Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: REGULAR AGENDA (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: City Council Consideration of the Sonoma County Grand Jury Response Date: September 13, 2022
Written by: Noah Housh, Director of Community Development Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council review the Grand Jury Reports and draft City responses, provide direction to staff regarding any amendments to the City responses and authorize the Mayor to execute and deliver the City’s response to the Grand Jury.
Background
On June 14, 2022, the Sonoma County Grand Jury delivered its reports “Affordable Housing:
Monitoring and Compliance” and “Affordable Housing: Past, Present and Future”. The reports include both findings and recommendations. The Grand Jury has required responses from each jurisdiction in Sonoma County, asking the jurisdictions to “agree” or “disagree” with each finding and to respond to each recommendation.
If a jurisdiction disagrees, either in whole or in part with a finding, the Grand Jury requires an explanation of the jurisdiction’s position. Responses to recommendations must fall into one of four categories:
1. Already implemented;
2. To be implemented in the future, in which case a timeframe is required
3. Requires further analysis, which needs to be completed and provided to the Grand Jury within six months; or
4. Will not be implemented because the recommendation is not reasonable or warranted.
The City is required to respond by September 14, 2022.
Analysis/Discussion
Summary of the City’s Response to the Grand Jury Report on Affordable Housing:
Monitoring and Compliance: This Grand Jury Report is an assessment of affordable housing monitoring programs in the County. It contains 11 findings and seven recommendations. The report generally focuses on the premise that on-site monitoring is rare, largely because of insufficient staffing, and that this should be improved primarily through better coordination between the County and the nine cities. City staff has reviewed the findings and recommends that the City Council issue a response that agrees (or partially agrees) with four of the 11 findings, disagrees in part with five of the 11 findings and finds it can neither agree or disagree, with one of the findings. More details on the areas of agreement and disagreement regarding “Affordable Housing Monitoring and Compliance” can be found in the attached draft response.
Summary of the City’s Response to the Grand Jury Report on Affordable Housing: Past, Present and Future: This Grand Jury Report is an assessment of the obstacles to the construction of affordable housing in Sonoma County. The report contains 17 findings (24 total) and eight recommendations. The findings focus on many of the known constraints related to the provision of affordable housing, including public acceptance of affordable projects; complex review and approval processes; the cost of construction and other constraints. Notably the report does not identify lack of a significant locally controlled funding source as an impediment to the construction of affordable housing.
Staff has reviewed the finding and recommends that the City Council issue a response that highlights some of the other issues affecting the construction of affordable housing (such as the loss of redevelopment agency funding), agrees with five of the findings and disagrees (in part) with nine of the findings. More details on the areas of agreement and disagreement regarding “Affordable Housing: Past, Present and Future” can be found in the attached draft response.
It is worth noting that several of the recommendations in these two reports have been implemented by the City of Cotati or included as a “Program” in the draft Housing Element by the City Council.
Financial Considerations
There are no direct financial considerations resulting from the Council providing a formal response to the Grand Jury, other than the staff time required to support and present the draft response.
However, there are potentially significant financial considerations associated with implementation of several of the recommendations. It is worth noting that the City Council has already supported (and budgeted for) the most expensive general fund costs-additional staff in the Community Development Department. Additional costs will be considered on and as-needed basis, as draft Housing Element programs begin to be implemented and future budget needs are presented.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.
Attachments:
Grand Jury Report - Affordable Housing: Monitoring and Compliance (PDF) City Response to Grand Jury - Affordable Housing: Monitoring and Compliance (DOCX) Grand Jury Report - Affordable Housing: Past Present and Future (DOCX) City Response to Grand Jury - Affordable Housing: Past Present and Future (DOCX)