| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.40 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Councilmember Weiner? |
| 00:00:02.16 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | President. |
| 00:00:03.02 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Councilmember Leon. |
| 00:00:04.27 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Here. |
| 00:00:05.18 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Vice Mayor Theodorus. Present. |
| 00:00:06.83 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | President. |
| 00:00:07.51 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Mayor Withey. |
| 00:00:08.28 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Here, there are two closed session items, both conferences in connection with real property negotiation. There is no members of the public present, so I won't open for public comment. And so we will now adjourn into closed session. |
| 00:00:59.01 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the regular City Council, Sausalito City Council meeting for Tuesday, October 7, 2014. Lily, would you take the role, please? |
| 00:01:11.56 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Councilmember Pfeiffer? Here. Councilmember Weiner? |
| 00:01:14.65 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | President. |
| 00:01:15.01 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 00:01:15.58 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Councilmember Leone. |
| 00:01:17.28 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | here. |
| 00:01:18.08 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Vice Mayor Theodoros. |
| 00:01:19.22 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 00:01:19.24 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | present |
| 00:01:19.95 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Mayor Withey. |
| 00:01:21.20 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | here. Alice Merrill, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening? Again. Thank you. |
| 00:01:35.59 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 00:01:38.97 | Alice Merrill | to get involved. For which it stands. one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:01:48.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:55.02 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | We met in closed session to discuss two real property negotiation matters. Is there any public comment on the items that are in closed session? |
| 00:02:18.83 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Any public comment? No. Okay, then seeing none, we will move on and ask for approval of the agenda. So move. |
| 00:02:31.30 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | second. |
| 00:02:32.77 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:02:34.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:34.07 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I know. |
| 00:02:34.32 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:02:34.39 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Bye. |
| 00:02:35.53 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | There are no special presentations or mayor's announcements this evening. Item two on the agenda, therefore, is communications. And this is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. Does any member of the public this evening wish to communicate to the Council on any matter that is not on our agenda this evening? Okay, seeing none. Please, sir. |
| 00:03:12.59 | John Kassar | My name is John Kassar. I'm a resident of Sausalito off of Alexander. And I was at the planning meeting for the city yesterday for the new dock over at the ferry terminal. And I'm... I'm curious on what the council's plan is to actually hear from residents in terms of the approval or not approval plans that seem to be wanting to progress and really not knowing very much about it except for going to the meeting last night from Linda Pfeiffer and being invited, but I'm curious on what the council's process is to get the residents involved. |
| 00:03:55.78 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Normally, we are not able up here to comment on items that are not on the agenda. But perhaps I could ask our city manager to answer that question for you as to where the process is. |
| 00:04:13.38 | Adam Politzer | So there's two different processes that are on different tracks. The ferry water side improvements started years ago, and we've had presentations and update from the Golden Gate Ferry at city council meetings during that process, looking at various options along the way. And they are now to the point, as you saw at the meeting last night, where they are looking for the approval through BCDC. The land side improvements, which which is on the city side, hasn't started. And that process on how it links to the ferry landing will go through its normal public process where we have council presentations both going out for request for proposals to get design firms to compete for the opportunity and then we'll go through various committees and public meetings and we expect that that will take probably a year just through the design phase and having public meetings during that process. |
| 00:05:23.10 | John Kassar | So if I heard you correctly. |
| 00:05:34.87 | John Kassar | structure of the terminal itself. |
| 00:05:37.38 | Adam Politzer | I think that process happened years ago, and we just received a report from Gomiya Ferry at our last council meeting with an update, which is when it was announced that BCDC was the next step in their process. So at this point, that opportunity, and you can probably go back and watch and see some of the discussions that were held at our council meetings on the archive. But I'd be happy to either meet with you or meet with you with our public works director and help answer real specific questions that you may ask. |
| 00:06:20.81 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, Adam. Any other communications from any member of the public? Okay, action minutes of the previous meeting. I'm looking for a motion to approve as submitted, or is there any changes anybody would? |
| 00:06:38.57 | Vice Mayor Theodores | I think on the committee reports on the Butte Street, I believe that the report stated that the Butte Street task force was going to disband. I think we should note it in the record, and Councilman Pfeiffer, maybe you might want to give the exact. language of what was done. It's action minutes, but I think that was significant in the sense that... |
| 00:06:58.77 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Yes, the Butte Task Force recommended disbandment because we had received an appraisal and had made a recommendation to Council for open space and because a 401 open space Sausalito nonprofit was being formed, which we felt was the appropriate venue for fundraising. |
| 00:07:23.91 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Thank you. And I think it should be noted that the action minute on that point. And we said we discussed it, but I think it would be a good idea to have a little more detail on that. |
| 00:07:37.28 | Adam Politzer | I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, I could I can't let that stop at that point. I think what was referenced that evening was that that recommendation and those comments that Linda just shared will come to the council for formal discussion and action. that |
| 00:07:58.59 | Vice Mayor Theodores | I just wanted to note, actually, that we were informed at that time that the Beach Street Task Force had decided that it was going to disband. That's the important part to me. The level of detail probably doesn't need to be exact. I think we at least need to note that as we go back, and then we need to follow up on that. |
| 00:07:58.69 | Adam Politzer | I just want to... |
| 00:08:15.70 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I think to be very clear, the Butte Task Force voted to recommend to disband because of the nonprofit for the best venue for fundraising. And we can go back to my announcement and clarify, but I think that context of the 501 fundraising for open space being the right venue was an important aspect of the Butte Task Force's decision, and I did mention it when I talked about it, so I think that that gives context. |
| 00:08:44.59 | Unknown | We're here. |
| 00:08:44.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:44.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:54.50 | Vice Mayor Theodores | And actually, I think that part's in the minutes and the part that wasn't that they had decided to disband it. But let's just clarify. |
| 00:09:02.56 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay. |
| 00:09:03.03 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 00:09:03.29 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yeah. |
| 00:09:03.66 | Councilmember Lam | Do you know? Why don't we just direct the city clerk to revisit the prior tape and add clarity to a little more detail to the minutes for that item. |
| 00:09:13.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:13.48 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yeah. |
| 00:09:14.02 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Yeah, because I didn't see the 501 in here either. |
| 00:09:14.05 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 00:09:14.07 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 00:09:15.61 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, so is everybody happy that we get that clarification in the minutes? And so with that clarification, do I have a motion? |
| 00:09:24.70 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 00:09:24.72 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 00:09:24.77 | Councilmember Weiner | September. |
| 00:09:25.16 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | you All in favor. Aye. |
| 00:09:26.41 | Councilmember Weiner | Bye. |
| 00:09:30.00 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, the consent calendar. We have one, two, three, four, five items on the consent calendar. Is there any comments or questions up here before I ask if there's any from the residents? |
| 00:09:41.76 | Unknown | HE IS ABLE TO DO IT. |
| 00:09:41.83 | John Kassar | or |
| 00:09:42.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:49.29 | Mary Wagner | And, Mr. Mayor, just to be clear on item number 4A, which is the approval of the lease with Cass Gidley, there is a replacement page on the dais and there's copies available over here. It's the page 29 of 29, Exhibit D, the configuration of community voting center. So staff would ask that any approval of that item include this replacement page. |
| 00:09:58.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:58.74 | Unknown | place. |
| 00:10:13.52 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Is there any of our residents who would like to comment on any of the consent calendar items. OK, seeing none, can we have a motion to approve the consent calendar? Thank you. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? There are none. |
| 00:10:38.06 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:10:42.17 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | So For those who are here, particularly for one item, congratulations. |
| 00:10:59.42 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, our next and really only major topic this evening is item number six. Have I gone in the right order here? Yes, I have. Item number six, an update of the 2015-2023 housing element update. And Lily, is it, obviously Jeff will lead off? Okay. |
| 00:11:32.18 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to hand it off to Jeff from the Metropolitan Planning Group, who is the city's consultant. We also have Karen Warner here from Karen Warner & Associates. |
| 00:11:43.35 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Welcome, Jeff. |
| 00:11:45.98 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | and Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, staff, and members of the audience. |
| 00:11:53.89 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | We're here tonight to review the draft, the public review draft of the 2015 to 2023 housing element. It is an eight-year planning period, as distinguished from your previous cycles, which were typically in the five-year range. |
| 00:12:12.88 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | I'm going to give a... So, an introduction, explain where we've been, give some context about the first dozen slides, and then Karen will take us through the program. In terms of stepping back a little bit and just looking at where we are in terms of the whole global process, as the council recalls, the 2009 to 2014 housing element, which covers the time period we're in now, was adopted and approved by the City Council back in October of 2012. Subsequently, after additional public input and work on the implementing ordinances within the housing element. The element was amended. The HMU program was removed. A significant R3 site at 330 Ebtide was added that would allow multifamily development. That revised element was sent to HCD and was recertified in a fairly quick manner. A number of the programs and policies within the element have been implemented, and the review draft of the new element is now before you. There's been over 50 meetings, if you look at this as a continuous process between the element we're working on now and the previous element, going back to 2009 when things got kicked off and proceeding into quite a few meetings in 2010. Our group came along in 2011 to work alongside staff on this significant undertaking, a number of task force meetings, tours of development sites within the community, several large-scale mailings and public noticing for community meetings, as well as many updates to the council as we went along. In 2012, there was a joint planning commission and council meeting, two more meetings of the task force, and five planning commission meetings, and seven council meetings. So very active period for the council at that time. 2013, things quieted down a little bit as we started gearing up for the implementation phase. And then just this year alone, we've already had 12, a dozen subcommittee meetings, two community workshops, and four city council meetings. |
| 00:14:42.29 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | The city has made a lot of progress on implementing the programs called for in the housing element. This progress allows the city to submit for what's known as streamlined review to the Department of Housing and Community Development, which we'll refer to sometimes as HCD. And these ordinances included a new reasonable accommodation ordinance to help folks out who need some flexibility in the rules if they have a physical or mental disability that warrants that type of accommodation. It's both state and federal law, so it's really good, good common sense thing to have on the books and also brings the city into compliance. We have a density bonus ordinance now, also compliant with state law. We have an ordinance for emergency shelters as required. The city has a very successful ADU program now in place, supported by an ordinance for both existing or amnesty units as well as new construction units, which is a big success story. And also changes to the ordinance to support the construction of multifamily housing in multifamily zones, rather than incentivizing through the ordinances construction of very large single-family homes. We've developed a two-track process to get to this point. The first track is complete. It dealt with implementing all those ordinances that I just mentioned. We're now into the second track. We've been running parallel here for a while, but now the second track is moving ahead on its own, and that's really developing the new housing element with input from the housing element subcommittee, the community, as well as the Planning Commission and Council. So we're here on October 7th, this big red circle. pending your approval tonight, you're not adopting the element or approving the element. You're simply approving authorizing staff and the consultants to transmit the document to HCD in Sacramento for their review. They're allowed by statute up to 60 days for that process. So we'd really like to use the months of October and November to accommodate that 60-day review, come back to Planning Commission, late November, early December, and then back to council for adoption hearings towards the end of this year or early January. There is a January 31st deadline for adoption. We do have 120 days past that to allow for the certification process. If we miss that deadline, then instead of an eight-year cycle, we revert back to a four-year cycle. That's why it's a big red stop sign there. |
| 00:17:38.68 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | So the purpose of tonight's meeting is really to review the draft that the task – excuse me, the subcommittee has been working on and provide that authorization to submit the document for that 60-day review period. This brings a little bit of context for people who might be tuning in for the first time. We try to cover this at all our meetings so everyone has a common baseline of understanding. The housing element is a state-managed element within the general plan. The general plan is composed of seven mandatory elements of which housing is one of the major ones. And the housing element really has five major components. You're looking at review of past practices, past performance in terms of housing production within the community, housing policies that support affordable housing, looking at housing needs assessment, what are the real housing needs in the community, what are those populations that are sensitive to price increases in the market and may be being forced out of the community. We provide an evaluation of constraints to housing. Those constraints could be everything from lack of land to lack of financing to government regulations, processing times, anything that really inhibits the market from providing housing solutions within the community. Also, we identify residential sites. You'll hear us refer to this as the site's inventory. And through the site's inventory, we seek to show that we have enough capacity to meet what we call the RENA, which is the housing, the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. And finally, a program strategy to address the needs within the community, which we'll go into some detail here tonight. As mentioned, the city can be on an eight-year cycle if they meet the criteria of having an adopted housing element, a certified housing element from the previous cycle, having adopted all the required ordinances to be up to date and compliant with relevant state laws. Otherwise, we revert back to that four-year cycle. |
| 00:19:50.04 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | So to dive in a little deeper on the RHNA or the regional housing needs allocation, the general concept is that all the cities and counties in the state are required to zone for their fair share amount of housing. And there's really some fairly complicated formulas that go into that, but conceptually it's based on the state population growth. Whether we like it or not, every year population in California tends to grow quite a bit, and those folks have to live somewhere. We are the most populous state in the nation, and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. The other idea is that there's a mix of housing for all income segments, from very low income all the way up to above moderate income. And finally, the affordability is linked to both what the zoning allows and what the basic density is, with the general idea being that densities of a high enough level are supportive of affordable housing. And finally, the RHNA is a planning target. The jurisdictions are required to show you have capacity for this much housing. There's no requirement that the city allow or force or somehow create that housing themselves. |
| 00:21:05.56 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | We're frequently asked what are the risks of noncompliance. We've really identified these four things as the main risks, sort of in descending order of importance. We view housing element litigation as the most significant risk. There's a long list of jurisdictions that have been challenged legally, and nearly all of them are on the losing end of that equation. Not only are you responsible for your own – are the jurisdictions responsible for their own legal costs, but also the prevailing party, which can lead to risk number two, which is loss of local land use control, where you have the legal process really taking over. So the land use decisions are being made by a judge who is deciding where the affordable housing should go, what your zoning should be, and it can become rather drastic. Risk number three is the arena becomes cumulative. which Sausalito experienced with the 99 to 2006 and the 2009 to 2014 cycle. If the council remembers, within our existing element, we had to show that we could accommodate both of those RENOs, which compounds the challenge. And finally, the RENOs, which is the RENOs, which So the provision of a certified housing element becomes a prerequisite for a lot of the planning and transportation grants and some of the basic fundings that cities are eligible for. |
| 00:22:38.74 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | So a quick recap of the existing element. We had extensive community engagement, as detailed with the previous slides. At the end of the day, our charge was really to develop a low-impact strategy. And that came down to what we refer to as the three-legged stool of liveaboards, ADUs, and the infill strategy. And the infill strategy... was really focused on really looking at every parcel in the city in a fairly detailed manner and looking at, well, the zoning allows 10 units per acre. We have a half acre here. Historically, properties have been developing it 70% of their max allowance. Let's call it a reasonable three or four units on that property. So we went through property by property. We looked at constraints. We developed filters. And we came up with a realistic estimate of what could be developed under the city's existing general plan and existing zoning ordinances. That's a very important concept. So the site's inventory is simply a mirror that's held up to your existing zoning plan and says, what can come out of that? As mentioned, that document was adopted in 2012, and then a focused update was conducted and readopted in July of this year. |
| 00:24:03.70 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | And with that, Karen will take you through the changes from the existing element to the new element so you can have a good idea of where those are. Thank you. |
| 00:24:20.01 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Thank you, Jeff. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. The housing element before you tonight for the next eight-year period is really the housing element that you just adopted, readopted in July with very, very focused updates. And as you'll see, because the document is redlined to show where those changes are and the state reviews the element, they're only looking at what's changed This is really a byproduct of all the work that the community put into developing this approach for your adopted element. So the changes that I'm going to walk you through here really address the new RHNA, the city's progress in implementing many of the programs from the adopted element, and only one new program. So we'll unveil that one momentarily. |
| 00:25:26.11 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | The element consists of four chapters and then a series of appendices. And I'm going to kind of go through each of these chapters in a little bit more detail, but you can see that You know, very minor changes have been made to each of the Element chapters. And then similarly with the various appendices, so for example, the housing needs assessment, some of the new census data has been incorporated. But the conclusion on what the community's housing needs is entirely consistent with the element that was recently adopted. So starting with Chapter 1, the introduction, we had done some work to refine the Sausalito community context, and the Housing Element Subcommittee said, we like it the way it is. So we've kept the community context verbiage exactly as it was adopted. And we've updated the community participation within the introduction, and that's really the only change to that chapter. The housing plan, which is really the goals, policies, and programs, there is really a very focused update on the housing plan. certain programs to show your implementation. So, Program 8, your mixed-use program is updated to reflect first elimination of the horizontal mixed-use, the adoption of the vertical mixed-use. Program 10, your accessory dwelling unit program has been updated to show the city's progress in its ordinance and its amnesty program. And then similarly with liveaboards, that's been updated to reflect the current status of the liveaboards in the community. And then we have this new program, and I'm going to spend a little bit more time on the programs at the end of the overall overview of the element. Chapter 3 is the Housing Needs Summary, and this you can see the city's RHNA. and the |
| 00:27:58.97 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So the city's arena had previously been for 165 units over the 2007 through 2014 period. It's basically half of that now. It's 79 units over the next eight year period. Very consistent reduction with the reduction Marin County wide. Essentially they had a 50% reduction in their overall arena. So Sausalito pretty much mirrors what happened with the county. Housing Resources Chapter essentially keeps the same sites inventory that we had previously. with the exception of removal of the Butte Street site, because that is now further along with preserving it as open space, so that was no longer deemed a realistic development site, but otherwise the site's inventory remains unchanged. |
| 00:28:59.96 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | The housing needs assessment, while the data is updated, the conclusions really point to THE KEY NEEDS IN SAUSALETO BEING THE NEEDS OF ITS GROWING SENIOR CITIZEN COMMUNITY, THE NEEDS Marine persons in the, you know, marine occupations and persons living on boats, the needs for housing for families, since you've seen a significant decrease in families in the community with The constraints appendix reflects all of the ordinances that the Council just recently adopted. So the VMU ordinance, the density bonus policy, the ADU ordinance, the transitional and supportive housing and emergency shelters ordinance to address SB2. The vacant and underutilized sites inventory is identical with the removal of Butte Street And this is a map that shows the site's inventory in the element. The evaluation of accomplishments, so we reviewed the city's progress in implementing the 34 programs in the adopted element. And the city had, you know, a lot of most of the things that the city said it was going to do, it accomplished. So we have, you know, good progress here under the accomplishments. This is the summary table of the accomplishments where we look at the cities, for example, under new construction, the cities prior RHNA goal for 165 units. and the city's progress in actually what gets built. And this is the perfect example of showing how the arena is a goal, but the progress is, you know, you're not penalized for not meeting 165 newly constructed units. So of the city's 50 units that were produced during the time frame, 23 of those were single family homes. One was a residential above a commercial space. Six were new second units, 14 were amnesty second units, and I believe six were liveaboards that previously hadn't been counted in the Census. So again, it's this balance of different types of housing meeting the arena goal. Under rehabilitation, this was The goal was to have five rehabilitation loans made, and this is through the county. given the very short timeframe since the city adopted this element less than two years ago, there haven't been any rehab loans made. And then conservation refers to preserving all of the rent-restricted housing in the community, and that has been maintained. None of those rent-restricted units have converted to market rate. Appendix E is the community participation, and of course now this has been updated to reflect the community participation for this effort, which includes two community workshops and a total of 19 public meetings to date. |
| 00:32:37.84 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | And the housing element glossary with all the acronyms remains the same. |
| 00:32:43.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:44.82 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | I don't think we came up with any new ones. We have a lot. And as I mentioned, the site's inventory just as the one change with the removal of Butte Street. So just to touch a little bit more on the programs that reflect some modifications. So the mixed-use zoning program, Program 8, reflects the council adoption of the VMU, which includes the allowance for small second-story commercial space. and it reflects the elimination of the HMU. The ADU program reflects the adoption of the ordinance, establishes a goal for two new ADUs per year over an eight year period of 16, So it's a pretty ambitious goal for new ADUs, but we have, you know, this past trend of six new ADUs already being approved in a relatively short period, so we feel pretty comfortable being able to defend that. And then we've also included as part of the ADU program initiation of a second amnesty program. and a goal for 24 additional amnesty ADUs. And again, because of the city's track record with having many, many previously unpermitted accessory dwelling units coming forward and being brought up to code, we feel that this is a realistic goal. The new program is referred to as Junior Accessory Dwelling Inits. It's somewhat differentiated regular ADUs and that it's really within an existing single-family home, the repurposing of existing unused space, so be it a bedroom that's not being used or a den or what have you, and providing the appropriate improvements through a bathroom and kitchen facilities and separate access and creating an independent rental unit. And this is something that's being discussed in many of the Marin communities as a way to help seniors that are living alone, which Sausalito has a large percentage of it, seniors that are living alone in single family homes, to be able to remain in their homes, to have someone else that's bringing in some rental income or perhaps a caregiver. So this is a new program for the city to evaluate this concept and what type of standards would be appropriate for those type of units. The Live Aboard program has kind of two pieces. It's to coordinate with the two harbors that have BCDC permits currently. but don't have local city permits for live aboard. So that's Sausalito Yacht and Pelican. So it's to work with them to get their obtain local city permitting through a conditional use permit process. The other piece of the Live Aboard program is to coordinate with Sausalito Yacht Harbor to increase their Live Aboard capacity from the current 5% to the 10% that's permitted by BCDC. and permitted by the city. And in doing so, they would have capacity for 31 additional liveaboards, which could be credited towards the city's RHNA. So that's a program action to work with Sausalito Yacht to get the increased capacity up to 10%. The two programs that were deleted from the updated element have been implemented. So program 20 was the multi-family development in multi-family districts. that has been adopted and then the special needs zoning, and so those programs are no longer necessary as future program actions in the element. Program 20 reflects adoption of the density bonus ordinance and the prioritization of the Tier 1 incentives which are less impactful than the Tier 2 that would require Council approval. Program 22 is the Sausalito Senior Services and it reflects the establishment of the age friendly task force and the working towards a citywide plan of action for seniors. Program 24 is a reasonable accommodation ordinance. and Program 25 is the housing for marine workers, and specifically here is to established procedures for what's already in the city's zoning code, which is for low and moderate income occupancy preference until 50% of the live aboard residents are low and moderate income. And I'll turn it back to Jeff. |
| 00:38:17.90 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | This slide is simply a visual to demonstrate the low impact strategy where roughly a quarter of the housing potential is contained within liveaboards and accessory dwelling units, and three quarters is coming out of the infill strategy. |
| 00:38:17.93 | Unknown | This slide. |
| 00:38:18.37 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | is, is, |
| 00:38:35.45 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Next steps, as mentioned, is to review the draft document tonight with the public and hopefully direct staff and the consultants to submit the draft to HCD for their 60-day review period. We're hopeful that it will go quicker than that, but they are allowed that much time. During that time period, we will be busy working on the environmental review. So when this comes back to Planning Commission and Council, you would also be looking at the environmental document for the – in support of the housing element. And finally, thank you. And any members of the public who'd like to be on a mailing list for future meetings or require any additional information can contact Lilly. Her phone number and email address is here. And a lot of this information, all of this information is also on the city's website. Thank you. |
| 00:39:29.59 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, Jeff. So let me open it up for any clarifying technical questions up here that we may have of staff or our consultants. There may be, I don't know if there's going to be a lot of questions or a small number of questions. What I'd ask is that we try and mix it up a bit. So someone asks a question and maybe a sensible or a reasonable follow-up question, but then yield to one of their colleagues. So who wants to go first with any questions? I was on the House and Element Committee, so I've been through this word by word, so I really don't have much to say. So. |
| 00:40:20.23 | Councilmember Lam | So my question is how the impact of, you know, was recently adopted at the state level, the designation for in county from urban to suburban, does that impact this at all or in terms of our, STANDING. numbers of required units. |
| 00:40:43.30 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 00:40:43.31 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Thank you. |
| 00:40:43.34 | Councilmember Lam | Bye. |
| 00:40:43.50 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Oh, okay. New microphone. That was a significant change, the change from urban designation to suburban for Marin County. However, there was sort of a footnote within the existing scheme where smaller jurisdictions within urban counties were still allowed to use the suburban standard. So to put that to concrete numbers, the urban default density was 30 units per acre. However, since Sausalito was a city of less than 50,000 within an urban county, we were allowed to use the suburban standard, which was 20 units per acre. So for us, it's no change. |
| 00:41:29.03 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Council Member Pfeiffer. |
| 00:41:30.43 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So I'll start with an administrative question, and then I'll pass it around, but I do have a lot of questions on this. So my first question, I'm going to start with the administration with regards to the timeline and the deadline that was mentioned regarding January. This is very rushed. Folks have not had a chance to sit back and really review this second housing element. I think a lot of folks are still spinning over the last one that was just approved. And so it's my understanding that the January 31st deadline actually came from a Metropolitan Transportation Commission resolution. |
| 00:41:33.28 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Oh, sure. |
| 00:42:14.12 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Number 4035. and that this MTC resolution basically required jurisdictions to adopt housing elements by January 31st. But that, so, I mean, that to me doesn't really carry any weight because this is MTC staff Picking this deadline and MTC voting on it, the policy conflicts with – well, MTC has no authority with federal or state law, and the policy conflicts with Government Code 65583C7. So can you comment on that? |
| 00:42:59.17 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | I'm not familiar specifically with your MTC's adoption, but I know the adoption |
| 00:42:59.71 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I'm not. |
| 00:43:00.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:43:07.76 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | and the state's guidelines for all of the councils of governments throughout the state are directly tied in with the regional transportation plans, and that's in statute. the state statutes, and there is this 120-day grace period So, for ABAG, it is the January 31st with, you know, some float after that for adoption. |
| 00:43:47.77 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So it's my understanding the true deadline is May. |
| 00:43:53.00 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | The way it's in the statute is the deadline is January 31st, but there is a grace period. |
| 00:44:06.59 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, anybody else want to jump in? Okay, Council Member Pfeiffer, do you have another question? |
| 00:44:13.83 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Okay, are there no more questions? |
| 00:44:15.51 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Not at the moment, but there likely will be. |
| 00:44:17.41 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | OK. So I will move on to the VMU's. So on page nine, you list these reasons why you need the VMU, which is a high-density program that's not at all suitable for our small-town character. It will cause a lot of traffic congestion. Your first bullet says the VMU program is the only program in Saucyut's housing element which facilitates construction of affordable deed-restricted housing. So I did a word search in Housing Element Code. I could not find deed restricted. I could not find requirements for deed restricted. So maybe you can enlighten me on that. And the other question I had is with regards to programs, I know that I think in 2004, the city of Sausalito produced a letter of credit for neighborhood approved affordable housing for Rotary Village. And so to me, it seems like that letter of credit, which allowed Rotary housing to get low interest, you know, bonds or loans or what have you, would qualify for a program that facilitates the construction of affordable deed restricted housing. It has no impact on taxpayers and it does not involve, you know, the city putting up funds. Another, so my question is, would that be an example of a program that would facilitate construction of affordable housing and the second program that I wanted to mention |
| 00:46:02.45 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Council Member Pfeiffer, that's the second question you've asked. Now you're on to your third. |
| 00:46:06.32 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | No, they're... |
| 00:46:09.35 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Maybe we could have the consultants answer your first two questions. Okay. |
| 00:46:13.22 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Okay, sure. Is this still on? Yes. Okay. you So the footnote that is associated with the reference in the staff report on page 9, that VMU is the only program which facilitates the construction of affordable deed restricted housing. The statutory reference I think is a little more precise in terms of what we need to have a program to do, which is I think that's a good question. DEED RESTRICTED. or not, if you were in a community, some of the more rural communities that I've worked in, Barstow for example, they're able to provide affordable housing in the marketplace. In a place like Sausalito, that doesn't happen. what type of tool can you use to achieve affordable housing. um, and that's usually going to require deed restriction. the idea about the letter of credit for Rotary, Something like that could be a program, but it would have to be I think that's a good question. And that would definitely address that statutory requirement. |
| 00:48:09.00 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Yes, because we have a track record of doing that, in fact, with great success. And my question regarding your answer, the follow-up question I have regarding your answer for the deed restriction. is linked to the letter of credit program that the city had already implemented or at least worked with Rotary on earlier, which is Rotary housing, you know, produces affordable housing and the density bonus kicks in. So that would qualify for deed restriction through regulatory compliance. |
| 00:48:48.35 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | And density bonus, is something that is working towards this statutory requirement, but that on its own isn't going to make it because Um... Again, if the city had a track record of doing a lot of density bonus projects, if you had nonprofit that you were working with and had a site, that would be another matter. But it has to be a program that has some realistic ability to be implemented. |
| 00:49:26.69 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Okay, so the first program would qualify, from what you just said earlier. |
| 00:49:27.25 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | We'll see you next time. |
| 00:49:34.86 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Well, yes, we do have a track record with the letter of credit. I'm going back to the letter of credit. |
| 00:49:38.74 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So we don't have a program for future units with a nonprofit. I mean, it would need to be developed to that level of specificity where you have an actual, you know, something that is going to occur. Not that you could, you have in the past provided a letter of credit and, you know, that's going to be your tool in the future to meet the needs of lower income. |
| 00:50:05.27 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | I have a follow-up. |
| 00:50:06.95 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I have a follow-up question after the rest of the council. |
| 00:50:10.65 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Sure. Okay. |
| 00:50:13.25 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. Sure. Can you clarify one of the things that we discussed in the last two years is both inclusionary programs as well as sort of in lieu of development fees as a way to kind of facilitate some development of affordable housing. Can you clarify why either the subcommittee or why you folks, through the process, decided not to include those programs? I gather there's some pluses and minuses to some, or particularly on the development fees, that maybe that doesn't carry as much weight as it used to carry with HCD in terms of being a proactive plan. |
| 00:50:56.40 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | I think that's a good question. that is something the city did adopt in the future, that is would fulfill that statutory requirement to be a program that is assisting in the development of housing for lower income households. That is what most of the communities in Marin have. We don't have that currently, but that's a possibility. Right. So that is a possibility. |
| 00:51:22.99 | Councilmember Lam | that currently, but that's a possibility. And as far as the in lieu fees, |
| 00:51:29.96 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So are you talking about like on commercial development and commercial impact fee? |
| 00:51:34.26 | Councilmember Lam | Or over a certain size of residential where you would collect in lieu fees if it wasn't feasible or whatever. |
| 00:51:41.67 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Right, and that's usually tied in on the residential side, that's usually tied in with an inclusionary program. So if you don't provide the affordable unit, you pay the fee, which certainly could be part of what an inclusionary program could look like here in the future. Thank you. |
| 00:51:59.90 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Bye. I have a follow-up. Council Member Fifer. So back to the letter of credit program, which we said on principle would qualify for that, for Government Code 655832C. We saw up here that one of the goals was looking at the Saucido Yacht Harbor with regards to expanding their, you know, their liveaboards from 5% to 10%. |
| 00:52:01.70 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Council member Fyfer. |
| 00:52:02.72 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 00:52:02.92 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Thank you. |
| 00:52:02.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:02.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:24.86 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | And I know that some of the yacht harbors, you know, that would like to count liveaboards for the low income and include that diversity from that community. They need ADA, they need, you know, various things to get BCD certification. So could this letter of credit apply to potential programs with respect to our liveaboards? |
| 00:52:52.90 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | It could certainly be something that you use to augment your Live Aboard program. Um... The LiveAboard program, though, isn't addressing this for the new construction of affordable housing, so it's not that statutory piece that we're trying to meet through the VMU program. |
| 00:53:15.13 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Could we use it for junior ADUs for seniors on fixed incomes? |
| 00:53:15.14 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Bye. |
| 00:53:22.15 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | not new constructions. |
| 00:53:26.26 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So not new construction. So this is... |
| 00:53:28.10 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So this part of the statute is specifically looking at the new construction of affordable housing for extremely low, very low, low, and moderate income households. |
| 00:53:40.07 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So how are ADUs not potentially new construction? |
| 00:53:47.34 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | ADUs are new construction, but we're not looking at that as meeting the affordability requirement of this portion of the statute. |
| 00:53:57.85 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | When... |
| 00:54:01.45 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | It's complicated. ADUs are our meeting. a part of that, but they're not meeting the full spectrum of that affordability. |
| 00:54:16.25 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I don't understand. |
| 00:54:17.41 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | extremely low, the statute specifically is saying extremely low, which is 30% of income. |
| 00:54:23.76 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | How do ADUs not, I mean, I have friends who fit that income category, and they are in, you know, lovely second units, and that meets that qualification, so I don't understand. But affordable. |
| 00:54:23.77 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | How do a |
| 00:54:35.52 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | I don't understand. MS. But affordable, too, they need to – affordable, too, is not spending more than 30 percent of your income on your rent. So when you're talking about new construction of an ADU. Um, the rent level would need to be, I don't have it in front of me, but very, very limited to be affordable to an extremely low or a very low income household. |
| 00:55:01.89 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Right. |
| 00:55:02.33 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So it's... They are meeting part of that statute, but they aren't low enough for the newly constructed ADU. |
| 00:55:11.46 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | And what about existing? It has to be new construction. Well, I disagree on the assumptions you're making regarding junior ADUs and ADUs with new construction. And... |
| 00:55:13.67 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | to be new construction. |
| 00:55:25.87 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Regarding the Sasoro Yacht Harbor or other marinas, the slips are not currently designated liveaboard. So wouldn't those qualify as new? construction because they're currently being occupied by luxury boats and they could feasibly be replaced with live awards. |
| 00:55:54.85 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | I highly doubt that the state would count that, you know, so for example, we have the extra capacity of 31 units in Sausalito Yacht if it went through the permitting process at BCDC and through the city. to have those additional 31 slips I highly doubt the city would count that as affordable new construction to meet this part of the statute. |
| 00:56:24.63 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Okay, that's an opinion. So I have more questions, but I yield to the rest of the council. |
| 00:56:34.01 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | No? Okay. Please carry on, Council Member Falk. |
| 00:56:36.58 | Councilmember Lam | Really? I do have one question. So in the CC district, |
| 00:56:36.88 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:56:36.90 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | You're right. |
| 00:56:42.25 | Councilmember Lam | And then, you know, the historic district Why in some of the – and this is just having not been a part of the subcommittee meetings, is that not – are we not counting any units from – I think is it the vertical VMU? And how did that sort itself out that way? |
| 00:57:02.86 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | The VMU program was instigated on the idea of providing residential units over the commercial space in all of those commercial zones that allowed residential. So that was the CN1, the CR, and the CC. That was the general approach. But once we got into the actual sites analysis and finding sites that had the residential that were big enough and didn't have any other constraints that would preclude that, it just happened to be that none of the CC sites made it out of that analysis. |
| 00:57:37.35 | Councilmember Lam | because of the number of possible units. But if you converted, say, existing office to residential, that wouldn't count against? |
| 00:57:39.98 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Right. |
| 00:57:48.64 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | No, we had some sites that we identified that were considered underutilized office space. They would be considered candidates for conversion to residential, but if it was a fully leased, you know, two-story office building with well-established tenants, we didn't presume that that would convert to residential. |
| 00:58:09.65 | Councilmember Lam | Okay. And I think that's a good question. |
| 00:58:14.84 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So there's another program that the city does to encourage, which I believe it's a program that would encourage the development or assist in the development of adequate housing one of the things that the city does is it allows rotary to park on city-owned land during the art festival and they raise tens of thousands of dollars I mean cumulatively over the years on that and so that's like that's another you know example of the city helping with affordable housing does that Is that something that applies? |
| 00:58:55.46 | Unknown | you |
| 00:58:55.51 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I mean, if it was linked to liveaboards or ADUs or junior units. |
| 00:58:55.55 | Unknown | I mean, |
| 00:58:55.97 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | INSTITUTION. |
| 00:58:56.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:59:01.18 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | I just at first blush, I think one of the challenges would be that Rotary does a lot of other things besides affordable housing. And so if they're raising funds through a parking partnership with the city for special events, there'd have to be some way to tie, if it were part of a program within the housing, there'd have to be some way to tie that back fairly concretely to a housing purpose. |
| 00:59:23.74 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Yeah, and that could be done. I have more questions, but I yield to... |
| 00:59:31.05 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:59:31.62 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 00:59:31.64 | Vice Mayor Theodores | you've studied it then. |
| 00:59:35.00 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Oh, okay. All right. So, um... |
| 00:59:35.18 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Go for it. I've sat through dozens of subcommittee meetings. |
| 00:59:40.03 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | needed so. Bye. Okay, so I have a couple other questions regarding the ADUs and the count of ADUs. I've heard about this housing element being described as a three-legged stool. I certainly don't see that when 72% of this is infill, the VMU program, with only 12% liveaboards. So I'm looking at the ADUs and... such a small amount is being counted. And I guess my question is, why are we counting just two new ADUs per year when we have a 2010 citywide survey that showed up to 115 potential future new ADUs. And then we're also adding the junior ADU plan to that as well. So to me, why – doesn't – I don't understand why we're not counting more for new construction and ADUs, because that would then alleviate the need for the VMU as well. Because it covers the very low income. |
| 01:00:56.42 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So I think that's a good question. So, you know, the survey shows potential, as you're saying, for over 100 additional ADUs. When you're looking at counting them in a sites inventory, you have to go based on your rate. So that's where we were looking at your rate of what had been approved. since you adopted the ordinance. The ADU program, and we talked about this, that we have to do with the new construction and development of very low-income housing. So, I think that's a good question. |
| 01:01:50.03 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I understand that part, but my prior set of questions spoke to potential programs that would satisfy that other requirement. So then it would lead to the need for addressing the very low income, and so that's why I'm asking this follow-up question. |
| 01:02:09.39 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | So I'm not sure what else you're asking, but... |
| 01:02:13.98 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So what you're saying to me is if we had a program or programs that fulfilled that first bullet, then we wouldn't need the VMUs. |
| 01:02:23.38 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Right. |
| 01:02:31.49 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | In other words, the programs I asked about the letter of credit with the liver boards and the junior units. |
| 01:02:33.11 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Thanks. |
| 01:02:38.18 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | But as I was trying to indicate, is indicating that the city in the past has helped facilitate rotary build an affordable project by offering a letter of credit. and that the program is the city will offer letter credit in the future, that wouldn't be strong enough. It would need to be very precise with a site, a developer, and, you know, I don't see that you have that. |
| 01:03:09.16 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I'm looking at it for the Live Aboard program again. |
| 01:03:09.18 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:03:15.22 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | And I think I responded that I don't think that that's going to meet that statutory. Yeah, I understand. |
| 01:03:17.01 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yeah. |
| 01:03:18.16 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I know. Yeah, I understand. |
| 01:03:20.77 | Vice Mayor Theodores | I would. |
| 01:03:21.43 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Please. |
| 01:03:23.07 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | you |
| 01:03:23.15 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:03:23.27 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 01:03:23.84 | Vice Mayor Theodores | I'm... In the report and in other documentation, you have a set of criteria that every program would need to meet to substitute it, correct? Is that correct, Karen? |
| 01:03:38.96 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | Oh, in terms of... |
| 01:03:40.67 | Vice Mayor Theodores | The program that the VMU satisfies has a set of criteria. So I think what would be helpful to us when these questions are asked, that a program, would a program satisfy this need, I think it would be a good idea just to So I would request in response so that when we're clear about it, that we know that the why certain programs and I think so that because one of the problems we've had sometimes answers are given just one part of it, And to be very clear, to give a comprehensive answer about why a particular program wouldn't be. And again, there are only certain amount of elements, and it'd be good to apply them to each one. That'd be helpful in terms of our understanding of your responses. |
| 01:04:32.42 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | And I will just respond to that. I didn't hear a question in there. |
| 01:04:38.31 | Vice Mayor Theodores | The question was, do you have elements for programs? |
| 01:04:44.01 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Well, they do on page 9. They have those bullets as to specific requirements for the VMU. And I started my reference with the first bullet, which appears to be the right. No, I understand. Which appears to be the primary rationale for the whole VMU program, which just boggles my mind. I have a question about the buffers. |
| 01:05:00.55 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Can I... |
| 01:05:03.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:03.39 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Before we move on, so do we? Yeah. Buffer, council member, yeah. |
| 01:05:05.68 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Yeah. |
| 01:05:08.01 | Councilmember Lam | Sure. So my understanding from both the prior cycle and from this document is that the vertical mixed-use program addresses not only the deed restriction component or the actual affordable housing component, but the multifamily component as well as the multibedroom component, where nowhere else in here do we have something that relates to those factors independently. You know, the ADUs don't address multi-bedroom or multi-family, and the certainly liveaboard do not address those either in terms of multi-family and multi-bedroom. So that's my understanding from the, if that's, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding of where that program sets itself apart from the other programs that are in here. |
| 01:05:31.55 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:05:53.86 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | You're exactly right. and the other thing is that we have to do a lot of work on the other side of the building. So, you know, I think that's a good question. the family, it really gets at that by requiring the affordable units to have at least two bedrooms, where without the VMU you don't really have anything getting to that aspect. |
| 01:06:36.08 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I have a follow-up question. So actually the multifamily requirement we met through the R3s, and we worked with the state on that in clarifying that. And the two-bedroom we clarified with the state that there was no income requirement with regards to two bedrooms. It's the RHNA applies to units, not size. And then the requirement for a variety of houses or the family housing with the two bedrooms could apply to any income unit in any income. Leveled. So we meet that with the immoderate. |
| 01:07:10.54 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | And so that's where I'm saying you don't have anything that is specifically addressing family housing without this VMU component. However, because you do have R3 sites and you could have family units there, you probably would be seen as sufficient, but you don't really have anything proactive as, you know, this is one of your needs, how are you going to provide for families? |
| 01:07:42.60 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | We do, though. I mean, but we do. Yeah. |
| 01:07:44.66 | Unknown | I mean, Yeah. |
| 01:07:46.97 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I mean, that's crazy. I mean, that doesn't make any sense because we've |
| 01:07:53.20 | Unknown | I mean... |
| 01:07:55.72 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Does it make sense? It's probably not a good idea to call guys crazy. We should be civil to them and be nice to them. |
| 01:07:55.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:07:56.14 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 01:07:56.24 | Unknown | say? |
| 01:07:56.51 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Thank you. I mean, no, I mean, I wasn't calling you. I wasn't calling you. We should be civil to them and be nice to them. I was saying that concept of the state you know, making assumptions about sizes of units is crazy when we haven't built the units yet. And we know that certain parcels are sized in a certain way and so could be two bedroom and could be for families. So that's – that was the sentiment. I was just flabbergasted. |
| 01:08:26.44 | Karen Warner (Karen Warner & Associates consultant) | That was... And that's the distinction I was making is they could be the VMU program is actually you know, an incentive program and requiring the family. So it's more of a proactive to address that need where the other is, you know, it could theoretically occur, but may or may not. |
| 01:08:49.02 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Okay, we'll have to agree to disagree on that in interpretation. Go ahead. |
| 01:08:52.25 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:08:55.94 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | So maybe I could ask you to clarify for us. There's been a lot of narrative in the community about the fact that we appear to have a very large buffer. And my understanding was originally the concept of the buffer was to have HCD assured, especially with less mature programs, that it's almost like a bit of a risk adjustment, that if you had more, if one didn't get adopted as fast, then you still probably could make your numbers. But we have a large amount because of our infill strategy. So could you help us understand or help, in particular, those who are watching understand what this actually is, how it works, and what it means? |
| 01:09:24.60 | Unknown | Bye. Thank you. |
| 01:09:54.35 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Sure. I'll take a stab at that. So you're absolutely correct. The infill strategy is really looking at the existing zoning and general plan designations within the community and showing what can be built under the existing rules. On top of that, however, we also overlaid some filters to add some realistic probability to it. So sites that were very steep, we took off. Sites that were listed on a list of historic properties, we took off. Sites that had known serious environmental issues, we took off. Sites that were developed with fairly modern, highly valued structures, we took off unless there was some underutilized portion of the site that could be utilized. So it was really trying to zero in on realistic development capacity within the community. |
| 01:10:50.24 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | I'm just... Sorry. It was. |
| 01:10:51.72 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | And once you do that, it becomes difficult to go back and say, well, we're going to take these sites off because we think our number is too high. Because the entire approach is really getting away from picking a small number of sites and trying to pump up the density on those sites. It's simply looking at all of the sites, small, medium, and large, and seeing what can reasonably be developed on the sites. |
| 01:11:16.97 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | And again, for people both here and listening, and that's just assuming our current zoning. It's not assuming we're doing anything to up the zoning, change the density. It's our current zoning allows those numbers. |
| 01:11:37.11 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | It's the current zoning, but also with some reductions for realistic densities, because the cities don't typically approve projects at 100% of the maximum density. And so we dialed them back based on past practices of the city. |
| 01:11:52.88 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Was there any other questions on the buffer? |
| 01:11:55.34 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Yes, I have some, Mr. Mayor. So is the, so by buffer, just to clarify, the Sacramento, the Department of Housing and Community Development has given us a RENA regional housing needs allocation of 79 units. |
| 01:11:56.60 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:12:10.98 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | And the recommendation in this housing element is 250. The buffer is 171. extra additional units above and beyond what the state is asking us to do. is Is a buffer legally required? |
| 01:12:30.44 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | No. |
| 01:12:31.22 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | No. Okay. So My concern about this is that Isn't it the case that when we put If we put these sites, these units, into our housing element, aren't we in effect giving up much of our local control? for potentially downsizing those in the future. And we are letting our future councils and future planning commissions seed their opportunities to shape the scale and the flow of our city by baking these units right into the housing element. Isn't that the case? Because when we put in the housing element, it's law. It's part of that housing element COAT. |
| 01:13:33.70 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | our view is that it accomplishes the exact opposite of what you described, for the simple reason that if we came in showing exactly 79 units within the inventory and a project came to the council with 10 units proposed and you decided it was too many and you approved it for five, the city would then have to go out almost immediately and identify some other site to make up the shortfall. |
| 01:13:44.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:14:01.89 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | But these, as a follow-up question, clarifying question to that is Those 171 units aren't going anywhere. If we don't put them in the housing element, they're still here. So, I mean, what is the problem with going with 79? And, you know, frankly, I think this housing element seriously undercounts the number of ADUs we will be having over the next eight years. Looking at these programs, the likelihood of far overshooting 79 is, to me, very realistic. Is there a question there? Yeah, my question is that if we, |
| 01:14:40.78 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:14:40.80 | Alice Merrill | Is there a question there? |
| 01:14:42.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:14:42.13 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:14:42.18 | Unknown | Yeah, my |
| 01:14:42.72 | Alice Merrill | Michael. |
| 01:14:46.11 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I mean, if we don't put them in, they're still there. It's easy for us to go back and just Submit them to ACD for recertification. And we haven't put... |
| 01:14:57.74 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Could we answer the question? |
| 01:14:59.24 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | at a question? |
| 01:15:02.40 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | If... So the exact question was, Why don't we go down to 79 and then add more in if they have – Isn't it the case that those 171 units are not – |
| 01:15:10.62 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Isn't it the case that those 171 units are not going anywhere? |
| 01:15:13.99 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Bye. Yeah, the analysis is based on factors that are essentially set, size of properties, existing zoning and general plan regulations, which could conceivably be changed in the future, but for now, let's just consider those a given. One advantage of keeping the inventory intact, as it were, as simply a reflection of this communities housing development capacity is that as future planning periods come along, the arena could go up or it could go down. We've seen it within just the three periods that we've been involved with. It's gone from 207 to 165 and now down to 279. And to Council Member's Pfeiffer point, yes, we could go back and reconstruct the site's inventory at some point, but it has a certain logic to it if the goal is to identify realistic development capacity within the community to keep that constant, given that the parameters haven't changed. |
| 01:16:14.32 | Unknown | I have a follow-up. |
| 01:16:14.64 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I have a follow-up question along the same lines unless... |
| 01:16:15.87 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:16:18.98 | Vice Mayor Theodores | That's a long thing. |
| 01:16:19.65 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Okay, go ahead. |
| 01:16:19.72 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:16:19.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:19.87 | Vice Mayor Theodores | THE FAMILY IS NOT ABLE TO |
| 01:16:21.37 | Unknown | Thank you. Um, |
| 01:16:22.17 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Thank you. When you count up to 250, Okay. You were merely counting, and tell me if this is correct, that you're merely counting parcels that have development capacity without any change to them whatsoever by the housing element, correct? |
| 01:16:38.69 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:16:39.16 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Okay. And by listing them, because we are only listing these parcels on the housing element as potential for development, by listing them, does that foreclose the city in any way from changing zoning or anything on any particular property? |
| 01:16:54.74 | Unknown | No. Thank you. |
| 01:16:56.95 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:16:56.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:57.11 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | you |
| 01:16:57.79 | Councilmember Lam | clarification and of the 171, 101 of them are, you know, market rate, moderate income. Is that correct? I mean, that's so, um, you know, that where the market goes is where the market goes. So it's really, um, the remaining 74 that may. And the other way is how would you reduce this number? You know, even if you wanted to, you'd be taking away from your whole level of analysis in your argument already is by saying, this is the city zoning, and this is what could happen realistically taking these criteria of slope, what's already built off the table, How would you go about, even if you wanted to reduce it, how would you come up with a logic? It would be hard to come up with a straight-faced argument to say there are further restrictions on what's developable under the current zoning. I mean, you have to come up, I don't know what those might be, but they might be arbitrary in nature rather than practical in purpose. |
| 01:18:09.24 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Is that, I mean, could you? |
| 01:18:10.98 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | THE END OF THE END OF THE I would agree with that question slash statement. Sorry. I forgot to do the jeopardy. |
| 01:18:15.10 | Councilmember Lam | Sorry, I forgot to do the Jeopardy! Ask a statement in the form of a question. Okay, I have a question. Yeah. |
| 01:18:17.02 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Yeah. Good statement. |
| 01:18:18.15 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Bye. |
| 01:18:18.27 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:18:18.32 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I have a question. Okay, I have a question. Yeah. So how are we exposing the city to increased liability by doing this buffer? I'm a developer, and I go and I want to – I see one of these 171 extra units is in the housing element, and now I want to go and – |
| 01:18:20.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:18:43.28 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | and maximize it, the neighborhoods in an uproar, and I use the tools at my disposal to because it's in the housing element. It's been baked in. So how does this enhance or rather increase the city's liability? for litigation. |
| 01:19:03.98 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Maybe our city attorney could come in here |
| 01:19:08.42 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:19:08.49 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 01:19:08.50 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | doesn't. |
| 01:19:09.69 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:19:10.72 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | You know, it's interesting because I've talked to someone who was a lawyer, you know, for housing elements. And, you know, when you put units in a housing element, it carries weight. |
| 01:19:24.72 | Mary Wagner | If I may, Mr. Mayor, I think that the context that Jeff described earlier, which is if you have a – |
| 01:19:26.09 | John Kassar | Yes. |
| 01:19:31.72 | Mary Wagner | a site's inventory that closely matches your RHNA allocation you can run into the situation that Council Member Pfeiffer is addressing, where you've got, the site that develops at less than what its development capacity is under the zoning regulations And then you have to modify your element to reflect the fact that units were actually constructed that were less than what were identified in the the capacity to meet URENA with the remaining units. So I think Jeff's point earlier was that it's exactly the opposite, that by identifying the units or identifying the development capacity of the city within the element under existing zoning regulations with no changes, you're actually potentially protecting the city from that very argument that because the site develops at a different capacity than what was identified in the site's inventory, that the city would be exposed to risk, you're actually reducing that chance. |
| 01:20:32.61 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | So is there any other sort of major topics of questions? Because I think it might be beneficial at this point to hear from the public. |
| 01:20:45.32 | Councilmember Weiner | I just want to make some clarification about Rotary. Rotary is a 501. |
| 01:20:49.82 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Is this a question, Council Member Weiner? |
| 01:20:52.77 | Councilmember Weiner | No, it's just clarification because the statement was made that the money goes right to housing. It doesn't. There's a separate housing corporation. That money goes to their fund, and that board of directors that they have, their board can vote because the rules usually for rotary housing is once you move in, the rents don't go up. So sometimes costs go up and the Rotary will transfer funds, but the money doesn't go directly. |
| 01:21:23.98 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | into housing okay thank you for that clarification so I'm suggesting that we open this up to for public comment and I'd like to remind you that your public comment is limited to three minutes per person and I'm assuming there's some Folks in our audience here wants to talk. So please. And I'm assuming there's some folks in our audience here who wants to talk. So please, go ahead. |
| 01:21:59.62 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Mr. Skelton, good evening. |
| 01:22:02.77 | Chris Skelton | Good evening, Councilmembers. |
| 01:22:07.01 | Chris Skelton | Just your flexibility, I'd like to request a couple additional minutes. I'm here this evening representing a group of concerned citizens regarding this housing element update. And I promise not to take any more time than is absolutely necessary because I know you have sat through many hearings on this issue as you identified earlier. |
| 01:22:13.20 | John Kassar | to the community. |
| 01:22:26.65 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Exactly. And I had extended once the courtesy in a housing elements subcommittee meeting to extend public comment time. But this is a city council meeting and we have clear rules. |
| 01:22:38.53 | Chris Skelton | Okay. I will speak quickly. This evening is more than a mental exercise in achieving an eight-year housing element update cycle. When I read the staff report, I thought, why? Why, after the dissatisfaction over the prior housing element cycle, the HMU and VMU ordinance escapades, and the countless public hearings over the past year, |
| 01:22:39.29 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 01:22:39.71 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 01:23:04.82 | Chris Skelton | Would you receive a housing element update like this and present it to HCD? Suggestions to nearly quadruple the RHNA, promote the VMU, and ignore the lessons learned from the last cycle regarding inventory constraint parameters seem to blatantly disregard the message sent from residents in the recent past. It's unclear where this agenda is coming from, but it's not an objective, responsive path to compliance that the residents of Sausalito deserve. Remove the HMU program from the housing element update. The pamphlet goes, the pamphlet that was distributed this past week, It goes to great length to justify continuation of the VMU program, citing satisfaction of three considerations Councilmember Pfeiffer spoke on some of these during her question and answer period. It includes the arena, the affordable housing, and the type of housing. While it may be true that the VMU program contributes to all three of these considerations, which are required by state law None of the considerations fail in the absence of the VMU. thereby making the program unnecessary. |
| 01:24:33.11 | Chris Skelton | The VMU is not required to satisfy the RHNA numbers or the RHNA buffer. which is bloated to approximately 200 percent. The VMU is not necessary to accomplish any level of affordable housing which is evidenced by Table 4.1. I have a copy of that table. It's been distributed in your packets. It's very simple math. You remove the commercial district capacity in all four of the income categories, and all four of the income categories remain satisfied. It's easy math. It's not a necessary program. Alternative programs have been presented by council members. And it's important to consider these as you move forward. Additionally, the VMU is not necessary to accomplish a variety of housing under the three-legged been identified this evening that there are multi-family districts and other tools at your disposal that accomplish a variety of housing types. Most importantly, the VMU sacrifices future local land use decision making because it requires that if one unit is constructed above commercial ground floor, that unit must be two bedrooms and it must be deed restricted. This is not what local control looks like. So... We ask that you relegate the VMU to the footnote next to the HMU program. This single act will not cause the housing element to fail. And at least you will have tried to represent the residents. by putting it at HCD's foot to make the decision. If you are fearful that the removal of the VMU will render the housing element update deficient, We ask that you explore alternative sites by requesting that the list of excluded properties under the constraint parameters proposed by the consultants, be evaluated. I just want to take you in a quick time. Thank you, Chris. Time poured. |
| 01:26:45.55 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, Chris. You're way over your limit. Thank you. |
| 01:26:50.15 | Chris Skelton | For the HMU program, we found a 40.7% slope. That saved the HMU. I think there's an opportunity to do the same for the VMU. |
| 01:26:51.49 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, sir. |
| 01:26:52.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:59.15 | Chris Skelton | Thank you. |
| 01:26:59.22 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:26:59.45 | Chris Skelton | We ask that you drop the VMU. and challenge the consultants to come back one more time with a housing element that represents everyone's best interest. Thank you for your consideration. |
| 01:27:09.44 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you for your consideration. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to speak for three minutes, please? |
| 01:27:18.05 | Susan Shea | Good evening, Council members. Good evening, Mayor. |
| 01:27:20.27 | Unknown | email. |
| 01:27:21.54 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Hello. |
| 01:27:22.20 | Susan Shea | My name is Susan Shea. I live at 522 Spring Street. It's good to be back talking about the housing element again. I just want to echo some of the comments that have been made. First of all about the buffer. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask a question or whether I'm just able to make comments, my question would be if we have a buffer, does that then eliminate the use of those housing units? in the next. after 2023. Are those 171 units not up for grabs anymore? |
| 01:28:09.38 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | I'll actually ask the staff to answer that question, but do you have anything? What else do you want to say? I'll make sure that's answered at the end. |
| 01:28:16.64 | Susan Shea | And then my second point is the one that Chris just brought up, which is reevaluating these filters. I think it was extraordinarily upsetting to the area where I live that by increasing that degree on that filter, suddenly we found 30 units that had been sitting there the entire time. And our entire neighborhood spent thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, when we were hoping that the consultants were doing due diligence in terms of these filters and making them realistic. So reviewing these filters, I think, would be quite important. And then my third comment in my last minute and 15 seconds is... In all of your handouts and all of your information about this process, you talk a tremendous amount about community input. And I have really appreciated the amount of time that the community has had. However, my main concern is that the makeup of the actual subcommittee or task force does not have one citizen on it. It has two council members and two |
| 01:29:38.72 | Unknown | One. |
| 01:29:45.42 | Susan Shea | Thank you. missionaries. |
| 01:29:47.17 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Planning Commissioners. |
| 01:29:49.15 | Susan Shea | Where are the citizens on that subcommittee? Thank you. I would just ask that this go around, that we not have this adopted tonight, that we take some time to think about this. because there are still people that are quite angry about the last go around and I think you really need to take some time and get some citizens on your subcommittee to review some of these issues. Thank you. |
| 01:30:15.42 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Council members and planning commissioners are citizens too, so we have to keep that in mind. We all live here and we're all citizens. |
| 01:30:15.88 | Susan Shea | Council Member |
| 01:30:21.34 | John Kassar | Thank you. |
| 01:30:21.36 | Susan Shea | We have a great day. |
| 01:30:21.43 | John Kassar | All right. |
| 01:30:24.95 | Susan Shea | I'm not saying that, but I think you get my point, which is that... You're all insiders. Some people outside of the hall. |
| 01:30:33.11 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Right. Could I ask Could I ask a consultant or someone to answer a couple of those questions? And could I also ask you to remind folks that of what the role, or perhaps, Lily, you might want to do this, what the respective roles of the previous housing element task force versus this housing element subcommittee were, and the fact that there were nine residents on the House and Element Task Force versus this House and Element Subcommittee were, and the fact that there were nine residents on the House and Element Task Force that actually drafted the |
| 01:31:11.90 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | To answer Susan's question about whether units or sites from the buffer could be used in a future housing element cycle, the short answer is yes. That's exactly what we're doing for this cycle, rolling almost 99 percent of these saved units over from the existing housing element into the new housing element, with the exception of the Butte Street site. |
| 01:31:42.18 | Councilmember Lam | Can you answer? Can you answer the second question, which is the filter question? Because my recollection of the last time we discussed the filters and maybe some of the same people are here, was there was, well, I'll let you answer the question rather than recall what I think your last answer was. |
| 01:31:56.67 | Jeff (Metropolitan Planning Group consultant) | THE CITY IS GOING TO BE Sure. The filters were developed in concert with the, I believe it was the task force at the time. And we had to tread a fine line between crafting filters that were too strict, that would push out too many properties to the detriment of what we were trying to accomplish, and filters that were too lax and wouldn't pass the straight face test of development potential for a site. So at the end of the day, we felt very good about the filters we came up with, and we received confirmation that they were realistic in that there was no major pushback on the filters that we did use from HCD, which was that list of sites really was the cornerstone of the element in terms of showing we were able to meet the arena. |
| 01:32:40.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:56.14 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay. We are still in public comment period. So is there any? Hi, Joe. |
| 01:33:06.16 | Jill Hoffman | How are you? I'm Jill Hoffman. This kind of seems like deja vu again. Here I am. I don't think we have met the lowest impact strategy with regard to this plan. We've had a couple of meetings specifically about this plan. We had a lot of meetings last spring and earlier about the two-track system and almost all of those meetings were focused on this last housing element that ended this year. So I think that we can do better. I think need to look at specifically the VMU program I believe that the VMU program is actually extremely broad. It covers the four locations. There's three districts, but four locations, especially the smaller CN1 locations, which are the neighborhood um, the neighborhood districts, one being the C and one being the Golden Gate Market neighborhood, which is also the focus of an earlier HMU uh, Thank you. I don't want to say fight, but an HMU discussion about that neighborhood, and that was taken off. And then our neighborhood, which is the 7-Eleven neighborhood, which is the other CN1 neighborhood. And so we had these two little neighborhood units, and then we had the larger Caledonia and the and the CC, which is along the waterfront. And so I think, you know, when we're talking about numbers that we don't really need, we already meet the numbers. So we're just talking about a program. And as Karen alluded to, there are some other programs that we could address. You know, I'd especially like to go to Rotary and talk to them about another partnership because we have a track record on that. Rotary seems to be – I was there this week. It looks like they're looking at another program. So, you know, another interesting thing would be to partner with Rotary, not just on senior housing. It would be nice if we partnered with Rotary on housing for teachers and firefighters. And also, they want to, they seem to have the capability, they seem to be very capable of these kinds of things, doing it for liveaboards. So I would like to explore that. And I think we have a little bit of time to do this. We have, you know, Um, We have about a month or maybe 45 days probably to look at something and get it in because I know we want to hit that 60-day mark prior to. the So I think there's some reasonable things that we can do. I think we're about 80% there. I think the VMU is overbroad as it is. We can certainly narrow down the districts that we're identifying in the VMU or maybe put some percentages on that. The problem is, as we found out in my neighborhood, there's a building for sale And because of the restriction on it, we've devalued significantly that building and de-incentivized anybody to rehabilitate that building, which is an unintended consequence, I think, of the VMU that we haven't adequately addressed and I think is very important. This is something that we can't get wrong. It's too important to get it wrong. It's an eight-year plan, and it's going to have significant impact on our town, especially the neighborhoods around the CN1 districts, both the Golden Gate Market and our district, which is where most of the infill lots are also located behind those neighborhoods. So you're talking about concentrating the new construction in those two neighborhoods. Thank you. |
| 01:36:10.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Is there? And yes... |
| 01:36:20.19 | David Sudo | My name is David Sudo. I live at 411 Locust Street. I just make a comment that, you know, I haven't, I've attended a few housing meetings, and I found in general that the people there were doing a very good job of handling my concerns that I had and any time that I had a concern and went to a meeting that they answered them. So I haven't been too concerned. I do keep abreast of the emails that get sent out and I found that the updates have been informative of keeping me in the process. I'm also concerned that the housing element so far and the concentration of some of the additional units has all been for low-income or senior citizens. And there seems to be, and the numbers, you know, from the last between that have been progressed show that really the moderate income families have been, you know, have not been hit by the current programs. And I don't see how ADUs and junior ADUs, you know, address that issue. I do see some room for VMUs, though, to address that moderate income family. You know, and I know people who are desperately looking for houses in the moderate income areas, and I don't – and they cannot find housing in Sausalito. And then we need to make sure that the housing element, you know, addresses that need. We've been very good at addressing senior housing and somewhat at doing low-income housing but not moderate-income families. You know, and I – you know, my wife is a teacher at Bayside MLK, and I can tell you that one reason why our schools aren't as good as they could be is because teachers can't afford to live in this school district. So you don't have interactions with teachers. You don't have, you know, and if, God forbid, we have a disaster here, you're going to be limited to the firefighters that are here on duty because the rest of them won't be able to get here. |
| 01:38:37.99 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Is there any other? Yes. |
| 01:38:46.04 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Good evening. |
| 01:38:47.02 | Unknown | Good evening. Sonia Hanson, 522 Spring Street. The VMU. I, it's, It's not that different from the HMU. We all know that. And Joan Cox, in fact, argued with me once, or didn't argue with me, but stated to me once that she felt the VMU would in fact have more impact on neighborhoods than the HMU because there would be a need to go up another story in order to get the number of housing units you needed for the density bonus. So those of us that live in neighborhoods, and not only those of us that live in neighborhoods, but those of us that live in this town and are concerned about high density, high-rise housing going up, and it will go up. It'll go up along Bridgeway, it'll go up along Caledonia, it'll go up along Second Street. Is that really what we want in this town? And I can't believe that we have to have this, that this is the only answer. I know this is the answer the consultants have come up with. I can't believe that having a VMU is necessary. And it will be very destructive to this town, at least if you care about what it looks like when you drive up and down this town. And for residents that live near these neighborhoods, it'll be more than destructive. It'll ruin the quality of our lives and there's not There's no doubt about that. And there is the low income housing that's available in these is only a small percentage of what gets built. The rest of those units are market rate. So somebody's making a lot of profit, maybe two units at the most in any of those would end up being low income. Why are we supporting high density, high rise development in our town, which mainly is going to benefit the developer? We're not addressing modern income as this |
| 01:40:33.50 | Unknown | modern income. |
| 01:40:35.78 | Unknown | gentleman is concerned. It's, they're being required to put in some low income housing, what, two units? And they're gonna have, I think it's six that are not. I may have my numbers wrong, but it's a small percentage and it's not gonna be moderate. It's gonna be market rate or the small percentage of low income. I don't get it. And I've heard what everybody's saying, but it still doesn't make sense to me. There's a whole disconnect here and there's a lot of, excuse me, but double speak. So if somebody could simplify it and make it easy to understand that this is really required, I might be able to buy into it, but not from what I'm hearing. I don't understand it at all. So I hope you revisit the VMU as you did the HMU. Thank you. |
| 01:41:22.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:22.93 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, Sonia. Is there anybody else who'd like to say something? Yes. Hi, Denise. |
| 01:41:32.68 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. My name is Denise. |
| 01:41:33.83 | Denise Suto | My name is Denise Suto. I am a science teacher at Bayside MLK, and I live at 411 Locust Street. And I apologize. I'm tired. So the reality of the situation is teachers |
| 01:41:44.55 | Unknown | Meow. |
| 01:41:48.97 | Denise Suto | people, citizens, we can't afford to live here anymore. We can't. That's why you're not hearing from us. Thank you. And it's sad. And these meetings make me sad. It's distressing. to hear the way we talk about housing and meeting the minimum requirements The reality of the situation is I just found out from a friend that three families in Sausalito lost their lease because the landlords raised the rent on them. So we can't afford to buy, let alone to rent. In Sausalito, it's laughable when I talk to my colleagues. They laugh. Teachers can't marry other teachers. Be clear about that. Luckily, my husband's not a teacher, because you can't – it's just not a reality in Sausalito. And frankly, when we talk about low-income housing, you're talking about my babies. All of my children are beautiful and wonderful, and they deserve housing. You met them at the Chili Cook-Off. That's the reason why I bring them to Chili Cook-Off, so you can see how beautiful they are and deserving they are of affordable housing. I'm embarrassed. I was embarrassed at the last meeting when Jonathan Logan from Marin City came And when he talked about all of the improvements going on in Marin City, the park, the education, and the only thing we talked about was the fear that there might be some low-income housing And I didn't speak then because I was so upset, but you have inspired me. You will hear from me. Often, you And at every meeting. |
| 01:43:39.95 | Denise Suto | We talk about sustainability. You can't keep open housing and not have density. because what you're really talking about is not allowing anyone else to move to Sausalito. Keep what you had, keep what's yours. And that's not what Sausalito's character is about. We've lost the character of Sausalito because the people who used to live here can't afford to anymore. Where are the artists? And the fact that we look at liveaboards and figure out how we do the minimum That's what we're doing right now. Figure out how to do the minimum of housing. I hold my students to higher. standards. Minimum. What was the intent of the housing element? Think about that. I haven't heard a single person last week or this week talk about what is the intent of the housing element. And it's embarrassing. And for the first time in over a decade, I'm embarrassed to live here. I'm embarrassed to admit because I have to go see my babies and explain that we're scared that they might actually get affordable housing here and talk to my colleagues because someone's concerned. And I will be honest, and I count at the time because I'm going to have exactly the same amount of time as the longest speaker here. I've sent a spicy email when I thought my view was going to be affected. And then I thought about it again, and we need to talk about what is the intent and how to meet everybody's expectations and not scare everyone. |
| 01:45:38.87 | Unknown | can't afford a lawyer. |
| 01:45:39.16 | Denise Suto | Thanks. |
| 01:45:43.85 | Denise Suto | I shouldn't have to afford a lawyer to speak at these meetings. |
| 01:45:48.81 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Denise, thank you. And you can certainly don't need a lawyer to come and speak at these meetings, so please come and speak any time. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to speak on this topic? Good evening. |
| 01:46:06.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:46:07.20 | Unknown | Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers, staff. And that was very inspirational. what I just heard. I'm not from the low-income community. I'm from the no-income community. This is not supposed to be my job. In the Torah, I've come here and shared a little bit of it with you. The Kohens and the Levites who are still around. These people are, like the John Lennon song says, to have no inheritance and no possessions. So they are the model for who you are, the leaders of the city, the people who are supposed to be looking out for the best interests of everybody, not for just the pocketbook. And wow, thank you very much, Denise. This is from the portion for this week. It's the last one in Deuteronomy. and it's about The blessing for the Levite tribe. God gives a blessing for all 12 tribes. And he picks out the Levites. He says this. He says, let your Thummim and Urim be with your faithful one. So the Urim and the Thummim are just like a game of chance that are on the priest's vest. Okay? That's how they decide things. All right, everything is not always decided through logic. It says this, it says, um... that the Levites were challenged at the waters of Meribah, and they said of his father and his mother, I consider them not. His brothers he disregarded. He ignored his own children. Your precepts alone they observed, and they kept your covenant. They shall teach your laws to Jacob, and your instructions to Israel. So that means even the family, even the most dear ones we have are to be ignored by the Levite tribes, by the leaders when they are working for the good of everybody. So I'm suggesting also that the 100 people who live out there, no income anchor outs, some of them with incomes, could be included in this. That would mean that we would become legal people and not the illegal people that some think we are. So thank you. |
| 01:48:25.88 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Is there anybody else who'd like to comment? Alice. |
| 01:48:34.10 | Alice Merrill | Alice Merrill, Pelican Harbor. Just because Denise said what she said, I have to say that this whole time I've had that same sort of worry but not really understood what it was. And the thing about Sausalito people are scared to let in people who aren't like them, and it's becoming rich. I mean, it's always been wealthy, but it's becoming rich. And I wish that it weren't. And I think about some of the places that have been developed over the years that were hated and argued for, against, and argued against. you know, family against family, and they're there, and they're lived in, and, They've incorporated themselves. And life goes on, and this town is very full compared to 50 years ago. But it's not that many more people for some crazy reason. |
| 01:49:40.62 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:49:40.64 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. But it changes. It moves on. Views do change. Trees grow. Trees get cut down. I mean, things happen and Certainly in my life things have happened to real estate. And so I do think that we have to be more open-hearted about how we feel about the kind of places and living abilities that we have here. that there were more people who work here who could live here. of our first responders and our teachers I definitely wish that, that they don't have to live like I do, which is, you know, it's pretty, but it's tiny and it's, and it's the only way I can afford it. So that's all. |
| 01:50:35.90 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, Alice. Is there anybody else who'd like to say anything? okay so seeing none I'm gonna close public comment and bring it back here for our deliberation thoughts Who would like to go first? |
| 01:51:03.68 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Well, thank you. and I appreciate everyone's comments. And one thing to bring it back in perspective, this is a housing element and it's a planning tool. do everything. relating to our community through the housing element, but it's required by the state. And it's unfortunate the way it's set up to be required by the state because we focused more on making it low impact, which I think we've been quite successful then as a planning tool. But that doesn't mean we're not going to trust housing issues in other ways. This is something that we need to comply for our planning purposes. A couple of things. One, just right off, on the VMU, There is no ability under the VMU to go higher than the current height limitations. There's no ability to go beyond density, and there's no ability to go beyond FAR. If we had Joan Cox here, I think say that, but with all due respect, I think it's very clear because this is some of the misinformation. The only thing that the VMU does is allow residential or require residential in certain situations. It does not allow them to go higher. It does not allow them to have more Florida area ratio, and it does not allow any further density in that place. So that's something, And I just say that so that we can have some clarity with it. I think the other thing is, in terms of where we are with this, hopefully the culmination or getting toward the culmination of a five-year process where we started in 2009 with a committee, resident supported committee. Mayor Whitney started on that as a resident, although I will point out that we all citizens and residents, even now we don't lose that. But he started out on that along with Joan Cox and others that in terms of putting that together, they developed the housing element. It, in a couple year process, |
| 01:53:02.80 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Just for clarification, I didn't join until 2011. Oh, 2011. He's been taking full research. |
| 01:53:05.62 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Oh, 2011, he's a little later. He's not taking full responsibility for that. So we'll let him off the hook on some of that. |
| 01:53:09.23 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Uh-huh. |
| 01:53:09.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:53:09.65 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Well, I'll see you next time. |
| 01:53:11.75 | Vice Mayor Theodores | But as it went through, and There was a lot of work, several years of work. It went to the city council, and that was before myself or Mayor Withey was on the city council, a different city council. And that city council voted four to one with Council Member Pfeiffer voting no to support this as a low-impact housing strategy, the same three-legged stool. During the two subsequent years, we've had a number of committee meetings. by way during this five-year process it's been 50 50 meetings so and of all sorts at all times and all different people involved in it |
| 01:53:29.13 | Adam Politzer | Bye. |
| 01:53:30.70 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:53:48.89 | Vice Mayor Theodores | and uh... We've had a subcommittee with two council members, including myself and two planning commissioners. And through that, they have voted and overwhelmingly supported this housing element. As we've gotten here, we've had the council every vote as we've moved it on. We've made some adjustments based on community input, but it's a good element. It does not raise the density. I don't know where this comes from. I'll let that go, but I think just in conclusion, it's actually an amazingly low-impact and certainly from a low-impact point of view, an excellent housing element. |
| 01:54:36.63 | Councilmember Lam | Sure. I'll jump in. So let me just finish your train of thought, because you got cut off. So there is no change in density. There's no height change, no height limits change. There are no view protections changes. There's no height and review changes. And for someone who sat on the Planning Commission for six years, if there's a Planning Commission that functions correctly, those will continue to be enforced and protect people's views, if that's what you're concerned about. If you're concerned about those people, Well that's a different concern altogether, and I'm not saying those that are here, but There are no those people. That's what Sausalito is all about. We are all here. The last vestige of retaining any economic diversity in Sausalito depends on things like this. Now, some of you own properties and can rent those out for whatever rates you so choose, but the vast majority of the housing supply in San Salido is not regulated in any shape or form as to its affordability. So, um, that's what we're trying to do here is set the table to allow people with less means to still either stay or move here. Um, the market rate forces, we're not dictating those. Those will go where they go and believe me, um, Those get shot down if they start to be against our zoning or our regulations. And there's a long history of that in Sausalito. So the goal here for the prior housing element in 2012 and for this go-around, with a lot less to achieve in this go-around, is to spread the impact of or the nature of these programs throughout the town. It's not enough to say, I don't want this in my neighborhood and put it in somebody else's backyard, if that's your concern. We all need to be part of this whole process. So, again, you know, there's been an experiment going on right here on Caledonia Street for the last 12 years, and that is it's required residential on the top floor. And, um, Have you seen a lot of big buildings go up on Caledonia Street? Have you seen people's views being blocked on Caledonia Street? No. And that's the nature of the beast that we're dealing with here, that I don't see this causing a huge change in development potential in Sao Sui because you're making an assumption the residential. particular will outpace office development on second floor. And that is not the economics of office rents versus housing rents. So I don't see that. That has not happened in my time as a public official and or planning commissioner in Saussela, and I don't see that changing. But that being said, we do need to set the table for the reality of being able to provide housing for those who are not at the far end of the spectrum of income levels. And that is both a moral obligation as well as part of the character of this community. |
| 01:57:47.28 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Mr. Mayor? like to comment? So I was a teacher. I lived in a little subdivision downtown San Jose in a crime-ridden neighborhood. My little sister's a teacher. So I get it. I get it. My master's is in education, my doctorate's in education, I get it. And did you know... It's against the law to allocate housing for teachers or firefighters or specific occupations. It's illegal. You can't do it. I'm speaking out here and I've been very consistent with these housing elements. I'm speaking out against high density. The VMU The VMU program, there's no moral ground. with the VMU program. it's it's i mean at most you heard it we're looking at two affordable housing or two affordable units. It's a high-density program. And the programs that are in this housing element promote and incentivize developers to come in and build where they haven't built before. I don't like the fact that this is on a fast track. It is not allowing residents the opportunity to really vet this and understand the new programs that are being explored and the true impact, humility, on Sausalito. And, um, I really dislike this buffer. I mean, our arena is 79. There's no legal requirement to go over 79 units. And by focusing on 79 units, it doesn't preclude, prevent us from building affordable housing beyond that. just outside the housing element. Both Rotary Village and the other Rotary project were both built Outside the housing element, they weren't designated in the housing element. Okay, so, I mean, there's a lot of misinformation out there. I think the focus, and I want to get back to this issue, In my mind, I've always said, One way To provide affordable housing is to keep housing affordable. Again, a way to provide affordable housing is to keep housing affordable. And by that I mean... Rents go up, why do rents go up? Taxes go up, fees go up, water goes up. garbage goes up, sewers go up. Sales tax, all of these things are going up, up, up. We need to consider the middle class as well in Sausalito because they're getting squeezed. And when they get squeezed, the rents go up. Because it trickles down, it goes down. And so I look at this housing element before me, and there are so many programs that could be revised for minimal impact to preserve our small-town character. I don't have the votes up here to get that done. I don't see this really serving the needs of Sausalitans, preserving our small town character. And in terms of the three-legged strategy, that's the big lie. This is 72% infill, 72%. Liveaboards and ADUs, that's window dressing. It's political window dressing. |
| 02:01:03.52 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. I really have really not much to say. I've been talking about the housing element for three years, but we're apparently rushing it. That doesn't make sense. We've. The idea that we're rushing through this, and that we've had parallel tracks of adopting the ordinances and at the same time working on this element, |
| 02:01:37.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:40.83 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | the reason we're here doing that is that We failed many a decade ago to put a housing element in place. We then failed until the very last moment to put another housing element in place. We then had to work very hard to adopt all of the ordinances, and we were down to weeks, if not days, before that would have been it, and we would have been two housing elements behind. So we're not rushing at all, we're catching up. Every other city, or nearly every other city in Marin, is either working on their housing elements right now, according to this schedule, or has already adopted them. There may be an outlier that's not. But Sausalito isn't trying to be an outlier. Sausalito isn't trying to actually Let me back up. I am continually now thinking that much of the opposition that I'm hearing to our housing element is simply that certain members of this community just doesn't want a housing element of any shape or form. I think that also goes with the fact that many people or some folks, and I agree totally this is not really the character of Saul Salido, wants a status quo of very rich residences where our firefighters, our teachers cannot live. That doesn't make sense. The VMU program is a very modest attempt in that direction. And quite frankly, to call it a program, That's high density, which it is not. high rise, which it certainly is not. is just information that's trying to propagate fear so that nobody will ever pass a housing element. That's what's going on. |
| 02:03:48.29 | Unknown | you |
| 02:03:51.61 | Councilmember Weiner | Well, I came here. I've lived in this town for 39 years. Had my station down, had two shell stations. Over the years, where did all our artists go? Where did all the writers go? We went up to Fairfax where they could afford it. because we didn't take on a housing element. When I became mayor, There was a committee. And that committee was going zero, nowhere. We turned around and we had a very short period of time then because it was put on our backs because we had missed the first round. and we made it a task force and we put a time limit on it, and we moved some people out and we put some good people in there that really were willing put that element together. And as far as the element as we move forward. we could turn around in the next eight years and make any changes that we want as long as the state okays it. So nothing is set in stone as we move ahead. But it is important, and I hear this now more than ever, is we have to become flexible. We're the only city in Marin County where our population in the last 10 years has gone down. And one of the reasons is because you've got big houses that were built where people bought the house next door and built bigger houses, and there goes your population. Some of it. So I'm glad you spoke up tonight. because The worst thing we could go by is fear. Fear only brings out the anger in people, and we don't have that. We should not have that in this community. This is paradise. You can't live in any place any better than that. So don't stick your heads in the sand and think that when you do that, that everybody else is going to go away. Let's open it up very fairly for people that should be in this community, not just the rich. |
| 02:06:00.94 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | So I'll open this up for one minute rebuttals. |
| 02:06:10.16 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, so... Let's see where we are. I'm looking for a motion. |
| 02:06:17.28 | Councilmember Lam | just a clarification question from whoever so this is a motion move forward on the accelerated schedule um based on what is in front of us but as far as the programs that are inside this element those will will continue to work on those just as we did for the past two years for the 2012 element to if you know for to craft those and have public input on those programs So this process is ongoing even after the January 31st deadline as far as the details of things as we get for implementation purposes. Is that a fair statement? |
| 02:06:18.71 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yeah. |
| 02:06:51.90 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:06:54.18 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I would like to make a motion to continue the housing element for further review through November. |
| 02:07:08.27 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Do I have a second for that motion? No second. Okay, no second there. |
| 02:07:14.70 | Vice Mayor Theodores | THE END OF THE END OF THE Okay? And... I guess the motion that, I believe that, |
| 02:07:22.60 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:07:22.65 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Pardon me, the staff is in the staff report? Yes, to direct. |
| 02:07:23.31 | Councilmember Lam | to the staff. |
| 02:07:28.37 | Councilmember Lam | direct staff to submit the draft has an element to the state department of housing and community development for 60 day draft review. |
| 02:07:33.13 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:07:37.03 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:07:37.13 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Yeah. |
| 02:07:37.25 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. Okay. |
| 02:07:38.77 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | We'll take a roll call vote. Lily? |
| 02:07:42.98 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I actually would like to make a substitute motion, and that would be to continue the housing element with the VMU program removed. |
| 02:07:56.00 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, and do we have a second for that motion? |
| 02:08:00.99 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:08:01.60 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | So... |
| 02:08:01.82 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I'm sorry, revise my motion. Continue the review of the housing element with the VMU program removed. |
| 02:08:02.26 | Unknown | you |
| 02:08:02.27 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | . |
| 02:08:09.21 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, and There is no second. |
| 02:08:15.08 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | And like another substitute motion, which is to remove the VMU program and explore other programs that meet the requirements listed. |
| 02:08:15.18 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | And. |
| 02:08:28.77 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | There is no second. So I think we have a motion on the table, and I think it's been seconded. Lily, could you call the roll, please? |
| 02:08:39.84 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Councilmember Pfeiffer? No. Councilmember Weiner. |
| 02:08:43.43 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yes. |
| 02:08:44.33 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Councilmember Lam. |
| 02:08:45.49 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yes. |
| 02:08:46.47 | City staff member (possibly City Manager or Clerk) | Vice Mayor Theodores? Yes. Mayor Withey? |
| 02:08:47.60 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Yes. Yes, that motion carries 4-1, and this matter is closed. Thank you. |
| 02:08:57.00 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, I think we've just got some very quick items left, so we'll skip the break. Ray? |
| 02:09:09.20 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | That matter is closed, Alice, but... what, |
| 02:09:18.63 | Councilmember Lam | for. |
| 02:09:19.12 | Alice Merrill | Sure. |
| 02:09:19.16 | Councilmember Lam | Sure. |
| 02:09:20.74 | Alice Merrill | I had two things. |
| 02:09:22.13 | Councilmember Lam | If it's about the Giants game, Adam said that's off limits. I had two very quick questions. |
| 02:09:24.52 | Alice Merrill | I had two very quick things in the pre-thing that wasn't on the schedule that I totally spaced. Very quick thing. |
| 02:09:32.74 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:09:32.76 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Uh-huh. |
| 02:09:34.33 | Alice Merrill | Can I say? Okay. I may. |
| 02:09:34.36 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Well, |
| 02:09:36.79 | Councilmember Lam | I make a motion to reopen public comment, general public comment. Oh, thank you. |
| 02:09:40.11 | Alice Merrill | Oh, thank you. |
| 02:09:41.78 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:09:41.80 | Alice Merrill | Okay. This is Alice Merrill. So one of them is that the building, you know, over where the Matthew Turner boat is being built, the other building right next to it that has Ocean Voyages in it, which is a marine-based thing, water, that building is being cleared out and being completely taken over by a computer company. Don't know if anybody knows that, but they do have to do some remodeling, so it must be going through the city somehow. But that's an interesting thing happening down there in the Waterfront District. district. And the other thing is that the person, Ocean Voyages person, Mary Crowley, is looking at the... district. And the other thing is that the person, Ocean Voyages person, Mary Crowley, is looking at the building where – I think it's upstairs from the – Male Speaker 1 Wellingtons. Female Speaker 1 Wellingtons that just closed, I think. And there – and she's – and she's good. She's waterfront. They have restaurants or waterfront. |
| 02:09:42.31 | Councilmember Lam | Okay. |
| 02:09:42.61 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:09:42.66 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:09:43.00 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 02:09:44.01 | Councilmember Lam | Thank you. |
| 02:09:44.03 | Unknown | Okay. Okay. |
| 02:09:44.98 | Vice Mayor Theodores | So, |
| 02:09:47.20 | Councilmember Lam | Bye. |
| 02:09:47.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:10:48.36 | Alice Merrill | But they're asking an awful lot of money, so I don't know if there's any kind of anything anybody can do, but she's a really good business owner. really Sausalito type of business. And so those are just things that are happening. |
| 02:11:01.82 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you, Alice. Now, We're going to assume that public comment is open. And it can only be on matters not on the agenda. So the discussion of the housing element is finished. |
| 02:11:20.62 | Jane Woodman | Hi, Jane Woodman, 220 West. Just so we clarify, the fighter fighters in this town Two of them currently live in this town. They were born and raised in this town. And when we were working on new police and fire buildings, we did a survey of all the firefighters and all the policemen |
| 02:11:39.20 | Unknown | fighters. |
| 02:11:42.64 | Jane Woodman | other than those two. None of them wanted to reside here. for many reasons. They live far away. on ranches and farms and They're happy to do it. So let's not keep trying to find places for the firefighters. Unless there's a whole new staff, that want to live here. in general. Not just our firefighters and police. |
| 02:12:07.64 | Unknown | . |
| 02:12:07.67 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | All right. |
| 02:12:07.91 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:12:09.56 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. |
| 02:12:10.12 | Jane Woodman | Thank you. |
| 02:12:12.19 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Okay, city manager information for council, item 7A. |
| 02:12:22.13 | Adam Politzer | All right, I'll try to keep this very brief. It's just... November 4th, very important election, not just here in town, but important measures on the statewide ballot. The League of California Cities has put out an article with their recommendations supporting neutral and opposing. I recommend that the council members take a look at the League's position. I believe the county of Moran has also taken positions on some of the ballot measures statewide. So again, some very complicated and difficult items on the statewide ballot and one person that I believe that I am that understands these measures pretty well, it took me a while to really research it. So for the Joe average person that shows up to the ballot box and reads it and casts their vote based on what they see on TV or what they receive in the mail, really important for us as residents here to do our due diligence. I will point out one measure and that's Prop 47. The chief, the State Police Chief Association is opposing it. It's another early release type program. There's pros and cons to it so I'm not telling anyone which way to vote but it's very, it's another very difficult one to understand so but it does affect our town our police chief is one of the police chief members that has endorsed opposing it so I just wanted to point out that one of many that are difficult to understand we got a request from you may have gotten reached out by the mayor of Nevada and the city manager in Nevada, the next MCC MC is in Nevada. Traditionally there are 60 to 70 people that attend when it's in Central Marin or even in Southern Marin as we experienced in Mill Valley a couple weeks ago. Novato usually gets about 40 people. So they have asked for us to battle the traffic to carpool together, if possible, leave early and enjoy one of their many cafes and restaurants for, Thank you. cocktails and social activity to avoid the traffic. So just a request there. I also wanted to let the council know that our new community development director, his name is Danny Castro, he will be starting with us on November 10th, Monday, November 10th, and Jeremy Graves will be retiring around that same date. There's a couple items scheduled for the November 11th council meeting, so we may invite Jeremy to stay one extra day to go through any items that may be related to community development. But I'm very excited that Danny's going to be joining us. and we also have a parallel path as you're aware we have two vacant associate planner positions that have been that continue to be filled by contract planners we're going to post and go out on recruitment to fill those two positions and we hope that we have the pool of candidates when Danny comes on board in November so that we can go right into the interviewing phase of that recruitment so that we can get those folks on board hopefully by the end of the year. Two quick announcements. Hopefully everyone is aware of it. The Women's Club will be holding their candidates night next Tuesday night. And the pedestrian and bike committee, working with the police department and public works, will hold its annual bike report and update on this tomorrow night here in the council chambers, and we will video that so it will be available on the city's website and potentially on CMCM. I don't know if they've worked that out or not, but I know that they were talking to them to see if it wasn't competing with another council meeting or another community meeting to try to have that on Comcast. So I'll leave that to my list, but happy to answer any questions from the council. |
| 02:16:54.29 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Any questions from the Council on our City Manager report? Any public comment on the City Manager report? Okay, seeing none. Council Member Committee reports. Do we have anything? |
| 02:17:12.95 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | Mr. Mayor, I was at the BCDC meeting last night regarding the ferry landing, and I could not attend. There was a Butte task force meeting yesterday that I could not attend because I was at the BCDC meeting, so I can't report on what happened at the task force meeting. I think it was a procedural issue with respect to wrapping up the process for recommending the disbanding and how the task force goes about doing that with guidance from city staff. But the BCDC meeting was very important. I think it's wrong that we haven't had a public forum here for the public to weigh in on the ferry landing because that really would completely change our waterfront. And so the outcome of the meeting was that Sausalitan spoke out with their concerns about the massive nature of the ferry landing, and BCDC asked the Golden Gate Bridge District to go back and rework the current design |
| 02:17:13.55 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Council Member Pfeiffer. |
| 02:18:27.39 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Is there any committee report? |
| 02:18:31.02 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Well, I think we should point out that we did have the ferry people here last session to go over the entire thing, and there was opportunity. They presented exactly what they were planning, and the public had an opportunity for input, and it was, of course, in a notice public meeting. So I think to be fair that that's pretty clear that we just had it at the very last meeting. |
| 02:18:36.01 | Unknown | session. |
| 02:18:52.96 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | I'm not talking about a late-night council weekday session. I'm talking about a public forum that happens on the weekends when people are not at work. |
| 02:19:02.36 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Well, I think this form is probably the best form for most of these reports. The other thing I do want to reiterate, tomorrow night at the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, I will be here 7, 8.30. It will also be broadcast, but I think there's also an opportunity, if you can't make it, to submit questions. I think you have to go online. I'm not exactly sure of the procedure, so I certainly invite people who have any It's... Questions about what we do. We, the bicycle and pedestrian committee meets every month, once a month. Not only do we have the five person committee, but we have our Director of Public Works, our Captain Rohrbacher of the police, tomorrow our Chief Tejada will be there as well as others who participate in this. So I really welcome anyone who has any confusion or questions about what we're doing about bicycles to come tomorrow night. |
| 02:19:57.13 | Councilmember Lam | Tom, can I ask you? So the subject matter for tomorrow's Meaning is that any? Is that a special meeting or is it kind of similar to other meetings? |
| 02:20:06.09 | Vice Mayor Theodores | Well, it's special in the sense that They typically have once a month meeting with their ongoing agenda, but tomorrow night is really to advise the public of everything that the bicycle and pedestrian committee has done in its roughly year that it's been in operation. And also the other thing that's special about it is to give the public opportunity to ask questions about what's being done about the various issues. |
| 02:20:32.30 | Adam Politzer | I just pulled up what went out in the Currents last week, and it will be rebroadcast on Marin TV channel 27 and AT&T 99, Friday, October 10th at 7 PM, and Saturday, October 11th at 9 AM. So people can program there. whatever they're called today. |
| 02:20:57.78 | Councilmember Lam | you. |
| 02:20:57.95 | Adam Politzer | TV. TVRs, TROs, and all the other gadgets if they don't want to wake up or they're not going to be around to watch it live. |
| 02:20:58.32 | Councilmember Lam | TV. TVRs, TVRs. Right. |
| 02:20:59.54 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:21:08.72 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Any other council member committee reports? Any member of the public like to comment on council member committee reports? OK, seeing none, item C, future agenda items. |
| 02:21:23.11 | Councilmember Pfeiffer | So, Mr. Mayor, I just also want to clarify, I'm not on any special committee. I went with regards to the BCDC meeting I attended. I attended as an individual council member out of my own personal interest. Thank you. And I do have future agenda items. I think about a couple weeks ago, we heard from a resident, Sandy Leach, regarding a dangerous, kind of precarious home above her in Boakley, and I was interested in an update on that. I know that she provided a letter and a photo and a time frame, so I would like follow up on that. And Airbnb nuisance rental we had a resident ms lamb So I would like follow up on that. And Airbnb nuisance rental. We had a resident, Ms. Lambton, who expressed concern regarding a nuisance Airbnb short-term rental where she actually has video of someone vomiting. And it sounds just horrible. And I know they had a hearing, but I'm still waiting for the result. And I'd also like to have a public forum on the ferry landing project with the Golden Gate Bridge. One of the comments that BCDC said was that, you know, they could come to Sausalito and be part of that public forum and i i see this that the thought that we wouldn't have a public forum and a really extensive outreach process for the ferry landing to me is just wrong we we should we should really have a forum for that so i would like that as a future agenda item in terms of planning that and scheduling that |
| 02:21:35.92 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:23:12.21 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Thank you. Any other questions? Thoughts on future agenda items? No. Members of the public, anybody like to comment on future agenda items? OK, seeing none, move on to other reports of significance. Don't believe there are any, in which case I call for a motion to adjourn. |
| 02:23:17.24 | Unknown | No. |
| 02:23:37.22 | Mayor (likely Mayor Withey) | Second. We are adjourned. And thank you very much for coming, everybody. |
| 02:23:41.92 | Councilmember Weiner | I'll give you a minute. |