1 Paoli, Diana
From: Jacob Patterson <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 3:33 PM
To: City Clerk
Cc: Whippy, Isaac; Marie Jones
Subject: Public Comment -- 5/12/25 CC Mtg., Item No. 7A, Hazelwood Senior Apartments City Council & Staff,
First, I am not sure why the public comments from the Planning Commision hearing were not included among the agenda materials, we usually include them for more significant development projects like this one since they may have relevant information and are part of the administrative record for permit reviews. You should read through them in addition to any new written comments provided for the City Council hearing on this project. The concerns raised in those written comments are not otherwise included in your materials if they weren't addressed by the PC so you are being asked to make a decision with incomplete information.
I reviewed the agenda materials and want to suggest an additional special condition. We should require the developer to install conduit to the property line to allow for our new broadband internet fiber to be connected to the building so future residents can have access to the service. If we don't do that for bigger projects like this, the utility itself will have to pay for the much-more-extensive trenching, etc., to connect the building to our network. They will already be including other conduit for utility connections so it only makes sense to add it up-front rather than having to come back later and install it ourselves. The future installation of the service drops are concerning and could lead to significantly increased project expenses that we want to avoid. These types of details are handled in future construction documents anyway that are reviewed by staff and the building department so adding the requirement isn't particularly burdensome. Apartment complexes like this one are likely to be the more challenging and expensive service drops so every penny the City utility can save is good.
On a separate matter (although I care less about this topic than the broadband conduit), I recommend requiring a backup power supply for safety reasons. The developer has installed these at other similar developments and the topic was briefly discussed by the Planning Commission, but not actually addressed. You should add this requirement so elevators are available in emergency instances for evacuation purposes or even for utility outages that occur. This is a common sense safety issue, IMO, which is why other jurisdictions have required generators. I think either generators or backup batteries are appropriate and whichever one the developer wants to install is fine with CDD Director approval.
Regards,
--Jacob
1 Paoli, Diana
From: Jacob Patterson <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 3:58 PM
To: City Clerk
Cc: Whippy, Isaac; Marie Jones
Subject: Public Comment 2 -- 5/12/25 CC Mtg., Item No. 7A, Hazelwood Senior Apartments City Council & Staff,
One more thing I forgot to mention, although I don't think it alters the ultimate recommendation, is that the following statement in the staff report is not accurate but Marie probably doesn't know that:
Package Desalination Plant. The City has already constructed and currently operates a package desalination system which allows the City to pump brackish water from the Noyo River during high tides and low stream flows, which significantly increases the time periods in which the City can collect water while reducing the negative impact of water withdrawal during extreme drought conditions (low water flow on the river). The desalination system can process up to 144,000 gallons per day in drought conditions, which is quite significant as total water demand in a drought year is about 550,000 gallons per day. With the package desalination plant, the City can serve this project without withdrawing additional water during low flow conditions when the tide is out, which is the only time period with pumping limitations. Instead, the City can withdraw more water during high tides when the water is brackish and when there are no impacts on fish. Additionally, the City can withdraw water during high tides and store it in the raw water pond for future treatment thereby ensuring adequate water availability even when there are multiple extremely low tides in a row during any given time period.
In actuality, even if this was true in the past, our small desal unit is offline and has been offline for quite some time.
When the water treatment plant was being upgraded, it never got reinstalled. In fact, it doesn't even work, I think because we failed to operate it frequently enough and the membranes dried out and need to be replaced. For some reason that doesn't make sense to me, we haven't done this. It really should be repaired and reattached to our system and operated frequently enough (even when we don't need the extra treated water) to keep it properly-maintained and operational. I think it is a shame that this state-funded equipment is just being stored at the City Yard. We should probably look into getting it back online so it is ready and available for use if we need it. --Jacob