[4:31] Okay, welcome everybody. I want to welcome you to the City of Hillsburg City Council, redevelopment, successor agency, regular meeting. Can we do a quick roll call please.

[4:44] Council member Edwards. Here. Council member Harrod. Here. Council member Kelly. Here. Vice Mayor Mitchell. Here, Mayor Hagley. Here.

[4:54] If everybody could stand up and join me in the Pleasure of Allegiance.

[5:00] What would you do to the line of the United States and America?

[5:07] One nation, I don't know.

[5:09] You can give it a little bit of liberty and justice for

[5:14] all.

[5:15] All right.

[5:16] Could I get a motion to approve the agenda please?

[5:19] Don't move.

[5:20] Second.

[5:21] All those in favor?

[5:22] Aye.

[5:23] Hearing no opposed.

[5:25] That is approved.

[5:27] Report on closed sessions.

[5:29] we did have a closed session and direction was given the staff.

[5:34] No, we didn't. We did have a

[5:38] yeah, so we had a closed session.

[5:44] Oh, okay. It was already I'm recording it out again.

[5:48] All right. Announcements and presentations. The first one is a proclamation,

[5:53] recognizing at May 5th. May 5th through the 24th of the public service recognition week and come

[6:05] of the City Council of the City of Hillsburg, recognizing May 5th through 11th, 2024 as public service

[6:13] recognition week in the city of Hillsburg. Whereas public service recognition week is celebrated

[6:19] the first full week in May nationwide, and as a time set aside to honor and celebrate those

[6:24] who serve our nation as federal, state, county, and local government employees, and whereas each day,

[6:31] Employees in our federal state, county, and local government strive to perform their jobs with

[6:36] integrity, competence, and professionalism demonstrating a deep commitment to their communities

[6:42] and to the people they serve. And whereas our community is served every day by city of

[6:47] fields of staff including the city manager's office, community development department, housing

[6:52] department, finance department, fire department, police department, public works department,

[6:57] electric department, water and wastewater department, and community services department,

[7:02] whereas in the face of unprecedented challenges over the last few years,

[7:07] the dedicated public employees of the city of Hillsburg have consistently risen to the moment,

[7:12] always answering the call to serve our community. Whereas public employees are the life

[7:17] butt, blood of our democracy, and choose careers in government not only as jobs, but as commitments

[7:22] to serve and whereas the public employees of the City of Hillsburg are committed to exhibiting

[7:28] the highest standards of professional excellence, creativity, skill, and customer service.

[7:33] Whereas the efficiency of government relies on public employees and volunteers who provide

[7:38] services in the quality and quantity required and expected by the public. Whereas the City of Hillsburg

[7:45] recognizes the generous contributions of time and talent by public employees and community volunteers

[7:51] and the importance of the services they render.

[7:55] Whereas all citizens are encouraged to recognize

[7:57] the accomplishments and contributions of government employees

[8:00] at all levels, federal, state, county, and local.

[8:04] Now, therefore, be proclaimed that the city council of the city

[8:08] of Hillsburg hereby recognizes May 5th through 11th, 2024

[8:12] as public service recognition week in the city of Hillsburg.

[8:16] Thank you.

[8:17] and is there an employee appreciation committee?

[8:23] Welcome.

[8:31] Thank you for taking a moment to recognize and celebrate

[8:35] public service recognition week and we have a couple members of the employee appreciation committee

[8:41] here to accept the population. Thank you. Thank you.

[8:48] Okay, you want to take a quick picture?

[8:50] Yeah, let's see that.

[9:28] We appreciate you today and always.

[9:31] Thank you.

[9:42] Okay, next up is item number four city manager reports.

[9:48] Thank you, Mayor.

[9:48] We have a long agenda.

[9:50] So I have just a very quick update.

[9:52] But in the market calendar section wanted to note that not tomorrow.

[9:55] But next Tuesday begins the first of the Tuesday farmers markets for the summer.

[10:01] So please be ready and join us out there.

[10:03] Um, also just wanted to touch a little bit on the event that we all celebrated this weekend,

[10:08] which was the opening of the improvements up at Fitch Mountain, the weather was terrible.

[10:14] It was a struck of a, a bad luck, um, that dampened the event a little bit, but still a very neat opportunity to get together and celebrate the improvements.

[10:24] I wanted to take just a second to talk on talk about what was done there.

[10:27] A lot of our projects are easy to define and have kind of a clear finish line later this year. We'll finish a fire substation.

[10:35] It looks like a substation that will be finished. This was a little bit more disparate and far reaching in terms of the improvements.

[10:42] So folks who are not there a whole lot may not notice it and folks who use only some of the amenities to mount and may not recognize everything.

[10:49] But in total, this project, project included a really significant

[10:54] overhaul of the dog park, one of our most used recreational facilities.

[10:59] It's got ADA accessibility improvements that were desperately needed.

[11:04] New shade structures.

[11:06] You play options for the dogs and new fresh bark and landscaping all throughout.

[11:13] The parking lot was sealed and striped.

[11:15] Looks good after I'm needing it for a while.

[11:18] And probably most significantly, we have trail access improvements that are really, really well done and we'll make it a much easier

[11:27] amenity and hiking opportunity for the community to access.

[11:31] I've told people before my first day in Hillsburg years ago.

[11:34] I was told to hike fish mountain.

[11:36] I went to do it and I took about 20 steps off the trail and got myself disoriented and lost for a second.

[11:41] I figured it out, but it was hard.

[11:43] It wasn't clear the trails weren't well marked, they weren't easy to navigate.

[11:47] That is all solved right now. We've got stairs and bridges and retaining walls and brand new landscaping.

[11:54] So it looks really fantastic. It was really well done.

[11:57] And then it was hard to do it on Saturday, given the weather, but I hope everybody gets a chance to climb the mountain.

[12:04] There was a new art exhibit at the top.

[12:07] done a partnership with the local artist. It is subtle as it should be to respect the

[12:14] the natural beauty, but really need and really something to experience up there. So all told

[12:20] it's just a big, big improvement to that part of pounds, something we all cherish. It was also a

[12:26] really great job by our community services department and our finance department and pulling together

[12:31] the financing for this project, which like everything we're working on these days got expensive.

[12:37] but we were able to benefit from grants locally and at the state level,

[12:43] huge support from Senator Mike McGuire who helped connect us to funding with the California Coastal Conservancy.

[12:49] Looking at some fees that were brought in by the city and just cobbling all those pieces together to make a project work

[12:55] when it really looked challenging a little bit over a year ago.

[12:59] So great job by our team and I wish we'd been able to have a lot more people out there with the weather,

[13:04] But strongly encourage people to get out there to face mountain and see those impercoment who looks great.

[13:10] Thank you.

[13:12] Thank you.

[13:12] Yeah, that was a great day.

[13:16] Very cold and wet.

[13:19] There are a couple seats up front if you want to sit.

[13:23] They're open and you can help yourself.

[13:27] Or friendly.

[13:29] All right.

[13:30] Next up is public comment on items that are not, sorry, public comments on items on the consent calendar and not on the agenda.

[13:42] So this time is set aside to receive comments from the public regarding matters of general interest not on the agenda, but related to city council business.

[13:48] pursuant to the Brown Act, however, the City Council cannot consider any issue or take action

[13:54] on any request during this comment period. So, at this point, I'd like to open it up for

[13:59] public comment on non-agenda items. If you're here for some of the agenda items like the

[14:04] public hearing on water or the GMO, we'll have plenty of time allocated for public comment on that.

[14:09] So, this is gentleman matters that aren't on the agenda.

[14:13] Yeah, welcome.

[14:22] Could, sorry, can you, make sure you push the button and should turn green right there so

[14:27] we can all hear you.

[14:31] Can we start my time again?

[14:33] Yeah.

[14:34] Thank you.

[14:35] Thank you.

[14:35] My name is Richard Cochran, I'm with Climate Action Healsburg.

[14:40] Climate Action Healsburg put on the climate fest on April 21st.

[14:45] We also did the climate fest a year ago and I believe it was a resounding success.

[14:52] That event was put on by the Climate Fest subcommittee of Climate Action Heelsburg.

[15:00] I've other subcommittees, and I'm working on one called the Anti-Idoling Committee, or the idle free

[15:06] community committee. In any event, I have given to staff over here a copy of an ordinance

[15:16] in the Healsburg ordinance code. You'll be presented with it, I believe, after the meeting. But

[15:24] Our anti-Italine committee is attempting to get an anti-Italine program in the local schools.

[15:34] We have worked with the Healsburg School, St. John's, the West Side School, and more recently with Healsburg Unified School District.

[15:45] There's a program that the Environmental Protection Agency of the Federal Government put out a toolkit and effect

[15:52] about how to get this program started in local schools.

[15:57] But when we've started working on this matter,

[16:00] we didn't realize that Hillsburg had an anti-Italine

[16:05] ordinance.

[16:07] So in part, what we'd like to have you do is consider

[16:12] some cooperation and collaboration with the local schools

[16:17] that we're working with to advance anti-Italine.

[16:23] And this of course is anti-Italine by combustion engine,

[16:28] automobiles, not electric vehicles.

[16:31] But I walk a good deal every day in town.

[16:34] And I've noticed that we're parents are picking up kids

[16:38] in particular, but even sometimes at drop-off,

[16:42] they're sitting there in their cars, letting them idle.

[16:45] And that those toxic films that they emit are not good for young children's lungs.

[16:53] In any of that, we now are going to be providing Hillsburg Unified School District with 20 signs

[17:02] that say, in effect, this is a no-wildling zone where the children are picked up or dropped off.

[17:10] And we're hoping that the city will provide us a measure of assistance of some kind, or provide the

[17:20] Keelsburg Unified School District with some assistance in enforcing this ordinance that you have on your books.

[17:27] Thank you.

[17:30] Thank you.

[17:34] Welcome.

[17:35] Hi.

[17:36] Thank you.

[17:37] My name is Stephanie Turk, and I'm a parent of two small kids.

[17:41] also here to speak on the same topic that Dick Cochran just talked about, which is the idle

[17:47] free community. So I have been working with HUSD and other parents of public and private schools

[17:53] around the Hillsburg to do student-led programs to make their schools idle free zones. And we have

[18:02] a lot of guidance from the EPA on this. This is an example of a sign that might get posted

[18:08] because, as Dick mentioned, you have a hot spot of many idling vehicles and the area increases

[18:13] the pollutants, and there's hundreds of airborne toxic pollutants in vehicle exhaust, many are

[18:17] carcinogenic and harmful to young kids. So when you're parent, you notice these things. You also notice

[18:23] around town in various locations. There's lots of vehicle idling. So around the plaza, parking lots,

[18:28] and grocery stores, and I know that folks are doing this out of habit, not they're not trying to

[18:35] burn a lot of money and release a lot of emissions, but like a server that I spoke to when I had lunch

[18:40] today. At the coffee bar, a little scene, she said, oh, I, I know all the time. I just, I just

[18:45] like to sit in my car and do my makeup. She said, I'm not going to add a little anymore. And

[18:49] that I know that it's so bad. And I thought maybe people just don't know that this ordinance exists

[18:54] and that idling is actually thing that is causing a lot of emissions. The, um, the EPA says that

[19:00] if people stopped if vehicle passenger vehicles stopped idling unnecessarily, which is more than 10 seconds

[19:07] by the way, if you're in your same spot with your

[19:09] chronic for 10 seconds, turn it off.

[19:13] We could take the amount of emissions out of the air

[19:16] that would be equivalent to removing 5 million vehicles.

[19:19] So it's a big deal.

[19:20] And with the vehicle exhaust and emissions being our number

[19:23] one source of CO2 in Sonoma County,

[19:26] I think that if we could have the council's support

[19:30] in advertising, promoting, enforcing, however you will,

[19:34] this ordinance 10, 28, 160 running of engines when stopped. You also have this more to the support

[19:40] of the community. We have lists of names here in a petition that we collected at the climate

[19:45] fast people that were really on board for this anti-adulting. We want to see a cleaner town,

[19:50] cleaner air, and it's something that benefits everyone. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

[19:56] Anyone else?

[20:00] Welcome.

[20:04] Hi, my name is Mariah Wimmer and I have two shops on Matheson Street.

[20:11] On Thursday I was made aware by one of my vendors that they had just signed a lease

[20:17] on 326 Hillsburg Avenue and it is a major brand and I was very taken aback and started

[20:28] doing a little research. As far as I was concerned, I thought we had an ordinance that was in place

[20:35] that did not allow big formula stores in our downtown area.

[20:43] So, you know, I've studied

[20:44] off on all the guiding principles and on your general plan. And this business, it's called Ferry,

[20:54] brand. It is a very large national slash international brand that is based out in New York.

[21:03] They do in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars a year. They have 60 plus stores

[21:09] of their own and they have consistent branding on the outside of their buildings, as well

[21:18] as branding on their clothes.

[21:21] They're a sink.

[21:24] So essentially, they had signed the lease.

[21:28] I wasn't people who carried their brand.

[21:33] But I think the bigger concern for Hillsburg

[21:36] is not just whether it's in conflict with my store,

[21:40] but I think opening the doors for the likes,

[21:45] it could be the gap, it could be anthropology,

[21:48] G, it could be, you know, whoever you think it is, I think is, is a very

[21:53] debt, a dangerous precedent to set for, you know, how we move forward in

[22:00] Hillsburg. So I would like for the council and the city management team to

[22:07] consider putting this as an agenda item on the next meeting, so that we, at this

[22:15] point could take a closer look at, you know, how we interpret the ordinances, because as far

[22:24] as I could read, the formula stores are prohibited in and around the downtown plaza. And

[22:34] when it was informed that it only counted for the store doors facing the plaza, I think

[22:42] is incorrect interpretation of the verbiage,

[22:45] because on the land development of LDLUD4,

[22:53] speaks about the storefronts facing the square,

[22:57] the actual square, and that's talking about just how

[23:01] they have to have interesting fissards

[23:03] and something to look at.

[23:05] Whereas the following LUD5 specifically says,

[23:11] I'm out of time. Yeah, so thank you. I'm sure somebody else will follow. Thank you.

[23:20] Anyone else?

[23:25] Welcome.

[23:28] My name is Katie and just to sort of piggyback on my rate of was saying that I think part of the charm of fields vergways in the unique and diverse makeup of locally owned businesses.

[23:42] and maybe I shouldn't say the majority, but many of the businesses that downtown are owned by families who live here,

[23:53] whose children go to have gone through school here. People that really have a vested interest in presence in our community.

[24:02] And I think that the inclusion of chain retail shops isn't something that for me comes to mind when I think of walking downtown Hillsburg.

[24:14] You know, something that sort of you can find in the shop in the mall in San Rosa would not be what I would expect to see in Hillsburg.

[24:23] I just don't don't think that that really aligns with what I believe that the vision for

[24:30] the downtown business district and heelsburg as a whole is.

[24:36] So, and that's all.

[24:38] Thank you. Anyone else?

[24:44] Welcome.

[24:48] My name is a Bjorn Wemmer and I'm Maritas Sun.

[24:51] And I just wanted to piggyback off of what they both said. I truly believe that it would be detrimental

[24:57] to the small town community to let large corporations in like this. And based off the

[25:03] verbiage, I also think we should define more clearly what encompasses the plaza,

[25:10] and maybe even expand on it to all of downtown Hillsburg, so that we don't allow these large

[25:15] corporations to come in. And that's really all I want to add to what they said. Okay, thank you.

[25:22] Anyone else for non-engine items?

[25:27] Welcome.

[25:32] I have a business in downtown Hillsburg as well.

[25:38] Off the Plaza, and I really agreed with Bjorn,

[25:41] I think that the language around the ordinance,

[25:44] the language in the actual distance that the ordinance applies to

[25:48] needs to be expanded as the retail district of our town

[25:52] starts to expand into both field district and appeals for governance in the north direction,

[26:00] you know, the hotel that's going to eventually be built is going to have retail.

[26:04] It would be lovely if that remained more local owned business, as well as anything that ends up at the

[26:11] mill district. So I think it's probably time to take a look at a specific language of the ordinance.

[26:17] Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

[26:26] Welcome.

[26:30] Holly Brand and we have a business in the downtown district as well. And just confirming that I think it's time to revisit what the business plan is.

[26:41] Because I was told today that there wasn't an ordinance that is just part of the business the business overall business agenda or plan.

[26:49] And when I did talk to a representative at the city, they said they had reviewed the website of Ferry, and they did not consider it a formula store.

[27:01] And it didn't sound like they were aware that there were 60 plus retail stores across the country.

[27:09] And so further discussion on that would be great.

[27:12] Thank you.

[27:17] All right, anybody else,

[27:22] one once? All right, with that, I will close public comment and we'll move on to the consent calendar and I would entertain a motion on the consent calendar.

[27:34] I have a question on one of the items on the consent calendar 6G.

[27:41] G6G is fire department SB 205 inspection report. Yes. Yeah, I wanted to get some clarification. If I could from chief bow as on what exactly that was because it wasn't in the annual fire report. So if we could get a little info on that.

[28:04] Councillor Strouder, where's your questions you're referring to the group our occupancies in the

[28:09] aspect?

[28:10] Yes.

[28:10] Okay.

[28:10] I think I reported on that in our annual report to council, but if I didn't apologize,

[28:14] they're mandated annual inspections of group our occupancies, which are mostly apartment

[28:19] complexes, but also include hotels, motels, things like that were required by the state

[28:25] to do them yearly after the go-shift fire down in Oakland and fire chief, fire marshal

[28:32] vision chief, last McDonald's and charge of that program. We did have 100% clients. I think we have

[28:36] 118 group our occupancies in the city of Hiltsburg and we did inspect all of them. Does that

[28:42] answer your question? That also includes our nursing homes and care facilities. Correct. All right. Good.

[28:47] Thank you. Good. All right. We have a couple of recusals. So I am going to recuse on the landscape

[28:55] the lighting assessment district, which is 6H,

[29:03] and then the council member Kelly, you won't

[29:06] we're going to re-cuse on I, correct? Yes. And so for item 6H, I live within the assessment district,

[29:17] and therefore I will be stepping back from that one. So do you want to somebody make a motion on

[29:25] approval of the consent calendar except for items H and I.

[29:30] So moved.

[29:31] Second.

[29:35] Vice Mayor, do you want to? Oh yeah.

[29:38] The wait, you're still in this.

[29:39] You're in this.

[29:40] You're in this.

[29:41] Oh.

[29:42] Thank you.

[29:43] All right.

[29:44] Roll call.

[29:45] Vote please.

[29:46] Councilmember Edwards.

[29:47] Yes.

[29:47] Councilmember Heron.

[29:48] Yes.

[29:48] Councilmember Kelly.

[29:50] Yes.

[29:50] Vice Mayor Mitchell.

[29:51] Yes.

[29:53] All right.

[29:53] I'm going to speech back.

[29:55] So would we have a motion on 6-8, please?

[30:00] So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay. All right. And I believe I live, but I'm not sure the distance to location for item six.

[30:15] Aye. So out of an abundance of caution, I'm going to recuse myself from the vote on item six.

[30:21] I'll entertain a motion on approval of six high.

[30:25] Move we approve six high.

[30:27] Second.

[30:27] All is a favor.

[30:29] Aye.

[30:29] All right.

[30:30] Hearing no pose that passes.

[30:32] And now we are on to this is to consider adoption of the updated water and wastewater rates.

[30:42] Schedules may we have a staff report please.

[30:52] Good evening, Mayor's council members.

[30:54] Tonight, this agenda item is to hold a public hearing in accordance with Prop 2018 for the proposed

[31:00] rates for the rate changes for water and wastewater.

[31:05] This is a culmination of work that staff has been

[31:19] a cut-cost, lower operating cost, find

[31:22] ways to trim the budget to meet the revenues that are currently coming in.

[31:28] There's a point where we could do as much as we've done, and then we needed to call in a

[31:33] Consultant to look at our financial outlook and then look at pros of change to a rate structures.

[31:38] As you'll remember in 2022, we adopted a five-year plan for rates. We've gotten to the first two

[31:44] years of that, but it's not sufficient to cover the operating costs as well as

[31:49] build CIP projects. So with that, I will turn the presentation over to the consultants,

[31:55] Raff Tellis, which is chemochastic. We'll be presenting and walking through the rate processes settings,

[32:02] the rate structures and some of the outcomes.

[32:08] Thank you, Terry, and good evening, Council.

[32:10] This is Kevin Costick from RAPTELUS.

[32:12] We can go to the next slide.

[32:15] And we can step through a few of these.

[32:17] It's an animation.

[32:18] As Terry mentioned, we've been at this for some time.

[32:21] We started our kickoff with your staff last fall

[32:25] around Labor Day.

[32:27] And our first step is talking about the rate setting framework.

[32:29] What are our goals and objectives for the study?

[32:32] What are any alternative rate structures

[32:33] rate design that we want to evaluate. The second primary step is developing a long-range

[32:39] financial plan, so we look out over a 10-year period for your both your water and wastewater

[32:44] utilities. Look at the operating environment, future capital costs, conduct a cash flow analysis

[32:51] and look at different scenarios or options to fully fund the utilities over the long-term.

[32:57] The third step is our rate design. We step through a cost-of-service analysis where we're allocating

[33:02] our system costs to different user groups based on how they burden the system with their demand

[33:08] patterns, with their meter connections, wastewater generation, etc. And again, looking at alternative

[33:13] rate structures, which you'll see tonight, a tiered rate structure for single family residential

[33:19] users. And then the last step in rate design is calculating those rates and conducting an impact analysis.

[33:26] steps four and five are related to rated option and we go one more. First step is really about documenting our study in a study report that's reviewed by city staff by legal counsel and that's been completed and then our last step is procedural with proposition to 18 that's what we're here to do tonight is to hold the public hearing.

[33:46] We've noticed our customers, we've walked through the 45-day minimum protest period, and so this is the end of the end of the road so to speak for the rate study tonight.

[33:57] Next one more please.

[34:02] So that first step is really about our rate setting framework and our objectives and our community values drive what we want to evaluate within a rate study.

[34:12] And these are key objectives or key values that you'll see woven into the long range plan and the rate structures.

[34:20] So the first is making sure that our rates are fair when they make sure that they're fair to all of our customer classes based on their service level based on their demand patterns and their different characteristics.

[34:31] So everyone pays their fair share.

[34:33] The second is ensuring financial efficiencies.

[34:35] We want to make sure that our utility enterprises stand on their own, recover not just their operating cost,

[34:41] but also long-term capital projects and cash reserves as well.

[34:46] And then for your water utility,

[34:47] you want to ensure that we have secure supplies

[34:50] over the long-term to weather shortages

[34:52] and changes in your existing source supply.

[34:58] So how we weave those objectives into our study,

[35:02] first is water enterprise financial plan,

[35:06] it prioritizes the city's future water supply

[35:09] and you see that in the funding for capital projects

[35:12] and future operating costs. Water-only water financial plans that allow for us to invest

[35:18] in reinvesting critical infrastructure, adhered rates for single-family residential users,

[35:25] and a reserves policy that lessens rate impacts.

[35:32] Thank you. A couple more. We have animation here again.

[35:38] So cutting to the chase, based on the proposed rates that were noticed to customers, what

[35:43] the impacts to our typical single-family residential user,

[35:46] so this is showing a typical user in year one.

[35:51] They'd expect to see roughly a $16.50 increase

[35:54] for their water service each month,

[35:56] and about $17.60 for wastewater service.

[35:59] The drivers are fairly similar between the two,

[36:02] the capital improvement program

[36:04] due to aging infrastructure, cost, pressure,

[36:07] due to inflation on the operating front,

[36:09] the cash position of each utility

[36:11] and the need to have sufficient cash or operating cost but also risk management.

[36:18] And then also rate restructuring when it comes to water service again talking about the

[36:22] tiered rate structure. Next slide.

[36:28] I'll turn this back to your utility's director.

[36:31] So in setting up the rates and looking at what's recommended for the city to pursue and fun,

[36:38] one of the bigger things that came out of the rate study in the public hearings was a

[36:42] about water supply. And so certainly the city was challenged with water supply during the 2021

[36:46] drought, and certainly in the future of the city will continue to be challenged with water supplies.

[36:52] And so looking at options and building a stronger supply source for resiliency through drought

[36:58] years is important. With the potter valley projects going away, that is going to reduce the amount of

[37:04] water within the upper Russian river that will impact the city's water rights. And so again,

[37:08] the city receives about 80% of its water right now from the Russian river. So without flows from

[37:14] the potter valley project, that becomes less reliable in the future. During the discussions,

[37:21] Council provided direct to the staff to prioritize development of more stable water supplies,

[37:25] and so looking at Lake Sonoma and Dry Creek was an option for the city of Healsburg.

[37:31] But there's additional costs with that. So we looked at rearranging their CIP projects,

[37:35] deferring certain projects, staggering other projects, to make room for some rehabilitation

[37:42] work and dry creek wells. So existing wells, we have trying to re-establish that capacity,

[37:47] the pumping capacity, so we get increased amount of pumping capacity from dry creek, and then contract

[37:53] water from snowmow water agency. So that's a project that pushed for there, and that rearrangement

[37:59] projects has roughly an increase of one percent in the third year of the study, but does

[38:07] provide in a drought year much more secure and stable water supply. So the city wouldn't have

[38:12] to go to such high levels of conservation such as 40 to 50 percent conservation, but maybe in

[38:18] those extreme years would only have to go to 20 percent conservation. If those treatment improvements

[38:25] are delayed. It's these other projects are delayed. We may lose access to the

[38:29] fish well fields. So that's over the time. It's been one of the biggest

[38:33] producers for water during the summer months. We don't you rely on the

[38:37] fish well field during the winter because of turbidity issues, water quality issues.

[38:41] But that is an outcome of this shifting and prioritization of dry creek is that

[38:46] the fish well fields may become unavailable to the city. Next slide, please.

[38:52] So another piece that we wanted to illustrate for the council is the plan capital projects that are included in the proposed rate changes as well as projects that we removed from the three-year window for funding.

[39:08] And so walking through, I won't take a long time with this, but walking through some of these projects, we've proposed to include about $3.9 million over the next three years.

[39:17] The first project project compares cryptospiridium that's a parasite.

[39:21] We've tested our wells, we found that that parasite exists in our wells and so we need

[39:25] to filter it, which means we need to build new facilities to filter that out of our system

[39:30] to provide safe and healthy water.

[39:33] We have to fund that.

[39:36] The next odd project down here is the dry creek pumping and clear well improvements.

[39:41] That's what we talked about with the water supply.

[39:42] So to access water from dry creek and the volumes of the city needs,

[39:47] we need to re-establish that pumping capacity.

[39:49] And that's that project there.

[39:52] The reservoir liner, Godland is another third maintenance project.

[39:56] Heels for water and waste water.

[39:58] This is water and waste water replacements

[40:00] that head up the Heels for a new street improvement.

[40:02] So we want to improve those things

[40:04] before we do the surface improvement.

[40:06] So we don't dig those up later on.

[40:10] Round street, seawand water replacements.

[40:11] But this is a water line that's been in service since 1910.

[40:14] We'd like to replace that before it starts to fail more frequently.

[40:19] University Street Sewer and Water again, aging facilities, orchard lift station rehabilitation

[40:24] this is the lift station that's in the middle of the street.

[40:26] The lid is starting to fail and we'd like to replace that lid before it fails and somebody

[40:30] drives into it.

[40:33] Heelsberg Avenue Sewer Replacement Project, another aging facility that we'd like to replace

[40:38] The water reclamation facility membrane replacements, so we have membranes at the water recommendation facility to treat our wastewater.

[40:47] Certain years, we have to replace those membranes as it were out to maintain the acid there, so that's an important project for that.

[40:54] And then the Magnely Listation is the final listation in the wastewater collection system.

[40:59] If that fails, we have no way to get the wastewater to our treatment plant.

[41:03] So we want to be proactive and look at that facility that was built in the 70s and see what we need to do to make it last for another 50 years or so.

[41:12] These other projects we've moved out. So again, 27.5 million, which also includes an estimated cost for PFAS removal, which is forever chemical that's been found in the water and the EPA is just recently released.

[41:26] requirements for the filtration of that.

[41:30] We're not sure if our water will require that filtration, but it's in here because for awareness.

[41:36] But these are several projects that we deferred.

[41:38] These projects don't necessarily go away, but these projects remain on the list, but not funded in the current three-year window.

[41:45] So there's some risk with doing that, but we understand that we can't increase rates infinitely.

[41:51] So we have to push out some projects, but we also realize that we can't push out all projects forever.

[41:55] So there's a balance point here, and that's what we're trying to illustrate here.

[42:00] And with that, I'll turn it back over to Kevin.

[42:03] Thank you. So one of the primary changes to the rate structures proposed. The cycle is to move

[42:11] residential users to a three-tier commodity rate, or water use rate. And you see the logic here.

[42:19] The first tier would be up to the first five units. So a unit of water is also referred to as a

[42:24] cubic feet at 748 gallons or about 15 bathtubs full of water. So those first five units would be

[42:31] offered at the lowest rate possible that we are cost congested by and that's based on the average

[42:37] winner water use of customers in Healdsburg. Similarly, Tier II would be defined from the 6th unit

[42:45] up through the 10th unit and again looking within the customer billing data, how folks in Healdburg

[42:52] use water and defining that to your based on the peak needs in the summer period for our residential

[42:57] customers. Then tier 3 would be all water used greater than 10 units. So again, going from the

[43:04] current structure, which is just a uniform rate, 1 rate for every unit of water, whether it's the

[43:08] first through the 20th to this 3 tier that you see here. Thanks a lot. So let's turn to the fixed

[43:17] charges for water service. And again, a 3 year schedule, because we're looking at a 3 year

[43:23] rate adoption, the table showing our current rates in the FY2024 column, and then three years

[43:28] of proposed.

[43:30] So the proposed structure does modify the residential fixed charges and harmonizes with

[43:37] all of our other fixed charges so that all water service charges are based on the size

[43:42] of the meter.

[43:42] Those are effectively our classes, or the size of the meter, again talking about fairness

[43:48] between different user groups, so residential folks would now rather than being per dwelling unit

[43:56] would find themselves into the respective meter size. Most single family would be that up to one inch

[44:03] connection with a proposed rate of $41.34 and then for multi-family connections that tend to be

[44:10] larger connections and might have many dwelling units, again they would pay based on their respective

[44:15] meter sets. Next up

[44:20] our water commodity rates here again the water use rates bringing in those

[44:25] residential tiers that I described a couple slides earlier. Again the first tier up to five units

[44:30] tier 2 up to 10 units of water and then tier 3 being greater than 10. Our current rates again

[44:36] $6.48 uniformly across all units of water both for residential but all of our non-residential

[44:42] classes as well. So, the proposed we're able to maintain the first tier at $6.40, that's simply

[44:49] a coincidence that it shakes out to be exactly what your current rate is. And then tier two, higher

[44:56] at $8.41, and then tier three at $10.80. And what we're different.

[45:00] Branchating there is, again, those demand patterns, how peaky, how much water is used in the peak period versus the average period for each one of these tiers to justify the differential between them.

[45:12] Then for our non-residential classes, similarly, we're differentiating between commercial users, industrial type users and landscape, which stands for irrigation. So those meters that are dedicated for outdoor irrigation needs.

[45:26] commercial rate increasing in the first year from 6.48 to 7.61 industrial up to $9.49 and

[45:34] landscape 11.06. The river of UHOA is a contract base rate that would be increased up to $1.93.

[45:43] Next. Turning the waste water side of the house again a three year schedule here showing

[45:49] our fixed charges first so we have service charges for residential users. We see the single family

[45:56] would increase from $46.67 to $51.33 doing the way with the single family in ADU that would

[46:04] those types of connections would find their way into either the single family residential or

[46:08] the multi-family depending on their specific circumstances. And then for our non-residential

[46:13] service charges differentiated by meter size. And then lastly, we'll be our wastewater usage

[46:21] charges, so our wastewater use for residential based on average winter, average winter water

[46:27] use. Current rate is $11.47 for every unit of water, and the proposed would increase in the

[46:33] first year to 1471. Similarly for our non-residential we differentiated by the strength of wastewater

[46:39] that's discharged. You see low medium and high there, all changing, differently based on the updated

[46:46] cost allocations, but all increasing with the exception of high strength, which comes down about

[46:51] a dollar.

[46:56] So, comparing ourselves to neighboring agencies, mindful that other agencies are in different

[47:02] parts of their rate cycle. They may have different system ages. They have different sources of supply

[47:07] that may be more or less expensive than the city of Healdsburg. We see the current bill for this is

[47:15] average single-family residential user and that being a seven units of water, four units of sewer

[47:22] service with a less than one-inch connection. Currently, that bill is 16652. This proposal would

[47:30] have year run that year-one impact up to $273. We did want to note that sabastable winds are in

[47:38] at park or I'll currently conducting studies, the City of Sebastopol is looking at some significant

[47:44] increases that would move them. Just above where your current position is, but they're

[47:51] public hearing and scheduled for next month.

[47:56] So that's water and wastewater, but it doesn't

[47:58] tell the whole story because you're unique in the region where you have your own local electric utility

[48:04] as well and you're able to offer that electric service for less than what PG&E can. So when we add

[48:11] in to look at more of a comprehensive utility bill.

[48:14] Again, single-family residential, 70-inths of water,

[48:17] four units of sewer, and 450-6 kilowatt hours of power.

[48:23] You actually end up more favorable than everybody else

[48:25] in the region, again, because you're able to offer

[48:28] that electric service so affordably.

[48:33] If we can step through a few of these.

[48:39] So looking at our adoption and implementation schedule,

[48:43] We met with you all March 18th.

[48:46] We talked about the proposed rate structures and the draft financial report.

[48:50] That kicked off our noticing period, which, again, is a 45 day minimum.

[48:56] That leads us to tonight the public hearing on proposed rates, where a formal rate adoption

[49:03] can take place in a majority protest should rates be adopted tonight.

[49:08] There would be a second reading of the rate ordinance on May 20th.

[49:11] new rates would be effective for all water and wastewater service happening after July 1st

[49:17] and that would appear on the August utility bill.

[49:23] Next,

[49:25] I'll turn this back to your utility's

[49:28] director. So, as required by Propsage into a team to adopt rates, there's a prop to a team

[49:35] process that needs to be held and part of that is to hold a public hearing, and so the procedures

[49:41] for that in general, our outline above, you know, to have after the presentation council's questions,

[49:48] then have council open up public hearing, allow that public comment, close the public hearing,

[49:54] ask the city clerk to provide a vote of protests that have been presented to the city,

[50:00] and then further council deliberation on the potential adoption of rates.

[50:04] So with that, I will open up to any council questions.

[50:07] Thank you. I appreciate the presentation. So at this point, any questions from council, council member Kelly.

[50:17] Thank you for the presentation. And I know that prior in this process, we had talked about concerns around the Potter Valley project and wanting to have more certainty with access to water and the potential curtailments during a drought.

[50:34] So appreciate kind of the focus on doing more around the dry creek wells and trying to shift some of our water reliability over towards Lake Sonoma given the capacity of Lake Sonoma versus Lake Mendocino and kind of that.

[50:56] One of the things you mentioned in that slide around the capital improvements was something

[51:04] with respect to the Fitch Mountain Wells and not making certain investments there now and the

[51:12] potential for some sort of situation where if the improvements on the dry creek side

[51:19] aren't realized, then we're not making that investment in the Fitch Mountain Wells currently,

[51:25] which is a choice we're proactively making right now. What kind of situation might we find ourselves

[51:31] in or can you elaborate on that just a little further so I understand? So again, the intent is to

[51:36] shift the CIP projects around to minimize the rate increase. That's necessary. So one of the projects

[51:43] that we're shifting around is the cryptospritium. So if we install cryptospritium treatment at

[51:48] Crickwells and delay the installation of cryptospreading on the Fritchwell field.

[51:53] We can use that funding to fund the rehabilitation of the pumping capacity of the dry

[51:59] Crickwells.

[52:00] But again, if you don't filter out the cryptospreading on the Fritchwell field, we may be

[52:04] limited using those well fields.

[52:07] So that's the risk there.

[52:09] One of the benefits there as well is that we don't necessarily know what the PFAS levels

[52:14] are in the Russian River.

[52:15] And that's another piece of treatment that would have to go in at both dry creek if it's

[52:20] it's just there and the fish well field if it exists there.

[52:23] And so if we can actually delay the investments in the fish well field a little bit longer,

[52:29] we can actually make a decision on what holistically the cost of maintaining that fish well

[52:33] field is versus putting that money towards dry creek.

[52:37] So there's a little bit of a timing game there that has to be kind of played out over the

[52:43] next three years.

[52:44] but that's the kind of timeline that we're looking at for it

[52:48] and those are the exchanges that we're.

[52:52] Great, thank you.

[52:55] It comes from a rare.

[52:56] Thank you.

[52:58] I want to bring up a question that our perception,

[53:01] maybe this come up in the public a lot.

[53:03] It's not necessarily mine.

[53:05] I want to, but I think it's something that we should address

[53:07] and that's the idea that we have a really large,

[53:14] sort of pile up of capital projects.

[53:16] at this point in time.

[53:18] And it's my impression, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

[53:20] It's that if you look at the utilities department

[53:23] a now 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago,

[53:27] you will see a long list of things that are completed along

[53:29] to do list, presently, and many items that are deferred,

[53:32] because you don't have the time or the money to get to them just yet.

[53:37] And that this is a usual situation for a department like this.

[53:41] But I want you to, you know, if you can compare the present moment to how the utility department has been situated in the past and and also maybe a point out what significantly different I think the part of our evaluation is a good example that so you can check that box, but there's anything else along those lines about something that's very unique about what's happening now that wasn't happening in the past.

[54:09] I think that would be helpful to people because I think there's like said there's a perception that maybe we just haven't been doing stuff for a long time and that's what we have as long as I don't have that perception frankly, but I think it needs to be addressed.

[54:22] So to try and speak to maybe what the differences are or the past 10 years or 15 years.

[54:27] So the city does have about 60 miles of waterline and 60 miles of waste waterline. So again, that's as illustrate of that's enough to go to the Golden Gate Bridge and back.

[54:36] And that's all under the city streets and that's all maintained.

[54:40] That water line typically has about a 50-year life.

[54:43] And that's when you just start to plan to replace it.

[54:47] For the city, over a third of that mileage is over 50 years.

[54:53] So one third is past due for replacement.

[54:56] And that's really the backlog as far as the water distribution system

[55:00] and the water collection system that's different.

[55:03] Also, you know, one thing that I would know that's different for the city of Hillsbury than some of the other cities is our water treatment facility.

[55:11] So we have membrane filtration to reduce the turbidity of the Russian river during the winter season.

[55:16] That's a regulatory obligation that was put in place in the early 2000.

[55:20] That's a debt service that the city has to continue to pay.

[55:22] That's some of the other cities in the areas that don't pay.

[55:25] On the wastewater side, we do have a tertiary treated UV-discffected plant.

[55:30] That is a requirement of the region, not all cities have that, plant, not all cities have that debt service, but that's an also a regulatory obligation.

[55:39] And then again, additionally, the city has a obligation for the to meet the discharge prohibition season.

[55:46] So from May 15th to the end of September to not discharge tertiary treated, you'd be disconnected in a pretty cycle water to the Russian river.

[55:54] We have to find a way to benefitually use that water, which means we have to build out that recycled water system.

[56:01] So for several years, we've been building out that recycled water system, and that's been consuming a capital that's available to the city.

[56:09] So the change in, you know, the system just continuing to age over years, the change in these regulatory obligations taking a priority to normal replacement of distribution systems and collection systems,

[56:23] is underground pipes in the system.

[56:25] I think that's really indicative of the change

[56:28] that we're seeing right now

[56:29] and that we have this compounding issue today

[56:32] where we also have to meet these regulatory obligations

[56:35] pay this debt service that's ongoing.

[56:38] And then, but also look at the maintenance of our system

[56:40] and try and catch up with that.

[56:42] And so I think that's really what's kind of driving

[56:45] what's moving forward.

[56:48] Thank you.

[56:49] But in terms of the aging pipeline,

[56:51] That's that's something that's ongoing. That's something we've been attending to regularly throughout the years. Is that right?

[56:58] I would say no. I would say that the regulatory obligations consume all of the capital that's available within the previous

[57:04] straight structures and then those projects get deferred.

[57:07] And a good example is Brown Street, University Street,

[57:10] Hillsburg Avenue.

[57:11] Those are projects that have been on the shelf for several years.

[57:14] And in concept of trying to fund,

[57:16] but there's never been enough money to actually push those forward.

[57:19] And I think that's really the challenge for the cities.

[57:22] That we need to get a point where we can meet these regulatory

[57:24] obligations.

[57:25] These new things to come in, such as Cryptospritium or the PFAS.

[57:29] But then also be able to fund this deferred maintenance

[57:32] or the replacement of our aging facilities.

[57:34] Thanks. Thank you very much.

[57:38] Council Member Edwards.

[57:39] Yeah, I think that we have been looking at this since February and you were saying like to do these things and I think that the council has heard these presentations and we're saying these are things we need to do.

[57:51] We've looked at the importance of having the safe water and feel that these are really important.

[57:55] And so I think this would be fair to say that we are looking at this in a big picture at a high level.

[58:01] We're not saying let's put a band aid on it.

[58:04] Let's tie to take care of these past capital improvements that really aren't capital improvements.

[58:09] They're really necessary for our water system to continue.

[58:13] So my understanding is that we can't just do this in a piece meal because it hasn't worked in the past.

[58:18] That by taking a look at the rate study by looking deeply at the 60 miles of way, 60 miles of water,

[58:25] they were looking at the whole thing and we're trying to address it now instead of doing a piece

[58:30] meal and so my question is, we can't break this up and make it work because of financing.

[58:36] Is that correct? That that's a challenge for the city is one we're not in a strong

[58:42] finding right now so we're not meeting bond covenants that's one of the reasons that we're here

[58:48] in front of you to talk about proposed rate increases we're not meeting the requirements for our current

[58:53] at service. And so we need to fix that first before you could even go out and consider looking

[58:59] at financing. But then again, the financing looking forward, there's a given take there,

[59:04] it's like, oh yeah, that lowers your rates, but it provides a long-term obligation. And so,

[59:08] what do you do when the next series of projects come forward? Do you continue to finance those?

[59:14] Or do you find a pay as you go? Or do you find an equilibrium in your rates that you can continue

[59:19] to move forward with your aging infrastructure

[59:21] and replace that entirely manner of versus continuing

[59:24] to assume debt.

[59:26] So what I'm hearing that really for non-linear water system,

[59:30] but our financial system, we really need to address this.

[59:33] And I think that's what we're doing as we are.

[59:35] If it were a family, we'd be looking at our budget,

[59:37] and it would be painful, but we need to prepare for the future

[59:40] because you got to have an emergency fund.

[59:43] And this is securing our emergency fund

[59:45] and ability to deal with major things in the future.

[59:47] That is correct as looking for the long-term health of the water. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

[59:55] Yeah. Thank you for that. It was helpful and clear.

[1:00:00] I wanted to ask about the reserve policy change. If you could just recap that for us.

[1:00:07] Absolutely. So the reserve policy assistance right now is there is a million dollar capital reserve policy.

[1:00:12] And so that lives in our capital fund. And that reserve is only allowed to be used to fix emergency capital

[1:00:19] repairs or natural disasters that cause major infrastructure problems. And so the proposal is to change that into a

[1:00:27] stabilization reserve. Keep the same target of $1 million, but move it to the operating fund.

[1:00:32] And therefore, we can use that money to, as we're proposing in the upcoming budget cycle,

[1:00:37] to support some of those capital projects, but also lessen the impact on the rates. So that we can

[1:00:43] still have that money when we need it, but we don't necessarily need to increase the rates so drastically.

[1:00:49] We can kind of use that to soften the blow and incrementally increase those rates. And so

[1:00:58] we're going

[1:00:59] use the money to help with the capital projects to keep the rates down but continue to have a reserve

[1:01:06] for that purpose. Yes, absolutely. We'll be using not the entire million dollars, but we are proposing to use

[1:01:12] a significant portion in both funds in both fiscal years. And it sounds like some of the comments

[1:01:17] is that some of the capital projects may the prioritization of when and how we do them may shift a

[1:01:24] a little bit depending on money and regulations. Is that a fair statement?

[1:01:32] I think at this point we have a pretty good picture. I mean there's no perfect crystal ball but

[1:01:36] I think over the next two years and certainly over the next three years what we programed here

[1:01:40] is what we'd like to fund and get constructed and completed.

[1:01:47] And the dry creek wells, the Potter Valley project is going to be several years off probably right

[1:01:52] as far as removing the dams and so on.

[1:01:56] So some of the challenge with the Potter Valley Project is

[1:01:58] so Lake Pillsbury, the Scott Dam,

[1:02:01] is seismically challenged and so PG&E

[1:02:03] is reduced to reservoir storage in the Lake Pillsbury.

[1:02:06] So that means there's less flow into the EO River

[1:02:09] and that means there's less water

[1:02:10] that would transfer from the EO River

[1:02:12] through the Potter Valley Project into the River.

[1:02:15] Additionally, there's been some failures

[1:02:17] at the Potter Valley Projects

[1:02:18] so PG&E is no longer generating at the Potter Valley Project.

[1:02:21] So they don't need the water demand there.

[1:02:24] So they are bypassing the plant, which means there's a lesser flow around and through that

[1:02:29] potter valley project as well.

[1:02:32] So ultimately, going forward, starting last year, there's less water moving into Lake Mendocino

[1:02:38] from the potter valley project.

[1:02:40] And that means that through the summers, even in a normal year, there's going to be a less

[1:02:44] water flowing past hillsburg in the upper Russian river.

[1:02:48] And that will challenge the supply of water.

[1:02:50] So this year a normal year probably is going to be fine, but you could have even just a slightly

[1:02:56] below average year where there's not a lot of storage and Lake Mendocino that could cause

[1:03:01] some level of curtailment in the upper-wrestened river where it may not have that same level

[1:03:07] of containment from Lake Sonoma and Dry Creek and that's really where that shift provides

[1:03:11] heels for a unique position and reliability that we can shift some of our water usage to Dry Creek.

[1:03:17] So it gives us some water security, maybe about the same time, it would be done when

[1:03:24] Potter Valley is.

[1:03:26] Yeah, I think we'll be a little bit ahead of that.

[1:03:30] And again, during and throughout here, there's still going to be a need for conservation,

[1:03:33] but we just want to learn our lesson, have to put ourselves in a position where we have such

[1:03:37] drastic needs for conservation.

[1:03:41] Thank you.

[1:03:43] All right.

[1:03:45] With that, I want to announce time to hear from the public, because this is a public hearing.

[1:03:51] I'd like to remind everyone that if you wish to file a written protest against the proposed new water or waste water rates, you must deliver it to the city clerk.

[1:04:00] Right now, do you want to raise your hand?

[1:04:03] To the city clerk before the close of this public hearing.

[1:04:06] Notice that tonight's public hearing was sent to all property owners and all water and waste water customers.

[1:04:11] those notices, detailed the requirements for submitting a required, for submitting a written

[1:04:17] protest against the rates. Only written protests that contain all of the required information

[1:04:22] and that are received by the clerk right there. Before I close this hearing tonight, we'll be counted.

[1:04:29] If written protests are received from a majority of the parcels that would be subject to the new

[1:04:34] rates, Council will not adopt the rates. So with that, I'll now open the public hearing and if you

[1:04:39] I would like to speak. I would like to welcome you. Welcome,

[1:04:45] and I appreciate your patience.

[1:04:47] Oh, you're welcome.

[1:04:48] I appreciate it, so I'm Stanley Crane. Heelsberg Residence for 10 years.

[1:04:53] I have no doubt that we need to raise rates and the utilities.

[1:04:58] This is where it started right here. This is the notice that you sent to me.

[1:05:02] I'm a mathematician, and I was a CTO of a couple of public companies.

[1:05:07] I'm a geek, and I'm pretty good at it itself.

[1:05:09] So the first thing I did was what's the going to do my rates, and how do I check it?

[1:05:13] I check it against what you guys published, and then I went through with my calculator and I

[1:05:18] discovered that half the numbers on this page were wrong. And then I downloaded the 100 page report

[1:05:25] and I read it very carefully. Demand is a function of a couple things. How much water do we use?

[1:05:33] Well, I apologize. You guys are way far away to see this. Here's a graph that shows the water usage

[1:05:39] It shows 506 acre feet, 506 acre feet is 220,000 HCFs.

[1:05:48] Throughout the report, they use 520,000 HCFs, how much water we use.

[1:05:53] How much water are we using anyway?

[1:05:55] There's a whole bunch of instances where this information is completely incorrect, like

[1:06:00] the other factors, how many meters?

[1:06:04] Well, there's somewhere between, on one page, 5,999 water meters in the city, on another

[1:06:10] page, there's 4,796.

[1:06:15] So somewhere between there, here's what I think happened.

[1:06:19] These guys do a lot of these studies, that's my hunch, and that there's a cut-and-paste

[1:06:24] thing going on here where they cut paste stuff.

[1:06:26] How can you be off by more than a hundred percent in how much water we actually use?

[1:06:33] And this and this one, which you really can't see, it shows the total of the non-residential

[1:06:39] meters, the total is 4,825. This is on page 24 of that hundred-page report.

[1:06:47] The largest number on their 470, it's off by over 4,000. So here's what I recommend.

[1:06:54] I think you need to have some citizens and I volunteer.

[1:06:59] We'll through this report.

[1:07:02] Correct the inaccuracies and the inconsistencies and the report to make it correct.

[1:07:07] You're basing.

[1:07:09] You're basing a significant change in my water race and as well.

[1:07:14] Based on a report that is inconsistent.

[1:07:18] that is inaccurate. And I think it's time to have a time out and go through this and

[1:07:25] and correct it. Absolutely, we need to raise the rates. The capital agreement projects,

[1:07:29] absolutely, I think that's very important for all of us. I'm a heels regress it into,

[1:07:34] but I just think this report can't be the basis for changing all of these rates. Okay, thanks.

[1:07:41] Thank you.

[1:07:43] Anybody else?

[1:07:50] Anyone else?

[1:07:52] Welcome, Talia?

[1:07:58] Thank you, Mayor Hayesley, and Council members.

[1:08:01] Talia Hart from the Hillsburg Chamber of Commerce.

[1:08:04] We represent over 500 local businesses and thousands of employees.

[1:08:08] And the increase in these rattle rates will be significant cost to our local employers

[1:08:12] who are currently really struggling to pay bills,

[1:08:15] high lease rates and taxes, but as the chamber we do understand the need for infrastructure

[1:08:22] increases especially infrastructure that was built in 1910. It's just an unfortunate burden

[1:08:27] to have a 21% plus increase just in the first year alone. So a couple of things we just wanted

[1:08:33] to point out economic impact, our business is really heavily on water such as restaurants,

[1:08:38] manufacturing, agriculture and they'll have considerably higher operational costs. So I calculated

[1:08:44] two businesses just based on their actual bills. And a smaller hotel would have about $10,000 in

[1:08:51] increased just in the first year with water and sewer and then a smaller business, which is water

[1:08:57] based a coffee would have about $3,000 in the first year alone. So that inevitably will be passed on

[1:09:04] to the customer. So we just want you to keep in that in mind, in terms of competitiveness,

[1:09:09] If a business in the city face hair costs for essential resources like this, water compared to elsewhere,

[1:09:16] which we saw the charts.

[1:09:17] So thank you very much.

[1:09:18] But Hillsburg could become at a disadvantage to other local cities and being mindful that our businesses

[1:09:24] are looking every day at where they have the biggest margins and where their operational costs can be.

[1:09:31] So just be mindful of our economic ecosystem and it's incredibly important for us for the future.

[1:09:36] and we get a lot of sales tax revenue off of our businesses.

[1:09:40] So we also can see the need to have versus the nice to have.

[1:09:46] So really looking at our infrastructure versus some of the one-off consulting costs on items that we use.

[1:09:54] And also increases that are more consistent.

[1:09:57] So, you know, over time we know this isn't probably anybody's problem that was sitting here,

[1:10:02] but going off the CPI index increasing slowly over time versus 20 to 30 percent at a time.

[1:10:09] That's huge for these businesses. So faced implementation target is

[1:10:14] assistance for specific industries. I know I'm running out of time, but we'll just

[1:10:19] let's look at emphasize the long term planning. We want to see a balanced approach as chamber

[1:10:24] of commerce as we take into account all the needs of businesses, the community and the

[1:10:28] these financial sustainability will continue to work collaboratively with the council to find solutions to support our economic growth and ensure we have our responsible management resources.

[1:10:39] We hope that you'll consider what an impact this has on small businesses which are 85% of our town. So thank you.

[1:10:46] Thank

[1:10:49] you.

[1:10:51] Welcome.

[1:10:56] Good evening council members. My name is Pomina Lopez. I am a resident of Hillsburg.

[1:11:02] A local teacher and the co-chair of the executive board for North Fe, Josh Fe Justice.

[1:11:08] A few minutes ago, I emailed you a case study, the study's a livable wage of farm workers.

[1:11:13] Please take your time to read it.

[1:11:16] The water proposal for our city is quite outrageous considering that many of us in town are barely recovering

[1:11:22] from the negative financial impacts of the pandemic and continue to face the challenges of climate change.

[1:11:29] Based on the presented data, no one in the city to the opportunity to talk to residents about how this matter will impact families.

[1:11:38] The city of Hillsburg has talked about equity before.

[1:11:41] The information that was sent out about the water proposal hearing was not linked which accessible in the numbers for quite confusing.

[1:11:48] Just take a look at your room in here in the water rate study that was presented, it doesn't show how this will impact families.

[1:11:59] Why is in this study taking a look at the financial data and families passing the water rates proposal will be a financial burden to farm workers who are at the front of our economy in Hillsburg.

[1:12:10] We all know that wineries are the biggest water consumers and don't do right by farm workers. What is their fair share?

[1:12:16] Farm workers are already feeling the burden of not having a just state by the industry as a economy

[1:12:22] worsens. The water proposal rates will push farm workers out of the city. The rates are not

[1:12:28] sustainable and are not equitable. $16.59. Sounds like a fair share. However, where farm workers don't

[1:12:36] have a livable wage, that $16.59 is not sustainable at all. I am here to recommend that the

[1:12:46] reach and research about the impact that the proposed water rates will have on farm worker families

[1:12:51] to elderly and low-income families before deciding to take a boat. Thank you for your time.

[1:12:57] Thank you.

[1:13:03] Anyone else?

[1:13:07] Welcome.

[1:13:10] My name is Alice. You can't but I'm a

[1:13:12] minute. Can you make sure that? Thank you. My name is Alice in

[1:13:17] and I live in the Hillsburg. No one wants to see these rates go up.

[1:13:25] But we really don't have a

[1:13:27] choice and timing is also precarious. If we start now, we may be able to meet our water demands

[1:13:39] when the Potter Valley project is called. Maybe not. I understand about the economic impact.

[1:13:48] I really do, but just think of what the economic impact would be if we didn't have any water.

[1:13:55] There wouldn't be any water, there wouldn't be a hotel.

[1:14:01] This problem has come before you without your desire, without your choice.

[1:14:10] But you really don't have any choice.

[1:14:13] We need these projects.

[1:14:16] I wish it would be different, you wish it would be different, but you've had the perception

[1:14:21] and I hope to encourage to understand that we really don't have much choice.

[1:14:29] We may have to deal with the consequences in various ways that I don't understand, but I

[1:14:34] do understand that we have to go forward with these suggested infrastructure and changes.

[1:14:45] Thank you.

[1:14:50] Welcome.

[1:14:58] Good evening Mayor. Council.

[1:15:01] I know you have a lot of thought into this, and I just want to say thank you. This is not an easy call. This is a really, really tough, big increases. It would have been a lot easier to have Kate the can done the road. But you didn't. You dug into it. You learn the details. You made the top decision. I don't want to thank you for it. This is what local government is about. Thank you.

[1:15:27] Thank you. Anyone else?

[1:15:33] Retired welcome.

[1:15:39] Good evening council Richard Bird.

[1:15:42] I am curious and I don't know that it makes much difference to your decision this evening.

[1:15:47] At what rate were you going to accumulate the $13 and $27 million on the projects that we saw on the chart?

[1:15:56] I assume the rating increases have accommodated those two lists of projects, but it's difficult for me to understand exactly how will raise the money to accomplish the projects.

[1:16:11] In a time window, which may actually be shrinking.

[1:16:14] So I don't have a problem with the rate increases, it seems like it will get us some of what we need to accomplish what we saw in that list of open projects.

[1:16:28] But I am curious how long it will take to accumulate the funds to accommodate those.

[1:16:34] And I can't imagine that it all comes from revenue.

[1:16:37] Some of it is going to have to come from another source and I'm curious what that might be bonds or grants or gifts

[1:16:46] Just a curiosity. Thank you. Thank you

[1:16:51] Anyone else

[1:16:57] once

[1:17:00] Nobody

[1:17:02] All right

[1:17:05] All right, so Richard was the last speaker for the public hearing on water and sewer rates

[1:17:11] uh the public hearing is now closed. Thank you for your participation.

[1:17:16] City Clerk can you tell me if there is a majority protest against the proposed rates?

[1:17:22] Mayor Hagley, there is not. We received 187 total.

[1:17:29] Let's see.

[1:17:32] Thank you.

[1:17:33] Now's the time for a council discussion. So who would like to kick this one off?

[1:17:39] I just want to say that it's my opinion that even though these rates are, you know, going to be significantly painful to a lot of people that

[1:17:55] These increases are well thought out and that if we weren't making this action now, I'm convinced that the pain that our residents would bear supporting our utilities, our water services would just get worse.

[1:18:14] And so it's to not turn this corner now, I think, really would be devastatingly unfair burn on the

[1:18:26] future. And so for that reason, I supported it. So real quick, there were, sorry, thank you for the

[1:18:37] comments, but there were a couple of questions from the public and I'd like to turn to our

[1:18:44] consultants and to direct the Crowley to answer some of those. One was regarding some of the numbers

[1:18:51] needed the hookups and then the other one was from Richard about the $13 million in the funding.

[1:18:57] So, starting with the numbers, I'd have to go through the report and look at what was specifically

[1:19:03] there. I mean, I know that over the past six months we've gone through the report,

[1:19:07] look at the numbers, double check the numbers. So I'd have to look at those specific numbers

[1:19:13] see how they had up in the actual model itself with the consultants to see if there's

[1:19:19] some substantial error in there. Um, thank you.

[1:19:28] So, um, and we can do that. We will do that. I can't do that tonight, though.

[1:19:35] So we can go through that and look at it. Certainly we have concerns about the rates

[1:19:40] and how that affects all families and healersburg as well as all businesses and healersburg.

[1:19:49] There's a concern there, but again, there's the downside, too, as I what was the economic impact of the drought.

[1:19:56] To the city, what was that?

[1:19:59] Face of healersburg running out of water, what did that do to our economics here?

[1:20:03] What did that do to the homes and the landscapes?

[1:20:07] What did it do to the vegetation in our city and I think that's something we also have to weigh against there.

[1:20:13] And find that balance point between how do we develop a secure water supply,

[1:20:18] but also try and find affordable rates or balance that with affordable rates.

[1:20:23] To Richard's question,

[1:20:25] it's the intent to fund.

[1:20:29] After

[1:20:35] reserve, that's a small portion of it, but then also it's the rate increases over the three year period.

[1:20:41] and I'm not sure if Kevin, if you want to speak to that a little bit more or director, Edgar, as well.

[1:20:51] I think you identified it well. We are using portions of the capital reserve policy that is now the

[1:20:57] great stabilization reserve to buy those down. It is the 13 million is about roughly six million in

[1:21:04] water and about seven million in sewer. So it is about half and half. Over the first two years,

[1:21:10] We are definitely ramping up with the projects picking up as we accumulate more revenue in the third year.

[1:21:17] So you will see it next week with the budget presentation, which projects are proposed to be funded in the first two years of the cycle.

[1:21:26] But it is going to take time to accumulate all those funds.

[1:21:30] And maybe I can just add a couple of points here.

[1:21:33] So again, when we conduct the rate study,

[1:21:36] we're talking about a three-year rate proposal,

[1:21:38] but we do look out over a 10-year planning horizon.

[1:21:40] So we're looking at a long-term capital program,

[1:21:43] we're looking at long-term projections on revenues

[1:21:45] and operating expenses.

[1:21:47] And so that's, you know, we're building

[1:21:49] towards that future and the future cash needs.

[1:21:52] To the question on meter connections,

[1:21:55] We use different sub totals within the report based on whether it's the current rate structure,

[1:22:03] which we utilize in our financial planning, portion of the report, or the proposed rate structure,

[1:22:09] which we're modifying on the water side of the house in the rate section of the report.

[1:22:14] It's always possible there's a typo in there, but I stand behind our work and we reviewed it internally.

[1:22:20] Staff reviewed it, legal counsel reviewed it, and again, I stand behind it.

[1:22:28] Thank you.

[1:22:31] All right.

[1:22:31] Councilmember Edwards.

[1:22:32] I think that throughout this whole process, I had questions about what if we have lower use.

[1:22:39] And it came back that that would be something that the council would be monitoring.

[1:22:44] It's not like we're putting these fees out there.

[1:22:46] We're just going to say, ah, let it go.

[1:22:48] I think we're going to be monitoring this closely.

[1:22:50] And I think that when we're talking about the numbers, they're all over the place.

[1:22:54] I mean, what the city sent out in the mail or what I had my bill analyzed at what I'm seeing

[1:22:59] people talk about is from $16 a month to $1,000 a year on it.

[1:23:05] And for me, I ran right around $700, $600 a year of an increase in looking at my bill.

[1:23:12] And so I think that we will be looking at this going forward.

[1:23:17] And what I'd like to know, and I think that we don't need a proposition to lower rates if we

[1:23:22] find that we've just overshot this one.

[1:23:24] I think the Prop 2 to 18, we're only here because to increase rates,

[1:23:29] we need to have these public hearings.

[1:23:30] But if we found that we have really overshot this and done it,

[1:23:33] we can adjust that as a council.

[1:23:35] I believe that that would be what our job is to do.

[1:23:39] So I know that we are going to be every time utilities come up.

[1:23:43] I know I'm going to be looking at it closely.

[1:23:45] I know citizens will be looking at it closely.

[1:23:48] And we'll work at this as a team.

[1:23:49] We need to get through this together.

[1:23:50] And I think that this is the first stage of accepting the reality of where we're at and then we need to monitor it going forward.

[1:23:59] Thank you.

[1:24:00] Councilmember Kelly.

[1:24:04] Thank you.

[1:24:05] I think one of the questions brought up a reminder me that I think one of the things that we had suggested when bringing this rate process back was to look at a tiered structure that we could really focus in on

[1:24:20] Those who were using water, making sure similar to how we have tiered electrical rates that we can ensure that those who are using more paying their fair share.

[1:24:33] And looking at the economic disparity within those within our community and especially for what we know, which is multi family households like apartments and condos are using much less water, then single family homes.

[1:24:49] And so making sure that we're not charging our low-income residents for water that they're not using and in fact charging residents who are using the water to use it and that people we more mindful of their water use.

[1:25:01] I think also in knowing the time horizon of the Potter Valley project and the decommissioning by PG&E it has set in motion.

[1:25:11] some what of a time-sensitive nature of what we need to be doing to ensure the resiliency

[1:25:19] of our community and not kind of waiting to see what happens because as we know a lot of these

[1:25:25] infrastructure projects take a considerable amount of time for us to shift to a more reliable

[1:25:30] water source. And so I think obviously there's never a good time to raise rates and I think that this

[1:25:37] is pretty drastic with no doubt, but I also know that in looking at how much we've spent on

[1:25:47] the emergency needs of the department when things do fail and actually the cost that it

[1:25:53] takes to repair those things in that moment when we have these failures which are becoming

[1:25:57] more and more routine given the age of our infrastructure, especially compared to other cities.

[1:26:03] right. We're one of the older cities in Sonoma County. We have some of the oldest infrastructure.

[1:26:07] We're spending more repairing these emergency needs when we know that they're going to fail

[1:26:13] just given the normal age of needing to replace them. And so I think obviously where we're at now

[1:26:20] with the cost of doing some of this work, it would have been a lot cheaper to do that work 10 years ago.

[1:26:25] But in a lot of instances, the can was kicked down the road. And so I don't want to repeat those mistakes.

[1:26:31] and I think we can't give in what we're going to see with the upper Russian river because of

[1:26:36] factors outside of our own control. And so, while I think that the study and what it's yielded

[1:26:45] in terms of where we're at and looking at the rating increases, it will be dramatic, but I think

[1:26:50] it's required because otherwise we're going to be in a much worse situation in the coming years.

[1:26:57] And to Councilmember Harris point, I think that we've been very thoughtful about how to

[1:27:03] we ensure that there's economic equity in this process and also that we have additional support

[1:27:10] for our economically disadvantaged community for people on fixed income for our low-income

[1:27:16] residents so that they have more opportunity to have lower rates if they are economically disadvantaged.

[1:27:24] So I'm comfortable with moving forward with the proposed rates, but it is not without clearly acknowledging that this is going to be very difficult for a lot of folks.

[1:27:38] What's mayor?

[1:27:40] Yeah, thank you all so I think that's certainly true.

[1:27:43] Yeah, we've received a lot of emails.

[1:27:46] I'm surprised we don't actually have more people here for public comment.

[1:27:50] But, and we've, I know I've read every email.

[1:27:53] I take this very seriously and I'll rest the council on us too.

[1:27:57] This isn't as, as one of our speakers said, we didn't sign up for this.

[1:28:01] We didn't really want to have to make this kind of decision, but here we are.

[1:28:06] I want to thank the staff for everything they've done in their clarity of thought

[1:28:11] and prioritizing all of these projects.

[1:28:13] I think it's really critical that the knowledge that they have and understanding

[1:28:17] what we need to do is really important to the whole process and I'd also like to thank the consultants

[1:28:25] for their professionalism and their good work. I think that that really helps get us through this.

[1:28:32] So, but we're at a crossroads, right? We've got combined with combined aging infrastructure,

[1:28:39] with reduced revenues. We have a water security issue that we definitely need to. We've talked a lot

[1:28:45] about the Potter Valley project, I had not even really heard about the Potter Valley until a few

[1:28:51] years ago, when I was on the Russian river watershed association, and it scared the heck

[1:28:58] out of me when I realized what they were talking about. So, you know, with our water insecurity

[1:29:04] for that, and then last year when we, or two years ago during the drought, when we, all our water

[1:29:15] things are really critical for us to make the right choices.

[1:29:21] And we have to pay for that. And so I am

[1:29:26] pleased that we're able to really kind of get to this point and take these steps and I feel confident that

[1:29:32] that is the right decision. So I also would, it's the big picture we're looking at the future.

[1:29:37] This is one of those moments on council where you're really looking to the future. We're not yesterday

[1:29:42] tomorrow. It's the future. And so we have to take all that into account when we're making these decisions. So

[1:29:50] I support the rated option as well. Thank you. First, I want to thank all the members of the

[1:29:59] I'd like that.

[1:30:00] Took the time to come here for this meeting, every single one of the protest votes in a weird way. I appreciate that you took the time to do that because this is a big deal. And I appreciate when people take the time to share their feedback, whether it's email or protest votes or Paul was it Paul sharing the comments and the notes on the on our on this staff report and the

[1:30:30] consultants report that we got,

[1:30:35] this is not an easy thing to do, but it is the right thing

[1:30:41] to do. This is something that we looked at when we're looking at budgets, it's not just

[1:30:48] off-hand pole numbers out of thin air, kind of thing. This is something that we really looked at

[1:30:54] and I really appreciate staff being able to come back with a tiered system. That was important,

[1:30:59] especially going through the drought and everything we had to, you know, we as a community had to

[1:31:04] sacrifice during that time.

[1:31:07] And I think it really taught a lot of people what, you know, how much water and fortunately

[1:31:12] too well, because the consumption went down, which is how, you know, everything that we're looking

[1:31:20] to fund is paid for by the rates that the consumers are paying.

[1:31:26] So, with that, I absolutely want to acknowledge the pain that people are feeling or are going to feel on this,

[1:31:38] we're going to have the same thing, but it is the right decision to make when I look at how we're ramping up our capital improvement projects.

[1:31:47] What we're prioritizing based on regulations and also the long-term security and clarity of our water.

[1:31:53] That is kind of what we are here for to make those long-term decisions that are hopefully going to minimize increases down the road.

[1:32:02] If we decided to, all right, we're not going to do any of these capital improvements.

[1:32:07] Instead of $16, it's $14.

[1:32:10] I wouldn't feel right about that.

[1:32:12] This was a very intentional analysis that we did in the discussion that we had in previous public meetings about what to prioritize.

[1:32:22] And I appreciate staff hearing our recommendations.

[1:32:26] And so as painful as it is to raise all of our rates at this point,

[1:32:33] I would entertain a motion.

[1:32:40] I moved introduced for first reading by title only,

[1:32:42] waiting for the reading of the text and ordinance determining

[1:32:45] that there was no majority protest.

[1:32:48] The proposed water and wastewater service rates,

[1:32:51] approving updated water and wastewater service rates and superseding portions of the existing rates established by resolution 96 to 022.

[1:33:02] Second.

[1:33:03] All right, Reina.

[1:33:04] We have a motion in a second.

[1:33:06] Roll call please.

[1:33:07] Councilmember Edwards.

[1:33:08] Yes.

[1:33:08] Councilmember Heron.

[1:33:09] Yes.

[1:33:10] Councilmember Kelly.

[1:33:11] Yes.

[1:33:12] Nice Mayor Mitchell.

[1:33:13] Yes.

[1:33:15] All right.

[1:33:18] Well, thank you again to everybody.

[1:33:20] uh that came down here and share your feedback. Next up we'll move on to Hillsburg item 7b,

[1:33:28] which is Hillsburg Municipal Code title 20 Land Use Code amendments. With senior planner,

[1:33:35] Ellen McDowell. Welcome.

[1:33:42] Thank you. Good evening Mayor Hagueley and council members. I'm Ellen McDowell

[1:33:46] with the planning division. Tonight we'll be reviewing various Land Use Code amendments. Next slide,

[1:33:52] please. The purpose of these land use code amendments before you tonight is to

[1:34:03] bicycle parking permitted and conditionally permitted uses in the mixed use zoning

[1:34:07] design water efficient landscaping maximum FAR and site coverage handicap parking

[1:34:15] and the definition section. Next slide, please.

[1:34:21] First step tonight is the downtown

[1:34:23] directional wayfaring sign section and this has been revised to further clarify that location

[1:34:29] locations and to broaden the sign requirements for downtown directional signage.

[1:34:35] The intent of the downtown directional sign program is to provide for visitor awareness

[1:34:40] of downtown businesses and points of interest and to provide general direction to their locations.

[1:34:46] In 2023, the City Council adopted Resolution 29-2023 adopting temporary exceptions allowing

[1:34:55] sign-placts for businesses in an effort to diversify the types of businesses eligible

[1:35:01] for participation.

[1:35:03] The temporary exceptions allow signs for businesses facing the plaza businesses that were

[1:35:09] not open on weekends and businesses that did not have a primary focus for visitors.

[1:35:15] These temporary changes have been incorporated as permanent changes in this proposed organs.

[1:35:22] Next slide, please.

[1:35:28] For bicycle parking this evening,

[1:35:30] proposed changes to this section include more guidance

[1:35:33] and to expand on the current bike parking requirements for new developments.

[1:35:39] The changes remove the city's current regulations.

[1:35:42] that require bike parking for only commercial or industrial projects of over 5,000

[1:35:48] square feet and for multi-family projects of 10 or more units.

[1:35:53] The proposed amendments would specify that 20% of the number of required number of

[1:35:58] automobile spaces, a combination of covered and uncovered bicycle parking spaces, for

[1:36:04] multi-family, mixed use, commercial and industrial developments, and would also specify

[1:36:10] the type of bicycle parking and the quality of bike racks. Next slide, please.

[1:36:20] This section

[1:36:21] has been invented to allow fitness centers as a permitted use in the mixed use zoning designation,

[1:36:28] allowing fitness centers in close proximity to residential uses promotes overall health and wellness.

[1:36:34] Currently the land use code only allows fitness centers within the industrial zoning designation.

[1:36:38] By limiting the overall square footage to 5,000 square feet, fitness centers will be more in line with other commercial spaces that are typically found in mixed use areas.

[1:36:50] Typically small scale facilities can be found in mixed use locations and are considered a neighborhood serving use.

[1:36:56] As part of this amendment, there is a change to the fitness center definition that would include clarifying language and just clarify that fitness centers in mixed use are limited to a maximum of 5,000 square feet.

[1:37:12] The water efficient landscaping section has been amended to reflect current state legislation regarding water efficient landscaping changes to this section include language from state law requiring greater minimum of greater minimum efficiency for drip and overhead irrigation a definition for very low water use reducing the overall allowable area for turf as well as expanding the irrigation design requirements.

[1:37:40] Next slide, please.

[1:37:44] The proposed amendment to maximum floor area ratio and site coverage is to correct a type of graphical error.

[1:37:50] The 2030 general plan allows for a maximum FAR for non-residential uses at 80%.

[1:37:56] And the land use code allows 50%.

[1:37:58] This amendment will update the land use code to be in line with the general plan.

[1:38:04] Next slide, please.

[1:38:07] The handicap parking section has been amended to remove the term handicap and to replace it with a term accessible to include more inclusive language and to align with the California building code.

[1:38:20] Next slide, please.

[1:38:23] On April 9, 2024, the Planning Commission held a public hearing and adopted a resolution recommending that the city council,

[1:38:30] adoption ordinance amending heels for municipal code title 20.

[1:38:35] The planning commission recommended that the city council consider increasing the percentage of required bicycle parking from 10% of the required number of vehicles.

[1:38:44] To 20% of the required abbreviable parking spaces for multi family mixed use commercial and industrial developments.

[1:38:52] Unless otherwise approved by the planning director.

[1:38:57] Next slide, please.

[1:39:00] The recommended action this evening is to introduce for first reading by title only,

[1:39:05] baving further reading of the text, and ordinance amending healed burdened municipal code titles,

[1:39:10] 20, land use code, and find the ordinance amendments are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act.

[1:39:18] Next slide, please.

[1:39:20] And this concludes my presentation this evening, and I'm here for any questions.

[1:39:23] Thank you. Any questions?

[1:39:25] All right, Councilman Redwards, on the recommended increase for the bicycle parking, that would be like on sidewalks. That's not taking away from parking spaces from vehicle parking spaces. It would not. Okay. Thank you.

[1:39:40] All right, I'll open it up for public comment. Anybody for public comment on this item.

[1:39:49] Anybody.

[1:39:50] All right, I'll close public comment and bring it back to council.

[1:39:55] for discussion or motion.

[1:40:01] I moved to introduce for first reading by title only,

[1:40:04] waving further reading the text in ordinance,

[1:40:06] Mending Hillsburg Municipal Code,

[1:40:08] title 20, Land Use Code,

[1:40:09] and find the ordinance amendments

[1:40:11] are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act.

[1:40:15] Second.

[1:40:16] All right, we have a motion of second.

[1:40:19] Will call please.

[1:40:20] Council member Edwards.

[1:40:21] Yes.

[1:40:21] Council member Herod.

[1:40:23] Council member Kelly.

[1:40:24] Yes.

[1:40:24] Vice Mayor Mitchell.

[1:40:26] Yes, Mayor Higley.

[1:40:26] Yes. Thank you. And before we move on, I just want to do thank you City Manager for

[1:40:33] constantly getting these little tweaks and fixes. It's something that I do appreciate and I

[1:40:39] notice little corrections and fixings of past things so I appreciate that effort.

[1:40:45] Okay, bye just quickly say that we're happy to bring it to you, but it's really our

[1:40:50] on the front lines of identifying things every day that

[1:40:54] good.

[1:40:57] I appreciate it.

[1:40:59] All right.

[1:40:59] Next up is item 8A,

[1:41:03] growth management ordinance,

[1:41:04] ballot measure discussion.

[1:41:09] On that topic of cleaning up past things.

[1:41:16] Okay.

[1:41:17] I'm going to kick this off.

[1:41:18] I think we'll be a team effort on the staff level.

[1:41:21] So with me, our assistant city manager Andrew Sternfell's.

[1:41:24] Director Steven Sotomayor Community Development Director Scott Diven, Scott will take part of this presentation with some of the specific policy options, and we will.

[1:41:34] I'll be here to engage with what I expect will be a lively discussion on this topic.

[1:41:39] Just to set the stage a little bit, this is as the council knows, but for the benefit of the community.

[1:41:44] The latest in what has been a 90 series of conversations this year regarding potential amendments to the city's growth management ordinance.

[1:41:55] And we'll talk about the history a little bit, but just a very basic and quick reminder that ordinance was passed in the year 2000.

[1:42:02] And we're strict in the simplest form, it is so much more complicated than this, but it restricts market rate housing development to 30 units per year for the most part.

[1:42:13] housing, of course, is a huge policy consideration for the city council and the GMO has been amended as I'll show you a little later from time to time to keep up with changing times.

[1:42:25] So we think the spits into a lot of what you're doing. We also recognize that it is painfully complicated and really frankly unfair to expect all of the general public to keep up with all the nuances on this. So we are committed as we continue this conversation to.

[1:42:41] and moving toward outreach, which will be informative and educational in nature, because we

[1:42:46] think we owe that to the community and we recognize not everybody's. I'm going to engage with

[1:42:50] us on these conversations. Plenty of people are, though, and we've just received a whole lot of good

[1:42:54] feedback from the community. So I think you'll see that reflected as well. Next slide, please. Just very

[1:43:01] quickly what we'll try to walk through. This is, as I just said, a very complicated topic. I think

[1:43:05] I hope you will actually be a fairly short presentation, though. We want to give you a sense of where

[1:43:09] we are, catch you up to speed on where we are and give you our latest thinking about some

[1:43:14] policy options that could be considered by the voters in November for amendment to the

[1:43:19] GMO and really give the council and the public and the chance to provide information back

[1:43:23] to staff.

[1:43:24] I do want to talk about some of the pointing efforts.

[1:43:26] You'll see in long list in a minute we won't delve into it all but I think the point that

[1:43:30] will make is that there's a lot of pointing efforts that have led us to where we are.

[1:43:35] In my time here, this comes up over and over again as a policy factor that needs to be looked at when we look at the affordability and availability of housing. So we just wanted to make sure we document it that.

[1:43:47] We'll try to both quantify the need of housing. What housing do we need at what income levels and what are we trying to accomplish. We heard some some fair feedback when we were talking specifically about polling results a couple of months back.

[1:44:01] We pulled the community, we presented those results and in the aftermath of that conversation, we heard, well, you haven't defined what is you trying to solve for, and I think we have to find that, but I don't think we've done enough to articulate that. So we won't go deep into details, but wanted to take just a minute to spend some time on defining, at least from staff's perspective, what is it that we're trying to accomplish here.

[1:44:25] And then Scott will walk you through the three options for

[1:44:28] amending the GMO that we pulled on.

[1:44:30] That should be familiar very much at this point to the council.

[1:44:34] We'll wrap up looking for council direction.

[1:44:37] You do not have a vote this evening.

[1:44:39] You do not have any kind of an irrevocable point of no return.

[1:44:43] We really would like your feedback though.

[1:44:45] We'll show you the dates.

[1:44:47] But you already, I think, know this one.

[1:44:49] We are targeting if the council wishes to put something on the ballot.

[1:44:52] November the last meeting in June, June 17th.

[1:44:55] There is work to do to get that together. So I'm well, I don't want to put you on

[1:45:00] On the spot, unnecessarily, and we recognize the complexity, the more we do know about what the council's preferences are. This evening, the more we can continue to come back in the next couple of discussions with fine tuned and ever improved options and work products did do the work that needs to happen to get something on the ballot. Next slide, please.

[1:45:21] So as I mentioned, we look at planning efforts.

[1:45:24] This is a partial list.

[1:45:26] That staff came up with a planning document.

[1:45:29] So that we think we have a lot of us here.

[1:45:32] This is not everything,

[1:45:33] but some that we thought were key.

[1:45:35] The Central Healsburg Avenue plan.

[1:45:38] Set a vision for a transitory.

[1:45:40] It did Central Healsburg area and repositioning

[1:45:43] some of the rail yards and surrounding neighborhoods.

[1:45:47] Still work to do in getting housing there.

[1:45:49] You're all familiar with the SDAT, the design assessment team, which focus very much on housing.

[1:45:55] A couple of other things I would note here, I won't walk through all of them.

[1:45:58] The city council has a five-year strategic plan that mentions housing and multiple places

[1:46:02] and notes looking at options to amend and address the GMO. So we're at the latter end of that

[1:46:09] window of planning, but better late to never, and we think we're very much there right now.

[1:46:14] And a couple of things that probably don't look like housing plans to most folks

[1:46:18] As the council well knows, we completed last year a diversity equity and inclusion plan.

[1:46:26] I knew housing would be a part of that. I had no idea how much housing would be a driving factor in those conversations we had with the community.

[1:46:33] We heard over and over again in very emotional and visceral terms that housing is an equity issue from much of our community.

[1:46:43] Likewise, a climate strategy, not a housing strategy, and we heard a lot about how we live and where we live and how that figures in, how we travel, how we get to work, how we impact the environment.

[1:46:56] So much of what you see here is about housing, appropriately, we just did a housing element, it articulated the need which I'll get to.

[1:47:04] But this is something that really

[1:47:07] pervades every part of what we do as an organization.

[1:47:10] And so we keep popping up.

[1:47:12] When we talk about climate, we talk about housing.

[1:47:14] When we talk about equity, we talk about housing.

[1:47:17] Next slide, please.

[1:47:20] So here is just a couple of slides.

[1:47:23] You have all seen a lot of the detail.

[1:47:26] We completed recently a housing needs assessment,

[1:47:29] which really broke down who's here, what is our resident space,

[1:47:33] what is our workforce,

[1:47:34] what are their incomes, what can they afford, where are we short?

[1:47:38] This is just one way to look at it.

[1:47:40] But we think it's helpful to try to put forth,

[1:47:43] but what is the need that we're trying to solve for?

[1:47:46] And the different groupings of bars you can see here are different targets.

[1:47:49] What percentage of our workforce,

[1:47:52] the people who already work in Hillsburg,

[1:47:54] would we like to be able to live in Hillsburg?

[1:47:57] Would we like them actually living here?

[1:47:58] We are currently sitting at the left end of that bar,

[1:48:00] 15% of the people who work here also live here.

[1:48:05] That's obviously pretty low. That's also not very surprising.

[1:48:09] We as the city are an employer.

[1:48:12] I don't know it's the top of my head what our percentage is, but it's probably a little better than that, but not much.

[1:48:17] The vast majority of our workforce cannot afford to live here.

[1:48:21] That's not a good thing. Obviously, we'd like our public employees and so many other people in our workforce

[1:48:25] to be able to live close to where they work,

[1:48:29] to be invested in the community, to be involved in schools and activities.

[1:48:34] So just as one employer, but I think for the whole workforce,

[1:48:37] we'd like to do better.

[1:48:38] 30% is a target number that came up a lot in the housing element

[1:48:42] and the subsequent work.

[1:48:44] It's not the only goal.

[1:48:45] I don't think it's the most ambitious goal.

[1:48:48] But if 30% of our workforce were to live in Hieldsburg,

[1:48:52] This is the calculation from that work of how many units we need over the next eight years, which is our housing element plan.

[1:49:01] At the low end, below 80% of area and median income, which is to say people making less than average homes, that depends that amount depends on how many people in the household.

[1:49:12] 560 units, higher than that, at the moderate income and market rating terms, we're talking

[1:49:18] about about 333 units. You can see, I don't have the exact number, but you can see that

[1:49:26] equates to, I think about, when we do the math for real quick, 42 units per year, at those two

[1:49:34] level. So not enormous amounts of housing, but absolutely above what we're allowed to build in our GMO.

[1:49:42] So absentee market forces, if that's a goal, it won't happen under our current policy structure.

[1:49:47] So this is one way to look at there of lots of ways to look at this, but this is one way to

[1:49:51] look at the need that we're trying to meet. Next slide, please.

[1:49:57] Here's a few ways to think about how we're

[1:49:59] doing on those two pieces. You saw that the larger need was for low income housing. The good news is

[1:50:06] We know this, we're doing a lot to meet that need.

[1:50:10] You can see just a quick summary here in the last five years.

[1:50:13] We've cost the development of 100 affordable units.

[1:50:15] We've acquired and rehabilitated 39 extended affordability on 133.

[1:50:20] Both of those were in large part the result of the scattered site project that we just celebrated

[1:50:25] the completion of.

[1:50:28] 307 affordable units in the pipeline.

[1:50:30] We've got a couple of sizable projects.

[1:50:32] They are making progress.

[1:50:33] We're going to get those done.

[1:50:34] slow, but we will get them done. That's not the entirety of our need, but as we know, we have ways to get

[1:50:41] that lowering, come low and very low income housing. By contrast, it's a lesser need, but still

[1:50:46] a need in a growing one, since the GMO passed 24 years ago, we've had zero multi-family rental projects

[1:50:53] of more than five units. So we've had essentially no market rate rental housing constructed.

[1:51:02] You've heard that before, but we'll keep saying that I think that's really one of the best articulations of how do we find ourselves with what we call this missing middle need.

[1:51:11] More recently, measure P was passed in 2018 to amend the growth management ordinance.

[1:51:16] You can see here the ballot question. We'll see this again in a second.

[1:51:20] It allowed additional allocations for middle income housing.

[1:51:24] unfortunately it's resulted in zero. No units at all at this point. So there are

[1:51:30] some really well-intentioned efforts to get some of that middle income housing

[1:51:35] constructed, but unfortunately not a lot born from it so far. Next slide please.

[1:51:42] This is the history of ballot initiatives for the GMO, not expecting everybody to

[1:51:46] read all of these questions right now. We just wanted to have the actual text of

[1:51:50] ballot question that was put before the voters in each case. And the results, measure M was the GMO itself passed in 2000.

[1:51:59] Measure R was an attempt to relax and modify the amount of new housing that could be constructed. There was quite a bit of different components into that measure.

[1:52:10] In 2016, as you can see, did not pass, and then more recently, I just mentioned measure P in 2018, which allowed additional middle income housing, and then measure H, which allowed modified measure P to allow both rental and ownership housing, both passed.

[1:52:30] There's a lot that could be said, and we won't try to recap all of the history right now.

[1:52:34] I think one takeaway here is there is a precedent for modifications to the growth management

[1:52:38] ordinance passing.

[1:52:40] The voters in the community have been supportive of that, but it's not a slam dunk.

[1:52:44] That's not a surprise.

[1:52:46] I know that's not a very insightful comment, but I think it's worth remembering.

[1:52:50] To community has been supportive of common sense modifications, but not in a way that we could

[1:52:55] take it for granted. There has to be a lot of work and a thought pull approach. Next slide, please.

[1:53:02] So with all of that said, I just wanted to wrap this section by just trying to write down from

[1:53:07] really from staff's perspective, what we think is a simple articulation of what we're trying to

[1:53:12] accomplish here. We could have we had in long list of bullet points and thoughts. This is complicated,

[1:53:18] but really wanted to try to would have it down to what we think is critical here. And what we're

[1:53:23] trying to do is create a pathway for construction of multi-family housing projects that are affordable

[1:53:28] to middle income households provide 20% units for low income. The council knows that we have an

[1:53:34] inclusionary housing policy that anything built above those income levels, the missing middle

[1:53:40] and market rate housing has to provide 20% of those units. One out of five needs to be affordable

[1:53:47] to generally low and very low income households, we want to increase the percentage of our workforce

[1:53:53] that lives here. I said it's at 15, 30 is a number that's been handy about quite a bit.

[1:53:59] Create non-hospitality options for revitalizing under-utilized properties. We have seen repeatedly

[1:54:05] that there's not an easy pathway to convert some under-utilized properties to housing. And what we

[1:54:16] knows, but we understand there's a desire for the community to see development that meets local

[1:54:22] needs and what we see this effort as is one way to start making that happen. And then largely

[1:54:28] to accommodate, as we've always tried to do, diverse income levels in a balanced community.

[1:54:33] We've done, well, at the low income, we've done well for hiring income, we're continuing

[1:54:39] trying to find ways to fit that missing middle, which is a pervasive need. And you can see one

[1:54:45] quote here I won't read it but this actually came out of our DEI plan and was a quote from

[1:54:49] a participant just a reminder that we have this this is a lot of numbers and a lot of

[1:54:54] policy talk but it really boils down to families and trying to make it so they can live

[1:55:00] in heelsburg and stay in heelsburg. Next slide please.

[1:55:05] I'll turn it over at this point to Scott who will walk you through just a reminder of three options

[1:55:09] we're considering, we're actually recommending it to bring it down to two options and then start

[1:55:15] figuring out which of those makes sense, but he'll walk you through those three alternatives.

[1:55:20] Thank you, City Manager Kay. Good evening. Mayor and council members.

[1:55:26] City Manager Kay noted we have three different options that are before this this evening.

[1:55:32] This is a result of a lot of conversations that we've had with the community with different stakeholders

[1:55:36] as well as amongst staff. There's a recognition that a whole scale removal of the GMO probably wouldn't

[1:55:43] be something that would pass within this community, so we tried to take a more tactical approach

[1:55:49] to making amendments to the GMO that may lead to additional housing here in Hilsburg.

[1:55:57] So the first one is the idea of exempting specific two graphic areas. In particular, those are areas

[1:56:04] that are along the Hillsburg Avenue corridor,

[1:56:07] recognizing that those are areas that have opportunities

[1:56:09] for development.

[1:56:11] There's taken underutilized land there.

[1:56:14] I'll get into some more of the pros and cons of that.

[1:56:17] As I go further into my presentation.

[1:56:20] The second was to look at eliminating the income restriction

[1:56:22] on measure P multi-family rental units.

[1:56:25] This comes from feedback that we've gotten from developers

[1:56:31] challenges that these measure P, D restricted units that require that those units only be

[1:56:37] rented to those making between 160% of area meeting income are very difficult to bring

[1:56:43] to the market. The reality is that those rents would be close to what market rate rents are

[1:56:48] anyways. So it's very challenging to get tenants that would be interested in those units.

[1:56:53] It's also difficult to get financing for those units. We are not recommending as part of that.

[1:56:59] So to remove the dev restriction or the income restriction on the four sale units.

[1:57:09] And last, there was an idea of carrying over prior unused allocations.

[1:57:15] There have been cycles during which not all the allocations that were available have been utilized.

[1:57:21] That's often due to changing in market conditions as well as other reasons.

[1:57:27] But the idea was, if we brought those forward, then that would still be consistent with the original

[1:57:33] GMO in that we wouldn't be bringing any more units to the community that were already approved or accepted.

[1:57:41] Next slide,

[1:57:43] so go into a little bit more detail on the pros and cons for the geographic exemption.

[1:57:49] Some of the pros include that this would precisely target specific areas for growth that have been based on

[1:57:55] of past as well as expected planning efforts. This includes the down,

[1:58:00] reason, downtown housing capacity study area, the Central Hillsburg Avenue plan area,

[1:58:06] the South entry area, and Hillsburg Avenue north of downtown.

[1:58:13] This exemption would connect housing

[1:58:15] to jobs and to transit. For the most part, our transit bulk of our transit, especially when

[1:58:20] smart comes to town, is long that Hillsburg Avenue corridor, and it's also worth the majority

[1:58:24] of our jobs are located. So putting housing in close proximity to jobs and transit is a good thing.

[1:58:33] This will provide opportunity for more for sale units than are currently available under the current

[1:58:37] restrictions. And I think it's also important to come back to what was mentioned earlier that with

[1:58:43] those market rate for sale units, a requirement for 20% of any project that has five or more units to provide

[1:58:52] inclusionary housing. This would probably result in a higher potential for new housing in general,

[1:59:00] by looking at that Hillsburg Avenue corridor, it won't impact existing neighborhoods,

[1:59:05] and overall we think that it's a pretty easy to understand approach to modifying the GMO.

[1:59:11] In terms of cons, this represents more of a free market approach to development within these geographic

[1:59:18] areas, there would be less control of the unit types, and there would be some potential for high

[1:59:24] end housing. That could still be mitigated with changes towards zoning, land discode,

[1:59:29] and the future to try and discourage that. But again, that would be some modifications that we have

[1:59:35] to do in the future.

[1:59:38] Another potential ton is that ingredient on a specific geographic

[1:59:40] exemption areas may also be challenging, and depending on that outcome, that may limit the

[1:59:45] effectiveness of this option in actually providing housing. I think you've probably noticed in some

[1:59:49] of the correspondence that you've received that there is in the silly agreement as to

[1:59:53] as to what those areas should be. Okay, the next slide, please.

[2:00:01] In terms of looking at the geographic exemption, we tried to break down that Hillsburg Avenue corridor and to four discrete areas. We did that to try and kind of look at where those potential was, but also gave us an opportunity to include those four subaries as part of the polling that was done.

[2:00:19] So we looked at four, as I mentioned, one is the Hillsburg Avenue North, which is essentially

[2:00:26] from Piper Street, North, along Hillsburg Avenue up to the Community Center.

[2:00:31] We looked at the area that comprises the downtown housing capacity study area.

[2:00:35] And again, that is predominantly the downtown commercial and service commercial zones that are within that area.

[2:00:42] And that would not include the Plaza Retail zoning district, which is that area that immediately surrounds the Plaza.

[2:00:49] the Central Hillsburg Avenue plan, which, of course, with Smart, the decision to locate Smart

[2:00:54] down there, where we have our highest opportunity for transit adjacent and transit oriented

[2:01:00] development. And then, of course, there's the South entry area, which is in need of a specific

[2:01:06] plan in order to facilitate any kind of project via residential and non-residential,

[2:01:12] and that area on the other side of the river. What we like to call South of the Bridge,

[2:01:17] Just to give you a little sense of how that polling went, the Central Hillsburg Avenue

[2:01:23] Plan pulled the highest in terms of areas that people would like to see exempted from

[2:01:28] the GMO, followed by the South entry area plan, then the Hillsburg Avenue Plan, and downtown

[2:01:35] pulled the lowest.

[2:01:38] Next slide.

[2:01:42] This slide here comes back to the polling data that you had already seen.

[2:01:46] we just wanted to give the council a reminder of what the polling showed for the geographic

[2:01:52] exemption and it showed that there was initially a very strong support for the approach.

[2:01:59] After additional information was provided as to what those areas were that support pretty much

[2:02:05] held constant. Interesting and a little bit paradoxically after positive messages support went down.

[2:02:11] one would have expected that to probably go up and then we also saw that after negative messages

[2:02:18] that support further eroded but it still remained a viable option and I think with community

[2:02:25] education and outreach as part of a measure if this was the direction the council went in we could

[2:02:30] obviously address that messaging a little bit better. Next slide.

[2:02:39] So this next potential as we mentioned earlier

[2:02:42] is to modify measure P to remove the income restriction for rentals only.

[2:02:49] As City Manager K mentioned earlier, we've had six years of implementation and despite what had been historically low interest rates.

[2:03:00] This product just didn't find its way to the market.

[2:03:03] Even when we add all these constraints on market rate allocations that were tied up with other larger development projects,

[2:03:09] next none of these measure P projects came forward on their own.

[2:03:17] So the pros that we kind of came up with for this and there's probably more pros and cons for each of these but these kind of help.

[2:03:25] Initiate the conversation.

[2:03:27] This one is probably the most targeted towards middle income workforce housing because as is noted.

[2:03:32] Market rate rentals have not been built in the community since the general or since the TMO is adopted 24 years ago.

[2:03:39] This kind of fields I think is a housing type that this community lacks in and would help

[2:03:47] round out the overall housing stock here in Hillsburg.

[2:03:50] It protects single family neighborhoods because this, you know, it's would only be limited to those areas that allow for multifamily housing.

[2:03:59] Those include mixed use, the commercial zones, as well as those that are actually designated for multi-family, although most would point out the most of the multi-family housing sites are already developed with housing.

[2:04:12] It abides by the voter approved cap under measure P, so the 150 units that this community is already embraced is part of the growth management ordinance.

[2:04:22] This would stick to that cap, which is hopefully facilitate the realization of those units.

[2:04:29] And our belief is that this ballot language is also be relatively simple and easy for the community to understand.

[2:04:36] What we'll be doing is modifying measure P as opposed to a whole scale, or introducing a whole scale new exemption.

[2:04:45] In terms of the cons, it does not provide additional home ownership units,

[2:04:49] which is also we've heard through a lot of these banning efforts a strong desire from the community

[2:04:54] and it has less potential for new housing. The demand for rentals is limited in a little bit

[2:05:01] harder to predict in the current market. Next slide. Again, a little bit of a reminder of how the polling

[2:05:09] went for this item. Again, initial support showed that it was viable after the public heard more about

[2:05:17] the polling actually increased pretty significantly to where this actually has a pretty good chance of

[2:05:23] of passing after the positives. It also declined a little bit and wrote it a little bit further

[2:05:29] after the negatives, but still remained well above the 50% plus one that would be needed to move

[2:05:35] this approach forward. Next slide.

[2:05:41] And lastly, there was an idea that came forward to carry over the

[2:05:45] on use TMO allocations. As I mentioned before, there were cycles. We're not all the allocations,

[2:05:51] we're utilized due to various reasons. This idea says rather than at the end of every three

[2:05:58] year cycle, abandoning those unused allocations, this would allow those allocations to move forward

[2:06:03] into future cycles. And depending on how it's written, it could actually claw back all those previous

[2:06:09] applications that had expired. That would probably result in about 180 units if it were done retroactively.

[2:06:17] That could be considered a pro and that would provide a little bit of a potential for

[2:06:24] larger project or several projects to move forward in the near term that can't under the current

[2:06:31] limitation of allocations. As I already noticed, it stays within the CAF, so the original GMO.

[2:06:36] So some of the cons are that it's limited, it'll be unpredictable in terms of going forward.

[2:06:42] We just never know how many allocations will be used or unused.

[2:06:46] It's a little bit of an arbitrary way to determine new housing potential based on previous economic cycles.

[2:06:52] And it also doesn't limit the product types or target locations the way that the other two GMO proposals that are before you this evening would do.

[2:07:04] Staff is recommending that we actually eliminate this option for that very reason that these objectives can probably be achieved more strategically with the other alternatives that are before the this evening will go to the next slide.

[2:07:15] This provides further rationale for probably walking away from this alternative and that's that the polling on this one.

[2:07:24] Well, initially showed some support and had an incrementally increase after the information was provided on it, continuing to increase after the positives, but along with the negatives actually fell below that 50% plus one threshold, which would make this a little bit more risky approach to take.

[2:07:48] I'm going to turn it back over to some of this.

[2:07:51] Thank you.

[2:07:52] And just a couple of quick slides and we'll wrap up and we're interested to hear from

[2:07:57] the council and the community.

[2:07:59] We're requesting, as I said, the outset direction tonight.

[2:08:03] First off, we recommended one option be eliminated from consideration.

[2:08:07] That is just a few words on the slide right now.

[2:08:10] So if the council feels differently, but us know, that's fine.

[2:08:13] And otherwise, between the two that remain, if the council does agree with that, as much as we

[2:08:20] can know, again, no vote tonight, nothing we can't turn back, but as much as we can

[2:08:24] know, it would be very helpful for us to have a few of our work in the council is headed.

[2:08:29] And so we're going to listen very carefully to what you all tell us, and hopefully we'll

[2:08:33] land on something that works for the group.

[2:08:36] And then we'll start putting Pendapaper and subsequent meetings you would see specific language

[2:08:41] to respond to, and maybe some details to refine some of these.

[2:08:47] One of the second options got detailed removal of middle income restrictions.

[2:08:52] I think it's probably simple pretty simple language.

[2:08:54] If it's comfortable for the council, we have a path forward.

[2:08:57] By contrast, the geographic exemption, obviously, right.

[2:09:00] The next question would be, well, if so, where?

[2:09:04] And that's something, all the feedback we can get tonight is great,

[2:09:07] but it's definitely something we can keep talking about.

[2:09:10] If that's important for the council, this probably goes without saying, but these are not the only options we could consider.

[2:09:19] So we can also discuss variations.

[2:09:21] We've heard some really good ideas that vary a little bit from the ones in front of you, from the community.

[2:09:27] A staff we have kicked around and a lot, I think we've sat in a lot of meetings this year,

[2:09:32] more than any other topic talking this through.

[2:09:34] Nobody is suggesting that these are the best or only two options.

[2:09:38] There are lots of ways these can be refined and so we can talk to some of those.

[2:09:43] I'm going forward and I think you'll hear that from the community.

[2:09:47] A couple of what I will say about that is there probably is no perfect option.

[2:09:52] So from experience, I can say that it's really helpful to think through some of those different

[2:09:57] policy toggles and think about what they do.

[2:10:00] You can also kind of move without knowing it from good policy discussion to driving yourself

[2:10:04] little bit crazy with the options at some point, so I'll trust you all to figure out where

[2:10:09] your limit is, but I think some of that is actually really helpful. If it's helpful and I think

[2:10:15] this is just a synopsis of what Scott said. The more I've thought about this and the more we've

[2:10:21] thought about it is staff, I think what we've got is an option for you that's a little bit more incremental

[2:10:27] and one that's a little bit more aggressive. We wouldn't bring hopefully this goes without saying

[2:10:33] we wouldn't bring you any options, we thought would be ineffective, if we wouldn't bring

[2:10:36] you any options that we thought were an overreached, that was likely to fail or set forth

[2:10:41] horrible unintended consequences.

[2:10:44] But within that range, the removal of middle income restrictions on the measure P units

[2:10:49] is limited to rental units.

[2:10:52] And that limits the scope of what we think will be built, really finely targeting the units

[2:10:58] that would be freed up and be available to a pretty small product list and in doing so,

[2:11:07] we think there's less risk of unintended consequences. Nobody here is trying to build more

[2:11:11] housing for rich people and rental property is not. We believe likely to really appeal not in any

[2:11:18] significant numbers. So less risk of projects that maybe we don't want and on the flip side,

[2:11:26] probably fewer units. We don't have an easy way of quantifying what we'll get out of it, but we

[2:11:31] think we'll get fewer units. By contrast, the geographic exemption allows the market to tell us a

[2:11:39] little bit more what wants to be built. We are not proposing any geographies that would be

[2:11:43] single-family home areas that's as we said at the beginning as well. All we don't think that would

[2:11:49] be affordable, but by allowing a broader range of products and for sale housing,

[2:11:56] We have less control and we think we'll get more units and it's also possible probably likely that we'll get some number projects that don't immediately hit the housing needs or the exact goals we're trying to hit as as you heard before even on those will still get 20% of low and very low income housing as part of them, but it's relinquishing a little bit of control to get more units.

[2:12:21] And so I think those are both reasonable approaches.

[2:12:23] I think those are both beneficial policy changes.

[2:12:27] But maybe it's helpful as the council,

[2:12:30] if you find yourselves getting twisted around on these many variations,

[2:12:34] to think about it in those terms,

[2:12:36] and that would be really helpful information for us as staff.

[2:12:38] What is the council's comfort level in terms of moving incrementally,

[2:12:43] or maybe just a little bit less incrementally?

[2:12:45] And that's how I think of these two options.

[2:12:47] And another way to think about it is one is restricted to rental only and one allows ownership housing.

[2:12:53] And with ownership housing, we lose a little bit of control.

[2:12:56] We also get, we know as community wants more opportunities for ownership housing, so we also get more of that.

[2:13:03] And that's really how it, in my mind, it's boiled down to a couple of different ways that we could go moving forward.

[2:13:11] Finally, with all of that said, hopefully we'll be able to provide you the information you need tonight,

[2:13:16] or you've seen it in many conversations and studies we've been through, but if there's obviously,

[2:13:23] if there's additional information, this Council thinks you need, please do let us know tonight,

[2:13:28] and we'll make sure we provide that quickly. Next slide, please, in the last slide.

[2:13:34] In terms of what comes next, assuming we're moving toward,

[2:13:36] coalescing around a preferred approach.

[2:13:39] We need to do environmental analysis,

[2:13:41] sequa, on anything that's going on the ballot.

[2:13:43] We have already teed that work up.

[2:13:45] We're ready to move and hustle on it,

[2:13:47] but that's probably one of the most important.

[2:13:50] Timing sensitivities we have right now.

[2:13:53] We would with your direction when that either tonight

[2:13:56] or whenever that comes, put together a draft language

[2:13:58] for not just a ballot question,

[2:14:00] but all of the materials that go with it.

[2:14:02] And we're targeting, you can see here June 17th,

[2:14:05] which is the last meeting before the council's July recess.

[2:14:08] I say this with some hesitation,

[2:14:10] but I think legally we could take action

[2:14:13] at your first meeting in August

[2:14:15] and meet the ballot deadlines.

[2:14:17] So if need be this conversation could go for a while,

[2:14:21] but the last bullet and this is where I will stop.

[2:14:25] When direction is in hand,

[2:14:27] we intend to embark on a pretty robust outreach program

[2:14:31] with the community because we're also going to finish

[2:14:33] I started as GMO is confusing if we want voters to weigh in, I think we owe them putting forth a lot of effort to give them a chance to share information with us and sharing information with them about what the heck are we proposing and why are we doing it.

[2:14:49] And waiting to make a decision until deep into the summer would probably compromise that effort a little bit just in that we get started that much later.

[2:14:57] So June is our target.

[2:15:00] Order to take that action and take a vote to put something on the ballot. We'll stop there. We look forward to hearing from the public on this and we look forward to getting direction from the council. Thank you.

[2:15:11] Thank you. So let's quickly, if there are any specific questions for staff from council. If not, I will open it up to the public.

[2:15:24] Welcome, John, you want to kick us off. There's a lot of chance out there.

[2:15:30] Yeah, my name is John Torres.

[2:15:31] I've been working again,

[2:15:33] I'm living in Hillsburg since 1977.

[2:15:35] Back my first job here in Hillsburg was always cascade.

[2:15:38] Remember, Mel, where that instant,

[2:15:41] and so village is being built right now, so it's amazing.

[2:15:44] In the homes of at Montage, where the dump used to be,

[2:15:48] well, I guess a transfer station now, so it's really amazing.

[2:15:52] So I just envy you guys, kind of tough job,

[2:15:55] but we do need to change GMO.

[2:15:57] you know, we need to get affordable housing here because my career started and you'll say

[2:16:02] in 86 and I started selling to first-time home buyers and I may start my career that, but

[2:16:09] I moved up to that because the kids can afford to buy and now in the both can afford to

[2:16:14] help them. My last two sales was one later, the razor kids here I coached them in

[2:16:20] at the Boys & Girls Club in baseball back in the probability 85 and she had moved to her kids

[2:16:25] moved up to Yuccaia because it was more affordable. So now Solver House got good money for

[2:16:30] house and she moved up to Yuccaia. Well, that's what I say. It was up in Clobadil. I sold

[2:16:35] his dad's house in Killsburg, moved to Clobadil. It was affordable. But now he's got tired of

[2:16:41] over regulating in California. So he's moved up to Oregon. So it's amazing. It's a tough job, but

[2:16:48] we do need to work on a GMO. And some of the concepts you got are great. I think it's when I

[2:16:54] over pay for a house, but now it was a good deal.

[2:16:59] So, you know, look, can I say so, you got a tough job and I went to one workshop.

[2:17:04] I thought it was great.

[2:17:05] You got some very talented people at Hillsburg.

[2:17:07] I think you've very much.

[2:17:10] Thanks, John.

[2:17:12] And by the way, John, I noticed you were taking pictures of the slides.

[2:17:15] Those are online.

[2:17:16] So, if anybody needs the slides from the council meetings.

[2:17:21] Welcome.

[2:17:22] Thank you.

[2:17:24] Hi, my name is Andy Alkin.

[2:17:26] that live here in Hillsburg been a resident since 2018 had three comments. First, I really appreciate

[2:17:36] the way that this presentation articulates the need for more housing for the middle part of

[2:17:46] our community. I think that there's a strong case that can be made and can be communicated effectively

[2:17:51] to the public is always upsetting when my wife and I go out to dinner and we're talking with

[2:17:58] the young man or woman who's serving and find out that they're living out and Sebastian Paul

[2:18:04] or West County and driving 45 minutes to get to work every day because they can't afford to

[2:18:10] live in Hillsburg. So I think there's a strong case to be made. Secondly, I was glad to hear that

[2:18:17] part of the conversation has been with developers. I feel like that may have been overlooked

[2:18:26] or underestimated in the past. The fact that there have been some modifications but no building

[2:18:36] has has happened. I think it's not enough to just change the regulations. There has to be economic

[2:18:45] incentive or else things are not going to get built. So I do hope that those conversations

[2:18:51] take place in more detail. I noticed in the summary that one of the limiting factors was

[2:18:58] existing allowed densities, but I didn't hear any discussion about changing the existing

[2:19:04] allowed densities and increasing the number of units for acre that would be allowed.

[2:19:10] I'm not a real state developer, but that seems like it would be an important factor.

[2:19:14] Finally, the third thing I wanted to emphasize is, and fortunately, I think you have a great

[2:19:22] staff here, but messaging and communication, I believe, is going to be critical.

[2:19:28] It was just stressing to see that for both of the options that you're considering, support

[2:19:36] went down after positive messaging, that suggests we're not doing a good job of communicating

[2:19:42] the benefits and in looking back at past measures to modify the growth management ordinance,

[2:19:53] I read, they all passed except for measure R. And I'll tell you, I read measure R four times,

[2:20:01] and I still don't understand it. If we can't clearly articulate what the proposed changes,

[2:20:07] there's not going to be any support. So my summary is continue to build the case for the need

[2:20:14] make sure that there are economic incentives so developers will actually build and you know

[2:20:21] please work on the communication to make it as persuasive as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy.

[2:20:27] Jonathan, welcome.

[2:20:31] Good evening Mayor Haley, council members, what he said.

[2:20:34] Basically, was very well articulated.

[2:20:39] I'm torn about this, I tend to fall on the side of the more conservative direction of the option two of eliminating the income verification because I did some calculations of the current AMI and what the 120 to 160 percent would become and it's very, very close to market rate for rentals.

[2:21:02] So, it doesn't make a lot of sense for a developer who's limited by, you know, from financially, as well as, you know, having to file all sorts of reports to have to go through that, to end up, you know, renting something at that kind of rate.

[2:21:16] I think that I was talking with Mayor Hagley recently and one of the directions we came to was just simply

[2:21:24] exempt all multifamily rental units from the GMO because then you can only build multifamily housing

[2:21:32] in the zones that allow it and it basically is what you're talking about at this point because I think

[2:21:38] then also focuses on, you know, for the developer, on specifically where you can, you know,

[2:21:47] what you can do and what you can build, except, of course, we have to modify the zoning as well,

[2:21:53] in parallel. Obviously, this is not the floor, you know, not the place where that will happen,

[2:21:58] but if that doesn't happen, then, and I think that's part of the reason why any of the measures

[2:22:02] to modify the GMO happened really yielded very much because still the density is so

[2:22:08] low that a developer wouldn't be interested even if it were easier to get an

[2:22:13] allotment to do that. I think the other option about the geographic exemption

[2:22:18] has some really good points. I think that the downtown is a problematic to

[2:22:24] exempt the downtown, because I think that there'd be kind of a gold rush. Because

[2:22:30] then, you know, typically second home, second home owners or third home owners are

[2:22:35] not renters, they tend to buy things.

[2:22:39] But if there was a fantastic unit downtown

[2:22:43] that was renting for $6,000 a month,

[2:22:46] I could see plenty of people wanting to do that

[2:22:49] as they're quote unquote second home.

[2:22:51] But once you get out of that,

[2:22:53] if you get into the Hillsburg north or the chap

[2:22:55] or south entry, those are not places where home buyers

[2:22:59] would be looking because it would only be limited to renters.

[2:23:02] So I think there's some value in that.

[2:23:04] do you think it would be harder to explain all that, in a ballot measure, I agree that the

[2:23:12] elimination of the income verification is definitely a much easier sell because then you're

[2:23:17] just modifying something that's just tweaking some language and that kind of makes it much easier.

[2:23:23] And the current 50 units per year on a three-year cycle, you could still retain the income verification

[2:23:31] for four sale units, but then maybe eliminate it for the rental, and still have enough units

[2:23:38] for the marketplace. Thank you. Thank you.

[2:23:45] And welcome.

[2:23:49] Good evening, Hillsburg.

[2:23:52] My name is Anne Amtourp, and a resident here since 1988, and I've also sold real estate here

[2:23:59] since 1989, and all of the properties that I have seen that have come to market as moderate

[2:24:07] income have never stayed moderate income and same goes for low income. I've seen many projects come

[2:24:15] has low income and there's no regulation or no way to to mod to regulate them to stay as low

[2:24:28] come or moderate income. So I'm going to come from a complete polyana place and I am a polyana

[2:24:37] and this polyana is attracted a lot of really, really positive community members to our

[2:24:43] society here in Hillsburg. I just had the breed people this week contact me about places to rent

[2:24:53] And one is a retired English teacher.

[2:24:58] The other is a retired drama teacher.

[2:25:02] The other is a single parent.

[2:25:06] So what's wrong with creating a community

[2:25:08] where we have like five to 500 to 1,000 square foot

[2:25:14] units that provide housing for people

[2:25:19] who can share their knowledge.

[2:25:22] and sort of have it be a village within our village.

[2:25:28] And so I see both the North and the South

[2:25:31] Heelsburg areas as being really positive for those places.

[2:25:36] We can, we have developed bike paths,

[2:25:39] we can develop shuttles,

[2:25:42] and then also this way,

[2:25:44] the people who work in our service industry

[2:25:47] can continue to live in our neighborhood.

[2:25:51] I agree with everybody who's spoken this evening.

[2:25:54] It's really important that we retain our great service industry workers.

[2:26:03] And also all of the people who have contributed to our community for many, many years.

[2:26:13] It's affordability has become impossible here.

[2:26:17] And it always has been very tricky for the last 30 years

[2:26:22] Heel's births never really been affordable.

[2:26:25] But I challenge our community to create a village within a village

[2:26:32] for people of all ages.

[2:26:35] And it also can be for people of all economic backgrounds.

[2:26:38] It doesn't have to be of low moderate income.

[2:26:43] So, just kind of thrown out my poly an idea.

[2:26:47] Thank you.

[2:26:50] Anyone else?

[2:26:58] Okay.

[2:27:01] Good evening.

[2:27:02] Thank you.

[2:27:04] I want to do a recognized city manager case presentation tonight.

[2:27:11] It's been really, really helpful.

[2:27:13] You articulated very well.

[2:27:17] I wanted to reinforce, particularly the first two speakers, just I'm adding another

[2:27:23] voice to what they said. I think that they're on target and what we need is we need to focus

[2:27:33] what we what we've been doing the last 20 years isn't working. So we need to fix it.

[2:27:40] And I think that although this is this presentation tonight is called dialogue,

[2:27:46] It's really not quite a dialogue.

[2:27:49] I would encourage you to continue to have additional,

[2:27:55] not a meeting, but additional, actual dialogue.

[2:27:59] I would love to be at a tape at a round table,

[2:28:03] like what we do with Healsford, 2040,

[2:28:06] where we have six to 12 people around the table,

[2:28:11] having a dialogue, exchanging ideas,

[2:28:13] as opposed to what happens here, which is, we've got three minutes, and that's not really a dialogue, it's enough to make a statement, and we need that back and forth, I think it's critical, so I encourage you to keep working at it, and let's fix this, because we do need that middle income housing, we do need that middle income housing to develop other business opportunities here in the city.

[2:28:43] rather than dishwasher's and chefs and hotel workers.

[2:28:48] That middle, missing middle, it's really important.

[2:28:51] Thank you.

[2:28:53] Thank you,

[2:28:57] Richard.

[2:29:00] Welcome.

[2:29:02] Good evening, Council.

[2:29:04] Mayor, combining some of these might be advantageous.

[2:29:10] I don't know about what Jonathan said about a land rush,

[2:29:14] but if you take the density study

[2:29:15] And a modification to the GMO, it would change the complexion of downtown if the zoning changes followed, but was required to implement some of the things we saw when they did the model of an increased density for the downtown area.

[2:29:34] I am curious why there aren't any developers here.

[2:29:39] The voice of a developer coming into this decision seems really important because they're

[2:29:46] the ones who are going to step up by a piece of property and build something into the regulatory

[2:29:51] environment we have at the time they purchase the property.

[2:29:54] So, if we reduce the change measure P, but...

[2:30:00] We'll require inclusionary housing. Wouldn't it be an incentive to a developer to not have to build 20% of the units he was building inclusionary.

[2:30:11] We're looking for him to solve a problem of ours and we're burdening him with a problem that we have in some respects accommodated for the last 20 years.

[2:30:22] So, one of the benefits to a developer might be to be able to build small multi-family rental

[2:30:29] units with no restrictions, I like Anne's suggestion, this could happen in one project.

[2:30:37] You know, what did we see with the density study, 46 units on a lot, that could be a small

[2:30:45] community.

[2:30:45] But what is going to incentivize the developer to come to Hillsburg and solve this problem for us?

[2:30:54] Unless we're able to offer them some incentive.

[2:30:57] Ideally, the city might design the solution they want and then wait for a developer to come to build the thing we want.

[2:31:06] That's a very different approach.

[2:31:09] It would cost some money to do a performer just like the density study and say we'd like

[2:31:17] to see this built in Hillsford.

[2:31:20] But that would be an incentive for a developer not to have to go through the process

[2:31:25] to somewhat excruciating process of getting a project approved.

[2:31:30] If the community came up with a design and then waited for a developer to show up to build

[2:31:36] it.

[2:31:37] Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Jim, welcome.

[2:31:50] Mayor council members. Just a couple of us. First of all, I came tonight with a little

[2:31:55] little imprepidation just because I'm kind of burned out on the GMO for a lot of reasons, but I just got to say the work that has been done is phenomenal. Your presentation was fabulous. I think the

[2:32:04] capacity study preceding this was a really good strategy. So I think we have a lot of really good tools now to make some informed decisions.

[2:32:12] And I don't envy where you are because you have to make two decisions.

[2:32:16] One is you got to pick something that you think is going to pass.

[2:32:20] And then second you got to pick something that will pass that you think will actually produce something.

[2:32:24] And those are two pretty big unknowns in a 20 year history that really hasn't worked.

[2:32:31] To Richard's comment, just I think the last time we had this conversation about housing capacity,

[2:32:35] I am a developer, I work in a development environment.

[2:32:38] I think having the community design it and wait for the developer to show up is a really bad idea.

[2:32:43] They just, that's not going to work.

[2:32:44] But I think what you do need to do is we have an opportunity, as I said in my letter, to leverage a number of incentives,

[2:32:53] combined with policy changes, combined with kind of the natural attraction in this community to get ultimately what we want.

[2:33:00] And I think there are challenges with the geographic exclusion or geographic carve out as the

[2:33:07] option.

[2:33:08] But I do think if you're taking a long term view and how we shape this community in terms

[2:33:12] of supporting the downtown businesses, creating places if people can walk to, reducing green

[2:33:17] house gas for and commuting and all that kind of stuff, that is the right long term solution.

[2:33:22] Whether that'll pass, I don't know, but I think it's worth going the long distance on.

[2:33:25] The option of changing the income on the missing middle housing or on prop p or whatever is I mean it's probably viable and maybe we need to take baby steps because when we've taken bold chances before they just haven't worked partially because of the complexity.

[2:33:43] But I think we think that we're in a very different place than we were in 2016 I think the community is much more aware of what this issue is.

[2:33:50] I think we have much better tools, thanks to the work that's been done preceding this.

[2:33:55] I think there are 2040 and other groups that are championing this, I think we have an opportunity

[2:34:00] to get this passed. So I would really encourage you to think about not what is just the most

[2:34:06] expeditious thing that we can pass, but what is going to give us the tool, the one properly

[2:34:11] combined with zoning changes, and then policy incentives, such as density bonuses and a land

[2:34:17] rest can actually shape the downtown and the economy in the way that we would ultimately like

[2:34:21] it to be for the long term. Thank you. Anybody else?

[2:34:29] Paulia, welcome.

[2:34:33] I'll also just did a gym, but it wasn't planning on speaking on this, but

[2:34:38] I'm going to speak as a resident and I can say after running five different chambers of

[2:34:43] and different cities, 15% of the people that work here are able to live here is horrible.

[2:34:51] It's a completely disastrous for the future, for the economy, for anything that you want to look at in

[2:34:58] Hillsburg, you can already look at our low enrollment rates, and everything we have, we don't even have a high school football team anymore,

[2:35:05] and all of these things because we aren't able to get the younger generations and other people in the

[2:35:10] affordability to move here so the missing middle that we already have the lack of service

[2:35:15] workers, the people that work in the grocery stores, you know, obviously firefighters, teachers,

[2:35:20] people that are really in need in our community. So I just want to mention that I definitely think

[2:35:27] that we need to have change. This is something that has been a long time. If you look at any community,

[2:35:35] anywhere, anywhere sitting things are not the same. You have to evolve with the times you

[2:35:40] evolve with the needs and we don't necessarily need the GMO the way it sets anymore.

[2:35:46] So also working in jewelry, I'm just going to say the four seas are completely important.

[2:35:51] So I really think you can make a clear concise messaging. I'm just going to say if you put

[2:35:57] clarity on the measure, if you're concise and you clarify the needs for the missing middle

[2:36:03] and you cancel the GMO, I think it'll be a really positive thing. So thank you so much.

[2:36:08] and make this time to really make a change

[2:36:12] that's critical for the future.

[2:36:14] Thank you.

[2:36:16] Anybody else?

[2:36:20] All right, Marilyn, no?

[2:36:24] All right, we will close public comment now

[2:36:27] and bring it back.

[2:36:30] Any,

[2:36:33] who wants to kick us off here, Chris?

[2:36:37] Ron, start on the ends.

[2:36:40] Yeah, you know, this is I think we've gone around. We kind of have an idea of what would work. I mean, we definitely need to be clear that these are steps that we're taking that this is just the beginning of the geographical area. I think for me is a good for step. It is one that can get rid of some skepticism because it's not we're not doing it for the whole city. We're doing it incrementally.

[2:37:10] and starting in a small area, we could put that fairly clear and we could demonstrate how the process of work and then come back after we've shown that we can do what we say we're going to do with the geographical area with the zoning and then go forward and kind of expanding out.

[2:37:33] So I think that that's really what we need is to trust in doing this.

[2:37:39] Um, before I get too far, I do want to, like, just, let's start off with one question that

[2:37:44] staff had was removing option three. One nodding head, I see if thumbs up, another thumbs up

[2:37:50] and nodding head. So yes, you have. Yes, Andrew. You got one out of the way. All right. Thank you,

[2:38:01] one Brad words. Councilmember Herod. Thanks. I am I have really enjoyed the conversation here

[2:38:12] and with lots of different members of the community on this topic and and definitely there's

[2:38:19] a lot more openness and I think on the topic of changing the JMO and the past I think our approach

[2:38:27] is very sober this time and I think it's very intentional.

[2:38:32] And so I'm optimistic that we can take steps towards

[2:38:36] our housing goals.

[2:38:40] I guess probably my only disappointment

[2:38:43] is that early on I kind of hoped that we might see a path

[2:38:48] to missing middle ownership.

[2:38:51] And I think that's really kind of not there right now.

[2:38:53] And that's unfortunate, and that'll be, that'll be like a council member Edward says that'll be me the next step we can take if things change maybe the South entry opens up in a way that is a possibility that's not, you know, on the table right now as far as I'm concerned, but so that's one of the reasons that option two is is appealing to me.

[2:39:21] And because it is clearly focused on rentals, which are our possibilities for the

[2:39:38] modern income folks in our town.

[2:39:43] And secondly, I think it's maybe most importantly, and I feel like we should be laser focused

[2:39:49] on something that can pass, it's simple, and I think that really does fit the bill in terms

[2:39:56] of developing downtown, right now the zoning really is for rental properties is going to

[2:40:07] be, is already focused on these areas as well, and so I don't think we need an order at the

[2:40:13] points to certain zones.

[2:40:16] Needless to say, we do need to come back with whatever

[2:40:20] happens here and correct the capacity limits downtown.

[2:40:25] But I feel pretty confident that will happen.

[2:40:30] And then finally, I think there's some real anxiety

[2:40:32] that if we fall the geographic exemption

[2:40:37] that we're going to see too much of the kind of housing

[2:40:41] that we're seeing too much of already,

[2:40:43] which it's the luxury high end housing downtown. And it's put a lot of worry into people's minds.

[2:40:51] And, you know, it's hard to measure how real that is. But I think that's something we have to

[2:40:57] consider politically in terms of what would pass. And realistically, maybe this going that direction

[2:41:04] doesn't take us as close to our goals as we'd like to go, even though the second option is a

[2:41:10] little narrower path. I think that's the path that I hopefully would choose. Thank you. I appreciate your thought process on the comes when we're killing.

[2:41:25] Thank you. So I think, you know, explaining it in broad terms, is this something we want to do that's incremental or something that's more.

[2:41:36] You know, has greater potential to yield a larger number of units, and I think, in tier point around, what we heard so much from the community, especially during the Inquantos for the DEI process, but just kind of what we hear anecdotally about people who want to buy a home and that is not affordable to do so in heelsburg and so they're often, you know, leaving heelsburg to purchase their first home.

[2:42:03] I do think that option one has the only option between the two that would yield homeownership opportunities.

[2:42:13] And I think to your point around is it going to only yield luxury homeownership opportunities.

[2:42:20] And I think we should just acknowledge that the unintended consequences of the GMO have made it so we're only getting luxury.

[2:42:32] or deed restricted affordable that's exempt from the GMO, and then having to really scrape together these complex stacks of money to figure out for those developers how they can develop it.

[2:42:44] For example, you know, the mill district is going to take what 10, 12 years to build those units.

[2:42:52] And so, they're expensive because they're sitting there with a pile of dirt for 10 to 12 years and they're not going to make money on that dirt for a very, very long time.

[2:43:02] And so, the longer they wait, the longer they're carrying cost is, you know, the more expensive those units have to be for them to feel like it's penciling.

[2:43:11] So I think that is the consequence of the GMO if you didn't have those limitations for them.

[2:43:21] It's 20 units per year max, right?

[2:43:23] Because that's that was a category A of the GMO that you can only have 20 and then 10 are reserved for individual developers.

[2:43:31] So 20 units per year and if you want to build 60 units, that's if they're available.

[2:43:36] So we know for for very long time those those allegations just aren't available until I think what 2018 at this point or twenty twenty twenty eight

[2:43:46] That you know that those things start to come available and so

[2:43:51] I look at the the geographic exemption as as an opportunity to

[2:43:57] Be really specific about

[2:43:59] Multifamily housing because we know where it's located you're not going to build a single family neighborhood

[2:44:05] you know, say for example, on one of the lots next the community center. That's not what it's own for.

[2:44:12] And I think you could create the type of density there.

[2:44:17] We would have to be very proactive about any type of GMO change, no matter which option it is.

[2:44:24] We saw with the capacity study that the smaller the unit size, the greater the density, the lower the rents can be.

[2:44:31] the more you're actually going to have something that's truly affordable, whether it's for

[2:44:36] sale or for rent, based on size of unit and zoning, we'll dictate that.

[2:44:43] We know right now, some of the biggest complaints we've gotten from people in our community,

[2:44:48] like the Hotel Hills for Residence is project on the corner that just went through the planning

[2:44:52] commission.

[2:44:53] So many people said, why don't they just turn those into condos or apartments?

[2:45:00] And the GMO doesn't allow for it. And so we get hotel rooms. And now people are looking at the

[2:45:06] SIR development site, south of the bridge, saying we don't want another luxury hotel there. We want housing for locals.

[2:45:13] And you can't do it based on the GMO. And you can't do it. You know, right now, obviously it's zone industrial. So you don't build anything there. But what it is, but I think that, you know, the planning piece,

[2:45:24] happen in concurrent to this, whether it's density bonuses, a fee structure that really promote

[2:45:30] smaller units like what we did for the accessory dwelling unit ordinance where we made fees,

[2:45:35] you know much lower for smaller units, hopefully that those things happen part and parcel to whatever

[2:45:41] we do here. So we actually yield the type of units that we want. I think I know we need rentals.

[2:45:49] we have not built a project with five or more rental units since the year 2000, which was the year

[2:45:55] and graduated high school. So to be clear, we are way behind on building rental units,

[2:46:01] but we're also way behind on building everything else. And I think the geographic exemption

[2:46:06] would yield rental or ownership opportunities. And if we were proactive about the type of zoning

[2:46:12] that we need to do and communicating to the public of where we want those units to be,

[2:46:18] I think that it would be easily understandable and palatable

[2:46:22] because folks in our community have seen

[2:46:25] what is currently happening.

[2:46:27] I mean, I think that the unintended consequences

[2:46:28] are clear as day when you see what is currently being built

[2:46:32] in Hieldsburg, whether it's hotels or luxury condos

[2:46:37] or high end homes in other parts of the community

[2:46:40] that that's kind of all we're getting right now

[2:46:42] or to our credit, we're building a lot of deed restricted

[2:46:46] affordable, we're trying to build a lot of deed

[2:46:48] restricted affordable rentals, but the reality is is but it's expensive and we don't have

[2:46:54] a true meaningful source of income like if we had an inclusionary ordinance that was actually

[2:47:00] producing at the rate if we had a bunch of market rate units, we would be able to produce

[2:47:04] the number of affordable units we truly need. I think right now we've been really proactive

[2:47:10] by getting it done, but I don't foresee that it's really dependent on tax credits and all of

[2:47:15] financial structures that are not really guaranteed. And so we're kind of crossing our fingers every single year that we're going to get these grants to build those affordable projects.

[2:47:23] But it's not as routine as it would be. We know we're going to build X number of market rate units each year, which means we're going to get 20% that's inclusionary every single year.

[2:47:34] And whether that's for sale or for rent, those are like meaningful units that we don't have to build developers are building them.

[2:47:39] So, I know I'm being very long-winded because I don't really get to talk about this a lot at

[2:47:45] Council, but it's super important and I feel like everyone in the community is talking

[2:47:49] about it every single day.

[2:47:51] So I kind of leaned towards the geographical exemption honestly, but I think we have to do

[2:47:59] it part and parcel to the changes to zoning and trying to limit unit size so we really get what

[2:48:07] want and I think we're on the right track with doing the density study and otherwise. I have

[2:48:14] concerns about the polling results on downtown. I think that people have a perception that

[2:48:20] we're going to build a skyscraper on the Plaza, which obviously we don't want to do. And so

[2:48:24] I think the land costs downtown is going to be one of those things where if you are going to buy a

[2:48:30] personal, you know, next to the across from Hotel Hillsburg versus, sorry, hotels were number two.

[2:48:39] Versus buying a plot by the community center, I think you're going to have a lot cheaper of a unit

[2:48:44] option before they're away from the pausing you get. And so I do, I have concerns about

[2:48:51] it feeling like we're just trying to build downtown, which I don't think is ideal. But I do

[2:48:57] for some of the projects we're seeing downtown.

[2:48:59] I would love to see some of those consider to be housing

[2:49:02] and right now they can't be.

[2:49:04] So, I do like the idea of the geographical exemption

[2:49:08] as long as we're very clear that it's not gonna change

[2:49:11] the character of downtown,

[2:49:12] because I think that's one of the things

[2:49:13] that makes Hildberg so unique in such a gem.

[2:49:17] And we really have,

[2:49:18] there's a lot of undeveloped parcels

[2:49:21] the further away you get from the pauses.

[2:49:22] So I'm open to looking at the geographical exemption,

[2:49:29] which could get us the four sale units,

[2:49:31] they could be moderate income,

[2:49:33] we'll probably get some unintended luxury units,

[2:49:37] but we'll also with all of those luxury units,

[2:49:39] at minimum, get 20% that are inclusionary affordable.

[2:49:45] So I'm also open to option two.

[2:49:47] I just think at the end of the day,

[2:49:48] it's not gonna yield very many units.

[2:49:50] It's, you know, 50 per year, maximum, and they're only, you know, for rent, and we know from the community that they want for sale. So I would love to see us be able to do both and I think the geographical exemption gets us both for sale and for rent and only multifamily would be my goal in those areas where we know we need it.

[2:50:14] Yeah, Councilmember Kelly, would you propose, you mentioned some zoning restrictions that would help focus on higher density and in multifamily units and also a size cap or something along those lines, right?

[2:50:33] building that into a measure, or is that something that comes afterwards or, you know, as an

[2:50:41] accessory to that, you know, down the road. I just worry about complicating, I appreciate your

[2:50:50] your line of thought a lot, but I think that really in order to build those insurances into the

[2:50:58] measure is going to make it more complicated. I'm not sure if that's what you had in mind or

[2:51:03] that would work at all.

[2:51:05] Thanks for the question and I appreciate

[2:51:07] because it's not what I meant to say.

[2:51:10] I don't think we should build any of that into the measure.

[2:51:13] I think that that the zoning that exists

[2:51:16] in the majority of that area already limits,

[2:51:20] as far as I know, I guess south of the bridge,

[2:51:22] we need an area plan anyways

[2:51:23] because it's own kind of industrial and mixed use down there.

[2:51:26] But I don't think you could build single family homes

[2:51:28] and pretty much any of that area.

[2:51:30] So it's really a matter of the zoning as it exists would prevent what we don't want, but we need to increase our density and do that.

[2:51:40] The land use planning process separate from the ballot measure in an a concurrent process that we kind of already kicked off with the density study, but I wouldn't want to see us.

[2:51:51] At any of that to the ballot measure because I think it will be confusing and I think it's really not doing planning at the ballot box is never a good idea and getting into the weeds. I think is where voters just say I don't understand this. I'm going to vote now.

[2:52:08] Thank you.

[2:52:09] Nice mayor.

[2:52:14] Sorry.

[2:52:14] Yeah, squeaky squeaky squeaky wheel here.

[2:52:18] So I've been through two of those measures where we

[2:52:23] really tried to carve out some opportunity to build of the GMO and that didn't work.

[2:52:31] We talked about that and I think they were very conservative.

[2:52:36] We intentionally were conservative because the GMO had failed so horribly with measure

[2:52:42] R and a lot of consequences related to that.

[2:52:45] So I think we were kind of walking on egg shells a little bit on trying to carve out

[2:52:50] something. It didn't work. So for me, I don't want to do that again. And I feel like the second

[2:52:58] option is really that. I'm not sure anything would get built. It's really just a little tweak.

[2:53:06] I think we need to be bold and I don't know how bold this actually is, but the carving out the

[2:53:17] And for a lot of the reasons, of course, I agree with what Council Member Kelly was saying, but also, the being able to purchase peace, you know, for for sale, we heard over and over and over again in the Inquintros, about people where they didn't even really want the rental low income rental housing, you're like, we want to buy something, we want to get a piece of the piece of this community for ourselves and build some wealth that

[2:53:47] way. It was a really loud message. And at the time, I'm like, yeah, you know, that's, you know,

[2:53:54] that's just not possible. And people, it felt like people were being sort of ungrateful if you

[2:54:01] will for, you know, all this, all the work that we've been doing for creating all of the affordable

[2:54:05] housing. And yet, you know, when you think about it, it perfectly makes perfect sense. It's really

[2:54:10] the only way to get out of poverty is to be able to buy and not necessarily poverty, but to

[2:54:18] be able to buy and create some equity.

[2:54:21] So I think this option would give us that.

[2:54:24] I think we can generate and create zoning and density rules afterwards, but we gotta get

[2:54:31] the GMO gone first.

[2:54:33] And I want, and simple, it can be simple, let's change the GMOs so that we can build housing for our middle income workers.

[2:54:44] I mean, it can be that simple.

[2:54:47] And we have the guardrails there because it would be zoned multi-family, right?

[2:54:54] It's in the areas where we're talking about multi-family already.

[2:54:58] So, I really think that that, I think we need to be a little bit bold here.

[2:55:02] and take a risk and hope the voters get it.

[2:55:06] And I think they might at this point.

[2:55:15] I really appreciate that.

[2:55:17] And I also wanted to mention, I think per the first conversation

[2:55:21] we were having tonight regarding water use in the community,

[2:55:26] I would be remiss and not mentioning that also

[2:55:28] when we were looking at the climate mobilization strategy

[2:55:32] and we were looking at the urban water management plan

[2:55:35] that we adopted in 2020.

[2:55:36] the reality of how much less water, multi-family housing is using, compared to single-family

[2:55:44] homes, and the cost not just to purchase, but the cost to operate whenever we look at any of our

[2:55:51] rate studies, whether it's electrical rates or water rates, that multi-family housing is so much

[2:55:57] more affordable, even at market rate, because you're just using less, you're not watering your

[2:56:02] landscape because you've shared landscape, you're typically, you know, your

[2:56:06] electric rates, you're using less because you're in a smaller unit. So I

[2:56:10] think it's from a efficiency standpoint and affordability standpoint,

[2:56:14] having promoting more multifamily housing and creating policies that

[2:56:18] allow it to get built is also, you know, it's climate smart, but it's like

[2:56:23] more resilient for our community too. If we're going to build 30 more units

[2:56:27] a year every single year and they're all multifamily, or sorry, they're all

[2:56:31] family, we're making poor choices with respect to our limited resources. So, I just wanted to throw that in there as well.

[2:56:39] All right, we've got some good discussion going.

[2:56:43] The couple of things on that, I

[2:56:45] Terry correct me if I were wrong, but the purple pipe that we're bringing, and I think the number for that 25 million

[2:56:51] gallons of water that we're going to be basically drinking water that is now being replaced by

[2:57:03] department's correct. So when the question is, where's the water going to come from? It's really

[2:57:07] coming from what we as a community did during the drought and cutting back and really conserving

[2:57:14] to the point that we could get that grant funding to get this purple pipe that was on the, you know,

[2:57:20] that we were trying to get done for a long time in place. So that is happening. So there are a

[2:57:28] things that I think are important to address,

[2:57:32] so when I ran the first time, I also was running

[2:57:40] when measure R was on the ballot and that was a very complicated ballot measure. There was

[2:57:49] a lot of community input on that and one of the biggest things related to that and I'll just

[2:57:56] be honest was trusting council at the time because there's a last second tweak. People then

[2:58:01] trusted, oh council might change something and down the road. And so when I look at this,

[2:58:07] you know, I would like to have rental and for sale, and I completely understand the concerns

[2:58:17] from some members of the community when they see milder stricter montage or we've heard

[2:58:21] public comment about, well, it's just going to be the super high-end stuff.

[2:58:27] So I think, you know, we as a council have been very clear what our goals are.

[2:58:33] I don't, I don't think anybody disputes that in terms of what we're trying to target and what we're

[2:58:38] trying to do and that I think will then translate to the zoning side when we're having that discussion

[2:58:45] once the GMO, hopefully, is passed.

[2:58:48] Because now we have a clear direction from the community

[2:58:52] that this is what we want.

[2:58:55] And then that's when we dive into the weeds

[2:58:58] on the zoning and to try to help shift it that way.

[2:59:05] So I too would probably lean toward the geographic exclusion

[2:59:11] option number one,

[2:59:15] but with that,

[2:59:16] I would want to go in and be able to really relate to the community where we're coming from

[2:59:23] how we're going to do that because, well, I would love to have a Foss Creek bill as, you know,

[2:59:31] condo project, someone bedroom, one bath in there.

[2:59:35] You know, for, you know, but instead of that, it's all super high-end, luxury, massive units.

[2:59:43] you know, there's something that we can do to control that as we're updated in the zone.

[2:59:48] I think there is some, you know, I'm wondering what we can do between this time.

[2:59:53] Say we say, okay, we're going to go for rent and for sale.

[2:59:58] And what?

[3:00:00] This is it we can do to kind of signal the plans we're having for the zoning between now and the time that we go to the election.

[3:00:10] Yeah, so I mean, are there some things that we can formulate?

[3:00:15] You know, based on the recommendations from the huge that we can start.

[3:00:22] Start that parallel process a little earlier.

[3:00:26] Yeah, this challenge, certainly in terms of having anything in play at the time that the election

[3:00:34] were to occur, but I think the council already kind of took that initial step with the downtown

[3:00:38] housing capacity study and showed what that potential is.

[3:00:42] I've heard from some that have parcels within that area that ask you know, when's the next step

[3:00:48] of that?

[3:00:49] I had the sense that they would wait for that zoning change because they want to be able to

[3:00:54] to more smaller units, they don't want to have to do fewer larger units. At the end of the day,

[3:01:01] the performers on those aren't all that easy to work out either, so I think there are some

[3:01:08] that own properties that would probably wait, but I don't have a crystal ball, and I can't assure you

[3:01:15] but that's the sense that I've heard from some.

[3:01:20] Okay, um, so for now, I mean, I kind of,

[3:01:29] this is a tough one because there's a side of like what, you know,

[3:01:33] I we want and then there's the, what will pass based on perception or the fear

[3:01:41] of what might happen or you know, and so there's a, there's a lot that's going on here

[3:01:47] and a lot of great arguments on all sides.

[3:01:53] And ownership opportunities are important.

[3:02:00] And I mean, in terms of being out there knocking

[3:02:05] on doors this November,

[3:02:07] you know, the fact that no marker rate multifamily

[3:02:11] apartments have been built.

[3:02:12] It says 2000 is a pretty short little reason to say we need it.

[3:02:18] you know, it kind of goes right to that like we need that there are people that are having a commute in that

[3:02:23] somebody mentioned from Subastable and I hear it too, you know, they're commuted, they're renting

[3:02:29] in Subastable, they could be renting here. So that's those are kind of my initial thoughts you want

[3:02:35] to make a comment. I think it's very good. I think it's clear. I mean, we've heard, you know,

[3:02:43] I've been to a lot of housing seminars about what is needed.

[3:02:48] And I think that by signaling what we're looking for,

[3:02:52] we're going to be attracting people because it's clear.

[3:02:56] I mean, we said what we want to do with the GMO.

[3:02:58] The council, we are very clear in telegraphing what we want to be built.

[3:03:02] And I think that it would be hard for somebody not to hear what we're saying.

[3:03:06] It'd be very easy for them to look at the history of Hillsburg.

[3:03:09] Look at this council and there's five of us that are very clear

[3:03:12] on the direction we want, but at the same time we're not telling them exactly how to build it.

[3:03:16] We're saying these are the parameters we'd like to see and you can figure out how to how to make that work.

[3:03:22] And I think we're sending a very strong message where you're united on wanting to get more units.

[3:03:27] And, you know, when you look at measure R, when I read what the argument against it was,

[3:03:34] was that if it were to pass we'd have this and it didn't pass and we got exactly what they said would happen if it passed.

[3:03:38] So, I think it's important that this is very clear.

[3:03:44] There's no ambiguity in what we're saying, what we're stating,

[3:03:47] I don't know how to write it in a short paragraph,

[3:03:49] but I think we're what we are wanting to use very clear.

[3:03:52] That's over there.

[3:03:55] I think we're very clear in what we're saying.

[3:04:01] Come from here.

[3:04:04] Yeah, I think the challenge is really pretty much political.

[3:04:08] I mean, I am, I definitely am attracted to the option that gives us more potential, and that's option one as pretty clear, and I appreciate to call the people and, and the option two is less bold.

[3:04:24] I get that. I'm still concerned about the political realities and you are articulated that pretty clearly. I mean, we're going to have one campaign for, you know,

[3:04:36] a measure about the GMO and another campaign that we're going to do afterwards.

[3:04:40] And that's what things get really tricky.

[3:04:41] I mean, there's always going to be some distrust and people will exaggerate the worst-case

[3:04:48] scenario when they, if they're opposed to this geographic option, they're going to tell you

[3:04:53] that downtown's going to go all-mil district and you're going to hear all this kind of stuff.

[3:04:58] And that's only tiny bit possible, but it's possible enough for people to say it and carry

[3:05:04] some way in gather followers, you know, and then we're going to be, you know, having to, you know,

[3:05:11] digest that the rationale, you know, in our opposition. And so it's, it's tricky. But,

[3:05:19] so that, you know, that's pretty open-ended statement that. I don't know what really giving

[3:05:24] any solutions on that, but that's, that's, that's, that's kind of where I, why landed where I have landed,

[3:05:30] That being said, I'm not, I'm not going against the flow of this discussion right now.

[3:05:37] I think there's some worries there.

[3:05:41] Go ahead.

[3:05:41] Yeah, I think that what you're saying is correct, that we are here in the community saying,

[3:05:47] this is what we want to do.

[3:05:48] We've had these listening sessions, we've had lots of meetings and they have, it is for

[3:05:55] us to hear what they were saying to take what they want and formulate it into what

[3:06:00] work. I mean, that's why we get paid the small bucks is to make those decisions. So I think

[3:06:06] it's important that we take in what they're doing and then we come up. That's really the

[3:06:13] declarary by tomorrow. I just want to say to you, I have my notes here that you know,

[3:06:18] measure each loss in the presentation to measure each pass by 68% in 2020. I think that's significant

[3:06:26] to think about that because we were changing it from rental to fore sale.

[3:06:30] It seemed like a small tweak, but every, you know, it's a big percentage of people who voted for it, so I think, and if you read that ballot measure, it was really sick straight forward and simple.

[3:06:44] So I think that this could also be straight forward and simple.

[3:06:50] And then the messaging that we do, and we have a bunch of great 20, 40 people who weren't here during measure are, right?

[3:07:02] So we've got a, we've got a, we've got a request for us with us.

[3:07:09] And I think that would give us a lot more leverage as well with the community to understand.

[3:07:15] And there's a lot of confidence in the 20, 40 group within this community.

[3:07:19] So I think all of that, it's different and could be successful.

[3:07:25] It's obviously, you know, this idea about building identity housing comes up and lots of different places.

[3:07:32] And if we were just like, you know, connecting the thread there, that does helps sell the point.

[3:07:41] I mean, those worries that I just talked about before, they're still there.

[3:07:43] I mean, that I think does show that there's been a long protracted interest to end and following this model housing for the community.

[3:07:58] Yeah, I think, you know, the concerns you raised. I think they are real. Those are, you know, I'm not dismissing the concerns or the fears that people have about, you know, the ultra luxury

[3:08:11] that direction. But I think we need to be honest about what we are working to do. And it is

[3:08:21] in response time and again for the entire time I've been on this council. We have been responsive

[3:08:26] to the cries that we have heard from our packed council chamber. But people saying do something.

[3:08:34] We need affordable housing. My families are moving away. Our kids can't come back home. We've

[3:08:40] constantly, done that the community has repeatedly approved measures to improve that we have a

[3:08:49] affordable housing TOT increase that past. We have done a lot as a community and then I think

[3:08:57] repeatedly as a council we have been very aware of and hearing what the community members

[3:09:05] that come here, pleading with us that do something.

[3:09:09] I think we can do both.

[3:09:13] We can listen to those pleas and really fight

[3:09:17] for our community members that are really hurting.

[3:09:20] And at the same time, be very sensitive to the concerns

[3:09:24] of the people that have been here a long time

[3:09:26] that have a distrust and counsel with some of the other things.

[3:09:32] how, you know, I think that's where we need to be clear as council members, you know, when we're

[3:09:38] out there talking to people, no, this is what we want. And I'm willing to take it to take a shot.

[3:09:48] So yeah, I swear, I mean, councilmember Kelly. Thanks. I think also just to give staff the

[3:09:55] direction, you know, we really want to create opportunities for for sale and for rent. It seems like

[3:10:01] And that we're looking to not have it be luxury, more of what we're currently seeing get built on both ends of town right now.

[3:10:14] So if there is a way, as we get these recommendations back, or as you guys are looking at bringing something back to us, is that accurate that we don't, I mean, I think we don't want more luxury housing.

[3:10:25] And we want, you know, moderate housing for for middle income, you know, whether it's fixing come seniors or first time home buyers or families in our community that that those are the priorities and we don't necessarily know exactly how we want to get there, but we would we would we would love to have your recommendations on how we can do that in a in a way that's creating some meaningful opportunities to build more units and and maybe the next agenda item we can hear from you all what that might if there's a way with that.

[3:10:55] out having to do the massive overhaul of zoning and the densities and the unit size, maximums or whatever it might be, what you recommend to us that we could potentially do in the ballot language or in concurrence in a separate process that we can start to launch into.

[3:11:17] I don't know if that's possible but I'd love to kind of hear if it is in the next iteration of when this comes back to us.

[3:11:24] I think I would like to like kind of separate, but maybe like when we when it does come back of here that, you know, two or three low hanging fruit things that immediate things that we could tackle if this GMO passes and within that there's some guidance that that's showing which direction we're going it's not going toward this ultra luxury that's what we want.

[3:11:47] it's going toward no worse series.

[3:11:50] We want the higher density, the efficient housing

[3:11:53] that can accommodate this missing middle workforce.

[3:11:57] And I want to reiterate, I want the ballot language

[3:12:00] to be as simple as possible.

[3:12:03] And that's always what you're up against

[3:12:06] when you're trying to fix a complicated issue at the ballot,

[3:12:09] which is why we have struggled.

[3:12:12] But I think that's the part that, you know,

[3:12:17] What we want staff to hopefully give us some ideas on, and then we can weigh kind of the political

[3:12:23] Piece of it too because we know it's got to be palatable and understandable really easily when you just fly and down your ballot

[3:12:29] And there's going to be it's going to be a full ballot in November. There's a lot on there. I look at it very simply is that we are

[3:12:35] Hoping in the car we're looking at the GPS and staff is going to come up with the direction

[3:12:42] I have faith in you

[3:12:44] Well, we gave them the the destination. They need a navigator to. All right, so I do we have, uh,

[3:12:52] is everybody comfortable with the discussion that we've had here tonight? Yeah. Okay. I really

[3:12:58] appreciate, I mean, it's a very open discussion because this is going to be that it's, it's not going to

[3:13:04] be easy, but I do think we need to be as transparent as possible with what we're trying to do and

[3:13:09] and city manager, do you have enough in your side?

[3:13:13] We do.

[3:13:14] Well, first off, thank you.

[3:13:16] I'm believe me.

[3:13:17] We know how hard this is to wrestle with,

[3:13:20] so we appreciate the process and the feedback work.

[3:13:25] We, where we have majority support

[3:13:27] to move toward a geographic exemption.

[3:13:29] So we're going to get to work on some language.

[3:13:34] They're one thing I won't ask you to do this tonight.

[3:13:37] We have another item of significant

[3:13:39] and it's been a long meeting, but one thing we'll have to nail down is

[3:13:43] geography, so just sort of give you all some homework to be thinking about that.

[3:13:47] We heard, and we understand the challenges around the downpounds,

[3:13:51] we'll work on bringing you some thoughts and some options around that.

[3:13:55] That was as you heard, that was that pulled the lowest of the four options.

[3:13:59] We looked at, though, close to even, and we did a density study that showed great opportunity there.

[3:14:06] So there's a paradox there and we'll try to work through some options, but I would just ask you all to be thinking about that in advance of the next conversation.

[3:14:15] We absolutely hear you as well about what the goal is.

[3:14:18] I think we're in a lot of step.

[3:14:20] We put forth some thoughts in the presentation with I think similar sentiment.

[3:14:24] We are not trying to create luxury housing here.

[3:14:27] There's not going to be a perfect solution and how we preclude that, but we will absolutely,

[3:14:33] be thinking hard about options that we might be able to put forward on a simple measure or in conjunction with a simple measure that helps that case.

[3:14:43] So, thank you.

[3:14:44] Thank you.

[3:14:46] All right.

[3:14:47] So, next up, we'll move on.

[3:14:49] Thank you very much.

[3:14:49] I appreciate presentation and everybody that stuck around.

[3:14:53] We still have parts about to leave yet.

[3:14:55] A lot of exciting stuff still.

[3:14:58] Yeah.

[3:15:00] Step item, let's just eight or nine. Nine, a socio-hills and bachelor park design priorities and phasing. So for this one, we'll do it in two parts.

[3:15:13] I'll hang out for the first one and I'm turn it over to the vice mayor when I step off because I live right next.

[3:15:21] So I will need to recuse for that so we'll split it up.

[3:15:28] Welcome.

[3:15:29] Thank you, Mayor.

[3:15:30] Members of council.

[3:15:31] Hopefully you've dried out from Saturdays event.

[3:15:34] That was a fun one.

[3:15:35] Thanks for reading there for all that.

[3:15:36] It was a good time.

[3:15:37] So next slide, please.

[3:15:40] So as a mayor said, I've structured this into essentially an overview of the full process.

[3:15:46] And then splitting up first,

[3:15:47] Badger Park.

[3:15:48] And then second, Sagio Hills Park.

[3:15:50] So the mayor can we queues himself at that point.

[3:15:53] Next slide, please.

[3:15:55] So this is continuing to move forward on a long road, right?

[3:16:01] But hopefully Saturday, give us all, including the community, some inspiration that things will happen.

[3:16:08] It just takes a while in Hillsburg.

[3:16:11] And so we'll get there.

[3:16:14] And I think we might get there starting next year if things go well, that's my goal at this point.

[3:16:19] So really this process started back in 2019 as we began to develop the master plan for both

[3:16:25] Badger Park and Sagio Hills development. One of the key things that really triggered Badger

[3:16:30] Park is the need for restrooms. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight. That was the

[3:16:33] impetus and that kind of grew into a lot we should really talk about the longer term plan. I'm not sure

[3:16:39] if that was the best move at the time. Now we'll give in funding but it seemed like a right move

[3:16:43] at the time and I think we're still okay. We've got a good vision for the project. The city contract

[3:16:48] go to Fletcher Studios and I think one of the really strong parts of this project is that we had

[3:16:54] a large community representation in the master planning process. We had about 50 people on a

[3:16:59] parks design team, about 30 were active, including Council Member Herod when he was on the commission.

[3:17:06] And those folks stayed through the fires and COVID and multiple delays that we experience as a

[3:17:12] all to just things that happened during that time frame. Next slide, please.

[3:17:18] So this slide demonstrates kind of where we are graphically in the planning process.

[3:17:23] So for Sajjo Hills, we've completed the master plan and the sequence documents.

[3:17:29] And you accepted that back last fall. For Baja Park, we expect that to come forward to you this summer,

[3:17:38] So we're now moving into the blue stage and that's really the design development and the construction drawings that's taking these high vision kind of really cool ideas and saying, okay, well, here's how much money we have and here's how we can put those together and actually make those things happen.

[3:17:54] Once we have those documents completed, design development and construction drawings,

[3:18:00] the intent is, as long as everything goes this plan,

[3:18:03] when we're right into construction next year.

[3:18:05] So we'll get in the ground during the dry season, depending on the scope of work,

[3:18:11] we'll dictate on how much we can get done in 2025,

[3:18:14] more than likely it'll continue in a 2026,

[3:18:17] especially for side data health since it's a bit bigger project.

[3:18:21] Next slide, please.

[3:18:23] So, I mentioned some of the more recent work in September, you reviewed these plans, you

[3:18:29] directed that they move into the SQL process in August, you proved the SQL study and

[3:18:35] the final master plan for Sajro Health, so that continues to move forward, and the summer

[3:18:40] we expect to bring forward the Bachelor Park project.

[3:18:42] I don't think our timing tonight is an issue in terms of not having the SQL document done.

[3:18:47] haven't been any major issues that have come up with Badger Park, so I think we're in line with

[3:18:53] the master plan with some environmental impacts, and I'm not seeing major issues in giving

[3:18:58] direction tonight and how we put together the design contract. Next slide please.

[3:19:04] So, one of the things that we'll talk about tonight are these costs, and we did have what was considered

[3:19:11] an order of magnitude costs that was part of the master planning process. So, basically, the design

[3:19:17] 19 had a cost estimator on board and that cost estimator looked at the intent of those master plans and said okay we're going to do a sports facility

[3:19:27] Here are some of the elements that go into it here in the cost estimates based on our past experience that now is dated about two years old or so maybe a little bit older than that but it does give us kind of a ballpark and where we

[3:19:42] are at in terms of costs for these,

[3:19:44] sorry, you know, button and dead end.

[3:19:46] And at the time, all in all costs in all construction,

[3:19:49] all inspection, you know,

[3:19:51] Badger Park was pushing that $13 million range,

[3:19:54] and Sajo Hill Park was pushing that $32 million,

[3:19:58] again, all in with all costs.

[3:20:00] So what we'll talk about tonight is,

[3:20:02] we only have a certain amount of money.

[3:20:04] And so how can we make some really beneficial things happen

[3:20:07] with the money that we have?

[3:20:09] Next slide, please.

[3:20:10] So, when we were sitting around the table in June of 2022, things were quite different in the financial world.

[3:20:20] And I think Andrew Katie put together a really creative way to finance a significant amount of this park work by essentially issuing bonds that were backed by transient occupancy tax for TOT.

[3:20:34] And the amount we're looking at that time was in 20 to 30 million dollars, plus the funding that we have in the bank that we'll talk about tonight.

[3:20:43] A lot of things changed since then. Number one, interest rates rose right away after that, right?

[3:20:50] TOT really hasn't met projections, but then the other big component our impact to this is that, you know, our project costs for the fully family pavilion or fish mountain.

[3:21:00] And for the preschool program, they came in significantly higher.

[3:21:05] Hopefully, after seeing Fitch Mountains work, that was a well, that was a good investment.

[3:21:11] Those are really long-term investments that will remain here for 50 years before they need to be redone.

[3:21:19] Hopefully, that's a demonstration that those investments were well thought out and well made, even though they were more than what we thought.

[3:21:26] Next slide, please.

[3:21:30] So here's where we're at.

[3:21:31] For Badger Park, we have a total of about $2 million in funding available to us.

[3:21:39] We're fortunate to have the Ag and OpenSpace grant that will be about $1 million and we have

[3:21:45] other funds that are used to make up our local match, this required for that grant program.

[3:21:51] For the Sajad Hills Park, we're better off.

[3:21:52] We have about 7.67, 7.6 million or 7.7 million.

[3:21:57] We also received a million dollar grant from the African open space for side of your hills.

[3:22:02] We have the part development contribution that's we'll talk a bit about more tonight.

[3:22:06] We have the multi-purpose trail contribution, the Creek Restoration and the Crosswalk contribution.

[3:22:12] So you can see the number up there 3.4 million to the multi-purpose trail.

[3:22:17] Does that mean we need to spend every 3.4 million dollars on that multi-purpose trail?

[3:22:22] It doesn't. That's what the contribution is based on the estimates that we had at the time.

[3:22:25] So, as we go through design development, there can be decisions that are made, for example,

[3:22:32] maybe that section of trail is DG instead of betuminous, that would be a cost savings could be applied to other areas.

[3:22:39] That's not how where we would start, but that we could look at that option as things progress in the design development we look at costs and how that all comes in.

[3:22:48] Um, these cost estimates for the multipurpose trial in the creek were done about a year and a half ago, but they did include an inflationary factor, hopefully costs are coming down a bit, maybe, obviously, optimistic.

[3:23:03] So that's our total funding package as of right now. Next slide, please.

[3:23:10] So back in 2022, we thought maybe we'll be able to add some more dollars to these projects

[3:23:16] and make some things happen.

[3:23:18] Based on where we're at in the budget process, that does not appear feasible over the

[3:23:23] next two years.

[3:23:25] Once we go beyond two years, it's a possibility.

[3:23:27] So we basically have the $2 million for a budget park to work with, and we have about 7.6 million

[3:23:34] for a size of a hill to work with.

[3:23:36] Those are fairly good chunks of money. To give you an idea, the project at Fitch Mountain with

[3:23:44] improvements that are there, that was about a $3 million construction project all and with contingency

[3:23:51] and other elements. And we're still working closely in that project out. So we don't see extra

[3:23:58] money coming in the next year budget cycle, but we need to start spending these dollars because

[3:24:02] every day we do, they lose value, right, inflation continues to happen, and we have some grant deadlines

[3:24:08] coming up that won't be extended for average, so we really want to get in the ground to get

[3:24:13] the work going and get the grant contracts in place so that money is locked up. So what we're

[3:24:19] asking for you tonight is in the gray box, to talk about priorities and we'll give you the

[3:24:23] commission's recommendation and then that carries over in the staff's recommendation and we

[3:24:27] would take those priorities and develop the scope of work for the design development and construction

[3:24:33] drawings for each of these two projects.

[3:24:38] So a lot of background, any questions up to this point.

[3:24:42] Okay, great.

[3:24:43] So I think we're going to move right into Bajra Park then, if I remember correctly.

[3:24:49] So as I mentioned previously, the really the emphasis between behind this project was

[3:24:54] to install flush toilet restaurants at Badger Park.

[3:24:57] And the scoping kind of group, it didn't really grow,

[3:25:02] but it was a good move because we wanted to look at wealth.

[3:25:05] If we need to replace the place structure eventually,

[3:25:07] there's other elements.

[3:25:09] And this whole concept of how do we make river access?

[3:25:11] Was really important to the council at the time

[3:25:13] as one of their goals.

[3:25:15] And so rather than tackling each one of those independently,

[3:25:18] we put them all together in a master plan.

[3:25:21] So the proposed master plan, it's not final,

[3:25:24] because you haven't adopted it yet.

[3:25:25] But it really has three different folk series.

[3:25:28] And I'm going to show you drawing next that shows these.

[3:25:30] The first is the riverfront work in the river access.

[3:25:34] The second are park amenity upgrades,

[3:25:37] and the third are kind of reshaping and renovating

[3:25:41] those existing general use areas.

[3:25:44] So next slide, please.

[3:25:47] So A in the kind of dark blue color,

[3:25:50] that's all the riverfront work

[3:25:52] that is specifically funded in the open space grant and the $1 million.

[3:25:59] It includes creating a natural sustainable trail along the river.

[3:26:06] It includes removal of invasive species and it includes ways to interact with the river.

[3:26:11] It's a little hard to see in this, but right where the mouse is pointing is, for example, a canoe and kayak launch area.

[3:26:18] So these are master plan level. These are concepts during design development. We would narrow that down and say here's where we go and here's where we would look where it would what it would look like at that point.

[3:26:29] B are kind of those park amenities, so the grant allows us to develop park amenities that support riverfront access.

[3:26:41] So things like expanded parking if we decided we needed that flush toilet restrooms because they support river access.

[3:26:49] Those are eligible expenditures under the grant program, renovating the community garden or putting in a new place structure.

[3:26:59] They're not eligible expenses. So those dollars have to come from another source.

[3:27:04] And then the seed portion of this is kind of reshaping the existing area.

[3:27:08] There's a large turf area that will be going back and doing some seeding and things like that.

[3:27:12] that we have access to more water, but then also doing some improvements on the far west side

[3:27:19] to create kind of like a nature play area. Those are all really cool elements. Those are not

[3:27:25] grant eligible. Those would be considered either renovation or amenities that don't support that

[3:27:33] river access component. Next slide, please. So these are just some dialed in drawings that you've

[3:27:42] seen before, this basically shows how we would go through, create a trail along the river using the existing probably foot track that goes through that now,

[3:27:51] or moving invasive species like the English IV, or moving some of the dead trees that are not used for habitat.

[3:27:58] Fortunately, you know, Russian river keeper and our fire department other folks have done a lot of our work in terms of the Rondo removal.

[3:28:05] It's quite different if you walk that little trail down there now, then it was even a year ago, and so there's a lot of work that's already preceded this.

[3:28:13] Some of the other elements that portrayed here, like there's an area we called Will Island, those probably wouldn't happen in this phase.

[3:28:20] There's not a huge recreational value, it's a cool area, but really we're looking at how do we, how do we get the best value of the dollars that we have.

[3:28:28] So that's the riverfront area. Next slide, please.

[3:28:31] These are images. This would be more of the land reshapings of things that are really not

[3:28:36] ground eligible, but I want to make sure we included them in here. Next slide, please.

[3:28:43] And this is an aerial rendering of the improvements showing the expanded community garden

[3:28:50] and new place structure, realign parking, relocating the dog park, kind of reshaping the

[3:28:56] area and the next slide I think is probably the best view of what this vision is for this

[3:29:04] part. So you're looking essentially over the existing electric substation, looking towards

[3:29:13] the southwest and the Russian river in the background.

[3:29:22] Next slide, please. Tell me if you need to

[3:29:30] County Ag and Open Space.

[3:29:34] It can be used for things like creating a riverfront trail system,

[3:29:38] canoe and kayak access, general riverfront work, the restrooms, but it can't be used for existing

[3:29:45] facilities or replacing aging infrastructure in the park. Next slide, please.

[3:29:53] So, let's say something

[3:29:54] happens and additional fundings identified. There are some things that we could essentially

[3:30:00] Bring into the project at that point, like replacing the place structure, which is, well, getting

[3:30:06] really close to the end of life. It's well over 20 years old. We're able to maintain it,

[3:30:11] parts are still available, but it is starting to age renovating the dog park and relocating that.

[3:30:16] Those are things that could be considered in the future if there is additional funding. And then we have

[3:30:20] our entire facilities assessment that talks about other deferred maintenance work. New amenities would

[3:30:25] include things like the sports courts, the natural play experience on the west side, and then

[3:30:30] shade for the play structure. I think if we did a new play structure, shade would be integral into

[3:30:35] that because that's just really what you need to have in California's hot and sunny summers.

[3:30:41] Excitely. So the Parks and Recreation Commission considered this that they're meeting last month,

[3:30:47] and basically they concur with kind of the funding direction that we have set up for this. That we

[3:30:52] pursue the riverfront access improvements. We should do the flush toilets and then make sure

[3:31:02] whatever we do in terms of other kinds of improvements for the park area, they don't, they aren't

[3:31:07] affected by the overall master plan. So I want to make sure if we do install flush toilet

[3:31:12] restrooms, we do in such a way that the renovation of the rest of the park could come at another

[3:31:18] time without creating a major issue. So as Park has a lot of utilities in it, it's got a lot of water

[3:31:24] services, electric lines, it thinks like that, we work around all of that. So if you concur,

[3:31:30] what we put together for the next phase of work is the actual scope of work for the design

[3:31:36] development, and the construction drawings that would focus on the river access components,

[3:31:42] flush toilets and then if there is available funding as we go through that the more refined

[3:31:47] planning process, it could potentially focus on other work like agent components, as long

[3:31:54] as it fit within the grant rules and the matching grant dollars. So that is Badger Park.

[3:32:02] Thank you. So we'll cover this one and then I'll split for a little bit. So let's start with the

[3:32:12] Palmer Parks and Rec Commissioner.

[3:32:16] Oh, most recent one.

[3:32:26] I'm happy with this plan forward.

[3:32:28] I think I was at the Parks Commission meeting

[3:32:31] and I thought they'd given a lot of thought to this.

[3:32:35] And I really appreciate that input that went into it.

[3:32:39] And it's also fairly narrow path to follow in terms of the grants.

[3:32:42] stuff, so, I don't know how an alternative really would take shape in this scenario,

[3:32:53] but, you

[3:32:53] know, flush toilets, that's a scolding to me, you know, and anybody who's a brother

[3:33:01] kid to that park, you know, and heard those dreaded words, I kind of poop, it's awful.

[3:33:08] And it was a transformational moment for me, you know, when that happens,

[3:33:12] like a city can do better now here, I am.

[3:33:15] And I'm really happy to see that change happening.

[3:33:17] But also the river accessing this focus on that too,

[3:33:19] because it's a, that's been a goal for the city council.

[3:33:24] I think decades on and off, maybe I don't know.

[3:33:27] But I mean, so that there's a lot of history with that.

[3:33:30] And so if we can tackle that first, I think that's really meaningful.

[3:33:32] And my only concern is once you get a certain pathway established and other things built,

[3:33:42] is it going to be like this expensive perhaps challenge to get the equipment past that,

[3:33:48] to do the other parts later on.

[3:33:51] And I assume that's just a technical thing that we've got to get worked out,

[3:33:54] but I at this point I don't imagine it would be easy to do a piecemeal on terms of,

[3:34:01] putting the various parts together, you know, you might want to do them in

[3:34:05] order if you're going at all at once, right? But, um, so I got, thank you.

[3:34:13] Other parts and wreck commissioner for me. Thank you, Mayor.

[3:34:17] So I do agree on the priorities of river access and flush toilets, and I think like

[3:34:22] council member Herid, that was one of my earliest memories of feeling like why is the

[3:34:28] not prioritizing investing in our parks when you have to take a toddler to a port of potty.

[3:34:37] So I'm really happy to see that we're moving in this direction and that toddler is now 10 years old.

[3:34:44] So pretty.

[3:34:48] But I do, I'm curious. So are we looking at going back to Agonopen's base to apply

[3:34:57] for additional grant funding, because I know that there are several other park projects across

[3:35:02] the county that have gone back from multiple phases of funding for the same park.

[3:35:08] And they've recently changed the grant process so it used to be data open at once of

[3:35:13] re-two years and now it's on a rolling basis and they've changed the criteria of the program.

[3:35:19] So I wonder if there is an opportunity to seek additional funding before we ultimately

[3:35:23] You know, move, move into development on this park, have you?

[3:35:29] Yeah, that's a good question. I did participate in their webinar last week that they had,

[3:35:33] and it was, I had a little bit of a challenge understanding the context. They seem to stress that

[3:35:40] their revised grant program. So it is a rolling grant, but it's kind of rolling, but they want

[3:35:45] applications at a certain time of the year. So it's not like open for any time.

[3:35:53] They want

[3:35:53] would put us in definitely, because they don't want projects like this sitting out there for years, right?

[3:35:59] I'll need to talk to them again. I do want to follow up because I was confused, a bit confused on,

[3:36:06] it sounds like they are not funding any kind of recreation projects anymore.

[3:36:11] It's all has to be open space targeted and you may know more from the community,

[3:36:18] But that's the inference I got in the presentation or at least the weighting of the applications would be more targeted towards open space projects than they would recreational components.

[3:36:31] The riverfront access, I think it's definitely open space. I think that would be something we could pursue.

[3:36:37] So the answer, long answer, is absolutely, we'll go after more funding.

[3:36:43] I did have a chance to talk to Mr. Erius on Saturday, you know, and so they know that

[3:36:49] we're moving forward and I think that would be a good thing.

[3:36:53] If we weren't moving forward, we'd have our time, I think, in the application process.

[3:36:58] Absolutely.

[3:36:59] And I know some of the things that we've here a lot for specific park needs, obviously,

[3:37:05] as you mentioned, the aging playground equipment and just in general kind of shifting away from the old

[3:37:11] metal and plastic structures into more, you know, natural materials like what they're proposing

[3:37:17] at the mill district park. Sorry, yeah, mill district park that that would be, you know, a priority

[3:37:24] for the community of funding presents itself, but then also dog park users are, you know, very interested

[3:37:31] in having more off-leash areas for larger dogs,

[3:37:35] which I think in a lot of ways in the community,

[3:37:38] people are already using Badger Park as an off-leash

[3:37:42] large dog park, which is not necessarily allowed,

[3:37:47] but what's happening there anyways,

[3:37:50] but it's not fence, so it's kind of,

[3:37:52] I think if we had more river access,

[3:37:54] I don't know at least for my dog,

[3:37:56] he wouldn't come back, he would just head to the river.

[3:37:58] So, if we did want to see more, you know, looking at that large space there, I don't think it would be that challenging to create, you know, more area for, for dogs especially since that dog park is is I think for just for smaller dogs.

[3:38:13] And then the obviously the pickleball community, very active, very vocal, and wanting to see us create more pickleball courts.

[3:38:26] And so I think in the original conversation about Badger Park, there was a sport court conversation.

[3:38:32] It wasn't necessarily just specific.

[3:38:36] I know that that's I don't know if because the the court of the high school are now online if the pressure to create more courts has kind of subsided or if you're still hearing from folks that they want to see us really prioritized the development of pickle all courts.

[3:38:52] Absolutely, they're interested in more pickleball courts where you are tracking their use right now and so we have, you know, really good data that, you know, seems to support, you know, there could be a modest increase in pickleball courts, but I think in Hillsburg there are now 17 total between public and private.

[3:39:10] And really this site that's been targeted so far for pickleball in terms of what meets their needs and at least four courts is in the side of Hell's Park.

[3:39:20] This isn't the master plan didn't envision that large of a complex here in terms of sports courts.

[3:39:26] And we kept sports courts generic because needs change over time and by the time we build days want to make sure we build the right thing.

[3:39:32] So yeah, speak of all still advocating for more courts.

[3:39:37] I think it will be an interesting conversation

[3:39:39] like what are the true needs given the resources that we have currently.

[3:39:43] Great. And then the only other thing I wanted to mention about

[3:39:45] Badger is that we did hear from folks in the community over on the

[3:39:48] Tucker Street. Is that second street side?

[3:39:51] Just around access to Badger Park and, you know,

[3:39:54] they're being some challenges there, whether it's folks

[3:39:58] we're living along the river kind of coming through the neighborhood at night

[3:40:01] and that that park access, there's some challenges with that,

[3:40:05] but also that it doesn't feel very like safe or well lit,

[3:40:08] and it's kind of like overgrown on that west side of the park.

[3:40:13] And so I know that was one of the priorities

[3:40:14] when the design process was happening,

[3:40:17] kind of like the master planning level

[3:40:18] was kind of opening it up

[3:40:20] and making it feel a little less overgrown

[3:40:22] on that west side of the park.

[3:40:24] And I think that's where the natural play area was proposed.

[3:40:27] but I would still love to see us have real meaningful notable access on that side of the park

[3:40:35] because it really brings in that entire neighborhood over there, which I don't think a lot of folks

[3:40:39] really know you can get to Badger Park that way. Thanks. That's a madrid ricks. Yeah, I did watch the

[3:40:48] park and wreck, and I noticed that there was a lot of call for basketball and soccer access

[3:40:54] because those are seeming to be, you know, basketball has always been kind of a low dollar

[3:40:59] sport. You know, you get a ball and you go play. You don't need a lot of extra equipment. And so

[3:41:04] I think if we, I don't know how, in fact, I know it's not easy, but I think if we could look into

[3:41:10] that and monitor the use of the pickleball courts, I know that there's a noise issue and those

[3:41:14] are close to just some housing over there. But if we can really do a good inventory on pickleball

[3:41:21] because I've seen, you know, these fads, it was like racketball, then it was handball,

[3:41:26] indoor, those, those trends have come and gone rather quickly. We're basketball and soccer have

[3:41:31] stuck around for a long time. So if we could do that, but I like the plan. I'm like getting the flesh

[3:41:36] toilets in and go for grants. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, so just to be clear on what you're

[3:41:44] for this evening is these three bullet points, bullet points if we concur that you would continue

[3:41:52] with the work. Okay. And the development scope of work, design process, and one of the

[3:42:00] what would you anticipate the construction would occur once the design is completed?

[3:42:06] ideally in the summer of 2025. So next summer. Okay. So you know we don't have a large amount of money to expand here. And so I don't think the design work is going to take a significant amount of time. There's no sequa issues that we've identified so far.

[3:42:24] And we certainly need to be in the dry season given the fact we're along the river and there's all kinds of permitting that needs to happen that needs to get put in place.

[3:42:35] So I think we'll be very we have to be very strategic and we met with as we were meeting with the colleges and the secret team they were talking about ways to plan and design the trails that limit the amount of permitting that's required or come in under certain already regulatory allowed type of

[3:42:54] of design work. And those are things that I don't know about, but they do, and they'll help guide us on that. So

[3:43:02] construction in 2025. Just to clarify, I mean, so the recommendation is that we focus on, you know,

[3:43:09] a river access components and flush toilet restrooms. And then what funding is remaining, we can

[3:43:15] kind of figure out how that fits into the picture. If we've got 200,000, a new place structure could

[3:43:21] in order, we want to make sure that we can do it within the grant rules with our matching grants

[3:43:26] and other elements like that. So we have worked to do as we scope this out and put together

[3:43:31] that design development. Yeah, no, and I appreciate that, and I also appreciate the

[3:43:36] content that we live with in our budget at this point. We've got my, let's spend it. It's going to

[3:43:42] like, I think you said, it's losing value every, you know, every day at this point. So I like this approach.

[3:43:49] And I've been hearing about the flush toilet restrooms partly from Chris for a while now, so I'm excited about that as well.

[3:43:58] I think it's good. And the little dog park is really a little dog park. Our little dog goes there every day now and loves it.

[3:44:09] So little dogs and big dogs don't always work well together. So I think, and there's a pretty militant group that go there all the time.

[3:44:17] And they are like, dear dogs too big, you can't, you've got, you've got late.

[3:44:22] So, anyway.

[3:44:23] Self-inforcing.

[3:44:24] Self-inforcing.

[3:44:25] Self-inforcing dogs.

[3:44:27] No, not yet.

[3:44:29] Anyway, thank you.

[3:44:30] Dog needs to know.

[3:44:32] I agree with the Parks and Recommission.

[3:44:36] Recommendations.

[3:44:37] The only comments I would have is, again, the same thing about the flesh toilet.

[3:44:42] That's great.

[3:44:44] I would lean more toward the priority of the place structures or going with the natural place

[3:44:50] that's always been a thing where, you know, my kids just climb on everything, so it doesn't

[3:44:57] have to be the, you know, the...

[3:45:00] Additional play structure kind of thing, but definitely for all ages would be huge. I think, you know, that's important. The other thing is my ultimate pet peeve with cities all the time is really, really select streets where you pay the street. And then you come back six months later and cut it up to do something else that came up later. Now, not you, but it's a pet peeve of mine. And I think as we're looking at these incremental approaches to improving the parks.

[3:45:30] If there are sports courts, if there are fields that are going to be lit, down, down, down,

[3:45:34] line, make sure that infrastructure is put in now to, was it Chris's point about, you

[3:45:40] know, then bring in tractors in and, you know, you do this nice walkway and I have tractors

[3:45:45] driving over and kind of thinking, you know, with that in mind that we don't want to destroy

[3:45:50] what we are using these precious grand dollars for, but I think it is important if we are doing

[3:45:58] sports fields or, you know, having lit pathways, we may not be able to do the lights right now,

[3:46:05] but let's put the infrastructure in. So we don't have to rip everything up later.

[3:46:10] Yeah, that's a good point. And we can get, you know, we do things like conduit.

[3:46:13] You know, there's no sports lighting purpose. I don't want to alarm the community that we're

[3:46:17] going to light that badger park. You know, but trail lighting could be something to be considered in

[3:46:22] the future. And we are also, I should mention, we're working really closely with utilities.

[3:46:26] and they have their filter system that's going in.

[3:46:31] I can't remember which one it is, and then also they have plans.

[3:46:36] At some point in the future to relocate a lift station,

[3:46:39] that's actually on private property across

[3:46:41] here in Street Road, here in Road.

[3:46:45] And they want to move it over to it.

[3:46:46] So it's on city properties, so I don't have easement issues, things like that.

[3:46:50] So we're working closely with utilities as well.

[3:46:53] Okay, so do you have, well, so let me kind of talk to the city attorney here. So I'm going to leave. So everybody else can talk about Sergio Hills and then we'll open it up for public comment when I come back. Is that okay. And then I can excuse my chair back.

[3:47:18] I think

[3:47:22] I would ever talk about anything else, but thank you very much, Mark. It's great to see you. I kind of have been a long time. Mayor Haley Council members. I live almost on Badger Park. I'm in Badger Park pretty much every. I very much appreciate the comment Council member Kelly about the second street entrance.

[3:47:42] entrance, because I do loops up Matheson, down Herendrive, into the park around the park,

[3:47:48] and then I go out on 2nd Street, and so, you know, a focus on cleaning that up and making

[3:47:55] that feel much more like a real entrance rather than a path that just got hammered out by

[3:48:01] people walking it. I actually think about often of getting my clippers out there and clipping

[3:48:06] the overhead because I'm always having to die through there. I think the dog park, the big dog versus

[3:48:14] little dog, I have a bigger dog. So for years I would get there before the animal control guy would

[3:48:21] get there. So I could play Frisbee with my dog. So having some access for having a big dog park

[3:48:29] would be good. I know that right now there's still, I think tomorrow they're taking away the

[3:48:38] And I'm sort of happy about it because I feel like we're getting our park back, but at the same time, you know, the need for that kind of thing for the bigger dogs is great.

[3:48:48] The whole river access thing, I'm very happy to hear about, I think that's really critical, especially on weekends, there are, you know, that parking lot is full and people are with their floaties and everything and they're walking through the park.

[3:49:00] And the only way to get down there is these little paths that have just been walked on and you can't see the river from the park.

[3:49:07] So I'm very excited about that and I hope it really does happen by next year.

[3:49:12] Because we've been here every day for many years as well.

[3:49:15] I remember when the sign first went up there, I think it was before the pandemic and then slowly but surely it was taken away.

[3:49:22] So I'm very excited about this.

[3:49:24] So thanks very much.

[3:49:25] Thank you.

[3:49:26] Anyone else?

[3:49:28] All right, we'll close public comment, and I will leave the room.

[3:49:32] Thanks, Mayor.

[3:49:37] Victor, he leaves.

[3:49:38] We don't want him to hear anything about this, right?

[3:49:45] All right, if we could go back to the slideshow.

[3:49:48] Thank

[3:50:01] you.

[3:50:01] Okay, thank you.

[3:50:03] So, Sergeant Hill, so moving on, this is a bit more exciting.

[3:50:06] He's got a little bit more money to work with.

[3:50:08] So, really, the vision that you'll see today that you've actually already approved is really to outcome of the,

[3:50:15] years that the community worked and the city worked on the development agreement with

[3:50:19] Sajou Hills for the overall development. So there were a number of different

[3:50:23] park related components that were required. The first was the developer

[3:50:28] provide 36 acres. That's actually been completed and with the landswap that we did with

[3:50:33] that half moon shape of parcel around the pump station. We ended up with about 38 acres

[3:50:39] a park land for a community this size. That's a very large community park. The developer

[3:50:45] masquerade of the site that's been completed in the deferred as we talked about the multipurpose

[3:50:50] trail funding and the creek restoration for the section that runs through the park to the city

[3:50:55] because our timing didn't allow, didn't align very well. And then there's the $3 million

[3:51:01] and we expanded some of that on the masterfining process and some prior work. The requirements

[3:51:06] to the park is that it has acted percreation, passive, recreation, public trails, existing new

[3:51:12] wetlands, repairing zone for faust Creek, parking areas, and pavilion area and landscaping.

[3:51:20] So it's kind of like the guiding principles for the park.

[3:51:23] So next slide, please.

[3:51:26] So for the final master plan for Sajro Hills, there's actually five different components

[3:51:32] to let's say, so next slide.

[3:51:36] The first letter A is in the green and that's kind of the parking infrastructure element.

[3:51:43] So unlike Badger Park, there's already parking in place, there's some utilities in, there's some water in, and we don't have that here, and so that's a fundamental component of what we need to happen for park use.

[3:51:53] It doesn't mean we have to build all three parking areas.

[3:51:57] At once, we can build the parking that's needed

[3:52:00] to accommodate the amenities that ultimately

[3:52:03] are chosen to go in here.

[3:52:06] So those are the green.

[3:52:07] Be as the sports complex.

[3:52:08] We'll talk a little bit more about that.

[3:52:11] See are the general community park amenities.

[3:52:14] So that's your picnic shelter, your play area,

[3:52:17] your little performance area, the general kinds of things

[3:52:22] you'll find in the park.

[3:52:25] Letter D is the natural area improvements

[3:52:29] and one of the things that Councilmember Kelly mentioned

[3:52:33] was creating additional places for dogs

[3:52:35] to be off leash legally.

[3:52:37] And this master plan contemplates that.

[3:52:39] Utilizing that, Easterly side of the park

[3:52:42] that has nice hills and viewing sustainable trails

[3:52:44] and creating that off leash area

[3:52:47] for people who bring their dogs legally

[3:52:49] in a larger space.

[3:52:51] And then letter E is the integration of Barbearing Park.

[3:52:55] We spent a lot of time on that with the neighbors talking about how do you make that effective?

[3:53:00] It's a very important place for their neighborhood.

[3:53:02] And so their request was, don't do anything with Barbearing until you built the new park.

[3:53:07] Because we don't want to lose our park during construction.

[3:53:10] And so what we framed up here in terms of the kind of the phasing is,

[3:53:13] Barbearing probably won't get touched for a number of years.

[3:53:17] And we focus on the new park amenities.

[3:53:18] and then some point in the future come back and renovate Barbearing Park.

[3:53:23] So, next slide, next few slides are the images.

[3:53:26] Again, this is looking overheals Berg Avenue, kind of in the Enzo Village complex, looking at the ball fields, to the southeast, so we're looking southeast in this picture.

[3:53:38] Next slide.

[3:53:40] This is the center portion of the park where the pathway crosses essentially two creeks.

[3:53:46] existing channel and then are recreated original phosphate. Next slide. This would be looking

[3:53:54] over barbaryary park before it would be renovated so it retains its existing kind of configuration,

[3:54:01] picnicary, trial system, play area and it looks further to the north in those community

[3:54:07] park amenities you can see those sports courts in the background. Next slide.

[3:54:12] And then this is a visual representation of the final plan when Barbier would be fully integrated.

[3:54:22] And I think this, you know, this picture is kind of interesting because it really helps give context that we're not talking about massive amount of development in these parks.

[3:54:31] And so I go back to that cost estimate in an order of magnitude and I'm wondering, you know, how accurate was that at the time, you know, we can do a variety of different kind of cost saving measures to build a large picnic shelter that went to hold 150.

[3:54:47] It might not be super fancy, but it would be accommodating and meet the needs. And so this just kind of gives a better picture of spatially how everything would lay out in the overall final plan.

[3:54:59] Next slide please.

[3:55:02] So as I mentioned, the driving factors include some of their commitments that we have right

[3:55:06] now, the multiple multipurpose trail, the Greek restoration, there's no existing infrastructure.

[3:55:11] So we have to build some level of parking.

[3:55:13] We have to put in utilities.

[3:55:15] We have to put in support facilities like restaurants, so we don't make that mistake.

[3:55:20] Drinking fountains, you know, elements that will be needed just to support the day-to-day

[3:55:23] function. And then if we don't do a lot, we can always scale it back and do a very targeted

[3:55:30] parking area with restaurants and the support facilities that you need rather than three different

[3:55:36] parking areas that are kind of isolated until the point at the point in time comes when those

[3:55:43] are actually needed based on the amenities that are in the park. Next slide, please.

[3:55:50] So, kind of some other thoughts that went into the prioritization and the considerations is that,

[3:55:56] you know, completing one component in its entirety, like the sports fields, would be a fairly significant

[3:56:03] expense, as probably a $5 to $10 million cost, doing all of the community park amenities is probably

[3:56:09] in that $5 to $10 million cost.

[3:56:11] And so picking out pieces of those different amenities

[3:56:14] or scaling back, the context, so you can come back and redo it

[3:56:18] and improve it in the future, could be one approach.

[3:56:21] I mentioned Barbea Erie Park could be deferred.

[3:56:25] And then we should think about what other amenities there are

[3:56:28] in the park system and make good decisions

[3:56:30] about what we put in here.

[3:56:32] We don't want to duplicate what's available elsewhere.

[3:56:35] Like we just did a great job on the new dog park.

[3:56:38] I don't think we should duplicate that same design

[3:56:41] in this park maybe it's something different that meets the needs of the community.

[3:56:46] Next slide please.

[3:56:48] So council member Edward's brought up soccer fields and this was one of the topics that was the head public comment at the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting.

[3:56:59] And so during a couple of things have happened. First of all, the school district has now installed two synthetic turf fields.

[3:57:06] We program that only one of them currently, so we only program with the high school right now.

[3:57:12] We don't program any city activities for any association activities at the junior high field yet.

[3:57:19] And there's two reasons for that.

[3:57:21] One, we're able to accommodate most uses by opening up correct park for soccer.

[3:57:26] But number two, your soccer doesn't really like synthetic turf.

[3:57:31] They would rather play on natural turf.

[3:57:33] However, the synthetic is good during the winter time when they move the, you know, the

[3:57:37] soccer season, the girl soccer season, to the winter. So there, there is use for it,

[3:57:41] but it's not preferred. During the drought, we spent a lot of time working, it's particularly

[3:57:46] with use soccer on how to more effectively use our existing resources. So we opened up rep

[3:57:50] park and we moved a lot of activities there. We stopped watering a badger park, we stopped watering

[3:57:56] a fish mountain and we consolidate those uses. It means a lot of kids on one or two or three

[3:58:04] sheets of grass, but we made it work. It's not ideal long term. Now with drought, I don't

[3:58:12] want to say concluded, but with it, us in a different situation, the district is going back and doing

[3:58:19] work to bring fish mountain field back and we're doing the same thing a bachelor park right now.

[3:58:23] So those will resume more normal operations and become available,

[3:58:27] plus we have our existing facilities as well.

[3:58:30] So I think from a soccer context,

[3:58:32] we're sitting really good for community this size in terms of

[3:58:36] available fields and the quality of those fields that are available.

[3:58:41] Next slide, please.

[3:58:43] So little leagues a bit different.

[3:58:45] So little he currently has two programmable fields

[3:58:51] at Hillsburg Elementary School.

[3:58:52] only one of those is regulation size.

[3:58:55] So they can't do things like tournaments and other activities.

[3:58:58] And so part of the context of Sahaja Yoga Hills

[3:59:00] and what was really talked about years ago

[3:59:02] was that that would become really that little league

[3:59:05] and now girl softball kind of complex.

[3:59:09] So literally gives us the two fields at HES,

[3:59:11] they use the community center field for practice,

[3:59:14] which works okay, it's okay.

[3:59:17] And then they use recreation park,

[3:59:19] but recreation park has 90 foot baseball lines.

[3:59:21] So it could only be you, or 90 foot baseball base lines.

[3:59:26] So it can only be used for really the upper levels of little lake.

[3:59:31] And so kind of figuring out how to make this all work.

[3:59:33] At the end of the day, literally the only really has

[3:59:37] one regulation size field that they can use.

[3:59:41] The other ones they just are.

[3:59:44] So part of the, I'm going to the next slide.

[3:59:48] So this is the overall master plan view for the park.

[3:59:52] So we've seen this before, that sports fields

[3:59:55] are in the north, the park in the center.

[3:59:59] Next up.

[4:00:02] And that's a tighter image. This shows the different sports courts to be determined what they are, you know, are they pick a ball, tennis, all those different elements. And next slide please.

[4:00:16] So, here's where you get to in terms of the recommendation, kind of factoring all this in and what we have available now.

[4:00:23] So the commission's recommendation is that they acknowledge that we have some required amenities that we have to build.

[4:00:28] we have to build the multipurpose trial.

[4:00:30] We need to put in infrastructure,

[4:00:32] we have to do the quick restoration work.

[4:00:34] There are baseline things that have to happen.

[4:00:36] There are design decisions that we can make

[4:00:38] because we get in at those about the extent.

[4:00:41] So one option that we could consider is not asking for you

[4:00:45] to make this decision when I get more information

[4:00:47] as we get in the design is, you know,

[4:00:50] the trail could be different.

[4:00:51] The multipurpose trail could be different here.

[4:00:53] It could be a DG surface instead of the two minutes,

[4:00:56] because it fits better, but it still provides that trail and amenity.

[4:01:01] So, focus on those, they also recommended we do some kind of modest sports field component.

[4:01:08] So, what does that mean? Well, it doesn't, you know, probably means scaled back, no big concession stand,

[4:01:15] you know, really focusing on providing the sports amenity, but not all the other amenities to go with it.

[4:01:22] And then the remainder of the funding would be used on other community

[4:01:26] park amenities as the funding allows, and we would further define that during the

[4:01:31] design development process.

[4:01:33] So if Council concurors, we would put together a design development

[4:01:38] construction scope of work that would include the multi-purpose trail

[4:01:41] of the Greek restoration, the required infrastructures, and then

[4:01:46] some components of park amenities that would be determined as we go

[4:01:50] through that design development stage and that concludes my presentation.

[4:01:58] Thank you, Mark.

[4:01:59] Yeah.

[4:02:00] Yeah.

[4:02:00] It's exciting actually to get some ideas of what we could have sooner than later at this point.

[4:02:07] Just Council have questions.

[4:02:11] Council member Kelly.

[4:02:13] Thank you.

[4:02:14] I have some questions about the sports facility piece.

[4:02:19] So, or is that what the ball fields sports fields?

[4:02:23] Yeah, sports fields.

[4:02:24] So, we have the existing baseball field

[4:02:28] at the community center site that is in pretty,

[4:02:32] well, I don't think it's in bad shape,

[4:02:34] but we haven't really made it like a meaningful baseball field

[4:02:38] and it's there and it has backstops

[4:02:41] and it has the bases and it's, you know,

[4:02:44] it wouldn't be a whole heck of a lot less expensive

[4:02:47] to just make those baseball fields better at the community center as opposed to endeavoring to build

[4:02:54] like a sports complex that we can't really build to the extent that we've designed from a

[4:02:59] cost perspective and we already have the community center site that's closer to where more people live

[4:03:05] because it's more centrally located at one state central, but it's more centrally located,

[4:03:10] is that something that was considered? It is. In fact, we spent a lot of time looking at our existing

[4:03:16] facilities, and so in your packet included aerial diagrams of each one, the issue with the community

[4:03:24] center is that that field is exactly the same size or pretty close to the same size as the one

[4:03:30] at HES, meaning that they could get one regulation size field there. The other one would be non-regulation

[4:03:37] size, so there could be two that are put there. There's two issues that come up. One,

[4:03:42] The community center field is full of go-first.

[4:03:47] We've harvested the go-first more than once.

[4:03:50] They continue to come back and they create a lot of challenges in terms of maintaining that turf.

[4:03:56] The other issue is that entire site drains to the southwest.

[4:04:02] So the areas along the trail are extremely wet and they retain water, even though we don't irrigate it as much.

[4:04:09] It is tough site. Those are two things. The third is there's limited legitimate parking. We park on the black top when there's big events there.

[4:04:21] I believe we should try to use existing facilities first, but I don't think it meets the overall needs of little league in terms of having two fields for play concurrently at the same time.

[4:04:33] end up with one at the community center and the second one at Hillsburg Elementary School.

[4:04:37] I still think it's something we should look at but I don't think it's the best approach.

[4:04:44] Okay, and then for the multi-use trail, I think given that it is the main access to the affordable

[4:04:54] housing site and that there is a pretty, we have this senior community that's across the street

[4:05:02] And then there's going to be, you know, over potentially over a hundred units of affordable housing, but this is the main, you know, thoroughfare to reach that, because we have not put any sidewalks along Pasalocla with the intention that this multi-usetrail is the main way to walk or bike to get there.

[4:05:19] I feel like we shouldn't be DG. I just have concerns of whether it's like ADA accessibility or wear and tear over time with drainage and other challenges.

[4:05:32] that I've seen kind of DG pathways not be as easily accessible for folks with mobility challenges

[4:05:39] and also it's going to be a heavily traveled path. I believe it will be heavily traveled because

[4:05:45] it will be the way to get from the north village to park on farms and to get to the new affordable

[4:05:52] housing site that's hopefully getting built. And I think prioritizing getting that built is

[4:06:00] important as opposed to waiting. This is only going to get more expensive and also we already have

[4:06:04] the funds from the developer and the hope is that we're going to start building that affordable

[4:06:10] housing soon if they can find funding sources for it which who knows, but they plan on it and

[4:06:17] they're moving in a swift direction to get there. With respect to delaying the parking

[4:06:23] built out. The trail that was dated donated from Montage that's on the North End that goes,

[4:06:33] what do you call that? Overlook. Has a name.

[4:06:36] You just call it the North West Trail for now.

[4:06:39] Yeah. So

[4:06:42] open the North West Trail until we had parking that service that area is that still

[4:06:48] the case. So if we forego building the parking lot on the North end of the park, we wouldn't be able

[4:06:54] open that trail legitimately. Correct. Well, I mean theoretically, we could we could build a parking

[4:07:00] at the fire station site and then just some kind of trail connection up to crossing

[4:07:10] Pustlava. Yeah. So I mean, I wouldn't say it would run it out, but I mean realistically,

[4:07:15] the most practical parking area to build first is probably off a Pustlava. You have a little

[4:07:25] build a lot of amenities on the other side of the creek. Those are things that we'll

[4:07:29] opt to figure out with some funding that we haven't available. Yes, we need that

[4:07:33] parking lot. Got it. So if we were to move forward with the sports field piece, we

[4:07:40] wouldn't be doing the pump track or the pickleball courts or the other more active

[4:07:47] uses that accurate in this priorit like prioritizing. To be determined to be honest

[4:07:53] with you. So that the proposal is a modest sports

[4:07:56] complex sports component in community

[4:08:00] amenities depending on how much funding we have available.

[4:08:05] So possibly, I mean, we can't do everything, right?

[4:08:07] We don't have that much money, but we have to make decisions.

[4:08:11] Like, is the pump track more important than a picking

[4:08:14] shelter or more important than the performance area?

[4:08:21] So those are things based on the pricing that come out of the

[4:08:23] designed to balance that we would have to make those decisions.

[4:08:27] And we as a community, I think we'd have to make those.

[4:08:29] And when, so with respect to the feedback you're seeking today,

[4:08:34] you want to know if we should prioritize the sports complex over those other things,

[4:08:39] or it's just the amenities that we already have funding for like the multi-use pathway

[4:08:43] and the required pieces from the development agreement.

[4:08:47] So what I'm looking for feedback on tonight is,

[4:08:49] do you agree with the commission's recommendation

[4:08:51] and that we build the required amenities,

[4:08:53] includes the trail, the creek restoration,

[4:08:56] and the infrastructure needed to support

[4:08:57] some element of park development,

[4:09:01] and a modified or modest sports component,

[4:09:05] and community park amenities based on the funding

[4:09:08] that's available.

[4:09:10] So it's a bit ambiguous because, you know,

[4:09:15] we have the $30 million budget,

[4:09:19] and until we get into the design development to say,

[4:09:22] Okay, well here's the type of sports facility you can build for $1 million, which I don't have that information yet.

[4:09:30] I can't say we're going to build a sports facility.

[4:09:33] You know what I mean?

[4:09:33] We got to get a little bit more details.

[4:09:35] This is kind of like chicken in the egg, which one goes first.

[4:09:38] What do I say here?

[4:09:38] Way to the locker.

[4:09:40] Want to move that.

[4:09:41] Yeah, and I support that.

[4:09:44] So I like where that's headed.

[4:09:46] I just again to the earlier point of what we already have in town that's usable versus what we not have.

[4:09:52] I think that that should be a driver of that conversation, even if what we have now is in perfect if there's ways to invest in it to make those things better that we have in our existing parks as opposed to building

[4:10:05] Not a full blown

[4:10:07] If we can't build the vision of what we really want is it worth kind of doing a half measure or less than that

[4:10:14] But I do think moving forward on those required pieces sooner rather than later makes a lot of sense, and worries me if we don't do it.

[4:10:25] Ron, did you have questions?

[4:10:27] Yeah, just real short, and when you're looking at this park amenities, I heard larger numbers put out there, and I really think that 150 is a good size.

[4:10:39] Because I think when you get beyond that, it's just, you have a lot of parking, it's just, I think that it's a better size that that's pretty much accepted a lot of event facilities throughout the county or 150 and it's worked for a long time and I'd like to not see us go to 250 or, you know, 200 or above, I think 150 is a sweet spot for that.

[4:11:00] You know, if I could share some of the feedback we heard in our planning process, particularly

[4:11:05] from our Latinx communities, they want those larger facilities to have their larger

[4:11:11] celebrations.

[4:11:12] And my response was we are going to have a community pavilion that has the capacity of

[4:11:17] seating, you know, 500, and so I think, as we look at what facilities we currently have,

[4:11:24] we have to take the fully family community pavilion in context with that too.

[4:11:28] So I just think that having, and maybe chief Jenkins could to chime in, I just think

[4:11:37] that having that concentrated event so far away from our services would have some challenges.

[4:11:46] And that was if it were fully, it would be a much better location.

[4:11:52] Councilmember Heron.

[4:11:55] I see a logic in this path, especially having been part of the whole process and hearing

[4:12:02] the needs of the music groups who are really desire these sportsmenities and I think

[4:12:11] the real and I think that was always sort of the general focus of this park as opposed to

[4:12:23] and the playing fields and so on.

[4:12:27] My concern is I haven't heard you mention that if we do a more moderate playing field

[4:12:37] that it wouldn't be difficult to come in and do all the other stuff that we're missing

[4:12:42] right away later on.

[4:12:44] So are we going to be stuck without a concession stand and seeding or whatever else is missing

[4:12:50] initially or is that going to be able to be faced in later. We would plan it so could be faced

[4:12:57] it. Yeah, okay. All right, let's just need to hear you say that at that time. And that community

[4:13:02] building, I think that is really one of the most brilliant aspects of this whole park. And so you know,

[4:13:09] I'll but doesn't get too buried in the process. But I concur with the commission on the recommendations

[4:13:19] And I do as well. I don't really have any further comments or questions.

[4:13:24] Okay, look forward to it.

[4:13:26] So we'll open this up to public comment.

[4:13:28] If anybody has any comments,

[4:13:31] not seen anybody rush forward.

[4:13:32] We'll close public comment.

[4:13:35] Do you have the direction that you need then?

[4:13:38] I do.

[4:13:39] You'll see a design and construction

[4:13:42] drawing contract come before you hopefully in June

[4:13:46] and we'll kick it off right away after that.

[4:13:50] So we're sort of in additional, where are we at with Mark naming right now?

[4:13:55] So we actually have a short list that the museum has done some research on and we are waiting

[4:14:03] for some input from the tribal community on some of the proposed tribal names.

[4:14:09] Okay.

[4:14:10] The park.

[4:14:12] Thank you very much.

[4:14:13] Thank you so much.

[4:14:18] Thank

[4:14:37] you very much, so next up, our final item, hopefully we can get through quick, is Item

[4:14:45] Number 10, Council Member reports on matters of interest, who would like to start.

[4:14:51] All right, Council Member Edwards.

[4:14:52] Yeah, I did the meal street over with some of my coyote and Jane had a very nice little event

[4:14:59] over there.

[4:15:00] On April 20, went to the climate fest, which was again a very nice event this year. We did the scattered sites, ribbon cutting, which is nice to kind of cap all of those together at one time.

[4:15:15] I attended a Zoom meeting that supervisor Gore had on homeowners insurance, and that's going to be on the website, and that was very good information about some of the people maybe on the outskirts of town.

[4:15:27] of a type of insurance they need how to go about getting that the A.B. film festival where the mayor

[4:15:33] had a proclamation, the block party, that was really nice because that was another one of those

[4:15:39] events that was there wasn't a cost to go to it and it was a nice to bingo with your neighbors,

[4:15:44] there was food, good music there, learn that every culture has a line dance or some type of

[4:15:51] equivalent of that and then up at the villa on Saturday and the rain.

[4:15:57] So that was, well, let's just keep coming down this way.

[4:16:01] Okay, yes, kind of a ditto here, right?

[4:16:03] Climate Fest, the ribbon cutting at Monovina, was a very satisfying, gratifying to be able to do that.

[4:16:12] And then yes, the ribbon cutting up on Saturday and it was, I don't know, the rain almost made it

[4:16:18] more interesting because it, you know, focused us on, on the good and the bad kind of thing.

[4:16:24] Yeah. Always remember it. Yeah. So it was awesome.

[4:16:31] So I send some of those events as well as cinema family meal who

[4:16:38] did fundraiser dinner in Hillsburg and they're launching a North County

[4:16:45] program to help folks who want to get into culinary careers. They have a culinary

[4:16:50] kitchen in Petaluma but they found that transportation was a huge barrier for

[4:16:53] people from North County, so they created a fundraiser to help fundraise for folks to have

[4:17:02] transportation assistance and so they're launching their next cohort of culinary trainees.

[4:17:07] It's just I think a six week training program at their culinary kitchen and Stoma family meal

[4:17:11] for those who don't know provided a tremendous amount of meals to people, our low-income community

[4:17:18] during COVID and also during the fires when people were evacuated and were just an amazing partner

[4:17:23] resource for the whole county. I also want to mention we had our SETA meeting. It was two weeks ago now,

[4:17:32] it's all a little bit of a blur, but in our April meeting we approved funding for March Avenue

[4:17:38] project. So it's not fully funded, but it's more money than we had before to help us get that

[4:17:45] repaving project. I think this will be for pedestrian improvements inside walk improvements. And so that's

[4:17:50] money we really need as you know.

[4:18:03] I'm going to have anything else to add to those events, but I'll focus on the future.

[4:18:10] Looking forward to the parade and our participation in it.

[4:18:14] Keep that top secret, I guess.

[4:18:18] That's going to be fun.

[4:18:19] Um, next weekend, I'm going to join rotary club volunteers to clear a rindo and I did this a couple of weeks ago and I'm putting the word out to get some more people down there to help with that.

[4:18:34] I hope to see each and every one of you there.

[4:18:37] know it's next weekend. Saturday 9 o'clock at Memorial Beach, there is a sign of

[4:18:43] something like you to do before you get there. I think you can do it. If you forgot,

[4:18:47] you can do it while you're there but it's easier if you do before. And I can send you a link to that.

[4:18:54] But it's, yeah, the more, the more the mayor you're for sure and it's more okay.

[4:19:02] I'm looking forward to that. And then of course, looking forward to our budget meeting next week.

[4:19:06] I heard a lot of compliment about you.

[4:19:11] At the last time you were pulling a window, a window, yeah.

[4:19:16] I heard a lot of compliments about how much you hold up or whatever.

[4:19:22] I can't really brag, but I did some work, you know.

[4:19:27] Yeah,

[4:19:34] I attended a climate fest and it was nice to be able to welcome everybody there.

[4:19:42] The ribbon cutting for the scattered sites project was really great just to see, you know,

[4:19:49] when you've been out here long enough, you kind of see the beginning.

[4:19:53] And then getting to the ribbon cutting is pretty fun to see both ends of that.

[4:19:58] I also attended a celebration of the scholarships funding that was raised for STEM programs

[4:20:05] at the AAUW hosted and it's for programs for junior high and high school girls to encourage

[4:20:13] them to with girls that have interest in STEM programs at the schools and I did do a

[4:20:23] information for the Alexander Valley Film Festival that was fun. And obviously there

[4:20:28] have been cutting for Fitch Mountain where we all had a great time and we're

[4:20:33] freezing and I just want to I want to say again thank you to our staff who pulled

[4:20:40] that together and it was a lot of work. It wasn't lost on any of us. What it

[4:20:47] took to put an event like that on all the tables, all the displays, all the

[4:20:52] here's the fun cart that was bringing people up. Yeah, that's the bargain ride.

[4:21:01] All of that was just a really incredible. So that's all I had.

[4:21:08] Yes. Our community service staff always hits it out of the park and that was also just amazing.

[4:21:14] I wanted to ask and request for a future agenda item for our next council meeting.

[4:21:19] I was surprised to see that we don't have a what's typically called a formula retail ordinance that prevents chain stores.

[4:21:28] In cities, there are a lot of cities in California have them and I have concerns around what it means to have national brands coming into established retail or restaurants, you know, for also in Hillsburg and so would like to agendize a conversation about adopting a formula retail ordinance.

[4:21:52] We do not currently have an ordinance that prevents formula businesses from coming into

[4:21:57] Hillsburg.

[4:21:57] So if Applebee's wanted to open tomorrow, they could and we, you know, if the gap wanted

[4:22:01] to open a store, they could as well.

[4:22:03] It looks like that according to the email we got, we were going to have that come before Council

[4:22:08] in 2010 or 2011 after the general plan and then it got taken off the agenda and then they

[4:22:13] never adopted it.

[4:22:15] So.

[4:22:16] There's a limiter in the plaza, though, right? Yes. It's just that, though.

[4:22:20] There is no ordinance that prevents businesses from doing that.

[4:22:23] On the plaza, we just have currently general plan guiding principles.

[4:22:28] Got it.

[4:22:29] I'm for it.

[4:22:32] So your request is a discussion at the next council meeting about adopting a future

[4:22:39] ordinance or a discussion about why we do or do not have an ordinance and what it means.

[4:22:45] Let's see.

[4:22:47] Is there anyone else interested in having such a discussion?

[4:22:50] Does it have to happen right away?

[4:22:54] I mean, we literally just approved our council goals, let's even think.

[4:23:04] The store that's already in has a lease already.

[4:23:08] If I'm understanding it right, there are already listed as at 114.

[4:23:14] And in the conversation they were going to be here for us, we don't have it.

[4:23:20] Yeah, no, I know.

[4:23:28] I'm hesitant at this time in terms of doing it right away.

[4:23:32] I am open to having this conversation at some point, but I think right now, what the priorities

[4:23:36] that we have with only a couple meetings until the, you know, until July and with everything

[4:23:43] we have, I think, I would prefer to have that maybe after the break. So that's something I agree with that.

[4:23:50] Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like there's two council members of myself who want to have a conversation,

[4:23:56] just not. Not next meeting. I think. Yeah. I'll be open to conversation.

[4:24:02] It's something that needs to be timed up. Yeah. I just want to make sure we take your direction

[4:24:09] clearly my heard one mention of after the break. I want to make sure that's actually the direction.

[4:24:22] I have concerns that there we don't have an ordinance on the books.

[4:24:28] I think being responsive to what

[4:24:31] is happening to the businesses that are raising this issue is why I asked to agendize it sooner

[4:24:36] rather than later, but that said if that's not the majority of the council, then

[4:24:47] I'm

[4:24:48] Yeah, so I think after the break sometimes you like, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right anything else

[4:24:57] I will close the meeting at 1020. Thank you

City Council/Redevelopment Successor Agency Regular Meeting

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