Good evening, everyone.

We're gonna go ahead and call to order the city council for Tuesday, June 23rd.

Will you please call the roll?

Okay.

Council members Kazowski.

Here Leary here.

Aquino.

Rafael.

And Morbot is absent.

If you'll please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge of it to the United States of America.

One nation under God with liberty and justice law.

And do we have any agenda updates this evening?

We do.

We have several agenda updates, Mr.

Mayor.

We have uh two additional information transmittals on agenda item number 15.

We have one additional information transmittal and one revised staff report transmittal on agenda item number 17, which is the public hearing, and we also have one additional information transmittal on agenda item number 18, which is also uh public hearing.

Uh these materials have been provided to the council, and they are copies on the back table for members of the public.

Thank you for those updates.

Uh that takes us to business from the floor.

We've gotten a few blue cards already this evening.

Uh, but if you would like to address the council, uh business from the floor is for unagendized items.

We're happy to give you a three minutes and hear your thoughts on any item uh or any unagendized items here during business of the floor.

So get those blue cards filled out and brought right over here.

Uh and then after that we'll go into the agenda items and you can turn in those blue cards at any time.

You don't have to wait for the item to be called.

Uh we'll move on to business from the floor.

Okay, we do have two requests to speak under this item.

The first speaker, James Tefford, followed by Michael Harris.

So, James, you could go ahead and approach the podium.

Let me know when you're ready.

Good evening.

Uh, I'm Jim and Tetford, Folsom City resident.

Uh I wanted to ahead and make a few general comments on the city uh purchasing and contracting systems that I've, you know, kind of noticed since I've been you know been watching what's been going on.

Um first section I wanted to address was uh chapter 2.36040, which you know requires the uh establishment of a position known as the purchasing agency, purchasing agent, you know, and this person is supposed to serve as the principal purchasing and contracting official for the city.

So you know the details of the you know, all the purchasing and contracting system requirements are outlaid in chapters 2.36 and 2.37, which is alternate delivery methods and materials, and uh, you know, the establishment of the ordinance was of course in a you know in response to the overriding city ordinance, which was section 504, and uh you know it just required that contracting by shall be by ordinance provide a for purchasing and contracting system, assuring a maximum of competition for the lowest price with the stated level quality.

So that's the general goal of the system, and the purchasing agent appears to be one of those requirements of that system.

Now, my question is really for you know for the city council and the city manager, who is the purchasing agent for the city?

You know, is when I'm looking at the code, I'm seeing the purchasing agent is the person that assures that purchases and contracts awarded by the city meet the requirements of the municipal code, and you know that they provide consistency and transparency in the contracting methods, and that you know that all the city ordinances are met within those two sections.

So, my question to the council and the city manager is why don't we have a purchase agent?

And if we do, why don't I know about it?

And why don't I ever see this person mentioned in the reports?

I'm looking for, you know, that person being responsible for working with you know the various departments.

These studies are outlined in this, you know, the city code, you know, that they're supposed to be working with the city manager, the finance director, public works director, city engineer, and other departments to make sure that all the requirements in the city code are met for contracting.

And I believe it's important for transparency and consistency on awards and bids, so that we're assured that we're getting the best price, best quality for you know the services that we're contracting out for.

Thank you, Jim.

Okay, the next speaker will be Michael Harris under this item.

Good evening, y'all.

How y'all doing tonight?

Doing good.

It's starting to warm up a little bit, and I'm enjoying it.

So mayor, council member staff, city manager.

Um, as a resident of Folsom now for a few years, lived in the area for you know a long time.

Long time.

Um, as a retired region one director of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation that brought you the Federal Holiday Title V that we call Juneteenth.

It's a blessing that now is like I never imagined we'd have a new summertime black history month.

I just never thought that.

You know, it was just difficult to get it through the Congress, but uh it was done.

It's a Title V holiday.

We're making steady progress to align our Title V holiday throughout the nation as well as around the world.

Folsom Juneteenth was established in 1998 by Dr.

Shirley Moore, CSU history professor, and Joel Joe Moore, her husband, who was a photojournalist, amazing guy who went all around California documenting stuff that uh a lot of people just didn't know about.

But you know, we stand on Nissan and Mi Walk Land and the Russian American fur company and others who was chasing anything that had a coat on with eyeballs on it in the river forever changed the landscape.

And this was before the gold rush, when it was Mexico and William Leitesdorf had 35,000 acres, and some of y'all might help me because the sign, you know, at Bitwell is just raggedy, we just need to fix that.

And I ain't got another 10 grand, so we gotta figure out actually, but so the idea that in 1848, Leitesdorf um commissioned Army officers to verify the gold that was on his land, and they drew on the map that it was this magical miracle mile we call Negro Bar.

And that's what it's always gonna be.

Um, the history is what it is.

And the day he died, and they buried him inside the mission in San Francisco.

People were running around gold, gold, gold, and American River.

And this is where they came.

The world rushed in.

When the world rushed in.

Everybody that could get here, they got here early, found some gold.

So the idea that we can do two things at once.

We can tell the history as well as you know, have a modern interpretation when the state parks finishes.

Utilizing our taxpayer resources, multi-million dollars, and coming up with another story.

Maybe we can all work together, but today we're still not there.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr.

Harris.

All right, that takes us to scheduled presentations.

Uh please call the first item.

And uh just for a note, we are going to switch up items two and three on schedule presentations.

We're gonna do both the proclamations uh tonight, and then we'll move to the schedule presentation.

Okay, the first item under um schedule presentations tonight is the proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom proclaiming July 2nd through the 4th, 2026 as Western Rodeo Days in the city of Folsom.

I don't, I don't uh oh.

I don't think you guys are supposed to let Joe stand up here all by himself, are you?

All these rodeo folks here, you guys aren't gonna come on up.

All right, all right.

Come on up.

Come on.

Sorry to steal your thunder, Joe.

No, no, it's all right.

It's all good.

All right, we've got the proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom uh proclaiming July 2nd to 4th as the Western Rodeo Days, whereas the City of Folsom proudly recognizes Folsom's Western heritage and acknowledge the benefits of preserving the traditions and customs of the city's history.

And whereas for over 60 years, the Folsom Pro Rodeo has been a beloved tradition, bringing together rodeo enthusiasts, families, and the Folsom community for unforgettable experiences.

And whereas the rodeo began out of love for Folsom's rich Western heritage and is a way to honor the family-run cattle ranches which created the community, and whereas this year's event at the Dan Russell Arena marks the 65th anniversary of the Folsom Pro Rodeo, and whereas event highlights include traditional rodeo events such as saddle and bareback bronch riding, steer wrestling, team roping, barrel racing, bull riding, performance by the painted ladies, flying cowboys motocross, rodeo clowns, nightly fireworks, my personal favorite mutton busting, and live music in the saloon under the stars.

And whereas, in the honor of the traditional patriotic theme, the Folsom Pro Rodeo will celebrate with in arena spectacular fireworks.

And whereas the Folsom Pro Rodeo involves the assistance of hundreds of volunteers and a tremendous amount of community support.

So therefore, I, Justin Raithel, on behalf of the City of Folsom, do hereby proclaim July 2nd to 4th, 2026 as Western Rodeo Days in Folsom, and call upon all citizens to join in the festivities celebrating this wonderful tradition, Folsom Pro Rodeo.

Well, thank you, Justin.

As you can see, it takes a lot of people to pull off this event.

And not only is it a rodeo, but this is a celebration.

You know, it's our 250th anniversary of our nation.

It's the 80th anniversary of Cityhood.

It's the 80th anniversary of incorporation of the chamber of commerce, and it's our 65th rodeo.

So with that, there's lots of things planned.

There's a fan zone in the park, it's kicking off with the tradition of a cattle drive in collaboration with FHDA down Sutter Street on July 1st with the hometown parade.

And then the rodeo is July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

Uh Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Each night we have not only fireworks, but this year we've added a laser show.

There'll be a military flyover on one of the nights and at least an air show on other nights.

So it's it's a family tradition.

It's fun for everyone.

I can tell you we're still looking for volunteers because everybody seems to be buying tickets because right now we're closing in on being sold out all three nights, but we're not yet, but we sure could use some volunteers, especially on the fourth when we're celebrating our nation's birthday.

So kudos to everybody here.

I mean, we have people like Karen West that take two weeks off vacation to help us with the rodeo.

So that is a great deal of up.

We have a little token of appreciation for all of you.

Um so please come out and join us.

We're looking forward to celebrating our nation's anniversary and also the anniversary of Folsom in general.

Thank you.

Okay, the next proclamation under schedule presentations tonight will be proclamation of the mayor of uh the city of Folsom join America, the entrepreneur, and celebrating Folsom's entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit.

All right, and up here joining me, I've got uh Cameron from uh Right to Start and the Carlson Center for Entrepreneurship.

So whereas uh America marks its 250th startup birthday in 2026, we celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit that built our nation, states, and cities forged by starters, makers, doers, and dreamers who pursue a better future.

And actually, before I go much further, I was gonna invite Cameron up, but I was also gonna invite up any small business owners or entrepreneurs that are here in the room.

I invited a few tonight.

Uh but if anybody's up here wants to come and join us, have you started a business in Folsom?

Because Cameron's here representing the entrepreneurs, but we would welcome you all up here.

I'll speak to that's not atypical here.

They're all out working on their businesses.

All right, and whereas America, the entrepreneurial is a national call to reignite the spirit of innovation that built our country.

And whereas entrepreneurs are essential to fostering innovation and economic prosperity, creating homegrown jobs, raising incomes, building stronger communities, and diversifying goods and services.

And whereas entrepreneurs play a critical role in the building of the City of Folsom, making it fitting to publicly recognize and celebrate their vital contributions to the prosperity and well-being of our community.

And whereas the City of Folsom demonstrates its ongoing commitment to entrepreneurial opportunity by streamlining, permitting, and removing regulatory barriers for those starting and growing businesses.

And whereas the city maintains an open door practice through the mayor's weekly office hours where individuals can bring concerns about possible barriers directly to the city leadership and supports a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in partnership with Choose Folsom.

And whereas the City of Folsom continues its work to ensure entrepreneurs have a clear path to city resources through an updated Folsom Business Guide and celebrates the starters, makers, and innovators from main street storefronts to homegrown technology companies who make Folsom a place where new businesses take root and they thrive.

So therefore I, Justin Rathel, Mayor of the City of Folsom, do hereby proclaim that the City of Folsom joins the America, the entrepreneurial effort with the city's own Folsom, the Entrepreneurial Effort, and hereby celebrates its entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit throughout our nation's 250th startup birthday year.

So I it was uh fortuitous you asked the question of where are the entrepreneurs, and that's where actually the term right to start comes from the organization that's stewarding this national campaign, and that we're trying to create a unified voice for entrepreneurs.

They're too busy building their businesses, that they're not often able to come to city council meetings and the like to be able to advocate for their work, they're running their shops, keeping things alive for us to go to our restaurants and things of that nature.

And so our goal is uh in celebration of the 250th birthday to bring entrepreneurship back to the center of what it means to be an American and that every American has the right to be an entrepreneur, and that uh ultimately as we think about uh the future of our nation, um the founders that are building uh the nonprofits, our restaurants and all the things that are driving change in our community are foundational for what that looks like.

Um, some of the last things that I would share is out of every thousand people in the United States, only three people start new businesses.

And so when we think about making an impact, it's how do the 997 of us wrap around those starters who are creating jobs.

Um if you look at national statistics, um all net new jobs come from new young businesses getting started.

So when we think about building a thriving nation and community and city, it starts with entrepreneurs taking action to build.

And so I'm really proud to have the city of Folsom join this national campaign.

Um and I haven't seen anything where a mayor has an open door policy to have uh entrepreneurs come and voice their concerns.

And so um kudos to to you and that effort, and uh, you know, in celebration of this, go support your small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Um, at the at the end of the day, your resources in terms of being a consumer are the biggest thing to drive that change.

So thank you all, and thank you, uh mayor, for your recognition.

Okay, the next item and last item under schedule presentations this evening is a presentation from the California State Parks regarding the fourth annual Black Miners Bar, Juneteenth Festival, celebration.

Good evening.

I am Tracy Stafford, and I actually produce along the state parks the Juneteenth Festival at Black Miners Bar.

And it is the fourth anniversary of the name change, but it is the fifth anniversary of this event.

And it has been anybody knows starting a brand new event is challenging, but a brand new event with so much controversy surrounding it is a whole nother matter.

And I wanted to talk a little bit about the why.

Even four years later, there's so much I don't want to say controversy, but don't be saying I have things to say, sir.

But there's there's so much um controversy around the name change.

And some may feel that it's this ethnicity or that ethnicity or whatever it is, but it's really, it's kind of everyone.

And I'm not here to talk about who's more Juneteenthy, you know, in terms of what we celebrate when we celebrate Juneteenth, which is when the last enslaved Americans learned that they were free.

We know that now, which is incredible, you know, to hear people say, Oh, I know what Juneteenth is.

Many think it just started when they learned about it, but you know, it's been around, we've been celebrating it since that time.

But the why is often just tied to the name and the pain and why we felt we had to change it and that sort of thing.

And then on the other side, oh, you changed it because you wanted to make others feel more comfortable.

And clearly, I was not the one that changed it.

I just happened to grab the baton at the end of a 30 year struggle to change that name.

30 years of different groups coming together over and over to make change.

I know the last vote before 2022 when it came before the state parks was in 1999, and it was voted down unanimously, because there was concern that we would lose the history, we lose the history, and that was in the determination as to why the decision was made.

And we hear that over and over.

We're gonna lose the history.

And I argue that we found the history.

We're finding the history.

We're uncovering the history rather than just a name that no one is called anymore.

You don't look at that and say, oh, let's find out more about that, right?

That's not what we do.

And in changing the name, we have opened up opportunities to really learn about not even just the um African American people that came here or the black people that were mining, but everybody who mined there, and especially in our Native American community that's been there forever, and you know, prior to that.

We have opened the door.

Well, now there is opportunity to really learn beyond the eagles and the beautiful lake and all of the environmental beauties that we get to enjoy there, that there's so much more rich history and removing that name and actually honoring there were black miners, not just Negroes there, there are black miners there.

Oh, what's that mean?

Tell me about it.

When I first came here, I've been here about 25 years, and I was invited there for an event, and I said, okay, Negro bars, that's where black people go to drink.

I mean, what is this, right?

Most people don't even know what a bar is, you know, it's not a normal word that is used.

So there was so much confusion around it, and then bringing school children there, not and then talking about the environment rather than what is that name about.

And then those who made it more comfortable by saying it was Spanish.

And I can contest that there is not one record anywhere to be found that the Spanish or the Mexican community that was here prior actually named that area.

Not even the Native Americans.

There's nothing that states they named that that they named that area.

And what we can prove, at least with the Folsom Times, when they made a statement and article about gold being found by colored black miner, was the first that we see any documentation whatsoever.

And from that point, it was, you know, where the black miners mine.

Yeah, the black miners are over there, and it somehow got, you know, shrunk to Negro Bar because they weren't using black men of that.

But it got shrunk to that.

So all of the stories around it are not helpful.

And when that change was made in 2022, it happened to be on Juneteenth.

And the very next day, you know, was the first time that at least I came out and celebrated Juneteenth at that park.

And what I would like to sort of add to that is what came of that is the state parks partnering with the California African American Museum in Los Angeles to actually document the history.

And we do it every year, every single year.

This is our fifth anniversary.

Every year, because we want to keep the memory alive.

We want to keep the focus.

We didn't just change the name and change the name.

We changed the name to gain the history to understand what was there before.

And it's going to happen.

And we are very hopeful that one day in the future, might be the 10th or the 15th anniversary, annual Juneteenth event, that we see a visitor center that tells the beautiful, rich history of everyone that mine, that area.

That is our hope, that is our goal, there's our wish, there's our vision, and it should be everybody's.

Thank you, Miss Stafford.

We we really appreciate our partnership with State Parks.

I appreciate you coming out tonight to tell us more about the event.

Thank you.

Excuse me, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I have just received notification that our live stream is not broadcasting, and we have our IT folks working on it.

Would be that there's a lot of important items on the agenda tonight.

Would there be any opposition if we took a break to see if we can get that fixed?

Sure.

We are gonna recess until we get our IT back up and working.

All right, we're gonna call back to order the council meeting, and we've got a brief announcement.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, uh, those in attendance and and members of the community, we apologize for the delay, and we also apologize for the technical difficulties that we're having.

Uh right now, the what I'm told uh we've uh met with our partners with Stack Metro cable who are uh here recording the meeting.

It appears that everything is recording, so we will have a record of the meeting.

Um our IT folks are also recording the meeting, but for some reason, the mechanism to project or to live stream the meeting is not posting onto our website.

So we apologize for that inconvenience.

We're going to move forward with the meeting, and we should be able to have that recording posted on the website tomorrow as well as broadcast on channel uh 14 tomorrow as well.

So that's the information we have at this point.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That takes us to our consent calendar.

Any comments from the public on the calendar this evening?

You do not have anything request to be pulled.

If nobody has a request to pull an item, I'll move the consent calendar.

Second.

Okay, Council Members Kozowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Aquino?

Yes.

And Rethal.

Yes.

And that takes us to new business.

Please call the next item.

Okay.

Your new business item number 14, resolution number 11658.

A resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an operational agreement for use of the parcel 61 electronic reader board sign to be located at the northwest corner of East Bidwell Street and Alder Creek Parkway.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, Josh Kincaid with the community development department.

And tonight I will be presenting the Folsom Ranch Parcel 61 electronic reader board operational agreement.

All right, PowerPoints up.

So let's get started.

There we go.

So for some background, the project's located on the edge of parcel 61 within the Folsom plan area.

Parcel 61 is owned by UC Davis.

As part of the conditions of approval for the specific plan amendment to allow for a billboard, an electronic billboard on this parcel.

The applicant was required to enter into an operational agreement with the city.

Um Eagle Properties who have the signage usement on that parcel for the last year, and we're now ready to present the operational agreement to you.

So the planning commission recently approved a two-sided 65-foot sign at that location with a 14 by 48 foot electronic reader board panel, as you can see on this image.

Below that are some non-illuminated panels for tenant signs, which the applicant has stated will be utilized for businesses located in the commercial areas south of Highway 50.

The electronic portion of the billboard would cycle through eight advertisement slots for eight seconds each.

So now on to some terms of the agreement.

While we were we were using our prior billboard agreements as a template for this, we found that those agreements did not reflect uh other agreements for similar signs in the area, both in um substance and breadth and uh amount paid to the city.

The new agreement would include payments to the city of 102,000 up front and an annual payment of $60,000 for the remaining 24 years of the agreement.

Uh this is far more than what was previously proposed, which was about 15 to 20,000 annually.

It also gives the city the rights to use one of the eight slots that the digital billboard cycles through at no additional cost.

Using current billboard advertising rates in the area, this equates to about a 90 to 100,000 savings in advertising for the city annually for events or anything else that the city wishes to uh to put in that slot.

A few of the other items addressed in the agreement that may be of interest to the council.

Uh the developer has agreed to some limited content prohibition regarding cannabis, adult-related businesses, obscene language, and illegal products.

It also lays out the developers's duty to maintain, repair, restore, replace the sign as needed.

Um, it lays out renewal terms.

Uh we did not want an automatic renewal.

As the state of billboard advertising may be very different 25 years from now.

So we wanted the right to come back and renegotiate as necessary at that time.

And finally, it lays out what would constitute defaults of the agreement, and the the cities and the developers' rights to terminate the agreement, including early termination penalties for the developer in some circumstances, which would give the city enough time to uh to anticipate the eventual uh loss in um in annual revenue.

So overall staff does believe that a uh fair compromise was reached regarding these terms and that the city adequately is uh adequately compensated and protected.

So with that, uh staff does request authorizing the city manager to adopt the operational agreement.

Uh we do have uh Tim Kim with uh representing Eagle Properties here tonight as well.

Um, if you have any questions for him.

And that wraps up my presentation.

Thank you.

Thanks, Josh.

Uh questions for staff this evening.

Yeah, I have one.

I I have no particular issue with their being assigned there.

I'm curious though, you mentioned the responsibility to restore, refurbish, replace the sign.

Um is there is there a presumption that there's some circumstance where the sign would be removed?

I guess I'm just thinking of signs all across America that are relics, right?

They kind of live beyond their useful life, because for one reason or another the operator of it has lost interest.

Right, right.

If the um if the developer or the signed company um is able to uh leave the agreements um to terminate the agreement, then there are provisions to remove the sign in a timely manner if that happens.

Um after the 25-year period, um, if there's not a renewal, there's also provisions to do it at that point.

Um the repair, that sort of thing is if the sign gets uh, you know, if there's some malfunction of some sort, if it's ruined, uh ran into whatever it may be.

Um, there's provisions that they do that in a timely manner.

Um there's also provisions for if if there are a uh if there if there's technology, new technology that's more energy efficient, they have a way to implement that without having to go through a you know agreement update or a conditional use permit update.

Gotcha.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions for staff?

All right.

Thanks so much, Josh.

Mr.

Kim, floor is yours.

Good evening, Mayor Rathel and uh fellow council people, city manager, staff.

I'm Tim Kim with TK Consulting, and I'm representing Eagle Commercial tonight.

And uh just thank you for your time and especially thanks staff for um all the work they've done over the last really two years we've been working on this.

So it's been a little bit of a long road, just thankful to be here.

And uh we feel like it's you know a really high quality sign, maybe maybe the nicest in the region, and it kind of fits the city's motto, distinctive by nature.

We also feel like it's financially beneficial to the city, of course, and is a big support to local businesses.

So we think it's a you know, great idea.

We appreciate your support, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for the applicant this evening?

All right, thank you.

Thanks for being here.

Yeah, um, I'll go ahead and move adoption of resolution number one one six five eight with thanks to the mayor and city manager for negotiating more favorable terms for the city on this.

Thank you.

Second, all right.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozowski.

Yes, Leary?

Yes, Aquino?

Yes, and Ray Thel.

Yes.

Please call the next item.

Okay, the next item under new business this evening is item number 15, resolution number 11659.

A resolution authorizing the city manager to execute our purchase and sell agreement with Brian Martel and Moharani in the amount of 1.55 million for the purchase of assessor parcel numbers as stated on the agenda and appropriation of funds.

Good evening, Mayor Rafel, members of the council, Pam Johns, your community development director.

I'm gonna give a brief um presentation on this item, and then I'd be happy to answer any questions.

There may be folks that want to speak, and certainly the current property owner is available here this evening.

So the recommendation of this item is really for the purchase of two undeveloped parcels that are located in the historic district using the city's housing funds, and those are shown on these two exhibits on the screen.

The assessor's parcel numbers that are listed reflect the two parcels shown in the blue crosshatch on both of these images.

I think I might have a let me see if I can use the cursor here for the screen.

So the two blue parcels here.

So this is the city's corpyard, Lake Natoma, the preserve neighborhood, and then this is generally an undeveloped site between several notable sites in this in this vicinity, and it's been undeveloped for several years.

We had a few applications I'm gonna highlight on this next screen.

Both parcels are designated in the general plan as the historic Folsom mixed-use designation, and that allows for a combination of commercial and residential uses or standalone residential and has a minimum density of 20 units to the acre.

The two parcels are also designated in the housing element as one of the many regional housing needs allocation sites, so our available sites inventory.

It doesn't mean that this absolutely has to be developed with affordable housing, but as the council knows we have to keep track of the inventory to make sure that the city continues to have available sites to meet our regional housing needs allocation for our eight-year period, and we're halfway through that.

I'm going to show an update on where we're at with that.

Historically, the site has had some interest for multifamily apartment development.

Most recently in 2024, we received an application for 84-unit apartment complex on the properties, and that project was ultimately withdrawn before any public review or hearing.

And through that process, certainly the staff became aware of all the changes to state law that have the potential to impact sites like this that are sensitive with resources and surroundings.

Knowing that the corporation yard is going to be relocated south of White Rock Road in the coming years.

And so, you know, this really creates this site is a is a good opportunity site.

The Letisdorf property is a good opportunity site for that redevelopment in the future of the city's corpyard.

As recently as this year, the council initiated their relocation of the corpyard by contracting for planning and design of the new corpyard south of White Rock Road.

We know that there will be several years before functionally the existing site is relocated, but through the council's action on the vision plan and all the hard work of that committee, the expectation is that there's going to be in the coming years some interest in master planning the courtyard, and owning this site certainly creates an advantage to the city for land assembly, for considering how and where exactly housing might be developed on this site in the future.

So I talked a little bit about state housing laws.

They continue to encourage higher density housing, especially near transit.

This site is very close to transit and really limit local control over housing projects in general, but specifically to affordable housing projects.

So most new laws don't have exceptions for historic districts or areas.

And while we continue to advocate and work to protect our historic district, we're at risk of having a project proposed on this site that may not be to a scale and density and intensity that's appropriate for this area, for this historic area and for the kind of the surrounding neighborhood.

And so for that reason, the staff had started expressing some interest in how we might consider purchase of this property with housing funds.

So before we move on to that history, I want to just talk a little bit about the progress that we've made.

So in August of this year, Stephanie Henry, our housing manager came and presented kind of our mid-term progress on our the type of housing that we've developed over the previous four year term as part of our eight-year housing cycle.

And while we've made good progress, we really are struggling to meet those lower income needs.

And we have relied on market, you know, kind of the market to drive that.

So most of our housing funds have been used to support the long-term low interest loans for multifamily housing development.

And as you can see on this slide, we have spent $13.7 million of our housing funds to deed restrict 550 affordable units throughout six projects in the city.

So at the time we reported out our progress to the city council in August, you all asked us to consider other ways that we might spend the money to purchase and or sell city property and have more control over the partnership and development of those sites in the future.

So use of the housing funds implements the housing element, certainly housing element program H6 that's listed here, but also several goals and policies that this city council adopted about five years ago.

One of the things I want to highlight is the public benefits associated with this site.

The purchase of these sites guarantees some level and type of affordable housing in the future to help meet Arena.

We don't have to specify exactly what that is, but our as we move forward with any public partnership in the future, we would have a conversation about that.

What we see this site as is a purchase and hold kind of situation where until the site has full access and the potential to consider what might have happen on the courtyard, it really is not in the city's interest to move forward and actively pursue a partnership for the two parcels that are that are located, what we call kind of the back of the property or the downslope of the property adjacent to the courtyard.

If the city controls these properties, then we have the opportunity to consider how we might transfer any kind of a housing obligation to the courtyard or other site, but this allows the city to control that project in the future and prevents someone else from coming in and buying the property and again proposing something that the city might have very little control over because of state housing laws.

So I want to be clear that any future decision of the city council to propose any type of a project or figure out any additional way to spend housing funds for any partnership would be in a public forum before this group, and we would certainly have a public process with the surrounding neighborhood about the appropriate use and scale of development in this area.

But I want to be clear that by purchasing the site with housing funds, we are obligating some type of affordable housing at some point either on this site or potentially on the corp yard site with a transfer in the future.

We don't have to specify exactly what that looks like yet.

We can we can think about that and engage the public and the community in a process moving forward.

There were some public comments that we received asking, you know, have we actually looked at the environmental review of the site?

We have through several applications on this site, seeing both a phase one and phase two environmental assessment, and we have seen details about the easements on the property.

So we know what we're getting.

I will show you that the two parcels are kind of separated here by right-away that we expect would be abandoned at some point in the future, both here and and here.

And so we assume that this area would be abandoned and this could be you know potentially developed or swapped in the future for some type of housing.

There are two parcels that have become, I'm gonna talk about those in a second, that are up closer to Sutter Street, some frontage on Sutter Street, and then some located behind the existing city park site, and there is no proposal application in on those properties.

Those are not a subject of this purchase.

That would be that would require an application from the current property owner or any subsequent property owner, but they are not offering that up for sale at this point.

So in 2025, the previous landowners, now in terms of the site pricing and appraisals that have been done recently on the property.

In 2025, the previous landowners had listed all four of those properties that total about two and three quarters acres at 3.25 million.

In late 2025, the broker representing the owner reached out to the city to ask us about our interest in considering a reduced price, but the land was sold to the current owners, Moharani and Brian Millar at the prior to our seeking an appraisal.

So the new owners then offered to sell the city two of the four parcels, again, the ones located directly adjacent to the courtyard.

In February, we hired a local appraiser, John Athwart and Ashworth, and he completed an appraisal of those two properties, and we asked him to consider all four parcels in as part of that assessment.

And so that appraisal is attached to the staff report, and the details are that the appraised value of the two lower lots on the corp yard, the 1.92 acres, would be as estimated to be a million dollars.

I will point out that that appraisal identified limited direct access in the near term, and had you know struggled to identify sales comparisons because of the limited near-term opportunity on the site.

So the comparisons were limited or discounted given a longer term hold that they expected on the property.

I think the council has an awareness that that's a willing, you know, something that we're willing to do for the long-term benefit of owning and controlling this property.

The appraisal also estimated the value of the upper two lots along Sutter Street at a million dollars as well.

The current landowners had concerns about the appraisal that that we had, and they had their own appraisal done, certainly for the purchase of the property, and the same four lots they estimated or their appraisal came in at 5.225 million for all four properties.

The that appraisal, I think it's important to note assumed that the city's right-of-way was abandoned and included in the developable acreage.

So is a substantially larger property, and in all honesty, that's what the previous multifamily application had assumed as well.

That application would have requested and assumed that the city would be willing to abandon some of that right-away as part of the project development.

So we had a conversation in closed session with council as we do on uh real property matters, and council directed the city manager to proceed with um negotiations to purchase those two parcels along the corporation yard using the the fulsom Housing Fund 238 up to a maximum of 1.6 million.

So what we have before you this evening is a resolution that would authorize the city manager to execute a purchase and sale agreement with Brian Martell and Moharani for 1.55 million to purchase those two parcels and to appropriate the funds out of Fulsom Housing Fund 238.

And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Questions for staff this evening?

Start around the side, Councilmember Aquino.

Just one.

Thank you, Pam.

So, hypothetically speaking, I know this is not our intent, but hypothetically speaking, if we were to purchase this and at some point down the road wanted to sell it, that would trigger the surplus land act process where we'd have to forget first right of refusal to an affordable housing developer.

That's correct.

Okay.

If an agency wants to dispose of land, you have to declare it, and unless it's otherwise exempt, you have to go through a specific process to dispose of that.

Okay, thank you.

That's true for all parcels that we own.

That's true for all the parcels unless they're otherwise exempt or the action that you're proposing is otherwise exempt.

Thank you.

Councilmember.

Oh, can you flip back to the map?

Because we've seen this map a number of times for different projects.

Which map?

The one that shows the land that we're looking at purchasing and you want an aerial or yeah, an aerial map.

And then because there's another there's a piece, Jay, it's kind of like a little triangle piece there.

And then and yeah, behind the park.

Is that included in this lot sale or is that excluded for this?

Yes, it's excluded.

Good question.

These two parcels that are along Sutter Street and the existing park site are um were purchased by Brian and Mo, but they are not for sale to the city.

The only two parcels are these two parcels here that I'm showing with my cursor.

And those are basically on a fairly steep slope.

They're on the back side of a slope.

So most of the slope is kind of on the backside of these lots and you know, kind of shared here.

The Burnham Street or Burnett Street, sorry, um, provides a direct access to this property, um, but the or this parcel, but the other parcel would would come off of a future extension of Letisdorf Street, and right now the core the corporation yard improvements are within part of that right-of-way area.

And then the veterans hall, you know, is just around the corner.

Would that so there would there be access to that second parcel if you're arguably you could take access off of uh off of this extension of Letisdorf here?

Again, this is the corp yard fence, so the there are some limitations, but until the corporation yard moves, it would be challenging to figure out how to plan or develop the site, kind of without the knowledge of of how the corporation site would be redeveloped.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Kozelski.

Um good work, thank you very much.

Um, for those of you that haven't seen this in person, uh to Pam's point about the elevation change.

Um, the parcel that's to the right that kind of makes a D on the page right there.

Um that one is probably 20 feet lower than Sutter Street, which is um the the upper part of the parcel that we're not purchasing.

Um so there's this really significant slope, and conveniently that slope runs along the um the north-south right of way also.

So it's like a little peninsula there.

So there are actually two completely different elevations with a slope surrounding the one.

Yeah, you can see a little bit of the grading on this exhibit uh here with the multifamily apartment project uh site plan because this is the grade that they were avoiding.

Yeah, and then I more a comment than a question, but um the the uh one of the one of the important things about this uh the the us taking this action is a direct response to the changes to state law last year um that took away the city's right to turn down certain scale of projects.

Um if if we control it, we can decide who develops it and how they develop it.

Um if we don't control it, a developer can make some proposals of very large, very dense projects on those parcels that we would not be able to say no to, except under you know access requirements or something like that.

Um, so this is as useful in that way as sort of playing offense while we also are playing defense and trying to help assemblyman Hoover pass a law that would adjust those roles a little bit specifically for us here in Folsom.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Kosowski.

And I I do think this is a this is a strategy that is being employed by a lot of jurisdictions in California in order to kind of establish that guarantee and control the partnership to meet whatever local needs and priorities uh the jurisdiction has.

That's right.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pam.

All right, we've got a couple of public comments uh this evening.

Uh we'll start with uh Deborah Crassell, uh followed by John Lane.

Good evening, mayor and council, uh city managers, staff.

Uh I had an opportunity to take a look at the proposal to buy the two uh pieces of property, and my recommendation was to buy all four uh pieces of property, but now I realize that really only two are actually available, and I think it's a great idea.

I worked on the river district master plan that turned into a vision plan, and I think that the purchase of these two properties would really help to get that uh that plan kind of um going, build some momentum there as well as protect the properties.

That is really super.

Um we have several constituents here tonight that have signed letters of support to the California State Legislature Assembly and the Senate asking that the Senate now it's up to them to pass Josh Hoover's amendment to Weiner's bill uh to protect the historic districts.

So we're really kind of right along with you.

We think that this is a good addition to the historic district, and and we really appreciate the long-term strategy that that staff spent a lot of time going through, and I'm sure you also did too.

So we're in favor of buying that property.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, Deborah.

And nice shirt, by the way.

And my shirt, is it good?

It could be better, it could be better.

Work on it for next council meeting, okay.

Good evening, uh, Mayor and Council members and staff.

Uh John Lane, I live at 1010 Leadesdorf.

Uh, I'm also on the Historic District Commission, and most importantly, uh served as chair, honored uh serving as chair for the River District Master Plan, which became the vision plan, um, because uh we worked really hard on that plan, and this was one of the most important key projects was to get the most out of that property.

And a lot of people weighed in, and you saw the map, and I was super excited to see you both in the staff presentation and both the appraisals also looking at everybody is captured by what we want to do with this property.

And we always knew that if that piece, those other pieces went, especially given the limited uh ability to control that future of those two little pieces adjacent to it, it could create something incongruent with what the vision of the people and the and the city might be.

And I don't mean um uh density housing, I mean the historic district works really hard to retain the historic character, and if we were able to uh retain some amount of control there, it would be a major improvement from what we have now, which was a developer could come and they don't have to pay attention to your historic district guidelines.

They can build multiple stories, and if it goes in there first, it becomes a huge problem for us when we go to try and get the grand vision of the vision plan because now you have an existing um project and people living there, and you're now going to have to deal with the impacts to them.

So highly in support.

I think it's a good win-win, both for the the owners of the current property and for the city and for the citizens, so that we can uh do something really special with the courtyard when it's time.

So any questions, let me know.

Thank you, Doug.

I have one other comment to make.

Absolutely.

And that is, you know, the vision plan is that was the third um time that a gathering is taking place with residents of Folsom, and it's not actually set in stone.

It's a vision, and I think there's a lot of room for uh growth in that uh vision to make this something that's uh compatible with the historic district and the neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will I will add on I'll be testifying uh Hoover's uh AB 2415 bill uh tomorrow afternoon and I appreciate Councilmember Kozlowski also stepping up and us kind of switching off to testify, make sure Folsom's voice is heard with uh with the bill that ABE 2415.

So if you uh would have send in your support on that bill, of course, you're always welcome to.

We use all the support.

I appreciate all those that have already, but we uh really pushing forward to to make that change as soon as we can and protect our historic district.

Any other comments or questions?

We have no other public comment.

Mr.

Mayor, I'd like to move that we approve resolution number one one six five nine.

Second.

Okay, council members Kozowski.

Yes, Leary, yes, Aquino, and Rachel.

Yes.

Please call the next item.

Okay, your next item under new business this evening is item number 16 resolution number 11661, a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with Schneider Electric Building Americas for the development of an energy savings conservation project and performance contract and the amount of 180,000 and appropriation of funds.

Great.

Thank you, mayor members of the council.

Uh appreciate the opportunity to be to uh be before you tonight.

I'd like to introduce uh Amy Cahill and Madden Dillard with uh Schneider Electric, who will be going over uh the proposal that um is up for council consideration.

Uh we appreciate the time, effort, and energy that Schneider Electric has uh put into working with the city to try to develop this plan.

And with that, uh I'll turn it over to Amy.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, council members, city manager, and staff.

Thank you so much for having us here.

Um, like Mr.

White Meyer has said, we've been working for about four months with the city staff and trying to come up with how best to move forward with modernizing infrastructure for the city.

We'd like to share a little bit about who Schneiner Electric is.

We are a global partner supporting cities like yourself in energy management and sustainability.

We have 130,000 employees located in a hundred countries.

Madden, feel free to grab that mic and move it.

Thank you.

So our role in working with cities is to help capture savings and fund additional opportunities, or sorry, additional funding opportunities so that we are able to help modernize your facilities.

We are here so that we can move into a design agreement where our team of engineers will be able to evaluate and determine a long-term plan for energy efficiency with the city.

It matters to the city of Folsom because we are hoping to innovate your facilities with modern infrastructure that is going to advance your city goals and also save uh funds and um money on your existing utility bills.

So we have over eight offices just in California alone, and we've had over 450 million dollars in savings, again in California alone, completed 135 projects across the state, and we have over 60 repeat clients.

Here's a case study for the city of Palmdale.

Palmdale is in Southern California, and it has 160,000 residents.

They came to us looking to modernize their infrastructure.

They had several HVAC units that were over 15 years old and were in dire need of being replaced.

They also had outdated building controls, operational reliability concerns, and they were looking for community investment.

The solution that we co-authored with that Schneider co-authored with the city of Palmdale was we were able to modernize their infrastructure, improve reliability, increase energy and water efficiency, and enhance community facilities.

We performed 14.7 million dollars in city improvements, which was HVAC, building controls, LED lighting, and irrigation, and they had 700,000 in annual savings because of those upgrades.

Another case study that we would like to share is the city of Anderson.

This project came about because of the federal investment tax credit that provides tax credits to public entities as yourself for installing solar arrays.

So with this project, we installed a 757 KW ground mount solar array that nearly offset the entire usage of the wastewater treatment plant in the city.

What was exciting about this project is that from completion to the start of the project, it took a year, and so we worked very fast to meet the deadlines of the federal tax incentive, and that is what we would seek to do here with the city of Folsom as well.

And then the last case study we wanted to review is the city of Brentwood, which is in the Bay Area.

This city came to us wanting to electrify their municipal vehicles, and so we worked together to come up with an integrated clean energy plan, which included EV charging infrastructure and on-site solar generation.

We installed 16 dual port level two chargers and one dual port DC fast charger.

This city was able to recognize five million dollars in lifecycle savings.

So we worked with the city staff to come up with the goals for this infrastructure project, and we these are the four goals that we came up with: public safety and infrastructure, financial stability and sustainability, organizational effectiveness, and economic and community development.

So as we discuss entering into this design phase, we have done an initial assessment and provided some types of project scopes that our team of engineers will be able to evaluate and determine if applicable for the city of Folsom.

So the first category is going to be HVAC and controls, consisting of building air conditioning units and any sort of thermostats that are on the wall that are going to control those units.

So standardizing, looking for operational efficiency that will gain savings.

The next scope bucket is going to be LED lighting.

So the city has done a great job already transitioning a lot of the fixtures to LED.

So part of our efforts will be able to inventory all remaining existing fixtures and determine any scope available for LED replacement.

This would be also looking at sports field lighting, street lighting, interior and exterior fixtures.

The next bucket, we've kind of lumped under other measures, but we are going to take a wide array looking at different things where the city is also using energy or utilities, so water, irrigation, looking at pump motors at the water treatment plant, aquatic center, also adding variable frequency drives to those pumps to help with efficiencies as well.

And as we mentioned before, the last scope item that we do want to make sure that we're evaluating as part of this project is looking for facilities that we can implement solar PV array insulation.

So we will be taking a look at all the city facilities through this design phase and coming back with an overall co-authored project scope that we will work with city staff to develop together.

So the key benefits for the city of Folsom are modernized infrastructure without a budget strain, improved safety, lighting quality, and indoor air quality, guaranteed outcomes with performance accountability and reduced carbon footprint, which is aligned with your sustainability goals.

So in all, we suggest that you move forward to adopt the resolution number.

Hang on.

Can we go to the six one?

Oh, it is the next slide.

There we go.

Adopt the resolution 11661.

Thank you so much.

Questions for Amy and Madden?

I should go last.

You should go last.

Councilmember Aquino.

Is that because you're going to take a long time?

I have specialized knowledge that it'd be better if everybody got their other questions out first.

Who owns the plan?

We purchase the plan, we always have the option to back out, but who owns the plan?

You or us?

So as part of our agreement giving those um deliverables to the city, if uh we do not choose to move forward from a design phase, the city would get the deliverables that are developed during the design phase.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Leary?

I guess at the end of your evaluation, you've come up with this list of things that could be done.

Um, would the city have the option to kind of narrow that list down?

And I what point could that happen?

Yes, so during the entire process, we expect this to take three months, and we'll be working with city staff during that time in constant communication, as I think Brian's aware, every couple weeks having meetings.

This is what we're looking at.

Is this scope approved?

You know, do you want to move forward with this or not?

And so we're really working together and co-authoring this design.

So it really is up to the city during the whole process.

And then about two weeks before we give the final kind of price, we're we're going to say we're at 90% complete.

Does this work for you?

Is there any tweaks you want to make?

So we will be coming back and forth during the entire process.

And Councilmember Leary, I would also add that we may have the opportunity to expand the scope.

So they've done some preliminary visits and have spent a decent amount of time, but if this is approved, then they would come into all of our city facilities and work with our facility folks to dig into all sorts of things.

So there may be other ideas that come out of that interaction.

Okay, and just one other question.

This is a guesstimate for you.

Um if let's say we took on all of those, that initial list that you have, what would be the time frame on completing those projects?

So it looked like you had one project there that was a year and one a little bit long.

Absolutely.

So when we are looking at this project, we want to, you know, be cognizant of mobilization.

So that means we're going to be coming with you a phasing plan for insulation when we have this construction project ready to build out.

And so, right now, if all of the scope is included, we're estimating about a year for total completion.

Um, obviously, with the driver being the solar needing to be completed ahead of the tax credit incentive timeline.

Great, thank you.

Will you guys take a look at this light that's above you before you before you?

I have noticed that light.

I was just thinking.

Just likes to turn on randomly and turn off.

So we'd appreciate some help with that light.

I'm just kind of curious.

You know, obviously, you talked a little bit about this is just the design phase, but we we move forward um with projects, and then how do you guys kind of guarantee that those efficiencies are realized later on?

Because that's really where where we're paying for the project, right?

We're paying for it out of that energy savings.

And so just kind of want to understand how that works.

Yes, absolutely.

No, that is a great question.

So as part of our process, we will be developing this project scope, but we have a team of energy engineers who is also going to be looking at all the existing utility bills and spend for the city of Folsom to determine what those savings are going to be.

So as part of this uh design effort, we will then compile the energy savings and Schneider Electric uses the um, it's a third-party IP VMP, international performance measurement and verification protocol that has guidelines to actually understand how these savings can be measured by a company like ourselves.

So as part of the final project, a savings guarantee plan is constructed so that the city has full understanding of how the uh performance is going to be met during the period and life cycle of the project.

And then you guys, you you project that, but you also stand behind that projection too.

Correct, yes.

So we are here, our team of measurement and verification engineers then evaluate um on an annual basis, depending on how we have that guarantee period in place to ensure the validation of those savings.

So we'd expect it to be essentially cost positive or at least very least cost neutral going.

That would be the expectation for the hit to the like a general fund.

Correct, yes.

And um, as part of this project, you know, building out the cash flows that the city is able to review and evaluate that is uh really how the project scope comes together.

What can fit within that um those parameters that the city has for that budget neutral approach?

And is there a chance that we might include some like non-budget neutral items but cover those with other items because it still makes sense, but it's like kind of on the borderline, but in energy efficiency goals and the idea of lowering the operating cost going forward, we might pick up a few borderline projects in that.

Absolutely, and you know, bringing forth that information and evaluating this options together is part of the design phase.

So we can work collaboratively to determine what those project options might be.

Okay, yeah, I'm sure there's some things that are just like operationally would be really nice, but might not quite pencil uh in.

Okay, council member Kozlowski.

Yeah, so um my day job is to be a direct competitor to these nice ladies.

Um, and I happen to know a lot about this particular subject.

So I'm gonna attempt to ask some reasonably non-technical questions.

Um, but I I will start by saying that um there are a lot of energy services companies out there in the world, and um as much as I prefer that my company were doing this project, that would be kind of irrational on my part in terms of what that would look like on the front page of the Folsom Telegraph.

Um, and uh Schneider is a responsible company that I'm sure will give us a good product in terms of uh an honest design and calculation of savings.

Um, so here are my questions with that context set.

Um the if you are doing an energy savings project in the fashion that we do, um, generally the presumption is that the savings that is generated from current expenses, so avoided costs for everybody, um, that those are used in the future to pay for the project.

Only they accumulate one year at a time, and the cost of this project will be borne by the city in year one or at the year that the construction is taking place.

So has this, and this is a question for the city manager basically have we established that we are to some threshold willing to provide capital from our current budgets or borrow money in order to pay for the capital investment in the first part of the project, and then take the repayment over time out of the avoided cost.

A great question, council member.

Uh so as part of the scoping progress uh process and then identifying the actual project, we will um identify the different elements of the project and what fund they are associated with.

Is it associated with the general fund?

Is it associated with the sewer fund, the water fund, solid waste or whatever it is.

And then we would assign what those costs are to that direct fund.

And so we anticipate that we would use some capital that we do have to pay down the project.

We also would anticipate that we would probably need to take out some financing of some sort to pay for the project.

And then having done a project like this in another jurisdiction, what I would do is make sure that we realize the savings and we set aside a separate fund, we would call it, I don't know, energy savings fund.

And so we would proactively transfer money, you know, that of the savings, the avoided cost into that fund so that we would all, I mean, already have the amortization schedule for the debt service, and we would make sure that we had adequate funding that would pay the debt service so that it wouldn't impact our normal operating uh budget.

Excellent.

So I was gonna suggest one thing that I suggest to all of my customers is that a special reserve fund be prepared that it that is filled with funds from year to year and mimics the expected savings from the project because we're talking about avoided costs.

So all things, you know, their project not happening would mean that we would have spent that money on electricity or on gas or water or operational expenses.

And to your point, a good way to track against the savings guarantee, which we're going to insist on, is that there be a fund that one-to-one we can match up.

Okay, it's just a suggestion.

Um most jurisdictions don't take me up on that one, but I always throw it out there because I think it's a responsible way to be able to look see it in the budget.

And then what invariably happens with projects like this is that they have a long life.

Um, the equipment continues to work for years and years into the future when most of us may not be here.

Um, maybe none of us will be here at the end of the term, and um being able to see that happening from year to year gives people in the future the chance to check the work of the past, right?

Um, okay.

So that being said, now the zinger question for you guys a little bit.

Um you mentioned the measurement and verification protocols, the IP MVP, okay.

Um, there's different ways to measure within those protocols.

Um, what would you expect would be the predominant way that you would measure the things that you've identified as potential project scope?

Yes, great question.

Um, we will be providing a table in our initial kickoff with each scope that we have identified, providing the corresponding measure.

So, right now I have that table.

Um, a lot of it is going to be option A for your lighting.

And for those of you who don't know what an option A is, it's basically a one-time measurement for example, a lighting fixture.

We would measure the existing fixture of your current wattage, the pre-measurement, compare it to the post-measurement, and then validate the savings that what we had on that assumption for our savings, the pre-measurement and post-measurement match.

You take a sample of those measurements.

So when you look at the different scope, option A would be applicable for lighting, water, envelope, things that you can take one-time measurements for the solar, looking at an option B measurement, which is a recurring measurement over time of one variable.

So in this case, it would be our PV production.

Um, lastly, we are considering option C for mechanical and automation controls, especially in a civic center area where there's multiple buildings on one meter.

It could justify an option C measurement, which is going to be a whole meter measurement, meaning we would look at the meter that serves this group of uh buildings here and see how the savings are affecting that utility meter over time.

Overall, I think it's going to be a mix and it will be a collaborative process, but we are very committed to, you know, evaluating that together so that this guarantee can be in place for the city.

Terrific.

Um, okay, so then you included in their solar, um, there are some challenges doing solar projects in SMUD territory because you have a competing program from SMUD.

Um, do you think you can improve on what we can just call SMUD up and buy from them because they have a solar shares program that mimics owning a solar project?

We can look into that, but my latest information is that that is fully subscribed for cities.

Okay, okay, all right.

We'll want to at least see a comparison of that when you when you show your work.

Happy to do it.

Um, and then the the ITC is um the investment tax credit that has always mostly always been available for solar projects, um, sunsets at the end of next year.

You feel that the 18 months between now and December of 2027 is adequate time to design, build, get us to approve it, get it in get it installed, get it commissioned, get SMUD to accept it and have it completely operating.

It is a very accelerated schedule.

We have already started our planning calls and worked with um our team to get people assigned in front of this so that we can be a month ahead of how we would normally be at this point, in fact, you know, at this stage.

Got it.

So full disclosure, I have talked with Schneider about that particular topic.

I wanted everybody to hear the question and answer because that that is going to be the most challenging part of this in terms of the the time that's available to secure that.

And it's not an insignificant uh reward if you can secure it because the investment tax credit is something like 35%-ish for of the cost of the solar project.

Um, and then the last thing I will say is just um a caution that if you start jumping off of the roof with your solar project, um, we have a lot of people that own pitchforks that will be really unhappy if we start cutting trees down, and almost all of our parking lots are heavily treed.

So just FYI.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being there.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate your time tonight.

Uh, we do have one public comment this evening.

Okay, uh, the public comment.

Um, James Tepford, could go ahead and approach the podium.

Hello again.

Um Jim Tedford for the record.

Um resident.

Uh the comments I'm gonna make, I want you to take in context to my previous general comments on the contracting and purchasing system that's outlined in the city charter and code ordinance and uh you know charter.

Um my questions and questions and comments, no disrespect to this to Schneider people that are here.

So you know, when I was reading the uh the resolution I was as it was prepared.

I mean, the first question that came to mind was how is Schneider selected in the first place?

I mean, generally you go through a process where you're gonna select a vendor, and I don't see any documentation on it how this even came about.

And then my next question was under what authority is a city manager and staff able to work collaboratively with a vendor, you know, since February.

I don't understand how that working relationship worked and under what authority you know the city can actually work with a vendor without a contract in place.

Uh, then you know the next thing was they talk about an evaluation being referred to that allows Schneider to be a selected.

I don't know what evaluation they're talking about, other than maybe what's at the front of the paragraph.

Um, and then it goes it on that, you know, where are the assessments of the existing infrastructure identified ECMs and path forward documents that were prepared already?

I don't see those in the uh, you know, in the uh package that was prepared.

Um, and why haven't they been included?

My next comment is, you know, Schneider's uh energy is a I'm assuming it's an engineering contracting firm.

So are they actually licensed under you know state code to provide engineering services without a subsequent contract in place to uh, you know, to construct.

I mean, you know, you can't just take their plans and documents and have another engineering contractor do that.

I mean, that's an engineering firm's work.

So, you know, this may have been a question that a purchasing agent working with the city and the staff would have been able to answer and address up front, or that I could ask questions to.

And um, you know, they've kind of gone over what specific design and engineering services are being provided.

And uh my next comment is, you know, we're talking about a contract here.

I don't see the contract.

I mean, if you normally went out to bid with this, the contract would be public record because you would put it as a proposal.

I don't see any record of the contract here.

And um, you know, in this contract, what work is already included in the work that Schneider's already performed in this particular, you know, contracting action that you're contemplating.

I I don't I don't know if we're paying for work that's already done or they're providing providing paying them for new work.

Thank you, Mr.

Clear.

If you could make your closing comments, so basically, you know, I do have one last important comment.

Get it out where we're 30 seconds over.

Yeah.

So I see I don't see anything in this California state code that allows this to be a sole source procurement.

I read the sections that were addressed in the report, they're not there.

I see that.

So as I see it, this proposed contracting action doesn't does not meet the city requirements under the contracting and purchasing ordinance.

Thank you so much.

Can I comment?

The floor is yours.

Uh Mr.

Tepper, thank you for the questions.

Uh I appreciate the opportunity to address these.

Uh so uh as far as the interaction with Schneider Electric, how can the city work with them without a contract?

Is uh we don't pay them anything, right?

So they're working for free.

You know, so when we engaged in that conversation, uh I've been very upfront with them as they said, hey, we'd like to see what we can do for the city of Folsom.

And I said, Well, um we don't have anything to pay you right now.

I mean, so we need to find that out, and there's no guarantee that you will get this job.

So we had our first meeting and they came and asked this information, and then we went back, they provided more information, and they asked to review our systems and came up with a scope of work.

Uh uh the city attorney can talk a little bit about this, but the the reality is that there are certain provisions in the code that are specifically for these types of projects.

I've been able to do that in another jurisdiction where we've interacted with that the code language to put together a project that is very beneficial, you know, for the community.

Our goal in this is at the end of the day, the risk with this agreement is that we uh will be obligated to pay 180,000 for their work if we decide to not go forward with an actual construction project.

Um I think it's also important to note that uh we're coming to the council for the authority to to expend those funds being fully transparent that that's the cost of this effort, and then there will be a subsequent item that will be presented to the city council for the actual construction documents and scope approval.

Um as far as uh the licensing, I can let um uh the representative from Schneider Electra talk about that, but um, it's been my experience that they are all licensed uh engineers in the respective fields, and so uh we would definitely make sure that that's the case.

Um, as far as the documents uh are going, we're working under the council of our city attorney to finalize those and wanted to make sure that we could move forward uh as quickly as possible, mainly because we're trying to save the citizens of fulsome money by uh getting it done in time to qualify for the ITC tax credits.

So before um we go to Schneider, uh uh Madam City Attorney, would you mind talking a little bit about the code provisions that allow us to interact like this?

Sure.

So as a charter city, the city of Folsom has additional opportunities with respect to procurement that don't necessarily apply to general law cities.

So as the gentleman was referencing, our Charter Article 5 talks about procurement requirements, and then those are enshrined in ordinance, chapter 2.36 with respect to this particular contract.

Um it is a professional services contract, and that's defined in uh the definition section of 2.36.030 professional services means works work performed by specially trained and experienced persons, firms, or corporations rendering professional services and advice, such as accounting, financial, legal, medical, engineering, architectural, environmental, economic, etc.

Specialized services, where the determination was made by the city council years ago that we didn't necessarily want to go with, for instance, the lowest available bid.

We wanted to go for professional services with the firm or individual we felt would provide the best benefit to the public.

So for design services, that is allowed, and under our municipal code, that is an acceptable procurement method, and that's how we are proceeding with the design agreement tonight, the uh or request for the design agreement tonight.

With respect to construction, there are specific uh provisions in the state government code.

Section 4217.12 allows us to have a public hearing uh where the city council would consider and if uh if I think the proposal would need to demonstrate that there would be energy savings that would be guaranteed to the city if the council were to review that information and find that it is true, that would be an exception to the traditional method of low bid procurement for um construction projects, and that was a policy level decision made by the state legislature.

So we would be presenting that it would be completely up to the council whether they opt to proceed, and also with respect to what components of that construction project.

Thank you.

And Schneider, if you want to address the licensing.

Yes, absolutely.

So we can provide copies of our California general contractor's license.

We are design build firm where we do the engineering, but then we are also um contracted to be able to do the construction of that work if the city so chooses to move forward with the project.

Thank you so much.

Before you guys sit down, I'll just check with my colleagues if there's any other questions after the public comment with for Schneider.

All right, seeing none, thank you so much.

Oh sorry, we do have a question.

I don't know if I can can I jump in in the middle?

Okay.

So let the record show that Vice Mayor Orbah has joined our our meeting.

Um so I had a question.

If we don't proceed after phase two, does the city retain ownership?

You might have asked this question, and I apologize for that.

Um, the engineering work, the assessments, designs analysis, and the other deliverables.

Yes, correct.

Okay, all right.

That was the only question I'm gonna blame our video feed for not working.

Uh Councilmember Keanu asked that earlier.

Great bias to keep it.

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much.

All right, we have no further public comment uh on this item.

So I'll entertain a motion.

Is our resident expert?

He ran to the restroom.

I think he told me he's going to abstain.

Oh, okay.

Understood.

So Sari, I legally, I mean, I jumped in right at the tail end.

I I was briefed by the company before, read the packet, but I don't know if I can jump in and vote, or do I need also need to abstain?

This is not a public hearing item.

Um, and so if you feel comfortable that you have enough information based on what what you have available and what you were able to review, you've had the opportunity to ask any questions you have.

If you feel comfortable voting, you can do so.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I can go ahead and move adoption of resolution number one one six six one.

And I'll second.

Please call the roll.

Okay, council members Kozlowski.

Stepped away.

Um council member Leary.

Yes.

Norbah?

Yes.

Aquino?

Yes.

And Rafael.

Yes.

And just for the record, um, council member Kazowski, who has mentioned is gonna abstain.

Yeah, we can check back in with him when he when he rejoins us.

Good timing.

Good timing.

Just say abstain.

For clarity, I'm abstaining, so I can save face at my office.

All right.

Uh that concludes item number 16.

We'll move on to public hearing.

Please call the next item.

Okay.

Your first um item under public hearing this evening is item number 17, consideration of ordinances amending the city charter and or the fulsom municipal code for submission to the voters at the 2026 general municipal election.

You do have three ordinances before you tonight for introduction and first reading.

Ordinance number 1371 dealing with city attorney ordinance number 1372 dealing with boards and commissions and ordinance number 1373 dealing with campaign contribution limitation.

Okay, thank you, Mayor members of the the council.

Um appreciate the opportunity to present on this item, and I may need some help from my team.

Uh the clicker isn't working.

So if we if we can thank you so much.

Uh so uh the this public hearing is to consider uh the ordinances amending the city charter and or the fulsom municipal code for submission to the voters at the 2026 general municipal election.

As was identified, we have ordinance uh 1371, which is an ordinance of the people of the city of Folsom, amending section 4.03, city attorney of the city charter to have the city council appoint and direct the city attorney to make related operational changes.

Next slide, and then the second one would be an or uh ordinance number 1372 and ordinance of the people of the city of Folsom, amending section 4.07, boards and commissions of the city charter to confirm that the city council may grant decision making authority to boards, commissions, and committees by ordinance.

Uh, then ordinance numbers 1373 and ordinance of the people of the city of Folsom, amending section 2.48.030, campaign contribution limitation, the Folsom Municipal Code to increase the campaign contribution limits.

Um next slide.

Some background on the process.

Uh we've been working on this for a while.

Uh in December of last year, the council established the ad hoc committee uh in March, uh, between March 4th and uh May 4th of 2026.

The committee uh met five times uh to review, discuss, and develop recommendations to the council on May 12th.

Uh the ad hoc charter review committee uh presented its report uh or submitted the report to the city council, and the uh public hearing was held, and uh the city um council dissolved the committee at that time, then on May 26, staff presented to the city council uh conceptual language for the following charter and fulsom municipal code amendments, which if approved by the council at a future meeting could be submitted to the voters at the November 3rd, 2026 election.

And those are uh section 4.03 related to the city attorney.

Uh it would change how the city attorney is appointed from the current system in which the city manager appoints the city attorney to a system in which the city council appoints the city attorney and related operational changes, section 4.07, boards and commissions.

It would strike language that all city boards and commissions are only advisory to the council, allowing the council to set the powers and duties of boards, commissions, and committees by ordinance, clarifying that committee members must be residents and registered voters of the city, and so um this kind of relates to the update that we provided um uh as an addendum to the agenda.

Uh we appreciate um correspondence would that was set in uh that was sent in that kind of addressed um brought up a concern, and so this is what staff is proposing to change.

Uh so for ordinance 1372, uh an ordinance of the people of the city of Folsom, amending section 4.07, boards and commissions of the city charter to confirm that the city council uh may grant decision-making authority to boards and commissions.

We will strike and committees by ordinance.

And then the third uh charter amendment is related to the municipal code, section 2.48.030 campaign contribution limitation uh to increase the campaign contribution limit in support or opposition uh to any candidate from 150 dollars to 500.

And so with that, uh staff is recommending that the city council hold the public hearing and then introduce and conduct the first reading of the following ordinances for submission to the voters at the 2026 general municipal election, and that would be ordinance number 1371, 1372, and 1373 as described and that concludes um our report.

Thank you.

Uh questions for the city manager or his team.

I have one that has I don't know how this never occurred to me before, but with regard to the um uh city attorney, would is this does this also presume that any staff of the city attorneys department that they report to the city attorney and not to the city manager?

Just for uh yes clarification.

Okay, got it.

That's my only question.

Thank you.

Those were the operational changes that were mentioned, yeah.

Other questions, all right, and any public comment on this item this evening.

Um we do not have any public comment this week.

Sorry, I'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing.

Do we have any public comment?

We do not have any public comment.

We will go ahead and close the public hearing.

Mr.

Mayor, I'll move that we um uh approve the first reading of ordinance number thirteen seventy-one.

I second.

If I could make a comment now, please.

Um as I said the last time we considered these items.

I don't necessarily disagree with any of these, it's just that uh in light of the increased cost from the county clerk's office to put these on the ballot.

Um, I just don't think these are pressing enough to spend that money.

So just to be consistent with my past vote, I'm gonna vote no on all these.

Thank you for the comment.

All right, we have a potion uh for ordinance number 1371.

You seconded, okay.

Uh please call the roll.

Okay, council members Kozowski.

Yes, Larry, Roarbah, yes.

Aquino?

No, and Rafel.

Yes.

I will also move that we approve ordinance number 1372.

Um second.

Please call the roll.

And for the record, could we just confirm that that's the new language that does not include committees?

Thank you so much.

Is that confirmed?

Yes.

And seconded.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kazowski.

Yes.

Larry.

Larry.

Rora, yes.

Aquino?

No.

And Rethel.

Yes.

If I had a known how many public meetings we were gonna have on these before we started.

We've talked about these, I think, at a lot of council meetings.

All right, I'll go for the trifecta and move that we approve ordinance number 137, the first reading of ordinance number 1373.

Second, please call the roll.

Council members Kazowski.

Yes, Leary.

Yes.

Roarbah?

Yes.

Akeen now?

No.

And Rethel.

Yes.

All right.

That takes us to our last uh public hearing item.

Please call item number 18.

Okay, item number 18, Toll Brothers at Alder Creek, and this will be for resolution number 11643, a resolution of the city council determining that the Toll Brothers at Elder Creek project is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15182 and approving a small lot vesting tentative subdivision map plan development permit inclusionary housing plan and minor administrative modification.

And this is continued, was continued from the June 9th, 2026 City Council meeting.

Mayor Rethel.

Members of the Council, I'm Desmond Parrington, Planning manager in the community development Direct uh in the community development department.

I'm here before you to uh present the the tall brothers at at Alder Creek project.

Um as you could see on the map here, this project is located on the western side of the Folsom Plan area, and it is north of Mangeny Parkway, south of Alder Creek Parkway, and it straddles Oak Avenue Parkway, and then is bounded by the city boundary there along Prairie City Road.

It includes 464 uh acres, and then a variety of uh different uh housing types with land use designations stretching from single family um to single family high density and multifamily low density.

It also includes open space, parks, uh a school site, and a future fire station.

The uh the project is expected to develop in three different phases.

I'll talk uh a little bit about that.

Overall, the project would include 1,424 uh housing units.

Um and as you can see here, I guess there's not a pointer anymore.

Um, uh there is an LM elementary school site, a city park site, and then up at the north end of Alder Creek Parkway, a fire station site uh as well.

Uh the uh the the project is cons consistent.

Oh, thank you very much.

The project is consistent with the general plan as well as the speci uh specific plan, and as a result, no amendments are required.

The proposed uh project is also consistent with the land use designations in this area.

The densities are consistent with the allowed ranges that are for these areas, and the plan development permit uh request is for uh deviations from the land use standards to allow for a variety of different housing types like the four packs and the six packs, which I'll talk about a little in a little bit.

The minor administrative modification is for minor land use adjustments uh to the area.

There's some slight shifts into the the park and the um the school site, as well as a modification to Alder Creek uh Parkway, which I'll uh talk about in just a minute.

The project is expected to develop into over three phases, and there's a number of villages in each phase.

In this first phase that you can see here, particularly on the left-hand side, that includes um the uh the lots for the for the school and as well as the city park, and then lot C there at the north will be the location of the uh of the fire station.

Um those are the timelines for the development of those are uh subject to this the school district and the the city with respect to the fire station and the and the park in this uh first development or this first phase of development, there's a variety of different housing types uh located uh here.

Uh much of that is is traditional single family uh housing, about 276 uh 276 um single family home units at both uh the uh single family high density and uh single-family uh designations.

Uh then in uh this area, this is phase two.

Um there's a number of of villages here, and there's a much wider variety of housing types in this area, including uh what the applicant toll brothers refers to as their duet product, which is a half-plex product, um, and also um small lot single family homes, traditional uh traditional single-family homes, as well as four, uh what are called four packs and six packs.

Um those are some of the product types that are located um, see if this is pressing this correctly, kind of located in in these areas here and and up here.

And then, of course, you've got um private park space as uh as well.

In phase three, um, this is uh 398 unit um development of primarily single family large larger lots single family homes south of alder creek and uh east of um prairie city road it uh kind of surrounds the um the open space area where there's a very large concentration of oak uh woodland in this area uh in terms of the this is a small lot vesting tentative subdivision map it creates all the necessary um parcels the easements access the street name list is included it also has a preliminary phasing plan for the map that's included as part of your packet and the the the term vesting what that means is it locks in city standards at the time of adoption of the tentative maps so that in the event that there are changes later on this locks in all of that uh requirement one of the things that's important about a vesting tentative map is it includes preliminary greening uh drainage and utility plans are are provided uh on there with regard to the plan development permit the app applicant as I mentioned earlier is requesting the plan development permit um and um not only is it required by the specific plan but it's needed for some of the smaller and unique lot sizes for the homes in the multifamily low density and the single family high density zones um they are necessary for the project specific standards for this small lot residential to allow for this kind of unique four pack or six pack uh homes these are homes that are kind of front around a private drive aisle and so they typically have um different lot configurations than you would typically see they've also provided architectural landscape design guidelines as a framework for future design review and the project meets all of the required um plan development uh permit findings that are laid out in the in the municipal code with respect to the minor administrative modification as I mentioned earlier as you can see this was the um this was the original approval there were some adjustments they worked closely with the school districts as well as city parks to make those um adjustments and so that's reflective the overall acreage is the same there was this some adjustments uh between the uh the the park park site um and some of the open space what this results in is actually more open space coming back to to the open space area it actually adds about 5.9 acres back into the uh in into the open space so it actually increases the open space associated with the project um the other thing that this this does is it changes the the um the right of way configuration for oak avenue parkway as you may recall in the specific plan there's a very large median that was ultimately uh anticipated to be um used for a bus rapid transit lane in discussions with the Sacramento regional transit they indicated that uh the project was better served by high frequency train uh uh high frequency bus service that could still accommodate the kinds of time frames associated with BRT uh but they would not need the the dedicated um uh the dedicated lane in in the the median here this is the future um uh lane uh for BRT so as a result rather than securing a whole bunch of right-of-way that would be need to be maintained by the the city we were able to reduce the right of way return some of the the land back to the open space area and instead we would have the um two lanes in each direction a narrower um uh median and then space for the bus to pull out of traffic necessary for the stops, which is what what RT was uh was looking for.

So again, what was the original right of way with it's a little blurry?

Yeah, it's uh do you have the is it 120?

Is that what I'm saying?

Or 130?

Around 100, yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Yeah, it's around what 100, and we we shrunk the the the cross section here is about oops, I'm so it should be showing it on here.

I think I think it's about 38 feet.

Is that yeah?

Thank you, Rebecca.

No worries.

Um, yes.

So we uh looked at what we needed for the BRT lines, which were um 11-foot lanes in the meeting.

We took those out and we made some adjustments, added in a buffered bike lane that allowed for um SAC RT to be able to pull over at stops along Alder Creek Parkway, and it resulted in a total right of way reduction width of 18 feet.

Got it, thank you.

You're welcome.

So the request here it's compliant with the measure W requirements of you know, maintaining the open space.

It there's no substantial alteration to the backbone infrastructure, it provides equal or superior improvements, and there's no increase in the environmental impacts, which are key, nor does it does it negatively impact the town center or folks' access to parks or schools.

Um one of the key aspects of this project is the fact that it will be providing critical backbone infrastructure in the western area of the of the fulson plan area.

Um this map right here shows kind of the overall conceptual backbone infrastructure for the remaining development in the fulsome plan area, and this includes um not only um the roadway segments but but roundabouts as well as um pump stations and and water tanks um that are coming along with this project and other subsequent projects.

So uh with this project, as you can see in the gold here, they are providing the um uh they are developing in as they develop their phases, Mangeny Parkway, the extension of Oak Avenue Parkway, that roundabout, the extension out to Haven Parkway, and then up to Alder Creek Parkway, and they're building the southern half of uh Alder Creek Parkway out to Prairie City, and then they will either be building the western most uh lanes on Prairie City Road or making a financial contribution towards um towards the development of that area, in addition to providing um uh the uh water tank and uh and and uh and water pumps uh to provide water service in in zone three uh in this area.

Uh as I mentioned with regard to the traffic and s and circulation, the the traffic study identified that the project um needed to develop parts of Oak Avenue Parkway and Oak Avenue Parkway, but because of the need for the backbone infrastructure, they have agreed, as I mentioned on the earlier slide, to build portions of Oak Avenue Parkway up to Alder Creek, and then the southern portion of Alder Creek out to uh Prairie City Road, as well as uh Haven Parkway here, and then the extension of uh Man Gini Parkway out to the edge of their uh of their project, and then the contribute either the development or of the western lanes or the contribution towards the development of Prairie City Road.

Um another aspect of the project is the open space and tree preservation.

The project is required to maintain that 30% open space that's set forth in measure W and enshrined in the city's charter.

Um that uh what that roughly means is that approximately a thousand uh a thousand uh acres needs to be preserved uh permanently as open space.

Uh in addition, they have to maintain 396.52 acres of oak woodland canopy of the total of the um the 642 acres uh in the in the area.

If there is any loss, and there was anticipated to be loss of oak woodland canopy as part of the specific plan, they have to either do on-site preservation, uh, so on-site planting or off-site preservation.

And they have uh indicated that they are going to be doing off-site preservation.

They have secured on an acre for acre basis land in unincorporated Sacramento County adjacent to the Deer Creek Hills Preserve that would be placed under conservation easement and protected in perpetuity and preserved in perpetuity.

In addition, there are isolated oak trees that are removed or impacted, and those do require a different approach, which is they require a permit and mitigation for those isolated oak trees, which they have agreed to.

And not only does the city have a team that is set up to do that, but we also, the applicant has consultants as well that will be doing that.

These are addressed in the conditions 61 through 65 on this.

So to talk a little bit more about the open space and oak tree preservation, this was the initial arborist report that was done in April of 2025.

This shows the impact of the where the project is, and then the orange area right here shows the impacted woodlands that are impacted as part of the uh as part of the project.

The green areas show that the areas that are that are not um that are not impacted from the oak woodlands and that are preserved.

Some of this information is outdated, so I'm gonna kind of refer to the more recent analysis that the eCor uh and the consultant uh did.

And you can see here, this is the overall um the overall impact is identified in this orange color.

The areas that have already been impacted as a result of the backbone infrastructure are shown in this red color, as well as the tree the oak woodland canopy and isolated trees that were impacted as a result of previous development down at Toll's Regency project.

So you can see that in the the previously impacted to date is about 65 acres.

The grading from associated with the toll project is anticipated to impact around 97 acres plus an additional grading limit buffer.

This is a kind of a conservative estimate of an additional 20 feet beyond the limits of the grading um to uh to assume that those trees could be negatively impacted and there could be a loss.

That will be monitored, and if those trees in that area are in fact um healthy, and you know, after that monitoring period, that could be added back into the overall total.

What you see in the green area is oak woodland that would remain, and in the purple, those are future roadways and drainage infrastructure and so forth that have yet to be built that would uh impact uh the area.

One of the things that I wanted to point out is that the project, as we would discussed here, is about 107 uh acre impact on the the oak woodland compared to what was originally identified as roughly about a 70-acre uh impact or in the original specific plan.

The reason for that additional uh impact is because the when the specific plan was done, it identified locations of things like hydro modification basins and drainage basins and things like that, but it because the details of you know the state's low impact development standards, the the size necessary to accommodate the different levels of development was not known at that time.

And uh once the engineering occurred, you you see that the these areas um here and then up in this area, are where the locations of the the hydro modification basins are which impact the the oak woodland canopy.

So you're talking roughly about about 30 acres.

Now, some of that um, and I'll show I've got some other maps that I can show if there's questions about this later on, but some of that is indeed in the open space.

And so one of the questions that has come up has been: well, how can that happen in the open space?

Well, the specific plan actually allows for that type of utility infrastructure, drainage basins, hydro modification basins to be situated as a permitted use within the open space area.

So again, after um uh after the development occurs, approximately 425 acres of oak woodland canopy remain after that project.

That is an in excess of the 396.52 acre threshold.

But however, there is a potential impact to projects downstream or future projects.

So, because there's only about 29 more acres of oak woodland that can be removed without you know, either projects being reduced in scope or scale, or uh specific plan amendment to to change that threshold comes forward.

So there are future private development and city projects that could require more oak woodland removal.

That's like I said earlier, that's would result in either reduction of project sides or an amendment to the specific plan and additional environmental review.

So uh talking about other aspects of the project.

Um, the project is anticipated to have uh a trail network with with bike trails to provide uh better connection and circulation.

Um in addition, as I mentioned earlier, the fire station is located here on uh at Oak Avenue Parkway.

Uh it was actually moved from this location down here so that it did not run into some of the congestion associated with the school located here and the high school and and planned middle school that are further to the south.

Um the elementary school, preliminarily called granite springs elementary would be located here, and a city park of approximately 10 acres would be located in this location.

Um, as you can see here, they've agreed to do a separated bike lane on a bike path on Haven Parkway, which runs out to to Prairie City Road.

So this will provide additional um uh bicycle access.

One of the things that the planning commission did recommend as part of their approval, and this is addressed in at the end in the conditions uh is um the consideration of adding a buffered bike lane on Oak Avenue um parkway, since Oak Avenue Parkway intersects with Mangeny Parkway, which is right near the intersection for the high school and plan middle school in that area.

And the commission identified this as something that they wanted the council to cons and the developer to consider um because this would be as opposed to a class two bike path that would be uh striped but not necessarily separated from traffic as a potentially safer alternative for young people that might be biking to school.

The project, as they're required to do, includes an inclusionary housing plan.

They are um proposing to satisfy that through the payment of the in LU fee, and that complies with the regulations of the city's inclusionary housing ordinance.

In terms of uh SQL review, the project is consistent with the original EIR and or environmental impact report and environmental impact statement that was prepared for the specific plan and a conformity analysis was prepared for this project that included technical analysis related to the air quality, greenhouse gases, water, sewer capacity noise, biological, geotechnical, and vehicle miles traveled.

And it would it showed that there would not be any new significant impacts associated with the project as a result of the the project and its and its conditioning and the existing mitigation measures that all projects are required to uh adhere to under the specific plan and the EIR, and as a result, it's uh no further environmental review was required uh under CEQA section 15182.

We received um three public comments on the project, uh, one from a nearby resident, mainly just had questions about the project and its timing, which staff addressed.

We did receive one uh letter from uh a law firm uh questioning some of the um the CEQA analysis, and um we have included a response from the applicant's legal council along with additional information from ECOR, the environmental consultant that's included in attachment 26, and then there was a letter from the environmental council of Sacramento and the California Native Plant Society raising concerns and questions about the uh about the impacts of the Oak Woodland uh canopy, and I can again get into those in more detail if you'd like.

So under the the list under the Historic Folsom Street Names list number six, that should read as a Mick Williams, um, the I and the A got transposed there, so our apologies for for that.

So I'm uh I'm recommending that the council approve the res the let resolution 11643 determining that the toll brothers at Alder Creek Project is exempt from CEQA pursuant to SQL Guidelines 15182 and approving the small lot vested tentative subdivision map, the plan development permit, the inclusionary housing plan, and mitor administrative modification with the street name correction to attachment 17.

That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you so much, Desmond.

We'll start over with you, Councilmember Aquino.

It's your districts.

Thank you.

Thank you, Desmond.

Um you touched on this very briefly, but I want to spend some time on the Oak Woodland because it's really taking me a couple days to try to wrap my head around this.

Um, and I apologize in advance to my colleagues for the painstaking way that I'm gonna do this, but um the entire Folsom plan area is 3,500 acres.

Correct.

Uh about a hundred about a thousand acres has been set aside as permanent open space, can never be developed.

Correct, yes.

Which left 2,500 acres that are all slated to be developed.

Okay.

Within the entire 3500 acres, there are 642 acres of oak woodlands.

According to the staff report, 450 acres are about 70% of the oak woodlands are within that 1,000 acres of permanent open space, which leaves almost 192 acres, or 30% of the oak woodlands are within that 2500 acres that has always been slated for development.

And then when you read the Folsom area, Folsom Plan Area Specific Plan, which was adopted in 2011, long before any of us were on the council, um, the specific plan anticipated that a total of 245 acres of oak woodland would be removed to accommodate backbone infrastructure, residential and non-residential development, and the future Oak Avenue interchange.

Right?

We're with me so far.

Okay.

So the specific plan said that 245 acres of oak woodland would need to be removed, but there are only 192 acres of oak woodland in that 2500 acres that was slated to be developed.

Which, if I'm understanding this correctly, that means the specific plan has always anticipated that some of the oak woodland in that 1,000 acres of preserved open space would have to be removed.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Yes.

Okay.

And I believe you mentioned this in your presentation that there are certain only certain things in an appendix or something in a specific plan that can be done with that oak woodland in the preserved open space.

Yeah, um, and uh yes, so the the open space um in the specific plan it lays out allowed uses and development standards and and all of that for all the different land uses, including the open space areas, and within the specific plan, it states that things like detention basins and hydro modification basins are allowed in the open space area, and what I explained earlier is that the size of those hydro modification basins were not known at the time when the specific plan was adopted, the hydro modification basins uh have grown as a result of the you know California's low impact development standards as well as the engineering necessary to accommodate the runoff from all of the all of the homes, and so that results in the the removal of the the oak woodland canopy in in those open space areas to accommodate those uh those detention basins.

That has happened elsewhere in the in the specific plant area.

The difference is there were no oak woodlands in those areas, yeah.

And and my apologies, I I've failed to um to identify and and mention the the many many people that have worked on this along with me.

So we have uh it you know, in terms of staff, we have uh Amy Nunez, our urban forester, who's been very involved in in this.

We have our public works director, Rebecca Neves, we have our um utilities director, Marcus Yasutaki, um, our fire chief is uh uh Chief Solak is here as well.

Our obviously Pam John's the community development director is here tonight, and then um we uh we also have the the applicant toll brothers here, and um, I'm happy to answer any questions.

They would also like to do a presentation and explain a little bit more about their project as well.

So, my uh my apologies um about not identifying the the whole team.

So Toll Brothers has their um uh their arborist and environmental team over at Ecor.

Um, they also have uh Westerveld Ecological Services, which is uh handling the conservation easements, um, that are for the off-site preservation, and then they also have their uh legal council and representatives from Westland, the landowners is here as well.

Okay, thank you.

So the reason I I want to spend so much time on this, um, because I find it pretty surprising and pretty disappointing, and I imagine the public feels this way if they're watching this also.

Um when measure W passed, I think the assumption on all of our parts was that the 1,000 acres of protected open space also included the trees, and it actually, as we said, the specific plan actually allows for some of those oak woodlands to be removed.

That's correct.

Okay.

Um so moving on.

Um the toll brothers project before us today, 447.34 acres in total.

That includes 194 acres of oak woodland, which is actually 30% of the total oak woodland in the entire Folsom Plan area, 3500 acres.

Um I think you just updated us, right?

With that, that updated slide shows instead of 11.49 acres of oak woodland they were expecting to be removed, it's now down to 107.42.

Is that okay?

Do we happen to know what percentage of the acres that they're planning to remove?

Um, either percentage or numbers, what is in that 1000 acres of open space versus what is in that 2500 acres that we always knew would be developed?

Yeah, so I've I've got a I've got a map here that I can show.

So this this shows you the the open space areas and the parks.

The parks are in the dark green, the open space areas are in the lighter green.

There's two different types of open space areas in the um the specific plan.

The the darker um open space areas, as you can see, um see right here where it points to Alder Creek.

That is kind of called the conservation open space.

That area is has either sensitive biological or cultural resources associated with it, um, and then the rest is called passive open space.

So um I think I mentioned this before.

There's the 30% requirement.

We currently have 1,068 acres that's preserved.

Um, and then I mentioned in table A3 of the specific plan, that's where that utility infrastructure um is allowed in that open space area.

So when we go and look at the open space areas, the the this is this area has already been the backbone infrastructure that went in along Alder Creek Parkway and along this section of Oak Avenue Parkway, the oak woodlands were removed in in that area to allow for those roadways.

That's already occurred.

That's part of that 65 uh acres of oak woodland that were already identified.

Um, and that happened also here at this um hydro modification basin.

This is the area, so this is the this area right here is where toll is developing here, here, here, and then in this area right here.

This is where that large hydro modification basin is, which has the the most impact to the open space area.

There's a second hydro modification basin that's located in this area, which also uh uh definitely affects it in plain terms.

What is a hydro modification basin?

Basically an area to collect stormwater run.

Yeah, it's essentially detention pond.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, uh, so those those two detention ponds um are located in in these areas, and that's where the um the bulk of that um of that impact from the project is uh is occurring.

So um the originally in the specific plan, it identified roughly around 70 or so uh acres that would be impacted as a result of of uh development in this area, but the because of these hydro modification basins, which are located in the open space area and they are allowed to be located there.

Um, we're looking at, you know, approximately about 30 acres.

Okay.

So, my math from the specific plan, I think.

The specific plan estimated that approximately 53, 54 acres of oak woodland from that 1,000 acres of open space would be removed for hydro, whatever that thing was, basically.

The tensive basins, yeah.

And this project will do about 30 of that 54.

Yeah, I believe that is correct.

I think that probably eCorps should probably speak a little bit more to this because they have gone through and updated these numbers, and as you can see here, this is the most recent.

Um, this is this is the most recent analysis.

This was done in um uh in 2026, the arborist report and the original analysis was done in 2025.

And you know, um toll working with um the city arborist and with city staff, we've done a number of of modifications to try and reduce the size of the detention basins, um, reduce uh try to minimize the impact on the the oak woodland, and these are kind of the the latest and greatest numbers here.

So you could see about you know a little under 100 from the uh the anticipated development and grading from the toll project.

They've also included a buffer, as I mentioned earlier, and then there's the previously impacted to date in the red here of the oak woodland that was was part of that.

I believe that 131 acre number that you talked about associated with the backbone infrastructure, but in addition to that, there was also that a portion associated with the development of the project down here, the Regency at Toll project.

Okay, and then we have in purple the the future um drain lines and the future extension of Oak Avenue Parkway and then the overcrossing there.

So, bottom line, although this project as proposed would remove about 30 acres of oak woodland from the 1000 acres of protected open space, it is consistent with the specific plan because the specific plan anticipated that.

Yes, that is that is correct.

Okay, so in terms of mitigation measures, um, I know there are the three options, and you mentioned the Deer Creek Hills, which okay, it sounds nice that they could buy an oak woodland and and preserve that in perpetuity, but I don't think that means a whole lot to Folsom residents.

So, do we have the ability to condition the project to do some on-site or at least in fulsome oak tree mitigation?

And if so, did the planning commission do any of that?

They did not.

Um they did not uh weigh in on that aspect of the of the project.

Um, however, we do have that ability, but there's there's some challenges to that, and I think Amy would probably be best the best person to speak to kind of the the challenges of of doing on-site mitigation.

She's right behind you.

Oh, okay, there you are.

Okay, great.

So, Amy, let me tell you the couple areas I have in mind, and you can tell me if this is doable.

Um, there is what I call kind of a remnant parcel at the northwest corner of East Bidwell and White Rock Road, currently is owned by the connector JPA.

I reached out to Derek Minema today, the executive director.

He has no plans to use that.

I think at some point they do plan to deed it over to the city.

I think that is a perfect place for some oak tree mitigation.

And then also, when you're driving down White Rock Road and you see Toll Brothers Villages 2B and 3B, I guess they kind of back up to each other, and there's a bunch of open space back there with no trees, and I'm wondering if those two spots could be a place for some oak tree mitigation.

You're speaking um along the frontage of White Rock Road, yes.

Um, it sat back a little farther, though.

Yeah.

Um potentially, I would need to verify um as I um daylighted to you earlier uh before I was given the impression that that first area that you mentioned had potential plans for for disturb disturbance.

So if we are able to verify that that's not the case, that there are no plans to disturb that corner of White Rock Road and East Bitball Street that potentially is a site that would be conducive to mitigation, and that was a site that we had been looking at in prior years.

So if things have changed and we are able to verify that, I don't know, Rebecca, if you can speak to that at all or if we need to kind of.

Are we talking about the wide sliver that's on the north side of the road?

It's basically in between White Rock Road and Regency.

This 55 plus community.

So heading up East Bidwell.

No, on White Rock.

On White Rock, okay.

Yeah.

Parallels White Rock, I guess you'd say.

Yes, we can take that over.

That's part of the trail improvements in that area.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I do believe there might be uh there's existing landscaping and irrigation along East Bidwell at that corner.

We would have to look into it, but it uh if that is the case, we would probably be able to stub off of that.

Okay, but we would need to do some analysis on whether or not we wouldn't um be able to expand that irrigation system to support trees.

But um the short answer is that that is an area that is definitely worth exploring.

Okay.

And while I have you here, that exhibit that showed kind of the um revised streetscape.

I guess maybe you'd say where the wide median that was put in there for the bus rapid transit has now been shrunk.

Is it is it still wide enough to accommodate some really nice tree growth that could create um you know nice canopy over that street?

I don't I don't know what the width is.

Could you remind me what that width is?

It's on slide 19.

Correct.

Um yeah, I I would refer to the slide um on back and forth a couple of times in the width.

So yeah, so it's it's um it's 16 was that it yeah, it's it's um so it looks like we've got a 12 foot um planter with yeah, but there's also adjacent open space along on the south side.

So the if you sorry, this is helpful, but uh oops, I'm going the wrong direction.

The short answer is um yes, six foot is our minimum for smaller statured trees.

So if we're looking at planter widths 10 and 12 feet, that definitely does give us some latitude for some larger shade trees.

Okay.

And this the south side, just to add that this as this as this narrows, that that does free up some open space along the um the edges there.

Now there are already some oak woodlands there.

Um so it would be less impactful to them, but there could be opportunities.

Um, okay, thank you, Amy.

Uh, my final question, and thank you to my colleagues for indulging me.

Um, Rebecca, I'm gonna ask this question of you.

Um I know the planning commission talked about class four bike lanes instead of class two.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think um and Ryan Chance in the last presentation he gave about some um slurry seal and restriping and stuff.

We've kind of been doing these buffered bike lanes, right?

Where class two where it's just a bike lane and then there's a line to create a little space before you have the lane.

I really like the look of those and the functionality of those.

A class four bike lane, if I'm correct, has some sort of actual barrier.

It depends on the buffer width itself, so you can get physical vertical barriers.

Um I believe the buffer width would have to be around five feet.

You can do like delineators and striping with two feet, um, but I mean I can pull up the standards and kind of walk you through them a little bit, but that's essentially it is a buffered bike lane, and the the difference of um separation and what the treatment is in that area depends upon uh a couple things.

It depends upon the speed of the road, it depends upon um volume, and it also depends upon this the separation itself.

Okay, I just want to voice my opinion.

You know, downtown Sacramento and Midtown Sacramento has put all of these vertical plastic things.

Maybe the delineators, yes.

I can't stand them.

They are on a store.

And of course, I'm concerned about pedestrian and cyclist safety, particularly kids who are trying to get to school, but I think we can do better.

Um, so um I do like our separated bike lane on um, I guess it's technically a bike trail on Leidosdorf, but please, please no vertical plastic.

We can look at some different uh thermoplastic striping as well.

I've seen agencies just do a different color to kind of put that visual barrier for drivers.

The reality is, you know, physical barrier or not, you're just trying to restrict the driver movement into that lane, and just having even that color differentiation is helpful.

So there's a couple of different um traffic calming ways that we can address it.

Okay, thank you.

I will have some questions later for the applicant, but thank you, Desmond.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions for staff.

Council Overleary.

Um I actually have a lot of questions for staff, and I really appreciate the time staff has already spent with me and answering these.

Um this has been a really difficult project to understand, and I think um that council member Aquino brought up some of that, and that there's um clearly a difference in the open space to be conserved and the canopy coverage, because I and I want clarification here that in our discussion um about that, all of the canopy coverage is not necessarily in the uh open space areas, is that correct?

That's correct.

What's it defined as open space?

There's not really a clear map or an overlay uh where you can see the trees versus where the um outline of the open space area is.

Yeah, so so this is the the area in the hatched pink is the open space uh area, and so you can see the the bulk of the oak woodland canopy is in the open space areas, but as you can see, there is oak woodland canopy here.

This is all these sites that are kind of um that that don't have any hatching on them are areas slated for development.

So you could see that there's oak woodland canopy here, up here, a little bit over there, you know, along that that edge there, there's some there, there's some there.

So uh, and then on the toll project, there is uh oak woodland there, and then isolated oak trees kind of scattered through uh throughout.

So I hope this visual gives you a little bit better sense of where the oak woodland canopy is because the bulk of it is within the the open space area, but there is oak woodland on different development develop uh areas slated for development.

So if oak woodland is not necessarily in the uh area that you've delineated, can that still count towards the um retention of uh 396.42 acres of oak tree canopy.

Yes, it it can so long as it's not developed later on.

That 396.52 is a hard, you know, as a hard number, it's a hard threshold.

So it doesn't matter where the oak woodland canopy is located as long as it's is it's preserved and protected.

So um, and I have um concerns about that because what we're talking about here with this project is that um future projects will be impacted by the um take of the 107 um acres of oak tree canopy so that additional projects in that area include the Taylor Morrison project, which I believe has already been submitted as anticipating 25 acres or so, don't have exact numbers yet, as I understand, um, which would leave somewhere around five acres um of allowable oak tree removal, and there are heavily treed areas out along and on those parcels along the freeway.

Um, so when that question has come up before the answer has been that um there's a potential to do another revision of the specific plan, which those lot owners um would have to request and then pay for the uh full sequel analysis um as a part of that process.

Well, and that that that's correct.

Obviously, the council would have to determine something like your and that and review something like that, and ultimately that would have to be approved.

If that's not approved, then that then that threshold remains as is.

Similarly, if they opted not to do the um a specific plan amendment, then their other options were would be to reduce the the scale and scope of that development.

So for example, maybe a lower density project, you know, um, you know, maybe they, you know, if they're if they're developing at the lower end of the density, maybe they develop at the higher end of the density and they reduce their their overall footprint from the development in order to protect um the trees.

So it doesn't mean that no future development happens, but it could mean that the scope and scale of that development is reduced.

But in a revised specific plan, would um there be an allowance to reduce the retained canopy lower than the 396.42.

That's up to you.

So that would be something that would come back to the council at a later date to make a decision so that that's not been in place for a larger number of years and is codified and um uh could be overridden down the line.

Ultimately by the city council.

Staff does not have the authority to do that.

That number is enshrined in the specific plan, that is a hard number.

It's it's it it says that it that must be maintained, and so the only way that that gets changed is if the city council, if that is brought to the city council um by an applicant or the landowner, and and then that's considered, and then the environmental review is done, and then the council weighs in on whether they want to change that standard.

But that channel standard cannot be changed until the council has weighed in on that.

Right.

I understand that, but that opening is there, and I think that's something that would be of a lot of concern to at least people sitting at the days right now.

Um, and a lot of the residents, as uh council member Aquino pointed out, had uh been under the impression, and that includes me when this plan was developed, that the oak um canopy was going to be a large part of the open space that was going to be conserved, not knowing all of these specifics about the ability to reduce that number of you know, down from the 642.29 in the uh of Oakwoodlands in that area, um, so people would be able to remove above the 245.77 acres that currently allowed yeah, um so I have another another um set of questions.

And uh is this so at this time is the uh council is the would the approval um contain the um approval for the Oak Avenue um section all the way up till to Alder Creek Parkway and I think that you said that the applicant would be paying for all or part of that extension and the extension of Alder Creek over to Prairie City Road.

Yeah, so the the applicant will will is conditioned to develop um Oak Avenue Parkway from Mangeny Parkway up to Alder Creek Parkway.

They are building that at in phases as as their development proceeds.

There are very specific conditions identifying how many units have to be completed before that triggers the requirement to uh to build that section, and then it goes all the way up to Alder Creek Parkway, and then the applicant is conditioned to build the southern uh two lanes of uh of Alder Creek Parkway um over to Prairie City Road.

And then developers up in in this area would be conditioned to build the the northern um the northern lanes.

And what percentage of Prairie City Road will be improved before this project uh gets underway that to me that's a critical piece and it's in developing this whole area right here, given the poor condition of the road and uh the dangers that are present for people that are exceeding the speed limit on that road on a regular basis.

So the the again the the project is conditioned to either um build the the western lanes of Alder Creek Parkway, uh I'm sorry, not Alder Creek, uh Prairie City Road, or they are um required to contribute, enter into a development agreement with the city and contribute to the construction of the portion of Alder Creek Road from Alder Creek, I'm sorry, for Prairie City Road from Alder Creek Parkway uh down to just pass uh Haven Parkway down here, so this key segment um in the air uh in that area.

So we are currently working with the county on an MOU to um to redesign the entirety of Prairie City Road from White Rock Road all the way up to U.S.

Highway 50 uh and to identify the various different uh funding sources uh associated with that, but from a uh uh kind of a nexus or um in terms of generally under state law, you you you cannot condition a project to build a section of roadway that they don't actually uh that's not tied directly to their project.

And so we have a uh conditioned them for this section, which again ties in directly through Haven Parkway and through Alder Creek Parkway to help construct this section or to contribute for the payment for the construction of of this of this section.

Other developers will be uh contributing towards the construction of this along with funds the city has been collecting and that the county has been collecting for the reconstruction of the entirety of Prairie City Road.

So Rebecca, did you want to you are I apologize?

Also, didn't introduce our uh interim city engineer uh Vanessa Humphrey.

Either you want to add anything to that?

Okay, okay, thanks.

Okay, and then um I uh had a question uh for a city attorney um that I hadn't been able to get answered yet, and that was who is who is actually who owns that canopied area and will be in control of that Carrana Pete area that Oak Avenue and uh you know Mangeny Parkway, but um uh also Alder Creek Parkway run through.

Yeah, so uh so this area that you're referring to up here where the interchange or overcrossing uh will go for Oak Avenue um uh parkway that that's actually currently owned by the uh uh the uh a subsidiary or an affiliate of of Westland, um it's uh Alder Creek Improvement Company or Alder Creek uh Alder Creek Land Company.

It's not yet owned by the city.

The it is anticipated that that this area along with the open space will eventually be turned over to the city, but we don't currently own that right now.

Okay, because um and it's my understanding that the um the full a full sequel evaluation of that oak tree canopy and tribo cultural evaluations haven't been completed in that area that uh in the 2011 uh documents, it appeared that the oak canopy was only assessed by an aerial evaluation of the site.

So I I guess I'm concerned about the you know, evaluation of the trees and other um resources that exist in there.

Um I don't believe that that's correct.

I I believe that the the EIR EIS, as well as the cultural resources looked at the entirety of the Folsom plan uh area.

I think the where there is some uh addition potentially some additional environmental review that may be needed is for the the class uh one bike trail routes that that run through this area of open space.

So as long as we don't touch any of the preserve open space or don't um have impacts to the oak woodland canopy that reduce it below the 396.52 acres, my understanding is that that we are covered, but from an environmental standpoint.

But if the trail cannot be um designed in that area without impacting those sensitive open space areas or the oak woodland canopy, then there may need to be additional um environmental uh review and potentially an amendment to our Section 404 permit from the Army Corps of Engineers related to um the uh uh related to the uh the the riparian or wetlands areas uh there.

But um the applicant only has the obligation to pay for the construction of those trails, they are not obligated under the specific plan to actually construct the trail.

So they pay the specific plan infrastructure uh fee towards the trails, the city collects that ultimately designs that if that environment, if environmental clearance is necessary or an amendment to a 404 permit, then that is conducted at that time before any kind of trail construction.

So that leads me to bring up the um question or uh about the trails that appear on you know, drawn on to a lot of these maps, none of those trails have actually been um the paths for those trails have actually been evaluated or approved.

So it in this area because you didn't have none of the trails um crossed any of the what is called conservation open space areas, and you didn't have oak woodland, that those those were in fact covered, and many of those have been have been built.

I mean the ones in the canopied area.

Yeah, in this area, no, they they um like I said, if they are affecting the conservation open space areas or they are affecting the oak woodland uh tree canopy, then there would need to be further environmental review.

But we don't have a precise um pathway yet, it's it's kind of a 30,000 foot look at where those trails could could be.

So for example, if it was determined that uh in the specific plan they have a trail that kind of you know it generally goes like through this area.

If it was determined that that trail could not be um designed in such a way to avoid the conservation open space uh areas, and it had material impacts on the oak woodland canopy, then the city would be faced with either additional environmental analysis and a 404 appropriate, or they relocate that trail to an area with that it doesn't have those those impacts because the idea here is to provide an alternative means of folks to get around and enjoy the open space areas, but not at the same time destroy those open space areas.

All right, thank you.

I I think I've read through a lot of documents in the last week, uh, most of the specific plan, the applicants uh information, and um another other uh a long series of things.

And so I'm trying to put all of this picture together, and it and I probably could have read for another two weeks.

No, it's it's an incredibly complex and complicated project.

I did want to clarify, I think one kind of partial misstatement that I made earlier.

So with regard to the location here of the intercrossing or or interchange, you know, typically and Rebecca could probably comment on this as well.

You know, any time you do that that type of a project, there is usually additional NEPA, you know, and CEQA analysis that Caltrans wants to see before you can get any kind of federal or state funding on that.

So there would be some additional analysis, but but the original EIR EIS did look at and did assume that that area was going to have you know an interchange at some point.

Okay, thank you.

I really appreciate everybody's patience with listening through all this, but I've done a lot of digging and uh I want to make sure all of these things are covered.

Um, and um I have uh talked to uh staff as well about the uh any mitigation or proposed protections for wildlife and humans using Oak Avenue, Alder Creek, and um uh Mangeny Parkway because um I think as we know the people in Folsom like to drive quickly, and um there is a lot of wildlife that lives in that area, and they're not all endangered species, but I think that in that those that creates an increased risk for driving those roads, especially at night for hitting an animal, which you know people may not care about every animal that gets hit, but it's had regular occurrence on Folsom Boulevard every day.

Um but it's people veering to avoid those animals that's a risk for the drivers, and I've asked before about some kind of a mitigation measure where at those intersections that there might be under crossings as we have all along uh Blue Ravine Road uh at some of the major intersections for people you know riding bikes or whatever, but those can be the those can be shared kinds of um refuges for any people or uh uh animals that are wandering through that space.

You know, we've basically bisected a massive area of habitat, and um I think that's an important consideration.

Yeah, there's there's you know, having gone through the the mitigation measures and and the environmental documents that there was nothing that was specifically uh identified that that speaks to that that issue, but you know, certainly understand your your concerns uh regarding that.

Yeah, thank well, you know, and there was a lot of um in the evaluation of the roadways, um the there was a lot of discussion about potential for crashes and uh and other things uh in evaluating each roadway through that area.

But uh when we're looking at at roadways that are going to be used and likely with nothing else um to slow people down, likely high speeds like we're seeing everywhere else.

Well, the the benefit to the the roundabouts that that we we do have there, and and Rebecca can probably speak more to this, but that they are really designed to kind of slow down traffic and improve safety um in addition to helping you know keeping folks moving.

Yeah, so they're an acceptable traffic calming um mechanism, and then also one thing that we've looked at is uh narrow lane widths to standard lanes or 12 foot.

Doing uh 11-foot lanes does have that narrowing effect back to kind of the driver psychology related to the striping on the bike path.

Um, and that allows them to kind of enter into a little bit slower fashion, so okay, but yes, good comments.

Well, thank you.

I've lived here a long thing time and seen a lot of things change, so I'm trying to address everything that I would hope that we could address with uh this project.

Um, Councilmember Larry, we still have the applicant presentation.

Questions for the applicant, public comment.

So if we could just limit it to staff questions, and then we'll all have plenty of time for comments later on.

Okay, thank you.

Um so then uh the other uh questions I I had um have to do with um the tree mitigation and council member Aquino brought up a lot of those.

One thing about um planting seedlings um in open space areas is that we've and this is probably a question for the Arborist, is that we have um only done that for the removal of individual trees, heritage trees, rather than for oak tree canopy.

So the mitigation I believe for the canopy here that's been arranged for uh adjacent to the Sack Valley Conservancy lands, uh also contains um older uh tree canopy.

Yes.

Also, though, the specific plan does lay out an additional mitigation option for planting uh a mixture of sizes from acorns to five and fifteen gallon trees uh to create oak woodland canopy as mitigation.

Umfortunately, finding the real estate to do so, especially on site, is not something that is um possible for this project, just given the sheer amount of acreage proposed for removal.

So the applicant has opted for that other option, which is to purchase existing oak woodland and establish a conservation easement at the 10 uh seven correct plus acres.

Yeah.

Um the conservation easement that they are proposing would be just a little bit over that, uh, equating to I think it's about a hundred and eight and a half acres, but yeah.

Okay, thank you.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Yeah.

Um, so this is probably for Desmond, maybe Brian, I'm not sure.

Um, years ago, the residents on previous councils adopted a vision for South of 50 in the specific plan, right?

You would articulate it that way.

Can you help me understand what happens if this project doesn't move forward specifically?

What impact would that be on our roads, infrastructures, parks, future schools?

Yeah, there's a um I think there's a fairly significant challenge that that we would face.

Um, unless another developer came along to develop this area, it would really set us back in particularly in terms of the the connection here to Alder Creek.

As we all know, you know, uh East the East Bidwell uh overcrossing and interchange there is very uh is very busy and very crowded.

And so this would provide an additional outlet.

Um the construction of Alder Creek up to Prairie City would provide an additional outlet for residents uh throughout the plan area uh to to get to highway 50, um, and then also this would provide an additional outlet down here uh to White Rock Road and the in the uh the uh the capital uh corridor or the capital connector here.

In addition, um it would significantly delay the construction of parks and trails in this area, and it's likely that uh yeah, as they recently did the the school district is shifted their their focus on doing schools, you know, in this in this area, um, because that's where the population is, and this would uh again the school construction would be lags significantly, it would also result in uh reduced property tax because the land wouldn't be reassessed uh at the uh the higher rate, you know, reflecting the improvements in the new homes there.

So again, that would be uh a decrease or at least a significant delay in revenue coming into the city.

Thank you.

Council Carloski.

Can we look at um actually let me ask the question first here?

We had the luxury when we rebuilt White Rock and widened it to build um, I forget which which went first, but all of the eastbound lanes while maintaining the existing roadway and then using those and building the other half of it.

If we're doing a realignment of Prairie City Road, are we gonna have that same luxury, or are we going to be building two lanes while trying to move traffic through there?

Or I mean, is there I I know that that's several steps down the road in terms of your negotiation with the county, but I'm just I'm concerned about if we're realigning it to smooth out the curves.

There'll be places where we bisect the existing road path potentially and cause some really confusing and segmented construction.

Yeah, you'd have some conform points along the way for sure.

Um so for that kind of roadway construction, you would end up building the southbound or the county side half um first.

Okay and open that up to traffic, and then you would do the remainder of the northbound, which would take out the existing prairie city roads.

The alignment you're trying to achieve is entirely west of the existing roadway.

That's where we can make up the difference in the spacing because we have a median that allows a little bit of flux, and then we would end up having some throwaway costs related to conform and paving.

Okay, but if the first thing out of the gate is northbound lanes attached to the Toll Brothers project, are we just gonna put those on hold until the southbound lanes are built?

We're they're not built they wouldn't be building the northbound lanes.

We have asked them to build the southbound lanes, which would be the western half.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, and then the county would take responsibility for building the northbound lanes?

We would that's part of the MOU is we're developing the overall so that the city can control the construction of all of it.

And then the jurisdictional boundary shifts.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, okay, could you go to um slide?

I think it's 19 that shows the road section for Alder Creek?

Uh yeah, go back.

Um, no, I think that was for Haven Parkway.

Uh okay, so let's look at that one.

That one's my question's about 19.

Oh, okay.

Which roadways is this is which roadway is this depicting?

So that this is Haven Parkway, this is the roadway that leads from Oak Avenue Parkway, okay.

I I got it.

Yeah, I got it.

Sorry.

I got it.

Um so you've got uh a single lane heading north and southbound there with a bike lane, and you've also got a sidewalk on one side and a um hike bike trail on the other side.

Is that what I'm seeing here?

Yeah, that's there a bike lane on both car lanes also.

So there um, yes, there's a there's a five-foot bike lane um on each side.

That was the um so here's my question.

Yeah, is it necessary?

Are we obligated to build bike lanes out in the roadway there where we have a parallel bicycle pedestrian pathway that is perfectly serviceable for commuters or pedestrians or kid kids ride in school, what whoever the users may be.

I and I raise this question because it has been, you know, mentioned to me several times about the configuration of particularly American River Parkway, where the road, similar to the way this is depicted, is crowned pretty significantly.

I don't know if that's an exaggeration for this depiction or if that's the intention, but what ends up happening is all of the gravelly stuff sloughs off into the bike lane, and people actually trying to use the bike lane that's on the roadway end up riding right on the white line to avoid all of that because it's slippery, right?

So the five-foot bike lane that we've designated is actually not functional as five feet wide.

It actually ends up being a foot and a half or two feet wide.

So I'm just wondering, should we avoid that problem altogether?

Still do the calming painting or you know, um designations to try and deal with the car speeds, um, but move cyclists off of the car pathway all together.

Do you want to talk?

And this this gets to the point that I think uh uh council per councilwoman Aquino brought up about the way that Leitisdorf was improved.

Um that's a very successful off-road hike and bike trail that runs parallel to the roadway, and we've got the luxury of space here, right?

Because we're building it from scratch.

So I'm just w I I don't know how locked in stone this section is.

I don't want to get into something that can't be changed any longer, but I I'm just one I'm starting to reconsider how necessary it is to have on-road bike lanes in a city that has mm gonna end up with like 80 miles of off-road bike lanes.

Yeah.

So if I could chime in just for a moment, um, you know, kind of to um the credit of the toll team, they have proposed a class one trail on the portion of Haven that they're developing on the opposite side.

We have the bike lane, right?

There's nothing to prohibit us from working with the school district, be it the school district or whoever that develops on the other side to moving that the bike off of the travel way as part of our efforts in even looking and reimagining what Prairie City Road could look like.

We arrived at a cross section that took bike lanes completely off of Prairie City Road and then put two class one facilities, one on each side of the road, and that was not only um something that the city staff preferred, but it was actually something county staff ended up preferring too, given you know the traffic and speeds that we're consistently seeing.

That's a direction that I do see us kind of fundamentally heading.

Um, but you know, there is the luxury of space as you mentioned, and we could look at doing that um as that other half develops out.

Okay, well, it would be my preference if we stopped automatically putting bicycles into the car lanes or adjacent to the car lanes unprotected.

Um, because even where we have tried to protect them and use the delineator posts on Blue Ravine, um people just don't use it to the to the um to the quantity that um or they don't use it intensively enough for that gigantic space to have been dedicated to it.

We've got acres of bike lanes that barely ever get used, acres and acres and acres of them.

And I do want to make one design clarification.

I apologize.

Um, so when we talked about the vertical barriers, in order for it to be a designated class four facility, you have to have vertical barriers.

If you don't have it, it's considered a buffered class two.

Okay.

Okay, all right.

Um other than that, thank you.

The staff report is extensive in an extreme kind of way, and the uh patience that the Westland and Toll team have put into this work is exemplary, thank you.

I just have a couple of questions.

Uh, appreciate all the time that that staff has spent with me already on this project.

It's it's good to say huge project for sure.

Uh one is the detention basins, uh, and back when this specific plan, uh, I've been hanging out with a specific plan for a long time now.

But back when it was uh was written, uh, what would roughly have been the size of the detention basins on a project like this?

Yeah, so the in the specific plan.

I know Council Marquino mentioned like 30 acres is roughly that number of detention basins now that are being impacted.

Yeah, so I'll uh pull up the original.

And I'm just kind of curious.

Like, are they 10 times bigger?

Are they four times bigger?

Uh I just think it was a very different like what we're what we're going for is just water quality and runoff, right?

It's another environmental concern, which is the reason behind these very large detention basins.

Um just press the power button on the button on the top.

It's on the top, no, on the on the bottom right there.

No, where you're projecting the map.

Turn the power on.

Okay, hold on just a second.

Are you trying to do that?

So you could see the location.

Desmond, can you pull your microphone over just for the recording later?

Thank you.

Yeah.

So you could see the locations of the of the detention um basins in in the in these various different areas here, and you know, these were they identified the location, but I don't think that they, you know, knew at the time, and particularly with the states, you know, what are called low impact development standards.

There are LIDS standards uh about the the actual size of those, you know, what those actual basin size would be.

And so we've been working with Toll for probably over uh a year just to look at how we could reduce the size of those that are you know in the open space areas so that we, you know, we minimize the impact to the open space and to the uh to the to the oak woodland tree canopy but and you know we looked at could we place them into the power line corridor we you can't do that you can't have power lines over open running over open water because of sparking and uh concerns we we looked at uh working with them to try and shrink the size of them but based on the number of units they'd have to significantly reduce the number of units to reduce the the size of those detention basins.

So clarifying questions sure so so the key on this map shows that your detention basins that you've been pointing to have uh responsibility for 10 year 24 hour storms has is that the thing that has changed that the the expectation nowadays is for a uh a larger storm volume.

And that's why the size is being driven up.

You know I I'd I'd have to defer to you know to folks at at McKay and SOMP I'm um I'm not an expert in in this and it looks like just based on this key we've gotten rid of two of them that are in there that are in the original boundaries of the what is now this project.

Because there's one that got yeah I think before when I talked with staff it got shifted up to the sewer station but it didn't because there was already one plan there.

So that volume just got shifted up to where those trees are or they're where there are no trees anymore because of the lift station.

Yeah so I I think you know uh toll and mcan Somps can talk a little bit more of about that but I I do know that we've you know worked with them to try and relocate some of these reduce the sizes of of some of them to the extent that that's that that's possible given the the development they've proposed and when did low impact development standards go into effect I'll have to I can look that up but I don't I don't know off the top of my head.

2018 2018 okay so it was long after the specific plan had been created that all of a sudden these have changed and this and the idea behind the low impact development requirements is is that the water is that flows into the creek is of a super high quality am I correct in that yeah you're capturing more of the runoff on site allowing it to percolate you know into the soil as opposed to dumping that all into the roadways and picking up oil and all that other stuff that then goes into creeks and streams and so good environmental impact but also some potential unintended environmental consequences of that.

Is that a fair way of saying that?

Yeah yeah okay and then I think my other question and this goes back to the previous uh toll project there was uh some oaks that were saved and that project uh is that you know when we save that grove that was on the previous project and then I I know in this one there's been some some set asides and saved those are calculated in that uh total impact also yes that that is correct so toll has done a number of things to um you know they've adjusted some lots let me go back to their their actual development plan um they've done a number of things to uh adjust um some of the lots uh you know they've uh particularly down in this area you can see you know they extended lot M to protect you know to create that open space area to protect the the oak woodlands in that area.

They've adjusted some of the boundaries for the individual lots to try and protect isolated oak trees.

There's a number of things that they've tried to do to um to preserve where they where they can um you know those those individual isolated oak trees or those those um those portions of uh oak oak woodlands to to the extent that they they can do that.

And I guess I'm I'm curious about like they gave back I think it was five lots in the previous project to s to save maybe an acre of canopy in the previous project.

I'm grounding oh, so that acre would have been included in the non-impacted uh area, and then even now if they were to go and if they save individual oak trees in the developable acreage, they're not typically going to be part of the canopy, so there's not going to be any sort of trade-off for that.

It's just they're gonna save an individual oak tree because that's what we've asked them to do.

Yeah, that that's correct.

But to give you uh another example, one of the things that that is shown here, um, yeah.

So one of the things that that's shown here is that Toll Brothers has identified a grading limit buffer.

So what they did was they were conservative here.

They said this is these are the limits of our grading, but we're gonna add an additional 20 feet around this area, and we're gonna assume that that acreage is all lost oak woodland.

Now, depending on you know when the grading occurs and the development occurs, and as we monitor those trees and they monitor the the trees, it those trees in that in that buffer area.

If some of those are healthy and are okay, that may be added back into the canopy.

So that's not necessarily a guaranteed loss, but the assumption again being conservative is that that will be uh that that will be lost.

So there could be at the end of the project some credit going back in terms of uh of oak woodland.

Now, again, it's not a huge amount, but it is still, you know, that's 10 acres.

Got it, got it.

Or up to 10 acres.

Yeah, and I think this is a great slide just from my my final question.

So previously impacted a date is is 65 acres.

Uh and so you know, I was on the planning commission for this first project.

Um, I would say that the idea that we were gonna save all of these oak woodlands, um, that was never my assumption because then I picked up the specific plan.

There's a lot of red in that plan about the intended, and and we went toe to toe over the first project uh that impacted uh oak woodlands, right?

As we move west, we all knew that these projects, at least at that time, all of us in the planning commission knew as we move west, uh, that we were going to impact oak woodlands.

They were actually called unavoidable oak impacts.

Uh, and we did fight about what we could save and what we couldn't save.

And so there is not only the preserve, but there is the one uh grove that is on the first toll brothers project that's there on the southwest uh corner of that that project.

Now I'm looking at it and I see basically uh the grading impacts on that first toll project.

Uh I see a very small.

Sorry, I gave you my pointer.

Uh is this the area you're referring to?

That there's it's hard to see, but there is both an oak woodland and a portion that got was lost.

Yeah, exactly.

So that that little canopy that got saved there.

This was obviously open the open space preserve that's there.

So there's some things that are on the edge of that, just like there will be in these.

Um this was all a massive grade difference.

And then this was roadway impact.

So there's really there's no way you can ever build a four-lane road without having oak open, you can't build a two-lane road, you can't be at a four-lane row without oak impacts.

So 65 acres here.

Um, what is this impact here?

Um that may be another detention basin.

Um, but I I need to check on that.

No, no worries.

This here is the sewer and lift station.

Correct, yes.

So that would be called backbone infrastructure.

Yes.

And then that also is sewer lift station.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a there's another uh detention basin, I believe, in that location.

So yeah, and then all of this, I would say, you know, the most of the orange on this map uh has been a road that was planned, and this is where my question is that road's always planned to be there.

Those are the impacts.

That that's correct.

And because, you know, you you see this both um with Oak Avenue and you see this with um with Alder Creek Parkway, is that because of the grading necessary to allow for those four-lane roads uh here, they and because of the the topography, um if you if you drive down this road, because it's currently an EVA route, um, uh and same here, you can you can see that the hills on either side of you because you're kind of down a little bit in a canyon.

Um, and that's and so they had to, in order to to grow to grade that through, um, they they had to go kind of like if you would color outside the lines.

Yeah, and so that you know it's and I don't know if we have any set numbers on it, but that to me is is a pretty significant you know difference, but most of what's been impacted is obviously those roadways and that the amount of the amount of oaks that we have impacted with development are this little tiny orange um these uh I'm not saying they're not significant, but that's that's the impact of housing and development so far is this section and this section, part of this section, and a little bit on this reserve, those of the everything else on this entire map is roadway and backbone infrastructure.

That's correct, yeah.

Okay, so how many total developable or how many oak impacts do we do we from I don't even this was a while ago, so I don't remember, but do we have a number for kind of like out of that 65, how much was impacted by residential or commercial construction?

I don't have that exact number, but I the vast majority of it is backbone infrastructure.

Oh, my heads it's about seven uh between seven and eight acres.

So we we've had seven or eight acres of impact so far that's not planned infrastructure with the overall Folsom ranch project.

So I just I just think I putting it in context really helps, and then this this is like the the really large project with most of those impacts that we're seeing.

I just kind of want to kind of give it that context because a lot of it is that infrastructure that was planned.

Yeah, I just want to reply to you.

Um I think we all knew that as the projects moved west, this as the development moved west, oak woodlands would be impacted.

We all get that.

I think what is surprising to a lot of people is that oak, there are some oak woodlands in the 1,000 acres of open space that are also impacted.

I think that is a surprise and a disappointment to a lot of people, me included.

And so you're you're saying inside because this right here open space?

Yeah.

That that lift station that's there that we dug up a big line, right?

Oh, you know, the Oak Avenue interchange, those were all like oak woodlands, but they were boo that you're saying that was not understood.

I'm saying you have kind of the, I know it's a lot of numbers, but I tried to lay this out earlier.

And if you're 3,500 acres, you've got a thousand acres of open space, and you've got 2500 acres that have always been slated to be developed.

70% of the oak woodlands are in that 1,000 acres of open space.

30% are in the 2500.

There isn't enough oak woodland in the 2500 acres of open space to um account for all of the oak woodland that needs to be removed for that backbone infrastructure and for development.

So some of the uh it looks like the specific plan plan for about 53 acres of oak wood oak woodland in the 1000 acres of open space would be removed.

That's the part I'm saying I think is surprising to people.

Okay.

The upshot of this though, or the sort of more positive way to look at it is that of all of the land within the plan area, we preserved about a third of it, a little less than a third of it as open space, right?

And of the oak woodland, we're saving more than two-thirds of it.

So we've gone out of our way actually to be thoughtful about the oak woodland.

I think.

So I would I'm trying to find my notes here.

If it's 652 is the total 642 is the oak woodland and we end up with 400.

61.36% of oak woodland must be preserved.

So we're hitting that mark.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's weird in practice because now we've gotten to the point where we have to do all of the canopy removed.

I don't think the general public knew uh that when they pass measure W and set aside that 1,000 acres of open space, that some of the oak woodland would be removed.

Sure.

But that's in the specific plan.

So I understand.

I was just trying to understand for that, and I've probably kicked us into discussion now where I was saying I was just gonna stick with questions, but I I really kind of wanted to understand how much of this was tied to infrastructure versus development.

Okay, that was my questions for now.

Thank you so much, Desmond.

Uh it's now time we'll invite the applicant up for their presentation.

1017 PM.

Sorry, toll brothers.

Do we have to waive the 1017 rule?

We're not starting a new idea.

I know, I know.

Oh, turn this off if you don't mind.

Oh, you don't want to.

It's okay, okay.

Yeah.

Uh can we turn it off?

Yeah, I'll just uh logo.

I don't think I'm uh Mayor Raithel, Council members.

My name is Martin Navinsky.

I'm the land developer or land entitlement manager for for Toll Brothers, and it has been a long time coming to this point.

Um I have a brief presentation for you.

I can make it as long or as short as you like.

I do know that it's 1018.

I appreciate your time and I respect your time very much, and everyone here, uh, your staff, and uh we've I brought a group of people that can answer some of the more technical questions regarding hydro modification basins or charismatic megafauna is what we're a real question.

Charismatic megafauna, yeah.

Um, those types of things.

But uh I do uh there's a lot of great information.

Desmond, thank you for for making that presentation.

Um councilman Leary, this is a complicated project.

You're right.

I've been living it every single day for the last several years.

It's very complicated, and I think that we have hired um the foremost experts in this region to help us with that, uh, much in the same way that the city council has us has a staff of specialists, such as your your public works director, chair community development director, wherever she went.

Um City Arborist uh we do we do the same thing on the other side of the table.

We have civil engineers, we have biologists, we have arborists, we have land use attorneys, we have everything that you have.

So uh it is a complicated project.

I'm gonna go through a very, very quick presentation to point out something that uh maybe Desmond hadn't touched on some of the things that we've done that have gone above and beyond uh really what we're required to do, and beyond the oak discussion that was just occurring, which we've done quite a bit there, and Desmond, do I just push this uh logo?

Is that right?

It's kind of projector, okay.

And and Martin, don't stress about time.

This is a long time coming.

This is uh a really large project with big impacts on our community, so we want to give it the time that it deserves.

No, I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

But at the same time, I don't want to um talk if you don't have questions at all.

I'm here to answer questions as well.

Um, this is a picture here.

Um, our Alder Creek project of our existing toll regency project, it's our clubhouse.

I think that most of you have driven through there or seen it or been familiar with it.

Um we are um America's luxury builder.

We do build first class everything.

Uh we are we are top of the line and very cognizant of what we're doing.

I think that uh one of the things I'd like to point out is this fire station that that Desmond pointed out earlier.

The fire station was originally let me see I think I have my own pointer.

The fire station was originally well you can see it on the left and uh Chief Solak's predecessor thought this was a great location for the fire station.

Right there at the corner of Oak Avenue in the future Haven Parkway.

Great.

We spent a lot of money and designed an effort to put it there.

New Chief Soleck came in we met with him and his team and he said you know that's really not a good location if we can move it to the north out of the intersection up against the open space which you'll see on this on the right hand side which says after it's a better we're accommodating what the city wants it yes it was effort it took time it took money it took a lot of things just to move this station and then it's not being talked about it's just one very small example of how we conduct business to try to help accommodate the city I want to point out another item as well.

We're trying to tie the north and the south areas of 50 together there's been for quite a long time kind of this divide the south the north the north area 50 has a long history of honoring our veterans whether they're wounded warriors whether they're wounded veterans we have actually designated one of the most prominent streets in our first phase of development along the 10 acre elementary school site and I'm vlogging a 10 acre park site to one of Folsom's own wounded warriors Sergeant Vargas Andrews who has an incredible story if you don't know about it.

The city did make a proclamation which I put up on the on the right hand side there where the city actually did acknowledge Toll Brothers and our our leadership I can't already have to read it for our appreciation of Toll Brothers for their leadership and commitment to honoring veterans through the thoughtful naming of streets within their communities.

We didn't have to do that but I thought it we thought it was a good idea I was actually approached and asked if we if we would even consider it and of course we would the blue star moms at our incredible group went to a a very nice gala that they put on where Sergeant Vargas Andrews attended and it's an incredible story.

Folsom High graduate from the area he's extremely happy with this naming of his street.

And I think the city should be too it's it's the very first wounded veteran street I think in in the city of Folsom and it does help tie the north and south together.

Those are things that we're not asked they're not any kind of code or any kind of paper to do but we'll just an example of the way Toll Brothers operates.

Another thing are the community parks I think Desmond pointed out the the large green space there on your screen that's the that's the park that we're obligated to give to the city we're building nine additional parks that could be lots but we don't have to do that.

We haven't always got along with everything with with the city staff and early early discussions with city staff staff didn't think that small parks add any value and we we happen to disagree with them so we added nine more I just happen to be driving through a neighborhood today here in Folsom with a mini park I noticed two young people probably 12 13 years old with a baseball and a glove playing catch in a mini park right next to their home.

We think they do add value it's not required some other things that we do.

I do want to this will this will touch a little bit on oak trees but I do have some more information for you if you want to have some questions.

Originally on the left hand side you'll see the before park this is a this is a private amenity park I think there's a little bit this picture, I'll back up a little bit.

In the upper right hand corner, you see this is a private amenity that we didn't have to build.

We're doing it because there are some higher density lots.

If I can figure out how to turn this on, there are some higher density lots in this area of the plan.

And they have pretty small yards.

So we thought that a nice amenity here for them to have a bigger park closer to their home with a big pool, changing stations.

These are all benches, kiddie pool, little jacuzzi, changing stations, picnic tables, all kinds of things like that.

We didn't have to do that, it's not required.

We laid out this park and still thought it was a good idea, and then we moved on after looking at the tree evaluations and working with your city urban forester Amy.

We found that by expanding the park, losing some lots, we could save three very big heritage trees.

We weren't obligated to do that, and as a matter of fact, out of even though we lost some lots, we thought it was a good idea.

These are the actual trees that we're saving in your Arborish report, the tree number 460, 461, 731, 40 inches, 44 inches, and 49 inches.

These are some pretty significant trees.

These are isolated trees, not part of the Oak Woodland.

We took that upon ourselves to do that.

No one asked us to do that.

So I wanted to point that out.

You can also notice in the upper right-hand corner, those are the date the photo was taken, so you can see there's a very current photos.

This was just taken a few days ago.

And we're gonna be saving these trees.

In addition, we looked at another part of our land plan, which is over.

Oh, it's not even on.

This is up against Prairie City Road.

Here, this is Prairie Shade Road where the red line is.

This is a grove of isolated trees, but when you look from my eye, non-arborist, that looks like a canopy to me, they're all touching, but they're not.

They're not considered oak woodland, it's not a canopy.

These are all isolated trees, and we're gonna preserve 15 of them for a total of uh 262 inches of oak woodland that we we don't really need to save, we weren't required to, and we lost a few lots because of it.

We're dedicating a new park site.

Uh, this lot, I guess it's lot I, which will be renamed at some point in the future.

Um, again, this picture was taken less than a month ago.

These are what the trees look like, and Prairie City Road is uh literally right here.

So I believe you'll probably be able to see those from Prairie City Road.

Um, another thing just to demonstrate.

I don't know what I have after this.

Um I did want to talk about oak woodland mitigation.

I think I think a few people touched on that.

There is a difference between the oak woodland mitigation.

I your city uh urban forester touched on that a little bit, and isolated oak tree mitigation.

So the the woodland mitigation, it's a significant number.

No one's denying that, and we're we've through our um business partners with Westerveld Ecological Services who are here tonight.

If you'd like to ask them any questions about how this preserve was chosen, how it's maintained, who the conservator is, it's fine.

Um they can answer those questions.

But here's our project right here, which is this little star.

It's seven miles as the crow flies to this very lush and well put together uh woodland that we're gonna preserve with shares a common property land with the 4200 acre Deer Creek Hills Nature Preserve.

So it's actually an ideal location within Sacramento County.

Honestly, I've been doing this long, I don't think you could find a better place if you spent 10 years looking.

And if you have any questions about this oak woodland mitigation plan, we do have our um our business partner with from Westervelt here to answer any questions you have.

I do want to point this out.

I don't know how to zoom in on this screen exactly.

Desmond, you don't have to zoom in on this because I want to actually we might not have to zoom in.

It's okay.

Um we looked at this map or the council look, you guys looked at this map just a minute ago for quite a long time, and you see that the red area, which is the previous backbone impact, and how we're getting close to or somewhat approaching this uh 396 number that's been in the specific plan for 15 years.

Well, this is what the specific plan showed.

If and I would zoom in if I knew how to do that.

Here's Alder Creek Parkway.

It's within the lines of the road.

Oak Avenue Parkway, it's within the lines of the road.

The sewer lift station, it's not identified at all.

I think that I honestly believe that when this plan was prepared prior to 2011, prior to 205 uh 2011 when it was adopted, thought went into it in advance.

And it just wasn't considered.

I there's no blame to be placed.

I just this is the way this is straight out of the specific plan.

As you move forward and find out that there is topography out there, this is what actually occurred.

Toll brothers didn't do this.

This is city backbone infrastructure.

Um, so I think that hopefully might help explain how we're approaching this 396 number.

Um, my explanation of it anyway in a very simplistic type of way.

Um, I also want to show you our land plan within the specific plan.

You can see the outline.

I just overlaid our land plan on top of what the specific plan shows.

We're not going outside what has been envisioned for 15 years, other than that large uh detention basin that we have to put in.

And with that detention basin, we originally had uh the original plan is as Desmond pulled up on the specific plan.

There was a detention basin here, there was a detention basin here, and there was a detention basin here.

They've all been relocated and enlarged this basin.

I'll go to the next slide, and it's actually my last slide.

So this is our land plan over an aerial, and Desmond, I am gonna need to figure out how to zoom in on this.

Can I do this?

This is the problem with VDS.

I don't know.

Well, I can zoom in on my computer, my office.

Yeah, let me see.

Here, um, now you can't, yeah.

So there, um, okay.

Yeah, that'll work.

That'll yeah, that'll work.

Uh, just need to get to the next slide.

Do you know how to get to the next slide now?

There we go.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, this'll work.

Um, just want to point this out.

The area that we're preserving, this 51 acres here in the middle, this is oak woodland.

This is also oak woodland.

You can tell, I think this might be zoom in, I'm not sure.

They're considered the same.

The density of the trees in this 51 acres that we're preserving, I think you can all tell it's vastly different than this oak woodland, although they're both considered oak woodland, and the other 16 trees that we're preserving along Prairie City Road, which are down here, are isolated, but these look a little more isolated to me.

Um, but that's just my opinion.

I don't have any have any input in it.

We did have a detention, oh, the lights on now.

Uh detention basin here that we removed.

Uh, we also had a detention basin up here that we removed.

We were able to um expand this new detention basin where there are no trees.

Even though in the specific plan, even though the specific plan shows that it's oak woodland, after we got here, this detention base, this is what it shows in the specific plan, but in reality, it's it's already been removed due to the installation of this, which is the sewer lift station for the entire plan area.

Um, so there's some accommodations we've made.

Uh, this basin here is in a pretty minimal impact in uh topography-wise, elevation-wise, is in the right location to take the place of the detention basin that was here, which was roughly about the same size, the detention basin here, and the detention basin here.

We did that recognizing the impact to oak woodland, and no one asked us to do that.

We just recognized it and came forward because we we understand the value of of oak trees.

We value them too, we're not so dissimilar, really.

So that's that's kind of the overview of where we are.

We have um I'm not sure how I can move this now.

I was just gonna say, as long as you're showing this graphic, I kind of want to see the larger basin off to sure.

That's what I'm trying to get to.

I'm trying to get, I can't slide it over.

This is a little different, PDF than I'm used to, or a little different program, I guess.

This is the basin.

So let me try to zoom in on this if I can.

This is the larger.

I can zoom up and down, but I don't see any left and right here, does it?

If you maximize it up at the top right, there you go.

Yep.

Thank you, City Manager.

This is the detention basin that that we have been talking about that was uh a literally a dot on the map in this specific plan.

It probably impacted nothing.

It shows in a specific plan, this is like solid oak woodland as it is in this 51-acre preserve.

But if you look at it, yes, there are some trees, um, they're not dense trees.

Um, I think we we fit it in as close and uniquely shaped as probably about any type of detention basin potentially ever.

Um we've spent an insane amount of hours designing this and forethought that's gone into this.

I'd like to see the volume calculation of that.

All right, I have it.

I have an expert back here that can probably tell you what it is.

I know.

This is this is the big detention basin.

So these are the trees that will be impacted due to the limited impact uh development basin that cleans the water, makes it cleaner to go in the creek.

That's an environmental enhancement.

The trade-off is that there are some trees that will be impacted.

Those are the trade-offs, good and bad, right or wrong.

Um it's not for me to decide, we're just following the law.

Um also in your oak mitigation requirements in your specific plan.

I brought these up here so I didn't miss state any of them.

At least I thought I brought them up here.

Um, it talks about here in your in section 10 of the Folsom Mary's specific plan that oak trees included in residential and non-residential development parcels, parcel impact oak woodlands are encouraged to be preserved wherever practical, provided preservation does not cause a reduction in the number of lots or a significant reduction in the size of the lots.

Uh, require mass grading that eliminates level pads or requires specialized foundations, requires the use of retaining walls or extended earthen slopes greater than four feet, and I'll just stop there.

Some of these walls are like 16 to 20 feet, and we did that purposely, far greater than the four feet, but we did this to preserve the additional woodland that's out here, the more dense woodland, we're not required to, but we did.

And also the last one is to cost more to preserve these trees than to mitigate for its lost based on isolated oak tree mitigation requirements listed below, which uh your city urban forester knows very well.

So these are just some of the things that we've done that have gone above and beyond.

We haven't been asked to do any of these things.

Uh we take it very seriously.

We're very happy and very proud to be one of the partners of the city here in the city of Folsom.

Been working with your staff, meeting with them every single week for more than a year.

Uh, I think most all of us are on a first name basis in our all of the questions answered at this point.

No.

Do we know everything?

We don't.

Um we collectively, as a group, do not, but uh we're gonna continue to work together to figure them all out.

And that's about all I have for a quick presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and if I can't answer them, again, we have we have a number of experts here that have attended with me to answer anything you might have.

Martin, okay, us off.

I know, you know, in our in the previous project, so we talked about, you know, how do we save some of the oak trees on individual sites typically isolated, but yeah, um, you guys will evaluate the oak trees as you go through and pull permits, work with Amy and save the trees that can be saved on those lots so people would end up with them in their yards.

Is that fair to say?

That's a hundred percent correct, and I'm I'm glad you asked that question.

Um, I will show you on this aerial of the actual project.

Um I don't know.

I'll just area that is oak woodland that's not as dense.

There are there are trees that are in like say the backs of lots.

I don't know if you can, yeah, I guess you can see, I'm just I don't have anything in mind, but the air the oak trees that are near the corners of the lots would be a lot easier to save than the oak trees are in the middle of the road.

And what we have to do to know whether we can save any individual tree or not is come up with a very detailed engineered grading plan down to the tenth of an inch, which our experts uh McCain slamps are doing, and then we can tell whether the tree is in a cut situation where you lower the ground or fill situation where you raise the ground.

And I I've spoken so many times with urban forester that trees that end up where there's a fill situation that end up in a hole.

The rain water goes in, they drowned, they don't survive, so there's not much point in doing that.

I've spoken with others that if we want to cut the land down and have a tree sticking up 20 feet in the air, they typically don't do so well either over time.

So there's a balance, and we we haven't gotten to that level of detail yet.

Uh it's it's it's quite expensive to get there.

Um we've spent a lot of time and a lot of money to getting to where we are, and it's just it's a future, a future phase that will be evaluated by not only by toll and our staff, but by the city and the city staff as well.

And we're gonna continue to work hand in hand on that.

Thank you.

I appreciate the question.

We'll we'll go the opposite direction now, Councilmember Kazowski.

Any questions for the applicant?

None, thank you.

Vice Mayor?

Uh Councilmember Larry.

Okay, thank you.

And you know, I I appreciate the meetings we've had and discussions we've had over this and all of the work that's been done out there.

And as I said, this is a seriously complicated project.

And totally agree.

But I did have um, I have a couple of questions.

I I've already asked you one of these, but um, because you know, the increase in uh the necessary increase to come up with this plan of removal of trees, it it will eventually impact the lot owners and the lots that are along highway 50.

And I I brought that up a little bit earlier.

And what we had discussed was potentially purchasing lands along highway 50 for the mitigation where you already have existing trees.

Um, those those lots are zoned industrial.

Yeah, um, put a graphic on.

I don't know if you have any discussion with those people along the line because if that could be the case, you would still be retaining mature canopy within the South of 50 area, um, and uh and potentially create a much better view for people driving up 50 and the feeling that you know we've gone over and above what to do to make this um something that people sort of envisioned in the long run.

You're you're exactly right.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Um, uh to answer your question directly.

No, I have not been had the opportunity to speak with the property owners of the of the industrial properties up against highway 50 or just south of highway 50.

Um I think you're talking about uh keeping uh a visual buffer between the traffic on highway 50, which I don't have a slide that really shows that and any type of industrial development or commercial development.

I'm not well versed in those properties.

I and I have not talked to the property owner about that.

Just uh no reason specifically other than time.

Um, but that would be something that when a development proposal comes forward, which I don't believe any development proposals have come forward to the city on any of those properties that I'm that I'm aware of.

Right.

Um, your planning manager would probably know better.

Uh no, I'm getting a no that there haven't been, but that would be the time to evaluate those types of setbacks from the freeway to leave some sort of visual buffer between uh the freeway and the plant area.

That's that that would be my advice or comment on that.

Yeah, I mean it to me it would have made sense to have you know be looking at that long before we're here tonight.

Um, but uh the other thing that um that I really appreciate you putting together those overlays because that helps uh my pleasure.

I thought they were gonna get a better um a view of what's going on out there, and it looks like there's some potential for conserving trees that are on the individual lots, and again it depends on what house goes on which lot.

Um so I'm that was my only question.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilman.

That's what we're keying.

Only one question about trees, and then I do have a couple other questions.

Okay.

Um so you're as of right now planning to save 18 isolated trees, which we definitely appreciate, and I know you're gonna do all you can to save some others, because right now you've got seven that were rated good, and you're only saving one of those, so hopefully more of those can be saved.

But you are slated to save four trees that your arborist rated poor.

And I'm just wondering what's the likelihood that those will make it long term.

I would have to defer to the arborist.

Okay, even either your either your city urban forester or our arborist, eCor, who is who is here to answer that.

I I'm not an expert at answering.

Okay.

I mean, it's a it's a very fair question.

I I can't answer it.

That's okay.

We can break them up.

Yeah, if you'd like to bring up, uh yeah, let me get through my other two questions and then we can have um I'm gonna ask them on deck.

Christy Walker Berry from ECOR to come up here.

Okay.

Um, she's the person that put our our burst report together.

She's familiar with the trees.

I think it was her or her group that raided the trees.

Are those lot I trees by chance?

Uh these are the lot eye trees.

I'm gonna make this much bigger.

I like lot I.

As you drive down Prairie City Road, next time you drive down Prairie City Road, you all will notice lot I trees.

This is a nice little line of of trees that is there, and you'll probably be able to see them.

It needs a name.

It's the something grove.

I don't know.

I grew.

It's it's these trees up in here.

Yeah, I'm um pulling up my report so I can see the data.

Martin, while she does that, let me just ask you a couple of one of the shorter questions.

Um, you don't have a slide, but in our staff report it showed the four-pack and six-pack, which I really appreciate.

That you know, kind of some uh hopefully lower priced homes that maybe starter homes for some people.

That's the idea.

Um, do those each have individual driveways and a garage, or they just have the shared driveway?

They each have individual garages, they have a shared driveway in and a very short individual home driveway, just enough like more like an apron.

So they would come up the shared driveway and turn into their respective garage with just there's just an apron between the the 20 foot wide and we're gonna privately maintain those.

We've met with your utilities department, um, with public works department.

City doesn't want to maintain any of those streets are kind of wonky a little bit, or more complicated.

So we said we'll maintain them.

Okay, um, okay, perfect.

And then this is a little bit random, but this because this is my district, I get this question a lot, including this week from a resident who's here.

Um I guess for whatever reason we did not condition Toll Brothers to build the sidewalk on the west side of East Bidwell from Regency to the trail that parallels White Rock Road.

So people who are coming out of Regency turn right because they want to go to the bike trail along White Rock Road, and they're walking through a couple hundred feet of weeds.

That's right.

Do we know why that wasn't conditioned and how we maybe could get that little strip of sidewalk put in?

That little strip of sidewalk, um, I can tell you it's called lot O.

Yeah, where I want to have the oak tree litigation.

Where you talked about earlier.

Oh, it's for oak, by the way.

That was Toll Brothers owned that piece of property.

We were conditioned to deed it to the city of Folsom.

The city of Folsom owns lot O.

You can do whatever you want with it.

It's your property.

Okay.

It's not ours anymore.

We were conditioned to give away.

And we also were told not to landscape it.

So we landscape right up to the edge of Lotto.

Okay.

Stopped.

Got it.

Okay.

So note to the city manager.

We need a little section of sidewalk there.

And some landscaping.

That's about two mitigation on one.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Christy has her notes.

I don't know.

Yes.

Um, what I wanted to what I'd like to say, um, so the way the the city does their tree ratings, they combine the health and the structure.

And so the rating that we have here is related to both combined.

And so um the poor rating can be heavily weighted towards structure or health.

Um, and so you know, if you have a leaning tree or a tree with, you know, basal damage is um, one of these has is noted as a has a basal wound.

Um it can be related, it can be rated poor with actually having, you know, fair health, but because of the way that the rating system is, they're combined into one.

And so um the odds of them surviving, um, I can't answer that, only time will tell.

Um, but you know, we always hope that they will, and we're gonna be monitoring these trees.

Um, we are required to monitor all of the trees that are adjacent to construction for five years.

Um, and then the city decides um if there's mid additional mitigation that will be required if the trees do not survive after the five-year mark.

Got it, thank you.

Very helpful.

That's all the questions I have, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh so I guess I have a question for our our urban forester.

Uh and and maybe it's a toll question too, but um, is there any way uh like to Martin's point, like to me, this looks like a canopy, right?

And here we're having this discussion around canopies versus isolated trees.

We looked at the aerial view before to make that canopy determination.

Um it's now been 25 years.

I don't know what that number is, it's a long time.

I've got a lot of dates on the start of my specific plan.

Um is there any way that we would shift things from isolated a canopy or canopy to isolated, because they're just maybe we had a very zoomed-out view before, and now we look at it differently.

That is a question that we asked specifically about this group of trees when it first came up, because we agree also that it appears to be maybe in a different category than what it is in the specific plan.

Um the information in the specific plan is based off of LIDAR data, was that was taken as you mentioned quite a long time ago.

And in those discussions, it was determined that reopening that conversation would potentially kind of snowball into opening Pandora's box with maybe downstream repercussions or repercussions, and how the rest of the oaks in the entirety of the Folsom plan area might need to be recategorized.

We have noticed in the last five plus years that there has been some decline in the oak woodland canopy as a whole, um, presumably because of drought.

So when you look at the plan area from that 30,000 foot view and you look at how that has changed in the last two decades, there have been some changes.

Yeah, so I it Amy's right.

We did look at this issue given the passage of time, and you know, and the formula that was used to categorize oak trees as to whether they're isolated or whether they're groves, and just the complexity, you know, of that analysis and reopening that up, it would essentially, you know, we would make need to take a pause on the specific plan and and then re-evaluate that whole section 10 of the specific plan.

And you know, we we hadn't gotten any direction to to do that, so we we um you know we we follow the the mitigation and the requirements that were in the current specific plan, but as you can see, we've also looked at more current aerial photo uh photography to look at okay those areas that are dense, those areas that are less dense in terms of the oak woodland canopy and those areas that are still, you know, still considered isolated oaks.

I don't that's not a great explanation, but it's just the the complexity of it was we we did talk about this and we and and ultimately determined that you know the complexity is such that we really need to take a pause on on the implementation of the specific plan and reopen the whole thing.

Understood.

I think this was something I I hated back when I was on the planning commission because it was very confusing to treat oak woodlands in two different ways and to classify them in two different ways and have different strategies for how we dealt with them when they look very similar to the untrained eye when I look at them and go, oh, that's a nice oak tree or that's not a nice oak tree.

So I appreciate you guys looking into it.

All right.

Uh we are going to move to public comment.

Oh.

Did you have something else?

No, I'm just gonna turn this off.

Excuse me.

We are gonna go ahead and open the public hearing.

I'll just go ahead and just close it and then I'll I'll pulse my presentation back up.

Thank you for your time, Kelly.

We might call you back up at uh 1120 or 25 or so.

Okay, let's just subscribe.

Okay, we do have three requests to speak under this item.

I'm gonna go ahead and call your name and you could approach the podium when you hear your name call.

The first um speaker will be Cheryl Davis, followed by Michael Museo.

Um sorry if I mispronounced your name, and then the last speaker for this item would be Miranda Pond.

I still get to say good evening though, right?

Not good morning yet.

Um I'm Cheryl Davis, uh long-time resident of Empire Ranch.

Um, and I just had three um points I wanted to make, and actually one I can just cut because both council member Aquino and Leary, you did all my numbers and questions there.

Just the final question I had, and the first issue is the oak woodlands that you've discussed extensively.

If Measure W, um, I'm not sure where to direct my question, uh, does put that 30% uh requirement for open space, and that was passed by the voters.

If you if you approve tonight, and there's less open space available for subsequent developers and they need to come forward, do we need to have another um voter measure?

Um, because I got the impression that uh you you could decide as the council to make those exceptions for subsequent developers, but I would think Measure W would have some kind of overlay on your ability to do that.

So that was my question about that.

My second issue was about the developer will pay fees in lieu of building affordable housing in their development.

And I'm going to ask that the council reject that plan.

And it for the toll brothers to pay in uh in LU fees instead of building 142 affordable housing units, as required by your our city's inclusionary housing rules.

Toll brothers, from what I understand, will pay roughly 12 to 15 million dollars in fees, but building 142 affordable housing units was actually cost three, four or five times that amount of money.

So I don't feel that that is a fair trade, that it is a subsidy for a luxury developer at the expense of Folsom residents.

Alder Creek will have 1,424 homes with zero affordable units.

That means like our teachers, our nurses, our service industry employees will not be able to live in the neighborhood that they serve.

And as you know, these having these fees does not guarantee that we end up with affordable housing.

Because where will the city cite that housing?

What's the timeline for that?

What's the plan for that?

So again, I urge the council to reject that plan for in loo fees.

Um the representative from Toll Brothers talked about the north south of uh Folsom having some issues, and he was trying to bring us together.

But I remember those issues.

North felt very strongly about water issues for South 50.

And there's parents who have some very strong feelings about the impact of uh high schools because there isn't a high school down there, and then of course there's the traffic impact.

Um my concern would be that if South of 50 is not required to build their fair share of affordable housing.

If it comes to north of 50, there's one more thing for folks to be upset about that we are taking on an issue that South of 50 needs to step up for.

And then my third final thing.

If you could wrap it up, give us just that.

Um, the staff report states that the proposed project will not cause unacceptable vehicular traffic levels on surrounding roadways.

And I urge the county or the council to reject that premise.

You just have to drive down East Bidwell these days to know that we have a traffic issue and to build another 1,400 homes that may have two cars per home.

We're adding that many more vehicles to our roads.

So I'm not sure that we are not going to have some traffic impacts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, the next speaker, Michael.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members.

Mike Lozo for Labor's International Union of North America.

We submitted a couple of comments over the last few weeks, and in addition, submitted three comments from experts who looked at the at the EIR from 2011 and sort of identified some new information and new mitigation measures, including uh in particular some mitigation measures for some of the unavoidable impacts identified for air emissions from operations of particular, especially vehicles.

Our experts were recommending uh that um mitigation include the installation of level two EV charges, for example, as well as super compliant VOC paints during construction.

So there these are measures that weren't considered at the time, probably weren't available, weren't feasible, they exist.

The you know the city itself and its general plan identifies home charging as an important component of reducing air pollution uh for species.

We have a number of new candidate species, some listed species, and special status species, uh including, for example, for special status bird species rented and bullocks, oroles whose habitat overlaps the site, uh they were not listed or special status species back in 2001.

They were never considered in the previous EIR.

Our biologist uh identified those.

Um mere conformity analysis uh doesn't make up for uh preparing a supplemental EIR when you have new information of a new special status species in the area.

The CEQA guidelines require your the lead agencies to look at all special status species.

But the new information standard applies to special status species, which there are a number in the area that have not been addressed in the previous CIR.

And that would require the exemption would not be appropriate with that new information.

And lastly, we had our indoor air expert took a look at the project and formaldehyde emissions.

If the project complies with all the air resource board regulations for formaldehyde materials and the finishing materials for all the homes, he calculates a risk of 120 cancers in a million over the lifetimes of those of those folks who live there.

And that's well above the significance threshold of 10 in a million.

There are mitigation measures for this, like no formaldehyde options that are out there.

But that hasn't been looked at.

That makes it much more difficult, especially for a complex project like this for the public to catch up and actually understand and be able to raise issues that they're concerned about.

So with that, we'd ask you to not go with an exemption, but prepare a supplemental EIR for the project.

And thank you for the time tonight.

And your endurance is impressive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, and the last and final speaker of this evening would be uh Miranda Pond.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Miranda Pond, and I'm a disaster-impacted Folsom resident and unhoused disabled survivor of local gender-based violence.

Toll Brothers is asking to pay an in-LU fee instead of building the 142 affordable rental units this project owes.

That is a choice to provide money to the city of Folsom instead of affordable homes to Folsom residents, often vulnerable women and children, the disabled and the elderly.

The city's own housing element documents that single mothers with children are among the households who struggle hardest to afford housing here.

It also states that Heart of Folsom, the city's only shelter operator, serves single adults and is not equipped to house Folsom families with children or dependent adults.

The affordable housing units toll brothers is choosing not to build are the homes these residents need and cannot find anywhere else in the city.

This is also a public safety issue.

There's no survivor safety without economic security.

Domestic violence and sexual violence are leading causes of homelessness for women and children, and nearly 43% of unhoused women report having experienced domestic violence or sexual assault.

With no family suitable affordable units and a shelter that cannot take children.

A resident trying to leave their abuser has no affordable safe housing available in Folsom.

Under AB 686, the city has an affirmative legal duty to further fair housing.

Sex familial status and disability are protected classes.

Approving the toll brothers in lieu fee, taking money instead of building affordable homes, has a disparate impact on the resident groups that that law is meant to protect.

Under California's no net loss law, if these units aren't built here, the city must identify where and when the replacement units will be built.

By 2020, the city's housing fund held over 5.3 million dollars in in loo fees.

And it's not apparent it's going to housing Folsom's women, children, disabled, aging, or then housed residents.

After grants passed, the city defunded its housing navigator and funded a crime analyst and heat map technology for camping enforcement.

While 211 still refers housing and secure residents to a disconnected fulsome housing navigator line, preventing coordinated entry to regional housing service infrastructure.

So I'm asking the city council to do four things before approval.

One, do not approve the toll brothers in lieu arrangement until the city identifies on the record where and when the affordable units will be built, as no net loss requires.

Two require the city.

Misspoke require on the record how this project meets the city's AB686 for housing duty rather than undermining it.

Three, account publicly for where the NLU money in the housing fund is going.

And four, restore the housing navigator function that 211 still refers unhouse housing and secure residents to.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, that concludes our public comment.

We'll go ahead and close the public hearing.

Um to be addressed, and then also the 142 units of affordable housing.

I think that calculation is not correct.

So if the staff would address both of those issues, I would appreciate it.

Yeah, so on the first uh item related to the measure w open space requirement.

So the toll project is actually not reducing the the open space, they're actually slightly increasing the open the amount of open space in the plan area.

So they're actually increasing it by uh 5.9 uh acres.

Uh that's part of the result of that uh minor administrative modification that they're making to adjust it.

So the oak woodland canopy reduction is a separate issue than the open space because I as I mentioned before, even though there's some oak woodland removal in the open space, that open space is not changing.

That is remaining as open space.

So we are currently at 1,068 acres of open space, which equates to roughly 35%.

So approving this project will not lower that below the measure W threshold.

We wouldn't be bringing this project forward to you if it if it did that because that would violate measure W.

And I'll just add on there.

If we did go below, if we wanted to go below the 30% open space, we do have to go back to the voters.

The voters uh are the ones that set the requirements in order to annex uh that property, and so that is a hard line that the council cannot violate.

So um on the the other issue related to uh affordable housing, so the the city's in inclusionary housing ordinance allows for developers to either build the housing, they can dedicate land to housing, or they can pay the NLU fee.

They've opted to choose the NLU fee.

Um we are using the NLU fees for the production of affordable housing, and in addition to that, we worked with the landowners to uh deed restrict um development in or deed restrict land in the Folsom plan area for the the development of uh of affordable housing for you know for all different groups.

So the um there's it equates to roughly 900 units um of land that can accommodate 900 up to 900 units of affordable housing that will be ultimately uh developed down there.

The first project, the Mangeny Place apartments, uh, was a deed restricted uh project that had received approximately six million dollars from the city's uh housing fund.

That's where we place our NLU fees, and we've been using that housing fund on a regular basis and have spent over the last uh the last about 10 to yeah, about 10 years.

Uh we've we've spent about 30 million dollars on gap financing for a variety of different affordable housing projects throughout the city, and our our focus is trying to get more affordable housing constructed down in the fulsom plan area on those sites that that we've identified as being date restricted.

And I appreciate that.

Uh, but if toll was to build affordable housing units, the requirement would be one percent, right?

No, it's uh it's 10%.

Yeah.

It's 10%, but the NLU fee is the NLU fee is three thousand.

Uh well, the NLU three fee is roughly three dollars a square uh uh a square foot.

Yeah.

So I always thought the affordable, the affordable construction number was lower than 10%, so okay.

No, it's a it's a 10% figure uh for affordable housing for construction.

Well, we've never had anybody do it, so they all pay the in loo fee because I don't think we in Folsom's history.

Have we ever had a project that's built 10% affordable housing?

Uh I don't know offhand, but generally the the the challenge um has has been that um the way that developers do affordable housing, it it tends to be a different group of developers that do affordable housing versus market rate.

And um what what we've what we typically see um is a situation where um the the market rate developer will develop their units and then they'll either you know pay an enlou fee or in other communities they dedicate a portion of land for the development by a different developer that specializes in affordable housing to then secure the tax credits or the other other government financing to make that project work, and that's typically a multifamily project.

Uh developers generally uh want to build market rate developers typically want to build that market rate of that market rate house, sell it, and then move on, whereas uh with affordable housing, that deed restriction lasts for 45 years for a for sale product, and typically you don't have developers that want to be tied back to that project for for 45 years, or that becomes the city's responsibility.

Understood.

Uh and then I don't wanna there was also comments about the EIR.

Uh any further comments on that.

I know there was a response letter already that was included by some of those comments, but anything else to add from the comments?

No, we we you know the there is a response letter that is in is included in attachment 26 to the staff report that that provides additional analysis on the issues raised.

We believe that that analysis is sufficient and and we believe that the conformity analysis as conformities conformity analysis and the exemption under sequel guidelines 1516 uh 182 is um is is appropriate in this situation because the project is consistent with the specific plan, and specific plan EIR.

Perfect.

Uh I'll turn it to my colleagues for deliberation or any further things that came up from our public comment.

Um in order to focus the discussion, I'm happy to make a motion and then maybe we can make some brief comments once we have a second.

Sounds good.

Um I will move adoption of resolution number 11643.

Second.

So yeah, if I could kick it off.

Um, well, thank you to everybody who stuck around.

This has been a long night.

Thank you to all the staff to Toll Brothers and and your team.

Um obviously there's been a lot of talk tonight about the Oak Woodlands, and I think that this obviously is a really consequential uh development as far as that goes, but I don't want that conversation and that discussion to diminish the fact that I think this is a really quality project.

Um I think there's a lot of attention to detail.

Um I as I said before, I appreciate the four plexus and the four packs and the six packs that you know give maybe some entry level housing opportunities.

Um I think the um the private um kind of park amenity that has the the pool in it for the high density um development.

I think that's a really nice feature.

You see that a lot of places like Orange County and you know, more highly um dense um neighborhoods.

We have one of those in Empire Ranch.

Wish we had more around town.

So I think there's a lot of really, really nice features about this um uh development, and I don't want that um we don't I don't want us to lose sight of that um tonight.

Um so I think with that, uh those are those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kino.

Uh I'll open it up for other council members that want to comment before we call for a vote.

I'll second her comments also.

Well, ditto, um, I do want to say I think you know, many residents, as I said earlier, um, get upset when growth outpaces our infrastructure I personally feel um like our trees our oaks are our beautiful nature is part of the infrastructure of Folsom but there also has to be a balance and I think that's why it's important to look at what the intention of the specific plan was to do.

And we have a lot protected and I think we've heard a couple different times that this develop specific developer is bending over backwards to give us even more than what the specific plan is calling for so while it feels like some things are going away I think if you look at especially during uh Martin's presentation of what they've done to bend over backwards to make this project even better um to preserve that infrastructure of our oaks and canopies and our open spaces so I believe that that's we need to look at this as a balanced approach.

You know I think it's interesting if we stopped halfway right now we would only be absorbing a lot of the impacts of the growth south of 50 with not a lot of the infrastructure that we need to support that entire community as a whole those critical roads the waterways the sewer systems all of those things um they're critical to what has already been built down there and as far as the roads go they're critical to alleviate some of the traffic um congestion that we see right now in order for us to get federal funding in order for us to put the infrastructure in for the schools that are needed the dust the high school that we desperately need these kind of projects are critical so to have a builder come in that is willing to bend over backwards I think is really important for us to look at the biggest the bigger picture so that's where I stand.

Thank you Vice Mayor Council any comments if I may I'd like to alter it uh offer up a substitute motion uh and that would be to continue this because um it's getting late but I think that um we should probably discuss some changes to the um conditions to address some of the comments that came up earlier this evening um you know one of those is um a require uh requiring environmental uh impact reports um for some of the aspects that haven't been studied um and to talk about perhaps um uh some inclusionary housing in the in the um in this particular plan I know that the duets um the uh four packs and six packs could potentially uh qualify for that which would you know allow for having a some payment but some um affordable units on site and um there are also I think um more details that need to be discussed about the staging of the development of these roads in that area to um avoid the continued um problems with traffic that we're experiencing okay we have a substitute motion on the table um do we have a second all right substitute motion will die without a second uh any further comments council really on the project um no I don't have any other comments thank you yeah uh so I just want to make a few comments uh because I think uh this was a a very um different approach uh not that toll's first project didn't turn out great um but I think the approach was different uh this time one it was it was larger uh and had more um impacts than the previous project and um I just want to say that I appreciate the approach uh that was very very collaborative uh we we asked a lot of toll uh this time because they were making a very big commitment uh to develop in Folsom that's that's 1400 plus houses it's a lot of the remaining acreage that's available down in Folsom Ranch and um so it makes sense that we asked a lot of them because they were going to develop most of what was remaining, right?

In the at least in the single family that's down there and um and I think they rose rose to the occasion um and they went above and beyond uh even what we asked in some cases uh and it's been uh it's been a long road it's been a lot of discussions uh a lot of collaboration.

I thank the staff for all the time that they put in with toll to get us here to this place.

And I do want to also address kind of the affordable housing side of things.

A little bit with the deed restrictions in the last general plan update.

That was before I was on on council.

But that is really giving us a lot of capacity that's committed to affordable housing going forward.

And we've successfully applied that a lot recently.

So I'm happy to discuss those uh with those residents that have concerns over that and kind of go through how our affordable housing fee is is effective at providing that.

Uh my comment that I've never seen, I didn't even know the number was 10%.

I was on the planning commission for for a long time.

Um I just had never seen it, so I thought the number was actually lower in committed units.

Um, but I do think that our program is working.

We've got a pretty significant housing trust fund just earlier tonight on the agenda.

We were going to use some of that uh in order to pursue uh an opportunity there.

So it's not like this money is sitting on the sidelines.

Um it's being fed back into projects that are actually providing affordable housing and not just on the south side of Folsom, but a significant number throughout the city on both the north and south sides of the city.

And uh Oakwoodlands, you know, the impacts were never um going to be pretty, uh, but there is a way to minimize the impacts.

Uh and I appreciate the work that is still to come in trying to save that.

I live in Briggs Ranch because I I love the trails, uh, and I love the fact that all those oak trees are throughout my community uh in front yards and backyards and side yards, and sometimes they're a pain even to the residents uh having to apply for permits for them, having to deal with the impacts of living in that uh that urban forest.

Um, but it also makes for a very, very special, distinctive by nature community.

Um so I appreciate the work you guys are doing in this area.

Um there might be a neighborhood one day where I consider moving out of Briggs Ranch and going to a different heavily forested uh section that's built in with great trail access and a great looking uh neighborhood with some some good topography.

So uh with that uh please call the role.

Okay, council members Kazowski.

Larry, no more bottom, yes.

Aquino, yes, and Rafael.

Yes, congratulations, Sol.

And congratulations, Folsom.

Uh we'll move to the city manager report.

Nothing to add.

Council comments.

I'll say one thing.

I Desmond, you thanked a lot of staff.

I want to thank you for your presentation.

I can tell that you had a lot of knowledge, you answered all the questions, same to Amy and then and all the experts out there, but thank you to your whole staff.

Um, you did a great job.

Well, thank you.

I I just wanted to mention um Jessica Brandt, who's my principal planner who did a ton of work on this, and unfortunately, she's been sick this week, so I wasn't able to attend.

But yeah, thank you.

And with that, we are adjourned at 11 22.