Ready? Okay, council is ready. I'm going to call to order today's excuse me. Excuse me. I'm calling me in order. Thank you very much. I'm going to call today's meeting to order. This is our regular town council meeting for Tuesday, July 21 at 3 p.m. And I also wanted to note before we get started that council member McKee is joining us remotely.
And remind council member McKee if you'd like to speak. Don't use raise your hand feature. Thank you. And with that call to order, can we get a roll call vote please.
Yes, first mayor. I would like to say that council member McKee is joining us today due to just cause under the Brown Act. Council member McKee for the record. Are there any individuals 18 years of age or older president in the room with you in your remote location?
Council member McKee, can you hear me? No, I was unable to hear you.
And okay, no, no, no. And what is the house? Not in the room. Thank you for that. Okay.
And also one more note, the raise a hand feature because this is noticed as a hybrid meeting, the public is able to participate virtually as well. And if they wish to do so, what we ask that they use the raise the hand function within the Zoom platform to let us know that they would like to make comment.
All right. Thank you very much for that.
Roll call. Council member McKee.
Here. Council member Trip. Here. Council member Knight. Here.
Nice mayor Reeves. Here. Mayor Moller. Here. If we could all stand and say the pledge of allegiance, if you can. Thank you.
And now I'd like to get a motion to adopt today's agenda with a second please.
Option of the agenda.
Hi, second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed and it's staying that passes unanimously.
Now time for council member announcements.
Anything from our remote council member? Nope.
Anybody else on the council want to make an announcement? Mayor. Yes.
Briefly, I wasn't at the last meeting. I just want to take an opportunity to know it's the last meeting.
The council recognize our parks and recreation staff for the good work they do for the community.
And I would be a miss if I didn't say that I appreciate all the work that parks and rec does and if we're director Holland and for all her team.
This morning driving through town. It's very heartening to see camp yacht bill at Schmidt Hall and hearing the sounds and activity that are occurring on the comments and the use we're getting for children that need that programming.
So thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you.
Comments. Yeah, I just wanted to remind people about picnic with a vet that will be happening on Wednesday August the fifth at 11 am at the picnic grounds at the veterans home, which is behind the baseball field.
And if you would like to participate, we would love to have you there. We're planning on 40 members from the veterans home half from the higher care department and half from the independent living side.
So we would love to have as many residents as we can come to the event and just share food with the veterans we will be providing the food because it has to come from a commercial kitchen and there will be a really small donation fee for lunch for the residents from town as your participation support.
So if you would like to do this with us, you can call Iran Jenny or text her at nine to five eight nine nine nine nine seven zero eight or you can reach her by email.
Jenny's J-E-N-N-Y-S-R-S at ATT.net. So if you reach out to her, she can give you more information on how to participate.
So I hope to see you there.
And also I wanted to begin this meeting with a statement of some of the accomplishments of this council on staff with input from our commissions over the last three plus years.
It's important to remind ourselves and our resident constituents of the good work that has already occurred and some that is on the way.
Some of these projects aim to enhance our lifestyles as residents or address sustainability and preparedness or support businesses and ultimately they all serve to in live in our town and move us forward.
So let's start with number one, which is reimagining and constructing the barbecue area at community center now named buds barbecue.
So this was sort of destined as a storage place and it is now a focal point of our community center and Barbara's kitchen is also in the queue to be updated and provide expanded kitchen use.
We have been designing and installing shade structures to enhance our gathering spaces like the ones at the north park and the community center Plaza and the shade for the barbecue area is in the research and design process right now.
We identified funding and are out for design and engineering on a 1 million gallon water storage tank for resiliency which can help keep water rates low when we are noting it as a resource in our new rate study that's coming up soon.
We were awarded a $250,000 grant from Mike Thompson's office to start our first micro grid project for town as part of wildfire and emergency resilience.
This first step could help us to the town into a future energy independence and we completed the sustainably constructed parking lot at the south end of town which has provisions for EV chargers, which is part of our sustainable enhancement for residents and businesses.
As it will alleviate bus and higher car parking that sometimes causes problems.
We re-imagined.
Young will days to fit into the actual months of incorporation and to relieve the businesses of the disruption of a closure of Washington Street for the parade when it was the high season in October.
We have a conversion and activation of seven new public benefit uses at the commons.
The farms said garden, the farms said in coupe, the yacht will fit locals lounge and the dog park.
Additionally, we have a room 11 meeting room for just conferring with residents and council and the Don and Sally Schmidt Hall all for the use of local enhancement.
We have had the creation of a partnership between the outville, the city of Napa and the vet's home to use Napa testing facilities to alleviate those unnecessary boil water notices.
We also have been working with the chamber to promote youngville first and foremost all actions being towards supporting our local economy.
And we have adopted a two year budget cycle to allow more time for planning and we reviewed and established clear policy for budget reserves for emergencies and anticipated needs and made sure that each fund is at the target amount or more.
We've established the town of Yantville as a blue zone employer and re-established a positive working relationship with the administrator of the vet's home and the secretary of Calvet.
We also created Yantville's entertainment zone, the only one in Napa Valley to enhance flexibility for resident and business events.
We had an efficient and aesthetic repaving of Yantville's Washington Street in just three days along with sidewalk installations to enhance the furnages of businesses like GTO's, punches and the French laundry garden.
And enhance the vine trail entrances and exits on Weber Street and Madison working with Napa Valley transit authority to right size our Yantville be bus and its service, making it more responsive to our needs.
And the installation of year round festive lights throughout the town as a safety measure as well as aesthetic feature and on top of that we established a business and community development program.
To operate with and assist businesses to take advantage of slowerments with new programs and events.
This can boost businesses and ensure a reliable consistent TOT income for town operations since that's the bulk of our budget is coming out of that income.
We are in the process of redesigning our wayfinding signs and general town signage and we've developed concepts for Yantville legacy trail pointing out historically significant places in town to parallel our successful artwork.
We continue to look at enhancements all over town for parks and pocket parks and this is a long list but it's just this sample snapshot of what has been accomplished and is planned by the council.
I think sometimes residents don't actually know what we do and these are examples of what has been done in the last several years by this council and all of this work has been done while all town services and maintenance.
We continue to be accomplished at the highest standards.
As council members, we volunteer to serve our community.
We are not professional politicians.
We rely on other community members and on our boards and commissions to advise us but the heavy lifting is done by our staff.
And sometimes by consultants and contractors we listen and gather information and hold public meetings.
We are residents first and your neighbors.
We are people who enjoy making good things happen for the community.
I will finish by addressing those who have been so aggressive in falting this council's actions and impunity our intelligence and integrity.
As you have heard, the comments is one of our projects.
It's purchased was identified by the community and all council members as our highest priority.
And the through that though the housing project has been put on hold the property still provides many benefits to town residents.
To move forward with any project at the Commons, all community input deserves to be heard.
Not only the loudest most recent commenters, we cannot discount public input that got us to this point.
Their contributions matter.
And workforce housing was a stated use for the property from the beginning.
The chaos of the referendum seems now to be an end run to manufacture division at election time.
These past couple of months have changed our community.
In UNO based on personal agendas and a misinterpretation of the purpose of the project and data is not a way to engage in a fair community process.
Conversations and invitation only meetings.
Forminating personal grievance and creating a haven for negativity and falsehoods further erode community spirit with misunderstanding.
This is the creator of division.
The creation of an alternative or shadow community designed to destroy the existing structure of the community has split the town.
We need to come back together as a whole community in order to thrive.
Council members on this day as are committed to the democratic process that centers on public meetings where all are welcome to participate.
I'm saddened that one council member decided to go out of the democratic process, armed with suspicions and incomplete information to seek some sort of vindication.
These actions effectively negated all discussions and untold hours of work, and robbed the community of an open discussion, while costing the town hundreds of thousands of dollars, which ironically is one of her recurring concerns that we are not being financially responsible.
Staying in the process would have been fiscally responsible, contributing to the discussions and decisions would have been fiscally responsible.
We are a council of five members, exactly so that anyone member cannot control the process.
Choosing to leave the democratic process has weakened trust and created upheaval and division in town.
The community deserves an open process and the opportunity to work on disagreements with an open heart, a creative mind and a tolerant spirit.
We are not in government to win. We're here to seek answers and solutions that promote the well-being of the community.
We may not always agree, but we all have decided on this form of community governance that is inclusive and open, allowing us to exchange ideas within the legal guidelines which serve as guardrails for trust.
Our goal is to make things work, not to take sides. Communication is an ongoing and important element of any process and its lack is a common pitfall for organizations and groups.
This council agrees that there should have been better communication which could have allowed for more discussion rather than dissension.
We are trying to create more varied channels to bring more information to all residents so that we can engage in discussions together where we work from the same information.
We've begun with more informational items on our agenda. We are bringing more information to the connection newsletter that you can sign up for on our website.
And we are working to bring a paper newsletter to your mailbox. Also on the communication front our website will be debuting a new look and will undoubtedly be easier to navigate.
All of this work is ongoing and I hope that you will all join us to explore what youngville will do about its next housing responsibilities and how we can work together to create to recreate what we had before. Thank you.
And I too would like to make an announcement.
Thank you for the list of accomplishments certainly a lot has been done. This is not in my understanding a form for political speeches accusing people. In case any of you didn't get it, I am the one that council member was referring to.
And I actually think if you're going to call someone out, you should do it with a courage by name. I wish I had the power to cast a spell over all the people who participated in this process and came forward and voice their concerns over the last period since January of 2026.
But unfortunately I don't have that power and instead what we have had is a vast number of people come forward and state their opinion and make their opinions known and they can say it in as loud of voice as they want and in any format they want I believe.
And I've been giving this a lot of thought. It is our 250th anniversary in the United States. The first amendment is my favorite part of the Constitution and it guarantees and that is the foundation of democracy.
Democracy is not always about everybody getting along and five people agreeing and everything I said I said many times in public.
So just go back and look at the meetings, many of the things I've said since the council member raised the commons were said in public as well as private.
But getting back to the first amendment my main point is democracy is about the ability to assemble freely you can assemble in a group where no one else was invited you can assemble in your house you can assemble to talk about whatever the heck you want to talk about or just have fun.
There is no legal rule that everyone needs to be included or that everybody has to agree with what you say. So we have the right to assemble which we have been using and we'll be using during the election period and we have the right to freedom of speech and also the right to criticize our government.
And I certainly have experienced some of that personally as an elected official, but I just want to say I encourage everyone to be here and despite the idea of division you have not heard me criticize anybody's way of speaking out about things they're timing their thoughts because that is actually democracy.
And so I want to stand for democracy and for people being able to voice their concerns about government and if you don't think that this has been in some ways a positive process look at the last several council meetings.
We have never had for the most part in my experience regularly more than two people show up and we do now and my goal and I have many people who heard me say this starting last December wasn't to tell people what to do but to tell people what was going on and let them make their decision.
Of course I have my own view but that was the goal and I actually think that's what democracy is about not five people all agreeing all going in the same direction.
And if the notion is I had some ability to cast a spell let's count the votes it was four to one and I continued to say what I thought was right and I actually think that's a good part of democracy.
So I don't think it's appropriate to make speeches during this period but having been attacked and called out I do want to represent my point of view and also put in my two cents for the right for all of us to get together talk about politics talk about our elected leaders do it with whoever we want and invite anybody we want because I can guarantee you there's a lot of parties and you don't feel I don't get invited to.
And that could be a good thing or a bad thing I'm not really the most fun person it but anyway enough.
So previously met in close session I do use myself but is there any reportable actions from the close session.
There's no reportable action.
Thank you very much. I will move on to proclamations and recognition yes.
Robin I can't remember McKie has raised her hand. Oh, great. I didn't see that I apologize. Yes. Councilmember McKie.
I wanted to remind the public on March 1st.
I wrote a letter. I stated it there in the chambers and I put it in the paper that I said let me clear.
If I was asked to vote on this today it would be no. I was asked to approve the unit mix in the funding strategy day I would also vote no.
So for other people to cast a spurs saying will never know what the votes were going to be.
I would like to remind people that I made it known after the February 17 meeting at our very next meeting that I had nowhere near enough information and that I was voting no.
So please don't quantify my own and cast the spurs and it's to say that I was going anywhere else with the yes though.
Thank you.
Now it's time for public comment on anything that is not on our agenda we only have a couple things regarding the budget and our state of housing in the on fill so you can come up and speak on anything and again just out of respect for everybody if we could hold any you know applause booze or anything like that so everyone feels comfortable coming up.
So who would like to come up and address the council.
Wait your microphone's not on move fix that.
Thank you.
My name is Jill Turner and my suggestion to the previous speeches we should have stopped after all those wonderful accomplishments that's shame that that didn't happen.
It seems like the negative remarks continue and I think some of you were the ones who are can want you to continue to make.
To say negative things about what's going on many of us who opposed some of the decisions that were made are really to move on we want to move forward we don't want to be continuing to do that.
So and this is maybe an obnoxious thing and I'll say it anyway.
I think it would be good thing that even town council members have a limit of five minutes to speak okay.
So finally I think we're going a lot over a lot of old ground that we've done you know that we've talked about before the council comments many of us who are very year to move on and go in a different direction.
So I would encourage you to close that chapter we want to move on and hopefully you all do too.
Thank you.
By else want to come up.
So Jill we can't speak after one another because the microphone is too low.
I'm Stephen Becker and what I want to talk about it has to do with the search committee for the new town manager.
This is a transition point very much so for young Phil and for the town council.
So we will reimagine the comments we will reimagine the two imperatives that the town has as property owners of the commons and to meet the obligations of the affordable housing that the state requires.
It's also a transition period because of the coming November election where three of the five members will stand for election.
And the job of the town council if I may be so bold is to look both at the long term and the short term needs of the town.
With the division that we're so clearly articulated by council member Reeves.
There is a great deal of revision and you can leave a legacy as this town council that the new town council will have to live within the town will have to live with.
So where am I going with this where I am going with this is you should put a pause on halt and stop the search for the new town manager.
Every entity in the private sector or in the public sector functions best when leadership has a chance to develop a cohesive vision for that entity in this case the town.
Vidal to that will be the town manager working in a alliance cohesion and unity with the board the board may well change I'm sorry the board the council may well change you should give the town the opportunity you should give the new council the opportunity to select the town manager.
You have absolutely the right to select that person but not every right that you have should be exercised if you have a long term vision if you have a sense of transition and what is ahead for the town do the right thing here.
Hold the search for the new town manager until the elections have occurred and the new town council is seated.
Thank you everybody else like to come up and address the council.
See nobody moving forward.
I will close the public comment period.
Council member Mickey has a question.
Yes. Council member Keith.
And follow up to Mr. Becker.
I would like to ask the town manager on his experience in his many years of service.
Do you have any way of quantifying how many times you.
Experienced change of council, whether two, three, four members, just from your perspective, I'd be curious to know that.
Thank you. May I respond? Yes, please.
Thank you council member McKee for your question. It is part and parcel of a town manager city manager's job to go through transitions in council.
We have elections, every city has elections, every couple years. There's always a potential and there always are new people elected to council that the manager must develop a relationship with and learn to work productively with one or more council members.
So it's not uncommon for a manager to be confronting transition in council.
The potential transition that our town manager or next town manager might be confronting, you know, maybe coming sooner than this ideal.
But the manager's job is to implement the vision of council. You're going to get applicants who are familiar and working with different council members, different council members,
so they will be able to establish effective working relationships if needed and they will be taking direction from either the current council, a new council or a combination there of on what the interests of that council are and working with your staff to execute and carry out those interests.
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate that. Is that anything else council member.
Okay. I am moving on to the consent calendar. Just two items tonight.
This afternoon.
I guess it still is afternoon in my book and I get a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar and then I'll take public comment.
Here I move approval of consent calendar consent calendar items A and B.
A second.
And is there any public who would like to comment on either one of our consent calendar items?
Seeing none. I will bring it back for vote all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed and abstain. That passes unanimously. Thank you very much.
And we have no guest presentations, no public hearings.
No administrative items and two staff reports. The first one is to receive an online budget demonstration.
So I see Kyle sitting here and this is in response to public comment.
So I would like to have this information on how to navigate our budget.
And we'll also be providing some summary information as well. So Kyle, it's all yours.
Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to wait for.
Miss Gatida, pass along the mouse.
Do we need another one so I go maybe we should get a budget to be connected to the computer
I will follow your lead Kyle.
Okay that sounds good.
All right good afternoon Mayor, town council.
My name is Kyle the teased of the financial analyst for the town.
A couple of months ago at the May 19th Council meeting,
town council approved adoption of the towns by annual budget.
That covers two fiscal years fiscal year 202627
and fiscal year 202728.
As of July 1st we are now in the new fiscal year 202627
and with that we have the new 2627 budget on our website so the purpose of this presentation
is just to show how to go to our website and access the budget.
So first you'll open your browser and you'll go to the town of yantill.com
and then if you scroll down a little bit you'll see those six buttons there
and then Hillary is hovering over the budget button so just select that
and then it will open up the table of contents.
So this is the Bay annual budget for fiscal years 26272728.
So there is information on this historical information going back a couple of fiscal years.
There is fiscal year 2526 and then there are the two future years.
And the way that this is broken up if you see section one this is the budget introduction
and overview which shows kind of an overview of the budget.
If you want to see some information about the general fund overview, town fiscal policies
so it's a little bit more informational and then if you scroll down a little bit
starting in section two there are individual departments stories
is what we call them which are pretty much pages if you had a physical budget
that if you're curious about any individual departments such as the IT department, the town manager department
if you scroll down a little bit let's look at it and we'll take a look at a parks and recs department
that's okay Hillary.
Each of these blue links will open up a new page.
If you want to open up let's do the community events department 015413.
So here's an example of what each of the pages look like.
It will give a department overview.
So for this this is the parks and rec community events page.
So if you scroll down a little bit you'll see all of the events that we're planning
and then we talk about the Bay annual budget goals.
Some of the if you scroll up a little bit Hillary sorry.
There's the budget insights that section kind of highlights what changed from the prior
fiscal year to the current fiscal year and then if you scroll down to the department expenditures table.
So if you see along the the headers there you see there's a couple years of historical there's about
there's three years of historical now we're still finalizing 2526.
It's a few months until we close out our fiscal year.
And then if you use the side bar Hillary to scroll a little bit to the side.
At the bottom of the table.
You'll see exactly it goes and then scroll up a little bit.
So it will show the last two columns are the 2627 adopted.
So that's the current fiscal year that we're in now and then the last columns of 2728.
So this will it splits it up by personnel and then scroll down a little bit.
You see the supplies and services the total expenditures.
And this is all just for this one community events department.
And then if you hit back on the browser it'll go back to the table of contents.
And you can just navigate throughout the whole budget this way.
It's it's like a physical copy.
It's just there's a different link for each department.
And then you can see starting in section three there's the enterprise funds are water and wastewater utility funds.
And then section five special revenue funds and so on.
So all of those links are just like pages that we looked at for the parks and wreck.
And I did also want to highlight section nine there the capital projects funds.
If you open up the last link the town of Yonville five year CIP this four casts over the next five years, including.
The current fiscal year 2627 all of our planned capital improvements projects.
I mean, split it by civic facilities and parks and wrecks projects major maintenance projects things like that.
So split up by different.
You're going to types of projects and then if you go back.
One page please and if you want to look at and then go back to section nine with the capital projects.
The first link capital improvements so now we're looking at the current fiscal year list of projects.
And it gives a little bit of detail for the project of the current fiscal year that we're in.
So if you have a curious what projects we're all working on mostly public works.
And then you can just go through this list and you can see and you can give us a call if you have any questions.
But that is pretty much it it's a pretty simple web page with a lot of information.
If you're looking for anything specific you can always call the town.
Seven seven nine four four eight eight five one you can walk through the doors you can chat with us you can ask for me.
Kyle the Tsta or you can ask for Celia the administrative services director and we're happy to answer any questions that you have.
Can you just pull up as somebody just wanted to see you know the simplest overview.
What are our you know general expenses in terms of dollars and revenue where would they go.
So under section one if you go down a little bit this general fund overview.
It's about 15 or so down yeah.
So this here this has a lot of information it is specific to the general funds so it doesn't include enterprise funds doesn't include.
I mean our capital projects funds 50 or 81 or 82 but if you scroll down a little bit so you can see that the.
Pipes heart there of our general fund revenues that we're expecting.
For fiscal year 2627 you can see about 57% of it is the TOT and then there's the sales tax that makes up 11.
And a half percent property tax makes up about 18 19% so this is the revenue snapshot and if you scroll down a little more.
This is just a history of our three primary revenues which property tax sales tax and TOT.
This talks about our fund balance allocation after you start the the beginning fiscal year.
What are fund balances at all the expected revenues take out all the expected expenditures and then you have a dollar amount left over this is how it is split out.
And then keep scrolling down there will be some expenditures here too and then so similar a pie chart here to the revenue but our expenditures public safety public works planning and building.
Etc. So this is the best place to look at our fund one general fund.
All right so if I was also just last question.
I wanted something was happening in the town and we were spending.
For various reasons a lot more money than we had really budgeted for in a certain area say you know we had a major problem someplace.
Where would that information show up? This is this updated or.
Good question. So this document here is more like a static in pictures if you're putting out a static document.
But we do have on the finance page and we do have the transparency portal which that is if you go under finance and then the adopted by annual budget the third link down.
And then if in the middle there's that town of y'all feel transparency portal it's an italics.
This is where it kind of shows a little bit more of the live data so I would say if you're curious about.
The live numbers and how actual to budgets are looking this is the best place to go or every month when we publish our monthly financial reports.
They're they're consent calendar items that they come out every month or so that also it compares budget to actual.
And then if you have any maybe if you have any more specific questions then that you can feel free to give us a call.
Thank you very much and my favorite is always watching the TOT reports come out they come out every month as far as the greater than 70% so if you if you only have one thing you want to look at that's where I tip you off go look at that so anyway.
Any questions from the council before I go to public we're just going to have like a this is a good time to ask Kyle is here he'll tell you anything you want to know about the budget so.
Council any questions first question so Kyle we we do get the TOT as council members.
Is it where would you find that on the web if you wanted to see that monthly report that shows the occupancy and the rates and all that.
I think Hillary read your mind there she was already going there so if you go to departments and then finance.
Okay.
And then the financial reports.
And then click on transparency and occupancy tax information and then that link in the middle shows the most recent that was reported because of the timing I always like to specify it says collections through May twenty twenty six.
But I was reported July fourth so that is the most recent report and then if you click on that go ahead and open it up.
It'll show you.
And this is kind of the quick summary that gives most of the information you would want in one snapshot and then there's 15 pages of detail with a lot of historic information.
Monthly information so I think right now read about 92% of our collected expected revenue and that's you know we're still waiting for June to finalize so we'll see how the year ends but it's looking pretty good looking pretty good.
You and I do an outstanding job on this so no question.
And one of my struggles is there so much information and we've talked a little bit in the past and I've raised this about I don't really like this expression but a dashboard.
Is that something that we could still think about.
The trick being the key what are the key indicators you want to look at and then trying to get them into a meaningful format.
Definitely.
It might be helpful to have and even then it could let people know where to go to read more but people we're all in this mode of.
Very short attention spans.
Understood yeah there is internal conversation about that and we have talked about how most of the information that we think.
The public is interested in would either be in our monthly financial report or this or this TOT report so we've talked a little bit about how maybe we can.
You know revamp those a little bit and we've we kind of are making some changes to those and we've already made some changes to add little summary tables on the monthly financial report but obviously.
More ideas the better so let's even have a tab somewhere easy you know that you could just click on when you first go into the budget or the finances anyway.
Thank you.
You got to do it an outstanding job on monitoring all this so thank you.
Do have a monthly financial report that you could pull up easily just to kind of because this is what we do put on our consent calendar is just about once a month.
I'm going to go to department.
And then go to, show people what that looks like and where it can be found, both online and in our consent calendars.
Go to the financial reports there again, and then scroll down to monthly financial reports.
And then you'll see the most recent that have been approved through the consent calendar.
So if you go ahead and open up the May 2026.
So these are what the consent calendar items look like.
We'll be presenting the preliminary June report at the next council meeting.
So this is the most recent one.
So you'll see, we kind of, this is the new table that I was thinking about.
We added maybe three or four months ago or so.
It's a snapshot of where we are with the revenues.
And then we have a similar table on the second page for the expenditures.
So this is where, if you're looking for any snapshot type information in terms of budget to actual.
I do, I do think this is the best place to go.
To speak to where one would find them within the agenda packet that can be found on the homepage as well.
If you visit the view agendas in minutes.
And within this page, you can see archived meetings here.
I believe the last one was probably brought forth on June 2nd.
And here.
That date may be wrong.
Kyle, can you.
June 2nd would have been too early.
Sorry, it would have been the second meeting in June.
Let's go with the regular meeting here.
And those reports are found within the consent calendar here item eight.
Receive and file the May 2026 monthly financial report.
And it is, it is great to see where it is on the, on the, the meetings here.
I do think because we don't know exactly when they're reported.
If you just go to the, I think it is best to just go to the finance page.
Because it'll show the most recent one here.
So that may be the, that may be the best way to find it.
Okay, great.
All right, public, this is your time to come up and ask Kyle or staff.
Any question you've been wondering about the budget.
How to find something.
Something's updated.
Food call.
Nobody wants to go up.
Okay.
That's going to be up.
We have a staff who would like to make a comment.
Yes.
I just see a very important person with one additional comment that I know Kyle is going to talk about.
For people who do want to know more analog mechanism.
There is a paper copy of the budget of physical copy at both town hall and at the library and speaking to the snapshot view.
There is, if you look at the wall over there, there is the budget in brief, which is quick charts of general fund and utility fund revenues and expenditures for more condensed view.
All right.
Thank you.
Just kind of wrap.
I think Yampil has been very lucky for a long time.
It's a pretty, one thing we are is pretty physically conservative around here.
Our TOT and sales tax is doing well and continues to do well.
So, I think that one thing that is, I'm always kind of proud to tell people that we don't have some of the problems that I hear other people have.
I'm very happy about that.
So, but that now I am going to any other council final comments.
I'm going to move on to our second staff presentation.
We are going to receive and file.
We see a presentation from the staff regarding the state of housing in Yampil.
And we have our director of planning and building area.
And I think Drocko is taken to chair with a single maul.
I think that we all have seen go on yourself.
Before I end the because the chair just considered a couple hundred minutes,
I am starting to want to come into the attendance.
It is in this slide as you can imagine our room, theLC file here.
of discussions. The Council has requested in response to questions that came up during the
Commons process. Tonight's session is focused on housing. Our goal tonight is to provide
information and maybe in some instances educate the community and maybe Council, although you're
pretty familiar with this subject matter. On housing conditions in the community, affordability,
state laws, state legislation, how the town is required to carry out its planning for housing,
meeting housing needs, what the requirements of those laws are, our production. I know I'm stealing
your intro slide here. It's our anyway. We're going to give an overview and provide some information
with the goal of helping again inform and educate the community on what we do and what conditions are
and hopefully engage in a discussion and some questions and answers both with Council and anyone
here tonight who's interested in learning more or asking more detailed questions than we've given
in the presentation. So with that, I'll stop stealing Aaron Show and turn it over to Director Hiccup.
Thank you, Ken and Mayor and Council. So housing presentation, you'd have to bear with me. We have a lot
to get through here. There we go. So as can alluded to, this presentation is going to cover existing
housing stock and affordability, state requirements for housing affordability, housing sites and housing
production, the options for meeting housing needs and consequences for noncompliance.
I think I have too many systems going over here between the Zoom. So if you could just say next slide,
I'll advance them for you. Next slide, please. Okay, key takeaways from the presentation. The town is
currently not on pace to meet it's very low. Income rena housing obligation, less than 10% of
towns housing existing housing is affordable, the moderate and lower income households. The town is at risk of
losing approximately 20% of its existing affordable housing stock in the next 10 years. The majority of our local
workforce needs housing that is affordable to moderate and lower incomes. If approved and anticipated projects
come to fruition, the town will likely need to identify new housing sites to meet future rena needs and future
housing element cycles. There are limited housing sites available for meeting current and future
housing needs. Next slide, please. Okay, existing housing stock and affordability. Next slide, please.
Okay, so currently there are approximately 1,372 existing housing units in the town and
yant bill. You can see here that a majority of those are single family homes followed by mobile homes,
then town homes, then almost equal number of multi-family 2 to 4 units and multi-family
5 units or more. Next slide, please. So housing costs. The median housing costs for single family
home in yant bill is approximately 1.35 to 1.7 million dollars and annual income required to afford a
single family home in that price range is roughly 365 to $515,000. The median cost to rent an apartment in
yant bill, a 1 bedroom range is roughly 2300 to 3,000 per month to bedroom 4,000 to 6,000 per month.
And the annual income required for those apartments for a 1 bedroom range is 85,000 to 108,000
or for a 2 bedroom 151 to $2,000 to $2,000 a year. Next slide, please.
So the affordability of the existing housing stock of those housing units, 100 of those,
or approximately 7% are de-districted to be affordable to be affordable to moderate and lower
income households. And you can see that break down there. Only 13 of those are very low and the rest are
between low and moderate. And these affordable units are monitored by housing authority for compliance with
these affordability standards. And they are also either owned or operated largely by non-profits,
including Napa Valley community housing and Burbank housing. Next slide, please.
I'm sorry, Mayor. Quick question, Mayor. Just in that slide. So when we talk about the 100,
those are de-districted. They're either owner occupied or rental. That's the 100 in the community.
That's correct. All right. Thank you. And so this is just a few photos of what some of
the affordable housing looks like in town. You see the Hopper Creek apartments, a Rio Grande,
in the Mount Avenue of Cottages, and then Washington Park. Next slide, please.
This shows the location of the Affordable Units in town. You can see 24 down there Hopper Creek and then
moving forward and going up. Interesting distribution, going kind of north the south there.
Town Hall being the star in the middle. Next slide, please.
Mayor, really quickly. When we're looking at those two neighborhoods, I know it's a few of the town,
but on the north end, those are homes in the Washington Park, Washington's
estates or community. Yeah, that's right. And there's also a hard to tell,
hard to read from here, but the Mount Avenue Cottages are on there. Right. So that's the neighborhood
in the north end. Mount Avenue, the Cottages, and in Washington Park, in Washington Square. Yeah.
And then on the part near the Y, that is the Oak Circle neighborhood. Right. That's correct.
Where some of those homes were basically built years ago as south, there were self-help construction,
but it's that neighborhood behind Ranch Market. You got it.
And then all the ones on yout to are on there. Because it's quite a few on yout. Yes.
So the Cluster and Washington Park, and I don't know the history, but I'm sure Eric and Pam do,
that must have been the developer was required to make those before I were there or de-restricted
as part of the development. I would assume so, yes. Okay. Next slide, please.
So affordable units at risk of converting to market rates. So of those 100 de-restricted
approximately 20% of those units are going to be potentially lost in the next 10 years,
meaning they're affordable agreements are going to expire. And so, what staff can do is reach out to
the owners of those and have conversations with them about what their plans are. Ultimately,
you know, it's up to the owners to decide what they want to do. An example of that is we did reach out
to Napa Valley Community Housing, who owns the Mount Avenue Cottages last fall sat down and met with
them. Their agreement is expiring next year. And they indicated that they are planning on,
even though it's expiring, planning on leaving those units as affordable units. They also potentially
expressed interest in adding additional units onto the site as well. So we'll see what happens with that.
Next slide, please. So now we're moving on to state requirements for housing affordability.
So, as we all know, California faces severe and persistent housing shortage driven by decades of
restrict of zoning policies, high construction costs, and limited housing production,
the state has experienced skyrocketing home prices and rents that have made housing
unavortable for millions of residents across all income levels. The supply of housing and
California is not kept up with demand, especially for those affordable units as housing prices continue to
rise. And over the past 10 years, the state legislature has passed more than 200 laws of
addressing various aspects of this housing challenge. New state laws have made it harder for cities
to restrict housing development. Next slide, please. So legislative actions to simulate housing
production. The housing crisis act of 2019 is a big one and that prevents cities from reducing
intensity of housing development on land where housing is allowed and from opposing and forcing
new subjective design standards after January 1, 2020. And this is really known as the known
net loss rule. So essentially if you have a residential zone property, you can't, if you convert
that to or rezone that to a commercial use, you have to find another equal parcel that will
can accommodate the same density of that residential parcel and up zone it. Certain housing projects
may be built by right in some locations without discretionary approval. So that's multi-family or certain
mixies housing projects consistent with objective design standards. Don't require a use permit
and that's essentially SB-35. And then some residential development is allowed in non-resident
residential zoning districts and certain circumstances. That would be a vacant commercial
properties along certain court, transportation corridors and things like that. That also lots of
forming the California Environmental Quality Act, to release timelines for housing projects. And
they've also added numerous exemptions for infill housing with those as well, expediting project
approvals and permitting through streamlined reviews. And this essentially places limits on how long we
have the review review and issue building permits for various housing projects including ADUs.
And allowing diverse housing solutions like increasing housing density through multi-family housing
and fill development near transit and streamlining accessory dwelling unit approvals.
So in summary, this is what the slide has really shown. The state has slowly been taken away
local control over housing project year after year after year.
And also our town attorney keeps this updated. There are so many of these housing laws
that are coming that we as council get regular updates about this and we have lots of questions
and you're absolutely right. There's a lot less local control that we used to have.
And it's hard. It's hard for us. I'm sure it's hard for the public to say, well, how come this
big thing is coming in and it's looking right in my window and I can't do anything about it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been nonstop. Right. Thank you. So local planning housing elements. So under
California State Library, City and County must admit.
Dopting maintain a housing element is one of the required elements of its general plan, and that
housing element serves as the community's long-term strategy for meeting existing projected
housing needs for all income levels. Unlike other general plan elements, it must be adopted
on a status-fabler schedule and reviewed for compliance by HCD. Next slide, please.
I just want to make another comment to, because this is your first housing element here in
Yonfil, right here, and it's that you worked on? No, I didn't, that was done for it.
It was, oh, you didn't look down. It's in the past, you know, it's been a fairly easy process. It's been
a template. We have experts that kind of help, then it goes off to the state and using a few weeks
it's certified. This last housing element went on for months and months. We had extra consultants,
and it was very, very difficult to pass it. So things have changed up there. Again, if you have
and you want to comment, I was actually here. And an interim capacity is planning director at the time,
and your observation is correct, and it's not just Yonfil, it's gotten harder for it. It's all cities.
HCD has gotten good at learning the practices that various cities have used throughout California to
avoid meeting its housing needs or addressing them in compliance with state law. So HCD is good at
kind of sniffing out, you know, half-bake efforts, and I'm not saying that's what happened here in
Yonfil. I'm just trying to point out that HCD has gotten a lot tougher and a lot smarter on looking at housing
elements and making sure each city and county is meeting, you know, housing element law. And so it doesn't
surprise me when I left in my interim capacity, we were on track. At HCD, instead of if you do,
you know what you're showing us you're going to do, we'll certify your element. I came back a year later
and it was a little surprise to find there was more discussion after they told you you were going to
get certified. They decided there were some more things, you know, the town you did do. And fortunately,
you know, we were able to do that and get certification, but at your point of it's a hard process with HCD,
and my point of HCD is getting tougher in their review of cities, you know, up and down California,
it is a fair one in a ballot one. Yeah, I just add that HCD was previously a fairly passive agency
and that's changed. So over the last five years in particular with all the state laws that have
removed a lot of the discretion and controlled the locals used to enjoy has been taken away.
And at the same time, they have increased enforcement ability and enforcement powers for HCD.
So HCD really looks at the housing element now to make sure that you're implementing the
opportunity sites and that the housing of the different income levels is actually going in.
So in the last cycle, for example, there were several opportunity sites that have been included in previous
cycles in HCD force the town to take them out and identify new sites. Aaron's going to talk about that
in a moment, so I won't take the wind out of his presentation, but they are taking a very close look at
everything from the very small jurisdictions to very large jurisdictions, and then also doing mid-cycle reviews
and initiating enforcement when that happens. Can you talk briefly about some of that enforcement? It's been
pretty hot and heavy in the news in the last few weeks. So yeah, I assume they're coming out.
Yeah, there's a few slides on that at the end here too. But fines and then they can also de-certify
your housing element. And if that happens, it triggers a series of state laws that allowed
developers to come in without any town input at all. So Gary, how many I was reading an article in the
Chronicle in the about the Bay Area, and I think one city had its housing element either de-certified or not
certified. Out of the 370 cities, how many would you say of either had their housing element de-certified
or not certified at all? Just as a testament? Well, I can't track, I don't know. Yeah, and I'd be hesitant
to to guess to make that. What I will say is that the housing element cycles are there's different regions
of the state that are on different cycles, so that HCD is not reviewing all 483 cities and 58 counties at
the same time. So Northern California and the Bay Area counties are on one particular cycle that happens.
They changed the deadlines and the state law for how that happens. So this last cycle
cities submitted to HCD on time, but HCD had too many to review within the deadline for adopting. So it
put a lot of local jurisdictions in a tough spot because if you don't have an adopted housing element
then it's not substantial compliance and then all of the other laws are triggered, but HCD needs
to sign off first. And so a lot of jurisdictions adopted before HCD took formal action on their housing
elements and then HCD finally did review after the fact and had revisions and had to come back. And so
there was this period of questionable compliance. Okay, next slide, you're ready there. So key components
of the housing element. That first housing needs assessment which analyzes the existing and projected
housing needs based on population household employment and demographic trends. Second, the housing
inventory and conditions evaluate the communities existing housing stock including age, affordability,
vacancy rates, special housing needs. Third is the sites inventory in which is adequate sites analysis
and that is to demonstrate that sufficient land is available with appropriate zoning and development
capacity to accommodate the jurisdiction share of its rena for all income levels, which is important to
note. Conservation and preservation include strategies to preserve affordable housing stock,
prevent displacement where appropriate maintain the existing housing stock, then there are the programs
and policies which establish specific actions the jurisdiction will undertake to facilitate housing
production, preserve existing housing, remove barriers and promote fair housing. And so I'll just point
out so one of the goal in the housing element goal, H3, the goal is a variety of housing types. It means
provide for a variety of housing types. The policy 3.3 associated with that goal is to promote the
development of multi-family housing. And then program 22, or part of it, under that policy 3.3 is the
town will review and revise the zoning ordinance to ensure compliance with state law. So that's kind of an
example of the structure on how that's laid out. And then finally implementation and monitoring and that's
committing to measurable programs of timelines and responsible parties and report annually on implementation
to HCD. Next slide, please. So rena, the regional housing needs allocation is the process,
is California's method for determining how much housing is needed statewide and assigning their
responsibility for planning that housing among the cities and counties, the counties, the processes
intended that every community plans for its fair share of housing that all income levels and support
statewide housing goals. So HCD determines the total number of housing units needed for each region
over that eight-year planning period, which is the housing element cycle, which is based on projected
population growth, existing housing, overcrowding, cost burdens, vacancy rates, and other housing needs.
And then the regional cog, which here's a bad association of barrier governments, then allocates
those housing numbers to the various jurisdictions within that region. Next slide, please.
So yes, I just noted then every year's ABAG develops a methodology to allocate the region
housing needs among the local jurisdictions. Each city and county in the barrier receives its allocation
and for income categories, which is very low, low, moderate, and above moderate. Then each city
and county must update its housing element to demonstrate it has sufficiently appropriately
zone land and policies to accommodate that region allocation. And so Rena does not require us to actually
build or guarantee that housing will be constructed instead of requires that we remove unreasonable barriers
and maintain adequate zoning capacity and adopt programs that facilitate housing development. However,
a lack of production can lead HCD to require more aggressive programs. And so then as far as
compliance and enforcement is concerned, HCD reviews has an element for compliance and jurisdictions
of outer compliant housing element, based legal challenges, reduced eligibility for certain state
funding programs and potential enforcement actions under California housing laws. Next slide, please.
So here's our current Rena allocation. We have 19 very low, 11 low, 12 moderate, and 30 above
moderate for a total of 72. Next slide, please. So here is the Napa County annual income limits and this
is effective as of June 1, 2026. And so these are the income limits for those those Rena allocation
criteria. So very low, low, medium, moderate. So essentially anything under from 80 to 120 falls
under the moderate, and you can see that is broken up by how many people there are per household. So that
number does go up depending on how many persons there are per household. Do you know what you're going to
speak? Can you also address the new extra, the two new extra low income? I'll let Director Hicaca
address that. I just want to point out so people, you know, understand what this table is showing.
If we look at the column titled low, which is 80% of median income, and it shows for a single person,
you are low income. If your annual income is 98,000, you know, 98,000 dollars.
Night, a year. So we'll just keep that in mind when you hear terms low income very low income. We're not
talking about households that make 20,000 dollars a year, 10,000 dollars a year. We're talking about
households that are making 98,000 dollars a year. We're two individuals earning 112,000 or
considered low. Yes. So I think the mayor was talking about a cutely low and extremely low income categories.
And so those are in the renappresses, those are grouped under the low income. So essentially they have a
percentage and they'll divvy that up as far as that's concerned. But there are even lower than low.
And those been approved yet by the legislature? Not that I'm aware of. Okay, but they're very likely
coming from everything. My kind of here working through. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay, next slide please.
Okay, so then we just saw what the low, very low with those income levels are. And here's
estimated income levels of the local workforce. Obviously these are estimates and there's going to be a range
and they're going to vary. But you see hotel needs housekeepers, 45,000 a year, very low hospitality
managers, 87,000, 88,000 low retail sales, 37, very low and so on and so forth. So just gives an example of what
our actual needs are for these housing types. Mayor, just I think this is one of them are
what is an important one because when you remove the the registered nurse firefighter
town staff person, then you're talking about the folks that work in this community that are
earning our low or very low income levels. So I see this report was generated from generation housing,
which does has done research for this county of Sonoma and recently the Napa County Board of
Supervisors hired them to do research for income level for the for the Napa Valley. And generally when we were
talking with the comments we were receiving information about Yantville in the greater area
that shows that we have people that work here predominantly are on the low to very low income schedule.
So there's no surprises or any significant surveys that need to be done of our staff in this town
that show that the folks that work here are earning about the same thing that that work in the other
hotels and the restaurants all over the valley and it's all and from my perspective and that's
being on the council now and 25 30 years ago this council the council's president past have always
recognized the fact that we have a responsibility as a partner and the valley to find housing for folks
that are working at the low and very low in service community and provide us the services to get us
the TOT and sales tax. So it's a recognition for us that this council pass councils or councils in the
future we're going to be talking about how we do our best to provide opportunities for people to live and work
in the community that are serving us and giving us the good quality of life. But I think that when
shows that every when you look at most of those columns those are the folks that are working here
in this community and we need and it's good that we are concerned about it and we certainly don't
defer to any other community whether it's Saint Alina or Napo or American Canyon the responsibility of
doing our share to provide that housing. So thank you. I just wanted to. Okay next slide please.
So housing sites and housing production. Next slide. So we touched on this briefly early under
California state housing element law. The site analysis is one of the mandatory and important components
of the housing element. The site's analysis must conventionally demonstrate the HCD that the jurisdiction
has a realistic and legally adequate inventory of land capable of accommodating its arena during the plant.
Anym period, not nearly enough on paper, but the sites are likely to develop at the densities in affordability levels assumed in the housing element. Next slide, please.
So, a site analysis must identify sufficiently into accommodate the jurisdictions in Tiner, entire arena by income category, including vacant sites and where appropriate non vacant sites, with the realistic development potential.
So, site suitability evaluates whether each site is physically suitable for residential development and considers factors such as parcel size, configuration, topography, environmental constraints, availability, utilities and public services, and surrounding land uses.
And then appropriate zoning. So, we must demonstrate that the zoning allows for the residential development at the densities sufficient to accommodate the assigned income category.
And then finally, analyze the development standards to ensure that they do not unduly constrain housing production. Next slide, please.
So, realistic development capacities. So, that's estimating the number of housing units each site can reasonably accommodate using realistic assumptions rather than theoretical maximums.
And then consider market conditions, parcel characteristics, existing development and likely project types, and likely hood of development. So, again, demonstrate that the sites are likely to develop during the housing element planning period.
So, just putting a site out there and say, no, you know, we're choosing this one if there's no chance it's going to develop isn't isn't going to fly with HD anymore.
And for sites with existing uses provide evidence that that redevelopment is feasible, such as underutilized market trends, owner interests, redevelopment history, and additional statutory requirements relying on non-bacon or previously identified sites.
And so, there are a few notes here at the bottom. So, the first one is that sites can be used in multiple housing elements.
However, state law and HD do impose increasingly stringent requirements when a site is reused.
For instance, when a non-bacon site is used in two consecutive housing elements, the residential development comes by right if a project then contains over 20% affordable units.
So, no use permit, it's permitted by right use.
So, let's go through that again, just so everybody's really clear what they're telling us.
Yeah, so if you, so we're in the sixth cycle, we have our identified housing sites that we'll go through here at a moment.
If those sites were used in the fifth cycle housing element, so now we've used them two times in a row, now moving forward and this is all outlined in the housing element.
If a project comes forward that contains 20% affordable units, it's a bi-right project, meaning no use permits are required.
Now, that doesn't exempt it from CEQA, it doesn't exempt a subdivision map from going through a process.
But, or design review for that matter, but then the designer view is subject only to objective standard.
So, you're essentially checking a box, just like if a subdivision map is essentially going to be checking a box.
So, it really limits discretion.
So, most of the decision making within town hall is really done by your department and it's limited.
That's correct.
Can I ask a question, I'm just with respect to that note.
It says non vacant site is used in two consecutive housing elements, so that's a non vacant site.
Right.
So, is it a different rule for undeveloped land?
So, non vacant, so a vineyard is considered non vacant.
So, a vacant site is just an empty site, essentially.
Yes, I'm just asking, is it a different rule, non vacant?
I'm thinking in my mind there's a bill.
It's a little more strict.
So, it's a different rule if it's undeveloped.
It's vacant, yes, it's less, they pose less requirements on vacant sites.
Less meaning, you could use a more often.
You can use them in more elements?
Housing elements?
No, so they won't.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Councilman, try to answer your question.
If you have a vacant site that is identified in two consecutive housing elements and doesn't develop,
you are not allowed to continue to show that site as meeting, you know,
identifying that as a housing opportunity site in your housing element.
That's what I was asking.
So, it doesn't really matter.
The same rule for vacant and non vacant.
It's a little different.
This has a provision on, you know, by right.
I don't know.
It's just generally, yeah, I'm not trying to, right.
I know this stuff is ridiculously complex, but just in general.
Okay, thank you.
So, then, to that.
So, H.C.D. then closely review sites that have appeared repeatedly without producing housing,
especially for lower income, arena, and often implosive,
imposes requirements upon those sites.
So, if you've re-lit, if you've re-done it and nothing's happening,
they may require that you re-zone it or change the development standards.
Or timelines for alternative site selection.
Okay, next slide, please.
So, here are our opportunity sites and the re-enerperjections.
And so, site one, you see is the French laundry garden and in the housing element,
they projected 16 lower income units there on one acre,
only one acre of that site.
And we'll show that in an aerial in a moment.
Site two is the Catholic Church site.
And I'm that entire site.
They only assumed development on 2.3 acres of it.
However, the housing element assumed 72 units on that.
And then the three remaining are all on humble, two of which were part of the mixed-use project
that was approved last year.
And you'll see the only three units assumed for that,
and actually five were approved.
So, that's good.
The third one on humble is the one east of the development there.
It's kind of sandwiched between two homes.
And so, I don't know how likely that is to develop in the near term.
But you will notice that the total realistic capacity that we came up with is 93 units,
which is obviously more than the 72.
That's because each CD requires a buffer.
So, they give you the 72, but then they just to be sure they want you to show 15 to 20% more
typically in your housing element that you're going to button beyond that number.
Next slide, please.
Okay, so here's housing element opportunity site number one,
that we just mentioned, the French laundry garden.
And so, you'll see that the one acre there is kind of fronting Weber
and it's where those existing single-family homes are now.
Next slide.
This is the Catholic Church site.
And of that portion there, only 2.3 acres, 2.3 acres.
Okay.
So, yeah, the assumption was that 72 units were going to be produced there on that west side of the property.
I will say, you know, I think we're all aware that the site has been listed for sale,
and that includes the entire eastern portion of that site as well,
which is 12.4 acres.
And so we could see a development application for a much larger project
than that was assumed in the housing element.
Most of that's in the 100 year flood plan too.
That is correct.
That entire east of the creek is in the 100 year.
Although the 2.3 acres is probably more developable.
It's easier to develop for sure.
I know it's just rumor, but is the rumor true that there have been some actual initial
inquiries about the planning department about developing that site.
We've had some meetings with some prospective buyers of the property, yes.
Because I'm guessing they want to know what they can put on it.
We'll determine what they want to pay for it.
That's correct.
So you are the key to what to put on it.
Next slide please.
So there's a site on humble, as I just mentioned,
the one on the left there is actually two parcels,
and that's where the McSteak, the five unit McSteaks project
was approved last year.
Next slide please.
That is the house, kind of north on Jeff or I guess there's no house.
They're the vacant, basically vacant lot on north Jefferson.
And it's 0.34 acres and the housing element only assumed one unit on that.
I think that would possibly be a candidate for an up zoning at some point
if that is something we wanted to look into.
I think under the current density range, which is E units an acre,
it would allow three units now, but something to consider just given where it is
and its current configuration.
Next slide please.
So this slide shows a re-nallocation and then where we're at with building permits
issued, which is when you get credit for each CD for arena unit,
when the building permits issued, and then also the approved 16 units
between oak and vine and the humble project.
So we're at between those two, we're at 29 of a 72, but I think the thing
to really note here is the very low income.
Even if we see other things develop over town, I think the very low
is going to be tough to hit based on where we're at now.
Next slide please.
And so this shows a projection kind of based on what I was just saying.
So that shows the 29 units where we're at, and then essentially going back 10 years
we've issued three to three and a half building permits a year for new residential units.
So going with that average of three units a year, this shows us up 44 units
at the end of housing element cycle.
So next slide please.
So options for meeting housing needs and consequences for non-compliance.
Next slide please.
So other options for accommodating arena obligation include
de-districting of existing residential units, and that would require a de-distriction
for 55 years, and would require the property owner be willing to do so.
Obviously annual reporting and compliance monitoring by the housing authority.
And then only can't count towards 25% of our overall read and number.
Increase ADU production still requires a willing property owner and property owner
investment.
And another issue here in town is that some properties may be constrained
to do a smaller lot size, limiting detached ADUs.
And so if those folks were interested, it would potentially require interior conversion
space or potentially adding a second story.
And then obviously rezoning.
So rezoning, making their underutilized parcels to allow for increased densities,
or rezoning on residential properties for residential uses.
And as we've noted, there are limited numbers of larger vacant and
or underutilized properties in town.
Next slide please.
So these are the sites we could potentially depending on how things go,
consider in the next housing element cycle, to conclude to use this opportunity site.
So again, there's the eastern portion of the Catholic Church site.
You know, we don't know exactly what's going to happen there if nothing in
that's happening.
That's going to potentially be an option.
There's that.
The 1.5 acre site there.
Just east of Hotel Yachtville.
And that's currently some single family residential.
There's one house on it.
It is.
The properties heavily constrained you to access.
It's got a very narrow entrance point.
And apparently there's no easement out back into the mobile home park for EVA access.
So constrained, say the least.
Next slide please.
I think we all know this one.
So this is the parks and play fields portion of the Yachtville common site.
Next slide please.
And this is the agricultural parcel on the northeast side of town.
Which is obviously 32.5 acres.
Yeah, you know, if we ended up deciding to use part of that, we I don't think we would
need to use the whole thing.
But just pointed out that that's the size of the parcel.
Next slide please.
So consequences to not meet in state requirements is very touched on earlier.
So identifying additional housing sites, state required general plan or zoning amendments to
additional housing sites into require amendments to the town zoning standards to increase residential
densities and development potential for properties.
De-certification of the housing element.
Housing element is de-certified by each CD.
Qualifying housing development to be be approved even if they don't comply with general plan or zoning regulations.
This is which known as the Builders remedy.
So in effect the state removes some local control over land use as a consequence of the city's noncompliance.
One thing to note is that those Builders remedy projects do require at least 20% of the units be for lower income households.
And sequit does still apply to those projects as well.
Another potential consequences of the last state funding opportunities.
And so that is an inability to obtain state funding under certain programs.
Those are typically housing and infrastructure related funding programs that require a compliant housing element to be qualified for.
And then finally a litigation.
And this is initiated by the Attorney General to compel compliance and or levy fines.
The court may suspend a town's authority to issue building permits or grant zoning changes of areas or subdivision map approvals.
And it's interesting we started preparing this before last week.
And I think is the mayor just mentioned the Attorney General exercise this power.
I believe last week.
Bringing litigation against five jurisdictions here in the state.
Next slide please.
So the conclusions that we briefly touched on earlier is that we're not currently on pace to meet our low income housing obligations.
Less than 10% of the town's existing housing is affordable to moderate and lower income households.
The town is at risk of losing 20% of its existing affordable housing stock in the next 10 years.
The majority of our local workforce needs housing that is affordable to moderate and low incomes.
And if approved in anticipated projects, do you come to fruition?
The town will likely need to identify new housing sites for meeting a future arena.
And there are limited housing sites available for meeting current and future housing names. And that concludes the presentation and would be happy to answer any questions and may have.
Okay, first I'll see if the council have any questions, any questions?
Do I have to push my button?
No, I'll get to you. You go first and then I'll go.
I just want to go back to that last slide.
The last statement there, there are limited housing sites available for meeting current and future housing needs.
So, we get a rena allowance every eight years.
What happens say in two or three cycles when there are no within town limits sites is then there a,
I don't know, do they give up or do we give up?
No, it's hard to say and it really, there are a lot of things that will depend.
But I think at some point we could become built out and I believe they've designated a few jurisdictions in the state as essentially being built out.
But you never know, I think could just say, you got to go up, you know, increased density.
So, yeah, it's, it's really hard to predict where it'll be that far into the future.
So, in the other slide that showed the trajectory of how many,
what is it?
It's the actual and projected residential growth.
It shows our allotment is 72 and our actual projected is 44 at this point.
And you mentioned a couple times that we're not on track to meet our very low,
but we're not on track to meet any of the categories basically, right?
That's very based on historical trends.
So, we would, we would need housing at all levels to make our rena numbers.
And then when you were talking about the Catholic Church property that was just resumed in the front,
along Washington Street and that small piece was the one that you were estimating there would be 72 units on that side.
That's what it says in the housing element.
But okay, so if there were 72 units that were deemed to be part of the rena configuration,
how many regular units would then be attributed to that small piece?
Do you understand what?
So, they're not just built, even if it's an affordable housing developer,
which I don't think is who's sniffing around right now.
So, if it were somebody who was a for profit builder, they would would be building other types of housing,
besides the low income or moderate income housing.
Yeah, so, I mean, given that I would say, you know, they'll probably go with the 20% to go with the buy right,
so 20% of the 72, whatever that number is.
So, we wouldn't get the full 72 out of that site?
No.
Not for affordable.
That'd be 20% of 72's 14 units.
So, 14 of the 72 would likely be affordable.
Okay, so, I don't know if that's what you mean.
We wouldn't meet our rena numbers with that problem.
No, but I will say that the way the church is selling that property,
it's likely not going to be the front portion that's going to develop a housing.
It's going to be, it's going to be that eastern portion and the floodplain,
and they're going to have to figure out those environmental constraints.
Right.
So, I wouldn't anticipate going forward that that housing is going to be the way the housing element thought it would be.
It's going to be on the eastern portion of much larger parcel.
So, if it is the larger parcel and they do figure out the flooding issue.
Yeah.
What would the maximum number of houses be considering 20% affordable?
So, good question.
So, that site's 12.44 acres.
What the maximum is.
So, the allowed density, there's 10 to 20 units in acre.
10 units in acre would be 124 units.
So, double that, 2048 would be the max allowed.
But based on the lower number, let's say they go with the minimum allowed.
Again, 124 units.
But they did just the 15% which is the inclusion area requirement, 15% that would be 19 affordable units.
So, in addition to the 120.
No, it would just be of that 120.
That would be included.
Correct.
And if they did the 20% to kick a net buy rate provision, that would be 25 units.
And then our inclusion area breaks up how those are distributed differently between ownership and rental units.
So, the numbers are a little bit different.
But, essentially, you know, under, let's say, let's go with the 15, the conservative approach.
Under an ownership model, it would be 6 very low, 7 low, 6 moderate.
And if they were rental, it would be 9 very low and 10 low.
And it seems like the council's previous to us had instigated this realization,
which we are having now with the Washington Square properties,
where for our investment in low cost housing,
it's better for a rental unit versus an ownership unit,
because those tend to fall out and we've lost the whole investment or the realization of that unit,
because someone now owns it.
So, would we change our requirement to be only rental units in order to make sure they were in perpetuity?
So, I mean, that would be something we consider for housing that,
you know, we contribute money to or units that we buy or things like that,
but that wouldn't really apply to the Catholic Church site.
Okay.
Thank you.
Well, one comment I would like to make about the 20% that's falling off,
and Washington Park where I think the developer probably paid to build those.
We have spoken about how housing can create wealth for people.
And there are people in Washington Park, I don't know how long the D restriction was 20,
25 years, who have been there now 20 or 25 years, and can sell the house and retire.
And it is what I've heard council members speak about, which is a step to help people develop wealth.
So, I'm not personally thinking losing D restricted housing in and in and of itself is such a bad thing.
But my main question is, how do we, I gave a little thought to how we compare to other jurisdictions?
And I mentioned this to you, there was an article in the Chronicle, and I'll be happy to share it with anybody.
As of the end of 2025, what all the Bay Area cities, how far they were on their housing elements,
and how many units have been constructed, and it will vary between 4% and 7%.
Nobody was over 7%.
So, if you look at, and again, I'm all for housing.
I just feel facts are good, and realism is good, and panic is not good.
If you include what out of the 70 units, if you include what we've built, we're at about 20% I think of our housing element,
and if you include what's been approved, like Oconvine, then we're at almost 40%.
And we still have, I mean, so we have a ways to go.
So, the rest, just to recap, the rest of the Bay Area, and they, I don't have the facts,
or they're in this part of the Bay Area.
But the rest of the Bay Area has accomplished between 4% and 7%.
And we have either approved or actually built almost 40% of our housing element.
So, and I think the low income is really going to be a problem.
No question about that, but we have made significant progress.
And we have no control if you approve a development.
People are looking for financing, trying to decide, you know, like Oconvine, we can't necessarily predict,
but we have actually approved or built 40% of our housing element.
And it's start, yeah, so anyway, that's just something to keep in mind.
Although the low income is really important, and it could be the real problem.
I think that's a fair point, council membership, but I think the question for the community and council to consider is,
you know, what is the tolerance or acceptance of having, you know,
HCD directing, you know, us to promote, you know, the opportunity for higher density housing if we're not producing,
which I presume in these other communities is what's happening.
So, we say, hey, we're doing, you know, better than a lot of communities, we've hit 10% of our need.
HCD may respond, I'm speculating here, that's great, Godville, but you're not, you know, we're not meeting enough housing.
So, you know, where you have two stories owning now, maybe we need to have three stories owning to help incentivize and increase the development potential and feasibility of sites.
That may not necessarily happen here, but just so everybody understands why we may be doing better than most or the same as most.
Everybody else is, you know, having those conversations or we'll be having those conversations with HCD on, you know,
do we make processes more streamlined? Do we increase densities, do increase building heights?
And so that's the consideration and risk, you know, and sitting back and relaxing, and I know you're not suggesting that we sit back and relax.
But I just want to make that point clear.
Well, and I completely understand that, and I'd mention this to you.
I had the chance at one point to be the regulatory affairs officer for C&H Sugar and Crocodone.
So, it dealt a lot with agencies, and one of my comments to you is, and they have a lot of discretion as to when they put you in the non-performing box or whatever.
None of my CNH was never in that box.
But, you know, I just, in terms of talking to the regulators, as Eric mentioned, we bought an entire site and paid for it ourselves with the intention of putting up housing,
affordable housing, which I am still a proponent that that happens.
I would think that would show to HCD that we are not really foot dragging, because that's a pretty extraordinary thing to have done in my opinion.
So we're obviously not a community that's saying, no, no, no, we don't want to invest, no, no, no, no.
And there are a number of communities that have said that, basically, and those are the ones who are de-certified and getting sued and fined and whatnot.
So I just, I wanted to add that.
I feel like, you know, Bill has been a good citizen in this regard.
I think that's a fair comment.
It absolutely, if we can, those discussions, you know, we would point to those kind of things.
Councilmember Knight.
Thank you, Mayor.
I, I, I understand the thing, I think, just with HCD, which concerns me is that I've never been able to fully understand why.
They're concerned with the, with the, of moderate development, because in our community.
People are going to build and those prices are, are not, are not at any point regulated.
So I, at some point when we talk about how, how many, how many of our,
of our reading numbers we've reached when we, we include above moderate.
I don't, I'm not sure.
I think our focus really needs to be on what we're doing.
You know, for moderate lower, very low.
And I think our community and the councils in the past have always recognized the importance of our inclusionary policy was 15% affordable.
It was, we don't want the money, because we know a little bit of money buys nothing in the town where
homes and lot parcels cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We've, we've asked or told builders that to get some of the benefits of the development here in town.
They have to build.
So, it seems to me, you know, and so we have a 15% affordability requirement or a 15% in our inclusionary, which was above other many other communities in the past.
I think what we're expecting to see is that for five more percent, we're going to see builders that are going to go to that 20%.
Because then they're going to, they're going to ratchet up and basically say, you need to approve this because we've met, we've met the state goals.
The, the, we may have, like you said, some sequo or, or parcel, you know,
sequo review of things, but they're pretty much going to build and exceed what we had typically in the past reviewed and approved through zoning and design review board and all those, those, those details will be gone in the future.
Unless we're continue to do our best to provide and make efforts to provide housing, but I think most developers are going to go to the point where it's
You know, they can build a few more affordable and get a lot more control over the project that what they want to build and I will see that here, we'll see it all over the valley, I think so.
Well, just following on all over the valley, I just really wanted to also bring up the Ag Preserve.
I think that's what, you know, a lot of the cities that we have here in half a valley, why they're challenged because we have the Ag Preserve.
I love the Ag Preserve, we want to support the Ag Preserve, but it really constrains us in terms of what the state wants us to build.
And even the county, they get their A bag numbers two and their rena number, I mean their rena numbers from A bag.
So they are also very challenged, it actually says and, you know, the, the last update on the voter approval of the Ag Preserve that.
The state wouldn't allow it to go through unless they put the language in in the very last line that, you know, except for affordable housing.
So, you know, the state expects them to still build out there. Right now, they've been able to do a lot of horse trading, so they didn't have to.
And city, Napa, taking a lot of the numbers and, you know, the Costco area and all that kind of played into that.
But, you know, that's coming into the future. And it's, you know, it's something that we all have to kind of keep in mind too.
And the challenge is this we face here in the valley with this wonderful act reserve that we have in place that's our livelihood.
So, it's a very interesting discussion how this all kind of plays in.
And the, you know, in the policies that, you know, we have to make as a council to, you know, abide by the rules that kind of come down from the state with no funding.
Just want to say that too, everybody. So, I'm going to let the public, I'm sure the public has lots of questions.
Just go ahead. Just one, one note that I think is all, I think it's kind of something that's out there.
We don't want to talk about it, but our 32 acres on the north end of town are not in the ag preserve and tan of that.
I think it kind of, tan of that acres are in the floodplain on the, on the east side, but there's over 20 acres of land, not protected by the ag preserve and.
And zone agriculture and a community that's surrounded by the ag preserve. So, I don't know, I think some day.
We, you know, we may, there may be a reckoning of that with HCD.
But who knows? I mean, right now we've been fortunate to be able to preserve that and it's privately owned, it's legal not informing.
Well, we have it's own agricultural, and it's probably owned by a private, it's privately owned, but someday we may find some challenges to that.
I've talked to old county supervisors and when Yonfield was formed, it was literally a paper map on the wall and they got a big Sharpie out and drew a line and this was Yonfield.
For people say that, you know, that was never supposed to be in Yonfield. So, I don't know, that will be a discussion for another day and people argue over the thickness of the Sharpie line that was used to draw the jurisdiction.
So, yeah, more conversations later on. Yes, council, tell manager.
Thank you, Mayor, before you open it up for public comment. I didn't want to let council member trip in the public. No, I misspoke about the difference in reusing vacant and non vacant sites.
It is the same practice. If you carry over a vacant or non vacant site for more than two cycles, you are exposed to that by right with 20% requirement. So, we can continue to count them, but we, you know, have to allow that by right provision or accommodate that by right provision.
Do you know if hand, for example, like the Catholic, what we call the Catholic church property, that's been probably in two cycles?
That's been in four or five. Okay, so that really would be a problem.
It has been and in the last cycle, HCD did require the town to rezone it to allow by right development and that is what the R2 zone is in the zoning code.
It only applies to that one parcel and it allows by right at increased density on that site, and that's currently the law.
What does that mean by by right? I mean, I remember I was on the CDRB. It's very dense increased it, but what does by right mean?
Yes, they can't say no. Yeah, so just unpack that. So, HCD uses the concept by right, but you'll sometimes hear it as ministerial approval and those are the same concepts.
So you have discretionary approval and ministerial approval, discretionary is you can say no if you have a reason and your code to say no.
That's usually the findings you make for a use permit or a master development planner or sorts of things.
Ministerial means if it meets the requirements in the code, you cannot say no. So if your code says no more than three stories and here's the floor area ratio and the setbacks are acts and et cetera and they check all the boxes.
You have to give them an over-the-counter building permit. So buy right in HCD speak.
So that is the status of that property now. Correct. Okay, so the number comes in for there and meets the requirements that town will not be able to say no. That's correct.
Okay. Any questions? Councilmember McKee for go to the public. I don't see your hand, but I can't always see it.
I had a loan network connection and I'm not sure that you can hear me right now.
Yes, we can hear me. Yes, we can hear you.
Good because I've been on more than a minute delay. So I'd you can hear me. Thank you.
So Aaron, I think this is obvious, but with the 93 units in our sites inventory, how many sit on land that the town controls?
None.
Okay, so if either a private site develops this cycle, what's our remaining path to lower the income obligation?
Could you repeat that?
I said, if neither private site develops this cycle, the one that you had pointed out, what would our path be to lower the income obligation? Do we have one?
Yeah, I don't know. We would have to find alternative sites.
And I have you. So when we looked at the occupations list for y'all bill, one occupations in the workforce table fell into that very low income.
And where we have built one unit of the 19.
So we are extremely shy on the very low, which you have pointed out, do we have any way to make a path to get there?
Outside of the housing, a path outside of the housing element opportunities sites at the moment, we do not.
That's what I would just add. You could amend your zoning code to require additional very low units for for all development.
So you're inclusionary housing ordinance that council member night was referring to and that we've spoken about.
It requires 15% of the units. If the development has five or more units proposed, 15% of those have to be affordable, but you control the affordability levels for those various units.
The council could increase the percentage that are affordable or the affordability levels for that inclusionary housing ordinance, and that would get you there more quickly.
Okay, so with the former elementary school site with the plans that we were going to be considering with the AMI being as high as it was, we totally would have missed this low level, which was.
In part way our goal and my correct that we were knowing that we were all of every solution that we were intending to go for the workforce that was making upwards of $60,000 to $120,000.
So if we missed since we've missed that opportunity, do we, is it best for us to wait to see what the proper charge property developer going to bring forward or do we, is that in our best interest to be more proactive to take action to listen.
Yeah, it's, we could.
Yeah, I mean, it's a really decision for the council. I mean, we don't have control over the the church property, so we don't know when it, when or if a development application is going to be submitted, we don't know what that application is going to look like, how many, you know, how many units necessarily going to be and what their development time frame is, whether building permits could even potentially be issued during this housing element cycle.
Yeah, it's that that that that property to us, we don't control it, it's an unknown so relying on it is.
You know, maybe not the best best thing to do.
And we go with the, yeah, let council move key, finish, then we'll go with the calendar and then back.
So just a clear question.
Council member McKee, so it's got one more question. Okay.
Go ahead, sorry, there's to let me and I'm sure it's killing you all too.
Just the cost for unit of housing.
And since 2018, what, what do you project it be by 2031, I mean, if it's a longer, we wait.
I said, this is going to be for unit in like, right?
I barely got that, but housing costs are only going to continue to go up, so it's only going to get more expensive.
Okay, thank you. I'll stop that question.
Yeah, I think I just wanted to make clear for everybody.
With regards to housing sites, you know, a good number of our developer sites at the, you know, lower income categories, you know, are, you know, have been approved.
We have, you know, the humble mixed use project, we're going to get a couple units from Oconvine.
We may have a application on the church property.
The French laundry garden site has to be rezoned, and, you know, that site was only included because at one time,
Chef Keller was thinking there might be a hotel project on that property, which didn't come to fruition, which is fine.
So the point of making is we're running out of sites.
We may be able to, you know, meet our rena numbers, the cycle, but we're going to have another cycle coming up.
We don't know what our number is, but those sites that we showed you towards the end of the presentation.
The common site, the vendor property to the north, depending on what happens with the church property.
Maybe a portion of that. Those are going to be the sites we're looking at. Those are not included in our housing element now.
And if, once the sites developed obviously, you can't continue to count it as a site that you'll meet your housing needs on.
So just to make it clear to everybody, we're going to probably have to look at some of those sites, including the common site, including the vineyard site.
How much of those properties, you know, how much housing on those properties to be determined.
Okay, thanks. Okay, it's time for the public. You might like to come up and just come up and stay your name and the microphone.
So Stephen Decker, unlike the past, I just have a question actually first to compliment and that was a really good report.
I was very thorough and, you know, for somebody like myself who's not immersed in all of the detail that you are.
That was clarifying.
So can you pull up the slide of the commons that aerial view of the commons?
And so my question, Aaron, if soon as that comes up.
Well, I think I can ask the question before it comes up. It just helps oriented.
It looks like my question is does the town own the other half of that land that goes all the way up to the to the road?
That's correct. So has that been considered for housing?
I understand the school and various buildings are sitting there, but has that land been considered as a site to increase the number of units?
So we're not there yet, but it's something we could consider in the future.
It would be considered non vacant whereas the parks and play field sites considered vacant.
But yeah, I mean, that portion of the school site was something we were considering before, so yeah, it's possible.
That's not the site here.
Yeah.
So that that western half is own public facilities.
Now where the eastern half is zone parks and play fields.
But yeah, if we own the town owns all of that.
So the town could decide to include that.
Okay.
Thank you.
So Aaron is the commons in our housing element now, not the commons, but that piece of property.
It is not.
It's not. So we could definitely put that in.
Hopefully something will have happened.
But worst case it could be put in for the next cycle.
That's right.
Hi, I'm Michael Bork. I just wanted to say a couple of things.
First of all, I was never proud of our community, proud of our community than when it purchased the former school site.
I hope that we can find a way to move forward in a way that satisfies the requirements that we have now.
And I want to emphasize that one of my fears is that if we don't do that, the builders remedy for example could create an explosion of things that we don't really want here.
I mean, I've heard talk of there being, you just said something about 240 units down by the by the church, for example.
And a part of town that is already really dance by virtue of the the Park City are there.
You know, my concern having gone through a couple of developments over the last year where we lost.
The size of old amount of control over them going into a place where we lose all of the control could completely change the character of this town.
The attempts to come up with a plan to use the comments in a way that was beautiful and didn't look like it was something you stuck behind the you know behind the railroad tracks on the south end of town.
It's something I hope that all of this community can get behind and do something and do it right away because, you know, as somebody pointed out to me recently has taken over two years to get to get the state to it.
Approve the pipeline that has to go underneath the river. These things take enormous amount of time to do. And I just hope that everybody will get behind this. Everybody's reported to be a really forward this housing. And I'm hoping that people will do this.
Because I could see in five years or ten years that we have massive buildings, you know, unused parking lots that have been turned into condominiums, additional hotel rooms. All these things could happen here.
And this is not going to be the community that I moved to thirty four years ago and hope to live here for another, no ten or twenty. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I also want to come up and ask some questions.
Hello. Council staff and people behind me. I'm not used to being behind me.
John Dunbar, former of Yelpville and currently in Napa. A couple of things I wanted to mention.
I'm glad it was just brought up about the former school site that the entire 6.8 acres is potentially available for housing.
It's I saw that you've limited it to that one part that's owned parks in Yelpville space but a parks and recreation.
That certainly makes a big difference because there's quite a bit of space there.
I remember years ago we were told by the state that that's really really nice that you have a two-story high limit. We don't care.
And that's the reality that's really nice. We have properties that have vineyards on them. They don't care.
And so it's your point comes from a night. The police of property that we were told years ago they had no interest in ever doing anything.
We have great finds on it and then recently we hear, well the generations no longer are as committed to that and it might be viable.
I mean there's some really severe things that you could take to make that a viable housing property that we in Yelpville have never wanted to do.
We've been hearing talk about that in Napa about eminent domain. Those are really scary terms that we don't really ever like I said want to get to.
But I found it interesting that nowhere in the presentation was there a single word mentioned about the veteran site.
And I spent a close to a decade working on trying to line up so many different state agencies and elected officials at all levels.
And community leaders and council and staff and we had a project that was pretty close to at least a conceptual project of between 150 and 200 units in the northeast corner of the campus,
which is basically behind domain chandon. There's a vacant meadow and there's a very old one of the residential halls in two small staff houses.
We had I had that all lined up with members of the Department of General Services and Housing and Community Development.
We had two developers ready to come to the property and do a site visit and then potentially give request for proposals.
But at the time it ran up against the skilled nursing facility and the former VA administrator, Dr. Ambassiani rightfully to I mean he absolutely had the right to do it.
He prioritized getting the state funding for the skilled nursing facility that was needed made sense.
I failed and others failed to convince him you could do two things at once and that would be to provide affordable housing for your caregivers for the veterans.
It seemed to make a whole lot of sense. It ran into Sacramento red tape.
Because what General Services and Housing and Community Development said the two things they require local jurisdiction support, which we were happy to give and support from the Veterans Affairs Department.
And he was supportive of that but not at the risk of jeopardizing the funding for the skilled nursing facility. He ended up getting that funding.
And I would have hoped that between the town and the many local administrators that have been up there since then that somebody would have picked up that effort and moved it forward.
The Governor put an executive order together that state surplus property would be basically granted to a developer to build housing.
When Governor Newsom was here in Yelpville announcing his millions of housing initiative.
And he was happy to support housing at the Veterans Home.
So I would strongly encourage those of you that are still in office and I'm happy to help with the background on that.
We keep trying that. It would have relieved a lot of the pressure we're talking about today about the density and the limited locations and the inability to get to really control things that are privately owned.
So people know how to find me if you want.
You're just at on to that. We've been still talking with Calvet and DGS and they do an annual homes update and it's not in there. I ask why and they said we're willing in two years to talk about that subject.
Again, so I don't take no for the answer but and so we still have lots of conversations but you know it's they know that we're very interested and we keep asking so.
We'll be we'll be in touch.
I think also you know there are so many projects of deferred maintenance at the home that I am not hopeful that they will turn to a completely new set of projects to bring this even though it's in kind of skimmed on in their latest master plan that they should have.
I'm not a completely new employee housing but with the change of administrations and the new secretary there focuses much different and they're.
Even if they did produce housing there.
that it would be filled with the caregivers of the home, not any of the residential needs,
not our town employees. It would be the veteran's home employees. And I think that's
a great thing. But we still have a response, excuse me. Hello. Thank you. We still have
a responsibility to our workers in town as well. Certainly we could reach our numbers with Rina doing
that or hopefully doing that sometime in the future. But I don't see it helping what we see is the
major reason for coming up with the Commons as an affordable housing opportunity zone to
accommodate our workers in town. So I think there's a lot of, yes, pros and cons to that idea
and certainly the all of the cards are held by the state and not us.
Councilmember Knight. Thank you, Mayor. It's also an welcome former mayor,
Dumbar. Councilmember former mayor, he chair the League of California cities,
a very prestigious, prestigious organization for a year and we were fortunate for a small town to have
John leading the league and meeting the governor and doing things like that. I think there's
there are all opportunities we have. I think the veterans right now are just hoping to see the
veterans home and Calbed that open and the skilled nursing facility that continues to be a continuing
challenge. I'm hoping that occurs and then at some point, I think for just the goals of the community,
we want to see housing up there and if it's for those that work and care for the veterans at the
veteran's home, good. And when I go to work in the morning and those folks are leaving early
that have been there on the night shift or coming in to start their day, those are a lot of folks
that are commuting from Salano and Fairfield that if there's an opportunity for them to live on that home,
like for years, many did in some of those smaller cottages and things that are now
not something you can live in. I hope that I hope we can support that and I look forward to
supporting the veterans and getting housing there. I think it minimally to serve the veterans for
the folks that have to provide all the care that they need there. So thank you for joining us
for our Mayor. Thank you for your comments. Good afternoon everybody. I just wanted to follow up. I'm
Jennifer Brewster. Follow up on John Dunbar's comments about the Oville Veterans' home. I recognize
that workforce housing here, low-income versus there. Their state were very different. They are voting
citizens of this community. And I think it's really important that they just had a board meeting and
which their secretary was there and their Calvett board and the big question was of their eight homes. What is the
census? 62% of their eight homes. So what does that mean for Yachtville? If they're just looked
at numbers on a piece of paper, there are between 545 residents that live there. The capacity is just
under 900. In the past, we could go up there on a given day when there was 1,000 to 1,200 people up there.
Correct. Remember all those days. Now what's the difference is by law they can't take in more
veterans and what does secretary Kobe say the things that he thinks about at night is the census
deferred maintenance and emergency up there. So when we have an ice-keep repeating this every time my step
up here, we have an ethos in the military and I'm not military. But my father was, my partner was,
we leave no man, no woman, behind. We continue for 20, 30, 40 years to leave men and women behind
on a waiting list for long-term care and memory because if you don't think that these wars, we ignore
Vietnam. But I'm telling you, that man, that woman is here which medic brain injury and that
question was asked and I invite you guys all to look at those board meetings. What is the most unmet
need up there? And that is going to be memory and long-term care because those men and women is 22 years
out and they're going to need those homes and we are at 62% capacity across that means that where
are the other 38% sitting? And when you look at that budget of 161 million and divide it by 545
residents up there, I'm saying why is it an existence? That's when I'm scared of and what John Dunbar
is saying is we have got to crack the code and figuring out ways of injury and pain and healer,
you guys are up there every month at the allied councils and you know what's going on up there. Our
census is decreasing and it's not a result of not having beds. It's a result of not having staff.
It's by law. That new law, that's new sniff was supposed to open up in 2024.
It's not going to be a capacity from what I'm understanding and I could be wrong. It's not going to be a
capacity because we don't have staff. So we have to figure out a creative way to work with Sacramento
and figure out because they are your voting citizens and I can guarantee you, I know I'm a pain in the
butt up here at times. But I want to see how what group is going to crack the code because there
is employees will eventually want to spend money in this town, but how I know it's different,
but we've got to get creative and I firmly believe that we've got to leave nobody behind on that
weight list and that means bring more staff and it's differential pay. It's workforce housing. I encourage
everybody to look at those cow vote board meetings because they are just as concerned, but nobody
knows how to break down those doors. So like John, we never give up and then tug my Gros
word, you got to believe because we got to be able to do it. Yes, please come up.
That was pretty hard act to follow but I'm going to go back to Erin's presentation if you don't mind
which I would echo Stephen Becker's comments. It was exceptional. My husband and I read it a couple of
times and grasp most of it. The one curious question that I have for all of you does anyone is anyone
particularly concerned that Yachtville as a town might be under the microscope for all this because we are
such a high visibility town where a small town and we have a lot of affluent people living in this town
and a lot of single family homes that have a great deal of value relative to Erin's statistics for
how few limited housing we have, very limited housing for lower to moderate income residents. So I'm
just raising the curious question that I have is whether the state would maybe be more likely to
look at us than some other places because of our image and because of
The inequity of housing in our town. That's all I'd say. Thank you.
Yes.
It sounds very few, Dr. Riespond.
Yeah. I can't answer that directly, yes or no. What I will say is that there are other cities
in the state that certainly have similar demographics with housing prices and are also under scrutiny.
My sense is that HCD is an equal opportunity scrutinize right now, and they are looking at every county in the state.
Okay. Thank you. Anybody else like to come up and ask questions? This is your chance.
If I may again, Jill Turner. I have two questions. I'll ask the local one first of all.
In one of the presentations that somebody made at one of the events previously, there was the idea of pairing with, like,
yeah, I'm feeling pairing maybe with Napa or somebody else and sharing credits. Is that something that's a viable possibility or not?
It is done, but it's typically done when there's something to exchange for money.
So typically what I've seen is Napa County will, for instance, if we were working on affordable housing project here.
Here's, you know, a certain amount of money, but you're taking X number of our green credits.
That's typically what I've seen how it works.
It's kind of quick pro quo because money that's exchange.
That's right.
My other thing, it was really good to hear John Dunbart and delighted to hear about that.
And my question is, is this really a California thing or is all, are all states in America dealing with kind of these type of issues?
I'm just curious.
Well, the housing elements specific to California, but I would think that there are other states that are dealing very similar issues.
Okay.
Just to add to that, I think it may be a little more California-centric because the value and price of land here, one.
The regulations here are greater than in many other states and across the labor and material are more expensive.
So I do think it is a little California-specific.
There are other states that have a lot of regulations in high-priceland, but for California, you know,
for better or worse, we're kind of known for being very having a heavily regulatory business environment and development environment.
Thank you.
And I'm also reading a lot to the federal level whether trying to pass laws through the, you know, the Senate and the legislature about some of these big businesses that are buying up a lot of property and renting them out and that increasing rent throughout the country.
I think there's a lot of little pieces to this.
Not quite as specific as, you know, a bag giving us read and numbers that, you know, we're talking about today, but housing crisis all over the United States.
It's, you know, we talk about all the money that's, you know, in the baby boomers right now and it's too expensive to leave your house and move even downsize because of a lot of tax consequences.
And housing is on the national radar as well.
So anybody else want to come up and ask some questions about our housing element?
We'll probably keep talking about this.
And then the new one will be coming around soon.
So anyway, thank you very much for your presentation and less comments.
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up because it feels like we have some work to do and I would like it to be done sooner than later because it seems like we need to reason some properties that are not suitable.
And we also need to have maybe an affordable housing developer like Burbank, maybe generation housing come and give us more information on affordability and how they accomplish it.
What might it look like if we partnered, what might it look like if they advised those kinds of issues.
And also, I think we need some sort of, I know that the HCD report or update is comes in March something like that.
I would think we're preparing all the numbers as you've repaired them for this presentation.
But I feel like we need to go over how do we make sure that we are following that one program that says we're going to preserve affordable housing units that we already have.
So we know that several single family housing units are dropping off.
Those people are getting the leg up that we wanted them to have, but the procedure for the rental properties seems like we should go through that and make sure we're doing our best efforts to make and figure out a program that we can offer to those people who own it.
To maintain the affordability or do we look at putting it into affordability through an investment.
So all of those things I think we need to come back again when we talk seriously about.
Which properties in town would be proper to rezone and and make some affordable housing possible in town under this arena number because we're not going to make it with what we have.
So we need to look at those additional places now.
So that we can make that that request by the state.
Question and a comment.
And actually I attended and I think Pam did and maybe somebody else to the generation housing presentation here in Napa and they are really big proponents of ADUs and in fill.
In fact, they kind of said near term that's what they see the solution given the cost of building housing here.
And that brought to mind something in the housing in one of your agenda to the presentation.
It had all the policies or programs and it mentioned that we had applied for a grant of I don't know almost $300,000 for ADUs to subsidize the construction as long as people agreed to rent it to appropriate income level.
Did that grant ever come through.
It did and there's information on that on our website so folks are interested in go and there's a whole web page dedicated to it.
Okay, so people could get alone basically or grant I'm not in could outline which it is to build an ADU.
Yep, and we have the money.
Yeah, there are limits on how much they can like each household can get.
Okay, but and then there is a restriction you know with the affordability moving forward.
And it's a big deal you have to put record on your home restriction and it's part of the title and yeah so it's it's a big hurdle but on the other hand you can get either a low or no interest loan or grant.
So that's that's that's when I first got on the council I was really big into 80 years and kind of left that behind when we began to focus on the commons, but I think that's still something that you don't feel should really think about.
All right, now let's move on to.
My name is Rocio Cutty I'm live in Beloved.
I have been an owner of rental property I have owned homes I've done a lot of things and then an event happened in my life where I have lived in various different experiences.
I was always vulnerable to the owner of the rental property that left me more vulnerable and to be able to buy or afford something was very difficult.
The mobile home here was the least expensive then renting something twice as much on Jefferson Street it was only 200 square feet.
So my point is about things like the alternatives to just where somebody owns your place that rents it is that if there is some way that you can have like what you know we're trying to do with the trailers right we're trying with it with our mobile homes.
We're trying to get them not to be subsidized but to be able to maintain the rent to a one time increase because that way we can still say.
And one of my thoughts was my biggest thought is John feels a beautiful place and when I was looking for a place I almost got on one of the subsidized things and it was like it fit the town.
I mean I know it's not exactly it but it wasn't for stories it wasn't three stories.
I think there's ways that you can architecturally I think there's people like the prince and I mean the king Charles he's did stuff around what he how to make neighborhoods and places that were complementary where they would have things you can have.
Double use you can have businesses on the bottom you can have things on top.
I think there's a way that more thought and more care and maybe some diversity 80 use maybe getting a mobile home owner to make something that would be flat on that other side at that one place and then get someplace over here.
You know to begin to learn how to sparse things out rather than to just okay with 72 on this place that just doesn't make any sense to me and it takes away the beauty of your town and it takes away the feeling of the place which I think is also important and that contributes to the way people will take care and be proud of the place.
And so I really really I don't think outside the box because I don't think there is a box and I'm going to ask you to really try to look at that.
All of you and even those of us that are in our residents here because there are a multitude of ways to how somebody in which they can rent feel good about what they're doing and people can still make money.
Thank you.
So I'll close a public comment and move on to council.
We have another one more.
I know I've said this over and over.
My name is Karen Thurling and I just want to say that if we could please get somebody higher somebody to put the employees survey together to get it out to all the employers and the people.
And the veterans and all the businesses for all the employees that's where you have to start and that was in your actual information.
Would you have to know what the needs are what they what they can afford and how many so that you can make the configuration realistic and correct.
Thank you.
Anybody else who would like to talk.
I will close public comment and any is time for a council external meeting reports.
I was at flood control.
I mean look at my flood control notes here.
Flood control.
We awarded a some contracts for the bare slow beer creek.
I know that is restoration project and we also.
Increased some engineering studies that we needed on another phase of the flood control and everything else was we had five items and closed session.
Anyway there's a quick like control.
How long have you been working on the flood wall project that you're currently working on.
Well currently we're getting ready for final construction of the third phase and that is pretty much done and we might be going to court on a couple properties that we're still trying to get but we think we've got.
Pat for that is all ready to go building will probably you and I see building sometime this year I think on that.
We're at the about 50% design phase on the the last portion it's a portion where there's a lot of neighborhoods that really face up to the river in the very southern part.
And the neighborhoods are really asking us to be a little more creative when we first started.
a lot of the flood control walls or at least, you know, somewhere between depending on the
topography of the land, five feet to almost seven feet. And so that was over 20 years
ago. And so they're really asking for taking a look back to see if there's another creative
way to make a flood wall. So we are going to look into that to see it's difficult making a
flood control wall. It's got to be a solid feature. And you're going to make it as attractive
as possible. But for the residents, I think we will thoroughly evaluate that before we continue
with any further design phase. So it's going to be a lot of public outreach. You'll probably
be reading about the paper on that part. So that'll be with the Army Corps of Engineers
work. You know, I would say this will well over a year plus in design. And that's before
we even start.
Get an easements for people on the end of properties. So that that'll be a while. But the other one will probably be near complete by the time we're ready to go with the last and final phase.
But back to some of our other discussions, I really believe that a lot of this work has been done over 20 plus years in the flood control has really made a big difference. We have not seen these big flooding areas between Hopper Creek and the Naffa River.
And so maybe a lot of this work that has been going on for so long could have an impact on the church property that's in a flood control zone.
You know, I think a lot of the data that we have now with all the flood control projects, my opinion, could certainly influence somebody changing some maps. So I'm optimistic.
So any other council meetings?
Yes, I attended the Upper Valley Waste Management meeting, which is the provider of our garbage services. And I'm the representative for Yantville.
And most of it was normal business and updates on the budget and such. Two things that I thought were actually three.
And the meetings now for the first time, I believe it's the first time. We'll be on video. It used to be you could get later listened to audio recording, but now they'll be on video.
And I think that's great for transparency. The other thing I think was, and I need to get more details, but if any of you are interested.
The board decided to offer a subsidy for garbage rates for people who qualify under the PG&E subsidies, not the right word, but the PG&E program for reduced rates, which is the same mechanism Yantville uses.
So that we don't have to look when we have some offer a reduced rate on water. The only requirement is that you be part of the PG&E program.
And that stops the town from having to go through everyone's financials and whatnot. So the Upper Valley Waste Management decided to adopt that same provision.
And there will be a reduced garbage rate available for people on that program. So if that's of interest, please contact me.
And then, as some of you may know, the Clover Flat Landfill in Sanalina is scheduled for closure.
And update was given. It's looking like it's a little farther out than we might have imagined. Apparently, there is, as you might think, a lot of environmental and regulatory hurdles.
So at one time, I think the thought was it could be done in maybe two years, but it's sounding like a much longer process.
So that is what came out of that meeting. So thank you.
Any other meeting reports? See, none can I get a motion to adjourn where before I get a motion in a second.
Can you just tell manager talk a little bit about the summer recess we're going to take and what your expectations are after our next.
So my understanding is the council historically has taken a summer recess for the first meeting in August.
Excuse me, the second meeting in August in the first meeting in September. So as of this point, we will recognize that historic recess.
We will have a full business agenda on August 4th. There will not be another discussion item related to housing in the Commons project at that meeting.
When you reconvene in mid September, we do hope to have a town manager contract to provide them on their depending on how the process goes over the next month and a half.
And we could potentially have another housing related or informational community conversation potentially featuring an affordable housing developer who can talk about the nuts and bolts of affordable housing projects and what it means to partner or how different different ways to partner with a community or local jurisdiction in developing and managing affordable housing.
Would we expect that in the second meeting in September? Yes, we will be on break. So pending confirmation.
We are tentatively looking at that meeting for that discussion.
I just want to make an observation. We really are not getting summer vacation because I think we have for the recruitment process for the town manager three days meetings in August including a Saturday.
So I just want people to know we're still at work.
And then I wanted to ask you at one point the council asked if we could get a presentation on a kind of an overview of potential mobile home park ordinances.
And I know that's on your agenda, but obviously Aaron's been working really hard on other presentations, but what's your thinking on the timing that presentation will happen on your August 4th meeting.
So just for everybody's understanding we're not presenting a rent stabilization ordinance for adoption.
We're presenting information to council on what's included in rent stabilization ordinance.
Some of the things that considers what would be the process potentially for moving forward with an ordinance adopting an ordinance.
If the council wants to do that and then seeking council direction or comments on after hearing that presentation is there more information you need.
Are you ready to proceed with preparing an ordinance will get direction based on you know what you hear and what questions you have from that presentation.
So that will be on your August 4th agenda.
So we'll talk about process and timelines and things like that too.
So just to recap it's what you could call educational there other than perhaps giving more direction there won't be any.
No there's no action decision making we will though I do want to underscore we will you know look to council for direction on what you want to do if anything after receiving that presentation.
And I only ask because I know a number of people are interested so thank you.
And there yes councilmember McKee would like to make a external report if it's still possible yes go ahead.
Thank you at the recent commission on meeting I wanted to let you know that the veteran services office is working actually and creating office space at valid centers to be able to cover the many veteran theory that don't reside necessarily and.
And not though since 80% of the this tend to be over 60% they did this space to hope that there can make it for any up vowing veterans can't get to now.
So I hope that helps.
And for here specifically within BTA that.
The N BTA is adopted a pay program for those taking over if.
If you sign up in advance through the NDA website half the cost can be covered.
And we did have a report from supervised trail and of course that the beautiful bill has been making funding really hard for in home support services other programs that are dedicated to.
But this supervisors have lobbied back against this state and secured money.
And as a result of networking valley farm centers I was able to connect for yantville residents in a low income.
I'm sorry with share the care that actually does home rehabilitation.
They also assist with unclutter.
So in this case this couple of same their kitchen sink was no longer functioning.
So they now have a contractor as their case to assist them with that.
And then it's a connected them with the now that HCD for perhaps.
And being in comes up and they can apply for the programs that yant the partners with HCD and have the.
Repair to be on the kitchen sink and have own that attaches to the property for at least years.
So thank you for listening.
Okay, thank you.
Did we have any mystery reports.
We didn't see anything on the agenda, so.
Yeah, okay.
Hopefully we do.
Thank you for asking me.
Okay.
Motion.
To adjourn to our regular schedule meeting.
Three o'clock on August the fourth.
I move adjournment till August the fourth.
Our second.
We have a motion.
Second.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
All right.
Everybody.
It's a wrap.
Thanks for coming.
Bye.