An informational update on the draft mobile home closure and conversion ordinance is uh planning staff here.

Oh, supervisor, sorry.

Uh I think the request was to have item one and then move item number four to number two, if that's okay with you.

Okay, all right.

Well, let's do item one.

Informational uh update on mental health services for the unincorporated area.

Okay.

So we have any speakers on that item.

Item one.

All right, good evening, everyone.

Hope you're all doing okay.

Um I feel a lot of different energies in the room, so I just want to take a moment.

Hear a lot of snacking.

Um we will be going between English and Spanish.

So I just want to clarify before moving forward.

Um, is there interpretation live?

Okay, okay.

Um just want to make sure folks don't get cut off mid-interpretation and that everything gets clear.

So in case there is a need, I can interpret if needed if it becomes hard to understand.

Just want to offer that.

Um, so thank you for making space for us.

Um we are here to share some community driven updates on mental health collaboration in the unincorporated areas, um, and essentially lift our residents here that have been doing the work the last couple years in partnership with behavioral health and some of our community partnerships.

Um we want to do uh a big recognization first of our community wellness committee.

It has been made up of 32 members that have been following up with about 100 residents from our initial survey back in 2024, and 2024 uh yeah, late 2023, early 2024, um, to better understand the gaps while also conducting interviews uh with first line workers at clinics serving the unincorporated area.

So this is really in regards to mental health services, but really a broader sense of uh intervention but and prevention while also trying to focus on the services that aren't reaching the community and bridging the gap between the providers as well as the residents.

So I want to invite Marcia Lopez to present the next item.

I'm so so sorry, good evening, supervisors, and people here.

Thank you for the opportunity to play a presentation.

My name is Marcia Lopez.

Residents since 2024 have been facing barriers to relevant and bilingual affordable care that is within their neighborhood.

Uh, we found that clinics are committed to deeper community alignment, but still struggle keeping up with need and reaching the residents.

There's a strong interest for more culturally specific options around wellness that is also connected with peers and other residents that are going through the same experiences.

In 2025, we initiated some interviews with providers as well as following up with some residents.

We had a few key findings and also followed up on why they feel this way.

Some have been around residents facing barriers to get in contact with service providers, sometimes waiting over three weeks, with limited bilingual staff and confusing referral systems, and folks end up giving up actually reaching out for care.

Clinics are open to deeper community alignment, but face staffing shortages and low pay for frontline workers.

We're seeing high staff burnout and high turnover, and it's making it hard to maintain those relationships with local residents and really give that consistent care.

And residents have also come together in times of fear and insecurity, like now to create these third spaces in the near their neighborhoods.

There's a fear of public charge, deportation or even data sharing, which prevents families from seeking services even when they are eligible and in high need.

Trusted promotors and peer workers, and they really fill that gap for the multilingual need.

However, residents still feel lack of trust and connection with some of these institutions.

In trying to strengthen our local partnerships, we have identified two clinic representatives from each uh clinic or provider that uh specifically services the unincorporated residents in the area, and engaged them and are interested in becoming community liaisons to improve relationships between the residents and providers.

We have had some trusted partners in these interviews that include Eden Church, the Burcio Vasquez, Wilma Chan Center, Emoja Health, Reach Ashland Youth Center, La Familia, and the Mental Health Association for Chinese Communities.

It's not limited to that.

We're actively connecting with other groups, including family or sorry, Philip's advocates of justice, to just make sure we reach diverse set of partners.

We also have a good relationship with school districts, San Lorenzo and Hayward Unified School Districts.

We have actually a couple of family ambassadors on our planning team.

And we also have connections with local therapies and alternative wellness providers who are contributing to these resident-led support circles and want to be a part of our larger community wellness network.

I wanna oh sorry, I think there was one more point we might have missed.

There's an also interest and continued collaboration with the Office of Family Empowerment from Behavioral Health to collaborate hosting family cafes in the unincorporated community.

And so I want to invite Victoria Vivaldo next.

So we have some immediate next steps and our timelines of what we will be doing, and just our efforts that our residents will be moving forward with.

First is present updated resources at these school family groups every month to really show that the mental health support goes beyond that one-on-one therapy, includes other community-based options, guiding them to our trusted partners.

And we hope to do this.

We've started doing this actually in August and moving through doing it through April 2026.

We also want to maintain four resident-led peer support circles monthly.

And this will just build trust and belonging through the shared experiences in their community.

Also the same timeline that we have already started with the family groups.

We also want to host monthly clinic provider roundtables to strengthen these relationships with these providers and really just make sure that they are grounded in community voices and need.

We want to prioritize the immigrant community, African American, AAPI, family with disabilities, students, Latinx, and parents and guardians.

Combination of modalities that are not limited but include somatics, art, dance, laugh therapy, and really help reduce the crisis back down the baseline.

Create tercerospacios in Los Barrios para que la curation y la connection y la stimatization de la salud mental in the area no incorporada de Scala yellance of cada tercer space residents por session is anima a capacita participants para que organizos, collegas.

Este is a model of sanation de cada una reunion, generar multiplex and multiplicando el impacto in el condado sin mutilar los costos.

Encontrar un coordinador de justicia sanador para designar y liderar iniciativa, adaptando modelos del café familiar, capacitado a los facilitadores, residents, este coordinador de base, residente y trabajador atraves de Maiden Voice.

Este puesto garantizara un coordination constante, una facilitation adaptada a la routina, al trauma perdon, y la revisation de cuentas entre los collaboradores del Condado y Los Antifitriones Communitarios, estimando 1050.

Okay.

The main purpose of this is to create neighborhood-based third spaces for healing, connection, and destigmatization, right?

So the scale of this, we're really seeing that this serves up to 20 residents per session.

And using this house meeting structure, participants are encouraged and trained to host their own circles with family, friends, neighbors, or colleagues.

We're hoping this is and this has been proven in the last year to be a ripple effect model of healing.

One gathering concede multiple new ones and multiplying the county impact without necessarily multiplying the cost.

In terms of leadership, we believe that we need to hire a healing justice coordinator to design and lead the initiative, adapting the family cafe model that already is funded and existing inside of behavioral health, and to train those resident facilitators.

This coordinator should be resident staffed through MEV, and we believe this is really to ensure consistent coordination, trauma-informed facilitation, and accountability between county partners and community hosts.

We have an estimated about 150,000 for that for a one-year pilot.

We want to also highlight the need for language access and inclusion, uh really providing accurate live translations in multiple languages is needed for these spaces to ensure the best kind of care.

And we hope that includes but isn't limited to Vietnamese, Cantonese, Arabic, and Spanish.

This would include creating appropriate multilingual materials and reflects language justice as a value and aligns with Alameda County's equity goals by meeting residents where they are linguistically and culturally.

Ensuring that there's culturally relevant programming, we want to equip facilitators with the tools that they need that are rooted in these values.

And finally, valuation and reporting, ensuring that we track the number of circles hosted, languages served, participants reached, all of that fun stuff.

Well, point two for two five percent of the MHA's MHSA funding.

Um, and really builds the bridge between service providers, residents, and meeting people where they are in homes, churches, and their neighborhoods.

And Vicky also wanted to invite both of you supervisors to come join one of our third space gatherings to really see the kind of people, stories, and uh neighbors that we have and that are directly impacted.

Next, I want to invite Angelica Canchola to speak about a second ask.

Okay.

Second of all, we want to establish uh Eden Mental Health Task Force and schedule quarterly program progress reports to maintain consistent coordination between Alameda County and community leaders.

We really propose that this Eden Mental Health Task Force would monitor the implementation and ensure ongoing collaboration and data back to you both and to the rest of the county.

This task for would ensure community voice is consistently driving these county solutions around accessible culturally care.

Um, the solicitudes are persons of the area non incorporada.

Los members are confirmed for the committee de Bienestar Community of May and Voice.

Finally, we want the applications to be open to folks of all ages living in unincorporated area.

These members we hope would be confirmed by a mighty and voices community wellness committee.

Um, and we would we have already identified uh main seats that would need to be uh filled as representatives.

So we're thinking of two student youth representatives, one provider round table representative, two uh well, one representative from each district, um, and then eight community representatives from two from each uh demographic, including black, Latino, API, and individuals with disabilities.

Right, and some of the core functions of this, we hope to review and evaluate the implementation of these community initiatives.

Um again, some of them are already being done through these family cafe models that are existent in behavioral health.

Um, really keep providing you all with uh the super with the updates needed for behavioral health leadership, maintain the inclusion and consideration for policy recommendations moving forward, not being an afterthought, and strengthen trust and transparency between the county and residents.

Now, with that leadership, we also believe there needs to be a specific part-time role to maintain that uh task force.

Um, and we're have the breakdown there in front of you, but we're really hoping that that would be 116,000, which is only 0.06 of the MHA funding.

Um, and so in total, we would be asking for 616,000, which is less than 0.3% of the MHA budget that is existent.

Um, and so before we know that behavioral health is having a lot of changes with Prop One in the coming year, and so before there's a lot of shifts around prevention and intervention, uh, we want to ensure that this structure at least maintains while there is a shift in these.

So we really hope that you guys listen and uh consider this recommendation and move forward with some abilities to fund the unincorporated community directly.

Thanks.

So thank you for this information.

Do you have extra?

Do you have any more copies of this?

Because I need to give one to the clerk.

Give the clerk.

Okay.

So typically I have supervisor Tam comments, but I'll start.

And then we'll also have any public speakers on this item shortly.

So you've done a lot of work on this, and that's a good thing, but also both Supervisor Tam and I serve happen to serve on the county's health committee.

What you requested here, first of all, it's gonna have to go back to our health Alameda County Health, our agency, and to our uh department, our behavioral health department, so they can analyze um uh what's being submitted here to even determine whether or not uh there's resources presently in this fiscal year, since none of this has been budgeted for this fiscal year.

Uh this is almost November.

So we're well into the fiscal year.

Um so that's the first thing they'd have to do.

And then secondly, you've mentioned Prop 1.

Uh, the county is already in the process of examining uh the impacts of Prop One, because a lot of what you're requesting here probably would have been funded through the Mental Health Services Act.

But we are now come July switching over to the Behavioral Services Act, which is a total new ball game.

We are anticipating at least 30 million dollars in shortfalls just by that switch.

You're asking for $600,000, which hasn't even been contemplated this fiscal year yet alone next year when we switch over with already a 30 million 30 million dollar budget gap just to continue some of the uh preventative mental health uh efforts that are underway.

So I put a lot of work in this, we will take a look at it, but I know I can't, I can't speak for supervisor.

Damn, I can't make any commitments around this, and this is something both of us serve on the um health committee will probably want to agendize this for the health committee to take up and review uh through our health uh agency, uh behavioral health department.

So those are some of my initial reactions.

But um, Supervisor Jam, do you have any thoughts, any comments, any any um thing that you could provide that would assist with this?

Um thank you, Chair Miley.

And I agree, this is uh very well thought out, and I think um because you work very closely with our behavioral health department, you know that Alameda County is basically one of the few that started the whole peer-to-peer uh lived experience counseling uh without having um clinicians necessarily, and a lot of the trusted partners that you mentioned, whether it's Taberstio, the Wilmachan Family Resource Center, La Familia, um, the county has contracts with these uh organizations, and one of the things that I was hoping to see, and this is what Supervisor Miley is talking about going back to behavioral health to help kind of like synthesize and see uh maybe we can help expand the scope of these trusted partners because we have existing contracts that we can augment and then uh have them provide um a lot of the basically the shepherding or the the shell to um implement some of the programs that you talked about, but I think um we are still trying to see how much measure W funds uh at least uh in the next five years remaining of measure w can be used to backfill what Prop One will be uh shifting from as you said, uh with prevention and early intervention, uh, because they're moving that funding into housing and there's gonna be a $30 million shortfall.

And what we're trying to see is whether some of these organizations that we've been funding, like my office will be funding the Wilmachan Family Resource Center because they will be losing some funding as well to see how much uh that will be integrated.

But the best way to look at this probably is to have our behavioral health department see which contracts that we have existing could help because when I think about the um the unincorporated area, I I also think about um, you know, the Fairmont area where John George's where Horizon that's also part of the unincorporated, and that's where the core of all of our mental health care facilities and substance use uh are, and also tiny homes are located, but uh if we're trying to spread them more closely into the neighborhoods, it would be good to have centers, whether it's the reach, whether it's you know, yeah, working with La Familia.

Yeah, appreciate that feedback because I think that's exactly what we're thinking, right?

We're trying to make sure we're setting up these kind of satellite support circles to then guide them back into these providers' hands because the problem is there isn't the trust to move forward with that.

And so we do want to bridge that gap.

And so we have been functioning as that bridge, and so we want to really implement and institutionalize that bridge and name it.

Um, I do also want to dispel some of the like I did put some breakdowns in there for you in terms of MHSA.

The most recent report on that comes from the presentation back in uh August June.

So this is actually the the amount we're asking for is what currently is budgeted and would be still budgeted for.

There would be some funding for that.

Um, so I do look forward to you taking it back and hoping to meet as soon as possible for some action steps, whether that is with behavioral health or with um the health care committee.

Yeah, what I think I'll probably want to schedule this for a health meeting, yeah, because it's more directly focused on health and the delivery of behavioral health services in the unincorporated area.

Will that be open to the public?

Oh, yeah, it's a committee meeting, yeah.

Brown act it perfect.

Is there a way for some of our folks to be like directly invited to that as observers?

Okay, oh no, it's a public meeting.

Just like this is a public meeting, but it's run a little differently.

Yes, I don't give as much.

So flexibility, right.

When you look at today's meeting, for example, on acgov.org, um the unincorporated service, the health committee is also listed.

Okay.

There's also uh online participation as well, and uh we can make accommodations for translation.

Okay, so our only concern is that this is something we brought back up in like right after pandemic, right?

We brought Supervisor Miley down to reach and told you a lot of reporting is some of the same reporting that we're still seeing two years later.

Our concern is that we're gonna go through another committee round, go through this process again.

And then we're gonna be here a year later with nothing or no real action plan.

So I think what we want to see is at least some movement.

Um speaking with uh Stephanie Montgomery from behavior from Office of Equity Behavioral Health Services.

Um we believe there's at least $10,000 to at least start and start this initiative, at least in Cherry Land.

So we would love at least the green light to move forward on that.

Well, as I said, I'm gonna have to have the behavioral health staff advice because I'm not making any commitments.

Advise me on everything you've outlined and give me their feedback on either what we can do, what's being done, or what's you know, possible.

And uh, you know, I can't can't speak for Supervisor Dam at the moment, but that's what I need to do.

And I gave your information to Aaron Armstrong over there.

Aaron is director of policy and strategic initiatives out of my office and works specifically on all health care matters, so Aaron's gonna review this as well, but we're gonna review it with behavioral health, and then Supervisor Tam and I will schedule it for a meeting of the health committee so the behavioral health department can report out on your request.

What wouldn't that be?

Um let's see.

This is October.

I don't know if we'll be able to get it in before the end of the year, but and Aaron keeps the she said uh keeps the um the schedule too.

She's shaking her head, but we'll see how quickly we can do this.

Yeah, because I know you're very concerned about um moving this on, and that's why I wanted to schedule it for this meeting this uh today.

I had no idea you were going to be presenting this to us, like I haven't seen any of this.

I don't know if Supervisor Tam has, but we haven't seen what you presented this evening.

So we have to definitely take it and review it, and and um uh take it under consideration with our professional staff.

I look forward to hearing back from both of you.

And do we have your contact information?

Yes, I yes, I have your staff and everything.

Okay, yes.

All right, let's have speakers.

Do we have any speakers on item one?

This is an update on mental health services for the unincorporated area.

Mike Barra.

Hello, supervisors.

My name is Mike Barata.

I'm a Cherryland resident.

Um I was very happy to see the funding for first five uh from this county.

I think that is um I've been out of this conversation for a long time, but um mental health is critical in my opinion, and maybe it's been said um and talked about, but I want to say it um that prenatal I think deserves an awful lot of attention because the stress and anxiety that a pregnant woman goes through is transferred directly to that baby, and they're um experiencing everything the mom experiences, and um to offer a safety net for prenatal, I think, would pay benefits way down the road um to uh welcoming um our number one natural resource, which are people.

Um it's too often uh we treat them like a burden and yet they're our number one natural resource.

So um if it hasn't been said before, I would like to um thank you for um your commitment to first five, and um maybe some uh strong considerations for prenatal uh support.

Thank you.

Uh, donde nuestra comunidad se sienta con que no estén isolados con miedo, donde uh donde presentan ellos sus inquietudes y que disminuyen uh sus miedo, eso es lo que queremos nosotros.

Okay.

Were you finished?

What's the translator translate?

Y nosotros queremos proteger a nuestra communidad, no sienta miedo y informarlos.

La gente necesita ser escuchada, o sea, con lo de migración, con lo de uh salud physica, estamos teniendo mucha demanda de ansiedad, depresión, de aislamento.

Canemos a nuestra communidad del area no incorporada.

Collar, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Matt.

Hey, good evening, everybody.

This gets to a much larger issue that we have that you know since uh really in my entire lifetime, more than half a century now.

Uh you know, we've we've had our mental health care uh defunded almost completely compared to what we uh should have uh compared to you know developed countries internationally.

Um roughly one in uh one in fifty people uh across the United States needs uh significant mental health care uh in any given year, and about one in five hundred people, uh and this is uh internationally, this is across humanity, regardless of culture, needs significant mental health care on an ongoing basis.

Uh and up until 1965, uh we had uh we had about um uh a one bed for every four hundred and fifty 450 californians uh across the state in terms of large scale institutional mental health care.

There were problems with that but we threw the baby out with the bath water today there uh there's one bed for every 9,000 californians um you know we don't even have a knowledge of what it was like to have the appropriate level of mental health care uh John George and you know the um the tag and release process that we have because of the the Lantern and Petra short act which has 5150 and 5250 uh for short holds you know maximum of 14 days is inadequate to deal with the substantial situation we have and largely we've been hiding our mental health problems uh in the the criminal justice system and since uh you know realignment in uh with a b um 109 uh you know we've basically had Caltrans and homeless shelters take care of our mental health problems so this is a big issue where we need some real funding and the county needs to enlist the state in in actually developing long term substantial mental health care.

Thank you.

We have no additional speakers for item one.

I want to thank the speakers and once again to reiterate we will uh take this up with our behavioral health department um which is a part of Alameda County Health the overall agency and um we will schedule it for the health committee I at the moment I can't tell you when but we'll try to make it as soon as we can um and we're in the fiscal year already under Mental Health Services Act.

I need to find out from the staff if there's any wiggle room to provide any of uh support for the for the requests that are being uh asked of us this evening I just don't know and then come July 1st we'll be switching over to the Behavioral Health Services Act that's new law that comes into effect under Prop 1 and a lot of things we're doing under the Mental Health Services Act we can no longer do under the Behavioral Health Services Act.

I know I've been brief I'm sure Supervisor Tam has been briefed but we're looking at maybe 75 80 million dollars that needs to be um reconciled that we're no longer be able to use for preventive health and early intervention and the behavior health staff in terms of the transition come January come July 1st um they're looking to see how they can cover that some of that and uh I think we're still short maybe about 30 million so um I know we're both of us are dedicated to prevention and early intervention because you know we can't take those resources away but Prop one requires that resources be put into housing and other things for the mentally ill.

So we'll see what we can do in terms of of the request and you have my commitment and Supervisor Tam because both of us are in the health committee that we'll get this schedule for the health committee to take up okay so uh folks wanted to move up item four next okay so we'll move up item four that's an informational update on the draft mobile home closure and conversion ordinance and I see uh Albert Lopez is here.

Good evening Supervisor Albert Lopez Planning Director I'm here with Christine Green, senior planner and we've both been working on the m the mobile home ordinance we were last here at this committee just about a year ago um and we uh at that point thought we were gonna be having uh coming back to your committee a little sooner than what we are now, but um these things take a lot longer than expected, and we have learned a lot along the way.

I just want to say that uh before we get started.

We just have a short PowerPoint uh to give you an update on where we are.

Um there's this one sheet that um there's copies on the on the desk, and uh hopefully you got a copy of this here.

It's what we're gonna be going over tonight.

It's just a one-pager.

Um if not, can you can you grab a couple copies?

Yeah, and there's uh for the audience there's copies there as well.

Uh and so uh just quickly just uh for context.

Um we have you directed us when we were here about a year ago to provide uh and do the community work necessary to develop a mobile home park uh ordinance uh when it be when it came to closure or conversion, and that's what we um have done.

Um there was some discussion about an overlay earlier, and we'll talk about that in the presentation.

And uh we have uh I think we've done a pretty good job in terms of meeting with both uh both all the stakeholders on both sides of this issue over the last year, just in the last several months, we've met with both uh park uh residents as well as park owners in developing the draft and um just this Monday we went to the planning commission and uh presented the draft ordinance and got a lot of good feedback.

I don't think that we're too far apart.

I think there's a about three or four issues that are sort of you know where they're just not necessarily agreement um on, and so that was that is the the the gist of the direction that we're hoping to get from the committee tonight is on some of these outstanding issues where there seems to be still some disagreement about how we should move forward.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Christine and we'll go into the PowerPoint and we'll both be here for any questions that you may have on the ordinance.

The one that was sent you today, thank you.

Um we can yeah, we can move to the second slide.

Um so as of today, we've gone through a two versions of the ordinance since um early of this year.

We have met with the owners and their residents twice over the last several months.

The first meeting was with them.

We discussed the original version of a closure and uh zoning overlay.

And the uh last, the second time we met them, we uh met with them to discuss the current county draft closure and conversion ordinance.

We sent that draft to state and county housing and community development agencies.

The transit oriented community consultant provided comments, and the draft has been reviewed by a county council.

We also provided an update to the planning commission on Monday, and we have their feedback.

Next slide.

Oh perfect.

The current uh county draft ordinance um is a conversion ordinance, so it's going if there's any change of a mobile home park to any other use, including no use, it would uh trigger a local process.

Closure is a conform is a form of a conversion.

The current county draft requires a local permit for the conversion or a closure, which is typical when we looked at other jurisdictions, and then we would require a conditional use permit for either a conversion or a closure.

This process is supposed to clarify uh the state requirements as well as to allow the county to have a local review process and modify or add to any reclose any closure or impact report.

Thank you.

Does not include the zoning overlay, it's only the closure conversion ordinance.

There is not an option for the park owners to apply for a hardship waiver that could possibly waive all or some of the relocation assistance.

There is not also a required right of first refusal for the residents to ask for additional time to gather funding opportunities to purchase a park.

And there was a section added to this current draft that is trying to control park closures through attrition using a 25% vacancy that would trigger a public process.

The new information is conversion of a park would trigger redevelopment under the housing crisis act.

This is only applicable when a mobile home park is closed and redeveloped.

If somebody were to just close a mobile home park and not redevelop it within five years, the replacement housing is not required.

So the replacement housing is onerous on property owners, so it's more than likely that it would only be ever closed and redevelopment redeveloped within five years if it was a housing affordable housing developer.

Closure does need additional oversight from the local agency, and that this is the intent of the process is it would allow for the local county or planning department or housing community development to have local review and also hopefully to prevent any unlawful conversions.

The planning commission discussed this matter on Monday, October 20th, and these were the four uh big bullet points take away from the meeting that the planning commission does not recommend the inclusion or to include the right of first refusal in a future draft, that there is a request for the planning commissioners, they feel that there should be a hardship waiver for the property owners for extreme cases.

So there would be a hardship waiver that the owners could apply for in certain circumstances, so we would need to specify within the ordinance, such as a bankruptcy or other unforeseen circumstances.

There's um when a home cannot be relocated, it's evaluated on it's it's it's at the fair market value, and there's discussion about if a mobile home, if the if the fair market values should include additions to the mobile home that have obtained proper permits for the state housing and community development, or if they're unpermitted, they should not be included in the value of the home.

Is there a reason?

Check in with them before requiring the actual application to submit a conditional use permit.

So those were the four bullet points from the planning commission recommendation from Monday.

So there's a few disagreements.

Um parts that need to be resolved out.

Is that there is uh the request for the right of first refusal to be um placed in the current or in the future draft ordinance?

There's discussion between do we want to include the value of the home for unpermitted structures, or would it only apply for the home that has permits, and that planning staff does need to rework the 25% vacancy language within the current draft, as it's not clear that it's it would be a public process and it would require um a check-in with the owner prior to saying hey you're closed and apply for a conditional use permit, and that is the end of staff's presentation.

Thank you.

Uh Supervisor Jam, do you have any questions or comments?

Um thank you for the update.

Uh it's it sounds like since the last briefing.

Uh the disagreements are sharpened.

Would you say that?

Since the last meeting, they there's a second version of what we discussed of the first time.

Um I think it's more that we have direct, we don't agree with this, but we're okay with this.

So it's making progress, but there's strict residents request our requests are strict, and the owners are requesting what they want to.

So, okay.

So the the planning commission took this up yesterday, the planning commission?

Two days ago, Monday.

Two days ago, yeah.

Okay, so the planning commission is now coming to the full board of supervisors.

Um, this item, we are here tonight to get direction from the both of you as to how you want us to proceed.

Are you comfortable, or is your desire to go through with the closure and conversion ordinance?

Or what the next uh direction is from here.

Okay, thanks.

Is County Council here?

Yes.

Where's County Council?

Where's County Council?

Hi, so the planning commission took this up.

Is this an information item?

We can't make any adjustments to this.

This has got to go to the full board, right?

This was agendized as an informational item tonight to consider the planning commission's feedback and response to your request.

Um, it can't go to the full board without going back to the planning commissions for their recommendations to the full board, which they haven't made.

Oh, I see.

So, if we could make recommendations tonight as a committee, then this is gonna go back to the planning commission.

Well, I think it would be up to you also if you wanted to send it to any other hearing bodies or it right now.

It's for you to give staff a path forward um based on the uh feedback you got from the planning commission.

And it's informational, so okay.

Were you gonna say something, Albert?

Yeah, I just I wanted to agree with the supervisor.

Yeah, I think the issues have sharpened.

Uh, there's that list that we show at the last slide.

I think are the, I guess you could say remaining points to resolve.

Um, and yes, we were we are gonna go back to the planning commission for more formal review.

It is a zoning amendment, so it has to go to them again.

Um, but the idea is that we would take your direction tonight, rework another draft, do some more community work, go back to the planning commission, hopefully get a final recommendation, and then um we could come back here if you'd like, or go right to team P, which would be our normal process, and then the full board.

I see, okay.

Just seems like this is going, you know, through a lot of iterations.

Yeah, that's how we do it, yes.

That's a little little unusual, that's all.

That's why I guess county council.

So we're gonna give more guidance, it's gonna go back to the planning commission, and then we'll yes.

I mean, there I know that in the audience tonight.

There's representatives from both park owners as well as residents.

We'll hear from them, and then whatever you want to sort of give us a direction, we'll be happy to take that and and take it to the next steps.

All right, thank you.

All right, so let's call the speakers.

We have um one, two, three, four, five speakers.

Um, for uh Tony Espinosa, Judy Espinosa, Tara Clancy, Lindsay Wright, and Victoria Eggington.

And that order, Tony, Judy, Tara, Lindsay, and Victoria.

Two minutes each.

Thank you for getting this item on the agenda so quickly.

We have had two meetings with the Planning Commission to discuss the mobile home park closure conversion ordinance.

They made suggestions that residents would like to comment on.

But first, I would like to say we think the county draft is headed in the right direction.

And although the consensus was that it needs some work, we ask that nothing be completely eliminated just yet.

There are several items which started with good intentions to solve a problem and should still be included, but they may need some rewording before they are ready to for approval.

One thing that we would like to object to entirely is that some of the commissioners believe we should be doing the bare minimum by just clarifying the impact report requirements and nothing else.

We believe that to be a very that to be a very dangerous approach, and we would like you to remember that the reason why we needed this ordinance in the first place is that we had a bad experience with the closing of Trotel, and more bad experiences are a very real threat to us right now.

So we we aim to build a local ordinance which is much stronger than what already exists at the state level.

Another main goal is to limit litigations and not put the burden or of enforcement on low-income seniors, whose only defense is to file for an injunction if their basic rights are being violated.

Thank you, your time zone.

Judy.

State law and common decency suggests we do better.

There are four main things which the commission wanted us to discuss further.

The first is the issue of closure by attrition.

Planning made it a very decent attempt to solve the problem which occurred at Tratel by stare by stating that if a park is 25% vacant, the county would assume that it is closing and require the owners to proceed with a closure impact report.

The idea was if a park is moving towards total vacancy, they need to involve the county and do it properly.

However, there are scenarios where a park may not be attending, intending to close entirely, and even if they are, we would not want to accelerate the process by forcing a closure.

We would like to see the wording of this clause say something to the effect of a required hearing would be triggered and options discussed for further for the future of the park, including the possibility of selling the park to the residents rather than allowing it to just fade away.

We would want to prevent an owner from having to file for bankruptcy or from losing the park to the bank.

And we would want to make sure that this does not become a tactic where a park owner ends up placing the responsibility of relocation on the county or just using it as a way to clear the land without a zero net loss plan for redevelopment.

We ask that you make the recommendations for planning to rewrite this section.

Second is a hardship clause.

To the prior point about bankruptcy, a hardship clause would actually help prevent back bankruptcy.

However, the commissioners made a very good point that we should have too many, we should not have too many provisions which say if this happens or this doesn't happen.

Instead, there should be a more consistent and repeatable process and maybe figure out other ways to help the park owner who is experiencing hardship.

Initially, our concern about a hardship clause was the potential for flaw for fraud and abuse.

So if this is included in the ordinance, we believe that it should be in conjunction with the right of first refusal.

Hi, my name's Victoria.

Um we believe that it should be in conjunction with the right of first refusal because if a park owner cannot afford to operate the park or had a need to get rid of it without completing a relocation plan, then they should sell it to the residents.

Problem solved, a right of first refusal limit and potentially prevent abuse from bad actors, and adding the right of first refusal section would help clarify that this is not taken, but rather a solution.

Third is the right of the first refusal itself.

Residents would like to operations that do not limit us to years or illegation and stress to maintain a low income standard.

State programs are available to help fund the preservation of affording at risk.

Housing and program like ROC USA would help residents to offer a comparable price for a park.

This is becoming a popular way to preserve affordable housing without a park owner, feeling like their rights are being taken away.

A park owner would not be required to make a deal, but it should be considered before anything else because it does not balance the rights of both the property owner and the homeowner.

There are currently 341 thriving residents own community parks in California, which have become been created by ROC USA.

Homes in these communities generally yield a higher resale value, maintain a low cost of living for the long term.

Compared to corporate owner parks, this is an operation which residents would like to consider and have been working to build the necessary structure to do so.

The biggest concern raised at our last meeting was the timeline.

You started that you do not want a property being held hostage, while residents figure out how to make a deal to show you that this would not be the case.

Time's up.

Next call.

Next speaker.

To show you that this would not be the case, we've provided you with a written timeline and some basic details outlining the process and how it would fit into the already mandated 12-month period set by the state.

That's in front of you there.

The plan requires residents to prepare ahead of time, and it does need to be motivated by both resident and park owners.

But in a time when the shared opportunity for landowners and homeowners is fading away, we would like to have an option which encourages actual affordable housing for the future.

Fourth is a legally permitted section, structures section.

The county draft says that only legally permitted structures will be eligible for compensation.

We would like to push back on this mostly because it is not consistent with state law.

The belief is that only upgrades which have been legally permitted should be evaluated for compensation.

The park owners have presented logic that upgraded or unpermitted upgrades are a health and safety concern, which is true.

But here's the problem.

At the point of park closure, the homes are not being evaluated for continued residency.

They are being evaluated for compensation right before they are going to be demolished.

We should be not worried about whether a home could be sold later, because we are talking about homes that cannot be moved and cannot stay where they are.

HCD deals with permits, setbacks, complaints, etc.

If there is a home which has illegal upgrades, this is something for HCD to deal with.

Any resident or park owner can report problems online or make a call.

I personally have done this several times, and they do come out to evaluate.

But the planning commission said that HCD is inefficient and cannot be trusted to do their job effectively.

Even if that is true, we struggle to understand how that problem should be addressed within this ordinance.

That seems to be like a huge overreach, and it is not what this ordinance is for.

Typical complaints are usually regarding things like stairs, decks, room additions, etc.

These have been the focus of a recent flood of seven day notices across many of our parks.

The seven day notice is a tool, which, if used correctly, would let a homeowner know that they are in violation of a rule that needs immediate attention.

However, recent notices have been requiring homeowners to remove entire sections of their home within seven days or else be evicted.

This includes many structures which have been in place for years with the blessing of previous park owners and more importantly, HCD.

But when new corporate owners buy a park, they often start demanding residents show proof that this structure is legal or it will be presumed illegal.

Oftentimes that proof is long gone, so the best a homeowner could do is call HCD and ask for an evaluation to be made.

And several have actually done this, but at the time of park closure, this is going to happen automatically.

We would like the legality of our homes to be determined by HCD and or an appraiser only.

Any health and safety concerns prior to the closing of a park should be dealt with immediately, not once the reality of having to compensate a homeowner for the demolition of their home arises.

Residents believe that this clause is just a backhanded way for park owners to win permissions, which have already been denied by the state level.

Thank you for your time.

Paul Lutz, William Lutz, Kristen Hackett, and Mark Crawford.

Supervisor.

Good evening.

I um provided some additional material that had been included in the planning packet, including a comparison between the ordinance that the park owners gave the planners and the list of things that they said they needed.

Under the staff's draft ordinance, a park owner with a 25% or more vacancy must appear before the planning commission to defend their business practices.

That's what they're proposing now.

If the commission does not accept the explanation, the park can be deemed closed.

That concept is unprecedented and unlawful.

No statute or case in California authorizes treating vacancy as closure.

This is an untested and extra legal approach that will not withstand judicial review.

San Francisco made that same mistake, believing its empty home tax was lawful.

The Superior Court ruled it unconstitutional and preempted, and that the city had to suspend enforcement.

Alaman County is walking the same path, one that ends in litigation and reversal.

The Ellis Act may not apply directly to mobile home parks.

Still, it reflects the settled principle.

Property owners have the right to close a lawful business without government caution or penalties.

I've provided you with an executive summary detailing the legal deficiencies in the submitted ordinance.

The Planning Commission packet included both the full memo and the summary.

Still, I did not receive notice of this meeting and therefore could not resubmit them, even though the staff already had them in their possession.

This is not the only legally challenging draft ordinance.

Removing this one would be an essential first step towards bringing the entire measure into compliance with state and constitutional law.

Please remove the vacancy provision entirely.

It's unconstitutional and unnecessary and sure to fail in court.

Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

My name's William Lutz.

I'm a former member resident of Paradise Trailer Park.

I want to speak specifically about the simple and important issue of how motor mobile homes are valued when a park is closed.

State law requires that any additional alteration inside a mobile home park must be both permitted by the state and have written consent from the park owner.

This is uh driven, as we know, any permitting process is about primarily safety.

Um, including unpermitted work in the closure appraisal would reward people for breaking the law.

And then you would be penalizing anybody that followed the law.

It would create inconsistency because that's not the standard used anywhere else.

The county assessor does not include unpermitted construction when they value for either condemnation or uh even for uh creating fair market value to sell any other type of property.

Uh I I'm here to ask that you recommend or drive uh tell staff to add one clear single sentence that into this ordinance that states only permitted and lawful improvements be included.

It just makes sense from a safety point of view.

Everyone would know precisely, and this is about clarifying the ordinance.

It would make it so everyone would know that precisely how valuations are defined, and then the county would be applying state law the same way it already applies in other taxation events or compensation events.

This is not being harsh, it's not about being fair, it's about being fair and transparent.

And I say thank you.

Kristen.

Uh good evening.

My name is Kristen Hackett.

I'm a community organizer with my Eden Voice.

I'm here today to ask that you use the power of your office to move the ordinance along.

I know that last year both of you shared a sense of urgency about the ordinance, so much so that you forwent the moratorium.

So I'm sure you're not happy about the slow progress.

Um, but also we're seeing resident risks for residents are mounting, and we documented that in our advocacy letter sent in September on September 3rd.

So I also wanted to report back a little bit on where the ordinance is getting stuck because there's some concerning things that are happening.

So, as you know, county drafted a conversion ordinance last year.

It started moving through the public review process last fall.

Uh, it was supposed to go to planning commission early this year, like January or February.

It did not hit planning commission until May.

Um that was partially it got moved from April, but anyways, it was still a delay.

At that meeting in May, the park owners put forward an alternative ordinance entirely.

It has created a lot of confusion for the commissioners and for county staff, and maybe even violated a point of process as county council actually explicitly stated that during the first meeting in May, where that part that ordinance should not even have been discussed because it was not agendized.

Um, however, the discussion encouraged planning commission to ask for substantial revisions to the ordinance, well past making recommendations and maybe even forcing a restart of the roadshow for like that's big part of this delay right now.

The planning commission had a second meeting on Monday about the new draft at that meeting.

Somehow park owners were actually given time to present on this alternative ordinance.

They showed up prepared with a PowerPoint presentation.

We found out when they were invited up to present that we could also present.

So we were given two minutes to prepare while they were giving their presentation.

This also seems like some sort of violation of process that we'll be looking into.

Um, one of the main issues that I'm gonna just go to really quickly is that there's a lot of confusion around where how these ordinances relate to state law, right?

And I think we really need to empower county council to like take a step forward in that and weigh in more directly because that's really where everybody's confusion.

And tonight you're gonna hear park residents saying this is where state law is and park owners saying this is where state law is, and we need some grounds of reason here.

Thank you.

Mark Crawford.

After Mark Crawford, Hara Alikian.

After Hara, Sean Alikian.

Hi, Mark Crawford.

I chair the planning commission.

I'm not here speaking for the full commission, but I can certainly speak about some of the concerns.

We actually had more than four items in our motion.

But before I get to that, I think I'll I've been a public official for 15 years and worked on a lot of issues, and I think this is probably gonna be one of the most difficult to get to the finish line if we want to do it right.

If we want to be in a hurry, you know, we can rush it through.

The new information that we got since the first planning commission meeting was if any of these parks are redeveloped, you have to have a one-for-one.

So however many mobile homes are in there now, that's how many deed restricted affordable housing units have to be in the new project, which means only affordable housing developers are going to be able to build these.

And you guys know how hard it is to get money for those.

So bottom line is they're probably not none of these are going to get developed.

Some of them do have more vacancy than others, and we need to figure out how to handle that.

I think the approach of the planning commission was instead of having staff just decree the park closed, which is literally what the draft says right now, our idea was why not have a public hearing, why not have the owner come in, the park tenants can come in, we talk about it, figure out what's going on.

That was our approach.

Um the first right of refusal, there's no support on the well, there's there isn't majority support on the planning commission for that.

Um there's also uh the relocation assistance.

One of the things that we had talked about in our motion that there needs to be an objective standard.

We we kind of need to figure out a formula of how much tenants should be reimbursed when these parks are closed.

It's not rocket science, it's gonna be about the same for all the different parks.

So some work can be done on that.

But I just it's not ready for prime time.

I mean, they took the right of refusal out and then they put this 25% trigger in there, which is just completely arbitrary.

Even the tenants weren't supporting that, so good evening, supervisors.

Hera Alikian, Castro Valley Mobile Home Park Operator.

To be clear, the presentation that was provided to the planning commission was just a review of the draft ordinance that staff had put together.

It was not any conversation about the ordinance that we had provided.

Um, we started this 24 months ago approximately, November 2023.

I believe we were here at this committee at some point, alleging from tenants' advocates that all the parks in Alameda County were gonna come to the planning commissioner or your departments to close them down.

Nothing's happened 24 months later.

Um, the 25% vacancy provision needs to be removed completely.

There are legal challenges with this, and I think that needs to be looked at pretty thoroughly before something along those lines is put in.

I want you to keep in mind that the state law says a mobile home park is a mobile home park when you have two mobile homes in the park, you're required to carry a permit with the state licensing of eight CD permit to operate.

It is only when you're down to one mobile home, you are no longer a mobile home park.

So this 25% vacancy is really a concerning matter.

To keep it in simple terms, please study the San Francisco situation that happened recently and the overturn on the vacancy penalties there.

Um it is our position that governments cannot determine occupancy and rental property period, whether they're mobile homes, commercial businesses, or rental apartment homes.

Our permit to operate from the state 8 CD is what dictates our level of operations that are allowed and the number of spaces that we're allowed to have in our properties, whether they're full or not.

The process of a potential CUP change in use when you hit a 25% vacancy, I'm very confused about because if I still have 75% of my lots occupied, I'm still running a mobile home park.

Just because I have 25% vacant doesn't make it, so I have a change in use.

Please consider this in review of the 25% penalty.

Thank you.

Sean Alikian.

Good evening, supervisors and staff.

Also, mobile home park manager and operator in Castor Valley.

I've been for a long time.

Um I'd like to echo what some of the previous speakers have said.

I think this process, and I think Mr.

Crawford said it best.

You know, it's taken a long time to get to this point, but I do think rather than a knee jerk reaction, we need to slow the process down because county staff keeps copying and pasting from other jurisdictions which don't necessarily apply to Alameda County.

Um, mobile home parks.

We don't have large, you know, hundred two hundred space senior parks or all age parks that are beautifully manicured and stuff like that.

We also haven't had anybody come, an operator or manager of a park come and ask to close a park.

This all started.

We got to this point all because someone erroneously raised the rents when they took over the park to cover their cost.

They got checked by by staff, county staff, and also by fellow park owners saying you can't do that.

We have an ordinance in this county, a rent control ordinance that took a long time to put together back in 2016.

We need to enforce that ordinance.

We need to not be so scared and try and find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

While we do need to define closure, if that's going to happen with any of these parks, we need to do it in a way that addresses residents' concerns and also proper respects property owners' rights.

Um because at the end of the day, the community at large is going to benefit if a bigger and nicer and better use with some affordable housing component is addressed when a park gets redeveloped.

So I implore you guys to maybe slow the process down just a little bit, even though it's taken a long time to get to this point, but not have knee jerk reactions and emotional reactions and apply you know an ordinance, you know, to to parks that don't really have a problem just yet.

No one's asked to close a park down to redevelop it.

Um the state already addresses how parks need to close down.

If we need some loopholes that need to be closed, let's close those loopholes and give the county a little bit more um authority when a park does choose to close down.

But I think there's some things that in the latest ordinance need to be cleaned up and removed.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

We're on item four.

You have two minutes, it's not alone.

Good evening, supervisors WMA.

When this process began, supervisors asked staff to draft an ordinance that would create a simple to follow framework for park closure so that so that a tri-tell situation wouldn't happen again.

Supervisors asked county staff to produce a bare minimum ordinance that would meet basic requirements for TOC funding while also adhering with state law.

This must be restated because the document that's been presented to tonight is simply not what the supervisors asked for.

It goes way beyond basic needs, it severely infringes private property rights, leaves the county liable for both legally and financial reasons, while going directly against the spirit of state law.

It's already been pointed out to your staff during the planning commission meeting.

Uh your report staff claims that mobile home parks are subject to the housing crisis act without mentioning that mobile home parks are actually given a direct carve out in the language of the act.

Please ask your staff to read government code 66300 H4, which explicitly states that the note net loss requirements shall not apply to a change of land use or zoning to a less intensive use on a site that is a mobile home park, as defined by section 18214 of the Health and Safety Code.

The only mention of mobile home parks in the act gives them a specific carve out from the penalty so that local jurisdictions like yours can make intelligent planning decisions when these properties become available for redevelopment.

At the beginning of the process, you ask staff to give you a simple ordinance.

What they have given you tonight is not what you asked for.

Staff claims state law requires these changes, but that's simply not true.

If the county moves forward with this, it's not doing so because it has to or because the state is forcing you, it's doing so because it wants to.

Park owners propose propose to the planning commission a simple and legal pathway for closure so that a try-tell situation never happens again.

It's a fair balance between private property rights and protections for residents.

Use that document instead and direct your staff to work with park owners on that draft.

Thank you for your time.

Caller, you're on the line.

We're on mobile home parks.

You have two minutes.

Caller.

Dale Silva.

Hi, good evening and Dale Silva.

I am a member of the planning commission, but um, but I'm not speaking for the planning commission.

Two things you've heard a lot about this 25% rule.

Apparently, some not scrupulous mobile home park operators have closed their parks by attrition, where they just people slowly move out, and before you know it, the park is closed, and the people who've moved out have received none of the benefits.

So this was put in there to guard against that happening.

The planning commission's recommendation was that if um a park reaches reaches 25% vacancy, there's a public hearing.

The public hearing could lead to a lot of things, maybe ultimately closure if the mobile park owner is a bad actor.

But uh the emphasis, the change the planning commission made was to uh instead of triggering closure right away, that there would be a public hearing process to determine what's happening.

Maybe nothing's happening, so that would be good.

That'd be uh good benefit of the uh of the um public hearing.

The second thing is the is the hardship exemption for mobile home park owners.

Um the um the planning commission uh um voted that it or considered strongly that it'd be uh included uh in cases um uh we don't want the mobile mobile park home owner to go bankrupt.

In that case, nobody gets compensation, but if uh and in cases where that might happen would be if um uh uh the owner inherits the property and a proposition nineteen that property taxes go from ten grand a year to 120 grand a year or something.

You know, there should be a process to work that out to try to keep the mobile home park owner in in business so that everybody benefits in the end.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Yes.

Am I next?

Yes.

This is Tammy uh Babanko.

I represent Paradise Trailer Court.

Um, I'm not really good at speaking all the legalese.

I just mainly want to say that um landlords versus uh tenants in the compensation thing, relocation thing.

I mean, it might be monetarily inconvenient for landlords, but for tenants, it would create a lot more mental and physical hardship and pain and suffering to um to be relocated, even if we were to be compensated and to be fair to landlords.

Yes, it could hurt them monetarily, but it would still hurt us more, as I just stated, and even to get relocation uh compensation, I've checked with a lot of trailer parks and many don't even have openings now because the homeless housing crisis across the state has been having people quickly fill up places where there is affordable housing like mobile home parks, and that not only is there not spaces uh available very much, so but it's two to three times the move in cost, and uh it just would be just so much of a hardship, and I just want them to consider you guys to consider the uh first right of refusal because it has been done successfully in trailer parks throughout the state, that the um residents can own the trailer park through grants with a co-op with the county and rock organizations or organizations of that nature.

It has been done successfully, and I do believe that that can be done.

So I just want to say that you know, don't don't add to the homeless slash housing crisis.

You most importantly need the provision of tenants.

We have no additional speakers for this item.

Okay, thank you.

Thank all the speakers.

So um Albert.

Might even be calling on Jennifer.

Might even be calling on county council.

So let's see what we got here.

So we'll start with the uh right of first refusal.

So we I don't know if did you have you seen this um communication from the U.S.

I I I I don't know, I haven't I don't know what you're holding there, but I have seen them we we've been inundated with correspondence from both sides of this issue.

Um I don't know if it's uh going to this one.

Okay.

So what so the right of first refusal has been taken out.

Um, staff took it out and the planning commission recommends it to be and what's the justification?

So the uh one of the arguments that was made against the uh the the right of first refusal was that the there's no nothing in our ordinance or state law that would prevent um uh a tenant organization from organizing from um trying to get assistance from like programs like the Brock USA to purchase the park.

Um so that seemed like a good argument to us is that we don't need to have the right of first refusal for the tenants to organize themselves and to uh make an offer to buy the park.

And um and certainly there seems to be some willingness or uh folks want to go in that direction in certain instances, and our ordinance doesn't necessarily prevent that or or encourage it necessarily, and that's why we took it out.

But there's no there's no impediment to having it.

Because I I read through this real quickly, um, and they were saying that the right of your first refusal, if it was for 60 days, it would be within the time frame of that um timeline for the conversion, 12-month conversion process.

Yeah, well that's that's also a compelling argument.

I think that um, you know, that's why I we had it as one of those sticking points.

It was it seemed like there was good arguments on both sides to have it in or not.

I mean, I think that um, you know, there was some claims that you know potentially this was an unconstitutional taking, and I I don't necessarily think that is correct.

I think that you know we're not asking or or the the ordinance wasn't presented as you know the uh below market rate or anything like that.

It was just to give um the residents a fair shot.

And um, you know, that that's a compelling argument as well, but we took it out just again because um there isn't anything preventing park residents from organizing themselves um with or without an ordinance in place.

So whatever Supervisor Tam and I come up with this evening and ask you to take back to the planning commission, um you'll take it back and the planning commission can decide what they're gonna do.

Once they make their decision, because I supervisor, I think once the planning commission makes this decision, this should just come to the the board or to TMP so that again then to the full board.

The full board.

Yeah, that's exactly what we were hoping.

Because if we kept the right of first refusal and it's being um suggested, I want to give a little bit more specificity on on how that would all kind of work.

Yeah, sure.

Could it be a delay tactic?

Um once, you know, when we let's say, suppose we get sixty sixty days, um, and the and the ability to um uh purchase the park hasn't been um you know uh hasn't been laid out effectively.

Um could that be extended?

Well, how would we determine the you know the the legitimacy of the right of first refusal as opposed to just being a delaying tactic, and and it if it's and if it's part of the conversion uh I would want to make sure it wouldn't um once again extend that twelve month time frame.

Yeah, we had uh we had a pretty short timeline.

I think it was 60 days um once the once there's a notice of intent to sell the park, the this is how it we had originally drafted it, and this could change, of course, but just how we originally drafted was it gives the residents 60 days to to say yes, we are interested in buying the park, and then they get another period of time to be able to actually put the deal together.

Um still within a twelve months?

That would be the that would be the goal, yes.

Yeah.

I think maybe we um we might have gone a little we might have been sixty plus twelve months, but we can certainly make it 60 days and then 10 months so that you're still within that yeah a one year window because one of the speakers spoke about tritel uh and with tritel we didn't have any they followed the conversion and it took them about five years for that plan to be approved right jennifer.

I mean because people come over here somebody alleged that that was done inappropriately or whatever but I know for a fact they it took a long time in in C and HCD scrutinized uh their plan.

They did it eventually uh followed the state law it did take a little while uh to get them there but eventually it was followed yes yeah okay um so that's so once I'm I'm gonna we're gonna hear from Supervisor TM in a minute but since I got the floor I'll continue okay so I kind of think there's some um some legitimacy to considering the right of first refusal now I I'm the public interest law uh project and then I heard from another speaker saying that the the housing crisis act one says it applies one says it doesn't apply um I don't know if you have an opinion if county council has an opinion and they don't want to share it with us and you know publicly then you have to share with us confidentially but what what what's the situation with this?

Yes um and so we did um we did have two discussions with state HCD about that specific issue and they did send us a letter um related to that and it was their opinion that both the housing crisis act um and the mobile residency law would both apply in the case of a conversion if you were going to buy a park and convert it to some let's say you know um multi-story new project um and that those affordable units since you're removing them from the market would have to be replaced um with either on site or somewhere else so that seemed pretty clear to us um I know there's other opinions about that one of the gentlemen from the uh the WMA I think said that there's a carve out um that's not how we interpret it um we could certainly your interpretation was did county council well I was just gonna say that you know we have um given county council a copy the of the ordinance and they didn't flag that but I don't want to speak for them okay all right okay and county council you you're not gonna speak on that tonight are you because I don't want you to go on record saying something that you shouldn't say at the moment I I was just gonna highlight that there um is a exception um to the housing crisis act um for changing land use designation or zoning ordinance to a a less intensive use on a site that is a mobile home park.

So what's that mean?

There's an exception and that's the exception that would be the carve out so mobile home parks would be carved out of this no not at all but if you were to if you were to change the use to a less intensive use that would be the exception.

And less intensive would what give me an example of what that would be lower density.

Okay so if a mobile home park had 25 trailers and they were going to take it down to 18 then the housing crisis act would apply but if they're gonna if they have 25 trailers okay she you should yeah the explain it to me.

The opposite the opposite right so it it wouldn't apply if you were taking it into a lower dense or lower um intensive use but if you're taking it into a more intensive use it would apply.

Yes that's my understanding this so if I have a mobile home park and I have 25 trailers and I want to develop it for affordable housing and put a hundred units on there, then this would apply.

That's what you're saying.

Yes.

And if it applies, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

That's beyond my um my job description.

That's an interpretation.

I will say that county council's interpretation is in line with the WMA's representative who just spoke.

He indicated the same thing that there is an exception for a lower intensive use.

But go yeah give me the butt but the but is that the the zoning for those areas is likely higher than what the existing mobile home parks are currently at.

So if you wanted to build something new, it and we didn't put any of these sites on our housing element, but many of them are already zoned fairly high.

So that would be another issue is would it comply with the zoning or not?

And so does this so I'm just trying to understand what's the implication of this.

So and and the way that I look at it is that if and I think I think uh Mr.

Crawford talked about that too, is that most of these mobile home parks are unlikely to be developed because they're gonna likely go to a higher intensity use, and then the uh and then the SB 330, the housing crisis act would apply, and they would have to replace those affordable units one-to-one, uh, which makes it an onerous requirement for a for-profit developer.

Okay, and so that would seem like then the only one that would really want to do that might be a nonprofit developer.

Okay, and I think that um you know that's one thing that there seems to be some agreement on, at least with the planning commission chair and staff.

Okay, um, and so in so what you have before us today, is there any uh in the ordinance, and from what the planning commission is doing, is there anything um that we need to be concerned about relative to the housing crisis act?

So uh we did identify in the slides tonight is that um, you know, there the the conversion process, like if somebody says, hey, I want to I want to buy you know ABC mobile home park and convert it into something bigger and better, and and you know that process because of the housing crisis act does seem to be fairly well spelled out in state law.

Um, and that it would require a use permit per the ordinance, and so and we would just make sure that the relocation plan and the closure impact is all documented and that everybody sort of gets what they um are deserve as pursuant to state law, okay.

So that's pretty clear.

It's the closure through attrition that we were really trying to get at with that 25%.

Yeah, that's good.

So where I'm gonna go next.

So we've heard the planning commission offered up an approach, but we also heard that this could be, and I don't know if county councils looked at this, the whole issue around conversion through vacancy.

So we've heard that that maybe legally well, the way that it was drafted, I will concede that it wasn't we didn't do a great job on that particular aspect, but I think uh Dale Silva, I think uh I think he captured it well is that we do recognize that there needs to be a process if you drop below that 25 or above the 25% vacancy.

Um I think another one of the planning commissioners uh put it uh in a way like you know, with something must be going on there.

Let's explore this.

It's investigate, as opposed to just unilaterally closing it from the staff perspective is that there needs to be a process, a hearing to understand why is it dropping uh why is there such a high vacancy rate?

And if it turns out that it looks like a closure or a unlawful conversion is occurring, then that would trigger use permit and all the all the requirements would kick in for relocation and all that.

So I'm I think I'm understanding it.

So let's suppose we have a um a mobile home park with a hundred units or two trailers, and um 30 of those trailers become vacant, you would want to hold a hearing to determine whether or not they are considered whether or not the vacancy is legit or whether or not they're trying to use this as a ruse for conversion, correct?

Okay, okay.

And do we have any one can county council have to answer this if you don't want to in open session?

Do we have any concerns about this legally?

But the 25% um is used by other jurisdictions.

Some of the there's one that uses 15% as um a a trigger point for doing that kind of investigation that you talked about.

Um, and so I think that um you know, again, the going from a a mobile home park to any other use, whether uh including no use is a conversion in the ordinance, and so we're trying to control again for an unlawful conversion.

If somebody's closing through attrition, for however they're doing that, um it would trigger a hearing to be able to understand why that would be and would the hearing so does the hearing come to the BZA to the Planning Commission to the direct.

I mean, we haven't we haven't got all those details yet, but you know, there is another advisory committee.

There's the housing and community development advisory committee, which is uh a committee that not a not a lot of people know that they exist.

So that might be another body that we would want to, because they are I believe charged with looking at the closure impact report and making a recommendation.

Are they Jennifer?

Are they a body that exists?

Sorry, I didn't know what was the question.

Yeah, Albert said our housing um uh community development committee.

Is that something like that?

It needs to be a body, um, and they are definitely a body that, as you know, is appointed by individual board members that deals with housing policies.

Um, so it certainly a body that can take care of that.

Is it that could yeah, hearing that is an option that could go just to the planning commission, um the BZA, I mean it really could we haven't developed that, but it it will be a body, um, whether it's the housing advisory committee or the planning commission, um, to investigate and ask the hard questions of like why are you this vacant?

Is there is there an unlawful conversion occurring here?

And and if there is, then it might trigger at that point a permit.

Now, um at least you haven't thought this all all the way through.

Will there be a cost incurred by the um park owner?

Will they be charged for this hearing?

Yeah, we haven't, we haven't gotten that far.

Yeah, I mean there definitely would be a cost for the use permit.

Um, but because that action might be triggered by the county more than the actual applicant, uh it might be something that we do on our dime.

Um, but if a use permit is then required, of course, that would be on their that's another you know, can of worms, but I'm talking about this exploratory hearing.

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

Um let me see.

Do I have any other questions?

Uh oh, yes.

I do feel because I'm a stickler for people doing things correctly and not being rewarded for bad behavior.

Yeah, I do think um if a unit has um the value of a unit needs to be assessed based on what's been permitted, not unlawful permit.

You know, if you've added on to unit or done something to a unit, so like in my house, if I do something without the benefit of permits, then I've got to absorb that as opposed to um passing that on and being rewarded for that.

So I do think there's um uh your your the planning commission's position around um the mobile home should only um be valued based on uh permitted improvements, I think is is a legitimate um uh consideration.

Um I think those are at the moment, and I didn't hear any, I didn't hear any pushback on the overlay, so we've eliminated that, but um uh we still have these these considerations.

So those are just some of my questions and thoughts at the moment, but I'll pass the baton to Supervisor Tam who conveniently left the room, see what you what questions you have and what direction you think we should go in.

Um thank you, Chair Miley.

I just wanted to basically understand the areas where you think you need direction from the two of us.

Are they the three questions uh in terms of whether there's been disagreement over whether the right of first refusal should be included, the 60 days within the 12 month waiting period, and then the permitted versus the unpermitted structure, and then the 25% vacancy and going through that hearing process.

So uh but the other issue that was uh brought up by the planning commission on hardship, that's not something you need.

Uh I think that there's agreement that we need to have a hardship waiver because we wouldn't don't know always know the circumstances why a park might be closing.

Um, and so we haven't developed that.

We did have some draft language earlier, but I think there is agreement that we should have a hardship waiver on both sides of the issue.

There seems to be agreement there.

So that's why it's not on that last list.

Um that those three bullets that are left are our staff's perspective of what's sort of remaining to be discussed.

I think that that 25% provision it's not so much that it should or should not exist, it's like what the process should be.

And I think, you know, like I said earlier, um, some of the speakers captured it better than I could say in terms of there needs to be um that needs to be sort of done in a way where it's not an automatic closure, that there's some process to investigate why there's such a high vacancy rate.

Okay.

Um so I'm leaning more into this issue about um the right of first reviews.

I think um staff had taken it out, is that correct?

Yes, and the planning commission concurs that it should be taken out, but um some of the park owners, I mean residents feel that they should be notified at least within that 60-day time frame that's part of the 12 month waiting period on a potential closure of her park.

Um, I tend to agree that the more communication we have, because you know, sometimes for whatever reason, we don't always um get the word out appropriately or in a timely way or people might be out.

So I think um making sure that people have that option would be good explicitly, whether they organize or not, that's up to them.

Um I agree with Supervisor Miley about the permanent versus unpermitted structure, um, the county's appraisal process and assessment process is based on permitted structures.

So um I think I think that's pretty clear and we should be consistent with that.

On the 25% vacancy, the what I've been hearing is that they came up with the 25% because there were instances where there were bad actors that were trying to close it through attrition even with 15%.

Is that correct?

Uh no, the uh the 25% was put in there to uh try to control for the closure through attrition, and that was a number that many other jurisdictions used.

There was one jurisdiction that had an even lower vacancy rate of 15%, okay.

Um, but there seems to be at least three or four jurisdictions that use 25% as the number.

The part that I don't quite understand, I know one of the speakers said this is sort of a solution in search of a problem, and uh is this something that we need to have right now as belts and suspenders to deal with a contingency situation?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, one of the uh in terms of the when we initially started this was to make sure that the pro you know the the main thing that we're trying to do is to develop a process, right?

Everybody is transparent and you know what you have to go through.

Um, and then there was a uh you know, the the sub theme to that, which is that we want to make sure that everybody's following state law and that uh residents that are going to be relocated through closure conversion.

Um, you know, that the the park owners are fulfilling their obligation in terms of relocation and any kind of other you know financial benefits that are due residents.

And so I think that that was again, you know, the the idea of the 25% to put uh to control for uh closure through attrition.

Uh it seemed like that would be a process that not every park would need to go through that, but if you were if there was something that there was a park where it seemed like they were starting to empty out, we could say we could call the question and that would I think at that point sort of freeze the um uh the if there was an unlawful conversion happening, then we would know about it and we'd be able to do something about it.

Okay.

Um I don't quite understand the kernel of the disagreement.

Is it the fact that it's 25%, or is it the fact that there is a uh a process or that gets triggered to question whether because like if you have an apartment complex and you have a 25% vacancy, that may not be a problem during a down economy.

So I've but basically you're saying there would be a hearing to find out if that's the situation.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Yeah, I don't think it's the disagreement is that it exists, it's just what is the process to um, you know, once you determine that there is a 25% vacancy, what process do you go through?

So uh initially we had the the way that the ordinance was written or that it was interpreted was that it would just be an automatic, you know, the staff determines it to be closed and go get a use permit, and that that wasn't the intent, but that unfortunately was the way that it kind of read.

And so what what we're proposing now is that we have more of a process that um it's more exploratory and investigative as opposed to just you know some sort of uh unilateral staff decision.

Um there seems to be agreement on that.

I think I like the speakers kind of captured it pretty well.

Okay, I I can concur with that.

Uh so what would you do with this information that you just got from us?

Do you plan on bringing it to the planning commission and then to the TNP and then to the planning meeting of the board of supervisors?

Um yes, so I I we've heard from both the supervisors.

I'm I'm hearing uh potentially yes on the uh right of first refusal.

I'm hearing that you want structures to be permitted when when it comes to evaluation, and that you agree that we need to work the 25% process.

So we'll take that direction, rework the ordinance, take it back to the planning commission.

We may meet with the residents and the owners.

Um I think it's gonna be based on whether they want to meet on on that.

Um we can certainly reach out to them and then back to the planning commission, and then it looks like and you're saying the hardship is already resolved.

Yes, yeah, we're gonna put that back in.

Okay.

Um, it's not we don't know exactly how it's gonna look, but it will it will probably have an exception for extreme circumstances and will allow again more process.

It'd be a little bit there'll be more specificity around what might um trigger unforeseen circumstances, what's because when I read that I didn't know what's an unforeseen circumstance, sure, you know.

Yeah, well, I think that we need to flesh that out a little bit, but um uh where'd you get that information from the waiver the hardship waiver?

Uh, yeah.

Are there other ordinances?

Yes, other ordinances have that.

Okay.

Um, so they might have a little bit more information around unforeseen.

Yeah, and we'll do some wordsmithing around that as well.

But um, going back to your question that yeah, we want to be able to do another draft of the ordinance, it's got to go to the planning commission for the recommendation before it goes with the full board.

We don't necessarily have to come back to this committee.

We could go to TMP, which is what be our normal process, and then the full board.

Yeah, I my feeling is well, first of all, once again, we started down this path, as one speaker pointed out, because of an unscrupulous um uh mobile park owner who tried to do something locally, and he was checked by um uh you know, the residents brought it up, and then the park owners brought it up, and the staff reacted in and you know made him do the right thing.

Um but that produced you know a lot of fear, and so we wanted and we know that with the tri-tell uh drif uh tritel experience that there was no local ordinance in place.

So it's my opinion that we needed something local in addition to what the state has.

We need something local, um, so that we can get a grip on this um immediately.

And so I know it's been two years, you've been struggling to try to come up with something.

Uh we're still trying to come up with a final thing that you can bring to the full board of supervisors.

So where I I see this, I don't know if the Supervisor Jam's okay with it.

I just think you should take our feedback back to the Planning commission and then have the Planning commission, you know, decide whatever they're gonna do, then bring it to Transportation and planning.

The public can always weigh in at the Planning commission.

They can weigh in a transformation and planning, and ultimately they can weigh in with the full board at our board planning meeting when we take up these type of matters.

You know, with all of that, we're still probably talking.

I mean, we're getting we're entering the holiday.

It's gonna be mid-2026.

It's gonna be 2026.

I was thinking, you know, April, May.

I mean, depending on how far how quickly this advances, because I don't know if you have a date scheduled for the planning commission.

Not yet, no.

Okay.

And then get to the planning commission, hopefully before the end of the year.

Translation planning only meets once a month.

The you know, the usually the first Mondays of the month.

So you're not gonna make November.

I doubt you'll make December, so it's probably not going to get to the transformation planning committee until 2026.

Then if it gets through that, and then ultimately to the full board, it's probably going to be the spring of 2026.

Just to kind of, you know, and that's um, I'm being very liberal, uh, in in terms of that um time frame.

It could take longer.

Um, but that's just my thinking, Supervisor Tam.

I don't think we need to direct staff to go have any more meetings with any of anybody else.

If anybody has any opinions on this, bring it to the planning commission.

It's a public body, raise your concerns there.

If it get when it comes to the TMP, Transportation Planning Committee, bringing the translation planning committee, we'll hear it again, or whatever the public wants to say on either side, and then it'll get to the full board at some point in 2026, hopefully, you know, the spring of 2026.

But that's my thinking, but yeah, uh I agree with that.

I and but I appreciate staff distilling the issues that we need to at least wrestle through, um, and hopefully um you have enough direction.

Yeah, no, I got it.

I think we're clear, super clear, and uh thank you for your time.

Okay, thank you.

All right, and I think thank the speakers and once again uh thank the residents, thank the park owners.

I think everybody's trying to do the right thing.

And um, and then Albert, the other piece is with the housing crisis act.

If a park owner wants to convert and wants to go uh and have affordable units there, we want to see that happen.

So uh we we need to work with um uh HCD to see how we can find resources because we want to have affordable housing.

You know, I'm not maybe we need to carve out some of the measure W uh funding that's gonna come down the incorporate area for something like this, or maybe I know we'll be pursuing a housing bond.

Maybe uh if it if that passes down the road and not you know, if it uh comes to fruition, then we'll have funding there.

But I think we need to really have resources so that if a park owner wants to convert, we want to encourage that because we want to have more affordable units, and we want to designate, like if XYZ says, Hey, I want to convert my park, I need help doing that, and then you guys put it on the list for arena numbers.

We I think that's all good.

Yeah, they need money.

I definitely agree, yeah.

And uh we have has had some uh preliminary talks with HCD.

There, as you know, there isn't any money right now, but there's there's pots of money that are in the horizon, so I think that's a good thing, and we'll continue to look at that.

Just want to forget that.

Okay, great.

Okay, thanks everybody.

Let's see.

Let's say we'll go back to item two, draft unincorporated area.

I mean, excuse me, draft unincorporated Alameda County illegal dumping ordinance.

So this evening, many of you don't know Aaron Armstrong.

She's on my staff, been on my staff for about the last 10 years or so.

Yeah.

And she's she's over the course of time has risen to the a position of director of policy and strategic initiatives.

One of her assignments over the past, I don't know, six years or so has been a legal dumping.

Aaron uh facilitates, I have a statewide task force that works on a legal dumping.

She facilitates that, and she's my go-to person when it comes to a legal dumping uh policy.

Um, so she's here this evening uh to present this ordinance along with the sheriff's department, uh, public works, and also uh code enforcement.

Floor's yours.

Great.

Thank you, Supervisor.

Uh so as a supervisor mentioned, uh, and uh and uh and good evening to to both of you, by the way.

So a supervisor mentioned, uh, my name's Aaron Armstrong.

I'm the director of policy and strategic initiatives for Supervisor Nate Miley, and I'm here tonight to present on the Alameda County illegal dumping ordinance that's being uh proposed before your committee this evening.

So we'll start off with a little bit of background and context before we get into the ordinance itself.

As Supervisor Miley mentioned, he's been convening the Alameda County Illegal Dumping Task Force.

We call that the Acid Task Force since uh actually before I joined the office, but I've been involved with it since 2016, uh so well before the pandemic.

And in 2021, Supervisor Miley requested an illegal dumping ordinance be developed for unincorporated Alameda County.

In 2023-2024, the ordinance was delayed due to capacity issues uh within the county, within uh a variety of spaces that we're working on it uh due to some of the other things that we were working on at the time, but work began uh began in late 2024, and uh in 2025, the illegal dumping ordinance team has been meeting regularly to develop the proposed ordinance.

Uh just as a reminder on the scope and the jurisdiction of this ordinance.

So the proposed illegal dumping ordinance is only applicable in the unincorporated areas of Alameda County.

This would not be applicable in any incorporated cities.

Uh, that said, the Alameda County illegal dumping task force will be proposing uh that jurisdictions from throughout the Bay Area region adopt a similar ordinance ordinance, specifically aligning on definitions and fines at the regional convening on illegal dumping, which will take place next Wednesday, October 29th.

Uh, and we'll we're doing that because we believe that aligning policies across jurisdictions will eliminate gaps and loopholes, it will improve public awareness, provide clear and uniform deterrence across the Bay Area, enable easier investigations and faster prosecution, strengthen cross-jurisdictional collaborations, and improve data collection and analysis.

Uh so we can talk a little bit about the ordinance, and it does uh it seeks to do two main things.

The first is to expand accountability, and the second is to update penalties.

Uh when we're talking about expanded accountability, we'll get into that in a moment, but we do uh update some of our death definitions.

We have uh robust exemptions and things like that.

We've tried to be very thoughtful.

And when it comes to updating the penalties, we'll talk a little bit tonight about the criminal penalties and definitions, administrative fines, uh, as well as aggravating factors, as well as a potential administrative process uh that could accompany the ordinance as well.

So we'll start off with some definitions, and the first thing I'd like to mention is that illegal dumping and littering are two very different things.

Uh illegal dumping, which is a misdemeanor, is the willful intentional or negligent depositing, dropping, dumping, placing, or throwing of any waste matter into public or private property that is not expressly designated for the purposes of disposal of waste matter.

Illegal dumping does not include litter.

Uh litter is an infraction and uh is defined as the discarding of small quantities of waste related to uh consumer goods and that are reasonably understood to be ordinarily carried on or about the body of a living person.

So uh within those definitions, if you had uh a cup that you got from a fast food facility and put that on the ground, that would clearly be litter.

Uh if you have a couch that you've put out onto the street, that would be something that's illegal dumping.

So uh just try and be very clear about our definitions there.

Uh so we'll talk a little bit about expanded accountability and what exactly that means here.

So, um, one thing to note with this conversation is that Alameda County does not actually have an explicit illegal dumping ordinance on its own.

So we have a neighborhood preservation ordinance uh which defines a lot of the work that code enforcement does.

We have ordinances that define some of the work around our flood channels.

And both of those touch a little bit on illegal dumping, but there's nothing specific in Alameda County or the unincorporated area that is specific to illegal dumping.

And so we're relying on state law.

And this is an outline of what's currently happening with state law.

So think about everything that goes into that picture there on the right, which is an actual photo of an illegal dump site that the acid task force tackled.

We removed over 50 tons of illegal dumping from that single block right there.

But think about everything that had to happen for that block to turn out how it did.

First, you need the waste generator.

So that would be whoever created the waste and ultimately decided to dispose of it in a method that is not proper.

Following that, you would have the transporter, and so that would be somebody who facilitates the transportation of the waste from where it was generated to where it is ultimately disposed of improperly.

And last but not least, we have the dumper who is the one who physically places the waste in an inappropriate location.

Current state law places accountability for the illegal dump solely on the dumper.

It creates loopholes for other participants, such as the waste generator or the person who transported it, and it results in investigative dead ends even when there's evidence.

This is something that we've come across many times in the work that we've done.

We worked with the district attorney's office in 2018 as part of the Alameda County illegal dumping task force.

We put in place cameras, and uh one of the things we got, we got a lot of footage of cars doing illegal dumping with license plates.

And when we had a DA inspector go out and talk to those the registered owners of those vehicles, often they'd get uh excuses saying, Oh, well, I loaned that out to a friend or uh, you know, I don't, you know, gave it to a neighbor and they gave it to somebody else, and very quickly that became a dead end because uh we couldn't prove that that person was the dump, even though we had their license plate uh and their car actually dumping it on the street.

The same thing goes for the generators.

So you can imagine with 50 tons of waste, we found a lot of indicia there that pointed to specific addresses, uh, address labels, uh receipts, all kinds of uh personal identifying information.

And uh you can hit a dead end very quickly when you go and you knock on one of those doors and you say, you know, we found all your waste on the street.

If they tell you that, well, I hired somebody or you know, I gave it to a neighbor, they were supposed to take it to the dump.

I don't know how it ended up on the street.

That under current state law is a dead end, uh, and because you can't prove that they're the dumper.

So it's very tricky to prove that somebody's actually the dumper.

You have to have footage of the person's face while they're dumping.

Uh, and so on the next slide you can see how we've updated under the the proposed ordinance.

Uh so the Alameda County illegal dumping ordinance expands the definition of a dumping violator to include the full spectrum of participants in illegal dumping, including the generator, the transporter, and the illegal dumper.

And we can talk a little bit on the next page about what those definitions actually mean and what those exemptions are.

So for a generator, that would be any person who gives their waste to someone who then illegally dumps it.

The exemption here, which is pretty major, is uh an exemption for a person who hires a licensed waste removal business.

So for example, if I were to hire a licensed business like 1 800 got junk to come to my house and remove my waste, and that waste were deposited on the street, I would not be held uh responsible because I had hired uh a licensed business to remove my waste.

I as the waste generator had done everything I was supposed to do.

For the transporter, this would be the owner of the vehicle that is used to transport and dump the waste.

And the exemption here is for any vehicle owner whose vehicle was used without their consent.

Uh we've had uh very real uh situations.

I can I can tell you one we caught on camera where we had literally a dump truck that was stolen that was driving down the street and dumped about two tons of concrete uh right in the middle of the roadway.

Uh that car was stolen, and so when we tracked it down using the license plate, you know, that business that owned it would not be held responsible for that dump because they did not give consent for their equipment to be used.

Uh it's also worth noting, this is in alignment with other uh types of administrative fines and things like that.

For example, if you loan your car to a friend and they start running through tolls, you're still responsible for the tolls.

Uh, if they get caught on a speeding ticket, uh a light or something like that, your car can be held uh liable for that.

So this is not unprecedented.

Uh, and then last uh we continue to hold the dumpers accountable.

So this is any person who causes or permits waste matter to be legally dumped.

And the exemption here is for waste that is generated through the ordinary course of living within an encampment.

We tried to be very thoughtful about this element of the ordinance because we understand that illegal dumping and homelessness often look the same, but that the root causes are very different.

Uh so we wanted to be very clear about this.

So if you live in an encampment and you don't have proper ways of disposing of your garbage, we don't want to criminalize that.

And so if waste generated through the ordinary course of living within an encampment that is deposited within that encampment is not considered illegal dumping.

However, if somebody were to take a large pile of construction debris and dump that at the encampment, that would be considered illegal dumping.

If somebody were to generate a lot of waste at the encampment and then take it somewhere else to dump it, that would be considered illegal dumping.

So the carve out is narrow, but it should cover anyone who is uh any waste that is generated through the ordinary course of living in an encampment.

Uh I'd like to talk next about the updated penalties and so I've outlined here some of the these are the administrative penalties and fines.

So you can see under current state law the first offense, second offense, third offense, uh first offense starts at 250 dollars.

I will note that the cost to go to the dump for some bulky items can be 250 dollars or more.

And so the the minimum fine uh barely even covers the cost of going to the dump.

So we believe that this was already a very low level of fine.

The other thing to note with the CA penal code is that these are criminal fines, and so you have to be convicted of a misdemeanor in order to receive these fines.

And that's just not happening.

The resources that it takes for the DA to prosecute a misdemeanor for it to get through the full court system and for somebody to be uh found guilty uh and then only receive a 250 dollar fine, which doesn't even cover the cost of going to the dump, just isn't providing an adequate deterrent to illegal dumping.

Uh so the fines that we're proposing start off at 250, $2,500 for the first offense.

For the second offense, it's $5,000, and for a third offense, it's $10,000.

Uh these fines were taken actually from Santa Cruz, which adopted a very similar ordinance and which a lot of ours is based on.

So that uh that fee structure is not the first of its kind in the Bay Area.

That is something that's already being enforced down in Santa Cruz.

There are a couple of aggravating factors that would allow an officer to assess a higher penalty regardless of prior violations.

The three main aggravating factors that are outlined in the ordinance.

The first is if the dump consists of more than 10 cubic yards or 2,000 pounds of waste.

So if you dump an excessively large amount of waste, uh you can get a higher fine immediately.

If it includes harmful waste materials, which are defined within the ordinance, but that could include things like hazardous waste, uh paint.

Uh we dealt with uh an instance where we had about 500 gallons of paint that were dumped into a river, creek.

And so this these are not unheard of, but that would be an aggravating factor.

And then the other aggravating factors would be if it occurs within 150 feet of a sensitive location.

The ones that we've outlined here are a body of water, a wetland, storm drain, or state federally designated critical habitat.

So around our waterways, we feel this is critically important because so many of those outlets and waterways go directly to the bay.

And then the other is to help protect our children.

And so we've outlined that with it would be an aggravating factor to dump within 150 feet of a public or private K-12 school, a preschool, or a child care facility.

The ordinance requires that the dumping violator abate their dump.

So they need to go out and they need to clean up the garbage that they dumped on the street.

And they are specifically for failure to abate.

So if you've been asked to rebate, uh abate the dump and you fail, the first violation can result in a $1,000 fine.

Second violation, $2,500, and for each additional violation after that, it would be $5,000.

Additionally, the county may remediate the dump and build the dumping violator for the complete cost of the abatement.

And I think it's very important to note at this point that there is community service.

So dumping violators that cannot afford the penalties may apply for a community service in lieu of the fine.

That was something that we felt was very important to include, and there's a robust section in the ordinance talking about what that process looks like.

So the next piece is on the implementation.

This slide outlines how this ordinance would function.

So essentially we have three public agencies right now that are in a position to collect evidence around illegal dumping.

The first is public works.

So they would have an opportunity there to identify any indicia that would be in a dump that might point to where that dump came from or who some of those dumping violators were.

For ACSO, they may get public reports, they may get they may see something on patrols, they may get tips from citizens or things like that that are sent in.

And then for code enforcement, they're responsible for enforcing the NPL on private property and often come across illegal dumping.

One of the worst illegal dumping hotspots that I've personally seen in the unincorporated area was on private property.

And so that was something where we're working specifically with code enforcement, and they may, and so they would also be in a position to collect evidence.

What the ordinance needs in order to function is all of this evidence needs to be filtered into one place.

So ideally you'd have any evidence coming through cameras or or endition public works or private property or through reports to ACSL, and it will go all go to one place.

They would need to have the authority, for example, to run license plates to identify a vehicle owner to do that type of investigation, and from there make a determination on whether to refer to the administrative process, which as in the ordinance as we've outlined would go to the BZA first for a hearing, and then if appealed would go to the Board of Supervisors.

If the dump is something where rose to the level where a criminal referral would be necessary, that would be something that could be done.

It would be referred to the district attorney for charging, and then the courts would be the body that would uh handle the hearing and appeals.

And I think it's worth noting at this point that the for the criminal process, ACSO is the only one who can make those referrals.

So we've had many uh conversations with all of our partners, ACSO, public works, uh code enforcement around this investigation and administration piece.

We think that this is key, as you can see, it's central uh really to making this whole ordinance function.

Um we haven't landed specifically on a yes from any of the departments, but like I said, those conversations are ongoing, and uh I think it's pretty clear based on uh who has capacity um to both do referrals to the criminal process, who has experience uh working with the BZA on uh other ordinances and uh who may have capacity in text uh and things like that that might be able to do it.

So those are active conversations, um, and if the board has any uh direction or input on the uh process tonight would be an appropriate time to do it.

Uh but at this point I'll I'll go ahead and conclude and go to the next step.

So uh the staff has prepared the draft ordinance, which is uh before you today, and uh for you to consider and provide feedback.

The draft includes input and feedback from multiple departments.

It was reviewed by county council, and we've incorporated their comments at the committee's direction staff will bring the attached legal dumping ordinance to the full board of supervisors for adoption.

I appreciate your time tonight.

Uh we have representatives tonight from public works, code enforcement and the sheriff's department as well as county council who have all worked on the ordinance, and I'm sure that they'd be all happy to answer any questions that the committee might have.

Okay, does any of the um staff, public works, county council, code enforcement, sheriff's department, anybody have anything you want to add?

No, no.

Okay.

This is the first time I've seen this, so I know it.

Yeah, hopefully it's I think I had seen it, yeah, but I I can see.

I see my name on this.

I'm like, we're gonna do what?

Um so yeah, I mean, I think that we uh, you know, this is um this is a new item for planning code enforcement.

Um I know that we had some uh discussions about using the BZA process for this.

I don't understand quite yet the um the volume of cases that were expected to come through this.

And this is mostly dumping, I think, on public property, although I think private uh public, although private property is also um uh implicated here.

So yeah, I'd like to learn more about it and work with uh with Aaron to be able to understand a little bit more about the obligation from code enforcement.

You know, there's a number of other new programs that are on our plate, such as rental housing inspection, uh so import, and you know, the list goes on and on.

You know that you know some of the concerns about the um just capacity, but uh sounds like a great idea and and looking forward to working on it with um the right folks to to figure this out.

And I would just clarify that uh, you know, the the role that we're looking for uh for code enforcement and and CDA would be on the evidence collection.

That's what we'd be so it shouldn't be much in addition to what you're currently doing.

Just add my two cents here, um, which is that we have these administrative fines that are um much larger than previous fines the county has had, and as Aaron mentioned, they're in line with what the county of Santa Cruz has adopted.

And um there are other jurisdictions that have done this as well, have increased their administrative fines beyond what the government code explicitly says are fine caps, and this is a really broad reading of the government code and our police powers under the California constitution.

So it's somewhat untested, although we are joined um with other jurisdictions and adding these uh large administrative fines.

And we also have these aggravating factors as well, which don't necessarily mean that um there have been multiple offenses.

So my ask uh as an attorney is that we make sure that when we are designating enforcement responsibility, that we are doing that evenly and consistently, um, that way we are not assessing um violations differently because we're using two different types of officers or systems, or that we need to create a process here to make sure that it is consistent.

So it's defensible.

And I had a question too.

I just want to make sure I'm clear on this.

So the the fine for the first offense is 2500.

That's correct.

And then if the person or party fails to obey, there's an additional thousand dollars.

That's correct.

I see.

And they they may also be responsible for the cost of the abatement should the county decide to remediate.

Okay.

Um if they abate, then they're just um charged at 2500.

That's correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, and then that goes up 5,000, 10,000, and the same thing.

Let's see.

Uh for the third offense.

Okay.

And then see if they're to abate first violation.

For second violation.

Okay, five violation.

Okay, got it.

Okay.

You have any questions, um, Survivor Tamp.

Yeah, I do have some uh questions, uh, but really appreciate this presentation.

I know um your office in particular has put a lot of work into the coordination with the different departments, looking at what others are doing.

So just, you know, as much as we think we're the Middle Kingdom and the unincorporated, we're adjacent to Hayward, we're adjacent to Oakland.

Um you've looked at aligning our policies and our ordinance with what they're doing.

We're looking, uh, we're gonna be asking other um jurisdictions throughout the region to align with our policy.

Okay.

What what do they have now?

Uh, it's a real patchwork, which is actually part of why we're asking for that alignment, because uh the the um it's it's very disparate depending on where you are.

If you go to Pleasanton, you're gonna encounter one set of ordinances and enforcement mechanisms.

If you go to Oakland, it's a completely different ball game.

Uh most of the cities, if they don't have a specific ordinance are relying on that state law, which is what lays out the very low fines and ties them to criminal.

Uh what this ordinance does is it outlines an administrative process that allows uh for right sizing some of those fines so that it more appropriately matches the uh the cost of the problem uh as well as uh provides a deterrent uh that that's real, and so that's what we're gonna be asking uh other jurisdictions to align on is both the the definition of a dumping violator uh as well as the definite as well as the fines.

How long has Santa Cruz had this ordinance in place?

Uh it is in effect now and it was adopted earlier this year, is that correct?

Yeah, oh four months ago, okay.

Hot off the press.

So there's not a sense of how well it's worked or how many violators have been um uh Santa Cruz seems very happy with it uh when we when we talked about it.

Um I I haven't specifically talked to them about how many violators um and I think that's some that's a bit of an unknown at this point because we would expand we'd be expanding the accountability in a way that uh would would really make it a lot easier to do enforcement.

Right now, there's not a lot of illegal dumping enforcement anywhere because the the burden of proof is so high, you have to prove that that person was the one to dump it, and then even if you do, you have to get them convicted of a misdemeanor, and then you get a 250 dollar fine.

Um, and so it's there's just not a lot of incentive right now.

Uh it's a very low priority, and so that's something that we're hoping to shift as well by relying more on the administrative process than on existing state criminal code.

Okay, um so what what I had in mind was um our experience with the sideshow ordinance, right?

There the mere fact I know this is uh this is an issue that's kind of uh kind of an issue for us right now, but when when we the mere fact of just adopting that ordinance, uh we at least the sheriff's department saw a plummeting in the number of side shows.

Uh granted there's some issues about definition of spectators and distance from uh the event but we were trying to get at the discouraging it from happening in the first place with uh you know trying to discourage the profit motive about trying to have people gather.

Yeah.

So do you think the mere fact of having this would um because obviously people know if it's if it costs two hundred and fifty dollars to get fined you'd probably get fined rather than paying $400 to to bring it to the dump, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, no, and that's the calculation that people are making.

Uh and and when you factor in the people are not getting caught every time they dump maybe they're gett caught getting caught every 10 times and that's extremely generous.

Uh the the numbers and the economics really it makes a lot of sense to dump on the street financially.

And that's something that we're trying to to address.

I do believe that we would see a positive impact just from adopting the ordinance um in you know the idea that if you come into unincorporated Alameda County and and your waste is deposited illegally on the streets that you will be accountable here in a way that you wouldn't if you did it somewhere else which is part of why we're trying to get other jurisdictions to adopt a similar approach because we don't want that patchwork where then all the dumpers are going to whatever jurisdiction has the least um accountability.

And so that's what we're promoting next week and why why we've developed a model ordinance that's similar to this that will that we'll be uh asking other jurisdictions to adopt as well.

How are we doing the outreach in terms of making sure people know that these are pretty severe penalties.

Yeah we actually have been working this year on a billboard campaign for the unincorporated area to do public awareness around illegal dumping so there uh is is kind of two elements to it one is a uh like caught and prosecuted kind of um uh messaging where it's you know shows photos of people who got caught illegally dumping you know blurred and things like that but um you know it's just caught and prosecuted things like that uh the other is uh more positive messaging that's like schedule a bulky pickup or you know clean up around your neighborhood because we didn't want to just kind of normalize this this negative stuff um and so it's a two-fold campaign um we're looking for it to go live um relatively soon uh so within the next couple months and uh it could coincide uh we could do something like that with the with the ordinance as well uh we could do social media campaign obviously we'd love to work with both supervisors on with their newsletter uh for example anything else that we could do to get the word out okay we're happy to help um can you refresh my memory in terms of the unincorporated area the um the garbage companies that provide uh recycling and both um waste disposal do they have um like similar to the city I'm in uh like once a year you could put you know your refrigerator your big huge tube TV and your mattress your soap or whatever and and they'll just pick it up um yeah after you make arrangements.

Yeah uh it kind of depends on where you live um in the unincorporated area which franchise hauler you're gonna be working with uh primarily it's gonna be through the Orloma Sanitary District and I believe that they have the contract with waste management that which does include uh the bulky the bulky pickups okay uh the the last observation I had was um uh you know as Supervisor Miley and the other supervisors we meet regularly with the district attorney and so we're we're trying to uh be mindful of um sort of the practicality of her workload as well and so um she she made this really blunt statement to me she says I've got way more murder cases than I want to have and so illegal dumping may not be a high on my priority list in terms of charging.

So when you look at the investigation administration um process, are you you think it might make more sense to rely more heavily on the sheriff's department if they have access to the cameras and the footage?

Yeah.

Excellent question.

And there's a couple of things um that I'll say in response.

So uh with for the DA, what you've outlined there is exactly what we've heard, why illegal dumping is such a low priority and why uh the state uh law tying it to a criminal prosecution, their fine, is so problematic because it's just when you have you know a murderer versus somebody who dumps some garbage on the street, you have to prioritize you're gonna prioritize the murder, right?

When you're the DA, and that's real.

So we are um mostly planning to rely on the administrative process.

Um the exception would be if something were particularly egregious.

So um when we did our pilot with the uh DAO Malley uh through the acid task force uh and the the previous sheriff as well, Sheriff Ahern, um we we actually uh most of our our we we put in cameras and within a year we caught over we had over a hundred cases where we caught people on camera dumping um and most of those cases were not referred to criminal prosecution.

There were a couple.

I mentioned the the paint that was dumped in the creek, that was a felony uh because it was a toxic uh waste site.

Um but most of them were actually sent through uh traffic court at the time because it was a lot easier to do kind of an administrative citation, it was faster, um, and so it had a lot of benefits not only for the system, but also for the people uh who were who were the violators because they weren't being dragged through a whole criminal process, having to get a lawyer, they could just kind of you know go to traffic court and and deal with it.

So we're trying to create a similar type of structure there, and we imagine that most of this would um would rely on the administrative process because that's where the heavy fines are.

The to your point though on the um, you know, who would be the best for the the investigation and the administration piece, um, you know, it it's my assessment that the Sheriff's Department would be a very appropriate place for that to be housed uh for a variety of reasons.

Uh they are the only ones that can refer to the DA, and so uh I think that speaks for itself.

They have the ability to run plates to do investigations.

I don't think it would have to be a deputy, I think a tech could do most of that work.

Um, and they also have experience referring cases to the BZA.

So they currently do that with the alcohol ordinance.

So they kind of check all the boxes in a way that some of the other partners either didn't have the administrative backbone or capacity issues were different.

That's not to say ACSO doesn't have capacity issues.

Every department in the county right now has capacity issues.

Um, but we felt that this this would be something that would be manageable um and that that would be the most appropriate place for them.

But like I said, those conversations aren't ongoing.

Um, and so if there is direction from the committee tonight, that would be appreciated.

I I think similar to what we did with the street vendor ordinance, we we should probably uh nail that down sooner and later so that like for code enforcement knows they have to hire a bunch of people in the evenings on the weekends or something like that.

Um and because I I know they uh have a lot of experience referring things to um to the board of supervisors, like when you have issues on flavored tobacco sales that are in violation of ordinances that was coordinated with the sheriff's department.

I think um those that makes a lot of sense, but um we should probably define that sooner rather than later because they do we're we're gonna be compounding them with a lot of ordinances.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've had a lot of uh very fruitful conversations around this and and progress is being made.

Uh we just weren't able to nail it down before we could get on the agenda tonight.

So that it would be resolved prior to coming to the board.

Right.

Thanks.

Good questions.

Let's see if there are any public speakers on this item.

Mike Barana and then Chuck Meadows.

Hi, my name's Mike Barrata, Cherry Land resident.

Um I'm very interested in the subject.

Um, I am glad to see, I'm very glad to see uh more enforcement, more more penalties.

Um the the slap on the hand just doesn't um just doesn't get it done.

Uh I think it really has to be a strong determinant um deterrent.

Um, but I would like to see um I I know Liberty in Ashland and our Western uh boulevard there um are two major jumping grounds.

Um Bart has half of that, and they do nothing, in my opinion, to maintain their right of way.

Uh that contract were a right of way, must have had some kind of maintenance clause that they would be responsible, and they are not in any way, um, and that is part of the blight of Western um the other part is you know, um, I guess it's it's um West um um the railroad, but um I I know that the downtown streets team has been defunded, and really I had signed up to go on public comment, but I didn't know if we'd be in the meeting this long.

Um, so I would like to know if there's any information about um what will go forward with the absence of downtown streets team, if there's any kind of plan, um, and that's not major dumping.

That's not um, but it is blight in our in our corridors and in our neighborhood.

So if there's any information, um I'd love to hear it.

Thank you.

Chuck Madams.

Thank you and good evening.

My name is Chuck Meadows.

I'd like to address the enforcement component of this proposed ordinance because the best law is not going to work if it's not effectively enforced.

One of the challenges you have is when you're talking about inspections of private property, is just the evidence gathering itself.

I suggest um County Council look at for a model civil code 846.5, which deals with an exemption for surveyors who access private property.

So if there is a violation that's been reported, but you can't see it from the street.

Send a letter, and then the code inspectors would be exempt from any kind of trespassing laws, penal and civil.

One of the problems I've seen in this is it spreads quickly.

When one person in a neighborhood sees that there's no enforcement for whatever reason, either a person gets off or there's lack of staff, then in my neighborhood, three additional sites popped up just like that.

And a year, two years later, they're still unremediated.

So word does travel when fines are enforced or penalties are enforced.

Second, in the proposed ordinance, we need to address the appeals process.

For $25, every single one of these cases is going to end up at the Board of Supervisors because it's $25.

What you need to do is the appeal should not be automatic.

There should be a basis for the appeal, which requires either an error in the application of law, new facts or evidence, or some other basis, which has to be approved before it automatically gets kicked up to the next level, and the appeal fee should be raised.

Lastly, I'd like to talk about the collection of the fines.

Currently, Chapter 1766, soil importation imposes a fine of one thousand dollars per delivery plus one thousand dollars for every single day the site is not remediated.

But that doesn't do any good if the fine is not imposed and collected.

So we need to make some changes to give this ordinance some teeth.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Bobby.

Uh yeah, this is Bob Clark, Fairview.

I uh agree with everything Chuck just said.

I would like to see you guys really put some teeth in this ordinance and verbally uh put uh illegal soil importation into this.

It in many cases is considered hazardous material.

Uh we've had several cases up in uh in our area up here where homeowners have actually been paid by transporters to bring in truckloads of soil and dump it on their property to try to improve the slope of their land or whatever.

Uh this would give us more power to go after the transporter, go after their license.

Um we've had too many cases where by the time code enforcement gets there, it's too hard to prove.

Uh we've had documented evidence of videos and everything else that were not taken seriously and using evidence, and I'm citing a case that goes back to uh May of 2020.

Um, as a result, nothing was really done on that site, even though the uh BCA told them to uh remove it in the fall of 2023, that site turned into a mudslide down into the back of one of the other neighbors' properties, took out their fences, and just pieces of asphalt concrete, all kinds of stuff down, draining down on their property.

Uh add soil importation to this, and you've really got something that uh I think we can all rely on and hopefully code enforcement will uh support it and take it seriously and impose these fines and fees and get things corrected.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Diane.

Uh yes, this is Diane Weither from San Lorenzo, and I actually think this is one of the best written ordinances that I've seen for a while.

And I do appreciate the fact that it's taking into consideration a more proactive approach and more serious penalties.

Um, a lot of the ordinances say you can't do something.

And then when I ask, well, how are we going to enforce it?

It's always, oh, it's all always complaint driven, which means only if somebody happens to call in, and when somebody happens to pay attention, does anything really get enforced?

So I just think this is well written, and maybe there's other things that you know need to be done, but I'm I'm really happy to see that it's taking dumping seriously and really making an effort to to end dumping in the area.

Thank you very much for your hard work on this.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Brenda.

Yes, hi, good evening.

Um, I'm I'm so glad this is on the agenda and being considered.

I do hope that um illegal soil and soil importation, I'm sorry.

I do hope that illegal soil importation uh standards that are uh already written out.

What you can and cannot do will be enforced pursuant to this new ordinance that you're creating.

I think it should be specified in there.

Um it was horrible in 2020 and onward.

One neighbor got away with it because code enforcement decided to work with the neighbor after the ward of zoning adjustments uh uh classified the property as uh in violation of the neighborhood preservation act was as a certain uh uh amount of a certain standard of what they're supposed to do after the WBCA says abate, and they didn't do that.

Uh the thing that's been going on for five years, and they got away with that, you know.

You know, and like Bobby said, it ultimately resulted in flooding a property.

We've got another one going on right now that's been going on five years, and that's going to be presented uh to the Board of Supervisors on an appeal basis for um I'd like to see this.

I'd like to see somebody in the county give us a phone number to call when we see a look legal activity and we'd like to follow all the codes and ordinances including what code enforcement and public works is supposed to do on a timely basis.

And if we call one agency by mistake they pass it forward to the next thank you.

We have no additional speakers on this item okay thanks speakers um we have an ordinance already a soil importation ordinance uh okay so if we need to have that an update on that at the committee we can do that but this this ordinance is illegal dumping is different than an the ordinance that we have for soil importation.

That is correct yeah the soy own port ordinance was uh originally designed to deal with folks bringing in soil and mostly in these county big amounts you know truck truckloads of of soil where this seems to be more of a I guess an urban problem but not exclusively urban but but um yeah there they're there's kind of two sides of the same coin in many ways.

Okay.

I will note uh supervisor that the um you know uh soil would be included as an I as a uh within waste matter in the ordinance and so if soil were dumped illegally uh you know which would uh fit the definition of of uh you know being dumped where it's not lawfully allowed to then it could potentially fall under here but if it's being imported that would then it would fall under the that ordinance so there is a distinction but uh you know just to to be clear if soil were dumped on the street that would classify as illegal dumping.

Gotcha okay um see here you have any other questions uh supervisor jam I I just have one clarification though what's a reference to the 25 dollar appeal fee and I'm I'm looking for that in the ordinance what is that about I'm I'm looking back at county council maybe I'm I'm not familiar I I think that they were uh the commenter was referring for the cost of appealing a BZA ruling to the board of supervisors is twenty five dollars Ed's nodding uh oh okay that's not in the ordinance it's not in the ordinance but it'd be part of the appeals process outside of the ordinance okay thank you okay let's see so uh supervisor dam this is an action item so we prepared to yes we are prepared to move it to the board of supervisors with um the augmentations that Aaron mentioned on um making sure the enforcement aspect of it is delineated between the the appropriate departments yeah okay that's a motion I seconded and we we uh we uh support it unanimously now um so yeah so when this comes to the board we'll have further clarification around some of those items that were brought up this evening around enforcement um and maybe we'll we'll try to talk a little bit more with the DA's office as well yeah about this because I know we'll Aaron will be talking to the uh other three I mean co enforcement public works sheriff's department but I think yeah we we need to at least have um more of a conversation with the DA's office as well yeah because I do expect they did give feedback on the on the ordinance, but they have not been uh an active participant in the planning meetings for this.

Because we do want to make sure that the sheriff's department refers any cases to them, you know.

There's there's a mechanism for some type of um sanctions, and then um if someone goes the administrative route, because you I know you mentioned in the past it used to be handled more like a traffic ticket.

Is that go through the DA's office or is that handled separately?

Yeah, so if it goes through the administrative process, it would be handled separately, it would go through the board of zoning adjustments.

Okay, and from there it could be appealed to the board of supervisors, okay.

Yeah, um, and then you know, our hope is as Aaron pointed out, that all jurisdictions in the county will adopt a similar ordinance, and if they do, then that would also increase the you know the the level of um activity, let's put it that way, uh, and you know, uniformity across the county, and what we've been trying to do is increase um education eradication and enforcement around illegal dumping, you know, throughout the entire state, and this is just another uh effort in that regards.

Um, we're convening on October 29th next Wednesday, a regional convening to talk about this ordinance to talk about um survey that uh my office did, and to also have a panel talking about best practices uh for franchise agreements as well, um, and we've done to three statewide conferences.

Uh four statewide conferences and we'll uh the first was uh virtual, so we still count it though.

Um, and we'll be having our fifth in um 2026.

Yeah, next year.

So this year we didn't do a statewide conference, we're doing this uh regional convening.

So we've been trying to work on uh trying to address this problem of legal dumping what way in advance of 2020, but that's when kind of things really kicked off with the statewide effort.

But um, if we get some traction around this and we get it in place and we get other jurisdictions, then this could be uh a model that could be pursued.

It might be, and we've got other things that we've we've been working on and will continue to work on.

Um, that would help to address legal dumping uh both locally and throughout the the state.

If we can get some of those things um either enacted or approved or supported, yeah.

So okay.

Thanks, Aaron, for this.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we have one uh one remaining item.

Sorry for the delay, and it's an informational item, the uh Bay Fair site technical assistance and Bayfair community-based transportation plan.

Yes, good evening.

Um Albert Lopez Plan Director again, and I'm happy to introduce the side quickly before I turn it over to uh two planners and the plan department, Angelica and Dominic who've been working on this.

This is related to two programs that are taking place at the at the Bay Fair Bar station and the environs in the surrounding area.

Um as you may know, the Bayford Bart station is on our housing element.

Um it is a significant site for us, and there is luckily a lot of uh um uh regional money that's available to do planning and community outreach for the BART station and and the surrounding area, and they're gonna walk through the uh presentation uh hopefully quickly.

I know it's getting late to be able to um just to provide you an update on that work and uh to take any input that you might have.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Angelica.

Thank you.

Good evening, supervisors.

Uh again, for the record, Angelica Gonzalez, planning uh supervisors, and you're planner with the CDA planning department.

I'm joined by Dominic Lecazy, who is also a planner with the planning department, and as Albert mentioned, our emphasis for today is presentation on the Bay Fair related uh efforts on the priority sites technical assistance work and the community-based transportation plan.

Next slide, please.

So this high this slide highlights various efforts and work uh that the county is leading.

So that those projects are highlighted in the area in blue, and efforts the city of San Leandro is working on are highlighted in the area in red that are relevant to the Bayfair area in unincorporated Alameda County and the city's jurisdiction.

We'd like to acknowledge while these projects are led by the respective jurisdictions.

We are working together closely and also with our BART partner on these related efforts.

County projects include the Bayfair Party Sites Technical Assistance Work, again, which we are presenting on today.

Another county project is work related to compliance with MTC transit oriented communities policy, which you've heard in previous presentations at the planning board.

And in addition, we do have the community-based transportation plan, which Dominic will be covering in the second half of the presentation.

And this is highlighted at the center of the slides, as the county and the city of San Leandro are working together to develop the CBTP, this community-based transportation plan.

I'd like to highlight that SB 79 was signed by Governor Governor earlier this month to allow transit oriented development that achieves higher higher densities and heights for residential development at and near transit stations.

So just pivoting considerations are being made with these efforts to conform to this particular bill.

So we do recognize that there are several active projects associated with the Bayfair Station area.

And today we'll be focusing on the two items highlighted in yellow.

So that's the PSTA, Party Sites Technical Assistance, and the CBTP Community Based Transportation Plan.

So to date, staff has made several presentations informational.

So we'll start with Eden MAC and unincorporated bike and pet advisory committee.

This includes Planning Commission that were presented to them back in December, Eden Area Communities Collaborative in January, along with Ashland Community Association in February.

Next slide, please.

So what is the Bayfair Party Sites Technical Assistance?

So just starting off with what priority sites are.

They're places located close to services, public transit, plan to support the production of housing that are affordable to households with a wide range of incomes.

So priority sites include surplus public parcels, aging shopping centers, including, excuse me, including in housing element updates and rail stations and parking lots.

So back in November, Bayfair BART-owned site was determined as a priority site by MTC to achieve housing to support one of their housing goals, which includes increasing the housing production supply.

And then in January, Alameda County applied for a priority sites technical assistance grant back in 2024 to conduct studies in order to advance development.

And back in May 2024, the county was awarded 250,000 by our regional agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission Association Barry Governments.

And so the Bayfair PST scope includes pre-development tasks.

So this is important to advance development on the BART owned property in unincorporated Alameda County.

Next slide, please.

So this map shows where the Bayfair BART owned properties are located in Ashland and the City of San Leandro.

So the properties, the BART owned properties straddles two jurisdictions.

So this includes unincorporated Alameda County, which is highlighted in green, and then the city of Sal Leandro, which is highlighted in yellow.

So the work that the county will be doing will be limited to the area in green in unincorporated area.

Next slide, please.

So the portion of the property in unincorporated Alameda County is located southeast of Thornley Drive and west of the Bayfair BART tracks.

And single family residential development is located southwest and south of the property.

And the county and the city of San Leandro boundary line to the northeast and to the northwest.

The site predominantly serves now as a surface parking lot with community parking spaces.

So this party site is again as mentioned, BART-owned and zoned Bay Fair Transit Area, high density residential with housing element overlay.

And so this was done as part of the adopted housing element in 2024.

And that rezoning is new based on the adoption of the new housing element, which included the rezoning of this property.

So this site was identified in the housing element sites inventory to be rezoned to meet the county's regional housing needs and comply with assembly bill 2923.

So this bill allows higher residential density and to meet transit oriented development standards.

Next slide, please.

So it's worth mentioning that in 2024, BART prepared a transit oriented development work plan.

And this is updated roughly every four years and identifies BART-owned properties to advance development.

The recent work plan adopted last year identified Bayfair BART in the county and the city as one of the five properties to advance TOD project in the near term.

So between 24, 2024 and 2028.

And so the pre-development work that we'll be doing for this PSTA aims to advance Bayfair to the next step, which is the developer solicitation stage, also known as the request for qualification, request for proposals, RFQ, RFP, advancing to that developer solicitation and selection.

So next slide, please.

So this slide covers the scope of work included in the TA that the county will be working on in partnership with BART.

So the first is to create a work program.

So that allows us to create a comprehensive roadmap that outlines project tasks from pre-development and planning through post-construction, ensuring transparency throughout the process.

The next task includes existing site conditions and infrastructure capacity analysis.

So this allows us to conduct an assessment of the existing site conditions and analyze infrastructure capacity to support potential development.

So this information will be useful as part of the pre-solicitation stage for the potential future developer.

The next one is community outreach.

That's very important.

So our plan is to engage with the community by sharing key information and including them in the process, and so we will share the timeline for this particular engagement work while creating opportunities to gather meaningful community feedback.

And then we have developing a draft vision goals and objectives, also known as VGOs.

So we'll be building on community outreach to prepare joint document with BART that establishes the framework for future RFPQ that I mentioned earlier for this priority site.

And then finally, we'll be prepared to report out to advisory bodies and decision makers and then present findings, community process and outcomes, and next steps.

Next slide.

So here is a slide with a few next steps.

So as mentioned, we're presenting today.

The next step is to present to Eden Mack for updates in November on November 13th.

And then late 2025, early 2026, this is when the engagement process will begin to get public feedback.

This will likely happen early 2026.

And then finally, in the summer fall 2026, staff will be presenting findings to the advisory bodies and decision makers.

So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Dominic Lecase, who will be now covering the CBTP work.

Thank you, Angelica, and good evening, supervisors.

Dominic Lucese with the Alameda County Planning Department, and I'm here to talk about the Bayfair Community Based Transportation Plan, which is a partnership between Alameda County and the City of San Leandro and is funded through a $350,000 grant from the Alameda County Transportation Commission.

And we're here tonight to ask for your comments and feedback.

Next slide.

So what is a CBTP?

CBTP stands for Community Based Transportation Plan, which is a planning process that focuses on addressing the mobility needs of underserved areas through direct community engagement.

CBTPs have been conducted in many other jurisdictions across the Bay Area, and the main elements of a CBTP are shown here on the slide.

CBTPs place a heavy emphasis on community engagement with a focus on equity.

They consider all transportation modes, including transit, walking, biking, and carpooling.

And ultimately, the plan will identify specific projects and funding sources that can be used to improve mobility within the study area.

The key outcomes of the Bayfair CBTP will be a list of prioritized transportation projects and cost estimates based on community input.

Potential recommendations are shown on the slide, and they may include things like pedestrian and bike infrastructure improvements, bus stop amenities and ADA upgrades, intersection improvements, and neighborhood traffic calming and school safety.

Because this is an interjurisdictional project, there will be two separate project lists proposed to the San Leandro City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for adoption.

And we want to emphasize that the CBTP is focused on improvements within the public public right of way only.

It will not include recommendations on BART property or private properties.

Separate but concurrent planning efforts by the city and county will address how access on BART property may be improved with future redevelopment.

Here is a map of the study area.

You can see that the Bayfair CBTP focuses on an area around the Bayfair BART station that contains parts of San Leandro and Ashland and the unincorporated Alameda County.

And on the unincorporated side of the study area, there are several parks, three public schools, and the REACH Youth Center.

So the overall goal of the Bay Affairs CBTP is to ensure that all residents, especially those in equity priority communities, have safe, reliable, and accessible transportation options.

We will achieve these objectives by working with the community to identify barriers to access and connectivity challenges and develop targeted solutions to improve mobility.

Equity priority communities or EPCs is a term used by the MTC to identify census tracks with a high concentration of underserved populations, such as low income households, people of color, or folks without access to a vehicle.

The CBTP study area includes four EPCs, one in San Leandro and three in Ashland.

And you can see this here in the map and the areas in purple.

The entirety of Ashland is also identified as a priority community in our environmental justice element.

Next slide.

So the Bayfair CBTP kicked off in May and is currently in the public engagement phase.

The project team has conducted stakeholder interviews, a multilingual online public survey, a group site visit, and pop-up pop-up events.

And we are planning to host a community meeting in early 2026.

The project team will use the insights gathered during this phase to inform our draft recommendations.

Here's some photos of the public engagement that we have been conducting in collaboration with the city of San Leandro, including a walking tour and pop-up events at the Bayfair Farmers Market and National Night Out.

The outreach and project is guided by our steering committee, which will be discussed on the next slide.

The CBTP is informed throughout the process by a steering committee made up of public agencies, local residents, and representatives of nonprofits and community-based organizations from San Leandro and Alameda County.

I won't read the whole list, but the unincorporated communities are represented by the Ashland Community Association, Eden MAC, REACH, the Alameda Office of Education, and the unincorporated bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee.

The steering committee serves an important role as liaison between the project team and the broader community, and they have been graciously donating their time to provide local insights, refine outreach strategies, and ensuring equitable representation of a variety of stakeholders.

And here are our next steps.

After our presentation here tonight, we'll bring an update to the Eden MAC in November.

Next, we expect to present our findings at community meetings in the spring and summer of 2026.

And finally, we expect to present the draft CBTP next fall with final adoption by the end of next year.

And that's it for our presentation.

Again, we're here today to ask for your comments and feedback and answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you for that presentation.

I just wanted to get some context.

So this was a $350,000 grant to develop the CBTP, and your deliverables would include a prioritized list of transportation projects that both the city and the county would adopt that are part of that, the area that you identified.

The question I had was so this area was part of our housing element when we looked at it because I think at that time BART was was looking at uh the potential for transit-oriented development in this area.

Um, how much but you said it's we're not going to be looking at anything on the BART property or on private property, like obviously the mall area, right?

So uh when you're talking about some of the um infrastructure improvements, whether it's bike lanes or additional bus stops, and you know, like uh neighborhood calming areas around Hisbarian elementary school, what um what's going to be like the source of the funding for most of these projects?

Um finding sources of funding is part of the deliverables to first put together a prioritized list for both the city of San Leandro and the unincorporated areas, um, and with that will be funding proposals.

Um, but this is a the very beginning of a longer process.

I'm just trying to think if this is something that MTC is going to be using into their long longer range or broader planning efforts.

Yeah, I think ultimately um CBTPs were created by the MTC.

It's an MTC funded program ultimately and so projects identified by this plan will be more competitive for outside funding once they are specifically named.

Okay thank you.

Yeah similarly if we're not looking at um private property and development the housing on Bart property but we're looking at all these other improvements in the community um the community based uh transportation plan is uh public works involved yes because it looks like a lot of this stuff is public works yeah um so we do have a fairly robust project team and we're working closely with public works there's no no mention of them at all in the presentation I think they're on the steering committee slide yeah well I need uh I need to put them in there right yeah just to make sure no you caught me they're not on there yeah right because I guess I thought I saw a lot of stuff that involves the streets and public works is nowhere to be found okay but they're part of this there they're closely involved with this um and I know that there's several other projects happening in this area one of which is the update to the bike and pet plan in the unincorporated area which public works is leading um and we're working closely with them to make sure we're not duplicating efforts because we realize there's a lot of similarities here and just to clarify um for the party site technical assistance they're also involved in that process so just want to clarify that um we are uh making sure that we're working with them and how they're working with us as part of both processes okay and then let's see with the community based transformation plans we get that laid out and then um what comes next after that's done it does uh when's the development started on the board line all that kind of stuff yeah that's a great question so the the CBTP uh would be the first step to identify um potential improvements in the public right of way um any specific uh comments regarding the private property or in this case BART public uh BART owned property um we get that feedback from the party site technical assistance work so we just want to make sure that we communicate to the public that any input for BART property is um identified as part of the party site technical assistance and then the right of way uh recommendations are specific to the CBTP okay all right let's see if we got any questions from or any public comment rather make it quick Brian Lasco with Hayward Area Wreck and Park District um I'm here just to observe this because this is going to be a big project that's gonna implicate really impact uh our service area that we together with the county we come right up against this thing and on their map there you could see we actually have uh nine there's actually nine parks they only show eight uh we have two community centers five of those parks are within the CBTP so uh we're very interested in monitoring this the development of this process both with the county and with San Leandro um it's an exciting development uh we've already invest the heart has already invested tens of millions of dollars into the Ashland area so we're certainly want to see how this transpires and just wanted to let you both know that we're we're here and eager to hear what you all have to say about it.

Thank you.

I have no additional speakers for this item.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, I do have an online speaker.

Charles, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

I'm sorry I I I need a very short amount of time, but I've uh listened to uh the proposals so far, and I guess I'm still not clear on whether or not there will be transit oriented development on the BART side, uh which would leave the unincorporated property-owned uh stuff to do whatever they do, so uh I'm looking forward to seeing development at Bayfair, and I'll I'll be watching, and I know the ACA is involved with that.

Thank you.

So can um the development on the BART site.

Well, because there's a question about transitory development on the BART site.

Uh the speaker wanted to know when might that occur, I think.

That's a good question.

Um to date, we we don't actually know it's part of the process to advance the development.

Um we're taking the initial steps as part of the uh technical assistance work.

So our goal is to get um input from the community as we work through uh this process.

So just to share with you just for clarification for transit oriented development, um the American Planning Association defines it as more than just dense development around major transit, this also includes um implies and includes pedestrian-friendly design, the right mix of land use types and compact development.

So the intent is part of this process to is to identify um features and um that way we can move towards transit oriented development.

And also would like to highlight um assembly bill um 29-23 and also SB uh 79.

Hopefully I've said the right numbers here, but um the emphasis for those particular um policies focus on achieving higher densities, so which is in line with transit-oriented development.

So this allows uh higher densities, uh higher heights um to accommodate higher residential development at uh stations, for example, and also areas outside of that.

So this is all um well, at least SB 79 is fairly new since that was signed by the governor and um earlier this month.

So we're still looking at how that would impact the work that we're doing to make sure that we're in compliance with that.

Yep, sure.

Yeah, so uh just to recall this is on our housing element.

We have a 2031 is the is the time that the state wants us to see development uh actually develop the housing at the BART station.

So that's sort of our window.

Um I think I saw on the slides that the request for proposals or request for qualifications to developers is planned for 2028.

I think so.

Yeah, between then and 2031, hopefully we'll see you know something actually come out of the ground there.

Um, but it's um we're working diligently on it and uh there's a lot of partners, a lot of moving parts, and we'll we'll come back and keep you updated as things develop.

And we'll also make sure that we're checking in with the Macs and um especially the EDMAC because they're the most closely related to the uh Bayfair BART.

I think on an earlier slide too, um, I think it said, see if I can find it.

An earlier slide showed where there are eight BART stations, here we go, that were current in the pipeline.

So they're ahead of where we are.

At least um El S Redo, Lake Merritt, North Berkeley, uh Pleasant Hill, Richmond, Walnut Creek, West Dublin, Pleasant, and West Oakland.

Yes, that's correct.

And then um for the Bayfair BART, for example, that's in the near term.

So the the intent and goal is um as mentioned in the or as outlined in the TOD work plan that BART has.

Um their intent is to um towards developer solicitation by 2028.

So I think that's also on that slide.

Just to clarify the differences in the timing.

Okay.

Okay.

How does this site fit in San Leandro's um housing element?

Because I meet from time to time with the mayor of San Leandro, and he said that I think Asian Health Services was going into the mall, occupying 25,000 square feet with the pay center, and then there's some aspiration from for them to build a senior center.

So I wasn't sure like how they plan on addressing their housing element needs through this site.

That's a great question.

Um I think I would be more comfortable responding and in consultation with the city of San Landro on that one.

It's it's a great question, and we'll make sure to have a response for you in the future.

Yeah, I mean uh we just need to coordinate with them very closely and engage some of their community groups as well because the I mean the the transit developments and the transit um improvements are going to affect both.

Thanks for this update.

Okay, and going back to item was it, and two.

Uh I think Mike asked about uh downtown street teams.

Uh do you know this?

Because I know we met and talked with them.

Uh Ashley, can you provide any response on that?

Uh yes, I believe that uh Michelle Starrett and her team had been working with Eden Church, and uh I think they're ironing out the details of what that program will look like, uh being housed at Eden Church and keeping uh some type of components uh keep keep them going.

So I we think we're just waiting for those details from Michelle and her team.

Did you hear that, Mike?

Did you hear what Ashley said?

Okay, speak up, Ashley, so Mikey.

Uh so for the downtown streets team, uh Michelle Starrett over at the County Housing Development Agency.

She was working with Eden Church.

I'm sorry, not Eden Church, First Presbyterian Church in Castor Valley, uh to keep components of that program going.

So uh I think they're just ironing out those details.

So very excellent.

Okay.

Thanks.

So do we have any public comment on non-agendized items this evening?

Caller, you're on the line.

We're on public comment.

Bruce, you have two minutes.

Bruce King.

Hello, this is Bruce King, Bruce King with Friends of San Lorenzo Creek.

Thanks for hanging in here till the end.

Um if you remember in June, property owners throughout the western unincorporated areas, parts of San Leandro, and Hayward, all voted for a bet a flood control 75 million dollars for flood control capital backlog, and to address the increasing risk of flooding.

Um we have an in according to the engineering report that the risk of flooding has gone way up because of climate change.

Um, the objective was to retain more water within uh Don Castro Dam area, and to increase the capacity of the flood control channel all the way through uh the cities of Hayward, uh Cherryland, Ashland, uh San Lorenzo and San Leandro.

Well, that benefit assessment failed.

75 to 80 percent of the voters didn't vote for it.

So um we uh the flood control the flood risk has not gone away.

We can still have flooding in Cherryland and San Lorenzo and Castor Valley.

Um, but the flood control district uh hasn't answered questions like why did it fail?

Did they did the voters understand what they were voting for?

Um, and what's the plan now?

Um, you know, are we just not gonna tell the the people that the flood risk has gone way up and what's gonna happen?

And uh anyways, as the supervisors that oversee the flood control district, you should be asking some hard questions before we have flooding and houses are underwater, uh, because then people are gonna ask, well, what happened?

Why did this occur?

Um, and right now the flood control district isn't providing answers.

Thank you.

We have no additional speakers for public comment.

Okay, so uh this evening's unincorporated services meeting is adjourned, and our next meeting will take place at a different um time.

Normally we meet the fourth Wednesday of the month, but uh due to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, we won't be meeting uh the fourth Wednesday in November or the fourth Wednesday in December.

We will be meeting December 3rd.

That's our next meeting, December 3rd.

Okay, so we're adjourned.

Thank you.