record that they evaluated in the context of this project. Okay, a record that was provided, I suspect from one perspective and not from another perspective. HCD have evaluated based on the context of the state laws. And the information that they were provided? They were provided the city's letters, they were provided the, I mean, they were provided the discreet question, which is the city of Beverly Hills, no secret. I don't think anybody would disagree, was not deeming the application of the London project complete in part, because there was no general plan amendment application or zone change submitted. And they had not reached the question in Compton as to whether that issue violated a separate state law that wasn't discussed in the Compton letter, which is the Permit Streamlining Act. So they looked at it through a different lens because there was a different set of facts involved. And so that is why I believe the clarification was issued and the two letters can be harmonized in that way, but the second letter is much more clear about what the red lines are with respect to cities mandating these legislative actions and builders remedy projects. But it only addressed that singular issue, not the timeliness issue. Well, let's talk about that because it addressed that issue in extensive detail. It noted as Council Member Corman stated that the subdivision referencing the two changes would be the changes that would forfeit vested rights, it acknowledged the detailed submittals, all of the application submittals, all of the timeframes of reference in the letter, inherently more than 90 days, a repeated cycle of 90 days. And so in that context, they reviewed that dispute and checked that one off the list. So the letter in evaluating the case disagreed with a number of legal positions that the city has relied on in order to deem the application complete. The 90 day rolling period, the changes in land use, the general plan amendment and zone change all wrapped up in that letter and directive to the city. But they're not the ultimate decider of that issue. It's going to be at a different level. They provide advisory opinions, correct? Those advisory provisions are persuasive legal authority. They are not binding, but they are persuasive. And so that is the official State Department with statutory authority to interpret the laws that we're disagreeing about. So to dismiss it, I think is a mistake because it does have legal relevance and consequence. I'm not sure they're charged with the interpretation of laws. I'm not sure if this person is an attorney or not an attorney, but I don't, I think that goes to a different level, wouldn't you? Well, the HCD is the department. They have an entire unit called the Housing Accountability Act Unit that is set up to evaluate and determine and interpret this key state law. And they have numerous attorneys that look at all of these letters and questions of law that are put to them. So I don't know that, honestly, I don't know if Shannon West is a attorney, but I do know that there are attorneys as well as the attorney general's office that these letters. Okay, but I think it would be fair to say that the ultimate the terminer of these issues is obviously the court's misjudgment. Always. And as long as nobody is proceeding in bad faith either side, ultimately that's a decision that we would all want to see, wouldn't it? Well, no. We'd like to see a project move forward. But if there are real differences, legal differences, that really should be determined in a court of law, shouldn't it? Well, I don't know how to answer that. I would only say that if you have state laws that we believe are quite clear. You have the state agency charged with interpreting them, taking a very clear position. You have an applicant saying, which is, and please, vet this with your city attorneys, I think they would agree with me, that if you were to deem the application complete tonight, that you would still preserve all of your rights to invoke all of these same arguments at multiple steps later in the process, meaning the city wouldn't be prejudiced in any way, shape or form. So no, I don't think going to court is a good idea. What I think is a good idea is if we can move beyond this step and the procedural warfare that has been occurring for the last year over the back and forth of this application and have a conversation about a project at this site and maybe it's lower in height. Maybe it has more parking. I didn't think the hotel was a bad use but if that's so offensive maybe it doesn't have the hotel use. We can talk about it though Mayor. We can actually have a conversation about the project rather than putting it to the courts which I do not believe is the best arbiter about how to get needed housing and development actually done. That's another option. Reapply. Last little error, and I'll let it go. HCD didn't opine, or did they? On whether the appeal was timely and all that legal issue about whether or not you have to appeal, don't have to appeal. That's not within the jurisdiction of HCD, is it? HCD did not opine on the question of the 14-day appeal window because there was nothing in the record until three days ago. They did opine on the, in a way, on the, I guess, what was referred to earlier as the mootness question, because it's referenced in the letter that the appeal was filed prior to the applicant submitting responses on subsequent incomplete letters. And clearly the department had no issue with that. But in terms of, you know, 14 days, whether or not that apply, well, let me it requires that there be an appeal process for any decision that's made in a municipality. Correct? The state law requires an appeal opportunity and then a process can be set. Your code doesn't have a process for that by its own terms. So does that mean that there's no appeal right then? No, no, there absolutely is a appeal right. That means we go to, as we discussed earlier, we go to staff. We went with worked with your staff and they told us what the appeal process was and processed our appeal. For the city to say tonight, all this time later, that 14 days had passed, so you know, where's the appeal fund that we paid well right here isn't that part of it I mean exactly how the only way you can get to us is to go through that appeal no no when appeals are Rejected for untimeliness in every other jurisdiction in every other context. They're not accepted Or if they're accepted erroneously they're returned with a letter saying we're not processing your appeal were accepted erroneously, they're returned with a letter saying we're not processing your appeal. They certainly don't bring the appellant with an untimely appeal before the city's legislative body and the mayor to talk about the merits. That is unprecedented. So we're here exactly. We're here because the appeal is timely and it's been processed. And that's why you feel you're here is because it's timely. Yes, absolutely. We should not be here if this appeal was in fact untimely. And it clearly wasn't. And again, the long process we've undertaken reflects that. Okay. Those are my questions. You have follow up? Not from Mr. Ambot for staff. Thank you. So, Mr. Reddist made some interesting points and so hopefully Mr. Elkman so We you know we we take the position at the appeals untimely because the appeal notice was filed late and the fee was paid late But we did accept the money and we are here tonight, perhaps out of an abundance of caution to make sure we just the other elements besides just the timeliness of the appeal. By hearing this matter tonight, is there an argument that we have somehow waived the procedural infirmities of our municipal code appeal ordinance? appeal ordinance. I suppose it could make that argument but again I think under the statute there's supposed to be an appeal process that was filed. There were extensions that were requested and agreed to by the city and then the full analysis of the appeal occurred at that time and I guess I would say to the extent that the council does conclude that the it was in timely, that certainly the fee could be returned because that is somewhat customary for an untimely appeal. Okay. All right, thank you. Okay, so we've gone through questions. We're now going to close the hearing and we will hear from discussions and comments from council members regarding the issues which is I understand them are the issue of completion or in completion and the pallet issue, is that correct? I believe the issue is the application complete. There are various aspects to that. Various reasons why we believe the application is incomplete and of course Mr. Rand has argued that it is complete but those are all we've laid them out in the resolution. The council is free to adopt that resolution or to make changes to the resolution or to come to a different conclusion than what was in the resolution. And in terms of the appeal is that something that we are apining on? Yes. That would be ultimately the council would have to determine whether to uphold the appeal or deny the appeal. And what about a determinate? Does that include or exclude a determination of whether or not it was timely? be part of the denial. If you decided it was not timely, that would be part of the denial of the appeal. Okay, so with that, we will start with Council Member Wells. Okay, thank you. Well, you know, I'm listening to all the arguments and I think the thing that really comes across to me is that there's not a definitive authority on any of these issues. And we are, you know, we're looking at this application to determine whether it's complete. The different arguments that have been presented, you know, there's both sides of this, but a lot of it is interpretation. And I would say that, you know, having read the staff report and the different arguments and hearing both sides as well as the different letters that we reviewed, I would still be in support of the resolution that is recommended by the staff and I would deny the appeal. Okay, thank you and it is 11 o'clock and under our council rules, I'm supposed to check with all council members to see whether or not we can complete the hearings today. So I'll start with council member Wells. Are you willing to continue on with the hearing? Yes. It's midnight for her. It is midnight. Yes, let's continue. Yes. Yes. Okay. As do I. So we'll go to Councilmember Corman. Thank you. Okay. So I, too, believe we should deny the appeal of the reason, say, say the draft resolution and I'll let me explain some of my thinking First respect to the timeliness aspect I Think that's well actually I'll let that one go because I think that there is the interesting arguments on both sides I think that the The real the real question in my mind is whether there's been a waiver it doesn't sound like That necessarily has been a waiver. I think the fact that the state law requires a process. We provided a process. There's only one process of appeal in the court, and I believe that the appling is charged with knowledge of that process. They make a claim that that process shouldn't apply because it was ministerial, but we're not sure whether it was ministerial or not. And if it doesn't apply, there's no other process that would apply, so why not believe that it does apply, the one in the municipal code? And if that applies, and the application is on time, as far as the waiver arguments concerned, I don't know. I don't think we waved it. I think that we're looking at the merits on it out of abundance of caution. But I would also say out of abundance of caution that if we do have in the resolution that the appeal was on time, I would refund the appeal fee because I just think that's probably proper. Next, a lot of discussion about California government code section 65941.1, the Housing Crisis Act and what it means when you make changes to required elements of a preliminary application. Applicant has their view that subdivision C is the only changes that require, that mean you can make any changes you want as long as you don't run a foul of subdivision C. I think subdivision C can be read as a safe harbor that says essentially you can make changes up to a certain point and after changes of number of units and square footage because those are common changes. But once you go beyond 20%, or once you hit 20% or more, then that's a different application. So I don't know why certain requirements in A, of the certain of the 17 requirements would be treated differently than the others, since there's nothing in the code that says they should be. The applicant conceded, I think correctly, that it's not like an applicant could change the property. Described in the preliminary application with different property and the full application still have it be valid. And I think you could make the say you're marring. And should make the say you're marring about subdivision for regarding uses, particularly when obviously developments cover by the housing crisis act involves residential development. So the whole point of subdivision for other than the unit numbers is to describe non-residential uses. That wasn't done. And to say that you don't have to do it, and you can add them later suggests that that provision doesn't even belong in the code or is an effective. It effectively reads it out of the code as far as whether it's required. And again, I go back to the preliminary language in 65, 941.1a where it says an applicant for a house novellum project shall be deemed to have submitted a preliminary application upon providing all of the following information. So if you don't provide information about any non-residential uses when that's clearly the whole point of subdivision A4, I can't believe that when you do later on it's not a material change such that the application doesn't apply. So I do think that the preliminary application filed by the applicant is different than the full application and has no effect. As a result, the applicant, I believe, has no vested rights to proceed as a builder'sof-the-ramity project, the applicant's full DPR application succeeds or fails on its own and then the question becomes is it complete or incomplete? And I think that the application always was and remains incomplete for a variety of reasons, stayed in the draft resolution. But in addition to the recent state of the draft resolution, it's undisputed that the applicant made revisions to its submissions on May 9th, 2024, to provide information that the city had requested all along and was contained in its standard list of requirements. In doing so, I believe it can fairly be concluded that the project application was not complete before then Irrespective of any request for a general planner zoning amendment And because our housing element was certified by HCD on May 1, 2024 this means the application was not that the the project application was not complete When our housing element came into compliance with the Housing Accountability Act. I think that has a number of ramifications. I think, first of all, as I said, the preliminary application doesn't apply, so there's no vested rights as a result of that. So I think once our housing element came into compliance, and this project application, the DBRBOT application was still incomplete because the applicant conceded. They provided additional information after May 1st. I think that the city's standing request for a general plan and zoning amendment, whether or not it was valid before then, automatically became indisputably valid because it was no longer potentially a build-us-remedy project. And for this additional reason, the applicant's project application remains incomplete to this day. So I would, I would, you know, deny the repeal for that as well. In closing, let me just add that irrespective of we decided tonight, we are committed as the city council and the city to affordable housing and our commitment to HCD to develop that in the city. And for the more with respect to the people, the organized labor people came tonight, I appreciate the developers commitment to higher union labor. I think that's good. But the merits of the project as the applicant said upfront are not What's before us tonight. It's the developers. It's whether the application is complete or not and I believe it's Still not complete. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bauer-Marshall. Always nice to follow a star lawyer from O'Melvin and Myers, right? I can say diddo. But actually, I do want to talk about a few general points about this interesting discussion where a lot of things have come up, even though ultimately this decision now is a technical one, because I do want to respond to a lot of things have come up, even though ultimately this decision now is a technical one, because I do want to respond to a couple of things that, as someone who was part of the, I don't even want to call it pro-housing, because we're all pro-housing, but I guess I would say, part of the zoning abolition contingent, people who want to eliminate zoning, to some of the things that Mr. Brown said. I think the people who talk about, and of course, I think the original quote was from Mark Twain about statistics, and that's very true, but when people talk about lies, damn lies, and exit studies, I think these are people who have obviously never had to make a budget for a city or pay for the budget for a city. And we who are here, this is one of the most difficult and important things that we do each year. It's very expensive to run a city and to provide the kind of protection and safety that people want, including the people we've heard from labor who want to come home to a clean place and to a safe place. This is not a cheap thing. Unfortunately, these days, you know, we provide services to all our residents and our visitors. I'll maybe contrast the Mark Twain quote with something that Oscar Wilde once said. He once said, a cynic is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. But I would suggest that some of the people who I might refer to as Wall Street in my backyard and the anti-nexus study people in some ways know the value of everything to themselves maybe but the cost of nothing. And again, I will repeat that something that I've suggested before to this city, if we want to keep up our standards and keep Beverly Hills safe and clean and everything that we expect and our residents expect and our future residents expect. Then we should do our due diligence with a legitimate next to study that reflects the actual costs of running the city and that will then enable us to in a more fiscally responsible way move forward. Anyway, I also, you know, when it comes to some of the other things discussed, I personally don't think that producing more porches does reduce the price of Prius's, but I really do appreciate the 20% affordable covenanted in builders' remedy. And as I've also suggest, like other cities, like Long Beach, like Pasadena, we should, and the state should do this too, by the way. Anybody who considers themselves pro-housing should ensure that those covenants are not just for time limit, if 55 years they should be in perpetuity. We see the problem now when you've got covenants, in some cases that were only 35 years or expiring, and the affordability is lost, it's a big problem. So to me that's something that we should do. Now, again, think what you will about Builders Remedy, and I know a lot of cities feel it is a problem, and it is fundamentally unfair. But for those who do care about affordability, including the self-called pro-housing people, they should support bringing back redevelopment, maybe at a higher level of affordable housing. There were some abuses, which were mainly for commercial and not for housing. That would be a very good way to fund it. And people say it's a heavy lift, but I guess it wasn't such a heavy lift to eliminate it. It's been gone for what, ten years or something, Jerry Brown did it. That's a big problem. And also there are proposals now on the table that would reduce the percentage of affordable housing, covenants to affordable housing required for a builder's remedy project. And again, if you care about affordability, you won't support that. Okay, but if you really do believe in supply and demand, and we've heard now that a large number of union members would like to be homeowners. And that's understandable. That's, you know, studies have shown a vast majority of Americans of all stripes, of all colors, of all religions. If they had their choice, they'd own a home and many of them, if not most of them, would like to live in a home with the yard. Like some of us have grown up in, and like you've grown up in. And there is nothing wrong with that. That's something that we should actually try to endorse. But if that's what you think is a good thing, then you should oppose policies which results in a reduction of the supply of the kind of housing that most Americans, including union members, prefer. Now that's not at stake here. The project here is not displacing single family homes or anything like that. But again, this is part of a larger discussion. You represent a lot of developers and have had other cases. Also, I'll take the opportunity to say something that I've been saying in a variety of places for years that we should be supporting anti-speculation housing policies if we want more Americans to become loan owners. And those policies would allow more Americans rather than speculators, global investors in Wall Street to control the housing market. And that's a good thing. And we actually are starting to see some action in Sacramento, which is very encouraging. But when it comes to this, as said, having followed someone who I regard as a brilliant legal mind and have for years, since I first got on the council from when he was on the Planning Commission, from the questioning and all of that, I agree. I agree with Mary, but I also agree with Craig and I agree with staff. On the other hand, Mr. Rand, at the very beginning, said he wants to work with us. And so I think that is a good thing. I don't think necessarily that litigation is the only option. Let us take him at his word. We've heard the application is now only option. Let us take him at his word. We've heard the application is almost is now almost complete. So complete it. Staff, I think you will get a commitment from them. They're ready, they're professional and they're willing to to work to in an expedited fashion process the application. So I would say that to me would be the option, aside from litigation, work with us like other developers do, complete the application. And let's see what we can do to create a project that works for the community, that works for the developer, that works for all of us, taking this into account and understanding that in some cases, as much as we've forgotten about it as a country which I think is part of the problem that we're at generally where we're at that actually compromises not about word compromise is a good thing it's the fundamental democracy and I think we would be willing to work with Mr. Ran and Mr. Postillinkov to find a project that makes sense. And not only that, knowing that he's got other projects in the city, maybe to sit down and figure things out. I think we do care deeply about affordable housing. I certainly do. I serve and it's a lot of my time on the executive committee of LaCosta, the Los Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency. I'm on the board, I'm on the executive committee, we're actually trying to find a CEO. Biggest problem there is money right now. So hopefully all of the housing advocates will help us, I know in the Bay Area, they're trying to pass a $20 billion bond. We need funding. There's a measure A that's coming up here that would not only replace measure H and help fund LASA, which is homelessness, but also LASSA, which is, its goals are to preserve housing, to produce housing, and to protect tenants. I think tenant protections are also something that are extremely important. And I hope that our friends and labor will be supporting the Justice for Renters Act, which will allow cities to have more flexibility when it comes to instituting tenant protections. Our hands are tied by Sacramento now. Anyway, I'm always happy to talk about housing. I think it's fascinating. Even though we may disagree on certain things, I think we do hopefully agree on the need for affordable housing and the way to do it, and also the need to try to increase home ownership for real people. That to me is it's great to see the union people here, and I want them all to be able to own their homes and make their choices and to be part of our community. And I thank everyone for tonight and please take the message back to Mr. Post-Ellicom. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you to everyone who came today. We appreciate your time. I know it's late hours, so I'll try to keep it brief because we are trying to just determine if this application is complete. As we've gone through the staff reports and heard everyone, I support the resolution recommended by staff. the application wasn't appealed in time. There was changes to the scope of the project, and there were opportunities to submit a completed project, but they chose not to do that. And there's still items that are not complete as stated in the draft resolution. So the stature says that you need to follow local proceedings and that was not followed. There's local proceedings of 14 days versus the 90 days. It was stated that it's ministerial but it's actually discretionary. And every city has their own policies. R is 14 days and we still welcome project because we want to be able to have additional housing in our city. I just think that this is not the application for that. Thank you. So I don't either have much more to add. I think Council Member Corman really covered it well. I do agree that the process of appeal is the one that applies. It's the one that we have. I think the opposite of following that process is that there is no appeal and we know that there can't be no appeal. So it would fall back to the process that we have in our code. I would have no issue in terms of refunding the fees. I think that we've always aired in favor of having a hearing and giving a person a right to a hearing. I think that's what occurred here when we accepted the fee. So I would have no problem refunding the fee. I agree with Craig. I think that's a very interesting discussion of subpart C. I agree with that. That is a safe harbor. That is a safe harbor within that use. I think that subpart four would require a description of the non-residential uses. It just doesn't, we're trying to create housing in all of a sudden in order to have this project built. We are putting in commercial and we're displacing housing. It just doesn't seem right to me at all. And I believe that there is a requirement to describe non-residential uses. The May 9th, 2024 filing is evidence of the fact that even the applicant felt that that it is not complete and that the appeal should be denied. As a community, we committed to working to accomplish the goals that we committed to in our housing element. And I don't think that anything that is said here today is contrary to that. I think that we have discussed issues that are legal issues, issues of completion and appeal issues. But we are as a council, as a community, committed to work with HCD to accomplish those goals and look forward to seeing projects that are compliant. We now have a certified housing element. There are opportunities within that housing element for building, getting bonuses for accomplishing certain requirements. And I think those are the types of projects I'm certainly looking forward to reviewing. So Mr. City Attorney. So there's a couple of things I think that Council member Cormin suggested changes in the resolution one being of course the refunding of the fees. We would incorporate that if that's the consensus that Council I see heads nodding. So we'd want to do that and one or two other changes that he suggested. So if we could have maybe a 10 minute recess so that we can make those changes, maybe 15 minute recess so we can print out the, um, can we maybe do a 10 council? Oh yeah, you could, that's possible. But we need, we need, if you could continue this until after Council Member of Commons, then we can come back with a resolution that hopefully we'll have captured what Council Member Corman was talking about and Council can, at that point, play with the language a little bit if you're here too. Okay, so absent objection from council will continue this matter to after we have other issues on our agenda discussed. Okay. So we will continue with report from the city attorney. We did not have anything to report out of closed session this evening. It could be fairly quick. A report from the City of Anager. Thank you. Nothing this evening, Mayor. And now we'll be able to fill time with City Council Member Committee reports and comments starting with council member Welles Well first slide likes you think the applicant and Dave ran for Dave ran for being here tonight and our staff or you know being here tonight and our staff or coming up here and really having this conversation with us, I really appreciated it. I think that a lot of different issues came up and I think it's important to have that dialogue and I would like to reiterate what my other council members had said as well. We are, and as I said earlier, we're committed to our housing element and implementing that housing element and want to work with the developers that want to work in our city. And I appreciate all of the developers that want to come here and hopefully we'll be able to work together in a really productive way, as said, to really meet the needs of our city and of our community. And I think it's important to all of us. And then lastly, I would say that I'd like to, as you can see, I'm on Zoom and I'd like to thank the House of the Police Department and as well as the city manager for accommodating me and making it possible for me to be able to participate in the meeting tonight. You know, earlier on when we first got on the council, I had already planned to be out of town for this day because it's a Thursday. And well, now it's a Friday. However, I just I appreciate the work and I appreciate the work our staff to make this available for me to be able to participate for this evening. And so thank you. And that's all I have to say. Okay stick around Councillor Mitter Corman. I'm never really sure what I'm supposed to say about my activities of the last week or so in this part of our meeting. I can't think of anything that I did that was that important to comment on. Well it's really it's, there you go. So we all attended the premiere, the Netflix premiere of Beverly Hills Cop. That was an event that was really interesting. The film was good. The food was good and it was fun to be around all the people on the council and all their friends. So, okay, anything else? Keith, I should mention. Okay, thank you? Keith, I should make it. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council member Mayor. Well, I actually, you know, we'll start with having attended yesterday's LaConsum meeting. It's been about a year, slow going to get things up, starting a completely new organization without funding. Our chair for the first year was supervisor Holly Mitchell. It's now, yesterday, Rex Richardson took over in the Mayor of Long Beach. And as mentioned, I'm on the CEO search committee. We will be looking for an interim CEO. There are five candidates. I'll be spending about eight hours in bellflower in a couple weeks meeting with them. And we will hopefully get things kicked off. As said, we'll hear more about measure A, which is going to be a quarter percent sales tax on the November ballot to fund affordable housing. It will be split between L Lausa and LaCossa. We feel that Lausa should maybe change their name to avoid confusion. But we see that there, and the United Way made a point yesterday, that there are 6,400 empty beds in the region for mental health care because there's not the reimbursement levels not high enough. So some of it will go to that, a lot of it will too. And that will help with homelessness, whereas as I said, LaCossa, the goal is to avoid homelessness to create affordable and preserve affordable housing and stop people from falling into homelessness. Closer to home, I mentioned a lot of people don't necessarily know. I live a block west of Pico and sorry, Robert's in in a block and a half north of Pico. And many people don't really know that's Beverly Hills. I sometimes refer to it as Baja Beverly Hills. But I consider myself that that part of Beverly Hills close to Whitworth is part of the Pico Robertson neighborhood. And so many of us have seen what happened on Sunday. I was at home, and I heard loud chanting and helicopters and walked over to Pico Robertson and saw the aftermath, if you will, of the attack on Adastora. We heard that our police were involved as well, where they arrested someone who was dressed with a Hamas mask and who was chasing one of the Jewish people there and that was an arrest we made. And I think again, it's really important for our police to be prepared that that kind of hate and that kind of intimidation and that kind of anti-Jewish racism will simply not be tolerated in our city. And it was very important and meaningful that this council today earlier approved an October permanent October 7th Memorial and bringing back the flags for the one year anniversary along with signage of a October 7th memorial square, I think that will mean a lot to the community. We have to remember that our residents are in many cases, they also want to feel safe and not to be able to feel safe in our own community because of the fact that we support Israel, we look at it as a second home, and where Jewish is a big problem. And so it's really important, and I believe that I'm proud of this council for doing what we've been doing. And furthermore, as always, I propose that Qatar be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, that Qatar be sanctioned, its assets frozen, and used to compensate the victims of Qatar funded terrorism, and that we ask the State Department to expel the Qatar consulate from Beverly Hills. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, thank you very much. Councilmember Marishi, forgot to mention the Jewish film festival as well. So the violence in the Pico Robertson area in Los Angeles just bordering Beverly Hills on Sunday was appalling. No one regardless of their religion should ever be blocked from entering in their place of worship, whether it's a church, synagogue or mosque, it is our duty to secure these civil liberties and ensure safe passage for all. This blatant act of anti-Semitism was aimed to instill fear and division, but it did not and will not succeed. Within 24 hours mayor of bass and council member Yerslopsey gathered leaders to discuss strategies to protect sacred space, share safety strategies and enhance partnerships with Jewish public safety organizations. I was honored to be included in this roundtable discussion that included supervisor Horath, the Jewish Federation, ADL, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, LAPD, Muggen, and other faith-based organizations. Mayor Bass has directed the LAPD to increase patrol in the Pico Robertson area and around places of worship. She is actively collaborating with law enforcement, civic and faith leaders to ensure such violence never happens again. I am proud to say that under the leadership of our mayor and the City Council we already take those proactive measures in Beverly Hills. While we all support peaceful protests, they will also consult with LA City Attorney Heidi, Feldstein Soto on issues such as protest permits and masks regulate, mask regulations to clarify legal boundaries. With the support of our mayor and my colleagues, I'm requesting that our city address this issue as well and have our city attorney collaborate with LA City Attorney Soto on this matter. As elected, our top priority is the safety of our community. We will not tolerate anti-Semitism, hate or violence. Those responsible must be held accountable. We must come together as a community beyond city borders to create lasting change This is our moment to stand united against hate and violence and I urge every member of our community to support these initiatives Look out for one another and Cultivate an environment of respect and understanding Thank you, and I'd like to request if my colleagues agree to look at the mask Issue that LA County will also be looking at if I may Our city attorney has looked into that about three months ago. I ask As did I yeah, and the research Indicates that we may want to consider I think we may want to consider other things such as it. I think I mentioned it, enhancements for crimes committed when people are wearing masks. In addition to maybe unmasking people, people who are arrested that you publicly unmask them, take pictures of that and make them public. There may be other things that we can do too, but I think it was protesters from Iran in 1979 who was a little earlier than 1979, but yes, that's correct. Who were in San Francisco at the time? Why don't you? So there was in 1963, there was actually Los Los Angeles ordinance, interestingly enough, that was invalidated as duplicative of the state laws that covered mass squaring. One of those two state laws was then invalidated as unconstitutional in connection with protest by it was at the time Iranian students it was protesting I guess I guess protesting for revolution at the time yeah I thought it was see I thought it was them protesting the Comaini, but I guess it was. No, I don't think so. And so that was invalidated. But I think that kind of showed the problems with having a mass resolution, excuse me, a mass ordinance that duplicated the state law, except there's a still a state law which wasn't invalidated and which was blessed actually by the court at that time, which says you can, you can prohibit masks, and this is a state law right now, and we can't duplicate it, but we can enforce it. You can prohibit masks if they're used for the purpose of committing a crime or used to conceal identity while you plan to commit a crime. So we do have, there is a mass ordinance that they can be used. But I would be happy to work with the City of Los Angeles and... Just a dialogue to see if there's... To work with them and try and come up with something creative. Well, I think they're going to find out the research you did. But again, there may be other additional things that we can do, such as public unmasking of people, such as enhancements, of course, that would require a DA who's actually going to enforce the law, but that's a separate issue. And there may be other things that we can do. Does anybody else here see the irony of when I was mayor last time that we wanted to enforce people wearing masks? And now we're talking about unmasking people. They're not. It's just the irony. Well, that's these people are not concerned about COVID. They're not. No, I understand that. I just think it's somewhat ironic. But any event, hopefully you can work with them if there's something else that, you know, so be it. Anyway, I took an early flight to Kansas City, for the United States Conference of Mayors, 92nd Annual Meeting. Very good, there was about, I would say about 400, 350 to 400 mayors that attended. The group is primarily larger city mayors and their issues aren't necessarily the same as ours or they probably are, but they're on a just much larger, larger scale. But the breakouts that I attended were interesting. And I'll just go through them as quickly as I can because we're filling time still. One of the breakouts and city manager, coffee and I have talked about is using AI to be more efficient in the operation of the fourth floor. And it was very interesting, this mayor from Reno, which is a big city, introduced me to someone who has transformed their report, staff report writing system to AI, they kind of took all of the prior reports from the last 30, 40 years and that's a base and then when new reports are written and people want to go into the history, they can put in keywords and things pop up on the page which still need to be edited. But her report was that it saves hours and hours of staff time writing reports. So that's going to be looked into. It was a really an interesting breakout that we had. Another breakout was on the role of female voters in 2024 election. And that's obviously going to be a significant issue I believe in in this upcoming election but very interesting the the plays that go on there. Another topic was talking about the outlook of politicians in general. And I'm going to assume that this was somewhat weighted towards local politicians the study was, but it showed that the highest level of popularity of politicians and it's in the 60 to 70 percent range, is local politicians. As you go up to state to federal, it decreases, I think it's less than 20% of favorability of federal politicians. Is that the Fernando Guerra study from Loyola? He's done a study for years running and that, I'm sorry, missed it. Where did you hear that? At the US conference in May, it was a panel discussion. And another topic that was discussed was relying on local businesses during times of crisis. And they were talking a lot about, you know, floods and things like that, where you have to have those associations with local businesses so that you can rely upon them in a time of crisis. And the time to work on that is obviously before the crisis so you have it. And I think we're a really good example of that because I know that when we had our issues again when I was mayor we tapped into local businesses and it was really seamless. We have all those contacts with local businesses already. Obviously it's easier for us in our environment as a small city, much more difficult for the larger cities and I think that shows something that we do much better than larger cities do. We were recognized as a pet smart city. I got a little button that we're one of about 40 cities at the Morris Company, which interesting enough, Morris is obviously Morris bars, which interesting enough, Morris is obviously Morris Bar is Milky Way, three musketeers. Their largest items that they sell are pet food. So they have the IAMS brand, the Nature's Recipe brand, several, several brands. They are larger in pet food than they are in candy. I didn't know that before. But anyway, we were one of about 40 or 50 cities that are recognized as pet smart cities. I'm sorry. Oh, my pen? No. And then the last thing I went to was a really an inclusionary seminar on making sure that cities respect people that are different than themselves. And that was a very interesting topic that was discussed. So anyway, it was a very, very worthwhile conference. You'll be going next year. I'll always be. It really was interesting. Where is it next? I have to go back to DC in January. It's always in GC in January. But the summer wanted to change. It's in Columbus, I'm thinking. John got to go to Honolulu, I think. Well, Andy and Ian Apples, which is a great city. I think it's Columbus So but really good good good programs You go to the Neyville League Museum Didn't I got there a day and a half late so I didn't have time to do some of The world world world war one museum. Did you have some barbecue? At barbecue. Okay, yeah, not my favorite, but that's okay. Okay, so anyway, those are the end of the committee reports and council member reports. I don't know if we are ready yet with a resolution. We are printing it out. We'll have copies for the council members, red line copies for the council members and for Mr. Rand. And Stephanie just stepped out so we need maybe three or four minutes. Okay. Vice Mayor wants to just mention one other thing and then we'll take a five minute break. On what was it Tuesday? Yeah, one of those two. This week on Tuesday we had a delegation visit us from Israel and they were warriors from Warriors from Beit Halochem, which means House of Warriors. And it was really interesting to hear their accounts of October 7th and how they were involved. And there was a one lady who stood out particularly. She got shot 12 times and was believed to be dead and she was talking about her heroic rehabilitation and the process that it took and it was just really fascinating to be able to listen to these stories firsthand and bear witness and we have recorded it and hopefully we'll be able to televised it soon and we also got some information from our fire chief and our police chief who also attended and several of our city staff. And it was a very interesting experience and I look forward to being able to have that shared on our cable channel. So with that, let's take, let's call the 10 minute, 10 minute break, five minute break. I think five minutes. Five minute break. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. 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There's one additional revisions that staff will have. So if, if I know I have given the council the resolution given to staff, we've given it to Mr. Rand, I believe there was one copy available for the public as well. So if this is acceptable to the council, we do have one more thing to add if this is all acceptable and I'll let Mr. Snow add that. So does anyone here on the day us have any changes other than we went to listen to day first? No, no, it's fine. I was just pointing, actually I was pointing to Mary. Okay. Just in case she has. The only change would be the word evidence on page six. It should say evidenced. So the further the outfitit was not complete. The affidavit was not complete on May 1, 2024 as evidenced. And Mary, you have that as a correction. You were able to hear what we said. Mr. Mayor. Anything else? Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. We have one more addition. And this is on around page 10 of the resolution. It is a section G on that page and it is adding to the second sentence. The second sentence currently reads, thus in order to process the DPR project application, the applicant must also submit applications for amendments to the city's general plan and zoning ordinances and or map for concurrent processing and add to that sentence the following comma and failure to do so renders the applications incomplete as a separate and independent basis. It's a separate and independent process is that what you said? So this is an in addition to the other in completeness items that were identified in paragraph D. Okay. And with those two corrections, staff is, if the council, staff is finished adding things to the resolution. So unless the council has further direction, staff would be prepared for anyone to make a motion. Okay. so with that, who would like to make the motion? I'll make the motion. I move that the City Council adopt the resolution entitled a resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills denying an appeal of staffs October 13, 2023, incomplete application determination and upholding the city's incomplete application determination, fine application, sorry, determination. Finding the action exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act as amended. Second. And if we could have the role. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Korman? Yes. Council Member Korman? Yes. Council Member Mirish? Vice Mayor Nizarian? Yes. And Mayor Friedman? Yes. Okay. And with that, I have one other item that I would like to adjourn the meeting for. I'd like to adjourn tonight's meeting in memory of longtime Beverly Hills educator Herbert Dodge. Her passed away last week at his home. Her began teaching at Beverly Hills High School in 1962. He started the AP History Program at Beverly High and taught AP American and European history from 1962 to 1988. After retiring from Beverly Hills, high Herb was principal at a small private school in the San Fernando Valley. Herb was a mentor to so many Beverly Hills students, and I believe we have two of them on our day as right here. Three, boom, three. Boy, in addition to teaching at Beverly, Boy, in addition to teaching at Beverly, to herb taught students to drive through Beverly's driver training program. Boy, remember those days, that doesn't happen anymore. Herb has survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. I'd like to offer my colleagues a chance to say a few words and perhaps we can start with Larry. I had Mr. Judge for AP American History. I really valued him as a teacher and a mentor and I will sadly miss him. And Councilmember Corman. So yeah, he was always Mr. Dodge right? Wasn't her. Yes, Mr. Dodge. I had him for European AP, AP Year History senior year at Beverly. He was a great guy. He was funny, cared for the students. Interestingly enough, during the recent election campaign, we had, the candidates had a form at the Sunrise Center over on Crescent and Dayton. And my mother came and she was at a table and afterwards I came over and she was sitting with a gentleman and she said to me this this gentleman says he taught at the high school to remember him and I looked at him and I realized it was her dodge and and I had a chance to talk to him a little bit and that was nice but he was always very gentlemanly and you know we will miss him and he was a great teacher apparently. John? You know, it's interesting because as Craig said, he at least, a lot of part of his life actually lived in the city. So he wasn't just a teacher at the high school, he was a resident. And I also had him for 11th grade AP or P in history, and American history, sorry. And that was, I had 12th grade AP Chuck Clos for European history. And, but dodging clothes, I mean, those are among the classes that I remember most from the high school that I love the most. It was fascinating to talk about American history, but also to refer them to current events. I think that was around the time that Reagan was shot, I remember, and that was something that was at the high school and discussed. And he was just, you know, there are a few teachers that stand out and you remember them and how good they were. And Mr. Dodge was certainly one of them. He will be missed. He lived to 94, I think, which is a good run, but would have been nice to have had him around for a few more years. Thank you. So the vice mayor and I are too young to have had Mr. Dodge and I'll... I'll say one. Of course, go ahead. So I wanted to extend my warmest condolences to Mr. Dodge and his family and appreciate his, I guess, service to our community as a teacher. It's such an important role. But he must have been pretty remarkable if we have three brilliant people here who he taught. So we thank him for that as well. OK. And with that, we will adjourn tonight in honor of Herb Dodge, May his memory be a blessing. We will adjourn this meeting to R. Raghmer meeting Tuesday, July 2nd, and with that good evening and with that. Good morning. Good morning. Good evening and good morning. Thank you. And I thank you. I fired him. This guy hasn't fired anybody. He never fires. He should have fired every military man that was involved with that Afghan, the Afghanistan horror show, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. He didn't fire. Did you fire anybody? Did you fire anybody that's on the border? That's allowed us to have the worst border in the history of the world? Did anybody get fired for allowing 18 million people? Many from prisons? Many from mental institutions? Did you fire anybody that allowed our country to be destroyed? Joe, our country is being destroyed. As you and I sit up here and waste a lot of time on this debate, this shouldn't be a debate. He is the worst president. He just said about me because I said it. But look, he's the worst president in the history of our country. He's destroyed our country. Now all of a sudden he's trying to get a little tough on the border. He came out, came out with a nothing, a nothing deal, and he reduced it a little bit, a little bit like this much, it's insignificant. He wants open voters. He wants our country to either be destroyed or he wants to pick up those people as voters. And I don't think we just can't let it happen. If he wins this election, our country doesn't have a chance, not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won't have a country left anymore. That's how bad it is. He is the worst in history by far. Thank you, President Trump. President Biden. We are the most admired country in the world. We're the United States of America. There's nothing beyond our capacity. We have the finest military in the history of the world. The finest in the history of the world. No one thinks we're weak. No one wants to screw around with us. Nobody. Number one. Number two, the idea that we're talking about worst presidents. I wasn't joking. Look it up. Go online. 159 or 58 don't home the exact number. Presidents and historians, they've had meetings and they've voted, who's the worst president in American history. One, best to worst. They said he was the worst in all of American history. That's a fact. That's not a, that's not conjecture. He can argue the wrong, but that's what they voted. The idea that he is knowing, doing anything to deal with childcare. He did very, virtually nothing to childcare. We should significantly increase the childcare tax credit. We should significantly increase the availability of women and men, or single parents to be able to go back to work. And we should encourage businesses to hold, to have- Thank you, President Biden. President Trump, the question was about what would you do to make childcare more affordable if you want to take your minute? Just to you understand, we have polling, we have other things that they rate them the worst because what he's done is so bad. And they rate me, I'll show you, I will show you. And they rate me one of the best, okay? And if I'm given another four years, I will be the best, I think I'll be the best. Nobody's ever created economy like us, nobody ever cut taxes like us. He's the only one I know. He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybody's taxes by four times. He wants to trump tax cuts to expire. So everybody, including the two of you, are going to pay four to five times. Nobody ever heard of this before. All my life I'd grow up and I see politicians talking about cutting taxes. When we cut taxes, as I said, we did more business. Apple and all these companies, they were bringing money back into our country. The worst president in history by far, and everybody knows it. President Biden? Look, the fact of the matter is that he's dead wrong about... He's increased the... He's increased... He will increase the taxes on middle-class people. I said I'd never raise a tax upon anybody making less than $400,000. I didn't. But this tariff is 10% tariffs. Everything coming into the country, you know what the economists say? That's going to cost the average American $2,500 a year more because they're going to have to pay the difference in food and all the things that are very important. Number two, he's in a situation where he talks about how he has not raised, he somehow helped the middle class. Middle class have been devastated by you. Now you want a new tax cut of $5 trillion over the next 10 years, which is going to fundamentally bankrupt the country. You have the largest deficit of any president American history. Number one, number two, you have not in fact made any contact, any progress with China. We are the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010. Thank you President vibes. You lost time. Thank you President. But let's discuss an epidemic impacting millions of Americans that both of you have made a top priority in your first term, the opioid crisis. And for both of you, the number of overdose deaths in this country has gone up. Under your term, it went up, under your term, it has gone up. A former president, Trump, despite the efforts that both of you have made, more than 100,000 Americans are dying from overdoses every year, primarily from fentanyl and other opioids. What will you do to help Americans right now in the throes of addiction who are struggling to get the treatment they need? To finish up, we now have the largest deficit in the history of our country under this guy. We have the largest deficit with China. He gets paid by China. He's a manchurian candidate. He gets money from China. So I think he's afraid to deal with him or something. But do you notice he never took out my tariffs because we bring in so much money with the tariffs that I imposed on China. He never took them away. He can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous. We saved our steel industries and there was more to come, but he hasn't done that. But he hasn't cut the tariffs because he can't, because it's too much money. But he's got the largest deficit in the history of our country, and he's got the worst the worst situation with China. China is going to own us if you keep allowing them to do what they're doing to us as a country. They are killing us as a country, Joe, and you can't let that happen. You're destroying our country. So, President Trump, you have 67 seconds left. The question was, what are you going to do to help Americans in the throes of addiction right now who are struggling to get the treatment they need? Jake, we're doing very well at addiction until the COVID came along. We had the 2 1 1-1-1-1-2-1-3 years of, like, nobody's ever had before any country in every way. And then we had to get tough. And it was the drugs pouring across the border where it started to increase. We got great equipment. We bought the certain dog that's the most incredible thing that you've ever seen, the way they can spot it. We did a lot. And we had, we were getting very low numbers, very, very low numbers. Then he came along. The numbers, have you seen the numbers now? It's not only the 18 million people that I believe is even low because they got away. They don't even talk about gotaways. But the numbers of the amount of drugs and human trafficking in women coming across our border, the worst thing I've ever seen at numbers that nobody's ever seen under him because the border's so bad. But the number of drugs coming across our border now is the largest we've ever had by far. President Trump, thank you, President Biden. Fentanyl and the byproducts Fentanyl went down for a while. And I wanted to make sure we used them, a machinery that can detect Fentanyl, these big machines roll over everything, it comes across the border. And it costs a lot of money. That was part of this deal we put together, the spy partners in deal. More fentanyl machines, more, more, be able to detect drugs, more, more numbers of agents, more numbers of all the people at the border. And when we had that deal done, he, when he called his Republican colleagues, and don't do it. It's going to hurt me politically. He never argued it's not a good bill. It's a really good bill. We need those machines. We need those machines. And we're coming down very hard in every country in Asia in terms of precursors for fentanyl and Mexico is working with us to make sure they don't have the technology to be able to put it together. That's what we have to do. We need those machines. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump, and again, the question is about Americans and the throws of addiction right now struggling to get the treatment they need. Well, this consists of, pretend it to it. He ended, remained in Mexico. He ended, catch and release. I made a catch and release in Mexico. Not catch and release here. We had so many things that we had done, hard negotiations with Mexico, and I got it all for nothing. It's just like when he had a hostage, we always pay $6 billion for a hostage. Every time we say a hostage, now we have a hostage, a Wall Street Journal reporter. I think a good guy, and he's over there because Putin is laughing at this guy, probably asking for billions of dollars for the reporter. I will have him out very quickly as soon as I take office, before I take office. I said, by literally, as soon as I win the election, I will have that reporter out. He should have had him out a long time ago, but Putin's probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time. We had two cases. We paid $6 billion for five people. I got 58 people out and I paid essentially nothing. Thank you, President Trump. Dana? Let's turn to concerns that voters have about each of you. President Biden, you would be 86 at the end of your second term. How do you address concerns about your capability to handle the toughest job in the world well into your 80s? Well, first of all, I spent half my career being criticized, being the youngest person in politics. I was the second youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I'm the oldest. This guy's three years younger and a lot less competent. I think that this, look at the record, look at what I've done. Look, I've turned around the horrible situation he left me. As I said, 15 million new jobs, 800,000 manufacturing jobs, more investment in America, over millions, billions of dollars in private investment in enterprises that we are growing. We, by the way, we brought awful lot of people, the whole idea of computer chips. We used to have 40% of the market. We invented those chips. And we lost it because he was sending people to find the cheapest jobs overseas and to bring home a product. So I went to South Korea. I convinced Samsung to invest billions of dollars here in the United States. And they're, guess what? Those fabs, they call them, to build these chips. Those fabs pay over $100,000. You don't need a college degree for them. And there's billions, about $40 billion already being invested and being built right now in the United States, creating significant jobs for Americans all over the world. President Biden, you have 40 seconds left. Would you like to add anything? Yeah, I would. The idea that somehow we are this failing country. I never heard a President talk like this before. We're the envy that we'reNW name me a single major country president, wouldn't trade places with the United States of America for all of our problems and all of our opportunities. Were the most progressive country in the world and getting things done. Were the strongest country in the world. Were a country in the world who keeps our word and everybody trusts us, all of our allies and our op, and our, those who he cobbles up to from Kim Jong-un, he says, love letters to Putin, et cetera. They don't want to screw around with this. Thank you. Former President Trump to follow up, you would be 82 at the end of your second term. What do you say to voters who have concerns about your capabilities to serve? Well, I took two tests, cognitive tests. I hasted them. both of them, as you know, we made it public. He took none. I'd like to see him take one. Just one, a real easy one. Like, go through the first five questions he couldn't do it. But I took two cognitive tests. I took physical exams every year. And, you know, we knock on wood wherever we may have wood that I'm in very good health. I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way and I do it. He doesn't do it. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. I think I'm in very good shape. I feel that I'm in good shape as I was 25, 30 years ago. Actually, I'm probably a little bit lighter, but I'm in as good a shape as I was years ago. I feel very good. I feel the same. But I took, I was willing to take a cognitive test. And you know what, if I didn't do well, I ace them. Dr. Ronnie Jackson, who's a great guy when he was White House doctor and then I took another one, a similar one. And both, one of them said they'd never seen anybody asum. Thank you. President Biden? You can see he is 6'5 and only 220thr pounds or 235 pounds. Well, you said 6'4 200. Well, anyway, that's it. Anyway, just take a look at what he says he is and take a look at what he is. Look, I'd be happy to have a driving contest with him. The dream I got my handicap, which one I was vice president, down to a six. And by the way, I told you before I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it? That's the biggest lie that you've got. He's a six handicap of all. I was an eight-handed cap. Eight? Never. But I have, you know, I'm a good, I've seen this way, I know you've seen. Let's throw it on everybody around. President Trump, we're going to turn. Let's not act like children. You are trying. Two specific concerns that voters have about you. Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted, that you will accept the results of this election, regardless of who wins, and you will say right now that political violence in any form is unacceptable? Well, I shouldn't have to say that, but of course I believe that. It's totally unacceptable. And if you would see my statements that I made on Twitter at the time, and also my statement that I made in the Rose Guard, you would say it's one of the strongest statements you've ever seen. In addition to the speech I made, in front of I believe the largest crowd I've ever spoken to, and I will tell you, nobody ever talks about that. They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol, and in many cases were ushered in by the police. And as Nancy Pelosi said, it was her responsibility, not mine. She said that loud and clear. But the answer is, if the election is fair, free, and I want that more than anybody, and I'll tell you something, I wish he was a great president, because I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be at one of my many places enjoying myself. I wouldn't be under indictment because I wouldn't have been his political opponent, because he indicted me, because I was his opponent. I wish he was a great president. I would rather have that. I wouldn't be here. I don't mind being here. But the only reason I'm here is he's so bad as a president that I'm going to make America great again. We're going to make America great again. We're a failing nation right now. We're a seriously failing nation. And we're a failing nation because of him. His policies are so bad. His military policies are insane. They're insane. These are wars that will never end with him. He will drive us into World War III. And we're closer to World War III than anybody can imagine. We are very, very us into World War III and we're closer to World War III than anybody can imagine. We are very, very close to World War III and he's driving us there. And Kim Jong Un and President Xi of China, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, all of these Putin, they don't respect him, they don't fear him, they have nothing going with this gentleman and he's going to drive us into World War 3. You want a World War 3? Let him follow and win and let Putin say do what you want, NATO. Just do what you want. There's a thing called Article 5. An attack on one is attack on all and required response. The idea, the idea. I can't think of a single major leader in the world who wouldn't trade places with what job I've done and what they've done. Because we are powerful nation, we have wonderful peace because of the people, not means because of the American people. They're capable of anything. They step up when they're needed. And right now we're needed. We're needed to protect the world because our own safety is a stake. And again, you want to have a war. Just let Putin go ahead and take Kiev, make sure they move on, see what happens in Poland, Hungary, and other places along that border. Then you have a war. President Trump, as they come back to you for a follow-up, the question was, will you accept the results of this election regardless of who wins? Just to finish what he said, if I might. Russia. They took a lot of land from Bush. They took a lot of land from Obama and Biden. They took no land, nothing from Trump, nothing. He knew not to do it. He's not going to play games with me. He knew that. I got along with him very well, but he knew not to play games. He took nothing with me. He knew that. I got along with him very well, but he knew not to play games. He took nothing from me. But now he's going to take the whole thing from this man right here. That's a war that should have never started. It would have never started ever with me. And he's going to take Ukraine. And you know, you asked me a question before, would you do this with – he's got us in such a bad position right now with, with Ukraine and Russia. Because Ukraine's not winning that war. He said, I will never settle until such time. They're running out of people. They're running out of soldiers. They've lost so many people. It's so sad. They've lost so many people. And they've lost those gorgeous cities with the golden domes that are a thousand years old, all because of him and stupid decisions. Russia would have never attacked him. I would present it. Right, and from the question was, will you accept the results of the election? Regardless of who wins, yes or no, please. If it's a fair and legal and good election, absolutely. I would have much rather accepted these, but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous. And if you want, we'll have a news conference on it in a week. Or we'll have another one of these in a week. But I will absolutely, there's nothing I'd rather do. It would be much easier for me to do that than I'm running again. I wasn't really going to run until I saw the horrible job he did. He's destroying our country. I would be very happy to be someplace else in a nice location someplace. And again, no indictments, no political opponent stuff, because it's the only way he thinks he can win. But unfortunately, it's driven up by numbers and driven up to a very high level, because the people understand it. Let's see what your numbers are and the selection is over. Let's see. You're a whiner. When you lost the first time, you continued. You appealed and appealed the courts all across the country. Not one single court in America said any of your claims at any merit, state or local, none, but you continued to provoke this lie about somehow there's all this misrepresentation, all this stealing. There is no evidence of that at all. And I tell you what, I doubt whether you'll accept it, because you're such a whiner. The idea, if you lose again, you accept anything, you can't stand the loss. Something snapped and you wouldn't have lost the last time. We'll be right back with more from the CNN presidential debate live from Georgia. It is now time for the candidates to deliver their closing statements as predetermined by a coin toss we're going to begin with you president Biden you have two minutes. We've made significant progress from the debacle though is left by President Trump and it is last term. We find ourselves in a situation where number one we have to make sure that we have a fair tax system. I ask anyone out there in the audience, or anyone out watching this debate, do you think the tax system is fair? The fact is that I said nobody even making under $400,000 had a single penny increase in their taxes and will not, and if I'm reelected, that will be the case again. But this guy has increased your taxes because of the deficit number one. He's increased inflation because of the debacle he left after where he handled the pandemic. And he finds himself in a position where he now wants to tax you more by putting a 10% tariff on everything that comes into United States America. What I did, one for example, he wants to get away with, you get rid of the ability of Medicare for the ability to, for us to be able to negotiate drug prices with the big farmer companies. Well guess what? We got it down to $15, excuse me, $35 for insulin instead of $400. No more than $2,000 for every senior, no matter how much prescription they need. You know what that did? That reduced the federal debt by $160 billion over 10 years because the government doesn't have to pay the exorbitant prices. I'm gonna make that available to every senior all along, or it's happening now, and everybody in America. He wants to get rid of that. We have, I'm going to make sure that we have child care. We're going to significantly increase the credit that people have for child care. I'm going to make sure we do something about what we're doing on lead pipes and all the things that are causing health problems for people across the country. We're going to continue to fight to bring down inflation and give people a break. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump, you now have two minutes for your closing statement. Like so many politicians, this man is just a complainer. He said we want to do this. We want to do that. We want to get rid of this tax, that tax. But he doesn't do anything. He doesn't do only – does his make our country unsafe by allowing millions and millions of people to pour in. Our military doesn't respect him. We look like fools in Afghanistan. We didn't stop. Israel was such a horrible thing that would have never happened. It should have never happened. Iran was broke. Anybody that did business with Iran, including China, they couldn't do business with the United States. They all passed. Iran was broke. They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah, Faterra, no money whatsoever. Again, Ukraine should have never happened. He talks about all the stuff that he didn't do it. For three and a half years, we're living in hell. We have the Palestinians, and we have everybody else riding all over the place. You talk about Charlottesville. This is 100 times Charlottesville, a thousand timesher. The whole country is exploding because of you, because they don't respect you, and they have to respect their president, and they don't respect you throughout the world. What we did was incredible. We rebuilt the military. We got the largest tax cut in history, the largest regulation cut in history. The reason he's got jobs is because I cut the regulations that gave jobs, but he's putting a lot of those regulations back on. All of the things that we've done, nobody's ever seen anything like, even from a medical standpoint, right to try, where we can try space-aged materials instead of going to Asia or going to Europe and trying to get when you're terminally ill. Now you can go and you can get something, you sign a document, they Europe and trying to get when you're terminally ill. Now you can go and you can get something. You sign a document. They've been trying to get it for 42 years. But you know what we did for the military? It was an incredible choice for our soldiers. Where our soldiers, instead of waiting for three months to see a doctor, can go out and get themselves fixed up and readyed up and take care of themselves, and they're living. And that's why I had the highest approval rating in the history of the VA. So all of these things were in a failing nation, but it's not going to be failing anymore. We're going to make it great again. Thank you, former President Trump, President Biden. Stay with us because we have full analysis of this debate. Anderson Cooper and Aaron Bernett starts now on CNN. Seasbams Washington Journal are live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy from Washington you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, DC to across the country. Coming up this morning, we're getting your reaction to last night's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Join the conversation all morning with your phone calls, text messages, and social media comments. C-SPAN's Washington Journal. Live at 7 Easter in this morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at cspan.org. Today President Biden is in Raleigh, North Carolina for his first campaign event after Thursday's CNN debate. We'll have live coverage starting at New N Eastern on C-SPAN 2. And then later at 3PM, former President Donald Trump makes his first campaign stop after the debate at a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia. That's also on C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at cspan.org. C-SPAN Now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in Washington. Live and on demand. Keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the U.S. Congress, White House events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics, all of your fingertips. You can also stay current with the latest episodes of Washington Journal and find scheduling information for C-SPAN's TV networks and C-SPAN radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. C-SPAN Now is available at the Apple Store and Google Play. Scan the QR code to download it for free today or visit our website, cspan.org slash cspannow. C-SPAN Now, your front row seat to Washington. Anytime. Anywhere. C-SPAN is your unfiltered view of government. We're funded by these television companies and more, including SparkLite. The greatest town on earth is the place you call home at SparkLite. It's our home too. And right now we're all facing our greatest challenge. That's why Sparklight is working round the clock to keep you connected. We're doing our part so it's a little easier to do yours. Sparklight supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-world seat to democracy. Up next, President Biden and former President Trump take part in their first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. The two candidates answered questions on multiple topics, including abortion, immigration, and foreign policy. This debate was moderated by CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Atlanta. It's about 90 minutes. MUSIC We're live from Georgia, a key battleground state in the race for the White House. In just moments, the current U.S. President will debate the former U.S. presidents as their party's presumptive nominees of first in American history. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world to our studios in Atlanta. This is the CNN presidential debate. This debate is being produced by CNN and is coming to you live on CNN, CNN International, CNN.com, CNN Max and CNN Esponial. This is a pivotal moment between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump and their rematch for the nation's highest office. Each will make his case to the American people with just over four months until election day. in the United States. The United States is the largest country in the world. The United States is the largest country in the world. The United States is the largest country in the world. The United States is the largest country in the world. The United States is the largest country in the world. The United States is the largest country in the world. The United States is the largest country in the world. job is to facilitate a debate between the two candidates tonight before we introduce them we want to share the rules of the debate with the audience at home. Former President Trump will be on the left side of the screen. President Biden will be appearing on the right a coin toss determined their positions. Each candidate will have two minutes to answer a question and one minute each for responses and rebuttals. An additional minute for follow-up clarification or response is at the moderator's discretion. When it's time for a candidate to speak, his microphone will be turned on and his opponent's microphone will be turned off. Should a candidate interrupt when his microphone is muted, he will be difficult to understand for viewers at home. At the end of the debate, each candidate will get two minutes for closing statements. There is no studio audience tonight. Free written notes, props, or contact with campaign staff are not permitted during the debate. By accepting our invitation to debate both candidates and their campaigns, agreed to accept these rules. Now, please welcome the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden. And please welcome the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. Let's begin the debate and let's start with the issue that voters consistently say, is their top concern the economy. President Biden inflation has slowed, but prices remain high. Since you took office, the price of essentials has increased. For example, a basket of groceries that cost $100 then now costs more than $120. And typical home prices have jumped more than 30%. What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump? We got to take a look at what I was left when I became president. What Mr. Trump loved me. We had an economy that was in free fall. The pandemic was so badly handled. Many people were dying. All he said was, is not that serious. Just inject a little bleach in your arm. It could be all right. The economy collapsed. There were no jobs. Unemployment rose to 15%. It was terrible. And so what we had to do is try to put things back together again. And that's exactly what we began to do. We created 15,000 new jobs. We brought out in a position where we have 800,000 manufacturing jobs, but there's more to be done. There's more to be done. Working class people are still in trouble. I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I come up household, we're at a kitchen table if the things weren't able to be met during the month there was a problem. Price of eggs, the price of gas, the price of housing, the price of a whole range of things. That's why I'm working so hard to make sure I deal with those problems. And we're going to make sure that we have reduced the price of housing. We're going to make sure we build two million new units. We're going to make sure we cap rents. So corporate greed can't take over. The combination, what I was left with, and corporate greed are the reason why I'm doing this problem right now. In addition to that, we're in a situation where if you had to take a look at all that was done at his administration He didn't do much at all by the time he left there things were in chaos Little literally chaos and so we put things back together We created I said those jobs we make sure we had a situation where we now we brought down the price of prescription drug Which is a major issue for many people to fifteen dollars $15 for an insulin shot has supposed to $400, no senior has to pay more than $200 for any drug, all the drugs they conclude beginning next year. And the situation is making, and we're gonna make that available to everybody, to all Americans. So we're working to bring down the price of around the kitchen table, and that's what we're gonna get done. Thank you, President Trump. We have the greatest economy in the price of around the kitchen table. And that's what we're going to get done. Thank you, President Trump. We're the greatest economy in the history of our country. We have never done so well. Everybody was amazed by it. Other countries were copying us. We got hit with COVID. And when we did, we spent the money necessary. So we wouldn't end up in a great depression, the likes of which we had in 1929. By the time we finished, so we did a great job. We got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military and no wars and so many other things. Everything was rocking good. But the thing we never got the credit for and we should have is getting us out of that COVID mess. He created mandates. That was a disaster for our country, but other than that, we had given them back a country where the stock market actually was higher than pre-COVID. And nobody thought that was even possible. The only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounce back jobs, a bounce back from the COVID. He has not done a good job, he's done a poor job and inflation's killing our country. It is absolutely killing us. Thank you, President Biden. Well, look, the greatest economy in the world. He's the only one who thinks that, I think. I don't know anybody else who thinks he's a great, the greatest economy in the world. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that we pride ourselves in this situation where his economy, he rewarded the wealthy. He had the largest tax cut in American history, $2 trillion. He raised a deficit larger than any president has in any one term. He's the only president other than Herbert Hoover, who lost more jobs than he had when he began since Herbert Hoover. The idea that he did something that was significant in the military, you know, when he was president, there were still killing people in Afghanistan. He didn't do anything about that. When he was president, we were still finding ourselves in a position where you had a notion that we were the safe country. Truth is, I'm the only president this century that doesn't have any, this decade, that don't have any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did. President Trump, I want to follow up if I can. You want to- Why would I let you respond to him? Well, I'm going to ask you a follow-up you can do whatever you want with the minute that we give you. I want to follow up. You want to impose a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the US. How will you ensure that that doesn't drive prices even higher? have been higher. Not going to drive on higher. It's just going to cost countries that have been ripping us off for years like China and many others in all fairness to China. It's going to just force them to pay us a lot of money, reduce our deficit tremendously, and give us a lot of power for other things. But he made a statement. The only thing he was right about is I gave you the largest tax cut in history. I also gave you the largest regulation cut in history. That's why we had all the jobs. And the jobs went down and then they bounced back. And he's taking credit for bounce back jobs. You can't do that. He also said he inherited 9% inflation. No, he inherited almost no inflation. And it stayed that way for 14 months. And then it blew up under his leadership because they spent money like a bunch of people that didn't know what they were doing, and they don't know what they were doing. It was the worst, probably the worst administration in history. There's never been. And as far as Afghanistan is concerned, I was getting out of Afghanistan, but we were getting out with dignity, with strength, with power. He got out. It was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country's life. President Trump, over the last eight years, under both of your administrations, the national debt soared to record highs. And according to a new nonpartisan analysis, President Trump, your administration approved $8.4 trillion in new debt. While so far, President Biden, you've approved $4.3 trillion in new debt. So former President Trump, many of the tax cuts that you signed into law are set to expire next year. You want to extend them and go even further, you say. With the U.S. facing trillion dollar deficits and record debt, why should top earners and corporations pay even less in taxes than they do now? Because the tax cut spurred the greatest economy that we've ever seen just prior to COVID. And even after COVID, it was so strong that we're able to get through COVID much better than just about any other country. But we spurred that tax spurt. Now, when we cut the taxes, as an example, the corporate tax was cut down to 21 percent from 39 percent plus beyond that. We took in more revenue with much less tax and companies were bringing back trillions of dollars back into our country. The country was going like never before. And we were ready to start paying down debt. We were ready to start using the liquid gold right under our feet, the oil and gas right under our feet. We were going to have something that nobody else has had. We got hit with COVID. We did a lot to fix it. I gave him an unbelievable situation with all of the therapeutics and all of the things that we came up with. We gave him something great. Remember, more people died under his administration, even though we had largely fixed it. More people died under his administration than our administration, and we were right in the middle of it, something which a lot of people don't like to talk about. But he had far more people dying in his administration. He did the mandate, which is a disaster, mandating it. The vaccine went out. He did a mandate on the vaccine, which is the thing that people most objected to about the vaccine. And he did a very poor job, just a very poor job. And I will tell you, not only poor there, but throughout the entire world, we're no longer respected as a country. They don't respect our leadership, they don't respect the United States anymore. We're like a third world leadership between weaponization of his election, trying to go after his political opponent. All of the things he's done, we've become like a third world nation, and it's a shame. The damage he's done to our country, and I'd love to ask him and will, why he allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails, and mental institutions to come into our country, and I'd love to ask him and will why he allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails, and mental institutions to come into our country and destroy our country. President Trump, we will get to immigration later in this block. President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt. He had the largest national debt of any president for your period, number one. Number two, that $2 trillion tax cut benefited the very wealthy. I, what I'm going to do is fix the taxes. For example, we have 1,000 trillionaires in America. I mean, billionaires in America. And what's happening? They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% in Texas. If they just paid 24% or 25 percent, either one of those numbers. They'd raise $500 million, billion, I should say, in a 10-year period. We'd be able to write, wipe out his debt, we'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID. I'm just giving you with dealing with everything we have to do with. Look, if we finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump? He's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it President Biden, President Trump. Well, he's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death, and he's destroying Medicare. Because all of these people are coming in. They're putting them on Medicare. They're putting them on social security. They're going to destroy social security. This man is going to single-handedly destroy social security. These millions and millions of people coming in. They're trying to put them on social security. These millions and millions of people coming in, they're trying to put them on social security. He will wipe out social security. He will wipe out Medicare. So he was right in the way he finished that sentence. And it's a shame. What's happened to our country in the last four years is not to be believed. Far and countries, I'm friends with a lot of people, they cannot believe what happened to the United States of America were no longer respected. They don't like us. We give them everything they want, and they think we're stupid. They think we're very stupid people. What we're doing for other countries, and they do nothing for us. What this man has done is absolutely criminal. Thank you, President Trump. Dana? This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. This morning, the court ruled on yet another abortion case, temporarily allowing emergency abortions to continue in Idaho despite that state's restrictive ban. Former President Trump, you take credit for the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which returned the issue of abortion to the states. Correct. However, the federal government still plays a role in whether or not women have access to abortion pills. They're used in about two-thirds of all abortions. As president, would you block abortion medication? First of all, the Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill, and I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it. And if you look at this whole question that you're asking, a complex, but not really complex, 51 years ago, you had Roe v Wade and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, everybody wanted it back, religious leaders. And what I did is I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted. Now, 10 years ago or so, they started talking about how many weeks and how many this is getting into other things. But every legal scholar throughout the world, the most respected, wanted it brought back to the states. I did that. Now, the states are working it out. If you look at Ohio, it was a decision that was an end result. There was a little bit more liberal than you would have thought. Kansas, I would say the same thing. Texas is different, Florida is different, but they're all making their own decisions right now. And right now, the states control it. That's the vote of the people. Like Ronald Reagan, I believe in the exceptions. I am a person that believes. And frankly, I think it's important to believe in the exceptions. Some people, you have to follow your heart. Some people don't believe in that. But I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. I think it's very important. Some people don't follow your heart. But you have to get elected also. And because that has to do with other things, you've got to get elected. The problem they have is they're radical, because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth. After birth, if you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do this. He said, we'll put the baby aside, and we'll determine what we do with the baby, meaning we'll kill the baby. What happened is we brought it back to the States and the country is now coming together on this issue. It's been a great thing. Thank you. President Biden? It's been a terrible thing what you've done. The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars support it row when it was decided. Support it row. And that was this idea that they were all against it, it's just ridiculous. And this is the guy who says the state should be able to have it. We're a state where in six weeks. You don't even know whether you're pregnant or not, but you cannot see a doctor have your and have him decide on what your circumstances are with you need help. The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying, we're gonna turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule. Look, there's so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just was murdered. And he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by an immigrant coming in to talk about that. But here's a deal. There's a lot of young women to be raped by their in-laws, by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to rest them on the cross-state line. Thank you. There have been many young women murdered by the same people he allows to come across our border. We have a border that's the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world. And he opened it up, and these killers are coming into our country. And they are raping and killing women. And it's a terrible thing. As far as the abortions concerned, it is now back with the states, the states are voting. In many cases, it's frankly a very liberal decision. In many cases, it's the opposite. But they're voting. And it's bringing it back to the vote of the people, which is what everybody wanted, including the founders if they knew about this issue, which frankly they didn't. But they would have...everybody wanted brought back, Ronald Reagan wanted it brought back, he wasn't able to get it. Everybody wanted it brought back and many presidents had tried to get it back. I was the one to do it. And again, this gives it the vote of the people, and that's where they wanted it. Every legal scholar wanted it that way. Staying on the topic of abortion, President Biden, seven states, I'll let you do that. This is the same topic. Seven states have no legal restrictions on how far into a pregnancy a woman can obtain an abortion. Do you support any legal limits on how later a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy? I support Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters. The first time is between the woman and the doctor. The second time is between the doctor and an extreme situation. The third time is between the doctor, I mean, between the woman and the state. The idea that the founders want the mean, between the woman and the state. The idea that the politicians, that the founders want the politicians to be the ones making decisions to my woman's health is ridiculous. That's the last, no politician should be making that decision. A doctor should be making those decisions. That's how it should be run. That's what you're gonna do. And if I'm elected, I'm gonna restore Roe v. Wade. So that means he can take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth. Because some states, Democrat run, take it after birth. Again, the governor, former governor of Virginia, put the baby down that we decide what to do with it. So he's willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby. Nobody wants that to happen. Democrat or Republican, nobody wants that to happen. Democrat or Republican, nobody wants it to happen. That is simply not true. The Roe v. Wade does not provide for that. That's not the circumstance. Only the woman's life is in danger. She's going to die. That's the only circumstance that can happen. But we are not for late term abortion period. Period period. Under Roe v. Wade you have late term abortion. You can do whatever you want depending on the state. You can do whatever you want. We don't think that's a good thing. We think it's a radical thing. We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans. For 51 years, that was a law. 51 years, Constance of Scholarship said it was the right way to go. 51 years, and it was the right way to go. 51 years and it was taken away because this guy put very conservative members on the Supreme Court. He takes credit for taking it away. What's he going to do? What's he going to do? In fact, if the Maggary publicans, he gets elected and the Maggary publicans control the Congress and they pass on the universal van on abortion period across the board at six weeks or seven or eight or ten weeks, something very, very conservative. But if you're going to sign that bill, I'll veto it. He'll sign it. Thank you. Let's turn out to the issue of immigration and border security. President Biden, a record number of migrants have illegally crossed the southern border on your watch. Overwhelming border states and overburdening cities such as New York and Chicago, and in some cases, causing real safety and security concerns. Given that, why should voters trust you to solve this crisis? Because we worked very hard to get a bipartisan agreement. That not only changed all of that, but made sure that we are in a situation where you had no circumstance where they could come across the border with the number of border police that are now. We significantly increased the number of asylum officers, significantly, by the way, the border patrolman endorsed me, endorsed my position. In addition to that, we find ourselves in a situation where when he was present, he was taking separating babies from their mother's, putting them in cages, making sure that the families were separated. That's not the right way to go. What I've done since I've changed the law, what's happened? I've changed it in a way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border legally. It's better than what he left office. And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more border patrol and more asylum officers. President Trump? I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either. Look, we had the safest border in the history of our country. The border, all he had to do was leave it. All he had to do was leave it. He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions in St. Nassau, terrorists. We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now, all terrorists, all over the world, not just in South America, all over the world they come from the Middle East everywhere, all over the world they're pouring in. And this guy just left it open. And he didn't need legislation, because I didn't have legislation. I said, close the border. We had the safest border in history in that final couple of months of my presidency. We had, according to Border Patrol, who is great. And by the way, who endorsed me for president, but I won't say that, but they endorsed me for president. Brandon, just speak to him. But look, we had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border in history. There's never been anything like it. And people are dying all over the place, including the people that are coming up in carers and hands. The president, Biden? The only terrorist who's done anything across the border is one who came along and killed three and there's administration. Kill no kind of person come in here, and his administration, killed three American soldiers, killed three American soldiers. That's the only terrorist that's there. I'm not saying I know terrorists ever got through with the idea they're emptying their prisons, we're welcoming these people. As simply not true, there's no data to support what he said. Once again, he's exaggerating, he's lying. President Trump, staying on the topic of immigration, you've said that you're going to carry out, quote, the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, unquote. Does that mean that you will deport every undocumented immigrant in America, including those who have jobs, including those whose spouses are citizens, and including those who have lived here for decades? And if so, how will you do it? Just one second, he said we killed three people. The people we killed are Al Baghdaddi and Salamani. The two greatest tears, biggest tears anywhere in the world. And it had a huge impact on everything, not just border on everything. He's the one to kill people with a bad water, including hundreds of thousands of people dying, and also killing our citizens when they come in. We are living right now in a rat's nest. They're killing our people in New York, in California, and every state in the union, because we don't have borders anymore. Every state is now a border. And because of his ridiculous, insane, and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they're killing our citizens at a level that we've never seen. We call it migrant crime. I call it Biden migrant crime. They're killing our citizens at a level that we've never seen before. And you're reading it like these three incredible young girls over the last few days. One of them had just spoke to the mother, and they just had the funeral for this 12 years old. This is horrible what's taking place. What's taking place in our country, we're literally an uncivilized country now. He doesn't want it to be. He just doesn't know. He opened the borders. Nobody's ever seen anything like. And we have to get a lot of these people out, and we have to get them out fast, because they're going to destroy our country. Just take a look at where they're living. They're living in luxury hotels in New York City and other places. Our veterans are on the street, they're dying, because he doesn't care about our veterans. He doesn't care. He doesn't like the military at all. And he doesn't care about our veterans. Nobody been worse. I had the highest approval rating for veterans taking care of the VA. He has the worst. He's gotten rid of all the things that I approved. Choice that I got through Congress. All of the different things I approved, they abandoned. We had by far the highest, and now it's down and less than half, because he's done all these great things that we did. And I think he did it just because I approved it, which is crazy. But he has killed so many people at our border by the rally. All of these people to come in. And it's a very sad day in America. President Biden, you have the mic. Every single thing he said is a lie. Every single one. For example, veterans are a hell of a lot better off since I passed the PAC-DAC. One million of them now have insurance and their families have it. Their families have it because what happened, whether it was Agent Orange or Burnpits, they're all being covered now. And he opposed his group of opposed that. We're also in a situation where we have great respect for veterans. My son spent a year in Iraq living one of the next one of those burnpits came back to us.