City Council Meeting May 19, 2015

0:00:01good evening everybody we're going to get started please city clerk note that all council members are present and accounted for i'd ask mayor pro tem lyman to lead us in the pledge or a moment of silence please join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united

0:00:28states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all next up is council and staff communications we'll start with council member quinto do you have anything okay i just want to report that a couple things

0:00:59first the mayor and council member quinto and i attended the associated bay area government's annual general meeting on april 23rd and there was a very good presentation about water issues and the future of water and and how we're going to have to diversify our

0:01:18supply of water um at that time and i attended a breakout at that meeting for cities our size urban cities and there's quite a uh it it had to do with the upcoming refresh redoing the plan bay area and uh getting that started and and finding ways to get out to the various communities to

0:01:43um communicate what plan bay area has to do and and i think that there's some opportunities for them to come here and speak to us at some point in the future um the other thing on a water-related issue um we have received a letter from east bay municipal utilities district informing

0:02:01us that water supplies are at a critical low and that there are new use restrictions in force and so i wanted to make sure that our i'm sure we're all getting these letters but obviously there's a limit on outdoor landscape watering to less than to two or less days per

0:02:20week you need to use a hose with a shutoff valve they would love to have you use a broom or an air blower and not water to clean your driveway sidewalks patios and other hard surfaces and that you turn off any fountain or decorative water feature that uses potable water

0:02:35unless the water is recirculated and uh our cuts in east bay east bay municipal utilities district is 20 percent and that concludes my reports at this time thank you um i guess the topic is water uh because i went to another event but it was about the drought also

0:02:58and that was the local government commission had a policy makers event that i attended in oakland um on may 14th and there were two speakers one from the state of california from paula landis the chief of the division of integrated regional water management and the other speaker was from the city

0:03:25of of san jose from their environmental quality department and i don't know if they do recycling they didn't really say but what they do do is water management and garbage collection so anyway the um it was really interesting to get the perspective of uh particularly san jose because

0:03:55they have they are aggressively trying to reduce their use of potable water and by 30 percent and it was really interesting to hear some of the the ways that they're going about it now having said all of that they are a city of a different size they are one of the top 10 largest

0:04:19cities in the united states i believe they said and of course we are not but so so it's a different animal but um it still was very interesting to hear the way they're going about it that's about all i have to report all right thank you uh just add a little bit to councilmember

0:04:40lyman's report about the meeting the three of us went to on the panel presenting was our very own former mayor sandy potter who referenced a lot of what we had done in el srido in her talk even though she now works for sonoma county also i attended by conference called the

0:04:59a-bag general assembly meeting it's the first time they've done it by conference calling it's pretty frustrating when you have 65 people on a conference call and every vote had to be done by roll call with everybody's name so i don't know if they're going to do

0:05:14that again but it's good for the environment not having everybody travel for a pretty short meeting also i attended the grand opening of the taste of ethiopia restaurant which is down very close to del norte bart station and council member abelson was there also

0:05:31and food was great and the hospitality was great and i urge anyone who is interested in ethiopian food to patronize a new business in our community we will now move on to oral communications from the public for items that are not on the agenda or on the consent agenda

0:05:51we have several speakers mayor friedman the first is cordell hindler and the speakers are allotted three minutes or less mayor freeman uh council members i am croto handler i'm still a member of the park plaza neighborhood council i came to you last month and regarding

0:06:11um issues regarding the police this is the second time i have noticed that they've been coming down on my street and i'm i'm getting very uh unhappy about this situation that's the first thing and the second thing is um the police have still not been getting been informed with the businesses uh in

0:06:27in our city they the businesses have been getting complaints so regarding people hanging around there scaring away their customers and that's not fair to them and number three i feel i feel that my neighbor is not very attractive when el cerrito p pd keep coming down on my block it's just

0:06:44it does not look right so so those are my three issues um and then the second my other issue is um is there a youth council in our in el cerrito the reason i say that is because that i that my city of richmond has a youth council uh newly formed so i figured out if i'm going i'm going to be

0:07:03working with the schools to see to have like have some sort of like a like a dialogue let's see what it takes to have a youth council so that's all i have to say thank you i did check with captain reagan about the police on your block and they're not there policing your

0:07:20neighborhood they're just looping around to get back to el cerrito because otherwise they would have to go way out of their way and they're pretty busy so they're not there looking for crime or looking to intimidate residents it just happens to be the route that's most

0:07:37efficient for them to take when they're doing their regular work so but thanks for bringing that up again the next three speakers are susan schwartz followed by carl mulligan and ralph boniello thank you i'm susan schwartz i'm the head of friends of five creeks a 19 year

0:08:00old all volunteer restoration group we've worked in el cerrito since we were founded in 1996.

0:08:06i just want to quickly say i'm so sorry dave weinstein couldn't be here tonight because he deserves huge praise for the hillside festival that was uh sunday i think you have in front of you a map that updates friends of five creeks progress in the hillside natural area controlling the

0:08:24far-prone french broom by comparison with one i gave you last year it shows that a good many more acres are under control which means that the big bushes are out and we're into the 10-year or 20-year task of keeping it from re-sprouting i'm here because most cities are

0:08:40preparing their budgets now and i want to say just what i said last time i was here el cerrito needs to budget realistically to maintain its natural areas you're blessed to have so many dedicated volunteers people like dave and jim mckissick and gil patrick and

0:08:56sean connor but volunteers cannot be directed like staff friends of baxter creek for example fell apart after the completion of the gateway project and there's no sign they're coming back ann oganowski of our board who's been working at baxter creek couldn't be here

0:09:13but she authorized me to say that despite stephen pray's heroic efforts volunteers are not able to control the weeds and care for the new plantings she her suggestion is a paid volunteer coordinator there are things that volunteers cannot do and ralph banello also of our board

0:09:30and your tree committee is going to talk more about trees in the area of creeks my understanding is that the city still lacks the expensive permits needed to maintain the storm drains and creeks and there is not yet a new protocol or established training for the staff a year and a half

0:09:46after they stripped the banks of cerrito creek at the ohlone greenway just before the coastal cleanup day storm friends of five creek's work on cerrito creek has greatly reduced the flooding and there's very little maintenance needed but you need to budget to regularly cut back the remaining small

0:10:03areas of evergreen thornless blackberry that we can't remove because it can very quickly cross the creek and back up the flows and cause floods in the hillside natural area yearly mowing is not going to stop the spread of fennel pampas grass ketone ester or other fire prone

0:10:19invasives any more than it stopped the the french broom that had taken over such large areas natural areas and so-called natural areas and cities do not maintain themselves they need less work they need different work than green lawn and trim shrubbery but it is real

0:10:37and by the way due to the drought you may need more of that and these two areas may flow together but the city of el cerrito has a wonderful environmental record as you all know and i hope you'll you'll do what's needed to keep these areas that are a jewel in your crown

0:10:53thank you thanks and thanks for mentioning the hillside festival the second annual festival was a great success attended by council members bridges abelson and myself thanks for mentioning that and thanking the people who made it happen next please carl mulligan followed by

0:11:09ralph boniello and tom gelland good evening everyone my name is carl mulligan i live in el cerrito um i wanted to first thank you all for the good work that you do i believe el cerrito's a nice place to live i was recently reading from the strategic plan that one of your goals is

0:11:28to provide exemplary and innovative services some of the organizational values were ethics and integrity professional excellence responsiveness i assume to us here transparency and open communication today i'd like to talk about a contract in 2006 the city city council at that time gave scott

0:11:51hannan permission to contract with glenn howell of the contra costa county animal services and i'd like to let you know that uh the services i believe out there are far less than exemplary from my personal experience i believe glenn hanna or glenn pardon me glenn

0:12:13howell pardon me um chooses to avoid certain inconvenient california laws specifically 597t which is california penal code for confined animals every animal every person who keeps an animal can find in an enclosed area shall provide it with an adequate exercise area violation of

0:12:31this section constitutes a misdemeanor there are a few other things too 597e any person who impounds or causes to be impounded in any pound any domestic animal shall supply it during the confinement with a sufficient quantity of good and wholesome food and water

0:12:47and in default thereof is in guilty as guilty of misdemeanor um from my experience i had a dog seized without a lawful order which the el cerrito police assisted in the animal was confined in a 4x10 cage for 14 days with no exercise and i don't believe that dog owners in el cerrito would agree

0:13:10that that meets an adequate exercise area and i'd like to encourage you folks here before signing the contract again with scott our thank you pardon with uh glenn out in contra costa county um i would like to encourage you all to review the contract and maybe even have

0:13:28a public meeting in regards to how it affects how you're contracting privately one individual with another how it affects us in our lives thank you very much thank you for your comments ralph boniello followed by tom galland and howdy gowdy ralph pinello el cerrito resident um

0:13:50i am a board member of friends of five creeks uh and i'm here to speak as a member of friends of five creeks i'm also i also serve on the el cerrito tree committee and uh i will speak to issues related to trees today but i'm not speaking on behalf of the tree committee

0:14:06and i just want to make that clear um first of all i want to start by thanking the all the individuals who participated and especially the individuals who helped organize the hillside natural area festival this year it was a great turnout and was really exciting to be at and i'm glad to see

0:14:22events like that happening in el cerrito i'm glad the city supports it i'm not going to repeat everything that susan short said but i second everything that she said related to hillside natural area and the need for additional money for maintenance in hillside natural area

0:14:42one of the one of the problematic species or groups of species in hillside natural area that volunteers cannot deal with are trees because they're just too large and in hillside natural area we have a lot of fire prone trees such as monterey pine and eucalyptus

0:15:00that are growing larger and larger and throwing more and more fuel out every year and need to be addressed how does this relate to the tree committee well we have a great group of individuals working on the tree committee and this we have a great staff member mr stephen pray who is a city

0:15:16arborist who's working on tree issues and one of the things that mr pray has done is instituted a grid maintenance pruning pattern of our city trees which will ultimately save us lots of money in the in the long run it's kind of like spending a dollar now um to prune your trees and maintain them

0:15:35and you're gonna save three or four dollars down the road by not having to deal with emergencies like breaking breaking limbs falling trees etc this past year some of that money has been pulled out of the maintenance fund the pruning fund to deal with issues in

0:15:51hillside natural area and my concern is that this is going to keep happening and what i would prefer to see is dedicated money allocated to real maintenance in hillside natural area that addresses the fuel issue on the long term and not just on an emergency basis thank you

0:16:09thank you tom galland followed by howdy gowdy good evening good evening mayor friedman council members my name is tom galey and i'm a lifelong resident of el cerrito and a member of the board of the ulster of trail checkers i'd like to thank the city for seeking priority conservation

0:16:27area designation for the lower cerrito creek colony greenway and the newly expanded hillside natural area this is a welcome move that emphasizes the importance of these areas to the overall livability of our city however priority conservation areas status need not be restricted to already

0:16:42existing features potential green spaces are also eligible for pca designation one space is the fairview open space a 15 acre area contiguous with the northern part of the hillside natural area that includes grasslands woodlands native plants and wildlife and two

0:16:59creeks designation as a pca would not preclude potential development but it would emphasize the value of the natural landscape and its potential as a recreation area thank you thank you very much the final speaker slip is howdy gowdy all right good evening mayor and council

0:17:21members my name is harry gowdy live at [address removed] um i support uh the comments tom just made about uh priority conservation areas i i think it's a great opportunity for the city to to designate these areas but i would actually like to see the applications expanded to more than

0:17:43what was in your um what your packet for tonight so i would request that you pull this item from the consent calendar and discuss it more fully um i can continue with my comments now i guess just so you don't have to hear them later but you know basically as i understand it there is no

0:18:07um you know issue with designating a private property as a priority conservation area it sounds like a sort of imposing thing that's being described but it's really just a designation that does not change the development rates of that property what it does do is it shows that it has

0:18:31unique resources and that it can possibly bring funding some of the issues that were being spoken to earlier about not having funding for the hillside natural area or places like that i mean it's important to do it on a regular basis just as part of the normal budget but then you know grant

0:18:50opportunities do come along and having these designations actually will help those those grants be successful and so this is not really imposing you know a negative thing on a private property it's actually bringing resources to a private property owner who has special

0:19:10you know amenities on the site like creeks we've seen in in development issues that come before you that you know sometimes cost is an issue you know the city has very high standards for for dealing with creeks and and other resources but um you know they're not always financially

0:19:32easy to support and so this is an opportunity that you know the city can say yes we have these higher standards that we want you to build to but we also have a way to help you pay for them and so i don't think you should be afraid of designating a private space and i hope

0:19:46you'll pull this from consent and discuss the possibility of including the fair few property and frankly other private parcels around the hillside natural area i think this is a important thing to treat the edges of our special park spaces as you know land that influences them and

0:20:05is important to address some of the issues that will impact that space so thanks thank you very much i have no other speaker slips at this time great we're going to move on to a presentation from the economic development committee of their work plan presentation by the

0:20:22chair tess taylor and wendy brayer the vice chair thank you so much it's delightful to be here um delightful to have had a year to serve on this committee after having grown up in el cerrito and come back so many of these comments have to do with economic vitality where's this

0:20:48money coming from and we've spent a year thinking about how to make el cerrito how we can as a committee can sort of uh envision an el cerrito that's a vital and prosperous place so this is um this is the committee as of this year i think um from five members to the current eight

0:21:10members and uh what was the name of our our leader who left us at the end of last year dwayne dwayne yeah so this is sort of like the post-duane reassembly um you know it's about a year ago that dwayne left us just as kind of a time mark um so so i've been on the committee wendy

0:21:31has done a wonderful job being a vice chair um ann lehmann and dream schramm are our longtime members mark fagony is the liaison with the chamber of commerce um and we've we've added scott kagawa and george gager this year i mean we have other people joining in the pipeline so we're rebuilding into

0:21:50a different organization after sort of a pause so um the economic development board was created to review the economic development matters and staffing and to serve as a resource council for the business community um and for and for the community in general on matters of development but this year we

0:22:10also as well as sort of retooling we changed into a committee to to to to to be bigger um to be able to constitute working groups uh to have committees to to be able to have a more flexible kind of sense of of mission so we're able to to grow deceptive from seven members to 15

0:22:27and that's our hope is to just become a more vital presence in the city um so that that is uh what we've done this year um you know transitioning from a board to a committee structure there's been changing in economic development staffing i mentioned dwayne has left we've been working really

0:22:45wonderfully with emily and melanie and you know are hoping to continue to talk about staffing and as i said our membership grew from five to eight and we have more people coming we've been trying to recruit new members with some success um so because this was sort of a

0:23:04committee that we had to sort of rebuild after a great transition we made it a year that we were calling a listening tour we wanted to take the opportunity to learn more about el cerrito ourselves to kind of begin to name the things that we value and that we hope that we can articulate

0:23:22a vision of those values so um we learned a little bit about el cerrito history we learned about the history of economic development here and we we envisioned what the future might look like and that included hearing from local businesses um you know the vitality building the rialto theater

0:23:39um and gathering data from from local realtors and conducting survey surveys so we you know we we have this kind of a post-industrial town and it's got an industrial routes and it's built around train tracks and um it's been in a lot of cl ways a has a sort of a working class

0:23:58background we had a great presentation by tom panis who's here thanks tom and these are just a few of the pictures but uh you know we have a we have a bedroom community that's based on this grid and we we really took some time to think about you know what we wanted to

0:24:12save of our of our history um and then we we talked to um steve price i'm so sorry excuse me i i think it's like an allergy day or something um we talked to steve price about about what it would look like to to fill in some of our spaces to envision a more vital and vibrant you know space

0:24:35now this this corner that you're seeing we know that it's really in richmond and that you're looking across san pablo from what's technically richmond off the sidewalk into el cerrito but this is a steve price example of you know the way that streetscapes can change to create

0:24:50um you know a less than exciting place into a more desirable destination and this is using codes that we have already a plan you know that the city has been so wonderful to approve through the san pablo avenue specific plan not not i don't know if they're those lamp

0:25:06posts but this is just kind of a sense of what of what might happen how you know you could add more definition to a sidewalk you could add trees and then you fill in an empty lot with uh you know some density of ground floor business and pretty soon you have people on the

0:25:22streets you have you have street life and um we begin to see community vitality and economic vitality going hand in hand which is really what we're hoping for so part of part of spurring el cerrito's economic vitality is about we feel that it's about building relationships

0:25:43um we have a long-standing business community which uh you know for various reasons may or may not have been excited about the same pebble avenue specific plan but we also have a young community with the demographics of el cerrito are changing pretty rapidly it's poised in a lot of ways to be

0:26:00a town that people can uh afford and commute to um and so we've been hosting mixers to meet el cerrito business owners we've been working with community development department to launch a newsletter for outreach and then we're we're going to things like the chamber of commerce and having

0:26:16lunch with the rotary and trying to meet the established players in the game and uh you know co-hosting events with them so we're reaching out to you know established businesses and and new new arrivals and hoping that we can kind of create a room for discussion

0:26:30so see community mixer and we actually have another one um coming up in june and i don't know that we have a date with that yet but we'll publicize that soon it was originally set for the day that you're we're all supposed to have dinner together so as a community so we have to change that date

0:26:47but and that that that they will they are ongoing i mean it's one of the things that we're going to keep keep keep up the energy alive they've all had wonderful discussions and sense of um sense of people getting to know each other people have left with great ideas

0:27:02i think and a sense of a good sense of community and they're in the rialto wine bar which is you know actually like a fun place to go here that's just it turned out to be a wonderful place to host these events so um on our listening tour we are really we one of the things that's

0:27:21just become clear from you know new new arrivals to the community and also long-standing arrivals is that um people really want hel a sense that there's a point person in the city who can respond to their needs around economic development they really want to feel like somebody's

0:27:35going to hold their hand through the san pablo avenue specific plan and help them see why these changes are valuable to them so you know we have been working encouraging the community development department to hire an intern to work on development issues including initiatives research marketing

0:27:52telling the story that is el cerrito in a really compelling way and you know doing things like helping to launch a fall 2015 restaurant week so we can all go celebrate the new ethiopian restaurant and the peruvian restaurant and nangtan and all that um so we would just like to continue to

0:28:10build on this current momentum in 2016.

0:28:13there's so many things that could happen in our space we would like to figure out you know maybe we could get a tech hub to come here or maybe we would we're very interested in pop-ups which which is that you know that thing where you get a short-term business to come into an

0:28:28empty space and it just it's visually vital and it and it sort of shows the possibility we're really interested in kind of doing things that can show the possibility of what el cerrito could could be um we want to have a retail business inventory we want to have better

0:28:43marketing materials so that again we're telling the story of el cerrito um and we want to uh work in in concert with what's happening lots of other places i mean there's gilman street right on the bike path with these bike-friendly businesses there's richmond with a global campus

0:28:59coming um we have this access to the beautiful point isabel shoreline like how can we build on our regional assets as well as just our local ones so our our kind of asks at this moment are like you know here's what we did and here's what we'd love to do with you

0:29:16dear counsel um is to say that you know we are so clear from our conversations that having a permanent staff position with focus on economic development would be to the good of the city just really having somebody who can put a public face on development and can and can you know really make a

0:29:33full-time job of maintaining and developing those relationships with businesses we'd like to see come in and those businesses which are already here and might need to make changes or want to make changes or might simply want to go on thriving and surviving um we you

0:29:46know we would be really really helpful to have someone in the city with that role and then the other thing is to develop to dedicate funds to developing marketing materials i mean i think that there was this big visioning process process under prince of wales or

0:29:59something i mean there but a lot of our marketing materials date back to the mid 90s which is you know a lot has changed since then and a lot is poised to change and it would be really good for us to be proactive about telling our story right now and um i think that that's it except we

0:30:18do have an intern right now ali thompson and we whizzed by really fast but she she has joined us do you want to stand up and just say hi for a second and she she's been really uh fabulous in helping to think through some of this stuff but again to solidify some of

0:30:37those roles would be terrific okay thank you any uh questions well then just a comment thank you and the committee so much for moving things forward and seizing the reins and coming up with so many creative and innovative ideas that we hope can be implemented so

0:30:58thank you very much great thank you okay we move on to item 4b which is the smart corridor interstate 80 integrated corridor mobility project good evening mayor city council my name is yvette ortiz can you hear me yes um i am the city's public works director and city engineer and tonight i would

0:31:30like to introduce you to representatives of the i-80 integrated corridor mobility project it's a mouthful the project has been under construction for several years in development and is anticipated to launch later this year so they're here to give you an update on

0:31:49the project um background and an update on the status of the project again the project is actually a is a partnership between multiple regional and local agencies including the city of el cerrito and the city has entered into an an agreement with all these agencies to implement the project

0:32:09so i'd like to introduce noemi with the contra costa transportation authority and ivy morrison the project public information officer and they're going to walk you through a presentation thank you very much members of the city council for having us here this evening

0:32:34that is absolutely right integrated corridor mobility is very much a mouthful and that's why when we talk to the public about this project we call it the i-80 smart corridor project because it's much easier to say and also much easier to remember and i hope that

0:32:51we will convey this evening why it really is a smart project so very briefly this is an overview of what i'll be covering along with hisham i'm going to provide a project overview i realize that many of you already are familiar with the project but just to give you a very brief refresher

0:33:14including a video going to talk about regional and local improvements including improvements in el cerrito funding and partners and bottom line project status where we are now and what the anticipated timeline is for activation and finally i'll end by providing some information about where

0:33:39you can direct your constituents for more information about the project so why do we need a traffic management system on the i-80 corridor and this is pretty much a rhetorical question i think that all of you realize the the challenges of i-80 that it's one of the most congested corridors in the

0:34:04entire bay region in fact i think for the past nine of 10 years it's been identified as the most congested corridor in the entire region and it serves about 20 270 000 vehicles per day and as a result of this very heavy traffic volume there are accidents because of

0:34:32congestion there are what we call secondary accidents which result when vehicles driving at freeway speeds basically don't realize that there's an accident ahead and ram and two cars ahead and then it's a cycle and other cars ram into the initial cars and it's it's

0:34:49it's something it's really the the primary purpose of this project is to reduce those secondary accidents so as i just mentioned without knowledge of accident location what currently happens is that when the corridor becomes congested motorists especially commuters who

0:35:13really know the corridor well will very often of their own accord jump off of the mainline freeway off of i-80 and use local arterials local surface streets and i'm sure you know that better than anybody and the challenge is that they don't because they don't really have any information

0:35:32about where the accident is located they just stay on local surface streets and that certainly compounds congestion on on san pablo and other arterials so that's one big reason for this another reason that we're using this particular system is this this suite of

0:35:56signs electronic signs and signals and software is because frankly we can't build our way out of congestion anymore this is really where transportation is going in the future you're going to be seeing more corridors like the i-80 corridor in the future and the suite of smart

0:36:16technology i think the saying is build it and they will come and you know so maybe a few new lanes now would help for a few years but ultimately we would end up where we are now i'm oversimplifying i'm sure hasham is cringing as a traffic planner but that's that's the gist of it

0:36:36and the other consideration and i'm sure you're well aware of this is that where would we widen i mean most of the areas along the corridor are built out those areas that aren't already built out are environmentally sensitive so there's really no place to build more lanes

0:36:56so what is the i-80 smart corridor project as i as i started to mention it's an integrated system of electronic signs you've probably seen the huge gantries that have sprung up in the westbound direction along a 20-mile stretch of the freeway between richmond and emeryville

0:37:19those gantries are going to house electronic signs they actually already have signs that will when we're ready to go will become activated and provide real-time information to motorists this will be the most sophisticated system of its kind in california there are already other similar systems but

0:37:41because this not only has real-time information for vehicles on the mainline but also for vehicles on local arterials it really is one of the most comprehensive systems certainly in the state of california and one of also the most sophisticated systems in the country i think it's safe

0:38:00to say so these are the basic components and i'm going to show you an illustration in the next slide that really will show you the big picture of what what these elements are but individually there are as we speak there are huge electronic signs at six locations

0:38:25that are being installed these six locations are actually key decision points where motorists have a choice about which corridor to use they're going to when they're activated provide information about what traffic conditions are like on the corridors there's an

0:38:42incident management system these are the signs in those giant gantries that have been going up that will include variable advisory speed signs so it's basically to give motorists a look ahead even if they're currently traveling at free freeway rates if there is an accident ahead it gives

0:39:06them a heads up that traffic a mile or two miles ahead is traveling at 35 miles an hour not 65 miles an hour and you better start slowing down and lane use signs and i think maybe to help me explain what the lane use signs show can look at this infographic i don't

0:39:26know if my laser pointer doesn't really work but you can see the lane use signs are a series of arrows and x's very simple graphics that show which lanes ahead are open which lanes are blocked because of an accident or some other issue and it the whole idea is to cut down on the amount

0:39:53of merging rampant merging that currently happens at the site of an accident because motorists currently don't know where the accident is until they're right on top of it and of course this is going to help with emergency access and again help reduce primary and secondary accidents

0:40:14the advisory speed signs are i already mentioned and there will also be simple text signs that explain to motorists what driving conditions are like ahead accident ahead for example so on local streets i'm going to go over this very quickly there are trailblazer signs to guide

0:40:34traffic back on to 80 so to address that problem that i mentioned earlier about cars remaining on local surface streets when there's an accident on the main line this is to direct them back to the main line after the site of an accident green light priority for transit coordination

0:40:52of traffic signal timing all of this designed to keep traffic flowing well on local surface streets adaptive ramp metering will help with merging onto the main line from local surface streets and some of these on-ramps will provide priority for transit and carpoolers and the on-ramps

0:41:14will also i think what's one of the things that's unique about them is that they're actually designed with sensors that can prevent spill back onto local surface streets and finally the local operations systems will be integrated with the state system in oakland the traffic management center

0:41:35in oakland that's operated by caltrans project benefits i think i've already touched upon but just to really drive the point home i think first and foremost the first bullet really should be increased safety and reduction in secondary accidents that's really the primary purpose of

0:41:52this and as a result of the reduction in secondary accidents motorists will have more reliable travel times reduce traffic congestion and improved access for emergency vehicles now hopefully this will play yeah there you go thank you from the carkinas bridge to the bay

0:42:19bridge interstate 80 is one of the busiest corridors in the bay area traffic congestion occurs every day of the week and accidents only make traffic worse when high-speed cars encounter unexpected slowdowns secondary accidents occur setting off a cycle of yet more congestion

0:42:38what happens is that very important route becomes very unreliable traveling the eight miles from richmond to emoryville could take you 20 minutes or over an hour the solution is not more infrastructure but smarter infrastructure an optimized freeway that's thoughtfully integrated

0:42:57with local roads and transit the i-80 smart corridor project is a network of state-of-the-art display systems and software that will provide motorists with real-time information about driving conditions on the corridor including advanced warning in the event of an incident ahead

0:43:13here in bay area being in the heart of silicon valley technology that is being used everywhere in every other industry transportation is trying to harness the benefit of that technology and innovation in order to address today's transportation needs the project has

0:43:29huge benefit for a very low cost i have to impress some people about this the project is a partnership between the alameda county transportation commission caltrans and the contra costa transportation authority along with the nine cities and two transit agencies on the corridor

0:43:46the iaed smart corridor is composed of several elements that work together to manage traffic flow on i-80 and local streets like san pablo avenue together these elements will enhance safety improve travel time reliability and reduce accidents and associated congestion

0:44:04electronic display boards give motorists advance notice of corridor traffic conditions when an incident occurs overhead message signs closer to the incident site activate warning drivers of blocked lanes or reduced speeds ahead decreasing the potential for more

0:44:20accidents and giving them the choice to change their route on san pablo avenue green lights are intelligently extended for oncoming local traffic and transit drivers who decide to detour around the incident are directed back onto the freeway once they've passed the incident

0:44:35site by electronic signs on local streets as drivers merge onto the freeway ramp meters smooth out traffic and reduce emerging collisions the ramps work together in real time to balance overall traffic flow and some provide priority for transit and carpoolers finally all pieces are integrated into

0:44:56caltrans central communications network allowing for real-time monitoring and coordination this high-tech collaborative project is an intelligent and cost-effective solution to the congestion cycle on ied in 2015 the iit smart corridor will make the corridor safer and more reliable for

0:45:15drivers freight and transit users alike so i'll cover in the next couple slides some of the improvements that were requested by the city and done by the project these improvements are all completed and these are some of the photos for these improvements they include the

0:45:43bus only lane at the north abort station uh the installation of emergency vehicle detectors bicycle loops and pedestrian push buttons at central and carson uh installation of auxiliary emergency vehicle detectors at san pablo and manila in front of the fire station

0:46:05and at the request of the city we also installed several left turned phasing for side streets along san pablo avenue to reduce the delays on these side streets uh there as you saw in the video there will there are a lot of trail blazer signs installed in the city of san pablo they

0:46:27are meant to direct traffic back on the freeway past the incident location and uh the traffic signal controllers uh have been upgraded part of the project so they can communicate with the caltrans central system one last thing i mean the city will get a centralized traffic signal system as

0:46:48part of this project but more importantly all the traffic signals along uh san pablo avenue and the arterials that connect san pablo avenue to the freeway will be coordinated when the project is activated a few weeks actually after the project is activated we want to allow time for

0:47:08traffic patterns to settle down and for people to find their way when we turn on the ram meters so i'll turn it back to ivy thank you so as you mentioned in her introduction there are multiple partners behind this project at the federal state regional and local

0:47:34levels of course caltrans contra costa transportation authority alameda county transportation commission and wic tac um are the the lead agencies and then local jurisdictions and transit agencies are um are supporting this effort the main funding sources it's about an

0:47:5780 million dollar project and the main funding sources are measure 1b that was passed in 2006.

0:48:05it's a state proposition and of course measure j which was passed by contra costa transportation authority in 2004 and alameda ctc's measure b and this really tells the story of the many many agencies and i think in planning this project during the environmental review and design there

0:48:28was really an unprecedented level of outreach to local jurisdictions and key stakeholders to make sure that we addressed any issues and concerns and that everybody was on board with the project so where are we now as i mentioned well you've all seen the gantries that have

0:48:47been installed the 11 gantries i mentioned the huge display boards that are going up as we speak at these six decision points along the corridor when those when those idbs when those huge boards are installed i believe that is the um the majority of construction

0:49:09completed does that mean we're ready to activate the system no it has to go through and it is already going through a battery of tests um you know this is really all about software and um and because it's an integrated project these elements have to be tested independently and they also have to be

0:49:29tested in conjunction with each other they have to be tested through the traffic management system in oakland and so there's a lot of testing ahead but we're on track for activation in late 2015.

0:49:44finally i just want to say a little bit about public outreach because it's so important to educate motorists about this project before it does become activated as i mentioned it's one of a few of its kind in the state of california this is the most robust of its kind in california so

0:50:02we really want people to know what to expect before the system goes on and where we've developed a whole communications toolkit which we've e-blasted out to elected officials and staff members at local agencies partner agencies and local jurisdictions along the corridor and we do hope that you

0:50:24share these tools that the video that i played and the powerpoint and other informational items with your constituents to help us educate motorists on what to expect and how best to use the smart corridor and this is a little bit more on that topic we are developing public

0:50:43service announcements and sending out press releases and doing interviews with the media and of course doing presentations to civic groups along the corridor finally another piece of information that we would really appreciate you sharing with your constituents is the project website

0:51:04which is 80smartcorridor.org there's a lot of information and faqs and people can submit inquiries through the website there's a project hotline which can accommodate questions in english spanish mandarin and cantonese and you can follow the project on twitter 80 smart

0:51:24that concludes our presentation and now we invite your questions please i i had one question when you were talking about um signal preemption for the emergency vehicles it's also there for the a rapid bus right right okay correct this one to make sure yes thanks for asking that so

0:51:46when the rapid bus comes to an intersection if it's in a certain part of its phase it will get to go through the intersection without stopping safely what is uh usually what's called a far side stop right so yes thank you for for making that point for clarifying that likewise

0:52:08the um the emergency vehicles get through those same intersections um in a safer manner than they right otherwise and also along the corridor as well because of those lane use symbols that i showed you the the x's and the arrows you know hopefully that motorists

0:52:27will know where to go and when to get out of the way so that emergency vehicles can get through to an accident faster thank you yes uh yeah so i had a question so that i know i know about the san pablo avenue and the light timing but are you saying that this is would also happen on i-80

0:52:46well not the traffic signals the the on-ramps some of the on-ramps will have uh transit um they'll all have traffic signals but some of them will will provide transit prioritization so that um express buses can can get through quicker carpoolers can get through and

0:53:05on 280 faster did that answer your question not really okay so i'll ask i'll try again clarify what my question is okay and that is um you may or may not know the doctor's hospital and panel closed here so yes between oakland and basically solano county there's no

0:53:22no hospital that's available for stinting a patient or treating someone with a heart attack so those patients have to go by ambulance to either of those directions depending on who's available in the emergency room and the medics and whatever know that right but

0:53:40there's no way that they're going to there's nothing not going to be a freeway sign on i-80 saying there's an ambulance coming down on i-80 please everybody merge right that doesn't that won't happen right there will be a sign that says accident ahead and there will be those lane use

0:53:59signs showing vehicles which lanes are blocked and which lanes to use and that the whole idea one of the ideas of that is to free up the far left lanes for emergency vehicles but if an ambulance is going from point a in albany to solano it's not going to provide that level of detail now so

0:54:20that's what i thought no but but it should still be effective in clearing the freeway for emergency access and then i had a question um and there is an accident how far up is the accident before you get the merge right or whichever way it is that's a good question the gantries are placed between

0:54:37one and two miles apart approximately so the gantry is at least three sets of gantries will be activated at a time to warn drivers but it's also going to depend on the traffic conditions at that time and how long the queues are there's space about a mile apart and will there be signage there's not

0:55:01going to be scientists going to say okay there's an accident at cutting you can't go past if you're going westbound you can't go past cutting because there's a sig alert or there's three lanes blocked get off at san pablo avenue no no that will never happen that's part

0:55:17of the project but people will figure it out on their own i mean well they already do that but we don't want too much more when that happens that we direct them onto the freeway past the side of the app yeah and are each of the lanes regulated mile per hour i mean will it

0:55:40say if i really want to go 55 i should be in the far right lane as opposed to i'm in the left lane and it's only going 25.

0:55:47well i should say that those are advised speed limits they're not enforced okay so it doesn't really matter which lane you know could you please speak into the microphone sorry it doesn't those are advised speed limits they're not enforced okay thank you so it's it's up to the

0:56:06individual driver to respect the recommendations thank you and similarly the red x lanes will be used by motorists the last minute and then they'll merge in and that's not enforceable either well you know people will be people we can't we can't account for that but we do hope that by

0:56:30providing information in advance of the site of an accident that most motorists given information we'll do the right thing we'll merge safely we'll move into the correct lane and and and not do the rampant lane you know not wait until the last minute and then everybody's going

0:56:49to think they're emergency vehicles i hope not but it's not enforceable is what you're saying it's not enforceable i should say you know this a similar project or actually set of projects was activated in seattle several years ago and it's it's very effective i've i've had some very good

0:57:10conversations with washington d.o.t about their lessons learned and especially in terms of communicating to the public and you know was there confusion when their signs were first activated how effective have this have the signs been and i think the results bear out that

0:57:27this really does work at reducing accidents and improving traffic congestion my second question is regarding the lights on central for example any existing light in any future light that's added along central they are all part of the information system and managed uh to help get the

0:57:46traffic off of san pablo and back out to highway 80.

0:57:50that's true that's great and will the front the frontage roads be linked also san pablo is the only alternate route to the freeway and and the lights are coordinated on san pablo and to and from san pablo at the major exits great thank you i i have a question regarding uh the freeway entrance on

0:58:15petraro going down the 80 and also central avenue i noticed that there's a light now and will you have two lanes there one for a diamond lane and and for transit and then another one for uh individual cars like what we see in los angeles the striping of the on-ramps have

0:58:40already been completed so whatever you see today that's the way it's going to be some on-ramps where there is room and hov bypass lane was added but many of these on-ramps you just we didn't have room to do that uh for the bus for the ramps that are being used by buses and there are only

0:59:01like seven of them six of them will have transit signal priority uh as as mentioned by council member janet and that's to give them an edge over a single occupant vehicles and to improve their travel time thank you a couple quick questions will the system be integrated coordinated with 511.org

0:59:26and also with tv and radio traffic reports with the 511 yes the information you will see on a lot of these signs will be taken from 511. right and they're also helping us with communications and reaching out to broad audiences and you know during the activation there will be information

0:59:47posted on their website because we know that so many people turn to their website as a resource go ahead and and there is also highway advisory radio that is implemented on this corridor along i-80 you know that will be activated as well and you've used the word incident and

1:00:08accident somewhat interchangeably is there actually a difference between those or not i think we're talking about lane blockages when when a lane is blocked whether you have a huge amount of debris that's closing it or whether it is an accident for us that has the same effect so major

1:00:27incidents including accidents that's what we mean i think the signs will actually say accident they won't say incident they'll say accident i've had that conversation with caltrans thank you very much thank you thanks so much great questions great work thank you

1:00:47okay we are going to move on to item five which i think is the longest consent calendar in the history of my time on the council i don't know if council member abelson has ever seen a longer one i've never seen a heavier one do we i'd like to pull items 5g and 5k please

1:01:11and i want to make sure that on item 500 there was one minor editorial change that was made and we do have a revised page up here on the dyess and so whoever makes the motion to i can do that at this time i move the consent calendar calendar consisting of items five a

1:01:34through five f and uh 5 i through 5j and item 5 l through 5 0.

1:01:46recognizing that we do have a revised page for 5.0 so that in the historical section there is recognition of the infamous stone line channel at uh 15 17 elm oh what about 5h did i leave five h off yeah i apologize and 5h all right a second been moved and seconded all in favor signify by saying

1:02:12aye aye motion carries unanimously we now move on to fight em item five 5g which is an ordinance establishing [Music] for the city of el cerrito setting reduced tax rates for fiscal year 2015-16 only for the special tax imposed pursuant to chapter 4.56 of the el

1:02:36cerrito municipal code for the swim center parcel tax rates it's been brought to my attention by several of our residents and pool users that the pool is deteriorating rather rapidly with regards to corrosion and i think it's time for us to begin addressing that through capital

1:02:56improvement projects and this fund is designed to do that and although that there is some money in the account to begin doing those capital improvement projects i think it's prudent upon us um to try and avoid going into debt to make those capital improvements and that for us to begin

1:03:12uh collecting at a slightly higher rate so that we are are collecting money in advance of the capital projects to reduce our reliance on bond bonding and debt to pay for those capital improvement projects so staff is not prepared to give us a a number to move to to

1:03:33tonight and i would like this to go before the park and rec commission for them to um to consider this so i i would enjoy moving this item to a future date but i wanted to at least discuss that with you tonight to find out if this is something that makes sense um otherwise i'm more than

1:03:53willing to move this item tonight and move forward but but i think it's prudent for us to start thinking about the future of the pool and i'd like to use this opportunity to get a sense of um the support for this idea of of raising this at this time i'd like to hear from chris jones the

1:04:11director of parks and recreation please before determining whether this is a prudent move chris hi chris jones the recreation director it is true that we the pool has over the past several well several years experienced a corrosion issue we're not quite sure um what caused it one theory

1:04:38was that our old heaters had stray currents which contributed towards the corrosion of uh seemingly random things some you know like the the high dive the high dive diving board experiences corrosion the low dive one is fine so it's too soon to tell now yet if the new heaters significantly

1:05:01impacted that but there's definitely visible corrosion around the swim center especially in the locker rooms so what what about uh sending this item back to the parks and recreation committee to take a look at commission yeah i think that um if we sent it back to the park and wreck

1:05:20in june we would have enough time uh to present um some options for improving the situation and and get an idea of of cost we'd also have time to go back to our pool contractor um and start working on on maybe a a plan for what's going to be needed to be replaced in terms of uh assets capital

1:05:44assets in the near future five to ten years city manager yes i would just add um chris and i and our contractor had started to work on this and we just didn't get it done in time um but having said that we have for some of us it's hard to believe the pool is up 11 years old now and um

1:06:04in addition to just some of the corrosion issues it's because the pool deals with so many clo so you know chemicals and chlorine that we're getting into sort of just the normal replacement cycle and we want to make sure that this fund is the only fund that's used and we don't wind up

1:06:20having a major breakdown where it would hit the general fund additionally last year the small pool was resurfaced and we're going to have to get to the big pool which is which is effectively long-term maintenance so um it's not inconsistent with where we were going anyway

1:06:37um and council member lyman and i were going back today about about this um and um if it's the if the council wishes um i we think it is important to go back to parks and rec to at least have no a public discussion if we came back to council in the july meeting

1:06:55the council would ultimately have two options if you you could pass the ordinance if or if the capital plan that we put together justified the rate originally set by the voters you wouldn't have to take any action because the action that you actually take yearly is to set the rate

1:07:11at something other than what was approved by the voters so we would come back in july if you were to set the rate at something different you would need to pass an urgency ordinance in order for us to get it on the tax rolls in time just so you just say you understand the

1:07:27process if you let it just lapse it would go back to the 58 as originally approved is everybody comfortable with sending this back to parks and rec and i am the other the other thing i would add is we would have to have the engineering study redone which is which is actually paid

1:07:43for out of the value but we would need to have that done also in time okay we're going to delay taking action on this item and thank you very much great thank you very much for for entertain that no problem on item 5k um we've received a court correspondence and testimony supporting the current

1:08:01list and urging us to expand the list to include private undeveloped property the discussion of property rights property value and property transactions by governmental agencies and related actions is very complicated and it's fraught with negative consequences for those

1:08:20agencies the city of half moon bay provo provides a really relevant local example leaving undeveloped private property adjacent to the hillside natural the area off the list avoids those issues and with respect to the private properties that are on the on the list

1:08:41there's a distinction between developed proper properties with creeks and undeveloped properties with creeks and and so for those reasons i would move this item as it was presented but i wanted to um you know make those comments to make sure that we acknowledged all of the

1:09:01comments that we've received from the public is there a second and we'll ask for public comment yesterday okay it's been moved in second do we have any speakers on this item um the speaker submitted slips for the consent calendar can you can you make it brief since you

1:09:19already spoke on this item mr hardy gowdy thank you uh yeah thanks for the opportunity so um that's kind of what the staff report said was there are legal issues but um i guess i was disappointed that i'm not sure it's just a legal morass of that i probably wouldn't understand but i i

1:09:38find it disappointing to just be told oh it's too complicated we can't do that i would i'd really appreciate if the council would you know entertain you know either explain themselves to the extent you know or having the city attorney actually explain where these legal risks

1:09:55and hazards lie because from the superficial reading of the abag documents it really doesn't seem that threatening so yeah if i may mayor yeah please i actually am the cause of this um if you might recall during our trust for public land uh acknowledgement hearing where they came

1:10:21in and and we modified the contract i asked them if they were going to make any types of be around to help us acquire the fairview property and they said yes and my concern my personal concern is that that those those comments and this action combined adding it to the pca

1:10:43would be potentially sufficient for a uh for the owner the current owner of the property to say that we took action to preferentially reduce the value of their property so for that reason i strongly would support the current list as is thank you any other public kinds we have

1:11:04one additional speaker slip pamela austin good evening um my name is pam austin and um i i'd like to first of all thank the staff for the work that was done on the pride priority conservation area application and i strongly hope that it will be submitted within the deadline

1:11:34you know while i understand what i just heard as a concern about including fairview i would hate to hold up the whole application it's my understanding that there won't be another opportunity for two years um and i do think the priority conservation area designation is important for the city

1:11:57and for going forward in terms of of open space of uh you know recreational opportunities all those sorts of things i i i would like to state um in my opinion and i can't speak for other people but the request to include the fairview property into the designation

1:12:23is consistent with the designation of the wells fargo property in the in the um application which is also a private property and you know again in my opinion there this really isn't an attempt to interfere with the owners of that property or any development um possibilities in

1:12:46the future um it simply to me is a natural extension of the hillside area it's property that much of it has been undeveloped for a very long time it has a number of natural resources assets that that would be of benefit to residents i don't think that that a good portion of it is

1:13:17developable developable anyway and again just to reiterate that i don't see that that designating it as a priority conservation area is a threat to the developers or or you know that there's any intention i don't think our timer is working but if you could wrap up that'd be great please

1:13:40thank you that's it thank you very much uh it's been moved in seconded any other comments or questions if the city attorney wanted to add anything what's been said no i actually think council member lyman adequately uh explained the issues okay thank you thank you

1:14:01so i do think that the staff maybe some individual residents and i think tpl themselves have talked to this owner i think that that's that's happened um so i mean there has been a conversation there and i don't think that having the this property included does anything to change the development

1:14:20per se but i think it does open us to litigation and i think that's really what the issue is here for us and i think there's also and maybe city attorney would like to address that that there's basically no case law about pcas also and so i think that gives us a little bit more

1:14:40exposure he's nodding his head which way i've watched enough tv courtroom traumas to know not in your head is not good enough um yeah i mean i i understand that that um that the raising of these legal issues um is somewhat somewhat is potentially confusing when a bag website itself says

1:15:05there is no issue but um the pca concept is relatively new um there actually hasn't been that much funding of projects yet i don't know that there is a project yet funded through a pca that involves designation of of private property where the property owner was not a participant

1:15:23in the designation and so there really isn't any case law that addresses whether under existing inverse condemnation rules there would be some basis for finding liability on the part of a city that proceeded in that under proceeded to designate such a property with consequences for the developability

1:15:45or the value of the property and so i just think that some caution is is warranted in this case thank you for your comments if there are no additional comments or questions uh i'll call for the question all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank

1:16:07you thanks now we move on to two public hearings the first of which is an appeal of the planning commission's approval of a design review application for the project proposed for 1715 elm street we'll start with a staff presentation from margaret cavanaugh lynch

1:16:27ms cavanaugh good evening good evening mr mayor members of the city council let me bring the powerpoint presentation up for you [Applause] as a bit of background i'm sure you all recall except for the new council member that this item came before you in an entitlement

1:17:05package back in august at that time all of the other entitlements for the project except for the map were approved by the city council the application before you this evening is the final design review application taking it right from our zoning ordinance it is the final aesthetic architectural

1:17:27review based on the consideration of the requirements of this chapter of the elsewhere municipal code as they apply to the design of the structures landscaping lighting and other architectural features of the application that is the purview of the design review application

1:17:44and that is the basis for the findings that the design review board used the planning commission used and are now before you this evening just a bit of chronology on january 7th the design review board held a public hearing for this project and approved it unanimously on january

1:18:0320th an appeal was filed on march 18th the planning commission heard the appeal and read all the evidence in the record held a public hearing and approved the project and on march 26 2015 a second appeal was filed in your staff reports and on the city's website is a hundred and ten pages of

1:18:28this application with attachments what i've tried to do this evening is to boil that down into two major topics of discussion first of all i think the appellant makes a very persuasive discussion of all the reasons that he is not in support of the of the project including the design

1:18:48review application and i wanted to touch on all the items that staff felt fell outside the purview of the designer view application they're listed on the next few pages but i'll just touch on them as i go the project's not compliant with the zoning ordinance or

1:19:03general plan the building's crowded the creek the height of the new structure and its shade is not considerate to the neighborhood the discontinued continuity of the scale of the two buildings is not complementary and the historic structure has been relegated to the back of the

1:19:20site the site is more than 700 feet from the bart station although the historic house is retained again it's been pushed to the rear corner the site itself is an open space with the creek that it has a great public view the drb repeatedly expressed a very strongest interest in

1:19:39vinyl windows which this project has suggested it would use the project does not in fact restore the creek but merely leaves it in the channel that it's existing in the site plan again the forefoot proximity to the buildings of the creek um impacts the qualities the aesthetic

1:19:59qualities of the creek all set by the site plan and finally the stormwater uh jarpa permit is still outstanding that the regional water quality board has not yet acted and it may be in the appellant's opinion it is premature to act without that permit finalized

1:20:22the general staff response and we went item by item as you were well aware on each of the concerns of the 10 main core issues brought up by the appellant but the the general staff response to all of this is those concerns are not related to the findings required to approve the proposed design

1:20:41review application most of them effectively asked the city council to consider the design under the zoning that existed prior to the council's approval basically it took you out of the purview in which we are framed in for tonight's appeal moving forward there were a number of

1:21:00issues that the appellant brought forward that were inside the design review applications purview again those are all stipulated in the staff report and the full i should say for the record the full attachment a full appeal was attached to your to your packet as well

1:21:19the appellant touched on a number of ways that the hardscape next to the creek impacts the ability to put in any sort of riparian vegetation so that came up in part part of concern number three where the walking paths and the patios were placed close to the creek itself

1:21:39that the perimeter trees that were intended to buffer the project from the neighborhood were actually very large canopy trees and may have a negative effect on the surrounding neighbors again in item number eight there shouldn't be any hardscape immediately adjacent to the creek there should be a

1:21:5815-foot corridor on either side um that the creek is basically minimized by the location of the uh of that hardscape um again in part of consideration of issue 10 um the appellant just found that location unacceptable unacceptable and and irreparable and finally noted on either part of

1:22:25condition or issue 10 there's cable guards on both sides of the rock line channel that will wall off the creek and make it harder to either maintain it or have access to it but at all when community development staff presents an appeal to the city council part of our charge is to bring forward

1:22:53the voice of the body that's having their decision appealed so as you saw in the staff report i speak of to what the commission found um they found that the proposed landscape was suitable for the this type of project and provided an extensive plant palette they found

1:23:11that the project had been designed with an extensive buffer style of landscaping that was helpful to visually screen the project they also brought forward all the conditions of approval from the design review board regarding landscaping and architectural items um one of those that

1:23:26pertains to the appeal is that a more column-shaped tree would be requested to be inserted into the landscape plan in lieu of the trees that were proposed due to the challenge of the canopy further the planning commission added that staff would reach out to the adjacent

1:23:43neighbors and consult with them about the species of tree since they will be sharing that common boundary finally the planning commission noticed that the plantings near the rockline channel and the bioretention area were purposely selected to be both aesthetically pleasing and to serve as a

1:24:01positive impact on the habitat of the site so um again the details were in your packet but i just wanted to summarize these points for you this evening and basically allow the appellant and the applicant speak for their points of view the final note is that the

1:24:19guard rails uh the cable guard rails that were noted in the appellants discussion are required by building code um due to their proximity of the uh path of travel so and my building officials here this evening um can address questions to the building code um as you have them uh this night

1:24:39so that concludes the staff report briefing um i know that the city attorney wanted to touch on one item in the design review per view too so i hand it over to him thank you margaret um yeah as as i was preparing for this with staff we felt that it might be helpful if i

1:24:59elaborated on a few aspects related to what is the scope of design review since the appeal that was presented had a fairly broad scope but in our view as margaret just summarized the design review is is narrower than the totality of the scope of the of the appeal

1:25:17so i'm just adding a few comments to um help both the council and the public with this issue um for margaret touched on this as well but for projects like 1715 elm the municipal code um has sort of a two-step design review process there's a preliminary design review that's that that that goes

1:25:36before the review of the substance of the application then the application itself is reviewed for everything other than design review and if it's approved then there's a final design review and the the design review board originally and then the planning commission the

1:25:53city council on appeal review the design of a project that has already been been approved for all everything other than these aesthetic architectural aspects so in our view the design of itself is fairly narrow in scope um and the items that are actually within that scope i asked margaret to

1:26:15list on this slide this is this is from section 19.38.040 of of the municipal code and it lists the items that are that that are supposed to be considered as part of a design review application um the council's approval of the plan development zoning and use permit

1:26:32and the development agreement decided all aspects of the of this project other than the design for example the height of the building its location and orientation the number of units the location of the historic structure the nature of the stone line channel and the

1:26:47minimum setbacks from the channel have all been decided those were before you in august and and finalized at that time they're part of an approved zoning ordinance use permit and development agreement design review again means something specific under the municipal code and

1:27:04has a narrow scope and that scope includes only the design of the structures landscaping lighting and other architectural features of an application including the items that are listed on this slide those items primarily relate to the appearance of buildings structures

1:27:21landscape and hardscape including material selection again other issues such as the location of the building and the historic structure their proximity to the stone line channel have already been decided and are really beyond the scope of what the municipal code anticipates as design

1:27:38review another reason that design review is not a means to revisit the decisions that the city council has already made is that as a matter of due process everyone involved in this including the applicant the city and members of the public are entitled to a final administrative

1:27:55determination reopening consideration of every aspect of this project but calling it design review would arguably be contrary to the idea that the council's previous decisions were supposed to be final there are also some technical issues with using design review to amend other

1:28:12actions of the council that that have already been taken um this is a this is a minor point but i bring it up just to illustrate um the the the narrowness of the scope of what's before you tonight um remember that um the property was rezoned to have planned development zoning which was

1:28:31done by ordinance there was also a development agreement approved which was done by ordinance there's also a plan development use permit which was approved by resolution if the council wanted to revisit aspects of the project that had been approved by those the design review would have to be

1:28:46approved by another ordinance but that's very a very unorthodox thing to do it is typical for design review to be approved by resolution and again i just bring this up to sort of illustrate that that going beyond the scope of what's listed um before you um and in the municipal

1:29:02code as design review is is is fairly narrow so finally i just wanted to to note that that the scope of what's to be reviewed tonight is listed before you it's included in the written staff report and the council's task is to determine whether it can make the required design

1:29:21review findings based on the evidence in the record and those findings are also listed for you in the staff report those concludes my additional comments i'm happy to take questions and i know margaret is also available to answer anything that you any questions you might have thank you

1:29:36both are there any questions at this time i see none we will now hear from the appellants howdy gowdy and robin mitchell and we will be opening the public hearing right before that we hear from them so the public hearing is open thank you all right good evening everyone um

1:30:08um so oh yeah okay i just so everybody here knows what the order of events is the appellants have up to 15 minutes then there'll be questions for the appellants then an applicant rebuttal another 15 minutes then questions then public testimony then any additional

1:30:34questions motion to close the public hearing and then council deliberations and action just so everybody knows the order of events please take it away mr gowdy all right good evening mayor friedman council members my name is howdy gowdy i'm here to talk about the appeal

1:30:52and thank you for your consideration of this appeal so we we presented 116 signatures on a letter of support at the last planning commission meeting and there's another 50 here so just to give you a sense of the the support behind this appeal so the project history

1:31:14i don't want to go into too much detail i i did since you made your approvals in august i did come back to council a couple times without updates of things that happened regarding waterboard letters and also observations of stormwater performance so we'll get into that more

1:31:32later but so the final design review scope now i i certainly respect you know staff and the attorneys explanations of this and i realize it may be you know that you feel um in a in a tight corner but it's important to establish a clear understanding of this scope and from my

1:31:54reading of it i mean the language of of the findings are pretty clear that that there's a lot that needs to be considered here um i encourage you to reconsider the guidance you've heard and look at the scope findings as as they are written with an open mind to consider the

1:32:13arguments in this presentation the ordinance asks you to consider aesthetic and architectural review that must include consideration of character defining features and relation to existing settings even though the plan development designation grants exceptions to those prevailing standards

1:32:28it did not establish the project's architectural aesthetic design merits the pd designation is an extraordinary action with a very high standard like the pd findings themselves the aesthetic review should ask the question is this a superior outcome to that which was

1:32:43guided by the existing standards the words aesthetic design do not appear anywhere in the pd findings it is squarely within the design review purview to consider and challenge the aesthetic design associated with each of the findings and criteria including the aesthetic implications of the design

1:33:00that the pd enables it is also worth mentioning that new information is available since august 19th decision and it would be irresponsible to fail to consider the implications of this new information on the design review findings so i'll go through all 10 issues as

1:33:17numbered in the staff report and you know consistency with the general plan and zoning ordinance are important it's it's not to be dismissed um there's new information to consider regarding the consistency of past decisions with um the bear with the facts and at bare minimum

1:33:36you know we need to consider the aesthetic architectural scope of the final design review furthermore following criteria must also be met protection and integration of the natural features such as creeks minimization of hardscape consideration of neighbors and compatibility with

1:33:53historic and visual character these are all within the purview of design review so consistency with the zoning ordinance is an explicit finding of the final design review and should not be dismissed outside of the purview of this decision applying the aesthetic architectural

1:34:11review of consistency with the zoning ordinance is clearly within purview aesthetic standards were not part of the pd findings and should be applied now using the example of the creek overlay district the aesthetic value of the character defining features in relation

1:34:27to existing settings to quote the scope of the design review are clearly superior under the base standards are you prepared to defend how the proposed plan under the pd achieves a superior aesthetic design with its retention of a degraded creek channel imposed upon by immediately

1:34:44adjacent hardscape and buildings as close as four feet on both sides compared to the superior aesthetic possibilities offered by the base standards the character in relation to the studying are shattered by this disrespectful design being offered aesthetic standards should not be

1:35:00forfeited to a previous pd decision that did not consider them this is the opportunity to get the aesthetics of the design right so you must also find consistency with the general plan and other relevant city policies all of these well-documented standards and values of the city are an important

1:35:19basis to inform your aesthetic architectural design review they contain guidance and wisdom that has helped define the aesthetic character the city strives to achieve aesthetics are inherently subjective and can always be asserted one way or another however making an aesthetic judgment for the

1:35:35city should be done in the context of the guiding documents of city policy as instructed by these design review findings by striving to maintain consistency with the aesthetic outcomes shaped by these documents the established values and goals of the compute community will be best served

1:35:53there are a number of general plan goals listed in support of the pd designation at the august council meeting however they were not substantiated in any detail which is troubling giving the high standard an exceptional action of establishing a pd here is the presentation of numerous

1:36:06goals of the general plan that are not met by this project there are repeated references to creek restoration and repairing buffers these are clearly called out as highly valued and this proposed project constitutes a significant deviation from these goals the aesthetic implications of the

1:36:22project are far from satisfactory compared to what would been realized without the departure from this general plan initiated by the pd the project actively neglects and detrimentally imposes on the creek in relation to the built environment resulting in a clear aesthetic failure

1:36:39to embrace the potential of the site the treatment of the creek and the riparian habitat are not only important principles in the general plan pertinent to this review flood protection the character of neighborhoods and the care directed to residential development are also

1:36:54prominently featured so the general plan references go on you know still calling for creek stewardship and benefits to stormwater infrastructure i apologize for the density of all the text on these slides but you know it shows the testament to the numerous instances of

1:37:11the general plan that show creeks and riparian habitats storm water control flooding neighborhood character and beyond as important these were all presented in the written appeal for for you so i guess i have to move on to keep keep pace even though the site is not in the san

1:37:29pablo specific plan area this recently adopted city document demonstrates a strong intention to enhance and restore creeks within continually planted corridors with a larger setback than the proposed at elm street now this is especially notable given that the specific plan area is

1:37:48considerably higher in tendon density than this project site and the joint watered shed goal statement as far back as 1995 20 years ago el cerrito and its neighboring communities were embracing the importance of restoring our heavily impacted creeks and watersheds to

1:38:06improve water quality and environmental habitat for wildlife and people alike it's not consistent with these goals to leave a degraded creek channel through the home site as is with a token border of planting that in no way compensates for the imposition of immediately

1:38:20adjacent hardscape and buildings as close as four feet on both sides of the creek this long-standing city document informs the watershed aesthetics and functions we are striving for in el cerrito and this project fails tragically short of them so the strategic plan emphasizes

1:38:39environmental sustainability however this project severely compromises the intentions of those policies by knowingly retreating from established environmental standards without sound reasoning thus goal f is not achieved leaving an old improvised channel condition in place and encroaching upon

1:39:00it with tight setbacks is reckless and neglects the city's obligation to ensure high quality upgraded infrastructure facilities that incorporate modern best practices the drainage downstream is already noted on the city's 1992 storm drain master plan is deficient to accommodate a 10-year

1:39:17storm event as a result the project fails to meet goals d and e while there have been exemplary displays of the values of strategic plan on part of some members of the planning commission and this city council my observation over the eight meetings this past year is that

1:39:35responsiveness to community input has been muted and inconsistent the public's interest has not been embraced as heartily as the developers interest and with a few notable exceptions there has been little demonstration of the courage to say no to a staff recommendation when it is not

1:39:52aligned with the values of the community despite the late stage of this project i hope you will take a fresh open-minded review of the entitlement before you with these strategic plan goals and values in mind even including the possibility of admitting failure or fault of a previous

1:40:09decision especially in light of newly available information the project does incorporate a c3 feature as required by the contra costa clean water program however the general guidance of the program like that of the city standards is not being observed including riparian planting

1:40:29setbacks and use of hardscape with regards to the creek the water board made it clear in two letters that they are unsatisfied with the proposed stormwater plan and requested further hydrological analysis and the potential inclusion of flow control facility rather than just flow through

1:40:46the observation of the stream level rising within one foot of the bank during a modestly heavy storm also brings into the question the ability of the c3 basin to adequately drain into the backed up waterway will a mere one to two feet of head be sufficient to pass water at the rate

1:41:03necessary to avoid spilling over the edge of the basin such a failure would push water into the neighboring property as well as over the surface to the creek resulting in flooding erosion and water quality impairment so aesthetic design the project attempts to squeeze too much into a tight space

1:41:19that does not aesthetically embrace the existing valuable on-site resources of the creek and the historic house the staff report suggests the pd has established heights and setbacks irreversibly however the aesthetic implications of the design outlined by the pd must still be in considered

1:41:37including the character defining features in relation to existing settings which is an explicit part of the design review scope the historic's house is unnecessarily crowded and diminished in the rear of the lot the creek is heavily imposed upon by immediately adjacent hardscape

1:41:52and buildings as close as four feet on both sides the narrow degraded rock line channel condition is perpetuated without sufficient space for meaningful restoration in the future the proposed plantings along the creek are insufficient they immediate the immediate adjacent hardscape is

1:42:08strikingly inconsistent with aesthetic and technical practices for creeks and should not be allowed the cable guard rails impose a hard modern texture into a natural area that is unnecessary if the creek was given the adequate room to safely and aesthetically coexist with

1:42:22egress so consideration of neighbors the project is not considered of neighbors the building unduly shades the north neighbor most of the year general plan policies point to the compatibility of scale and character to proceed with residential development carefully where

1:42:40it can be accommodated within constraints especially including existing natural characteristics aesthetically this project is crowded this is a crowded discontinuity in the fabric of the city that stubbornly denies the reality of the practical limits on the site

1:42:56and fails to achieve an aesthetic outcome of the neighborhood in the neighborhood context i just want to warn you there's only about three minutes left okay yeah i'm badly under time but i'll skip ahead so the plans of this project were presented to the decision makers with

1:43:15broad canopy of trees the um as was said the design review board wisely scaled that back but you should take to heart that the design is not going to look the way it's presented because those trees are not this glorious green border there there wasn't room for that they they

1:43:34kind of hid the fact that there wasn't room so we can quickly go through this is the site context you're familiar with these are shading um studies showing how badly the neighbors will be shaded um there's real energy implications to this this is 140 of heating energy a year that that

1:43:53shading means and you can't have solar and there's there's lots of impacts um you know attractive and visually interesting the um the creek is not going to be attractive and visually interesting when it's constrained the way it is historical and visual character

1:44:11so you know putting the house in the rear corner just isn't respecting that resource it's not going to have the prominence that it has now and it's you know it's still there but it's it's really diminished um you know this this is the character that we're destroying and um it's really

1:44:33reminiscent of el cerrito 100 years ago we have no other examples of this kind of historical context in the flat part of a city there's better places to put you know this kind of development that won't disrupt this unique resource public views and vistas you know

1:44:49it's again it's it's available to to public but is that view worth seeing it's it's really a diminished opportunity landscaping and hardscape so the hardscape is very important you know they're going to introduce 12 000 square feet of hardscape to this site that's more runoff in the creek and it's

1:45:10you know just not going to it's just inconsistent with uh you know the goals that are just defining your decision here so um this is an example of how the hardscape plan has changed can you wrap up please in fact i should mention the most important um criteria is probably this

1:45:36b10 protect and integrate natural features and creeks um protect has language that is inherently non-aesthetic you know there's more that you need to consider besides just the aesthetic when you when it asks you are you protecting creeks and you decidedly are not protecting it if you're allowing

1:45:55all the same things encroachment hardscape so we have the water board control letters um and i will just you know the storm event as um it's it's really worth i mean there's just not enough time to mention all this stuff so the city has an analysis showing that four points downstream

1:46:16of this uh drainage do not meet 10-year flood or 10-year storm events so you know what's what's going to happen when we have a strong storm there's supposed to be a good el nino year next year it's it's just a reckless opening so let me just do my um my closing closing slide here so in light

1:46:40of this project's inconsistencies with general plan and zoning ordinances the design review findings need to be rigorously considered the aesthetic design review should be grounded in the vision laid out by these documents new information regarding stormwater deficiencies on the drainage must be

1:46:53taken into account in these design review findings and even bring into question the validity of the previous pd findings the appeal is not an opposition of development at this site but rather seeks to uphold the high standards of the city to best serve the community

1:47:06with appropriate development of this unique site within its constraints and context it is striking that year after that after a year of significant opposition based on well-founded shortcomings of the design that this project is still trying to proceed without significant design changes

1:47:22despite feedback from the public city council and commissions and state regulators when considering the big pictures way over time please don't get angry we had a lot of presentations that were more than 50 minutes could we please just finish our last paragraph come on

1:47:46please would you please calm down i've been very patient and gracious and trying to allow you to complete but please be quiet in the audience but i had no idea how much longer he was going on so you say one paragraph this is the conclusion i i have a lot more to say you know it's it is

1:48:04disappointing that you know something that i've invested the better part of a year of comes down to 15 minutes that i'm harried to make my tiny little argument um you're all considering it in probably less time than i spent you know putting powerpoint slides together or

1:48:22writing this 50-page document you know this this is real work this is people who care and i think you really deserve the attention and the thoughtful review and you know discussion and deliberation on these issues so i respectfully understand your need to move the meeting along but i

1:48:44think you also need to respect that this process requires your attention and it requires time and that's just the reality of it thank you very much i appreciate any questions that would like to finish but i guess they have two sentences go ahead please okay so our opportunity

1:49:09sites for transit oriented development are far richer elsewhere the value of living in el cerrito for those future tod residents is partly supported by protecting and enhancing unique community resources such as exist on elm street rather than squandering them do

1:49:24we want an el cerrito where inferior projects are built by force of rigid insensitivity or where meaningful compromises that are sensitive and established standards of the city are openly and cooperatively discussed and negotiated thank you very much any questions

1:49:42okay we now move on to the applicant rebuttal 15 minutes for you also i'm just waiting to start i'm weighing them i've got a bad coal so i'm going to not talk very long carl campos loving campos architects this project has been thoroughly vetted by the city the newspapers

1:50:17uh the agency's staff's done a great job presenting the facts all along the way we've been to multiple design review board hearings planning commission hearings and before this council we received our approval it's been appealed our design review decision was unanimous

1:50:36approval of the project by the members of the board of the design review board that were there that night they did their job they made some very good suggestions on window placement colors etc we lowered the stair tower elements they they did their job as a as a commission

1:50:56and we received unanimous approval that night for the people that were there we went to the planning commission on appeal and received uh overturn of the appeal recommending approval of the project so we've been at this a long time and uh you've been patient with us we're here

1:51:14tonight asking that that you deny this appeal for the project we'd like to get started and going i'd like to update you briefly on our process with regional water quality and the army corps of engineers the army corps of engineers doing their job we submitted our application

1:51:35way back when in january of 2014 they recently sent us a letter stating that because there was an historic report done on the property they are required by state law to send the project to state historic preservation office shippo they did that and we're awaiting a

1:51:57review by shippo if shippo doesn't respond to the letter and they get lots and lots of requests for to consideration of historical buildings and historical things if they don't respond within a certain timeline then the army corps will approve our project that's how it goes with these big

1:52:16agencies at regional water quality they are we are approved by operation of law because they they failed to act within the year time frame that they were given that we had correspondence back and forth staff answered questions from them we answered questions from

1:52:35them and then it was silent we repeatedly asked for determination they didn't they didn't make a determination within the required timeline uh david ivister of briscoe ivister and basil they are recognized authorities in the state of california on regional water quality

1:52:52issues have written a letter to them and let them know by operation of law our project is approved no response for months so uh we're approved at regional water quality expect to get our our army corps approval shortly and we're 95 done with construction documents and

1:53:15out to getting bids from contractors so i'd appreciate your consideration of the process that we've been through tonight and uh deny this appeal thank you yeah can you please state your name i don't think he did that's okay carl campos loving and campos architects

1:53:32thank you very much any questions yeah i've got a few please um the appellate talks about the hardscape that that's going in and obviously hardscape is increases runoff and will increase the potential for flooding in the creek what are some of the responses that you've been able to

1:53:54potentially put in place with regards to the hardscape so have you been able to consider any permeable pavement or less hardscape altogether the conditions of approval from that hearing that night we're supposed to put in some some permeable paving surfaces there

1:54:09am i correct with that thank you and with regain with regards to the the modern railing that is going up i think it's a cable railing um i'm certain that you're putting it up so that it aesthetically can be seen through but with regards to the um testimony that we

1:54:28had back in august with with this property and in the sense that the uh the historic house the historic rock line channel and the the the community garden or the open space that's in front of the house um wouldn't something more historic like a picket fence or some

1:54:48other type of fence structure split rail uh potentially accomplish the same safety and be more fitting with the with the sighting sure i think uh i think that's that's actually a good suggestion we were we were debating amongst ourselves how to get rid of it the railing itself in

1:55:06general so that it felt more natural it's private property it's going to be a homeowner association they have liabilities so yeah i think we could we could do a split rail or something that's more timely for the period of the architecture at the time as we're trying

1:55:20to do the cable rail gave us they kind of disappear in i i definitely certainly understand that sentiment and i've seen the cable railing used we have it here inside city hall so that it has uh you know a much more open visual uh sense i i'm i just not opposed to the to the open

1:55:41rail fence not opposed to that at all in fact it's it's not you know meets all the safety building requirements so i i just i guess what i'm trying to get at is that uh there are some uh attributes that that can be uh incorporated from the appellant's arguments and i'm just trying to figure

1:55:59out how um how those might be incorporated as we go forward i think we could come back with some suggestions we're architects we can come up with a creative solution to if the to make a decision between the cable rail and some other more architecturally uh appropriate

1:56:20fence in the in that area we just want to make sure that you can see through to the creek and it's visible that an interior that interior public pocket park is going to be accessible by citizens during the day and so just so so that it's something that works that's

1:56:38all thank you um yeah i also had concern about the uh the walkway that goes from the footbridge to the back of the historic property if if we could indeed reduce the amount of hardscape that's there as long as it's ada accessible i think that would be a real favorable thing and probably

1:56:59quite easy to do my second question is along that same area there it looks like there's mostly hardscape not so much planting and there's no way to cross the creek there so could we perhaps consider doing a little bit more riparian plantings through that that area on the

1:57:19back portion from the back of the property from the footbridge on back yes and i think that you know when we had our testimony in august we heard that perhaps the preschool would be visiting the historic site and other children and you're absolutely right it is an open space

1:57:38open to the public i walk to the property again after the hillside festival on saturday and you know there are parts of that creek that are probably well over my head i mean they're almost five and five and a half six feet deep so i think that there definitely has to be some protection when it is a

1:57:57public space with why i don't have an opinion about a picket fence or a guardrail but obviously something has to be there for public safety and it is as we heard tonight part of the building code correct so those are my comments i think some of the other i mean i appreciate

1:58:12everything that robin and howdy did and what they said in the um the testimony that they gave and the work they put into this but don't don't be fooled we spend a lot of time talking to staff we look over the plans we talk to the city attorney we spend many many times more than 15

1:58:29minutes or 20 minutes or a half hour 45 minutes that we're sitting here deliberating on this on on a project like this and and what we did beforehand also so we i think we acknowledge and appreciate all you the work you put in but don't be fooled we put in a lot of work too and i

1:58:44think we make a lot of um our considerations very thoughtful and um you know some of the items that you brought up are actually covered by the the action that was taken in august and um the pd the zoning ordinance changes that part of the project has been approved and we can't really go back on

1:59:07that and so my comments are about the riparian plantings from the footbridge to the back of the property i don't have an opinion about the guard well and see if we could change the hardscape from at least that area on back design review uh asked us to reorient the building that's

1:59:25in the the lower right hand corner right the apartment unit so that the entry was towards closer towards the stair right and that will eliminate that that walkway there and i was looking more at the walkway that's on the other side where the historic oh where the historic

1:59:41home is that's all pathway there i think we might be able to do something a little bit we'll come up with something we're an architect yeah we'll come up with something that's uh that's ada accessible we have to put a lift there for access to the to the to the uh thing

1:59:55and so it has to be an accessible path yeah so there are there are options there thank you any other questions i have a question as a result of this but it's actually of the building official so i think i need to wait don't yeah we're going to do that after public testimony

2:00:14if there's no other questions thank you very much and now we'll take public testimony yes mayor we have four speaker slips tom panas followed by arlen arlen robbins and ralph boniello good evening mayor friedman member of the council and city staff my name is tom panis and i live at [address removed]

2:00:41in el cerrito in reviewing some of the materials submitted by howdy gowdy i'm wondering if we need to reconsider stormwater handling on this site i was quite surprised by mr gowdy's video of the creek during the rain we received in december the creek was approaching the

2:00:54top of its banks during an event that's not even a one in every 10-year storm the storm water currently proposed is designed to efficiently move water off the property not retain it the system has two six-inch pipes that essentially transfer all the rain falling on the

2:01:08site both surface water and downspout water into the creek between the additional water being added to the creek and the turbulence this will create in the creek channel appears to me that we have the possibility of a creek out of its banks which then undermines the stone walls of the creek

2:01:22a much better solution might be a storm water retention system which is what the state water resources board recommended instead of the flow-through system that's proposed in addition there appears to be no significant correspondence on record since the january 16 2015 letter from

2:01:35the state water resources board nor permit issued i'm this isn't really consistent with the cooperation responsiveness we'd like to see demonstrated by the developers in our city when working with substantial regulatory agencies thank you for your time this evening thank you

2:01:50arlen robbins followed by ralph boniello and b.j thor'sness members of the city council representatives of the city's staff and the our honored architect and all the other people that are patiently waiting to see what you decide my name is arlen robbins i've been

2:02:14living at [address removed] in el cerrito for 31 years el cerrito has for decades called itself a city of views and expressed a desire to protect our environment that is one of the mandates the city council and city staff have wholeheartedly agreed upon yet the city is willing to encroach upon

2:02:36an existing ordinance and that mandate that protects the creeks for the sake of a developer who is trying to make the highest possible profit from a property with a natural creek running through it there's a great deal that could be done with the property in question and still

2:02:52protect the existing creek and 15 feet on either side but because it is not as profitable or perhaps because he's not willing to pay for a new building design we're finding that that the city seems to be willing to ignore that ordinance and the very real reasons behind that

2:03:17ordinance it's difficult to believe that you can improve this development that you did approve this development as currently designed and still say you're you're for protecting the environment it's difficult to believe you proved this development is currently designed

2:03:38if you care at all about our creeks and it's difficult to believe that you approved this development as currently designed and that you have respect for these ordinances signed into law by our own government i have witnessed over approximately eight months that

2:03:59the scope covered by design review rejects any chance to reconsider encroachments of the proposed development and the scope covered by the planning review constricted the opportunity to address landscaping issues so the use of the two restricted scopes seems to have made it impossible to

2:04:20address some very vital issues entirely and when the scope of both of these bodies doesn't allow the overlap to look at the whole project it seems to me that it's the responsibility of our council and our staff to look at the whole project and its impact not just whether it

2:04:47passes a specific law but its impact on not only that property but our environment and the way it affects the people surrounding that environment and the the bay even so i just would like to suggest that our city take one more look and see if there's a way i i believe that it is probable

2:05:18that it can't be done with quite as many units but your remarks were at the time limit yeah anyway i i think that with a little bit of change in the size of the construction and in this closeness to the creek that there could be something very wonderful and very profitable

2:05:43in this on this property thank you thank you ralph boniello followed by b.j thor'sness and franklin leon hello i'm bj thorsness i live at [address removed] um who's this person on the end here you were talking about the creek being how high five or six feet i'm assuming all of you have been to elm

2:06:12street all of you so can one of you show me with your hands how deep that little rock historic rock line channel is can somebody show me how deep it is i'm five feet tall how deep you know you're saying i'm five feet tall oh no i don't believe so on elm street um i saw nothing like that on elm street

2:06:34and i went over there after our last big rain actually our second big rain we only had two and i went about an hour and a half after the rain stopped and i was a little horrified and the reason i went was because i had owned a property that had a creek and when it filled up

2:06:49when there was a big rain it was horrifying what came down the hill and that's what happens there right so the big question here even though your staff has listed all these things all these parameters that are set up by the planning but everybody has all these rules right but the big issue the reason

2:07:05everybody's here is we're concerned about the creek and we're concerned that you're allowing a building to be set down four feet from the creek we don't care what kind of railings you have on it we don't care about that we care that the building is going to be four feet from this creek

2:07:20which is about maybe the deepest is about here i walked the whole thing right so i'd be surprised to see anything more than that but in any case it's not very big and it's rock line it's it would probably flood when it had to flood and it wouldn't bother the house because it's you know get marshy

2:07:35in there who cares but when you put buildings there it's a different thing so you put the whole talent risk for paying lawsuits all right so your staff seems to decide everything that's what it seems like to us right that i mean i don't mean to attack but that's what it

2:07:49seems like to us the staff says here's what we're going to do all right the staff also puts us last every time we're always last so it's kind of there are four of us here one two three four that i know of objecting to this everybody else has long since gone to bed they're

2:08:03exhausted and they know they're gonna lose and i don't say that to be nasty i'm saying it because our hearts are broken that's that's why um howdy and robin have tried to follow all the rules have tried to answer every little thing that was said they've done everything and i want to sit there and

2:08:20scream no just don't put that building so close to the creek there were other options somebody here came up with another option um eddie biggs is not a poor property owner all right he's not poor for sure i've been here longer than anybody up here i'm older than all of you except for eddie biggs

2:08:41both of us may be about the same but he had a building up the street from me and when the city many many many years ago before you guys were in this position wouldn't let him do something because he couldn't get the last spot he wanted right up from where i live he bulldozed

2:08:56a cutest little cottage and two palm trees that flanked it and i drove up i was going to stop it i was going to get in front of the bulldozer turned out i knew the driver of the bulldozer please conclude your remarks i get it i know we all have to talk with three minutes

2:09:12we're frustrated can you guys get that and and you just see a few of us but there's a whole lot of people in the town i'm begging you guys to somehow get a better dialogue we're going to lose on this one but we need more of a dialogue we really do i know you think you're doing the best

2:09:28for all of us but we we don't all agree with what you're doing and many situations so i hope we can have open something up here if we lose we're going to lose on this one we know that already thank you don't tell me again i wasn't going i was going to thank you

2:09:44for your remarks thank you ralph pinello el dorado street in el cerrito i'm here to speak for the creek on the property and which i consider a character defining feature with significant relation to the existing settings i think that alone qualifies it to be open to discussion

2:10:09i'm going to read you the opening line of our creek ordinance which i'm a bit disappointed is not being followed in this case it says the city council finds that the public health and safety require creek and watershed management planning in order to control flood and erosion damages and

2:10:27to preserve natural water courses as an important public asset that provides environmental recreational and aesthetic value within the city so there's aesthetic value inherently in natural water courses in natural creeks and that is what's being i think is being failed

2:10:45to be recognized here i as a city resident and someone who works on a city committee and is involved with city policy i'm very disappointed to see that the this creek ordinance is being is not being followed here i know that there's many people who have worked hard that have come before me on

2:11:08this that have worked on this ordinance previous city councils have approved it and they approved it for reasons that have were stated in the ordinance and those reasons have been ignored and frankly it discourages me from wanting to be involved with the city and

2:11:24work on city policy if the things that i'm going to work on aren't going to be followed now i know the developers supposedly made concessions on this project such as affordable housing increased density blah blah blah the creek is a special thing the creek is a rare thing in el cerrito it's a

2:11:45rare natural resource of el cerrito it's an aesthetic resource that benefits the public of el cerrito mr gowdy has submitted an epa document that specifically talks about the aesthetic reasons why we should have natural creeks natural water courses natural riparian vegetation along those

2:12:04water courses and we do that to benefit the residents who are going to live along that creek in the future to benefit the residents who live along the creek now to benefits the residents who live in the neighborhood and to benefit future residents not just current residents so i really do

2:12:22hope you'll revisit this issue and consider what you're doing to the creek here what you're saying to residents and i hope you'll open reopen this issue and reconsider your decision thank you thank you very much franklin liang followed by hinia pines and howdy gowdy

2:12:45my name is franklin leong i live in the manor circle um i was reading some of the section here is a according to uh 19.12.040 streambed alteration [Music] general prohibition a fail or obstruction of a creek it shall be unlawful for any person organization institution corporation or

2:13:16the city to fill or cause to be filled to obliterate or cost to be obliterate to obstruct or cost to obstructed to construct a building building approaching a creek will cause such a building to be constructed in any manner to interfere with or cause to be interfering with any creek in el cerrito

2:13:39which carries off at any time of the year any storm water or in the service waters which has been participate precipitate by rains subject to the provision of this chapter exception streamlining moderation shall only be permitted subject city council approval and approval of any

2:14:04other folk permits from the california department of efficient game the u.s army corps of engineer california state water resource control board for creek restoration and public access projects emergency stream bed alteration projects necessary to to protect public health and safety from

2:14:32imminent flooding erosion and landslide hazard may be permitted by the city engineer and community development director steambed alterations shall not be conducted unless applicable permits have been obtained and and i have to talk to the three agency none of them had any records of issuing

2:14:56permit to for this project and i had talked to michelle breaker brenner a service climatologist western regional climate center desert in a desert research institute in reno nevada i have told michelle brittner that the city of el cerrito will be building a three-story condo

2:15:24five to seven feet from the creek she stated it's dangerous to to build such a building so close to the creek california having drought for the past four years and the ground will be so hard and the creek can be overflow and the area and the building potentially flooded

2:15:47with that can usually with big storm coming and she predicted um el nino may be coming sometime next year and she's not the only one i have talked to a few people that know weather and they said there's a good chance can you please conclude your remarks um that's all i have done thank you very

2:16:12much any pines hi my name is hania pines [address removed] adjusted to the property next door 1715.

2:16:29you heard everything i was just going to talk about el nino i don't know if you follow the news but they predict a big storm coming el nino is coming after a few years of drought it's going to be a disaster for the building that they plan to build for the adjusting buildings for

2:16:49everybody i don't know it's going to be responsible mr big that will take the money around the association there that will be responsible you guys are responsible somebody will have to pay if there will be a disaster i'm not going to repeat everything what was said i support everything i ask you

2:17:06to reconsider please nobody nobody agrees with you guys nobody so please please reconsider after all you are our representative but nobody here is listening why aren't you listening to us nobody wants it so please please reconsider thank you thank you mr gowdy has also submitted a speaker

2:17:33slip see attorney um as the appellant he's already had an opportunity to speak you can allow him to if you want to but he's already had you know time as the appellant to speak on this item well i i think you know our process and we never have the appellant come back in

2:17:52public testimony if you'll keep yourself to three minutes without yelling at anybody please go ahead okay yeah thank you for your generosity um i wanted to catch a couple of uh items that i wasn't able to say in the presentation um and one of them is what was mentioned about the water board it's

2:18:18it's actually a rather astonishing thing that you know there are you know very strong concerns being raised by the water board that um the applicant is is basically just saying they don't have to deal with because up too much time went up you know we're not gonna

2:18:38you know have to deal with what you want and i think it's really you know just an appalling attitude to have to this process and and the city should demand more of their development partners than to just want to sidestep um meaningful regulation that's trying to make this a

2:18:56better project and a positive outcome for the for the community so um so that kind of brings me to the other point which is the stormwater issues and the deficiencies that are known on the 1992 stormwater drain master plan because if anything i've heard from this

2:19:19city council over the years it's a extreme aversion to lawsuits i mean i've heard it tonight on other topics and you know this is what you're opening yourselves up to in in 19 in the 1980s the city had you know 13 lawsuits settled for over 300 000 dollars because

2:19:39of deficiencies in the stormwater system those happened because there was a lack of thoughtful attention to development and infrastructure and we had to pass a bond and fix some of those things but guess what you know that bond of many millions of dollars only addressed

2:19:59a small fraction of the identified deficiencies and and which deficiencies are still out there well the ones downstream of elm street so this this creek does not meet the requirements of the county and the city of having an accommodation for 10-year events and as we saw from the

2:20:18pictures from december 11th something that was not an extreme event this situation is going to impact the site it's going to attack neighboring sites and downstream and you're opening yourself up to liability for it and you know i don't know how this building and its homeowners

2:20:35association is going to get insurance for you know this is all known and in the record now so this has to be disclosed to the buyers and this is the you know the condition that you're offering these buyers a resident so i think you really need to work to make this better now i've heard

2:20:53it said that it would be an extraordinary thing for you to use this venue to make it better but i'm asking each of you as council members how are you going to make this project better because i haven't seen anyone really do it yet three minutes is up thank you thanks

2:21:08uh councilmember abelson had some questions yeah um i'm sorry that concludes public testimony okay um first of all i wanted to go back to the um fencing and i think the person i did oh i'll start with you but maybe it's the building official i thought i read when

2:21:30i was reading through the materials that there was a requirement to use the cable fence that's true there's a requirement due to the proximity of the path of travel and the creek that there is a barrier that needs to be placed okay but it could be the picket fence

2:21:48that's what my question is of the i'm going to bring mark sultaes up who's the city of el cerrito building official you need me margaret okay hi good evening mayor friedman and council members i am mark soltas and i'm a city's building official um your question

2:22:10okay um so i thought i read as i was reading through that there's a requirement to use that the cable fence and i was so i was wondering if you one could also use the picket fence um yeah there's no specific requirement that it must be a cable fence okay so it could be

2:22:31yeah a guard rail by building code needs to be 42 inches high and has to be designed so that a four inch ball cannot pass through any of the spaces i also would require a guard or a warning rail at the bottom for disabled persons sight impaired so they can feel their way along the

2:22:52path and know that there's an obstruction there if you design a fence out of wood boards or slats or pickets you're between the amount of wood being taken up in that four inch restriction you're going to limit your vision through the fence especially if on an oblique angle but

2:23:16those are the basic requirements for the code okay and um then i'll move on to another question uh yeah actually on the cheat sheet here it says questions should be for people other than staff so mainly the appellant or the applicant and then we close the public hearing and then we

2:23:34have questions you did disclose the public hearing no i just said the public testimony included the public hearing is closed after we have late yeah if it's for staff if it's for the appellant or the applicant then perfectly appropriate to ask questions more questions for either of those

2:23:56okay now i'll entertain a motion to close public hearing so move second they moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye the public hearing has been closed please continue sorry for the interruption okay um so the other question i have and i don't

2:24:15know which of the two of you from staff it should be directed at but um it's my understanding that there's a requirement for retention of um storm water on site that's true this and this project has received its c3 permit from the public works department okay so if

2:24:42that is true then how would the creek be able to uh if if it were built correctly uh would the crew would that include the creek and overflow and so forth so i wonder if public works is still in the audience excuse me good evening um ivar ortiz the public works director

2:25:13the requirements the c3 requirements for this project are for treatment and so the current project proposes uh bio retention facilities to treat the water on site so currently they're just treating the water and then releasing it into the creek they're not they're not controlling for flow that

2:25:32wasn't a c3 requirement for this project because of the size of the area they're disturbing so all of the water from the site will go on into the creek correct is that realistic well not all of it directly there's some pervious area where the water will infiltrate

2:25:55infiltrate there are some i should go back a little bit the water that's hitting the roofs and the concrete will go into the bioretention facilities some of that water will infiltrate there are occasions where there are larger storms the bioretention facilities are sized to

2:26:14treat uh smaller storms and larger storms such as a tenure storm the water will flow into the creek there's an overflow that goes directly into the creek the creek as it's its size right now is um is size based on our our master plan to accommodate a 10-year storm

2:26:33the creek that was built uh many many years ago correct okay um what about a storm that's bigger excuse me a storm that's bigger what about that so it's not it's not designed to uh accommodate a larger storm than a 10 year old but what happens then what are you expecting it

2:26:52could overflow and the um most of our drainage system is most of our drainage system is designed to accommodate 10-year storm okay i guess what i'm wondering about if you've channeled the water into the creek and you put the house next to the creek isn't that going to cause a problem

2:27:16potentially in a larger storm and is that considered the right way to go i think right now it's meeting the requirements of the city that the storm channel does meet the 10-year storm capacity and the water so that the the project is meeting the requirements i think

2:27:41there are some um some storm drink segments downstream that are exceeding the 10-year capacity and so we've as part of the building permit stage at the build at the building permit stage we will require the contractor not the contractor but the applicant to provide

2:27:59us details on how they're going to treat how how they will control the water coming into the storm drain channel to prevent a flooding downstream okay um okay okay okay thank you before you sit down please if i may yeah please um you've testified that the project

2:28:28is treating it has the bioswells to treat which um my understanding is to remove suspended sediments so that the water quality leaving the site is of the highest possible quality but in your testimony you said that it's not a detention facility it's not intended to

2:28:46slow down or re or [ __ ] the amount of flow so in a 10-year rain event does the project increase the amount of water that is going into the channel during a storm event because of the hard surfaces it will because it it's increasing the amount of impervious area on the current

2:29:09site so um and if i understand your touch your testimony tonight with that additional accelerated flow that gets to the creek sorry the historic rockline channel um does the does that increase the flooded the flooding or frequency or or will the off-site uh concrete line or rockline

2:29:32channel be able to handle it it shouldn't it shouldn't in a 10-year storm so and that's what the channel is designed for and and that is our design criteria for the city okay thank you any other questions okay we now move on to uh council deliberations which can include motion and a vote or

2:29:59if there's comments that any council members would like to make yeah i'll take this i'll take this time to to um make a few comments um you know i i want to first say that i do value the work of our design review board and our planning commission i do know that they put the time in to

2:30:20to consider these things um and appreciate uh some of the changes that they've asked the project opponent to to do and i do look forward to potentially seeing a little more of the historic character of the the project be picked up in some of the design attributes that you bring forward

2:30:40in your final design i will echo my comments from august i i guess i'm disappointed that the culture resources aspect outweighed the environmental resources and that this rockline channel was retained as part of the project you know it is a missed opportunity as i said then for

2:31:07us to be able to do some [Music] environmental resource protection and improvement within our city um and uh you know it in my opinion uh the creeks and riparian quarters have a higher value than the historic rockline channel and so i remain opposed not to the development of 15 units uh

2:31:31not to transit orient development but to the um to the retention of the rockline channel i do hope that there will be a true effort to reduce the amount of hardscape that would reduce flooding and that there's more respect given to the historic feature that has uh that the features both the

2:31:59house and the rockline channel that has influenced this project and [Music] i want to finally say with great gratitude to the appellants that i really do appreciate the the work that you've done i know how hard you have worked it shows in in not only your presentation but the materials you've

2:32:19presented and i want to thank you for that and um i will not be uh i will probably be voting no thank you councilmember quinto now as a newly elected uh and coming on to this uh later um i live uh on a street that is on top of a creek i live between uh the baxter creek and uh

2:32:53and i know the importance of uh creek and creek restoration uh it's very important and uh perhaps when they had if they had these laws then uh perhaps the creek would have been above ground instead of putting underground so i do not uh oppose the building of that property

2:33:21we talked about this over and over and uh so i support that but i also support uh creeks and uh creek restoration i'm wondering if we can all work on this perhaps you know we had this idea you know about maybe moving the building you know and just building it uh build the property

2:33:46and uh um and uh that is that has gone through planning and and uh um so you know we need to think outside of the box and but i do believe that this building uh has gone through the proper uh channels and being built and but i agree that we do need to talk more

2:34:10about the restoration of the creek thank you any additional comments um well i'll make my comments um again i want to thank howdy and robin for all the comments and all the work that you did and for all the other speakers that came um i am concerned about the flooding i think

2:34:34that um when i wrote uh yvette in my comments um about the um rock lined channel that one of the things that was commented and she also repeated it tonight is that this creek was actually built as we know probably a hundred years ago and at that time was capable of

2:34:57withstanding a 10-year flood so i think it's imperative for the applicant to make some changes to decrease the hardscape i think that's going to be really really important i think it's important for the hoa i think it's going to be important for the city and i think

2:35:12it'll be important for the neighbors and all concerned so i'm willing to accept this project as long as there is um a very strong effort to to change that hardscape that is parallel to the rock line channel um the second comment is um i think we should obviously go ahead and

2:35:34proceed with the guardrail i i think probably being able to have a um the cable is probably a little more attractive in that it would make the creek um and the property a little more visible from both sides even though perhaps a picket fence or some sort of other wooden fence might be

2:35:55more in character with the historic area of the house but i think the cable would be a good option and the last thing is i think we really do have to make a very strong effort to do some riparian plantings so i would like to um um well wait till my motion in case anyone

2:36:17wants to make some comments but i would like to see those um two to three items included councilmember ableton thank you i guess what i'm wondering about i agree with uh council member bridges that i'm wanting to make sure that what's being discussed is part of the

2:36:39purview of the process at this point and i'm looking at the city attorney well i guess i need you to clarify what you mean when you say what's being discussed um what's being i think the issues i'm wondering about are um the um if you look at the comments just made by

2:37:02councilmember bridges for example about the the creek and let's see there was one other the heartscape and the hearts was kind of kind of related landscape and hardscape are clearly within the scope of what design review contemplates okay and so to the extent that there's a view that hardscape

2:37:19adjacent to the stone line channel should be decreased and that different or additional plantings should be included those are both topics that that can be addressed through design review okay and um to leave it in a way that said that to say that the applicant will try to do something

2:37:41is that an appropriate way for us to act um i think probably it would be useful to um be more specific or to at least provide some general guidance about what it is that the council through the maker of the motion thinks would be appropriate it would be okay to

2:38:00leave some discretion to staff to make a determination about whether or not the applicant has made changes that comply with the guidance that the council provided but we need some guidance about what the council wants to achieve through the changes and that can be

2:38:16then added as an additional condition of approval to the design review i'm saying that council member bridges is wanting to to make the most well i i'm not ready but i can make it and it that's exactly it's not a it's not a um and an action step of try it's an additional condition

2:38:34i see it and and again we have to deal with the ada accessibility but um i think that we could do better and certainly um find um something that's yeah and if i've understood you generally it's it's to um decrease the amount of hardscape um towards the rear of the property

2:38:55adjacent to the stone line channel but still meeting ada accessibility requirements and to replace the hardscape that's removed with riparian plantings and i think that's imperative for you know the project and for the homeowners are going to be living there in the neighbors

2:39:14if i may as influence the motion you make even though i'm going to vote against it i would like the railing on both sides of the creek does not need to be the same and and i would would want to try and encourage that the railing that's on the the side that is being designated as a historic context

2:39:35would certainly i think the railing on that side should potentially uh staff should have the latitude to consider a a railing that does support the historic context on the south side of the rockline channel so if if you would be so willing to give staff that latitude

2:39:55any additional comments i have just a few in my time on the council i've never seen an [Music] appeal as thorough and comprehensive as this one and i thank mr gowdy and ms mitchell for the thoroughness both in terms of written material all of which i read and your verbal testimony not only

2:40:20tonight but over the course of the last year the amount of time energy research that you put into this is admirable and the passion that you and the other people who testified tonight is admirable that kind of passion is necessary in the public arena in order for us to

2:40:40really make sure we're making the best decisions that we can and as we know and learn when you sit in this seat is it's impossible to make everybody happy on every decision and fact on very few decisions we get to make everybody happy so i think the overriding question for me

2:41:04is an environmental one and one person's environment is another one's travesty on the environment and that transit-oriented development has been one of our goals as a council for probably 20 years and we get very few opportunities to actually have projects that do bring us

2:41:24transit-oriented development we saw tonight the i-80 smart corridor project just brought home how perilous our transportation system is and the need for people to get out of cars and into public transportation and projects like these are a small part of our responsibility to create opportunities

2:41:47for citizens to live near mass transit bart and bus lines so for me that is the overriding environmental question and i support my colleagues who would like to make sure that the creek situation is dealt with as best we can within our authority at this point in the process

2:42:11so that's where i'm coming from and i'm glad to entertain a motion i think council member bridges okay ready um i i move that we adopt a resolution making findings upholding the decision of the planning commission to approve the design review application for the

2:42:27project at 1715 elm street with the additional can with the additional three conditions that there be additional decrease of the hardscape that sits adjacent to the rockline channel to consider a fence on the historic site the the creek side of the historic structure

2:42:49that's in keeping with the historic structure itself and to add riparian plantings along the creek bed second been moved and seconded any additional comments all right uh we'll all in favor of the motion as stated by council member bridges signify by saying aye aye opposed opposed

2:43:16motion carries on a three to two vote thank you we now move on to item 6b which is the master fee schedule which is another public hearing we'll start with a staff presentation from lisa malek zadeh finance director good evening mayor and council i'm lisa malek suday finance director and i'm

2:43:44here tonight to provide you with an update on the annual master fee schedule as you know the master fee schedule includes user fees charges and our business license tax rates adjustments to the fees annually are intended to cover any changes in the city's costs and

2:44:01providing those services in general our fees for next fiscal year are being recommended at an increase of about four percent and that's to cover the projected increases in both personnel and non-personnel costs that are anticipated for next year's budget some of the fees have some fees that are

2:44:20not following the four percent have been held constant for example our commercial tenant improvements others are proposed for changes that don't necessarily follow the four percent include things like recreation that are based more on the market and the demand for services and then we've

2:44:36also included some new fees for next year which include the solar syste solar system installations specific plan signage work without encroachment permits bid protests purchase of compost delivery and replacement of barricades and temporary parking signs also included in the update for

2:44:57are the business license tax rates the municipal code dictates that the rates increase each year by the change in cpi from the previous year the cpi change for this year is 2.53 percent and the rates are proposed an increase of that amount you'll note you have a supplemental item in your package

2:45:14the original business license rate tax rates were that were included were in error so those have been corrected and you now are looking at the right amounts in addition the if per if approved this evening then new rates would go into effect on july 1st and any additional revenue from those

2:45:34fees are being included in the proposed budget update to the budget for 16.

2:45:38and with that i'm happy to answer any questions any questions i have um two questions um so i'm assuming that the um the increase in the commercial tenant improvements won't that evaluation or analysis won't be complete before july 1st i am going to defer to community

2:45:59development on that question oh i'm sorry i just asked i assume that the analysis that we're going to be doing on the increasing the commercial tenant improvements won't be analyzed or finished by the time july 1st rolls around to make the deadline is that correct

2:46:18that's correct i think there's a couple different ways of looking at analysis we've done some comparison and we know that we're high but whether we want to do a complete building fee study or just take those out so that's correct i think at this point we want to keep them we

2:46:32know that we're higher than other jurisdictions that our building official looked at and that we think a more comprehensive fee analysis would need to occur and that would not take place before july first yeah that's what i thought so thank you and then i had a quick

2:46:44question from mr jones and that is regarding some of the classes that are available in the recreation department um how much is available to be done online without the use of staff time i mean well i'll just leave it at that a good majority of our programs are available for online registration we

2:47:06have seen online registration increase but for a variety of reasons there's people who still prefer to either register in the office or by mail but our summer camps are available online the majority of our fee classes are swim lessons there's in terms of classes there's very few

2:47:27that are specialized to the point that it's not possible with our online registration system right 30 percent i could get back to you i mean it's definitely increasing um but yeah we haven't been doing it super long and i think sometimes people like to come in because they like to visit you all

2:47:44definitely yeah thank you it is a friendly place any additional questions you know i you mentioned something about compost delivery and i'm trying to figure find that one in here so i was just curious um where is it well it should be under like miscellaneous maybe i saw it

2:48:04it should be under public works although under public works um and and while while i'm looking for that to to see this new new um capability i'm assuming that we're we're addressing some uh desire by people to be able to deliver materials that they're going to use to

2:48:32retire their lawns so i'm i'm i'm hoping we're making it easier for people to retire their lawns that's why i'm trying to figure out where this is and how it's worded again unfortunately i'm going to have to defer to our public works director on that one and compost is under public works

2:48:51which which public works is three pages which page isn't on uh it's on the last page it's it's a little bit below above uh it's it's towards the end of the of the third page i see fluorescence recycling and environmental resource center tour fee yep i see that one two three four five about six down

2:49:16from that is i see compost per cubic foot and that's a fee for for purchasing of compost or purchasing compost from the city right okay so so there was also a because i think um you mentioned compost and encroachment fees in the same sentence that i thought maybe

2:49:38this is for bulk delivery of compost for purposes of retiring lawns um what was the what what is the is there a fee for for using the street for say 24 hours or so to allow for the delivery of sand or building materials saint or compost is there such a fee for that type of use

2:50:06of the right-of-way we currently do not have a fee for that we do have a fee for storage in the public right-of-way and that's typically related to a container or some other type of temporary roll-offs or or the pods that are out there in the in the marketplace

2:50:24and those those are you know structures that are i would consider the structures but for example the mason who needs uh sand for the stucco the compost for the retiring lawn those those stockpiles that do have a water quality uh detrimental water quality potential

2:50:44um what is how are those because sometimes it's not safe to deliver those types of materials onto um onto onto the property based on grade i was just curious sorry i misheard the the summary and i heard encroachment and compost in the same sentence yeah we're not delivering compost for sure um but

2:51:05you can purchase it at the recycling center in terms of we don't issue permits right now for that those top types of stockpiles you are right that there are concerns about you know clean water and potential discharges into the storm drain system if if we do see a stockpile and we know

2:51:24there's an upcoming rain event then we will reach out to the contractor the property owner but we currently don't issue permits for that use okay great um one of the things that i wanted to and i'm not suggesting a change tonight but i'm suggesting that potentially at some

2:51:40point we do take this up and have a discussion about it our parking permits for uh homeowners that are near bart um we issue them the a parking pass that allows them to uh park on the street and it it seems to be quite a small fee seven dollars for a three year or seven

2:52:04dollars per year for up to a three year cycle so for 21 dollars they they get the right to park on the street and it's not that i don't think that they should have the right to park on the street i just think that the effort that we spend to protect their parking space through enforcement

2:52:24signs um and such may may be a greater value and so i'm not certain that they're compensating uh the city for the protection of their of their parking i also want to point out that it's kind of contrary to our transit oriented policies so we're now actually uh protecting people who are close to

2:52:47transit and their cars uh with this permit process so i'm i just would love to have us have a dialogue at some point about that parking process with their cars on the street because they took bart their cars on the street because they're using their driveway for uh compost so

2:53:04[Laughter] um so i i do wanna at some point and i do believe that there um potentially will be an opportunity for us to talk about the the value of parking um two years ago we did have a presentation on the value of parking uh street parking does have a real value

2:53:24and and we are required to have off street parking and that we are promoting uh on street parking in these areas um it potentially uh there's fluids that leak from the vehicles they're potentially blocking our ability to sweep and and pick up particulates that are contributing to

2:53:43water quality i i just think that we need to um revisit the protections that we're giving them in some way again not that i want to raise it up here but i is chris still in the house he is chris i i think i asked about this ten years ago when i was on park and rec um

2:54:08and it again it's i don't want to upset the apple cart because it's the way people have done it but i would love to see park and rec take up the um per player per season fee and potentially move towards a more flat time use fee that many cities are using so if you could please put that on

2:54:29on the park and rex agenda for for the next year so they could take that up in in some future um meeting and potentially come back with a more uh a rate an hourly use rate that potentially is more in line with other cities but also is more aligned with the um the resource that they're using

2:54:55whether it's two people using it or 20 people using it they're they're they're locking up a resource that the rest of the community is not using and and that that's something that should be taken into considerat with regards to the rates excuse me the play fields yep

2:55:13[Music] yep i thought there was a there are there's both there's both a the other way what was the way you're talking about wanting it to be we currently have a flat season rate and then we also have a per player rate and not a per hourly use rate so yeah yeah we can we will look into

2:55:37that further next you have per seat for per player per season we have um a rate of in here it's close it's close to 3 500 per season which is paid by either generally the soccer league or the baseball league and then they in addition they give us their enrollment numbers and we

2:56:00charge um in here 21 dollars per player per season and and i think the revenue is fair to the city you gave me a revenue calculation based on this year's model and i and but i would love to see it go to something else so that um so that it more directly ties to the use

2:56:22of the resource as much as possible and and then uh council member bridges uh talked about our our building permit fees and um i want to echo and and i would love either tonight or as part of our budgeting process that's coming up in next month for us to talk about putting aside

2:56:49the 15 or 20 000 that's necessary for us to to look at our building permits and and that during the budget process that we talk about the the policies that we've put in place to encourage improvements along san pablo avenue to to encourage new businesses and you know

2:57:15i look at some of these building fees and they might be prohibitive so i i would love to [Music] align our goals and missions and our permit fees better and i don't know if that's a i don't know if that's i don't know the the precise scope of that analysis um but i'm i

2:57:42yeah i believe that it's something that i would love to see uh you know presented to us as something we've got this new um uh specific plan for san pablo avenue and i'd like to see we all would love to see um you know that take action and take flight and so i would love to have our

2:58:03our building fees align with that that goal i don't know i i don't know if the city manager has any any thoughts that he would like to share on this team it's been a significant amount of time since we've done it's two israeli probably two pieces a cost allocation model and then

2:58:19a fee study and it's been uh a long time um i i can't speak to in any detail whether the fees are on or off i mean we have been trying to inflate them um based on the original study but um it's been as you know um choices right and it will be again next month it will be um

2:58:43so um it is something that is probably time to do it's just and it may be that our our fees are doing what they're what they were intended to do when they were set which is to recover the cost of of providing that service and it may be time for us to um take take a

2:59:06view of that policy and and it might be that we want to have our fees encourage growth or encourage repairs of our existing structures and encourage utilization of our existing structures and that might require us to not recover as much through our fee program and then there's a question if our fees

2:59:32are too high the compliance of people actually getting permits is going to go down so we have to look at that cost benefit analysis also right so that those all feed into that that discussion uh and and so i do want to um echo what council member bridges brought up with

2:59:49respect to the the fees and again i understand it can't be done for this cycle but it's something that i think it's time to start aligning our specific plan and the goals and the policies of our city with uh with our fee structure thank you um i have a question on the tennis court fees

3:00:14to rent a tennis court or reserve one what's on the el cerrito high school surcharge is that a in addition to the hourly fee or that's just the total that you would pay to reserve a court at el srito high school no that that would be in addition and and the reason is because

3:00:35uh with our current um agreement with the school district we're responsible for the maintenance of those courts and um eventually when it's time to do that resurfacing five courts when or five or six five courts when at the most we resurfaced three at the arlington it's gonna be

3:00:53yeah more money and are those courts only available to the public on weekends are they also available after school they're currently definitely available on weekends there are um we do try to work with the school to figure out what's their tennis their their male tennis program schedule it's their

3:01:15female tennis program schedule um we have been able to get people on there after four o'clock on some weekdays and did you have to go through the recreation department to arrange that or it's hit or miss how does that work well we people um to get a a permit and a and a

3:01:36reservation have to come to the right i understand yeah but just if you want to play without a reservation no the school as a practice does not lock those courts so just like all the tennis courts if nobody has a reservation anyone's more than welcome to to go on

3:01:50though go on there thank you any other questions i ask just a follow-up question so if um who gives out the reservations we do we do okay except for school use and so the school will let us know you know what times are off limits and then we'll block that out in

3:02:12our system and they kind of let you know once a year or once a week or however we tend we try to check in with them every season every you know spring and fall season okay thanks okay i'm going to open the public hearing now is there any public testimony tom panis

3:02:31please good evening mayor friedman members of the council and city staff my name is tom panis i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i'd like to remind all parties that several meetings ago during public comment i pointed out that most if not all volunteer organizations in this town

3:02:55are grossly out of compliance with the business license regulations at that time i suggested that a one-time amnesty and perhaps business life eat business license fee changes for volunteer organizations be considered thank you for your time thank you any other

3:03:13public testimony um have we considered that mr panos's suggestion have we considered changes in an amnesty program to the business license well and also of a different status for voluntary organizations um volunteering non-profits right yeah i don't know if our city attorney

3:03:40where would a non-profit i don't actually i don't actually know what the status of i'm sorry interrupt i just said i don't know what the status is of the business license tax applying to volunteer organizations mr pianos okay well can we take a look at this for the

3:04:05future we can always make an amendment to this fee schedule if we get a a course of action that uh seems rational thank you for bringing that to our attention i i guess i would love to know i mean the he was told mr penis was testifying that he was told is the minimum i'm looking

3:04:24through i know this isn't the values aren't the same but the categories are the same as what was handed out what is the minimum i mean i see circuses billiard tables pawn brokers i'm not certain that a non-profit would fit any of these categories so i'm just curious if

3:04:48if yeah i mean theoretically they have no employees so they wouldn't they would be 270 well two they would have been 270 354 in the in the previous year is that the idea you know i'm not sure that we have a specific minimum and i'm not i'm not um familiar with the information that that

3:05:13he was actually given so i'd be happy to look into it and get back to council with that information i don't know if you could check with a few neighboring cities maybe and see how they handle it and one one thing i would point out is there's such a thing as a non-profit

3:05:29and then there's such a thing as paid employees and there's such a thing as volunteers so i'm not even sure which of those things is being just talked about here all of them i mean if you had volunteers and there was no brick and mortar place right i i that's what i'm looking

3:05:50through this trying to figure out how a uh even though it's a 501c3 or or maybe it's not a 501c3 but it's a non-profit with no employees and no fixed mortar i don't see how it would fit into any of our categories so i look forward to getting a report back in the future thank you and the other

3:06:12thing is there may not be any money there to pay with because some organizations operate without money sure like that um i've been in some that do that so there's no more public testimony no i'm moved i'm not gonna move yeah i do i'm sorry i moved to close the public

3:06:33second moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously the public hearing is closed any additional questions or council deliberations no i will i will gladly move and hopefully i can keep track of what i'm moving i'm going to move a resolution of the

3:06:52city council of the city of el cerrito adopting revisions to the master fee schedule for fiscal year 2015 2016 incorporating the revised exhibit a section roman numeral v or roman numeral 5 or v for business license tax that was handed out this evening that implements the

3:07:17increase that was described in text of the agenda bill i believe that's the motion i'm looking for the city attorney i get a nod yes i'll take a nod nailed it okay and moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously we now move on to council local and

3:07:41regional liaison assignment reports if any i have one i was at the tree committee meeting on monday may 11th and um i'm pleased to announce that they have two potential new members as you remember they have to attend three meetings and one of them has was in attendance of the fourth meeting

3:08:01so that'll probably come to us soon um and what's even more incredible is that they all have credentials and forestry all right so that's really nice um so another extraordinary example of who our citizens are um and they were working on on that evening the el cerrito urban greening plan study

3:08:23session and they had a report from the city arborist and they had a look at the revised city tree list and that's all i have to report thank you any other reports yes um i attended a meeting last week for the west county integrated waste management authority we are interviewing an exec executive

3:08:45directors and we gave direction to our recruiter great okay with that we are adjourned thank you very much you