City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 22 December 16, 2024 7 City of Lafayette
City Council Minutes
Lafayette Library and Learning Center – Don Tatzin Community Hall December 16, 2024 3491 Mount Diablo Boulevard, Lafayette, California 6:00 p.m.
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City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mayor Candell called the Special City Council meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
2. ROLL CALL
Present: Mayor Candell, Vice Mayor Anduri, Councilmembers Cervantes, Dawson, and McCormick
Staff Present: Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager; Greg Wolff, Planning and Building Director; Sonia Urzua, Assistant Planning and Building Director; Mala Subramanian, City Attorney; Joanne Robbins, City Clerk
Disclosure and/or Take Action
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
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/McCormick) to adopt the agenda. Roll Call Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Cervantes, Dawson, McCormick, and Candell; Noes: None).
5. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Led by Mayor Candell.
6. PUBLIC COMMENTS (For Items not on the agenda) - 7:00 p.m.
GAIL GABRIEL said she has been in touch with the City regarding the state of the landscape around and within the BART area. She was advised to contact BART directly, which she did, along with photographs.
She was told this would be put on their priority list. Her email was sent and responded to on November 21st and was given a case number. Earlier in July, BART sent a weed whacker to the station, but the individual did not clean up afterwards, hence, cuttings were on the sidewalk on Deer Hill and within the main areas of the station. The main entry area is an eyesore and frankly, a negative for the City, but as important citizens of Lafayette that ride BART and for guests coming and going from this City. She understands BART has a lot more important issues, but she feels strongly that this issue should be addressed.
In addition, the soil in areas on the main entry level have been taken over by gophers, thus plants are dying and most plantings either look dead or are dead. An easy fix would be to remove the damaged, dead plant areas and just mulch the ground. At least it would give a cohesive look to the area and people could have a sense of pride when entering or exiting their station. She is sure a volunteer group could be formed to make this happen.
Councilmember McCormick asked and confirmed that on November 21, 2024, Ms. Gabriel sent the letter to BART. July was part of the work and poor cleanup by BART.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 22 December 16, 2024 DAVID CLARK said he was out of town last week and listened to the meeting. He wanted to convey thanks to former Vice Mayor Kwok and former Mayor Dawson for their comments that night, including the shoutout with respect to the Creeks Committee and some of the things it has been able to do. Also, he heard Mayor Candell’s comments, appreciates them, and looks forward to working with the Council moving forward.
7. PUBLIC HEARING
A. Sonia Urzua, Assistant Planning and Building Director Resolution 2024-47 Adopting an Addendum to the Certified EIR, Adopting the Revised Housing Element, Amendments to the General Plan Land Use Element and Map and Ordinance 696 Adopting Amendments to the Municipal Code and Zoning Map, Rezoning of Certain Areas, and Establishing Objective Development Standards
Recommendation: Conduct public hearing and take public testimony adopting Resolution 2024- 47 Adopting an Addendum to the Certified EIR, Adopting the Revised Housing Element, Amendments to the General Plan Land Use Element and Map; Introduce Ordinance 696, waive first reading and continue the matter to January 13, 2025, for second reading and adoption.
Assistant Planning and Building Director Sonia Urzua said tonight staff has a presentation regarding the Housing Element implementation. Before the Council is General Plan Amendment 01-24, Zoning Text Amendment 02-24 and Rezoning 01-24.
Ms. Urzua provided a brief background and timeline of the item and said the two elements the City is missing are the adoption of a Housing Element and the rezoning of certain parcels in order for the City to get certified. The item is a five-part project, each of which she described as presented at the December 9, 2024, Council meeting: 1) Adoption of the revised Draft Housing Element; 2) Adoption of the Addendum of the Certified EIR; 3) General Plan Amendment; 4) Zoning text amendments; and 5) the Zoning map.
Vice Mayor Anduri referred to existing2012 Downtown Specific Plan – Neighborhood 2. He asked if this means when the Council adopted the DSP, they said this was changed to multi-family at 35 du/acre.
Director of Planning and Building Greg Wolff confirmed and said the 2012 DSP includes both 889 and 895 Moraga Road in the DSP boundary, in Neighborhood 2, all maps relative to land use, parks and recreation, and creeks reflect the two properties within the boundary of the plan and Neighborhood 2. He referred to the policies regarding Neighborhood 2 and read one of them, “2.25.2 – Allow only residential uses in Neighborhood 2, prohibit office uses and retain an eclectic mix of residential types.” So, the direction seen stemming from the DSP was that these two parcels would be 35 du/acre, multi-family residential consistent with the properties to the north and to the east. Moving forward, the maps show that they have not been updated to date, and that is the oversight staff is correcting them hopefully this evening.
Vice Mayor Anduri clarified that under “propose” and the first item, staff is not proposing tonight the multifamily residential. This was done when the Council adopted the DSP. What staff is proposing is the second one; to amend the General Plan Land Use Map. Mr. Wolff confirmed that this will conform the maps to show the General Plan multi-family and zoning of 35 du/acre.
Councilmember McCormick confirmed, if someone were to build a multi-family project there today, it would be considered already zoned. He asked if this is just an administrative change because it seems like it is not in conflict with the 2002 General Plan because the 2012 DSP overrode that.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mr. Wolff said staff understands the question and the conundrum up until this point. Back in 1993, the property was zoned from single-family to P1, eliminating the ability to do any residential, eliminating the ability to do any non-residential other than a law office. So, it was very specific. The only thing following 1993 could have been a law office up until 2002 when the General Plan did not change the property at the time because it had been designated single-family, and it was so again in 2002 with the General Plan.
The DSP in 2012 showed and envisioned the two subject properties as being now part of the Neighborhood 2 to the north and east and thus, the change to 35 du/acre. Concurrent with that, he would suggest it would have been best practice to update the GP and zoning maps at that time as part of the same action. He thinks the intention was to do that as a follow-on action and this follow-on action has not happened. Staff is raising the matter because there are the only two properties in the City they were able to identify that are inconsistent in this fashion. So, it is conforming the later policy direction and adoption of the DSP and updating the GP and Zoning map accordingly.
Mayor Candell said the way she wanted to structure this meeting is to try to separate this discussion tonight into the EIR, the land use ordinance, and the Housing Element as one first section. Those can be approved tonight. The zoning and other information can be pushed off until January no matter what. They can finish the first part tonight. She confirmed the Council can approve the land use section which does not mention these two parcels at all, but when they do the zoning changes that actually get finalized in January, this is when they will make those distinctions.
Vice Mayor Anduri agreed there are three potential actions tonight if they take this as a separate item. But, as a separate item, he asked if that is not something that needs two readings.
City Attorney Mala Subramanian said the amendment to the Land Use map would be done by resolution in the packet and the amendment to the Rezoning Map is part of the ordinance and that would be the second meeting.
Vice Mayor Anduri said therefore, there are two parts to this; one is the land use map, and one is the zoning map. City Attorney Subramanian confirmed.
Mayor Candell said she was under the assumption the Council could approve the land use maps tonight even without any changes and then just address it in the zoning pieces. City Attorney Subramanian said this is not true because the land use map is in the General Plan and so the Council would want to address it as part of the resolution before the Council tonight that could be adopted if this is the pleasure of the Council.
In addition, the Council must amend the map that is in the ordinance, which is the zoning, so there are two matters.
Vice Mayor Anduri noted the Council is limited in the number of General Plan Amendments the City reviews each year and if they were to do that as two separate pieces, that would take up two amendments. City Attorney Subramanian confirmed.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 22 December 16, 2024 Ms. Urzua said staff received two public comments in the form of a letter; one last week from Inclusive Lafayette who were generally supportive of the recommendations with some ideas about future changes they recommend the City Council consider. Today, staff received a letter from the Housing Defense Fund, and they expressed some concerns about whether some of the ordinance sections were objective or not.
Staff also received some email correspondence with concerns regarding changes to 889 and 895 Moraga Road.
She introduced Monica Szydlik of Lisa Wise Consulting who said will provide a shortened version of the presentation made at the December 9, 2024 Council meeting.
Monica Szydlik said they are not capturing all potential amendments that might be warranted or desired on the part of the City decision-makers, community, or staff but have prepared recommended zoning amendments necessary to accommodate the RHNA identified in the Housing Element, specifically the unit count and the site inventory. The Housing Element includes a program that requires the Housing Element sites to be a minimum density should those sites be redeveloped to ensure any new development is at least 88% of the maximum density allowed. They recommended rezoning a handful of faith-based organization sites, which can be seen on the zoning map, and corresponding General Plan land use changes which will be shown on the General Plan Land Use map. They increased the maximum density of the low-density multifamily zone.
She provided a summary of recommended amendments:
• Chapter 6-2; applications and permits and what is necessary to implement programs and modified the section to specify that subjective design review findings do not apply to multi-family housing that complies with all applicable development and design standards. They added a section to establish a ministerial pathway for multi-family projects that comply with all applicable development and design standards.
• They modified an existing section of the code that currently addresses conversion of residential space to non-residential space to instead be compliant with state law, which does not allow net loss of residential units.
• Moving onto the zones themselves, they propose minor modifications of standards for the MRA and MRO zones and the purpose of all amendments was to ensure that the standards support and facilitate the allowed residential density.
• In the section of the code, which is called Business and Commercial Districts, these are mixed-use zones that allow residential by right. They looked at the four zones addressed in that chapter which were the RB, the SRB, the C, and C1. There are a couple of minor amendments recommended to ensure those zones support and facilitate the allowed density. They added 60 du/acre versions of those four zones.
• In the packet, she presented a chart which summarizes the amendments. This is not the whole story, and one would have to look at the amendments themselves to get the complete picture, but this is a snapshot of the recommended amendments. The zones that are yellow at the top are the brandnew zones, so everything in that column is new. • For the existing zones, there is a bit of red text where they have made minor modifications to ensure that those zones support the density.
In looking at the General Plan Land Use Element:
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 22 December 16, 2024 • One land use designation of Low-Density Multi-Family Residential increased that density and the corresponding population figure cited in the General Plan. • Three new land use designations were added to correspond to the four new zones, and this matches the existing relationship between the General Plan and the code.
In looking at the Zoning Map:
• She displayed the whole map with the legend, and they zoomed into the center of the City area showing the change areas. The RB-60, SRB-60, C1-60, and C-60 are the darker areas of the zones that are between Mt. Diablo Boulevard and Hwy 24, but they are on the Hwy 24 side. None of them touch Mt. Diablo Boulevard. They do not all show up on the map and the faith-based sites are generally rezoned to a brownish MRA.
• She displayed the existing land use map, and they recommend using the same template because there is such a close correlation between the General Plan land use designations and the zones. The colors, hatches, and qualities are more typical of General Plan land use maps, and she presented the changed parcels.
Ms. Urzua said she wanted to make one clarification on the resolution. Staff will refer back to the Attachment 6; the red-lined version in the packet and wanted to clarify that their only recommendation is to adopt the redline of the ordinance and not the entirety of the ordinance sections and just the red-lined amendments.
Mayor Candell asked why the City would not adopt the whole thing.
City Attorney Subramanian explained staff just wanted to be clear what the changes are given. State law does not allow the City to adopt subjective standards after January 1, 2020. So, they have some existing subjective standards that pre-exist that date and they do not want to re-state the ordinance to cause any unnecessary confusion. They just want to make amendments that are specific as shown in Attachment 6.
Mayor Candell said the way the staff report was set up, it addressed the EIR first and then the Housing Element, then the Land Use chapter, and then the full resolution. She would like to go through each of the sections and try to get a vote on them and be done, and at the end of the Resolution, the Council can adopt it altogether.
She asked to start with the EIR in Attachment 3 with the idea that the Council would ask questions take public comment and then deliberate. She asked for questions on the EIR.
Vice Mayor Anduri asked if it is possible to make the one-word edit regarding the sentence that starts with “Whilst,” and Ms. Urzua agreed.
Councilmember Cervantes said his understanding is that the EIR is very surgically done to track the changes in the General Plan, so it is a fine-tuned update to the one done a year or so. Ms. Urzua confirmed and said typically when there was a change to a project description that was analyzed with the EIR, that change may trigger additional analysis. Staff looked at the degree of change and decided that the Addendum was the appropriate tool to still rely on the underlying environmental review document. The Addendum captures the changes the Council recommended that would be submitted to HCD, and that entire analysis is an Addendum.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 22 December 16, 2024 If that Addendum reveals there is significant impacts or more information is needed, then the City must do something else under CEQA law. But, in this case, their technical review indicated there would be no significant impacts and therefore there are not noticing requirements and the analysis captured in the Addendum is adequate. Sometimes more mitigations are added to the underlying document, but in this case none were recommended.
Councilmember Cervantes said it is a program EIR so in the future if a developer/owner wanted to do something with a given site, they may need to do some other environmental work which is not covered by this. Ms. Urzua confirmed. If the City were to receive a development project, they would look at the project description, see if any changes were captured and already analyzed under the environmental review document. If so, they would tier off the base document. If not, the developer would do whatever is appropriate, such as a Mitigated Negative Declaration or potentially an EIR, depending upon the project itself.
Mayor Candell referred to the site-specific EIR, stating she knows the Fire Chief has been very concerned about the new heights of the buildings. It does not mean they have to include this or not, but she asked for clarification on why it was not included; that they do not have a fire station with a ladder truck. She asked if that was considered or outside the scope of this.
Ms. Urzua said any project that would come through would have to meet the requirements of the Fire Department. The analysis included does not erase the opportunity for the Fire Department to apply their own rules. So, if they need to be fire-sprinkled or whatever the requirements are under the Fire Code, it would not have an implication in terms of environmental impact.
Mayor Candell referred to the part of the VMT analysis at the end. In Table 2, it is almost at the end of the Addendum. There was not a cumulative impact for the VMT, and it was just left blank, and she wondered why.
Ms. Urzua said she looked into that earlier today and it looks like the technical report clarifies that this is the methodology that is recommended by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and so she does not know more than that based upon the technical report in the record. It is a two-pronged analysis; one looks at the baseline plus cumulative conditions and the second prong is just cumulative conditions. So, she does not have a more detailed explanation other than that, but she saw that is the methodology used and recommended by CCTA.
Mayor Candell referred to Tables 3 and 4. There are many numbers in there and some of the 2040 numbers are less than some of the 2020 numbers. She asked if staff looked into this very much at all and she asked for an explanation of the 2040 downtown only FBO sites in Tables 3 and 4. In looking at Citywide, the City’s numbers for the Table 3 are actually less than some of the numbers Citywide in Table 4. This seemed unintuitive. Ms. Urzua said she does not have more information to provide an explanation.
Mayor Candell asked how general they should be tracking VMT. She asked if they were saying in 2040 the projects are going to be so much closer to the freeways that the actual VMT is less after everything is built in the Housing Element.
Mr. Wolff said the majority of the sites in the downtown are within one-half mile of transit, so that would reduce VMT, but he thinks this is an assumption staff can clarify.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 22 December 16, 2024 Councilmember McCormick said he read that, and it made sense to him because if they are building a lot downtown, the VMT per resident, it makes sense.
Mayor Candell said in general, she agrees that as they get denser downtown and nearer to transit and to the freeway, the VMTs should go down. So, the conclusions are the same but just how they got there is her question. Councilmember McCormick said there must be more people working from home and other methodological things going on to reach those numbers because they seem weirdly precise.
There were no further questions on the EIR, and Mayor Candell opened the public hearing, and she opened the public comment period, taking comments on the EIR.
BRIAN GRIGGS said he owns property on Moraga Road, and the staff report does a very good job as to the presentation of explaining the cleanup issues that need to be done from 2012. He knows Vice Mayor Anduri was part of that whole process, and he thanked him for that and thinks it helped shape the downtown growth well. The one thing the staff report does not do and explain why the City is doing this now is, 14 months ago as of tonight, he submitted a formal request for rezoning to the City. Per various statutes, which he is sure the City Attorney is aware of, including Section 65860, the City has 180 days to effectuate that rezoning. But, as part of being in this community for so long, he agreed to staff’s request to have this be part of the overall rezoning that would be occurring in connection with the Housing Element happening tonight.
He thinks there are important issues from all correspondence raised by the public about safety and traffic, there was a misnomer there is no upzoning occurring. This change in zoning occurred in 2012, so all the City would be doing is codifying or memorializing that. A big part of this is the leaders of this City have done a phenomenal job of switching gears slightly to the Housing Element and the various actions he hopes will be taken tonight. He commended the Council on all of its efforts and thinks the participation of hundreds of residents in town has led the City to this. He thinks unfortunately the City is doing the best they can given they were unwarranted with the allocation from RHNA, but they fought that battle hard and lost it, but he urged the Council to continue the course and thinks for the rest of the topics tonight hopefully including 889 and 895, the Council will include that rezoning to clean that up.
Mayor Candell asked to have a motion to adopt the EIR section of the resolution. City Attorney Subramanian said she thinks the Council would want one motion to adopt the resolution which includes both the Addendum and amendments to the Housing Element, but possibly a straw vote is what is being sought.
Then, at the end of this discussion, the Council can decide whether they would like to adopt.
Mayor Candell asked and confirmed there was unanimous consensus on approving the Addendum and the EIR as part of the resolution.
Mayor Candell referred now to the Housing Element which is part of the resolution on pages 8 through 615 of the resolution. She asked if anyone had any questions on the actual Housing Element as stated, and there were none.
Mr. Wolff clarified this is the Housing Element that the Council has previously seen earlier this year and adopted at that time, and staff is proposing no changes to it and HCD did accept this.
Mayor Candell opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Mayor Candell asked and confirmed there was unanimous consensus to support the Housing Element.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 9 of 22 December 16, 2024 She then referred to the Land Use Chapter which starts on page 615 of the resolution. She suggested discussing the two sites separately. She confirmed there were no Councilmember questions, but she referred to Table 1 which had a lot of “x’s” in it on page 616 of the staff report resolution.
Ms. Szydlik said the map changed the overall distribution of acreage among the different land use designations, so once the Council was okay with the map it will be easy to update those acreages.
Mayor Candell suggested addressing the two properties of 889 and 895 Moraga Road. She asked if there were any questions about making the modifications suggested by staff.
Councilmember Cervantes said he read through the materials and found it rather confusing. He thinks he understands there were some changes to those parcels over time and what they are looking at is what happened in 2012 for the DSP. It is just the corresponding changes to the map never happened. He wonders if this means that if someone wanted to do something with either parcels; the parking lot or law office, he asked what governs it.
City Attorney Subramanian said the hierarchy of the documents is the General Plan as the top document, so the General Plan does not have it listed on the map as multi-family. It has it as single-family. The next hierarchy of documents would be the DSP, so this document is inconsistent with the General Plan by it stating multi-family. Then, the third lowest document is the zoning map, which matches the General Plan and says it is single-family. So, if someone wanted to develop now because the General Plan says it is singlefamily it would need to be single-family. But again, it is not consistent with the intent and desire that happened in 2012 when staff probably should have brought all three documents together to make the conforming amendments.
Mayor Candell asked and confirmed that the zoning did not change because the zoning map did not change, but the DSP did change. So, there is the middle, tiered document that changed without the top tier General Plan and zoning map not changed.
Councilmember McCormick said therefore, if someone wanted to build today without any of these changes, he asked what rules are governing that parcel. Mr. Wolff said under the current zoning all they could do is build a law office because that is P1. Arguably, they could only build that law office as it was proposed at the time because it is a planned district specific to the design of the project as proposed in the preliminary development plan and the final development plan, which is effectively the existing building on-site.
Councilmember McCormick said staff said it should be zoned Neighborhood 2, which does not allow for business use. He is confused as to whether there is a law office parcel, a parking lot, and the current medical building. He asked if the medical building is under Neighborhood 2 also.
Mr. Wolff said the current medical building is in Neighborhood 2, is existing, and currently conforming. There is nothing that would make it non-conforming at this time but moving forward, the DSP envisions allowing purely residential. Because it is an existing use, it stays.
Councilmember Dawson said other than this, she asked if the City would have considered it earlier. As Mr.
Griggs pointed out, he did speak with staff about this rezoning the she asked and confirmed with Mr. Wolff that the City could have earlier considered this for a rezoning.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 10 of 22 December 16, 2024 Councilmember McCormick said there is likely a lot of public interest in this particular one, so he thinks it is worthwhile to mention that people are concerned about the potential, and he asked if this is the right forum to express that because they still have to wait for a proposed building to be there. There is the zoning but then there will be housing or whatever will go on there, and he wondered what the public should expect.
Mr. Wolff said he would suggest both are appropriate opportunities for the public to comment because when establishing zoning on a property, that enables certain things, a certain scope, scale, so that is appropriate at the time. Also, if and when a specific project is proposed, this is an appropriate time as well.
Mayor Candell said hypothetically speaking, if the Council were to not make the change and keep the General Plan as it is and keep the zoning as is, she asked if that is possible or an option.
City Attorney Subramanian said the Council could do that and make that decision, but she thinks the Council would ultimately want to decide how it wants to clean up these three conflicting documents and this should be done sooner rather than later. But, in theory, the Council could just move forward with what she will call the Housing Element required documents that need to move forward as expeditiously as possible. As noted earlier by Councilmember Dawson, this did come up and staff thought this was the best time to move it forward given that they were touching all of these documents already as part of this process.
Councilmember Cervantes said there is a glitch here so the Council could either change the DSP and drop the change adopted there so it is all consistent or they could change the Housing Element to be consistent with the DSP. It is one or the other, but right now there is a quirk which is not logical. He asked if this is right.
Mr. Wolff said this is correct. Arguably, the Council collectively needs to reconcile the three levels or documents, the earliest of which states the zoning in 1993 as only a law office. The 2002 General Plan allows single family which is not inconsistent with the zoning at the time, but the most current or recent planning document and policy direction is what staff is proposing to conform to in order to correct what did not happen at the time and has not happened in the intervening 12 years.
Vice Mayor Anduri said staff’s position is the last time that the Planning Commission, the City Council and the City looked at this issue of these two parcels as part of the DSP, it was decided they would be part of Neighborhood 2, multi-family, and 35 du/acre. This was intentionally decided, and nothing has happened since then including changing the land use and zoning map. Because that was the decision of the Council at that point, the Council should clear up the glitch in favor of what was decided then.
Mr. Wolff said he agrees with that summary. If there were any concern about this being an error from 2012, staff would not be recommending what they are tonight.
Councilmember Cervantes said these were all actions taken by the prior Council, the PC, the DSP Committee and he knows from his experience that there is a lot of work that goes into these things. So, there is an accumulation of time, effort, and thought that went into this. It is just that the T’s were not crossed, and the I’s were not dotted it seems. Policy-wise, the idea was to reconfigure the lots in the manner described.
Mayor Candell said yes, it seems so.
Mayor Candell opened the public comment period to address the land use chapter, including the two properties at 889 and 895 Moraga Road.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 11 of 22 December 16, 2024 CHERYL MACDONALD ceded her time to ROB LAVOIE.
ROB LAVOIE said he has sent in several letters and listening in he can see how confusing this is, but he thinks they need to focus on why this parcel has been an outlier. It is clearly up in the middle of the single-family zoning that was zoned that way originally in 1993. They tried to get a multi-family zoning and were turned down and then it was zoned P1 which was very limited professional and not doctors, not real estate, but law offices, accounting offices and something with very little traffic because it is an impacted site in the middle of an intersection. Then, somehow it reverted back to single-family or possibly that is an overlay or something in the General Plan which Ms. Subramanian just pointed out is the hierarchy and top control, so that is what drives it.
The DSP is supposed to support the General Plan and somehow it gets slipped into Neighborhood 2 which is basically the area north of Brook Street to downtown. That area is specifically described in the DSP as multi-family mixed with single-family and it is a very co-mingled area with all small homes and apartments mixed together, whereas this site is surrounded by single-family homes starting from O’Connor Street and south. There are homes on half-acre lots, one-third acre lots, and it is not compact and there is no multifamily from that point forward. The two end caps on O’Connor are doctor offices and those are in the MRO district. They were that was in 1993 as well, and this parcel was not in the MRO district which is what the Bruzzone property across the street is and the other buildings north of this one along Moraga Road. So, he thinks trying to claim that this was wrapped up in the Neighborhood 2 which it is physically isolated from is a wrong approach. They have two out of three documents that say it is single-family and that makes the most sense based on the limited access unless the person owned all three of those parcels; the dental office, the parking lot, and 889 Moraga so they could make a flag lot or something to get over to O’Connor Street for access. They can only come into this with a right turn and only leave with a right turn. So, he thinks the proper adjustment here is to say the DSP does not support the General Plan which is the goal of the DSP, so let’s make it support the General Plan, make this back to single-family zoning as the zoning map and General Plan say and just look at the P1 as a use permit that overrode the single-family zoning for a while.
He suggested reading the description for Neighborhood 2 in the DSP which talks about the mixed-use area north of Brook Street and has nothing to do with this Moraga Road finger that is sticking in the single-family zoning. Trying to put 13 homes on this site which was proposed originally or even half that is way too much for that site. The Planning Commission held a special session in December 2021 where residents were all told it was zoned P1, but the bottom line is having low volume use is what is important, and single-family would be the most cohesive with all single-family homes around there.
Mayor Candell said Mr. Lavoie keeps mentioning the December 2021 PC study session. She asked if someone could elaborate with what happened with that meeting.
Mr. Lavoie said Brian Griggs had proposed a 13-unit apartment building and asked the PC to have a study session which they did. Virtually, residents and the PC said that it was way too much for this tiny .41-acre parcel with 140 feet of frontage right in the middle of the intersection there. So then, he said he would come back with some other proposals and apparently there were a couple of proposals thrown out for four to six units, but then nothing happened, and it disappeared. So, he can only assume Mr. Griggs was waiting for this to get upzoned and then he could do whatever he wants.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 12 of 22 December 16, 2024 He thinks the point isthat the DSP is supposed to support the General Plan and here we are trying to say we will hinge this whole thing on the fact it was put in Neighborhood 2 which it does not belong in and that is in the DSP which is supposed to support the General Plan, and it does not do that. So, he thinks the Council needs to go back to what the General Plan was and what is most consistent with the neighborhood and make that the correct zoning.
Mr. Wolff said he did not have the date of the study session, but he thinks that is the accurate date. He also thinks it is accurate that the property owner requested a study session, and one was held. The property owner is here and can speak to that in further detail. To reiterate, the DSP is the most recent planning document, does include 889 Moraga Road and specifically calls out a program to update the zoning to allow only residential and up to 35 du/acre. So, in terms of consistency, it is correct that the General Plan and zoning have not been in the intervening years, but there is clear policy direction from 2012 to do that and the City has not to date.
BRIAN GRIGGS said he thinks they are getting a little sidetracked because he would like the City Attorney to opine, but this is not a discretionary action. This is simply an action the Council is obligated to do by law in order to correct an inconsistency between these three documents. If the Council wants to revise the DSP to change the zoning on this, then that is a taking and he has already delayed this for eight months and he made an application, and the application was not deemed complete because it was not consistent with the zoning or the General Plan. That was 14 months ago, so for the Council to now decide if they are going to go back and unbundle some of this it is just not equitable, and he thinks probably the City Attorney will advise the Council against it.
City Attorney Subramanian said she wants to comment that when Councilmember Cervantes said we have two options; one is the option that staff is strongly recommending which is to clean up the designation of the General Plan and the zoning or the other option would be to change the DSP, because of the newish State laws, SB 330 for example does not allow the Council to change the designation to a lower intensity that is provided in a DSP unless the Council also simultaneously increase the density elsewhere. So, she does not want this to be also considered in a vacuum. She would strongly recommend the Council move forward because she believes that was the intent of the DSP that was adopted in 2012 with much discussion. So, staff recommends the Council move forward with the General Plan Amendment and rezoning. If the Council were to take opposing action, it has different implications. The Council cannot reduce without upzoning at the same meeting.
Councilmember Cervantes said this is a zero-sum game here. If the Council revokes the DSP designation and it goes back to P1 or single-family, in effect, if it is 13 units or whatever it is, he asked if they must find that elsewhere. City Attorney Subramanian said yes, and the Council must do it at the same meeting. They do not want the Council reducing density.
Councilmember Cervantes said he recalled this is not an opportunity site in the Housing Element, but it has the same impact. Ms. Subramanian said correct; any reduction from a General Plan Amendment, Specific Plan Amendment or rezone requires the Council to also simultaneously do it at the same meeting. She said staff is recommending modifications to the setback and step back requirements and intentionally doing that at the same meeting they are upzoning to comply with this law. This was discussed many meetings ago, but staff intentionally are bringing that at this meeting because they are also upzoning simultaneously.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 13 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mayor Candell thanked Ms. Subramanian for the clarification. She is saying it is General Plan, Specific Plan, or zoning and if they modify any of those, it is a no net loss out of SB 330. Ms. Subramanian confirmed, and she added it is a less intensive use or reducing the intensity of land within those designations.
Councilmember Dawson said when she reads the definition of Neighborhood 2 it is in question. It talks to protecting those neighborhoods that are close to town for residential and a diversity of residential type of unit, so she can see why it was included in the MRO. It makes good sense and there is that balance across Moraga Road. So, she sees this as basically correcting the record and aligning with the DSP.
Mr. Griggs added that 889, 895, and the parking lot are included in the map as presented in Figure 2.
Mayor Candell then asked for a straw vote on the land use chapter that they will adopt as in the resolution to sync up the General Plan and zoning and specifically for the land use chapter, the map will now be consistent with the DSP as passed in 2012. There was unanimous Council consensus.
Councilmember Dawson said as far as the safety and traffic issues from the public correspondence that came in, as projects come in, that will definitely be considered, and the public will be a part of that discussion and input. Councilmember McCormick emphasized that this is not endorsing any particular project at all. It is to ensure consistency.
Mayor Candell said with the minor changes of the “x’s” in the acreage by land use designation that will be filled in after this change on page 616 of the resolution, she asked for a motion to adopt the resolution.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Dawson) to adopt Resolution 2024-47 adopting an Addendum to the Certified EIR, Adopting the Revised Housing Element, Amendments to the General Plan Land Use Element text and changes to the Land Use Map. Roll Call Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Cervantes, Dawson, McCormick, and Candell; Noes: None).
Mayor Candell then called for discussion of the zoning changes. She recommended starting with Attachment 5; the summary table. She thanked the City Attorney for talking about changes to those particular sections in terms of setbacks and everything because they are doing the massive upzoning, and they are able to do these in the same meeting. She asked if there were Council questions and there were none.
Mayor Candell opened the public comment period.
DAVID CLARK said he would like to see some attachments other than the Google Docs but cannot open those. There is a table in the staff report, and he has questions about it on page 5 of 6 where there is a chart at the top of that page in the staff report. There are asterisks next to the headings, “Current Acreage” and “Acreage Converted” and asked what they refer to. Also, in the proposed zoning column on that chart, there are two MR designations. He asked if this is multi-family residential because the full term is used elsewhere differently in the text. He wants to be sure he understands what that represents.
Ms. Urzua said the MR is multi-family residential. There is MRA, MRO, and different options which are in the table of multi-family residential A and B are options, and MRO is multi-family residential office. So, those are the different zoning districts.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 14 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mayor Candell said she believes the asterisks are because the Council had not voted on it and these are approximate. Ms. Urzua confirmed and said the role of this table was to provide a snapshot of the locations of rezoning certain parcels would look like.
Mayor Candell said then these are estimates of the total acreages, and as soon as the Council finalizes this, she confirmed they can get more absolute numbers in this table.
Mayor Candell took a straw vote and there was unanimous Council consensus that they were supportive of the summary table.
Regarding Attachment 6, these are actual zoning changes. She asked if there were any questions on this.
Councilmember McCormick said he is looking at the stand-alone attachment with the change. On page 9, Section 6-823; uses permitted, are marked as reserved and he asked what that means. Some are struck out and these just say ‘reserved.’
City Attorney Subramanian said she thinks usually staff puts “reserved” when you do not want to renumber everything. It is just an easy way to keep it blank.
Councilmember McCormick said there was an email from the Housing Defense Fund and wondered if he could receive some general feedback as to what that would mean if the Council would agree that some listings are subjective and objective, and whether they must change these things or does it have to come back.
City Attorney Subramanian said they got to review it in detail and have some recommendations. She can go bullet point by bullet point with recommendations, as follows:
• The first bullet point is requesting the City amend Section 6-275, subdivisions b and c. As she mentioned earlier, which is why they are not restating the code, those two sections were in the code pre-existing and so they were adopted prior to January 1, 2020. So, they can stay as is. We are not making changes to those sections and we will not be denying any project under the HAA that is because of subjective standards. Because of that, staff is not making a recommendation to change that section and would recommend keeping it as is.
• The second bullet point, Section 6-275, subdivision d-1, we do concur and recommend it be deleted for the reasons referenced, noting they think it is subjective. • The third bullet point is Section 6-916.7, which references subsections 6-975.6 and it also references a couple of subsections. Those standards apply to commercial projects and/or residential projects therefore, staff is not recommending any changes and are suggesting it stay the same. Again, they would not deny a housing development project based on those standards but think they can stay the same.
City Attorney Subramanian asked, and Mayor Candell agreed to address the ones being recommended for deletion later.
Councilmember McCormick said this was all he had.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 15 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mayor Candell referred to page 10, where the FAR numbers up to 1, which is fine. She asked to explain to her that if we have a single-story building that goes in and a FAR of 1.0, that means it is covered completely.
She asked if that is how this is interpreted.
Mr. Wolff said he would agree that an FAR of 1 if the application is for a one-story building could arguably take up the entire footprint of the lot, but that does not ignore the other provisions which are establishing required minima and maxima and so they could propose a building that is one-story and less than 1, respectively. The FAR upper limit of 1 does not pre-empt other provisions of the code.
Mayor Candell said she still questions the reason why they must include the one-half mile no-parking of transit in every single one of the City’s districts. It is a blanket statement we know is true and the State has imposed this on them. She asked if they must put that in every one of their districts as a zoning change.
City Attorney Subramanian said it is not a legal requirement, but it was put in to help staff and the public be aware that it exists. Ms. Urzua confirmed and said they wanted the existing ordinance to be consistent with State law.
Councilmember McCormick said he was surprised to see that because theoretically, a law could come in a few months that says one-third mile or one-quarter mile and then they will have a dozen updates. He thought they could just include a statement to say they will abide by State law. It seemed oddly specific compared to everything else.
Mayor Candell said it is not that they are modifying State law and State law can change. It is like the other one like HAA, and of course the City is going to comply with the HAA, so she asked if that is optional. Ms.
Subramanian said yes, you can include this.
Mr. Wolff said he wanted to clarify that it is an option not to restate that. It is not an option not to comply with it.
Vice Mayor Anduri referred to page 6, 6-916.4 L; Uses Permitted, under Residential Dwelling Units on upper floors along Mt. Diablo Boulevard, but this zoning district does not touch Mt. Diablo Boulevard. The wording is not necessary, but he wondered what the answer was to his email question. He asked if they could take it out or would staff prefer to leave it in.
City Attorney Subramanian said it can be taken out. Vice Mayor Anduri said L would just read “Residential Dwelling Units” on page 6 under 6-916.4 L.
Mayor Candell said her comment was on page 15 of the staff report under 6-868. It said that “No part of the third-floor portion of a building shall be located within 15, and it was struck through to be 20 feet of the right-of-way on Moraga Road. What she is reading in this section is that it also has a 20-foot setback, so there is no step back because the setback and the step back both say 20 feet. She noted 6-869 says 20 feet and “no part of the third-floor can be within 20 feet” and she asked if this is intended.
Ms. Szydlik said the third-story setback is now equal to the front setback which is true. There would be no step back.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 16 of 22 December 16, 2024 Vice Mayor Anduri said the only time it becomes relevant is if the front of the building is on a street other than Mt. Diablo Boulevard or Moraga Road and the side of the building is on Moraga Road. Then it becomes relevant for 5 feet worth of building. Councilmember McCormick thought it was a convoluted way of saying it. Mayor Candell asked if they wanted a setback there or not.
Vice Mayor Anduri said it is possible it could happen, and Councilmember McCormick said this is talking about a 5-foot setback on a third story in addition to the 15 feet required if on a road adjacent to Mt. Diablo Boulevard. That is very specific. It was originally 50 feet, then 20 feet, and then it made some sense to have this.
Mr. Wolff said staff would recommend striking 8-868 C as it does not add any additional clarity and can lead to confusion because of the same number unless the Council desires an additional step back at the thirdstory level. They would need to state a number greater than 20 such as 25 feet.
Councilmember McCormick asked if this was staff’s intention to have additional setback for the third story and above or not. Mr. Wolff said it is, but that is applicable primarily more along the Boulevard, which has lesser setbacks to start. So, the 20 foot does result in a set back in this case because the 20 feet extends all the way to the ground. So, he would recommend striking “C” unless the Council would like to see an additional step back.
Ms. Szydlik said in looking at the parcels along Moraga Avenue, many of them are not very deep. There are some 90 feet deep. So, in testing out and looking at the standards, they determined that such a deep step back would limit the development capacity on those sites. So, sort of what they did for the C1 zone, they just reduced that very deep third-story setback to 20 feet just to allow a third story so the building can have repeatable floor plans, and it can accommodate the allowed density. For the front setback along Moraga Avenue, the third story is effectively the same as the rest of the building, and this is what they would recommend and concur with Mr. Wolff’s recommendation to strike “C.” Mayor Candell referred to page 8 of the hearing of the draft code amendments, she asked what is a “none” setback. She asked what that means in terms of the road and sidewalks in these areas.
Ms. Szydlik said that just means that the existing code section does not require a setback. None is required.
There is no minimum setback. So that means from the property line. Typically, there is the public right-ofway, then a curb, and it may be a landscape buffer, and a sidewalk, then typically the property line is at the back of the sidewalk. It means there is nothing that prevents a building to be built at the edge of the sidewalk.
Ms. Urzua said you see that typically in commercial zones.
Mayor Candell referred to the figures on pages 45 and 51; She knows they like this drawing, but you see the indication of the Golden Gate overlay, but it is very unclear where the actual overlay is from those maps.
She would rather have a map in there that actually shows the overlay zone than a box that indicates sort of where it is but does not cover the whole thing.
Ms. Urzua said those figures were there now and since they did not change anything, they are not recommending making any updates other than the Housing Element-related ones.
Mayor Candell opened the public comment period.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 17 of 22 December 16, 2024 ROB LAVOIE said it was mentioned that there was a massive upzoning and they are doing it at the same time as they are doing something else, which he questioned. He wondered if the 13 units on 889 Moraga can be buried in the massive upzoning of 35 to 60 units all across the north side of town. He asked to explain what the City Attorney was referring to.
City Attorney Subramanian said what she mentioned earlier is that under SB 330, you cannot functionally downzone a property and change the General Plan designation or Specific Plan designation to a less intensive use without simultaneously meaning at the same meeting upzoning those other parcels to increase the intensity of use. So, the Council is doing that because they are modifying some of the design standards and arguably, reducing the intensity of use and are upzoning at the same time. So, they are not taking into consideration the change in parcels that are on Moraga Road that they previously discussed. They are talking about the upzoning they are doing as part of the Housing Element update.
BREAK
Mayor Candell called for a brief break at 8:40 p.m., and thereafter reconvened the Special meeting at 8:45 p.m.
Mayor Candell referred to the letter from Cal HDF and asked staff to display Attachment 6.
City Attorney Subramanian requested going to Section 6-275, subdivision d-1, Cal HDF is requesting deletion of that section, and staff concurs. D-1 is “Approval of the project is in the best interest of the public health, safety, and general welfare.” So, this should strike Option 1 and keep Option2.
Vice Mayor Anduri said he thought that was an overriding finding that had to be made; that there is no public health, safety, or public welfare problem. City Attorney Subramanian said it is a common finding seen but it is not objective, so this is the concern.
Vice Mayor Anduri asked if the revision combines it into one sentence. City Attorney Subramanian said the recommendation is to clean it up so there will not be a dangling 2 left out there, no colon, all the following.
It will likely read, “The hearing authority shall find the project substantially complies with all applicable objective development and design standards.” Staff is recommending striking D-1, but as Vice Mayor Anduri mentioned, we will just make the remaining portion just one sentence. The way it reads, it presumes there are two findings left.
Councilmember Cervantes said it seems rather innocuous to him. He asked what is the problem with it. City Attorney Subramanian said in order to be objective, it needs to be more quantifiable, and that standard is very subjective, but she knows why Councilmember Cervantes is saying it is general, and something seen, but by no means does anyone know exactly how they could comply with that section.
Councilmember Dawson said she thinks it makes sense because they did that with the TPOs because it is subjective, so she understands it.
Mayor Candell asked what happens if they do get something that somehow possibly impact the safety or public health and welfare. City Attorney Subramanian said in theory that it would not comply with one of our applicable objective development or design standards. She would think the City’s development standards cover issues, and there is always the Building Code and other provisions.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 18 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mr. Wolff said the Building Code is the primary code which governs the safety of structures. If there are published health standards, which the City does not do at this level, there are other agencies that publish them. So, if they were to make certain findings with respect to health and safety it could reduce or deny a project, but the City would have to make those findings. So, he does not think currently their practice heretofore has been to evaluate the health of a project, the exception being proximity to toxic air contaminants where the City would impose a condition for MERV filters, etc. So, they are still able to reduce or deny a project based on health and safety standards. With respect to general welfare, the requirements of the State are that it be known in advance and essentially a metric like setback height or something that cannot be interpreted differently by different people. It has to be a numerical standard or another standard that is clear and objective.
David Bergman, Lisa Wise Consulting, said there is a little pro forma language that shows up in most municipal zoning codes and it has to do with the State’s Zoning Enabling Act—why is it that the City of Lafayette can use its police powers to regulate land use? It is to protect public health, safety, and general welfare (and morals in the Constitution). So, it is right to note that it is an innocuous comment and that it is not an objective standard. However, it is not capricious or arbitrary that it is in there. It is an artifact of the police powers of a municipality. The City can remove it. It will not harm anybody, but it is usually expressed to make that connection.
City Attorney Subramanian stated the next section is 6-916.11, and this language also appears in 6-975.10.
In the second sentence of subsection a, the portion that says, “Shall be located and planned in a manner to promote the accumulation and combination of such spaces into larger common use plazas, pedestrian corridors, or landscape areas.” This language is being recommended for deletion based on the commentor’s letter, as well as in Section 6-975.10.
Mr. Wolff said staff is recommending this be deleted because while it is good planning, it is not a clear metric and thus not objective and clearly understood as to what would comply with that in advance.
Councilmember Cervantes referred to the RB-60 designation and asked what kind of property use or parcel would that represent. Mr. Wolff said it is any property that currently resides in the RB district but now is north of roughly the centerline of that block where all 60 districts are contiguous up against the freeway or the northern tier. The RB is essentially the center of town, with C; general commercial on the left and C1 general commercial district 1 on the right, and then in the middle of town is RB and SRB in the core.
Mayor Candell asked why this sentence is not objective enough. If there are open spaces there, they want more open space there and it all should be going to that space. She asked if there is another way to rephrase it that might be objective enough to get to what the goal is. She did not think it was subjective to her.
City Attorney Subramanian said the Council might want to spend more time with it than they have tonight, but they could if that was the desire.
Vice Mayor Anduri said they could, for example, have it state, “80% of open space will be in one contiguous area” and that would be objective. So, he thinks they can take that out now and come back and do something with that later. City Attorney Subramanian said as long as it did not change the intensity of the use so they must be careful with that.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 19 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mayor Candell said she did not think it did. If there are places there, this is where the developer should put their open space and try to achieve that. City Attorney Subramanian said this change could be made at a future date, or if the Council wanted it to be part of this, then they would want to continue it. Unfortunately, the letter came in late. Councilmembers agreed to undertake it later.
City Attorney Subramanian said the next deletion if Section 6-916.14, subdivision b. This language also appears in 6-975.13, subdivision b. The request was to delete and amend, and staff is recommending deleting it, which is similar to the previous one. She thinks there is a way to make it objective but not now.
Councilmembers agreed to strike both sections.
City Attorney Subramanian said the next one is Section 6-936.11, subdivision c for deletion. Staff will renumber accordingly.
Councilmember McCormick said he had this on his list, and it seemed odd and disconnected from all of the other statements referring to the Planning Commission that did not make a lot of sense.
City Attorney Subramanian said the next one is 6-990 and striking the last two sentences. It is the same language that keeps appearing in a couple of places.
Councilmember Dawson said if it is a mixed-use and there is retail she asked if this is basically saying that the Planning Commission cannot take that into account because you cannot have parking minimums. She asked if the PC could just note that.
Mr. Wolff said the code calls for parking minima for different land uses, and we have all acknowledged the bill which precludes the city from imposing those minima within one-half mile of transit. For a project beyond one-half mile, those minima would be applied by the PC when considering it and that would be an objective standard imposed because it is laid out in the City’s parking ordinance for that land use. For a 2-bedroom, it would require “x” number of parking spaces, whereas this is more open-ended, and the PC will decide.
Mayor Candell asked how does the PC decide if they get a mixed-use project.
Mr. Wolff said staff would analyze it based upon square footage of the different uses and apply those parking ratios as required in the ordinance proportionally. This is unnecessary language and somewhat unclear. The parking ordinance is very clear based upon land use and square footage for the number of spaces required.
City Attorney Subramanian referred to 6-999.10, subsection b.
Ms. Szydlik said regarding parking for units on the third story, the language was existing in another section of the City’s code. What the language is saying is these are the parking requirements, which is what they are. What the code already says this for at least one zone or the C1, but if you have units up on the third floor, the PC can reduce those, understanding it will be hard to meet those standards. So, the language is saying the PC can waive away some of those required parking for units on the third floor. The letter writer is saying they appreciate that these sections are meant to provide relief from the more onerous objective parking requirements that would otherwise apply. The Council should just allow this relief so that it is more predictable.
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 20 of 22 December 16, 2024 In developing the amendments, their thought was if the PC can waive away these requirements, they can do so. The standard is what it is and that is already objective. You can go above and beyond that and wipe some of that requirement away, so this is okay. So, their approach was to say to keep that, and you can go above and beyond and take away some of the required parking for the third story. So, her point is, what is not at issue is what the base requirement is.
Vice Mayor Anduri said to be consistent with what they have been doing before, he asked would they not leave the language in 6-990 because this is existing language and maybe not add it in 6-999.10. He understands Ms. Szydlik’s point but going back to consistency with the approach they have taken earlier, he asked why they would go back and delete something. They have taken the approach that they may have some residual non-objective things, but they are not adding non-objective things.
Mayor Candell said this seems like a valid point. Mr. Wolff acknowledged that. He does not think the language is value-added. He thinks it lends to a lack of clarity and could be seen by developers and/or the State as being unclear, notwithstanding the commenter’s not that this could provide relief. There are also other forms of relief that can be pursued. He just thinks it is clearer and would support removing it from the 60 zone. He could also support removing it from the 990, as well.
Councilmember McCormick said the whole thing does not make sense. It is clear when put in the existing language, they envision for commercial purposes they would have normally two- and maybe three-story buildings because it is so far up off of the street it would be residential. So that special residential gets certain characteristics, but they are talking about the C-60 when it is not three stories; it is 4, 5 or more stories. So, this whole third floor and above thing makes no sense. It is only there because it was copied as a base, but it does not serve any purpose in the 60 zones at all anyway because there is nothing magical about the third story. So, he could go both ways. They can keep it if it gives them a little more flexibility, but he has a feeling it will make much difference because the City will have a hard time enforcing it.
Councilmember Dawson said she appreciates what Ms. Szydlik is saying as they were talking last week about keeping a baseline of what they have as objectives and then not really changing them but accommodating the development as necessary and keeping the baseline in. She could go both ways, as well. She likes consistency and wondered if they should consider keeping it here.
Mayor Candell agreed to keep existing language there, but for all of the new modified ones, do not include it. So, they would keep 6-990 but do not put it in 6-999.10, for example. Then the 6-936.11 also gets struck.
She asked and confirmed with the City Attorney that would be okay. She then asked if there were any others for the Cal HDF responses.
City Attorney Subramanian said they mention a clerical error on the redlined version, and this has been corrected.
Mayor Candell asked if there were any other questions. She then opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Mayor Candell reviewed the modifications as follows:
• Taking one-half mile of transit language out of all of the new sections; • On page 6-916.4-L remove this; noting that none of them face Mt. Diablo; • Section 6-868 they will strike c;
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 21 of 22 December 16, 2024 • From the Cal HDF; 6-275.d-1, that is the health, safety and welfare will be struck; then, 6-916-11.a is deleting after open spaces, but Mayor Candell said staff indicated they could work to make that more objective to try to combine their open space items together, but after the Council enacts this.
City Attorney Subramanian said the Council can make the changes that you are clearly delineating, but the language that was subjective that the Council wants staff to make objective that they are not able to do in short order would have to come back. The Council would have to continue this to re-introduce it or they would bring it back at a later date and delete it now.
Mr. Wolff said since it is clearly not a numerical standard, it is more of a design standard about how to go about good site design, so it could be incorporated into the design standards that speak to articulation and fenestration and landscape design, etc. • The parking third story will be to keep the original language in the section, so it is already existing but to take it out of all of the new sections.
Mayor Candell asked to get a straw vote on these modifications, and there was unanimous Council consensus.
Vice Mayor Anduri referred to his questions asked earlier and asked if they could delete that last part under “a matter of” where there is a blank, which is at the top of the ordinance. It states “…and prepared an Addendum to the Certified Housing Element and EIR” and asked if that needed to be there. City Attorney Subramanian said no, it does not. There are some edits staff wants to make to the ordinance, including some of the suggestions made earlier. She would be happy to take any more comments and feedback, but she might suggest they take a recess to allow staff to redline the body of the ordinance to show the Council the minor edits, and then take any more, and then would recommend the Council move forward with introduction of the ordinance tonight.
Mayor Candell asked if the public notice part is in the ordinance. Ms. Subramanian said yes, there is a recital that states, “On December 6, 2024, the City published legal notice of this public hearing.” Mayor Candell said it seems they should include the amount of notice the City performed, as it went to Contra Costa Times, but it should go to Lamorinda Weekly as well, and she asked and confirmed with the City Clerk it could not because they are only publishing every 5-6 weeks.
Mayor Candell asked for thoughts about getting the word out, noting they did not do noticing to all those impacted, and City Attorney Subramanian said the City is meeting the legal standard. When there is such a large number of people that need to be noticed, they are allowed to notice in the newspaper, so this is what they have done.
City Manager Srivatsa noted staff can add it to the current Weekly Round Up and the last one for the year in January.
Mayor Candell opened the public comment period for the Housing Element, and there were no speakers.
Mayor Candell closed the public hearing.
BREAK
City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 22 of 22 December 16, 2024 Mayor Candell called for a brief recess at 9:20 p.m. and, thereafter, reconvened the Special meeting at 9:41 p.m.
City Attorney Subramanian pointed to the edits on the screen for the Council’s consideration for the draft ordinance. Staff does not want to restate it but amend and adopt the certain amendments attached as a redline for clarity. Staff has also deleted the reference to prepare an Addendum in the title. They added dates where there were “x’s,” clarified that they are presuming the Council will adopt the Addendum today, and they have added the reference to both the Housing Element and Land Use Element and Map, referenced consistency with the General Plan in the recital below, and then they also inserted a date and made some clarifying edits for the date when this will be brought back hopefully for adoption. Staff also referenced that the Council already adopted the Addendum presuming it does, and they can move forward with introduction of the ordinance tonight, and they added the Zoning Map to Section 3 to amend the Zoning Map and clarified it was adoption as opposed to restating. The ordinance takes effect 30 days after and clarified the new Mayor’s name.
Mayor Candell asked and confirmed the corrections were also made to the body of the ordinance and revisions recommended by the Council will be made to the Municipal Code sections.
City Attorney Subramanian said if the Council wished, it could move forward with introduction of the ordinance.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Cervantes) to introduce Ordinance 696, as amended, waive the first reading, and continue the matter to January 13, 2025, for the second reading and adoption.
Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Candell, Anduri, Cervantes, Dawson, and McCormick; Noes: None).
8. ADJOURNMENT – 9:45 p.m.
APPROVED:
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Susan Candell, Mayor
ATTEST:
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Joanne Robbins, City Clerk