Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting For those just joining the meeting Live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish Can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio So you only hear the Spanish translation Pablo. Will you please restate this in Spanish? for those who just joined the meeting live interpretation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff can join the channel To join click on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar that now looks like a globe Terraqueo una vez una al canal de español se recomienda que apague el audio primario para que solo escucha la interpretación Hello and welcome to our April 9th 2024 San Rosa City Council meeting it is now 232 and we will be starting our meeting seeing a quorum madam city clerk. May you please call the roll Thank you mayor councilmember Rogers here councilmember o crepe key here councilmember mcdonald here councilmember Fleming here Councilmember alvarez vice mayor step here mayor rogers present let the record show that all council members are present Thank you. We will now proceed to item 3.1, which is our closed session for today it is 3.1 conference with legal council about existing Litigation madam city clerk. Can you please facilitate public comment on this item? Thank you We are now taking public comment on item 3.1 If you're in the chamber and would like to comment but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period As you approach the podium, please state your name for public record if you choose to do so The first public comment will be from eras followed by James then Steve Hi, I'm eras weaver with the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition the last seven years We have circulated petitions made public comment written letters To you to the smart to the CPUC About this issue with Jennings, and I don't think there's a single fact or feeling that I could express that haven't already Been done a zillion times But never in those years have I doubted the commitment of the city of Santa Rosa To the Jennings crossing until I got the agenda for today's meeting and saw a kill the project option coming before you I Was flabbergasted Is also kind of confusing to me on the agenda because it's under the reports rather than the public hearings Section later today, which made me wonder is the real decision going to be happening in this closed session Or is it going to be happening at the later agenda item? So I busted my butt to write up here from Petaluma to get here in time to speak to you before it Option three is just not an option Whether you go for option one or option two at the next smart board meeting I will be there with my posse to suggest that Smart wants to Get our support for a future tax renewal measure it might be in their best interest to stop obstructing this Their objections are illogical their demands on the city are unreasonable We don't just care about them building the smart path We want to see an interconnected active transportation and public transit network which this Crossing is a big part of So again, I don't know what all happens in your closed session with the attorneys and whether the decisions happening there or happening later today, I'll be back for that, but Please option three is not an option Thank you. The next speaker will be James followed by Steve then Janet I am James Duncan Smart's real property license agreement Suggest that smart staff believes that they can determine the safety of the Jennings crossing and whether the city can Construct it or not My research indicates that it can't do either Article 12 section 8 of the California Constitution States that a public body like smart may not regulate matters over which the legislature Grants regulatory power to the public utilities Commission public utilities code sections 1201 1202 and 9915 to give this PUC exclusive Authority to approve the location the terms of installation operation maintenance use and protection that is in other words the safety of railroad crossings smarts real property license agreement would be Unenforceable by smart because it is contrary to those provisions The PUC previously directed smart to cooperate in good faith to reach a construction agreement for the Jennings crossing But smarts real property license agreement States it is not an agreement to construct the crossing The administrative law judge at the PUC has more recently specified that the agreement to be reached between the city and smart is a Construction agreement not a real property license agreement The third option suggested by city staff Constitutes abandonment of the Jennings crossing But the city would first have to fulfill all procedures and requirements Mandated by state law before abandoning the Jennings crossing which would involve notice and a public hearing and It would also have to Establish that the crossing was not in the public interest, which at this point would be near to impossible Thank you so much Thank you. The next comment will be from Steve followed by Janet Thank You Steve Bertelbaugh with the transportation in the Andrews coalition I think it's important for us to understand the reason why smart is dragging its feet about this crossing It's clear that the crossing is needed. It's clear that it is a very safe crossing pedestrian crossings are at the bottom of the list when the FRA issues its reports on Hazardous crossings Crossings that have thousands of motor of automobiles using them are much more prone to a problem than crossings that have two or three hundred people crossing them on foot or on bicycle and So their records predict that there's a very very small chance of any sort of an accident at this crossing So why is the public utilities Commission staff so concerned about this crossing? the reason is that Santa Rosa had an eight million dollar grant in order to build a grade separation and After examining all of the reasons for one or the other they decided that it was appropriate to have an at-grade crossing and The staff admitted that this was their reason for opposing you look at page 199 of the transcript and they say This is a bad precedent. We don't want it to happen Well, it's a good precedent It's something that needs to happen, but I think you should keep that that position of the CPUC staff In your mind as negotiating with smart because smart does need to build Crossings between here and and Windsor between here in Hillsborough So they're always going back to the staff And so they're inclined to want to back up the CPUC staff. They don't want to be a crossroads with them We need to get them past that we need to have them agree to a reasonable agreement and The option number two is the best start. Thank you Thank you. The next comment will be from Janet Mayor Rogers and city council members. My name is Janet Baracco. I'm a homeowner in Santa Rosa residents on Jennings Avenue for 24 years And for over eight years I have worked with my neighbors and others to support restoring this 120 year old crossing That provides bike and pedestrian access east-west in our community I wish to thank the city city council for the work You have already done with smart and I ask you to please continue to represent the interest of our community and To not give up on restoring this car free at-grade crossing at Jennings I urge you to continue to negotiate with smart for a fair and balanced agreement Abandoning Jennings crossing after so many years of hard work by our neighbors and citizen organizations is unacceptable Please don't give up on us and once again I extend an invitation to each of you to come view and walk the crossing site with me So that you can see how valuable it is to our community. Thank you Mayor emcee no one else approached the podium for public comment on item 3.1 Okay, and with that we will now recess into closed session. Thank you All right. Welcome back everyone. It is April 9th 2024 and we will be beginning our Santa Rosa City Council meeting. It is now 3 32 Madam city clerk may you please call the roll? Thank you mayor councilmember Rogers here councilmember O'Crepkey here councilmember McDonald here councilmember Fleming here Councilmember Alvarez as it vice mayor step here mayor Rogers president let the record show that all council members are present Thank you. We will now proceed to Item 4 which is our study session for the day Thank You madam mayor. Good afternoon mayor members of council so item 4.1 is the impact of development impact fee waivers So before staff gets started I want to offer a little bit of context on initially how we as city staff got to this point so Drafting the 2023 work plan one of the items that we discussed was what was the impact on Waving impact fees so we started that discussion in between that time There have been several proposals some internally and the most recent one that we received from JNH As to how there might be other options to waive impact fees So we as staff are prepared to offer a couple of solutions at the end of this Report and we're also ready to execute and move in the direction the policy the direction that this body Request us to move As we talk about Impact fees and where we are with our arena numbers Here's some context so for very low the city has completed 403 units of the 1,218 units that we are required to complete which is 33 percent and these numbers have not been officially certified by HCD which is why they're not in the presentation in the low category. We have completed 467 units of the 701 that is 67 percent in the moderate level. We've completed 75 of the 771 that's 10 percent Above moderate we've completed 2167 of the 1,995 which is a hundred nine percent So of the total 1,685 units we are required to complete we've completed 3,112 which is 66 percent So again staff initially Our charge from the work plan was to talk to talk to discuss the impacts of waiving impact fees So you'll see some of that discussion here But again, we're ready to move and execute the policy decision in the will of this body And we will offer some additional recommendations at the end of the presentation. Thank you So Mayor Rogers and members of the council I'm now an alternate chief financial officer with me is Gabe Osborne the director of planning and economic development That was a good lead-up and probably cut through some of my slides so we might be able to move quickly through this but I I would say that even though this was a Work plan item on my work plan. This was a Group effort as as we move through the analysis Gabe and and Megan Bassenger Were instrumental in in helping with this and we also have Directors from water TPW and Wreck and parks here to be able to provide Some subject matter expertise to questions that you may have so As mentioned we we we were looking at this as a An initial proposal of waiving development impact fees in order to spur Affordable housing And you know specifically what would the the impact be to city operations or city infrastructure Should they do that or should we do something along those lines? So what we what we have come up with and this is what you're going to see is a lot along those lines and But we can kind of pivot toward the end This just provides some some basics and and Gabe's going to take over in a In a second to go through some slides that goes into a little bit more detail into how we study These fees but you know basically Development impact fees are charged new developments afraid of cost of public facilities and improvements related to those developments It's set by by city code And the fees that that while they're a Few of them the ones that were really focused on are the capital facility fees and the park development impact fees But there are water and wastewater demand fees housing impact fees and commercial linkage fees so with that I'm going to let Gabe kind of walk you through some of the next slides that go into the Studies that we do for those fees Thank You Alan and good afternoon mayor vice mayor members of the council the next few slides will discuss The fees how they're studied and really how they're implemented through the development process For both CFF and parks those are based on a nexus fee study that was performed It started in 2015 and it was adopted by council on May 22nd of 2018 That study focused on a few different things the main piece of a nexus study is the nexus analysis And that's really the relationship between the fee and the projects So when growth occurs and new development comes in that new development does build Infrastructure abutting the project or within the project this really goes to bigger infrastructure Projects in the regional area that support the growth So they're often off-site and the fee study looks at the cost of those projects and develops a proportionate fair share payment For all the usage types and it could be multi-family single-family commercial it looks at all the development categories The fee study also creates a program guidance on the use of the CFF That's really any constraints on the use of the funds. It is typically focusing on a project list of defined projects and a nexus fee analysis One of the changes that we made in 2018 is oftentimes that project list is based on full build out of a city So it focuses on general plan goals. It focuses on master planning or specific plan goals What we shifted to is more of an immediate need project list that focused on a 20-year horizon and That was mostly what was Justifying the fee and the developments obviously play into that because that's the population that's increasing with those fees So it didn't really look beyond that that reduced the project cost reduced the fees down We also look at a feasibility analysis when implementing the fee So when you add the impact fees with service fees and you look at the total fee package for new development How does that really compete with other jurisdictions and what percentage of that or what percentage of that total dollar amount is Of the total construction cost so that feasibility analysis looks at that bar and determines where the fee needs to sit So for the CFF funds those go to capital projects only that's the restriction under the fee study These are specific infrastructure or facility types and the important pieces they go to upgrade or expansion only because they're focusing on growth It's typically not maintenance of existing facilities As we can see from the table to the right. There's a specific percentage breakdown for the allocation 62.8 percent goes to roadway and intersection improvements based on the study 10.7 percent to transit bicycle and pedestrian 12.8 to public safety 12.7 to storm drain and 1% to the administration of the fee program It's also important to note that there is a developer reimbursement component to most of these fees in the event that Developer goes above and beyond what their requirement is abutting the project and builds off-site improvements They are eligible for either a fee credit or a reimbursement out of the program and that's included in the code And then of course fee administration. It can be fee studies are managing that program. That's the 1% cost So the park fund is very similar I work goes to park and recreation facilities only once again its upgrade or expansion we can Implement a developer reimbursement component in that so for example for developer builds a public park within the boundaries that benefits the area They're eligible for reimbursement under the code Also fee administration the parks program is a little different. It's quadrant based so the fees differ based on the specific quadrant So over the past few months. There's been quite a bit of conversation about assembly bill 602 and how that impacts fee studies 602 went into effect really in January 1 of 2022 and it basically states that local agencies Conducting an impact fee study must follow the standards listed on the slide So the first is you must perform a fee study and that's the next study to create the relationship The study must identify and justify the level of service So the project list and ensure that the the growth that you're assuming with the new units that the projects are needed to support that growth It also states that studies adopted after July 1 of 2022 must calculate housing development fees proportionately to square footage It is a general requirement local jurisdictions can justify another methodology if that works What's happened with a lot of these impact fee programs is over the years Jurisdictions have gone with a unit based approach So a multi-family unit would pay the same as a single family and it really isn't a recognition that it's the people in the unit That justify the need for the projects so square footage attaching to bedrooms reducing with size Often shows that you can go from a studio with one individual to a four-bedroom home And then in theory based on that the four-bedroom home should pay more So this is really tackling that It also states that studies should be updated every eight years from the period beginning January 1 2022 so that would put us on the clock for 2030 based on that eight-year calculation But once we do that then fee studies are on an eight-year update cycle The time of payment is a critical piece to impact fees There's been a lot of discussion sort of regionally in the state of California about deferral of impact fees For the longest time jurisdictions would collect impact fees at the time of building permit issuance That's fairly early on in the development stage often times construction loans are still in the mix And there was a push to defer fees to final occupancy close of escrow and getting off of that construction loan in many situations Those were referred to as the fee furls We've addressed that in previous years through much of our economic development initiatives that we put in place due to the 0809 recession we actually collect most of our impact fees at final So we're not really deferring. We have just changed the time of payment So that holds true for CFF and parks fees for eligible projects We also have a further deferral program that allows an affordable housing builder to defer two years from the published Payment date so in this particular case it would be final. So it's two years beyond final So much of the the conversation today will circulate around affordable housing So just a reminder of how we handle that from a policy standpoint There's really two different types. There are there's affordable housing It's de-restricted which is really a guarantee that it's that it's rented as an affordable unit for a period of time And then there's a concept of affordable by design So inclusionary affordable housing those are units that are built into the development And they're typically de-restricted for a 55-year affordability with a 55-year affordability agreement at a certain income level And our inclusionary ordinance controls what that income level is and the percentage of inclusionary that needs to go into the certain project type Market rate developers can elect to either include Affordable units into the design of the project at those levels or they can pay the housing in lieu fee as another impact fee to offset that We often hear a hundred percent affordable projects and those have come around quite a bit over the last five years Generally how we interpret that is all of the units in the development are deed restricted It's not a project. That's market rate. That's meeting its 10% affordability requirement They're all de-restricted at some affordability level except the manager's units So they have on-site management with one or two units. Those are typically free and clear We tackle this with our recent adoption of our service fees that went to council a month or so ago And those adjusted the service fees and provided a reduction of those fees for a hundred percent affordable at a 60% or less Am I and that's really tackling our very low in our low categories We also have a concept that it has been around for a few years affordable by design So those are typically smaller units ADUs often fall under that category because they are smaller and due to the size the construction costs reduce associated with that They do not have an affordability agreement typically. So there's no restriction on the rent or the sale And oftentimes they reduce amenities or other features in the unit that reduce construction costs And at this point I will hand the presentation back to mr. Alton to discuss the process Thank you. So This slide basically It looks at our budget process relative to these fees And Where we come from is On a fee collected basis. So what we'll do is during a fiscal year We will collect impact fees as they come in we record those And then calculate what is available At our year-end close this ensures that that we have the actual revenue on hand that that there isn't a deferral that would Keep us from getting the cash in to be able to fund these projects it unfortunately does sometimes create a delay and The fees coming in to our ability to program them in the CIP budget But this is the the safest way to be able to ensure that we have those funds there The funds are made available to CIP program managers for programming Usually at the beginning of the calendar year as part of our budget Preparation and then we have the council will adopt the CIP budget During the June budget adoption So as we look at the type of projects that are That are funded through the CFF typically typically funds Roads in the intersection bikes pedestrian storm drain public safety and fire projects We've listed a few out here as examples of the projects that we've done and and what The amount of CFF that's been collected That goes into that so for example the The bike pad over crossing the estimated cost of that project is around 46 million dollars We've collected so far about sixteen point six million. However, we do Have grants that should be able to bring in a large amount of that gap coming in Soon we have collected two and a half million dollars of CFF over a three-year period and that's part of that sixteen million that has been programmed into the project We have the Sonoma Avenue rehabilitation about one point eight million dollars of CFF was collected and this was really the only Funding source that went into That project We have some fire related street recovery projects. We use funding about two point six million over a two-year basis to Fund the gap that came between our grant funding that we had For that and what the the actual cost of the programs were and then we had some fire station improvements Where we have collected Over a five-year period about three point nine million For park development fees again, these are are used to acquire park land and and develop that in generally in these cases the park development impact fees is the If not the only source, it's definitely a primary source of revenue that comes in That can't be used for maintenance and they are to be used within the quadrant where they've been collected So of the examples that I have here. We've got The lower Colgan Creek Project that's in the Southwest That's about three point nine million dollars Collected and we are supplementing funding with grant funding We anticipate three-year planning and construction process. So we're looking at between 2025 and 28 for construction and completion of that The finley-finley aquatic center, which is in the Northwest There were four million dollars collected in park development fees and then two million dollars came in for measure M To complete the funding on that That one I believe is in construction. We have Fremont Park in the Northeast three point eight million dollars from park development and that we're looking at between construction around 2025 And then Kwanzaa Springs Park in the Southeast There was about five million dollars in park development impact fees to support the housing that was built there back in 2004 to 2006 so it's taken a Considerable amount of time to build up the amount of funding Necessary and then even at that We needed some grant funding to close the close the gap there and then we also have a Separate park project. It's a community garden that that is going in there all of this we're targeting for 2026 construction So the reserves there's there's discussion about The increase in reserves and could this be used to pay for The at the time it was the waiver of impact fees So just a note on these reserves as opposed to your general fund reserves or enterprise fund reserves These are special revenue Funds so they really don't have the same Reserve structure as our other funds Basically, it's what we collect those toward a project and the and there to be spent on that project. So The way our accounting system works is that we will we will budget an amount So you'll see a budget in in an in an area But until those those dollars are actually spent and the dollars go out the door. You don't see the cost reflected So what you have are reserves that build up, right? So as as we go over time collecting more Fees that go to a specific project in our budgeted in that project they actually We could see the reserves going up even though the budget is going up Until we are able to start spending those dollars down and then you should see the reserves Go down later. There is no Reserve percentage need any of those things again its dollars in need to go out So The again, we're this is kind of outdated so But we will talk I'll go through it a little bit You know, we originally got the proposal was to look at Waving impact fees on on certain types of affordable housing projects for a three to five year period So that was really where our focus was couple of weeks ago we saw the the the proposal or the policy proposal for the right size impact fees and You know with our Timing on staff reports and stuff we We're not able to do that as a part of this presentation And I I do think we we still need a little bit of further time to to go through it and understand the nuances of What the policy proposal is and to look at what the impacts would be to the city's budget again? Well, we're looking at at least from my standpoint as as A finance person is what what can the city actually afford clearly? It's it's the council's decision to to enact policy to go in whatever Direction you'd like to go I'm here to provide the information on what we can actually afford to do So as we went through our staff analysis on this You know we that I guess there's one main takeaway is that when you're looking at a A revenue source that comes in and one-time revenues at that if you if you take That revenue from those projects from From where they're intended It it it cripples your ability to actually construct the project So there it does have a negative impact on our ability to Complete the infrastructure projects In other ways so what we would the the only way to get around that is to find a Way to backfill those dollars to come back into Into the fund to make those whole to allow the the infrastructure work to go forward So that was that was pretty much where we were coming from with with With the with the at least the initial proposal as part of when we looked at at At what Fees we had Recovered over or collected over period we looked at a at a ten-year base so going back to 2012 what this chart shows is the total fees collected over that period and So in the shaded column those are the total development impact fees or park and CFF fees over that period In the columns to the right of that we're showing what was actually collected for a funner of 100% affordable projects and gave to find that earlier It's just a level of Context to of those types of projects and what they are doing to Fund projects, especially You know a comparison to the total amounts received Over the last three years you can kind of see the ebb and flow of the projects, but over the last three years we saw that about 41% of the park development fees came from these types of portable housing projects and 35% of CFF came from the projects So another issue that was brought up was and what we wanted to look at was what the Project costs would be for the development and how much we're looking at in terms of the CFF and park fees from there. So what this shows is the last Affordable housing projects and these are the the 100% affordable housing projects within the last 24 months It shows what the Where we knew the cost what what the development cost was what the CFF Were paid and the park fees paid for those individual projects and what you have to the bottom is that You have about of those combined Represents about 2.9. So about 3% of the total development cost which breaks out to About 1.1 percent for CFF and 1.8 percent for the park development fees So with that I will turn it back over to Gabe and he will help us sum things up Thank you, Alan. So just in summary the few bullet points here on the slide and then I have four solutions here We potentially could discuss that I'll go over. So The goal of the council and the housing advocates obviously is to increase housing development. That's been a council goal for some time We do incentivize affordable housing production and housing development in the general downtown and actually in a lot of other ways That we do prioritize the review of affordable housing development. We too try to address protectability in time We have actually reduced service fees for affordable development We have actually reduced impact fees for Downtown development when they go up and we have reduced impact fees for ADU. So there's certain things here that have already been put in place Reducing or waiving a fee revenue can have a dramatic effect on the city's ability to build infrastructure Especially when the waiver isn't in a narrow band of projects So there is also no guarantee that the additional incentives would increase the amount of affordable housing production in the city Affordable housing is a complicated form of development. Every dollar does matter, but they rely on a variety different funding sources So usually what happens is one form funding source alone isn't necessarily the catalyst But as I mentioned all the dollars do matter So with that said we have a few different options here for moving forward So one option is that the city can conduct a new impact fee study consistent with a B602 That would re look at the analysis Various reductions could be put in place for various development types That would analyze the project list and that would better understand the impact of those reductions and how that program can sustain itself long term So that that is an option. It would also bring us in compliance with SB 602 Once that's done after 2022 we're on the eight-year cycle and then it would move forward based on that the other option is and this is similar to what other jurisdictions have done is You can basically produce a waiver on any fee type that's impact for any Affordability category so that's fairly open-ended obviously the more that's added to that the bigger the reduction is on that fee and Also determine a total dollar amount to backfill So for example if a specific dollar amount was dedicated to fee waivers We would accept applications up to that dollar amount for eligibility Once that runs its course it essentially acts as a pilot program We can come back to the council and talk about the effectiveness of that program The benefit to that is it holds the fee study whole because the projects are still funded through another stream The easiest way to look at it is essentially that money is granted to the developer to pay the fee So that is an option and the total dollar amount is the council's determination another option is to basically Wave the fee without backfilling and that presents a few different challenges Because the nexus fee study basically looks at build out projections. So it's looking at the unit counts It's developing a hard cost of project list Which doesn't really change with time and we have people paying into that program So when the fee is waived without putting that funding source back in the delivery of projects becomes Inconsistent and potentially there's the ability to remove a project off the list and that creates a challenge with the nexus fee study So there's certain smaller studies that we could do to analyze those impacts once we better understand to see what that would do to projects But our recommendation would be that if we're not backfilling or there isn't a clear backfilling to at least Analyze what that impact would be during the length of that waiver process The fourth option which I think this is a piece where we already have some things moving in that direction As our city manager mentioned our arena goals really that the challenging categories in the city have have been really very low and low But we've seen a lot of resources move that way to see those units move forward It's really moderate and moderate is workforce housing moderate is missing middle That's really as people evolve and increase the amount of money that they make how do they move up in housing In previous cycles we struggle with hitting fifty percent of that number and we usually don't see a hundred percent moderate Developments go moderate can be ad use moderate can be the inclusionary So what we can do is a very targeted approach that looks at our compliance with our arena numbers And we're going through our missing middle ordinance now that is actually running as a companion to our general plan So there's the ability through that process to look at fee waivers to look at service fee waivers to look at really aggressive Programs from a processing side that help us bolster up that moderate category and really anything that falls in that missing middle And what we'll see from the from the low piece is that it really is contingent on a lot of those funding sources come in and What you saw from the chart is there years when it doesn't happen and there's years when it happens in a big unit totals And that's usually based on how those funding sources are going into producing that So with that being the case, you know, the more Targeted focus would be a collaborative. We look at the overall program for really bolstering up our arena numbers and making sure we hit That moderate category and yes impact fee programs could be part of that But that would tag to our program of missing middle and we would just incorporate that into the review So those are really some of the four solutions that we've discussed At this point we can turn it back to the council I know those aren't in writing. So I would be happy to explain those further as the conversation goes But with that we're happy to answer any questions the council has Thank you for that presentation and yes Probably gonna need to explain that again So are there any questions from council members starting with Ocrackie? Thank you madam. Er So if we're to consider the 602 nexus study And I know you haven't had time to research some of the proposals that have come in so I'm kind of asking you to think in the abstract AB 602 nexus study versus a right sizing Ordinance or policy How do those align are the redundancies that are there or does it kind of overlap or they completely separate? That's an excellent question if you do a full-blown AB 602 study that can look at a variety of different things It can change the methodology associated with the fee calculation It can look on Increases of fees which I think that's an important point So and then it can also incorporate the review of other impact fee totals or other impact fee categories Excuse me, so that's really more or less the Cadillac program if you want to look at updating a fee And that's really what you have to do is refresh that nexus argument year to year If you look at a reduction of a fee, you're not really changing the methodology What you're looking at is how can the city deliver the projects that are embedded in the list? And what sort of other funding sources are available for that so in a right-sized fee structure the whole concept of? Single-family dwellings being charged out at the current rate which would have to happen We can't increase the fee above them what the study shows The rest of the unit types become a reduction and then it really is just analyzing the reduction So if there is a total dollar amount that can backfill the reduction behind that then you're still holding the nexus argument together So really the easiest way to describe it is that if you're changing the fee programming increasing fees changing methodology Reducing fees then 602 in that avenue is the best if you're looking to analyze the financial impacts of Reducing certain fees and not increasing then there's other models to do that where you're using the fee study as a base okay, and then AB 602 is somewhere in our work plan. I don't know exactly where and In terms of like of where it ranks on our work plan as well as the length of work It would take to undertake this the bandwidth it would take for staff as well as with the bandwidth for a right-size Proposal would be are those similar are those would we have to Would we would we have to shuffle things around would I'm trying to get I'm trying to find out if there's a redundancy in efforts if we take on both We do one or the other if we could kind of capture a middle ground Yes, absolutely. So just to give you an idea when we did our nexus fee study in 2018 Once again it attacked or it addressed Park's fees plus CFF that's typically a consultant driven exercise So there was a hard cost of around 350,000 just based on the consultant piece to that It started in 2015 there were starts and stops. It really pulls in a significant amount of staff across the city So one department may take lead on managing the consultant through that process But as you're determining project list and understanding nexus arguments and the feasibility of developing those projects It does bring in our transportation public works department our parks department and he but any division or department that benefits from the fee So it's usually a huge staffing lift and oftentimes those fees run over a two-year cycle because of that reason If we're going through a smaller analysis Typically what that would look like if the council determines the specific band of waivers that would be applied Then we would take average numbers of units that occur within those Look at the financial impacts of that to the program and then do our best internally with other departments to determine where that falls So really that's that's typically an exercise Sort of when prioritized that you're talking about six months instead of two years Okay, and then just two more quick questions If we did a right size or a waiver in backfill or waiver without backfill Would we still have to comply with AB 602 at some point? Yes, and then you said there's already moving pieces with a missing middle policy Is that an AB 602 are those mutually exclusive or can they be married and work together? It can work as a companion So really the missing middle is looking at how we can incentivize that certain band of housing So that's going to look at a variety different things But it can get into the fees and it can get into this analysis associated with that And that will be it is a process already moving forward That's the most effective way to look at it because of that because it looks at all of the potential pieces that we can address As part of that So I would say it could include this study as part of that We can look at what that would look like if that's the direction from the council Yeah, I'm wondering if some if you could one re read slowly the four options and also if someone could Simultaneously make a slide for those of us who are not Auditory learners. I need to see it in order to digest it. Can you read those for me? Absolutely, so the first is to do a full study consistent with a b602 That would be your nexus analysis and in the previous response That's really the two-year process that has the consultant driven exercise compliance with 602 the second option is to basically define a set of waivers for specific housing types under the affordability categories and Determine a total dollar amount for a backfill And then those waivers would be applied until that backfill amount is exhausted that still holds the project list intact does not affect the study Director Osborne hold on. Can I make certain somebody's making a note of that so we can get a slide up on on the screen And that's the pilot one you were mentioning Yes, that that would be run as a pilot program And then the third is to basically provide a waiver without backfilling and That would require an analysis to determine the impacts on the project list and then the impact fee Or excuse me the nexus study for the impact fee So really what that would look like is that if the council determined just to apply a waiver Without any cap or any pilot program nature to that We would have to look in really perpetuity for however long that waiver would last what the impact fee What the impacts are to the overall fee program? Can you say just a few more sentences about that? What what types of impacts you'd be looking for? Yeah, so the impacts would be and I think a very similar to what Sacramento did Sacramento whether behind the scenes there were different conversations, but they ran a pilot program for a period of time expended from 2018 to 2022 they developed all of the fee categories that they wanted to provide the waiver for which were most of the fees and Then they analyzed that over that year period and then determined what to do on the back end And in that situation it was looking at a backfill option But essentially it went into it without a defined cap on the dollar amount with the program. It was more of a time cap So that didn't provide a set dollar amount to backfill and the really the difference is is when the dollar amount is there You're allowing the waivers up to that cap We're on the other option You're really allowing those waivers up to a defined time period or not having a time period And then it's very difficult to judge the impact to the overall capital project programs associated with that because the revenue stream becomes Unpredictable and we would have to determine if projects need to be juggled or removed from the list And that creates some challenges with the next study. I see but the idea is that let's say you build XYZ development and then after the period of time you go back and look at what the Clear impacts were and try to assign a dollar number to those Impacts like let's say a sewer needed to be upgraded or something and then city pays for it What the cost of that was and so you sort of do the retrospective So really the the dollar amounts for both the fees and the projects are set with the next study So the reality is what when we get into impact fees the revenue is not predictable for a variety different reasons because we don't know When development's going to occur year to year and you see those gaps So based on how quickly development moves forward and if you created a five-year pilot You would be able to make estimates on what comes in and the estimates on the revenue But you really don't know at the end of that five-year period what the total amount is going to be So as you let that five-year period go the waivers occur for all those developers at a very set rate So at the end of the five years you determine the financial impact of those waivers at a set amount based on the nexus fee study And then the challenge becomes from a backfilling because it's unknown the revenue It could be two million to nine somewhere in that range and then you're trying to identify how to backfill that or not And if the backfill isn't there then how the projects get delivered and justifying how those projects get delivered becomes challenging because that revenue is lost What you said it requires an analysis what requires analysis the city state law council policy Where is the requirement coming from so the mitigation fee act controls a lot of the nexus studies that are performed And the reporting associated with that so state law Maybe we got through three of those. What's the fourth one and the fourth one is really the more targeted approach Where we can look specifically at where we're missing our rena numbers right now Or we think at the end of the cycle it might be a challenge So that's the missing middle concept and we can incorporate a targeted fee reduction as part of that study But as it focuses on rena it will focus on very low and moderate Which are those are typically the areas as our city manager mentioned where we're seeing the percentages on the lower side That was really helpful. Thank you very much Mayor roger or pardon me mayor rogers I Just received notice from the interpreters on the line if staff can slow down they are working very hard to keep up if speakers can slow down on some of these very complex comments and Concepts they would much appreciate it so they can make sure they're doing meaningful translation on the Spanish Channel. Thank you Thank you mayor, thank you for the presentation. I have some clarifying questions and just some information I'd like to have So on the CFF impact fees that we get are those designated by quadrants of where that money needs to be spent on projects They are not so there they are Allocated based on the percentages that are listed in the chart, but that can be allocated city-wide And the quadrants just so I'm clear on the park impact fees is that our Is that our rule or is that something in statute? So when I'm looking at all the projects that need to be done in all the parks in the city of Santa Rosa Do we have to do them by quadrant or can they be moved? Can the money be moved? It's defined in code and we have set those quadrants pardon me It's defined in our code and at the local level we have set those quadrants So we would bring back the policy to address that so so I'm just going to take for instance We have money in park fees Place to play potentially could end up having a sports complex area But I'm hearing there's no money for that, but we actually do have money so we could potentially take money That's in that park development fees and move it to that because it's our rule That's not allowing it right now just so I'm clear on how these impact fees work Yes, and I think there's a few few ways you can change that that's getting into the methodology in the nexus So when you study the impacts in the various areas from parks and where that fee should be generated in the various areas The local jurisdiction really controls those so we set policy around that So it could require an additional study to look at that and then also a code amendment to make that change Thank you, and then as far as the actual Upgrading or expansion of the current parks Because it says new development or acquisition of parks But if I'm reading the slide correctly it also said the upgrade or expansion, but not maintenance Is that our rule or is that in state statute? I think it's Columbia right Yeah, yeah, so that's state code. It's state code Yeah, I'd like to see the state codes specifically around these impact fees and the reason being is it says There's sometimes is language that allows us to do more work than Then we're doing I think so is it the state statute or our own codes that are preventing us from moving forward on projects But as far as expansion or upgrade if that's the state code or our code and Then also to know If it is an upgrade, I'll take for example the tennis courts Can we use park impact fees for the tennis courts at Howard Park? Or does that have to come out of a different budget and why maybe Maybe it's important for us to know what's in the reserves for each of these current budgets Could you could you give me that Alan? What's in the park impact fees reserves? And then what's in the other budget as well as CFF budget just so you have an idea of how much is in reserves okay, so I Don't have those specific reserve numbers for you right now what I would say and maybe Deputy director Santos can come and talk about the specific projects and how those things are funded, but I would again Say that that when you're looking at Funds that are in reserves for a particular part in in each Park development fee coordinate has its own fund they Those dollars are Encumbered if you will into certain projects, so they're not it's not a pool of dollars It's just they're just sort of collected there, but they are all directly tied to a specific project. That's being We set the quadrants ourselves It's not something in a state statue that says you have to do it by quadrant And it's not something that says we couldn't move money to finish one other project So if you have not enough money to finish projects, I'll use a herna avenue overpass We didn't have quite enough money to do that project so we move money from another project to that project So we can complete it. I'm just trying to understand better how these impact fees work And I I think We can probably get a more direct answer Thank you. Yeah Good afternoon mayor vice mayor Council members. I'm Jen Santos deputy director for parks and thank you for your question The the answer is looking at two state Laws for that is to see codes we use the quimby act and the mitigation fee act and so The quimby act Requires the city to put the money into wherever, you know, whatever zones we want to put it in However, we want to arrange it the mitigation fee act would allow us to move money for something that is city-wide Like a big project like a big sports complex tennis Complex something like that. And so we can make those decisions as a city body Okay, so the quimby act Asks that we do it a certain way But we actually could make the decision if it's a decision made by council that we want to do something in one specific area We could move money around to finish projects Yes, we certainly could we do try to keep them in the quadrants they're created to serve those residents in that quadrant But the city has in the past Move funds around to assist with projects that are underfunded And do you by chance have the amount of the reserves that are in just the park impact since that's your budget? The funds we have allocated going forward that we receive so far around 25 million Around 25 million We'll get you the exact number we'll follow up with the exact number, but it's approximately 25 million all of that is Allocated already to current projects Okay All right, I'm getting through my My notes here So I think the biggest thing is we don't know really what the long-term effects are to any of the budgets based on the conversation today if we were doing a any type of Right-size impact fee I would be interested in knowing what that's going to do to the long-term effects of the budget because I feel Like right now we're making decisions without all the data and information whether that's a new nexus study With the I I think it would be number four kind of a targeted approach Or something that's along the lines of a pilot We know that that we need more affordable housing. We know we are missing middle housing We know that we need to work on some of these things I would be interested in having staff work with our partners to see how we can get to almost a net Neutral on on the fees so that we aren't going in the hole that much but that we can still see Some support because truthfully local fees are the only thing we can control right now With the high interest rates and the cost of construction We know that that's the only thing we can actually look at to being able to incentivize and partner You know with developers and with with folks that are for housing as far as looking at The long that's why I'm concerned about the long-term impact though is we I feel like we don't have enough information to do that So that's why a pilot might be a smarter way for us to go When we're when we're looking at the out years and then I might have another question But I think that's most of mine, but thank you for the presentation. Thank you for councilmember Fleming going back over those four different bullets, I appreciate that and I think that's all my questions, Mary Thank you vice mayor step Thank You mayor All right. I want to try my hand at some back of the envelope math Which is always risky So thank you very much for the chart on the impact fees collected from affordable housing And so I was trying to just take a moment some rough estimates on the the Current level of impact fees that we're collecting both in the last three years and then over the 12 years that are listed And Gabe am I in the ballpark if I say that over the an average over the last 12 years for both the PDF and CFF fees is about 420,000 a year something like that I'm putting you on the spot here right now Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry, so I was I was trying to figure out Given that the fees you have the You have the total impact fees collected and then you've got the percentage that are coming from deed restricted housing projects And so I was trying to come up with an average over the 12 years that it were listed as well as what we've been taking in over the last three years which have seen a good amount of development and With the calculations I was doing it looks like an average over the last 12 years just to give us here on the day It's a rough estimate of the sums that we're talking about is that it was about it was about 420,000 a year with large variations given the the uncertain development Or uneven development and then over the last three years it looked like we were pulling in about 1.5 million of fees Yeah Okay, sure Again, I know I'm putting you on the spot But I it was helpful for me to have those numbers or it is helpful for me to have those numbers as councilmember Donald was indicating just to give a sense of what we would have to backfill even if we just eliminated the the impact fees for deed restricted housing for for very low and low-income housing But there is a there's a reasonable budget chunk that we'd have to figure out right, and I think that's part of Where this is kind of a starting off part right, I mean we There there's a proposal that's out there that warrants study and warrants Action one way or the other What what I would ask is that we take a look at it from a from a thorough thoughtful standpoint of what those budget impacts are it's I think it's The fees are are and how they're coming in is a little more nuanced than unfortunately you know Having a slide that just you know kind of shows what we collected There's there's a lot of things that go behind those those numbers that That we we need to Address in any policy going forward, but I I think we're ready to do that and and Gabe told you some options that we could do that kind of goes along that path, but There there's more study that's going to need to be involved there unfortunately, it's Probably not the best on the on the fly type of Deal, that's that's fair to say. No, thank you And then director Osborne. I I appreciated your your response to council member Acrepti's question regarding the difference between the two kinds of studies whether it's a full a full nexus review Versus a right-sized fee survey I'll I'll reiterate what my council council member my my colleagues have said and say that I'm certainly interested in seeing the results of one of those kinds of study It's I'm intrigued by the fact that the right-sizing study can be done a little bit more quickly That that sounds like a big advantage to taking to taking that avenue And then just as a final comment going back to the city manager's remarks at the beginning I think it's worth underlining again that our city's hit is is currently at 66 percent of Renewal obligations. That's a really we've actually done pretty well with our housing All of us want more and all of us want to use every tool at our disposal to build more But it's worth noting that Santa Rosa really is especially compared to other municipalities across the state doing doing pretty well So and that's in that's in large part due to the two what our what our planning department has done over the last several years to Incentivize further development in the community Thank you That's number Rogers Thanks, mayor. I want to reframe a little bit if I can First gave for some context for folks. We're talking about this proposal to start assessing fees per square foot as opposed to per unit If I was to build a mansion, and I don't need exact numbers if I was to build a mansion in Santa Rosa Relative to a unit of downtown affordable housing Apartment, what's the differential in the fees? So typically it depends a bit on the fee so when when you look at the impact associated with that scenario and The assumption is and it's it's just how engineering works with management of infrastructure based on the number of bedrooms There's an anticipated occupancy load in the buildings So your larger building that has four bedrooms in it would typically have an escalated fee over a smaller unit The total dollar amounts. I'm sorry. I don't have those today those exact numbers But generally if you think about the overall impact fees, we're talking about CFF and parks So those are individuals that are putting pressure on the infrastructure But when you get into the other fee types like sewer and water all of a sudden that larger lot has more of a demand from water for Irrigation, so you'll see certain fees will escalate differently based on the impact But truly what the nexus fee study should look at is when we're talking about Bike and pedestrian facilities or road widening is it should be looking at the number of people that are being generated in the increase in population based on that So we have changed some of our fees to better really align with that concept where smaller units are Charged less than larger units and that really is across the board with CFF and sewer and water So some strides have been made as we evolve the studies to recognize that fact But what this is a fix of is many agencies in the past would treat those two scenarios the same way And that's what I remember being the main part of the conversation in 2018 Especially as we started to bring equity into our decision making potential that there was an inequity that existed And though we fixed some of it 602 switching to per square foot as opposed to per unit is really trying to push Cities in a direction being more equitable in terms of what type of housing is incentivized through its fee structures, correct? That is correct and and just for the record I want to make sure that we are currently in compliance with 602 That it's just when we go through that study again That's really what it's looking at but 602 also has an option that if another methodology can be justified That I think goes along that same concept then you can use that in the next study as well Perfect, and then when we in remind me because I don't remember but in 2008 when we did the next study We also had a conversation about the recovery rate of many of these fees Because under 218 we can charge up to a certain amount But also had the opportunity to charge less than a certain amount. Did we do a hundred percent recovery rate? On we did we looked at the that's the feasibility analysis, which it looks at the reasonable approach of that We can look quickly. I know the various fees were set at different levels I don't have the final answer for that, but I can look at that right now actually okay If you could just even when we come back after a public comment and whatnot. I think it'd be helpful for us to see To what level are we? Incentivizing I suppose certain types of housing already throughout our community and you talked a little bit about that right now the biggest concern that I hear from many developers about projects is Yes fees, but also the interest rates and access to capital Can you give us sort of a snapshot on what that? Broadly speaking throughout Sonoma County or throughout the state what we're seeing in terms of interest rates or ability for construction loans With interest rates has it made it more difficult for folks to be able to build Yeah, I think what we've seen there's there's been a few factors and really some of this started in response to the tubs fire I think as we saw really construction start going as part of that That actually inflated construction costs labor materials went up We moved from tubs fire really into COVID which created the unpredictability of supply And a lot of the cost of construction is just much higher than it was 10 years ago So then really if you look at it it is simple math, especially in a resale market Obviously there's the cost of construction and there's the return on the back end And then there's carrying that project for the longevity of it until that return comes in So between interest rates coming up between some funding sources going and coming away It makes it much more unpredictable for Developments to occur and when we see this situation what we see oftentimes is really a sitting so projects go to entitlement Which we're still seeing that we have a lot of entitled projects But then the the time in which it goes from entitled to building permit which in a very aggressive Economic condition where they can build and they can make money goes quick But now there's there's more factors at play so when one thing doesn't work then all of a sudden There's for the further delay, so we have seen that and I think you know Obviously the development community is better suited to discuss all the fine points associated with that But what's been communicating to us between construction costs on the rise? between in some situations with the development type the Unpredictability of the rent on the back end the holding costs for that project the interest rates all that factors into it And then we're talking sort of abstractly about where these funds might come from if we were to move forward on a on a fee reduction But that only assumes that projects are actually built So if nothing gets built if interest rates are too high if people can't get their financial stack in order Nothing gets built. There's no additional impact. This is really hasn't lost out on anything in regards to fees That is a correct statement And I think that's just the unpredictable nature of especially analyzing the revenue stream because development as a whole is unpredictable I mean we've saw it in the chart. There are gaps in the production of affordable housing So if nothing goes then there's no impact to really analyze because you did not waive the fee So that would be a correct statement, right? And then if we look at as the council has multiple times talked about Look at housing development as economic development if nothing goes forward we didn't risk anything We didn't lose anything, but we also don't get the benefits from that economic development as well That's the way that I look at it at least so what would be helpful for me in public comment is to hear from folks Particularly folks who are in the industry If you're saying that this is potentially 1% or I think it was 1.1 or 1.8 percent depending on the the fee How close are we actually talking about to this type of a proposal making the difference between a project being able to move forward or not? Because I think that that's really the big question for many of us from the deus is Are we doing this because it sounds good and it continues to tell people that Santa Rosa is open to housing? And there's some merit to that or are we also talking about making up for an economic climate or at least making it easier in an Economic climate so that we get something when we otherwise might not get anything. I think that's what I'd be interested in hearing from folks I have a question piggybacking on what council member Rogers brought up Which isn't is really kind of a philosophical question about how we incentivize what we all are here for today I imagine which is to get housing built and I will be listening in public comment And if there are any Public commenters who have the knowledge to speak to this what I want to talk about is this other tool that the city has which is The renewal enterprise district where we we put in ten million dollars So if we're looking at a pilot where we put an X amount of dollars and we have all these units that have been built from this Partnership with the county this twenty million dollar partnership Is this is the impact fee removal piece? Going to be the piece that to council member Rogers point gets the shovels in the ground and gets the housing built Or would there are a better use of our dollars if we were to do a pilot be to Additionally capitalize this other vehicle that we already have up and running that is last dollars in money So it's and it is money that would gets pulled back if you don't go ahead and build the housing That you said that you're going to build so that might be another way to ease the pain and keep things moving as we go as We go along on this path I understand the renewal enterprise district does a certain kind of housing in a certain kind of location But I do want to understand if we are Putting our money to the best use and making sure that because what I don't want to get is a hundred percent Is zero as a real concern I have and so if people can speak to where the greatest pain point is is the greatest pain point These fees or is it the interest rates and and the last dollars in in your capital stacks councilmember Alvarez me Actually, I was gonna piggyback off of council and the Rogers But actually with with the mention of the red district it it furthers my my question And that is the metrics of this. I'm gonna with the easy metrics is More houses are being built But I'm wondering when we do take into account the red district the renewal How can we actually mitigate that the projects that we're looking at are being built in a timely fashion We're the consequences for the developers who are waiting for a moderate That suddenly becomes low or low becomes moderate and and and there's your way for us You put something in writing or in the in the in the project should we move forward of Having these incentives be removed if it's not complete in a timely fashion as we're Contemplating increase of costs well pretty much what metrics do you do you foresee being used? Yeah, and that's an excellent question I think with affordable housing in general just the challenge We really run into as affordable housing projects are presented through entitlement They're not really required to incorporate that affordable housing through the building permit stage Because they can pay the in lieu fee when it's market rate So some of the items that we've been discussing internally and we'll come back to the council with this is how can we ensure that number one The development achieves those benefits If there's a desire the council to see the development move forward in a timely fashion to achieve those built those benefits We really can build that in essentially the way it works with fee waivers is the fee waivers apply to the project up front But the fee is not collected on the back end and that's when the units actually finalized So is there a check at final occupancy to ensure the fees are paid? So that is something that could be incorporated in and discussion about a reasonable time frame to construct is really based on project complexity There's a lot that goes into it But I think council member Alvarez what what you're alluding to really is to avoid project sitting on the shelf for five years when We put all these incentives in place to move it forward and how do we protect against that that is correct And the additional questions that I have has are pertain to the parks We're wearing that we have twenty five million dollars in in in and projects that have yet to be completed and In summary page 18 it stated that there's no guarantee that additional incentives We increase the amount of affordable housing production in the city And I'm also wondering about these projects that we have on on ice when it comes to parks What additional sources we have to complete parks should we lose this Ability to to generate revenue there aren't a lot Grant funding would would probably be one there may be something that's Measure em or or some other funding source. They're available or But that that's about it the the city traditionally Does not put a lot of general fund into capital programs Most of our if not virtually all of our general fund dollars goes into operations So that's that's the challenge That we ran into doing this analysis is that there are there are just some projects where especially in parks where you're looking at that at the impact fees being the Primary source of revenue coming in to complete them You you eliminate that even for a short period Then the to be able to catch that back up you you really can't it can take Decades to be able to to get where you need to be And my final question have we seen anything similar a hybrid to this being Introduced in anywhere in the state of California But what I mean by this I mean the right the right size fee I Have seen a variety of different combinations of waivers and fee adjustments So, you know, I think Sacramento. I think more of our regional partners Petaluma did something similar Those are more waivers and I've seen that either in the pilot form or more of the long-term form where it's waving specific Fees for specific project types and that really differs through that and some situations people will go all the way up to Or jurisdictions go all the way up to 120 a.m. I try to capture that where some are a little more strategic so the combination of Things that I've seen to affect the fees our timing of payment And deferrals which pushes it a little further along in the process a combination of waivers or Reductions for certain incentives So a reduction would be as you increase the number of units or the density or fee lowers same as what we've done downtown But most things fall within that narrow band of options. It's just the combinations differ a bit from what I've seen And I just came up with one additional question Our city manager to introduce a quite a bit of numbers of where where I currently with our housing and our percentages And I'm wondering what what's in the pipeline? What what projects have been submitted but have not yet been have not yet? Broken ground that might actually increase the number of potential projects being completed before 2031 Yeah, it's an excellent question And we should be able during public comment to get more information on that Typically the Rena tracks the building permit issued so once the building permit is issued the number is populated on that chart So a lot of those numbers are still going through construction to be finalized So a lot of the active construction you're seeing will result in those numbers What we're really seeing as far as the development cycle goes it is typically a tenure cycle we see of peaks and valleys So right now we are seeing projects come through we still have projects that are pending Construction which basically means that they're in the building permit stage and waiting for that and I can easily produce those numbers But that really gives you an idea of what's ready to go The big jump for projects is going through entitlement to building permit That's when a significant investment in the construction takes place. So that's usually our indicator that they're moving forward Entitled projects may vary will not follow through and a lot of times do not based on the factors in the economy But more than happy during public comment to pull some stats Thank you Looking to make sure you didn't come up with any more questions So I think kind of going back to the basics for me What are Rena numbers for our our public like how are they made or design? I feel like we're saying that a lot and then what are they? Why are they important and what happens if? Jurisdiction does not meet their Rena numbers and has Santa Rosa ever been in that predicament That's a good question. So the Rena numbers are regional housing need assessment So HDD looks at what the needs are in a greater area from a housing standpoint There's quite the analysis that really goes into that And then a bag will take those numbers and form those into specific numbers for each Jurisdiction so they essentially divvy up the more regional numbers to more of a localized need And often the Rena numbers are very challenging to hit So in our last Rena cycle, we're in the sixth and that would be the fifth We ended up in some scenarios being fairly well, but then in our moderate We were roughly 50% of our allocated total And then in one of our low categories, we were slightly less So generally what happens in many jurisdictions fall into this bucket in the state of California has modified Processes to ensure that units get pushed in jurisdictions where the Rena numbers are less And SB 35 is really a prime example of that that allowed projects to go through under a ministerial state Depending on where you are with your Rena numbers SB 35 either comes in and requires certain affordability levels or it doesn't and it pushes So typically you'll get that on the back end But there I know that oftentimes the Rena numbers are seen as a bare minimum We're really trying to meet the housing requirements But some of those Rena categories are very challenging to meet and require different tactics to meet them Thank you. I think you left off one part of that question If cities don't meet the Rena cycle, I believe for this cycle They are not going to be able to qualify for certain types of funding Okay, so that's the consequence So let me see We did talk a little bit about Sacramento that was An area that you said actually had a pilot And if I recall correctly you said that ended in 2022 So did they implement a policy that was no longer a pilot or where are they Now well what they did is they ran it from 18 to 2022 and then they were revisited it in 2022 So some of the discussion points there that the total dollar amount They were roughly had about 3,000 units that went through the program There was a total dollar amount of all the impact fees of approximately 9 million They were they did that at a time and I think it speaks to other concerns that were raised They did that at a time where a lot of affordable housing was being built We had roughly 1,300 units that went through the city center was at the same time in a much smaller jurisdiction And it was the very difficult for them to make the finding that it was the one piece that was the catalyst to move that forward It was one piece of many, but they were unable to make that finding So what they revisited in in 2022 they went all the way up to 120 am I so that covered all the affordability categories There was a discussion about potentially reducing that and then there was a discussion about backfilling those dollars to be able to hold the capital projects hold But to the best of my knowledge they did not Malfable the program and it's still alive And you may or may not know the answer to this question, but with Sacramento already meeting its Rena numbers Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to that question. Okay I have more hold on all right, so the the current proposal That is before us as far as to increase affordable housing production in the city that went on 14 slide 14 120% a AMI and below. What does that really mean for a citizen? What is 120% AMI? Absolutely that focuses on area immediate income. So it's really looking at the income level So as you look at the different affordability categories moderate is 80 to 120 then it starts working its way down into the lower Categories, so when these units are deed restricted and they're allocated to affordable units They're affordable to a specific category and then the individuals occupying that unit have to qualify for that category So as a builder if this were the policy I can build something that is those all the way up to to moderate Yes, so the builder actually can elect to put whatever affordability level they want in a project Our inclusionary housing ordinance requires that they either incorporate a specific percentage That depending on the type of project it differs from rentals to for sale So if we look at moderate which is at the 120% it's really incorporating 10% into the project for that level But I think it's important to note that most market rate developers actually pay the in Luffy And then it goes into director passengers programs, and then it gets work through housing So it doesn't necessarily mean that that housing gets built There has to be an incentive on the back end really for the builder to do it the waivers can be that incentive But in some situations the return on the affordable unit in a market rate project is not as high obviously as other market rate Units, and it does an offset, and I think that's often why we see the housing impact fee paid instead of the inclusionary units So I'm just going to throw a few things out for me If if we waive anything I want to make sure that the housing actually Is being built, and I want to make sure that it is affordable To Rena numbers that we are not currently meeting It's very important that we have all housing for all and so Finding a way to get to that is very important I Did read Somewhere that the the residential single-family residential developments to make budget neutral I just took a snip it out on 14 I worked three jobs to buy my single-family home, and I had four children So just because someone has a single-family home does not mean they have a lot of money Because I worked very very hard to buy my home so my children can have generational wealth and that is a sacrifice of time and Kissing on them and putting them to bed and everything so that I can buy my home. So I Budget neutral I get it But not off the backs of people that work really really hard to get their housing and then Lastly We keep talking about a backfill. I keep hearing that word a backfill Alan this is on you a backfill Where is this money coming from for a backfill and I heard someone say well We can spend our money in other places, and I'm wondering what money are we talking about you would need to Have your most unrestricted funds to be able to go to backfill that and your most unrestricted funds is the general fund In short, so we have we have money in our general fund that is Not allocated or that we can spend somewhere else Well, you would have to take that out of there's there's two ways of looking at it either you go through a a project or program where we take a part of our general fund reserves and And use that as the backfill mechanism The other way to go about it would and I Believe where the the right-size impact proposal was going was to Take it out of your budget in general Really when you're looking at doing something like that the way I read it and and to be perfectly honest. I haven't spoken to the Gen H Representatives, I'd love to have a conversation But the way I look at that is you're you're taking out of operational budgets at that point and the the The the percentage that was used looks like it they're comparing it to our total City budget, which you wouldn't be able to do you would have to Focus probably on the general fund you wouldn't be able to go and to Use enterprise fund money to offset this that's you start running into prop 218 issues So you're you're looking for the areas where you have the the most discretion at At your disposal and that unfortunately always falls to the general fund Okay, and when we're looking at our budget for 24 25 Where are we at with that Currently we are showing a deficit in the general fund of about five point two million dollars And and how long do we have? money for our in response in safe parking The ARPA funding will run out in in response They could probably go through the end of the period of performance, which is December 2026. I believe safe parking will will go Yeah, 2025 yeah and Housing right around the same time so we would be looking at Definitely having those part of The 2526 Budget the housing in particular because that was a general fund piece before I believe we are going to have a discussion at the budget study session about in response and safe parking and essentially where Where we go from there so we can start planning What to do? With those programs All right, and I do not have any other questions But I want to look to my council members to see if anyone else has something to say and I'm gonna Do the chair I do have Sacramento's Rena numbers for the fifth cycle So they only met 20% of their very low Numbers 56% of low income 66.3% of above moderate and moderate income they did meet a hundred and eighty-two percent So they did not meet their Rena numbers Thank you They did not meet their Rena numbers and they still decided not to Do the waving of the impact piece There oh, so that was when they were waving the impact piece. Okay, perfect Council member McDonald Thank you, I've been hearing a lot about the long-term economic stimulus that happens when we do Housing and building and I'm not sure I'm not an economist so I can't give you that information But is there a way that you could get the information to counsel? So if we understand if we built a thousand more houses With with different like middle missing middle as well as low income What does that do to our local economy and what is that backfill in our coffers as far as? Property tax goes and some of those other ways that we make up for it when we create housing So a lot of the conversations is we don't have workforce housing. We don't have housing for people to come That's why businesses aren't coming to the downtown area So when I'm looking at housing right now and it kind of a bigger picture Could is there a way a way we can get that information as you bring this information back to council? I Believe we can we can we can absolutely do our best to do a deep dive in there. I can just give you at a very high level Absolutely the increase in housing is going to increase property tax You're going to have more people There that are that are buying goods it is generally a good thing for the economy and and And so that's that those are all positives When we get into the deed restricted and and that level of affordable housing There is no property tax on those so they're exempt from that so now we start losing a bit And the other thing that I think we need to keep in mind is that for all the benefits that come From the housing the revenue and all that that goes in there's also a service Delivery aspect that goes along with it. So the challenge is having and and that increase in revenue that comes in versus the the service delivery costs, so if you Increase your population by a certain amount and that requires you to Add a fire station or to do anything like that Then you're looking at those costs that go in on top of it And you need to balance the two to get the full picture of Where you're going economically and then I think in addition to that when we look at buildings specifically affordable houses How much could we reduce potentially the costs that we are putting out right now for the unhoused and so? homelessness issues that type of impact that we could potentially have on a budget as we Grow housing and have more affordable housing And then the last thing just as a follow-up because I want to make sure sometimes I'm delayed because I'm reading the actual text so I apologize to staff when I have to come back with questions With the 25 million dollars specifically that we allocated in park impact fees. How much is unallocated? So when I'm looking at reserves, I think it's important for council to know how much we're currently allocating in these specific Impact fees and then how much we're just not they're still just sitting in reserves Okay, so I think both of those would be best to come back with a kind of a thoughtful response and writing on that especially the the of course we would want to see Housing affect our homelessness and a our unhoused individuals in a positive way I think that's part of the the goal of that but we can come back with with an answer specifically there and and Let me Have the reserve numbers for you, but I think let me just because we're sending a lot of stuff to you and writing I think it would just be easier to give that to you there and to also combine that with the allocated funds For those are for the projects if if that's okay All right. She did a thank you Um Yeah councilmember Ocrackie just real quick Director Osborne, could you Address of what the pro housing designation is from the state how we received it and where we rank within the state because of receiving it Yes, so the pro housing designation is really a ranking based on all the initiatives that we put in place to support housing And a lot of jurisdictions in the state did not receive that So it is actually fairly difficult to get and you get it's based on a scoring system and through our last ranking We ranked seventh in the state of California. All right, so seeing no additional Questions from council members Madam city clerk may you please conduct a public comment? Thank you We are now taking public comment on item 4.1 if you are in the council chamber and would like to comment But have not yet provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period As you approach the podium, please state your name for the record if you choose to do so The first public comment will be from Michael followed by Peter then Adrian. I guess you meant me Michael Hilber First of all, I want to mention that with respect to the Roseland Village project That's been held up for you know over a decade due to litigation. So it's mainly attributable to county and competence they've been embroiled in litigation with Owner of the remaining portion of that parcel and all they had to do is really to buy the whole thing and they would have Avoided that whole mess. So that does added, you know, I think a decade plus on to that timeline now with respect to this You know what they're asking for is Fee waivers without backfill Up to a hundred percent of median income. So you're talking about waving fees even when people are making above the median income You know, that's on top of all the others like Affordable housing projects. Yes, they are typically exempt from property tax and that's huge. That's on top of the federal tax credits and Section 8 vouchers and the state subsidies So this is just you know, another freebie. They're looking for to be pile on top of all this And I'll tell you I think that you know, the impact fees they need to be uniform Anything else is, you know, just crooked like for example, we pay a Monthly sewer fee that's for maintenance and you know treatment of the wastewater But new development, you know means the plant may need to be Increased in the size its Capacity and that needs to be paid for by a uniform impact fee anything else is just not fair And the same goes for schools when you build the new housing and the schools have to expand they got to get impact fee to Cover that Thank you. The next speaker will be Excuse me Peter followed by Adrian then Lauren Peter Peter Rumble Okay, can you please state your name for the record? Sure. Hi and on to sweet I'm the vice president of public policy and workforce development for the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce So good afternoon Mayor Rogers council members staff first Thank you so much for all the work and time that you put into this critical issue I'm here to urge you to make meaningful adjustments to impact fees to incentivize affordable and workforce housing Our housing crisis is the greatest threat to our long-term success as a community and beyond the moral imperatives to support access to safe shelter The economic impact of housing scarcity is profound and far-reaching Posing significant challenges to individuals our community and the economy alike It's because of this far-reaching economic impact that this isn't as simple as it may seem Not as simple as looking at a budget adjustment It's a choice that we're making to invest today or to pay more for that lack of investment down the road And we're talking about significant higher costs later both economically and socially Housing scarcity and unaffordability Exasperate a range of issues that impose heavy financial burdens on individuals communities and governments in the long run Without adequate investment in affordable housing households are at risk of substandard living conditions or homelessness Without adequate investment in affordable housing It is difficult for businesses to attract and retain talent across all skill levels Addressing the affordable housing crisis is essential for businesses to maintain a competitive edge and to ensure a robust workforce pipeline Alternatively making strategic investments now to prioritize housing in a meaningful way can yield substantial savings and benefits for Businesses and the city in the future from a direct city budget perspective access to affordable housing reduces reliance on costly emergency services Leads to increase property values and tax revenues over time as a vibrant and inclusive neighborhoods attract further investment By investing in affordable housing the city of Santa Rosa can achieve significant cost savings Foster economic resilience and create healthier more equitable communities for residents and businesses alike Ultimately incentivizing affordable and workforce housing not only addresses pressing social needs But also serves as a catalyst for sustainable economic development fostering resilient communities where individuals and businesses can thrive. Thank you Thank you I would like to remind members of the community Providing public comment this evening that we do have interpreters on the Spanish Channel So as you're making your public comments, please pace yourselves take a breath And be mindful that we are trying to have meaningful and interpretation on the Spanish channel for those participating via zoom in Spanish Thank you The next public comment will be from Adrienne followed by Lauren the Nick Good afternoon council members. My name is Adrienne covert local lead for Santa Rosa Yimbi and Westside resident As President Biden is fond of saying Don't tell me your values show me your budget and I'll tell you your values now This city Santa Rosa has repeatedly told its residents that it values housing at the very top of its priority Now this is a great opportunity to show That we value housing by reducing our development impact fees, so The Gen H proposal to right size development impact fees would reduce fees on multifamily housing and rationally scale that by affordability and square footage These are exactly the type of units that Santa Rosa needs to not only meet the minimum requirement for Arena and those Rena numbers are just minimum requirements, but this is an opportunity. This is essential for us to meet our to build a vibrant Affordable and low-carbon city for the future for ourselves and for our kids to stay in Santa Rosa If they wish to as they grow older now these costs There's going to be some costs to this and we've heard about some of that today But these costs must be weighed against the cost of inaction For example the cost of having one of the highest rates of homelessness on a per capita basis Than any other city in the United States the cost of our working class having to commute ever far their distances Study in Santa Clara County found that over half of their homelessness expenditures were just from dealing with the symptoms of Unsheltered homelessness because they didn't have the infrastructure, so you're either going to pay for the housing or you're going to pay to not Have the housing, so where is that in the nexus study? It's not so when you're taking this into consideration I please please take into consideration the cost of inaction and the opportunities to build housing adequate for the demand and for our future Thank you. The next speaker will be Lauren followed by Nick then Chris And my name is Lauren fury. I live here in Santa Rosa and I work for an affordable housing developer Mid-pen housing who has an office here in Santa Rosa and two projects currently under construction in Santa Rosa and several throughout Sonoma County I want to extend the invitation for any council members who are really interested in this Economic question of what the current environment light is like for construction and to dialogue on that more I have a lot of numbers and details that I can throw out you But to briefly summarize Rates have really increased and they're having a profound impact on the cost of construction So envision an imaginary community of 50 new homes Including studios ones twos and three bedrooms that would cost 40 million dollars to build Two years ago in that rate environment Construction interest rates were as low as 2% and they're now closer to 7% and then permanent debt is more like six or seven percent Compared to four percent a few years ago. So what does that mean in actual numbers? You're talking about an additional million dollars spent on construction loan interest for a two-year construction project And then you're reducing the amount of mortgage that that property can afford by another million dollars So that project now just based on interest rates cost two million dollars more to build So when your staff says every dollar counts, they are accurate They are completely accurate in that statement every single dollar counts Impact fees are something that developers are borrowing either via the construction loan or the permanent loan To payback and those impact fees can be between 300,000 and a million dollars on something like a 40 million dollar project so I really encourage the council to keep asking those questions and Again to echo Adrienne's comments to think about the costs that are much harder to quantify than these impact fees that Our community pays when we don't have affordable housing. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Nick followed by Chris then Ben Thank You members. My name is Nicholas Pertzel speaking on behalf of Providence Representing our 44,000 caregivers over 17 ministries across the state of California Providence is committed to supporting the poor and especially vulnerable that includes affordable housing We contributed in 2022 over 700 million dollars to these programs Specifically for this area between 2020 and 2023 We contributed seven and a half million dollars to affordable and supportive housing projects that includes the caretists homes Project at 2.2 million the caretists center at 2 million and a ronert park affordable housing Development at 1.3 million specifically for that development. We've run into the same issues being mentioned At this meeting although not in the city of Santa Santa Rosa But we have run into cost issues that have made us doing that project alone unsustainable and are searching for a partner Being without a stable home is detrimental to your health We cannot treat individuals if they don't have somewhere safe and stable to go to they don't have access to meds And they can't come back for the regular care They need to sustain a healthy lifestyle according to the American Hospital Association housing instability increases health risk for children Specifically with asthma and long-term depression issues. I heard some questions about the cost of providing care Especially those are homeless want to put into perspective according to the American Hospital Association 33% of all emergency department visits are from unhoused individuals It's an incredible strain on our system, and we don't just simply release them into the wild We need to make sure and ensure they have a safe place to go Of those 33 80 percent of ed visits 80 percent of those visits are from preventable conditions So again an incredible strain on the cost and adding to that burden 51% of those individuals need to come back to the hospital for continuing treatment Additionally just to the health care costs it is incredibly difficult to recruit care providers even with their excellent benefits and pay in the area and As to the burden of trying to maintain access to care It's for these reasons that we see this proposal as an investment in the community and overall benefits the community and we appreciate your Thank you. The next public comment will be from Chris followed by Ben then Albert Thanks, I'm Chris Gunther. I'm a part of bikeable Santa Rosa and a resident of the Montgomery Village area I just want to take a very quick minute. We're sort of in allyship with Gen H UMB and a number of other groups in the room And so want to endorse the call for you know all measures to accelerate housing development in the city and in particular I want to emphasize the the value of taking a systemic perspective I really appreciate a lot of the questions from the council members that we're doing that And I think we should continue doing that and I would just add that you know from a transportation perspective that access between denser housing and You know impacts on infrastructure costs and transportation We can save money in the long run by getting this right and getting housing developed in the right places Which lowers that impact and makes this more affordable more beneficial over the long run. Thanks Thank you. The next speaker will be Ben followed by Albert then Mike Ben Wickham I believe he's left He was here earlier, but I believe he's left. Okay. Thank you. I'll circle back towards the end of public comment Albert Yes, good evening. Good afternoon. May Rogers Members of the council. My name is Al Irma. I work at the metote food park over in Roseland But I'm here today representing the Sonoma County Hospitality Association We represent lodging food and beverage retail wineries outdoor recreation destinations and a whole lot more Employee-wise we probably represent 30,000 plus employees in Sonoma County and As an economic development matter housing the availability and affordability of housing for our workforce for that sector is Number one job one we really we really need housing. We've been struggling particularly during the pandemic and so We are here to support either the emergency ordinance or a pilot project that would eliminate the impact fees For particularly for affordable housing From a public health standpoint, I think the pandemic revealed that there's huge disparities in housing here in Sonoma County if you look over in Roseland the COVID Incidents of COVID in Roseland were astronomical and in large part because the overcrowding of housing or lack of housing there in that community So if you go to any restaurant in Sonoma County and see who's working there It's largely Latinos if you go to the lodging establishments and see who's turning down the beds and cleaning the rooms Largely Latinos if you go to the wineries in Sonoma County Guess who's working there? And so it's really a disproportionate impact on that committee in particular, but it's impacting our entire workforce in Sonoma County So if you want to continue to support economic fatality and economic development in Sonoma County, we encourage you to act now and move to Suspend the impact fee waivers for the next several years to support the generation H housing proposal. Thank you Thank you The next speaker will be Mike followed by Deborah then Lauren and Deborah and Lauren if you can make your way to the opposite podium then as Mike It'll keep the flow of the meeting going Mike. Is that you? Oh All right, we'll move on Deborah. All right, Lauren. Thank you Brigham in President and owner of Phoenix Development Company. We built three major housing projects now in the city of Santa Rosa and I'm going to just speak off my experience We've typically seen 20 to 25,000 per unit in impact fees on each of these projects on top of that we've spent between 20 and 25,000 per unit in infrastructure repairs street repair curb replacement sidewalk replacement in some instances we had to replace the entire water main Up and down a block because you know which I get this is infrastructure repair, but on top of that we paid Impact fees we paid CFF When you take that 45 to $50,000 per unit and It comes out to about $300 per unit per month to offset that cost you're looking at About 25% of the average Affordable rent that we get off our affordable projects. So when you put that in perspective you can see where the problem is My second point is you know all our projects all our affordable projects and our market rate projects all have Green features all have park features all have play lots all have play structures Yet we have to pay for that and then we pay for a park for somebody else CFF again, we do the infrastructure repair, but on top of that we pay for infrastructure repair Somewhere else in the city in regard to Councilman Rogers request currently Midpen is borrowing better than I can but it's 450 to 550 bits over so far so rates are about 10 to 11 percent return on investment eight percent two three years ago now is about 18 to 22 percent required. Thank you for Thank you. The next speaker will be Deborah then Abby then Kathleen Deborah Okay, we'll move on Abby Thank You Abby Thank You I'm gonna put this down for a second So you can see me. Thanks. Hi. My name is Abby Arnold and I am a resident of the Montgomery Village area I'm here today to support the proposal to Right-size the impact fee. We need more affordable Multi-family housing that will add to the housing available for everyone We need housing at all income levels to allow the law of supply and demand to bring down or at least Stabilize the cost of housing in the family budget That means people who are working in our schools and in City Hall and in our parks They all have trouble finding a place to live that they can afford here and many of them are commuting from very long distances There are some things that you don't have control over like the the Interest rates for construction loans But there are some things that you can do something about that relate to the high cost of new housing And this proposal the right-size fee proposal is something that you can do We understand the cost of materials and of course We want the workers who are doing the construction to be paid fairly But fees are part of the problem along with the length of time that it takes to get local approval And those are things that you have control over Reform of the development fee can make a big difference in how long it takes to get housing built I encourage you to adopt the right-size impact fee proposed by gen H and help make Santa Rosa a city Where our workforce can find a place to live? Thank you Thank you the next next speaker will be Kathleen followed by Abby T and then Jenny Kay New mayor Rogers vice mayor staff Caffle council members and staff. My name is Kathleen a TV dot. I'm a program manager at first five Sonoma County I'm also a resident in Santa Rosa I'm here to voice support for affordable housing and emphasize the urgency of the housing crisis in the city Through our community partnership with generation housing We have been assessing the housing climate in the city and county and learning how children and families can be uplifted through the affordable housing policies Especially our families most impacted by structural and systemic racism as most of us know Accessibility to affordable and stable housing is a huge precursor to positive health and development for families with young children Research has repeatedly shown that disruptions in housing Frequent moves housing and security and being unhoused are profound barriers to optimal early brain development and school readiness and learning Not only do we have a housing crisis? But we continue to see in first five's annual assessment that nearly a quarter of our community's five-year-olds who Due to disruptions in development such as housing instability lack the necessary readiness to succeed when they start kid or kindergarten, which we know is a Huge impact on their future Now is the time to make policy changes to disrupt the harmful patterns that are affecting future generations in the city and To ensure success and achievement for our youngest citizens So I urge the council to support the adoption of generation housing's right-size impact fee policy By doing so we will be on a path to enhance health and education outcomes and strengthen family Families with access to affordable housing. Thank you so much for your time and consideration Thank you. The next speaker is Abby followed by Jenny then Josh and then Stephanie Council members and city manager Smith and staff Good afternoon mayor Rogers vice mayor staff council members city manager Smith and staff My name's Abby. I'm the operations manager at generation housing and an SSU graduate who wants to stay and work here in Sonoma County and one day be able to achieve the American dream of buying a home Last year generation housing released a report called making the rent and we asked families what they would do if they didn't pay so much for rent And here are a few of the many responses we received. I would be able to afford dental care I would be able to afford child care and healthy food. I Would be able to afford a Healthier diet open up a savings account and save for retirement I would be I would be able to invest in more health care I would be able to provide my kids with the things they need I wouldn't be so stressed out and I could financially have money to spend on bills and on my kids Mayor Rogers council members Counts city manager Smith and staff these are our neighbors our friends our family members our colleagues asking for the basic needs And you can make a difference Thank you for your time and your leadership Thank you. The next speaker is Jenny followed by Joshua then Stephanie and Sonia Good afternoon Madam mayor council members maddy city manager Jen close executive director of generation housing I graduated from Montgomery. I spent my allowance money at the last record store and I grew up thinking all ice rinks were Swiss chalets I am a Santa Rosa kid and this is my hometown, so I care a lot about it Four years ago I took this job because I knew that housing was the linchpin to our community's recovery resilience and a more equitable sustainable and prosperous future And this was a collective community opinion So I believed Everyone was ready and willing to put skin in the game to tackle this priority And I believed that the same bold leadership and can-do spirit we saw in our fire response and recovery existed Efforts still existed, but four years later. I will tell you that my belief is waning I see paralysis through analysis a whole lot more time spent explaining why we can't do then time spent Strategizing on how we can do less urgency around actually doing equity Instead of just talking about it Resistance to trying new things and less focus on investing in the future. So I ask you today Please make me a believer again Make me a believer again by walking your pro-housing talk through your budget walk by prioritizing the 92,000 Santa Rosans paying too much for rent The more than 5,000 Santa Rosans sitting at the more than 5,000 people sitting on affordable housing waiting lists Nearly three thousand living without shelter and one in four kids living in overcrowded homes Make me a believer again today by directing your capable staff to go back to the drawing board and draft up a few options on how to Dedicate 1.5% of the budget a year for the next eight years to catalyzing housing through impact fee reform By adopting our right-size program. I thank you in advance for your leadership Thank you. The next speaker will be Joshua followed by Stephanie Sonia and Omar Good afternoon. Mayor Rogers city manager Smith council and staff My name is Josh shipper. I'm the director of special initiatives at Generation housing The council has raised a lot of questions on especially on Sacramento. We can try to answer a few of those We've been working with Sacramento staff for about four months and just to just to clarify a few things They have built about 3,000 affordable units within the last four years after waving fees This was compared to just a few hundred in the past seven So we count that about a nine-fold annual increase And we'd be very excited to see what what Santa Rosa can do similarly The waiver worked out to about only three thousand dollars per unit Which is an extremely efficient investment in gap funding for housing units were evenly split between low income and very low income which is exactly what they were trying to do to meet the arena and Last but not least this surge happened when market rate units were holding pretty steady And they expressed to us that they attributed this to the fee program To questions of whether Santa Rosa can do this It has 60 million dollars in impact fee reserves. We can answer that including 25 million as you heard for parks parks and 15 in capital Petaluma and implemented a similar program to Sacramento in 2022 Covering infrastructure from other revenue the city of Sonoma has a square footage Program already in place accomplishing much of what AB 602 and our right-sized program does Our right-sized program accomplishes much much of what Sacramento is already doing and it's costing less and will apply to more than just De-restricted affordable units, but also de-restricted moderate a Significant portion of the current surplus if ease has been collected off of this recent burst of new housing that you've heard all About built during a time of one time rebuild funds, but these funds are are now spent So our question for you is what happens when that housing pipeline slows down We do not think this is a zero-sum choice between housing and infrastructure And we urge you to view this right-sized program as a renewed one-time injection of funding for housing to keep that by Plantful. Thank you very much Thank you. The next speaker is Stephanie followed by Sonya Omar and then Maz Good evening council members and staff. My name is Stephanie Picard bow and deputy director at Generation housing I was born and raised in Santa Rosa. I'm raising my family here And I hope to buy a home here in the next year. I don't know if that's gonna happen The regional housing needs allocation Rina is the absolute minimum that the state requires but it is nowhere near our actual need Given that building housing now is more expensive than ever. Thanks to the economic climate It's clear the city must take action if we want to avoid falling further into a housing deficit The good news is that you city council of Santa Rosa have tremendous power to enact local policy change to address this Our right-sized program is the first and most crucial step that Santa Rosa can take right now to actively fight against housing Unaffordability it reduces the cost to build housing in Santa Rosa by targeting fees It benefits the most deeply affordable units the most Targeting the residents and workers who need the most support The city of Santa Rosa additionally did pay for an in-depth Economic analysis on housing on the housing impact of the economy and it was completed in September And we are confused why it has not been presented to the full council yet Housing is at the top of Santa Rosa's priorities and has been for the past several years the top priority deserves a budget that prioritizes our top priority We stand at the ready to partner with you in addressing our community's housing needs and thank you in advance for your leadership on housing Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Sonya then Omar Maz and Jamie Staff my name is Sonya Big Barwick, and I'm a lifelong resident of Sonoma County co-owner of Paradise Ridge Winery and currently serving as a civic engagement manager at Generation Housing. I Join the team at Gen H because I see the fabric of our community unraveling due to the high cost of housing in Sonoma County. I Understand that adjusting impact fees has a cost, but there is a much higher cost to waiting. I Could talk to you about how as a mother I don't think my children are going to be able to live here I could also talk about my employees moving away But what I asked you guys to do is you receive 20 plus letters from high schoolers in Santa Rosa I asked that you read those letters and really hear what those voices are saying. Those are those children are our future It is important that we consider the cost to our community when there's no affordable housing available Our young families and our workforce will move away homelessness will continue to rise and Schools will continue to close Communing times will get longer and businesses may be forced to close due to the high cost of living Local companies like Manzana and Latratia factory being two recent examples It is critical that we invest in housing solutions across every level of affordability and offer options for families at all stages of their lives The rena goals include a requirement for production of a housing at all levels, but there are no subsidies for market rate options It is this type of housing that employers say is needed the most for recruitment and retention Including teachers nurses and government workers Yet amidst these challenges lies an opportunity for bold leadership I ask you to seize this moment to stand as champions and change and to advocate for the measures We need to bring affordable housing to stand to Rosa the time for action is now Please vote in favor of progress and in doing so you will lay the foundation for a more equitable and sustainable future for all residents in of Sonoma County Thank you, the next speaker will be Omar followed by Maz Jamie and then Ariel Good evening mayor Rogers vice mayor staff council members and staff my name is Omar I'm the program associate of generation housing, and I've been a resident of Santa Rosa for a decade specifically the Roseland area I'm here to address the severe impact of our housing crisis on children and young adults We know that housing and stability harms children's health development and school performance Infants and unstable housing are more prone to health issues like asthma Moreover unstable housing increases a child's a score affecting the neural development outcomes This instability disrupts children's security education and well-being Often forcing parents into multiple jobs reducing family times and contributing to overcrowded living situations specially evident during the COVID-19 lockdowns for young adults like myself the crisis bars access to Independence forcing many to delay or abandon higher education and career aspirations The challenge to secure affordable housing pushes our young adults out Severing community ties and undermining our local economy The struggle for stable affordable living space restricts our ability to contribute meaningfully to the economy and community Housing stands as the most pressing issue facing our families and youth today Many of you have talked at length about concerns for our youth and their future But if our housing policies continue to hurt and push them out we must question. What is our future? Today you receive 38 letters from students in Santa Rosa, which I greatly encourage everybody to read They are begging you to take actual action. How are you going to respond to them? We cannot afford to wait for change while thousands need affordable homes now Immediate action such as adopting generation housings rights ice-free program can significantly alleviate the pressures by incentivizing Affordable housing development. We thank you in advance for your leadership in creating a city where everyone can afford a safe stable home Thank you. The next speaker is maz followed by Jamie Ariel and then Cassidy Hello Good afternoon council members and staff. My name is Max Zhang I'm I am the research manager at Generation Housing over the past feels like two hours or so We spend a lot of time here wondering and speculating about things We don't know or things were unsure about and I would like to remind everyone here that as per the comments from my colleague My colleague Josh, there are actually things we we are quite sure about such as how much this policy will cost How effective this policy will be and while I as a researcher understand that we need good information Before we can make good decisions. I cannot help but wonder how much time we are giving up to think and wonder and Speculates and contemplates about what we don't know. I want the council to remember the things that we do know We know that housing here in Sonoma County is more unaffordable than ever before We know that starting in November billions of dollars of money for affordable housing will rush into the Bay Area and Sonoma County and Santa Rosa will have to compete with other Jurisdictions and that those home builders who can build those houses for us will only be focusing on the jurisdictions where it is cheapest and Easiest to build as they always have and we know that you the elected representatives of Santa Rosa and the staff that tirelessly support them You have the power to make this community an attractive place to build housing to build a housing that is affordable And that is necessary if Santa Rosa wants to spend time wondering about what it doesn't know I propose you wonder about this if we don't build housing how many more long times Sonoma County residents will leave how many downtown business Will businesses will close how many residents will become evicted or homeless how many schools will close How many families will be forced to double up in their homes? How many residents will skip meals and health care and time with their loved ones if you want to wonder about something We don't know let it be this how much can a community suffer when its residents can no longer afford to live there? I hope we never learn the answer. Thank you in advance for your leadership Thank you. The next speaker will be Jamie followed by Ariel Cassidy and Olivia's mom Good afternoon mayor Rogers vice mayor stop council members and staff. I'm Jamie a lifelong Santa Rosa resident I'm here to urge you to support the generation housing policy as things stand today I can't afford to own a home or even move out of my parents house I love this city. I'm proud to be from Santa Rosa, but if housing keeps being like this Being out of reach for young people like me. I just might have to leave We need housing policies that help us stay and build a life Let's make sure that Santa Rosa is a place that we where everyone can live. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Ariel followed by Cassidy Olivia's mom and Keith Mayor vice mayor council members and city staff. My name is Ariel Bussey I am the new youth outreach advocate with generation housing and here to talk to you about why now is a time for affordable housing Housing is a basic human right and it's a basic human need yet So many people are living with unstable or no housing due to the rising costs as well as working with gen H I also work at the Santa Rosa junior college and the sheer number of students that I have had to help that do not have housing is Astronomical, I just spoke to a young woman today who can no longer go to school anymore because she does not have housing They are about to be Unhoused I spoke to another student as well who informed me that one parent is working two jobs seven days a week The other working five days a week their income is 84,000 a year the median cost of a house in Santa Rosa is almost 600,000. I know when my parents bought a house out here. It was a hundred ninety four thousand that house is almost $800,000 now, I cannot afford to move out of my parents house as much as I would love to have my own place We cannot afford to not support the efforts that generation H is aiming for If you look at the high cost of not providing affordable housing It will end up costing the town and community members more You will see businesses closing as it has been mentioned you will see residents leaving So I thank you for your time and once again, I really hope you all can join and support of this proposed policy from generation housing Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Cassidy followed by Olivia then Keith Madam city clerk part in the disruption Can we make sure that you are very close to the microphone so we can make sure to hear you down here? Hi, my name is Cassidy. I attend school here in Santa Rosa I'm someone that feels that renting and especially home ownership is out of reach 34,000 households or 18% of households in Sonoma County are paying more than 50% of their income on rent And I was told growing up that your housing expenses should never be more than a third of your income Living with a parent is currently my only option But I'm lucky to have a family that is both willing to sport me as an adult and is a healthy home to live in Which is not a reality for everyone the high cost of living makes moving out an impossible task and Definitely a financial decision most would advise against Petaluma found a way to support affordable housing by strategically reducing fees and serves as a successful model to consider in Conclusion I support generation housing's proposed policy to address housing affordability. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Olivia followed by Keith then a Dina Olivia Keith Rogers council members My name is Keith Christopherson I've built many homes in Sonoma County Somewhere over 5,000 of them And I can't say much here that can right now that can offer Offer some relief here But I will tell you that back in about 2014 We had I think that the Chamber of Commerce was involved in putting this put this program together with with city staff the only person I see here right now who was involved in that is is is Gabe and We had we had meetings monthly with an agenda and we talked about housing issues and it was attended by everybody on the management side of the of the Planning staff the engineering Building and there were builders that were that were involved in in those discussion Most those builders are gone now But nonetheless we were on the threshold of really making some breakthroughs I mean important big-dollar breakthroughs when the fires hit in 2017 and when that happened all the of course those of you who were here The the attention shifted to shifted to the fires But even at that we had we had meetings monthly at the at the builders exchange with staff and We worked through issues to get these houses out of out of the city Get them started and get them built and we were the job was to knock down barriers and I Have so much to say But I don't have the time to do it today But I would like to ask that that you consider starting a group like we had back in Several several years ago. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Olivia followed by a Dina then Anna and Susan Olivia Okay, Adina And the former executive assistant to the Santa Rosa City Schools Board and I was forced out for questioning Non-profits tied to the school board the board president at the time was miss Jenny close Executive director of generation housing. I've seen many conflicts of interest for example miss Ali Gaylord Serves on the board for generation housing and she was The in charge of housing for the entire North Bay for midpen Which is on the proposal to Remove the development fees. That's a conflict of interest Mr. Peter Peter Rumble who spoke on behalf of the Metro Chamber also a generation housing board member Mr. Michael Allen the chair to Sonoma County Conservation Action Mr. Chris Rogers our council member his nonprofit where he's executive director So there's a lot of middlemaning that goes on and it doesn't benefit the taxpayers whatsoever I asked why generation housing was approved as a project of the Tide Center being that miss Jenny close had $85,000 in outstanding tax liens at the time. I was actually threatened by the federal government for asking this I wanted to see those financials which should be public record the tide centers located in the Presidio Which is apparently federal land? So I was threatened by the National Parks Police under the department of the interior who ironically funds the Tide Center There's no record of where the funding for these projects are going you want to bring in low-income housing the press Democrat has me Labeled as the domestic terrorists of the county because I'm an activist who can read as a brown person So now you're gonna bring more people from Vallejo where I just came from you can't even deal with me So how are you going to deal with more people of color when racism was labeled as a public health crisis? And if you're not somebody who is a token willing to go along with the agendas of white liberals You will be exiled from this county like I was so equity is a word that you use to push your agendas by indoctrinating Communities of color. Thank you vote Michael Thank you the next speaker will be Anna followed by Susan. Hi, my name's Anna Diaz and I am from Roseland What proof is that this will work? I am a loan signing agent I am seeing a non-stop pattern of us housing people from the Bay area who are moving to Sonoma County at a market price Rather than helping locals who rent rooms garages and trailers our local residents are being forced out of the area due to be these Raised housing fees. It didn't work in Sacramento as stated today. So please help me understand how I'll work in Santa Rosa I have concerns about utility about Generation age to influence any decision making on behalf of the City of Santa Rosa residents Their advocacy typically appears to be benefiting their friends and family serving on Generation H board rather than the community for example Ali Gaylord serves on the Generation Board Casa de Tierra's Roseland was endorsed by Generation H Mid-Pen housing will be completing the development Miss Ali Gaylord Secretary to the Gen H board was the direct the director of the housing development North Bay at the time of this project was approved Mid-Pen was included as the developer within Gen H letter requesting to waive development fees business deals are being Worked through Generation H