| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:10.63 | Unknown | No. you Oh, the way I feel for you. Is now or never, the more I love Thank you. more that I'm |
| 00:00:27.05 | Joe Burns | Hello everybody. We want to start. We're having one technical difficulty. So as soon as we get the nod that we're going to have a live feed, then we'll begin. So I see already the beautiful green card starting. Good practice to do while we are awaiting. We're going to have a public comment on items not on the agenda as well as items on the agenda. So if you do plan on speaking tonight, you might want to grab a green card on the desk over here and fill out. I also want to... And I'm going to make a bigger introduction when we get online, because I have a lot of Happy New Year's. But... We have a TV in the room behind us here. So if you see this room filling up in process and anybody looks like they can't hear, they might be outside or something, you can let them know that there is a room, our chamber council room back here has a TV for people to sit in. We are gonna kill the Muzak as well. but if we wanna sing Kumbaya and flow together, |
| 00:01:29.54 | Unknown | May not see |
| 00:01:32.84 | Joe Burns | We'll give it a couple minutes and we might just have to start without, we good? Okay, so I got a couple jokes. No, we're not going to do that. THE VICE MAYOR SAID NO. |
| 00:02:05.60 | Joe Burns | Oh, I should look at this agenda, huh? |
| 00:02:54.23 | Tom Theodorus | So we will be on. |
| 00:02:57.72 | Joe Burns | At least you know you're going to get a solid call out. |
| 00:05:20.54 | Jeff Jacobs | You don't go anywhere else to miss. |
| 00:05:22.51 | Katie Faulkner | Oh, um... |
| 00:05:24.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.33 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.47 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.57 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.65 | Unknown | you |
| 00:05:24.82 | Katie Faulkner | I think you turned it in somewhere, turned it into Mary there. |
| 00:05:27.17 | Unknown | there. Mark. Thank you. |
| 00:08:34.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:11.50 | Joe Burns | We have a technology update. And it's not going to be text for your phone. You're going to have to listen to me. We have audio. At this point, we don't have the video, and we may not for about 20 minutes. You'll see Rhett, our IT manager, come in and climb under the table and start working on the specifics. But we're going to go ahead and start with just the audio. and, um, begin this meeting. So now I can officially say, since we are on audio, Happy New Year. I made my own bid. I was on the agenda setting committee that said, Let's have a great meeting to start off the year, and we're going to do it. So I'm very happy to see all these faces here today. The rain's staved off so far so we can get here dry, hopefully leave dry as well. So welcome, thank you. We are going to start off with a roll call. |
| 00:12:08.71 | Serge | Council member Cox. |
| 00:12:11.12 | Joan Cox | Here. |
| 00:12:12.51 | Serge | Councilmember Hoffman. Here. Councilmember Withing. Here. Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Here. Mayor Burns. Here. |
| 00:12:14.06 | Joan Cox | Here. |
| 00:12:18.11 | Joan Cox | Here. |
| 00:12:21.22 | Joe Burns | Pledge of Allegiance, I'm going to ask Jerry Taylor if you'll lead us, please. |
| 00:12:27.81 | Unknown | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God's name. |
| 00:12:28.30 | Mary Wagner | Congratulations. |
| 00:12:29.03 | Ray Withy | to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:12:46.07 | Joe Burns | We had a little late start coming out of our closed session, so thank you for your patience. We did have closed session. There are no announcements. You can see from the agenda on the items that we discussed. Is there any public comment on the closed session items? Public comment, seeing none. Closing public comment on that. Looking now for an approval of our agenda. |
| 00:13:10.69 | Beth Rowe | you |
| 00:13:10.74 | Joe Burns | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:13:10.83 | Beth Rowe | moved. Thank you. Second. |
| 00:13:12.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:13:15.03 | Joe Burns | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:13:15.50 | Beth Rowe | Thank you. Bye. |
| 00:13:16.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:17.88 | Joe Burns | That brings us to special presentations, mayor announcements. I'm just going to make a really quick announcement that isn't much more than also kind of on the agenda. You will notice after the presentation and Action Minutes, we have council member committee reports. Not normally at that time frame. It's not anything to do with this meeting. It is more of a directional change that we'll have this year, bringing our committee reports earlier in the meeting, on a kind of a bigger program where we'll include our committees, commissions, interacting with the council a little differently as well with the community. So we really want to use that time for the community to have more engagement with what we're doing on the committees, not just our Sausalito community. committees, a lot of co's in this. But we're also sit on so many regional and state boards that I think it's really important for the community to hear those items that we're working on on behalf of the community. So we're moving that up, and there'll be more information on that as we go. Any comments? Moving ahead then. |
| 00:14:22.80 | Joe Burns | We have a, yeah, but I don't have it. where we Call up Mike Langford. Mike Langford, are you still here today? Mike Wing, there he is. |
| 00:14:33.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:33.97 | Unknown | THERE WE GO. |
| 00:14:37.43 | Joe Burns | Mike Lankford is going to talk to us about the award winner from the World Health Organization. |
| 00:14:45.48 | Unknown | Well, good evening, Mayor Burns, Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles, City Council, As you may remember from previous presentations, over 30% of Sausalito residents are age 60 or older. With this in mind, resident and senior activist Sylvain Boutier partnered with City Building Inspector Kenneth Henry, local architect Michael Sheets, and former Community Development Director Danny Castro, to come up with the recently adopted Age-Friendly Home Adaptation Building Permit, which allows older adults to obtain free or reduced cost building permits for projects that improve accessibility. Shortly after the program was initiated in Sausalito, Grantmakers in Aging, the only membership association for philanthropies dedicated to improving Excuse me. the experience of aging and the World Health Association Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Excuse me. launched Innovation at Home, a competition and call for the best age-friendly housing practices around the world that could be implemented in the U.S. Over 700 age-friendly cities and communities throughout the world who have joined the WHO's age-friendly movement were invited to submit their ideas. Now who were the winners? Porto Portugal for a home sharing program. the Barcelona province in Spain for home refurbishment program. and Little Old Sausalito for the age-friendly home adaptive building from Missouri. |
| 00:16:30.12 | Unknown | The award was presented at the 2018 International Technical Meeting on Aging at Home in Quebec City, Canada, where Sybil was an invited guest speaker. |
| 00:16:48.36 | Unknown | So we have Sybil, Michael, and unfortunately, Kenneth couldn't be here. And as you know, Danny is now down in the Southland. So Lily is accepting on their behalf. It's also good to know that in addition to Sausalito's Age Friendly Building Permit, that Sausalito's Age Friendly Building Permit program served as a model that inspired Assemblymember Mark Levine to propose AB 2132, which changed the state housing code so that cities and counties throughout California could adopt their own locally appropriate version of Sausalito's Age Friendly Building Permit. So again, leading the way from Sausalito. If you're interested in learning more, Sybil will be doing a worldwide webinar later in February. You can contact me and I can get you the information once everything is out. But again, I want to thank Sybil. Kenneth, Michael, and Danny for making Sausalito shine in this age of age friendliness. Thank you. |
| 00:17:55.15 | Joe Burns | Would anybody like to say anything? |
| 00:17:56.47 | Carl Schwartz | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:17:59.05 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Sybil, Michael, Lily. Great stand-in. Such a great part of our community. Thank you for that. Another great part of our community was a gentleman that we lost the last couple weeks, Jean Hiller. |
| 00:17:59.09 | Carl Schwartz | Thank you. |
| 00:18:15.76 | Joe Burns | a wonderful man that did so much for this community and i have the honor of reading a proclamation on his behalf a proclamation of the city of council, of the city of Sausalito, remembering Gene Hiller and his feats. Whereas on Saturday, June 9th, 2018, Mayor Cox recognized and acknowledged Gene Hiller for having such an outstanding business as Gene Hiller Menswear and was wished continued success in this exemplary business and whereas his historic feat began in San Francisco in 1953, but ultimately the business found its way home to Sausalito in 1960, establishing the business That at 690 Bridgeway, a beautiful location which could only further his unique business. And whereas in 1993, Gene Hiller then moved the business across the street to its current location at 729-731 Bridgeway and opened to an even more grandiose setting. And whereas over these 65 years, Gene Hiller menswear remained dedicated to their worldwide customers by offering a combination of tradition and innovation in their unique habdashery. And yet all the while, Gene never forgot our small town. which was called home to his business, remaining faithful and staying involved in community activities and by giving to the much needed charities. And whereas, Gene was a grateful and respectful man, famous for his sense of style, unparalleled class and generosity. He felt honored by his client's patronage and made a point to treat them as family. He is survived by his adored wife of 35 years, Toby, with whom he traveled the world and built their Tiburon dream home. Venue and many, venue and many celebrations with family, friends, and charitable organizations. He's also survived by his loving stepdaughter Terry and twin and twin grandsons, Angel and Alex. Now therefore, the mayor of the city of Sausalito asks the citizens of Sausalito to again recognize the bountiful contribution that Gene Hiller made to the city of Sausalito in its history, and join us in sending our thoughts and prayers to his family and those in the community that he impacted so deeply and touched so carenly. witness thereof I Joe Burns mayor of Sausalito here do set my hand and cause a seal the community that he impacted so deeply and touched so currently. In witness thereof, I, Joe Burns, mayor of Sausalito, here do set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Sausalito to be affixed on this eighth day of January, 2019. |
| 00:20:52.61 | Joe Burns | I'm going to ask Tom Giacitano to come on up and say a couple words. Tom, on behalf of the family, thank you. |
| 00:21:01.12 | Tom Giacitano | Oh. I just want to thank you on behalf of Gene Hiller's family. And my associates, we want to thank the city, city officials, and the residents of Sausalito for 60 years of just beautiful support in allowing us to create the business and the environment that we've created. We are so blessed to be here, and Gene has never, ever taken it for granted. He loves Sausalito, as we all do, and he is so grateful for the opportunity that Sausalito had given him back in 1960. I'll miss Jean as we all will. But I'll cherish the 42 years that we've been partners together in that business. And my staff and I will try to continue with his legacy and the contributions to Sausalito will continue. And I just want to thank you all. Thank you. |
| 00:22:04.31 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:22:04.53 | Tom Giacitano | Thank you. |
| 00:22:04.72 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Any things? Thank you, Tom. Time for our public communications. This is time for the public to speak if there is To the City Council here, citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda except in very limited situations state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the council may refer matters not on the agenda to the city staff or direct that the subject be agendized for future meetings. Please make sure you have completed a speaker card. turned in to the city clerk and I have Two. for items not on the agenda are there any others if so please fill out and go in order Jeff Knowles |
| 00:22:59.43 | Jeff Knowles | Good evening council members. My name is Jeff Knowles and I am a Sausalito resident and a board member of Willow Creek Academy. I was here last meeting and took this opportunity in the agenda to report on the final results of a hotly contested school board election where majority control was decided by eight votes to congratulate the winners and to encourage them to build on areas of common ground that emerged during the campaign in particular to avoid budget cuts in the classroom at either school, a name which all candidates said they shared. I am here tonight to update you on events that have transpired since that time and to ask that you agendize a report from the district and from Willow Creek Academy on issues that have existed before last meeting and that have developed since then. The day after I reported here, we learned about a California AG letter after an investigation that had been pending for more than two years. that concluded that Two things from its investigation. One, that the district had intentionally established and is maintaining a racially segregated school at Bayside MLK. and two, that it has not allocated educational resources to be in Bayside MLK comparable to those at Willow Creek. It did not provide explanation for this or evidence or recommend solutions, but it did request a meeting with district representatives on December 21. At the subsequent first two meetings of the new district board, where the newly elected and newly reelected members were seated, the board regrettably engaged in a series of bare majority votes on a number of issues, three out of five members voting for those issues and two, either voting against or abstaining. The first was on the budget where there was no discussion of the current plan to cut a million dollars or 25% from Willow Creek. The next was to amend Superintendent Tarina Maris' contract to delete the provision barring her from involvement in the AG investigation on conflict of interest grounds, even though nothing had changed on that front in the meantime, and knowledgeable public comment suggested it still existed. Finally, the board voted again with a bare majority to hire new counsel to take the lead even though there were conflict of interest issues there. The most troubling aspect of the new board's decision making, however, was to ignore Willow Creek's request that the board advocate for Willow Creek to have a seat at the table in discussions with the AG. And the people who were designated to interface with the AG, who had been interfacing with the AG, Josh Barrow and Caroline Van Alst, were removed from that role. New board member Bonnie Huff and Deborah Turner were appointed to hold that position along with Tarina Meares. That meeting was held. None of the participants in that meeting have agreed to divulge any information from that meeting, so we don't know what happened. But I'm here to ask that you to agendize a meeting or a report from the district and from Willow Creek on several issues. One, allocation of resource issues. What's the principle the board is going to use to do that? Two, district structure. And three, what's happening with the AG investigation? Thank you very much. |
| 00:26:05.49 | Joe Burns | Thank you, and I think we will discuss that at future agenda items. Jerry Taylor. Anybody out in the hallway? Hello? We have audio right now on TV. Is the TV in the back working for them to see? They can't see it, okay. There's a TV in the back room. If people are out in the hallway and that starts coming in mass, you might wanna sit in that room, it is open. and lots of chairs still. |
| 00:26:40.47 | Joe Burns | Sorry, Jerry, this isn't counting on your three minutes. |
| 00:26:43.22 | Jerry Taylor | I didn't even have to ask. |
| 00:26:50.04 | Joe Burns | Thank you. All right, Jerry. |
| 00:26:52.86 | Jerry Taylor | Good evening. As the mayor said, I am Jerry Taylor. I'm speaking tonight as the president of the Sausage of Historical Society. um, I've been a resident for 70 years. I've even worked for the city for three different stints of my life. This is my fourth grade classroom. |
| 00:27:10.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:10.85 | Jerry Taylor | Thank you. I've been involved in a lot of events in Sausalito. I've been involved in a lot of projects in Sausalito. And I've been a member of a lot of organizations in Sausalito. But tonight, with a great amount of pride and joy and not the least a lot of relief, I'm here to give you some news about the Ice House Plaza. We lost our beloved real Mr. Sausalito, Phil Frank, in 2007. B side work. led the Saucer Foundation in 2012. to begin to create the plaza that had always been conceived of to go alongside and be a fitting backdrop and an adjunct to the Ice House Museum. B passed away. The project And the South South South Foundation struggled for a while. In 2014, 2015, they asked the Saso Historical Society to jump in. and assume leadership with us. It's been a great partnership with them. First with as we said B. Sider and then Don Olson Annette Rose and Sonya Hanson who I just saw out in the hallway as president of the foundation now. The leaders from the Historical Society I thought Dana Whitson was going to be here you know her former city manager. Susan Frank who literally needs no introduction and William Hines the landscape architect from SWA is alongside me. Invaluable leadership explanation. DESIGN. And to see us through as you know I've been talking to you for four years at both the Planning Commission and the Council level. So lots of difficulties but we're here tonight. |
| 00:28:57.89 | Jerry Taylor | Um, I guess what I want to do is just tell you right now that You're all invited. to a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday morning January 18th, at 9.15 a.m. We're putting a ceremonial spade in the ground. We're going to pass it around. Everybody gets a chance to turn over a brick. And we're going right into demolition that afternoon and the next day. We are going to have this after Eight years. After four years of my involvement and driving me nuts, we're glad to be on with it. And Bill and I are here to answer any brief questions you have. I know we are pretty familiar with the project, This is, as I said, Bill Hines. You know him as president of Sausage of Beautiful also. |
| 00:29:47.57 | Bill Hines | Thank you, Jerry. Four seconds. It's quite an honor to be moving this project forward. We're very excited and just wanted to thank you for all your support. |
| 00:29:47.60 | Jerry Taylor | FORM. |
| 00:29:47.90 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:29:48.04 | Joe Burns | For a second. |
| 00:29:56.71 | Joe Burns | Great. Thanks, Bill. Thank you for that, Jerry. I'm just gonna restate the time in case somebody didn't hear if you wanna write it down or for the people at home on the audio. January 18th, 9.15 a.m. at the Ice House New Frank Memorial Plaza. Thank you. Consent calendar. No, I'm sorry. See, I just missed the one thing I wanted to talk about. Councilmember Committee Reports. |
| 00:30:26.50 | Joe Burns | You know what? Let's do minutes. |
| 00:30:29.20 | Unknown | Thank you. . |
| 00:30:30.46 | Joe Burns | Can I have approval for the action minutes from our last meeting? |
| 00:30:34.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:30:37.40 | Joe Burns | Second. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you for that. Thank you for that nod, Ray. Councilmember Committee reports. This is that new section I was talking about, actually it's the move section. |
| 00:30:41.28 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:30:47.49 | Joan Cox | Thank you. He's just going to, after each vote, he has to say it passed by however many |
| 00:30:50.78 | Serge | That motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:30:53.18 | Joe Burns | Thanks. |
| 00:30:53.77 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:30:54.00 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Five zero on minutes. I'm hot. So council member, committee reports last month was kind of a slow month with some of our committees, but does anybody have anything they would like to report? |
| 00:31:09.76 | Joan Cox | Show. I have a couple of reports. The reach Richardson Bay Regional Agency meeting for December was cancelled and I did attend an MCC MC legislative committee meeting with Senator Mike McGuire regarding housing bills that will be introduced this legislative session. This is very important to small communities like Sausalito. Because the bills that were introduced last year, like SB 827, took a one size fits all approach that would have horrible consequences for Sausalito if adopted. I'm pleased to report that Mike McGuire is formulating three bills, that will be alternatives to the bills we expect to come out replacing SB 827. Those are SB 4, SB 5, and SB 6, most of which would have very little impact on Sausalito because they recognize that not one size fits all and they focus on larger towns with more ability to expand. We're going to have a follow-up meeting with Senator McGuire a week from Friday at which he'll continue to keep us apprised and I will continue to keep all of you apprised with his progress. In addition, Councilmember Withy and I attended our first in two years Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District Subcommittee meeting, in which we. Really, we met some of the new personnel. We are going to tour the new plant this Monday, the 14th. And we're going to come up with a timeline and deliverables for our path forward with them over the next two years. So I'm excited to be able to report back to you on that after our next meeting. |
| 00:33:02.37 | Joe Burns | right? |
| 00:33:02.64 | Joan Cox | Thanks. |
| 00:33:03.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Any others? |
| 00:33:08.18 | Ray Withy | So the only meeting in December that wasn't canceled, that I was supposed to be at, was the Business Advisory Committee meeting. And the Business Advisory Committee have, I reported some months ago, decided to focus for at least the next time period on the general plan and providing input to the general plan advisory committee. They formed two subgroups of themselves in order to focus the first on the marineship and the second on the downtown and have or put in together a brief set of recommendations of things that they feel the general plan advisory committee should be focusing on with regards to those two things. I haven't seen the final report yet. I imagine it's going to be available within the next month or so. |
| 00:34:14.73 | Joe Burns | Susan. |
| 00:34:15.09 | Russell Zink | Thank you. |
| 00:34:15.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, I just have one prospective issue. The sustainability commission is meeting this Thursday and one of the items on their agenda that I've spoken about before is a proposed plastic ban ordinance that would impact plastic used by restaurants for takeout here in Sausalito. So they will be voting on that ordinance this coming Thursday. And if it moves forward, I would like to recommend that we have the legislative committee of this council take a look at it. |
| 00:34:47.76 | Joe Burns | Great, we'll consider that on future gen items, great. Any others? So perfect, that's what I want you to hear and that's what I think you'll get used to hearing is how important and involved our committees are and our council liaisons to those committees, especially at this time when we're working on a general plan update, ferry landing, land side improvement process and some of the items that we deal with in our community, we have a plethora of talent and we appreciate those. So thank you for those people that are involved. We are now to the consent calendar. We can remove items from the consent calendar matters listed under the consent are considered routine and non-controversial. I won't read the whole thing, but Items removed from consent will be discussed later on the agenda or discussed here. Is there any public comment on the consent calendar? any public comment? Great, I know we have a couple, yeah sorry. |
| 00:35:46.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I wanted to ask if we could remove 5A from the agenda and hear it later tonight. That's the approval of the 2019 City Council meeting schedule. Thank you. um, I had a couple of issues. |
| 00:36:00.42 | Joe Burns | Quick issues or something that we should wait on? |
| 00:36:00.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Quick issues or something that we should wait on? No, I think the city manager thought it should be heard later in the meeting. |
| 00:36:08.70 | Joe Burns | Okay. Okay. Removing 5A, we have a couple of recusals. |
| 00:36:14.97 | Joan Cox | I will recuse myself from item 5.0. |
| 00:36:21.12 | Joan Cox | D. |
| 00:36:24.11 | Ray Withy | And I need to recuse myself from item 5C as I live within 500 feet of the subject property |
| 00:36:32.55 | Joan Cox | And for item 5F, I transmitted a recommended additional protocol. |
| 00:36:39.65 | Joe Burns | Thank you. With that amendment, is everybody comfortable with including that in the? Great. Thank you for that. I'd like to hear a motion on what we currently have as far |
| 00:36:49.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I'll make a motion to approve 5B, 5E, 5F, 5G as amended, 5H, and 5I. Second. Second. |
| 00:37:02.69 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor for clarification. Yes, please. I believe it was 5F that was amended, not 5G, correct? |
| 00:37:03.70 | Ray Withy | I can't. |
| 00:37:03.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:37:03.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:37:04.05 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:37:04.21 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:37:09.25 | Mary Wagner | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:37:09.45 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:37:09.52 | Mary Wagner | Correct. Thank you. |
| 00:37:09.83 | Joan Cox | 5. |
| 00:37:10.20 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:10.23 | Joan Cox | Sorry. Yes. I will second the amended motion. |
| 00:37:13.72 | Joe Burns | amended. In favor? |
| 00:37:15.87 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:37:15.88 | Serge | Thank you. |
| 00:37:15.92 | Joan Cox | Aye. |
| 00:37:15.95 | Serge | Bye. |
| 00:37:16.32 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:16.34 | Serge | I'm not sure. |
| 00:37:16.37 | Alice Merrill | Bye. |
| 00:37:16.39 | Serge | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:37:16.69 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 00:37:16.74 | Serge | I'm not sure. |
| 00:37:16.78 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:20.24 | Serge | The motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:37:26.47 | Joan Cox | I move approval of item 5C. Second. |
| 00:37:31.14 | Joe Burns | All in favor? I. |
| 00:37:32.24 | Joan Cox | I'm sorry. |
| 00:37:32.89 | Joe Burns | Abstain. Thank you. |
| 00:37:34.11 | Serge | Right. |
| 00:37:34.18 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:34.23 | Serge | Yeah. |
| 00:37:34.55 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:34.57 | Serge | Thank you. |
| 00:37:34.70 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:34.72 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:37:34.73 | Serge | Q's. |
| 00:37:36.03 | Joe Burns | Stay. |
| 00:37:36.34 | Serge | That motion carries 4-1. Council member with the recuse recusing. |
| 00:37:44.30 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Serge. And finally. |
| 00:37:46.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'll make a motion to approve item 5D. |
| 00:37:50.02 | Serge | Second. |
| 00:37:52.57 | Joe Burns | All in favor. |
| 00:37:53.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:37:53.51 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:53.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 00:37:53.82 | Joe Burns | you |
| 00:37:53.97 | Serge | Bye. |
| 00:37:54.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I recuse. |
| 00:37:54.56 | Serge | you |
| 00:37:54.61 | Joe Burns | I don't know. |
| 00:37:54.70 | Serge | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:37:54.78 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:54.80 | Serge | Thank you. |
| 00:37:55.15 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:56.30 | Serge | That motion carries for one council member Cox recusing. |
| 00:38:01.92 | Joe Burns | Thank you for that. We'll be hearing item 5A, approval of the 2019 City Council meeting schedule later tonight or early tomorrow morning, whichever comes first. |
| 00:38:17.82 | Joe Burns | That's a good one, huh, Sybil? We have our video technician here, so we might get video. Just one more time to remind, if anybody's in the hallway and wants to see, we do have a TV in the back room for video once we get it going. Public hearing items, number six on our agenda. Public hearing items will be heard following the business item. I know a lot of you are here for this inclusionary housing ordinance, but I'm going to ask you to stick around. We're going to do some stuff in front of it, which is our business items. I'm going to ask for |
| 00:38:56.19 | Joan Cox | That's going to be heard after 7. |
| 00:38:59.41 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 00:39:04.36 | Joe Burns | Okay. So, um, Can I take public comment on this, right? |
| 00:39:08.81 | Serge | Thank you. |
| 00:39:08.83 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:39:08.84 | Serge | Yeah. |
| 00:39:09.34 | Joe Burns | Thank you. So on business items, I'm gonna accept public comment on items on our business items agenda. Any public comment on, hmm? |
| 00:39:19.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:19.73 | Joe Burns | Yeah, that's what I kind of thought, yeah. So I don't know why that's on there. Thank you. |
| 00:39:23.54 | Paul Ronan | Each one. |
| 00:39:27.34 | Joe Burns | Thank you for your patience. So first up, 7A, we're going to do study session of the nuts and bolts of labor negotiations. Charles Sakai and Sloan. Sakai here? I think so. |
| 00:39:41.11 | Charles Sakai | I think. Good evening, council members, members of the public. I have a Brief presentation, I realize there are a lot of people here and they are not here to see me. So I'm going to move through this as quickly as possible. And if you have questions, no one is here to see me. If you have questions, feel free to stop me. But I do intend to move through this pretty rapidly. Again, my name is Charles Sakai. I am a labor consultant for the city. We are here to talk about the nuts and bolts, essentially, of labor negotiations. We have two bargaining units open at the end of this fiscal year on June 30th, the SCIU union and the Police Officers Association. This kind of presentation was done once before in 2015, and so that is also available for people. We have four items on the agenda. We'll talk about the legal framework of negotiations, essentials for success, climate and trends in the area, and I'll go through that very quickly, and then planning for negotiations. It's a legal framework of negotiations, essentials for success, climate trends in the area, and I'll go through that very quickly, and then planning for negotiations. So legal framework, essentially we talk about collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is bargaining with employer organizations. Employees don't bargain individually with the city as an employer, but bargain as a group through their union. What is the goal of collective bargaining? Obviously it's to reach an agreement. So mutually acceptable conditions for employment. The path to reaching an agreement really is through the negotiations process, sometimes an impasse resolution process, which involves mediation and fact-finding. We'll talk about that briefly later. And then we talk a little bit about theories of bargaining. I would say most people are familiar with positional bargaining, where each side comes in with a position and you try to negotiate to a compromise. The Harvard negotiation process first developed something called interest-based bargaining, which was the book Getting to Yes. And there are a number of other sort of hybrid models of that that are used out there in the world of negotiations. Very quickly, the legal framework negotiations come in cities from the Myers-Millius Myers-Brown Act is a state law that gives municipal agency employees the right to organize and places disputes about those bargaining issues before the public employment relations board the MMBA requires both the union and the employer to come together and negotiate in good faith about items within the scope of representation. Scope of representation is listed as wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. Obviously, that last is a catch-all, which covers a number of different issues, but it excludes the merits and necessity or organization of any service or activity. Essentially, that's the managerial prerogative of the city to make determinations about whether and how to provide certain services. Mandatory subjects of bargaining, which are the things within scope of representation, must be negotiated at the point of agreement or to impasse and failure to do so as an unfair practice, which again is adjudicated by the Public Employment Relations Board. So essentially, the requirements of good faith bargaining are the chief negotiators have the authority to negotiate at the table, and the authority is based on direction from the council or the union's membership as the principles and negotiations. Good faith bargaining requires people to meet free from direct dealing and undue influence. Direct dealing, which we'll talk about a little bit more later, is when either the employer tries to communicate and negotiate directly with employees or the Union tries to negotiate directly with the City Council very quickly the red and green table here good faith bargaining personally meeting upon for and conferring upon request continue for a reasonable time really exchange information proposals and provide adequate time for resolution of the negotiation process. Bad faith is avoiding this and taking unilateral action before impasse is reached, we are to provide requested relevant information, value to exchange proposals, regressive bargaining, which means moving backwards on proposals, so proposing one thing and then proposing something which is less advantageous to the other side or dilatory tactics, essentially avoiding negotiations and avoiding reaching agreement. However, all that being said, hard bargaining is okay. Hard bargaining is where one side or the other takes a firm bargaining position and maintains that position throughout the bargaining process. So that is permitted. It is not considered bad faith to do that, but there are obviously gradations in terms of how one approaches bargaining. |
| 00:41:03.95 | Unknown | but |
| 00:43:57.97 | Charles Sakai | Thank you. The end game of bargaining has a couple of pieces. Impasse resolution, I'm going to skip the first and go to impasse resolution, has a statutorily required process of fact-finding and a voluntary process of mediation. So the parties can go and utilize a mediator, generally some state mediation service to try to work through their difficulties. If that fails to achieve a resolution, then the fact-finding process is required by law when requested by the union. That's a neutral third party that comes in and makes a non-binding recommendation on each of the issues in dispute. Finally there is the opportunity for the employer to and the employer organization to utilize what are called their economic weapons. The employer can implement last best final offer and employees can strike. And we've seen a little bit of that in recent years in various cities like Oakland. And so the best alternative to negotiated agreement is what you have as your options. If you don't reach an agreement, and that may be unilateral implementation or may be resorting to economic pressure through the strike process. Turning to essentials for success, obviously it's important to have a well-trained and well-organized management team strong involvement by city manager and city management and direction support from the City Council so one of the key things in negotiations is is that we provide you sufficient information to make decisions and make give us direction in the bargaining table and then recognition that this is a time-consuming process. I think that's on both sides. Both the union and the employees and the council need to recognize this is going to take a while to get through. Essential success continuing on, confidentiality, negotiations that occur at the table, not in the public. usually we have city council ground rules which dictate how the council participates in the process and then a united front and we've talked about this essentially which is bargaining again should remain at the bargaining table and not be done directly through the process Closed session is something that obviously had a closed session earlier today. Closed session is provided for under the Brown Act and permits the council a time outside of the public view to have a debate and discuss and provide direction to the negotiators. This is similar to what you would do in a case of litigation or other negotiations such as real estate deals. obviously we've talked about ground rules for city council and how the city council would operate maintaining confidentiality leaving the city manager as the spokesperson and avoiding serial meetings, disclosing any contract with union members and the contents of those discussions within the council closed session environment. Very quickly on labor environment trends, we're all aware of CPI. CPI-U is listed here for the last several months through October. And then we've got a slide here on the consumer price index. And I do apologize. I know I'm going very fast, but I also know that there are other people here. So this goes through Bay Area CPI-U. and we have the core CPI. At least I'm getting a few laughs. I'm glad people are still listening. And then the national CPI, which is obviously lower than the Bay Area CPI, as I think everyone who lives here realizes. And then we've got national projections on CPI, essentially remaining stable for the next couple of years. We've got a list here of some of the recent agreements that have been reached in the area. These are not the survey cities that you normally use. They are provided simply for some context in terms of what the negotiations are and what the terms of agreements are. We're seeing agreements in the three- to four-year range and wage increases. You can see they're somewhere between 2% and, in some cases, 2% and 3% in most cases. Equity adjustments for specific classifications are occurring where we've got recruitment or retention issues. Obviously, the job market in the Bay Area is very difficult, especially for certain classifications. And we're seeing agencies address that specifically as opposed to an across-the-board COLA targeting increases for specific classifications. Right now, concession bargaining isn't happening very much most agencies dealt with concessions during the last economic downturn right now we're really looking at pension contribution changes the PEPRA modified pensions going forward so really limited to negotiations over contributions that can sometimes lead to issues with recruitment and then retire medical changes Obviously the city of Sausalito has made significant strides in that area. You were noted in the Alameda County grand jury report involving the city of Oakland for your success in retiring medical negotiations. Other patterns again generally we're looking we're not seeing concessions we are seeing equity adjustments for specific classifications. Issues we're going to have to address as we move forward in the bargaining process is how long the agreements are and then whether there are specific issues involving each bargain unit. And then again, the timing of negotiations and how you're going to staff your negotiations, which is something obviously you'll be discussing in closed session. That is the end of my presentation. I think I took two breaths. So if there are any questions or anything else you want to talk about. |
| 00:49:06.79 | Joe Burns | So, |
| 00:49:11.60 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Yeah, you did. And I will emphasize how important this item is in just a moment. Do we have any questions from our council? |
| 00:49:11.62 | Charles Sakai | Thank you. |
| 00:49:19.33 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just think maybe it might be helpful for the city manager to perhaps just give the public a sense of the timeline moving forward when negotiations start and how we'll be moving forward. |
| 00:49:32.07 | Adam Politzer | Yes, as Charles shared the process, terminates at the end of the current contract, which end on June 30th of this year. So, The City Council will start the process in February. We've already started the process. You've probably seen the indication in closed session that we've started discussions in closed session on labor negotiations. and Charles Sakai is our advisor. So between now and the end of June, we hope to reach contract conditions. |
| 00:50:08.37 | Joe Burns | Thank you, any other questions? Public comment, is there any public comment on this item, please? |
| 00:50:14.36 | Unknown | I like you too. |
| 00:50:15.53 | Joe Burns | Yeah, sorry. And just as Tula's coming up, We have confirmation, our video, our video opportunity for tonight is completely dead. |
| 00:50:25.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:26.09 | Joe Burns | So we will not have any video. I wasted money on a tie. We are going to be audio only, so please, even more important, loud into the mic. speaker cards, all the normal things. So thank you and sorry for your patients. |
| 00:50:42.43 | Tula Biederman | Hi, my name's Tula Biederman. Will the slides and the forthcoming scheduling information be available on the city website for public comment, or will be transferred or communicated to the union directly? |
| 00:50:57.02 | Joe Burns | I don't know if we're necessarily into a position to answer on that, but can staff answer TULA at a different time? The slide show itself? Yes. Oh, yes, it is. Yes, it is. I'm sorry. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. I thought you were talking about other doctors. Yes, it is. Thank you. |
| 00:51:07.05 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:51:07.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:07.37 | Unknown | Thank you. It is. |
| 00:51:17.61 | Joe Burns | Bringing it back up, any other public comment? Anything else? Thank you, bringing it up here. Any comments on this item? Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:51:24.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:25.02 | Joe Burns | Thank you. I want to thank Susan Cleveland Knowles on her question, because I think that's kind of the emphasis we wanted to hear. Sorry, Charles, that it was kind of a format to rush you through, but your slide presentation now in the public record, as well as this body hearing, our residents hearing, that this item is coming forth. It's a very important item. Keep in tune with us, because this is something we should all hear. Thank you very much. Thank you, Charles. That brings us to item 7B, short-term rental pilot program discussion. As Lilly comes up, I am going to get some of my materials out here. We're just gonna not even take a break, Thank you. Green cards. I had a suggestion at the beginning of the meeting that maybe we forego some public comment in lieu of maybe a hand vote. It was a great suggestion. Given some of the other challenges we have tonight and some of the issues, I think we're going to ask you to come to the mic. And. I know that we even had suggested maybe to limit the timeframe. It's gonna stay within our normal three minutes for public comment when we get to that part of our agenda here. I want the community to be able to opine. You're all here, thank you for that. It's wonderful to hear you and see you. And as we get into public comment, we'll have some more direction. First, we're going to have Lily Whalen give her presentation. So thank you. |
| 00:52:52.68 | Lily Whalen | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. Happy New Year. I am Lily Whalen. I'm your community development director. And this evening, this is an item of a continuation of the council's discussion about short-term rentals that was held last on October 9th. And so tonight we'll discuss the pilot program that was discussed at that evening and recommended by the short-term rental task force and get council direction on how to proceed. |
| 00:53:23.63 | Lily Whalen | Very shortly in terms of background, short-term rentals are the rental of a home, a dwelling, a dwelling unit, rooms, or a room in a dwelling unit for a period of less than 30 days. And short-term rentals are currently prohibited in Sausalito. But despite their prohibition, short-term rental activity does continue in Sausalito, especially with the services provided by online platforms, such as Airbnb and VRBO. The council again last discussed this issue on October 9th and then directed staff to draft resolutions for discussion. So the pilot program discussed on October 9th would be a one-year program to allow short-term rentals in Sausalito on a limited basis. And it would have quarterly public review of the program compliance and any unintended consequences and also semi-annual public review of the program costs and permit fee revenues. Some of the program components are here in blue on the screen. The program would allow for only 100 short-term rental permits to be issued, Additionally, only a primary resident would be allowed to apply for a permit. And a primary resident would be someone who occupies a unit for more than half the year. And this means that due to requiring a long-term resident to reside in the unit, the unit wouldn't be taken off of the long-term rental market. The primary resident would only be allowed to rent the unit unhosted or when they're not present. for a maximum of 90 days per year. the primary resident would be able to rent the unit hosted or when they are present. unlimited. Accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units would not be allowed to be used for short-term rentals. And then there's a number of other, and then TOT would also be required to be collected. And there's also a number of other program features and requirements, including the requirement to designate a local contact who would respond to issues within 30 minutes. of being contacted. requiring a building inspection report to ensure that the unit is safe, and then also requiring parking for the short term unit. Staff has prepared a draft, the draft regulations in ordinance form as directed by the council, and then a summary of program features, including direction requested by the council, and this is in the staff report. This is a small typeface here, but a list of those items consolidated from the staff report of features that staff is asking for council confirmation on, and then also some discussion points that we can walk through tonight. So the list contains a number of confirmation items that are in black here on the screen, and then several discussion topics that are in red. And those discussion topics include the method of issuing permits, determining what constitutes a presence by the primary resident, confirmation that the intent of the program is to require parking of the short-term rental unit with the amount to be discussed by the Planning Commission if it proceeds to a zoning ordinance amendment. Discussing the street width issue, in which certain areas of Sausalito with streets less than 16 feet in width may have different permitting requirements for short-term rentals. discussing a number of staff added provisions for consideration by the council, including prohibition on temporary structures, special events, on-site advertising, and then also prohibiting advertising without a short-term rental permit period. In addition, staff has provided language for council discussion that would require the permit holder to maintain records of compliance secure liability insurance and then also to secure a notarized affidavit from the property owner acknowledging the permit application. So right now, I'll just click through those detailed confirmation and discussion slides, and we can return to them during council discussion if you'd like. |
| 00:57:40.16 | Lily Whalen | So in order to enact the pilot program, a zoning ordinance amendment would be required. to be initiated by the city council. And that takes a hearing of the Planning Commission and then two hearings of the city council. Preliminary analysis of general plan consistency was provided in the staff report. And zoning ordinance amendments require that amendments of the zoning ordinance be consistent with the general plan. Additionally, if a zoning ordinance amendment for a pilot program is initiated, staff would complete an initial study pursuant to CEQA to determine if the project may have a significant effect on the environment. With regard to correspondence received as of this afternoon, we have received over 150 pieces of written correspondence in support and opposed to short-term rentals. In the staff report, staff has organized these concerns into different themes and indicated how the issue is addressed in the pilot program. So I've provided those tables from the staff report on the next several slides here, indicating the themes of the concern received and how the concern is addressed. So this slide shows concerns regarding safety, neighborhood transiency, parking impacts, impacts to the rental market, and safety issues. In general, to address these concerns, the program requires a primary long-term resident to occupy the short-term rental unit. itself. And then it limits the number of days for unhosted short term rentals in a given year to a maximum of 90 days. Therefore, the program conserves existing rental housing stock by requiring a primary resident to live in the proposed short term rental permanently with provisions to allow for an unhosted short term rental use on a limited maximum of 90 day basis. Additionally, a local contact is required to be available 24-7 for neighborhood concerns and also concerns that the short-term rental tenant might have as well. Parking would be required for the short-term rental unit, and then the program also requires a building inspection report. be submitted to the city upon initial application. This slide shows concerns related to the program's impact on the housing element with regard to ADUs and then also enforcement. To address these concerns, the program does not allow use of an ADU as a short-term rental. However, even if ADUs were allowed to be used as short-term rentals, rental housing would not be converted to ownership units or non-residential uses under the pilot program. With regard to enforcement, post-compliance has been retained to provide data collection, monitoring, and compliance services. A valid short-term rental permit must provide their permitting number and all advertising. That's a program component. And additionally, the council recently increased contract code enforcement services from a one day a week officer to a three day a week officer. The code enforcement officer would determine if there are violations of an issued permit or if there is an unpermitted short-term rental unit that's operating in the city. The council could add a requirement, as I mentioned before, to prohibit all advertising of non-permitted short-term rentals in order to make the violations more straightforward and easier to prove. This slide shows the concerned that there would be a change to zoning. concerns regarding limiting the number of permits that could be issued and enforceability of the primary resident requirement. To address these concerns, the program limits the number of permits that could be issued by the city to 100 and would allow short-term rental use as an accessory use to the use of a property as a primary residence. As a primary resident would be required to live in the home, there's not a conversion of use. Regarding enforceability of the primary resident requirement, Pilot program requires the primary resident sign an affidavit when they submit their application indicating that the short-term rental unit is the primary resident's primary Residents. and is their home, and they have and will continue to be physically present for no less than 183 days in a calendar year at the residence. They must also provide evidence of primary residence, primary residence, including, but not limited to, documentation from income, tax statements, or driver's license. Post-compliance data could also be used to investigate The number of nights the property's available online as a short-term rental in a given calendar year if there were permitting compliance uncertainties. This slide shows the concerns about subleasing a rental space without the property owner's knowledge, and then also concerns regarding increases in tourism. To address these concerns, the program caps the number of permits at 100. And Hoes Compliance has estimated that currently In Sausalito, 157 properties are being rented on a short-term basis, and therefore the program would reduce the number of short-term rentals currently in Sausalito, and then also, importantly, regulate their impacts. Regarding the subleasing question, the short term rental permit application will be required to be signed by the property owner, as is all of our permit applications. In addition, the draft ordinance requires the applicant sign an affidavit certifying that the primary resident will comply with and be responsible for short-term renters to comply with any applicable provisions of a homeowner's agreement timeshare ownership agreement, condominium board regulations, tenant organization rules. lease, or other agreements or covenants that apply to the dwelling unit. And as I mentioned before, to enhance this, the council could consider a requirement that the property owner signed a notarized affidavit, acknowledging that their tenant is applying for a short-term rental permit. This slide shows concerns regarding noise, garbage, and overcrowding. To address these concerns, the program requires the applicant to provide notification to neighbors. of the short-term rental prior to use of the home as a short-term rental. And the purpose of this notification is so that the, to indicate to the neighbors that the property would be used as a short term rental and also to provide the name and contact information for the local contact person. the email address as well, and the phone number and email address of the short-term rental hotline. and the street address, so the short-term rental. Additionally, the primary resident is required to inform the short-term rental about Unreasonable use of the short-term rental property, unreasonable noise or disturbance, disorderly or unlawful contact. conduct or overcrowding of the unit itself. They are also required to provide a good neighbor handbook to all short-term rental users and make the local contact available to respond in a timely manner. to reported concerns or complaints pertaining to a unit. And then lastly, a 24-7 hotline. is provided as a part of our contract with host compliance, and that would allow for neighbor complaints or concerns. |
| 01:05:20.21 | Lily Whalen | So staff is the completes our staff report. Again, we can go back to those slides later in this evening, but we're recommending that you receive this presentation take public comment and provide direction on how to address short term rentals in Sausalito including the following, either direct staff to continue the prohibition on short-term rentals or direct staff to initiate the zoning ordinance amendment for a short-term rental pilot program. And then I'd also like to introduce Ulrich Binzer, who I hope is in the audience. So Ulrich is the founder and CEO of Host Compliance. Ulrich's available tonight. to answer questions the council may have about how host compliance can help the city. with the pilot program or enforcement of the ban. Ulrich does have a plane to catch, and so he has to leave around 9 p.m. tonight, so he's available until then. |
| 01:06:10.90 | Sherry | nine, yeah. |
| 01:06:14.77 | Lily Whalen | That concludes my staff report, and I'm available for any questions. |
| 01:06:19.21 | Joe Burns | Great, I will open it up for Council's questions, starting with Jill. |
| 01:06:24.84 | Jill Hoffman | question. |
| 01:06:25.30 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:06:25.32 | Jill Hoffman | So, Lily, what exactly are we, you're asking us to vote on tonight? So, in other words, if we direct staff to initiate a zoning ordinance amendment, that means that that's just the first step in perhaps moving toward a pilot program. |
| 01:06:43.96 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. |
| 01:06:44.03 | Jill Hoffman | Correct. So it still has to go through the Planning Commission. Thank you. |
| 01:06:47.34 | Lily Whalen | practice. |
| 01:06:47.64 | Jill Hoffman | and then it comes back to us for further discussion or further |
| 01:06:53.43 | Lily Whalen | Correct. You have two hearings. You would need to take two hearings on any zoning ordinance amendment. |
| 01:06:53.93 | Jill Hoffman | You have. |
| 01:06:59.42 | Jill Hoffman | And then whatever, you know, if we decided to go down that road, then what the, you know, the conditions or what the actual pilot program would look like we would vote on that at the same time that we vote on the zoning ordinance or that would come back to us in a separate meeting or have we thought that far ahead? |
| 01:07:16.18 | Lily Whalen | Correct, so the zoning ordinance amendment would actually be the pilot program. It's amending the zoning ordinance to allow for short-term rentals under the conditions that I just talked about, and it would have a sunset of a year. |
| 01:07:29.86 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so we're talking tonight about the specific parameters or you're expecting us to give you the specific parameters that we want in the pilot program tonight and then that goes to the planning commission? |
| 01:07:41.52 | Lily Whalen | If the council is interested in initiating the zoning ordinance, what I'd recommend is going through that list in the staff report and on the slides here. particularly with regard to the items that say discussion points. I think there's about four of them. There's a handful. Give direction on those so we can modify the draft ordinance that's in your packet right now, and then give us direction to initiate the zoning ordinance amendment, which would be a notice public hearing of the planning commission. So we would take that draft ordinance as modified by |
| 01:07:54.25 | Unknown | points I think There's a hand. |
| 01:08:11.54 | Lily Whalen | the Council to the Planning Commission. The role of the Planning Commission is to provide a recommendation back to the City Council. |
| 01:08:18.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:08:18.31 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:08:19.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. I have a couple questions. |
| 01:08:22.07 | Joe Burns | Susan. |
| 01:08:23.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So there have been a number of public comments about the permanent resident, and I just wanted to delve into that definition for a while. At the short term rental task force, we picked permanent resident, which under the IRS standard is over. half of the year and that's a legal standard that you're required to report to the federal government. So it's most people who report a permanent residence in Sausalito are actually here longer than 180 days, but you have to. That was the easiest thing for us to confirm. Is that correct? |
| 01:08:59.37 | Lily Whalen | That's my recollection. |
| 01:09:00.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, and is there any other standard of permanent resident that we could use easily that is verifiable? that people need to report to the city or to the state. |
| 01:09:11.67 | Lily Whalen | not that i can think of right now i did take a look at other cities ordinances there are only a few that require this permanent resident redwood city does and so i had a chat with them they're still in the beginning of their process right now so they haven't had any issues with it yet so they didn't have |
| 01:09:30.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | okay i think san francisco and la do too as well but okay great um and then this might be a question for host compliance or for you but another area of concern has been um this idea that we won't be able to enforce the fact that you are a permanent resident so i just wanted to hear from either you or from host compliance about whether we really think that that's a viable thing to enforce and how we would do it. I mean, I think a lot of people have talked about neighborhoods for neighbors, which I completely |
| 01:09:30.11 | Lily Whalen | I think San Francisco |
| 01:10:09.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | think is our all of our motto, and so I just, if we do require that you need to be a permanent resident, can we enforce that? |
| 01:10:17.97 | Lily Whalen | So a couple of thoughts. The application itself, as I mentioned, would require an affidavit from the primary resident indicating that they are a primary resident and show proof of that primary residency. And I'll let Ulrich speak to this a little bit. But I think that we could also use host compliance's data as well to have them. go through if there are questions about permanent residency. and see how many days in a calendar year a particular listing was listed online to give us some information Is it available year round? How are you a permanent resident if it's available year round? But I'll let Ulrich if he has anything to add to that. |
| 01:10:59.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, I mean this is a really important issue to me because it not only reflects neighborhoods for neighbors, but it also reflects whether we may be losing our permanent housing stock to short term rentals. |
| 01:11:12.34 | Ulrich Binzer | Yeah, just for the record, my name is Oreg Bitzer. I'm the founder and CEO of PostCompliance. So to maybe go back a little bit, there are really two steps to enforcing a primary residency requirement. And again, for the record, we do that in probably about 100 cities now across the U.S., and it's working very well. But the two steps are first having a very good process for issuing permits with strict requirements, including the requirement to submit proof of primary residency, as you pointed out. And by doing that, you ensure that only people who are qualified actually get a permit. The second step is to scan all the different listings out there to verify that the listings that are posted are actually permitted. So for definition, if people are posting a listing and they are not permitted, that means that they are either illegally operating or not eligible, or both, right? So the idea is that by having a systematic monitoring capability and having these requirements in the ordinance in order to qualify for a permit, you can essentially make sure that only the people that you think should be allowed to operate are operating. So that's the first thing. The second thing that Lily pointed out is we have the ability to monitor calendars. We take screenshots of every listing every three days, and we look at changes in calendars, and we look at calendar at calendar availability so again if we see that a property is constantly listed and that will allow us to say that it's very unlikely that this person is actually staying there full-time and so that's one way we can also look at how many nights they actually are rented by changing account availability reviews and other things like that so we have a very high likelihood of seeing when people are breaking, for example, that 90-day cap. So we can basically flag that to staff and say this is someone that you may want to audit and ask for additional information. So the short version of it that the ordinance that's proposed here is very enforceable, and I wouldn't have any concern with that. |
| 01:13:16.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so you think we have a high, given our resources, our, so another thing maybe Lily you could speak to is the fact not only have we hired host compliance, but we've hired or increased our contract ability with the code compliant, code compliance officer. |
| 01:13:36.03 | Lily Whalen | So we've increased that as of the end of November, I think the council and gave that authorization to move from a one a day week code enforcement officer to a three day a week code enforcement officer. So we'll have more consistent code enforcement services in the city of Sausalito. |
| 01:13:55.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK, so just to confirm, it sounds like from host compliance and from staff's perspective, we have some high degree of confidence that we will be able to enforce the requirements of a pilot, but most importantly, the primary resident requirement. Thank you. |
| 01:14:13.56 | Lily Whalen | Yes, given the tools that the council has provided, including host compliance with their data and the increased code enforcement officer services, I do think that. |
| 01:14:23.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, and then another area that we've received a lot of correspondence and questions about is this idea of neighbor complaints and accessibility. And I think I heard some maybe laughter or disbelief about sort of the workability of a hotline and maybe you or host compliance could talk about how that actually works and whether it works in other jurisdictions and what the response rate is like. So if my neighbor is having a big party, and I'm concerned or they're parked in front of my driveway or they put their trash. out on the wrong day those kinds of things so how How would that just work physically with host compliance and with staff? |
| 01:15:09.17 | Lily Whalen | So I'll let host compliance start with their experience with the hotline. Okay. |
| 01:15:16.22 | Ulrich Binzer | Orrick Vinser, founder and CEO of Host Compliance. So maybe before I answer the question about other cities experience, maybe let me explain how the hotline actually works. So the way that we have designed the hotline is that a citizen that's experiencing a issue with a neighboring short term rental can call this number or go online 24-7. By contacting us, we will ask a series of questions. We'll ask what is the address of the property that you are calling it about? What is the nature of the issue that you're experiencing? And we will also ask if the complainant would be willing to share any evidence of the alleged violation. If they're willing to do that, what we'll do is we will either send them a text message or an email in real time. Sorry. |
| 01:16:04.06 | Joe Burns | Excuse me, we're going to keep this very civil, and I really appreciate it. We have a lot of testimony today. |
| 01:16:04.16 | Ulrich Binzer | Thank you. |
| 01:16:08.63 | Ulrich Binzer | today. Okay, so we will send them an email or text. Most people these days have a cell phone that has a camera and a video camera in it. So most people are able to respond to that very easily. So what they will do is they will take a photo of the car parked in the driveway or the trash that's spread all over the street or if it's a video of a big party going on, they can do that. It literally takes all the five seconds. That will go into the case file. That's the first thing that happens. The second thing that happens is in real time, we will look up in the database of permitted short term rentals who the emergency contact is. And if it is a permanent property, we will call that emergency contact in close to real time, within a minute of getting the complaint. And then we will basically tell them that we have received a complaint, the nature of the complaint, and if the ordinance specifies it, what the expected remedy is. So a lot of cities, for example, specify that the emergency contact has to basically put the kibosh on these issues within 20-30 minutes. Otherwise that is another violation of the ordinance in and of itself. To talk a little bit about how this actually works, the city of South Lake Tahoe is a client of us. They happen to be very focused on the neighborhood quality issues. So they actually have code enforcement on staff on weekends. They get to these issues within two minutes of getting a complaint, literally. I'm not expecting it. You're gonna have people able to drive out there. But my point is that the service works in real time. So however way you want to sort of escalate it, you have the ability to do that. The way our service also works is that we will actually call back the complainant after 20 or 30 minutes, whatever the ordinance says, and ask them if the issue was resolved to the satisfaction. If they respond no, we can escalate it to the police at that point if you want us to. So in short, the service really works. We get thousands of calls across the country every month, and everyone is very happy with it. |
| 01:16:45.77 | Unknown | This is a... |
| 01:17:59.06 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:18:09.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And so just |
| 01:18:11.13 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:18:11.15 | Ulrich Binzer | So |
| 01:18:11.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So these are real concerns that people have actually expressed. And I think people are upset about this. I think that's what we're trying to talk about here, so I think I'd appreciate some respect for our speaker, who we've now hired, to enforce short-term rentals, either if there is a pilot or there's not a pilot. So Mr. Ulrich, I'm sorry, your first name, will be helping us with enforcement if there's a ban or not. So either way. He'll be working with all of us to make sure that our neighborhoods remain places where all of us want to be. So, sorry, but people do not need to state their identity, just like when you call the police, you have that, it's optional, and you don't have to provide any evidence if you wish to decline. |
| 01:19:08.37 | Ulrich Binzer | That's right. |
| 01:19:08.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right. |
| 01:19:08.89 | Ulrich Binzer | Thank you. Can I make one other point? And that is just the point about enforcement. Whatever way you decide to go in the pilot program, at the end of the day, there has to be enforcement. And you are faced with the same enforcement challenges, whether or not you have essentially a crime residence requirement as a total ban. At the end of the day, you have to track down who's illegal. You have to deal with the complaints. To have a person you can call and try to shut it down actually makes it a little bit easier. In an advanced situation, there is no emergency contact you can call, and Citi is probably not gonna be able to get out there anyway. So I just wanna make sure that people are realistic about the realities of enforcement are essentially the same, but having some kind of a permit system with an emergency contact actually makes it easier to shut down these party houses more quickly. |
| 01:19:57.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:19:57.29 | Ulrich Binzer | Thank you. |
| 01:19:58.54 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. I didn't answer my question. |
| 01:20:01.44 | Joe Burns | Joe. |
| 01:20:02.71 | Joan Cox | Lily, you said that we received 150 pieces of correspondence. for this meeting or did that include the correspondence we received in October when we previously heard this item? |
| 01:20:14.79 | Lily Whalen | It did include the prior correspondence. |
| 01:20:16.88 | Joan Cox | Okay, and of the 150 pieces of correspondence, how many were in favor and how many were opposed? |
| 01:20:23.68 | Lily Whalen | I didn't do that calculation. Would you? I didn't do the calculation. Well, fortunately, |
| 01:20:26.30 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:20:30.70 | Joan Cox | Fortunately, I did. |
| 01:20:32.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:20:32.14 | Linda Hammond | So... |
| 01:20:33.52 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:20:37.10 | Joan Cox | So I counted 29 in favor. Would you have any reason to disagree with that calculation? No. |
| 01:20:42.02 | Lily Whalen | No, as I stated, I didn't do the calculation. |
| 01:20:44.07 | Joan Cox | Thanks. That's it. Thank you. |
| 01:20:47.05 | Michael Dowd | Thank you. |
| 01:20:48.15 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:20:48.17 | Michael Dowd | Question, yeah. Thank you. |
| 01:20:49.11 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. |
| 01:20:49.20 | Michael Dowd | Thank you. |
| 01:20:51.00 | Ray Withy | So I'd like to thank you for the presentation. I'd like to explore the issue of enforcement just a little bit more. You are a friend from host compliance has stated that we need enforcement whether we have the pilot program or not, which I agree with. I think at the last meeting, or maybe it was the October 9th meeting, when host compliance was on the Skype, I think. You were at SFO or one of the airports or somewhere. And you're there short. You have to go there shortly. You gave an example of the city of Monterey. I think it was Monterey, where I'm wondering whether you could repeat those statistics because they maintained a ban on short-term rentals and nonetheless with your help were able to reduce the number of therefore illegal Rentals from some number to some number. Could you remind me what that was? |
| 01:22:10.75 | Ulrich Binzer | Yeah, unfortunately I can't remember the exact number, but off the top of my head it was about 150 to about a dozen in about six months. So again, the point is we can enforce any regulation. Whatever you want to do, we can help you do that. So I think enforcement should not necessarily be the driving decision for you tonight. It should be about what do you think is reasonable and essentially conducive to a good community in the city of Sausalito. It's the same enforcement process either way. Thank you. |
| 01:22:40.93 | Ray Withy | Thank you. And then, if I may, for Lily, We've got 157, according to your latest estimates, 157 properties that are being rented on a short-term basis in Sausalito. With the, to further what, Susan was sort of probing Do you even with host compliance on board to give you all of this extra data and even with increasing threefold, one day a week to three days a week, a co-compliance officer who by the way at the moment is charged not with enforcing any of this, right? |
| 01:23:35.62 | Unknown | Mm-mm. |
| 01:23:36.34 | Ray Withy | What is the, do you really believe that you would have the resources to shut down at least 57, if not more properties. with the aid of host compliance as data. |
| 01:23:57.03 | Lily Whalen | Yes. |
| 01:23:58.57 | Ray Withy | Okay? |
| 01:24:02.33 | Joe Burns | That actually leads to a question I had for Ulrich, and then I'm gonna get back to you, Lily, with a couple. This is a little bit, kind of throwing it at you, because I know we haven't talked about this, we haven't talked at all, You've been on the process of some communities that went from no ban or ban failing to a permitted program When they made that switch and you became involved, feedback on the permits number that came in. And I'll just tell you why I'm asking. We have 157 to 187, our previous number, operating. When we go to a program, if we go to a program stipulated here, Will we have 150 applications, do you think? Will we have 45 applications? What type of, did you see when you did that in other communities? |
| 01:24:56.64 | Ulrich Binzer | Yeah. So maybe I'll give you the counter example. So the city of San Francisco adopted an ordinance that's very similar to what is proposed in this pilot. And after the ordinance was adopted and they actually started doing some enforcement, there was a drop in the number of short-term rentals by about 55%, which means that essentially only 45% of the original host qualified because they were probably primary residents or thought it was worthwhile going through the effort of getting the permit. So my guess would be that you're gonna see a similar type of ratio here. So basically of the 157, 50% of them would probably be operating after the fact because they would be the ones that probably qualified. So that would be my best guess. |
| 01:25:44.53 | Joe Burns | Okay, thank you. That is a number we might revisit later today. |
| 01:25:49.23 | Joan Cox | Can I ask a follow-up to this? |
| 01:25:50.10 | Joe Burns | Yes, please. |
| 01:25:51.09 | Joan Cox | All right. You mentioned San Francisco. I know that San Francisco settled its lawsuit with Airbnb in 2017. How long did it take San Francisco to litigate with Airbnb before San Francisco was able to enforce its regulations? |
| 01:26:08.56 | Ulrich Binzer | It took a long time, but they didn't hire us. |
| 01:26:12.25 | Joan Cox | And how much did San Francisco have to spend in its litigation with Airbnb? |
| 01:26:17.84 | Ulrich Binzer | That I cannot answer, unfortunately. Just the point is you don't have to go through the litigation. Very few cities do that. |
| 01:26:25.23 | Joan Cox | Well. |
| 01:26:25.73 | Ulrich Binzer | Yeah. |
| 01:26:26.56 | Joan Cox | You would agree that in Southern California, when San Diego in enacted. strict regulations on Airbnb Airbnb put a map measure on the ballot and Right? |
| 01:26:39.83 | Ulrich Binzer | That can totally happen. I don't expect it in the city of Sausalito because it's not big enough for them to care, but it could be. |
| 01:26:47.23 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:26:50.88 | Joe Burns | Is that good, Joan? Yes, thank you. Yeah, thanks. |
| 01:26:51.74 | Joan Cox | Yeah, thank you. |
| 01:26:52.35 | Ulrich Binzer | you |
| 01:26:54.85 | Joe Burns | So a couple questions I had regarded to maybe the process. And I just wanna have these clarifying questions as we might get into a discussion on these. One of those is on the building inspection. We know in our industry, and I see another realtor at least in here, building inspection, third party contractor inspections are coming with a lot of information. You're looking at health, life safety issues or are we kind of getting information that could be additional, that could be a burden or a lot for us to figure out? How does that look? |
| 01:27:32.56 | Lily Whalen | So the focus was on health and life safety issues. So it would be a form that would be prepared by the city, so in consultation with the building inspector, that would be used by a third-party inspector. The alternative is to have the building inspector conduct those inspections. The thought was to put the burden on the applicant to prepare the certified report to submit to the city to alleviate the building inspector to do that |
| 01:27:50.73 | Unknown | And, |
| 01:27:50.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:04.91 | Joe Burns | Okay. One of the questions I asked you and I just wanted to clarify here. I want to be sure that the opportunity, again, if we go with a pilot program, the opportunity to host is the same for a renter as it is a homeowner. Some of the letters that we received in support were of renters and needing or wanting to use the program. And I don't want to put them at a disadvantage to the marketplace by having extra or unburdened, overburdened requirements that a homeowner, property owner would not have. We're 50-50 in our community. It should be fair to both the renter as well as the homeowner. One of those areas is in, we've talked about an affidavit, granted the affidavit that they sign. But then I compared it to a business license permitting process. Is it similar that if a renter applies for a home-based business license, they have to get the same landlord authorization as they would in this program, or is it more erroneous than that? |
| 01:29:06.54 | Lily Whalen | So right now, as the pilot program is written, it would be an application form that's signed by the property owner, and that's similar to the home occupation license where the property owner signs the application form when the tenant is applying for a home-based business. The additional modification the council could consider, as I indicated, is an affidavit from the property owner stating that they agree to the application form being submitted to the city. And that was in response to some of the correspondence that we received indicating that there was concern that a renter could secure, forge a property owner's signature and secure a permit. |
| 01:29:12.56 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:29:48.27 | Joe Burns | And fraud's a consideration in everything we do. So the affidavit would be in addition, not in addition to, but it would be something they could do in lieu of the |
| 01:29:58.90 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. |
| 01:29:58.92 | Unknown | It would be in addition to the application. |
| 01:29:59.39 | Joe Burns | It should be in addition to the application. In addition to. Okay. Thank you. I think that was it on some of those items. Any other questions? |
| 01:30:10.43 | Jill Hoffman | Mm-hmm. Thank you. |
| 01:30:10.91 | Joe Burns | I'd better find out for Jeff. |
| 01:30:10.95 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to find you. Yeah, I have a question about the distinction between a hosted stay and an unhosted stay. So under our pilot program, I believe we said unhosted was unlimited. Correct. |
| 01:30:23.89 | Lily Whalen | THAT'S RIGHT. Thank you. |
| 01:30:26.17 | Jill Hoffman | HOSTED IS UNLIMITED. HOSTED IS UNLIMITED. |
| 01:30:26.20 | Lily Whalen | HOSTED IS UNLIMITED. |
| 01:30:32.18 | Jill Hoffman | Why is there, why did we have that distinction? |
| 01:30:34.96 | Lily Whalen | So the unhosted stay is when the primary resident is not in the unit. And that's a maximum of 90 days. So the primary resident goes somewhere else and someone stays in the unit for short term. Hosted would be |
| 01:30:40.28 | Jill Hoffman | Right. Thank you. |
| 01:30:46.13 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 01:30:48.72 | Lily Whalen | renting a room essentially. Right. So the primary resident is in the unit at the same time and they rent that room. |
| 01:30:50.57 | Jill Hoffman | to |
| 01:30:51.01 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:30:58.82 | Jill Hoffman | So I have a question about, and I haven't passed this to anybody, so I'm just throwing this at somebody. And my apologies, I was out of town until Friday, and so I didn't know that this was going to be on until I got back and saw that it was going to be on. So I have some questions about the legality of can we Do we have the legal ability to limit hosted stays? And if we don't, then this discussion about whether or not hosted or even need to be in the pilot program. I mean, you know. |
| 01:31:38.87 | Mary Wagner | So the question I heard was does the city have the ability to limit the number of days somebody has a hosted stay? Yeah, someone just decides |
| 01:31:45.41 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, someone just decides I'm going to let someone stay here and I'm going to charge them 50 bucks a night. for however long I feel like I want him to stay in my home with me. |
| 01:31:52.44 | Mary Wagner | Well, if you're renting a room to someone, right now our regulations say you can't do it for less than 30 days. |
| 01:31:55.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Right. |
| 01:31:58.54 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, regardless of whether, okay. |
| 01:31:58.58 | Mary Wagner | Okay, we go. So if you're going to do it for less than 30 days, it's considered a short-term rental. And. |
| 01:32:08.67 | Mary Wagner | Yes, I mean you can. Just as you can limit hosted stays, you could limit the ability of someone to, excuse me, just as you can limit unhosted stays, you have the ability to tell someone you can only list X number of days for shorter than 30 day rentals of a unit in your home. |
| 01:32:30.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Mind if I ask a follow-up question? Yeah, go ahead. So this might be a question for Ulrich or Lily. So I've been sort of bothered by this unlimited hosted stay issue. It seems that hosted stays can have some of the same negative, you know, even with the owner there. If the owner is out, they could have some of the same negative impacts on neighbors that hosted stays do so I was just wondering what the experience of that differential is and what other jurisdictions that allow |
| 01:32:32.73 | Jan Johnson | Thank you. |
| 01:32:32.75 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 01:33:09.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm unhosted stays, do about hosted stays, et cetera. Because it's kind of an issue we haven't talked about much. I think everyone assumed if the owner is there, what's the issue, but the more I've thought about it, it does seem like there's a lot of potential for some of the same issues. |
| 01:33:31.32 | Ulrich Binzer | already been founder and CEO of compliance. So to answer this question, there are really two things that people tend to be concerned about, about short-term rentals in California, like Sausalito. Can you speak up a little bit? Sorry. Yeah, there are generally two issues that people tend to be concerned about. It's the housing implications and there's the quality of life of nearby residents. |
| 01:33:45.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:53.01 | Ulrich Binzer | If you look at the data about the quality of life and the complaints, so the city of West Hollywood, which is a client of ours, we did an analysis for them to basically say how many of the complaints were related to hosted versus unhosted stays. And every single one of the complaints we received over a two-year period were related to unhosted stays. So essentially, people renting out the entire unit, and they were not there. I can't guarantee that there won't be an issue with a hosted stay. But the general idea is that when the owner or tenant is there physically, they put the kibosh on the kinds of behaviors that you don't want to see that can be disrupted to the neighbors. As for the other concern, which is about the impact of housing, The general idea is that Not everyone would want to have a permanent roommate like living in their house, but they might want to supplement their income by renting out a spare bedroom on occasion. The conventional wisdom is that it's not like you're taking away a housing unit by allowing people to rent out that spare bedroom, because they probably wouldn't have that full-time roommate anyway. So that's sort of like two things that people tend to think about in these two issues. So I think the data is pretty clear on the complaints, that you don't get a lot of complaints about hosted stays, based on our experience. The other thing is a little more anecdotal, but I think common sense tells you that it does sort of seem to make sense. |
| 01:35:27.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And just, sorry, one more follow-up question on that. So there's also been a lot of comments about how could we tell if someone is actually there hosting. How do we enforce that? |
| 01:35:41.83 | Ulrich Binzer | Yeah, so there's only really a few websites that actually even facilitate hosted stays. And the way that you essentially make your property available or your room available is by listing it as a room, either a shared room or a private room on, for example, websites like Airbnb. All the other websites essentially do entire home rentals, so traditional vacation rentals. And Airbnb also does that, but there's essentially three categories. So the point is that when people list a room, the expectation for the renter is that the owner or the tenant that lives there permanently will be in the unit. And that's the experience that they're seeking. The prices tend to be a lot lower for the same reason. So from looking at the way the property is listed, you can see if it's an entire home rental or if it is a room rental or like a hosted stay. So basically by just segmenting the ads, you'll get a very good idea about what type of rental is happening in that potential rental unit. |
| 01:36:44.56 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Jill. |
| 01:36:51.80 | Joe Burns | We are done. I am going to open it up to public comment. And again, green cards, I know that's really difficult, so many people to get over there. If people want to raise their hands, we can pass them out. Again, we had, yeah, we have quite a few. And that's why we're doing this meeting. I appreciate this. We're going to continue to allow you three minutes to speak in public comment. That is your maximum. I appreciate that some people have even said, we don't need that much. We're going to come up and state we're opposed or for, and maybe even state a reason. But we would like to get you on record. I don't think a hand, even though it's a good idea, I'm not sure just a hand wave will suffice. We don't have video. Though we do now have GoPro, and we will have this available on a YouTube channel. |
| 01:37:41.38 | Adam Politzer | On the city's website. |
| 01:37:42.32 | Joe Burns | Okay, city's website, so we are getting some video now, but still speak clearly. And I want to... I encourage you to, again, fill out a card and come up. Use your time quickly. We've read 157 letters. How was the number, Joan? Yes, 157. 157. and we have 157 current, or short term, yeah, ironic. So we've read a lot of your letters, thank you for those, and we will, |
| 01:38:09.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:38:09.03 | Unknown | Ironic. |
| 01:38:18.50 | Joe Burns | take that into consideration, but please do come up, quickly state your name and your purpose. We're going to hear a lot of information. We've read a lot of information. We've heard passion. You're here. You're here for something that matters to you, passionately, emotionally. It's really hard to bite your tongue when you hear something you don't like. I'm just going to ask that we show respect from a person. Is Ulbricht still here? Did he actually take off? I wanted to thank him. Thank you, Olarq. I know he's going to squeeze out soon. |
| 01:38:50.40 | Lily Whalen | Yeah, they'll leave, but I'll let them know. |
| 01:38:51.53 | Joe Burns | Okay, thank you. We're all neighbors. We have charm and character in our community, and we're gonna demonstrate it tonight. We're gonna have a lot of different opinions. We appreciate those, but we're gonna keep it respectful, please. And you have up to three minutes, but if you don't take it, that's appreciated as well. Let us know how you feel quickly. Thank you. First up, and I'm going to go in threes like we do when we have big items. I don't want to butcher people's last names, though I do know this person. Tom Theodoros will be one. Emmett Ezell, two. And Beth row three. I'm holding approximately 40 to 50, I'm guessing. Quite a few here. |
| 01:39:32.45 | Joe Burns | Is there a card in here that I have? |
| 01:39:33.68 | Tom Theodorus | André. |
| 01:39:35.81 | Joe Burns | Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I just got to find it. Who is it? Sherry. |
| 01:39:37.46 | Sybil | Thank you. |
| 01:39:37.48 | Tom Theodorus | SHARED IT. |
| 01:39:37.93 | Unknown | Sherry, come on up. |
| 01:39:42.84 | Joe Burns | I'm just going to write Sherry on the air. So we'll go Sherry in place of Tom, then Emmett, and then Beth. |
| 01:39:54.71 | Sherry | I hope I don't blow the three minutes right off the bat. |
| 01:39:57.37 | Joe Burns | Well, we'll give you a couple seconds to set up. |
| 01:40:03.26 | Sherry | The Pressure. The Pressure. You know what? I'm going to go ahead and distribute these now. Excuse me. I'm going to go ahead and distribute these now. I was going to do it in a few minutes, but I think that it'll take too much time. So I'm going to do it before my three minutes starts. How about if you just have somebody else? Mr. Elzel, come on up. |
| 01:40:15.82 | Joe Burns | Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, let's do the clerk. Mr. Elzel, come on up. Oh, nope, Sherry's running back. You're good now? |
| 01:40:22.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:22.53 | Sherry | Good. |
| 01:40:23.01 | Joe Burns | Okay, but Mr. Yazell is ready |
| 01:40:27.07 | Sherry | Good evening, council members, Mayor Joe, and especially our friends and neighbors here that have all come out tonight on this really contentious and upsetting issue. Thank you all for staying tonight. It's super important. Thank you, counsel, for all of your hard work. I know you have listened to a lot of opposition about this. And I'm really hoping I'm going to make your decision super easy tonight. And you are just going to take this off the docket. And we're going to continue to have short-term rental bans in Sausalito forever. for the health of our community. I think you're going to see that in the last three weeks Many members that are here tonight We got together through the holidays, through the rainy season, And they started a petition. to ask you to please continue the ban. on short-term rentals. It's important to the health and safety of our communities. And we don't want our residents to be running hotels next door to us. It went viral really fast. It was amazing. Just a few people started passing out petitions, and the people that came to sign the petitions said, let me take some to my neighbors, and my neighbors' neighbors, and my neighbors' neighbors' neighbors. I was out of town through most of this, came back on Friday and said, I have a couple petitions at my office. I was late coming tonight because people were still calling me saying, can I please sign those petitions? The overwhelming response in this three weeks, just three short weeks, was please, please, Don't do this. We have 631 signatures. on the documents that I just gave you. Thanks to many people in this room. That's just the tip of the iceberg. We don't want this. You need to listen to your community. You need to listen to your neighbors, your friends, that voted you here, that got you into this office on the studies. Please. Our quiet enjoyment of our neighborhoods depends on it. I don't want a hotel next door to me. Our constituents here that have short term rentals, the rental community, excuse me, the renters and the full-time residents. have the opportunity to rent for more than 30 days. If you need a roommate because you can't afford to stay in your place, . Get a roommate. Rent for more than 30 days at a time. Don't rent for a weekend to somebody that we don't know. |
| 01:43:24.21 | Sherry | I'm going to ask you. I'm going to beg you. for not just me, but for everybody in this |
| 01:43:31.08 | Joe Burns | Keep going for a couple seconds, Sherry, because you're representing so many people. Quickly, though. |
| 01:43:31.85 | Sherry | because you're representing to please, please reconsider this pilot program. It's a super bad idea. I've been a resident here and a business owner for 30 years. You all know me really well. And I know and respect each and every one of you. And I understand why you need to do this or why you wanted to do this. But this isn't the right way to get that money. It's not. |
| 01:43:58.28 | Joe Burns | THANK YOU. |
| 01:43:58.38 | Sherry | Thank you. |
| 01:44:04.68 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:44:04.81 | Joe Burns | Got it, got it, got it. |
| 01:44:04.86 | Sherry | Thank you. |
| 01:44:04.96 | Unknown | Got it, got it. |
| 01:44:07.75 | Joe Burns | I appreciate your passion. Just a really quick plus. Sherry brought 631 signatures, so I gave her a couple extra seconds. I am going to be a little more diligent on keeping it under three on the next people, and I'm not mean to be rude. We just, it is getting close to nine and we have some other issues. So I know, it's very important. Quick applause and then done. Thank you. |
| 01:44:26.19 | Emmett Ezell | Emmett? You don't need to hold your applause until I'm done. There he goes. I'm fine. Why are we discussing the prospect of changing our city zoning laws? |
| 01:44:33.28 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:44:33.31 | Joe Burns | It's disgusting. |
| 01:44:33.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:44:40.65 | Emmett Ezell | It's the money. Make no mistake, it's the money. That's why people want to do this. Short term rentals are just another way of describing a motel. without a manager, A NEON SIGN. or an ice machine. Please do not experiment with our demographics. Let the voters decide if we want cyber motels in our town. Please don't let this be an experiment. If our city wants to experiment with residential zonings, then we should put it on a ballot issue and let the residents vote on it, not the city council. This is too important. Thank you. |
| 01:45:33.64 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:45:33.83 | Emmett Ezell | Thank you. |
| 01:45:33.98 | Joe Burns | Bye. |
| 01:45:33.99 | Emmett Ezell | Bye. |
| 01:45:34.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Quick vote. It is history. |
| 01:45:37.57 | Emmett Ezell | If we want to know what happens, there are enough cities in our county that we can just pick up the phone and call the city council and ask them what their problems are and what their suggestions are. We don't need to do it ourselves. We don't need to be a trial balloon. |
| 01:45:52.84 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:45:54.75 | Emmett Ezell | Please don't take this upon yourselves to rewrite our zoning ordinance. Airbnb is a motel operator. It's just in cyberspace. If we want a motel in our neighborhood, let us vote to change the zoning ordinance. Thank you. Now you can applaud. |
| 01:46:12.99 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:46:14.48 | Emmett Ezell | Thank you. |
| 01:46:14.49 | Joe Burns | Beth Rowe, Jim Gregory, and Yasmeen McGrain. Beth, Jim, and Yasmeen. |
| 01:46:22.97 | Beth Rowe | I'm sick, so. . I hope I have enough of a voice. I wasn't going to introduce myself. My name is Beth Rowe. I've been living in Sausalito for four years. I'm 77 years old, and I'm the face of a short-term role. So I have spoken before this group a number of times, so I would just like to. Thank you. reiterate some pertinent points. We've heard a lot about saving the renting community. Wrencher's makeup, that's very valid, I have to agree. renters make up 50% of the population, and that is a much higher percentage than most other communities. I would guess that most Long-term rentals are owned by long-term residents, former residents or owners that have inherited property and pay much less in taxes and can cover their taxes or make a profit with a rental. I have two in the neighborhood right near me that are long-term renters and own the property and don't even live in the state. So that's an unhosted rental. |
| 01:47:41.20 | Beth Rowe | Is it? It's long term but it's also unhosted and I'm sure people here, if you've ever lived |
| 01:47:47.90 | Joe Burns | Beth, you have... Beth, you have limited time. People, please. |
| 01:47:51.12 | Beth Rowe | Okay, if you've ever rented before, you know that you can have a long-term renter living next door to you that has parties. Okay. My question is, is it good for Sausalito to have that many properties held stagnant at low tax rates. I would like to hear about saving the new owner community, people who have moved here recently and paid high prices for their homes, young families and older citizens trying to age in place are trying to cover an exorbitant tax burden. they are being told that they don't belong here because they need extra income. Affordable housing is a misnomer for rentals in Sausalito. When a 660 square foot apartment rents for $3,000, these rents are an incentive to hang on to homes. How many landlords of full-time renters still live in Sausalito? We have heard a lot of talk about keeping neighborhoods exclusive All you have to do is walk around any neighborhood and there are workers, landscapers, delivery people, and tourists exploring. The only way to keep neighborhoods exclusive is to have a gated community. I also would like you to consider the small business shops and restaurants that depend upon tourists. I know my guests eat out often and shop in the local shops. If we want a thriving and charming downtown, We have to allow businesses that add support to the business community. I also have a letter that I submitted from the owner of, |
| 01:49:28.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Beth, and we did receive your letter that you put up on the dais. Thank you. Jim Gregory. |
| 01:49:28.24 | Beth Rowe | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:49:31.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:49:33.45 | Jim Gregory | Nope, nope, quickly please, Jim Gregory. Good evening, my name is Jim Gregory, I'm a Sausalito resident, I've lived here 35 years, and I'm here really to show my personal support for the people who are opposed to the idea of short-term rentals. I have lived in a neighborhood and observed firsthand Thank you. what short-term rentals can actually do. The issues that have been raised, there are certainly theoretical issues about property values and availability of housing, which I can understand, but I've observed personally the traffic that's caused. I've experienced the hubbub of short-term rentals moving in and out at all hours. We love Sausalito because of its small, picturesque roads and streets, and we've observed the traffic congestion and the of traffic problems that are caused by drivers who are unfamiliar with our roads. And One very small problem, I think someone's touched on it. We have a lot of animals here in South Salido. And if the short-term rental person does not know how to secure their trash, The raccoons are going to figure out how to open it. Thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion. |
| 01:50:49.25 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:50:49.32 | Jim Gregory | I mean, |
| 01:50:51.28 | Joe Burns | Yasmeen, Michael Dowd, and Tom, do you want to take your spot back? You'll be third. After Michael, Yasmeen. |
| 01:51:01.91 | Yasmeen McGrain | Hello, good evening council members. I'm Yasmeen McGrane, a 15 year resident of Sausalito. Um, I was thinking about what to say and I really don't think I can tell you anything from a yes perspective that you haven't already heard. And after attending every single meeting for the task force over the weeks, the months, and the years, that we've been discussing short-term rentals I also think it may be, I may be wrong, but unlikely we will hear anything substantially new from from those who are not in favor of short-term rentals as well as those in favor. My point is that the staff and the task force have done a great job of listening to all sides in every one of these meetings. and factoring in the diverse needs into their pilot recommendation. And I did want to take a moment to say thank you to Lily Whalen and the staff for their detailed, extremely detailed report. And I believe that they really deserve our respect when they give their staff report more than was seen this evening. So my recommendation is for us to test and learn during this one-year pilot program. I encourage you to vote yes so that we can test and learn and then actually apply the learnings during the pilot program. And you still hold the right to seize the pilot program if it isn't going as planned. So that's my recommendation to you. Thank you for your time. |
| 01:52:41.39 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Yasmin. Michael Dowd, then Tom. |
| 01:52:49.03 | Michael Dowd | Hi, my name is Michael Dowd. I'm a resident of Sausalito. |
| 01:52:51.09 | Joe Burns | Yeah, thanks. |
| 01:52:57.03 | Michael Dowd | This is past my bedtime. I get up at 2.30 in the morning, so I'm grumpy. So I apologize ahead of time for that. Um, So in item 2A, the proposal requires that someone have been in their home for 183 days during the calendar year, I kind of want to know where the time clock is that I punch in and punch out. so that I am a The city is aware that I'm actually in my home. You have no way of enforcing somebody being in their home 183 days. Item 2A, again. The Confirm the Residence. For 12 years, I had an apartment in San Francisco, but my address was 2269 Chestnut Avenue, Number 340, which was a mailboxes, et cetera. all my IRS. all my state taxes, my driver's license, and all banking went to that little home that I had on Chestnut Street. because I traveled all the time. I was gone six days a week. It's not, what you're doing is unenforceable. because there's ways around it. Um, I don't know how you're going to manage the 90 day time limit. Um, Requiring 24 hour, seven days a week availability and 30 minute response time. for let's say a hosted unit. I'm on a hike. I'm not going to make it in 30 minutes. what you're proposing. What's proposed here is an idea and a concept unenforceable. If I go away for a weekend, My mom's in the hospital. She's 96 this coming year. I'm not going to rush back. for a four and a half hour drive to fix an issue. It's unenforceable. What is proposed here is unenforceable. I'm a process guy. I'm an operations guy. I spent my entire life doing operations and processes. what you've designed here, It won't work. It's unenforceable. |
| 01:55:20.05 | Joe Burns | Be well. Thank you. Tom, Jenny Wasser, Jeannie Wasser, sorry, Andre, Thank you. |
| 01:55:27.44 | Tom Theodorus | And hecky. |
| 01:55:28.72 | Joe Burns | you |
| 01:55:28.79 | Tom Theodorus | Thank you. |
| 01:55:28.92 | Joe Burns | you |
| 01:55:28.97 | Tom Theodorus | Tom Theodorus, Reed Lane. Mr. Mayor and council members. I want to go back to the question I asked on our only other meeting on October 9th. Why are we doing this? We did not get an answer last time we had The vice mayor was really the only one that responded and said that She had done it on her campaign and heard it. But this is a major thing. If we look at what was done and the commercial entities that we are creating there, Why are we doing it? And you owe this to the city about why we're doing it. We might understand if we understood why you're doing it. THE FACT THAT THE FACT THAT Thank you. The only reason I've heard so far is to keep some people in their homes. If you look at all those things that they have to go through, they're gonna need a team of lawyers and accountants. The person that needs to rent out a bedroom is not gonna be able to comply with this. The other thing is, I'm going to have to go quickly, but when we look at the host compliance, the last time was here, 87% that were, I think they had 180 last time, were unhosted. unhosted, that means we have about 13% hosted, If you take the 150, we're looking at 15 to 20 people. We can look at them and if they need to stay in their homes, we should look at that and talk to them directly. This is not, and we don't need to have all these things to make everything a commercial enterprise. I think the other thing I wanna do, I'm gonna switch to another thing. I really encourage you to look at these, petitions and who signed. It's extremely cross-section of people that you wouldn't, you wouldn't, from all, that wouldn't get together, but really are leaders in what we do. And the one thing I do want to focus on, on that list are all kinds of community leaders and people on committees and such, but I do want to focus on one thing, one group of the signers. and that was former city council members. we had 10 former city council members sign. And they were unanimous. Um, the short-term rentals. And I'm just going to go there because they're all interspersed there, but we had Ron Albert, Sandra Bushmaker, Carolyn Ford, Leon Huntington. Bill Keller. Mike Kelly. Linda Pfeiffer. Dennis Screeman, myself, and Bill Ziegler. And there's virtually very few others in there. Now if we did a little fantasy city council, that's 12 to three guys, I think, if we add the two here. So we really, and I really, I think it's really important because these people are still involved and follow the issues and it's really important to look back in the history of what's going on here. We know some of you have other ideas here. So I really, I encourage you to put this aside. I would look at other agendas that we need to do. You're spending a lot of time and our resources on the short term rental. There's a lot to be done here. Please do not make a stand a step past her bedtime. I'm glad I'm here. I might leave. And why don't we work on getting our movie theater going and instead of doing. |
| 01:58:35.09 | Joe Burns | All right, thank you with the applause. You're not really listening to the please don't applause very long, so let's not have any applause, okay? I really appreciate your passion still. I know I can't stop it, but I can sure ask. Jenny Wasser, Andre, and Echenke, and Jen Johnson. |
| 01:58:54.07 | Jenny Wasser | Jenny Wasser. I lived over 30 years. I own a home over 30 years here in Sausalito. I could read you the letter that I wrote you all to the council. By the way, City Manager Adam, Council People, Mayor Joe, sorry. but maybe I'll just tell you a couple of human interest stories. I've had a short-term rental for five years across the street from me. I've tried every means of calling the city every few months to enforce that nothing has ever been done. The one-day enforcement person told me they were too busy with sewer enforcement and all the other things they were supposed to do. I have two human interest stories. I was alone in my bedroom in the back of my house at night, and two large men tried to open my bedroom door. THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT They made their way in the dark around my house because they were looking for their short-term rental across the street. Needless to say, I almost had a heart attack. It was that close, a glass door and two large men. There are cars parked outside my house with out-of-state licenses, even though there is on-site parking for this. Thank you. Strangers are coming and going all the time. I'm sorry, I was, go ahead. I'll move on to another issue. Oh, I'm sorry. The across the street from me is a large picture window in their bedroom. It's not the view window, and it's just uncharacteristically there. The tenants that lived there for 25 years knew to put blinds up. or shades because people on the street could see them undressed in the bedroom and do other things. These people who come for a night or two, it takes them a night or two to realize that I'm looking in at their bedroom and so is everybody else in the street. So after a night or two of course they pulled their blinds but they're gone. New people are there. The same thing goes on. A majority of the people who are connected to and care about this community and attend these council meetings will be diminished because we'll all be out of towners. Strangers are coming all the time. I told you about the instance, about the parking. In no way does this enhance housing affordability as renters are evicted. Three wonderful renters were evicted. for supposedly higher rents for the short-term rentals. People who need extra income, I appreciate that, should go for a longer term lease. In no way does short-term rental provide for seniors. That was mentioned in your staff report. I thought that was a joke. If I wanted support from my next door neighbor when I'm having a heart attack, I'm not going to knock on a short term rental door. I'm going to wonder where was my neighbor for so many years. In no way does it provide extra funds for local projects, as people will not honestly report their earnings. They don't now. And expensive enforcement doesn't work now in the 157 units now operating. So why would the city expect it to work on the pilot program? |
| 02:01:59.04 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Jean. |
| 02:01:59.55 | Jenny Wasser | I am very negative. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:02:01.01 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Andre, Jan, and Russell Zink. |
| 02:02:09.53 | Andres Echenique | Andres Echenique, Hi everyone. Hello everyone. Thank you for letting me speak today. My name is Andres Echenique and I've lived in the Bay Area for 14 years, the last two in Sausalito at 505 Johnson Street. Originally being from Truckee, I was drawn to this town because of the small tight-knit community where everyone knows your name and you can always see a happy and familiar face. My now fiance and I love Sausalito and want to start a family and be here for the rest of our lives. We walk our dogs every Saturday and Sunday mornings to Gabrielle's and Park, sometimes stopping by at Poggio at the old car meetup or occasionally stopping by Sausalito to say hi to Sam and love going to Best Friends Pet Store to get dog treats for even to say hi to the staff at Drivers to get some food. Or even Sauselito Deli where my, you know, where we get great sandwiches obviously. My fiance goes to Cindy at Sauselito Nail Salon. I actually love going to my dentist as well, Dr. Levi. Because we talk about the happenings around town or, well, I mumble. We've hosted two Christmases here with our families in our albeit small apartment. Been here for two Fourth of Julys and attend two Halloweens where my friend Kyle, who lives at Napa Street with his wife and his one-year-old daughter, also renters. Uh, Bulldog won the costume contest. Point being, we're a part of this community and love it dearly. Now, I have a unique point of view on short-term rentals being from Truckee. My parents still live there and many of my friends' families. Unfortunately though, because of short-term rentals, many of my friends who live in that community and still work there are unable to find places to live. Airbnb and VRBOs have pushed all the would-be younger families to communities outside of town like Reno, where most of the housing is now available. Now at first, everyone thought, great, let's all make money with our homes from short-term rentals. However, what they found, as did South Lake Tahoe, is that these smaller communities with less housing available win short-term, no pun intended, but lose long-term. Businesses suffer because eventually there's nobody to come in for their regular dental cleanings. There are not enough workers or revenue generated to stay open during the slower months. This will happen to Sausalito if this passes. What makes a community? Is it the tourists that come off the ferry, the Airbnb guests that stay weak then leave? At the end of the day, who do you want as your neighbor? I unfortunately can't purchase a home right now in this community, in this market. That being said, we're trying to stay here for the rest of our lives and start having kids next year. Thank you. At the end of the day, who do you want as your neighbor? I unfortunately can't purchase a home right now in this community, in this market. That being said, we're trying to stay here for the rest of our lives and start having kids next year. I'd like to think that people in this room would rather see a familiar face to say hello to on the street, take part in the community events, support local businesses rather than police landlords who will undoubtedly stop renting to me and my soon-to-be family for profits of short-term rentals. Which, though you think you have an easy solution and polys to monitor these people, we'll get taken advantage of. Let's all try to keep Saucelito the way we love it and not allow short-term rentals and short-term blinding profits that come with them to push young families out of the community. Mr. Thank you. |
| 02:05:10.72 | Joe Burns | push on. Thank you, Andre. Thank you, Andre. Jan. Russell, Pat Shea. Yeah, you're good, Chad. |
| 02:05:22.53 | Jan Johnson | Hi, Jan Johnson. I live in Old Town. I've been here 25 years. I'm very negative on short-term rentals. The Harvard Law Review found on a national basis a 10% increase in Airbnb listings leads to a 0.42% increase in rents and a 0.76% increase in housing prices. So it drives up the rentals prices for long-term renters, decreasing affordable housing and makes it harder for young families to buy in the community. Um, effects are universally applicable and also apply to smaller communities and higher the number of rental properties in the community the worse the effect so since we have 50% rentals in the town and Thank you. I can expect this will be worse for us than other places. Your plan sounds very nice, but there's some questions that haven't been answered. If you call the resource number and the property isn't listed as a permitted property and is an unpermitted property, then what happens? And how are you going to close these illegals down? It hasn't been done for the 187 to 57 that have been operating for the last four years. How can we expect you to actually close down the illegal units in town and control it? That's it, thanks. |
| 02:06:47.03 | Joan Cox | JAN. |
| 02:06:47.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:06:48.01 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:06:48.02 | Unknown | Thanks. |
| 02:06:48.11 | Jan Johnson | Thank you. |
| 02:06:48.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:06:48.21 | Jan Johnson | HE'S A LITTLE BIT OF A |
| 02:06:48.29 | Unknown | me. |
| 02:06:48.53 | Jan Johnson | Yeah. |
| 02:06:48.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:06:48.56 | Joan Cox | Can you just read that first sentence again? Harvard Law Review found increase of short term rentals leads to? I'm not sure it was Harvard. |
| 02:06:51.35 | Jan Johnson | Yeah, increase of short-term. was a guy in the Harvard Law school okay and he said that it is a national basis 10% increase in Airbnb rentals leads to a point four two percent increase in rents and a point seven six percent increase in housing prices thank you Airbnb is in that was 100% so if you average it out each year it's just gonna get worse |
| 02:07:15.90 | Joan Cox | That was what I needed. |
| 02:07:21.62 | Joe Burns | Great. Thank you. Russell Zink, Pat Shea, then CJ Ware. |
| 02:07:21.64 | Jan Johnson | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:07:28.30 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:07:28.34 | Russell Zink | GG. Mayor, Councilor. mayor and council members as well as Sausalito residents. I'm Russell Zink. I live in Santa Rosa Avenue. Been here 12 years now. The rationale for driving the October meeting where you gave a 3-2 council decision to implement a short-term pilot after hours of overwhelming residential opinion against it, it's kind of baffling to me that it was approved to go forward with the definition of the pilot. There's got to be some other alternative motive on the plate because it didn't make sense to me. In a small town community like Sausalito where neighbors work together to improve the community short term rentals basically consume that community goodwill and they do that for private profit. That's an unfair allocation of our private resources as well as our shared resources. So what I'm asking to get the most out of this de facto pilot because it was a given three two and I'm assuming it's a given three two although it sounds a little better tonight that if we're going to go forward with this the things that we need are phenomenal transparency of the metrics and the process and the compliance along those lines And I think we need to do that very different than we did than just adding more hours to the current compliance because that didn't work. So that was a failed process and adding more time to that on a more complicated regulation I think is obviously not going to fit when. So the approach I think needs to include monthly reports on the gross revenue from short-term rentals both to the city and to the individuals. I think we need transparency from the vendor which looks like they're going to give us a lot of that but they're not an enforcement vendor. They are just the ones who are reporting. So they supported the individuals. I think we need transparency from the vendor, which is, he looks like they're going to give us a lot of that, but we need, they're not an enforcement vendor. They are just the ones who are reporting. So they support the reporting, which is great, but they don't enforce. We have to keep that in mind. We'll need somebody to enforce, and it's very complicated to enforce, as you've heard. I need to know the direct city costs for enforcing it. I'd also like to understand the indirect city costs. So the police calls, the extra trash collection, the extra trash management, local accidents related to short term rentals. Indirect input and visibility into, or direct rather, input into the, and visibility into a short term rental compliance. I think this would help a lot. It's so that citizens can directly and publicly document their short term rental compliance issues. And those citizens entered non-compliance reports, then get to be managed and they're visible in terms of their manage. I know that the current compliance, most of the short term rental stuff went to the bottom of the queue and therefore didn't get addressed because it was too complicated. So this is a way that we can see how it's being managed during this pilot program. And we can see what the resolution is for the individuals. I think we need to do that on a monthly basis. I like the idea of sharing the property contact person and mobile number. I agree that 30 minutes is going to be interesting to see how it's enforceable. And if my issue is that they arrive via an Uber at 3 in the morning and set off all the alarms and set off the dogs, and that's taken care of in five minutes, in 30 minutes, I really don't have anything for you to look at. In five minutes, I didn't get my phone out to record it. I was calming the kids down or calming the dog down. I like the idea of parking requirements. The issue, one caveat to that is we probably need to make sure that the owner's cars aren't moved to the street so that the short term renter can move his cars into the Carport which is what happens now. So I end up with five cars on the street And it becomes a bit of a gauntlet even though we have 16 foot wide streets So with the right transparency around metrics I'm almost done reports and process at least web insights. Thank you Russell over everyone accountable. Appreciate it. Thanks very much All right, Pat Shea Thanks. |
| 02:10:43.97 | Joe Burns | And then Linda Hammond. |
| 02:10:46.23 | Pat Shea | Good evening. I've lost my voice, so I'm not going to take any of my three minutes except to say I want to second that I'm totally against it. Sherry's comments from the beginning all the way through. I like what my neighbor Russ said, but I'm not giving up. I'm hoping that you don't need to take his comments into account because you're going to hear that the majority of the people who have written and spoken are not for this and hear what the citizens are saying. Thank you. |
| 02:11:11.24 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:11:15.27 | CJ Ware | Hi, my name is Suji Ware. My husband Tony Cook and I have been renters in Sausalito for 18 years, 10 of which are residing at 171 San Carlos. Um, I want to state my serious objections because I've lived through this. My husband and I about 20 years ago bought a place in the French Quarter in New Orleans. And the French Quarter is very much like Sausalito. It was sort of a very limited area and limited housing, big tourist area. In New Orleans, as you know, there's a honky-tonk area, but there's a whole section in New Orleans called the French Quarter, the lower quarter. And a lot of houses were condoized. They were small houses like Creole cottages made into three units each. And the minute they started doing the short term renter, it became a complete disaster. what happened is it systematically subtracted needed housing for local residents while creating disruption and virtual chaos caused by the visitors who virtually did whatever they wanted in residential neighborhoods without regard to the welfare of the permanent residents in the area. They parked wherever they wished. They were as loud as they ever felt like. And they often left the homes and gardens and streets in disastrous condition and the main reason why Which is what Russ was just Talking about was that New Orleans did not have the capacity or the will to budget to monitor or to police Violations of the rules that they had established the rules were there and they simply weren't enforced because they didn't have the will and they didn't have the budget We're in a really tight housing market, especially for renters, and especially for people like us who are growing older and worry that what happens if our landlords decide they can make more money doing short-term rentals and avoiding the 120-day. They look like they're here, but they're not. It's all about the enforcement to me. and I before you ever embark on this you have got to prove to us as our elected representatives that you are could monitor. and have the budget because my guess is a three day a week guy who's looking at the sewer is not going to be able to enforce this. So having lived through New Orleans, we ended up selling because we couldn't take it anymore. And half the people we know scattered to the winds. So it's a disruptive force. And I'm totally against it. Thank you. |
| 02:13:44.72 | Joe Burns | Linda Hammond, Paul Ronan, Patty Bacon. Linda? I saw Linda here earlier. Is she out in the hallway? Bill, can you holler for Linda? Seeing none, Paul Ronan. If Linda comes in, we'll get back to her. Chris, is Linda out there? |
| 02:14:07.75 | Paul Ronan | Yeah, Paul Ronan. I live at 63 Atwood Avenue in Sausalito, and I've lived there for about 40 years. And this is called a residential area, most of Sausalito. And that's for the residents who live there. It's not for the renters. It's not for the people who are coming in on weekends. We have a unit across the street from us. |
| 02:14:09.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:14:33.35 | Paul Ronan | You want to take a look at it sometime, 63 Atwood? I came home one afternoon and there was a crane out in front of our house. lifting some entertainment on a roof of a house that was being rented for the week. and they were going to have a party there. And that was a one-week rental in a residential area. That's what it's zoned for. Of course, your building inspector came in very nicely, and that crane was removed. You can't do this all over this town. There aren't enough people in the state to supervise this monstrosity that I just took a look at, all of us looked at it. If you could bring this and double space it and do it in one page, it might make sense. But what is in here, there is no possible way that you can enforce it. And I'm talking from experience of what I've lived here for 40 years and I've seen it. I've seen it in other places where they come in for two days, three days, and they want to have a party because they're only going to be in Sausalito for a few days. The next thing you know, they have four or five cars on the street, and there's enough room for maybe one at the most. So I don't think you have much of a chance in enforcing this, and I think it's a waste of money as far as paying whoever it is is going to monitor this because they're not going to be able to do it. They're just going to hose the city. It's like building the wall. It's ridiculous. Thank you. |
| 02:16:12.63 | Patty Bacon | Patty Bacon on Sunshine. I'm here for 35 years. Joe? |
| 02:16:13.35 | Joe Burns | Yep. |
| 02:16:17.34 | Joe Burns | Yes, I just want to make sure Linda's not here. I'm going to pass her card up. Yeah. Okay, Linda, you're gonna go right after Patty. Just wanted to make sure you were here. |
| 02:16:29.15 | Patty Bacon | I'm totally opposed to short term rentals. We live cheek to jowl as it is. And what's stunning about this presentation and the level of detail and therefore management that's needed and the time we're going to spend is this isn't 100 permits. or 300 someday or 500 you are impacting the whole community. If there is somebody, I don't know what a neighborhood will be. that you have to notify us. One person has to notify 20. And then. Those 20 people have to say, Oh, did you read your good neighbor handbook? That's my driveway. I got to send a text to somebody. I don't want to be in that business. So you're not doing this for A pilot is never a pilot. We know that. Whatever it grows to. you're affecting a whole community. And I really urge you, abandon this, save time, and put the enforcement in for the ban. Thank you. |
| 02:17:34.01 | Joe Burns | Linda. |
| 02:17:36.67 | Linda Hammond | Hi, Joe. |
| 02:17:37.51 | Joe Burns | Hi Linda. |
| 02:17:37.80 | Linda Hammond | Hi, counsel. So you know what I'm gonna say. I've lived here for 40 years. We live in a little tiny town, a little tiny street there on Johnson Street. Joe used to live across the street from us. Okay, sorry. We've lived here for 40 years. Joe used to live across the street from us. I think I can look out on this crowd, and the reason why people want to come to Sausalito is the contributions of everybody that's sitting here. We are the ones that make Sausalito special. We're the ones that care about each other. We're the ones that look at our neighbors. We know when they're home, when they might need somebody. They come to us in the middle of the night if there's a problem. You know, Joe, I don't see who this benefits. Joe, I'm sorry, the whole council. I'm not sure who this benefits. 100 people out of 7,400 people live in this town. |
| 02:17:49.71 | Unknown | We've lived in a couple of |
| 02:18:24.67 | Linda Hammond | I would like to have one reason why this is a good thing for Sausalito. I want you to keep Saucelita the way it is. Please, please vote against short-term rentals. Thank you. |
| 02:18:39.29 | Joe Burns | Paul Ronan. Chris Hammond after Paul and then Mark Criss. Paul did, yeah, that's right, you sounded familiar. So I'm gonna go with Chris, and I did not plan that. Chris Hammond, Mark, Chris, and then John Oppenheimer. And we're about halfway through, just if anybody's counting. So. Call your babysitters. All right. |
| 02:19:03.98 | Chris Hammond | I am opposed to this with every fiber of my being. I'm going to read four or five reasons why. One, Johnson Street. I live on Johnson Street, have for the last 40 years. Johnson Street on the edge of the tourist section of Sausalito, it's still a neighborhood of long-term residents, both homeowners and renters. I would estimate that at least half of my neighbors on Johnson Street are renters. If their landlords are suddenly able to double or triple their rental income by engaging in short-term tourist rental, I feel that many of my neighbors and friends would face either huge rent increases or eviction when it came time to renew their leases. This would have a terrible impact on the community we enjoy on Johnson Street, We are vulnerable, all of us are. Number two, I fear that the Sausalito City Administration will be unable to properly manage and police these short-term rentals. They have already failed in so many instances, causing neighbors to suffer through unacceptable behavior on the part of inconsiderate and uncaring tourist tenants. These tourists will have no interest in preserving the calm, quiet, and respectful climate of our neighborhood. Number three, as I mentioned above, I've lived in Sausalito for over 40 years. I'm a resident, not a tourist. I have been more than dismayed to see the direction my town has taken over the past few years. It seems that a few influential shop owners have somehow decided that the most important aspect of Sausalito is its potential to attract tourist dollars. Our downtown has been entirely sold out to the flood of rental bikes and tour buses. What used to be a pleasant walk downtown along the waterfront has become a clogged trudge through mobs of tourists walking around aimlessly wondering what they are doing here. They're eating ice cream or fish and chips seems to be the only thing they can agree on. When I do walk downtown, I see lines outside Lambert's ice cream stores blocking the entrances to clothing stores, jewelry stores, shoe stores and more, all empty. Their clerks standing alone watching the parade of ice cream eaters walking by. Downtown Sausalito has become the Pier 39 of Marin. There are some nice shops downtown with quality goods on offer, but I know of nobody in the rest of Marin County who would dream of coming to Sausalito to actually shop. When they think of our town, they think of tourists, ice cream cones, and schlocky gift stores. Numbers three and four above are the reason for this, my final most ardent reason for opposing the spread of short-term rentals. Opening our neighborhoods up to Airbnb-type business will spread the negative impact of out-of-control tourism beyond the downtown area into our own neighborhoods and communities. Long-term rental housing will diminish and be replaced by troublesome and uncaring day-trippers and the disruption they bring. There's no telling how many of our wonderful friends and neighbors will be priced out of their homes. All those negative impacts and the general spread of tourism beyond the t-shirt section of town will destroy the areas of Sausalito that are still wonderful places for our friends and neighbors to live. It's not worth destroying our lovely communities just so a few can profit from more tourist dollars. |
| 02:22:06.07 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Chris. Perfect timing. Mark Criss, John Oppenheimer, Nancy Curran. |
| 02:22:15.37 | Mark Criss | Hello, my name is Mark Criss, Mr. Mayor and council members and community members and friends. I'm also here to speak against the short-term rental proposal and in favor of continuing the ban. My wife and I have been, Jane, have been 10-year residents here on Bulkley Avenue, 141 Bulkley Avenue. And I also have five reasons. There are different reasons than the prior speaker on why this is a very bad idea. Although we've been fortunate to be homeowners, we stand in solidarity with the 50% of Sausalito residents who are long-term renters. Economic diversity from the hills to the liver boards is what makes the fabric of our community so special. Secondly, short-term rentals will reduce the availability of long-term rentals and drive up prices. It's economics 101, simple supply and demand. It will force many of the 50% long-term renters out. We've heard some very good anecdotal stories about that, about Truckee and New Orleans. If there's any doubt, someone should look into those in detail. Third, if property owners need additional income, they can rent their property for 31 plus days. All property is governed by zoning ordinances and building ordinances. We all accepted that when we bought our properties. Short-term rentals have never been a permitted use of property in residential areas in Sausalito. In fact, we purchased our home here because we expected the city to protect its residential character per the zoning of the property in Sausalito's general plan, which I think we all know calls for two things. One is to protect and enhance Sausalito as a residential community. and secondly to protect the present character of Sausalito's residential neighborhoods. We view our property right, is having the right to be to have the peaceful and quiet status quo. Number four, it's an obvious point, is that we have hotels and B&Bs for tourists to stay in. And finally, as many other speakers have said, the proposed regulations and oversight are hopelessly complex, bound to fail, and intrusive. Why? Several people have asked the question. I don't think anybody here understands why. It doesn't make any sense. Please don't do this. The needs of the residential community must take precedence over the needs of a few who seek financial gain, whether it's 100 homeowners or whatever that is, at the expense of the fabric of our community. Rentals are for residents, not tourists. Thank you. |
| 02:25:01.41 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Mark. John Oppenheimer. Nancy and then... |
| 02:25:11.40 | John Oppenheimer | I'm Mr. Mayor. |
| 02:25:11.85 | Joe Burns | Nancy Coran and then Sandra Bushmaker. Sorry, John. |
| 02:25:14.15 | John Oppenheimer | Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I come here tonight in opposition to this amendment, to this pilot program. The vested interest of Sausalito is at stake And short two Two groups of people do not have that short-term rentals and large corporations do not have a vested interest in Sausalito. And I believe that we should oppose this because the community at large is at stake. What is proposed is unenforceable. Let's not make laws that are unenforceable. That's my key point, and I really think that what's been said tonight is at the heart and core of what we really want to do here. And a previous speaker said that the opposition to this amendment, nothing new will be said. But one thing that hasn't been said is this. Sausalito is, and will be, and continue to be a model community. It's enriched by diversity, arts, beauty, community, and a sense of pride and a sense of caretaking for each other. And I'm afraid that the integrity of what we've created here will be denigrated should we reduce it to a monetization of communities and residential neighborhoods. Thank you. |
| 02:26:37.56 | John Oppenheimer | Thank you. |
| 02:26:37.59 | Joe Burns | NANCY CURRAN. |
| 02:26:38.59 | John Oppenheimer | you |
| 02:26:38.98 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Nancy and then Sandra. Sorry. |
| 02:26:41.83 | Nancy Curran | Hi. I'm not sure. Thanks to the city council for listening to all of us as it gets later. I'm a resident and also had been a renter for probably close to 50 years. And I became passionate about this about three years ago when I experienced a short-term home right across the way up on Prospect. and Cable Roadway that was a short-term rental. And the people left and we knew them, And then they started short term, renting their house and they were three stories and they looked right into our living room. And so they were out every night with cocktails. You know, I felt like I couldn't walk around in my living room. We talked to them personally. We told them we knew what they were doing and that they were getting 950 a night to rent their place out and nothing was ever done. You had one person part-time. I went down, I got my neighbors to sign a release, I mean a complaint, nothing was ever done. They would have like Google or Company meetings during the day, the other neighbors would say they're bringing in their limos. and nothing was ever done. So I feel the complication of this were hard to be enforced. Also, I was one of the people collecting petitions, and I talked to probably 100 people on the street, ferry, everywhere, and most everybody did not, mostly they weren't aware, and they did not want short-term rentals and they had stories and we're just would take you right over there and show you where people were breaking the law so I think first if you've got a host compliance let them take care of the people breaking the law we have the rotary we have the woman's club people are concerned And you're going to lose all of that if you allow this to go on. Thank you. |
| 02:28:43.73 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Nancy. Sandra Bushmaker, Jean and Steve Leonard, and then Jonathan. |
| 02:28:51.90 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hello, I'm Sandra Bushmaker. I first moved to San Francisco in 1967. I moved to Marin in 1973. I moved to Sausalito in 1979. I have lived in about six or seven different neighborhoods here in Sausalito and own property in about four of them. I currently own a boat here in Sausalito. I have been on the city council. I've sat in your chair, Joe, the hot seat, and for two consecutive years and was vice mayor also. I want you to listen to what is being said here tonight. I want you to hear that 600 people were willing to put their name on a signature on a petition to you. to let this program go. This is not going to help Sausalito. It's not going to help the The neighborhoods remain neighborhoods. to enhance our 50% renters home stock. We're very concerned about that. I am now a renter for the first time in 50 some years. And believe me, it was not easy to find a place to live. I, urge the council to develop a worthy enforcement mechanism to enforce the existing ordinance of the 30 day minimum. Now on a more sensitive issue, I need to ask the mayor to recuse himself from this matter. based on the statements that you made in Nextdoor. And that, and I will quote, I am not sure I want to increase long term rentals. I've spent the last 35 years trying to turn non-owner occupied housing into owner occupied housing. reducing the number of long-term renters. I don't think. I think you have demonstrated that you are unable to give an unbiased view of the evidence. You have already stated your bias and I think you need to recuse yourself and I'm requesting that you do so. Thank you. |
| 02:30:56.66 | Joe Burns | Thank you. I will take a moment to address the recusal request that I did receive. I discussed it with the city attorney. We checked in with FPPC. Those comments are completely taken out of context. If any realtor has ever, we like to get people into buying homes and living in a purchased residence it had nothing to do with Destruction of the long-term rental market. I'm a long-term renter as somebody else brought up that was not even relatively close to what happened and We conferred and I will not be recusing based on that. So thank you though |
| 02:31:19.46 | Bill Hines | I'm not sure. |
| 02:31:23.76 | Bill Hines | Thank you. |
| 02:31:41.12 | Joe Burns | Next up is Jen and Steve Leonard and then Jonathan Kethner. |
| 02:31:50.27 | Steve Leonard | Good evening, council members. Thank you for staying late to hear us. Happy New Year, everyone. I'm Steve Leonard and this is my wife, Jen. We're here to present our point of view on this. And I'm going to turn it over to my wife, as she's a faster reader than I am. |
| 02:32:08.80 | Unknown | Thank you. THE CITY IS A CITY IS We appreciate that short-term rentals are a complex issue to navigate and we applaud efforts by everyone here. to find a compromise that can work for all Sausseletans because many of us do support responsible short-term rentals and a proposed pilot program. Perhaps it could be doctored. I don't know. We need to start somewhere. My husband and I have lived in Sausalito from 2004 to 2010 in a rented cottage. In 2009 due to inherited medullary cystic kidney disease my kidneys failed and I had a transplant at UCSF. Sausalito was such a healing place for me to be able to breathe this air and look upon the mountain and see. And then our rental was sold and work took us to the East Coast for a few years, but we finally managed to make it back again in 2015 and we're slowly, slowly restoring an old cottage. I'm a writer, book editor and filmmaker, but as a post-kidney transplant patient, I have to take very harsh drugs to suppress my immune system to keep my body from rejecting the transplanted kidney. It's hard for me to work full time in offices or newsrooms anymore and that loss of income puts a burden and extra stress on my husband which home sharing helps to alleviate. We considered doing a long-term home sharing agreement when we first moved in, but then discovered our old house had a mold problem in need of costly remediation. Our house is also pretty small and we have aging and sick parents as well as extended family in need of vacation lodging fairly often. We soon realized it would be impossible for us to live there and offer long term rental agreements given our circumstances. But we learned there was a great need for housing flexibility and to be able to offer space to artists and other social creatives in need of short term lodging in this hyper expensive market. So over the last couple of years, we've shared our home with fire evacuees, local musicians, a UX designer who was between jobs and going through a separation, a young woman who escaped an abusive relationship. We also offered our home for a week-long family crisis intervention therapy session. We've had jazz virtuosos from Cuba, various acclaimed journalists and writers from around the country. labor organizers, foodie bloggers, photographers, poets, and a master social artist who has an exhibition running for the next year on Alcatraz. We've also allowed several or also welcomed several social creatives recovering from illnesses and surgeries to help take care of them. and a political refugee and human rights activist from Iraq and others. We are not running a motel or a hotel. We invite people in to share our home. We often share dinners and invite musicians and singer songwriters to play. We introduce guests to restaurants and local businesses, whatever, I'll just leave it at this. We support responsible short-term rentals being in the Sausalito mix because home sharing helps Sausalitans make ends meet and it adds to Sausalito's unique character. So I hope you'll consider that. |
| 02:35:05.55 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Jen. Thank you. Jonathan Kappner, Sonya Hansen, Alan Rosenstein. |
| 02:35:17.12 | Jonathan Kethner | Good evening, my name is Jonathan Cathrine. I represent a community group called Save Our Sausalito. We applaud the city's commitment to an initial study under CEQA. |
| 02:35:28.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:35:29.46 | Jonathan Kethner | UNDER SEQUA, THE GOAL is first to determine not whether the project will have a significant effect on the environment but only whether it might have a significant effect Any person may submit information in any form to assist the city in preparing an initial study. We encourage those here tonight to submit information to assist in creating a thorough study. Next, an environmental impact report is required whenever evidence in the record supports a fair argument that significant impacts may occur. I think that's been proven tonight. In EIR will be required here because the initial study checklist includes the following categories. that will be potentially significantly impacted. land use and planning, Noise. population and housing. public services, recreation, transportation and traffic, Utilities. and service systems and maybe others. The community does not want short-term rentals. Save Our Sausalito has successfully gathered more than 600 signatures of opposition to short-term rentals. This represents 10% of the registered voters. This is enough to place a referendum on the ballot if this program is approved. It is also a signal of displeasure with this proposal. Enforcement is expensive and revenue collection is difficult. The money is not worth losing the character of the city. Code enforcement estimates are still too low. In November, we saw the city hire a part-time enforcement officer at 140,000 per year. More code enforcement will be needed for this program. Boston found collecting revenue so difficult that they required the hosting platforms to transmit the TOT tax themselves. Now Boston is in litigation with the hosting platforms. It's not worth it. South Lake Tahoe, another example, issued a short-term rental permit to owners of one property. The owners sold the property and attempted to transfer the permit in violation of the city ordinance. The city revoked the permit Two appeals later, the enforcement has lasted a year. representing a huge amount of staff time, for a single property without resolution. Please do not approve this action. The community does not want short-term rentals. Thank you. |
| 02:38:21.52 | Joe Burns | That was a long one, but please limit your applause. Thank you. Sonya Hansen, Alan Rosenstein, Susan Shea. |
| 02:38:34.58 | Sonya Hansen | Sonia Hansen, Sausalito resident. Good evening, staff and council. Sausalito is moving towards short term rentals just as neighboring towns including Tiburon, Belvedere, Larkspur and Corte Madera have banned them. Pacific Grove voters just voted to end their short term rental program and ban short term rentals. Why are we going in the other direction? We have had virtually no enforcement of our existing ban on short term rentals. You can confirm that with the residents who live next door to them and with the residents who have lost their housing because their landlords converted to short-term rentals. The overriding question remains, why are you our city representatives, shoving us down this path against our wishes and without our consent. It's a question that's been asked many times tonight and we are all still waiting for the answer. Thank you. |
| 02:39:38.11 | Sonya Hansen | Thank you. |
| 02:39:38.13 | Joe Burns | Alan Rosen, David Sudo. |
| 02:39:40.81 | Unknown | Hi, I'm Ellen Rosenstein. I'm a 29-year homeowner here in Sausalito. and I do the lateness of the hour and a wealth of information as to why we should oppose this. And my biggest issue is I sat on trees and views. And as a resident, with all due respect, Sausalito has a tremendous amount of regulations and absolutely no way to enforce them. Thank you. |
| 02:40:10.76 | Joe Burns | Susan, David, then Wendy Richards. |
| 02:40:13.58 | Susan Shea | Good evening, Susan Shea, Spring Street President. So I can't believe I actually put my name to speak to you again, but here I am. So, I think this comes down to a basic Tenet. which is democracy. That's how you became elected, the majority rule. The majority of us are saying to you, please do not do this. You can't answer why you want to do it, And for 100 people, out of 7,000 Why? Why, why, why? And the majority says, no, no, no. |
| 02:40:53.69 | Joe Burns | THE CITY. |
| 02:40:53.97 | David Sudo | Wendy Carl. |
| 02:40:57.17 | Jerry Taylor | THE COUNTRY. |
| 02:40:58.66 | David Sudo | David Sudo. As I've said many times on this subject over the last several years, I'm most concerned about our people that are most in danger of losing their housing in our town, our lowest income people that can barely afford to live here. And any kind of short-term rental program is going to put them most at risk of losing their housing. I think if we do go ahead with this short-term program we need to have bright lines on this pilot program that if we cross that line if there's something if we find out we have 200 units for instance instead of 157 that are suddenly available that we need to end the pro we need bright lines that will end the program that we would just shut it down because you know bright lines that show that we are unable to enforce the pilot program I use something that was said earlier I think we need to have a program in this town that helps homeowners navigate long-term rentals of rooms to our residents if someone wants or random room for 31 days or three months or six months or a year they can find five people the next day who will take that place we need to figure out what the barriers are for the people who think they need short-term rentals to get them into doing a long term rental instead and finally we need to have specifics about what we consider life and safety issues for the permitting process we also probably want to have our inspection people in those houses because we want to make sure that people haven't done unpermitted changes to add bedrooms or bathrooms or kitchens to their units to make them more profitable for short-term rentals thank you |
| 02:42:44.80 | Joe Burns | Thank you, David. Wendy. Where am I here? And Carl Schwartz, yep. |
| 02:42:53.81 | Wendy Richards | Wendy Richards, resident and business owner. My neighbor is home with their baby tonight, and I just want you to know they're leaving. They're renters. Thanksgiving, they were thrilled when one of their family members got an Airbnb up the street and they even said to me, oh, it was so cool. We had the whole hit, our family had the whole place, the whole flat. After I spoke here at the November meeting to encourage you to enforce our current laws, I came back to find out my neighbor's rent was increased $700 a month. This is a young family with a gorgeous baby. We have five new babies in the neighborhood. That's the first one to go. $700 a month increase for a one bedroom that's not even upgraded. That isn't the house down the street with the Wolf Range that's on Airbnb with a super host. They're gone. Two weeks, they're out of here. These people raised trees next door because the guy's a landscaper. He landscaped his rental place because they like it so much. We're a neighborhood. I spoke against this and asked you please to enforce the current law at the prior meeting in November. And I presented slides. I went through the facts. I said to you then. As short-term rentals destroy our community, they slash rental housing, they raise rental prices, they divide us among our neighbors. We can't even take care of the few people like me. I was a young widow. I know what that's like, but guess what? I moved out and I rented my house to another neighbor who was doing a renovation on their kitchen. And I lived aboard as a legal live aboard for some time. And when it got too cold in the winter I rented a room from another widow who needed the income. We pulled together. I did that. I was a young widow. I had to make it work. We can make this work. That proposal is a recipe for hotels. There's a group in the peninsula. I've seen it. I've been there. They take over houses. They're an LLC with multiple owners. One owner lives in the house. I was there. My friend booked it. We went there together. There were at least five people sharing one bathroom. It was disgusting. There was one permanent resident who ran the place. The bedroom across the hall had two bunk beds and two desks, and they rented it twice. You can't enforce that. It's a recipe. And have you looked at the statistics on air DNA? The occupancy rates of the current Airbnb and other things are at 80 to 90% in the summer. So there's your 90 days. It's perfect. I buy the house. I bring in someone as a full-time resident. I rent it out all but 90 days in the summer. And then I leave and it's empty. No, please stop. Enforce the current law. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you. |
| 02:46:01.09 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Andy. |
| 02:46:05.33 | Joe Burns | Carl, Suzanne Weibro. And Faye Mark and then Jeff Jacobs and then for the council. |
| 02:46:16.99 | Carl Schwartz | Good evening, thanks for giving me the opportunity. My name's Carl Schwartz, I live on Casno. Lived here for a total of over 30 years. See some classmates from Central School and other places. Um, This has been a great meeting and I'm really excited because I have in all the years I've been in Sausalito I've rarely seen the community come together with such fervor and such unanimity. You know, look at France and all the people wearing yellow vests, you could see that here out of this crowd. So I think the thing you, my perception is that if council approves this pilot, The rest of us will fight it as hard as we can and use whatever political capital we can get up. The primary reason behind my opposition is that I view this as a mercenary social engineering operation. I cannot understand why you want to do it if it's not for revenue purposes. In order to see what kind of revenue you generate, my perception is you're running an experiment on the quality of our life in the town. Now it's parking it's other things but it's all these things that you can't legislate and can't manage. Am I going to have a bunch of drunks next door every weekend. That's not against the law. That there's no way you can enforce it. You know, if my neighbors move out because they can't afford it, there's nothing you're going to do about it. Now, I think the staff did a tremendous job of defining, of defining, coming up with a pilot program definition. I think it's an admirable piece of work. In my business, which is computer software and software security, we look at things that are just so complicated they never can be made to work. Okay, and this is that. Now, so I urge you to enforce to seriously invest in enforcing the current ban and maintain the current ban so that we don't have petitions, reelection campaigns and all the rest of the stuff at stake. You've or I think you've heard, You know, the active voice of Sausalito pleading with you to have another think about this. Thank you. |
| 02:49:09.25 | Joe Burns | Suzanne, Faymark, Jeff Jacobs. |
| 02:49:12.37 | Suzanne Webro | Yes, good evening. It's a pleasure to meet you, new Mayor Burns and council members. My name is Suzanne Webro. The first two years of my life I spent on El Monte Lane, the last 60 years at the top of Locust Road. I've been home two years to care give my folks. Astounded by the 100% rent increases causing my daughter and I, well, what used to be $600 a flat is now $6,000 a month flats. And now we are next to being anchor outs in the last holdout of live aboard boats down on the end of Locust Road. I'm totally against the Airbnbs and short term rentals to prevent wear and tear on our precious town. Paris banned the Airbnbs where I tried to do that with my river barge over there. It was a complete disaster. I did it also with my farm in Pennsylvania where it rained the whole time. And that was a lot of work and a total disaster. But here, My suggestion United we stand, divided we fall. Please let's give up the bickering between our residents and our council members and work together. Lilly and Ulrich have done a great job I WANTED TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE doing this pilot program. However, we must have the wherewithal to make this financial search come back into the city funds instead of exhausting them by sharp legal attack and upping the prices and constraints of all the Airbnb companies and what it takes to actually do this on a website. I've been through it. And it's very, very difficult to build up an Airbnb and all that. And if we had the legal advice, instead of putting it into control and, you know, whatever, just to attack throw the ball into their court, make it so expensive for these people to function in our town and then they'll just go away. Thank you. |
| 02:51:28.57 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Faymark. JEFF JACOBS. |
| 02:51:32.19 | Faymark | Good evening, Faymark. 509 Johnson Street resident. So I just want to reiterate and share some additional numbers. Lilly stated that you received 150 letters. I, too, Joan, tracked the numbers and confirmed that 29 are in favor of your pilot, but 121 are against your pilot. And these are letters that you've been receiving since October 9. You also have 631 signatures in each of your packets sitting in front of you tonight. You've been asked. POLITELY. to go through those because many of those signatures are people who voted for you to represent our community. October 9th, during public comment, Three people spoke up in favor of your pilot. 17 people spoke up against the pilot. Tonight, January 8th, so far, and there will be people behind me, but so far I've tracked that three people have spoken in favor of your pilot. 25 people have spoken against it. we are asking you as politely as we can to please stop Just stop. Save face. Stop. clearly, The numbers are against you. Please listen. You need to listen to what your community, who you are here to represent, is asking you to do as politely and informatively as we can. Thank you. |
| 02:53:21.82 | Joe Burns | Jeff, hop up there. Got it. Jeff Jacobs. |
| 02:53:33.64 | Jeff Jacobs | Good evening Mr. Mayor, City Council and Concerned citizens of Sausalito? And anchor out. |
| 02:53:49.74 | Jeff Jacobs | Usually when I come here, I like to bring something that has a spiritual element to it, even if eyes sometimes roll. A man named Abraham. the founder of three religions in this world at least, the Jews. the Christians and the Muslims. |
| 02:54:18.25 | Jeff Jacobs | opened his tents, North and South. and west and East. When a traveler came by, He offered them food. wash their feet, And let them rest. And the beautiful line is, When you entertain visitors, you might very well be entertaining angels in disguise. And that is of course what Abraham and Thank you. And Sarah do. because of their beautiful hospitality, which you can still find if you travel in those lands. |
| 02:55:15.18 | Jeff Jacobs | They were able to to change the world. And their descendants are as numerous as the stars in the sky, especially on a cloudy night like tonight. |
| 02:55:32.00 | Jeff Jacobs | The anchor out. the people who live offshore, very often do exactly what Abraham did. to the travelers, to the people who are rejected. many of them born in Marin or San Francisco. I'm really happy about that and super proud of that. I've been taking a little break from it for a little while. because it's very difficult to do. So there's no way you can take something away that might not be right, which let's say is prostitution of saying the only way you can stay here is if you pay me. without putting something better in its place. THE SOMETHING BETTER IS |
| 02:56:34.29 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it. |
| 02:56:35.64 | Jeff Jacobs | you |
| 02:56:35.67 | Joe Burns | THE END OF |
| 02:56:36.06 | Jeff Jacobs | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:56:36.11 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:56:36.15 | Jeff Jacobs | I think. |
| 02:56:36.37 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 02:56:36.42 | Jeff Jacobs | Yeah. |
| 02:56:36.96 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:56:36.97 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 02:56:36.99 | Joe Burns | you |
| 02:56:37.08 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:56:37.26 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:56:37.28 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 02:56:37.36 | Joe Burns | Gotcha. |
| 02:56:37.38 | Jeff Jacobs | Yeah, right. |
| 02:56:37.78 | Unknown | you you |
| 02:56:38.05 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:56:38.12 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:56:38.75 | Joe Burns | Hey, we're out of cards. Actually, I have one card and it's completely blank. So I'm gonna take that as a, Pat, you gonna? Oh, got it. Pat's just like, it's on there. But for the record, I only had one, so this is it. No, I got two. |
| 02:56:57.80 | Unknown | Patrick. What I'd like to do in a boring way is to address some of the concerns I've heard you folks voice. In many ways, the repeated concerns that we have expressed haven't really answered or rebutted some of the proponents on that dais and the comments you've made. First of all, there has been an expressed concern that there are many people out there that are afraid to come here and speak out. Uh, Let's assume that's true. Let's say there are 200 folks who would like to rent. Is that a reason to put their interests ahead of perhaps 6,000. I don't think so. It's also been expressed that we are not really going to be replacing or displacing long-term residents or permanent residents. residents, primary residents, To me, that is a legal parsing. The notion that someone is a legal long-term resident by virtue of being here for 153 days and we're not replacing that housing or turning it into short term housing. is perhaps legally correct but I don't think it is correct in practicality. If I live in my house and my next door neighbor uses 90 days for short term rentals on one side and the other next door neighbor uses 90 days for short term rentals on the other side, my quality of life is severely impacted and yes, I have long-term neighbors next door to me, but really? That's. every weekend of every year. 52 weekends times two. I don't think that's appropriate. Furthermore, the notion that somebody is a legal long-term resident because of 183 days when they are not here, is Spurious, legally correct, but emotionally spurious. Finally, there's another rationale that I've heard, and that is to enable our elderly who need to generate extra income to stay in their homes. If that is the problem you want to address, then craft the solution for the problem. This is a use issue. This is the use of your residence for short-term housing. There can be other solutions other than a 90-day no-host or a 365-day host of short-term rentals. This solution is not crafted for that problem. Have a planning commission hearing for an elderly person who needs to have extra income to stay in Sausalito and request a use variance, hypothetically. I think there are better solutions to that problem than this. Thank you. |
| 03:00:02.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:00:02.21 | Joe Burns | Thanks, Pat. |
| 03:00:02.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:00:07.66 | Joe Burns | Melanie Maharshan. |
| 03:00:24.85 | Melanie Maharshan | Thank you Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, staff and neighbors. I sincerely hope we can move on to an evidence-based look at how Strong oversight of occasional rentals could work in Sausalito. Beth, Yasmin, Barbara Left, a few others I noticed, and others who have spoken tonight. Thank you for having the guts to stand up here. You are my heroes. It's much harder to speak for this than against. The deck is already stacked against those in need I think the staff report does a good job of showing how the pilot is very responsive to concerns. In truth, the pilot has so much bolted onto it, there will be less renting under it than there is now under the ban. I worry about the apocalyptic framing of it. It's another chapter in our own city's migrant caravan story. It's vilifying, ostracizing, and dehumanizing people in need. For me, it's about affordability, access, and civil rights. Yes, civil rights. These are the same arguments that fear gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage. I don't think many of us believe that. It's the same type of thinking that says black people, Irish, Jews, the Chinese, or Latinos, we have a long history of this in our society, couldn't live in our neighborhoods. |
| 03:01:28.14 | Serge | It's the same type of thinking. |
| 03:01:38.45 | Melanie Maharshan | Take a look back, the arguments and fears were the same, but the reality we discovered after people of diverse backgrounds like me. made it into our neighborhoods is that we have more inclusive and stronger communities with more of us in it. So who is this for? It's for a few people, maybe just 100 who are not as privileged as many of us who don't need to rent short term. I don't need to do that here. It will help those people stay in our community. There are many ways that we help others stay in our community that is cooperative. We need to be more flexible in our approach to let people in. I think many of you know if you have questions about Truckee, I'm on the Chamber of Commerce's lodging committee. and I'm on the Mountain Housing Council. They're doing some pretty incredible work. We're publishing a white paper based on studies showing THAT. The only way to increase housing affordability and availability is to build new housing. They are ending their look at whether short term rentals can be unlocked for long term rentals. They've done studies. It will not be. They're ending that as a the as the number one thing that they were looking at. There's a lot of misinformation out there and there's a lot of, that mythology that's perpetuated that is not backed up by actual data, which is why I'm hoping that we can take an evidence-based look at it here. We work with host compliance, I highly recommend them. THE END OF So Sausalito is not doing this for money for the city. It's to keep the few people who need to stay here in place. And I sincerely hope that we can take a step forward in that direction. Thank you very much. |
| 03:03:22.18 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Melanie. Looks like we have one more card being filled out. Sybil, is that true? Thank you. For this item? |
| 03:03:34.23 | Joe Burns | So. |
| 03:03:37.97 | Joe Burns | Are there any others after Sybil? |
| 03:03:44.28 | Sybil | Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. Thank you for this long hearing. First I just want to address something I just thought I heard and regarding older adults wanting to do short term rentals with properties that they own. I don't think that there are many older adults in our community that have expressed that interest. We've had a couple of workshops on home sharing and most of the concerns among the older adults who might have had room was how they the character of the person who moves in with them or how they would manage living with a roommate or having another person in their home and having to learn how to make that a comfortable situation for them. I think that that expresses a completely different attitude than wanting to have a rotating door of different people coming and staying in their homes. I think you know we have been encouraging people to look at long term home sharing, long term roommates as a way to help older folks in particular, which is our interest, to be able to better afford their living here in our community. So I think that's one thing. And the other thing is many older people are finding that they need to downsize. I've been renting in Sal Salido since 1986. I've lived in four different places. I intend to stay here until I die. Finding a place to live and that's affordable is extremely difficult as everybody knows. I would like to just say that my part of my family, my two godchildren and their parents who did live with me when I lived in a large houseboat. moved into one apartment here. The two children are in school at Willow Creek. The place was sold. I don't know where it went after that, However they have been completely unable to find a place to live. in Sausalito that they could afford since I moved into senior housing. And they now live in Novato and have to bring the kids down here from Novato every single day. in order to continue to attend Willow Creek where they have found their own community as children. And, um, Anyway. We all know how difficult it is to find living for renters here. And I think that this Pilot would make it more difficult, although it's an awesome development. |
| 03:06:51.55 | Unknown | Right. |
| 03:06:51.78 | Sybil | I want to give Lily and her team credit. for creating such a detailed program. But I don't think it will work here. |
| 03:06:57.08 | Joe Burns | Yeah, I am. Thank you, Sybil. All right. So, um... |
| 03:06:59.24 | Sybil | Thank you, Sam. |
| 03:07:04.66 | Joe Burns | We have had, I don't think there's anybody who hasn't spoke yet, is there? I'm looking. If you haven't spoke and you, thank you for being here. And you oppose the pilot. Raise your hand. You haven't spoke. YOU HADN'T SPOKEN, YOU OPPOSED A PILOT. It... |
| 03:07:30.66 | Joe Burns | That was a backfire. Okay. If you haven't spoke and you are for the pilot, raise your hand. count of Jones. Thank you. There, now everybody's been heard, was the point of that. We have, and that was also... brought up earlier. We have had a lot of time in these chairs. We need to take a break. I want to thank you for your civility during that process. We heard a lot of comments. We hope you felt that we were respectful of your comments. When we come back in just a very brief moment, we're going to have some opinions, and I hope you'll be as respectful as those when we give ours, regardless of what you think. So thank you for your time. We'll be right back. about 3-5. |
| 03:10:52.98 | Russell Zink | you So you can't buy me. |
| 03:13:27.97 | Unknown | I should have met. It's like very, you know, |
| 03:13:45.15 | Steve Leonard | Great job. We've got to get you over to the house. Let's do it. |
| 03:14:03.29 | Jenny Wasser | Why are you getting, I can do it. No, but she really has a |
| 03:14:07.34 | Unknown | I love you. |
| 03:14:16.22 | Sherry | Thank you. |
| 03:14:16.30 | Patty Bacon | Thank you. |
| 03:14:16.71 | Sherry | Thank you. |
| 03:14:16.72 | Beth Rowe | you Bye. |
| 03:14:17.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:14:17.43 | Beth Rowe | Thank you. |
| 03:14:17.45 | Unknown | 30 seconds. |
| 03:14:17.79 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:14:18.48 | Beth Rowe | Thank you. |
| 03:14:18.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:14:19.07 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:14:24.98 | Sherry | And also, she's also been a new singer. |
| 03:14:30.19 | Chris Hammond | Thank you. |
| 03:14:30.21 | Unknown | You can sing all together. Fabulous thing. I'm going to get excited. |
| 03:14:31.46 | Sherry | Stop. LAUGHTER The time I was trying, that's what I said. . |
| 03:14:54.96 | Unknown | They're not listening. |
| 03:15:01.81 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:15:03.47 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:15:04.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:16:51.97 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:19:33.33 | Unknown | that you can get. I mean, if I tape it to me. |
| 03:19:35.73 | Unknown | TODAY. |
| 03:19:37.72 | Unknown | . |
| 03:19:53.13 | Joe Burns | If you could take your seats, please. |
| 03:20:03.50 | Joe Burns | Good morning, Sausalito. |
| 03:20:09.97 | Ray Withy | Yeah. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:20:15.64 | Ray Withy | It's everybody crossing their heads. |
| 03:20:19.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:19.99 | Ray Withy | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:20:20.33 | Unknown | you Okay. you |
| 03:20:22.96 | Joe Burns | Thank you, thank you. We're returning back to this item. We are still on the short term rental item obviously. I just wanted to make a quick announcement regarding our agenda however. We are going to let the fire Thank you. item and I've got to get the number here it is a 7C Southern Marine Fire District lessons learned update still in the staff report still slides have been uploaded but we're gonna postpone that tonight so we won't be hearing that item not that it's any less important but we let that staff go home we are still going to hear the waterfront management and the business item the public hearing, which was the introduction of the zoning ordinance to add inclusionary housing. So those are still on the docket for tonight. So we still have a busy agenda where we left off before the break. was, I'm closing public comment. Thank you. Public comment closed. We're going to bring it back up to the dais. And I've had one offer to go ahead. Ray Worthy is going to go first. |
| 03:21:30.02 | Ray Withy | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Two things. First, thank you to the staff, Lily and the team there. Well done. That was a good job. |
| 03:21:50.38 | Ray Withy | And thanks to all of you for coming out and saying your peace and speaking your mind. I'm going to make this quick. The. Last time we discussed this, I made my position very clear. I'm against this pilot program. The ensuing number of weeks and holiday season has not changed my mind. And I... Listening to tonight's discussion from you all has only reinforced my position. It needs a little bit of illumination, I think, Sony Fair. The... What is... the expectation and the essence of a residential neighborhood. And to me, it's, um. to have long-term residents, whether owners or renters, and at least when I moved to Sausalito, and moved into a residential district. That was my expectation. And I have seen nothing. I have really heard very little that would persuade me that short-term rentals would, certainly they're not going to enhance the residential neighborhoods and I believe there's a potential that they could do significant damage to the residential neighborhoods. And the reason is, and this doesn't apply to every city. I mean, every city is different. Sausalito has its unique characteristics. And one of the things that I've learned over the last six years is that there is a very delicate balance between The downtown, the tourist industry, our good fortune of having a tourist industry needs to balance with the protection of the residential neighborhoods. It's almost because we have that opportunity of tourism, we need extra care to balance it and to make sure that the residential neighborhoods are protected. So that's my fundamental question. issue. The other thing is that... |
| 03:24:39.67 | Ray Withy | One of the things that keeps being asked by you all, and I would actually also reinforce and I'm expecting to lose tonight's vote, right? Doesn't happen very often, but I'm expecting to be in the minority on this, based on the last time we were up here. I would ask my colleagues who are considering voting for this to I think former mayor Theodorus has been asking a question to which nobody has yet answered. Why are we doing this? And I think... an answer to that is deserved. Related to this, I would also add I've been thinking this a lot in the last week. What's the rush? I don't see one. I don't see an urgency. I don't see a rush to make this very dramatic change. And so I'd also like to reinforce something that I made a few notes about what some of you said. CG where, made a really, I think, important point that if we first did enforcement and um, hacking away at those 157 currently illegal short-term rentals, okay, and started proving to the community. CG said we need to prove to the community that actually you can enforce something. I made the point last time we should We should work on enforcement. We've hired host compliance. We should prove to you all that over a period of time, let's say a year, we can actually significantly enforce the simplest of things. They're banned. And if you can't enforce a simple ban, I'm struggling still, even though I have enormous respect for our community development department, I'm struggling still to see how we're going to enforce something of really very significant complexity. So my proposal is that. We put this on hold for a year. that we focus our efforts on using host compliance and our internal resources that we've beefed up to prove to everybody that you can enforce this. You can enforce at least something simple, that there is, through this mechanism, we're potentially going to see a reduction in the number of short-term housing. Until I can see that, until I can see an actual robust enforcement have a major impact on short term rentals, I could never agree to this. Finally, um, I think one thing that should be clear, I think I can speak for all my colleagues, those who are for this and those who aren't for it, that This really isn't about revenue. I know some of you seem to think that there's this secret mission that we must do this in order to the city of Sausalito so desperately needs the revenue. It always needs revenue, but it does not need this revenue. It just doesn't need it. And I understand Sausalito's budget probably better than nearly anybody in this room. This is not needed for revenue purposes. Okay? Although, I'm sure if we did, we'd find the money. We'd find the way to spend the money, rather. I'm throwing out the challenge, why are we doing this? And what's the rush? And why don't we move ahead with enforcing our current ban for a year and then revisit the issue? And that's what I'd like my colleagues to consider. |
| 03:29:15.50 | Jill Hoffman | Do you mind if I go next? So, Here's why the program, right? So back in 2016 when I was mayor, we had these problems with enforcement. We had people in town who had these party houses next to them and we were really, unresponsive as a city and without an ability to enforce the ban that we had and so that's was the impetus for sitting down and saying, OK, we had, I don't know how many meetings. We had public meetings, we had workshops, we brought down people from Napa, and other communities that were having these short term rentals, right? So the why of it, that is the why. And we had, hang on, hold on, give me the courtesy that we gave you guys and we're listening to your comments. That's the why. When in 2016, we were looking at how do you enforce, host compliance was really the only company that did it and you had to have a pilot program. You didn't have a pilot program. You had to have a program to be able to engage them. And so if you wanted to have enforcement in 2016, a meaningful way to enforce, you cannot, it was like, impossible for one enforcement, code enforcement person to go on all the sites and create, you know, gather the data. And so, so that was not going to happen. It was just not, it was just too much work and there was no way you were going to do it. And we tried to do one or two enforcements and it was $40,000 at the end of the day to try to get $500 fine out of somebody. So we raised the fines. I voted for that. We came up with a pilot program. and it was tabled to to be part of the general plan update. So that's where we were in 2016. And it came back up on our agenda this fall to look at it again in October. So that's the why of how we got here. And for me, if you know me and you've listened to any of the other issues that I've worked on at City Council, it's enforcement first. And the program has to pay for the enforcement because the citizens of Sausalito shouldn't pay for ongoing commercial enterprises in Sausalito. So it was the same thing with the bikes when we implemented the bike parking program. Thank you for the bark. And so we created that program, but I will tell you that without very heavy lift and involvement from the city council and from very concerned citizens to start that kind of enforcement program, it was not going to work, especially for the bike program and for some of the efforts that we've had out on the water to bring order out there. So from my experience on the, Thank you. four years I've been on the council, that's what it takes to have enforcement. You have to have robust involvement from your city council and you have to have robust oversight and enforcement. of enforcement from a concerned constituency in the town that has a tolerance for enforcement. So when you start enforcement, you're going to have people that are gonna feel the pain in your community, especially with the high fines that we have implemented. Now, I listen to my city council members most compelling to me and some of the most compelling things since we first started looking at this even from October is the petition that was given to us tonight. This is a significant piece of new information that I am considering as a city council member and how to approach this program. The other thing that I have gleaned from talking to many of you and reading many emails is that there's a certain amount of skepticism about whether or not we can do enforcement. And what's the impact of a pilot program without effective real enforcement of our program. And there's a certain credibility that the city needs to instill in our ability to manage any type of a pilot program with regard to short term rentals. I will say as well, I think the landscape has changed since 2016 when we first started looking at this. And just my view of people who have come to me in town and about the short-term rentals that are next to their homes i feel like has increased and so we're left with We have to be able to do enforcement. We have to build our enforcement program. We just voted this in Thank you. a month, six weeks ago to engage host compliance. I haven't seen anything and part of our staff report, which I would have liked to have seen, is what have we done in the six weeks? What are the analytics from host compliance about, you know, the real efforts that we've made in the last six weeks since we, you know, for enforcement. I don't have that information either. There are some issues that I have about hosted stays and non-hosted stays and how legally defensible that is. of someone who has a home they're not leaving, they're essentially taking on another roommate for a short period of time. To me, that's a legal question I wanna answer before we move toward a program and how we manage that and even Ashley probably before we start enforcement, but we can talk about that later. I actually agree with Ray. I want to prove to the people, the skeptics out there, that we can enforce. And if we can't do it, then we can't do it. So I've always said all along, if we have enforcement program but we can't do it and the pilot program is a failure, it will disappear within a year, if not earlier. you know, based on what I've seen tonight and you know, frankly, most convincingly, the 600 signatures on the petition is a big change from the information that we had previously the survey that indicated most people were in favor of short term rentals. So that to me has changed dramatically. the way that I'm looking at this. I agree with Ray, I think that we should do a year's worth of enforcement. Now, all of you are gonna have to support us when people come and they're mad at us because we're now instituting, stop, we're, you know, we're, so I'm going to call on you. to support us in that effort. But I think if we, I feel like also the people that I've talked to, You're not opposed to, in principle, to a family who wants to rent their house for three weeks if they're gone and they go on their vacation and they have somebody in town that can help manage it. I don't feel like you're opposing it if a senior citizen wants to have a short term renter to help or whoever to help make their rent so that they can stay here in town. What we're against is converting long term rental units into commercial enterprises. And I am against that as well. And so what I would like to do is you know, institute actual enforcement for a year. from today, Ray, and I'm going to hold you to that, if we are able to show that we can get the number down and actually be effective in our enforcement efforts, then I want to come back and we're going to start talking about slowly implementing some sort of a pilot program, perhaps, at the end of that year in the way that would be non-impactful to our town. Keeping in mind all of the safeguards that we have in the pilot program, there's still some holes that we need to work on in the pilot program as well. and I wish we had had a little bit more time, when this came back. I think we can do that in the next year. So that's where I'm standing right now. I'm always happy to listen and talk to my fellow council members. |
| 03:37:14.05 | Tom Giacitano | Joe. |
| 03:37:17.12 | Joan Cox | Well, That made my night. Um... |
| 03:37:26.68 | Joan Cox | I also want to say thank you to Lily and the staff for the thorough report. And thank you also to Ulrich who made time to come here and explain some of the details of enforcement to us. I also want to say thank you to everyone for unknowingly tonight comporting with our newest protocol regarding civility in the way that we communicate with one another. So kudos to all of you for that. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS. Not only did we receive 128 letters opposing short-term rentals, we received this petition with 631 signatures. In reviewing the petition, which I did. as I was listening to all of these comments. It was remarkable to me that the vast majority were Sausalito residents. and this was 631. Our survey was 200 and it had no, you know, poll on whether you're a resident or not. And so I agree with Council Member Hoffman I think the petition is very powerful indication of which way our residents are leaning. And you know we're talking about 7400 residents but when you look at our election results you're talking about 2000 who typically vote. So 600 out of the 2000 who typically vote took the time and energy to sign this petition to share with us their views on this really important issue. So I thank all of you and all of them for reaching out to us in that way. AND I THINK IT'S A We are a representative government. And so it is super important that we listen to our neighbors, our friends, our community. As council members, that's our job. I'm You know, we heard from Jeff Knowles first thing this evening And he said, that important votes like the school board vote should important decisions should not be made on a 3-2 vote so too here if we were going to make a C change to our residential neighborhoods we need to be unanimous in our decision to do so such an important decision should not be made on a 3-2 vote. I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE TO you know, The main reason I'm opposed to this is housing. You heard me talk about earlier some of the draconian housing measures that are coming our way. You know, they want to put another story on top of all of our homes. They want to increase our density from suburban to urban. We will endure even more pressure than we already do to allow more housing affordable and market rate. The first step in battling that is to preserve our existing housing. Taking homes or apartments off the long term rental market by converting them to tourist accommodations is self-defeating as it reduces existing housing stock. Conversely, prohibiting short term rentals is a low cost route toward keeping housing supply stable while protecting neighborhoods quality of life. So I really thank My Yoda. who this evening came up with Yeah. |
| 03:40:51.97 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 03:40:52.25 | Joan Cox | Ha ha! who came up with this marvelous, really compromised solution. You know, show me the money. Show, let us show you that we are able to enforce the rules we have in place before we think about relaxing those rules. Um, I'm glad that when and if we do proceed with any kind of pilot program we will examine our general plan and perform a CEQA analysis. If you look at our general plan, the first two goals are protect and enhance Sausalito as a residential community, and protect the present character of Sausalito's residential neighborhoods. That's in our general plan. Our housing element, goal 1.4 is continue to conserve the existing rental housing stock by limiting the conversion of rental units to ownership or non-residential uses. So again, I commend Councilmember Withey. I join him in his in his him and Councilmember Hoffman in their approach for how we should move forward with this very important decision. Thank you. |
| 03:42:16.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, so I may be one of the only people in this room who started out as a short term rental opponent and was convinced over time in my participation in the short term rental task force that there was a way to successfully accommodate a new technology and a number of our residents. who appeared again and again in front of the task force to explain how they needed. short-term rentals to make staying in Sausalito viable for them? And as a land use attorney, I started with the concept that Ray just expressed, that residential neighborhoods are for residential use. And I was very initially opposed. And I had a number of folks in our school community, parents, grandparents of parents, convinced me that this was something that they cared very deeply about and that if there was a way to make that work in the community, that they would appreciate it. And these are not absentee landlords these are people who volunteer every day in our community. And so we listened to Ulrich and other experts and our staff over time and I was convinced and I asked Ulrich again tonight, can we enforce the pilot? And the answer from him and from staff is yes, we can. We worked very hard on that task force and over time, and staff has worked over time to respond to every single concern from the community about the impacts of short-term rentals, which I completely agree with all of you. can be very real and can be very destructive. And the pilot is carefully crafted to address those. The housing issue that Joan just mentioned, if you are a neighbor and you live here, we're not losing housing when you host. If you have complaints, they will be addressed. And you know, so I think it seems like there is just a lack of confidence and a lack of belief that the all the bells and whistles that we've added to the program to address all of the concerns. I mean, I feel like we are listening. We have hired enforcement. We have added all of the, all of the conditions to this program that would make it work. Um, But that there isn't a trust that it will work. So, I intellectually believe that it would, that it could coexist here. There will be, you know, if we adopted a pilot to Ray's point, it would immediately reduce the number of short term rentals dramatically. I think we would have far less than 100. And we would have an improved and improved situation. You know, the proposal tonight to kind of flip the order to start with enforcement and then move to a pilot is a different approach. you know, if we have a vote to do that, and then the numbers on the council I will support that I I think that a more gradual approach, where we start enforcement as we have devoted the resources to it, and see where we are in a year, if we are still experiencing the negative impacts that so many people have felt, is also a very logical and productive way to proceed and is least impactful to the folks who would like to host. I also, you know, think it's time to refresh our poll. I think there's a lot of mistrust that that poll was accurate. So I think that that is something, you know, if we have time now that we should move forward do i was going to recommend that we do that while the item was going to the planning commission um, But I think, you know, when you ask someone about short term rentals, I have had as I've said before, hundreds of conversations with people about short-term rentals, And what people think about when they think about short term rentals is a vacant house. I have one next door to my house where not great things happen. You don't have a neighbor, it's unmonitored, you know, and it's a huge impact. But the short-term rentals, that would be permitted under this program are not that. they are potentially very low impact. and would allow your neighbor to continue to stay here. A lot of talk about the impact on the rental market, renters can do host, we have correspondence in our file. But- You know, I have also heard, I've talked to many of you, I understand how deeply people care about this. So I respect that and I also respect my colleagues. I, It's just interesting how Tom Theodorus asked why. It was actually because Jill, Ray, and Tom asked me to participate in this task force, which is how I really started to think about this issue and how it worked. in Sausalito and we did hear And I have continued to hear from so many people who really would like to see this program succeed. And, um... So, you know, |
| 03:48:33.47 | John Rohrbacher | Please. |
| 03:48:36.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think we all care about the same things. And I would really, it is kind of respectful to after we've listened to you to listen to me. But we all care about the same things. |
| 03:48:51.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | having neighborhoods that are for neighbors and that is why I worked very hard to design with staff this pilot that would do that and I still think it would but I think building trust and with the community and doing the enforcement and then starting to look back at whether a modest proposal would work is also an approach. I was, another thing I was going to propose tonight, in addition to a poll, is that we have a stakeholder group that in some, obviously this would be up to the mayor, but that in some way helps guide the metrics, that we look at and the indications of success. You know, what do we think is a success in this? So that's just something I would throw out there. I feel like we haven't really sat down constructively to talk about what people want to see as the end game. So that's all I have to say. |
| 03:50:09.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That's all I have to say. |
| 03:50:12.59 | Joe Burns | Good? Thank you. Thank you all very much for coming out tonight. I think a lot of it said is very relevant, what's been said earlier and what's been said here. don't have a horse in this race. And I say that in that as I ponder this question for months, I've never rented out my place. I don't think I've ever stayed in an Airbnb, though. I believe I have stayed in a BRBO, and I have stayed in a vacation rental in Sausalito decades ago. So I know that vacation rentals have been here for a long time. And I know we've had an ordinance for a long time. I'm tempted to kind of throw the question back, why didn't we enforce for years, this issue. I think the obvious answer is we had a market disruptor. We had Airbnb. None of us liked that. We don't like that drastic change. And it did impact us. It increased the number drastically. It caused serious impacts on our community. It did all the things that you said that you claimed, it did that. You know, it put party houses, it hoteled, it had people say, I'd rather maybe rent my place in a short term manner than a long term manner. So my horse in the race was, how do we back that up? How do we pull away from that? Um, while still protecting residents. And residents who, as we've heard and have been in letters, granted the numbers didn't show up, but that do rely on this. the And whether they rely on in your mind or that they actually rely on it financially or that they use the money to spend in our economy It is an impact. Now, if we have had vacation rentals and short-term rentals operating at a clip of 180 to 200, and I think some people even said it was gonna be above 200 that we had, and we eliminate that immediately, That will have a financial impact. I just want to state it. It's not a, I don't have a business in town that is relevant to or relies on visitors, If those people all of a sudden go away, it's not the tax, that's thousands. It's a big component of our economic base of our community. when a hunt. I'll explain it to you. Just give me a second. If you have 200 renters, Now, I agree, a lot of those people are out of town. So let's say we had 100 renters, at Hunter Toast. And they're renting to people who spend their they come down and eat breakfast here, eat dinner here, spend their money locally, that's money in our economy. That is what helps our Caledonia street businesses. Our Caledonia street businesses will be the first to tell you there's not enough business from residents only. And I'm not sure there's enough business in the 124 hotel rooms located on the south part of town to subsidize all the businesses on Caledonias. I think there will be an impact. I'm not basing my decision on that. I'm not basing my opinion on that. I want it to be out in the public record that a lot of money in our economy will go away a little bit. And that's your choice. And it's the choice that we're going to work with. Because now that if we are going in this route, I'm supporting my council. That's my other. horse in this race, is I'm going to support the decision we came to. And I think that good policy When policymakers make policy, good policy isn't on hand waving. It isn't on letters. Making good policy is when you do the extra hard work to not ban something that might have a positive impact. Now, you're going to say there doesn't have a positive impact. They provide no financial gain. They provide no assistance to certain residents. I believe there is some positive impacts to having a very highly regulated, enforced, program that allows exceptions to the complete ban. And it's the exceptions that are the hard work. Pacific Grove, they have a band, they have exceptions, they have a total coastal zone, which is the equivalent of our flatlands that are in, are allowed short-term rentals. So other communities have exceptions and I thought we had the ability to have an exception I thought we had the ability to put together a pilot that reduced the impacts We've just talked about them reducing the ability for long-term rentals to be taken away by having the Tools in place and that we were going to give the residents who might need it And I'm gonna Mentioned this person's name, Laura, who wrote me a letter, and I know her to verify it, but that's not her real name, travels back east every quarter to visit her ailing father. She rents out her room, her rented house for one week. It's four times a year, but it pays for her trip back there. Otherwise, she can't make that trip. Not only, or she can barely make her rent, and I'm concerned about her as a person who's gonna live in our community much longer anyway because of the cost of housing. So there's some people that are at risk in our community. I was hoping that we can build a program, maybe we still can, to help them, yet still mitigate the risks that you brought up, that are valid, the impacts. Just about everybody came up and said, I don't want short-term rentals. They're here. The plan was to reduce them. Thank you. I love the work that Sherry did. I saw this taking shape on Nextdoor. This is so impressive, 631 signatures. The words, and I'm not putting it down, but the words pilot aren't on here, or reduction of short-term rentals, it's just do you want short-term, preserve and enforce long-term, yeah, I want to enforce those long-standing zoning regulations. I'd like to know from those previous councils why they didn't, but, the question was asked and it was answered and I would have signed this as well. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't be looking for a way to protect some of my residents while reducing the impacts of a situation that was thrusted upon us in the world of technology and Shared economies and it's not going to be our first one. We have a mother many other shared economy style distractions and disruptions coming our way, but I But the process is the process, and that is my... horse. That is why I'm up here. I think we came in, we were 3-2, we were 2-3. I agree, I would love for this to be a 4-1 or a 5-0. And I'd obviously love for people to think like I do, just like you, like people to think like you do, and most of you are here. But it didn't happen. And I am without a horse other than I just wanted that information to be out. I wanted to say that I believe policy is best made when you look at the exceptions to the hard work and that 100% ban on something that has a positive impact or positive benefit to the community is not really good policy making. It's quick and efficient and easy policy making. I just don't know if it's really effective or efficient for a community I think finding an opportunity to make an exception is good policymaking And I want that To be out in the public record I just want everybody to acknowledge that there is going to be some type of financial impact whether you agree with it or not I believe there I've run numbers I've actually used some of the numbers from from people in this audience as far as what a tourist might stop a overnight tourist might spend in our community it's not why I want it it's a component that we just I've actually used some of the numbers from people in this audience as far as what a overnight tourist might spend in our community. It's not why I want it. It's a component that we just have to realize is out there. So I am, that's how I feel and I said it at the beginning, and I'm going to say it again, I appreciate all of you coming out, your passion for your community. I think we share that. I love how you did keep your civility and present your ideas, whether I agree with some of them. And I had some other items here, but I don't need to get into all those. I just wanted to make why, because I think the why was important. And why did I support that? is because I thought we had the room to make exceptions and protect more residents than what a complete ban does. Going forth, if we are gonna make a motion to go this route, |
| 03:59:13.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:59:15.86 | Joe Burns | I think we got it on yeah. |
| 03:59:15.90 | Jill Hoffman | I think we got it on yeah, well, we already voted on compliant enforcement right. |
| 03:59:21.20 | Joe Burns | We've voted on enforcement and we don't have to take any of these. We can do our own recommendations. |
| 03:59:22.63 | Jill Hoffman | We've been here. |
| 03:59:28.43 | Ray Withy | Well, the only thing I would Remind you of is that the last or the last time I some aspect of this, I've lost track of the meetings we've had, was when we were dealing with code enforcement, the direction to staff was not to enforce short-term rental. |
| 03:59:52.52 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:59:52.53 | Ray Withy | No, no, it was not. |
| 03:59:53.48 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:59:53.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, it was to prioritize. |
| 03:59:55.57 | Joe Burns | of the private rights. It was... |
| 03:59:57.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | vacant. LAND VACANT. unit. That was our direction. |
| 04:00:01.66 | Joe Burns | That was our direction. It was very clear to go after the high impact |
| 04:00:04.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | The high impact vacant units, that was what I was saying. |
| 04:00:06.83 | Joe Burns | Granted, there was other things in front of that. Thank you. |
| 04:00:09.54 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:00:09.56 | Joe Burns | Right. |
| 04:00:09.95 | Ray Withy | But I think that's going to need some clarification, because I'm not sure staff know where they stand without a motion here. |
| 04:00:18.54 | Joan Cox | I'll take a stab. Okay, I move, we direct staff to continue the current prohibition on short-term rentals that staff unabashedly prioritize the code enforcement with respect to short-term rentals utilizing the resources of host compliance. I move that we put on hold for a year our consideration of a pilot program and that during that year we focus our efforts on enforcement with the option to revisit a potential pilot program in a year based on the metrics of our pilot program. I recommend that we refresh our poll and perhaps in that intervening year and perhaps identify some way to ensure that The people who are responding to our poll are the stakeholders who are affected, our residents. And I also recommend that we appoint a stakeholder group appointed by the mayor that helps to guide the metrics that we will review and the indicators of success so that we all align upon what success in enforcement would look like. |
| 04:01:33.24 | Joe Burns | the success of the enforcement of our current band. |
| 04:01:35.33 | Joan Cox | of enforcement. |
| 04:01:36.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:01:36.20 | Joan Cox | of our current ban. Thank you. |
| 04:01:37.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:01:38.07 | Joan Cox | THAT'S RIGHT. |
| 04:01:38.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Well, and I would add to that, as Councilmember Hoffman said and what elements might be a successful and a future pilot. |
| 04:01:54.50 | Joan Cox | Sure, yeah. |
| 04:01:55.42 | Alice Merrill | THE FAMILY IS |
| 04:01:55.60 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:01:55.74 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 04:01:56.28 | Joan Cox | I accept that amendment. |
| 04:01:57.61 | Ray Withy | I would add one more amendment that we get periodic updates on the council on to the effectiveness of the enforcement |
| 04:01:57.64 | Joan Cox | Bye. |
| 04:02:04.41 | Joan Cox | Quarterly. I accept that amendment. |
| 04:02:07.72 | Ray Withy | So with that I'll second that motion. |
| 04:02:10.22 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:02:10.32 | Joan Cox | I'm going to go. |
| 04:02:10.33 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:02:10.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:02:10.54 | Joe Burns | . |
| 04:02:10.60 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:02:10.66 | Joe Burns | Are there any other discussions on that? |
| 04:02:13.27 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:02:13.29 | Joe Burns | motion. Seeing none, do we have any other motions? Seeing none. Serge, please take a roll. |
| 04:02:26.28 | Serge | Councilmember Cox? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Councilmember Wood? |
| 04:02:31.09 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 04:02:31.97 | Serge | you Thank you. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles? |
| 04:02:38.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 04:02:38.30 | Serge | Thank you. Mayor Burns. |
| 04:02:41.96 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:02:41.98 | Serge | Yes. |
| 04:02:43.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Woo! |
| 04:02:44.34 | Serge | That motion carries 5-0. |
| 04:02:52.03 | Joe Burns | Again, thank you all. No, no, no, no, we have more items. Sit down, sit down. We have more items. You committed to the night. |
| 04:02:55.66 | Unknown | We have more. ITEMS. Bye. I'm gonna fight. |
| 04:02:59.93 | Joe Burns | . Thank you. Thank you again. |
| 04:03:05.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:05.30 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 04:03:13.23 | Joe Burns | But we do want to get home, people. So please flow your conversations out and then take them up. Please. We got to get moving here. |
| 04:03:24.25 | Unknown | Let's just start. All right. |
| 04:03:37.29 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:03:37.38 | Russell Zink | you |
| 04:03:37.65 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Thank you. What happened? |
| 04:03:38.61 | Russell Zink | That's my... |
| 04:03:38.98 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 04:03:40.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Rasnir. |
| 04:03:41.97 | Joe Burns | THANK YOU. Thank you. Please bring it out. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here unless you want to stay here. We are going to go next to Item seven. D, again, we have canceled 7C for the evening. We're going now to 7D, the waterfront management plan update. |
| 04:03:59.19 | Unknown | I got it. |
| 04:04:03.62 | Joe Burns | I don't see the lieutenant, but I believe the chief is going to present. Is that correct? Thank you. Yep, yep, glad that's working. |
| 04:04:18.97 | Unknown | Thank you. I'm going to take a look at the reason that you don't. Thank you. |
| 04:04:23.19 | Joe Burns | Yeah, and that's on the... |
| 04:04:23.31 | Serge | Yeah. That's not. is not a presentation. |
| 04:04:26.87 | Unknown | It's the eights, but we kind of reduced |
| 04:04:26.87 | Joe Burns | It's the eights, but we kind of reduced some of that. But yeah, thank you. |
| 04:04:29.33 | Serge | Thank you. |
| 04:04:29.38 | Unknown | . |
| 04:04:29.43 | Serge | Thank you. |
| 04:04:37.97 | Joe Burns | you Thank you. |
| 04:04:39.59 | Unknown | I'm not feeling well either. |
| 04:04:39.66 | Joe Burns | I'm not sure. Bye. doing well. Thank you. I'm not glad you got my pecan light now. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:04:45.45 | Joan Cox | You're doing a great job. Thank you. Yeah. Why is his trial by fire? |
| 04:04:51.49 | Joe Burns | Thank you. you Thank you for So I do want to talk |
| 04:04:53.89 | Unknown | So I do want to talk about the calendar. |
| 04:04:57.01 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:05:01.06 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:05:01.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 04:05:01.48 | Unknown | . |
| 04:05:05.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It's just that they're now all scheduled through June on the first and third of Tuesday. |
| 04:05:08.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:05:08.25 | Unknown | on the first and third Tuesdays. |
| 04:05:10.04 | Unknown | I don't know why, that's always been the second |
| 04:05:10.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't know. |
| 04:05:11.03 | Unknown | That's always been the second before. |
| 04:05:14.25 | Unknown | And that's when I have other meetings. I can't get here early. I can't get here early on the first and third Tuesdays. Okay, all right, okay, okay, so go. |
| 04:05:21.21 | Unknown | Tuesdays, okay. Okay, okay. Okay, so go. How about if we don't hear it tonight? What if you just submit a revised calendar for us to approve at our next meeting? Thank you. |
| 04:05:30.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:05:30.94 | Unknown | . |
| 04:05:31.03 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:05:31.20 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:05:33.04 | Joe Burns | So I'm kind of on the front with all this, but I think I want to make one of the changes. |
| 04:05:37.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:05:37.24 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:05:37.25 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:05:43.60 | Unknown | I'll just raise the issue. |
| 04:05:45.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:05:45.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:05:45.61 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:05:45.76 | John Rohrbacher | Thank you. |
| 04:05:50.74 | Joe Burns | And Pamela, we still are going to get to the inclusionary housing. I have your card. |
| 04:05:53.71 | Bill Hines | I have your card. |
| 04:05:58.21 | Joe Burns | Chief, thank you. So item 7, the waterfront management plan update, Chief John Robark. |
| 04:06:05.81 | John Rohrbacher | Hi, good evening, Mayor, members of the council. I am not Bill Frost, Lieutenant, but I'm going to try and do my best to fill in for him. I'm John Rohrbacher, the chief of police. So we're offering an update on our waterfront management. We were last here in November on the 13th, |
| 04:06:15.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:06:26.56 | John Rohrbacher | Bill typically includes this slide just to give that perspective in case people are joining us new, watching this online or looking at now. We've been 18 months into our waterfront program, and this is just our easy parameters here, and that we continue to have a great working relationship with the Sheriff's Office and with RBRA. |
| 04:06:53.43 | John Rohrbacher | And these are really important to bring back up about our priorities. We continue to remove marine debris I have some detail about that coming up. We continue to enforce registration laws on the vessels. And we are and have moved into the removal of the vessels vessels that are just being stored on Salcedo waters. And we'll talk about that as we go forward with some more slides. And then clearly important is the vessels that are occupied by people who are a danger to themselves and others, as we saw on New Year's Eve when we had the drowning. |
| 04:07:43.92 | John Rohrbacher | So the surveys are important to mention as well. The surveys are like gold to us. They are really important for us to have the data from month to month to let us know the movement of boats because it presents for our marine crew the opportunity to leave on their true of duty on any of their missions with a work plan. They're not just riding around the boat and seeing what's out there. When they have the data that's produced by the surveys, they know which vessels to target, and it's a much more effective way for them to work. The last one was in November we did not conduct one in December. |
| 04:08:31.27 | John Rohrbacher | So, The survey that was done in November had particularly good news in it for us to show that our efforts are having some success. Our amount of boats dropped now down to a low of 45, and we are pleased with that. It's a combination of all those things that we were doing as under our high priority, and Thank you. The other piece of the news for us about that is on this particular survey, there was fewer backfill boats. You've heard us talk about this before. It's the one thing that... we are challenged with being successful at is stopping the backfill after we have boats that are either taken to spring debris or moved out after being installed through the water for too long. But as the message becomes clear that we are going to be doing enforcement work, I believe that some of those boats are relocating. But they're clearly not in our water. |
| 04:09:40.17 | John Rohrbacher | So shortly after our meeting in November 13, we had our cleanup day. That's something that we do in conjunction with the Sheriff's Office and with RBRA. We believe that having this our second time, that the cleanup day is worth the effort and the money to keep this amount of debris. And you'll see some other pictures coming up from actually blowing into the water when the storms start. And we have a community meeting ahead of time letting people know. We hand out trash bags and let them know what we're going to be doing for the winter. and ask people to please think about rounding up what they don't want on their decks and help us get rid of stuff that would otherwise surely be blown overboard and foul up the waters in Richardson Bay. In addition to having that, sorry, I missed a good point there, is we usually will get at least, I can't say usually, this is only a second year, but we had, again, people from Health and Human Services come and help with doing the surveys for people that wanted to answer questions about would they consider housing off the water and so that the conversation can start. Yes. So here's another photo from the trash collection event. We contract with Parker Dive and we use the Allied Mariner to put a debris box on. It's a pretty big box. This year, we had a lot of large items being thrown over into or actually loaded onto the Allied Mariner, a little bit different than the year before. And the debris box was pretty full. I really don't know how many boats or items went into it, but any of that that went into the debris box is mature that did not go in the water. And so for that, I think we're very successful. |
| 04:11:38.89 | John Rohrbacher | And one more picture of that debris box on the Allied Mariner being filled up. So we had 10 people that were contacted and offered services by Marin Health and Human Services. Out of that, three requested services. I don't know the end result of what happens after that. That's something that's an ongoing conversation with Health and Human Services about offering the opportunity to be housed someplace other than the water for people that are willing to do that. And I think those conversations are going to go on for quite a while. |
| 04:12:19.44 | John Rohrbacher | So we had some marine debris removal during the time period from the meeting in November. This particular boat was taken away. We had one boat as a result of us putting a warning notice on it saying that it was in our water for too long. The owner offered to turn it in under the vessel turning program. This is, again, money that we're able to use from the Department of Boating and Waterways and actually is a condition of the grant. So we're fulfilling our grant requirements and removing something from the bay that was in our water that was marked for removal and now it's not here anymore. |
| 04:13:05.14 | John Rohrbacher | So we had another block of vessels that we marked for the 72-hour rule, and we had four of them that were removed from the water, meaning that they were done on their own, where they moved. One was the, we determined that there was actually people living on it, and I'll talk about that in just a sec. And then one that was, the one that was impounded, but the owner decided to turn it in. So when we're out marking the boats, sometimes it's a little bit difficult to tell based on the condition of the boats, whether someone's actually living on it or not. We put the notices up. It does cause a little bit of panic when we do that, no question about it. We put that sticker on there and some people think that that means their boat's going right that minute. It's actually not the case at all. It means that they have 72 hours and then they're supposed to contact us. In this particular case, the person living on that boat got hold of us right away and we were able to confirm that somebody actually was living on it and of course we didn't keep it on our removal list. So even though there was clearly some anxiety for the person who lived on the boat, It ended up okay. but I don't think there's any other way we can do it. It's not the same as working in an abandoned car or putting a notice on someone's house. It involves having to get up on the boat and find a spot to put the notice where somebody can see it. and then hopefully get that reaction where they say, hey, wait a minute, we're living on this boat. So that one ended up flying. |
| 04:14:35.53 | John Rohrbacher | We also did some more mooring ball removal during this last six-week period, and we continue to do that when the operating presents itself. We look at it as once we remove the boats and when we can, we take the mooring ball at the same time. If after some of the boats leave and they've left the mooring ball behind, we grab that. And like a lot of things, pictures take in from with inside our storage container. Just because we remove it doesn't mean that we're entitled to destroy it right away. We're obligated to hold that property for 90 days so that the people that own it can actually come claim their property. They just can't put it back in soft-suit of water. |
| 04:15:19.00 | John Rohrbacher | And I have to say, I don't think that there's been, out of all the ones we've taken since we started 17 or 18 months ago, probably more than about a half a dozen have ever been claimed out of maybe 40, 50, 60 mooring balls. |
| 04:15:35.76 | John Rohrbacher | So then this brings us to the Monday, December 31st. The morning started with a pretty good wind and caused that vessel right there that was previously anchored out in county water to actually drag anchor and dodge all the other vessels out there and make it to the rocks right behind barbache and We were concerned that there might still be somebody on it, because our information was that there was a person that lives on that boat. Not sure if it was at the time. So the fire department sent a rescue swimmer out from the shore to climb into that vessel. At the time that was done, that vessel was tipped over quite a bit. It's rather risky, and the fire department's rescue swimmer was able to get on board and confirm that nobody was on it and then they secured the boat in place until the tide came back in where they could refloat it. The downside to us is that boat then did not go back out to county water. It's sitting in our water in the Turney Street Basin and so we'll be having a conversation with that owner coming up. I want to add though that at this time of year it's not uncommon for us to see some boats move closer to shore than their other typical spot because frankly it's safer. And while we are still working hard to rid our water of boats that don't belong there, we are certainly not going to put someone at risk. And for instance, this boat here with that guy on it, we're not going to ship him out someplace where he's going to be in danger, because that's just not what we're trying to do. But he will know that he can't stay after a little while here. |
| 04:17:23.05 | John Rohrbacher | And then sadly, we had another case that same day, later in the afternoon, again, extremely high winds. And we had a man and a woman that were in a small boat, rowing away from the docks at Schoonmacher. And then their boat got swamped and capsized. They were not wearing any personal flotation devices. They did not know how to swim. And they were immediately in big trouble. the woman was able to be rescued, but the man when he was pulled out of the water, he was unresponsive and didn't make it. And so it's the tragedy that we are hoping does not happen to anybody, and yet it did. It just makes us all feel really bad, frankly, because it's not what we want to see happen. The couple lived out on a boat in county water, but they were using the screen marker dock as a way to get in and out of the water. And the worst happened for them. Again, this was a fire rescue operation. The firefighters were, frankly, frankly remarkable and they had some assistance with of course other agencies and of course the police department was there and we had our boat launch but it truly was a fire rescue there you know we've heard and said amongst ourselves and the council has acknowledged that doing this work sometimes puts the public safety personnel at risk. And in this particular case, the rescue swimmer for the fire department, Captain Brouchard, he was actually trapped between the dock and the fireboat and then needed assistance with the police officers on the dock. to try and push that boat away from the dock to free him up so they could pull him out of the water I'm sure it was a tense moment for Captain Bouchard and also for everybody else there because the winds were fierce. And we actually have a pretty good video of that that we're not releasing just yet because we're just concluding our investigation into the drowning death. But we were able to get a surveillance video from Schumacher about that. |
| 04:19:53.88 | John Rohrbacher | And this is just the last slide, I think it is, about we're spending the Boating and Waterways money. We're in great shape with that and in compliance with all the things that we're supposed to do, turning in our receipts and getting reimbursed. So I have no financial concerns going forward. So I think with that, that's a summary of what we've done the last six weeks. I'm happy to answer questions if you have any. |
| 04:20:17.73 | Joe Burns | Any questions for the chief? Seeing none from up here, I'm gonna open up for public comment. Any public comment on this item? This item only. Jeff, hop up there quickly, we don't have to do a card. |
| 04:20:32.93 | John Rohrbacher | There you go. |
| 04:20:37.79 | Jeff Jacobs | Hello again, thank you Chief Rohrbacher. The man's name who lost his life was Robert. And the last time I saw him He looked happier than I had ever seen him before. And that was because his life was very rough on land, and he had gotten a place on the water. PEOPLE ARE GOING TO LOSE THEIR I'm not sure. some of the worst mariners and some of the best ones. Joshua Slocum made it around the world and then was lost at sea. Others, in the America's Cup here, the last one that happened, a person lost his life there too, who was a great sailor. It is the traditional way for a sailor to exit. the community. Uh, I have a question about the boats that have been removed, particularly the Zatowice. That's my friend Nittai's boat, a very classic. and beautiful boat named after the blind swordsman of Japan. I saw the slides of the boats that were in Sausalito waters, Um, that were targeted for removal. And these were, they looked to me to be mainly very seaworthy vessels. It's a... It's hard to make these kind of decisions and I think The best thing is that there's input from the people who know best about boats and those people are usually the ones that are out in the water. I THINK I'M GOING TO BE And I appreciate the help that we get from from those who make an attempt to to save. those in peril at sea. So thank you very much for that, Chief. Thanks. Um, One more thing I have to mention. We're talking about money and one great thing in California is that all council members, anybody running for city council or mayor or I think any office has to reveal all of their finances, all their assets, all their income, all their stocks, and all their bonds. In the last, it's a form 700, Serge knows about this. I was able to receive those forms, and I took a look at them. There's a member of the city council who listed No assets, no income. And... no real estate. I'd like to talk to this person. asking her now to amend her report, I wanna do it in private. And then afterwards, if that's not done, |
| 04:23:38.18 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Jeff. I think you kind of got off topic on this. |
| 04:23:39.84 | Jeff Jacobs | I want to have another talk. |
| 04:23:40.48 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:23:41.00 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 04:23:41.05 | Joe Burns | Any other public... |
| 04:23:41.34 | Jeff Jacobs | Any other? |
| 04:23:43.53 | Joe Burns | Discussion on this item. Hop up there. |
| 04:23:52.36 | Suzanne Webro | Hi, my name is Suzanne Webro. Yeah, I live down in the last outpost harbor. And the boat that you saw that got washed up by bocce bar is my friend David. He's handicapped. He's a sculptor. He goes in his wheelchair every day to San Francisco on the bus to sell his wire sculptures to stay alive. It's really hard for people to live on the water, but it is the last outpost. And like I recommended at the meeting at the fire department when I was there for the anchor outs, The Richardson Bay is a beautiful port, and it could be a place for all sailors who sail around the world to come in, like many of my friends have, and anchor out. And I still recommend that we get more docks that are accessible rather than just one dinghy dock, because like the French Licee comes over here from San Francisco and takes all their kids out. So we could have many further ports of exit onto the bay. And maybe this grant, instead of just being used to destroy boats, that when the Army Corps crushes them after 24 hours, and I've had my own boat crushed that was up in Larkspur actually and they get at minus at least $700 a boat to be crushed that's what they gain that's what the sheriff earns on crushing a boat and these boats have a life of their own so I mean I like sometimes more the boats than the beings but I think that there could be an awareness created that our bay, the Richardson Bay, with all its beauty, could have a kind of a kiosk, like a harbor master, like when you sail into Ensenada. When you come in and every boat has to be registered, and this could be done at the ice house, with the police force, whatever, so that people that are that are out there we know they're out there and they're properly registered and they're safe and so that this money could be spent to keep these people in safety and not create this dichotomy of you know, people on the hill. I mean, you saw it. This is a complete result of having no place to live on land that people have to go out on the water. And you saw how everybody who doesn't want to rent and have, you know, Airbnb rentals, okay, so they all left when this topic came to the agenda. But these people live here too. We're all humans, and everybody deserves the safety and the respect, and the funds should be put into helping them survive instead of just crushing their boats and hauling them away and making them homeless. Thank you. |
| 04:26:52.95 | Joe Burns | Any other comments? Seeing none. I see one. |
| 04:26:59.47 | Alice Merrill | I just want to say I reiterate what she just said about having places for people to get onto land and we just one of the only ports that I've ever known that doesn't have registration doesn't have a bathroom doesn't have a shower doesn't have I'm going to show. Oh, that's true, those down there, yes, thank you. But doesn't have a dinghy dock that works, and that maybe there's more than one, because it's pretty far from a lot of places. |
| 04:27:22.89 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:27:23.19 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:27:33.83 | Alice Merrill | I really agree. I think Zasalito needs to tend to the water people too. |
| 04:27:40.83 | Joe Burns | Thanks, Alice. |
| 04:27:41.27 | Alice Merrill | I think we need to. have the hill. I'm working on an idea. We need to get the hill people to care about the water. more than the other way. That's what we need to do. Thank you. |
| 04:27:58.30 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:28:07.64 | Pam | Hi. I'm Pam. And actually, I do want to make a comment on this just topic that you spoke about. It's not specifically yours. |
| 04:28:18.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:28:18.71 | Pam | Anyway I do want to make a comment though about the waterfront on the general update plan. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE You're speaking about the dinghies coming on The waterfront. So here we are. Um, I have something written for the next one, so I wasn't ready for this. But anyway, my idea, it is an idea. Anyway, it's about, we are a waterfront community. And why is it that our town, like many other towns or |
| 04:28:37.66 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:28:38.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:28:49.29 | Pam | towns that are right on the water, why is it that we don't have a place for boats to come come in and dock for two or three hours, go have lunch, go shop, The ferry comes in. We need to find a place for people to, not just dinghies, people to come in with their boats, And, um, spend money here. spend money, they need to come in, come to the restaurants, come to those stores that are empty a lot of the times down there. And actually what you're saying about the water and the hill people, that's not, Yeah, you're separating now. So what we want to do is we're all the town here. It's not just we don't want to separate people here. You're judging right off the bat. OK. Yeah, we're all part of this, the tourists, everybody. Hill people, what is this? Hill people, water people. I don't know about that. So, um, Yeah, it's one Sausalito, OK? And we all come together with all of our different characters. And so I think it is really important that we do have some sort of way of boats, yachts. I know they're all posed. I'm not talking about the ones that are just sitting down there forever at the South City Yacht Harbor. I'm talking about boats that come in from other places to come in and have dinner, lunch, et cetera. spend money. And I think somehow we can make money, we can, |
| 04:30:20.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:24.84 | Pam | spend some money to do that, to find some spots on the waterfront in order to do that. |
| 04:30:30.25 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:30:30.69 | Pam | Thank you. |
| 04:30:31.13 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other public comment. I'll bring it back up here. Any comments? |
| 04:30:36.46 | Joan Cox | I'm gonna make a quick comment. Thank you. I I do want to commend our police and fire department for carrying out the policy set by this city council that we allow boats with residents to remain so long as they are not a danger to themselves or others. I think it's far preferable and more humane that occupied boats be reduced through natural attrition and not through our, you know, taking more forceful efforts. I appreciate the risk that the fire department swimmers face to ensure the safety of the anchor out occupants. I'm sorry that Captain Bouchard was injured during the rescue operations, but I'm relieved that he's okay. And I want to thank the city manager for making the Richardson Bay Regional Agency aware of the additional data we have compiled about the dangers to our anchor out population and our ongoing efforts to ensure these individuals get the support for Marin's health and human services that they need. Thank you. |
| 04:31:38.24 | Joe Burns | I would normally say something, but I ditto, Joan. Thank you. I think that's a perfect thing to say. I'm gonna do what she said and let you go, John. Thank you very much for that report. We have no action on this, so thank you. |
| 04:31:59.05 | Joe Burns | We have 20 minutes before 12. I think we can really do some good stuff. Katie's been sitting there practicing her speech. She's all set. |
| 04:32:05.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | and editing it down, I hope. |
| 04:32:07.89 | Joe Burns | So now we are at our public hearing items. And thank you, Jill. |
| 04:32:11.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:32:15.42 | Joe Burns | For the record, since we are on audio, Councilmember Hoffman is not feeling well and is exiting the building. Introduction of a zoning ordinance amendment to add societal municipal code 10.40.140, establishing regulations for inclusionary housing, ZO 2018-00370. And I'm going to introduce Katie Faulkner. Thanks for staying up, Katie. |
| 04:32:42.27 | Katie Faulkner | Sure. Good evening, Mayor Burns, members of the City Council, and members of the public. I'm Katie Faulkner. Associate Planner here at the city of Sausalito. Tonight I'm here to talk about the proposed zoning ordinance amendment regarding inclusionary housing. So here's a little outline. I'm going to begin with some background information, then move on to some discussion. and review the proposed amendment and finally provide a staff recommendation And just a note, because it is such a late hour, I'm going to try to abbreviate some of my presentation to get through this. But if there is any questions, we can always come back. All right, so background information. just very, very basically. What is inclusionary housing? Inclusionary housing regulations require developers of market rate housing to make a certain percentage of development affordable units. These kind of regulations can vary across jurisdictions, with different cities requiring different levels of different percentages of affordable units, different levels of affordability, and the inclusion of ownership units and or rental units. So what does it mean to be an affordable unit? It means a dwelling unit, which is made available at an affordable rent or an affordable ownership cost to extremely low, very low, low, or moderate income households. So, Basically, the state of California updated a law a year ago that allows us to now pass regulations that require rental units to provide inclusionary housing. So more about that in the staff report, but I'll skip over that for now. Up on the screen now is a bit of a history of the zoning ordinance amendment. Because you were there for some of it, I won't go into that. for you with all of it. But basically, the Planning Commission had a hearing on inclusionary housing on December 19th, 2018, and they recommended that the City Council approve the proposed ordinance. All right. A little more background, we have actually decided to phase our inclusionary housing ordinance and this was at the recommendation of the city council previously. So we're talking about the first phase right now and that will require projects to include a specified percentage of affordable income housing in new residential developments. And later on down the line, once we've completed a nexus study, then we will move on to phase two. And that will require residential projects that meet or exceed certain construction valuation thresholds to pay a nexus fee to an affordable housing trust fund in order to contribute proportionally to the development of affordable units. So again, that's not on the table. Phase two isn't on the table right now. It's something that will be discussed in the future. We're just discussing phase one. Okay, so about the proposed amendments. |
| 04:35:56.13 | Katie Faulkner | So, the phase one draft ordinance will apply to multiple family and mixed use rental and ownership projects of four or more units. These projects will be required to make 15% of their total project units affordable to moderate income households. The moderate income households are households whose gross annual income does not exceed 120% of the Marin County median income adjusted for family size. And furthermore, these inclusionary units will be required to be constructed at the same time as the non-inclusionary units. So for anyone who's wondering what very low, low, or moderate, or above moderate means, I, took this handy table from attachment seven and This phase will only require developments to provide moderate income units and those income levels and monthly rent costs are circled in red for reference. I also suggest taking a look at attachment seven because it's a nice little handout. All right. So continuing on about the details of the proposed amendments, If 15% of the total proposed units equals a fractional number, Any fraction of less than 1 half is rounded down, and any fraction of more than 1 half is rounded up to the next whole number. And don't worry, I'll go over that a bit more, because I know it sounds a little funny at first. If a project is required to include an additional inclusionary unit due to a fractional number, That inclusionary unit can be satisfied with a unit which has fewer bedrooms than the market rate units. It can also be satisfied if it's a rental project with an additional accessory dwelling unit, which is accessory to one of the market rate units. What does that mean in practice? This table lays out a couple different scenarios of what that might look like, depending on how many units you're developing. For example, if you were developing four units, your fractional number would be 0.6. So in that case, in order to satisfy this requirement, you could provide a unit that was smaller than your non-inclusionary units and satisfy our requirements. If you have eight units and your requirement is 1.2, provide one inclusionary housing unit and it has to be the same size as the rest. If you have 11 units and your requirement comes out to 1.6, then you'd have to provide one unit that was the same size as the non-inclusionary units, but you could also provide one smaller to satisfy that fractional requirement. I hope that makes sense, but happy to answer any questions. Okay, I'm gonna kind of skip over this one because I talked about our regional housing needs allocations at our last meeting, but basically, the state requires us to provide a certain amount of new units and this ordinance will help us meet that requirement. And here's a table of our progress in case anyone is curious. Okay, so general plan consistency. So if we pass a zoning ordinance amendment, it has to be consistent with our general plan. And this one definitely is, as you can see from the goal policy and program I have included up on the screen. And just a quick note, we did receive one public comment as late mail, and I believe that's been distributed and it's up online. Okay, so finally, on to staff recommendation. Staff recommends the city council introduce and read by title only a zoning ordinance amendment to add a new Sausalito Municipal Code section 10.40.140 establishing regulations for inclusionary housing. Two, direct staff to return on January 22nd, 2019. for a second reading, and three, authorize a summary of the ordinance to be published five days in advance of the second reading and 15 days after its adoption. And that concludes my presentation for now. |
| 04:40:37.52 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Katie. Any questions for Katie? |
| 04:40:41.92 | Sandra Bushmaker | you know. |
| 04:40:44.23 | Joe Burns | I'm going to open up to public comment on the inclusionary housing zoning ordinance amendment |
| 04:40:54.41 | Vicki Nichols | Vicki Nichols, Caledonia Street. I just wanted to say that Katie has a great ability to take this complex stuff and write these great staff reports. She certainly did it for the Planning Commission. So I just wanted to compliment her before the city and the council about helping us understand a lot of stuff that can really get kind of thick indeed. Thank you. |
| 04:41:18.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | VICKY. |
| 04:41:20.06 | Joe Burns | Thanks, Vicki. We have one question for you. |
| 04:41:21.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just had a question. Sorry, I was going to ask Katie, but since you're here, I might as well ask you. Did the Planning Commission have any comments or modifications to the proposed ordinance? |
| 04:41:21.90 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:41:21.93 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 04:41:21.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:41:31.18 | Vicki Nichols | I don't believe we did. We just, we've actually even, she's sent us her PowerPoints and we're using, I'm at least using them in a binder for reference. They've all been so comprehensive. Great. That and the housing element stuff. Good, thank you. |
| 04:41:45.71 | Pam | Thank you. |
| 04:41:45.74 | Vicki Nichols | THANK YOU. |
| 04:41:45.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:41:45.88 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Pam? And then David. And that's all the speaker cards I have. |
| 04:41:53.13 | Pam | Hi again, council members. |
| 04:41:53.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:41:53.52 | Unknown | TODAY. |
| 04:41:53.57 | Unknown | I'm going to go. |
| 04:41:53.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:41:53.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:41:53.64 | Vicki Nichols | Yeah. |
| 04:41:53.71 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:41:58.67 | Pam | you Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:41:59.58 | Joe Burns | into the mic, Pam. |
| 04:42:00.63 | Pam | Oops, sorry. Okay, all right. So anyway, |
| 04:42:08.32 | Pam | So basically tonight I want to tell you a story from my life. That's it. One story. I know it's really late. You're rolling your eyes, but I rolled my eyes from seven until this hour. So here we go. |
| 04:42:20.66 | Unknown | HERE WE GO. |
| 04:42:21.52 | Joan Cox | you |
| 04:42:21.57 | Unknown | I was looking at the clock. OK. So when I was looking at the clock. |
| 04:42:23.14 | Joan Cox | I was wrong. |
| 04:42:23.51 | Pam | Okay, so when I was around seven or eight, my mom would open our front door on the hill in Sausalito, and me and my brothers would run down the front stairs. Run down the hills and more stairs to reach downtown Sausalito. We spend our days when not in school playing on and under the docks at the Sausalita Yacht Harbor. We scrambled on the black sticky tar covered telephone poles that were tied together like Tom Sawyer's raft. and watch and giggle and see who would splash into the water first. Dogs would follow us and join our kid posse as we played along the waterfront and shoreline and scrambled back up the hills when the sun went down. That's my short story. I'll make it very short. So number one, I would be against this. This so-called affordable housing which was, actually you didn't mention that, but it's not really affordable at all. I don't believe those prices are affordable. Number two. This housing regulation will bring two cars per unit to add more cars on Bridgeway to perpetuate the bike car circus that we see on a daily basis. And what do more cars bring? More bad air. Ugh, ugh. And lousy drivers who drive too fast Please, let's slow down. So obviously this would be adding to the danger of our roads. Number three. We are an artistic, creative, unique fishing village, not an urban sprawl. This so-called affordable housing does not belong in Sausalito. It will absolutely change our Sausalito's wonderful character. Lastly, and most important, do we want more regulation? Shackling and controlling. This is not who we are in Sausalito. I would have to say no. So let people be free to live here in Sausalito. And please, I would say, do not adopt this zoning ordinance. Thank you. |
| 04:44:31.62 | Joe Burns | Thank you. David. |
| 04:44:38.61 | David Sudo | So I'm going to argue for the exact opposite. I think our town is stronger when we have both economic and racial diversity. This is a step. I would recommend, I saw that there's some exceptions to do buyouts and stuff. I would make that exceedingly rare, like almost impossible to get. And they'd have to have a really good reason we need to make sure that we that anytime there's an opportunity to provide diversity in a neighborhood that we have it right now we you know city employees and and and teachers and and and postal workers who used to be able to afford to live in our community can no longer afford to live in our community. Those are people that would qualify as moderate income people. We need to have housing for them. We need to not have exceptions to not provide housing for them. I would also say that we need to, you know, as we look at our general plan, we need to look at ways to include moderate income housing in all neighborhoods. As these rules, I think, would probably leave us in an R3 neighborhood as opposed to our less dense neighborhoods. We need to have moderate income housing in all of our neighborhoods, not just in flat lands, basically. So those are my comments. Thank you. |
| 04:46:05.99 | Joe Burns | Thank you, David. Any other public comment? Thank you for that. Seeing none, I'm going to close public comment and bring it up to here for any comments and I know we had some great guidance to the right of me. So yeah. |
| 04:46:20.94 | Joan Cox | Yeah, I do want to again acknowledge the mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee housing on housing that did some of the legwork on this. And I also want to state that there is still a report coming to the council from the Blue Ribbon Committee, and it will have some additional recommendations regarding inclusionary housing and ADUs. And so my hope is when that report is received that we will, you know, consider making further amendments that may be appropriate. As we continue with phase two of the inclusionary housing Rules so many thanks for the brain trust that was in that group We were truly blessed with the thinking that went behind that I do want to reiterate that in reviewing our housing element quotas The one area we are not currently meeting our RNA quota is for moderately priced housing. We are far exceeding our RHNA goals for low income and very low income housing. But yet we still face the prospect of losing some zoning authority if we don't also meet our moderately priced RHNA goals. And so this helps to accomplish that. So I'm very proud of this effort. |
| 04:46:50.27 | Unknown | Um, |
| 04:47:36.81 | Joan Cox | And I'm prepared to make a motion when we're ready. |
| 04:47:40.81 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, I'll just add to Joan's comments. I have been hoping that we would get to an inclusionary ordinance in Sausalito since my time on the Housing Element Task Force, and it's been quite a while since then, so I'm really excited that we're here today. Just going to David Sudo's comment, I believe that there are no fee-out options in this ordinance as it stands. So either the options as described in the ordinance are um, a land donation that the city could then use to support and additional affordable housing. project or an offsite unit so that if you don't want to build it on the same site as the development that you are doing, you'd have to build another unit, but it would have to be here in the jurisdiction. So I think this is a very strict approach, given other jurisdictions that allow for a fee out. So I appreciate your comments, and I am enthusiastically in support of this ordinance. |
| 04:48:54.12 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Ray. |
| 04:48:56.87 | Russell Zink | I support this. |
| 04:48:59.94 | Joe Burns | Okay, slow down, Ray. Um, Yeah, I support it too, and it's just ironic that my mind was flashing back to a point in Truckee years ago, and I don't want to bore you, but I like stories. I lobbied against inclusionary housing for a group that we started called the Workforce Housing Association of Truckee Tahoe. because I thought there was going to be other alternatives in the marketplace that would not require a government to legislate inclusionary housing. The developers would pick up the slack. It would have incentive-based |
| 04:49:30.16 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:49:30.36 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:49:30.53 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:49:34.08 | Joe Burns | programs that tax base tax incentives would come up they never did yeah I hold this to you yeah I held I hold developers responsible and I hold that community so here's where we are and I am very happy that we have inclusionary housing in the communities around us and now for us as well and I want to also thank mayor former mayor Joan Cox for your blue ribbon committee we do look forward to the report and giving you the day at that point because that's quite an accomplishment to have that document come out and have some more initiatives come from that and i would allow you to make a motion |
| 04:49:38.97 | Unknown | You optimist you. |
| 04:50:10.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I move we introduce and read by title only a zoning ordinance amendment to add a new Sausalito Municipal Code, section 10.40.140, establishing regulations for inclusionary housing. and direct staff to return on January 22, 2019 for a second reading and authorize a summary of the ordinance to be published five days in advance of the second reading and 15 days after its adoption. |
| 04:50:32.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Second. |
| 04:50:35.04 | Joe Burns | Any questions? Seeing none, all in favor? Hi. |
| 04:50:39.60 | Tom Giacitano | Bye. |
| 04:50:41.14 | Serge | That motion carries 4-0. One council member being absent, Hoffman. |
| 04:50:46.99 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Serge. That completes our public hearing items. We are now moving to Item eight in our agenda city manager reports council member reports city council appointments. Thank you |
| 04:51:00.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:51:00.58 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:51:01.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:51:01.20 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:51:01.51 | Joe Burns | Mr. Mary. Thank you both. Thanks for staying late. We owe you one. We'll try to get you earlier on the next. |
| 04:51:01.52 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor, thank you. |
| 04:51:03.04 | Mary Wagner | you. |
| 04:51:03.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:51:03.07 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 04:51:03.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:51:03.85 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 04:51:07.48 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, I apologize for interrupting. You guys did pull a consent calendar item, the calendar, were you going to do that? |
| 04:51:11.83 | Joe Burns | Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think I'm going to suggest that we and make individual comments back to staff, rewrite and see at our next meeting on maybe a consent. you Thank you. So we're going to punt that right now instead of discussion. |
| 04:51:27.66 | Joan Cox | you know, But how about if we agree to meet on January 22? |
| 04:51:32.91 | Joe Burns | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:51:33.08 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:51:33.13 | Joe Burns | Yes. |
| 04:51:33.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, and I have no issues with January 22 or February. |
| 04:51:33.21 | Joan Cox | Yeah. FOR GENERAL. Thank you. |
| 04:51:37.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thanks. |
| 04:51:37.62 | Joan Cox | other than I can't. So we'll keep in place January 22 and February 6th and then edit the rest. So move this direction. Yeah. |
| 04:51:38.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not sure. Thank you. |
| 04:51:38.83 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:51:38.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:51:38.97 | Joe Burns | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:51:43.27 | Joe Burns | So move this direction. |
| 04:51:49.11 | Joe Burns | Are there any public comments on the number eight city manager council member reports? |
| 04:51:55.59 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 04:51:55.64 | Unknown | Yeah, that does. |
| 04:51:56.03 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 04:51:56.06 | Unknown | you |
| 04:51:56.25 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 04:51:56.26 | Joe Burns | Nope, not anymore. |
| 04:51:56.31 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 04:51:56.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:51:58.04 | David Sudo | I noticed that the bike lanes are on there, and I know that's a high priority for our PBAC. And also with Jonathan Goldman leaving, I think that prioritizing some kind of planning in our local government on that to keep the momentum or just keep that option open, I would highly recommend that we get that bike lane on either January or February's schedule. Thank you. |
| 04:51:58.53 | Joe Burns | I know. |
| 04:52:26.30 | Joe Burns | Thank you. To be clear, I checked to see if it was on our future. It's not. It's actually been placed as a temporary spot holder on our next meeting. But we will work with staff to see if we can get that then or in February. And as you know, we just did appoint Aaron Roller to the PBAC tonight. Adam, take it away. |
| 04:52:46.70 | Adam Politzer | I will just limit it to two comments. One is that in the occurrence coming this Friday, we'll make a formal announcement that Jonathan Goldman, our public works director, will be retiring at the end of this month. that information is starting to circulate out into the community. 10 plus years with the city as our public works director. very appreciative of his contributions over that period of time. Jonathan and I met with the former city engineer slash town manager of Cora Madera this afternoon, and he's agreed to come in and serve as our interim public works director. His name is Dave Bracken. Dave Bracken comes with significant background in engineering, well-respected by the contractors here in the Bay Area, and will be a great mentor and asset to both Andy Davis and Pat Glosco and Lauren and Bertis. He will begin on Thursday as we start the transition. During that process, we will go through all of the current projects that are on our plate that are actually active projects that are also on the eve of starting. And then we will prioritize all the other projects Based on the momentum behind them during this transition Transition of the interim and the recruiting process and we will hire a recruiter And we will go through the full-fledged process of hiring the next public works director is Anywhere from four to six months to get to that to the to the finish line So as much as we'd like to continue to do everything recognizing that Jonathan carried a significant workload on his own plate you will will obviously slow us down a bit but we'll come back through the Finance Committee and look at the capital projects that are in the pipeline for this next six months and then look at that five-year plan and continue to keep the momentum moving forward. So that's the good and the bad news and recognizing that Jonathan deserves after all this time. to retire. and be appreciated. We have a committee that is working on a going away party for him. Our city attorney is part of that committee team. And we have some tentative dates that we'll put out probably by the end of this week so that everyone can hold the date and the community will be invited to come and celebrate Jonathan's accomplishments. The only other item which is also important is that the city is hosting the next MCC MC meeting on the 23rd. and Joe and I have worked together, the mayor and I have worked together. Just call me Joe, that's stuck in my head from the holiday party. But the mayor and I have been working and we have secured the CEO from Nextdoor to come be our speaker. The fun thing about the new CEO of Nextdoor is that the mayor and I have coached her daughter in softball for a number of years and |
| 04:55:45.70 | Unknown | from our... |
| 04:56:07.92 | Adam Politzer | And she is a resident of Ross and her daughter goes to school with Annika. So there's a nice connection with the CEO of Nextdoor. So we're really interested and excited about the presentation that will be at the MCC MC meeting. And if you have not already done so, please make sure you RSVP to surge so that we know who's going to be attending. That's it, I'm happy to answer any other questions. Any questions? |
| 04:56:37.77 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Appointments to boards, commissions, and committees, I have none. We have none for tonight. However, we do have two upcoming appointments that we'll be making on resignations that we've received, both GPAC and the Planning Commission, but we're not prepared to make those tonight. Future agenda items, I'm going to say we have two potential. One is the plastic ordinance that will come from sustainability. We'll put that on agenda setting and forward to legislative we've always had school district we've done Joan had school district on her list forever we we took it off for a while while they went through an election and a discussion and both with Jeff Knowles discussion tonight as well as getting back under our radar. We're going to put the school district discussion, school district presentation to our council back on future agenda items. Any problems with those? Any additional future agenda items? |
| 04:57:36.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:57:37.98 | Joe Burns | And also say on the school district, from what I understand, their meeting dates are now Thursdays. And I don't know when that changed, if that immediately or had that happened before, but that was always a conflict with this meeting and it's now changed. |
| 04:57:46.91 | Unknown | that was always a conflict with this |
| 04:57:53.41 | Joe Burns | future items, any other reports of significance? I'm getting ready to, where's my little hammer? Yes. We started off our meeting with a proclamation of the loss of one of our residents, and unfortunately tonight we're gonna close in honor of a resident who passed this week, Cecily Muldoon, and Joan was a friend, and I want Joan to say a few words. |
| 04:58:19.46 | Joan Cox | Mm-hmm. Thank you. So many of you long timers knew Cis and her daughter, who served for a time as the superintendent of the National Park Service, which was a boon for Sausalito. Cis was a longtime member of the Sausalito Women's Club, an avid walker. and an avid bridge player, my favorite ever bridge partner. we were undefeated. whenever we played. because she had a great mind, a great sense of humor, and was a cutthroat player. So she will be missed, and we are grateful for all of her contributions to Sausalito. |
| 04:59:06.97 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Thank you for that. I hereby adjourn this meeting in the honor of Cecily Muldoon. |
Jerry Taylor — In Favor: Announced groundbreaking for Ice House Plaza on January 18th, highlighting community collaboration and relief after years of effort. ▶ 📄
Bill Hines — In Favor: Expressed excitement and gratitude for moving the Ice House Plaza project forward. ▶ 📄