we're meeting, and I will call this meeting to order four o'clock.
and I'm going to ask the city clerk for a roll call to city council and
the planning agency members.
thank you mayor, let the record show that there is
a quorum of council and the planning agency present.
okay, thank you.
all right, we're going to start with public comments.
this is a time to address the city council on any matter, not listed on this agenda.
that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council.
public comments are limited to three minutes per person, as determined by the mayor.
which means I might let you finish your thought,
because we want to keep it moving along.
and I see we've got a lot of public comments that came in electronically.
so we may have a lot of action today even
though the seats aren't that full out there.
but we've got a lot of people believe in these subject matters.
if you are participating remotely and wish to speak, dial star nine
on a telephone now to raise your hand to indicate you wish to speak.
you will be identified by the last four digits of your phone number.
and when you have been recognized to speak, dial star six to unmute.
so I will ask the city clerk if there are any public comments on non-agendized items.
I do not have any.
okay, here I made this big deal that it
was not going to be so quiet in your regard.
>> all right, so we'll move on to an actual agenda's item.
this is the joint meeting of the planning agency in the city council.
and the first item is 2.1.
a reason of our zne-0014-2026.
general plan amendment gpa, zoning code, text amendment,
zta, and zone change zc for net loss compliance.
the proposal amendments consist of a general plan amendment to
amend the land use element to comply with the known net loss law.
the government code section 65863 by specifying that select housing element sites
may be developed at residential densities between 30 and 80 dwellings per acre.
item b, a zoning text amendment to implement the amended
land use element by renaming the existing housing.
it prints h overlay zone to housing 50 to housing 50
overlay zone and introducing a new housing 80 overlay zone.
and c, item c, a zone change to apply to the housing 50 overlay zone.
and housing 80 overlay zone to 23 501 and 23 through 23, 561, ridgeroot drive.
I'm going to read the apm.
and paseo de valencia, apm 62221-42 and 620-221-624 and 620-21-49.
and to additional properties are specified in the proposed ordinance.
so we're going to conduct a public hearing.
we're going to find that general plan amendment zoning text amendment and zone
change are statutorily exempt from review under the california environmental
quality act ceqa pursuant to california public resources code section 21-080.085
as project implements the schedule of actions contained in the city's certified.
2,000 and 1 through 2,000 and 29 housing element.
we're also going to adopt a resolution and look at adopting
a resolution and title resolution of the city council.
the city of laguna hills adopting the general plan amendment to, and this
is the repeat of what I said in general before, but I'll do it again.
rcne-014-2026 to amend the laguna hills general
plan land use element for the 2021 through 2029
planning period to incorporate revisions pursuant to
the government code section 65863, no net loss law.
that, that ensure that development opportunities remain available throughout the
housing element planning period, which is through 2029 to accommodate the jurisdiction
regional housing need allocation rhna as community development and to amend the
laguna hills general plan and land use element to implement the housing element.
and introduce, I'm going to introduce for the first reading and we're
going to read by title and wave further reading of the ordinance
entitled and ordinance of the city of laguna hills, california adopting
zoning text amendment and zoning map amendment number rzne-014-2026.
one, a text amendment to title nine zoning and subdivisions of the laguna
hills municipal code to implement the general plan housing element by
amending chapter 9-11 overlay districts to implement the amended land use
element by renaming the existing housing h overlay zone to housing 50.
an overlay zone and overlay zone and introducing a new
housing 80 overlay zone and a his own change to apply the
housing 50 overlay zone and housing 80 overlay zone to
23 501 through 23 561 ridge route drive apn 588-331-12.
and then 25201, an address again through 25241, paseo de valencia apn 620-221-42
and 620-221-44 and finally 620-221-49 and to additional properties as specified.
in the proposed ordinance that is a mouthful, this is a public hearing for the general
plan amendment zoning code amendment and zone change for no net less compliance
welcome
all and this is public hearing item public is welcome and and all will be given the
opportunity to speak on this item, I would say tonight but it's not quite tonight yet.
and so I will start by calling for a staff report
and receive the staff presentation and report
asking that of the community development director
jennifer lowe to present that staff report jennifer.
good afternoon mayor and members of the council, I would like to introduce amanda
tropiano of de novo planning group she will be giving the presentation, thank you.
good afternoon, I am excited to be back in front of you
this evening and present an overview of the project you just
introduced so with that we will go ahead and start with a
review of the timeline of events which has brought this item.
this item to your attention, first in june of 2022 the city council adopted it's 2021
to
2029 housing element in substantial compliance with state housing element law in
september
of that same year the city received comments from the california department of housing
and community development or hcd requesting revisions to that adopted housing element.
and in may of 2023 the city received further comments
that required additional modifications in order for the
department of housing and community development to find
that it met the requirements of the housing element law.
in march of 2024 the city council re adopted it's 2021 to 2029 housing element
you may also hear me referred to that as the sixth cycle housing element and
completed the required rezoning program to make sites available at the appropriate
densities and intensities for inclusion in the housing element inventory.
in may of that year the housing element was certified by the department of housing
and community development in substantial compliance with state housing law.
so the topic that has really brought this item to your attention tonight is the
requirement
that cities maintain an inventory of available housing element sites at all income
levels throughout its eight year housing element planning period and again for this
city
it's through 2021 through 2029 and you may hear us refer to that as no net loss law.
this is codified in the california government code section
65863 and again that code states that every jurisdiction has
the obligation to maintain adequate sites available at all
times throughout its planning period for all income levels.
and if and when the situation occurs where a project approval
so project at the local level is approved that creates a
deficiency of those available sites the jurisdiction has by
statutory requirement 180 days to make replacement sites available.
these six six cycle rhna is one thousand nine hundred and eighty five units and
they are broken down by income category, but the relevant income category for
tonight's presentation revolves around the requirement that the city maintain
adequate sites to accommodate nine hundred and twenty one lower income units.
in september of 2025 the city has approved for
housing developments for a total of nine hundred
and twenty two residential units of which forty
four are suitable for low very low income units.
may of this year so in may of 2026 a development
application was submitted for one hundred residential
units on sites identified in the city's certified
housing element, including five very low income units.
collectively these approvals and the application have reduced the
city's available realistic capacity to accommodate its rhna and
therefore the city is subject to the requirement to maintain adequate
sites and the no net loss provisions codified in the government code.
the state efficiency for lower income units was
two hundred and sixty one units as of february of
this year and has increased to four hundred and
forty three units based on that pending application.
so the city's obligation is to identify additional sites to include
in its housing element inventory to essentially replace the capacity
that has that is no longer available at those sites where project
has been approved or the city has received a pending application.
and the city conducted two public study sessions to obtain input
from the city council and the public regarding strategies to
resolve this no net loss issue and identify replacement sites
and both of those study sessions were held in april of this year.
the first study session at the beginning of april we discussed no net
loss and the implications for noncompliance so all of the penalties
that a city would be subject to should it not comply with the no
net loss requirements as required by the california government code.
this study session we reviewed 14 possible candidate sites and we're
going to call those a through end as shown on the attached map and city
council provided the consultant team and staff with direction on sites
including the order of preference for sites to be included in the inventory.
the council also identified other opportunities
that required additional research for staff and
the consultant team to pursue in addition to
analyzing those previously identified 14 sites.
at our second study session at the end of april we
discussed the evaluation of 11 of those candidate
rezoning sites so from the first study session 11
of the 14 identified sites warranted further study.
and the evaluation of those 14 sites was conducted by denovo
planning group and consultation with staff and we evaluated the
requirements of site suitability as required by the government
code and those are generally described in four categories.
the infrastructure available to support development of residential uses at the site,
the site availability, meaning that it can and will be available for redevelopment as
residential uses during the planning period, the size of the site and its zoning
capacity
so what is its allowable density intensity and other zoning restrictions or
allowances.
four sites of those 14 previously identified and presented at the first study session
were
ultimately identified as potential sites for rezoning to facilitate the future
residential
development and support compliance with the city's rhna obligations and those sites
we
referred to as sites d e and f which are taken together as a as a group site and site
n.
so d e and f located generally at alicia parkway and the five freeway is a
total of 5.5 acres and site n on ridge route drive as a total of 9.5 acres.
site d e and f would is proposed to accommodate a range
of density between 30 and 80 dwelling units an acre for
a maximum capacity of 308 units. This is currently
developed as an office park with relatively high vacancy.
a improvement to land value ratio and a suitable
property owner interest so the property owner at this
location has expressed interest and availability of
redevelopment of of the site during the planning period.
site n composes several different addresses along red drop drive but it is one parcel
at 9.5 acres
also proposed for a density of 30 to 80 to use an acre with a capacity of 532 units.
there is some
vacancy at this site it has a relatively low improvement to assess value ratio and
the property
owner at this location has also expressed interest in inclusion in the housing
elements inventory.
to facilitate making the sites available which again
is one of those characteristics that we must evaluate
for site suitability. There are amendments to both the
general plan and zoning code and map that must occur.
site n must be re designated in its general plan land use element from freeway
commercial to
mixed use and the land use element must also be updated to include some additional
language which
further expands upon the amendments included as part of the prior re zoning effort
which
identifies suitable densities allowed for sites included in the city's housing
element inventory.
amendment to the zoning code and zoning map is also required the zoning
code would be amended for section 9-11.030 to establish the housing 50
overlay zone and the housing 80 overlay zone and identify the properties
to which each of these designation applies and those were read earlier.
section 9-11.060 which would revise the development
standards for the housing 80 overlay zone to establish a
permitted residential range again of that 30 to 80 dwelling
units per acre and a maximum building height of 75 feet.
the zoning map would rezone site n from freeway commercial to mixed use to
establish an underlying zoning designation that permits residential uses.
section 9-11, the city's remaining on that rhna for the 6 cycle right now stands at
599
lower income housing units.
as a result of the proposed general plan and zoning amendments,
the residential development capacity of the inventory available to accommodate the
lower
income rhna would increase from an existing capacity of only 156 units to 1091 units.
this additional residential capacity would first and
foremost resolve the city's no net loss issues as you
heard earlier. There are approximately 400 units that
need to be accommodated within this no net loss solution.
and results in an increase capacity, we refer to it as a surplus of 492 lower income
units beyond what would be required to meet the city's unmet lower income rhna to
allow
for subsequent use of that surplus against future project applications that may in and
of themselves result in a no net loss issue during this eight year planning period.
an environmental determination has been made that the proposed general
plan amendment zoning text amendment and zone change are statutorily exempt
from environmental review under the california environmental quality
act pursuant to the california public resources resources code section.
21080.085 and specifically this particular statutory exemption applies because the
proposed
amendments implement the programs of actions identified in the city's certified 2021
to 2029
housing element, which included a programmatic commitment that the city would comply
with
the statutory requirements of the no net loss provisions of the california government
code.
and that brings us to staff's recommendations to conduct the public hearing, find
that the proposed general plan amendment zoning text amendment in zone change
are statutorily exempt from ceqa pursuant to the sections identified and adopt
the resolution and introduced ordinance for first reading as previously recorded.
so that concludes my presentation and myself
and staff are available to answer any questions.
all right. That concludes the report. Yes. Okay. So now agency members
may now ask questions of staff about the staff presentation and or staff
report. It's not a time for discussions really all about making sure that
we've got the tenants of the report down and we understand that from staff.
so I will wind it up and we'll start with dave wheeler. Thank you.
first question is when do the public comments come in on this?
sorry. When do the public comments come in on that I?
we haven't opened the public hearing yet. This is just questions and answers.
okay. First of all, could you go to page eight please?
okay.
I didn't realize this going to be brought up again
because they had to be had a consensus in the meeting.
I didn't realize till monday that n was put back in there and we had additional
three more things in the agenda tonight which also is unaware of until two days ago.
my recollection of that n was not included in the list
and that we had another alternative which was I thought the
consensus was to use another area for the north to complete
a an area which already partially been approved for housing.
also, I'm a revelation we had some context of increasing
some of the densities to allow to cover the loss.
council member wheeler, I thank you for the
comments. So I believe you are referencing site
c, which was adjacent to existing housing
element sites in the north laguna hills area.
when de novo conducted their feasibility analysis,
site c didn't quite have a favorable score in
terms of meeting the standards that hcd requires to
determine if the site is acceptable for rezoning.
we went over to the meeting. We had favorable scores. We met the deficit.
so why, you know, just because one area is like, you know, he's not quite, you know,
doesn't mean as many characters or the others, there's a reason not to choose an.
so there were seven.
so we have a list of those other areas that we talked about.
you can pull up that slide.
the issue with site n being considered that while sites
d, e and f would satisfy, you know, d and f were fine.
but the issue comes to making sure that we have the adequate amount of
surplus so that the city doesn't enter in a state of no net loss again.
so then this other sites, the existing housing element sites located
in the rezoned area that have not been developed for housing.
the density was increased to provide an additional unit count that could be available
for development and then site n and d, e and f would help also boost the surplus.
so we would have that adequate number to avoid a no net loss situation again.
yeah, no, I know. I, but where are the other ones that we talked about in
the meeting that would meet it without and so I have pulled up a recap as
presented as part of our second study session which recorded the feedback
that de novo had received as part of that first discussion of all 14 sites.
and we had confirmed that the, what we had heard at that first study session was in
order of preference,
the sites for evaluation based on the feedback that we had received were first sites
d, e and f,
second site n, third sites g through m, and then finally followed by sites a, b and c,
which had been
as we previously noted, considered as part of the city's prior effort to adopt its
housing element.
however, we did reevaluate them and again, relatively speaking in evaluation of those
14
sites based on the statutory requirements sites a, b and c were did not meet the
suitability
characteristics in de novo's professional recommendation and we identified some
concerns
with their suitability and likelihood of being accepted for inclusion in the
inventory.
and with sites c being the most challenging
based on the characteristics we were aware of.
now with that said, we did evaluate all 14 of those sites and ultimately brought
forward the recommendation for sites de and f and site and to meet the immediate needs
of the no net loss issue and provide some additional opportunity for future
applications to be able to be considered with an existing surplus of those lower
income.
okay, well, I guess I have to object to some of the evaluations that it destroys all
the parts of the city and what we'll leave after the time being, come back to it.
page nine, please, and presentation.
okay, I was going to confess that I made a mistake that
I got a chart that I'm going to show in a minute or two.
so in the presentation that the mayor just read,
it only listed two, three, five ridge route addresses.
this presentation and has two, three, five and two,
three, six, which is what I evaluated in my chart.
I'm showing a couple minutes.
you said an error somewhere?
is the, you know, there's a thing supposed to
have, I guess it's a well sent under section 2.1.
is that supposed to be in there also the two, three, sixes?
>> [inaudible]
>> staff is actively working on identifying a
answer to that question if you're just about it.
[blank_audio]
yes, two, three, five, six, one should be included as well.
okay, so that's an error in the presentation,
part of it should be two, three, six also.
okay, that's what I thought I thought something was missing there.
okay, we have to rewrite this, I guess, then, to some degree.
all right.
page 16, I guess, now, page 16, I have a comment.
I guess a lot of proof of questions right now.
I'll hold that, I guess.
that's going to be a little bit of questions, clear questions.
yeah, really, yeah.
yeah, 16 is for, we'll get to a presentation.
okay, page 16, please.
[blank_audio]
16.
[blank_audio]
I think, I'm sorry, my mistake, page 12.
[blank_audio]
okay, what I want to clarify is with the presentation that you've given here.
well, let me ask for, what is our current obligation to fulfill no net loss?
[blank_audio]
the city's obligation to fulfill no net loss right now is 443 units,
and that is inclusive of the pending application
that the city received several months ago.
that's 443, 443 lower-income units.
okay, and the presentation, including the def and n, how many is that supply?
[blank_audio]
def taken together are 308 units, and on its own is 532 units.
[blank_audio]
I'm sorry, 840 units for those four sites.
okay.
so in essence, we have approximately 400 extras
that we don't need to meet no net loss, correct?
[blank_audio]
in surplus, so there's the rhna requirement of the remaining units that are
required to satisfy rhna, and then the surplus just to provide extra padding.
so I'm trying to find out what I'm trying to clarify.
we need 443, the presentation has 840 or 440 over approximately.
correct.
okay.
so 402 minute.
okay, that's all my questions for right now.
thank you.
[blank_audio]
any other questions?
[blank_audio]
I was read, I was developing a question of my own.
okay, so we'll now go to jared mathis' questions.
it seems the sites that have been identified here,
def, and you state that there's ownership interest.
can you characterize that interest?
that interest in what form it came and that it's serious.
so over the last year, staff has actually
been contacted by the property owners of both
sites to see if the city would be interested in
considered converting those sites into housing.
so for example, sites def, I think the property owner
has been experiencing low vacancy and looking for
the highest and best use for the property, so they
contacted city staff about converting those properties.
at the time, this was not a housing element site, and then currently in
the nmu zoning district, it would have to be a mixed use development.
and then same with the property that's located off
of ridge route, that property owner has contacted
us, and felt that the highest and best use for
their site would be to convert to residential.
and so knowing that the city was going into a state of no net loss,
they did offer up their interest to be included for the reason.
thank you.
okay, we'll now go to joshua sweeney.
thank you, mayor.
I was just had a question for staff.
I wanted to have staff clearly explained for the residents the difference between
rezoning property for the state law compliance
and approving actual development project.
>> thank you, council member sweeney. So by the city providing sites for
housing, it does not necessarily require that number of housing units be built.
the city is just required to provide opportunities for development
if a developer were interested in rezoning those sites.
so it does not necessarily mandate and development to occur.
it's just providing an opportunity for development.
thank you so much. And how confident is staff in the additional roughly 492
unit cushion that will prevent another no net loss rezoning in the near future?
so that's a hard one. To be honest, I mean to satisfy the rhna requirements,
the way I described it previously is that it can be very much an uphill battle.
so it depends on the second item this afternoon is whether or not the provisions
could be in place to encourage additional affordable housing units to be provided.
it's hard because the way the housing element is structured is that the city can count
basically 100% of the units to go towards
lower income to satisfy the rhna requirement.
the reality is in terms of development feasibility,
it just doesn't pencil out for developers
unless they are able to access a special vein
of financing for 100% affordable developments.
so it's hard to say how the market's going to go, but right now we're
hoping that this 492 surplus gets us through this planning period.
perfect, thank you. One more just question
for clarification. If we fail to act within the
statutory timeline, what are the specific financial
litigation certification and local control risks?
the worst case scenario is that if we do not provide adequate inventory
to satisfy the worst case scenarios that our housing element could be
decertified, we could be susceptible to builders remedy projects again,
and then also whether or not we would be open to litigation in lawsuits.
thank you so much. That's all I have.
okay, I'm going to go back to dave, but I have a couple questions of my own.
first of all, I can't remember which slide it was, but it doesn't really matter.
your site c was determined as a difficult one to actually develop, and I
wanted to get, I know we've been told before, but I've spent a little while.
I'd like to get a little clarification as to what was difficult about site c.
site c has very high occupancy.
it is almost fully utilized as a occupied facility.
it has a very high improvement to total assessed value
ratio indicating that there has been significant building
improvements and upgrades. There is some significant investment
in the physical structure that exists on the property.
there has been no responsive property owner interest. The city has conducted
outreach to property owners to solicit their interest for inclusion
in the housing element periodically over the past number of years,
including the preparation of the city's previously adopted housing element.
again, a site c was previously considered for inclusion
and ultimately not included in that adopted and
certified element. For the same challenges we encountered
in this cycle in reevaluating the site with fresh eyes.
none of those market factors have changed substantially
since that time. Nor has the property owner expressed
any new interest in redevelopment site, which was not
previously available as part of that prior element review.
so with those characteristics, we did not feel that it felt it
met the requirements that the city had outlined in its inventory
in specific improvement to land value ratios in occupancy
requirements and particularly with the support of a property owner.
thank you. And I mean, since we're looking at this in our rhna
cycle, right now it goes all the way through what 2029 correct.
and if we were to accept these proposals, half the polls, then we're going to end up
with a residual of something. Did I hear that right by 432 or something like that?
400.400. That, you know, in other words, the idea
I assume is so that we don't need to be back here
again that we will cover our nut and then actually
have a little bit of a surplus. Is that true?
that is the intent. Okay. And my last question has to do with site f.
I know the site, well, actually site d was where the old city hall
was when we used to rent space and that goes back about 25 years.
but so I know the office buildings that are concerned and all the rest of that.
I'm a little, I'm a little concerned so it's
a question though. Site f actually backs up
to residential. And when we're talking about 3280, 80 is a five or six story building.
and I'm, you know, here you have single family. It looks like single
family residential, hard for me to read the name of the street from the
exhibit here. But you know what I'm talking about in site f is, it doesn't
really say you're giving, you know, the overall acreage for site d and f.
and actually in many respects site d at e right next to the freeway like that can
handle a building in my opinion. But the point is that I'm wondering about site f.
so the question is, what's the size of site f? And what if we were to, even if we were
to rezone it, why, why, what if we were to
just rezone f to 30 instead of 80, 30 to 80.
so that you don't have a six story building hanging
over a lot of single family homes on the other side.
and I don't have a sense of that. I'm asking a question because I don't, these
are all just, you know, piled together. So for what a total of five points.
no, I mean, if I have 5.5 acres in three hundred eight units,
can you give me a little clarification of what, what are,
what are our choices, but, you know, what is the range of things
that site f if wasn't incorporated in all the whole thing.
so site f is approximately 1.3 acres and would
yield about 71 units at the highest density level.
so the question comes down to, I mean, obviously it's the council's
discretion if they want to do it at a lower density for that location.
but site f was brought together in conjunction from the property
owner was sites dnf, denf from their assessment of what they consider
they had done some preliminary assessments about what type of
building size could go in, taking an account set backs and everything.
so their proposal was to include site f.
so if we would still maintain a surplus, if this was downgraded to a
lower density, instead of possibly site to 30 dwelling because paragraph
may be delivered this housing overlay at h50, just to make consistency
and not have to revise and create a whole new housing overlay category.
okay. So based on, you said, did you say 1.3 acres of site f?
okay.
can we bring that slide up?
it would be nice to look at that page.
I think we could find it.
well, yeah, but if you're talking about 30
units in acre, then you're really talking about,
we're really talking about 40 or 50 units if we were to
zone it down at a lower level to like 30 instead of 80.
well, and keep in mind that the object design standards would
still play into where there would be a stepping requirement.
so it necessarily would be built all the way to
the maximum 75 feet up into the property line.
so the object design standards does require that
stepping to offset and mitigate the height of the issue.
okay. Okay. I'm just trying to get my arms around what the impact would be if to that
400 residual that we have if we didn't take site f all the way up to 80 potentially.
that's all.
so I think you pretty will have gotten me in the ballpark.
I think about things in terms of the fabric of the community and not just numbers.
so, thank you.
and so we are back to dave if you had some questions.
not anymore.
okay.
you're still, oh, he still has his line on pencil.
okay.
so with that, we have exhausted our questions
from the staff from the agency members.
and so what I'm going to do right now is open the public hearing.
and announce the time again for that is 442.
the purpose of this public hearing is to solicit public testimony and input.
there will be no discussion, no debate, no
personal opinions of agency members at this time.
again, if you are participating remotely and
wish to speak regarding this item on the phone, dial star 9 on the telephone.
now to raise your hand to indicate you wish to speak, you will
be identified by the last four digits of your phone number.
and when you have been recognized to speak, dial star 6 to unmute.
and so we'll get started with that.
and I'm going to move to our city clerk and ask for public speakers in this order.
first in favor of what we're talking about in the matter.
and then secondly in person against the matter, third online remote.
and with that, the city clerk will read the names of comments
that were then submitted online, which were significant.
so I will now open up to you, joshua.
yes, thank you, mr. Mayor.
the first card we have is rudy with no last name.
thank you for your continued work towards addressing
affordability and compliance with housing element.
my name is rudy barbosa.
I speak on behalf of the kennedy commission.
for the no net loss overlay, we are asking that the city look into the
possibility of adding a 20% affordability requirement in the overlay zones.
first a question whether this site identification would have a
higher confidence in the city addressing no net loss in the future.
I think if the support ability requirement is
introduced into the overlays and the confidence would
go up because you would be addressing the
affordability at the lower rhna and come categories.
I also had a question in regards to the legality of having overlays.
the use of overlays was found out of compliance if the base zoning did
not allow for the density and the residential use of those overlays.
we also had a question in the site identified adfn for the resulting
classification, especially site and it said it would be classified as mxu mixed use.
but we are wondering if that should be labeled as neighborhood mixed
use in the general plan draft july 23, 2026 general plan draft.
it says that mxu does not allow for residential
development whereas neighborhood mixed use does.
so we are wondering if the city can add clarification
on to those land use designations under table ou1.
we also ask that the city has more transparency in its website use.
I believe there was mailer sent out with these maps
and information for residents to look at however the no
net loss site on the city website has not been updated
with the presentations, maps and other information.
and I think the use of this web page could be
better if it is uploaded on to that one site.
thank you.
and I'm going to turn to jennifer and because a number
of things were said here and if you have no comment and
we'll just take it as a public comment, but if there's
something that you want to respond to, then please feel free.
well, if you would like me to address some of the comments.
so with the no net loss website, my principal planner has just
pulled it up and the staff report and everything is on there.
so I'm not sure what items they were necessarily looking for but the ordinance and the
maps and the changes to the general plan land
use element are uploaded on that website.
in terms of the legality of the overlay, so
the mx use owning district does allow housing.
the nmu is actually more restricted to the point
where it has to be a mixed use development.
we have changed that in the code to allow the sites that
qualify under the housing overlay to be 100% residential.
but the mxu does allow residential at 20 dwelling units per acre, but
with the overlay, it is allowed to go up to the specific identities here.
as well as for the affordable housing of 20% on these
overlay sites, anything over 15% generally requires
a more in depth feasibility analysis of whether or
not 20% would actually have an access to be applied.
so that would require some further study.
>> thank you.
>> thank you for that clarification.
next speaker.
>> we have rona henry.
I'm rona henry, chair of welcoming neighbors home, our volunteer advocates
advocate for affordable housing, and we have members in laguna hills.
I always find zoning to be somewhat of a technical issue, so I was glad when I was
copied on a public comment that the kennedy
commission sent to you regarding this issue.
and I think they raised some important concerns, including
legal questions, and I urge you to look at those very carefully.
my main concern is that the city is proposing to allow high density housing,
which would be by right, and thus increase the value of the proposed
sites without having any really strong program to ensure that the affordable
housing for lower income households is included in the new development.
we're concerned that the city may be giving up
leverage to require affordable housing at these sites.
in addition, I was also a little bit unclear about whether or not what the additional
housing capacity would be, because you seem to be putting a range of 30 to 80.
and I wasn't sure how realistic the capacity really was.
finally, we do request the city rezone more suitable sites for housing in the context
of we question how healthy it is to locate housing right next to a busy freeway.
ideally, the housing sites should be located
in your shopping, schools, services, and jobs.
bottom line, I think we need a little bit more
consideration on this. Thank you for your time.
you have a question for you.
councilman wheeler is going to.
a clarification question on some of the things you said.
hello, you've been here many times.
okay, you said you should have more appropriate places.
where would you put it?
well, I recall that the owner of the molten shopping
center wanted to have his site on the housing element site.
and so that would have been a great place because
it's right near shopping and it would have
been, I think they wanted mixed use and I think
that could have been mutually reinforcing.
another site I'm blanking on the one. It's across where it's in laguna
hills, but it's across from where bed bath and beyond used to be.
where it costs plus importers. What's that big road? Soft of la paz.
there's office buildings there. Yeah, so it
was pointed out there's some office buildings
there and that is a little close to the freeway, so that's not my favorite place.
but the really great place would have been the molten shopping center.
yeah, the last thing you might just write next three way, the same as the eea.
okay. Yeah, that's not my most favorite. My most favorite is the molten.
I'm not sure where you're talking about. Where the dmv used to be?
there's a chinese restaurant there.
okay, no, I know what you're talking about now, then.
yeah, beautiful site. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? No, thank you.
next speaker. Yes, we have anna gromis.
welcome anna. Hi, thank you so much for having me.
just a couple of comments that I wanted to make.
I understand that you guys assess these sites and came to the conclusion
that 30 to 80 dwelling units to the acre would be the most appropriate.
but if you really want to do any kind of for sale product, 30 to
the acre unfortunately does not pencil for any of our developers.
we're looking more closer to 20 to the acre for single
family town homes or any kind of for sale residential.
if that's something that you're interested in, happy to discuss it further.
but as we've stated previously to the city and to staff, when
you get down to 30 to the acre, there's just no open space.
there's parking restrictions. You basically have a
product that is difficult to build and difficult to sell.
so our recommendation and our ask would be that you amend the
span to be 20 to 80 or more to the acre, please. Thank you.
questions? Thank you very much. Next.
we have caesar covarubius.
welcome. Thank you.
good evening, mayor council members.
sessercovarubius, I'm the executive director of the county commission.
just wanted to provide a few additional comments based on
the presentation of my partners and some of our colleagues.
I think the main distinction here that we're trying to draw
is that we're here today because you have an approved housing
element and that now has to be redone because we don't have a
policy or program that it's going to encourage affordable housing.
so if we do this development, the way that developments were
done in the past, we will get the same result on these sites.
we get market rate development that's not going to
have been the affordable. And I think there's a clear
distinction here where in the statute that is being
referenced to be able to create these sites to have capacity.
you do have the ability to provide 20% of the units
to be affordable if you have a by right process.
particular proposal doesn't distinguish a by right process
that will create 20% affordable versus a traditional
market rate approach that is just going to be by
right where you're giving away all these incentives.
so the main point here is we're missing the opportunity
to capture what we're giving to a developer in this case.
we're asking a developer, "what do you want to do?" you
have a developer who just came up and said, "hey, if
you give us 20% of the county, 20 units to the acre, we
can build market rate housing that is home ownership."
but none of it will be affordable, right? At 80 units of
acre, 50 units to the acre, you're going to get the same
result with market rate developers who are going to give you
the higher density developments but all that market rate.
and you'll be back here in a couple of years asking your staff
to reassign sites and find sites to be able to accommodate those.
so I think there is an opportunity to look at this clearly and be able to distinguish
how
do we comply with the law, how do we make sure that we also are providing the best
benefit
for your community where you're identifying sites and you're getting something and
return
and that being in the affordability for the residents that live and work in the city.
okay, thank you.
any questions?
dave, you have your light on?
I have a question?
I'm thinking.
I'm not sure.
no.
okay.
next speaker.
thank you for your comments.
that is all the speaker comments cards I have.
all of them.
for this item.
yes.
okay.
and then we can go the other direction.
here you have any -- I'm sorry?
we're on still 2.1.
that is all I have for 2.1.
okay.
and do we have any that are online or by telephone?
can you go ahead and announce for a minute?
yes.
mr. Mayor, can I make a brief announcement?
yes.
may.
council member peehold, peehold has asked
to join the meeting remotely for just cause.
she is a child caregiving issue.
so we have been able to have council member peehold on through audio and video.
council member peehold, is there anyone with you in the
room over 18 and if so, can you please state the general nature of your relationship?
no one over 18.
no one is here.
thank you.
except for me.
I have no one online wishing to speak.
okay.
and no one.
okay.
so we're done public speakers.
okay.
further time being yes.
all right.
so.
I will call.
I'm sorry.
I'll be read the names that were submitted for this.
go ahead.
I'm in favor.
I have heidi prescott.
oppose.
marcelo lawson.
and the neutral is caesar.
coperubius.
ed.
and renee oaks.
and run a henry.
okay.
thank you.
all right.
so we have any other final questions of staff
or any other members of the public from agency members.
don't see that.
and so with that, I'm going to close the public
hearing and announce that the public hearing is closed now.
so we're going to move into the city council
planning agency and deliberations of this particular item.
and I will start with -- well, I don't -- colin, did you want to speak to this?
or did you -- you have your light on?
oh, my apologies.
okay.
all right.
dave.
okay.
robert, would you bring up the first part of the usb drive I gave you?
I have a few comments.
I'll start with the -- should you go to -- in the next page, please?
okay.
hold there.
I did a considerable amount of work on studying
this issue to try to present some basic
facts and thanks for the council to consider.
no.
please keep it on.
okay.
would you go to robert?
okay.
next page, please.
okay.
I just wanted to relate to everybody, the council especially.
what the current situation is.
I spent considerable time going over every
parcel in the city that is now zoned commercial.
the whole city has just sort of two million.
I'm sorry, these are -- the figures are not easy.
they're not in the square miles or square feet.
the program I had was meters, though.
it's the relative number I think of the most important thing.
the -- I mean, it's almost two million square meters of commercial.
of that, the north has about a million.
el toro area, 400,000.
alicia area, 142.
la paz, about 200.
and when I call strip malls, little areas of
the city is about five of them that have things.
it's like the ralph shopping center where the pancake house is another one.
we're smart finals is another one of those areas.
and I want to point the -- the approved for rina or hed or hcd or hdl.
I combined the data.
the whole city has already approved 400,000 square meters to be
converted basically from commercial or retail over two allow housing.
the north, 116, that's basically the milk creek project.
el toro, that's the mall plus little triangle area
that's over across the street from mall near the freeway.
nothing on alicia.
la paz is the -- is the la paz village there, 17,000.
for the entire city, if you look, already we have
lost 27 -- I'm sorry, 20.7% of our commercial area.
that's retail or off-spoting, that type of thing.
in the north, that's the real creek.
they took 10% of that area.
the el toro, where the mall is, it's taken 67%
two-thirds of that entire area, which I want to comment.
that is the most valuable area in the whole city for commercial.
and we've given away already two-thirds of it.
la paz is around, you know, little, it's 10%.
I just want to caution me, the last gentleman that
spoke with the kennedy commission is kind of correct.
we're going to keep getting the same results, but keep doing the same thing.
we keep, you know, sacrificing these properties
and reducing our retail and commercial.
and we're getting, you know, we're not meeting rhna.
all we're doing is just getting more and
more, you know, market rate housing in there.
I'm told that the market rate housing is almost getting saturated now.
I'm not sure if that's true or not.
but look, we've already lost 20% of what we had.
we haven't got that much left if we can't go at this rate.
we're not gaining anything.
okay, now let's specifically come with respect to property n.
we're up next page, please.
I thought I made a mistake when I saw the presentation that
mayor read about two, three, five ridge route addresses.
I'd done two, three, five, and two, three, six.
I was glad to see that it was an error and the
thing that I didn't include the correct ones.
this area, as you can see, this is a 25, it's 24.
it's actually 25, that's new data.
this is a 25-year period of how that area is done.
and, you know, contrary to privately, it is actually doing well.
I mean, it's not a, you know, a behemoth as far
as money, but everything is improving in there.
it's got the trend up.
if you look around 2020, they even had their downside there with covid,
but they recovered, and they're still going up.
I would hate to sacrifice this area.
this area is the only parcel that we've talked about.
this is being totally rezoned.
right now it's only zoned for commercial.
what's being proposed that we changed that from commercial
to mixed use, which basically may open it up to housing.
so, we, you know, we take this thing off out of the, you know,
realm of building our retail and just sacrifice them more housing.
and they're approximately, and I count it.
there's 18 currently active businesses.
that's for the hdl data in that area in n.
so, what are we saying to our businesses?
oh, okay, this 18 business is okay.
we decide to turn you into houses.
so, you know, sorry, but, you know, you have to move
or close that shop or move somewhere else or do something.
I think that's terrible.
we do that kind of thing.
we need this problem.
we did keep as much commercial as we can.
one to comment on the end.
again, I would like to bring up the a, b and c properties.
I know that the criteria didn't go for that,
but couldn't we increase the, increase the density of the, you know,
of the height or something to allow me we've got.
we only need 443, okay.
and we're, it was the 840.
I mean, why should we give twice as much of our property way as we need to?
that's the surface of it.
we're giving a double of what we, what we have to do.
now, I don't know, I, again, I prefer the kennedy commission comment.
we're just going to do the same thing over and over again, though.
if we keep doing this, we just keep giving away property.
we're getting out of the element.
what we're going to degrade to, if you look at the previous chart,
that 20%, we're going to degrade into a residential community only.
and then they're going to start taking parts in l.a.g.o.
, and other places to convert this big, the
big mansions into, into part we're building.
so we've got nothing left.
we have to rethink this.
I'm very upset with the state of california sacramento.
they come in there and they, they do these things to sit.
if they would go back out and look out, the
eastern part of the county has land out there.
there is absolutely nothing on.
there's no cities out there.
there's nothing to be, you know, destroyed.
that's what the society's done forever.
in new york city, when they grew, they went out the long, out the long island.
he started building house out there in california.
when la got too filled up, they came to orange county, started building places.
they knew what's a riverside, aren't you?
they weren't as correct on that.
but they go out and build in places that aren't populated.
they don't go in and try to destroy cities.
so the, the, the, the, they need this to stop.
and I wish the kennedy commission and, and around this group,
I wish you would, would stop, you know, coming to city meetings
and go to the state and do the people that really cause the problems.
we could build lots of affordable housing.
we'd build an out, out beyond right to start a,
santa margarita and an out beyond mission viejo.
there's nothing out there.
absolutely nothing.
if you'll believe me, after meeting throughout
there, drive out there and take a look.
you won't see a single house.
that's something common for right now.
okay.
well, I, I have a couple of questions.
could you put that chart back up there?
do you mind if I ask you a question?
absolutely.
uh, you, you're going to get that, uh, back up there again?
oh, not back back.
no, no, there you go.
that one?
yes.
yeah.
I just want to make sure I'm understanding it.
yes.
so basically, uh, this is a per quarter.
is this for the, I want to understand the matrix itself.
okay.
uh, is this what we lost it again?
okay.
so is this, is this for all businesses within the city?
no, no.
we're just, this is in.
this is in.
that's what I'm saying.
this is specifically the two three five and two three six rid through addresses.
only.
so there is, and there is essentially.
these are the ones that are a little more than six million dollars.
no, no.
that's 6,000.
6,000.
oh, six thousand.
yeah, I said it's not a behemoth.
okay.
six thousand dollars in taxes for the quarter.
but there's another.
yeah, per quarter.
I just want to understand.
yeah, so four, four dots that make up the curve is a year.
but these are by quarter.
okay.
yeah, I understand.
so you're multiply by four.
I can do that.
so basically I didn't have all this tribe.
but basically you're looking at about 35,000.
okay.
for a year.
yeah.
I mean, the overall nature of what you're, what you're putting on here is I, you know,
I applaud that you did that work and you're pointing it out to us.
I mean, economic development in our city is probably the most important thing that
we need to do.
we can't continue to be a bedroom community community forever and ever and ever.
it would be out of business completely.
and, you know, we put too much, you know, stock
on the fact that nothing in the world ever changes.
and we let them all of 50 years, you know, basically wash away, not overnight, but
over probably 10 or 15 years and we didn't do anything about it.
we just thought, oh, well, we've got all of the sales tax and we'll have it forever.
while our surrounding communities have double cost goes and car dealerships and
all kinds of stuff and they're floating in cash.
so it is a, you know, the rhna stuff is a big problem for us because it is robbing
us in many respects of our, what's left of our commercial areas.
and that respect I do agree with councilman weeder.
I mean, architect in a planner and I'm looking at this in other ways too.
the problem is we have state law.
I didn't say that I like the state law, but the state law requires that we had
1985, you know, available rhna units that
could be developed at least from our standpoint.
we're not developing them that we're making it possible.
between, you know, within this rhna timeframe, which is in 2029.
and so that's law.
we didn't, you know, that's something that we totally control.
whether we like it or not.
and I do think we're making some progress.
I do think that we have another subject matter of its is on the calendar today,
which is on the agenda today, which is inclusionary zoning, which would certainly
help on the affordability side.
and I've now been on the council for almost five years and I've looked at all of
this and as a planner, I can see how this is playing out in the development world.
and so we got to balance all of that.
and, you know, in such a way that a developer, they're in business to make money.
okay.
so they're not going to come in and say, oh, we
want, we're going to do a whole thing, affordable, whole thing.
I mean, actually, if we would present that to hcd, they'd laugh at us.
because we'd say, oh, we have to zone it and solve it affordable.
and then nobody would ever do it.
and, you know, it wouldn't pencil.
and so that would be just kicked back in our face, in my opinion.
so, you know, so we're going to deal with each one of these, one at a time.
the one that I have a little bit of a problem with here.
because I don't mind having a, you know, so that we
don't have to come back here again before 1929, 1929.
but the one I do have a problem with is zoning site f to 30 to 80.
I do not want to see six story buildings right up against the backyards of those,
it looked like about five or six homes.
that would be ridiculous.
and so, I mean, I think you'd do something
pretty nice in site d and e if the developer were to buy site f and make that the
swimming pool and all the rest of the stuff.
because it would be on the south side to get plenty of sun.
and it would be much less of an issue if you're talking about, okay, now,
it's not just numbers, it's not just acreages.
it's about what are we doing here.
and so, if I were to make a change to, or not change, but a proposal,
an amendment to the proposition of doing this,
and we don't even have that on the table quite yet, that would be it.
and that's my comments for right now.
thank you, if anyone else has any comments.
dave, go ahead.
yeah, but yeah, we've got to figure out something.
I want to make three comments.
first of all, there's this comment that keeps coming up and up over and over.
it's like, well, we can't do anything that would inhibit businesses from building.
I'm like, well, okay, that is one way to look at.
but the other thing, why is that more important than a city's ability to exist?
I mean, if we just keep letting building go rampant,
then we will collapse into an all residential city.
our sales tax revenue, we've got a zero.
it's about six million each now.
our total budget is about 25, 26.
so we lose all that.
the property is not going to make up for it.
and we basically have a downward spiral.
we can't, even now, we cannot do the annual refresh
of our roads because we haven't got the money.
because we're losing, we lost them all.
we lost approximately two million dollars a year on that.
and we keep losing to that.
I don't see why it's any, it's more important to let businesses,
I'm sorry, builders, you know, succeed and have a big profits.
that's the expensive cities.
you got to lose their cities.
I think these are more important myself for right now.
there's plenty of places to build out the east.
now let me go back to something that's for the kennedy,
kennedy commission people here in the, I guess it's welcoming neighbors group.
okay. Let me challenge both of you.
I've spoken to, I think the cs are still the president of kennedy.
okay.
yeah, I've spoken to both the groups privately in the back room, back everything.
and you guys are not treating the whole problem.
my challenge to you is, yes, you can get somebody at place to live
by forcing the portal house in cities maybe.
but that's only 30% of a person's, you know, income.
that's the theoretical number you're supposed to build out.
you're still at the other 70% was take care of your insurance,
your family, your food, your transportation, all the other things.
when you put affordable in the middle of a place where they really can't afford it,
you're putting them in a very untenable position.
because 70% of their income that they're going
to need to exist and drive there is not there.
you need to work on a whole solution, not just a 30% solution.
anyway.
last thing, this sort of just to comment
what don said about the six story buildings.
I think we approved a six story already on the pause village.
it was five or six.
and that's over top of at least several houses.
so we've already done that.
I mean, I didn't like it, but we've already done that.
so I mean, to get out of having to sacrifice other retail.
I don't know what you do.
thank you.
ok.
I'm going to move to mayor pro tem, a juror at memphis.
thank you, mr. Mayor.
listen, nobody likes to be in this position where you have to
give away local control, essentially, under the threat of penalty.
it's not how good decisions get made necessarily, not the best.
and I agree with everything, my colleagues have
said, and from a philosophical perspective,
unfortunately, we're not in a position to be able to rest on that.
because the project that was just mentioned about la paz village,
that was a builder's remedy project because we got outside of our housing element.
and to not move forward here tonight on a number of different
things and risk being outside of our housing element.
and then hertz are residents without any level of control.
so that concerns me, right?
and so I appreciate the work that's been done
in putting together these different sites.
and I appreciate the work dave has done in kind of outlining what those values are.
you know, just $30,000 a year is that the tail wagging the dog.
I understand the sentimentality of it and
the logic of protecting our commercial zones.
but we have to comply.
and we need to make sure that we've got a surplus so
that we can further protect the city going forward.
as the sites, just a pure evaluation of the sites, I think
the de and f and n are completely adequate and appropriate.
and while I appreciate the commentary about
placing high density housing near freeways,
there's also a reason that it's affordable as well.
so that's just a balance that we have to strike.
and I think de and do that.
I also look at the idea of creating community off of that ridge route location.
it's a nice big site. It's one big parcel.
and it's also got a bunch of commercial next to it to really help create a dynamic
situation for that commercial that is up and
down that furniture road that is struggling.
those businesses are struggling. There's a number of different vacancies there.
so I think if the owner actually decided to develop and I think that would
benefit that area from a mix perspective and create an interesting community.
de and f office buildings that have a higher and better use at this point
given that office buildings aren't what they used to be in our world.
and the proximity to the freeway and is actually I
think attractive for people that need to commute.
so for all of those reasons and there's more, I would absolutely
endorse the work that staff and our consultants have done.
and I would say that I could agree to that amendment that don mentioned to
take section f down to 50 dwellings dwelling units per acre for that reason.
and I also understand that that probably can be
handled through the approval process with director
lowe. But I mean essentially that would take
us down roughly 40 total units in our surplus.
I don't think that breaks the bank one way or the other.
but if it helps protect those residents, I would be for them. Thank you.
right, joshua, josh, I'm leaving.
was that a motion?
I did not make a motion.
no worries, no worries.
sorry to skip over your bed.
hasn't had a relationship.
it's at this point in what he does, mr. Masters.
go ahead.
just to comment on eyes of the throughout there.
I would propose, okay, we can juggle, I guess it's f to make it a little lower.
maybe build up d and e. I'm sorry, that right, def, yeah.
we're only a few percentage or a few hours away
from making d and f solve the whole problem.
so I suppose we increase the density there.
maybe it's just a d and e to make it meet what we have to do.
so we get through this and then throw in maybe
c. I know it's a, they say it's not a problem.
but even if acd looks at it, okay, we already met your number.
throwing in the c is just, as the buffer if you have to have one.
but again, I'm still trying to protect the businesses.
thank you.
okay.
thank you for yielding.
erica, you don't have a button to push.
so I'm going to just ask you, did you have any comments or -- yes.
yes. I, my comments are basically that this is --
I don't think that this is adequate in terms
of where the housing and zoning should be.
if we look at other cities, which unfortunately
that is missing in this presentation,
if you look at what our neighboring cities have done.
and cabbage, that is zoned for rhna.
however, there's all of these independent homeowner, or excuse me,
business owners that have no intention of selling.
and yet that's zoned for rhna.
and the same thing happens in many other areas.
we're talking mission b.a.l. Lake forest.
and the other cities have essentially zoned all
around without the intention of pushing forward.
so I'm not sure why we as a city cannot find other areas in the city.
I think that -- and is -- it would be
devastating to see the area I want to remember.
but a group came in, a dance group came in and
mentioned how many people drive down to rich --
a ridge route, and how many dance studios are around there.
it's kind of like a dance lane.
it makes it interesting is that they shop in that area.
so usually when you take your child to a game or you take your child somewhere,
we don't have club soccer in our city.
we don't have any high sophisticated sports.
we haven't developed that.
I've been trying for years.
but we don't have attractions.
but this is developing organically as an area that is bringing visitors to the city,
which actually feeds, which is why one of the
reasons perhaps that that area is doing better,
and which is what dave is trying to say.
I don't know what city fights the foot that feeds or bites they and that feeds them.
but that's what exactly happening is that we're
taking something that is creating the jobs
in the building that you're in right now.
the money comes from the tax revenue.
if it wasn't for these businesses that feed,
we won't have the employee's in the city.
we won't have a city.
we need to be very strategic about what we are doing to cut our hands off essentially.
and so I am not supportive of n because it is
not a sound business decision for the city.
it's sound for a developer, but it's not sound for us as a city.
so I'm not supportive, unfortunately.
and I think that we need to be more strategic financially
about what makes sense for a win, win solution.
and this unfortunately doesn't hit the marker.
no, if you notice, most cities don't just pick an
area where they have retail that's starting to boom.
it's just, they don't.
so with that, you have my concerns.
okay, thank you, josh.
if I'm going to get back to you.
thank you, mayor.
for me, it's just really, you know, wanting residents to
understand that tonight's decision isn't an overall approval
for 80 drawing units per acre, anything like that.
but it's just really about state law compliance and our
intent to preserve the city's certified housing element.
and as much as local decision making authority as the law still allows.
so state mandate should never be an excuse to stop
listening locally because when projects come forward,
we still have to understand what they're going to do and pay serious attention to the
traffic and the parking and emergency access
and everything that comes along with that.
so those are just my thoughts and comments on it.
okay, well, I'll kind of wrap it up here.
I'll actually make a motion that we accept a staff report with one amendment.
and that I believe, and I'll explain, is site f.
I do see if it's taken by a developer, they'll probably take de and f, by the way.
but I think f should have the restriction of between 20 and 30.
because that's town homes, or something is two to three stories, which I
don't have a whole problem with next to a single family residential area.
but I do have a problem with six story buildings.
50 is still a four story building.
okay, so it's going to have the same effect.
we're talking about a little more than a naker there.
and so, yeah, it'll have an effect and maybe
instead of having a residual of 400 units,
we may end up with something more like 350 or 360.
but that would be the only amendment, if that's even, we're
actually have to ask staff, if that's even a doable kind of thing,
or am I throwing a monkey wrench in the hole of our deal.
so to qualify as a housing site, you need a minimum of 30 to all units per acre.
a minimum of 30.
30.
that's 30?
30, yeah.
okay, but if we were to do that,
I mean, I still see, I look at that.
in fact, I'm not, I'm looking at the size of the site.
I'm actually imagining a building there, right?
and so, you know, it's, it's not the world's
largest site for, you know, 80 units per acre.
I'm not sure if that's really doable even if
we, if we, but our planners have looked at it
and these, you feel like that it's developable at that rate.
and I'm going to assume, when you think of that sites
where we have that kind of development like re-auto,
they're, they're relatively narrow and they might,
something like that could fit into that site.
but I really don't want it to go down and tower
over all those residential homes at the end.
so, I would like to see that one basically be fb and no more than 30 density.
and, and if somebody takes down the whole thing, then
they'll just learn how to rearrange the deck chairs
so they get the maximum use out of the whole site.
and they'll probably end up with like 65 as a total across de and f.
so that just be speaking from the professional side.
so that would be my motion without amendment.
and do we have a second?
I'll second that.
okay. Do we have any other amendments to the amendment?
possibly. I'm going to make a comment on the first one.
okay, go ahead.
I just brought a picture.
I wish I could throw it up on the screen.
the buildings that would be next to the housing, let me pull up talking.
right there.
that would be site.
site f.
what I'm sure on the mayor is that the buildings next
to the housing, I should have the physical layout of it.
what if we just had, I mean, they get, they're
probably a bit of park because there's nothing
in there for the kids to play on, and a pool.
what if they just, the pool and the amenities be on that site?
next to the houses.
then you can have the building.
you'll be a setback of at least twice this room maybe.
or they're a bath.
and then build, we can make it.
I think that's exactly what somebody would do.
but we're talking about with plan numbers.
I know, but you know what we need to are.
they still have to bring it to us to approve it and all the rest of that.
so, but then we can meet our numbers without, without lowering the densities.
and hopefully not sacrifice and is my objective.
so you're saying you would, you would rather have it be 80?
I don't have to be 80 and sacrifice and all across if that's what it gives the number.
the minimum to give is the number.
I don't know what that would be.
maybe I have to.
that's the question.
to pull back, that means we've got to negotiate with the
developer who might want to do it 80 all the way across.
yeah.
and I'd have to yield to the.
I'm afraid to see it.
see if the 80 piece of numbers share it right now.
you would be really for that one.
so, okay.
so, what do you want to do with that?
I mean, you made a comment.
well, all right, I'd like to make a substitute motion.
and then that we, we make the density sufficient f to
meet our reener requirement or no net loss requirement.
but, you know, add the vision of that the amenities
will be built on the housing side of the of the f.
such that they have a separation of the housing.
okay, I'm not sure how that.
no, that's a bit complicated.
I'm sorry.
yeah, I'm not sure how that would play out in terms of how you write up this proposal.
is there a comment from staff on that?
so, seeking some clarification.
for site f, you're proposing a flat 30 dwelling units per acre.
and then for site n, you would like to council member wheeler would
like to drop site n and then increase the densities for site d and e.
no, I'm sorry.
d and f, okay.
we increase the density to meet our no net loss requirement.
but for site n, we restrict the, I guess, the
sort of the eastern part of it to the amenities.
so, that there would be a setback, basically, where a pool
or their playground would be for that particular project.
so, absolutely separate.
so, if we then have a high rise, it would be separated from the houses.
would I agree with don?
it's not.
I used to have, you know, a six-story looking down your backyard.
and then that would preserve, it would preserve
our businesses and then and eliminate them.
all right, I have a comment on that one.
sure. If I'm reading this right and I'm looking at the potential capacities here.
d and f has a capacity of three hundred and
eight, which doesn't really even get us our rhna.
so, you're saying next, next n, and only do d and f, and that will not meet our rhna.
what do you, we got it up to three.
it's 380, our requirement is only 430.
yeah, 440.
it's pretty close.
okay.
clarify for me.
it's only d.
it's 300 and f will meet the rhna that known that loss.
you would need a minimum of a hundred and twenty dwelling units per acre.
all right.
I'm going to now, I'm going to get off the mic.
and ask mayor pro tem jared mathis he had comments.
well, there's a substitute motion, I think, on the floor.
but my question for staff is if mayor casky wanted to do 30 units
per acre and no more on f is that even possible in this scenario?
with the dropping of site n?
no, no, no, just taking f down to 30 flat.
or and then the back up to that question is, are the things that we're being
discussed here in terms of amenities and how the development it shapes out?
are all those things possible to control through the approval
process and we don't need to address the density number?
I would say no, not through just if a planning application
were to come in without anything development standard being
adopted, I'm trying to play out what that development standard
would look like on the southern property line for site f.
it would need to have its own carve out specifically for that
property in terms of setback of where you could put housing.
because these are three separate parcels,
right? So the possibility exists that the owner
that's singular now could sell off each of these
parcels with these new capacity numbers, right?
so the idea that it's one big project could be a fantasy.
it could be. I think from the property I understand point, that's how they envisioned
all three parcels to be the highest invest use for coming up with the residential.
we have seen some preliminary schematic designs, but nothing
that actually went into more details of setbacks or whatever.
I'm trying to think of how we would outline development
standards to ensure that there was amenities located on site f.
I'm actually looking to the city attorney because I don't know short of a
potential negotiation through a development agreement, I'm not quite sure.
we would have to go through development agreement because
if we put in setback requirements then they can ask
for a waiver or concession of those. It could physically
preclude or if there's something else that happens.
so it's not impossible. It would just be difficult to administer.
yeah. No, I understand. I'm just trying to thread a needle in a way.
so then for giving all those realities from the
staff perspective, what is the best way to accomplish
the goal of minimizing impact on the current
residents that are going to be next to zone f?
is it a reduction in the proposed density or handled through
a development agreement and keep the density where it is?
it's a development agreement. So when initially it was proposed to drop the
density to 50, but it was going to be a loss of 26 units dropping it to 30.
I don't actually know what that decrease in
units for the surplus, but I think a development
agreement is the only way to necessarily negotiate how they outline the property.
all right, but then I will remove my proposed
amendment from the motion and we'll go back to
my motion. I'll go back and say my motion is
basically to go with staff's recommendations.
and then do we have second to that? I'll second. We can go from there.
well, okay. We're going to vote on your motion too.
I'm going to take it all the way back to it.
we didn't have a second on yours yet. We have a second on from anyone? Erica?
so that amendment dies. We're back to my original motion,
which is basically staff's recommendation and I will fall
back on the fact that we hopefully can develop development
agreements with whoever might be doing something there at a later date
to lessen the impact on people immediately adjacent to f.
and we have it already. You accept the second? Yes.
or the motion for the second. Okay. Any other comments? Yes, dave.
okay. Is to clarify, first of all, so you're saying that
d e f and m, even that's going to double what we need.
that correct? Yeah, it's all of it.
motion is for everything. Okay. I guess I'll
throw it out there. That's probably deaf ears, I
guess now, but I do not think it's wise that we
take a place that is only zoned for commercial now.
and now we've converted over to mixed use to change the housing. We've never
done that before. We've taken mixed use and put it in basically the rhna bucket.
that's the first time we've done that. It's
a bad precedent. We're talking 18 businesses.
hey, sianara, I just can't express how bad I think it is. It makes our city look.
so, I cannot support the item. I cannot support
m. Okay. Any josh, did you have a comment? No.
no, I was. And I'll go again. I'll curse you back to erica.
did you have any other comments? Because you don't like to push.
I don't have any comments. Okay. All right.
so we are now to, at that point, the motion,
there is a motion and a second to prove this item.
and I'm going to turn to joshua to do the vote. Yes.
thank you, mr. Mayor. Council member pezled. How do you vote? No.
council member sweeney. Aye.
council member wheeler. Mayor caskey. Aye. And mayor per time, mathis. Aye.
yeah, I just have it. Okay. All right. So, we're to the next item.
do we really need to call a roll call again?
we're seeing here. Or is that just a duplicate?
we're going to move on to item 2.2. Yes.
actually, we're going to move on to 2.2. But I want to tell everybody
in the room, which 2.2 is, you know, the 70 matters inclusionary zoning.
staff has done a ton of work on this. And
with also outside consultants that, you know,
use some of the, you know, the really dug in
because one of the things that we need to do.
we need to do is to make sure it isn't that we just
passed something. It's going to go back to hcd for review.
and it's got to be realistic on their part.
and I'm not going to make an editorial out of that. I could.
but the point is, is that it is like threading a needle.
and so we, I do, I want to really commend staff for all that work.
and what they're really trying to do is make sure
that we land on a finish line, that we don't get,
you know, somebody coming back and saying, even
though we passed something, that they don't like it.
and now here we go again. So I really commend staff and everybody's
worked so diligently on this, you know, whether you voted yes or no.
and, and I really thank them for that effort.
so with that, we're going to move on to item 2.2.
rz and e dash 0, 0, 1, 5 dash 2, 0, 2, 6, an amendment to title
ix and the laguna hills municipal code to establish inclusionary
housing requirements as identified in implementation programs, h dash
6, h dash 7 of the laguna hills 2021 through 2029 housing element.
the project includes and ordinance establishing inclusionary
housing requirements for residential development projects
in accordance with state law and establishing an inclusionary
housing fund into which in lieu of fees will be deposited.
and a resolution establishing a schedule of in lieu of affordable housing fees
and administration fees associated with inclusionary housing requirements.
and the recommendation of the city to the city clant council and
we will conduct a public hearing. That's what we'll be doing first.
and we do find the ordinance and resolution are not subject to
environmental review under the california environmental quality act ceqa.
to sequel guidelines sections 15, 0, 6, 0, parentheses,
print to and section 15, 378 as the ordinance and resolution
have no potential to result in direct or reasonable reasonably
foreseeable indirect physical change to the environment.
number 3, introduce for first reading and the title
being an ordinance of the city of the laguna hills.
and california adopting our in our z any dash 0, 0, 1, 5 dash 2, 0, 2, 6 for the
inclusionary housing program by adding chapter
9 dash through 73 dash inclusionary housing.
of title ix, zoning code of laguna hills municipal code to establish an
inclusionary housing program required the provision of affordable housing in
certain residential developments establish an inclusionary housing fund and
provide alternative methods of compliance and make findings related there too.
and number 4, adopt the resolution entitled a resolution of the city council of the
city
of laguna hills california establishing an inclusionary housing in lieu of affordable
housing housing fee as an alternative to providing affordable housing units required
by
chapter 9 dash 73 9 through 73 inclusionary housing of the laguna hills municipal
code.
so this is a public hearing for an amendment
to the laguna hills code and we welcome all
as we did before you all have a chance to have
input and I call for the staff report now.
go ahead, director lowe.
good evening, mayor and members of the council, so this is a proposed inclusionary
housing ordinance and in lieu fee that is being presented to you for consideration.
so why an inclusionary housing program.
so the housing program, the inclusionary
housing program is intended to implement housing
element programs h6 and h7 which call for an
inclusionary housing and corresponding in lieu fee.
the intent also for inclusionary housing is to
create a predictable mechanism for developers
of generating de restricted affordable housing as new residential development occurs.
recent residential approvals have produced substantially fewer
affordable units than assumed in the housing element plan framework.
the previous item in february 24th of 2026 the city officially entered
into a state of no net loss and then an inclusionary program would help
support the city's long term affordable housing objectives reducing
reliance on future corrective actions under the state's no net loss program.
the proposed program would apply to residential developments of 10 dwelling units,
subject to specified exemptions it would
require 15% of the new units to be affordable.
affordable units must be integrated within the market rate units
and comparable in quality design, better mix and amenity access.
the availability restrictions would be for a minimum of 55 years and developers must
submit an affordable housing plan and execute a recorded affordable housing agreement.
so the proposed affordability levels, the overall requirement for both rental
and ownership would be 15% for rental would be divided between seven and a
half percent very low and seven and a half percent lower meaning the developer
could satisfy the remaining seven and a half with either low or very low.
and then for ownership housing 15% with 5% lower income and 10% moderate.
so the relationship to rhna with no net loss
inclusionary housing is a production tool but
not necessarily a substitute for the city's
housing element and no net loss obligations.
just to break down, the rhna is basically to establish the
housing units the city must plan for by income category.
no net loss would occur if the city's site inventory decreased below
the threshold to be able to satisfy it with future developments.
and then the role for inclusionary housing would be
to create actual deed restricted affordable units.
it would reduce future lower income production deficits and reliance on
additional rezoning or corrective actions like we did with no net loss.
but it is not intended to replace the requirement
to maintain housing element site capacity.
sorry. So how developers can satisfy the inclusionary requirement the baseline would
be to construct the required inclusionary units within the residential project.
there are methods for alternative compliance the applicant can
propose alternative methods for city council consideration.
those examples could be limited to offsite affordable housing, land dedication
acquisition or generally any method providing
an equivalent public benefit to the city.
the other option is to pay the in lieu fee so would be available to all ownership
units subject to the ordinance and to rental units containing between 10 and 20 units.
but that being said rental developments with more
than 20 units have to provide affordable housing
on site unless they are able to just show that
there is a case of extreme economic hardship.
so what's going to support the in lieu fee the city engaged keyser marston and
associates to economically study and what could be supported for in lieu fees.
the study was based on the proposed income levels
evaluating the fee using affordability standards.
the affordability gap which would be the economic difference between a
market rate unit and an affordable unit regarding rent or sales price.
in local market prototypes the city used representative rental and ownership
prototypes based on the housing element sites rezoning and market surveys.
so the study concluded for base in lieu fees a per
square foot for rental at the highest which would
be the 20 units at $41 and $0.21 a square foot and
$61 and $0.40 a square foot for ownership housing.
keyser marston concluded that unit size affects
the affordability gap so then an area based
fee better correlates the fee with the economic
value of the affordable housing obligation.
it is a sliding scale so smaller developments the in lieu fee would
be less the lower amount is basically because inclusion requirements
tend to have a proportionally greater impact on smaller projects
because fewer market rate units are able to offset that cost.
but the full fee at 20 units would be stated $41 and $0.
21 for rental and $0.61 and $0.40 a square foot for ownership.
some policy considerations so this ordinance is intended to balance affordable housing
production with the need to avoid creating
unnecessary barriers to new for sale housing.
the proposed ownership mix is 15% with 5% lower and 10% moderate.
we did not necessarily go deeper in terms of affordability just
because it would further the economic burden for for sale projects.
the higher project costs can affect project feasibility financing
and the ability to actually bring new housing to the market.
this proposed mix is intended to produce affordable ownership opportunities
without discouraging new housing productions for the developers.
overall the ordinance has proposed was to provide that balance between
ownership opportunities while still maintaining housing production.
so the rental versus the ownership in lieu fees rental housing.
the market rents were studied for affordable rents for very low
and low income which led to the $41 and $0.20 per square foot.
ownership the market sales price with affordable units
were compared and then this is where the affordability
gap was substantially larger on a per unit basis
which is equivalent to the $61 and $0.40 worth.
the fee was generated based on the supportability gap
not necessarily just the 15% inclusion and requirement.
so this fee is tied to the affordability
obligation established by the proposed ordinance.
it is not a generic development fee.
a rental and ownership fees reflects the different affordability
gaps through separate market and financial analyses.
this methodology used representative prototypes rather than a single project
to ensure that the range of housing was accurately reflected in the fees.
and then the 10 to 20 unit sliding sales to address the
disproportionate financial impact on smaller developments.
keyser marston recommends an annual index based adjustment and a
comprehensive reevaluation every five years to reflect the market.
so all in lieu fees and monitoring fees will be
deposited into a dedicated inclusionary housing fund.
funds may be used for affordable housing purposes
including acquisition, construction, rehabilitation,
development assistance, rental assistance, first time home
buyer assistance and program administration monitoring.
the reported affordable housing agreement would establish
affordability restrictions and monitoring the resale
and occupancy patrols as well as the long term compliance
of the obligations over the period of the agreements.
and the fee schedule may be updated periodically
to reflect those changing market conditions.
so that gets to staff's recommendation.
staff is recommending that the city council conduct a public hearing.
find the ordinance and resolution are not subject to ceqa
under guidelines section 1-5-0-6-0-0-6-2 and 1-5-3-7-8.
introduce the inclusionary housing ordinance as proposed for
first reading, read by title only and wait for the reading.
and adopt the resolution establishing the inclusionary housing in the fee.
and I am available for questions as well as I have
kathy head from keyser marston is available too.
thank you.
okay. Thank you.
do we have agency that is not trying to believe that
you can see members that's questions of the staff?
presentation and I will go first to jared mathis.
thank you, mr. Mayor. The concern that I have
is whether or not this will create a situation
where we don't have any further development in
the city because of fees or anything like that.
but let's just say that that is the impact, right?
the development or building of projects goes to zero
and the recommended review period is five, every
five years take a look and see what this looks like.
if we wanted to, we could take another look at it in five
years and make adjustments based on market activity, correct?
I'm wrong. Other than the different iterations of the mall that up until the last two
years, 25, 26, zero developments were approved in the city of laguna hills since 2012.
yes, the last development with residential and
a commercial was in 2012 for oakbrook village.
so the current five projects are the first projects approved
since 2012, not counting the different iterations of the mall.
yes.
okay. Thank you.
okay. I will move now to councilman wheeler.
thank you. Well, let me start with that last
question that the mayor for two math was asked.
he said nothing has been approved since 2012. What about rihanna?
2012 was rihanna oakbrook village.
rihanna was that far back. They just didn't build it to an effort. Okay.
that was much more recent than that. Okay.
somebody else mentioned acd review. I was under the
understanding that acd did not have to review it.
that we were just, you know, obliged to meet it, but they didn't check on it.
so hcd does have several opportunities to basically check on the city status.
so with the adopted housing element, one of the items that was
called out as an implementation item was the inclusionary housing.
so every year the city has to submit an annual progress
report of how it's meeting its implementation requirements.
there's a table that the state releases that actually lists
all the city's implementation measures and then it is reviewed.
the city has to provide an update of where we are on those implementation
measures that we had promised to do as part of the housing element.
so every year that we've turned in an apr, we have stated that we have
not moved forward and continue to look into an inclusionary housing.
at some point, hcd can request that we honor what
we had said we would do as part of the elements.
also with, I mean, hcd is constantly reviewing
and checking cities for status on compliance.
I mean, sharing that any policies or organs we adopt are in conformance with
the housing accountability act as well as whatever we stated in the element.
so this is not officially submitted, but that doesn't
mean hcd would not be aware that we are doing this.
then what I heard was that I'm correct, we do not have some, we do have to do a
report which just says, okay, of the areas we've designated, here's how it's going.
if they want to look deeper, they can.
okay, so we do not have to report here.
okay, page four please.
the presentation of the presentation.
okay, I need some clarification.
excuse me, under the rental housing it says very low
and lower under the ownership, it says lower income.
okay, there's four categories that I think we have
to meet is extremely low, very low and moderate.
first of all, that's correct.
extremely low, very low, low and moderate is that yes,
but generally extremely low falls under the lower income.
sorry, so you're saying it's on the very low and low.
I wasn't clear on that.
fair the influence.
hcd focuses on very low and low.
okay, very low and low.
okay, is extremely low required or not?
it is listed as a report.
the calculations in terms of rina fall under the lower, which is very low.
so, if we built no extremely low, we would still meet rina.
correct.
okay, why do we even include it then?
we should eliminate that from our lexicon.
I mean, I can't predict what's going to be required as part of the seventh cycle.
okay.
okay, then clarify, okay, we've got very low on this table and lower.
so, I'm assuming that lower means low.
low and very low.
yeah, I know, but the word should not be lower, it should be low.
it would be very low and low in the rental.
so, it could be satisfied, the 15% was seven and a half
percent of the units have to be dedicated to very low.
and then the developer can satisfy the
remaining seven and a half percent with lower,
which means they could either provide very
low or low to meet that remaining percentage.
okay, we're probably need to ask for them because these,
so this match of the actual categories we have to meet.
okay, so lower, asterisk means low or very low.
okay. In the ownership, lower income, is that again the same thing?
only another different word usage?
but also, lower income meaning very low and low.
okay, so that's the same thing.
I probably should be made more explicit.
okay, thank you.
page eight, please.
okay, this is a confusion on mathematics here.
$41.20 per square foot, square foot versus 61.40 per square foot.
if you see the two numbers above that, those are not, those don't match.
the 647 is more than twice, the 269.
but be a mapper square foot is not double.
so, I don't understand how those even came about.
hi, I'm kathy head from keyser marston.
there are two, thanks for you.
there are two completely different measures.
so the square footages of the units and the ownership prototypes
are significantly larger than the units in the apartment units.
and so when you're measuring, so that's why we
showed it two ways for illustrative purposes to say,
here's the affordability gap, looking at the per unit.
so, the difference between what the, it's easier to explain with ownership than
rental is the difference between the market rate price and the affordable price.
this affordable price is the affordability gap.
for each moderate income, or in this case the mix of low and moderate,
then the weighted average affordability gap is $647,000
per affordable unit you'd be required to provide.
then the way the per square foot measure works is taking the entire project.
because then the notion is there are no affordable units.
and so you're just spreading that 647 over the entire mix of the project.
it would generate exactly the same fee if you just use that one project.
but our suggestion to use per square foot is because typically the affordability
gap for smaller units will be less than the affordability gap for larger units.
and so it's more fair to allocate per square foot than it is per unit.
okay, I'm sorry, but that didn't make sense at all to me.
okay, okay, let me make a sense.
I could try it a different way.
okay, there's, you have a housing unit.
it has semi-square feet in it.
same thing.
if you multiply that time to 61, okay, you get a number.
yeah.
if you have a rental unit, it has square foot, square feet, it's fine to it.
and if it's, let's just say for sake your environment, they're both the same size.
those numbers aren't right.
but they're not the same size.
okay, well, you're telling me the square foot is different between the two?
yes.
okay, well, square foot is only the square foot.
well, no, but as a per unit, it's tend to be smaller than ownership units.
that's still nothing.
well, no, so we have prototype.
a square foot is still a square foot.
it's a square foot of the total area.
so you have to take the square foot times the total area of the
project and then figure out what the affordability gap is for that.
so it's completely different.
if you look at the report, I mean, I'm happy to go through
some examples from the report where we show the prototypes.
and then what that difference is on a per unit basis and a per square foot basis.
I have the report.
we can go through it.
okay, that's right.
there's no more doing that.
it's not apples to apples, dave.
it's two different size.
a four-sale home is bigger than, or unit is bigger than the four-room.
it's not only that, but it's different.
it's different.
you're basically on a different size.
yeah, my only question is, it's a multi-variable question actually too.
because the cost per square foot of building a multi-story apartment
building is much higher per square foot than a typical housing unit.
so you've got square footages.
you've got cost per square foot.
so I don't know that that's where the apples and apples things come in.
it's not, you're not looking at something that just crosses over
and it's exactly something you can calculate quite that way.
you've got elevators.
you've got a different level of fire protection,
all kinds of things in an apartment building.
a large one especially.
then you do single-family home or town homes or things like that.
that's it.
thank you. I don't know my math professor was avoiding oil for that.
anyway.
okay.
for sake environment, can we say in five years, everything is different now.
can we go from 15% to 20% or are we restricted, never to go up?
which I've heard has happened in the past.
well, we can always go up. It would just require
additional feasibility studies to justify that increase.
so we would have to have a feasibility study to justify anything over 15%.
what do you mean by feasibility study?
are you saying that now the doers are going to
afford more so we're going to get more out of them?
what you do with the feasibility study is you would look at the courts of determined
that there can be an economic impact of creating an inclusionary housing requirement.
they've found that it's a planning tool rather than an extraction so far.
this remains an outstanding issue.
there are court cases as we sit right now.
and so, as jen just said, anything could change in the number of years.
but right now, what hcd is basically said is if you have
a 15% requirement, they're kind of deeming it feasible.
so that's where that notion comes from.
so if you go above the 15%, then you would be in a position where you had
to evaluate what the economic impact was of imposing this planning tool.
so clearly, there is one because the developers getting less
money than they would if it was 100% market rate project.
the courts didn't tell us how much that economic impact could be.
they merely said it can't be confiscatory and it can't deprive
a property owner of a fair and reasonable return on investment.
then they left that to the jurisdictions to determine what they were comfortable with.
and so, in the case of laguna hills, if you
approve the ordinance, you have determined that you
are comfortable with the affordable housing
requirements that you're recommending at the moment.
okay, long answer to say yes, okay.
okay, question of why is it that the state is requiring
us to build 65% of our units as some type of affordable.
why should we be happy with 15?
they are directly connected, but the rhna and then how
you get credit for the number of units on your rezoning.
they've assigned basically to allow you to count potentially up
to 100% of your rhna towards low income with that feasibility.
but they see the inclusionary is not to fully satisfy your rhna.
it's just meant as a planning tool to help encourage additional affordable.
so, they should be related though.
I mean, could grief they tell us to build 1985 places,
but then you're only allowed to make 15 of them affordable,
which I'll get to a child in my present amenity.
it's more homework on this one. That's absolutely absurd.
we have to build 65, but we're only allowed to charge 15.
let's see if I have another question as opposed to comment.
one more comment. State law seems to try to
override everything that the city tries to do.
the other question is one of the questions.
what the question is that even if we did approve this inclusionary,
I mean, I talked to you on monday and there's like
four things you mentioned to me that can be done.
are there any state laws that would override this, basically?
my understanding is no.
so, even though there's state density bonus that generally
sets the standard for certain densities to come in at 5%.
the inclusionary housing, if you adopt it, would apply.
the issue comes down to if you do not have inclusionary
and then an sb330 application is submitted,
then you're locked into whatever provisions are currently in place.
if we adopt afterwards, would not be applicable.
okay, I like your order answer, but okay, basically you're saying
that right now, state law cannot override this inclusionary.
I'm looking to the city attorney, but I'm confirming that
density bonus cannot override an inclusionary housing.
actually, maybe this is a column question.
that's correct. I mean, state laws will still apply
for the waiver's concessions and those things,
but the inclusionary housing will be something that we can require
from developers and even developers to request density bonuses.
okay, well, you said something that bothers me.
you said that they could still use other things to override this?
not to override this, we can still require that 15%.
this, no, not to override this.
we can still require the inclusionary housing number.
okay, so no state laws that can override this as of today.
as of today that I'm aware of, no, that's correct.
okay, no tell them what to do tomorrow, but okay, thank you.
I thought my question's correct.
councillor, I'm just waiting.
thank you, mayor.
thank you, mayor. My question is, how do the proposed
requirements compare specifically with our neighboring cities
when we're competing for the same development capital?
so I can say that when we drafted this ordinance,
it's very comparable to some of the other cities.
it's modeled very closely after the city of mission vehicles,
which was recently tested with their vista dellogo project.
so the whole point was to not necessarily create an ordinance that
wouldn't be consistent with the framework from surrounding cities.
okay, thank you.
and do we know the estimated annual administrative cost to the city
for compliance monitoring, income certification, resale controls, all that stuff?
like, what is the cost of the city having to take on this burden?
so that would be the next step is to go through and conduct an rfp for an
affordable housing consultant to better assess what that value would be.
so at this time, I do not know.
other than potentially checking with other cities to find out
what their affordable housing consultant has been charging.
gotcha.
last question is, why is a five-year comprehensive fee review sufficient
in a market that can change significantly within a year or two?
what I've recommended is that you use an annual index to increase or decrease the
fee based on the changes in values and then to do a full review every five years.
the only reason for that is cities tend not to do any adjustments after they make one.
and so having that automatic annual, either increase or decrease
based on market on a very simple measure, tends to happen.
but then I suggest that it does need to periodically in five years isn't magic.
you could do it in seven years or ten years or I've had jurisdictions,
especially when they're just adopting for the first time.
to say we're going to look at it in three years and see whether
development is stopped entirely or whether development is going crazy.
and then we'll readjust then.
so you're not found by it. These are just recommended parameters.
gotcha. Okay. Thank you.
you're welcome.
all right. I'm going to turn to council member pazold in case
you had any questions for clarification as you wanted to staff.
yeah. So the item.
so basically this item is requesting essentially that if they can't satisfy or that
they can pay into a way to reduce the amount of low income housing. Is that correct?
so the intent of the in lieu fee is that instead of providing
the affordable units, they could pay that in lieu fee instead,
whether it's for the full amount of affordable units or they
can do potentially a partial and then have to pay the remaining.
for whatever units that they're missing based on that.
so my question is, how does it well, basically if a developer if you have a very
wealthy developer, they could essentially pay the cost versus another developer.
and so how does this help when you have developers with
deeper pockets that can just pay their way out of it?
the notion is the way the requirement is set up is that it's
equivalent to either pay the fee or to produce the affordable units.
and so the notion would be a developer would
likely choose to pay the fee when they can
because it provides them certainty and then they
get all the upside potential on all the units.
but the math is it should be equivalent and that's
the notion is that's the whole affordability
gap of providing the affordable units required by the inclusionary housing ordinance.
so it should not make a difference. But what I will say is there are options that make
it more appealing to develop and the most
notable one would be the state density bonds.
and then I'll be able to build what I want because I can essentially ignore that.
so the in lieu fees did not take into the developers, I think we could
say budget or whether or not they're a wealthy developer or not. This
in lieu fee was established to create a little more of a predictable
and level playing field regardless of the capacity of the developer.
so the intent with the affordability gap is that this would be the
true cost of whether or not they provide that unit. So if they do
not decide to include the inclusionary unit into their development,
they would pay the equivalent for what that cost was to the city.
so there necessarily isn't an advantage to
whether they build it or pay the fee. Yes, but
the objective of this, the objective is to
make sure that the low income housing is built.
so this is a way for to have an inclusionary ordinance. It's just
a way to get more money if somebody wants to just override it
and then we're back to square one, which is we have to rezone,
but we have more money in our pocket, the city has more money.
and so that's what I am very concerned about is that we're
just essentially charging a fee and we are no better off.
sorry. And terms rhna. I mean, so if our objective is to make sure
that each city and we don't continuously have these rhna numbers
pop up and that we have to keep bringing low income housing and a
developer comes in with deeper pockets, they can just pay that off.
so I'm concerned that we are no better if you have a wealthier
developer and then another question that I have is basically,
what about the past projects that have already been zoned will
this retro active and also, okay, if it's not retro active,
what if a developer comes in that has already been given
entitlements with this trigger if they come in for more
entitlements, they change their plans with this trigger and
make it so they have to be follow this inclusionary ordinance.
so with the first question, the first question with the approved projects.
so one, I guess the one that I can answer is that this
would not apply retroactively to any approved projects.
however, if a major modification were to come forward and they submit
a new application, the inclusionary housing program would apply.
with inclusionary housing as just developers paint out the fee, affordable
housing and inclusionary housing isn't necessarily intended just to satisfy rhna.
it is to provide a revenue stream if in if in luffy's are paid where the
city can further perpetuate affordable housing programs or obligations.
for example, if one community there 55 year sunset was coming up and the
affordable agreement would be no longer applicable, the city could potentially use
those funds to encourage the property owner to maintain affordable housing for
even a longer period of time, so necessarily would it become a market rate unit.
there's other things that could also provide assistance on affordable housing like
first time home buyer loans, other incentives or rebates to encourage home ownership.
okay, so this really is only for developers that don't
have a deep enough pockets to pay their way out of this.
it doesn't assist entirely with affordability and low income if that is our
goal and objective is to make sure that we can not continuously have rhna.
so, okay, thank you.
I don't really have any other questions or clarification, so I
do want to point out that and staff can correct me if I'm wrong.
these in lieu of fees, if that's the direction it goes, it's
not going into the city general fund, is going into a specific
account that is really meant to make the ability to create
the units that the developer doesn't want to put in happen.
okay, and we're going to give you all the details
and all the rest of that, but it isn't just a
simple buy your way out and the city, you know,
it goes and uses it on cross rocks or something.
it's meant, it is meant and set aside for affordable
housing, so that's my clarification, not a question.
I need you to clarify that because I don't understand that.
if we have to speak to it. Okay, yeah, if we get the money,
so it was to buy their way out, and we get, you know, to
take five and a half million dollars, what do we do with
that, doesn't it go to our general fund, what does it go?
by going into an inclusionary housing fund, it would be earmarked for
the city to use to further affordable housing in the city. The in lieu
fee would not be necessarily used to improve a park. So it would have
to be, there had to be a nexus on what the city would use the money for.
and the ultimate goal furthering affordable housing within the city.
okay, I still don't hear my answer to my
question, what does the money be used for? Do you
give it out to people that buy the house and
they can't afford it or where's the money go to?
we would develop a program system that would dedicate, I guess the
city council could decide necessarily what would constitute acceptable.
so some of the things that the inclusionary housing fund could be used for would
be the acquisition of property to assist with an affordable housing developer.
we could assist with the cost of construction of affordable housing,
affordable housing rehabilitation, development assistance, rental
assistance programs, first time home buyer assistance, as well as
the administration and monitoring of affordable housing programs.
but right now the way this is written, we just collect the money and we have no plan.
so the staff report calls out, so there would have to be a clear
nexus of what the city could use those inclusionary in lieu fees for.
so it would be limited to furthering affordable housing, which includes
programs that we could develop similar to the ones that I just referenced.
when does that plan develop?
well, if the inclusionary housing program is adopted, we can begin looking at
potential programs until we actually have a development that provides fees.
it's difficult to necessarily assess and develop a
program yet until we know how much money we can do.
all right, with that, it is 620 and I'm going to open a public hearing.
and, or you're on the phone with us, the council members can ask you
questions or clarifications about your public opinion that you're expressing.
I'm going to announce that if you are participating remotely and
wish to speak regarding this item, dial star 9 on a telephone.
and now race that will to us will raise your hand to indicate you wish to speak.
you will be identified by the last four digits of your phone number.
when you have been recognized to speak, dial star 9, star 6, excuse me, to unmute.
so I'm now going to look to our city clerk for
any public speakers for the public hearing item.
first in favor of and then against the matter and then online remote
and finally read off the names of those who submitted the computer.
yes, thank you, mr. Mayor.
the first name is rona henry.
I'll come back again. I name is rona henry with welcoming neighbors home.
we've seen this inclusionary housing, housing ordinances worked in nearby cities.
and we believe it can ensure more affordable housing that
will be part of future developments here in laguna hills.
the proposed ordinance is a solid proposal.
it's not the most strict we've seen, but it's not the easiest either.
the requirement that 7.4%, 7.5% below and 7.5% very low income affordable homes
be required in any new rental housing over 10 years is a reasonable requirement.
likewise, the requirement for 15% for four
sale homes be affordable for lower and moderate
income households seems appropriate considering market conditions since I'll go see.
the in-loop fee scheduled recommended by keyser marston associate seems
feasible and we'd like to see it incorporated into the housing ordinance.
would I like the required percentage of
affordable housing to be higher? Yes, of course.
but my research has revealed that 15% has been found to be
economically feasible when no other supports are offered.
as I understand it, the higher percentage could be perceived as of being
a disincentive to housing if it's more than 15% or about 15 or 20%.
so until laguna hills, the county, the state, the federal government or philanthropy
is ready to offer funding for land or land to build even more affordable housing.
this inclusionary housing ordinance is a step in the right direction.
for too long, too many cities in orange county have been case studies
for missed opportunities when it comes to building affordable housing.
too many housing developments have been permitted without
requiring a fair share of affordable housing to be included.
this ordinance will help laguna hills meet its regional housing needs assessment
goals for lower income homes as similar audiences have in other cities.
and most importantly, provide much needed affordable housing
options for working households and our cities retire community.
thank you for your time.
I have a question from dave wheeler.
okay, you just said that these are reasonable numbers.
if that's so, why aren't you petitioning and why aren't you marching
on sacramento to tell them to make that the requirement on us?
well, the 15% as I understand it is what hcd will allow.
so I think that's already been done.
no, I'm saying, but they're requiring 65% on us.
aren't you petitioning a city if you think that's reasonable?
oh, there's a different things.
and I'm not the best person to explain it to you.
I think stays our cooper ruby's can do it much better job explaining to it.
but I feel I know it, but not well enough to explain it to you.
okay, anything else?
yeah, that's fine.
that really wasn't a question.
yeah, but we took a little over there.
okay, thank you.
yes, fair enough.
all right, our next figure.
rudy with no last name given?
well, once again, I want to commend the city for
your continued effort to look in a holistic approach
as to how to go for the ability to really identify
insights where you can meet your re-nobligations.
I think the inclusionary ordinance is a great way to meet these re-nobligations.
so we're in favor of the proposed ordinance at the 7.5, 7.5, 15% inclusionary.
we are in favor of the kma in luffy schedule.
I also want to kind of go over one of the comments council member we
learned made about housing affordability only solving 30% of a problem.
I think what you're referring to is the definition of what housing affordability is,
which is that 30% of a person's income should
not be spent on housing or more than 30%.
the purpose of the standard is really to prevent housing costs from consuming so much
income that a person cannot spend on other issues like utilities, basic needs, health.
so that's really where this percentage comes from and it's
not that we're putting them in places where they can't afford.
it's not that we're opening opportunities for folks to live in places
where they're open to dignified and equitable places to live in.
to recalculate that the area median income for orange county says that
low income household for a family of four is considered to make 148,850.
30% of somebody that family can spend up to $3,721 and they're rent so
we are recognizing that orange county is a very expensive place to live.
a lot of families don't make that and they're still
categorize low income so our hope is that policies
like this can create better opportunities for
families in orange county to meet that housing need.
the 2025 apr which was released early spring around march april shows up the city
of laguna hills has not been producing much units for the lower income categories.
I saw in the presentation in september you all did approve a
couple more, but we believe that this ordinance would create a more
robust solution to housing affordability here and can prevent maybe
like you all mentioned sacrificing properties or commercial area.
commercial areas in the future to meet these
needs and potential net loss in the future
by providing a more appropriate way to addressing
the lower income categories in the city.
thank you.
any questions there? Dave.
you have any questions? You don't. All right, next speaker. Thank you.
marcelo lawson.
thank you, mayor and city council. My name is
marcelo lawson. I'm a homeowner here in laguna
hills and I'm here to urge you to support the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance.
I'm very concerned about ensuring that sufficient
affordable housing is available in our city.
I have two young children as do many of my
friends. Sorry, young adult children as do many of
my friends and it's frustrating to sit by and
watch them struggle to find affordable housing.
I also volunteer at several capacities where I see neighbors who navigate food
insecurity, housing insecurity, financial insecurity and health insecurity.
the high cost of housing in our area makes it very challenging
for families to maintain stable housing and afford basic needs.
we're all better off when young people, families and
seniors in our community can thrive rather than struggle.
passing this inclusionary housing ordinance will help ensure
that the needed affordable housing units are actually produced.
rather than having a disappointing outcome that we had with the
theravita project were only 5% of the units were affordable.
having this ordinance in place, everyone will know what
to expect. Developers will know what's required of them,
the city can count on meeting their rent goals, and the
community will know that affordable housing is on the way.
we know that additional affordable housing
is needed to meet the needs in our community.
let's make sure it's done efficiently. Irvine and mission b.a.
ho have done this and it's working there. Let's do it here in laguna hills as well.
I urge the council to pass the ordinance now so that all future housing development
projects in our city will include an appropriate portion of affordable housing.
thank you. Just a clarification.
you said theravita was 5%? My understanding was a zero.
thank you.
>> cesar koper-rubius.
>> good evening mayor, council members.
we're here to support the proposal by staff.
I want to recognize the hard work that's gone into this. It's a project that started
with your fifth cycle in looking at what progress was developed in the fifth cycle.
and looking at policies and programs or the lack of progress
that happened because of those policies that were not in there.
and this is a recognition, I think, from city and the
staff that there needs to be policies and programs
along with land use that are going to produce the
incomes, pardon me, the outcomes that you would want.
so, in hiring the consultant like keyser marston, who's doing this
work statewide and is recognized as a leader in this area, I think
you're getting the best advice that you can get, the best analysis,
and try to improve the analysis that's working in other jurisdictions.
where this is happening, where this opportunity
is happening in sondana, and other cities
in orange county, and many across the state.
so, I do want to urge you to approve this.
I would also mention that. This is also an
opportunity to address what we discussed earlier.
the shortfalls on these sites will happen if you don't
have a policy or a program in place. And I think this
is a good opportunity to address that along with the
commitments that you already made in the housing elements.
so, thank you for the opportunity to be here and thank you also for
working on this. I know it's not an easy decision, but I think it's
the right decision to make at this point where you have the opportunity
to create housing for all income segments, not just a hiring
community, to redefine what affordable housing is. We talk about extremely
low, very longer time about families making 30,000, all the way to 148,000.
most are working families in your community who deserve the opportunity to
live here and thrive here in your community. So, thank you for doing that.
>> thank you, susan. Next, I don't see anybody questions.
go ahead. >> kathy, you don't?
>> I think two tall for me. I'm going to do with this short one.
hi, everybody. Mayor, pro tem, and everyone else.
I love you guys. You guys have been rocking it so far.
I'm here to support the inclusionary housing product ordinance.
and one of the things that I heard over there and I just want clarification on, so
the previous projects that have been approved already are not under this ordinance.
>> I don't believe so. >> and did we not do this
ordinance earlier in order to get them to stay around?
it just seems to me because they're much bigger that they have
the capacity to have helped bring down the numbers that you need.
>> I'm just clarifying. >> you're basically saying something in
hindsight that we're looking back and why didn't we do this earlier?
>> it is basically, yeah. I definitely think that it's a good idea to do this.
I'm just, why didn't we do it a little bit earlier?
>> I can't really comment on that other than the fact it
wasn't to gain favor or do anything special for anybody.
>> yeah, and I know that some of the concern has always been that when you put some
sort of limitations on people or that they may or may not choose to build here.
and yet we know from irvine and how they got something
like 4000 low income and very low income housing.
now they've been building like crazy because they've got a lot of extra land.
so that's one of our problems is we don't have lots of land.
so I'm hoping, and I missed the first part of this so I don't know where some of those
areas where I know you guys sent out a map last week when it came out with the things.
so I know it was like little small areas because we just
don't have big spaces of land anymore, which is a bummer.
so basically just, yes. Yes. >> hang on there. >> I've got any questions or?
>> I will actually comment on that last little piece. >> what?
>> I'm going to comment on that last little piece. >> okay.
>> so stay tuned. To say that a city doesn't have any land is not really the truth.
and I'm just going to give you an analogy and leave it at that.
you know, this city is about I think six square miles or something like that.
we don't have a lot of fallow land that is ready to be developed on.
we have land that already has developments on it.
and so does paris and rome and london.
that doesn't mean that the city doesn't change and
morph and do things over hundreds of years, okay?
we're 35 years old about.
so, but I agree it makes things more expensive.
now you're going to tear something down.
you're going to, you know, all that kind of thing.
but do you need to understand, you know, that
is an impact if you're over in lake forest.
and you've got hillsides full of land that you could do
stuff, you know, it's a lot easier to do these things
because you're starting with roger, a much of which, a lot
of, of which in some cases was actually owned by the city.
a little different scenario.
so I'm just giving you a little bit of feedback
that it's not quite as simple as you might think.
okay, next speaker.
anna gromis.
good evening. I apologize. I was in a hurry.
last time I gave public comment and I failed to introduce myself.
anna gromis here representing the building industry association
of southern california and specifically the orange county chapter.
thank you for having me.
we submitted a letter in opposition to this ordinance today.
I hope you had a chance to review it.
we did it in partnership with a number of coalitions across different
industries that also share that there are concerns regarding this.
and I just want to highlight just a couple of things that we have concerns with.
but the bottom line is we would like to respectfully request for a continuance
so that we have time to meet with staff and to discuss this in more detail.
I was notified about this on monday, which is just not adequate time. Yes, me too.
unfortunately, it's just not adequate time
to really be able to meet with our builders.
have their team assessed the fees, the methodologies, the study, the feasibility,
and so respectfully we would request more time to be able to do that.
we mentioned in the letter there's a recent uci study that goes into detail as to why
inclusionary zoning is not working and how
it actually adds to the cost of construction.
and I also want to draw your attention to the city of
san francisco just last month and july voted to reduce
their inclusionary requirement from 15% by percent,
because they realize that no development was happening.
the fees were too high and the burden on construction was
just too great and so it stopped all development in the city.
we actually have a review process of every three
years on every five years. So it was a three
year review process. They realize no development
is happening. We need to adjust this number.
so again, city of laguna hills has always been a great partner
and very collaborative with the bia and we appreciate that.
we just would respectfully ask for additional
time to be able to discuss further. Thank you.
next speaker, victor cow.
good evening, mr. Mayor. Members of the city council, my name is victor cow.
and with the california department association, we have
over 13,000 member companies who represent over 70,000
real estate professionals in industry, who wouldn't
operate roughly 2 million market rate and affordable.
housing units across the state of california, apologize for my outburst earlier.
I thought I was late to the meeting. I had a step out for a little bit.
but this issue is so important and you are so important in this discussion.
I want to cover a few things in terms of what the city's obligations are.
and that's been largely covered in the previous discussion.
you're required to zone, not necessarily to build.
and what has also been in this discussion is that
the inclusionary zoning as purported by staff and the
many slides is that it's a planning tool to build.
the question is, is that an effective tool, right? The difference between
irvine and laguna hills is that they recently proved more than 10,000 units.
they have had the capacity to do so. A large part of that inclusionary
zoning housing that was done through development agreements.
the housing that wasn't done through development
agreements were done through inclusionary zoning fee
of roughly $14,000, which begs the question in terms
of transparency as it relates to what this fee is.
meeting, strength criteria, right? The effective rate, right?
the rate, the number that you want to see, right? Do you have the
conviction that the number that's presented to you? Do you have a
conviction in the math that's presented to you? Can you explain it?
what we've been able to arrive is that roughly
a thousand square foot to bedroom apartment has
a fee of roughly $41,000, right? Much different
than $14,000 to your neighbors to the north.
if we're multiplying the square footage requirement, which is roughly $41 within
a thousand square foot apartment, it would result in a fee of roughly $41,000.
it's still higher or the requirement to build on site. It puts you in
that conundrum of forcing the question of density. Density has some of
its upper limits because of different building materials that are required
and such. But there's also the floor in terms of the regulatory fees.
your fee would be one of the highest based of what we assessed
of the appendices that kma has provided in the county.
again, do you have a conviction that your fee is reasonable?
I don't think there's been any information as such.
that's why we'd love to have a continued discussion with staff in terms of what's
going to help the city meet its production goals and also its rhna requirements.
I think we need more time to be able to hand that discussion. Thank you.
just a quick question for you. That is all the comments I have.
just a quick question, victor. Just a quick question. Does that mean you oppose this?
okay. Okay, dave. I didn't see your light up on the screen until just after the fact.
do we have another secret?
I don't have any more cards for in-person. Okay, and any on the?
we have none on mine, none on. Okay, and you want to read the list.
please bear with me. In favor, we have maya dune,
marjorie gully, jeffrey gautard, anne kohler,
eileen munzer, or munzinger, brenda rodriguez,
catherine van camp, lisa young, glen cohen,
marina hamry, vera martinez, christine moore and
nello, judy northrop, mickey nuzaki, joe pinnich,
sandra rosencans, marilyn schroeder, laura shapiro,
barbara siri, roberta valdez, erin simmons-shorj,
anna henry, halla magna, john mendonka, sandra maliga, patty by taitis,
marie with no last name given, susan and david deering, robert henry, sheryl
hagin, kathy temple, bruce johnson, debbie sahali, david sahali, ann beltran,
orcella lawson, celia gunn, pat davis, denise sledger, susan b. Parks,
richard sanchez, cindy ashley, iris anderson, carolyn mcveigh,
alosoto, rhett kooski, freda gorlick, suzanne motel, cesar
kova-rubius, kathy es-fahani, sheryl starry, alice j, wendy
washington and sarah weaver, and an opposed, anna gromis.
okay, so with that, we will move on to any other questions
or clarifications of staff that anybody up here has.
okay, then we will close the public hearing and
we will now bring her back to council and public
agents planning agency for deliberation and I
will open it up to the first one to lit up, dave.
okay, robert, can I have my, the next part
of my, okay, yeah, I did some homework on the
inclusion areas to give an overview of, I guess,
my vision and I think it's pretty truthful.
okay, next slide, please.
okay, how's the unit increase? Okay, I put extremely low
on here because it's defined in the, in the literature.
you can combine extremely low and very low if that is the way they want to do it.
you can see the numbers 284, 284, low is 353 is
required, moderate, 354, and above moderate or market
rate, I guess you'd call it 710, the percentage
is there of the total, 14, 14, 17, 17, 35, 100%.
stuff this below market where you're required to build.
if you look at 64.2%, so the rhna that we have to do, it is 64% of the 1980.
okay, with the 15% inclusionary, new housing requirements would not be 1985.
our housing requirements would be 8,1496.
the math is on the next line. Take 62 divided by 15 times the 1985.
straight forward. That's what we're required. So if we commit and
by end of this, we just increased our rhna, please keep it up.
if we approve this, we have just bought into our new rhna number of 8,496.
just to give you perspective, the entire city of
laguna hills has approximately 10,500 family units.
now, if you notice, that is not a whole lot different than the 84 or
96. The percent increase in housing units would be, civil math, 8,984.
96 divided by 10,500. Basically, laguna hills has to increase by
80.91%. That is absurd. We, as I mentioned, are available of land.
we basically don't have any land. All we have is land that
we can change from what it is now to meet these requirements.
I just, you know, I can't fathom how anybody could
sit up in sacramento and profess these numbers
when they actually sit down and do the math
and look what it does to a small city like us.
irvine was mentioned a little bit ago. They have, I understand, big
financial problems. They're in debt and don't can't meet their budgets.
I'm not sure if it's true, but I'm pretty sure it
is. We at least still have a few dollars in the bank.
and I mentioned this before, but, you know, builders should follow the same rules and
percentages of the city. If we're first to build
64, then they have to be forced to build 64.
there's no reason why we need to accommodate a private
industry to make money as opposed to our citizens who pay tax
and expect things like roads and electric lights on the
street lights and all the kind of things that we provide.
it just does not make any sense to me. There was a comment
about england, I believe in london, just there last year.
and I have to admit, I drove 26 hundred miles around england and wales.
and the one thing that shocked me, you know, I got away from the big
cities, the london's and the liverpool's and got out in the country.
once you get outside the big cities, a country that's been there for ages and
ages when, you know, we wouldn't, we were, you know, just rolling hills of trees.
it's really rural, there's a lot of places out
there that once you get outside of london, or
outside of liverpool, you know, there's a lot
of land there, which is totally surprised me.
the same is true as here, and I mentioned it before,
we have land outside of the cities. And just like
in london, you know, we're surprised are extremely
high, you get out further out, you don't have that.
but yet, the prevailing sentiment is to increase increasingly, just lean on cities
and make them do the brunt of this work when all they're doing is destroying cities.
this market as far as housing, I'm sorry, but I think
that it should go with the market. I mean, you know,
supply and demand is work for years, and whether you
like it or not, believe it or not, it's going to happen.
and all this is just social engineering trying
to do things that weren't meant to be, it
was meant to be if it was a better, if it was
a better mouse trap, it would have been done.
and it just, it just pulls me, this rhna, although the, if it would
stop the housing, I would think it would be a good thing actually.
then we could have some rational thought about
how to really allocate land and really get
people to need housing, cheaper housing, you
know, a place to live instead of forcing it down.
I mean, a lot of people in laguna house have
worked hard all their lives to buy a nice house, to
build a nice area, and I heard some comment about
that people that they deserve to live there.
I can't disagree. You kind of work your way out of the thing.
I didn't start out making a sound I did when I retired. You have to build on things.
I mean, my son and daughter, neither one live in the state of california.
when I graduated from college in new york, I wouldn't have lived in new york city.
I mean, it's just too expensive. And then this is,
you have to work at things. And you have to build
something. And to come in and just, you know, destroy
everything, you know, it's just not reasonable.
it needs to be some, some planning and some
doing this though. I really don't like this.
I didn't comment about the ways allocated between residential
and owner. I'm sorry, between the apartment and owner. I think
those percentages, if we're going to do 15, it should be like,
you know, 4, 4, 4, 4 and 3 for each of the four categories.
so that we meet each one of them to some degree as opposed to
segregated. I would be my proposal if it goes through. I guess
I'm, I'm not, I'm not in favor of really doing it because it says
basically a ku bought into to 8,500 new house instead of 1985.
the in lieu fee to comment about that. The in lieu fees is
basically they're buying their way out of building what we're,
what we asked them to build. And it's just another example of
like I said, not falling the supply and demand in the market.
we're putting a cost of, well, I think it was
$640,000 on a house. More government interference
that raises the price of a house. It's just, you
know, in front of apartment, what was it, 260,000?
you go back there and buy a house a pretty nice house for for $260,000.
anyway, just this whole thing is just a big, I'm sorry, it's just a big first.
anyone else on the council? Is erica still with this? Oh, erica, did you have
something you wanted? I have something myself, but I'll let you go first if you want.
yes, first of all, I think that I think that
we should have required this a long time ago.
and it's something we've mentioned and it's something that we as a council we're
trying to push for. And I think that to be to make it so that it's fair for all of
the projects and entitlements to following if we if, if the state is mandating
something then everyone united needs to bear the burden and have their fair share.
and that's unfortunately not happening. And
what's happening is if you decide, hey, you
would like to be in it, you could the way to
get out of this just to pay right a check.
and I don't think that's right because we as a city haven't shown that we can
exercise discretion and we can't show that we can handle the incoming money.
we don't have anything structured for that. So to create a
law without a way to enforce it is not effective government.
and so I think that while it's we should do something, I think that
this is the mark and doesn't support the primary goal, which is
to ensure housing for people that can't afford if that is the primary
goal that needs to happen. This is what the state is asking for.
so I think we were going about it incorrectly.
and so those are my comments.
okay. Thank you. So oh, josh, would you like to speak?
go ahead.
if you want.
and I'd injure it.
which one wants to go first.
I'll tell you.
thank you, mr. Mayor.
the question I have for staff because there's
been concern mentioned about the in luffy and and
maybe other ways to satisfy these the standard
that's being set by this inclusionary zoning.
all that has to come to council correct.
for alternative methods of compliance. Yes. Yes.
it is up to the city council to determine whether or not an alternative.
so it all comes to us. Yes. Thank you.
I need a clarification on that. It only count once we pass it, it's set.
they don't have to come back. No. That's not what director load just reiterate.
the standard that's being set is the 15% with the parameters for 15%, but there's
also other ways to satisfy those needs and those would have to come to council.
I thought not because that's why she had the 41 61.
I mean, go ahead. You can say it again if you'd like director, though.
so there are alternative methods compliance beyond a pain in luffy.
so the in luffy is one method to comply with the inclusionary housing ordinance.
other methods that could potentially happen is
the developer could make a proposal to the city
council that they think would be in the better
interest than providing the percentage of units.
so if they decide that they want to make a proposal to the council, the council
has the right to consider it and determine if what the proposal is outweighs.
if the benefits outweigh what the inclusionary housing
ordinance provides, then the council can accept it.
I'm sorry, just clarification, but if a builder comes in and says,
I'll accept those, then they can do it. The 41 61, right? If we pass.
yes. That's what I was getting that.
if they say I'll do it, we don't it doesn't come back to us.
yeah, I was talking about the alternative methods. Yeah.
so other methods could include if they want
to dedicate land to the city, or provide other
benefits to the city that the city council would
value as providing more benefit than just the 15%.
thank you, mayor. Before deciding on this, I had a
question actually for the city attorney, if I could,
please. Can we confirm whether there's a specific legal
or housing element deadline requiring adoption tonight?
it is part of our housing element.
I believe we said that we would adopt an in the fee.
it is a housing implementation measure. Okay, and so it.
hcd will be will be following what we do to see if we if
we implement. I'm not sure if the deadline runs tonight,
I might have to ask for help in the community development
director. It's my I don't believe that it runs tonight.
there is no deadline to adopt the inclusionary housing. The intent was to take it with
no net loss, because once the sites become
available for development on the rezone sites.
if there's not an inclusionary housing and an
application is submitted, it would not be subject to
the 15% requirement. It could come in at whatever
provisions are currently in place of the time.
so if we were to continue this, let's say for 30 or 60 days.
would that put at risk the housing element
and or would it affect the no net loss action?
it would affect the housing element per se, but it
would affect that the fact the city would be open
to getting additional development at providing no
affordable or 5% affordable density bonuses invoked.
so then we would be getting below that 15% and we'd be
getting closer to go into a state of no net loss again.
okay, thank you.
okay, uncharacteristically, I'm going to say a lot here because I
usually do that, but I do think time is of the essence in the sense that
we've taken care of the no net loss, but I have to tell you that when I
looked at some of the things that we've approved in the last few months.
one of them was a, you know, a development that had essentially 500 houses
and only 25, only 25 of them were going to be affordable at not a super low.
and so 25, okay, and then when I looked at the plans,
because I like to look at plans for some reason,
they were all studios, practically, so I mean it's,
in my opinion, the developers is making a ton.
okay, it's my opinion.
I'll even make it my professional opinion.
and because, you know, they have the ability to do it,
why wouldn't they? They're in business to make money.
and so, you know, that saddens me, and so I do
think kind of time is of the essence in doing
something if we're going to, if we're going
to do it, then this is a good time to do it.
or, you know, looking at this because the minute somebody hands something
in, and we haven't done anything, it's still five, five percent.
okay, second item.
I will try to go down this as kind of an order of things.
this is a very real crisis.
and economics plays a big part of this. I mean, you know, back after
world war ii, people, young people, could buy a 6,000 square foot lot.
okay, coming back from, you know, the military or wherever, start a
family of four, and have a three-bedroom house all over the united states.
okay, no matter, you know, commensurate with the prices for that area.
over the last, you know, 75 years since then, it keeps getting smaller and smaller
and smaller because of the economics, the cost of land on all the rest of that.
and it's also much more complicated than that,
but it's, you know, essentially that's it.
it's only so much land and the plants that vote, certain price, then things
are going to keep getting smaller and less affordable and all the rest of that.
third item.
and this isn't to toot my horn, but it's to say, this is very real.
so, I have very real even for my own family because we
adopted a family of five from families forward 10 years ago.
and that, and if I adopted, I mean, we backed them up when families
forward thought that they were a round peg in a square hole and said,
go move to add a lonto or something like that.
we couldn't do that.
and so, you know, we guaranteed their rent and all the rest of that stuff
at that time, that family, which was a single mom and four kids, had income.
I have to know about $33,000 a year.
crazy to think she was going to stay in orange county, but everywhere.
okay, fast forward.
this is 10 years later.
she's gotten much more educated, been mentored and all the rest of that.
and her income is probably close to $100,000 to the two
girls have moved on through college and all the rest of that.
and so, now it's a family of three with that kind of thing.
so, it's a success.
the point of this, though, isn't about, oh, look at me.
it's really about, this is real, okay?
and if you go over to sofi or any one of these apartment buildings over here,
you're going to find in two bedroom places, you know, five
people living in them because that's what they can afford.
and what do they do? Are they derelict? Are they, what's the deal?
you know, because they're paying $3,600 for two bedroom apartment, okay?
no, they work at saddleback.
they work, I mean, these are people with living wages and all the rest
of that, but they're at the lower end of the totem pole, unfortunately.
and so, it is a problem.
that's all I'm really trying to say here.
it is lots of times you get caught up in the numbers, the
numbers for the developers, the numbers for this and that.
and I, you know, I mean, I used to, you know, speak to the
bia all the time, you know, when I was out in riverside.
but the point is that, you know, we really do have to
find as conservative as I am, we've got to find solutions.
and the last item, what a city is actually supposed
to do is not build these things, unless we get into
the game of that affordability gap and fees in lieu
of, then I guess we started getting much more involved.
but, but the point is, is that the whole reason for all of
this up zoning and all the rest of that is to help make it
possible for somebody in the private sector to essentially maybe
first build more housing, which we can argue with like crazy.
and second, you know, to build, to build a certain
percentage of it affordable. I don't think that
it means because reena, I sit, I'm on a scag,
the committee for economic development for scag.
okay, for the last five years. Okay, so I know a little something about this.
and, and what I'm, what I'm saying is that, you know, without drinking
the kool-aid completely, the point is that it's very real and, and that
cities are really their jurisdictions like us, could not, doesn't have to
be a city, are there to actually facilitate the ability for it to happen.
we're not the ones that are going to make it happen, and
we can't absolutely, you know, force it down the throat
that 60% of it has to be affordable at the lowest level,
because that private developer won't be able to finance it.
and that's why a department of the state of
california, housing community development, if we handed
something in like that, they would say we're crazy.
and even though I can argue this, the opposite.
because we're putting out something that's not realistic.
it's what, it's all, what everybody
would love to have. And yet the economics where I started doesn't make it work. Okay.
so 15% is something that many cities and jurisdictions have done and has passed
through
the sort of, you know, we have, we have a certified housing development plan with hcd.
and what we don't want to do is jeopardize that
by either willingly or unknowingly doing something
that's unrealistic and having them say, well,
I don't know if you're so certified anymore.
but for the next three, three, four years, three
years. So, you know, I have to support it because it's
a start. I was saddened by the fact that we have, you
know, the 5% thing, but I understand it. I get it.
and this, if we can do this and make a realistic effort of doing it,
you know, I don't, I don't necessarily agree, dave, with your idea
that it creates that we, we have a contract down with the state that
the next rhna that we're going to have to do 8,300, you know, homes.
so we're in the business of up zoning so that a developer, if they can make something
happen that's in the right direction, happen, but it's not our duty to make it happen.
last item. And I brought it up. It was a report from my scag meeting.
oh, maybe four months ago, you know, you know, we meet often during the year.
and it was a fantastic presentation that they made,
which is not all that, it doesn't happen every day.
but it was about how counties, you know, scag has six
counties, I believe, in southern california, 19 million people.
and how the counties and jurisdictions were doing,
how jobs were doing, the whole nine yards, okay.
and, and one of the interesting things that when they got around
the housing that I, I took away from it, which I thought, I have
to be careful how I remember it because, you know, I'm not reading
from a script, but this is pretty, pretty much what it was.
I was shaken by the fact that with the development that
has occurred, okay, in terms of apartments and housing and
stuff, that in terms of market rate housing, and I think
this mainly apartments and things like that, a multifamily,
that there was actually a surplus of housing that started about
a year and a half ago, and is still growing, they do see it
coming back to the curve again and being, you know, back where
it meets with what this flying demand would be zero out at.
and, but I thought it's because everyone was rushing to get these
buildings up, there were six stories high, and there's an awful lot of them
evidently, based on the report I got from scag, that where these
apartments are sitting empty because they want to rent them at market rate.
and those units are sitting, this supply is greater than the demand
because the demand side of the curve basically said, no, I'm not going to
pay $3,600 for that two bedroom apartment that is only, you know, 14,
you know, what, not even that, 1,000 square feet or something like that.
so, I say, I was a long-winded on this one, but this is something that I've
really thought about deeply and from the side of the reality of it, from
the side of, hey, we've got to make some kind of a movement here that's in
the right direction, and I've been in design and construction all my life.
so, you're not going to ever find me really up against the team,
but we all got to do our part, and that's where I have to leave it.
so, I'm going to, I see no more questions here unless somebody has one or
deliberations, I'm going to ask for a motion, one way or the other on this.
that number of 80, 80, 500 is real.
I mean, that's the straight, we're supposed to
be 64%, if we only make them do a 15, that's the
equivalent how much it takes, so it's not a, how
much it takes, but it doesn't mean we have to do it.
that's true, we don't have to do it, but presumably, if, you know, hcd
is, you know, on their toes, they'll say, hey, you're non-compliance.
if they could take things away, anyway, if I'm going to say there's no fuzz on that
number, that's if we approve it, that's a real 8,500, or we don't meet if we fail.
so, I just wanted that.
there's a whole list.
there's not fuzzy numbers.
I see the numbers, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's how it is going to work.
the other side of that, I didn't even get into, it was really interesting
to see the population decrease in the, in the, in the sky area.
and, and they, I had to give a sky credit, which I don't always, for being pretty
honest about giving us real numbers that they really felt this is what was going on.
which I'm hoping that when we get to 2029, because there's a
lot of people who sit on that committee who aren't necessarily,
you know, one way or the other about it, other than, why are
we asking for millions and millions of units to be built.
when california is not growing anymore, at the moment,
and that's, and that, and I'll leave it at that.
so, that's, but that, we don't, we'll cross that bridge until 2029.
that doesn't mean that we're not, I always have the, the affordability
gap, which is partly what this is all about, this particular one.
and, I'll be, I'll be quiet now, I even have a motion to make.
more on me.
well, I'll move, I didn't necessarily want to move both of these things, but I will.
I'll, I'll move, I'll basically to accept the staff report and, and to move the
inclusionary zoning ordinance in, and direct
relationship to what the staff report was.
I'll, I'll, I'll second with a friendly amendment that we
increase the formal review process from five years to three years.
if, if, if you accept that.
I do.
okay.
um, do we have any further deliberation based on the motion?
all right, josh.
mayor caskey.
aye. Mayor pro tem mathis.
aye.
council member sweeney.
aye.
council member wheeler.
no.
council member pezold.
no.
the ayes have it.
okay.
so.
with that, I, we're going to close the public hearing.
and bring it back to the city council.
oh, I already did that.
I'm sorry.
I'm on the wrong page.
sure.
so we're going to now move on to really back into
a city council meeting and administrative reports.
and I will, well, some people might be wanting to leave at this point.
I will again, thank staff, I thought that the presentation that
they gave the powerpoint and explaining all of this was outstanding.
and I really appreciate all the effort that went into this.
it was not any kind of sneak attack.
it was the fact that we, we were required by law to deal with the no net loss thing.
and that's why this is a special meeting during what is normally dark for our
city council so that we can meet that state law in that regard for that one.
and we, and it was felt that we at least needed to put in front of the council the
possibility of an inclusionary zoning ordinance
that would sink in with this in terms of time.
and that's really what was happening. It really had nothing to do with, you know,
letting other guys go before and on nothing, nothing to do with that whatsoever.
it was all the part that was all precipitated by the fact
that we had a no net loss something we needed to deal with.
okay, so administrative reports.
I mean, the city manager who I think is going to also
make one for the assistant city manager's not here.
yes, mayor members of the council know city manager report this evening.
but I would like with your permission to pinch head for the assistant city manager
who could not be here tonight on item 3.2.1, which deals with crossing guard services.
and just a little background, I think you all know that that our city does
provide crossing guard services for a number of streets that we have in the city.
as children move going to school and leaving school, and
we hire outside contractors to do that service for us.
so actually back in october of 2023 the city council ordered a contract
for crossing guard services to a firm called all city management services.
it went into effect in november of 2023.
but the contract expired in june of 26 a couple months ago.
all right, I need to tell you we should have possibly in january gone out to bid.
but we did not.
we missed it.
I missed it.
and I take forward responsibility for us missing that.
but we really need to keep this service moving forward,
and that's why we're here tonight to speak with you.
is that we would like to propose that we go back to the all city management services
and we have had an initial conversation with them and use their base contract.
and have a temporary six month extension and
to allow us then have time to do some bidding.
but allow us also to continue to provide the service
to for the kids going back and forth to school.
and if that, if that would work, what we
would be looking for the council to do tonight
is we want to do an amendment to this prior
contract where we're calling amendment one.
we would ask for you to approve amendment one of the
contract services agreement with all city management service.
secondly, we would like to authorize the city
attorney to make some minor modifications
as may be necessary to make sure that it all works and it holds together well.
and then finally to authorize me to sign that amended.
amendment number one after our city attorney looks at
it, so that we can put into place this contract and still
continue to work and continue with the kids going back and
forth, while we simultaneously get a bit of process going.
so I'm available for any questions.
there is none.
thank you.
all right.
and dave.
first of all, what is the fiscal impact?
I have a few comments on this crossing guard.
it's been an issue that's been around for a quarter while.
I'm certainly in favor of taking care of the
kids, although when I went to kindergarten
pre-k, I went across many roads and we didn't
have crossing guards and we all survived.
anyway, I want to deal with the issue that I've
talked about before and I will talk about the future.
the city gets a, well, there's a thing called the property tax
dollar, and I apologize I was going to give everybody a zero octopus.
I'll get it to you afterward.
when I talk about the future for other reasons, it was a thing
built and made back before our city or shortly thereafter.
it's totally out of date with realism, what's going on today.
but I wanted to point out a few things that are highly questionable in the thing.
so we're going to go to the next page, please, and come back to the presentation.
next slide.
okay.
what I want to talk about, the organization that runs the
scores is the saddleback valley unified school district.
and I want to point out some things that are on this property tax dollar.
the saddleback unified school district is unified, I'm sorry.
the saddleback valley unified general fund gets 41.87% of our real estate tax dollar.
their education review augmentation gets another 13.99%, 94%.
okay.
I'll please the next one that just for grinn to see what the data is.
we're also funding right now the capstone valley
school district and the irvine unified school district.
we have a modest amount, but still it's, you know,
irvine's a pretty big city and capstone is not as either.
that's our modest numbers.
if you get out at the bottom, laguna hills
general fund out of the same dollar gets 5.14%.
we have another three items, the csa 8 and csa 8a, 4.7 and 0.186.
and then the city hill, the laguna hills city lighting fund.
those are the, all the things on the bottom there.
that's all we get of that tax dollar which corresponds to, I check
this with eric's afternoon to make sure I was represented correctly.
we get about 14.3 million dollars for that.
okay.
the saddleback unified school district gets 75 million, 75.4 million.
now you look at the comparison of those numbers.
they get 75, we get 14.
they get 75 for taking care of four schools in our city.
and that's all they do with that 75 million dollars.
this is not a, this number is not for, that's not the number they receive
from all different cities that in the saddleback unified school district.
this is just us, that's just our portion of it.
so that's 75 goods, just our four schools.
we have to take care of the entire city.
everything, lights, streets, you name it.
we take care of everything for 14.3 million.
so what, eric's me is that saddleback valley
school district should pay for the crossing guards.
it's, it's, it's just, they're just beating us, you know,
to death for something that they should take care of.
they're making a huge truckload of money.
and, and let me give you the next page to follow them out on the next page, please.
recently, sandlocking closed. So they now, not only don't have four schools.
they have three schools, but I would bet, although I'm not privy to it,
that the new private school that when there is paying them rent.
because I can't see them giving up their building for free.
so not only do we only have only three schools now,
but they, they're probably getting rent from that one.
which I want to put them about that, but I won't propose in the future that we,
we go back to the county, which, you know, makes up this dollar,
and complain and say, we want, you know, 25% back.
which, which shouldn't be charged for us anymore.
because they've only got three schools, not four.
which would actually be one of the biggest benefits
of the city, and probably the city's history.
we would go from 14 million to 36 million.
but that's, that's a future thing beside the point,
although it's pertinent as whole discussion.
so they're making even more money.
and it's just, you know, I, I'm torn because I want the kids, you know,
to have a school guard, I guess that's the, that's the going
thing, you know, protect the kids going across the street.
but this is, this is obscene that the school district won't pay for it.
and I'm not particularly happy about school district
because I've done some research that passed on them.
I've gone over and we had a discussion last year about baseball fields.
when my son played baseball, you know, he's 40 years old now, so 30 years ago,
30 plus years ago, there were three fields of valencia.
my fields will be, you know, you know, parents will get out and kept them up.
one of the fields is just so badly, been so badly
maintained that basically doesn't exist anymore.
the other one is barely there.
and the third one is, isn't shambles.
it's, you know, the fence is coming down.
the, the infield is like really not, not their grass or everything.
they don't even put their money for the kids on the school ground.
they're, they're an organization.
these to, you know, shape up basically.
that's another issue.
but I, I just object to this, this thing.
and if we do pass it, I'm going to add an amendment that we send them a bill.
they'll pay it, but I think we, they deserve to pay it.
thank you.
okay.
councilman sweeney.
thank you, mayor.
great point, steve.
and, you know, yes, we do have to protect the kids.
and I want to make sure that we're doing that.
the six month proposal does that include a crossing
guard over at the old san joaquin site for the, like, good point charter schools or.
that's nothing objective.
we're paying for a private organization.
and so I don't know the answer to that question.
yeah.
and so the council does.
okay.
and then, if it's only through the end of year,
how are we going to start the bidding process?
are you going to start that soon?
or what does that look like?
we're going to start it soon.
okay.
we're going to start it in the next few weeks.
okay.
perfect.
so we'll be, we'll be ready to go.
okay.
and, um, okay.
that's it for now.
thank you.
okay.
I have some comments too based on that.
first of all, I'm going to come in.
dave, that's some pretty interesting numbers that you've got there.
and it is food for thought in many respects.
we have a precedent here in which the city has done this for,
I'm assuming, decades.
okay.
and what would councilman wheeler's bringing up
is that the way to mess something is a mess here.
and you can have something I miss at any point in time.
and so I think it's worth looking into.
and I think it's worth talking to the, you know, the school district about.
um, it's a little different.
what their responsibility is.
that's one of the things that's not in the numbers.
um, you know, in terms of, you know, teaching
in the classes and all the rest of that stuff.
and so I think it really what it does is it begs the question for having a discussion.
and, and yet in the meantime,
I don't want to see kids going back to school starting tomorrow,
where the crossing guards aren't there.
and so I think that for the next six months we need to
maintain the, the president that we started 30 years ago.
um, I'm looking at to the whole audience, but I keep looking over it's scott, sorry.
um, and, uh, cause you're at, you know, but,
uh, so I would be in favor of this from, you know, from that standpoint on,
uh, you know, alone by itself.
cause you, we, I don't want to stop anything abruptly that
hasn't been looked into, uh, appropriately, which means both.
he had a, you have to start a dialogue with the, with the school district.
and maybe they'll have a million great reasons as to why, you know, we're wrong.
uh, and even looking at it that way.
but in the meantime, I also think that we need to look at, uh, you know,
the possibility that we will continue and put the thing out to bid.
the one thing I noticed when I went through, uh, you know,
the, the contract as they, as they've got it was that, you know,
here in the world that we live in right now, they wanted to 6% raise every,
every year and, uh, just, you know, and so general rule.
and I thought, wait a minute.
so that's, I mentioned that to our city manager.
and that is part of the reason why, you know, whatever we do,
whether we decided it's our responsibility or somebody
else's or shared responsibility that, uh, it'd be bid.
and so that it isn't something where we just keep going
on and on, you know, like pollyanna and everything's okay.
so that's my comment.
and with that, uh, jared mathis.
yeah, I appreciate all the comments and the numbers that they've put together.
I'll stand in unison and in full throat support of, of lobbying the,
the unified school district to take their responsibility.
I mean, we just approved a private high school.
uh, we're not giving them, uh, crosswalk facilities, right?
I mean, because it's a private institution, right?
so no, no, no, no, no, the private high school,
the one that we just, uh, yeah, yeah, right.
so we're not doing it there.
so right.
the middle school that was is replacing my keen, we are.
so it, that doesn't jive, right?
and so, um, for me, uh, I think that there's a great argument to make
their, and I'd be happy to help make that and really stick up for the unit hills.
so I think those are good points.
um, with that, I also agree that we got to take care of our kids for now.
and I would move to approve the six month, uh, contract, um,
subject to the bidding happening, you know, right away.
and, and then we can fight that fight.
we have a second.
I'll second that.
all right.
I'm going to move to second it.
I'm going to go back to, uh, david.
um, yeah.
okay.
go ahead.
okay.
sorry.
you don't have a button to push.
um, I just looked up there.
I didn't know whether you're really there because you seem to be in the dark.
I have a son sort of that is going down.
um, I haven't left from the seat.
so, um, so first of all, we have.
this is something that has been mentioned on
a number of occasions and a number of years.
and, and dave is his excuse me counsel member.
wheeler has brought the numbers to show exactly, um,
what the real picture is, which is really.
it's, it's quite nice to be able to see and
understand because the numbers are not fair.
and, um, we also pay for an officer to be at the school.
that's in addition to the crosscards.
now I don't want to eliminate an officer.
that's not the point of this, but I'm just trying to
point out that we offer a lot more than just crossing
guards to the school and, um, our resources are limited.
um, I, my children went to private schools for various reasons.
and, um, parents volunteered in the private in
the private school setting to cross the children.
and, um, that's something that the, that I, I've
seen I know that the schools don't have the budget.
the private schools don't have the budget to have crossing guard.
so it was parent volunteer or organized.
um, I do agree that we shouldn't cut this off, but I do know that in the
past former city managers have approached the school district and have
had discussions and we essentially were denied any discussions and they
basically said it's because the children are crossing on our streets.
so I think that we need to have a further discussion on where
children are crossing or how children are getting to school.
perhaps they should maybe we should try to close off the
street for a little bit of time so that the children can
safely get into valencia and then that might resolve one and
maybe perhaps find other solutions for the other schools.
I think we should have more discussions, but I
think we should anticipate the, um, the past which
was this, uh, saddleback as always in the past,
um, communicated to the city that they will not.
uh, pay for the crossing guards and they have their own justifications as to
why so I think we should find other solutions if that is what we're looking for.
okay, thank you.
um, where are we at here?
so we're, looks like a jerk, did you have something?
no.
yeah, I just want to ask you to entertain a, a, uh, amendment change to
along with what you said, add a, I think that we'll send a bill to them.
bob, they'll pay it.
we'll send a bill.
that's, uh, a, uh, amended, uh, motion to amend any seconds.
okay.
okay, we got a second moved in second.
any further discussion?
let's vote on the amended motion.
to send a bill.
just to clarify this is to approve staff, staff recommendation
in addition to sending the school district they bill for this.
okay.
um, council member sweeney.
uh, aye. Mayor caskey.
um, seems ridiculous to me.
no, because I'd rather have a discussion where
you're really walking the door and sit down.
council member wheeler.
aye.
council member, I think that it will create a discussion.
that's true.
okay.
that leaves us to, uh, item number 3.3 and turn to our city clerk.
can you see that?
is that correct?
you're going to.
yes.
uh, thank you, mayor.
um, so this item was placed on the agenda.
um, so the filing period for the november 3, 2026 election ended on august 7th.
at 5 p.m.
at that time, there was only one, uh, qualified candidate for district two.
under the, uh, california elections code, uh, 10229.
and then there's only one candidate or zero
candidates that gives the council the ability
to either appoint the one candidate and then
cancel the election or allow the election to go on as, uh, called.
and so this item tonight, uh, before you tonight
is giving you that option of allow the, uh,
uh, election for district two specifically
to go to, um, the ballot in november with the
one candidate on it, or as a council, you can
appoint the one qualified candidate, which
would be joshua sweeney to district two and
then cancel the district to election districts.
one and four would go on as planned.
and so it'd just be district two that would be canceled.
um, and, uh, mr. Sweeney would be appointed.
and then that would make it to where no writing
candidates would be accepted for district two ballots.
okay.
I have a quick question.
yes.
so that appointment, um, and I've read all this stuff.
I understand.
I mean, there's other cities that are doing that right around us.
um, is for four years or is it till the next election?
it would be the complete term for that district, which would be before your term.
and that's based on california law.
yes.
okay.
thank you.
so we'll put it up to the next person on the list, which would be dave.
now a question for staff.
uh, this has happened twice in the past.
what was done that time?
those times.
with a cancellation of election?
there was a, there was at least two, two times in the past history.
there was going to hills where there was only one candidate.
and we didn't have district, but it was for the whole thing.
there were only, you know, they, uh, there was only number of candidates qualified
as there were offices.
so what happened those two times?
did the election go through or was it, or was it similar appointment?
uh, I would not be able to speak to those.
I would be able to, I would, I could find that information for you.
but, um, since it's a district election, we would be able to cancel this, um,
at larger a little bit different.
okay.
and that, but that would, uh, also cancel the, you know,
I guess the, uh, voters right to right in.
it would.
is that a, I guess I'll need a press on that.
do you have any?
in the city no.
um, but that is under state law, the council has that ability to do that.
okay.
thank you.
um, okay.
next, uh, chair at memphis.
thank you, mr. Mayor.
um, just responding to that question.
I'm fairly sure, um, the most recent election in
laguna niguel after they switched to districts.
every single one of the candidates were unopposed.
and they canceled the election altogether.
um, so not laguna hills example, but laguna
niguel, um, right next door handled it that way.
there's similar thing in dana point right now too.
oh, dana.
okay.
next on those.
oh, but, uh, so anyway.
so, um, from an efficiency standpoint and, uh, because there's no other candidate.
and because I believe in council member sweeney,
I would move, uh, to, um, appoint him to district to, uh, council.
is that a motion?
that's a motion.
okay.
do we have a second?
I'll second.
um, josh, you're next on the.
well, thank you.
uh, no, that was a great point by mayor pro tem mathis
is that, uh, laguna niguel just did the same thing.
they had two that were unopposed.
and so they, they were appointed last night.
and that was canceled.
and then as well as dana point had somebody that was running unopposed.
and they canceled that one as well.
so it's really just more of, uh, of saving the city money.
it's a cost savings, not to be put on the ballot and have, have that on there.
so it really will save the, the city some, some money.
um, and, so yeah, that's, that's where that's, that's going.
but, uh, I have a question.
and then we'll go to you, erica.
and that has to do with the money thing.
yeah.
as I understand it, it would save between $10 and $12,000 to the city to do this.
could you explain that a little bit more?
yes.
so, um, the estimate from the county, so they do it by a cost per voter.
um, so the orange county registered voters
estimated that for the district to election,
it would be between $10,401 and $12,56 to run specifically the district to election.
so that savings, there would be savings in there.
um, and additionally, that's not included in this estimate
is the city's cost of the publication of election notices.
and then that we have to get those translated
and then also send them to the newspapers.
so those costs are not included.
uh, just because we would not be able to get a, um, a complete
estimate without sending the draft to all the translation services.
and into the newspapers to get that estimate of what that would cost.
however, that would be, um, looking at the election
notices for calling the election, it was in the thousands.
okay. So we would be able to reduce the costs on the translation
because we would not be publishing the district to one.
and then as well as all to the newspapers.
all right.
thank you.
erica, did you have any comments?
yes.
I'm sorry.
hang on, josh.
I, I forgot to add when I, when I first spoke, I apologize.
but before I addressed the item, I just wanted to clarify with the city attorney
and city clerk, uh, to confirm for the record that all requirements under elections,
code section 10229 have been satisfied and that I
may legally participate in this discussion and vote.
trying to turn my microphone on.
I think we have to hang on.
erica, we have a comment from, uh, our city attorney.
so that's correct.
all, uh, requirements of the elections code have been complied
with to take this vote and you can vote on this matter.
okay.
erica.
so, um, I, I understand that we have two cities that have voted,
um, on the, or that have made decisions, which, which is fine.
um, I have concerns because we had a couple of times.
um, we've had individuals where, for example, uh, mayor caskey decided
to run because he, um, I mean, he was essentially, and, and opposed.
and he did and, and made the decision that it was
important to give the opportunity for people to vote.
um, and not take that right away from the people.
and that doesn't mean that, you know, the, you could create a complicated election.
it just means that, you know, and you saw the results from mayor caskey's election.
he did quite well.
and, and he was still unopposed, but he did it.
and I, I respect that because of the passion that mayor caskey had, which
was, hey, I want to provide the residents an opportunity to vote for me.
so um, I, I do have my reservations and concerns
with respect to, um, with respect to that,
because I, I just feel that while other cities
have made those decisions, it was all districts.
and I think we're in a situation where it's not all districts.
we have other people running. And what is that kind of send to
other areas. Okay. So your district doesn't. So that means, or
just because, you know, no one else is running in your district.
that means that, um, that the other districts have to go through those processes.
so I just, I feel a little different because it's not
apples to apples. And if, I mean, you have a city wide
situation versus this isn't. And I don't. I think the
optics of it doesn't look good for potential people.
I think that it's important to be in a position where we are
fair, especially for everyone. And, I mean, it's the work is
different if you're unopposed substantially different, but the
optics of being fair to everyone who is who has taken the time.
and I think it's important to show as a leader, somebody
who's a leader showing that they're willing to put the work
in as such as what caskey and their caskey did, which was, you
know, I was running that very election and, and he didn't.
mayor caskey didn't have to do it.
and he knew that he wanted to show his leadership and show that he
was a leader and not somebody that wanted to take these way out.
so anyway, I just have to say that because I think it's important
when you set a precedent in a standard in the city to not flip flop.
and, and that's just, I think we, we need to be cognizant and aware of consistency.
okay. Mayor, I'm sorry, we do have one signed up to speak on this item.
oh, I didn't even know.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I should have asked.
I apologize.
so why don't you go do your public speaker. I do have one other item.
I, I would have one I think I would like to say since.
okay.
do you want me to call the speaker?
yes.
scott miller.
I'm looking around.
I, yeah.
I was waiting to see someone rush in the door.
right. I don't rule mayor city council. Thank you so much
for the opportunity to speak before your presence tonight.
uh, this is an important election, not only for
us here in laguna hills, but for the country.
and, you know, I spent the last three years coming to every single council meeting.
the two hour meetings, the four hour meetings, the six
hour meetings and the seven point five hour meetings.
and I think I've learned some things. Number one, this council is very good at
understanding that you've been handed a lot of very tough financial positions.
and you work very hard to overcome those positions and save tax dollars.
so that's the number, that's one of the reasons why I'm asking
you to appoint mr. Sweeney as a second district representative.
the other is this, the filing period was open
and well known to the entire all three districts.
we had political parties out campaigning in all three districts.
we ended up with a one on one race in the first district. And now we've ended
up with a two on two race from two different parties in the fourth district.
all because there were political groups out there
that were campaigning months before the filing period.
so, each district had the opportunity to give their voice. And the voice
of the second district had the same opportunity as all the other districts.
no rights were taken away from them.
nobody was given a short handed opportunity in this election.
but their message from the second district was loud and clear that the incumbent
and the current leadership is what they want. It's what they're selecting.
no one has been given a disadvantage in this election.
and I am asking those who live outside of the second
district to support the voice of those voters in the
second district because that's why we went to districts.
to make sure there was no outside influence from outside of electoral
districts and the people of those districts can speak for themselves.
so, for those reasons, I am asking the council, I'm encouraging you to
give you unanimous appointment to mr. Sweeney in the second district.
thank you so much.
thank you, mr. Miller. Okay, so I have some comments to say.
but I'm going to actually preface that with the
fact that I don't see a council position in a town
of our size and even much larger in fact until you
get to something really large as being political.
we're here to take care of the streets. We're here to take care of our parks.
we're here to first and foremost for public safety.
and we have tight budgets and all the things that we just
mentioned by a public comment. And, you know, it's our town.
I mean, this is not about democrats and
republicans and dsa and all the rest of that. This
is about taking care of our neighbors. And
it's small enough to be our neighbors, okay.
so, but I do want to clarify a couple of things about the fact that I
ran since erica brought it up. Number one, my situation was different.
first of all, it was citywide. And I was appointed when a council member basically
resigned about six or eight months into their
four-year term and moved to another state.
and I decided that I interviewed for the project
or for the project for the council position
and the council made a decision to appoint me
from four candidates and that was that, okay.
I had my reasons. We're going into all that stuff. But I was told at that time, I was
told
at that time that I would have to run in the next election because I was appointed
and it
was a position that was made vacant from a council member who had been voted on a
little
different than me deciding that I wanted to run to show my leadership or something
like that.
and so, I did it. And it was citywide. And by the
way, it was a great experience for me that having not
done it ever before in my life to get out there and
meet people and know people and all the rest of that.
there was nothing to do with the optics. And yeah, and here's the other side
of that. Because I was the only one on the ballot, what did I get? 100% of the
vote, okay. So, if I could have saved my city, let's say $10,000, two and a
half years ago or whatever it was two years ago to not have to deal with that.
and when it was obvious, I mean, if anything, it saved my
ego that I got 100% of the vote. But I don't believe that
there was any right in campaign or any, all of that just
is abhorrent to me, especially with our new districts.
I really feel that we need to incubate those in a way that
they don't become political in that kind of sense of the
word or one district is working in another district to change
things around and/or political party or any of that stuff.
so, dan with the optics, I'm totally in favor
of this, and I'm totally in favor of saving our
town $12,000 for something as obvious what the
outcome is going to be. So, that's my comment.
do we have anybody else, jared, do you want to? Sure, your next step. Yeah,
thank you, mr. Mayor. I second everything you just said. And I just want
to reiterate something that commissioner miller, I think outlined very
succinctly and correctly in that the district two voters have been heard.
they chose not to run against joshua sweeney. And that is saying something because
they want him to serve. And so, they voiced their vote already by not opposing him.
and so, I take exception to the idea that somehow voters are being canceled if we
vote to appoint him. I don't think that's the case at all. I think it's quite the
opposite. And I think that joshua sweeney, councilman sweeney, should be commended for
the service that he's given district to vote in that way to not oppose your candidacy.
and as far as being willing to serve and being able to work and being willing to work
for the office, anybody that puts their name on the ballot is making that commitment.
and so, that's not a measure, running a campaign or not, is
not a measure of your willingness to serve. And I think we've
seen other examples of that. So, I just want to make those
points and I wish councilman sweeney another good four years.
next up, councilman sweeney. Thank you, mayor. Because this
item involves my own council seat, I wanted to recognize
the importance of addressing it openly and transparently
like we're doing. And the facts are straightforward.
the city conducted an open and open candidate process in which every eligible district
to resident had the same opportunity to qualify for the ballot. When filing closed, I
was the only candidate. Meanwhile, six candidates qualify for two other council seats,
two in district one and four in district four. And those voters have choices to make.
district two does not have a contested race. So, I believe in the absence of an
opponent is a meaningful reflection of the confidence district two residents have
placed in my service. And if there have been significant demand for different
representation, the opportunity existed for someone to step forward. No one did.
I do not take that confidence for granted, I consider an obligation to continue
earning it every day. And I have worked to be accessible, responsible, responsive and
focused on results, supporting strong public safety, responsible financial management,
thoughtful economic development, and an excellent quality of life for our residents.
and this decision is also about fiscal responsibility
because state law provides a process for appointing a sole
qualified candidate because taxpayers should not be required
to fund an election where there is no contest to decide.
the city budget approximately $45,000 for the 2026 municipal election
and districts one and four will still require elections but removing the
contested district two race should avoid unnecessary
ballot processing and administrative costs.
so, spending taxpayer money on an uncontested race would not give district
two voters a choice between candidates that would merely spend public funds
to confirm the only possible outcome. And the decision should be based on
the law, the facts, fiscal responsibility and respect for district two.
not personalities or political disagreements, rejecting the
appointment without a compelling legal or public policy reason
would risk disregarding the result of district two's open candidate
process while imposing an unnecessary expense on taxpayers.
every district deserves to have its voice
respected and I'm grateful for the confidence
district two is placed in me and the public
service is not an entitlement, it is an obligation.
and if I'm appointed, I will continue serving with humility, accountability and
determination, and I will work every day to
demonstrate that confidence was well placed.
I respectfully support the resolution of
pointing me to district two for a full four year
term that follows state law, it respects the
open process and it protects taxpayer dollars.
thank you.
dave, your line is on.
yeah.
the law of our land is we have elections, not just pointing somebody.
this election is very similar to the first election I ran in back in 2018.
there were seven qualified candidates that put their name in.
the only reason we're doing this is because of we don't districts which should never
have been done in my opinion and basically I was backed up by the supreme court.
it's recently when they booted down changing to
districts because of ethnicity and those kind of reasons.
so it should have never been done.
no candidates, if you look at the reason that they changed over,
they wanted to have more diversity, quote unquote, elections.
and looking at all the seven qualified candidates,
there is no diversity of the male female.
and of course party, but no he says the party is
not supposed to, it can't, at local elections.
so if we hadn't gone to districts, we'd have a section with
seven candidates being going to be chosen by the people.
in my opinion, still that the people who are doing the hills should choose their
leaders from all doing the hills and not cut us up in little bitty districts.
and though the, see election, it was such a quick decision to go to districts
and everything, the public didn't ever have time to get it to adjust to it.
I knew for a fact there were two candidates in district, two, they were considering.
okay. Again, since you don't have a button to push erica, did you have any other?
yes. And I read as well online that people wanted to run
in district two, and the process was difficult to navigate.
now, I know that, you know, everyone has an opportunity,
but to express that there's no interest is disingenuous.
and it dishonest. And so to say that no one
wasn't, that no one was interested isn't factual.
so given the fact that there are people that
have expressed interest and, you know, as council
member wheeler said, there were two people that
had, he knows of two people that were interested.
I think it's unfair to, to cancel out that out. And I think that it's,
it's important to have people with the democratic process be able to
vote or not vote, and to say that the people's voices have been spoken
when they haven't been given an opportunity in the voting process.
I mean, no one really, no one posted from the city.
no, I mean, josh, I don't know if you posted. Well,
if you don't run against me, that means that you're
voting for me and that you have full confidence.
that's not, that's not accurate either. And so to make
that assumption for the people, I think, is false.
I think it's quite insulting to, to express that that
is the opinion, their opinions and mindsets and that
that's how the people speak. It's quite insulting for,
for people because the people vote through a process.
and if people were to have known, okay, this is really the process.
would that be the outcome, especially people expressed interest.
so I just think that we are short changing the people. I, I don't, I think there's
a democratic process for a reason. And I think that we should have that process.
I know that we have discussions about $10,000, but I
think $10,000 and $15,000 to allow people to be given
the opportunity to vote is important, especially
considering it's not a problem for people to travel.
and more, more than that, they spend more than that
traveling. And I think that we should really consider what,
what the, what the dollars mean, especially when we're
communicating, taking away a vocal piece for the people.
very well could be that the people all vote for josh, because he's
there, but he's stripping them of that opportunity, especially when
they have other districts and people don't quite understand this
process. I think it's important for us to be able to have a process.
ultimately, I think that the decision has been made, but
I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to express
that for the people that aren't here that do speak
because I don't speak to a lot of people in your district.
and I think that the council member sweeney and a lot of people
aren't happy with decisions that have been made and a lot of people
do express a lot. And so to say that it's a blanket statement
that they haven't said anything is just, it's just disingenuous.
so I am grateful for this opportunity, even though I know you will be appointed.
and I hope you do keep your promise and be fiscally responsible.
I'm going to say something that I'm going to put it back to, I guess we'll
get some other people. But I have to say, I couldn't disagree with you more.
and actually, I think what's going on here is borderline slanderous
to be able to say from outside of the district, I know people
who absolutely are unsatisfied. And, you know, it's as absolutely
ridiculous. I mean, it angers me what I'm hearing here, angers me.
so I'm going to shut up at that because otherwise I'll go for the next hour.
I'm going to go to josh sweeney if you want to say something because you
thank you, mayor. Yeah, I appreciate that. There were several statements
that were false and I want my denial clearly reflected in the record.
and I ask council member pezold to provide verifiable evidence
or withdraw the allegation. And for you, mayor caskey,
I also ask that the, you know, any further discussion
remain factual, professional and germane to the agenda item.
but there were several statements that were made that were unfounded and untrue.
and I want to make sure that that's reflected in the record.
all right, and I'm going to call it. It's been moved and seconded that we
appoint joshua sweeney to city council for the next four years based on the
fact that he has absolutely nobody running against him, nobody that qualified
for the ballot or handed anything in. And so I'm going to move the question.
I'll second.
council member sweeney. Aye. Council member wheeler.
my vote is against districts, but no.
council member pezold.
my vote is no.
mayor pro tem mathis. Aye. Mayor caskey. Aye. The ayes have it. All right,
so that leaves us to council comments. We don't have any reports to do
today, because this is a special meeting, although we managed to make
it four hours. And I think for, yeah, we did four hours, 8:03.
so we'll start with anyone. Does any of the
council members have additional comments, dave?
yes, two comments. I would like to put on the agenda
discussion about the saddleback valley unified school district.
and basically to discuss with them, you know,
what I think is their responsibilities as
far as financial. So they're supporting not
only the crossing guards or maybe some other things.
if I can get a second on that. I'll second.
and the second thing I mentioned for some of my presentations,
the laguna hills tax dollar has long been a problem
as far as I'm concerned. It was like, is it created
either before the city was was made or shortly thereafter.
because they've probably been given it before then. I'd like
to bring that up for discussion for us to take a serious look
at the entire dollar. And basically, I guess, take it to the
next level, which would probably be the county to ask them.
and, you know, whatever necessary stuff, you have to take
to get them to change it to make it a reason we we shouldn't
be paying for capistrano valley school. We shouldn't be
paying for, I think it's one in there for the irvine library. There's I I I withdraw
that first that second. There's a lot of things that are kind of strange.
>> second. >> it should be redone. >> I'll second it. >> okay.
that's all. Thank you. >> any other comments said, jared?
>> yeah, I just want to congratulate councilman
sweeney for another term. I think it takes,
you know, great dedication to be effective
in this position. I think you've shown that. I think that
well, I wish that our council would have been
unanimous because I think that would be the
classy thing to do. We couldn't do that tonight.
but let me tell you that you are appreciated.
your work is appreciated. Your commitment to the city is greatly appreciated.
and I wish you and your family all the best and congratulations.
>> thank you so much. >> okay.
are we done? Josh, did you want to say something?
>> just real quickly, I wanted to just put it out there. There
are big storms coming in september. I know laguna niguel has
already started preparation for those storms by buying extra
sandbags, gloves, other stuff in preparation of the storm.
so, just wanted to put it on the radar for
everybody that might be something we would want to
start looking into as a city. It's just get
ahead of the, it may be big, it may be nothing.
but I know that they're already preparing. El nino year.
>> erica, any final comments from you? >> I would like to highlight our fire
authority as well as the police and what fantastic job that they have been doing
and there's a lot more that I think that people don't
understand that they do every single day. And I think it's just,
I think perhaps maybe it would be nice to have the fire
authority come and speak about some of the things that they do.
see, it's a lot, I think it's trying to create
awareness for the community. I also want to
commend them. There was a fire recently and
close to the toll road. It was taken out quickly.
there's a lot of concerns with respect to nellie gail. Nellie gail is
not doing their job. Although we have weed abatement, we have trees
that need trimmed and if it wasn't for the fire authorities response
to the fire, they put their quick response and how they handled it.
it could have gotten out of hand because nellie gail is many people are not trimming
their trees and not taking care of the landscape and not clearing the trails.
and that is a huge area of concern. And I'm hopeful
that we can continue as a city to work and sort of
put pressure onto nellie gail to do their job as an
hoa to make sure that these trees are trimmed.
that the shrubs are trimmed so that things if there is a fire potential
fire in the future, that it doesn't go up and out of control.
so anyway with that, I yield my comments.
okay. I have some comments but dave, did you have something?
yeah, I apologize. I do have one more.
over the past, I don't know, month ish or maybe two months.
I've been getting comments about the flock cameras. I've got a lot of
several emails and I even asked mr. Burns to look into a little bit.
and I don't know, you can correct me if I didn't understand it.
it seems like that there's been a lot of lawsuits pending against them.
and a lot of comments about their handling of data. I'm not sure how
much of this founded or unfounded, but it's reached a national audience.
so I'd like to put on the agenda to discuss whether we continue with them, whether
it's worth it or whether we shift to somebody else or whatever the alternatives are.
I think it's worthy of discussion. It is getting very, very public.
I'll second that one on the basis that I think a discussion is appropriate. I'm not
going to come out and say that there's -- because I have my own opinions about that.
I think it is very much of a political thing,
very much. But it does have to do -- I mean, the
whole subject matter has to do with rights and
privacy and all the rest of that kind of stuff. But
you know, we won't get into the whole nine
yards of it, but I think it's worth examining
and actually asking for a report in that
process from chief burk and, you know, and --
but there's -- there's questions about how long data is
being retained and you name it, but we already have a
number of cases in our city where it really solved crime,
serious crime, including a shooting in nellie gail.
okay, because of the flock cameras. And it wasn't because
of data that they had stored for months and months
or whatever that. It was something that they were to
pick up and follow up and basically apprehend the person.
and that's just one instance. There's many,
many other instances where it's worked just fine.
so I think it's really more about privacy, in my
opinion, and about -- it's politics. There are a lot
of people who like to defund the police the last
thing you'd want is a flock camera out there, okay?
so, you know, in an apolitical mode, we don't seem to be
very apolitical anymore, but I will second it, though, dave.
okay, first of all, I do want to say
congratulations to josh. You know, I -- we've served
together now, and for, you know, basically almost
four years together, and I've seen you as mayor.
I've seen your decorum. I've seen your preparation for the meetings.
I think you are, in my opinion, an exceptional council person, not just okay.
and, you know, like I said, I get angry when I -- when I even smell slander. And so,
you know, because I've been a victim of it myself, you know, which is ridiculous.
and if you don't have anything else other than
your integrity, folks, and we live in a world where
people attack your integrity, just because they
don't like all kinds of things about you, okay?
and that's out of bounds, as far as I'm concerned, 100% out of bounds. And so, I
will fight that. That's one place where my decorum kind of goes out the window.
when I see somebody's integrity being attacked, and nothing behind it. So, anyway, so,
congratulations. You've saved the city, or we've
saved -- we've saved the city by our vote, $12,000.
and I don't think that people in district 2 are
upset at all about this, or the optics are bad, or
any of that. So, that's my comments for the night.
and with that, we're going to adjourn this meeting. It is 8:12
and our next meeting is on august 25th at 6 p.m.