Okay, so uh I'll call the meeting to order in Zenaida.

Would you like to take the role, please?

Councilmember Aston Nielsen.

Here.

Councilmember Marmahoco.

Yes.

Councilmember Roll.

Present.

Councilmember Stanley excused.

Councilmember Cushman.

Here.

Chair Weidler.

Here.

We have a quorum.

All right.

Anyone stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Okay.

Pledge allegiance to the flag.

For which it stands.

Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

First thing on our agenda, your public announcements.

And we have quite a full agenda.

So do we have um do you have very many speakers in our okay?

Let's start with um two minutes each.

Okay.

Officer Jen Pepst.

All right.

Well, it's nice to see you all.

I missed you guys last month, so I'm glad we're all back together.

Uh, let's see.

CHP's been very busy in the community.

For March, we issued 226 traffic citations.

We towed 26 vehicles.

We arrested 12 DUI drivers.

We had three felony arrests, eight misdemeanor arrests, took 57 non-injury crash reports, and 22 injury crash reports.

Uh traffic complaints that we're currently working are still big rigs on Via Ariba and Grant and speed on Hisparian, that one I was working today, and there are still violators out there.

Uh previous enforcement on April 7th.

Hopefully, we did not stop you because it was our national distract or excuse me, our Golden Gate division distracted driving day.

And our office issued 157 distracted driving citations in a 24-hour period, which is kind of alarming due to the fact that they're those are the only ones that we stopped, and we're trying to prevent traffic crashes from happening.

Our upcoming enforcement events on April 28th, we have another maximum enforcement period that's statewide, and we'll be focusing on speeding vehicles during that 24-hour period.

Some upcoming events, we're going to be at the Earth Day with the San Lorenzo HOA on April 18th.

And our upcoming education on April 28th at 6 o'clock, we will have a start smart class at our CHP Hayward area office.

If you'd know of a youth that a youth driver that needs to attend a class to either get better at driving or just get more information, please call our office to sign up.

And April's National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, which is time to refocus on and take responsibility for our choices while out on the road.

And as always, I'm taking traffic complaints.ca.gov or call our office during normal business hours.

Thank you.

Have a good meeting.

Randy Wage.

Hello.

I just wanted to speak and just mention that Hayward Rec is in negotiations on Sky West with the City of Hayward, which is really uh good news.

Uh we still maybe want to have it a joint project, maybe between East Bay Parks and Hayward Rack, but we'll see how it goes.

I just also wanted to mention that they're looking to possibly demolish the um clubhouse there.

And personally, I would like to see the clubhouse stay there and be used as a community center or something else where people could rent the space for weddings, that kind of thing.

So if you're ever around, you could advocate to the Hayward Rec and the city of Hayward that hey, that building's pretty cool, and we should really keep it, not smash it down, especially since it has a commercial kitchen.

Also, uh, it's probably been mentioned before, you guys might know.

Um, they're looking to possibly renew the flock camera contract, and I think it's coming to the Board of Supervisors April 21st.

So if you believe in the flock camera system that we put in along Hisparian and all through the unincorporated area, and you believe that it helps deter crime, then you probably should put a comment in, or you should try and speak at that meeting so that they renew the contract.

We spent millions of dollars on it.

I I think we should keep the flock cameras.

Also, as uh Jennifer had mentioned Earth Day, um, San Lorenzo Village Homes Association, Diane, Taylor.

I know you really helped me pick up trash the last couple of years.

We'll be picking up the trash from 8 a.m.

to 11 a.m.

And then there's a market pace marketplace from 11 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

Of course, that's right in the parking lot, right uh in front of the library.

Anyway, have a good meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

No more speakers for public comment.

Oh, thank you.

I thought there might be more online or something.

All right.

Um, since we do have a full agenda, but next will be um approval of minutes for January 13th, and then we'll do February 10th.

We'll do them separately though.

Um Ashley, do you want to say anything or do you want me to about the minutes or thank you?

Uh just a reminder, um, there your minutes did switch over to action only minutes.

Um if anybody would like to access the full translation, the video is available.

We did bring this up, not last meeting, but the meeting before.

Um so if there's any questions, uh, just let us know.

But all the Macs um are going to this format.

So thank you.

So if we um hopefully we all had time to look at the February, I mean the January 13th minutes.

Um does anyone have any comments or additions to what we have before us, or if anybody doesn't, if anyone like to make a motion to approve.

Are there any comments?

Questions?

Elizabeth?

I motion to approve.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

I second.

Thank you, Ray.

Any other discussion?

Okay, so it's been moved and seconded.

You want to do the um the roll call vote, please?

Councilmember Aston Nielsen.

Aye.

Councilmember Maur Mahoko?

Yes.

Councilmember Roll.

Aye.

Council Member Stanley?

Yes.

Councilmember Cushman?

Yes.

Chair Weidler.

Yes.

Approved.

Thank you.

Okay, so move on to February 10th.

Kind of the same process.

Are there any um questions, comments, or motion to approve?

Any questions or comments first?

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

So um, sir, a motion to approve the minutes.

Thank you, Megan.

Is there a second?

I second.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

All right, any other discussion.

All right, so it's been moved and seconded.

Would you like to take the roll call vote, please?

Council Member Aston Nielsen.

Aye.

Councilmember Marmahoko.

Yes.

Council member roll.

Hi.

Councilmember Stanley.

Yes.

Councilmember Cushman.

Chair Weidler.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

So if we move on to our regular agenda, like so we do have four items.

So hopefully we can get through these.

And um if we've all looked at them, we will have our questions and comments ready for speakers.

The first one is on Rodrigo's already ready.

The zoning ordinance updates to some multifamily residential development standards to implement the six cycle housing element densities.

Yes, thank you, Rodrigo Arduña with the county planning department.

I'm here with Tom Ford from the M group.

Uh, and he is here with uh Buddy Williams from Studio Kitty Aids and Architecture Firm.

I'm gonna share my screen here, and then we will begin our PowerPoint presentation.

Okay, let's see.

Excuse the technical whoops.

Jeez.

Yeah.

Sure.

Okay, so here we are.

So uh Tom's gonna uh do the bulk of the presentation.

I'm just gonna introduce that the purpose of tonight's uh zoning ordinance updates to some multifamily residential development standards is to implement the six-cycle housing element densities.

Um please note um that the housing element has already been adopted.

The zoning ordinance updates uh for this current cycle have already been adopted, and the objective design standards have already been adopted.

What's happening tonight is the result of some uh ground truthing of some of those development standards and some tweaks that are being made to those development standards at already those uh at those already adopted uh densities, and so we're making some minor modifications to some of these development regulations for densities already adopted uh for the housing element so that we can uh facilitate the development at those densities.

Now, as this MAC may recall and the public may recall, the state has mandated that local jurisdictions not only identify potential areas for residential development within their jurisdictions, but also to make policy and regulatory efforts to facilitate residential development, facilitate and encourage.

And you also you may know that there are some um some it's a state mandate, it's a state um must for every local jurisdiction, including Alameda County, and there are potential penalties should we not do so.

So the point of tonight's uh presentation again is to go through some of these minor modifications to already developed um densities and standards to make sure that we facilitate those proposed densities.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to to Tom Ford with the M group.

Is that just here?

Oh, you want me to do it?

Do I do?

Nope, that one?

Okay.

Good evening.

Um happy to be here.

Um let me just add a little bit.

Oh, my name is Tom Ford, and with me tonight is Buddy Williams from Studio KDA, an architecture firm.

Uh, my company M Group was hired by the planning department to work on a project.

Um, and I'll tell you a little bit about that in Buddy and Studio KDA are subconsultants.

So, what we're looking for tonight is for you to recommend to the board of supervisors that these amendments that we've put together for the zoning code that was um adopted as part of the housing element update um be adopted, the amendments be adopted also.

So we have a couple, uh I believe you've got it in your packet, the red line version of the actual zoning ordinance, and then a couple of changes, amendments to the um objective design standards.

So just a quick overview of what I want to do today.

I want to give you a background as to why we did this and how we got to it, expand a little bit on what Rodrigo already told you.

Uh, and then give an overview of uh what um the housing element sites were and what that adjustment was or that proposed amendment to 1731 is.

Um, I'll also show you the two amendments uh that we're proposing for the residential um design standards and guidelines, and then quickly talk about next steps.

So as I said, my my company m group was hired in January of 2025 by the planning department to do a series of things that help them uh increase their transparency, um, help applicants with development projects, and um look at forms, look at ADU ordinances and things like that.

None of that needs to be um approved by the board.

However, as part of our contract and studio KDA uh in concert with us, we did make these amendments to the um zoning ordinance or we're proposing them, and that's the piece that needs to be adopted.

So why did we do that?

Um as you know, the housing the HCD, the housing and community development at the state level, um mandates that um communities develop a certain amount of um affordable housing.

And so they were they wanted us as part of this project that we had to really go through and ground truth them to make sure that the development that was being promised by certain densities and dirt and certain density designations could actually be developed.

And the reason this is important is so that the county doesn't run afoul of the state in terms of not being able to achieve that either the the dwelling unit count that they were proposing in the housing element or the densities that the county promises on some of these sites.

So that's where sort of the ground truthing came from with Studio KDA.

So as they assess the development feasibility of these sites, they also reviewed uh 1731 and the objective design standards that exist in the the county's existing document, the residential design standards and guidelines, and came up with a few solutions.

You saw them in your staff report, and I'm just going to quickly uh go through them here.

So I think it's really important to point out that this isn't as sort of as Rodrigo pointed out, this isn't a blanket zoning ordinance update to try to find more density across the board.

It's only looking at those specific sites that were identified in the housing element.

So here's all of the MACs, if you see.

So if you look at all three MACs, this is the range, this is the number of parcels generally that are in the housing element and proposed as opportunity sites.

Excuse me.

Let me just zoom in on your Mac, and you'll see that we're talking about these sites right here.

Um this works.

So you'll see most of them are of the 44 to 86 dwelling units per acre, um, and they're sprinkled across the area.

As you can see them, that's that turquoise blue.

Um, a little bit less density, 22 to 43 dwelling units per acre, are those green uh parcels that are spread around.

And then the one significant parcel is um sort of up at the top there near the Bayfair BART station.

That's um the highest density allowed, um, and that's 87 dwelling units per acre.

So these are the only parcels that the zoning code amendments that we're proposing would apply to.

Um so again, what are they?

There's the housing element opportunity sites only.

Um we are making no, we're proposing no changes to the actual density of the sites, but densities that were adopted by the board as part of the housing element.

We are not proposing any changes to height except for that one parcel immediately adjacent to the Bayfair BART site.

Um that's affected by some state mandated regulations that were passed in October of just this past year.

Um you may have heard of it, it's SB 79, it's in the news a lot.

Um it's it affects um quarter and half mile ranges around transit stops.

Um what the changes are, since there was nothing proposed to change the densities or the height, are to um some minor adjustments to the lower and medium density, primarily in uh reducing the amount of the setback that's required for side and front and back at a parcel, and the requirement of open space, mandatory open space, that percentage was changed again to make sure that the open space and the setbacks, which were predominantly from a suburban type of standpoint, the R4 density, uh the R4 standards, um, could accommodate the densities that the housing element predicted for those sites.

So as I said, um the uh the stand the amendments that are in track changes in this in the document that you received increase the FAR and they reduce the setbacks.

And by doing that, it creates more developable area and allows for for the development to achieve the density that's that's guaranteed on the site, with the exception of, as I said, the Bayfair Bard site.

So what SB 79 said or predicts, and that goes into effect July 1st of this year, is that no local regulation can prevent anything less than 75 feet or seven stories within a quarter mile or a half mile, uh, I think it's quarter mile of the site, and then it reduces a little bit for a half a mile.

So that kind of tied our hands.

We that raises the height for that site, but what we wanted to do, because I'm sure you're very familiar with the site, is try to incentivize a lower height.

We can't we can't just say there's a lower height next to single family development, but we tried to write an incentive into the ordinance so that a developer that were to come, if they were to take advantage of the incentive of the height reduction incentive, they might go to a maximum of three stories if they were within 45 feet of a single family designation.

So by doing that, they would be allowed at other parts of the site, probably along the tracks or facing the um station itself, be allowed to expand our height to 12 stories.

So that's only if they were to reduce the height adjacent to single family or streets fronting single family to three stories.

So what does that look like?

You know the site.

So we were particularly concerned about this the single family development across Colby Street and also the single family between Colby and Durmondi.

So what we tried to do is SB 79 would mandate this, that this whole area cannot be the county cannot create a regulation that is anything less than 75 feet or seven stories.

But by writing that incentive, we said, hey, if you come in for this zone of 45 feet, which is about the depth of a townhouse or a liner, uh apartment lining a parking structure or something taller.

Um if you come in and you uh keep your height to three stories in the green area, you can uh have more height other at other parts of the site.

So what we did there was just to try to soften the blow, if you will, that SB 79 is imposing on you.

The state is imposing on us because they're uh mandating that regulation and not allowing us to uh stray from it.

So quickly, two amendments that you see in the residential design standards and guidelines.

Um they're both in chapter 8.2.

This was adopted by the board in December of 2023.

The original document is from 2014, but in 2023, um the board adopted new standards for townhomes and um multifamily housing, multifamily and mixed-use housing.

And so these are amendments to that chapter 8.2.

The amendments include a landscaping requirement, and this is simply to reflect those new setbacks that might occur on housing element sites, and also to mandate that the setback isn't just a setback, but there you need to where you put the landscaping, um, the 50% of landscaping that's required should be uh prioritized to places where it can screen either the front setback or uh, as you see in the diagram to the right, um a parking, a surface parking lot.

So it's not changing the development standard, it's basically uh just making it a little bit stronger in mandating where the 50% landscaping needs to be applied.

Another change we made is um just a text change to uh make a correction.

Um the text in the statement didn't match the text in the drawing, the four foot, see where it says more than four feet, that didn't align with the text.

And we also use that as an opportunity to draw it actually as five feet so that it looked like a little bit more of a realistic building rather than the one on the left that might be a little bit too dramatic of an upper level step back.

So we updated the um the figure to be more reflective of what the uh standard is trying to achieve or promote.

So again, what we're uh seeking from you is a recommendation that these amendments that we're proposing to the development standards 1731 passed as part of the housing element, and the amendments to chapter 8.2 of the residential design standards and guidelines that the board um approve those or adopt them.

And with that, oh the next steps.

We're hoping to go.

Um we've now been you're the third uh Mac that we've been to.

And so we are hoping to go on to the uh late May Planning Commission meeting, and after that, we'll be going to the board of supervisors.

So with that, I can uh answer any questions or buddies with me and Rodrigo's here as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

Um let me just anyone on the board have a question.

Yes.

Make it hi, thank you for the presentation.

Um what I guess was the impetus for um making this decision to allow for a setback.

Like why are we incentivizing height reduction when the goal is to build more housing?

Also, so that's the one specific site next to the Bay Fair Mall or Bayfair um BART site.

Um we don't well, we're only allowing the the if the developer comes in and comes in with lower density adjacent to the single family, they get to build higher at other parts of the site.

So we don't think we're taking housing opportunity away from them.

We think it's we're just trying to help them reorganize where it goes on the site, and there would be a maximum density still that would be applied to that site.

We're just saying the maximum density, which is pretty high for what's typically been happening in the county, the maximum density is still allowed, but we're hoping that they can move it to it towards the BART station and away from the single family development.

Have we heard like from community members or output or community out input that this is something that they want?

Or I guess I'm asking where this initiative came from.

Um why this was decided.

I got it from the department, but we didn't do any public outreach as part of this um meeting.

I don't know if you, but the this the staff I think has heard that from people concerned about height next to the station.

So there's been um other uh communications uh with BART themselves uh with the communities and uh folks uh living in uh single family the neighborhood right now is actually single family single story.

And so the the concern is that you would have a seven-story building right in your backyard.

So to ameliorate that, if they um again, this is an incentive.

This is not a this this is not mandatory, this is not a requirement.

The densities would remain the same on this parcel.

Uh that density won't won't change.

It is just uh an attempt to push the density towards the bar tracks themselves to allow for more light and air uh to reach those existing single-family homes, um, and and not have a seven-story building right next to them.

So the incentive is that you can build higher if you push it back, yes.

Up to 75 feet or a minimum of 75 feet is the minimum.

The 75 feet is is the minimum that the state says we can require.

So you can go higher, they could go higher.

If if we do nothing, um, a developer could come in and say, no, well, 75 feet is my minimum, but I want to go higher.

Okay.

But the incentive is, well, you could you if you if you if you choose as a developer to go lower right next to the single family, then you can go higher towards the Bart station and keep your density, right?

You're just you're not you're not reducing the density, you're keeping it, you're just pushing it towards the bar text.

I guess what is the um I guess it's up to the developer to choose initially how high they would want to go, assuming that they meet all of our parameters.

Yeah, they're guaranteed a certain density that they can choose to build.

And remember, this is BART-controlled land.

So BART is gonna work with developers who who um build housing to the densities that BART thinks is appropriate.

If there's no limit, I guess right now, then what's the incentive to push it back?

If there's no limit right now.

If there is no limit on how high they can build right now, then what incentivizes them to do the pushback?

Actually, I think you might have just misspoken.

Um there is a maximum density, maximum height, but the state says that the county cannot make a maximum height any less than 75 feet.

Okay.

So we are saying that for that entire site, that was the slide with the it was all blue.

That's what the state says we have to allow.

We cannot make a maximum height less than 75 feet.

What we're saying is if you don't build the 75 feet within that 45-foot range, we'll let you go higher than 75 feet over here.

Otherwise, you cannot exceed 75 feet.

75 feet is the maximum.

It's the cap, not the minimum.

Correct.

Minimum.

Well, it's the minimum amount that the state allows this the county to impose as a maximum.

We could make an ordinance to say, hey, we are we're going to allow 90 feet buildings, and that would be fine with the state because it's more than 75.

But what we've done is gone right at 75, which is the lowest that the state will allow for a maximum for a maximum density, maximum height, excuse me.

So under our proposal, we will let you go higher than 75 feet if you do the setback.

Correct.

Up to what?

If you do three stories for a minimum of 45 feet from the property line.

Okay.

Okay.

I think that answers my question, at least initially about the um the reasoning.

And then I noticed in here also there's discussion about renovation versus remodel.

Did you talk about that?

No, but I can.

Um the reason the architects really um settled or sort of that stuck out to them is that renovation, um, the the first word that was there.

You can think of that as sort of like repainting your bathroom, and they don't think somebody should have to go get through the review process just because they're doing a minor alteration.

So they think that the word that they're proposing um renovation is more strenuous, and that's the reasoning that they chose to uh to change that word.

Thanks.

None nothing else for the moment.

Okay.

Are we any less or more confused?

Um, Elizabeth, you have something?

I just want to know.

I was also wondering about feedback from people, but you said that was BART specific, but have you gotten any feedback from the developers about whether or not this does incentivize them or they're open to this idea better than the one they had it before?

Are they excited to build there, or are we still trying to convince them to build?

Oh, I don't think you're gonna have to convince them to build.

But um, no, we didn't reach out to either the developers, but we did have architects on our firm just to see on our team just to see if it's possible.

Um, just let me ask Buddy, Buddy, have you ever seen a situation where an incentive like this can work?

So that you you know you reduce one place, but you're allowing it more place at a different place.

Yeah, it depends.

Um, say 10 years ago we would do that.

10 years ago we would do that because we were looking for opportunities to work with neighbors in terms of the densities near their residences.

I like the idea of incentivizing them to say, hey, look, we know you're gonna build a gross square footage.

We're cool with that.

And as he's been they've been talking about, there's gonna be a gross square footage minimum they want to reach to make it financially viable and also to work with state law.

But within that, essentially you're horse training, and you're trying to incentivize them to pull their arm because they technically don't have to listen to you.

So you put a good faith effort out there, they can pick up a good faith effort in dealing with the community, and it may ultimately for them easier process for them in the next year or two as they go through the planning process.

So with that state law in place, their hands are tied, but they can at least say, look, 75 feet next to it.

75 feet next to a single family is pretty rough.

We don't see that very often.

We don't go after that kind of thing.

So it's very rare, and that that state law is fairly unique to these specific sites, which there's not that many of them, right?

There's only so many BART stations.

But it's gonna be aggressive.

And so that's why these guys are saying, look, can we can we be reasonable about this?

Keep your gross square footage, just be reasonable along the edges where folks who are gonna be right next to you have been living in a single family one story for the last 50 years.

Anything else on that?

Um, Taylor, you have something.

I have a lot of things, but just to clarify what we're talking about right now, is this are you saying this is just for Bart specifically, or this is applied to all.

This the reason we're here tonight is for all of the housing element sites, the one that has the 75 foot tied our hands.

That's the um the big the dark blue dot on the map I showed, which is the part uh parking lots um in unincorporated Alamac Alameda County owned by BART.

Okay, so the setback though that you're talking about, or the incentive towards kind of a stacked development, that's just for BART specifically.

Correct.

That's the only place where we did that incentivizing.

Yes.

Okay.

Um I appreciate it overall because I think we're talking about community development long term and how the community is going to change.

So being mindful of the quality of life of those currently there.

Um how did you land on three stories?

Um because we were envisioning what that was probably if if what someone would probably develop there would be um uh a townhouse, sort of so single entry three-story townhouse.

So that's about 30 to 35 feet in height.

Okay.

I'm just I'm still thinking three stories.

If it were out my out of my back door, I wouldn't love, but um then with the greenscape, can you clarify a little bit?

I really appreciate again that we're thinking about the quality of life, greenery is important to health and well-being.

Um, if if you maybe could show that slide again, or um, I was just having a little bit of difficulty.

It seems like you're trying to um ideally support more of it.

But if you can, which I I'm all for, but can you explain that?

Sure.

Well, while Rodrigo's bringing up that image, the important thing to remember here is we didn't change the ordinance in a way, we didn't change that um standard.

What we did is uh require where the landscaping is applied.

Yes.

So as it was previously written, where the red X, we want to get rid of the one with the red X, that's what's existing in your document right now.

Minimum 50% landscape in the side streets required setback.

Um, and then the same for the front.

So if you can see we push the building a little bit closer to the street because our setbacks changed on these sites, and then as we've diagrammed with the hatch, we're saying it's not just that you have to do 50%, but you need to do it in a certain place, either to mask or screen surface parking for the people who are on the sidewalk, or to um make the front more presentable.

So again, we didn't change the standard, the 50% was already required.

We just started to position where you should put it.

When I'm looking at this, though, it looks like there's less greenery on the right.

It's not a it's not an it's not a uh absolute amount, it's a percentage.

So of the setback area, 50% of it has to be um landscaped.

And because we reduce the setbacks as part of the zoning code update, the buildings and and uh parking lots can get closer to the sidewalk.

So the building will get closer, so the side so the setback reduces, but you still have to landscape 50% of that resulting setback.

Maybe it's the visual that I'm struggling with, because proportionately it looks like the greenery is still reduced.

It is it has been because the setback where's my oxygen?

Let's just say the the one on the left, this the front setback is 15 feet, but uh because of the work we did in 1731, we might have reduced that to 10 feet.

So the building got closer to the sidewalk.

Same on the side street.

Um, the side setback reduced.

So the building got closer to that sidewalk.

So, yes, the green area became less, but you still have the 50% minimum that you have to hit for landscaping.

You can't just have just open green area that's in the setback.

You have to have a concerted landscaping program.

Okay, so the proposal is not concerned about the loss of greenery, it's just where it visually might be most prevalent to the majority of the populace.

Correct, because what you're correctly calling a loss of greenery is goes back to my when I first started talking.

What the architects did was is if we're gonna get the density that the housing element guaranteed on these sites, something's gotta give because we don't want to uh increase the height, we don't want to increase the density, so therefore we have to um reduce the setbacks and reduce the mandatory on site open space to create more buildable area.

Um my last question, uh well, maybe my last one, because greenery is really important to people's health, mental health, physical health.

Have we considered that?

Yes, but we said it's not just you know what it's like to drive around the light green, hardly ever gets done.

Most people just leave that as bare dirt, or maybe there's some mulch.

So what we're saying is for 50%, you need to put a landscaping program in there.

You have to really pay attention to landscaping it.

But also, I mean, it would be great if these were just you know, continue to be suburban development with big front lawns and big black back lawns, but because of the densities that the housing element require or guaranteed, if you will, we needed to find a way to get to hit those densities.

So I suppose I'm thinking too that sometimes there are more creative ways inside of these buildings of how they can create spaces that have green elements or light elements, um, and and alternatively they donate to parks.

I mean, and there are state requirements for that already, or that incentivize the developers.

So I just wasn't sure if this was the space for that or elsewhere, because it I mean there is a value.

Elsewhere in that document, you'll see that there is a lot of attention paid to what you can do with the on-site open space areas, um, both maybe like plazas and little courtyards, but also like even parts of parking lots.

Right.

So you have a multifamily development that has a fairly large surface parking lot.

There's lots of opportunities to green that to put green within that, you know, choking down the pedestrian crossing of a crosswalk and finding ways to landscape that you um got anything warned.

What was that on?

No, it's on, yes.

So I think it's important to remind ourselves that the whole purpose of the housing element is affordable housing.

And for people with disabilities uh and people that I connect with, affordable housing is critical.

So I think that um there are there are always competing values uh and competing ideas around these sorts of things, but for me, uh I always start this process by thinking about uh the the need and the importance of affordable housing.

Now, one thing that um as somebody who has been talking with um the county and BART and the city of San Leandro with the BART process, the Bayfair BART uh task force, I don't recall this particular project coming before that task force or even being discussed there.

So that may be something to think about.

I know that there's going to be some outreaches and some community events around that.

So it would be helpful, I think, to figure a way to build that this process into that process so that a community can be informed about this uh and have dialogue.

I I do feel strongly that these spaces need community dialogue, and you know, the Eden area is a div is a very diverse area, and there are a lot of different interests in the Eden area.

So I do think it's important to have that community dialogue, and I would support, I generally support this idea, but I do want I'm looking for ways to have community dialogue.

Thank you.

Uh not much for me.

I agree with all the comments my fellow board members have made.

I think you referenced earlier not having gotten input from any developers up until this point.

Is there an opportunity between now and when you go to the planning commission and or the board of supervisors to actually take that step?

Well, um thank you for that question.

That's actually why we put an architect, and I mean I'm not pointing at him, but that's why we put an architect on our team is because we didn't have an outreach or even a stakeholder uh committee to to converse with or speak with, but we felt that since our our mandate from the planning department was hey, ground check, ground truth, these standards.

So what we did was we brought in a multifamily architect that does this throughout the Bay Area all the time.

And that was sort of our um ear or voice into the development community.

Okay.

And earlier you were saying this is logical from your experience and you expect uptake.

Yeah.

Easy example on that, Ray, is that if we had to make a choice, if we were doing a development between spreading the building out and staying at say three-story or squeezing it sort of four or five, we would always go for the smaller building in terms of construction typology, fire safety, things like that.

It's gonna be a simpler uh uh way of constructing the building, and typically it's going to be more economical to build for the same amount of gross square footage.

So that's kind of the example he's been giving is that instead of trying to force them to go up, which often neighbors they're gonna be they're gonna be moaning about that, is it increasing the density just a little bit has a when you look at the entirety of a site, that's a lot of gross square footage you're doing by just easing up a little bit.

And again, we would prefer, and we hear from developers all the time that they would prefer to keep it low in terms of particularly fire code that affects a type three versus type one or type five construction, and also just in terms of economics of it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Nothing else, Diane.

Okay, I just I just had a couple things.

One um for excuse me for the green, which is what 22 to 44 units.

Is that we generally speaking, that would be like three stories?

Is that is that right, right?

That would be a minimum, I would think.

Minimum.

Yeah.

And that would probably need to go up to uh what was the top number that you said 45?

22 to 44 units for green.

So I think you're probably speaking by three to five floors.

Three to five floors in a residential area.

It sounds like a rather high to me.

And the other thing that I don't know if anyone can clarify this, but we the state talks in number of units.

You need so many number of units, so we can have X number of people, but a unit could be a single bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom.

So that could be anywhere from six people to nine people to one person, all somehow mingled into how many units we have.

What's what's the what's the general thinking for the average number per unit?

Three bedrooms or two bedrooms.

I'm thinking that a one bedroom would be like less likely.

I would have to ask Rodrigo, but I know Bay Area wide, the three bedroom units for families is not built as often as studios ones and twos bedrooms.

So, but I'm not sure if they've if you even have data that talks to that.

But okay.

And I just I want to follow up on well, I want to follow up.

Just remember, um, Chair.

When at the first you said that's a lot in a in a residential neighborhood.

But keep in mind we're not changing um what the housing element has already approved in terms of density and height.

I understand.

These heights and densities are already there.

We're just trying to make it realistic so that the county doesn't run afoul with uh HCD.

I understand that.

So do you know like what the tip of what the what the dwelling or bedroom count is kind of breaking out at Landy?

Yeah, it it all depends.

It depends on what where we are, location, access to transit, demographics, uh, income, um, amount of density near us, uh, services nearby.

Uh just depends.

We do a lot of student housing, it's particularly four and five bedroom, if it's near campus, for example.

If we're moving farther away, uh we're gonna start looking at more family type developments, three and four beds.

But in terms of the rents, typically are higher as you get smaller, right?

Rents per foot.

And so part of that is that well, it costs more to build because you're putting more kitchens, more bathrooms in, right?

Because they're smaller, but you still have that one kitchen and one bath for say for a studio versus a one bed.

But to answer your original question, it just depends on where we are.

And he's got quite this you got quite a broad variety of of locations here in the in the county.

So okay, thank you.

Um, all right.

Let's um see if we have any comments from the public.

I also just wanted to point out quickly that even though it's a very, very, very tall building, it's still residential.

If it's an apartment building or a multifamily housing unit building, it's all residences if people live there.

Randy Wage.

I thought it would just come up and uh commend them for some really creative solutions, I think to this.

Um, and I do think it's a good idea with the Bay Fair site to have kind of that incentive where you have the kind of lower buildings and then higher density um or higher buildings in the middle.

Um not in the middle, but closer to the BART station.

Because when I think when I'm writing BART, sometimes you look at like the Sal Leandro or Oakland Bart station, and they have those giant skyscrapers right there.

And if I lived in a house there, yeah, I would want it to be lower.

I mean, you could probably lose your your son almost.

Um I also did want to ask.

Did I understand that on the map?

Is um is that San Lorenzo in there for that the green part?

So that that would be the one that would be like three to five stories, and then the the shrunk up landscaping, right?

So we'd get closer to Hisparian, is what I'm gathering.

Yeah, okay.

And I do remember what the Demons Partners project, which kind of failed, unfortunately, but it seemed like there were a lot of one bedroom, right?

And two bedroom.

It didn't seem like it went higher up with that as far as um so and then I always thought it was always interesting, even though we have all these things with the housing to still encourage you know, multi-use, even though it you know we have this housing element.

Anyway, thank you for your time.

No more speakers.

Thank you.

Is there not very many people online tonight?

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Um, all right, no more public speakers.

Is there any uh other comments or discussion from the council?

Taylor?

Yeah.

Uh I think overall, I I really appreciate the proposal and the intentions behind it.

Um we're here for the goal to create housing, obviously, and to create more affordable housing.

That's that's um a very important cause, but that's not at the sake of people's enjoyment in the enjoyment in where they live.

It should be affordable and a good a good place to live.

They're entitled to everything else.

Sunlight, greenery.

Um so I appreciate that effort to try and provide that for those people who currently live there and future development.

Um I can make a motion if you would like.

Yes, you may make a motion.

Um I wouldn't motion I wish there was more greenery, but I know that's the developer's choice.

So I'll I'll motion to proceed and to approve.

That we would that we would accept accept the proposal.

So we would accept the proposal.

Is there a second?

Yes.

Um sorry, Warren.

Do it again.

So your mic's on.

Sure.

I will second the motion.

Okay, thank you, Warren.

So it's been moved and seconded.

Is there early any other discussion?

Yes.

I just can you just explain one more time what the incentive is exactly?

I just am not clear.

Just say it in like a different word phrasing.

Yeah, we're still a little bit um confused about the ins the incentive.

So yeah, that's a good point.

It's only on that one site.

Why don't you go to the map first?

Uh Rodrigo, the map that zero zoomed in on Eden area.

It's it's yeah, on the at the BART station site, right?

Rodrigo's computer is thinking.

Well, just go back up.

So just make sure to the Eden area map.

Okay, so we're only talking about the dark blue site up at the top.

That's the only place where this piece of incentivized text exists.

Okay, now go down.

So right now, because of SB79, the state has said this is um a transit-oriented development as per SB 79.

So within a half mile, you county cannot make a maximum height less than 75 feet.

So we had to do that.

This happened at right at the time we were amend proposing our amendments.

So for that entire site, the state is saying you you cannot make anything less than 75 for the site and for a half a mile from the site.

Right.

Okay.

So um, so yeah, but this is the only one that's vacant right now.

So and this is the only site that affects us because we're only looking at housing element sites.

And this one was in the housing element as an opportunity site.

Okay.

So what we decided to do is knowing there was concerns by the neighbors and even people who don't live right here of trying to address 75 feet in the backyard of a single family home.

We came up with the incentive, which is the next slide.

So that says, hey, if in this green area, which is approximately 40, well, it's exactly 45 feet from the property line.

Hey, developer, if you can keep your maximum height to three stories here.

Because we can't just say do it because that would break state law.

But if developer, if you do that, we will allow you to exceed the 75 foot maximum height limit elsewhere on the site.

Up to 125 feet.

Correct.

Or 12 stories.

Okay.

So again, it's trying to say if you if we if you give us this, we'll give you that.

Do we think it's most likely that it will be one developer who develops the site into one larger?

I would imagine it's probably going to be more than one, but I don't know.

And I know BART's working on that right now, and they have some things that are working with the county, but that's a pretty large site.

And um I don't know, it could be more than one, or it could be, I'm sure it's gonna be more than one building, but um, I'm I don't know.

So it's possible that some might take the incentive and some might not.

Correct.

Okay.

That was helpful.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um personal point of discussion is that um I know the county is being pushed into this because the state is making these demands, but all of the Macs um did not approve of this housing element in the first place.

And I don't know how I'll have to think about this.

Perhaps we vote, but I don't know how you can reconcile um within myself, approving changes to something that I don't approve the initial change of.

It's just it's a contradiction in my head.

So that's kind of where that's just my point of discussion is it's um I think it's gonna happen because it has to happen.

But um that's that's just my point of discussion.

Anyone else?

Any other um all right?

Would you like to take the vote then?

Does I council member Aston Nielsen?

Hi.

Councilmember Mara Mahoko?

Yes, council member roll.

Aye.

Councilmember Stanley?

Yes, Councilmember Cushman.

Yes, Chair Weidler.

Um, no.

All right, think thank you, everybody.

Uh thank you for your presentation.

All right, the next thing on our agenda is um it's for uh planning number 2025, 00167.

It's for um splitting of a parcel from well, let the ex I'll let the presenter explain it, but basically it's splitting a residential parcel into multiple um parcels for more housing units.

And we have William will William Chin will explain this to us.

Thank you, Chair.

This is William with Alamy County Plan Departments.

Um, and correct, this is a subdivision of an existing uh parcel to three separate parcels.

Um it is a vesteding vesting tensitive parcel map, um, parcel map 11576 to subdivide one parcel to three parcels um with the intent to develop two new single family detached dwelling units and two attached accessory dwelling units and um keeping the remainder of the single family home in the front parcel one.

The location is at 21164 Garden Avenue in Hayward Acres, and the zoning is suburban residential, allowing density variables.

So each each uh resulting parcel needs a minimum of 3,500 square feet um in lot area.

And it's with the medium density residential uh general plan land use designation in the Eden area general plan.

Um, and for in terms of CEQA, it's considered a minor um land subdivision.

Um so on the screen here is the both gross and net um sizes of the resulting parcels.

The net parcel size that exists is 17,407 square feet.

Parcel A will have a net resulting parcel size of 3758.

Parcel B would have a net parcel size of 4,668.

And parcel C in the in the rear will be 5,526 net square feet.

They're not proposing over the maximum permitted density of 22 units per acre.

For this specific general plan, it allows 10 to 22 units per acre.

And they're proposing well, total of one existing home and two new detached single-family dwellings, and then two new uh attached accessory dwellings to those new single-family homes.

So there are specific development standards that they would have to meet, for example, uh minimum lot sizes, parking, um setbacks, and as well as maximum height.

And in this table in front of you, there are is a breakdown of what the minimum standards that are required, and um each breakdown of the resulting um major development standards that these uh new units would meet.

Um, and for ADU specifically, there are reduced development standards.

For example, the height um does go if it's attached, it goes by the permitted height of the existing single-family home or the permitted or the proposed single-family home.

Um, and they do have a reduced setback of four feet versus for the single family home, they need a minimum setback of five feet from the sides and 20 for the rear.

But the ADUs only require a four feet side and rear yard setback.

Um the staff does recommend that the Eden Area Municipal Advisory Council recommend approval of the subdivision um in front of you to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

Uh, planning staff will convey um the discussion and a recommendation from Eden MAC to the decision body, which is the planning director.

Um, and if you recommend approval to the board of supervisors, uh staff uh recommends that you take consideration the conditions of approval in the staff report.

And staff is available available for any questions you may have.

Um, and the architect is also in the audience for any questions you may have as well.

Thank you.

All right, let me start with Ray.

You have any questions, Ray, right at this moment, questions or comments.

I drove by and walked past the uh address.

Uh nothing stood out to me that was um out of the ordinary, and I am supportive of infill housing because of our housing crisis.

Um I'll pass on any questions.

Okay, well, something might come to you.

Um anyone have anything specific?

I see Elizabeth looking.

Does the owner live there and are they planning to stay there during this process and keep one of them as their own residence?

Or do we know?

That I'm not sure of whether it's currently owner-occupied, it could be for rent, but uh I don't have that information, unfortunately.

Um like Ray, I because of the housing crisis.

I I'm inclined to support this project.

I don't have any questions either.

I think I'm content at the moment.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Taylor.

I'm all right, thank you.

I briefly looked at it on Google Maps, and it looks like it would benefit from the redevelopment.

So I support um this initiative uh also due to the need for housing in our area.

Okay, I must just be contrary tonight, but um why why is how do you have an addition to something that doesn't exist?

This is asking to build to split a parcel and build two new housing, two new houses.

And then add an ADU.

But I understand the concept in ADU because houses were already built.

And then people said, Oh, I have all this yard space, so can I build an additional one?

Why is why is combining a house with an ADU making it an additional?

Why isn't it two housing units, two houses?

So they they technically are two separate units.

Um the accessory dwelling units for this proposal are separate units, but they're separated as from with a wall.

Um so you could view it as like a townhouse that's attached.

Um, but typically it would provide an incentive.

It is an additional units that could be marketed, market rate marketed along with the single family home.

And it seems to me that what we're allowing though is an ADU doesn't require any parking.

And an ADU doesn't require setbacks.

So instead of having two or who knows, maybe three units each with a garage, we're saying we're gonna build two units and we're gonna throw an ADU in there that doesn't have the same requirements as a whole unit.

I just don't, I don't get the concept.

It seems like a loophole to me in by at by saying I'm gonna build a house in an ADU, it seems like a loophole in having to provide a garage and proper setbacks and the same amount of open space as for a single single units or two or three single units.

So the accessory dwelling unit regulations, um development standards are decided by the state.

Um so ADUs do require parking, but if they're within a half mile walking distance of a bus stop or public transit or within a historical district, or there's um like a shared vehicle uh for rental on the streets, um that would qualify as or that would exempt it from providing additional parking.

Correct.

But if they build a house, two houses instead of a house and an ADU, they only need parking for the house, right?

Correct.

Correct.

But if they build two houses, they need how houses for the house.

I mean, parking for the house and the other house.

But if you the other house is an ADU, it doesn't need parking, and it gets different setbacks.

So there's two separate sets of development standards that apply to the single family home and a completely set of development standards for the ADU.

Yes.

Okay.

But but the single family home still requires parking unless there is a state exemption um for parking, for example, AB 2097, if it's within a high quality transit area, for example, half mile from BART, the um the new single family home proposed, if it is within half half mile of BART, they do not have to provide any parking at all.

For for a house for a sink for a house too.

But if there's no, if it doesn't meet any of the exemptions, um state laws, then they would have to provide the required parking uh that's uh objective standards for the local level.

Okay, Rabika, yeah, you have yeah, and just some clarification.

So what Willem's saying is is absolutely correct.

I think your question is how can we designate this as an ADU when there's no house there yet and it's gonna be built at the same time as the house?

And that's what the state says.

So the state is saying they can call it an ADU, they can just on a piece of paper when they submit the plans, write the letters ADU, and we have to, as long as it meets the size maximum and the circumstance, um, then we have to consider it as an ADU, and we have to uh regulate it as an ADU, even though it's being installed at the exact same time as the house.

So the circumstance uh is there's a certain number of ADUs that you're allowed per property, and so if it's within that number of ADUs that is being proposed, even if it's at the same time as the house, it can be uh designated as an ADU.

What cannot happen is that the ADU goes in first and gets final uh occupancy because there's no house for it to go with.

As long as the house is built at the same time and they're under the same building permits and they're and they're approved at the same time, then it can be designated ADU as long as it again meets the size requirements and meets the circumstance requirements.

So basically you're telling me that the the state is telling us that we can't deny this anyway.

If if they qualify as an ADU being built at the same time as the house, we cannot say no, we don't believe you that it's an ADU because the site is currently vacant.

Sure sounds like a way to get around um having parking and setbacks to me, but if that's what the state says, I guess it's not for us to we can't change it.

All right, any other discussion?

I was gonna ask, I mean, if it meets all the requirements, why does it come to us for a vote?

So it's a subdivision application.

Um typically for subdivisions, they would have to go through the Mac and then or a public hearing process and then um decide on by the decision body.

So the question is not whether or not to approve an ADU or the plans, it's to divide the parcel.

Correct.

Thank you.

Um, I almost forgot the public.

Do we have any um public comment on this?

Did I do that already?

No speaker.

Thank you.

Sorry.

No comment.

Okay.

All right.

So is there any other discussion?

Did mine already?

Right.

If not, then do we have a motion?

We do, right?

Yeah, but I'll move the project.

Oh shoot, sorry, one yes.

I'll move the project.

Thank you.

Sir Second.

Also, okay.

Thank you.

All right.

No other discussion, right?

Okay, still roll call though.

Thank you.

Councilmember Aston Nielsen.

Aye.

Council Member Mar Mahogo.

Yes.

Council Member Roll.

Aye.

Council Member Stanley.

Yes.

Councilmember Cushman.

Aye.

Chair Weidler.

Aye.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Um number three is conditional use permit.

Um, this is for um a CUP renewal for um say cell tower, correct?

Yes.

Yes, all right.

Um could you please bring up good evening everyone?

Um, this is Marl Esmiley Planner with Alameda County Planning Department, and tonight I'm presenting uh the conditional use permit renewal case PLN number 2025-00217 located at 2114 mission boldware.

Next slide, please.

The item is a renewal of the existing um expired conditional use permit for an um existing facility.

The monopole and equipment were originally approved on uh 2011, and the permit expired on August 2022.

The facility has remained in place and operational, and the applicant um submitted the request the request to renew the permit on October 2025.

Um the item um I'm sorry, the property owner is um Epic Wireless Group and um the applicant John uh Coss.

Um he is not available, so uh the stand in for him is Megan Graham that um she's joining um removely and um would be available for any question later after the presentation.

Um so the site is located on mission uh boulevard and is designated general commercial and medium high density residential under Eden Area General Plan and zoned as corridor mixed use residential with overlay uh with auto overlay.

Um so because this is an existing facility with no physical exemption or modification proposed, the project is categoric categorically exempt from uh California Environmental Quality Act, Section 15301, class one existing facilities.

Next slide, please.

Um T Mobile Pro proposes the continue operation of the existing telecommunication monopole, and the renewal is for a continued operation of T Mobile for no changes to the existing one.

So no antennas, no no expansion or equipment or any changes to the height or design of the monopole would occur.

Uh and we hope in an area municipal advisory council recommend for approval um of the conditional use permit renewal to the board of zoning adjustments.

Next slide, please.

This slide shows the location of the subject property along with mission boulevard um and cherry way.

Uh the site is developed with a building that uh currently operate as um children, child care or a learning center YMCA of East Bay.

The surrounding area is a mix of commercial uses along Mission Boulevard and residential uses in the surrounding neighborhood, which is typically for the um corridor.

And the telecommunication pole is located toward the rear portion of the property away from the street frontage.

Um across mission boulevard, there are auto-oriented coming uh commercial uses and residential units as well.

And the property um is also bordered to the rear of uh the county flat uh flood uh controlled canal beyond uh which single family residents are located.

Next slide.

So here is the photograph showing the existing monopole located on the rare yard area of Y MCA Learning Center.

And the pole is designated as a slim line monopole, meaning that antennas are concealed within the structure itself and it's not mounted externally.

So because it's placed the placement is behind the building and within the site interior, the facility has limited visibility from mission boulevard and surrounding properties.

Next slide, please.

This slide summarized the existing infrastructure in the SA on the side.

The facility consists of a 44 44-foot tall monopole, nine antennas, and three uh remote radio units, all supporting equipment which are located on the ground level directly below the pole.

Within a small list area, and um which is enclosed by a chain link fence.

Um this slide also shows the site layout of the property.

The telecommunication lease area is um relatively small compared to the overall parcel and the position behind the main building.

Um it's positioned behind the main building.

Um access to the equipment area is provided through the existing driveway and internal uh circulation area of the site at a YMCA learning center on the backyard.

So the layout shows that facility to be maintained without interfacing with the primary use of the property.

Um the elevation also um illustrates the uh the relationship between the building and the monopole.

The pole extends above the roof line, but maintain a slander profile designated uh designed to reduce the visual impacts.

So the antennas are enclosed within the pole uh structure, and facility appears more like a simple vertical pole rather than a typical um exposed cellular tower.

Next slide, please.

So the second elevation also provides another perspective showing the pole uh position behind the building from most angles along the street.

The building itself helps uh screen portions of the structure, which further reduce the visual um impacts.

Next slide, please.

So this photo, um, which is the aerial um street view from Google Map, uh shows the view of the site from Mission Boulevard.

The monopole um is kind of behind the that actual palm tree.

Um, and the original design was included a flag uh feature um on the pole, which is not currently um shown on the drawing, and the applicant is indicated that they're um willing they're open to uh reinstall if needed.

Um next slide, please.

So staff reviewed the project for consistency with Eden Area General Plan and County Zoning Regulation.

The general plan encouraged development patterns that support quality of life and efficient use of a land uh along commercial corridors.

Um, however, telecommunication facilities are not specifically listed on the zoning district.

They are um evaluated under the county's telecommunication development standard, which allow these facilities through uh conditional use permit.

Next slide, please.

Um staff also evaluated the proposal under the county's telecommunication facility um standard.

Uh these policies require that telecommunication infrastructures could be designed and located to minimize visual um impacts and be compatible with the surrounding land uses, such as policy I-2 and policy A-2 stated.

In this case, the facility is located in a commercial corridor placed behind an existing building and um designed as a concealed slim line monopole, which help to meet these policy objectives per policy B1 and B2.

Um, next slide, please.

Oh, sorry, if you we could get back to the previous slide.

Um also um federal regulation administrated by FCC limit the ability of local jurisdictions to deny telecommunication facilities, solidly based on the concerns related to radio frequency um emissions.

Next slide, please.

So uh based on the staff review, the project is consistent with the area general plan, county zoning regulation and telecommunication sitting standards.

For these uh reasons, staff recommend that Eden Area Municipal Advisory Council recommend approval of the conditional use permit pln um 2025-00217.

Um to to the West of Boarding Zone to the West Board of Zoning Adjustments for the continued operation of this telecommunication facility for another 10 years.

And that includes my um presentation.

I'm ready for any questions.

Okay, thank you.

Um Taylor, you have anything?

No.

Elizabeth.

Yeah, I live near here.

I know that the learning center is fairly new.

And so part of me is like, why did they build it there if the tower was already there?

Um I've seen some literature in that area opposing this.

So I just wanted to mention that there is some concern about that, but given that it says right there we can't say no to it just because of those concerns.

I feel like we're our hands are sort of tied.

Um so as much as I'm not for it, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot I can do about it.

So that's my thank you.

Um nothing, thank you.

Megan.

Um it expired in 2022, but it's been continually in use since then.

Um, yes, it's usually on the courier's responsibility to keep up and um keep their permits valid and reach out to the county for the renewal, but it happens that they're gonna be delayed with uh with their submitals.

And this specific um application was submitted um on October 2025, but took so far.

A little bit late.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, it's in use, sounds like.

So we'll just formalize it, perhaps.

Thank you.

Ray.

Uh just a few things.

So on the expiration, have they continued back pay?

Have they continued to pay?

Um, so yes, uh, thanks for the question.

Currently, the county does not have a penalty program for uh operating without permits.

The what happens uh with code enforcement is that we uh send them notices uh to uh operate and then uh depending on the carrier or their agent, they'll um they'll contact the carrier, and that takes several months to prepare the documentation to to submit to us uh any updates and to verify that in fact they're not gonna propose any changes.

So by the time the the permit is about to expire, which is usually a couple months before it expires, we send out notices.

Um if they don't respond, we'll send out notices at the time of expiration that they have expired.

We uh give them a couple of weeks to say, okay, well, now we're sending code enforcement out there to begin fines and fees.

That's when they reach out to us and say, hold on, uh we're we're um we're gathering our documentation and we'll send you the application shortly.

And so with that, the intent is to encourage compliance, not to impose fines.

Uh everything you said makes sense for the fines.

My question was specific to the fees, Rodrigo.

Like, do the do they keep paying even after it expired August 2022?

So they pay an application to review the conditional use permit.

Okay.

There are no fees from us.

There's only fees when they reapply to review the new conditional use permit application.

So in theory, we have the county has missed out on revenue from from expiration in 2022 until the reapplication.

It's delayed revenue, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

So then related to that question, I am convinced this is the second time in the last six months that this has happened.

It does my memory serve me correct.

It serves you very correctly.

It happens a lot with these carriers.

We're chasing them down constantly.

Okay.

And I I can't remember exactly, but I thought it was it wasn't either of you two who presented the last time this happened.

I remember that the tower is down near the Hayward shoreline area when it happened.

And I thought the gentleman said that there was a system being put in place so that this wouldn't happen again.

So yeah, so so we're basically sending out notices um ahead of expiration dates, and several carriers do come in at before expiration.

Some still don't.

Um we're trying to do is uh there there's a comprehensive update to our telecommunications ordinance we need to do anyway.

So part of that is to impose penalties when they have expired.

Uh but that has to go through council.

Then also we have to justify the those penalties and do surveys with other jurisdictions to make sure that those uh penalties are adequate.

So it's it's currently in the works.

Okay.

So then should we assume that this latest one is an example of the new system starting to work to try to catch the delinquent?

Yes, and that in that um we're catching them much much earlier than we would have in the past.

Sometimes it's been seven years that they're out, and we yeah.

Okay.

Uh so I acknowledge the progress.

Thank you.

But just for the record, this is still happening, and obviously that's less than ideal.

Um is it always a 10 year renewal?

Because I thought it was shorter in duration.

So it is shorter when there is a land use uh reasoning um behind it.

Um otherwise it's a minimum of 10 years that we can impose on them.

So for example, you get two carriers on the same property, one applies in year A, the other one applies two years later.

On the first one, we can impose an eight year expiration.

Yeah, or however that works to so that they both come in at the same time, and let's say that they both need landscaping that they need to install, then we can coordinate their expirations.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Um more question for Diane, if I could.

Sorry, for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, uh I'm somewhat familiar with that YMCA facility that you mentioned.

What are the concerns you that you had said have been made about this uh installation?

There were flyers posted in the shopping center next door.

Um basically went on and on about the impacts of the radioactive frequencies and um basically it's all like preschool age kids in there.

So um they had just kind of elaborated on why they don't think that was a good idea.

But since the poll was there first, I do seem like maybe they shouldn't have picked that location, but it is a brand new building, and it was just made maybe five years ago.

So it is literally right next to where the kids are.

So that aside, it doesn't seem to be anything any of us can do about it.

It did encourage people to come to our meeting, but that was for March when we were supposed to have done this.

I don't see anybody here who did come.

But um I understand their concerns, but like even if we did say no, it doesn't seem like there's anything.

I mean, even you guys like you they're following all the rules finally, maybe delayed, but um personally I'm not for it, but it's already there, they're both there in the same place.

So it's kind of conflicting, but uh personally I'll probably say no here, but it doesn't seem like it matters, but just to make myself feel better, I'll say no, I think.

I um I I believe that most of the times they do they do studies for the rays that are being um for the exposure, yeah, to the cell phone, I mean tell um I don't even know what to call them, but they they do tests and and they have to meet standards anyway, right?

So we wouldn't be approving it if it didn't meet the safety standards already set up for cell phone towers, correct?

Yeah, they have to provide a radio frequency report.

Uh and uh those reports always say that they're they meet the Federal Communications Commission standards for uh output.

Uh and so uh so on that basis alone, they always remind us we can't deny it based on based on that fear for radio frequencies alone.

We can say, well, we don't like the aesthetics, uh mostly it's basic aesthetics based, but in this case it's a monopole that blends into the skyline.

Okay, I think yeah, it's I think it's come up before.

I where you raised a point that I um I just hadn't looked at before, but the the CUP is the amount of money that the that the owner of something like the cell phone tower would just pay for the CUP, but it's the person who owns a property that's leasing that tower um to that to whatever company has put up the tower.

So whether they get paid or not is between the person who owns a property and the people who own the cell phone tower, right?

Okay.

That's that's what I figured.

Um I don't have anything else.

Is there anything um public comment?

Chuck Meadows.

I think you need you need your um you need your spot.

Sorry.

Good evening.

My name is Chuck Meadows.

What I like to discuss is neither the opposition to the tower or either pro or against.

What I'd like to talk about is the planning process that these cell towers go through, what I consider to be a major flaw in the process.

I sat at a BCA meeting recently where an 80-foot tower twice the height of this one was being proposed in Fairview.

The ATT rep basically came to the BZA and said, we don't even have to be here.

We're coming here as a courtesy, and I that we can ignore your board of supervisors as well.

And I was absolutely astounded by this position.

But county council agreed with it.

Evidently, there is a federal, what's called a shot clock, which basically mandates very tight timelines where local bodies, including our board of supervisors, if they do not meet a specific 30, 60 or 180 day timeline, it is deemed approved.

Assuming it meets the safety standards, but it's deemed approved and no objections can be raised.

Now, what I suggest is that when these cell tower applications come into planning, they get tagged and fast tracked and coordinated with the approval bodies, the MACs, the BZA, and the Board of Supervisors, being cognizant of these deemed approval deadlines, so that you're not faced like the BZA was where it's a feta complet, where you're basically being told as a courtesy, not as a body to approve it.

Now, I'll point out since we do have planning here, there's one potential loophole that could be applied, but it's a legal gray zone.

A body may impose what's called a tolling agreement, which is they said they suspend the deadlines if we have these kind of long intervals from our our planning meetings.

For example, you guys meet once a month, which means if you guys didn't make the meeting tonight, that 30-day deadline could be passed before you even hear this subject.

It'd be over and it'd be done.

So put a fast track, impose a tolling agreement based on the monthly meetings so that everyone has time to review them.

And if they do not agree to a tolling agreement, consider the application incomplete, which is a valid basis for delaying the approval.

Thank you.

Rosemary Vasquez, you're on the line.

Um I am uh fully aware of what this whole is at.

Um this building was already, it was a remodel, not built.

So the the um the center, uh the childcale center came in um post-pandemic um by YMCA.

I my concern is always uh for the children.

Um that building was not um just like anything else in there, it was not a uh single family home, it was not a child care provider, it was an office building.

Um, but now that it is, uh, what are we doing to I'm not saying deny it, I'm just saying protecting.

I'm saying about what are they doing to make sure that kids that are there?

Mind you, there are kids from zero to five years old that are there.

These are children in cribs that are there.

So what are we doing to protect them from the radiation that inevitably comes from those towers?

So I'm not saying remove it, I'm not saying you know, whatever it is, because we need it.

We all need cell phone, okay?

So I we get it, but that doesn't take away for us to really really look into what are they doing if there need additional wrapping?

Is there anything additional that could be done to make sure that the children?

And mind you, they're low-income children that come to YMCA.

These are not the kids from affluent families.

So we need to protect them.

I'm just asking to make sure that that is happening.

So they're not even putting the um the um applications in a timely fashion.

How do we know that they're keeping it safe?

Thank you.

No more speakers.

Okay, thank you.

Um can I ask um staff just to make a note of the the processing and the timeline and if as Chuck was saying, after a certain period of time, it's it's kind of out of our control.

I mean, we get some rules like that.

If you don't if you don't act on something in a certain time frame, can you just double check on that?

So we understand that part of the process.

Either some I just wanted you.

So yes, so that's so that's true that there's a the there's a timeline that things must be acted upon.

Um and and um the speaker was correct in that um there is a gray area where the tolling agreements come in.

So in a lot of applications, when they do come in, staff will ask an applicant, hey, you're missing XYZ bit of information.

And so we will we will say, okay, now you're we send out what's called an incomplete letter and say now your application is considered incomplete.

And so the clock technically stops while they the balls in their court for them to submit any updated information that may be necessary to take the project to hearing.

So it's it's uh the the timelines are 30 days to determine application complete or incomplete, six days after that for to uh come to decision and then take it to public hearing.

So, but within that, if there's uh any time on the applicant, then the clock stops.

And for this specific application, I'd we'd have to like check the file to find out where the clock is, what day it is now.

Okay, thank you.

Um other stuff.

Any other council um comments?

Oh, wait.

Okay, there you go.

Yeah, so you know, I'm gonna support this, but I I do feel like there are a number of balls in the air on this whole idea.

It's not so much this project, but the idea of the timelines, the idea of uh money maybe not being collected, the idea of you know, things getting away from planning.

I understand that I'm sure it's very difficult to track all these different cell phone towers in in the planning department.

Um it's a challenging process, but it would be helpful if you know if there is going to be a new ordinance being moved forward in in the near future to streamline these processes with the uh communications and the cell phone towers.

Um, we'd love to, I'd I'd certainly like to be more aware of those processes as they move forward.

And I would love to uh you know to see those be more effective and so that we don't waste our time or that planning doesn't waste its time.

Uh, we we don't want to we don't want to have to you know um lose focus on this.

So thank you very much.

Anyone else?

Can I just ask um regarding the radio frequency reports that we get that show what they admit and I mean, have there any been any issues?

And if there is an issue, what's the process?

Um, if uh report were to, you know, flag levels higher than the FCC allows.

So um if if then they don't choose that site if there's um okay.

So so one of the more recent examples is is the um the new affordable housing building on East 14th um Madrone Terrace next to Terra Vasquez Health Clinic.

So there was um a um existing cell phone tower there, it was like in the form of a monopine, and the building was built afterwards.

Um the monopline had to relocate for better um um access to the East 14th Street, where they were going to relocate uh was subject to a lease from Hard who was purchased who had purchased the site and was building a park, and so there was a limited space where they could relocate too.

Uh and so the proposed relocation came back with radio frequencies that were too high and would expose people in that building.

So they actually could not proceed with their conditional use permit application to relocate until they came up with uh some modifications to the design of the tower itself, because the building was already up, and actually the construction of the building uh was uh put on hold since the tower was there first, the construction of the building was put on hold until the the tower could relocate.

So, in that circumstance, um the report uh dictated what modifications needed to be done ultimately to the tower in order to deem it safe for the occupants of the building and for the construction workers working on the roof and the upper floors of that building to finish it.

So, in that case, um there it was flagged because there was movement with the tower, it sounds like it had to be relocated, but I guess when there is not relocation, like before you all recommend that we vote yes on this, do you all check the reports to make sure there's no issues with it?

Or are we assuming that if it passed once it passes every time?

Well, so the reports are are so we we don't have the expertise to check the reports, we don't have a third-party verif verification on the reports.

We rely on the stamp of the engineering uh firm that that produces those reports.

Uh so when we read the reports, they come back that they are under uh thresholds for for effect.

So, Jen, just to be explicit for this particular project, was the report checked prior to um coming to the board to conditional use permit?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

All right, anything else?

Anyone have a motion?

I'll motion to approve.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

The motion was to approve.

I'll second.

Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Oh, sorry, really just yeah.

And just to clarify uh your motion, your your motion is technically to recommend approval to the board of supervisors, and then uh staff will take your recommendation to the board of supervisors.

Thank you, to the uh decision-making body, which in this case is that was county board of zoning adjustments.

Correct.

Yes.

That's exactly what I was uh motioning to do.

All right, thank you.

Okay, one real call vote, please.

Councilmember Aston Nielsen.

Aye.

Councilmember Marmahoku?

Yes.

Council member roll.

Aye.

Councilmember Stanley, no.

Councilmember Cushman?

Yes.

Chair Weidler, yes.

Motion passes.

All right, thank you.

Okay, the last thing on our agenda is this has come up many times.

So hopefully most of you will remember.

Is this a report and recommendations for an office of unincorporated communities, which is which is us.

Um I'm gonna say kind of um in conjunction with having the Macs.

Yes.

All right.

And your um Brian.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you, members of the Mac for having me and uh those in the audience and online.

Um, for those of you I don't know, my name is Brienne Gala, and I've spent um the last 15 years working at the intersection of community development, affordable housing development, and public policy.

Um, and I spent, I guess more than a decade.

I think I met you, Diane, about a decade ago when I started doing more work here in the unincorporated communities.

Sorry, I have a lot of paper and a lot of information to get through.

So bear with me.

Um, I'm here actually on contract today with the board of supervisors to present my research and recommendations for an office of unincorporated communities.

Many of you have heard, kind of as Diane mentioned, um, different calls for an office of unincorporated communities.

Um, the idea has been raised by community members from as far back as the Eden Area Livability Initiative.

So I do just want to acknowledge that these ideas are not my own.

Um, they've been coming up for years in the community, and then in some ways, I think a lot of folks first wanted to make sure we had an Eden Mac, a fairview Mac, like we had a lot of the um other civic infrastructure in place before pursuing this idea.

Um, so this report that I'm gonna be um presenting today is really the first step in outlining um and bringing to life kind of what this vision could look like, what the structure could look like.

Um, and so before I jump in and I'll go over and kind of get to the slide deck.

Um, I also just want to be clear about my role here.

Um, I'm not coming to you with a predetermined answer.

Um, what I'm uh presenting on today really reflects um what I've heard from residents from reviewing many, many Mac meetings, um, from just talking with community-based organizations and from interviewing or over 40 um staff and leaders within the county.

Um and so my job was really to listen to synthesize um and reflect back what the data is telling us, and my recommendations really follow from that, not the other way around.

Um, so here's my uh there's the overview of the presentation today.

I'll be going over my research and findings, um, and then I'll lay out the recommendations and a path forward.

Um this is an action item, so we will um uh take a vote at the end and and of course have time for public comment.

Um so next slide, and thank you to the hook.

Um okay, so again, my objective for um this project was to research and recommend a design for the Office of Unincorporated Communities.

Next slide.

The uh question that really framed my research was can Alameda County strengthen how it governs and manages its unincorporated communities to meet the demands of the moment.

Um residents, as you guys know, residents in Alameda County's unincorporated communities have no single point of accountability in their government.

Unlike our neighboring cities, there is no city manager.

Um, there isn't a unified structure responsible for setting vision, coordinating all the different agencies and departments, or ensuring the outcomes are met.

Alameda County fills that role, but its systems were never designed to function like a city.

And this mismatch is really um what this project was designed to solve.

And so I will be getting into that as I go.

Um next slide.

Uh next slide, sorry.

So now I'll be going into my research.

Um the way I approached this project was kind of through four different um components.

The first is an organizational scan.

So really I looked at a lot of different um adopted county plans and policies, including the environmental justice element, the vision 2036 framework, uh, the Baker Tilly report, and the general and neighborhood specific plans.

Um, like I mentioned, I interviewed over 40 different staff and directors across numerous county agencies and departments.

Um I participated in the unincorporated budget input process that took place this fall, that you guys were all active in contributing to.

Um, and then we also interviewed um a range of different counties.

So we interviewed LA, Sacramento, Marin, and Contra Costa counties.

I think this was a really um kind of interesting point that people raised is like wanting to see what other folks were doing and really learn from best practices around the state.

So I'll actually next slide.

Um, oh, well, here's just a snapshot of all the different um counties and um and agencies and departments that I interviewed within the county.

So um all of the different departments within CDA, special districts like HAR, the library, sheriff's office, the social services agency, fire, environmental health, all the district offices.

Um, and I interviewed folks kind of at the agency director level as well as um folks working kind of more in operational roles within the agencies.

Um next slide, please.

Um so just to again kind of put Alameda in context across the state.

Um, I did not we interview um counties that are primarily like where the unincorporated communities are primarily just rural, like kind of the Central Valley Ag areas.

So really tried to focus on counties where there's a blend of urban and rural areas.

Um, and so Alameda County has about 8% of our population living in its unincorporated area, so about 150,000 people.

Um if we look nearby at Marin, okay.

So in Alameda County, as we know, we don't have a dedicated office or dedicated coordinating function, but we do have, of course, our Max and Instinal, the Citizens Advisory Council.

If we look to Marin, we see, of course, Marin's a much smaller county, but we do see about 16% of residents living in its in the unincorporated communities.

And what the way they've tried to address this is they've created two positions within their CEO.

Now they have a CEO office, but kind of their former CAO office.

They created two positions there, one dedicated to their rural communities, one to their urban communities, focusing on playing kind of a liaison role, really helping to connect with kind of their citizen and resident advisory groups, community groups, and trying to problem solve within the county infrastructure.

Um, if we look down at LA, of course, LA is a huge county with a million residents living in their unincorporated communities, but kind of a similar percentage, 10%, which is similar percentage and rate as Alameda County.

Um, they created a branch within their executive office called, uh, let's see if I get this right.

They're a policy implementation and alignment branch.

Um, and within that, they house their unincorporated office.

Um, and that office again is really focused on coordinating agencies, problem solving, um, and playing kind of liaison role between their unincorporated communities and kind of the bigger county bureaucracy.

Um, Sacramento probably took the more unique approach.

Of course, Sacramento is like a like a third of the county lives in the unincorporated community, so it was kind of the outlier really across the state.

Um, but what they did is they took kind of like their version of CDA and waste management and public works and put those together into kind of a mega agency to try to like break down silos that occur.

And so what I think with the biggest kind of takeaway from all the interviews, which were were pretty fascinating, is that all the counties are dealing with like similar issues that we have here.

Like everyone is trying to figure out better ways to drive coordination, to drive interagency collaboration.

And all of them have tried something and then kind of after some years, after learning, um, have made modifications to that.

And I really took that to heart when I kind of tried to that started in the design phase.

So yeah, the number one theme that probably emerged was the importance of creating these structures to improve and drive interagency collaboration.

Um we can talk more about the counties in later as we go.

If you go to the next slide.

So just coming back to Alameda County, uh, I we're not gonna do a whole thing about the county org chart, but I thought it this was in a way a good graphic to put up because it just shows like how huge the county is.

There's so much going on.

The county serves so many other functions for all residents in the county.

Um, and then the the boxes in kind of bright red are the municipal serving agencies.

So the agencies most responsible for our direct services in the unincorporated communities, um, you know, CDA, public works, fire, the library, and the sheriffs, four of them report separately to the board of direct of supervisors.

The sheriff, of course, has an elected official that oversees their agency.

And while there is a dotted line up to the CIO's office right now, um, there isn't a formal mechanism that kind of coordinates across our municipal serving agencies.

Next slide, please.

Um, okay, well, just a repeat of showing kind of these agencies are really the focus of my recommendations.

So I'm I'm not going to be talking about a lot of the more countywide agencies.

I'll be focusing on the municipal serving agencies for this project, or at least for this phase of it.

Next slide.

Okay, so here were my key findings, and it's a lot to get through, but I think important.

Um the research produced kind of five key findings.

Um, they all point to the same root cause, is that no one is really in charge of the whole picture.

Um, the first finding, um, I'm calling it fragmented governance.

Again, um, no single entity is responsible for setting vision and coordinating across agencies and departments.

Um, one common kind of impact of this, and several maybe a dozen interviewees noted this who worked within the county, is that often kind of the way this plays out is that the district offices often have to respond to constituent calls and concerns in a way that kind of feels reactive and like things have to become almost kind of small emergencies that require probably like Selena Nashley here, right?

And supervisor Miley and Supervisor Tan to have to jump in and call department heads and try to figure out what's going on and like why is something stuck?

And that that can lead to a lot of um, like it doesn't feel in a way like good governance and good government or very effective or efficient to operate that way.

Um, so a lot of people a lot of um folks brought that up as something that could be solved through this office.

Um the second one, which really really relates, I think to this first part, is just how the immense amount of coordination challenges there are really complex issues that cross agency and department lines.

I think the the ones I list here are development and permit review.

Um, another one, I think, especially out in like Synol that was brought up a lot is flooding or enforcing our existing ordinances.

A lot of these that cross agency and department lines can be problematic.

They can stall, there isn't often anybody kind of in the driver's seat.

Um, and and so when there is great collaboration, it's often kind of ad hoc, or it's driven by somebody in that agency or department who steps up and plays that role, but it isn't institutionalized at all.

Um the the third finding is around communication.

Um, right now there is um no centralized communication system for the county.

So when you're trying to access information and you live in the unincorporated communities, um, you know, you might get newsletters from each of your district offices from all the different departments and agencies, and and there isn't um like a centralized website, a centralized way of communicating with folks.

So when folk people are now residents are trying to navigate, you can get bounced around.

It's unclear who you're supposed to call or who you're supposed to go to.

Um, next slide, please.

See, okay.

Um yeah, okay.

So the fourth finding is around organizational culture.

And I think this one gets at something deeper than just how um our departments and agencies communicate.

Um how do I best say that?

So right now I think many Alameda County agencies operate more like regulatory organizations than like kind of functioning local government.

Um and a regulatory regulatory agency, by that I mean like their job is compliance, like departments check boxes, like did I enforce the rules?

Um, success is measured by like, did we issue the permit on time?

Did we send out the notice on time?

Did we follow the right steps?

But ideally, a local government would be more accountable for community outcomes.

So, like, did the neighborhood get safer because of all these interventions?

Did the permitting process actually result in housing that meets neighborhood need that was actually built on time that was affordable?

Um, or did this flooding problem really get solved like long term instead of just like a band-aid solution?

Um, and so someone like is could could there be a function where someone is more responsible for that end result rather than like, did we do what we said we were gonna do?

Okay, check, check, check.

Um, and so that's really the gap that I found.

Like staff are really committed, but there's often a culture of like staying in your own lane.

Um, and no one again was kind of responsible for the bigger picture kind of planning and coordination and outcomes work.

Um, and this fifth finding um I think is probably maybe a finding that's true countywide and not just for the unincorporated communities, but um, kind of the the policy making process and the budgeting process for the county often feel very decoupled.

Um, and quite a few staff and leaders brought this up as well that too often we pass policies over here, and then community members are like frustrated, like, why isn't this happening?

Like, why isn't this getting implemented?

And you know, folks within the county are like, well, we passed all these policies, um, but none of them came attached with funding or more staffing.

And so you're kind of in this cycle of like feeling like your workload is growing without maybe not that much more staff capacity.

I think a really good example of this is in code enforcement, for instance.

I think code enforcement has the same staffing levels as when I joined here 10 years ago.

Um, but since then it's like we've passed cannabis, tobacco retail licensing, smoke-free housing, sidewalk vending, right?

Like there's um so many new policies and kind of the same number of staff.

So that can lead, I think, to a lot of community frustration directed at the county agencies or departments, but a lot of times it's like a resourcing issue and an alignment issue.

Um I think just to take this out of kind of like the concepts and oh, next slide, sorry, and kind of give an example of one that I think has been at all the max the last like half year is sidewalk vending.

Um, so sidewalk vending is of course an issue that's been really impacting um quality of life in the community businesses, um, and it's been raised a lot by the community.

Um, Alameda County then adopted a sidewalk vending ordinance.

It required coordination across code enforcement, environmental health, the sheriff's office, public works.

Um, but in each of those uh like sits within a different county agency.

Um, and I'm not gonna hear to like deliberate on all the details of sidewalk vending, but more to give it and as an example.

It's like code enforcement had the legal authority to give tickets to vendors.

Um, and that is kind of the limit of their scope.

Environmental health can confiscate unsafe food, but don't necessarily have like the capacity to go around all the time doing that or hauling it or storing it.

Sheriffs, the sheriff's office is responsible for the news, the nuisance laws and enforcing that component, and public works is only responsible as it relates to the public right-of-way.

So you kind of have this issue where you're like who is coordinating and at least has you know different authorities, different capabilities, all these different agencies, and like who's pulling it all together into kind of a coherent plan.

Um, and I think in this case, you know, code enforcement has been playing this role recently, but that's not necessarily like their responsibility or job.

Um, and so I, you know, this is just one example.

I think we could like sub the agencies and the issue here with and use a lot of these complex issues as examples for where there's often breakdown, and then people, you know, I think folks in the community or in community-based organizations living here, et cetera, can feel quite frustrated about like what is going on.

But in a lot of ways, it's it's a structural issue with how the county has designed how it manages and oversees um the unincorporated communities and like its work here.

Um let's see, next slide.

Sorry, I know there's a lot to get through.

So, yeah, okay, here's my central finding.

Um any challenges um facing an incorporated residents are not caused again by individual agencies or departments.

They stem from these structural gaps in governance and coordination and alignment across the county.

And that was really what I took into next slide, my design findings.

Okay, here's my recommendations.

Oh, well, almost okay.

Here's how I evaluated possible models, and I won't spend much time on this.

Um, but when I was looking at kind of different models and again looking at other counties and what they've done, um considering a range of things like equity, how is this material gonna improve outcomes for residents here?

How expensive is this gonna be?

Like given the state of county budgeting and federal resources and all the things going on, like yeah, what's what's must what's most cost effective compared to impact?

Um, is there opportunity for near-term progress?

Um, does this build on existing county plans and efforts?

Like, how does this build on the long arc of like trying to build more capacity in the unincorporated communities?

Um, next slide.

So, my first recommendation, yeah, my first recommendation um coming out of this is to establish the office as a three-year pilot.

Um this keeps us, I think, like ideally by focus by making it a three-year pilot, we will come up with a very clear set of objectives with clear measurable outcomes, and we will decide and evaluate at three years and determine either what changes we want to make or if this was like working, if this was really a solution for a lot of the problems that have existed here for a while.

Um, and so ideally we would focus on a limit, thus a focused limited set of high impact cross-agency initiatives during this period.

Um, so my first recommendation is to establish it.

The second recommendation, next slide, sorry.

Thank you.

The next um rec set of recommendations is really about the scope of work.

Um, there's a lot of text here, so I'll just kind of give a high-level overview.

Um my proposal for the scope of work is that the office focus on kind of have five key functions.

Um the first is to represent the unincorporated communities at internal county tables.

So, again, by by being on kind of armed with all this knowledge and understanding of like what are the existing plans and policies, what are the existing pain points, what are people talking about at the max and at the community level, and then being able to represent the county at existing county tables, similar to what cities do.

Like, for instance, right now, there's lots of discussion about measure W.

Or there's lots of discussions about various funding sources or new policies, and a lot of cities are and aren't kind of out there advocating for their communities' needs.

And I think it would be great if the unincorporated community could have that kind of voice at the table.

Um, and you guys, of course, play that role at the community level, um, but have like your own jobs and lives.

So, ideally, this would be someone who would be able to do that kind of as a in a way as a full-time um role and be able to try to identify resources within the county and help to do fundraising with like philanthropy at the state and federal level.

Um, the second again would be, and I kind of talked a bit about this with the sidewalk vending, but would be focused more on solving like complex cross-agency um challenges.

Um, my proposal is that the pilot period focus on development and permitting.

I think development development and permitting has been kind of a long-standing issue that has had some progress made, but continues to be an issue, and of course, is really critical to getting more investment flowing into the unincorporated communities.

Um, the third um scope, like core function would be to focus on building out a communications hub.

So, again, I think this directly ties to the one about the communication system feels broken, you know, we get information from everywhere.

Could we start to centralize and create kind of a central entry point for residents and businesses?

Um, so again, you have a kind of a clear front door into county government for residents here and businesses and and other community groups.

Um, the fourth would be to administer the advisory councils right now, district one administers um the SNOL advisory council.

There's talks of maybe an East County Mac, then we have District Four doing a lot of the coordination for um Castor Valley, Eden, and Fairview.

Um so ideally, this office could play the role of helping to centralize to support and to be a conduit for the discussions that are taking place here and making sure a lot of that feedback wow, my God, I should need to talk.

Sorry.

Okay.

Um, a lot of that feedback would like flow between the Macs and make sure it gets up to the board, gets into different department conversations, right?

Like the the office could play the role of helping play like that liaison role uh between and help to play a support role with the advisory councils, and then engagement in the budget process.

I think this one has come up quite a bit.

Um the office could help to support engaging the community around getting more input into the county budget.

This has been something I think that's been long talked about.

There's not a lot of transparency about how the county invests in the unincorporated communities, and so could this office play a role in supporting those efforts to bring more clarity and more transparency and support more community engagement in the budget process.

The scope of authority.

Um, so really, and maybe this is the part that kept me up the most at night.

Like the office can only really work if it has real authority.

Uh, and I kind of want to be direct about what that means and kind of does it mean.

Um, the office is not designed to take over what departments do or what the district offices do.

The district offices will still do their constituent work, the departments will still do like the programs and services that they're the experts in.

Um, but what's missing again right now is somebody um responsible for how it all adds up, how it's all coordinated.

Um, and so to do that effectively, the office needs, I think the core thing here is those words board of supervised BOS granted convening authority.

So the office really needs to have kind of the approval and authority and buy-in from the board of supervisors to really bring all the different agencies together around shared priorities.

And this would include, you know, authority to set timelines to track commitments to really drive more accountability.

And so and this was really one of the things all the other counties referenced as well.

Like you really need to have your board of supervisors on board, your Macs on board, like there needs to be a lot of support for this office because that is where that's like critical to making sure that the office does not get like sidelined, pushed to the side by agencies who yeah, who might not be supportive of this idea.

Next slide, sorry.

Um to embed the office within the county administrator's office, again with board granted authority.

Um the county administrators' office is kind of our closest thing to a cross-agency kind of executive branch coordinating body.

Um by putting the office there, we would be connecting the office of unincorporated communities to a lot of the executive decision making within the county, a lot of budget development, so that hopeful ideally a lot of these systemic issues could be addressed early and not reactively.

Um and the third point here, and I'll talk about this more in the next slide.

But by putting it within the CAO's office, we would be leveraging existing infrastructure.

We already have a CAO's office.

And if we go to the next slide, you'll see that these are the different considerations about where to place the office.

Um they're in ranked order based on scoring that included more factors than this, but the slide was already getting to be a lot.

Um, so again, the county administrators has clear authority, um, would be more cost effective.

We would be leveraging the fact that we already have the CAOs there uh there and could kind of build more of that capacity within that office to play this role.

Um we did look, I did look deeper into creating an independent office.

Um, this would allow there to be clear authority.

I mean, the board could really again bless this office and help to kind of form something independent from any other agency.

Um, but that would of course be quite costly.

It would take more time.

I think it would be a bit heavier lift from that perspective.

Um, another one that's come up is placing um the office within the community development agency.

Um the community development agency does contain kind of a lot of the uh municipal serving agencies and departments, right at planning and code enforcement, housing, economic development, all hosted within CDA.

So, you know, there was some thought about well, that would that could add capacity to at least coordinating a lot of those agencies and departments.

Um, but but if we put it in CDA, it would not have the authority to convene the other agencies, like it wouldn't be in a role like this AO's office where you would be kind of in a way above the other agencies in the org chart structure.

Um, so it ranked kind of poorly from that perspective.

And of course, we looked thought about the status quo.

Um, so that was just a bit of an insight into like how the decision was made about the county administrator's office.

Um, and this was you know, one of the kind of bigger discussion points, I would say at the Fairview MAC meeting last week as well.

Um, next slide.

So, my fourth and final recommendation, don't worry, I know it's getting long, um, is the staffing structure.

Um, I will my proposal is to start with a lien staffing structure.

So, three staff, um a director level person who would play more of the board liaison role, coordinating agency directors, um, representing the unincorporated communities and countywide spaces, um, a project manager or kind of like a principal analyst role would oversee the interdepartmental strategic initiatives.

So, again, a lot of the work, let's say, around if we were to add capacity to development and permitting review or sidewalk vending or any of these other complex issues.

Um, so this person would kind of be the project manager on that and on the communications hub.

Um, and then an administrator that would support the uh the coordination and support for the MAX, um, the communications hub and really helping to kind of maintain all the like outreach materials and do a lot of that more admin level support work.

Uh, next slide, please.

Um, a common concern that was raised repeatedly in the interviews was what won't this just add more bureaucracy?

Um, and I do not think so.

And here's why.

Um, the office is embedded, not standalone.

So again, agencies and departments continue delivering their programs.

Um, but the office really would add the coordination capacity to solve these structural chronic problems that fall between agencies.

Or like the longstanding need for a communication strategy that right now doesn't fall anywhere within the county's responsibilities.

Or again, better coordination between the Macs and the County.

So we'd be using existing infrastructure rather than building something new.

So again, it'd be more about strengthening the CAO's capacity to be able to play this role and house the office there rather than building a new level of bureaucracy.

So that was another kind of major reason for wanting to place it here.

I know there's a lot of concern about adding bureaucracy and like what that might if that's really like a good use of public dollars and all that.

So ideally we'd kind of use the existing structure and use it more effectively and more efficiently.

Next slide.

I will put these this slide up at the end.

It's the summary of all the recommendations on one slide.

So why don't we keep going?

And then yeah, okay.

And so how this could improve everyday experiences with the county.

Um again, I don't want to like act like the office is kind of like the panacea that's going to solve all problems in the incorporated communities.

But ideally, if implemented effectively, this approach should lead to clearer pathways to county services.

Residents know how to navigate the county, where to start, won't be bounced around as much.

Um faster and more effective resolution of chronic problems, um, especially those that involve numerous agencies, um, more consistent policy implementation.

Again, uh trying to get some of these policies off the ground, get enforcement more clear, um, have it be more consistent, and then just in general, more stronger.

This is a weird way of putting it, but stronger administrative representation for the unincorporated communities.

So, again, ensuring that these communities have a voice in countywide decisions and investments.

Um the path forward.

All right, now this is the phase one.

So again, um I'm on a six-month contract with supervisors, like with the county through Supervisor Marley's office to kind of start this work.

This is like the early stage work.

I'm going to all the Macs this month, and then um we'll be taking all the feedback um into consideration before going through the board approval process.

Um, if approved, and you know, depending on all the changes, um, there would be kind of the phase two, which I'm calling the operations planning phase.

This would be the phase that would include like trying to build that capacity, wherever it's gonna live within the county, um, further refining the staffing model, trying to get the positions drafted, trying to recruitment, budgeting, kind of all of that.

Like let's lay the foundation.

And then phase three would be uh the launch phase.

Not gonna dwell too much on these phases now because we're still in the we're still more in the what do folks feel about this, what would you want to change?

We're we're kind of more in that, but just to kind of lay it out like you're the second Mac that I've come to.

Um, and so again, tomorrow is Synol, and on Monday I'll be at Castor Valley.

So we're in this process of really um trying to hear from everybody in the community and um and I'm a I think I'm about to do the next slides out of order.

I know Tono corrected me last time.

So late, let's go.

Okay, so before we go to questions and comments, I need to put up if you go to the no, no, um, towards the end, I have a action slide, I think.

Let's see if I did this right.

Yes, okay.

Here's the action item, and I'm gonna read it as per my instructions.

Um, okay, the consultant, me is seeking the max comment and input on the recommendation to create an office of unincorporated communities and move to the next phase of planning and development.

This is an action item enabling the MAC two.

So one, either vote to recommend to the Board of Supervisors to approve the proposed Office of Unincorporated Communities and advance to phase two planning, or vote to rec number two, vote to recommend the board of supervisors approve the proposed office and advance to phase two planning with amendments that we would list the amendments, or um number three, vote to recommend the board of supervisors, not approve the proposed office of unincorporated communities.

So with that, I think I just spoke without taking a breath for 20 minutes.

Um, but I really want to say thank you for having me.

And um, I'm looking forward to the questions and comments, and I am hoping there are folks from the public here as well online.

Thank you.

I must say when I read this, I was quite impressed at all the research and um steps that you went through to prepare this and to put it together.

Um so with that, let me just say I saw Taylor writing notes.

So do you want to go first, Taylor?

Sure.

Well, I'm really excited about this just because I've heard, as you've stated, members of the community crying, begging, shouting all of the above for this for some time.

So it's nice to see movement.

Um I would actually suggest perhaps that we are from the public first, only because I think they're probably equally excited.

And I saw so many hands raised, and they've waited this long that I'd really love to hear from them before we make our comments, but I'll leave that to the rest of the council.

We do think anyone else um on the council have a yearning question right now, or do you want to hear it from the public?

I'd be supportive of what Taylor suggested.

Okay.

All right.

Do we have we had some comments?

I saw some hands going up too.

Do you want to ask for the public comment?

Let's see what their thoughts are.

Chuck Meadows.

Oh, yeah.

Good evening.

My name is Chuck Meadows.

And I'd also like to acknowledge the thoroughness that went into this report.

Not only the handout that you got here, but there was a supplementary 40 plus page report that was incredibly comprehensive.

I would recommend that you approve the um option number two with the following amendments.

First, the independence is absolutely critical to the success of this office.

It cannot be beholden or underneath a department head or an agency head that could steer this office into its own agenda.

Secondly, it was raised, um, which is the question of authority.

How to actually grant this body enough authority to accomplish something in its three-year pilot.

I propose that the agency or whatever you're gonna call this office, do regular presentations and have regularly scheduled meetings at the Board of Supervisors.

During those meetings, they would lay out the project and the specific tasks seeking approval from the Board of Supervisors, and they could take that authority back to the agencies that they're asking to take some action.

I fear without that authority and without that approval and interaction with the board of supervisors, the agencies could simply ignore this office or do as they wish without any consequence.

Then I would also ask that during the pilot program that they require in-person meetings at all of the Macs, because one of the things that always seems to be overlooked is the feedback from the MACs, and the same agency should be doing presentations at the MAX and be soliciting input from the Macs and take that to the Board of Supervisors for their meetings.

The Fairview Mac approved this with those types of amendments, and I suggest the same.

Thank you.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

All right, my name is Romero.

I'm a slam youth leader, and I live in Hayworth.

I'm here to speak about the importance of investing being in the office of unincorporated communities.

I care about this issue because unincorporated communities are often left out of decision making, even though we are directly impacted.

I support stronger investment because we need better representation, more transparency, and real opportunities for residents to be involved, especially in budget decisions that affect our communities.

We also need language access and meetings that are accessible so everyone can participate.

Unincorporated communities are sort of be heard and not left behind.

Thank you.

I'll just say it.

My name is Romero.

I'm a slam youth leader, and I live in Hayward.

I'm here to speak about the importance of investing in the office of unincorporated communities.

I care about this issue because unincorporated communities are often left out of decision making, even though we are directly impacted.

I support stronger investment because we need better representation, more transparency, and real opportunities for residents to be involved, especially in budget systems that affect our communities.

We also need language so everyone can participate.

Unincorporated communities deserve to be heard, and I'll left behind.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh Mac members.

My name is Juliana Weiser Leon.

I work at Eden United Church of Christ in Cheryland.

And I am so glad to be here tonight.

It feels like it's been a long time coming, a lot of years where community has spoken about this issue.

We've raised this issue with the board of supervisors, the the board of supervisors, the need to have a coordinating function.

Um to have a seat at the table, to have a seat at every every table.

Uh the fact that unincorporated community members deserve that type of representation and that type of uh space where they can have input.

So I'm really just glad to see that and be here as a witness to a lot of years of community support for this idea and grateful that the board has invested in supervisor.

Sir Miley has invested in getting us this far.

And I understand I'm glad to see that it is a pilot because we know that there's work to do, we know that there's lessons to be learned, we know that there's a lot of tweaking probably that needs to happen in order for this office to fulfill um the the roles that the community expects it to have.

Um but just really grateful to have gone this far and in support um of this moving forward and speaking specifically as uh you know a CBO partner, I think it's always so complicated to contract with the county, to have to like who do I ask?

Should I go to this agency or this agency or this agency?

And then you know, it just thinking from that perspective perspective, how this could really impact um our contracts on the ground, but also the opportunity to bring more resources to the unincorporated communities and to uplift the needs and voices of unincorporated residents.

So just thank you for uh taking this on and excited to see it move forward if that's uh if that's your vote, but thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Raimundo Archuletta.

Uh hello, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay, um, good evening.

My name is Raymundo Archuleta, and I'm a uh youth leader with SLAM.

I live in the uh unincorporated area, and I would like to start by recognizing that the county has made efforts this year to provide a more detailed and transparent budget, and that is something we truly appreciate.

It shows the community's voices are being heard, but at the same time, from our perspectives as youth and residents in the unincorporated communities, there is still a significant gap in how understandable and uh accessible this information really is.

Right now, it is still difficult to clearly see how funding decisions are impacting specific communities like Ashland, Cherry Land, and San Lorenzo.

We need more detailed detailed breakdowns that show economic trends, planned investments, and actual spending in our neighborhoods.

Without that, it becomes very challenging for residents, especially youth to engage meaningfully or to hold systems accountable.

Transparency is not just about putting information out, it's about making sure people can understand it, use it and respond to it.

We are asking for a budget that reflects our communities clearly, tells the story and helps build trust between residents and the county.

Thank you, Rosemary Vasquez.

Rosemary Vasquez, you're on the line.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh Rosemary Vasquez.

I uh live in the Ashland area.

I work in a Cheryland area.

And in the past, I always come and say where I work.

Um, not today.

I am a member of this community.

I not only represent or not only work with the community, but I I am the community, and I do um I'm here to in support of uh this pilot.

Um, it is needed.

Um I we can't hear you.

Are you still on the line?

Sandra Artuletta.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

I live in Castro Valley.

I'm in very much support of this office.

I think that having a pilot program to work out the kinks is really good idea.

We have been working on a lot of issues for a long time.

And the lack of you know, oversight is one of the main things that we always see coming up.

There's always kind of that gap that turns up.

And when you try to look and see what the issue is, it's that structural issue of not essentially being a city, but not having the systems or structure to really operate as one.

And so we're always left trying to fix all these problems, trying to see, you know, how we can better manage, but we're trying to just come at it from different ways that aren't working just because we don't have those structures.

And so I think that it is really important to create this office so that we can move forward as a community to have structures that really meet the needs to give us a better quality of life, because that's really what it is, right?

Like the quality of life, the uh per capita spending, like whatever metric you want to look at, it is harder, less equitable to live in the unincorporated area.

And so having this office is a step forward.

It's not going to be a cure all.

It's not gonna fix everything, but it's gonna be a major shift that's going to benefit us as residents, and that is why I support it.

Thank you.

Diana Montano.

Hi, my name is Diana Montano, and I'm a Cheryland resident.

Uh I'm very happy to hear about this proportion to have our main office.

So it's very important for us because as an unincorporated area, we don't have like a specific way to go, especially when the issue happens between the city of Hayward and Cheryland.

Um sometimes the authorities just pass the ball and they don't give us a solution, or when I want to report a crime or an abandoned car, I don't know where to go.

So it's very important for us having this office uh near to the community, near to the residents who need it most.

So please give opportunity to these um proportion.

Thank you so much.

Dave T, you're on the line.

Good evening, uh Mac members and uh the rest of the folks that are in the room.

Uh Brianne, thank you for presenting.

My name is Dave Thompson.

I am co-executive director of my hidden voice, and we represent residents in the unincorporated area.

Um first off, I want to say thank you to uh you all on the municipal advisory council.

I know that it's a lot of work and we appreciate your contributions to representing the community.

Um I just want to speak in favor of the Office of Unincorporated Communities and particularly uh endorse that it be outside of the departments, uh be either as an independent agency or in the CAO's office, uh, so that this office has the authority that it needs to work across apart departments.

Yeah, when we uh talk to folks across the unincorporated area, we hear over and over again how difficult it is for people to get access to services or to find out who they need to talk to or to find a responsible party if their issue doesn't get resolved, whether that's getting permits or getting the street repaired or the trash picked up.

Uh again and again we hear these issues.

Uh so we we urge you um to endorse this project and to move it to the board of supervisors.

Thank you.

Oscar G, you're on the line.

Um hi, my name's Oscar.

I'm a youth leader with SLAM living in the unincorporated area.

Um, you know, I'd like for there to be a biannual unincorporated budget input process, you know, uh, because that would engage with the residents, you know.

I think a survey with funding to locally engaged groups would be a great way to achieve resident engagement, you know, and recording diverse responses, and that's an idea that I would like to see, you know, just in the process.

Thank you so much.

Charles, you're on the line.

Hi, Charles Spisano San Lorenzo.

I'm glad to hear a lot of uh positive input tonight.

I'll add my voice to that.

I think this is long, long overdue.

Uh I find um the comments about whether the office, the proposed office, would be part of the CAO or an independent group.

I think I could make a case for either way.

But in any respect, um if it doesn't have the blessings and the full weight of the uh Board of Supervisors behind it.

I can't see where it would succeed.

Also, though, if it does have that authority, I don't think the um the administrator's office would be able to shuffle it under the table or override it.

But thinking the um and knowing how tough it can be for getting our residents to uh get the services they need.

I find it really interesting to hear the different uh departments, the employees, the heads of fire, etc.

Agreeing that this is a needed uh coordination effort, and they welcome it.

Thank you.

Aidan, you're on the line.

Aidan Matias, you're on the line.

Do you guys hear me?

We hear you.

Uh hello.

My name is Matthias, and I am work with SLAM.

I support improving the budget input process for unincorporated communities.

Residents should have clear information on how funds are spent and meaningful opportunities to give input before decisions are made.

Providing earlier I reach language access and representation in budget discussions.

We'll hope I'm sure our communities are heard and treated fairly.

Unincorporated communities deserve a stronger voice in the county budget process.

Thank you.

Oscar G, you're on the line.

Camberly Victoria.

All right, can you can you all hear me?

We hear you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Good evening, MAC members.

Uh, my name is Kimberly Victorio, and I'm with Eden Power Collective here in the Cheryland area.

Um so I'm in full support of this initiative, and we're actually very excited uh for for this to become a tangible idea because uh the unincorporated have um unincorporated communities have talked about this and they've advocated for this for a really long time.

Uh so we're actually very excited to see this kind of come to fruition.

Um I agree with everybody that has come come before me and saying that you know, every they they are in full support.

Um, especially like I'm hearing, you know, that we want more budget transparency, but um, and and I fully support that.

But I also think that um supporting this can also mean um giving the unincorporated communities full autonomy and spaces where their voices are gonna be heard.

Um uh not only in spaces like this, but also um their voices can be heard uh directly too to like their their issues can be addressed to the supervisors directly.

So I'm in full support and um thank you.

Thank you for hearing this and um thank you for considering this um and sending this over to the supervisors.

Thank you.

Gladys Validez.

Hello, my name is Gladys.

I am a longtime resident of Cherryland.

I have been advocating for a more resilient unincorporated Alameda County since my time as a youth leader with Pasta.

I contributed to the community efforts that led to the passage of a tobacco retail license back in 2020 and the smoke-free multi-unit housing ordinance in 2022.

However, I am disappointed to learn that despite these significant accomplishments, code enforcement has had the same level of staffing capacity for what the past 10 years.

This has limited the county's ability to effectively reach residents and tenants and ensure that proper implementation of the smoke-free housing ordinance.

Ya que hemos luchado muchos años for the language for those in español.

A su vez permitiría traer anders con mucho talento in el area.

Una imagem professional e innovatoria y facilitaria muchas reunions in esta oficina piloto.

Um la falta de representation that communidades no incorporadas a menudo nos excluyen ya sea de services or the qualification.

It's for you para apoyar esta oficina piloto.

Muchas gracias.

Okay.

Let me just tell Laura.

Laura, si me escuchas.

But voy a tratar de interpretar lo que hiciste.

I'm gonna just try to summarize that Lara said I was listening.

Um, and she was saying that one of the reasons why she wanted to come and she wanted to speak in Spanish, is especially to make the point that there's often difficulty for community members to coordinate language access to participate in processes like this.

And so to her offering her support for the Office of Unincorporated Communities, it's also a way for her and community members who speak other languages to be represented and to have an advocate that can be looking out for those uh for those folks who are trying to participate in something that she has uh fought for as a member of the community and a leader that she is some this is something that she would like to have seen, and would like for someone to advocate on behalf of community in spaces like this iPhone Esperanza.

See, hola buena noches a todos.

Yo a la igual que Laura voy a comentarles in español para ver la importancia también de la communidad de habla hispana, porque basado eso también muchísima gente no puede communicarse de las necessidades tan grandes que hay in esta comunidad.

Andonces is bien important.

Is the total type of yes falta de part of the unload donde la gente poeda here pedirlos.

Muchas gracias.

My name is Esperanza.

And I'm like Laura, I am here to also speak in Spanish, uh, to make a point that this is this is an important uh idea so that Spanish speaking residents can have the opportunity to communicate and participate in some of our some of our services in some of our spaces.

And so she wants to uplift language access and in thinking of the Office of Unincorporated Communities as a space that for community to have a place to request uh these types of opportunities.

We all pay our taxes, she said, and these are our rights, these are these are our services that we should have access to, and we should be able to participate, and this is a way in which we can be we can better participate.

No more speakers.

Um it thank you for that suggestion, Megan.

I think that was a good idea to have um to listen to the public first.

Uh the thing that stuck out at me was that everyone seems to be in favor of this.

So what I'd like us to focus on with ours um is if we have some specific recommendations or amendments so that we've got something you know concrete.

We can all say yes, we like it, um, which we've all heard.

I don't if unless anybody has something against it, you know, speak up speak whatever your mind is, but if we can focus on specific amendments or recommendations for Brian to take back with her.

All right, let me just start with Ray.

He's shaking his head down there.

Okay.

Um Brianne, thank you.

It would be great to include.

So I'm looking at your slide 23, the recommendation on staffing structure.

So it would be great to include the fact that this has this should be a multilingual office and offer those services to and from residents, but also helping residents with navigating um within the county departments.

The other thing that I was thinking about, um, your 40-page supplement was amazing.

I saw that one of the examples has uh this similar type of setup and it costs six hundred thousand dollars a year, if I remember correctly.

I can't remember which jurisdiction it was.

Did you consider the cost structure?

I guess in in how you're laying out the staffing.

Yes, and no, I did not end up including like staffing and budget recommendations in this phase.

Okay, partially again, more in a way to push kind of the budgeting and also finding which sources of funding are gonna keep the office afloat, right?

Like there's a lot of questions about the funding that I'm hoping more to address in phase two.

Um, so no, I don't have a strong, but I was focusing more on trying to keep it lean given because I think when you start to add a lot of constituent work, a lot of navigation or a lot of more services work, you could imagine kind of a more a bigger staffing structure, and so I think by trying to focus on what are some of these more complex issues.

Can we add capacity around the coordination?

It was I was able to keep the staffing a little leaner.

Okay, understood.

The thing that jumped out to me is I wonder like you've done a good job of listing some of the sample activities that the office would take care of.

You weren't explicit in making sure that the community this is this is like a front door for the community to contact the office, right?

In terms of two-way coordination.

You mentioned the the communications hub, but can you just be explicit in saying this is a way for people to contact the office to get answers addressed, and then sort of related to that.

Do you think with the current staffing model you're proposing that there's an opportunity for volunteers to help in terms of because I don't know what your call volume or your email volume or your in-person office visit volume is going to be.

You might be able to project some of it.

But I think there might be an opportunity to at least supplement the liaising back with residents when they're looking for answers, just to make sure that they're it's almost like an SLA that you would have of saying you want to get back to residents within 24 hours or 48 hours or four hours if it's an urgent issue.

Right, right, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Sure.

Uh that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thanks, Dra.

Thank you, Ray.

Megan.

Um lots to process and digest.

Thank you for the great research.

And obviously, I do support those and those in our community having better access to the board of supervisors.

Um, or I guess to the county of Alameda.

I noticed you didn't mention the unincorporated services committee in your slide about currently like what we're doing to address the unincorporated services area.

Um, I know that we have our two board of supervisors, those are ultimately the elected representatives that we are able to hold accountable for how we as community members um feel that we are being, I don't know, allocated resources or treated and that sort of thing.

Um so I guess I just I'm thinking about the how this would work.

And I think accountability is extremely important if we're going to do this.

Um, and having I mean, our electeds are ultimately kind of at the top.

And then obviously the CEO or the CAO or whatever is kind of right under.

Um, and if I I understand the reason and suggesting an independent office, but if the purpose of this committee is to get our current county services to respond and coordinate, they have to feel like there is a reason to respond to emails or phone calls.

Um, or there has to be some level of accountability to where their jobs matter and it's being evaluated based on um, you know, their own their own responsiveness.

And so I guess for those reasons, I would lean towards putting it in, you know, the LAO's office first during the pilot period.

Yeah, yeah.

Um during the like the pilot period and then evaluating and seeing how it goes and if people are you know accountable to the deputy county executive.

Um, and I don't really know how exactly like that works when you're talking about fire and sheriff, like what do they care if it's not in their reporting structure?

Um so I think you need really buy in from the top.

Um, and that is very difficult, obviously, when you have many different, not only you have your elected sheriff and you have your you know elected DA and you have your elected board of rep supervisors, and so um, and then you there's the jurisdictional issues as well, where one of the callers mentioned talking about how to resolve issues when she lives next to a certain city, and that's not our playground.

We don't have any authority over that.

So I don't know, lots of suggestions um of course or thoughts, I guess.

Uh, I support I support the project.

I support obviously people having um feeling like they have more of a voice at the county level.

I mean, we have the max, we have the unincorporated services area, we can have this office as well, but at the end of the day, I want it to results in people feeling like they have better services and access to services.

Um I hope that at the end of the day, like you said, that comes down to money and feasibility.

I heard that you say that one of the directors' jobs was gonna be to fundraise for their own job, and so that scares me a little bit.

Um, but I think I think one of the things that came up actually speaking with some of the actually the board of supervisors direct some of them directly was this can you know cities have that?

You know, folks were often out looking for state and federal resources and in the unincorporated area, like the departments and agencies do that.

Public works does that a lot, but some of the other agencies kind of do that in ad hoc fashion.

So it's also like could this office add capacity to that?

Identifying, oh, hey, there's a new like state climate change grant.

Like, are we organizing ourselves internally to be able to like apply on time and all of that?

Which happens, but maybe could happen in a better more effective way.

Yeah.

No, and thank you for the thoughts.

Those are helpful.

And I think um the mention of the unincorporated services committee, I think I mentioned it a bit in the report, but that was one of the considerations is of course, again, like not duplicating the max structure, and that we have the unincorporated services committee.

Um, and so part of actually next month is my goal is to go both because we don't just have supervisor Tamman Supervisor Marley, it's also supervisor Halbert.

So it's really all three of them oversee different parts.

And so um, I'll be getting in front of all the different committees that they sit on to kind of get this in front of all of them and get input.

But the unincorporated services committee would be the main working committee for this office, ideally, alongside the Macs.

That makes sense.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Warren, do you wait?

Just a lot of it.

Let me get it.

So it's no shock.

Or there's no shock to Brianna or a lot of other people that Brian works with that I'm in support of this.

This is huge for the community.

This process, this project, this dream is very important to a lot of folks.

People have been working to get here for a very long time.

Before there were Macs, uh before there was, you know, a lot of what we do here today, there were folks who were dreaming of getting to this point.

And I think that does need to be acknowledged.

I think coordination is really important.

And so I think the um the five main agencies of unincorporated services and how they work together or don't, and how they share information or don't is really important.

I do feel like I also lean towards what Megan is suggesting, which is to put it under the uh CAO's office.

Um I hear uh the thoughts around an independent agency, but I I'm I lean towards the idea that the more authority this office has and the more connection it has with the tippy top of the county, the better it is that we'll actually get things done.

That's my hope anyway.

And I think it might actually bear fruit.

Of course, uh we do want to make sure we're uh working with the MAX, the uh unincorporated services committee and the other apparatus that are connected with the county.

But I am in some full support of this and hope we see this move forward.

Thank you.

Warren, just to ask you a question really quick.

Did you have any like specific amendments you want to put forward on here?

It sounds like I wrote down your suggestions, but I'm more wondering for the vote itself.

But just vote straight in favor.

Are you putting forward a vote with amendments?

I'm inclined to vote in favor of option one.

I uh and not really thinking about any deep amendments at this time.

Thank you, Warren.

Hey, Taylor.

I really appreciate what was clearly a mammoth amount of work and aggregation of information.

Um and I think you've done it really well in a way that I can imagine many different people would have the ability to receive well.

Um, this is not going to be an easy role.

And so making sure that they have whomever these people are um have buy-in and the support of those around them is going to be pivotal.

And I think that the way you've presented it really incentivizes the mutual benefit that this is not creating an adversary, it's creating a partner um to help the community and help everyone within their role through that facilitator approach.

So I think you've done that really well.

Um it's not easy, and especially um or what I appreciate about this too is that there will be a trial associated with it.

So I wouldn't anticipate that everything will be perfect, right?

Um, but acknowledging that there will be room for adaptation, I think will also help people be more receptive to it.

Um, and that therefore makes me lean towards accepting option one, only because um I do feel like you've done a significant amount of work to make the recommendation and likely um lost many more nights of sleep than we have in that process towards the recommendation.

Um, but also acknowledging that with that trial period, there would be a would be the ability to assess um prior to coming here.

My initial thought was why would you join the offices at all?

That sounds like a horrible idea.

Um, but I I certainly see the other perspective and can see both of how important that connection would be.

So I appreciate you presenting that.

Um also just a couple other just more suggestions for the long-term development would be when you get farther along in the process and you're working on the job descriptions, for example, for these people.

Um, I do think that it would be a nice, like nice to have if they spoke more than one language, just because we've seen through the community here how there is so much desire for more representation.

And um, if they have the ability to um speak more than one language, I think it would just be a stronger um, you know, group.

Uh then also I appreciate that it's a lean office because we have heard repeatedly that our budget is even less than we thought.

So it's nice to be able to see what we can do.

Um, and I I will just echo what Ray said about the idea of having volunteers.

I don't know what capacity that would be in, but I mean, we've seen consistently how we have so many youth um that are looking to get into you know community involvement and government.

Maybe that's even an opportunity of an internship too.

I mean granted pay there's a payment component with that, but um, a lot of different ways to do something with limited resources.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Taylor.

Elizabeth.

Uh I said I said part of my piece of that super Mac meeting is that there's a frustration.

Um when people were calling in, probably some of the same people.

The Castor Valley guy said, Well, those are your people, as if we're so different.

And I feel like even with this, some people were against it.

I'm for it.

But I think that here I have an uphill battle in terms of people on the Castro Valley Mac saying this is just adding more bureaucracy, and you know, like, oh, well, those people are complaining and they were speaking Spanish, they're probably not Castor Valley people.

You know, that was a sentiment, like that's our problem.

And when I complain that we aren't getting as many people here, again, it was like, well, you figure it out.

So I think raising awareness that this that this Mac exists, that the office exists, that it will get better, and there will be a place that people can reach out because I hate the idea, even in myself.

I've tried to get somewhere and get the run around, right?

So I feel like maybe especially here, there are people who have tried in the past to complain about something or have an idea, and they just get the runaround, right?

So I'm all for somebody who can actually help when you do have a good idea or you do have a valid complaint.

So to me, this is a good step in the right direction, but I do sense that it's too vague to be adopted by everybody.

I mean, we're for it, but we're here, right?

So I think that maybe some of the other Macs you encounter will say, Well, we don't need that, we're good the way we are, you know.

But in terms of me, and obviously I can assume we're all gonna say yes, where we are, it is relevant, and I do think it'll be helpful.

So I appreciate your efforts.

All right.

Um I kind of I had written down on my notes when I was reading this, is like an office sounds so minimal to me.

It sounds like, oh, go knock on the door and say, I want a form or somebody didn't pick up my garbage today.

And I I had written here is kind of similar to maybe to what Chuck said is why don't we call it the department of unincorporated of the unincorporated area?

Why just make it an office, which sounds like I don't know, it just sounds like a little some little place that you knock on a door and ask a question.

Um and then but under that, I think the main point is that it needs to be it needs to be independent, it needs to care about the unincorporated area.

It needs to serve the unincorporated area, it needs to be able to speak different languages.

It it probably needs to have some volunteers, people who work and live in the community to be a part of it.

Um I don't know it if people come in with complaints, then do would they handle individual complaints?

I would think they would need to be more of a department.

And what I'd written down, and maybe this is like more longer term is that the unincorporated area has its own qualities, it's diverse, it's multicultural.

It's it's different than a city.

And I mean, I would like to see its history be presented somewhere, you know, and preserved somewhere.

I mean, we have the history of Russell City, which probably a lot of people have forgotten, but that was in the incorporate unincorporated area.

We have like Mika State and Robert's Landing, and so I would just like to see the whole it expanded enough so like we're really a unit, not just oh, there's somebody who will coordinate our services, but put us together as a unit.

That's kind of my vision more.

And so um I I don't know how you incorporate that into like a different recommendation.

I I guess my recommendation would be to go with like number two is to recommend what you said, but incorporate our ideas into that phase in more in a more specific manner, like Elizabeth had said.

Now that's not exactly a motion for me, but that's the way I envision it more than you know, here's point one, two, and three that we want.

But uh-huh.

Um that's those are my thoughts.

Could I repeat that back to you?

Maybe like one way would it be maybe like adding something in the scope of work that touches on the need for support for kind of like identity building or culture, like something more in that space, because right now that's I would say in order to remain lean and kind of what I said earlier, like it is focused a little bit more on like internal capacity, internal coordination, as opposed to let's say what I'm hearing, which is some of that work that's needed to kind of build community and like hold the cult, like kind of that the identity building work.

Um, and I went back and forth on that a lot as I looked through the research and the findings and all the interviews, like how much is this for external facing versus internal facing and what are the trade-offs of having different areas of focus and what do you start with and what do you grow into with time if the pilot goes well?

So um I'm not sure if that was a good yeah, it was more of a comment back, but just more to say that I'm acknowledging that I heard I think I heard and understand that and we'll continue grappling with it as we move forward.

I mean, hopefully it will grow into more.

So I'm just saying, let's if we can get it defined as something more like a department, then there's an office to coordinate services.

Um that it's really an agency that that takes care of the unincorporated area holistically.

So anyway, is there any other discussion or can anyone put something into a motion?

Well, I'll just say to speak on that, yeah.

May I mean this is great and it's realistic, but in my vision, even further that like you said, there's a Castor Valley one, there's an Eden one, there's this, you know, maybe a rural one, like you had the example of, right?

Because we're all have different good things and bad things that we're gonna hear from, you know, with the even though we are all Eden, right?

Like you said, there's a lot of square footage here about, you know, we live out in the country and we have this problem and they're not gonna identify with us being really urban, right?

So in the future, I hope this does go well, and that maybe it's even a bigger agency, you know, like you said, maybe a department.

And you know, like you said, is we're we're all the same, but not really, right?

So you have to start with us being all the same, and I agree that later it could even grow theoretically.

So I hope so later in the future that we're not still talking about what to do, that we're actually doing it.

Yeah, thank you.

Anyone else with anything or some kind of a specific motion?

I'll just to get the ball rolling and then people can disagree.

Um, I'm gonna motion to accept number one, which is to proceed to the board of supervisors uh for phase advancement to phase two um without any additional recommendations or changes.

I'll second that.

Okay, is there any other discussion?

Can I yeah, it's just a point of clarification, uh Brianne.

Yeah, um with the suggestions we've given you.

Have you heard anything that would qualify as an amendment?

In other words, if we go with the motion put forth, do we just go with what you've proposed and then you'll include and I'll go through the feedback and work to incorporate it.

Yeah, uh, I'm not sure if I'm the right person to answer this, but uh I guess an example from Fairview is that they extended they voted for number two in support, and their amendments were I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I think one was to uh create the office as an independent office from the CAO.

Um to emphasize um hire that the director and staff be local uh idea, or like that we prioritize hiring someone from the community.

Uh let's see if I can remember the other ones.

Well, those are kind of the couple they had a couple of amendments in that vein.

Um so but like I do have, I mean, a lot of the feedback here, I mean, aligns with the you know, the public comment, the public comment there, the their comments, like they so I have it all written down, and of course there's the recording.

Um, not to promise that like everybody's the points are gonna get incorporated, but I am committed to of course like revising in line with what came out of this process.

Um thank you for answering my question.

So I guess for us it comes down to is that acceptable or do we need to call out something in particular?

Sorry, okay.

Go ahead, Warren.

Um wait.

Okay, go ahead, Warren.

Yeah, so the way I see this is nuances.

I think that fairview's suggestions are perfectly good ones.

And I I certainly have no problem uh getting into a discussion at the appropriate time, whether that be an unincorporated services committee, whether it be a future all Mac meeting, wherever we're gonna grapple with this as a community.

I have no problem getting into the nuances of this, but I I really think first that brand did a tremendous job beginning the discussion.

I mean, this was really well thought out.

I think as much as you can plan out a contingency, brand did a pretty darn good job of planning out contingencies.

I think that we this is the beginning of a discussion.

There are more phases to come.

I'm confident that the community will work this out.

And I think that if we support option one now, it breeds discussion and we can intersect with the Fair WMAC, which clearly supports the idea, just in a different way.

And we can come to a modus of entire on it.

So I'm I'm definitely in favor of supporting option one tonight and then continuing the discussion.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

My reservation, and maybe you can confirm this or not.

But if you go to the boards of supervisors with just um recommendation number one, my let me see.

My fear is that they'll approve that, and then it will just get put in as some person office or thing to coordinate services, and it won't go further.

It won't be independent of other departments.

It'll be stuck in a corner someplace with somebody else still setting our priorities.

Is it I mean, would that be your view?

I that's why I was thinking I do understand why Fairview would have put more a more structure onto it, but it kind of depends on you how you present it to the board of supervisors, I guess.

Yeah, I mean while we're talking about placing it within the CAO's office.

I mean, one of their concerns is like this is just gonna get shoved on somebody's existing job description.

And I that is why we suggested three, you know, a a three-person staffing structure, house to there, but operating, of course, independently and spending a lot of time in these communities.

Um, but still having, you know, in a way, an office in the executive in the executive branch in downtown Oakley, like where a lot of the kind of higher level decision decision makers, you know, exist and operate.

So what does that capacity need to be built and expanded in that space made within the CAO's office?

That yes, because it's not like they do this kind of work now.

Um they don't play this role now in in these communities, right?

And so, and so that was some of their like I think some of the concern from their side is that they don't necessarily have that have that play that role now and would need to kind of make sure they are ready if that ends up being like the decision from the board.

Um, but no, I I feel well, I mean, it's again, it's not up to like me, of course.

I'm more like trying to support this process, but I mean, in my vision, it's that the office would have um its own like leadership structure, even though it would be housed within um within the agency.

Um I have a question.

You said you were contracted by Supervisor Miley's office for six months to do this research, and have you um I guess presented your findings to their office yet and gotten feedback about this proposal and taking it to the max or any of the other supervisors' offices?

Yeah, so I've met with um district three, district four staff and leadership.

Um, and so and I have um going to Sinnol tomorrow and have sent my materials to district one.

So yeah, so actually some of the reworking kind of like some of the debate we're having here, I think I've had with the supervisors as well.

Independent office CAO, independent office yeah, what are the trade-offs like?

So I think um folks are are de considering all the different pros and cons.

Um, but I think we also felt like okay, this is this is the recommendations as they exist now.

Like I'm gonna pause on writing and editing and writing and editing and and take it to the community and then get folks and start this kind of discussion.

How important is independence?

Is it worth the fact that it might take a lot longer to get started?

Or do we want to leverage the existing executive departments within the county?

Um thank you.

That's helpful.

Um obviously you did a lot of work and you've justified your reasoning for this recommendation, and so I would also be inclined to support uh number one if we are gonna vote on it.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, any other discussion?

Okay, if there's no other discussion or no amendments, then we do want to call the votes an item.

Oh, wait, you know, we got public discussion first, yes, lots of it.

Councilmember Aston Nielsen, aye.

Councilmember Marmahoco, yes, council member roll, aye.

Councilmember Cushman?

Aye.

Chair Weidler?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right.

Thank you.

And thank you all for your for your input and careful thinking on this matter.

Thank you guys so much.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks for the time.

I know it's late.

Thank you.

Really appreciate it.

Yeah.

All right.

We're a little bit over, but I think we actually did pretty good considering the size of our agenda.

I just like to thank all the members, council members, and input from our public members too, but thank you all for being so prepared so that we could kind of get through a long agenda in a relatively normal fair amount of time here.

I don't have any other um report.

I guess the only thing I wanted to remind us of is hopefully we'll have time on our next agenda to do this up some subcommittee reports because a few of you have been on some subcommittees and we need to hear back on those.

All right, seeing none, anything from staff.

All right.

I unless there's any objection, we can adjourn at 9 15.

All right, thank you all.