So, this is a special meeting. We have no closed session. So, I'm going to ask everybody, all of you in the audience, please turn off your phones. So, they won't vibrate and disrupt the meeting. But now let's have the Pledge of Allegiance Council member brought. Thank you. Thank you. We have no closed session. So, I'm going to ask everybody, all of you in the audience, please turn off your phones so member brought. Thank you. under God in this whole with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And now let's have a roll call. Council Member Parin. Here? Council Member Davis. Here? Council Member Negrette. Here? Council Member Brock. Here? Council Member De La Torre. Here. Mayor Potemma-Cowlin. Here. And Mayor Himmler-Ed Brock. Here. Councillor Member De La Torre. Here. Mayor Potemma-Callan. Here. And Mayor Himmler-Edge. Here. And I guess we should move right into the agenda. So the first item is adopt of a resolution to amend council rules of order and procedure for the conduct of city council meetings and assistance City Clerk, Nekima, Newsom will be presenting. Good evening, Council. Happy first day of summer. Niki Newsom, Assistant City Clerk, here to present the Council of Role Changes and Hybrid meetings. Tonight's staff is recommending that City Council provide direction to staff regarding changing the time limits for public comment to provide direction to staff regarding order for hearing both in person and remote public comment and the discontinuation of the time donation to another speaker policy upon implementation of hybrid meetings. Number three to provide direction to staff regarding the continuation of boards and commissions to meet quarterly and remotely until the end of calendar year 2022 or until the end of the first quarter of 2023. To implement hybrid city council meetings, beginning with the first regular council meeting of September, pending budget approval for staffing and finally to adopt the attached proposed resolution, amending the council rules of order and procedure. At the May 24th council meeting, a study session was held to discuss modifying the council meeting format as well as the potential for implementing a hybrid option to allow for public remote public input for those members of the public unable to attend council and board meetings in person. The idea is that council co-alists support around including setting a fixed public meeting start time for regular meetings a 7 o'clock p.m. with 7 o'clock p.m. being the set time to end closed session. As a pilot through December 31st of 2022 consolidating the following public comment at the beginning of the meeting. Special items, closed session and all public agenda items except public hearings, comments for public hearings, items that require public notice such as appeal zoning changes and other items as required by law will be heard when the items are called. Moving proclamations and other special items ahead of closed session, moving the deadline for Council Member discussion items or 13 items to noon on Monday eight days ahead of the council meeting, having quarterly updates from Council and ad hoc committees and implementing a remote public comment option for both Council and Boarding Commission meetings. In regard to time limits, at this time I would first like to note that a grammatical error on page six of the staff report where it states that Council has approved consolidating all public inputs to the beginning of the staff report where it states that council has approved consolidating all public inputs to the beginning of the meeting. The correction to that is that council discussed this at the last study session where no action was taken. At this time, staff is seeking direction for any changes to the time limits on public input. Rule 15E of the council rules regarding time limits stipulates that members of the public shall limit their remarks to two minutes per agenda item for a total of six minutes per meeting. Staff is recommending keeping the six minute maximum per meeting rule with a two minute maximum per comment section, and this does not affect public comment where public hearings are required by law. Should Council approve consolidating all public inputs to the beginning of the meeting this change will take effect with the June 28th Council meeting. This is how public comment would be handled during the management of the meeting. When you get to item four after roll call that's where we would consolidate all public comment. We're pertaining to closed sessions, special agenda items and consent calendar items only and that would be for two minutes. And then after council returns from closed session that's when we would hear special agenda items and consent calendar and then that's when we would go into general public input for two minutes per person and public comment on agenda items for two minutes per person. In regard to hybrid meetings, staff is recommending pending budget approval that hybrid meetings be implemented effective with the first regular council meeting in September. And for boards and commission meetings to begin at the end of the calendar year 2022 or at the end of the first quarter of 2023 in orange well out for adequate time to recruit for staff and to obtain and install the necessary technology to provide the service. In the meantime, should a member of the public see to make remote public comment as a reasonable ADA accommodation for council meetings, they should contact the city clerk's office within 72 hours of a meeting as stated on the agenda to make such arrangements. At this time stack is satis seeking direction on the order of public input once hybrid meetings are implemented with remote call and option. As you recall, during the pandemic when we held meetings online, at one point we had video public comment and we also had people who called in and we kind of switched back and forth between the two. We'd have like three video commenters and then three callers. So that is one of the options that we're proposing. Another would be to allow all remote callers to provide public comment first. That way staff could be alleviated to then leave their duties and then go back to the people who are in person or we could do advice first and have all in person speaker speak first and then have the callers but then they're holding on the line longer So it's kind of six and a half dozen of another they each have their plus and minus in minus sense to each In regard to remote meetings remote meetings will continue I'm sorry staff is reading but recommending that council extend remote meetings for boards and commissions until the end of calendar year 2022 or until the end of the first quarter. We anticipate this would occur sometime over the summer, at which point meetings will return to monthly but remain remote. The Human Services Commission, however, will meet by monthly until the end of calendar year 2022, as voted on by Council at the April 12th meeting. So again, here are our recommendations for this evening. I won't bother to read them all over again. I know you guys have them in the staff report. But I will entertain any questions or comments you have at this time. And Mayor, we do have one speaker for this. Great. So let's hear. Well, does any, do you want to hear from the speakers before we hear from the public? The answer appears to be yes, no one's objecting. So let's hear from the speakers and then, or speaker and then we will move to City Council. Thank you. Good evening and looking at the staff report. My first question would be be why are you putting public input in the consent calendar before closed session. Unless of course, it's to take attention away from the points being made by the public on these items. It's also very interesting that all of those items are at the beginning of the agenda. But since you eliminated reasonable accommodations for seniors and disabled, might it be a better idea to come back in closed session at 6.30 p.m. and allow public input, as well as the ability to come on and any other agenda item if the member of the public chooses to do that. Then start your meeting agenda items after that. Wouldn't that be a better idea than trying to bury public comment before a closed session in addition to giving the public watching a better chance of hearing it. It's also confusing because under amending council rules under I public comment, allow members of the public to have the opportunity to speak on any items before or during city council consideration of the item. I fully support the public having the option to speak before or during consideration of the item as it is now. I support hybrid meetings, but I have to ask, due to the emphasis on the city clerk's time, as to when and how the calls will be presented, I have to ask, will the hybrid meetings style be available only at the beginning of the meetings? I also think you should keep in person time donation. Here might the city clerk's influence be restricting the public's ability to speak. Isn't that the purpose of open public meetings so the public can contribute? Thank you. Thank you Ms. Barton. Does that end public comment? Yes. So that ends public comment. Council members, does anyone have any comments? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem McAllen. May I keep doing going back to the slide that kind of had the order of that one? So this is the recommendation. Well, yes, this is me. Yes. OK. Okay. And we broke out general public input from. So currently if someone exhausts their six minutes, they still get too additional for public input. No. So this is allowing an additional. No, it's still six minutes. It's just broken up by the opportunities to speak. Right. OK. Yeah, I guess I'm not totally understanding why we would break it up. If it's just about amount of time and the types of things, I understand sort of breaking a public comment for closed session because we stop the meeting, we go into that and then we start again. But what would the purpose of be of breaking out public input from the rest of the agenda, public comment, if? So the public, so the general public input is what we consider the 14 item now where it's non-agenda. Right. And so people still use that time now and they use the two minutes. For sure. And so the reason that we want to separate is because we want to separate those items that are not on the agenda versus those items that are on the agenda. Also it will make it easier for the legislative history if we need to pull something out. Because I'm trying to think, I was trying to think about this when I was looking at other meetings and I just didn't recall the public input portion being separate from the normal agenda items. You just people declare their time and they speak on the item and they would say I'm going to speak on 14 or you know and so I just hadn't noticed but I mean it makes sense I just was wondering. And other and just let you know so this is sort of an example that we pulled in Palm Springs was one of the cities that we pulled from and they had their general put they actually still left it at the end of the meeting. But it was separated. It was separated. Okay. Okay. Yes. I'm sorry. Councilmember Davis. No. Thank you. So I just want to be clear because someone looking at that might think that you only have six minutes because we only have six minutes total per meeting. Is that correct? Yes. But someone looking at this might think, well, I have to use two minutes on the public comment and I have to use two minutes. So people who have six minutes and it's two minutes, however they want to break that up, right? That's correct. So they could break it up and decide the only one to do one minute for, you know, the first public comment and closed session. It couldn't only want to do one minute on general public input and so on and so forth. The issue though is there's an issue with our programming for the equipment we use. We have it currently set up so that it's one minute, two minute, four minute. So we would have to make the permit-gaming changes in order to accommodate anything other than that breakdown. Well, let me ask just how this would work then because it seems to me the question is let's say I'm a member of the public and there are three agendized items I want to speak on I don't get to say well, I want to do five minutes on one 30 seconds on another and 30 seconds on another the most you can get per Items two minutes correct Is that right so that shouldn't be an issue? I mean, it seems to me people either have two, and we haven't talked about the donation issue, but potentially four. But no one's gonna say, okay, I have three items. I want to spot five on one, 30 seconds on another. We wouldn't let them see the mismatch. Okay, and then the other, oops, sorry, my iPad just decided to go to sleep there. And then the other question I guess I, you know, the public comment for closed session special agenda and consent calendar items only that I understand. Why did we put general public input after the closed session and the consent calendar? What was the thinking there? I don't know that there, I don't know, refresh my memory Denise, but I think it was so. I don't think there was, I don't think there was, it could be flipped over where the general public comment. I think the concern was when you guys brought this up that you wanted to have the general public come and speak ahead of. And so when you guys initially talked about separating out the accommodations and having all that before closed session, so that would be quick. And then the general public, non-related to the agenda, it doesn't matter. I mean, it was just the matter of that that's the way that we saw it in other cities or the way you guys talked about it. So if you wanted to flip it. Well, I mean, the only reason I ask is because those are the non-agent eyes out of 14 items. And it seems to me some people come just for that. And that way they could speak at the beginning and be done, as opposed to having to wait through closed session because they may want to speak on something on closed session. I mean, it seems to me what we wanted from my perspective anyway is if we want a front load as much common as we can before we go into closed session, even though that might drag out the comment section longer, because it creates more certainty for the public. I speak. I'm done. I'm gone. I go home. So this is for you guys to decide. Yeah. So if you wanted to move the general public comment up along with the closed session, the special agenda and the consent, I would be fine. I mean, we would separate it, but it would be heard first. Right. And then we would do the other things. Okay. And I don't know. Are we just in questions or are we in comments now? Because I think so. So my comment that I would say is I would move general public input ahead of closed session just give those people who want to come and say I want you to be aware that our Boy Scout troop did this or I want you to you know put a sock in it whatever it is they want us to do that's not on the agenda and that way they can come speak and leave. The other thing I would would think about is I think since we are going to go to hybrid meetings, we ought to do because one of the things at least my impression is, and others may disagree, is that the process for getting speakers, whether we do it via audio or video, but non-present speaker speaking, feels like there's a big chunk of time between each speaker. You know, we have to go get the speaker and clear the speaker, and then of course the speaker has to go, can you hear me? And so it would seem to me, one, it probably makes sense to get that over and done as quickly as possible and we can try and streamline that process. But two, for the reason you stated, since that takes additional staff, then we can let that staff go. And they no longer have to hang out, you know, I mean, unless there's something that's a designated public hearing that you might have someone just, but on a night where there's no designated public hearing, that staff could then be done and go. So I think it makes sense to hear the non-present speakers first in a group and sort of slog through that because it is a bit of a slog. And then when you have the in-person speakers come, it moves much more quickly. And I think by that time, then we'll be ready to move into the meat of the agenda. So those are my thoughts. So I have a question. I'm sorry, does anyone else? So I'm thinking about what things we usually hear and what would allow public comment and what wouldn't. So obviously any time we're doing anything involving money, we have to have public comment, right? That requires public comment. And that will be with the item and not in either of the any of these designated time periods, is that right? It's better, it's for when it's required of public hearing. Right. So, for instance, when we change the water rates, it requires a public hearing. But what about, for instance, when we do, you know, something like we're doing now, amending the rules of water, or what if we're doing something like hearing changes to the housing element. Would those have public comment in the meeting or would they have public comment before during? I'd turn to the city attorney for their question. Well, legislative item I suppose you could have the commenter at any time. But the quasi-judicial items, of course, it have to be contemporaneous. Like what we're doing tonight, I think you could hear that at any time. Well, and that's what, because I've seen meetings, right? I mean, I know there are other cities who do this, where basically everything that isn't quasi-judicial or a taxing, you know, or a rate. The land use type things. You'd have a. Well, whatever it is. Yeah, but anything other than those would go into this public comment on agenda items, right? You could. And we would hear all of that at once other than those. And then here's what I wonder. So when you have that public comment and you have the two minutes, what if they want to, let's say we have an agenda like tonight and tonight they would be entitled to do two minutes on line on item and two minutes on the other item, right? What happens under the new system? Do they get two minutes total or do they get four minutes total? It would still be broken up by sections. So if they were, I'm sorry. So if they're speaking on an item that there's an appeal involved or a quasi-judicial matter, that would be an additional two minutes for that. But what I'm asking about is let's say tonight, let's say we had a full on agenda, right, and we were under the new system, and we had items 8A and 8B on our agenda. Then all that they would have just had the two minutes. No, I think that's wrong. I think the way we intended this, I believe, was that public comment on agenda items was a minimum two minutes because presumably they can speak on one agenda item or more. If they're not utilizing the two other time slots, they potentially during public comment could speak on three different agenda items first up to six minutes. So I think that's where the confusion that caused all the emails started. Like someone can have six minutes in public comment on agenda items just to Gleams Point, no more than two minutes on a single item. So what? I would that be broken up. Well, so that's where that becomes a little bit more administratively challenging for you all because you would have to. Excuse me, Phil and Oscar. Tonight is a rule night, so no side talking please. Thank you. So, sorry, I lost my chain of money. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I was asking. I sign up for what items and then they'd be given the amount of time. If they signed up for three public comment agenda items, that would be their max and they wouldn't be approved to speak on public comment on closed session or general public input. So that would be sort of an administrative issue, but someone can have up to six minutes in the public comment on agenda items. Well, assuming they don't use the other. Maybe I'm over simplifying it but if someone stands up or calls in and says I have three items I want to speak on 8 a 8 b and 8 c. I want two minutes on each. Okay, I'm going to speak on 8 a and you put the two minute timer on them. You know, I want the twominute expires and you go, okay, now you're talking about AP. I mean, that's why I asked me. I said, I don't know that you need to change this because you're still only gonna have two minutes per comment. So it just means you have to put a, you have to have them identify them now speaking on this item. Here's your two-minute. Right, that's my point. I mean, I'm thinking, I thought the problem was, if someone says I'm speaking on three items and that's a total of six minutes, how do you keep track that they're only spoke for two minutes on 8 a and didn't sort of blur over in 8 b but I just think you give them, you still just give them two minutes even though they might be speaking on all three at the same time. I see the clerk. Madame clerk, tell me what you envisioned. No, actually that was what I initially had envisioned, but it just is a lot of moving parts. And look, I guess we could make it work and remember this is only on a trial basis until December. But the question then becomes someone would and I need to hear from all of you on this. So someone comes up and they are saying I'm speaking on general public comment, they get two minutes. So, is your thought that we're going to break it down item by item or does the person just speak and say I want to and they like the appellants to say I want two minutes on this item, two minutes on this item and two minutes on this item. It doesn't apply to that because that's quasi-judicial. No, no, no, I understand. I'm saying if so I'm asking you guys guys are you saying that a member of the public would come up and say I want two minutes on general public comment two minutes on closed session and two minutes on administrative item. That would be six minutes. Yeah, but no because I think we well again we haven't voted on it. But if the idea was that we were going to break these things up into separate parts, potentially putting the two minutes for closed session special agenda consent at the beginning, but putting general public input even before that at the very beginning, which I think is what Councilmember Davis was referring to, that that might be the first thing. And that's two minutes, because that is one where, you know, I think you need to, I see the need to separate it out because it can get blurred if we don't. And then we would go into public comment for the closed session special agenda in consent, and that potentially you would have two minutes for each because someone right now could get would have two minutes for each because someone right now could get up to two minutes for consent, they could get up to two minutes for clothes. And so that could be up to four or six minutes that they could use if they wanted to, all there. Then we'd go into closed session, we'd return, we'd start into our public comment on agenda items and depending on what they have left, they would potentially have another two, four, six minutes after that. So my question to you all is would we call it by item or would we just have people randomly come up? I think it has to be part of what they're declaring in advance. And so we know. And then the time keeper just has to be, so maybe it's not, you might need another person, or maybe not. I mean, it's just no. I mean, it happens. So would the public comment be received by item? No, it would be, no. So the way I've heard it done, although I've not heard it done exactly the way Kristen is talking about what I've heard is people call in and not say, not have times, I guess, and just say, on this item I think this, on that item I think that and on the third item I think you're all idiot you know whatever they say and they say what they want to say in the public comment period about what's on the agenda and then it's done but they talk about everything that's on the agenda all at one time so that's what I've heard done. They have a maximum. I was gonna say they have to have a time woman. Yeah, well I would. They have a maximum amount of time. It doesn't address council member Davis's point of not more than, but maybe it solves the donation time. I guess my response would be no. You don't try and say, okay, here's somebody, because especially since we're doing hybrid meetings. This person's calling in on item 8A and 8C. So let's get this off the table. We're not talking about hybrid meetings right now. Okay, we're just talking about that. I just think what you do is you go through the list, the order they call, you ask them what items they want to speak in and how much time they want. And they may only want one minute for that. So they get their one minute, you go through all the general public input and then you go through the public comment for closed session. I don't, I think it would be a nightmare to try and break it down and say, here are all the people talking about item 8A, here are all the people trying to talk about item 8B. I think that would make you crazy. And you would come up here and stab us. But I just think people just start talking and they and we tell them you what item are you speaking on I'm speaking on item 8B boom here's your two minutes okay now I'm speaking on item 7a boom here's your two minutes whatever I think that I mean that's how it's done in most jurisdictions. We're still going to separate so my question so we're still going to separate general public comment and then the closed session special agenda and consent versus the public comment on the rest of the agenda items. Yes. Correct? Yes, but do we need to talk about the six minute limit? Yes, Council Member Par. So I have a question. If we separate it out like that, does it allow the caller to comment after an item or they're just commenting? Because we were trying to set it before. Everybody, all of these are before the items. after an item or they're just commenting because we're trying to set it before. Everybody have all of these are before the items. Because I mean a lot of the emails that we've been receiving are people indicating that they want to be able to comment once we you know we've had an agenda item. Well they never get to do that because the order of our look we could I mean it could be but the order of what we do is we have a staff report, then we ask questions and then we take public comment. So they've never heard our discussion until you know unless you want to change it after we speak and what good does it do after we speak because we'll have voted. I mean, we want their input before we start discussing among ourselves. No, do you not think that's right? No, no, I, so maybe I didn't word it properly. They wanted to have an opportunity to speak after the presentation. Yeah, yeah. And so, right. It is currently. Yeah. And so, right? It is currently. Yeah. And so this, what we were discussing or what you guys were discussing, would take away their ability to do that is what I was asking. But who knows? This is a thing. It's just a trial. It's just a trial. No, I understand that. I understand that. And if we don't try it a different way, then everyone will always. Understood. And that's why I was asking if this way, if we don't try it a different way than everyone will all understand and that's why I was asking if this way that was being proposed was doing that. Councilmember Brock. So the 14 items and public comment on closed session special agenda and three items, the consent items, would move up to right after we start our meeting. Correct, and then we'd go in the closed session. That, I understand, I think that's a good idea. We get rid of 14 IIMS general comments at the start of the meeting, et cetera. But then I have an issue, because people in the city have always wanted to hear the staff report and they start to hear the questions from council and then they can call in and comment and they're able to make more of an informed comments session rather than at seven o'clock they have to unload whatever they want to say in this confusing time schedule. And then they're done. We're having we spent half an hour 35 minutes just talking about the time schedule. So I believe residents want to hear a staff report. They deserve to be able to comment on the item. I know we were trying to see if we could save time. I think we're going to lessen public input this way. But I'm in favor of number four on there, including the general public input, which is a 14 item. At the start of the meeting, I personally am not in favor of taking all public comment on agenda items in the lumpy at the beginning because I think residents want to feel that they have an impact. They have an impact during the discussion for that item. They won't feel they have input if all public comment is at seven o'clock and they'll think that the city council at 1130 or midnight is going to be a little bit fuzzy on what that constituent said four hours before about an item and the constituent might have changed their mind on what they were going to say, depending on what the staff report was, what the beginning council questions were, and they would be able to answer that more directly. So I'm not in favor of that part. So let me get it straight. You're in favor of having the 14, the general public comment at the beginning of the meeting, the public comment for the closed session, etc. And the public comment for the closed session. So all public comment other than comment on agenda items at the beginning. Can we move to the front? Right. Can we, all of it, move to the front. And then comment on agenda items themselves stays with the agenda. Absolutely. And, well, this was going to be a pilot where we were going to try something different. And I understand that we're all attached to this, but maybe we should do it, try it for shorter period of time? No, okay, so. Do you mean, do you mean, do you mean, do you're putting the staff through a lot of work in that case for? Do you mean to trial for like three months and then? Yeah, or whatever. I mean, I don't know. Look. Because at this point, we're just moving the general public up and then we'll hear pretty much all of the consent and all of that first. But then we still have the remainder of the agenda that just will stay the same. I think, excuse me. Councilmember Davis, then councilmember Brock, and then Mayor Pro Temma-Cal. I'm sorry. I thought the reason we were doing this was to try and run the meetings more efficiently. And there's no doubt that having the public comment divided up agenda item by agenda item is not very efficient. I mean, we've all sat through enough of these meetings. The other thing is that what we've heard particularly, if we, and I know you say we're not going to hybrid yet, but we are talking about eventually going to hybrid, is people, oh, I fell off the phone. Oh, I couldn't do this. You know, I mean, the longer people stay waiting to get on the phone, or it's just, I mean, we've had some public comment that was supposed to be two minutes, it took six minutes to get out. And if people are concerned about the length of meetings, particularly when we go back into a hybrid environment, I think we need to look for ways to try and move through the public comment more quickly. The other thing is that, and this, to me, was important, was that by putting the public comment on agendized items earlier in the evening, it actually, I think, increases the ability of people to participate. Because there are a lot of people who don't participate now because whether it's in person or hybrid, they can't sit on the phone or stare at the computer or be here in person for five hours to wait for the item they care about. But if they're given the option of speaking at the beginning, then they know, okay, by 7 o'clock, 7.30, I'm going to be done. I can go put my kids to bed. I can have a meal with my family. Now I understand there's concern about what will we remember what they say, hence pens and paper, where we can all take notes. And I also think, and I'm just gonna be honest about this, I've been doing this a while, I said all of you. And I rarely listen to public comment where someone said, oh, you know what, I heard the staff report and that changed one mind. In fact, quite often we will ask questions, and they will clarify something, and the public comment will still ignore the fact that that question's been answered. And that's just because I think people have in their mind, this is what I want to say about this item, which is fine. But I just think that if we are looking for ways to make the meeting shorter, make them more you may, not just for us, but for the public at large, we ought to try this and see if it works. And if it doesn't, and I forget what the proposed pilot period was, if at the end of it we're finding, oh my god, this just isn't working, then we can rethink it. But I think we need to do some, I mean, I am not the one who's been complaining about the length of the meetings. Maybe because I've gotten used to them and maybe it's because I'm nocturnal. But I think that if you are concerned about the length of the meetings, this is something we can do to make them run more efficiently and I think we should give it a shot. And I don't think that the objections like, well, we'll forget what they say or they won't have heard. I mean, the staff report is usually, I don't want to use the word regurgitation, but a recitation of what's in the written staff report, which is what they're reacting to. So they already have the staff report. It's in the agenda packet. And I think they can react to that in comments. I just I'm I think if our concern is to try and move the meetings more efficiently we need to try to do something different and I think not moving the public comment on agenda items were really only sort of rearranging tech chairs on the Titanic. Mayor I'm sorry. Oh okay you're next and then Mayor Parton. So I absolutely hear what you're saying, Councilmember Davis. I believe that most people, for instance, on a development agreement or whatever, if they speak on that, they're going to listen to the rest of the meeting or be here and listen to the rest of that item. I don't think they're going to make their comments shut off the phone or the TV or whatever and forget it. And I do hope that obviously I'm very much in favor of the hybrid meeting, but I'm also in favor of the clerks finding a way to do this on a different system, which I think they indicated teams instead of blue jeans, which will make it a quicker, smoother process. They've gone through this for two years, and it's been a nightmare for two years. Despite their absolute best efforts, it's just the system. So, you know, I think we can have it done quicker without all the waiting and the interruptions for the hybrid part. So I will maintain my position on that but just because I believe that people want to comment on a particular item and they want to comment when it's immediate to the council regardless of whether we have pencils and the legal Thank you. So, I, I, let me get my notes that I took. So, why'd you do it? You know, this did, this was born out of our retreat. This idea started there because there was, you know, a lot of sentiment expressed at that time that the meetings needed to be more efficient for reasons that Councilmember Davis stated, for efficiency purposes, for accessibility purposes. And we were trying to figure out how to help the public be more engaged and give them more opportunities. And then we all sat through that really unfortunate incident where the the Boy Scout troop had to leave because they weren't just able to do all of their stuff at the beginning and had to wait for us to return from a closed session that went two hours longer than anticipated and that happened with the county assessor, and it happens a lot. And I do think to Phil's point, to Council Member Brock's point moving the comment for closed session special agenda and consent up to the front would alleviate those two examples that I gave, but it wouldn't solve what I believe is a bigger problem, which is not making these meetings accessible to everyone. And when I think of Council Member Brockwood, you just said about, you know, most people, if it's a DA or something, they'll come, they'll make their comment, but they'll want to sit through the whole thing to see how it all ends up. Sure, if they don't have kids at home or something else to do. But there are a lot of people, I think, that are concerned about development agreements, are concern about land use, our concern about all host of other things. And if they knew that if I come at 630, I will be out of there before 730 or 8PM most likely, especially if I come early and sign up early to register myself, that I might actually get out in time to give my kid a bath. They're going to do that. And they'll actually be more engaged. And so I think on a trial basis, we owe it to our community to try something new because no offense, this is kind of broken. This is not working well. And yes, our agendas are very crowded. We can't do anything about that right now. We're everyone's trying to self-edit and adjust 13 items. And I don't think people should necessarily have to not bring 13 items to make our council meetings shorter, but if we could at least give the community an opportunity to be more involved in all of that, we had petty cab drivers here that didn't get to speak until like 2 a.m. I mean, I don't want to think about the revenue they lost in our city lost because they were here waiting the whole time. So I think we need to try it out. I think that maybe to your point council member Brock, three months, maybe two short given that staff's going to have to kind of ramp up to then come down. Maybe December 31 is too long. I'm not sure. But I think we need to try this out. So I have another question, right, that I think actually speaks to what and could. So if somebody came at the beginning of the meeting and said, I have public comment. You know, I have, let's say public comment and I have general public input, et cetera. And then they start talking about an agenda item. Are we going to stop them and say, oh, no, you have to wait to talk about the agenda item till we get to it? I mean, once we start doing things in a collective way, I think that we need to either do it in a collective way or not do it in a collective way. But look, I can tell you that if I had a choice between going in 11 and night or saying I have general input and saying what I was going to say at the beginning, I'd come at the beginning and say it and I think most people would. So why not just try letting them say it at the beginning of the meeting. There may be some people who ate it, but I think that there may be a lot of people who really like being able to come to do what they do and go home and watch on TV. Council member Brock. Are you suggesting both? In other words, people who wanted to comment at the beginning of meeting on any items, right? In number four up there could do it, but if they wanted to wait and comment when that item was called, they would have that ability too. No, I'm not suggesting we let people speak twice. No, I didn't say speak twice. What I said is that they could choose if they wanted to come and speak at 5.30 and get all their comments out of the way they could. But if they wanted to wait till the item is called, you could still do public comment if there was someone else, not the same person, right? But someone else who wanted to speak, they could speak then. So we would give the option and maybe Council Member Davis and Council Member and Mayor Pro Temma Kow and our correct that most people will choose the front load. But if they don't, then we would have that option. And then, and let's say at the beginning of December, we would be able to pick the option that works the best. The clerk's office would be able to say 89% of the people spoke at the beginning of the meeting. They got all their comments out of the way. They spoke on item 6, item 9a, item 13. They're done. They went home. But if someone wants to say and speak they're done, they went home, but if someone wants to say when that item's called, it was short in the time when the item's called, but we'd still have the ability to say, does anyone want to speak to that item now? So I would support that. I would say, I think administratively, that's going to get very cumbersome, particularly when we move to a hybrid model, because then are we going to ask people on the phone? Do you want to speak now or do you want to wait? You know what I mean? You're juggling two different formats. Well, but they would be able to if they're on the phone at 530 ready to speak. Then we could ask them do you want to cover everything right now? I just think administratively it's administratively you're in a mess anyway Council member, do you agree? I just wanted to say that I think if we give too many options, it's going to get confusing. Oftentimes I see people are confused with what they're supposed to talk about as it is. And I also agree that people come prepared with what they're going to say. I think we have young people who want to come and speak. And I remember coming when we were fighting for soccer fields And I think that earlier we can let the public speak we let them can I make a motion to Well, I'm gonna try this one out so the So I would So I would So I would So I would So I'm making an emotion to So here go down here call for Direction right this direction to staff So here go down here call for direction right this direction to staff For guarding changing the time limits for public comment So can I stop you for a second? Yes, so I just want to clarify So the direction is to clarify. So the direction is to move the public general public input up to the beginning where there's public comment I'm sorry special meeting closed session and consent. Is that correct? Right and not doing it by item. And then that time limit they could use their six minutes there they could divide it two minutes to however they want right and then the remainder would be when you guys come back from closed session right and they could you they could divide their time however they want it all six two four one five three three is that was that it that was the motion no no your motion is like, okay, so your first motion, this is how you do this, right? So I would usually call for this, so I'd like to move to- Okay, so I'm moving to provide direction to staff regarding order of hearing both in-person and remote public comment and the discontinuation of the time donation to another speaker policy upon implementation of hybrid meetings. Okay, so what you're saying is that you want to provide direction to have a public comment for general public comment and public comment on closed session, et cetera. Before we go into closed session, then have public comment on general agenda items other than quasi judicial. We get back from closed session. Is that right? I think you should make the motion. You're reading it. I'm not reading it. And I'll second it. Because I just. I'm not a clock because I keep it. It's seven o'clock. Yes. Yes. So I seconded. So that was basically your motion. I just rephrased it. So the motion is that we will have a first period of public comment on consent. What we used to call 14 items that won't be 14 anymore because now they'll be like zero. So 14 consent and right in closed session all at the beginning. Then when we come back from closed session at 7 o'clock, we will have public comment on all the agenda items. And we will do this for a trial period. Did you just, are we deciding on the trial period here December 31st? The proposal out of the study session was till December 31st. Yes. OK, so moved by Nogreti, seconded by me. And can I ask a question? Do we need to adopt the attached proposed resolution? We can do that in a second one. Because we still are asking for the continuing the boards and commissions to meet remotely until the end of the year. So Madam Clerk, I have a question. There are two other names on the list. I can see that. But that was after the public hearing close, after a closed session. Did you want to vote to hear them? Do you want to hear public comment? Yes. Sure. So by- Is it a delay? Should we do it like we used to do? We'd you hear it for one minute? Yeah, we can do that. Move to here for one minute. Okay, good. By-applamation. I, okay, we'll hear. So let's start with Ms. Zeroska and then we have David Mars. No, no, there I didn't notice this. I just looked at the screen and saw that. Okay, so we have a motion. We have a second. Let's have a roll call. Oh, yeah. Councilmember Dela Torre. So, I'm sorry. So, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, and I didn't notice this. I just looked at the screen and saw that. Okay, so we have a motion, we have a second, let's have a roll call. Oh. Councilmember Dela Torre. So I think it's pretty clear in terms of the time allotments and all that. But in the question of donating your two minutes, we're voting on that now. And so we're saying that if, obviously, if you're calling then you can't donate, but what about in-person? I think we should still allow in-person. I think what we're saying is when we move to hybrid, is that what we're saying when we move to hybrid, we'll get rid of donation. Yeah, but what I would like to say, what I'm supporting is to allow the donation if you're in person. If you take the time to come here and you have a little longer presentation, you should be able to say, hey, look, we're here. You know, so in person donation is okay, but obviously if you're calling on the phone, it should not be okay. But would the don'ty also have to be in person? Yeah. Everybody has to do that. Well, no, that's why I'm asking is that asking Council Member Davies. Friendly amendment. Yes. And that's that is friendly. Okay. All right, thank you. And but no hybrid donation. Right. Okay, good. Okay, so is the motion cleared everybody? Yes. And that was a good suggestion. So now let's have a roll call vote. Council Member Parra. Yes. Council Member Parra. Yes. Council Member Davis. Yes. Council Member Nugrete. Yes. Mayor Potemma-Cowellan. Yes. Council Member Brock. No. Council Member De La Torre. Yes. Mayor Hillmaric. Yes. So that passes six to one. And now I'm calling for motion. I'm gonna make this easy this time to provide direction to staff regarding the continuation of boards and commissions to me quarterly and remotely until the end of calendar year, in other words, December 31, 2022 or until the end of the first quarter of 2023. And, Mira, I wanna say that, do you wanna tell about the quarterly? So the quarterly is only until they are fully staffed and we anticipate that to be this summer. So it's more remotely is what we're asking for direction and for it and for that's where I can. Okay. Well, so let's start with may I have a motion that boards and commission shall meet remotely until the end of calendar year 20. Okay. So wait a minute. Can we have a little bit of discussion on that because I had some concerns about, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Okay. Because I had some concerns about, you know, some of the commissions and boards meeting quarterly, especially. So we're talking only about remotely now, I'm sorry. I'd be going to. So we separated it out because the clerk said that we aren't talking about quarterly. And by the way, I notice that for instance, so whatever the new commission is, is by monthly. So, but for right now, we're only talking about whether they'll meet remotely versus in person. Okay, and so can you please clarify for me which ones are meeting right now, remotely and which ones are meeting in person? Everybody's still remote. Everybody is still remote. Except for ARB, right? I think the airport. I think the airport. Not everyone. Everybody is. The remote. Yeah. The ARB's remote? Okay. Yeah. So then we're talking about everybody continuingly continuing to be quarterly. No, remote to only. So the quarterly is only for those that aren't fully staffed. So we're anticipating that through the summer the departments will be fully staffed. So we're just talking about remotely meeting. But let's separate this. Hold on. We'll talk about the quarterly in a minute. Okay. But let's start with, do we agree that they should all meet remotely at least until the end of this calendar year and possibly through the first quarter? And do you guys need a justification for that? That is because if there's funding and we have to deal with that remember all of the costs that were associated that we showed you last time that it would take to bring all of the facilities up to be able to do the hybrid remote call and meeting as well as in person. Thank you. So, there's a reason for that. Right. So, do I hear a motion? Sir, move. Move by Mayor Pro Temma, Cullen. Do I hear motion? Some move. Move by Mayor Pro Temme, Calon. Do I hear a second? Seconded by Councillor Negretti. May we have a roll call, please? Councillor Member Brock. I think we should shut this motion off at the end of this year and we can vote again if we wish to continue it next year. The remotes. The remotes and there is, I keep hearing through the end of this year or through first quarter. So I'd like it to expire December 31st and then the council could vote to continue it at that time for 2023 if necessary. So that would be my request for a friendly amendment. Okay, so is that friendly? Yeah, so okay, so that's a friendly amendment. So it will be till the end of 2022 and then we'll revisit the issue. May we have a roll call vote please. Councilmember Dela Torrey. Yes. Councilmember Brock. Yes. Mayor Patimacallan. Yes. Councilmember Negrette. Yes. Councilmember Brock. Yes Mara Potemma-Cowin. Yes, Councilmember Nguyen-Di Yes, Councilmember Davis. Yes, Councilmember Par Yes, and Mayor, Mayor Hillenrich Whatever you are. Yes, wait. Did you get the mayor Pro Tem? Oh, okay. Good. Sorry, because it that was okay So now let's talk about how regularly So now let's talk about how regularly, I think this is very hard because we don't really have a handle on who's meeting quarterly, who's meeting monthly, what staff is going to be any of those things. And I think the idea of how frequently they meet is a complicated question. But if somebody wants to try a motion on it, whether boards and commissions meet quarterly by monthly, which ones meet when? I mean, yes, Council Member Dela Torre. I mean, my preference is to allow the commissions to decide, you know, some commissions need to meet more some less For whatever reasons, but I can just I want to speak on the housing commission in particular because I've had some experience in working with the leadership and also the members of that commission there's very there's a lot of new members and You know, I think more experience more meetings would probably be better for them to get into some best practices. There's also a lot of training that's needed. We've identified the need for more training, orientation for those new members. And also there's just really critical issues. I mean, tonight, for example, we're discussing the housing,, housing in general is such an important issue in our city. So I think I just want to advocate for the housing commission to meet monthly at this point because I think it's just better for those commissioners to do so. But I'm open to having the other commissions, you know, if they think quarterly is more realistic and better for them than I'm open to that. Councillor Member Brock. I agree with what Councillor Member De La Torre says in principle. And I don't know if we should be legislating how often each commission meets at this point. We're now almost two years into this and some commissions need to be more often. Some commissions may not, but if they have business, the chair and their department head or their advisor from the city should meet and discuss that. And I don't know if we should be at the point where we're legislating that for them right now. I think the commissioners we've chosen for the various commissions has volunteers. I think they should have that say. So I may be confused, but am I incorrect that in our code it tells the commission's, I mean most of the commission specify how frequently they're meeting. They're different. Each one is different. I'm sorry, say that again. Different bylaws on how often. Yeah they all have different. So is that a problem for the clerk? It's not for me. It may be for some of the departments. I don't speak for all of the departments but as far as I know all of the departments as of this summer will have the the reason you guys they were meeting quarterly was because of the lack of staff. So what if the commission decided they wanted to meet every week would we do that? So just so just let me give you an example, the urban forest. Task force? Yeah, the urban forest task force. They were meeting monthly. And then throughout COVID, they were meeting quarterly. And they determined that it was better to me quarterly. So they had their by-laws changed. They voted to change their by-laws. So they are now meeting quarterly. Well, yes, I think that, so I'm just going to say that I think we should leave it to the discussion of the commissions, but I think with the proviso that anything more than one meeting per month has to be approved by the city manager, say, or somebody. Yes, and I see the city managers in the queue. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Councillor, what I want to be deferential to, I think the only amount of flexibility we would truly need really because does come down to the issue of staffing. So again, I wasn't here, but my understanding of the history and the city clerk can correct me or maybe the assistant city attorney could correct me or deputy city manager was that we got ourselves into the quarterly pickle because of the staff reductions. And so as the city clerk mentioned, Council has authorized us to, you've authorized staffing so that we can get to regular meetings with the commissions and, you know, the expectation is for the summer. So I think the only provider that we really need is the flexibility to the extent that we don't have staffing for the commissions. But I think that's largely been resolved. Is that correct, Denise? In terms of you've allocated to us, we're just, we have the higher folks. So, let me try this. So, I think I'm gonna make a motion that, and let's, oh, yeah. Did we weigh on something, please? The charter does say that for the charter boards and commissions, they shall meet at least once per month. The charter, but what are those planning? Many commission. Reckon park, library, and the airport. Yeah, personnel. Not housing. Recreation of parks. Reckon Park, and airport. It's five of them. Okay, so let me try it this way. Thank you, that's helpful. So that all charter commissions shall meet once a month. That other commissions may decide how frequently they all meet but no shall me once a month, that other commissions may decide how frequently they'll meet, but no more than once a month and we will revisit this at the end of the year. Council Member Brock. I just question why we need a motion at all. Because we don't really need a motion. Because they're meeting quarterly now. But that would be ending anyway. Do we really need a motion to say you don't have to meet quarterly anymore? You just go back to your normal rules. It just seems a little... No, it just seems excellent. I hear what you're saying and I'm looking at it's in. So let me turn to the city manager and say do we need to do this? turn to the city manager and say do we need to do this? Sorry. My gut tells me I don't think so to be honest with you. But then we're going to move on. Thank you. We're good. Moving on. May I have a motion, please, to implement hybrid city council meetings beginning with the first regular council meeting in September pending budget approval of staffing? I'll move. Second. Move by Brock. Seconded by Davis. Any discussion? And we have a roll call, though, please. Council Member Parin. Yes. Council Member Davis. Yes. Council Member Negrete. Yes. Mayor Putin McCallan. Yes. Council Member Brock. Yes. Council Member De La Tori. Yes. And Mary Hammerich. Yes. And now I was going to call for a motion to adopt a resolution amending the city council rules of order and procedure. But do we have that resolution right now? I get it. I get it. But it's that haven't we changed it. So it's not. Well, it could be as amended tonight. Okay. We can confirm that. Okay. So I'm going to call for motion to adopt the resolution as amended on the dius tonight amending the council's rules of order and procedure. I'll move it. Second. Move by him over it. Seconded by Davis. Any discussion? May we have a roll call vote please. Councillor McAllen. Councillor McAllen. Councillor Member Nogate. Councillor Member Davis. Councillor Member Parra. Yes. Councillor Mayor Hamiltonridge. Yes that passes 6 to 1. Thank you. And now we will move on to the main. The next item 8B is the housing element draft red line revisions. And we do have one speaker, Denise Barton on this item. But first we'll have our staff report. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Martin. We've had a changing of the guard. Yeah, right. So I think saying David will not work. Good evening, Mayor and Council, Jingyou, playing manager. Pleased to be here tonight to bring back to the Council, draft frontline revisions on the housing element. This is the product of four months of really hard work since we've gotten the letter. And I just want to acknowledge the planning staff you see here that have been burning the midnight old so to speak come to get to this point. So just to review the purpose of tonight's meeting, it's for the Council to review the draft red line revisions which are attached to your staff report and to direct staff to transmit those draft red lineed visions to HCD. And I want to note that the red lines here really focus on the changes necessary to get to a compliant housing element. It is not intended to revisit policy decisions that the Council approved with the adoption of the housing element in October. It's very much focused in being responsive to the comments that HCD made. The HCD's comments and the responses can really be broken up into three major buckets. One is really the technical revisions. That has to do with the suitable site's inventory, the constraints analysis, accessory dwelling units, or run through sort of each of these. The second big bucket is what's called a firmly furthering fair housing or AFFH. And we'll run through kind of the conversations that we had with HCD about Santa Monica's fair housing approach. It's influence on the rezoning and the programs in R1. And then finally, the third big bucket had to do with the city's commitments to public land basically the city owned sites and that was a revisions to programs So just a little walk down memory lane in terms of you know why we're here In terms of the mandates by housing element loss so you know as you know Santa Monica has a arena allocation regional housing needs allocation of 8,895 units of which almost 70% have to be for low income housing. And you can see the breakdown there in terms of the number of units, you know, of that 80, 95. It's, you know, over slightly over 6,000 units have to be de-restricted as affordable. We demonstrate that zoned capacity, just so that capacity, to accommodate the arena through the suitable sites inventory. And the standards that are the basis of that suitable sites inventory, so the floor ratio and the height, it has to account for financial feasibility. So we can't establish standards that are not feasible for housing. Key housing element deadline, so October 15, 2021, we all know and love that date. That was our statutory deadline to adopt a compliant housing element. It is HCD's position that the city had to have HCD certified the housing element before the council adopted it. That obviously didn't happen given the speed of this process. There was a second deadline if you will, a February 12, 2022. That was 120 days from that statutory deadline in October 2021 to adopt a compliant housing element and adopt having to revise, update your housing element every four years. We would note that that requirement actually changed to a rezoning requirement as of January one of this year. That's because of AB 1398. So instead of that penalty of updating every four years, the requirement is now to rezone for the arena by October 15, 2022, which is one year from the statutory deadline. So to be clear, we are actually out of compliance. Now we were formally deemed out of compliance on February the 8th, 2022. And if we do not rezone by October of 15, 2022, there are further consequences to that. So what are some of those consequences? In this moment right now, in Santa Monica, is out of compliance on our housing element. You can see a couple of things that have to do with required approvals. So the city must approve any housing project with 20% on-site affordable units to lower income households or it's 100% moderating income project. Even if the project exceeds zoning or loose maximums, that is where we are right now. No one has submitted such a project, but if they did, that would be the city's obligation in this moment when we are out of compliance. And you can see that the conditions that the city imposes cannot render the project infeasible. Secondly, and this is a big one, is in terms of the city's eligibility for funding for affordable housing. Santa Monica has historically relied on the ability to access those funding sources as have our affordable housing providers. In this moment, being out of compliance, we do not have access to those funding sources. And they do check in terms of the status of the city's compliance. As you heard me say, we're required to rezone about October 15, 2022, because we missed that February deadline. And then if that, if we missed that October 15, 2022 deadline for rezoneing to accommodate arena, then there's a second trigger that the city must approve any project with at least 49% of the housing units affordable to to very low, low and moderate income households if it's listed on the SSI and it meets the standards listed in the housing programs for rezoning are rezoning programs I know much more detailed than they were before. And then further beyond that, if we were just to ignore it or not do that at all, this state can certainly start enforcement proceedings on against the city as we have seen has happened in other jurisdictions. In terms of what we would call the long-term consequences, so this is as the city reports on progress towards actually issuance of building permits for housing projects. If we don't meet this sort of per rated rena, you know, annually through our, our annual progress reports. You are subject to the requirements of SB 35. This is kind of an opt-in program. So in that situation, an applicant could opt in to use the streamlining provisions under SB 35. And you can see the conditions that have to be met there. There's a whole slew of preconditions that an applicant would have to mean. I won't go through all of them, but essentially they would have access to that process under SB 35. And then just sort of an overarching, you know, part of this is the state can also see judicial relief and impose penalties and fines that the city continues to be out of compliance. So, you know, this is just a timeline of where we've been. Of course, the City Council adopted the housing element in October of 2021. Pretty shortly after the City Council adopted it, you know, the housing out was transmitted to HCD. But we also began work almost immediately with the planning commission on a lot of the housing element implementation. So that's like the zoning changes, the amendments, the loose and the bergamon area plan. All of that work wasn't for not. It actually really helped inform some of the responses to comments to HCD because we did do a lot of that analysis and work in terms of zoning changes so it helped kind of inform the policy changes that you see in the housing element now. And then of course April 26th we returned to the council with kind of our progress update on our consultations with with HCD and then the planning commission gave direction and recommendation on the red lines that are before you tonight on June the 15th. So that's where we are right now in terms of what next steps look like. You know what we anticipate just kind of to talk about the schedule with you. Tonight if Council direct staff to transmit those red lines in our perfect world we would aim to submit those draft red line revisions to HCD. You know by the end of this month. If there's not too many changes or early July, this would trigger then a 60 day review period by HCD. And our goal is to get from HCD what's called a draft in compliance letter that sounds, it means kind of what it sounds like, which is that your draft revisions are in compliance with housing element law. And essentially what that looks like is, you get that letter back and we'll give the city assurance which is that your draft provisions are in compliance with housing element law. And essentially what that looks like is you get that letter back and we'll give the city assurance that we can then proceed with working on zoning while the additional environmental analyses take place, which is what we also discussed with you in April. At this moment, we're not able to formally adopt a revised housing element, and I just just a draft. But we wouldn't, we would be able to do that when we return to the council, which we anticipated is in September to return to adopt the revised housing element and adoption of the EIR, which is the additional environmental analysis. So that's kind of, you know of what we're looking at as sort of an overarching schedule should kind of everything go according to plan. So let me jump now into just giving an overview of the revisions. So remember that first bucket as those technical revisions. So in terms of the suitable sites inventory, that is appendix F of your red lines and the commentary here had to do with a lot of clarification of data, repackaging data, sort of ground-true thing, a lot of the assumptions that went into the suitable sites inventory, like how the city calculated our overall housing capacity, all of that stuff. So it's pretty technical work. We won't bore you with all the details, but there's a lot of maps and tables, lots of columns added to tables and what have you, and you'll see those all in red line form and appendix F. Two big things that came out of HED's comments on the suitable site, it's inventory that affected the kind of overall capacity. So that's the overall number of housing units that we're planning for was that we had to take into account a couple of things. One was the amount of pending projects that have occurred that have been submitted since September. So we needed to account for that in our SSI. And then the second part was that HED's comments indicated that the city needed to account for that in our SSI and then the second part was that HCDs comments indicated that the city needed to account for the possibility of 100% commercial projects occurring on these SSI sites. So there was a 15% across the poor reduction in overall housing capacity in our SSI. Those two factors had the net effect of requiring the city to increase the number of units that were studying in these draft outline revisions from 11,000 units of what we looked at in October to 13,000 units. So it's those two factors that were really the driving force behind increasing the overall number of housing units that needed to be studied. So that's kind of, I would say the biggest revision in the SSI in order to essentially make all of the calculations work. The second area of the technical revisions was what's called the constraints analysis. This is an analysis of governmental and non-governmental constraints. So they want the city to analyze, what are all the things that could potentially be a barrier to housing. Many of the revisions here are really clarification and nature kind of connecting the dots between things that we are doing in our programs to state law. So they run the gamut from emergency shelters, to fees and executions, to perm permitting procedures so you can see sort of in summary, you know, what those changes are there. I wouldn't say, you know, any of them are are, you know, truly substantive in nature. It was really a lot of clarification. And in the third area of the technical revision, it had to do with accessory dwelling units. This was just, you know, really going back to look at our permits, taking a look at what was actually building permits issued. So that was just revising numbers, going back to our permits system. When we did this in last fall, 2021 had an end of yes, we didn't have all those complete numbers. We were actually able to provide how many permits were issued for calendar year 2021. It was about 120 permits, which was a lot more than we were actually thinking. So that kind of surprised us. But by having those numbers of how many building permits for issued for 80s in the last five years, it allowed us to project forward on what the city could commit to for additional housing units in the R1 zone. So that was on average about 47 building permits a year is what is a commitment now in the in the Drash Red lines. The second big category of changes have to do with a firmly furthering fair housing. We spent a substantial amount of time speaking with HCD staff on AFFH and really trying to walk them through what's different with respect to Santa Monica's approach to fair housing. So in terms of Santa Monica's approach and it's different than most other cities that we've seen is that ours really leads first and foremost with housing preservation. Santa Monica has a very long history of tenant protections and housing assistance, fair housing enforcement. We've always kind of led in this area so you can see a lot of revisions to the program background in terms of highlighting Santa Monica's work in this area and essentially committing to metrics and geographic targeting for each and every one of those programs where it made sense. And HCD went through every single program and provided feedback as to what changes are necessary to make those compliant with housing element law. Just want to highlight here in goal four, which is about increasing equitable housing access. There's two new programs for E and for F. Program for E has to do with SB 9 and for F is a metrics and monitoring program. I'll go through those red lines in a moment. So you can see here just like visually we heard kind of public comments throughout the process that this is the SSI map and it looks like it's not a lot of sites and it's just concentrated in different parts of the city. But the conversation that we had with HCD was this map doesn't tell the whole story. You can see here the areas show where we are activating or permitting housing where it wasn't permitted before so that's in the purple and where we would incentivize housing throughout the city. So feasible standards are being established for housing throughout the city. And then you know this is really the other part of the story. This is what fills in all of the gaps right where are those rent control units. There's a reason why we are not up zoning our multi-unit residential neighborhoods. Why the city has you know really done a lot of work to protect those areas because 97% of our rent control units are in our multi-unit residential zones and that's a really, really important part of the city's approach to fair housing is protecting the people in those units and making sure that Santa Monica residents who are displaced to the greatest extent possible are able to find a new home within Santa Monica. The second part of AFFH is that it influenced the distribution of housing capacity throughout the city and the third part is that it informed programs for the R1 zones. So in terms of that second part, the distribution of housing capacity, this then leads us to our conversation on FAR and H height throughout the city. So where did the recommendations from FAR and height come from? There were two factors that influenced it. One is feasibility, and that is based on a 15% inclusionary requirement. This is something that was discussed throughout the housing element process, as the change that would be made to our affordable housing production program or AHPP. There's also other factors in terms of parking requirements. So that was something that's also being adjusted as part of this. These were some of the assumptions that went into the feasibility analyses and then also ground foot flexibility. What that means is flexibility to have residential units on the ground floor as opposed to a required commercial space. So that all sort of went into the calculations as to what are feasible FARs. Then you take those numbers and then they sort of get fed through the AFFH lens of, you know, are we distributing housing throughout the city? Isn't, you know, not over-concentrating in some areas and not others? Are areas that have historically not accommodated housing, you know, also, you know, having their fair share of signs, so to speak. So the shift that you see from October is really more intensive housing potential in north of the I-10 freeway and with a focus really on those transit boulevards like Wilshire and Santa Monica, Broadway and Colorado and less intensive housing potential for the Pico neighborhood, for Main Street, for these neighborhood commercial areas on Ocean Park and Montana is not that it's not feasible to do housing. It's just that the standards are less relative to other areas in the city and the highest potential continues to be downtown and in the Bergamont area. So you take those two factors and then the third step is, you know, that's where the capacity from the SSI comes from. All those FARs and Heights are the basis of the suitable sites inventory and that is how the city demonstrates overall housing capacity to accommodate the arena. So you can see the difference in October 2021. We planned for 11,000 units but remember those two factors that essentially caused the increase in the overall capacity was because we lost sites to pending projects, so we lost land to assign units to, right? And then secondly, there was across the board reduction to account for commercial capacity. So what that led to was an overall increase in the number of units to make up for that loss. And so you can see now we're planning for somewhere in the ballpark of about 13,000 units instead. So this is just showing the evolution of the height in FAR. So this compares what Council approved in October to where we are now with the current recommendation. The green and the red boxes, green represents where FARs have increased. And the red represents where FARs have decreased. You can see here this represents an overall capacity of about 13,600 units. This is an overall buffer of 53%. We've heard questions about, you know, why does the buffer need to be that large? The reason for that is because every, we've learned since October when we had to redo this exercise again, just the submittal of some pending housing projects brought us actually below our required capacity to accommodate the arena. So lesson learned, it's really important to keep a healthy buffer because the city is required to show throughout the entire eight year cycle. And it's what's called no net loss. You have to show that you have the capacity to accommodate the arena at every moment over the eight year cycle. So that if you go below, right, then you have to rezone to make up for that loss. And you know, unless we want to be back here rezoning every few months, you know, when someone submits a new project, you know, it's important to plan for the buffer. And so that's why what's before you, you know, has a buffer of 53%, the lower income buffer you can see there is 60%. The moderate income one I've pointed out because that one is actually really important. You have to demonstrate, you know, that you have capacity across all of the income levels. And moderate income is the one that's the hardest to come by. And that one is kind of on a razor-thin edge. So every time we sort of adjust the numbers, we always keep on that moderate income buffer, because it falls below capacity. Then we need to increase the FARs and make that up again. below capacity, you know, then we need to increase the FARs to make that up again. You can see here other zones in the city that have gone down. This is consistent with the overall strategy that we just talked about. And it's a little probably a little easier to visualize on a map. The dark blue here represents areas that have the highest that are being proposed as having the highest intensity. And the lighter colors are the ones that have the highest that are being proposed as having the highest intensity and the lighter colors are the ones that have the lowest intensity. So you can see there on Pico and the neighborhood commercial areas are where the capacity is proposed to be the lowest in this rezoning and then it's really very much concentrated in the areas north of the freeway. As having the highest housing potential in the city. You can see here in Bergamot has the highest, you know, in addition to downtown. So in the Bergamot transit village and the mixed use creative zones 4.0, sort of in that spine that runs on either side of Olympic and it sort of transitions down to 3.25 on either side where it transitions to those residential areas. You can see here in downtown, we didn't propose to change what you saw on October for downtown so that would continue to be 2.75 and 60 feet as the base tier one. Downtown is the one area where the tier system is remaining because we're not permitted to down zone or eliminate those those standards so you can see there for downtown. The only change here was the addition of a tier three to the neighborhood village zone which is fixed six and seven street which would sort of have a line with the transit Jason and that is this area. There you go. Poking anyone in the eye. There we go. Yeah. So that's the transited Jason area there. That's, you know, 4.084 feet and that would extend over here. Again, tier three, that's a local incentive program. It means someone could, you know, choose to opt into it, but they could also opt to just do the Tier One project with a state density bonus. So those are some maps and we can certainly come back to those if they're helpful for you. Moving on now to the third part of the AFFH category and that has to do with the R, it's influence on the R1 zones. So we were able to clarify with HCD through the discussions that there was not a requirement to rezone R1. You know, that would only have come about if they were looking for a metric of deed restricted units. In the R1 zone, when we got clarification that what they're looking for is really just overall increase in capacity. So that's where programs for E and F are structured towards. For E really builds off of the study session we held with Council on SB 9. We're generally we heard a favor towards incentivizing these combination SB 9 and ADU projects on some of the larger parcels in the city that were best able to sustain it. During that meeting, 10,000 square feet was discussed as a threshold. You know, so that's that's in the program. Program for us is also a brand new program. And that establishes the metric that that for those 47 building permits per year. In the R1 zones for additional housing units that I talked about. And then there's also a commitment here to do what's there calling kind of like a mid-cycle check-in. So in December 31st, 2025, the targets are not being met, adjust the menu strategies as necessary and appropriate within one year. So that kind of follows what language we've seen in other certified housing elements. And then finally, the third category of changes had to do with city-owned sites. So HCD's comment here was that they were requiring a commitment that city-owned sites can accommodate the 1880 units. So they were really looking for a timing component, greater commitment and relationship to the list of city-owned sites and ensuring that essentially the need to offer up as part of any RFPs and also listing the constraints that are associated with any of those. So the city on sites actually play a very important role with one aspect of the housing element and it's called the short, called the shortfall or the lower income shortfall, what that means in sort of simple terms is that it's the difference between the arena, the lower income arena, and the lower income capacity based on existing zoning. So that difference is called the lower income shortfall. And that is calculated at approximately 1100 units. So the city-owned sites would sites would fully cover that shortfall. We've discussed this strategy of having only the city on sites address that shortfall. And HCD gave positive feedback to that approach. The reason that it is focused on city on sites is because in order to address the lower income shortfall, the site that you choose, they must allow 100% residential use and then they also must require that residential use occupies at least 50% of the floor area of the project. That's a little more problematic to accomplish on private property across an entire zone versus public land. So that's why the focus was on the city on sites. If there was through this process, the city on site was removed for some reason, that would be a shortfall in the lower income capacity that we would have to make up. So we would either identify another site or make up for the loss in some other way. You can see here, I know this is hard to read, but this is in your red lines. It's programmed to E, this is the full red line in terms of the changes that were made. And I can just, you know, kind of go through conceptually that it mentions that we have to accommodate at least the, oh, there's a typo there, it should be 1880 units. And at the city issuing an RFP by June 30th, 2023, 2025 and 2027. So basically every other year and then accounting for those constraints on the city on sites and then it's a reference again to figure F6 which is the list of city on sites and then they were looking for us to list here like what is the typical process know, that the city undertakes for putting up city on sites through an RFP. Unfortunately, the city does have quite a bit of experience with offering public land for 100% affordable housing. And then we also listed here, you know, some of the tools that the city has used in the past to facilitate affordable housing, including appropriate zoning processes, reduced or free ground rent, providing funding through our own local housing trust fund dollars. And in the planning commission added actually the fourth bullet to this, which is supporting applications for other funding sources for affordable housing. So that was really something that the city already does as well. So that was the gist of the changes to the city on sites, again, that stronger commitment to timing and the sites and the minimum number of units that would be pursued. So that's an overview of all the three categories of changes. We did want to know here that we were working super fast. So there are some inadvertent omissions and errors in the red lines. You have non-substantive in nature. You can see just some typos. Program 1D, the time frame, should be October 15, 2022. Program 1F and 1J, it should say minimum FVR and height as shown in the table. Program 1F, we forgot to add. And UNIT Mix was one of the areas that would be reviewed as part of The standards review in that program 1J that will should be a shall In that sentence and then here program for e This was actually a planning commission recommendation on the SB 9 program deleting that sentence about Requiring SB 9 units to be rendered or sold. That doesn't change at all. The program just provides flexibility for that discussion to continue. Program 6A, the program background inadvertently did not include data around voucher distribution the 904 or 505 ericode, so that will be added in. In terms of the summary of housing programs, there was a typo in there about a timeframe for program four A. And then in chapter four, there were minor numerical adjustments that had to be made due to calculations from the approved and pending projects in the SSI, so that affects, you can see the page numbers there in the sections. It's all of the calculations in there, and it's sort of plus or minus like 20 or 30 units either way as the calculations came out. So again sort of these minor revisions. So that brings us to the end of our staff report. We'd be happy to answer your questions. Sorry. Let me get... What did you find out? to answer your questions. Sorry, let me get what it's time to out. Thank you very much for the staff report. Very helpful. So I see right now only one person on our, is that right? That is correct. Okay, so Councillor Wood you'd rather, would you like to hear from the public speaker before we move on to questions. Good, Ms. Barton, would you like to step up please? Hold on a second, Ms. Barton. I can pull it up for you. There it is. Good evening. Please let me again at the end of my presentation since the planning commission didn't allow me to finish my sentence Since it applies to chapter three policy 7.2 and others The point I was making was about how the city pays legal aids yearly operating budget Therefore ultimately the city has control over who they help and how and I'm speaking from experience leaving affordable housing tenants Especially seniors in the disabled tenants Defend for themselves and or be forced to live with the conditions or move. Or would that be the real purpose of the no reasonable accommodations, discrimination, and harassment of the city practices, to turn over affordable housing units? Sighting in Chapter 3, Policy 6.5, pertaining to reasonable accommodation, what's up on the screen is a perfect example. You'll remember David White's main for TV concern about the light, right? With his accomplice, David Martin at the June 14, 2020 Thucy City Council meeting. Well, this is what the city allowed NRDC to do. Put it in a partition which further restricts the airflow to my unit so you can see the glare from the light is just filtered in a different way. In addition, the other issue of the reason of the building reducing airflow to the only the affordable housing unit is that with this action, it's specifically my unit that's only been made worse. Showing the city would rather practice discrimination in her husband against the disabled affordable housing tenant than enforce municipal code, which speaks volumes on the city's position on fair housing Besides the disabled being at the bottom of your low priority list again Making it just look like you're trying to make this day happy and just go back to the city's normal practices as the city is done before Thank you I asked what exactly we're looking at here? Can you I don't look at it This is a partition that's put up between the NRDC building in my in my No, apart the silverish looking thing us. Yes, it is not 50% transfarming So it goes against municipal code not in that way as well So I like I said I can only feel that the city is allowing this to happen To once again retaliate against me for speaking at public probably meetings. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Barton. Now I think I see that there's no one from the housing commission here to address us tonight. So I think we should read their comments which are part of the record and we received Recommendations from them, but since they are a housing commission We probably ought to do it so I will read those into the record and that is please find the recommendations Passed by the housing commission on 616-22 They aren't numbered or anything. There are three points. One, ensure affordable housing is not just a paper exercise and obtain revenue sources to make affordable housing reality inclusive of increased efficiency in the current budgetary process and more robust resources for affordable housing. Two, prioritize affordable housing historically blue and green line neighborhoods. Three, inaction is contributed to the segregation that exists and the city should take meaningful action to physically redistribute affordable housing equitably across the city. Steps for long overdue, there are no neutral actions in the city cannot fail to act. So that is what our housing commission has charged us with. And so does any council member want to begin? Do you have any questions? Council member Brock. Sure, I want to and I know I've asked some of these questions in Meas with you. However, I'd like to make sure they're clarified for the public. If we went to let's say we put a microscope on Main Street Nielsenway and the changes there. The publicly owned land on Nielsen, which we commonly look at as strip parking lots behind Main Street. What is the potential maximum height limit that we're looking at for there on our publicly owned land which would be 100% affordable housing. Yeah, so for that because it's city-owned land it would be subject to a full public process of which the council would be involved. The assumption was 150 units per acre and that was derived from existing affordable housing projects that have been built generally around like five to six stories. Is that right? Yeah. So approximately six, five to seven. Oh, now I would say five to six. Five to six would be the maximum for that land. Yeah, there's just construction cost. And that's the land that faces the Elson. If we look at the other side of the alley, tell me about the maximum heights with density bonuses on the private land on Main Street. So for that, what's proposed on Main Street is 55 feet. So that is probably around five stories. Yeah, five stories. Plus density bonuses? Yes. A grant? Would that be above the five or is that five maximum? No, no. Density bonus is an addition to maximum. Density bonus could be an extra two stories. I can't put a number to it because it's case by case as proposed by the applicant in order to. Has a norm. There really isn't one. Well, could it be more than two stories above? In theory, it could be. If they could demonstrate that it's needed to offset the cost of the affordable units, I would say typically what we've seen in just recent ones, I've been one to two stories, I think. Okay, and this would be from Peekabullivards South to Marine on Main Street. Uh, yes. Okay, can we go to let's shift gears of art south to marine on Main Street. Yes. OK. Can we go to let's shift gears and let's look at let's say Wilshire Boulevard. Tell me the same questions really for Wilshire. I just want to make sure that residents aren't surprised later and residents understand what's coming. And then I'll ask you is there be a little bit more familiar with the floor area later and residents understand what's coming and then I'll ask you is there any way to lay any of this and I know what your answer will be but I'm going to ask you that too. So for Willsrible of our tell me the zoning and tell me because I think residents are not all familiar with floor area ratio. I think they're gonna be more interested in what's the height, what's the density of a project. So, and knowing that I asked this earlier that for instance, Fonds and Bristol Farms may have a difference only on some of the parking lots than they would be on the main buildings. Yeah, so for Wilshire Boulevard, that's what's called the MUB Zone, Mixed Use Boulevard. And it's one zone for that whole Boulevard. That's 3.25 FAR and 70 feet. 70 feet translates to roughly about six stories. And that would be the same for Santa Monica Boulevard, Colorado, and Broadway. And those would be still subject if the Affordable Housing Mix was there to state authorized entity bonuses. The state's entity bonus could be requested on top of any of these. And if these projects are submitted with their papers in order, right, all their documents are in order, then that would be not subject to planning commission or city council review, it would be planning department review, am I correct? Right. They need to be code compliant. So they would need to. It's not it's not our discretion at all. It's about compliance with the municipal code. Let's let's hit two more to the hell of it. Montana Avenue and maybe Ocean Park Boulevard. So Montana Avenue is on primarily an NC zone, neighborhood commercial zone, so that's 2.5 and 55 feet. That's also roughly five stories. Ocean Park Boulevard, I assume you mean kind of the area around 16. Yeah, 60, 17 or 16. Yeah. Back. So that's also the ocean. Yeah. So that is also the NC zone. 2.5 and 55 feet. So also roughly around five stories. The north side of Ocean Park Boulevard kind of like east of Clover Park. Is also the same like NC zone. So those one story buildings there could be combined, torn down and redeveloped? Yeah, I don't. On both the north and south sides of the street. I don't think we would. Because the south sides, I think, is Boston properties and they're already a major landowner over there. Yeah, the south side is a different zone. That's the office campus zone. And you can see what's proposed there is the 2.75 and 60 feet which is also approximately about five stories for 60 feet. So when we're looking at all that that will primarily if there's housing in those projects it'll be inclusionary housing. Right. They would need to comply with the city's inclusion. Right, which is kind of opposed to what we on the council diocese I think were asking for. We were just asking for more 100% affordable projects. But there's probably no way to get that other than our city land. Well, no, I mean, we have 100% affordable hot projects that are built throughout the city, not on city land. But keep in mind- Do you anticipate we might be able to get more of those? Well, I mean, that's subject to funding. You know, they compete for purchasing land in the market with every other housing developer, you know, so that depends on their ability to compete. There is a program in the housing element that's called the right-of-first-offer ordinance, and it's the intent to pursue a program that would make non-profit housing providers more competitive in the land buying market. It is a very complex program to create an administer, but that is the idea is to try and give a leg up to them in the land buying market. But we don't necessarily have the funds to facilitate that like some other cities. If we are looking at this from a resident standpoint, then they should anticipate by 2030, there would be significantly more density and sort of a reframed Santa Monica. Correct? You're seeing in theory or in reality. Either. I mean, theory and reality. It's hard for me to- It probably just depends on the matter of degrees of how much construction is actually completed. Yeah, I mean, it's true. Because we, you know, this is, those are things are somewhat out of the city's control. You know, the city does not, we don't build housing, we don't purchase land, we don't, you know. So that would be very speculative, you know, on my part. The city's role in this is really just a regulatory, you know, aspect of it. I don't think I could predict, you know, how many, I mean, past trends are not an indicator of, you know, if you- And I know you put up a slide that's said, here are the penalties if we don't conform. And in your fact, you're going back to that slide. Very good before I could ask. And so there are consequences. Some of the consequences could be severe or these all theoretical, we don't know if the state will really follow through long term. What's your anticipation? These are real. These are real. This is what you see on the screen is this is in state law. Now, and we've certainly seen examples throughout the state of where HCDs housing accountability unit has pursued enforcement action with cities that have not acted on their housing element or acted in violation of their adopted housing elements. So I don't think we have any reason to believe that this is not something that the state intends to pursue. Do you see any movement within other cities, or within other cities in the state who have pledged to fight the housing, the HCD allocations? You haven't seen anyone be successful yet. I'm aware of some actions going on. I have to be honest. We've been pretty busy and we haven't followed it super closely, but I'm not aware of one that has been successful. I think we would have heard about it. I don't know if the city of Terny's off. What is there? I just gave. There was a case that came down today about about renal allocations. And once again, the city lost, I mean, badly, it was a car not OK. And again, sandag and the court ruled that basically they couldn't change the renal occasion. But the city, I just sent it. I haven't read. I have to be honest. I saw that it happened. I sent it to the city attorney just like a minute ago. I don't think any, you know, these cases are long. No one's digested it. But you can see that the ruling is not good for us. OK. And the rena numbers aren't even subject to review by the courts. Can you repeat that? That the rena numbers are not even subject to review by the courts. Okay. Because that's of prime concern to residents who have emailed, called, begged us to fight this allocation regardless of the affordable housing component, just the overall component. I don't see as much argument about the 1880 units and some of the other parts I see constant complaints from residents saying why aren't you guys fighting? And so what I'm hearing up here from the mayor, from people all from the mayor, from people all around the state. I know there are a couple of small lawsuits, but I haven't heard any indications that any of these would be successful. But so that's why I'm asking that because I have residents who are saying, why aren't you guys fighting? Why have you just laid down and done nothing? And my question is, which was, I think, Councilmember Davis has said, Mayor Himmler-Richard both said that if we fought, then HCD might not be as nice as they are. We're not saying they're being nice now, HCD might not be as nice as they are. We're not saying they're being nice now, but that it might, they might decide to turn up the pressure on us rather than say, you know, Santa Monica was great players for so many years that maybe we should cut them a break. You haven't heard anything that says anybody's gonna be cut a break. We've not seen any of our consultations with HDD staff. I think they've been helpful, certainly, in clarifying what was meant by these comments. Per council's direction, we have been Working with our lobbyists and his allegation to pursue sort of like legislative advocacy You know, but this is also you know, we have to also look out for the city's interests You know in this and in ensuring you know council's direction to continue to pursue a compliant housing elements Sort of you know running on different tracks. One last question. Other comments I received from different neighborhood groups et cetera were about the 11,000 versus 13,000. Now I know you explained that earlier, but to residents I think they would feel better if we were still at 11,000 versus upping the ante before we had to. So I think my question is, can we stay at 11? And then up the ante if we believe that we're going to fall short because I think you said, I may be wrong, but I thought you said a few minutes ago that we could go back and adjust our housing element at any time. Do you believe that they would not approve our housing element at a maximum of 11,000 units that we would have to have 13,000 in order to get approval? So- Or is that something that we're just doing because we think it helps. No, this is this is an order again to meet our capacity so we'll go back to so this this slide here that you saw this in April but this is just a diagram kind of explaining you know why did the overall capacity increase so again it's those two factors. We lost parcels. We lost land to assign units to. And the number of units increased because we lost land from SSI sites converting from theoretical capacity to actual projects. To reality. To reality, right? And there were fewer affordable units in those real projects relative to what was assumed in the theoretical capacity. So when you lost that affordable capacity, it had to be made up across, you know, whatever was remaining in land. And, you know, where you have less land, the capacity has to go up, the FARs went up. The other factors you can see there was the reduction across the board, the 15% reduction at HEC, that you just have to reduce your overall capacity by 15%. You can't take credit for that, so we had to again make up what was lost in the lower income capacity. That is the issue. It's not the overall big number. It's the different categories for very low and low and moderate income that you have to show in terms of meeting your rena. So that's the explanation of why its overall capacity gone up and then going back again to the factors you can see here. It has to be feasible. We have AFFH and you can see here, you know, the, it has to be feasible. We have AFFH and you can see, you know, we did look at 11,000 units in October, you know, I've explained, you know, we're not looking at 13,000 because of those two factors of the pending sites and then the 15% across the board. But if things went well, we wouldn't have to get there. Yeah, I mean, if in our reporting, we're like, oh, you know, surprisingly, we're actually meeting, we're issuing building permits because what they care about is building permits, not just approved. We actually have to get to building permit issuance. And if that's going well, there's certainly nothing to prevent the city from amending the housing element at a future time. It would be subject to the same process. You'd have to submit it to HTT, right? Proof that it is compliant with housing element law. So that certainly is a avenue that can have. So I'm not yielding now. I may have a couple of follow-up questions later. Well, so I just want to talk about what you just said. I mean, this is an ongoing process. It's not like we get to the number and then we say, OK, we quit. I mean, and it's not, it's going to get worse. It's not going to get better or I suspect, right? I mean, unless something groundbreaking happens. But my point is simply that, you know, look, I think I too was disturbed by the 13,000 units. This buffer drives me crazy. Jane will tell you, right? I don't like it. But it is a capacity description and not really a unit description. If you know what I mean, it's what we could do now does the fact that we could do it mean it's going to happen. We're in our session. We've been through the same four I've been through. Look, I've been through four of them. Phil's been through four I know because we're the same age, right? So we've lived through this. I mean it's not like we're going to see a lot of cranes around Santa Monica for the next three years, assuming that the finances pan out the way I expect they will. But, you know, who knows? But our requirement is to plan for it, not to make it happen. And we can plan for it, but we have no control over the economy. And the state still does to clarify, the state of California is still not providing any funding for any of this. You mean out of their $50 billion reserve? 100 billion. I mean, really? I mean, that's a remarkable fact that this is completely still remains a completely unfunded mandate by the state of California, which is absolutely arbitrary, absolutely unfair to Santa Monica. Okay. Who goes next? Councilmember Davis? Well, you had your hand. Sure. Yeah, no, I mean, if other people want to ask questions first, because mine will obviously come from a little different perspective. So I don't know if people will. Okay, so questions. Okay, so Councilmember Nguretti and then Mayor Pro Temme, and then Councilmember Dela Tori and then Councilmember Par. Okay, and then you get to go. Okay, okay. And you can do the whole. And Shalotte. Councilmember Brock covered pretty much everything, but I just wanted to clarify a couple of things. And just to tell off of what was just said about the 11,000, 13,000 because it took a lot for me to understand that as well. Does that buffer protect us from potential height or are you just buffering yourself? I mean, because you were talking about then you have to get denser. So does that buffer protect us by? It protects the city from having to going through a rezoning process every few months, you know, every time a new application or several applications are filed and we find ourselves falling below arena allocation. It means that we need to under housing element law, you need to reason within, I believe it's six months, when you've discovered that deficiency. So we don't want to be in a process of repeatedly having this conversation about where else can we find more capacity. It is a lot more sane to do this in the beginning. And like I said, we've definitely learned a lot in the September to now timeline. When 13 housing projects were submitted and took all that land capacity off the list, and we're that landed in the SSI with a 24% buffer. So we're trying to do this over eight years. You know, we want to have a healthy buffer because it's again, it's not just the overall buffer. It's the lower income. It's the lower income capacity that is going to be the tough thing to maintain. Right. Well, that's the problem because people and I, the projects might not build out to the maximum and we can't not approve it because of that because we have to accept it because it meets the bare minimum. So I think that's the thing to understand is that there was projects that we hope people will build and put as many affordable units, but that doesn't always happen. So therefore we have to make other space available. As choices you could have a higher inclusionary requirement, but that also means higher FARs, right? So that's the trade off. have a higher inclusionary requirement but that also means higher FARs, right? Right. So that's the trade-off. It's a catch-22. And then the density, and the density bonuses, right? You were talking about height on Main Street and specifically the parking lots. And you were saying that you were sort of guesstimating five or six, but there, what is the max height? six but there what is the max height? Well I guess like under the code they're actually currently zoned is it OP2 or R2? R2, R3. Oh okay R3 so they're actually currently zoned R3 they're like residential zone and any R. The parking lots on on on the street and I know that sounds kind of funny but and the maximum height so let me just bring that up. Currently, I can see it from here. It would be two stories so you know, currently if a project came in 100% affordable, they could under with state-den city bonus law, which we can't account for on our SSI, but they could ask for an additional three stories on top of that. Right, so what would be the maximum height? Will you said five to six earlier, seven? Yeah, well, the reason I said that is because we're going to do. Will you said five to six earlier seven? Yeah. Well, the reason I said that is because it's a city own site. Right. And the city has full control to sort of allow what's necessary, you know, to make the 100% affordable housing work. I totally get that. So what would be the best case scenario if someone had a 100% affordable? What's the tallest they could go? Seven stories? Is there... Well, I think I'm speaking more from a practical perspective from what we've seen in terms of 100% affordable housing is really five, probably not more than six stories because it does become cost-perhibitive when it changes construction type. And so when we talk to all the housing providers, is it we would never do a seven or eight story but it's just not feasible for them. They wouldn't because it's not feasible, but you could if you could make it feasible. No, because the building after it, they won't because you go from wood construction to steel construction, it's too expensive. I guess what I'm saying because it is a city-owned site in theory, like in a future process, the council, if someone said, hey, I could do an eight to 100% affordable, then I assume the council would say yes. And then I know that parking would then have to be, it says it would have to be moved somewhere else, right? For those businesses that are on Main Street. They're talking about the Main Street Laws. Yeah. So we did list in there as it constraint. It is in the coastal zone. Right. That it's assumed the parking would probably have to be replaced. I don't imagine it just as part of that coastal process. Again, we're not talking specifically or planning for that right now, but we had to list that because it's in the coastal zone. It's just what we know at this moment. And then we generate income from those parking lots, right? Yeah, I mean, they're paid parking lots. So, so what if a project were to become available, if a project were to take over some of those parking lots, I guess what happens to that revenue and do the parking lots? I know you're saying it's based on coastal zone and there's an assumption, but then what's the next step do we plan for creating additional parking for the beach? Well, it would, you know, I think one would expect that it would be replaced on site. You know, I don't know what the mechanism for that would be. it would be replaced on site. I don't know what the mechanism for that would be. It's a lot of parking. Yeah, especially since there's residents already that. Right. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine that if the city wanted, you know, if it came to, you know, that parking would be required to be replaced if that was one of the objectives. And, you know, again, this is part of a future process. So I'm totally speculating not sure even how it would be funded you know yet but you know if if that was the the case you know that that would just be part of the deal points I guess you know of that of of that partnership. As we talk about access to the beach a lot right and that's it and when families come to the commission. Right. Looking at it purely from their perspective in terms of public access to the coast, from the city's perspective, there may be obviously reasons in terms of supporting businesses on main street that was parking lots for four. So there's a lot of interest in that parking, which is why it's listed in the table. And I think, but that's sort of a concern because we don't look at these. And I think, but that's sort of a concern because we don't look at these. I realize that we're in this position where we don't have a lot of time to digest. I mean, you are, you've gone to school for this. This is what you do. Yeah, you know, I imagine you've been working in this field for a long time. I haven't. And trying to digest all this information without visually like a modular 3D view of what the city could potentially look like in eight years. I hear that, listen, if we don't do this, there's a lot of ramifications and we have to pass this through. But it's, I know we're talking about ifsands and buts and it doesn't mean when we put this out there, the residents here, this is what's going to happen in eight years and I realize that that's not the case. But it is opening it up and then when we say we're not thinking about what would happen to I'm just thinking about those parking lots, how full they get and traffic if you were building something and now we have to put public and residential parking there. When what happens when those projects come to us and were forced to push them through in a certain timeline to make them happen? Right, so the timeline in the housing element isn't about issuing the building permit. It's just in terms of issuing the RFP to offer that site up to find a developer partner for affordable housing. Okay. The council would be fully involved in establishing the objectives for that site. And I think we can talk about that in future meetings as to what the best approaches and what the council wants to accomplish with these city-owned sites because it could run the range from a very simple and straightforward group approach or case by case. I think that would probably be best talked about it probably a different. So for tonight what we're pushing through is what's here for zoning. I get that but then that opens up the opportunity for these projects to be built and you're saying but then those are future discussions. So nothing is talking about the timeline in which something has to be built. No, no, yeah. You're just demonstrating that it's- You're making it possible. The possibility of it happening. Yeah. But all the other things taking into account because what the community is saying all the time is we can't build all this. We don't have the infrastructure, the water, the streets, all these things. I mean, what I mean, it, you know, what it takes to bring a project to market, like it is that rely solely on the private market to have the capital necessary to purchase the land to find the financing and go through the process of approvals and permits and actually build it. So those are things that are fully out of our control. Like I said, the city doesn't build housing. We certainly don't do it on private property. We're just establishing the conditions under which it could happen. But if a project were to come to city council, I'm just making this clear for residents who are fearful of the impact it's going to have on the city that we're going to just have projects being built and we're not going to be looking at traffic as we would any project. But what you're saying is that's not the case when as a project comes up it's going to be brought before the council and all of the same requirements where we look at traffic and on city. I'm talking specifically about city on sites for private property. No. Like the process we have now, you know, individual projects are not brought forward to the city council. What's proposed in the housing element is a continuation of the process we have now, which is an administrative process for housing projects that meet code. They have to be code compliant. If they do not meet code, then they would not qualify for that process. So, you know, they comply with the rules in the municipal code, then they would be eligible for that administrative process. You're talking about the by-right projects. Right, right. But on the parking lots that we're talking about, that's different. Yeah, that's a different, those are city-owned sites. Those would be subject to, that's public land. It would be in front of the council, you know, in terms of the issuance on RFP. The council would be fully involved. But in private, they would not have to assess traffic needs and other things. No, I mean, that's already been assessed through the housing element EIR. That's why we do these what's called a program level environmental impact analysis. And analyzing traffic has evolved a lot over the years. You know, it's not basically the EIR what's set all of the, or it discloses, the potential impacts of planning for all of this housing. So that's, that environmental analysis has been done already. And in order to account for this, increase the 13,000 units, it's extra 2,000 units. We're doing additional environmental analyses, which will be brought to the council in September. But we have to approve this before we do that. We've increased the 13,000 units, extra 2,000 units. We're doing additional and environmental analyses, which will be brought to the council in September. We have to approve this before we do that. And I remember in past meetings, basically that the state doesn't as in concern with our environmental impact report. Yeah, well, that's, I mean, that's what we're required to undertake that analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act. So it's a disclosure. And that analysis has been done, it was done before the October action and it will be done before the council takes any formal action, you know, on adopting a draft. And then the city's asking us to accept the rezoning to prepare for this, but that's all they're focused on. Not the water, the other impacts that it has on the city, that's not of concern, it's just to make this, to make this a possibility. And if we don't, there's serious ramifications, fines and whatnot. Right, I mean, I wouldn't say it's like not of concern, you know, it's, it's, it's, the impacts of planning for this amount of housing, this is, this is more housing than we analyzed in the loose, which was somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000 units. And even with the DCP, we redid it again. And it was increased to about 6,000 or 8,000 units. So this is more than almost double what we anticipated before. So all of those impacts have been disclosed in the EIR and you know it will be brought back again to the council in September. This tonight you know you're not formally adopting something per se. These are just draft red line revisions. We're really requesting council's permission to transmit this to HGD. We want to do that on our own. You know we want to make sure that the council has seen it. You know, you endorse the red lines and we can proceed forward in this process, you know, in trying to get to a compliant housing element. This is like a little mid-step. One of the 800 steps. Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you because you spend so much time with everybody and everybody's questions before entering and after. So I just wanted to end with that and hand it over. Yeah, I, yeah, it's okay. Thank you for keeping track. So I just have an initial question. The total affordable units is about 6,600 in this next arena. 1880 of which were proposing could or would for the purposes of this proposal would be done on city-owned sites. And presumably that other 4,000 would be through these other programs throughout the city. But the only one that we really have control over would be these city-owned sites. And so my concern is just that, and I love the Bergamot project, and I love the idea of doing something with Bergamot down the road. But I am deeply concerned when, sort of as we're going into this conversation about affirmatively furthering fair housing and all these efforts we're going into this conversation about affirmatively furthering fair housing and all these efforts we're gonna make to diversify affordable housing in Santa Monica, that the largest chunk of that 81880 is right in what most of us still refer to as the Bego neighborhood. I mean, that's still our neighborhood. And I am not necessarily opposed to building more affordable housing in the Pico neighborhood outright. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, but it's kind of like we're contradicting ourselves in some ways because we called it out as a Bergamot project and like removed it from the larger conversation of the Pico neighborhood because we're saying on the one hand we're not going to up zone this because it's already you know we're not going to allow this here because it's already had so much so I'm just trying to understand why we didn't do more in areas that would have caused the community more discomfort, like up zoning R1 more aggressively to meet the need. And we said, we'll put the largest chunk of what we likely will be able to do in the same neighborhood that we've seen is truly suffering as a result of COVID because you have some of the majority I think, and I may be misquoting this, of the most affordable rent controlled housing in the Pico neighborhood. You have the lowest income residents in the city of Santa Monica in the Pico neighborhood, which abuts Bergamot, because Bergamot is literally built where the old factory was, that the majority of the Pico neighborhood worked in. And now we're going to put, we're telling the state that the largest concentration of lower income targets are going to be on the Bergamo site. And we have a community that's suffering right now. We have mental health issues, we have poverty, we have a lot going on in the Pico neighborhood right now because of a already large concentration of people who need significantly more wraparound services that we are not providing. So this document, unfortunately, for me still does not get us where we need to go because it is still putting the majority of the burden in an area that is already historically overburdened. So I just want someone to help me understand why we're not doing more in other one of the new maps that was added and what this shows this is just one of them This is not all of them, but this shows like kind of by we use graduated dots And what those dots represent is sort of the percentage increase in terms of housing units from existing so You know the it's by census tract, but it's a little So, you know, it's by census tract, but it's a little misleading, I think, in the middle parts because it is that census tract kind of straddles, like, either side. This is based on this. This is suitable sites index, right? So this is going to mostly end up being inclusionary, affordable, not 100% affordable because these aren't going to be on city-owned sites. Correct, yeah. Yeah, and I think if you're talking about this, this is just overall, like, the terms of compare. Like what we have right now. Yeah, so this is what HGDS just to do. They're like, we want to see the comparison between existing households, you know, and number of units that you're adding. We don't have the breakdown and income category. So this is just a difference in overall numbers is what the dots represent. And then there's numbers below that represent that breakdown between low moderate and market. And you do see, I think to answer your question about the city own site in terms of identification of the art center as a site. Certainly, Council could make a different choice if you wanted about another city-owned site. That is an option that you have. It does have ramifications for capacity. We would need to identify a different city on site. And if we can't, we probably need to take a pause to go back and do the work again to see where else we can find that if we lose a city on site. Like the biggest one. Right, so that is an idea. The capacity calculations for the city on sites were based on that 150 units per acre, again based on just the reality. So it wasn't sort of thinking through like where it's located. It was just like here's the capacity, you know, for the point you made to Council Member Negratte. I mean, if it's donation of a city on site and all the incentives are there, potentially they could do eight or ten stories and a steel construction if it penciled as being. Yeah, yeah. And I think the reason I wanted to show this is just that you see the dots. Like there are, it is not solely concentrated in that area. There's actually the substantial amount is actually like north of Colorado, you know, in terms of grouping and in downtown. And we've even started to bleed into, you know in terms of grouping and in downtown and we've even started to bleed into in the sort of like north of Wilshire neighborhoods in terms of by census tract and also south of Ocean Park, you know in the in some of the other areas of the city like north and south You know, so this was just something you know mapping that we had done based on what's in the SSI? So that's kind of just showing you merically least, you know, how the distribution is. It isn't, you know, I just fully concentrated. Yeah, I just were you and we're not like distributing housing into areas that were more intended to be for housing, you know, in just town. No, but downtown, I get it, but it wasn't originally like, like, we're, you know, in downtown. No, but downtown, I get it, but it wasn't originally, like, we're, you know, we've got our biggest dots in downtown. We're like, yes, we can build up, we can do all of these things downtown, but like, we know that we have like these great neighborhoods that accommodate families and people. And a lot of those neighborhoods already have pre-existing parks and a lot of those neighborhoods already have good schools that are walkable. And I just, I feel like we're. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, that certainly is, that's a discussion for this council to have certainly. And it's not a popular one. I get it. Yeah, and it's not, I mean, I think that's, again, that's a discussion that you can have. That was not the direction that we had heard from prior council actions. I hear you on that. I just wanted to share this. This is objectively showing where the data is landing right now, which is the distribution kind of like across you know many census tracts. Just a quick follow up on that this data is just talking about where we're at now moving forward right. No no this is this is actually what is un proposed in the housing element. No I know but but but do you have a document showing the sort of the cumulative impact like like what where has most of the affordable housing been placed? And then the plans moving forward so that we can see like which neighborhoods already have sort of let's say, you know, a fair share of affordable housing that we were talking about where we're putting, you know, this affordable housing. And then what would be the impact if we implement this plan that's before us tonight so that we can see sort of the full extent of where we're placing the affordable housing within the city. Yeah, there is mapping of where the existing affordable housing is and it is spread throughout the city. The actual figure number kind of escapes me. I don't know if you have it Rachel. Map 2.2 on page 42. Map 2.2 on page 42 shows the location of all the existing affordable housing in the city. I'm giving you a pointer because somebody has a pointer. Oh, yes. A pointer? I've got a pointer here. Oh, you need it. Yeah, that's the one from the other. Oh, no, somebody has asked. Are we pointing out? Oh, okay. Thanks. I don't need it. Yeah, that's the one. Oh, no. Are we pointing out? Oh, okay. Thanks. Come on. I want to just sit. I just want to sit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A guy is we aren't, I'm sorry. We are not side talking. We're speaking only publicly. Council Member Daila Twerp. So I just, are you done councilwoman McGowan? Because if you have some more, because I like what you're saying. So come on, keep on going. I was saying as we all turn the same line. How did you say it? You have some more? Or I'll pick you back. I'll jump in to back you up. Okay. So along the lines of what Councilwoman with the Council was talking about, you know, one question that I have, because what I've seen so far in terms of like the increase of moderate and you know, even moderate and meeting income housing production has exacerbated sort of the overall cost of housing in the city. It's not like the prices have gone down throughout the years. It is what it is. And so I'm really concerned that in terms of implementing this plan, what's the impact on housing costs and gentrification in you know, in communities like the Pico neighborhood, where the fear of displacement, you know, a lot of residents feel that the writings on the wall, that low income families are being displaced, and so what answer do we have to that, you know, in terms of implementing this plan, have we sort of tested it for sort of what it, what it might do in terms of displacing long-term renters increasing you know housing costs overall which yeah so I put this map up because again there is no upzoning proposed in our multi-unit residential neighborhoods which is where nearly all of our rent control units are located. There are rent control units in our commercial zones. They definitely are there and you can see that, you know, on this table, the ones that are not surrounded by the red blocks are the ones that are outside of those residential neighborhoods, but 97% of them are there. So in terms of, you know, the city has very strong programs to the extent, you know, allowable by law, you know, in terms of tenant protections and housing assistance and anti-displacement measures, you know, we, and, you know, there's zoning code provisions, you know, to the, to the, to the extent that that is, you know, something that is appropriate for land use because obviously in C Oscar we have this discussion before land use is not the panacea, it's not the solution to gentrification and to displacement. There are many, many factors that contribute to gentrification and inside displacement. And zoning is not it all by itself. There's a variety of factors, and there's been demographic shifts on what had you that happened over decades. And when you look at Berkeley, actually, has a displacement project. They've done mapping of this over the years of every city. And when you look at Santa Monica's map, I don't have it in front of me today. I'm sorry, but we've looked at it throughout this housing element process. Santa Monica is very much in that sort of like advanced gentrification state, right? But it doesn't mean, and I think I say that to sort of highlight the approach here is that, we really couldn't rely on all of those macro data sources. We had to look at local factors in Santa Monica's situations within our borders. And that's based on the fair housing analysis that was done in April of 2020. And so the housing elements very much relies on that analysis. And one of the key goals out of that was, we need to produce more affordable housing. We need to support more affordable housing. And it's very much continuing the things that the city does. To try and preserve the people that are here, preserve the residents, that are already here through all of these housing preservation programs that the city has done for many, many decades. And then looking forward, how can we continue to make Santa Monica home for the thousands, tens of thousands of workers that commute in the city every day. They have a place in Santa Monica too. And so that's sort of like in the big picture, that is the approach that the housing element takes. I hear certainly Councilmember McAllen's concern about city-owned sites sites and where you select those are certainly choices of city is making. That's certainly for the Council's discussion. If that is in fact a direction you want to give us, we would probably have to go back to look at what that means for the SSI. What other sites there are to make up that capacity? So this is, may I ask a follow-up on that for a minute? So, let's say we all think that council member, a delitory is, and Mayor Pro Temma-Calender, right, and that Bergamot's not the right, or whatever, right? But we put it in here, right? Because we have an identified another site and frankly I can't imagine what would be that large, maybe you can tell me, but I can't think of anything offhand. You can't count the airport. We can't touch the airport yet. So for right now we're right, you get it. I mean, I get what we're looking at but for right now we have Burma and recessions. And that really is the only thing that law, I mean, is the only thing that big in the city other than the DMV. I mean, if we could convince the state, go up to Sacramento, get the state to give us that, you know, I mean, but basically this is what we have. But this is really, and I know what the housing commission said, and I know what other people are saying that this is just a paper exercise, and for some people it may be. But you understand that I'm committed to this affordable housing, to keeping people in place. And for me, this is more than a paper exercise. But in terms of what we're saying is going to happen on these city sites, I mean you've heard the issues with Main Street, you hear the issues with Bergamond. I think that after we're out of our current crunch, we can think about in 2028 whether the airport's available because it might be right or whatever. You understand what I'm saying? But for right now, this is what we have. And if we didn't have this, then we'd have to add how many, I mean, this is the issue. We'd have to make up those 1800 affordable units through inclusionary, which means our upzoning would be out of this world. So what I'm saying to you is that I think that right now we're in this position. I believe that there are things that we need to do to help people who live here who won't be able to stay here if we don't help them with rental assistance and other things that we need to create more affordable units. But my follow-on is really what's the alternative to Bergamon and where are you going to put those 1800 units because I'm not seeing an escape. And if I could just add a data point that the team let me know in terms of basically in Pico neighborhood it's about 7% of the capacity is being assigned to PICO. So he said 7%. What is, I'm sorry, 7% is what? 7% of the overall capacity in the SSI is assigned to PICO. So it's not the majority by... Yeah, no, I understand that because there's a differentiation between PICO and Bergamo for the purposes of this. How this... You should, you should, you had no. I can't, I don't want to. Conceation between Pico and Bergamot for the purposes of this how this You should you should you should know Yeah, oh as part you counted Bergamot and so this the total the 707 is this by census tract right? The 707 plus every other SSI identified in this So, I just had a little side conversation excuse me. I broke the rules with Council member Negretti, but but it. Well, just disclose it all. Well, no, I am. I'm going to disclose it right now. No, I want to talk about it because she said, well, it's only 7% and people are going to be going to the P.O.A. Great. Great. So I just had a little side conversation. But it will just disclose it all. Well, no, I am. I'm going to disclose it right now. No, I want to talk about it because she said, well, it's only 7% and pico. And I go, yeah, that's because poor people know what I said. I said, what is it now? Yes, what is the affordable housing now? And the affordable housing is different than the number of poor people. Because most people are living in not affordable housing is different than the number of poor people because most people are living in not affordable housing rent controller otherwise and live and and paying more than 50% those are the 10,000 people Probably pay more than 50% of their income towards friend because they're struggling to keep their heads above water but I think the real point here is we tried to protect picot And we've done this intentionally and you know this because there was that PICO plan and we thought it would be gentrifying so we backed off of that and PICO was staying pretty much the same because we understand that increasing number you know density and height and PICO will gentrify it even more, just like those hundred foot wide restaurants would have, right? So, yeah. No, and I think, you know, and credit goes to the Peacorn Able Association and its leadership, you know, for pushing back because the city had that plan. And to me, so is that like credit to me? No, not to me. I'm just saying there's an organization that's been there, started by African-American leadership out of first-day meat church by the sea on 19th and Michigan. And throughout the years, you know, this organization is continued and they've been strong advocates. And so if not for their pushback, we would have had up-soned, you know, people boulevard. And to the point of like, well, you know, the comment being made that, you know, we're up-sounding mostly on the commercial sort of away from residential To protect people the reality is what I've seen is that you know more density on commercial impacts residential Like there's there's you know you can't separate the two there's there's an impact and so when you say more More density on commercial Up zoning up zoning. What are you referring to something specific? No, I'm just, you know, specifically looking at more density on people, boulevard, for example, you know, that was the plan with the- Well, originally, but it didn't go through. It didn't go through. I know we understand. So, I recognize that. And that was good policy. You know, this, this bias made good policy to protect, and listen to the residents and protect those residents. And that's something that we, the writings still on the wall. I mean, the housing markets in Santa Monica just keeps on getting more expensive. It doesn't seem like we can build ourselves into a place of affordability. But I think more importantly, what I wanted to understand a couple of affordability, but I think more importantly, what I wanted to understand a couple of other things. One response in terms of the difference between Bergamont and where we can go, I know the papermate building, the Heinz project, that got shot down. Obviously we know the history behind that. But has there been any discussion? All they have now is just, it seems like it's this office space. But has there been any discussion on a proposal now that the state laws have changed and really haven't incentivized the creation of housing? Any discussion with the private ownership regarding sort of what the paper made building might become in the future? And can it include more housing there? I mean it certainly could you know the developer who pursued originally hines sold the property to another owner who created the pen factory so the creative office building you see there now they invested quite a bit of money in it. We haven't heard interest from them in pursuing any other project on there other than what they have now. You can see here what's being proposed as to try and incentivize housing. We've heard that in terms of trying to, properly understand the Bergamot area plan, you've tried to do housing that the standards that are there right now are just untenable. Um, you know, they don't, they don't pencil out, um, for them. And so, you know, what's proposed is substantially more incentives for housing. So that 4.084 feet, which, you know, is right around the expo station. It's right on that Olympic spine. It's something that makes sense and then with a transition to the neighborhood. So we have not heard from that property owner, but I think the desire is that with these higher standards, it will incentivize or at least trigger some interest in redevelopment to housing if they ever choose to go that route. Yeah, I think it'd be worth a phone call to see if there's a partnership there. In terms of water usage, it seems to me a big contradiction that the state is imposing restrictions. There's a drought. And it seems like we're not getting out of that situation. It's just very cyclical. We were just in the same place a few years back and now we have to do water conservation efforts. It seemed like a big contradiction. The states telling us and many other cities build and build more. And it seems like it's a contradiction with the current sort of environmental conditions that we're faced with. Do you, is there any pushback that we can have? I think it's like it's a contradiction with the current sort of environmental conditions that we're face with. Do you, is there any, any pushback that we can have, in terms of that issue? In terms of water? Correct. Or other infrastructure needs that this housing will impact. Yeah, I mean, that's not really, I'm not remembering precisely, you know, in housing element law, but the exemptions, you know, and I'm just thinking even just a rena allocation process, like what would qualify, you know, to appeal your numbers and what would actually reduce it down, like, you know, there was one, first of all, there were only like, I only two or three appeals granted, maybe in two of them were technical errors. And the one that stands out to me that I remember was I had to do with, I think it was Pico Rivera, because they included land that was in what was identified as a potential dam rupture zone by the Army Corps of Engineers. So it's a high bar in terms of the things that could be exempt. But I think it has to be at a higher level. I can tell you that we've heard a lot of these conversations from other cities that have also had the same concerns about water. They're saying pretty much what you're saying, which is, you know, we're asked to build housing, but where is the water coming from? Unfortunately, I don't think they're making any headway with that, you know, and so I mean, I think we are, you know, we are recognizing that we are in a severe drought situation. I think from the state's perspective, is that by building housing closer to infrastructure and within cities and urban areas, you're helping the water situation because you're not building them in suburban areas and rural areas where it requires more infrastructure for them to bring water in. Okay. And just a question on, you know, the tenant ownership rights charter amendment, the Torca. So, you know, the concept of creating from tenants and renters, home owners. I don't really, I can't find in the document, you know, except for us mentioning that that's what we've done in the city of Santa Monica and there was a voter-approved amendment to that original Torca. But there's no real mention of a plan of us having a plan to do that type of creative, you know, strategy to have renters, you know, become owners of their properties. Is there a reason why we're not doing that specifically, even though the city has a track record of doing it in the past? So that was a discussion that the council had. I want to say in March maybe. And I have to look up the staff report but we did provide information about the Torca program and basically down payment assistance. we looked at different programs. It really depends on funding and where the city wants to direct limited resources. With the Torker program, that was a very complex program and it continues to be to the state. It was something that was enacted by charter amendment in the late 80s, early 90s, right? And allowed people to, it wasn't the tenants that selected it, it was the property owner that chose to self-opped into that program to convert their apartment buildings and the condos and then people were given the option to purchase. I think the information we provided to you was that we've seen some kind of negative results from that program actually while some people were able to purchase their homes in a lot of cases, the remaining tenants who did not participate with a non-participating tenants were harassed out of their units. We continue to deal with ramifications of Torco to this day. Even the program has long-sensited. So there in, I'm sort of paraphrasing all of that, but this is in conversations with our housing division colleagues and our city attorney colleagues who administer that program and know a farmer about it than I do You know that that probably isn't a Something that we would recommend you know to to repeat again, you know given all of the that the sort of you know being able to look back at this point 30 years, you know as to the results of that but We did provide information because there was interest earlier in this housing element process about assistance for home ownership and cities that have done that. There are programs kind of like the county and the state, but it's only for qualifying households, typically lower income households. We've seen very, very limited. We tried to look at other cities and who do this. for qualifying households, typically lower income households. We've seen very, very limited. We try to look at other cities and who do this. It's quite limited in terms of cities that do it. They typically have a dedicated funding source, or they might contract with someone. But I think that the real challenge is like, where do you find that funding? And if we were to take, in terms of our local dollars, we have local housing trust fund dollars, we have housing dollars, right? And I think the question is, what's the biggest bang for your buck? Are you going to take that pot of money and allow two people to buy a home? Are you going to help 100 households find housing in Santa Monica? So that's sort of the cost benefit analysis. It's just real estate is expensive in Santa Monica. That's a fact. And so in order to assist people to purchase homes in Santa Monica, it's much more an investment than it would be in other parts of California. Kind of like the same assessment with like building affordable housing for homeless individuals where it's much more costly to do it here than other parts, you know, in the region. And so I've heard that argument be made as well. But I think though it's important for us to sort of, we talk about low income people and supporting low income people. And I'm 100% in support of helping low income people. But to make them dependent and to not provide an opportunity for them to create generational wealth, I think, is not really helping low income people. I want to seek that program out. I know that there was problems in the past, but this is a very creative city. We're innovators and we're unique in that regard. And I want us to reflect on, you know, the mistakes of the past, but maybe there's a Torca 2.0 an opportunity, you know, for us to get it right, you know, to fix the problems with the old Torca and figure out how we might be able to move forward in some of those areas. I mean, I mean, personally, I'll speak for myself, but I feel that that's part of the solution to poor people's problems in our country. The last question I had was around zoning and reflecting on sort of even like look Bergamon area and we talk about the Gelsen's Galicins project, you know, these massive sort of buildings because, you know, people have now, you know, the, they're incentivized, you know, to develop like that. On public property, it's a little different. We have a little bit more influence, you know, over those projects. But in terms of zoning, can we put, because that's the next phase, right? You're gonna, your staff's gonna get back and start looking at sort of some zoning changes that we should consider to make this plan work. And I'm thinking in terms of green space, like protecting that green space or creating those types of community benefits or amenities. Do you envision that you can work those types of, those protections or those amenities, you know, through zoning, even like the concept of having units, let's say apartment buildings with three bedrooms, you know, so that families can raise children in our city. Do you foresee that those types of issues can be addressed through zoning or how can we accomplish those goals? I mean, the zoning code has development standards for open space and for private open space, you know, percentage of like within the downtown even there's, you know, percentage requirements, you know, based on the size of the site for what needs to be open space. Now, everyone's definition of open space is different. I recognize that, you know, but that is an existing standard. We also have standards for unit mix, you know, that are in the zoning code. And, you know, thus far projects that have been built or have been approved have that unit mix going forward again because this is the impact of state density bonus law. Somebody could use as one of their, what are called concessions under state density bonus law to say I don't wanna do that unit mix because it is, you know is a constraint on my housing project. Basically, it adds, I don't want to do three better units. I want to do more one-bedroom units in order to support the amount of affordable housing that I'm required to do in this project. So, yes, we can establish those standards and they are standards in the zoning code already. Certainly there could be improvements of those, but we have to be mindful not only of the what state density bonus law allows, but also constraints under existing housing law, just housing legislation, there's SB 330 that does not allow the city to down-zone and that sort of, you know, what the state views as down-zoning is very broad. So if you were to change development standards, even though you were trying to pursue, like you're saying, these sort of more open space or more amenities, if that results in potentially reducing the capacity for housing on a site, they would look at that negatively. You know, they would define that as down-zoning. You know, so I think all of that can be explored, you know, but our ability to sort of implement, you know, all of these, you know, what would be viewed as constraints on housing, you know, is rather limited. But I did want to share at least, we do have those standards in the code they do exist. Great one. If there's any way that I just want to register my concern that building all this density without giving tenants, we're talking about renters at this point, an opportunity to have some breathing room, to not be so clustered. I mean, the quality of life and the experience of living in those buildings, I mean, it should be considered as well, you know. Yeah, you know, we are actually going through, we have a, we got a grant through the SKAG, that is a project that's called the Objective Design Standards Project, and it's focused primarily on Bergamot, Because Bergamot has kind of a very complex set of design and development standards in it and they're very hard for the community to understand, very hard for staff in the applicant to even implement. And the purpose of that is really creating objective standards around design of buildings essentially. And so we're going to learn a lot through that process. And hopefully I think come out better on the other end of it to address the things that you're raising in terms of how do we get the kinds of things that we want out of buildings, but write it into code. Things that we've done through a consultation and influencing projects. How do we make that into written code? And, you know, I think we're just sort of starting that process now that'll run through, you know, kind of next summer in terms of the work on that grant. Thank you. Thanks. So I had an opportunity to speak to some of planning staff earlier, but I wanted an opportunity for us to talk about it openly here so that the community can hear some of the great discussions we had. And one of them had to do around some of the rezoning that's gonna have to take place in order to accommodate the housing element and some of order to accommodate the housing element and some of the amendments to the housing element. And so I know that as we're looking forward and creatively on different ways to create affordable housing, I know we were also trying to look at different ways to preserve the quality of life for existing residents. So creatively, you know, you looked at different ways to bring housing into like commercial corridors. And so some of those ways was to allow housing in commercial or other areas. And so talked us a little bit about some of the up-soning or rezoning, I should say, that is being talked about, for example, in the office campus, industrial, creative, and then also would allow for potentially some adaptive reuse, correct? Yeah. So you can see that this map here in the purple circles show we're housing multi-unit housing is actually prohibited right now. The industrial conservation zone, you can see in the middle there. That is, that's the dot there, that one there. That's the IC zone. I like IC, I do not know. Here is the, yeah. I don't know if you can see it. This is the OC is the office campus zone. So, that's like the business park by the airport primarily. And then you can see here the conservation creative sector, which is a little blip kind of like north of Olympic in the Bergamot area. So, those are areas where actually housing is not and allowed use. So, that what's proposed is to make it a permitted use. In all of the areas of the city and our commercial zones housing is already a permitted use. So that's not a big change. And then you can see here that in terms of, we're housing hasn't been accommodated in the past. What we're calling that. These are areas where the standards were, for example, these are all the NC zones. Right now it's 1.0 FAR cannot support housing with 1.0 FAR in the NC zone. So that's why you see a rezoning of those areas in addition to the rest of the city. So it's not exclusive to those areas. Every commercial zone in the city is going to experience up-zoning. As part of this process, and that's this map here, you can see kind of like citywide, other than downtown on Bergamot, showing what those proposed standards would be in different parts of the city. This is sort of a very broad view, because obviously there's different zones on boulevards. It's more nuanced, but it'd be a very cluttered map, I think, if we tried to put all the standards on there. Right. And most of my questions have been answered already, but one of the other concerns that we all had, and we spoke about, was this regarding the city sites. So we talked about 1800 units and city sites and those would affect eight city sites. And I spoke to you in particular regarding the 4th and 5th street site. And according to the summer here, it said that it would accommodate approximately 300 and something units. And so my concern there was if it did accommodate those types that that many units, would there still be space for open space? And some other community benefits as we had envisioned and something that we had talked about in the past. And then if you could talk to us a little bit about what that conversation in tail. I mean, I think, you know, in terms of wanting to reserve space for open space, I think that's part of, you know, the future development of that site or whether proposals we get, you know, for the site, there may be someone who comes forward that's able to do that minimum of you, number of units and also open space and the council kind of identifies that as an objective of the site in addition to the affordable housing. You know so theoretically yeah it could we we didn't kind of get down to that granular level on each on each of these city on sites it was really based on the size of the parcel based on 150 units per acre. Like this is the capacity that it could have, but we didn't go ahead and design any one of these. It just, so the conversation also went on to say that it was basically, that the Council still can give direction about open space, about first floor ground leases, about what they would like to see there. And I think that that's something that's very important for people to feel and know. For city-owned sites that Council still has and the city still has a lot of conversations going on. But the Council still has a lot of discretion about what can and cannot go on those sites. And I think that's really important. Another thing that was equally important, and I said, you know, in a perfect world, 100 percent housing will be, you know, developed throughout the city. And we may not have to use all of the city sites for 100% of affordable housing. And so if that were the case as discussed earlier we could come back and amend the housing element. Correct. You could in theory. In theory we could do that. Well I told you in my perfect world that we could come back and we could do that. And then last but certainly not least you know I have to say that I'm in complete agreement with what council member McCown said in terms of Bergamont Center. As someone that was adversely affected by the maintenance yard and you're gonna hear me say it for the next three years, it's kind of upsetting to me to hear apartments in affordable. And I'm all for affordable housing. There very good idea to have an opportunity to come up with a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. I'm not sure if it's a plan. instead of a 24 hour seven day a week maintenance yard that we get to hear at two, three, four, and five in the morning, where people live. And so that maintenance yard should have been at Fergiton Center and the people's homes should have been where other people are living right now. And so to have this discussion right now about putting houses in a commercial industrial zone over there in place of where a maintenance yard is is very upsetting to me. They should have been over here in the other end where there's other apartments with other people and other families. And so I agree 110% with Council Member Raquel and there's any way to make other changes. I don't want to hold up the house element because I know there's been a lot of work and the reality is that we are in every session right now and who knows theoretically if this, you know, if we're ever going to be able to really build these housing units in the next eight years. But yeah, my piece. Thank you. I think you're up Councilmember Davis. All right. Thank you. Well, I do want to echo all the planning staff. I know a tremendous amount of work has gone into this and you probably, you know, have HCD on speed dial. And I'm sure they have you on speed dial as well. But I do have some, unfortunately, I apologize. And you know this because I sent you an email with many of them. I do have a fair number of questions. But let me pick up a little bit on some of the discussions that have already gone before. And one of them has to do with the issue of building affordable housing on city sites. because there are a couple of notable city sites that aren't included in your list up there. I'm just going to identify one, which is the big blue bus yards, which is downtown where I think a lot of people agree would be an excellent place for housing. It is literally a block from an expo line. And I know that we've invested. I'm sure Ed King, if he's listening to this, is at home sticking his gleamed Davis foodoo doll with pins. I know we've invested a lot of money in that site, but obviously a lot of, a lot of arena and this whole housing element thing is upending a lot of what we've done in the past. And so I'm just wondering, does anyone given any thought, for example, to the Big Blue Bus site, which to me would be a perfect place for housing, perhaps better than putting it in the Pico neighborhood. We did, and I am not, it's something to do with. Yeah, I mean, it's just a process to find another maintenance yard and to find a nut. It would take a long time. And so given this short cycle that we have already in 2022, we didn't think that when I'm looking at that site that it would be feasible for this cycle period but perhaps maybe in the next because there doesn't need to be an alternative site found for the big blue bus. Okay. All right. Thanks. I appreciate that. And then we have talked about the city sites and what they, you know, and I just want to clarify what would be the process for any city site? Would we have to go through the surplus land, ZAC process or could we do a direct RFP, which for example could say we want X number of housing units, but we want to maintain X number of ground level space for open space or maybe at fourth and fifth in Arizona for the beloved ice rink that everyone seems to forget about or whatever. I mean, so I'm curious what kind would we sort of be at the mercy of the surplus lands actor would be able to do an RFP that could include open space requirements and things like that? I think I can be the one who would address that. I think you can just, if you have a affordable housing on it, I don't think you have to. Well, surplus land Act does emphasize housing, but also open space and green space is part of what is emphasized also. So presumably we could say we want to put 100% affordable housing in a fourth and fifth and Arizona, but we also want to make sure that whatever gets developed there leaves, adequate open space for a public plaza, some green space, ice rink, whatever the council decides. Okay, great, thank you. And I do want to address the issue of the drought because people always, you know, are worried about where we're going to get the water. And the people that we're talking about building this housing for, if we don't build the housing for them, they're not going to vaporize, right? They're just going to live somewhere else, which is probably also in a drought cycle. I mean, because if they have a job in Santa Monica, but they can't afford a house in Santa Monica, then they're going to live in Alhambra or Chino Hills or Palmdale or Lancaster, and all of which are affected by that. I mean, you can go all the way to Texas and you're still gonna be affected by the drought. So isn't that, oops, I apologize so much. Isn't that really part of the issue that, even though we're saying, well gee, we have concerns about building housing and having infrastructure. The people, if we don't build the housing for them, are not going to go away. They're just going to be a drain on infrastructure on water resources somewhere else, correct? Yeah, and that was, this was at your conversation that was had during the arena allocation process. And you'll see like there was, the reason that our numbers are high, actually, and this is the case for all of the coastal cities, was there was a shift away from Riverside County, and other sort of the Fort Desert communities in SKAG. It was really looking at it from that bigger picture, smart growth perspective. If you're going to add, if there's the population, like you said, they if there's the population, like you said, they're not leaving the state. Where will people live? Where will these workers live? Who can't afford to live? Is it sustainable to have them continue to commute from Realtto and communities for the East or do we look at trying to make a correction for allowing people to have a chance to live closer to where they work. So that sort of perspective was discussed as part of the renal allocation process. And actually it's a climate change issue as well because if people live in Realtto and work in Santa Monica and they're on the 10 or the 60 freeway coming in. They're more likely than not in an internal combustion engine, spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, whereas if they can live in the same city in which they work, they can walk by, take transit, that sort of thing, isn't that true? Okay, so I forgot, and I apologize in advance. You know, I remain very concerned about the concept of affirmatively furthering fair housing. But let me start with this. So the programs that specifically address that are 4E, which are the SB9 duplex slash lots bits, blitz in one parcels above 10,000 square feet. And then for F, which is some metrics, you know, we are hoping to have, I think, what is it, 46 units a year or something like that? And that sort of corresponds to our prediction about ADU's built in the R1 district, is that right? Right, but I do wanna emphasize, it's not the AF5H, the way HCD reviews it, it's not just those two programs. They's not the AF5H, the way HCD reviews it is not just those two programs. They actually looked at AF5H like permeating across every single program. So they actually reviewed every program like just except for a handful and they gave us kind of like, you know, as she kind of assessing each one and they were looking sort of like at four main things, you know, one like we mentioned was the metrics, like do you have a metric, you know, for the program you have here, is there any geographic targeting, is there a timing component in, you know, what's the commitment level? And, you know, from, and they were looking at it from the perspective of AFFH from, does it address these areas that they've defined in the guidebook in terms of, it was like housing mobility does it increase, housing choice and affordability or increase, it's that where they use the housing opportunity and high opportunity areas. And it was, the reason it's different in Santa Monica, as I've said, is our city is actually defined as a high and highest opportunity, but the whole city is a high opportunity area. So they were basing it kind of on our local analysis, which we provided a lot in our housing element. But it's not just those programs. It's every program was assessed, for how does it meet the goals of AFFH. And as HED said, this will be sufficient. Yes. OK. Because I have to say that, and HCD said, this will be sufficient. Yes. Okay. Because I have to say that, and from my perspective, I honestly don't think it is. I have to say, I should caveat like yes, positive feedback now, but subject to further detailed review in public comment. Sure. Sure. Because I do have serious concerns. And I understand there's a whole range of programs that you're talking about, but the two that are really, shall we say, new to Santa Monica that we haven't been doing otherwise, for example, trying to keep people in their homes and address the issue of rent burden and things like that. And obviously, we have one of the best rent control laws in the country, that sort of thing, all of which obviously I believe contribute to affirmatively furthering fair housing in the generic sense of the term. But, you know, as I see it, there are two real specific programs here and one is on lots over 10,000 square feet. If somebody chooses to use SB9 to build a duplex as opposed to their 15,000 foot mansion that they bought or whatever, then we're going to let them build an ADU. And I know anecdotal evidence is not data, but certainly the people I know who live on those lots who live north of Montana who have been building ADUs while we have seen some enthusiasm for ADUs. Those ADUs are not being put on the open rental market. Are they? We actually don't have great data about what happens to those ADUs. We attempted to get some survey information, didn't get awesome responses, so it's actually hard to know. Yeah, it's, well I will tell you, my experience has been, most of them are either using them as guest houses, offices, gyms, media rooms, none of which in my mind, affirmatively further fair housing, the closest ones that come are some of them are being built for their household staff, which is a good thing, but I'm not really sure that's sufficient for affirmatively furthering fair housing. And so for me, as I look at, and if you put up the map about housing potential by Census Track, you mean the dot one? Yeah, the dot one. The dot one you had up in response to Mayor Pro Temma-Calvin. So I look at this and the interesting thing is, there are two factors reflected here, the darker areas, you know, the darker brown or beige areas are the percentage of low to moderate income population. So the darker the area, the higher percentage of low to moderate income population, correct? That's right, yep. And that's where the biggest dots are. I mean, yes, I know there are dots in other neighborhoods, but the biggest dots are in the neighborhoods that already have the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged people. And the dots north of Montana are very, very tiny. And I really think that when the state imposed the goal of affirmatively furthering fair housing, what they were really talking about was flipping this script. They were talking about how do you look at the truly high resource neighborhoods? And yes, we're talking about the R1. And how do we, and no one's talking about scraping the R1s and building all apartment buildings, but it would really be so horrible. If every year in the R1 neighborhoods, there were two or three multiplexes built, the sixplex and eightplex, a 10plex. Would it destroy the neighborhoods? And I think the answer is no, but what you then would have was more affordable housing in what are the most considered the most desirable areas of our city, moving people into these high resource neighborhoods. And all you have to do is talk to people at the school district. And I'm sure Councilmember De La Torre knows that. The inter-district permits are people moving from will Rogers and Mirror to Franklin and Roosevelt, the North of Montana schools. And if we could move some families into that North of Montana neighborhood, so they could go to those schools, to me, that would be a really good thing. That's what we're talking about moving people into high resource neighborhoods and affirmatively furthering fair housing. And I think this map sums it up best. We're going to build the most housing where the already rent burdened, already economically disadvantaged people are, and we're going to build the least amount of housing where the rich people are. And to me, that is not affirmatively furthering fair housing. And I can't support for E&F as being a solution to that problem. Second issue, parking requirements. I asked you in an email why not just get rid of minimum parking requirements in the city of San Diego for example they did and they found that they got a real boom in housing but most importantly the housing that was being built was a lot of missing middle housing because parking every parking space as we've all heard, dozens of times, depending on who you talk to, cost between 25 to 75, and now maybe even $100,000 to build. If you can take that kind of cost out of each unit, you can charge less rent, or in the case if you want to do home ownership, a lower price for that. And the response you gave me, which I'm not criticizing, you're absolutely right, is that the council didn't want to do that. Was that correct? I mean, there's no legal reason that we have to have parking minimums in the city. Is that correct? No, yeah. I mean, in fact, many cities like San Diego have removed them. Yeah, I mean in our downtown there's the minimum parking. Right. So the point I want to make here is that I view parking requirements as a constraint on housing. But what's really the constraint on housing here with all due respect to my colleagues is our political will. Our political will to do the things that will cause more housing to be built. We could tonight give you direction to say take all the parking minimums out. Now I know we won't. I understand that. But I just want to make it clear that the decisions we're making are not oh gosh you know the state won't let us remove parking minimums. Those are affirmative decisions that we are making that are in fact placing constraints on housing. So let's talk about density bonus law. As I understand it from our email exchange, we are going to maintain the 555 requirement, 5% very low income, 5%. Well, I may not be getting the terminology wrong, 5% low income, 5% moderate. Is that correct? Yeah, 5% very low, five low. And one of the other goals of this housing element was, you mentioned bringing our local ordinances in harmony with state density bonus law because there's been some tension between the two. And I asked, doesn't the 555 requirement create some issues because under state density bonus law, someone could say, I want to do 15% very low income and I want to then invoke my rights under state density bonus law but we would say fine but you still also have to do the 5% low income and the 5% moderate right which now means they're really doing 25% deed restricted affordable housing not the 15% they want to do, which may make the project infeasible. And that's my question. Is have we, and the answer may be yes, I just don't remember, and I couldn't dig out the old HRNA study. Have we done a feasibility study that shows if we use that 555 configuration that we will not be creating a constraint on building housing using state density bonus law. Yeah, that was what was modeled in the feasibility analyses was the 555. You know, we've actually subsequent to October, so in the intervening period we've done a lot of research actually on inclusionary ordinances as we were Revising the HPP we actually got pretty far along on those changes and that sort of approach of Dividing up the inclusion requirement isn't at all unusual across the state And we found at least 30 examples of cities in Northern and Southern California, you know, that do that. You know, so this is something that I'm sure we could find more if, you know, we went through it, but that was at least as we were just looking at, you know, modernizing, bringing up best practices, you know, for inclusionary ordinances, you know, that's kind of what we found. Well, I understand that other cities have done that. That does a little different than my question. A lot of cities have done a lot of things that have not necessarily been conducive to building more housing. So we don't think that if someone comes in and says, I want to build 15% very low income units and then I want to take advantage of state density bonus law that imposing that they build an additional 10% because that's what it effectively be. 10% de-restricted affordable housing would make the project infeasible. We don't think that would be a problem. Well, that's something they're voluntarily choosing to do. Their obligation is only 15% divided among five. And I think, you know, it's important to remember kind of the policy reason, you know, that the council went for that is because, you know, so that we could get units at all income levels, because there were other discussions on the table in terms of, you know, having it favored towards like moderate income, or should it just be all very low income, or is it, you know, lower income, and, you know, that was kind of weird ended up, you know, in terms of trying to get units at all levels just because arena is at all income levels and moderate income is the one income level that is very difficult actually to find. There's no dedicated funding source. It comes almost exclusively through inclusionary housing. that we're going to be able to get to the point where we're going to be able to get to the point where we're going to be able to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we're going to get to the point where we raised the inclusionary numbers and then we didn't get any housing. And true, we got the bond. It's not that it is. We got the bonds, but the bonds is a super big project on a single parcel thing that in what we did did not generate a lot on single parcels. We didn't generate a lot of housing and we had the experience or watch the experience in San Francisco where they actually reduced their inclusionary requirements because they weren't getting help. In terms of setting this requirement, the FIRs that are being proposed are not infeasible. We modeled the feasibly analysis based on these assumptions. So the FIRs that are being set are very feasible already absent because we cannot account for state density bonus. We're not allowed to account for that capacity and the SSI. So the results, you know, that analysis have to be feasible by definition. So, you know, it would be feasible for someone to pursue that project. If they choose to avail themselves of state density bonus law. They're allowed to do that, and they're allowed to request all of the bonuses and incentives, concessions and waivers that are allowed under state law for that. And under state density bonus law, if they use our 555 model, don't they get more the same or fewer concessions and opportunities to build? They would get the largest percentage under state density bonus, though. So in this case, it would be based on probably that it's a 5% very low, which is the 20% bonus for the project. OK. And let me hang on. The program to be the right of first refusal to nonprofits and you already spoke about this a little bit. And I gather we're still thinking about this. But is there any reason not to grant it throughout the city, including in existing R1 zones, for example? I don't see. I mean, I don't think we've gotten to that level yet, but I don't know why there would be a geographic limitation on that. I can't think of a reason why. Okay. And then the prior SSI sites, and I know that there were different numbers floating around and I think we're down to actually, I think 21 sites that were identified in the prior suitable sites inventory that we consider high probability for development is that correct? And I know you have a map that has them broken out but it's the same blue as the other things so I can't where are they? Can you generalize or are they just spread throughout the city? I'm trying to get a sense of that. Because those are the sites that if there's a 20% affordable housing project, boom, it can get built. Because it was identified in the prior cycle. So. I'm just trying to figure out where we, I mean, because it seems to me, those would be the easy, peasy projects. That's kind of what we're looking for. Yeah. They're kind of spread out. there's 21 sites one I could name as this neither diamond site. There's a few on Wollshere. There's a couple of grocery stores off of Wollshere that are the prior as the site sites. There's mostly off of Colorado and Lincoln and a couple on 50th Street. Okay. All right. So there's spread somewhat throughout the city. They're not in the Pico neighborhood. I would say so. It's M-U-B-L-N-V. No, not in Picos. M-U-B-L-N-V downtown, so mostly. All right, so I mean, because I look at that map and at least no matter how big I made it on my computer, I could not discern the difference in the colors. I wouldn't be able to. They're all the same color. Okay. All right. I'm not crazy then. Actually, on the website we'll update it, but the website should be interactive and so which when you actually click on a site, I'll tell you which category it is. Okay. And so we'll make sure it's updated by tomorrow. Yeah, because I think since those sites are in a, have a particular status, namely 20% affordable boom, start building, put your shovel in the ground. That I would like to know where they are. And I think people would like to know where they are because they're probably likely to be among the first sites that are developed if the owners are so inclined. And then my last question and I guess this is maybe I guess more of a generic question. So if this draft housing element is submitted to HCD and assuming that they give us a conditional approval or whatever it is and the October 15th deadline, I understand that's the current state of the law. I also understand there's at least one potential, a lot legal challenge, not challenge, but it's being proposed in the state legislature to extend that. Do we have any sense about how likely we are to get that extension? It's for all the SCAG cities as I understand it. Boy, we've tried. I think all we can say on that is it's going, it's making its way through the process and it'll, we've definitely had conversations with everybody who's been part of drafting that legislation. I don't know that it's had to any great effect. There is, you know, there is some conditions, you know, under which that deadline could be extended, unfortunately, like if it's the last version that we saw, I'm not sure it really helps us, which is why we need to continue to pursue this parallel process. But we continue to highlight that we are still very much interested in an extension of that line and to demonstrate good faith efforts to pursue a compliant housing element. We're not giving up on the process, maybe some cities may be in right now. We're not counting our chickens before their hatch. Okay, good. That's always good advice. So I guess my final question is we're obviously, you set forth a number of minimum zoning, and I'll count, they're not rezoning. It's upzoning, proposed upzoning for Wilshire, Santa Monica, some other streets. And the numbers that you put in, those charts, those are the minimums we need to adopt prior to act because if we don't, then we're not going to meet our rena allocation by your analysis or by HCD's analysis, whoever's analysis counts, right? Right, yeah, these represent the rena plus the buffer we were talking about. Right. And I totally understand the buffer because even in the old days, when there were no, there were no hammer connected to the housing element, we never, I mean, it's very hard because you can't predict someone's, you can't make someone turn their car to into housing or their Snyder diamond store into housing or I'll say it, El Cholo into housing. Um, where they're charging lots. Well, that's, yeah, I do lots. In any event, right. So that's my point is we can't, we can't tell private property owners you must build housing here. So, so the buffer is necessary in order to make sure that we, you know, make a good faith effort to meet that. So just hypothetically, so we're all aware of what's coming. When you bring us back zoning standards, this is what we're going to see. And if we don't vote for it by October 15, then you can go to the chart that says all the horrible things that are going to happen to us. Is that correct? I mean, we're out of compliance already. You would be out of compliance again. There would be another trigger. Okay. And then on that chart for compliance, the very first thing you listed is what's commonly known as the Builders Remedy, right? Correct. Yeah, that's the, which is no high-thera-f-a-r restrictions so long as it's 20% affordable. Yes. And doesn't matter what the property is owned for. Is that correct? That is a situation we're in now. Right. Right. So someone could, in theory, not that they're going to, but take a parcel and say I'm going to build a 10-story building, 20% affordable, and there's nothing new city of Santa Monica can do to stop it. Right, I mean, I don't want to I mean they have to they have to meet to see the project You know and I'd like to understand the request, but yeah like they could there there is no it can't exceed zoning and general plan maximums All right, thank you and thank you again for all the hard work on this So I think councilmember nugretti has one point she wants that right no, I just wanted to to we you mentioned point. Is that right? No, I just wanted to, to, we, you mentioned, Council member Davis mentioned parking, and we've talked about it before, and I understand the point being made that more could be built for that, but I just wanted to make a point on a couple of things. We talk a lot about families, and the idea that we, a lot of these buildings aren't suitable for families in terms of the number of bedrooms. And families have a car. Even people who are low income as a matter of fact, I think there's cities that show that most families who are low income have cars because they're working for, they have to take their kids to school to wherever they need to go. And it's just not, we are not like New York City. We have a great transit system, yes, but it is not how some of these bigger cities are, and we just don't travel on trains with our kids. So I think we have to be mindful that, because when I hear no parking, I hear, oh, sure, for a building with one bedrooms and studios, for people who ride their electric scooters around, that totally makes sense. But when we're talking about housing families, we need to consider the constration and the needs that families have. Right, but can I respond to this? Which is when you eliminate parking minimums, you're not saying don't build parking. What you're just saying is you're not imposing a parking minimum requirement. Most buildings that are built in an area where there is no parking minimum, In fact, have parking. They just build less of it. And it saves them money. So no one's talking about, let's not let anybody build parking. All we're talking about is getting rid of the ordinance or statutorily driven minimums that would let the developer decide, gee, in order for me to rent these apartments, I'm going to need one space per unit. So I'm only going to build one space per unit, even though our current standards for some units require you to build too. Or that sort of thing. So it's not no parking. It's just getting rid of the required minimums and letting the person who is developing the property make the decision about how much parking they want to provide. And believe me, if they think not providing any parking will cause people to not live there, they won't build it. But not if they're building for, if it's, if they're trying to put in affordable. Portable has no parking minimums already. That we're not talking about that. But not for the units that are mixed. I'm talking about whether there's a small percentage of affordable units. You're pushing people to park on the street. No, no. Families are going to have to park. You're letting the developer decide how much parking instead of putting arbitrary elements on it. Pushing them more yard. Well, but my point is it's not no parking. You know, 100% affordable projects. There's already no parking minimum. So I mean, I don't, you know, look, Seattle's done this. San Diego's done this. They're not not building parking, but they're building a lot less of it. And more importantly, what they're finding is that their rents are reduced in those buildings because they're not paying a hundred to $100,000 per unit to build more parking than is going to be required. So that's that's the issue. Just provide some like perspective on what we've seen since the DCP because that that is our local experience in terms of no minimum parking requirements. What we've seen is, I don't believe we've yet seen a project that has absolutely no parking in it. In all cases, I think some of the developers actually came forward and were concerned about our parking maximums. Parking requirements weirdly are driven sometimes by the lender, who's establishing, you know, like we want you to build X number of spaces. And again, it speaks to the marketability of that housing unit is what we've heard thus for. That will probably evolve over time, you know, as people kind of figure out whether it works for them. But that's at least, you know, five years out from the DCP adoption. There are no minimum requirements downtown, but pretty much every housing project that's been brought forward since then has parking in it. Right, but there are because I have, I do know of three or four families who have to find parking, and that was a constraint for them because by the time they got into the building, which isn't affordable unit, they did not have parking available for them. they got into the building which is an affordable unit. They did not have parking available for them, including Tracy. We helped to would have to park at the mall. And we have heard from affordable housing providers that they do absolutely need parking on. So I think they understand it is a cost without a doubt, but they do need it, you know, for the tenants in the building. On that note, just as we talk about families and creating quality of life and location, everybody here is most of the council members here have mentioned where it's placed. And council member Davis just mentioned like where the schools are. I mean, I was blessed to go to the schools on the north side from where I was. And just considering the constraints it puts on the Title I schools that are already impacted in those neighborhoods and how we're not looking outside of that, because what ends up happening to those schools is they become, you know, there's less diversity is what ends up happening at the other schools. So I do hope that we look at other areas in terms of where we can put those dots. I understand everything you said about packing it in at larger locations, but on that note, you know, this idea of how far and how tall and how many people can we pack into a place. I go back to quality of life because if this is really about the majority of people who, it's about affordability and providing housing for people who wouldn't otherwise afford to live there, I don't think we should just be thinking about packing everyone in. That's not an ideal place to raise your family with not enough windows, with not enough lights, with not enough open space, and just thinking how many families or people can we stack into a building, these are people, and these are people who we hope will be able to live here and have some sense of quality of life and living in a six, seven, eight story building with kids with a family is to me is that's not the most ideal situation. So I just I just keep hearing like this going bigger and taller so that we can stack more people in there and for more units, which more families, right? and just considering that when we're looking at FAR and height. But anyways, I just wanted to echo the concerns of where these other opportunities to build are as well. Going forward. You know, the maps I showed I just want to note that they don't, like we can't count 80 uses part of our SSI, like the SSI plus 80 uses, it's too speculative to be selecting R1 parcels, you know, as like, oh, here's where an 80 use is going to be. So you don't see that reflected in the maps that I showed, but we do know, you know, it is immensely popular. We're required to allow SB9, SB9 does allow for like lotsplits. And we've had this discussion both at the City Council on Planning Commission is this notion of reducing the cost of housing and opening ownership opportunities. Now it's not affordable ownership, but if it allows you to split, what is currently a 7,500 square foot lot in half? And we are seeing, I mean, just I'll say just from our planning staff's perspective, we're seeing inquiries, there is interest in some homeowners in doing that. And if it makes, in theory, what is a $5 million property, a $2.5 million property, that is not affordable for most people. But it does lower that a little bit. And that is the introduction of some level of additional choice where it wasn't there before. And I think we've talked through in terms of SB 9. It does allow the opportunity, and I hear you on the 10,000 square foot threshold. We don't have to have a number in there. It could just be larger parcels. That's something certainly you could discuss. We don't need to be specific in that program for it to be operative. That could be something you discuss later as part of implementation if you want that flexibility. But we did talk through in our study session about how you get to six units through SB9. The council certainly has choices as to whether you want to allow it concurrently or through a multi-step process. For example, so those are some options on the table that SB9 opens up if you allow it in terms of a combination at PDU SB9 project. I hope we look at Torque opportunities in the future. And I just worry for buildings like my own, I mean, I know art, landlord on multiple buildings. And I, these, the concerns I have with the residents are, you know, all the sub-zoning makes it more attractive to come and buy these really large older apartment buildings who have been paid off, right? There's maybe no mortgage on them anymore. And the relocation, as it stands now, is feasible to move families out. And those apartments are housing income restricted tenants, whether they be senior citizens or families just by way of rent control. And so I hope we consider that when we look at- Pres preservation works. Well, I hope that it works that way and it doesn't become, if we can go this tall and this far out, that it's actually feasible to go ahead and pay people to move. I mean, it's a big reason we pushed back on any notion of upzoning and our residential neighbors. That's never been something that's on the table for our multi-unit residential neighborhoods. You know, that is very, very important housing stock for the city to allow that sort of, you know, this sort of affordability you're talking about, you know, those units turn over. They are, you know, tend to be at that lower price point. They, you know, have multiple bedrooms, they're existing, you know, they have multiple bedrooms. They're existing. They are near parks and schools. And they are our residential neighborhoods. And that's a big part of the fair housing strategy is that I think what you're talking about is sort of, in terms of new bill, we don't want to be waiting into our residential neighborhoods because that displaces the existing folks that are there. And so it's looking at the kind of commercial areas that are around. And so it's looking at the kind of commercial areas that are around it, you know, and opportunities to introduce more housing there. But when you say that you're talking about the, we're not just talking about the boulevard, since it's silent at the whole area, like in Sunset Park, for example, Ocean Park 16th. It's the boulevard. I mean, we're, you know, we're, again, we're not talking about up-sowning multi-unit residential neighborhoods or the R2, R3, R4. That's, that is not something that is being discussed as much as part of this housing element. That is, that has never been a growth strategy, you know, as part of the loose it was about protecting the residential neighborhoods, you know, to reduce the chances of displacement. Okay, so well, Jane, it's been a long road, all I can say is. And I do wanna say thank you. I mean, this has been, and you and I have been talking throughout. And we don't always agree, but I think we're actually coming a lot closer. So look, we're a little city. We have 8.3 square miles. I, the only thing that makes me feel terrible is when I talk to the folks from West Hollywood who have 1.3 square miles and they're trying to do sort of the same thing. But we just don't have a lot of land other than the airport, which is basically unavailable to us till 2028. We have limited city land and had we not chosen the strategy of doing only affordable 100% affordable on City Land. We were talking about this today because there's a penalty we would have had to pay and it would have greatly increased our requirements. But we're never getting any cheaper. We can build to the sky, we could be Manhattan. In fact, we're sort of like Manhattan because we're in Ireland in Los Angeles, right? Los Angeles is on three sides. And we have the beach, we have the train, we have the freeway. I mean, we have an airport. What don't we have? I mean, who wouldn't want to be here? And that's our problem. And we're incredibly expensive and this is not guns and butter because if what we want to do and particularly with affordable housing because if we want to build affordable housing that is what we want. We want the people who work here to live here. I mean people keep talking about bringing all these outsiders. These people are here every day. They are not outsiders. The people who we are giving the right to return are not outsiders. They lived here for probably longer than people who say, we don't want all these new people here. They were here before. They were displaced by the freeway. And now we're bringing them back. These are not new people. These are people who live here, the people who are living on the streets, include people who live here, who have lived here longer than I have, or Gleam has, right? Those of us who aren't born and bred in Santa Monica, a lot of people who say, oh, I don't want any more people in Santa Monica. But look, we need a plan. I don't think any more people in Santa Monica. But look, we need a plan. I don't think this is a plan. I think here what we need to be realistic, what we're doing is we're putting, and despite what the housing commission said, Oscar, we are really putting on paper what the state is requiring us to put on paper. I think that we have a more humane, more equitable and more inclusive vision of what our city can be than the state does. I think the state is just using a sledgehammer to drive all of the SGAG region into compliance. And we're one of them. I think that we've managed to do a little pushback and get a little bit of leeway. But I think that ultimately, and if I haven't sent it to you, write to me and I'll send it to you, but there was an APA article that I've been sending around that basically says that we in West Hollywood should be model cities for the rest of the region, because, and I think that, Jing will tell you this, that we have been teaching HCD how to do affordable housing, right? I mean, they had no idea how we were doing the things that we're doing. And I think that we have programs that other people are putting into their housing elements that nobody had ever thought of before. Now, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that, you know, with our planning department and with our very engaged residents and our engaged population, we have tried really hard to find a way to have more people and more income levels and to do it in a way that doesn't sacrifice the PICO neighborhood and doesn't sacrifice, you know, Ocean Park or doesn't sacrifice the airport. And it is a very hard road to navigate, but I think that we need to get this thing, you know, the housing element. I think that it's a plan and it's the best plan we could come up with under these dumb restrictions where you don't think about sustainability, you don't think about who's living there. Yeah, I mean, all they're thinking about is these numbers. How many people and what color are they? And what is their income, right? And that is a really kind of unsophisticated way That is a really kind of unsophisticated way of looking at things. You're just taking it and cramming it in. So look, I think that we know and we try to know who lives here, I hope. We understand we need more affordable housing. I think everybody knows that. We need to keep the people who are in both our rent-controlled units and our affordable housing in their housing because it's getting with the recession, it's looming in with the high cost of gas and food. These folks are going to be struggling and we're going to be needing to help them. It's one of the reasons that I keep trying to raise money for more affordable housing and for rent subsidies, et cetera, et cetera. And why I think it's important that we just get this to the state and start working on actually putting into place the programs that will allow us to do the work because this is really, I hate to say it, and I know you put so much time in it, but sort of an intellectual exercise. So if we do that, and what can we expect to happen in the next six months? I mean, we'll just review the... So this is kind of a draft timeline. You know, if we have the council's permission to submit these draft red line revisions, this is kind of like I said the perfect world, you know, if things go well, our goal would be to get a drafting compliance letter from HCD. Once we get that letter, it would give us the confidence to be able to proceed forward with the zoning changes. We didn't have that when we started working on zoning changes in November through February. Before we got the letter that indicated that our housing element was not compliant, you know, so I think we're trying to make sure that it's not more effort wasted this time around. And, you know, that we have worked very closely with HGD staff in terms of consultations. They've given us preliminary positive feedback to these red lines. They've actually viewed all of these red lines. And like I said, subject to detailed review and public comment, of course. But I think we feel like we're in a spot where we've worked closely with them to put together language and requirements that would meet housing element law. So if we get to that point, our hope is to be able to work on the zoning and be able to bring back potentially zoning with the housing element document. Maybe we could do it together just because we got it, we got so far with the planning commission actually in February. That's certainly I think a discussion, we can have later in terms of managing the council's agenda on the fall. But we actually do have a lot of these zoning red lines drafted already. If you look at the planning commission's agenda from February 2nd, there was a ton of work that was putting on zoning changes. So that's why we feel like we're in a position to sort of pick up where we left off. If HED says yes, you know, looks like your housing element is, you know, these draft red lines are in compliance, it allows us to move forward and then be able to be able to adopt the policy piece and the adaptation piece with our completed environmental analysis in the fall is what we would hope to do and be able to be within our statutory deadline. Let me just say that I do not completely buy into this completely buy in. I am appalled by the state's approach to this whole process and I still believe that they shouldn't be allowed to do this and that there should be controls on this and they're probably ought to be a lawsuit. But I also am going to move that we ask staff to submit the draft red line revisions to HCD for 60-day review, at least to get it on the table and see if I can get a second. Okay. You can make the comment even if I make the motion. So make your comment, please. So I wanted to answer and mention a couple of things that I heard over the last hour and a half or so. In regard to Council Member Delatore talking several times about open space and open space and apartments. I want to remind everyone that we have less park space in Santa Monica than the state average. That I worked hard along with many others to landmark San Vicenies, garden and courtyard apartments. I want to emphasize garden and courtyard apartments because 18 buildings on San Vasi between Ocean and Seventh have open space as part of the unit and the reason it was deemed a historical landmark is simple. It gave people a better place to live. They walked out of their apartment not into a corridor, but into green space, a place to breathe, a place to be outside. A place as Councilmember Delatory said, and Councilmember Degretti said, to raise their children better. And I think that's important that we try and integrate open space in. Councilmember Delatory talked about renting the own. Whether it's Torca or I believe, I may be mistaken, but in LA, they have a section 8 rent to own. I thought, which is you use all the rent you've paid, or some cities have it, rent you've paid, has down payment to buy your unit. And I think that is something we we mentioned this one year ago that we thought there should be some way to rent a own, some way for people to rent and be able to get equity and be able to own their apartment at some point. I said a year ago that I had three friends in Santa Monica who all were torqued conversions none of whom ever sold their units. They stayed in Santa Monica because of their torqued conversions. So I think that part of the program while maybe it had some problems I agree with Councilmember Delatory. It should be revised. We should look at it seriously and look at adding that. Parking. So yes, for most units, they still can give parking and I recall on Broadway and fourth. when a building could not be built where the capital one cafe is right now because they try to get a mortgage with no parking and the mortgage the bank would not give them a mortgage without parking. In Venice many many buildings have forever had uncoupled parking or no parking. And you see the streets there and yes, people waste a lot of gas driving around looking for that. It does not lower the cost of your rent whatsoever. It's not like the landlord built the building, saved money, and then graciously decided they would pass it on the tenants, they just don't. So I do want to mention that. And that also disregards, I think, has council member to Gretti mentioned, that people many times, they may work in Santa Monica and be happy and then they get a transfer or they get a new job somewhere else in LA we don't require them to give up their apartment and Public transportation being what it is in Los Angeles public transportation could take them an extra hour or two hours a day To get to their new job and if they have children Many times how do they go to the market? How do they find the normal things to take kids to lessons if they're fortunate enough to be able to take them somewhere or the boys and girls over the Y or anywhere? Because I don't think in today's environment you're going to see an Italian child. Yeah, go for a walk. It's only a mile that way. You'll be safe walk there. That's not what's going on in Santa Monica right now. Probably not anywhere in LA. It's been said and I got at least a couple of notes this afternoon. I think we all did. said the more we it's That more the city acquiesces to HCD the less chance we have has council members to defend our residents And I thought that was something that was really important to think about That I've said and I've tried in closed session and open session over the last year and I have to try and get us to oppose SB 9 to try and get us to join with other municipalities and regions to ask the state to audit the HCD requirements and try and change those. I haven't gotten anywhere and has we heard from planning tonight it appears and from the mayor that there's probably no chance of getting where but I think many of our residents want to hold out hope not about the affordable housing requirement. overall picture of whether it's 8,895, 11,000 or 13,000 units that the face of this beach city will forever be changed and for many of residents it won't be changed in a positive way. I had a question actually about galsons or the 555, the 5% 5% 5% rule. When they get the bonus, the density bonus shouldn't that be flipped to 15% at that point, not continue to be 5% 5% 5% at different income levels? So for that particular project, because it's under current rules, we don't have a 555 requirement in place. The minimum is actually 10% and in that particular. They did that. Yeah, like any developer can always choose to do more. Would it be would that apply to future projects? So that is what is that is what is being proposed. I had one more question. Since you graciously got back up, I know you've had a long night in front of us. How many cities in California are officially out of compliance at this time? Let's see, in SKAG, I think that they have certified something maybe close to 10 now. So about 180 somewhat cities are out of compliance. Yeah, I think last last we checked and we sort of hear rumors here and there. Okay, so it's not just Santa Monica. It is basically just the Skag area alone. It is the vast majority of cities. Yeah, I mean it's the whole, yes, Greg is the largest, you know, MPO. Right, rather stand back or any of the other or whatever it is, the other areas. So it's not, I want to reiterate, it's not just us. It is a vast majority of cities in California or out of compliance. And all of them are scrambling. Yeah. And nobody's decide are scrambling. Yeah. And nobody's decide has a group they should fight back. I was sort of surprised at LA when they got a, was another 250,000. Well, they had to rezone for the 250,000. That's crazy. I think over. LA's actually got a drafting compliance letter long beach is certified since you know we last it is. Yeah so you know it appears that they're you know that HCD is working you know they're willing to work with cities I think we just in these past four months they were between cycles so the associate of Bayer APEG up in the northern California in the Bay Area their cycle is just starting, the cycle review. So we caught them at a moment. We were able to get a lot of attention and consultation to figure out what Santa Monica needed to do to address HGD's comments. So the last thing is that regardless of what we do tonight and what you do over the next few months, a lot of it's still quite theoretical. Because as the mayor said, we may have a recession coming. Interest rates are rising, which means it's going to be harder for people to get financing. We've been in a golden age of financing for projects. That's changing rapidly. So regardless of what we decide, how we vote, there's a good chance that we may look in four years and go. HCD hasn't really been able to enforce anything because we've been doing our best efforts. Yeah, I mean, like we said, this housing element process, the requirement is to plan. It's to plan for your arena capacity. It is not an obligation to build or to issue those. Wait, what did you just say? It's an obligation to plan. This housing element process is- Not an obligation to build. Correct, right. Because the city, again, the city does not build housing, right? Right. And we have no ability to force people into the city and say,'re buying this lot and you're building what we want you to build. We only control the regulatory environment. You know, we established the standards. And so that's the expectation is that, you know, you set the environment like to create the incentives for housing. But then what the private market does is truly out of our control, that point. Thank you so much and I never say it, but I appreciate your work tonight. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. At least you admitted it. So I made the motion. Oh, thank you. Okay, so I think we've been here. Does anyone else have anything more to say or good? Let's take a roll call vote please Councilmember Dela Torrey a column a column right now. No, is it a high coup? Councilmember Brock No We're put Tim McCallan. I've been the know of your time. You guys are putting your name right. I'm sorry. Yes. I also remember an regret day. This is a tough one. I need to go to the bathroom. No. We have so much work to do. And I'm going to vote no. Council member Davis. No. Council member Paara. No. Mayor Hemaara. No. Mayor Himmler-Ritch. Yes. I'm not leaving you out there. You want to change your vote? Look, guys, I don't understand what just happened. It failed five to two. I mean, I have... Well, I understand, but... I mean, I voted no consistently. Well so okay wait okay so so let me just say that if we aren't going to forward this to HCD then we need to suit them. We have two choices. We either do this or we sue and we're going to get sued, you know there are lawsuits but I believe that there is a writ here that this is arbitrary and capricious and and I think that I've said this before I do think there is but if we aren't going to move forward I mean are we sending staff? If we aren't gonna accept this draft, what are we going to direct staff to do? Well, I know what I would direct staff to do. I mean, none of us who voted know got the opportunity to say why we voted know. I don't think we have to sue. I think what we do have to do and I apologize to all of you is we have to send staff back to address the concerns it caused us to vote no. Now for some that may be insurmountable. For me, it's not, but that's the difference. I mean, I don't know. These are opposite concerns. You have a group of people who, I'm sorry, we have a group of people who think we should be doing a lot more development. And a group of people who think we should be doing a lot less development. And those are the two groups. So I want to see all of you give direction to staff all five of you. So we've heard council member Davis's direction. You want them to go back and do what you want, right? Well, that's kind of a vague statement. I can be- You tell them what you want, all right? So I will explain my reason for voting now. And hopefully I can be somewhat articulate about it. I actually think staff did a really good job on the bulk of the problems that were identified by HCD and their letter to us. But I do think, as I said earlier, that the one area where we have not crossed the bar and that is affirmatively furthering fair housing. I honestly believe that the only way that we are going to truly affirmatively further fair housing, and I don't want to upzone the R2, the R4s or any of the multifamily, but I do think we have to look at ways in which we can produce more and what I'll call for lack of a better term traditional multifamily housing in existing R1 zones. And whether that's with the use of an affordable housing overlay that applies to the R1 zones, whether it's some limited rezoning of certain parts of the R1 zones or any other tactics or strategies that staff thinks might work. But I think, unless and until we actually provide for the building of true multi-family housing, not ADUs, but true multifamily housing. And by the way, I support Councilmember Brock talking about courtyard apartments and things like that. I think those would contribute and be lovely in the R1 zones. I'm not talking about building 25 story Cabrini Greens, and I don't think anyone who supports housing is. But the fact of the matter is that affirmatively furthering fair housing says we need to go into our highest resource zones which are for better or for worse are R1 zones and figure out how to accommodate more people living there. And so for me, the direction that I would give to staff is to come back with a plan that would actually rezone the R1s in some capacity. It doesn't have to be a blanket rezoning or provide a 100% affordable housing overlay that would apply to the R1 zones that would give us the possibility of building multi-family housing in the existing R1 zones. And I think that would get us over the hump in terms of a furiously furthering fair housing. Okay. Council Member Par, you want to go? So my only concern, and I think that you know, staff did an excellent job in trying to meet the requirements and the criteria of HCD. My only concern at this point in time is Bergamont, and I do not agree with Davis. I don't think that rezoning R1 zones is the save all, do all, and so I wouldn't agree with Davis. I don't think that rezoning are one zones is the save all do all and so I wouldn't agree with that. But my concern at this point time is is the Bergamont. Happy to talk about the bus. But and maybe switch it up throw the buses at Bergamont. But thanks. Councilmember Negretti. I'm going to let Brock co. Okay. Is he speaking for you? No, but I'm going to let Brock go. Okay. Is he speaking for you? No, but I'm going to let him go before me. Okay. He has hand up. So, I voted no for one simple reason. So, I heard everything that went on tonight, and I understand everything that was said tonight. I am concerned that many residents, as I think I said in one of my closing blurbs, that I'm concerned that while we approve the housing element, we simultaneously do our best to fight the state requirement. And what I'm concerned with is, I think it was Zena Joseph said earlier tonight that we're just acquiescing and not simultaneously saying this is unfair and I think we have to stand up for the residents of the city and our city so I'm happy to change our vote my vote if indeed staff and our city. So I'm happy to change my vote if indeed staff and our city manager and everyone will say that we will also do our best to join with other cities if there is any possible road forward to have HCD reconsider the requirements and be fair. And that's where I am. So I didn't have a chance to really declare that. That's my reason for voting. No, I understand what we're up against. I understand where we're probably gonna go. And I understand very succinctly the statement by our planning staff at the end that this is all theoretical, that none of this may come true. the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state to flip my vote before we're done with this matter, as long as I believe that we will also do our best to try and find other solutions. Thank you. Councillor Member Dela Torre. For me, I think there's an opportunity here to look at, you know, Torca 2.0, you know, looking at like, what we rented from tenant to homeowner, and I haven't seen that articulated very well, I'd like to see more, a more robust program and assessment of how we might bring best practices in that field, in that area, here to our city. I think also there's an opportunity for us to discuss the impact of resident displacement with market and median income housing and the creation of that, what we've seen in the city. I'm sorry,'m sorry say that that made us say that well yeah you you create more market rate housing or even median income rate housing and exacerbate housing is that what you mean correct said median you mean moderate rate house or moderate rate housing whatever you know I just wanted to know it's workforce yeah correct so so you know, we exacerbate gentrification and resident displacement in the city of Santa Monica. And so I think there's an opportunity for us to look at, sort of, you know, the impact of, of, up zoning, you know, on these communities. And I know that there's some protections. I'd like to see the Pico neighborhood zoning district, the concept that was discussed before the Pico well-being project was implemented by staff years ago. I think there's an opportunity to revisit that concept of a Pico neighborhood zoning district. And so I'd like to engage in that type of discussion and those ideas that surfaced during those initial discussions. Yes, and Councillor Mellon. I wanted to provide some balance between what Mayor Himorch said. There definitely we are echoing up here this polarizing issue with the housing element is, first and foremost, what I mentioned earlier is we're given all this information. There's modules that would be nice to see. There's other things that we would like to look at, at least for myself, to see what this is really going to look like in the future. And you guys put a lot of work. There's a lot of reports. it's a lot of reading, a lot of graphs. And then we're told, well, nothing's necessarily really going to happen. You're just voting on this stuff so that we can suffice what the state is asking. I think in agreements with what Councillor Member Davis says, I don't think it's addressing the fair housing Issue that we have these numbers that are thrown out that we're being forced to build I don't think are solving Affordability or equity or inclusion in our community I think the things that we're talking about help here are other ways to get to that so I don't know how we find the balance between Adjusting those numbers and instead creating opportunities for people to be homeowners and not just renters that we have to look at the first steps of the process. And I think that's the difference between adjusting those numbers and instead creating opportunities for people to be homeowners and not just renters. So I don't know what my direction is not clear. My direction is that I would like and I'll give you some clarity on this. Yes, I agree that we need to look at outside Bergamon station. That's one. But the things that we would like to see like open court, yard buildings and not big high rises, which is corridors for families, I'm not really sure how to put that into staff direction, because these are things that are futuristic and based on the project itself. I just know that I don't think we're addressing fair housing with this, and if we vote on this and say, well, nothing will maybe happen. We're exposing the city for potentially to happen. And my biggest fear is displacement. Even though we say that that's not going to happen because we're not going to upzone R4 or whatever, I still feel that ultimately that's what happens. I've seen it happen. I have been paid to move out of an apartment building on 4th in Ashland by a landlord because they came over and took it over. Now there's a community corp organization that owns it, but I have been the subject to that and that is the fear. I know it's frustrating because we're being told, well we have to do this, we have to do this. It's not fear. There's seven of us up here who take the bullets from the community and the responsibility for pushing these things through. And it doesn't feel at least I'm speaking only for myself that we have enough time and I know it may feel that way, but it just doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like we have enough time to digest everything and make a comfortable vote on this. And I also agree that I think there's other things we need to be doing to giving opportunity for people to live in other areas of the community. I know it makes certain communities feel uncomfortable at the thought of the landscape of their zip code changing. But we can't keep redlining, so to speak, and keeping people out of other communities. If we're really talking about fair housing and addressing equity and inclusion when it comes to affordability, we have to look at it a little bit differently. So you're right. So I'm pretty frustrated, and I'll tell you why. This process has been going on for what? Two and a half years, Jing? Yes. People we had working groups doing it two and a half years ago. I mean, working on it. And suddenly, and people were talking about all of these ideas and more ideas and things they wanted to do. And I wish that people sitting on this dies had been involved or more involved in those working groups and had expressed more of their ideas. But I just have to say that it's pretty frustrating this long time later. And I am not happy with the situation or the housing element to have these new ideas, right? And brought up as inclusions in the housing element that really, you know, aren't moving forward affirmatively furthering fair housing, affordable housing, or even, you know, a workforce housing. I mean, we are moving, we are not giving any guidance for doing anything meaningful for helping the condition of people who want to live here and can't afford to or people who want to live here and there aren't apartments here. So let's hear what. So I mean, I think, you know think what I'm hearing here is just a lot of frustration and concern with this process, not necessarily with just with this housing element, but all the requirements of the state as imposing. That is acknowledged, that is understood. This is a very different housing element cycle. It's different. Would we plan on this is a different housing element cycle. It's different. Would we plan on this way as professional planners? No, I can honestly say we wouldn't do it in this manner. You can see the work that we would do in the loose process in the DCP and the thoughtfulness and the engagement and all the aspects that we consider. That is, for better or for worse, it is not the charge that we are being given by the state at this point. And I hear you in terms of these concerns, but I do want to distinguish between, what we need to do to get to a compliant housing element and what you want to desire to do in shaping Santa Monica, there's what you do in this housing element is a minimum. So if we want to pursue something like a Torquo 2.0, we want to open up ownership opportunities, that was not a comment from H.D. to that was something like fundamentally missing from our housing element. You can still do those things. It doesn't necessarily hold up this housing element process if that makes sense, right? That is within the council's authority to direct the creation of those sorts of programs. We have not received that sort of direction through this process. And so I just want to, you know, like we hear you, like I, we've heard this, we've been doing this for two and a half years, we've been hearing this in the community, this is, it is a very, very different, not Santa Monica way, you know, approach to this plan and we're doing the best we can, given the disparate opinions and voices, not just on this council but throughout this community and housing providers and people involved in housing preservation. So as I just kind of heard, you know, the listing of things, I think we're just kind of, you know, distinguished on what are concrete things that you're seeing in the housing element. And, you know, like I said, what the red lines were presenting to you tonight are the results of consultations with HCD. They have seen these red lines. They have told us, that preliminarily, these do meet, you know, they believe like we're heading in the right direction, you know, to achieve a compliant housing element. But if there are specific things that you want, understand that those are things that could either be a separate council direction, it's not necessarily something that needs to be with a housing element. Yes. If I may, between Jing and Susan Cohen, I'm sorry to call you out, Susan. I would like to just spend a little bit of space of talking about our advocacy since the housing element was adopted in October. So Council. So the city attorney, and I don't know if you had something, and I don't know what you're going to say, but and I don't want to interrupt you or whether it would move us forward. I was just going to say you had talked about potential litigation. I'd suggest a close session. Okay. Maybe next week of the council meeting after that to discuss the potential litigation. Okay. Sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. Okay. So Susan? I'm not sure exactly what the City Manager was referring to. Are you talking about the extension or the other advocacy regarding? Well, I'm addressing a few things. So, one, I want to go back to when the Council adopted the housing element. We were directed to compose a very lengthy letter with the mayor outlining not only our past success around delivering affordable housing but also exposing all the concerns expressed here this evening towards a housing element. I would suggest that was met with some tension throughout the state but we still took a very bold stance in articulating our circumstance relative to other cities. Subsequent to that we did spend a lot of time reaching out to both of our state representatives both on the assembly side and state side and engage our lobbyists. In fact we submitted a letter to the assembly member Wix and can't recall the other person articulating and taking the position with SCAG. Pretty much being very clear that we had took great exception to the rena process, but as the city attorney has mentioned, we don't have a lot of room to maneuver with that. So from our perspective, we don't really have any other avenues to express or advocate for against what's happening in the arena process. We have been very clear in that and certainly Susan, you can talk to many conversations you've been a part of where we have tried very, very hard to express our strong position and concern with the housing element. But we're running out of ammunition in that regard. Yeah, and something I want to reiterate, which is what Jing said, which is this is just the draft, right? You still have the time to adopt the plan. This gets it back on the table. And again, it doesn't rule out some of the things that you've expressed interest in in implementing additional things that are above and beyond what the minimum requirements are to have a substantial housing element. So I think what she said is very important to understand. Again, it keeps it on the table and nothing prevents us from continuing to advocate through our lobbyists. I know Sue Himmourich has made efforts as well. And so just ask you to consider that. So Council, are we ending it here? Do I hear a motion for reconsideration? Can we just clarify? So, reconsidering means we're pushing this through with the idea that we can't go and met with the numbers. You're saying we can go above and beyond in the draft to add, I mean, expand on that a little bit. Well, I think the numbers are, I mean, those are pretty much set, set, because those are what Jing has worked out with HCD. But some of the other things regarding zoning. Yeah, the overlay zone, the Torca, even the open space. I think those things possibly can still be massaged into the implementation of the plan. So I would not leave them off the table entirely just because we're submitting this, but I think Jin should elaborate further on this. Well, and can I ask a question and we can run a parallel course, is that right? City Attorney? Yeah, Councillor, remember, this is really the baseline. This is about the numbers. The things about garden apartments and where exactly is it going to go? You can add all that. This is really just the baseline numbers that we're talking about. But when I'm talking about a parallel program, in other words, if we did want to do some other kind of objection and I don't think, look, we are a model. We don't want to be with cities who don't do what they're supposed to do. We have always done what we're supposed to do and I hate to keep saying that but we need to stick with the other cities like us and there aren't very many. I mean the list is short and none of them are like us really, other than one. And so I think that the idea of joining forces with a bunch of cities who don't believe in what we believe in does not help us and will not help us win. But I think that if we wanted to talk about, it's something we should talk about in a closed session in other words. Right, Councillor. In other words, all of the things you've talked about tonight, you can do in a parallel track of getting this approved. Right. And still approve. It still pass it on, right? There's nothing, it's all within our power. Can I ask one question? Sorry. Are we at risk of losing Section 8 housing? Because there was a community member that was concerned or that was told today Some sort of presentation that if we don't pass this through Where risk of losing our section 8 housing or vouchers? No, you know what they were confused about the idea of losing Affordable housing or not having affordable housing when you can't use a section 8 voucher for I think it's six months you lose it. So to that extent if we don't have properties that you could use a section 8 voucher in, if we don't have apartments and things, that voucher could go to LA or somewhere else. I don't know. But we don't lose any vouchers directly because of that. Yeah, and I think in sort of like, you know, the listing of the issues that council members raised, one thing to be mindful of is that, you know, when we talked about the program, so chapter five, all of the implementation programs, whatever you write in there will be monitored and enforced. So, you know, when we talk about like wanting to include a program on home ownership, the distinction between that being a policy you want to explore versus something you are committing to doing and that HCD will monitor and enforce upon is a really big difference, given that we have no identified funding source for such a thing or have even explored what it would take to create something like that. There actually is a policy in the housing element. There's chapter three, which is the goals and policies. There's a policy 2.5 that talks about exploring opportunities for affordable home ownership. That is in there as a policy, but again, it doesn't preclude the council to direct the exploration of such a program or the creation of such a program of divert funding for that sort of a thing or, you know, to look at that. Like I said, we just didn't receive that sort of majority direction through this housing element process. And, you know, I just wanted to make it a program in the housing element. It means that we need to come up with a metric who is a targeting what's the timing like need to have really thought through the specifics of what do you mean about a housing element program. You cannot use words that say explore or consider. That is not enforceable by their standards. And so all of that language was taken out in these red line revisions. Council member Brock. So I presume that planning and our city manager and community directors and everyone else are hearing that we're frankly grumpy about this. I put it a lot stronger, but I'm trying to be g-rated. But what I do here, and I just heard from Mayor Hillmore Rich, I've heard from Council Member Delatory, we are concerned about Section A. We're concerned about expansion of pod. We're concerned about making sure our city retains unique character and that we are a passionate city about caring about our residents. And I think that's important. And if planning is saying they're hearing the other things that we want to explore, that Councilmember Davis's parking scheme needs to be explored even though I hate saying that. But I'll go with that. I think if we're hearing that, then I will move to reconsider this motion. Second. Can I second now? Somebody who said no has to second. No. Can anyone can say that? Oh, I'll second. Council member Delec. I'll second. Councillor Member Daly. There were a lot of concerns brought up on the diast day. Some very important, some that have been brought up for many years in the city and I think it's important for staff to hear it. There's opportunities with Bergamont, there's council member concern around that, resident displacement, gentrification, these are issues that are very real. And so I will vote to reconsider as well as long as these items are front and center on the table and we address them. That's important for me and I know it's important for those on the council as well. Okay so let's try it again let's well first we have to vote to move right vote to reconsider right so let's start with that. Madam clerk right so this is we are voting now on whether we should reconsider our prior decision. It's a yes or no. Councilmember DeLatory? Yes. Councilmember Brock? Yes. Mayor Potemma-Cowellan? Yes. Councilmember Nguyen-Grette. Yes. Council Member Davis. Yes. Council Member Par. Yes. Mayor Helmerich. Yes. So that passes 7-0 and Now would you like to make the next motion? I move that we I don't have the what's the original motion that we present the Red line draft to the HCD. I move that we will present the red line draft to HCD and that's it. And with work ongoing on all of the concerns raised by all the various council. Yes. That none of us are buckling. We want to hear. We want further action. Okay. So move by Brock. Seconded by Dela Torrey. Let's have a roll call vote. Councilmember Par. Yes. Councilmember Davis. No. Councilmember Nguetay yes. Ngaetta McHallan yes. House member Brock yes. House member Dela Tori yes. And Mary Helmeridge yes. Yes. Yes, please so I think the reasons for my no vote are obvious one is I obviously continue to have concerns that this is not a compliant draft simply because it's deficient in the area of affirmatively furthering fair housing. And I also want to state that I do have concerns that the constraint which I sort of identified as political will relating to minimum parking requirements, implementation of state density bonus law and some other issues that were, I think, obvious from my comments need to be addressed before we'll have a compliant housing element. Thank you. Thank you. Our next meeting is Tuesday, June 28th at 5.30 pm. Everyone have a great evening, and I will see you next Tuesday. That was fun. Oh yeah, it's always fun.