City Council Special Meeting Page 1 of 9 September 8, 2022 7 City of Lafayette
City Council
Special Meeting Minutes
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City Council Special Meeting Page 2 of 9 September 8, 2022
1. CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Gerringer called the Special City Council meeting to order at 4:00 p.m. via teleconference.
2. ROLL CALL
Present: Mayor Gerringer; Vice Mayor Anduri; Councilmembers Candell, Dawson and Kwok
Absent: None.
Staff Present: Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager; Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director; Greg Wolff, Planning & Building Director; Renata Robles, Senior Planner; Mala Subramanian, City Attorney; Joanne Robbins, City Clerk
3. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Dawson) to adopt the agenda. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).
4. PUBLIC COMMENTS – (for items not on the agenda) – None.
5. PRESENTATIONS – None.
6. CONSENT CALENDAR – None.
7. OLD BUSINESS – None.
8. STAFF REPORTS
A. Greg Wolff, Planning & Building Director - MTC Resolution No. 4530: Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Policy
Recommendation: Review the revised draft policy and direct staff to submit comments to MTCABAG for consideration Planning and Building Director Greg Wolff stated before the Council is review of the Transit-Oriented communities (TOC) Policy which was originally adopted in 2005. It applied to extensions of fixed guideway transit and with adoption of Plan Bay Area 2050 last year by MTC and ABAG, part of the implementation is updating the TOC policy. Staff seeks endorsement of a comment letter to MTC for their meeting tomorrow.
He displayed the policy, stating the staff report covers it in greater detail. MTC and ABAG received comments from local jurisdictions, transit agencies, housing advocates and other stakeholders and are proposing some revisions which have been published. Those revisions with respect to residential development densities where Lafayette in the June draft policy fell into Tier 3. The City would still fall under Tier 3 because they are served by one BART line. There is now a provision which would have small jurisdictions meet that policy by complying with the Tier 4 densities, for communities with a population less than 30,000. This would mean a minimum density of 25 du/acre and an allowable maximum of no less than 35 du/acre.
City Council Special Meeting Page 3 of 9 September 8, 2022 Secondly, there was a proposed modification based upon comments to the geographic extent to which the TOC policy would apply. The June draft had it apply to PDA’s. This would limit the geographic extent of the policy and commenters wanted to see that expand to the full half-mile radius from fixed guideway rail stations and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and he displayed a graphic. The TOC policy would not apply to properties with existing residential units.
Regarding commercial development, the City falls into Tier 3 and would have a minimum FAR of 2 and a maximum of 4 they would need to allow. It would allow for 4 stories over the entirety of the parcel or a higher number of stories over a partial. One of the items in the comment letter is a request to have the small cities provision apply equally here so they could comply with Tier 4 which for an FAR of 3 or higher is consistent with the residential density of 35 du/acre which is what is in the downtown, with a 35 foot height limit and minimal to no setbacks for commercial or multi-family.
Regarding parking management, Tiers 1, 2 and 3 would have no minimum parking allowed. Tier 4 would allow for a minimum parking provision and the 4 spaces per thousand of Tier 4 for commercial is consistent with the parking ordinance for office and commercial. In large part, Tier 4 aligns with what the City’s updated parking ordinance requires which allows for reduced requirements if the property owner implements any number of incentives, included shared parking, provision for public parking, provision for alternative nodes like bike parking, etc.
With respect to housing policies, the TOC policy would have jurisdictions comply with two or more housing policies from each category relating to production, preservation, and protection. He pointed to the blue arrow highlights that the City already complies with inclusionary zoning at a 15% requirement in the downtown in the DSP area. Given the City’s size and resources, they are similarly asking that as a small city, they would be obliged not to comply to two of each of the categories but rather one from each of the categories.
The other bullets in the remaining two categories would be new programs. He does not see any existing programs or contemplated programs in the Housing Element update which has been submitted to HCD, so they would still be adding two new programs if their request is granted. Otherwise, they would be adding 5 new housing programs and they have not identified any on-going funding to fund such programs.
He summarized again the request to obtain the Council’s direction on submission of comments to MTC.
He noted that the Planning Subcommittee of the Council met on this topic on Tuesday morning, received a similar presentation, and the direction to staff was to convene this special meeting of the Council to get all Councilmembers’ input on the comment letter.
The ABAG Administrative Committee and MTC Planning Committee will meet tomorrow to discuss the revised TOC and the recommendation from their staff is to recommend adoption by the full MTC Board on September 28, 2022. Kara Vuicich, Principal Planner, MTC/ABAG, is also present to answer any questions.
Mayor Gerringer if the letter captured what Vice Mayor Anduri he had wanted to capture on the subcommittee relative to high fire severity zones.
Mr. Wolff said Vice Mayor Anduri proposed an additional paragraph which is specific to very high fire hazard area, as the draft letter speaks more to natural hazards. It includes high fire hazard zones as well as remediated sea level rise, so he displayed the draft letter and additional language shown in blue.
City Council Special Meeting Page 4 of 9 September 8, 2022 Councilmember Kwok said if MTC grants the City’s request of the four items, he asked if they are granting it on a city by city basis or he asked if it would be for everyone. Mr. Wolff said their request is not specific to Lafayette. The September revision identifies what is outlining for the small cities that fall into Tier 3 but there was significant comment around not all cities served by one BART line are similarly situated. So, the recognition was for small Tier 3 cities under 30,000 in population could comply with Tier 4.
Vice Mayor Anduri asked how was 30,000 selected as the cut-off. He agrees Lafayette is a semi-rural city with a BART station put in it 50 years ago. From their standpoint, if the cutoff was 40,000 that would be much better.
Kara Vuicich, Principal Planner, MTC/ABAG, said she thinks it was more of an art of compromise than a specific science. They looked at the list of cities that would fall into that Tier 3 category with stations, where the breaks were, and looked at the different characteristics of those cities. Selecting 30,000 or less would generally capture smaller cities or had circumstances that may make it more difficult for them to comply with the requirements, and it was a way to provide an exception for them without not significantly altering the policy which was the direction Commissioners had requested in July.
Vice Mayor Anduri said he and Mayor Gerringer had asked on the earlier meeting what happens when the city population exceeds 30,000 and he asked how that works.
Ms. Vuicich said they have not put out anything officially, but in terms on what they base the population on was the 2020 census. Going along those lines they would wait until another official census in 2030.
There is a recognition that land use planning is something that is not a short term proposition so she thinks the idea is this would be in place several years before any changes would be made.
Vice Mayor Anduri asked if Ms. Vuicich knew off-hand what cities are between 30,000 and 40,000 population with BART stations.
Ms. Vuicich said most cities are on the peninsula like San Carlos, Burlingame, San Pablo, Menlo Park, Foster City, and Pleasant Hill. She would say the only city in Contra Costa that falls in the 30,000 to 40,000 served by BART is Pleasant Hill.
Councilmember Candell asked if the City has ever received an OBAG grant.
Mr. Wolff said he was unsure. He knows the City has an application pending for work under the City’s Vision Zero. He thinks OBAG grants are generally transportation related and applied through their Transportation Program Manager and City Engineer/Public Works Director.
City Manager Srivatsa said she did not know, but would like to confirm with Mr. Moran; however, the pending application looks promising right now.
Councilmember Candell asked if low income communities receiving more grants than the City of Lafayette is.
City Manager Srivatsa stated the City Engineer has indicated that since they are not a disadvantaged community, they lose points and therefore are not very successful in the regional grant application program.
City Council Special Meeting Page 5 of 9 September 8, 2022 Mr. Wolff said in speaking with the City Engineer on the topic of OBAG grants, his understanding is that CCTA packages a series of projects into a countywide application so they are not necessarily a single jurisdiction project grant application but multi-jurisdiction, multi-project, and it remains to be seen how the ultimate calculation of scoring works, but MTC and ABAG have expressed that future grant cycles would prioritize funding based in part on TOC compliance. It would not apply to the current OBAG 3 cycle, and the City’s current grant application would not be affected by what they are discussing today.
Councilmember Candell asked if they will add it in the next cycle and she asked when that vote would occur.
Ms. Vuicich said they just approved the funding guidelines and rules for OBAG 3 and in 4 years, those decisions and discussions would happen in 2025 and then finalized in 2026.
Councilmember Candell said the way the letter is worded now is that there are open lots in that half mile circle, especially in the Glen and other areas. She thinks these would be affected by the 35 du/acre development if they do not get the very high fire severity zone excluded.
Mr. Wolff said on Tuesday this question came up and staff has not done a comprehensive analysis as to undeveloped properties in a half-mile of BART, yet within a single family zoning district or in the very high fire severity zone. The property that constitutes the crosses has two parcels, one of which has an old housing unit on it and the other is vacant. The vacant parcel arguably would be subject to the TOC. The TOC as crafted allows for the City to have the flexibility or discretion to continue to zone that as singlefamily and compensate for that in other zonings such that the average density of parcels subject to the TOC is compliant. So, if the BART parking lots were to be zoned 75 du/acre, staff could zone a comparable amount of land at 1 du/acre and still be complying. He then displayed a map showing various parcels, their zoning and the darker parcels as vacant parcels.
Councilmember Candell asked and confirmed this policy would not apply to someone that has a singlefamily dwelling there and then they wanted to go to 35 du/acre. Mr. Wolff said the City’s zoning would still govern and the City would be obliged to demonstrate compliance to MTC and ABAG if or when the requirement is there for OBAG 4 funding. They would still have the flexibility to zone less than 35 du/acre or more.
Councilmember Candell said besides the threat of not getting OBAG grants, she asked if there is any teeth in this other than the lack of the OBAG grants.
Ms. Vuicich said this is really the main mechanism. ABAG and MTC does not have any land use authority.
They can only attach criteria requirements related to the funding they have control over. With respect to discretionary funding from MTC that flows often through counties to local jurisdictions, OBAG is really the primary one for that. In other cases, for planned transit projects, the TOC policy would be criteria in considering funding priorities for those future transit projects, but again, she does not think that affects the City of Lafayette.
Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period.
City Council Special Meeting Page 6 of 9 September 8, 2022 DAVID CLARK referred to the green portion inside the map with the blue circle looks bigger to him than the 4 downtown commercial districts. The text says what that green area is comprised of are the C, C1, RB and SRB zoning districts, and he suggested adding textual descriptions so they line up. He also said he scanned the document looking for something that said “creeks, open space” and there is not much. He understands the goal of this is housing but on page 4 of 7 there is a reference in the text to open space which has to do with the FAR. It also focuses on most of the developable area within this district is in the green area which are the commercial districts and this is the area the City has focused on keeping small parklets, perhaps trails along creeks, etc. Therefore, he asked to interject something in the letter to establish those as considerations. He also said they could leverage the funding sources. If the policy is going to increase the number of people living in that area it would be nice to keep pace with the open space and parkland.
Councilmember Candell said Mr. Clark asked to add funding for something in the area and she asked what he meant by this.
Mr. Clark said as an example, a grant might be a source of money if the City goes to a FAR of 5 because they would like to provide open space.
LIBBY HENRY asked and confirmed OBAG it means “One Bay Area Grant” funding, and Ms. Vuicich clarified that ABAG is the funding entity so the TOC policy is a way to set criteria or requirements for some of the funding they distribute. In this case, ABAG is an advisory body but would not be approving the resolution or TOC policy.
Ms. Henry questioned the timing of this and asked why there is a sense of urgency considering three Councilmembers will not be running for re-election. The process seems under-handed when there are not many people viewing the meeting or available to make comments, said the City already sent in its Housing Element, asked why MTC or ABAG is coming back with additional policies that are not in the Housing Element to make compliance even tougher. The City’s Housing Element satisfied HCD requirements and it seems like this is being thrown out. The Tier 3 and 4 is very confusing, it seems like it is a back door to settle for 25 du/acre when the Housing Element states 75 du/acre, she was not sure where all vacant lots are in the Glen or elsewhere, and said it bothers her that Mr. Wolff has twice now brought up the Crosses as if it is a meaningless place when it should be protected. Lastly, if a developer comes in and buys up one of the houses in the half-mile radius she asked if he can tear it down and build 25 units and urged the Council to support Vice Mayor Anduri’s addition to the letter.
MICHAEL GRIFFITH asked if the City is requesting very high fire zones be taken out of consideration for the Housing Element and questioned what the impact would be if agreed to.
PATTY BATTERSBY said she is supportive of removing anything in a very high fire severity zone and there is a lot behind the Crosses on North Thompson and both lots impact the evacuation of the Glen. So, she would support anything the Council can do to protect those areas from multi-family housing, particularly given there is no parking.
Mayor Gerringer referred to timing and the Housing Element and said the Council does not yet have a certified Housing Element and are waiting for their first review and comment round.
City Council Special Meeting Page 7 of 9 September 8, 2022 Ms. Vuicich said their understanding of the issue and based on conversations with MTC staff is that the implementation of the Housing Element is where planning and zoning changes are made and that would coincide with the implementation period of the TOC policy, if adopted. The policy would not go into effect in terms of having any relationship to discretionary funding until after 2026. Planning and zoning changes a city may need to make in order to implement its Housing Element during that time period and to comply with the TOC policy could be done at the same time.
Regarding someone purchasing a single-family lot and building 25 units on it, the City has control over its zoning and land use authority. The way the policy is structured is that the City could retain single-family residential zoning in those locations and still comply with the policy by having higher densities in locations south of the BART station which are areas identified as having higher density housing. That compliance with the policy would be calculated on average so both things could be possible.
Vice Mayor Anduri said as a public policy manner, the State is moving to an area which the City would like to see them move is not to encourage higher densities in high fire severity zones. This is what this policy does. For the sake of MTC being in sync with general state policy it should exclude high fire severity zones.
As it applies specifically to Lafayette, over 50% of the area in the circle is in a high fire severity zone.
Therefore, he would like to see that taken out. How averages work, it is more complicated because the denominator would not include the homes that already have housing on them. He thinks MTC should draw the line now and exclude them, so it is not even considered 5 to 10 years from now to change that calculation.
Councilmember Candell asked if they can request in the letter not to put the empty parcels in high fire severity zones into the average.
Vice Mayor Anduri said this is what he is asking rather than taking a broader approach, and Councilmember Candell said if not just that it is in a very high fire hazard severity zone, but those neighborhoods have single ingress and egress. It is not a hypothetical issue for them but more time in one’s driveway to evacuate, which is very impactful.
Mayor Gerringer confirmed with Councilmembers they covered all questions of speakers. She wondered if it makes sense to pull up the letter or start with any other additions and then the Council can confirm it agrees with the letter to be submitted to MTC.
Councilmember Candell asked if the TOC requires CEQA review and in its policy.
Ms. Vuicich said CEQA does not apply to the TOC policy itself, but any plan changes or zoning changes a city would need to make in order to comply with the TOC policy may be subject to some level of CEQA review. They believe that four years of timeframe for implementation of the policy would include that.
Mayor Gerringer asked if there were any other additions or points the Council wants to make in the letter and the high fire severity zone language.
Councilmember Candell asked to make it clear that all empty lots in the very high fire severity zones be excluded. She said they also talk about the PDAs and she wants this only to apply to the PDAs and the very high fire severity zones are not in the City’s PDAs.
City Council Special Meeting Page 8 of 9 September 8, 2022 Vice Mayor Anduri said in the paragraph above, Mr. Wolff revised the letter from what they originally received on Tuesday to add the last information on the paragraph above to say they ask that the TOC policy apply to land within PDAs and not apply to areas subject to hazards. The proposal in June was that the TOC policy would apply just to PDAs and based upon comments received, it was expanded to the entire half-mile radius area. So, the alternatives coming back are to return to just the PDA or what he is suggesting is, which is easier to justify from a public policy standpoint is eliminate high fire severity zones within that half-mile radius.
Councilmember Candell asked Ms. Vuicich if it is easier to read for MTC if they just bullet the things they are asking for at the beginning, and then they can justify the reasons why they think so.
Ms. Vuicich said it really cannot hurt. The Committee meeting starts at 9:30 a.m. so anything that could be done to call their attention to key points to focus on would be helpful. Assuming they get the letter by 6:00 p.m., their Clerk will distribute it to all Commissioners. If after 6:00 p.m., it could be emailed directly to them. Then, at the meeting itself, the Clerk will reference all written correspondence that has been received and then there will be an opportunity for public comment. The amount of time for comment varies at the discretion of the Chair.
Mayor Gerringer said if all Councilmembers agree, a summary bullet point list in that first paragraph would work with justifications below it.
Councilmember Kwok agreed and added that since it is to be read into the record, it could state, “The City of Lafayette had four suggested amendments” and list all four and then justifications.
Vice Mayor Anduri asked if everyone was okay with 30,000 population as the cut-off as opposed to 35,000 or 40,000. He said they are in a RHNA planning period that takes the City to 2030 and they have been allocated 2114 units. If they get the average number of units, they are over 30,000. A way to implement this would be to say if a city was under 30,000 population in the beginning this is the way it will apply to that City until this policy is updated way into the future. However, once getting over 30,000 and it changed, that would be a big problem for Lafayette because it would upset all planning.
Mayor Gerringer asked and confirmed the policy will be reviewed every four years and see what may or may not need to change. Ms. Vuicich said it may make sense to frame it as Vice Mayor Anduri stated in terms of if the expectation is that this will determine what requirements apply to a city for the long term they are fine with it. If not, they would request that the numbers be changed in terms of what the designation is in moving from Tier 3 to Tier 4.
Vice Mayor Anduri said he could move to approve sending the letter with the addition of a fifth bullet point that of the expectation is that this will determine what requirements apply to a city for the long term and an explanation of the effect it has on the City’s long-term planning timeframe.
Councilmember Dawson said they could allude to what is the fourth paragraph which states, “These concerns were acknowledged….”assuming that this will move forward in the planning timeframe.” City Council Special Meeting Page 9 of 9 September 8, 2022 ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Candell) to approve sending the letter with the addition of a fifth bullet point that of the expectation is that this will determine what requirements apply to a City for the long term and an explanation of the effect it has on the City’s long-term planning timeframe; and to add in the fourth paragraph a statement to refer to the fifth bullet to indicate “…assuming this will move forward in the planning timeframe.” Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).
9. PUBLIC HEARINGS – None.
10. ITEMS REMOVED FROM CONSENT CALENDAR – None.
11. COUNCIL/COMMISSION REPORTS
A. Councilmembers report on activities and consideration of matters a Councilmember wishes to initiate for placement on a future agenda.
There were no reports.
12. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS – None.
13. ADJOURNMENT – 5:06 p.m.
APPROVED:
__________________________________
Teresa Gerringer, Mayor
ATTEST:
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Joanne Robbins, City Clerk