Good to go.
Yes, we are ready.
All right, very good. I'm going to call to order the Berkeley City Council meeting.
Today is Tuesday, June, and you, where are you? Excuse me, January 20th, 2026.
And I'd like to start off with the roll, please.
Okay, calling the roll, council member, Councillor Wany.
Here.
Taplin.
Bartlett.
President.
Tragab.
President.
Okay.
Here.
Black.
Here.
Unapara.
Here.
Humver.
President.
And Mayor Ishi.
Here.
Okay, all present.
Thank you very much.
So it is the first meeting back after our winter council recess.
And we have been taking turns saying the land acknowledgement statement.
So I'm beginning the year. I'm going to start us off.
So the city of Berkeley recognizes that the community we live in was built on the territory of Huchun.
The ancestral and unceded lands of the Chocenio speaking, alony people.
The ancestors and descendants of the sovereign verona band of Alameda County.
This land was and continues to be of great importance to all of the alony tribes and descendants of the verona band.
As we begin our meeting tonight, we acknowledge and honor the original inhabitants of Berkeley.
The documented 5,000 year history of a vibrant community at the West Berkeley shell mound.
And the alony and the alony people who continue to reside in the East Bay.
We recognize that Berkeley's residents have and continue to benefit from the use and occupation of this unceded stolen land since the city of Berkeley's incorporation in 1878.
As stewards of the law regulating the city of Berkeley, it is not only vital that we recognize the history of this land,
but also recognize that the alony people are present members of Berkeley and other East Bay communities today.
The city of Berkeley will continue to build relationships with the Lishan tribe and to create meaningful actions that uphold the intention of this land acknowledgement.
Thank you.
Now moving on to our ceremonial items.
So for our ceremonial items this evening, we have the presentation of Berkeley's Poet Laureates.
So.
So tonight we recognize Ayah De Leon, Berkeley's 2024 to 2025, Poet Laureate, and thank her for her.
Where are you?
Oh, there you are. There you go.
And thank her for her extraordinary service to the city.
Ayah's work has powerfully uplifted poetry as a tool for justice, storytelling, and community connection.
I had the honor of having her present a poem at my inauguration ceremony a little over a year ago.
I thank her for her leadership, generosity, and vision, which have strengthened the Berkeley's literary arts community in lasting ways.
And we are deeply grateful for her contributions to our community.
We are also honored to welcome Hanan Musri.
As Berkeley's next poet laureate, Hanan is a longtime Berkeley educator, poet, and cultural worker whose practice centers land ancestry and an intergenerational learning.
Her work reflects a deep commitment to youth, community, and creative stewardship.
And we are excited for the voice and also the mentorship that you will bring to the city in this role.
At this time, I am pleased to invite Ayah De Leon and Hanan Musri forward for the ceremonial passing of the Laurel.
I do want to acknowledge that we have Berkeley's first poet laureate in the house as well.
So this was supposed to be a ceremonial passing of the Laurel, but because I'm always doing too much.
We have an actual Laurel.
Hanan Musri, I am overjoyed today to pass on the mantle of Berkeley's poet laureate to you tonight.
As many of you know, I am no fan of royalty, as my multiple, no king's line dances will attest.
But I want to actually crown you tonight, not with gold or jewels, but with a garland of olive branches.
Representing olive trees, which are so important to your people's homeland of Palestine and as symbols of peace, which is so desperately needed in these times.
I look forward to working with you during your term as cultural workers together in the fight against authoritarianism and injustice everywhere to support and inspire our movements for democracy and liberation which are growing in our commitment and capacity to win.
To be aware of what we can find a model and experience around myself.
Did you want to say anything?
Yeah, you've got, there we go.
Oh, thank you, thank you Berkeley for this honor.
What great before and ahead, but maybe it's not a line of succession.
Maybe we're all standing in a circle and facing one another from all our star points.
Thank you, I already, for your encouragement and blessings.
You are one of my aspirants and to be relating, as we are, is a dream in its rose stage.
Raphael Hismus Gonzalez, the city's first and a member of my chosen family that I have just come to understand.
Thank you for your work, which re-orients my heart when it is lost.
I carry one of your poems with me this eve to give me courage.
There are so many people and places that are sacred to me, many of them rooted in this city.
To book with hedge the first racially integrated school in Berkeley, the place of my teaching grounds for nearly three decades.
Thank you, Jane Friedman, Betsy Wilson, Marty Mogensen, Diane Burke and Donna Nicholson
for taking a chance on a teacher in her embryonic stage and giving her ample guidance and room to grow.
Laura Farha, Hibernumer, Dunya Alwan, Zapodicinson, Patricia West.
I am alive because of you and I mean that.
I wrote scholars, my dream camp, let's keep packing up suitcases and keep uncovering the respondents of this world.
And to my knees, my beloved, my life Valentine Samantha, I am with you and I am for you.
Remember that.
This poem is called Green.
Oh, Berkeley, you gorgeous poem.
Whether you are to batten-bling and you crack to fulfill the filth of the earth, you know the center, crispy and green,
because I know you got that parsley from the Arab Spring.
Berkeley healed my heart.
It was here that I met her.
My heart leapt out of my chest like a hot thorn tree in winter.
I listened to Al Green, foraged for city sorrow, stuffed that verdant tang in dough and called it dinner.
Ample, make this bed.
I trace my finger across the snap past wars and gardens, as wars and emeralds from Houtian to here.
I love note nestled between ancient humps of breaststone.
The favorite city's green line.
There are no grenades.
Instead, sieges, mint, thyme, margarim, the shepherds keep a pinch of zotter in their pockets.
Steady the nerves, some mac brightens the blood, and olives stain our DNA.
Five hours, and I'm not sure when I'm going to leave this room.
All of us there, midnight's children.
How do you make your grass grow?
Show us your W2s.
Do you pledge allegiance to any flag with a band of green?
In between minutes, I think of you Berkeley.
Your placard filled windows, your justice unhushed.
California Poppy's blooming in your front yards will never put you to sleep.
I think of something I wish my mother had said, as Saturn's rings began to fade from around her neck.
We tend to rescue the women.
Electric wires of green, red splashes.
We will make our own incisions.
We will never beg for thread.
My daughter, find the loudest people in the room.
And make friends with them.
Thank you.
Can we?
Can we get a photo with the previous and current police?
Can you give us a photo?
Can you please?
Please?
Thank you.
Oh yeah.
Thank you.
We are.
Can we?
Thank you.
Thank you so much everyone for that beautiful moment. I'm guessing so many of you are here to support them, so thank you all so much for coming as well to see the ceremonial passing on and physical passing of the of the Laurel.
So we are now moving on to the rest of our meeting. Oh, one thing I want to say is that we have a new vice mayor. So vice mayor Lina Para is going to be the vice mayor for this next how many months is it I forget but anyway for the next few months quarter next quarter. Yes, so welcome to your new role.
Thank you so much. And so the next thing on our agenda is our city manager comments. Any manager do you have any comments? I don't pick you. Okay, thank you very much. So now I will take public comment on non agenda matters.
Okay, we'll draw five cards for the in person speakers and then have one minute each and then go to the speakers on participating remotely.
Okay, this five speakers for in person public comments.
Regent names you can come up in any order. We have Diana vendor Luis Cunio Steve Tracy Betsy Morris and Willie G.
So come up in order. I know you're excited, but I'm going to ask that you continue your conversations outside please. Thank you. Thank you so much, especially to our young visitors.
Okay, if you heard your name, please come on up to the front and whoever's up first can go.
Good evening, city council members. My name is Betsy Morris. I'm speaking here as a member of the East Bay Great Panthers and a member of the state right affordable California coalition.
About a hundred, seemingly a hundred, but it might have been fewer.
Members, my name is Betsy Morris. I'm speaking here as a member of the East Bay Great Panthers, and a member
of the state-wide Affordable California Coalition. About 100, seemingly 100, but it might have been
fewer, went up to Sacramento last week in the six eight-grade Panthers. Some of us hobbling like
very slowly, attestivating support of AB 1157, which was about forward to the Judicial Committee.
For Democrats voted for it, three Republicans voted against it, and for Democrats simply did not show up for
this measure, which would have lowered the cap and lessened the risk of homelessness and
immiseration among our seniors and disabled members of our California community.
Thank you. Thanks, Betsy. Thanks for being here.
Okay.
We have video B to see if we?
We broadcast every meeting.
Okay. I go see it up there.
Happy New Year.
Steve Tracy here.
We're halfway through an old year for budget year.
I'm wondering how we're doing.
Are we on target for balanced budget?
Lots of fun programs like a poet laureate, but they got to be rooted in living within our means.
Last year, $27 million deficit has that been paid back to the pension fund and the workers' compensation fund?
Payed back?
Not paid back.
Anybody know?
I will still. We've still borrowed the $27 million and what's this year doing?
Hey.
Fewer employees.
The Health Department redundant talented county was 12 million last year.
Do we really need a 12 million health department?
Thank you.
Look for a way.
Thanks for your comments.
Who else is on?
Yes.
Come on up.
We've represents the...
Go ahead and move the mic down so we can hear you.
Okay.
Hello, City Council members.
How are you?
My name is Kelly and I have been a vendor out on telegraph.
Pardon me?
Yeah.
With Diana.
We're together.
Diana and Kelly.
These are the other vendors that are here.
There's Lewis.
That's Diana.
Both of your minutes.
To me.
Should I start over?
Okay.
Go ahead and start over.
Sorry.
Just to clarify.
Can you pause really quick?
Okay.
So whose names were called?
The two people who are sitting.
Yes.
Okay.
It's all of us together.
All right.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Hello.
Hello, City Council members.
My name is Kelly and I have been working out on telegraph for about 16 years.
Every weekend.
I am here representing not only the merchants but also the vendors.
I'm not sure if you're aware that they changed the coding on the vendors to business licenses.
The problem is with that is the fact that the business license that you guys are handing out.
Now, our competing with our merchants that has never happened.
We have rules up there that we all must abide by to make it a smooth operation.
We have.
And the reasons for this situation for our merchants is the example I'm going to give you.
We have anesthetics closet.
We have Dorothy's closet and we have all these clothing stores.
But when you guys change the code, you allow all people to be able to vent.
That cannot happen because it competes the vendors with the merchants.
So you take anesthetics as closet.
And here they are a use clothing store.
You give a business license to another person who is a vendor to sell clothes, which has always been unlawful to do.
Because if you give them the business license, they sell up in front of anesthesia closets.
One pays $8,000 in rent, the other one is paying 55.
This causes conflict.
I am here to ask you to reinstate the code that says you can only sell on telegraph avenue with handmade goods.
And it's hard to negotiate out there.
As I have for the last seven years, which is just asking people have you got no their license yet.
And usually people will answer you, yes or no, and they go back.
The city of Berkeley has always defended us because, oh, am I done?
Yeah, thank you.
But I do hope that you'll write us and let us send us more information.
Yeah, I'm not even sure if you guys know that they change the code.
Yeah, thank you, I'm sorry, your time's up, but feel free to write us and give us more information.
Anyone, do we have any other names?
Yeah, Willie G.
Okay.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Andre Special and Willie G has given me his time.
One minute it's kind of short, but I operate the cannabis virus club of Berkeley, which is America's oldest dispensary.
We're about to celebrate 30 years of operations, and I'm here to ask that the council consider bringing back the cannabis commission.
Take away the city cannabis tax, allow consumption, including smoking at the dispensaries, and allow only licensed Berkeley cannabis entities to deliver within the city of Berkeley.
We are currently surrounded by businesses that don't charge tax for their cannabis sales, such as psychedelic churches, smoke shops, hemp shops, and businesses like a chain of CBD stores.
His ownership is based out of Florida, but so many of the same products that we do without the 30% tax.
Another example of this hardship is that San Francisco recently did away with its 5% tax.
They don't allow businesses from out of the city of San Francisco to deliver there, but they can come here and deliver in Berkeley for 5% less than we can.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay, so now we'll go to non-agenda comments from people participating remotely, and we'll call on the first 5 hands.
If you'd like to speak to non-agenda public comment, and you're participating remotely, now is the time to raise your hand.
The first speaker is Cheryl Davel, a former council member.
So Berkeley City Council.
That was the longest break.
Other councils in the area have returned already within the last couple of weeks.
So happy new year.
2026.
No more tricks.
Let's fix.
You should be ashamed.
Today's day number 832, the freaking genocide.
All of trees.
Yes.
That represents Palestine.
But you don't give a flying flick of a flea about Palestine.
Or the babies that are freezing the death and starving to death.
And it's just really shameful.
And please keep the tear gas band in place.
That passed unanimously with my friend Leonette Amendment when Jesse was trying to just ban it for a short period of time.
It needs to stay in place and shame on you.
Thank you.
Next is Maria.
Maria.
Hi there.
It's Maria.
My name is Maria Yates and I live in district one.
And I was relieved to see the proposal by district one council member Kesarwani to repeal Berkeley's ban on tear gas removed from today's agenda.
And I applaud whatever prompted this course correction.
And I hope that we have a permanent and not temporary.
Reprieve from the proposal.
Thank you former council member Davela.
I'm here in current California senator Irrigine set at the time tear gas is banned and warfare and should not be used in our streets or in our protests.
And I did note that my email expressing my objection to the pro tear gas agenda item is missing from the correspondence list in the agenda.
In addition to any email on that topic and I honestly I don't understand which correspondences get make it into the agenda.
But I was disappointed to not receive a response from any member here and not to see it noted there.
I guess I'm not sure that works.
But again, I wish to express my gratitude to whom ever is responsible for getting this item removed from our agenda.
I hope the council's attention can remain.
Thank you.
Thanks Maria.
Thank you for your comment.
Next is a collar with a phone number ending in 211.
Hi, good evening.
So our business manager and I just want to be here today.
Please read it carefully.
Second, we may settle for the city could lease a place for us anywhere in city of Berkeley.
Not only I think about it.
Think about it.
In the end of 100,000 Berkeley and the others need our business.
As far as I'm going to first see in the White House, no way to describe it.
It is not.
This man is Russian.
Rosenhorses.
We are losing our country in real time and I never have expressed fascism to go with country, especially
it's a quickly.
We have all the stand-up.
Immigrants built this country.
Immigrants were during its first administration.
1.2 million American died from COVID because it denied it.
Both Moderna and the others visor.
One was American, one was Lebanese American.
This is the end of the only America end of the fallination because he has the bottom of the nuclear war.
And he will do it.
Thank you.
And have a good evening.
Thanks for your comment.
Okay.
Last hand raise is Manelin Roberts Rich.
Hello, everybody.
Manelin.
Hello again.
I should say it because he heard from me before.
I'm calling once again about the urgency that I feel about reviving the downtown Berkler
Cordo.
I'm trying to gather you.
You heard me.
And many of the others.
Fight to preserve cinematic.
Just the ones on charter governing has specified.
And it can't be pointed down.
There's one remaining in Berkley that being the real-time Polish.
I really encourage you to collaborate with the Berkler.
The Berkler way to get some chips off the table.
On the public's paper.
From the developers.
The developers.
But for those.
We've got it for providing.
What is it called?
Conference.
We've got it.
And really try hard to support nightlife users.
And sign up again.
I'm trying to gather on.
We're not sign to Berkler.
It's not sign to board accounts.
Your time is up.
Thank you for your comment.
That's all the speakers online.
comment. It is the first regular meeting of the month. And so I want to see if there's
there are any employee unions that would like to speak today. Employee unions here are online.
There's no hand raised. Okay. I just want to give them a need a bit of time. Nobody. Okay.
All right. We will move on then to the consent calendar.
Can I start first with any councilmember comments, please?
Councilmember Humber. Wow. I delayed a little bit and pushing the button.
I just have a few comments on the consent calendar with respect to consent item nine. I want to say this
is a really good thing. We keep the restrictions against writing by some sidewalks except for
kids. But eliminate unnecessary and pass a bike permitting registration and licensing requirements.
So all in favor of that. And with respect to consent item number 17,
communities Al Exito, $150. I'd like to contribute from our DA to count for this very worthy
program. I read a little bit about it and sounds like a really important program. With respect to item
consent item 19, referral to the city manager to allow tiny homes on wheels as permissible
accessory dwelling units. I want to thank councilmember Kessarwani and her staff for this creative
timely measure. Tiny homes on wheels are much easier to put in place in 80 use on foundations.
They can work very well for individuals and very small families. This is just a referral and city
staff will clearly work out all the safety and logistical issues.
With respect to item number 20, consent item number.
And they can work very well for individuals in very small families. This is just a referral and city staff will clearly work out all the safety and logistical issues.
With respect to item number 20, consent item number 20, which is the city council employee recognition program.
Thank you to council member Black and the co-sponsors for this very thoughtful item.
We have such a wonderful group of city employees and this will allow us to bestow our praise on them when it's wanted, which will be very often, I think.
Thank you, that's all I have.
Thank you very much. Moving on to two vice-man and then a par.
Thank you.
I am really excited that item 8 to allow the retail sale of alcohol in the telegraph avenue.
Commercial district is becoming law after two readings with unanimous support from council.
So, and the planning commission, thank you so much to Director Klein and his staff for making a reality.
I'm also excited to donate $250 for my budget to I mean us I'll exceed though at the Multicultural Center.
Thank you Madam Mayor for allowing me to sponsor and thanks to your staff. I'll say for who worked on this item.
Thanks.
Yes, thank you very much. Council member Blackby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
Good to see everyone happy new year.
Just a couple brief comments on item 17.
We'd also like to contribute $250 for our office holder account.
And on item 20 I appreciate the support of my colleagues in particular.
Mayor Ishi, council member Luna Park, council member Councillor Wany for co-sponsoring it.
It's important to me and I think during my time on the please accountability board when you're thinking about.
You know, often we are critical and thinking about ways we can improve performance.
There's also equally important to uplift examples of where people are doing really good work.
We see that in our police department. I think we see that in our city staff.
And I'd say especially in a time when we know we're going into some challenging budget conditions.
The more that we can do it again, recognize the amazing work that our staff is doing.
In many cases we'll be doing more work potentially with a little less as we tighten our belts.
Just felt like in a really important time to do that.
So again, I appreciate the support and I do think it's going to be a nice way to recognize one employee a month
and have us all participate in the process of doing that work.
So thanks to the City Manager and HR team for their input as well.
And I'm hopeful and looking forward to working with the Mayor's office to implement that in the months ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Can I just check in really quick on our Zoom situation?
Well, I think the Zoom is fine.
But all the monitors are off.
I don't know if you should take a break.
I'm very sorry folks.
We are going to take a break and restart our system.
And I'm very hopeful that it will work so we can come back and finish our meeting.
Thank you.
Okay.
Mayor, we can continue.
Okay.
I think we're back on everyone.
Yay.
Yes.
Okay.
Very happy.
All right.
We are on our consent calendar right now.
And we just heard council member block.
I believe we're moving on to council member.
Trake up.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I want to express my enthusiasm in particular for item six, which will expand.
That's well, lab portable toilet pilot program.
My district has one of the two drones.
It is in civic center park.
And it has got an wave we've used and has been.
It has been popular.
And I really appreciate the opportunity to host it in my district for a few months longer.
I also would like to thank Mayor Ishi for the opportunity to co-sponsor item 17.
And I am excited to contribute a hundred fifty dollars from my discretionary account.
And lastly, I wish to thank council member Kesher Wani for for item.
The referral item 19 referral to the city manager to allow tiny homes on wheels as permissible access with welling units.
And I'm appreciative of the opportunity to co-sponsor that item.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
This is a blank number.
So I'm moving on to council member Kesher Wani, please.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Happy New Year to everybody.
I also wanted to be recorded as donating a hundred dollars.
I hope to come in as I'll echo.
I hope I didn't butcher that so badly.
And then I just wanted to thank everyone for speaking in support of the item 19 to allow tiny homes on wheels.
So that we are trying to expand the opportunities to add accessory dwelling units.
Permanent ones and even pre-fabricated ones can be very expensive.
So we know that tiny homes can be less expensive.
So we're trying to open up new opportunities.
And I did want to add council member Bartlett as a co-sponsor of that item.
Thank you very much for your support.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to go to council member Bartlett.
And then I'm going to move on line to council member Taplin.
And then council member Keith here.
Madam Mayor and it's a great to be back after a nice vacation.
Number 13 in the consent calendar.
I'm really excited about this is the city engaging with emerging nonprofit for housing developers.
So we can now new people to access this industry and get some new talent in here from the first backgrounds.
Really good.
Really happy about this.
I'd like to give a $200 to the communos Alexito.
Does I say that right?
Miss Madam Vice Mayor.
Yeah.
Okay.
And again, thank you.
Thank you.
I guess we're wondering for me to join you on the 80th item.
The tiny homes and wheels.
Also, the nose and wheels on the same agenda tonight.
And the nose and wheels is from Berkeley.
To be able to know that.
Yeah, I started here.
That's a very vital resource for seniors getting food.
And I'd like to also thank council.
Black council.
Black.
And because in his co-sponsors and.
For your work to recognize.
And my employees.
We did a great work here.
And they should be all that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Council member.
What happened?
Thank you.
Good evening.
Everyone.
On item 17.
I would like to.
Looks good for murder and rate.
By 12, we haven't purchased any cash in my apartment.
Thank you very much.
Mr Skull for ready for review.
Thank you.
I'm joining.
So, the big bill here for the applicant.
Okay.
So, what I've joined some of taughans.
Let's get back on Friday.
So move out how do I answer?
So, I would need to add a lot of necessity to each.
So we grab you all.
I got somebody who started a surric.
And we're not about weather.
Right now.
No, I just want to stage the moment.
going into $10 for item 17, sounds like a great program, and a lot of compliments being thrown
around, I'll just do one. I really appreciate item 18, met a mayor and co-sponsors. I just
am a big fan of clear, well-thought-out laws, as opposed to haphazard random laws, which is kind
of what we have now, and there's no fault, I mean all of the, it's all good intentioned
work that's brought up to where we are today, but this is a really logical next step, but
I just really want to say how much I appreciate it. That is all.
Thank you very much. So, sorry, the parliamentarian was out, and that's why it said
you were four. So, for a number two, I want to acknowledge that we have contracted with
Lake Partners. I'm really excited to move forward in the poll, so I really want to thank
the City Manager and your team for moving that forward while we were on recess. I want to acknowledge
that we got another grant from Americans for the Arts. I think that's very exciting. Our
City's works really hard to find other sources of funding, and I want folks to know about
that. So, thank you very much. For a number nine, we are removing some non-sensical, bicycle,
licensing requirements. So, I think that's always a good thing. I wanted to call that out,
and number 17 is Kamino-Sau-Xito, which I am sponsoring. I wanted to just highlight that
I was written by our intern, Jose Martinez, and so I want to give him a shout out. And thank
you so much for your work. It's a one-day conference held at Berkeley City College, which is my
alma mater, as well as Council Member Tafflin. I don't know if anyone else did. But, um, and it's meant to
demystify and provide resources for student and parents, students and parents for life outside of
high school. It's a bilingual event that has workshops, working groups and activities, and it is
organized, um, with the collaborative efforts of the Chicanx, that next student development center,
Rooks, Live, Latino-Soonedos Day Berkeley, Berkeley Public Schools, Berkeley City College,
Multiculture Institute, and the Office of Family Engagement, and Equity. So, I want to just thank
everyone who worked on that event, and thank you so much to the Council members for also really
pushing some funds for that. And then just for number 18, the comprehensive transportation design
standards, which some folks had mentioned, this is something that we had said at the last meeting
that we were going to bring forward to this meeting. So, I just want folks to know, we did it. We said
we were going to work on it during the break. I really want to thank my staff for pushing that forward as well,
and working with the City Manager staff as well. So, thank you very much, and I'm really looking
forward to that work moving forward. So, we have some clarity, and then also just thank you also
the ADU item. So, very exciting. All right, um, now is there public comment on consent? Come on up.
Um, my name is Carol Wolfley, and I am here to express my appreciation to the landmark
commission for their unanimous vote to make the KPFA building a historical landmark. And, um, I appreciate
that they had such an in-depth understanding of Berkeley history as well as knowledge of how
16,000 people are protested and rallied in support of community media in 1999 to protect the KPFA building
and KPFA as the first list of sponsored media, uh, organization and radio in the United States.
So, I appreciate your being here. It was also recognized by the nation manager of magazine in
1918. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Do we get two minutes? If there's less than one. Okay, thank you.
First, I wanted to speak in favor of item 13. Hopefully this will address some of the racial and gender
disparities that were revealed during the mason till my report. Second, has to item 19.
It's always good to have alternative housing options when everything is so expensive in terms of housing.
But mainly I want to address the throne bathrooms and one of the issues with or an issue with them is in
trying it out. This would have been really problematic if I having been by, I'm not taking care
of my mother or bringing her everywhere for 19 years when she was blind in in a wheelchair and multiply
disabled. There is, you get a warning this says, I believe it's a 10 minute warning where the music starts
playing and says you have to exit and that can be really problematic for a person with disabilities.
Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Candace Shot and I'm a Berkeley resident in the
Secretary of the KPFA local station board and I am also here in support of the landmark commission's
decision to approve the landmark status of the KPFA building and to note that it's the only
broadcast radio building in a Berkeley proper which I think makes it an important building in Berkeley
and just to note that all the very famous people that have come through that building
been through those airwaves and I really appreciate your consideration for approving it. Thank you.
Thank you. I love that you all are coordinated and you're sweatshirts too.
I didn't even think about it. I wear it so much. Hi, I'm Colleen Mast. Go ahead and move the
mic up so we can carry a better. Thank you. Colleen Mast and I'm a resident and also a new member of
the KPFA station board and I'm here to speak on support of the landmark commission's decision to make the
KPFA building in the historical landmark also. The KPFA building is a site of profound historical
significance not only for its pioneering role and evolution of the community radio but also a
historical archive of the social and political movements that have shaped Berkeley and the wider world.
Since its inception KPFA has been a steadfast platform for independent media.
Movement offering a voice to leaders and activists fighting for racial justice. And this at a time when mainstream media often marginalised your perspectives.
Thank you. Thanks so much.
Hello everyone in the City Council of Berkeley.
Thank you for having me. My name is Antonio Ortiz. I'm the interim general manager of KPFA Radio.
And I want to thank the landmark historical commission to push forward the making KPface building into historical landmark.
I also want to thank these ladies here for all the work that they've done to make that happen.
KPFA has been founded in 1949 by a pacifist ever since then.
Our goal has been to build understanding between peoples.
And many of the main challenges, at least for me as a general manager, our interim general manager has been.
How do we bridge the gap between people?
And that's what I learned at KPFA.
That's the education that I got and my hope is that we can continue doing that.
The building becoming a historical landmark will be fabulous for us because it would show to the to our staff and the community that we exist
We're here and that we've been part of the fabric of Berkeley since 1949.
And thank you all for listening to me and I hope you all have a good rest of your evening.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Good evening. Thank you. I'm Betsy Morris and I'm wearing a third hat now as part of my consulting practice planning for sustainable communities.
I've been advocating and mostly just educating since 2014 on tiny homes.
And just thank you for bringing this up.
And I also very much appreciate that this is going for further analysis because the details.
Those guidelines and definitions are very important.
I also hope we'll come back and consider ways that these can stay.
As at least moderate income, it's not affordable to lower income.
Because in fact, you can have a $300,000 tiny home.
People are selling very elaborate ones.
But I did want to say just to reassure anyone that most legal tiny homes in California are certified either with manufactured home, standards or RV.
Thank you.
I still haven't grown.
It's such a pleasure to see all of you happy, happy new year.
And I know it's going to be a super year because again, good mayor, you've opened it up on this first meeting with such a heart space.
And that's my bottom line and I'm starting to cry.
I can't thank you enough.
And secondly, KPFA, voice of the voices.
It's my university after universities.
Thank you, KPFA.
All right.
My primary interest is in the tiny homes.
I've built a bunch.
There's lots of people that need them.
And there's lots of people that actually have space.
And would like to share it.
It is cost effective, simple, unwield, movable, alterable, flexible.
Almost immediately possible.
It's like, can't we simplify the space?
All day long, I take pictures.
Oh, I haven't experimented.
I'm sorry.
I forgot to tell you.
From Taj.
Sorry.
Thank you.
I'm constantly in the community.
And I take.
I'm starting to cry again.
I take too many pictures of wasted resources and infinite needs.
And again, there's a community or share because we care.
That's possible.
And it can be legal.
And it can be safe.
And again, I love the wheels.
So I would just, I built them for free.
I'm telling you.
All right.
And also into this comprehensive transportation thing.
I really have to work pretty hard not to run over.
I think it was with no lights, dressed in black, at night,
and on these electric things that come out of nowhere.
It's like, what's happened?
I still have my motorcycle license.
These things are amazing.
We need to be comprehensive.
Thank you.
All right.
I'm 19.
I would like to express my support for tiny homes.
However, you have this tendency
to look problems and solutions straight in the face and not see them.
Tiny homes can be built by people right here in this community.
On households have skills, lots of skills, but can be put to use.
And if they are disabled and can't do it physically,
they can't teach.
And we can set up right even Berkeley,
a little factory for putting out tiny homes,
producing them in place and get people home.
Thank you.
Any other comments on the consent or information
items online?
Yes.
We have four hands raised for comments on consent and information.
First is phone number ending in 00.
Should be able to unmute.
Start six to unmute.
Then we'll come back.
Next is Ben.
Good evening, Council.
This is Ben Gehardstein with Walkback Berkeley.
I wanted to express our support.
For the transportation design standards item,
thank you to the mayor and co-sponsors and city managers office
for bringing this item forward.
It's an important step for the city to take.
It's going to be a big project.
But I think it will yield dividends.
If we keep our eyes on the north star of safety,
we'll meet in the operational needs of other road users,
all road users.
And I want to draw your attention to a couple of comments we made in our letter.
First, as we work through these standards,
it's important that we feel test what we're putting in what we're developing.
Because that's where we can learn and refine,
especially when it comes to bigger road users,
bigger vehicles and how they maneuver various road features.
And then secondly, I think it's important that we maintain our commitment to delivering
on a project that are in the queue and not take our eyes off of that.
As we are developing these standards, we will take time and be important.
Thank you, Ben.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is Della Luna.
Yes, getting here me, okay?
Yes.
Okay, I'm speaking about item number 13.
And I'm here to say that more oversight is needed for these emerging nonprofit,
affordable housing developers.
The city needs to first verify that these developers follow through
and display confidence before justing out more funds to them.
Some of these developers treat the city relationship as a creative writing assignment
and submit feel good proposals,
but the city is not doing their due diligence to vet these organizations
and the impact is that your vulnerable constituents are placed in the hands of the last
experienced with no recourse.
City funds should be allocated to hope constituents not prop up nonprofits.
And people will form nonprofits just to get access to city funds.
Creative writing is not enough in proposals.
Fake it to you make it is harming your constituents.
Please provide oversight for these affordable housing nonprofit
developers that are emerging.
The recent lawsuit resulting from the unfortunate homicide at the home
of the shelter is an example of what happens when you say that.
Thanks here, comment.
Let's go back to phone number ending in 00.
Hi.
Good evening.
I'm calling regarding the system number eight.
I don't like it at all.
As a case student, I was there for 14 years in physics and nuclear engineering
department.
One time, I'm almost died.
Student, sometimes going drinking bench.
Through a party we have, I had almost a full bottle of jam.
I almost died.
But that please don't, that's that.
We don't have that enough problem with the pot shops all across the street
on telegraph.
Now we need to add liquor as well.
What happens to you?
Think about your kids.
Think about your grandkids.
Top it.
Thank you.
Okay.
And we have Cheryl Dattel of former council member.
So yeah.
Black and when I was on council, I tried to get an item for tiny homes.
I tried to get them built.
I still have the designs.
So it's interesting that you're doing that now.
But that's not the first time.
So many is copy things that I had wanted to do.
I'm not sure.
I haven't read the item.
And don't plan to.
But I just think it's interesting that now.
You're putting this forward.
As you have done on.
Other items that I put forward that you could forward.
All right.
Yeah.
That's all I got to say.
Free Palestine.
Free Congo.
Free Sudan.
Free Yemen.
And free yourselves from all the hatred that you all have.
Towards other people.
And you're sitting that you're supposed to represent.
Next is Daniel Brownson.
Hi.
So I don't know if others saw the news.
But the city of Santa Cruz has terminated their contract with.
It's not called safety.
And Berkeley should do the same.
This is on consent information items.
Sorry.
Okay.
Thank you.
That was the last speaker.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Is there a motion to pursue.
Excuse me.
To prove the consent calendar.
So moved.
Second.
Thank you.
Can we yes.
Did you have a comment?
Yeah.
If you can indulge me for a minute.
I just wanted to congratulate everyone.
That has made the landmarking possible.
FKPFA.
Thank you so much.
While KPFA has preceded district elections.
I'm very proud to be able to say that it is in
by district and thank you for everything that you're doing.
Thank you.
Okay.
Can we take the roll on that please?
Okay.
On the consent calendar.
Council member.
Yes.
Catwin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Is.
Because I'm in the absence.
Try to.
I.
Okay.
Yes.
Black.
Yes.
Mayor.
Yes.
And.
Council member.
Bartlett.
Would you like to record a vote on the consent calendar?
Yes.
Okay.
Motion passes.
Consent calendar is adopted.
Fundress supplies.
We are going to just take a quick five minutes stretch.
We're switching into the next item.
Thank you.
Okay.
All right.
Very good.
We are going to.
Yeah.
We're going to call this meeting back in the session.
And.
And we are moving on to the action calendar.
Starting with action item number 21.
Which is amendments to.
Yeah.
We're going to call this meeting back in the session.
And.
And we are moving on to the action calendar.
Starting with action item number 21.
Which is amendments to title 21 subdivisions.
To allow separate sale of 80 is continue from December 2nd,
2025, which is why you're going first.
And as it says items contain provides materials.
Okay.
We have Council member.
Yes.
Or wanting has this statement.
Thank you very much.
Madam mayor.
I've been advised by the city attorney's office as well as the fair.
Campaign political practices commission at the state level that I have a conflict of interest.
And therefore, we'll be recusing on this item.
Thank you.
Okay.
And Council member Trigger.
Similarly, pursuant to.
This advice from the city attorney and the fair political practices.
Commission.
I will be recusing myself.
Okay, go ahead, sir. Thank you. Good evening, council members. I'm Jordan Klein. I'm director of planning development.
Join you at the table by Justin Horner, principal planner on the policy team.
And, Brunker to Tarwich on the policy team, who will be presenting on behalf of staff. Take it away.
Brunker.
Thank you, Jordan.
Bring that close to yourself. Thank you, Mayor. Issue and the members of the city council.
My name is Brunker to Tarwich, and I'm an associate planner with the land use planning division.
Tonight, I'm presenting the ordinance to allow separate sale of ADUs under assembly bill 1033 as directed by city council referral and planning commission input.
The planning commission reviewed the ADU condominiums item in spring and summer. The commission first discussed AB 1033 in March and recommended adoption of the new section, ADU condominiums as VMC section 2129 in May.
Brunker municipal code currently doesn't allow ADUs to be sold separately. AB 1033 gives cities that option if they adopt local regulations.
City council asked the planning department staff to create that pathway to broaden mother thinking home ownership and help homeowners build equity.
The new chapter 2021-29 is Berkeley's opt-in to AB 1033. It is nested in title 21 subdivisions.
The chapter applies only to the separate sale of ADUs on eligible lots and creates no new development rights.
It provides a path to condoize what is already allowed.
The process is ministerial where applicable under state law and our objective standards.
State law also requires a leanholder consent, a safety inspection, and buyer disclosures.
If the ADU is a covered rental, the ordinance preserves tenant protections, the right of first refusal, and the right to remain, per chapter 2128 condominium conversion.
CCNRs and any necessary access easements are needed as required under the Davis Sterling Act and subdivision map act.
Under the proposed ordinance condo-converted ADUs would be exempt from the condo conversion mitigation fee.
Overall, the ordinance complies with state law adds no new standards and provides a practical path to attainable home ownership.
Finally, staff recommends that the city council hold the public hearing and adopt the first reading of the ordinance to implement AB 1033 by allowing the separate sale of ADUs as condominiums through amendments to title 21.
That concludes my presentation. Thank you, and I'm available for questions.
Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. I would like to now go to council member Lina Para, so that she may present her supplemental.
Great. He's me vice mayor.
I think we might have to take down the staff presentation in order for me to share my screen. I have a presentation.
Okay.
All right.
AB 1033 and the goal of the ADU condo conversion ordinance is to provide opportunities for more affordable home ownership, which is a critical piece of the puzzle and one that I personally relate very closely to as a young renter with some hope that I'll be able to afford a home in the Bay Area eventually.
I think the fundamental question right now is around how to balance the stability of ADU tenants and the opportunities for potential future ADU homeowners.
I don't believe that we should be incentivizing putting ADU tenants in jeopardy of displacement in exchange for home ownership opportunities.
That was not the purpose of AB 1033 which allows cities to pass ADU conversion ordinances to encourage more developments of ADUs to be sold independently.
Renters in affected ADUs should be provided with protection similar to those of tenants and other units proposed for condominium conversion based on our existing condominium conversion ordinance based on feedback from tenants housing supply advocates and our legal teams.
This supplemental material proposes adding the following tenant protections to this ordinance.
One to add a condition of approval to prevent no fault evictions to establish the right of first refusal for 90 days for all ADU tenants.
Three prohibits condo conversion if there has been an owner move in eviction for the past five years to disincentivize using owner movements to avoid other tenant protections.
Four provides a choice between paying the affordable housing mitigation fee or agreed to rent control the condoized ADU if it is rented out and I'll explain more about that in a moment.
And five more clearly defined which ADUs are eligible for conversion zooming into the last point.
These definitions would limit ADU conversion to ADUs built after 2002 and this is because pre 2003 dwellings that had undergone that have undergone the MSC program process are subject to this ordinance that they the time.
The staff can explain this better but the time that at which the program is approved that is the year which it is officially.
And built I guess for the purposes of this pre 2003 dwellings that have not undergone the MSC program process may be converted through the regular condo conversion ordinance not the ADU ordinance.
Pre 2003 ADUs are considered built in the year they went through the MSC process so they would still fall under this ordinance prior to 2003.
Accessories up during units to not have their own code section and we're only listed as a special use in the signal-family residential district the term ADU has also become a popular term that is used interchangeably with residential other dwelling types that were previously referred to as inline units cottages grain flats, etc.
Most of these units are now considered full dwelling units and could only convert condominiums under the condo conversion ordinance.
So this slide compares the differences between our condo conversion ordinance.
Which is already law for non-ADU conversions the planning commission item and our supplemental item.
The status of a covered versus an exempt ADU varies on situation on year of construction on year of certificate of occupancy on owner occupancy status on whether it was built on existing residential space, etc.
The status of an ADU can vary and can change over time. Part of our goal here is to simplify the process and ensure that all ADU tenants are protected from displacement for the sake of conversion without adding new protections on property owners that do not wish to convert their unit.
So first, the tenant right of first refusal the condo conversion ordinance requires that those converting a unit provide one year of right of first refusal for current and future tenants in covered and exempt dwelling units the planning commission recommended one year only for current tenants and fully covered dwelling units and the current supplemental compromises by decreasing the timeline to 90 days for current and future tenants and all dwelling units allowing for a quicker process for sellers.
For the conversion prohibition after no fault evictions.
So again, the current non-ADU conversion ordinance, condo conversion ordinance has a waiting period that prevents conversions after no fault eviction from happening by prohibiting landlords from doing a conversion for 10 years after a no fault eviction.
The planning commission recommendation removes these protections for all units meaning a landlord can perform a no fault eviction and immediately convert their ADU displacing the tenant to sell the unit.
And the current supplemental compromises by shortening the conversion prohibition to five years instead of 10 years and it also adds an endless savings clause to ensure compliance with state law.
In terms of prohibiting owner movements for current tenants.
The condo conversion ordinance prohibits owner movement evictions for all current tenants at the time of the conversion.
The planning commission version prohibits owner movements for current tenants living in only covered dwelling units.
At the time of conversion and our supplemental mirrors the existing condo conversion ordinance by prohibiting owner eviction owner movement evictions for all current tenants at the time of conversion.
Well, we'll start.
For the affordable housing mitigation fee piece the condo conversion ordinance requires property owners to pay the affordable housing mitigation fee during a conversion if they opt into rent control the fee is halved.
The planning commission version does not require property owners to pay the affordable housing mitigation fee during a conversion.
In our supplemental property owner who opts to make the newly converted ADU rent controlled which would only apply if the condo unit is rented out.
They would pay zero dollars of the age mf.
This incentivizes the preservation of rent control housing permits a placement and gives property owners more flexibility.
I want to clarify again that this supplemental is not intended to add any new tenant protections for ADUs that are now already covered by the rental ordinance unless they are converting the unit into a condo.
And that we are not required to adopt AB 1033 ordinance under state law, although we should.
And these are some of the impacts briefly for the owner moving the protections would only apply in the case that the property owner voluntarily opts to convert their ADU into a condo.
So for example, a landlord who wants to go out of business so relative can move into their ADU when it is already occupied by a tenant can still do that without penalty.
Someone moving their relative into an ADU would likely not want to convert their ADU because they aren't selling it.
So the proposed tenant protections of the supplemental would not apply.
And the supplemental only ensures that while creating this new tool for property owners we don't we don't incentivize this placement.
It does this by applying less restrictive versions of tenant protections that already apply in other situation other situations.
Ultimately the goal of this legislation is to incentivize new development of ADUs for the sake of condoization not to replace a tenant in an ADU with a homeowner in an ADU.
So statistically tenants of ADUs are lower income and significantly more likely to be displaced away from Berkeley or into homelessness than a middle income family looking to purchase a home.
As I said at the beginning I would love to purchase a condo home in the future and start a family in Berkeley and I'm so glad to see you that council is taking concrete steps in creating these opportunities.
And I do not want to place this place my friends who are current young tenants in ADUs in this situation.
This is not a zero sum game and I believe that these amendments balance are priorities to ensure that we are incentivizing affordable home ownership without displacement.
And I want to thank Director Klein and his team for all of their hard work on this.
I'm also really grateful to the Planning Commission to the rent board and the City Attorney's Office for their substantial contributions to this ordinance.
Thank you so much.
Thank you council.
Thank you, vice mayor.
Okay, so I'd like to get questions from council members first and then and that could be to vice mayor of Inopara or to staff and then I will take public comment and then we'll go to council comments.
We'll go to council comments before moving to vote.
So questions.
Okay.
I'd like to ask staff if you can please speak to the need for clarification of language around which ADUs this would apply to.
This is council member.
Then I'll pause point she's she mentioned that staff might be able to explain it better.
So I just wanted to get some clarity on that.
Sorry, which ADUs.
For supplemental with a by two or which ADUs.
No, the final bullet point if you wouldn't mind pulling it up.
Ask for clarity around the language.
I mentioned that because the the situation in which an ADU is granted the.
The amnesty program makes makes the like date kind of complicated so I was wondering if you could just explain it better than I could.
What that means when an ADU makes this will need to you get approved under the amnesty program.
So under the staff and planning commission proposal.
A unit that sought amnesty through the city's amnesty program for unpermanaged while units could a could qualify for conversion as a condo but only if but.
There's two pathways through the amnesty program.
There's a certificate of compliance pathway which doesn't result in a full certificate of occupancy.
That in that case the the unpermanaged unit is only screen for.
For housing safety and it doesn't go through the full land use entitlement process it doesn't go through the.
The full building inspection process in that case.
It couldn't get converted into a condo.
If it goes the full route was that which is essentially the normal entitlement and building permitting process.
And the state protection for many code enforcement.
Then it would qualify for conversion regardless of the date of original construction.
And I think that's one way in which the in which the supplemental differs from the planning commission recommendation.
Okay, thank you.
And I know we've gone over this but I think it would be good if you could also help us understand what if any productions exist for tenants who live in an exempt to you.
So yeah, I can answer that question so.
The full exempt units.
We have actually on.
Full exempt units have no protection.
But the.
There's there is really small subset of units that are fully exempt so.
So, yeah, I can answer that question. So, fully exempt units. Actually, fully exempt
have no protection, but there is really small subset of units that are fully exempt. So, that doesn't mean that the
80s to be converted are not going to offer any protection, because most of them are actually partially covered units, and they have some of the tenant protections.
So, all of the tenant protections that are in conversion ordinance that apply to partially covered units would also be applied to these 80s.
And most of the of the 80s that are rented would fall into that category. So, these protections would be exclusive right to purchase, right to remain, and recent no fault evictions screening.
Thank you.
Thank you. Yeah. So, the point is full exempt units. That's a very, very narrow subset. And it only actually applies to 80 use that are on the property zone for single family, for single family use, and where there are only two units and one of them is on there.
Thank you. Council Member Blockaby. Thanks, Madam Mayor. One quick question, and we may not have the answer. I was curious of staff as any rough projections predictions is to the kind of volume we might expect.
I know we had a similar discussion about that during the middle housing discussion.
But do you have a sense of under the Planning Commission proposal, any rough projections of volume, and how that may or may not be affected in the alternative version? We have any sense of numbers.
Sure. I'll give a crack at take a crack at that. So, we have been seeing production on average of about 180 use per year of the last five years or so.
We don't think that that's going to be impacted in a hugely by either of these proposals.
What it does, it creates a new avenue for separate sale, but I mean, it's difficult to speculate, but I don't think that this will necessarily, I mean, we think it could have a slightly beneficial in terms of production. It could encourage a little bit more production.
I'm creating an opportunity for somebody to take advantage of some unused land on their property.
And then regarding the supplemental material, you know, most of the most of the proposed expand provisions don't have any direct impact on unit production.
The really about when there's an existing sitting tenant. And so somebody who's choosing to go to produce a new unit, they could decide whether or not they want to rent out that unit.
You know, the one possible exception is the the application of the affordable housing mitigation fee.
Because that's still in edge case, because it's somebody who is planning to produce an ADU for separate sale with the expectation that it would be a for rent unit.
Right, so that's a pretty narrow subset of the kind of units we're talking about, but it could have a slight impact on production, but we don't think it began.
Okay, great. And then getting back to the earlier question about kind of what's covered, what's not covered. Again, your sense is the vast majority, the fully covered units and the partially covered units.
That's still where most of the volume is.
And the number of units that are the fully of the full exempt kind, which is, for the most part, what would exist in my district in the 60s or individual homeowners who may or may not create an ADU and are going to be owner occupied.
That's a relatively small percentage of the overall volume. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I just want to qualify, but we really don't have good data. Just distinguishing these by by type.
So it's really difficult for us to answer, you know, you heard, you heard, Broncos speculate that it's, it's likely a pretty small percentage of the overall volume of 80s, but we don't have great data on that.
Okay, but if you are, if you are a tenant, an ADU that's owned by someone who's not, does not live on site full protection or partial or full protections under the existing right controller, and that's preserved in this in this piece.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much any other questions?
Okay. Oh, sorry. Yes. Thank you. Councilmember Taplan.
Thank you. I would actually like to refer my questions to this city attorney.
Thank you. I also have Steve Hiles that worked on this project available.
Feel free to ask you there are us the question.
Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
So this was before my time, but we've received communications periodically from members of the ADU task force regarding exemptions to the rent civilisation ordinance for certain types of rental units codified by the 2018 burpy measure queue.
Can you clarify what those exemptions were and what impacts on those exemptions, the amendments were posed here tonight.
And this help me know what would have how the proposed language would interact with the RSO.
I can start and then I can turn it over to Steve if he is prepared to answer that.
But in our examination of the ordinance, there's no conflict between measure queue, which was, as you mentioned, a ballot initiative and this ordinance.
Steve, I don't know if you're online or Lauren, if you wanted to add anything.
Yes, I am. Hi. Yes. So under measure queue, which, as you noted, was passed by the voters in 2018.
So third in ADU specifically, third in ADU's on properties where there's this single family home and the landlord occupies a unit in the same property are fully exempt from the rental ordinance.
Provided that the tendencies in question work created after the November of 2018.
And so for those types of units are fully exempt under the rental ordinance and they are treated as such under these staff proposal.
Thank you very much.
And so what the language proposed by this supplemental removed that exemption for those units.
If wouldn't remove all of those exemptions, but I believe it would remove some in that it would apply certain tenant protections to all ADUs.
We, however, have included that the way that the supplemental is written wouldn't pose any conflict with measure queue.
All right, thank you, then my final question is for the planning staff.
Do we in my apologies if we don't have this, but do we have numbers on ADUs produced before and after November of 2018.
We have numbers produced after 2018 and I mentioned it's been on average about 100 year, since then we don't have good data on production prior to.
Around that point actually.
Yeah.
Thank you very much. Those are my questions.
Okay, thank you very much, another questions.
Okay, we will move on to public comment, then please.
Come on up.
I've got a minute from someone.
Yeah.
I know many of you are here for that, so I kind of want to just get a sense of how many folks.
Okay, it'll be a minute, so and you have a minute from this person here.
Okay.
Good evening, Mayor and members of the city council.
As chair of the run board, I'd like to thank council member Luna Paren, council member Bartlett for the support for this supplemental, which will.
I think the important thing to understand is largely mirrors protections already in place for tenants in when condo conversions occur.
But significantly lower the burden of those protections for during the conversion process.
The board supports in concept the idea that we want to make it easier to produce homeownership opportunities in Berkeley, right.
You know, whether we need more housing, whether it's rental housing or own housing and as council member Luna Paren said, maybe one day some of us young folks will be able to buy a house in Berkeley.
But I think the important thing as planning director Klein mentioned is that we don't need to incentivize the creation of units that already exist, right.
Those units that are currently tenant occupied have been built.
We don't need to do anything to incentivize their creation and it doesn't make a new housing to replace tenant occupied housing with owner occupied housing.
And so any unit that's going to be built because of this ordinance will be built empty of tenants, no building that you build from the ground up comes to the tenant inside it.
And so this will have minimal impacts on the creation of what this unit would what this proposal would do to incentivize the creation of new housing.
As director Klein stated, the one part that could is this part about the fee, but these are units that are designed to be sold and owned.
So the imposition of right control will have a diminished impact on selling price if it's being sold for a home ownership opportunity.
Those units are not going to be rented.
It's more of an insurance, right, that basically if you're not going to use the ordinance for the purpose that we're designing it to want to make sure that tenants in this units have protections.
Additionally, sorry, my phone locked.
I'd like to be environmentally friendly and have a fast closed time, but it took some time to make sure to put.
Likewise, all currently built EDUs were built with the understanding that they wouldn't be sold as condos.
So there's no rug pull going on here. This is the status quo and we're granting a new right, which is the right to convert to a condo and imposing reasonable protections that mirror current protection.
Thank you.
So just I'll say I think I have staff in the run for here if folks have any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Carol.
Is that Carol? Sorry, I can't see you.
Okay, thank you.
So I appreciate the chance to speak to this.
I went in here to support the work of Councilmember Lonepara.
And also folks, can I just have it be quiet while people give public comment?
Thank you.
Okay.
So I'm here to support that and there's many details.
I don't know, but I did want to speak to the item on page five in the packet, which indicate ADU condos would be exempt from conversion mitigation fees.
So I would very much encourage a relook at that.
I have for the last 20 years of lived in limited equity condominium co-housing, which meant there was a group of us that got together bought or moved in as renters into a property that had already been
unfortunately depleted of renters, but we moved in as an empty as cooperators.
The point was that we negotiated for permanent affordability at the moderate income level in perpetuity.
And we were in exchange for giving up the condo, the rental conversion fees, the condo conversion fee.
That helped us create and be able to buy these units as moderate income people.
And that agreement is now going away because the city attorneys said no, you can't make it in perpetuity.
I would really like to encourage you to think about that as a bargaining negotiators to actually make it permanently affordable.
If with mitigation fee forgiven, if people go with land trust or some other mechanism that keeps it perpetually affordable to moderate income people.
Because we know how crazed the market of sellers and interested parties have been.
Thank you.
Thanks, Betsy.
Thank you.
Hello.
I'm a mayor and city council.
Nathan Mizerberg, the rent board.
Good to see all of y'all.
I want to thank him.
Comfort Bartlett, vice chair of the par for introducing this item.
I think chair Albert said, really all the main points here.
Certainly those were originally gotten the ADU, you know, market or business.
This is a new avenue for them and hopefully for, you know, regular folks in our city to be able to live here and maybe buy a home.
Good evening, Mayor Easty and Councillor members. My name is Audrey Cramer. I am a sophomore at East
Good evening, Mayor Ishii and council members.
My name is Audrey Cramer.
I am a sophomore at UC Berkeley and I'm speaking to you today on behalf of Cal Berkeley
Democrats.
I am coming to you as a student and I urge you to adopt a amendment to Title 21.
Housing in this city is expensive.
We all know it but the people who feel it are the students like me.
And enabling the sale of these units separately encourages the building of these homes allowing
for more housing to be built in our community.
It is important to me as a renter in this city that my government works hard to keep our city
and community affordable and renter friendly.
I am particularly in favor of council member Luna Paras.
Amendment to increase tenant protections for all of us.
Please adopt this amendment to Title 21 but especially the revised agenda material.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Ishii and council members.
I'm remembered here on behalf of East pay for everyone.
East pay for everyone believes that the most successful outcome of this policy is increased
production of 80 use for condosation.
We believe that increasing tenant protections for sitting 80 tenants would not preclude increased
production and would limit displacement of lower income residents, younger families and generally
vulnerable tenants.
And I also want to highlight that Dr. Klein just shared his response to council member
Brock at the Brock piece question that added protections wouldn't have a notable impact
on production.
We applaud your dedication to implementing AB 1033, not every jurisdiction in the state is doing
that.
But we urge you to pass this policy right.
We can be a model for how cities implement AB 1033, justly statewide.
I hope you can accomplish that tonight.
It's a calm home funding zeroed out in new state budget and with tenants more, with tenants
more precariously housed than ever, it's important to pass this policy but to do it right
with that of protections.
Thank you.
Thanks, Sam.
Good evening, everyone.
Thank you.
Council member Bartlett and Vice Mayor Winopara for these amendments and modifications.
I really hope and urge council to support these.
I am extremely hopeful for the continuous agenda of housing options as well as tenant protections.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Good evening, Mr. Councilors.
I just wanted to thank you for making for this item and making ADUs more easier to create
and use.
And I also wanted to thank Council member Winopara for the supplemental because you can have housing
development and renters rights and so thank you so much and I hope you will adopt
Council member Winopara supplemental.
Thank you.
Come on up.
It's a new this again.
That's down below.
Hello.
My name is Daniel.
I'm with the Cal Berkeley Democrats and I would just like to voice my support for the measure.
I think that obviously Berkeley is facing an acute housing shortage and ADUs are probably going
to make up a big part of reminding that issue.
ADUs made up I think something like 20% of new housing developments in the past few years which
obviously implies that they'll be a big part of housing development in the future.
I also think that it's important to ensure that tenants still have their needed protections.
I think that as the, as they said earlier, it wouldn't so adversely affect housing
what's called production of ADUs so I think that you know just looking at the facts as long
as they don't adversely affect ADU production I think that it's reasonable to adopt it.
Thank you.
Good evening, is this not good evening Maryy, she and Council members, I'm either Martinach.
I'm also a rent board commissioner and would like to echo the comments of my colleagues and
I just want to say my hope is limited to surviving this year but should we all survive this
year?
It would be nice to be able to afford a home in Berkeley and I really wish that for the younger
generation to be able to own a home and I welcome Vice Mayor and Council Member Bartlett's
supplement and that it is a very happy compromise.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Good evening, Council Mayor and Vice Mayor, my name is Rebecca and I'm an ADU tenant in Berkeley
I think that we should adopt a version of AB 1033 with more tenant protections with the
goal of incentivizing new development for condos instead of replacing existing ones.
And as an ADU renter I want just as everyone else before me said to be able to buy a home some
day especially in Berkeley but I don't want to be risk being evicted in a meantime.
Please support Vice Mayor and I'm a part of the supplement to all thank you.
Thank you.
Hi all, I'm Audrey Tansson, another Audrey but a student in Cal Habitat for Humanity.
Many students as renters see ADUs as important to Berkeley's housing and I know this because
you let me and you guys know, important enough to email you over what to break to show up and
to speak here today on our first day of school.
Here's a comment from DOA who isn't here today.
Like many students I chose Berkeley not just for school but also because I care about this community
and hope to stay in the area after graduation and housing is a big issue on my mind.
Over the past few years I've watched friends show to find affordable housing close to campus or face
unexpected rent increases.
Soon housing often comes in the form of small units or ADUs and those spaces are essential
for keeping Berkeley accessible to students from all backgrounds.
When tenants are displaced it doesn't just disrupt our housing, it also usually impacts our
education, mental health and sensitive belonging.
When you consider our voices AB 1033 expands housing access opportunities simultaneously
displaced ADU tenants are more likely to be homeless, but if they can set up a precedent here tonight
prioritizing home ownership and tenant property.
Thank you.
My name is Shaolinie, I'm also with Cal Habitat for Humanity and Organization centered around equitable
housing.
I'm speaking on behalf of my peer Avis Smith.
A close friend of hers who lived in our hometown or a whole life was forced to leave the home
that her family was living in after the landlords decided to turn the homes garage into an ADU.
They were without a home for months and ultimately were forced to leave the community.
A large reason why I've loved living in Berkeley is because of this community's diversity.
Permitting ADUs as written as AB 1033 has written can hurt the diversity.
AB 1033 is a good policy that will increase the number of housing units but in a city that already relies on rent control
and displacement.
I hope that tenant protections will be included in AB 1033, because by including safeguards
to prevent no fall evictions and guaranteeing first-righted refusal, Berkeley can ensure that families
and individuals will not suffer from the implementations of ADUs the same way people have in her
hometown, and that's it.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comment.
Hi, my name is Lucia and I'm also part of Calhapata and I'm speaking from my friend Lorena.
Hello, my name is Lorena and I personally am currently fortunate enough to live in a student rental
here in the University of Village where my rent is covered by financial aid.
Otherwise, like many others, I'd be struggling in finding affordable housing.
As I've had countless of my peers, tell me of their unfortunate housing situations that ultimately
left them homeless, couch hopping, and seeking unconventional housing for the night.
It is planned to see that it isn't humane and should be prevented from worsening.
It is substantial that we keep in mind that many students live in ADUs.
Hold up.
That many students live in ADUs or small rental units, and as students, we wish to protect ourselves as tenants.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Madeline.
I also a member of Calhapata for Humanity, a Berkeley, and I'll be speaking on behalf of my peer all over Chang who cannot be here today.
Hello, my name is Oliver Chang.
I am currently renting an apartment in Berkeley for college and will be there for nearly another year and a half.
I've seen too many examples firsthand of how housing instability has affected how students go about their daily lives.
In fact, today I was with a friend who was absent-minded because all she could think about was how she had to move out because where I was being raised.
I wish she was living currently affecting her thought process and how she interacted with everyone.
As a result, I believe we should say yes to ABU 1033 in tenant protections because Berkeley has an opportunity to do this right.
This is a good policy. We should allow ADUs to be converted into condos and so separately, especially when they are newly built and not rented.
But this should not happen at the expense of existing ADU tenants who are especially vulnerable tenants that live there currently.
Those are protections as well. Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Alex DeFraga, and I'll be reading on behalf of Angie, a fellow Calhapata for Humanity Member and UC Berkeley student.
A couple of years ago, I lived in a rented ADU with my family.
Though it wasn't hearing Berkeley, it was one of the many ways we experienced an inequitable and inaccessible path to ownership.
And it is applicable to a variety of communities across the country.
Having the ADUs, a housing option had significantly helped my family find a sense of stability and it's the housing challenges we were experiencing.
A lack of information on tenant protections and educational barriers pushed us to displacement when the rent increased over time
and ownership of the ADU was not an option.
Berkeley has an opportunity to do this right.
ADUs have the potential to offer an affordable space upgraded from a room or apartment.
If combined with greater time, protections against displacement and towards home ownership, Berkeley can expand long-term housing stability.
We hope that the Lunar Power of Bartlett Supplemental is adopted with AB 1033.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Thank you very much.
Good evening, Council.
I'm Debbie Sanderson.
I'm speaking on behalf of the ADU Task Force.
In the past, this council has been very supportive of housing and we thank you for that.
We think it is now imperative that we build as many ADUs as we can.
But we want to remind you that the people of Berkeley gave us a clear mandate in 2018 and we should continue to honor that mandate through the life of the ADU, even as a condo.
So we urge you, I think, the spirit of 2018, Measure Q, was to relieve ADUs that on owner occupied property, a small number of them, to have control over who is in the ADU because they live there too.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor E.C. and Vice Mayor Luna Paran, City Council members.
First of all, I want to thank Council member Luna Paran and for this very thoughtful supplemental item.
You know, tenants living in ADUs are consumers in the rental housing industry.
When you have a business and your ADU is a business, it is a business you are making money.
So tenants should have protections like consumers and other industries should have protections.
And these are really reasonable, these are really reasonable.
I'm going to have a lot for them to have one year to think about it, but to think about if they have the first rate of approval.
But it doesn't matter, 90 days are fine, all these are good.
So I really would hope that you consider this that tenants need protections.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and Council members.
Crystal grants and executive director of the Berkeley Property Owners Association.
I just want to remind you, yes, in 2018, the ADU task force of which I was one of the founding members.
And with Ben Bartlett's help, we came forward with a proposal to the voters that said that owner occupied property,
especially with new construction ADUs, would receive exemptions from parts of the rent stabilization ordinance.
I'm here to say that I do believe in reading this carefully.
The Council member, Lena Paris proposal actually contradicts that.
It puts tenant protections on some ADUs if they decide to convert and be able to sell off the ADU.
And that is not permitted under the law because the rent stabilization ordinance is a directive of the voters.
She also is proposing that you remove the ability to do an owner moving.
An owner moving is given to those properties where a tenant has tenant protections under the rent stabilization ordinance.
Thank you.
So I think you need a more clear answer on that.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Good evening.
To the mayor.
To Council members.
My name is Dominique Walker.
I'm the vice chair of the Berkley Remberer.
And I just wanted to echo my colleagues.
I think that this is a fair compromise.
Council member Lena Paris.
Ben Bartlett.
I think that.
We can work with this and I would love for you all to vote yes on the amendment. And I'll
see the rest of my time.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Andy Kelly. I'm a report commissioner and vice chair of the County
Plan Commission. I would just hear to speak in support of the supplemental, which I think is
a very reason to compromise.
Sorry, came of course, sir.
Yes, I've never been accused of not being allowed enough in my life. I'm just hear to speak
in support of the supplemental, which I think is a very reason to compromise in the kind of
spirit of collaboration we'd love to see the council impart on these issues.
I think it's important to note that no one affected by this ordinance tonight built
an 80 with the intention of saluting.
That's a major thing that the city is giving to these homeowners.
And it's a wonderful thing if you need to retire or you want to pay for your kids' college,
having the ability to sell is wonderful.
But so is the ability of folks who are living there now to stay if they want to.
We can do both things. It's not mutually exclusive.
And giving tenants three months to figure out if they can purchase the property.
That's a great thing. It's good for our neighborhoods to stabilize them.
It provides the stability and affordable housing.
The 80's were meant to do in the first place.
And the tenant protections would only exist for the red control if the homeowner decided they wanted them.
No one forces that in the supplemental.
The owner who's saying, I'm going to sell this 80 you.
I'd like it to remain affordable.
It's going to be in my backyard.
I'd like folks to be able to stay there.
That's a choice.
You don't want to do it. You pay the affordable housing fee.
You pay the condo conversion fee.
You go through the regular process.
But it allows the protections without anyone being forced to do it.
It's a wonderful compromise.
It provides a pathway to homeowner ship for folks who don't have a million dollars.
And I strongly encourage the council to support the supplemental.
Thank you.
Any public comments on the side of my mind?
Public comment on item 21, allowing separate sale of 80's.
Currently have four hands raised.
First is Alfred II.
It evening city council.
My name is Alfred II.
I'm also a rent board commissioner.
And I'm here to also speak in favor of.
The item was council member of the power of supplemental.
Our goal here is to get people to build new 80's.
So we have more housing being built.
And also get people who have an empty 80 you.
But aren't interested in renting it out to perhaps consider selling it.
Portland or again, to our north.
They implemented an 80 you condo ordinance about 10 years ago.
And they now have a good ecosystem of businesses that specialize in building new 4th.
80's.
And that's really the motto we want to go.
Where people are building new homes, rather than just taking homes from one person for another.
Similarly, in San Francisco, they pass the AB 1033 ordinance recently.
But there's only allows new construction to be condoized.
So I think what we have proposed here is a good compromise between.
The stalker tenant protections as well.
Offering flexibility.
Thanks for your comments.
Next is iPhone.
Should be able to unmute.
She council members.
And the mayor's is capitaling.
I'd like to see my minute to.
Can I ask you a question?
Oh, she spoke already.
Can I ask you one of the speaks instead?
No.
And then we can't afford to disembise any kind of building of the 80's.
And so I've written the letter to all of you.
So thank you for your time and please don't know.
Okay.
Next is Brianna Morales.
Good evening.
My name is Brianna Morales.
What the housing action coalition.
We strongly support this ordinance,
especially at a time in California is facing a housing crisis
and housing costs are through the roof.
We love to see creative, flexible opportunities that support housing choices,
especially with ADUs that already exist in neighborhoods across Berkeley.
The this ordinance will help create new pathways to home ownership that are often more affordable,
more attainable and more flexible.
It could mean you know a renter having the opportunity to buy the home they already live in
or a homeowner helping a loved one build equity nearby.
And we strongly also support protecting tenants and appreciate the council's attention to these concerns.
We encourage continued work towards an approach that maintains a clear and workable pathway for
ADU home ownership and preserves predictability for these small projects.
Berkeley is longtime been a leader and so we're hoping to see this ordinance pass so that we can align with state law
and bring more homes to California.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comments.
Okay. Next is Daniel Brownson.
Hi.
Yeah, I think it's telling that the housing advocates, including the author of the supplemental council member,
little parah and the members of the Berkeley rent board have been willing to compromise,
resulting in this, you know, already compromised.
Supplemental measure.
Whereas the landlords, like the persons spoke on behalf of the landlord association, which shouldn't even exist,
because it's a price fixing organization seem completely unwilling to compromise.
And.
And approve any tenant protections whatsoever.
I strongly encourage the board to adopt these supplemental.
So that it will be balanced with tenant protections.
Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel.
Okay.
Next is Tony.
Good evening.
This is Tony Mister speaking from district two.
I support the staff recommendation on the AGU.
Conversion, condo conversion.
I don't support the supplemental.
I think it's idealistic to believe that the supplemental.
Some of the items in the supplemental would not be a disincentive.
I think that passes you will see the number of AGUs being created reduced.
I don't know by what percent. I'm not that smart.
But I do know that it would be a burden for those people who are going to use their equity to build housing.
And I think we need the AGUs and I'm very proud to have been part of the measure cue team.
And very proud that we've had so many AGUs created.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tony.
Okay.
Last hand is.
Cleo.
Cleo, you should be able to unmute.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Cleo.
So ADUs are different from multi unit buildings.
And that they tend to be owned by nonprofessional individual homeowners.
This means that creating more cost and or more complexity will be a major role block to condoize
AC sale.
People will still build the ADUs.
Sure.
But they just won't sell them.
On the other hand, virtually no small entry level new homes are being currently built first
sale in Berkeley.
Other than the ADUs.
By contrast, the city is building tens of thousands of new rental apartments.
For this reason, I'm against the amendment proposed by council person.
Because they would disincentivize private homeowners with AGUs from condoizing and selling
them thereby denying entry level home buyers.
With virtually the only potential new source of affordable first homes.
So we're only talking about.
I guess a bit of less than a thousand new build ADUs since 2018.
Thank you.
That's it.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I'm very much.
We're going to move on to council comment starting with council member Humbert.
Thank you Madam Mayor.
Then I want to give a huge thank you to director Klein and planning staff for all your hard work
on this item.
It's been pending for so long and I'm glad that we finally got into it.
I think the ordinance has prepared by planning staff and the planning commission is pretty much ready to roll with one exception.
Way back in October, Mayor Ishi.
Council member Black of E Council member O'Keefe and I submitted a supplemental with a proposed amendment
to a chapter in section 21 dot 29 dot 010 dot c1 c dot 1.
Covered rental ADUs sub paragraph B.
For the purposes of for the purpose of limiting the right of first refusal to 90 days.
So once again I propose an amendment that simply adds the following to the end of subsection B.
I think that roughly three months is a fair amount of time for a tenant to declare their intent to purchase and better.
And it better aligns with typical timelines for real estate transactions.
A year is far too long to demand that someone wait to potentially sell their ADUs, especially since it is most likely people will be seeking to sell
because they're having financial difficulties or because they may want to sell to a family member.
With respect to the thoughtful and very thoughtful supplemental brought forward by council.
I shouldn't say that by vice mayor Luna Potter.
I feel that it is well intended but I think I personally I just fundamentally see the relationship between a single family homeowner.
You know sort of a measure Q homeowner and an ADU tenant in a very different way.
I do want to credit the arguments that I've heard tonight here about the lack of impact the supplemental would likely have on newly constructed ADUs.
I think those arguments are correct.
But in I also accept that I still favor that the staff proposal having tighter rules for multi unit and not owner occupied properties makes sense.
But I don't think it makes sense when you have a homeowner with just one ADU on the property to force them into a potentially fraught relationship with a sitting ADU tenant.
And I guess I would say why should these proposed rights which it didn't exist and don't exist at this point for this very limited class of tenants all of a sudden spring into existence in connection with a condo conversion of an ADU.
And I'm not completely well I'm going to strike that.
I think that using weather using weather unit is covered by the rent stabilization ordinance is the cleanest and clearest way to establish different standards for ADU protections.
So I think we should stick with the planning commission and staff recommended approach.
It's just keep a clear workable line and ultimately you know it may have some impact to incentivize more ADU conversions if not construction of a new ADUs.
As far as applying an affordable housing mitigation fee that ADU conversions I can't support that as I think it's far too discouraging of such conversions.
It offers from an even more acute shortage of affordable ownership housing as this has been pointed out that it does affordable rental housing.
So I'm committed to not having a feed for these conversions.
So with all that said, I would like to move for the purpose of discussion.
The staff version of the ADU conversion ordinance with the amendments proposed in the October 28 supplemental that I just referred to that was submitted by the mayor and council members.
Thank you.
That was my next question.
Is there a second?
A second.
Second from council member Blockabee.
Moving on to council member Taplin's comments.
Thank you.
Just real quick in my policies for not asking this enough first round.
The prohibition on conversion following new fault evictions.
Who's losing what?
I'm trying to feel that.
So the mighty commission recommendation.
A prize.
A no fault eviction screen on condo conversion eligibility.
Of 10 years that applies to cover units and partially covered units.
But not to fully accept units.
I believe that the supplemental expands that to also apply to fully covered units.
But reduces the period from 10 years to five years for all three categories.
Thank you.
To share my thinking.
It's really helpful to know that there is a relatively small number of ADU situated on owner occupied two unit properties.
And the versions of a prohibition on conversions following no fault termination tendency as present in both versions.
I'm very committed to increasing pathways and opportunities for home ownership and I see condo conversion for ADU sales as a valuable tool.
And want to be cautious to not unwittingly create impediments of what have a chilling effect on ADU production.
That being said, I do welcome my colleague's liberation on the two pros.
Oh, I, I, I, I, I welcome hearing from the rest of my colleagues on the, the fine points of both an either of the two proposals on that point.
Okay.
Thank you. And actually, I would like to see if there's a motion to close the public hearing before we continue more.
So moved.
Okay. Thanks. Can we take the roll on that, please?
To close the public hearing council member, tap one. Yes.
Gartlett. Yes.
Okay. Yes.
Lack of the yes.
Unapara. Yes.
Humbered. Yes.
And Mary shee. Yes.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Thank you very much.
I'm going to go to council member Barlett.
Thank you, madam.
I would be possible to to to post that one chart with the, the three proposals with the exes.
That one, you know, the.
Come back for the planning commission.
Line of probably.
Yeah, give me a moment.
I think it's helpful. Thank you.
And in the meantime, I want to do want to thank the planning staff and director, client and team.
For your diligent work, wonderful work at a level of proposal.
I do think it is, it is, it's benefited by my colleague, the vice mayor's efforts here.
To, to really what what I see is a really rational.
Really rationalization and unifying of the baseline protections afford to tenants that we get to houses.
People living in houses.
You know, and in one sense without it, we kind of carry on the.
The prejudicial relationship between some of filming homeowners and home dwellers.
Versus apartment people.
In this case, eighty people.
They work so hard to kind of unify and make make even.
And so I think that's, you know, these protections afforded to the people of eighty use.
Less less burdensome than those living in homes.
And again, you know, go what you said, a hundred units a year.
I think this is going to be negligible.
However, even though it's negligible.
If it keeps one person from falling out into the street, there's worth it.
That's a real person.
And, and believe me, I think the, I think the fears and eighty people.
Yes, I'm, I'm all equal to you.
I'm Mr. A to you. I formed the task force.
I'm all about it.
But again, you know, I don't, like, I don't believe in a zero sum relationship.
That we hear so much in our, in our world today.
You can have your cake needed to.
You can have your can on the growth, and you can have people living a good life.
They're not exclusive.
And this is one example where I would really impress upon you the fact that we can protect people
while advancing the goals of home ownership and starter homes and eighty youth development.
And you realize, if someone's making a to you to sell it, they're doing it to sell it.
And they will be engaging in property taxes, and et cetera.
And, you know, doing all things you do to sell property.
It's a, it's a commercial decision.
This is not the, the usual story of it.
He used about my grandma being in there.
My mama, you know, sister got, got rained out and Florida's coming here to live with us.
This is you selling it to someone to make money.
And so you will factor in that cost when you sell it.
I mean, this is really, I think, again, the fears overblown.
And I think the rationale for doing so and executing with these elements are good.
They're good for the community, good for people, and good for our economy as a whole.
Thank you.
Thank you council member, council member or Keith.
Thank you.
I just need to make some brief comments.
I'll be supporting council member hundreds of motion.
Here's why I do want to say I really respect this supplemental.
It makes sense. It's a good, like, the heart of it is in the right place.
And it's, you know, it's very easy to feel good about tenant protection.
That's just, that's a, it seems on its face, like, always a good policy.
Here's why I can't support it.
I'm not choosing to support it tonight.
We're making the law more complicated.
And we have to, that's the mandate of this, is we have to sort of update our laws to incorporate this, the specific situation.
I'm pretty allergic to making laws more complicated.
I think, as I said earlier in my comments for consent calendar,
I really, we really need to be making them clearer, more streamlined,
make more sense at any opportunity.
And so, yes, we have to tweak our law a little bit,
we have to add a little, you know, cross some things out and add some things.
But the best way to do that in this case is to maintain as much as possible the philosophy and the structure of the existing law.
And that's, that's what I'm basic my vote on.
Right now, and Berkeley, like, would have not.
Renters who are renting in multifamily developments have certain tenant protections.
Renters who are renting in single-family home type situations.
Either a part where all of a home or a back of a home have none, essentially.
And the staff, the staff recommendation,
I mean, the council member Herbert's motion supports carries that philosophy forward into this new situation.
And so, that just makes more sense to me.
It feels more comfortable for me.
And I'd like to just continue.
I'd like to keep that a lot structurally the same as it exists now.
And that's why voting the way.
Thank you.
Actually, if you don't mind before you speak, can I ask a couple of questions?
Or do you want to respond to that?
Sure.
Please go ahead.
I would argue that the planning commission version is much more complicated than our version.
Given that ADU units often can, can, like, go in and out of certain statuses.
And if we apply the same tenant protections across the board, that very much simplifies the process.
And also, because we're mirroring existing legislation that we have currently for the condo conversion ordinance,
that also kind of connects everything together more than the planning commission version does.
So, that's my argument.
So, I will ask my questions, but I do want to make sure you get your comments in as well.
So, I'm curious if you can let us know, because I just couldn't pull it up quickly with the affordable housing mitigation fee.
Actually, is so that we're more talking about the fee.
We can just be clear about what we're talking about.
Yes, sorry, first off.
You know, we have HXAS staff online.
And so, I think we'd like to turn that question over to other Margar Ernst or my gooberty to speak to the affordable housing mitigation fee that applies to condo conversions.
Hi council members, can you hear me okay?
Yes.
Thanks for being on.
Sure, no problem, thank you for having me.
I can't see my video.
I'm hoping I'm looking good for everyone.
We can see you.
Okay.
So, how the affordable housing mitigation fee works is it's based on a nexus between ownership costs and rental costs for the unit.
That's divided by the current interest rate.
And so, we usually, we have a kind of set way that we calculate the projected ownership costs for the unit as a condo, including a 5% down payment price, the cost of the future HOAs property taxes, et cetera, comparable to a rental cost for the unit.
Now, there's an alternative called the rental limitation in which property owners can elect into establishing rental limitations on the unit and exchange for a fee that's based on the sales price of the unit and 8% sales price or in certain cases of 4% sales price.
And so, that's either they can do that based on a praised price at the time of conversion or they can base that on the actual sales price.
They can defer the fee until the unit is sold.
And then that's based on the sales actual sales price when it goes on the market.
Thank you.
I just, I remember when we were talking about this, there were some, I don't know if it was like median, you know, amounts or something that was an actual dollar amount.
Just to kind of put some specific specifics into this conversation, I don't know if you can speak to that at all.
I believe we probably, I worked with that into develop examples based on like an estimated sales price, so you could compare how the two fees would look.
I'm sorry, I think that might be what you're thinking.
Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry, we've, we've continued this item so many times.
I don't have the same documents in front of me anymore.
All right, we do. Thankfully, thanks to Bronco.
Mike and I worked about on this, I want to say about six months ago.
So the example that we came up with.
And so you're going to have to bear with me because there's a lot of numbers here because it's not a simple fee.
It was a complex calculation.
So Mike mentioned that you're identifying the difference between the rental costs and the ownership costs.
So if the rental costs were estimated at $1500 per month or that's $18,000 a year annually.
The ownership cost is you develop the estimate of that based on estimated mortgage payment costs plus taxes and insurance and HOA dues.
You might estimate that at $2700 per month for a small ADU or at $32,400 annually.
The difference between those numbers, the ownership cost minus the rental cost is $14,400.
And so the mitigation fee is developed by dividing that difference by the prevailing interest rate six months ago.
It was six and a half percent.
The resulting amount is $221,000.
$221,538.
And that's a pretty real world.
I mean, those amounts we came up with.
We did our best to estimate what the actual rental and ownership cost would be of an ADU around 752,000 square feet.
Thank you. That is really helpful to have an actual number in front of us as we're having this conversation.
And thank you Mike for being honest. Well, and answering those back question.
Jordan, can you also speak to the impact of a conversion provision after no fault eviction?
I know that Council Member Tavern asked us to open about that and I'm interested in thinking about that more as well.
Well, first, let me say, I think it's quite rare that this occurs.
I would actually potentially, if you have questions about specificity, I think the rent board staff are working with those cases much more frequently than we would.
Sorry, I should clarify that question. It's to speak to the impact of a of adding this to the potential conversion of ADUs to condos or building ADUs.
It's really on the planning side.
Oh, so whether adding it would impact production.
Thank you.
I really don't think it would impact production much if at all to add that. So currently the planning commission proposal.
It already applies to covered units and partially covered units would not apply to full exempt units supplemental proposals to expand it to also apply to full exempt units.
It would impact production only in cases when somebody is intending to sell a condo as an investment property or condo as an ADU as an investment property.
In those cases, yeah, it could serve either it's going to you're going to add a huge amount of cost to the conversion to around over 200,000 dollars is what we estimated.
Or you're going to limit the future income generating potential of the property.
So yeah, in those cases, it could serve as a disincentive.
If somebody would only produce the unit with intention for sale as an investment property.
Yeah, and I think that's important because I think the conversation that we're having here is about encouraging condoization and the hopes that also people are owning their homes.
And not just, you know, if someone's buying in an order to rent it out as an additional income because they can do that as an ADU, they don't need to convert it to be a condo in order to, in order to rent it out in that way.
So I just want to clarify that for folks. Okay, I'm sorry. I wanted to make sure you got to make your comments.
I just have a couple, a couple short comments kind of emphasizing some of the pieces of this first that for the affordable housing mitigation feed, the goal isn't necessarily for people to pay the fee.
But if this is happening, if somebody is purchasing this converted ADU condo is then renting it out that then those tenants get rent control protection.
Which is also not the intended purpose of this.
I just have a couple short comments, kind of emphasizing some of the pieces of this. First, the affordable housing mitigation fee, the goal, isn't necessarily for people to pay the fee, but if this is happening, if somebody is purchasing this converted ADU condo, is then renting it out that then those tenants get rent control protection.
Which is also not the intended purpose of this, and unlikely scenario, I think.
I also want to go back to some other topic of how many tenants this would apply to.
I don't, this wouldn't apply to many tenants.
I think we all know that we have a crisis of displacement and of homelessness, and even if this applies to one person or one family.
That person or family is getting evicted from the city, or is significantly more likely to fall into homelessness, and the best we know that the best way to prevent homelessness is to keep people housed in the first place.
I understand the unique relationship that ADU, that tenants in ADUs have with their landlords, if the landlords have the same property.
And I think that if they are not choosing to convert it, they still can evict those tenants. That is not changing.
I think if we're granting, as Commissioner Kelly said, if we're granting this opportunity for homeowners.
Which is a great opportunity, then it should not come at the expense of our current tenants that are very vulnerable in this naturally affordable unit.
Thank you. Councilmember Vackaby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
Just stepping back very briefly.
One thing I've been observing wrestling with a little bit is that we have a series of different housing policies in Berkeley to accomplish different goals.
Different housing types, whether it's rental housing or housing that's available for purchase, tenant protections to protect people who are in those rental units.
And so part of what I've been wrestling with a little bit is thinking about, well, what's our A number one goal with this particular policy.
And our challenge, one of many challenges we face in Berkeley is that we don't have enough housing for purchase at the lower end of the economic scale.
By lower end, it's still plenty high end. I'm just saying that we're trying to create more housing inventory that's available for less than a million dollars, and hopefully substantially less than a million dollars.
And to me, this AEDU conversion policy is one chance, and we've heard, I know she's not here, but Councilmember Castro wanted to talk a lot about in the past.
Some of this work to create more inventory on that side of the scale and not just at the upper side of the scale.
So this AEDU conversion policy under AB 1033 is focused on generating more foresail inventory at that sort of lower relatively lower relatively more affordable price point.
We have other policies like the density bonus that incentivizes the creation of affordable rental housing, and that is a clear policy choice.
And we're trying to put that to work in the states trying to put that to work.
And we have a rent control system here in Berkeley is the most robust in the country to provide strong tenant protections in this many places as we can.
But I keep coming back to the goal, and in this case our primary goal is the creation of more housing for purchase at a less exorbitant price point.
And for speaking to residents in my district, I know there's real apprehension to moving forward with AEDUs at all if they feel potential restrictions.
It's a decent incentive to convert existing AEDUs.
And I do believe that it's the ethos of this additional regulation on AEDU at a single family property where the owner is occupying one of the units.
The ethos of this additional regulation whether it's really perceived is a decent incentive to participate.
I heard it a lot during the campaign. I hear it as I go around now.
There's just a sense that I don't know if I want to do this. If I feel like my hands are going to be tied, if I feel like I'm going to have these additional restrictions, additional fees, why bother?
I'm just not going to do it. It's better for me not to do it at all than to do that.
And that feels like that moves us backwards in terms of what we're trying to do with this particular policy.
Again, I could be wrong, but that's sort of where my head is at in terms of my discussions in the district and thinking about the goals and what we're trying to accomplish.
So for that reason, I really appreciate, I really appreciate the passion and the commitment of the Vice Mayor and Council Member Bartlett for their proposal.
But thinking about what's the primary goal here, what's the primary problem we're trying to solve with this particular legislation.
I believe that the Planning Commission version with Council Member Humboldt's amendment is the better approach to actually creating more housing for purchase at this kind of price point.
If our goal was different, if we had a different goal and that wasn't the goal, I think a different policy prescription could be the right choice.
And I could end up supporting the supplemental. But for this particular goal for this particular reason, I'm going to support the staff recommendation with Council Member Humboldt's amendment. Thank you.
And speaking of, you know, what is kind of our goal here, you know, what I, I mean, the purpose of really converting the A to use to condos is to encourage more opportunities for home ownership.
And at the same time, I know that we need to be doing our best to protect the tenants who are currently living in the A to use.
At the same time, I'm also concerned about some of the aspect of Council Member Lieutenant-Pars items.
I'm worried about how it might disincentivize the conversion of A to use to condos, specifically the affordable housing mitigation fee piece of it.
Another thing I realized that in this conversation, we really need to have better data around A to use, so I'm just saying that out loud, because I think that's something that we should all be working on, because I think that will help us make more informed policy decisions.
And I want to comment on something that was said earlier, I really want us to consider the possibility that people will be condoizing their A to use in order to live in them themselves and sell their main houses instead.
And in fact, I know some older residents who, you know, are selling their main homes to their children, for instance, or to someone that they know, and then are living in the A to you, but might be interested in continuing to own something.
So condoizing it might make sense for them. So I just want us to think about that and not make too many assumptions about how people might utilize this.
The other thing that I also agree with in that I agree with in Council Member Luna, Vice Mayor Luna Pars item is the right of first refusal for all A to use tenants with a 90 day time period.
I want to briefly speak to why we were interested in shortening it, shortening it to 90 days.
We had many conversations with different folks about how long it takes to get funding together.
And we thought that 90 days was reasonable, was enough time. If you're able to get funding together in 90 days, you'll most likely be able to purchase.
And I'm interested in giving everybody that opportunity given that we're talking about converting 80 use to condos and to encourage homeownership.
We want to allow the people who are currently living in them to have the opportunity to purchase their 80 year first.
And given 90 days, we've kind of agreed isn't as a reasonable timeframe. I'm also interested in including that as well.
And so speaking to Council Member Tapplin's interest in a conversion, prohibition after no fault eviction for five years, I'm also interested in supporting that.
So I want to signal my support and see if folks have any other comments about about my comments before we move on.
I got it. Right now we only have one thing on the floor, so.
Yeah, vice-parameter part.
I have some kind of high level comments in kind of an attempt to convince my colleagues about what the choice that we're making here is and how we are treating tenant units in comparison to
comparison with homeowner units.
If the choice that we're making here is about replacing our tenants with homeowners.
I think that is a, I think we've lost the plot.
I think it is so important to create those middle-level foresell homes, but are we really willing to display and evict our vulnerable tenants to create them?
That's not a decision that we have to make.
That is a policy choice. Our primary problem that we're trying to solve at a high level is housing affordability and housing stability for all.
And I'm really frustrated because I think that this conversation is leading into the same fundamental problem that we see over and over again about prioritizing homeowner ships.
In placing their homes at a higher standard than tenant homes.
And we should not be considering that tenant homes are unequal to homeowner homes.
We are telling tenants that they do not deserve the residential and financial stability that homeowners do.
And I think that's the policy choice that we're making right now.
Yeah, that's my argument.
Okay, so.
Right now, just so we're clear, the only thing that's on the floor is the staff recommendation with.
With the supplemental that Council members, Humbert, Blackbee and O'Keefe and I have put forward.
So I'll make a motion to approve the supplemental material without the affordable housing mitigation fee section.
Second.
Sorry, your supplemental with without for the housing mitigation fee.
Okay.
I, I still can't fully support that word that where where we do have a friendly moment.
Yeah, I think the piece that I have a hard time but still is the.
Sorry, I'm just trying to pull up my.
Notes.
The owner move in since like I said, there might be some owners who would be interested in moving in to their 80 use and converting them to a condo and then selling their the main house.
Do we think I what what I'm worried about is an landlord using owner move in eviction and then turning it into a condo.
I wonder if there's a way we can meet in the middle of there and accommodate that issue without completely removing it.
That would be interested to see if anyone else is in support.
So I'd like to ask if any of my colleagues have any comments.
I'm interested in this mostly in the name of community.
I don't I think I'd prefer to just have my way, but I think.
I think the other side's argument are reasonable, so I'd like it would be feel better if.
You find some some movement and I'm open to looking for that.
And this I like this.
Keep going.
Sorry.
I don't head counts.
I don't know.
I don't want to speak to the point about this basement.
I think that's why I'm interested in this the prohibition on.
Conversion following a new fall.
I see both proposals of having very about very valid and very useful.
This dissentives against displacement.
And I want to just voice that.
I don't think either the planning commission or planning staff or any of the numbers of the council.
Are seeking to replace tenants with homeowners.
I think we are, you know, trying to throw the needle here.
But I, but I want to sort of reiterate that that's why I'm so interested in the the prohibition on the fall of action.
Conversion.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Vice President of par.
I think in the interest of not trying to come up with entirely new policy on the bias.
I'm, we can, um, refer to the planning commission version of the, oh, my evictions.
And that's my of the owner movement evictions.
So, um.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Do you want, I'm sorry.
Do you want to actually just repeat everything.
I think that might be helpful.
Yeah.
It would.
This motion, um, would approve the supplemental item without the affordable housing mitigation fee.
Or the changes to owner movement evictions from the planning commission version.
And so that would leave.
Sorry.
I'm just pulling up my notes.
I want to make sure I'm saying everything correctly.
So that would leave the right of first refusal of 90 days and the conversion.
Prohibition after no fault evictions for five years.
Correct.
Okay.
And just looking to see if anyone has other thoughts.
And I'm imagining a scenario where somebody has rented their 80U backyard 80U to attend it.
And it wasn't working out.
And they wanted to condolize it.
And I feel like what's being posed right now.
I do have empathy and consent for that landlord.
I think I think they need because it is, as I alluded to before, this is more of a single family home situation.
It's a little more personal.
I do want to preserve that right sort of, of who you get to live next to for homeowners.
So, but I, I don't know.
I feel like they're still compromising here.
But the, it's the parent of those two.
I guess, in that situation, they would either have to wait five years. And if it is a no fall
eviction, because there are many, you know. I don't know what it's called, but the fault
did evictions. That homeowner can take if they perform a no fall eviction, they would have
to either wait five years or they can just rent it out to another tenant in the meantime.
I don't know, I guess, I don't think that we should. I'm worried about weighing, about
displacing that tenant, and possibly pushing them into homelessness when the homeowner has
multiple options to not live with that person if it's not working out for them. They don't
have to condoize it. And yeah. Okay, I just want to check and see if there are any comments,
and then I think we should move forward and vote. Yeah. Yeah, just because I guess we're having
a little bit of background for them to respond. I want to say, I hear what you're saying. I think we're
going to agree to disagree, but I think what you're saying is reasonable. I'm not, I'm just
not comfortable with what's being proposed at this time, but I appreciate the argument.
It has a lot of merit. How do you think, what would you propose differently? I'm not sure, I'm
just, I'm open to some sort of less draconians, quite the right word, but less strong
tenant protections. Like, I'm open to something. I just, I do want to preserve, I don't know why
this is coming to just me, maybe other people on my side aren't open to this at all. Yeah, I just,
I really want to make sure to preserve the, the right of a homeowner, a single family homeowner
to choose who's next door to the next, on the same property as them. I just, I want to preserve that.
So, whatever we do has to make that possible even when they want to do a condo conversion. So, just being
realistic thinking about the votes that we have here, I do really want to make a push for the
90 day, 90 day driver refusal, because I do think that that's something that we can have votes
for. And so, I just want to say that out loud with the hope that you might make an adjustment
and focus just on that piece, because I do think that that piece is winnable, and at the same
time, to address council member abuse concerns, it's possible for us to have this provision
after no fault evictions for five years, unless unless the owner is moving into the ADU into the condo,
and that might address your concern. Right, there's a different sort of no fault eviction
on our own or move in eviction. No? There's no difference between us. They have different names.
Yeah, because I agree if you could, if there's crossover, so they are, they are not the same thing,
but situation could happen with their spool. Okay. I also want to point where. I have one more point if I can
go ahead. If someone condoizes and sells the ADU, and then that person sells it to someone else,
that homeowner has no choice over who lives there. They can choose who they sell it to, but then that person
can sell it to whoever they want. So it's kind of, yeah. Does that make sense? Does that address your concern?
Let me take that. They could have the most control if they keep renting it out.
This is my vote if I'm not, otherwise I don't look again.
That's true. That was vote matters.
Yes, sorry. Go ahead, council member, tap on.
Thanks. Yeah. I appreciate the conversation. I, you know, just, you know, I think, you know,
I hear what everyone is saying. I see where we're trying to go, and I think between the, what's on the table,
I feel most confident that the main motion by council member will get us as close as we can get to where we want to be.
Okay. So our, okay, I have one more last stitch effort.
If we can compromise to only apply the, no fault eviction prohibition for all covered current tenants or all, sorry, all current tenants.
And we can set a date for that. That does make the law more complicated, though. Sorry, so that one more time.
Only apply the no fault eviction.
Five year prohibition for all current tenants as of the time of the second reading, but that does make the law more complicated.
Yeah.
Can I, is it okay if I, yeah, please, thank you.
The thing that sort of happened for me when I, that was a really early bit.
You know, I respect to good arguments, though.
One of the, but I think what's happening for me is I'm just going back to my original orientation to this, which is like, I think that the planning commission staff recommendation just makes more sense and it just feels cleaner to me.
And I do want to, it would be nice if we could come up with a compromise that and go to unanimously, but I don't think that's on the table.
And I think I'd rather just stick with council member Humphards.
Guys, yeah, vice mayor, I think the only thing that we might be able to surpass to add on from what your supplemental is is the 90 day,
um,
that I'm mixing up all my phrases on my board.
Thank you.
90 day right of refusal.
For, for all.
All of my motion to just that, so that it would be just to clarify it would be staff's recommendation with council member Humphards.
Supplemental and, but the 90 days would be included for all for all, for all tenants, yes.
Okay, so I believe there was a second from council member Bartlett already.
And so in that case, I will ask if the clerk can take the roll.
Because I mean, we have the same motion twice or.
No.
So what's the difference between the two?
The addition is that the 90 day right of refusal would apply to all as opposed to just the.
It would, the 90 days was just a change from a year.
In which motion.
In council, in council, in council, in council members.
In the main motion.
Yeah.
Okay.
Did you have a question?
I think that was my question was how it.
It's exactly Humphards but with a different number.
There's no same number.
What's the, but it would apply to more people.
Okay.
We have a question as home council member had a.
Something extra an afternoon.
Make sure that's in it or it doesn't matter anymore.
Maybe he could speak to that.
Yes.
Go ahead.
So the planning commission version.
Um, gives one year of right of first refusal for covered tenants.
Council member Humberch's change reduces that to 90 days.
to expand that to all tenants.
But only for 90 days.
Yeah.
So to exempt partially covered and covered to 90 days.
Yes, 90 days of right of first refusal.
Thank you.
Thanks for clarifying.
Cover number number.
Did you want to say something as well?
Yeah.
No, I can't support that.
There may be a majority that does, but I can't support it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I just, sorry.
I'm out of order.
My apologies.
No, no.
Go ahead, Council Member.
Tap on.
Did you have a comment?
Yeah.
It's just, it's, I mean, it's difficult to keep up.
It's, you know, it's difficult to parse on the fly like this.
I, I, I might, you know, I remain.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
So.
I wish to take a roll.
The substitute motion.
If I count some, I'm, uh, vice mayor Luna Para.
Um.
On the motion.
Council Member.
Tap on.
No.
Bartlett.
Yes.
I mean.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Blackby.
No.
Luna Para.
Yes.
Humber.
No.
Mayor.
Yes.
Okay.
That motion fails.
All right.
I mean.
On the main motion.
I, Council Member.
Humber.
Um.
Council Member.
Tap on.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Blackby.
Yes.
Luna Para.
No.
Humber.
Yes.
And Mayor.
Yes.
Okay.
That motion carries.
Thank you.
Sorry.
Now that was a lot of sausage making.
I really appreciate you all sitting through that.
Um.
Okay.
I think we should take a five minute break.
So we can do that.
Okay.
I think we should take a five minute break.
So we can switch over to the next item.
Peace.
Fast.
Thank you.
Hello lovely people in the crowd.
We're going to get started again.
Okay.
Sam.
Sarah.
Rebecca.
Everyone.
Please.
Paul.
Sydney.
I'm just going to start calling everyone by name.
Okay.
All right.
Let's get started.
Thank you so much.
All right.
We've got a few more items left.
So let's.
Let's get going.
We're going to move on to item number 22.
Which is public health vital statistics vital records.
These.
Um.
We don't have a presentation from this.
But I will ask if there are any questions from our council members.
And I will also open the public hearing.
Questions from.
Council members about item number 22.
Okay.
Seeing no questions.
I will ask if there are any public comments.
You say that.
Maybe say the title of the.
Yeah.
Any public comments for the public health vital statistics vital records.
Fees.
Item number 22.
Um.
I'm trying to.
I'm trying to help closely.
I can relate this.
But I just want to say get.
Given the left of those paralysis that's that's come out.
It's just ironic that when.
Uh.
The bathrooms that were.
The bathrooms that were raised in 2017.
And that passed.
Council.
Which have now.
Eight years later.
We have been.
Uh.
Sat aside that we now are in a middle of another.
Epidemic.
Because.
At 2017 the reason that passed.
Council was because the.
Happ.
That had broken out and San Diego.
And it was spreading to Santa Cruz.
And I think that.
We don't have to have.
That widespread of an epidemic again that we have to be fearful of.
Uh.
Before we recognize the importance of.
The community recognizes the importance of.
Have in sanitation.
Because sanitation has now come.
Great.
Come up as the issue with the lecture.
So.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Carol.
Any other comments?
On line commenter.
This is on.
Item 22 public health.
Vital statistics.
Fees.
And the hand went down.
Okay.
No.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing.
So moved.
A source.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Council member.
Can we take the roll.
Please.
Okay.
Close the public hearing.
Council member.
Yes.
I.
Okay.
Yes.
That could be.
Yes.
I'm going to.
Yes.
And Mary.
Yes.
Okay.
Are there any council comments on this item?
Yes.
Go ahead.
Council member.
Director Gilman and the staff at HHCS for preparing this item, no one likes death in taxes,
Let's do.
and people like a fee you pay after death, even less. But we have to make sure these fees
keep up with the cost of providing these vital services. Thankfully, these increases for most
people will equate to just a few dollars over a lifetime, so I don't think we're pricing anyone
out of being born or dying, and I'll support this item. Okay, thank you. Any other comments? All right.
And is there a motion to approve? Some left. That's second. Very good. Can we take your
role, please? Okay. To approve the item, Councilmember Kesterwani. Yes. Tapplin. Yes. Bartlett. Yes. Tragab, aye. Okay. Yes.
Black could be. Yes. Luna Para. Yes. Humvered. Yes. And Mary. Yes. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you very much.
Moving on to item number 23 changes to selected recreation and camps facilities and program fees. I believe
there's also not a presentation for this one, so I will ask if there are any council questions.
Yes. Councilmember Vakabee. Thanks. Madam Mayor and Director Ferses on lines. That right.
Director Ferses. Just a quick question. I think we've seen this in previous
reports. Do you have a sense of not just the before and after of the proposal in Berkeley, but how we
compare kind of our fee levels? And I know we can't do it at the level of every line item, but
kind of any sense of where this puts us relative to neighbor and jurisdictions with kind of our
our fee levels for these programs. Yeah. A lot of those tables are attached to the report,
but generally it puts us either close to the middle or below the average or most other cities.
So it just depends on what program. Okay. But we're not definitely not in the case of kind of pushing
ourselves higher than we're at medium or a little below not significantly above medium, which is
more my concern. Correct. Okay. You know in the case of Berkeley to all me camp, which
sees fees addressed, we are in good shape, but you know it is a, it is a camp that a lot of services
are provided. So the fees are inching up there, but we're still in in good shape compared to other
family camps. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Since there is no there are no more
council questions. I'm going to move to public comment. Are there any public comments on item 23 changes
to select the selected recreation and camps facilities and program fees? Is there anybody online?
One comment or online. This is Alan. Alan, you should be able to unmute.
Thank you. Good evening members of the city council. My name is Alan Eptis. I'm the chairperson
of your Parks Recreation and Waterfront Commission. In November, the Parks Commission received a presentation
on the proposed recreation fees for fiscal year 2027. As you know, the Parks Commission is quite concerned
about the adequacy of Berkeley Parks Funding. Berkeley is currently unable to fund approximately $300
million in capital and major parks maintenance projects. And on top of that, department is facing
a potential 10% budget cut in the coming year. Simply put, Berkeley's parks and programs are
starved for adequate revenue. After receiving staff's presentation on the proposed fees,
the Commission unanimously recommended that staff revisit the proposed fees because in many cases,
Berkeley is charging and proposes to charge less for comparable recreation programs and facility
rentals than jurisdictions that surround it. In many cases, materially less has indicated
in attachment 3 to the site of in your packet. The Commission felt that it makes no sense for Berkeley
to continue under charging for recreational facilities and programs, especially given Berkeley's current
fiscal environment and park funding needs. Accordingly, my fellow commissioners asked that I
appeared at night to request the city council not approve the proposed fees schedule and instead
direct staff to revisit the proposed fees and bring them into better line with the fees surrounded
by surrounding jurisdictions. Every dollar counts, our parks are not in a thriving state. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks, Alan. Any other comments? No other comment to your song lines.
Okay, very good. Thank you so much. I'd like to see if there's a motion to close the public hearing.
It's almost so second. All right, can we take the roll on that please?
Okay, to close the public hearing council member, Kester Wani. Yes.
Half-lin. Yes. Bart-Lid. Yes. Try to go. Hi. Okay.
Yes. Black could be. Yes. Is it in a parah? Yes. Humver. Yes. And merit-easy. Yes. Okay. Public hearing is closed. Thank
you very much. Are there any council comments on this item?
Yes. Council member Okey? Yes. I just want to say briefly, because I have to own a 10-trip in the
past about adventure playground fees. I just want to say this is fine. And also, I remember my kids
have aged out of needing camp now, but I remember the Berkeley Day camp, the affordability of it was
a real life saver. As a teacher, I haven't. I needed to camp that much, but a few times we did.
And you wouldn't, if you don't know, you wouldn't believe how expensive summer camp can be and having that
relatively affordable option of very high quality child care during the summer was amazing. And that said,
this new fee is still very affordable. So I just want to, mostly the opportunity to shout out
Berkeley Day camp, and give some appreciation. And this is fine. Thank you, council member Omber.
Yeah. I just want to thank Director Ferris and Park Staff for all the work on this.
Raising fees is never fun, but given our budget situation, and broader inflation, these cost increases,
are necessary to preserve the facilities and programs that we all value and that are useful to us in
terms of maintaining our sanity. And using our public facilities and programs remains a very good
deal relative to purely private options. I also want to thank Staff for devising the birthday package
options. I thought that was really creative and important. It's a great idea to offer folks this opportunity
and encourage more use of these facilities while maintaining general open public access. Thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Nobacabee. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Very briefly. I just wanted to respond to
the parks chair comments. I appreciate the feedback because I think there's a tricky balance here. We want
these programs to be affordable and accessible for all residents. I think that's the most important
thing these are services that we want people to be able to avail themselves of the same time we know
we're entering a difficult budget climate. I'm certainly open moving forward to how else we need
to strike this balance. I'm going to support the proposal from our parks director and all the work
they've done this. As we go through the coming months and the coming year, we're just going to have to look
not. I'm not saying we're going to look at just these things. We have to look at a lot of things in our
budget in terms of how we are both general revenue and also providing services. I'm open to if we need
to make future adjustments to make sure that we are properly funding these things. I do have real sense
to make sure that it's accessible to everyone in Berkeley and that to me is still the A number one.
Cole, I do appreciate the feedback from the Parks Commission and sensitive to that and it's very good feedback.
So thank you. Thank you. Going to council number tap on online. I think you on that note I'm
wondering whether it would be possible for staff to come back as we answer the budget season with potential
options for a few levels that we can consider.
We can do that. We can incorporate some additional fee information as part of the budget
deliberations when we come back to council through that process.
Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just adding on my comments about the challenges that we are
going to be facing and the importance of looking at all of the different options for increased
fee revenue while also balancing what council member backup you brought up around access. That's very
important. Thank you all so much for your comments there. I know our council really understands the
challenges that we face ahead and the importance of also considering our values as a city.
Did you want to say something? Yeah, I really quickly. Just to follow up on that as well.
And by the way, I love to all of the camp. This will be the second year we're taking our kids. It's amazing
and I will say Scott, you're right. The value for the amenities for what a family pays is. It's a very
attractive option. So as we're working with staff going forward, maybe the other way to think about it. It's
making sure that certainly, if you are at the more modest end of the income spectrum, again,
super affordable, make sure it's completely accessible. There might be some income-based things you
could look at, but we might be able to be creative in terms of I don't want to be assessing big fee
increases on folks to discourage them from using the services. So maybe there's some capacity or ability
to pay that also comes into play. I don't know. I'm reluctant to go into this territory, but I think
we're going to have to at least look at it before it. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. And I know
that the Parks Department is particularly focused on equity and access, and that there are some options
for scholarships for different programs, the Parks and Recreation Department. So I just want to shout
that out to think the department, but also to bring that to folks attention. If anyone's listening,
and you know, is booking first some relief from some fees that we have. Okay, so we have already
voted to close the public hearing. Is there a motion to move this item forward?
A move? Thank you. All right. Can we take the role, please, clerk?
No, okay. To approve the changes to selected recreation and camps facilities and program fees,
council member, kiss or wine? Yes.
Tapplin. Yes. Partly. Yes. Trag of I. Okay. Yes.
Black to be. Yes. Winapara. Yes. Humber. Yes. And Mayor E. She. Yes. Okay, motion carries. Very good. Moving on to item 20. Thank
you, staff. Moving on to item 24, amendments to title 23, zoning to permit by right approval of
qualifying housing projects on sites identified in previous housing elements, and revisions related
to design review. All right. Jordan, where's my fund acronym? I'm just kidding.
Good. We can come up with one on the fly. Okay. I'm going to pass it back to you. Thank you.
Good evening. Again, council members, Jordan Klein. I'm joined at the staff table by Ann Hirsch.
Ladies, planning manager. Ann Burns, senior planner and our designer of you lead and just in
order principal planner for policy and Justin is going to bring up a very quick slide deck.
Thank you. Mary, you. She members of the City Council, Justin Horner, planning department
staff. Tonight I'll present amendments to the zoning ordinance to enact program 32 of the housing
regarding buy right approvals of housing projects and revisions to our design review regulations
for these program 32 projects and for middle housing projects in the MUR zoning district.
The 232331 housing element update includes program 32, which requires the city to amended zoning code
to reflect the requirements of the California government code that allow residential uses by right.
That is with a zoning certificate for developments in which at least 20% of the units are affordable
on sites that have been listed as opportunity sites in previous housing elements.
There are currently 14 such projects or properties that meet the government code requirement,
which are included on the map in the slide and listed in your staff report. In future housing
elements, the list of eligible parcels may change as some sites are developed and others
end up meeting the government code requirements. The second item relates to design review for program 32
projects and for residential projects in the MUR, a middle housing zoning district. As you recall,
the intent of the middle housing changes was to approve new code compliant housing projects
without any discretionary public hearings and without any appeal. BMC section 23.406.070 contains
the city's design review requirements. To summarize for our purposes here, design reviews required
for all projects in all non-residential districts. Therefore, design review applies to projects in the
MUR district, which is a manufacturing or non-residential district, as well as any projects on sites
identified through program 32, which are all in commercial that is non-residential districts.
Projects that do not require a use permit, such as program 32 and middle housing projects,
receive staff level design review. However, staff level
As being able to use DR to appeal a project to the city council is inconsistent with the intent of ministerial approvals to avoid appeals, the proposed ordinance includes an abbreviated designer view process recommended by the Planning Commission for MUR and Project 32 projects.
These include staff level design review, one advisory visit to the design review committee for design related input only and a new provision that would exempt projects covered by this process from appeal to the ZAB or the city council.
That's the end of my presentation. Please hold a public hearing and we're available for any questions.
Thank you very much. I'm going to pass it forward to. Are you ready?
I'll ask a question.
You don't want to present your supplemental.
So, Madam Mayor, I don't have a supplemental. I have two short amendments that I want to make to the ordinance.
But before I do that, so this is the public hearing. So I can ask a question.
Director Klein, can you just briefly explain what was your recommendation to the Planning Commission or or Mr. Horner, you know, whoever wants to take it.
What was your recommendation to the Planning Commission as it relates to middle housing projects in the mixed use residential zone and can you explain why you made that recommendation.
Our initial recommendation for both program 32 and for MUR projects middle housing projects in the MUR was to exempt them from design review.
This was in our view consistent with the city council's intent to allow code compliance projects to be approved ministerially and not be subject to any discretionary hearing or any appeal.
And we in the process of implementing middle housing zoning changes came across this particular provision that would create an appeal pathway from middle housing projects.
We thought that we should remove that provision.
And Mr. Horner, can you just clarify why does the mixed use residential zone, why does it historically.
Have this requirement for design review, where is the the residential zones do not.
Design review is is required in any non residential zone, so any commercial zone and any manufacturing zone requires design review for any project and so the NUR although it permits residential is classified as a manufacturing zone.
Okay, thank you very much. I think we should close the public hearing and then I can discuss my proposed amendments. Thank you. Sure, that's my other questions.
I no longer see council member Tapplin, but I think if his hand is raised to pop up so I will then move us on to see if there are any public comments on this item.
So public comments on item 24, which is amendments to title 23 zoning to promote by right approval of qualifying housing projects on sites identified in previous having elements and revisions related to the design review.
Is there anyone online who has public comments on this item?
We have three three hands raised first speaker is Cleo.
Cleo, you should be able to unmute.
Hi, I have a small observation here. I noticed that there's a property one zero full met four nine one zero four nine Gilman Street.
That is in the list of properties.
That's the location of the Dollar Tree and so I think the observation I'd like to make is that it's amazing that you know we're having by right authorizations to build housing that are going to contain lots of affordable housing, but we might also want to consider.
That we want to keep things like the Dollar Tree because this is my neighborhood and it is the only affordable store in the entire neighborhood and I know that I have neighbors who have been in the area for a very long time and who are on the.
I'll say lower end of the income spectrum and for whom that store is invaluable.
So this is great, but while you're doing it, don't forget to like keep the actual affordable stores that you know people who would benefit from the lower income units might actually want to use.
Thank you.
Next is Kelly Hammergren.
Can you hear me okay without a knuckle? Yes. Okay.
So I really pushed for this design review when I heard it at the Planning Commission because.
I've been attending the Planning Commission for 10 years now. I've missed very, very few meetings.
Design review has changed considerably in those 10 years from what it used to be very picky and many, many meetings and now with SB.
In the past 30 years we only have like one one meeting at the beginning and then kind of a final on colors and products and things.
I always thought that it was for the mixed use projects because projects in residential areas that are.
The big apartment buildings do come to design review and design review really contributes a lot in terms of that of the building of just seeing so many projects over so many years to improve to improve the project making improvement.
There are some things that the architects as you know as good as they are will miss.
And the design review makes significant contributions and so that one.
Stop it design review is really not going to slow things down.
And there's a great benefit to improving the project because once it's built, you can't change, you really can't change it but the design review committee can catch problems that have been.
That shall we say not considered or missed.
In the development and the design of the of the building and it's just is just so important they contribute so much and I thank you Kelly.
Thanks for your comments.
And the last speaker is Brianna Morales.
Hi, good evening again my name is Brianna Morales with the housing action coalition.
We're a member supported advocacy organization working across California to advance housing at all income levels and we see this as really about follow through.
These sites were identified by the city as appropriate places for housing and so by allowing qualifying projects on these sites to move forward by right the city is honoring commitments that made.
And it's housing element and bringing local rules into alignment with state law.
We see this as a balanced approach.
It prevents housing especially more affordable middle housing to from getting stuck in layers of process that cost and uncertainty and delays without improving outcomes.
And I think importantly for builders and communities like predictability is incredibly important.
When housing can move forward more efficiently we get home sooner and lower overall costs and a better chance that projects serve lower income households actually pencil out.
It benefits not just future residents but the broader community like local businesses, schools and neighborhoods that depend on people being able to live nearby.
It's a practical people focused set forward towards a more functional housing system.
And so yeah the housing action coalition strongly supports this ordinance and encourages it to move forward.
So thank you for your time and continued leadership on housing.
Thank you.
Okay that's that's it.
Okay very good I will go back to actually I'm going to see if anyone has a if there's a motion to close public hearing.
So moved.
Can we take the role in that please clerk.
Okay the close public hearing customer because they're wanting.
Yes.
Very good.
Hi.
Okay.
Yes.
Glad to be.
Yes.
I'm going to parah.
Yes.
And may or easy.
Yes.
Okay.
Going to council comments starting with council member Kesarwani.
Thank you very much Madam Mayor.
I hope we can wrap this up relatively quickly.
I want to thank our planning director and Mr. Horner for your very brief presentation.
And so I just want to recap the the planning department recommended that the planning commission.
Eliminate the design review requirement for middle housing projects in the mixed use residential zone.
To better align with the council direction in the middle housing ordinance, which we you know we passed unanimously back in.
I think it was June July.
So so and what we said in the middle housing ordinance remember is we want to treat all residential zones except for the hillside overlay zone equally.
They are going to get the same density per acre dwelling units per acre.
They are all going to have the opportunity to go through a buy right streamlined approval process.
So I I have great respect for our planning commission.
I it is my view that their recommendation to have the small slice of middle housing projects that are five or more units in the mixed use residential zone.
To have a requirement to have one non binding design review meeting.
I think that is going in the wrong direction.
And the reason why is all other middle housing projects are going to be able to go straight to that permit counter.
With their plans and they don't have to go to design review and I think we heard in public comment that there's no delay there is a delay the design review.
I think we need to do that and I'm also thinking about the potentially new developers.
People with color people who are new who are trying to get into this development industry I think we should be lowering barriers and making it easier.
barriers and making it easier to enter this market.
And so I have a brief amendment that just reverts back
to what the staff proposed that we're not going
to require a design review for middle housing projects
of five units or more in the mixed use residential zone.
On the housing element opportunity sites,
it's interesting that staff was there also
saying no design review when I looked at it today.
So other sites in commercial zones do go to design review.
It's typically one non-binding meeting.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
What I'm trying to do with these amendments is like,
let's just treat like projects the same.
So all middle housing projects in the city of Berkeley
will be treated the same, no design review.
All of these sites in commercial zones will
be treated essentially the same.
They will go to design review.
Those are going to be bigger projects.
They may have greater benefit from the design
review experience.
So with that, I'm going to share screen on Zoom
and introduce someone else's sharing.
Let's see.
Share.
OK.
Share.
Let's see if I can get the amendments up.
Those are visible.
OK.
So the first amendment here is in this B1A.
We are just saying except for residential uses
in the MUR zoning district.
Oh, oh, even bigger apologies.
This big as I can go.
Still have it be visible.
OK.
So that's the first edit.
And then these edits below these are the amendments
that came out of planning commission.
So what we're doing is we're leading
the housing element opportunity site portion,
but we're just striking the piece about MUR
and for projects, including five or more units.
This again is just to treat all middle housing projects
of any unit number in any zone, the same.
And you know, on a personal note,
as somebody who represents this mixed use residential zone
on a far west side of the city, formerly red lined area,
it just rubbed me the wrong way
that we would treat this part of town for projects
that are trying to do a lot of density, five or more.
They're going to put them through the ringer.
I don't think we should be doing that.
So these are the amendments.
So I'd like to pass a motion to make a motion
to pass this ordinance with the amendments
shown on the screen.
That's a good.
Thank you.
Any other council comments?
Oh.
Yes.
Councilmember Tracab.
Thank you so much.
I just wanted to conform with Councilmember Kessavani.
And I appreciate your suggestions to clarify this
with only exempt MUR.
A little housing type proposal, but it would not alter
anything under, like the proposed, let me see if I can pull it up.
And so I'm specifically looking at, for example, the 14 sites on their program 323 of which are in my district.
So, yes, we're going to go with the Planning Commission recommendation for that, which is those housing element opportunity sites, including the three in your district, they will have the non-viting design review meeting and opportunity to improve the design of the project.
With this middle housing in the mixed use residential zone, the way I think about it is we're just treating those projects the same as the projects in the are zone.
So, where I live in R2, there is no designer view requirement. If I want to transform my parcel into a 5 plus unit middle housing, middle income development.
So, we're just saying if you go far west to mix use residential unit, you'd have the same treatment with this amendment.
Thank you. You're welcome.
Okay, thank you, council member O'Keefe.
Yeah, I just want to say I'm supporting, I'll support council member because I want these motion and I just, I really need to say.
I think what's my hottest take has always been that designer view is a waste of time, and I think we should get rid of it as much as possible.
Architecture is an art form, and I don't think art benefits from a committee.
So, that's my hot take. So, yes, I like this more of this, please.
Thank you, vice-marlin O'Pire.
I support the motion as well.
Okay, any other comments?
Yes, sorry, I forgot we were in comments.
But I, I will support this item, although, and this is where my colleague and I have maybe a slide.
I'll be respectful, disagreement having served on the design of a view committee.
I think committee members do good work, and I know that was not actually your comment.
I think the committee is very efficient.
I think it reviews project.
Most design review projects don't come back for a second design review meeting.
That said, it does make sense from a consistency and equity standpoint to make the further alteration to this proposal suggested by council member Kesarani.
So, I'll be supporting the motion.
All right, thank you very much.
And then we have a motion on the floor.
Do we have a motion on the floor?
Yes, we do. Sorry, I can't remember the second.
All right.
I am also going to be supporting the motion.
So, if we can take the roll please, clerk.
Okay. On the motion by council member Kesarani.
Council member Kesarani.
Yes.
Happen.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Craig.
Hi.
Okay.
Yes.
Boonapara.
Yes.
And Mary.
Yes.
Okay, motion here.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, staff.
Thanks for being here.
To the late hour of 9.56 pm.
Kesarani, we email that.
Thank you.
Okay.
So, now, public comment on items not listed on the agenda.
Thank you.
First, I want to say those thrown bathrooms.
They just open up.
They just open up after 10 minutes.
So, ready or not, you're exposed.
And last night, we were saying Pablo, I have no one.
And I noticed the older man in a wheelchair outside the Everton Jones.
This is about 9 o'clock at night.
He didn't.
He wasn't properly clothed for the weather.
I could share my scarf and I had an a jacket with him.
But he was clearly cognitively impaired.
I salated out there by himself.
So, I engaged with him.
He didn't know how he got there.
He didn't even know he was in Berkeley.
And after it took almost, I was with him for almost an hour.
Probably over an hour after 10 o'clock.
And, you know, the was no mobile crisis.
But I have to say the officer that responded.
The Berkeley Police Department was officer Edwin Jakala.
And he was incredibly empathetic.
The way he communicated with the man.
It was just, it was very, very sensitive to him.
Very kind, making him comfortable.
And it was just really good to see an officer that was trained and skilled in this way.
That was aware.
And he once taken away in an ambulance.
But to see that situation that it could have gotten so much worse.
Because the man, I was only out to his wheelchair he kept trying to wheel away.
Because his convinced he was going to make himself warmer if he wheeled miles away.
But it was that officer really deserves to be thanked for that.
Officer Edwin Jakala.
Thank you.
We can.
ACA.
Thank you.
Thanks.
We can have our city manager pass it on to,
thank you.
Thank you.
Other.
Public comment.
I'm not.
I'm still in the agenda.
Anyone online?
Yeah.
We have four hands online.
First is a caller note.
Phone number ending in 211.
Well, we talked to you.
We talked to you tonight.
I just talked to remind you.
Our great company contributed more.
Over 1.2 million dollars to the city of Berkeley Finance.
In business license, what business license?
What business license?
To be 60, 70,000 dollars a year.
As well as self-stacks, which is a city to get 1%.
So let's go forward.
We're not only losing.
Why in business?
But our customer losing.
And many of them are crashing you.
Or the fact that he did nothing.
When he had seven places vacant.
And eventually he rented for one buck.
When we talked to this woman.
We thought we'll pay anything she wants.
We'll never give in chance.
This fix, but was done wrong.
And go forward.
Again, we are dealing with horrible time.
With this morning.
Turned the White House.
We need all of our strengths.
Build the city of Berkeley as it was before.
Have a good night.
Thank you.
And we have Alfred Toul.
Hi, everyone.
I want to invite everyone to the Friday kick-offs of Connects Bay Area.
The ballot measure initiative to respond and save transit in the Bay Area.
I want to give a big thanks to everyone who's already endorsed the measure.
Encourage everyone else to you as well.
At Connects Bay Area.org.
And there will be a kick-offs at 10 o'clock on Friday at the Envacadero Plaza.
Another one at 1215 at the Alameda County Administration Building in Oakland.
Hope to see you there.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alfred.
And then we have Daniel Brownson.
Hello.
So recently Santa Cruz became.
I believe the first city to terminate their contract with Block Safety.
Berkeley should have followed suit.
We know that the owners of this company, the people who run it are deep in with ties to the Trump Administration.
We know that despite prohibitions on them doing so before they have shared information with ice.
We know that ice is coming to the Bay Area.
Manyapolis will not be the end.
These cameras as long as they are up are weapons pointed at the very heart of our community.
It's time to take them down.
People will say, oh, what about public safety?
But at the current moment, there's no greater threat to the public safety of our community than the rising fascism that is now very much here as we can see in Minneapolis.
And those cameras will be used to track those who try to stand up against the fascist incursion when it comes to Berkeley.
Which it will?
Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel.
We have Janice Ching.
Thank you for taking my comment.
I just have to say on that last item that you discussed.
I don't understand why council members can propose supplemental.
After the public comment is closed, I appreciate Mayor Ishi that you offered the council member to present the supplemental.
But, you know, maybe I missed it.
I read the packet.
I listened to the staff report.
I understood the item and then a supplemental is brought forward.
And I was in table then to comment about the new proposal and it passes.
Yeah, Janice.
I'm sorry, but this is actually public comment for items not list on the agenda since the item that you're referring to was on the agenda already.
I understand you're your comment.
I'm not commenting on the item and commenting on the process.
The council members are allowed to bring supplemental that completely changed the staff recommendation after public comment is made and closed.
So I just want to voice my opposition to that.
If it's, you know, if we're if we're at the meeting to comment on an item, we should hear all of what is going to be proposed, especially when it's already faded that there is a supplemental.
It would have been good to hear it.
Thank you for your comment.
I appreciate, I appreciate where you're saying I do just want to say that, you know, that there can be changes that are made on the diets that are completely different from what are in the agenda packet just generally.
And I understand that can be frustrating and the purpose of, you know, closing the public hearing is,
and is really so that we can actually take a vote on what we're talking about.
So I understand it's it's frustrating and appreciate your comment.
Are there other comments online?
Yes, two more, Kelly Hammergren.
I know surveillance is coming up at next meeting and it's very concerning.
My family is in the greater Twin Cities area, Minneapolis Saint Paul, Minnesota.
And whatever you've seen on television or may have heard or have seen on videos, it's worse.
It's worse than that for the people that are there.
It is terrifying.
It's terrible.
People are being sheltered.
It's just really awful.
And at some point they'll probably be here.
And I think you all need to be thinking about the future.
We're no longer living in the same kind of world, the same kind of democracy that we thought we had.
Even though democracy wasn't the same for everyone.
But this is this is very very bad.
So I'll leave you with that thought for the night.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kelly.
Jeff Lomax.
Yeah, Kelly's always a tough act to follow and that was a great comment.
Thanks for that.
But I do want to return to the previous comment.
I'm actually supported member Keshewani's amendment.
But I do agree that you're basically icing out.
You can substantially change an item and then you're icing the public out of any participation in that change.
And you all have the discretion to reinvite.
So nothing else to change.
But I think once you make a substantial change to.
And item you should give the public who are spending their time in their intellect to be part of this process.
The opportunity to respond once that change is made.
So I just want to concur with the prior comment.
And again, thank Kelly.
I agree completely.
Have a good evening.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Okay.
With that, I will see if there's a will entertain a motion to adjourn.
Second.
Could you take your roll please, Clark?
To adjourn.
Council member Keshewani.
Yes.
Tablin.
Yes.
Fortlit.
Yes.
Trado.
I.
Yes.
Comber.
Yes.