City Council Meeting May 15, 2012

0:00:00all the council meeting together to order for Tuesday May 15 2012. before we get going I'd like to report out that Council met in a special session closed session uh today under government code section 54957.6 we got an update on negotiations and the council gave general direction to staff

0:00:27on how to proceed forward okay with that I'd like to call again call the meeting to order and let the record show that all members of the city council are here prepared to do the city's business like yeah Pledge of Allegiance with the councilman please rise and join me

0:00:54I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible thank you we'll now have staff and Council Communications Council first hearing none will go to Iran Council go ahead okay I just wanted to mention an event

0:01:30that's coming up on May the 20th which is the cleanup of Central and Creekside parks that's that's on Sunday May 20th from nine to noon and if you're interested meet at 9 00 a.m at Central Park at Santa Clara and El Dorado streets and bring gloves bags rakes and oh actually

0:01:53gloves bags rakes Grabbers and other tools and instruments will be provided and bring water and be sure to wear a hat and all ages are welcome but under 18 we would like you to bring a guardian if you're under 18. so you can sign up at um green at ci.el.th cerrito.ca.us that's um

0:02:21or on our website or you can call 215-4350 and again that's this coming Sunday foreign just one for me I just wanted to thank all the organizers of Bike To Work Day particularly all the staff members who were there early bright and early through about nine o'clock and council

0:02:46member Chang for all your work on that it was great to see so many folks out um and it really makes you appreciate the having the greenway open just the couple of closures we have in El Cerrito when you actually have to bike on streets at some of the busiest times of

0:02:58the morning you really appreciate having the greenway open when it is so we're looking forward to the continued safety upgrades at Bart and eventually having the greenway completely open again favorite City events of the Year get to see all these community members come

0:03:14through and also one to brag that we had probably the first maybe North American motion triggered uh bicycle shutter or bicycle photo booth essentially one of our star Environmental Quality committee members rigged up a banner like an archway over the greenway and like

0:03:34being a lab Lauren silvermore lab employee figured out a way to do this so hopefully photos will be coming soon about that this is awesome and thanks to all the staff too okay I just had one here and I'll save one for the consent calendar but I understand that councilmember

0:03:53Chang has been uh has accepted to be part of a a challenge for a chef that's all no push it up there you go thank you all right well again uh council member Chang as part of a team on a chef's challenge um and I mentioned that during the business Small Business Development

0:04:26section but it's called a I forget the it's a culinary essentially like a Iron Chef event where we'll be going to um Pinole it's one of their newest um uh kitchen incubators for small businesses as part of the small West County Small Business Development Centers and four chefs from around the

0:04:49region are coming and we're being paired with they're being paired with myself or Rory Swearingen from Pinole Council and um McKinney McKinley Williams past president of the Contra Costa school um College District and I forgot the last one but essentially the point is to to

0:05:09we'll get a basket of goodies and we'll be competing together on an impromptu team and hopefully I'll bring home the prize rails for you do me a favor and make sure you beat um Mr swearingen's team and all I appreciate it no Roy's a real good yeah Roy's an all right guy I was just it would be nice

0:05:31yeah I'll get something stirred up here okay any other comments before we go forward okay uh could the city clerk announce the next agenda item please number three oil Communications from the public and we have Lawrence Radcliffe I presume that that means I get to come

0:06:00up now can you hear me yes thank you uh yeah I wanted to speak on the item on the consent calendar regarding the HOV lanes and I commute from El Cerrito to Pinole and when I'm on the freeway I notice the hlv lane is very underutilized and everybody's crowded into the three

0:06:26right lanes and I think it actually would be safer if we had the use of the HOV lane because of the congestion with the trucks and the trucks tend to be in the not the slow lane but the next Lane over because then they don't have to deal with people getting on and off the

0:06:46freeway and some of them are doing 55 or slower going up the road to Hilltop and some are doing faster than 55. we all know that but I just think that it's an underutilized Lane in the non-commute direction I don't believe it would impact buses in the non-commute direction as is argued

0:07:13by the wcctac I don't know if they have any studies to refute that I also wonder if they have any studies which show what percent of the people who are on the freeway are in public transit but anyway and I just think that we should be doing whatever we can to support the opening and the best

0:07:37utilization of the HOV lanes in the non-commute direction thank you thank you any other uh I have no other speaker slips mayor okay next item please item number four presentations update on business Recruitment and attraction activities thank you I'm just going to intro the

0:07:59item and then turn it over to Dwayne I we just wanted to give an update because I think um we I particularly but a lot of the staff and I know the council members get a lot of questions about what's happening with on San Pablo Avenue particularly with different properties

0:08:15and different things and economic development was a has been a priority a goal of the city council and we've had a lot of discussions um we've spent so much time on Redevelopment and the dissolution of Redevelopment and what that all means but um and obviously because of that we've

0:08:33focused on the tools as we've lost and the funding we've lost but we we still are moving forward and I thought it would be a good idea to give Dwayne an opportunity to check in and give you and the public a better sense of kind of what is economic development and

0:08:50particularly around business recruitment and and some of the things he's spending his time on so with that great thank you um good evening mayor members of the city council my name is Dwayne Dalman senior economic development program manager um and as our city manager talked about

0:09:06tonight I wanted just to give you a brief update on our business Recruitment and attraction activities as part of our economic development program here in El Cerrito so historically our economic development program has had much more of a balance between business attraction and business

0:09:22retention under business retention we've accomplished a number of activities I gave some examples here we've we produced the El Cerrito Home Improvement Expo worked on the shop El Cerrito program El pseudo home-based business expo kind of some examples of the business retention activities that we've

0:09:41done over the past however with the economic development I mean with the economic downturn and especially tightening of budgets we've really focused much more recently on the business attraction and I'll get into kind of what that is and what that's about in tonight's

0:09:59presentation basically when we're talking business attraction we're really talking about um you know fundamentally new investment in the community so we're we're trying to increase you know new development in El Cerrito bring in new tenants uh bring in business

0:10:18Improvement and additionally we have additional goals of with that trying to increase shopping in El Cerrito spillover spending where people come in and then and spend money in one area and then move to another area and also trying to create much more of a sense of

0:10:32place in different areas you know all this ultimately leads to increasing Revenue in the city in the form of of increased property taxes increase sales taxes and increase permit Revenue so really kind of the nuts and bolts because people ask this question a lot

0:10:49you know how does how does attraction recruitment really work um fundamentally the you know traction recruitment here in El Cerrito is not that much different than other business development kind of activities um it's important that you know we know we have a great knowledge of our local

0:11:05community um we do a lot of following up on on deals and and really it's repetition kind of over and over again and in some cases we're dealing with the same people for months you know even years to make deals happen you know ultimately it's about creating the largest pipeline possible so that we

0:11:24can get the most deals out of that pipeline really what it boils down to most of all I think is is building relationships um forming those relationships I've listed here with the property owners with Brokers that represent Property Owners with Brokers that represent

0:11:40tenants with the tenants themselves with businesses with the development community uh so I want to give you kind of an example and and I'm sure you've probably heard um and I think the the Chipotle deal is kind of a prime example of of of this kind of activity um one of the things I attend is called

0:11:59the it's ICS the international Council of shopping centers and that's basically convention where most of your National type of retailers go the developers go there Brokers go there and it's really a way to meet kind of the individuals that are behind the attraction of these type

0:12:16of companies so at that meeting I talked to Chipotle and like a lot of other tenants they said yeah we'd love to be in El Cerrito find us a place you know close to the plaza or in the plaza so part of that process is kind of getting an understanding of what their

0:12:31parameters were what they're looking for um and then later on the property owner of the Payless ShoeSource building came into City Hall talked to our planning department and basically had an inquiry into you know well I have a lease that's that's going to be expiring down the

0:12:47road and what what are my possibilities if I wanted to make a change for the building so that lead was then passed on to me and thinking about the Chipotle deal I thought well that's a great fit they want to be down by the plaza the building size fits their needs and so

0:13:03then ultimately that becomes basically a matchmaking job and so it's my job then to to you know match the Chipotle's needs with this building and try to make a deal happen so part of that is just it's it's really a hand-holding process and and once the two of them met then it's well

0:13:23our role then is to make sure that that deal you know works and in many cases you're dealing with with unsophisticated you know Property Owners or brokers who haven't ever dealt with the national type of tenant before and so um they're moving forward I'm very thankful but they are actually still

0:13:40negotiating some of the terms of their lease but I think that's very very close to being finalized and matter of fact they've already gone through part of our city planning process already so I think that's a perfect example of kind of how these deals come together and what it

0:13:57involves from from our part so I talked about kind of forming relationships on the outside but a big big part of this is also you know relationships internally here in City Hall um so in many cases the city hall is is the best resource for leads for myself so uh

0:14:19it's it's having relationships with the planning department with the building department with public works with code enforcement all these people that are out in the community talking to these Property Owners talking to businesses can then pass on to me say hey I've

0:14:32talked to this person this individual came in and so you know that's an important part of this in a in a way we're all involved in that role of Economic Development here um part of that internal process is just working with businesses through kind of the city process and and working to kind

0:14:52of create trust and openness with how our process works and in ways that we can um looking to see if we can improve kind of that development process and create more flexibility in in how development occurs in El Cerrito and I list examples such as you know parking and permits and

0:15:08things like that so I think this job I mean I'm like uh not unlike others you know there's a lot of challenges out there um we we typically don't hear from people that oh we don't want to be in El Cerrito people who usually say we'd like to be in El Cerrito but really it gets

0:15:28down to some of these challenges it gets down to the typically the real estate and property owners so from a real estate perspective um you know dealing with with various kind of complications that the properties themselves have you know in some cases we're trying to

0:15:44assemble multiple Parcels to make something large enough for development or we're dealing with shallow Lots where you have residences behind and so that that complicates you know how a project is laid out um beyond the real estate itself then we're dealing typically with the

0:16:01property owners themselves you know not all property owners are local El Cerrito residents um you know many times it's kind of the path of least resistance find a tenant that's paying rent and that's kind of fine with them um so really it comes down to you know is

0:16:17the property owner willing motivated to to work with us and to work you know on that particular particular deal because really it comes down to you know who's going to pay for what so when when a project comes in when a tenant comes in into a vacant building it's you know what is going to be that

0:16:33balance of what the property owner is going to put into that deal versus what the tenant can put into that deal um so and part of that is you know sometimes you have unrealistic expectations where Property Owners will say well you know I don't want to sell my property or if I do I'm you know

0:16:49thinking in my mind that I want to get what the values were five years ago so I'm going to wait for the market to come back and that's when I'll sell my building or I think I should be getting this amount of rent which may be you know unrealistic for what the Market's bearing that time or

0:17:05you know I want this amount of rent but I'm not really willing to put any money into the deal and so you the tenant pay the rent and you the tenant put in the tenant improvements um so those are the challenges that we typically deal with as far as real estate and Property Owners I listed two

0:17:22more I mean we based on our budgets we do have kind of limited program funding and tools kind of in our toolbox and we're constantly looking at ways that we could you know improve that and and other options that are out there and then we have you know kind of Border

0:17:38challenges of dealing with uh you know San Pablo Avenue is our main priority but not necessarily the the you know the priority with the city that borders us so before I get into specific examples on the recruitment retention side I did want to I mean an attraction site I did

0:17:57want to point out some of the things we are doing in business retention um have an ongoing program of going out and meeting with businesses and you know talking to them about you know doing business in El Cerrito how you know how that is is there ways that we can

0:18:12improve that um with you know being located in El Cerrito what works what doesn't this is the third year that we're doing our elsudo entrepreneur training so that's something that we fund small businesses to go through a 10-week program of putting together a business

0:18:27plan and that's been successful and businesses you know the idea is that they're going to be coming out in the back end of that much stronger and have a much higher percentage of being successful in their small business and that's actually a continuing Network so the first two

0:18:43classes that went through that program are still meeting and forming kind of an El Cerrito entrepreneur kind of group we're looking at at putting together a small business Workshop series next year to help us you know continue to meet the needs of the small business in our

0:18:59community and then I'm also involved with the Chamber of Commerce as a board member so let me get into some specific examples and even though I mentioned the challenges that we deal with um you know I I it really is an exciting time here in El Cerrito uh there are

0:19:18there is interest in the community there is activity out there and so I wanted to highlight and and talk about some specific things um I already mentioned the Chipotle deal uh going down the list we're working with the property owner of uh that owns the building on the corner of Kearney

0:19:34and Fairmont and working with that owner to finish that little retail space that he has down the ground floor and trying to recruit a tenant for that space have an ongoing relationship with the El Cerrito Plaza and and working with them to get a better understanding of when

0:19:50leases are going to expire and trying to you know have them upgrade the tenant mix that they have then a lot of the work is is really just dealing with vacant spaces that we have here in El Cerrito and I've listed uh the former Copy Central space the little raspberries face it's on the corner of

0:20:09Stockton San Pablo Avenue uh the the vacant uh former Dollar warehouse space over in the Marshall Center so with these kind of properties it's it's really getting an understanding of of of what what the property owner is looking for what that deal entails you know how

0:20:28that space could work for other type of tenants and so so my job then is to go out and and talk to those people and then try to fit in and Outreach to different businesses and different retailers and restaurants and see if we can make a deal happen in those particular vacant spaces

0:20:45um some of the larger ones like the Guitar Center have been working with the owner of that building for you know even before Guitar Center said that they're going to be leaving so in that case it's it's working with that property owner who's a little reluctant to hire a broker wants to do

0:21:01things on his own but it's kind of working through those challenges and finding um either a good tenant or development possibility for that particular building in some cases we're looking to to promote development you know on on a larger scale so I've listed here you

0:21:19know trying to promote development on the east or triangle uh where the former agency owns Parcels trying to promote development um on the Mayfair block so overall it's working on an individual basis on these smaller deals and then on a larger scale trying to get promote

0:21:37development on a larger scale on larger properties as well as kind of an ongoing so we're always looking at you know what's out there what's vacant where can we do matches and particularly we spend a lot of time on the south end of town and working with property owners there to

0:21:55um you know either fill vacancies or convince them to you know have higher and better use for their for their buildings and their tenants and the idea of possibly consolidating properties to promote development in that area so with something like a Chipotle then we can

0:22:12then take that and leverage that and to other deals and you know once that deal is finalized then for example then we can go to other property owners on that particular block and who who like to be near Chipotles and so the hope is that all of this Spurs new activity and we

0:22:30start to kind of connect the dots throughout the city so hopefully that gives you kind of a better understanding of of you know our our specific activities in business Recruitment and attraction and I'd be open to answer any questions or comments that you have Jim yeah I have uh one question and that

0:22:57is the impact of the end of Redevelopment on all of this and the ability to develop [Music] um Parcels uh on the uh on the parcels that are were formally part of the Redevelopment agency and I'm just I'm wondering if it makes people not want to deal with it because it's in

0:23:22a state of transition right now or if that has no impact sure if you're talking specifically about the properties that were formerly owned by the agency right yes generically I'm not talking about any particular one yeah I think generically not just in El Cerrito

0:23:41it's causing sort of a ripple effect with title companies and then development um just that there's so much uncertainty into the ultimate disposition of those properties so yeah I mean I think those properties are largely um sitting um I think there are there are no

0:23:59shortage of cities who are in somewhere in the process of doing projects and that's created additional uncertainty until all of the things that we've talked about with the oversight words in this state you know gets worked out but that's that's not an just an that's obviously an issue for all the

0:24:18cities not just us right cute thank you Dwayne this was really interesting this is one of the areas where we get our services are proactive there are so many things that we do we're reacting to things and this is one of the areas where you know you get to be creative and be a self-starter so

0:24:37it's interesting to hear sort of what you what you have to do on your day-to-day basis just a couple of little questions on the challenges slide that I just wanted to clarify um one of the challenges you listed under real estate was traffic could you be more specific do you mean lack of

0:24:49foot traffic or or what what were you thinking about when you put that bullet down oh actually yeah I um I skipped over that one of the things when I um I have the point there does under real estate does the available space meet needs um so typically at least the chain

0:25:09retailers will have very specific needs of kind of what they're looking for so you know not only the size of the building but but where that building is located in El Cerrito um you know some want to be on one end of town and not the other end of town from a traffic perspective you know

0:25:25they're looking for either specific kind of traffic counts or a combination of you know vehicle traffic or pedestrian traffic so some will say well you know we we want to be in high volume pedestrian traffic kind of areas and so that means that we want to be in this

0:25:42location because there are people you know shopping at the plaza and walking around and going back and forth to Bart and then I also mentioned size so those three are really examples of of getting down to the specifics of the deals and there are probably you know three or

0:25:58four other things some want to be on a signalized intersection in these three blocks with this size building with this kind of traffic count and you know willing to pay a certain amount of rent and expect a certain amount of tenant improvements um and have you found that there's a way

0:26:15to link up what we're doing already with sort of the home-based businesses and the entrepreneurs program where we can find um just I mean the national chains are definitely a route to go and they clearly you know pay they're clearly a part of our Market but just thinking

0:26:30about other I know it's a little bit more difficult difficult to generalize about smaller single-owned businesses or that sort of thing but I want to know if there is a way or if you've seen any traction in terms of matching up people who are you know developing their

0:26:43home-based business who maybe one day want to move into a commercial space or those who are beginning the entrepreneur program who are similarly looking for maybe a small office space right um I mean part of our goal for the entrepreneur program was really you know

0:26:57what is going to be that end that you know and you know I think our business license list is close to 500 home-based businesses so the thought with that is that you know it was definitely a goal of ours to have these businesses go through that and then ultimately be able

0:27:13to graduate from their home and then down into space kind of you know on the Avenue one of the things that we've looked at is actually we sent a survey out to all the home-based businesses and asked them specifically about kind of their real estate needs and it was

0:27:29basically you know if we build it will they come if if we were to you know get a small kind of office development in a say a four thousand five thousand square foot building like a hub that you have over in Berkeley or in some other areas you know would the demand be there from

0:27:45El Cerrito residents um and overwhelmingly that was positive that that uh you know if something like that could be created that there was enough need and what they wanted was not only the space itself but they wanted to also be close to the amenities they wanted to be able to

0:28:02um you know come down to wherever that office was and then be able to walk to restaurants walk to bark have their clients go back and forth from Bart um so I spent a lot of time talking about the you also mentioned about National retailers um one of the positives though is that

0:28:20you know the the national chains have much more rigid type of of requirements um the positive thing then is dealing with these regional and local kind of businesses is there used to being an urban environment so then we so we typically then don't have all the issues

0:28:37about you know they have to have X amount of parking spaces you know if they're in this local community they're used to being in an area where they don't have parking yeah exactly I'm glad you brought that up I mean some of our successes lately have been not National

0:28:49chains at all right um just a couple more questions on on this slide I had just a couple clarifications so when it comes to leasing you did mention that there's a lot of hand-holding that goes on with the property owner in terms of getting them comfortable with who's

0:29:00going to do what what is it just in your experience do we have how do we have a role in that sort of negotiation does the property owner approach us um for sort of advice or do you have to go out and just kind of keep hammering on their doors to get a sense of what

0:29:15might be the the stumbling blocks in in signing the deal right it kind of depends on on the deal itself in some cases it's convincing a property owner to go out to actually hire a broker as opposed to doing it themselves um in other cases it's it's you know you

0:29:32have a local broker who doesn't necessarily have the the type of contacts that the Brokers have for the large you know National chains like the you know the teranomics of the world and so part of that kind of hand-holding process is depending on where that deal

0:29:47is so in the case of of uh property or that is is unwilling to hire a broker then it's more of well can we then in effect do things to Market their property um so we have different real estate subscriptions where we can in effect list property um if it's a local broker then part of

0:30:09my job then is to basically feed them you know leads so you know I'm I'm aware of the parameters of your building have you thought about talking to these people or have you talked to these people um met with a with the broker who's handling the dollar former Dollar

0:30:25warehouse space in the in the Marshall Center in that case that that space is vacant about close to 5 000 square feet another one may possibly be coming vacant so then it was a matter of well there's a possibility that of creating more space and then that meets the

0:30:41requirements of a larger tenant that I deal with so it kind of depends on the situation and you know where you have sophisticated brokers who have a lot of Outreach then it's much more they know what they're doing they've negotiated leases they're familiar with how deals

0:30:57are done uh but more often than not it's kind of well holding their hand on these are possible tenants and then when you have a possible tenant even in the case of Payless that property owner was was really on the fence of well is it easier for us just to re-sign with Payless

0:31:15um you know so in many cases the path of least resistance is the path of spending less money and just re-signing with it with an existing tenant as opposed to figuring out well what would be the financial implications of putting more money into the deal but then the reward

0:31:31is that you have you know a stronger income stream with a stronger tenant who's you know less likely to go out of business than the existing tenant so part of it's kind of an education process also yeah alrighty thank you yeah thanks Dwayne um so I wanted to dive

0:31:47into parking surprise um so you mentioned here you've improved on processes to create flexibility in the parking requirements is that kind of am I yeah I wanted to hear more about that and if that's related to restaurant parking requirements and and all that so

0:32:03A couple examples one of the things um when we were dealing with the with elevation 66 and this was before they came in we met with the property owner and and one of the things he talked about at that time was the you know going through the going through a public parking exception

0:32:20process um you know made that particular owner nervous about well if I bring a tenant in and then I go through that process then you know there may be negative things associated with that public process and so is there a way to kind of avoid that before we bring a tenant in

0:32:37so in that case it was working with our planning department and came up with a parking exception for that entire block um other examples are I mean in the specific plan itself we're going through and looking at the parking and and ways that we can be flexible and meeting the

0:32:55needs of you know all these different types of developments it was kind of a variety of things but looking at ways that you know the the understanding the parking equation and how that you know works for various type of developments and then primarily working with our our planning department

0:33:12and are there ways that we can address that through things like the specific plan so do you think there's more areas where there'll be a similar through the specific plan uh carrying over what was done for the theater block um on the parking to other Maybe yeah I think we're looking at yeah

0:33:31um ways that you know that we can have that flexibility uh whether it's through that type of approach on a block approach or whether it's a it's looking at different types of you know requirements that we have say for restaurant parking versus retail parking um so I think that the nice thing is

0:33:49that internally there's those discussions are going on and there's a willingness to say okay you know how does this affect development and is there a way for us to be flexible in in looking at Future and how parking affects future development and and kind of related to that and the kind of

0:34:07discussion about businesses that are more acclimated to more foot traffic rather than car traffic um within the icsc are there you know does it Branch out from there or how do you you know you mentioned regionally we have more businesses that are in tune with that and accept that but

0:34:26you know how do you find them and I think about SF made as a collect it's a coalition of businesses that have products just made in San Francisco but eventually you know maybe they they will be growing further out to other you know second business locations and all that

0:34:41so I'm just curious right what are the ways to find them besides the icsc which seems so big right so really it's got It's Kind of a two-fold approach the icse approach is is strictly for the the national type of change the Chipotles of the world all the other activities are

0:34:57much more word of mouth local um and you know and that's literally going in and talking and finding out you know other businesses that are out there meeting with businesses asking them you know are you are you willing to are you looking at maybe expanding um kind of talk and really it's just

0:35:17direct Outreach with with different Brokers with different businesses um and do you feel like we couldn't help as the council you know thinking about if we see strong local businesses that are locally grown and you know I think about the K2 Restaurant Group which is the

0:35:36krikorians and they have you know lilims and T-Rex and all very locally oriented you know would you encourage us to do that sure I mean I'm always and that's the I mean when I talked about the pipeline that's really part of that process is the you know the more eyes

0:35:53and ears that are out there the better as far as you know funneling kind of ideas and potential people to talk to um but then it really will come down to then the specific kind of real estate so even if we have that interest and yes we'd like to come to El Cerrito then

0:36:08it's going to boil down to okay if you're that type of restaurant you know where can I find you know two thousand three thousand square feet and who's going to pay for you know if we're if you're looking at converting a a non-rest restaurant space say a former retail space into a restaurant

0:36:27then you're looking at 10 improvements that are in the couple hundred thousands and so then it's really a matter of you know who's is is that is the property owner going to put that all on the tenant or is that going to be shared and and you know when we talk about say the

0:36:41the elevation 66 in those surrounding businesses I mean that property owner um you know was it was much better to work with from the standpoint of understanding how these deals are put together and understanding you know what it takes to put money into but then

0:36:56getting money out of deals and of these you know all the sites you mentioned as they become vacant and are looking for tenants or even before knowing ahead of time what's coming is there a database is that that that has that information that we that's in that we can make

0:37:14available to the public or is it already out there or just you know how do we help get the word out right one of the things that we have is on the economic development web page we have a listing of and we try to keep that current of vacant space in El Cerrito um you know some of the things that

0:37:29other cities are doing is is I've looked at another city that had a um kind of a newsletter it was an online newsletter thing that said kind of hot properties where it was a very basic kind of listing that you know if you're looking for a restaurant space you know in El Cerrito these are

0:37:46the type of buildings um now it's basically you know me keeping track of kind of what's out there um I mean we have a lot of vacancies but but it's really kind of fitting the vacancies that would fit into that specific kind of category okay okay and then um related to just you you mentioned

0:38:05doing business Outreach um what percentage of the businesses in along San Pablo Avenue do you think you've been able to have that you know introduction face FaceTime you know yeah building relationships with but it kind of depends over you know over the years um in some cases we met with the with

0:38:25the new manager save um at the Honda dealership so over the years we'll we'll meet with different businesses um you know I would say that that it's the majority of the large businesses on in in El Cerrito and then kind of work our way down to whatever the specific needs

0:38:43are um and you know from that standpoint it's individual meetings but then another standpoint you know we look at well you know the workshops that we put together are things where you know we have an Outreach to all those small businesses so they're kind of different

0:38:58ways that we that we Outreach the business Community summer with individual visits and some are more kind of in in general group kind of settings like workshops final question um about business Improvement districts I know um you know it given Redevelopment going

0:39:13away and just as a tool to potentially get businesses excited about supporting them assessing themselves and you know doing you know augmenting all the the Outreach that you do and just branding of of you know whether it's the whole San Pablo Avenue or just Pleasant you know

0:39:34would love to hear any thinking on that um front that you might have explored or learned about or heard yeah um so recently met with with two companies that do that um and basically are gathering information on on uh whether it's a business improvement district where

0:39:52you're offering services to the business or a property-based improvement district where where the services are done through the property owners so we're kind of in the stage right now of gathering the information of of um you know how that would work one of the challenges that we have is is a lot

0:40:09of times you'll see her many times in in whether it's a property-based or business improvement district you have um they're based around kind of geographic areas whether it's one like it's a core downtown or Applause or a you know a plaza area or something like

0:40:25that so one of the things that we're looking at is um you know does it make sense for us or how do we do it when we have such a long kind of corridor and coming up with kind of common you know goals or or or things that you know people from one end of town are looking versus the other end of

0:40:42town so we've met with two companies and part of that discussion has been you know how would we go about you know could we carve it up and do part of town uh does it makes more sense to do businesses versus properties so we're still in kind of the fact-finding stage of that but

0:40:58and but are looking at that as a way to you know continue to offer services as a way to kind of supplement the uh the revenue great thank you right yeah we've recently uh were given the Bay Area economic council's uh study about the bay area's economy and and they actually have very high prospects

0:41:22for us and they a large part of this report is dedicated to the highly educated population positioning us for you know the technology uh boom that's about to occur they don't they could they didn't predict what it was they just said we're well positioned for the the next uh boom

0:41:41um so I'm just wondering with the relocation of Lawrence Berkeley lab into the area um are there networks to attract the you know the next bio Rad or Facebook and we do have an excellent campus that potentially is coming available that might be an excellent place for a technology company

0:42:04to come in so I'm just curious if you've talked about lots of shopping and restaurants but what about some of the professional or or entrepreneurial or high-tech or businesses uh one of the things that were that LCR is a member of is the the green business Corridor and so that's that's really a

0:42:23group of cities that have gotten together with really the sole purpose of of figuring out ways to attract businesses that are spun off from either UC Berkeley or the lab um so I would probably say that's the most I mean we've talked tonight primarily about retail and that sort of

0:42:41Attraction but when we're when we've looked at you know development on a larger scale whether it's around the BART stations or in other areas you know one of the components that we've looked at is the office component and particularly being you know right next to a BART station

0:42:57um that's something that we've looked at or and are continuing to look at and particularly with you know the lab moving closer you know does that make sense and and can that deal happen here in El Cerrito so it's not it's something that we're definitely looking at and

0:43:11trying to include in all of our development kind of scenarios thank you great I just have a few uh Dwayne um what what would you say uh you have found in dealing with potential uh developers the limitation what limitation is most prevalent in dealing with potential people

0:43:36I mean I don't think our limitations are are are particular to El Cerrito most of the time it's you know how does the deal pencil out um so uh you know one of the challenges that we're that we're looking at from a residential standpoint say residential development is the last deal that we did

0:43:52here in town was the Mill Lumber project and so when we've talked to developers about particularly residential development um you know they've typically come back and said well one of the things that we're working through is when we're talking to either investors or Banks and

0:44:07trying to come up with our project kind of poor pro forma we think we can get you know these type of of rents um but you know until a project actually comes out of the ground and you're actually getting those um the conservative side says well what are the you know what are people playing

0:44:25over at the Mill and lumber project and so um I'm talking to the development Community I don't think there's anything particularly that's different about El Cerrito than other areas it's it's all about you know do the deals pencil out you know can we get the rents that we're

0:44:42looking for the income that we're looking for and then down to you know basically the project cost and how much does it cost for land the reason why I asked that is you brought up Shallow Lots which I know uh businesses are looking or a developer is looking for

0:45:01a bigger development or a bigger space than a two or three thousand square foot has there been very many people that have inquired or they just kind of know El Cerrito has limited opportunities in that regard well I think part of our role is is is focusing people kind of on the on on

0:45:22you know their particular expertise and most of the time developers will say you know we we like to do deals that are two acres or you know we're infill developers and we you know want to do deals of a certain size so so our role primarily is to is to kind of say okay

0:45:40you know if we're trying to promote development on a particular block you know where does that best fit which developers are out there that are that are you know doing deals in that kind of size um and knowing that you know what we think is a large parcel here in El

0:45:54Cerrito relatively isn't necessarily large we have a vacant place that you know looks like it's huge it's maybe half an acre so we have to kind of keep in mind that the the those economies of scale really do apply to the development kind of process I guess we don't have a space big enough

0:46:12to attract the A's if they can't go to San Jose um and then uh just briefly what is some of the attractive features that people like about El Cerrito I mean uh I've heard that there's been a lot of active a lot of people interested times aren't right necessarily put together every

0:46:31deal that comes along but what are some of the attractive spots I mean what I'm talking about El Cerrito uh people always talk about the demographics uh that we have you know a great demographic base we have high education attainment we have high household incomes

0:46:50and so when you when you're looking at across the board development if it's an office development it's you know who are the workers that are going to be working there and it's one of the the main positives of El Cerrito are our residents um Beyond just how much money they make

0:47:07and how educated they are you know there really is a demand for so many things from our residents that we don't necessarily have here in El Cerrito um so when I'm touting the positives it's it's look at you know the new things that are occurring in El Cerrito look at the support of these businesses

0:47:25um you know that can be duplicated across a wide variety of kind of businesses um so I'm always talking about how supportive El Cerrito is and not just our local community but when someone's looking at El Cerrito you know we're you're really drawing from from the radius around which is you know

0:47:43the Albany in Kensington and Berkeley and Richmond and um so that kind of whole sphere of influence is important when we're talking El Cerrito a couple other examples oh I was just I mean people people we have good Transportation I talk about the BART stations I talk about our

0:48:05proximity to Highway 80. the traffic that's on San Pablo Avenue so there are a lot of positives about El Cerrito and I I think that it's attributed to people saying they want to be here it's just a matter of where we can plug them in one more thing I would add that I've

0:48:20I've heard a lot um is the community's willingness and history the recent history particularly of of investment in the city um this the Avenue the streets the schools City Hall that the the residents the city itself everyone there seems to be a willingness to invest

0:48:44in in the city and that's I think that's really noticed by the development community and the and the retail Community as you know a great a good sign that these are the same people who are going to want to eat here shop here um but I've heard that a lot that it is

0:48:59noticed by people on the outside particularly people who drive the streets in other cities around here we won't mention okay the last thing I will point out is that the the other common thing that we hear quite often is is the the benefit of doing business in El Cerrito versus

0:49:15some of our neighbors and that comes up quite a bit as far as how refreshing it is to be able to sit down with with the people that are making the decision and how you know good our process is here in El Cerritos and that that we hear over and over again from people that say oh I

0:49:31just did a deal in this city next door and what a nightmare that was and how refreshing it is to you know look at the process that we have in El Cerrito good just two more that's kind of interrelated one is I I don't want to go away from this though if people are listening to this or hear

0:49:49about it the city's role really isn't and correct me if I'm wrong uh put uh City properties aside that the city would own um we don't negotiate we really don't represent any particular party when you're putting when you're interacting you're not really negotiating for anybody or or

0:50:11representing them and we're not a broker correct right so our role really I talked about before is is basically Matchmaker right it's bringing together these parties and um I think I mentioned you know every property has a story um and so really it's our function to

0:50:31find out you know what that story is what those issues are and then trying to make that match um ultimately it's going to be the decision between those two parties of whether that deal happens or not it's our role to kind of do whatever we can to kind of facilitate that happening and

0:50:46and and bring that deal together but it's ultimately their decision okay and then my last thing is um for heard a lot of good things but the last two and a half three three and a half years have not been very kind to development and Retail and and small businesses and so

0:51:05um we do have a lot of vacancies we have a number of vacancies I don't know a lot I don't know how that relates but certainly a number of vacancies and it's I imagine it's hard to uh um attract some new businesses for a variety of reasons and then the state takes away

0:51:25our ability to use Redevelopment so what do you how do you see our new and yet I think we still need a Redevelopment uh role in the city so where are we going how are we starting to develop a new kind of a new department or a new way of interacting with Redevelopment where do

0:51:50you see that versus where we have been for the last 40 years that we've had Redevelopment well I think from one standpoint we're all kind of in the same boat now so um you know with with the Redevelopment tool being taken away we're all dealing with with that kind of you know new

0:52:09paradigm um but but we can still continue with the same type of activities that that we were doing before and that is trying to you know facilitate deals happening um you know we still control those properties but you know we're still out there trying to promote the city trying to

0:52:29make deals happen with the development community and in a way I think I think we're in a good situation because you know El Cerrito is is a place that people are interested in I think the activity level is high and you know compared to some of our neighbors that that that have no or

0:52:48very little Economic Development going on anymore um I think what we're doing is being much more proactive and much more out there in the community so I think that's positive for us when you look at kind of our neighboring cities are there any new strategies coming up that's like

0:53:04Redevelopment um uh Enterprise Zone type of programs is there anything you hear that may be developing that we could use well I think there's there's a number of strategies our our Redevelopment attorneys had a seminar not that long ago about looking at different ways and

0:53:25many of them are are repeating things that have been around for a while that weren't necessarily used as as you know is often with Redevelopment that now people are taking a look back at you know how that works things like you know business Improvement districts or um you

0:53:42know so some of those other tools that have been out there um kind of financing mechanisms and I think everyone's kind of looking at those now nothing's come to the Forefront as okay this is what we're all going to be doing um but that's definitely being looked at

0:53:56so we're staying on top of all that great thank you any other questions comments well I have a comment um one is that I want to say how much I appreciate the work that you're doing because I think it's um it's really important to our future that we do have Economic Development I

0:54:19think it you know it really um gives us finding I think I think it will be the key to financial stability that in a few you know a few other things but um and the fact that uh we're doing this kind of a thing at this point in time I think is especially critical because

0:54:40um it seems like it's a really hard time to um for businesses and they need that extra help as it were I mean if you know I mean the other the alternative would of course be that they were just out on their own and I think many times that isn't a business owner's area of expertise their

0:55:00expertise is in running their business not in um you know negotiating for property or something like that so I think this is particularly helpful in a community like ours and I and I really want to thank you for the work you're doing thank you suggestion and echoing all I it's

0:55:22amazing all the things that you have on your plate and um but just one another one to think about and kind of what you talked about in terms of building relationships that triggered it is using leveraging the whole LinkedIn phenomenon given that it seems like it's the Perpetual business

0:55:38card where you know you can continue relationships just no matter where people go and seems like a great way to disseminate you know alerts about great new sites and and then it kind of has the whole social media Echo effect so that's all thanks great thank you Dwayne

0:55:56appreciate it next agenda item please next agenda item is adoption of the consent calendar which include the minute Proclamation commemorating the dedication of the Blue Star by way opposition to the passage of assembly Bill 2200 and a committee on Aging appointment

0:56:23we can pass it but I'd like to make a comment on on 5B afterwards and I don't know if there's any interest since we had public input on 5c I would I would like to make a comment on that but I am supporting you want to pull it or or just uh just make a comment actually

0:56:44when you do that you want me to go ahead and go do you want to make a you're pulling one item after no I'm not pulling I just want to comment on it okay what would you like me to do right now anything um just make my comment and emotion and emotion right okay so I make a motion uh

0:57:03in support of the adoption of the consent calendar items a b c and d and I'd like to make a comment about item C with opposition to the passage of assembly bill ab2200 and the reason for that is primarily that uh the concern is around um it being politicized about how many uh

0:57:33people you need in a car in a lane as opposed to letting the people who are technical experts in the area work it out and that would be agencies such as Caltrans and MTC and as you may all remember we've been working on the I-80 ICM project for some time which is a very

0:57:54technical project and it has required a lot of that expertise and we have managed to get all the different players together to work together as a team so what happens in ab2200 is all of that is kind of thrown aside and said you know without in you know a lot of without any facts actually

0:58:15back it up that let's just do this because somebody thinks it's a good idea maybe and that makes it very difficult to move forward in a um in a way that works for everybody if we use that as a methodology so um so what we actually you know what the concern is is that we're we're throwing

0:58:37aside all the technical expertise in the area with without even studying it um so that that's basically what our concern is do we want to pull this is there any discussion on it I'll second the motion okay all those in favor aye opposed motion carries I just wanted to comment

0:59:02on 5B which is a proclamation commemorating the dedication of the Blue Star by Waze monument in Richmond that is um as you know we have one in El Cerrito actually two of them but we are a Blue Star City and Richmond by doing this will join us in that select group of

0:59:24cities that have a dedicated blue star Memorial um the celebration will be on Memorial Day May 28th down at the Richmond Marina and it will be at 11 o'clock when it takes place the dedication also on the um going on down there is the opening of The Rosie the Riveter

0:59:48Museum down there so uh it's kind of a two barrel deal but uh certainly uh we'll be there to support and be part of the celebration for the blue star Memorial for for those that don't know we do have two blue star memorials one is at Arlington park and the other is here at

1:00:08City Hall okay next agenda item please a 6A we have four public hearings the first is confirming the diagram and to Levy the assessment for fiscal year 2012-13 for Landscape and Lighting assessment District okay uh just so we explain uh ourselves before we get into this we

1:00:31have four public hearings going on all four will follow the same procedure and one that's we've been using for a long time here in the city announced the public hearing staff presentation questions from the council then we'll open the public hearing and there'll be public testimony

1:00:50um when that is complete and everybody's satisfied we'll close the public hearing and then we will if there is a motion it'll be made at that time and we will further discuss and vote and make a determination so with that could we have the first uh presentation by Steph

1:01:09good evening mayor Jones and members of the council I'm Mary Dodge administrative Services director and I'm here tonight to do our annual discussion our final discussion on the lighting and Landscape assessment District the lad the lad was first approved in 1988 and

1:01:26then again in 1996 and every year the lads brought to you in kind of a three-step process first we um authorize a report and that was done on April 3rd the second part is scheduling the public hearing and we received the report and that was done on May 1st and then

1:01:44tonight we hold the public hearing to see if there's a majority protest on the imposition of this assessment and if not then we approve a resolution and this public hearing was noticed as it's supposed to be and the engineers report details the improvements the maintenance

1:02:02and lighting needs that the lad generates we get 771 thousand dollars in revenue from this assessment and we need an additional 595 000 to be able to do all of those uh required expenditures and it appears there is uh no majority protests and I'd like to request that the council

1:02:22consider the resolution presented okay any questions from Council well thank you uh I'd like to open the public hearing on item 6A comp confirm the diagram and Levy of assessment for physical year 2012-13 lighting and Landscaping assessment District okay is there public testimony I have no

1:02:51speaker slips mayor Jones I moved to close the public hearing I second that Moon and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries the public hearing is now closed comments please yeah I'd like to um just briefly let the public know a

1:03:11little bit about this measure and the and re-emphasize the fact that it's now only covering a little over two-thirds or about two-thirds of the total cost for keeping our street lights on and our Parks trimmed um the the report actually is a very comprehensive report that levies this

1:03:34assessment based on the benefit that is derived by the properties so vacant properties um actually don't pay as much because they're they're obviously not benefiting from it so I just wanted to let people know that this is based on a benefit that your property is is deriving from

1:03:52this it has stayed the same and uh it currently is only supporting about two-thirds of our actual cost and the balance is coming from gas tax eligible expenditures okay yes I I think it's important to restate that this rate has been set at 72 dollars per residential parcel uh for

1:04:20a long time now and it can't go up um automatically it takes a vote of the people so um with that I'm happy to move a resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito confirming the diagram and loving the assessment for fiscal year 2012-13 for the Landscape and Lighting District

1:04:40assessment number 1988-1 second it's been moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries next item please 6B confirming the method of collecting the storm drain reconstruction fees F report please good evening again um fee was passed in March of 1993 in

1:05:05conjunction with 6.3 millions in revenue bonds for the Reconstruction of the city's storm drain system the the ordinance said the fee at 58 dollars for single-family homes and there are other amounts for various other property uses and it it uh it also requested to be

1:05:22collected through the property tax role so the city must annually conduct a public hearing to consider the method of collecting the storm drain fee and provide an opportunity for any individual property owner to contest the annual fee if they felt it was inappropriate this meeting also has to

1:05:38be noticed and it was done according to the requirements and the storm drain fee generates annual revenue of approximately 698 thousand dollars and those funds will be used for storm drain maintenance as well as Debt Service and it also appears there have been no

1:05:56majority protests filed in regards to this so I would like to ask the council to consider the resolution presented to you thank you questions uh just one question thank you Mary on The Debt Service payments that are being made is the can you tell me the term of the bond

1:06:13this is the bond that's going to be um it's completed in 1314.

1:06:19that's okay great thank you these are actually ongoing and it is also an item that is subject for potential refinances any other questions okay if not I'd like to open the public hearing is there a public uh testimony tonight no speaker slips okay I move that we

1:06:44close the public hearing second moved and segment to close the public hearing all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries and the public uh hearing is closed any final comments okay yeah I mean the uh being a civil engineer um I actually uh truly do believe this

1:07:06is a very critical thing for us to be collecting this fee and investing in our infrastructure uh as I think we our earlier item attested to El Cerrito has made a very good commitment to maintaining our infrastructure roads and in this case storm drains and it's

1:07:28through these storms drains that we protect our property and so that's it's a privilege actually to to know that we are investing in our city I think something that came to mind when Dwayne was talking earlier is that businesses and now we're talking about businesses

1:07:44that come to El Cerrito they invest in El Cerrito because we invest in El Cerrito and so this is just another example of how El Cerrito is doing the right thing and by protecting our property with good storm drains we are attracting businesses so is um we're we're in comments right so with

1:08:05that I would it would be my privilege to move a resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito adopting the annual report and directing that storm drain fees for fiscal year 2012 2013 be collected through the property tax rolls second it's been moved and seconded on the

1:08:25motion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries next uh agenda item please 6C revision to fiscal year 2011-12 Master Fee schedule for selected Recreation fees staff report please good evening honorable mayor and council members I'm Christopher Jones acting

1:08:44director of the El Cerrito Recreation Department for this public hearing staff is requesting approval to amend fees in the 2011-12 Master Fee schedule which mostly apply to the El Cerrito Swim Center so that they can come into effect and time for the swim Center's busy summer season

1:09:00begins this June in light of the recent reopening of the Albany pool and the fact that the El Cerrito swim Center's busiest business cycle straddles the fiscal year staff believes that early adoptions of these proposed fees is in the best interest of the city and are patrons so that they

1:09:17can take advantage of the new rates now rather than next summer it is that's hope that these proposed fees will help increase participation in revenues at the Swim Center in considering these fee changes staff surveyed Public School centers in Western Contra Costa and Alameda

1:09:34counties as well as Walnut Creek the results of which are included in the staff report for this item thank you for your consideration and myself and Bridget Cooney our aquatic supervisor is here to answer any questions you might have thank you questions from the council

1:09:52yeah I've one question just it I know the answer but I'm going to ask the question just so that you have an opportunity to make it clear the tables one most notably table two the El Cerrito proposed monthly pass for adults is actually going to go down from a hundred dollars downward and even

1:10:15though table two talks about a value of 80 for residents um our actual resolution is going to be moving the 2013 price of 82 so I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about what are some of the benefits that we'll be getting like the new child rate and some of the savings that we'll

1:10:39have but most notably I want to make sure that you that people recognize that the actual fees in our resolution are the same fees that would be the 2013 piece so we won't have a fee come in on June 1 and then a new fee on July 1.

1:10:58yeah that is correct and I do apologize uh the listed prices here for the adult monthly pass um I neglected to to change it when we adjusted the fees so I apologize for that um we are you know first you know the main reason behind this reduction is that currently

1:11:18uh an El Cerrito resident can go to Albany and swim cheaper if they want an unlimited pass and we certainly want to prevent that and we'd also like to remain competitive uh with the pools in the area um specifically um we're adding a new tier to our system where a child one to five is a little

1:11:41cheaper than a youth in teens 6 to 17 and this is a trend um that most pools in the area or the Bay Area are going to and Bridget can speak more to this if if you're interested but the concept is that a child that's one to five is typically at the swim center with their parent and

1:12:00therefore requires less special functions of a lifeguard an older child is tall enough to go down the slide which requires the next which requires a lifeguard at the top of the slide at the bottom of the slide an older child can take a swim test to go into the larger pool which requires

1:12:18another lifeguard to administer that test so that's the the reason for for differentiating those ages great thank you that that does conclude my questions Heather um we discussed this a bit at parks and rec but can you give us a sense of whether or not there's been any impact

1:12:38on our expected use of the pool at this point in the year since the Albany pool has opened I think it's still hard to tell um we've had less than usual signups in our spring lessons for sure but it's hard to know if that's because of Albany pool or if it's because of the weather that we

1:12:59experienced I mean it seems like every time the weather gets nice we get a rush of registrations and and when it's cold outside nobody feels inspired to come down and sign up so um at this point I think it's it's really hard to tell we can check back on that I guess as the season starts or the

1:13:15main season um I'm happy to see that the comparison you've done with the other cities that's really helpful to see um in addition to the pricing have you looked into our our sort of competitiveness with regard to scheduling I'm just kind of thinking you know how many hours you might have open

1:13:30for particular types of swimming that you might get a high volume for there's always people waiting for the rec swim on relatively nice days so are we are other pools particularly Albany offering similar times in terms of open swimming swimming are they directly in you know

1:13:49are they the exact same times that we're offering them so somebody would have to choose between the two pools has there been a lot of thought of the schedule uh I believe and Richard can correct me that at the time that we were putting this together all these summer schedule

1:14:02wasn't necessarily out yet when we schedule the pool um we not we try to not only scheduled to what might be most popular but also achieve a balance for the community and different types of swimming that we have accessible so in the summer definitely we shift towards a

1:14:22heavy swim lesson area and things like lap swim maybe cut back a little bit or water aerobics may be adjusted a half hour up or down to accommodate you know find the best mix but I think it is mostly about trying to find them the best mix to accommodate the demand

1:14:42suggest that when their schedule does come out we should we should take a look at it absolutely thank you we had made just so you know we had made overtures to Albany to look at some scheduling coordination because it could be to everybody's advantage to know that

1:14:56there's laugh swim you know all day exactly it just depends where you go but that's a good point our schedule's out already they should look at our schedule thanks Chris thank you thank you I see that we're going up 50 cents and the adults are 18 plus adults for the drop-in

1:15:17and we're dropping a dollar for the child one through six what exactly was behind that uh type of fee structure well the um I have to say that the 550 drop in for adult laugh swim I I was a lifeguard at the pool in 1997 and the cost was 550 and I think it was 550 for several years before that we

1:15:44felt in trying to keep with the spirit of the the Masterpiece Schedule going up that we should adjust fees where we could and since other pools had the six dollar rate and it has been such a long time that we've been at 550 we felt it was an appropriate move and also

1:16:03we are lowering the cost in areas for the lap swim so it's really only the people that you know if they can come they can drop in if they decide they like it there's a opportunity for them to save money by buying you know multiple passes yeah I saw that that's pretty good just an idea

1:16:22and I know it varies to season from whatever season we're talking about but generally uh how many adult swim participants do we have in saying annually and how many children were up up to 17 years are you talking who purchase passes no just those that come to swim

1:16:47well we have it's you know we have all these drop-in fees which I I would have to get back to you about that certainly in our statistics for in the budget but I I didn't bring those with me okay they're in the budget and I I can wait for the budget I was just curious

1:17:06okay thank you any other questions or comments thank you okay uh moved open and he moved open the public hearing I moved that we open the public hearing on this item second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor of opening the public hearing hi public hearing is now open any public

1:17:35comment no speaker slips mayor I'll move to close the public hearing second second and to close all those in favor aye opposed motion carries last minute comments and if not do we have a motion on this item I'll just comment very quickly just appreciating staff thinking

1:17:54through different ways to bundle uh fees and costs and having the essentially the city equivalent of Groupon I think it's it's a smart move so with that I would move that we adopt a resolution for this free schedule unless there's any other comments um so that the city would adopt the

1:18:13resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito to adopting revisions to the Master Fee scheduled for select Recreation fees for fiscal year 2011-12 and amending resolution number 2011-30 second moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed the motion carries next

1:18:35item please item 6D Master Fee schedule revision for fiscal year 2012-13 Jeff presentation good evening again so every year we do review our Master Fee schedule and it encompasses all of the city's user fees and charges for services and it represents about a little over five million dollars of our

1:18:58Revenue annually and just to put it in perspective almost 70 percent of it does come out of the recreation department but how we do this is every year we the first thing we do is we try to determine what the general increase is going to be and for this year we looked at uh we

1:19:15kind of guessed that the CPI was hovering around three percent and for the last few years we have used three percent as our basis and so this year we started determining how many other costs that we had that had not really been recovered at that three percent CPI so

1:19:31we went back and reviewed some of the major components such as the health costs the pers costs and the fact that they've been happening over a few years and we recommended a general increase at five percent so with that recommendation we basically tell the Departments that this is what

1:19:47we think they take their section of it and all the different departments review their fees and they submit it back so we will have some fees that are higher or lower than the five percent pretty much so dependent on the recommendation from the department head and in this time for the certain

1:20:05categories um for miscellaneous police and and fire since there haven't been hardly any overall Citywide there haven't been any Department changes or structure changes so there are not a lot of fee differences you can't tell that in the police department it appears they did a

1:20:22more a very thorough review and there have been some changes in regards to that and they did add a new fee in regards to uh firearm storage uh in the public works and Planning and Building the last fee study was done in 2005.

1:20:40and we were concerned that activities were happening in especially in the area of Information Technology where these fees were not growing proportionate to where they should be and part of the concern is when we do have an opportunity to have a new fee study we

1:20:58don't want to have fallen too far behind what the fees should really be and then have a difficult time catching back up so an analysis was done and is presented in your report where we tried to focus on I.T cost recovery and we did this by initially looking at the overall growth

1:21:17in the department and then looking at the specific projects that we have done in regards to like our permit tracking system the gis system and we essentially came up with a calculation that included a three and a half percent increase on on top of the general increase is what's

1:21:34being proposed um for recreation fees every year they as you just heard they analyze there is on a much more market rate basis and essentially what programs that they've seen that have developed and grown and other ones that have potentially dropped off and so you'll

1:21:57see many different variations on on the recreation fees for business license we have the calculation that was put in place when it was voted in and it has a factor that we go back to a CPI factor from many years ago and this year's calculation for business license increases of flat

1:22:17one percent so all the fees listed above accept development fees or should be effective as of July 1st the development fees will become effective on July 16th since they require 60 days after the final action to become effective and these uh the increases and the fees that we are

1:22:38discussing this evening will be part of the budget that will be presented in June and we have calculated our Revenue projections based on these increases and I would be happy to answer any questions in regards to the fees questions right sure the firearm storage when I

1:23:02did I did find it after you mentioned it so thank you for that but I do want to find out how the firearm storage fee um corresponds with the weapons seizure storage and return line item and it strikes me that those are they have the potential for overlap and I guess I'm

1:23:21trying to figure out Are We Now offering to store people's weapons while they're on vacation to answer your question good evening uh mayor Jones Council Mr Hand and I'm Sylvia Moyer your police chief and to answer your question directly this firearm storage is a direct result of

1:23:39some legislation that states for specific crimes the offender the suspect even prior to being charged shall forfeit their firearms a specific example would be in a domestic violence case the offender would forfeit their firearms pending the outcome of the case what ends up happening is in many

1:24:04instances the Firearms are forfeited to a safe location like the police department for up to three years you can see that with this quantity of storage it creates a space issue for us and we are looking for just simply direct recovery of our costs so it is to fill a

1:24:23void that we did not have failed before item six has a weapon seizure storage and return at 160 dollars is is there overlap between these two there's not overlap they're separate and distinct um because I mean both these sound like one is is seizure and the other one's

1:24:45surrender is that the terminology difference that would be the best way to say it thank you for saying one uh the the potential is that the firearm is returned at the conclusion of the case or the court order for instance in a domestic violence case the other is

1:24:59because the weapon is potentially part of a different type of crime great thank you certainly um I also wanted to uh hear from you as to your bicycle registration uh fees uh substantially reduced and so I want to give you an opportunity to encourage people to register their bikes explain

1:25:21why they should register their bikes and explain how we've cut the registration fee by greater than 50 percent we have cut the fee to encourage more of our community to register their bikes so that we can place their bicycle and the serial number and description in a

1:25:38database if the bicycle is lost or stolen it gives us a greater opportunity to identify who to return it to upon recovery and as a side note we are currently examining the overall bicycle licensing program and how that would be better facilitated for our community

1:25:58thank you friendly yeah thank you um great to hear about the bike make facilitating bike um biking and bike safety but actually this is this is going back to my question really is about public meeting materials and Publications and kind of looking at the overall distribution of

1:26:21council packets to boards and commissions and and I'm just curious about um you know these fees I'm just how often are people requesting these materials and kind of thinking about the web and how we have online you know serving of lots of data and information including the meetings that perhaps and

1:26:46are we covering potentially the costs some way through even though those are you know you can get get online for free and download anything you need but to maintain all of that um costs something so you want to go ahead Cheryl Yeah by law people can request the packets in writing or in the to

1:27:03receive the agendas by mail and over the last the last few years we've worked really hard to turn people into e-subscribers and I'm really happy to say now there is no one that that receives an agenda or a packet by mail they all refer to the web and do they do we notify them kind of

1:27:22through an email list kind of alert now the agenda's out or do people all go on their own or but yeah I have an e-subscriber list with probably I think 30 maybe 35 people on it and I'd send them the link to the all the staff reports on the agendas with the fees going to stay there

1:27:39because there are people if they did request it in a paper um or they would they would have the fee that they would be charged okay and and at this point we're not I mean when we I feel like we're increasingly trying to maintain web um email lists of you know whether it's

1:27:58for the green El Cerrito notifications or you know and that's a whole maintenance effort as well but I don't know I'm just curious how that trickles out into you know and thinking about the planning department needing to you know purchase servers and recover those costs

1:28:13I'm sure there's kind of a burden on I guess it resources to to shift to this new medium reducing paper I think is a benefit to everybody and everybody appreciates this but I do know that there are some items like the financial Advisory Board packets that for the majority of the

1:28:31time I would email to them but if the printing gets to the point that it is not fair for them to have to have it printed we would print it out and distribute it that doesn't have a fee to it but it is a a different way of that we would be disseminating information

1:28:46okay thank you thank you uh thank you Mary for the presentation just a couple questions um on the the CPI discussion on on the first page where we're sort of speaking generally we talk about a three percent annual increase and I'm kind of confused about how that relates to the business

1:29:04license tax which refers to CPI as well where a one percent rate is discussed the CPI generally has to do with we overall what is happening today in the CPI and if you read on the the second on page three of the report it goes into the actual calculation where we have to

1:29:28compare business license fees or We compare it with a number from 1988 1989 and then we have to it's it's a very convoluted calculation and it it what it results in is every year we have a very minimal increase to business licenses that does not really have any

1:29:49correlation with the current CPI okay so the three required calculations understood but the CPI that we refer to where we calculate three percent annually are we referencing back to this same Benchmark the Consumer Price Index for wage uh Urban wage earners San

1:30:11Francisco Oakland Bay Area um I know that there are various types of cpis you could refer to in terms of geography and whether or not you you know add in gasoline or you know what sort of included in what's in sort of the basket of goods that's generally what we use and it's consistent with the

1:30:31labor agreements but this one here has a focused date so in the business license the business license one has the focus State the one that we would use would be would be this area of all wage earners and but it will change yeah but an annual change okay and the business

1:30:46license tax is also or sorry the business license fee is also an annual change it's just calculated in some different way calculated in a different Manner and it has to be February to February okay um and it's it has to then it has to go back and correlate between

1:31:01what had happened in 1988-89. okay thanks for that and I wanted to hear a bit more about um you touched a bit on the Public Works planning and you know wanting to make sure that we don't have when we when we eventually do have the resources and the time to do a comprehensive fee study we

1:31:19don't want it to be a really big jump you know we want to kind of phase things in but I wanted to hear um about uh the strives we made in it or that we're making or that we've already made it and the the benefits that either the staff has in doing their work by

1:31:35having put these investments in place or the benefit and or maybe both uh the benefit the residents get by having access to uh you know we we discussed GIS systems um I kind of wanted to hear about the things that we're getting for what this fee increases is is uh is paying for

1:31:54there's a couple of different aspects to that and I'll speak to one and then I'd like to ask Jennifer if she could respond to the specific aspect of the crw but I think generally overall technology G is just increasingly being more part of our work people do not

1:32:11expect to have a letter a snail mail expect a an immediate response and so the cost of upgrading the mail server and upgrading all of the the product and the servers is a cost that doesn't change how people receive email they just don't might not recognize just how

1:32:28much more email we have to go through to be able to maintain appropriate technology um we have you know quite a few different things between the web and this there is that but right now uh we have done we did that this year one of the main things we did was the crw

1:32:44upgrade and that's what I'd like to have Jennifer tell you where were how this worked and where we're going with it thank you council members I'm Jennifer Carmen development services manager um with our recent upgrade on our crw permit tracking system we went to

1:33:01the.net platform this is the more updated platform um more there are a few more features in it it's easier to use it looks better um and the benefit of this permit tracking system is it enables anybody in the city who has access to it to be able to answer a customer's question

1:33:21where's my permit has so and so looked at it what is the process for it and it it follows the it has status updates so if the person is working on the permit is not available I could pull it up and tell them exactly where it is and who's looked at it and when their responses or

1:33:40comments are due um there is an e-trackit module that goes with crw which we will be buying at some point um which will enable the web access portion of our crw system so people can look at it through the web that is also enables the public to have access to any

1:34:00documents that are attached to a file the city of Richmond is already using that it's actually really beneficial we're able as staff to go through their system and pull up staff reports drb reports that on most recently we used it to look at the process for the Albertson

1:34:18site on the north end of town see where things were what comments were happening from their staff just to do some figuring out what's happening over there so it is very beneficial to both sides the public and staff and uh could you also discuss the the gis upgrades

1:34:35um I'm not as familiar with that our Public Works directors the project manager for that but um any information that we have on the gis system there is a public interface for that through the web right now you get basic information our system is is much more detailed than

1:34:52the county system that's available and we have um the the group that we contract with that has more data and it's more current than the assessor file so it actually gives the public dual access to data from the county as well as from the data that we have available

1:35:10okay thank you um just one more Mary uh as I was going through the the master fee schedule you did mention that um something I think is really important that we this these fees generate about five million dollars but seventy percent of that that revenue is related to the fees under Recreation

1:35:31um I I just kind of wanted to point out that there were a couple places where no fee increases were were discussed and as Chris mentioned these these have a lot to do with the market and kind of deciding balancing um keeping demand high for a service with still keeping costs you know at a

1:35:50state where we could try to recover at least some of the costs so I did notice that that the senior center doesn't have any any increases in classes discussed um uh and another one that came up that as I was going through of course we we have um zeroed out costs for solar

1:36:06permits so I guess I just wanted to point out there's some interesting you know that that sort of a policy decision that was made um were there any others that come to mind for you where we've kind of gone through and applied the general five percent or eight and a half percent or

1:36:20one percent for the for the business licensing were there other places that you can recall that where we made decisions as from a policy standpoint um these fees are either not going to be increased or there are no fees know where we are not charging fees is right now and I think that this was

1:36:37something that the council determined a few years ago and it was to encourage um residential solar projects to go forward and uh I to that then I don't know how many that there there are but I do know that it was it was definitely something that was promoted and I do not

1:36:55think there is anything else okay perfect thank you for the senior center though I do know that they were looking forward to a year where they were really working on increased participation and they have new programs they were considering and they wanted to focus on

1:37:08participation this year and do some more studies and plan on bringing forward next year some increases to their to their fees perfect thank you I just had a Mary had a few questions here uh so these you feel that these um fees whether they're increased or decreased

1:37:36stays within the spirit of the next it's Nest Nexus study that was done a few years ago that was the goal that's why we tried to find ways to to capture activities that we know would be allocated in the new fee study like the information technology area because when

1:37:55they do those fee studies they will be considering those changes as a support department that's definitely one that would be allocated to all of the fees so we wanted to try to find an area we could focus and with the goal of staying within that Nexus okay um the I.T I know you've talked a lot about

1:38:17it uh in other areas that were not charging that that fee such as Recreation and and finance who uses a lot of Technology um are those departments absorbing it or are they already in part of that fee well for the recreation department they have the market considerations to con to

1:38:42taking those are probably um what drives them more than anything else and uh since the finance department doesn't get to charge anybody any money we don't get to recover anything but we we do uh we will be allocated out to the other fees um including any new activity that we

1:39:02have when the new fee study is done so right now you're for services that would be part of say the building or Recreation are not build out to the you're not recovering those indirectly in the Nexus fee study we were part of the support departments allocated out

1:39:22and a component of the fees as they were originally done and we have tried to determine you know on the annually to add a certain cost component we do feel that we are a little bit behind and we haven't because one thing it's a little bit difficult to isolate specific

1:39:40activities to be able to attach to fees such as this one so um and I don't know that we have had that many major projects in the last few years in finance okay but the migration um a couple years ago and we I don't know that we increased fees for that but I do believe that'll be all part of the

1:40:03next fee study okay but I what I did hear you say is the initial Nexus study um you were those costs were were included now I know the the technology has has boomed it runs everything whether it's government or a house business uh home business uh so those costs have gone up so you

1:40:28say we're we're probably a little bit behind as far as the finance department's uh concerned about their support towards other departments it's it's a it's a possibility because we did have a um the migration of the new world system a few years ago and that cost is

1:40:48could take that original Nexus and make it be a little bit off-kilter okay in the report you do say that um we didn't apply the permit fee or a technology fee to other parts because then you you felt it would get a little too high uh all in one year I guess so my point

1:41:10is you we're introducing it in the public works Planning and Building fees so next year um since it's been introduced now that that fee do you anticipate it going up quite a bit or a little or have you looked that far ahead well so this year is eight and a half

1:41:33percent will be the basis that we go to next year okay and uh since it is the base I would anticipate then we would consider just a CPI for it next year uh hoping that we would take the three and a half percent that we built in this year and it would kind of last us until

1:41:52we have the opportunity to do the fee study right so that's good or other do you know that are other cities actually building in through either their budget or through fees collected um a technology fee to offset uh cost because technology is pretty expensive and the next time Microsoft or

1:42:16somebody decides they're going to change their whole program and they're only going to support it for the next two or three years we all have to uh you know jump up and and buy the new latest new thing is there a way that we can start planning for that or recovering our

1:42:33costs this has definitely been a concern of our city manager as he watches us try to be able to be a little bit more on The Cutting Edge of Technology where we're still working on getting up to the point where we can do permits online and other cities have and part of it is

1:42:48funding and he's been thinking how do we how are we able to capture those costs to make this process happen and I put out a email to the csmfo list serve that's the California Finance officers and what I got from them was a lot of tell me what you find out that was all and what I got a majority

1:43:08of was that they were increasing it into the base rates and since I I couldn't really find an example of an approval where we had so much percentage that we were going to be able to tacking on to each individual fee my proposal was to go ahead this time and increase it by this extra three

1:43:27and a half and and try to get it rolled into the fee for now I I did not find one good example of how we could do that if we ever as the thought of surcharge come up in other words with every friend transaction we we charge a little bit as a surcharge that's directly dedicated

1:43:46to our um to building and offsetting a technology fund well we have not done an actual surcharge um I do know that we have that this is going to be considered a cost recovery component not separated out it's its goal is to just recover the current costs and I know that last year for uh

1:44:09Recreation they had a little component in their revenue where they're going to be transferring over to CIP to amortize the recovery of the cost of their Rec track upgrade and so so that was included in last year's fees but we have not included anything in regards to a surcharge and that's what I

1:44:31was kind of anticipating hearing back when I put the question out on the listserv and and what and I did not hear anything like that okay that's good uh you know when we did the Nexus study and started bringing up the fees to work to cover true costs which is what the law

1:44:50requires actually um we didn't we did it in some in levels for instance I think it was in planning the planning fees we did them in Terror levels or Terraces because the increases were so great uh are we caught up now as far as you know with with all those types of things

1:45:12under the changes between um planning kind of before and after that study was that we changed the method we had we were at the valuation method prior and when we did the next study we went to these a square foot analysis so this didn't just change the cost of the fees it changed how we

1:45:31calculated them how we presented them and and many components to it because of that that was I think the main reason why we had such increases not only were we doing them we were capturing the costs we were doing them differently so it took us a while to catch up

1:45:48the goal is with actions like this we will not be too far behind when we're able to get the study done okay so where I I'll wrap up where I'm going with this particular thing when I first looked at the fees of course I I did it like you're not supposed to you go to the end of the

1:46:07novel and read read the last chapter and then you go back and read what what builds up so I did that and I saw the the fee increases in in the building department and I go holy cow and um so this is kind of I I imagine we're not going to see eight and a half percent

1:46:25next year on these no what I'm saying is my my I've taken this three and a half percent right and we've built this now into the base so when we go next year we're starting from this base and it will be carried forward part of my calculation here was I had an amortization period of

1:46:43seven years in an effort to try to calculate you know just something that would by seven years we will do a new fee study I'm sure so I wanted to try to capture the costs over a period of time I believe that next year we'll be back at CPI sure so I it's a build up

1:46:59this is a catch-up buildup time and then we'll we'll just determine the base and go from there so that's that's good I think people should understand that this is not a normal thing we do is raise raise fees eight and a half percent a year not like medical expense uh premiums

1:47:18correct I think I think the assistant city managers already had to get that in uh okay your honor hi I would like to actually make a correction to the fee schedule for your consideration um uh councilmember menacini had uh brought up solar panels there actually

1:47:36is a um a line that should have been deleted if you look on page 34 of the um this met the master fee schedule at the top it says schedule for miscellaneous building permit fees about um a little bit down the page where it says photovoltaic systems solar panels

1:47:56um the um those two and additional panels where it says zero actually those uh two lines should be deleted if you look further down under s where it says solar panels we are actually requesting that the council consider raising it from zero to three hundred fifty dollars

1:48:13um we I can have uh the development services manager explain that a little bit more but what we have found is that we have done an internal study of Staff time and inspection time that has been associated with solar panels over the years and we have found that we are

1:48:30losing a great deal of money um the 350 dollars is not and Jennifer you can probably give me a little bit better perspective it is much lower than the actual cost of the inspections and the staff time that has been put into the solar panels um am I right on that yes it's about a

1:48:49third of the cost of Inspector time that we have been following for the last six months um we've had actually it's a little bit longer than six months our acting billing official um senior inspector Gordon um has been keeping he's our solar panel expert and he has been keeping track of

1:49:06every hour that has been spent on every application that has come through and the average cost should be rough roughly between nine hundred and thousand dollars to cover the costs of the hourly wages of inspection and plan check we've decided to bring forward a third of that

1:49:22cost to ease people into that permit fee because we have been charging zero dollars for so long uh question can I have a question on that um thank you I know that there are efforts um around the county or around sort of maybe Western Contra Costa and Western Alameda to streamline permitting for

1:49:43solar panels um I guess I want to hear how this fits in with that and whether or not we're participating in that effort we are participating in that we are one of the first cities that abag has provided some software to receive those applications over the email and we're working with

1:50:01that group of City to sort of streamline and make that process more um similar amongst every city so there really is no difference between the processes that so people can expect that they'll have the same situation depending on what city that they're in yeah I believe that's is that through

1:50:22the East Bay Green Corridor and they've actually um with us having the zero fees they've actually asked us to consider having fees because yeah every city is coming every city is coming in with having fees and so to standardize actually we would have to be brought up to that standard

1:50:39and is there a standard fee that's being discussed um at this point no um what has been the the number that has been discussed is higher than what we're we're asking for now but they have not come out with a defined permit fee we wanted because our fee schedule is

1:50:57coming forward we wanted to get ahead of that um so whatever comes forward from the green quarter project will probably likely be much higher in the future yes I was I was around when we uh did that and we did it because uh in fact we had the highest fee in the Bay Area or

1:51:18approximately that I can't remember if it was totally the highest it was the highest fee and that fee if I remember correctly was about nine hundred dollars um so um and I mean it was embarrassingly High um at that point so I'm a little concerned that 300 doesn't seem like it's particularly

1:51:41low I guess it's what my concern is and the point of it of going to zero was just it was a policy thing about encouraging solar panels um and um which I believe are pretty expensive to put in if you want to you know the total cost not just the fee but the installation and all of that so my

1:52:08concern is is that we're um are are we by going we we're sort of ignoring that in making the statements about trying to um set costs doing the cost recovery thing because it was claimed at the point that um we went went away from the 900 that in fact 900 was the cost recovery price

1:52:33um so I'm not sure the policy I don't I'm not sure what the policy direction is here that's coming out of staff and doing this well the fees um the cost of installing a photovoltaic system have also gone down significantly since the first time we we eliminated the fee

1:52:56um it's getting cheaper and cheaper to install these devices on your homes and so it was thought that because of that reinstituting a fee even if it's a third of the cost of cost recovery would start that process if people you know afford that because the cost of those

1:53:12systems have I'm still not quite understand I mean I it was I was extremely embarrassing I thought to find ourselves in a position of wanting to be a green City and having the highest fees and this seems to be like a step back towards that position which is not particularly one I would

1:53:34like to see us go towards we can discuss that again after public okay sorry no no that's all right did I just ask a question just not just on that one same topic just one more bit of information from Jennifer how how many permits are we talking about um I don't have that data in front of me

1:53:52but I know um Gordon is out on a project at least every other week and in regards to either pre-construction meeting or checking in on projects that are going on they're become very very common and the and the typical is the first installation so it's 350 when you put it

1:54:08in are there cases where people are kind of adding incrementally panels and that's another 350 dollars okay that would cover some of the costs of from pre-construction consultation that we do for them through the full inspection phase it doesn't in no way covers the cost of actually all the

1:54:28staff time that goes into such a project sorry I was asking whether or not a person needs to get the same permit whether or not it's their first installation or what if somebody were to add a panel and I don't know if that happens that if somebody's seeking to expand their system I assume it's this

1:54:44is it the same permit process where it's a it would be 350 to expand an existing system um that has not been anticipated it would just be for the first installation okay at this time any other questions okay thank you any other questions of Staff before we go to the public hearing

1:55:05okay I'd like to open the public hearing uh on item 6D any uh public comment please no speaker slips okay a movie that we closed the public hearing a second it's been moving a second to close the public hearing all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries I think

1:55:32we come back now to discussion and Janet maybe you'd like to start off yeah um uh I just want to discuss that one item and um say that I I think the fact that if I heard correctly we just um in in changing the fee to zero and I can't say of course that it's totally associated with that but we are

1:55:57getting installations but that is what we want to do for a number of reasons one is um you know our climate action plan um and um so I would like to see us 300 does not seem like a particularly low fee to me it seems like a still a significant fee because 900 was really high

1:56:22and um so if we were to have a fee I would rather see it be something in the neighborhood of a hundred dollars maybe that doesn't seem like it's large uh relative to the initial 900 that we experienced a while back and um so um I'll just leave it at that I just to contribute to the comments

1:56:54about I I totally agree I mean we we are an environmental leader and we want to encourage green behaviors but I think there's you know thinking about the whole spectrum of ways to reduce greenhouse gases in our climate action plan I do think it is an opportunity cost to

1:57:11look at well you know are we subsidizing solar versus subsidizing Transit passes for example that's another you know thing program that could be looked into um and it's you know effectively you know you don't have to you know I don't know so so just going down that

1:57:31whole frame of thought you know as another initiative area that we could kick start in the same way that apparently it seems like we've helped do for the solar side of the house um I'd be really interested know um you know the cost per greenhouse gas pound or ton saved

1:57:49um what is more effective and what is more you know literally accessible for a majority of our El Cerrito residents because I did look I personally looked into solar panels and it was way too expensive for me and it wasn't going to pencil out but you know I support those who were

1:58:03able to do that but you know maybe Transit passes or you know something car share membership or something else you know there's a whole other spectrum of places to address climate change that actually have a multiple of other benefits when people are out walking

1:58:19more biking more and creating safer streets and being healthier so I think I would support given that there's a whole East Bay Corridor kind of initiative in that the fact that we're being more consistent about how to roll out the inspections and the expectations that Innovative of

1:58:38itself I see value in terms of um you know making it easier for everyone to to move forward while not you know losing all of our costs on that we're not recovering our costs thank you um I thank you to to Karen and Jennifer for pointing this out when I look through the fee schedule I didn't I

1:59:02didn't notice notice that so I really appreciate that being pointed out and I wish I had a little bit more time to think it through um but what but what I'm thinking right now is that we made a policy decision at one point to make it zero and I think without having a little bit more

1:59:16discussion to Move It from zero to 350 it might be a little bit imprudent at this moment the rest of the fees I feel I feel comfortable with and I feel like I understand the basis for for the changes being made but this is the one that um maybe you know maybe it affects a

1:59:31couple dozen people a year who are getting their installation in place but given that we're in the middle of the climate action plan I kind of feel like discussing these fees needs to be done in a broader context of exactly what council member Chang said what are we

1:59:45gaining in terms of a greenhouse gas emissions saved in term uh compared with the amount of the cost that the city would would shoulder and I just kind of feel like we need a broader discussion about that before before we raise the this one this one fee maybe ultimately

1:59:58we will decide you know based on our work on trying to make things more consistent among nearby cities to to go the route of instituting a fee but I feel like it's a little bit premature to to go there at this point just given the discussion we've had so far um it is a policy decision as

2:00:18established by our uh earlier or the council's earlier action on this um I do think that some cost recovery for our services rendered is is warranted being discussed the value uh may be something that we need to look into I mean I I look at a skylight which is another one of those energy

2:00:39saving devices because during the day you've got solar light coming into your house as opposed to a electrical light that's lighting up and that's 406 dollars for a skylight so um and you know it's not generating revenue for your house it's not reducing your cost so for me it is worth

2:01:00discussing something that does approach a third of the actual cost for installing it um I'm as the discussion is going would like to have a longer discussion on it because there was staff's testimony that we've been asked to increase the fee from zero I would like to get more

2:01:22background on that and I'm not certain that tonight's the place to do it okay um my comment on on solar uh yeah I was part of the same just uh when we set the policy by the way the policy was set during a fee Master Fee schedule so this this is the proper um right this is the proper it can be a

2:01:48proper uh forum for discussion of this and I was actually on the losing end of that because I was the one that was uh pushing for a little bit of a fee and at that time the rest of the council had and they were right in the end that that was um one that I thought we were we were

2:02:07trying to promote solar solar was expensive and um I think it helped promote I do think this though that um we've had solar for a long time and uh I think it is time to start uh getting something back for our our fees are our costs and as was pointed out uh installation of solar is coming

2:02:34down and has come down since uh when we last talked about it on a fee uh I also know in talking to people who have solar they're pleasantly surprised that it's performing at a higher level in most cases uh than what even the companies were telling them so I think

2:02:54it has been very successful it's worth promoting I really think we should we can have a discussion further discussion but I really think this year would be a good time to start introducing the fees and then going forward as as we see fit and I would I would take uh council member abelson's

2:03:17suggestion of a hundred dollars to start with knowing that will it'll be going up I would think by the way I the fact that another organization has asked us to raise our fees because it makes theirs look look bad I I don't buy off on that I um we should set what we think we need to

2:03:40do and they they should set Their Fear what they think they do after all all these years that's the way it's been you have City of Richmond city of Berkeley just about all of them have fees we don't have one so I don't know what the uh what the big deal is about us not having a fee if

2:03:59that's the way we decide to go I still think the jury's out on regionalizing a solar panel policy because we could do that for any number of of things and maybe we want to but I I think that's a whole different discussion in itself separate I think from the solar is uh

2:04:24The Building Trades are are the the building industry is always asking for regional or Statewide permitting and others such things so you know maybe we should have two separate discussions solar and then uh Regional or Statewide regulations may I make another just one more comment

2:04:50on this sure um I think if Maria Sanders were here who's working on our climate action plan she might point out to us that there are many upgrades one can make to one's home to make it more energy efficient that are extremely cost effective and much lower cost than a solar solar system and

2:05:07there could be an argument that is made that perhaps we should reduce you know we should if we're going to Target a policy of trying to promote improvements that reduce one's greenhouse gas footprint that there are as a whole list that we could look to in this master fee

2:05:23schedule um that we might want to Target towards trying to reduce fees so so I'm not I'm certainly not of the mind that solar is the only thing that we should be promoting there's a whole range of options that we could we could have if we want to you know promote certain

2:05:39improvements over other types of improvements so I am open to to supporting a nominal fee increase at this time I would um imagine that when the climate action plan does come forward we might be revisiting some of some of these issues based on staff sort of considerations of

2:05:56of where the city can make investments and what's the most cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions okay so where do we want to go on this well I would be happy to make a motion but the reason I said a hundred dollars is that nine hundred dollars was

2:06:14excessively High okay and and um so three hundred dollars seems to me like kind of closer to what it I mean you know no it wasn't like everybody charged the same amount or anything but the um the three hundred dollars doesn't seem particularly uh it's not low if you're trying to to

2:06:38stay at a position you know policy through that so that's why I said a hundred and this fee is only for a year right and during that year we can do anything we want about the setting up fees for the following year so we're not talking about a very long period of time this is not a permanent

2:06:58sort of change and if we want to have a whole array of policy around fees relating to things that are what I'll call Green we can do that in this year and maybe this was a starting point of that conversation uh and that you know would in my opinion be a good thing

2:07:18but um for for now what I would I mean I'd be happy to make a motion now if we're ready for that okay so I move adoption of the master fees schedule um uh for the city of El Cerrito as shown in exhibit a with the change of that one fee for the solar uh to one hundred

2:07:42dollars um and um also um uh including that all the fees listed in the master fee schedule except for development fees are effective July 1 2012 and that the development fees are effective July 16 2012.

2:08:04and I'll go ahead and second that and add a comment um that I did notice through further inspection that we are adding uh solar tubes as a new item that we include and it appears that a solar tube a non-structural solar tube is 75 dollars that uh staff decided not to

2:08:27increase that fee this year um so thank you for the for that staff hi everyone correction in my motion if I could um we also need to include that the rate adjustment to the business license tax uh also appearing see we need to confirm the rate adjustment to the business license tax

2:08:47which also appears in the master fee schedule and I'll take that I'll second that Amendment um and so I I with that I did also want to comment that I don't see a rate which is good for if somebody wants to insulate their house there doesn't appear to be any fee

2:09:07for increasing the installation of your house so everyone go get your houses insulated they've been moving second in any further discussion okay there's a motion on the table all those in favor hi hi opposed the motion carries thank you next item please [Music]

2:09:36seven policy matters extension of exclusive negotiation rights agreement with eating housing staff presentation please good evening mayor Jones City Council Members I'm Hildy mile housing program manager and if you look at the agenda in baseball terms this is the seventh

2:09:55inning stretch um so I'm here tonight to ask you to consider extending the exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing for the city-owned property at 10848 and 10860 San Pablo Avenue um the property was originally purchased in 2009 for the purpose of increasing El

2:10:17Cerrito supply of affordable housing and we conducted a developer solicitation process for a mixed-use project we had lots of interest and we ultimately selected Eden Housing to as the developer for this project so we executed that NRA NRA meaning the exclusive negotiating

2:10:39rights agreement back in March of 2011.

2:10:45um also around that time we entered into a pre-development loan with Eden and also we conveyed the subject property from the agency to the city through a property conveyance agreement at that time and the NRA was assigned to the city so that um all the rights that go with that

2:11:07property including the agreement or with the city um so that NRA was set to expire in March of this year we extended it under the city manager's signature through June and so I'm here tonight to ask you to consider a one-year extension of the agreement and the primary reason for

2:11:30that is that the project is somewhat on hold due to concerns around the dissolution of Redevelopment and that throws some of the housing asset transfers into question um despite all those challenges Eden and City staff have made progress on the project Eden held a number of community meetings

2:11:55and a drb conceptual review meeting to solicit feedback on their proposed design they also conducted due diligence on the site such as soils testing and geotechnical surveys and they also commissioned an additional historic resource evaluation So based on all that information they

2:12:17submitted a revised planning submittal to planning staff and to housing staff so the original proposal was for 64 units of affordable housing and approximately 5 000 square feet of commercial spray space which included a clinic the Samuel Merrick clinic and a small retail space the revised proposal

2:12:39is for 63 units of Housing and to retain the mabucci florist shop which is the small Stone Face structure on San Pablo Avenue and then that sort of reduces the resulting commercial square footage though there's about 1700 square feet for the clinic and about a thousand

2:13:01square feet of proposed retail space um Eden has drawn on about forty thousand dollars at the pre-development loan to fund some of these expense expenditures and they've also invested their own funds so the status right now is that the developer has placed the project on hold

2:13:22due to the uncertainty of the of the asset around Statewide dissolution and staff is working very hard with our County and state agencies to resolve these issues but some of those issues or time frame for that is beyond our control we are in communication with Eden's

2:13:43staff and um I think that the um the developer I think is understandably reluctant to invest additional funds at this time I think that Eden has what Eden has several projects around the Bay Area and they're very aware of what's at stake in the dissolution process

2:14:06and then they've been a partner with us and with other cities and seeking a constructive resolution to some of these issues so I think it's I think where they are at is understandable I think they have made progress under the NRA to Merit an extension so we're asking you

2:14:23to consider that and allow time to resolve some of these issues and then we can get to the business of actually looking at SQL review and entitlements to allow this project to move forward to a successful completion so thank you oh and also I just wanted to introduce

2:14:41Eden's staff here they are Woody carp senior project developer and Ben Brandon project manager here to also answer questions of maybe thank you right we're in the question stage does anybody have questions of staff yes thank you Hildy um just we've talked about a little bit but just to go into

2:15:02it in a bit more detail can you go over sort of the state action that we might be waiting for to allow the the project to progress um and then also what can be what can we do in the interim to continue to move the project forward either either we as staff or or Eden what would they be

2:15:20willing to do as we're kind of waiting for this other agency to to take some action so um under abx1x26 um there is uh the state controller has purview to review asset transfers of the former agency it's a little unclear when they drafted the legislation they didn't seem

2:15:44to take housing into very clear account um so we are working with the the there are two steps one is that the state controller's office can review asset transfers there's but they they don't have a schedule for that um the second is that the county each County auditor is conducting an external

2:16:04audit of each Redevelopment agency the county has begun that process with the city of El Cerrito and we are fully cooperating on getting them that information once they have prepared that document and they estimate that they'll have that prepared by July 1st they'll share that

2:16:19with um presumably with us and also with the state controller um it's not clear though that the legislation doesn't provide for what action is then taken by the state or the county with respect to that so that information that data will be available um but there is not a clear process

2:16:36through which um they will say you know yes go forward you know and so title companies are a little nervous right now in sort of issuing sort of title to properties so that's a concern in terms of what we can work on in the interim really the next key step for this

2:16:55project before entitlements or a development and disposition agreement can be considered is to go through the SQL process planning staff has issued or already issued an RFP for an environmental consultant to do that and evaluated those proposals however we're sort of waiting to pull the trigger on

2:17:19on how those that's going to be paid for so the developer the initial plan which the developer would fund that either through their own funds or through these cities loan agreement um the city doesn't have funds through the loan agreement until the county releases those pursuant to

2:17:39the rops process of the Redevelopment dissolution process so one option is to find a source of funds to fund that um the other is to sort of wait until it's a little clearer what the what the process will be and how will that the dis how when when will that decision be made about what

2:18:00we're going to do with the sequa with going forward with the sequel finding other sources of revenue if there are if there is such a thing when will that be decided we have an RFP out the the the consultant's already been selected okay we don't have funds in the

2:18:17budget to fund that at this point in time so we're not so so that's an interim step that could be taken but we're not going to take it correct we can bring that back for consideration but that there are no funds to fund that at this point in time okay um thank you that's that's helpful and

2:18:34another item I wanted to touch on uh we talked about this when we discussed the Ohlone Gardens project earlier so when you were going through the project description you mentioned that we the the revised proposal has um the Samuel Merrick College Clinic 17 about 1800 square feet a thousand square

2:18:52feet additional of new new non-residential commercial retail type of space new I mean the prod right the project includes the seven the 1800 plus a thousand plus the uh the Gucci built florist building um so I wanted to hear from if the developer could could speak to this

2:19:13um whether or not it would improve their project economics to reduce this amount of non-residential space and potentially increase the number of units that are provided and I I don't expect you to have the numeric answer tonight but I just wanted to put out there the idea

2:19:30that um you know given that the you know there's sort of multiple components of non-residential space being proposed would it be helpful um to to reduce that yeah and just I'll let Woody answer that question just before he answers it I just want to make it clear that

2:19:47we rfp'd or rfq'd for a mixed use project and we received a full range of projects um and we did give Bean is the direction was for mixed use we really tried to look at a project that made that work um while acknowledging that um in that the commercial rents did not

2:20:16pay for the costs of construction and the Tenant improvements um so we were acknowledging that in in the initial analysis of of all the proposals that we received um so we've been trying to give flexibility in terms of what those requirements are while trying to meet the spirit of

2:20:38what the direction was we received in terms of of soliciting a developer for that project and a question good evening my name is Woody carp I'm a senior project developer with Eden and I want to take a step back and and just thank you it's really a pleasure to be

2:21:01here it's a pleasure to work with the city I'm working with staff has been a pleasure for the past year we've taken the time and had a number of community meetings and a meeting with the design review board and I I say that because I think the the design that we

2:21:19have presented in our initial application is is thoughtful it has incorporated a lot of comments and a lot of concerns that were expressed to us so um to to answer your question um the the amount of the commercial space um that we're talking about here is about

2:21:43um 3 700 square feet it represents um probably five percent of the uh of the total project cost so it's not appreciable um in in those terms um the initial uh you know design um has taken a fair amount of time and a fair amount of architectural fees um to um to present to the city so to revamp

2:22:13it and to resubmit May just about balance out the savings that we might realize and and maybe over the Long Haul if we were able to incorporate another couple of units um there there would be some overall benefit but in terms of uh where I I sit here viscerally right now I

2:22:41wouldn't see a a significant enough benefit to modifying the design particularly because we were really trying to be sensitive to what the design review was telling us to do with the design and stepping down the building and creating a presentation to the street

2:23:02with the commercial uses that would be in line with what their concept is for the overall streetscape so that's my short answer okay I appreciate that and and I'm I mean I think I'm just continuously concerned with building brand new space on the Avenue that's empty for years and and I think I'm sure

2:23:28I mean we're all concerned about that and um and I know that you of course are going to do your very best to tenant that space and come up with a good use for it whether or not it's you know a community serving or you know serving to your residents at some point before

2:23:43maybe you have a rent payer but you know I think that we're I think I'm just continually concerned with that and want to just ask the question at every point and and I and and we have thought about that as well um yeah we have um had a lot of discussions with Samuel

2:24:02Merritt about the uh the creation of uh an urgent care clinic or a day walk-in clinic of service um we believe that they're very serious they they really like the concept I think it would be nice if we could move the project forward and meet a timeline that would that would meet their need

2:24:25leads too so I I am a bit concerned that that as time goes on it it may become problematic in that regard but they haven't expressed that so far they've continued to express their their interest and desire in in having that space and the remaining space that we're

2:24:45talking about is about a thousand square feet of retail which we've spoken to a commercial broker and they have expressed to us that that would be about the size that would be necessary in order to attract a reasonable retail tenant the way we've designed it the concept

2:25:02concept would be a small coffee shop type facility but we have designed the uh the location of that that in the event that that was not feasible it could it could be converted into um Community residential community space not not public not public community space that

2:25:29could be utilized by the project it's it's not necessary we have other community space that we've contemplated but that's what we would end up doing if if rather than let it lie vacant and in programming for the mobuchi side I assume hasn't really been vetted out at

2:25:48this point the the concept for the uh the the s'more florist building in the front would be that um to to retain the character of the building facade but that space would be used as um as as residential space um for the facility it wouldn't be a public space understood

2:26:13um perfect you've given me one more thing to be concerned with now that you mentioned that the the clinic is on a tighter timeline as well I didn't I didn't realize that don't want to lose one one tenant that we already have I couldn't leave you with okay total

2:26:25optimism um okay just uh just a couple more Hildy um so according to staff report um the terms of the enra that were set forth and all the Milestones that you needed to reach as far as staff is concerned all those Milestones have been reached uh yeah I feel satisfied with uh Eden's

2:26:44performance in terms of uh them performing their due diligence they've paid their good faith deposit um they're showing showing a great deal of um initiative in terms of trying to line up their other funding sources they're very eager to apply the next funding source

2:27:02that they would be applying for is County Home cdbg funds and that round is due in December and they would like to show progress on your entitlements and environmental review which would make them more competitive for those funds because those are those are timing

2:27:16considerations um so I feel that they have um have performed well and and responsibly in terms of of my expectations of the developer okay and last question um just to understand fully the null hypothesis if we did not take this action to extend the enra what would

2:27:35then occur uh it would expire which extinguishes any third-party claim to the tradeway property so we would um probably lose the ability to to claim the Redevelopment loan on our Ops because they're that developer does not have any other relationship in terms of site

2:27:59control on the property um the the worst case scenario is that that land is that the state attempts to claw that land back and and force a sale in order to distribute those funds to taxing entities to in effect solve the state's budget deficit okay thank you thank you Hildy um just a quick question

2:28:30um about parking and just wanted to hear what what the current ratio is being applied how many parking spaces per unit and just thoughts about given the um if seek was on its way you know looking at traffic impacts and Transit passes and and all of kind of the full TDM plan and

2:28:48also being mindful of trying to get more of our housing money to House people rather than cars and given the the population that we're trying to serve I would love to hear that an update on that um I'm gonna refresh my my memory here on what the the current parking

2:29:05proposal is I believe it's 30 34 spaces the vehicular parking uh 32 residential 10 commercial there you go for a total of 42 [Music] um 30 eight of those are on San Pablo Avenue they're in in other words they're not on site so I think our I mean street parking essentially what's that you're

2:29:35counting street parking is the developer here is counting the street parking I think that that Jennifer is still here but the those don't the commercial components or the commercial component yeah the residential is on on all on parked on site um so that's um a parking ratio of of about half a

2:29:55space per unit and does that I guess jive with your experience as an affordable housing provider for senior housing given you know the average levels of vehicle ownership um in a place that has put you know about 300 buses a day with access to Regional Transit uh We've we Eden has

2:30:21um a substantial senior population portfolio and uh we're um almost all of our properties are are now being developed at point five to one um and we're finding that that is is more than sufficient to meet the need um in the initial couple of years residents tend to to retain their

2:30:48vehicles they come with vehicles but after a very short period of time especially in a Transit Rich Community they they tend to to no longer keep their vehicles or no longer utilize their vehicles they find them parked on on the site more than they are driven um we I I completed a project in else in

2:31:12San Leandro about a year and a half ago and it's a 50 unit project with 28 parking stalls the uh the the community was very concerned about the adequacy of the parking count so they asked us to keep a a daily log for the first six months of of the project and uh we did that and and the

2:31:43uh we actually were asked to set aside uh um in our design uh of concept for taking uh some some private open space away from the residents and add parking if it was determined after the six-month period that the parking was inadequate we found that during that six-month

2:32:08period that only 18 parking spaces were being utilized during on an average basis during that six-month period so that we were very pleased that they relieved us of that obligation and and we were able to retain the private open space for the residents a long way of

2:32:28saying I think that the 0.5 parking ratio is is is more than adequate for for this location and for this community that we would be serving and uh quickly just about TDM plans and Transit passes again going back to the AC Transit Easy Pass if you get a hundred it's 90 or

2:32:50about a hundred dollars for an annual transit pass that gets you transbay bus as well I'm just curious have you thought about that is that anywhere yeah you know it's it's a it's a wonderful concept and we have not Incorporated um providing Transit passes to Residents

2:33:12in our operating budgets it's something that we that our services department encourages residents to look into and we um would be very you know happy to endorse these programs but to to commit to adding that financial burden onto a very lean operating budget would be very

2:33:36difficult at this stage and in the process it would okay just to follow up on that one point um then how will the spaces be distributed if you you know will how do you determine who gets a space we do not assign parking spaces uh okay any other questions yeah yes

2:33:58um this is I guess for staff um in the original agreement there was a 180 day automatic extension once sequel uh was determined if a eir was needed you state the status is that the level of SQL review has not been determined a consultant has been selected what's the

2:34:20timeline for determining the level of SQL the so what was uh the response from environmental Consultants was whether it's an M D or an eir depends on the initial study and so they would need to be able to perform the initial study to make that determination and for the City

2:34:38attorney to to review and concur with that okay the current proposal does actually the square footage doesn't quite um add up but that's probably a hopefully a minor thing the agenda only talks about 2 700 square feet but uh the Mr carp said that there's 3 700 square feet but that's immaterial

2:35:05um to my question my question is that the proposal does retain one of the two structures the stone portion of the uh mubuchi florist shop but not the housing um is there plans for a range of Alternatives whether it's a mitigated egg deck or an eir for consideration that would leave both

2:35:25structures and and similarly an alternative that would remove both structures so tuition strategy would be developed as part of the environmental document so the historic consultant would help develop what those mitigations are we those have not been developed yet

2:35:49is that well and maybe we mitigated negdex don't necessarily have a full range of alternatives to be evaluated so it's an unfair question and since we don't know what level of analysis is being done but I but I am you know curious if there will be um and you're you're saying that the

2:36:08potentially if it's you know if this is deemed to be necessary to mitigate that there would be some mitigation action that might affect the the project and I wanted to make sure that the developers I guess aware that that even though they have a proposal that's into us from

2:36:24December of 2011 that that the environmental review May alter the proposal in some fashion I think that's acknowledged and recognized I think the developer has um tried to understand the historic issues and mitigate that essentially in their revised proposal I think that is the

2:36:50their strategy okay if if we have to look at further Alternatives we'll have to cross that bridge great thank you yeah no oh I had some questions here um okay so we're we're pretty well solid that the uh babuchi flower shop is staying in the plant correct that is that is Eden's

2:37:17proposal at this at this point in time and after hearing from the community and and looking at the the second historic report okay in your staff report there was a condition that uh Eden would provide the agency with a detailed financial analysis of the project and

2:37:34the answer to that was they've kept the city informed regarding the status that's a little different um do we or do we not have a detailed financial analysis they've given me an additional pro forma um they've given me updated construction cost estimates as they have gotten the

2:37:55results from their Geotech and different things that change um how I look at this is we're its iterations of the financial uh the financial projections get more and more refined the more we know about the project I think it would be uh I I think we have an adequate level of decent tail for

2:38:16where we're at with the project um I don't think it's meaningful if we put it in stone right now it's not meaningful because it will continue to evolve no I'm not asking important stone is if it's the report is complete to this point because then it goes on to say including identification of any Gap

2:38:35in available sources and I think that's been established yeah okay so you're satisfied that they provided a detailed Financial I I kept you informed okay great and then uh we do have a schedule of performance I think you uh that was presented last time correct yeah we yes we do um uh I

2:38:59did not include it in the staff report the schedule is moved back pending resolution of this so so essentially what we're doing is sort of making the schedule dependent on the resolution of this issue correct if we can find a way to have SQL move forward then we can move forward on some aspects

2:39:21of this but the schedule itself is complete it might the dates and things might change a little bit but right but all the key performance uh performance Milestones are in there great um my question would be understandably the developer has as you stated suspended the project

2:39:44apparently that was unilaterally they came and said hey we're not going to go forward anymore they didn't ask if the city was agreeable to that correct they reached a decision that they was in their interest yeah right and that's understandable and that's understandable

2:40:03so my question would be then um if the project is in suspension uh then I would think that we are going to say that also money being distributed out of the loan is suspended correct the two are sort of tied together I mean I would think so what is a PR yeah as a

2:40:24practical matter we don't have funds to disperse under that loan agreement right we have them claimed on our rops and and we will see whether they are released well forty forty four hundred thousand any further funds there are two performance right measures in there one is that there's

2:40:44only a hundred thousand dollars available until until we get into a GDA right of that 350 that's in the pre-development loan so there's only 60 available since 40 has already been dispersed it's been dispersed so we have six so that this is the 60 000 would be in would be subject to let's get

2:41:04going in other words the city is going to suspend activity also and I think both parties can understand why and and I think you pointed out very well the legislature passed legislation and didn't even consider housing so now we have to sit around waiting for a uh

2:41:23July first audit that hopefully will give us some answers so we can go forward with projects like this is that correct that's correct and we'll continue to try to seek answers yeah but they're not in the legislation and then I think um it was asked the question was asked

2:41:41uh available funds for the the sequa and there actually is there's one identified in your your report it says pending the resolution of the housing asset transfer issues Eden will pay for the required environmental documentation so we do have a funding source should

2:42:04these issues issues be resolved and I just want to clarify Eden was prepared to spend money on on entitlements including environmental review right assuming that the the land transfer process was clear so under pre-dissolution conditions this would not have been an issue Eden would have

2:42:25felt comfortable moving forward when the underlying asset came into question because of this whole destabilized process they became less comfortable spending money on entitlements I would have also but um so I think would it be fair to say that we really my question is we really

2:42:44should the city should really think about suspending the activity on SQL to those issues are resolved correct that is I mean I know we don't have money but I don't think we should spend time looking for funding until those things are resolved but my that's my question

2:43:03to you do you see any advantage of continuing I I see pros and cons and I completely understand that until there is more clarity about the disposition process under weak it's hard to evaluate that sure but but there are pros and cons to the project so I think they're I think that is a trade-off and

2:43:28well I think that's that's something a policy issue maybe the council has to uh consider in our discussion phase okay thank you very much well one more question sorry if I may um what is the the cost estimate for doing the SQL analysis um there's there's a I can give you a

2:43:47range based on whether it's an mnd or an eir and I think it's uh between uh 50 and 75 I believe so 50 for mnd and 75 for eir and I'll have to confirm that because they're there was a range and so I don't have a specific number thank you okay anything else thank you very much

2:44:16okay we'll go to the public hearing and I'd like to open the public hearing are there any speakers yes we have one speaker Barbara Hill my name is Barbara Hill and I live on Gelston place but I'm reading a letter from Tom panis who wanted to be here tonight but was required to be out of

2:44:56town the expression the in um opinions are his and I'll read it as fast as I can good evening mayor Jones members of the city council and City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I request that the council not approve the extension of the

2:45:19exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing on October 18 2010 I stood before the council and agreed with the recommendation that the city and Eden Housing negotiate n-e-n-r-a for the tradeway site since then many people have been sorely disappointed with Eden

2:45:41Eden told us that they plan to listen to the community and create a project that incorporated the community's ideas but it's been a one-way street with no public input Eden put together a plan that they first unveiled to the community on October 4th 2011. since then they have shown no

2:46:01interest whatsoever in the community's opinions on November 17 2011 I delivered to each of you a copy of a letter that I sent to Eden that day this letter summarized the feedback from the community meeting Eden held on November 14 and made some suggestions Eden's

2:46:23response to my letter indicated complete inflexibility they hoped I would accept the plan they proposed Eden commissioned a historic resources report on the property but now doesn't want to live by the legitimate findings of that report the report found that the entire

2:46:42structure that once was the home and Business of the mabuchi family appeared eligible for listing on the California register of historical resources therefore under California law all modifications too and any movement of the structure must be made in accordance

2:47:01with the secretary of the Interiors standards for the treatment of historic properties I have passed around copies of this document there are enough that our City attorney can receive a copy if that is appropriate and also for Eden should they desire one all I'm proposing

2:47:22is that any plan for this structure complies with California law is that unreasonable the law in this area is crystal clear and has been thoroughly litigated October 5 the day after Eden first unveiled their plans to the community Eden went before the design review board

2:47:42to present several Alternatives Eden had stated the night before October 4 that they recently had been surprised to discover that there might be a historic resource on the tradeway site the drawings they presented to the drb that incorporated the historic resource

2:48:04reflected this they appeared very much cobbled together and they lacked any consistent design theme in fact they were so unappealing that if I were on the drb even I would have voted against them yet now I hear people say Eden's proposal was approved by the drb at this point I feel pretty stupid

2:48:25about having suggested that the city enter into the enra with Eden based on what they have done so far I don't think we want to be doing business with Eden several other experienced well-qualified organizations responded to the city's RFP it's time for us to move on using

2:48:46one of them a logical choice would be the second ranked developer Mercy Housing California thank you for your time this evening I regret that business has me out of town thank you any other speakers no other speakers anybody else want to speak before we uh close the public hearing

2:49:09okay seeing none motion to close public hearing please some moves is there a second second the motion been moved and seconded all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries the public hearing is closed before I go on our time getting towards 10 o'clock is that

2:49:36since we changed the start uh we're still at 10 30. okay great okay uh further discussion on on the issue of whether to extend another year for the agreement yeah I want to thank the public speaker for coming out and representing Mr Panos tonight uh and acknowledge that Mr Panos has been a

2:50:06a persistent uh representative for the mobuchi house and reflect back on the answer to council member benestini's question that the staff gave which is that if we do not extend this then the property goes essentially uh comes off our our ability to control and uh and with

2:50:34that it would be sold and and private developer would potentially be in a position to have even less desire to retain that structure um I I listened to the testimony very carefully and it doesn't appear for whatever reason it doesn't appear that Mr Panos is aware of the December 2011

2:50:56submission that retains this Stone front so I'm curious how that occurs um but I'm in a position that I would support the extension of the enra because it it does um give the city I think more control over the end project and that is ultimately the desirable thing so I I do appreciate the public

2:51:24comments but um and I do of course have questions about it but the uh but the overall sentiment is that I believe it is the correct thing to do to continue this moving forward I I agree what with what um was just said um we're in a really difficult position about this project because of the

2:51:49State takeaway of Redevelopment and um so I think our options are actually pretty Limited and um I think this I won't restate what was just said because I think it was well said so I'll just leave it at that okay thank you I agree I'm a risk-averse person and I

2:52:07think the risks are are very high and the the extending the enra gives us the most input and the most control over what happens at the site so I'm in support of it as well I Echo the same sentiment and I feel like the developer has integrated this site into the project which I ultimately

2:52:31is um you know meeting the needs of a segment of the community i i before I make a motion to move this forward I do want to make sure the developer does hear the comments that were provided by uh by Miss Hill um that the uh you know this this structure does have

2:52:57um obviously a place in our community uh and you know your uh accommodation of the stone front is fantastic thank you but certainly does not necessarily reflect uh at least one interpretation of the entire document so I just want to make sure that you're aware that the SQL

2:53:14process will have to take its process and and as I um as staff uh corroborated earlier there may be mitigations and there may be aspects during the SQL process that alter your your project um with that I'll make a resolution of the city hold on oh sure go ahead yeah

2:53:34you can always comment after I make the book no me I have to have a comment or two in here but um no I I think the extension if for no other reason is needed to clarify issues so we know how to go forward um just about any of the concerns anybody has including Mr panis can take place

2:53:54in that year's time for us to give up um through through not extending our our hopefully our rights to determine what goes on at the property is too big of a price to pay as a council member benazzini stated um Also let's not forget I think senior housing is very important and we have to

2:54:19do what we can um to go forward with senior housing in my opinion at this site and uh I I do feel though as much as I want to go forward as much as I want that project we cannot engage into the SQL process that we don't know uh will be needed or transpired and we

2:54:43don't know how we're going to pay for it until those decisions are made and I completely understand and if I was the developer I would be asking for a suspension too but I also think the city needs to suspend its activities until we get an answer and we know which way

2:55:02we're going and I hope I hope that the answers are in June or soon after that um I hope this whole thing isn't tied up in litigation and we're in suspension for a long time but um so with that that's my comments so yeah and I support those and Echo those a resolution therefore I'll move a

2:55:24resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito as housing successor to the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency authorizing the city manager to extend the exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing Incorporated for negotiation of a disposition and

2:55:42development agreement for the property at 10860 and 10848 San Pablo Avenue good has been moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you next item please Council assignments and liaison reports any reports tonight no

2:56:11no no reports except for the arts and culture commission is meeting tomorrow to discuss City Hall installation and to select some of the artists to be showcased so that's tomorrow night and just one other thing because it came up earlier uh design review is going

2:56:27forward with the Chipotle uh design and everything looks favorable in that regard um with that I'd like to ask uh Greg has something to say before we close yeah it is with a very sad and heavy heart that I adjourn this evening in memory of Henry Treadway in El Cerrito High School as a graduate

2:56:53in the UC Berkeley sophomore and Son of journalist Chris Treadway or sympathies to Chris and his family well thank you and with that we adjourn in memory of Miss Mr tridley