[SIDE CONVERSATION]
Thanks for dinner.
That's what I wrote.
Well, just say, I'm fluent in Danish,
and I'm going to be responding.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know many Danes.
[LAUGHS]
You do now.
Yeah.
That's right.
All the Mexicans call me vikingo, which means Viking.
Viking, yeah.
Yeah, I guess.
I'll have to get up to speed on my Danish slang.
Yeah.
Your Danish slang.
My Danish slang.
So, everybody, the pizza is there
if you'd like to grab a piece.
Or why don't we get started, then one by one,
we can go get it?
It's just for a few minutes, I guess.
Oh, I saw the pictures on this.
Yeah.
Is it that big a deal, though?
Oops, I'm on--
We're going to start getting ready.
Recording in progress.
Good evening.
Welcome to the regular session of the Martinez City Council.
I'd like to officially call this meeting to order.
It is Wednesday, August 5, and it is 5:35 PM.
City Clerk, please call the roll.
Council Member Jay Howard.
Present.
Council Member Greg Young.
Present.
Council Member Debbie McKillop.
Present.
Vice Mayor Satinder Malhi.
Present.
Mayor Brianne Zorn.
Present.
Great.
Thank you so much.
All right, we only have one item on the agenda this evening.
If it's OK with everyone, I will hold public comment
until after we have the presentation from staff,
and then we'll give the public an opportunity
to comment on the presentation that we received.
So with that, we'll go right into our study session.
Conduct a study session to discuss potential updates
to the city's development impact fees
and provide direction to staff.
Mike, would you like to--
Michael, would you like to kick off this meeting for us, please?
Great.
Good evening, Mayor and members of the city council.
As you indicated, Mayor, before you this evening
is a study session on potential updates to our development
impact fees.
I would like to make sure that it's pointed out
that this has been an interdepartmental effort that
includes representatives from the City Manager's Office,
Community and Economic Development Department,
Public Works Department, Finance Department,
as well as our esteemed consultant team.
I would like to turn over the presentation this evening
to Megan Gregory, who's with Economic and Planning
Systems, who's been our support on bringing this item before you
this evening.
So thank you very much.
Good afternoon.
As Mike mentioned, my name is Megan Gregory
from economic and planning systems.
I'm also joined this evening by my colleague, Typhian Rice
Evans.
And we have conducted a development impact fee
update and technical analysis.
Let me-- there we go.
A brief overview for our presentation this evening,
we will provide some context for the nexus study,
describe the approach we used when calculating and completing
the technical analysis.
We'll go over the results of that analysis
and then present those results in the context
of some nearby jurisdictions so you have a point of comparison
for where these proposed fee levels might
fall with your neighboring jurisdictions.
And then we'll discuss next steps, questions,
and potential policy directions.
A nexus study update allows the city
to refresh the list of capital improvements, the projects that
are covered by these fees.
You can also update the project costs
based on new information, revised project descriptions,
as well as conforming to recent legislation, such as AB 602.
Additionally, we can reflect updated growth forecasts
from recent plans, such as--
I believe the housing element was
one of the primary sources used in this analysis.
An intro to development impact fee fundamentals.
Development impact fee is a one-time fee on new development.
It can fund infrastructure and capital facilities,
capital improvements as well, and only funds
the proportional share of capital improvements
required to serve and accommodate new development.
It cannot fund existing deficiencies or operations
and maintenance that are ongoing within the city.
We established these fees based on a nexus study and a capital
improvement program.
This identifies the link between new development
and these capital improvement needs, the proportionality
of the costs that are allocated to go into the fee program,
as well as what we plan on using the fee revenues for.
Here is a list of the existing fee categories that the city has
and is charging for development impact fees,
as well as the proposed fee categories in the update.
These are largely similar, with some minor changes,
like expanding cultural facilities to include
public art, and some larger changes, which
include removing the child care fee because the city has
no plans to add additional child care facilities,
as well as adding a marina waterfront infrastructure fee
category as part of implementation of the Trust Land
Use Plan.
Here is a list of the costs that were sourced from adopted plans,
such as the five-year CIP and that Trust Land Use
Plan that we are allocating to growth
and including in the fee program for each of the improvement
categories.
And using these costs, we can then
allocate it to both residential and commercial development,
resulting in these levels.
These fee levels can be adopted at a lower level.
However, we're presenting the full cost recovery level here,
which includes all of the costs that are allocated
to growth in the fee program.
Fees cannot be adopted at higher than these levels,
excluding annual adjustments for inflation.
AB 602, which I mentioned earlier,
requires that jurisdictions charge residential development
impact fees on a per-square-foot basis
to account for the relative impacts
that different-sized units may have.
Therefore, we do convert both single-family
and multifamily residential fees from a per-unit fee
to a fee per square foot.
This conversion is using recent development examples
from the city to get an average unit size.
In addition to calculating the fee levels,
we also collected information on development impact fees
in the three nearby jurisdictions, Hercules,
Benicia, and Concord.
The fee comparison considers development impact fees,
such as parks, art, capital facilities.
It doesn't include permitting fees or utility connection fees,
as those tend to vary a little bit more
and aren't covered as part of the larger Mitigation Fee
Act that development impact fees are covered by.
EPS Quantified fees for typical single-family homes,
multifamily, and office projects.
Due to the variety of fee types, we summarized some fees into--
cultural facilities, public art, and public facilities
were summed up into a civic facilities category.
And then police and fire fees were summed up
into a public safety category.
So here, we are showing the single-family fee comparison
on a per-unit basis.
We include the existing fee levels that Martinez currently
has, as well as the calculated full cost recovery
fees in comparison to these other jurisdictions.
And are the other jurisdictions--
are those numbers based on full cost recovery?
I don't know exactly where policy decisions might have
been made in the fee levels.
They're publicly charged fees.
OK, thank you.
But just to clarify, the numbers on the far right
under Benicia, Hercules, and Concord,
is that existing or full cost?
That's what I just said, I think.
Yeah, their existing fees is what a project would be charged.
I think we can safely make the assumption that they're not
full costs because likely they're not--
haven't been updated for some period of time
for each of the jurisdictions.
And just to clarify, the staff report
does say that the point is that the nexus
study is supposed to tell us what the maximum would be.
And then we have the authority to make that choice.
So we can assume that the other councils probably also
didn't do full cost recovery.
Since we're pausing, I do have one question, though.
I guess Concord is the best example.
It only has two fees here.
Are there other fees that don't align with ours,
or do they only have the two fees?
These are the only two development impact fees
that we identified Concord as having.
They may charge permitting fees or other fees that
aren't considered development impact fees that
aren't included in this comparison for any
of the jurisdictions.
So Martinez currently is falling in the range
for single-family fees.
And I can actually move to the next slide.
This provides a good graphic representation
of the comparison of where Martinez is currently falling
and where it would fall if the full cost recovery
fees were adopted.
Let me see.
And here is a similar table for the multifamily fee comparison,
which generally multifamily fees are
less on a per-unit basis than single family
but have a similar distribution to single family
in terms of the fee categories.
So once again, here is a similar place
where Martinez falls currently and where
they would fall within the range of the jurisdictions.
Finally, for office fees, we see Martinez
falling in a similar place.
What's most different, possibly, for office fees is
that Benicia and Concord only charge a transportation impact
fee on their office development, whereas Martinez and Hercules
charge additional impact fees on office.
The fee levels are relatively similar, if not less,
in Martinez and Benicia compared to Hercules and Concord.
It's just how those facility improvements are allocated
within that overall fee amount.
Then to wrap things up, we have some questions for council
that the city staff and ourselves have put together,
looking at how the city should potentially benchmark
those impact fees, how changes and updates to those fees
might be phased, as well as support
on some of the changes proposed within this fee update.
Megan, please proceed with the presentation,
and we'll circle back to this.
Yeah, so that wraps up our presentation.
And so we'll go to the city for questions.
Is this questions now?
OK.
Can you go back to the Questions page?
Would you mind speaking to the last three bullets?
I don't feel like those last three
bullets were talked about in your presentation at all.
Can you clarify them, why you're asking us about it
and what your recommendation is?
Or is that a staff question?
It could be.
It might be a staff question in terms of those--
So I can speak a little bit to the last few fees.
So if you don't mind, I can just quickly
go through each of the questions.
That might actually be easier.
Yeah, that's even better.
Thank you.
So the first question is, what should the city
use as a benchmark for our impact fees?
Should we be in the top, middle, or lower end
compared to our peer jurisdictions?
For context related to that question, so as you know,
there's only so much housing that is reasonably going
to get built by market demand.
And typically, when individuals are developing homes or office
construction, they're oftentimes looking from a profitability
standpoint.
And so usually, developers will look in a given region and what
profit they stand to make in Martinez
compared to some of our surrounding jurisdictions.
So from a incentivization standpoint,
the city could choose to say we're lower than X or Y
jurisdiction, so we have the ability
to market that we're incentivizing development
above and beyond our neighbors.
For the next question, this will largely
depend upon the first question, but it's,
how should development impact fee updates be phased?
Should they be 75% the first year
and 25% the subsequent year, like what
we've done with our other user fee schedule updates?
Or should that happen all at once?
This is really going to be dependent upon the direction
we're provided as the first item.
If we keep our fees similar to where they're
at or lower our fees, that would not be an applicable question.
If we do increase our fees or certain fees,
we have the ability that we could increase that
all at once or at a later time.
For the third bullet on whether or not
the city council supports eliminating childcare fees,
Megan alluded to this as part of the presentation.
The city has no plans in place for adding childcare facilities
that the city would be managing or maintaining.
So the question is, do we want to eliminate that fee,
at least for the time being, until such time we
would have plans to potentially use that in the future?
For the fourth bullet, it's a question on whether or not
the city council supports expanding
the cultural facilities fee to include public art.
And for a little bit of context for that,
I worked with the interim finance director,
and we pulled information on what our current fee
balances are.
And for our cultural facilities fee,
we have about $750,000 that are available.
And so this would provide an opportunity
where there's a little bit more flexibility
with other types of projects for how those funds could be used.
And then the final bullet point, which is probably
one of the more meaty discussion points
where we're seeking direction from the city council,
is if the city council supports reducing or waiving development
impact fees for ADUs over 750 square feet
for deed-restricted affordable units or other categories?
And to what extent do you support reducing or waiving
fees?
This is really where staff and the consultant team
are seeking direction for what types of projects
you want to specifically target to have built in Martinez.
For a little bit of additional context for that,
as part of state legislation, ADUs
that are less than 750 square feet
already do not pay development impact fees.
So this would be, do you want to extend
that for slightly larger ADUs?
Additionally, the conversation about,
do we want to do something to incentivize
deed-restricted affordable units?
As the council is inevitably aware,
affordable units oftentimes are associated
with a mixed-income project, where the market rate
project-- excuse me, the market rate units
are subsidizing the affordable units.
And this could be a way to reduce
what that subsidization potentially is,
as well as a way to potentially help
the city reach our regional housing needs allocation.
Or alternatively, if there's other categories, it may be,
again, at the council's discretion.
And then finally, giving us a little bit of direction
on to what extent we want to reduce or waive fees
so that we can prepare information
to incorporate that as part of the user fee schedule update.
The last thing I'd like to add, and it's not a bullet point,
if there's any additional comments or direction that
relate to these general questions,
this would be a good time, at the end of the discussion,
for the council to provide direction to staff
and the consultants as well.
And Megan and I are available for any additional questions
that you may have.
Thank you for walking through each one of those questions.
I wanted to ask a quick question,
and then I'm going to let the other council ask
their questions, and then we'll circle back.
So the cultural facilities fee, I
know this has been something that's come up in my meetings
with the city manager before.
There is a specific list of things
that qualify for the cultural facilities fee.
Has that in the past been defined by the city of Martinez,
or is it defined by the state?
How much flexibility do we actually have with that?
It was included as part of the previous nexus
study for what types of projects could be included.
I think it's important to note the intention of what's
going to transpire is after we get direction tonight,
we'll come back at a future meeting with a public hearing.
As part of that public hearing, there
will be adoption of the nexus study,
there will be approval of what the development impact
fees will be, and there will be some code amendments.
And so there will be some ability
to provide clarification for what types
of projects, both in the nexus study as well
as part of the code.
And if I could jump in as well on that point,
there will be a distinction drawn between the monies that
were collected under the prior nexus study and monies
to be collected after if and when
the council adopts a new nexus study.
If we expand it to have a broader
focus on public art and cultural facilities,
that broader expansion to public art
would apply to new monies collected under the new nexus
study.
The existing funds collected would
be bound by the prior nexus study
within the bounds of what was previously in that prior nexus
study.
And can you please remind me what's
included in cultural facilities, our library, senior center?
Library, senior center.
And the train depot.
So just those three facilities?
OK.
Yeah, and even in the CIP that you recently adopted,
monies have been spent on the old train depot recently.
And funds were put into the senior center.
And we could always revisit that with additional funding.
But we did put--
I think it's $250,000 was moved into the senior center
to replace what had been general fund money before.
And we had talked about using cultural facilities
money for a potential stage.
So we're not 100%, or am I talking about the wrong thing?
No, there was for waterfront stage.
And so there's some context within the past nexus study that
would have allowed for that, but obviously,
because of the waterfront plan development,
we are able to free up that money for other uses.
And it's been the old train depot and the senior center
so far.
OK, thank you.
I just want to make sure that we provide you the guidance that
gets us to where we want to go.
And I'm excited about the potential for--
I think it's because of the amphitheater.
That's why.
Amphitheater was listed as--
Oh, it was one of the facilities.
--or whatever in the old nexus study.
So that's why the stage would have qualified.
Great.
And, Debbie, did you have questions?
You can kick us off.
In the current attachment under cultural facilities
and public art, is that the proposed?
Because there's nine different projects
listed under cultural facilities and public art.
Will you clarify?
I'm sorry.
What are you looking at?
The attachment that actually states what
these monies can be used for.
Attachment B?
Yeah.
So yes.
So as Megan indicated, as part of the presentation,
we took existing plans that were in place and capital
improvements that are envisioned as part of those existing
adopted plans and, from that, compiled
the list that's included in the attachment, which
will be used as part of the nexus study
for the calculation of what the maximum fees could be.
Thank you for calling that out because there are
additional ones that called in.
So this would be part of the nexus study.
So it would give us even more projects to work on.
OK, thank you.
Oh, but that is a good point now that I'm looking at this.
So there isn't a line item under cultural facilities
and public art for just general public art, though.
Do we need to add that if we--
So what we would ask is if you give the direction to expand
the scope of that fee, staff and the consultant
will work to make sure the nexus study is designed
to allow that to occur.
Sorry, I didn't have my microphone on.
Just in general about the fees, so you
had asked about-- hang on.
Let me go back.
So we're just taking the first question, the first question
about benchmarking.
Let me go back to that because I just took that off my screen.
Hold on.
Looking at the benchmarks that you've provided,
they seem very, very different and very broad.
So, for instance, I wouldn't want
to adopt one particular city, like Benicia or Hercules
or Concord, because those allocations seem way off
from what we're proposing.
So I'm not exactly sure.
When you say benchmarking, in what capacity?
I think the goal of that question is--
the intention is not, at today's meeting,
to say, we want to charge X number for projects,
because I think if we do that, we'll get five
different directions on that.
I think the goal is, generally, where
do you want the city to align?
And then part of the discussion about some of the other items,
there may be direction that's provided that there's
more of a priority for emphasizing one of the fees
that we have over others, reducing some, keeping
some the same, based on those priorities of the council.
OK, great.
So with that said, I just want to call out public safety.
In comparison to other cities, it seems still somewhat low.
And I know there's only two projects right now
for public safety.
It's an enhancement of the police department
and I think vehicles.
And say, in comparison to something else which was quite
high, parks and recreation, which is over $9,000,
and the parkland dedication, which is $6,000,
it just seems like we should take a look at the public safety
component and see if that seems reasonable to the council
and if there's any other projects that we want to look
at to support public safety.
If that's the direction, staff can
work with the chief of police to identify
if there's any additional plans beyond what's
been identified that may or may not have been codified yet.
What I would like to make a minor clarification,
there's actually three projects that
are included for public safety.
The third is securing parking as well.
OK, thank you.
Thanks So one of the questions I have
in looking at some of the projects,
under the parkland dedication, I know
there was a category called acquisition, land acquisition.
We've done a lot of that already,
so I wasn't sure which acquisition
we wanted to-- what other parks we want to acquire.
We've acquired Alhambra Highlands
and have a new park in Martinez as well.
And then enhancing the dog park was on there.
And I know that there was some concern about the dog park,
whether or not that was a legit location.
And then the last one was the waterfront stage.
And I didn't realize we were investing
any money in the amphitheater, or is this something different?
You guys are looking at me like, what?
The waterfront stage I was talking about
was part of the original discussion in the Trust Land Use
Plan to have a stage, and it predated the waterfront project.
Yeah.
OK.
OK, got that.
OK.
So I was just going through all the different projects
under the different categories and looking at them
to determine, is there any place where
there's any more room for public safety allocations?
I just called that one.
There's others just in looking at some of these things.
Can I clarify your question?
Are you asking to make the public safety fee higher or just
list more projects that would qualify for those fees?
So at this time, I would like to make sure
that we are fully evaluating all the needs of public safety
because to me, public safety is really
number one in our community.
We just celebrated National Night Out last night.
And we celebrated all of our first responders
and the amazing job that they do.
And I know that it's a very challenging job,
and there's always a lot of resources that they need.
So I would want to make sure that this
is an opportunity for Chief White
to vocalize anything that he feels he may need to improve
our police department.
And this would be a time where we can maybe add a project
or do something that maybe we aren't aware of
and then maybe make some fees somewhat higher in that area
to accommodate some of the projects
that public safety may be needing or facing.
That's just what I'm just shouting out
because I think that we should just
take a deep look at public safety
when we have an opportunity to do so.
So I actually was looking to get some clarification
on one of the other questions that you referenced,
if that's OK, on the childcare.
Can I ask about that?
OK.
So, Michael, do I understand correctly that--
so we currently have an allocation for childcare fees.
But if I understood you correctly,
we don't actually run any childcare facilities.
So it closed two years ago.
So the question is, how much money have we collected?
And what is its status?
It's pretty minimal.
We have about $8,000 that is available in that fund.
And so that would be something that we
would need to go through the process--
if the fee is eliminated, we would
go through the process of refunding
that balance and start collecting going forward.
OK.
We couldn't reallocate it to another bucket, if you will?
No.
No?
All right.
So along those similar lines, just
for my personal edification, when we bring on a new housing
project, for instance, permitted, built out,
what have you, what, if any, recourse is there
for impacts on our schools?
Is there anything in any of this that we
collect that helps them offset some of the impacts
that they incur?
So there are school fees that the individual school districts
collect on construction as well.
We don't have authority over that,
which is why that's not included as part of this nexus study.
Oh, OK.
Got it.
But there is something that does get collected.
OK, well, that's somewhat reassuring.
What I would also add to that is by having more units constructed
and having more residents, we in turn
are increasing property values and property taxes
and having more people with sales tax purposes,
which in turn has other intrinsic benefits
for the school district as well.
OK, got it.
Yes.
OK, thank you for that clarification.
That is helpful.
So just jumping back then to the first question,
I think I agree with Council Member McKillop
as far as a need to thoroughly evaluate where the need is
and if there is an opportunity to further support PD.
We understand that we're certainly not where
we want to be with our staffing and what have you,
but if there's other things that we
can do to help support their mission,
I think that's worthy of additional discussion.
With respect to the question, though, my general sense
is that we, collectively, all of us,
have been working in earnest to overhaul our zoning
over the past many months.
We still have some more work to do, as you well know.
But essentially, from my vantage point,
I'm looking at this as part of a broader toolbox.
What can we do to encourage more investment development
in the community?
And there's a lot, like you said.
You referenced, I believe, market forces
in the presentation.
We have very little control over those market forces.
So the parts that we do have control over,
such as what we're looking at here as far as impact fees,
I would want to try and make it so that it
continues to be an incentive to bring
in that additional investment.
So I think in that low to middle tier, I think,
is most appropriate right now from where
I'm sitting because I'm looking at it not in isolation.
I'm looking at it as part of a broader initiative.
What other pieces have we been working on?
So when you take the zoning, for instance,
that's going to take time to bear fruit because we've been
doing that here along the way.
That was a huge overhaul after how many decades?
I mean, some of the codes--
correct me if I'm wrong--
they were really outdated.
And that was one of the things that-- at least some
of the feedback that I have received from folks
is Martinez has not historically been a place where
people want to come and invest.
Some of it is because of market forces, but then some of it
is also because of policies that past city administrations
have adopted.
And so now, given where we are at this critical junction,
I think we need to tread cautiously.
And if I'm looking at comparison cities,
I'm looking at it as not Benicia, Hercules.
They're a little bit more similar in population.
Then Concord's just a whole beast unto itself.
I don't think there's an accurate way for us
to benchmark against personally.
So those are just some general thoughts that I have
as it pertains to that first question.
I hope that's helpful.
And then I would be remiss if I failed to point out we're
looking at our regular standing session tonight.
Census tracts, opportunity zones,
that's an additional tool in the toolbox.
So I want to be able to be cognizant of we need
to be holistic In our thought process
here, if that makes sense.
Thank you.
Thanks.
I just want to make a comment.
You both have talked about the first bullet,
and I just want to provide my little input
on the very last bullet about reducing or waiving fees.
I very much appreciate the comments about the public safety
fee, but I want to provide a little bit of input
from conversations that I had with other cities at the Cal
League of Cities Conference last year.
I spoke to a mayor from a city who
had had several really great housing projects built.
And I said, how did you do this?
How did you attract people?
And he said, we waived development fees.
And so I just want us to be mindful that development impact
fees might be something that is one of the ways
that we can absolutely flag to people that we're
interested in attracting projects.
And so we could both, simultaneously, benchmark
ourselves at the middle or lower, but we could also say,
this is where we want our fees to ultimately be,
but on the short term, we would like to reduce or waive
fees for various categories.
And we can talk about that of what that means,
or we could tie it to our housing element
because that expires.
And this one does, at least in 2031.
And so if we're trying to really spur those 1,345 housing units,
maybe that's the way to go.
So I just wanted to say that so people can think about--
that those are two different ideas,
and they can both exist at the same time.
Mayor, do we have flexibility project
by project in how we apply our fees?
Do we know that?
That's a question for Michael.
I don't know.
So we do need to apply fees consistently.
So you can say types of projects that you want to incentivize.
And as long as there's ways that you're
distinguishing that-- so you could prioritize
multifamily projects.
You could prioritize projects that
have a certain percentage of affordable units.
You could prioritize multifamily projects of a certain size.
There's utmost flexibility.
You also have the ability that you
could lock in fees for projects that are already going--
have already received entitlements so that there's not
a change beyond what they previously were envisioning.
And this would be something going forward
for new projects that are submitted.
And then finally, throwing out another option--
I mean, there's many, many options
of how the council could choose to go
about this-- you could incentivize this for the first X
number of units that come in, rather than it
being an open-ended provision as well.
And when I was asking you about this last week, one
of the other questions I said, I said,
could we tie it to the opportunity sites
that were called out in the housing element?
Because remember, we had--
I don't know.
Would you say 60?
20?
I don't remember the exact number,
but there are many, many housing element opportunity sites.
And they're marked on the map throughout the city
of opportunity sites.
It's a very different category than what he just mentioned,
but that's an option, too.
Would you like to go?
I just don't even know where to start.
Yeah, it's a lot of moving parts.
I want us to be attractive to development.
I want us to stop always being the low-cost leader.
Looking at the fee comparisons, you
think about, if we're talking about housing,
more people are going to affect transportation.
More people are going to require more around public safety.
And so just looking at this in the comparison,
I still think it's an apples to oranges comparison
because different cities, and it's not
calculating full cost recovery.
We appear to be low and trailing.
So I definitely want to make us competitive with impact fees
but not to the extent where it makes us less attractive.
So this is definitely going to be something
that has to be nuanced.
And the mayor just brought up waiving.
I don't know why I just cringed with waiving impact
fees because it's just that to me, I mean,
we're losing revenue, or that could potentially
be putting more pressure on our general fund.
So I don't have an answer.
This just seems it's going to have to be nuanced.
But I guess what oftentimes frustrates
me is that in situations like this, we're always lagging.
And we've got to get to a point where we're competitive
and not giving away the store.
I really appreciate your report.
Just for everybody's edification, Michael,
can you remind me why we're not using
Pleasant Hill as a comparison?
So the consultant team actually originally
pulled information for Pleasant Hill, but it was so dissimilar.
And the reason it was so dissimilar
is their entire structure is different than the other cities.
They have a special district that handles all of their parks
and recreation components, which is a major component
of our current fee structure.
So there was no ability to do an apples and apples
comparison since there are multiple entities involved.
And then also, remind me, because it
seems like we're closest in fees for the single family
fee per unit to Hercules, why are we
so close or similar to them?
Or are we?
I don't think there's necessarily
a reason for why we're similar to Hercules.
I think it's just that we currently
are based on previous decisions that both councils have made.
OK.
So it sounds like these are the questions you're
looking for help on, right?
So if I just go through those, I would
like to be in the low to middle comparatively to our peers.
I would like to use Hercules just
because I think they're very similar to us,
more so than Concord.
I'm not sure about the second one.
I think I need more information on that.
I do want to eliminate the childcare fees.
And I do support expanding the cultural fees
to include public art.
And I would like to reduce the fees for ADUs.
And does it have to be 750 square feet,
or could it be smaller at 500?
So currently, there are no impact fees charged for ADUs
that are less than 750 square feet.
There are proportional fees that are charged for ADUs that
are 750 square feet or larger.
So the council would have the option
that you could choose to just waive or reduce
those fees when they are charged for larger ADUs.
Very good.
So yeah, I would like to reduce those fees for the 750
square feet and above.
And I'd like to see our single-family fee per unit
closer to Hercules.
So I'd like to talk about making it somewhere around $13,000,
which would--
with the elimination of the childcare fees,
I think it would really make us look good.
And I think reducing the fees moving forward
would help get the message out there that Martinez
is incentivizing more building.
So I think that would be important.
Say again, what is it that is telling people that we're
were incentivizing building?
By dropping our fees and lowering it down
for a single family.
Oh, OK.
I think that's it.
I would note that there is-- correct me if I'm wrong.
I believe there is pending legislation in Sacramento right
now that speaks to this last question about,
do we want to waive the fees for ADUs over 750 square feet?
My understanding is that it would dramatically
limit the ability of jurisdictions such as ours
to be able to charge accordingly.
It basically would really do that.
And I think there's some concern in some jurisdictions, I guess,
that that may unnecessarily hamstring the jurisdiction
So I think there's a couple of things to point out.
So there are multiple pending bills that will potentially
impact development impact fees.
Vice Mayor Malhi, you spoke to one of them.
Two others I think are important to point out
is there's also pending legislation for--
and the city attorney can speak more eloquently
to this about the potential waiver of impact
fees for affordable units when there
is state funding that's provided associated with those projects.
And then finally, which was alluded
to as part of Megan's original presentation, legislation going
in the direction of collecting impact fees per square foot
rather than per unit.
If I could add to that.
So the bill that was approved is AB 179, one
of the budget trailer bills from June.
Effective July 1, '27, so 11 months from now,
it requires state entities awarding
competitive affordable housing grants for multifamily projects
to take into account whether or not
the applicant, typically, the city,
has waived or reduced impact fees as part of the grant
application.
The headline that's been batted around
is that it requires cities to waive impact
fees for restricted affordable housing,
and that's not quite right.
That headline is a bit too much of a collapse,
but it does require that waiver of affordable housing
fees, impact fees for affordable housing projects
be taken into account as part of any competitive state grant
project.
And similarly, if the city does not
waive fees for an application, then the competitive grant award
has to be reduced by the amount of fees not waived.
So the incentive is to waive fees
for projects that are benefiting from state competitive grants.
So that's something to take into account as well,
but it doesn't force us to waive fees.
It preserves the policy choice for the council.
And, yeah, the ADU, there's 1/2 a dozen ADU bills pending,
as is typical this time.
And we'll see what happens.
But we would suggest proceeding with the policy
choices the council wants.
And then if we have to revisit come January, we will.
The only other thing I just want to bring up
around the childcare fees is we should just be mindful
in future thinking, meaning that one of the things we are seeing
are new families coming into our community.
When we get the waterfront up and running,
that's going to draw families with younger children
as we do more housing, single-family housing.
So just something we may want to be mindful of.
We may not see it today, but it is coming.
And so we are going to, at some point,
need to be thinking about how we do accommodate young families
coming into our community.
I support you 100% And I was really disappointed when we
found out that it was only $8,000 because to clarify,
we used to have a childcare facility.
It was a building that was owned by the city of Martinez.
It was at Murillo Park Elementary.
And an organization leased it from us.
And so that's what this fee was for.
It was to be the landlord of this small, little preschool.
When they did Murillo parks remodel two--
was it two years ago?
Everything's blurry.
So it may have been three.
But the school district asked for the property back,
and they got rid of the preschool.
So now we don't have literally anything, any facility
to use the childcare fees for.
I would love to see us investing in childcare infrastructure,
but that's different, and that's not currently on this list.
So that's just something to be mindful of.
What you're saying?
100%.
But it's not the same thing as that,
and so we may want to talk more in the future of how
we can better support childcare in the city of Martinez.
Right.
And we don't have to adopt this for a long term.
Correct?
This can be a placeholder for now
until we get forward till 2031.
Correct.
So the intention is we would adopt a nexus study that
would get us through a number of years,
but we will have to periodically update the nexus study based
upon changing priorities of the city and city council.
If the nexus study, again, not setting what the cap of fees
could be, there is always the ability,
as part of our regular and routine review of our user fee
schedule, to make adjustments during those times
as well as interim changes between when the fee updates are
approved and when we do the next round of a nexus fee study.
May I just very quickly follow up on the childcare discussion?
Is there a stipulation in state law
that says that if a jurisdiction collects
these fees, that it could only be used for infrastructure?
Or could it also be given out as a subsidy
to those families that meet a certain income threshold?
Is there any discretion around that?
Unfortunately, generally, the Mitigation Fee Act
requires that development impact fees
be spent on physical infrastructure
to accommodate new development.
So off the top of my head, I don't
think we would be able to put together
that kind of an incentive program, but we'll take a look
and confirm.
What could happen, though, without opening up
a us going sideways, just as we have done
some cleanup to regulations for housing and industrial zoning
incentives, as a couple of examples,
it could be something that we could
look at our childcare regulations that
could incentivize private childcares to be established.
I mean, I'm certainly open to that.
And I thank Council Member Young for bringing up
the point earlier.
I think it's a very valid one.
I would just say that we've already
begun to see a lot of newer, younger families that
have come in, particularly over the course of the pandemic.
That's something that's become readily apparent.
Anybody who goes down Sunday's farmer's market
can see there's a noticeable uptick
in the number of young families and strollers
being pushed, for instance.
And we know just how much of, gosh, an awful burden childcare
costs are right now for a lot of working families.
And so I think it is a very valid point.
I thank you for bringing that up.
And, I mean, I think for now, though, I mean, it seems--
I don't know.
So if we eliminate it, can we get it back, I guess,
is the question because it may not make sense now,
but it may in the future.
So do we leave it as a placeholder,
or what is the recommendation?
So the fee is so low that it's never
going to actually result in any physical improvement,
unless there was a substantial increase to that fee, which
would be counter to what I'm hearing
the majority of the council indicate that you want
to incentivize development.
So staff's recommendation would be that it actually
be eliminated at this time.
But when the development pattern changes
and we do a future nexus fee study,
and potentially the waterfront is revitalized at that point,
and we see more development happening throughout the city,
I think then there may be different opportunities
to potentially re-establish that fee as a newly added fee.
I'm fine with that.
I just didn't want the takeaway and the headline to be,
we don't support childcare, because this
is a lot more nuanced discussion,
and I don't want that to get lost here.
So I'm comfortable with that, but I just
want to be on the record.
None of us are saying, we don't care about childcare.
This is not about that.
So I just want to state categorically for the record
that that is not what this vote is about.
And I can add that staff hears you loud and clear
that we can look at other ways to incentivize childcare
other than it being through our impact fees.
So if I may, one thing that was different too
in 2003, the last time that a nexus study was done--
I mean, this wasn't even just simply a city-owned facility.
It was actually operated by city employees.
There were city employees that were running this facility
for a number of years.
And then it shifted to a contract model.
And then it shifted to a lease model.
And it was in a lease model up until its expiration
because the school district took it back.
So it was a vastly different landscape
because it had that existing city-owned and city-run facility
back at the time.
So that's the difference now as this new study was done.
I would note that the county does run childcare facilities.
There's one at Public Works, I believe, if I'm not mistaken.
So I don't know.
But I believe it's just for the benefit of the employees there,
but I could be mistaken.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
So jumping back to childcare-- since I was a single parent with
twins, it was a huge expense--
do we need to eliminate it?
Wouldn't this be the time to consider options?
You just mentioned three reiterations.
We had it as city staff, which maybe isn't the best.
Then we leased it.
We've gone through this full circle,
and now we're going to eliminate it.
Is there any other out-of-the-box thinking that we
could support childcare through this in some way?
Or is there--
Yeah, so staff had some discussions on this.
The challenge is with impact fees,
the intention is that when they're collected,
they're spent in a relatively quick period of time.
The fact that we're limited to use the funds for city
facilities and we have no system in place
to manage a childcare facility, nor do we
have sufficient funds to build anything,
I don't think there is a solution in the near term that
could accommodate that wish.
Not even working with Woodbridge or anything along those lines?
No, it's not city owned.
I think they're working out of the school district facilities.
We did look creatively.
We thought, could we do something with the Boys & Girls
Club as an example?
We started looking at some other things,
and we didn't come up with a viable solution, unfortunately.
One other challenge to bear in mind that's inherent in DIFs
is the DIF pays for physical infrastructure.
It cannot pay for operations.
So a childcare facility in particular
requires both the facility and the childcare professionals
to run it.
And the DIF can only fund one of those two.
An entirely different funding source
is necessary to pay for the operations.
And so that, I think, is something
that would be a much larger project to take a look at.
And the childcare fees can't go to assist the Boys & Girls Club.
It wouldn't be the proper use or dedicated use for the monies
we have currently or monies we would collect in the future
because I'm not sure legally what the difference is
between the fees that we've been collecting
and any appropriations to the Boys & Girls Club
since it is a childcare facility, which
is owned by the city.
Yeah, there may be some limited application there,
but I guess as part of an ongoing fee
that you're collecting that may or may not
have that viable capital use, it's a little bit different.
And that was part of the challenge in evaluating this,
whether that might be appropriate.
And again, in trying to figure out ways as part
the underlying theme, trying to be
competitive in the space with our fees.
And occasionally, we have situations where we reduce
or eliminate a fee, of course.
This was one that we haven't.
We've continued to collect it because it's on the books,
and we haven't had a good application for it still.
So it's been a challenge still having this here.
And the original intent tied to that nexus study
from well over 20 years ago, even,
it doesn't exist anymore for what it was originally intended
to cover, which it did help.
Can I propose that we ask staff to put this maybe
on our next strategic plan discussion?
Because it's clear the council is interested in childcare.
I don't think that it's appropriate for us
to be concerned about childcare infrastructure
as part of the development fee discussion
because I think it's very clear that we
don't know what we want to do.
So to be collecting fees for something
that we don't know what we're doing doesn't seem appropriate.
And I think it's very appropriate to eliminate
the childcare facility fee.
And if we can make sure that we always use the phrase
childcare facility fee instead of childcare fee
because it goes to what you were saying,
but can we have staff maybe bring
that back as part of maybe an upcoming evaluation
of the strategic plan under the community health, safety,
and well-being?
And if there's ways that we can evaluate
supporting childcare infrastructure in the future,
because that's what you're getting at.
That's what you want on the long term.
We have spent a lot of money on the Boys & Girls
Club infrastructure improvements,
thousands, millions.
So is there a way that we can capitalize on some of these fees
to help that?
Because we didn't use these types of fees for those
they came out of either ARPA or general fund.
Yeah.
If you don't mind, Michael and Mike,
looking into that before we do the refund exercise,
check to see whether or not the Boys & Girls
Club could be a potential recipient, that would be great.
Yeah, and then we can discuss childcare, just
general infrastructure improvements to it
in Martinez moving forward at the future.
Just by a nod of heads, everyone OK with expanding
cultural facilities to include art?
Yeah.
That's OK?
Yep.
Up until this point, we've never had any fund for public art,
so this would be a really great opportunity
to use some of the cultural fees--
facility fees moving forward for any city-sponsored art
installations.
And then the phasing of the development fees
feels like the easiest discussion,
but I don't feel strongly one way or the other.
And I feel like it more should correlate
to whatever we decide the answers
to the first and last bullets are.
Yeah, I guess that's my question.
I hate to go back to these fee comparisons per unit.
So we've done our full cost recovery.
We have that.
But looking at the cities that we are benchmarking against,
these do not include their full cost recovery
because we don't know that.
But assuming that they did theirs,
theirs would probably be increased.
So we're still lagging.
Well, it depends on whether or not
you think lagging is good or bad because I would argue it's good.
Even at full cost recovery, we will still
be trailing the cities.
And so what I'm saying is with a full cost recovery for us
and we are still trailing, that is probably a good look for us.
Yeah.
If development attracting development
is what we're going for, it's OK.
And this is our number.
Yeah, or less.
I mean, full cost recovery, again, is the highest marker.
Yeah, that's the highest marker.
We have the ability to raise it some smaller percentage.
And I think it is a good look for us, particularly--
I think it's very important to remember
that we're not the only ones looking at these cost
comparisons.
It's the developers that do this exact same thing.
Absolutely.
Right.
And so that's where I would really
like us to be able to say, we are lowering our fees
and stand out that way.
Well, I don't want to say lowering.
I just want to say we are maximizing
our fees in comparison to--
Well, we will be lowering our fees because we're
eliminating childcare fees.
And we will be doing other things
like reducing the ADU fees.
If we agree on that, that would be lowering it.
And then I'd like to see the single-family per-unit fees
lowered from $14,000, which is existing,
to be closer to Hercules so it's more like $13,000.
Yeah, based on this, we don't have to lower our fees.
I just want to be clear.
We don't have to lower fees.
That's what I'm advocating for.
But we don't have to.
Yeah.
We don't have to, but that's what we're here to discuss.
And I think it's important that that
is what is seen by developers when they go,
should I go to Pleasant Hill, Hercules, Benicia, or Concord?
Look what.
Martinez--
If you look at the totality--
Can I have Michael-- do you want to provide--
Yeah, so this is an obvious statement,
but I think it's important to say.
So I do think full cost recovery is somewhat misleading
because it's cost recovery assuming we actually
have development happen.
If we don't have development happen,
the fees can be as high as we want.
We won't actually bring in any money.
And so it is about balance, and it
is about setting them at a rate where we see development.
So we--
It's all perception, right?
Correct.
Yeah.
It's about what is perceived.
If we're perceived to be lowering our fees,
then we will look better.
Correct.
And I also think it's important to note
we are competitive with Benicia currently.
And, Jay, we don't always have to charge
the highest amount of the fees, as we had mentioned.
And we can have the charges lessened if we choose to.
But this is the highest.
So you can choose to have them lower.
Correct.
Yeah.
I would like Council Member Young
to try to convince me more along what you have been--
you were looking very frustrated in saying that you do not
want to lower the fees.
I'm very supportive of waiving impact fees for a short duration
as we're trying to spur growth and development in Martinez.
And that seemed to very much not excite you.
Can you elaborate on that?
And what would you be comfortable
with along these discussions?
The idea of lowering fees versus--
to me, waiving fees is a temporary incentive.
Keeping them low and not raising them,
that becomes a permanent incentive.
Again, I'm just looking at based on full recovery cost,
we are still trailing our sister cities, even if we max out,
unless I'm missing something.
What number is lagging?
Can you clarify what you're talking about?
I am looking at our fee comparison of $24,227.
And again, looking at our comparison cities,
these aren't their updated numbers, right?
We're not sure, are we?
They're current numbers.
So what I'm hearing Council Member Young say is
for single-family homes, using that as an example, currently,
we charge about $14,000 in development impact fees.
If we set the fee based on the nexus study and analysis that
has currently been done, they could go up to about $24,000.
$24,000 is still $2,000 less than what Benicia currently has.
Exactly.
But to clarify, it is significantly higher.
It's 200% more than Hercules.
$24,000 to $12,000, that is very much not lagging.
But wait, wait, wait.
That's because they don't have parkland dedication fees.
They don't have marina and waterfront.
Yes, exactly.
The reason that it is cheaper to build in Hercules
is because they have fewer developments.
That's what we're talking--
And so are we saying they aren't going through the same process
that we're going through in looking at full recovery,
but they don't have different categories like public safety?
Or am I assuming that they're going--
We're not required to do this.
So we're looking at fees at a point in time.
Every jurisdiction is on their own schedule with when
those fees will be updated.
So we could do an update now and set ourselves
at a particular point.
And then one of these other jurisdictions
could turn around and, a couple months later, change their fees.
So--
It could go either way.
--it could go either way.
And to answer the question that's inherent in there,
there is no required timeline to update these fees.
OK.
It feels like the pay for police officers, every time we
hit this mark, they go to here.
We go to here, they go to here.
So it's always jockeying back and forth.
Which is why we would do the nexus
study, which would set the maximum that they could be at.
And we can periodically modify what
our rates are based on our regular and routine updates
to our user fee schedules.
And I think another thing we have
to remember this is short term.
It's not forever.
And we can use these, what does come in, and we can gauge those.
This one works.
This one doesn't.
This one needs to be modified and needs to be lowered,
or this one needs to be raised by what has worked,
what has brought in revenue, what has brought in--
So based on this scenario and this education, thank you.
I would say we stay at the $14,000.
I don't want to move that.
I do not want to waive or lower.
We are getting near the end of the workshop.
And I just realized I hadn't opened
this up to public comment.
I apologize for those of you who are here.
Would anyone like to provide public comment
on this discussion?
Craig, come on up.
All right, I really enjoyed this discussion, a very important
discussion, and really glad to hear the sentiment
on the council seems to be toward doing
what we need to do with these fees to stimulate development
and to help solve our housing crisis
or address it in a meaningful way, which I think
is an important dynamic because I don't think we would have
necessarily heard that four years ago or eight years ago.
And I think it indicates how the political winds on this issue
are changing.
I wanted to suggest off the top about this issue of waiving
fees versus lowering fees, we need affordable housing.
We need a low-income housing more than anything,
and that's the toughest housing to build.
I would suggest waiving the development fees
for any projects that hit a certain threshold
of affordable housing that goes beyond the minimum
because to the extent that we're getting any development going
at all in the city, which is very little,
it tends to be the bare minimum, the 20%.
If we can get 100% affordable unit project
in Martinez, which could be a real game changer, which we're
seeing in some other cities, we should definitely waive the fees
if that will make it happen.
That could make a huge dent in this issue.
I think this fixation on comparisons,
where we stand comparing to other jurisdictions,
is a bit of a distraction because the reality is
we're not getting the development we need
with the fees where they're at.
Almost all of our affordable housing growth
is in ADUs right now.
We're not getting developers to come to Martinez.
It doesn't matter where we stand compared to Benicia,
Pleasant Hill, Hercules.
We're not getting people to come to Martinez.
And we can't solve the housing crisis that way.
OK, so if waiving them will get people to come to Martinez,
we definitely should do it.
I also want to push back--
sorry, Councilman Young-- a bit on some of your comments
about cost recovery and the burden
that new population growth puts on the city.
I don't think that's always the case.
Look at the amount of resources our police department
uses on issues regarding the unhoused.
The unhoused is an extension of the housing crisis.
If we built more affordable, very low-income housing
and could put a dent in the homeless issue,
that would take a burden off the police.
That wouldn't add to the police's burden.
That would take a burden off them.
Transportation, if we could make it
so that more people could work where they live,
could live in Martinez instead of having
to commute in and out of Martinez all the time, that
could take a burden off our transportation infrastructure.
As far as young families coming into Martinez,
I don't see the data to support that.
The last data I saw from the Martinez School District
was that student enrollment is down 9% or 10%
since the pandemic.
So maybe we're seeing anecdotal evidence,
but I'm not seeing the data.
If you have data, I don't think people--
Time's up.
--can afford to live in places like Martinez.
Thank you.
Thanks, Craig.
Just one quick data point on the school district.
They did say enrollment is down, but when
they're taking into account TK students,
it's ticking back up again.
But--
I'll take a look at the data.
Sure.
Anyone else in the room this evening
who'd like to provide public comment on our workshop
discussion tonight?
OK, thank you, Craig, for the comments.
We appreciate it.
OK, let's bring it back.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Yes, right.
Do we have people online?
I have someone.
So if that person would like to make
a public comment on this item, please use the Raise Hand
feature.
All right, I have no hand.
No hands?
OK, great.
All right, so for the last 15 minutes of this meeting,
I'd love to get some thoughts.
I feel like we came in with our opinions
on the benchmarking and the waiver,
and I'm not sure we've convinced each other necessarily
through this discussion.
So maybe how about we go just down the line and just
provide some thoughts on that first and last bullet?
So just on benchmarking and potential waiving.
Do you want to start, Jay?
Go ahead.
Oh, I see.
Got it.
Yeah, why don't you start?
We're in the middle of the meeting,
so you can come back when we're done with this meeting.
We're having a meeting now.
We do start at 7:00, but we're having a workshop before,
so if you don't--
yeah, OK.
Thank you.
OK, for benchmarking, I do know that different cities have
different needs and resources, different opportunity zones,
a whole bunch of different things, marinas, no marinas.
So it's hard to gauge a benchmark,
but I would like to see us at least in the middle section
of the comparison if we were comparing.
And then just to answer the question
because I didn't do that, I'm good with the second question.
I like to phase it in 75/25 if we get to that point
because that's what we've been utilizing in the past for any
fees that we've adopted.
And then let's see.
The last one for the ADUs, last question,
yeah, I am definitely in support of waiving the fees for ADUs
that are over 750 square feet.
And I don't know what the maximum is,
but we can discuss that at a future meeting, whatever
the maximum square feet is for an ADU.
Is it 500 or 1,200 or something?
The maximum size of ADUs as per our ordinance is 1,200 square
feet.
OK, so I would definitely consider waiving some of those.
But I definitely do feel that we should,
if we come to a consensus, really
try to attract act developers so that these fees would actually
be collected.
If we don't have a development, there's
no fees that are being collected.
And in particular, trying to incentivize
the low-income housing component because I think
there's a lot of people out there
that are in need of housing.
And low-income housing is housing
that would be for a teacher or for a student.
These are people that are holding
jobs that really can't afford housing because things
are so expensive.
So I would definitely support that as well.
So next.
Do you want to go?
Do you want me to go?
You can go.
All right, so I support middle or lower end.
I also recognize that benchmarking to our other cities
is somewhat misleading, and so I'm not sure.
I don't think that should be our priority.
I appreciate your comment that other user fee schedules do
75/25.
That's a perfectly fine way of doing it.
No problem.
And then I'm just going to reiterate that I very much
support waiving impact fees.
So I support waiving impact fees for ADUs over 750.
But I do want to acknowledge that just because ADUs
are the only thing that is being built, that means
that, why would we be incentivizing the one
thing that people are already building?
So I also want us to think about what other things
that we can incentivize.
You asked about multifamily.
And while I support multifamily, absolutely, I also
want us to think about smaller multifamily,
like duplexes and triplexes, because we've all
talked about how Martinez is basically--
infill housing is what's left.
And so I don't want us to be incentivizing ADUs and then
really large complexes with nothing
in between because we might find that the best thing that we can
incentivize right now are some of the newer complexes
that have been built that have between 6 and 12 units,
something like that.
So I want us to think about that.
So I would love to see staff come back
with some suggestions and potential innovative solutions
for waiving for a short duration, maybe just
through the end of our housing element,
for some specific categories that we could incentivize.
And I also very much support the opportunity sites
that I mentioned.
I think we should absolutely include those.
That would incentivize the people
that have the great properties that are just
sitting there empty that they might be
interested in developing those.
Did that help?
Sure.
Go ahead.
So question one, looking at benchmark,
I support being in the middle.
Number two, I'm fine with the 75%, 25% approach.
And I am OK with waiving impact fees for ADUs over 750.
Let's see.
So for me, I would like to see us in the low end comparatively
to our peers.
I do like using the benchmark because I
believe developers use that benchmark to look at as well.
And I want us to shine.
When the developers are thinking about,
where should we go, I want them to see Martinez.
And I want them to see that we have recently lowered our fees,
so I would like to bring our fees down.
I do like the 75% to 25% schedule.
I absolutely support eliminating childcare fees for entities
that we don't even have anymore.
I 100% support childcare across the board.
But in this particular situation,
we no longer have that facility, so there's
no reason to charge fees for something we don't provide.
I do really support public art, and I think cultural facility
fees are OK for that.
I wouldn't mind waiving fees for ADUs.
I don't think that's a bad idea, but I
could be talked out of that.
And I think that covers it.
Do you support reducing or waiving fees?
Yes, I do support reducing fees.
Is that clear enough?
So, Jay, just to clarify, though, for me, reducing fees
is not the same thing as waiving.
And so how do you feel about waiving fees?
I was talking about other potential categories.
I feel that waiving fees addresses your concern.
How do you feel about that for more than just ADUs?
No, I think that that's very important,
but I would like to hear more information on what we would be
reducing fees for specifically.
I don't think it should be a blanket thing.
I do appreciate Greg's point that we still
have to be mindful of the general fund.
But I think it is important that--
It's all about perception.
And so when these developers see this headline,
Martinez is reducing fees, I think that's important,
and it will catch their eye.
I think it's important that if we are doing benchmarks,
which I do support, I would like us to be just above Hercules.
So I would like to see our Martinez existing single-family
fee come down, and I wouldn't mind seeing it somewhere around
$13,000.
So if you want an exact number, there you go.
Great.
Go ahead.
OK, thank you very much.
So I would definitely feel like low to middle
is where we need to be.
I think we want to make ourselves as attractive as we
can in this regard.
But I also think it's critical for us
to think and look and see, the mayor referenced,
there are cities that have had a tremendous amount of success
in bringing new investment development
into their communities.
We ought to be looking at them.
What are they doing?
And I think she alluded to the fact
that one of the things that they did
was this targeted waiver, perhaps, of impact fees.
I don't necessarily know if it makes sense
across the board for every single project that would come.
Like Council Member Howard, I think it really just depends.
And I would want to get some more information.
For 100% affordable project, if that were to come to us
and if that's what it takes to get that project over the hump,
for sure, sign me up for that.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
Workforce housing?
Absolutely.
But if we have a project which is majority market rate and just
meets the bare minimum qualification
for affordable housing, that maybe I'm
going to be a little less hesitant on.
I think that there ought to be something
that needs to be brought in.
So I think it needs to be targeted in that way.
But I think we need to be looking at, rather
than the benchmark comparison, open it up and just
see what the cities in the Bay Area,
elsewhere in the state-- what have they been doing?
What are the tools that have brought them
some success in this area?
So that's what I would say.
As far as the last piece, yes, I'm
fine with that in terms of waiving them
for ADUs over 750 square feet.
Like I said, there's legislation,
as we talked about earlier, that may make this all a moot point
in the near future.
But if I'm being asked today, right now,
while that legislation is still pending, sure.
All right, we've got 1 and 1/2 minutes.
Any final 30-second comments?
I think it's really important that we remember this
doesn't have to be permanent.
It's a fluid situation.
And again, we can come back and revisit this in the near future,
and we can decide what's working and what's not.
Can staff summarize what we heard from the majority
of the city council?
OK, so what I heard from the majority of the city council
is looking at the low to mid-range
for the fees for staff, including
planning division, to work with the chief of police
and the Public Works director to look
at potential additional items that
could be included as part of the nexus fee study
that address public safety issues.
To eliminate the childcare facility fees,
but to look in the future at other ways to incentivize
and specifically look at the possibility of bringing back
a further childcare infrastructure
discussion as potentially part of the strategic plan
or another path that's deemed appropriate.
Prior to refunding the current fees
associated with the childcare facility fees,
for staff to relook at the possibility of potentially using
the remaining balance for the Boys & Girls Club.
There's general support for expanding
the cultural facilities fee to include public art
and ensuring that the nexus fee study addresses that issue.
For any fee increases, there is a general support
for an initial 75% increase and then 25% the second year
for consistency with other fee updates
that the city has implemented.
That there's general support for waiving impact fees
for all ADUs, so adding in ADUs that
are 750 square feet or larger.
And for staff to bring back, as a future discussion,
alternatives in terms of fee reduction or waiver options,
looking further at what other jurisdictions are doing,
and that would be a subsequent action.
Does that sound good, everybody?
Great.
Thank you for summarizing.
Much appreciated.
All right, with that, thank you to those
who came to participate.
And thank you for the presentation.
And this meeting is adjourned.
And I'll give everyone a five-minute break,
and we will come back for our regularly scheduled evening
meeting.
Thank you.
[CHUCKLES]
Recording stopped.