City of Lafayette
City Council
Minutes
LATATELTE
STIED WE INCURPORATDD FAR
November 13, 2023
Satayed ira and earing enter catarin Community Hall 5:00 p.m.
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Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 1 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri called the Regular City Council meeting to order at 5:30 p.m.
2. ROLL CALL
Present: City Council: Mayor Anduri; Vice Mayor Dawson; Councilmembers Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok
Absent: None
Present: Parks, Trails, and Recreation Commission: Chair Alison Hill, Commissioners Geoff Bellenger, Frank Curcuro, Grace Dixon, Justine Parmelee, Shane Reisman, Scott Robinson; Absent: Vice-Chair Carol Singer and Commissioner Joe Dougherty Staff Present: Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager; Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director, Jennifer Wakeman, Assistant Administrative Services Director; Greg Wolff, Planning and Building Director; Sonia Urzua, Assistant Administrative Services Director; Jonathan Katayanagi, Parks and Recreation Director; Patrick Golier, Transportation Program Manager; Renata Robles, Senior Planner; Diana Elrod, Housing Consultant; Mala Subramanian, City Attorney; Joanne Robbins, City Clerk
3. Disclosure and/or Take Action on Remote Participation due to Just Cause or Emergency Circumstances Pursuant to AB 2449 (Gov. Code section 54953(f).)
4. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Mayor Anduri moved the Pledge of Allegiance after the closed session item and before item 8; Public Comment.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Dawson/Gerringer) to adopt the agenda, as amended. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
6. PUBLIC COMMENTS - (For Closed Session items) - None.
7. CLOSED SESSION
a. Conference with Real Property Negotiators (Gov. Code Section 54956.8) Property: 3483 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Lafayette (APN 243-231-022-1) (Lease and Real Property) Negotiator: Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director and Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager Negotiating Parties: Bill Stuart
Under Negotiations: Price and terms of payment
b. Conference with Legal Counsel - Anticipated Litigation Initiation of Litigation pursuant to Gov. Code section 54956.9(d)(4) - (1 case) OPEN SESSION - 6:00 p.m.
5. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - Frank Curcuro led in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 2 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri announced there was no reportable action taken in Closed Session.
Mayor Anduri said when the Council met on October 23, 2023, during public comments honoring Beth Needel on her retirement after serving 10 years as Executive Director of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation, public comments were received virtually that were not in accordance with the City's community values. Because they were made during the public comment section of a particular agenda item, the Council was able to recognize as soon as the words were out that they were not on the topic of the agenda item, and they were able to warn the speaker they were not on topic and subsequently cut At the end of that meeting, the Council asked staff to add to a future agenda a discussion of whether the Council should change its approach to hybrid meetings and public comments in the future. The staff recommendation is Item 11.D on the Consent Calendar tonight.
For this meeting, all public items under the public comment item must be within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City. All public comments under other agenda items must relate to that agenda item. If this directive is ignored following a warning by him, the City Clerk will mute the speaker. As the Council now opens public comment on items not on the agenda but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City, he wants everyone to be aware they have an obligation under the First Amendment and the Brown Act to allow speakers to make their comments even if they are not compatible with our community values.
While the Council must hear them out if they are within the City's subject matter jurisdiction, anyone in the room can step outside and anyone at home can mute their audio. Given the length of the meeting, if the Council receives a large number of speakers they will reserve the right to move remaining public comment to the end of the meeting. Lastly, he reminded everyone that public comments are limited to 3 minutes. He then called for public comments for items not on the agenda.
8. PUBLIC COMMENTS - (For items not on the agenda)
KEN HERTEL said the City Engineering Department revealed the plan wherein they will bulldoze Topper Lane which he shares a back fence for his home at 857 Birdhaven Court. They have lived there for 40 years, and this provides history and experience with the street, patterns of traffic, and the use of Topper Lane.
What is being proposed by the City Engineer is wholly overblown. It includes a 10-foot wide paved 2-way pathway for pedestrians and bikes and 20 feet of 2-way traffic for cars. There is no relief between those 2 elements, so they are looking at 30 feet of unobstructed paving. Some of their plans show some landscape strip which is inadequate compared to the 10 feet of landscaping that exists now which has a combination of native trees and introduced plantings. But it creates a buffer for the street, a canopy that slows traffic, and is quite a community asset. Topper Lane is a lane being turned into a boulevard which is sad for them.
They approached the Transportation Circulation Commission in 1989 when their 3 children were walking to school from K-8 and asked that some accommodation be made for pedestrians and were told this could not be done. He is sympathetic to the need for a pathway, loves the turnover that has occurred on his own street with many young families with kids, and he wants to accommodate them, but they simply do not need a 10-foot-wide pathway.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 3 of 68 November 13, 2023 MARK EDGINGTON said he lives next to Ken Hertel at 859 Birdhaven Court and definitely shares a back fence to Topper Lane. He has 2 children who attend Lafayette Elementary School and would be a beneficiary of a walkway, but he thinks the proposals they have seen from the City thus far are just egregious. There is no need for a 10-foot pathway. The traffic on Topper Lane is very limited to school drop-off and pickup hours. The rest of the time it is quite open, so he does not feel it meets the need of that criteria to have that wide of a lane. He thinks the City can very much get by with a very simple pathway and it does not need to be as complex as what is being proposed. He would be supportive of a much smaller design that would incorporate the feedback from the neighbors versus the proposal now, which has gone way too far, is overblown, and does not meet the needs of the broader community in his opinion.
CHRIS FESENMAIER said he is a 4-year resident of Birdhaven Court and are neighbors with the previous 2 speakers. He lives on the opposite side of the street that does not face Topper Lane, has a 2- and 4-year- old, and thanked the Council and the City for looking into the connecting Lafayette project and the downtown schools and pathways. He would agree with the previous speakers that the 10-foot path is not necessary for the use cases that they typically see and that his family would use for the decade to come.
He would say that something is sorely needed. The status quo right now is unsafe. They do not walk with their kids on that road and must use cars. As a professional who spent his entire career in green energy, he feels the City should be trying to do things to get cars off of the roads. He hates having to drive his children to a school he lives less than a mile away from because it is just unsafe.
MICHAEL COLBRUNO said recognizing the Council has a long agenda tonight he will speak on behalf of the people who submitted the letter to the City from Topper Lane, and he would like them to stand, including some from Birdhaven. He is encouraged by the comments made from the Birdhaven residents. There have been some good developments since the letter was submitted. They had a very good call with the City Manager Srivatsa and Transportation Program Manager Patrick Golier today which he thinks will move this in a more agreeable direction given most people do not want a 10-foot pathway. It is truly bulldozing a very bucolic street.
He thinks what Mr. Golier and Ms. Srivatsa are proposing is to go to MTC and CCTA and ask for some flexibility on the grant because clearly it was overdone. Some members of the Council have come out to tour, and some have agreed to visit in the future. He believes those Councilmembers who visited could see what the impacts were. If there is flexibility put into this grant, he thinks they can head in a positive direction and most people in the community will be very much in agreement these safety improvements are needed and will have safer streets for their kids while preserving the neighborhood as it should be.
DAN NISHIMURA, said there were 3 options on the table at the recent October meeting, none of which he felt addressed what is needed on a viable level. The Class I pathway is grossly overly engineered for the amount of people who use that space there. The traffic flow does not support it and there is an immense impact of what it will present for those living on Birdhaven and on Topper Lane.
He would urge the City Council to relook at what can be done with that space. There are some very reasonable solutions and solutions that do not have as significant of a fiscal impact upon the City, and they do not rape the character of Topper Lane. He would appreciate the Council looking forward to other options and speaks as a father, noting for the past 10 years he served as the position of a human shield for his children walking that corridor. It is a stressful situation for himself, and many parents and he does not think it is necessary. There are other solutions there and urged the Council to consider other options.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 4 of 68 November 13, 2023
9. CITY MANAGER'S UPDATE
City Manager Srivatsa provided an update on the Slow Down Lafayette campaign, stating the Police Department and Engineering Department have been working closely to ensure drivers slowdown in town and keep the streets safe. The current focus has been on Acalanes Road between Mt. Diablo Boulevard and Hidden Valley. Staff is working towards measuring the traffic speed, installing speed displays, and active enforcement in the area. They will be reporting out on which neighborhoods they will focus on so everyone is aware of them.
She reported there are 2 full-time motorcycle officers now and they will be focusing on reducing speeds, ensuring people obey speed limits, and in addition the Police Chief has asked their beat officers to also participate in enforcement when they have the time to do so. Staff has ordered 100 additional Slow Down Lafayette signs and they will be distributed through the PTA, and they encourage people to post those signs as a reminder. As of this Friday, all equipment the Council approved and ordered will arrive so they will be fully equipped to start the campaign in true earnest.
From the Planning Department, if anyone knows someone in the community who has made a difference this past year in promoting sustainability or reducing their carbon footprint, she asked to consider nominating them for a green award. Nominations are now open, and the Environmental Task Force will recognize community members and businesses later in the year. Categories include individuals, local businesses, and community organizations like neighborhood groups.
From Engineering, storm preparation is still underway. They are almost done cleaning out the grates. It is supposed to rain tonight, and they are focusing on the problem areas they encountered in January when they had the severe storms. On Tuesday, November 21 the signal at Mt. Diablo Court and Mt. Diablo Boulevard be activated. The Engineering Department has substantially completed the 2023 CIP projects and they have begun designing the projects for next year.
10. PRESENTATIONS
A. Mary McCosker, Lafayette Historical Society
History Presentation
Recommendation: Receive and file.
Mary McCosker, Lafayette Historical Society, thanked the Council for allowing her to present and for the support of the Historical Society. She then gave a presentation about the Pony Express, which has a short but romantic history in the town of Lafayette. Due to long delays in getting mail or any communication from Washington, D.C. to California, a better mail service was needed for faster delivery. In 1845, it could take up to 6 months for mail to get to California by sea, shorter if by pack mule at the Isthmus of Panama.
In 1860, it took 25 days for mail to go the southern route from St. Louis by way of El Paso, Texas on stagecoaches to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco.
After much searching, a central route that was almost due west was proposed. It was much shorter but its use in winter had yet to be proven. The reason for faster mail service included the rumblings of an impending civil war. The government wanted to keep California and all its gold for the North. In addition, there were many people who had emigrated to the gold fields who wanted to keep in touch with relatives back home.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 5 of 68 November 13, 2023 In the 1850's, a company named Russell, Majors & Waddell was a freight outfitter to the Army and to travelers on the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. In 1857, they had a large financial loss after 54 of their wagons were destroyed in the Utah or Mormon war. The firm did not get reimbursed by the government which put them in shaky financial shape. The company hoped to make up for this with the contract to carry the mail to California. Their firm already had overland stage stations for mail and passenger service between the Missouri River and Salt Lake City.
On January 27, 1860, William Russell learned that California Senator William Gwin was supporting a contract for California mail service. The service was contingent on its readiness by April and the delivery of mail in 10 days. The route would be a central route which would be open all year, even in winter.
Saving hundreds of miles, the central route was needed as Texas was leaning towards the confederate states and mail would not be able to be sent via El Paso. The last train stop and telegraph terminus from the east was in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was decided this would be the starting point for the express service.
Russell, Majors, and Waddell created a company named The Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company to set up relay stations. The COC&PP later became known to its employees as Clean Out of Cash and Poor Pay. Incredibly, 5 geographic divisions were created, division managers hired, and over 150 relay stations between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento were set up. Word went out that riders weighing less than 125 Ibs. who were of good character and could handle horses were to be hired for $50 to $100 per month. Station keepers, stock tenders, and 80 riders were hired.
The stations were initially from 10-25 miles apart. Later stations were mostly 10-12 miles apart, or about the distance that horses could gallop between stops. Riders were to ride 75-100 miles per day, day and night, and all months of the year. Each rider was given a Bible and required to take an oath prohibiting fighting, drinking, and profanity. The rider to become the most famous in his later years was Wild Bill Hickok. The horses were to be less than 15 ½ hands tall and weigh under 900 Ibs. As these were small animals, they were often called ponies, hence the name Pony Express, but they were horses. It is believed that this group of horses cost $87,000 as they were of outstanding stock; Morgans, Thoroughbreds, and Pintos were used on the eastern end. Smaller, tougher animals of California stock-Mustangs---would be used for the rough mountains and deserts.
To keep weight down, the mail and special edition newspapers were printed on special, light-weight paper and wrapped in oil skin for waterproofing. Telegrams, business letters, and government dispatches were also sent. Initially, a letter cost $5 per half ounce. Later the fare was reduced to $1. Letters were franked or postmarked with a special hand stamp.
The saddles were of a special abbreviated design. The mail was placed in a mochila, a special rectangular piece of leather which was a saddle bag. There were 4 pockets; one at each corner which were locked for safety. The mochila had a hole for the saddle horn, and it was thrown over the saddle at each relay station.
The weight of the rider kept it in place. The mochila carried 20Ibs. of mail and 20Ibs. of personal effects.
The rider could carry a Bible, a knife, a horn to alert the station masters of their approach, and a gun.
Later, only water and a gun were carried.
On March 31, 1860, a special train carried 49 letters, 5 telegrams, and a special edition newspaper from Washington, D.C. and New York to St. Joseph, Missouri. At about 7 p.m. on April 3, 1860, after waiting around hours for the train, the mail was put into the mochila and the rider left St. Joseph for points west.
In San Francisco on the same April 3rd at 4 p.m., James Randall left with 85 letters to board the ship, the Antelope, at the Wharf and traveled to Sacramento. There, the mail was transferred to another rider and the Eastbound Overland Service began.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 6 of 68 November 13, 2023 For the first part of 1860, there were weekly rides from each direction. There was a halt to operations for the Peyote Indian War from May to July 1860. Stations were destroyed and men were killed between Salt Lake City, Utah and Carson City, Nevada. Once over, riders then started out twice a week including winter until October 1861. A total of 308 runs were made for a distance of 616,000 miles. Lincoln's inaugural address in November 1860 made it from St. Joseph to Sacramento in 7 days and 17 hours. Although it was easy for eastbound riders to make the boat connection in San Francisco, it was not for westbound riders arriving in Sacramento. They were completing a long journey through all kinds of weather and Indian country, so their timing was never exact. Riders often missed the boat which was to leave Sacramento at 2 p.m. on Saturday with no service Sunday. Then, they had to ride overland from Sacramento to Oakland where they took a ferry from Jack London Square to San Francisco. The route went through Davis, Fairfield, Cordelia, Benicia, by ferry to Martinez, Pacheco, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, and onto Oakland.
Lafayette and these other towns became added stations. Lafayette House, run by N. P. Lake was the hotel and weigh station on the southwest corner of Mt. Diablo Boulevard and Moraga Road where a Pony Express monument stands today. The rider came from Martinez, changed horses in Lafayette, galloped through Orinda, over Fish Ranch Road, then down Claremont Avenue, Telegraph Avenue, and Broadway.
He then caught a ferry, The Oakland, for the crossing to San Francisco. After the first unofficial run through Lafayette, the Pony Express stopped twice more in 1860 and 17 times in 1861 always westbound.
The completion of the nationwide telegraph network on October 1860 doomed the Pony Express. Service ended shortly thereafter. The venture never panned out as a financial success and bankrupted the owners.
However, the Pony Express contributed to the western frontier in many ways. The central route became the basis for telegraph service and the Transcontinental Railroad which was completed in 1869. Faster mail from east to west was now a reality. California's loyalty remained with the north in the Civil War. The memory and legend of the Pony Express far outlives the short time it was in service.
Several signs have recently been added along Highway 24 showing the approximate route of the Pony Express rider when he missed the ferry from Sacramento and had to come through Lafayette on his way to San Francisco. There are 2 signs on both east and west Highway 24 between Lafayette and the Caldecott Tunnel.
Ms. McCosker thanked her colleague, Mary Solon, for a lot of the information on the Pony Express and voiced appreciation to the Council for allowing her to make these presentations.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Mayor Anduri described the Lafayette Historical Society as a tremendous resource for Lafayette, encouraged everyone to visit the Historical Society's Room which is on the first floor of the Library campus, and he thanked Ms. McCosker for her leadership, the 175+ year Lafayette celebration, and for her work with the Society and informative presentations.
B. David Krueger, Executive Director, RecycleSmart
Update on Service Issues and Steps Taken to Improve Service Recommendation: Receive and file.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 7 of 68 November 13, 2023 David Krueger, Executive Director, RecycleSmart, said RecycleSmart is Central Contra Costa's Solid Waste Authority which is a group of local governments who have joined together to manage their garbage and recycling as opposed to individually. The Authority includes Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga, Danville, Walnut Creek, and adjacent unincorporated county areas. He spoke about their work to provide public education about garbage and recycling, make sure the Authority is compliant with all state laws, and manage service contracts with companies that collect the materials and sort recyclables. Republic Service is doing most of the collection and Mr. Diablo Recycling is doing sorting of their recyclables. He introduced Anthony Mann from Republic Service who is the Western Area Vice President and Acting General Manager locally and Kimberly Lamb as well.
RecycleSmart manages the contracts with service providers, and they have had some recent service problems which he described, and said the biggest problem is picking up garbage on the scheduled day.
Recently, the last couple of months were the worst of being able to pick up. They recognize this is not acceptable and are working hard with Republic Service to solve the problems. Over the last couple of weeks, the service has been very good on-time service which they hope to continue.
In terms of what RecycleSmart is doing to try to make sure the service stays up to quality is they have liquidated damages or fines they can assess in their contract with Republic Service and work with them on daily reports on how many routes are open and those that are not completed from the next day. They also take calls from the public and work with Republic Service to resolve complaints received. One major thing they have done beginning in March is they re-negotiated their contract with Republic Service and tried to build in ways to ensure service quality. They made sure there were additional resources to Republic to help them with resources they needed to keep service up and conditioned future rate increases on good service as an incentive.
One of the changes in that contract is they took one of their fines they had for missed pickups and changed it into a customer credit. When they had the fine, the money would go to the Authority, but they were not those inconvenienced and felt the customers should have the reimbursement. If Republic Service does not pick up by the next business day, customers can call Republic and get a credit equal to one-quarter of their monthly bill.
They also have recently sent a formal letter on October 6th to Republic Service stating they were out of compliance, and they are working on a formal response in how they plan to achieve it, and he again noted that the last couple of weeks have been very good. Lastly, they have decided when the contract is up with Republic, as opposed to just extending it, they will go out with a competitive RFP in part due to service problems. The contract does not expire until February 28, 2027, but these RFPs for garbage service take a long time and lately it has taken a while for companies to purchase garbage trucks, which can be up to 2 years. So, they are starting the process now to get ahead of it. To garner more competition, they have structured the process by breaking the services into different pieces because some companies cannot provide all services but some of them. They are starting out with those services that happen after collection like sorting recyclables, composting the organics, burying the garbage, and transferring materials to where they need to go. They hope to have that wrapped up by November 2024. At that point, they would go out to bid for collection once they know where all materials will go.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 8 of 68 November 13, 2023 They would select the collector by September 2025 and that would give them enough time to purchase trucks needed to provide collection by 2027. This is a large contract of over $50 million a year and it will get a lot of attention. They expect many elected officials will be hearing who want to bid on this contract.
What might happen is they put in some process integrity guidelines to prevent any appearance of impropriety in the process, which he described involving limits on campaign contributions and gift to Councilmembers/Board members and guidelines on communications.
In December, they hope to release their first documents requesting proposals for post-collection services and all communications would need to follow the processes in the integrity guidelines. Mr. Krueger introduced Anthony Mann from Republic Service.
Anthony Mann, Western Area Vice President and Acting General Manager, said he has been with the company just under one year and the last 30 days as Interim General Manager. He admitted their service has not been acceptable and they are doing everything they can to fix this right away. They have had some encouraging results in the last few weeks relating to missed pickups and open routes. They are trying to build something sustainable and durable in terms of process and hope to keep the recent experiences going. They have invested in more people, equipment, more trucks, and more individuals to fix trucks with breakdowns. They have a corporate executive responsible for operational effectiveness to solve problems and seeing continuous results.
Councilmember Candell asked for clarification when there is a delay of service and contact to the customer if not fixed by the day after the normal pick-up day. Mr. Krueger replied it is a one-day respite.
If the regular pickup is not done, the customer must call, and garbage should be picked up by the next business day to receive a rebate. The number is 925-685-4711 or on the website or app to report. The number is also on all 3 garbage carts. If the customer is not happy with the response, call RecycleSmart at 925-906-1801 or email them at [email protected].
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period.
LIBBY HENRY thanked RecycleSmart for coming and said her experience has been up and down. It was very bad during COVID but since that time it has been very good. She lives on a hill and must have a special truck, and the drivers are fantastic.
Councilmember Gerringer said she and Vice Mayor Dawson serve on the Board and there have been many emails. She thanked residents for emailing them and notifying them of pickup issues. She has noticed things have been better and assured residents that problems are being worked on.
Vice Mayor Dawson thanked Kimberly Lamb for being responsive and the team at RecycleSmart and Republic Service.
Mayor Anduri echoed Ms. Lamb's work in responding promptly, and said he respects the representatives' candor tonight for admitting there are problems and talk about how they are working to fix things.
C. Parks, Trails and Recreation Commission
Update on Goals and Accomplishments
Recommendation: Receive and file.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 9 of 68 November 13, 2023 Alison Hill, Chair, Parks, Trails and Recreation Commission said it has been 4 years since the Commission has presented in-person and there have been changes with the Council and Commission. The Commission has 3 main subcommittees, and she introduced the Chairs: 1) Trail Subcommittee Commission Frank Curcuro who acknowledged members Geoff Bellenger, Scott Robinson, and Alison Hill. 2) Parks Subcommittee Chair Grace Dixon who acknowledged Carol Singer, Joe Dougherty, and Shane Reisman. 3) Community Center Subcommittee Commissioner Justine Parmelee who works with Director Katayanagi.
Chair Hill stated they have had a subcommittee for the Hamlin Nature Park, whose work is on hold as the City repairs the landside that occurred on the parkland with the storms of the last year.
The Stanford Commission Study conducted for the City, revealed the Commission as an "operations commission" with on-going duties that consist of working closely with staff. Before the Council is a list of the Commission's on-going duties.
Commissioner Dixon spoke about the Commission's many collaborative partners who get things done with staff, local organizations, and volunteers to offer popular programs and memorable events. They know residents count on one another to achieve daily goals with an eye to the future.
Commissioner Parmelee said there are a number of example initiatives which she displayed. She called Council's attention to the Lafayette Community Playground which broke ground in October, and they expect it to open in early 2024. It has a larger footprint, will serve a wider age range of children and it provides accessible play opportunities. They have made progress with park opportunities with the approval of the two-park collaborative concept for Leigh Creekside and Gazebo Parks. A design services agreement with Scientific Art Studio was approved in August 2023 as well as an MOU with All Ages Recreation downtown last month to help fund the design phase for these parks. Lastly, they are improving hiker safety and accessibility on the trails by creating an inventory trail markers, updating them with current and easy to read instructions, and also leveraging technology to enhance the experience by adding QR codes to those trail markers.
Chair Alison said some key accomplishments in the past year include: Completion of the Brook Street play area renovation which was financially assisted with a State grant; a Parkland Acquisition and Development Plan; and expanded childcare and school bus service.
Commissioner Curcuro said along with successes, they have challenges. Some are directly related to development and the needs of the community such as on-going need for parkland options and aging facilities such as the playground. Some also relate to development and they experience funding challenges as the City grows.
PTR Director Jonathan Katayanagi said beyond the need to expand their park system, as the City is 25 acres short of their parkland goal, at this time the biggest challenge is having the funds to maintain the existing parks and facilities. The Fiscal Sustainability Committee's work is more important than ever. He displayed a list of known costs, through cost estimates, as well as unknowns costs as they have aging facilities that will soon be in need of renovation or replacement. The list included Community Center's roof and HVAC, the parking lots, the Community Park Playground, the fields and the Buckeye Meeting Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 10 of 68 November 13, 2023 Regarding funding, maintenance items are supported by the General Fund. The recreation programs are in an enterprise budget which are all self-sustaining through user fees. This last year, they broke their record with $2 million in program revenue and they expect to grow as there is a growing need for childcare and programs at the Community Center, as well as enrichment programs at all elementary schools. They are also funded through developer fees. There are in-lieu fees paid if the developers cannot provide land or facilities. Those fees can be utilized to expand the City's park system or expand some of their existing facilities, which has been a challenge.
Chair Hill thanked the Council for their time and said they were available for questions.
Mayor Anduri said based on the City's current population he asked what is their need for playing fields and based upon projected population, what will their need be. Secondly, he asked where the City will find those playing fields within the City.
Chair Hill said over the years the Commission has looked at every vacant lot or space without a great deal of success. There are not many flat lands available and there seems to be more demand for fields.
Director Katayanagi said playing fields has been listed as a need in the Parks and Recreational Facilities Master Plan since 2009. They have not expanded their field system since then as population has grown.
The Recreation Department have an on-going requests and applications for field use through the department that cannot be met for youth programs. There are no adult programs on fields in town, and the schools have similar challenges, with time entirely booked.
Regarding land use, one of their key accomplishments this year was the Parkland Acquisition Development Plan. The Commission looked at various lots for Sports Fields and there was only one of significant size, highlighted as the large lot across from the Oakwood Athletic Club. Outside of that, there are other lots identified but they are already developed or have site constraints. Most fields are multi-use and youth take up the playtime.
Mayor Anduri asked if the need is in multiple fields and not one or two fields. Director Katayanagi said they would need a significant increase in time that could be accomplished through multiple fields. There are also no fields with lights in the community, and additional time can be achieved through the addition of lights or synthetic turf and lights.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period.
SUE GEORGE asked if the property referred to is opposite the Orchard Nursery which is also referred to as the DeSilva South property.
Mr. Katayanagi said that was the largest lot identified for sports field use in the Parkland Acquisition Development Plan.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 11 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri said the Commission covered a few of the key accomplishments and some of the other things are so valuable, such as growth of the childcare programs, pop-up recreation for all ages, and he thanked the Commission for their work. He said one of the glories of Lafayette is its trail system and he particularly thanked the Trail Subcommittee for all they do to maintain the trail system. The City has a great partner, and he presented a proclamation to thank one of those partners. He read the proclamation into the record and introduced Carol Lane of the Save Mt. Diablo Trail Dogs. Pictures were then taken, and Mayor Anduri and Councilmembers thanked the Commission for their presentation.
D. Jennifer Wakeman, Assistant Administrative Services Director Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2023.
Recommendation: Receive and file.
Assistant Administrative Services Director Jennifer Wakeman shared that the City has received the gth Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting; this one was for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2022, and she thanked Finance staff for their work and diligence.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Mayor Anduri and Councilmembers recognized the work of staff in achievement of the award for the 8*h year.
11. CONSENT CALENDAR - 7:00 p.m.
Mayor Anduri asked and confirmed there were no requests for removal of items or public comments.
A. Minutes
1. October 20, 2023
Recommendation: Approve.
2. October 23, 2023
Recommendation: Approve.
B. Approval of two Cost Sharing Funding Agreements with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) to Design and Construct the Lafayette Community Smart Signals Project and the CCTA Countywide Smart Signals Project
Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2023-56 and Resolution 2023-57 authorizing staff to execute Funding Agreements No. 675 and No. 642 between the City of Lafayette and the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.
C. Minor Subdivision MS502-21, 1000 Howard Hill Road - Approval of Subdivision, Authorization to Record Parcel Map
Recommendation: Approve the subject parcel map for recordation.
D. Continuing the Hybrid Meeting Option for City Council, Planning Commission, Design Review Commission and Transportation and Circulation Commission Meetings Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 12 of 68 November 13, 2023 Recommendation: Continue the current practice of offering a hybrid option for City Council, Planning Commission, Design Review Commission and Transportation and Circulation Commission meetings. Authorize the Mayor and City Manager to suspend this practice or move general public comments to the end of the agenda if necessary.
E. Budget Adjustments for FY22-23 Necessary to Comply with Lafayette Financial Policies Recommendation: Adjust budgets for FY22-23 as detailed in the staff report.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Gerringer/Candell) to adopt Consent Calendar Items A.1, A.2, B, C. D, and E. Vote:
5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
12. OLD BUSINESS - None.
13. STAFF REPORTS - None.
14. PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. Patrick Golier, Transportation Program Manager
Introduce Ordinance 690 Speed Limits, resulting in formally adopted speed limits including a reduction in speed limits on eight roadway segments in Lafayette.
Recommendation: Introduce Ordinance 690, waive first reading, take public testimony, and continue to November 27* for second reading and adoption.
Transportation Program Manager Patrick Golier provided a staff report regarding the results of the 2023 Engineering and Traffic Survey Study which is mandated by the State in order for Lafayette and other California jurisdictions to set enforceable speed limits across the City. In recent years the State has given jurisdictions more flexibility in their ability to reduce speeds under certain conditions. Staff has considered a number of roadway segments where speed can be reduced by 5 mph. This effort is aligned with the findings from the Local Road Safety Plan, and with the Mayor's efforts to "Slow Down Lafayette." He then introduced Jimmy Jessup from Parametrix Engineering who has assisted the City.
Jimmy Jessup, Parametrix Engineering, gave a PowerPoint presentation and discussed background information on speed limits, their preparation of an E&TS (Engineering and Traffic Survey), what is changing in speed limit codes within the State, the national movement to reduce speeds, statistics of reduced speeds and traffic safety outcomes, how speeds are measured, AB 43, staff's recommendation to keep all speed limits unchanged with the exception of the 8 roadway segments by 5 mph, and results of Lafayette's study.
It is the staff's recommendation that the Council introduce Ordinance 690 tonight and continue the item to November 27 for second reading and adoption. The ordinance establishes speed limits as a result of the E&TS and after June 30, 2024, the City will have the ability to post new signage on recommended 8 road segments. As a follow-on scope, the City would take a comprehensive investigation of school zone speed limits which can also be done through an E&TS.
In conclusion, they recommend speed limits work in tandem with the design of a streetscape as well as with enforcement and education around roadway safety and the importance of prudent motorist speeds.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 13 of 68 November 13, 2023 Vice Mayor Dawson asked if there is a window for performing a follow-on study for schools, and Mr. Golier said the Citywide survey is valid for 7 years and would expire at the end of 2023. The school zone speed limit establishment must be underpinned by an engineering and traffic survey, so the E&TS step would come first and once this is confirmed, school zone speed limits are valid for 14 years. A next step would look at the citywide school zone speed limits.
Councilmember Gerringer stated she heard the presentation at the Transportation Circulation Commission meeting and the discussion around why school zones were not included as part of this effort.
She said the Council has been talking about reducing speed limits around the schools. Mr. Golier confirmed that staff will be working with Parametrix Engineering on this effort and are looking at starting next month. The school study will take a couple of months and then it will return to the Council for a separate ordinance. Mr. Golier reminded the Council that there are existing reduced speeds around some of Lafayette's schools, so the updated study will consider speed limits around all schools across the City and to ensure the locations of signs are aligned with current State guidance.
Councilmember Gerringer noted these would take effect in 2024 and the Council received some questions about why the ordinance is being moved forward tonight. She asked if there should be more time for outreach and extend the ordinance beyond tonight.
Mr. Golier said that an engineering and traffic survey must be adopted by the end of the year in order to maintain enforceable speed limits. An option could be to retain the existing limits Citywide by December 315t and take the winter and spring to evaluate those 8 segments. Another option would be to extend the 2016 Engineering & Traffic Survey study for another 3 years via a review by a licensed engineer, though this would be a reasonably expensive effort.
Councilmember Candell referred to Mt. Diablo Boulevard from First to Pleasant Hill Road. The prevailing speeds are 39 mph, but the new laws allow them to round down 39 to 35 mph and then they can go all the way down to 30 mph. They have been told by the Police Chief that just by reducing the speed limits does not work and she asked if there is a plan for things to help to reduce speeds like narrowing lanes or help people to drive slower below the 39 mph rather than just posting a speed sign.
Mr. Golier said the City has been making changes along that corridor. They have a new signal about to be turned on in a few weeks. Since it has been identified as a high injury corridor in the City's recently adopted Local Road Safety Plan, it gives the City more momentum in moving forward on engineering changes along that corridor. There are options to restripe with narrower lanes, install a number of pedestrian improvements, as well as use Police's new speed boards which are proving effective in reducing speeds.
So, there are tools they can use in addition to reducing speeds.
Vice Mayor Dawson said most of Lafayette's downtown streets do not qualify as a business district. She asked why. Mr. Jessup replied AB 43 has a new definition that is introduced in the California Vehicle Code called Business Activity District and that does allow for establishment of a "prima facie" 20 mph speed limit in a defined Business Activity District. Unfortunately, the requirements of that definition are stringent, and the Mt. Diablo Boulevard Corridor does not meet the requirement of a traffic control device a minimum of every 600 feet. It is the way the roadway is designed and the way the law was written is that it was intended for very tightly gridded downtown corridors. Though it does not meet that definition, future improvements and E&TS's can always try to align roadway vehicle speeds with the intended use, but Mt. Diablo Boulevard corridor does not meet that definition.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 14 of 68 November 13, 2023 Vice Mayor Dawson noted the City will be working on a Mt. Diablo Corridor Specific Plan and if the City makes changes, she asked if there were ways to implement a slow down on those streets outside of the 600 feet intervals. Mr. Golier said the Business Activity Corridor allows them to implement a 20 or 25 mph speed limit without using an engineering and traffic survey study. It is 25 mph today, and they are using the study to justify it rather than via a prima facie 25 mph speed limit.
Mayor Anduri recognized the Happy Valley Improvement Association (HVIA) for their outreach to those living in the area and input received. He recognized Jeff Kowalski and members of the Board and HVIA.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period.
LIBBY HENRY echoed Councilmember Gerringer's comments regarding delay of the decision. She took the survey, but the public has not been informed of this item and was surprised the Transportation Circulation Commission said it was ready to go to the Council. She has lived in Happy Valley since 1958 and has seen the many changes. She voiced concern with the east of Cricket Hill Road, noting Happy Valley runs perpendicular to Mt. Diablo Boulevard and the boulevard runs east/west. There is a double yellow line the entire distance of Happy Valley Road and Upper Happy Valley Road, a pedestrian walkway the entire length of Happy Valley to Upper Happy Valley to El Nido Ranch Road, and recently speed bumps were installed on both sides of Happy Valley School to slow traffic and people pay attention to the speed bumps.
So, she asked to keep Happy Valley at 30 mph and said the area is fine the way it is.
ROBERT LAVOIE urged the Council to delay the proposed Citywide speed limit ordinance. He cited the number of drivers throughout the town, said he heard it was a high injury corridor and he assumes it is related to the one fatality at night, and he would like to see the police report, thinking it was not a lot of data to declare a street that is .99 compared to those 1.25 average accident rate, and asked to see the data supporting the program. The 85th percentile speed is 39 mph on Mt. Diablo so rounding it would be 40 mph and it is already rounded down to 35 mph. To push it down to 30 mph means 95% of people driving on that road are in violation of the speed limit. He did not think there were many pedestrians and bicyclists, but there are senior developments there and not many seniors walking downtown. He therefore encouraged the Council to obtain the data and not make Lafayette a speed trap. He asked to share it with the community and to delay approval.
STELLA WOTHERSPOON said she is not speaking as a member of the Transportation Circulation Commission and missed the meeting when this was first heard. Her one comment is on Deer Hill Road between Elizabeth and Pleasant Hill Road where the speed limit is 45 mph now but with an existing advisory speed limit sign on the eastbound section of Deer Hill Road before the curve. The recommendation is to retain the 45-mph speed limit. Her observation is that when going eastbound drivers approach the very steep grade at the intersection, going around a blind curve, and the 2 left turn pockets is all traffic going parts north of Lafayette, Pleasant Hill, Concord, etc. This can be a significant overflow of the queue. The issue is there may be cars parked waiting at the light all the way up to the blind curve. If the limit is 45 mph, this is the legal speed limit. If someone is driving 45 mph and crashes into cars, it is bad, but it does not seem right that this is the recommendation for that segment.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 15 of 68 November 13, 2023 Regarding schools, that intersection is a school intersection. There are plans for development at the Terraces site which would include crosswalk enhancement across the road, so she hoped the Council could reconsider this particular recommendation or enhance the messaging to drivers to slow down. It could be moving the yellow advisory signs further to the west giving more advanced warning and possibly with the Terraces development and driveway, it could be a natural end point for a segment between Elizabeth and that driveway where some of that could be 45 mph but beyond that, it would not be recommended for 45 mph.
JEFF KOWALSKI, President, HVIA, said they serve about 1,100 residents accessible by Happy Valley Road and Upper Happy Valley Road and connected side streets. He thanked Mr. Golier and his team for their research and proposal to enhance safety across the City. The HVIA conducted its own survey and in light of this evening's discussion, last Wednesday they sent notice to 719 residents pointing them to this meeting and presentation materials. In that notice, they were asked to participate by answering 2 questions: 1) Are you in favor of changing the speed limit on Upper Happy Valley and Happy Valley Roads from 30 to 25 mph. 2) Provide free-form reasons for their opinion. They received 106 responses to the survey. 69 were in favor of the reduction proposal and 35 were against. Those are part of the record they submitted into the public record, but he called out that independent of whether a resident was for or against, there was a strong desire to see meaningful enforcement of the speed limits. Lastly, he asked if lowering the speed limit will reduce the chances that their residential streets are identified as shortcuts by navigation apps such as Waze.
CHERYL MACDONALD said she is in favor of public safety, but voiced support of postponing the decision tonight to receive more public input. She did not think an agendized item before the Transportation Circulation Commission and the City Council is enough for public engagement. She agrees with the need to gather more data, asked when accidents happened, what conditions made the roads classified as a high injury network, and asked to delay the decision for more public input.
DAWN EAMES said she is a property owner on Mt. Diablo Boulevard, questioned the First Street to Pleasant Hill reduction in the speed limit. It is considered a high injury network; however, there has only been one accident over a short period of time rather than a longitudinal study of accidents as well as pedestrian and bicycle data which has not been presented, knows the previous Police Chief has mentioned the east end of Lafayette has not had many accidents at all so she does not know why it is included in the network, and said she has emailed Mr. Golier on this information. The new traffic light at Mt. Diablo Court will slow down the traffic and hopefully it will slow traffic automatically. She hopes Mr. Lavoie's research will be considered as well as public comments before a decision is made tonight.
Mayor Anduri noted questions from speakers included asking if lowering the speed limit would reduce the impact of it being a cut-through because of reduced speeds.
Mr. Golier said he would doubt it but cannot speak for the Google or Waze apps.
Mayor Anduri said Ms. Eames asked why is Mt. Diablo Boulevard/First Street to Pleasant Hill Road part of a high injury network.
Mr. Golier said as part of the Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) development, which was conducted over the ast year and adopted in August after a 14-month process, high injury corridors were identified acros he Citv based on a number of different data points, including collisions that occurred plus some additiona analyses described in the LRSP.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 16 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri asked if there is more than one collision that has happened in that stretch of road.
Mr. Golier replied there was one collision that resulted in serious injury.
Mayor Anduri said Mr. Lavoie stated he did not think there was evidence to support these changes and real data was needed. He asked if staff believes they have obtained real data.
Mr. Golier said between the LRSP, and the data collected as part of Parametrix' efforts, the data is present.
He was not sure what additional data Mr. Lavoie would like to see, but the City has the data to justify the reduction in speed limit.
Mayor Anduri noted Ms. Wotherspoon asked if the Deer Hill segment from Elizabeth to Pleasant Hill Road is not part of these changes, and whether it could be changed later as part of the Terraces development.
He asked if this would be possible.
Mr. Golier said yes, a land use change would justify a re-examination of a speed limit on a segment.
Vice Mayor Dawson asked if it was 30 mph or 35 mph on Pleasant Hill where it hits Deer Hill.
Mr. Golier said it is 45 mph closer to Pleasant Hill Road. The eastern end is 45 mph currently and the recommendation from the report was to retain the 45-mph limit. He and Ms. Wotherspoon have talked about the advisory speed limit going eastbound around the curve and they talked about maybe moving that back to provide a bit more guidance for drivers about the curve.
Councilmember Kwok said a couple of speakers asked whether the Council could delay or take longer on this. Early on, staff provided a timeline every 7 years and the City must do something by a certain date.
He asked staff to review the dates where the Council is being asked to waive the first reading, take public testimony, continue the item to November 27 for second reading and adoption. If the Council delayed this, he asked staff to describe what would occur.
Mr. Golier said he is hoping for an approved engineering and traffic survey by December 31* so the City can maintain enforceable speed limits. One option is to amend the ordinance so that they are simply retaining the existing speed limits and then they can review those 8 segments in the future. They will be reviewing speed limits around schools so it can be done in combination with that effort. Another option is to extend the existing 2016 Engineering and Traffic Survey for another 3 years but that would require a licensed engineer to give his/her stamp of approval. So, there is an additional cost for that, but it is an option. The State gives the City that option.
Councilmember Gerringer said if the Council is going to make these changes in some places and some changes around the schools, it would be good to tie them together. She asked if the school's analysis could come forward and still meet the December 31't deadline.
Mr. Golier said his intent was if they are moving forward with reduction of these speed limits, plus new school speed limits, they would have a communication/education effort throughout the spring and then implementing new speed limit signs in the summer after June 30" and when schools are closed so there is one unified communication coming out from the City to support the lowered speed limits.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 17 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Gerringer asked and confirmed that the Council could waive the first reading of the ordinance to make these changes or not and then they would do analysis on the schools, come back with that and roll them out at the same time.
Mayor Anduri asked and confirmed that the Council could waive the first reading tonight or at the next meeting and still meet the December 31s* deadline.
Councilmember Candell said she would support having an ordinance return to the Council adopting the current speed limits, but approving the entire report that keeps them compliant with the State. She is not comfortable with adopting all the new speed limits tonight without having more public input. She recommended pulling speed changes out tonight and return them with speed changes with the schools, or Councilmember Gerringer said she would be supportive of adopting all speed changes but not going out to the public until the schools are surveyed.
Mayor Anduri said he would favor moving forward by adopting the ordinance and considering it again at the November 27h meeting including all speed changes, and moving forward with the study of the schools in the first months of next year and doing a complete rollout of all new changes if there are any new changes around the schools so people are aware of them by July 1st. He is not pre-judging on the schools.
Councilmember Candell said she does not quite agree with rolling out all changes of the speeds and thinks they need more nuance about Deer Hill and Mt. Diablo on the east end. She thinks more public input should be sought before adopting those of 8 changes.
Councilmember Kwok asked if they could obtain public input now or by the last December meeting and having the second reading and adoption at the December 11'h meeting. Councilmember Candell said she thinks this would be better if staff put a coordinated effort into getting real public input. They received great input from HVIA but there are the other areas where the Council might benefit from public input.
Vice Mayor Dawson said she is comfortable with adopting this as is. The City has its campaign to Slow Down Lafayette and these are studies that have been done on regular intervals and recommendations based on safety and standards. As much as she knows public input is needed, this would not change the opinion of making reductions in speed where necessary.
Councilmember Gerringer said she was also comfortable in moving forward tonight and noted all Councilmembers read comments from the various surveys taken. The Council can bring the ordinance back on November 27th. They have an opportunity to provide more information about it in the Round Up to obtain more input and there could be other suggestions. While not part of this, she thinks the City can do all of these things, believes there is data in the report, but they also need enforcement.
Mayor Anduri said one approach would also be to continue this to November 27th and hold the second reading and adoption on December 11"h which still gives them time.
City Attorney Mala Subramanian clarified the Council must introduce the Ordinance and then it can be adopted at a subsequent regular meeting, and it does not take effect until 30 days after adoption.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 18 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri noted that it must take effect before December 31$t. Mr. Golier confirmed. Mayor Anduri said the decision is whether to go ahead and waive the first reading of the ordinance as presented, additionally reducing the speed limits, and it will take effect December 27*, being within the deadline Alternative 2 is to somehow revise the ordinance tonight so the Council would approve the E&TS study and re-affirm existing speed limits, and they would act on that ordinance at the November 27* meeting.
In the new year, it would return with a proposal for changing the speed limits.
Councilmember Kwok asked staff to confirm the second alternative is a valid or legal alternative. Mr.
Golier said they can accommodate the second alternative.
Mayor Anduri said the third alternative is to adopt the ordinance approving the study and that would come back on the 27th and it would be effective in 30 days and then publicize between now and the next Council meeting on the 27t that they have an ordinance for lowering the speed limits and act on that ordinance on the 27th because there is no deadline for that by the end of the year. This could come back at the December 11* meeting. This would provide 2 weeks for public comments. He said this is more complicated because the Council would need to bifurcate the ordinance.
Councilmember Candell suggested just changing the column of the proposed speed limit to undo the 8 speed changes tonight and then the whole ordinance is still intact. Mayor Anduri said in Section 1 they can just say the existing speed limits set forth in the table are hereby confirmed and asked if this is sufficient to approve them for purposes of getting them the additional 13 years.
City Attorney Subramanian said she could not confirm this right now. If the Council wants to move it forward, if they caught an error, they would come back at the next meeting but they would be delayed.
Councilmember Candell said she thinks the changes can be made in the column because it states the changes on Mt. Diablo Boulevard from First Street to Carol and Carol to Pleasant Hill both say "30" in the table. If they are not going to do that speed change then that cannot be there to what it is right now.
Mayor Anduri said so in the middle column, they would change those 8 spaces back to whatever the current speeds are and take out the sentence that indicates the speed limits are confirmed.
Ms. Subramanian said she wondered if the Council could continue this to later in the evening and possibly Mr. Golier if he could redline the document and share the screen so the Council can adopt the correct version of the ordinance.
Mr. Golier asked if the Council was talking about all 8 roadway segments with the redline. Mayor Anduri said the consensus of the Council is to give another 2 weeks for people to provide comments and publicizing this in the Weekly Round Up and then the Council can act on the speed limit part of it at the November 27' meeting. If it is done the first meeting in January, he confirmed with Mr. Golier that this would be fine. He asked if Councilmembers wished to waive the first reading of the ordinance tonight or whether they provide another month and one-half of public input.
City Manager Srivatsa asked and confirmed that the Council would maintain current speed limits but not the 8 proposed and the new ordinance will state that, and the Council can simply approve the traffic analysis tonight.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 19 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri asked if the Council could re-convene on this topic at 10:00 p.m., and Councilmembers agreed.
Vice Mayor Dawson said when this item is returned it would be a separate ordinance, and Mayor Anduri said yes, and staff would return with a revised ordinance. They would have a month and one-half of public comment, return at the first meeting in January and the study will have been approved, and the Council can consider the speed limits of the 8 roads.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Gerringer/Kwok) to re-convene Item 14.A for action at 10:00 p.m. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes:
Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
BREAK
Mayor Anduri called for a break at 8:18 p.m., and thereafter reconvened the meeting at 8:29 p.m.
B. Greg Wolff, Planning & Building Director; Renata Robles, Senior Planner; Diana Elrod, Housing Consultant
GP01-23 Housing Element & EIR - The City of Lafayette 6th Cycle Housing Element and the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) analyzing impacts of growth stemming from the housing plan and housing opportunity sites identified to accommodate the mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 2,114 assigned to Lafayette, plus a buffer, which total approximately 3,000 new housing units between 2023-2031. The Housing Element is also required by State law to contain programs to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing. The draft Housing Element Update can be found at www.planlafayette.org; the draft and final EIR can be found at www.lovelafayette. org/CEQA.
Recommendation: Consider the comments received and direct staff whether to further revise the 6t Cycle Housing Element prior to submitting to the State.
Mayor Anduri said staff will provide a report and the Council will first be considering the allocation method across income levels, then the 88% minimum density and realistic capacity together, then DeSilva South as an opportunity site, then FBO zoning and whether to upzone or not, downtown zoning and whether to upzone or not, and then finally a discussion of timing and the builder's remedy. Other things to be discussed that were raised are 1) the relevance of the BART lots; 2) the OBAG grant of $750,000 and the $170,000 grant; and 3) anything that comes up related to AFFH.
Senior Planner Renata Robles gave a PowerPoint presentation regarding the Housing Element Update.
Staff is returning in response to community feedback and are looking for direction based on some scenarios detailed in the staff report.
Staff is looking for the Council to consider public comments received since the October 23rd meeting and direct staff on which approach to take with regard to the opportunity sites inventory. She then described background on receipt of comment letters from HCD, work to address comments and discussion of options, and at the October 23" meeting, Council directed staff to incorporate additional changes into the lousing Element. There were many grammatical changes, clarifications, and consistency matters Changes are summarized in a blog post on PlanLafayette.org and staff published a draft for the require 7-day review period. The direction was to resubmit to HCD after that time.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 20 of 68 November 13, 2023 During that public review period, the Council and staff received a significant amount of public comment requesting that the Council review alternative ways to address income distribution of units in the opportunity sites inventory and revisit the inventory to address those comments. Though there was direction given to staff to resubmit to the State, instead in response to public feedback, staff has not yet resubmitted to HCD and are here to discuss alternatives tonight.
Diana Elrod, Housing Consultant, described what she will discuss on the Housing Element, described the purpose and goals of the housing sites inventory. She noted that development is dependent upon owner choice and market conditions. The City does not direct housing to be developed but does everything it can to ensure housing can be built if a developer or owner wants to do so.
Much of the discussion in public comment following the October 23'd meeting pertains to the distribution of units by income category across sites. The methodology itself is not prescribed by law or in guidance.
Some communities have allocated all lower income housing units to specific sites and moderate income and above moderate income to other sites. The current inventory assigned more lower income units to some sites like City-owned parcels and FBOs but, in general, the method used by the City as well as many other jurisdictions is to use the distribution of units by income found in the RHNA allocation itself. Staff confirmed with HCD this methodology was an appropriate model to use.
Regarding some considerations in choosing methodology is the risk of violating the no net loss provisions of State law. This says if a site was identified for lower income units but is developed with moderate or above moderate-income units there must be enough buffer to accommodate those units lost. In the staff report there is an example of what happens if you load too many units down in the low and very low- income category, but a project comes in at above moderate income where many units are lost that way.
The City would have to either have excess units in the buffer to cover those lost for that particular site and the City would have to rezone or find new sites within 6 months. The timeframe challenge here is that rezoning is time-consuming with lots of preparation, public input, legal noticing, etc. and it would be very challenging for the City every time a project came up to just rezone some sites to cover the loss and have to do it again and again.
Two updates include both DeSilva South and Desco Plaza 1. The GPAC voted 6-5 to include DeSilva South in the inventory. The Planning Commission; however, voted to not include it in the inventory and the Council concurred when it adopted the Housing Element in January 2023 not to include DeSilva South.
However, the City on November 8t* received a letter from the owner requesting the property be included as an opportunity site. This is one of the Council's decisions of whether or not to include it.
In terms of Desco Plaza 1, which is the building immediately west of the City offices, at the August 28th meeting, the Council removed Desco Plaza 1 from the inventory as staff noted they could not find enough objective criteria to apply to it. However, on November 8th also staff received a letter from that owner expressing interest in redeveloping the site for housing.
Ms. Elrod then reviewed the 5 inventory scenarios:
Scenario 1: The Housing Element inventory with the RHNA allocation process the Council approved to be forwarded to HCD on October 23'd.
Scenario 2: A community-offered alternative.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 21 of 68 November 13, 2023 Scenario 3: This is the existing inventory with the RHNA allocation distribution with FBOs but adding in DeSilva South. They wanted to find out what would happen to the downtown zoning if they added DeSilva South in.
Scenario 4: The revised inventory with a slightly higher VLI / LI distribution, not as significant as in Scenario 2 but slightly moved in the direction upwards with DeSilva South included, and what would that do to the outcome of the inventory.
Scenario 5: The revised inventory with a slightly higher distribution of VLI / LI. FBOs are included but leaving DeSilva South out, and what would be the outcome in terms of what would have to be upzoned in the downtown in order to accommodate that.
Scenarios 1, 3, 4 and 5 are all the City scenarios and includes the 7 FBOs at 35 du/acre. All include the Desco Plaza 1 at 1.7 acres. Scenarios 3 and 4 include DeSilva South which the other 2 do not. The City is able to count 9.75 acres at 35 du/acre and the income distribution would be with the slightly increased from the existing inventory which tracks the RHNA allocation. The would move up very low to 35 low income to 20, moderate to 25, and above moderate income to 20.
When they looked at the current scenario and added in the Desco Plaza 1 site which was approved at the October 23rd meeting. They have a 23% low and very low-income buffer, and this includes those zoning increases for Area 1A, 2, 3A, 5A, 5B, and the rest would be still at 35 du/acre. This is the outcome of what the Council is going to send to HCD after October 23rd. The benefits are that it reduces the no net loss risk because the City is distributing the risk amongst every site instead of loading some with a lot of VLI and LI. They will not eat through the buffer quite as quickly. Another benefit is they have already completed all of the AFFH analysis for all sites including the FBOs. They have addressed the findings that the State has made and are bringing it closer to certification. There is only a little time delay in its HCD review where the City is off by about 1.5 weeks to maybe 2 weeks and they have a buffer of 23% for VLI and LI. But the challenges are that this results in a significant upzoning of the downtown in some areas up to 75 du/acre and it requires these rezonings to take place by January 31, 2024.
Ms. Elrod presented a map showing these areas and these can be provided for people to look at. Area 9- 1, which is DeSilva South is not included in this exercise and Area 9-2; DeSilva North is but it is off the page and would be too hard to read. All of the FBOs are distributed around Lafayette are at 35 du/acre.
The community members offered multiple scenarios with 3 fundamental changes, with some differences between them. Essentially, they have increased the allocation of lower income units on any site greater than one-half acre so all of the City's opportunity sites, instead of having 28.3% of the units be very low income, they would be 64.1%. This distribution would not include on any one of those sites above moderate income. They would be allocated to existing, vacant single-family sites that are distributed throughout the community. This also excludes all of the FBOs except for Lafayette United Methodist Church and their calculations indicate that they can reach a buffer of 30.5% for the low and very low income and provide a number of other metrics. This particular version has a slightly different income distribution of only 62 units on VLI which is different than the one seen before, but essentially the theory is that you load up very low and low, have some moderate and have none in the above moderate-income category, and rely on single family houses throughout the community for the above moderate income.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 22 of 68 November 13, 2023 The benefits of this is that it theoretically obviates the need to complete the rezonings by January 31* for all those scenarios where DeSilva South is not included. There would be no change in density for the one FBO site that is included. It would also, according to HCD's math, would have a significantly healthy buffer of 30%. The challenges though which are pointed out in the staff report are that the rezonings would be required by the end of January if DeSilva South and some of Area 13 is included. Adding DeSilva South and using a new income distribution would require an additional AFFH analysis. Staff has concerns about timing, especially pertaining to single family sites that need to be analyzed to determine whether or not they can include them, and that they would have to go back out for a longer public review process because of the significant change. They also have concerns about HCD issuing new findings and requiring evidence for the affordability distribution as has been seen in other jurisdictions.
The community offered Alternative Area 9-1, DeSilva South at 35 du/acre. For Area 9-2; DeSilva North, instead of upzoning that they would recommend leaving it at 4 du/acre and potentially use it as a park or some other type of activity. FBOs are excluded except for Lafayette United Methodist Church, and most of these areas should all be 35 du/acre.
Staff wanted to find out if DeSilva South can be added in to help reduce the rezonings downtown.
Assuming nothing other than including DeSilva South which they have not had in the inventory because it was taken out last year. So, if they were to add it back in, the question is whether they could achieve meeting the RHNA allocation, and the answer is "yes" and it would have to include DeSilva South. The Council can see the scenario would only require upzoning in 1A, 3A, and 5A and those are the areas that used to be 75 du/acre. If they could go down to 60 du/acre, then they could achieve the RHNA allocation and have a 26% VLI and LI buffer.
The benefit of this is there are lower densities in parts of the downtown than the inventory the Council originally adopted. It increases the buffer to 26% compared with Scenario 1. They have a lower risk for the no net loss by using the RHNA allocation for the unit distribution, but the challenges include adding in DeSilva South. They would have to go back and do AFFH. They have concerns about the timing for getting this work done and rewritten. They would basically have to do a massive, redlined version to take out all the things they had said before and add new which they can do, but it takes time. All rezonings must be completed by January 31 still and the concerns about HCD issuing new findings because this would be significantly different than what they have seen before.
She then displayed Scenario 3 which is the current inventory with DeSilva added. Area 9-1 DeSilva South would be 35 du/acre, North would be 35 du/acre, and FBOs would be 35 du/acre.
For Scenario 4 they asked that 10 VLI and LI be increased modestly and still meet RHNA rather than the original 64.1% for VLI and what if they slightly increased it to 35 from 28.3 to 35. In the LI, from 16.3 to 20 and then reduce the above moderate income. The answer to that question is the City can do it if they add DeSilva at 35 du/acre. They would get a buffer of about 33%. The benefits of this retains the downtown zoning at 35 du/acre for the time being. It increases the buffer, but challenges again are risks associated with increasing the lower income distribution and the no net loss provisions. Also, there are particularly concerns about HCD issuing new findings around those changes to the distribution of units by income. Adding in DeSilva again requires new AFFH analysis. Concerns about timing would be the same.
DeSilva South must be rezoned by January 31, 2024. She then displayed a map for that.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 23 of 68 November 13, 2023 Scenario 5 is whether they can increase VLI and LI modestly, leave out DeSilva and still meet RHNA, and the answer is "yes" but it comes down adding in DeSilva and you can do it or, upzone 1A, 3A, and 5A to AFFH analysis is not required because they are not including DeSilva, and the challenges are basically the same-risk associated with increasing the lower income distribution as well as no net loss, concern about timing for edits, rezonings must be complete by January 31, and lastly, concerns about HCD issuing new findings particularly around the changes to the distribution of units by income, and she presented a slide of that.
Ms. Robles said to follow-up on the second to the last topic, they will cover realistic capacity. As a reminder, realistic capacity is kind of the measure they apply to these sites accounting for the fact that there will generally not be 100% buildout compared to zone density. The State requires the City to use past performance as a metric for this and exclude all density bonus projects. For Lafayette, all of the recent non-density bonus projects average 88% of the zone density allowed regulation. As mentioned before, the City's development capacity for projects including density bonuses is much, much higher than that and HCD is not certifying any Housing Elements that have realistic capacities near 100%, and they have 2 neighbors who have demonstrated that they have not approached 100% and have been certified.
They have heard arguments from members of the public that the City should be basing their realistic capacity on a different mix of developments which would yield a lower number. They have done analysis based on projects they have seen in town, and it is possible HCD can return with comments about realistic capacity, but based on developments seen, staff recommends 88% realistic capacity.
Further, there was a question regarding whether or not requiring 88% development buildout for all opportunity sites would preclude other activities that happen on a site. This policy change would only apply to residential projects, so if there is an existing commercial use and someone wanted to put a different commercial use on there, that would be fine. This requirement only takes effect once there is a residential project proposed.
Again, this is a program requiring a minimum realistic capacity or development capacity for sites which is what other communities have used in a variety of context to ensure that their sites are getting built out and give some comfort to the State that the information shown in the inventory is achievable and accurate. Staff has seen in other development projects locally how developments have achieved densities above the zone capacity even with these two mixed use projects, which both have ground floor retail involved. They have seen this on a broader swath of projects as well. This includes some density bonus projects but not all of them have taken advantage of the density and most of them have exceeded the 88% capacity figure.
She then turned to the timeline, but first wanted to paint a picture of what goes into revisions. As the Council is considering paths forward, they can have the information needed as to what goes into those changes. Before the City resubmits, if there are any changes made to the Housing Element tonight, staff will need to incorporate those changes not only to the inventory but also the Housing Element as a whole.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 24 of 68 November 13, 2023 The inventory is so central to the Housing Element that it touches most of the appendices and is very integral to the narrative therein. If the Council is adding or changing sites there will be additional analysis needed. The State has specifically asked for information site by site evaluating constraints and opportunities for each. Also, potentially there is the need for AFFH review. For that, they are dependent upon a consultant team at Root Policy. They have reached out to them to gauge their availability for this work and unfortunately they have limited availability until after Thanksgiving. There is also a lot of noticing and preparation that needs to happen not only before hearings but before submittal to HCD, and any revisions made to a draft need to be circulated publicly for 7 days before resubmittal to the State.
With that in mind, there are 3 paths forward to resubmission. If the Council chooses to make no changes and effectively submit the draft that was published for public review on October 25th staff can submit that to the State this week. It would not include Desco Plaza 1, which is 1.7 acres and 70ish units.
If the Council were to choose to make a more minor change to the inventory such as adding the Desco Plaza 1 site, given the need to incorporate those changes and then circulate publicly resubmission by the end of the month to the State, that would start the 60-day review.
If there are more major changes to the inventory such as inclusion of DeSilva South or changes to the income distribution that will take substantially longer, probably 4 to 6 weeks given consultant availability and time needed for staff to prepare everything. This is the timeline to have a draft ready for review and whether or not that comes back to Council before submission to the State is also a question that feeds into the timeline.
For any of these options, there would be a 60-day window in which the State would have to review the updated draft. So, tonight, staff is seeking Council's direction on how to proceed with the inventory and scenarios presented and the 3 potential options for consideration, and staff is available for any questions.
Mayor Anduri said Scenario 1, which is on page 7 of 16 of the staff report is what the Council approved in October, and he wants to make clear that it shows 3B and 4 as being 50 or 40 and they should be 35. Ms.
Elrod confirmed and said in the presentation it was corrected to 35.
Mayor Anduri said what was in the presentation included the Desco Plaza 1 site. Ms. Elrod confirmed and said staff would go back and take it back out, but it would not dramatically change the numbering. Staff just wanted the Council to see what it looked like.
Mayor Anduri said then page 7 shows 49 units for Map Area 4 and what was on the screen was 43. He asked if this was an adjustment as well. On October 23 it was 49 units and wants to make sure they are not changing something. Ms. Elrod said staff will have to look into that, but she does not think it is a problem.
Mayor Anduri said Desco Plaza 1 is a big number, and staff is giving the Council an option as to include it or not, and he asked if staff has a recommendation. Ms. Elrod asked if this is for Scenario 1 or any of the scenarios. Mayor Anduri replied it was for Scenarios 1 and 3. Ms. Elrod said if they added Desco Plaza in Scenario 1, they would have to put it out for another 7-day review. For Scenario 3, they would have to provide more review.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 25 of 68 November 13, 2023 Vice Mayor Dawson said if a commercial was going to be another commercial entity, it does not apply, but if it is a residential, it would apply. If mixed use, she asked if it applies only to residential. Ms. Elrod said yes, this is her understanding. She would defer to Ms. Subramanian.
City Attorney Subramanian said she thinks if it was mixed use they would still have the minimum density.
Vice Mayor Dawson said this could therefore preclude keeping commercial. She asked if it is either/or at that point if it is mixed use. Ms. Subramanian said you could have commercial. It just would require a minimum residential density on top of that.
Mayor Anduri said staff showed that for the Brant and Merrill Gardens it was achieved, but what he is concerned with is on the first statement staff said if it is an opportunity site and it is commercial now, if it is redeveloped and something is built completely different he asked if it can be commercial. In looking at the HCD handbook and it seems to be saying that does not work.
Ms. Elrod said she would defer to the City Attorney on that. She has not seen that in other locations where that has been an issue.
Mayor Anduri asked in what sense, meaning in the past that has happened and it has not caused a revision or going forward there has not been a question about that. Ms. Robles said her understanding from the selection from the guide book that was shared is saying that if there is a residential use proposed then the realistic capacity applies to the residential pieces only, but it is not prohibiting commercial uses.
Mayor Anduri said he is not concerned about multiple use. What he is concerned about is existing commercial buildings that they want to replace with offices, with other commercial, a little courtyard with retail shops, he does not want to be told later that they cannot do that unless they put 80 housing units on top of the little retail court.
Ms. Robles said the City's zoning ordinance as it is written is there is housing by right, but other land uses are allowed, including commercial uses. That would not be changing as part of the zoning regulations so a commercial use could go in place of an existing commercial.
Mayor Anduri referred to the HCD handbook which cites Government Code Section 65583.2C.1 and it is talking about being able to use a minimum density. It states, "Please note that to meet this standard on a zone that allows for multiple uses." This is the City's entire downtown, so "In order to use a minimum density in their downtown, the General Plan or zoning must require the specified minimum number of residential units on the identified sites regardless of overlay zones, zoning allowing non-residential uses, or other factors potentially impacting the minimum density." The way he is reading this is that if you have an area that allows multiple uses on each site you cannot use the density unless you provide the residential uses. He is hoping staff will tell him this is not the way they interpret it.
Ms. Elrod said she did not think it was the way they interpret it because it would be essentially telling a developer or owner what they can and cannot do on their property, which would direct them to do a particular kind of development. She has not seen that as being an issue in any of the jurisdictions where they have similar zoning to Lafayette. What she would offer is that she can reach out to both Veronica Tam because she has HCD's ear. She can find out tomorrow and she can talk to HCD as well and find out how they are interpreting this. This is not something she has seen HCD implement that in a way that is being described.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 26 of 68 November 13, 2023 She said minimum density also can refer to default density, and it could be that if you are going to do a housing development you have to have it zoned for at least your minimum density, but she does not know as this has never come up before.
Ms. Subramanian said the statute is not saying what specifically is in HCD's documents so it would be helpful for Ms. Elrod to follow-up. There is a reference to making adjustments as necessary but as shown earlier by staff and Ms. Elrod, residential development has occurred on these types of sites. So, she thinks it is best to follow-up directly with HCD.
Mayor Anduri said in terms of their path and next steps, he asked what would they do. This is a critical element for how the Council proceeds. Ms. Subramanian said depending on which path the Council picks of the preferred scenarios, they still have 7 days to potentially put it out and notice it, so if something were to change in terms of what staff told the Council, they could come back to the Council.
Councilmember Candell said Ms. Elrod indicated that other cities use your RHNA distribution allocation.
Ms. Elrod clarified it is not her RHNA distribution allocation. It is actually something the State came up with.
Councilmember Candell asked which ones are because she honestly looked at many and only saw the different ones. Ms. Elrod said there are a couple mentioned in the staff report and she can do more research.
Councilmember Candell said one of the things in the no net loss process for the Council to think about that is not mentioned in the staff report is that the City did not have to address this in its 5t cycle because half of their units were outside of the opportunity sites. Whenever a project comes in like 950 Huff or Corporate Terraces, the City gets to count all of those and still can. Ms. Elrod said yes, the City will be able to count them, but the City must have a plan in place at the beginning of the planning period which has already passed, and they would report on projects as they come in, but the plan is separate from what actually gets built.
Councilmember Candell agreed but said that is a huge contribution, or 50% of their 5th cycle which came from outside the Housing Element. So, she asked why wouldn't Ms. Elrod think that would continue in the town because they have many sites they did not include. Ms. Elrod said that is accurate, but because the City must identify sites that they can justify that could be built on during the short term, and they cannot predict what will be built in the future so they must rely on a plan. It is true for every jurisdiction where many of the sites do not get developed and sites outside of the Housing Element inventory get developed.
Councilmember Candell said however the City can consider that as part of their own processing of their no net loss. Ms. Elrod said they would have to keep re-adjusting the inventory to ensure there is still a buffer left in the inventory to cover the lower income units.
Councilmember Candell referred to Scenario 1 and said at the last meeting staff is saying there may be a little delay. She remembers Ms. Subramanian saying that if they had adopted at their last meeting and submitted they were already 2 weeks past their deadline. Ms. Elrod said she was referring to a short delay between when the City would resubmit, and they were going to submit to HCD this week.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 27 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Candell asked if she was still under the impression that now, even if they submit tomorrow with Scenario 1, they are now 2 weeks, plus 3 weeks after the January 31 deadline if HCD takes the 60 days. Ms. Elrod confirmed.
Councilmember Candell said therefore, there is no real difference because they are already past it. Ms.
Elrod said whether HCD makes its comments within 60 days or not, they would likely get preliminary comments about halfway through and the City would have a sense. That does not change the statutory requirement for rezonings whether the City gets their letter on February 15th, that statutory deadline is Councilmember Candell said the way she is seeing it is that right now they have at least 5 weeks of exposure to builder's remedy because that is what happens on January 31"t if they have not rezoned. They are about 5 weeks past that right now. So, she sees delays for these other scenarios. If they change, they will go from a 5 week to a 9-week status in terms of being exposed to builder's remedy.
Ms. Elrod said technically the City is already exposed to builder's remedy. Councilmember Candell asked if this is not more risky or not; 5 to 9 weeks.
Ms. Robles said she would defer to the Council and their level of comfort with that timeline.
Councilmember Candell asked if it is true that builder's remedy projects need one day and recognized a developer in the crowd nodding his head. So, we know that they are quick and simple applications. Ms.
Robles said the 5 weeks to 9 weeks is time for more projects to come and this is the risk the Council will need to weigh tonight.
Councilmember Candell said one thing said was that for Scenario 2 they did not include any a moderate or moderate income and they would all be in single family zones. She did not think that is true as of the last information received. The thought was anything less than. 5 acres in the downtown would be included as a moderate and moderate. Ms. Elrod said that was a change because what staff saw in the original presentation was a map showing single family sites primarily north of Hwy 24 that would be included.
But, when they wrote the staff report they did not have the benefit of the additional information which came in much later after the staff report was submitted.
Councilmember Candell said she went to the MTC program to get the .5 acre or less and looked at a pre- vetted half acre or less sites that MTC said the City could include in their Housing Elements. She asked if these were looked at. Ms. Elrod said yes, but the same rules apply about whether or not the site is ready for development. Each site must be vetted. It has to have a single-story building on it. It must be a certain age. They have to vet each individual site for moderate and above moderate income. So, the rules are still the same of having to vet the sites.
Councilmember Candell said there is a method they could include those back in because they were included in the beginning but found that HCD did not want them in. But she asked if there is a method to include those .5 acres or less in the downtown.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 28 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Robles said they did actually include many of those in the inventory when GPAC was reviewing. GPAC as a group made the decision that because the BMR income categories was where the City needed to focus, they said they are not going to take the time to review those sites. That was a decision made early in the process. Those sites are still in the spreadsheet, so it is an option, but they were focusing on the Councilmember Candell said in Scenario 3 which is where staff kept the same RHNA allocation and included DeSilva. One of the comments made was there was a very big AFFH hit. She asked if that was just from adding DeSilva.
Ms. Elrod said she was not sure what is meant by an "AFFH hit." They would have to go back through and determine whether adding units out on the DeSilva site would be a benefit from the standpoint of AFFH or not because it is not near transit, goods and services, etc. So, they must have that analysis done. Ms.
Robles said they do not yet know the results of that analysis as well.
Councilmember Kwok said he knows this was asked earlier, but for the October 23 Scenario 1, staff gave the Council 3 bullet points to pick from at the end. If they pick what they came out of on October 23rd, they have already put it up for public comment and they do not have a new 7-day period. That one does not include Desco Plaza 1. Ms. Elrod confirmed.
Councilmembers Kwok said the second bullet point was if you revised it to include Desco Plaza 1 in, he asked how much it helps their numbers and trying to decide if they add them until November 27*h. They cannot submit immediately, and they would have to wait until November 27", so he asked what is the relative benefit. He was hoping to see a quick comparison of those. The Mayor asked staff if it was worth it. Ms. Elrod said in terms of submitting now, it will not hurt them if they do not include Desco Plaza at this point. They could go back with another iteration later to update that. It is a decision about what the Council wants to put forward.
Councilmember Gerringer said in terms of timing and losing the grant funding, the City has received information that if they do not get the Housing Element approved by HCD by December 31" they lose approximately $1 million in OBAG grant funding. It does not look like they meet that under any circumstances, so she asked if this will be lost.
Ms. Robles apologized and said she meant to provide an update in the timing piece, but staff received information from MTC staff that they are recommending in a December MTC Board meeting to grant an extension for OBAG funding for cities to get Housing Element certified. So, it is a recommendation from staff at this point, but when it was discussed at another board meeting, there was unanimous support for it and some folks even asking for a longer extension than what staff had suggested. So, on that front things are looking okay but nothing is done until it is approved, but there is support for granting an extension.
Councilmember Gerringer said as they get to that board meeting date, they may want to conduct some advocacy.
Mayor Anduri asked what the City's recommended extension is. Ms. Robles said staff was recommending 6 to 8 months, but board members were indicating 12 months.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 29 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri referred to the BART lots and asked if there is any benefit in considering the BART lots. Ms.
Elrod said no, not at this point. They have been clear that they could not get moved up on their timeline.
Even if BART decides it is a priority development site it is still not going to get built within the next 7 years.
Ms. Robles provided an update, stating back in June staff submitted the BART sites as a priority site through an MTC pilot program which would provide technical assistance and access to funds to do pre- development activities on the BART site. The City has been recommended for inclusion as a priority site; however, there has been no indication from BART staff that the City will be moved up in the Work Plan.
There have been some staff transitions on their TOD team as well so what they have communicated repeatedly to the City is they have staff limitations on how many projects they can move forward at a time, so they are being very thoughtful with that workflow with regards to the Work Plan.
Councilmember Gerringer said also related to BART there was a letter and a number of people included that in some of the questions or encouragement which had to do with RHNA credits going back and challenging HCD or getting the City's credits, and they are coming up on a deadline. They heard these arguments last year, and she asked if there is any law related to AB 2923 that has the City getting credits that they should be looking and fighting for.
Ms. Elrod said staff is not aware of anything of that kind. There is nothing she knows of that is a mechanism for that to happen. What they had to do is they appealed the decision for the RHNA allocation based on the fact that they have a significant number of units because of a BART site that is in a very high fire hazard severity zone. Once they make that appeal, as far as she knows there is no judiciable action that can take place. So, there is no credit to be given she has heard of because the City cannot go back and have the same argument again.
Councilmember Candell said she also heard there is a provision in AB 2923 that says it is not enforceable if daily ridership is under 200,000 and Lafayette is not at 200,000. So, she thinks it would be very interesting for the City to look into whether it is even enforceable at the moment.
Mayor Anduri asked and confirmed Councilmember Candell was not suggesting that is something that relates to the current submission, but to look into that as soon as the Council was finished with the Housing Element certification.
He said another related issue had to do with fire safety of multi-story buildings in the downtown. The Council was pointed in the staff report to comments in the EIR. He asked if it would be accurate that anytime a building is built in the downtown or anywhere in Lafayette the Fire Department needs to sign off on it. He asked if it would be accurate to say the Fire Department would not sign off on it unless they had the capability to meet the risks presented by the building.
Ms. Robles said yes, this is accurate. During the development review process, staff refer projects for comment early in the entitlement process and also through the construction drawing and flushing out the design, ensuring it is compliant with fire codes and they have sufficient capacity. If they do not have sufficient capacity, the Fire Department would not approve it.
Mayor Anduri said on the allocation method he would like to get a clearer sense as to what staff sees as the risks. Staff mentioned the risk of violating the no net loss provisions. As he understands it, Orinda immediately violated the no net loss provisions and modified their plan and asked if this is accurate.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 30 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Elrod said she would defer to Mr. Wolff as she did not know.
Mayor Anduri said one of the things that has come up in materials the Council received is a letter from East Bay Housing for Everyone which is the risk of the Beverly Hills case. While it rests on a number of factors, one of the holdings of the court in their basis of the decision is that Beverly Hills did assign close to 100% to a number of sites in their plan and then they were sued. The City always has to keep in mind that even if HCD signs off, if the City does not meet the requirements they can still be sued and can be out of compliance and be in a worst position than they would be even if HCD approved them. His understanding is that Beverly Hills was not able to show that they had experience with developing sites at 100% affordable and they were not able to show it. He knows there is a difference of opinion on this, but in reading the entire decision, it shows that was part of the holding.
Ms. Subramanian said the Beverly Hills case is that they were sued over a variety of issues in their Housing Element. The court found that the Housing Element was deficient for a variety of issues. One of the issues that the court found it was deficient in is because they assigned 100% affordability to numerous sites and 100% moderate income to numerous sites. The court said this assumes all units on these sites will be low or moderate income depending on the site and found that the City did not account for the possibility that only a certain percentage of units would be affordable, and then found that they should have adjusted the number of low-income units based upon the typical density of existing or approved residential development at a similar affordability level in that jurisdiction. They then went to find that a revised Housing Element would need to contain that adjustment.
Mayor Anduri said if that same thing happened to Lafayette, and they had the same court holding he asked if it would be accurate to say the RHNA allocation is a more favorable than their historical experience. Ms. Elrod said, yes.
Councilmember Candell said what also feeds into the argument is the 50% of the City's units being assigned to vacant land or non-vacant land. This is East Bay for Everyone and even HCD both mention if the City is above that threshold or not. If the City assigns 50% or more of its opportunity sites and affordable housing to vacant land, then two things happen. One big thing is that the City does not have to justify all of the other sites. The City does not have to go through what exposed Beverly Hills to this legal issue, and she confirmed that with Ms. Subramanian so they can avoid that legal risk through another way.
Ms. Subramanian said as she mentioned earlier, Beverly Hills was sued over a variety of issues in their Housing Element. One of them was what Mayor Anduri mentioned and one of them is what Councilmember Candell is mentioning, which is they used over 50% non-vacant sites. When you do that, you are required to show by substantial evidence that the existing use will be discontinued. What Councilmember Candell is getting at is that if the City uses 50% or more of vacant sites they do not have to hit that substantial evidence threshold to justify that the existing uses will be discontinued.
Mayor Anduri said the City could still be sued on the other, and Ms. Subramanian confirmed.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 31 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Elrod said she should go back and say that every jurisdiction she knows of in the Bay Area does not have any vacant land or very little. The question of meeting the 50% is not a black or white. It states if you do not have 50% then you have to justify your sites. This is the exercise the City has gone through with the help of Veronica Tam whose methodology HCD has blessed to do individual site criteria like they did with their individual tear sheets to demonstrate why these sites will be discontinued. The law is going to change about that language to say "could be discontinued" at some point in the future. Even the State says that is incorrect, but be that as it may, the City's inventory and what they did in making findings, they will make findings again using the same criteria they used to vet these individual sites. So, this is what all jurisdictions in the Bay Area are doing because virtually none can get 50% vacant land.
Councilmember Candell said if they did, which one of the scenarios shows them that they can get above that 50% if they include DeSilva, she asked if it will reduce the amount of back and forth they go with HCD because they will not go through and doing substantially justification and it will be easier.
Ms. Elrod said in theory, yes, but they have not gone through, and they have been offered this material saying we can create 50% on vacant land. At the staff level, they have been too busy trying to do other things and do not know if that is accurate or not. And, again, they get to the problem of loading all of their lower income units on sites which is a big problem, especially when they have gone this far with one way of doing it. If they decide to do it a completely different way like the community offered version, that is a 180-degree difference from what HCD saw before. The point is there are risks in anything they do.
Ms. Robles said she thinks there are two fundamental challenges there. The City has very limited vacant land. In the inventory there is only the Bruzzone site at St. Mary's and Moraga Road and then potentially DeSilva South. If they want to put 50% of affordable units, they run into that first issue of putting most of their affordable units on those vacant lands where they will run into the first Beverly Hills issue. They do not have a track record, especially at that scale of developing 100% affordable housing or a majority of affordable housing.
Mayor Anduri said when Ms. Elrod was discussing Scenario 3, she said she anticipated HCD would push back if they added DeSilva, and he asked her to elaborate on that. Ms. Elrod said what she meant was that they would wonder why the City was changing the distribution of units to something they heretofore have not changed. It is the income distribution issue for that and not adding DeSilva which is an AFFH issue.
Mayor Anduri said there are members of the community who are arguing for 111% and have data showing 111%. They have members of the community showing 75.7% and they went in with 88%. So, he asked if Ms. Elrod is showing that there is enough range there that they can be challenged and that is why she thinks it is necessary to do the 88% minimum density. Ms. Elrod confirmed this is correct.
Mayor Anduri said since the Council last met 3 weeks ago, he asked if any impacts of adopting the 88% come to mind that she thinks the Council should be aware of.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 32 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Elrod said two things that she wanted to say, and they mention this in the staff report-that other jurisdictions are implementing minimum density requirements on only their opportunity sites so other sites not in the inventory would not be required to follow the 88%, for example, because they are trying to meet the RHNA allocation and to make sure they get those units on the ground if they are built. That is number one. She thinks the biggest maybe unintended consequence might be that there are many developers who like to develop townhouses at a much lower density than 35 du/acre. If they were required to do 88% of zone density, they may not be able to do that product type. But again, she thinks the City is pretty clear that it could apply only to the opportunity sites in the inventory.
Councilmember Gerringer said if they just applied to 88% minimum density to opportunity sites, they would still be protected and meet their numbers, and Ms. Elrod confirmed.
Mayor Anduri asked if their minimum zoning would not apply to the entire zone, but it can just apply to opportunity sites. Ms. Subramanian said yes, and they would need to be very clear in their documents.
Mayor Anduri asked and confirmed they were still open on the question about whether they can replace commercial with commercial. He then turned to the DeSilva South site. What is in Scenario 3 is rezoning
9.75 acres at 35 du/acre and they would have the 88%. The new information they have since meeting last time is the letter from the DeSilva folks. He asked how binding is the letter because without something that is binding he asked if it would be correct to say a developer, if it is rezoned, could build the building on the rezone site and that is the end of their obligation.
Ms. Srivatsa said that is correct. Having said that the representative from DeSilva is here and the Council may want to pose that question.
Mayor Anduri said his final question is if they were to reallocate using the RHNA allocation and if they were to allocate almost 100% of low income to .5 acres to 10-acre parcels and they were to go in at this point, he asked what staff would think the reaction would be of HCD. Ms. Elrod said she believes they will get many new findings requiring the City to explain why this change from what they did before. HCD is pretty opaque when it comes to telling what you can and cannot do, i.e., you ask a question and they do not tell you. They just say, "you have not done enough analysis." So, she feels the City will definitely be going around and around with HCD on that issue.
Ms. Robles said she also thinks that the feedback they have gotten from HCD when they were discussing AFFH programs was trying to broaden the reach and not concentrate affordable units, so she would anticipate there could be some AFFH issues with loading affordable units to particular sites.
Mayor Anduri asked if he saw on the screen a different allocation on the DeSilva site for Scenario 3. Ms.
Robles said it should have been the RHNA.
Ms. Robles stated in response to Councilmember Kwok's request for comparing the inventories from with and without Desco Plaza 1, she has a slide available to share, and she displayed the slide. On the left is the inventory updated from the October 23'd meeting without Desco Plaza 1 and on the right is Desco Plaza 1. There is a substantial improvement on the City's buffer, particularly in the very low income category.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 33 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Kwok said on the 88% minimum number, if they did 88% as an average across the entire opportunity portfolio he asked if they would hit their numbers. Ms. Elrod said she thinks there are two issues. One is justifying to HCD that they can meet the RHNA and in her mind, there is no way they would accept something other than a minimum density on every site.
Councilmember Kwok said if they win at 88% or make an 88% minimum then what would actually come in is something higher because there would be projects at 100% or 110%. He asked if this is correct. Ms.
Elrod said yes, but again, because if they came in higher, most often they are using density bonus and HCD says even though the City can count it in terms of their annual performance report, they cannot rely on it as a measure of projecting units on sites going forward.
Councilmember Kwok said instead of setting the minimum at 88% if they set it at 80%, he asked if HCD would be happier. Ms. Elrod said she does not know what that would do. They did test today if they reduced it to 75% they would not meet RHNA. They need the 88% to meet RHNA. It was an average, but you can see if they reduced that, they would lose all of the very low-income units. They are such a thin margin here.
Councilmember Kwok said he was trying to accommodate the example Ms. Elrod gave about the townhouse. By setting it at 88% it sometimes eliminates the developer being able to make it pencil out.
Ms. Robles said again, that requirement would be limited to opportunity sites so it is not that townhomes would not be possible in all of downtown. It might not be feasible at that requirement on opportunity sites.
Councilmember Gerringer said they had maps for scenarios, and she did not see one for Scenario 3. She asked if staff has that which shows what the recommended densities are that could be emailed to the Council. Ms. Robles said she can email that. Mr. Wolff said staff can post the slide deck to the agenda so it would be with all other materials for tonight's meeting.
Councilmember Candell said she knows the different allocation that came in from the community members and this was a crazy concept that other cities were getting away with. She asked when did staff find out this was a methodology that other cities have been using. Ms. Elrod said she has known that other cities use that methodologies but many do not. Lafayette did not in its last Housing Element either.
Councilmember Candell asked why didn't staff tell the Council. Ms. Elrod said they explained early on in GAPAC why they selected this particular model and why this methodology was a good way to avoid the no net loss provisions.
Councilmember Candell said then Ms. Elrod has known about this for a while. She asked if Ms. Elrod thinks Veronica Tam is risky or prudent because she uses that methodology for many of her cities. She asked why is Ms. Elrod is saying for Lafayette they are different.
Ms. Elrod said she recommends based on her experience working on Housing Elements for 30 years what is the best way to avoid no net loss provisions, especially in terms of now they must do it by income categories. The stakes are much higher than they had been before.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 34 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Candell said she understands that, but she asked if it would have been nice to tell the Council that these other cities like Orinda, Walnut Creek, Los Altos, San Ramon, and all these cities have been successful in getting their Housing Elements approved using that. She asked if this cannot be used as justification to go from one known method to another known method now that you know about it and other cities have been successful. She thinks that would be a reasonable thing to justify why the City might change and the same thing goes for putting things over 50% on vacant sites.
Ms. Elrod said these were all considerations early on in putting together the Housing Element, brought it to the Council's attention to explain the no net loss provisions, she provided the Council with her professional advice that this was the best way to avoid, and she discussed this extensively with the State about whether this is better than loading it onto lower income and the answer was "yes." So, she is telling the Council what her professional opinion has been since the beginning.
Councilmember Candell said she thinks Ms. Elrod was not exactly forthcoming with the Council saying the other cities use a completely different method. She was on GPAC in the beginning, and they would lose over 50% of their affordable units by the method with the RHNA allocation and that is a big deal.
Ms. Elrod said they explained the methodology they brought forward to GPAC specifically about distributing with the RHNA allocation and why this helped with the no net loss provisions. In the current staff report, they gave two examples of what happens when you overload sites with too many lower income units.
Councilmember Candell said going back to the vacant ones, the community one does show the City can get over 50% on the vacant sites. It includes DeSilva, it includes the Bruzzone lot, it includes ADUs which are considered to be on vacant sites. They can get over that 50% threshold and she asked if this is something that would help the City in their HCD approval process and with their legal exposure.
Ms. Elrod said she believes the answer is "no" in her opinion. She believes that ADUs are not considered vacant sites. They have a house on those sites. HCD is very explicit about what constitutes a vacant site.
The only way the existing vacant sites can cover 50% of the very low and low is if you load those vacant sites with a lot of very low-and low-income units and again, at great risk to the City for the no net loss provisions. The whole purpose of the methodology has been laid out is to forestall as long as possible having to rezone, and that was the whole purpose of this which was to get the City in compliance and not come up against the no net loss provisions because as has been demonstrated, now the stakes are so much higher with the builder's remedy and other aspects of being found out of compliance. This was staff's best view of how to get the City into compliance with the RHNA allocation.
Mr. Wolff echoed that he thinks staff has tried to be forthright in providing information regarding the process and methodology throughout, providing the 44-page guidance document from HCD to GPAC, to the PC, to the Council and not withholding that guidance out there. There are other ways of doing it and other communities have not been challenged on it and they have benefitted from HCD certifying their Housing Element and not being challenged on it. So, staff has attempted to advise the Council as best they can. With respect to loading greater numbers of percentage of BMR on vacant sites, he believes the City Manager mentioned the representative of the DeSilva site is here today and may be able to speak to the level of affordability that they could accommodate on that site, and he can reach out to the property owner on the Bruzzone site regarding that as well.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 35 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri said just to confirm, Beverly Hills tried that, and their Housing Element is now out of compliance. Second, as someone who is listening in on the GPAC discussions during 2021, he asked if he was reasonable in thinking when he heard the proposal that we use the RHNA allocation to think, wow, that's a good deal because they do not come close to that in their normal building. So, to be able to use the RHNA allocation are good numbers.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period.
CHERYL MACDONALD ceded 3 minutes to Chris Hsu.
CHRIS HSU thanked the Council for the opportunity to speak tonight. Over the past two weeks he has dedicated about 200 hours to this project. The Council may be wondering why they may be investing so much time and suspects he must have an agenda. He does not, and his sole objective is to ensure Lafayette achieves compliance with its Housing Element by strictly adhering to both the law and the guidance provided by HCD that clarifies these laws. His aim is to prevent Lafayette from expending any more time or resources on the Housing Element than necessary and to try to guide Lafayette away from subjecting itself to potential legal risks. Unfortunately, after delving deeply into the intricacies of Housing Elements he has serious concerns that if the Council submits the approved Housing Element as it currently stands, it will very likely result in another compliance failure and expose the City to legal risks.
Tonight, the Council's decision revolves around assessing the risks at hand and determining the best course of action. Most of his arguments echo concerns that housing advocates have been voicing for the past 2 years; however, he would guess in general, they are not happy with what he has uncovered. The first issue he wishes to raise regarding all of the staff's scenarios is the approach to realistic capacity that they have started to discuss today. The concern he has is that the realistic capacity still does not address HCD findings and letters from September 29th and March 29th of 2023. Specifically, both HCD finding letters state that the City must include all development in downtown Lafayette when calculating the realistic capacity. The current 88% calculation fails to include several properties, notably non-residential developments such as the Chase Bank. This is explicitly called out in both HCD finding letters.
As a backstop to what he considers poorly substantiated 88% calculation, the City has proposed setting a minimum residential density for the entire downtown area, although that may have been revised.
Unfortunately, in his opinion it is quite clear HCD guidance, in order to depend on a minimum density requirement, the minimum must be absolute. He asked how HCD can take a minimum density when there is a zero percent option available, especially if the City is going to limit it to opportunity sites. The City set 88% minimum on all opportunity sites, and they all turn into gas stations. He asked how that satisfies HCD's goals. It does not make logical sense that those are too compatible.
The second risk he sees is the 50% lower income housing allocation not on vacant land which was brought up tonight. The Council made a finding when they submitted last time that there was substantial evidence that every parcel in the site inventory has a high likelihood of becoming available for development during this RHNA cycle. He asked if Lafayette really wants to defend in court that they have substantial evidence that Headlands Brewing or Diamond K is likely to close shop in the next few years. He is sure those businesses would be as surprised as he is that they are expected to close in a couple of years.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 36 of 68 November 13, 2023 The fourth concern he has is the dependence on FBOs for lower income housing allocation. Upon upzoning an FBO property with attached deed restricted affordability requirements negatively impacts these parcels' land value, likely in a big way. FBOs may eventually need to sell portions of their properties to support on-going operations or even to fund their affordable housing initiatives. Selling one acre of land with a sole option for 95% affordable housing differs greatly from selling 4, 10,000 square foot parcels for market rate homes. There is legal precedent for landowners to sue when rezoning devalues their property. He just had a conversation today with a board member of a local church who was surprised to learn that the planned upzoning, after having been told by the City that it would be an overlay. They will be contacting the City shortly.
If the City were to face a legal challenge from an FBO and lose, it would be obligated to provide compensation for the difference in land value, although it is challenging to ascertain the exact value of an acre limit to 95% affordability. Four, 10,000 square foot parcels in Lafayette neighborhoods could easily fetch $3 to $4 million. This is a considerable sum of the City's resources, and he questions the teasibility of paying out such a sum, given the current fiscal instability. Backing zoning out to avoid these required payments would likely be a non-option given State law in generally prohibiting the downzoning of properties. Staff has raised some risks with the community proposal, and one is the contention about increasing allocation to lower income categories.
Councilmember Candell asked Mr. Hsu what kind of risks they are saying are wrong.
Mr. Hsu said they say you need to look at every single-family residential parcel. He looked at Danville's Housing Element which was prepared by Ms. Elrod. It is a list of parcels. There is not even a map showing where they are located. They have prepared a spreadsheet they sent out showing a list of parcels and they have eliminated 60% of them based upon slope access by roads, etc.
Ms. Subramanian noted it was 10:00 p.m. and she asked if the Council wished to go back to hear Item
14.A. Mayor Anduri asked Mr. Golier to return. He said if the Council revises the ordinance, he asked if staff needs to re-notice it. Ms. Subramanian said no, as long as they are doing it at the introduction, staff can make revisions which is why staff asked for that break so the Council could see the revisions.
14. PUBLIC HEARINGS - Continued.....
A. Patrick Golier, Transportation Program Manager
Introduce Ordinance 690 Speed Limits, resulting in formally adopted speed limits including a reduction in speed limits on eight roadway segments in Lafayette.
Recommendation: Introduce Ordinance 690, waive first reading, take public testimony, and continue to November 27* for second reading and adoption.
Mr. Golier said he has redlined Ordinance 690, discussed it with Ms. Subramanian, and he displayed it on the screen. He has removed the third clause that refers to AB 43 and has changed the speed limits to reflect the existing speed limits on all of the segments.
Mayor Anduri asked to display the previous page and he asked if the language is appropriate in Section 1, "recommend prima facia speed limits indicating Engineering Traffic Surveys. Therefore, the Table is hereby adopted." He asked if this is confirmed rather than adopted. Ms. Subramanian suggested it state, "hereby re-adopted" and Mayor Anduri agreed. He asked if this is enough to provide approval to the study and Mr. Golier confirmed and it will maintain the existing speed limits as they are today.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 37 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri asked if it would not impede returning it in January and making the changes. Mr. Golier said subject to public survey and further engagement he would return with a separate ordinance in the winter with any changes.
Councilmember Gerringer asked to go back to the "Whereas" clause to be deleted, and she asked why.
Mr. Golier said the changes that he was proposing on the recommended reduction in speed limit was based upon this clause that references AB 43, considering the safety of pedestrian and bicyclists, and some of the language from AB 43 that support the speed limit reduction.
Councilmember Gerringer said the next "Whereas" clause talks about that based upon that, staff is reducing speed limits based on that, but the study did consider vulnerable populations. When the Council returns based upon the study to look at potentially reducing those speed limits, she asked if they would be doing what the language of the study did.
Mayor Anduri asked if she was saying they took all these things into consideration that allowed the Council to reduce, and they decided not to reduce the speed limit. So, how can they come back in January and then do it.
Councilmember Candell said it just says it "permits" it and not actually doing it.
Mayor Anduri asked if staff sees any obstacle to coming back with the same language. Ms. Subramanian said she does not, but wondering if they just add a recital to that effect, acknowledging they are going to be coming back in the future, but at this time they are maintaining existing speed limits to paint the story.
Mr. Golier said he can add a clause there that suggests "The City is maintaining existing speed limits and will re-evaluate segments based upon public input."
Councilmember Gerringer said a study was done and part of the law requires the Council to look at those safety corridors and to look at what they need to do for vulnerable populations. Having the public understand the balance of public input on personal experience for what they are trying to get to, and the data and requirements of AB 43 might be included. Taking that language out causes the next "Whereas" clause to not make sense.
Mayor Anduri asked to go back to Section 1 and said they are no longer talking about the recommended prima facia speed limits because they have changed those. This will be "the existing speed limits indicated in the Engineering and Traffic Speed Report" in Section 1, the first few words and then he asked to state "...are hereby re-adopted until further consideration in January 2024." Ms. Subramanian said she would rather not put a date because she wants to stay this in existence until the Council amends the ordinance, and this why she was suggesting they keep it in the recital indicating what their plan is to revisit this in the near future.
Vice Mayor Dawson asked if they could not delete the proposed clause and in the following paragraph to note that the Council reserves the ability to return to this. That way, in Section 1 they can come back to the prima facia.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 38 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri said they have told the public they will defer this because the whole ordinance does not work. It states, "Whereas, the City of Lafayette has concluded that the speed limit set forth in Engineering and Traffic Report are the most appropriate to facilitate the orderly safe movement of traffic..." That indicates they are following the report. He asked if there is some way to just adopt the report and not refer to speed limits.
Mr. Golier said by State law, speed limits must be set by ordinance. Mayor Anduri asked if the speed limits expires. Mr. Golier said the 2016 study expires but he questioned the existing ordinance. Ms.
Subramanian said she did not think the City's existing ordinance calls out the speed limits. Mayor Anduri asked if it just approves the study, so he suggested adopting an ordinance that in effect adopts the study.
Ms. Subramanian said it would not comply with the law because they need to adopt speed limits by ordinance, and this is why this was trying to get the City into conformance.
Mayor Anduri suggested simply adopting the ordinance and reconsider it in January. He thinks they are in a box now.
Councilmember Gerringer said they began with continuing the ordinance to November 27* to adopt it, so they have time between now and then to make sure the public is aware of the law and requirements and then bring it back on November 27h. When it is brought back, if there are any changes such as reducing Deer Hill by 5 mph or something, she asked if this can be done on November 274. Ms.
Subramanian said it would be a first reading again, and it must be adopted at a regular meeting.
Mayor Anduri asked if a solution would be that the Council waives the first reading, introduce Ordinance 690, and continue it to November 27* and then receive public comment. Then, the Council's options are to approve it as is or if they do not want to approve it, he asked if they are still in a box because the engineering study must be approved with the 8 speeds. He asked if in January the Council could agendize the matter again early next year and give the public a chance to come in and reconsider. Ms. Subramanian said yes, they could.
Ms. Srivatsa asked and confirmed that messaging will occur in early 2024 when the Council will reconsider the ordinance due to the State law.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Gerringer/Dawson) to introduce and waive first reading of Ordinance 690 to accomplish compliance with the California Vehicle Code Sections 22358 and 22358.7 formerly adopt speed zones as shown in Exhibit A of Ordinance 690 which is supported by the Engineering and Traffic Surveys, and continue to November 27, 2023, recognizing the Council can reconsider the ordinance in 2024 prior to its implementation in June 2024. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 39 of 68 November 13, 2023 B. Greg Wolff, Planning & Building Director; Renata Robles, Senior Planner; Diana Elrod, Housing Consultant
GP01-23 Housing Element & EIR - The City of Lafayette 6th Cycle Housing Element and the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) analyzing impacts of growth stemming from the housing plan and housing opportunity sites identified to accommodate the mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 2,114 assigned to Lafayette, plus a buffer, which total approximately 3,000 new housing units between 2023-2031. The Housing Element is also required by State law to contain programs to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing. The draft Housing Element Update can be found at www.planlafayette.org; the draft and final EIR can be found at www.lovelafayette. org/CEQA.
Recommendation: Consider the comments received and direct staff whether to further revise the 6th Cycle Housing Element prior to submitting to the State.
Mayor Anduri asked and confirmed the City Clerk will allow the DeSilva site representative and Desco Plaza 1 properties speak out of order.
JIM SUMMERS said he is the President of the DeSilva Group and is here representing the DeSilva property and its owner. As the Council knows, they recently submitted a letter which is not the only letter they have submitted. They have continued to work with City staff and have continued to show an interest in having this property included in the Housing Element. They stand by their letter and support including it in the Housing Element update.
Councilmember Gerringer said for the public record, the letter includes also potential public benefits in terms of ballfields and discussions around those.
Mr. Summers said they actually left it open for the City to decide that, but the letter clearly states they are committed to entering into a development agreement that would include dedicating a portion of the site for public use.
Mayor Anduri asked Mr. Summers if he sees anything that might cause that not to happen.
Mr. Summers said there are many details to be worked out such as densities, inclusionary amounts, and all this needs to be worked out. He has worked closely with staff for years and have done other developments in town. They have been brought to fruition to Lafayette, although it is always back and forth a negotiation process. He feels confident in working with staff that they can get to a conclusion that works well for the community and brings a much-needed amenity to the community and housing that is sorely needed in the community.
Councilmember Kwok said within the next 8-year timeframe, he asked if Mr. Summers thinks that the economic conditions are such that he would be able to implement this within this Housing Element.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 40 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mr. Summers said he included in his letter that he thinks it is in the foreseeable future this project can be built, but honestly, if he could say 100% he probably would not be doing this. He does believe there is enough pent-up demand in the 9 Bay Area counties, particularly in Lafayette, that they will see pressure to build. He thinks the builders will be very interested in moving forward with projects like this as long as they are not strapped with economic burdens that make then not work. There must be a back and forth and give and take to make this work. He has been involved in inclusionary affordable projects and has been involved in stand-alone 100% affordable projects. All of them must be public/private partnerships.
They all have to work, so he thinks what the City is setting up here could potentially work but there will have to be a lot of discussion about how the inclusionary percentages work in order for it to work.
TUIJKA CATALANO, Ruben, Juniors and Rose, representing the owner of the Desco Plaza 1 property, said they are here to request that the Desco Plaza 1 property be included again and finally in the Housing Element's list of opportunity sites. The site obviously was originally part of the list, but it was removed a couple of months ago in part because she believes the City had not heard from the property owner as to whether they were interested in a residential development at this site. They are interested, and they are here today. The property owners also submitted a letter that is part of the record expressing their interest, so she respectfully requests the Council include it today, even if it requires additional 7 days of notice.
A few months ago, the Council also may not have had other information that is relevant to ensuring that this site is appropriate for inclusion in the opportunity site list. At the heart of this obviously is whether the property is suitable and realistic for residential redevelopment within the 8-year Housing Element period. Since this is a site with existing office buildings, one of the key things to note is that there are no substantial long-term leases that are encumbering this property. There are also several leases that have redevelopment termination rights, and despite being existing, these are also older buildings, and they are getting to a point of needing certain renovations and capital improvements in order for them to continue to be attractive for office uses in the future.
The site overall is well-suited for residential development. It is right along Mt. Diablo Boulevard, close to BART, close to services and stores, and at 1.7 acres, appropriately sized for multi-family development.
Their view is that it is an under-utilized site and since the Council previously had it on the list, she believes there was a previous determination that it was, in fact, suitable as an opportunity site. So, they are here to reiterate that and to expressly note that the architects are interested in residential development, and they have been working with an architect, including evaluation of site plans and configuration options.
Therefore, they ask the Council to include it as a housing opportunity site and she is happy to answer any questions. Mr. Russell Gould, the owner, is also here to comment.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 41 of 68 November 13, 2023 RUSSELL GOULD thanked the Council for the opportunity to speak and advocate for their property. He said he is the owner's representative for Desco Plaza 1 at 3685 Mt. Diablo Boulevard. This has been a property they have owned for a long time since 2007. They are not coming in and trying to flip it. It has been an office property and honestly has been quite a slog since the great financial crisis and the property is older, in need of capital investment, and with office markets the way they are now, this is not feasible.
So, they have been looking into alternatives, residential development being one they are looking into and interested in pursuing. They have been working with an architect to develop plans and have a meeting with Mr. Greg Wolff to discuss some of those options they are working on scheduling. They are obviously sensitive to the fact this is a tight-knit community and working with Planning and stakeholders will be important. It is his commitment to do that, and his background is also as an architect as well, so he is sensitive to the physical aspects of the development and the way it can integrate with the community and accomplish the community's goals and also providing needed housing for the community, which is an important goal, as well. He wanted to advocate for that, indicate they are supporting it, and conscientiously and diligently trying to pursue this project.
Mayor Anduri asked if they have a preference as to the zoning density or dwelling units per acre for the parcel. Mr. Gould said the more density there is, the more feasible the project can become because of economies of construction and scale. A density of 50 du/acre would be ideal.
Mayor Anduri asked if they could make it work at 35 du/acre. Mr. Gould said they have done some studies at 50 du/acre, and they are the most ideal from their architect and from the contractors they have spoken with but obviously the community's desires as to what densities work is more important than perhaps his, but they can work with what they can get.
Councilmember Candell asked about the 88% minimum density. Mr. Gould said he believes a project would be able to make sense at the 88% level applying the 50 du/acre if they were zoned that way.
LIBBY HENRY ceded 3 minutes to Robert Lavoie.
ROBERT LAVOIE displayed an example of the City's current zoning, and people who think they do not have enough density already he wanted to show that. He thanked the Council for reconsidering the Housing Element solution and thanked Chris Hsu for his amazing work and analysis looking over at not less than 4 approved plans in Los Altos, Fremont, Orinda, and Walnut Creek to come up with the modified model that gives the City a better path to approval. The key additions are including DeSilva South vacant land which represents the best opportunity for thoughtful, attractive development in town, likely with 3 story maximum heights, development agreement, ability to work out amenities like perhaps a fire station, ballfields, and dog park. Not only that, having the vacant land available for new housing units and low- income units allows the City to reduce the amount of evidence that they need to demonstrate to HCD that the plan has available options without worrying about leases and existing buildings.
Secondly, the ability to eliminate the need for FBOs. Originally, he was an advocate of that because it seemed that was the only way they could get their low-income units, but with this additional allocation method, they do not need to worry about the FBO sites in remote areas where the Council has heard complaints about and concerns about evacuation. The Methodist Church is still included and already upzoned by right for multi-family housing so that is not an issue, and it does not need any upzoning.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 42 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mr. Hsu analyzed the yield or realistic capacity by using a more extensive list of approved parcels. He came up with 75% yield. Personally, he believes they should use the last 4 years, which is more relevant and as HCD says, it should show the direction of the new laws, which is very clear. They are seeing yields of 120% to 135% but since they will not go to court and litigate, they will not need to worry about that. The good news is that Mr. Hsu's method or model allows the City to come in at much lower yields which he thinks would eliminate the need for the minimum density ordinance which he thinks has a lot of potential unintended consequences, and they do not want to get into making new laws to try to satisfy HCD. They want to pass a plan that fits their city. He asked to display Slide 3 for him.
Mr. Lavoie took Mr. Hsu's model. He was trying to be agnostic in terms of assumptions, but he has plans.
He wanted to show an option that has no downtown upzoning for a variety of reasons which he shared previously. He also did some surveys on NextDoor.com and Facebook.com and received over 250 responses so far, and 70% to 74% of those responses were do not upzone the downtown. He had 2,100 views on his NextDoor.com site, and one of the four he put up, so this is something which is a hot issue with residents. Many are not here tonight, but people are busy.
He wanted to show in the slide how stress tested the model with his assumptions of no downtown upzoning. DeSilva is added in there. The realistic capacity could go as low as 65.5% and not the 75.7% Mr.
Hsu came up with in his tab where he has identified the specific parcels. What if HCD threw out a couple of parcels and the City ends up something lower than 75%. This plan still works so they can understand that the density supported by the current zoning is sufficient. The Council can see they have not allocated 100% to the VLI and the LI. It is 87% in this model, and they are still getting a 17% yield. On the right, the box showing all the different metrics they are trying to satisfy at the same time are all solvable.
In switching to the other slide 2, it just shows Mr. Hsu's realistic capacity and the VLI and LI goes down to 76%, so it is sort of a trade-off. If you have a higher yield, you need a higher mix of VLI and LI. If you go with a lower capacity, then it goes up a little higher to 87%. He tried to optimize this and got it to 16% The community is clearing supporting the "do not upzone downtown." If the Council included the ones that are supportive of moderate upzoning, they are at 87%, so the massive upzoning option is not popular at all. They found out of the people that supported it, 7 of 23 were either developers or realtors. He is pro-development but wants it done with consistency with the City's mission.
Mayor Anduri said the chart before that showing the percentage allocation of VLI and LI he asked if it was 87%. Mr. Lavoie said that was at 65.5% capacity or yield.
Mayor Anduri asked what makes Mr. Lavoie think HCD would accept that. Mr. Lavoie said he is not proposing that would be submitted. He would go with the 75.7% yield they have actual data for. Mayor Anduri asked what makes Mr. Lavoie think HCD would accept 75.7%. Mr. Lavoie said Beverly Hills submitted with 100% and they got sued, but there are other cities that have submitted with some very high numbers as well and they were not sued and approved.
Mayor Anduri said this is based on the hope they would not be one of the cities that is sued. Mr. Lavoie said Beverly Hills was sued for multiple reasons and he has not studied that case and is not a lawyer, but the point is it is not 100% and they have an owner here that has a large parcel willing to enter into a development agreement. He asked to look at the development agreement for Town Center Ill and said the yield was off the charts.
Lafavette City Council Meeting Page 43 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri said he is not talking about the allocation at this point. He said Mr. Lavoie is saying the allocation is 76% to the low-income category. He asked where they have achieved that. Mr. Lavoie said they have not achieved that, but they have not achieved any. Their actual yield is a tiny percent. They would need 10,000 units if they were going to use their actual yield, but Belle Terre was 100% so it is not impossible. He does not know what DeSilva's cost basis is, but it is probably pretty low, so if anyone has a chance to build something that has some heavy affordable, it is a guy like that.
Mayor Anduri noted the time as 10:40 p.m., confirmed with the City Clerk there were 14 more speakers, and he asked that anyone in the room and listening to not enter the race to be the last speaker and to turn in a speaker slip now.
MICHAEL GRIFFITH said it was interesting today to listen to Mr. Gould saying that it is very much a working culmination of thoughts from private/public and working out something feasible for everybody. He honestly said he cannot guarantee the future which is one of the reasons they are seeing down zoning within builder's remedies because builders do not want to take on the risk of building a big skyscraper with high interest rates, etc. The realities are that builder's remedy can go both ways as the Council probably saw in the Mercury News article last weekend. Coming back to his thoughts about the best for everybody, they want something that is solid but also something consistent with what residents want. As the survey pointed out, more than 70% do not want any upzoning downtown. This is consistent with the consistent with their own mission statement.
Also consistent with that is the survey that said they do not want upzoning downtown and 40 units or above per acre are inconsistent. They also raised 2 important issues having to do with fire safety. Deputy Chief McAllister said in November 2021 that he could not service anything over 35 feet with local capacities, so 4 stories and above are too much. At 40 du/acre or above should not be included. He asked the Council to think about lawsuits when there are 20 people on the top floor who cannot get out in a fire and all they can do is wait for Concord Fire to arrive with their ladder truck. The other important is that he made the point that it takes 10 years to get a fire station approved and a 3-year wait list for a ladder truck, so when he raised this in April 2022, he said they do things incrementally where they add people, capabilities, but unless you can name projects, they are not going to do anything. He asked to think about the Oakhill project which is 5-6 floors, 950 Huff which is 4-5 floors, Madison Park, West End, and they are all out of range.
The other thing about fires is people cannot get fire insurance because of things like this. He had to go to 25 insurance companies and pay 2.5 times more than he has ever paid before to get fire insurance, so the Council is not only doing a disservice to residents who live in buildings and a disservice to builders and residents who like to live there because they cannot get insurance. In summary, the same thing is true about representing residents and not to represent law firms representing someone in San Francisco, Berkeley, or in Alamo or Oakland. He asked the Council to represent its residents. The City has had 2 years to appeal BART and now what will be done is the City will be double counted for the allocation in the next cycle so the City will pay twice.
SUE GEORGE ceded 3 minutes to Stella Wotherspoon.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 44 of 68 November 13, 2023 STELLA WOTHERSPOON said today and in her previous public comment correspondence she speaks as a private citizen and all comments do not represent GPAC which concluded consideration of the Housing Element on March 15, 2022. She shared her recollection that GPAC dropped the small parcels less than one-half acre because they did not qualify per HCD for lower income units and that was what they were instructed to account for. Her goal is to help the City attain a compliant Housing Element that will guide future growth. She believes there is a risk of rejection of the 10/23/23 Council-approved plan because it does not yet satisfy all HCD findings with respect to the calculation of realistic capacity, and the City should take the time necessary to modify the plan to secure compliance. Using an alternative distribution method used by many, many other ABAG cities shows that the City has capacity to meet the RHNA without upzoning. The by right residential and inclusionary zoning ordinance implemented a decade ago provides the capacity to meet the 6t cycle RHNA. In that respect, Lafayette is actually a progressive City.
The Council can consider no or moderate upzoning. She presented one scenario that is moderate upzoning. This upzones north of Mt. Diablo to 40 du/acre, so from the boulevard up to the freeway. There is no inconsistency or no deviation between people by the freeway and on the boulevard. This uses a realistic capacity or yield that complies with the HCD findings in both the comment letters and calculates out to 75.7%. Using that realistic capacity and a vision for the City, one can then allocate the majority of units by site to the lower income categories. She questions whether the Beverly Hills case will cause the majority of Housing Elements in the State to fall into non-compliance because many use a 100% lower income unit distribution.
There is no HCD mandate for the RHNA distribution model. Most cities have not used this distribution model. The State knows the RHNA proportions are unattainable given dependence on the private sector possibility of affordable housing financing and high development costs and no track record or production in this proportion in any jurisdiction in the State. So, effectively, the only rational model is to use past development history, but HCD did not direct this method either. She hears there is great emphasis and concern about no net loss, and she does not think it is violated if a buffer is consumed. No net loss comes into play if a site in the inventory is developed and only a portion of developments in the last cycle were on inventory sites. This law requires replacing income level capacity with a new site by upzoning or by redistributing units to other sites in the inventory.
They mentioned Orinda and they did have to do this. They were able to cure pretty quickly it seemed. All cities have 180 days to cure and upzoning is not the only method. If a parcel that is not in the inventory redevelops with lower income units then the City can add these to the inventory as pipeline units so then that adds into your buffer. If DeSilva is added to the inventory, it would actually be the largest site and could generate about 250 units under this realistic capacity. So, even if it is developed as 85% market and 15% moderate, this will not deplete the buffer you see here. That is the largest acreage in the entire inventory.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 45 of 68 November 13, 2023 She would also say to include vacant single-family parcels in the above moderate category. This is permitted by HCD, and this is actually the first candidate resource type described in the site inventory guidebook. It says, look at your available capacity and what do you have? Do you have single-family vacant land? Danville includes SFRs as inventory sites, Orinda, Los Altos and others also do. She looked at public parcel data and identified about 650 potential units and whittled those down to about 355 on the flattest terrain and those should be reviewed, but this is already a pretty ample number. She would include less than one-half acre Mt. Diablo parcels that meet the improvement to land value ratio of less than one and are built before 1980. She went through that analysis and up there she found about 157 that are applied to the moderate-income category. 1980 is the threshold she uses, and she thinks she saw that in the MTC/ABAG site selection tool. For the City's criteria, we are using 20 to 30 years, so clearly 1980 is much more conservative.
She would include DeSilva South. Without it, you do have an inventory that contains greater than 50% of low-income units on non-vacant sites and that requires substantial evidence of redevelopment in the planning period which she questions they have if they have the evidence that really HCD considers substantial. If they do include DeSilva South, then all sites in the inventory only require basic evidence of redevelopment. She knows they have discussed some of the 88% minimum density requirement, and clearly that is a contention that must be researched and resolved, but the HCD guidebook looks clear to her that this requirement applies globally and includes all parcels, including those that allow by right housing, and it makes sense. She thinks previous speakers mentioned that; that CD wants you to actually claim you have capacity for sites that will likely be developed into housing. If they are allowed to be 100% commercial, then she asked how can the City apply this minimum density requirement to those.
There is an alternative method. The City does not have to use an 88% minimum density requirement. The City can determine realistic capacity using adjustment factors which is the 75.5% which is based on the actual history of past developments which is plausible. She would definitely recommend dropping the FBOs upzoning plan. It is not needed for lower income units in the inventory. There is no benefit to the FBOs from the City program because it only gives you a 5 du/acre bump in exchange for going through CEQA and it has unintended consequences in the form of regulatory taking which could be a devaluation of the property as previously described.
Councilmember Candell referred to realistic capacity being mentioned and she asked if Ms. Wotherspoon does not think that the 88% is right and the City should not have their minimum density ordinance to go along with that. Instead, she asked if they are supposed to use the 75.7%. She asked why Ms.
Wotherspoon thinks that is so much better and that HCD would accept it.
Ms. Wotherspoon said as she read the two comment letters, it is the direction that they gave. The findings they made are that you have to include your non-residential development and what the yield of those is, so that would be the gas station that turned into a Chase Bank, the corner gas station that turned into surface parking for Safeway, and you might even go back and add the Branaugh building down Mt. Diablo on the west side. So, there have been a number of them and the fact we have them really is evidence for why you would need to share that with HCD. It is exactly why they want the City to be developing your realistic capacity including those because it is an absolute possibility. Taco Bell might decide that the building they have now with different colors and different form of their brand, and they want to build a whole new building for their Taco Bell, and this is a commercial to commercial that results in zero housing units.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 46 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Candell said on the vacant lots, which are DeSilva, the Bruzzone parcel, plus all of these other vacant lots around the City, she said the City can count those as other cities have counted those.
Ms. Wotherspoon said yes. Councilmember Candell said they would go either into above moderate or moderate. Ms. Wotherspoon said some cities have put them into moderate which she thinks is a little bit questionable. Orinda put in R6, R10 and R15 as moderate. They put anything R20 and above into above moderate. She thinks it is much more conservative to say they are all above moderate is the reality, but this is vacant land. Hopefully someone will build a house on it, and she can see them on Redfin by asking it to show lots that are vacant and for sale.
Councilmember Candell referred to the other moderates that are not vacant downtown less than one- half acre and asked how many do those represent and asked how to justify those.
Ms. Wotherspoon said these are 28 specific parcels. She does not remember how many total they looked at. She thinks there are many more though and probably double that number. First the screening was improvement to land value ratio of less than 1, then vintage older than 1980 and that is what gave that set. She then went through and looked at that and said, well when they were working in GPAC they were told do not bother with gas stations because of environmental remediation and also chain restaurants because those are not as likely to redevelop. She took all of those out and she also looked at the buildings themselves and made some judgements about if they had for rent signs on them and to leave them but to take out others that appeared to be fully occupied. So, it was a bit of a cursory analysis. She thinks the City would absolutely have to go out and look at them site by site and also look at whatever past research has been done. She does not know if those sites were evaluated much at the point that GPAC may have looked at them. An example is the convalescent home on First Street. That one is actually on the opportunity site spreadsheet. She thinks it is greyed or marked out because it was less than one-half acre, but it is still on the list. So, some of the ones are those that she found as hidden rows, but there were some others that she added.
EXTEND MEETING
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Dawson/Candell) to extend the Council meeting until 12 midnight. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes:
Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
Councilmember Candell said with the small upzoning, you are getting a 43.7% buffer. Ms. Wotherspoon said yes, and she should also say one other thing, which is that there were some sites that were called out in some letters as being not plausible. For example, Bonehead's, Lacanda Positano, and Headlands Brewing. Those are not included in the acreage. The tab that contains all of the opportunity sites which is the second tab are stricken out, so zero acreage is coming from that site. Another is Lafayette Animal Hospital, as well. So, this is missing a couple of sites. It does include the Desco Plaza 1 at the new acreage of 1.7 acres and it does include the DeSilva South at 9.5 acres. The difference between this and the community scenario in the staff report is that she actually put DeSilva North at 35 du/acre here, whereas last week when they were looking at this and playing around with it, they thought if DeSilva South cannot accommodate community amenities, what if you could have housing there and make a park on north. It was a way to try to bring some of that recreational space to that part of town.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 47 of 68 November 13, 2023 STEPHEN GEORGE said he and his wife live directly across from St. Anselms Church. His neighbor on one side has been there 40 years and on the other side 38 years and others about 25 years. They like their community, and they feel they would be very negatively impacted if there were 35 units built about 50 feet from their back fence. It would eliminate views of the lovely hills they enjoy so much and add congestion in an already congested roadway on Glenside and Reliez Valley Road and would potentially negatively impact egress during emergencies. They are comforted by the fact that they have spoken with the pastor of the St. Anselms Church, and he has assured them that they have no plans to do any such thing and furthermore, that they told Planning staff that they have no plans which brings him to one of his main points. He is puzzled by including things in the housing sites inventory where it is clear there are no plans or interest in doing so while excluding things like DeSilva where there is interest. So, he would urge the Council to add DeSilva in.
He has also spoken with St. Perpetua Church where they have also indicated they have absolutely no capability or interest in developing on their property. So, he would urge the Council to take the time to incorporate DeSilva, Desco Plaza 1, and to exclude upzoning FBOs where some have shown no interest in development and should not be included in the inventory. He thinks it is worth taking the time and appreciates Councilmember Candell's comments that if the City is going to be late 5 weeks already, maybe 9 weeks is not that big a deal if that allows the City to change things for the better and he would encourage the Council to take that time. These are very complex issues, and he commends the Planning staff and Council on all of the detailed analysis, and especially commends people like Chris Hsu and Stella Wotherspoon for doing all their work to show alternatives that make more sense for the community and that are worth taking the time to seriously consider incorporating into the Housing Element.
BRIAN GRIGGS said he raised his family here and active in the community and involved in several development projects, investors in some of the west end properties including the Woodbury, Woodbury Highlands, and he is the developer along with his partner Jeff Stone of 950 Huff, presented a project at 899 Moraga Road that was fiercely beat down by the neighbors, but they will try and put something that is more appropriate before the City in the near future. He had 5 or 6 key issues and he will not pick one scenario over another that says it is perfect. First of all, the DeSilva property and their openness to dedicate community ballfields and recreational facilities is phenomenal and he would highly encourage the Council to include that. Regarding the VLI and LI changes, to the same extent he is an advocate of the DeSilva property. He is against the other one. The third, on the 88% versus the 75.7%, there is a natural tendency with State density bonus law and as evidenced by all the development in town to push levels up, he thinks the reality is that anyone doing a development will probably push it up so he would feel On the downtown density, he thinks 75 du/acre is too much and suggests 60 du/acre. He thinks the reality of the 60 du/acre, which has been proven by the economy over the last 10 years, is going to be even tougher to justify. Construction costs are high and requires a lot of assemblage for properties to put parking in and to increase the height to that level puts the cost of construction so high it is really infeasible.
There have been no projects at 35 du/acre proposed and they have had some of the best economic times and lowest financing that they have had in the past 3 or 4 decades he knows of and so he thinks there will be a natural tendency to try and maximize reasonable development, and most of the developers in town are not merchant builders and going to come in and build something high and leave. He thinks they want to do something the community will embrace, at least this is his hope.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 48 of 68 November 13, 2023 Regarding the single-family opportunity sites, he was against it until he heard one of the prior speakers talking about it. It may be an easy way to fill some of the numbers the City needs to fill and so he would encourage the Council. He was not sure if they can say some are in and some are out, but there are probably many of them that are appropriate to be in and many appropriate to be out, so he would selectively use those. Regarding FBOs, he knows where the churches are in town, and he does not think they are located where they should have that density. He knows it creates a problem, but many of them are in difficult locations. He used to live on Buzzy Court right out of college and knows some of them on Carol Lane, and they are in really tough spots. On the VLI, the challenge with those high levels is the cost to build is the same and we are all housing advocates. He loves affordable housing, but he does not think it will work and lastly, on builder's remedy, he thinks Councilmember Candell and Ms. Wotherspoon are right. Once you open it up, anyone who wants to come forward with builder's remedy is going to be standing at the City offices the day after and whether you go 5 or 9 weeks, he asked to just get it right because sensible development is what is needed in town.
Councilmember Gerringer said Mr. Griggs said on the downtown densities, 60 to 75 du/acre will be hard to justify in terms of increasing or upzoning to that level. She asked what would he recommend. Mr.
Griggs said he saw the 40 du/acre and thinks giving the developer for the right site the opportunity to go 60 du/acre will help. He knows the Corporate Terrace Lafayette Lane project is at a lesser density and that site is a very natural site which he does not think would have big impacts. There are not many big sites downtown and getting a lot of property owners who have thriving businesses to suddenly assemble properties when many of these properties are 10,000 to 20,000 feet, there is not an acre to 3-acre sites in these areas, so he does not think the City will get someone to push it together to get a bigger project.
So, his recommendation is 60 du/acre.
ALISON HILL, Inclusive Lafayette, said she will not go into all the details others have gone into and said it is included in their letter. She has lived in Lafayette for 54 years and feels strongly about her City. She also thinks it is very important that we get our HCD certification. They have been working on this for 2+ years and suddenly all these new ideas are coming out of nowhere and she does not think there is time for that.
If people are so concerned they should have started in earlier on this whole thing. She has also heard people asking her questions when she hears people quoting that this percentage of people on Facebook are against or for whatever. She has heard people have read flyers that have come to their door about having 7 story buildings next to their homes, and there have been all kinds of scare tactics and not necessarily truthful statements. So, she thinks they just need to go with the facts the Council has and get this done. They cannot let this take years and years and it is very important for it to be right and also that it be done.
RICH SHELDON said he pays close attention to this topic. The subject is very important for the community because it has divided the community. This is a real problem here because it is basically handing out a hot potato and a poopy sandwich—no one wants it in their yard and no one wants to deal with it, but we are all having to deal with it. Now you have inauthentic behavior, many people saying things that are not necessarily true, and you must sort through that. We are at this stage where October 23°d a decision was made and suddenly there was an outcry. Suddenly, there are many letters sent and we can read and see who was saying what, and now we have a magical November 8* letter just randomly that structured this agenda item topic here. This is what we are all talking about with the DeSilva South property that he guarantees no one in his area knows anything about because it was never on the table.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 49 of 68 November 13, 2023 He has sat here for 3 hours and has heard some ridiculous statements. There are no ballfields being built there honestly. This is in the hillside and baseball fields cannot be built on a hillside. So, this is off the table. There are a lot of shenanigans. He appreciates the transparency, likes the fact that public comments are made public, but he knows for a fact the area he lives in that is most impacted by that particular property, no one has any idea what is being proposed here and he guarantees that the backlash if this gets pushed through without any knowledge will be significant. He asked the Council to be very cautious as to how they proceed on that particular item based on everything he has seen today.
Mayor Anduri asked which neighborhood Mr. Sheldon lives in. Mr. Sheldon said he lives in Happy Valley.
JASON STUMINSKI said he is relatively new to Lafayette for about 5 years, loves it here and looks forward to being here for many years to come. His comment relates to the DeSilva property. Cities and towns organize by density. They always have for hundreds of years. He thinks a lot of the commentary they have heard feels very disingenuous to suggest that the best location for dense housing development is going to be on the outskirts of town, far away from commercial businesses, and over a mile walk to the BART station. He looks at walkability scores and maps to the site is probably zero. Further, considering any location that is approved it will also need to make sense for developers and for capital to want to actually build there and the DeSilva site is probably the least desirable of the list of planning areas. When looking at some of the renderings shown earlier, he understands it does seem shocking to upzone downtown Lafayette with multi-story buildings, but if you consider that it would be more ridiculous to consider those on the outskirts of town and what that would do to traffic congestion. Many arguments seem very disingenuous as to where to push the development as the previous speaker had outlined.
CHANCE BORECKY, East Bay For Everyone, said frankly he thinks the City faces a pretty stark choice whịch is to make a rather difficult decision now or to face a much more difficult decision in 3-4 years when potential legal troubles over the strategy and the immediate threat of no net loss upzoning faces the City.
He does not need to repeat anything there that City staff has not already mentioned. Anything except Scenario 1 is just fundamentally too risky on the issue of no net loss because everyone on-line and in the meeting room knows quite well that no site in Lafayette will ever be developed with 100% affordable units unless the City takes significant additional steps that are not currently in the Housing Element to make that happen and they do not see that. So, frankly if Mr. Hsu really cared about Lafayette achieving certification of its Housing Element he would propose this change of methodology and upzoning in downtown. That would be guaranteed to get HCD to sign on. But, as things stand we see this community proposal as fundamentally an attempt to cheat State law. It is really not something they think the State will stand for. It is not something the community ought to stand for. He thanked the Council for their time, and he feels there is one path out of this unless the Council wants to leave the issue of upzoning to the next Council, which is a possibility, but that no net loss upzoning will happen if the Council pursues this creative strategy.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 50 of 68 November 13, 2023 CHRISTIAN ISRALIAN said he is with Free the Land Project; a UC Berkeley law student organization and they advocate for housing and do work with East Bay for Everyone. They were brought to the City because one of their students actually used to live in Lafayette and she provides a lot of perspective for the City.
He wanted to reiterate that the State is in a housing crisis. He thinks this is getting lost in this discussion.
There are unprecedented homeless numbers, studies after studies showing that the core reason of why there is a housing and homelessness issue is because housing is so expensive. It is not because of drugs, addiction, or mental illness. The number one reason is housing unaffordability, and it is because cities understandably so just do not want to build housing. They like their city the way it is, and he understands that, but housing needs to be built. One of the first problems he sees is the realistic capacity. Ironically, it is unrealistic.
In the draft before this one, relying super heavily on the density bonus projects and not including all developments is a big issue. In the report, it admits that the State does not allow that, but the Council uses that regardless. The Beverly Hills case is a great example of why this realistic capacity methodology could be problematic and there was the DeSilva property owner who admitted that this project will not pencil out unless that area is upzoned. This is a great example of why certain areas need to be upzoned, particularly downtown. Another way to get the Housing Element approved is just getting rid of parking minimums. He was not sure if the Council is interested in that, but there are multiple ways of getting the Housing Element approved. It seems like the Council wants to do the bare minimum just to get over the finish line, and he encouraged the Council to do more than enough to ensure the Housing Element is approved.
JEREMY LEVINE thanked the Council, staff and Ms. Elrod for an excellent presentation and thoughtful responses to questions. He has been involved in the Housing Element Update since they started almost 3 years ago. Mike Anderson pulled some names out of a hat. in these 3 years, the housing crisis has not improved in Lafayette. The median home price is $1.8 million, median rent is more than $2,500 per month, teachers, service workers, kids he went to grade school with, and important members of the community cannot afford to live here. They do not have time to come to these meetings and stay up late endlessly debating technical requirements. We have so much housing need in the community, and he thought the Housing Element was about planning how to meet that need together. He grew up in Lafayette and he loves the City, but most of the downtown could be more walkable, more green, more vibrant, and business-friendly if they had more housing there and more residents. He went to dozens of GPAC meetings and many Council meetings because he believed the community could come together to plan for those new homes. After all this time and discussion about the community's real housing need and the shortage they face, it is very disappointing to watch the Housing Element get reduced to a box checking exercise.
Changing the realistic capacity, messing with the affordability assumptions, adding sites and all these frantic last minute methodology changes are transparent attempts to minimize new homes. No matter what commenters say their intent is, it seems like minimizing housing is always the outcome of the new ideas. Buried under the technical language and jargon, the Council has a really straight-forward question before them tonight-does the City of Lafayette seriously care about planning for affordable housing? Or do they come up with methodological tricks to avoid meeting the community's needs? Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 51 of 68 November 13, 2023 Inclusive Lafayette wants more changes than any of the options currently available before the Council, but they recognize the work of staff and the community to get to this point. Workbook 1 is the best choice the Council has for achieving legal compliance and actually making a difference for the housing the community needs. He looks forward to the rest of the discussion tonight and the choices before the Council.
DAVID CLARK said he submitted some written comments and he will not repeat all of those, but he wants to emphasize that Scenario 1, which is the package the Council approved on October 23rd includes in Map Areas 1A, 3A, and 5A densities of 75 du/acre. The words on the page may not mean much, but to paint a picture what that represents are probably 9 to 10 story buildings from the Veterans Building to the Lafayette Park Hotel and Spa at the other end of town. To him, that is too much. He is hearing tonight is that they are "letting the no net loss tail wage the density dog." It seems that in order to protect themselves from the no net loss provision, this is the result-75 du/acre in those 3 parcels. He is personally in favor of Scenario 2, and what drives that and makes it work is such a low-capacity level and the fact that the less than one-half acre lots and vacant lots are being allocated to the moderate and the above moderate. Therefore, it frees up the allocation of the parcels on the opportunity sites list to VLI and LI. The ratio used to achieve the VLI and LI is exactly the RHNA numbers. It is based on the RHNA remainder number. It is the ratio between those 2 numbers, so the City is still using the RHNA numbers after having previously allocated the vacant parcels and the SFR parcels.
As far as Councilmember Candell asking about what we come up with in terms of the reason as to why we would change the methodology, there are lots of reasons. One is, they have more experience than they did when they started. Another is, they are seeing what other jurisdictions are doing, and he thinks they can come up with a reasonable explanation. Lastly, he mentioned VMT because at the October 23rd meeting there was some commentary about VMT and almost disqualifying the DeSilva South property from being considered. He thinks that is probably too quick of a judgment. There are things they could do to mitigate VMT such as a shuttle service. This is not going to be a one-way street. People downtown will want to go to the Reservoir and a shuttle service could operate in both directions, so he thinks there are ways to address VMT concerns with respect to DeSilva South.
LAUREN HERPICH said she has been involved with the City since practically the day they moved here 9 ½ years ago. It is a beautiful and aspirational community that she and her family have worked very hard to spend nearly a million dollars to afford a 1,000 square foot home. In that time, she has seen so many efforts stalled and worse, as someone mentioned, tear neighborhoods and their greater community apart because they could not come to a consensus. She has openly expressed her frustration with this and people opposing ideas and not coming up with solutions. But now we actually have a far-reaching bipartisan group of local Lafayette citizens and not outside groups comprised of people who do not live here who are trying to create a solution. She asked the Council to look at what has been presented.
She wanted to publicly give major kudos to Rob Lavoie, Stella Wotherspoon, Chris Hsu, Colin Elliott and others including GPAC who have volunteered their time from the beginning to come up with better solutions for a process that is clearly, deeply flawed. There are variations in what is being proposed but it is clear that your electorate is telling you that creating a vibrant downtown in their semi-rural City, something that the Council has defined in its mission statement, should not mean completely changing it.
She asked the Council to listen to the people who are clearly showing that they care about where they live and want to do what is best. She can imagine that by not doing so will lead to a real election next year and not just another appointment.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 52 of 68 November 13, 2023 KEVIN BURKE, East Bay for Everyone, said he grew up in Alamo, spent a lot of time in Lafayette, and some of his best friends grew up in Lafayette and they are all 35 now and none of the kids who grew up here can afford living here. He can afford to live in this area because he won the startup lottery. Some of his other friends are here because they have very rich parents and everyone who is not so lucky is in San Diego or the Midwest. Even so, he and his wife both work and are about to pay about $56,000 in childcare for their 2 kids. They are extremely fortunate to be able to do that. Today, his mother who lives 6 minutes away took their son to and from daycare so they could work a little bit longer. His friend who moved to Minneapolis cannot just ask his parents to come over and help with something. His brother who lives in 29 Palms cannot do that, and he really thinks this is ashamed. This is the reality of life if someone is his age and grew up here. He does not think it is fair or good morally or for the State if they are pushing most of their young people to other parts of the state or country.
They have seen many technical letters that make lots of points, but he does not want the Council to lose the context because it should be easier for people who grew up here to afford to stay here. He does not know how police officers or firefighters or people who teach at schools make the math work. He is concerned about them and wants the city's public schools to continue to be strong and this is why they are interested in vetting lower cost options for people in Lafayette.
Regarding school enrollment, he does not think many people in the community understand that Acalanes High School lost 17% of its student body in 7 years. Whoever the starting point guard was for the Acalanes Basketball team in 2017, in 2024 that person is probably playing basketball in Arizona or in Antioch. One in six electives in school programs are on its way to being shut down. 17% in 7 years is well on the path to teacher layoffs and getting that school shut down. It is not due to COVID, home schooling that started before the pandemic, and has kept going since. That decline is happening because families cannot afford home and childcare in Lafayette. He really would like for his children to have the same opportunities in school that today's students have. This is not possible if the City continues on this path, and he thinks about this in terms of 75% or 88% or 111% or substantial evidence. It is the wrong frame of mind. What the Council should be thinking about is how much housing you need to add so a Stanley Middle School teacher can afford to live in Lafayette, how much housing do they need to add to reverse declines in school enrollment, how much do we need in impact fees to fund our Safe Routes to School programs or affordable housing targets because it seems there are some folks who are willing to throw their schools under the bus so they can save extra money at the grocery store and make it slightly easier to park downtown.
JENIFER PAUL echoed Lauren Herpich's comments, and she really hopes the Council takes the time to relook at both Ms. Wotherspoon, Mr. Lavoie's, and Mr. Hsu's efforts, and agrees with them completely.
Mayor Anduri asked if there were questions of staff based upon comments heard from speakers, and there were none. He asked to take the allocation method first. The understanding here is because all of these things work together, they might make a decision they might change depending on what they decide later as there may have been a misunderstanding at the last meeting.
Allocation Method:
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 53 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Candell said she is definitely open to going with what other cities have been using. With all of the nuances, with the realistic capacity and vacant parcels, and all that taken as a package it seems like they have a good chance of getting HCD's approval as long as they are over that 50% vacant land issue.
She does not think they do with the current one. There are enough flaws in the current way that the City still risks not getting it. So, she knows it will be hard, but they are doing what many other cities are doing.
She is not nearly afraid of the no net loss when seeing the numbers where they have almost a 40% buffer.
So, she is very open to it, and they can take the time to consider it.
Mayor Anduri asked staff to respond to that.
Ms. Elrod said ultimately the decision is up to the Council and staff believes using the RHNA income distribution is a solid methodology that HCD has approved and that will address the no net loss concerns.
Ms. Robles said she thinks the intention behind using the RHNA income distribution is that Lafayette historically has always taken a very conservative approach to their financial planning to plan as best they can for the worst circumstance, and they want to carry that through to the Housing Element and not have themselves in a challenging position in 2 to 3 years where they will have to find more sites or increase density and be out of compliance if they are not able to do it in a certain timeframe.
Mayor Anduri asked Councilmember Candell if going down that road in her mind and putting a higher percentage of very low on the undeveloped parcels or the DeSilva property for example and the Bruzzone property.
Councilmember Candell said she thinks they have to distribute the way it has been laid out. They all do get low income, but she does not think you lose your objectivity in terms of all the RHNA allocations when doing that. She thinks it is far more realistic especially with a much larger buffer. Taking out sites they have included now like Bonehead's, the hospital, and being much more stringent with those they actually put in she thinks are all in the City's best interests. She does not think they can do that with the other method and not have to do massive upzoning. She does not see how that is any better and she thinks it is worse.
Councilmember Kwok thanked the public for their community input. This has been an incredibly intense process for the last several years and as they saw for today's meeting and going through hundreds of pages of community feedback, he definitely feels their dreams, hopes, fears, anger, and frustrations, and he feels that too. He is sure his colleagues feel that, as well. This is a difficult assignment, but in stepping back he wants to frame how he comes at this issue. The City has been assigned 2,114 dwelling units to add in the next 8 years and for a City with just 10,000 dwelling units, that 20% increase is completely unprecedented and incredibly difficult. What makes it even more difficult is that not only do they have to plan for it as they did in years past, they have to ensure the production of it and they will be measured against it every year. So, they are not making just a decision today of how they would get this through HCD and get into January. They will have to make this plan happen and deliver 2,114 units in 8 years and ensure that production. That weighs heavily on him, and he would say, despite all fears he feels as well, and the Council is sworn to uphold the law. They might not like what the law says. They might think it is unreasonable, but he is trying to do what is legal for this City to make it the best possible place for everyone.
Lafavette City Council Meeting Page 54 of 68 November 13, 2023 How they are going to get to 2,114 units will need to be done with other people's money. It is not the City's money, so they have to work with innovators, developers, investors to do this for them with their money, and the City has to send a message to the market of where do they want this housing. Early in this process they said they want 2114 units not spread over the entire City. They wanted it concentrated in the downtown area. For the reasons he spoke before, that will be more walkable, less congestion, more equitable, there is less infrastructure, and you have to build all over the City, they will focus the infrastructure on the City, and he actually thinks the idea of concentrating it in the downtown core is the right idea. They need to send the message of putting 2,000 units in the downtown core and therefore, proposals that say don't upzone anything just does not make sense to him. This is not sending a message to the market if they did nothing except the status quo because they have not delivered 2,000 units in any past before. So, it worries him that maybe even if they got through HCD and they accepted it, how would they actually build that in the next 8 years. They are really just kicking the can down the road.
Many of the conversations and fearing building in the downtown core he thinks is an inversion. He would love to say there is something wonderful about building in the downtown core. He displayed an illustration* which he said he saw just yesterday, and it resonated with him as to what he thinks the Council is feeling. He saw and said this is exactly how he feels and maybe how the community feels. They love Lafayette as it is, but it is not fair, but they have 2114 units that they must plan for in 8 years, so he feels like this is where the magic happens which is by putting that in the downtown area and getting out of their comfort zone. He actually thanks Mary McCosker for being here every month to tell them that their City started as an orchard field and then they had crowded streets with lots of gas station signs and it was ugly, but they have had progress for 50 to 100 years and all of it has been positive. They have a great city, and he has every reason to believe that the magic happens when they move forward and change the City. They definitely must change, and he is trying to find out how to change it for the better, and for that reason, he would support keeping Scenario 1 with adding Desco Plaza 1 in because that helps their numbers substantially, but it is the only scenario that puts the density in the downtown core. *Illustration:
Where the
magic happens
Your
Comfort
Zone
Mayor Anduri asked to hold at this point and move to finish the rest of the agenda and then return to Item 14.B.
15. ITEMS REMOVED FROM CONSENT - None.
16. COUNCIL/COMMISSION REPORTS
A. Councilmembers report on activities and consideration of matters a Councilmember wishes to initiate for placement on a future agenda.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 55 of 68 November 13, 2023 There were no comments.
B. Mayor Anduri
Proclamation recognizing November 12-18, 2023 as "United Against Hate Week" in Lafayette.
Recommendation: Approve the proclamation recognizing November 12-18, 2023, as "United Against Hate Week" in Lafayette.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Gerringer/Candell) to approve the proclamation recognizing November 12-18, 2023, as "United Against Hate Week" in Lafayette. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
17. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS
A. E-mail from Elsie Mills from The Rainbow Community Center, requesting a proclamation recognizing November 20th as Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Recommendation: Approve a proclamation recognizing November 20* as Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Mayor Anduri opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Candell/Kwok) to adopt a proclamation recognizing November 20* as Transgender Day of Remembrance. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
EXTEND MEETING
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Gerringer/Dawson) to extend the Council meeting until 1:00 a.m. Roll Call Vote:
5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
BREAK
Mayor Anduri called for a 5-minute break at 11:50 p.m., and thereafter reconvened the regular meeting at 11:55 p.m.
B. Greg Wolff, Planning & Building Director; Renata Robles, Senior Planner; Diana Elrod, Housing Consultant
GP01-23 Housing Element & EIR - The City of Lafayette 6th Cycle Housing Element and the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) analyzing impacts of growth stemming from the housing plan and housing opportunity sites identified to accommodate the mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 2,114 assigned to Lafayette, plus a buffer, which total approximately 3,000 new housing units between 2023-2031. The Housing Element is also required by State law to contain programs to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing. The draft Housing Element Update can be found at www.planlafayette.org; the draft and final EIR can be found at www.lovelafayette. org/CEQA.
Recommendation: Consider the comments received and direct staff whether to further revise the 6th Cycle Housing Element prior to submitting to the State. (Continued).....
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 56 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Candell said the Scenario 2 does upzone and it does include DeSilva and she is not against that at all. What the beauty of the 40 du/acre number is Brian Grigg's 60 du/acre with the density bonus and it ensures the City gets affordable units when they get that 60 du/acre. They do not just get 60 du/acre at market rate, but affordable. So, to her the 40 du/acre. 75 du/acre is 130 du/acre which is a big difference.
Mayor Anduri asked where that guarantee affordable units. Councilmember Candell said if they want to get to 60 du/acre they have to use the density bonus and get 50% with the 40 du/acre. You get affordable units at whatever the City's inclusionary ordinance is. Mayor Anduri said this is far less affordable units, and Councilmember Candell agreed, but said at least the City gets it. If they just go to 60 and they want to stay at 60 they get very little units. Then they would have to go to 90 which is not where the sweet spot is where people are building.
Mayor Anduri said if you are building 40 du/acre you get 6 affordable units which is the City's ordinance or 15%. He said all of the rest are all market rate housing, and he asked how that helps getting more affordable units.
Councilmember Candell said it is the number he was asking for and that is how they get it. He was asking for 60 du/acre, and he will get there with the density bonus, and this is why the 40 du/acre to her is less.
Mayor Anduri said his concern is Scenario 2 puts a higher percentage of very low income on each of those areas, but they will not get that, so they will have to subtract that from the numbers they have.
Councilmember Candell said that is true with the RHNA allocation too. Mayor Anduri said yes, but they had numbers like 77%, 86%. Councilmember Candell said that is with a much larger buffer that can absorb these units. She thinks the numbers still work out to be the same because the buffer is much higher in the one case and the buffer is much lower, in either case if you look at the percentages it is pretty close. They are facing the same no net loss provisions in both cases because the buffer is so big. She is not against upzoning.
Councilmember Gerringer said she appreciates all the work everybody has done. She wished all of that work had been done one year ago or maybe even longer than that and she did look back and the email that one of the proponents for not doing the RHNA allocation but making everything weighted towards 100% VLI and LI showed that the consultant, Veronica Tam, does that in communities where she is having trouble getting to a place where they want to do any upzoning. So, she thinks staff and the consultant worked with the City over the last 3 years and have been realistic in trying to get them to a place where they could get their Housing Element certified. That allocation, based on those, having the buffer and doing some stretching to comply with the implementation of the laws, she thinks the rational was sound in moving in that direction.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 57 of 68 November 13, 2023 She read everything and met a bit with Mr. Hsu and Ms. Wotherspoon, as of right now, she is looking at staff's Scenario 3 which includes DeSilva South at the 35 du/acre, leaves the City with the allocation they currently have, is still torn on the 88% minimum but listening to the different arguments for and against it she thinks it does not take away with the developer's flexibility on projects in terms of residential and commercial knowing there is a question on commercial, and thinks this does get them planning for some increased housing in the downtown which, when many Councilmembers ran for office several years ago they talked about and were supportive of smart growth in the downtown and have been encouraged as to whether they can move some of the density to other places and they have chosen to move on a path that keeps them in the downtown. So, she is currently supportive of looking at Scenario 3.
She is also still interested in deliberating and hearing about the FBOs. She thinks the reason she supported them in October is that she does not believe any of the churches will do 3 to 5 story buildings next door to their neighbors. She understands other people could purchase them, but still, they will have all of the same requirements of the process it must go through and so she is still leaning towards that. But she is open to hearing other people's opinions. They can go back out and look at the different allocation, and if that is the way to go, they will go a longer period of time. She believes in the rationale for why staff has recommended this over the last 3 years and why GPAC and planning and others went with this. At this point, she thinks they should stick with that.
Vice Mayor Dawson said if they are looking at scenarios, she is moving towards some combination of Scenario 3 and the last one Ms. Wotherspoon suggested. She sees the finer points of removing some of the sites HCD had specifically pointed out. Those will not work and she thinks it is important to show that detail and paying attention to that. She thinks DeSilva South, especially with the urging of the owner's group saying to include them and that they would love to work with the City is very important. Obviously, it will have some challenges but there is so much opportunity there. The City celebrated 175+ years and would love to see what those 200+ looks like and see what they have accomplished.
She does not think 75 du/acre upzoning is something realistic and they have heard today from developers that this will not be built. So, more realistically is the 60 du/acre. She would be leaning towards a scenario similar to 3 and with combinations of the finer points that have come out from Mr. Hsu's and Ms.
Wotherspoon's research. She also is kind of wondering about the 88% minimum density. She thinks that potentially has some consequences that they were not firm on. She is concerned about the point they need to check on in terms of if it is a mixed-use building and being definitive on it not needing that 88% because representing the Chamber as a liaison, they definitely want to retain as much commercial space as they can at the same time, in looking at growing the residential base in the core.
Mayor Anduri said he wants to follow up on the mention of opportunity sites HCD has commented on.
The ones Vice Mayor Dawson referred to were the Bonehead's, etc. He asked staff about what their feeling is about being able to keep those in.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 58 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Elrod said with respect to Bonehead's, etc., they left the one historic building out of that, so it is 2 sites they have in that are owned by the same owner. So, they think those meet the objective criteria that they developed for that. She thinks they were operating under information about that hospital site which is a large site with a sea of parking around it. It meets the criteria even though there are existing uses in it. The Veterans hospital is an older building than the other one. They meet the criteria but whether HCD accepts it is a different question. They have created information about each one of these sites and why they should be included. They would have to go back and look at the alternatives which Scenario 2 recommended removing to discern what it would do to the inventory because she could not say off the top of her head what would happen with that.
Mayor Anduri said as a general matter, he seconds the emotion presented by Councilmember Kwok in that what they have seen from celebrating 175+ years of history and that Lafayette is always changing. It really is interesting to hear people talk about the fact that they have reached the ideal point and they cannot change it more. He wonders what people were saying 30 and 40 years ago. They have to realize they are in a changing situation so his thought has always been that Lafayette will always change. It is just a matter of having it change for the better and he thinks everybody feels that way.
He also thinks, which might be different from members of the public, that we do have to provide housing and have to make a good faith effort to provide it. He knows every member of the Council thinks that and they must particularly focus on affordable housing. This is not a game where they are trying to check off things and he is not saying anyone is treating it like that. Maybe cities have done that, but they are really trying to figure out how they can design their City so it is the kind of City we want to live in; that it has the densities we want that we can make work and be a better City going forward.
In short, he feels more comfortable with either Scenario 1 or 3. The difference in his thinking from 3 weeks ago is primarily on the DeSilva property. What he is trying to avoid is getting into the situation they have seen several times perhaps in the past where somebody's idea of the perfect is the enemy of what works for everybody. The DeSilva property is the last large piece of property that can be used for municipal purposes, and he thinks they have seen examples in the past where people have held out for something and then you have ended up with something not as good as what you might have wanted.
He is very heartened by the letter the Council received and the presentation tonight. So, he is very open tonight to moving towards moving the DeSilva property into the opportunity sites. It is painful for him to do that because he thinks it is important to have, at least during the next 8-year cycle, to keep the housing in the center. The DeSilva site is definitely not walkable to downtown. He has some doubts on their ability to do a shuttle service that will work. He disagrees with residents who say that people in the downtown are just as likely to have 2 cars as people at DeSilva. It is more likely that people who are on that property will have cars and will be driving to the downtown. So, it is a hard, hard decision for him, but he is coming around that it may be better to include it now when they have the opportunity to do something really good on the property.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 59 of 68 November 13, 2023 As of now, he is looking at Scenario 3. His concern with doing anything different at this point is that he agrees that maybe they could have taken a different approach at a different stage. Again, he must admit that sitting in on those meetings when he heard they could apply the RHNA percentages across the board, he thought it was a good thing for them because they have never been able to achieve that before. He thinks they have got themselves in a position where they are taking too big a risk. He knows there have been several risk analyses and he appreciates all the work that has gone into this, but we have HCD. We also have facing suit from other groups they must be concerned about even if they were accepted by HCD.
He thinks the City minimizes its risk if they go with the approach taken to date so where he is now is leaning towards Scenario 3.
Councilmember Candell said she totally understands that. She referred to the FBOs. Right now, Scenario 3 includes the FBOs. She asked if they have significant legal risk if they deed restrict all those and they will come back and sue the City for a taking.
Ms. Subramanian said people have to opt into that. The church can stay as an existing use. Alternatively, they can use SB 4. She is not concerned about taking issues.
Mayor Anduri said he thinks the point is, which was made by at least one member of the public, that from time-to-time institutions find they need to raise cash. So, in order to do that they sell part of their property. If the institution is subject to SB 4, they can do that. But he asked if they can choose SB 4 to sell part of their property.
Ms. Subramanian said you have to be a religious institution or an educational institution to utilize SB 4 so if they sold their property, presuming it was already a legal parcel and they did not need to subdivide it because some of that presumes to be a subdivision which then would need to come to the City for approval which is not guaranteed. So, she thinks where she is headed is there are a lot of "if's" into this and there is no guarantee that a sale of property with a subdivision could occur because it would need to comply with some of the City's zoning, whether it would be for the religious institution or for the affordable use. She does not think the SB 4 would necessarily qualify unless they were selling it to another qualified institution.
Councilmember Candell said she thinks they wanted to sell a piece of their property to a market rate. If the Council had zoned it with all the deed restrictions on it, she asked if they could come back and say that was a taking. This is her concern.
Ms. Subramanian said no, because they can use their property as their existing use. They are not guaranteed future use. They have a property that has a current use for religious institution, so if they want to keep it that way they can. If they want to sell it they would need to subdivide it presumably because she is not sure the parcel is carved up accordingly. If they did want to subdivide it and they legally subdivided it, then that parcel could be used in theory for the FBO uses the Council talked about if they build the affordability they are allowed to build.
Vice Mayor Dawson said one the commenters was talking about some of the FBOs that have parcels that also have smaller parts that are not buildable. But if the City were to do its program, they would be going parcel by parcel so she asked if those would not qualify or not because they are a faith-based owner.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 60 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Subramanian said she thinks the Council talked about just zoning the portion in question they thought could be utilized for housing so it would not be the entire parcel. It would just be the portion they have identified.
Councilmember Kwok said he would like to comment on the DeSilva site in Scenario 3. He appreciates also that the DeSilva representatives are here, and they wrote to the Council and offered in writing and verbally an expression of their interest. At the same time just earlier today, the Council was worried about speed limits and including other people to make sure they were not going to change that and sneak that through. dissatisfaction with that from some prominent members of the community so he would not feel comfortable with voting on that tonight. He thinks something that big and exciting would deserve more time, which he did not think the Council has at this moment. They could always do DeSilva later, but he does not think it is timely at this point.
Mayor Anduri said he agrees with that and does not know how they are going to work it out. He did call someone to let them know this was being discussed and know that resulted to at least 2 of the letters the Council received. It appeared to him that they were not following what was going on and he agrees. If they wait for the speed limits, this is a bigger thing for those in that neighborhood, but he does not know how they make that work.
He asked if the Council wished to start in element by element. He thinks the thing that affects everything is the allocation method that is chosen. In other words, Councilmember Kwok would prefer to stick with the RHNA allocations and the FBOs.
Councilmember Gerringer said she supports the RHNA allocation method they have been working from.
Vice Mayor Dawson asked if Scenario 3 is the RHNA allocation. Ms. Elrod confirmed. Vice Mayor Dawson said she could be comfortable with this because they err on the side of conservative, but at the same time she can see realistically the rational with what was proposed for a different methodology. It makes sense to take advantage of that, as well, so she would be willing to go somewhere in the middle. She likes the idea of having a strategy. She knows RHNA is one way and is clean and the way proposed also has its own.
Mayor Anduri said 2 of the alternatives which are Scenarios 4 and 5 used a blended method. To his mind, this is the worst of all alternatives. He said it does not achieve what Scenario 2 does and HCD would ask where this came from. They would be in an even worst situation.
Ms. Elrod said she thinks Mayor Anduri is right. She just wants to say to Vice Mayor Dawson's comment that if we were to explore more of Scenario 2, it includes many things that none of the other scenarios have which includes going back and having to vet all the half acre or less sites, going back and finding all of the single-family home sites and vet those, as well. She is not saying it can't be done. She is just saying 2225 actually to do what they need to do to implement Scenario 2 in the Housing Element is a substantial Mayor Anduri said just to make sure he understands how that works is that you look at possible sites less than half acre sites first in the downtown, identify those, add those in, and the reason these were not included was because they were at 240% so they were told they did not need those. But you look at those to get a higher number because he asked if you can put more very low income on other properties.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 61 of 68 November 13, 2023 Ms. Elrod said this is basically what is being offered here by Scenario 2. She thinks they have to go back and figure out exactly how that would work. Even though they do not have to vet in the same way half acre or less parcels that they do for the larger parcels to document their potential use for affordable, they do have to really understand whether there are environmental constraints on these sites. A lot of this analysis was never done. They never got very far, and by the way, someone made a comment that she suggested that, and she did not. It was a GPAC decision to remove all the sites that were less than one- half acre. So, they would have to go back and look through all the sites and figure out which ones they could reasonably add back in because they did not vet them in the same way as all other sites. If they are going to include single family housing in single family neighborhoods which are primarily shown north of Hwy 24, they would have to go back through and vet those sites as well. It is not necessarily that they cannot include them, but they need to know where they are. They have only had a map. When they had the original conversation it was sort of the "back of a napkin" kind of map, so they would have to go through them and be more diligent in figuring out where all those sites are.
Mr. Wolff said he thinks staff's position is that they support the decision made by GPAC because arguably there is no net benefits to the RHNA allocation to increase their numbers of above moderate on single family if there is no commensurate benefit being able to allocate lower income elsewhere. So, it all hinges on whether there is a level of comfort to deviate from what is a known acceptable methodology or to put significantly more lower income on fewer sites and then the single family would then be used to backfill.
It is all predicated on the uptick in lower income on specific sites, and heretofore, staff has not had that as a proposal for reasons previously stated.
Mayor Anduri said as he understands it, the argument is made that other cities are doing that and putting a higher percentage of very low on vacant parcels and other parcels. He asked if staff is aware of other cases other than Beverly Hills where a City was sued for doing this and it didn't work. Ms. Subramanian said she is not aware of other cases.
Councilmember Candell asked if there is thought to at least look at the SFRs to see if it gets the City over that 50% vacant number if they include DeSilva. This would be a reason why to include the vacant parcels.
Ms. Elrod said single family does not count towards that metric. It is basically very low and low only.
Mayor Anduri said again, he is really nervous about assigning a high percentage of low-income housing to the DeSilva property or virtually any property other than 949 Moraga Road. For better or worse, he thinks the City is under greater scrutiny than other cities and if they do something that is shown to not work, and the Beverly Hills case shows that, he thinks they are setting themselves up for a problem. So, he is in favor of continuing with the RHNA allocation. He believes there are 3 Councilmembers who want to proceed on that route, but nothing is decided until they decide everything. 88% Minimum Density and Realistic Capacity:
Mayor Anduri said the next item is the minimum density and realistic capacity. Right now, what the Council approved last time was adopting an 88% minimum density. It has been pointed out that the big issue here that they need to hear back on is whether that causes any problem for redeveloping commercial sites into other commercial retail office sites. If it does, he thinks they need to come back and look at it again. He was in favor of moving forward with the caveat that if they find that is a problem, they will have to discuss it again.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 62 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Candell asked if the Mayor wanted to talk about the 88% versus the 75.7%.
Mayor Anduri said if you apply it, it takes so many off if you use the RHNA allocation. It is like when HCD took the City from 90-95% to 88%.
Councilmember Kwok said he is in favor of 88% minimum for the reasons heard today.
Councilmember Gerringer said based on the questions Councilmember Kwok asked earlier and Ms. Elrod and Ms. Robles' responses that the 88% was tested with reduced numbers and with the RHNA allocation it does not work. So, she is supporting the 88% and interested in what the answer is to the question as they discussed about commercial property.
Vice Mayor Dawson said she sees why they came out with 88% but it almost is counterpoint to the RHNA allocation because on one point you better build 88% of what we are allocating but at the same time it is forcing the high allocation to it because otherwise townhomes will be built or something. She was not sure it wasn't a counterpoint in saying two different things. To meet this 88%, you will need to build more units which would not necessarily be a higher density lower income. It seems like a bit of a mixed message.
Mayor Anduri said he can look at each one of these things and can say perhaps he does not want to do it.
They all fit in and so this is not the greatest experience because it is not like they are sitting down and designing the ideal tale. Unfortunately, they have gotten in the position where they are not doing that.
He sees issues with the 88% but he thinks they must go with it and thinks there is a majority for that.
DeSilva South Property as an Opportunity Site:
Vice Mayor Dawson said this is an opportunity to build something that maybe is more to the Council's liking and responding as opposed to reacting. She therefore is a definite "yes" on that.
Councilmember Gerringer said as she said earlier, because of the new information which they had had before but got it in writing and verbally, she is supportive of adding DeSilva in. She appreciates that it feels like it is happening at the 11th hour or that people did not know. But anything that happens there must go through a design process and community input, or she asked if anything could be built there, and neighbors will not be able to weigh in.
Councilmember Candell said this is how it is per the State, and once the City rezones it there is nothing they can do to control it, and it is with 5 meetings using objective standards.
Councilmember Gerringer said she is supportive of including DeSilva South.
Councilmember Candell said as much as she does not want to do it, she thinks the Council has to do it.
She hopes they can get a wonderful developer agreement termed out that is working out well for the owner and for the City and thanked the owner for writing the letter.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 63 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Kwok said he is in favor of downtown density and is worried about the 8-year window where the City must meet its VLI and LI numbers. Otherwise, at the 3-to-5-year point, they must find other properties that can fill in VLI and LI which will be more and more difficult across 8 years. The only safety gap he sees is if they can get the BART parking lot done in 4 years, then this is an opportunity on the no net loss aspect to make up some ground. So, he thinks the thing about where they sit in year zero is like a Tetris game, where it is all coming down there, and it is easiest when it is empty but once it is half full, you are very constricted in what you can do. If they do not upzone the downtown today, then the housing that will be built in the City will likely be short on their numbers and other things will be built without enough density. He points out two things the audience pointed out today. The Desco Plaza representative said he needed 50 du/acre and they only give him 35 du/acre, so how can he build up enough of the LI and VLI. That's math there. He thinks they also heard from another developer he needs 60 du/acre and he actually spoke to yet another developer this week that said they needed 75 du/acre to make VLI and LI pencil. For sure, they must make their money on the other pieces in order to get a couple of pieces on this side, so the projects do need to be bigger and if we keep it to those lower numbers they will not get it, yet the City will have filled up its juiciest spots. So, he questioned what they will do 4 years from now.
He asked where they will look to fill that.
So, he is concerned and is sorry to go back to the magic quadrant, but he thinks there is something good there. We are all committed to affordable housing, and he thinks this is their moment to bite the bullet and do it and do something bold because if they kick it down the road, it will be much harder in 4 years to do this. He does not like it as much as anyone else. He likes it because it is a great opportunity, but this is not the right way to make a decision for the City 4 years from now.
Mayor Anduri said he will use the Madison Park development as an example which was in the 35 du/acre zoning and ended up a lot bigger. Along Mt. Diablo Boulevard and recognizing under Scenario 3 would be 35 du/acre. It would be the capability to go to developments the size of Madison Park. Behind it there would be the capability to go to 60 du/acre which could be 90 du/acre with the density bonus. So, if Mt.
Diablo Boulevard were lined with buildings that were equivalent to Madison Park, at least in his view, he does not see them going beyond that and there may be housing advocates who would disagree with that.
But, along the boulevard he would not want to go above that density level. He asked if Councilmembers see that differently because he sees the challenge if you go to that density of maintaining the open space which was referred to the different kind of product that fits gracefully along Mt. Diablo Boulevard that has the walkways and the retail we need to have. He thinks if you go above the 4 stories, you have a much different picture of what Lafayette is going to be. He thinks making this change brings about a huge change in town, and it is a challenge to make that change work.
Councilmember Kwok said he hears Mayor Anduri. Originally, 75 du/acre was a compromise and not something he was interested in the beginning. He would have liked to see the south side of Mt. Diablo, especially like Desco Plaza 1, they already said their building is set back. There is no reason they kept that at 35 du/acre. We somehow avoided the south side of the street and then put 75 du/acre on the top. He was not in favor of that, but he is accepting of that. He knows that what they have in Scenario 1 is a compromise, but he thinks they are at this 11t hour.
Mayor Anduri said it was not 35 du/acre in Scenario 1. It is 50 du/acre.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 64 of 68 November 13, 2023 Councilmember Kwok said this is good, but Scenario 1 is something the Council has come to at this hour and he does not like everything in it, but he thinks they should get this over the finish line, and it is a viable alternative for him. So, in the interest of time, he will not go into again what he said about DeSilva South.
He has already expressed his views on that one. He is open to it. He just does not think it is now and so he still would stand by Scenario 1, but he respects the rest if they want to vote for Scenario 3.
Mayor Anduri said he completely respects this position because this is where he was until relatively recently.
Ms. Elrod said Desco Plaza 1 is in Area 2 which is zoned 50 du/acre, and Mayor Anduri noted Area 4 should be 35 du/acre.
FBOs:
Vice Mayor Dawson said one public speaker talked about St. Anselms and St. Perpetua saying there are no plans at all, but the City is upzoning them as a whole. She asked if that is what they should be doing looking at it as one program when they have already heard there are only a couple of FBOs out of the 7 that are possibly interested in taking advantage of SB 4. So, she wonders about the confidence level and going before HCD knowing what they know.
Ms. Elrod said she cannot really speak to this. She thinks they are providing an opportunity for development on FBO sites that they can choose to accept or not. Owners change their minds all the time so it is not necessarily just because they do not have any plans right now for it does not necessarily mean they might want it later. If they want to take advantage of it then they do not have to, but this is kind of the tactic that both other jurisdictions are taking with theirs and many jurisdictions have many churches they have upzoned.
Vice Mayor Dawson asked if Ms. Elrod knows of those jurisdictions taking advantage are going with the SB 4 projects are anyone doing what the City is trying to do to add some perks. Ms. Elrod said she thinks they are trying to give them perks. There is a benefit to having an option of either using SB 4 or having a local program. In either case, HCD is accepting FBOs in inventories.
Councilmember Gerringer said for the same reasons and based on Ms. Subramanian's comments she is supportive of leaving in the FBOs.
Councilmember Kwok said his position is the same. He is supportive of keeping in FBOs.
Councilmember Candell said if they are only considering Scenario 3, then they have to keep FBOs in.
Mayor Anduri agreed.
Downtown Zoning:
Mayor Anduri said if they are staying with the decisions they have made thus far and in looking at what is in Scenario 3, then he thinks the only decision since everything is 35 du/acre except for 1A, 3A, and 5A which are 60 du/acre, the question is if anyone wants to spread that out more and take some off of 3A and move that down to 50 du/acre and move 2 to 40 or 50 du/acre. So, the first question is whether Councilmembers are happy with what is in Scenario 3 or would they prefer to make changes.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 65 of 68 November 13, 2023 Vice Mayor Dawsons said she likes the idea of taking advantage of what Desco Plaza 1 has volunteered- that the 60 du/acre might be easier to work with. So, she could see considering that. It is a good thing and asked to see the map.
Mayor Anduri said his only concern with a higher density in 4 is the properties that that backs up to. He thinks it is not as bad as Zone 6, which hovers over the houses that are in the back, and he definitely thinks that should be at 35 du/acre. He is not sure the Council wants to change 2. If it stays at 35 du/acre, it can be 52 units, and this is what he was asking for was 50. He cited no other comments and said there seems to be consensus on the zoning areas in Scenario 3.
Before going back and making a final decision, Mayor Anduri said if they were to go forward on the 5 decisions made now, he asked what would next steps be and how long would they take. He asked if it will come back to the Council which gives the neighbors around the DeSilva property a chance to come in.
Ms. Robles she will start with the Council discussion and the DeSilva neighbors. Whether the revised Housing Element returns to the Council for review prior to either public review or resubmission to HCD, it is up to the Council to decide and direct staff. As far as the revisions, including DeSilva South as discussed in the staff report will add a significant amount of time. Within that, staff mentioned the AFFH analysis, and that consultant is not available until after the Thanksgiving holiday. It should not take very long after that because they are familiar with the City's work, but this is time added. Staff will need to perform some minor updates to the EIR addendum, which was updated to include AFFH and FBOs, and then staff will need to do substantial editing to the draft document to add these pieces into the Housing Element and appendices. It is probably 4 to 6 weeks discussed earlier given the scope of changes just because adding DeSilva is a big change, but staff will do its best to move it along as quickly as possible.
Mayor Anduri said when that is presented, they have had a preliminary discussion of how worried they are at what date they will get their zoning changed. So, it looks now it really is not going to be until the end of March.
Ms. Robles said potentially, but she thinks if this is the direction the Council is giving and staff is able to move forward, they have already started aligning staff towards rezoning and preparing folks to work on the rezoning documents needed. Staff was waiting for tonight's conversation to really launch forward.
So, they want to assure the Council they will have that in process to try and be ready to go whenever the time comes to minimize any delay.
Mayor Anduri said it is everybody recognizing what the risk is if they go down this path and how long the City will be open. Given the process needing to go through, they can put this on the agenda for November 27th and they would state here is what they are doing, indicate staff is working on this, and he sees this primarily on there so those in the neighborhood can come in and have one last chance at it. He asked what Councilmembers think about that.
Councilmember Gerringer said she appreciates this would give another opportunity. She asked if it would come back to the Council normally, or she asked if it would be that Council has given direction and they would have the answer to the question about the 88% that would bring it back. She asked if they would change it again because they are leaving it open. She does not hate it, but she is concerned about how it fits in the process to bring it back again on the 27t.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 66 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri said if they listen to the comment and decide they want to go forward, they go forward and they have lost no time. If they listen to the comment and change their minds, they have basically lost 2 weeks then and staff would be undoing the work they would be doing now to make the change. So, this is the problem.
Councilmember Gerringer said if they then take DeSilva out, they are back to upzoning the areas and moving back to Scenario 1. She feels like they are making a decision tonight and that they would be moving forward, but obviously she will support what the Council wants to do. She appreciates the opportunity to leave it open, but they have done that several times and between 1 and 3, she thinks 3 is a good opportunity and it brought them an opportunity with DeSilva. So, again, she is open to hearing Councilmember comments, but her reaction is that they keep moving forward with the process.
Vice Mayor Dawson commented that they did that the last time where at the last meeting they gave direction to hold public comment and get this off to HCD, so although there have been substantive changes, ideas, and suggestions and public comments since then, she thanked staff for their work in bringing it back packaged. That said this sets the Council up again for a similar outcome. She is agreeing with Councilmember Gerringer that they have considered these substantive things, vetted them, and there is an opportunity for public comments. She did not think it would change their decision.
Mayor Anduri said you could say fairly that DeSilva has been discussed numerous times over the course of this and the Council has taken input.
Councilmember Gerringer added that it is back because there was new information. So, if during the public comment period staff thinks there is new information that analysis should be done and it should return to the Council, through that process it would return. So, she was still thinking to move forward and that there is an opportunity and all of these things have been discussed.
EXTEND MEETING
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Gerringer/Dawson) to extend the meeting to 1:15 a.m. Roll Call Vote: 5-0 (Ayes:
Anduri, Dawson, Candell, Gerringer, and Kwok; Noes: None).
Mayor Anduri said his understanding of where they are is that they are going with Scenario 3 using the RHNA allocation, using the 88% minimum density so far as they can confirm that this will not be an impediment to redeveloping an existing commercial site into a commercial retail, office, hotel or other site, and they are including the DeSilva South property, Desco Plaza 1, and FBOs and downtown zoning to keep as Scenario 3. So, he thinks they can confidently say they have made no one happy and have made significant individuals upset at specific decisions, but he thinks this is where they have come out. He thanked staff for all the work on this because it has been very hectic to deal with this. He thanked the public, particularly Mr. Hsu and Ms. Wotherspoon for all the work they have done, Robert Lavoid, Colin Elliott, and all those who have contributed all the input that has come into them. There has been one major change since the last meeting.
Councilmember Kwok said he would like to make clear for the record that he supported Scenario 1 only and is not in support of Scenario 3.
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 67 of 68 November 13, 2023 Mayor Anduri said he thinks they did vote at the last session, and he appreciated the 5-0 vote to ask staff to prepare the package. He asked if there was a motion last time to direct staff to make changes and submit. Ms. Srivatsa said yes.
Mayor Anduri asked that in this case it needs to return to the Council. Ms. Srivatsa said no, it does not.
Mayor Anduri asked for a motion to direct staff to work on the direction given and make the revisions, conduct public notice for 7 days and then submit to HCD.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Gerringer) to direct staff to revise the Housing Element Update to use Scenario 3 - existing inventory with RHNA income distribution - include Faith Based Organizations (FBO's), Desco Plaza 1, and DeSilva South; begin the 7-day public review period; and submit the Revised Housing Element Update to HCD for review. Roll Call Vote: 3-2 (Ayes: Anduri, Dawson and Gerringer; Noes: Candell and Kwok).
Mayor Anduri commented that he did not see Councilmember Candell's vote coming, and Councilmember Candell commented that it did not matter. Mayor Anduri said he thinks it does matter because they were all trying to work together to get something, recognizing no one will be happy with what they have done.
If he had been outvoted on DeSilva he would have supported the way it went, but he thinks it is not a good message for the community that the Council was split 3-2 on the submission to HCD.
Councilmember Kwok said he thinks it is obviously good when they can vote unanimously and most of the time they do. As a council they are very respectful of each other and have good debate. To him, this split vote is simply an indication of the community having different views. It is a reflection of where their community is at. He does not think it is a reflection of anything more than that. He does think when the GPAC vote was 6-5, that was close so this one is close at 3-2. They move forward and he is fine with that, but he thinks they are not in unison, and he feels strongly enough to assert that he strongly does not agree with this so at this time he will not change his view.
Vice Mayor Dawson added that she thinks they are all unified though they do want to welcome and include affordable housing. It is definitely a goal of all of them. How they get there has been the challenge, but she hopes they are all unified and is confident they all are on that, and making sure that message gets out.
18. ADJOURNMENT - 1:05 a.m.
APPROVED:
Carl Anduri, Mayor
ATTEST:
Joanne Robbins, City Clerk
Lafayette City Council Meeting Page 68 of 68 November 13, 2023