CITY OF PACIFICA
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
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Mayor Mary Bier
Mayor Pro Tem Tygarjas Bigstyck
Councilmember Mike O'Neill
Councilmember Sue Vaterlaus
Councilmember Sue Beckmeyer
City Council Special Meeting 1 September 27, 2022
SPECIAL MEETING
September 27, 2022 (TUESDAY)
www.cityofpacifica.org
Mayor Mary Bier called the meeting to order on September 27, 2022 at 6:00 PM 6:00 PM - OPEN STUDY SESSION
Call to Order
Mayor Bier called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m., stating that all councilmembers were present, and announced the business to be discussed.
Attendee Name Title Status Arrived
Mary Bier Mayor Present
Tygarjas Bigstyck Mayor Pro Tem Present
Mike O'Neill Councilmember Present
Sue Vaterlaus Councilmember Present
Sue Beckmeyer Councilmember Present
City Clerk Coffey took a verbal roll call.
Staff Present: Kevin Woodhouse, City Manager; Denise Bazzano, Asst. City Attorney; Lisa Petersen, PW Director; Christian Murdock, Planning Director; Jason Bustria, IT Analyst; Sarah Coffey, City Clerk.
Reading of Land Acknowledgment
Mayor Bier read the Land Acknowledgement.
Salute to the Flag led by Councilmember O'Neill
City Clerk Coffey explained the conditions for having City Council meetings pursuant to Government Code Section 54953 (as amended by AB 361), to conduct necessary business as an essential governmental function as a teleconference meeting with no meeting location open to the public. She also gave information on how to present public comments participating by Zoom or phone.
City Council Special Meeting 2 September 27, 2022
CONSIDERATION
1. Study session to discuss potential future adoption of local amendments to the 2022 California Building Code to require specified buildings in Pacifica to exceed state minimum energy efficiency and electric vehicle charging requirements (i.e., Reach Codes).
PROPOSED ACTION: Receive a presentation and provide direction regarding further analysis of Reach Code options.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he would be assisted by consultant Mayra Vega of TRC, Blake Herrschaft of Peninsula Clean Energy, and Doug Rider of CSG and then began the presentation of the staff report. He then turned the presentation over to Ms. Vega and/or Mr.
Herrschaft.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
Councilmember O’Neill asked her to define what she means when she said a higher ventilation rate for gas stoves.
Consultant Vega stated that she didn’t have the numbers off the top of her head but the fume hood is going to require higher CFM.
Planning Director Murdock stated that was cubic feet per minute - the volume of air it moves per unit of time needs to be higher, essentially a stronger blower.
Consultant Vega agreed.
Councilmember O’Neill asked if the existing hoods that are over ranges aren’t going to pass the new building codes.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that specifically, if you choose to use a gas range, and when you cook the emissions in the breathing zone would be from the food you cook that smokes a bit and if you are using gas, you have 20% of the gas you’re trying to burn escapes without being burned and the new energy code requires a higher ventilation rate if you install a gas stove than if you put an electric stove in the same location.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that she didn’t mention water heaters and asked if they are coming up.
Consultant Vega asked what his question is about the water heaters.
Councilmember O’Neill referred to the slide that shows heat pumps, climate zone 12, and he asked what climate zone is Pacifica in and what are the carrot and stick approaches for water heating.
Consultant Vega asked if he was asking what the carrot and stick approach is for water heating.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that they have some carrots and also have some sticks for the City Council Special Meeting 3 September 27, 2022
different choices, and he asked what climate zone 12 is, and is that the zone Pacifica is in.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that Pacifica was in climate zone 3 and in new construction the new energy code pushes them towards using a heat pump for space heating by making it a baseline and an energy modeling exercise that happens in new construction. They also require pre-wiring and that is a bit of a stick. If you decide to put in a gas water heater, you have to wire for the electric water heater. He thinks the hope from the energy commission is that, if you are already going to run a wire, maybe you would also install the heat pump water heater at that point. He stated that their recommendation for the Reach Code would be to require the water heater to be electric as well. He asked if that answered his question.
Councilmember O’Neill thought it did, explaining that he missed the water heating on the slide.
He stated he also answered the question about zone 3, etc.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked what the first line “extension of any existing gas infrastructure” means.
Consultant Vega stated, if there is a development on a piece of land that already has gas infrastructure and the home itself is required to be all electric, they can’t extend that gas line to any external uses, such as a pool heater or gas barbecue.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that is for new construction on property that already has existing buildings.
Consultant Vega was thinking of a situation of infill development where there is some infrastructure already there. That was the best example she can come up with to explain that.
Planning Director Murdock stated that, if there is a small, dilapidated home, completely demolished, and an entirely new building is constructed, and that site might already have gas infrastructure beyond the property line from the public right-of-way into the property that served the old building, but you may not be able to extend that gas infrastructure to any new connection, new piping, to service the new building being constructed. Similarly, if the building was demolished sometime in the past and the property is now being developed, there will be similar limitations on extending gas infrastructure.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that 90% of the houses in Pacifica have gas and, if they want to put an ADU in the backyard, then they can’t extend the gas space heating, etc., to the ADU.
Consultant Vega stated that, without an ADU exception, yes that is the case.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that right now we have an ADU exception.
Consultant Vega agreed and, under the current code, you could extend the gas to the ADU, but she will be providing additional information about all electric construction for ADUs for Council’s consideration. She stated that, if they decide to remove that ADU exemption, then they wouldn’t be able to extend the gas line from the home to the ADU.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
City Council Special Meeting 4 September 27, 2022
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that public emergency center is an abstract and he wondered if city staff could give him an idea if they currently have public emergency centers. He asked if there were public emergency centers we might be building in the conceivable future.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he is going to check to see if they have a definition for this term. His understanding is that it would apply to our emergency operation center, EOC, which is a critical piece of infrastructure where the city needs to be able to operate and have all the relevant utilities operating under a variety of circumstances. He thought the exception would apply at a minimum to the emergency operation center at the police station.
City Manager Woodhouse added that he wondered if it would also apply to the Community Center which they are under agreement with as a comfort center during heat waves or other electricity outages.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thanked them as he has a better idea of what they currently have built.
He understands these are new construction exemptions as he is reading it and he would love to get rid of probably every exemption but, when it comes to public safety, he asked if there are examples of public emergency centers that might be built in the future. Then, he can weigh his desire to start eliminating exemptions against the needs that the city might have.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated, on the same topic, she asked about fire stations and libraries.
Consultant Vega asked if that was a question for her or Council.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated the question was for anybody. She knows libraries have been public emergency centers in terms of evacuation and cooling centers.
Consultant Vega thought that goes back to Planning Director Murdock’s comment about looking up a definition for public emergency centers because they don’t want to remove any emergency centers or safe havens or critical infrastructure that needs to run for the sake of going all-electric and they want to be sure that these buildings are able to continue to run and operate and she thinks it comes down to how they define public emergency centers. She agreed that, if you are using libraries as shelter, they need to remain operable.
Councilmember Beckmeyer knows there are some exemptions because of the education department, and she thought Councilmember O’Neill could weigh in on this. She also wonders about school district facilities and the district office in terms of evacuation centers.
Planning Director Murdock stated he did not see a definition in the 2019 energy code for emergency centers and they may be working with a common understanding. Council would have discretion to create that definition in its adoption of a Reach Code or a relevant exception for 2022.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they don’t need to belabor the point, but she wants them to understand that our facilities in Pacifica are old. They are talking about new construction, but the fact is that we live with very old public infrastructure and have to consider these issues.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
Councilmember O’Neill referred to the charging stations and asked if it was a universal charger City Council Special Meeting 5 September 27, 2022
head that goes in or like VHS and Beta, which aren’t compatible.
Consultant Vega stated that she didn’t think they got into the specifics of the type of chargers that they are requiring the developer to install but leaving it to the developers’ discretion as to what kind of cars they expect will charge at their building. She stated that, in their recommendations, they mostly require EV readiness for single family, they do quite a bit for multi-family and some for non-residents. She stated that, in requiring a full EV charging station, they do require some of that in multi-family to extend beyond what the state code is requiring as the state is going to require some level of EV charging stations installed in the next code cycle.
She stated that she didn’t have a good answer yet.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that they don’t have a specific requirement and when it’s an EV ready circuit, it means the outlet is there and they can buy EV charging stations that plug into that outlet from multiple manufacturers. Neither the energy code nor the model code specifies the type, but it would always be their recommendation to use the universal charger which is typically what they see developers install if they install a charging station. He stated that Tesla is the main proprietary charger, but they do accept the universal standard plug type CCS. He stated that is their general recommendation, but they don’t list the plug type that has to be used within the code.
Councilmember O’Neill clarified if there was some way that they are compatible, you carry your cord, plug it in the station that fits your car, and confirmed that his question was answered.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
Councilmember O’Neill asked who is the “we” who are recommending.
Consultant Vega stated that, when she says we in this context, she is talking about the Reach Code team, i.e., Peninsula Clean Energy, and all the CCAs represented on the slide, East Bay, Silicon Valley, etc., as the team that is putting these recommendations together.
Planning Director Murdock stated that it doesn’t at this point in time reflect city staff’s recommendation. This is information for Council to decide at some point what the city’s position ought to be on these particular issues.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated, if they have the level 1, EV 2, EV ready circuits, how simple or complex is it to upgrade to a level 3 if one were to want to.
PCE member Herrschaft stated upgrading to level 3 would likely be very difficult for a singlefamily home and would require a service upgrade to your house. A level 3 charging station is typically 50 kw. The peak a house will draw in a given year is maybe 10 kw if it has an EV charger. A typical house that provides a 200 amp service to the house would not fit a level 3 charger on it. He stated that level 3 is very rarely used in a residential application.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation.
Councilmember Vaterlaus asked her to define multi-family, such as two or five units.
Consultant Vega stated that she didn’t have the definition.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that the previous slide showed single-family homes and City Council Special Meeting 6 September 27, 2022
family townhomes. She was thinking that they mean everything that is not single-family homes and two-family townhomes.
Consultant Vega was trying to remember if a four-plex would be, but she can’t remember what category it falls into.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that he will pull it up.
Councilmember O’Neill asked, in the meantime, if they would define “ready and capable.” He stated that “ready” means they are capable of doing and “capable” means it’s ready to do it. He asked what the difference is.
Consultant Vega stated that EV capable level of infrastructure includes the conduit or the raceway and reserved space in the panel. It doesn’t require a breaker, or the actual circuit to be installed. EV ready space does - so an EV ready space has the addition of having the conduit installed and also has a circuit installed with a breaker and a receptacle for the charger that can be plugged in at a future time.
Councilmember O’Neill got the slide and now he understands it with the picture.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that Consultant Vega’s words helped because what she wrote down is that Consultant Vega stated that there was no need to tear into a wall at EV capable.
Consultant Vega stated that is the case with EV ready as well. She thinks that is the greatest motivator to install at least EV capable spaces. Even if you’re not installing the circuit, you’re not putting in the breaker yet; you at least are going to save a future homeowner or future property owner money because they’re not going to have to tear into any walls by running the raceways.
Councilmember O’Neill asked if she had any data on how much it would cost to make something capable, to make it ready. He asked if you are adding a couple of feet of conduit and a plug, and then you need to add a circuit breaker, how much you are talking about and why not just make it ready right away.
Consultant Vega stated that they don’t recommend any EV capable. The state does have the minimum requirement as to have EV capable spaces, but the Reach Code team is recommending exactly what he stated. She stated that it isn’t going to cost that much more to run the wires and install the receptacle - you might as well just do it.
PCE member Herrschaft added that while you have the electrician there and he stated he now has the definition on the question. He stated when they are talking multi-family, they are saying buildings that are bigger than the following: One- and two-family dwelling units and townhouses with private garages. It isn’t just the number of units touching each other but whether there is a private garage attached to that townhome. In that case, they are saying the single-family requirement applies and every garage will get a 240-volt outlet and for multi-family there would be anything larger than that, i.e., an apartment where you walk to a parking space outdoors.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated attached garage is a big thing here as our townhouses have detached garages.
City Council Special Meeting 7 September 27, 2022
Councilmember O’Neill stated that they have townhouses that have a private car port and he asked what their definition of a garage, or does each car port need the plug.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that it is up to each city but they have written private garages to also mean detached private garages. His mother had a townhouse like that so he knows the type of setup Council is talking about. When they are talking about car ports, it depends on the size and the scale, whether they want to require all those 240-volt chargers, and how many units are they talking about in such a development.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that he is thinking of Creekside, where there must be at least 30 or 40 units there.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated there are way more, maybe 130.
Councilmember O’Neill then states that you have 130 townhouses that are clustered and they all go outside and walk to a car port which is assigned to their unit. There is basically just a roof over it with no walls on any side. He then asked who pays for that and the retrofit and the monthly electric bill.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that they are talking about new construction.
Councilmember O’Neill stated he is curious about the car port because that is not a garage.
Planning Director Murdock stated that these are very important questions and he thinks the answer ends up being what Council thinks is appropriate. He stated that what Ms. Vega and Mr. Herrschaft are talking about is a recommended model ordinance that the Bay Area Reach Code team has put together. If it fits, great, and if there is something Council doesn’t like or wants to modify, that is the type of feedback they can get into at this meeting and certainly during the course of any hearing to consider adoption of these requirements.
Mayor Bier thought it was going to be very important for them to really understand what it means for Pacifica, what is it going to look like for our residents, because every city is different.
She stated that, when watching the slides, she was also trying to understand how it would pan out in Pacifica.
Consultant Vega stated that she is thinking about a new townhome development, which is going to have dedicated parking spot for each dwelling unit. She thought it seems to align more with the multi-family definition because in that situation it might not be cost-effective at the time of construction to require a charging station at every single parking stall. She stated that the way they are describing it to her seems like the multi-family recommendation might fit best and she will introduce another term. She stated that they encourage automatic load management and that would mean that a charger could potentially provide charging for 2-4 parking stalls at once and there is a lot of software out there that communicate with the cars to determine what is the appropriate level of charging for the cars and the appropriate level of sharing. That is a strategy to keep construction costs low while providing a suitable level of charging for residents.
Planning Director Murdock stated that Council knows that, as these types of questions come up, he is taking notes about the various motives Council thinks of so they can determine how best to address these various points depending on how Council wants to move forward.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that load management to him means that something like PG&E City Council Special Meeting 8 September 27, 2022
has premium pricing if you use electricity from 4-9. He asked if there was a program or methodology that it doesn’t start charging cars until 9:15 but will people get a full enough charge to get to Sacramento if necessary.
Consultant Vega thinks, regarding those questions, if a developer wants to pursue automatic load management, it will be one of those questions at the design stage to look at different options.
Councilmember O’Neill asked if PCE would not want everyone charging at 7 pm because they must have some sort of load management and high energy usage time that they would rather have it at 2 am. He would think they would be thinking about load management for their whole system.
Planning Director Murdock thought he was raising a number of important points about EV charging overall. It is not likely that a Reach Code that City Council will consider will get to that level of refinement in terms of operation of individual charger and time of day usage. He stated that there are charging units and certainly EV vehicles that you can indicate the time of desired charging, such as to manage a particular home’s electrical usage or achieve the most costeffective charging time. Individual operators will have the ability to control their charging, but other dimension of load management that Ms. Vega is talking about is making the most efficient use of a single charger to charge multiple vehicles. He thought the old-fashioned conventional way would be split 50-50 (the power going to two vehicles that are plugged in at the same time) and that may or may not be the most efficient method to charge the vehicle. Mr. Herrschaft may be able to explain further, but he thought there were more efficient ways or alternative ways to split that power. They are essentially charging two vehicles with only one set of infrastructure for a particular charger.
PCE member Herrschaft stated, in this case, automated management means it’s a way to get more charging ports out of less electrical infrastructure, and there is a balance happening. He stated the preference would be a charging station already installed at every single parking space and what you are seeing on the slide with 2019 Calgreen is that costs too much electrical infrastructure and the charging stations are incentives so let’s make some parking spaces level to EV capable. He stated that their model code is trying to be a balance by using technology and different levels of charging to minimize the impact on the cost of site electrical infrastructure while providing charging access to every resident on the day that it is built. He stated that Planning Director Murdock was correct that with every vehicle you can set when it charges. He stated as it is clean energy, you would set it to start charging at midnight as long as you didn’t have a long drive the next day and your battery is pretty full. He stated that they would like to get more involved in automotive charging, but first and foremost, it is important that people’s cars have the fuel in them that they need to go where they are going the next day. He stated that it is a sticky situation.
Consultant Vega continued the presentation, and Planning Director Murdock completed the presentation.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated she had a lot of questions but would wait until after public comment.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they did have some written public comments before the meeting and they distributed to Council and posted on the city’s website.
City Council Special Meeting 9 September 27, 2022
City Clerk Coffey introduced the speakers.
Dashiell Leeds, stated he is the conservation organizer for the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter. They were pleased that staff was recommending electric Reach Codes for construction and they agree with that, expressing his thoughts on the issue.
Remi Tan, Pacifica, stated that he was glad that the city was looking at the Reach Codes and expressed his thoughts on what was discussed and added more thoughts on further things to be included.
Bruce Naegle, Pacifica, appreciated Council’s enthusiasm on what is needed for the future and agreed with the comments of the previous speakers and shared his thoughts on this important issue.
Margo Meiman, Pacifica, thanked Council for taking up the issue on Reach codes and shared her thoughts on this major factor in climate change and encouraged Council to approve all staff’s recommendations.
Diane Bailey, Silicon Valley, stated she is with the campaign for fossil free buildings in Silicon and shared her thoughts on this issue, and that she agreed with all staff’s recommendations and encouraged other actions as well.
Christine Boles, Pacifica, thanked Council for bringing up this important issue, agreed with the previous speakers, and urged Council to approve all staff’s recommendations shared her thoughts on the need to do all we can to reduce emissions immediately.
John Keener, Pacifica, stated he agreed with the previous speakers who urged Council to answer all questions affirmatively and shared his thoughts on moving on to the next step in an expeditious manner.
Dr. Robert Gould, San Francisco, stated he was the president of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility and wanted to provide the help of his organization which represents hundreds of health professionals throughout the Bay Area in support of Reach Codes to deal with our climate emergency.
Mayor Bier closed public comments.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck wanted to circle back to the question about water use and ask experts if now was the time to factor this into the conversation or will it be outside the scope of the Reach Code conversation they are having.
PCE member Herrschaft stated they are not a water utility. They focus mainly on the carbon emissions side of it, but Portola Valley is including grey water ready language in their proposed Reach Code, which will also include some existing building measures and it will come to their City Council on October 12. He stated he can forward that language to staff if they direct staff to include grey water.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck would like to see what that looks like and, if possible, include it.
Planning Director Murdock stated he will make a note.
City Council Special Meeting 10 September 27, 2022
Councilmember Vaterlaus asked if PG&E has been contacted to determine if they have the capacity to supply the electricity to everyone. They talked about emergency centers, and in an emergency, all these electric houses would have no power. She stated that people indicated that there were only 23 new housing units built in the last five years, but she thought it was more than that. She referred to the question of carbon emissions from houses. She looked at the EPA and they say all buildings together have a 16% carbon emission and a letter they got today said 35% and a speaker said 25%. She stated that she was in a meeting several weeks ago where they said housing itself is 6%. She asked what it is.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he doesn’t have an answer to the third question and possibly Ms. Vega or Mr. Herrschaft can address that. Regarding PG&E, they were among the key stakeholders staff will need to engage depending on Council’s guidance and the availability of electrical infrastructure and capacity is a relevant consideration before adopting this. It will require time and staff resources to engage and they haven’t undertaken that without knowing Council’s direction. Regarding number of housing units per year, the staff report cites an average of 23 units per year constructed between 2015 and 2021, not a total of 23 units.
Consultant Vega asked if he wanted her to chime in on the PG&E question.
Planning Director Murdock stated yes if she was prepared.
Consultant Vega stated that she had a couple of slides. She stated that grid reliability is an important concern. Some important things to note, to put it into context, is that, when they talk about capacity, they are talking about cooling loads in the summer (when our summer peaks).
That is primarily driven by temperature and climate change, and they will continue to see those peaks as our climate continues to warm up. She stated that she found an article in the LA Times that we increased our utility skill battery storage capacity by 27 times the past year and during the last heat wave it prevented some rolling blackouts. She stated that battery storage and solar is going to be part of grid reliability and hopefully with the elimination of state gas subsidies that can free up some funds for additional grid hardening efforts.
Mayor Bier asked if anyone had a response to carbon emissions from buildings.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that he has done climate action planning for a lot of cities in the county in his previous job and he has a good idea on that. He stated that there are a lot of assumptions made in a climate action plan that can change the numbers slightly. He thought what they might be seeing in the difference in those numbers is a difference in the boundary condition. He stated that homes in the United States where 25% of them are all-electric is going to have a different emissions profile percentage than the homes in all of San Mateo County where buildings represent 30% of carbon emission. He doesn’t have Pacifica’s numbers in front of him but he thought he could find them and send them to them; Pacifica will be a different number depending on if there is a landfill in the territory, which the County has but he didn’t know if Pacifica has a land fill. He said that, nationwide, they have airplanes and a lot of things that aren’t included in local government inventories and that is a big difference in the numbers.
Mayor Bier thought that information would be great to have.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated he wanted to respond to one of Councilmember Vaterlaus’ points, i.e., one of the code options available to them is for new buildings making them at least ready to have battery backup, if not requiring certain ones to have the batteries installed, and he thought, when we were having the outages a couple of years ago, it seemed that a lot of people City Council Special Meeting 11 September 27, 2022
were investing in gas generators so, should it happen again, they are ready with their gas generator and he thought it was equivalent to battery backup and he didn’t know if the battery backup is going to be as reliable or not, but he thought what they are requiring of new construction is to get people ready to have that battery backup so, instead of throwing more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere because of the gas generators they’re buying and that is one of the Reach codes we adopt and that might satisfy at least part, if not all the concern she was raising on that point.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wanted to circle back to the issue of grid impact. Even though Pacifica has cooler weather in the summer, she didn’t understand about the grid and how it works in terms of possible outages that affect our residents due to high temperatures in other places. She stated that, while we have cooler weather, we may be having the cool weather but also no power. She wanted to hear more about that, if anyone has any information or add that to Planning Director Murdock’s list.
PCE member Herrschaft stated he wanted to add about the PG&E question in general, as they are primarily talking about new construction at this meeting. They do have a support letter from PG&E that says they can handle the increased load of all electric new construction, which is only a portion of buildings they are talking about. He stated that, regarding the cold weather impacts, a better grid is going to be important as they move forward. PCE does not manage the grid, but they work with PG&E and the transmission distribution authority. He stated that, during the peak events, one thing that is nice about electrification, both on the vehicle and the hot water heater side, is that they are starting to build grid responsiveness into the items so they can call on them to pause when there is a flex in that as happened previously. He knows that PCE also called around the cities to see if there were ways they could help produce loaded city buildings. He stated that the local distribution network if the next town over starts using a lot of air conditioning, that creates bottlenecks in some parts of the system and they were seeing in the flex event was including a statewide bottleneck and constraint on generation. He stated that electrification, as they put in the technologies that can be responsive to the grid should be able to help with those issues going forward and it is something they think about a lot and will continue to.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that she doesn’t have a problem with the new construction.
She 100% does not want to get into existing because she has gone to a lot of meetings about it and listened to the entire eight hours of Half Moon Bay talking about it. She stated that it was an interesting meeting but it is funny to her that, when they have the grid outages, they say don’t charge your electric car and that means people are stuck. She stated that it didn’t seem like it should happen. She stated that, if PG&E runs out of clean energy, they still have to provide energy so where does the energy come from.
Mayor Bier thought that was a good question that a lot of our community members have as well.
She didn’t know if there were any responses to the EV charging stations and the backup batteries for those and how that could work.
PCE Herrschaft stated that he would agree with her that, on the electrical vehicle side, in the case of an emergency, he would tend to want to keep his tank full and there is an important ability to escape in an emergency. He stated that one thing he didn’t know on the power outage side is that a gas furnace doesn’t work during a power outage because it has an electric fan and depending on the furnace. He stated that the gas fireplace would work, but most central furnaces with fans do not. He stated that instantaneous gas water heaters often have electric sensors and will often not work in a power outage and, since these are the appliances they are City Council Special Meeting 12 September 27, 2022
thinking about, he wanted them to be aware of that.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck recalled that his water heater gives him hot water during a power outage. He stated that these are important questions they will have to grapple with as our overarching infrastructure becomes modernized, not by tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take as large a step as we can in that direction, appreciating that they have to account for the realities as exist. He thanked Margo Meiman for reaching out to him and helping with his understanding. He has been buddying with Councilmember Beckmeyer on this topic and he knows she might have some more feedback. He stated that, with existing building codes, he agrees that now is probably not the ideal time to have the conversation but he is interested in having the conversation. He loves staff’s notion that, during goal setting is the time they put it on the work plan as he thinks it will take substantial staff resources to sort out the large number of options we will have so we can have a conversation that doesn’t evolve into a lot of concern from our community but give is so many options that we will be able to choose those that are easier and find something that looks like middle ground. He favors having staff bring that up during goal setting regarding existing. He just didn’t think we have the resources now.
Planning Director Murdock agreed that it is a focused intensive effort and that is why staff’s recommendation is to consider it as part of the goal setting process among all the various priorities for city resources and staff time. He stated, if acceptable to the mayor, it sounds like the questions have somewhat tapered off in the deliberations and Council’s direction is somewhat beginning and he would like to put the four questions on the screen to hopefully guide them through in a structured manner to ensure that staff gets input on all the questions they have.
Mayor Bier thought that would be great.
Councilmember Beckmeyer agreed with Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck and she thanked Margo Meiman in advance as she was sure the conversations will be ongoing. She would favor working on some kind of educational informational process, outreach, articles, and there will be a mix, and she thinks we need to have the community understand what the issues are well in advance of Council deliberation and discussion on adopting codes regarding existing and that may be, in hindsight, from the point of view of decision makers in Half Moon Bay, as something they would have benefitted from and she would like to learn from that experience.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he knows that San Mateo also recently passed some existing construction Reach Codes between now and whenever we have our discussion he would love to see where they are. They may not get very far in implementation, but he would love to track where they are and what the community response was and if their model might not be appropriate for what they wind up looking at.
Mayor Bier stated she would also like to thank Margo Meiman for meeting with her and helping her understand and showing them examples of what they can be looking at now. She stated that they can begin with question No. 1.
Planning Director Murdock asked if staff should prepare the existing Reach Code for readoption where they have not been superseded by 2022 California building code requirements.
Councilmember O’Neill thought so.
Mayor Bier stated that they have consensus there.
City Council Special Meeting 13 September 27, 2022
Planning Director Murdock stated that was an easy one and the starter question.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that, for clarification, he was along with everyone else but he thought that doesn’t preclude them going after models and adding on. He asked if he is correct.
Planning Director Murdock stated, if he understands the question, he thought that may get into questions 2 and 3, going beyond what the prior Reach codes were. He stated, per question 2, should staff modify any of the 2019 Reach codes. He thought most likely that focuses on questions related to the exceptions. He stated that they can go back to the exception slides if that would be a good time to do that now. He stated that a lot of discussion came up from our colleagues at PCE and TRC about their opinions on the appropriateness of exceptions and the impacts of those exceptions. He thought their opinions in many cases the exceptions probably aren’t necessary and maybe don’t advance the overall desire to electrify buildings.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if he can refresh her memory if the codes adopted in 2019 required electric ready, such as under residential buildings may include a non-electric cooking appliances and fireplaces, and she asked if that means that they have to have electric ready.
She asked if that had that included.
Planning Director Murdock stated she was correct. He stated that the exception to that prewiring was for restaurants and the other types of uses are required to pre-wire, for example a single-family residence, new construction, all-electric building requirements, follow the exception for cooking appliances and fireplaces also need to prewire the space where those gas-powered appliances are installed.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked, if it was possible and not arduous to determine, with these exceptions in place back in 2019, how many of the new buildings that were constructed opted for these options, and she asked if it was a hard thing to determine that.
Planning Director Murdock responded that it was not as staff already did that work. He didn’t have specific numbers but has qualitative descriptions and that is what he asked for. He stated an enactment of the 2019 Reach Codes are not in any particular order, but he will try the systematize it a little bit. He stated they can start with multi-family residential. He stated that there was one main project of 24 units, and it has both gas and electric and it did utilize the exceptions allowable for cooking and fireplaces. He then referred to mixed use which is allelectric, multi-family residential ADUs, 42 of those at the Villages at Pacifica that were permitted, and were all electric. He stated that there are three categories of ADUs, detached, attached and conversion of existing space. For detached ADUs, most are all-electric. For attached ADUs ,which is basically an addition to an existing home, most used is the exception to allow gas and for conversion of existing space, most use the exception to allow gas. For new single-family residents is most use of the exception. He stated that there was one category that was plain commercial and all electric in the examples that are cited and there was a commercial example as mentioned was mixed use, also electric without exceptions.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked if he cited the example of commercial uses.
Planning Director Murdock stated he did, adding that there wasn’t a lot, but the examples that staff found was that they were electric.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked if the commercial uses were restaurants or not.
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Planning Director Murdock stated that he doesn’t have that information.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked because he was okay with getting rid of the exception for the residential buildings that may include non-electric cooking appliances and fireplaces and he was okay with getting rid of the exemption for the ADUs. He stated that his question still stands about the public agencies do not operate emergency centers as he feels like that is a conversation and he wasn’t sure how he feels about it now for the reasons stated earlier.
Planning Director Murdock asked if he would allow him to share a couple of observations on that topic and he can mull it over and figure out if there are more questions. He thought one approach to that is to say that they want their emergency operation centers to be able to operate in a variety of conditions, have gas, make sure that, if the power goes out, service is provided. As they are thinking about that in the context of new building construction, keep in mind that over the long term, many people are forecasting that the gas network will be shut off and that may have a counterproductive outcome for the resiliency of those facilities. If they think about the long term for any emergency center in Pacifica to construct, it is likely to be there for 50, 75, or 100 years, given our track record of finances and ability to replace facilities. He stated that they may want to think of other alternative resiliency options such as generators, whether diesel or battery backup systems that might actually somewhat counter-intuitively provide greater resilience than a gas fall back.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thanked him as it made that decision a lot easier for him. He is still mulling over the idea of commercial kitchen appliances. When he last spoke with his advocate, to the best of his ability, for stronger Reach Codes, the nomenclature he can recall best to draw was commercial kitchens may be approved for combustion equipment and that leaves the question in his mind that it might not be a bad thing. He also is wondering how businesses are dealing with it and do they know of recent businesses that have been putting electric kitchens in instead of commercial businesses. He asked if they have data of whether or not recently restaurants are putting electric kitchens in.
Planning Director Murdock thought that is something he will need to drill down further, trying to get information for the study session across all the building categories, commercials lumped into a single category. Before Council moves forward with adoption of any of these, he can get that break out since the 2019 Reach code adoption and what types of commercial uses were they and were they all electric. His guess is, based on the data he has, they have been all electric, given the summation for commercial and mixed use which was electric without triggering exceptions and we will want to be certain of that to give them that comfort.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he was inclined in that direction, but he would love to have that data and he also has time to circle back to his advocate and ensure his understanding is correct before he has a strong feeling one way or the other. He then asked if there is any discussion in any of this about no existing electrified buildings being converted to a mixed fuel building.
Planning Director Murdock stated that was a level of specificity they didn’t tee up for Council as this time, but it was a relative consideration. If there is Council direction on that, it falls within the more general provisions rather than specific requirements. They can study that further and make a recommendation if Council wants to move forward.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that was his predilection and he will leave it to Council to decide.
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Mayor Bier stated that would fall under the third question.
Planning Director Murdock felt like questions 2 and 3 blend together a little bit. He stated that, if they want, he can bring the question slide back up.
Mayor Bier stated that it was important for her to see the slide now before he does that. She stated she is very comfortable with getting rid of all the exceptions except for the operated emergency center.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that she would need to talk with some restaurants first about the actual cooking without gas because she thinks that is huge, the flat tops, as she thought most restaurants have gas and, before they went into that one, she would like to talk to some restaurant owners regarding that. She knows they have new induction cooking which is electric and they are supposed to be great, but she keeps thinking about the cost but if they are building new, the cost factors aren’t as high. She stated that trying to switch over after you have something is very high.
Mayor Bier agreed, and that is why she was comfortable with the new construction. She appreciated that, and if there is any other information that they can get from our experts about the electric combustion or induction cooking.
Consultant Vega was going to respond to the question about all-electric restaurants. She stated that the poster child now is the French Laundry in Napa. She stated that every cuisine type is different and, as of now, it is anecdotal as there are different types of cooking needs and we are constantly looking for other examples to add to our list.
Councilmember O’Neill stated he was okay to eliminate the exception for the ADUs in residential buildings, non-electric cooking applies as in fireplaces, and he thinks the public agency owned and operated emergency centers. He was more comfortable that they have gas access to use for a generator but when we replace the buildings, he is okay with a battery or something like that. He imagined that the battery technology is going to get better and better and at some point, when they get around to replacing the buildings, the batteries will be there.
He stated that he does believe schools are considered emergency centers as when they remodeled the schools, they have to through the department of state architecture because they are considered evacuation centers. If we put a mandate to the school districts, you have to have battery power and that is an unfunded mandate on our part to the school districts, and both of them are funded lowest in the county or second lowest in the county, he didn’t think it was fair for Council to do.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that her question earlier was along the same lines.
Councilmember O’Neill thinks they have gas now or boilers. He would think owned and operated emergency centers, schools, community center and police department as is and then if they find battery technology that is cheap or solar power can be put on them, he wants to be sure they can run a generator for our citizens in an emergency.
Planning Director Murdock was thinking about the structure of the questions and focusing first on new buildings, and if he understood his feedback correctly, he is open to eliminating the exception for new emergency operation centers that are constructed to require them not to have gas and to have some other form of backup such as a diesel generator or battery-backed and City Council Special Meeting 16 September 27, 2022
he asked if that was correct.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that he was correct as he agrees with him that, at some point, they are probably going to shut off the gas valve and we might as well build a new building to the new reality.
Planning Director Murdock thought Mr. Rider or Asst. City Attorney Bazzano can confirm his statement but, to the extent of alterations to existing school buildings, those would not be subject to the Pacifica’s building permit review and, as a result, he thinks the base of 2022 California building code would apply to those facilities. If a non-school use was proposed, it may be subject to the city’s permitting authority without being a new building and would be subject to the new building requirements approved by Council.
Councilmember O’Neill admits he is mixed on the restaurants because even San Francisco put an exemption in for gas for their restaurants in their Reach Codes.
Mayor Bier stated that she is okay with all these exemptions listed for new construction. She will take back what she said before about public agency owned.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wanted to make sure they are considering the private schools which are the two parochial schools.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that they are Pacific Bay and Good Shepherd.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they also have the Montessori and also the faith-based community buildings. Typical for Pacifica, those are older construction - are those even potentially included in that category of shelter or the emergency shelter category? Councilmember O’Neill stated that it says public agency owned and those are all private.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wonders how they function, and she didn’t want to put them in a bind because they aren’t public agencies.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they would be subject to Pacifica’s building code requirements. He stated that the question is do you carve out an exception for new buildings for those types of uses or do they conduct this detailed discussion as part of an existing buildings Reach Code discussion. He thought those were the two paths to consider for those types of uses.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thought they go under the same category: New construction is new construction and would have certain requirements but the existing buildings is a different animal.
Planning Director Murdock agreed.
Mayor Bier stated that he is getting a lot of information from their future conversations.
Planning Director Murdock thought Council was reflecting the fact that it is a very complicated discussion as there are many what ifs and hypotheticals to consider and tradeoffs to be made.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that is what she is going to talk about. If you are building a new ADU, and you have enough electricity in your main to handle the ADU with gas heat but City Council Special Meeting 17 September 27, 2022
when you have to put in a heat pump and all electric, are you going to have to redo your whole panel and do all of your electricity again, does that mean you may not build the ADU because of that as they would have had the buildings before and we may not if they are required to be all electric. She stated that was another thought and consideration.
Planning Director Murdock stated that her point is well taken about if the gas service has capacity it may be a cost effective option to extend it, particularly for an addition or a conversion of existing space. He offered, and others can supplement, is that they are already going to have an electrician there to run a number of new circuits for all of the domestic electric needs of the new ADU. When you think about that, it is probably not a great incremental cost to also run the circuits necessary for electrification of heat pump for heating or for water heating or other electrification uses.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that except if you have to get a totally new electrical service, which she did at her house and was very expensive, and she has been hearing lately that people won’t put in new electrical services with knob-and-tube. Most of the houses have knoband-tube wiring. She just heard it a couple of times that they don’t want to upgrade the electrical service with knob-and-tube as they don’t think that is safe so then you have another huge issue.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he is not aware of those issues about the knob-and-tube wiring and it is something they can look into before bringing back the codes for further consideration. He thought it was possible, and in many cases it will happen already that a service panel upgrade will be required to account for an ADU, given the number of dedicated circuits that would be required within that unit. Again, he thinks in most cases, they will end up in the same place. Do you add an extra circuit and run a cable for the heating and water heating or do you do that through gas if capacity exists and that is what he thinks is the crux of the question in his mind.
Mayor Bier stated that they can always say they’re deemed or except when it is deemed infeasible. She thought they could add that.
Planning Director Murdock stated that the infeasibility is going to be an umbrella consideration in all scenarios as there are instances where an unforeseen technical issue will prevent accomplishing the electrification. PG&E may not be able to provide the service when they get to a very site-specific level. Certainly, infeasibility will be there in the background in all these areas.
Mayor Bier asked if that will include hardship.
Planning Director Murdock thought hardship would be a different conversation if they are talking about financial hardship or timed delay hardship. Those are different factors than infeasibility, as infeasibility is an absolute circumstance, and hardship is something else that Council will need to consider.
Mayor Bier asked about further information.
Planning Director Murdock asked what type of hardship, as there are various types of delays that can occur during construction. It is hard to know if that is actually a hardship or just commonplace for construction - financial infeasibility or hardship.
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Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if she is thinking income or talking about means-based hardship.
Mayor Bier responded affirmatively.
Councilmember Beckmeyer was thinking along the lines of instances where people have inherited assets and may not have current assets themselves and they are like the house rich notion that you have this property but the fiscal ability in terms of income and means is creating a hardship. She assumed it was a pretty narrow band of people but she wasn’t sure.
Councilmember Vaterlaus thought an existing construction hardship is a huge deal, not so much in new construction in her mind.
Councilmember Beckmeyer agreed with her, and that is what she is thinking. She appreciated everyone continuously reminding her.
Mayor Bier stated that everyone is popping up now.
City Manager Woodhouse stated he was going to ask that same question as it seems that, with new construction, someone who is building a new ADU or a new facility is not going to fall into the hardship category financially.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thought he was right. She added, in terms of the points Councilmember Vaterlaus was making about knob-and-tube, etc., is she is going to guess that there are certain areas in the town where they’re going to see, based on the historical nature of when houses were built and what the style and infrastructure would have been in those homes.
She stated that, in her neighborhood, they know approximately when they were all permitted and the way in which the construction was being done at that time but in areas like in Vallemar and Sharp Park, they are probably going to see a wider variety so that may be where that exception issue will come into play more frequently.
Mayor Bier asked if he has enough for Number 2 and perhaps Number 3.
Planning Director Murdock thought so, but he asked that he get back to the questions to make sure they have covered all the categories. He received a lot of feedback on question 4, but they could maybe see if there are other dimensions to that which Council wants to discuss.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that he would like to look at the grey water issue. He thought they should consider putting that not on the reach codes but something to study because he didn’t know if staff could come up with all the options there might be if this has to be adopted by January 2023.
Planning Director Murdock stated possibly not all the options. He stated that PCE member Herrschaft has identified a starting point for them to look at, with Portola Valley, and they can see if that might provide a relative range of options for Council without significant time delay.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that he was open to having that as part of the Reach codes providing they see them and they look doable and he was more than willing to put the water into the Reach codes. He thinks that they should consider think about that at a minimum, and he thought the pipe was purple if it is recycled water and he thinks they should have the two pipes so that, at some point if they ever build the infrastructure to have grey water or recycled water to City Council Special Meeting 19 September 27, 2022
go through. He asked if he followed what he means. He stated that we have a water treatment plant, water in Sharp Park Golf Course and there is a separate pipeline for that. He stated that, if they ever get to that point, maybe it would be nice to allow new construction to tap into that.
Planning Director Murdock understood, and he stated that was a separate set of issues, particularly with respect to permitting considerations through the regional water board and with respect to access to recycled water and that is its own basket of considerations and not likely to affect a lot of properties in the near future, given the limited infrastructure for that. He stated that grey water options are available for potentially every home depending on the circumstances. He stated that they can consider that. He stated that, as he looks at the questions, he feels that they got a lot of feedback on Number 2 with respect to the exceptions in the 2019 Reach codes. There are other options for new construction, for instance the electric vehicle parking and charger requirements that they probably need to spend a moment on to see where Council may want to go with those. He stated that it may be best if Ms. Vega wants to bring up the slides and discuss those options to guide the Council through them. He will give her a minute to prepare for that and he will go back to his summation of some of the additional 2022 Reach code options for Council at a high level. He thought it basically gets into the EV parking requirements.
Consultant Vega asked him to remind her if the direction of Item 2 or having moved on.
Planning Director Murdock stated that it is for question Number 3 and additional Reach code options for new buildings for the 2022 code update.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that the higher is capable.
Consultant Vega stated that the higher is ready.
Councilmember O’Neill acknowledged that the higher is ready.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he was going to say he favors the model codes that were presented and he wanted to start there.
Mayor Bier agreed.
Councilmember Vaterlaus asked if there were exceptions because her house doesn’t have a two-car space so she couldn’t put two.
Consultant Vega stated that, if it is just a one-car space, they would recommend just a level 2 EV circuit.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that it says two.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that they can harken back to where feasible nomenclature is strewn throughout.
Planning Director Murdock thought it was important to think of this through the new construction lens at this point in time. In many cases, if not all cases, new single-family residences will have a two-car garage under the city’s zoning regulations so the space ought to be available. In the multi-family context, that is where they may get into situations where a one-car garage is allowed or perhaps in some cases no garage at all and that may be fork in the road of the City Council Special Meeting 20 September 27, 2022
discussion when they get to the multi-family context.
Councilmember Vaterlaus thought that the last new construction house that they approved on Santa Rosa or Salada has no parking garage at all. She asked if they will have to put in the two EV chargers in that new construction.
Planning Director Murdock doesn’t know the complete answer to that but his inclination, and would value the input from Ms. Vega and Mr. Herrschaft, is that the garage doesn’t appear to be the requirement and it seems to be the number of spaces.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that the garage is not the requirement so they can take a singlefamily home and ignore the townhouse special case with the detached garage. For a singlefamily home with an attached garage, with one car and no other parking space, they have it written in there that, if a second parking space is provided, it shall be provided with a level 1 EV ready space. He read that one parking space provided shall be a level 2 EV ready space. If a second parking space is provided, it shall be provided with a level 1 EV ready space. He stated that surface parking is a driveway and would get an EV ready outlet and if there were two, there would also be a level 1 EV ready outlet for the second car, whether in or outside a garage.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that he would like to bring up another question, i.e., how many people you know actually use their garage with the EV charger. He stated that most garages are used for storage and he asked if it was possible that it has to be in the driveway as they usually require a driveway. He asked if an extension cord be used for a car charger.
Planning Director Murdock thought the functionality of the outlet in question would be left to the designer for the unit and in many cases he has seen EV chargers installed on the exterior of residences so the cord can reach into the driveway and possibly into the garage if it is used for parking.
PCE Herrschaft stated that, if he had a garage, he would put the outlet near the garage door and that would be the smart place to put it.
Mayor Bier stated that’s where she’s seeing a lot of it in her neighborhood.
Planning Director Murdock asked if it is the Council’s consensus is to support the model code recommendation.
Asst. City Attorney Bazzano stated that she heard a majority as she counted three.
Mayor Bier stated three, four, five.
Planning Director Murdock thought multi-family residential is probably the next discussion and he thinks it gets more complicated. He stated that the 2022 code requirement baseline that will be in place has several different requirements and Ms. Vega can elaborate what the recommendation from the Bay Area Reach code team would be for that.
Consultant Vega stated that she has the multi-family slide and she asked Planning Director Murdock to let her know if he wants her to dive into the details of the different low power and high power option at this time or in general what the Reach Code team recommend and they can dive into the nuances of the code before they come back to Council with the actual ordinance.
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Planning Director Murdock stated that his suggestion is to take it in chunks. He asked if there was an appetite to go beyond the method of the 2022 code which is percent of parking spaces.
He asked if they want to think of it in a different way based on dwelling units with parking spaces. He thought the idea is to provide a more direct correlation with occupants of units to charging station rather than generally percent of parking spaces which may not correlate to the dwelling units themselves and the ability of a particular unit occupant to have access to a charger. He asked if that was a fair assessment of the intent of that.
Consultant Vega responded positively and added that their push for this year is to advocate for 100% access on the multi-family side for EV charging. She stated that they will notice that the whole pie chart is full and, within that pie chart, it could be a mix of EV charging stations and level 2 or level 1 EV ready spaces as well.
Mayor Bier asked if there were exceptions for low income housing development or incentives.
Consultant Vega stated that there are incentives. She stated that affordable housing new construction is eligible for PCE incentives. She asked Mr. Herrschaft if he had those figures with him by any chance.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that he will look them up now.
Consultant Vega stated, as he is looking them up, she is going to stop sharing her screen for a second to switch over to her computer audio before her headset dies.
Planning Director Murdock stated, while they are in this transition point, he stated that it would help to think about whether they support 100% access for multi-family and is that important for supporting the deployment and regular use of electric vehicles and supporting the climate change goals of getting away from internal combustion engine vehicles towards EVs. If they support wider accessibility, perhaps not 100% but perhaps more than the baseline of what the 2022 code is and is there a different point of calibration, such as 60, 80 or 90%. He stated that they note that, even in 30 years, not everyone is going to own an electrical vehicle and it may not be necessary for every space to have access even though that is a laudable goal. He thought those are factors that Council can consider when figuring out where to draw the line on this, recognizing this is for the next three years and then there is another opportunity and another opportunity to ratchet it up, recognizing that once a building is constructed, it is going to be there for decades to come and it is much more expensive after the fact to retrofit it and install the utilities.
Councilmember O’Neill thought this might be an instance where you have it ready or capable of they need to have someone come in and do the rest. He thought the market is going to drive whether or not everyone needs an EVC charger. He stated that, at some point, multi-family housing might be detrimental if they don’t have their own charger. He asked what all the cars that park in the street in San Francisco are going to do. He thinks they should have 100% ready and then percentage capable. He clarified that capable means there is a plug and it goes right in.
Planning Director Murdock stated that capable means the conduit is there but you don’t have the wiring and the circuit and outlet. That is the good. The ready is where you actually run the wire, you have the circuit breaker in the box and you have the plug at the end and that is better and the EV charging station is the best where you actually have the charger installed.
City Council Special Meeting 22 September 27, 2022
Councilmember O’Neill thought you would want 100% capable and a high percentage of ready.
Consultant Vega pointed out that, on January 1, the state is requiring that 5% of multi-family parking spaces have charging stations and there will be at least that minimum.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he saw Mr. Herrschaft’s hand up.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that he has the answer on the incentives if they would like that for the EV charging.
Mayor Bier thought that would be good.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that they have an incentive program called EV Ready to help cover EV charging in multi-family, specifically from multi-family. He stated that applies to existing market rate multi-family and then, for affordable housing, it also applies for new, both new and existing affordable housing which is like a custom incentive that is case by case in the building and the goal is to provide for existing buildings, as much EV charging as you can without requiring a service upgrade from PG&E for affordable to cover the extra cost of the EV charging has because affordable housing often does not see a high uptake of the EV electrical vehicles yet, but they believe they deserve access to an electric vehicle charging as well.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he will start that, again, he favors the model code but, if they were to go with the model code, would he be choosing between the low-power option and the high-power option.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated she was going to ask for that.
Consultant Vega qualified it by saying yes, but they can also customize the options to what the needs are to Pacifica. Some added background is that the difference between the two options here is provide cities with some flexibility. These options have costs associated with them; the high-power option is a little more expensive, but there are also that some people think that level 1 might be obsolete someday and they still want to get jurisdiction for flexibility to prepare for solely level 2. She stated that the answer to his question was yes, but with modifications that are appropriate for Pacifica.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked, if they went with the low power option and how simple or complex is it to, in that future scenario that she just alluded to, upgrade to level 1 EV ready to a level 2 EV ready. He asked if it is simple.
Consultant Vega stated that she didn’t know off the top of her head the details involved in the retrofits but they would be talking about upgrading all those circuits so she imagines there is quite a bit of work there. They were at easy capable space and would it be difficult at the ready level, she thought there was quite a bit of retrofit dollars there. She stated that they can look into those but she doesn’t have that at the top of her head.
PCE member Herrschaft thought it would be difficult to do that. He stated that there is a city, that allows either option depending on what the developer would prefer. As far as level 1, some people really do not like level 1 which is why they provided level 2 option and many people charge on a level 1. He stated that he charged on a level for five years at a beach town and got along just fine as there are a lot of opinions there and that is typically, from experience, how a City Council Special Meeting 23 September 27, 2022
city will tend to select numbers together.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he was almost embarrassed to say that he is not yet an electric vehicle owner but, within that context, when he believes that it is charging at a 3-4 mile for every hour, internally he scoffs a little bit as that seems to him way too low and as somebody who likes to go on long trips occasionally, that makes him very nervous and that’s his sensibility.
He was erring toward the high-power option on the model code. He stated that they had that conversation earlier about those townhomes conceivably have 130 spots and if they were going to do that, would they truly want every one of those 130 spots which to him, as the person who does not have the money to develop that, his idea in that scenario is that maybe they go with the model code high power option up to a certain number of units after which they make the capable but not ready. His opinion for the moment is that they go toward the high-power option on the model code.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that connects at a minimum and she is wondering why it is this way. She stated that it feels like the difference between the low and the high and the variance between those is made even greater by the fact that, with the low, 60% is at level 1 and 40% is at level 2 and she wondered about flipping those. She stated she knew it was incremental, but she agreed with Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck that level 1 is really low and to have the majority of the low-power option B, the lowest category, and when you compare that, and look over to the high-powered option, it seems like the division between those two is so great.
Consultant Vega stated that she was going to emphasize that they can tailor the percentages, for example the 40% level to EV chargers and 60% level 1 EV ready. They were recommending a lower percentage at level 2 - those are the ready to go and install EV charging station, leaving the other 60% for chargers to be installed in the future whereas the high-power option… Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she was getting confused between capable and ready.
Consultant Vega stated that one thing she didn’t point out before and she thinks it is important to point out now is that these two also have a different level of amenities. She stated that the low power option has a higher level of amenities, meaning they are recommending 40% on lowpower options that have EV chargers and in the high-power option, it is a level 2 but that package is a lower amenity because only 15% of the space have chargers.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thanked her for that clarification.
Consultant Vega stated that there is a lot of details and definitions and where they spend most of their time is on the EV charging recommendations.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated, with that clarification, she wants to withdraw what she just said and agree with Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck and is leaning toward the model code.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that in 100% of spots, these Reach codes will be reassessed in three more years, and to her 100% seems excessive but she understands it will be harder to put in the systems later. She just thought it seemed excessive to have 100% at this time when it is going to be a really long time before everyone has electric vehicles, long past when she is alive.
Planning Director Murdock asked Mayor Bier if he can ask a clarification from Ms. Vega and Mr.
Herrschaft to explain again how the application of the percent of loan units works. He thought it City Council Special Meeting 24 September 27, 2022
was easy to understand the percent of parking spaces, but with percent of dwelling units with parking spaces, does this mean each dwelling unit only needs to have one EV component and if it has more than one space for that dwelling unit, that second or third or extra space does not have to have anything and he asked if that is the correct application of the percent of dwelling units with parking spaces.
PCE Herrschaft responded affirmatively. He stated that in a 20-unit apartment where there are 40 spaces, two dedicated spaces for each unit, and ten guest spots and they are talking 50 spaces, but only 20 units so there would only be 20 required. Each dwelling unit has access to one way to charge because if there were two per unit, it would be very expensive.
Planning Director Murdock concluded that the idea was to ensure coverage for all dwelling units but not necessarily all parking spaces.
Consultant Vega agreed.
Planning Director Murdock thought it was an important but confusing distinction. He stated where a percent of parking won’t necessarily ensure that every dwelling unit has access to electric vehicle charging options.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked if that convinced Councilmember Vaterlaus to the other side or is she still wrestling with it.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that it made a huge difference as she is looking at a thing with 100 units and 100 charging stations which she thought was excessive but now she gets it.
Planning Director Murdock stated that it seemed to him a reasonable balance where each household in a dwelling unit can manage its access to a single piece of charging infrastructure where there are chargers installed or they have to add their own charger to a plug that is already installed rather than dictating for them how much of the site is going to have access rather than a household basis.
Councilmember Vaterlaus states she would go for the high power option.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that it was an important distinction and he thanked Planning Director Murdock for helping them navigate that.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he may not have captured Mayor Bier’s preference. He thought there was focus on a clearer desire for her to understand and try to make accommodation for financial incentives for affordable housing, and he asked her to clarify where she is if she has an opinion on this issue.
Mayor Bier stated she desires to have incentives for low-income housing and she thinks she needs more information about that, but she does favor the high power options.
Planning Director Murdock appreciated that. He then stated that it was now a good time to go to the non-residential, i.e., commercial.
Consultant Vega stated that the way they have this structured, and can customize it, is that every city’s commercial building slots look different: Some are retail, some are office space.
They currently have for offices requiring 20% level for EV charging stations with 30% of the City Council Special Meeting 25 September 27, 2022
parking spaces, and they are going back to the parking space definition as now they are dealing with individual residential dwelling units. She stated that 30% of the parking spaces be level to EV capable for offices and other non-resident 10% level 2 charging stations and 10% level 2 EV capable.
Planning Director Murdock asked if some of the thought behind this is that offices have a different dwelling time for those parking at the building for the use whereas if they consider all other very likely in Pacifica to be retail with a lot of people coming and going and a lot of turnover and multiple people can more readily utilize fewer charging spaces. He asked if that is the logic.
Consultant Vega stated that was correct, and she was guilty of admitting she doesn’t have any yet and what she hears is that for people who go into their offices and who have EVs they use their EV chargers at the office and those spaces tend to fill up pretty quickly whereas retail is not as high utilization.
Planning Director Murdock told Ms. Vega or Mr. Herrschaft that he wants to be clear for Council and asked if there is anything in either residential or non-residential EV charging model code requirements that addresses how the electricity is paid for during the charging, such as is there anything that would prevent a property owner from charging commercial visitors from having to pay for the charging for non-residential.
Consultant Vega stated that they don’t get into any business models and they leave that to the discretion of the developer and whoever the future property owner will be.
Planning Director Murdock thought, in both instances, a property owner could provide the amenity and decide to pay for residential or non-residential charging or allow the stations to charge individual users of those for the charging costs.
Consultant Vega responded affirmatively.
Mayor Bier stated that they talk about it in the Economic Development Committee.
Councilmember Vaterlaus was thinking about redid Rockaway and the city owns the parking lot there. She thought, if the city put in chargers in that parking lot, which is a good idea, it would seem that the city would charge people to use that, and that is a mix of offices and commercial in the center and they would have to decide which of those you want to do as it is a mix, but she thought the city would charge which makes sense to her.
Planning Director Murdock stated that it is a policy question as the city could charge to recover costs or it could make them free or low cost to incentivize the use or as an economic development strategy but that decision would have to be made on a facility by facility basis by the city manager.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that, for most public parking lot services, there is a third party provider and a business arrangement between whomever is paying that utility bill and the third party provider where the public costs are covered for providing that electricity and, if I drive an EV, pull into the back of Linda Mar Shopping Center to charge up, I’ve got the account that I am paying for that charging so there is not a cost to the landlord, and in a public parking lot that would be the city.
City Council Special Meeting 26 September 27, 2022
Councilmember O’Neill asked if they would want to have a higher percentage for specific things like a hotel. He stated that the person might be driving with a one-night stay and they want to drive 200 miles the next day, they will need the full time for framing and can they set a higher percentage of EV charging for hotels.
Planning Director Murdock thought that was an interesting concept and something they can consider and see if other communities have addressed it in that fashion, as he doesn’t have any first hand expertise now on that particular issue.
City Manager Woodhouse had a question that Ms. Vega or Mr. Herrschaft might be able to answer, which is kind of a technical and construction one. He stated that they are talking about new construction and, in the multi-family models, the model doesn’t include anything about EV capable. It is either ready or charging station and it would seem to him that, in constructing a new building, there is a very small marginal cost between EV ready and EV capable. If you are putting in charging stations that making other spots EV ready is a very small marginal cost, and he asked if they have any data about that. He stated that there are running stuff for EV charging stations. He stated that another way of asking the question is, for the model code, why is there not any percentage of EV ready.
PCE member Herrschaft stated that, regarding the cost, he doesn’t have the numbers in front of him, but it is highly dependent on the length of the wire run. The extra cost between EV capable and EV ready is basically the wire. He stated that you could argue that the outlet as well, but on an EV capable space, you have to put a cap on that which costs about the same as an outlet and it is really the length of that wire and they have gotten expensive because of Covid, like most things, or inflation. He stated that you could make that ready and the reason they left it as capable is that it is hard to predict the type of retail or office and how much it will be used as different retails see the EV charging stations always filled and some may never be used and that is why they left capable there. He stated that the city could strike capable and make that into ready which he thought was a good point.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck favors the model code and he thought that was a great question form the city manager about making it ready rather than capable and it sparked his follow-up question. He stated, if the developer puts in the capable, might it be incumbent on whomever is pulling a permit for the business itself, and can they add a condition of approval whereby they have to make it ready or install the charging station itself for them to get their permit approved for their business.
Planning Director Murdock thought it was a possibility worth considering and one factor to keep in mind is that the language in a particular lease might limit a business occupant from making improvements beyond the lease space and that could be a complication that presents a practical problem for a particular tenant, i.e., if the landlord wants them to open their restaurant but not go meddling in the parking lot and you would have to prepare for the potential that they may run into feasibility issues and a qualifying exception and there is some complexity there to his thinking.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked if the city attorney wanted to add to that.
Asst. City Attorney Bazzano stated that her recommendation would be that these requirements stay within the building code as these are the standards that are paced against projects and they want all those standards to be kept within the building code rather than imposed as a condition of approval which could get challenged.
City Council Special Meeting 27 September 27, 2022
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he is charmed by the idea of raising the capable to ready status on those model codes if there is Council buy in, but either way he is favoring the model codes.
Mayor Bier is also favoring the model codes and likes the idea of moving it from capable to ready.
Councilmember O’Neill and Councilmember Vaterlaus agreed.
Mayor Bier followed up with Planning Director Murdock.
Planning Director Murdock stated he did, and to put another spin on the question from Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck, this is new construction and the assumptions will need to be made on the use at the time of construction and that burden is on the property owner developing. He stated that the other question falls within the existing building category and there is another chance to think more about it on whether there is a way to heighten the requirement. If they go with what the Council majority seems to want of requiring upgrade from ready to charger under certain circumstances, and they can think about what opportunities may exist in the existing building options depending on the answer to Number 4 which they will move on to momentarily.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated, since they brought up the existing construction codes, it sounds like they will likely be having a discussion about a goal setting and he asked that they factor into the ongoing list that he is writing down the notion that tabletop discussions if and when it is time to start planning. He is listening to the conversation they are having and he imagines that community feedback will be robust and that might be a nice way to start whittling down some of that robust community feedback when the time comes.
Mayor Bier stated they were ready to move on to Number 4.
Planning Director Murdock agreed, and stated that the question of the night largely is if there is interest by City Council to formalize for consideration during the fiscal year 2023-2024 Council goal setting and work plan development process an item that would involve evaluation of existing building Reach code options for City Council to consider, separate and apart from staff’s recommendation, the ongoing effort to update the 2022 California building code that they are obligated to do in the various new building Reach code that they have spent a lot of time talking about at this meeting. He stated that, while it would be very challenging to package it as part of the current process, but the Council does have the option to package that as part of the current process but there are some practicals as well some political considerations with respect to that combination.
Mayor Bier stated her answer is yes.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated her answer is no.
City Manager Woodhouse asked if he can ask a clarifying question on option 4 as he doesn’t have the language in front of him. He asked to understand that the idea is that they are pushing off consideration of making a Reach codes changes for existing construction for Council to bring up the idea of addressing that during goal setting. He wants to understand that there is no work that is going to be done on analyzing existing construction variables and Council can talk about anything they want to talk about in goal setting and decide and adopt a goal for the following City Council Special Meeting 28 September 27, 2022
fiscal year to start analyzing whether there should be Reach codes for existing construction. He wanted to make clear the sequence and timing of that.
Mayor Bier stated that was her understanding.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated, as she reads item 4 as worded, there really isn’t specific statement about the scope but it says development process to study potential adoption of Reach codes that are applicable to existing buildings. She stated that it is not saying what the scope of that might be, as it could be very small or very broad, and that sounds to her, based on the City Manager’s comment, that is within Council’s discretion.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that, as he is reading Number 4, he was trying to get at in clarifying it is that there is nothing for staff to prepare for consideration during goal setting because, although it says prepare an item for consideration, but they know the way goal setting works is you raise an idea which is they want to start looking at Reach codes for existing construction and Council says they want to do that, and the first step in that work plan for that goal for the 2023-24 fiscal year is probably a study session like they are having at this time to talk about the possibilities for existing construction. He felt they wanted to be really clear what they are saying in Number 4.
Councilmember Beckmeyer understood and stated that her answer to that question is yes.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that what is really being said, if all Councilmembers agree, is that Reach codes for existing construction will be on the table for Council to talk about during goal setting as to whether to take that up during the following fiscal year. They are not going to include it in this package of building code and Reach code upgrades to adopt before December.
Mayor Bier responded affirmatively.
Planning Director Murdock imagined the City Manager would expect him to come to the goal setting with a number of considerations identified that would assess the potential level of effort, depending on if it is a small or large level of interest from Council or expansive or minimal interest in existing building Reach codes because they need to understand to use the graphic in the last goal setting as to is it a big ball or little ball that they are fitting in the box and they need to come to the goal setting with staff with some of those considerations so Council can shape the size of that work plan item when prioritizing.
City Manager Woodhouse agreed, adding that, as Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck mentioned, if it is going to involve community roundtable discussions and a lot of education and outreach and multiple community workshops, etc., and it is a big ball.
Planning Director Murdock stated that, if it is just tackling water heater replacements, that is a smaller ball than a major threshold for remodels to be new construction.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that, when he has been having conversations with PCE staff about existing construction Reach codes, he think the example that is used frequently is the heat pumps and how they specifically the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to existing construction in terms of replacing the old one upon its burnout at virtually no additional cost. He favors conversations so there are three of them and he is okay talking with them in real time rather than doing the wait thing if they want to respond.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated he can finish.
City Council Special Meeting 29 September 27, 2022
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck acknowledged that there is an expert available if he is remembering the wrong thing, but that’s his understanding going into it. He is comfortable appending something that is obvious on to the existing Reach codes they are about to do but he thought it would be a better idea to actually sort out what all of their options are instead of just below hanging fruit to see if there is a package they can put together of things that are relatively simple to introduce to the community that are not of a contentious nature or a best case scenario for him is finding middle ground, which is the preferred way to go. He loves to reach for the stars but, if he can find a path of medium, that is his goal. He feels like he will bringing it up at goal setting regardless of whether there is consensus now and he feels that this way it give staff the opportunity, if they have a moment of pleasure time where they are doing nothing else, and look at what a handful of possibilities are that they can throw at Council when goal setting time comes, and consider that it is not the worst idea.
Mayor Bier stated that their community really wants to do it.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he is already hearing that it sounds like a substantial chunk of our community is interested in following up also and that is the reason he will be bringing it up.
Councilmember Vaterlaus asked if it was the community that spoke at this meeting that were not from Pacifica.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that some of those who spoke were from Pacifica and he is saying a substantial chunk but not all of.
Councilmember Vaterlaus thought that was a small chunk and to install a new heat pump is a huge ball because it requires so much work to do even one burnout item. She stated that she has a gas stove and to put in an electric stove, she has to rerun her electric service. She has a new service, but her service may not be able to handle it and she will have to put in a new service and that requires other things and some of the burnouts in the studies have ended up costing $40,000 or $50,000 for one burnout item. She stated that, if you watched Half Moon Bay, it was interesting because some of the people who were totally in favor of the burnout ordinance totally switched in the end and decided that it just wasn’t feasible to do and the equity issue because you want someone who is barely making it and living with 20 people in their house trying to make it and you tell them their stove goes out and they can’t buy a gas stove and it will cost them $40,000 or $50,000, what happens there. She stated that there is a huge amount involved in that.
Mayor Bier thought that is why it is important that they have a discussion.
Councilmember Beckmeyer agreed.
Mayor Bier stated that they have all that information out on the table so everyone can understand it.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thought that is why he thinks, if there is discussion, because having watched what Half Moon Bay did, knowing what San Mateo just did, he thinks we have an opportunity to see what our version looks like. He wants facts in front of him, see what options are and see if they can put together something that takes us one more step or two steps in that direction but not a marathon to see if they can take themselves further on the journey.
City Council Special Meeting 30 September 27, 2022
Councilmember O’Neill thought they are all jumping the gun because this is just a discussion of whether they are going to put it on the work plan and they have a councilmember yet to be elected for them to give input. He thought this is something to be talked about in March when they have the goal setting. He asked if they can get back to the topic they are supposed to be talking about.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that was the topic as she thinks they are talking about is Item Number 4 and the question is to be answered at this meeting.
Mayor Bier stated that they are basically saying that they are not going to talk about existing construction now.
Councilmember O’Neill stated that his opinion is that it is a huge discussion item with no facts in front of them and needs to be talked about separately.
Mayor Bier agreed. She asked Planning Director Murdock if he has enough to go on now.
Planning Director Murdock stated that is terrific from his perspective and he will confirm that City Manager Woodhouse feels the same. He thanked Council for a very informative and helpful study session for him, and he is sure that Ms. Vega and Mr. Herrschaft feel the same.
Mayor Bier provided her thanks.
ADJOURN
Mayor Bier adjourned the meeting at 9:09 p.m.
Transcribed by Barbara Medina, Public Meeting Stenographer.
Respectfully Submitted,
Sarah Coffey, City Clerk
APPROVED 5 – 0 ; 10/24/2022
__________________________
Mary Bier, Mayor