Speaker 0: In price. Emotions carry.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Let's have item number 49, please.
Speaker 0: Item 49. Report from Development Services. Recommendation to request City Attorney to prepare ordinances amending the Long Beach Municipal Code regarding inclusionary housing and non net laws and to prepare a resolution amending the method of establishing and inclusionary housing in the city. By.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Let's go to city manager.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Development Services will give a presentation on this. And this is the item that we had brought to council back in February of 2020. At the time, the Council asked for a number of amendments to our inclusionary housing that we've been working on over the past year, and we're ready to report all of those items and how we resolve them. So I will turn it over to Christopher Coons and Oscar Worthy. Good evening, members of the council. In summary, for this item, you gave us specific instructions and we followed all of those instructions. So it's at your pleasure if you want to see the presentation or if you have any questions or if you'd just like to proceed with the item. Why don't we go to this? The inclusionary housing item? Do we need the presentation or are we saying no? Maybe. Maybe a short summary and then we'll go from there. Um. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. So earlier this year, the City Council adopted an inclusionary housing ordinance and inclusionary housing in the resolution and a no net loss ordinance. And at that time, there were five items that the council asked us to come back and revisit. And those are the items that are before you tonight. And as Christopher mentioned, we're recommending that all of those items be included in a revised ordinance and resolution two ordinances and one resolution. And we're able to do all five of those things. And the first one is to extend affordability covenants beyond 35 years for both ordinances, ensure that the inclusionary and fees are deposited into the housing trust fund and they are used to support the production of new, very low income housing units. And then we are, instead of revisiting the and Lupi on a three year basis where we're recommending per your request that that be done annually, we're going to remove the 2025 no net loss, no net loss expiration date. And then we're going to. The one item that we have to adjust is the offsite requirement for the low net loss units. The Council had asked that we remove that, but the city attorney has opined that we can't remove it. Instead, we're proposing that the City Council will be approving any no net loss plans that are outside. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. I think there's one member of the public that wishes to speak also. Yes.
Speaker 0: Senior can say.
Speaker 1: Mayor. Oh, thank you. Councilman. It's getting my levels right. I just wanted to comment in support of any strengthening of this inclusionary housing element here. And I think with respect to especially the Affordable Affordability Covenant being extended, it's imperative that while we create new affordable housing with respect to younger families, we also maintain the covenants that we have in house as a senior amount of our seniors within the city. And as the city becomes more and more of a pricey place for people to live in. These are some of the most marginalized and heavily impacted people when rents increase. So I commend city staff for recognizing this and taking and taking this into effect with with them ending with respect to the in lieu fee. I think that it's imperative. While it's great to see that there's a housing trust fund to push forward with expanding new housing. I think it's imperative that as real estate prices increase, you know, I'm and I'm speaking with the privilege of being a homeowner, you know, my ma my home equity value went up over $180,000 this year alone. With respect to renters, you know, that's just not something that's even feasible or possible because it's defeats the purpose of renting . So any fees that we're collecting in 2021 should be being applied to preserving affordable housing with respect to a lot of the older buildings, you know, just ten years ago, there was no Deukmejian courthouse there. And it's a lovely building. The presence of that building creates it becomes an economic driver for outside capital investment within the community, pushes people and displaces people. And, you know, the positives often get overrated by the negatives with respect to housing and with these fees that we're collecting, you know, the properties that the real estate is getting more expensive. So whatever positive impact that city could do with with respect to affordable housing in a in some small and smaller every year that we don't spend that money, you know, we see what our friends in the Los Angeles with the Prop eight, Prop eight money, you know, they have all that billions of dollars and haven't done anything with the money in the properties that's increasing. And so we're living in and we're really seeing a flight of people who are low income and even lower middle income who are not being able to afford to leave to live in the city. And so just our hope that we can speed up the process of using this money in lieu fees and no net loss element as well to just push for more affordable housing in the city. But I appreciate the city for amending the municipal code for the future. Thank you. Thank you. But that's rich. Did you have any comments?
Speaker 5: No, I support Councilman Allen.
Speaker 1: Any comments?
Speaker 0: I yes, I thank you very much. I appreciate your comments as well. You know, since the day I got elected and I put my big old fight 11 feet on this diocese, my number one priority was affordable, affordable housing. And everyone should have the ability to be able to afford to live in the city. You know, I just met again this week with a bunch of housing advocates and and I'm always open and listening to how we can strengthen our policies and how we create more affordable housing. So I'm always committed to that. And I really want to say thank you to staff for all of your hard work on this. I just really appreciate you and for taking I mean, and thinking about all of the changes that we were asking that you incorporate. So really appreciate I really appreciate you and just happy to support this today.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Price.
Speaker 0: You, Mr. Mayor. So we've gotten I think all the council members have gotten some concerns from. People that are interested in this topic regarding moderate housing and what we're doing in this policy to incentivize moderate housing. And I know that that's something that we've talked about a little bit on the council in terms of workforce housing. So not at that very, very low level, but at that moderate level. And the criticism of the proposal tonight by some has been that it doesn't take into account the need for the city to incentivize moderate housing. So can you talk to me a little bit about that and help me understand that that concern? I'm sure you've also heard the concern and what your thoughts are about it.
Speaker 1: Councilmember We are currently working with a consultant to prepare a party guidelines for middle income housing, workforce housing. I believe when we had the auctioneer come to, to the council council elected to have that, that particular project as a pilot program. And you had directed us to prepare a policy. So we'll be coming back to you with that shortly. And with a series of policies and priorities, recommendations for you on middle income strategies. And I would add councilmembers specifically on this issue. This was one of the policy options that we had brought to the council, probably three different areas where we looked at a moderate model, we looked at kind of a moderate, low income model, and then we looked at a very low income model. And council had a lot of fierce debates at the time, and we went with the model that you see today. So that was kind of a larger policy item that was discussed with the options and this was what ultimately was successful.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And when did that item when did it first come to us for that designation?
Speaker 1: Um, I believe or Jan was one of the votes and then it came back again in February of 2021. So it was right at the beginning of the year, if I remember right. July of 2020 is when the first proposal came and then the vote was in in January 2021 and then again in February 2021.
Speaker 0: Yeah, and I think and thank you for that refreshing of my recollection regarding the priorities. We have had some changes in council since we started to first discuss this policy. And and so I think it's worthy of mentioning I think for many of us, workforce housing and moderate income housing is really important. You know, we want to be able to make sure that the people who are working in our city can afford to live in our city. And, you know, working in and most of our traditional workforces right now would not provide the type of income that people need to live in the city, at least with the prices the way they are now. So I just want to be mindful of that. I think a lot of us that are having children entering into adulthood envision a world where they're able to live in the city and afford to live in a city with whatever salary comes out of their bachelor's degree if they should get one or a degree. And as it stands, there's just absolutely no way, no way on a on a salary of somebody with an A or a bachelor's and a traditional job. I understand there are some creative industries out there, but for the most part, just the earning, the return on the earning power of someone with a bachelor's or an AA is such that they couldn't afford to live here. So I'm very concerned about that issue.
Speaker 1: Councilmember Price, some members of the council, I really think that's next week's discussion. So I just want to focus, that's all on inclusionary housing as one tool among various different housing tools that the city is using to address different housing needs. So we're in front of you next week for an agenda item related to the housing element. We were in front of you recently for an item related to density bonus. So there are different tools. There's the CDA model, that Oscar reference. So there's different tools for different needs. I think in in the view of staff, the inclusionary item in the housing trust fund is, is focused on that very low income housing. But that's not to say we aren't addressing middle income housing in other ways with other tools. So I think next week may be a better time to have that that fuller discussion. And that's when we're going to be talking about housing policy and kind of strategy in general as part of the housing element.
Speaker 0: That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that with me and refocusing me on that because I think it's important and we have a very diverse city and it's important we have tools to address all the needs. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Catherine. Margo.
Speaker 0: I look forward to next week's discussion, but I also just want to thank the staff for their work on this so far. There's a lot of different advocacy groups and. I appreciate all the letters that we receive and very supportive of moderate housing. I actually went to a regional meeting of data and there was a presenter, like I said before, COBR now that kind of talked about the utilization of the resources and what that looks like across a region. And the speaker was from L.A. City, and they kind of looked at a a heat map. And so I'd be really interested in learning where certain types of housing, specifically moderate housing, could be best utilized and fit into the neighborhood. So I know Chris and I have had this discussion before, and I look forward to next week's discussion. And I appreciate my colleagues comments and the letters from all advocates on all sides. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have some comments, but I'll go back to basically Richardson.
Speaker 5: And I just I had a thought based on this discussion. I do remember, I think when we talked about this earlier this year, there was a discussion about the ownership. And I think we spoke to we reserve all the middle income, the modern income on the ownership portion of the inclusionary. How that. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yes. All the inclusionary units that are ownership are moderate income.
Speaker 5: Okay. And I'm certainly sensitive to the discussion about moderate income. And I do remember a healthy discussion we had about getting people into homeownership who are, you know, maybe have middle income. We want an only density given opportunity. We talked about inclusionary housing is one tool to downpayment assistance, another tool and a whole host of things. So I look forward to a more robust conversation about downpayment assistance, other things. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Are the mikes working okay? I can barely hear the council. Just so you know, up here. I guess. I don't think we can hear each other at least. Okay. No, no problem. I just want to just add first, I think staff, this is actually an enormous policy that staff is working on for years. First, discuss, I think, with all of us after we put together a group of developers, business folks, housing folks to come up with a lot of many ideas around housing, talked about the state of the city, got brought to the city council. And I just think it's important also because I agree with every that's been said particularly about workforce housing. The the architecture of this policy was negotiated deeply with the development community, with the Chamber of Commerce at the time, but most probably with the housing with housing advocates. And everyone kind of came to the table and came up with a policy that that not everybody loved, but that absolutely leaned into the most important piece of it, which is setting aside units and every new development that we build that would be affordable at different levels, especially for low income folks. And this was viewed as and I believe it is a absolute step forward, an important step forward so that every single development in the city that's built includes housing affordability built into it, so that folks that are low income, very low income, are able to live in spaces that are shared and in with all types of folks . And the end is development. So this is a huge step forward for for the city. And I'll also add in talking to some, I have had some some folks reach out to me and ask for changes. And I did remind some of those folks that those were some of the same folks that were in many meetings with me a couple of years ago when we negotiated this proposal that were that said, okay, let's go with this proposal. So I'm very comfortable moving forward tonight, and I want to thank staff for all of their all of their work. Is there any public comment on this?
Speaker 0: You've already done the poll.
Speaker 1: That's right. Members, please cast your votes.
Recommendation to request City Attorney to prepare an ordinance amending Long Beach Municipal Code, Chapter 21.67, regarding Inclusionary Housing, to include recommendations proposed herein; 

Request City Attorney to prepare an ordinance amending Long Beach Municipal Code, Chapter 21.11, regarding No-Net-Loss, to include recommendations proposed herein; and 

Request City Attorney to prepare a resolution amending the method of establishing an Inclusionary Housing In-Lieu Fee, to include recommendations proposed herein.  (Citywide)