Good evening, everyone.

It is Monday, June 8th, 7 p.m.

It is now time to start the planning board meeting.

And before we fully get started, Board Member Sahiva, can you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance.

Thank you.

All right, and we'll start with roll call.

Okay.

Board Member Hom.

Here.

Board Member Sue.

Here.

Board Member Ariza.

Here.

Board Member Wang.

Here.

Board Member Sahaba.

Present.

President Cisneris.

Here.

And board member Ruiz is absent.

Okay, great.

And before we move on to agenda changes, I just wanted to share a note with the public that this is a public meeting.

So we are doing the contact, we're conducting business for the city of Alameda, and so therefore no disruptions, please.

There are people listening online, so we want to be respectful for everyone in the room and at home, according in accordance to California Final Code Section 403.

It is a criminal offense for any person without authority of law to disturb a breakup in an assembly or meeting.

And so on and so forth.

So let's just be respectful.

And with that note, we can move on to agenda item two, which is any agenda changes from staff or the changes.

Okay, great.

Non-agenda public comments.

Someone can speak about a topic that's not on tonight's agenda for three minutes.

We have any speakers.

Yes, we have one in person.

If anyone online would like to speak, please raise your hand.

Our first speaker is Rose Hui.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, Chair and members of the planning board.

My name is Rose Huey.

I am an Alameda resident, a CPA, and a founder of My Mother's House.

It is a nonprofit organization exploring an intergenerational housing model that brings together low-income seniors, single mothers, and their children in a supportive community environment.

The idea is simple.

Many seniors experience loneliness and isolation.

Many single mothers struggle with housing stability and support.

And children benefit from having caring adults and mentors in their lives.

As Alameda continues planning for future housing opportunities, I hope the city will consider innovative housing models that not only provide homes, but also build stronger and more connected communities.

This concept can be explained in a minute and 42 seconds.

But it has the potential to make a lasting impact on the lives of seniors, families, and children in our community.

And I believe this model offers a promising way to address multiple social needs through thoughtful housing design.

And I believe Alameda is uniquely positioned to explore creative approaches like this.

And I would welcome future opportunities to share research, community feedback, and potential partnerships that could help to bring this vision to life.

And thank you very much for your time and for your service to Alameda.

And I also have a one-page flyer that provides a brief overview of this concept.

And I invite you to take a look if you are interested in learning more.

And I also have contact information in the back.

So you're welcome to call me or send me an email, and we can always talk more about it.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

And if um, yeah, I do want to pass it to staff and they'll make sure the handouts get to us.

That would be great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Do we have any other public speakers?

We have no other speakers.

Thank you.

Or non-agenda or you're here for West Midway, right?

Oh, there's a time.

Okay.

All right, we'll go ahead and close um agenda item three and move on to the consent calendar, which is to approve the draft meeting minutes for May 26th.

Um do we have any edits or comments?

If not, um we could open two public comment.

Yes.

Just a minor thing.

Steve Buckley's name is uh misspelled.

His last name.

So, good catch.

Thank you.

There you go.

If we can have that revision to the minutes, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Um, if no other comments, do we have any um public comments on this meeting minutes?

If not, we could make a motion.

I move adoption.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay.

Um, all those in favor say aye.

Opposed, and we have one absence um board member Duce, who's also not here today.

All right, so that motion passes.

We'll close agenda item four and move on to regular agenda items, which is a study session on Main Street Neighborhood North Area.

Do we have a presentation?

Yes, we do.

This is Nicole Franklin will be our primary presenter tonight.

Great.

Thank you.

Um good evening.

My name is Nicole Franklin.

Um, I'm a base for use manager for Alameda Point, and I'm here tonight uh with a colleague to provide you with the preliminary uh results of the development feasibility analysis that we conducted for the main street north area at Alameda Point and get your input on our priorities for advancing development in this area.

We're here tonight to evaluate the next steps for new residential development north of West Midway and potentially west of Pan Am at Alameda Point.

The topics that we're gonna be discussing tonight.

We're gonna give a recap of the December 6th, 2025 studies session and tour that we uh conducted um at Alameda Point, kind of give you an overview of the feasibility analysis results, and then also have a discussion uh session with you to kind of make sure we're clear about uh the planning priorities that this body has for uh Main Street Neighborhood North.

Here is kind of a process timeline.

We conducted that preliminary analysis, and now we're in the priority setting phase.

Last week, staff went to the historical advisory board and spoke with them about priorities around historical preservation uh and other considerations, and we're here tonight to speak with you about planning priorities.

We'll be meeting with community and then the council uh to make sure that we're clear about the priorities for redevelopment of this area, and then also then we'll be fine-tuning potentially the feasibility analysis based upon that feedback, and then going to council uh to give them that update and get their um uh decision as to if we move forward with issuing a request for qualifications to bring a developer on to help us unlock um development in this area.

Now I'm gonna kind of give a recap uh of the December 6th, 2025 Main Street Neighborhood North Study Session in Tour.

On this slide is the planning context for redevelopment of the Main Street Neighborhood North area.

It is based upon the 2017 Main Street Neighborhood Specific Plan that put forth the vision that we have on the screen there.

And again, that was 10 years ago, and so we wanted to come back to this body and other advisory boards to confirm if 10 years later are these still are priorities for advancing revitalization of this area.

Again, a recap from December, we kind of gave an update on the development that we have undertaken at Alameda Point.

We started with the site A development and moved north.

We're currently working and getting started with the West Midway project and doing the horizontal infrastructure for the reshape project, and that's the replacement housing project for some of the residents who live north of Main Street, and they'll be relocating into that into that area.

So then we can advance development in Main Street Neighborhood North.

Here is the area that was included in the feasibility analysis.

We call it the study area.

Again, area in the red is just the north portion of Main Street Neighborhood North with the vision and the priority set forth in the 2017 Main Street Neighborhood North or Main Street Neighborhood Plan.

In that same area, you'll see in the white dotted line, that is the area that's currently occupied by the residents who will be relocating south of West Midway into the reshape project.

You'll see on both sides of Pan Am in what I call mustard, that is the Naval Air Station Historic District.

In the blue, that is area that staff included in the study area to be reviewed for their feasibility for advancing development in that area.

So we can look at potentially getting an economy of scale and developing that area.

Those properties are owned by the school district, and mostly everything except building 17 that's owned by the school district in that blue box is not currently zoned for residential.

So the total area is about 70 acres in the study area.

In December, we talked about extensively about sea level rise and shoreline adaptation and groundwater, and the key point is we talked about site A development, West Midway, and Reshape.

Those developments largely did not have to deal with the sea level rise issue, but if you can see the area highlighted in yellow on the right, top right-hand corner, that is the main street neighborhood north plus area, and we would have to consider all the different extraordinary costs and associated with sea level rise and shoreline adaptation.

And then we'll talk about that more in our presentation later on with when David goes to the feasibility.

Here we talked about this in December as well.

There are pretty unique challenges in the Main Street Neighborhood North area, the property characteristics.

We talked about the infrastructure that needs to be replaced.

I just mentioned the shoreline stabilization and other factors, and then the historic district and layout.

We also have development financial considerations.

In Alameda Point specifically, there's a 25% affordable housing requirement where the rest of the city is 15%.

Also, for Main Street neighborhood north, this will be the first development area that we would be subject to the Navy conveyance payment.

We were able to advance site A, West Midway, and of course, reshape because it's affordable and was not applicable to those developments.

It will come into play when we move forward with development here.

Also, there are specific challenges for development west of Pan Am, and then also east of Pan Am, and those issues are kind of listed on the slide.

And David will get a little bit more into that when he talks about the feasibility analysis.

So at the end of that meeting, staff's key takeaway from feedback we received during the study session and the tour is that there was general support for the concept of rezoning the area west of Pan Am to residential, specifically the area what we call the North Shore, which is just west of the officers club or the Oak Club.

There was understanding that the sea level rise adaptation and the shoreline stabilization and infrastructure work would require significant external funding.

And so when we get to the discussion section of tonight's meeting, we would want to make sure that you walked away with the same takeaways.

And if not, we would like to hear back from you on that as well.

So now I'm going to turn it over to David Dozma with Kaiser Mars in their land use economics firm to kind of give you and highlight an overview of the feasibility analysis results.

David.

Good evening, board members.

David Dozima.

So the feasibility analysis that we prepared to inform the planning work around Main Street Neighborhood North started with three main questions.

One is what are the infrastructure needs and costs and how can that infrastructure be delivered?

Two, what funding could be generated from sale of the historic homes in order to pay for some of that infrastructure, taking into consideration the rehabilitation costs of those units, and finally, would new development yield a favorable return.

And we had a few key inputs to that analysis that we were working from.

One is cost estimates that were prepared by CBG engineers who also prepares your master infrastructure plan.

And that's cost estimates for infrastructure.

A property needs assessment looking at rehab costs for the historic homes, and a yield analysis that was prepared by a separate consultant, Artemis Seda Sullivan, and that all fed into the performer work that was used to evaluate overall feasibility on a sort of multi-year cash flow basis.

So talking about the costs first.

It's in the zone of deformation, they call it.

Flooding risk we saw in the prior slide, and to reconstruct Main Street and in part elevate it to form part of that flood protection.

So 240 million in total cost, given sort of the big ticket nature of those costs, we wanted to find ways to be efficient, scale back, or defer some costs where possible.

One thing that was looked at was rehabbing the infrastructure within the historic district around the big whites in place rather than rerouting all the utilities and totally reconstructing.

So there were some savings potential there, 12 million.

Another was to defer some of that shoreline levy work to a subsequent time and have a portion of that levy and shoreline stabilization work, excuse me, a portion of that flood protection occur through a temporary flood wall.

That wouldn't be of the permanent structure.

And then this is more of a placeholder than anything else, but obviously any outside funding sources or grants would be wonderful if that were possible as well.

In terms of the development scenarios that were tested, we wanted to focus on we wanted to start from a baseline, you know, understanding all the challenges that we've been talking about.

Start from what we understood to be the most feasible project to begin with.

So we we want to see if there's a project there in the first place, right?

That's that was part of the objective.

So we looked at a lower density scenario that would be about 600 units on the east side of Pan Amway, and then a medium density scenario that would also get up to a thousand units if you include some of the city-owned property that is west of Pan Amway.

Um both scenarios are a mix of of townhomes and multifamily affordable.

And this is the top line finding from the analysis.

It looks like feasibility is within reach based on these scenarios that we looked at.

1.25 million in revenues average per unit for the market rate units, 1.28 million average per unit in costs, and we're a little bit liberal with the term cost there because we also include a return to the developer in that number.

Um so top line, we're in within range of feasibility.

Um interesting finding is that that medium density scenario we looked at, not quite as strong as the lower density scenario.

And one of the drivers there is that we have some fixed costs that go up with unit count.

Um, that navy payment is one of them, adding more market rate housing means more affordable housing, and then obviously the East Bay mud charges too.

Um, but our land our the value and revenues don't go up in that same proportional way, and so that led to this somewhat counterintuitive result that we found.

Um but you know, I don't want to overstate that particular point.

Both both are sort of within range as if the lower density was a little stronger.

Um so the top, you know, we have this top line finding, yes, feasibility is within range, but I don't want to sort of gloss over or understate the challenges that a developer will face here.

There's a lot, it's a very complicated project.

It's probably more complicated than either of the two projects that preceded it, site A and you know, obviously, West Midway is not there yet, but it's more complicated than that one too.

Um you know, just to point out some of those complications, just uh just to emphasize the point like the where the infrastructure is today or where it will be with a West Midway project completed is in the southern end of this project, and the the land at the southern end of the project isn't immediately available for development, so the so really the the nearer term opportunity for development is at the north, but that's not where the infrastructure is, right?

So there's a little mismatch there, and then on the west side of Pan Am, that doesn't have sort of this timing consideration that's linked to when reshape uh is completed and the residents are able to move into that new housing.

It doesn't have that timing linkage, but what it does have is the constraint around those major off-site improvements, getting that levy in place.

Um, so that's obviously a big hurdle, too.

So that's sort of not like an easy solution start there first because of that major cost.

And so a third thought that we had and explored through this work is well, what if uh some of the existing units, big whites units were rehabilitated and sold and make that the initial phase.

Um, and what we ran into there is that there just wasn't enough revenue to cover a first infrastructure phase with those units.

So, so yes, top line finding, yeah, a project could make sense, but there's a lot there to work through, and you really I think want to have a development partner on board to help you with all that.

It's very complicated, it's a real puzzle, and you need you need somebody that to help work through all that with you.

Um, so with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to Nicole.

Thank you.

Thank you, David.

So now I want to kind of talk about uh planning areas that we will uh love your input on as we reevaluate the priorities for the main street neighborhood north uh revitalization.

First, we want to talk about zoning uh and and height limits.

Um in David's presentation, he talked about densities of between two and um four stories, and as you can see on the map here in the main street uh neighborhood specific plan, it only allows for two to three stories east of Pan Dam.

So that is something that we want to get your feedback on is uh would you be open to um uh higher higher height limits and more density?

Also, this part of Alameda Point is close to the Main Street uh ferry terminal.

Uh and so would um you be open to additional density and height in that area uh to um to interface with the the ferry terminal.

Um also David talked about or Mr.

Dozmer talked about uh some of the the cost constraints per unit, um but if a developer could figure out how to address those cost constraints, would you be open to having uh more more density?

So that's a couple of questions we would love for you to discuss.

For this slide, um basically it is to your right in the the gold area that's Main Street Neighborhood North, and that is currently zoned for residential, and then everything to the left in the adaptive reuse area, the blue, I can't really see what color that is, that is not zoned for residential, and so would you be open to um residential rezoning that area for residential?

Additionally, the area to the left, as well as the beehive and and and the bungles, those are in the historic historic district, and according to the current Main Street neighborhood north plan, um, these properties anything we develop can't kind of exceed the height of the contributing buildings, and that's something we need to kind of consider if we were to put residential uh in uh the historic district uh west of Pan Am.

Would you be open to additional densities if a developer presented that option?

We also want to talk about parks and circulation.

Um the specific plan again was approved nine years ago, almost 10 years ago, and it contemplated this big uh central gardens and uh other open space.

Um since then we have planned or moving forward with open space in other areas of Alameda Point, and you know, so then we would still need to figure out if it makes sense to still do a big central park this way, specifically thinking of operating costs and maintenance obligations.

Would you be open to kind of a decentralized parks or smaller park?

Also considering moving the park or decentralizing the park could also help with the circulation.

And one of the things we talked about was the, you know, this area being close to the ferry terminal, and then just providing good circulation and access to the ferry terminal could be helpful if we moved or re uh imagined the open space in parks.

And then affordable housing, we talked about Alameda Point requires 25% affordable, where the rest of the city is 15% affordable, but in addition to that, the main street specific plan also calls for an additional 10% uh housing serving uh people earning 120 to 180% uh um medium income.

So that's in addition to the 25%.

And so uh that's another question we have for you.

Would you be considered uh would you consider reevaluating that uh so that we can look at uh all the different priorities and and how to make the the project feasible?

And then I just want to conclude my presentation just to answer the question why?

Like what why are we trying to move forward with this now?

Um what we've found is we have this plan that's almost 10 years old this gives us an opportunity to kind of reevaluate the priorities with with all of you and the historical advisory board and the council um and give us the time to do that it also kind of gives us a time to um make sure that we figure out this project before the market recovers quite frankly uh and so it due to the long lead time starting work on this property now will help us uh in the long run as relates to um timing the housing market so to speak so that's why staff is um um recommending we can kind of move forward with this process uh now um again here are our next steps um in terms of our general time frame um and then so this concludes my presentation I would like to kind of turn back over to the chair to get your feedback on those questions uh thank you for your time thank you so much for that great and informative presentation um I had the pleasure of going in that December study um walking tour and don't remember much so it was a great refresher and thank you um all right I'll um bring it back to the board for any clarifying questions and then we can open up for public comment um before we give some feedback since this is a study session but do we have any clarifying questions?

Yes board member suit um thank you for the presentation uh I just one initial question I had uh to kick things off is on the the historic um houses the the big whites is that um I didn't really look to see this in the plan but are is it is are we kind of locked in into how those will be handled like can those be demolished or is that or is the decision on those homes still kind of undecided um technically they're undecided however but they are core to the historic district and our plan would be to maintain those homes uh and when I say we it's if it's we decide to put in the request for qualification for developer and say hey we want to preserve these homes and have them kind of give us a proposal of how to do that and it may include them doing in field development like ADUs or subdividing the property but the key is to kind of keep um those historic homes okay in tax.

Very helpful thank you um I a quick point okay actually I'm gonna go with Sahiva I'm gonna go back and forth and try yes uh board member Sahiva just a quick question I need a little refresher on what um kick the this new set of projects into the payment to the Navy what what what is what what's the trigger now that the this payment per market rate unit has to be made to the Navy just remind us I'll give you an overview and I'll have uh Mr.

Dozima um part of the conveyance or a condition of the conveyance was that because it was a um economic development job generating conveyance um and so um one of the deal points was you know once the city developed over 2011 market rate units then we would have to pay kind of this this fee um and site A and West Midway which you know have uh market rate uh development and reshape is affordable and so we are underneath that number at some point during the development of mainstream neighborhood north we will hit that 2011 cap and we would be subject to the fee.

Okay it's just a follow-up question does that that's actually built projects or is it just entitled projects?

It's built, right then it's built yeah, it's built.

Okay.

So we'd have to have built two thousand eleven, you said.

Um, in order to then trigger that.

So there's no is there a potential to renegotiate that or no?

Um uh we did recently we our director uh Abby Thorne Lyman and Mr.

Dozima helped renegotiate that recently, but there could possibly be an opportunity to to renegotiate further.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And can I just ask a follow-up on that?

Was it like lowering the per unit fee or like the number of sorry?

So before I think late 2025, the agreement was $50,000 a year, inflated from 2013 to today based on home price appreciation.

So that number was about a hundred thousand dollars a unit, and what the renegotiation was was to modify that inflator from home prices, which have rocketed up from twenty thirteen despite the recent soft period to CPI.

Um so that brought the the that hundred some thousand number down to 75,000 if you pay it at occupancy.

Um, but we also added the provision that if you pay at conveyance, which is what we're showing in the number up there, then it's forty-five percent of the gross number.

So that works out to be about the 34,000 that's shown on the slide.

And you don't pay it until you actually uh you know reach that 2011 cap.

And so we basically have about 250 quote unquote free units to to work with them in this area.

Thank you.

As further context for that payment, and and maybe while I have both of you here to verify, I I believe that um uh one of the um rationales for the payment was to help offset some of the cleanup costs.

W which which will be far more than the navy will collect for this payment, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

That's helpful context.

Um board member home, you're waiting patiently.

No.

Actually, the question the topic you're talking about was kind of the area I was gonna ask about because it really affects the whole discussion of the land use planet density.

Um I know with the cap that the navy puts on, I guess I'm trying to get a sense of you know, given the number of units we've already approved or been built, does this resp represent the build out of the remaining allowable units or um that's allowed by the navy in our agreement?

No, this is okay.

No, no, it's what you're seeing there is a site plan with about excuse me, with about a thousand units.

So let's say you start at the at the bottom at the south end, what what these guys are explaining is you could build, you know, the first two hundred before we hit the 2000 number.

So we can build 200 more units.

This shows a thousand units.

Oh, okay.

So does that mean in order if this plan were the plan, if we want to build this plan, we would have to go back to the navy and negotiate.

No, it's already negotiated.

So if we don't talk to the Navy anymore, um we would owe the Navy the 34,000 for per market rate unit above two thousand to above two hundred market rates.

So this is a thousand units here.

Remember, twenty-five percent are affordable, so it's only seven hundred and fifty market rate.

We can build uh two hundred and fifty market rate, but after that, after that is that last five hundred market rate are gonna be subject to the thirty-four thousand dollar per unit, okay.

That's on top of all of the other development costs.

Okay.

Yeah.

I get I have a question for the economic fillment uh person.

You know, you you you outlined um, I don't know, it's not meant to be a rosy picture, but you were saying that this potentially this project could break even, right?

Which uh kind of surprises me, but hey, you know, I'm not but I'm talking about relative to other projects, you know, you're talking about townhouse projects and this is the product.

I mean, how does a project like this compare to as far as development cost, uh, all the other cost infrastructure, cost challenges, the additional thirty-five thousand per market rate hold up?

How'd that compare to the general market of developers that are billing similar type projects in other jurisdiction?

I mean, yeah, I think it's I think it's uh is it comparable?

I think it's more challenging.

I think it would be fair to say, yeah.

So, you know, so there's a question whether just because this pencil's out of the developer can find another site that may be much less challenging to develop.

But of course I'll admit it's very attractive community, so I'm not trying to diminish that.

You got the Oklahoma.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Um, any other questions?

Uh, board member Wang?

Uh yeah, so uh on the historic homes, the the concept of selling the historic homes to pay for new infrastructure.

So I d I understood, I think there was uh a link or requirement basically to provide new infrastructure in the beehive neighborhood, which was uh a barrier to new development.

Um I forget exactly what the trigger was for the new infrastructure, so um I'm trying to understand if I'm trying to understand the order of operations, in other words, how does it work to sell historic homes that are burdened by a high infrastructure requirement in order to pay for that infrastructure?

So I I think I think how we were sort of conceiving of this is that you there's probably more than one way to do it, but how we were sort of conceiving of it is that uh the property would be transferred to like a master developer and they would put in the infrastructure and then there and connect to new utilities, which is a precondition to selling, and and then would be able to sell the units after rehabilitating them and putting that new infrastructure in.

Got it, but they would but that master developer would need to do a lot of the stuff in yellow here in order to make it all back, right?

They're not just selling the big whites and making it back.

Yes, that that phase on its own, just just saying what if we do that first, that was quite underwater.

Yeah.

Got it.

Thank you.

Um Vice President Adissa.

Thank you.

Um I guess my question, I don't know if it's for you or for stuff, but what are the prerequisites to get the a developer or developers as partners?

Is it a matter of having to wait for kind of our framework before we submit an RFQ, or can we do that before and kind of collaborate with them to determine the right framework?

No, very good question.

I I do believe that as Mr.

Dozma said, we want to get a developer on board to help us figure out this very complex um read of vitalization plan.

However, we do want to first do all the work we did during the due diligence so we can understand what problem are we trying to kind of to solve, and then really with that we've kind of figured out like hey, there is a feasible project somewhere in there, but before we go and bring a developer on, let's be clear about what we're asking them to do.

What are our priorities?

Because that's what developers want.

They want clarity and certainty.

And so we gotta do that step kind of first, and then put a request for qualifications out, seeking a developer who has qualifications to do the things they were asking, uh, and then in that RFQ, their response, we can they can talk to us about their experience and how to potentially do certain things.

Then we would bring someone on, and then we'll really get into the nuts and bolts of how do we address some of these big challenges that we mentioned throughout the presentation.

Okay, I get it.

So I guess to go to your questions that you asked us.

It seems that a lot of them are kind of pointing towards allowances for more density.

Is it because you suspect that allowing more density will then just instantaneously be just more beneficial to the developer or the development itself?

Financially, I guess.

I think it's a more than just about density.

I think it's as David said, just in let's be clear when we say density.

Let's just talk about number of units.

Okay.

It may be low density, but just a lot more land.

So I mean, there's there's sort of a sweet spot after a certain number of units, it's you know, there seems to be not necessarily getting more feasible.

Um, but it's also things like how do we reduce costs like the the question about the parks.

I think what's going on in this conversation is as Nicole said, like we want to put we would want to put out an RFQ that sort of reflects, you know, this is what the city is hoping to achieve here.

Let's emphasize the things that are really important to us.

Let's maybe de-emphasize things that are not so important to us.

Um I think the other thing that happens, and this is we've been through this with several prior phases, even after the RFQ, like those first meetings with the developers, they'll be asking Nicole, like, all right.

Well, what do you think?

Do you think we can we want to make some changes to do this, maybe reduce this park size and maybe change this?

And you're also kind of putting Nicole in the position now to say, I think that's worth proposing.

Or she can say, man, uh you can you can propose it, but I I can tell you I don't think the planning board's gonna be very sympathetic.

Or yeah, no, I think the planning board is going to be open to that.

So I it's as much about what where could we possibly reduce costs?

You know, the maintenance of a you know, I know from 2017 when we drew that big park there, we thought, oh, that'd be nice.

And you know, like the other parks in the neighborhoods, developer builds it, developer maintains it, homeowners pay assessments to maintain the park.

I I I fully expect that one of the first questions that the developers are gonna ask Nicole in those first meetings is what about that big park?

Like, can we and it's not necessarily about getting more units, it's about just reducing costs.

If there's something about the street network that you're looking at now, 10 years later and going, hmm, that's odd.

How come none of those streets go straight to the ferry terminal?

Like, that's something where Nicole can say early on with the developers, um, this is this is what we're um, you know.

Hey, if you want to think about a different roadway network, we would, you know, if it makes good sense, we're what we're comfortable recommending it, and we think the planning board and council would be receptive.

Um, and then just on the historic district, the question about the the big whites come came up.

I mean, I think you're gonna have there's gonna be trade-offs in the historic district.

I mean all those homes on the on the west of Pan Am.

I mean, that's building a you know, modern neighborhood inside historic district.

Like that is gonna be an impact on the historic district, even though they're not necessarily any historic buildings being torn down.

It's just we just have to be prepared, I think, for those conversations.

I don't see any scenario in the future where when you're at the end of the approval process, we're not going to the historic advisory board and saying, okay, well, here's we we you know, this these are the compromises that we need to make to make this project go.

And whether it's those units over there or whether it's hey, we can't save every big white.

It turns the developer comes in and says, Look, I can, I mean, who knows?

Uh, the first three blocks of that beehive work and aren't too expensive, but the last block of beehive is really kind of too much.

Like, could we, you know, or or those the little bungalows, the little one-story bungalows, which are the little blue squares there all in a row.

Um, those are historic bungalows.

I mean, there might be something there where, you know, a developer says, What can we do something about those bungalows?

Um, and I think the community and the planning board and the historic advisory board and council just playing part of what we're trying to get across here.

Like, we're all gonna have to make some probably tough trade-offs.

And I think what Nicole is trying to get on all these slides is just getting a sense from the community and from all of you, like, you know, what would you be willing to consider?

What are other things?

You're like, no, no, that's that whatever it is, the beehive.

No, I'd love to beehive.

Please, you know, whatever.

That's I hope that helps.

Like, it's not just about density.

I think it's more also about reducing costs.

Yeah, and I think uh I really appreciate the question and the answer, and um, I think I don't know if this resonates, but another way maybe to answer it as like um and it kind of goes back to that slide like why now like um there are some constraints with the original plan 10 years ago, and like let's revisit it for some flexibility, um, looking at all those different issue areas, which is beyond density, like you said, like the park.

So maybe when we get to that part when we get to um the component of providing the feedback, it could be helpful where you show those question slides.

Um, but I do have some.

Sorry, did you have any more questions?

Thank you.

I did have some uh questions, but I'm gonna just do a quick scan.

Um, any yes, board members Sue.

Yeah, just um this might be maybe a little too early to ask, but in terms of um like conveying the land or or leasing the land, how will the developer get site control?

Is that is there some kind of is it would be a ground lease, or would the developer acquire the land from the city?

That would be something that we would need to determine when we're in negotiations.

We have deals like with Site A, where we sold them the land, you have the land.

Whereas with West Midway and with Reshape, we still own the land.

So they're out there putting horizontal infrastructure, and I'm like a project manager out there, and I still own the land on behalf of all of you.

Uh, and so there's trade-offs and benefits of both models, right?

Um, then like you said, you uh the ground lease, you know.

So we need to figure out what um instrument um and framework we use, and I think that we're we're kind of not there yet to figure that piece out yet.

Yeah, and then I know in you know, some other and I think this is more in the redevelopment space where the the conveyance of the land is like tied to like the development of it as well, but do those do they still do those or is it more like separated now?

Yeah, we we still have those, like we like back in redevelopment.

Because I'm a former redevelopment practitioner, there was like land development agreements.

We do have disposition and development agreements where like, hey, you gotta do these things, you have to hit these milestones for X to happen.

So it will definitely uh be good stewards of the city's property and make sure that certain things um happen.

But I'm gonna turn it over to just Thomas.

A little more context.

I mean, it's all handled through the disposition and development agreement.

So all these projects are sort of centered on that agreement with the developer.

As Nicole said, different developers have different priorities, so you don't really know until you pick your developer and start those what they want.

As she said, with West Midway uh and Catellus, they were they were like, we don't want to own the land right off the bat.

We want to know we're gonna get it, but we would like to do as much work on the land while you own it and we don't have to pay taxes as long as possible.

And then so we had to think through.

Well, wait a second.

I mean, once you start building town homes, you need to own it.

We don't want to be the owner of town homes.

Like, so we we worked out a sort of a well, you can do infrastructure and you can put in sort of streets, but at that point, once you start going vertical, you have to own it, and you have to start paying taxes on it.

Um, but it's all as as Nicole said, it and there's trade-offs and all these different things.

Basically, the first step, RFQ, second step is develop uh council chooses which developer they like best.

Then we enter into uh what's called an exclusive negotiating agreement, which is usually a year and a half to two years where they're doing all their due diligence, and Nicole and the team are negotiating that DDA, and then the DDA has to go to council for final approval.

And that DDA just lays everything you're asking is all laid out.

When are they gonna own it?

What improvements are they gonna do before they own it?

How is that all gonna work?

And at that point, there's also kind of the entitlement process.

Like, what is the project?

And we'll come back to you.

Um so yes, so that's kind of the general framework and process.

Yeah, all these tough questions are handled before signing of the DDA, because the developer needs to know.

Are you gonna rezone it or not?

Like, you know, so that all happens during that ENA period.

Um, and then is the land uh totally unencumbered by any are there any Navy restrictions on this, or is it just totally in fee?

Like, was there anything maybe saw as a say on, like in terms of like you still can't do this, or we need to remediate some portion of some land here?

This property um pretty much didn't have any restrictions.

Great.

Um any other clarifying questions?

Okay, seeing none.

Um I had a couple.

Um do you mind uh just uh giving like a a sentence or two, like um of the recap of the HABs, the his historic advisory board's um reactions or feedback, anything uh worth noting that we should be aware of?

Um I want to try not to butcher I did have a slide and and and I think I left it.

In general, they were very supportive of advancing development in this area.

They wanted to make sure that we didn't take forever to go through this priority setting process.

Um they wanted to make sure that we kind of create a package to make sure that we kind of preserve um big picture the historic character of like the historic district.

However, they also felt like we had to be open to not um like adaptive use of historic structures, and that maybe not every contributing um structure would um would not would be saved.

Like some some things may have to be kind of demolished, but uh they just really wanted to make sure that we just had a really clear description of what elements of the historic district we were trying to preserve, like just be very clear about that.

Um the other point that they made what I thought was really good was give me one second here.

Um, one second, there was another little bit note.

They mentioned uh do don't be too restrictive.

Try to have menus of options, like, hey, you could do these kind of things to achieve this priority, or you can kind of do these kind of things to achieve this, so don't be overly um restrictive or prescriptive.

Like big picture concepts like that.

Yeah, thank you.

That's um helpful.

Um, and then uh I remember um when we were going through the housing process that we uh were mindful of not putting um too many affordable homes in Alameda Point, and I was just wondering um is that maybe one of the reasons why this portion that's not zoned for residential and not residential.

Like I'm just curious, like why why didn't we consider it as part of the housing element?

Like, um well, a couple reasons why we didn't.

Um it was originally in 2014 when we were doing the original zoning for Alameda that we um were deciding what to zone residential and whatnot, and we had all this land that we were ready to zone residential.

So we kind of were feeling at that point like, okay, this is a good amount of land to develop for residential over the next, you know, 10, 15 years.

Um, in terms of the most recent housing element, though, we we knew that there was no way we were issuing issuing building permits in this area before 2030.

And to count towards that housing element that we did three years ago, that was 2023 to 2030.

Like that was the period.

So what was left at site A was counted, all the West Midway reshape project is in that housing element, um, but nothing up here.

But anything that you approve up here, ultimately, will be very helpful towards your next housing element cycle.

Okay.

Um and is it also fair to say that um AUSD is uh maybe now more interested in developing residential on their site?

Like is that um or not necessarily?

Nope, I'm assuming.

I think we're we're still in um in discussions with them.

Okay.

Um, yeah, to to find out how they want to move forward with their property.

Okay.

Okay.

That's helpful.

Um, okay, but that is a property of interest.

Like that is correct.

Uh it's the area in the colors of bleeding, but in the in the purple box, their property uh on West Red Line, it was already approved for demolition at the transfer from the Navy, and then the property, um, I call it the barbell building, that's uh building 17, and that already can um be housing, I think, under a conditional use permit.

But uh and it is uh uh contributing structure, uh building 17.

Okay.

Um and then um okay if y'all don't know the answer to this question, but um it seems like um this um isn't uh what's the word like uh incorporated or part of SB 79, like this uh area.

Like I think, yeah, and I was just wondering like what's the reason why?

Like it's um could maybe it's not because it's not as high density or high traffic or um and if it were part of SB 79, that would it would be like five stories, like the height limits or seven stories.

Yeah, I think there's you know different different high limits depending on how far you are from the the SB 79 sort of tier one and tier two transit stops and which are primarily rail stops and then high frequency or uh high speed what's it bus rapid transit.

Sorry, getting getting tongue-tied there.

Um so we have essentially two bus stops on the way to the tube on Webster, like that and out of town that will qualify as tier two SB 79 stops.

Um but other than that, the the at the moment, you know, ferry terminals.

While in some state laws are considered a major transit stop, and they count for some um sort of things, but in terms of SB 79 as it's written today, um the ferry terminals uh are not SB 79 sort of transit stops and um there's no bus rapid transit in this area at the moment that that would qualify.

Okay.

Um that's helpful, but yeah, that that's helpful also to know that like some state laws do consider ferry as high um frequency maybe transit.

Yeah, I think they qualify as what's called the major transit stop.

So for certain, you know, we don't have parking minimum parking requirement off-street parking requirements in Alameda.

We were ahead of the state on that, but that would be a thing where certain projects wouldn't be you wouldn't be able to require off-street parking, uh minimum off-street parking um for certain projects because it's near a major transit stop that the ferry might qualify for, but we're kind of you know generally uh a few years ahead of of some of those um state laws, so that you know nothing really we're sort of we can go whichever way we want, I think.

Um here.

And thank you.

And my last question, um I was um curious with the like if you could show me the APC, the Alameda Point Collaborative Farm, like where it is.

I I was just wondering if we were to relocate the Central Park, like what other open or green space would be close to them because there's the question is like should we not require the central park and should we also move the farm?

So I just was wondering what are the green open spaces they would still have access to.

Sure.

Um and Yeah, we don't we don't have any um uh we haven't had any real discussions yet with APC about that that farm area.

You know, they have a long-term legally binding agreement on that property, but uh we would have you have the the historic landscape there, you have uh other parks at Alameda Point.

We're looking at a surf park, we're looking at Pave Park, um there's gonna be parks in the um waterfront town center.

Um so there's there's other open space in other parts of Alameda Park that are currently conceived of and others that are in the planning.

Yeah, lots of parks and open space.

Nicole would not just point out like this drawing here doesn't show the Central Park.

Correct.

That is in the specific plan.

Um that's yeah.

I mean it's and that just the other thing that came up when we were doing the West Midway project.

Um the traffic engineers were pointing out to us like that strange circulation system, they're like, What that's maybe a little bit of a problem later when you get to this.

I mean, this this circulation system you can see is a little more cleaner, a little more straightforward than if you tried to put in that big square central park.

We just anticip I think what staff is saying is we anticipate that a master developer is gonna ask us about how important that big park is.

With the historic district right there, and then it and especially if you end up starting from the south and moving north with your development once the collaborative is out of that area, like that's that's gonna be some prime land for them to develop.

So I once again it's just yeah, yeah, anticipating questions that staff is gonna be getting.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, those are all my questions.

Um thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

Um, and with that, we could move on to public comments.

Do we have any speakers in the room or online?

Yeah, we do have uh one speaker in person.

If anyone online would like to speak, please raise your hand now.

Um first speaker is Bobek Parantian.

Good evening.

My name is Babak Perandian.

I am a business owner here in Alameda, been doing business in Alameda for over 20 years.

Um my recent project is Cafe Jolie Petite on Bay Farm.

I don't know if anybody's been there, but it's on the corner of uh Harper Bay Parkway or North Loop.

It's the first container cafe in Alameda.

Nobody wanted to go out to Bay Farm to do anything, and I was the risk taker, and it's been great.

We're doing well.

Uh my goal tonight is to talk to you and present to you guys uh of the members uh about the theater, 2700 Saratoga.

Yeah, this is the Machon Theater.

This is the public comment component for the agenda item, which is um, it's actually in that study area.

Oh, it is, okay.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

You don't know Sarah 2700 Saratoga.

I don't know, yeah.

Sorry, sorry, okay.

All right, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Anyway, so uh I'm working on uh reviving the theater and making it uh uh a uh rental space and also uh building out a full on restaurant in the post office area with a little bit of retail right there.

I don't know if you are familiar with the theater, but uh it faces uh City Hall West on the left, and then you have a like grassy area in the middle, which we would also utilize to reactivate the uh French farmers market that we were doing on Bay Farm in the summer, called the Beaumarche.

And uh it would bring lots of people uh together every weekend to enjoy, you know, quality foods and healthy options.

We don't have uh a farmer's market on Sunday in Alameda yet, but anyway, we we did do it once a month on Bay Farm across uh in front of the cafe there, it's been great.

And uh we do need more spaces for people to eat and create uh fun synergies for family and communities.

We don't have enough of that.

The elk lodge, and I know they're opening the theater is gonna open back up uh next to the high school, but again, there are not enough places.

We have plenty of homes and properties and people coming and going, but even me as a business owner, I'm almost scratching my head on where to go eat good food, and we're trying to create more of that.

So hopefully with the support of the community and the and you members here, thank you for your time.

But uh, we are gonna be working on hopefully getting that going, and we'd love to get your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we have no other speakers.

No, yeah, thank you so much, thank you.

Yeah, all right.

Um any other public comments?

No, other speakers.

Okay, great.

Um we'll go ahead and close out the comment and bring back to the board uh for feedback.

And um, I guess I don't know.

Yeah, in terms of process, I don't know if you want to go through each question, um, like the themes that you um what would like what would be helpful?

Let's do it's helpful to the board.

We can just put up those three slides, which have the three big questions, and you can use those as sort of a framework for the yeah.

Well, no, no, the other way.

There you go, you passed them back up, back up, back up.

Yep.

Uh, start with the height ones, go back.

Twenty.

There you go.

There you go.

I mean, if you want to start there, we can start there and then go to the zoning question and then to the inclusionary housing and then the what was the last part?

I mean, we can structure this any way you like, however, whatever's easiest for all of them.

And you're not limited to these four questions.

Yeah, you're just this is your chance to let staff know kind of how you're feeling about these this information.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's a good start.

Yeah, yeah, board member Wang.

Um I I'd like to start because I have a kind of a hybrid question comment that doesn't fall into this rubric.

Um, and it has to do with the process that you've laid out um for an RFQ for selecting a developer, and my thought is it's really more of a question, I think, for for those of you who have done this multiple times and have gone through multiple processes with um large plans.

Um it seems to me that they're well, I think it's quite evident that there are a lot of challenging trade-offs to be made with this plan.

And I wonder about the possibility of creating a little bit more of kind of a competitive marketplace of ideas.

Um, and so I guess my question is is there maybe room for more of a hybrid RFQ, RFP, rather than selecting a developer and then basically being married to that developer, right through an ENA, and then saying, Well, okay, we're gonna work on a plan now together.

Wouldn't it wouldn't this new neighborhood with all of its challenges and you know interlocking puzzles benefit from maybe a few developers um competing with different ideas so that we as a city have the ability to say, well, we like this one best, but we actually like this thing from this other one.

Could you do that thing?

And we think that you're the best developer, but we want you to take all these ideas, and we're frankly gonna steal them from these other developers, right?

Um, I just I wonder about uh having a little bit longer of a dating process where we are not exclusive yet, so that we can kind of uh play the field a little bit.

I'll um I think the the short answer is yes.

Um I'm thinking back to the site A, and I can't remember, frankly, if we called it an RFQ or an RFP.

I mean, it wasn't a full proposal with all the details, obviously, because we hadn't negotiated, but we required site plans, we required, and then we had community meetings.

I remember one, you know, around town in front of the planning board in the library where we're like we were like okay, developers.

We had two, we we kind of ended up with two.

So I think we're down to three, and we're put up your drawings, like let the community come and see your plans, and you know, some developers, and it was it just like you said, it was very interesting.

I mean, some developers like nope, this is how we're gonna do it.

We are just gonna we're gonna scrape everything down to the dirt and then we're gonna build all new others came along and said, No, we've got some ideas about keeping this weird street network that's in this area that comes from the old Navy base and using this structure and other you know, which was very attractive to some of us, and you know, and then meanwhile, we were also looking at their numbers and their per their financials, which we didn't really sort of make a big public deal about that, but we were certainly talking to the council about it and having people like David Dozma go through their numbers and you know, so that yeah, and it I mean I think there is absolutely that kind of ability to sort of and then go from one developer and say, look, we we really like you those ideas over there.

Like, are you open to picking up stealing some of those ideas?

Yeah, I think that's yeah, so it's not just about a developer's qualifications, it's about their ideas that they're about their ideas at this site, and I think then that's once again.

I think it really benefits everybody if staff is able to write whatever you want to call it, RFQ, RFP, whatever you want to call it slash RFP.

Like here are the challenges, here are all the things you need to know about before you submit.

And we want to see your first draft plan.

Yeah.

Super helpful.

Let's see it.

Like spend some time, figure it out.

You know, with site A and West Midway, we also I mean, that's also true of West Midway.

They compete we were getting plans, proposals from the different developers.

How would they develop the site?

Where would they start?

What buildings would they keep?

Which would they get rid of?

Now, those once they were selected, some things started to change, but you know, they're also learning as they go.

So they learn as they go, then they make a proposal.

If they get picked, then they go into some even more serious due diligence.

That's when they really start spending money really figuring things out financially, and then so things are always changing.

Um, but the short answer is yes.

I think that's exactly what we should be doing.

Great.

And and the what we call in my experience, their approach, right?

Like how would they go about that also as part of the qualifications because that you can kind of look at their approach and what they're proposing as uh as relates to kind of their experience and how it um what they're proposing for this specific site.

So that's another really important thing of this process you're talking about, is we put this RFQ out there or whatever the solicitation framework is, and we kind of ask them their approach.

How would you approach these these solutions?

And then that's why it goes back to it's important for us to have our clear non-negotiable priorities versus things that we can be more flexible on and have a menu of things that we're open to.

Uh, I think that's really important.

Also balancing it with this is a very challenging site, kind of more so than site A and West Midway.

And so of course you want to date around or have a beauty context, but you want to make sure that you do it in such a way that you get serious people who want to come to the table and submit, and that we're just not doing a brain drain from developers too.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yes, uh board members.

Yeah, thank um.

Thanks for the presentation and and the commentary.

I think uh before I get into the specifics here, I think you do raise a good question about ferry terminals and what that means, um, especially in an island community like we have uh for Alameda.

And I if I if I zoom out for a second, um, all three of our ferry terminals are not very well connected to neighborhoods.

Uh Bay Farm probably comes the closest.

Um I'm biased there.

I I I walk to that ferry terminal for my house, but um, even when you get there, I know there was that one potential where we were gonna have a hotel right there with a restaurant and a bar and a coffee shop and all and and it didn't happen, but there was a a vision at some point, and I appreciate the um uh as as the speaker noted uh the the Jolie containership um installation out on Bay Farm, uh would have been awesome if that was right there on the waterfront right next to the ferry terminal as well as as a location, and I think I'm I'm thinking about the advantages that we have to create development opportunities, and the ferry is a real advantage.

I will say that is not that's unique, right?

Uh as soon as you land in San Francisco, you're at the ferry building, and I'm not gonna I'm not saying we're gonna recreate that kind of experience, but the idea of a destination is what this neighborhood has the opportunity um to be if we set it up that way.

And what I think we need to think about, and you know, the seaplane lagoon's not connected at all, it's sort of connected to new development up there, but again, not when you initially land.

We've we've landed everyone into parking in each one of these terminals, not really a good situation, quite honestly.

Uh so now coming specific to this site.

When I look at the opportunity of Orion Street, West Success, West Essex Drive, and Main Street, and how all three of those could intersect, uh, right where the signalize turn is into Main Street ferry terminal.

There's the ability to set up a uh that road network, and maybe it's a turnaround right there that eventually happens, but regardless, I think right now I see in all the, you know, in the specific plan and then in some of these diagrams, not a real strong connection to that moment of connecting to the terminal.

And and if we want to make this enticing for development for the opportunity of um creating uh this unique experience, then we need to rework this road network to take advantage of it.

Umrion peeling off and you know, going off to the east is avoiding the ferry terminal and that infrastructure plan that shows how it would be remade.

And I and so I'm concerned about that main street is probably the worst name for that street because it's not a main street, it's a it's a perimeter street that it's got you know this ragtag dog park off of it.

It's not um and and a bunch of shipping containers, all all sorts of random stuff.

And I think that the uh we're not gonna rename the street, but it it's it needs to it is treat it it is a thoroughfare essentially, and that's what it is.

But if we want to create connections into this neighborhood and then not make this, like of course, part of it's still gonna be a commuter ferry, people are gonna drive there, but I think it is important to rethink how we make that connection.

If we move a park anywhere, it should be at the arrival point when you cross over or something where those streets intersect where something can receive you into the neighborhood uh because you know, we'll we'll maybe able to try to extend more all the way to the water uh at some point, but until we get there, at least when we when we get to Main Street and cross into this neighborhood, I can see again Essex and Orion kind of going and intersecting at that, it's it's almost natural intersection at that point.

So um I would think that you know, if we start looking at that and we start then uh stepping back and thinking about developmental blocks, and and I know that one diagram that you had up had that, but I'll just stay with this height and zoning for a second.

Um because this diagram also shows that park, and I think it's you know, I'm there's so much open space um out on the naval base.

You know, I I and I'm not saying it's not important because we do need the small neighborhood areas, um, but we need to be super strategic about where that happens to create those moments of orientation, because it's such a big area that you uh that there needs to be nodes that that then get developed for each neighborhood that gets created.

Um and then I think if Essex stretches to Main Street, what I like about that is that then it just it comes into uh the main central you know, sort of formal area that you have when you continue to go west, right, on Essex, because it turns into the grid essentially from the beehive to the grid.

Um but but it it kind of it it needs to get extended because it's just loops back on itself at the moment, right?

Um so sorry I'm getting maybe too much into street planning, but I think it's it's kind of critical.

Um, and then what I would just say is that uh going back to the height issue, um I I think there needs to be flexibility around again when creating points of orientation, height typically does that, and if we then allow for main street and you know the the zone on that perimeter to then allow for that height, then I think it again marks a spot.

It can create energy because there'll be uh more activity where because of density essentially where where that happens, and and so again it it it will create it'll reinforce that point of orientation essentially.

So I'm I'm in favor of like looking at Essex, Orion, and Main Street as areas where um where hike can happen and where they intersect essentially, um, and especially on that perimeter.

Main Street is such a wide street, it uh it I don't think there's any issues with with height along that edge if if that was to happen.

Uh so that's I think maybe part of what this slide was was starting to get to.

The biggest point I I wanted to make is really that um this terminal actually gets used on the weekends as well, which is you know Bay Farm doesn't, and I guess sleep seaplane lagoon does, but I don't know how how much.

Um not not on the weekends, it doesn't seaplane.

Yeah, so only Main Street, right?

Main Street is got the weekend service, and then it's also essentially mostly midday and then evening service.

So seaplane currently handles the primary commute function, similar to Harbor Bay, and then it also, you know, I've taken it to the game day service as well to chase and and um the ballpark.

So I because of its uh ability to be used even on the weekends, it seems natural that the neighborhood can take advantage of that as well.

Um, so that that that would be a really important consideration in my mind is is how this network is drawn and and how we really um start to mine essentially the the ferry in a in a positive way.

Can I add one item?

Um one of the things we uh spoke or discuss with the historical advisory board last week was kind of uh the upgrade and change of use or additional uses for the O Club.

Um, you know, it does require some rehab and and ADA improvements, but that is another facility we're looking at, uh keeping it in the city's control and ownership, but maybe partnering with whatever developer we select to provide kind of uses like there's a bar uh there, there's a you know upgrade of a commercial kitchen, so there may be a uh a way of using or upgrading that to be part of that focal point that you uh that destination that you were that you were mentioning.

Yeah, yeah, if that's possible.

I think that sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um any other comments or feedback on this question on height or density, uh, Vice President Arisa.

Um I guess kind of to tie it to some of the comments um from other board members, and to the question of the height.

I I think I agree with like the allowance of um more height or more density, either or or both, on Main Street.

Um, just because of the size of the street.

I think it definitely lends itself to that.

Now, to what extent, I don't know if like we we actually we kind of have to create.

Are we talking about just the maximum height that we already have in the zoning for residential, or are we talking about something different, new?

I'm not sure, but if if it was if we were talking about 20 stories, then I would have other caveats.

Um, you know what I mean?

Um I think that it I also agree with letting the developer propose something, so not necessarily keeping the central gardens or the layout that was done initially, but maybe something based on the existing layout of the streets, just because I I kind of do think that there is value in what is there existing, and maybe it's just more about determining that each block or each kind of group of blocks that gets developed into housing does require a certain percentage of open space that is hopefully also public space.

So it's semi-public.

I I don't know, but around my house, there's a park in a development that I know went through like negotiations, and initially they were gonna do it as as kind of a private within the townhouses, and it ended up being to the street, and it's a really nice area, um, which I think it was just great that they ended up doing that.

It's great for the neighbors, is great for everybody.

So something like that that can be, you know, part of the agreement of developing the the smaller sites because I would imagine there's this gigantic area, but then smaller sites get developed.

Um I think that's kind of what I have to say about the the height and the zoning.

I think that as far as rezoning the the historic or that you know adaptive reuse that is currently zone adaptive reuse to housing, I don't see why not.

But of course, then again, there may be some of those kind of historic locations like the Oak Club or the theater or certain locations that could be just set apart as well, these ones we want to control in this way, and we definitely want to keep them, and we definitely want them to be, you know, you have to tie into those.

Right.

Um I think that's all I have to say for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um board member Han.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

Um this is a wonderful opportunity, first of all, you know, being a planner, you know, this is like go back to college or something.

But uh right.

Uh it's funny.

I just did this over the weekend for another city.

They had a huge shopping center and they wanted to redevelop.

So we did a whole charrette for that.

Anyway, um, I s I see this as I know it's not a blank slate, right?

But it's an opportunity to kind of pull back and look at the plan 10 years later and say, okay, what what has changed?

You know, what are the potential?

And um I mean, just addressing a zoning question.

I I don't see the Sony questions that specific.

To me, yeah, it's tied to urban design and you know, buffer and you know how stepping back and all of that, but I also see it tied to uh economics too very much.

And I kind of alluded to some of the comments is that to me, you know, uh I'm being flexible in density, realizing that maybe allowing for higher density might allow us to fund other things.

I've got really expensive infrastructure, flood control measures.

Um I kind of actually like the concept of an open space network, and you know, kind of, you know, what can you do to create a character here that's different from the other neighborhood, and one of the thoughts there's a history of urban architecture here.

There's also a large area that's you know uh under the one hundred within the one hundred year floodplain.

Is it really reasonable to try to fill that up six feet and build on it?

You know, it gets really expensive.

So part of part of the thinking is how can we maybe like allow higher high cluster development, you know, minimize the necessary infrastructure needs and and be able to come up with a plan where we maximize um amenities that are maybe lower costs.

Maybe the streets don't have to be fully blown to, you know, sidewalks on both sides, you know, urban style street, you know, just looking at a creative ways to create a different character for this area.

I see the open space network as possibly helping define that um solution and allowing height to be flexible so that you can use it to, you know, to to incentivize or help create the other amenities or the community benefits in this neighborhood.

So that's how I look at height, you know, being flexible.

I mean, certainly, you know, I don't think 20 story buildings, but I don't think anyone would propose that, I don't think, maybe 100 years from now.

But uh I know in other developments, the you know, uh allowing convincing the city council to allow it to go up to 10 story, make the difference if the city was gonna realize say um retail space or a major park site.

So using height from um urban design but also from an economic perspective is what I would um, you know, flexibility.

I think that's been mentioned also allow flexibility.

This market keeps on changing, you know, what uh see the RFP RFQ process is a wonderful way to see what the ideas are out there in the filling community.

And I did sit through that that showed you how old I am.

I said I sat through, I remember when those three plans were presented.

It really was an interesting process because the three developers each had very different concepts on uh on what they want.

And I've been through a process like that in other cities, and you end up kind of learning from the developers, and you end up borrowing the best from all of them to come up with an ultimate plan once you select a developer.

So I think this is a wonderful opportunity.

I think it's a really fun process, and uh, and good luck with that.

I have other comments too, but I'll talk about them later.

Thank you.

Uh any other feedback or comments?

And shaking hands, yeah, uh yes, board member Wayne.

Um, so um, my comments on these questions, I think are gonna be a little more general.

Um, but I did I did want to say I really like board member Saheba's comment about connecting to the ferry terminal.

Uh it did make me think, you know, I I think uh on in principle, you know, it'd be nice to articulate something here that I think uh possibly is overlooked in a lot of our our new uh townhome and single family developments, which is that I I've noticed a lot of them turn inward and kind of close themselves off from the surrounding neighborhood and from the streets that they face.

Um and I think board members have uh um, you know, rightly noticed that the plan here was doing the same thing.

Um and so the opportunity there to um to question that logic, I think is a really good one.

Um I realize we're not here to give you comments on plans per se, because those plans will come from uh the development community, but um, you know, since board member Saheba is uh ending his term as a planning board member soon, maybe maybe we'll hear from him at the podium in a couple years presenting a new plan to us.

Um in any case, I think my general comment I think on these questions it is gonna be that uh I think you've you've all done a really good job of articulating uh the many constraints that face uh development in this in this district, uh which to me means I think we're gonna be facing uh a lot of really tricky trade-offs, right?

Like we have a plan that's well envisioned, uh it makes sense on paper, um, and inevitably some piece of it, some pieces of it are gonna have to get thrown out.

Um, and so I think we're we're gonna be at a point um when development proposals come forward that we have to choose to be very very pragmatic about uh what gets built here based on what can be built here because a vision that can't be built doesn't really have any value for us, but a vision that can be built does have value.

Um so the point that I want to make is that you know, among all the things that we are measuring and balancing here, feasibility to me isn't a factor among them.

Feasibility is the prism through which we have to view every question that's on the board here, and so uh I think uh appreciating what the historic board said about flexibility and what board member Hom and some other board members have said, flexibility is really important here, not just in the plan, but I think in how we think about how this plan is gonna roll out.

Um I think there are you know there are probably a few principles that I think would be really interesting to hold on to.

Like I think I do think this this idea that board member Seba Saheba is put forward about connecting to the ferry terminal and connecting to adjacent neighborhoods is something to hold on to, for instance, other things.

I think that we can be much less precious about you know whether the gardens are that particular square shape or that particular size, whether the height is three stories or four or five.

I think we need to weigh all of those things in the context of uh a particular plan and in the context of particular economics and uh on balance uh with the rest of the plan.

It's really hard to say, well, you know, to sit here and say, well, I really think four is the right number.

Um so um I think my point would would be let's let's let's stick to the theme of uh feasibility and flexibility as we as we go forward.

Any other comments before we move on?

Okay.

Um sounds good.

I think uh we could go on to the next theme of questions.

I think we kind of covered it.

I don't know.

Do we go through it all?

Yeah, I think it was about the zoning.

We talked about you pretty much covered for us.

Yeah, thank you pretty much covered it.

The next slide is about open space and circulation.

You know, just on this, just as listening to the commissioners speak.

I mean, what that principle is starts with the very first 1996 reuse plan, which was integrate Alameda Point into the rest of the city.

And that street network, as you were talking, I'm like, yeah, there's the Navy had a fence.

Like they were they were doing just the opposite.

And in 1996, when we did the or I wasn't here, it was just before I got here.

Like that was a big theme.

Like even in the early 2000s, there were so many people you would talk to, Alameda residents, and we're like, we're having a workshop at Alamie Point, and they would say, I've never been out there.

Can you go out there?

We're like, yeah, the guard isn't there anymore, the Navy's gone.

You can go out there.

So and looking at that street network, it's like, oh yeah, that's that's the Navy's old street network.

They weren't interested in connecting to the ferry terminal.

Um, let's go.

I think we've I mean, unless there's anything, I don't mean to rush you, but I think we haven't talked about it.

Uh yeah, and I did want us to like uh you know spend like a beat on the inclusionary question.

But go ahead, uh Vice Minister and then board member Hunt.

On the inclusionary, I'm sorry, affordable.

Um this is just something that I I failed to mention and I had thought of, and it's like how can we create incentives for the developers to propose other models besides three story townhouses?

I mean, there are so many other ways of doing housing.

You know, there are flats, there are uh how how can we encourage them to do other things besides that?

Besides the three-story townhouse.

I'm not sure if the idea of that three-story townhouses is so that you feel like you own some land or what it is.

It seems to be that that's the reason, but at the same time is not really, and we have heard several people from the community actually kind of coming to the board and saying, well, can there be other ties?

Because this is not conducive for my, you know, my parents to live with me to have these three stories is not conducive for other forms of sharing space.

Um so I don't know, there are ways to encourage them also to propose other models.

I think the sh the most direct answer to that question is yes, and I think the way to do it is in this sort of competitive RFQ, RFP kind of process.

Articulate that is something the city is gonna look very favorably on, like if you can propose a plan that has a variety of housing types, that's something that we the people of Alameda are going to look very favorably on.

And that way a developer knows if they propose a plan, which they might need to.

Like they might just say, Look, I'm sorry, I can't, I gotta do the three-story townhomes.

That's how to get to feasibility.

And if all three of them do that, or all five, then well, all right.

We tried, yeah.

And they're also we're getting a very clear message that the market just doesn't support those other models.

But I think it is important that if it's something that's important to the community, and we've heard that.

In the past, you're not the only one who has said that.

I mean, that it would be a good thing to articulate in that initial offering, like we want to see if you know diversity of housing types is important to us.

See what we get.

Yeah, and I and I know it that from an economic standpoint it might not pencil out for them to do other, maybe smaller scale, but the way that is also played out, though.

Let's say you get to the next step and now you're negotiating.

I mean, what we've had the experiences and the kinds of conversations that we've had with developers when they're fine, you know, working through that is you you can keep the conversation going between the city and the developer, like we really want to see some, I don't know what it is, uh, some flats.

Yeah.

Um what would it take to do it?

Like, well, I can't, you know.

They might say, Well, it I would need to cut something out of my street budget or my park budget or something.

Because you know, I mean, you those conversations, those trade-offs can continue to happen, and especially if the planning board and the city council at that point really also reinforce whatever staff is saying and say, Look, we need to see something happen here on this issue.

I mean, those those conversations continue.

The key is the community speaking consistently, and throughout the entire process with those same principles, those same messages.

So, and and I I don't know if that would tie to the design guidelines, but uh, but I'm a little bit worried because I have seen other kind of projects that we have approved that are townhouses that end up creating these kind of semi-private streets that go to the parking lots, right?

That are very sad.

You go and see these streets, you walk through these neighborhoods that are three-story townhouses that have kind of a main street where you have the main door, and then you keep walking, and then you have these back street that is like three stories with a asphalt with nothing in there, but it's a street.

So I don't know if it's a matter then, can we then if they do townhouses, then can we require them to do pavers in these semi-private streets, or something that makes those streets that are now public better?

Um yes, there are ways, and we have done that in the past on certain projects, but it is you know, back to the feasibility question, it's all part of ensuring that the project is feasible.

So the kinds of conversations Nicole and I have had in the past on these things, is like.

A silly question that I maybe I should know, but I don't is this feasibility means what that the developer makes how much profit.

Dave, I mean, I mean, because we talked about this, we talk about this as if it was like some sort of concept that everybody knows, but I would like to know if there is some sort of general agreement on that, or it varies.

The way it works out is we negotiate a uh a development agreement with that party, and if they won't sign it, then we don't have an agreement, we don't have anything.

So it and they we sometimes we require them to share spreadsheets and proformas with us, and we look at their numbers.

I'll be honest with you, like I've always felt.

I mean, David is our the city's David Dozman's our city's consultant on a lot of these projects, and he will help us look at these pro forma.

That number seems inflated, but at the end of the day, is that really what I mean?

At the end of the day, it comes down to how badly do you want to get to a deal that both parties can agree to and how much money they're making and exactly where their money is, it's pretty hard on the city side to kind of to make that to evaluate that.

It's in the competition to say, I mean, we want to go forward.

Is this good enough for us?

And that's at the end of the day, kind of what the council and the planning board and the staff have to kind of come to grips with is no, it doesn't have everything we want, but so we can say no and hope for somebody else to come along later.

We can do that.

I mean, that's always an option because it's not good enough, or we can you and the planning board rec recommend to the council, it's not everything we wanted, but we do think it's close enough to move forward.

Yeah, no, I understand.

I mean, we do have to make compromises that so we have we have some data points from your other deals is in terms of what the city's been able to negotiate as far as what is a profit level for the developer that allows us to come to terms and um there's a couple different profit elements to take into consideration here.

There's like the land development, the sort of developer that does all the infrastructure, not always the same as the developer does the vertical, as you know this.

Um 18 to 20% internal rate of return is what the cities come to agreement with on other projects we use the most recent West Midway was a 20% internal rate of return.

Um that's what we used in in this preliminary feasibility work is assuming that's kind of the threshold we need to get to.

Um and then as far as the home the home builder portion of it, um we've we've made the assumption.

I I I think we're right around 10% return on this sale of the unit is what we sort of built into here.

I mean, we haven't, you know, broken all those numbers out here for for what as far as what's on the screen, but but that those are the assumptions that we made.

Thank you.

And then from that, we we get something, the city and the community gets we get new roads and streets and infrastructure and utilities.

Right now we have World War II era infrastructure.

You know, we get you know, we get to help have new housing that goes towards our arena goes.

It um we also know that more housing helps us get more ridership for our ferries and get people off our streets.

So some of our, you know, we can look at the developers' profit, but we can also figure out, you know, not only our priorities for development, but also what is our return, and that's the new infrastructure, that's ridership, new residents playing taxes.

So um, so that that the developer piece having a return, that's definitely the question, but really balancing all the different benefits that we we get from getting a developer on board versus not having a developer, and then the property kind of could continue continual to fall into disrepair too.

So it's a bunch of different factors that we are um evaluating uh when when we talk about moving forward with revitalizing this area.

Thank you.

Great.

Um board member Han, you had a question?

Oh no, I had a comment.

Oh, sure.

Please, yeah.

I guess my comment was kind of the next category.

Um, and everybody really built on what uh board member Sahibas said because one of my probably one of my major areas I was thinking about is kind of the concept of connectivity and um internal organization of the site, you know.

So when I look at the internal organization of the site, I I think uh, I mean, is I the site visit I went on with wonderful, but it is very disoriented because the the streets, the way it's layout is there's seems to be a need to just relook at the whole um circulation pattern, you know.

Uh that would benefit, you know.

I'm certainly not married to any of the existing streets there.

One question I do have, and maybe this is not possible, but when I remember when we looked at the big whites in the beehive streets, and part of my question was is the historic significance the big whites or the beehive street pattern or both, you know.

So uh if it's mainly the big whites, you know, what about the idea, you know, it turns out that these homes have to be lifted up and uh raised on their foundational significant costs.

Might we think about relocating these big whites to another area of the site.

I think about preservation park in Oakland where they relocated the Victorians, wonderful looking area.

So kind of just yeah, go ahead.

Just to answer your question, the big whites, the buildings themselves are contributors architecturally, and in the and the street pattern is a contributor under the landscape cultural landscape historic character.

So the answer is yes, it is historic, but you know, I kind of just keep coming back to this same idea that there's going to be impacts to the historic district.

And I think Nicole made that loud and clear to the historic advisory board.

So it's all about like what's the most important and how do we balance these?

And you heard kind of what their response was, and I think what I'm hearing from your other board members is yeah, we need to be open to those kinds of ideas.

Like we don't, we don't, I mean, unless there's something we want to just rule out right now, like you can't touch this.

Yeah, fine, let's say it and make sure we all everybody agrees, planning board, council, everybody, community, or let's be open to ideas.

I mean I mean the beehive pattern of the street is kind of nice when you look at a Google map, right?

Uh but and but the big whites to me, in my opinion, are worth preserving and renovating.

Uh they have a lot of care to what do they really need to be kept in the same configuration?

Seems like a use of a lot of valuable land, and it really is a constraint if you try to create a new uh street pattern um through the site.

Um so that would be something I would say, if possible, take a look at that.

So the internal circulation is one thing, and then just uh going on with Sahib, but membership saying when I look at the site and look at Main Street, it seems really cut as you're already saying, it's really cut off from the rest of the shoreline, the rest of the city.

Um part of me is like can we reimagine what Main Street might look like, right?

Rather than just a thrill fair, or you know, the only time I ever drive there when I go to the ferry terminal.

It's not um there's residential on the east side, it just doesn't seem very connected.

Um I I like the idea, I really support the idea of expanding the study area to include a lot of the properties to the west of Pan Amway.

I think that's great, including the school district site, and maybe is there other areas that might be expanded.

One of the thoughts on having you may have an RFP for this specific area, but it seems like doing a larger specific plan that plans out the waterfront area, you know, take a look.

What can that be, you know, that provides a connection to the this neighborhood would be good because how can you take a fanish of that water?

You know, realizing that's also in the 100-year floodplain.

Um, I look at I look at the previous slide was about um the old club, you know, when went out there, and I've been in the old club when it was actually open, but way long time ago, uh my former boss was an officer, so we went there for the dinner when it was still open, very old school, right?

But uh it seems like that's a wonderful opportunity for a community-based area, maybe some open space, amenities built on it.

How can you kind of extend it so it goes to the shoreline?

You know, so it kind of really built something that and you kind of w get out to the Oakland estuary.

You know, it is a naval facility, you know, bring it to the water.

So somehow looking at the planning around the this site to see how you can better connect it both from a traffic standpoint but from a land use standpoint, it'd be um uh I know it means more work from a specific plan standpoint, but I think you could get a better plan by not just planning insular, but really taking a look at what do we want the surrounding area to be.

Any other um feedback or comments?

Um, if not, uh can you go ahead?

Yeah, here.

Um I don't know if we touched on this or if any uh fellow board members want to react um to this question.

Um, or I don't know, just respond to the requirement.

So, did you um want to just recap?

Um, sure.

If you don't um uh my madam president, so basically we talk about how there's a 25% affordable requirement because of the renewed hope settlement agreement, but in addition to that, the main street specific plan also calls for an additional 10% um serving 120 to 180% median income, and so that's in addition to, again, the rest of the city is 15%, Alameda Point is 25%, and then this would require an additional 10% for this income level, and we'd love to get the planning board's feedback around um going back to the lens and the prism of feasibility.

Um, is there a way to reevaluate or what are your your your points and comments around that element?

Yeah, and I guess like you know, the theme I'm picking up here is the need for flexibility.

It says here too that there is that option to waive um the 10% for that more moderate or median income level.

So um it seems like that's something that the board would my fellow board members would support in terms of not necessarily requiring that additional 10%, but I am curious if anyone wants to challenge or add more context to that.

Yes, Vice President Adidas.

I just have a question.

So that 120 to 180% median income would fall into the moderate income category.

That's an additional data that I have.

Well, I understand that it's additional, but I'm just trying to figure out what that's called.

So it's above.

So the idea of this was Oh, above moderate.

And the concept when this was originally we discussed this and put it in the in the specific plan, was that what about that next group of folks who don't qualify as moderate, yeah, but they can't afford the 1.3 million dollar three-story town home.

Like, it's a little bit related to your question about housing type diversity.

That's what that was about.

Like there was this sense at least 10 years ago, okay, we're we're we're creating affordable housing for this group, and then we're creating a bunch of market rate housing for everyone else.

But yeah, there's there's we used to call it the missing middle.

Like there's this group of people there who they don't qualify for that, but they can't afford that.

Yeah, and and so, and I you know the way we were thinking about it back then is and you can the developers can show us here is the type of housing, it's not gonna be deed restricted, but it will sell or rent at that level, so we think we've met the requirement.

But yeah, anyway, I'm just the point is, yeah.

That's what the concept was 10 years ago.

Like, how do we think it's a good concept?

But but maybe it's more about I mean, I don't know.

I'm just proposing, I don't know, because we we have like a 25%.

Is that non-negotiable?

The six percent really low income, ten percent low income, nine percent moderate.

So that was agreed to in a settlement agreement with renewed hope.

So at this point, unless renewed hope wants to renegotiate that settlement agreement, um, it is non-negotiable.

I mean, that's not something the city can do unilaterally.

Yeah, okay.

The uh the other thing to follow up on your question about the the above moderate when the main street neighborhood plan was adopted 80 the moderate income meant something substantially different almost than it does today.

It's still the same income percentages of median, but the change of demographics and the change of incomes has I mean you're now talking 120% AMI, which is in the moderate, like I mean, I don't know the number off the top of my head, but like a family of four could be making a hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year and be still in that moderate category, whereas when the main street neighborhood plan was adopted, it was probably much closer to a hundred thousand or something for a family of four.

So you're you're almost getting it by the change in in sort of incomes uh in the city or in the county than then just by uh because the per the dollar values have changed significantly.

Obviously, inflation's a factor, but there's also been just sort of a rise of wages in Alameda.

Yeah, um, and I'll just like kind of react where I do wonder if there's more of like carrots versus six approach here where we could like how do we encourage these kind of housing types versus like mandating it?

So yeah, um that could be something for us to think about as part of this RFQ process, but um yeah.

I mean you could phrase it as either or either a variety of housing or these requirements so that they find a solution.

Any other thoughts on this piece?

Yes, board member Wayne.

Um so I think I I can't remember if I've articulated this this thought before, but in in connection to our conversation with uh conversation around inclusionary housing.

I think something that has occurred to me in connection with the moderate income category, you know, having you know the Bay Area having gone through a few years of kind of testing this category out, is I think that perhaps that the tool of using affordable housing, deed restricted affordable housing to serve moderate income, I think households may be somewhat of a mismatch, which we concluded with rental housing in our last you know visit to the ordinance.

And I think some of that has to do with the fact that you know you might legislate a certain number tied to a certain household, and in the meantime the market's changing, right?

So you end up with housing that's legislated to be a particular price point and it's actually more than what the market is uh or you just have you know people who are you're basically competing with the market, right?

Because you're at that hundred percent plus uh tier, and people who are out there looking who have the ability more so than your low-income or very low-income households who have the ability to look at a range of options, it might not be luxury, you know, market rate housing, it might not be the fanciest house on the block, but they can make choices and they you know generally I think what we're hearing from the market is you know, they're not really in love with doing housing lotteries and extensive uh long qualification processes when they could just find an apartment that's like 20 minutes farther away and just put in a deposit and have a house, right?

So we're kind of competing with the real, we're trying to legislate this outcome, but in the meantime we're competing with the real world.

Um and it maybe just doesn't work.

Um so I you know, I think it's fine for this to sit in here.

Um I think we again should be open to different proposals and different outcomes.

Um question I had uh this is this so this number up here, the 25%.

Um I think we talked about um as part of the inclusionary discussion that it's it basically is not under the purview of the inclusionary ordinance, it's its own thing, you know, the city might be 15%, but this is always gonna be 25% as long as we're not renegotiating with renew with renewed hope.

Um but to go back to the my favorite topic of the citywide in LU fee, which we have not passed, but we are talking about passing in the next year.

If the city did have an inlu fee, and uh we did have market rate housing uh pushing in LU funds into a pot, could that pot of money help support reaching 25% within Alameda Point?

Yes.

And the um the reason being this the obligation of the 25% is on the city of Alameda, it's not on, you know, it's not an ordinance that says, hey, Mr.

Developer or Mrs.

Developer, if you want to build a hundred units, 15% have to be inclusionary.

This is an obligation that the city of Alameda will ensure that 25% of the units ultimately at Alameda Point.

So I think the short answer to your question is yes.

If the in loo the in LU fees collected could be used at Alameda Point.

All right, so put another way an in in loo fee, if we were to pass it, you know, we might not just be talking about an in LU fee helping to support feasibility of projects citywide, having an inlu fee as it, you know, feeding into a citywide fund might actually support feasibility in Alameda Point as well.

Thank you.

Um seeing you no other comments.

Um, I I do feel like I have maybe a contrasting opinion on this item where um I I do um believe pretty strongly that flexibility is key, including on this component.

I think I've heard um time and again that uh the 25% alone is very challenging, and um I think imposing an additional 10% is a laudable goal, and I do appreciate um that very much for my fellow board members, and I do wonder like how we could tackle those housing types in different ways through incentives, through um, like I said, carrots versus sticks.

So um for me, um, you know, I I would recommend that, and it may be just a different um approach than my fellow board members, so yeah, I agree with that by the way.

I'm I'm not sure that came up clearly.

Okay, all right, sorry.

Like I thought you said like to keep it as is, and I've no, no, what I meant was I know I I think that we should we should revisit that.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, I I was I wasn't disagreeing with you.

I think the flexibility, I mean the fact that we just adopted a lower the percentage.

I know legally we may not have the flexibility, but you know, to really think about ways do we want to maintain the same uh level?

I mean, it seems now is a really big distance, but at the same time, also, you know, we got the housing element, the regional problem of we don't have enough very low, low income housing units is when we reduce the inclusion requirements.

You know, how we how do we address the acute need for very low and low-income housing in Alameda and the rest of the Bay Area, you know.

So, you know, so I'm kind of torn both ways, but at the same time, realistically, if you want to see defilement happen, 25% is pretty heftier than you throw on top of all the other infrastructure and you know having to pay the navy, which should be renegotiated, but you know, all that other stuff.

Jeez, you know, how are you gonna get development out here, you know?

So affordable housing is just one piece of the puzzle, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And then with our updated inclusion, I would say like we didn't necessarily lower it, like we gave options, like there's like a dialing option where we could go, yeah, but just yeah, but I know you mean, but just for the record.

Um okay, great.

I think we um talked this item through.

So is there any other questions that you've or feedback you wanted from us?

Um, just a quick question and then talking about next steps.

Is there anything else that we didn't discuss today that you would like for us to kind of consider?

Um, in terms of next steps, um, we we we did get feedback from the historical advisory board.

We are gonna write up uh your comments and it's gonna be some community feedback and then going to the council, then we'll pull all of that together in addition to staff's priorities, because we're gonna have to ship it this process through, uh, and then we'll kind of bring that back in some form so we can say, hey, we got some conflicting things, or this is not clear, or here's this wonderful thing we all created together in terms of priorities and trade-offs and incentives, and then this is what we want to get everybody to nod on, and then we'll then work with our uh feasibility team to say, okay, based upon what we've come up with in terms of our priorities.

Do we need to revisit anything in the feasibility um framework that we we already did?

And if the answer to that is not no, then we will go to the council, kind of share that information in terms of the priorities, and then the results of the feasibility analysis, and then see council's um approval or direction about whether we move forward with an RFQ.

Great.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um, yeah, this was uh fantastic, and um I think we gave you some good direction.

Um, I feel like the the takeaway here is how to create the conditions for success in this uh community and really make it more of a community.

So um uh yeah, excited to see um how this moves forward and how we can be supportive.

Um I also appreciate my fellow board members bringing up the process component.

Like I heard of like developers' competition for the first time in Vienna.

I'm like, oh, we do that, I guess, already.

So uh so this is very exciting.

So just thank you so much for bringing this to us.

Thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate your feedback.

Yeah, thank you.

It's very helpful, thank you.

Thank you.

So with that, we're closing agenda item 5A, and moving on to staff communications 6A and 6B.

There were no recent actions.

Oh, wait, so I'm sorry, the uh there were some recent actions on your work.

Uh the council approved the second reading of the um inclusionary housing ordinance amendments last week or June.

Anyway, very recently.

That so that's happened.

Um, you know, there's a 30-day statute on that decision, but that is going forward.

Um, you approve the Alameda Marina adjustment that is going to city council on June 16th.

So and the most recent conversations with Alameda Marina are that if they get a thumbs up from council on the amendment.

Um they hope to be, I mean, they're looking July building permit.

Like they have a window and they are, I can guarantee you they are working very hard to get to that window because they keep pushing us like you're gonna get us to council, right?

So we're we're optimistic that that's gonna go well.

Um, upcoming meetings.

Is that what's next?

Yeah, um a little out of practice.

Uh your next meeting is going to be June 22nd.

Uh we will be bringing the draft ordinance for the AD, the its um accessory dwelling unit ordinance amendments.

I think you've had a workshop with Tristan Swire before on that.

He has drafted the amendments, so they will be back to you on June 22nd, and you will be in a position to make a recommendation to council at that point if if you're ready and satisfied and based on what you hear at the public hearing.

Um, so that's moving forward.

Um we will also have a study session on a proposal from the Oakland Roots, the soccer team.

They would like to um make some improvements out at the old Raiders facility where they currently train to be able to have their actual games out there.

So this is something they're pursuing.

It's not their long-term home, but they are looking for a temporary home for the next three, they think it's only three years, but um it may be closer to four or five, depending on how fast they can get a permanent stadium built in Oakland.

Um so anyway, that's it's an interesting project out at the old, um, you know, over there by the airport.

Um, and then that is your last meeting, because right now there's nothing scheduled, of course, in August.

Wait, July.

No, we don't have anything yet.

What do we have, Brian?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

July 13th.

Sorry, I'm way out of practice here.

Um the um first draft of the short-term rental ordinance.

Steve Buckley is working on that.

He hopes to have a first draft of that.

We're one of the last cities in the Bay Area to sort of deal with the short-term rental issue.

Um, so that's coming uh to you.

Um, and we may also have the first draft or a sort of a workshop on another set of zoning amendments that we've been working on with the base reuse team is um or the economic development uh team, commercial zoning.

So there's been an effort to look at the commercial zoning for Park Street and Webster Street and really asking our question a question is is is there anything in our zoning that is really kind of an unnecessary regulation that is causing sort of unnecessary obstacles for essentially new businesses coming to fill vacancies on Park Street and Webster Street.

And so we've got we we've got some suggestions of things that we might want to loosen up to try to reduce the amount of process and time money and risk that a new business needs to kind of go through before they can know whether they can open or not so um that'll we hope to have that ready.

That'll not be a final decision that will be a here's our first draft you'll be hearing from the business community about that first draft and so it should be an interesting conversation.

Then we have nothing planned yet for July twenty seventh necessarily but um if we are ready we'll come back with the community zoning two weeks later or this the commercial zoning and that's but right now that July twenty seventh meeting is light um we're also not sure if all of you will be here on July twenty seventh we know that's that often conflicts with summer vacation plans.

Right Brian thank you busy summer thank you so much um and yeah if um fellow board members are on vacation as long as we let stuff know ahead of time um it's perfectly fine.

So um great um any public comments on agenda item six no great uh board communications from my fellow board members seeing nine oh yes.

Welcome back Andrew full circle moment for you to be here.

Almost my last meeting so it's great to see you.

That's all that's all the board communication I had it's been fun sitting here after two and a half years.

You guys are just as good as you were before.

In fact a little bit better, I would say when is your last meeting?

The next one.

The next one okay all right okay um note it um great um and and you're just uh filling in right I'm just filling in until you get a new permanent planning director.

Okay.

With Abby Thorne Lyman the two of us are tag teaming it.

Oh also very wonderful to work with okay all right um thank you for that closing agenda item seven anyone in the public may speak on an item that wasn't on tonight's um meeting agenda for three minutes.

We have any speakers okay seeing it we are at nine fourteen and we are adjourned.