We're going to start with non-agenda ice comments starting with David Gingel. Three minutes please. Please hold yourself to him. Good afternoon Mayor Miersch and distinguished council members as well as city attorney and city manager and assistant. On the September 17th agenda is in the study session. I put in a speaker's card for C information number 10, Truj Dail Area Traffic Comming and Safety Measure Implamation Update. It's fine young lady didn't want to take my card. She said it's these are information only can't take your cards. Larry Wiener was a witness to it. Sisted on it. It's an agenda item. I titled a speak on an agenda item. Well, you had my card and you guys either ran out the clock or didn't want titled to speak on an agenda item. Well, you had my card and you guys either ran out the clock or didn't want me to speak on the item or whatever. And it was supposed to be continued to the meeting last Tuesday study session, which was not. And it was supposed to be continued or could have been at the evening session last Tuesday, was not and was supposed to be continued today and was not you've just shelved it. Choose the air traffic calming and safety measure, implementation update provides a status report of fears and pierce traffic calming and safety measures for Tuesday. Actually, Aaron Kutes had submitted, there was a staff report with it, which I made comments on it. And Truestale Implamation started way back in July of 2018 in an illegal meeting brought by Susan Healy-Keen, where her last page says that she wants staff seeks city council direction and comments. I put through California public records, it validates what's here. Nobody was given notice, only free to Berlin was in these chambers. Nobody else was given notice. And what did this console basically said is, yeah, go ahead. Well, actually, after Steve Brown talked, he had no right to walk back up here and said, so should we go? And Mayor Gold said, yes, but I want community input. And this is what has claimed that the city approved. Prohibits on street parking and carler ridge from nine to three five days a week on both sides of the street so housewives couldn't have a luncheon or the friends over but a Beverly Hills cop on Cherokee Lane in Los Angeles where there's a little teeny cul-de-sac doing a sting instead of taking a Beverly Hills cop away from Beverly Hills. Stop signs and traffic circles. Chained speed limit to 15 miles an hour, so pedestrians could burn their brakes out. This was a phony deal that fears and peers was given a contract by Beverly Hills, because two police officers were killed by Greystone. Anyway, I had a meeting with Susan Healykein and Aaron Coons prior to the meeting that was given where Mayor Gold said the community to check in. And instead of getting input from the community, I was presented this way by fears and peers, Steve Brown, Susan Healyke and Erin Coons. You are here at the Trusedale meeting today to decide which traffic should- They are here, can you wrap it up please? And Chacon, do you want? You're only here to pick your design. It has a place to vote what design you want. That was a fraudulent criminal meeting that I appeal to the City Council and Larry Weiner return my $5,500 that said you can't appeal the City Council to their own decision. Anyway. Thank you, David. We need to move on. It's been more than three minutes. Thank you. Next speaker, Sandra Adams. Welcome. Welcome. Is this going to appear on a city council meeting again, the staff report for public comment or that's why I had to speak on a non-agenda item to make sure my comments got in. Anyway, I just want to say that most of those things I was able to stop from the outside. The only thing they did, they put a little teeny little circle at the top and a little circle at the bottom. They didn't put in the 9-3 restrictions. They didn't put the officer there. And I was glad that I was able to save Truthsdale. By the way, I wanna say this, at the meeting, I explained it to the residents. When Steve Brown from Pearson, Pearson, Aaron Cunst said, you're here to decide which one after I explained it. They said, David, thank you for giving us evidence. They voted 17 to zero against everything. And then Aaron Coon says, what will city manager do now? Please. What will city manager do now? Everyone gets three minutes, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Dandro, welcome. Could you please speak into the microphone so we can hear you? I'm here today to kind of speak for my tenants and me because I'm having a terrible time with the homeless individual. It started last year, Halloween, and he entered the front of the building and put waste all over my walls and doors and locks. And it cost me about $1,000 to sanitize the place. And I didn't know where this individual was coming from, but across the street there are some vacant units. So possibly that's where it happened. He was hiding there. All right, so I thought this would end, and I reported it to the police that the tenants did too, but he's back. I've had about five incidents in my apartment building. And he scares some of the tenants. He goes up to their landings. And I have single women tenants and they're kind of frightened. And also he poops in the yard and single women tenants and they're kind of frightened. And also he poops in the yard and outside by the parking and defaced the garage again, I had a paint that so I just thought I'd bring it up. This individual has been around for a year and I've called the police and they've been very nice, they've patrolled the area, but we're not catching them. And I think he must be known by now. And I do have samples, he leaves his DNA behind, so maybe he could be caught, I don't know. But I'm really concerned and the tenants are in upper. So I just thought I'd bring it up. I don't usually complain that I hope you can help me. Thank you, George. I'd bring it up. I don't usually complain that I hope you can help me. Thank you, George. George, sorry. Yeah. Yes, we will follow up with her and look into this. Thank you. And OK, let's move on to item one, which is introduction to the Affordable Housing Development process. Loga. Good afternoon, City Council. Logan Filippo, Policy and Management Analyst in the City Manager's Office. So this item was first agindized at the September 17th meeting. Due to time constraints, we weren't able to complete the discussion. We had a consultant's Kathy Head from Kaiser Marston Associates, provided general overview of the affordable housing development process, and other factors to consider if we're looking for a site to develop on City-owned land. Kaiser Marston is back again today, and we'll do a very brief overview of some of the key points as a refresher that we had touched on in the last meeting. And then we will be available for Council questions as well as the policy questions that we have presented in the staff report, which is what we're seeking to see Council direction on if we were to proceed with developing an affordable housing project on City-owned land. And with that, I'll leave it to Kathy to provide a brief background of the topic that was presented on at the last meeting. Welcome Kathy and for your presentation. Well, I'm down from 47 slides to eight today, so. This is just a very brief summary of what we discussed last time. Okay, so just to give you the basic background, what we're trying to come to decisions with with the city council in terms of policy are the things I'm going to talk about now. So when you're looking at affordable housing development, the keys that you're going to want to keep in mind is you're going to have a new housing element and a new arena coming soon. And so you're going to want to make sure that that goes into your decision making process when you're selecting an affordable housing project. You're also going to want to decide before you go out into any kind of solicitation for a development to have a clear set of objectives in mind that you've all agreed upon, that you've gotten consensus on. The next item, which is very important, is that basically any developer who comes in to do a significant affordable housing project is going to use some kind of low income housing tax credits, be it the competitively awarded 9% tax credit or tax exempt multi-family bonds coupled with the automatically awarded 4% tax credits, be it the competitively awarded 9% tax credit or tax exempt multifamily bonds coupled with the automatically awarded 4% tax credits. So an understanding of those tax credits, you know, at least a basic level understanding it's going to be important. Given the fact that the state and county funding sources are really targeted primarily to permanent support of housing and homeless housing. In all likelihood, tax credits will be the major financing source that a developer brings to you as part of their process. So then your part of the process will in all likelihood end up being the donation of the site and then financial assistance to fill the financial gap. OK, so we talked about this last time, this is a slide from last time. The project selection option. So the things that you're going to be asked to think about is what site do you wanna use? There's some sites that you own or do you wanna deal with a site that you don't own? Where is it located? Would an affordable housing project be compatible with the surrounding uses? And then also if it's an improved site, then you want to think about relocation obligations. The scope of development questions that you'll be asked to consider when you're coming up with your goals and objectives will be how big a project you want, how dense a project you want, how tall a project you want. So those issues will be things that need to be decided as part of the process. The other thing that's always going to be important is who's your target population. So is it senior citizens, is it families, is it special needs, is it very low income, is it low income, is extremely low income. All of these items will come into play. Then when you're also thinking about your affordable housing project, you want to think about the things that go along with the affordable housing project. So you're going to want to think about kind of amenities. Are you going to require a developer to include in the project? So do you want it to be sustainable? What kind of public or private open space do you want? What kind of public open space might you want? How much parking do you want? Do you want extra public parking? Do you want commercial on the ground floor? All of those issues will need to be considered. And then what you're going to want to also do is then depending on who your target population is, what sort of services do you want to provide to your tenant base? So we have four types of developers that you could ultimately be dealing with. One is sort of the one you would most expect, the non-profit affordable housing developers. The second type is very much like a non-profit affordable housing developer, it's just they do it on a for-profit level. And the primary difference is profit versus developer fee. So I think if you have a qualified for-profit developer, qualified non-profit developer, both can do a good job for you on an affordable housing project. I would say that for-profit market-rate developers and landowners with no experience would be your less likely choices just because they won't have the experience in the leveraging and layering and the types of services and the types of monies that are available and the types of restrictions that are imposed on affordable housing projects. So my suggestion would be from the first two. Okay, so when you're looking at your selection process and so now you're looking for a developer, you wanna make sure that they have relevant recent experience doing an affordable housing project like the type you've decided you want to have in your community. You also want to make sure when you're doing your goals and objectives that you've identified a project that meets some of your unmet needs, your defined unmet needs. Then you want to look at is the developers who you're considering are they looking for outside assistance sources that are reasonable to get and available, and are they competitive, and how competitive are they, and what are the possibilities, and what's the timeline for getting the project done given the funding sources that are being considered, because these all play together, and then you want to look and make sure the financial gap makes sense. So bring all the topics from 47 pages. So the conveyance options that you have are you can give the land away with no repayment obligation. I see. I can't. You can donate the land again. And all, seriously, in all likelihood, you're not going to get an upfront payment for the land under any of these conveyance options. But you can then do it as a donation project with the fair market value, treated as a loan to the project that may get repaid over the time of the affordability covenants and will get repaid at the end of the covenant. And then you could or the other option is a ground lease, a long term ground lease in which then the city maintains ownership control of the property. Same sort of thing. You might get some small ground lease payments during the term and you will ultimately then get the land back at the end of the ground lease term. Okay, so the decisions you're faced with, not today, but just in general, are selecting a development site. What type of tenants do you want? Do you want seniors, families, or special needs? What type of density? What are the heights? Do you want to add ground floor commercial, public parking, public open space, any or all? And the financial terms, you want to decide how you want to go about your developer selection process. So do you want to do a request for qualifications to then do a short list and get to an RFP? Do you want to do a request for qualifications and proposals as one gesture, or do you want to accept an unslisted proposal? Then you have to decide whether you want to do a fee sale of the property or a ground lease. Then you're gonna want to think about whether you're willing to go through the competitive process for low income housing tax credits, which are clearly the format that will get the smallest financial gap. It's also clearly the most competitive and could take a long time. That's the trade-off between bonds versus nine percent tax credits. And then how much financial assistance are you willing to provide? And that's it. So I'm available for questions. Thank you. Before we go to council member questions and perhaps comments, public comment, David Gingel mentioned anyone else wants to speak. better from the Nora. David Gingold. To our people in the Beverly Hills community, as well as all those under deus, the agenda item is staff seek city council direction and proceeding with affordable housing development on city owned property. The city owns the property oncent Drive where whole foods is. They are the landlord to whole foods and they have provided low income housing on top of whole foods. This council has heard me speak before on my claim against whole foods when I was recovering from Nacrotazi fasciitis black flesh eating disease that kills you in four days and after I had had three surgeries in five days to save my life and ended up from being a mobile with DVT deep vein thrombosis and venous insufficiency. And a few days before it was tested at Mark Taper and still had a blood clot. And that weekend where I had spent all my cash to $200 on a little vegan restaurant, my wallet misplaced and didn't have any credit cards and feeling faint and attending the morning on a Sunday a memorial day weekend and the banks were gonna be closed Monday. I walk into whole foods carrying only my checkbook. And I go up to the checker Eric and I want to write a check and that he says we don't take checks. And I said, you know, come on, you know, they take it every other mark. No, I'm sorry, we don't take checks. I went over the hot food bar. I mean, I've been a customer there since it was Mrs. Gooch for 20 years. And I took about this much little egg. I have it in a little teeny cup like this. So just a little egg yolk. I took one more, maybe one potato or one more egg. But that. And as I'm walking now, a supervisor, Chris walks over and said, you sampled too much food. I said, I didn't sample. I was sick. I was faint. I wanted to write a check, ask Eric. He wouldn't hear of it, he starts slandering me in front of the lobby there. You sample too much too. I said I didn't sample, I eat to survive. I go to my car and as I'm pulling out of the driveway, Chris Healy, supervisor, leaves whole foods, walks out to the driveway and yells, you drive him or say these and you won't pay for food. I said, I offered to write a check, ask Eric. I went over to Bristol Farms, I wrote a check, and I was able to eat, and I needed a little fuel food. I made a complaint to Alex Zubiyati there, the acting store manager, and he said to me, I showed him pictures even in my surgery and what I had, all my medical records. He said, you broke rules. If you have, you can never eat a neck again or you'll be banned for the store for life or et cetera, et cetera. And anyway, he referred me to regional, I talked to them. I filed a claim because they ignored me. John Hemfley, they'd returned this to their global litigation consul in Austin, Texas. They turned it over to a law firm in Newport Beach. And what they tell me is in Newport, I have a letter. It says, instead of settling this with you, you should just tell everybody do not shop at whole foods only because we were rude and mean to you. Okay? It's not my idea of a boycott, but that's their attorney's idea. They said they want me to tell people it's okay to be rude. They said in writing, we don't have a duty not to cause emotional distress. Okay. So what I'm suggesting is that when this lease comes up for whole foods, that there'd be a public hearing on it, and if they have no remorse and can neighbors, good tenants, good values that Beverly Hills have kindness and civility, I think there should be non-renewed and put affordable housing where whole foods is now. Thank you. And then the next speaker is Arnold Rosenstein. afternoon, council. I wanted to speak just briefly about the Affordable Housing topic. In case you're not aware of this, in 1991, this Beverly Hills City Council created an Affordable Housing Committee. That Affordable Housing Committee did a study. At the end of six months of study, they produced a report. I was on that committee There are a lot of options that had a producer portable housing and they're all contained in this report So I wanted to give it to you because I don't think any of you have a note exists. Thank you. Thank you very much Okay, and with that Kathy would you please come back? I actually have a question Well, and can we just I'm gonna show that gets distributed? Yes, I have a question of Hello, and can we just, I'm going to go that gets distributed. Yes, I have a question of, well, for George, do you know, regarding this report and this committee, were you aware of it? No, I was not. Okay, so. I brought a follow-up. Thank you very much. Things may have changed, but there may be some relevant stuff. So, all right, let's go to Council Member Questions and comments, and we'll start with council member wonderland. In the presentation you speak about types of housing and you have senior large family special needs are those the only allowed types to sit down? Well you could have one that just wasn't designated, just build a type of housing with a certain number of bedrooms and whoever wants to live in it can live in it. What's, you know, for example, is large family, is that a defined term? It is a defined term. It's a certain percentage of three bedroom units. And so it's the size of the unit. It's not the number of people that constitute the family. Correct. And for example, if we wanted to give a preference to people who had kids in the Beverly Hills Unified schools, would that be an allowed thing to do? I'm going to give that to Mr. Wiener on terms of preferences. I don't believe that that would be allowed, but we'd have to look it up. I'm not sure. But we could give a preference to seniors. We could give a preference to special needs people. So those things written into legislation someplace. Yes. To the parties that were. Yes. So could we find that out then? Could we find out with the list of references? Yes. In the opening you referred to, I think you, the slide I think had a phrase automatically awarded tax credit. Is that a reference to the possibility of bonding things and getting the 4% tax credit? What did you mean by that? OK, so the situation with that is if you get through the California debt limit allocation committee, has a multi-family bond cap dollars per capita that each state is awarded by the federal government each year. Historically, we haven't hit that bond cap so every project that's applied to do an affordable housing project with these bonds has been awarded. We are coming up next year to where it appears the bond cap is going to be hit. But so the whole premise is, so let's just assume it's before next year, is you apply for the bonds, you're awarded the bonds, they're allocated by the California Development Alocation Committee. By virtue of getting those bonds, as long as they're at least 50% of the project costs, then you are automatically entitled to get 4% low income housing tax credits as opposed to the competitively awarded 9% tax credits. So they are, in fact, then, if you get the bonds, you get the tax credits. But in the future we might hit the cap and so in the future it might be a competitive situation be able to be with the math the funds that are available. Correct and so actually this is and this really is just a 2020 kind of thing. The California debt limit allocation company is already making plans for hitting the cap next year. California debt limit allocation company is already making plans for hitting the cap next year. What the criteria do they use to make the plan? So what happens in the tax credit world, they have a qualified allocation plan. And so, whoever in charge at the time, then they create a qualified allocation plan that establishes the goals and objectives that the state is determined for affordable housing. And then they award points for each category. That changes regularly, it goes through a public process and then they decide here's the qualified allocation plan for this given year and for several years. So it changes. Usually it's deep affordability. Is that the governor's office? Is that the legislature who gets to pick them? It's the California debt limit allocation committee and the California tax credit allocation committee and they're appointed by the governor by the governor so essentially the governor You have a recommendation if we would do go out for an RFP Given the difficulty of getting the 9% tax credit Should we only be considering those that are not dependent upon that? I would say that if you have a project on a site that can get maximum points, they've created in the tax credit world now too, these census track measurements about whether you're a high priority census track versus a low priority, everything on the west side is a high priority, so you'll get extra bonus points on the 9% tax credit. If you have a project that meets all the criteria and has a good tiebreaker score, I would say go one round on a 9%. But if speed is your issue and if certain is your issue, I would have, till last week said, oh, go bonds and 4% tax credits. Now that they're working on competition standards for those, it could, you know, start being more of an even playing field between the two. It's interesting because the state in the last few years has been trying to encourage everybody over into the bond. And now apparently they did such a good job that now they're trying to discourage them. Beverly Hills sometimes has some disadvantages in getting funding. You would be really well situated. You'd be well situated. We're going to get a new read a number for the amount of affordable housing that we're supposed to be able to build. And I've asked this question in other contexts. But are we hurting ourselves by starting down a path too soon? Yeah, I don't want to delay things, but would we not get credit for housing that we build before we're, or started down the path to build before we get our new requirement. No, you're right. You won't get credit. There's no carryover for doing something in any period. What I would suggest is we're almost in 2020 now. You're going to be starting on your Reena in 2021. It's when building permits are issued as how that gets measured for Reena. My guess is if you work in a straight line fashion to get this done, you're going to be in 2021. So we can start down the process. We can have an RFP. It counts as long as the building permit. Correct. So I think both because it's the right thing to do and because we're going to have an obligation to do it, we should be building affordable housing. What do you want from us today or what do you want an initial take on the questions or do or information purposes? So our goal is to ask city council, should we proceed down this path with identifying a site? And if so, of those sites discussed in the staff report, would the Council want to consider either of these sites? Would we want to consider senior housing? Would we want to consider large family or other types of development? And there are factors that developers are going to need information and input from the city. And those are decisions that we need council direction on, such as the municipal code and some of these sites does not allow for residential development at all. There are existing standards that we could apply to those sites. However, we need council direction on those points as well. Of the two sites that I think the report refers to making any kind of final decision, of course, the one on Robertson in my mind, the advantages in terms of the amenities that would be available close to the site, especially if this were something for seniors, I think that could be important in terms of that these are that both of those sites are zone for commercial I think we could approach. We could make the exception to allow there to be a residential there. What were some of the other. I would also like to just add that an RFP process for developers can be quite expensive, especially for nonprofit organizations. So the idea that we have clearly defined goals and objective set out for them will do us a service as well as any developers of service, so that there are any changes after they've gone through the expense of participating in any RFP process. So that would be minimum unit size and height requirements. So I certainly think it could be appropriate for us to have to allow a smaller unit size than a current would allow. As the maximum height, I think we'd have to consider this specifically exactly the property ended up being. But I think we can do that. And I would also like to add that we can allow the flexibility within any sort of a solicitation document for the developer to propose what they think might be a suitable configuration. However, if there are going to be things that we know on the front end that we absolutely would like to incorporate. So of the things that we've spoken of far, those would not be deal breakers for me. I would say that as many things as you can be specific on, the better, because you'll get a better quality of developer if they know they're not just guessing. You know, I'm a little bit torn about whether or not we restricted to people who were dependent upon a 9% tax card in the order for it to work out versus something else. How do we make that decision? How do we factor in the lesser likelihood but still possibility of being able to get to 9%. Right, I mean, I think if you're going senior citizen, then you're better off doing four percent in bonds. Because the senior pool is much harder to get. you have to make sure you're in the right round Where LA County is the first round when they do the selections for the geographic distribution Which is the easiest pool to get the 9% for large family or special needs? large family or special needs You know if it would be possible I would be interested in the synergies that would come, allowing some preference for families that have kids in the schools, which could conceivably be large family, but would it necessarily be, you know? They've tested, they've tested live and work in terms of what kind of preferences you can use. It's never good to require such a thing. You can, you know, many times you can say, we'll give a preference. You have more, more ping pong balls in the lottery to do that. I don't know about schools though. Well, I mean, we did have that as one of our priorities in terms of the displaced from a unit. Yeah, there is a difference though. So yes, I think we can do that in terms of being forcefully removed from the unit or evicted. I'm not sure that we can do that for affordable housing, but again, it's something we'll look at. But the legislation does allow for bonus points to be awarded to certain classifications. I've worked in a number of cities where they've done bonus points in terms of the lottery or how they're doing this election, but never a hard you must. So if we can make that a component of what we're looking. So if we can make that a component of what we're looking. I don't know how much else you want me to make a decision about today. And I think what we're ultimately looking for direction on is whether or not to proceed with the solicitation document. Ideally, we're going to have a site. We could use both your doubling the cost of responding to the document at that point. I know we had previously received an unsolicited proposal for the site at third and foot hill road. So that gauges, you know, at that time, the Robertson property was not on the table at all. So I don't know if that option would sort of change as to whether or not the third street side is the most suitable. Given what I know about the two properties in my mind, the Robertson properties offer advantages. I will say, I think you're asking the right question because I think if you say because you'll get a lot of proposals for 9% tax credits because they'll have a smaller gap. But if you want to say you want the more sure thing, then I think you would just say as part of your solicitation, we're looking for bond slash 4% tax credit deals. Again recognizing there would become a competitive But probably never as competitive as the nine Okay, thank you, Dr. Goll So Kathy, I'm gonna let you sit down for a second. I'd ask Mr. Rosenstein to come back up Thank you for being here today. Thank you. Thanks for bringing the secret report. You're the only one who's seen this. Can you give us in a couple of minutes what's in it? And if there's anything in this that points us in a direction that's different from the direction we're going? In fairness, taking into account it was done 28 years ago. Well, I would, but what's the point? Well, some things have changed and some things remain the same as usual. Some of the techniques that have been employed historically to create affordable housing have been low interest loans, ground leases, rental subsidies, affordable housing, fees, all of those concepts are addressed in that report as to what other cities have done, how it's done. The route you're talking about today is one possible route. Whether those two sites are the only sites in the city that would be possible, I have no idea. But there are a lot of other ways to create affordable housing through partnerships with developers who build buildings, partial affordable housing, et cetera. You're talking about one way that can be done. The other ones are discussed in the report. And that report was created with the help of a consultant of some sort. Yes. Who was that? Oh, I have to go reread it. You know, it's a miracle I found it. Well, yeah. Okay, thank you. It's there. And like I said, the purpose was to discuss how to create affordable housing the city of Beverly Hills. The committee worked for the better part of six months with staff. I'm in the city. Mark Scott was the city manager at the time. I'm going back. But the concepts are valid. I mean, obviously some of the numbers have changed over time. But there are other ways to do it. This is clearly one of them. Thank you, sir. My pleasure. All right. Kathy, are you resting? Yeah. Why don't you get a copy of this report as well so that next time All right, Kathy, are you resting? Yeah. Why don't you get a copy of this report as well so that next time you'll be able to tell us what changed in that sort of thing? Sure. So if we could make sure Kathy gets a copy, that would be great. Thank you. And you'll send it around electronically, please. No paper. Well, they can have paper. I don't want paper. I don't want paper either. Okay, thank you. So we don't know what our reading number is going to be. It's going to be big. Okay. That's the technical term. It's going to be big. Okay. So is there an advantage to us in terms of conceiving what this is going to be? Is there an advantage to us to kind of knowing what that number is as we proceed. You know I think your number in all seriousness is going to be so big that any concept you come up with on these two sides won't come anywhere near it. Well but I it might in terms of how high or how dense or I mean it'll definitely help I mean I really do I mean I just from what I know from some other cities I'm working in the preliminary numbers they've gotten, I mean, they are in the thousands and it's not, it's no longer a goal. It's a mandate. I mean, I'll be interested to see how that plays out, but. The cities don't build housing and there's no redevelopment anymore. There's only so much land. Can you walk me through just the business about the bond and the 4%. Sure. Who issues the bond, who buys the bond, who gets the credit, all that kind of stuff. Sure. And what's the city's role in all that? Okay, the city can play a relatively large role or almost no role. So what happens is a developer will apply to the California debt limit allocation committee for an allocation of these bonds. These bonds can be issued by the city, oh let me step back. So the bonds will be secured by the real estate, by nothing other than the real estate. So the city has no financial obligation or responsibility for the bonds. The developer applies for the bonds and they're secured by the real estate and then they can be issued by the city or they can be issued by a joint powers authority like CSCDA. So. So stop for a second. Secured by the real estate. So is this conveyed in some way? Is there lean on that property? Yeah, so what'll happen? So say you ground lease. Say you ground lease the property. So whoever you select as the developer will then have a lease hold fee interest in the improvement. So the financing is then secured on the improvements with your ground lease then in first position. So the amount of money we can borrow then is tied to the size and scope of the project. That's correct. And the income generated by the project. Keep going. OK, so then what happens is, so that financing now, as I mentioned earlier, it has to be at least 50% of the project costs. Well, in all probability that won't be supported by the real estate. There won't be enough income. So what's done typically is, during construction, the entity the developer borrows enough to meet that 50% test and then at the permanent when the project is done the IRS has allowed this then you just take out everything so you have a series A bond and a series B bond you just take out the series B bond with the tax credits or whatever other assistance is provided and you only leave in the series A bond which is supported by the projects income. So it's generally a much smaller number. Okay, and the city would issue those bonds? You can. You don't have to. Otherwise we need to form a joint powers. No, there's a joint power out there in the world. Is there an advantage one over the other? You know, you'll get different opinions like some some people will tell you it's better if the city issues it because then you get the fees for administering it. There are others that say you know if you have the name city of Beverly Hills on the bond even though you have no responsibility for it if it happened to default it still has your name on it so there's a certain black mark for that just perceptually not legally. If you do it through a joint powers authority then they take all the fees but your name's not on it. So if the city does it, does it accrue against our ability to issue other bonds? No. It doesn't count. Not at all. It doesn't count for the moody or any of those guys. No. Okay. Is there some intrinsic economy of scale? If we build a project that's twice the size, do we save some money on that? Yeah. Unless you change construction types, it gets more expensive. So you'll go up. It's more cost efficient up until you change from type 5 to type 3, more efficient from type 3 to type 5. So you'll always have these cutoff points, more subterranean parking. But as a general rule, a bigger project will be more cost efficient. So as we look at this and as we're considering that we probably have a bigger arena number than this is gonna cover. Oh, no. We probably do better to look on the bigger side of this. Would that protect us a little bit more? Yeah, I think any good faith effort you as a city make to achieve these arena obligations to the better you'll stand. Then- What are the rena penalties? Well, at the moment there are none. At the moment as we sit, rena is a goal not a requirement, but going forward with the next rena cycle, it's now it's prescriptive. What are the penalties? There are no penalties that have been identified. Not identified. Not yet. They will. They will. Oh yeah. When you talk about competition in the selection process, if two not-for-profit developers come to us to build the same project, are they going to be the same? Let's assume that project. Are they going to be the same? Let's assume that they're both the best runners of these things that exist and so forth and so on, but two people coming to us with the same project on the same land for the same whatever. Are we going to see a difference between the two? Theoretically not, but probably yes. I mean everybody has a slightly different way that they go about these projects. So two qualified developers could come to you, but they won't probably have a materially different financial gap, but they'll have a different design, they'll have different ideas about the project. Well, forgetting in the way the thing actually looks. In terms of the number of units we get, the affordability of them, the economics of it, all the kind of nut and bolts of the project once it's up and going, is there an appreciable difference one versus the other? I would tell you the one appreciable difference that I can think up off the top of my head, is if you're dealing with a developer who's familiar with the community and active in the community or the surrounding communities, they'll be more efficient in the way they can operate the project so they could conceivably have a smaller gap because they have other projects to create that critical mass and synergy as opposed to just using an example in Orange County developer who doesn't have any projects up here in Beverly Hills or West Hollywood or Santa Monica. They would have less critical mass. Depending on how large a project is. It's 75 units or more. You'll get efficient efficiencies anyway, but I think there is an advantage to using a developer who's familiar and active in the local community. In the same question, but this time, compare not for profit and for profit. I actually think that a qualified for profit and a qualified non-profit will be generally the same in terms of financial gap. It's just structured differently. And in terms of again the number of units, the affordability, the amenities, whatever. It'll be the same. Proximately the same. Yeah. So if we find somebody who's qualified pretty much the box is the box. Yeah. Different ribbon. Yeah. Okay. You said that a long time to get the 9% tax credits. Why is that? Do you just sit in a position until you get called? Well, what happens is they do two rounds a year. So say you apply in January and you find out in the spring whether you won. If you didn't win, then you apply again in the summer and you find out in the fall. And so typically when I've done RFPs with projects where 9% are being considered, you typically, as a jurisdiction, offer plus or minus three rounds before you say, OK, we're out. So it's not like you're, they take the top three, and then the next time we're on the next three, and then the next three. So each time is a different deal, and you have to reapply every time. And start all over again. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just a curiosity. These units once built are there, maybe for Larry actually. Are they subject to all of the city's standards like RSO standards and things like that? Would they be managed the same way as every other apartment in the city? Well, I imagine you would want to have more stringent income standards on them than your opportunity or eviction or any of those sorts of things. They have the same protections that any other apartment, any any other rent or... So you can choose, I mean you can say, hey, those will be treated the same as anything, but I imagine that what you'll want to do as you look at that is you'll want to adopt some more stringent regulations on these apartments. So we're allowed to do that. We can step up from whatever our baseline is, we can add other metrics for performance that are different from every other renter resident. I mean, you see it in a resident resident. Yeah, and that's true of development standards as well. I mean, you can do things as well like requiring some control over who the management company is, which you wouldn't do in a typical just private sector development. So you can, in your affordable housing agreement, company is, which you wouldn't do in a typical just private sector development. So you can, in your affordable housing agreement, you know, as long as you stay within legal bounds, you can, you can assert a fair amount of control. And should. And is that part of the RFO process? The RFO process? The RFO process. Well, what you'll do, so my suggestion is if you do an RFP is you make sure you pick a qualified affordable housing developer. So that will be, and that's part of the reason I like dealing with developers who do affordable housing for a living, be they nonprofit or for a profit, because they understand that they're going to see an affordable housing agreement that says we have management standards. We're going to cap your management fees. We're going to make sure you maintain your project at above standard level. And we're going to have defined maintenance maintain your project at above standard level and we're going to have Defined maintenance standards in our affordable housing agreement. But that should be part of the RFP Well, I think as you will ask for those things in terms of you know You'll say I want a high quality of element where we're going to control all these issues Yeah, I think the more as I mentioned the more specificity you can put in our feet a better Well, I guess the question I'm asking, and maybe in artfully, is, do any of those standards that we might put in this agreement drive the cost of the project? Sure. They do. So in order to actually get somebody to understand the cost of the project, they have to understand the standards that we're gonna apply to that project as it relates to the folks who subsequently lived there. Yes. So it seems to me that we ought to do that sooner than later. I would agree. OK. You talk about large family? Yeah. OK. So large family means three bedroom. Correct. Does it matter how many people are in those three bedrooms? No. So if one person rented a three bedroom apartment. Again, this is another standard. You as a city can apply and again should apply in terms of minimum occupancy so that you want households appropriate size for the unit. You have some issues about imposing there the standards on how many the maximum number but you can absolutely say no fewer than x number of people and rent a three bedroom apartment. No fewer. Yeah you could say if you're a three better than it must be at least four people, for example, no more than no less than. I'm going to say no more than. Well, no more than if you follow the state code, the state code is incredibly liberal. And so and I don't think I'm exaggerating, but like 12 people in a one bedroom apartment. What I have seen. Yeah, it's crazy. Contractually, I know. But contractually I have seen it done where the developer then contractually agrees to a cap on the number of people. The other thing I've seen is people use the federal standard of housing quality standards which is now 2 per bedroom plus 2 Is we 2 per bedroom plus 1 but now it's 2 per bed That likely to chain is the state can to change that the state code no I mean they would be Why not just insist that we put more people in each apartment? I think you'll find you will find advocacy groups who will push back on maximum numbers of people. But I think you can use examples of good management. And your average affordable housing developer doesn't want 16 people in their two bedroom apartment. When you talk about financial contribution from the city. Do you have any idea what the magnitude is, or is there any way to sort of gauge what that's likely to be based on either the size of the project or? Yeah, I mean, how dense you go and what type of project you have, whether it be small units or large units, will have a large impact on it. What the outside leveraging, which, as I mentioned, will probably just be limited to tax credits and financing, unless you do, unless you end up doing a project targeted to homeless or permanent support of housing, because the state and county money is all targeted right now to homeless and permanent support of housing. You're a ballpark of what that number is. You know, without knowing what affordability standards you're gonna apply and the size of the project I'm reluctant to say. Should we create the standards before we go out to the RFP or should we actually put it out to the people who might develop this and ask them what they think the best? What I would suggest is you put standards together and then maybe you run them by, like if you could create a, like you had the committee before, you could create standards and run them by outside folks. But again, I think it's counterproductive to leave it completely in developer's hands because then you're gonna get apples, oranges, tangerines, and zebras, and you're not gonna know how to compare them to each other. So how would we go about figuring out how many one bedroom and how many two bedroom, and how do you do that? It depends on what product type again. So if you're doing seniors, you're going to do something to the effect of 80% one bedrooms or studios in 20% two bedrooms. That's standard of some sort. Pretty standard, pretty standard, small units. So those things are already set. Well, seniors are pretty, they're pretty standardized. The large family developers will play to the requirements of the tax credits to get the requisite numbers, rebendrooms. And if it were sort of not specific to seniors, but just tag to an income level. Then what will happen is developers will choose what the mix they think will be most marketable and it will be probably largely ones and twos with some- Okay. ones and twos with some. OK. Can you talk for a moment about section eight vouchers? And where are we going with that? Are we going to see any more those created by the federal government? That seems extremely unlikely. I think not. No. Ever? Not in my lifetime. But I'm an old woman. I hope you live a long time. OK. So to the questions, I do think that we're going to need to get some information. I don't really care if we do an RFQ follow up on RFP or we put the two together, but I think we have to do that. I think that it should be a ground lease. I would not give away, I would not sell the land. It sounds like we're going to look at bonds in 4%. I don't know how much financial assistance the city should provide. I think that's something that we have to talk about. I think that's, I like the senior citizen piece if there are some others we could do that would be okay. I like the senior citizen piece if there are some others we could do that would be okay. I think the density, I think that if we have senior standard density in height I think to be determined. Senior standards I think if we have them we ought to be consistent. I do think we should have ground floor commercial and probably underground parking. The one thing that may be a curve ball is, I mean, of the two options you gave us, I agree with Councilmember Wunderlich that I like the Robertson site better. But I would ask the question before we committed to that, you know, there are other city-owned properties and perhaps conversation we could have about whether or not we would be well served to look at some of those other city-owned properties and consider them for this also. Obviously, none of them are currently housing, but might there be an opportunity for us to use one of those. And if so, what would be the pros and what would be the cons of some of the city owned property. So, I would like to at least consider that before we made a firm decision on the two sites that you've shown us. Out of the Rena numbers work in terms of studio versus large family units. Is it number of units that you make available? Rena as we stand is number of units. Exactly. Housing element as we stand identifies your unmet need by family type, family size, etc. But as we sit, Reena's just units. So once you get assigned your number, it'll be easier to meet that number by having more studios than allowing for large families units, which might actually be counter to what your needs are. Correct. OK. And then just one other thought, when Crescent was done, I don't know that I have seen the plan for when Crescent was done and what the thought was in that. And I think, hey, I'd like to see it, but apart from that, I would ask the question after we've all seen it, else has, is there something in that that serves as a model, something that might help us make some of these decisions? And follow on that to say, are there lessons learned from that project that should also inform what we do going forward. So I'd like to include those in the- We already know what some of those lessons are. Well, we knew no more to them. We know that we initially had something like a 70% preference for- I didn't have a residence. Residents, the ball was dropped at the council long before any of us were here. That is a lesson learned. That is a lesson learned, but there may be others and so I would like to at least understand if there are other things that have happened with that project that should help inform what is going forward. Thank you councilmember Boston. Thank you so before I go to my comments and questions bless you. Mayor Marish, after we do this item, I'd like to request that we could bless you. If we could do the subway portal after this, because we see you're still alive. Well, we have Kathy here, and so she's going to do the next studies. Tim's doing it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I just see there's a lot of people. I get it, but these two go hand in hand. I mean. Okay, just asking. Let's see if we can move. Thank you. I actually have a question for Arnold Rosenstein as well. And thank you. Yes, well, I figured that's what you were here for, but it's good to have you here for this as well. So this committee that you were a part of, which was quite a few years ago, obviously, and I appreciate you bringing this forward to us. Do you know offhand if there was any specific takeaways that you're left with that you remember from that committee? There were a variety of options as to how various cities get affordable housing produced in those cities. I did not reread the report before this. I literally had somebody dig it out so I could bring it out and give it to you. But I do recall that various kinds of subsidies were part of it. Various cities. You know, this California bond program didn't exist at that time. But you know, one of the things, long ago in my real estate development career, we actually built several thousand units of affordable housing under federal programs that no longer exist. Section 8, HUD 221D4s and D3s and things like that, where you got 40-year, 3% mortgages, things of that nature. But the point of all that was to bring down the operating cost of those buildings so that the rents could come down and so cities have guaranteed loans For example if you go to the bank, but the city of Beverly Hills guarantee you're gonna get a very low cost alone Doesn't cost the city cash cost them credit available a lot of cities have subsidized the rents They said we don't have to bother with building it you charge the tenant a dollar and we'll pay the other dollar. So there are a lot of other ways to get affordable housing built. This is one, as I said before, but those are the kinds of things that are summarized in that report. And clearly, unfortunately, nothing was done with that report. That went straight onto the shelf, I think. Yes. And that's very frustrating. And frustrating for your time and frustrating for our city, actually, that we didn't do it at that point, but clearly we're here today to take this change. The topic's been around for a long time. But I think finally, we're all going to see that this is a council and a community that is going to take action. Well, maybe the least good, I just brought it because maybe there's some good ideas in there that'll be useful as you think about how to produce not just on this project, but I suspect that you'll have more affordable housing requirements over time and you may be, I mean at some point the city will probably implement an affordable housing program city-wide and permanently and there are some ideas in there as to how to do that. Thank you. I appreciate you being here. Thank you. So, I'm going to start with the menorah housing. As I understand, George. George. Sorry. Just in terms of the report, in terms of the menorah housing, we have 40 studio apartments, 110 one bedroom. These are affordable for 62 and older and it receives no more than 50% of the area median income. It says in 2041 we can buy the housing portion for a dollar. Is there anything else we could do with those units besides that. I haven't thought of that but it seems like that's the best use for the purpose that is. Well I want to keep that use but when I'm looking at the fact that in 2041 we will be able to manage own that, the housing portion. I think we want to get ahead of that. I mean when you're looking at 110 one bedroom units and 40 studio apartments that's quite a bit of units that I would like us to be able to use whatever standards that we're going to devise and you know finally take back control over what we had lost. So we should incorporate that into this program as well that this thinking. And if I could also also add to that I don't think it was really contemplated and So we should incorporate that into this program as well, that this thinking. And if I could also add to that, I don't think it was really contemplated in the 80s when the project was developed, what the city would want to do 40, 50 years in the future. So we wanted to maintain the right to have site control, but I don't necessarily think that it was the city who was envisioning operating a residential complex at some date in the future. And we would likely, I would imagine leave that to the, you know, developers or operators who have other sites nearby for scale. Well, I think we have seen that we are a community that values affordable housing going forward. And, you know, I think that's part of the visioning for the future. So I see it differently. I see unfortunately what had happened with Mr. Rosenstein is a perfect example where there was a lot of talk, but we didn't act upon it. It just went on the shelf. And clearly as we're sitting here today, we're not going to be doing any more shelving and we're going to act. As far as I'm concerned, we're even late to that, but we're at least here today. So for me, I think a big part of what I'm looking for is a lot of public input in this as well, because we're talking about city properties, and even though I feel that we might have ideas of what we think is best, but I really do wanna hear from the community as well to see where they feel it makes sense. So in terms of the questions, from my perspective, when you talk about the type of project, I'm inclined to go with the seniors as well because I think we've said again and again that we really want to make sure that our city encourages aging in place. So I would really like to look at that. And then the affordability threshold, the unit size, I agree. With Council Member Wonderlick, that we should look at that in terms of the different sizes of a smaller unit. In terms of the location, 92.98, which is a C5 zone, the one on third street. How I look at it is that particular property as city land, it's near the municipal services, near the police fire library it's close to religious institutions you have the civic center stores in that area you have a dog park you have a market on doheny when you look at 335 South Robertson see 3 that's near a commercial district shopping and dining I think we should look at both I think we should look at both properties and C3 that's near commercial district, shopping and dining. I think we should look at both properties and make that assessment. There's no reason why they both can't be alternatives. In terms of development standards, I don't know who wants to answer this, but it says 92 and 98 third street would allow for up to 46 units at 60 feet and the 335 south Robertson up to 52 units at 60 feet. Is that allow for us to change that or is that or we locked into those numbers? Who wants to answer that? So that would be under the cities existed as of now there in commercial zones, but if you were to apply the senior housing standards, that's what they would look like. My understanding Senior housing including affordable because I mean I you know speaking when when we see even a Development project when there's an affordable component we allow for density bonuses we allow for more height and such. Granted this is a city project so there might be some more leeway but with the numbers that I said how does that fold into what we're looking for. The number, excuse me, the numbers that were listed in the report we really did sort of a rough calculation of if we were to apply some of the existing senior development standards that we have in the municipal code, that's a round where it would get us to. Obviously those properties are not zoned for that today and so we were just looking for some relative comparisons. I think that's something you could do is take that existing framework and use those standards. I also think it would be completely appropriate to figure out what are the cities, goals and needs at each site and develop your own set of criteria. So if you were a for for-profit developer that wanted to build and we've seen this in the past where you know when when they have offered to put in affordable units into a project they then and this was by state could have the ability to have more hide or less side set back and such already in terms of state law. So how does that fold into this particular instance? I think it serves as a good example where you do often see increased hide or increased density or some sort of other flexibility in development standards when you're dealing with affordable units. The difference here is that when we talk about those density bonus projects, those are incentives really offered to developers to try to encourage them to build the affordable units, but it's only getting us a small percentage of affordable units. It's getting us anywhere from 11% to maybe 20% of a project is affordable. Here we're talking about a 100% affordability project, which I think provides even further justification for the city to really look at what suits our needs best. Fantastic. So I would definitely like that flexibility. In terms of city provide financial contribution. I'm certainly willing to look at that. I don't know what that looks like at this point. In addition to the property. Right, exactly. I completely agree that it would only be a ground lease. I don't see any scenario where I'd be willing to sell our city property. In terms of the developer solicitation process, I feel very strongly that we should have an RFQ first, and then an RFP in terms of having the, I see Kathy, you have thoughts on that too? I'm a big fan of the RFQ followed by the RFP. I just think that the less you make the developer do, as the first step in the process, the better equality you get of developers. The more work they have to do, the more time they have to spend, the more money they have to spend, the less likely they're going to want to play in a beauty contest. Yeah, so I agree as well. And I think you would talk about management. And for me, that's also important because I think certain developers that do affordable housing, some have better reputations than others in terms of, you know, habitability in the quality of care in the building and such. And I think that, you know, is extremely important. I want to make sure that we have that oversight, that whoever is going to be doing this is providing the quality of life that we would expect for anybody. No, I agree. So I think that's also important. So I really would like to see that. And lastly, as I started, I end and I always do with the public process. I really feel that it's important to hear from our community in terms of the vision of where they see this being. And I think that will help for me and form my direction. Thank you. Thank you, Vice-Mir. So in general, most of the questions that have been asked are ones that I had an interest in, but I want to delve a little bit deeper into some of them. Going back to the nonprofit versus for-profit, they're both using the same mechanisms in order to get the finance in correct. Correct. And the cost of the project, even with a company taking profit, still is going to be about the same with a non-profit? Yeah, because what happens in the, that's a very good question. And what happens in these transactions? Is there, whether it's a non-profit or a for-profit developer, they're happens in the, that's a very good question. And what happens in these transactions? Is there, whether it's a nonprofit or a for-profit developer, they're very much developer fee driven. So the tax credit allows a developer fee as part of the construction costs. And because of the fact that the income generated by these projects is very limited, there's not a lot of cash flow thrown off the project to make a profit from. And so the four profit developers are working from the same scheme that the nonprofits are working from, which is developer fee. So then there's the other part of the equation, which is in the management of this developed property. In your experience has the management of those properties after their build is that equal in terms of if you have a nonprofit developer versus a profit developer? What I would say is if you have a qualified nonprofit versus a qualified for-profit, they're the same, and you can have a bad nonprofit and a good for-profit and vice versa. So as Councilperson Bossy said, it is very important to pick a developer with a good reputation whose projects you can look at and see how they've been operated over time and see what quality of life is being provided. I would, it is my very strong opinion that there are bad non-profits and good non-profits and there are bad for-profits and good non-profits and there are bad for profits and good for profits. I don't think it's the distinction I would make. So again, if you're looking at very good non-profits, very good profits, that's a toss-up. In my opinion, yes. And what you said just previously, and that's the reason that you're very supportive of the RFQ process is that you are extending the amount of time involved, but you are spending good time upfront as opposed to wasting it later on. Exactly. Because once you've picked a group of people from the RFQ, a short list from the RFQ, then you don't have to worry about qualifications anymore in your evaluation. Then you're simply evaluating the project design, the project mix, and the project financials. You've identified that anybody in the field you've picked is qualified to undertake the project. And it seems as if we have some, well, we should have been doing this a long time ago, but at this point in time, in terms of the coming arena numbers, we should have been doing this a long time ago, but at this point in terms of the coming rena numbers, we have some time that we could go through that process. Yeah, I think your timing's kind of fortuitous, actually. One of the things that troubles me, and I'm not sure you're going to be able to deal with my concern, is satisfying the number of units under Rina versus what the real needs are of the community. Any input on that issue? Well, in the olden days of yesterday, you know, when you're Rina number, well, your Rina number was very low, but when other Rina numbers were more manageable and were a goal, I would have suggested try to meet your housing element on met need, so that you're really meeting the demands of your community, the types of housing your community needs. That's clearly the objective, that's clearly what you're supposed to be doing. But when they do rena's like they're doing now for the next cycle, it's gonna be so big, that you're gonna spend all your time trying to fill it. I don't, do I think it's appropriate? I don't. I don't, but nobody asked me at the state. So. I've been asked you. Okay, you can ask me, but I mean the state doesn't care what I think. They don't care what we think either, which is the sad thing. And that kind of dovetails into the next question I had, is there any discussion in Sacramento that you're aware of encouraging the affordable housing and other than just giving us these rena numbers? Well, I mean, I think the state through the Housing and Community Development Department has initiated a number of programs that generated money that can be used to assist in affordable housing, but it is really largely focused on homeless and permanent support. But let me just answer that. Our joint friend Gavin Newsom just vetoed a bill SB5, which through tax increment financing would have provided $2 billion a year in affordable housing funds. The fact that the state did away with redevelopment agencies has cost the state a collective $12 billion that could have been spent to affordable housing. So at the same time that Gavin Newsom is attacking cities with very Trumpian kind of rhetoric, he actually on a party line vote, it should be noted not one Republican voted for SB 5, not one Democrat voted against it, he vetoed a bill that would have provided $2 billion a year. So I think that's a very relevant fact. Oh, absolutely. This is clearly an unfunded mandate. There's no question about it. I guess the answer to my question is there was a discussion, but it was vetoed. I'm happy to. Okay, as far as a financing the the 9% versus the 4% I think I think I Understand the differences it's well, let me go through the the list of questions. I think it was a slide before this You're not. That one? Yeah, yeah. This is the first one. Okay, so in terms of going down them sequentially, it sounds to me like the RFQ followed by an RFP is the way to go. No fee sale, I think a long-term ground lease. Well, I should put it this way. Let me put it in the form of a question. Long-term ground lease can be 50 years, which is long, can be 75, can be 99. That's the question. Well, yeah, it's 55. There's certain conditions under which it can be 99, but basically 55. It's going to need to be at least 55. Only because the covenant period will be 55 years. OK, so that was, and now I will turn that into a comment, which is it should be a shorter period as can be possible, especially in line with the covenant. So it shouldn't be any longer than it has to be. Generally what you'll see, because you have to have at least 55 years, you'll generally see a couple years following the 55, say 58 years. Because what'll happen is you'll have all this soft debt that you will have put in the land, we'll live in it groundly so you won't have that. But you'll have the assistance you've given will need to be structured as alone as well. For IRS reasons, they need a developer needs to be able to show that those loans can be repaid. And so generally you need a couple years after the covenants end to create enough cash flow to repay. So you generally see 58-ish. So again, as short as possible to make it work out by the numbers. In terms of the competitively awarded tax credits or bonds, let's do that real quickly. It sounded to me like you were saying that there are about on par right now and there wouldn't really be that much of a difference time-wise in the application process. I misread that. Yeah, I think I must have miscommunicated. There's definitely, as we sit, if you go apply for bonds and 4% tax credits, say in January, in March, you'll have your financing. If you apply for a 9% tax credit in January, you may win in March or you may lose in March. And so then you're going to have to wait until July to bid again. So as we sit with bonds and 4% tax credits, you don't have a competitive process. Now what I did mention, and this is where the confusion may have come in, is they are now adding a competitive process to the bonds and the 4% credits. We don't, we know what the score is, we know it's 80, but we don't know what 80 means. So we need to find out what 80 means. But I have to believe that it will never be as competitive as the 9% credits, just because the financial benefits of the 9% credits are so much more. And so everybody given their brothers picks the 9% credits. Okay, so I'm still in the air about that one. I don't know if you can go down two tracks at the same time you're saying that the- You can't, you have to do, you can't do two, you can't do a 4%. You can't do a bond and a nine percent in the same round at the same time. Okay. But the other thing is, and I will say that I do strongly believe if you go seniors, your odds of winning nine percent are diminished. So you should take that into account. Okay, well. Assuming we do that, then I will take that as good advice. How much direct? as good advice. How much direct? So the direct financial assistance, the city is willing to provide. Obviously we need to provide the land. That's huge, by the way. It is a big, it's a really big factor. And I would be willing to consider additional financial assistance for the gap, but I think that we need to look at the numbers when we get that far. Next slide. And I wasn't sure what council member Basie meant. I think we're gonna need to look at both sites. Yeah, that's what you meant. But not necessarily individually. I think we eventually may need to look at both sites. That's what you meant. That's what I said. Perfect. OK, so if that's what it was, I think that we are going to need to look at, especially in the library. I'd say at least those two sides, ultimately. Yeah, at least. At least. And others, but those are the two that, to me, it's not either or in this example. Both, and And in that's a policy objective, you want to use both sites for affordable housing. But yes, you're going to need at least two sites. Yeah. Yeah. Housing type. You know, I started this whole process thinking that it is one for aging in place. So I am in favor of the senior citizen. I would like to look at the large family and see whether or not large family there could be an additional consideration of Beverly Hills Unified School District families. So that's something Larry said he's going to look at. So we can look at that later on. But I think it should be looked at, but I think senior housing is where it should be. I think we need to maximize density. I don't think we need 12 stories. I think three stories in order to get the numbers we need, it's gonna have to be higher than what the residential development standards are. So I think we do need to maximize density to a degree. Same thing goes with, same concept with the high height rather is that we just need to consider making the units as many units as we can available without impacting too much the areas that we are considering. Do you think we need ground floor commercial when we are developing in commercial areas such as as Robertson I think that we need to consider that we have replacement commercial we have very limited commercial areas in our city and this is basically a mixed use project so I think we need to move forward on that parking, I think we need to have underground and public open space as available. My comment. Okay, thank you. Kathy, I wanted to ask you on rena, you mentioned before it was sort of aspirational. It's now prescriptive, meaning that cities are gonna be penalized if the housing isn't built. But since one funding isn't available, in fact the governor has mentioned just VDO $2 billion. And two cities don't actually build that level of housing. We're talking about building some, so that's more than perhaps other cities do or don't do. How can it be prescriptive? Yeah, I can't speak to that, but what I can say, and this is what I tell every one of my clients, as long as you're making a good faith effort to fulfill the obligations, you're doing what you can do. And so I mean, I've had clients who just say, it's crazy, it's an unfunded mandate, I don't want anything to do with it, come get me. I never recommend that. Right, okay, and of course, unfunded mandates aren't allowed What prop is it to 18 or something? One A, one B. One B. So there may be legal action, but we're doing this because we need affordable housing. And the fact of the matter is that it's a little bit, it almost sounds like you've got to create enough incentives to make it profitable so developers actually build it. And the goal being affordable housing, that's literally an oxymoron. So it's a little bit crazy, especially, as said, considering that we could build housing, give us the money. So, you know. Well, there's a notion at the state, and I think you've had a discussion with the gentleman whose notion it is. Is there's a notion at the state that if you just entitle enough housing, it'll become naturally affordable. I think that's nonsense and I've said that in an interval. Not only is it nonsense, your nexus studies that we're going to talk about admitted actually show the more market rate housing you build, the more luxury housing you build, it generates an increased need for affordable housing. That's correct. So, especially in a community like Beverly Hills, because the market rate housing you're going to build is so far from what an affordable housing is that you could never. Well that's's it. And far from treading water, you're actually exacerbating the situation. But okay, we can try and debate Senator Weiner another time. I think we should, you know, we've discussed the need in our community about aging in place. So for me, I would be in favor of looking at both sites. Absolutely. I think the Roberts insight we bought because we need, and there should be ground floor commercial, but we need to have parking for the community to enliven it. We still need to fulfill that goal. And since we're the city, we can build under the footprint of Roberts and Boulevard itself. And if that's what we need to do to go deeper to build a housing, we should do both and. I think we should on the third straight site, we don't really need to have ground floor retail. I don't think there should be amenities. So I think we should, we know we're a community that has a lot of elderly people who want to age in place. We know that we're 9.5% of our communities under the poverty line. A lot of those are seniors with fixed incomes and this is exactly the kind of housing we could build. So, you know, and quite frankly, because of the way Reena is structured, it's going to be smaller units, and that will go further the way it is to fulfilling our Reena figures and so be it. If that changes, we can look at it, but I still think at least in these two properties, the need is there. When it, I also think we can do the RFQ to the RFP, although I'll disagree with you a little bit. I agree that they're good nonprofits, bad nonprofits, middle nonprofits, and the same with four profits. But I think if you get a good nonprofit, that's the sweet spot for affordable housing. Because when you think about it, their goal is housing. The goal of a four-profit developer is to use housing to generate a profit. And I see a philosophical difference there. All things being equal. And I see a philosophical difference there, all things being equal. And I get it, they're not always equal. But we have some wonderful nonprofits in our community, Jesse Slansky from the West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation is sitting in the audience. They've done spectacular things in our neighboring city, Blue Habiscus, other things. I hope at the end of the day, even though we're going to go through this process, we'd be lucky to end up with a developer like Jesse and like the West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation. And maybe at some point we should consider, you know, there should be a Beverly Hills Housing Corporation or Beverly Hills West Hollywood Housing Corporation as we do more of this, what we can do with the limited available land. But I just wanted to say that. No, and they are a very good developer. Yeah. There's no disputing that. No, and so I think we, again, I think we need to recognize, especially in Beverly Hills, where properties so highly valued that the land acquisition costs are going to be huge and key. And the problem is with Senator Wiener or other people's notion of statutory up-soning is that in most cases, affordable housing developers and nonprofits will not be able to compete when it comes to land acquisition. Forget the fact that if you're creating a gold rush mentality about everything's being up-soned, it's one of wealth transfer from the public to the private sector. But, too, you're going to create such an overheated marking for market for construction workers that prices are automatically going to go up as well. So it's not well thought out and it's not wouldn't be well managed, but that's perhaps the point. From my perspective, this is something that is long overdue. I agree we should go back and look at menorah and think about it in 22 years that maybe if we have a housing corporation or working with one that they have the ability perhaps to take it over we should definitely talk with menorah as well and continue but it can and must never happen that we drop the ball that when we're investing so much public funds from Beverly Hills and we have the ability to have a 70% or more preference for our residents that that doesn't happen. And so because we're investing our own funds, we do have that ability, I believe, to have preference so our residents can age in place. It's a good policy and I think we need to move forward with it. So I thank you for your presentation, Asset. Is there anything else that I need to answer? I think we're willing to look at, again, this is the thing. It's permanent affordability, we're looking at, it needs to fit into the community. It's not just make a quick buck and move on. And so we can and should look at maximizing density but thoughtfully and height. And what else do we have? Next slide maybe. And I think because we're looking at senior housing that probably we want to go for the 4% tax credits if there is a developer who is qualified and thinks they get the 9% wonderful but I think we should do that. And then we can look specifically at the additional financial perhaps assistance that we're willing to provide. Hopefully funds will be available through inclusionary housing, which we've been talking about. That's going to generate funding. And when we come to, and I think this may be a good transition to point two, which is Nexus studies and inclusionary housing programs, hopefully that's going to generate money. So with that, we'll segue into. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Before you do that, Mayor, really there are a lot of people to speak to item number three. And I would just re-raise council member Bosse's issue. They've been sitting here for a couple hours now. I think it's fair to them to take that issue next. Okay, well then I'll say this. I'll do that, but as long as however long it takes we get through inclusionary housing, however long it takes. This is up to you guys, how long you wanna speak, and question, but I'll have to tell you, in the scheme of things, as much as I value everyone's time here, inclusionary housing in next to studies is more important than we're a subway, you know, the potential of a subway portal for our city at the end of the day. I'm told. Let me go ahead and sit down. George said 515 to close session. That's kind of the way it is. I didn't make the calendar. I think we can get through both, but I do think since we have a lot of people here, I would ask that we at least do the subway and I'll stay as long as you need me to do that. So we're gonna stay as long as then it takes. Let's get this, I mean, there's all these people sitting here for the last hour and a half. You may land up delaying the formal session tonight. That's okay, we gotta get through this. As long as you're okay with that. And that being said, we It's not likely probably impossible for us to get to item number four. Not tonight. Which is, they call it shared mobility, but I'll see it's the scooter. So we're not getting to that today. So, and as said, I would ask everyone to keep their comments brief, because we will, Kathy, you need to please stick around. We're gonna get to that. Thank you. Mayor, can we just split the time right now we have what an hour and 15 minutes can we just say that we're going to stop next after? Well we can or the other option is that we carry over item two but again I you know we need to look at Kathy's availability to the evening session which I'm happy to do as well because I think the evening session isn't that long but we got to get this done. This is is pretty. Kathy, are you available to stay in the evening? The cheerleave? Okay. This is as critical as anything that we're doing as said and as much as I value every once time this needs to get done. So let's if we can't get it done then we'll put it to the evening because we have a very light evening. Okay. We have an LED. then we'll put it to the evening because we have a very light evening. Right? I think I know that would be evening. Oh, got to get done. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor Mairish and Council Members, Susan Healey, King Director of Community Development. I'm here today to get your direction about whether or not we should study additional alternatives for the North portal in the Environmental Impact Report. Just a reminder, as you know, Metro is under construction building a portal at the Southern Entrance and during discussions that were held in February of this year regarding the memorandum of agreement, the MOA with Metro. There were raised issues of concern regarding the lack of access to the north side of Wilshire and access to the business triangle. business triangle. Again, the goals here were to better serve the business triangle, provide direct access to jobs, retail and amenities, to improve the pedestrian flow as people got out of the subway and then to minimize pedestrian street crossings. So our current alternatives, as we have them in the Environmental Impact Report now, are as shown here. There's the Beverly Alternative, the Cannon Drive Alternative, and then the Cannon Drive Staging Yard Alternative. We did contract with the Environmental Consultant, AECOM, in June, and they have been proceeding with the environmental impact report with these three alternatives. Where we are right now in the process, we have finished the scoping review and we are in project definition. So we are roughly where the star is as shown here. We, under the current contract we expected draft environmental impact report in spring of 2020 and then a final EIR in fall of 2020. So we did have the scoping period as I mentioned it was from September 5th through October 7th of this year. 42 individuals provided comments and at the scoping meeting itself, there were five stakeholders requesting a study of additional alternatives. The issues that were expressed was that the alternatives that we're looking at would not provide sufficient area for pickup and drop off for first last mile options. There was a desire for an opportunity for some sort of plaza, possibly restrooms, maybe an information kiosk. There were a number of things that the commenters felt could be provided that were not able to be provided in the three alternatives that are half portals as presented. So we took a look at this and the proposals that possibly could be added would be a cannon plus a half portal. A cannon plaza half portal. So this would show the estimated portal location. All three of these alternatives would require a permanent cul de sac on cannon drive, which is more similar to this situation that's there now with the wall. This is the second one. So this would be a half portal. Then there's a Canon Plaza option that would be a full portal. That could extend it further into Canon, then which would require another look at moving all of that over. And then the third would be the Canon Plaza full portal at the staging yard. There's an opportunity here. There is a private property to the west that potentially is not owned by the city, but potentially could be purchased at some point to create a larger area. Again, this would also require a permanent call to sack on Canon Drive. All of these alternatives then would have an impact on the timing for the environmental impact report. The first, the Canon Plaza half portal would be in additional six weeks, the Canon Plaza full portal, and again the difference between a full and a half portal is the addition of an escalator, and then three months for the Canon Plaza full portal at the staging yard. Important to note that we have constructability information for the current three alternatives that we have. Some of the work that would need to be done is fleshing out the constructability. We don't have that. We obtain that for the first three that we are currently reviewing from Metro. So the additional work that would take more time, we would do additional project description, additional SQL analysis. There would be more response to comments in the final EIR. As I mentioned, conceptual designs and artist renderings would be additional client consultant coordination. We would need to revise the detailed project schedule and then for the staging yard option, the consultant is recommending that we would have two additional community meetings because of the expansion of that. So that's a time delay. So the total cumulative delay if you were to do all three of those would be three months to rather than coming back to you in the fall with a final EIR would be more like the winter or the beginning of 2021. with Metro and their project schedule so that we can align with where they're going to have the knockout wall for the walkway to the north. So there are also costs impacts. The current contract is approximately $840,000. Each of those options would be an additional cost. The Canon Plaus a half portal would be an additional 130,000. The Canon Plaus a full portal, 150,000. And then more expensive, the Canon Plaus a full portal at the staging yard with all of what I've described to you previously. So the total cumulative cost of these additional alternatives would be $580,000, which would bring the total for just the environmental impact report to about $1.4 million. So again, what here- Can I just interrupt for one second? In the staff report. In the staff report, it said that there's a hundred and sixty two four hundred and forty five available To use towards that from the CIP is that that is correct accurate, so then the It would then really be four hundred and seventeen five five five Right, I didn't see that in the staff report. Right. I'm just talking about costs not where they're drawn from. Correct. Okay. But just in terms of cost based on the report, if we do use the funds in the CIP that is available for it, it actually brings the cost out. Just want to put it out there for everyone to know some reason. They might not have the benefit of the staff report. You're correct. Thank you. And so the question really before you today, oh, well, before I say that, we have received some correspondence. We've received emails within the last 24 hours. We have a nine that are in opposition to looking at the three additional alternatives. We have one in support. I know we have a number of people here today to speak. We also have here with us our environmental consultant from AECOM. David Derosa is the project manager, and he can certainly answer any other questions you may have specific to the work being done on the environmental. So with that, I'm available for any questions and also. Thank you. We'll go to public comment now. And I would ask everyone if you can keep your remarks to two minutes, that would be good. As said, we've got a lot to get through. Please just let us know if you're in favor of it or you oppose it and why brevity is indeed the soul of wet. So we'll start with Phil's Savineck, welcome. Okay. As we have to get this right, but I'm going to take the best approach is going to be. We're going to ask the right questions. This process, we have not asked the right questions. Today is the day, Mr. Rosenstein is here, we can ask the right questions. When I went to the scoping meeting, we were not allowed to ask the right questions. When I asked staff, why are we considering these three locations and not the obvious one at the corner of the Northeast corner of Canon? I was told not only could they not answer that question, they were not empowered to even ask that question. So therefore we went through an entire meeting and an EIR without ever asking the obvious question where is the best place. So the approach I'd like to take today is we're going to ask the right questions. We're going to see what we can all agree on and I think at the end of the day we might be able to save the city a million dollars in unnecessary investigations. All we have to do is talk about what this subway is and agree on certain things. The first slide please, thank you. There are three reasons that we are here today. That is because the South subway station or South Subway Portal, as we wanted to be called, is not safe. It is not safe for drivers. It is not safe for pedestrians and it is not safe for residents. Those are three things we want to accommodate on the north portal so we do not make the same mistake twice. It is unsafe for drivers because there is no off-street access for passenger drop-off and pick-up. That means loading occurs on busy streets, wheelchair boulevard, and at about six times an hour, we will lose a lane. And people will merge quickly, and that is the single most dangerous driving thing. There is when you have to merge La Lane quickly. It's not safe. Number two, we have talked about, it's not safe for pedestrians. We can't get people from the south to the north in mass quantities. Our crosswalks and our sidewalks are inadequate. Okay? Something we need to work on. Number three, we know the south is unsafe for residents. Okay? Metro currently does not provide security outside the train car. And as originally proposed, there are no bathroom facilities for travelers or transients, and it's only a couple hundred feet from open garages. So we know these are problems in the south. I think we can all agree. Those are things we'd like to address in the north. Can we all agree that those are our three criteria? So in terms of the driving, the criteria should be, and I'll skip some of this, you can see it. The ideal location is somewhere where you can load off street. It's very simple. I think we can all agree. It is safest to load and unload people off a busy street. If that is our criteria, when we look at the location, let's make that the criteria. Where is it that we can pick people up off street and load them safely? That would be the only criteria. Where is it that we can pick people up off street and load them safely? That would be the only criteria. I'll give you three more minutes. John, I'm going to talk about this. All right. It's very important. Fill the rules applied every month. I'm giving you three more minutes. Please. How do we get something done right? We have Mr. Rosenswag, Moses Fien here. This is our moment to do this right. It's not been done right. Okay? It's not safe for pedestrians. We can't get them across Wilshire. I'll move on. Not safe for the residents. We need to have a police substation. We need to have a heavy CCTV presence and we can allow strangers to use our lawns and our alleys as bathrooms. These are issues we have north and south, okay? Wherever it is, load people safely. Take care of pedestrians, protect against unwanted visitors. I think we all agree, those are our three criteria. The locations as presented, do not fulfill any of those. They are directly on the street. They are an on the street. They are an escalator that deposits the visitors right on a busy street. El Sherbull of Art, Beverly Drive, Canon, there is no enclosure, there is nothing that would resemble a station or a portal. You've merely taken escalator and suddenly you're on a busy street. There would be no directions which direction to go or what is in Beverly Hills. These three options that are not full portals are literally the escalator ends in the sidewalk. On Beverly Drive we have to lose a lane of traffic. I don't think any of us agree that that's a good idea. Why are we spending $130,000 to investigate an option that is not a good idea and that we all agree is not a good idea. Does not protect pedestrians, does not keep our traffic flowing. And okay, so basically I think we can all agree. If we can avoid losing a lane on Beverly Drive, that would be advantageous to us. Don't bother to study it. Now, we have three options for Canon. One is in the street. One is in the corner building, which seems to make the most sense we're gonna get to that, and the other is in the staging area. There is no reason the city should pay three times for one investigation. It's all the same site. How do we make canon safe and viable? You don't pay three times for one report. It's all the same thing. The variable would be whether we close canon or whether we still allow some traffic. But basically, that is the only place that fulfills our need. I'm sorry what I meant to show those to them. Okay, here are the portals. It's not an answer to our problems. Therefore, I think we need the fourth option. We're here to discuss it in your report. This details what is wrong with each of the options that we were presented. Permanently lose a lane. It's only half a portal. No off-street loading, no bathroom, no place for security, no safe crossings. I think we can all agree. These are not things we need to pursue. The one we need to pursue and the person we need to hear from is the stakeholder on the corner. The city owns the two lots right next door that could be used for loading on off-street parking. Exactly what we're looking for. So basically we have only one option. Okay here is the property. You can drive cars in and out on the east end. You can go down into a ride sharing area where Uber and Lyft and Taxis can pick people up and drop them off. They can wait until their ride is ready and then they go to the pickup area. We have this all off street on two levels. We have a street level. We have a subterranean level. Obviously, if we can use the property on the corner, there is room for a full station with elevators, with escalators, with bathrooms, and a police substation right there so that when the visitors come, they see a whole wall of CCTV monitors and they know anywhere you go in Beverly Hills, we're going to be watching you. We could have an actual station, the way we have been talking about it, which is you don't just, all right, right now the subway are long gray corridors and long gray alleys. All right, that is the picture they supplied. Basically, there is nothing there that says you're in Beverly Hills. You have a platform, you have a stair or an escalator, you have another platform, you have with vending machines for buying tickets, and you have another escalator or elevator. That's it. There is nothing that says you're in Beverly Hills. In an environmental report, a real one, will address what happened in Hollywood. The crowds, suddenly all these vendors on the sidewalk in street purport. I'm not sure if it's a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a car or a no show place, and a new gateway to the city. The outdoor dining and the street performance and all this stuff we had planned for O'Dail is way more appropriate for Canon. Not everybody can buy a Gucci bag, everybody can eat lunch. This would be a new destination, a new street, and the subway would be this gateway. You go up Canon to the sign, to the walless into the city. It's a chance for the future. So anyway, I will stop here and let others talk, but here is the map of how it would work when people got off the subway and the red. There's a giant friendly open area there. We have wide, we have to widen the sidewalks wherever we put this thing. We widen it and you go right up Canon and you open up the city. We have never had a flow of pedestrians in the city. This is a chance to do that. They go up Canon, they go down Rodeo. We have enlarged our city by double. This is your moment to make a decision. I think we all agree we have to address safety first. Safety for the passengers. None of these address that. Safety for drivers, dropping off and letting off. None of these address that. There is only one option. Let's find out what we can do on the corner and have a real station where it IDs Beverly Hills, a tour center to say, don't just go to Roedale. There are all these other things in our city to do. Thank you for your time. It's very important we get it right, and that we ask the right questions. Why is it not on the corner? Let's ask. Okay, Arnie Rosenstein, welcome. You're mentioned, and then I would say next, Mayor Tellum, and then we've got a number of other speakers, so let's move. Thank you, I will actually try to keep this short. Thank you. I will actually try to keep this short. Thank you. I just wanted to bring a few facts to your attention that maybe you don't now. The staging site, the one that just referring to, we still own new Pacific owns at my partner and I own it. The Metro took a 92-month temporary construction easement on that property. So even though we own it, Metro has possession of it until January of 2026. We went through years of litigation with Metro and a couple of months ago we settled. So we have been compensated in an amount for the use of the property for the nine years or the seven years and for the value of the building that Metro tore down. I had my little Richard office building back and I would not have had to move my office, but that's not an option. That's happened and we moved. Of these three options that were outlined before by Mrs. Meiskein, the third one involves a proposed acquisition of our property that was made by the mayor. I'm not sure if I'm going to have to move my office, but that's not an option. That's happened and we moved. of these three options that were outlined before by Mrs. Madness Keane. The third one involves a proposed acquisition of our property. That would be an eminence, a main proceeding, presumably, or a negotiated acquisition. It is candidly, I was looking forward to keeping the property, building new building there when the subway is done. That's my first choice, but I understand those are options. The two that concern me is what we wind up with, with Canon Drive closed, this portal being built, I think we would have impaired property at that point. I think we would be looking at, I says not a threat in any way, but I think it would be looking at legal and financial considerations at that point, that said not a threat in any way, but I think it would be looking at legal and financial considerations. At that point, I would have to go into the calculation because I think we would have a damaged piece of property. Having said that, there are no plans, there's no drawings, and there's nothing in the staff report to evaluate, so I can't draw a firm conclusion. So what I wanted to say today is if you do decide to proceed with this and clearly this is your choice. And you're going to go down any of these roads, you really need to have the property owners and the business owners on Canon Drive be part of this process. An EIR typically does not address the financial impact on businesses. I think the financial impact on businesses is a serious topic that would have to be considered if you were going to do this and if you're going to close Canon Drive permanently. So I just want to say if you decide to go down this road and make sure all of the business and property owners are included in this process so you make a proper decision, I would clearly like to see that if you're going to do this study, try and do a study that does not include Canon Drive as an alternative, as an option, so that you have all of the choices. I don't know why you would study this without studying the possibility of keeping Canon open. That should be a part of the study if you decide to go with the study in my opinion. Thank you. That's all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Miratellum. Then Ken Goldman, followed by Patrick Barrett. Good afternoon or good evening. I certainly agree that what was said earlier about closing canon. That's what I wanna talk about because the impact of closing canon permanently is really a great harm to the businesses. I saw it from one individual business, but when you close the circulation in a city, you damage the individual businesses that rely upon it, you'll certainly damage the Montage Hotel because their principal entry is on Canon and to get to the Montage Hotel and I don't speak for them, but I would think that they would be quite upset by closing Canon permanently. You can't get there other than a circuitous route. Circulation is like blood throwing through a vein. If you cut off the circulation, the limb atrophies and dies. The circulation is vital for the people who live on the south to get to the north to shop. Just drive down, we'll account on yourself. You'll notice something has happened in the last few months. to get to the north to shop, just drive down a cannon yourself. You'll notice something has happened in the last few months. You could just get through there with it a few moments. There's no longer any blockage because it's hardly any traffic southbound on cannon. I would urge you not to close cannon. I'm certainly in support of the canon alternative as a Transit hub that is the right place. I agree with Phil that for us to be studying these other alternatives makes little sense. That is the one that should be studied that is really the only logical place for a north portal. It should be a full transit hub with many of the amenities that could be put on there. The owner of the property is here. We have certain ideas as to how it can be accomplished, but I do think that the study should be limited to the full portal on Canon, and I totally oppose to the idea portal on Canon, and I totally oppose to the idea of closing Canon. Even if we do a full portal on Canon, one of the ways that makes it important is you can get to it from the south. If you close Wilshire Boulevard, if you close Canon at Wilshire Boulevard, and you put a portal there, people from the south and from the east will have a hard time getting there. They'll have to eat it up Beverly or a crescent and make a secured its route to access this new portal. So my suggestion is limit your study to the full portal at North Cannon and to do not close Wilshire Boulevard and Cannon that is an important part of the circulation within the city thank you. Thank you very much Ken Goldman is the next speaker. afternoon council members Ken Goldman here on behalf of the Southwest Beverly Hills Homeowners Association. I'm certainly not going to repeat, go into all the detail that fills thoughtful presentation. Our Homeowners Association very much supports the exploration of the alternatives that Phil suggested. So I'm not going to repeat it. I'm going to add two quick points. A South portal with no full north option that makes sense will cause dozens of people to have to cross Wilshire, bottle up traffic, and cause drivers to instead take Charlieville and cause still further congestion in the South East and Southwest residential areas. Obviously, that makes no sense from a planning perspective. Secondable, if there is no off-street pickup and drop-off area, the same traffic congestion on Wilshire will occur and with the same result. Drivers will get frustrated and they will take other destinations probably principally Charlieville which already is as you well know congested and right in the middle of a residential important residential area. Let me talk about for a second circulation that Joe just mentioned. It's rare that if I'm going to someplace on Canon that I'll take Wilshire to Canon, I'll take Dayton, I'll take Beverly, right on Dayton, I'll take, if I'm East, there's plenty of ways to quickly get to Canada. Doesn't say you have to close off Canada, but I don't think in fairness that it is the disaster that it's pointed out to be, obviously, we want to support businesses on Canada. That's important. But it's also important for Citywide to make this look to the future. Look to the future is kind of filled with saying. So we're recommending a full north portal to resolve the issues, particularly the issues of congestion and Wilshire that will affect a far greater number and area just of that part of Wilshire. It'll affect San Monica with traffic displaced up there. It'll affect South Charlieville Gregory with traffic displaced down there. I want to read a quick email that I've been asked to read from one of our neighbors, Aubon Fernsizer. We are unable to attend the study session. When the North Portal issue is scheduled, we strongly support a North Portal into the business district as we the south of Wilshire on Roodeo and are concerned about the effects a south portal would have on our residential streets. The businesses north of Wilshire are likely to be the principal destination points for most riders of Metro and having a portal there would lessen the need for those riders to cross Wilshire and would ease through traffic on the boulevard. I want to stop for a second and stop for permanently, but I want to thank Phil. I mean, his devotion, time, effort, thoughtfulness and intelligence, not only this, but other things, just to benefit the city ought to be applauded. And we do so and thank him. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker Patrick Barrett, followed by Joseph Shabani. Afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Councilmembers. Patrick Barrett from Master's Restaurant's Regional Director. I promise I'll be brief. To touch on what the EIR doesn't address in regards to the financial impact in the business. Since September 9th, roughly seven weeks of the closure to touch on our business drops traffic, which equates in our business to entrees, is down 5%. That being said, we're thankful our PPA per person averages up. However, we are still operating in the red to date. Furthermore, that impact on our employees is a reduction of over a thousand hours of the same time period, thus significant gratuities out of their pocket in addition to their hourly wages, totaling over $23,000 in gratuities. We stand strongly in opposition of any alternative or any study that requires the closure of Canon Drive due to these impacts that impact our business. Thank you, Joseph Shabani, followed by Blair Schlafter. Thank you very much for allowing speak on the subject. I strongly oppose any alternative which closes canon as well. We're property owners on canon. Since this got out, we've already had one tenant give us notice that he's leaving a property because he fears the property is going to be closed. You have a major hotel on canon with major traffic. The only entrance is on Canon. You guys have to pay attention to all of these details. Crescent, which is a street next door, which is going to be the dump route from anybody who can't go north on Canon, is going to become where all the traffic goes and Crescent is mostly residential. The traffic on Beverly Drive in Canon is already hedonistic. It's impossible to navigate at around four o'clock in the afternoon. I can't imagine what's going to happen when we close off Canon. There's also been a very major, I'm not sure I'm allowed to say the name, so I won't say it, but an extremely major international restaurant who was supposed to go on Canon, who backed out just because of the temporary closure. And they're waiting to sign the lease until after the temporary closure is removed. I think if this news gets back to this gentleman, he's going to walk away from that. Canon has always been the stepchild of streets to rodeo and bevely drive. It's just having its resurgence right now with the beautiful project that was built. The white project, I don't know the exact address, with the real estate offices in now. Restaurants are coming in, don't kill cannon please. There are other alternatives, there are better alternatives than closing off an entire major street. Thank you. Blair Schlechter, followed by Nusin, Michealty. Johnston. Yes, I don't have as much hair as Blair. I'll see you by time. I'm here on behalf of the Chamber, and we actually had a board meeting today to talk about this topic and we are Also in agreements of we don't think that this would be good for business Several the members are on the board that are Concerned that if we were to close can off permanently it would definitely hurt business It would hurt from the businesses that they're already it would hurt from some potential businesses that we have met with in New York and San Francisco that are interested in coming down. So we would be adamantly against closing it down. Okay, thank you, Nushin, Michealty, followed by David Mirharoni. Good evening. I'm here on behalf of myself. I know I serve on a commission that I'm interested to see why this didn't come to our commission first, but I'd reiterate I'm here on behalf of myself as a resident. But listening to some of the planning that go on, we talk about EIR studies, we talk about solutions to respond to certain EIR studies. For example, the temporary closure on Canon Drive, there was a EIR study. There was a suggestion for a light to go on on Clifton and Crescent. And I personally was against it because I thought maybe there's going to be over full, but that light never has not yet come to place. I mean, the street has been closed temporarily for two years to six years my understanding is, but that light is not in place yet. And so I am just curious about some of these plannings that go on, some of the things that you sit down and make your decisions based on what was reported to you. But the reality is the plans don't take place as our plan. So there's so much about talking and thinking ahead, but I don't know how much we follow through about things that we're supposed to take place and they haven't. When we talk about changing a street configuration, a block of street configuration change from one way to a two way, there is a EIR study thrown at you that you have to do a EIR study and there is gonna be a, I don't know, two minutes delay added to traffic. And for that purpose, the whole thing has to be filed away. But we have done EIR studies, supposedly, for the temporary closure on Canon Drive that we are already experiencing. And one of the solutions for that EIR study was to add the light on Clifton and Crescent, and that light is not in place yet. Just a food for your thought. Thank you. George, can you give us the ETA on that light that NUSHIN is bringing up? It's just checking right now. So maybe I can get Rob to come up and talk about the timing. NUSHIN, we're going to get that answer about the light. Thank you for bringing that up. Rob Welch, Public Works. So Metro is trying to energize that light. The poles are in place. We're waiting for the energizing of that light and it is taking a little longer than expected. We have a timeframe. We're looking at about two to three weeks, but we're trying to get that accelerated. The issue we may have is we may come into the holiday moratorium and then they would have to come back after the holiday moratorium. Complete that. When was the light supposed to be out? we may come into the holiday moratorium and then they would have to come back after the holiday moratorium. So, complete that. When was the light supposed to be up? It's supposed to be up for a mitigation measure as part of the closure. But it wasn't, we metro was delayed in installing that traffic signal. So they put TCOs in place until that traffic signal was up and operational. You know, I'm sorry. It's a little disturbing. So we're putting TCOs in, so we're using those TCOs who could be at other places because metro had a problem energizing it and putting it up because of what reason? Why wasn't it energized at the time that it was closed? That cannon was closed. The contractors scheduled on delay and they were behind schedule on getting it energized. So we deployed TCOs to mitigate the impact during and they're paying for the TCOs. But we're losing the TCOs in other spaces. And we also, we as in Metro and us as the city are losing credibility with our community because I think there's an expectation that we all have, that when we say we're gonna do something, we do it. So my concern is frankly, even two or three weeks is a long time if it was supposed to be done. So I would ask if you could speed that up a while. Are there penalties? There's no penalties on their schedule, slipping per the M.O.A. So, but we are working to accelerate it as quickly as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Nishin, for bringing that forward. Next speaker is David Mirrooney, followed by 2G Chang. Honourable Mayor and distinguished members of the City Council. I'm going to cut it very short. I'm speaking on behalf of e-cron holdings and my father, Edie and Mayor Herruni, we're on the building, anchored by masros and the 11,000 square foot restaurant space that we're under construction and hopefully have completed by them in the year. Currently on the market for lease, which I'll get to in a second, we are strongly opposed to the fact that we're under construction and hopefully have completed by the end of the year. Currently on the market for lease, which I'll get to in a second, we are strongly opposed to any alternative with the permanent closure of Canon Drive, any alternative. Given the amount of opposition that you've seen via letters or in person, I believe it's a waste of taxpayer resources to allocate even an additional dollar towards any alternative that includes the permanent closure of Canon Drive. So not even a dollar and we're talking about $500,000 potentially here. It's also a waste of time to delay the EIR process for the North Portal, which I believe in general is a good thing. I think a North Portal, no matter where you guys choose it, is a good thing. I have my opinions, but I think a North portal wherever it is is good. And in addition to this uncertainty, in terms of the EIR, what happens in an alternative reality if can and can be permanently closed. Leasing efforts of empty restaurant spaces on Can and Drive, and I had no idea with what Mr. Shabbani was talking about earlier. Leasing efforts will suffer. Former citizen space, the owners here, I'm sure you'll talk about it. Former Bouchon space, city owns and our space will have uncertainty because a restaurant owner will have no idea whether or not Canondrive will be closed permanently or not. And that's a major issue for us in our city because we need to get those spaces least sooner rather than later. Lastly, as an organization, stakeholders came to a lot of meetings, that probably meant to 80% of the stakeholder meetings where we discuss all these EIR and where the portals are gonna be. I haven't seen a lot of people that oppose the locations of the EIR to be at those stakeholders. So for us, for all the stakeholders that were there, we did agree to the locations in general of where the North portal was and the closure of Cannon Drive was in none of those proposals. Lastly, I just wanted to just thank everyone for considering our position. We're we're adamantly against any Alternative for the closure of Canon Drive and we hope that that's what the city agrees with as well. Thank you Thank you to G Chang followed by Tracy Spalain Welcome I'm here on behalf of Dogo Summit. We own the corner office building at 941 Wilshire. Dogo Summit strongly disagrees with closure of cannon. For reasons that speakers have said it will disrupt traffic flow. It will block access to businesses like many businesses are tenants at 94-1, we'll sure heavily rely on the Canon access for their daily commutes. And we'd like to see that open. With that said, you know, we still strongly believe that the Beverly location is the best option for the North Portal. It's the closest to Roedale, which is the heart of Beverly Hills. And it would best mitigate pedestrian traffic flow, as well as a traffic disruption. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy Spalaine, followed by Jay Gilbert, and then that's it. Done. Thank you for listening to everyone today. It's an answer. I want to backtrack on something that the young lady brought up with regard to the traffic lights. Because I'm not sure if you were also aware, but they weren't meant to put up the wall until the traffic lights were actually working. But the wall went up and quite honestly in the transition of the wall, it has been a very chaotic experience. I can attest as the same way I am with Wolfgang Park, I operate Spago, the same way that Master Rose has been impacted so has Spago Restrop. And part of that is because of misdirection, et cetera, et cetera, which hopefully we're getting taken care of now. As we said, when we got together and all spoke about the different options for the EIR, closing cannon permanently was never amongst them. When we had the discussion, it was the closed cannon for two years, and to see how that would work, but never with an intent to close cannon altogether. So we were very surprised to receive an email a few days ago with this on the table for us. When we're also talking about the North Portal, I think the North Portal is important, but the big station is on the south. The north portal was an add-on to make sure that we could safely take care of visitors and people who work in the city. I, like David, I believe, promote Beverly Drive for that intent. It already has somewhere where we could pull in, it already has parking, subterraneanly, for people who wanted to park and ride, etc. But never in any of our discussions was it discussed that we will close, can and drive. Businesses are hurting with the closure that's happened. And if this is our taste of how working with Metro is going to be, I have some foreboding about the next few years for us. I'm here also with Alex Ridesovich, who's my neighbour with me, and I think Echo's the same opinion. Yes. Yes, thank you for your time. Just one moment. We represent 10 buildings on Canon Drive, including Spago for ownership of that building and Cable Bank or amongst some others. We actually manage for Arnold at one time as well. His property prior to it being torn down. The consensus for Mollettinets that we represent has been echoed that the closure would be a problem, and we certainly hope that there would be any opportunity for another study to be conducted concurrently for a different access. And we hope that that's something you're gonna consider strongly. Okay, thank you so much, Jay Gilbert. What's the information? We're not having the close cannon. All right, four option, four. Okay. That was something the same for the A.I.R. If you're on the corner, I'll be voting for everybody off site. Jerry, no reason you have the close cannon. That should not disqualify the site. Okay, Mayoral Council, thank you for the few moments I have to speak. Most everybody has already said what I have to say which is North Portal sounds great, closing can and sounds horrible. I'm a long time resident, I live in Beverly Hills, I grew up here. I'm one of the owners at 184 North Cannon Drive which is where citizen was operating out of and unfortunately didn't survive and closed coming up on a year. In that time, we have had many opportunities to lease to various restaurant tours and restaurant groups. And over and over again, when everybody finds out that number one candle was going to close temporarily. And now, hopefully, it will never happen permanently. These groups seem to fall off. It's not a function of the market working efficiently, where they say, look, we need a rent adjustment. They just flat out say, we don't want to do it. We're just not going to take that risk. It's easy to think that a known restaurant tour or brand may come in, and just because they open their doors and turn the lights on that they're going to do business. But the way most retailers and restaurant tours in my experience as real estate investor or operator manager think is that they're going to have to come in and build a business. And on a closed street where things are quiet and traffic is light compared to what it used to be, people just don't want to take the risk in this environment. They don't need to. So quite simply, we are very opposed to closing off Canada Drive. And if you have any questions about our marketing efforts, feel free to ask them. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Ebohem and then public comment is now closed. So this is it. Hello. I'm here representing my father, Albert Ahubim, landlord for 338 North Cannon, just adjacent to the right aid on cannon. We just like to say that since the closure has happened, we've had a lot of the clients of the Harris salon coming in and just talking about how much more difficult it is to access. The restaurant on our first floor has also noticed the reduction in just you know the clientele walking in the nail salon has noticed that as well. We do we just want to say that we're not in favor of the street, continuing to be closer, close permanently. And yeah, thank you. Thanks so much. And with that, we'll go to council member questions and comments, starting with council member Wonderlake. We're not going to start the next item until the evening session, if anyone is here, Kathy around. We will be coming back to item number three which is inclusionary housing in nexus. We will not be discussing number four until a future meeting which is the notion of the scooters. Would it be possible to have a full portal at the staging yard without also using the adjacent property to the west or the size or requirements or whatever such that to have a full portal we would need the adjacent property. So my understanding is the third option which is currently being reviewed is not large enough. We could at a future time if there is an option to get the privately owned property, we could do a supplemental environmental impact report at that time. I'm just trying to figure out what the alternatives are with just the staging yard itself, just physically a full portal will not fit. That's my understanding. Is it a requirement for the three additional options that can drive be closed? Or was that a discretionary element that added? Now, if you put the, for option two of the new ones where the portal would be in the middle of can drive, can drive would have to be closed. But for additional option one, that to me looks very much like one of the prior alternatives. The only difference being closing Canon Drive. Is that a true statement? So the idea of that we heard from closing Canon Drive or creating a cul-de-sac was to create the opportunity for drop off and pick up. So if you don't have a call to sack there, it limits the ability to have that as an option. It also expands the space to allow for some of the other amenities that have been discussed and were brought up in the scoping session. But the only difference between the option that's already in there and the first additional option being proposed is closing Canon drive as well. They're very similar. Okay. Then for the third additional option that's being proposed, the one that would combine the stage of yard with the building to the west, could that be physically implemented without closing Canon drive? Perhaps. Again, we'd have to look at the ability to...it depends what the design on the private property would be. In terms of how we would use drop-off and pick up, We could certainly look at that as an option. Well, for example, would it be possible to have some sort of off-street drop-off and pick up taking advantage of the full combined properties without closing Canon Drive? It would be a design option if you would have to do additional cutouts so that the flow of traffic wasn't interrupted. But that sounds like that's conceivable. You can imagine it, yeah. It was mentioned that the EIR does not address financial impacts, which is probably true. That also doesn't mean that we couldn't separately address financial impacts. A finding of the EIR is speaking about the environmental impacts that doesn't drive our decision as to where what we might end up doing. So certainly as regards financial impacts, we can consider that separately. So lots of businesses have been here tonight and all the businesses here tonight have been as regards financial impacts, we can consider that separately. So lots of businesses have been here tonight and all the businesses here tonight have been very negative about the permanent closure of Canon. So I've heard you and I know you've said that. And I don't know where to have that discussion because I can't pose a question for all of you and have all of you answer me in mass. for all of you and have all of you answer me in mass. But I'm curious that if you look at many other cities around the world, cities that have had perhaps some initial resistance to creating pedestrian plazas or pedestrian areas, oftentimes they've been happy after the fact. So I'm not saying that this is what would happen in Canon. Somehow or other, I'd like to be able to discuss with you if you think that this, that Canon is different from other those other places, or if you think that it's not true in those other places, that having pedestrian plazas have been helpful for the businesses. I mean, I'm thinking recently 14th Street in New York. I'm thinking Market Street in San Francisco. I'm thinking what's happened in Paris. I wasn't prepared to generate a total list of things to mention just now. But there are many places around the world that have found that having pedestrian-oriented plases have been good for the businesses there. And so I am curious. And I heard what you said, I mean, all of you said, and I believe that you all believe this, that it would be very harmful for your businesses. What I'd like to be able to have a discussion about some time is, why? Why you don't think that, oh, there could be an initial fall off, people adjust, having a pedestrian oriented plaza might be good in the long run, that sure there would be some decrease in circulation, but it's not like it would be impossible to get there. It's not like we're talking about large distances. So I certainly have heard what you said, but in some form, I'd like to be able to have that discussion. It strikes me that where we look, that I do think a north portal is very important for the city. And I think a full portal would be much better than a half portal. If we can't manage to do it, we can't manage to do it. But I think it has a lot of advantages. And I think this is something that's going to be in place for a long time. And so I think we do want to get it right. So from that perspective, I would not want to limit all turn those in terms of things that we're looking at. From what I'm hearing, that all three of the additional alternatives would require closing cannon is not really a necessity, that we could have the possibility of a full portal without necessarily closing canon. And I'm also wondering about the extra cost that the contractor is citing would be necessary for each of these studies. It seems like there would be a lot of overlap among the alternatives. These are alternatives that are in close proximity to each other. It would seem like much of the work would be redundant. I'm not really sure why it would be additive to study multiple locations. It seems to me that if you're going to consider the option in which we would be buying the building and going from a half portal to a full portal, that certainly would be different than something we're having at the table. But already on the table. But that if we're considering different variants of what might be done in Canon Drive, I really don't understand why the cost would go up so much and why those things would be all additive. So I understand the contractors here tonight could the contractor. Yes, David Deruz. That is here. And address your question. the contractor is here tonight. Good the contractor. Yes, David Deruzzi here. And address your question. Good afternoon, council. So your question about additive costs per alternative? It stems from I understand the question, but it's stemming from what we've already received to date from Metro's design build contractor. So the three options that exist, what we went out to the scoping meeting with, we already have a certain level of design that matches what would be underground at the street level. For these other alternatives, it's that especially the two full alternatives that hasn't been done. So there's a design element that doesn't exist, which is part of this additional cost. And then there are elements of the environmental impact report that are unique per alternative. So the ones that come to mind are aesthetics, of visual impacts, they're gonna be different for each one, our architectural team renders each one to the same level of detail. So yes, while they are similar, there are some fundamental differences that don't exist yet. I agree that there are some differences. It still seems to me that there would be certain economies that go beyond what's in the price code where each one would be truly independent of each other and that they wouldn't be redundant work being done if we were to consider more than one additional alternative. So there is, that's right. So there is redundant work if we, if you're looking at studying multiple alternatives, right? If that is an option that's decided, but it is not a lot of redone at work. So is it true that if we were to pick more than one additional alternative to consider that it would not be adding together the three bids or is it your position that if we want to study two or three options would have to add together the separate pricing that's in our report? There would be some efficiencies gained if there were multiple options selected. We haven't priced it out at that level of detail yet. But it would be cheaper than adding together the three. Yes. Would it be possible to just from an environmental impact perspective, evaluate the environmental impacts of closing cannon. You know, have that be one element of a study. And separately, let's say, evaluate the option that would involve buying the adjacent property to the west and having a full portal there, whether or not can in this closed. What do you mean separately? What would it take to, let's say, evaluate an option that would be a full portal that would combine the properties of the staging yard and the property to the west of it. One variant of that being without closing canon and one variant of that with closing canon. So yeah, essentially design options. We could call that design options in the EIR. So the EIR could do that. This conversation tonight around what I'll say is a full portal on the staging yard site combined with the private property but not closing canon. That alternative hasn't been priced out yet, but the EIR, there's certainly flexibility within the process of the EIR to do that. So, I don't see much benefit to considering a half portal on the west side of Canon and closing Canon. I can see potential benefits for having a full portal. And I would be interested in an alternative that would be taking advantage of the property to the west of the staging yard. I hear that the businesses are dead set against, closing canon. At this stage, this is not making a decision about ultimately what the city would choose and would have to, of course course consider the impacts on the businesses. But to be in the position to be able to consider those things. I could see some kind of option to include within the environmental impact report, studying the environmental impacts of closing cannon. So again, that's not to say that we would after factoring in the economic realities of that go down that route, but to study the environmental impacts in terms of I assume that would be primarily things like the aesthetics and the reduced traffic circulation, things like that, that would result from that. As to the possibility of a full portal that would be in the middle of Canon, which of course would require a closing Canon, I see less need for that option or that would be a less desirable option. I guess I have some concerns that the only other way of getting the full portal requires us to buy a building for which there'd be uncertainty associated with that. So I think I'd like to hear additional discussion from my colleagues about that particular one before I say what I think about that one. But to wrap up what I think would be good for the city to consider in terms of an environmental impact report is I don't think that there's benefit to the half portal on the west side in closing canon. I do see benefit to the full portal with the possibility of acquiring the property to the west within without closing canon. And wait to hear how other people feel about the one that is the portal in canon. Thank you, Dr. Gold. So thank you. Susan, I have a couple of questions. Does any of the, whatever we do, does this, to the extent that we can know what Metro's schedule is? I guess it's a question mark. Do any of these add a delay which impacts Metro's ability to do what Metro needs to do? And if so, what does that timeframe look like? We have asked this same question. We were very conscious to try to be in concert with Metro Schedule. I believe Metro Schedule is a bit delayed. I would ask, perhaps Rob, give a better idea of that, but you are correct. We're trying to stay on track. I will say, though, for the Canon staging yard alternative. Any, obviously, because that's the staging yard, any work on that would be after they are completed with the work. Initially, we were trying to have a decision by the summer. That was the time that passed. Summer coming. Coming, 2020, in order to stay in line with Metro's construction. So any time delay has not been discussed with Metro at this time. But there would be, with the alternatives here, we still feel that we could have a decision by the summer, but the EIR would not be finished until fall. So we're thinking we can still meet that timeline of- Sorry, a decision for what, Rob? Coming. Well, what decision do we need to make by? Well, we would come forward to- City Council with the option. And then they would finalize the year. They would finalize the drawings after How does the alley play into any of these concepts is the alley become usable part of How we use a space? I don't know that we have included that yet in any analysis we could certainly include that as part of our review. So, it's a city alley. It's services, it's right next to what was Shanghai Grill and services the building next to it too is a loading area. But I think we should at least consider that space as usable space. I heard a rumor that there's a petition floating around, one of thousands of rumors, but this one specific to some sort of petition that's floating around some of the businesses in the community that relates to this. We received that. Not to my knowledge. I guess it's still floating. All right, so actually to cut to the chase a couple of things. First off, the notion of police station actually thought we should put it by said there's a lot. If I were going to put a substation for the police, I would put it down on La Sianica. It could service the park, it could say, you know, but I think the chiefs are looking at that. I think that's probably not a bad idea. I think it's a great idea actually. You know, when you with me, I think Maddie was with me, when we talked to Phil Washington about this North portal, and he agreed to it. Part of the sales pitch to Phil Washington was that we really wanted to create something which was special. That was Beverly Hills. That we thought we could do kind of like the European subway stations where, you know, it was really a place that people wanted to see, take pictures of, and things like that. And so part of the reason we said that we would be willing to pay for some of this, and the council ultimately, I think agreed, was because we knew that the metro wasn't going to pay for that. And if we were going to get it done, it was going to have to be on us. And the fact that they were going to go for half of it was probably a good thing. And truthfully, I think that that's still a, we should be creative in that. And I would hope that we're done with all of this, that we can get to that. And I also think that we, this business about adding EIRs, elements of the EIRs, a little bit shotgun. I would like to back it up and actually ask the question, what are the elements that we want in this portal? And how can we accomplish that? And I think Councilmember Wanda-Likis sort of heading down this path. But if we say that we want a place for a ride-share drop-off as part of this, and it's got to be a place that's safe, and it's got to be a place that creates amenities, and it's got to be a space, and there are probably ten things on the list, maybe there are 12, I don't know. But it seems to me that if we start from what we want to build, then we can figure out how to build it as opposed to, I don't feel that we've actually done that. I think we're kind of looking at it a little bit all over the map. And I really do think that I would hope that with smart and creative people, we could accomplish kind of all of the above and not close can and drive. I think we hear loud and clear that the business owners are really unhappy about that. And maybe over time things might change, I don't know. But I think that it wouldn't be in our best interest to sort of move forward with that with this level of concern over the full closure. But that said, I would take the next tack which said, well, how can we accomplish the same thing, the kinds of things that Mr. Savinig outlined and not close can drive? What would that look like? And how complicated is it? And what do we have to do to get there? And that would be where I would like to focus energy. Accomplish the goals that we outline. See if we can, one of which is to keep can and open. And see if we can move that forward. What does that, if we come to a point where it's impossible, can't be done, I think we have a different conversation then, but today sitting here, I don't know that that's true. And I think that until I knew that was true, I wouldn't be willing to take the next step, which said, well, we have no option. This is what we've got to do. So I'm not at the place where I would be interested in the IR that talked about closing can and drive. You can make a case for the fact, well, it can't hurt to know. So OK, so even if we decide we're never going to do this ever, you know, what's the hurt of doing the EIR and kind of knowing the answer to the question? You know, it becomes an intellectual pursuit at that point, if it's not something that we're practically going to do, and it becomes a matter of spending money that we don't have to spend and it takes longer than we have to take in order to accomplish something that we probably don't want to do. So my brothers would be to see if we can craft something, maybe using the alley, because that gives us extra space, and you can use that maybe for drop lofts and pickups and other things. You know, I would see if we can craft a solution that looks at using Mr. Rosenstein's property as a possibility. You know, what would that look like? I think that's where we should probably start this conversation and see what does all of that, how does that come together? Does that make sense? And is it something that everybody can live with? And I think then we should do an AIR. I'll have some member, Vossy. Thank you. So I think from the beginning, when we were first talking about the subway, and we thought that the subway was actually going to go on Santa Monica Boulevard. I think from the beginning, way, way, way beginning when we were talking about EIRs, I think that the number one issue that I heard again and again from all of us was that the subway in Beverly Hills was lacking something very significant. And that was both the North portal and also the drop off in pickup. And I mean from day one, this is a conversation that we had from when we were even looking at alternatives and looking at the big EIR. So here we are. And I have to thank the residents, the businesses, Phil, Southwest, all the businesses that are here that really fought for that North portal and really fought for the fact that in order for this to work in our city that we have to find a way to have a drop off and pick up area because we don't want to turn Wilshire Boulevard where these portals are going to be into a deadlock of cars and traffic. We already have that now. We had that even before the construction. So, you know, I think that we are taking a step forward in the right direction by the fact that we have agreed that we are going to have a North portal. But I also think that it's very clear, I think, right now what we see today with even the temporary closure coldest sack that we see on Canon currently. And as Nusheen mentioned, without the light, it's pretty much a disaster trying to get around. When I visit many of the businesses on Canon and literally to try and get around the block can take me 45 minutes because of the traffic because you know we have issues even on Wilshire with the lanes and such. So I think we, fortunately, are unfortunately have a clear example of what life is like with Canon Drive closed right now. That being said, I do feel that it is important for us to aggressively look at having a full portal on the north side. But I cannot see any situation where it would make sense at this point to close Canon Drive with a north portal. In the examples that are in the staff report Susan, the three that were given us, the Canon Plaza half portal that said full closure, cold attack, the Canon Plaza full portal, full closure located at Santa located on Canon Drive, which has the north, I mean the down escalator, and then the Canon Plaza full portal and the staging yard. That is the one that would allow for Canon Drive to be open. I guess what I'm trying to do is find a way to explore the possibility of having a North portal without closing Canon Drive. What is our option to explore that and study that? What is our option to explore that and study that? So I imagine it would be some design work to see how that would be possible. What we presented is what we believe is possible given what we own or have access to. I believe in our conversations, it would require the private property to the west of the Canon staging yard, which. That's not Mr. Rosenstein's property, Moose to the west of the, okay. Yes, yes. And so, I always say this about any environmental impact report. We have to know what the project is and have a clear definition of the project. And that's what we don't have. We don't have a clear definition of a project. I hear the desire. And we would have to do work to create a project, I think. So my personality, as most of you know, is I'm an optimist and my philosophy is to start with yes and figure out how that's really how I view most things. I believe that we can get there. I believe that we can find a way to make this be a win-win for our business community, north of Canon, by not closing the street. I believe that we can find this to be a positive for our residential community that is south. I think a lot of the issues that have been brought up are significantly important in terms of safety, in terms of, as we talked about, bathrooms, in terms of having, in terms of, as we talked about, bathrooms, in terms of having a portal of Beverly, that represents the image that we want to show of Beverly Hills. And I think we can get there. I think that we have been a community that is based on vision and out of box thinking. We have some of the most incredible minds in this room right now that love our city second to none. So I feel confident that we can get there. So I would say let's try and carve out a way to explore a possibility where we can have a North portal, full North portal without closing the street. I think Canon Drive has come a long way and it's really become a wonderful destination and I want to continue that into the future of 100 years and I think that what we do here tonight today is really important in terms of planning for the future of 100 years and I think that what we do here tonight today is really important in terms of planning for the future so I would be willing to do that. Thank you. Nice, Mayor. So in terms of the drop off or the construction of the portal on the south, The image that we saw on our screens said no drop off on the south. That's correct. Is that carved in stone or is there still a discussion about having drop off on the south? No, I don't believe there is consideration of drop off on the south side. So that the only drop off then would necessarily have to be on the north portal. That's correct. There's no drop off. Certainly. So I am also extremely concerned about the impact on the businesses. I agree with Council member Wanderlok that we really don't have data that would support whether there would be an impact or there wouldn't be an impact and I would be supportive of finding that out. However, at this point in time, I really don't have the desire to go forward with the opposition by the business owners on Canon. It was pretty universal. And maybe well intentioned, maybe not, but without the support of the businesses, I just don't have that desire to go forward. I am interested in a full portal. So the only other option would be if there could be a full portal without a permanent closure of Canon. I am concerned about the necessity of the proc- acquiring the property to the west. Mr. Rosenstein has already said that his preference would be not to sell the property. He wants to rebuild it, and he to go against what that property owner wants to use his property for. It's important to realize that this is one option that is the canon area in addition to at least one other, if not two other, properties are being considered. This is not a decision that we're making in terms of where the portal is going to be, but only what to study. That's correct. So in those terms, I don't have a problem studying the area as long as it does not include a closure of canon and with the understanding that I would like to see a full porclad there. Thank you. So I think we are all in agreement and have come to the agreement that there needs to be a north portal. That you don't want to have passengers filtering out into the south part of town. And that's clear. The question then is where do we put it in the north? Full versus a not-foldstit. What's the difference between a full portal and a demi-portal and semi-portal or a half portal or whatever you want to call it? The difference between a full and a half portal is the addition of an escalator for a full portal. So in other words, in a half portal you have an escalator that goes up. On a full portal you have an escalator that both goes up and one that comes down. Now I just want to make sure we're all clear when we're talking about a full portal, though then I'm also hearing possibly restrooms, possibly other amenities. But when we're talking about because MTA has full portals where there are no restrooms and the issue of restrooms, which is, you know, you think, oh, you want it to have it there because then they won't use it at the businesses. That's not a straightforward thing. There are security risks, there are reasons they do not have restrooms. There are security risks associated with it. I don't think that's a no-brainer by any means. But the question is when we talk about a full portal, is that a possibility at all of the locations? No, the three that we have right now are all half portals. So there is no escalator? There is one escalator, not two escalators. So in other words, each of the three alternatives that we currently have in the contract have an up escalator. But steps down. Or they also have... There's not just an up escalator in the walk down. Have an elevator too. All have an elevator because of ADA. But all have an up escalator and stairs that you can walk down. Plus an elevator. OK, so to me, that's not such a huge deal. I think the question is then, where's the right location? I'm also not going to support something that clearly all of the businesses are opposed to, because also, we heard that it's the uncertainty. So even if we say, well, it can't hurt to study it. If we study it, the businesses we've heard, they're going to lose potential tenants just because it's on the table. I don't think it can be on the table, because they're already suffering because of the closure. Again, we're all in agreement there should be a north portal. I also agree with the vice mayor. Again, we're all in agreement there should be a north portal. I also agree with the vice mayor. We've heard the owner of the property, Arnie Rosenstein, that wants to build his office there for us to make plans on the basis that we're either going to negotiate or in a worst case eminent domain, a property which could be money pit or we don't know. I'm not sure that that makes the most sense. I'm also not sure that there are not impacts. We talked about protecting the residents on the south side from the impacts on reefs which we should, but somebody pointed out that North Crescent is largely residential, and it's also includes senior housing, and it's residential not just on the one side of the street, but on both. So, from my perspective, I'm willing to look at an EIR that considers an option that does not close cannon, but personally, to me, Beverly makes North Beverly makes the most sense and we can and should there should be a drop-off place for Uber and we should plan for all of that but let's face it people come to Beverly Hills Beverly is between cannon and it's between cannon and rodeo it's a much better location it's a better location for businesses it's a better location for downtown Beverly Hills South Beverly is also a location that people go to from my perspective Just looking at things north Beverly would be the place where it makes the most sense for us Which we're already studying correct correct, right? Which which we're studying but from my perspective that's You know that that's where it goes. And clearly we do need to solve the issues of Kiss and Ride or drop off and all of that. So as said, I don't think that we, I said I personally would not be prepared to entertain an EIR where Canon is shut off. At some point down the line if people we want to turn Beverly and Rodeo and Canon into pedestrian streets, that's always a possibility. But I think we've heard from the business is loud and clear. And also I think it's placing too many eggs in the basket of Canon. I actually think that, yes, we will own some property on Canon and that's where it happens to be, but that doesn't mean just because we own it there. That's where they staged. That doesn't mean it's the right location for the best location for the North portal which as said from my perspective that's going to be North Beverly for any number of reasons. With that we'll go back to Bob you had some, I guess you wanted to wait for everyone to add your comments. Well just as regards the possibility that was offered in the report of having an option being a full portal on Canon itself, and I think that's been rejected by everybody else. And so I think that's off the table. But if the narrow question is what should be considered in an EIR, beyond the three that are already on the table, I don't see any need to do a half portal on cannon that would involve the closure of cannon. But I think we're at least open to one more additional option, tell me if I'm wrong, but I think we're open to one more additional option, tell me if I'm wrong, but I think we're open to one more additional option which would involve combining the staging yard, the building to the west of it and keeping can in open. I think you can look at it, but from asset, from my perspective, that involves a piece of property that we don't know that we're gonna have access to. We don't own, I think you can look at it, but it's not a, it's not a, what did he ask the right question? I don't know. Phil, please, let's not have any outbursts. We did, we heard from the owner himself who said what his preference was. He also did mention the potential for acquisition or eminent domain. We know what that potential might be. That's always a potential, but I don't think it's a great option. And I said, from me personally, I think the North Beverly, we're not closing down canon is a better option. That's just me, and we should look at it. And can we, I guess we can look at it. It sounds like there's a consensus to at least look at that option, but not North canon. No closure. Okay. And just to what would be the cost and the time frame to do that? Because all these options had a time frame, three months, et cetera, et cetera. What would, based on this, do you think? We're limiting it, so hopefully it won't have to be that much incremental expense. It's wonderful. And it is the third, which is the Canon Plaus, a full portal at the staging yard, which is the three-month additional. Because what we're doing as well is designing at least preliminarily some schematic about how we would do drop off and pick up if we had that property. And I guess my question is, is that what you're saying or are you saying only the staging yard with a full portal? Oh, I think we were, I think we were expecting with the property. But I agree with the mayor, my goal would be to do something like this with the support and the partnership with the owner if that if we got to that place. And we'd and of course we'd have to identify a cost or if the owner is not willing. We know that they're what an eminent domain process entails the city's tried it before. So that's a little outside the scope of the environmental right that's a separate piece so just for purposes of environmental reporting. We would look as if we could obtain that maybe we could in conversation with Mr. Rosenstein come up with some sort of preliminary idea about what he has in mind. And if I may ask you so that's obviously that's on the east side of the street. The other option we're already looking at is on the west side of the street correct? Yes. But that's a half-port. I understand it's, again, from the question. The difference between a half-portal is that, which for me was never a problem in any city I ever lived, You go walk down the stairs instead of taking an escalator, and if you can't walk, you can take an elevator. So to me, that's not such a huge difference, quite frankly. But I think here we are not talking about just the bare minimum addition of an escalator to make the full portal. We're talking about a broader concept that would be a more welcoming place for a structure of subsoil that had amenities perhaps bathrooms. Well, again, we have to talk to the separate issue about her. We have to be security, perhaps. But that being said, the issue is, of course, it also means to anyone going into the triangle. It's another additional street they have to cross, correct? They have to cross from the east side of Cannon to the west side. And that means that they're going to have to wait additional time. And look, I've always found that when it comes to subways, if it's at an intersection, the best thing is to have four portals, column, what you want, exits. So people don't have to cross the street. And there's something we pointed out when we were discussing at an early stage with MTA as well. And my feeling is a lot of people are going to be using this. I think that was always the intent to go into the triangle. And that just, again, we can look at it. It just adds another additional crossing that people will do. And, you know, that adds time and all of that as well. So we'll look at it. And I think you have consensus on this and with that we're going to come back to item number three this evening and go into closed session for those items on the closed session agenda. Thank you.