ly fits our community I thought it was so important that I'm taking a break from work right now and comment as a renter and as a young gift professional I think FDU it really gives me hope that once again I really love the idea of a building with different size homes in it some studios, some one bedroom some two bedrooms that fit people, families in different circumstances in life I think expanded ownership huge for stability as was mentioned nothing would improve stability for renters than actually having the opportunity to own their own home in Santa Cruz it would provide more options with middle class and expanded middle class being locked out of to own their own home in Santa Cruz it would provide investment in our community and really strengthen the ties to neighborhood here by being able to own a place in Santa Cruz I also really like innovation from the staff doing something that will form-based zoning because it provides more flexibility while fitting in with standards and regulations and I really like more exploration and studies in the form-based zoning because as we see from concerns about building neighborhoods often based on the size but if we're able to house more people within the same size building that would overall a huge benefit for so I'd like to thank the five council members for this measure in the first reading and I hope that you can move forward with the motion today. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next caller is M. Bepp. Thank you. Good afternoon mayor and council members Elizabeth Madrigals on behalf of the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership our housing initiative consists of a broad coalition of community members, local employers and organizations to advocate for and catalyze an increase in housing of all types and income levels in our region. In 2018 M. Bepp partnered with Envision Housing to publish our white paper about realistic policy changes to improve housing affordability in the Monterey Bay region where we outlined several ways local governments can easily increase housing production we are pleased that the city of Santa Cruz worked towards adopting our recommendations wherever possible. In line with our ninth recommendation to zone for density we support staff's recommendation to approve the flexible density density unit ordinance in order to contribute towards a production of a diverse mix of housing types within the city of Santa Cruz. We especially laud the FQ ordinance as it clears the way for more missing middle type homes in Santa Cruz that would be available for rent or purchase. Having more housing options with students, single individuals, families and peers and couples is an opportunity to live in our community. Thank you for your dedicated leadership and taking realistic steps to encourage much needed housing development at all types. Our next is phone number ending in five signs throughout. Go ahead and mute yourself press star six or unmute there you go Welcome Hi, I think the FQ is dense type that the FQ gets to build villages to build for you with the dense bonus that gets percent that's the base that's that for units below percent four it goes higher started with adding the more stories of bills it keeps the dense bonus going to go taller example stone of story building not quite a five that's what those bills get an increase in our both when are we going to build a road traffic cannot fit stories no road does transportation thank you for your time please vote thank you for your comment our next ending in four nine five go ahead and unmute yourself hi can you hear me yes welcome yes welcome thank you my name is Candace I've lived for forty seven years in this community and I'm inside Midtown Residence this whole topic is devoid of discussion of the reality that we're living in right now which is with the density bonus just brought it by the previous caller that was the heart of the discussion with the planning commission and why there was only a four to three vote it also is worth noting that inclusionary is only on the base not with the density bonus it dilutes the effect of affordable housing so that's why you're now seeing only five to eleven percent rather than twenty percent you can also because of the density bonus you can strip away the protection of setback parking requirements and height and open space the way the development standard it's also not understandable why you're attempting to approve this now before the objective standards and my understanding is that they want to increase the height even more on the base there's no mention about form factor policies and where those were were they also affected by the density bonus that really has exceeded the discussion and there's been no examples provided by events planning to show that if you look at 908 Ocean Street they originally proposed 396 units of SOUs at 460 to 648 if you look at it with 220 take account the parking take account tripping away commercial but adding the benefit of their parking you come up with 559 units you assume that by adding more density to an existing environment or form factor that you have no additional impact which would be ridiculous and in fact in that particular project I think last time I checked they added another 9% at 433 so you could go over 600 units in less than 3.5 acres these were dramatic changes and without a sequel without a further analysis without a true general plan amendment process which has not been done in this process we don't have a sense of a true impact on the community and also realize that the original border plan which was only at 55 units per acre versus 150 units plus you had thousands of people objecting to it. People do care there was I think about 2400 that signed that petition three or four years ago there was 300 people business people that signed a petition specifically business people that were on Oceans Sweetwater and Soquel knowing the impacts it would have on their businesses I think that you just simply can't say that this is a minor change in the code but this provides more options when it's never been showed to address the affordability and in fact it's diluted because of the high density bonus please postpone this project of this proposal if we're coming in this our next is phone number ending in 08 36 meet yourself hi there hello there can you hear me yes hello okay thank you my name is Ed Porter and you probably know that I was a member of the city council in 2008 and during that time I was part of conversations and associations regarding the university LRDP issues and especially about housing like you're talking about today and over the years UCSD has continually wanted to expand the number of students on the campus but attempts to develop the needed housing some other time always later always behind that has not changed at all in the last decade maybe forever and now with the avalanche of state laws and the push to build dorms all over Santa Cruz you're asked to support these changes that abandon all traditions all sense of place build these small square footbox all over our downtown so you really need to ask yourself why would you do this for students of these units at affordable prices of course they do I'm with them on that subject but what has happened to the idea that the university should build the housing using it's land and it's land use policy that you are proposing that we change our land use planning abandon our city's right to do it's own land use planning and lose our sense of place forever yes all these students need affordable and comfortable housing to tell the universe do their job produce that house please not adopt this measure we don't want all 8 to 10 stories of these boxes all over our downtown the literature that was mailed to the use yes no developers site to produce copies of the downtown Peters Village area no developers in sight to produce a copy of the St. George hotel but the pictures do imply that that's the case and you showed pictures of little development that you know they're planning in the pipeline 10 story building and so do not adopt this measure don't want 10 story balls back to these boxes all over our downtown they'll use just their job thank you for your comment our next caller is phone number ending in B 9 go ahead hi there can you hear me yes great thank you hi this is Ben and all 8 pro presidency student housing coalition calling to you I kind of jumped in here last moment here but I really want to reiterate our organization full support for this ordinance and the changes it brings and really going back to the biggest calls going about changing our character at the expense of university I think I kind of want to power through that narrative talk about how our residents right and so when we talk about building housing when we say the university should be building all the house city should build all the house our constituents of both and both have an obligation to abide for those constituents so I think the idea that we'll lose our community character by allowing people to live and approaching this problem of crisis from a crisis from a crisis from all sides actually make a dent so I think it's really important that we push and we go ahead and allow for these more types of living for people who are trying to downside just trying to down for families want to live in a smaller environment for eco-conscious for students for all sorts of groups take advantage of this smaller type of home so I really implore you guys go ahead and move forward with this and you guys for your comment like that comment I will bring it now back up we have one more hand that was raised I'll allow that four to seven have your hand up and go ahead and unmute yourself phone number ending in seven hello hi my name is Patrick Katie I'm just calling in to support flexible density I work as in the county and I think this type of housing helps other sort of service workers find a place to live here in the county I believe are you finished? okay next caller phone number ending in 888 hello can you hear me hi I can hear you thank you thanks for taking my call I just want to say please vote no on this ordinance 2022-2 the public correspondence for this item today was four to one again please listen to the voters of your city especially on an ordinance that would have such enormous and difficult to imagine effect on all of us I agree with the folks who have been speaking about the desperate needs for much more affordable housing there's no doubt about that but there are serious problems to dispose of at this time and the unintended consequences you'd be faced with mean we'd be worse off than we are now for decades to come I also appreciate and echo the important point that Candace Brown brought up this is no minor change please postpone or vote no on this ordinance thank you so much for your comment I'm going to get it out closing public comment and bring it back council for emotion and I see council member Brown would stand up council member coming then council member Brown thank you mayor I had one more question for staff so the there's this the single SROs doesn't produce SROs are being produced we're getting one or two every couple of years which we would kind of expect it's the SOUs the small ownership units we have two examples of those over 15 years and I guess I'm just wondering if you can speak a little bit more by those aren't being produced so we had this kind of same question being these units get built we held a focus group with developers and made sure that we invited the developers of the two existing projects to sort of talk to them about what they're seeing with their project and the consensus was that the biggest issue that developers cited was the requirement that they so a lot of developers really prefer to at least rent for some kind of time and build it and building their reasons for that but they really viewed that as a hindrance and it's a challenge for financing and especially the way the ordinance was written that it would allow up to half of the units to be rented could make it hard for individual purchasers to get financing and then you're in a situation where you can only sell to all cash buyers which is just really challenging like at any size of home and so they just had they just felt like there were a lot of constraints around that and if they wanted to build that housing type they would find a different location where they could build like CEOs or one bedroom under a different kind of density cap where they would go with SROs which are limited to rental housing and they're smaller and it's just a different it's kind of a different market does that answer your question? That answers my question I think what we were hearing from people is this idea of building smaller units for families to purchase but developers haven't been building these smaller units for purchase and I think a lot of it sounds like it's driven because of the fact that the returns will not be as great It's also because it's been exclusively SOU projects that's also an issue is that the SOU presents right now it can only build one type of unit within that so there's no like you can't like hedge your bets and build some larger units smaller units and like mix them it's really been that attractive but I see my colleagues just to note that the 50% limitation on rental so only 50% be rented was a big thing in the finance that we heard that has implications not only for development but also for a future purchase as well it can make it. Thank you I appreciate it and I'll just acknowledge this is a major change to our housing law obviously complex for community but just based on kind of what I've been hearing from seeing in emails and hearing from the community there's lots of housing laws forward that take away local control from local jurisdictions and it seems like it would make sense for us to understand how these state laws will impact moving forward with the local ordinance that could potentially exacerbate community impacts around things such as water traffic public safety also it doesn't appear that in this ordinance there's anything that ties the smaller units to them being each restricted affordable or the small units just be affordable in general and the rationale is that reducing the unit size will make affordable then this hasn't been addressed especially when we see market rate studios for $2800 a month for rent it would be in the best interest of the community to address preserving and increasing affordability if we're going to move in this direction if not then we'll be driving up the cost of housing by setting market rate standards for a very small living condition to some of the points we've brought up we have been building lots of housing in this community and we have been meeting greener goals currently because we have been approving the project with the exception of housing in the very low income category which suggests that what we need to address are the issues related to creating restricted affordable housing but given the concerns I've heard related to impact state law and affordability we should continue to see how the state laws impact housing in our community and figure out how to get affordability so I'm going to make the following motion which is to table this item further explore increasing inclusionary restricted affordability in these units and until we have a better understanding of the impacts of the new housing legislation related to density bonus our objective standard and other housing production measures that will impact neighborhood we have motion by council member Cummings is there a second yes I'll second that I don't want to lose the floor though okay let's just take a second read this motion first by Cummings seconded by Brown either for Sarah or Bea Butler with that motion is used to be any anticipated timeline with that motion and clarity with some of those items let's take a look and sort of Bonnie could you share it again because there are different timelines for each of those that I think would be helpful to speak to so let's start with inclusionary we can take a look at inclusionary that can be done subsequent to this ordinance being passed or that could be done separate from it typically we do a pretty deep dive with inclusionary because we want to make sure that we are doing something that is going to still be viable so ensure that projects can get built that said we have we have a standard for SROs and if we were looking at matching the SRO standard that is something that we come back to the council with in relatively short period of time it takes a few months minimum to do that plus there are workload implications and opportunity costs realistically it's probably five months or we are able to slot that in get the work done, get it noticed get it to Planning Commission get their recommendation and then to bring it to the council so that is part of the timeline related to that objective standards Sarah mentioned that previously we have been going to the Planning Commission on April 21st we will be proceeding to council soon thereafter we need to understand what the Planning Commission says make some adjustments but within a few months time we will be back with the objective standards and I just note that those objective standards they are allowing but is currently allowed right now under the general plan so where Sarah was talking about the 2.75 FAR we might have building height that don't accommodate a 2.75 FAR for area ratio the Housing Accountability Act does not allow us to apply the objective standards when we don't have when you can't achieve the full density allowed by our plan and so again as we mentioned multiple times this FDU proposal wouldn't change the massing or the scale and when we come back with the objective standard it will have implications for things like materials or roof forms the height are increasing as I mentioned but not pursuant to what they can do already because again even if the zoning ordinance says it's limited to 30 or 40 feet in height if the full density can't be achieved in that limit we have to allow higher under the Housing Accountability Act the Revised Corridor Plan I'm not sure exactly what's being referred to right there the zone districts so that is coupled with the objective standards we've got new zoning districts for most locations and with that it will again have the same things that I was talking about with the objective standard and a better understanding of the impacts of new housing legislation related to density bonus and other housing production housing production measures so with respect to legislation if we're waiting on legislation I mean Sarah pointedly before if we're waiting on legislation that's going to happen we've seen more housing legislation in the last five years than we saw in the previous 15 and that's going to continue to happen we've got to keep moving on our approach to creating housing including producing units at all income levels but if we're waiting on what happened with legislation the earliest we would be doing something is end of this year Governor signs things in the time frame of October of each year and often times we're scrambling to get those updates in place right and so we might not have the capacity to come back to this and right away and at that point we're in the next so I appreciate keeping a really close eye on what's happening at the state level and sometimes we do want to hold off on for doing that for example with our SB 9 regulations with subdivisions and multiple units because we know that housing and community development in the state they keep telling us that they're going to come out with regulation so we're anticipating that in the next month or two so for this particular issue I wouldn't recommend waiting for what's going to happen with the housing legislation because that state density bonus is going to apply regardless as we've heard from the number of that color looks like Matt might have one other thing that thanks Lee I just wanted to mention too in regard to understanding the impact of this proposal before you doesn't allow these FPUs anywhere that SROs aren't already allowed and so the SROs already have a higher density and intensity of development than the FPUs could ever have and so we can look to them already start understanding what is possible on those sites in terms of density I just wanted to make that point again that we're really not changing any of the impacts correctly in terms of in terms of density in reality thank you Council Member Brown and Council Member Myers Mayor so I do have some comments but a question just occurred as Lee as Director Butler was asking related to the question around increasing potential for increase for this density project and so I wanted to ask where that is at my understanding that Planning Commission had hoped to explore this and I believe weren't able to do that and so I'd like to know what the staff's position was on that what happened at that meeting where there was an attempt to begin to move a proposal like that forward from the planning directly to us so that was happening quite a while ago we're talking about urgency and we can't wait more months months but they haven't had an opportunity to have the conversation that I know at least some commissioners want to have so I'm just wondering where that's at sure, happy to speak to that so the Planning Commission did have a discussion on inclusionary and that recommendation has been forwarded to the Mayor the item has not been brought to the Council yet but will be at some point I haven't had a coordination with the Mayor with respect to win that will actually be a great okay so it is in the next but it's not been prioritized so I also want to be clear that the inclusionary recommendations for the that came from the Planning Commission were related to density bonus and not specifically related to FDUs there was a discussion about FDUs on a similar timeline however those and the Planning Commission recognized some of the issues associated with that because some of those recommendations would actually not encourage the production of very low income units that is going to take a lot of analysis that is going to be on a longer timeline then a simple change we wanted to just match FDUs to SRO with going to 20% very low instead of 20% low capture all that, that was a lot I do and I appreciate that I disagree to some extent with the level of complexity figuring it out I'll just say that for an offline conversation I do have some additional comments I want to make and I'm going to step back and I'm going to talk about what I'm going to forward and I see we're struggling I want us to think about for a moment we hear from members of the public we need options we know that nobody has really any choices right now we are we have an under supply of housing I recognize that and I'm not opposed to density but let's talk about somebody who might be mad and talk about this wonderful affordable by design notion let's talk about a Santa Cruz city who earns I'm just going to round it $18 more that part of the work and I'm going to say that part of the work and I'm a composite of experiences that I am aware of happening that worker lost their housing that worker is living in their being on friends at $18 per hour I'm going to put aside that this worker and again a composite could be working 20 hours a week as a permanent worker 20 hours a week as a permitem where they are then laid off and of $1,000 somewhere around $1,000 correctly on the tax $9.99 on that city that worker will be left to with that one job every hour available earn about $30 I'm going to round down because that temp position has a lower wage to it about $36,000 $3,000 a month in order for that attain affordable rent that would be around $925 for that worker not for rent Santa Cruz Lookout published an article that studio prices are up 112% over this past that is not because we didn't build enough housing in the past that's not because we didn't build enough housing over the past however many years that's because there is an influx of people with the ability to pay more friends and landlords who will charge it so the current average price of $24.95 which is pretty darn close the studio price new developments come online I've been on this and just approved how is something like this benefit that how is something like this benefit workers at the service industry workers who are we know this is a significant portion of our workforce how are they going to benefit from a change in housing to relatively yeah we all struggle I understand that but we talk about voice all of that I feel like there is this disconnect from the reality that low wage families face others have talked about the dramatic landscape our built environment I'm not going to criticize those but I will say I believe that further dialogue and should review and should consideration of how create this opportunity that we have here and this benefit for developers that would create more affordable so I'm going to leave it there no I'm not going to leave it there sorry it's frustrating conversation to have I just feel like nobody is really talking about there is one reality and that is our renown the need for housing but there's another reality of like gets to live here gets to the workers and the bathrooms and our park that's a conversation can't fix it our housing policy but we can certainly take it into account as has been noted today not required to revise our local laws to accommodate density by all the cluster about the state stepping in because we have not facilitated enough housing we have facilitated our rena this has been stated repeatedly again and we'll talk about that more later today I'm excited to have that conversation about the housing element we have met those allegations for all but the very low units and free we know very low unless they are required or subsidized given all of that it provides at a minimum talking about kinds of units that we know going can't produce enough of so if we are going to give to developers additional density opportunity as director Butler said can't change the size of the building but the proposal will use the return on investment opportunity available to developers so if that is the case then we absolutely should be talking about and create an inclusionary incentive for these kinds of projects that is why I think that having spending time on the proposal bringing it back with attention to affordability is important now councilmember Brown councilmember John thank you thanks for the work of the planning commission and staff and everyone who wrote letters I'm just going to pick up the thread that councilmember Brown just left I failed to understand how building less helps those housing the most I failed to understand how building less doesn't increase competition for the existing units that we have here I am really fortunate to have stable housing at stable housing for a number of years that wasn't always the situation that I found myself and my family in there was a letter that was sent in by Mr. Charlie Vast who talks about his mother and mother-in-law who came here recently and how it's difficult for immigrants to find housing that was me and that was my family the students who called in they're on spring break that's a reality it is all of our responsibilities and that was me as well I graduated from USC this is about building housing for everybody this is about building housing for kids for aging parents and for that city worker it's about building housing for him or her it's about building housing for our middle class what if 30,000 computers who come into our city to work how would that impact climate where's the intersectionality of decisions that we make around housing and land use if we're committed to climate that's just one area I know we all on this council are committed to addressing the challenges around our unhoused homeless population where's the commitment to that if we're not thinking proactively and putting forward innovative solutions if we look at the agenda item later on around the housing element update we'll see that councilmember brown is correct that have not yet met very low income units but we are going to projects that are in the queue and that we have new renails that are in the thousands for a range of housing that our community needs so if we want to grow in a way that is fitting for our community we want to grow sustainably let's be proactive and not get our hands slapped by the state let's not have high rises all over town and I think the way that we do that is we get in front of it there were a lot of questions and concerns that were brought forward in comment and in the letters and I think that staff did a really fantastic job of providing thorough information and I truly believe that we, again if we don't want to see monstrosities and we want to dictate how we grow we want to dictate the direction that we go in then we have to think outside the box and this is an attempt at doing that at the end of the day it's about being an inclusive and diverse community I think that's a value that we all share here on this council it's a value that we share as a community I'm talking to community members about something I hear over and over again our strategies and tactics so far have not been worked so why are we proposing to continue that hasn't been working it doesn't make any sense to me it's about providing housing it's about providing housing and growth in the way that we want dictating growth in the way that we want so I'll end my comments there I will not be supporting the motion thank you thank you council member Meyers and then like council member Meyers I also just want to state I won't support this motion and I just I guess I also just really want to point out since I've been on the city council there's just been efforts prior to just stop housing and projects that our market rate but maybe there's a benefit for example the whole taxation situation now we're going to have hundreds of units of very low income housing built we will have the same 25 units of very low income housing in our downtown library project we're seeing if with the tools available we're starting to see that we can take care of the people who are traveling down highway 1 to come into Santa Cruz and this idea that we just delaying so that we can somehow talk with another answer when actually developers are coming to Santa Cruz right now affordable housing I can name 5 affordable housing projects that are going on right now they're in the permitting process we've got the permanent supportive housing project and housing matters we've got the two at Pacific Station we have the one that's going to go into the red you know we have Jesse Street Marsh these developers are here they want to invest in Santa Cruz and they're building very low and low income housing I don't know why we just wanting to throw more obstacles at it let's just delay delay so we've heard from people particularly struck by the teacher who called in today need a place to live and it's a starter for them hopefully they get stabilized by having a home maybe maybe they can put together the financing to actually buy it this gives us the flexibility good tool let's test it always change an ordinance it's not going the way we want and there will be future city councils that will tweak this over time this is a tool in our land use toolkit and it's there to try to get us for housing not in six months, not in six years to actually start making things happen and we've seen that trajectory already started and you know I'm sorry but California is people love California they move California and then they tell us oh you shouldn't be building this but I mean it's ironic to me that a lot of this comes after people get settled in California then they're like well slow this down let's just try to take care of the people who are struggling here let's just try to help families individuals people and seniors and others who are just trying to make a home here in San Francisco so I'm not going to support this but I do I would be willing to make a motion to move for the staff thank you Mayor thank you Council Member Myers I see Council Member Cummings and Brown with your hands up for the sake of time do you have any additional comments you'd like to make I do okay go ahead you're coming and then Council Member Brown I just want to say that the intention of this is not about the production of housing in our community it's about ensuring that if we're going to move in this collection we're addressing the affordability issues and when people are talking about who are trying to get stabilized in the community that's me I do not own a home I'm a renter the decision that I'm in right now the fact that I was fortunate to find the landlord keeping their prices though and I hear constantly many of my friends in the community I've heard it we're going to be addressing this later in our agenda as well when we get to eviction protections but there are plenty of people in this community who are trying their hardest to stay here and when they receive 20% rent increases trying to find somewhere else where they can live is extremely difficult the issue here is to figure out how we can increase the amount of exclusionary de-restricted affordable housing that's going to come into new units because as our planning director said as our planning department said that the only way that you can keep affordable housing in the community is by making it de-restricted so if we're going to talk about building units in our community with the hopes that the size will make it affordable then they need to be de-restricted because that's the only way to ensure that it's permanently affordable in the long term that's what we're trying to do is keep affordable housing perpetuity so that's all I have to say that's a member brown thank you mayor I just want to say I failed to see how moving forward with a proposal that would essentially promote, facilitate more market rate housing any affordability any additional affordability going to benefit the working families and the people that you all are describing here I just give you a scenario of somebody who could never in a million years buy maybe rent if they had a roommate one of these units that we're talking about I'm hearing contradictions in what my colleagues are saying we're not doing a good job but what we've done hasn't worked and at the same time the same council member saying we've met our goals so that I hear contradictions around the timeliness of us back now when it comes to building market rate housing additional affordability requirements but when we talk about a small inclusionary percentage of inclusionary units we have to study it forever so I would just encourage folks to think about that when you decide what to read and what needs to be more careful and I would also urge us to think about the reality not the theory of housing supply matching from meeting the need of the people for action and I'm all for not waiting for it to actually make an effective time Thank you council member Brown I think you know this has been a good discussion and I appreciate everyone's input emails I think there were about seven emails with various concerns thank you to planning staff Sarah Noisy and Lee Butler for clarifying the questions that I had from those concerns around density and how this always strives their development those concerns were really answered in that it's not changing flexible density in it the size and the height setback inclusionary requirements those concerns have been answered we have to move forward meeting the needs of our community in the best way and this is something that we can move forward to support that with additional flexible unit that offer option I fully believe that and has you know what council member Cummings brought up continuing to work on ways to meet affordable deed-respected affordable housing in our city will be a priority with this change in flexible to go to flexible density unit this is just one piece that will get us so many people will need housing options so with that I'd like to take a vote on this current motion on the floor by council member Cummings and seconded by council member Brown and so we get a roll call vote for a commentary on no yes no sorry council member vice mayor no no see that motion passed with five against and two in favor you have one out for and four against in favor okay let's see council member Brown and then council member Meyers Mayor I have a motion and I prepared I sent it to Bonnie and I'm hoping you can put that up recognizing the urgent decision about this I so here's my motion I'll read it along rec staff council at the earliest possible meeting with one an amendment ordinance 2020 title 24 of the regulating small housing unit including replacing small ownership with and make minor clarifying amendments following increase the requirement 20 to 25 percent respected affordable unit and I this was before I realized that very low is required for that last and then to an amended resolution authorizing manager to submit ordinance number 2022 and changes to the downtown plan as local coastal and amendment for final certification increase percentages for and free any ordinary ordinance reflect for the newly established house second we have a motion on the floor council member Brown seconded by coming are you seeing that item section item one that no okay I your hand up I was just going to ask if comment thank you mayor I was just trying to make sure that I understand this and I think that I got it now you're suggesting that we come back to you so we would go to the planning commission with a revised ordinance that includes the same provisions of the FDUs and except we would also loop in inclusionary changes and you want those to go from the 20 percent that they currently are to 25 percent and and then when we bring those back that's when we would bring the amended resolution the amended resolution directing okay I understand what you're proposing and I wasn't quite sure that I got it the first time around so thank you question for you Lee Butler your staff to this 25 percent increase so we have not with respect to that I reiterate what I indicated before the SROs have the 20 percent at very low income a 50 percent area median income level small ownership unit and small ownership units match all other developments that's 20 percent at low income which is 80 percent very immediate I think given that consistency or the closeness of FDUs and SROs I would want to work with our economic development team who understands the financing of that more carefully as they develop some affordable housing projects in our community but I think that change if we switch FDUs from low to very low and kept it and shifted it to 50 percent AMI instead of 80 percent AMI because that analysis we got the SROs that have been developed that are being developed back I think is a simpler change and probably a faster change then if I would recommend that if we were going up to 25 percent that we do a market analysis and bring in a third party a consultant like Kaiser Marston who's done these pro forma analyses before we would work with our economic development department that would be my recommendation is making sure that projects are still viable we want to get the maximum amount of affordable housing and we want to make sure that those housing projects are built because we don't want to set that bar so high that nothing gets built that doesn't help us meet our arena our regional housing needs allocation targets nor does it provide housing for the community nor does it provide affordable housing if we're not getting any of the inclusionary units because projects aren't built so that's the balancing act that we need to strike and I think that's a little of my thoughts on it thank you Council Member Myers that's my quick question for Lee so the market study is that basically like a feasibility study basically you would look at the policy we're setting is actually going to become reality in a market correct? that's correct they'll evaluate will this result in projects still being able to be built or would lenders not provide financing for these projects because the return on investment is going to be too low or there's too much risk so that's what they would look at and make that determination and make those recommendations yeah I think that complexity that's hard for many people to understand is not just the unit count but actually whether or not someone can get the financing whether or not long term holding the property over time managing with that construction loan period and then hopefully filling the units is complicated so I think you keep raising the bar and people are going to go build houses in other places so thank you mayor Council Member Brown just a quick historical review here very recent history for those who are not on the council and some of us were and we'll remember this Previous City Council determined that the best way to get housing built was to respond to developers demands and reduce exclusionary that required project I did not support that community members we received a Kaiser-Mars study indicating that that was the sweet spot for penciling out a project and five members of the council collected that we were told through a study by Kaiser-Mars that that was the only way we were going to get housing community members sued the city they had no other recourse to try to ensure the will of the people by a vote of the people measure O was held that 15% exclusionary would be standard we had a moment where we had a council that thought application would come in and raised it and so we raised it we were told and then Kaiser-Marsden found a way to show us that it was done nothing had changed in the real world nothing had changed but we then got a study telling us we wanted to hear because we were supported that we had to do that increased it to 20% some of you said oh no we can't do that because nobody is going to build and we have had more applications than ever even after increasing our inclusion so Kaiser-Mars study could be done could also just try it what happens if nobody wants to build 25% then we can revisit it kind of what I said the first time around it ended up taking a lot longer than it did to get us to start now so I just think that again this is where we get into that question about oh if we want to make that take a long time it really doesn't have to take full will here we are member Myers we have to challenge a little bit about that history that we just the reason we're getting very low income and low income units passed entirely with the best part of the city on those units I'm talking about market units and the city is smartly using our own properties and working with our partners to actually bring those things to fruition and also use a new law that we were able to put certain projects right away that they got permitted right away just as a great example of that so the state leveraging this very low and low income housing it's not our inclusionary ordinance that's leveraging this state law then city wisely using leverage place inclusionary ratio right now is not producing these very low income units so I'm just going to push back on that and I really I've kind of done with the debate mayor I'd like to call the question on the current motion I don't think we're going to go anywhere we can debate this in the council office we're on the right track or not but I think we're almost two hours on this I would call the question on the current motion on the floor that's a that's a motion to call a question or motion to call a question yes okay we have a motion to call a second okay and then we have a roll call vote for member talentary John hi I'm done but I'm voting no on we are now motion passes vote on the motion to vote on the motion that's for us so let's do a roll call vote the motion by council member Brown member talentary John no motion by council member Brown for no yes council member Myers thank you mayor I'd like to make a motion to adopt number 22- title the minutes regulating small housing unit replacing small ownership flexible density minor kind amendment okay and adopt a resolution authorizing and track the city manager number cash downtown as local coastal amendment okay we have a motion by council member Myers okay okay can we have a roll call vote hi coming I that motion passes or in favor to against council member Boulder absent and I just want to say I think this item as council member Myers said has been a lot longer than we intended for a second hearing it was unusual in my history for a second hearing to have this much discussion but I think necessary and important we don't have the opportunity as a body to have these discussions and raise concerns on behalf of our constituents and we still have emails coming in and many in support as well and I would like to just say that there were some really good points brought up I'm hoping that our planning staff their ability to really dive into this has been very helpful and leave butler so I hope that a continued exploration into some of the discussion items especially in regard how we affordable housing and other recommendations around FPUs being affordable such as EMI EMI I look forward any of those recommendations going forward prioritizing continued path of meeting the needs in regards to housing with that being said to all for sharing that I would like to make a recommendation to continue items 27 which is amendments relating to small cell wireless and item 28 the review and final parks and recreation annual report I would like to see if there would be a motion to move those to April 12 the next so that we I have Vice Mayor Watson Callentary Johnson I'm happy to move those items and if that doesn't bring up any further staff I'd like to ask Manager Matt Huffer would that work with your staff for the sake of time we're happy to continue both of those items wonderful is there a second we have a Vice Mayor Watkins Council Member Callentary Johnson second we have a motion to continue items number 27 and 28 on the agenda to April 12th meeting we have a motion by Vice Mayor Watkins second Council Member Callentary Johnson we have a roll call vote oh I'm sorry Council Member Myers I'm sorry I was going to sorry Mayor my hand may we have a roll call vote Council Member Callentary Johnson aye Mayor Watkins motion toss four in favor and one absent and so that brings us item number 29 expiration of statewide evictions moratorium and before welcome Council Member Golder before we begin that item I will call a five minute file break sitting here so thank you we'll return for 23 thank you so now we will begin with our next agenda item number 29 for members of the public Council Member Golder who's just joining us items number 27 and 28 have been continued to the April 12th agenda so now we will begin with item number 29 expiration of statewide evictions the moratorium additional legal aid and support for tenants affected by COVID-19 for members of the public for spending this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is time to call in seeing the instructions on your screen order will be presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the Council we will then take public comment and then return to the Council for deliberation and action so now I will present it over to Tony yes good afternoon members of the City Council in your agenda packet is a status update with information about various resources that the City has made available in cooperation with the County Housing and Health Division for tenants who are experiencing hardship due to the COVID-19 emergency at your last meeting there was a request to put this item on the agenda at the urging of several individuals and organizations that are working with tenants that have been impacted by the COVID emergency the focus of that was for specific for specific requests one was to authorize a local moratorium on evictions if anyone waiting, housing is key payments until the end of 2022 or until their current out two was to identify sources of funds to keep tenants housed including ARPA the $14 million secured by Senator Laird for homelessness and or other resources and to build this into your fiscal year budget as a contingency for housing is key three was to inject funding shore up existing local legal agencies and collaborations that provide pre-tenant counseling and legal representation with special attention for the overrepresented undocumented and four require all procedures for agreements between landlords and tenants with the goal of avoiding and I would add that similar requests were submitted to the other cities in Santa Cruz County as well as County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors and I believe the County is also having an agenda item to discuss this afternoon as a result of that I was able to work with City Attorney and County Council colleagues analysis of the potential for further local moratorium as well as proposal to require eviction first work out agreements between landlords and tenants and we uniformly concluded that because of changes in the state law we were put into effect during the COVID emergency the city as well as the County and other cities are currently preempted from these these types of actions the eviction moratorium as well as the mandatory mediation of cases involving rent that became due between the end of September of 2001 and so therefore the recommendation is to focus on additional sources of funding and that is what the city has been has been endeavoring to and so believe Bonnie Lipscomb is prepared to address some of those efforts I'm not seeing her on thank you Bonnie Lipscomb I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have about the potential for an eviction moratorium or the mandatory mediation Council Member Brown Thank you Mayor I have one question about that my understanding is from materials that you've sent us the additional inquiries there are communities that are extending their eviction moratorium outside of the housing program during the period of extended COVID emergency declaration with those jurisdictions and given that we just voted to provide our COVID emergency for 60 more days would that give us similar cover something similar So there was a period of time before the passage of AB 832 which is referenced in your agenda report during which cities were able to adopt eviction moratorium ordinance specifically authorized by a provision of state law and the door to that shut city the city of Santa Cruz did in fact adopt an eviction moratorium ordinance that expired in September of 2020 as a new state law went in established another eviction moratorium that was statewide extended the moratorium to September 30th then with the passage of AB 832 there was an additional protections put in place for tenants and landlords that applied for state assistance to the housing program and that law specifically enabled cities that had those evictions protections in place to continue to have those in place but the law specifically states that any effort to extend or expand or act a measure that occurs between August 2020 and March 31st 2022 will have no effect before April 1st of 2022 then furthermore the statute says that a provision enacted or amended after August 1920 will not apply to rental that came due between March 1, 2020 and March 31st 2022 so the state law has expressly preempted the city's ability to adopt eviction protections that are for nonpayment of rent for that period August 2020 March 31st I would just add that based on our research we have not seen any city attempt to enact additional or further eviction protections since AB 832 went into effect in California the county of Los Angeles did adopt eviction protection measure that extended previously existing eviction in January of 2022 and they're currently defending that action that is in Los Angeles councilmember Cummings raise your hand please Mayor Tony I was curious I have two concerns here one is that you have people who have trusted the government to try to get them rental assistance and they're at risk of if this expires not only do they not get that well this expires they're susceptible to being evicted I guess my question is if someone waiting for rental assistance it's evicted to those landlords to get that rent but that assistance as well because this is something that's been worked out in landlord under the assumption that should the tenant be able to get the assistance then they won't be evicted but if they are evicted do the landlords then get that back rent well because it could be that they get evicted then they don't it's a lose-lose situation but I don't know or it could be a the landlord gets the assistance and the person gets kicked out I'm just curious about it I have to confess that I'm not as familiar with how those payments are processed through the housing agency program so I can't really give you a clear answer on that it stands to reason to me if an application is pending I don't know how that and a tenant is evicted unless the tenant or someone brings that attention of the state program there might be a situation where the application is processed late again I'm not positive about that the city does not directly deal with those applications so I'm not as familiar with that and it would seem as well if the person applied for it and then ended up getting evicted the likelihood they would go seek assistance is pretty low because most people by then will have lost trust in their government but I'm thanks for the clarification lost more trust thank you Council Member Myers just a question for staff I was just curious to know the county is very involved a couple questions I guess Bonnie I know that we were reporting as much as possible rental assistance but I wanted to understand a little bit more about what we've done and whether or not we are still provided whether it's I guess what kinds of assistance we are providing and then I guess for Matt do we know anything from either Assembly Member Stone or Senator Laird in terms of sort of efforts in Sacramento to try to address these payment fallout other things and whether or not there's any any legislation that reminds me of the ED fiasco whether or not there's movement at the state in terms of trying to get this cleaned up so people not sure who can answer those two but I'll throw those out thank you I can speak to Bonnie's at another meeting unfortunately so I'm going to for ED here but thank you all so as far as rental assistance the city has provided the housing authority around 200 today for security deposit so that's one piece of assistance that we're providing the city is also providing has provided cab around 238,000 I'm going to let Tiffany tell me if I'm giving the exact information but that those monies have actually been fully expended at this point right Tiffany the nod yes so and we do know that cab has been working with the county seeking more assistance for their programs so I hope that answers one of the questions yes then Council Member Myers just to add to this comment we're not aware of either Assembly Member Stone or Senator Laird at the point in time that there's any active legislative efforts at least that their offices are involved in there have been discussions in Sacramento around potential extensions or some other type of eviction protections that could be put in place as you might imagine given the concern we all share across the state that they're potentially being a flood of evictions as these protections expire but that work right now unclear what direction it might take if any and the governor's office has signaled as made commitment that current protections would sunset as they were currently planned into part having said that the other question I think you asked was what other work is underway for the regional front we have been in regular conversations with Robert Ratner the director of housing for the county on establishing a more formal partnership around continuing and expanding local support programs that are in place we found the area the most effective providing legal educational and mediation support to renters and the corporation that works with the president so in conversations with the county they were bringing in a proposal to the board of supervisors today to allocate $500,000 in the point and region effort what we would like to do assuming the provisors proves that proposal is in fact helpful at a meeting in the near future ask for a budget of preparation where does that well with the area focus being legal most effective boots on the ground that seems to be the direction it's going and it sounds like Watsonville and and our other partners great thank you yeah I would there's a motion I thought of hey and I'm not seeing that some of these actions being getting in touch with our state leaders also just to get a sense of what's happening very helpful thank you thank you councilmember Myers councilmember Callentari Johnson my question was just addressed right now mayor what mine was also in regards to financing and I was wondering if the board had already put their vote on that at this point that information but I don't know that so but I appreciate the regional approach where to work councilmember Cummings can you just get word mayor and council that the board is comprised of staffs for it thank you for that can not legally enact a victim or a that's my analysis as well as council that were preempted from enacting a further eviction more at this junction of course is available we did receive correspondence from community bridges that the Santa Cruz the number of applications for the housing is community bridges the lead organization for managing the housing process in the county but the city of Santa Cruz the number of applications is 132 applicants with only 300 funded so far and so you know it seemed that the natural next step would have been an extension to enact those applicants as they wait for funding for hearing from state level that disbursement is low so what I'm also hearing is that the that staff is recommending regional support systems to support those forms of funds that are needed to let's see tenant education legal assistance tenant education you see my notes here are there is that kind of sanctuary or conflict resolution center I know that Jessica Dewitt mentioned already deposit program housing authority and action board funding are all those current and valid resources available for anybody who is based on potential eviction April 1st yes those are ongoing programs and Mayor Verna would just add that there is some lengthy detail describing the today's agenda and there are links well staff report what we have envisioned on the regional partner expansion of what's described there again honing in on the areas that are going to be most effective and is there any timeline on that we're nearing the end of the month the timeline is immediate so it's good news that the Board of Supervisors approved that initial allocation of funding today and our plan will be follow suit and bring for the budget thank you and my last question for the attorney we had several community members regarding changing eviction notices 15 days or 90 days there were several requests for that can you those options yeah some council members might recall that in November of 2019 the council directed my office to prepare an ordinance that required 90 days notice for evictions and it was introduced but it never received a second reading because we received a letter from the apartment owners association that cited a case called apartment owners association of Santa Clara valley I think versus the city of mountain view that holds that the subject of the notice required to initiate eviction meetings is clearly spelled out in state law and therefore the city is preempted by the unlawful detainer statute enacting enacting an ordinance that would have a different notice period spelled out in the state law there is no way to narrowly focus an extension for those awaiting housing I can't say that there is no way to do it what I provide the council with is my assessment of what the likelihood of being challenged in court would be and the likelihood of that challenge being successful the council sometimes weighs a risk spectrum and gives direction with the understanding of the likelihood I would add though if a legal challenge is brought and the city is unsuccessful we are also likely responsible for the plaintiffs attorney's fees and costs so it's not an inexpensive gamble to take. Vice mayor Watkins and council member Myers. I appreciate the clarification just because I have the agenda and the recommendations include the sanctuary and the handbook and the security deposit program housing authority and so on so it's nice to know we have community partners who are working with us to support our residents. In the recommendation it doesn't include to have a budget of appropriation or to return with budget of appropriation in the recommendation I would add something that you're wanting more clarity and direction on. I figure as much thanks for the question council member Watkins I also can certainly clarify that that is the direction where staff are already working to identify the funding I would also just add that we have a meeting tomorrow that with our community partners around the county that the work is moving quickly and our hope would be to return back to normal. Great and it's my understanding that this mobilization of our region will be in place at the time of expiration even though our council member Myers who are muted sorry yeah I would be willing to after you take it out to public comment provide that direction and emotion clarify that thank you so you will now take this out to public comment if you are interested in commenting on expiration of statewide of citizens moratorium for additional legal aid and support for tenants affected by COVID-19 raise your hand either by dialing star 9 on your phone or selecting the raise hand on your webinar calls that's your turn to school hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the timer will then be set to 3 minutes I did have one and I have been approved for extra time and that is Barbara Meister with COPA let's get out to attendees and I see Barbara Meister with her hand up go ahead and unmute yourself thank you welcome Mayor Bruner Council I would like to thank you for the presentation I would like to thank Barbara Meister for representing COPA 23 member institutions across Monterey and Santa Cruz County and many of you have been meeting with us over the last couple of weeks and receiving our letters and emails to state your attention to this looming crisis and your ability to access some of the resources you mentioned so Elizabeth's phone number is 605141 that and would you be able to unmute here and I will use whatever balance of time she has Barbara I am not seeing that number Elizabeth Munoz there we go hi good afternoon my name is Elizabeth and I am a member of Polycrus and the leader of COPA and I just wanted to talk a little bit about my experience with some of the programs that you just can and how I've been dealing with looking for helping my experience in homeless and other things that you have been talking for the last 40 minutes and first of all I want to start off by saying that I was affected by COVID-19 very hard me and my husband lost our job my husband lost two full time job I lost my full time job so after that we struggled we had to spend all of our savings we even had to ask for loans personal loans so I end up applying for house rentals which took me a long long time I applied back when the second round started and I didn't hear from then until November and so in November I landlord that paid and he also got his insurance and he decided that he wanted to sell this property so we had to start looking for a new place and that's when I looked for resources some of the resources just mentioned like PRLA I attended to them like they can only help citizens and people with permanent status here in United States they don't help immigrants or people that only have a work permit that's one I also been calling Housing Authority for security deposit help and when I talk to someone in the front office mentioned this program I got a pamphlet from Community Bridges saying that there was a program so when I called them and mentioned this program they didn't even know what I was talking about that such program didn't even exist or it wasn't valid anymore and from what I heard from someone who was talking just now it looks like programs are still valid so I don't know if that person was there that day was misinformed about the program the other thing is just navigating the property management the requirements that are out there just get a place like $9,000 for each person so each person has to be earning that much money each person has to qualify on their own making three times the rent each person has to have two years of employment which many of us don't currently have because we lost our job when the pandemic hit paying $45 to $50 credit you know just some of us don't even have that amount of money just to mobile like $11,000 $12,000 is way too much Elizabeth that time the timer has rang thank you for sharing your experience and Barbara thank you for allowing the time to talk about that comment from Kopa so thank you we have our next attendee public comment from Raymond Cansino go ahead good evening council good evening mayor thank you for your time today my name is Raymond Cansino and I'm the CEO of Community Bridges I'm calling in to ask that the council add some additional motions on to the table and move forward on a conversation that includes letters of writing both Senator Laird's office Assemblymember Stone and Rivas in relation to the housing program as well as a letter to the governor's office there is no reason why we all should get around the table afraid of tenants being at a opportunity and at a point in which it might occur when they had public interest of trying to use the state program to get the necessary resources and needs in order to pay rent and state current this isn't just a tenant in the landlord it's not just a renters issue this is also a landlord issue in the sense that a lot of these landlords are also waiting for funds to come in to ensure that they're able to pay their property taxes sure that they're able to comply with the law we really feel like mediation is a way forward to prevent unlawful containers from ruining renters future rental opportunities and an opportunity in which landlords can easily engage with tenants in a safe space that they're likely to get better outcomes than seeking unlawful containers. I think what's critically important today is that you consider additional funding and defense collaborative that was started because we saw the train about the hit car about a couple months ago we really hope that you continue to also look at other policy solutions because regardless of how much money you forward today you're not going to have as much as a significant impact as you would if you change your policies and look for other types of ways to minimize unlawful containers. One way is to write into the county court system to ask that they inform both parties before submitting an unlawful container about the opportunities to get free mediation through one of our services or through contracted services that we're going to be hoping to help support families in the near future with the support of the county. So I really hope that you also consider an extension of the moratorium in a way 90 days post. I understand that it does not impact the people that are impacted during the payment period of March 31st but frankly the legislation is not supposed to limit your role and your ability to have a policy that does do rental moving forward. An eviction cannot proceed if it's in reference to back payment of those dates that is absolutely true but the payments and what's going to trigger an eviction unlawful containers for people not paying rent in April. April 1st to whatever date is on their contract so if you do a rental moratorium for that time you're able to stop evictions and that's something that I think you should consider. Thank you for your public comment. Our next our next pending has the name I am watching you. Hi since you may not have read my submitted letters since they were uploaded it seems just before the meeting I'll kind of read the one about this item. I asked how do you figure your wisdom exceeded the states deciding when the eviction moratorium in. I remind the stay at home orders and eviction moratoriums will affect the long time and the stay at home ended last June which was also a long time ago now the freedom to move about and get one's affairs in order has then had a long time to play out there is also an explosion of job opportunities so I don't really give unemployment much thought is an excuse. I don't see any version of this idea of a blanket city moratorium extension or any mandatory mediation or any new contemplated mandatory restrictions on landlords being anything other than crashing landlord right if the state doesn't send out payments it didn't send out payments and that is hardly any landlords fault but you were and will are still possibly serving landlords somehow pay the price for government and attitude with an ill-considered one-sided act and I don't think you were told you can't do that. Here's the story in a nutshell. The leftist sound believe in state worship authoritarianism a big government welfare state handouts and victimhood to property rights and they lean socialist power comment. The rest of us believe in liberty limited government with independence property rights self-reliance personal responsibility capitalism in the free market. I wonder which of those the council would like to comment. I would admit the government really messed up the covid response and not make landlords panning more for government mistakes and return to normal. For your comment our next panel will go ahead and unmute. Welcome. Thank you so much. My name is Tony Switzer and I'm the community bridges family collective operation manager and the program manager for the housing system. I want to clarify that from an eviction prevention standpoint the issue current issue is related to the following. Once we enter into April landlords can leave eviction for nonpayment of rent even if funding is pending in the housing system. So we're like tenants being evicted while landlords will still in retrospect receive the eviction for eviction. The applicants that we work with for the housing system are experiencing a lot of issues. Our clients want to pay their rent but has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. What we really need is a few months for the housing is key program to catch up with this. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. Are there any other attendees that would like to comment on this agenda item? Agenda item number 29. Seeing none I will close public comment and bring it back to council for discussion and deliberation and action. Council member Myers and council member Cummings. Council member Myers we have your hand up. Sorry about that. I'll go ahead and make a motion mayor. We just finished public comment so everybody's done there. I would make a motion to direct city manager to engage with the county on the regional efforts regarding maintaining hopefully maintaining people from being evicted especially with investment structures that county has put together financing for some of the services that we can use and then I would add to that that we also possibly also get an update for state legislators on if possible. I mean to the council and I think that one more time for clarity. Kind of long. I would make a motion to direct manager to engage the regional and section efforts of the county of San Francisco other jurisdictions including coming back to the council for approval of efforts and request manager to contact for state legislators to obtain an update on the efforts by our representatives in terms of our deadline and the home key the state funding that's current. So we have a motion by council member Meyers. Is there a second? Second. Okay council member Cummings seconded and council member Meyers have anything else to add or okay so council member Cummings had your hand raised and then council member Golder. Tony I have a question on this because I had motion language that was similar but also had another motion that I was going to make that would provide additional direction after we vote on this motion there is the opportunity to think another separate motion. Additional motion. Okay. Yeah so I'll support the motion which sounds like would provide direction I would just ask for a friendly amendment was in terms of directing whether that staff or the mayor to write letters to our representatives also urging them to do what's in their power take this up as an emergency item during their session to extend the eviction protections till applications have been complete and funds have been distributed so I don't know if that would be acceptable but the idea that the letter add that into the state election sure. I'll send the language maybe over to maybe I can I think we can just capture it along with getting an update from our state legislature legislators on efforts at state level to also request and explore whether there is efforts to um what was your language that's my I think the direction we're hearing is right there and letters for local elected delegation encouraging action on okay I'm fine with that I mean you can put up the language if I think that's fine. Council Member Colder I had my hand up second but I just want to and I'm not going to make a lot of comments here but I just want to say that I do know three people that have been kicked out for lack of payment of rent and all three of the people have been kicked out by master tenants so tenants that rent a place and then kick them out when they rent a room and so I'm just curious when the landlord's not necessarily involved but there's a landlord someone acting as a landlord that's they call like a master tenant I guess and so if there's a way to include in the language that there's protection for those people that are like sub letting places and just kind of being taken advantage of that are not clearly at least in a position of power does that make sense from a legal perspective a sub tenant is afforded the same protection as it has tenant rents directly from the owner so I believe but I believe it's um it's included thank you I think that's where the legal education and support necessary and why that's requested a lot of people don't really understand or know what rights they have council member brown sorry I think my question was Anne sorry council member Cummings your hand is still up I can put it down for now but I'm going to I'm prepared to make an additional motion after we move on okay let's take with this motion that's on the floor um so we have a motion by council member Myers a second by council member Cummings may we have a roll call vote um I just clarified there was a friendly amendment in the mayor write a letter legislatures um clearing emerge or urging emergency action starting housing is payment person I mean I think sorry I was just going to say that um I think it might be worth concluding those letters to take action to avoid evictions um during this time while people are awaiting their assistance this provides clarity it's not just about taking action really urge them to have this taken up by the assembly okay do you have that I have but that's in time we have um a motion to direct the manager to engage in a regional eviction effort with the county and other jurisdictions regarding people from being bring back on those state legislatures as soon as possible on efforts related March 31st friendly amendment Cummings direct the mayor to write a letter to assembly member Spone Senator Laird expressing the need to extend the COVID-19 eviction protection for individuals who have applied state rentals and urge them to do what is in their power to urge the state assembly and senate to take it up as an emergency item during session to extend eviction protection until the applicants have been completed and funds have been distributed there's a little bit more language too around writing the governor as well because the governor could take executive action and direct the mayor to write a letter to assembly member Spone Senator Laird and Governor Newsom expressing the need to extend the COVID-19 eviction protection for individuals at a state level okay okay is the maker of the motion amenable to that friendly amendment council member Myers okay okay can we have a roll call vote hi it's frozen that motion passes in favor one absolute okay council member Cummings thank you you know one thing I want to say is that this is a major government failure of the people during one of their times of greatest need many of these community members have applied for this assistance to follow the guidelines set by the state and our local community to help protect them during a time when our government told them not to work stay at home to create a good community these people have gone through the process to work with their landlords and our waiting payment the government's fault that they were not able to process the applications in a timely manner given that our state government is not willing to address the shortfalls currently we need to do something to help protect renters and some of our lowest income residents and landlords who have not received rent into this program the problem here is that people need time for their applications to be processed and I'm happy to support this funding for more legal services for tenants resources for tenants but if people have already submitted their application to our waiting payments we need to do what we can to give them more time this council has spoken about taking bold actions and moving forward with the threat of and risk of lawsuits in the past on other items and this is a situation where I believe we owe to a resident close to impact by COVID-19 to provide them with more time and so I've made I had a long motion and part of what council member Myers had just made was in that and so he's a part of the pieces that wouldn't get too complicated but have additional language that I would like to pose I know that a couple of these items likely not get as much support and so I'm happy to divide the motion but the first part of the motion would be bullets one and three direct staff bring back coordinates for emergency adoption to provide eviction protections for individuals who have applied for COVID-19 rental assistance and have not yet received their assistance on or before the first meeting in April they'll be retroactive to April 1st 2022 bring back an item determined whether an extension or sunset is necessary at the first meeting in August second part of this motion will be to also change fiction notice period from three to 15 days to allow more time and then submitted applications for COVID-19 rental assistance to learn their options and reduce mental stress and then I don't know if I can make two motions in a motion but the other part of the motion would be to direct mayor to write a letter to county courts district attorney's office and judges to promote and recommend mediation services prior to submitting unlawful detainer the goal of resolving disputes and avoiding evictions that was the middle bullet yeah that was just the second bullet the middle one that I read Tony the Tony I guess the question is this would be two potentially two separate motions if not I know we can't have more than three motions on the floor I would assume that your bullet number three folded into the first bullet that was the intent that seems like one motion second motion direct the mayor to write a letter I would recommend that that you address the letter if that's the direction of the council the presiding judge of the superior court and omit the district attorney's office who has really no involvement whatsoever in the function of the DA's office is to enforce criminal status civil unlawful if we could have that language updated then it sounded like the third bullet could just incorporate it into the first I have a question for Tony the eviction notice did from three days in days my understanding is that we were in my opinion I would say that the same analysis would apply to emergency protections for individuals who have pending applications under the housing program so I don't think I need to reiterate my advice on that I think councilmember Cummings understands it and that's the direction of the motion by council we'll bring that ordinance go ahead and second that I have another question we have a first a motion by councilmember Cummings a second councilmember Brown the timeline for this emergency ordinance stops I read the motion as directing that it be brought back at the first meeting in April and then it would be made retroactive to April 1st actually it says honor before the first meeting in April so if a special meeting was held then before April 1st it could come then too or it would come at the first meeting in April and be retroactively set for April 1st and then the idea would be that it would bring back item determine whether or not the first meeting in August or sunset would be necessary of that ordinance at the first meeting in August so given that we don't meet in July if by August first meeting in August everyone's received their applications and this is only protecting people who have submitted applications so if all the applications have been processed and people receive their funds by the first meeting in August we can set it if they haven't and their applications are still being processed so I guess if there is an opinion of no legal recourse for us to take this action I'm trying to understand your yeah so my rationale behind this is that this council and other council have made decisions that have put us in positions where we're legally susceptible is passing ordinances related to homelessness that may or may not violate Martin versus Boise moving in campments we've done plenty of things and we've been in losses with ACLU but this is a situation where we're talking about protecting some of the most impacted people who are housed who've been impacted by COVID-19 part of why there's building in this time period is to demonstrate where to go to the courts that we are trying to we're not trying to say that no one can be affected we're really trying to focus on people who have applied for assistance or awaiting that assistance I'm also trying to demonstrate with that time period that there is a sunset period on this and there's opportunities for reconsideration and we have that with many of our emergency ordinances related to CZU fire COVID-19 where we update every 60 days and so that's another opportunity for us to provide an update as well and again as I said this is really to protect those who have applied for assistance and are awaiting similar to what we heard earlier people are put out and they're currently awaiting assistance finding a new home is going to be difficult and it's not clear whether or not landlords will get the funding it sounds like yes that's the case but then those tenants have a home and might face many challenges to finding a home if they get put out so I think that we weigh a lot of risks and this is a situation where we're really trying to maintain the housing for hundreds of residents in our community who are facing eviction I'm going to move on to vice mayor if you have your hand raised and council member Myers yes thanks mayor I'll start my comments by just saying I think we all share our most important role who are subject to the impacts of this and I feel really given that we're partnering with the county and the region to provide what we can at the local level for people who are impacted and I think that coming from that place I think for me in terms of what we've heard from our city attorney as well as the county council that the risk associated with the first bullet in direction isn't necessarily I think worth but I think we can do it forcefully and knowing that L.A. is now tied up in the lawsuit in regards to this so for me I think in and in the interest of time knowing we have to put in two additional items and this is not part of the original motion that I think I suggest that we split the motion and then take the vote so I mean we have to take the vote on the first bullet and then is the motion maker amenable to that? The intent was to have it be two separate motions the mayor also has the authority okay the hands went down so yeah mayor I'm sorry I left my hand up I don't need anything else so we have two motions on the floor we have the first motion is a motion direct staff to bring back an ordinance for emergency adopters provide eviction protections for individuals who applied for COVID-19 rental assistance have not yet received on or before the first meeting in April that would be retroactive the first 22 and bring back an item to determine whether an extension or sunset is necessary at the first meeting in August you should have noticed that three days will allow more time dependent on COVID-19 rentals to learn their options and we have a roll call vote no and for the record it's due to the legal constraints that we heard from attorney early on holder and I just want to apologize for having my camera off I keep getting dropped and so I'm trying to stay in the meeting I'm sorry I'm sorry that we were voting on the second one my vote is a no no okay that motion does not pass I know and then the next motion direct mayor to write a letter to county court actually there was language not direct mayor to write a letter judges of the county court promote and recommend service prior to an unlawful container full of resolving edict we have a roll call vote could I suggest one minor edit to write a letter to the presiding judge presiding judge of the county court councilmember Cummings are you okay with that language okay do we have a roll call vote sorry John that motion passes unanimously okay I'd also if these staff and there was a caller who made a comment about new programs and I wonder if any councilmember might make the motion or we can direct staff to look at the effectiveness of the validity of the existing programs that are the resources and court programs that are in place and to make sure they're functioning as good the mayor in response to that the direction we've received the council to engage in this regional partnership will be part of that discussion with all of our partners to identify the most effective areas of assessment but I would argue that that's built in the pressure we've received of course the council wants to clarify that's our intent I wanted to make sure and call that out if something is not available or not working make sure that staff councilmember Cummings I was going to make that motion since you asked I don't need to help on my hand thank you councilmember Cummings okay forward to writing these letters and to an update from the staff after tomorrow's meeting and look forward to ideas of funding amounts that we can county's 500,000 these residents for funds so we continue sure okay so now we will move on I believe you're at the time of a closed session item and this is a conference with legal accounts for existing litigation don't work for the city of Santa Cruz at all Santa Cruz County court number 2620731 there are any members of the public who would like on the closed session item for 30 please raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting please hand in the webinar polls for your when it is your time to hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set hang up once you've commented on your item for any attendees that wish to comment on this closed session item 30 on the agenda today none will bring it back and we will adjourn the closed session we will resume at 30 for oral city clerk ready that a yes good evening and welcome to our 30 p.m. session of the March 22nd 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council I would like to ask the clerk to call roll thank you mayor and members is it coming mayor Watkins and mayor for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you want to call in during oral communications now is the time to call in instructions should be on your screen oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community's on items that are not listed on today's agenda you are interested in addressing the council raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar on your you will have three minutes remember that this is the time for council to hear from the public we are not able to engage in dialogue with the public but when we are able we will address any questions raised after oral I will take it out who are attendees I see one hand raise the name I am Watkins yes hello without specific reference to any agenda items I would generally remind you again that workers have an equal right not to join unions and any one sided support for union formation coming from you is violating the equal right of those who do not want to join and you should always then stay out of the private business labor relations regarding union formation I would also remind you that the money allocated into the water departments budget should all come from users of water delivery and likewise no money should be reallocated out of the water budget for any other purpose than the delivery of water water budget revenue used for any other purpose than delivering water is a total misuse of your monopoly and it is a hidden pack and it needs a full stop when contemplating such it is unethical and abusive to do otherwise alchemic was a Marxist who believed quite strongly in violent retribution as a means to an end this and advocating the complete destruction of the criminal justice system was the thrust of black lives matter movement nearly from the inception managing to achieve eventually an overall massive increase in crime and violence including massive increases in black lives. That self admittedly Marxist organization is involved in a missing $60 million donation staff who Monica Grant of the BLM was charged for 18 counts of fraud just days ago and the BLM continues to inflict the harms by its anarchist supporter the ill-approved BLM billboard was vandalized but it is also almost completely worn out now regardless of the outcome of compensation for that vandalism could not permit it to be repainted as it is a glorification symbol of that violent Marxist anarchist and fraudulent national organization of the same name the badly needs of defunding itself and perhaps some other remembrance that George Floyd can be considered without the BLM stigma attached to it and not in front of city hall but perhaps over by the police station which would be better. Who else if anyone by now needs a remembrance of the lessons of excessive police support who also need to stop regurgitating the government COVID narrative for instance by endless emergency extensions and to get educated as to the harms COVID policy has caused including lockdowns the harm of coercively applied mandates indiscriminately applied to those with previously infected superior immunity to be forced to accept the risk of mRNA side effects or on near zero risk children the total ignorance displayed toward the age health risk differentials the joked in effectiveness of cloth masks really limited effectiveness of vaccines the denial of effective early stage drugs like ivermectin for profit and the indiscriminate violations of rights generally and show me your papers mandate the immoral and powerful policies need to change and never occur again I see no leadership coming from you but I do acknowledge the powerful forces taking vengeance at canceling those in the false government. Thank you. Are there any other attendees that wish to comment on the world which is items not on none we'll bring it back to the council and we have finished item early but I would like to call a break until the next item as we have not had a break so we will return at seven for our next item which is item number 31 annual housing element and general plan progress report. Thank you. We're returning from break if council members turn on their cameras welcome back. Okay next up on our next council agenda is item number 31 annual housing element and general plan progress report for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. Order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from council you will then take public comment and then return to council for deliberation and action this time I will now hand it over to that looks like have our Catherine Donovan senior planner and Matt Van Qua will be the next item. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening councilman airburner let me just bring up my PowerPoint so presentation tonight is for our general housing annual reports for last year oops technical difficulties you can see the screen but I can't seem to forward it Catherine okay let me stop sharing technical difficulties technical difficulties it worked out I can start speaking to this but we're getting the there we go okay go ahead next slide please okay so these by the state they're submitted to the housing and community development department and the governor's office of research and planning one is on the general plan and the progress we've made towards implementing the general plan that report has no specific layout requirements and is more a general report on changes to zoning general plan amendments interagency cooperation infill development and major project development in contrast the housing has a lengthy and complex Excel spreadsheet that is provided by the state that individual jurisdictions fill out and that report is relatively easy until about 2018 when new requirements came into play and then additional new requirements were added last year and that has made this report much more complex but it also gives us some really excellent data these reports used to only be required of non-charter cities but they're now required of all cities and they also if we do not file these reports we lose out on a lot of state grant funding much of which we actually use so it's really important for us and the process for the reports is that we present them to the city council council accepts the reports and recs that we submit them to HCD and OPR and the deadline for submitting the reports is a first slide and next slide the first section is on the general plan report and this is just an illustration of some of the major projects that we've worked on or are reporting updates for we've got the city station north jesse street project the city arts recovery design or cards program an update on the rail trail and the go to santa christ project an update on our objective standards work and on the resilient post work and the 130 center street project an update on the climate action plan and on the street smart program and then the last picture is 415 national bridges next slide please the housing element report this is a report on how the city is meeting its regional housing needs allocation for rena I'm sure we've been through this many times but the rena is comes down from the state to the local government agencies our is am bag and there's a report in a year reporting period this year it's 9 years because they are adjusting the cycle to match the transportation cycle and our total rena assignment for this 5th cycle is 747 units big excitement this past year has been they've been working on the rena totals for the 6th cycle and statewide those numbers have gone up about 4 times that's the average statewide number the latest draft number we've seen the total is 2736 units for the city of Santa Cruz so it's almost 5 times the size of our 5th cycle next slide and this table illustrates where we are at meeting our rena in this period so we have 2 years left with 2022 and 2023 and we have exceeded all of our housing needs except in the very low income category this year we had 1 very large 205 unit project that had no low income units because they had provided a property that was adjacent to our specific station project in lieu of providing the affordable housing unit so could get a lot more units by acquiring that property but it means that we don't see a large number of affordable units for this year next slide and this I was trying to give you kind of an overview of what the report is telling us and so this is an overall housing activity we had 709 planning applications submitted that includes not only building applications but building applications that did not require planning permit which a large number of people use no longer require planning permit so they were in that category also then for planning permits approved had a total of 445 building permits issued 11 and building permits final 78 and as you can see in the income categories as you go across in the planning applications submitted planning applications we're doing really well on the very low income projects and we're also doing well on low income since we've met our moderate and above moderate we need to look at those but it's interesting to see just the total numbers and I have to tell you these these are not additive some projects submitted their applications and had their applications approved or had their applications approved and applied for building permits so there's some overlap here so you can't just count up those gross totals next slide when we presented our report last year there was a lot of questions about how we calculated the costs that rents for the ADUs and at that time we had been using a survey that was done during the process of updating the ADU ordinance so the survey had created to get information for the ordinance not necessarily to use for the annual report so this year we prepared a new survey that was specifically to get the kind of information that we need for this report and the housing department in the housing division in the economic development department sends out annual reporting letters to ADU owners and piggyback on their letters and sent out a link to the survey also allowed people to print out the survey and submit a hard copy and the results of that survey showed that our rents both the mean and the medium rents the HCD low income rent limits so we were able to use to categorize the ADUs that had building permits this year as low income units the other interesting that we found from the ADU survey was that a large of units almost as many units as are being rented to of their household are being used by family members or friends at low or no rents so although those rents are not reflected in this population it means there's another I think it was 47 units out there that are basically being rented to either either rent to be or at significantly reduced rents and there were also I think it was around who's less than more than 5 units that were reported as being used for by friends and family or as guest housing so they would come for weekends but not pay for it like an Airbnb or something next slide in addition to the housing that is in the report there are some projects that were approved in one category or applied in one category in 2020 and did not progress to the next category in 2021 and so they didn't get counted in there and particularly important of those are the 119 Coral Street project which is a total of 121 units, 120 of them are very low income units and the 818 Pacific Avenue Pacific Station South that has a total of 70 units 59 are very low 10 are low income and those projects are in the process the Coral Street submitted its building application building permit application in December of 2021 and the building permits are expected to be issued for the 818 Pacific Avenue in April so just next month and then there's two other interesting projects the Cedar Street Apartments is 65 units 35 very low income and 29 low income and they submitted the application in February of this year so they weren't included in that last report and we've got the library mixed use project which the planning application is pending on that and the reason I bring these out is the thing that we're missing in our is the 123 units of very low income housing and this illustrates that in all likelihood we actually will be able to meet that that reading a target next slide which brings me to SB 35 SB 35 is a state legislation that requires that cities that have not met or are in progress towards meeting their needs be required to accept housing development projects on a streamlined review project processed with no secrets so if we have met our target by the end of the cycle then for the first four years of the next cycle we are not subject to SB 35 if we have met our of moderate bootles but not our low or very low then we're in the position that we're in now where if projects are submitted with 50% or more of lower income units anything for 80% AMI or less then they are eligible for that streamlining process if we have not met our above moderate goals or proportional share then would be subject to SB 35 for projects that as a state law reads that are at 10% are providing 10% lower income units for cities inclusionary requirement whichever is greater and since almost projects are required to meet the inclusionary requirement if we do not meet the above moderate totals by the next year of our next cycle all projects would have to go through this streamline process and this table below shows the difference between the sixth cycle which is on the top and the fifth cycle which is the lower cycle which is the one we're in right now so this cycle building 180 very low income units and next cycle we need to provide 847 and the other numbers are proportionally next slide so the next steps are providing work in our sixth cycle housing element it will be due in December of 2023 and we're in the process of preparing our RFP to go out for a consultant to help us with this work previous housing elements we paired in house but there are added environments now that we don't have the staff and we don't have the expertise so we will be looking for a consultant to help us with that the other thing we should be aware of is that because numbers on this sixth cycle arena are so high we may need to rezone properties in order to demonstrate that there are sufficient appropriately zoned properties to meet our arena it's possible that combination of SB 9 which allows second units on most single family parcels and our downtown expansion project which is likely to expand the allowed housing in the downtown area it's possible that that combination allows the expanded downtown housing allowance may we may be able to meet the arena without rezoning but we might not next slide and so the recommendation is for the city council to accept on general plan housing element progress reports and to direct staff to submit reports to the governor's office of planning and research and the California department of housing and community development and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you for that presentation let's see are any council members do you have any council member Brown thank you for the presentation thank you for all of your work try to make sense of the very challenging reporting requirement and provide us with really clear overview I have a couple of questions stated section and I appreciate explanation with the slide that provided us in how you made that decision and I am recalling that in the conversation we had about I can't remember was that 2 years 3 years ago now where ADUs ended up being put in the moderate category as a result of that your survey that it seemed like within that there was pretty wide lattice among the the rents charged for those and the survey questions that you gave that were really interesting and I'm just wondering if there's possibility of council members not sure if getting more information at a more granular level because you just look at for a lot of the areas but when you just look at the rent and the way that's calculated both the median and median rent that's low-income but it doesn't really tell us how many are actually rented at a low-income level doesn't tell us how many units rent for example low or above so that's the kind of information that I think had a better understanding of the character of that market it's just hard based on what I know and again it's total it's hard to believe based on what I know friends pay ADUs that they're really low-income and I think about it that just doesn't feel like it matches the experience so I guess that's why the survey data might be helpful I have to say the first thing that I found really shocking is what is considered low-income rent to be those are not low-income rents they're quite high and that's because it's based on the median income and our median income is pretty high here I can let me double check legally whether I can share the results of the individual surveys with you and if that's if there's no problem with that I can send you the spreadsheet it's pretty interesting and I didn't get as much I mean we've got 79 responses but we've probably got less than 40 of them included the rent so it wasn't as helpful as it could have been I recognize not necessarily representative but it was and it yeah and anonymized without the identifying and great Council Member Brown that was actually one of my questions as well around the ADUs the how many responses so that was very helpful and also I was curious if the if it was for family members that free or low rent that part of it I didn't include my definitions at all because that just skewed everything so personally I think yes have all those units that are being used either free or low income but that isn't representative of what somebody who's not related to somebody with an ADU is going to pay so they were not those were not included because I would think that that would for simply analyzing rent matter the relationship of the renter and that would be better in my opinion we that's use the rents I try to bend over backwards to make it kind of question proof for HCD so that if we were ever questioned about how we came up with the number and why we were doing it that way that I could test the straight face test and you can follow up one more quick one that I recalled and this is related to the the table I think it's a one target of the low income target of 118 only I'm just trying to understand restrictions it looks like 101 are deed restricted is that for those units that are going to go offline or the non deed restricted ones are I think almost exclusively or might be exclusively ADUs okay got it thank you council member coming I have a question I had one question related to that last statement council member Brown I'm just wondering what is the city doing track the non deed restricted units throughout time because right now it might be that it's in a low income category but since it's not deed restricted then there's nothing that's tying that unit to being left as a low income unit so I'm just wondering if the city is doing anything track those no we're not I see it as two different things one is what we have to do to satisfy HCD and the other is what's happening there on the ground and if it were not a question of HCD we didn't have to fill arena I wouldn't count those ADUs at all I wouldn't count anything that's not deed restricted because there's nothing holding it at that rent but because we do have arena and HCD does allow us to count non deed restricted units and they don't require us I go ahead and take advantage of that that's not to say not doing everything we can to get as many deed restricted low income units as we can and I have to say I'm thrilled at what's going on right now we have so much affordable housing in the pipeline it's really exciting I just wish I could claim it so that we would get just as 123 units we need and then the rest of the next cycle they won't let us save the next cycle so we just have to hope that the timing is right appreciate that answer thank you thank you are there any other council member questions before I take it out to public but this time I will take it out to public comment it's very interesting commenting on item number 31 annual housing element and general progress report raise your hand here by dialing star 9 on your phone or selecting raise hand on the webinar controls when it's your turn to still hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set three minutes and these and I'm not any hands raised I will give it another seconds and in none I will bring this item back for deliberation and emotion full no hands raised so member Cummings and vice mayor Watkins new mayor I'll move to accept that report and actually I should state that except the 2021 general plan and housing element annual progress report and the next staff submit the reports that was a planning and research California department of housing and development thank you I'll second that we have a motion by council member Cummings and a second by vice mayor Watkins for the comment otherwise we'll put the roll call vote and we have a roll call vote mayor Brunner hi motion passed is unanimous thank you so much for joining us and for your information progress okay on our agenda is item number 32 sidewalk vending ordinance program and course request for members of the public for this meeting if this item is one you wish to comment on now is the time to call in seeing the instructions on your order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by council questions and then we will take public comment and return to council celebration hand over to staff presentation and it looks like we have Elizabeth Smith as welcome Elizabeth Smith thank you so much mayor Brunner we are here tonight to talk about sidewalk vending I have a presentation that I'll share so we can get started thanks for having us to talk about this really important issue for the city right now especially as we're moving into the busier tourist seasons we are here to talk about an issue that is pressing first I want to acknowledge Sarah de Leon who recently left the city and has been working on this issue over the past several months and I picked up the baton and am here with you today along with my colleagues who I also want to acknowledge in the departments across the city the city attorney's office the planning and community development department parks and recreation the police department and public works are the departments who are really working on this issue across the city as we bring it tonight so I'll start with some background of how we got very hard today we're here because of the law SB 946 and that was passed in 2018 and it says it was really focused on entrepreneurship and making sure that low income immigrant and entrepreneurs could build businesses and make a living through street vending and so the law was really focused on making it easier for those folks to do that work it specifies what cities can do and what they can't do so it says sidewalk vending based on public health safety and welfare concerns and so you'll see those things addressed as we talk through the ordinance with you this evening it says that we can't regulate based on perceived economic competition or not liking that a vendor is out on the street in front of a business and that we are there are very few cases where we can do complete vending prohibitions and so it makes for complicated ordinance and so we invite you to come on the sidewalk vending journey with us as we go through all of the elements that we're bringing to this evening to get a little bit more granular we are basically limited to the ways that we can regulate are based on time, place, and manner so how is a person vending when are they vending where are they vending and making sure that we're spelling out what those time, place, and manner restrictions are but we can't regulate specific area or making folks ask permission from another business or in public parks or the number of vendors unless it really directly relates back to that health, safety, and welfare so you'll hear that over and over again tonight safety and welfare as the core element of how we built the ordinance. Just a little bit of background on vending in Santa Cruz we've had two places where we've had significant sidewalk vending in the city in the past and as we think about the pre-SP 946 time and the post SP 946 time Pacific Avenue there is vending on Pacific Avenue today it is not regulated it is okay great in the pre before SP 946 we had permitted spaces on Pacific Avenue we had a four hour time limit and it was a first come first serve system so you had folks lining up to get the spaces that were there we've had a couple of pilot programs on Beach Street one in 2019 where we had permitted spaces and those were also first come first serve and then most recently in the summer of 2021 we assigned spaces on the ideal deck to allow for street vending and we're going to and Tony Elliot's going to talk about the experience that we had in the summer of 2021 next but I just want to say like all of these rubrics had problem and what we're hoping to do tonight is to bring forward some clear regulation so that individuals who want to bend and the city folks who are enforcing the law have a clear understanding and a clear focus on this is how we as a city or citywide we are managing issues so I'm going to turn it over to Park Director Tony Elliot and he's going to talk us through what we experienced last summer right thank you Elizabeth and yeah good afternoon or good evening council members appreciate the opportunity to talk about this with you all and appreciate your involvement in this we did our Mayor's cleanup program last year so I know you were all very involved hands on down on the beach aware of a lot of these issues last summer but I'll briefly cover just some of the issues that we face and really kind of on behalf of a few different departments here but definitely from the perks and recreation standpoint and the wharf and crew including some of our temporary seasonal staff and our real boots on the ground staff work across this last summer so next slide please alright so in terms of programming last year what did we do so last year we tried a new approach we had a lottery system where we selected six vendors for designated locations so those locations were located near Cal Beach kind of the deck above Cal Beach and then the ideal decks kind of a wooden deck there by the ideals six locations where permitted vending was allowed and we selected a lottery last spring what happened over the course of the summer that the council is aware of and the community is aware of well documented in local media and we got a lot of questions from the public last year we had a lot more than six vendors so we had vendors all up and down the boardwalk on some side streets and so those six vendors they were permitted actually ended up leaving their spot locations and kind of mixed in down closer to the boardwalk to get better locations so just dozens and dozens of vendors 30, 40 sometimes upwards of 50 vendors down there on some of the busy holiday weekends last year through the planning department we had a lot of compliance team work to educate and inform vendors last year on the permit and the policy that we had in place the parks and rec crew along with the public works department we started trash collection on and around in beach street area in fact spent well over $100,000 parks and recreation on overtime dumpsters and leveraged a lot of volunteers as well to assist with cleaning up and then a lot of enforcement so significant enforcement from the police department again focusing on health safety and welfare really beginning in July next slide please in terms of some of the impacts these are four and I want to highlight the second and third bullet points on here in particular but we did have a fair amount of aggressive behavior last year we had fights in terms of just you know over locations and kind of turf we we had dangerous road conditions and this in the next item were some of our biggest concerns in terms of public health and safety with the number of vendors that we had on the sidewalk the queuing effect lining up to go to a vendor for example those lines were creating basically no room on the sidewalk pushing all of the pedestrians into the bike lane bicycles were then going into the driving lane and in the driving lane you have both cars and a train so it's a very very congested area and then adding the vendors last year added a level of congestion that created significant health and safety concerns really dangerous road conditions that are really kind of the poor problem that we're trying to address with ordinance changes before council this evening the other item I'll mention is just the excessive trash I know the council was involved in that and doing cleanups but significant ref trash made its way onto the beach into the marine sanctuary and some of our storm drains there were scraps dumped down storm drains and oils and so forth so from an environmental health standpoint the amount of trash is really unmanageable and I want to mention to the council here I think it's relevant in terms of what we're looking at this summer is that the seaside company has continued to struggle with hiring a temporary and simple staff so communicated with the seaside company that they will not be able to resume their waste management efforts on main beat this summer and so they were not able to support that last summer either so the burden is put on parks and recreation staff out at the beach really in partnership with Public Works to maintain all of that trash on main beat so last year with a shortage of staff at seaside a shortage of staff in parks and rec and in the presence of dozens of vendors every weekend weekend the problem was really significant so we're trying to avoid that heading into the summer but that's a real concern for an environmental health quality and safety standpoint that we are struggling to hire parks and rec and the seaside has continued to struggle so how we manage this area is really critical to keep our environment clean on the last time here is vendor camping and goods stored on the beach so last year we had tents on the beach where food supplies were stored we had vans and so forth parked on side streets where food was being stored so again that sort of impromptu warehousing of different goods and foods was another impact last year next slide please in terms of the police department PD was doing nightly checks on the beach and beach street they had two at least two CSOs present more than that Lena and Lieutenant Croft that but CSOs present all day two officers on overtime every weekend PD was working directly with county environmental health department I'll speak to that on the following slide but a lot of coordination parking enforcement parks and rec as well so a lot of challenges with enforcement and who's responsible for enforcement but a lot of collaboration response to the issues that we faced last summer next slide alright and on this one this is related to county environmental health and county environmental health spent over $300,000 last year in staffing to be on site related to some of the food vending on street so they were out there to remove unpermitted and unsafe vendors maintain this 12 hour daily presence with this really the second half summer that time they scaled back seven hours a week days 12 hours on the weekends compounded 17 food parts and as you see on the screen here actually about almost $350,000 in personnel expenses from county environmental health so the impacts were significant and as we've worked through this both the presentation but this item for the council to consider we've really tried to focus on what is the problem, what is the problem that we're trying to resolve and I think fundamentally that problem is is based in public safety people getting you know pushed into the street result of the congestion the really really busy area lot going on bicycles, pedestrians crane very popular very busy area and obviously environmental impacts as well and so what we're trying to do here is try to find resolution to address those those core issues facing thank you and with that I will hand it off to the next speaker thank you good evening, I see councilman with Golder has her hand up I didn't know are we going to wait until the answer to questions or okay we'll wait right up good evening I'm really pleased to be here with you to talk about the draft sidewalk vending ordinance so let's get into it next slide please so before I dive into the specific it's important to just get some basic vocabulary concepts down from SB 946 one concept is that of the stationary vendor that somebody who vends from a fixed location a roaming vendor is somebody who moves the place and really only stops to the transaction the term roaming vendor is not to be confused with the term mobile vendor which is already regulated in SCMC 5.22 and those are food truck and those are not really impacted significantly by SCMC next slide please so section 5.8 to 030 is a section called sidewalk vending conduct and these are essentially good neighbor rules and so staff came up with about 22 basic parameters that we think are important to follow and vending on and all of these are closely associated with public health safety welfare which is exactly what SB 946 is trying to get at and the purpose of these rules is actually two fold first obviously this is a publicly available code of conduct that any vendor or police officer can read and know what it means and how you're safe but second and maybe even more importantly these rules are going to form the basis of the city's permitting decisions and when deciding whether or not group or reject sidewalk permit application so there's some transparency in what's going to be tolerated but not going to be so I don't need to read all these to you but they are in section 5.8 to 0.0 next slide okay so one of staff's major goals in putting this forward was establish a citywide permit program and that is what is included in the draft report all vendors need to obtain a sidewalk permit through the planning department and vendors who wish to operate in parks or beaches or other parks and record abilities they need to also get an additional parks permit which is going to take into consideration some of the things that are allowed by SB 946 really is the vending impacting the natural environment next slide please okay so location based restriction we drafted some location based restrictions in the ordinance they were drafted in a way that is ended to comply with SB 946 which really disfavors broad so what we've come up with and what's contemplated here is stationary vending would be prohibited year round on pacific avenue but only outside of the areas that are city demarcated vending and play zones so these are already set up for those little rectangles that are on pacific avenue set out by little copper circles brass circles there's a bunch of them where folks can go set up put out a table and engage with those types of stationary activities stationary vending is also not allowed to park or beach where there's already an inclusive professions agreement that's language taken straight from pacific it's also not allowed within 500 feet of a certified farmers market also areas that are excluded exclusively residential this is another language straight from SB 946 and we included within residentially zoned parks and that was some input from the park on that one and also within the city's open space natural and scenic areas such as iran, agulch, coconut morgue Dan Lorenz, a river walk west of the tribe again this was input from the parks administration and then so we have some areas both stationary and roaming are prohibited year round so on the municipal board this was an area that was important to the parks recreation department there's just not a lot of room out there to walk let alone that sort of commerce and so it was important to the parks department that prohibition be included also within the portion of the main beach over which the city has recreation the situation in main beach is a little bit complicated part of main beach it's not technically owned by the city but it's owned by the seaside company and the city has recreational easement only over it and per this easement it's not allowed to allow vending for this 1930s judgment and that would be vending by both people who traditionally consider sidewalk vendors and also what keeps the seaside comfort from selling in that area as well so that was important to include as well on the beach street from the deck and other area where park staff felt that it just got super super congested and there really is not a lot of area to be able to engage sales and then also just on a bike path to street including within on street parking spaces a driveway or public spot just clarifications and you know SB 946 really talked about vending from a sidewalk but we thought that it was important to also include some restrictions that are also contained within other cities and then okay and then it was and then the the proposal here is also basically established that in the summer season meaning April through October that there would no stationary or roaming vending allowed on the beach street sidewalk for war and it just gets very crowded there's not a lot of room that was but please okay and enforcement the ordinance contemplate administrative system which is required by SB 946 much of this section is 5.82110 and a lot of this is taken basically exactly from SB 946 there's also as required by SB 946 there's an ability a determination that is contemplated by the back for now alright failure to comply with a major concern staff had you know there was a major concern that we were writing the citation folks would pay the citation or they may get an ability to pay determination that would reduce them extremely low amount and that the citations themselves wouldn't be effective to accomplish what is set out to be accomplished so we made a few tweaks to express that one is to be specified that administrative citations can be issued on the same day