I'm going to go ahead and the Today is April 1st, 2025. The time is 6.49 p.m. And I would like to call this meeting to order. City clerk, may we have a roll call for the city council please? Yes, before we start, I did want to make an announcement that Councilmember Webster Lincoln will be attending the meeting tonight remotely due to a physical or family medical emergency that prevents a member from attending the meeting in person. Councilmember Lincoln, if you can please confirm that there are no 18 year-older participants in the room with you. I'll confirm. Thank you. And with that being said, we can do start doing Roca, Vice Mayor Dynan here. Council Member Brico here. Council Member Romero. Present. Council member Lincoln. Present. And Mayor Baragayan will be absent for today but you do have a core advice mayor. Thank you. Can you please provide us with instructions for our translation services before we move forward? Absolutely. If you would like to listen to the Spanish portions of this meeting usually at around public comment, please use interpretation feature located at the bottom of your screen by clicking on the globe icon and selecting English as your preferred language. There will be interpretation available. Si usted le gustaría escuchar esta junta en español, por favor use el modo de interpretación localizado de bajo'll be moving forward to item two approval of the agenda apologies Apologies. We do need a roll call vote for the remote appearance for a council member Lincoln. So if you can get a motion for that. I'd like to make it back. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of their remote appearance of Council Member Webster Lincoln. Second. Romero. Oh, can we get to a roll call vote, please? Vice Mayor Dynan. Yes. Council Member Brica. Yes. Council Member Romero. Yes. Council Member Lincoln. Yes. Motion carries. All these for the interruption. Okay, thank you. At this point, we'll move forward item two approval of the agenda. Would someone like to make a motion to approve the agenda? Make a motion to approve the agenda for tonight. Oh, second. Can we have a roll call vote, James? Vice Mayor Dynan? Yes. Council member Abriko? Yes. Council member Romero? And Council member Lincoln? Yes. Motion carries. OK, that item passes. We're now moving on to item three, which is approval of the consent calendar. And City Clerk, do we have any public comments on the consent calendar before we discuss? Seeing none, Vice Mayor. Council members, we are on the approval of the consent calendar. Are there any items you would like to pull for further discussion? Seeing that there's only one item on the agenda for consent, which is the City Council Minute meetings of March 8th, I move approval. I'll second. Can we get a roll call about, please? There was one comment I believe on the on the minutes for the council reports for the 318 minutes. I believe Vice-Maria to mention that you wanted to clarify something. Oh, yeah, I'd like to clarify that I was attending I had started to attend a program on affordable housing. I did not start a program on affordable housing. I may have misspoke, so thank you appreciate it. I'd like to clarify that. Thank you. I think in the motion was made by Councilmember Romero. I'm sorry, who was it seconded by? I didn't catch that. I said, okay, perfect. Vice Mayor Dynan. Yes. Council member Brica. Yes. Council member Romero. Yes. Council member Lincoln. Yes. Motion carries. Okay, it has been moved and properly seconded. Okay, the item has been approved and now we'll move on to the next item which is closed session I believe. Is that Council will we now head into closed session? Vice Mayor, I'm not sure if you wanted to move public comment up so that the members in attendance, there's a specific member with the certificate that's here and so that they won't. I believe they left. I got the number I was gonna text them and when we're coming back, I said that we would be gone for, for a closed session. No, I think they were here. Okay, sorry. Perfect, sorry. I thought you guys had taken off. Yeah, if we could move that forward, Make a motion to have a public comment on that item. Work. I thought you guys are taking off. Yeah, if we could move that forward, make a motion to have a public comment on that item. Or I guess on that, I would be in favor of that. Thank you. Wait, I want to clarify. This is just, we're opening it up for public comment. This is not, if there is no item that is on the agenda. So this is public comment, if people want to public comment. Correct. Yes, thank you. So the first speaker, Forest Williams, followed by Nicole Stewart-Crux and Filiberto Saragosa. Good afternoon. Good afternoon Mayor and Council members. My name is Forest Williams. I'm with the Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Association. Our mission is to encourage youngsters, parents, enemies, friends about engineering and the future. There's nothing that you can touch today that has not had an engineer's touch before it becomes useful to us. And we want to prepare our students for the future. We want them to look at the trials and tribulation associated with engineering. To understand that there's nothing new under the sun, it only requires discovery. And that's discovery is looking at how can we make these things useful to humankind. We have our winner tonight from Palo Alto. We want you to recognize him. We want you to raise him up. We want him to encourage him to look at life and get ready for life. And he's already on that journey. So I like to have our winner from Palo Alto, Mr. Isaac, Jensen, come up and say a few words about his winning. Thank you. All right. Hello, everyone. I'm Isaac. And for Stemford, I created a device that I call Hygiene Hero and per day it saved me five gallons of water when I washed my hands. And so basically what the device does is it has a meter that either says if you're washing your hands and not using enough water to get all the germs off your hands, which is about 10 to 12 seconds of hand washing, it will say faucet faker on here. If you're using too much water and you're just wasting water, which is about over 19 seconds of water usage, when you wash your hands, it will say H2 overflow. But if you're just perfect and you have not wasted water and you're getting all the germs off, it will say hygiene hero. And so I ran two tests. My first test was with the meter on my device not giving any feedback. And so it was just recording timestamps for how long I washed my hands. And the average time was 26 seconds. And so then the next week, I turned on the meter. So it was doing the exact same thing, but now giving me feedback. And so my average was 11 seconds, which 58% decrease in water. And per hand washing, I saved half a gallon of water because on average six seconds of hand washing is a quarter gallon of water so I reduced it by half a gallon of water. Thank you and congratulations. I believe we have a certificate to. Congratulations. He's Paul to his future is bright. Thank you. And you hold up the contraption there? You're, I see. Let me see. So that's an analog gauge, right? That's not digital, right on. Yeah, no, that's wonderful. Yeah, great, thanks. Thank you. Next speaker Nicole Stewart Crooks, or by Filiberto Saragosa and Kenya Nahar. be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. We will be back in a few minutes. World's reprices are astronomical. Gas prices continue to climb. Car insurance rates are at an all time high, and we are facing fallouts from the tariffs that were implemented today. Living expenses on the peninsula are one of the highest in the entire United States. There should be more community input. You have conducted a sampling of 198 residents. However, you didn't win your campaign by relying on 198 people to come on to the polls and vote for you. Just to show up to the polls and vote because you and I both know that that model does not work in a blue collar community. You have to take the message to the people. You need to go door to door just like you did when you were campaigning. Why wasn't the community asked to weigh in at engagement offerings and engagement and places of engagement in the community? Why aren't you going door to door like you did to get elected? You did all that when you were running for office. You engaged the community then why not when this is going to impact every single household in this city? Best practices have shown that blue collar communities don't show up as often for city council meetings like those in affluent neighborhoods because of work hours depending care etc. Starting forcing with the people who operate illegal businesses out of their homes and utilize street parking to store commercial vehicles. You don't solve a problem by creating additional costs when people are barely surviving. If you're going to require parking permits, the residents should not have to pay for them, and know there should not be a cap on how many cars are household because there are several households where there are multi-generational families living together to care for elders and just to be able to live closely to where they work and where they grew up. Elected officials have an obligation to work with the community to resolve issues, not to make decisions before us or past ordinances under our noses. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Piliberto Saragosa, or by Kenyan, the horror and Gil, Dixon, Wilkerson Dixon. Hello, awesome. Good evening, City Council. My name is Philly, and I am a lifelong resident of East Palo Alto. And I am also here addressing the parking permanent ordinance. I want to say that since this was brought up at Elastida Council meeting which I was not there and it does seem like a lot of our community was not also involved in that conversation. I want to say that I do understand how troubling and frustrating it can be to fine parking I live on the in the men ahead in the apartments so I live with woodland I know how bad parking can be. So I think that however this is not a call to start making our residents specifically those of low income a for parking some families depend on multiple cars to survive or sustain themselves and there was just a complete lack of community engagement and community feedback for this so I I don't understand why it was pushed. And also I had a question because I was reading over the draft and there is one section that talks about that our neighbors can actually petition against the ordinance. However, I did see on there in the guidelines that it did say that council gets to make that final call, which I thought was really weird because how can you have residents say they don't want something, but at the end of the day council gets to make that call. And thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Kenyanahar, followed by Gil Wilkerson and Kevin. Good evening, Council. Kenyar Fordham Street also Executive Director of Yuka, youth united for community action. I'm here to also oppose the parking permit conversation as Philly already mentioned and other community mentioned. Members mentioned it is not fair and we need more community input before making any decision. I'm also here because I'm deeply concerned that it's a lot of work that we have done for the past few years. I'm not sure if it's a lot of work that we have done for the past few years. I'm not sure if it's a lot of work that we have done for the past few years. I'm not sure if it's a lot of work that we have done for the past few years. I'm not sure if it up in these discussions. In addition to the challenges already imposed that are already being imposed on residents by the parking permit program. That was past last meeting the potential removal of essential housing policies will further harm our community. Such a decision will not go unnoticed nor will it be without opposition from the community. We need to focus on the needs of the people we serve rather than prioritizing the interest of the developers you continue to mention. In fact, we should be encouraging all cities in our surrounding area to implement the policies that we have here in East Paul also and force all developers to have inclusionary units as well to alleviate the concern that we have specifically here and also thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Gil Wilkerson, followed by Kevin and Vanessa Smith. Good evening, council. I like to address the quality of life, you know, I'm here every console meeting I'm talking about I'm here to enhance the quality of life of East Palo Alto that is that I'm reminded of it's only 2.5 square miles. 2.5 square miles is like this a rat box, okay. The other cities handle much more East Palo Alto should have been controlled by this time since 1983. I wanted to address the incident that happened where I lived. I lived on the corner of Woodland and University. It was really bad in the crack era. This guy was high on LSD. He came and set the alarms off. And I was told at three hearings, redboard hearings, that the management or whoever was only two minutes away. That's a lie, a total lie. And we're at risk. The law specifically states that I'm going to do some about it this time 16 units or more must mandatory have a manager on site So the tenants don't have to run around and do the manager's job That's and the owner's job who's making $3,000 a apartment that's ridiculous and you got paints of All blood left over from last year on the walls. I can prove it. I got it in my camera That he won't remove so I'm a lot of people who are all blood left over from last year on the walls. I can prove that I got it in my camera. That he won't remove. So I'm. I'm here to a if we could get one more policeman. The policeman showed up about 25 minutes later. Fire a 20 and that's because they had a fire out at the. Walkway out there And Janet, it's not Jenna's citizen anymore, the security. Oh, they get out of here. We're trying to investigate. And it'll got their legs jacked up up on the top of the car. Something needs to be done about that. Get these landlords out of this palato. The city should take over. They are devaluing our properties. Thank you, Miss Walker. Thank you, Miss Walker. Thank you, Mr you miss Booker. It's not going to be the last time you see the see their dissolve the landlords just like dissolve sanitary district you know how to do it you've been there. Thank you next speaker Kevin far by Vanessa Smith and Laura Rubio. I can't hear you. You have to turn on the mic. Sorry. Good evening. My name is Kevin. I'm a lifelong residence, living the gardens. My family has been in East Palo Alto since the 50s. I became a homeowner in 1990 and I'm here about the parking. I would ask you guys not to do what the federal government is doing right now. The first lady you spoke, I agree with everything she says. My concern is this permit should be the last thing possible. It shouldn't be like less start here. I mean, I believe when you go to other cities, you go to Palo Alto, you not go do stuff over there because you know they go ticket you. You not go park on the curves, double park in the street. You know, all that stuff that's going on here can be dealt with most of it. I'm not gonna say all that. A lot of it can be dealt with with services we have right now. And I think we should start with those before we just go from zero to 100. We should just use services that we have right now. And it is a payment in a but and I don't know everything about the parking thing, but what I do know, why do I want to permit that's going to allow me to park on my street and not in front of my house? I take care of my dad is 98 years old. I have a wife. She works into the nighttime. I go to work early in the morning. Why would my wife park down the street? That just does it, that's not even common sense to me. So if the parking permit does not go allow me to park in front of my house, I could do that now. So thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker Vanessa Smith followed by Laura Rubio and Jeffrey Jordan. Good evening, City Council members and staff. My name is Vanessa Smith. I'm troubled and deeply concerned that the council is considering altering and dismantling its long established policies that support affordable housing and anti displacement programs. The policies that East Palo Alto have created for tenant, our tenant community has served as a model for other cities and shown that we take care of our own. This city has been built on our diverse background and that includes protecting our low-income residents. Let's not start turning our back on our community now. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Laura Rubio, for by Jeffrey Jordan. I am very happy to see that the meeting has begun orgullously approved in a way ignorant the point of this session. First point I present you In the presentation they made. I think it was directed for another city they they they they they they they they they they they you plumeiros y las nanis. Otro punto que no mencionaron ustedes es que tenemos diferente demografía en nuestra ciudad. Tenemos diferentes habitantes como broños de casa como departamentos y nunca mencionaron ni hablaron de los departamentos Y el último punto es que me gustaría que cuando tuvieran que hacer una encuesta a considerable number because 57 votes are not represented there for the high. The last point is that I would like you to take a number considerable amount because 57 votes are not represented to the high floor. And a social survey doesn't seem to me professional. And as you are listening, we all have different needs, so I think that that should be based. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Jeff F. Rejordin followed by Isaac Stevenson and Bernice Turner. Okay. Okay. I want to talk about parking again, but more about the safety of the parking. Even on my way here, you always see cars when you get to a stop sign. It's so hard. I can imagine somebody like older trying to maneuver around East Palato is so unsafe that you had to pull out and the street to be able to see because they always have vehicles right at the stop sign. I mean I get you get tickets for parking this much on the curb but you got a big work truck that's sticking this far out right at the stop sign you got to stick out you got to go out into the road and I can just see if an elderly person who have a little issues about they would really have a tough time I have a tough time and. And it's a lot of unsafe spots right now. You could ride around this whole town, you'll find dozens of stop signs is dangerous, very dangerous to just pull out. And nobody's doing underbiting. They even got the line drawn right up to the stop sign. I know in San Francisco, they pass a lot where you gotta be 20 feet from the stop sign. And it need to at least be 15 to 20 feet back. And somebody need to do something about this. It's gonna be some accident. Somebody gonna get hurt. Cause you gotta pull out. And so many times I had to pull out and had to stop because I couldn't see. And it's a lot of work trucks and stuff. big trucks and stuff. People work trucks and stuff, parked on these streets and stuff, did make it hazardous. You go. because I couldn't see. And it's a lot of work trucks and stuff, big trucks and stuff, people, work trucks and stuff parked on these streets and stuff did make it hazardous. You go around corners, it's like, it's iffy a lot. And it's like, you get ticketed for the, the being this for watch on the curb, but you got this big truck just sticking out and why is this big truck on the residential road? And this shouldn't be like that. And I don't have a problem with what people parking and stuff as much as it's like, it's just, it's time to get so ridiculous what people is getting the argument, what Kevin was talking about. He came to Park and Front of Yon House. You got to park around a corner and why the guy live around a corner parking in front of your house, the street parking in front front of your house. And that's ridiculous. So the parking need to be worked on is in the safety part, especially. It's a lot of safety stuff around here that need to be worked on. Thank you. Next speaker, Isaac Stevenson, followed by Tiambe. I'd better hurry. I had no idea I was going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. I'm going to be here to speak. of Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, North Hope, Virginia, and we are on the best land on the community. What I'd like to see were some parking garages where the wrecking yard just would be here. I've been here since 55 when I was five. If we had a place where people could put that car, maybe get home and to that place, that might help the situation. You can't park overnight in Millo Park and a friend of mine went on and listened Hawaii when they had the fire sweep through there and I think about the fires that you hear about that are happening now in LA and other parts of the county. I say, what in your home is worth your life? What? It took me 15 minutes to get three blocks from my house to Pogas because of the traffic. That's ridiculous. We have community emergency response here. I've worked with minimal fire and it's funny because when I was in the military I was a Bolson's made on aircraft carrier and was in a real onboard fire. I've worked with the Forestry Service South of San Jose and we need to know how to get out of here and if you love your family you want them to get out. These were single family homes and now they're multiple family homes and I know the folks need a place to live So we need to give them a place that they can affordably live and be safe So I'm gonna go on to my rehearsal. I'm glad I stopped by I didn't mean to But we need to think about what we're really doing here Thank you next speaker Tiambe followed by Adrian and Edwin McGunialupis. Tiambe, Jama. Isn't that mean? Come on now, I'm bigger. You don't know how long I'm talking about this, right? So we all know that people get hysterical about the parking situation. So now, okay, so let's get to solution. My solution is always gonna be the most humane. The other things that others, you know, is not more than being humane, okay? So listing all those solutions and seeing which one is the most humane, which one addresses the issues that people have been coming here for years. I'll tell you, I was picked off. People were dying in the street and people was coming up here talking about arcing. Okay. It is initial, let's get to the solution in the most human way that we can do so. Parking I think was, no there's two things, my daughter, you should not political like I am. There's only two things she can't do, it's the council for. One was the parking thing, because her neighbor was crazy listening to what was the called. One of those was crazy or something like that. Oh, I'm a nigga, I heard man. This was one of our new residents that came in. She complained about him. And the other ones she complained when the police were out of pocket and padded her down. So let's take a deep breath. Keep going talking talk about to be able to put some solutions that are human? The other thing I'm going to talk about is I have you being a career extor. So I need you to put something about a dangerous number one. I had pictures of the other fields. The other thing, one of their employees told me, fuck you, nigga. So that's not OK. What's happened to me once ago, I talked to the mayor about it. Talk to them about it. It's not OK. And I was responsible because you said we weren't going to be in a nothing story. Sorry, your time is up. I'm sure my time is up. Thank you. Next speaker, Adrian followed by Edwin Magonialopus. Good evening, Council Member, staff, community resident, so glad to see you guys show up tonight. I'm going to be talking about Viole, a company that provides water to the majority of the city's residents in businesses. And this is with regard to the lack of notification when they're going to have water outages. businesses and this is with regard to the lack of notification when they're going to have water outages. A door hanger was left today, advising that water would be temporarily shut off between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. tomorrow. This is less than 24 hour notice. I'm hoping you can get with them so that they can plan better and have a smaller window that water would be shut off instead of all day long. That's 10 hours. So people can plan accordingly. It's more than just an inconvenience. Business is disrupted. And some people have life-subtaining treatment at home, which relies on water. So they're messing with people's life-subtaining treatment. And again, a 10-hour window is not acceptable. They can plan better. And maybe a 2-hour window that your water is going to be shut off, I'm pretty sure that they can do that. And then I'd like to make one little quick comment on the parking permit thing of a jig. I'm in favor of it because something has to be done, but I do agree. We already have laws on the books that are not being enforced. Let's be clear. The vehicle code is not something that the city can play around with. We need to remove some of the discretion from the officers. Issue a couple of tickets. Everybody would get the hint that you can't double park. You can't park near Horners where people can't even see what's coming to going as you're at a stop sign. We really need to rely on the Laws or on the books because we can have this parker commit and charge people parking fees, but without enforcement What are we really doing? That's all. Thank you Thank you Next speaker Edwin McGonialopas. Hello. Yeah, I'd just like to echo Adrian. I'm against the parking permit, but actually for the same reason. I mean, like you said, there's other ways for us to go about about it and I feel like the council's wasting their time. I'm more so here just because I wanted a point at what I feel is an act of indirect violence towards what is a low income community, that is 60% renters in trying to dismantle the long established policies that support the housing and low income residents. And again, I feel that it's an attack towards the founding of our city. Every time I look at and speak to the founders, it fills me with a lot of pride that I'm able to kind of point out our history and it being so unique in comparison to other cities in the Bay Area. And I think, again, what you see today, the way people have showed up in the way that they're pissed off for the parking permit, again, shows to how much history is in East Florida and activism and in understanding when low income residents are being attacked. Thank you. Thank you. That was our last speaker for public comment. Thank you, James. And with that, I believe we move into closed session. Okay, we'll be back in what, half an hour, 45 minutes, something like that. So stay tuned and we'll count to be ahead now headed into closed session. We'll return in approximately one hour. So'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. you Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Thank you. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you And we're moving back into regular council. We do not have any special presentations or informational reports. And nor do we have any public hearings. So we're going to move to item number nine point one. City manager gains who will be presenting this item. Vice manager just really quickly. No report of action, direction given to staff. Thank you very much. So city manager gains who will be presenting item nine point one. SIDAM will be led by Natasha Rayburn and introduced by at least. Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council members. I am Natasha Rayburn, the administrator for the rent stabilization program. This evening I am joined by Tim Davis of Heart of San Mateo County. We are here to provide both an informational report about the anti-displacement services completed under the Measure O and L funding since 2022 and provide an overview of Measure J.J. funding for the Council's consideration. This evening we'll go over the background modifications to measure O, the funds under measure O, projected measure L, and measure JJ, analysis and programmatic highlights, current issues, challenges and emerging needs, and next steps in consideration for measure background, November 8th of 2016, measure O imposed a 1.5 tax on the gross receipts of property owners leasing five or more residential rental units in East Palo Alto. This general tax established a locally controlled funding source to address community priorities, including affordable housing, reducing displacement and homelessness prevention. July 5th of 2022 staff proposed funding community-based anti-displacement services and the City Council allocated $310,000 for these $100,000 for these efforts to release an RFP. This was a key item line, a key item in line with the city's five-year affordable housing strategy, which was approved on October 16th of 2018. The city received proposals from community legal services, Youth United for Community Action, and West Rekasa. The submitted proposals covered legal services, which included included eviction defense and tenant advocacy and education. At this time none of the respondents proposed administering a direct rental assistance program. This resulted in $30,000 being left unencumbered. On November 1st, 2022, Council approved agreements with CLS, Yuka and Wester Kasa. To address the unfulfilled rent relief needed, Council allocated an additional 70,000 from General Fund on June 20, 2023. This created a $100,000 fund for direct rental assistance, allowing for an RFP to be issued on July 17 of 2023. The city received proposals from community legal services in Samaritan House on August 7th of 2023. And on September 5th, 2023, city staff recommended awarding the contract to Samaritan House and Council approved. Samaritan House proposed distributing rental assistance to 30 to 45 households with awards ranging between 1900 to $3,000. The contract with the Mariton House was for one year and ended on January 31st of 2025. The contracts with CLS, Nuestra Casa, and Yuga ended on March 31st of 2025. All contracted deliverables have been completed with only final reports pending. Modifications to measure L pass by voters on November 8th of 2022 and increase the rental business license tax rate to 2.5 of gross receipts and expanded its application to owners leasing 1 to 4 rental units. Measure JJ pass by voters on November 5th of 2024. Voters passed measure JJ, which further revives the tax by restricting its use. Funds must be allocated as follows. At least 30% for tenant rental assistance. Up to 20% for administrative expenses. And the remaining funds may be, may support affordable home ownership, affordable housing preservation, tenant rental assistance, or protect residents of the city of East Palo Alto from displacement or homelessness. Measure OL and JJ funding. This table provides both actual and projected income from the residential rental business license tax. This projected figures are provided by the city's business license administrator HDL. The Measure O Anti-Displacement Contracts were funded from the Rent Stabilization Fund, General Reserve, and Measure O and L generated receipts in the General Fund. For fiscal year 2022 to 2023 and fiscal year 2023 to 2024, the O L funded contracts totaled $599,948. Sorry. Some of the programmatic highlights of the anti displacement services as of January 31st of 2025. Community Legal Services had a goal to assist 220 households with legal representation and or legal advice in unlawful detainer eviction cases and other issues that threaten the stability of rental housing. CLS exceeded that goal by assisting 348 households. CLS also had a goal that at least 70,000 or 70% of tenants who received eviction prevention services remained in their current home. CLS exceeded that goal and 80% of clients remained in their current home. Nuestra Koso was able to provide case management to 267 cases and created a housing resource guide that has just been distributed to, distributed 5500 copies. This guide is also used by city staff and being included as an additional resource guide for tenants who receive an own lawful detainer. This resource guide is available in both English and Spanish. Yuka provided tenant education to 593 residents which exceeded their goal by 393 residents and continued tenant education by holding 9 tenant know your rights workshops. Samaritan House exceeded their goal of distributing rental assistance to 30 to 45 households and and 91,241 dollars to 49 households. Some of the current issues on March 3, 2025 city staff held a meeting with the contracted agencies and highlighted several urgent issues. Eviction risks remain high in the 12 months ending as of November 2024, landlords filed 177 unlawful detainers in East Palo Alto. With 6,226 rental households in the 943, 03 zip code, 2.8% of renters faced possible eviction. This is nearly double the county-wide rate of 1.5%. The 9403 zip code accounted for 11% of all eviction filings in San Mateo County during this period. Demand for rental assistance remains high. Samaritan House relies on multiple funding sources to assist families through San Mateo County. Funding from the city of East Palo Alto has helped them keep more East Palo Alto residents in their homes. However, even with these funds, Samaritan House often cannot fully cover tenants requests and can only provide partial assistance. Education and outreach efforts must continue. Yucan, Wester Kasa, emphasized the importance of ongoing tenant education and outreach programs. These initiatives power tenants, connect them to resources, and help them apply for newly constructed affordable housing units. This education also assists tenants' knowledge of their rights under the rent stabilization ordinance. Challenges and emerging needs during this meeting, the agencies also identified several challenges and emerging needs. Future of funding from other sources is bleak. Possible reduction in federal funding for a range of programs will place more strain on families increasing the risk of displacement One-time federal ARPA funds have been expended other funding sources such as measure K are not certain Rising staff cost put pressure on service providers Increasing wages and operational expenses make it hard to maintain service levels. Fears are rising that landlords will use threats of a call to ICE to increase their leverage over tenants in terms of rents, housing standards, and evictions. In anticipation of this, agencies are integrating more information about immigration rights into their education and outreach efforts. An increase in multifamily property sales, particularly involving Woodland Park communities, properties has created a greater need for tenant outreach, education, and organization. City staff have received an increase in inquiries from tenants regarding their buildings being sold. CLS has created an FAQ for East Powell also tenants to know what their rights are when their home is being sold. This FAQ was distributed by Yuka to units that staff were aware of having been sold. I am now going to turn this presentation over to Tim Davis from heart to discuss next steps and considerations for measure JJ fund allocations. Thank you Natasha and council members for having me here this evening. As you saw previously expected revenue from measure JJ, the residential rental business license tax will be 1.7 million for FY 2526. Next slide, please. Given the guidelines put in place by measure J.J. at least 30% of those funds or 510,000 would be reserved for rental assistance. Up to 20% of the funds or $340,000 would support administrative and program costs. And $850,000 would be available for a range of stability, preservation, and affordable housing programs. These next slides represent the goals in the housing element and the affordable housing strategy that these funds can be used for. All these items add up to $3.35 million in funding per year, but there are other sources of funds for some of these programs. Next slide. I'll highlight the first two especially because these are ones for which there are no other funding sources. Besides the measure JJ funds. And that's where other funding sources in this column refers to those things that are not JJ. Rental assistance, which is there are two housing element policy programs, policy 4.11 and 412 that are emergency financial assistance or rent relief or assistance with first and last most rent security deposit. The five year funding of goals set set out in the affordable housing strategy was $500,000. The tenants to billy programs, program 5.7, to fund legal services, financial assistance, case management, and tenant advocacy. These are the programs that were being overseen by Yuka CLSEP, EPA EPA, and by Noistra Kasa. This recommendation is for 1.4 million over five years, which is $280,000 per year. Next slide. We have the other programs that may have some other funding sources that may be of interest to be funded with some of the measure JJ funds include major home repairs and minor home repairs, which both fall under housing and went 4.7 to establish and fund a home repair program. On next slide. Also programs that help people to either remain in their homes or to become homeowners include for closure prevention, counseling and assistance that would be policy 4.5, 4.9 into the housing element to evaluate and establish a foreclosure prevention and or mortgage assistance program. And the other funding source for that could be low-month successor agency funds. Under the home buyer financial assistance that's policy 2.1 to develop a city-led home buyer support program that's would be from the housing assistance fund. Under housing preservation there is a recommended level of 2.157 million. And this is over a five year funding period. Now this is based on what was available or considered to be available at the time of the most recent affordable housing strategy. However, this might be another place to consider in terms of placing some of the additional measure JJ funds. It's policy 2.3 to support tenant or community purchase of properties. I'll see 4.3 to develop a preservation strategy and policy 4.6 create and fund a city housing room rehab program for preservation. It is important to note that the city is now underway in developing a preservation strategy. And so the funding of that program is something that will be coming to you later in the year. Under affordable housing development, policy 1.4, financial support for special needs housing and policy 1.6, financial support for affordable housing. The proposed about there was about 14.6 million over five years to build 124, about 120 affordable housing units. There is a range of funding sources for this. This is not the only fund and these development projects are quite costly. And they would also depend on other sources outside of the city as well. Staff recommends that the city council, you can go into the next slide. I'm sorry. There's the housing preservation slide. And then the next slide is a portable housing development. Staff recommends that the city council use these affordable housing strategy and the housing elements as guides to determine which projects receive measure JJ funds. The Council may provide such guides during the April 22nd, 22nd Council Priorities setting study session or other upcoming budget meetings. Natasha and I are here for any questions. Next slide, thank you. Vice mayor council members, we want to thank you for your time. Before we move to discussion and questions, we actually have representatives from the contracted community partner organizations present who would like to be able to address you this evening should you allow them time to do so. That's fine. From my perspective, do we have to vote on it? Any objections? allow them time to do so. That's fine. From my perspective, do we have to vote on it? Any objections from council? Ah, yeah, please. Anyone want to start it off? I have some questions. Can you guys hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah. What Webster, we're going to take questions after the various groups have presented. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I just saw the question slide and that was my time. Okay. Good evening. I'm Latrice Taylor, Senior Director of Programs and Services with Samaritan House. And I really wanted to just say thank you. It was very important that we be here tonight, along with all the other agencies that really appreciated the fact that you saw how important it is to have these funds in the community. Now Samaritan House has been around, it'll be 51 years this year. And we started in the home of Dr. Korra Clemens right on Tennett Avenue. She was part of this community, a black woman who saw food insecurity in this community And she opened the food pantry just simply as that in her house because she saw other single mothers, went kids who had no food. And from that is where we are today. And so you've probably heard we have a host of programs. We do case management. We have clinics. We have a work resource center, we have a multiple of multitude of things. But the most important thing is what was already referenced is with regards to rental assistance. And so as was stated, 49 households were able to receive funds to keep them housed because of funds that you decided needed to be back in the community. We all have worked together. This is a very collaborative community when we talk about legal aid. We've come together where we've tried to stop evictions. We've gone to landlords. We've had to say it is better to keep people housed than to have them out on the streets. We really appreciate anyone who goes out and does outreach and advocacy to let people know that agencies like ours are here to help residents and that this city does care about its residents and does want to see that their homes are preserved. So we just want to say thank you so much. We are here to help. Anyone who has questions for any of us, we are here to ensure that this community continues to stand strong and that it is always supported by the agencies that you chose to fund. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hello, Council and community. My name is Claudia Nava and I'm the housing program coordinator at Nostra Casa. And I'm here today to speak on the work Nostra Casa has been doing to help our community by displacement through our measure of funding. Nostra Casa, we aim to provide community members with the tools they need to become civically engaged. But we also recognize that there are community members facing housing challenges now that must be addressed. We provide technical support to encourage East Palau residents to become more civically engaged by connecting them to their local elected officials, educating them about local housing policy solutions, and sharing key updates on housing discussions. And like Natasha mentioned, we've also created comprehensive resource guides to synthesize information and ensure it reaches those who need it most. And our work extends just beyond information sharing and education. Each year our staff has been able to provide personalized case management to over 120 families facing housing challenges. We have found our work to be most effective, taking a holistic approach through relationship building and resource coordination. In an instance, we had an elderly couple come in to ask us for assistance in paying for their mortgage. They had been renting out rooms in their home for the past 10 years to other families and individuals. However, found it difficult to keep them, yeah, found it difficult to keep them housed. They were now struggling to meet their mortgage payments and fear losing their home. They mentioned that this was the first signalling home they ever bought when they moved to the States. And this is a home that they raised their children in. But earlier that day, two mothers had walked into our office asking for help and looking for housing. One of our staff members quickly connected all three families and was able to ensure that the families would stay housed. In another instance, we had another community member come to us seeking low-cost medical services because her son and husband had to be dealing with some pretty bad respiratory issues. We provided her some information and through our conversation realized that this was actually being caused by their current living, unsafe living situation. We encourage her to connect with legal services for guidance on options. She has as a renter and also connected her family with our, sorry, environmental justice department who provided an air purifier to provide some short-term relief. These stories are just one of the many that demonstrate the increased need for tailored case management support that our community needs. We also want to thank you for your continued support for Nistra Gasa, and we hope that we can continue working together to protect East Walaltal residents. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to emphasize and thank everyone for providing the services to our community. I think it's very important that our community members keep keep getting taken into account in these discussions and we continue to serve them in the best way that we can. We have been approached by residents from Cooley Avenue apartments as well as the other outreach that we've done for know your rights trainings and information sharing because they see the need even on this side of town. Our focus has been primarily on outreach and supporting tenants on all over town but specifically has been on the west side for many years. Yuka has been around for 30 years and we have been supporting tenants for as long as I could remember I have been with the organization since I was 14 and we have been doing outreach since. We've covered around 30 units on Koolie Avenue on two separate locations and this is outside of the statistics that we're shared today. Approximately 12 residents attended our No Your Rights Training that was held here in this room last month Or late January sorry and then I just want to emphasize that tenants need We'll continue to need Support and we're seeing a lot more questions from community members who are scared of retaliatory evictions or just other things that are happening specifically around immigration. It's crucial for trusted community organizations to keep providing the necessary information and services to ensure that tenants have equitable access to housing, legal and rental resources in our community. So thank you very much. And yeah. Thank you. Skis, Klisper presenting to know. They are not here this evening, but we can open it up for questions and discussions now. Vice President. Okay, we'll open up with questions and discussions from council. We have any public comments. Would you like to do a public comment first before coming? Sure. If there's any public comments, let's call them. We did receive a speaker slip from Francisco Guzman followed by Tiambe and Bernice Turner. Ms. Guzman. She. Oh. Good evening. Council members and vice mayor. I'm here today to speak on behalf of often the unforgotten in the city. It's my day to day walking in this city and being involved in all these measures to help stop displacement in this city since I started living here 20 years ago. I think in some imperative it's important to continue to support processes like this. It is even more expensive to live in the Bay area that has not stopped. So when it was urgent 20 years ago, 10 years ago, it is beyond urgency. I want you to consider our most vulnerable residents. I live on the west side. And even though sometimes council wants to think that renters are not forever residents or they're transient. I want to remind you that we live here. We own this city. We walk it daily. Don't forget us. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Tiambe followed by Bernie's turner. Hi, I'm Bernie's turner. need a homeowner advocacy as the young ladies was talking about the tenants. Their rights between 2008 and 2012. Third, one-third of single family homes went into foreclosure due to predatory lending and nothing has happened in retrospect to preventing it from happening again. It's like shark lending. I am a victim of predatory lending, practice, practices and a potential, excuse me, my voice. I am facing displacement from my home. Again, it was my inheritance. We've been here since the 50s my parents and we worked so hard my family worked very hard in this community. Okay along the street on Pogas and Beach Street we were responsible for getting those sidewalks done there but the city I feel should do more and preventing homeowners, homeowners losing their homes. The city can pass the audiences that can prevent predatory lending. I do need financial assistance and I feel that foreclosure needs to be prevented. I think that those for you. Yes, JJ. That's why we came together. Okay, so. But I want my two minutes. Okay. So I'll continue. The what people forget, how I'm starting? Okay. Forget is that for homeowners who rent, it's the renters that pay the mortgage and taxes, etc. If they're proper business people. Okay, so disrespect from your customer is not cool and it continues. People just come up here and say, I'm a home owner. Okay. You know, you're human being. You're not better than. So we need to respect each other because we need each other. If people weren't paying your, your, your, your bachelor business, you know, you, so we need to respect that. And so we want some funds to particularly assist, uh, um, JJ funds to particularly assist home owners who are in trouble. Okay, we're going to utilize some of those. of the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's and the state's you homeowners and I'm specifically saying blacks descendants to be able to stay in their home and I'm looking at results your policies create results and so like de facto whatever Pagetus we need to be able to support that And we need to look at that and not just in the good rights. I'm always going to have humanity for everyone. But right now I see we are truly being displaced. And we need to have funds in the city to look at that. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Gail Dixon followed by Elizabeth Jackson. I thought it would be further down there. Total poll. I'm very familiar with Miss Turner's plight. I don't know if you're aware of it, but she just told you about 2008 was a foreclosure error. And I don't know if you're aware of it, you probably know that there are predators that come in and take advantage of people who can't read or write. I remember distinctly, going to a house to take a listing at running meat and cooling. The house was in need of repair. I came back the next day. The lady had sold her house to a mid-Easterner. She had a suitcase and a lion, right hand, got at $80,000 in a suitcase. And she had signed her house off, more money than she had ever seen. But there's more people coming into East Patel Alto because of the value of the land. Ms. Turner's case, she was taken advantage of, and I still don't know how I got to this point, where fake title companies were being used, the Department of Real Estate distinctly told three people in Los Althos the cease and desist, and they kept going, they kept going. I found out the real title company and I gave it to her attorney and attorney ignored it. I went to the district attorney. District attorney says, that's how you guys roll in East Palo Alto, you have a bunch of crooks. Great, he didn't say that in that way, but he had his great big badge on his gun. And you just can't get anything done. And I just wonder how many other people were taking advantage of them. There should be something done where if a house goes into foreclosure that the city is notified because these people need help. Just like I've heard you say a thousand times by other groups, demographics, they need help. Well, there's a lot of legacy people here. They need help because they don't know anything about real estate and at least like they can get a fair amount for their property. This turn is supposed to get a fair amount for a property, but that guy, he even wants It's hard part of it and that's ridiculous. Thank you. I meant to talk about something else, but I'll come back to JJ. Thank you. I meant to talk about something else. But I'll come back to J.J. Thank you. It's good. Thank you. Next speaker, Elizabeth Jackson. Good evening. It's did council This is Jackson, 8e. I do want to thank you for JJ and voters in East Palo Alto. And thank you for doing a lot for the tenants. I'm a tenant person. But tonight I want to talk to you about home owners quite a few homeowners have had foreclosures in this community and I see you have a area They're a program that you want to help the homeowners who have in foreclosures. I Think that's a small amount all I saw was was 114,000, I think. With three homeowners, I don't know exactly what that means, but I would like to see that increase to help more people who have in these problems, losing their homes and had to either move far away from the community that they have helped build and that they have raised their families here. I like to see our community help them out a little more. It means you gotta find a way to raise some funds, I guess, to help save those houses and keep the homeowners in their homes. And don't forget the homeowners have paid a lot of taxes. They paid a lot of help with schools and other services that we need here. So they need help as well and keep supporting the tenants, especially ones that are under rent stabilization program. Thank you, next speaker, Ophelia Bayo, for by Adrian Bryant and Philly Saragosa on Zoom. Thank you, James. Good evening, Council, community and staff. I really want to just strongly echo what I think are really great comments that everyone so far has shared from the need to continue prioritizing tenant protections and the stability of the tenant community in East Palo Alto to ensuring that housing preservation is happening and that people who are in their homes and were able to purchase homes back when they were a bit more affordable are able to stay in those homes including legacy residents, specifically black residents, Latino residents, specific islander residents, the wealth of diversity of residents who are able to own homes here. As I think someone pointed out, it's really unfortunate that the laws at one point in time, and I've heard a couple council members talk about this before, including you, Mr. Brica, were allowed for discrimination, essentially, allowed real estate to discriminate. But now it's not possible to purposely try and keep communities of color housed. So we have to do the best that we can. And like other folks mentioned, certain outcomes are in goals for ourselves to be able to accomplish that for the legacy residents that live here, for the vulnerable residents. And I do want to point out that when we're talking about immigrant communities and that intersection between housing justice and immigrant justice, it is not just the Latino community. We're a really diverse community in these potholes, so that includes black immigrants that includes Pacific Islander residents, Asian American residents, like folks from all sorts of backgrounds are affected by this issue. And there's an intersection there that needs to be taken into account. I'll use my last few seconds to again, reiterate my support for the continued use of these funds to do exactly what the voters voted affirmatively for when they supported Measure JJ, when they supported the previous iterations of this measure, and also express support for housing preservation through assisting elder homeowners, elderly homeowners or homeowners who are vulnerable to a foreclosure being able to use land trust. That's something that Councilman Lincoln, I believe, has spoken to before. So we'd love to see that happen and do wanna hear a little bit more about how the number, how staff came to the number three when it comes to trying to stop foreclosers. So thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Adrian Bryant followed by Philly Saragosa and Lois Williams. Good evening again. I'm very impressed to see people have shown up to speak on this issue and the other ones that we discussed this evening. I'm going to ask Acting Chair Dynand to please give me at least 30 seconds more because I'm speaking off the cuff after that long closed session. One thing I wanted to say with reviewing the agenda is I don't see a lot of resources put into legacy home owners and I will say black home home owners, people who were affected during the.com and also the housing crisis back in 2008 and later in 2001 or two. I would love to see more funding towards helping seniors. I believe that they are our most vulnerable population. There are fixed incomes, they have health problems, and their caregivers, I am one, are struggling. What all we have to do to support our families and also try to keep our houses maintained. So I would love to see a little bit more money go towards fixing up some senior houses, home owners houses. Also, I would love to see something that community legal services can do with regards to helping people with their estate plans including a state and trust administration. I think that goes a long way with educating people and helps them preserve their house and make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands or they don't pay a lot of money out towards an attorney should something happen. That helps legacy residents that is generational wealth building and I would love to see someone take the time to address that and have it factored in to what you're doing right now. Again, I appreciate all of the community organizations and you're continued work, but I think you're missing a real big piece of the pie. So tonight I am advocating for seniors, home owners, and legacy residents who were affected, not just from the foreclosures back in 2008, but from the red lining and all types of housing discrimination. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Philly Saragosa, followed by Louis Williams and Alexia Gutierrez. Good evening, City Council. Can you hear me? Yes, awesome. Thank you. Hello, it is Philly again. I am here because I want to make sure that my point does come across. I obviously have been in community for years and I really want to show my dedicated support towards measure JJ and applying its funding where it's meant to be applied. So I do want to also highlight the importance of land trust and I I think this is something that Ophelia mentioned earlier. Antra land trusts. And of course, housing preservation programs just so we can keep the housing and these polywaltzo affordable. And we can keep those legacy homeowners. With the overwhelming success of Measure JJ on this previous ballot, I want to make sure that we're all advocating for the funds to be placed in what they're supposed to be placed in. And I specifically want to advocate for the funds to be used in such programs for land trust, for housing preservation, because we need to keep as many homes affordable in EPA as we can. Our residents rely on programs and policies like this, and it would be an absolute shame to remove or worsen them. So thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Lois Williams, followed by Alexe Gutiérrez, and Zenia Hernandez. Lois Williams. Oh, hi, y'all. Hi, Councilmember, City Workers and Community Members. I'm East Pal Altoma, my name is Lois Williams. I'm a student, organizer and manager at Yuka. I'm here today to address, we recently discussed plans and proposals by City Council members that go against the community values of East Pal Alt to to provide a safe, healthy and welcoming home for everyone. Over the last few months, if you Council members have discussed plans to modify the city's affordable housing requirements, housing policies, and progress. Specifically, they've talked about removing the inclusionary ordinance, which requires developers to build 20% of their projects as affordable housing, as well as modifying the affordable housing strategy that supports developing and funding low-income rental housing, supporting renters and anti-displacement programs. We at Yuka and the broader East Palo Alto community are extremely concerned that instead of moving forward with our goal to provide affordable housing for all and make East Pell Outdoor habitable and not just to playground for wealthy speculators, landlords and technocrats but for everyday people like my family and my coworkers. This is deeply troubling and alarming and us as a community are ready to organize against any push against affordable housing for all. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Alexia Gutierrez, followed by Zenia Hernandez and Crystal. Good evening, Council. Can you guys hear me, Oguery? Yes. Perfect. My name is Alexei Gutiades, and I'm a lifelong resident of Ispalo Alto. I'm here to express the dire need to allocate funds towards anti displacement efforts. Specifically, I would be deeply troubled if Council were to modify the city's affordable housing policies and programs such as Mr. J. JJ, especially as it is people of East Polo Alto that voted for it. I just recently graduated from college and given that I'm already low income, I'm incredibly stressed about entering the housing market in East Polo Alto. I want to continue to live in EPA, however, this would be nearly impossible for me without emergency rental assistance and strong antidisplacement programs like what MesoJJ provides. I'm calling on council to take tenant protection seriously by allocating more funding towards what MesoJJJ voters suggested. I shared a similar sentiment a few months ago and will continue to come back and advocate for myself in my community until council listens to the constituents. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you. Next speaker is any Hernandez followed by crystal. Hello city council. My name is senior. I'm a core member at Yuka. I think you should all consider allocating money towards rental assistance because it would limit people who live in EPA from getting displaced from evictions. My family owns our home, but despite that, we care about our neighbors and we support that these funds be used towards ensuring that the people who make up this community can't stay here, especially when encountering emergency situations. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Crystal. Good evening, can everybody hear me? Yes. Okay, thank you. Good evening, Council, city staff. And community members, my name is Crystal, and I am a lifelong resident in East Pawlton. I am also the program director at Yuka, Youth and Out of the Community Action. And I'm here to fully express my concern of our council, wanting to change or even abandon a long established policies, I support housing for residents of East Pawlton way before some of you all even started even thinking about running for council. Our residents are experiencing a lot of stress in the housing market, including myself. And they have all this time, and it's unfortunately not something that's gonna change anytime soon in the Bay Area. Therefore, it is beyond critical to have measures like JJ have the funds allocated to what it needs to be with at least 40% going to emergency rental assistant to accommodate all of our residents, especially given that majority of our communities are renters. Thank you so much. Thank you and that was our last speaker. Okay, moving on to Council comments. Which council members would like to make comments on this this item. Webster now's your time. I'll wait. Anybody else want to speak? Are there any other comments? We're receiving this report correct. We're not making any decisions on funding or anything like that tonight. So. That's correct. It's just to receive the report. Yeah. I'll make a few comments since we're having primarily, you know, I think a report and what's happened, how the monies have been used and kind of preparing for making a more specific plan, I think, for the JJ. So, yeah, definitely appreciate the work that all the organizations have been doing and the way that you have kept track of the situation, because that's how we find out overall. Each of us in the community do get a sense of what's going on but hearing that work. situation because that's how we find out overall. I think each of us in the community do get a sense of what's going on, but hearing a more comprehensive report, it's always you know very good. And I look forward now to the J.J. I'm going to call this sort of work plan because I think the displacement and the our efforts in the city to counter that. You know, displacement in my opinion, and you know, I've been here 45 years. Other people have been here longer but and from what I have read. displacement of more vulnerable populations in housing has been around forever in this country. We just don't know about it. We don't feel it. Sometimes maybe. We don't want to acknowledge it. And it's not until it becomes a big, huge crisis that sometimes the government's state I, you know, I'm proud to say that our community and East Palo Alto, including the majority, not everybody, the majority of elected officials in the existence of our city, have paid attention to this issue of how to counter the effects of gentrification, the effects of displacement that are not always economic. They're often discriminatory too, often predatory. And so we do what we can. I feel as a government, I think that organizations have certain responsibilities to also do some things. But I, you know, from what I hear and what I read evictions are going up around the Bay Area still. So this is not a, this is not like because we make a lot of efforts. We do a lot of things that things get better. No, they're actually getting worse. And so I'm really now looking at really analyzing and understanding the knowledge that has been collected by the organizations on the ground, including my own knowledge that, you know, talking to people, seeing my neighbors, etc. to try to improve the efforts that we make with what we have. We cannot solve everything, but I think we can do a lot more. And we must do a lot more. So I'll just leave that as general comment that you know developing our JJ part the the anti-displacement piece, is part of the larger, you know, anti-displacement strategy or the affordable housing strategy, which really covers a lot. You know, the rent law units and then everything else. So that's a big one, but I think we need to pay attention to these efforts specifically to reduce the displacement as much as possible. That's one area. I think the speakers covered a lot of areas areas but I definitely appreciate those of you who at least mentioned the fact that you know we're really talking about everybody. If we want to help stabilize our community it includes renters primarily because they don't own property and it also includes homeowners who may be you know running into some Financial problems or they had some difficulty or they were taken advantage of Definitely, I think that JJ does make room for for that You know having said that I what I also don't want to point out because Some of us who've been involved in the struggle in East Wal-Torfer many years know that one reason why we wanted to become a city, again, was to help everyone. So the legacy homeowners, you know, by and large, have benefited a lot because their property value went all the way up to $1 million a few years ago. So let's be clear that the city has helped homeowners, but there is a small group that is more vulnerable and that's the group that I wanna also focus and finding very specific ways in which we can assist those homeowners. Now there's a couple other areas that are a little more, I would call to me maybe less tangible but important and important to try to understand how they function and what us as a city council can do. One has to do with the subject of the, some people mentioned that some people are concerned about landlords perhaps taking advantage of the political climate and maybe threatening people who are not here with their full documents as though that's a certain crime or I don't know what they think that somehow they can say because you don't have documents now I'm going to evict you or I'm going to charge you more money because I guess one thing I have learned is this there's really two areas that are very problematic and hard to deal with in some ways one is this there are certain landlords that are greedy and that's not everybody but they operate on the value of greed. So the more money they can extract from tenants, then that's okay with them. And if it means that they're going to evict people so they can get more money from other people because those people now have a lot more money, then they do it. If they were not as greedy, we probably wouldn't have as much of a problem. So that's a big general problem of housing. People being sheltered, just being traded on the market as a commodity. I think that's a value issue for our whole society, including us. The other part is businesses that are predatory. Now again, you know, not all businesses are like that. Not all real estate people are like that. Not all landlords like that. But that's what we're up against. We're up against greed and we're up against predatory people. And how do we deal with that? I'm not sure. Send them multi-church so they can, or temples or send them somewhere so they can have some training under value system because obviously the government can't you know how we're going to control greed. I mean the rent law does something to say you can do business in this town but you have to do it in a way that you respect the situation of people and that you make your money, but you don't abuse the system. So, you know, this immigration stuff concerns me because I feel like I personally going to send a letter to every landlord in town and say, I hope that you're not using immigration status as a way to retaliate against tenants. In this town over the years, immigration has come around and taken some people from all countries, Nigerian people, Mexican people, Salvadorian people, Kenyan people, right? So let's not get confused and divided on what is happening now, especially in the situation we're in economically that hopefully landlords will not resort to those practices. And these people have mentioned, you know, predatory practices that may be, whether they're banks or real estate people, that may be something that the council can at least send a letter or something since we can't quite control them. But having some programs to address the most vulnerable populations, whether they are tenants or homeowners, I think is the next, to me is the next phase and the work that we need to do in this community. And really, you know, get as many organizations involved in helping to, you know, stabilize our population so people are not displaced, you know, whatever it takes. And, you know, for example, the statistic that was mentioned around 70 percent, people who had received the victim notices that 70 percent, you know, they got some assistance. So, you know, at some point, I'd like to know so what happened to the 30%? So that's still like three out of every 10 people being evicted, there were other reasons, but if it was purely financial, then if we don't do more in that area, that's how we end up with more people being homeless, with unhoused people don't have the money, so they end up on the street, or they end up some other places that are dangerous and are really not good. So, you know, I think to now we don't have time to get into all those details, but I think tonight's presentation is very, very important because it creates a, is like a milestone. We've come this far, and so what else do we need to do? I am definitely not in support of reducing anything. I am not in support of taking away any of the things that we put in place for the sake of, I don't know what, because I don't think the job is finished and we need to keep doing more to help our population stay in place. That's all I had to say for now. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Webster Lincoln, would you like to chime in? Yeah so you know I'm looking at a lot of the housing programming or housing programs and server sources and you know I'm definitely in support of allocating resources towards foreclosure prevention. You know, we've already been through this, you know, a predatory lending period that happened prior to the grade recession. And what's happening or what has happened, you know, at least in Mrs. Turner's case, is almost very similar. And my question, at least for you, Council member Abrica and Carlos Samero, you guys were on council in 2008 to 2012. What has the city done since then to prevent predatory lending practices this. I've always been a support of allocating funds to help homeowners who are vulnerable. When the, that whole predatory thing happened, the City Council put in some funds and worked with Habitat for Humanity to help some of the homeowners that were in distress. So right now, whatever people are going through, I think the City Council needs to identify which homeowners, what the specific situation is, and what can the city government do, and And what maybe what responsibility some of these predatory businesses have. Ultimately if you're a predator and you've been a victim of predatory practices then there are probably some legal recourses too and you know I'm if the city wants to get involved in that. I'm in support of that. But if you're trying to like blame me for the trouble of homeowners who, you know, suffered on the predatory practices, I'm not going to get into that kind of discussion. Okay. I've I made my statements very clear. I'm in support of the J.J. and I don't know how much you supported J.J. or how much work you did out there. But I did a lot of work. I spent a lot of time and a lot of hours advocating for the voters to support having some funds to do both things. Help homeowners and help tenants who are in trouble. So that's my response. So I'm not trying to, I'm just asking from from a historical perspective, what has the City Council done to prevent, you know, foreclosures and predatory lending practices that have plagued our community in the past. And as a result of so many homes being foreclosed on. All right. Well, if you want to get into this dialogue, I guess, if the I assume Mr. Dynance, okay, you don't do this. If that's what you want to do. The other thing that the city has done historically is established a below market rate housing program. That has helped a lot of people here to become homeowners. So that's a proactive activity that has happened. But again, if you say, if you want to hold a city government responsible for predatory businesses and for the, for closures that happen back in time. I think you're barking at the wrong tree, right? So, you know, I'm for right now. What is going on right now? We're talking about J.J. that was passed by the voters that the money that we have. So let's come up with some specific programs that will help homeowners who are in dire straits right now. And they just need to present their situation. I think there's a way that we can evaluate what's going on and determine then what kinds of programs the city can have to help those specific people in need. If you want to get into some ideological, political, historical discussion, we can have coffee and talk about that. But I don't think this is the place to do that, to get distracted from what the focus is right now. Or closure prevention is one of the programs listed in this policy in action. And the funding amount is $114,000 to assist maybe three homeowners. And my question was really just based upon what has historically been done in this area on foreclosure prevention. I'm not talking about, you know, affordable housing or below market rate. I'm talking specifically about foreclosure prevention and given that, you know, you guys have been on council for so long. I thought that maybe you might have had, you know, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not interrupting, but I'm getting a little, you know, I don't know what the word is, but you and Mr. Dynand keep bringing up what the council has done or has done like you want to try to blame us. Don't start pointing fingers. You know what? If you should have started with that. If you're saying that, OK, there's only $14,000. That's something that the staff put there. So let's discuss that. We want to have $150,000 to $200. Let's get down to specific and get to work instead of this rhetoric about what happened in the past and who to blame and all this, who's going to get credit. I'm not into that kind of stuff. Okay, I'm just telling you upfront and I'm getting a little tired of this kind of narrative at each of the different meetings. But you know, it's fine. Can we keep this so? This is only for information and this is not, we're not deciding the budget right now. I made it very specific when I made my remarks that this is an area that we need to set up some specific goals. And let's get to work on that, develop a work plan, an anti-displacement, and protection of the vulnerable homeowners. That's what we need to do. All right, well, that's the only question I had is what have we done for homeowners who are facing foreclosure, but nevertheless, in terms of these programs, just in general comments that I have is that I think we could help a lot of our working adults and our professionals and people who are Australia of college get into home ownership. I think that's the best opportunity for long-term affordability and wealth generation. So one of the things I do support is home buyer, at least first time home buyer financial assistance. For a lot of our young working adults who could necessarily afford to pay a mortgage payment, but might not have the down payment because obviously they don't come from a rich family or they haven't been in the workforce long enough to save that kind of money, but at least to help them get into more long-term, affordable housing, and that will allow them to generate you know generational wealth. And so also support things like you know the home repairs and the minor home repairs. We have a lot of seniors who don't necessarily have the income or the cash to do these home repairs. So those are some of the things that I also support. So in general, I think that we could use some of these funds to help not only tenants, but also to help a lot of our homeowners in these Palo Alto that live in this community to help them maintain their houses and keep their houses and not have to worry about predatory loans. We need more financial literacy. We need things like educating people on trusts and wills and all kinds of stuff. So that they don't get their homes taken from them by a lot of these predatory lenders out here. So those are the general comments that I kind of had, but I also had a question about specifically if we can pull up the slide, it was one on that show the analysis. Does anybody have that slide that they can pull up? Yeah, we'll get that up right now. The analysis. they can pull out. Yeah, we'll get that up right now. So I'm looking at this analysis and you know one of the questions I, you know, for clasper, you know, they've assisted 340 households with legal representation. And they have sort of objective outcomes, you know, whereas 80% of the residents who received eviction prevention services remained in their home. home and I think that's you know a good number and so on and so forth but you know looking at some of these other organizations, I'm wondering if you guys have or can produce some sort of an objective outcome based upon these case management cases and these education workshops and tenant rights workshops because you know when I'm looking at an analysis I'm looking at outcomes and simply just because a service is provided I'm not sure of the outcome that we're trying to get at other than just saying I educated you know know, a certain number of residents. So that's one of the questions that I had is, is there any other data here that I can see that in terms of like, it's this tenant education and case management. Is there any other data here as towards what was the outcome from these workshops, at least case management cases. So that's kind of the one question I have in terms of these analysis. Through the chair. So the slide alone is just a small portion of the items that were listed in the staff report that council received. So this is just some of the top items that we really wanted to share with Council in this presentation. But aside from these things, those tenant educations have led to rent stabilization seeing an increase in petitions being processed over the past year. We've received over 30, which is higher than it's been some one combined petition of tenants that are concerned about the habitability of their living conditions being submitted to our office. It's very, it's not a common practice for tenants to either always follow through with their petition once submitted because of fear of retaliation or to even, we will help the tenants with their petition process. We will discuss it with them and all their rights under the ordinance, but they will not follow through. This huge petition that came forward has been a huge item for our office to see happen. And that happens because these community partners are discussing the rights with the tenants and educating them and filling the man on what their rights are under the ordinance and rights are as tenants and to not be fearful of retaliation for doing these things. So that's just one of the things that we've seen as a big turnaround for our office and for tenants in the community. Okay. Thank you. So one of the things you mentioned is that you're seeing referrals from these case management and tenant education workshops. Is that correct? Like referrals to that's correct along with staff working closely with the agencies to ensure that additional information is delivered to know for tenants to know their rights whether it has been gas leaks of properties whether it has been multi-unit homes being sold and tenants being fearful that they're just going to get evicted by the new owner and ensuring that the just cause ordinance is being followed. So all of these things are coming up, but it seems like whenever community partners also would like to speak to it if. I also wonder if you guys are actually tracking that data. Thank you. Just to answer your question, this is Kenya from Yuga, another outcome that comes out of the education outreach and know your right presentations is the shuttling of the folks either to Samaritan House and or CLS. So a lot of the folks that CLS see is because we're providing that education and people are learning their rights. And so therefore they know that there's resources available. Whether it's Samaritan House's funding and or lawyer support. So that's another way that that could be seen through the numbers that they see. Thank you. Thank you. So that's only the last question I had was about the data. I just didn't see that outcomes associated with some of those organizations, whereas with community legal services, I saw maybe was a 70 or 80% of those people were able to stay in their homes because of the legal assistance that they got. So I was wondering for tracking data based upon some of these other organizations and the potential outcomes they're trying to achieve. But that's it. Thank you. Council member, were there any comments? Yeah, I guess just, I'll try to make a brief. First of all, I do wanna state for the record that the vast majority of people who worked on this measure certainly were tenants. Let's make that really clear. The people who pounded the streets, the people who passed out that petition, they were tenants, they weren't homeowners. Let's make that really clear. I also want to make it clear that this ultimately winds up being a tenant tax in the long run. Why? Because eventually rents adjust. If what we were to do with this money is spend a vast majority or a majority of it on homeowner issues, we would essentially be participating in a vast wealth transfer from lower income folks to have equity. That It made the policy decision we decide to make. But again, I'm not sure that as people who really strive for equitable outcomes and fairness, that we would want to create in this community that type of siphoning transfer that would move money out of a tenants pocket into someone who actually has what we call equity. So I think it's something for us to consider. I'm not saying that none of the money should go to particularly, I mean, I think it's important to potentially support it. And I've had several seniors, actually a former mayor at Foster has come to me and said, look, I think it's important for, and I agree with that we actually put $50,000 towards this, that it would be important for older residents and community who have problems with their roofs, who have problems with some of the, you know, capital items that have to get replaced in their homes to actually have a program that might allow them to make those repairs, either with a low income loan or actually as grants. I think that makes sense. But again, I'm not sure that we want to create a policy or a vast transfer of wealth from low income folks to people who have equity. So I also want to say that I actually think, the majority of these funds should go towards assisting tenants. Remember that 30% number is a floor. It's not a ceiling. I agree with Council Member Abidika that the anti displacement piece is critical and has been present throughout Measure O, Measure L, and JJ. So certainly continuing to work with local organizations to get information out, because it is the information that I think that our staff have said this, that it is information that is provided to tenants, provided the folks who are let's say facing unlawful evictions or that are being harassed. It's the distribution of that information, which is not always quantifiable, Mr. Webster, you mustn't be mired solely or blinded by the data, let's say. I think that to falsely hide behind data is not to look at the qualitative measurements or even the anecdotal measurements. I mean anybody who knows who's working in the social science area has to look at not just the data but there are also kind of qualitative things anecdotal issues you have to think about. And I think that we've heard from our staff that indeed they are seeing results from many of the, from the outreach that both Yuka, CLS as well as Mr. Kakasa is doing. I would hopefully like to see that potential 30%, we aren't really talking about this a lot of occasion, but I think this first round, given what we've heard, given that there is an increase in evictions and the economy has buffeted the rental community. I'd like to see that number raised perhaps to you know 40% of this money going in this first year to that area. I also think that it is important to continue this outreach work whether we modify some of those contracts. But this outreach work is vitally important and I think now that we have a rent registry which we can use to provide folks living in single-family homes, the vital information they need in terms of not rent control, but eviction, eviction defense, and eviction protections. That is another thing that we should be doing. I think that helps tenants. I will say that having pounded the payment or probably four months for measure JJ, the landlords that I have spoken've spoken with were actually supportive of the ordinance because they knew that they directly would be impacted positively by not having tenants miss months of rent payments, by allowing a tenant to get back on his feet or her feet. If maybe they had a car repair they had to do, they couldn't pay the full rent. So I think even landlords in this community understand the value of this program. So I am not opposed certainly to looking at, some of the homeowner repair programs, particularly for many of our seniors, many of our legacy residents. If we're talking about a foreclosure prevention program, again, I think that is more outreach and public information than particularly having a pot of money, because it is making sure that our homeowners, seniors, aren't scammed. And you know, one of the biggest scammers in this area are real estate agents, my friend. As a matter of fact, when we were here with Councilmember Abedica, as well as Lisa Gose, we were incensed, by the way, real estate agents, both local and afar, have preyed on our community by saying, will pay you cash for your home? And they undercut by significant amount of the market and say, look, here's cash. And they are taking away essentially built up equity from folks. It is that real estate agency, that real estate world, those realiters who indeed have been had greater predatory practices in East Palo Alto. Then we talked about, look, the predatory lending piece, let's make that really clear, that is a lot, area of law that is occupied by the state. It is not occupied by cities, by municipalities. You can't find those ordinances. We did pass in this community a payday lending ordinance that did not allow predatory lenders on the payday side to come in here with usurious rates and provide these products to our community. So when that was occurring, we passed that ordinance. So again, I think we are doing stuff in that area. But again, I do want to emphasize that it is important to make sure that we protect the most vulnerable in this community, particularly tenants and I said seniors who are, you know, homeowners and are, you know, having issues with repairing their homes. And certainly doing outreach to them to make sure that they are not being scammed by predatory real estate agents because it really is a predatory business at times. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Romero. I have a few short comments. I think more money should be spent on direct rental assistance and relief, direct assistance. I think it would be, especially with larger landlords, it would be helpful to work directly with them and lower administrative cost and spend more money helping people pay rent. I'd be interested in pursuing a housing purchase program, you know, a silent second helping long-term residents come up with that down payment, hopefully having the house appraise and then be able to shift it over to full ownership of the, you know, of the purchaser and, you know, having the city sponsor it, but then eventually get out of there eventually at some point. I'd be interested. Almost sounds like Dopa. We could have done a program to help residents. My opposition to OPA was because it was hurting existing homeowners and it you want, you want me to go over OPA, then we can have that discussion. Fun times. I'm interested in having health and safety inspection of all rental housing in East Palo Alto to make sure that our renters are living in safe and secure housing. I think that's something that this would be an appropriate use of fund. I'd also be interested in one of the issues with long-term rent controlled housing is that it's not economical for the owner to make health and safety or HVAC repairs or mold remediation. I'd be interested in coming up with low or no interest loans for rent control departments to keep them habitable as opposed to declining due to financing issues. I'd be interested in having more outreach to mom and pop landlords for rental assistance and also dramatically increasing the pool available for rental assistance. And I'd also want to make, I think it's important to have outreach to the community, but I want to make sure that we're not giving money to groups that are active in politics in East Palo Alto and advocating for specific policies on things like, you know, measures and candidates, etc. And so that the people who are receiving city money are groups that are politically neutral and that is my final comments and Will I do have a I'm sorry So you know, I was Had a response because Carlos was saying that you know first time home buyer programs are siphoning off, finding to benefit, you know, homeowners. But I think the goals of those programs are to help tenants and renters get into long term affordable situations. And that money is either going to the landlord or to the home owner and helping those tenants become homeowners, that is not siphoning off money. That's long-term, that is long-term affordability, instability, and it allows people to build equity and wealth. Not just for renters to continue to pay the mortgage and mortgages of the homeowners. You know, so who's where's the money going to if we're spending money on rental assistance, that money is going to the landlord. Whereas when you have a first time home buyer program, that money is going to the tenant to help them become a homeowner and build that wealth for themselves. So instead of paying someone else's mortgage, they're paying their own. And so that's all I have to say about that. Again, sounds like Klopa. Let's figure that one out. So yeah, a few comments. One is on, I guess I'll direct this to the organizations that have done the work. That, you know, I'm also interested in data. And so following up on some comments were made on You know collecting data and trying to measure outcomes. So I mean just for the record sometimes I have to say things like this. I wish I didn't but I worked in education of research and evaluation for 12 years So I'm very well acquainted with all the different ways and you can evaluate the outcomes of any kind of program. And so one approach, although it goes by different names, is definitely a quantitative approach where you have, like, yeah, we got 70% of this or whatever. The other is the qualitative approach, which I think definitely organizations that do more kind of social work who are trying to help people. It's not as easy to just come up with, you know, standardized quantitative approach. The qualitative approach in this, in our situation, I think is just as important. So I would appreciate. So that's not something to look down on. But it's actually something to document. And there are ways to document. I think organizations already do that. The value of the resources that are being utilized. So one example that was mentioned in the Reckley is doing workshops for people, educating people. So on the surface, it may seem like, well, that's kind of a waste of money because all you're doing is just showing up and teaching people and then people go off and then what do we know what happens? Well, that is very valuable to educate people. So that in itself, it's a statistic and I think as the director of the ren administration was pointing out, a secondary effect of that, as a result of tenants having gone through, you know, sessions on knowing their rights, some of them exercised their rights. And they filed a petition, for example. But even if they had not filed a petition, I would still consider very valuable the fact that X number of sessions were held on, where you can find resources, how the county does services, which is a lot of what I see that Samaritan House and other groups do. But I don't want to devalue that. If I only use the quantitative approach, then I'm going to devalue that and say, we're wasting your money on you, so we're not going to don't even apply for money. And I'm not in support of that. The other thing is that, yeah, I definitely agree that I think that in campaigning and talking and saying that landlords and tenants are in agreement that it's always good if people can pay the rent. Because you know, that even creates problems for the landlords that people now have to leave and they have to do this and do that. So that is really a good thing. Now, as far as people owning their own home, well that's a whole different discussion. This J.J. was really anti-displacement. How do we keep people from being displaced? I think if we want to talk about ways to help ownership, I'm all for that. Last year or two years ago, I brought back to the council and I was roundly denied by the previous mayor and vice mayor, the opportunity to discuss COPA, which was the community opportunity to purchase act. Granted that, okay, the single homes, homeowners, we can leave that because Three on the people on the council voted against it. Okay put that aside But there are other opportunities other ways if we really want to help people so let's talk about Community opportunity to purchase yes, so I hope that the current Agenda committee will find it in there, to bring it back for discussion. Yes, last year I had a race all kinds of issues, legal issues, historical issues, and they just shut me down. I'm just saying shut me down because I brought that to their attention. But they basically shut down the community because they shut down the opportunity to discuss other ways in which we can help people become owners or support the people who already own it in our endanger. Even the landlords, I don't think we're opposed to the possibility of, if a landlord is going to sell 20 units, the mom moment pop owners are going to sell 20 units, 50 units, potentially they could be waste in which the tenants, along with some nonprofit or help with the city, could buy the building. But they could be owners of the building. They could run it in some way. So, you know, let's, I think that's, so I'm glad that we're having this discussion, particularly about this thing about owning property. Okay, let's put that back on the table and find ways that we can do it cooperatively, that we can do it in a way that doesn't harm anybody. Last time, I think there was a lot of fear mongering going on and it kind of confused all kinds of things. We probably could have done something but you know that's water under the bridge but yeah let's bring Copa back. Okay with that we'll wrap up this item. We have two more items on the agenda and it's 1040 so I guess we have a... Can I just make one? It's just one in a minute. I am a little concerned and I am going to say it sounds a bit Trumpian for Mr. Dining, for the vice mayor to say that he will not fund a group who is going to advocate for itself or for political issues. That's exactly what this president is doing, and I do not want to be part of a council. I'm also bothered by that. That's like a sense of... I do not want to be part of a council that attempts to watch or potentially shut down discourse that's political, that's social, that is just. So it's only my opinion, thank you. Your objection has noted, but let's move on to the next item 9.2. We need a recommendation to receive an informational report from staff concerning measure O and L, an anti-displacement services, and receive an overview on existing city efforts from the council's consideration of measure JJ funding. So, that's all. You don't need a motion. Okay, for policy and action. Moving on, item 9.2, University of Bay of Four Corners, preliminary review, mixed use project, the recommendation is review the preliminary application for 1675 Bay Road University of Bay of Four Corners, residential process proposed by four corners EPA property owner LLC and provide feedback to the applicant and city staff. Thank you ice mara dinan this will be led by contract senior planner first dock almost is online. Sorry um I see city attorney uh through the mayor I know I just just with you. Yeah, well, okay, it's the vice mayor. Is there any way that we could just take these two at the same time that is just, you know, we have about an hour and 15 minutes left, maybe just have the presentations kind of melden to each other and then we can ask questions on both. Do we really have to separate them both because they were advertised just 9.29.3. I think they were separate applications. I think it's up to the council because it's not, you know, it's, they're, they're separate applications, but if the council feels like it's sufficient to kind of put them together or it's fine to put them together so that because the whole purpose is really to get feedback from you. Let's just do what we're doing. I just wanted to try to expedite it for both the applicant, but I think we can get through this in an hour and 15 minutes. Sorry, Mr. Vice-Man. Okay, do we have a, who will be presenting on this? Mr. Docomoff is online. Good evening. Thank you for staying on without receiving. So the presentations are kind of set up so that the majority of the focus of the discussion will be during this first presentation for item 9.3. It will just be a quick kind of overview of the site plan and project. But good evening. Last May, or Dynan and honorable council members this evening. I'll be presenting the two projects. They are separate but related and connected. So the Mixed Use project is item 9.2 and the Town Home project is 9.3. While the focus of the presentation is on the Mixed Use project in order to limit repetition between the two presentations, I'll touch upon the project origination and how that turned into two projects. And the Rear Elephant State Legislations, this project seeks to to to utilize to advance the developments. First we'll review the University of Bay at Workhorse, McSuse Project and accordance with the city's preliminary application process, the goal of which is to provide opportunities to the community, finding commission and city council to offer feedback early on in the process. It should be noted that no project approvals are being considered tonight. We'll then touch on project history, describe what mechanisms the applicant is seeking to facilitate project approval and construction, review the site plan, and propose projects. After that, I'll turn it over to the applicant to present before we turn back to you, City Council for questions and feedback. So the recommended action for this evening is to review the preliminary application for the University of Bay at Fort Corners, McSuse Project, located at 1675 Bay Road. Revive feedback to the applicant and city staff. So what's shown here are the two projects side by side. So we have the townhome project to the right of the screen and the Mixed Use project to the left. Prior to the submittal, these preliminary applications, the applicant originally submitted an application for for the entire 6.1 acre site that proposed $150,000 square feet of research and development, 50,000 square feet of active frontage that could have been consisted of retail or community space and 260 residential units. This was submitted to the city as the city was initiating a review of the review of and update to the 2013 Revenswood Business District specific plan. The update provides more guidance on development standards, reduced heights, and nearby single family residences throughout reduced intensity by identifying the maximum base level for foreign area ratios while allowing a pathway for projects to seek additional FAR by implementing more of the cities and specific plans goals objectives and goals of the specific plans objectives and goals. As the RBD-specified and near completion, the applicant can't determine that the changes in the development standards and current economic conditions were conflict with their project objectives and requested that the city place on hold the 5,000 square foot lifestyles mixed use projects. Throughout the course of the project the African has complied with the city's community outreach policy for projects of this nature including a community meeting on both both projects held this past February. So I'm proud to touch quickly on the two kind of state legislations that the applicants using, specifically the most important component of SB 330 or the Housing Crisis Act is that the applicant was seeking to invest the development standards policies and ordinances such as in fact these that were in place at the time that a preliminary application compliant with the city's 330 checklist was deemed complete. And so they submitted a complete preliminary application for the city's SB 330 application December 2nd, 2024. Additionally, the applicant is seeking a state density bonus. However, it should be noted that formal application and formal housing compliance plan would need to be provided in order for the city to determine whether or not the concessions or waivers are allowed. It's important to kind of walk through the incentives, concessions and waivers that may be used across the two projects. Incentives increased density, allow for increased density reduced parking requirements in exchange for, or to encourage construction or affordable housing. Concessions are modifications to development standards or regulatory relief, such as an alteration of use, and waivers are reduction of physical or design barriers to development standards. So the proposed project is located across from City Hall at the intersection of University and Bay Road. It's surrounded by Michigan and Fordham, the University Village to the east and to the north. And 2013, the RBD specific plan identifies this area as four corners gateway, which was envisioned to be the city's driving downtown, which will come touch upon in revering some of the planning commissioners' comments. So it's, it was intended to be composed of mixing buildings with retail, frontage on the ground floor or community facilities also on the ground floor, and apartments or condominiums on the upper floors. So what the applicant is proposing to do is, you know, with these two separate applications, would be to bifurcate the parcel, the existing 6.03 acre parcel, and to two separate sites. The one that we're looking at right now is the 1.978 acre site for the McStuce project. Here's the kind of the side access plan. So right now the site would have to be accessed from either University or Bay Road through the townhome project. And there's one entrance into one vehicle, vehicular entrance into the garage. There's pedestrian level entrances into the buildings along the University Avenue and Bay Road, and then also a few on the eastern side of the project. So this is an overview of the site plan again. So 238 spaces would be located in the centralized garage, which would be wrapped around by building a, which is the marker rate component of the project. The marker rate component of the project would consist of 160 units. Building B, shown here, is adjacent to the city's parcel at the corner of the intersection. Additionally, retail is shown here to be along Bay Road and on the western side of Building B. And affordable housing compliance plan, showing the unit counts and unit layout will allow staff to determine whether the proposed separate building for affordable housing would qualify for alternative compliance with the city's inclusionary housing ordinance. Additionally, the approval of such alternative compliance would be subject to approval by the city council. is a little bit of an architecture and elevations showing the project kind of in comparison to the surrounding single family neighborhood. It's six stories. What we're looking at right here primarily shows the frontage of the building along the University Avenue to the left and frontage along Bay Road to the right. And so this is a cross-section elevation of the building portion to the north, which would be kind of a long, which would be adjacent to the townhome project. And then there's an access street and then followed by that would be the residences along Michigan. And then this is the elevation, same elevation, 77, of the overall height along the university avenue. So initial analysis is that the proposed projects complies with the 2013 RBD specific plan, which sets height at six doors, proposed FAR, of 2.5 is in performance. The proposed density of 101 units per acre would be allowed with the density bonus, allowing 103 units per acre. And then this is kind of where we get into the discussion of waivers. So for example, the reduction of the 35% ground floor retail requirement would be allowed do a waiver since the applicant's proposed proposing 6% retail in exchange for the affordable housing units that are being provided. So quick overview of the planning commission discussion. Several commissioners requested that the applicant consider including additional retail to of line more with the mixed use land designation and to keep, you know, to honor the 2013 RBD specific plan. A few commissioners also expressed desire for there to be similar amenities, pretendants across both buildings since the marker rate units would be contained in one building and a horrible housing units would be contained in another. Another commissioner similarly kind of expressed concern that the parking garage be centrally located in and building and that creates kind of a disadvantage for for those residents in the 100% affordable housing unit building B. Additionally, a few commissioners expressed you know interest in and better understanding the phase which Mike will touch upon from Sandal property company during his presentation. And just to kind of review conditions for denial of a waiver by the city. So the density bonus law does allow cities or counties to deny a waiver. However, the burden proof is on city to demonstrate that any one of the following, or the specific waiver would come into play in terms of whether granting a waiver would cause a specific adverse impact on public health or safety has an adverse effect on historical properties or violate state or federal laws. As this project is in the preliminary stages, has not been determined or has not submitted a formal application. It is therefore not considered a project in this thus exempts. I have to sign from from SQL guidelines. So with that, I'll hand it over to to my Kramerramer who's in the audience this evening for his presentation. Hey everyone. Hello, I will try to be quick. I think they're maybe just pulling out my presentation. Does it go on the screen or where does it go? Great. All right. Thank you very much for your time tonight. My name is Mike Kramer. I'm with Sandhill Property Company. I'll be discussing our two pre-applications for the Four Corner site at University in Bay, starting with the mixed use pre-application. Before I get into each of the pre-apps details, I'll just give a quick context about our company and our history with Four Corn. Sandhill Property Company is a local family-owned business founded over 30 years ago. We're based down the street in Palo Alto with local offices here in EPA. We're focused on serving local communities in the peninsula and we have a long-term approach. Our working EPA began almost 10 years ago when we bought the Woodland Park Apartments on the west side and we've continued to invest any PA since then. Our approach has been very focused on community engagement and getting residents input. During this past decade, we've learned a lot about the city and we love being a part of this community. Several years ago, we consistently heard people ask, what's the deal with the big empty lot across from city hall? When is anything ever going to be built there? We heard a frustration that it's sad empty for over 30 years and we want to do something about it. So we bought the property in 2019 and started talking to folks about what to do here. In 2020, we held an extensive community engagement process. We learned about the history of the site, the desires of the community and our neighbors and potential concerns about development. That year we proposed a mix use project based on the input we heard. Shortly after proposing it, the city launched the RBD Four Corner specific plan update, which froze our application in place for several years. The Four Corner site has been studied extensively in city-driven planning processes, including the 2013 specific plan, the 2016 general plan, and the 2020 through 2024 specific plan update. This four-year process did not allow us to advance our 2020 application, and the final result changed development standards and down zone the site to be incompatible with our proposal, essentially rejecting the project. We heard a lot of feedback during the specific plan update process that's informed the new pre-applications we're discussing tonight. We heard a desire for a greater number of housing units than we had originally proposed, with a greater variety of housing types. And we heard a desire for less high and overall density than what was previously allowed. So we came up with two new proposals to address this feedback and incorporate community input. Both of these pre-applications, along with the provisions of the state density bonus, are compliant with all three of the previous planning documents, including both the old and the new specific plans. To get input on the new pre-applications, we held a community meeting in February at the East Palo Alto YMCA. We mailed notices to every household within 600 feet of the four-corner site and we had a good turnout, including city staff. We shared information about the design, layout, uses, and experience, and got overall positive feedback. Our neighbors shared that they liked the look and feel of the design and are excited to finally have something built at this long vacant site. The project is split into two pre-applications because they're very different product types. They have two different architects and we expect they'll have different financing. Given the difficulty of building an East Palo Alto, we also wanted to make sure that either one can proceed even if the other encounters challenges. Now I'll get into the details of the mixed-use proposal and we'll later discuss the town homes in another presentation. The mixed use building occupies the southwest corner of the site and we're proposing 200 mixed incremental apartments with ground floor amenities along with 2,400 square feet of neighborhood serving ground floor retail or restaurant space. The building is a unit mix ranging from studios to three bedroom apartments. We're proposing a compliant inclusionary housing plan with 20% of units as below market rate affordable or a city council approved alternative compliance option. Here you can see a pedestrian and apartment of the building from Bay Road. The ground floor will be an activated, retailer, restaurant space with and apartment amenities, such as fitness and leasing. This is a perspective from University Avenue. Our goal is to create an attractive and vibrant streetscape on both University Avenue and Bay Road. The building was designed by David Baker Architects who have done several projects in East Palo Alto. This slide shows materials being considered for the building. It will be a high quality building with attractive materials that will reflect well on this prominent location. We're considering a range of potential tenants for the ground floor retail and restaurant spaces. Based on the location and size and what we heard from community input, we think it could be a good location for a cafe, a small restaurant, a small market, or a bank branch. I'm happy to take your questions and I'll go into more depth on the town homes in a later presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Are there questions or comments from council members? Just I wasn't able to attend the committee meeting that and I know ultimately you may You know, assuming it all works out that you wouldn't necessarily have, you wouldn't be able to enforce it. But would there any comments from the in the community room about a pharmacy? And a pharmacy in there because since, you know, we've lost the pharmacy at the CVS pharmacy at Target. And I think that's been something that people keep bringing up, but I was just curious to. Yeah, I would say that's something we've heard in the overall process and in some of the earlier process. There's definitely a desire for convenience uses in that there's a lack of certain services and uses in this area, and especially things that some of the neighbors would be able to walk to or bike to. And so, yeah, we're considering a pretty wide range of retail options. I'm sure do you have any questions or comments on the item. Yes, I do. So I think my comments kind of most I think someone along with I guess the planning commission. I think that maybe there should be more retail space. And I also was wondering what the city was planning to do with that little plot of land. I was suggesting that that could potentially be used as like a off the grid kind of a food truck location. where we have a lot of food trucks and these poll alts, but if we can provide them with a location that has like, say, benches and places to wash your hands and sit down and eat, and where people can easily get access to, that might be a good opportunity like to have like an off the grid kind of area for a lot of our permitted vendors and street vendors that are permitted. So I was wondering if there's any potential, like opportunity to, I just for that little plot of land, but that was just one of my thoughts. But nevertheless, I think that we could use some more retail space there, you know, whether it's a small grocery store, even like a pharmacy with a pharmacy. I mean, obviously you have to find that tenants to rent those ton of places, but, you know, like dry cleaners and stuff that basically like a self-contained kind of like little community almost where it has everything you need to shop and get groceries and you don't have to drive anywhere. One concern I have is that, you know, and I've probably spoken about this, not about this particular development, but the affordable units are kind of all in one separate building. How come we can't integrate in those affordable units into one sort of, or at least have, instead of having all of the low income, very low income, extremely low income people, and one building, it's almost not think about it. It seems like modern day kind of segregation, and I'm not saying that some people want units built regardless, and there might be different practices, but I think when it comes to equity, I think that we should be integrating in people of various classes, you know, social economic classes and not disegregating them into separate buildings like housing projects, you know. So nevertheless, those are some of the comments and questions that I had and I was hoping that, you know, maybe we could consider adjusting our, Um could consider adjusting because it seems like we have those income levels that are presented very low, extremely low, and low income. I guess they were presenting those numbers as a family of four, as is four people occupying those units. But I think that we need to build housing at all income levels. It seems like with this project we're skipping over the moderate and even the median, you know, and then it just goes to market rate. So I think we need probably some sort of a better balance in how we're distributing our housing, you know, because we We have a lot of people, even including some of our city staff, probably wouldn't qualify for some of those affordable units. You know, they work right across the street. You know, so we need to consider potentially balancing our housing needs to address all of our residents and not just, you know, the, mean, honestly, we've done a lot. We've built a lot of affordable housing units. We have a lot of deed restricted units and affordable units, but I think that we need a balance, you know, in terms of what we're building. And so that's the last, I guess, question I have is how could we get more moderate income, median income units in there, and then more retail space. And so if we can build more housing in general, I think that would help, but we also need that retail space too. So yeah. I can speak briefly to the separation of the affordable units as it's currently presented. One of the reasons it's designed in this way is that the market rate units in the mixed income project do not provide enough income to subsidize the affordable housing by themselves. And so it requires additional funding like tax credits and state grants to make affordable housing work at that size and at those income levels. And so usually you need to have a separate building on a separate parcel to receive those tax credits. So that's why it's designed in this way. But I hear your feedback and we can look at what options may be possible to integrate them in a different way and to consider affordable options. Yeah, thank you. So I guess that's really mostly just by design and policy and state rules and regulations that are basically creating these separate. In order to get those things built, it kind of you have to be separated, you know, people buy social class, social economic class. So yeah, thank you. All comments from council members? Yeah, and this question of, which is I think it is a modern day, sort of modern day, sort of dilemma because we all talk about integrating things. So I agree, I think, if there was a way those could be all those units could be integrated, right? That's kind of a night-deal situation, but it's not because of the tax credits. It's not going to make it economically feasible. On the other hand, and there is this sort of missing middle, which is very ambiguous area of moderate level income people who don't qualify for the low income or the other tax-quated regulations, et cetera, but don't have quite enough to be at the market rate. So that is probably, anyway, something probably the federal government, state government could really help that middle group, but they're not doing enough. And the other hand, is it possible to design it? I just thought of that generally, not your specific project, but as long as we're considering, is that to design the units within the market rate so that some would be less than others, maybe because of the space. So that it could accommodate the people who have enough money to enter the market, but not as much as others that could just decently buy whatever, you know, whatever the market's doing so that it would still be I guess it deals into the different size units Now, you know, assuming if it's a studio is going to be cheaper than obviously a bedroom, but could there be like a small one bedroom, a smaller one bedroom, you know, those kinds of things. I think they're like, I think that Europeans in some countries have done stuff like that where they mix kind of spacing in such a way and probably for the same reasons that, that, you know, I think that where there was racing, you know, that I also think that, you know, I think that where there was racing, I also think sometimes, you know, yeah, anyway, any thoughts you have on that or how that might work if it's possible? Or I think it's something that we'd love to explore and look into. I appreciate that feedback. I hear and we heard this a little bit from the Planning Commission that desire to have a more fully integrated building. And we can explore what other financing possibilities or if there is housing that can be provided at different affordability levels that can enable something more like that. And so I'll go back to our team and we'll study some of those possibilities. Thank you. Then if I, as long as you're exploring that, I think it's probably a good opportunity for the city government to explore, because we know we talk about, we just finished having a long discussion, you know, on the entry level, you might say homeowners, right, who need assistance. So, I mean, maybe in combination with some kind of loaning program or some other part of money that the city could somehow offer to people who qualify because I know that was always one concern too. You know on the one hand you want to offer assistance but then are people really going to be able to buy it? You know you can just have like here's some money and then try to see what you can do. But people who would be in a position to purchase something, but they're just a little short and then they could have some assistance. But that may be more for our end, you know. But I think maybe that could be a private public ownership in some ways where, you know, here's a developer doing this market rate. And here's the city complimenting that with some opportunities for the more moderate or the, you know, not the fully, what their own market rate, but it just would be the spacing or something that, you know, that the people would know they're all market rates. But on the other hand, there are people who probably have less money, but are not, you know, anyway, something that's not. Yeah, I think we would definitely be interested in working alongside the city and partnering together to figure out how to serve a wide range of residents. I have some questions if you're done council member. Yeah. Um, okay. Um, this was, when you started this, it wasn't part of the RBD plan when it ended, it was how much additional cost as the RBD plan adding to this in terms of utility costs. I mean, I know there's a lot of stuff in that plan, but you have a rough estimate of how much more it would be to be developed in the RBD plan and say outside the RBD. I think there's a combination of costs that I think of associated with the RBD plan. One was the cost that we contributed to the processing of the RBD plan and then also the plans that we created and worked on for four years and have since discarded, which I would say was expensive to the cost of quite a bit. I would, I believe that the fees have increased citywide and have increased to a greater extent within the RBD, but I have not quantified what that amount is. And, you know, I think that, we're doing our best to deliver something at this site just by the process that we've gone through in the past. Yeah, I'm really interested in seeing something built and don't want to see the city putting up barriers to stuff happening in East Palo Alto. I know we're not approving or just, you know, saying no to it tonight. We're just receiving pre-application. But I've been here 15 years and I haven't seen too much built and I'd like to see that change. We have inclusionary zoning requirements. How much is that costing? You have have an idea of per unit? What the market rate units are contributing to the inclusionary housing ordinance? I mean, how much more expensive are they because of inclusionary housing ordinance? Well, I think the simplest way to think of it that in an objective way is if you were to look at the in-luthy, if we were not to deliver the units themselves, the in-luthy for an inclusionary unit is $300,000 and that is we would have to deliver one inclusionary unit for every four market rate units. So that would be roughly 80, yeah, 75,000. Okay, so it's increasing the market rate units by 75,000. What you are gonna be partnering on the blow market, do you have a partner with that already lined up or is what's the plan? We do not yet. We are still kind of exploring what would be possible on that affordable piece. Okay, I mean, overall, I have a lot of concerns about our inclusionary housing ordinance. I think it's been proven globally to not be effective for developing more housing. And it's actually succeeded in blocking a lot of housing. And one thing I don't want to see is having an inclusionary zoning requirement that ends up making everything not pencil and not getting built. I mean, this lot has been empty for 30 years. Would love to see stuff on it and not be in a situation where we're just waiting and waiting and waiting for something to be built. So I think, you know, I encourage other council members to be flexible about the inclusionary housing requirements because, you know, there's a realistic possibility that this isn't ever gonna get built. It's gonna sit there as an empty lawn. We don't want that. I think I've spoken to staff before. I would like to review our inclusionary housing ordinance and have a review of it. I'd also, you know, one of my objections with the RBD was that this was included with stuff that has ingress and egress problems on the bay. It has issues with environmental issues being right on the bay. And it also has a levy that needs to be built right on the bay. And four corners has none of these issues. And we shouldn't be holding up a development in the heart of our city because of ingress and egress issues. You know, in other parts of the RBD, this is, you know, has excellent public transit. I think the parking requirements, you know, one of the things progressive cities are looking at is eliminating parking requirements, you know, and I'm sure you will build parking because your tenants would want that. But, you know, I'd encourage the city, city staff to be flexible and, you know,, let's get something built here It's been empty forever. It's an embarrassment It needs you know would like to have tax revenue from it and the The BMR building would generate no tax revenue correct. It's Doesn't have any property tax There it we usually work with a nonprofit tax exam provider, but I don't know exactly how much tax they pay. I do believe it's less than what we pay. Is it could you get clarity on that? Well, then is this proposal like this would be tax exempt? What property tax exam? I believe so I would have to get a, I'd have to look to confirm, but I do know that oftentimes non-profit housing developers are able to get tax exempts that is. Okay, thank you. I mean, those are just some of my preliminary, you know, ideas about this, but it's a preliminary application. So we'll go from there. Thank you. Yeah, so actually for the benefit of the vice mayor and anyone else may not have read the Staff report. This is an SB 330 project and as an SB 330 project the only way it makes it through is if all of the ordinances and regulations in place and you're going back to 2013 13 gets you out of the ordinances and regulations in place, and you're going back to 2013, gets you out of the new, and that's why you're doing this, because it gets you out of the new Ravenswood Business Disspecific Plan, you have to comply, and I think you're doing this, and I just want to make this clear. This is not negotiable, because we negotiate this way. He doesn't get an SB 330. So you should read up my SB 330. I think you said you're taking some housing classes. So I mean, it's very clear. It's very prescriptive. As a matter of fact, Mike and I want to make sure I understand this. You're proposing 40 units on that site, but because it is a separate building, it is essentially and not integrated, right? Essentially you would have to produce, right, 25% of your market rate units would have to be affordable. Correct? Is that the reason you're doing 40 on. Um, our interpretation is that since it is on the same site as the other building, it is not considered an off site project and is, um, delivered at 20%. Um, okay, well, so and 20% affordable then is,'re saying in this case what 32 units? Because you have a building that's 40 units, right? Right. Okay, so it's this calculation and it perhaps it's wrong is that there's 200 total units and so therefore 20% of the 200 units is 40 units. We would certainly welcome to provide 20% of the market rate units which would be a lesser amount. And so I'll consult with our team on what's kind of the appropriate calculation. So I'm going to tell you that this council I would hope would not back down back down on its inclusionary, and it's called inclusionary, because I want to include those units into the same building, right? There's no back door here, though I have my own feeling about the back door front door, that because you are putting it off of that building, the 25% would apply to you. Now your 40 unit building would capture that though the entire project is 200 units. So, you know, then you would say yes, that's where the 40 units comes in, but it would seem to me that, and I think actually the staff report may say the same thing that you would have to go the alternative compliance way, which is the 25% affordable on that side. And I know the vice mayor wants to jettison our inclusionary ordinance throughout, which and basically turn his back on low income people in his pot of auto. But at least for this SB 330, I don't think you can do it. I'd be willing to bet that East Palo Alto's inclusionary zoning ordinance can be modified and that if, you know, whatever the effect, be the SB 330. I know that there's other cities that also have inclusionary zoning policies that are not at all like East Palo Altos. Also, I know that East Palo Altos had an inclusionary zoning policy for years. It has produced, I believe, zero units that have actually been built. We have a 550 unit development that has been redesigned three times by this developer. And nothing has been built, Carlo. Nothing has been built. There has not been absolutely no offense to developer, but it might be the thing you can't, but it's a developer because he provided these plans that were unbuildable because of they when steel frame and two costs. You know, I don't know. Well, one of the ways you can stop development is you can just say, no, I don't want to have you build in our community. The other way you can do it is you can convert it with bureaucracy. You can convert it with incredibly high IZ requirements that are not financially viable. You can do over with bureaucracy. You can come over with incredibly high IZ requirements that are not financially viable. You can do the things you did at Mission Housing in San Francisco, which was change the zoning, change the code, make it impossible to get anything built. East Pal also has been in existence for 40 years or more. And there has not been a market rate apartment building built in those 40 years. Now some of that is because of racial discrimination. Some of that is because of red lining, et cetera. I get that. But a lot of it in the last 15 years is because we've had a council that has been put a barriers to building housing again and again and again. There's nothing written stone about our IZ requirement. And when you look at it, you compare it to like what other cities did. other cities had success with IZ with 15% and much higher AMI. And they got stuff built. And when you look at it, you compare it to like what other cities did. Other cities had success with IZ with a 15% and much higher AMI. And they got stuff built. They also got a built in a 2% interest rate. I know it. You are the hire man. We're here today, but I think actually, perhaps over me, I think I have a right to think of it. I think it is not on the agenda and we can't. No, but we're talking inclusion. We're talking about something that directly impacts this development. And what I would say is that the pro housing position is to get stuff built. And we have not gotten stuff built as a city. In this application directly, I am strongly in favor of getting something built. And if that means you're removing bureaucratic barriers to it, sure, let's look at that. And I'm sure there are state requirements, 330 is a state requirement, but our inclusionary zoning is a local requirement. We can look at that. And what I would say to see is that they are these yield back. Not yielding, I'm finishing. I was just going to speak. I was just going to speak. Okay, whatever. You were bullying me. You stopped me in the middle of my questions. So thank you very much for yielding. Thank you very much for yielding. Again, I believe that 330 is not going to week, week it is the ordinances that are on the books at the time that you submitted. In this case it's 2013 because you have gotten around the other issue, the RBD because that was not in play in December when you submitted. So again, I think it's a 25% number. We would not have a developer coming to us and proposing a project that includes the Euclid project, that includes the Purgas project that we just approved. If they thought they couldn't develop them, they would not have accepted the entitlements that we gave them. So the proof is indeed in the eating of the pudding, which is the providing these development approvals and you moving forward and building them. And I understand that at this point you're moving forward across the freeway to approve. But let me continue on this question on the affordable units. You are proposing to build, let's see, there's the table here which is unit count parking requirement. So 12 one bedrooms, 12 two bedrooms and 4 three bedrooms. Is that correct? This would be the schedule is here and then there are 12 studios. Correct? The schedule is here. Is that do you have that for me? Okay. So that is what you're proposing to build. Okay. I didn't see the four bedrooms, not four bedrooms. I don't know what page that is. So our application information is on, I think it was provided by David Baker, right? There's a sheet that is called G100. Yeah. So it contains four three bedroom apartments. Okay. So just to you and I guess to staff, I think what what concerns me about this is that actually I like the unit mix. Mike, I think that's it's a good unit mix. You have some larger units. You have those two's, you have those threes. But I want to make sure, and this is to legal staff, that if this project gets approved, could the developer come back to us and say, oh no, no, no, no, I'll give you 40 units, but I'll give you 40 studio units, or I'll give you 40 senior units. And if you don't know the answer to that, that's fine you can research it. I just, I know that, you know, we have had this developer come back and redesign a building and I just, or the whole building and I just wanted to make sure that we're not going to get caught in that world pool again. Yeah, it has happened to another project. We can look into it. I mean, it's not something that's before you tonight, but it's a good question. Okay, well... world pool again. Yeah, it has happened in other projects. We can look into it. I mean, it's not something that's before you tonight, but it's a good question. Okay. Well, and I will ask you, Mike, I mean, I assume that this project is approved. These are units that you're going to build at this size. That is not necessarily correct, because it is a pre-application after which we had a community meeting, a planning commission session, and then the city council meeting. We received a lot of feedback, which we will incorporate into an application, which we plan to submit in the near future. OK, so we could wind up with all studios here then potentially. I don't expect that. Okay, all right. Well, again, as I say, I think this unit makes makes sense for this community in terms of larger family units. You're providing those that, you know, to me incentivizes me to say, yeah, this is probably something it works. I understand this is an SB 330 project and basically, you know, the rules have been set for you. Let me see here. Oh, I have a question about the affordability. So our inclusionary ordinance units at, I believe it's 30, 50 and 60. The report talks about units at 80% of AMI. Can someone explain the 80% of AMI piece because that is not part of our inclusionary ordinance? The engineeringary ordinance is 20% at 3050 and 60% of AMI. Yes. Thank you for your question and Councilman Bredel-Middle. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. So our inclusionary housing ordinance provides a breakdown of... Uh-oh. You froze. Let's come out, Joe. Let me take off my video. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. So the inclusionary housing ordinance has specific definitions for different AMI levels. So you are correct that the the breakdowns of affordability defined in the inclusionary housing ordinance are at 35% 50% and 60% AMI. And they're in the ordinance defined as extremely low income, very low income and low income. So what is utilized is our inclusionary housing ordinance as well as the state income limits to make the calculations. I'm sorry, can you say that again, because you're not coming across very clearly, but say it again, that last, that last sentence. Yeah, so the extreme and low income, very long come and low income are defined in our inclusion and housing ordinance low income is usually referred to as 80% AMI at the state level, but within our inclusion and housing ordinance low income is defined at the 60% AMI level. Yes, and I guess I'm questioning why this 80% is there. I would maybe defer to Chris, I believe that was clarified in the footnote. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor, if I may also step in. Sure. Great. Thank you so much, Chair. And thank you, Karen, for that clenary. Amy Chen, Director of Community and Economic Development. I just wanted to clarify the references because we're just going over 9.2 right now. The item is just some mixed use development. I think the 80% AMI council member Romero, you might be referring to the townhome development, which is in the next item, 9.3. So just to clarify again, what Karen had rescaded for our mixed use projects, we're assuming that these are going to be rental units. And so we would refer to the rental section of the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, where the onsite requirement is 20%, and that 20% is further broken down into 5% at 35% AMI, 10% at 50% AMI, and 5% at 60% AMI. So that is just between the extremely low, very low and low income brackets under the rental housing side of inclusionary. And then we can say again, but just to explain ahead for the townhome development and if we are assuming that will be for ownership, then we will refer to the ownership side for sale for the inclusionary housing ordinance. And that does reference moderate and median income. And that's where you may see the 80% in that further staff report. Okay, I answered your question. It does. I thought I saw one of the presentations actually referred to these units because the other units are between 80 and 120. Right. They're between 80 and 120. And I really thought there is a slide here. There is something in here that talks about these the 40 inclusionary. Some being at 80. But if what you're clarifying here is that no, our inclusionary at 60% of AMI applies for this project, that's fine. Again, I cannot find the reference right now, but I know it did have, I did see that 80% was applying to some of those units. Okay. Yeah, and just to give you a little placeholder. And I think I'm hopefully quoting the right page numbers of the entire council agenda packet. But page 85 of the 112 is referring to the mixed use development. So that's the rental side. And that's the 40 units are broken down further. And then page 100 of 112 total pages that is referring to the ownership side and the account development. Okay. Yeah, thanks. You've clarified it and if you said that it's the 3550 or the affordability levels, I'm fine with that. Mr. Cramer, are you thinking about pulling a condo map on this? Will you most likely also pull a condo map on this? We have not contemplated that. Okay. Thanks. Just one of the, I understand. Because you can obviously pull it and not create condos. But you can just, let me see. Can look into that. Other questions. Oh, yeah. The last question is, so would you consider, and there is access, and I believe you own this, but maybe it's an easement. There is access to Fordham Street on that site, right? It's basically used to be, and maybe it was the service entrance to the shops that were there to Little Mins and the other other places that were there before when there was a Nairobi shopping center. Would you consider activating that muse, that alley, so that, and indeed it's a smaller block. There's a cut through that allows people to then go straight through, obviously it seems to me that you're not building anything specifically on that area. Is that at all something that you would consider from again, I think a smart urban planning perspective. I am not sure exactly what you're referring to. There are three out parcels that touch Fordham and Michigan avenues that are part of our town home's application, which I would be happy to move on to that presentation whenever the vice mayor deems appropriate. Okay, I will reserve that question for that discussion. I think it goes to both. Thanks. James, do we have any public comment? Yes, we did receive three speakers lives for starting with our Rora Perez, followed by Oliver Santiago Amendes and Gail Dixon. I'm here to ask Buenas noches. Mi nombre es Saorora Pérez. Estoy aquí para pedir que aprueben el proyecto. Estamos muchas residentes de aquí de Palo Alto. Con muchos años viviendo aquí, I have 28 years. And we are wanting that help to be beneficial, because we have aez, followed by Kale Dixon and a letter proctor. Good evening, Councilman. My name is all of us on Diego Mendes. And I would like for the four corners project to be approved in the future. I am currently a junior in high school and not far future I will be getting a house here in the area hopefully but if this project is not approved there will be no place I can call home because there's no affordable housing. That's it thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Gail Dixon followed by a letter. Is that mine? Oh, girl. Wow. Thought you tricked me, huh? Well, stupid up here. Okay. Happy, happy joy, joy. Um, code of ethics, you guys. Is that the window? Um, I know, I understand the reasoning sitting 600 email, um, mailers out, but this is 2.5 square miles. I wasn't in an area and I'm very interested in this and so are a lot of the people and we should have a say so and this also. I had a question about the 200 units and I like the design a little bit better than I saw before but I think the residents like in, they have the residents upstairs and then they have retail and it brings in a lot more tax revenue. And you said something about the usually laws that you put in an ordinance. That's federal, okay? Now the state has a usually law. I'm a roasty broker. I used it. I used 10%. That's when I used it and they questioned it and it's a state, okay? You didn't do anything fancy. And you owe Lincoln a apology. You said he hides behind his data. You've been hiding behind housing percentages and everything till we's choking. Okay? You brought it here from San Francisco, like Mark said. And you owe him an apology. That was really tow up what you said. And then here, here, over here, he says, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. You going after me and Carlos and like, you know, what do we do before and all like this? Because people voted for those two because they tired of what you guys been doing before. Now this project has been there 100 years. I remember when Little Man's shopping center was over there. People want something there. And you should stop this like, oh, I have this power. I can mess mess it up I can do this with it why don't you just do like the other cities if they can do it I mean you could do it too stop take it ego off you got damn sh- Thank you that was our last speaker for this item oh apologies um following speaker Adrian and Bryant by Sheree Fawilson on Zoom. Good evening. I'm sorry I'm just recovering from what Ms. Gail said and she did speak her mind. God bless her. Good evening again one of of the things that I appreciated about this project, although let me start with, I was very disappointed that there's no retail. This area was supposed to be designated for retail, but I'm okay because it's given us some affordable housing, but what I would like to see is our inclusionary housing ordinance applied here. I do not like segregated affordable housing separated from just including everybody and a housing development. Secondly, I do understand there's only a requirement to contact local people to get their input. But I would love to see before this thing is entitled and before we move forward, that everyone in the community is invited to give their comments about this project. This one and the one that's coming up separately. Because this is indeed on our main city drag. The intersection, and Bay Road is their intersection of our city. I really feel like more people should have been engaged to give her their comments about this project. I do trust that Mr. Kramer because I've seen historically, well I shouldn't say historically, over the last 70 years of the youth improvement project, even with what was proposed here initially, including the manufacturing, which I'm very disappointed is not going to be going there there. But I do feel like he will take our input and tweak his project to include community comments. So I hope that he's willing to do that, hoping that staff and council will direct him to do that to get everybody's input for this project that's on our main drag. And I'll save the rest of my comments for the next item that's coming up. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker Ms. Alana proctor. I think I was heard by what I had to say. This process has been going on since I moved here. I've been almost 18 years here now. We need it to be done. You guys are sniping so much with each other that you're missing the opportunity to take advantage of this development for your J.J. money, for your rent to own ideas, for the housing possibilities that Lincoln was suggesting. You, you some of your money by some of those properties and make it available rent to own or compensate some of the rent on some of the other units. Take advantage of this possibility. Predatory times are upon us. They're not going to get better. They're going to get worse. People are going to start losing their incomes. And the money that you have is going to be more necessary than ever. Let them start building retail, especially on the downstairs for those of us who don't get out very much. And stop fighting with each other. You waste. Thank you. Next speaker, Sharifa Wilson, followed by Ovelia Beo. Good evening. First, I'd like to say that I actually am happy to see that there is a proposed project that is moving forward. I like the mix of the units and the fact that there will be ground floor retail space in building B. I'm looking forward to the opportunity for there to be some future engagement with the community, especially to focus on the units, the mixture of the units, as well as the location of the affordable units. But generally, I'm pleased to see that something is being proposed that will in the long run end up benefiting the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, failure. Hi, thank you James. Can you all hear me okay? Yes. Okay, thank you. My apologies I was transitioning over to my phone so I didn't catch I think the tell end of the presentation but yeah just to echo with a couple of people a couple other people have said that I think I did capture during public comment. I am also excited to see certain elements of development of finally be imagined and potentially come to fruition in that space. However, I really wanna emphasize that this absolutely cannot happen at the expense of further displacement, gentrification, or adverse, whether they be intentional or not adverse impacts to our community. There's a really delicate balance as I'm sure you all know when it comes to development. And East Pole also has long for a long time made sure to try and prioritize that development is done equitably at some points better than others, but we're here now. And I find it severely unconscionable that after hearing the last item and how much need there still is around eviction defense, or how evictions are increasing. How East followed so is just proportionally represented when it comes to eviction in the San Mateo County that there would even be conversation around reducing some of the affordable housing policies that we have that are designed at least in part to help address that. So to anyone who is perhaps like not even fully a housing policy wonk let's say hearing that 20% of a new development is going to be affordable 20% is really not that much and when we talk about how other communities have 15% or less like yeah it's because they don't want affordable housing in their communities when you when I hear comments like that from from the vice mayor I think of of Afterton, I think of Hillsboro, I think of the other housing, of the other communities that have in very much... When I hear comments like that from the Vice Mayor, I think of Atterton, I think of Hillsboro, I think of the other housing of the other communities that have, and very much intentionally put policies on, exactly in the way that you said, to try and create bureaucracy, to try and create unattainable numbers to deter development. East Palo Alto is not that community. East Palo Alto has made development happen, and needs to continue prioritizing equitable development. We want to see something in this space. Absolutely. We do the retail is exciting, but do it equitably, please. Thank you. Thank you. That was our last speaker for this item. If I could, I'd like to make a motion since it is 1150 and we would like to allow Mr. Cramer to do his last piece like to make a motion that we extend this meeting Till 11 till 12 30 I'll second that hopefully we can finish before them Can we get a vote James? Vice Mayor Dynan yes, council member Brieko yes, council member do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that. Councilor, City Manager, gains who will be presenting this item? Chris Documost again. And could you explain who Chris is? I don't think I was properly introduced the first time around. Chris is with Good City Company. He's a contract planner, senior planner with the city's works with staff augmentation. Thank you. Thank you, Melvin. Yes, Christopher Dockhamo, senior planner, contracted with the East Palo Alto. I shall also say that joining me this evening are the community and economic development director, Amy Chen, planina Manager, Elena Lee, and also Karen Kamacho from Housing and economic development. Good evening again, Vice Mayor Dynan and honorable council members. For this presentation we'll be covering the townhome projects on the 16th and 5th they wrote, parcel.'s a quick overview, try to speak through it so that we can leave more time for discussion. Again the recommended action is to review the preliminary application for the University of Bay at four corners town home project located at 16th and 5th Bay Road by feedback to the applicant and to city staff. So this is the, you know, just providing an overview of the property. After subdivision, the town owned component of the parcel would result in a 4.04 acre parcel. It's also in the four corners gateway zoning district. And it's also part of the General Plan Land Use Designation for Mixed Use I. So this is the proposed project that's 95 or sale town homes and three distinct configurations. I'll get to little bit later. Units ranging from 1200 to 1900 square feet with two the four bedrooms per unit. There's common open space that you can see between the buildings or behind. Each unit would have wanted to spaces within the parking garage, and additionally would have wanted to spaces within the parking garage and additionally would have private bicycle parking. So the affordable units, those for the project, would be a total of 19, 10 at the meeting level, 9 at the moderate. And I shall also say that these dollar numbers here are included for representative purposes. It's not necessarily what they're offering it at, but for a family of four, 80% of AMI will be 100,000 to 6,000 for example. So this is the proposed site plan, you know, touching upon the point from earlier in the slide, building a as a configuration of the limit units, these units encircled by, or enclosed by yellow boxes, I should say, are 12plex buildings and then down below are six Plex buildings. The site would be accessed from University in Bay and then also through Gordon Street and Michigan Avenue within the University village through these, I'm not sure if you can see my mouse here, but through the LROs at the top and the side. This is, again, this architecture for the proposed project. It's a similar style and material to the mixed use project. It would be complimentary to it. It also steps down from the mixed use project to the townhomes to the the single family residences. The proposed heights for these units would all be 38 feet and 10 and a half inches. So again, the applicant is seeking to freeze development standards under SB 330. The proposed height for the project is in conformance with the 2013 RBD specific plan, as well as the FAR. The applicant is seeking to request concessions, incentives, and waivers, as it relates to the portion of unit types, measurements in unit size, maximum setback along Bay Road, minimum ground floor, height, and also the ground floor for residential units where within the four corners gateway, the ground floor has to include at least 35% retail. So the planning commission reports to this particular project. Similarly expressed concern that no retail is proposed for the town hall project. One commissioner expressed that the proposed side plan is insular and is not inviting to the rest of the community given its layout. A few commissioners also encourage the applicants include more amenities for residents and also the larger community such as open space and park amenities like grills, sports courts, playgrounds, and to kind of open up the siphon to the community. A few commissioners also expressed concern that there were not lower levels of board building for the ownership units. So in regards to the concessions, similarly to before a formal application and the board will hasn't compliance plan, would provide more detail for the city to determine the number of concessions allowed. The concessions are modification development centers or regulatory relief such as a retail use to reduce the cost of constructing affordable housing. Project qualifies for a concession that they'd be allowed to request the exclusion of retail as a use in their projects. However, the density bonus law allows cities or counties to deny a concession, but the burden approved is on the city to make specific written findings on substantial evidence for any one of the following findings that there are no identifiable cost reductions that the concession would have an adverse impact on health, safety or environment, has an adverse effect on historic resources or violate state federal laws. Also, the project is in the preliminary stages and is not submitted a formal application and is therefore not considered a project and is thus exempt from Sequel guidelines at present. Well, that I will turn it over to Mike Pramer from Saddle to present on the Town Home project. Thank you. Hello again. Thank you for your time tonight at this late hour. I'll now discuss our four corners townhomes. We've proposed 95 four-sale townhomes which are similar to attached single-family homes with ground floor garages and individual front doors. Each unit has two garaged parking spaces and they range from two to four bedrooms in a variety of sizes. We're proposing a compliant inclusionary housing plan with 20% of units as below market rate affordable or a city council approved alternative compliance option. This is a rendering of the pedestrian level perspective from Bay Road at the project entrance. We're including pedestrian friendly street frontage with individual entries along Bay Road and also in the interior of the site. This slide shows the open space plan and the pedestrian circulation. Generally, the town homes are clustered around landscaped garden courts to provide common open space, and there are also landscaped urban yards near University Avenue and Facing Bay Road. Here's a conceptual elevation of a townhouse building. You can see that the units have balconies and private open space, as well as separate garage and ground floor entries for each town home. These perspectives show a broader view of what the overall project will look like from Bay Road and University Avenue. They were designed by the Dallan Group Architects, specializing this type of product. The buildings are only three stories tall, and the community feedback we received is that they fit in well to the adjacent single family neighborhoods. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to take additional questions. Any questions and comments from Council members? Webster Lincoln? I really don't have too many questions. I think this all relates to the other item agenda item, because all on the same site. But what sort of, when you mentioned, you go back to slide about the below the slide with affordable housing, inclusionary, the inclusionary, the percentage. We simply said that we will provide 20% below market rate, inclusionary affordable, which is the East Palo Alto standard or an alternative that would be approved by the City Council. Okay, so I was wondering what sort of benefits would be could potentially gain if there were any sort of changes to our inclusionary affordable housing ordinance? I mean, the primary benefit of alternative compliance is that it would make a project that's not feasible, become feasible and allow for the building of housing where it may not otherwise be able to be built. Okay, so how could we get more units or have built of this side or yearly proposing 95 because I'm just concerned that you know and maybe this is a discussion for another day is that we probably I don't think we will be able to meet our state housing requirements you know unless we're flexible with some of our ordinances, you know, so I was wondering how it would benefit this project if there were changes, but I think you just said it just would become more feasible. Um, you know, we're still exploring for sale inclusionary or for sale affordable housing in general is challenging because it requires a significantly deep discount from the market price of a for sale unit. So we're still studying what's possible. We actually don't have the full cost information as there's still some outstanding utility information. We're waiting to get from the city on the after this sanitary district integration and so you know once we have a better understanding of all the costs we I think we can evaluate that information. Okay yeah because when I was looking at our inclusionary ordinance and I was comparing it to say Menlo Park. I was looking at a comparison and say building like 16 units, you know, under our ordinance, the in-luthies would be like $800,000 just for those 16 units that are built versus in Menlo Park, they're only paying about maybe $60,000, $70,000 in in loophies. So I'm just wondering if we should make some sort of adjustments, but not guess if that's just another discussion from the day. I was just wondering what sort of benefits would be began from going through a council approved alternative compliance, but I guess we have to figure that out another time. I can I can look into it and provide additional information in advance of our full application. questions, comments from other council members? Yeah, thanks for the report from the staff and from Mr. Kramer. I think it is was pointed out we are. There's been a preation. There's been some meetings, planning commission looked at it. Now we're sort of giving some initial feedback. So I think the main thing right now is to explore and do more research on some of the issues and the questions that have come up both from the council or the public and also You know when a full application is presented or even before I would Ask the staff or remind them to make sure to give us all the materials from the planning commission at least The minutes and all that because right now we did receive a summary but probably because of the timeline that it was very short be nothing the planning can when did the plan commission review this last last right so I just want to get from the staff that we you we will send us the minutes of you know I want I know we have a summary, but I want to, I was unable to attend the meeting or, you know, I can go back and look at it, but I rather have, I think also for a full record for the council, we do need to have that information. So when can we get that? the minutes of the planning commission and their deliberations. Um, we, I will. Another. I know. I don't do action minutes for the planning commission. I believe we do action minutes. So are you asking for a different form of minutes from that meeting or? Well, I guess at this point, who makes the summary that is made by the staff, then run past the Planning Commission or... I mean, I'm not mistrusting the summary, but it is the planning commissioners who deliberate on it and say this or that, and they may be different opinions and all of that. So I just wanna get a full record of how people are looking at this, what they're saying, and what questions they're raising, that's all. So if you can provide more information, I understand we don't have like transcribed notes, we have action minutes. But in cases like this, I think what we have, issues that come up and we have the advice of the planning commission, there should be more than just some bullet points, which I appreciate, but I don't think it's enough. So that's my request to, and I can always go back and review the video myself, but I don't think it's also for the public to have something more than just a summary. What would a appropriate summary be? Would that be like the more you know, I think or because we actually summarize it in actually not sure, but I'm racing that issue because the probably going to come up again. This is more in terms of the due process for the public to also have like in this case, people may want to find out, well, what is the planning commission? What do the commissioners say and whatever, and decide, oh, well, go back and look at the video. Oh, through the chair. So, you know, don't need an answer tonight, but, and, you know, I can go back and look at the video. I'm just, because right now I think there's some issues coming up that are already kind of project-oriented, but others are process-oriented. So, you know, where are we? I mean, I think even Mr. Kramer reminded us in a way. You know, we get into the weeds. He just said, well, this is a pre-application. You know, so we're not saying yes, we're not saying no, we're gonna look into it, right? So that just happens sometimes because people have different and so anyway, if you can just at some point maybe there's a couple of people from the planning a little different ways to present the information maybe a laterally or Amy Chan wanted to answer that. I think you had your hand on. Yes. Through the chair, thank you so much. Amy Chan, Director of Community and Economic Development. So the last planning commission that these two pre-Live applications were heard at was on March 24th. And the video for those items at that planning Commission meeting are available online currently. The meeting minutes are being prepared for that planning commission and will be heard at the next planning commission meeting which is on April 14th. And so the meeting minutes just to clarify is just a synopsis of what occurred. It doesn't have a detailed record of what each planning commissioner said specifically. That is what the video recording is meant to include. So hopefully that should be enough to be included for the public record of what was discussed at the Planning Commission, March 24. Alaina, feel free to add if you'd like. Sure, thank you, Amy, and thank you, Vice Mayor and members of the City Council. And so I think as the City Manager commented, the minutes that the Planning Commission approved our action minutes. And so, but what we can do when this project returns to the City Council. And the planning commission is to add a more detailed summary of what was discussed. I think the interest is to make sure that all of the feedback, key feedback from the planning commission is reflected in the public record. public record and so we normally do do that. It just we weren't able to do that because the city council meeting. Staff report was published after the planning or it was before the planning commission meeting actually took place. No, thanks for that. I think definitely we are, you know, pre-application and all that, but I think, thanks for that. I think definitely we are, you know, pre-application and all that. But I think, yeah, at least from my concern, that would be at that point to provide that. And then, so I mean, I think just an observation. Well, I do feel that this project that's a for an opportunity to advance the goals of the city as well as the goals or interests of the developer and the community. I see good opportunities to balance and have a public and private sort of discussion on an issue that is very important. House scene and also services. However, I will say two things. And this is not with a developer or not with Mike or the city staff. So one is, because I have heard the Holy issue of inclusionary law that we have. If that becomes an issue and that will be up to the agenda committee, if they want to agenda separately, that could open up several cans of worms in the community. Rem mind me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, is not about me. It will open up a can of worms or two. And if we want to delay this project, that is probably the easiest way to do it. So I'm just throwing that out there for consideration that just so you know white. I don't look for fights. However, if there's a provocation for a fight, I'm not going to sit by and just say you know, kumbaya, I will fight for what I believe and I will fight for the issues that I have seen developed in our community. This project I don't think is necessarily want to be fighting about has a lot of good opportunities. But I just want to say that the other thing I want to say I'm also not going to be a punching bag because there are several people who keep pointing the finger at me. The history of this city, there's been maybe 20, 30 council members, but I'm a convenient punching bag for some people to try to blame me for anything and everything that's gone wrong. And I'm just going to not going to stand back because I'm just saying that. If it sounds like I'm fighting, so be it. I'm not going to be a punching bag for nobody. Thank you very much. Gama. Just a couple of questions. Can you go back to your presentation? What's the setback between I mean, finish wall on the units that are closest to Fordham and the fence? I'm sorry. What's the setback between the finished wall of exterior finished wall of those units that are close to Fordham and the fence lined, you know? I am not 100% sure, but I believe it's roughly 26 feet. Okay, so those units are going to be hulking, right? Because there are three stories. I mean, all we have to do is go and look at the units that are on... God, what does that street, is that running me? I think that are three stories. I'm just if the neighbors are fine, I mean, maybe you should do story polls. But if the neighbors are fine with that height there, that's fine. But the fact that there are three stories will mean that they will project over. You'll be able to see into those folks yards. But if you've done outreach on this and if people have said, if those folks have said, yeah, this scale works for me, that's fine. I'm glad it's, if it is 26 feet, I mean, that's a lot better than if we're just, you know, a 15 foot setback, but, okay, I guess we can, maybe we'll get the full set of plans. We can look at that setback. So, can you go back? Can you go back, please? A couple of slides where you have the yellow arrows that are showing, oops, sorry, you did it. It was the first slide. Okay, so keep going. The next one, the next one, please next one, next one, no next one. Keep going. Okay, go back then to that three back, one, two, three there, open one. Okay, so my question that I asked last time is I see there are three Let's just call them penetrations into The law and I guess are those easements or Those cities minutes or do you guys actually own them beyond that? Okay, so the question is well the one that is off of Fordham More on the interior that, that one essentially. Shoot, where is that one? Yeah, so one would be able to walk through. They're not going to be gated. So if you're, let's say, walking down Fordham and you wanted to cut across, right, they would be able to cut across to get the university correct? The extremes would be able to cut across to get the university. All right, believe so, yes. Okay, you're not planning on gaining. We are not planning on gaining these entrances. No. Okay, all right, and you wouldn't... I mean, let's see, it's a... There'll be an HOA there. It's an HOA, but you all, who would be controlling those entrances, the HOA? The way that this would generally work is that it would be, we would own the property in the development of it. And then we would sell the individual town homes to individual homeowners or families and then they collectively would own their properties and the common area spaces. So we would own it and then we would sell it and then we would no longer own it. Including the common area. So would you consider those driveways common areas? Yes. OK. So when you add a final map, that would show as a parcel. What I'm looking at here would basically as the parcel, including all of those entrances, correct? Yes. Okay. I guess my only concern is that, those not be gated or blocked off, it sounds like you're not supposed to do that. I guess we'd have to figure out what we could do to make sure that the HOA doesn't do that. Because I think it is important to be able to get through That kind of larger block to university and vice versa. So I'm okay. I understood. I'll incorporate that in our feedback. Yeah, and I think that was it is oh again I don't have this before you but I do have it before me. I just haven't didn't highlight it These are three and four. These go from two to four bedrooms. So it's a pretty wide range. Okay, two to four. Got it. And they have their parking is tuck under. Yes, they have two car garages each. Okay. Yeah, I think, I mean for now those, those are all my questions. You're integrating the 80 to 120% affordable units somewhere within, is that correct? Yes. Yeah. And how would you go about doing the division between the two, three, and fours, would they be proportional? It gets a little tricky. It is difficult to make the economics work in a fully proportional scenario. So we're kind of evaluating what is the best way to have affordable housing that would come So you'll come back to us with it. It's that'll be part of it for prime time. Inclusionary strategy that will be submitted with the full application. Got it. So they won't they probably will not be proportionals about your telling you Mike. And I'm saying maybe that makes sense in order to make it work. That's my expectation. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you, Mike. Thank you all very much. Thank you all very much. You're almost done. I do have some questions in common. Yeah. You know, it's disappointing. This whole entire application is disappointing. When I first saw it, it was eight stories and it was lots of stuff. There were, you know, community benefits like I think a grocery store and other, you know, retail, a lot more retail, a lot higher, a lot more units of housing. I understand that the economics right now do not support building apartment buildings or condos or anything like that. I also understand that we've We've down-zoned this area from eight stories to, I guess, three on that side, which is also disappointing because you can build a lot more housing. And we are in a housing shortage and the only way to solve that is going to be building a lot more housing. You know, Aideco, what Council member Lincoln said about getting an alternative compliance. This all looks great on paper but if it doesn't pencil and it's not going to get built then you know we don't want to have another empty lot there. So I think you know requiring a developer to lose money on a bunch of units that makes the thing un-economical doesn't make sense to me. So if it's not going to get built, we should look at it alternative or maybe throwing city money in so that this are not, you know, affordability requirements without the city putting up money to actually get them built. But that's it. I mean, good luck. I hope something gets built on this site. I'd prefer to see a much bigger project that is like the heart of downtown. This honestly looks a lot like the project on Poulgis and Bay Road. And you know that's a very nice project. It's definitely not a statement piece for the city. It's not something that would, you know, the community would go around and have restaurants and have a bank and things like that. So it's really disappointing to see this overall proposal after the, you know, what I saw, I was at the meeting in 2020 and it looked pretty interesting. It looked like, you know, a place I would want to go to. This looks like someplace I'll drive past and that's kind of sad and you know it could it could have been so much more. It's a wonderful empty piece of land in the heart of the city but I'll leave the comments at that. It's 1221. I believe we have public comment. James so thank you. Yes. This Aurora Paris followed by all of Versa Santiago Mendes and Gail Dixon. I guess on Zoom with Miss Wilkerson, do you want to comment on this item? I just want to say I Appreciate what Mark said about this is a place I want to drive by That's the way it is in these follow-out toe. People have low standards. They don't have any, uh, what I'll collect it in aesthetics. Um, they should have hired a urban designer instead of going, um, by what their tastes are. You're going by your taste and it's been a disaster. 1983 should have been further along. Dark Barton Bridge over there. You let Palo Alto kick you butt and say, hell no, we're not going to let you go down there. You don't know how to run the city. And that's where it is. Look over here with city. What they got over going over there. It's an embarrassment. I mean, just because they have more land and they've been in it longer, but it doesn't mean anything. You should use common sense and stop forcing your ideas off on people. This used to be a middle class city. It never was spoken of because people had agendas. They had stereotypes and we still stuck on stupid here. And I feel the same way. We, it's like, if it's pretty, it's too good for East Palo Alto. I had one lady say, and you ought to see her car, fill a garbage. If it's too pretty, the people would money going to come here and move people out. And that's a lie. Because there were middle class people here for decades. And you ran them off because you didn't know how to run a city. That's all I have to say. I want to say something about JJ too because you just blew gaslighted the whole city about that. Thank you. Next speaker, Adrian Bryant. Good evening. Good morning. I should say. I just wanted to share some of my comments here that I saved from the last agendized items. So, regarding these time homes, I'm okay. I especially like the height, the density that the applicant chose to listen to the community and not have eight stories high, three stories, okay? That's doable. Because those things affect the adjacent property owners. However, I disagree with the creasing, the setbacks. That buffer creates a quality of life for both the homeowners adjacent to the proposed project and those who may live in the proposed development. It's a viewpoint that I still want more retail as the area was designated per the specific plan. And as I stated before, I kind of really like the original proposal with the manufacturing to provide more jobs for local residents. But I'm okay with this because it's providing much needy housing and specifically for a segment of the community that has been neglected. Now, I'm going to go back to the previous Agendized Item, okay? And that has to do with measured JJ some of that data showed, well, let's start with the data was five years old, but it showed that over 50% of this community earns more than $100,000 per year. Now that data does not match the narrative and policies and happen for years. Let's be real about that. I encourage everybody to read the staff reports. And you'll see the problem I have trying to reconcile that data narrative in our policies. But these are the policies that this applicant is using. So that's how it's gonna be. But at a later time, I'd love to see an and a generalized item because I really need for it to make sense for me. Even while I'm really trying to support my community and residents from this placement, the data referencing these reports aren't making sense with the city's policies. That's all. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Okay. With that, it's final public comment. Are there any any council member reports in the next four minutes? No? Thank you. Okay, with that it's final public comment. Are there any council member reports in the next four minutes? No, with that we'll adjourn the meeting at 1226 AM. Good morning, everybody. Thank you.