Regular City Council Meeting April 18, 2017

0:00:24i'm not on yet okay try now okay i haven't been away good evening everyone welcome to this meeting of the el cerrito city council uh thank you for joining us and we'll start out with uh the uh roll call please council member fidelity here council member lyman president

0:01:16councilmember pardua comodo present vice mayor quinto president and mayor abelson president thank you everyone's here thank you very much and with that we will do uh the pledge pledge of allegiance or observation of a moment of silence if you would care to join us

0:01:43i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all at this time we'll go to council and staff communications paul would you like to start yeah good evening everyone

0:02:17i was happy that my wife and i were able to go along with gabe quinto and a couple former mayors sandy potter and leticia moore to the rosie the riveter foundation dinner here in el cerrito at the mara vista country club it's a great regional historical asset i'm very proud to have been a part of

0:02:36going to that and contributing to that also i attended the city housing strategy workshop last week that was great the staff did a great job in pulling together a panel of housing experts and it was a full full room here of people looking forward to how we're going to grow planting that

0:02:54forward so that's what i have to say thank you yeah i would like to mention two things i don't see mr miller so i can't call him out and thank him but i did want to make sure that everyone got their stiege sanitary district notice of no sewer rate increase so i

0:03:16wanted to thank steve sanitary for that and also tonight on my way home uh bart is raising or is considering different rate models and they're taking comments on their rate models tonight actually from four to seven so we just missed our opportunity tonight at el cerrito del norte the last night

0:03:38is tomorrow at the pittsburgh bay point bart station however you can go on to their website at bart.gov fair survey as a way for you to comment on the affairs that they're anticipating thank you okay rachelle i'll pass it this time good evening uh a couple of things i

0:04:05wanted to mention this evening on april 8th i attended the 75th anniversary of the baton death march and it was held at the presidio and an event where originally there were over 60 000 soldiers that walked for many days to get to another location and many were killed

0:04:33they were honoring the few survivors that are left there were four soldiers that were um that attended and that are still alive uh one of them uh ends up being a friend of my parents and is staying here in el cerrito and assisted living so i'd like to congratulate uh

0:04:55mr ramon regalado uh for his service and uh for his many years and uh i know it's been uh many years too late but uh better late than never and i congratulate cecilia garillon of the baton legacy organization another event i attended again with my colleague paul fideli

0:05:21is the rosie the riveter trust dinner and it was great to attend that and i sat with sandy potter former mayor and her husband along with letitia moore and rich and jane barkey were there as well and a lot of el cerrito residents were there and it was a standing room only so i

0:05:42congratulate letitia moore and rich and jane barkey for another great fundraiser on friday i attended the good prayer good friday prayer breakfast at the uh cme methodist church in el cerrito and uh pat doramus here along with our police chief and many of our police officers so

0:06:07it was great to attend that and to see our community together on good friday that's all i had the only thing i would like to mention at this time is that i was up in lake county visiting my daughter and helping take care of the baby and on the way back i was taking a series of buses to get back

0:06:32here and the first one went okay and the second one never showed and the reason it didn't show is because there had been a once a mudslide on uh route 101 and uh it reminds me of what's the state legislature passed which is a measure that will provide some funding

0:06:55to help as they said so many times on tv fix our roads so i think the more you travel around the state the more you realize the dire situation and how it really does affect people it really does affect lives and it can be quite dangerous so anyway uh hopefully that will be some

0:07:19ready relief for not only state roads but local roads and also for transit so um i had a a little exercise and the value of that this weekend so um with that we will see if there any staff yes please um we have uh one from our retiring battalion chief or retired battalion

0:07:43chief mike bond wanted to say a few words so thank you madam mayor honourable council members i'm michael bond battalion chief fire marshal for the city of el cerrito i'm here tonight to thank you your predecessors the city manager scott hannon fire chief lance maples the late fire chief pete

0:08:05barraza who hired me back 26 years ago and especially the citizens of el cerrito for giving me the opportunity to be part of the el cerrito family for 26 years since being hired 26 years ago i have been honored and proud to say i'm an el cerrito firefighter but now it's time to pass the torch

0:08:29and let the new generation blaze the trail into the future with that i have the excitement and sadness of saying april 29 2017 will be my last duty day as an el cerrito firefighter and i will transition into a retirement life as i move into the new phase of life i

0:08:53will carry with me many great fond and not so fond of memories of my service with the el cerrito fire department memories of my first day in the firehouse being taught how to mop the floors how to clean the toilets and of course how to wash the fire engine the memories of meals family events and

0:09:17especially the sounds and the sounds of the tones going off alerting us to the emergency calls the calls to bring a new baby into the world resuscitating a man who was not breathing had no heartbeat dead on the floor to being up talking and refusing to go to the hospital

0:09:42recess rescuing a woman from a burning building falling through floors of burning buildings watching the evening news and hearing the teas two firefighters narrowly escape with their lives and while watching the news clip of the two firefighters coming off the roof

0:10:01with flames blowing over their heads seeing it was me and my firefighter from a fire earlier that day on the the time fighting the fire fire in a large commercial building and hearing a deafening crash and the sudden darkness realizing part of the building has collapsed behind me

0:10:23blocking my way out asking yourself am i going home thoughts my family will they be all right the many times of coming home and have my wife instantly ask me are you okay being able to read the shadows of the night in my face coming home and hugging the kids not

0:10:56wanting to let go until they say daddy you're being weird again none of this would have been possible without the unyielding support of my wife leslie my daughters kendall aaron and robin or without the sport and trust of the confidence the firefighter family and

0:11:16the support of the city council of el cerrito there is one story that i would like to share with you though and in a moment i think you'll understand the meaning of the story is 20 years ago or so i'm a relatively new captain on a cold windy christmas eve we are dispatched to a report from an

0:11:38assault victim we pull up and on the street corner sidewalk is a young woman blood streaming from her from her nose her mouth bruised face cuts all over her body we start doing medical treatment for and she starts screaming no no my daddy my daddy's inside he's dying

0:12:06going to the house and there on the floor laying in broken glass all over the floor in a pool of blood is her father two nasty gaping knife wounds in his chest in his belly the crew starts treatment i step into the living room to talk on the radio asking ordering up

0:12:34a medical helicopter and additional resources to help treat the two victims at the corner of my eye there's a movement i look there's nothing there except for a statue of a small boy in underwear maybe three years old i look again the small statue is shivering uncontrolled be in the corner

0:13:04i go pick him up start talking with him reassurance finally he gains my trust i gain his trust his name's elijah and we talk i take him in i get him dressed we come back out in the living room we're talking the crew's doing their thing and i'm trying to console the

0:13:34young the young child and the bad guy comes running through the living room knife in hand i shield the kid the bad guy bounces off me out into the yard and the police subdue him tackle him to the ground they tell elijah see look the police officers got him it's all right now

0:13:53everything is safe they put him into the back of the patrol car everything's safe they're going to take him to jail that's where bad people go we transport the father by helicopter to the hospital john muir the mother to the local hospital and i still have elijah in my arms

0:14:17waiting for child protective services to come and pick him up and while we're waiting there still the police officers are on scene i'm holding him we're talking as as much as we can trying to to make him comfortable and the call comes in or what we call a non-breather so the

0:14:39dispatch comes out and it's just right around the corner from where we're at what do i do what is right do i stay with elijah console him do i turn him over to the police officers and go respond and possibly help another person in dire need what is right well i go to hand elijah to the to the police

0:15:07officers and what did i just tell him earlier bad guys the police have got him they're putting him in their car he grabs my neck and is screaming no me good boy elijah good boy no no pull his arms from around my neck hand him off to the police officers and away we go

0:15:34to this day and for countless times i've asked myself what is right what is right in the line of my job am i doing what is right and you know to this day i cannot answer that question but i've tried to live my life and and provide the service to the citizens of

0:15:58el cerrito by doing what is right and i challenge you as city council members you've done an outstanding job your predecessors have but i challenge you to always look at what is right is it right for the citizens of el cerrito and you'll never have to question yourself

0:16:30and with that i would again would like to thank you and the citizens especially the citizens of el cerrito for allowing me the privilege and the honor of serving the city and providing the absolute best service i could provide throughout my 26 years of fire service

0:16:53thank you [Applause] mike i think since i've been on the council i have heard you speak at that podium many times and that was the most beautiful thing i've ever heard and i just want to thank you for it and for all of the years of service that you have given to our community

0:17:32and i hope you have a wonderful retirement with your wife and three daughters thank you so much i'll take this moment of silence or a moment in the in our agenda to say mike i've worked with you over the last eight nine years on several projects and you've always done fantastic work your

0:17:59photography is is really much valued and i really appreciate everything you've done for our city not knowing some of the stories you told tonight i certainly really greatly appreciate that what you've done for us over the last 26 years thank you very much thank you

0:18:17anybody else michelle i just wanted to say i don't know you very well but thank you for your service and part of your story that i could really identify with from being a nurse is coming home after a night that's really tragic and seeing life's tragedies and and going and waking your kids up in the

0:18:41middle of the night and hugging them just because so i i can appreciate that and i thank you for all that you've done because i can only imagine from some of the firefighting stories that i've heard what you've seen and i hope that you can have a peaceful retirement

0:18:59and thank you thank you and um i just uh it's a strange uh there's no transition to the next thing i was saying so please excuse me but i just wanted to remind everyone that saturday is earth day it's uh the quote real earth day and it's the day we're going to celebrate it

0:19:24in el cerrito so if anybody's interested in participating it's in the morning and we have a free lunch for everyone that comes for that and the um if you haven't already signed up for a work location then just come to the community center at 7007 moser lane which is the community center and

0:19:49we'll assign you a an activity to do for the morning and thank you in advance for doing so so with that i think we're ready to move on to public comment which is a opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not otherwise on the agenda that

0:20:11relate to the city and the um could we get a show of hands if you want to speak tonight i'm just trying to get a sense of how many speakers there are okay not all that many okay um so um if you wanted to speak uh you need to sign up with the city clerk by filling

0:20:35out a slip you would and she has some over here that you can get if you're interested so would you go like to go ahead then cheryl ann uh it's three minutes per person would you like to go ahead and start calling names sure we have four speaker slips and there's a speaker timer up on the podium

0:20:56right here and it'll turn green when you start and then go to yellow when you have one minute to wrap up and turn red when it's time to conclude and let the next person speak so our four speakers are cordell hindler followed by judith tanenbaum chris sterba and joe shelfo and

0:21:17before we get started we do have a new way of expressing our agreement and that is to go like this so if you agree with whoever happens to be speaking at that moment just uh you know shake your hands and um it's actually a very effective thing it tells us how many people agree

0:21:40you know and things like that so it's it's we'll we'll find out uh once again this is a i guess another test you might say so thank you and and please go ahead okay um good evening uh mayor abelson a council members audience i'm cardell handler richmond i do want to thank the poli the

0:22:00the fire captain uh for all his services so he went out with a blaze of glory pun intended so what i just passed around is um some flyers are for the new show called the lost years and it's a wonderful performance you will have to see it isn't remarkable and then what else um

0:22:18if you recall at the last meeting i did um i did look at some research online on on some of the retail space around around el cerrito i find them uh high uh meaning that um a retail space will run by like close to ten thousand dollars so next time i will bring the uh the the images so you can

0:22:38see i'll bring it uh next month uh so that's number two and then number three um i have um if you recall at that same meeting uh i did talk about how my niece was born at alto base and i'm i would we i'll do everything in what it takes to make sure that that hospital gets saved and then

0:22:54that's number three and then what else um i would just hopefully that um that at some point that i'm we're trying to like we're trying like we we do thankful that the city is very a sanctuary city because i feel good about coming to el cerrito so i'm thinking that this is a wonderful thing so i'm

0:23:11going to pass my time off to judith mayor abelson and city council members and staff and everyone who's here um there are many of us here tonight who are outraged at sheriff livingston's threat to back out of the contract to provide dispatch services to our city because of

0:23:36el cerrito's letter of opposition to the west county jail expansion and if that's how you feel you can stand with the others our human relations commission is holding a public event on april 29th that's basically about how to deal with bullies the timing couldn't be better

0:23:56since now all of us are facing the bullying actions of our trump-like sheriff i and all those standing behind me want to let you know we won't be bullied we're a small town up against a sheriff who has a contract with ice and who's aligned himself with jeff sessions

0:24:16we stand up to support rochelle park pardue okimoto for bringing the letter to the council to all of you for voting to send it on and for all your courageous uh recent votes and his supervisor john joya for his no vote on the jail expansion and for his steady work in support of our values

0:24:39we're going to do everything we can to support your action even if it means losing the contract and therefore the 750 000 the sheriff's using to threaten us we understand that you have a very long agenda to get through tonight so we hope that everyone here who is in

0:24:59sensed about the sheriff's threats will let my words stand as a token of all each of us wants to say about our opposition to the jail expansion our support of the position of cerritos taken and our fury at the sheriff who thinks he can intimidate us also just laird created a letter um kind

0:25:21of letter petition stating similar points that janaki just said 120 people have signed as of about a couple minutes ago 122 people have signed and raya gave copies to cheryl to give to all of you and that's online at change.org um that i can't read my handwriting to

0:25:38say what it's called um anyway know that we're committed as elsa ritans as contra costans as union members as voters as human beings we will work with you to let the sheriff know that we will stand up for our values and won't succumb to his bullying tactics thank you

0:26:02chris sterva and joe shelfo i didn't joe i don't know if you were going to speak for general comment or one of the other items good evening uh mayor abelson city council members hardworking city staff fellow residents and citizens my name is chris durba i'm the chair of

0:26:24the el cerrito arts and culture commission our current administration in washington has announced that it intends to eliminate all funding for the national endowment for the arts and the national endowment for the humanities on behalf of the other members of the arts

0:26:40commission i'm here tonight to ask the city council and mayor abelson to support our letter defending these two critical agencies i know that in light of the many difficult issues you face tonight this may seem like small potatoes maybe not a high priority and it's true arts funding is never

0:27:00going to solve unemployment or the problem of homelessness or the health care crisis arts funding can only do what it's always done support artists and organizations whose goal is to speak to the psyche and the spirit to the heart and soul of all of us there are hundreds of artists in el

0:27:19cerrito really thousands you ask where are they well on any weekday afternoon you'll see them coming out of their preschools carrying their artwork you'll see them carrying their musical instruments leaving harding and madera elementary schools koromatsu middle

0:27:37school and the high school you'll see them at night rehearsing at the allan dance in katie's dance studios or throwing clay on the pottery wheels that play with clay or getting their violins repaired at ichin you'll hear them tycho drumming and you really hear them

0:27:56at the open house senior center or singing in the choir at saint peter's church and other churches all through the city every one of us has been an artist or musician or creative writer at some point in our lives hopefully many of us still are the nea in the neh

0:28:16are for all of us they've helped and enhance and enrich our lives as artists and as audiences we cannot stand by idly while these two agencies are being scapegoated we cannot remain silent while they are at risk of being eliminated i just want to say also in two days dana

0:28:38joya former director of the national endowment for the arts will be speaking at our library he's also the state poet laureate so if people can attend but uh again i hope you the mayor and the city council would give our support to give their support to agenda item i the letter in support of

0:29:00the nea and aeh thank you thank you joe shelfo i would actually like to withdraw from speaking tonight but i'd like to congrat congratulate the fire chief for all of his uh well thank him for all of his service and congratulate him on his retirement thank you [Applause]

0:29:44i have no other speakers at this time um with that well then mayor abelson if i may over here yes sorry um just for this people who came regarding the contract with the sheriff i just wanted to clarify that it's not a threat it's he is not bringing the contract to the board of

0:30:02supervisors we've gotten written notice thank you um with that we will move on to item four which is adoption of the consent calendar items four a through four i four a is approval of minutes four b is the sexual assault awareness month proclamation c is the el cerrito kensington fire

0:30:32protection district community wildfire protection plan d is the on-call transportation engineer services agreement e is on-call building services agreements f is ilani greenway bart station area access safety and place making improvements project cooperative agreement

0:31:00g is the extension of the mayfair block exclusive negotiating rights agreement h is amendments to the city's classification plan i is the support for the national endowments for the arts and humanities is there a motion or i'd like to make a motion to accept adoption of the consent calendar

0:31:31item numbers four a through four l and i will second that f l l uh that's letter i i oh hi okay and i and i will second that with uh a you know a special call out to the el cerrito kensington fire protection district community wildlife fire protection plan uh for those of you that have not had an

0:31:54opportunity to review this this actually is a great document that we're approving tonight thank you okay there's a motion and a second i think we're ready to vote all in favor please say aye aye aye the opposition in the abstention motion cares unanimously and that motion

0:32:14was by quinto with the second by lyman um mayor abelson i'm i'm sorry i there was uh we just had one more speaker that i neglected to pull from the stack when we heard the other ones it said what a general comment okay so we can go back to that now then sorry it's um we don't have to redo the

0:32:36motion right no no howdy gowdy okay thank you flood some of the other speakers i i couldn't hear you at all i'm sorry i'm waving around he's waiting what he's waving at oh okay so so you will not give that comment okay thank you okay so with that we'll move on to item five presentations there are

0:33:05none and then we move on to the beginning of our major portion of our agenda with item six policy matters and the first one is the presentation and possible direction on marijuana regulation is there a staff report here we go we have one [Music] good evening mayor mayor abelson council

0:33:46members i'm sean moss senior planner um so tonight i'll be giving you a presentation and an update on um possible marijuana regulation in el cerrito um this is a process that was started last year there were some some changes to state law that necessitated some changes to the

0:34:12the city's ordinance um and then after that the the council directed staff to um start a process to alter the existing ban on marijuana businesses in el cerrito um and so that's that's sort of where we are we're continuing the process there have been um as you'll see later there's

0:34:29been some important changes in state law and so we thought it was a good time to come back to the council and just clarify some of the direction get additional direction um before we proceeded any farther so that's what we'll be doing so um an overview for an overview of my

0:34:45presentation i'll be giving you sort of a history of cannabis regulation in the united states some some basic information on cannabis and then i'll go through uh the our local process in el cerrito changes in state law and the process that we've gone through so far and where we are and then we'll

0:35:04i'll have some some questions to pose for the council to to provide direction on so in terms of the basics of cannabis marijuana and hemp are cultivars of the cannabis plant there are three subspecies or strains of cannabis sativa indica and reuteralis you may be familiar with this

0:35:30information you've probably heard of sativa and indica um reuter alice is actually a um sometimes called wild cannabis and it's a species that's native to to central russia and that that species particularly has typically has less thc and more cbd than other strains

0:35:48so there's cannabis contains 113 different cannabinoids hopefully i get the pronunciation rights um tetrahydrocannabinol which is otherwise known as thc and cannabidiol which is otherwise known as cbd it's a little bit odd as a as a planter to be to have a cbd abbreviation in your

0:36:11presentation that doesn't stand for central business district but that's where we are um so thc is the primary psychoactive component in cannabis um cbd is generally non-psychoactive it might it may have antipsychotic effects um oftentimes people uh with different medical conditions look um

0:36:34for cbd and cannabis um as providing relief from from symptoms of certain conditions so i'm going to go through as i was preparing this presentation i found actually the story of the history of of the regulation of cannabis in the united states to be a really fascinating story so i'm gonna

0:36:57i'm gonna tell you that story and walk you through it a little bit um mayor if if uh you find the story not as interesting as i did please feel free to to speed me along if you you know if you feel um that the presentation's dragging or anything like that um the primary i'll just say the primary

0:37:14one of the primary sources for uh the the timeline that i'm going to walk you through is was pbs frontline and with some information that i found on in that show and on their website and then i was able to verify all that information with other sources as well so hemp was cultivated widely in the

0:37:35united states beginning in the colonial period before our country's founding until and through the 19th century hemp fiber was utilized in the production of ropes and sales and clothing and other similar products and the early the earliest law in the united states related to cannabis

0:37:57is actually in 1619 the the colony of virginia the virginia assembly required all farmers to grow hemp and then fast forward much later to around the turn of the 20th century around 1910 um mexican immigration to the united states increased as a result of the mexican

0:38:23revolution uh people were fleeing that war and were displaced by that war um and marijuana at that time became to be associated with mexican immigrants and then a couple decades later during the great depression in particular resentment towards mexican immigrants

0:38:41increased because due to a perception that immigrants were taking jobs which were especially scarce at that time away from other people and it was at that time that marijuana started to be linked to violence and crime and actually in 1914 um the harrison act was passed and that was the first law

0:39:04that linked drugs to and criminality um so there were actually uh doctors that were prosecuted under that law for prescribing maintenance levels of drugs so those those doctors that were prosecuted under the harrison act actually became the first illegal drug dealers

0:39:24the federal bureau of narcotics which was the first federal agency specifically tasked with regulating narcotics was established in 1930 there i hadn't actually planned to talk uh that much on this slide but there was actually just last week a fabulous episode of the radio show on the media

0:39:43that went very in deep in depth into the history of the war on drugs in the united states so i would really encourage you all to listen to that it talked a lot about harry anslinger who was the first head of the the fbn and um he uh was someone who very much pushed

0:40:05for uh a linkage between or really much pushed for a linkage between marijuana and crime he um his position was where those two things were were very much linked he actually popularized the term marijuana before the 1930s the cannabis was known by a variety of other

0:40:26colloquial names but mr anslinger popularized the term marijuana because it was linked with mexican immigrants who were using the drug drug before then it was actually referred to a lot as indian hemp there's actually a um the international opium convention was a treaty of the league of nations

0:40:47and the united states pushed for a ban on on indian hemp in that treaty but there was some compromise language that was settled on instead so the fbn during this period did not rather than controlling marijuana through federal legislation encouraged states to adopt something called the

0:41:07uniform state narcotic act which did include prohibitions on on cannabis and then in 1937 as a result of advocacy by the uh congress passed the marijuana tax act you'll notice the different spelling of marijuana in that particular instance that that is correct um there were some

0:41:27different spellings at that time and that that's how the the title of that act was spelled um it's interesting uh to note uh new york city at this time new york city mayor fiorello laguardia was was an opponent of the marijuana tax act and actually appointed a commission which

0:41:43commissioned a report from the new york academy of medicine the contradiction the contradicted anslinger's position um and enslanger was able to suppress that the publication of that report until 1944.

0:41:57um also during this period sort of a for for us in modern times sort of a defining thing is uh that the uh the propaganda film reefer madness was released in 30 1936 that wasn't as as important a milestone back then um but you know it's something that that tends to um

0:42:15tends to characterize that era now so and also i'll just add you know interesting information about harry anslinger the the first head of the fbn that one of the authors interviewed on this radio show said that he's perhaps the most influential person you've ever heard of

0:42:41and also said that he was considered an extreme racist in the 1920s very much opposed to jazz music as a stand-in for other things the jazz age really was someone who destroyed billie holiday and had her handcuffed to her deathbed for her drug usage um so on a more uplifting note um

0:43:06during world war ii um things changed a little bit um there was a shortage of fiber needed to to produce cordage and parachutes and other military necessities and as a result the department of agriculture launched a hemp for victory program which encouraged farmers to

0:43:25plant hemp by actually distributing seeds to them and granting draft deferments to those who who grew hemp and in by 1943 american farmers had regis registered in the program had harvested 375 000 acres of hemp things started to change again in the 1950s the the boggs act

0:43:51and the narcotics control act were implemented um and those through those congress created mandatory minimum sentences for drug related offenses that was the sort of the first round of federal uh mandatory minimum sentences and then in the 1960s things began to

0:44:08change again uh as marijuana use grew amongst the counter culture in the upper and the white upper middle class there were reports commissioned by the by both presidents kennedy and johnson that found that that marijuana did not induce violence nor lead to use of heavier drugs

0:44:26and policy toward marijuana began to involve consideration of treatment as well as as well as criminal penalties at that time then at the end of the 1960s the marijuana tax act was found unconstitutional and in 1970 congress repealed most mandatory minimum drug sentences

0:44:55and uh just also another sort of cultural milestone the the magazine high times was founded in in 1974.

0:45:06in 1972 president nixon created the the schaefer commission which which determined that um medical that marijuana should be decriminalized but those recommendations were not implemented um although through the 1970s 11 states did decriminalize marijuana and then the

0:45:29drug enforcement agency was created in 1973.

0:45:35attitudes began again began to change towards the end of the 70s some parents groups began to lobby for stricter drug regulations and in 1986 as part of the war on drugs congress passed the anti-drug abuse act which again implemented mandatory minimum sentences

0:45:52and as crime declined through the 1990s again things began to change and in 1996 california voters passed the compassionate use act proposition 216 and between 1996 and 2010 14 states legalized medicinal use of marijuana in 2012 colorado and washington became the first states to legalize

0:46:14recreational use of marijuana by adults and in 2016 california voters passed the adult use of marijuana act proposition 64 which legalized adult use of recreational marijuana in our state so at the present time eight states have you have legalized the recreational use

0:46:32of marijuana 24 states have legalized uh the medici the medicinal use of marijuana and 12 states have legalized the use of non-psychoactive cannabis substances such as cbd oil so if you're counting that's 44 states in total that have legalized some form of cannabis

0:46:54in 2013 uh the obama justice department issued the coal memo which was a direction to federal prosecutors that highlighted enforcement priorities related to marijuana and sort of tied with that memo is also in 2014 congress adopted the rohrabacher far amendment

0:47:19which prohibited the justice department from using federal funds to enforce marijuana restrictions in states that had legalized medical marijuana the cur at this moment in time the current administration has signaled greater enforcement on recreational marijuana in particular

0:47:39um it seems to be i i have some i have the text of of a white house part of a white house press conference from a few weeks ago it seems to be that they're drawing some distinction between the use of medical marijuana versus recreational marijuana although there is um

0:48:00there are some sort of mixed messages coming out of the justice department versus the white house and things like that so that's where we are at the current time so in terms of the process in el cerrito uh this like as i said the state compassion it used to act passed in 1996

0:48:19in 2006 as a result of some state legislation that was passed near that time the el cerrito city council adopted a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries i think that was the time when that was the point in time when the state legislature clarified how medical marijuana dispensaries were

0:48:42going to work separate from patient collectives which was kind of what the compassionate use act envisioned so as a result uh the el cerrito city council banned medical marijuana dispensaries and then in january of 2016 um the city council amended the ban on dispensaries to include medical

0:49:02marijuana cultivation and delivery as a way to maintain the status quo in el cerrito due to some changes in state law that was that were in flux at the time so then in may of 2016 may of last year uh the city council discussed a proposal by a dispensary group uh who wished to

0:49:24operate a dispensary in el cerrito and in june of last year the council provided direction to staff to begin a process to review the existing ban on marijuana dispensaries and evaluate new regulations for marijuana businesses so to kick off that process uh we held a

0:49:45community meeting in september of last year uh to get feedback from the community and the public um regarding regulation of marijuana businesses some very very preliminary feedback which i'll get into in a moment in november of 2016 california voters as i said passed

0:50:05proposition 64 which did change the the regulatory landscape in our state um so that's that's worth noting just because because when we held the community meeting that act had not been uh that proposition had not been passed yet so that is it that is a change um so the community meeting was well

0:50:23attended um definitely a variety of viewpoints were were represented there was really good discussion uh people broke into smaller groups and and discussed some of these issues amongst their groups a lot of that information is summarized online we have a a web page set up on

0:50:40the city website uh related to this issue and a lot of that um a lot of that feedback is um is archived there so i i think that was linked it might have been linked in the agenda bill but i would encourage you all to look at that as well so participants provided a lot of

0:50:56comments on a lot of various topics including whether or not they favored reversing the existing ban on marijuana businesses whether deliveries should be allowed and how those deliveries should be regulated what should the standards for marijuana retail be in terms of land use should there be

0:51:16buffers from sensitive land uses and what what might be appropriate areas in our town for these types of businesses so just to summarize proposition 64 since it is new state law what the adult use of marijuana act requires and allows is in terms of personal use and cultivation

0:51:40it establishes the same limits on marijuana smoking as tobacco smoking so in for example in el cerrito the the smoke pollution prevention ordinance which the council passed regulating cigarette smoke and tobacco smoke also would apply to marijuana smoking no marijuana smoking is is permitted

0:52:00while driving or riding in a vehicle no marijuana smoking is permitted within a thousand feet of a school or daycare center or youth center and indoor cultivation of six plants per residence is permitted in terms of commercial sale production and cultivation um those activities are subject to local

0:52:23land use authority and police power so the the city council is very you're very much within your your right to establish regulations for those types of businesses they do also require a state permit so i like to think of it as a similar model to the the way we regulate alcohol sales

0:52:42alcohol sales require both a permit from the state alcohol beverage control abc and they're also subject to the city's land use regulations so you know the city gets to to say what areas are appropriate for bars or liquor stores or grocery stores that sell alcohol or those types of uses

0:53:03in terms of taxation there's a 15 percent state tax on all marijuana sales there is a by weight tax on on cultivation um i think i actually have the numbers i lost where i was in my notes but i have the numbers of what the what the by weight tax is if you're curious

0:53:29and cities can impose excise taxes or business taxes on marijuana through local ballot measures so that's similar to the business license taxes that we have now for businesses in el cerrito what some cities have done is created a separate category specifically for

0:53:48marijuana businesses which are typically taxed at a higher rate than than many of the city's other businesses and sanders standard sales tax applies on recreational marijuana it does not apply on medicinal marijuana purchases and there's actually some you might be

0:54:07familiar with some legislation that was announced recently to only require a doctor's a doctor's prescription or doctor's note to be considered america medical marijuana purchase so there is some flux right now with how this is actually going to get implemented whether or not you know

0:54:27because right now the county issues medical marijuana cards and right now you need to show that card for medical marijuana purchases so there might be some changes uh in the future on that but suffice to say that medical marijuana purchases are tax-exempt recreational

0:54:46marijuana purchases or not from sales tax anyway so questions for the city council the the first question is does the council wish to modify or end the ban on marijuana businesses that that's that's you know the the biggest broadest policy question that we have for you tonight and that's

0:55:06that's going to determine um how we move forward with everything else so um assuming that that the council does wish to do that um then i'll walk you through um from here how the rest of the presentation would go um so uh from here i'll give you sort of a preliminary framework of what you know

0:55:34staff's kind of very preliminary thinking about how what might be good ways to to regulate marijuana businesses and then i'll give you some other questions for council discussion and some next steps so the framework we've are envisioning is that marijuana retail

0:56:00might be allowed through a process that granted local operating permits to operators of marijuana businesses staff thought it might be prudent to establish a maximum of of two retail establishments that way there's not you're not creating a minority situation but for a city the size and population

0:56:22of el cerrito looking at uh the you know the number of establishments in other cities it seemed to be you know two establishments was was about proportional and limiting those businesses to the san pablo avenue specific plan area basically are our major commercial areas

0:56:39the the thought being that the neighborhood commercial areas like upper stockton upper fairmount are probably not appropriate due to their proximity to residential uses and single-family residential uses deliveries could be allowed with cashless transactions the the

0:56:57police department does have some concern about how deliveries are handled securely um and one of the ways to to address those concerns would be to make sure that there was no no large sums of cash where were actually changing hands during those deliveries or and that the um

0:57:14that the delivery vehicles weren't carrying large sums of cash around as they were making deliveries through inner city and then also similar to the tobacco retail ordinance uh buffers from sensitive land uses also might be appropriate and some and as i mentioned there are

0:57:32already some buffers built into prop 64 but some additional buffers might also be prudent in terms of personal cultivation um the you know the framework that we've set up here was to allow indoor cultivation under the auma as required without any sort of city permit or other the the

0:57:56city does have the ability under the auma to establish reasonable regulations on that indoor cultivation um but we thought um that the city council might not be interested in doing that and then also to continue to prohibit outdoor cultivation outdoor cultivation

0:58:15seems to have more more impacts associated with it in terms of a single-family residential neighborhood or some of our residential neighborhoods than than indoor cultivation does and then in terms of commercial cultivation and manufacturing that could be permitted as an accessory

0:58:34use only to uh to a retail use um to give some flexibility to those retail businesses if they did want to engage in these kinds of activities but the idea being that it would be small scale only that there would maybe be a a limit on the mac on the square footage

0:58:49of that type of activity or some other limit that would that would keep it at a small scale and medical laboratory testing uh could be allowed similarly to how we allow other light industrial uses so that's that's limited to some we don't have very many areas in our city

0:59:05that are that are uh really appropriate for light industrial uses we do have a few and we could limit that type of use to those areas similarly so questions for for council um on this framework uh are should uh marijuana retail be allowed in el cerrito and is the the

0:59:25model that i presented generally acceptable and is the model for pro for personal cultivation generally acceptable what i just presented um and then addition in addition to that should should commercial marijuana cultivation be allowed as an accessory use as i described and

0:59:43should uh the laboratory and testing uses be limited to to the allied industrial areas uh one very important question is is the council interested in implementing a local tax outside of the the standard sales tax that we would collect on recreational marijuana purchases

1:00:05that as i said would require a ballot measure and that's an important question because it it really has a lot of potential to affect the order of operations as we get into this process we we really have to think about what when when is it prudent um to uh have this ballot you know to have

1:00:22this measure on the ballot um within the timeline of the process and then this is uh just a question um for the council if there are any other any other considerations that we've uh not addressed that you might have uh things you might want us to think about as we

1:00:39embark on this process and in terms of next steps after this meeting we would hope to hold a second community meeting to hear input on the the proposed framework that the council gives input on tonight and um then with that feedback from the council and the public staff would create a

1:01:03draft ordinance and then that what i did leave off of here is that the ordinance would likely go to the planning commission for a recommendation because there are a lot of land use issues involved uh and then we would come back to the city council first for a study session

1:01:17on on that draft ordinance with the goal of the ordinance being adopted before the end of the calendar year so that concludes my presentation i'm happy to go back to any portions of the presentation i know there were a lot of questions in there for discussion so if

1:01:34you'd like me to put up any of the previous slides i'm happy to go back to anything you that you want there any anything from anyone i'm not not seeing any i've got questions you've got a question okay yeah i've got questions um uh starting with the last thing you had the

1:01:58ballot measure what what type of ballot measure is that prop 24218 is that a simple majority yes it is prop 2810 ballot measure um and can you explain why you are recommending accessoryg grow at all um what what is the who what type of business would need to do that and how would they do that

1:02:17because we currently prohibit commercial uh cultivation and this seems like that would undo our our ban on commercial cultivation we do um and that's you know if if the council would prefer to ban uh all cultivation um you know we can definitely move down that road um the

1:02:36thought just being that if the state you know licenses small-scale cultivation for retail establishments that want to grow their own product produce their own products um that we might want to allow that like i said as an accessory use so on a small scale basis but so in in

1:02:54essence it would be you know something in store that would be i mean i'm just trying to figure out who would do it as a quote-unquote accessory is burger king going to do it as an accessory no uh the idea being that it would be marijuana retail establishments that

1:03:11might want to do this as an accessory use okay it would be limited to those types of businesses and that was the idea during the specific plan people asked for like micro industries so like micro brew yeah my name is melanie manson i'm the city's community development director during

1:03:29the specific plan process uh there was a lot of public comment about allowing many light manufacturing like butchers you know so the kind of micro industry and so the thought was like with medicinal tinctures and medicines that there are people who want to produce that

1:03:47but that wouldn't necessarily be a commercial grow facility it would be more of a processing facility is that correct and potentially an accessory to that got it um can you can you define interior use is is a greenhouse considered indoor growing yes under the auma a greenhouse is is considered

1:04:08yes would you would be allowed to grow those six plants in a greenhouse and how robust is a greenhouse is it wooden structure with plastic film around it i think that that's probably a matter of interpretation of the of the act um and you know we probably have some

1:04:24leeway to interpret it you recommend that we should not regulate interior uh grow grow operations is there a reason just the complexity of in or can we regulate or permit or cause permit fees for interior grow we could it you know would require some staff resources obviously i i don't have a

1:04:48sense at this time of how many people would be interested in in growing plants in their homes um so i don't you know i don't know what type of you know if we were to do inspections for example i don't know what type of uh you know what type of volume we're talking about and what staff would be

1:05:08needed for that so the police department i think also had some some concerns about enforcement of that so we thought it more prudent to stay out of it we currently do not allow delivery in our town and that was done preemptively to make sure that there would be no delivery licenses issued for

1:05:27our town if we were to change that and allow for even if it's cashless deliveries wouldn't that allow for any type of uh dispensary to deliver to el cerrito uh we could do either way so we could limit it to only only marijuana retail businesses that were located in el cerrito

1:05:53or we could allow any businesses located in any other cities to deliver in our city and and if because the delivery is not just about cash they could be potentially hauling many many thousands of dollars worth of product so it it seems that delivery is still a risky

1:06:11proposition for violence and crime because of the product that's on board the delivery vehicle that yeah that could be the case and the police chief might be able to speak more into that so if we were to continue with our current delivery ban in place that even even a cashless transaction would

1:06:31be prohibited correct under under the existing prohibition great um and your your schedule is to propose for another uh workshop do you have any model ordinances that we might rely on that could be distributed prior to that workshop so people could actually sink their teeth into subject text

1:06:57somebody else is not ours you know yeah um the city of san leandro has an ordinance uh with where they um they have established a similar operating type permit um for these types of businesses they've actually expanded there they've amended their ordinance twice i think to expand their

1:07:17cap on on marijuana businesses um but they they do probably have one of the better model ordinances for the operating permit type regulatory structure okay great uh thank you that's all my questions at this one paul did you have any questions i had a couple questions and will we

1:07:36have the ability to discuss later just a statement okay because i know the staff wanted just our general input my two questions before i make a comment generally about how i feel about this is the concern about inside cultivation um i've read a lot of concern about

1:07:52electrical overload and mold in houses that could be of concern to el cerrito residents in the fire departments and that there is some discussion about seeking the authority to to look into the houses to make sure there isn't more than the six per residence are you considering

1:08:10recommending issues on that have you had any concerns about that we could definitely do that as i said the the the council is allowed to uh establish reasonable regulations on the six plants the growing of the six plants that you're allowed to grow under the auma

1:08:26it's six plants per household um not per person um that's that's an interesting to note um um yeah so if you know if the council wanted to give us that direction that's we would proceed in that with in that way um also on the taxation front which is a whole nother complicated

1:08:46level of issues is there an ability if we do decide to tax and then to go to the voters for a vote dedicate the money that we might get to certain issues to certain programs that we might care about to educate youth youth programs other things that we might need to do

1:09:08i'm going to defer to the city attorney and the city manager on that if the use of the revenue is legally restricted to specified purposes it changes it from a general tax to a special tax which requires two-thirds voter approval and decreases the chances of passage as

1:09:23a result so there needs to be a nexus no it's just that if it's if it if there's no legal restriction on the revenue then under the state constitution only a simple majority vote is required for approval but if the uses are legally restricted to specified ones then that

1:09:42changes the vote threshold from a simple majority to two-thirds okay the other thing i would add to that is if you prevailed and got a two-thirds majority and at some point for some reason you wanted to use that money for something else you would have to go back to the voters

1:09:57get approval to move it so it ties your hands in a way and as far as outside cultivation um some cities are thinking about just that it's not visible to to other neighborhoods our major concern is smell aroma yeah people do complain about the smell i understand that that when the police

1:10:18department receives complaints uh about these things a lot of times it's because of the smell because the plants are outdoors so the greenhouse could be an alternative if there's a not an in-house need to grow correct and just to be clear we we don't have to permit outdoor

1:10:35cultivation but it would be the most logical place for people to grow wouldn't it i i i without those electrical and mold issues within the houses uh it it could be i i don't know enough about uh about cultivation to comment on that um that's it for now i'll make some

1:10:56comments later thank you michelle has the city looked into large-scale cultivation and the potential revenue from that a little bit yeah the the thought was that that el cerrito likely doesn't have areas that are that are appropriate for that type of use buildings that are

1:11:16large enough to really uh that you know industry buildings in our light industrial areas that are really large enough to accommodate that type of use there are also some concerns about you know obviously the the council adopted the san pablo avenue specific plan and is really eager to see growth

1:11:36and development and activity on san pablo avenue so those types of uses don't attract a lot of activity um they you know they sometimes take uh buildings uh that would otherwise be active and and you know close them off for this type of industrial use so um you know those are some of the

1:11:52constraints there thank you no question okay um i have a question that's a little bit different shortly after the measure passed on our november ballot i went to a training provided by the league of california cities uh and uh as they were doing the training um it was sort of interesting there was

1:12:17a bunch of lawyers sitting around me including the league's lawyers and they were kept making notes and discussing them in the entire group about things that needed to be changed in state law regarding the new law that had just passed and i was wondering if you had taken

1:12:41into consideration any information that might be obtained from the league of california cities about that process about the process of of amending proposition 64. right um well i i know that the league has been active uh recently in some of the i talked briefly about some of the

1:13:05legislative changes that are proposed regarding medical marijuana sales and whether or not you need a card for those sales i know the league has been very active in that the thought being that that making it easier for people to purchase medical marijuana which is exempt from sales tax

1:13:25um is you know going to sort of create a loophole through you know for people to avoid sales tax on their purchases but the the proposition itself being being something that was enacted by the voters i i believe can only be amended by the voters i hear what you're saying i just know

1:13:47what they were saying yeah if i could just add one point i mean it may well be the case that other parts of state law need to be amended to be reconciled um with prop 64 but overall um the state continues to emphasize to everyone including to the league that they anticipate being able

1:14:06to begin issuing licenses in january of 2018 which doesn't necessarily mean that we need to take any action by that point in time but it does mean that whatever other state law changes need to be made the state anticipates being that those will have been made or won't be necessary

1:14:23to be made prior to them beginning to issue licenses which will be in january of 2018.

1:14:30okay greg yeah sorry i i did find another question on my sheet here in one of your slides you talk about buffers from sensitive land uses can clearly the am you have already has some buffers in it what were some of the buffers that you were looking to to impose and

1:14:52do those buffers allow for any areas in the san pablo avenue specific plan area to be even do we end up with any functional locations well we anticipate that we would model different buffer scenarios if if that's the direction that the council wants to move in so you know we can we can model i mean

1:15:12we have the ability to model just about any buffer from any particular land use but looking at the model of the tobacco retail or tobacco retail license ordinance there are buffers created between tobacco retail establishments so we could create that buffer between

1:15:29marijuana retail establishments there are also buffers from from parks with the the notable exception of the ohlone greenway because a buffer from the ohlone greenway would encompass most of san pablo avenue depending on how big a buffer it is um so that's you know that's something that

1:15:47could also be considered and uh my last question is uh is there any consideration i mean if we were to move down this way is there any consideration to limiting it to medical marijuana i mean i know i know that there is you know recreational marijuana is now out there but

1:16:04is there is there would we be able to [Music] limit it to medical marijuana or is the or is the new law written in such a way that once you allow a dispensary it can dispense whatever it wants well uh i mean my feeling is that under under the the auma and under the new regulatory

1:16:25structure that's that's set up most of the the existing medical marijuana dispensaries are going to convert to at least partially selling recreational marijuana as well so i'm not sure how many businesses will be left in the state that that only sell medical marijuana um but i believe

1:16:45that we would be with the council would be within your authority to um you know to only allow medical marijuana dispensaries if that's what you wish to do okay great thank you okay any ques have we gone through the questions okay um so is this a an appropriate time to ask

1:17:05for any questions from the audience i think it is isn't it we we have about we have about seven slips that were submitted why don't we do those at this time okay um i'm gonna call them by in groups of three so cordell hindler followed by delfina fung and jean noodleman

1:17:28so good evening again council and um audience i when i when i saw this presentation on in the agenda packet last week i find it you know um hard to digest so um because if you recall when the medical group came last year oh i had some i had some correspondence from the the surrounding

1:17:47areas you know i spoken with the former president of richmond heights and they they said they didn't have no problems with the medical dispensary uh they didn't have no problem so so that was just one eye good idea but then the second idea i had spoken with um the president of the annex association

1:18:03um they had some concerns uh regarding the the medical marijuana um dispensaries they had some concerns so so the feedback i got from them they were like they were like one side was was okay and then the other one was not too thrilled so i'm thinking that this is something that um

1:18:21this is an idea because we need the we need a marijuana in our in our in our cities because we have a lot of people that are like dying uh that mean they need something that'll keep them like you know healthy but uh but if you don't have the marijuana the marijuana they might die

1:18:36so i'm thinking this is something that um that we needed something to invest in so that's all i have to say i'm going to pass it on to delfina evening council and mayor i'm here to share with the fellow citizens about my concerns of the marijuana laws so according to the letter i send you

1:19:02under federal laws is still illegal to grow use and disseminate marijuana and also marijuana causes poor motor and cognitive skills and respiratory and mental illnesses so because of these reasons we should ban all marijuana dispensaries we should ban all outdoor marijuana growth

1:19:25and we should ban all marijuana growth sale and use within a 10 block radius of schools and because of the proposition 64 we may have no choice but to allow indoor growth but within that we should regulate that and to regulate it means that the city inspector should go to

1:19:42these premises check on the safety health and fire issues and the neighbors should have a venue to voice their concern and objection and the neighbor should be consulted before a permit is issued and criminal background should be checked on this permit applicant and

1:20:00these permit applicants should be charged by each plant that they plan to grow like a thousand dollars or more per plant so hopefully they will not grow at all and then each year they should be required to apply to renew the permit and reinspection of these properties

1:20:17shall be conducted and civil and criminal codes should be enacted to punish these people for violation of these codes and through my research i understand the city is proposing the dispensaries because try to build a new library i think if we want a new library

1:20:33we should look for a potential site contact those owners and ask them to donate those properties because it will be a text right off to them and if they want we can name part of the facility under their name instead of allowing dispensaries we should actually encourage big businesses such as safeway

1:20:51to move their headquarters from oakland to our cerrito and also encourage big businesses such as triple a to open an office in our city so that we'll be up uplifting our integrity rather than bring it further down so thanks for your time and listen to my message

1:21:10thank you gene needleman is followed by joshua kirby and jenny lee good evening mayor abelson city council members and fellow el cerita residents i'm a homeowner in el cerrito as are my sister and mother and i represent the perspectives of three longtime cerrito

1:21:31households we are opposed to the development of marijuana businesses in el cerrito and i'd like to discuss our thinking we urge the city council not to move forward with the developing plans for marijuana stores or dispensaries i noted in looking at the materials that the

1:21:46city staff notes indicate mixed views on the topic and while i was unable to attend the last meeting as i read the comments the vast majority seemed to me to be opposed due to the impact and concerns about security and the lack of fit with the nature of this small town

1:22:01i work in downtown oakland and i pass marijuana dispensaries daily every day i see the clientele who frequent the dispensaries and the security guards who stand outside all day long into the evening i don't think that this is the environment that we should be creating in the small town

1:22:17of el cerrito we need robust diversified economic development in the san pablo corridor and while i strongly feel the development is needed and i've been very concerned by the persistence of vacant stores el cerrito city staff have not shown me anyway how this proposed change

1:22:33in current el cerrito law would further the city's strategic plan for judicious and strategic economic development in el cerrito so i asked myself what does ulcerata want to be known for and whom do we wish to attract there are many new families moving to el cerrito do they have easy

1:22:47access to the goods and services that they need and want there are very few gathering places or cafes local clothing stores stores for household products independent bookstores we need a new library i strongly support the statement earlier we clearly need a new library that is well thought out on

1:23:04all the different issues to meet the needs of el cerrita youth and families so for these reasons i urge the ulcerative city council to maintain your current policies for prohibiting the establishment of stores or dispensaries while supporting continued progressive

1:23:17development that's sustainable and is friendly to transit bicycle and walkable communities while the potential for tax revenue is no doubt attractive i think the revenues would not necessarily cover the full costs to the community if you look at the entire social impact thank you very

1:23:32much for your attention joshua kirby followed by jenny lee and lydia zane good evening my name is josh kirby i'm currently a resident of benicia california and the co-founder of kinslips kinslips is a manufacturing firm based out of oakland california that provides

1:23:51cannabis-infused sublingual strips to patients and caregivers in the medical market i'd first like to commend the city of el cerrito on taking this momentum momentous first step towards creating a licensing scheme for cannabis businesses in your community you're

1:24:05setting an important example for the rest of contra cause contra costa county still getting used to that and looking ahead to allow the residents of your city to benefit from the economic opportunities created by legalizing cannabis in california so kudos however the proposed regulations

1:24:20currently under consideration only allow manufacturing if it is vertically integrated with a retail license and not as a standalone business and by manufacturing i don't mean cultivation i mean like edible production and stuff like that more like light scale manufacturing

1:24:36i would encourage you to rethink the strategy because i believe that manufacturing businesses like mine are the ideal types of cannabis businesses to attract to el cerrito for several reasons first manufacturers are not consumer facing and do not advertise their location to the public meaning

1:24:50that the addition of these businesses poses little risk to the health and safety of the community and they are unlikely to increase crime in the area secondly manufacturers generate revenue from all across the state but pay taxes on that revenue locally creating the potential for an economic

1:25:05windfall for the city in the event that the local business produces a well-known and successful cannabis brand or product and finally cannabis manufacturing is a labor-intensive business which means more well-paying jobs inside of the community in addition to encouraging the council

1:25:20to include standalone cannabis manufacturers such as kinslips in your new regulations i would also like to volunteer the expertise of myself and my partners to assist el cerrito as it evaluates its regulatory options in the hopes that we might ultimately relocate

1:25:34our business to your city thank you very much jenny lee followed by lydia zane and olivia lyon good evening um mayor eberson and all councilmen and all my fellow residents here and i'm glad to uh have an opportunity to say something here i moved to el cerrido city a couple

1:26:01years ago and i have been so blessed by this wonderful city and uh often we already attend a lot of different uh house party opening open houses and uh and we also partner with a local church to even host two years straight um national night out and and during that

1:26:20time and i have a chance to uh meet with um mayor abelson at that time i'm so glad that we have some personal uh conversation and exchange of ideas so i just want to thank you for all the councilman and keeping up the city in such a good shape and i'm just take

1:26:35pride in in this city um so by by saying that um it is also my privilege and my obligation to serve this city and also look out for the best interest for the city and we myself and along with all my fellow residents and and neighbors we are here to speak again to have any type of

1:26:58marijuana dispensary in el cerrito city we do not want any marijuana actually in our city which is actually sched which is a schedule one drugs that is classified by dae and by definition schedule one drug is illegal because they have a high abuse potential no medical use and severe safety

1:27:20concerns it is actually being listed it's the same category with heroin cocaine as well as lsd so we do not want this to be dispensed in our city through our city and from our city as a clinical pharmacist and i have been practicing in pain and addiction medicine for the past 17 years

1:27:41i will recognize there will be a small subset of patients who would stand by the medical marijuana use for medical benefits but i also personally witnessed many patients who are currently struggling ongoing addiction and opioid dependence they also have a very long history of marijuana use

1:28:04so therefore as parents as teachers and mentors to our younger generations we could not afford to open up this gateway and indeed a very big floodgate to allow marijuana dispensary in our city i urge mayor abelson and other councilmen to continue guarding our gateway to keep up our elsarito city

1:28:28to be a safe healthy and a drug free city thank you for attention mayor and council people and everyone here people of el cebrida my name is lydia zane and i am also a homeowner here in the city i mean in el cerrito i work in san francisco specifically in the civic center area otherwise known as

1:28:58the tenderloin and i have been working there for 27 years so during this time i have seen dispensaries that have popped up on 9th street in various streets and i can i can actually say that i see more abuse than use medical marijuana is valid it's a valid use but the way that i understood it it's a

1:29:27pill it's not something that you smoke you don't get grades from it you don't it's not a um it's it seems to me from what i've witnessed all these years that it's a recreation it's it's a recreational drug that is operating under the guise of being medicinal now i

1:29:51come by this viewpoint much to a surprise myself to oppose any kind of dispensary or anything having to do with dispensing marijuana in el cerrito i i feel it's a great gateway drug and it's based in part on my own personal experience i'm from hawaii i'm an asian pacific islander from a

1:30:21type of group that is known to have abuses with alcohol and drugs and i've seen it in my community i lived in the haight ashbury i grew up in san francisco partway in the 1960s i lived in berkeley when i went to the university there and i came running to el cerrito after many years it seemed a

1:30:45little strange for me to be in a community that was dedicated to sobriety and also didn't have a lot of druggy people everywhere but i sort of got used to it and i liked it and i like that quality of el cerrito i would like to say that in my observations i have noticed that there's a vulnerable

1:31:08population of students here in el cerrito we have a lot of schools here a lot of young people here and i feel that to have a recreational facility would just be too much of an enticement it it would not be the kind of positive image family friendly image that we have

1:31:30here i feel the same way about places that sell tobacco and also about liquor stores that are too close to schools so that's another one of my concerns um i feel that to have these recreational facilities would not it would please show more of a failure to thrive it

1:31:53would it would be difficult for the younger people and also for myself but i'm not ruling out the medical value of this herb or of other herbal type of medicines that we have i'm sure that the pharmacist knows that there are many valuable herbs that on which our medicines are based but i

1:32:16do feel that in this case if you could wrap up okay i feel that in this case it's it's very important to uh for me to step forward and to oppose this uh proposal thank you olivia lyon followed by mark friedman and catherine meehan hi there when we talk about el cerrito what do we

1:32:47see i grew up in el cerrito i went to the junior high i went to the high school then i went to cal berkeley and i got my graduate school degree from our state when i came back i liked the change el cerrito had become so much better than before just drive by and look at el cerro high

1:33:06quite amazing now we have one high school one middle school and three elementary schools i had talked to these parents 95 of these parents whom i talked to say no to marijuana in coming to a city and for the people who smoke marijuana they really don't care where because now you

1:33:29can get it anywhere you can drive five minutes to seven stars and you can get your marijuana there and so it's very accessible for people so why do we need marijuana in el cerrito is it because of money and what image do we have in el cerrito now marijuana is the second cause of

1:33:51fatal car crashes after alcohol in california the percentage of drivers who died in fatal car crashes that were tested positive for marijuana the number was nine percent in 2005.

1:34:04in 2014 it jumped to 16.5 percent now this is the number before the voting after california began selling in january next year what would the numbers be who will be responsible of the numbers and we might say well we don't know well look at somebody who did look at

1:34:26two states colorado and washington they passed their marijuana in 2016 uh 2012 i'm sorry then in may 2016 the washington times reported just four years after 2012 10 of the drivers involved in fatal crash crashes were tested positive for marijuana and the percentage drivers who had used

1:34:49marijuana within hours of a crash double between year 2013 and 14. this is according to triple a foundation for traffic safety so these are the facts they have seen it if we welcome it we will see it too and um and also if we see the news colorado is having problems with it they have new illnesses

1:35:13that they discover when people use marijuana because now it's more widespread than before so this is a new thing to our country may we say but history has demonstrated what drug can do to people when opium came to china we knew what happened to the people in china

1:35:32and led to the opium war we learned about it in history so what do we want in el cerrito what is our responsibility in the city what what are we to say to our children that would come after us what is our responsibility to that but please thank you and i plead to the council

1:35:52members that you will not have this i call him mr mr m for marijuana i like eminem but i don't like mr m so i pray that you will not allow it to come to our city thank you [Applause] after the this speaker how many do we have we have uh four speakers including former mayor friedman okay so let's

1:36:20let's cut it off after the four because i think somehow our number is growing and growing um welcome formula welcome good to see you all again uh and i'm glad to have the opportunity to speak as a citizen on this important issue and i want to commend city staff

1:36:37for all the research and work that's been done since we last discussed this item when i was on council i think a tremendous amount of progress has been made and the complexities of the issue have been well examined and i think the framework that's presented presents some

1:36:56clear choices for the council to move forward in 1996 the el cerrito voters overwhelmingly voted for medical marijuana and in 2016 well over 70 percent of el cerito citizens voted in favor of proposition 64 to legalize adult use of marijuana here in town we have 25 to 30 outlets

1:37:19that sell alcohol marijuana is a much less addictive and dangerous drug and a number of outlets as we've heard about that dispense opiates which are much more addictive and dangerous than marijuana and not to mention cigarettes tobacco that it is not the job of government to

1:37:39police what people are going to do so i do not believe in prohibition and i think it's failed every time it's been attempted either for alcohol or drugs i don't consider marijuana to be dangerous i don't consider it to be necessarily something that we should look down upon

1:38:00our community for permitting because nobody here said anything about the alcohol outlets opiate outlets and other dangerous drugs i think one or two outlets is enough for a town our size i don't want us to become oakster damn north and i have that define our community our community is defined as

1:38:21many of the speakers said by our parks our schools our recreation our streets our beauty the our trees our hills and marijuana will not define us not by adding one or two opportunities for people to make a personal choice either for medical reasons or recreational reasons

1:38:43to use marijuana so i urge you to move with some speed for a variety of reasons one we've been examining this issue for about a year and a half two there's financial considerations for moving with some speed and take advantage of the opportunity presented us in the marketplace we're losing

1:39:04revenue to other cities by not allowing this very accepted use by our citizens here in town so i think you have some decisions in front of you and i welcome hearing your direction to staff tonight and look forward to when we have a reasonable amount of availability of marijuana for

1:39:27those citizens who choose to use it thank you very much catherine meehan followed by miguel espino and nathan declaw hello um i didn't want to comment on whether or not marijuana should be in this community but i did want to comment on something i saw absent from the

1:39:53presentation and any that i don't think should be absent from any discussion of regulation of marijuana which is the words fair trade i think we're in a unique position if any marijuana does get adapted whether it's delivery or cultivation or any form in introducing a fair trade standard

1:40:14that is a little too weight in other industries like the cocoa industry where a lot of big names are playing catch-up and i don't think they'll ever fully be in what do you call it following the law in regards to fair trade and being against slave labor in particular and unfair

1:40:35wages so i do hope from now on that any discussion on regulation includes includes that phrase thank you thank you good evening um i'm a resident of el cerrito and i wasn't going to talk about the marijuana but there was a comment that was made in the report that i am taking issue with

1:41:05and that is historical traces [Music] first of all cannabis is something that's grown worldwide i've seen it in other countries outside of the western hemisphere and it's used for a whole lot of different reasons aside from recreational the only place i know recreational have been in the

1:41:27states in other places among other groups of people it's been used medicinally and one of the things about that is that it's not a specifically a mexican product as i see here and i kind of see this part of this report sort of underlining the trumpism that exists right now with the issue of

1:41:49trying to get this particular group of people out of the country and restrictions and the kind of things that go along with that the other thing is that i personally i i personally am a user and i'm a user because of this i have a failing disease of which you would i cannot use any kind

1:42:12of medicine it's either you know given over-the-counter or any kind of a narcotic so cannabis allows for me to relieve my pain from the severe stenosis and the issues my kidneys so for someone to say no you can't use it or you can have access to it is really interfering with my

1:42:36reason for living and shortening my life or threatening to shorten my life and not having access to it and i'm not going to be gallivanting around the state in the world looking for what i need so that i can live one extra day thank you nathan declaw um and chris gray

1:43:01hi hi everybody my name is nathan i go by spike pretty easy to recognize for anyone who's seen me before um i really had no idea there was uh so much opposition to marijuana use in our city here i remember reading an article recently that said that we were one of

1:43:16the top 10 most progressive cities in the country and this uh doesn't exactly feel progressive to me schedule one for marijuana as really should be pretty well known as a miscategorization there's very little evidence that marijuana is uh habit forming other than just in the way that

1:43:32uh collecting bottle caps is habit forming uh there's also very little evidence for it to be a gateway drug to anything other than you know the common jokos chips and sodas we've had 20 years to see how safe dispensary storefronts can be and really the the risk exists in

1:43:50stigmatizing it to make it illegal to make it unfavorable uh to make it so that the banks can't accept their money this is where the danger comes in it's not because marijuana is dangerous it's because we make it dangerous i'm a person who uses marijuana i suffer

1:44:06from anxiety depression some other longer terms and after going through a bunch of different medications a lot of therapy and a lot of really uncomfortable really unpleasant times i have come to realize that marijuana is by far the best solution that i have available to me

1:44:22it's easy it's effective i can take exact doses that i want to and i don't ever feel overwhelmed by my medication or that i really desperately need it it's it's very much easier to deal with than most of the medication i've ever tried uh the nhtsa in a 20-month study of 10

1:44:40858 drivers said that marijuana poses and i'm quoting no significant increased risk of crash involvement due to the use of marijuana we all know that alcohol prohibition was not effective people will use we definitely don't need to make criminals out of people who are going to

1:44:57do something on their own whether we tell them to or not and i certainly think we don't need to stigmatize them any further as well thank you for your time so i have no other request to speak for this item okay thank you um you have one more he's the last speaker i'm sorry yes

1:45:20thank you uh council and mayor my name is chris gray i wasn't planning on speaking either tonight i think many of us read the agenda that this was just a staff report and to get some direction from council that it wasn't a work session or a community hearing on the

1:45:34issue so i think a lot of people didn't step forward i did want to clarify a couple points though from the presentation first i want to thank staff i think they did a good job especially on the history of the issue um i think one of the things that we have to all

1:45:52realize is right now the people in el cerrito are do have access to the marijuana they are going to berkeley and richmond oakland up places around it's very convenient it is being delivered in el cerrito what we don't have because those dispensaries are delivering to el

1:46:09cerrito if you phone them up what we don't have is we don't have any regulations we don't have any control by the city of el cerrito because we don't have an ordinance and we don't or we're not taking advantage of the benefits so we have the impacts and the people are using it but the city

1:46:25hasn't stepped in to give any guidance and we haven't been able to get compensated for any of those effects so i think there's an opportunity there and i think the city council should take a look at that i also think that you should look at that the voters voted overwhelmingly for

1:46:40each time especially here in el cerrito and that there is a need a medical need for it and you can limit it to just medical use if you choose and so those patients now have to leave the city to get a drug that's legal and the revenue from those drug purchases go to the

1:46:57other communities and the benefits go to those other communities so again el cerrito is not benefiting from the law the way it's written the other thing i really wanted to clarify is that the way we interpret it you do not have to go to the ballot to get additional revenue if you wanted to do a

1:47:16general tax you could go to the ballot and you could do that but you could also have whatever dispensaries or vendors like they do in most of the other communities do a voluntary tax on themselves a business tax we can call it a number of different things where it's

1:47:31a contract between the city and the vendor and you can collect the money for that and it's part of the agreement with the city it's just not an uh general tax for anybody to come in and have to pay it so i mean that's the way the other cities are doing it i still their their

1:47:47city attorneys have said it's legal to do that so i think that's an opportunity as well anyway i want to thank you again for listening to this and working so hard on the issue and we look forward to working with you thank you thank you so i believe that that concludes the

1:48:03speakers and i want to thank everybody for their kind participation and now we'll bring it back to the council for direction anybody want to start the discussion well yes i'm i'm in favor of um removing the ban so that we can move forward on a further discussion of how to regulate it

1:48:41there's a comment i would like to comment as well uh i would like to uh uh end the ban uh as well and to uh um you know have that second community meeting to hear input uh regarding uh the proposed framework okay want me to go oh yeah i have a little bit longer

1:49:08statement to make because staff asked me for direction and this is one city councilman that's going to speak to it here a little bit more so the people of california have spoken twice now on legalizing marijuana and it is time for the cities to decide how they will deal with legalization within

1:49:28their city limits i'm a child of the 60s in the 70s and grew up here and hung out most of my youth in berkeley and after a few decades i'm now an elected official and i'm kind of in awe that i'm here thinking about regulating marijuana i never thought i'd live that long

1:49:47but here we go and i believe el cerrito has moved at the appropriate pace on this issue marijuana legalization is an important and serious decision that involves many issues and will impact the very nature of our community the citizens here tonight are correct so we need i believe to be prudent in

1:50:06how we move forward but it is time to act and i believe we need to act in an evolutionary and a cautious way to assure that el cerrito is able to best shape the inevitable change that is coming to all communities in california legalization and new personal freedoms

1:50:24yes possible new city revenue yes but i believe there's also some new safety and health concerns involving growing pot and el cerrito in their homes driving while stoned within the city limits edibles without clear labeling and children getting access so again we have to be prudent

1:50:47we also need to make sure that our police can deal with the new implementation issues at retail venues at residences and and in cars should we allow deliveries should homeowners who grow be required to allow inspections to protect against the electrical fires and mold that i

1:51:05asked about earlier the message i want to send to staff is liberate but regulate i think we can do a good job here and staff has presented a good starting point a few recommendations to think about that i would like to make to staff in preparation of a draft ordinance this

1:51:22year are are these first i would agree that the size of el cerrito probably does not need more than one or two outlets i think we should consider drafting regulations that would protect home growers from electrical overload and mold issues in our in our neighborhoods

1:51:42when considering local tax levels studies have found that higher levels of taxation tends to dissuade local purchases so we should consider that and and we should consider dedicating our tax revenues to maybe specific city programs including local educational efforts to help keep our children away

1:52:00from cannabis i think we should consider whether delivery is really necessary so early in the rollout process if there are real criminal implications we should probably provide some retail edifice requirements so as not to diminish our economic development opportunities in el cerrito

1:52:21and do we really need to consider both medical and recreational outlets when the government the governor is seeking to combine those two laws i don't think so i agree with the city's recommendation to limit the size of of growing marijuana within el cerrito's boundaries

1:52:37i could go on and on as i said there are a lot of issues but we can do this and it's what the public in el cerrito and the california want as someone who wrote me just recently said we already sell something that makes people feel good it has health warnings you can't drive with it and

1:52:55people in 21 can't buy it we have liquor stores in el cerrito as our former mayor mentioned i think we should move forward and we can do this in a way that will make el cerrito proud thank you great yeah i have to say that i'm torn on this issue and that's because of the

1:53:13um we've where we are in our community and like one of our speakers um i have walked past many dispensaries and i have to say that the the the crowd and the vibe at some of these dispensaries that and this is supposed to be medical dispensaries mind you is not necessarily uh one that it

1:53:35necessarily will reflect el cerrito if that's what we end up with um but if we are going to move forward and it sounds like we are then we need to at least develop meth regulations and i'll echo council member fidelity develop regulations that do capture the what el cerrito wants

1:54:02um does provide a high scale high end type of dispensary maybe focuses on just edibles so that we're consistent with our own smoking laws and potentially focus on on the uh not in addition to edibles maybe just on on medical marijuana uh edibles so that we have

1:54:24the type of of delivery the precision delivery that some of our smokers speakers spoke about tonight so that we do provide the relief that some people get from uh from cbd isn't do i get the right acronym there's sean i got the right one um i have to say that richmond has four for

1:54:45120 000 people two for 25 000 people does seem excessive so i i'm not certain that that two is is necessarily the right target number if we're going to regulate delivery i i actually am going to continue to support our current ban on on deliveries uh you know it it isn't out of the question if we've

1:55:08got a dispensary in town it's not out of the question that you can end up going to it or having a friend go to it i did was intrigued and did try to go to the um kin slims where is he uh website and i i am intrigued by the the discussion of uh michael processors

1:55:30in town that have more jobs and a low front we do have a few very few number of commercial properties in town that are not directly on san pablo avenue that might facilitate this type of trade and finally the last speaker one of the last speakers on fair trade that certainly again if we're going to

1:55:53go down the route of allowing this type of or any type of marijuana dispensary in town let's regulate it right let's regulate it well and make sure that it is the type of dispensary that we want so i have to say i'm not i'm not sold on it but there are reasons to consider it certainly

1:56:17that our voters have overwhelmingly supported this measure in the past is certainly a strong issue i will reiterate that if we do have a a public session on this i'm not saying that we have to say that the model ordinance that we're putting out there is the one that we would adopt but it

1:56:37would be nice for people to actually have text that they can look at and comment on so potentially if it's san leandro we we point people in the direction of an ordinance that we might be starting with i would like to know and this is for the city manager is there any way strategic economics who

1:56:57i know is under scope for a different issue altogether can or or a similar entity run estimated revenue numbers from a dispensary of under these different types of scenarios medical only edible only full range of services because it would be interesting to know

1:57:17because i know if it was medical only we would have very little income from it so i'm just curious what the different revenue numbers are the short answer is yes i mean we've been using hdl which specializes in sales and property tax revenues and this also okay exactly what they can i can't speak

1:57:33to but yes we could get ballpark mr boss can i add to that so i actually had a conversation with uh the person at hdl that we've been working with um earlier this week and um he said based on what he's seen uh these types of businesses bring in in other jurisdictions and taking into

1:57:53account you know the market areas of those jurisdictions and our market area and our population and you know the the unique setting of el cerrito um that two and a half to three million would wouldn't would be a reasonable estimate of the type of revenue that these

1:58:08businesses retail businesses would would generate each year and that's their top line or that's their tax uh that's their top line that's our top line yeah and that would be if we had two stores or one that's per per establishment establishment um and then mr moss this is not necessarily directed

1:58:29at you but since you're sitting in front of me um i do uh understand that there is in january obviously this this market will change dramatically so i do would like to make sure that and that's part of the reason why i would like to see a model ordinance available

1:58:44for the public i do think we should if we're gonna and it sounds like the will of the of the councils to move forward if we're going to move forward then i certainly would not necessarily want to drag this out to the quote unquote end of the year you know whether whether we move forward

1:59:00with us or not we certainly want to have an opportunity for any business to potentially uh participate prior to the january timeline so i i see no reason to drag this out having said that we will have a goal setting session on may 2nd where we try to establish what our

1:59:18highest priorities are and so um i i do recognize that we we reserve the right to re-prioritize on may 2nd but at this point um certainly with model ordinances out there um and a january timeline uh i don't i would like to at least understand or at least look at something that moves a

1:59:42little more quickly than what was proposed in your presentation thank you oh and by the way you did a great job well thank you i'll i'll start out by agreeing that you did a great job sean on a uh on a uh i've seen several presentations and i think this is one of the better ones

2:00:06in fact um so um the one of the uh it's it sounds like there is an obvious uh overwhelming desire on the part of the council to um do something and to reflect the will of the majority of the residents of our city so i won't even go into the detail that i would put in

2:00:31into that topic but what i would like to say is an area that concerns me and i guess i it concerns me because i have a teenager in my household and i see what happens with the thinking of of the teenager and um i would like to see that there be educational an educational

2:00:56component for children to explain why why they shouldn't be using as a teenager but why it's okay if they're 21 say which i assume is the way it would be and because it's really hard for say a 14 year old to understand why it's okay for mommy and daddy to do it

2:01:24but it's not okay for them and i i think that there needs to be some educational effort devoted to that and i think with the funds that would be available from this that we could devote some of those funds at least to answering that question otherwise i think it really does present

2:01:46a dilemma for students um about what their own activities are about and um i would like not like to see us in that position uh moving on though in the discussion to this next go-round of uh community input i don't know if you've had much thought sean in how that would look what

2:02:12what would be different about this time around versus last time around for example well the thought is that with the direction we get from the council tonight um that we would refine this this framework that we've put before you tonight as necessary with your feedback

2:02:30um and then we would we would present that at a community meeting and get feedback on that so it's a little bit more you know it's narrowing the the focus a little bit more to some specific regulations that are envisioned and then with that feedback and with the

2:02:44council's feedback we would uh draft an ordinance that would you know then really dial that in and get into the nitty gritty details of it and um the other thing i guess i'll mention at least i agree with it is that it should um our smoking ordinance should be reflected in this

2:03:06that is to say you know no smoking under whatever circumstance it says already our current smoking ordinance covers marijuana smoking so no like to see it continue to do that is what i guess i'm i'm saying the uh other thing that i uh specifically have um thoughts about i guess you could say is

2:03:32that the um where it would be grown needs to be um covered in in whatever regulations we create in such a way that people don't feel the need to do um to take steps to produce marijuana in a situation that um destroys homes and things for example my daughter bought a

2:04:07what had been a grow house and the electricity had been altered the water lines had been altered and basically the house had been kind of wrecked holes in the floor things like that and i would hope that we would create a system of regulations that doesn't uh make people think that's the only way

2:04:31they can get things done is to do that kind of a thing i don't know if i'm being clear but in other words it shouldn't be so hard to do it right that you do it wrong that makes sense [Music] anyway that's my additional thought on the subject so i think we have had our say unless somebody

2:04:57wants to have another final word i i do i just i feel like there's something that hasn't been mentioned that needs to be mentioned um so my main reasons for supporting the use of marijuana mostly has to do with its medicinal purposes as an rn i did my senior project on

2:05:17medical marijuana and so i think it has a lot of benefits the second half of what i'd like to say though that i don't think anyone's really mentioned is that the use of marijuana has been used to put people in jail and that is my biggest reason for wanting to make sure that

2:05:41no one is ever going to jail ever again for the use or possession of marijuana thank you i'd like to uh i wanted to say that i echo what uh council member uh pardue okimoto uh just said i also would like to mention that the reason why i would like this to move forward is

2:06:05to know that i have volunteered for many years with people that have breast cancer and people who have aids people who have cancer and people who are suffering from wasting syndrome you know and and doctors have misused opiates and painkillers for many many years we have an epidemic now

2:06:32where the pharmaceutical industry is just creating these super medications where if you use it you're hooked forever so we see a lot of that happening now i don't see that with marijuana especially with the medicinal use of it not at all so and i i'm happy that uh uh i will be

2:06:59moving forward on this as well okay um i do so have we given you sufficient direction for the next step which is great if i might i would like to go back to a couple of the questions just to kind of if i could go back through the questions that kind of summarize what i've heard

2:07:17and just make sure uh that we're clear i think that we just want to make sure that we get to with that we also go back to the very first question and get clear direction from counsel on it um as collectively rather than through individual input before moving on to the

2:07:34other questions sure and i would add if the council is ready to give direction on whether they're referring to medical only or recreational because that would narrow our scope of work if you know now so how about we vote first on medical and then recreational do it that way

2:08:00do that okay so those in favor of its use creating a system for uh enabling its uh use for medical in el cerrito is this the right way to say that i was just gonna um say i i i think there is a process moving forward correctly if i'm wrong to maybe just have recreational and then

2:08:30medicinal folks can come and not be taxed at those out at those place is that true i mean there's an effort in sacramento that we would so that we don't need to choose one or the other it's moving i'm not suggesting i'm just wanting to know what we're in favor of no i would just i

2:08:48want to be clear i heard comments that's why we're asking promotion of not doing recreational at all and doing only medicinal so we just want to be clear what the council's direction is is there clear do are we all in agreement on um the medical use do you need a motion do you need

2:09:09separate motions what consensus is i think enough right now so i will i would i will move that the council should modify or end the ban on medical marijuana businesses in el cerrito i'll second that i don't know that that answers the question that is the first question that staff

2:09:34was hoping to get an answer to okay so there is a motion on the floor okay so there's a motion on the floor is there a second that's the few seconds okay so motion by uh lyman seconded by quinto so all in favor please say aye aye any opposition abstention unanimous okay

2:10:01okay i'll make a second motion okay i move to in the ban on recreational marijuana in the city of el cerrito and i would second that okay um all in favor please say aye aye opposed nay um and abstain so one no vote from lyman in the rest yes so now having said that we still have

2:10:41the details to talk about and that's what this hearing this uh next right so yeah i think it was very clear on the council's desire regarding the existing ban um so we can move on to this slide if you wish do you i don't do you want me to summarize what i heard or do you want to continue

2:11:09making motions well this is actually isn't this aren't you taking this to the um public first before we if we already vote what's the point of the public if i could help i think that going through the slides the goal is to to review the prolif the preliminary framework that staff has developed we've

2:11:32heard some comments this is an opportunity we don't necessarily need motions on this boat but if there are but we'd like to basically get as much consensus from the council as possible that the that the direction that staff is headed in with the with the preliminary framework is the right

2:11:47one we're not trying to get down to a granular level of detail tonight we intend to to continue to work on the draft of an ordinance and just want to get get a consensus or at least a majority driven um direction from the council to move forward with the framework or not

2:12:03with with any changes that the council would like to see i'm actually a little bit confused do we want to go through this sure so i can i can walk you back through this frame preliminary framework um so for marijuana retail a maximum of of two establishments although i i think i heard some some

2:12:27other things tonight so that so clear direction on that would be great um limiting businesses to the san pablo avenue specific plan area the major commercial areas requiring a local operating permit through which we could assess operators of these types of businesses

2:12:45and the and the intricacies of their businesses security plans and background checks and that kind of thing um allowing deliveries with cashless transactions and buffers from sensitive land uses similar to the tobacco retail license ordinance is there any a consideration of

2:13:09children and educational issues so the sensitive land uses could be so schools are automatically have a thousand foot buffer under proposition 64. the other sensitive land uses could be whatever the council decides that they are land use that i'm talking about it would be

2:13:27actual you know like maybe there would be teaching units on um waiting till you're 21 if that's the age is that the age yes yes yes um it could be a taxation you know yeah so maybe which is the next slide right could be attached to a taxation thing but something so that there it's it's not so

2:13:52as much just the land use but also the education okay um i would just add i think during every year during the city's budget process it's the time to give direction to how much money you want to put aside for that type of thing it would be our responsibility i believe

2:14:11i think to do that so we but we could just say that it would be a thing that would be done without specifying any details right now right my only comment on the slide is maybe on delivery deliveries consider deliveries rather than say allow i mean you're going to be developing

2:14:33something that's going to come back to us right so i think yeah so the idea is that we would establish some best practice type standards for deliveries but the ordinance shouldn't be written such such that we can't delete deliveries please okay i mean i understand putting delivery

2:14:50text in but it should be it should be you should be cautious not to cross reference it or make it such that we can't delete that option and you mentioned while on this slide buffers between two establishments if two establishments are what's selected i see a reason to potentially allow two

2:15:09for two establishments from a monopoly perspective but i certainly from uh i've not seen the evidence that suggests that we would support two retail estate establishments but so i certainly would not be opposed to making it flexible to be one but i may be in the

2:15:28minority there i'm sorry i would just add um i think we're writing it with a maximum of two um i think i i think that for instance in san leandro they went with their first one and sort of see how that rolled out and then learned from that and then added a second

2:15:51and i think the rationale for two or up to two is essentially they we have two to compare to each other to essentially self-regulate um so i think that's the rationale for up to two i agree with that yes okay right should we move on to all right so for personal cultivation

2:16:22uh to permit indoor cultivation under the auma as it's allowed six plants per household um the framework here was for without any sort of additional regulations but i think i heard some feedback um about electricity use and mold issues and things like that so um some consensus on that would be great

2:16:44uh and then to continue to prohibit outdoor cultivation if i make mayor i i would recommend in and willing to put this in motion if necessary i would like to make it very clear what the definition of indoor is as council member fidelity highlighted if the definition of indoor

2:17:02is a two by four structure with plastic around it potentially we will eliminate the odor issues that cause problems and prevent some of the electrical and mold issues at the same time so if we're going to do this i would strongly recommend that we define what the indoor cultivation is

2:17:28and you know put put put make it clear what uh what what indoor means if if greenhouse is an acceptable indoor use we're not doing that right now though right it's i'm not you know i think that that's part of what they would write in their into their into whatever ordinance they have it

2:17:52would be the clear definition of what indoor meant okay but right now we can move on okay okay anything else on this page okay is that it or there's more okay okay um so we talked about um permitting commercial cultivation and manufacturing as a small scale accessory use only to permitted retails

2:18:22to establishments but i think there was some discussion of that and then medical and laboratory testing restricted uh similarly to other light industrial uses to to those same areas of the city madam mayor oh i'm sorry um i the again the manufacturing uh the light

2:18:48manufacturing definitely was intriguing to me their their at least their discussion about their tax benefits without necessarily attracting all of the foot traffic that might be unappealing uh was certainly intriguing to me it seems like it would be an other light

2:19:07industrial so potentially grouped in with the medical testing i agree with that as well right some manufacturing would be then separate right from dispensaries so the limit on two would be for dispensaries and then or potentially and then manufacturing would be separate

2:19:32and does that have a limit on the number of buildings used for manufacturing so it could be separate or it could be linked what we were initially this this framework was initially proposing to to link them together but i what council member lyman was suggesting

2:19:48uh was that they they'd be separated so that manufacturing would be a distinct use um from retail sales and would be grouped with the the laboratory and testing use and i think that it would be self-regulating to some degree because we have extremely limited areas that fit

2:20:07that definition so i'm not certain that we even have more than five buildings that potentially would qualify i see hey thank you that's why i'm wondering if this is a good categorization to use because i was trying to think of what i i mean i can think of a medical lab

2:20:25that is located in el cerrito um and then then then my knowledge of such things stops um we have some light industrial in town there's a couple of are there metal working is there more than one building in a location probably probably too close to schools near a school

2:20:47probably probably too close to schools i don't i don't can't say i've memorized the entire zoning map so it may or may not be possible to do that based on the buffer zone i think there's a couple of buildings on 56th street that would qualify yep siege elementary

2:21:06it's on the other side of the freeway but technically but i think isn't it no it's on this side just barely that's the frontage road on this side right but that stage is on the other side of the freeway oh yes yes yes but that's not very far anyway i don't know if it would work and

2:21:22i remember when we went through this exercise before trying to locate it a certain distance away from schools and it it was um made it very difficult well i think like i said before we can model different buffer scenarios so if it's the council's direction to include

2:21:40manufacturing with similar light industrial uses then we can do that and we can look at various buffer distances and and what what kind of areas that creates where they would be viable and we'll bring that back to you with the draft ordinance another thing i was wondering about

2:22:03i was just kind of wondering was [Music] if it were let's say that the um either the medical lab or the um retail operation were in a building would it be on the ground floor second floor or does it matter it's kind of a question not an i don't have an answer necessarily but

2:22:30um that's an interesting point i mean yeah it's interesting to think i mean there are some land uses in the san pablo avenue specific plan that we regulate differently on upper floors um so like we for example we say offices with without walk-in clienteles without

2:22:47a lot of walk-in clientele can't be located on the ground floor but are or require some sort of discretionary approval on the ground floor but are permitted on the upper floors as long as we're on this slide the discussion about fair trade requirements i don't quite know if that's if there is

2:23:06any um requirement for that obviously anything that's cultivated in el cerrito is probably going to be fair trade but potentially stuff that's imported for the purposes of manufacturing use in manufacturing i will say as part of the new regulatory structure the department i believe it's

2:23:23the department of agriculture is setting up a track and trace program so this we should in the future the idea is that all the plants that are incorporated into various products would be able to be traced back to where they were cultivated excellent thank you but could we document it just the same

2:23:46as a as an item for consideration you know in other words when you get done it'll say that somewhere yeah so uh compliance with that that's that's part of state law so compliance with that will be required okay and it'll say will our document say that somewhere we could re-emphasize it okay

2:24:12all right so ready to move on um so i think that's it there's one more question on the next slide we need to deal with yes and that's the tax issue that's the last question on that slide um if i may madam here go ahead the last speaker spoke about other types of

2:24:39incentives or ways to get a comparable revenue without necessarily going to you know a forty thousand dollar ballot measure um is there are you familiar with those alternate models are they things that we can put in the ordinance are they um you know is if it's not able to be put in the

2:24:59ordinance are we do we need to go to the ballot at some point so i'm a little bit familiar with that so it's my understanding that like through the operating permit process for example we could as part of their applications and their proposals we could allow operators to

2:25:21to list what what public benefits that they would like to to offer to el cerrito um that you know that's an opportunity for them to suggest that they would like to contribute a certain amount of their revenue as a fee through their operating permit so we could establish establish

2:25:43that mechanism through that that operating permit um but it's also my understanding to make everything clear and easily implementable that we would still want to go to the ballot at some point um to replace that with a a tax a business tax on these types of businesses

2:26:02i'd just supplement that by saying that um there there are ways that are not based that are not technically attacks to um obtain revenue from um marijuana businesses it's fairly common in the cities that have allowed it um we we put it on the list because over the long

2:26:20term it may just increase the administrative efficiency of this to ultimately put it before the voters and get a business tax approved so that we then don't have to deal with the community benefits aspect of it you know assuming which is all a big assumption that you know if we move

2:26:35forward and the council ultimately adopts an ordinance um and the businesses are permitted and successful that it maybe can't become a relatively routine licensing um operation at which point having to go through um uh uh having to include the the public benefit fee aspect of it may

2:26:56become an administrative burden that could just be dealt with more efficiently by having a business license tax on the books so this was an effort to highlight the issue for the council and get direction that this is something that that you'd like to see done as part

2:27:08of the overall regulatory framework as long as you're speaking madame if i may ask a question what is this only a november ballot matter if it's if it were done as a general tax then it would have to be consolidated with a council election got it thank you that's a state

2:27:25constitutional requirement just for clarity for the council and the public anything else on this page i just so these options for taxation will be presented as options to the public event that we have as well or are you coming back with us with one decision that we should vote on well we

2:27:46can look i mean i would definitely want to research uh you know look at what the landscape is in other cities what types of taxes they're collecting learn a lot and and there's lots of different ways to to do this and some things make more money than others and i don't want to

2:28:00you know shoe businesses away but let's encourage you know revenue too at the same time yeah so so yes we would like to do that i think though we do want to have clear direction from the council on whether you see these types of businesses as generating revenue for the city beyond

2:28:18the our standard cut of sales tax so that means that when you come back with after the hearings we'll hear the hearing i guess that we will hear the results of that and then be able to use that information to make our decision right well what i was suggesting is is that the

2:28:43council would give feedback at this juncture about whether you would like to impose an attack a tax on these types of businesses in addition to sales tax or at least is this is there an is there is an expectation on the part of the council that some additional revenue

2:29:01will be part of of these and that we should come back to you with additional information about ways to do that including attacks and what that would look like i think that would be great yes yes thank you thank you okay um so is that it do you have all the information you need from us yes okay

2:29:22so i think that concludes this item for tonight and then when will you be back uh i'm sorry when would it come back um so uh i think in the next step slide um i said yeah so we hold another community meeting uh on the the um on this framework this refined framework get comments back on that and

2:29:50then uh we'll draft an ordinance uh the planning commission will make a recommendation we'll come back to the council for uh for a study session so um i'm not sure you know our the goal is to have all of this adopted and in place by the definitely by the end of the year when

2:30:07um the state starts issuing licenses for these types of businesses um you know we can i'm not sure if i can you know identify an exact date right now when it would come back to the council but along that timeline so we wouldn't actually have an opportunity to make comments on this until we're

2:30:30actually considering the adoption of this ordinance well we would do a study session before the adoption where that's missing it from there yeah third bullet point okay and then i thought i saw you i thought i heard you say something about the planning commission but where is

2:30:51that i did i i failed to put it on this slide but um the tobacco retail ordinance went to the planning commission for a recommendation the thought was that this you know this is a similar type of ordinance regulating land use uh so that we would do the same thing so it would it be

2:31:08between bullet three and bullet four the planning commission uh it would be between yes okay okay anybody have anything else okay thank you for a great presentation thank you thank you thank you okay with that we're i think ready to go on to the next item which is um

2:31:38item number seven which is a public hearing on the appeal of the planning commission's design review action to approve the el dorado townhomes and we have a process on this one yes um i'll start by saying i just announced the item and now there's going to be a staff

2:32:06presentation and goodness knows shawn doesn't even have to get up or sit down again i don't have to get up except i do have to get up to go to the back of the room to grab my application folder okay that sounds good [Music] so all right so good evening again mayor abelson council

2:33:01members so i'm going to start by giving you some background on on this project the project is called el dorado townhomes the application was originally submitted in december of 2014 [Music] so if you're counting that's 28 months ago um and it's actually it's been 18 months

2:33:25uh since the first public meeting on on this project which i'll get into in a little bit um well actually right now so the uh the first public meeting that was held was preliminary conceptual design review in october of 2015.

2:33:40preliminary conceptual design review is a process by which applicants can get early feedback from the the design review board before the the before project is formally considered um it's it's usually a really helpful process for for a lot of applicants um so you might be asking why um

2:34:01why there was a nine to ten month gap between when the the project was was submitted and that um uh or i'm sorry that that's not the gap so um the um the project progressed from there um to the planning commission uh for a recommendation on the tentative subdivision map which was submitted as

2:34:25part of the application um this is this is a town home project um and it requires a tentative map to create uh several of the parcels that are that are required for the project several of the new parcels um so that map progressed to the planning commission for a recommendation

2:34:45and then in july of 2016 the city council considered the tentative map and although the project was consistent with the with the building code related to accessibility the council did express some concerns about accessibility the council also had some concerns at

2:35:04that time about the elimination of living options with lower rents due to the close closure of the existing rv park on the site and the council asked for inclusion of smaller units as a way to provide units with a lower price point and so the item was continued at that

2:35:25time to give the applicant time to respond so i just want to go back and and say that um you know as as we're going through the timeline um you might you know you might be thinking why why is this timeline so long why has it taken 28 months to get to this point um i do

2:35:42want to say a lot of that time was spent in meetings with the applicant and discussing issues with the applicant related to the closure of the rp rv park that was on the site and as part of the application the applicant did prepare a report that was an analysis of the the closure of

2:36:04that park that was discussed during the the tentative map consideration before the council um and there are links to that in your agenda bill um and with that i just want to acknowledge that you know this this is a very complicated project um as i'm sure you can see through the

2:36:21the lengthy um staff report and the lengthy appeal that was submitted and the the you know robust set of plans that are before you there are a lot of issues um related to this project um and i just you know i want to be really sensitive to those issues um you know we're we're all um

2:36:40you know human beings and i i you know i do feel um sympathy for for those that were affected by um some of these issues like the like the closure of the rv park um but you know tonight and i i just want to say that because the the you know the focus of the the focus of the rest of

2:36:57this presentation is is um really the design review of this project so i you know i i want to acknowledge some of these other issues that i don't want to seem crass as i you know go through the rest of these issues and really focus very clearly on the on the design of the project

2:37:15um so the uh the project the tentative subdivision map was again heard by the city council in september of 2016.

2:37:23um the applicant submitted revised plans that addressed the the council's concerns and the city council approved the tentative subdivision map at that time so that um thank you as a as a result of those changes there was also a parking waiver that was required and the planning commission considered

2:37:43that parking waiver in october of last year and that was approved so as a result of that tentative subdivision map approval and the parking waiver approval all of the discretionary aspects of the project except for the design review components that are before you tonight

2:38:00were approved and those those approvals remain active and and in effect so in november of 2016 the project progressed to the design review board for formal consideration of the design elements and i'll get into their purview or the design review preview in more depth in a little bit

2:38:24the project has been substantially revised since the drb first saw the project which i'm going to flip through some slides in a moment you'll see some of those substantial revisions and the drb when they considered the project in november they still had some additional comments for the for the

2:38:42applicant um and those comments are are highlighted in the staff report um i can answer any questions you have about them or go into more details about the drb specific comments if you have some questions i'll i'll highlight a few of them in the slides the applicant

2:39:00was able to address the design review board's comments and return to the design review board with with revisions to the project again and the board determined that their comments had been addressed and the board unanimously approved the design review at that time

2:39:16uh the appellant howdy gowdy appealed the design review approval to the planning commission the planning commission considered the appeal in in february uh and they considered the the appeal the um staff report that was presented to them the design review board's findings and

2:39:34the public comments and the commission unanimously uh denied the appeal um with the the same findings that the design review board had made so the scope of this hearing tonight is the design review of the project the design review com the design review includes basically the

2:39:56aesthetics of the project the design components of the project i'm just going to read a few elements directly from the zoning ordinance so this includes things like building articulation facade treatment and architectural details exterior colors and materials character defining

2:40:13features in relation and the relation to the existing setting the design of fences walls and screen plantings the location of landscaping and size of plant materials and type of design of hardscape and landscape lighting the size location design color number lighting and materials of signs

2:40:34and design of the streetscrape including but not limited to landscaping furniture and materials so that from the zoning ordinance is the purview of this design review consideration there are findings later on at the end of the report that you know that sort of echo this scope

2:40:54and i will go through those shortly as well so the project consists of 29 townhome units um in three buildings one building would face avila street one building would face el dorado street and one building would be internal to the project so you see that in the site plan that's

2:41:16that's in front of you and here are some renderings this uh this is the the view of the project from avila street this is the view of the project from el dorado street i'm going to go through some elevations now but i think these renderings are really helpful to kind of get a feel for

2:41:45how the project relate would relate to the street so this is the initial submittal this is december 14 december 2014 when the project was first submitted this is where we started and i think that you can see this is what's before you tonight that's where we started so i think you can see

2:42:07the dramatic difference this you know it's a very different color palette very different color scheme this is a lot more pastel colors the materials are very different this was a lot of stucco and corrugated metal siding so the design review board had some very

2:42:25strong feelings about this design which you know led to where we are today and i i think that the difference is pretty clear so this is this is where we are today i'm also going to highlight the first design that the design review board saw and then walk you through some of the

2:42:43changes um as a result of their comments so this is and i'm going to use building one as an example all the these changes are throughout all of the buildings so i just used building one as an example so this was the initial design review submittal in november of 2016.

2:43:04um what you'll see here there are there's a horizontal band right here between the the first and second story that's missing from the revised plans these balcony railings are very different i'll go back to the other plan in a second um so you can see the difference the the

2:43:24color of the base of the building is is has been changed um i think those are the oh and the the height of this parapet wall has been reduced to highlight these shed roofs more so and that's an inch on the the doors and the windows are more aligned if i remember correctly

2:43:44the yep see the windows over the doorways are yeah they actually were that was a comment that one the drb gave in november that's correct even though your memo says they couldn't accommodate it it looks like they did they um i think yeah they can probably tell you

2:44:03more that there was some because of the the change in the unit types on on one of these buildings um there was not as and that was as a result of the council's comments there was not uh flexibility for them to move doors and windows the way the designer review board wanted

2:44:19um so although they they do you know they do line up nicely in this in this drawing um it it it didn't quite get to the design review boards ideal but they were satisfied with the explanation of why it couldn't occur so going back here like i said you'll see no

2:44:38no horizontal band between the first and second stories these balcony railings now come down and cover the edge of the balcony so that that eliminated some of that banding that horizontal banding effect as well this is also a different balcony railing product so it's a um

2:44:55it's a um what do you call it a bach modern is the manufacturer i don't know why i can remember that but i can't um incorporate it's a perforated yeah metal um metal uh railing um obviously the base the color of the base of the building has been changed that was a direct design review board

2:45:14comment and the the parapet height is a little more subtle but if i flip back and forth between these two i think you can see that the lower parapet height does accentuate those the the pop outs and the shed roof features a little bit more so going back to this so this is the the other the rear

2:45:36elevation of that same building um this is the initial submittal so the same changes i just talked about all basically apply in addition to that there the the windows have been aligned if you see this is the initial submittal so the the second story windows are slightly

2:45:58narrower than the third story windows so they don't align quite vertically and also the the mullions of those windows don't align so if we go back to the uh whoops if we go back to the proposal that's before you you can see the windows are the same size so the edges align and the window mullions

2:46:16align from the from the third and second stories as well um in addition um yeah like i said than the base color change i think so i think those are the only um changes you see on that elevation other than the parapet wall obviously as well you can see that it's

2:46:32slightly lowered there as well [Music] so then in addition to that these are just the the other building elevations this is building two um which is the the building that's internal to the project this this building is a lot more regular um one of the other design review board

2:46:49comments was related to the the entries of the buildings and creating a a canopy over some of the entries and the applicant did do that where um where they could and they also provided a detail of how these entries look um so that's in your plan set the design review board really wanted to understand

2:47:06uh what these entries would look like and how the addresses and the lighting and all of those features would work in harmony so that's the rear of of building two this is building three which is the avila i'm sorry the el dorado street frontage this building is

2:47:27a little bit unique because because of a slight change in the elevation there's a little bit of a drop in part of the building and then the building also features features two of those corner units so it has two two corner features um oh so what you know what i didn't

2:47:46highlight was the the change in materials um from the the first submittal to now um this is a lot of uh um hold on let me go back to my notes but there's a lot of composite wood siding and cement plaster finish and then to highlight the landscaping there is there's been a mix of deciduous and

2:48:15evergreen trees that are provided so you'll see deciduous trees like japanese maples and evergreen trees like tubuccina i think if i'm pronouncing that correctly there's also some trees that are provided for screening in some key locations on the on the western and the eastern property

2:48:36lines so those are in key locations where the property line is shared with rear yards of existing residential uses so in addition to the fencing those trees would provide additional screening and those look in those locations and then there's of course a common area

2:48:56here that would feature some seating some benches some landscaping and this area also would double as a biofiltration area for storm water treatment during wet periods so um one thing um i want to say is i i hadn't planned in this presentation of going through um all of the appellants points um and

2:49:24the staff's responses to those the the appellant will also be giving you a presentation tonight so he i'm sure that he will be going through his points um there is a lot of information um from previous meetings that was that was linked in the staff responses um

2:49:42most you know as i've as i've said the the scope of this of this consideration tonight is design review and it's very narrow and it's designed to be very narrow it's it's designed to focus the design review board on the design elements of of the project and so that's that's what i've tried to

2:50:02do in my presentation a lot of the other points and information um that you likely will hear tonight are are not relevant to that design review scope but i can provide additional information uh on you know any of these points as the the council sees necessary so if you know if

2:50:23you have specific questions i can address those later on um i did want to say that the the findings um and the the um general plan policies that are cited in the agenda bill are also related to the design review approval so you'll notice in the findings that let's see here

2:50:56so you'll notice the first finding is where are you uh on page 16 of the staff report so you'll you'll notice that uh that the the council in order to approve the design review for the project needs to find that the design of the project is consistent with several

2:51:17things the first being the applicable standards and requirements of this zoning ordinance so that's the standards of the zoning ordinance as they apply to the design review so there are going to be several standards of the zoning ordinance which have already been

2:51:32approved as part and reviewed as part of the tentative map review things like building height and setbacks and things like that have already been reviewed so when you know when we when we go through the other standards of of the zoning ordinance we're really looking at the

2:51:49design focused standards uh and similarly with the general plan the the finding specifically states the design policies of the general plan so you'll notice the general plan policies that are cited in in the report as um uh that the project will implement are things

2:52:08that are design focused like uh they have names they have titles like building design street frontages high quality design site landscaping building articulation things like that so there are many general plan policies which are related to the project as a whole and which were related to

2:52:32other aspects of the project and which were presented as part of the tentative map review which are not presented tonight because tonight we're focusing just on the design review so as i've said that's why those general plan policies are are specified um so that you know there

2:52:50there are many um there are many policies in the housing element about um encouraging the development of housing and um things like that um that are not relevant to the to the design aspects of this project so they are they're absolutely relevant to the project and they were considered as part

2:53:09of the tentative map but i just want to be clear that's why we left out some of those things tonight so that concludes my presentation i can answer any questions you have as i said the the applicant or the appellant has a presentation for you the architect also

2:53:26has a presentation for you and i'm sure he'll walk you through uh the architecture a little bit more as well perhaps what we could do at this point before we uh get into any detail is just check in with our city attorney and um ask you to uh explain in legalese

2:53:47uh converted to english i'll do the best i can uh exactly what we are and what we are not supposed to do tonight yeah i'd be happy to um a lot of this will just be elaboration on points that um sean made as part of his presentation um but i do think it's worthwhile to emphasize for the council

2:54:06and for members of the public that that there have been a couple of phases of this of this project as sean mentioned the subdivision map has already been considered and approved by the city council on appeal it's a broader consideration that takes into account a number of factors

2:54:25but this second phase of the design review is a narrow narrower focus it is limited to issues of design and the city council's obligation under the municipal code is to on appeal hear from the appellant from the applicant from members of the public to review the

2:54:46entire evidentiary record and determine can you make the the findings that are required to approve the design review based on the evidence that's been submitted and there are a series of findings that are listed for you in the staff report and then and in the resolution they are the same

2:55:02findings that the design review board made unanimously um they are the same findings that the planning commission on appeal made unanimously um they're represented for the city council based on all the evidence that staff has received to this point um and nothing so

2:55:19far has um led to either the design review board the planning commission or staff to believe that there is there isn't sufficient evidence to make the findings that are required and if you use the city council after reviewing all of the evidence believe that you too can

2:55:34make those findings then you can proceed to adopt the attached resolution making the findings denying the appeal and um approving the design review for this project it is also within the council's um ability to um to decide that that you cannot make those findings based on

2:55:54evidence that's submitted or that um additional conditions need to be applied in order for you to be able to make findings but ultimately the review tonight is a narrow one that's focused on aesthetic and design aspects of the project and the only findings that you are required to make

2:56:11are the ones that are listed in the staff report and the resolution and while there are many questions that could be asked about this project they aren't ones that are necessary for you to analyze tonight in order to make it make a decision on on the narrow issue that's

2:56:26in front of you okay is there any question about how that works okay great then next we'll go to questions from the council regarding the presentation and reports are there any okay go ahead paul yeah just some very general questions um a couple of the city council members

2:56:50weren't here when a lot of this discussion was going on so i'm hoping i know it's a narrow discussion and purview tonight but if my questions are a little broader that's okay if you can answer them sure yeah i'm happy to elaborate on anything you'd like um so you're saying that this um

2:57:08this development is consistent with our general plan the city's general plan correct okay uh i i just want to say that um the the council um obviously with a couple different members um last year determined that a lot of different aspects of the project were consistent with the general

2:57:30plan and now tonight it's it's staff's contention that the design elements of this project are consistent with the design policies of the general plan and that's that's the proposed findings that we've put before you were there efforts to increase the affordable housing

2:57:51component of this development i don't need deep long discussion but there was so there were some concerns raised amongst the council about affordable housing and like i said elimination of um housing options that rented at lower price points um when the tentative map came before the

2:58:15council and based on the council's feedback there were uh well really sort of five additional units added to the project there were two additional one-bedroom units ground floor one-bedroom units and three additional accessory living units um all of which are are smaller type

2:58:36units um and the that's really what that was really the focus of the council's uh discussion at that time was to include units like that as a way to achieve uh to provide units that rented or sold at a lower price point was discussion with the developer about density bonus

2:58:56possibilities we definitely let the developer know i know that they're they're aware that that understate law that that option is available to them that they can get certain bonuses by providing certain levels of affordable housing we can't compel them to participate in that program and they

2:59:14were not interested in doing that and do you consider this a tod project a transportation oriented development it's not it's outside of that half mile distance isn't it um i'm not sure i mean that there are various definitions of transit-oriented development um

2:59:34it's it's not in uh like you know it's it's barely outside of the san pablo avenue specific plan area um so the the plan area does capture some of some of central um and there are some some transit routes on on central avenue um i'm not sure exactly what the what the

2:59:51walking distance to the bart station is but i i think that the the applicant feels that this is this is an attractive location because it's because of its proximity to some transit resources and i just have two more quick questions the landscaping changes can you briefly

3:00:05discuss what changed um there weren't actually any direct changes on the landscape plan at this time there were some concerns amongst the design review board that a little bit more detail is required on the landscape plan and so they did include a condition of approval and actually amongst the the

3:00:27planning commission there was some a desire for the landscape plan to include specifically drought tolerant plants so that there is a condition of approval that was included in both of those approvals um that that requires staff review and approval of the the landscape

3:00:45plan um prior to the issuance of a building permit and staff's uh idea was that we would review that landscape plan specifically with a couple members of the design review board and planning commission who are landscape architects and have that area of expertise okay

3:01:03um and then just briefly the closure um impact report um that was done that wasn't required is that correct because this was an rv park it it wasn't it's not required by the state of california um as part you know under um various statutes um when when a mobile home park is closed

3:01:34there is a a very um you know clear report that needs to be done and then and there are mitigations that are required because of that report and because of that analysis so it wasn't required under that um but staff did feel that the council would would want that information in

3:01:54order to make uh be able to make a finding of consistency with the general plan related to the tentative subdivision map so we did require that as part of the application submittal process a similar type report and it's your view that the conclusion and that report

3:02:14demonstrate the efforts we made to those tenants in the rv park um yeah that that report did document um some uh the terms of a settlement agreement between some of the remaining tenants and the property owner of the rv park um and there there were some terms of uh

3:02:35assistance that they were provided under that thank you could i add something to that the question of is is it a tod and its distance to transit the distance to transit actually is the distance to san pedro avenue because there's a bus service that runs more than

3:02:55every less than every 15 minutes on san pablo avenue so that uh is the that provides the answer to the to the question about the frequency of transit and it's definite it's definitely within a half mile um just so you we don't forget buses i read the 72r i love it

3:03:27yeah um uh a number of questions uh when the title of the resolution has uh us making a sequel finding i thought the sequel findings were completed prior to this or is there a compelling reason why we're making sequel findings again tonight um this is another action um it's you know

3:03:47different cities do this differently sometimes uh but it's sort of a kind of a best sequel uh to record and a notice of exemption um after each action of the project so we anticipated recording one was recorded after the tentative map approval and we anticipate recording

3:04:06that again okay and you mentioned the proposed findings on page 16 uh number one sites um specifically multi-family residential district and section 1906.030 development standards i actually looked in there and i did not find development standards specific to multi-family in

3:04:25there is is it just because my mobile device is not allowing me to find that is i just want to make sure that's the correct citation which page of the staffer party on page 16 number finding number one the project meets 19.06.030 um so if you give me a moment i can look

3:04:50that up i i have a feeling that actually might be the um no i think that is that's correct those are the those are the residents that's the section for residential development standards it includes the rm district where this project is located got it thank you that was what i was missing is

3:05:04the rm district okay um that's that one that's that one uh i'll i have questions for the developer and for the appellate that i'm anticipating but uh so i'll save those for later um the uh on landscape drawing number two the wooden bench it's uh going to be anchored in a concrete

3:05:26fountain foundation is that concrete foundation appropriate for being in the biofilter area i believe so our um the stormwater control plan was reviewed by the public works department and they didn't have any specific issues on um the appropriateness of that yeah that might be because actually none

3:05:45of the drawings call out the benches so it might be that they didn't know that there was at least 12 to 24 square feet of bioretention area that was dedicated to concrete so i just i want to make sure that that's true so the the um so i know that the design review board

3:06:00actually i got very detailed comments from our our uh landscape architect on on the board um and she did realize that exact point um and the the bench the bench locations are actually if you actually see on this uh landscape plan there's kind of a dashed rectangle here and the benches are

3:06:20outside and that's the bio filtration area and the benches are just outside of it right thank you that answers that question um and uh you know i i did see the light fixtures identified on i think it's l19 and some of those light fixtures are rather long um 24 inch and 50 inches and and reading

3:06:44through some of the comments that the design review board had about things simple thing what are simple things like lining up mullions um and adding two by four soffits to create a little more depth something like a 50 inch long sconce is something that i would have

3:07:02expected they would have an opinion on so i'm just curious if the lighting i noticed thank you that lighting was added to the elevations that were provided to us tonight at the dyess so there is when you look at a11 12 and 13 um there is additional lighting fixtures called out

3:07:21that were not in the drawings that were provided to us these sconces where did the design review board ask about those is there a subsequent opportunity for planning to comment on those so the design review board did uh review the uh fixtures that are before you

3:07:43tonight i think it's on sheet a sixteen i think it's a nineteen but yeah you got the right idea um might be sixteen nope it is 19. um so yeah there's there's a menu of uh there's a menu of lighting fixtures on sheet a19 um the design review board received the same sheet and reviewed it there wasn't

3:08:07a lot of comments amongst the board among about these specific fixture choices or locations of them but it is our anticipation that as part of the uh as part of the the building permits submittal um that the applicant would submit a photometric plan um whereby we would a

3:08:28the we do have lighting standards in the zoning ordinance um that the project is is uh required to comply with and so as part of the uh the review the further review of this project it's anticipated that we would ensure compliance with those lighting standards um and placement of lighting

3:08:47fixtures in a way that complied with those standards and that's the illumination standards not necessarily aesthetic standards which is our purview tonight correct that is a um yeah they're somewhat related but yes right so the the placement of these vertical sconces the whether it's the 24

3:09:06inch or the 50 inch it's not clear in the drawings where these go so given the detail that the design review board had for things like two by four frames around windows and aligning mullions i'm i'm wondering if the design review board needs an opportunity to know where these sconces

3:09:27are going or is that something we can get an answer to tonight and potentially you know the ad hoc design review board well what i would hate to do is is have precise locations for the lighting established and then the lighting had to be moved in order to meet the lighting standards in the

3:09:49zoning ordinance so you know staff would want to preserve some level of flexibility but certainly if if you want to have input on on the lighting that's relevant tonight more i don't necessarily want to send it back to the design review board but it at this i mean

3:10:07again and i understand that that the only nighttime visual aesthetic that we actually regulate is is the illumination standard which which strikes me as something that potentially we need to modify because it nighttime illumination uh does come with light pollution it

3:10:24does come with uh intrusion into neighbors yards so uh you know having and having the the night aesthetics uh be something that we look at is something that that i think is important um the color of light that's being cast the direction that it's being cast uh where it's located and and i

3:10:48understand we have an illumination standard and you should have some flexibility but at the same time some of these features like these 15 50 inch long sconce that's it's 50 inches is over four feet seems like a pretty pretty strong visual element and they were worried about banding and

3:11:08and the gapping or the covering the banding on the on the porches a 50-inch vertical sconce strikes me as being something that they would have some say on so i'm i am uh i understand the flexibility that you're looking for but i'm also trying to figure out how to balance that with

3:11:28this design aesthetic that could completely although functional could completely uh ruin some of the aesthetics that the design review board worked so hard to get sure i i would just say that i think some of your concerns are addressed through the lighting standards there are

3:11:43standards that require that lighting be shielded in such a way that it's not directed across property lines and that it generally be pointed downward and things like that so they're not not to the level of um regulating the color of lighting but but some of those things are addressed but

3:12:01going to my point that uh we're we're we're regulating the illumination in other words the light that is you know observed on the ground or observed by the pedestrian we're not necessarily regulating the fixtures and and yet the fixture is what the design review board

3:12:19would would have a great interest in so i'm just trying to to balance the flexibility of achieving the illumination standard without uh degrading the level of aesthetic that the design review board put into this project just trying to figure out how that how a 50-inch sconce gets worked into that

3:12:40into that balance um i i think that the council could address that through the conditions of approval um you know if if you you know i don't want to you know pre you know suppose all of you know presuppose all of your concerns in order to craft one right now but um you know if we got to

3:12:59that stage we could assist with that if necessary right thank you that's all my questions for staff okay and for me michelle um i have a question um on page l4 of the drawings it shows a precast concrete paver with truncated domes um and then if you if there's a picture

3:13:31of one of them and it looks like there's an elevation change right like it goes up the left yes uh-huh in the upper left the if you look at that picture on the left-hand side of the picture is a higher elevation than the right-hand side okay uh how is that accessible

3:13:55um so this this will be accessible i don't know i i think to me that looks sort of all level i i it could be sort of an eye trick there i'm not sure what that what that photo exactly shows but there what i can tell you what what the drawing and plan view shows there

3:14:16is there is an accessible ramp from the sidewalk down across that driveway apron and then turning the corner is a stamped concrete area that delineates a pedestrian zone and that is a direct result of the city council's comments during the the tentative map discussion

3:14:40oh so there is one yeah there's one there as well so whenever a blind person is coming upon travel way they've been warned that that's act i mean i understand that the truncated dome is about that i'm asking asking about is there an elevation change if it's a um

3:15:00it looks like it's that way of doing a a curb that a roll curve it looks like a roll curve and and those are not considered accessible i don't think there's a rolled curb envisioned there i think that that why is there a curb ramp leading to it uh which curb ramp are you referring to

3:15:27look on the right hand side in the middle of the picture it says precast concrete paver truncated domes and there's a place where it looks like there's yeah so yeah that's just an example of of the truncated dome material um i i wouldn't use that as an example of exactly how the the transition the

3:15:48accessible transition and ramps are going to work so that's why i was trying to um point you specifically to the the the plan view where it says avila street that drawing what's that it's on the same page um avila the word avila yeah right where if you're okay right here this this part

3:16:17i don't see the word avila but that's okay oh i see it okay so so you can see the ramp so on on the far right side of that drawing is the concrete sidewalk just you just you just see a very little bit of it and then that curb ramp with truncated domes slopes down

3:16:41towards where the the curb return is for the for the driveway right but that makes it look like there's a that sort of to me validates a uh transition in in height it looks to be it's it's level at that point at that point the driveway and the edge of the the end of the cur of the

3:17:02ramp are at the same elevation the ramps is sloping down to meet the driveway so the um the the biggest thing i'm wondering about is overall and i don't know if this is a is a part for now or just it's just that i noticed it right now um the um in one place which i'm not sure i can find right now

3:17:27it says there is a curb ramp and a curb ramp and then it makes me wonder about the whole project how many curb ramps there are and are there all do they have enough is that something for this point in the um uh approval if you want to call it that or is that handled

3:17:54where is that handled um so it's it's been handled a little bit already i i can assure you that all of the driveway crossings have have curb ramps that will be accessible and the public works department has reviewed that and they're they're you know with a very keen eye towards the

3:18:12detail of them being accessible um so the you know these aren't the this isn't a design level or you know construction level drawing um so if you know if there are any remaining issues to be worked out to make those 100 accessible that will happen before they are constructed

3:18:32and um it will will it happen because maybe we're making a note about it now or will it happen because there's some point in the process where they say did we get all the curb ramps and they do they automatically do that it's something that's already required and and public

3:18:51works has already been working on it and talking it's required but i've seen a number of situations where things are all built out and it isn't didn't happen um i can name you places even but i'm so i'm just watching melanie mintz community development director it will be reviewed again

3:19:12during when the construction drawings are submitted plan check and public works will again be reviewing it for ada uh standards okay so the construction drawings will again be reviewed after this entitlement okay that's it this is a good answer thank you okay um

3:19:30that was my main question thank you so are so you're done with your presentation for the moment yes unless there are any other questions i'm not seeing any so then we're ready to go on to the next part and the next part on my little list is appellant remarks so our appellant

3:19:57howdy gowdy is welcome to come to the podium and speak for 15 minutes and do you time that or you just how do we i i can if you'd like yes yeah maybe i'll keep i'll be able to notice when it right now nothing's happening you okay howdy it just while they're taking care of this i'd

3:20:27like to point out that it's 10 20. i don't believe that we will be completing this item by 10 30 so i would invite the council to make a motion to extend the meeting i think this may be the first time for two of our council members that we've had to do this um what if we go past 10 30 we have to

3:20:43make a motion to extend the meeting for some amount of time would somebody like to make such a motion i'll move that we extend the meeting uh 40 minutes to a uh 30 additional minutes from 10 30 to 11 o'clock i'll second okay all in favor please say aye aye any opposition abstention the motion was

3:21:06unanimous are we all set up now okay thank you mayor abelson council members my name is howdy gowdy um and i appreciate sean's introduction i think through this long technical process it's too easy to lose sight of the fact that at least 39 people lost their homes as a result of

3:21:26this project they were a special tight-knit community that really looked out for each other cared for each other all of that has been damaged these impacts have not gone away even though most of them eventually settled somewhere else they're spending more money they're commuting farther and

3:21:42they're just located from their long-term community friends and support system some of the elderly residents suffered medical conditions that were undoubtedly exacerbated by the stress of the move and the dislocation at an incredibly vulnerable point in their lives one

3:21:55woman suffered a heart attack during her move another suffered a stroke and passed away shortly after being forced to relocate to an apartment with 2 500 rent that she couldn't afford while she was on an affordable housing wait list that is years long an elderly man was forced to live out of

3:22:10his car for months during the wettest winter on record this is an abject failure of our community to protect and respect the dignity of our seniors at the first drb meeting about a year and a half ago it was heartbreaking to hear one of the residents matter of factly reflect on the process of

3:22:29watching the project presentation she said that she felt like a kid missing christmas the new buildings were being shown to her but she could never have that she was being excluded from where she lived and tossed out on the gutter so someone else could live there

3:22:44there are people behind these clinical discussions and decisions their lives have been gravely impacted and we have disrespected them by letting this project proceed as is this far i encourage you to keep them in mind throughout your consideration of this project the good news is it is not too

3:23:03late to correct the errors that have been allowed to proceed too long and is it the right arrow that moves it or or is it an on button okay cool thanks um so i hope it's clear that i don't oppose new development in fact i've advocated for several large projects however it is

3:23:34my responsibility really it is everyone's responsibility to speak out against socially irresponsible projects that are not sensitive to their context and fail to align with our community goals policies and values this project is socially irresponsible it displaces long-term residents who are

3:23:51elderly disabled and have low incomes there is no net gain of housing just a loss of affordability and replacement with expensive market rate condos the design claims to be transit oriented but is actually an uninspired car centric design there's more off street parking

3:24:06in this design than before and the former displaced residents have long commutes they can't afford this is not transit oriented development there has been strong feedback from the very beginning to improve this project but the developer has been rigidly unresponsive to making the project more

3:24:22sensitive to its context the staff did not faithfully convey the drb critique to the planning commission and council when they considered the subdivision map this has severely undercut the incredible integrity of the design review as far back as july 2015 the developer

3:24:43claimed they wanted a fair solution because it's the right thing and the smart thing to do however they have not made good on this promise displacement into an unaffordable market is not fair treatment being rigidly unresponsive to the drb's early feedback on site plan

3:24:57was not the smart thing to do the development developer has assumed a huge risk by failing to address the very strong initial critique they don't deserve any favors for being unwilling to improve the project even if it's more than two years later there's no excuse

3:25:14for failing to do the right thing for so long inertia isn't a challenging undertaking and it shouldn't be rewarded the smartest thing this developer could have done would have been to pick an unoccupied site if they wanted to do straight market reconstruction otherwise

3:25:27this particular occupied site with large established community in place requires special care and mitigation that this developer has never appropriately addressed instead of taking staff's narrow interpretation of the current purview you need to read the language of our

3:25:43ordinance and interpret for yourself what you should be considering the findings explicitly include consistency with the zoning ordinance general plan and other policy consistency with these documents is always a sound part of purview of any good policy decision and the decision

3:25:58cannot be limited to aesthetics alone final design review has an obligation to make sure that the process delivered a sound result it is never appropriate to fail to address a mistake just because it might be out of purview it is essential to own every decision and apply fresh

3:26:16thought and scrutiny the initial drb critique of this project on october 7th 2015 was frankly rather scathing to quote all four members present i am completely unimpressed the project needs a lot of work i'm really surprised to hear this plan represents more than a year of work in

3:26:39two hours i sketched a more dynamic concept my core concern is the occupants of the center building the center building is not well screened has poor privacy no sense of central place units are packed in and landscaping is jammed in there the design really feels really really

3:26:56car centric my big concern is the site and layout the center building is a big problem site plan is too congested i don't like the dead end alleys staff assured the drb in that meeting that their comments would be forwarded to the planning commission and ultimately the council for their

3:27:11subdivision map approval on may 18 2016 the planning commission meeting staff's communication of the above comments was reduced to simply the drb had a couple of minor comments about the site plan this is an unacceptable delinquency to convey the true thoughts of the drb

3:27:34a serious inconsistency with the zoning ordinance is the failure to apply the condo conversion ordinance you know the purpose is to reduce the impacts of dislocation when there aren't good housing opportunities it's very clear and it applies to the conversion of

3:27:49existing multi-family housing to condos now staff asserts that the ordinance doesn't apply but you know the text doesn't clearly exclude this case really it comes down to three or more units which are described as rooms or a room or rooms with a roof um and you know that should be applied here

3:28:18um you know the the argument was brought up that well the you know residents own the trailer they're just renting the land that's different than a rental housing but you know there's all kinds of different rental and ownership situations you can have a rental house

3:28:34with you know furnishings in it and you're renting the furnishings so is that different than i mean you know ultimately it acted for 20 plus years as de facto multi-family residential rental housing and it should be the residents should be protected just the same as a result

3:28:57what really matters is not whether the housing meets you know some strict criteria it's whether the impacts to the people are the same and this was exactly what this ordinance was designed to help protect there were also four to five units of housing in duplexes and other structures

3:29:18that should qualify in its own right so this project has been before the city for more than two years if there was a really serious commitment to protecting the long-term vulnerable residents of el cerrito it should have been easy early on to make the case that the condo

3:29:41conversion ordinance applied and that the site had to remain multi-family rental housing but as i was told you know there was more interest in getting sales comps to prop up other development projects in the city than actually doing the right thing at this site

3:30:01council should be going out of your way to interpret this ordinance in a way that protects the residents you know you shouldn't be you know comforted that oh there's a strict legal interpretation that allows you not to uphold your duty to protect the residents of el cerrito

3:30:21ultimately this is an interpretation and it's your interpretation you have to own it this is your decision and you're the one who's putting your mark on it so the developer says it isn't possible because of economics to you know provide affordable housing units in their plan which is highly

3:30:46suspect i mean there's there's strong housing density bonuses if you add just three very affordable housing units you're allowed to add seven more market rate units this is a large site it's one of the few rare large sites in el cerrito that that housing density bonus could

3:31:04probably be used and not have you know adverse impacts on the community and it's being squandered with this project which is not really making the best use of the site and the developer should be ashamed that this is all he's come up with to do with it it's not good design

3:31:19the staff has said that the mobile homes aren't viable housing but people were living there for 20 plus years i mean that's the definition of viable housing to me i mean this was a thriving community and it's been disrupted and it that's what should be respected not the fact that it happens

3:31:37to be a different type of housing so ultimately these are empty excuses you know you know this is taking multi this is taking affordable housing options away from our community it's taking you know more than 30 of them which is more than half of the ohlone gardens affordable housing

3:32:03project that went in it's very good project it's 58 units cost 28 million dollars guess what we are negating a 15 million dollar investment in our community in affordable housing by getting rid of these units because in order to make you know the community whole we have to

3:32:22scavenge you know more than half of the investment in ohlone gardens to compensate for the damage that was done here that's not a responsible decision that's a huge hard-fought investment in our community that's being squandered by this decision in the end it comes down to the fact

3:32:43that the city didn't stand up for these el cerrito residents because they didn't think their housing was important enough instead they looked at them you know well instead of looking at them first as people who deserve the same protection as anyone else in our community

3:33:01and you know these are some of the most vulnerable and housing insecure residents in our community and it's just unconscionable um so there's guidance to prevent you know conversion from residential use to non-residential use now that's not exactly what this is but it just further

3:33:33shows that we strongly have this commitment to not displacing people and really when you stop and think about it when a market rate project like this that is unaffordable to most of the residents of the community is what's replacing affordable housing that really is

3:33:52a conversion to a non-residential use because most people cannot access that that residential opportunity so you know technically that's that's what you're doing here this new housing comes with the loss of a greater number of rental units than it's replacing it's a net loss of

3:34:15housing it's a huge loss of affordable housing again i said you know it represents half the investment in ohlone gardens 15 million dollars the project is not innovative i've suggested multiple times that the two small units could be owned by the hoa and rented at

3:34:35affordable rates and provide income to the hoa for maintenance you know this this is a pretty simple way that would benefit you know everyone um but it's been you know summarily panned as you know a burden to the hoa i don't see how it's a burden if they get income you know

3:34:55that's that's something that most hoas would kill for so there's really not been any innovation no really creative thinking going on in addition i mean the addition of the two small market rate units you know it's appreciated but it's just not enough to improve the diversity of unit size you

3:35:18know most of the new developments in the san pablo specific plan area are not actually building units this large and it's not consistent with our needs according to the housing element you know fifty percent of our housing stock is already three to four bedrooms two

3:35:34thirds of households are only two or fewer people and we're averaging about half a person per room we have drastically under utilized housing stock in our community and we don't need to add more underutilized housing stock affordable housing incentives are strong

3:35:55but have not been included and you know it's it's really important that that be an element of a plan like this when you're replacing you when you have to be context-sensitive you know when you're replacing low-income residences you know sure it's a voluntary thing but

3:36:15the developers should take it upon themselves to realize they have an obligation a responsibility to replace affordable housing with affordable housing they can't just pass it off and say oh the city's building some units over there they're doing a good job of affordable housing the city is doing a

3:36:31good job i applaud it that's great but we are seriously undermining it by allowing this project to proceed as is and just let someone you know shirk their responsibility to do better again you know three very low um affordable units gets you seven market rate units i don't

3:36:51see how that's not a viable economic proposition so you know this is this is not helpful infill it's getting this you know lauded you know description of infill it's getting you know a little easier regulatory process because of it but it's it's overfill you know it's it's

3:37:19putting something on top of something that was already there it's not squeezing something into an underutilized space it's destroying something to put something else there it's changing who can live there you know it's it's fewer units replacing a greater number of units it's more off street

3:37:34parking replacing less off street parking this is a huge step in the wrong direction and like i said it's a rare large lot with greater potential and the existing displaced community should be respected so the project is not thoughtfully designed to gracefully accommodate

3:38:01special needs and disabilities townhouses as these use many stairs and all furniture groceries trash and recycling must traverse at least one flight of stairs these buildings could have been much more conveniently designed you know if you connect them into a single building

3:38:20a single elevator could serve all residents you could have flats instead of stacked townhouses and you could have really truly universal access in all of these units for very little incremental cost compared to just doing a few things in one unit so in some ways you know this this one

3:38:47piece of our housing element should be enough to you know denounce this project it's like we want to promote fair housing opportunities for all people it doesn't get much clearer than that you know this is um this is our responsibility this is what we should be building

3:39:07and this pla plan is is destructive to fair housing rather than embracing fair housing so in considering the consistency with other policies it's important to reflect on the strategic plan um you know the strategic plan makes it very clear that you know there is a strong value of

3:39:31responsiveness this process has not lived up to the responsiveness called for in the strategic plan it has not kept the public interest in mind it has not seen you know the opportunity for members to step up and have the courage to say no and say this is wrong um and you know more than anything no

3:39:53one's willing to admit fault you know it's like i think you know whether you decide that you can make the findings to deny the appeal or not every one of you should be comfortable saying this is not how we want development to happen in our city it's not acceptable to displace low-income

3:40:14people for the benefit of you know for-profit market rate housing period it's just not acceptable and that's a self-policing promise you know we need to provide the social pressure this is not an okay way to do business you can't apologize for this way of doing business and say oh our laws allow

3:40:36it it's okay no you have to stand up and say this is wrong we don't do business this way this is you have to do better so tall narrow buildings with outdoor spaces dominated by asphalt driveways are not attractive and comfortable and you know i can go back to the the

3:41:00drb comments were very strong on that on that matter um you know it's a monotonous design it um you know the drb criticized the lack of vertical articulation um frankly i'm talking tired of talking about the rolling refuse bins which i remain incredulous that people insist that this

3:41:25is an acceptable way to handle you know refuse on the site i think it's a disaster for the residents and for the neighborhood and they should not be allowed to not design a thoughtful centralized you know waste system um so as i said you know this is not good transit oriented design

3:41:54it's highly car centric it's more off street parking it doesn't add units it's displaced residents that now have to commute further that and they can't afford to do it so we're really accomplishing nothing that transit-oriented design sets out to do here and it should not be allowed to be

3:42:09applied to this project the asphalt hardscape and car centric design is not green or eco-friendly diversion of food waste and combo spins is an important part of our climate action plan but there's no provision for green waste so you know this project is inconsistent

3:42:34with the general plan the zoning ordinance and other policies especially the chondroconversion ordinance and the appeal is not against development rather it's in favor of socially responsible high quality development decisions these these decisions last for decades to come

3:42:55we have to get them right you can't cover up for past mistakes you have to fix mistakes ultimately this development really needs to serve the community not just the interest of the developer so it's been inspiring to see the strength and caring of the audits community i mean that's really what

3:43:18brought me to this issue to begin with was you know the the speakers who started showing up to council meetings you know more than two years ago and i was very impressed i you know i saw a community that had more you know cohesiveness and and care in it than most that i've seen in el cerrito

3:43:38and that makes it all the more disheartening that this community has been displaced they were long-standing residents and you know for what we're not increasing housing we're just changing who can live there so this is this is really unacceptable and that you know the housing impact

3:43:53report only talked to less than a quarter of these people only eight got any kind of assistance you know there was not real meaningful assistance or mitigation that that went on here so um you know over and over throughout history people with less socioeconomic power

3:44:16have been displaced in favor of those with more money and power how many times do we have to learn this lesson and watch it and say nothing which side of this dismal trend do you want to align yourself and your decisions for el cerrito please act to improve this project to

3:44:33better serve the values of our community um you know this is not you know orwell's animal farm where some are more equal than others you know the condo conversion ordinance you're out of time if you could wrap up please you know how long you spoke before i got to speak i'm i i spent 370

3:44:52dollars for 20 15 minutes it's over 20 a minute so i think you can hear me out i'm almost done i you know i respect and listen to you you can listen to me so you know this is not george orwell's some people are more equal than others we are all equal and things like the

3:45:15condo conversion ordinance should be applied equally to all multi-family renters el cerrito has rallied to denounce hate crimes in our community and i've been heartened to see that it's it's great but it's not hyperbole to say that displacement of low income residents for

3:45:40market rate housing is an egregious economic hate crime and should likewise be denounced as such i think i've provided ample means to defend a rejection of the project within the policies we have but even if you think you can't find the grounds to reject the project on a strict legal

3:45:56basis you should search your constants and declare that even if it is you know by some measure legal it's not the right thing to do everyone should have no hesitation to say that this kind of abuse of our most vulnerable long-term residents is not how we want to see the new

3:46:12development happen if nothing else it needs to be a self-police social norm that unmitigated displacement is not acceptable period if you condone it you are part of the problem you are normalizing this destructive behavior it is imperative that your voice that you voice your values our community

3:46:30values and deplore any attempts to weaken our residents for the benefit of others use your imagination challenge the developer's imagination to do better a developer should take pride in their work and no one should be comfortable with taking pride in a project with

3:46:44these different disturbing social impacts this is not progress this is a violence against our community thank you i i have um a number of uh comments that were transcribed from earlier meetings that i want to share with you since not all of you had a chance to hear some of those and then i

3:47:06also have you know over 500 signed petitions of people supporting fair treatment of people at lattis so okay the next section is section number six questions from council to the appellant are there any questions no are there any questions i think paul's evaluating his decision

3:47:44leave it howdy you've already uh given us your viewpoint on the closure impact report is that correct tonight uh yeah i mean it's um i think a consultant got more out of it than any of the residents did is my opinion i mean it was not productive it didn't cover very much it only talked

3:48:09to a fraction of people and um you know it it basically is just another element of you know um basically excusing this heinous action it's it's trying to normalize it and make it a socially accepted thing to do which it is not socially acceptable my last question i think i read that you

3:48:33criticized the energy efficiency of the units and there's information there that um it's 25 more energy efficient than the cal green building code um no i think that's excellent that that is being done i mean all buildings should voluntarily do more efficiency standards than they're

3:48:53required i have no problem with that i mean i i think that in this context it's it's not a um an attribute that can excuse the damage that's being done it's something that should be done it's a great thing to do but it doesn't make up for it it's not a mitigation this this

3:49:14could only be mitigated by real affordable housing measures thank you the next section is applicant madam mayor i do have a question i was waiting yes okay go ahead um so [Music] how do you you did touch on the drb comments that were ignored is that the full extent of them or or

3:49:40did you hype summarize them and what what how would you characterize the drb comments uh that that were given in 2015 well so i was at that meeting and i was also i got the transcript of it i listened to it was very hard it was soft but i i wrote down as as much as i could

3:49:58um there were many more comments like that it was it was a very um harsh critique of the project and as you saw the developers did do a redesign of the facade but the the point is they didn't touch the site plan they didn't take that to heart that one of the primary critiques of the project in the

3:50:21initial review was the site plan was not acceptable and you know that was not communicated as it went on through the rest of the process when it came back in november i have the quotes from that meeting as well where you know the drb members were kind of shocked that they

3:50:40didn't change this and that they weren't being allowed to comment on it anymore because they were instructed that had been settled by the you know the tentative um subdivision map even though you know the tentative subdivision map didn't really approach that with the same

3:51:00sensibilities that the drb had and it didn't you know get the information that they had so you know in the meeting after you approved all this one of the drb members said you know i you know don't like this central building it's fundamental and for me that's a stop

3:51:19right there he was just not happy with the project now he very dutifully voted for the project within the narrow purview he was told that he was allowed to do and you can do that too but you are ignoring the bigger issue that this project was not the right project it was not

3:51:37done properly and it's really you know excusing a violence against our community to vote for it thank you okay [Music] now the next one is the applicant rebuttal which is 15 minutes but we're not we need to extend our meeting before we do that in order to do the 15 minutes

3:52:05somebody want to do that i'm gonna i'm adding up the amount of time that's left here do we have speaker cards we have seven requests to speak um [Music] i will move extension of the meeting to 45 minutes to 11 35 okay is there a second i'll second it all in favor all right

3:52:35any opposition any abstentions motion abstain yes okay um so motion carries with one abstention from um pardo okimoto yes um so applicant rebuttal good evening council mayor abelson and council members my name is keith mccoy with urban community partners good to

3:53:10see you again this evening it is another late one we seem to have that comes along with this project so i'll get right to it while i agree with many of the things that audi actually has said tonight about affordable housing and creating more opportunities for housing not only

3:53:26here in el cerrito but all over the bay area we've spent a lot of time on this particular project we work very closely with staff we work very closely with the design review board with the planning commission with you all to come up with what i think is a much better project than we started out

3:53:43with in 2015.

3:53:45as you heard from sean the project is already approved and tonight's appeal is really focused on the design elements and so tonight i've got and we're happy to answer any other questions you have too i'm not trying to say that those are not important issues they are absolutely but tonight is about

3:54:00the design review approval uh that was unanimous after two hearings with them um and howdy's appeal tonight so that's we're trying to focus in on that so i'd like to uh have uh peter stackpole our architect kind of take you through if you so wish all of the many changes

3:54:19that we've made as a result of our meetings with the design review board and working with staff and i'll have them do that now then we can do question answer is that does that work for you yes and within the 15 minutes right so we get 15 minutes yeah you're in it right now okay the green button

3:54:39there the um we'll be toggling every five minutes what does that mean the timer um has a a little bit of a malfunction so we'll be toggling every five minutes okay good total 15.

3:54:56you'll let us know when all that's happening right architects thank you for taking your time late at night with us again um i'm just gonna i don't have a comprehensive presentation i'm gonna focus very uh on answering questions that have come up in the last couple of days and responsive

3:55:18changes that have been made over the course of the project so here's a rendering from avila street just to kind of get us oriented entry on the right park is in the distance on the left site plan with landscaping i won't go into all the details but there are you know fundamentals to how this got

3:55:40organized this way we wanted to keep as many stoops and entries on the two streets as possible create entry gardens for each of the units both on the street and for the interior building we purposely do not have through traffic on the driveway we want to make sure

3:55:58that it's residential parking only when we've had through driveways on recent projects they become pass through conditions and they they're very hard to manage we have the garden element right here and on the backs we we want to keep the driveways off the street not have curb

3:56:22cuts have all the driveways and garages enter from the interior of the site and what i want to do right up front here is um uh deal with a question that came up here in the last couple of days and and that's the the nature and character of these driveways on either side of the

3:56:40number two building i can get the cursor back here so we have an interior driveway here we have one here and along the frontage of each of those we have plantings on either side of the garage entries here we have garage entries on both sides here we have a garage entry on one side

3:56:59and a sidewalk entry court gardens on this side um uh i came up as a proposal in the question that maybe we could use uh permeable paving or turf block type products and that's actually a creative idea the devil's in the details however because the permeable paving is usually used in

3:57:24order to take that portion of the site out of storm water treatment and and you need to the water that falls on that portion has to perk through be collected after it perks through soil carried away in sloping pipes and then carried off site we have a relatively flat site we have

3:57:46to keep the water on the surface the civil engineer needs to sheet flow because if we go underground we'll have to excavate the driveways about three feet so that the water perks and meets the requirements of the stormwater treatment ordinance and then we're too low to get it out to

3:58:06the street so the water needs to stay up high sheet flow down the valley gutters which is a typical approach in this kind of project and and then it's led to the the bioswale element which is right here which remains high enough that from there it can slope to the street

3:58:24the other issue with the with paving is the they don't perform well under constant driving loads we never we you try and avoid avoid using permeable paving on driveways if we do it in large parking lots at shopping centers for example we only use it at the parking space itself we don't

3:58:46use it on the driveways because the they become uneven very quickly we have not been happy with the performance of that product under constant driving in addition eventually trucks some trucks and possibly fire trucks will drive on portions of that a fire truck may

3:59:07want to stage here at this entry and those products can't take the load of a 50 000 pound fire truck and the larger service trucks that may on occasion traverse it with the turf block systems uh the driving over the turf will just wear the the the plantings away it won't

3:59:28uh stay there the turf block systems are excellent systems uh uh for single family homes where you have a concentrated path and only occasional uh driving over it and in addition they have to be watered and they're not very water wise so there are a number of reasons not to to do

3:59:47that what i want to do though is just suggest and illustrate with a couple of photographs why concerns about these interior driveways maybe aren't as big as they need are two a little too big the condition really isn't as odious as it might seem to be in plan so

4:00:06we have a very good landscape architect who knows how to use these smaller planting pockets adjacent to the garages and to build up the planting so that in sequence remember you drive in and out of these driveways you're looking at them linearly so as you drive into and down

4:00:24them they layer up and you get actually a pretty nice softening of the base of the buildings on either side of the driveway this is a photograph of a another project that's almost uh almost exactly the same in terms of dimension and height as the project we're proposing

4:00:42and you can see that this landscaping is actually pretty effective across the frontage this actually would represent the narrower of the two driveway conditions that we have on the other driveway we have an additional 10 feet so that the on one side the building is 10 feet

4:01:00further back there's a sidewalk in front of the entry gardens to those units so it's quite a bit more open than this our site plan here points out some of the units that we adapted to address concerns about accessibility and affordability these two units right here the c units

4:01:23are carved away from the base of of typical a units at the front they front the street they're affordable by design because of their smaller size and they're also accessible handicap accessible they're at street level and then in our larger b units we found room to incorporate an

4:01:43accessory unit owned by the unit by the overall bee unit but rentable separately if the those owners so desire typical floor plans here are those smaller units down at the ground level and the accessory units uh typical type a plan with without an accessory unit uh without a and uh let's

4:02:10see a typical b plan which shows again this i can get the cursor back here the the plan right here this is the accessory unit has its own entry off the street and is accessible plans for the uh the the type c unit here over on the side uh i'm not going to go over these uh

4:02:35changes to the uh design and detail sean covered that pretty well but there have been extensive changes at three different stages we've done everything we can to listen carefully to the design review board and be responsive to their concerns details of how the the entries would

4:02:54work your ad there were concerns about how the lighting happens at on the front of the building each entry has its own lighting and its own light that's one of the fixtures on our pallet uh this is the previous um color materials board uh design review board thought it was too warm wanted to

4:03:16make some changes create more contrast to the uh the wood product and so they asked us to go to a cooler palette and so we we did that we applied it we also made additional changes to how these colors are used on the building here's the previous design not the very earliest one but the the

4:03:38previous one to the final design review before we made those color uh balcony changes and uh sean's covered most of it i want to cover one more thing and if you notice if you look at a window this is actually the most expensive design change that we made in response

4:03:56in response to design review comments they asked us to recess all the windows so thousands of linear feet of additional recess we need to go to a two by six rather than two by four exterior wall everywhere on the project we we inset a two by four that allows us

4:04:15to back set the windows two inches so every the stucco and the wood returns two inches and what it does if i toggle back and forth it creates an additional shadow and recess in the window and and creates a a little higher quality look to the building light fixtures there was a comment in

4:04:38questions about how we would be lighting the driveway and the walkway and there isn't a specific detailed requirement in the design review application checklist for lighting and photometrics but they do ask for wall fixtures and we have indicated next to the doors and labeled all the

4:05:00wall fixtures we also have a fixture next to every garage entry we have added in response to this question yesterday fixtures security fixtures along walkways along the driveway at a couple of the end conditions where we need them to light those walkways and that's similar comments

4:05:24for these elevations if you go in and look you'll you'll see that we've added these fixtures and the number of fixtures may vary as we get into the lighting and so when we don't have a specific requirement as part of the design review uh checklist for detailed lighting design and

4:05:46photometrics what we like to do is provide a pallet so that as we go through the design review process they can review a set of fixtures for compatibility with the architecture of the project and then as we get into the more detailed design when we get to construction documents we've got

4:06:03fixtures that are approved and we can adjust them as we need to to meet the photometric requirements there will not be a 50 inch high fixture on this project in fact we can if we need to have a condition of approval to eliminate the a fixture we should do it because it

4:06:23didn't come up as necessary in our discussions with design review the other fixtures may be necessary as we go through this and i will tell you that right now this fixture here the security lighting fixture is the wall sconce fixture that would be lighting the pathways and the

4:06:41driveways and anchored to the side of the building this fixture here is that is the down light that's next to all garages and next to all entry doors the other fixtures would be supplemental if we get into the detailed design and need more lumens per square foot

4:06:59and for example we may want to add this fixture underneath overhangs and soffits over the garages if we need more lighting on the driveways so it's in there we can use it in the future okay here's where we've ended up with the the design of the building and we hope you feel it's uh uh

4:07:24a good response and we've been responsive through the design process there have been a lot of landscape changes as well uh annika carpenter the landscape architect is here and she can answer questions as well and i'm ready for your questions how many minutes have we used up

4:07:43[Music] there's 21 seconds left i yield what i said i yield i i won't need 21 seconds yeah you're finished yes i am okay thank you okay if we could have the lights sure speaking of lights okay so now we have the questions from the council to the applicant are there any questions

4:08:16okay i've got some um on your roofing plan you call for solar panels uh i'm assuming these solar panels will stay below the parapet so they're not necessarily visible from the ground my question was more towards making room for uh internal transmission of the power so

4:08:35that there's not large external cabling that has to come down the side of the building have you accommodated for any conduit to you know take that power from the roof into or to the subterranean power grid that you have on site there is there's ample room in the in a

4:08:54six inch wall uh exterior wall there's ample room to run that conduit so you're going to build that into the project prior to the walls being buttoned up correct and you'll do the correct thermal calculations to make sure you're not you know creating a fire hazard as a result

4:09:13of that there will be no external conduit on the exterior of the buildings correct that's more or less what i wanted to hear no external conduit um any uh let's see we heard from the applicant that uh there was some significant critique of this project in 2015 from the design review board

4:09:35and uh quite a bit of it centered around the center building the building number two and there was potentially a lot of criticism from the drb at that time to utilize the site differently how do you respond to that criticism or how do you respond to the opponent's

4:09:54charges on that yeah the the initial design did not have the interior the landscaping on the interior frontages of the project so we added the landscaping i hope we showed in the photograph that it actually works quite well quite well to to soften the base of the building

4:10:13we added a walkway as well a sidewalk i believe from that original uh that allows direct access to the entries from that sidewalkway to those interior units uh yeah i'm not certain that completely answers my question um and uh to the developer project any consideration of the

4:10:36applica the appellants rental scenarios for the hoa to uh own and rent the two small units as affordable housing uh well we did talk about that uh back at the city council meeting on september 20th if you recall and i think it was the consensus that because the units are

4:10:57small enough uh they will be for sale but uh affordable you know by design in other words um and and no we don't think it's a benefit uh to the hoa to actually own these units and manage them for such a small project if it was a larger 150 unit project or a 100 unit

4:11:14project it might make some sense but this is a a small project for only you know 29 units to to have an hoa and then to own two units and manage those as rentals is a burden actually so no not really in consideration for now although as you know we added the accessory units that are for rent um

4:11:36that added an additional element of uh different unit type in a for rent product in this and and my last question i actually scratched it off because you answered it but i just want to make sure that the sconces 50 inch sconce you concur is a pretty large element and i heard

4:11:52you say that you weren't planning on using unit light unit type a it's available from 18 to 50 inches we we would probably only ever using it an 18-inch size it as we went through the design review and the way the project adjusted we won't need that fixture do we need do we

4:12:11need a condition to that effect i'm looking to staff at this point margaret cavanaugh lynch development services manager you could add a condition of approval striking the 50-inch sconce as one of the possible lighting fixtures great thank you hey paul okay um i don't think we have any

4:12:31further questions thank you very much um we're ready for public testimony so each person gets three minutes is is the uh the light is it working for three minutes okay so we're okay so do you want to call the first three people up please yes uh the first three speakers are

4:12:59cordell hindler followed by tommy nagai roth and sharon maldonado okay so good evening again uh council the reason um i have i've heard everything that howdy just said so and i totally agree um we have a lot of seniors in our community and um with this type of development it it will

4:13:22be like a it would be like a disappointment because like what he just said um that a woman had a stroke when she found out that um that the rent was like 2500 a month i'm like i would not live in a project like that for that amount of money that's that's not that's not good so we need more

4:13:41we need more housing for our community because we're trying to like bring in a lot of revenue for the city and so i figured this would be an opportunity for like you know we need something that is more you know something you know innovative and something that is like

4:13:55more of today so with this type of project um i'm not i'm i mean i think it's a good project but but it has to be with the community and the seniors so i agree so i agree with howdy so i'm thinking that this council would like would find this with in your hearts not

4:14:12to like you know take a look at this some more and uh and um and just think about what you are doing with um with this project so i'm gonna pass it on to the next speaker thank you good evening mayor abelson and the el studio city council members my name is tomi nagai

4:14:37rota i live on el dorado street directly across from the outer rv park which i call the august rv park because the sign is still there i realized the design process is very far along but i was unable to participate earlier and the organization that i represent elsewhere to progressives didn't exist

4:14:59until last september so i'm going to make a very brief personal observation and and read a very short letter from el cerrito progressives um on the personal note i was i have been heartsick over the past two years to watch um the ottus rv park an intact el cerrito community torn apart and to see

4:15:20my neighbors leave slowly or be driven out i my garage is directly my carport is directly across from the driveway and now it's just an empty lot and it is it it is actually painful um to have seen that happen um so i'm going to read um a very short letter from elsevier progressives dear mayor

4:15:47abelson and el cewedo city council members we are all aware that the growing trend in the bay area is the displacement of people from neighborhoods in the face of economic development it is a wrenching disruptive experience for families long time residents want to retire and remain

4:16:06in el cerrito but some cannot afford to do so and sadly the residents of the former ottus rb park had their neighborhoods sold out from underneath them any development that displaces or makes residents homeless particularly low income and elderly or disabled residents without remedy is

4:16:25clearly not in line with our values in light of this new housing and development must reflect the inclusive value of ulcerations we must collectively vow to keep this kind of displacement from happening again in the months ahead we look forward to working with city staff and the city

4:16:46council to protect housing for all our residents sincerely elsewhere to progressives thank you very much thank you sharon maldonado followed by robin mitchell and dan hardy good evening i am sharon and thank you um mayor abelson and council members for this opportunity to to speak uh on this

4:17:08very crucial topic i was lucky enough to get to know and become friendly with the folks who live at aldis trailer park when i learned of the mass displacement i went over to talk to them and i i hope i don't break into tears i'd rather just not do that but i found the most incredible community

4:17:33people who'd lived there for a long time and truly looked after each other and shared holidays and it it was it was just a wonderful group of people to meet over the more than a year a number of the residents and several of us who supported them met with city staff

4:17:52quite a few times obviously we were talking about the things that howdy expressed so eloquently tonight wanting the development not to go forward near the end of our talks one thing we did discuss was the possibility of having small units that perhaps one of the townhouses could

4:18:12be made into three small units rather than than being a townhouse we were told that pretty much this was not going to be possible so you can imagine the idea of the small units was that any people who were left truly homeless who could not you know find another

4:18:33place to live if your trailer is too old you cannot move it to another trailer park if um it won't be accepted there there were three apartments so those folks had no trailer to move they you know just had to leave their apartments um so it was our idea the idea of the

4:18:53residents and those of us that went with them to do these smaller units so you can imagine my shock when i heard that these units were not designed for people who became homeless as a result of the mass displacement in fact they were going to be owned by the people who were wealthy enough to buy

4:19:14the town homes and then they could rent them out and gain the income of these accessory units they would not be renting for what's considered you know truly low income housing we had discussed with staff that there were bonuses um so that you know the the developers

4:19:36could uh put low-income housing in with um you know creating more units and we're told the stat staff said we just can't do anything we can't make the developer do anything like that our hands are tied so this really is a divine a design review issue because those units the idea was that they would

4:19:59be for people who are now homeless as a result of this displacement and instead they are going to just make the people who can afford the town homes wealthier because they will be able to rent them out um could wrap up because the time is out please i'm sorry what the time is out

4:20:17sorry my time is up oh so i need to wrap up okay um [Music] so i i just i want to answer one important question that one of the new council members asked what about the resident impact report that was the most amazing fraudulent document that has ever been produced

4:20:40it indicated there were all kinds of affordable units that were available to the residents and that was the most important thing to them could they find another place to live we called all of the buildings on the list that said oh we have apartments available or

4:20:56our waiting list is open there was not one apartment available and there was almost no waiting list that was actually open this is what the developer produced and was uh given to the residents so we talked to to planning staff and they acknowledged after they did a little

4:21:15investigation that this is this was a totally totally fraudulent report that was put out and was supposed to be helpful to the residents thank you thank you robin mitchell followed by dan hardy and glenn wood good evening please excuse my voice i'm getting over

4:21:44a cold so here we are again standing in front of the city council making our argument i have spoken many times over the years about developments that do not reflect the values of el cerrito these comments seem to have had little effect on the outcome and i must say it has been a

4:21:59very discouraging process but this project has hit new lows i think it if this development is approved as is it will leave a black mark on el cerrito's development history the legacy will be that the city abandoned its most vulnerable residents who were low-income elderly and disabled

4:22:19in order to allow development of market rate housing which the developer estimated will sell for between 700 and 800 thousand dollars for the three and four bedroom units and there is no guarantee that the so-called affordable units will be affordable the developer estimated a

4:22:36cost of 250 to 300 thousand dollars for those units and affordable does not mean low income this was not raw land a community was displaced by this project they were unable to define to find a comparable place to live in el cerrito and ended up scattered to the

4:22:53winds their lives were changed forever generally not for the better they now face long commutes to their jobs to the bay area or have had to settle for less than ideal living situations and to what end low income housing was displaced by market rate housing an outcome

4:23:10explicitly stated as undesirable in several el cerrito documents including the condo conversion ordinance so once again those with more money and more power prevail over those with less i have spent the last several days reviewing videos containing comments on this project made at two different city

4:23:27council meetings the first on october 6 2015 and the second on september 20th 2016. at the first meeting residents spoke about their community at autis rv park where they felt safe where they knew and took care of their neighbors where they celebrated holidays such as

4:23:43thanksgiving and christmas together they all said they loved living in el cerrito i doubt there is another neighborhood in el cerrito with this level of cohesion and that has now been destroyed by this development many advocates also spoke eloquently about the city's obligation to take care

4:24:00of these people but by the second meeting when the subdivision map was approved by council 4-1 the hope for a good outcome was gone from the speakers in the words of mark friedman the lone council member who voted against the project he didn't want to be party to a

4:24:17decision that eroded the economic and social diversity of our community i was very proud of el cerrito for recently declaring itself a sanctuary city on march 21st of this year however i was struck by the hypocrisy of protecting one set of vulnerable residents immigrants and refugees while

4:24:37at the same time not protecting another group of vulnerable residents those who have lived for 15 to 25 years in el cerrito at the autis rv park it doesn't work to write words on paper about the city's values and ideals and then not actually follow through on them

4:24:54when confronted with a challenging situation the city's legal council has argued that the condo conversion ordinance does not apply in this case but if the city truly believed in protecting its most vulnerable residents it would direct legal counsel to bend over backwards to

4:25:10argue that this ordinance does apply that's what lawyers do this project affects real lives i urge you to stand by the principles so eloquently stated in the city's condo convergent conversion ordinance and reject this development thank you dan hardy followed by glenn wood and

4:25:34sydney manchester jones dan hardy okay glenn wood thank you good evening council i'm here to talk very briefly in support of the el dorado project as you know i'm on the design review board i've been on the board for about more than eight years now and i've seen a lot of projects through

4:26:11the years come through the city on this particular project i chose to recuse myself because i do know the developer but i have followed the design of the project through all the different changes and i wanted to speak to the design a little bit tonight and it's my view that the project is an

4:26:35innovative project it is an innovative design in that it it's a it creates compact urban infill housing in a location that's walkable to bart transit the theater east pacific mall many things and it does meet a lot of the goals of the san pablo avenue specific plan though i know it's

4:27:00just outside of the plan and also meets a lot of the goals of the general plan and as a design review board member i've seen a lot of projects come through all different from all different types of developers and at all different sizes and quality and this project has come a long way in the

4:27:19design and the quality from the initial submittal and i believe the current design is has addressed a lot of the issues that the design review board had and that's why they approved the project it's also the project also um is gonna as was mentioned already it will exceed

4:27:43a lot of the um energy requirements and it has additional sustainability features that are beyond what's required by the code or the city and it will provide housing for 29 individuals or couples or families that wouldn't otherwise likely be able to afford a house in el

4:28:04cerrito or this whole area it will be um you know for some people it will be uh create starter housing for people to live in this area um so um and there are you know many of the units do have rental units that will help pay mortgages that makes it more affordable

4:28:26and there are smaller you know a few smaller units as you know so um anyway i i i think that sums up my comments um it's it's a quality project it's better than most of what we've seen come through and a lot of these projects get you know if the process works they get a lot better through the

4:28:50process and i think this is one of those thank you thank you ready go ahead please my name is uh sydney manchester jones uh mayor and city council i'm a former resident of autis park on the one face here tonight that represents the human impact you know i i'm homeless and i live in my

4:29:24car there's two faces that will never be here judith tate lived in one of the homes there uh for 32 years she had a heart attack but she is moving out uh marcia palmer moved out she was the last person to leave uh she's forced to get into a 2500 apartment right over here and went

4:29:47through starting to go through her savings uh you know really rapidly and she had a stroke and died that's the human impact folks you know what it boils down to is conscience and integrity and doing the right thing the fire chief at the beginning of this council meeting

4:30:03tonight said it is doing the right thing and you know what this this whole stench from the get-go has wafted uh far beyond the borders of el cerrito you know uh in the form of the press you know uh there's been two interviews on npr radio for instance locally myself

4:30:28and another person separately that were broadcast nationwide and the reason i know this that they were heard nationwide my niece called me from northern virginia and said uncle said you know i i was watching npr you know and and and you live in el cerrito right

4:30:44and i said yes and you know we uh talked about they heard this nationwide so this uh you know this is just uh staying in the confines of el cerrito there's the human impact you know uh i represent it the developers from the very get-go because i've been coming to city council

4:31:06meetings right from the beginning have suddenly adjusted they never had any uh inclination of of applying affordable or uh low-income housing in their units they're forced to do this and the way it's done so far is a joke you know so you can city council members have a real

4:31:30dude fire chief said it right at the beginning man you know doing the right thing it's a matter of conscience and integrity and this is not right the way this has gone down thank you thank you any more speakers uh the last slip i have is for paul taby tybott tabai

4:32:04good evening members of city council staff and the public my name is paul tabi i've lived in el cerrito for over 13 years owned rental property in el cerrito for 26 years i built two homes for myself done remodels on my own properties in el cerrito i've had a business in el

4:32:21cerrito in the 90s i helped update the zoning ordinance in 2006.

4:32:26in short i know a thing or two about construction the entitlement process for developing property and working with city staff i have intermittently followed the progress of 5828 el dorado i've attended two public hearings of which there have been many more regarding this project

4:32:43some key facts to consider urban community partners has followed input from el cerrito city staff the planning commission city council design review and made the suggested changes urban community partners has received approvals on all of these levels the developer has followed all of the rules

4:33:01and regulations to gain project approval the developer did not ask for variances the project is a smart urban infill project with a walk score of 84. the rv park was a non-conforming use and would not be allowed under the current zoning the city is required to promote housing

4:33:22under under plan bay area the one-time project construction cost will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and taxes for the city of el cerrito contra costa county and the west contra costa unified school district the annual property tax increase will be

4:33:40over two hundred and thirty thousand dollars per year over a life span of 50 years the el dorado project will generate over 10 million dollars in property taxes the council made some excellent recommendations to include more housing types within the project the developer added two fully accessible

4:33:59ground floor units and three in-law units in other words it's a great project as currently approved and it will help us fulfill our housing needs in el cerrito encourage development of homes generate revenue for government and schools there should be no further delays or

4:34:16modifications to the el dorado project please deny the appeal and let's move forward with improving el cerrito thank you thank you so that was it okay so that um finishes the uh additional oh actually we're two additional questions that council might have uh madam mayor can i move to extend the

4:34:42meeting five minutes yes five there's a second i'll second okay there's a second all in favor please say aye aye was that unanimous okay that was unanimous okay so is there a uh are there any additional questions not hearing any is there a motion to close the public

4:35:05hearing i'll move to close to public hearing their second okay second so motion by the lyman seconded by uh praidu okimoto uh all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any absentian motion carries unanimously with that we'll move on to council deliberations

4:35:27inclu which includes additional questions for staff as necessary are there any further deliberations i i have i have comments and then there's two conditions that i certainly would like to get into any any motion that's made i think you could do the the change to the motion in the motion

4:35:51which is the next step okay you want to do that and then the other one you want to do now sure i i honey i want to thank you very much um for your commitment to making our community better for for allowing this topic to be brought again to us to the conscience of the community is

4:36:12is heightened again i um you know i continue to say what i said 18 months ago or not six months ago you know we we the council are the conscience of the community and we have to weigh the displacement of all this uh the community benefits from more housing and the property rights of the private

4:36:33property owner and to that end you know i i um you know definitely called around to non-profits to see if this project could be managed in some fashion to be a low to inc having low affordable units and was told by uh two different units that two different companies that is too small

4:36:57and so what i want to call for is that we need to change the laws so that we can provide staff the tools to carry out the values that were discussed tonight in great detail and we've called for an inclusionary ordinance we've hired consultants to help us with the inclusionary ordinance

4:37:17and i really will be talking about the priorities uh on our next meeting and that continues to be a high priority for me and i know it the staff is working on bringing it to us early in the summer is what i've been told so that's my commitment to trying to solve this from ever happening again

4:37:37is to change the laws and that's part of what how to use some of your discussion tonight was is don't hide behind the existing laws well let's change them and that's what we need to do is change the laws so um i can make a motion now if you want or we can have collaborations yep yeah yes i'm

4:37:57sure yes um i would just like to state that if i would have had the opportunity to vote against this project and to stop people from being displaced that i would have done that unfortunately i was not on the council at that time and i and i'm not exactly sure about how many people had already

4:38:17been to put displaced by the time the vote was taken um and that um i i feel bad that there's i i feel like there's not much i can do since the 39 people are already gone um and i guess that's all i have to say i also wanted to i also would like to mention that

4:38:52i as well have made so many phone calls trying to find another trailer park that would take the residents um i have reached out to many of them in san pablo in richmond in vallejo all of them in this area and i reached out to catholic charities i reached out to

4:39:23all of our electeds here and i'm sorry to say that we have failed and i also wanted to say that we need to find a place for this gentleman and i hope our staff can find a place for him to live and that's the least we can do for this gentleman and we cannot have a resident that was

4:39:54kicked out of this place to live in his car that's not acceptable so that's all i wanted to say yes um like councilwoman pardue akimoto i'm late to this two-year decision-making process so we're coming from a different context and i am very concerned about even the

4:40:20possibility of unfair displacement policies in the city it's true that there is no law to specifically deal with rv residents who must move but i believe and i would like to request of staff that going forward as we develop our housing affordable housing strategy that we develop a clear

4:40:38policy against displacement and that if the city does in fact have to in some weird way some negative way that we are very clear about how we compensate and help you prioritize the future of where they are placed and what they are given by us i will monitor that

4:40:58but right now we're dealing with an empty lot and it doesn't serve anybody right now i've been a big proponent of affordable housing but i also believe that how the housing crisis demands that we build all types of housing market rate middle income and affordable housing we need it all

4:41:19and i also believe that we do not necessarily need to put one development under the microscope to resolve our affordable housing problems we need to put the whole city's housing plan under the microscope and i've been very pleased with coming into the city council with our plans of over 300 units

4:41:38being planned in this city and the goals and that the city has taken on as a whole and making more affordable housing a real reality but from what i've read i think the project is consistent with our city requirements and the hard work of our design review board and our planning commission

4:41:58uh and they say it's consistent with our our city plans and i must rely on their decisions and their expertise on this so i i may i'm gonna vote to deny the appeal thank you okay uh the uh the comment i would like to make is that um i'm sorry madame i'm just really very

4:42:22sorry to interrupt but but the five-minute extension has already we just do ten minutes so we don't have to keep doing this i have to use it okay so is there a motion to extend by time i move by ten minutes to extend okay is there a second second okay there's a motion by fidelity

4:42:38seconded by quinto um all in favor please say aye aye any uh objections any abstentions motion carries unanimously okay what was i trying to say so what what in my opinion has really happened is a number of things really it started out with the i think the recession

4:43:01then it uh was followed by the into redevelopment which was our tool to do affordable housing and um and now we're in this funny place where we're recovering from the recession and we have the possibility of an enormous number of projects going in on san pablo avenue

4:43:28that would include a lot of housing and we still don't have a tool exactly although we do have a bit of a tool um and there are kind of two tools as i understand it right now one is um the um we can we can give somebody the ability say to put on an extra story on a building or something if they do

4:43:51affordable units things like that but the other thing then there's some st a little bit of state money but these things take forever to get set up and what we need is to have an overall policy and it's my understanding that's what we're starting to do some studies

4:44:10on with staff is working on some studies on that and so if we can bring that back i think overall that's the answer that we need um in this day and time i mean we just don't have the other tools anymore which is um a real problem in my opinion but they um we have

4:44:37been getting a few affordable projects then i've been told by other cities that we're doing more than they are um and i don't know you know don't know how they're putting in but the kind of units i think we're really talking about are the what are called low and very low

4:44:57that's what we need to work on so um i am hopeful that that's what the process that we're embarking upon right now will result in but um but it won't solve the problem in this particular case unfortunately um so i believe that that's the end of council deliberations and we're ready

4:45:18for action and somebody want to make a motion yeah i'll move a resolution of the city council the city of el cerrito determining that the project is categorically exempt making findings uh denying an appeal and upholding the planning commission's design review action conditionally approving the

4:45:36design review of el dorado town homes with two additional conditions condition one or i guess it's condition one would be to remove lamp type a on sheet a19 and the second is to provide to require internal power conduits for potential future solar power panels and prohibit any external

4:46:10power conduits i will second that motion okay i uh saw the developer uh nodding on that one so i will assume that means they think they can do it um so there was a motion by lyman seconded by quinto do you have that down what the motion is yes um well it'll appear in the minutes okay

4:46:37and um so where i think we're ready to vote all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition any abstentions motion cares unanimously thank you all for coming and i know it's been a arduous process [Music] and i hope that this is the last time something like this

4:47:04can happen in this city um and um have to be the first time you had the chance the um with that we'll move on on the agenda although i think we could looking at the mayor if i may go ahead on item uh number eight city council and local i think i can provide you a quick summary in less than two

4:47:34minutes okay on a relatively important one okay just go ahead waste the waste the west contra costa integrated waste management authority we are in the process of considering um [Music] the effects of agencies leaving that joint powers association of the two agencies that were studied was richmond

4:47:58and richmond plus el cerrito leaving that joint powers association i can tell you the quote i would like to reply um and it's in light of some of the new text that is being considered for a new agreement richmond has many heartburns over the text but uh council member myrick from

4:48:20richmond did say that it sounded like many of those issues could be resolved to avoid any disillusion or changes in that jpa from a voting perspective so i i do want to report that we are continuing to look at various withdrawal models of in that agreement and and that may i may be bringing that back

4:48:48to you at some point to consider either withdrawal or new language okay any other reports no okay and i think i'm too tired to do one if i is our motion to adjourn i don't even second oh okay paul made the motion to adjourn in michelle's all in favor please say aye

4:49:24aye any objections in the abstentions motion cares unanimously thank you everybody you