Concurrent City Council, Redevelopment Agency and Municipal Services Corporation Meeting March 21, 2011

0:00:45email login I think we're ready to call this meeting to order welcome everyone um may please have the roll call thank you thank you Council councilmember Abelson here council member council member Lyman here councilmember benicini here mayor Pro tem Jones here mayor Chang here and

0:01:44Municipal Services Corporation board members Hannan and Pinkus thank you so will you now please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God individual with liberty and justice for all at this point we have Council or Council

0:02:21Communications any announcements I have a couple um just wanted to announce that I attended a conference called building livable communities which was put on by the local government commission and it was very um invigorating actually there are a lot of forward-thinking people who are probably

0:02:45on the very Cutting Edge of that topic who were present at that conference and um so I enjoyed it very much but I am not reporting it under ab1234 so um and um then I just wanted to also mention that there are some upcoming environmental activities so I would like

0:03:11to mention that on March 26 is there's going to be a session that's this coming Saturday from 9 to 12. in the morning on the new recycling center it's a community meeting actually this will be at the recycling center instead of here there there'll be discussion discussing

0:03:33plans for reuse and exchange at the new recycling center location and you're all welcome to come and on April 16th from nine in the morning and until it ends there will be an Earth Day event and the way we usually do this is we have work parties in the morning followed by a

0:03:57free lunch for everyone at the community center at noon and so I would encourage you all to sign up which you can do by looking at our website or you can go to Earth Day at ci.el.c cerrito.ca.us and I'll say that again it's Earth Day at ci.el.cerido.ca.us and you can sign up

0:04:32that way every one of is and welcome all ages and you don't even have to live in El Cerrito so I hope you'll join us and on April 23rd at the recycling center there'll be a free compost giveaway from 9 to 12. check our website for details and um May 7th there is a spring city-wide

0:04:59garage sale thank you okay thank you I just have two items to report I noticed this Saturday the eqc is hosting a green team cleanup of Cerrito Vista Park from 9 00 a.m to noon so I appreciate those efforts one of our most heavily used Parks so it's great when volunteers get together just to do

0:05:20the deep cleaning of the park that you know only gets done every every once in a while so we're really appreciative of that and given recent events um recent terrible events in Japan I thought it this might be a good time to think about how prepared our community

0:05:34is for those types of events and luckily we have a great program put on by the fire department called cert training it's Community emergency response team training and these are sessions that you can attend free of charge uh and and it's made up of 20 hours of training

0:05:53designed to help you and your community whether that be your house or your neighborhood become self-sufficient in the event of a disaster um just considering the the idea that you may not have help for a number of days this training will be really helpful and they have sessions that

0:06:10started one started January 12th the next session starts March 10th and I will submit this to the the clerks that she has us in our minutes but if you go to the website El Cerrito Kensington cert c-e-r-t.org the schedule's listed there thank you yes I uh I know in our packet we have a

0:06:33notice from PG or the California Public Utilities Commission that they're holding what they call a let's see here public comment on proposed new safety and reliability regulations for natural grass transmission and distribution pipelines and it is Tuesday April 5th 5 PM to 10

0:06:59p.m in San Bruno quite fitting enough I guess but in reading through where the reasons for the hearing there was an item that caught my eye that I think we and and our residents might be interested in keeping an eye on and that is this the commission seeks public input on

0:07:19proposed rules and Rule making treatment for the costs of safety improvements and I think it would be very interesting to see what PG E's response is on that I keep reading that they may seek to ask the rate payers to pay for the San Bruno tragedy as well as any

0:07:42improvements in their inspection programs and I think that I have my own thoughts on that but I think we should keep an eye on it and maybe bring it back to council for discussion if indeed PG E's statements to that become fruition thank you um yeah I'd like to let everyone know

0:08:05that the crime prevention committee is planning our National Night Out event for this year National Night Out will be on Tuesday August 2nd they have two events coming up where they're going to be giving out information on how to be a host um and one of those is on Saturday July

0:08:2116th on April 16th which is Earth Day here at the community center during the Earth Day celebration there will be a booth for those that are interested in learning more about National Night Out and neighborhood watch so those are some some of the events that are coming up on crime

0:08:40prevention committee and hopefully you will be interested in starting a neighborhood watch and you can contact the crime prevention committee through I shouldn't try it from memory um it's on our website you can go to our website and it's uh the crime prevention

0:09:01committee is there so you can find out more information about neighborhood watch thank you very much um and I I just want to Echo uh council member benicini's encouragement that we all really you know use these reminders of huge natural disasters to to take the

0:09:18time to prepare and make those phone call phone number lists and you know as much as you can take advantage of these free training opportunities because I actually just had the the privilege of touring all our our three fire stations um just last week and seeing what staff we have I mean there's

0:09:39three firefighters per station at any given time and that's two stations in El Cerrito one in Kensington so thinking about that across all the families I don't want you know to cause panic but honestly there's gonna be prior priorities that have to be set and um and relying on everybody who has the

0:10:02ability to take care of their own families you know while the city has to deal with probably major um you know Mass casualties and all those types of things you know and focus our efforts where the help is needed the most and in most dire so that is really the reason why we all need to and for

0:10:20the benefit of I think all of us all want to be able to help in in by training ourselves we'll know what to do and we won't have to feel like we're helpless in a time of Crisis um looking for what we should be doing and already being equipped with that knowledge so I I did it a while ago I

0:10:36think I'm ready for a refresher but it's really fun you actually get to put out a live fire and test and get a I think you still get a hard hat too as part of the deal so good stuff um so if that um any staff Communications to pass on great okay and I think at this time we have

0:11:00oral Communications from the public for items that aren't on the agenda no speakers flips submitted for General comments okay great and so we'll now move on to presentations from the proposed Contra Contra Costa College Bond ballot measure with a presentation by McKinney McKinley

0:11:24Williams president of Contra Costa College welcome thank you thank you mayor Chang to console persons thank you for enjoy indulging me this evening um I I'm I'm really um press by your new surroundings the last time I came to speak before the console you were in your old digs and

0:11:44they were not as nice as these um Contra Costa College um has been in existence for over 60 years uh here in the West County area we have provided Educational Services for students from El Cerrito from all the cities in West County I think we have almost 500 students from the city of El

0:12:08Cerrito but we also have a very long and storied history of collaboration council person Abelson actually sits on our our foundation for the for the college and your city manager is a member of our site overview committee for our current Bond so we have a long and storied history of collaboration

0:12:31we've we've also been offering courses at El Cerrito for over the last I don't know 10 12 years and that's been very very successful but I'm just here at night to talk to you a little bit about some of the needs that exist at the college but also give you an overview of what we're doing at

0:12:48the college um currently we have about 10 500 students at Contra Costa college students are from every city in West County um our college ranks number seven in the Bay Area in terms of the number of degrees and certificates we award uh per capita and we also transfer more than

0:13:07250 students to colleges and universities not only in California but outside of the state we have an award-winning journalism program several award-winning programs and tonight I brought you a copy of the newspaper that they put out for 13 consecutive views they won the

0:13:27national pacemaker award which is the Pulitzer Prize for college newspapers they compete against four-year colleges and universities and also two-year colleges the university I'm sorry just two-year colleges but we have we have have consistently shown excellence in

0:13:43this particular program of the students that you see here there are a couple of them from El Cerrito but they were at the um event in Kansas City and they won uh again the national Pace fake award uh the culinary arts program at Contra Costa has been in existence for over 40

0:14:02years we produce some uh of the chefs that work in the local area and I've also left you a copy of the um brochure here for the upcoming April 10th food and wine event I'm sorry I didn't bring enough for the entire audience but if you want to come to a signature event please come on April

0:14:2310th to the college we'll have from 11 to 2 um 11 2 30 we'll have uh almost 50 different Wineries and and and restaurants that will actually be serving food and serving wine throughout the day um we have an award-winning Automotive program this program currently has one

0:14:44of the only green certificates for Community College in the nation we're also training mechanics to work on hybrid vehicles we're one of the few uh Automotive training programs uh in in the nation it's actually doing that kind of training uh at the community college

0:15:02level this particular individual is a is a student who came from the city of Richmond actually had a trouble pass but he came and he actually graduated from Contra Costa and now he's an automotive body and shop owner in the city of Richmond um this young man is a member was a

0:15:21member of our Center for Science Excellence we have a center uh at the college that has won a national award in fact uh the president of the United States George W bush gave us an Excellence award for mentoring um and this particular program has graduated many students about 85 percent

0:15:40of these students transfer to four-year colleges and universities and they graduate in science math and Technology this young man here was a janitor working in the city of Hercules I believe and he came to Contra Costa College got his life together and lo and behold he's now

0:15:59a doctoral student a medical student at Toro University over in Vallejo our our Contra Costa College award-winning forensic team we sent 11 students to the national awards and they came back with four gold Awards of this particular class we had about half of this um forensics team were middle

0:16:22college high school students I don't know if you know this or not but we have a high school on our campus called Middle College High School it ranks as the number one uh School in the West County Unified School District and it's also among the top 10 uh in the in the

0:16:38state of California it is one several distinguished Awards and we these students take college courses half of the students actually graduate from Contra Costa at the same time they graduate from um from high school they graduated one night from high school and then they

0:16:53graduate the next night from Contra Costa College um in 2002 we passed a bomb measure for the Wisconsin before actually the entire County that was 420 million Contra Costa College received 32 a million dollars for that we've done some uh some infrastructure uh improvements at the

0:17:12college we've also built a new student services center with that money in 2006 we passed another Bond Contra Costa College received about 83 million we're building a new core for our campus a new classroom building a new Student Activities building uh with the 83

0:17:29million dollars that we have but it's not enough to actually complete our educational plan nor is it enough to fit uh you know some of the infrastructure problems that we have currently on the campus um the end the 2002 Bond we actually build a new One-Stop student service

0:17:47center this One-Stop student service center we used to have student services all over the campus and students would have to go to one building to get financial aid another building to register for classes uh another building for counseling we put them all in one

0:18:00location so now students can come to one location and they can be served and receive all the student services that they need our library and learning resources it's a beautiful building that we've used uh monies from the 2002 Bond also renovate that particular building

0:18:19um we we have a brand new uh football field and tracked uh and that a brand new football field we we hopefully um are putting it to good use this year we've had uh six students to actually get four-year scholarships um to division one schools and and our College is very small and that's very

0:18:38unusual to have that many we also have uh seven of the students uh from the college that actually made academic all-americans too um this is another uh actually that's not the football field that's our uh our our computer technology building that particular building we upgraded with monies from

0:19:00the 2006 Bond uh what we're here now though is that we we're we're trying to pass uh for uh 2011 a 97 million dollar Bond uh what we're facing with right now is that our our science buildings and are now in our Allied Health Facilities are old and Antiquated uh we have some of the best

0:19:20science programs of any Community College uh in the nation actually in our Allied Health programs are very very Stellar uh and we're trying to train students for the 21st century jobs we're also wanting to create more smart classrooms on the college campus and also install energy efficient systems

0:19:39for the college our College sits right on the Hayward fault I don't know if you know that or not and so many of our our buildings are seismically challenged whenever we do construction we have to you know reinforce them regard them in our costs for construction always is a

0:19:56little bit higher because we are so close to the fall but just to talk a little bit about the science technology in engineering program as I told you before that Center for Science Excellence has won a national award we also graduate uh you know students who go on to major in in biotechnology

0:20:14chemistry bioengineering that's particular a program uh probably is one of the most unique programs in that underrepresented minorities and women transfer at a high rate to four-year colleges and universities so we're extremely proud of that program this is a picture of some

0:20:35of the biotechnology students and as we renovate their particular area they can only have like 14 students in a lab that lab is it can only hold about 14 students we'd like to expand as you know West county is becoming a biotech Corridor for businesses in this area

0:20:52most of these students that actually graduate they stay in our area and they actually work for biotech companies in the local area these are two of our chemistry students and I I which one is a high school student by the way can you tell the one on the right both

0:21:14these are high school students from our middle college high school they're taking college chemistry and as I said before these students graduate from Contra Costa and their high school at the same time they become Juniors when they transfer to four-year colleges and universities

0:21:30but they also take the majority of their chemistry courses math courses or college courses uh so it gives them a leg up on uh the transfer when they go to four-year colleges and universities but you know just take a look at some of our Antiquated facilities this is our

0:21:47physical science building it's that traditional red book red brick 1950s Motif and I I made this presentation out in Pinole and a couple of the city council persons said that they were actually attended the school in that physics building about 40 years ago so it's still up and running but

0:22:09it's it's terribly deficient you can see how dingy it is in terms of the hallways and stuff what we're trying to do is to improve this because we're we're we know that those you know science and math and Technology will be one of the hottest fuels uh in the future and we're trying to train our

0:22:26students to be ready for that we didn't deliberately take this with the lights off it is kind of a dingy room but this is one of our our chemistry labs and as you can see it's also very very old more pictures of the of the physical science building we have Premier Allied Health programs I just

0:22:47want to just share with you a couple of things about the Registered Nursing programs in the certified nursing we have these particular programs that all provide students with entry-level jobs in the local area and we found that over 75 percent of our students stand a local

0:23:04area and they actually contribute back to the economy in this area our nursing program we have about 100 students that's in our nursing program right now that's first year and second year and about 40 students that are in our CNA program certified nursing assistant

0:23:19program but what's so unique about this program is that for the last 10 to 12 years our students have passed the the Statewide NCLEX exam and also the Statewide CNA exam at a 95 to 100 percent rate that is highly unusual for most colleges and most students who take the NCLEX

0:23:41exam in this state I dare you to go to any Hospital hopefully you don't have to go as a patient but any Hospital in the West County area and probably any Hospital in the East Bay has graduates from Contra Costa College um and this this particular program we continue to uh have mostly local

0:24:02students students who are from your cities and the other cities in West County to actually uh enroll in this program but this is the area where we're actually teaching them at now we have all this high quality they pass the NCLEX exam at a very high rate but this

0:24:17is the lab that they're in as I said we have about a about 100 students in the program 50 in the first year 50 in the second year and this is the lab that they have to be in as you see that's very very small and it can it it really can't accommodate 50 students we'd like

0:24:33to expand that lab and provide uh you know a better place for them to actually learn this is just a picture of the diversity that's at the college um many of our students or International students but as I said before the majority of our students come from the West County area and we're just very

0:24:51very proud uh to you know to be able to say that we train people for jobs in this area and we transfer students to four-year colleges and universities uh throughout the state and I I would just really love to have you uh support our bomb measure by passing The Resolution

0:25:08uh if we are successful in passing it what we're going to do is just to continue the Excellence that that Contra Costa has been known for over the years and I thank you for indulging me this evening I'll answer any questions if you have them yeah I have this is a property bond issue

0:25:26yes it is it's a cap it's a capital bond issue and it's uh it will actually be about 25 dollars per uh a hundred thousand dollars assessed value okay that's you answered my next question on that yeah that was good I just wanted to point out that um you had featured the auto uh program that you

0:25:49have auto maintenance program and Pete Locke is the one who heads that up and he's he's lived in El Cerrito for several years and has known uh not only Statewide but nationally in the field and it's done a good job but he lives right here in El Cerrito you're entirely

0:26:06right councilman Jones moreover he's a graduate of El Cerrito High School uh and he's that's what he claims well you better be um he isn't listening but he he he he also has assisted uh El Cerrito and rejuvenating their automobile auto program there he's been a consultant

0:26:26there he's working with him to actually develop a two plus two program where the elsewhere students who are in that program will come to Contra Costa College Pete Locke is just a great guy and as you say um you know he he's been in Syria all of his life that's good yeah he he's well

0:26:41liked I had one question about your nursing program we hear Nationwide we have a sword it's to the point where we are um bringing nurses in from outside the United States why is there any plans to increase the enrollment at Contra Costa College you have 100 students is there any plans to

0:27:02increase that yeah we've we've received grants from the state because of the nursing shortage uh to increase the number of of students that we actually have in the program right now we're experiencing a budget uh crisis throughout the state and we'll have to be decreasing all of our programs this

0:27:19one particular program we'd like to keep up and running at the current level the grants are available we added an additional 10 students per year to our incoming class so if we're taking in 40 per year we'll actually take in 50 because we have the Grant and the grant

0:27:36actually the purpose of the grant is actually increase the number of students who are who are accepted by the program so we do plan to you know try to keep that program vibrant and to increase it if we can can continue to receive the funds from the state but you know right now

0:27:53it's going to be different talk as to whether or not those monies will still be coming I find it interesting it's kind of hard we have a shortage in a very important field and we don't seem to be able to meet the demand in in the in the country and we're cutting back

0:28:09those very uh the funding for those types of very important Health Physicians it doesn't make sense to me either yeah I know good luck there thank you thank you maybe I missed it here but uh when when would this be on the ballot or has it well um we're we we thought the governor was

0:28:32going to call the general election you know he's trying to get the Republicans to actually uh you know put them put a measure on the ballot uh we have to it has to be in a general election it's going to have to be hopefully this week that he'll get that Bond measure uh on

0:28:46the on the ballot if so then we can go with our bond measure if not we'll have to wait for I think 2012 in order to go out uh for the next general election but we're hoping that he'll be able to be successful and get together just for the public could you repeat the amount of

0:29:03money that it would be what type of measure it is um yes it's it's a it's it's a capital Bond uh measure uh it's it's based on twenty five dollars per assessed hundred thousand dollar value uh the money will be used solely to uh improve our facilities we'll have a bond oversight

0:29:25committee and and unlike the other two bonds that we had uh for the county this Bond will only be for Contra Costa College uh and so all of the funds are going to go to uh Contra Costa College and we'll have a West County oversight committee made up of citizens from West

0:29:43County this time thank you and want to mention the programs at El Cerrito High School that I've seen I've seen um several of them and I know that when my daughter was there high school students could actually take classes I think one of them that I remember at least was

0:30:03psychology and there's also an adult program um in music that is what breed brings us a very um amazing West County Orchestra I can't remember the exact name of it but it's quite large and quite impressive and it performs periodically um in at El Cerrito High School and

0:30:25that's all part of the college yeah it's a Kensington Symphony Kensington Symphony thank you um in terms of concurrent enrollment actually the the law allows for any high school student to take a college course basically for the fee of one dollar and they can actually get a college

0:30:46transcript all those credits are transferable to four-year college and universities based on articulation agreements that we have so it's it's really a good deal for the special admits of concurrent enrolled students so those who cannot get into our middle college high school they can still come

0:31:02to contra cost and take courses thank you thank you very much thank you very much thank you foreign so with that the next is the consent calendar item numbers 5A through 5i the consent calendar includes item 5B an ordinance establishing the measure a swim center parcel tax rate and we are

0:31:29introducing the ordinance by title waiving any further reading and improving an ordinance of the elsewhere of the city of El Cerrito setting a reduced tax rate only for fiscal year 2011. through 12 for the special tax imposed pursuant to chapter 4.56 of the El Cerrito municipal code

0:31:50staff is recommending that the city adopt an ordinance establishing the measure a parcel tax rate at the current level of the 38.61 per single family resident unit comma 29 .73 per multi-family residential unit and 270.66 per acre of non-residential property for fiscal year 2011-12

0:32:18um so it just had to read that out for the record and if I can call for a motion to approve the entire calendar I'll make a motion and that would be to approve items five A through five I second all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye if you don't mind mayor I'd like

0:32:39to make a comment on 5B um the rate of 3861 per single family resident unit is the lowest that it can go and this the council and the previous councils have kept that for a number of years we haven't and I raised the rate and I think that's important because we do have authority

0:33:01to go to over 52 dollars on that but we've kept it all these years at 38.

0:33:0838.61 so I think that should be 2004.

0:33:12that's correct thank you thank you oh sorry so any other questions okay with that then um we can move on to public hearings item number 7A I'm sorry six yeah six a sorry um proposed revisions to El Cerrito Municipal Code title seven animals and so I believe uh assistant city

0:33:41manager Karen pincos will start us off yes thank you your honor tonight's staff would like to conduct a study session with the city council regarding proposed revisions to the animal's ordinance which our planning staff will give the presentation in just a moment I'd like

0:33:55to acknowledge that there were several clarifying questions that were asked of Staff over the past couple of days via email and some phone calls and so those were all provided to all of the council members via email a few hours ago as well as printed out for you and we will

0:34:08address those questions and answers within the presentation for the Public's edification as well um I did want to touch on two points before we begin the presentation um number one all of these proposed revisions that we will be presenting tonight are based on feedback that was

0:34:23provided to us by the community in a number of forums including meetings emails and phone calls as well as extensive staff research however the city council is the final decision-making body and any of these proposed revisions can be modified accepted or rejected by the council as

0:34:39you will see fit staff's intent is to bring back an ordinance for your consideration based on direction that is provided this evening and then another Point that's important to note is that according to our current ordinance and all of the current processes that exist any of the animals

0:34:54that we will be discussing this evening could be kept with a conditional use permit if it was granted by the Planning Commission the revisions that are proposed would in many cases ease these restrictions or clarify the regulations but for example if a resident right now

0:35:08wanted to have a chicken coop in their backyard for example they could have one as long as they received an approved conditional use permit through the Planning Commission so there is a process in place just so that's clear what we would like the council to consider is if you would like to make

0:35:22that make the process of owning these animals different or easier or at a different cost and than it is right now so that's sort of where we are starting with the presentation so with that I would like to introduce Jennifer Carmen who has our development services manager

0:35:38and Sean Moss who is our senior planner and I would also like to acknowledge Sean for having done an excellent job working on this item he's done everything from collecting come comments from the public to doing research to escorting council member benicini on a

0:35:50tour of a backyard chicken coop in a nearby City so Sean thank you so much for your work and please take it away good evening mayor Chang members of the council so this presentation um is going to go over the current animals ordinance that the city has what the requirements of the current

0:36:12ordinance are what the process has been up to date as far as the effort to amend the the current ordinance as well as the the regulations that staff has has come up with and formulated as a result of that process um so for a little background the current animals ordinance was adopted in

0:36:391987.

0:36:41and um in 2009 uh the the this process that we've embarked on really got started when El Cerrito residents addressed the Environmental Quality committee seeking to um to amend the the current ordinance um due to uh due to um raising uh due to concerns about sustainable food production and

0:37:09sustainability and and other issues such as that so that's why the the effort really got started with the the Environmental Quality committee um and that committee um discussed the issue during several meetings and produced a memo uh in November of 2009 and that memo was then

0:37:28reviewed by the Planning Commission which discussed the uh the issue in December of 2009 and the um the Planning Commission felt that allowing animals was uh was appropriate at a at a hobby level um so with the comments from both the Environmental Quality committee and the

0:37:50Planning Commission staff took those and we drafted a uh we came up with a draft ordinance which was presented to the Environmental Quality Committee in May of last year and um subsequent to that a um a community meeting was held a city-wide mailer was sent out to the entire city

0:38:08announcing the meeting and uh we got quite um quite an an audience actually this this room was full um and there were many many public comments were given I think over uh I think just about 100 written comments were were received and uh the comments at that meeting were

0:38:29were the most balanced that we've uh that we've received in any one time to date um so we we took all of those comments and um made um and uh altered the um the proposed regulations with regard to pigs and and some other areas that that um there was some consensus um in the comments about

0:38:54um so the um the city's current ordinance um establishes the the types of animals that are allowed by right and the types of animals that are allowed with a conditional use permit um and so those those animals are are listed there and um as as Karen mentioned any uh any animal

0:39:18which is not prohibited by state or federal law can be kept in El Cerrito either by right or with a conditional use permit um and the the new ordinance um has really sought to to streamline that process for particular types of animals so um there are three types of permits

0:39:42currently in the in the zoning ordinance and what we've done is is taken those three types of permits and translated those into um the proposed uh animals ordinance so I'm going to um go I'm going to describe each of those uh types of permits a little more in depth so the first type

0:40:01is uh is a conditional use permit which is a discretionary permit and there are findings established in the municipal code for conditional use permits and those findings must be made in order to Grant the permit in order and those those permits are considered by the

0:40:18Planning Commission so in order for the Planning Commission to Grant a conditional use permit they must be able to make the findings established in the code and uh the the Planning Commission considers uh conditional use permits in a public hearing uh the the hearings are are

0:40:36publicly noticed they receive testimony from the public and there is an appeal process and the um the fees for um the fees for really all permits um generally speaking are are set um by a fee study that was done um and the fee study considers the the cost of uh providing the this it's the

0:41:00cost of the process the cost of providing the service so the current fees um for conditional use permits are for smaller projects uh is currently 931 dollars plus a 341 dollar fee for the required environmental review um and that fee is um that fee is actually subsidized for

0:41:22small projects um about 50 percent excuse me meaning you cut it in half meaning that the the fee amount um pays for about half of what the actual cost of providing the services and it's because it's it's applied to single-family conditional use permit correct correct and a normal cup

0:41:46would be twice that cost correct or it would be the actual cost yeah versus what we're seeing here is 50 of actual exactly um so the the next type of permit um is an administrative use permit which is similar to a conditional use permit but it's considered it's it's reviewed by

0:42:08staff and ultimately the decision is made by the zoning administrator so there's no public hearing however uh there is a public notice of this once the decision is made a public notice of that decision is sent and there is an appeal process identical to the appeal

0:42:25process for conditional use permits the the processing timeline is typically shorter than a conditional use permit and the fees are likewise um slightly less then the next type of permit is an over-the-counter permit which is also an administrative permit but there's no

0:42:48discretion involved in over-the-counter permits so it's uh the over the over-the-counter permits are are really a tool that the city has for ensuring that the development standards for any particular item are being met so it's reviewed by staff and approved at the public counter

0:43:08provided that all the standards are met and the fees are I've there's some similar fees listed on the slide but the fees are typically in the range of 50 to 100 dollars so now I'm going to go over the the proposed regulations um that we have come up with um again I just want to reiterate what

0:43:36Karen said in that um you know these these regulations are are the result of of all the public input that we've received so far and and of all of the public process that has taken place so far um with you know these these regulations um come from input from the Planning

0:43:54Commission and the Environmental Quality committee as well as all of the the citizen input that we've received so far and um you know as as Karen said the um the uh you know the council is is the ultimate decision-making body on this issue and and all of everything in this

0:44:13presentation is is um up for the council's discussion tonight uh there's there's been a consensus um that regardless of what type of animals are allowed and regardless of of the regulations for those animals uh that impacts to neighbors should be minimized and so we've come up with a set of

0:44:45regulations that would seem to minimize those impacts regardless of of what the animal was regardless of what the animal is so these um these regulations are meant to to apply to all animals and um so that's that's the Fairly broad um they include things like um you know that that the areas

0:45:10where animals are kept are kept sanitary and the animals not disturb neighbors with noise uh the following uh animals um are proposed to be allowed by right and these are in addition to the the animals that are that are detailed in the following slides um and so uh these would be dogs and

0:45:36cats obviously um and the code uh would also Define uh the word domestic so it would Define what what type of animals are are appropriate for uh domestic pets um so I've just listed them here as as um domestic rodents domestic rabbits but um that's that's meant to include things

0:45:59um like hamsters and guinea pigs um for aquatic animals live coral and a fish tank or or hermit crabs for insects things like an ant farm or or a millipede in an aquarium foreign but the um as I said the the terminology the the definitions would um would uh expressly

0:46:27um Define what you know that what what domestic means and and what type of animals are are appropriate as pets um so in addition to those animals Allowed by right um there are a few animals um that have been the focus of of most of the discussion and and um so we're going to go into those a

0:46:51little bit more in depth um the first animal is chickens um what we are proposing um is that chickens would be allowed with an over-the-counter permit um provided that certain requirements are met and the uh those requirements would be that four hens would be allowed on uh

0:47:13properties of at least four thousand square feet roosters would be prohibited chickens would not need to be chickens would need to be kept in in a closed area and the uh that enclosed area or the chicken coop would need to be 20 feet from homes on adjacent Lots

0:47:30and in other in circumstances in addition to that a conditional use permit would be required um with regard to lot size um I'm I'm going to get into the breakdown of of different lot sizes in El Cerrito towards the end of the presentation um but I just wanted to say at this

0:47:49point that lot size was chosen as a standard um because it's it's one of the easiest standards to measure we have received some input that really the more the more important number is the amount of space that each animal is given in an enclosed area or or out you know in it to roam

0:48:15free um but the um lot sizes is a number that we have that is is readily available um and it's it's a number that can be accessed very easily um the size of of a backyard um would require someone to produce a drawing or to measure the backyard space um and we would have to have some way to

0:48:42verify that so the thought was that um that lot size is a much um is a much more usable standard and um there's also been a fair uh amount of uh consensus on a Prohibition on roosters um and so that is as well as included oh I also I'm gonna go back for a second

0:49:13um also uh regarding the the four thousand uh square foot lot size um that number was picked um because five because five thousand square feet is a is a fairly common lot size in El Cerrito um the 4 000 number um was picked because there's been uh the most inquiries

0:49:36um about keeping chickens um in in relation to to all of these other animal types and um so the four thousand number um was picked in order to to give a little bit of flexibility to the um to the 5 000 foot size and to allow a greater um a greater number of properties to to be

0:49:59able to keep chickens foreign the next uh the next topic is honeybees um it's proposed that honeybees would be allowed with an over-the-counter permit as part of this permit adjacent uh adjacent owners Property Owners would be sent a courtesy notice up to two beehives would be allowed on

0:50:25lots that are five thousand square feet and large air and hives would have to be located at least 20 feet from homes on adjacent properties and at least five feet from property lines circumstances other than those would require a conditional use permit can I just clarify here you're saying is

0:50:47it is it are you recommending an administrative use permit or an over-the-counter permit because I understand those are different and over-the-counter permit okay okay yeah so both both chickens and bees are proposed with an over-the-counter permit and Sean while you're stopping can you

0:51:07just clarify multi-family does that include duplexes or are we only talking about multi-family more than two units per parcel um I'm trying to remember how we defined that in the um ordinance um you could pause if somebody maybe Jennifer will remember and duplexes are

0:51:30afforded their own classification so it would be three units or more okay um but there are there also are different ways to I mean we could we could we could Define that differently in the code also um there's been some discussion about whether it um whether the requirement should be

0:51:48multi-family units or multi-family zoning districts or how that um that requirement should actually be flushed out so for goats um the um goats are currently allowed with conditional use permit in the city and um it's proposed uh under these ordinance revisions as proposed that

0:52:19goats would be allowed with an administrative use permit on on larger lots lots which are ten thousand square feet or larger so goats are commonly used for weed abatement purposes um and so um part of the reason that they um would be allowed with an administrative use permit is so that

0:52:41those so the standards um for weed abatement and for any other um goat keeping could be established on a case-by-case basis because um it's it's foreseeable that um that you might you know if you were using a goat for weed abatement purposes you might need it to be temporarily in

0:53:04an area um that was you know closer to um your your neighbor's house or your property line or whatever the you know whatever standard was otherwise established um that you might need it to be closer than that on a temporary basis so um instead we're just proposing that

0:53:24that those standards would be established on a case-by-case basis with an administrative use permit on large lots and a conditional use permit a lot smaller than 10 000 square feet um the uh one of the reasons the the ten thousand the primary reason the ten thousand square foot lot size was chosen

0:53:41is that is that the space that goats require is just it's larger than any of the other animal types um that we that we've discussed so um so those you know that's it's it's um that larger lot classification was chosen um so for pigs uh it's proposed that uh one Pig under 150

0:54:10pounds which is which is meant to uh limit the requirements to pop bellied pigs would be permitted on Lots which are five thousand square feet or larger with an administrative use permit and they would need to be kept in an enclosed area which would need to be a minimum of 20 feet from homes on

0:54:30adjacent Properties or five feet from all property lines and a conditional use permit would be needed in all other circumstances so the the 150 uh pound weight limit um was specifically chosen to to limit this to potbellied pigs um it it seemed like the best um

0:54:51the best standard to um to establish that pop-bellied pigs are actually the same species as Barnyard pigs so we couldn't um we couldn't Define that on a species basis and so we did um do some research on this and consulted a veterinarian and um and learned that that 150 pounds is is

0:55:17about as big as a as a pot-bellied pig will typically get and I know that might seem large but um pigs pigs are really they're really dense animals and so uh it's it's not actually it's not as large size wise as you might think not speaking of its intelligence I'm not speaking of its intelligence

0:55:39[Music] um so this is one additional slide that's been added since since what was in your packet and and you're in luck that I that I had one painfully cute pet photo left to put on the slide so um so this uh this table shows the the sizes of um Parcels in El Cerrito broken down by

0:56:07size so we've we've broken down the categories um so that they correspond with the lot sizes that are proposed for the different animal types so um there's uh around 1400 Parcels that are that are less than four thousand square feet in the city that makes up about 16 of the total these numbers also

0:56:30um include commercial Parcels so just keep that in mind um and then the numbers um they're uh they're they're the most accurate we could get they're um there's some slight discrepancies um in our in our GIS data um so if you if you add up the the percentages you'll find that they only

0:56:52add up to 97 but some of that is a rounding area and some of that is a discrepancy in the in the gis data um so lots between four thousand and five thousand square feet they're um there's about 13.50 and that's about 15 of the lots and uh lots that are greater than 5 000 square feet make up about 66

0:57:16percent of the Lots in El Cerrito which is five thousand it's it's everything five thousand and up so it also includes the the ten thousand and up category um and then that last category ten thousand and up is about 13 of the Lots in El Cerrito um so you'll see that that by

0:57:33um by changing the the lot size to four thousand square feet uh for chickens um what that would do is it would allow and an additional 15 of the Lots 15 of the properties in El Cerrito um to have chickens by right provided that they could meet the other standards

0:57:58so we've prepared um some discussion topics for the council tonight um you know as I stated the purpose of the study session is to um is to get input from um is to get direction um from the Council on um on what the the final ordinance that we bring back to you

0:58:19um will will contain but these are these are um topics that we wanted to make sure that we um specifically got Direction on so um those include um are the are the types of permits that are proposed appropriate for each type of animal are the standards uh for each animal

0:58:40appropriate um is a maximum number of total animals appropriate so the counties uh animal code which would be re-adopted in in a new ordinance currently sets a maximum number of dogs and a maximum number of cats so those maximums are are three dogs and five cats but in addition to

0:59:03that is is a maximum total number of any animal appropriate um are there any additional uh General requirements that should apply to all animals and um are there any additional is there basically is there anything that we forgot is there um are there any other additional animals which are appropriate

0:59:24to keep as pets um which have not been been mentioned and and uh and to what degree should those be allowed so that uh that concludes the presentation um in addition in in your packet um you all received a um a table that compares the the regulations um the different cities have regarding

0:59:50these different animals um and um I can answer questions um that you might have about that table as well as anything about the presentation great so let's start with questions from the council so clarifying questions from the council first and then we'll go to public hearings so if you want to speak

1:00:08on this item I'll open it up for public comments second and then once the council has heard all your comments we'll bring it back to the council for discussion um so we can include your thoughts on our deliberation so with that any should we start with questions who would like

1:00:25to go sure I can I have a few questions to clarify any questions um I'm gonna actually start with your last question about any additional animals that should be allowed or regulated uh We've we've listed goats and and I'm assuming that's you know you've been using the term fire hazard but

1:00:43potentially somebody else is using it for milk um sheep I mean what's why llamas why stop at at just one particular type of herbivore what what's what why is why is it just one herbivore that's being used for the purposes of grazing you because you you limited to grazing as your as

1:01:05your discussion point but you know why why list it to one herbivore historically the most interest in in keeping goats in El Cerrito we did have a use for a conditional use permit that was approved in 2006 for Two Goats on uh on the Arlington um and um you know the interest has been both in

1:01:32in having them as pets and having them for for weed abatement reasons um goats tend to take up uh less room than than most other livestock type animals um so they would seem to be better suited um for this for this environment um because of that um but um you know the regulations don't

1:01:56necessarily need to be limited to um to goats or or any other particular um any other particular livestock animal so we we have in the in the draft ordinance um that we came up with we did um kind of lump all other livestock together um but we did specifically um call out goats and chickens and other

1:02:25ant you know pigs and other animals as not a part of that category so anything anything else that um that the council wanted to exclude from that category um we could do that thank you thank you um sticking with the goats for a moment what were the penalties that were

1:02:43assessed the goat owner when his animals were free and accosting the neighbors um I'm I'm not aware of that happening so under a hypothetical let's say his goats were vicious and we do have an ordinance about vicious dogs do we now need an ordinance about vicious goats

1:03:03um well the the intent or can we broaden the vicious dog to be to include vicious goats and vicious bees I mean what why why are we picking on on dogs at this point because I'm just looking at this ordinance that's in here we potentially need to expand it to to be broader and

1:03:19include all animals that have the ability to attack humans including bees of the um the turkeys I heard that the turkeys are horrible in town but they're not they're not kept as pets I hope the intent of the of the general requirements was that it was that it would Encompass some of that

1:03:39um but maybe it does need to to include um more um more uh requirements about vicious animals um but um you know the the intent was that that any animal that was becoming a nuisance and and under the the nuisance requirements of of the municipal code um you know the police department would

1:04:03be able to um to act and and enforce that right um article uh sorry I'm gonna get numerical on everyone but article 7.08 0.060 and I will um help people it's animals for sale um it's unlawful for persons or firms or corporations to display cell this was sort of I read as the anti-easter rule

1:04:27um however what are owners supposed to do Under This ordinance right now if an owner if they're if they're animals breed in some fashion they would actually be Sol if they tried to do anything with their offspring so I'm just curious how that if you've looked at that ordinance and how that ordinance

1:04:46would apply to uh whether it's um chickens or dogs or cats I mean the the ordinances actually dogs and cats are excluded but chickens and goats and might generate offspring that would apply to this ordinance um the Planning Commission was was fairly interested in in not allowing

1:05:09animal-based home businesses so that was included in in the draft ordinance um that being said um if so so that that was meant to exclude people from from breeding animals on an ongoing basis um you know that that being said if you did have you know one litter of of any

1:05:30particular type of animal um you know selling those animals off site wouldn't be a problem that and council member Lyman that's also addressed in the county code you have to have a specific kennel or breeding license for certain numbers of dogs or cats above three three dogs or

1:05:46five cats so that would also be enforced by County Animal Control excellent thank you um the process for approval uh is pretty clear on this but what's the process for um disapproving if somebody is no longer maintaining their their animals in a sanitary way or maintaining their uh

1:06:13their their their not using good a husband doing husbandry practices and therefore they are in violation what what are some of the processes for resending this use permit um if if the permit was a discretionary type permit if it was a conditional use permit or administrative use permit it

1:06:35could be revoked by by the decision-making body in a public hearing um if it isn't if it was an over-the-counter type permit um it it's still subject to to code enforcement so uh you would the the owner of that animal of that permit the permit holder would still need to keep

1:06:54their animals in compliance with all of the general requirements on all animals um you know that being sanitation and noise and all of those good practices as well as for that specific animal and if they were not doing that then they would be subject to a code enforcement action

1:07:11great thank you one last question it's my recollection that the minimum lot width by in El Cerritos 40 foot is that is that correct or is it 50. okay great thank you just have a couple uh clarifying questions Sean um you mentioned sanitary in the presentation and in the draft

1:07:36ordinance uh what are the standards we're going by is does the county have standards for sanitary proper sanitary conditions um I believe there might be some in the um yeah actually there are some in the um in the county code I don't know them off the top of my head but I I think

1:07:55they include things like you yeah you have to keep the feed for animals in um you know so that it's not infested with Vermin and things like that okay so we do have standards that we can publish along with the permits and that sort of thing okay that's all that is outlined in county

1:08:13code what's that I'm sorry yes I'm checking county code right now and yes those things are outlined in county code including like um rat control refuse disposal and such things as thank you and um disturbance and I know we attempt to find disturbance in the public peace and

1:08:31Welfare um however are there any real specific standards or criteria that we go by or can measure disturbance I mean if music is playing too loud some cities have a way of setting you know decibel standards and going out and testing but how how will the city go about

1:09:01uh enforcing something about disturbance I'm looking at the City attorney also I don't know like a gray area you might comment I thought it was in our general plan and it was 65 decibels that is correct it's also in our zoning ordinance so we do have noise regulations and the city the code

1:09:23enforcement officer does have a noise meter um and he is able to go out and check that on a case-by-case basis when necessary and noise is one type of disturbance um constant noise under 65 decibels may also be a disturbance so how do we how we uh my question we probably don't have the

1:09:45answer tonight but that's one of the the things that because um the people I've talked to they talk about disturbance during the day constant noise um chickens running wild outside the the backyard and that sort of thing and and so I I just bring up the point that

1:10:06I don't know how we're going to do that but I'll leave that up to the City attorney for that and I just I would just basically make a very similar comment which is just that um the purpose of the meeting tonight is a study session we're not going to have answers to those we haven't developed

1:10:20them yet it may well be worthwhile um as if the council's direction is to expand the scope of the types of animals that can be kept in the city that it may well be worthwhile to review how disturbance is defined in the municipal code so that we have proper objective

1:10:36enforceable tools to go by to make that determination thank you yeah I wasn't looking for a standard answer tonight uh the number when we talk about goats I was economy there is no limit to the number of goats whether you're on a small lot or a big lot or or anything and I'm a more

1:10:58interested in the permanent keeping not necessarily the temporary weed abatement type of thing is there any reason uh why we didn't have goats Limited in number um because they would be because they're proposed to be allowed only with discretionary type permits um and so the

1:11:19thought was that those standards would be established on a case-by-case basis so um you know I don't think anyone's going to approve uh you know 15 goats on a 10 000 square foot ladder you know a herd of goats is not um that's not not the goal um but you know if um

1:11:41you know if someone wanted to have a goat on you know a 7 500 square foot lot that might require different standards than a goat on a on a 12 000 square foot lot sure I appreciate that okay thank you okay um I have a few questions here um one is about the definition of the um

1:12:07pin for the the chickens and where it can be because it was um you can have a 40-foot lot but it has to be 20 feet from the property line did I get that right oh it's it's 20 feet from homes on adjacent Lots okay so um so I'm just what I'm worried about is a narrow lot that doesn't have enough

1:12:34width to make a spot where you can actually put it is that possible that there isn't actually a place that where you can actually put a coop it would be possible um one of the reasons that um that we proposed uh the requirement as as a distance to homes on adjacent Lots

1:12:58is that that from all of the the comments that we received and the and the research that we did that seems to be the more critical distance is is to the neighboring homes and not necessarily to the property line um and that by doing by setting it that way um you've actually kind of opened up

1:13:17more of the property to have chickens because it opens up the the rear of the property so by by putting it towards the back of the property you might be putting it further from from the homes on the adjacent Lots whereas if the requirement was to the property line

1:13:32then you still have that distance from the rear property line okay unless like one one of the homes was in the rear and one was the next door neighbor's home was in the front but I'll I'll go on from now um I figured that okay so I didn't notice any reference to the goats being

1:13:50fenced um and again that's uh that's because they're they're allowed with discretionary permits so um that was envisioned it was envisioned that that would be one of the conditions of the of the administrative use permit or of the conditional use permit okay and there was a maximum number of

1:14:10animals period was when I heard I thought I heard you say that well what about fish sometimes it seems to me you could have a fish tank with enormous quantities of fish but that are very tiny for example I'm not a fish expert but I've seen them like that so are we including fish in

1:14:30this oh that was just a question um for discussion um for the council we haven't actually proposed that as in in the in the ordinance um but we just wanted to get the the council's direction as to whether that was something that was appropriate and if it is appropriate how do we Define it

1:14:49so you could you know you could write it in such a way that that each aquarium is is only counted as one animal or something like that okay and then the next I was wondering about is what I would I'm think in my own words I'm calling feral animals so they so if

1:15:05we're talking about property owners can only or property property um owners and property renters can only have so many animals of this or that type but there's another category of animals in our town and I would Loosely call them feral animals um so what do we what are we doing about

1:15:26those or if if if all if somebody sees a cat on your property and it's supposed to be behind a fence I don't think we said that but if we did um then are you responsible for it even if it's not quote yours no you you would be responsible for the animals that you're keeping and those those

1:15:47animals which don't belong to anyone like I'm thinking of the you know the turkeys and the deer that I've seen in El Cerrito um you know are managed by the the County's animal control my understanding in general for example is that there are cats like that um and and I've heard of the concept

1:16:07anyway that there are dogs like that um so to put regulations I'm just a little bit concerned that we don't have somebody being responsible for animals that they actually aren't responsible for and for example they there may be somebody who's feeding a cat or something

1:16:26I believe we in fact at least were I don't know if we still are doing that here at City Hall um but I know we're not okay it has a home now it has a home okay um but um if somebody I've heard of a number of people that I know who feed animals but they don't consider them

1:16:45theirs unless they're like Neighborhood Animals so have you what how would that would be dealt how would that be dealt with um that's a good question I I don't know if if it's a you know if it's a domestic animal that kind you know that's acting as a pet um but it's being that doesn't really

1:17:04have ownership um you know that's probably something that we'd have to look at a little bit more and also considering in the county code um dogs are required to be licensed cats are a voluntary license particularly I'm thinking of cats in general um if you're if you're taking care of a

1:17:23cat and yet the cat is not you're in your possession it is subject to then being considered a stray should Animal Control it should it be reported to animal control so you know that's sort of the I guess a risk but this would but this would can this or this ordinance is contemplating

1:17:42animal ownership so okay I'm just we're not I'm just wondering about all those animals that are not owned right and this would not be addressing those animals okay um and then um so so it would not address theoretically as far as we know turkeys correct the ones we see you know

1:17:59going up and down the road or whatever yeah okay those are um and um there's a category of animals that I guess I would call in my uh Layman's way livestock so are they um like count let's just say cows so what what happens in our ordinance with things like cows

1:18:22um other other livestock which aren't otherwise defined in the code would would require a conditional use permit so it'd be the the same as the the current requirements and that would be looked at on a on a case-by-case basis so um if someone wanted to keep a cow

1:18:37um they would need to um demonstrate that you know they had the appropriate facilities to keep a cow and the means to take care of it and and you know the means to kind of meet you they would definitely have to meet all of those General standards but um they would need to also demonstrate

1:18:54that you know they had the means to to take care of of whatever animal it was appropriately okay so as a horse livestock yes okay so to me there are two kinds of horses one is what I would call regular size horses and then there are the tiny horses and some of the tiny

1:19:12horses have I Believe been certified as um what are they called um they um I can't remember the word but service animals thank you okay so are you going to have a place in there where you acknowledge that that's covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act um we could do that

1:19:38um it's funny you mentioned that my girlfriend works at Mills College and she just today told me she had to register a pony as a as a service animal um and so if um yeah we could include an acknowledgment of of service animals or we could split ponies or small small

1:19:56horses off of um off of uh the livestock category or refer to maybe refer to the Americans with Disabilities Act in some way that encompasses any animal that might be used that way okay um then um the hours that we were talking about you know the the time of day and the hours between which you have

1:20:24to not have the noise um I I thought I remembered from when I was on the Planning Commission discussions about between 7 A.M and 7 00 PM or excuse me between 7 p.m and 7 A.M you couldn't do construction for example remember things like that wouldn't it be the same for this because I don't

1:20:45or or does this why is this different than that the current ordinance uh states that no foul burner animal of any sort shall be kept within the city shall be allowed to disturb neighbors with noise between Sunset and one half hour after sunrise right and that's for an ordinance that's

1:21:05the standard we start for Animals correct for Animals why is that different than it is for construction um I'm I'm not sure why that why a different standards was adopted when it I mean that that standard was adopted in in 87 with the with the current ordinance so I'm not sure

1:21:25um why the council then chose to to adopt something different than construction noise that that type of time regulation is is actually very common amongst the animal ordinances that we looked at and I believe it's tied to behavior and as deaths comes sometimes the animal behavior is

1:21:41different and that's where that came from okay um so um one of the things I've heard about roosters is you don't always know you have a rooster until it um matures somewhat and um so what if somebody gets a rooster and it turns out to be I mean excuse me gets what they think is a

1:22:09um it's a cute little chicken chick chick and they think that it's um going to be a hen but it's going to be a rooster what are they supposed to do then um well there's there's two things I want to say about that um one is that um so our code enforcement is is largely

1:22:30complaint driven so um you know at the point when it was a chick and you know you maybe didn't even know that it was a rooster um it you know it most likely would not be a problem um you know at the point where it became old enough and large enough to become a nuisance than if we received any

1:22:50complaints then um they would have to somehow not keep the the rooster in El Cerrito um that the the other thing I do want to say is that um council member benicini and I were able to visit a woman in Alameda who keeps chickens and bees and um she told us that she had six chickens

1:23:13which is uh what's allowed in the Alameda municipal code and they were all either black or um a red brown color and she's told us that she's specifically kept that variety of chicken because they were bred so that the females were only black or red brown in color and

1:23:36so there there are um there are ways that you can um tell if if birds are going to be you know the gender of a bird before it matures there are ways because I've heard a number of people tell me they don't know until after the animal has matured at some level this these particular

1:23:59chickens were bred so that the female all of the females were either black or or red okay from just just from hearsay from what I've Been Told um that's not always the case though in in different chickens that's true okay so what what are they supposed to do then if so if there's no nuisance being

1:24:20created according to the neighbors if there was no nuisance being created we we most likely would not know about it and would not enforce um the prohibition on roosters um you know just for lack of of information um but one you know once a code enforcement action was was started

1:24:46um the person keeping that that rooster would would have to remove it from El Cerrito foreign thank you Sean just a couple questions our audience has been so patient and we really appreciate it um with the fee amounts just to go over them one more time we're talking about

1:25:04the easiest way to keep any of these animals about a hundred dollars for chickens a hundred dollars for bees and then twelve hundred dollars for goats or twelve hundred dollars for your pet pig and I noticed um you did a great job of putting together the Matrix of other

1:25:19cities ordinances in their language do we have any idea at this point what their fee structure is and whether or not there are any of the Cities we looked at that have fees up to twelve hundred dollars for goats or pigs yeah the only um the only permits on that Matrix

1:25:38um are for a conditional use permit in Pinole for exceptions to to the standards that their ordinance specifies so that would be similar to what what we've proposed here um and and um I I didn't call the city of Pinole but I I would imagine that their use permit fees are somewhat similar to El

1:25:58Cerritos um and the other permit is um in Albany apartment it's an administrative permit for chickens um which is um if you meet certain standards it's um they're they're allowed if you meet certain standards and if you don't meet those standards you're required to uh

1:26:20get permission from all of your adjacent neighbors I believe um and that process is Administrative but it's not typically I was told it's not typically done over the counter they they typically take the permit in and um you know take a a few days to a week to review it before it's issued and that

1:26:39process that permit costs 163 dollars okay and I was told that in in the last seven years they've issued approximately 10 of them okay thank you and just to take us through the process of somebody coming in and wanting to become legal with their chickens or bees would they come

1:26:57in and show some sort of drawing with their application that shows where they are placing the enclosure to prove that it's 20 feet from the nearest property that's correct okay so they need to prove that in some way and you we would have that on record correct okay

1:27:13um I just want to point that out because I know we keep thinking about the size of the lot and that being a proxy and that being a really administratively easy way for us to categorize these animals um but if the owner is going to come in and put on record where they're putting

1:27:28the enclosure that 20 foot metric to me is a really important metric and I still am questioning and I want to Think Through the 4 000 square foot and 5 000 square foot sizes and whether or not those are necessary metrics given we're already placing the enclosure at some required

1:27:46distance from other homes so I just I know that you're thinking about that as well and if there's any other comments on that um size classification I'd be happy to hear them well um in addition to the distance to adjacent dwellings um we included the the lot size

1:28:06requirement um because there there was some uh acknowledgment that in addition to the distances to your neighbors the animals themselves need a certain amount of space um and um you know while it might be more appropriate to say you know this type of animal needs at least you know this

1:28:28amount this square footage of space um that's harder to measure because someone would have to produce a draw they would have to measure their backyard and produce a drawing to show that they have that amount of space whereas if it's you know if we're picking a lot size

1:28:45um it's you know in 15 seconds we can look up um your lot size and and verify that that you meet that requirement so it might be the case that they don't need to produce a drawing they just need to show that their lot sizes of a sufficient size and oh by the way it's

1:29:00at least most of my lar most of my my yard is 20 feet or more from a residence they wouldn't have to draw where the coop is or where they simply would still have to show where the where the coop was going to be okay and the distance to your to your the neighboring dwellings

1:29:17so it sounds like we need a drawing no matter what it so I don't know how standard or architecture or if it's just a hand drawing but some sort of drawing I I guess I guess the point I'm making is um it's with the with the types of drawings that we typically the type of

1:29:33drawings we typically get for over-the-counter permits are are hand-drawn um they're on you know an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper um they're supposed to be to scale but you know there's some wiggle room there um and so it's it's harder to verify that you know if if someone comes in and

1:29:58um has a drawing of their backyard it's harder to verify the the size of the backyard than it is to verify the lot size okay I still want to think through this just thinking they're you know tools that not everybody may have but a lot of people use Google Earth and

1:30:11they're able to you know you can you can easily calculate the size of your yard and how you could even draw how large your chicken coop would be and how large it is in relation to all the various houses so I still want to think through that but I appreciate the response

1:30:26um the the next one is do we have any idea and I don't know if we know today but maybe later on how many nuisance complaints related to noise we get each year um and actually uh Chief Moyer is here if you wanted to um address some more specific questions but um one of the um

1:30:46we contract with Contra Costa County for animal control services so Sylvia correct me if I'm wrong um apparently we received 425 calls for noise um for all animals am I verifying that Contra Costa County received 425 calls last year for all noise complaints um and you know you know just to sort of

1:31:08actually for the whole County or for just elsewhere El Cerrito the calls they got from elsewhere residents calls for service correct for Mouse Arena residents 425. so you know just to address that a little bit um there are enforcement Provisions that that would sort of be have to be

1:31:24addressed on a case-by-case basis and actually some of the council members asked noise would probably would be one of those um you know Animal Control wheat contract with the county that person is not housed in El Cerrito so from time to time there's a time lag there's there's

1:31:37sort of a difference between like a nuisance that's ongoing which would be appropriate for animal control services to come and rectify or an imminent threat to health or safety or something happening um in that case law enforcement would take that on in other cases because we

1:31:55contract with the county and we pay them a sizable amount of money each year to do that they would take that on in other cases in the in the code as far as what would be appropriate say if someone was being kept something was being kept in an unsanitary condition we could handle

1:32:10that in Code Enforcement so there are three sort of different facets of enforcement for this type of ordinance and that would sort of happen on a case-by-case basis but as far as an ongoing noise complaint if it wasn't able to be handled by Animal Control say it was in the middle of the night or

1:32:28something the police department could handle that great and any idea whether or not the 425 were proportion of that is dog related or if it's uh kind of across the board music and other I believe it was just classified as an across the board this is animals only oh this is animals

1:32:44only okay great okay so we don't know what if it was dogs or probably likely mostly dogs okay and the last question I have is with regard to the parcel size for goats was 10 000 square feet something you came across in other ordinances or was it just a natural break in our lot sizes that you wanted

1:33:04to put them in the largest category and that is the largest category of of lot sizes um you know I don't I actually don't have the the comparison table with me but I seem to remember that um at least one other city did uh have ten thousand square feet as a as a size

1:33:22um for goats but I could be wrong about that also during the 2006 case on Arlington that was a little bit over 10 000 square feet and that discussion came up quite a bit during that case about how big the lot was and how goats would fit really well on that large lot so it's sort of

1:33:41the past is sort of informing where we're going with the 10 000. okay but it has nothing to do with any knowledge any metric we happen to have about how much a goat eats per year and that they need x square feet okay all right thank you those are all my questions

1:33:55I'm just saying Here Concord has a minimum 20 000 square foot lot size one goat per ten thousand same with um panel great so thanks for all your great questions you guys got most of mine um I think um the one thing I want to clarify was that um was what was the magic behind four

1:34:17chickens if what was the logic behind that total um from from the research that we've done uh four chickens seems to be an appropriate amount of chickens to have on a typical residential um size lot and it the the eggs that are yielded by four hens um would you know would be enough

1:34:41um for a family of a you know of of five or six on a on an ongoing basis you wouldn't you know you wouldn't really have any eggs left over if you had um four chickens and a family of six from this is you know from what I understand from talking to chicken owners and

1:34:59um from doing other research um the the um the woman that um council member benicini and I were able to visit she has six chickens and a family of six and she said that they produce extra eggs so she's she's giving away eggs to her neighbors um so that was kind of the logic behind

1:35:19it thank you and um and I just wanted to clarify with the bees you're recommending um uh over-the-counter permit but with noticing so in that case does that um create a a greater cost for the permit because you're doing that notification if we base the permit fees

1:35:40on on the cost of service then then yes it would most likely create a more expensive permit okay and then um finally I I assume part of all of our discussion which we'll get to after we hear public comment is what we feel like you know all where all of this lies in

1:35:57terms of whether the threshold should be over the counter versus versus administrative use versus conditional use correct that we have all of that room to figure out as well as and then once we figure that out on top of that costs would be a whole additional layer on top of that

1:36:15um great so I think yeah oh if I may just add one more thing about the chickens um the the other thing to consider is um the the other thing I read um in doing research is just that um the chickens obviously they're um there's more to clean up uh the more chickens you have so you know four or

1:36:44um uh we you know we saw six in Alameda and that that seemed to work all right as far as um the you know keeping the the area where they were kept sanitary um but it does you know the the more chickens you have the more the the more work you have to dedicate to keeping

1:37:01their area sanitary and and actually in readings um made me think of another question is there there are mobile chicken coops for the purposes of allowing chickens to basically fertilize and eat in and Rove around is that so far it seems like we haven't we would

1:37:19want we would want to see stationary wouldn't be allowing movable given that we're trying to locate them right yeah we right given that that one of the requirements is is the distance to neighboring dwellings um yeah we would want to see a a permanent location for that

1:37:39if staff could just add um the larger the lot the more flexibility you have and so in some cases those mobile ones might work whereas if you're on a very small lot then you absolutely would have to have a permanent foundation for one okay right so I think we're probably a good

1:37:58time to start asking for publics from the comment I mean comments from the public yes sir could please explain the the lights in the process that would be great yes we have 16 speakers on this item and for many of you that are new um to speak before the council the

1:38:19council's allotted three minutes per speaker to assist you in tracking your time there's a there's a lighting system up on the presentation podium here when you begin speaking the light will turn green um the light will turn yellow when you have one minute to sum up and when it

1:38:34turns red you'll know that your time's concluded and you'll make time for the the next person so so with that no pressure to use your whole three minutes if if someone said something that you agree with I encourage you to just Echo that um in the interest of time if all of us

1:38:51will have we'll be here for another hour to hear all that public comment so just wanted to encourage you guys to think about that but welcoming all the comments so to start we have the chair of the eqc Ron eggerman there's a whole bunch of jokes I could say but I'm just going to let it be

1:39:13uh Madam mayor council members I am Ron eggerman chair of the Environmental Quality committee and I'm very pleased that the process to revise El Cerrito's animal ordinance is moving along and I really want to compliment Sean for the spirit and Care in which he has

1:39:33drafted the new ordinance the Environmental Quality committee voted to send a recommendation for revisions to the animal ordinance to the planning department on November 17 2009 following five full months of vetting the pros and cons of allowing chickens bees and mini goats to be kept in El

1:39:54Cerrito including encouraging public comment during the similar work session as you're having tonight the main thing the eqc wants to convey is our strong feeling that keeping these animals is a way to support sustainable food sources and to remind us where our

1:40:12food comes from it's also a way of getting neighbors together and fostering a sense of community when you pick up a freshly laid egg taste the honeycomb pet a goat two things two important things happen first you get to you you get in touch with nature your own and the nature around you

1:40:32second you can have a good time the place where we live should be able to promote both when sitting on the eqc in a position of influence for taking the first step towards making El Cerrito A Greener and more animal-friendly Community especially to those who wish to be

1:40:51self-sustaining I got a clear picture of how difficult it is to make changes in a diverse City there are always compelling arguments on both sides of any issue so deciding to move forward takes guts I firmly pardon me I firmly believe that making it possible to raise these small

1:41:10creatures is the right decision for the council to make I would encourage you to take a broad positive Stroke by having the ordinal the animal ordinance be very general without a lot of restrictions and rely on the city's nuisance ordinance to govern those members of the community

1:41:28who are not conscious of how their animals may be disturbing their neighbors I think Sean's reasoning on lot size which will cover about 85 percent of el Cerrito's properties and 20 feet from a neighbor's home is sound what I ask is for you to have the courage to make a positive change and to

1:41:50resist the negative comments made from a place of fear of the unknown there are so many cities even more urban than ours who allowed backyard chickens and the keeping the bees that I strongly believe this is an appropriate step for El Cerrito thank you come on Ron codrant

1:42:23I can't believe what I'm hearing tonight and you thought you had trouble with the trees to introduce myself my name is Ron codran and I've been involved in the business Community for over 38 years I opened my business The Abbey carpet store on Pablo Avenue in 1973.

1:42:47and I like to think it's been an asset to our Fair city of El Cerrito my wife and I built our home in the hills of El Cerrito in 1979 and shared a wonderful life here together for 30 years I lost her in March of 2009.

1:43:09to memorialize my wife I made a small but beautiful garden in her name Patricia's Garden this is where I'm able to find peace that is until one morning the Tranquility was broken and I was awakened by the incessant clucking of hens I thought to myself farm animals in El Cerrito I must still

1:43:33be dreaming prior to this I saw one of my neighbors building what I thought was going to be a greenhouse I was wrong it was a chicken coop and now another neighbor bordering this one has also built a chicken coop so that now we have stereophonic clucking the noise is distracting and

1:43:54nerve-wracking I find that I spend much less time in Patricia's Garden furthermore the noise penetrates the sanctum of my home and I'm awakened every morning well before I wish to be I've always liked fresh air and have kept my windows open now I keep them closed to reduce the noise

1:44:16I don't mind dogs occasionally bark here and there we get them as expected while I'm not a health inspector I do believe that there must be health issues as a result of chickens walking around in their own feces attracting flies and other Airborne carriers of disease such as mosquitoes and gnats

1:44:39to our neighborhood my wife and I chose to live in these Hills of El Cerrito because of their beauty their view their views and their serenity we do not live in a farming community if it is organic eggs that a few of our neighbors want they're available at the local El cerrillo natural grocery store

1:44:58right next door to my store and we're lucky to have them anyone who can afford to live in the El Cerrito Hills can afford to buy organic eggs from our local grocery the chickens our neighbors are raising are not free range thus the meaning of the word poop hence cooped up which leads them to be

1:45:16living and walking in their own ways the noise is like a form of water torture you never know when it's coming but you know it is coming if this continues I will certainly consider moving from the home that I love but why should I be forced out of my home leaving my

1:45:33memories behind after all I was here before the chickens I asked the board that when you consider this issue to know that unless you restrict this you put yourselves in danger of this happening to you if the board if you the board had to live with this Den every day of your life and I'm sure you

1:45:54would feel the same way excuse me Ron if you could wrap it up we are at that end of your three minutes you're at the end of your three minutes one last thing thank you if you allow such a leniency regarding farm animals then you should make more lenient our right to build 40-foot high fences to

1:46:13keep out the noise and if you thought you had 425 complaints last year wait till you pass something like this you're going to increase it by a factor of 10.

1:46:25[Applause] all right thank you and um Cheryl could could we please could you call the next three names so people can start getting ready so um so it can move things along quicker thanks Laura Nelson Arthur Valenta and Arlene Robertson thank you uh I'm Laura Beth Greenwich Nelson and I

1:46:53live up on Brewster Drive just in front of Arlington Park El Cerrito is a family-friendly community and we've loved living here I happen to be a gardener I happen to spend out in my garden and thought of having chicken chickens around is a bit much and there are other communities

1:47:11such as Petaluma I believe that do that do not allow the chickens in their Community I understand sustainability but also there's something very nice about the piece I've learned to live with the deer and I've learned to live with the freaking turkeys so I would

1:47:30really like for you to consider it's the noise of the chickens that is difficulty thank you thank you foreign [Applause] Ty a resident of El Cerrito I drafted the County's Animal Services ordinance and for 20 years I advised the County's Animal Services Department

1:47:56that's well in my past and beyond my current expertise nevertheless I do have some background what the city is proposing to do or what is being proposed to you is what was proposed to our Congress and President in the early 1990s when we had an effective regulatory system of our

1:48:23financial operation and they threw it overboard for no regulation you are essentially being asked to jettison a working regulatory system for no regulation certainly with regard to chickens if you do not require conditions on youth permits you are tying your own

1:48:47hands when it comes to enforcement and regulation of what is going to be a serious problem because the presence of chickens and of bees is invasive to all the neighbors and you need to be able to care for this and you need to be able to do it without filing a lawsuit

1:49:13I think a significant problem with a proposal made to you is that it fails to consider the neighborhood interests when people ask for permits for these particular kinds of of animals to keep they are issues that go well beyond immediate boundaries they involve the surrounding people and

1:49:45no one is giving an opportunity to be heard the proposal to you fails to consider the issue of impact on property values a major issue if you have properties with adjacent chicken coops and beehives you're talking very seriously about impacting property values so your time is up the last thing I'll

1:50:15mention thank you is that the actual claims that I've heard to support this proposal are in general either unfounded entirely or are negligibly founded [Applause] the speaker in that group was Arlene Robertson so the next three speakers are curl lump Kirk Lumpkin Carl Mason

1:50:46and Julia Mason um thank you for engaging this topic I would like to Echo the comments of the gentleman over here from your environmental uh Commission and uh I compliment you on trying to move forward with this I would like to particularly draw your attention to

1:51:13um the other cities that aren't being near as controlling about these issues our neighbors in Richmond Berkeley Oakland and your staff person pretty much came up with one comparison of a permitting process that would be anything like this in Pinole I think really as your staff person said

1:51:36that um most things in this Arena have been complaint driven and I would urge you to move towards um a a process that is much more about that than trying to come up with all the specifics about all the different types of animals that could be here um I would point out that through most

1:52:02of the history of humankind and cities that having animals in cities is commonplace and through most of the world probably except for the North America and Europe it is still probably very commonplace to have all of these animals um I think the council person over here Mr Lyman I

1:52:26think was being somewhat facetious and saying that a goat might attack somebody I think I I've got firsthand testimony that someone was actually accosted at their front door by a goat so um I think the Rarity of something like that compared to the animals that we

1:52:43know about that we live with all the time dogs dogs are much much much more likely to bite somebody or be a noise problem than any of these animals that we've been talking about people want this I work for an environmental organization Berkeley the Ecology Center we've been teaching

1:53:01people how to do these things how to raise bees how to raise chickens in urban settings people want to do this and they're well prepared and the People by and large who want to do this are really um their Community conscious people they're not people who want to bother their

1:53:17neighbors um and I would you know again ask you to uh make this as easy as possible for people to encourage them doing this for the health of themselves for their Community for the environment for sustainability and the big picture of things um it's it's really good for all of us

1:53:40and the clucking of hands really is nothing like the loudness of a dog um or even the meowing a cat you know um I anybody who's lived on a farm I think could tell you that or any rural setting [Applause] next two speakers Carl Mason and Julia Mason thank you my name is Carl Mason

1:54:17and I'd like to thank Ron very much for for shepherding this through the environmental equality committee and I'd like to also thank the council for taking out this important issue uh we have have chickens and it's been a tremendous source of growth for our our

1:54:33children we think that demystifying the food supply has been empowering as well as educational and it's a small it's a small step towards a Greener planet and a healthier diet what I would really like to discuss though is the is one way in which I think this ordinance could be potentially improved

1:54:55and that is by adding a little flexibility if you consider for example the fifth chicken you've got a right to four but when you add that fifth you're looking at a conditional use permit that's 1400 bucks out of your pocket plus 1400 bucks out of the city's pocket

1:55:20twenty eight hundred dollars for one chicken about nine hundred dollars a pound that seems rather High um I think we can take a lesson from our neighbors in Albany on this um one of the nice things about the way Albany treats chickens is that they feature their chicken ordinance on the

1:55:39web page called Community Building and in it they encourage people to work together to work together as Neighbors maybe you have a maybe you can supply The Coop maybe your neighbor can supply the run for example is one of one of their examples and they also have a

1:55:54feature where if if you want to relax some of the constraints about where the Koop is or perhaps how many chickens there are you can get the unanimous consent of all of your contiguous Neighbors and I contend that no matter how much you don't like chicken clucking it's

1:56:14possible to not like chicken clucking um it's your neighbor if it's your immediate neighbors who who could be who could really be affected by this if you're more than a house away you're just not going to hear it it's just and I think all of the the people who are complaining vociferously really

1:56:32have have next door neighbors an ordinance that would allow you to add that fifth chicken with the consent of your neighbors I think would be would be terrific and be much better than this process which is as cumbersome as the process for building not a second story Edition but

1:56:48a third story edition if I understand Sean uh correctly um so I'd humbly suggest that we have an ordinance that grants some number of chickens by right but then allows for all the restrictions to be reduced with an over-the-counter permit and the consent of all contiguous

1:57:06Neighbors thank you I appreciate all the the support you guys are giving in the audience to your speakers but I think if we could try to keep it on on task that'll help us get through all the the comments Julia Mason um could you please I'm sorry could you please come up to the front thank you

1:57:34oh yeah hi my name is Julia Mason um I'm just going to say that I'm with my father and I support keeping chickens in El Cerrito because I have chickens and they're not that loud actually thank you next three speakers Kyle Brunell Robert mckimmy and Kathleen McKinley

1:58:11thank you for hearing me I'm Kyle Burnell my wife and I have been El Cerrito residence for about nine years now and I just wanted to say I'm in support of this ordinance I think it's a reasonable um reasonable ordinance allowing for a responsible possession of chickens and other small

1:58:29animals one of the reasons we like El Cerrito is for the community feeling in the neighborhood and we found that that just in our neighborhood it's again that's that's the enjoyment of El Cerrito is just the way people have gone along most of our neighbors that we've

1:58:45talked to are in support of this ordinance they're also in support of treating each other um and respecting each other the I guess there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons I feel strongly about being able to possess chickens one um including sustainability and the the

1:59:05Humane treatment versus the the treatment that they're being received that they're receiving in uh farming situations um bees we all know that they're becoming dangerously close to becoming extinct and they're a critical part of our food chain um bees have to live somewhere and

1:59:24everyone has them everyone who has flowers or vegetables in their yard has bees they have to come from somewhere um so again reasonable possession of beehives uh is something that I think should be allowed um but I guess one of the things I want to talk about was was the effect the

1:59:40effect on property value and some people have been expressed concerned it would have a negative effect on property value when we started hearing about about backyard chickens we happen to see an article about a backyard chicken tour in Alameda and there there's a pretty thriving

1:59:56community of backyard chicken coops in Alameda so we went last summer on the tour and I could say that of of the half a dozen 10 uh places we toured the the sort of community spirit and um any any of those families we we would have enjoyed living next to um and and to me that is a positive

2:00:18the whole experience was a positive note and I think thing I would think would increase property values in my sense it'd be people I would want to live around um and uh noise-wise uh we don't we don't intend to have goats but I do know that that uh about about every two weeks when when the my former

2:00:41Neighbors when their gardeners would come there'd be about two hours of gas powered appliances running at full speed mowers weed blowers hedge trimmers I was counting all the gas powered appliances and to me to to not have that happen for two hours every two weeks I I wouldn't

2:00:59mind having a goat next door foreign [Applause] a resident El Cerrito I'm here in support of the changes to allow greater access to having the specified animals as part of the sustainable food production in an urban setting it's a very important issue as far as I'm

2:01:22concerned I'm speaking specifically on behalf of pollinators the apis melifera honeybee specifically a very gentle hard-working but on the verge of being threatened by habitat reduction over exposure to pesticides herbicides fungicides and devastating bacterial and viral

2:01:39diseases along with invasive parasites specifically the varroa Mite which is devastating bees just this last week in the worldwide press the U.N environment program released a report called Global honeybee Colony disorders and other threats to insect pollinators

2:01:58they had some specifics of the top 100 crops which produced 90 percent of the world's food 71 of those crops is dependent upon honeybees for pollination the report stresses that pollination by insects should not be taken for granted plainly spoken honeybees a critical

2:02:17Foundation of our entire food production system are in major trouble as diseases such as CCD colony collapse disorder dreaded Disease vectored by the parasitic varroa Mite and in the last few years there's a new disease that's come it's a nation honey bee dysentery

2:02:34called nosima Serana which is devastating as a bacterial disease well-tended honeybees are perfectly suited for urban and Suburban lifestyle the term B-Line accurate depicts how they fly away from and return to the hive not disturbing anyone anyone they do not invade backyard picnics or

2:02:52dinners those are yellow jackets always giving bees a bad name honeybees are vegetarian so they never invade your your meal the backyard hobbyist is a critical is critical to the effort to keep bees alive and I think the commercial people don't have time or money to actually try more experimental

2:03:10procedures and methods so the small hobbyist beekeepers are the ones that have the time to be pursuing this the the more offbeat or curious methods such as sugar dusting the bees for viral mice which works quite well non-commissioned commercial beekeepers tending hives and

2:03:26backyards are very essential to honeybee survival San Francisco has allowed lawful beekeeping since the 1970s with no permitting process at all Berkeley New York City and Santa Monica have all made bees legal in 2010 so I just urge your support in in a very vital part of our

2:03:42food system thank you very much [Applause] Kathleen McKinley [address removed] former planning commissioner for 12 years in fact the first time there are esteemed chair of the environmental equality commission committee presented uh this new proposal to the Planning

2:04:08Commission I was still on it that was my last session I want to address one point tonight I'm strongly in favor of this ordinance and anything that allows the urban homesteading movement to take root in El Cerrito I think it's extremely important and if we're not on this train

2:04:25it's going to leave the station without us the one point I the one problem I have with this ordinance and it it obviously needs some refinement is that I really strongly object to the imposition of the conditional use permit requirement for keeping chickens bees or

2:04:43pigs on a resident who simply happens to live adjacent to a multi-family property if the objective is to minimize impacts on other residents which I appears to be the purpose of having that requirement I don't think the um that requirement actually achieves the objective or it

2:05:05certainly imposes disparate burdens on residents uh without actually achieving the the objective of reducing impacts on neighbors you could have uh you might live next to a duplex property that has one person living in in each unit and you would be required to get a

2:05:24conditional use permit which is extremely expensive that's another thing the fees for this for this are too high uh a person who lives next to solely single family residents is which might each have four or five six people living in them wouldn't have this cup requirement triggered that's completely

2:05:43unfair uh what's what's what objective is achieved by doing this flipping this over why you could have a person living in a single family home next to a person keeping chickens and the person in the singly family home might object just as much to having those chickens as somebody in a

2:06:02multi-unit building but that person's concerns aren't given equal weight to the person who happens to live in an apartment building just because they live in an apartment building it makes no sense the the multi-family uh the distinction actually I think is going to subject this

2:06:22ordinance to be challenged on equal protection grounds Maybe by me and I'll tell you why I live in on a 10 000 square foot property um I'm I back up into the Wildwood condominium complex presumably that's considered multi-family I would have to get a conditional use

2:06:41permit even though there isn't a single housing unit that's closer than 50 feet to my property line the people who live on either sodomy and single live on single family residences I could keep chickens closer to them without triggering any requirement for conditional use permit the mere fact

2:07:01that my property is borders on a multi-family property would trigger the conditional use permit makes no sense to me and I'm not kidding I would I think I would challenge it on constitutional grounds if it were passed with that provision I don't think it does what

2:07:16it's intended to do thank you our next three speakers are Bob Everett Glenn Davis and Judy Hardin hello good evening thank you all for your patience and attentiveness to everyone around this issue and thank you to the planning department and the zoning department for all of your hard

2:07:43work on redrafting and coming up with something that might be fitting better with today's Lifestyles um I definitely just want to give full support to the way that this has been written I am in agreement with the fifth chicken um again I'm here in El Cerrito because

2:08:04I want to be able to interact with my neighbors I'm able to live on a property here in a single family home that is large enough that I can have chickens I can hang out with my neighbors we can engage around these things I'm not going to be disrespectful of my neighbors

2:08:20I would rather it be held responsible as an individual to be able to engage in my community and work together and kind of not have that be the onus of El Cerrito which is already dealing with a ton of other stuff so I just support having us work together if there's

2:08:39situations that need to be dealt with um I'm keeping it short thank you all [Applause] hi I'm Glenn Davis let me uh first say that I don't have a dog in this race I'm uh I live in an area with a neighbor of mine who has a problem with the sound of chickens and Noise

2:09:05but my house is further down so I can't hear them I know they're there but I can't hear them I have other concerns primarily um I think having chickens or having any of these animals is a responsibility that a lot of people are just not prepared to accept the reality is that some people pay the

2:09:26fees and abide by the law and others won't no matter how inexpensive you make the fees some people will keep their yards clean others will not some people will get those animals for the right reasons and treat them humanely and that's a big concern of mine I know this will not

2:09:43so who's going to police the problem people The Neighbors well and we were told that that's the first step this is nuisance driven so the neighbors are the ones who first complain and that triggers a response from police or animal control well once you get neighbors fighting each other I

2:10:00think some of you remember how those things turn out um so that's really not something you want you want to preempt that especially right now because you can my feeling is that we need to at least deal with that issue of enforcement and not make it your neighbor's

2:10:19responsibility or someone else's responsibility anticipate that problem and fix it also and finally I ask that you approve that do not approve conditional use permits except under exceptional circumstances neighbors should be consulted their needs respected before

2:10:38the city approves a variance in the ordinance for any reason the city must demonstrate equally its concern for the rights of animal owners and its commitment to protect happened to live [Applause] hi my name is Anne Martin I'm a PhD candidate in City Planning at UC

2:11:04Berkeley as well as a volunteer with Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary a member of the Berkeley Organization for animal advocacy and an educator in training and member of the House Rabbit Society I'm Judy Hardin I am a resident of El Cerrito I own a business in El Cerrito

2:11:20and I'm also a member of House Rabbit Society so we wanted to support including additional animals as a right and we were very pleased that both rabbits and guinea pigs would be included as animals that could be kept as r as of right um one of the things that we wanted to

2:11:37bring up that hadn't been brought up already is that there is no stipulation that would prohibit slaughtering in backyards so we would request that you adopt Oakland Municipal Code 8.40.080 which categorizes slaughtering as an offensive place or occupation and would

2:11:58prohibit it within City Limits the other thing um the the city of Berkeley also recently had a animal welfare Commission meeting specifically about whether to start a new rooster ban and they actually unanimously decided not to recommend a rooster ban to city council so I would recommend

2:12:19um reviewing the minutes of that discussion that was last month several of the reasons are that those buying chicks cannot be guaranteed of receiving hens in the mail most hatcheries actually only have about 80 percent success rate with female hens and male chicks are often sent along as

2:12:39padding um and the they decided that the noise ordinance would actually cover the issue of roosters and any complaints that would come up there's also the issue that um animal animal rescues and sanctuaries are not equipped to handle additional roosters um that that would be confiscated

2:12:59because of this and it would increase the euthanasia so one other thing that we also wanted to bring up was the possibility of moving the animal control contract from the county to the city of Berkeley at the end date of the contract as city of Berkeley has a much lower kill rate than

2:13:17Martinez thank you for taking out this issue I only have a few things to add to what Ann said I would like to see Rabbids guinea pig hamsters rodents that you mentioned Allowed by right as indoor pets only without a permit I would like to see honey bees um every anywhere they want to be

2:13:37without permits I'd like to see you remove the ban on roosters and just let the noise ordinance take care of them and also the backyard Slaughter is a big concern of mine with this the urban farm I would like to make sure that you include that in this thank you

2:13:54thank you and our final three speakers are Barbara Hill Lynn gussinger and Nikki Kaiser my name is Barbara Hill I have uh some reservations about the proposed ordinance uh we live in an urban Wildland interface and I'm wondering whether the question of potential interaction

2:14:32between wild and domestic animals has been addressed from a public health standpoint the possibility of transmission of diseases or whatever through means of the vermin in my neighborhood the wild animals that we have include rats mice voles raccoons skunks possums squirrels

2:15:00foxes and coyotes all of which carry fleas plus deer which carry ticks which carry Lyme disease plus wild turkeys and escaped domestic rabbits um let's not add mountain lions to that list by letting people keep farm animals in their backyards that are attractive

2:15:27as prey as you know there was a mountain lion tracked and killed in North Berkeley it was discovered on Shattuck Avenue um if you do if you do want to make this ordinance more lenient I would ask you if you would at least direct the planning Planning Commission

2:15:48to deny conditional use permits to any Resident above the flat areas of the city in an attempt to create some sort of buffer zone between the Wildland and the urban interface I would also ask if you would consider making this a ballot measure so that all the residents of El Cerrito could have a

2:16:10chance to see all the arguments for and against the ordinance and the rebuttals to those arguments thank you [Applause] I'm Lynn hensinger I'm I'm next and um I've had experience raising all the animals that have been mentioned tonight except perhaps llamas um okay so I've kept all these animals and

2:16:41I wanted to say I thought the ordinances are pretty good I think they're pretty reasonable and um I support them strongly I wanted to back up some of the earlier speakers who called for some flexibility because when you set up something that's really hard and and in my case I'm talking about the

2:16:5920-foot to the adjacent residence limit you set yourself up for tipping someone over like with the fifth chicken into a fifteen hundred dollar conditional use permit um I think it would be better if people worked that out with their neighbors so for example um I don't think the 20-foot to an

2:17:17adjacent residence solves any of the problems that people have talked to about tonight the people who've complained about animals 20 feet is not going to help at all and I don't know of any compelling uh health or scientific reason why that's a good number or a

2:17:30number that actually means anything at all so I would encourage some flexibility that allowed you to get your neighbor's permission or something so that you could work out where the best place to keep a coop would be the places that are 20 feet from your neighbors

2:17:44might not be the best places they might not be the places that would limit the disturbance or any potential disturbance the most they might not be the safest they might not be the warmest they just might not be the best places and so you're forcing people to put something

2:17:57in an inflexible way on their properties and not all properties are flat exact squares where you can you can do something like that um they may not be the spots that are best suited for the animals that are being considered so for example I'd what about a case of two neighbors who want

2:18:15to share a coop between them that would definitely remove make this location far less potentially a problem to anybody else in the neighborhood and would allow them to uh husband the animals together or close to each other the 20-foot limit might make that quite impossible so I I

2:18:35would encourage flexibility in that area I really believe in relying on the nuisance the noise the health ordinances that you already have rather than these fixed numbers of feet and I do strongly believe in working together with your neighbors thank you any any further public comments from

2:18:58anyone who hasn't spoken yet okay and if you could just fill out a card when you're done thank you oh okay I'm sorry my name is Nikki Kaiser and I would like to address Five Points here one you should try and avoid redundancy in our laws that we make especially new

2:19:17ones like this things should be written so they can be complied with and enforced in a fair and reasonable way we don't want to have people sort of complying with something and teaching their kids that it's okay not to comply with love just because it's not easy to

2:19:31fit into it it should be written in a way that's actually compliable easily we want to try and limit administrative and citizen costs and we want to be as inclusive as possible rather than working on specific uh Birds such as well if we can have chickens well what

2:19:48about ducks no one's considered Ducks um what about quail what about pigeons when we're talking about insects do we not allow arachnids can a boy not have a pet spider is that not legal um I think when we try and narrow things down too much rather than thinking in the bigger

2:20:06picture we risk having to come back here and deal with this again in later date and most importantly things need to be fair and consistent so in the realm of avoiding redundancy our nuisance laws uh cover noise odor Vermin waste and our zoning laws cover accessory buildings and the setbacks and

2:20:28size of those that are allowable if someone can put a workshop five feet from the side of their property and run a chop saw and lathes and stuff I don't see how that is better for me as a neighbor than someone having a chicken that goes once in a while um fairness inconsistency

2:20:48really big issue for me if someone can have five cats you're talking maybe a 20 pound cat five cats that's 100 pounds of cats that's 100 pounds of cats producing the equivalent amount of waste three dogs okay you got 360 pound dogs think about how much waste 360 pound dogs make

2:21:03well according to the way this is going to be written we're only gonna be able to have four chickens say a five pound chicken 20 pounds of chickens total that's not much waste okay pigeons if they were allowed into this under the same count about a pound a piece four or perhaps

2:21:21they're not gonna be considered at all and then we're gonna have to have a twelve hundred dollar use permit or other type of permit in order to have a pair of pigeons for Pigeon fancier currently pigeons do not appear to be legal in El Cerrito cats and noise cats and dogs make noise

2:21:39all night long hens and most other domestic foul go to sleep at night they go in just before dusk actually and they get very very quiet and they don't come back out until later in the morning they don't ever make noise in the middle of night unless a raccoon gets into the

2:21:53coop and starts tearing them to pieces I have known chickens to sit there and sleep through having a foot chewed off in on the farm situation chickens are quiet at night they are dead silent there's just nothing that happens at night and I think that this country in general gives a very

2:22:12large preference to people who choose to keep dogs and cats and I think that this is uh rather unfair to those of us who for instance may be allergic to those particular animals and wish to have other companion animals thank you and leave Chris so we have one more

2:22:31comment and if you could please fill out a card when you're done thank you thank you thank you my name is Michelle westling and I just wanted to say that I also strongly support this new ordinance and I wanted to thank the council for considering it and being open-minded and

2:22:43listening to all the comments um backyard chicken keeping in The Last Sunset magazine was named as one of the top it was either 50 or 100 Trends a new trends for 2011.

2:22:55um so I think this ordinance is moving the city in the right direction um as they said if we don't jump on the train it's going to leave um we moved into El Cerrito and we are just we love our neighborhood um and we would love to stay in El Cerrito and raise our toddler here our

2:23:11neighbors are wonderful and I have an example of neighbors working together one of our neighbors they did get chickens they got three chicks one of them happened to turn out to be a rooster all the neighbors were involved there were emails back and forth we all talked

2:23:29about it we laughed about it we were sad with them because they were very sad about it and as quickly as they could they found a home for that rooster I believe it was a farm up in Petaluma um but it wasn't a problem they knew right away of course this is a nuisance

2:23:43and we don't want to you know inconvenience any of the neighbors so they took care of it as quickly as they could we were all in communication it was wonderful so maybe something that could be considered at least to give people um an option or a list of places that

2:23:56would accept roosters if you accidentally get a chick that turns out to be a rooster so people know what to do they have some resources where to take them um and I guess that's all I just I strongly support this and I want to be able to um have the option of having a few chickens

2:24:12in our yard when our toddler is big enough and as far as property values it's something that I think for the younger Generations if it's not allowed at all you know it might be something that we would consider well we might want to move out of El Cerrito to a place that

2:24:26does allow it Albany or Berkeley so that's just a point on the other side thank you thank you very much any last comments okay with that I think um that all that discussion I think probably might have generated some questions amongst the council do should we do another round of

2:24:46questions at all um to clarify anything that might have bubbled up I'm not sure I'm going to do questions I think I'm ready to yeah well make our make our opinion known because at some point we do need to give guidance um I think that some of the comments that are out there certainly can allow

2:25:05us to give guidance I currently have chickens and getting them into to come into compliance and what is staff's thought given the current proposal what that would look like I'm sure I completely understand the question so so so if assuming we adopted everything as is tonight what would

2:25:35people do if they currently had chickens they would they would just go through the process and apply and oh yeah okay so if yeah if you if someone was currently keeping chickens um um if the council were to adopt the um the proposed regulations then um if they met those they would be

2:25:56allowed to keep their chickens or that you know they would have to get an over-the-counter permit but that's a pretty simple process um and if they didn't meet the specifications they would have to they would have to apply for a conditional use permit or or and if that is or come

2:26:10into compliance with with the ordinance that brought up a question in my mind so do we not uh just out of curiosity do we not allow spiders without a permit um or is that under the county would that be under the county regulations of well currently um other they currently they would be

2:26:34considered other animals less than three pounds and would be permitted by right okay thank you anything else okay so I guess I do have quite one question property some of these these use permits run with the property and not with the hus the keepers and and so when uh when

2:26:55a Property Transfers and somebody has a coupe or or a goat barn or whatever it is they're they're buying that property they may have some expectation that that's something they can use um how do we reassess the the commitment by the keepers by the the animal husbandry

2:27:14people use permit could be conditioned that um that it it's only valid um for the the the current owners um so you know one once if if they were to move away or or um to stop keeping that animal um and then someone later on was to was to start that again um the use permit could be condition that

2:27:41it that it expire on those terms well I guess the over-the-counter permit we could definitely make non-transferable similar to a home occupation permit that we currently have well good that would lead to one of my first comments is that as far as I can see um you know we have many examples of

2:27:59good keepers uh conscientious Keepers in the room tonight um but as it was said by even the good keepers and certainly by most of the people who are currently opposed to the ordinance there are a rotten there are many bad Keepers out there that would certainly color everyone's perception so

2:28:20as far as I'm concerned the the this right with you know whatever right we decide to permit at some point in the future should not necessarily run with the property and should go with the keepers that were that were interviewing and interacting with and and such

2:28:38um so if I could just jump in really quick and just give us some guidance our goal is to basically figure out amongst the council where we have consensus on where staff all the different recommendations staff has given so if you can kind of speak to both the questions and sure I will get to the

2:28:55questions good but certainly there's many things like I think the prohibition of slaughtering is one that I noticed was not in the in the ordinance at all um and that's something that I would certainly would like to see included um I think that uh the feeding of

2:29:10non-pets council member Abelson brought this up I think that should be punishable I'm not certain how you you would you would punish it but um I happen to know that there were former El Cerrito residents who fed deer and it's possible that there are current El Cerrito presidents who are feeding

2:29:28turkeys so you know it's it to me that that is not part of of an urban farm an urban aspect so they're not pets um and they and they should be people should be discouraged in trying to make these animals their pets um the enforcement cost for uh for these nuisance claims uh certainly many of the

2:29:54comment letters we received last of fall was all about the the who who carries the enforcement cost um and so we have many people saying oh let's use the nuisance ordinance oh let's use the nuisance ordinance well how is that going to get paid and so I think that the the cost of

2:30:11enforcement should be clearly on the back of these people who have these use permits uh because they're asking us to reduce the threshold for them to to the cost threshold for them to have these animals keep kept in their backyard but they're relying on the nuisance

2:30:27ordinance for the bad apples to be uh to be enforced I think that the enforcement should clearly be on the back of the people that were if we go that route if this ordinance does pass forward um that enforcement is very clearly on their backs uh and and with that I'll

2:30:42put this opinion out there uh the the community the husbandry Community you guys should be self policing so if you if there is nuisance claims coming in on a regular basis you guys should be reaching out to those bad apples because if they continue then this ordinance

2:31:00potentially is reversed in two years or four years so if this ordinance does move forward you guys have to step up and police your own and and it's it's unacceptable for you guys to come here tonight and represent a percentage that is well-meaning and allow the the UN on

2:31:18people the unhappy people the bad husbandry people to ruin it it's it's the same way in the in the dog Community believe me they police their their own as they misuse our public resources um with regards to what animals to cover I do know there's at least one uh homing

2:31:35pigeon Keeper in El Cerrito so certainly I think there was at least one public comment about pigeons uh that we should be including um and so I I do I believe the last speaker spoke about flexibility uh quite eloquently and and that there should be some consideration of other birds and

2:31:54and foul uh I've had good experiences in El Cerrito and bad experiences a neighbor kept a rooster for over a year another neighbor had wild a geese they kept a goose in their backyard for quite some time and when that goose got out there was this green slimy stuff all

2:32:11over the sidewalk for a long time so as I'm saying this there are good keepers there are bad Keepers out there and and if we don't want Goose we need to make it very clear that that keeping a goose or keeping a duck is something we don't want so I with regards to what animals

2:32:27to the standard appropriate um bees I I actually really appreciate and I think it was his name was McKinley being very official and very uh formal about the bees and the bee lines and bees going in and out because certainly that is something that is for those that don't know those of us

2:32:47who don't understand views um the fear of being stung by a beer and the the physical reaction of bees for those that are in my family that are allergic to bees is something that is of great concern um I think although I support all of the biological reasons for beekeeping

2:33:07um I'm not certain that the over-the-counter approval process is the best approval process for the keeping of bees I'm not certain I'm sitting here saying that I want it to elevate up to administrative use permit and so I'm looking for staff to be very creative on

2:33:25how potentially we introduce bees into the neighborhood and potentially look for another appropriate approval method uh so that we can maintain the cost but allow for something that and I will say this was said by many people uh this is to give a sense of community

2:33:46to increase the interaction of of uh people it's supposed to be a hobby um and balancing you know they didn't want to be just disrespectful to their neighbors so I I hear all of that and yet so what I'm saying is that there needs to be an approval process for some of these

2:34:06animals that is very inclusive and reaches out um with regards to the maximum total number of animals appropriate I I you know at the beginning I thought four chickens was the right um you know do you have a total number of bees uh is is is there is there a an appropriate

2:34:30number of of honing pigeons I mean certainly uh the last speaker's Mass waste mass mass waste analysis was certainly a you know something we should be uh keeping in mind uh so I don't think they're I think that you know the fifth chicken is certainly something that should be considered in

2:34:51our flexible ways um I guess my final comments are going to be that what we're doing is considering a an ordinance that's just balancing private property rights with Community rights uh what we're looking at is one private property owner's right to do something on their property and another

2:35:12private property owner their their right to enjoy the peace and privacy of their property um against the overall Community rights which is you know at what point is too much a degradation of the community and we're losing um or gaining uh the the goals that we're looking for and so uh this is not

2:35:34a simple question it's not simple and I really appreciate you know for those of you that don't know we we have over 30 different comments that we've received and actually I just keeping score not very few if if any of you that wrote letters spoke tonight so you know we've

2:35:50we've received over say 50 comments just in the last couple of days on this topic and it's pretty even a lot of opposed and a lot of of supporters um this is not necessarily a simple thing for us to consider and and it is the truly the balancing of all of your rights and all of your interests that

2:36:11we're taking into consideration so thank you well thank you for uh it amazes me I say this to my friends all the time we can uh be in the process of approving a 26 million dollar operating budget for the city and we get five or six people but we bring out dogs cats and now

2:36:36goats chickens pigeons and we fill the place so uh I don't know what that says it's but it's just kind of a common thing that that runs you talk to other uh council members in other cities and they they experience uh very similar things but on a uh to address this and to give

2:36:56guidance which we were asked to give tonight or at least our opinions so that we can formulate uh something I situations like this I like to try to step back and put it in perspective at least for my own concern and although El Cerrito in its glorious past many years actually before we

2:37:17became a city was an agricultural area where you could find uh Farms you could find all kinds of things going on today we're really not an agricultural area and that's something that's key to me whether we like to be or not we're not an agricultural area so um how what do we do

2:37:39uh two years ago when this was first brought to my attention uh during a National Night Out uh it was put forth about chickens and um the whole time we were talking and then after that I took away from it that okay somebody would like this on a more of a it's been characterized as a hobby

2:37:58but uh a little more than what we have in the ordinance and it sounded like a pretty good deal to consider if that's what the community wanted uh and so for the most part I guess people who have chickens in town now or have had them for a long time they're probably at the hobby level although

2:38:19there has been cases and they're on record this isn't just uh people making things up complaints are on record of chickens that uh get out and wander and do all sorts of things throughout the neighborhood so I don't know that we really want to go that in that direction

2:38:39um I think if sustainability is is one of the goals uh then maybe we take a look at standards that will be minimally necessary to assist the family I don't need I don't think we need 40 chickens in the backyard to sustain a family and I didn't hear that people were saying they'll have 40 chickens but

2:39:04certainly a minimal amount again in the hobby area maybe is a place where I'd like to go with this um as far as the property line I would like to see I would like to keep the 20 20 feet but instead of saying property line we go to any structure not just houses or homes

2:39:31but any structure 20 feet from that it I should I should I should say that the complaints I've heard are the comments let me put it this way the comments I've heard and and I've heard a lot of people that are on the other side of this uh indicate that it's it's primarily the

2:39:54noise and so if you put a chicken coop five feet away from the property line versus 20 feet away from the from the house there has to be a difference I think what it is is it's five it's five feet from the prop it's not for chickens five feet for yeah about 20 feet from the structure for

2:40:19chickens and then five feet for what is currently proposed for chickens is is a 20-foot distance from The Coop to dwellings on adjacent properties irrespective of of the property line correct and that's dwellings I'm I'm talking structure be it a dwelling or anything else okay

2:40:40um I don't understand what you're saying so I think you you support what's currently being proposed which is that the minimum distance is 20 feet from The Coop to an existing structure to an existing structure which is what's currently proposed just for chickens I

2:40:59think council member Jones is trying to make a distinction between dwellings and and other structures so I I correct me if I'm wrong but I think what you're saying is you you would like a 20-foot minimum to any structure on an adjacent lot a building a building structure yeah

2:41:19correct do you mean like a garage or a shed or or a business or whatever it not just a place where people live it could be so that's your purpose that's that's what I'm okay that's my comment on it um I think though that's critical in the overriding this is um peace and comfort for your neighbor

2:41:44and um in an uh metropolitan area that we live in we're not an agriculturally we have to make compromises because we live so close and so I would like to see the ordinance uh put in there that the neighbors adjacent to or whatever you feel is proper be notified

2:42:08and it's encouraging the people making the permits to interact with their neighbors to get agreement on this I think it's critical no matter which way we where we go with this that's the complaints I hear all the time is um of the peace and comfort that people can

2:42:27be enjoyed I haven't heard anybody say you know even though they don't bother me I still don't want them next to me I I haven't heard that um so I I think we have to keep that in mind and it came up several times in a variety of ways on both sides of the aisle by the way it looks like

2:42:46I don't know if you can see it out here but you know we hear about two sides of the aisle and the way the state and the federal government is splitting in there it's like that tonight we've got the uh this is the yeses over here and the nose over here correct you may want to uh shake hands before

2:43:05you leave tonight but at any rate I I think that's the uh uh to me that that is the most important thing I think there has to be guidelines on sanitation sanitation even if we do quote the county guidelines I do think it has to take in somehow we have to incorporate uh and I guess we do

2:43:27for most of the times but Ducks pigeons doves I think it's been brought up horses didn't hear about elephants but I guess we better consider that too uh the one thing though is the goats and and I don't understand I I still don't understand why there isn't a limit if we

2:43:46have a limit on 150 pound pig why we don't have goats so I I would encourage you no more than two any more than that conditional use permit uh temporary use for instance for weed abatement um I like I think Albany has 60 days I don't know what how long it takes a

2:44:09herd of goats to clean off a uh a lot but maybe we can go to 30 days on something like that I would like to see somehow the the permit struck the cost of the permits reduced if we're going to go this way um it's been my experience the conditional use permits and permits

2:44:33not exclusively but primarily are due for structure and construction we're not constructing except for Coupes we're not constructing too much I'd like to see something along the lines that reduced I hate charging for pets but uh I would like it reduced and I I'm taking

2:44:55it that if you're going to build the coop that you have to you have to follow building standards and codes in in the city and I don't know what those standards are for coops do you have a question yeah I'm talking about coops that uh we've had reports of Coupes that are going above the fence

2:45:24line for instance um you know I I and I don't want the thing falling over and hitting somebody when they're improperly built so this is a suggestion please look at it Steph will certainly look at it there are also coops you can buy already built um that would just be placed on the

2:45:45property so we'll look at those restrictions that'd be fine so long as they meet certain standards which most things do these days if you buy them commercially I guess that's it thank you okay um so I will start out with um one one thing I'm concerned about generically with this is that we don't

2:46:13create a set of of rules that are impossible and we don't find out about it until after we've done it so I think we want to be really careful about getting into a lot of different microscopic sorts of details and so when I hear the comment that I've heard made um

2:46:34several times that I like a lot actually is the one about letting the nuisance element of it sort of guide the rest of it I think that that's a very useful way of looking at things because if there is an animal that makes no noise at all ever because it can't say then we

2:46:56wouldn't want to you know it's one thing but if we have other animals that are really loud and that's another thing and then there's are they really loud briefly are they really loud for a long period of time that that might be another variation um so I guess I'm kind of interested in

2:47:16looking at the organic nature of what the disturbance is wherever possible because what we what's happening it worries me a little bit here is we're trying to figure out have we covered all the different animal types without being sure and I'm not really sure if we have or not because I I don't

2:47:35have a book of what are the animal types to see um and and besides I don't think it matters I think it really does matter what the nuisance is so I would um hope that we would um somehow go back and look and see if there's a way to put it more in terms of the nuisance and what happens when there

2:47:57is a nuisance if that's possible and um I also look at the um permits and I personally would prefer to minimize the conditional use permit as much as possible because I know it it's it's a burden on everybody involved um V and I'm just going back to just sort of go over it again here

2:48:27um so one of the things I notice is for example that dogs are allowed by right and yet I know the only animal that I've ever heard that was disturbing in my neighborhood is is dogs only I don't really want to ban dogs I like dogs a lot I don't happen to have one right now

2:48:48have had dogs but you know I I'm not really wanting to do away with dogs at all but and um I haven't never heard of a rodent that makes a noise maybe they're oh I guess squirrels make a little chirping noise but um so you know it's it's that organic noise or um

2:49:10waste or whatever it is they might be doing so that would be um my comment on that and then um in terms of the total number of animals um I actually for no reason whatsoever I suppose thought six was a good number for chickens but in hearing that four chickens can feed a family of six

2:49:37on an ongoing basis um you know I don't have a strong feeling actually between four and six I have a strong feeling that I want to change it later and if we don't have to um so um that would be the um and somewhere I thought I saw that there was a between dogs and cats one was three and one was

2:49:59five but I can't seem to find it right now and could you point me to that um it's not in the presentation but in the county code um oh that's the existing yeah okay I did write it down it's I think it's three dogs and five cats is what he's limited to um yeah what happens by the way if your dogs

2:50:19have puppies um the county code requires that you have licenses for three dogs and voluntary licenses for five cats if you intend to go above that you can apply for a multiple pet license or a kennel license so well I mean it's just like let's say you got the dog and it was

2:50:42pregnant yes or something you know and it's not that you meant to have it's not that you're purposefully breeding animals but it happened and um so what happens when you when that event occurs um suppose that if you were reported to animal control they would contact you

2:50:59and let you know you are allowed to have three dogs with licenses I mean that's that's just that's right okay and then if say you the dogs you know got old enough and then you um found homes for them everything would be fine yes okay and that would occur with any of these other

2:51:20um species yes and again that speaks to as you were saying the nuisance driven complaint type of process if it were something that was a constant nuisance then it would certainly be complained to staff and we would address it appropriately okay um I'm hearing that there are kind of

2:51:39two ways of looking at things one is to really have a prescriptive process for this whole thing and one is to have a process where it's about the neighbors getting along and um first I want to just mention what I think about pros and cons of each of the process

2:51:57processes um the pers the prescriptive process sounds really good because you know you can you've got finite rules that you can go by but the problem is when you didn't actually think of what they all were or um somebody has an odd situation that doesn't quite fit into that prescriptive

2:52:17process on the other hand the in the the neighbor process can regret if everybody gets along but sometimes everybody gets along except one neighbor and he doesn't get along no matter what so it's not going to work that isn't going to work so well in that circumstance and

2:52:36um so I'm torn between those two processes and and and the pros and cons of them and um and I I actually think that it needs to be some combination and I see City staff unfortunately or maybe Council but preferably a lower level staff process as a way to arbitrate that if if in a um

2:53:02in a situation where let's say what if um you had five immediate Neighbors in the media you know that were contiguous and four of them were happy and then this one was not happy then what do you do does that does that drive the whole thing or not um that I I I'm still a question in my

2:53:22mind but um I I tend to think that it would be um in that example um that the four plus the owner of the animal would you know I mean why doesn't that other person go along with it I don't you know it depends on the details and there aren't any here but um so those are some of my um thoughts on

2:53:45that and now let me go through the comments I actually wrote down um I actually um don't see the difference between multi-family single family and um other housing uh as being a a thing that would divide it because I was completely swayed by the example where there might be six

2:54:09people in the singly single family house and um three people say in a um uh um a multi-family house housing and what would why would there be a difference I I don't really see any um because it's not really about the housing it's about the people so um the um I like I would like to see

2:54:33something about not having any slaughtering um and then I have a comment about bees and um and first I'll disclose that I historically have been allergic to bees and have undergone um I've got shots where I got desensitized and I don't really know if they worked or not

2:54:54but but I also know the part about bees are very important to our ecosystem to actually maintain our ability to grow the very things we need most which are fruits and vegetables and um so I see that as as a um sort of going against each other I guess you could say but I think what would in

2:55:19this case help with that is if we didn't have that five feet from the property line because even if you if you're the person next door and you happen to be allergic to bees uh your walkway might be right next to the property line um so I think it's in a way more important

2:55:39that that um be protected that distance be protected so that the beehives would say be more towards the center of the um property if I'm saying that correctly not up to five feet which is pretty close to the edge because I know in my neighborhood that's where everybody actually walks and

2:56:07that's where you would be most exposed um because that's just the way the houses are built so anyway those I think are my comments at the moment thank you for staying everyone if you do happen to go home you can always watch this online um just before you start I'd like to

2:56:28make a motion to extend this meeting for a half an hour second all those in favor aye um just just a couple of comments and then I'll give specific my thoughts on specific direction to staff um I love the stat that you often hear these days about how more than half of

2:56:48the world's population now lives in urban areas and our world is getting more and more urbanized um it seems like every decade and it is it is funny we love to live with each other but also can't stand each other and I I think about this a lot I live in an apartment building

2:57:03um with many many many children cats and dogs and one of my neighbors God love him every morning he puts little bags of dog waste on our front porch I assume thinking he's going to bring it down to the garbage and just hadn't gotten around to it and I just look at that and

2:57:18think he gets so much psychic pleasure from that dog and that little bother to me I can just walk by that and ignore that knowing that that he really loves his dog and and I've chosen to be his neighbor and and I hope that one day when I have a child and it's screaming

2:57:33in the middle of the night he understands that I'm getting a lot of psychic pleasure from having having my little infants um so that so that's just a preface uh one thing I I'm I'm supportive of while we all tolerate one another's or we try to tolerate one another's likes and

2:57:50dislikes and are respectful of of our rights to live in our home and you know do things within reason that we find pleasurable um particularly with regards to to pets and hobbies I like that the animals we're discussing tonight not only give psychic benefits to those who

2:58:06are keeping them but they also have societal benefits and I um I don't want them to be I think that many people have brought them up and I just want to bring them up again bees have been discussed a lot I saw a statistics saying that one out of every third bite of food we take in this

2:58:22country is a direct result of pollinating insects of which honeybees make up a large proportion of those insects and the the collapse of colonies I think is down I think 30 percent of honeybee colonies in the US have been decimated in the last decade or so so it

2:58:38is something to be concerned with and to the extent that we can give bees a safe place to live in hives in in backyards that are well tended is I think going to be a great benefit to to our continued ability to provide food for our country um so thinking about all those types of

2:58:55benefits I do appreciate the animals are talking about do not only positively impact those who keep them but they are a benefit to society particularly when you think about food security and the ability to maintain food one family could get all of their protein from these chickens in the event

2:59:12that there were a disaster and we wouldn't have access to food it would be great to know that your neighbor or next door is producing you know 12 eggs a day you might they you might need those neighbors one of these days so those are a couple of comments that I've been thinking of as people been

2:59:27giving their their comments um but we do want to set up a system where we have 425 complaints every year from animals probably mostly related to dogs and it would be such a shame if that were doubled next time we talked about this ordinance so we want to come up with

2:59:41something that's going to be really workable and is going to bring a community together rather than Pit neighbors more and more again against one another over over these types of concerns so one idea I had while um everybody was giving their comments was sort of a two-track system where we set

2:59:59up parameters like Sean has come up with through his review and research you know chicken coops need to be this location they need to be this far from an adjacent house and you can have that Coupe as long as you go through this process and um pay your 100 fee we could set up a

3:00:16second track system where if an owner were interested in having five hens for example they could take the track to get neighbor consent and that way they could or or let's say they didn't have the 20-foot distance they only had 18 feet or something minor like that they could

3:00:35go through a process and not be charged the very high permit fee rather they could take the second um neighbor consent track and choose to get agreement from all of their adjacent neighbors um to go go with uh something that works for their household and this um I really

3:00:55want to protect against the situation where a neighbor has veto power over what goes what goes on among say there's four neighbors in one area I don't want to give one neighbor veto power so as long as the homeowner is complying with our general parameters then they can get their

3:01:12permit and don't have to get consent but if they want to do something outside of those parameters then it makes sense for them to discuss it with their neighbors and get unanimous consent and that way each situation could be dealt with if you have a community it's extremely

3:01:26communicative and integrated then maybe you do want to involve your neighbors conversely if you're not as in great Communications with your neighbors you can comply with the city rules that we've set up based on a review of surrounding communities and general practices with regard to Backyard

3:01:42chickens and and urban farming and you can still get your permit that way so I just want to be careful about giving any one person veto power over what goes on in your in your backyard and I also agree with the point that was brought up about the multi-family properties getting sort of a special

3:02:03treatment and um triggering conditional use permit I think we need to think about that and I'm not certain that it's warranted that that would trigger that 12 to 1300 fee and bringing up the fee the only other item I wanted to talk about was um the pet pig permit and that one being

3:02:24twelve hundred dollars and whether or not we need want to go down the route of continuing to work or to suggest that we require an administrative use permit that might be appropriate but it seems excessive to have a fee set at twelve hundred dollars for what is essentially

3:02:39a pet for people it would probably be mostly kept inside their homes and uh doesn't seem like it would be a great burden on neighbors I do get a little concerned that we're charging people a really high fee for for a companion so those are the the comments I had on on

3:02:56direction for Stuff thank you and thank you everyone for for hanging in with us um I'd say overall as a uh someone who did an environmental biology degree at Davis and studied organic farming and worked with Community Alliance with family Farmers I'm definitely

3:03:17um you know very proud of what the East Bay has come into you know growing to offer an encouraging basically changing Lifestyles and I see this overall discussion as very much we're at a transition Point there's whole new paradigms for everything we do from technology to preferences for how

3:03:40we choose to live our lives and what values are important to us from how we get around to what we buy to where we work and live and all of those are really in light of all of that I I'm trying to balance all the needs of our community and taking into account all your all

3:03:57your really important feedback and I think generally I feel very I'm supportive of of the overall rubric that staff has set up I feel like um initially I felt we should just be permitting by right chickens at least you know one to two um but then hearing that most likely if

3:04:21you're going to go to the trouble of having a coop you might as well have four so it sounds like there's not very many people who just experiment with one and so um I think I'm agreement with I'm in agreement with the idea of having an administrative permit although I would

3:04:37want to encourage it to be at the lower end um of the 50 to 100 scale down to toward less than a hundred dollars seems reasonable and you know again echoing um Rebecca benassini's council member of medici's comments about in emergency times I think it's really uh

3:04:59it's it's definitely a resource that can't be ignored and it's a skill that I think um you know because of all the benefits of you know understanding the life cycle of animals to understanding where your food comes from there's really huge profound I think benefits for future

3:05:18generations to to have those Hands-On life experiences and I don't feel like I I'd have to agree that um on the range of making it more permissive than more constrictive as respects to with respect to chickens um and and with that I guess if there's any way that we could alter because of

3:05:45the um I'd say the 20 feet I agree with the 20 foot setback to a dwelling um and I would like to see something in the in the range between the over-the-counter permit and the conditional use permit for for lots that are under 4 000 square feet because there's still you know it was it I think

3:06:1016 of lots that fit into that category and I don't feel just because if you can make the findings of that distance um maybe it's a combination I really like the idea of of being able to get a petition of a majority of your your adjacent neighbors and acting in good faith to to cooperate

3:06:31um and I I would also um Echo the the interest sounds like council member Jones and Abelson are both interested in in looking at a further subsidized rate of conditional use permit that's much more reasonable if we if people are proposing to go above the thresholds established

3:06:56um and and I I think I agree um as far as how you've set up the different thresholds for the bees and goats and pigs um I think if you if we're looking at overall reducing the conditional use permit threshold um and setting forward the setback constraints that you've done I think we

3:07:20get towards kind of balancing that equity um I would also agree with adding a Prohibition of of slaughtering as mentioned sounds like a few a few of us are definitely in support of that and um and I guess I would need more more information about the code enforcement

3:07:43and understanding more about what what is the cost that we currently pay to the county if if you know we've we're getting 426 complaints what does that do to our fees do we if we pay a flat fee um I also don't feel like I I'd like to know more about how that that structured

3:07:59before we go about charging people to pay for enforcement so let's see anything else I think what point of discussion if you're when you're ready yeah so um so just to also get to the all the other animals I think you know the less than half pound uh I feel like that's a good threshold

3:08:22anything smaller than that that covers a lot of the smaller reptiles and um insect and mammal family um uh types of species and um and I I did have a question back to staff again about the maximum total number of animals if you had a recommended number or if you're just

3:08:45looking to see if we wanted to establish one we did not come up with a recommended number with that was just uh something we wanted to know if the council was interested in doing and um so yeah I think that the main thing is the under the classes of animals that

3:09:03are looked at I think we have that the general list just adding a couple of instead of going into very specific species I think it was on animals Allowed by right so you have domestic reptiles and amphibians and then adding mammals and insects and I guess with understanding that anything

3:09:26under half a pound is really the threshold for buy right um because rabbits and other things definitely would exceed half a pound in most cases okay so that's their slippery slip and and insects are are proposed as by right in the okay yes you know is is provided that they're pet type insects

3:10:01and not dangerous insects obviously um so I think that's yeah as far as my overall comments do I yeah I've had a I have a point of discussion um council member Abelson you know focused on a nuisance and annoyance factors and and I having been woken up or 6 a.m on a Saturday morning by a

3:10:31chicken clocking outside my window um it is something one person's nuisance our noise when 65 decibels uh between seven and seven you know at at uh I looked it up the sun rises at 5 45 in June so right now the ordinance says it's 6 15. you know in theory that chicken could be making as much noise as

3:10:56it wants to make and at 6 15 in the morning the ambient noise is very quiet on Saturdays it's even quieter and so that chicken that's out there making noise at 6 15 is going to be a nuisance it's going to be a something that is annoying and so the definition of nuisance uh you know

3:11:18what's going to cause these these complaints we have not has provided guidance on this it basically we're saying from 6 15 in the morning until about nine o'clock at night in the month of June we're going to allow these animals to basically make noise um and on and it at that point in time

3:11:40are you know the only thing that we have that to use to enforce is as far as I can tell the 65 decibels which is very you know no chickens making that amount of noise so what is nuisance what is nuisance for for these people who are their peace and they're quiet as being

3:11:57disrupted at 6 15 in the morning and frankly it applies to dogs it applies to frankly I wish the owners of the cat that goes into estrus in June at two in the morning and is screeching would do something about it too but you know what is what is nuisance with I mean that's my point I mean

3:12:22councilmember Abelson said it really well if we want to have a system that describes nuisance what is nuisance we have an ordinance right now that says that these animals could start making lots of noise at 6 15 in the morning so are you proposing that we Define or

3:12:40we try to come to consensus of what define as nuisance tonight I I we I think we have to provide some guidance on that topic because you know as staff said their their current Reliance on the on the nuisance ordinance would be seven to seven 65 decibels and I I can tell you 10 o'clock at night

3:13:00the little lap dog 30 houses away is louder than it is it seems louder than a jackhammer at 10 o'clock at night but you're not suggesting that we differentiate between noises animal noises no I'm not I'm trying to say what what is a nuisance me that you know that that little dog is

3:13:25gives yapping away and it might be 30 decibels but in the in when the ambient noise at 10 o'clock at night is five that's very loud when the ambient noise is 50 during the day or 40 during the day depending on when where you live and when Bart's going by um the animal noises may not be nearly as

3:13:46as sensitive so I'm what where are we on this on this particular guidance because that is in the ordinance and we we all of us several of us brought it up you know and and that we had several homeowners there's basically saying when they're out gardening that background noise that might sound

3:14:05like water to some people sounds like you know grading chalkboard to others yes on that topic uh the City attorney have you run across this same thing trying to define nuisance and would you be able to bring back some options to consider or some criteria to consider yeah

3:14:30um I think it's something that that um I've dealt with for a couple of cities I know that there's some other um I know some other cities that have attempted to look at it to basically and I'll just say generally how to deal with animal noise as separate from construction

3:14:49noise other types of noise nuisances recognizing that typically the decibel based noise standard is not going to be sufficient for addressing animal noise so the cities have attempted to develop a standard that fits for the community that that is enforceable and that both

3:15:07in terms of the mechanics of enforcement and will be upheld in court so if the council as a whole wants to direct staff to as part of this animal ordinance include a component for dealing with noise nuisances we can go back and we can work on that in as part of overall

3:15:29drafting of the ordinance yeah let me just read the one that we currently have it says no foul bird or animal or of any sort kept within the city shall be allowed to disturb neighbors with its noise between Sunset and one half hour after sunrise it's you know it doesn't it does what we

3:15:49have but we I mean I guess the question is is goes back to enforcement and and so I think it sounded like from what you were saying um you would like to see if if a neighbor was able to use whatever metrics we adopted and to essentially call code enforcement on them and be

3:16:05responsible for that then is that essentially what you would my concern is that that I've got two-fold one is cost and frankly somebody could say they the clucking five feet from the fence you know while they're out gardening is a nuisance and then they could call every

3:16:24day every day because they don't like the sound of the clucking right next door and they could call every day under this under this particular one they could call almost every day so I'm just I'm just trying to protect us from exorbitant costs of somebody who's

3:16:43basically not happy but that's currently what exists and no one's done it to date correct is that well I suppose that would be on a case-by-case basis but yes that is what currently exists today and someone could call every day I think we have two things here we have what is

3:17:01what is going to be defined as nuisance or or disturbance or whatever and the other is enforcement which is another and that was brought up a couple times in in the testimony tonight um in in Council Members lyman's example of being woken up at uh on Saturday morning I don't know if we have a code

3:17:21enforcer working every Saturday morning so it comes back to enforcement and I don't know that we have the time to discuss it or to decide it tonight we're not supposed to be deciding anything tonight but maybe staff or we as a council can think about that between now and the time the draft comes

3:17:43back how are we going to enforce this um that's why I think getting buy-in by neighbors before the permit process will at least help uh the situation however what do we do with people who don't even come in and get a permit and and so there's the enforcement of that

3:18:03and we know that's going to happen it happens with every regulation we have in the City Construction animals now uh cars whatever so how are we gonna get this into a workable situation I just I don't have the answer right yeah I just wanted to have a discussion

3:18:21so I'm well I'm content that we've had that discussion if I can just tell I don't want to continue this since you may there may be other topics you want to cover but what I'm hearing so far is one some examination of the definition of what is what it is to disturb somebody

3:18:36and the other is whether or not the current time frame is appropriate would those be two subjects that you'd like us to look at as part of developing this ordinance okay I was gonna say and as part of the definition of a nuisance I think it has different attributes one of

3:18:50them is decibels another one is duration right and maybe there's others that I can think of those two but generally the focus on disturb on what it is what is called what is a disturbance going to mean and what the time for what the time right and there are those are not the

3:19:07only nuisances that I can think of another one would be odor uh that come that one comes to mind um and then there could be and I don't know how you would say this like if um liquids are going from one property to the to the another I don't know if that's somehow covered by something else

3:19:28if it is that's we don't I don't think we need to go any further but if it's not then um that might be an issue um attracting um flies I don't know what you would call that but that would be another type of nuisance perhaps um flies and or other things that you

3:19:50don't want to attract mosquitoes for example uh you know I'm there's a whole different there's a whole set of categories of these things okay I guess in light of given I'm just struck by you know how many cities adjacent to us including you know basically only Pinole and

3:20:13Albany um Albany with a more lenient system requiring conditional use permit for chickens and everybody else is require allowing them by right and and with all those cities I I guess adding to staff research what is their complaint process and what are what have they adopted and so we're not

3:20:35Reinventing the wheel I would assume that given that they're not requiring permits that they're probably and not roosters I I guess I would like to hear more about what the actual complaints are yeah I don't think I encountered specifically any processes for complaints that were detailed in those

3:20:57cities Municipal codes so I'm assuming that they handle it through code enforcement and that yeah so and without all of this becoming a massive research project for our staff when there's so many other like very pressing issues like Redevelopment being taken away and

3:21:15millions of dollars being gone from our coffers it's really just a hard so I guess I I would yeah I'm definitely on the range of of being more permissive and and just yeah see what happens can I suggest something can we ask staff if they have enough information to go on and then if

3:21:36we have more to pass on we can do it offline if if I can take a shot um because I think it was the young man of staff and I encouraged others to jump in or the City attorney um to come back with a draft ordinance and and not necessarily revisit everything again

3:22:00um and in my sort of very rough notes it it seems to me the things that there's a consensus for us to do some more homework on and give some more thought to are the appropriate fee levels and similar to the way that we did solar we can maybe bring back the potential

3:22:17impact to general fund revenues of doing different different things but there seemed to be a consensus consensus on uh enforcement code enforcement um and how nuisance abatement how we how we handle that and we'll do we do some more homework on that um that there's clearly a thought of

3:22:37getting more making sure the public is involved and and if there's a process for ensuring or facilitating or motivating uh folks to make sure their neighbors are involved um we we would look we can look at that we can also also look at not nitpicking animals too much but making sure that

3:22:58there are probably animals out there we we haven't thought of or that were brought up tonight um to be more specific I I only tracked a consensus in terms of changes from the council I heard a majority say they wanted a no slaughtering provision I heard at least three say that I heard

3:23:16the multi-family issue come up and I only heard two uh council members say they didn't want um that uh you can add me because I don't think I did but I meant to um so that's three um of not treating multi-families necessarily any differently than single family so that would be if that's a

3:23:38majority that'd be a change but other than that I think the direction that we would we have is we're essentially coming back with what you got tonight so if that's not your understanding it would be helpful to know that well you know there was one other situation and if I I Kathleen

3:23:54McKinley was the one who brought it up about living oh that I think that'd be covered by the the multi-family yeah right okay so never mind certainly more flexibility in the species I think I didn't hear that being specifically one of the things you called out I think

3:24:11there was at least that's what I meant I probably didn't say it well but yes or another way to say it would be to make it not all depend on what the species is so much um and I guess I'll I'll reiterate what the plea I made and I'll see if it stands with regards to the bees I was

3:24:29looking for something not necessarily administrative use permit but I am looking for some more Outreach prior to a permit being issued um so that so that neighbors are aware prior to it being you know somebody just bringing hives in I think that's what's because they're

3:24:48it's a noticing requirement of adjacent properties after it's been issued and then you have to go through the the you know revocation of the permit as opposed to Prior wanting to clarify yeah I just want to clarify that real quick because the the intent was that

3:25:05um it would be we would do this for um um other types of over-the-counter permits but where the a person comes in for a permit and we um it's actually not approved over the counter we would take it in understanding that they meet all the development standards but then there's

3:25:25there's a waiting period um before it takes effect so the the permit kind of gets approved but but then there's still a notice sent out and they it actually doesn't take effect until that notice period is is expired um very it's what we do for Second Story editions so the neighborhood within 300

3:25:46feet is notified There's an opportunity to open up dialogue with your neighbor and then the permit is approved at the end of that 14-day review period I think I think council member Jones said it just a second ago but you may not have heard him that that process

3:26:01should be more um yeah or or at least written up so that people don't think that they've got by right bees and then through the process somebody says hey I've got you know a child that has is deathly ill and I'd prefer you didn't have bees and they say okay well but we want bees anyway we're

3:26:22gonna you don't your vote doesn't count I mean it's so I'd like to make sure that it's it's a process they know that they're that they're potentially going to go through as opposed to one that they think is by right so can I just are you um are you wanting to see uh

3:26:41um consent from the adjacent Property Owners or or more of a courtesy notice type process um ideally consent but in this world I'm not certain we'll get consent from everyone but certainly an opportunity for people to know what's going to be going on around them but the process

3:26:59that's proposed is that that the notice would go out and anybody who objected would have an opportunity to appeal otherwise it's kind of meaningless well where's the where he does the appeal the current it's a courtesy notice and then they still have to appeal to turn to overturn

3:27:20it there's no appeal it sounds like there's anything there is consensus we could certainly propose that an appeal period or a consent notice be part of a b permit it would seem to me that um if you're concerned about people who are allergic to bees that you would want

3:27:44to more have where you located the B on the property be the issue not notifying them because what are they going to do sell their house and move you know I mean that doesn't really resolve the issue it's where the hives located I think that's I think we're talking about

3:28:03just allowing them at all if there if there's a noticing of the adjacent 300 foot radius and that giving those neighbors an opportunity to appeal right but I I think that moving the hive would be extremely helpful but I know that I think It ultimately goes down to a process by which you

3:28:23build neighborhood consent I mean it's it's sort of the and councilmember benicini and council member Abelson both talked about you know these flexible processes uh councilmember venison you talked about a two track um council member Abelson talked about balancing the two different approaches I

3:28:41will echo in and say that that it's important that we're balancing a prescriptive process and a community building process and so it's I will say that that's something that we would like to see in there so that there isn't just somebody saying uh you know walking in and getting

3:29:02something that is just really offensive and they and they have no tent of of uh of being good keepers and and yes they might draw the line thinly down and be sanitary and be you know have the right numbers but they're but they're not good keepers and that's that's that's what we're that's we all

3:29:23know that's going to happen and that's what we're all trying to protect against did you have fees a look at the fees okay thank you I move with that we extend the council meeting by 20 minutes I was hoping 15 but I've got another item we have three other items 20 minutes

3:29:43second emotion what is the motion to extend the meaning for 20 minutes to 11 20 seconds all in favor aye one one I really want the second track to be considered and by that I mean if a person gets consent from all of their adjacent neighbors for anything goats bees chickens pigs llamas then

3:30:08their fees will be commensurate with you having to do less of a review because you don't have to worry about neighborhood complaints and that they're able to the process is very streamlined if they go through the trouble of speaking with all their neighbors and

3:30:22going through that process so that's what I'm I was suggesting for not just chickens all the all the different animals there's an incentive to be exactly so that they when they brought in their application they had letters or whatever from their neighbors or exactly

3:30:35some form of consent I'm not sure if we how we typically do this but some way that they show that they've taken the time to build consensus with their neighbors monetary incentive to do so and one other that council member Abelson uh and I agreed on which is no

3:30:52feeding of wild animals where can I don't think this is the right ordinance but can you guys think about where it goes it's that would actually be more covered under county code I think I looked up and it does say that any animals found at large must be reported and impounded

3:31:08so that's currently covered in county code can we get rid of the turkeys that way it doesn't speak to turkeys okay with that I think we've said it on that topic um thank you very much this is very very helpful thank you for those who still are around yep thank you

3:31:27so if we could please move to policy matter 6B ad hoc Wall of Fame subcommittee appointments so at this point we need to appoint two council members to an ad hoc Committee of the wall of fame subcommittee who will review Hall of Fame nomination applications and return to the city

3:31:46council with the recommendation and so I would ask could I have we We Got Tonight a fourth should be we have a fourth nomination and I just want to clarify that was received before the deadline yes and I apologize to the city council that actually came to my desk instead of the

3:32:04city clerk and it was submitted late I did not realize that it was being brought to your attention in the packet so this came to me and it was submitted on time okay thank you so without any can I I would entertain volunteers from the council to be on this ad hoc committee I'd be happy to hon it

3:32:24to be on it but I'd like to serve with somebody who maybe has gone through the process once before just because it's my first time oh then I'd be happy to serve on it anyone else like to building information by Bill you interested I'll nominate you well if nobody else is going to do it but I I

3:32:47wasn't volunteers that's fine we have two yeah we'll go out to dinner we'll have a good time making this decision bill I have heard from those that have done it before that is the way to do it what's that about go out to dinner and have a yeah exactly discuss it over

3:33:09dinner well thank you to volunteer for this important role to honor our great Community leaders oh there is a public comment on this thank you one last uh enduring torture uh good evening council members I know it's late so I'll try to be brief but I wanted to thank you for bringing the subject of

3:33:37the wall of fame back to the Public's uh awareness I think it's a very important uh item here in El Cerrito the most important reason is to recognize the incredible contributions members of our public have made to the city and in which we live the other reason is it's an example to the rest of

3:34:01us reminds us what people can do when they set their minds to an issue they're passionate about or a series of issues especially when we have so many new younger families moving into the city to make them aware of what people have done for the city I think is very important

3:34:22now I recognize we can't all be as under shoddy nor all of our families can be friends or the Wilsons but each of us in this city should be able to recognize that there's something that we can do and we should do that each of our families should recognize that just

3:34:40being a member of the El Cerrito community brings a lot of perks a lot of privileges but we should also recognize it brings responsibility and that is to contribute be part of the community and give something back to the community so for those Reasons I'm glad that

3:34:59you're renewing the interest in the tradition of the wall of fame and I hope that you will quickly add to it another important reason is is that there's a large number of people in El Cerrito who have over the years in their lifetime contributing a lot and they're coming near the end of

3:35:22those years and it would be a shame to recognize them a year too late so thank you for considering this item and good luck team thank you and so with that we can move on to public hearing item number seven a and so this is a joint city council Redevelopment agency and Municipal

3:35:46Services Corporation item um and is for the purpose of conveyance of real property from the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency to the El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation for its intended Redevelopment purposes so with that um we announced the public hearing and

3:36:06passed to staff for a presentation in the interest of time I figure it's going to take you longer to read the titles than it is for me to give my staff report so before you tonight um the first item is conveyance of properties owned by the agency to the municipal Services Corporation as you

3:36:23know at the last meeting you took a similar action conveying agency properties to the city that was conveyanced for public purposes tonight we're rescinding those and instead conveying them to the municipal Services Corporation for redevelopment purposes which is a process that required a

3:36:39public hearing and the summary reports that are included in the packet that you got for this item um so see so the actions that are required for you to convey the properties to the MSC are rescinding the previous agency and City approvals for conveyance of the properties the city consenting to the

3:37:05agency's conveyance of properties for a Redevelopment purpose as opposed to a public purpose and then the agency and the MSC approving the conveyance of the properties to the MSC if you have any questions about that I'd be happy to answer them do we have any public speakers

3:37:22you want to take those after the questions okay if there are any please Bill let us flip so questions from Council can I move to close the public hearing a second all those in favor uh uh I have a motion resolution of the city council of El Cerrito we're sending

3:37:47approvals of a property conveyance agreement with El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency for the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area and terminating the property conveyance agreement stuck in the motion all those in favor please say aye aye

3:38:03I have a motion of the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency rescinding approval of a property conveyance agreement with the city of El Cerrito for the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area and terminating the property conveyance

3:38:16agreement second all in favor aye aye opposed extensions motion carries unanimously so we don't have Dax for public comments separately on all of these items right no okay thank you ready to vote all in favor oh aye all right we did thank you uh number three a resolution of the city council

3:38:40of El Cerrito the city of El Cerrito consenting took the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area by the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency to the El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation there will be seven

3:38:54voting on this is that correct no this is this is the city council the city council resolution okay city council a second the motion all those in favor please say aye aye aye motion is unanimous um now it's the Redevelopment agency right right a resolution of the El Cerrito

3:39:14Redevelopment agency authorizing execution of property conveyance agreements with the El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation for the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area any opposed in the opposition motion

3:39:36Carriage unanimously emotional vote on at the municipal service sure you're going to make that motion I can find it first all right a resolution a resolution of the El Cerrito Municipal Services Board authorizing the execution of property conveyance agreements with

3:39:55the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency for the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area all those in favor please say aye aye aye I'll second there needs to be a second sorry oh yeah I'll say we were seconded

3:40:10now we can all those in favor aye the opposed abstentions unanimous [Applause] the next item I believe is a Redevelopment agency item yes it should be a joint City agency a joint correct right we'll do City first and Redevelopment agency second we're on 7B advance of the tradeway property from

3:40:41illustrator Redevelopment agency to the city of El Cerrito for its intended Redevelopment as affordable housing okay um so on this item um you will be considering conveying the Tran the tradeway property to the city for redevelopment purpose at the last meeting it was conveyed for

3:41:02um a public purpose um excuse me it is late so um the difference here is that the proposed legislation will allow cities um allows agencies to convey their property to cities for affordable housing development so this is one area where we would want to have the property

3:41:24go to the city as opposed to the municipal Services Corporation and a municipal Services Corporation isn't really the appropriate entity for an affordable housing development program or project um so this is essentially is changing the method of conveyance from being for a

3:41:43public purpose to a Redevelopment purpose um and let's see one other note I think that's probably it oh I know that the actions that you need to take in this case um you've already rescinded the previous um conveyance and you need the city needs to consent to the conveyance for

3:42:13redevelopment purposes and then the city and the agency both need to approve the conveyance and if you have any questions on this one I'm happy to answer them any public speakers no speakers I moved to close the public hearing all in favor all right motion is unanimous

3:42:34um I'm moved to adopt a resolution of the city council consenting to the execution of real property conveyance agreements by the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency for the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area and

3:42:50authorizing the execution of said property conveyance agreements with the city El Cerritos Redevelopment agency second all those in favor please say aye aye aye it's a Redevelopment item you want to go in no well I wonder what Rebecca go I move that we adopt a resolution of the

3:43:13El Cerrito Redevelopment agency authorizing the execution of property conveyance agreements with the city of El Cerrito for the conveyance of certain real property located in the city of El Cerrito Redevelopment project area second all in favor please say aye aye

3:43:26the opposition or abstention motion carries unanimously all right we need to hurry okay with that we're on to the last item of our agenda which is Council liaison reports I'd be happy to go first uh none of my Liaisons met it while we were since since I saw you last

3:43:51um however the Fab will soon begin meeting pretty regularly with the budget coming up so I think those meetings will be pretty rigorous and the economic development board also has a lot and it's played for the summer time so I anticipate though to have more liaison

3:44:04reports for you next time no reports no reports I actually had a couple but I can't figure out where I put them okay so while you're looking I will just quickly report that last Wednesday the arts and culture commission met to review um a set of artist proposals again for

3:44:25the gallery again unfortunately no no artists from El Cerrito so for those of you who know artists elsewhere artists please please send them our way um the commission also reviewed an additional 20 uh art icons for the San Pablo Avenue art public art project and

3:44:42so with that the next phase um the the commission is going to be reviewing looking at placement of a variety of icons and we'll be coming back with a final Proposal with all the designs and locations recommend locations for the council to to take a look and with that the the human relations

3:45:04commission also did meet um mainly to to reflect on the the great Martin Luther King event but also to brainstorm upcoming activities for the year starting to look at work planning I also was able to attend a great um co-sponsored event by the human relations commissions along with the

3:45:23League of Women Voters and um uh University of Association of of University women and it was iron John Angels at our Cerrito theater was a fantastic reminder of uh women's rights to vote being only 90 years old now um and so with that I think the the other thing I just wanted to highlight was uh

3:45:50recently got to meet with School Board member and learn more about the the linked learning programs which is a a grant that the city the district got a million dollars only one out of two Bay Area districts school districts and one out of nine districts Statewide that

3:46:10basically goes to support 20 of the nation's almost I think 400 learning linked to learning academies which is basically The Cutting Edge of new curriculum and ways to learn that are involving um local community members in the actual professions so for example elsewhere to

3:46:28high we have the we have a green Transportation Academy media Communications Academy and Information Technology Academy all of which are looking for people members of the community that have time to help mentor and and give real life examples of of how to how to have a career in

3:46:48those fields so please get in touch with your school board to help them with your resources that's it okay okay um two of my committees met the um committee on Aging met and also the Environmental Quality committee met the committee on Aging um I have to report was extremely

3:47:11delighted that two of its members had been honored as woman of the year in El Cerrito one by um the fort for the 14th Assembly District as our woman of the year and the other one for the Contra Costa College program so they both you know we spent a you know a certain

3:47:30amount of time talking about that and as well as doing their regular business of having a number of reports on different subtalk topics the Environmental Quality mat and they discussed a lot about the work that they were doing and the most notable thing was that they

3:47:49um were working on a co-sponsored movie which was on Transit and we had a very good attendance at that program at the Cerrito theater wasn't it you know and I think everyone was pretty pleased with the movie series as they're calling it which also included the ones co-sponsored by the

3:48:13human relations commission so I think all in all that co-sponsorship Arrangement that we worked out when we set up the theater is working really well and is bringing a number of people in the community out to the theater many for the first time making comments I'm noticing such as oh

3:48:34this is great you know so anyway that's very productive thing I think to do that so great with that I will adjourn our meeting tonight at 11 . my mic just went dead um we actually are not meeting on April 4th but instead April 9th we'll have a continuation of our mission statement

3:48:56development um initial discussion on goal setting for the budget and then our their next regular scheduled council meeting will be April 18th thank you foreign so we're meeting on April 4th and not the 18th okay