All right.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining us for our closed session.

City Attorney Lowe will make a closed session announcement.

And then we welcome public comment on the item listed for closed session.

Good evening, Council members.

There's one item on this evening's closed session agenda.

Item two point one is a conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9.

The name of the case is Wisman Action Committee versus the City of Mountain View, Forest Lein Barter, and Tower Investment LLC, Santa Clara County Superior Court case number 25, CV 465735.

Thank you.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session item listed on tonight's agenda?

I'm not seeing any public comment.

So we will close public comment and adjourn to closed session.

The regular session starts at 6 30.

Thank you.

Now let's stand and do the pledge of allegiance.

Councilmember Clark.

Councilmember Hicks?

Here.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Here.

Councilmember Shawalter.

Vice Mayor Ramos?

Here.

You have a quorum with Council Member McAllister absent.

Thank you.

So we'll move on to item two, our closed session report.

City Attorney Log, do you have a closed session report?

Um no reportable action was taken in closed session this evening.

Thank you.

So we'll move on to item three.

Our presentation.

Please note this is a presentation only.

The City Council will not take any action.

Public comment will occur after the presentation item.

If you'd like to speak on this item, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

And we will celebrate item 3.1, our Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation.

We are happy to be joined this evening by Angelica Gabriel on behalf of the Cafecito con Aroma Ajusticia to accept this proclamation.

Angelica, can you join me at the lectern?

She was like, Yeah, come on.

Oh, okay.

Okay, yeah, no problem.

Okay.

So the proclamation reads, whereas in 1968, President Lyndon B.

Johnson introduced Hispanic Heritage Month to recognize and celebrate the independence of our neighbors in Central America and Mexico.

And in 1988, President Ronald Reagan expanded the recognition period from one week to one month beginning September 15th through October 15th.

And whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities in Mountain View, who call our city home and help Mountain View thrive, represent a diverse group with roots throughout Latin America and beyond, and many Latino residents also trace their heritage to the original indigenous communities of Latin America and Africa.

And whereas in recognizing and celebrating the achievements of our Hispanic and Latino community, we honor them and recognize all who have helped build in our state and city.

They are civil rights leaders, community organizers, first responders, healthcare professionals, teachers, artists, athletes, entertainers, colleagues, and friends.

Whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities have incalculable contributions to our neighborhoods and community in every sector of the economy, and we are a greater and more vibrant city because of them.

Now, therefore, I, Ellen Kamei, Mayor of the City of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the City Council, to hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th has Hispanic Heritage Month in Mountain View.

And Angelica, would you like to say a few words and accept the proclamation?

Okay.

Good afternoon.

My name's Angelica Gabriel.

I am part of Capecito with Aroma de Justicia and Montpreneurs.

I am great for Mr.

Bill Cosby and Miss Andra Esparza for giving me the opportunity to be here.

As a Latino member for the Hispanic community.

Thank you one more time for attending our meetings to listen to requests and concerns.

And always providing information about the resource from our city.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We're gonna take a picture.

And I um so we're gonna do a photo with our council.

And for those who might not know what a cafecito is, it's kind of like an informal meeting.

I know you meet on Mondays, I think, and it's in the evening, I think 8:30, 9 PM.

So that is after dinner, you know, after work, so that they can all talk and be in community.

Um and it's uh it's a safe space, and I know the group meets every Monday on Zoom.

So see, como así, see?

Okay.

All right, all right.

So we're gonna take a picture.

Would any member of the council like to say a few words?

Okay, all right.

We will now take public comment on the presentation item.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation item listed on the agenda?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk.

I am not seeing any public comment, so I will close public comment and thank you, Angelika, for joining us.

Another round of applause, please.

All right, we'll move to item four, our consent calendar.

These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration.

If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following approval of the balance of the consent calendar.

If you'd like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on non-agenda items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Would any member of the council like to pull an item?

Councilmember Schwalter.

I would just like to comment on a few items.

Um, as is usually my custom.

We have 15 consent calendar items tonight.

That's a lot of work.

And so I want to thank all the staff who've been involved in putting together um these projects uh that they've kind of finished up over the summer during our break.

Thank you very much.

We really appreciate it.

There are a couple that I'm gonna mention.

Um, one, I want to talk about the building code update.

I want to thank the staff for meeting the truncated schedule that was required by this cycle for because of the special legislative action.

We had several months less than we normally do to deal with this and and really a lot of constraints to work through.

These uh these new building codes, which are sort of a continuation of the ones we've had with some updates, will help make new construction all electric much more often in Mountain View, which will make it not only cheaper because you won't have to put in a gas line, but it will also help dramatically to lower our greenhouse gas emissions as a community.

So that's very important.

And I also want to thank the staff from Silicon Valley Clean Energy, who I know worked with our city staff to make this happen.

So thank you very, very much for all your efforts.

It's a huge win for our community.

And then there are several things on here related to the shoreline area.

One is we're having a new irrigation pump station put in.

And this is a big piece of infrastructure equipment that's needed to move our recycled water around in the North Bay Shore.

And it's just important that as a as a government, we keep up with maintaining this kind of infrastructure.

So at home, none of us have to worry about it.

We just turn on the tap and it works, and it's good clean water.

And that's because all these things are done behind the scenes.

Then another one that's happening, which will be much more evident, is that we're having the shoreline boat house is going to be expanded and updated, and that's going to include both buildings at the lake, the cafe and the boathouse, and improve the bathrooms.

And this one got put off during COVID, so I think we're we're all glad we're finally getting to that.

And then another one that's happening in the shoreline area is um uh is the uh tree mitigation at landings.

Um the site clearing got started before Google decided to put a hold on this project.

They removed over 848 trees, 316 heritage trees, and 531 other trees.

So Google has worked to make the location safe and have some habitat value until it's finally developed.

They've they've cleaned it up and put in grasses.

I want to say kudos to the Mountain View staff and Google for working together on this tree mitigation agreement.

The tree removal was part of the project's environmental impact identified in the CEQA process.

So far, Google has planted 1,344 replacement trees in various places around Mountain View, and Google and the city staff have agreed on a tree mitigation agreement this July to plant at least 14 more 24-inch bay laurels along Landings Drive and maintain two rows of large box trees that will provide kind of a visual screen between the freeway and this site.

So thanks again to the staff for all this work, and these trees collectively will contribute to increasing our tree canopy as a community, which is one of the things that provides needed shade and helps cool our um our city.

Thank you very much.

Great.

Thank you.

Seeing no other colleagues in the queue, I'll now bring it to public comment.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the consent calendar?

Please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk.

I am not seeing any in person or virtual public comment.

So I'll bring the item back for council action and note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinances and resolutions attached to the consent calendar items 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 4.14.

We have a lucky person who's chosen to do that, Councilmember Clark.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um sorry, everyone, we're required to read the titles of some of these 15 ordinances and resolutions.

So bear with us.

So I'll move that we adopt the consent calendar, and that includes item 4.2, adopt an ordinance of the city of Mountain View amending the Mountain View City Code to delete Chapter 8, Article 8, flood plan uh floodplain management in its entirety and adopt a new chapter, 48 floodplain management, and finding that the amendments are exempt, excuse me, from review under the California Environmental Quality Act to be read and titled only further reading waived and adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View adopting the 2024 International Property Maintenance Code with local amendments amending the Mountain View City Code to delete Chapter 8, Article 5, 2021 International Property Maintenance Code in its entirety and adopt a new Article 6 Property Maintenance Code and Chapter 25 Neighborhood Preservation to locate with other similar city regul uh to locate with other city uh similar city regulations and finding that the amendments are exempt from the review under the California Environmental Quality Act to be read and titled only for the reading waived and adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending chapter 24 hazardous materials of the Mountain View City Code to streamline content and make other clarifying amendments and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act to be read and titled only for the reading waived, and adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View, one repealing local amendments to the 2022 California Building Standards Code, to adopting local amendments to the 2025 California Building Standards Code, including the 2025 California Energy Code.

Three, amending Chapter 8 Buildings and Chapter 14 fire prevention of the Mount View City Code to comply with changes to state law, four, adopt findings to support the local the local amendments, and five, finding that the ordinance is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act to be read and tired only for the reading waived.

Item 4.3 adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View to establish the tennis advisory committee and prescribing the duties, responsibilities, and membership thereof to be read and titled only for the reading waived.

Item 4.4 adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View authorizing temporary closure of parking lot twelve from 7 30 a.m.

through 2 30 p.m.

on select Sunday on select Sundays occurring between September 21st, 2025 and February 8th, 2026 not to exceed six Sundays for use by the California Farmers Market Association to be read and titled only for the reading waived.

Item 4.5, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and annuitants under the public employees medical and hospital care act with respect to a recognized employee organization, Group 001 Safety Fire, to be read entitled only further reading and waived, and adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and the new attendants under the Public Employees Medical and Hospital Care Act with respect to a recognized employee organization, Group 002 Public Safety Police to be read and titled only further reading waived.

Item 4.6 adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View re-establishing the visual arts committee and prescribing a new duties, responsibilities, powers, and membership thereof to be read and titled only for the reading waived.

Item 4.7, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, accepting an alcohol policing partnership grant from the state of California and the amount of $51,0464 to develop a strategic approach to eliminate the crime and public nuisance problems associated with problematic alcoholic beverage outlets and authorizing the city city manager or designed to take all steps necessary to receive the grant funds to be read and title only for the reading waived.

And finally, item 4.14, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View appropriating $968,476 from the community development block grant program uh subfund to the Paulson Park 1 Roof Replacement Project, to appropriating one million three hundred and sixty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-four dollars from the CDBG subfund to the Monte Vista Terrace Roof Replacement and Elevator Modernization Project, and three authorizing the city manager or designated negotiate and execute the loan agreements, affordable housing regulatory agreements, and related documents with midpen housing, and four authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute amendments to these agreements without returning to council to be read and titled only for the remote.

And that passes unanimously.

So we'll move on to item five, oral communications.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda.

Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city council subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during this section.

State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agenda items.

If you'd like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item?

Looks like we have two in person, and you will have three minutes each.

And I think we have a new timer right here that you can see.

And I think up on the screen, we revised it over the summer summer recess, so you can see it more clearly.

Uh, first is Albert Jeans.

Great, thank you very much.

Mayor Kamei and Council members.

I like to share with you the results I've uh the counts I've made of the oversized vehicles, also known as RVs on our city streets.

As you know, I live in Steerlin Estates, which is close to Terrabella, and there are quite a few RVs there, so I see these on a daily basis.

So I was just curious as to what the situation was.

Next slide, please.

So I've actually personally counted all of these.

Um, starting in January of this year, and then again in July, I mean June, July, and the last one was just a week ago.

Um, you can look at these later on, it's too much detail.

Next slide, please.

The important thing is that the totals here in red.

So you may recall that when the narrow streets ordinance went into effect, there were probably about 120 or 130 RVs on our streets.

As of January, there were 209, and I might have missed some because at that time I didn't know there were some other places where they were sort of hiding.

In June, that went up to 270, July, and July 276, and one week ago there were 285 on our streets.

And that's not including the ones in the safe parking lots, which I've actually remained fairly constant.

About I think there's like 40 in the shoreline and maybe 29 or so at the Evelyn lot.

So next slide, please.

Oh, and by the way, Palo Alto has a problem too.

I mean, in areas very close to ours, there's quite a concentration in their light industrial areas.

And so just to make sure there wasn't a lot of movement between those, I did counts there too.

And it turns out, yeah, there they don't move around very much.

In July, there was 157, and in September that increased to 167 as well.

So it wasn't like RVs were moving from one area to the next or vice versa.

Next slide, please.

So that's where this image comes in that you first saw on the first slide.

This is a image I made using Photoshop, using a photo I took of the R shoreline safe parking lot.

There are about 300 RVs here.

This is not the future.

This is now.

This is what the number of RVs we have on our streets.

Uh next slide, please.

And here's uh now we have AI, you know.

I tried my hand at that.

This is another view of what 300 RVs would look like.

Next slide, please.

And so I think we need a plan here because the Navarro settlement agreement expires in one year.

Under that agreement, Mountain View is required to provide three miles of streets where oversized vehicles could park.

And I guess with the end of that agreement, that's no longer binding.

So what will the city's position be after that?

I think we need to have a plan and to start thinking about it right now.

One option is next slide, please.

This has already happened on Terminal Avenue.

It's always been no overnight parking.

Next slide, please.

I remind the city of that, and a few weeks after I told them this happened.

So next slide, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Alright, next in person public speaker is Chris Keck.

Oh, yeah, and we have that bell now.

When your time is up.

I wish it meant that we got to go home, but not no such luck.

Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be here tonight.

Coincidence I'm here on the same subject.

I started the Palo Alto Preparatory School 41 years ago, and um was supposed to retire, but now this is going to be my job.

These RVs.

When the RVs first showed up on our doorstep, uh, we're very compassionate.

We had food drives and toy drives for the kids and the families.

These people really needed help.

And it was wonderful, created a community, and everybody was very respectful cleaning up their messes on the streets.

It was uh a mutual relationship.

That's no longer the case.

As of eight to twelve months ago, you may or may not be aware.

RV lords have van lords, they refer to themselves, are using uh vacation rental websites to they go buy junkie RBs at auctions for pennies on the dollar, line our streets with them, rent them out, and it's a new clientele.

Our students have been.

Well, the safety issue that the first safety issue we're dealing with is clear line of sight, ingress and egress for the students, multiple incidents of cars and bicycles ridden by students, becoming very close to being an accident, and uh it's it's ongoing.

I don't want to wait for an accident to actually occur and then be standing there saying, Well, we knew about it, but we didn't do anything.

So the clear line of sight, hopefully will be addressed and get the RVs away from the ingress-egress and maybe from all businesses.

I don't know how that works out.

I'm an educator, um, and it's not a matter of if one of these accidents can occur, it's a matter of when.

Uh, it it will happen.

Um, what else?

I wanted to share with you guys.

Uh these RVs bought at auctions.

We have this new clientele.

Our students uh have been attacked by unrestrained dogs, offered drugs, teen girls followed wolf whistle calls and appropriate advances, sewage is dumped on sidewalks and in the streets in the driveway.

The school cleanup crews were called in again today to pump out the sewage out of the freshwater drains in the front of the school.

The entire block in our area smells like a sewer.

We have couches and unused RV furniture that are thrown into our streets and into our driveways.

It's not the vision, I don't believe, that the city of Mountain View had when it initially entered into this agreement.

It's turned into slum lords.

And we now have a slum environment in front of our school.

Parents are keeping their kids home.

We are being impacted, and we are seeking relief from you guys before it gets worse.

Thank you very much.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

All right, that concludes our in-person public comment.

As and I do not see any virtual public comment.

So we'll move on to item six, which is our public hearing.

Item 6.1 is the row house development at 828 through 836 Sierra Vista Avenue and 1975 to 1979 Colony Street.

Would any council members like to make any disclosures?

All right.

If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

We'll start with the staff presentation.

Good evening, mayor and council members.

Uh, as was just noted, I'm Deputy Zoning Administrator Rebecca Shapiro, and I'll be presenting the 8 to 8 Sierra Vista Road House project to you tonight.

I'm joined on the dias by uh Ella Crachan, who is the project planner.

This project is located on an approximately one acre site comprised of four existing parcels at the southwest corner of Sierra Vista and Colony Street.

The property is zoned, R3 2, which is our multifamily residential zoning district, and has a general plan designation of medium density residential.

The currently vacant site is surrounded by a mix of existing row house, single family and townhouse uses, as well as a multi-tenant commercial development.

The applicant for this project is requesting planned unit development and development review permits to construct the 20-unit row house project, utilizing state density bonus law and including an alternative mitigation proposal as well as a vesting tenative map for the project.

The proposed site plan orients three row house buildings along the two public street frontages and two row house buildings towards the project's interior common open space area.

Driveway access is provided from Sierra Vista Avenue, which is along the bottom of the screen, and that leads to three guest parking spaces and each of the unit garages, as well as providing city emergency vehicle and solid waste service access.

Additional pedestrian connections are provided from the public street frontages to on-site pathways that provide circulation through the site.

Each of the units that fronts on a public street also has direct pedestrian access between the public sidewalk and the unit entry.

The site design for the current project is substantially the same as a previously entitled project at this site, which expired, except for slight plan changes necessary to address city code and standard requirements such as ladder pad locations and a small trash staging area that's necessary to serve the project.

The proposed rowhouse use is allowed and consistent with the multifamily density standards for the site for the general plan and zoning.

More specifically, the R3 zoning district allows row house developments through the PUD permit process, consistent with rowhouse standards and guidelines that are referenced in the R3 standards.

The project complies with those development standards with one waiver of the site coverage standard, which is proposed per state density bonus law provisions, which would allow site coverage of approximately 38.5% in lieu of the 35% maximum site coverage for rowhouse projects.

The proposed building design employs a craftsman-inspired row house architecture with a mix of stucco horizontal and board and batten siding and stone accent materials.

Porches and balconies are prominent elements of the rowhouse units, and the buildings feature residential window and balcony accents as well as roof forms that complement the proposed style.

The vesting tentative map would create 20 residential lots as well as two common lots and allow individual sale of the units and common ownership of the shared improvements within the project.

At the time of the July 23rd recommendation hearing on this project, the proposal complied with BMR ordinance standard of 25% on-site BMR units.

Following the public hearing, the applicant continued to evaluate project feasibility and revised the project to include an alternative mitigation proposal to address that BMR ordinance standard.

The alternative mitigation proposal combines providing three on-site units with payment of an in-LU fee, and that's discussed in more detail within the council report.

Staff did review this revised proposal and found that it provides an opportunity for the city to secure both affordable on affordable for sale BMR units as well as in LU fees that would contribute to city resources in support of 100% affordable housing developments and similar city initiatives, which is valuable at a time when funding resources for such projects are more limited.

This revised BMR proposal also still satisfies state density bonus criteria qualifying the project to utilize state density bonus provisions, though the project proposal does not include any bonus units.

The proposed common open space is located in the southwest corner of the site.

It includes an open recreational lawn area and the community plaza, which includes seating and trellis amenities that provide for communal gathering space.

As noted earlier, the project site is currently vacant and contains no existing on-site trees.

However, off-site trees do provide a small amount of existing on-site canopy, and the project includes planting of 34 new trees, 20 of which are native species.

After around 10 years, the project canopy is expected to be around four times the existing site canopy.

And overall, the landscape plan is consistent and complies with the city's water conservation and landscaping regulations and includes a heavy emphasis on California native species, which comprise nearly 90% of the proposed plantings.

Staff has also reviewed the project per the California Environmental Quality Act and recommends council find that the project is categorically exempt pursuant to CQA guidelines section 15332, which applies to infill development projects.

This exemption applies to projects that are consistent with the criteria that are summarized on the screen.

And those criteria are discussed in the staff report and described in more detail in the draft resolutions reflecting staff zoning administrator and subdivision committee recommendations.

The review process for the originally entitled project at this site included design review consultation or DRC review, and the project that's currently proposed is substantially the same as the previously entitled project, and so no additional DRC review occurred with the current application.

The project was, as I mentioned earlier, reviewed at a joint administrative zoning and subdivision committee hearing on July 23rd, where both the zoning administrator and subdivision committee recommended the city conditionally approve the application.

At the meeting, the zoning administrator and subdivision committee meeting, one neighborhood resident spoke to ask questions about the approval and construction timeline in order to better understand what to expect given the long-term vacancy of the site.

At the hearing, the applicant did explain that the primary reason for the project's delay was a significant capital constraints that resulted from a catastrophic fire that occurred at another of their projects in another city in 2019.

And the applicant had indicated and did at the hearing state that they plan to proceed with the building permit process and construction once they get new project entitlements.

In conclusion, city staff, the zoning administrator, and the subdivision committee are recommending that the city council approve the project, including its state density bonus request and alternative mitigation proposal, as well as the associated vesting tenative map, and including recommended determinations that the project is categorically exempt from CEQA, as more specifically shown on the screen and in the council report.

This concludes staff's presentation.

Staff and the applicant team are available for questions, and the applicant also has a brief presentation for you tonight.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

The applicant has the presentation.

Excellent.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Thank you, Ella, for your staff presentation.

Mayor, City Council members, my name is Albert Wang.

I'm representing Legend here today, and we're here to get your reapproval for this project.

Next slide, please.

Yeah, so uh as Rebecca had mentioned, this is a thoughtfully designed project, and we're here with our SDG team, Dave Endeman, our wonderful architect, who uh designed a mix of three and four bedroom family oriented homes.

Uh and it's we're also using the state density bonus law like Rebecca mentioned to increase the lot coverage from the 35% to 38.49.

Next slide, please.

So there are a lot of benefits for the City of Mountain View here.

Uh we have 24 COVID homes, and we're providing three on-site affordable units.

Uh also over a half million dollar contribution to the city's affordable housing fund.

And we also thank the ZA for unanimously unanimously approving us.

Next slide, please.

Um, like Rebecca had mentioned, we had a catastrophic fire and our project in 2019, a four-alarm fire in Santa Clara.

Um very spectacular, but also heart-wrenching.

We were forced um we call po three three over four.

Uh three um framed above one podium.

The whole entire framing went down.

Uh, we had demolish everything and start over, uh, had to do podium repairs and go through that entire process of insurance and et cetera, et cetera.

Um we were just able to finish in 2024 and uh sales are ongoing.

Uh so that was uh we were originally trying to do uh two projects in parallel but unfortunately because of the fire and on top of that COVID I'm sure everyone has experienced that um uh there's lots of uh construction impacts in terms of labor and materials um so it definitely impact our cash flow so we weren't able to do both projects in parallel and had to do a material unfortunately due to that we lost our entitlements and we also appreciate the city staff working with us at that time for the extensions and city council as well uh despite these hardships we are we have remained committed to this project and we're positioned now to uh like Rebecca mentioned this substantial substantially the same project is before you now uh next slide please um yeah so in conclusion we want to thank the city council um for your time and your uh energy into reviewing this project and we're here to answer any questions uh we got Dave Enman from SDG architects uh Kevin Levesque from the Vest Design and we have Alan Canival on the phone if we need to phone a friend so thank you very much.

Great thank you.

Does any member of the council have any questions?

Council member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for your uh presentations may be for staff initially and then probably we'll transition to the applicant but can you remind us when uh the uh application for for the the proposed project was submitted.

Yeah it was uh submitted in May 2023.

May 2023 thank you and then do you know when it was deemed complete?

We don't have those dates in front of us right now we might have to check in there for a double check.

Okay thank you I thought you were standing up to to share the answer.

Um it was it was probably not long after May 2023 I'm guessing.

We'd have to double check that I do recall that there were just a limited number of overall submittals by the applicant for this project.

So it may have taken time given the like time between each submittal to actually get to the point where it was a complete application but we'll we'll need to access records that aren't right at our programs right now to get more information.

Okay no problem but uh so the application first submitted I see that the um zoning administrator hearing was July 23rd 2025 right so two years later can you let us know when the alternative mitigation proposal was submitted uh after and the ZA meeting after um was it submitted approximately a week within a week or two after administrator hearing okay um so but but more than two years into project review.

It was only very recently submitted to the city.

Okay thank you and then maybe maybe for the applicant can you share with us what changed why two years into review and then after review by the ZAM do you submit the alternative mitigation proposal?

Yes that's an excellent question.

So we were prepared to get it entitled and see where we're at at that point we obviously looked at the financials um throughout the entire period of time.

Unfortunately when we're continuing to review it we were wanting to push the project forward at a uh nominal pace um but upon learning that there's this option we we we uh examined it further and noted that it would help our project immensely um we were obviously wanting to get this project entitled and move it forward but uh no matter what so we're pushing the project forward no matter what and then if we were to uh analyze it at any point and before we go into construction, it might have been stopped.

Okay, I think I understand.

Uh just for my benefit, did you become aware of the alternative mitigate mitigation option after the ZA hearing?

That's um that's correct.

Uh I think around there we discussed with city staff.

We're uh basically scrambling and thinking that you know this project might not happen at all.

Um so we want to look at different options.

So even though we're pushing it forward in parallel, uh looking at the numbers, it just didn't make sense.

Uh was this discussed at all during the zoning administration administrator hearing?

No, it was not.

Okay.

But but had you had the applicant been talking with staff about an alternative mitigation for the affordable housing before the ZA hearing?

Yeah.

So entirely you have the ZA hearing you get your recommendation uh for approval, and then immediately after you submit the application and work with with staff on an alternative affordable housing proposal.

That that's just I want to make sure I understand the the time frame.

Yeah, so basically we're we're pushing the project forward no matter what, um, because it you don't you don't have a project, you have no value.

Um, but at each point in the process we have to uh you know review the review the numbers and see if it's makes sense to move forward.

So at obviously when we're reviewing the project at each level, it it looking at it at the ZA hearing or after the A hearing, it wasn't it didn't seem viable at that point, but we still wanted to move the project forward to get the approvals to increase the value of the project and see what we can get from the market or even if we construct it ourselves, which we're planning to do.

I see.

Thank you.

That that's helpful.

Um, maybe some additional questions for for staff then I'm I'm curious about um the the methodology that staff uses to determine equivalency, right?

So the um the half a million dollar fee is equivalent to two BMR units?

Is that thank you, Wayne?

Yeah, we have housing department.

Uh good evening uh counsel.

I'm Wayne Chen, your housing director.

Uh yeah, so the BMR program when it was modified uh last in 2019, the inlu fee was developed with the you using an equivalency methodology.

Um that methodology uh basically compares the cost of construction to the developer versus the BMR sales price, as opposed to another option, which is the market price versus the BMR sales price.

That second option is a higher gap and it's a higher fee.

But the equivalency methodology is a balance between trying to achieve the on-site units, but also provides a lower fee level.

So that excuse me.

So that's the equivalency level, the cost of construction versus the BMR sales price.

Thank you.

It so um was it contemplated by staff or um can you let us know if when that was shared with the council in 2019 that was it always intended to provide great financial relief to to the developer to have an alternative mitigation option that was a fee?

If you know it it sounds like providing the units on site is more um financially burdensome than the fee.

Was that was that always the intent?

The primary framework is if the BMR program might actually yield more on-site units, what would be the methodology for developer to do so?

And based on the um outreach and the input received, one of the ways of thinking about that is what would be the equivalent impact financially to a developer?

And so that methodology of an equivalency was the way that the BMR program was modified to set the fee level to where uh developer would be conceptually economically indifferent to paying the fee versus um providing the units.

So that was the the thought process.

It ends up also being a balance between achieving the objective standard and also leading to a lower in lieu fee, so that happens to have some level of benefit for project feasibility as well.

Okay, thank you.

So maybe last question.

Um it sounds like in this case, the alternative mitigation proposal provides substantial financial relief for the applicant.

Um is it truly equivalent then?

Um is is the the fee in lieu truly equivalent to the objective standard, you know, providing on-site units, or maybe is it time to rethink this calculation?

It's equivalent from the perspective of what would it cost to actually create a unit.

So if the funds were to be provided to another developer for another project, for example, that would be the subsidy gap required for the developer to not lose money on the unit, but it wouldn't enable them to make money.

And so the option two would be this other version where it's really about the market sales price versus the BMR sales price.

And so the equivalency methodology theoretically would be able to fund an actual construction of a unit because it makes up for the cost differential to the developer.

I may have more questions for you later.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Mayor.

This may also be a question for Mr.

Wayne.

So if if the way we are structuring the inlu fee, wouldn't it just be more?

Aren't we making it so that it's more beneficial to do the inlu fee instead?

I thought we tried to prevent that.

I would say that there is um somewhat of a delicate balance in crafting BMR programs.

Um we're trying to walk that balance.

Right now, the city's fees are higher than other programs, and also it isn't this option two methodology where it's the highest level fee possible by comparing the market sales price versus the BMR prices and Mountain View because the sales prices are so high, that really accentuates that gap.

And this other option that we've included, the equivalency still yields a relatively high fee, but it's perhaps the balance that we can achieve in Mountain View's uh market given the high sales price.

So I do think there's a balance to be achieved here, and um the way it's set up seeks to achieve that balance in the best way.

There's always going to be some trade-offs, and if the fee is too high, that might not be a feasible option as an alternative mitigation uh menu of choice.

And when we were looking at updating our BMR guidelines, now it was a long time ago, so I'm having trouble remembering most of it.

But I know that we prioritize certain other methodologies for inLU like land dedication or um uh trading in other units that they may have, like basically the 660 Miracles kind of scenario.

Um was there any particular reason, like was there any reason why that was not an option as well?

Yeah, so this project is subject to the current uh BMR program.

We have not yet brought back um a second set of comprehensive BMR modifications that is anticipated to occur later um this year, but those uh modifications have not been uh made yet.

When we bring this back, we're gonna present the menu of options that was discussed now a couple of years ago.

And just as a reminder, under the current BMR program, the menu of options is in loo fee, um land dedication and off-site delivery of units, plus a an open option for a developer to propose something that is not on the list.

When we came to council a couple of years ago, the direction was to remove in-LU fees from that menu of options, keep land dedication, keep um off-site delivery, add um acquisition preservation, and remove open-ended options.

So that's what we're currently planning to bring back to council based on uh your input, but that those have not been effectuated yet because we haven't made those amendments yet.

So just to be clear, had we had those anticipated um changes done before this project, this alternative mitigation would not have been allowed.

Correct.

Thank you.

Great.

Um I have a few questions.

I don't see anyone else in the queue.

So um for the applicant, so what will the sale price of the three BMR units uh be?

Oh, I think the city city staff system, right?

I didn't see it in the.

Sorry, did I did I miss the BMR?

Sorry, did I miss it, Wayne?

I didn't see it in the council questions.

Maybe that's where I was looking in there on the wrong spot.

Was it in there?

We tried to anticipate some questions.

So we had some numbers here.

Um the BMR program does require uh different BMR uh prices, so they're not all set at one price.

So the um the three-bedroom, I'm sorry, the three units would be at uh one of them would be the three units are three bedroom or there are four bedrooms.

Um there is there are two three bedrooms and one four bedroom, and one of the units would be at 80% AMI, and that is estimated to be about 307,000.

The second unit is at 100% AMI, which is about 504,000.

And the third unit is at 120% AMI.

That's the four bedroom unit.

And that is estimated to be about 751,000.

And then the market rate price for a row home in the development will be.

That may be a question more appropriate for the app.

Correct, yes, I think it's around like around two, two point two, depending on the size.

Okay, and just to clarify, you mean two to two point five million dollars?

2.2.2 million.

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Um, and let's see.

Okay.

So I think that uh those are the questions that I had.

Does anyone else have any other questions?

Okay, all right.

So we'll open it up for public comment.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on any item or on this item?

Um if so, please submit a blue speaker card or uh raise your hand.

All right.

I am not uh seeing any.

So I'll bring the item back for council questions and deliberation.

Please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolutions attached to the report.

Councilmember Mires.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm going, I'm gonna make the the motion and then I've got some uh comments.

Uh but first I'll go ahead, I'll go ahead and approve uh move to approve the staff recommendation, including adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View conditionally approving the planned unit development permit and development review permit to construct a new 20 unit 20 unit row house development with a BMR alternative mitigation without the BMR alternative mitigation proposal, and utilizing state density bonus law on a 0.99 acre project site located located at uh 828-836 Zero Vista Avenue in 1975 to 1979 Colony Street, APN 1530401, 153017, 15304018, and 15304019, and finding the project to be categoric categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Quality Act CEQA pursuant to uh section one five three three two infilled development projects of the CEQA guidelines to be read and titled only for the reading waived and two adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving a vesting tentative map to create 20 residential lots and two common lots at 828-836 uh Zierra Vista Avenue, 1975 uh five to nineteen seventy nine Colony Street, APN 1530401, 15304017, 15304018, and 15304019, and finding the project to be categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to section 15332 infill development projects of the CPU guidelines to be read and titled only further reading wave.

So staff recommendation, but without um the um uh alternative mitigation proposal, which is uh staff shared um in the responses to uh council questions submitted in advance is a discretionary um uh action, so we're not obligated to to accept it.

Um, and for a couple of reasons.

One, um I think uh the staff uh responses also um reveal that we have very few below market rate ownership opportunities in the city that we're not creating this type of uh entry-level, like truly affordable ownership opportunities, and so this is a rare opportunity to get some additional desperately needed below market rate ownership units.

Uh and uh that's also the objective standard.

That's what our uh BMR ordinance requires uh and uh that was the project that had been submitted and under review for two years right right beyond the zoning administrator approval so that was the project that had been under review it was the one that the zoning administrator and subdivision committee had recommended um you know personally you know and we're reflecting on uh a project that we reviewed some time ago where a an applicant made a very last minute revision to their affordable housing program like literally at as we were negotiating from the dais or deliberating from the dais it um it was not something that was well received by the council um and so I'm I'm uncomfortable with the the last minute changes um you know it's it's I I appreciate staff's work on this I don't want to um suggest that the you know the staff are are in any way um you know wrong in in their analysis or presentation um but I do think that generally speaking we should err on the side of uh the provision of um uh BMR units on site um that's something that the council has has valued and and tried to work on for uh a number of years I appreciated the vice mayor's questions about the most recent uh discussion we had about the BMR ordinance where we actually said we don't want an in loo fee option um we we really want to produce units whether they're on site or off-site um and I also um appreciate uh director Chen's response um about the uh to the to the questions about the methodology it might be something that we need to take a look at right the intent is not to provide financial relief the intent is to make sure that you know regardless of the option you choose it's it has it's a cost neutral implication to the to the applicant right so if you're providing the units on site then you know great you're meeting our objective standard but if you're paying the fee in lieu then it has no financial impact of the project.

It's the same thing as if you were um providing the units on site.

So I think that's something that um uh we ought to take a look at the next time the VMR ordinance returns to council for review.

Um those are my comments.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you Mayor um I largely agree with Councilmember Ramirez's comments.

One thing I was thinking he was thinking of a project I was not on council when when you had to deal with that I was I remember watching it on Zoom being like oh people are not gonna be happy about this.

But um one of the things I thought about I believe it was Google in one of their development agreements where they um wanted to do a a fee out instead of the um the units on site and their argument was like oh it's not feasible with the units on site and then I was like if it's not feasible with that then what makes it equivalent and and so I I just don't want us to be essentially shortchanged on the value that our community is expecting of us with these projects.

We made our requirements um and I'm I'm certain they're back we couldn't make those requirements without them being backed by a Nexus study to begin with.

So I feel comfortable keeping those requirements.

So I am inclined to support the motion um it will be I hope that the project goes through and I hope it will be the same project that you had had in review for the last two years.

So thank you.

Thank you council member Clark.

Yeah thank you um I'm inclined um to vote against the motion um mostly through a little bit through um uh personal experience but uh but also just kind of rules I mean we we've gone back and forth about equivalencies over many many years and and they they should be updated regularly and so I completely understand the the concerns there.

But I think we have we have rules in place around um around that and and I realize that it's uh those are somewhat subjective and that we have um decisions that we can make here and I and I think that's that leads me to kind of the the direct experience where ownership bmr is is different um then rental bmr in the sense that um they're a little bit more difficult to uh one to manage administer we have bmr units in the condo complex that I'm in and those have worked out very well um they they do come with some additional um uh management for the HOA once everything is turned over from the development over the HOA managing you know are there reductions in HOAPs or not um keeping an eye on whether or not they're they're sold or rented out and those are all valid things I think what what bothers me when we get into the the two plus million dollar range of townhomes row homes is the the gap that you create between the market value and um and the what's being paid for the unit and um I just think that inclusionary BMR and ownership is is generally generally works much better in smaller units stacked by condos and those sorts of things than it does in town number of home products and I I would be very happy to be proven wrong and if this goes through then that's perfectly fine.

It's just something that I I'm a little I don't know I I'm just not sure that this is the uh rejecting this uh this coordinate is um is something I'm I'm willing to do um kind of at the uh at the last minute here so I I have reservations about it if someone is welcome to try and change my mind but um I I have some reservations about this particular um this particular um setup counselor rigs well I don't think I have enough to say to change your mind but I will be I will be supporting the motion as is um I think we have um it seems like we have created an incentive unintentionally I guess to um to provide uh affordability via in move fees rather than through housing itself and as this is discretionary um you know we have the discretion to say yes or no so I'll be supporting the motion great thank you okay um okay okay so um I'm seeing no other hands in the queue so I will um weigh in on this um for um it for Mountain View we've been able to lead the way on housing uh we have our pro housing designation city we are creative we're gonna be talking about one of our creative uh approaches to ownership um coincidentally um on our next council item and I think anyone who knows me and that I since I've been on the planning commission and been on um council I've talked about trying to create more ownership opportunities especially for our middle income and just to I think bring that into full scope since 2019 for BMR ownership we have created if I'm understanding our chart correctly two units and the city currently has 14 ownership below market rate units across five different housing projects it shows how difficult it is to achieve uh home ownership BMR units but I think that's why this council has been working and fighting for years and years on trying to have these um innovative solutions.

It's why we created I think a housing director and a team for us to uh forge the path.

Mountain view has led in many ways, and my understanding as a region as our crisis worsens is that other cities are looking at revising um their BMR programs, particularly related to home ownership.

And I think that providing residents a pathway to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel happens when we provide opportunities for them to own.

And as someone who's had to go through that process myself, I think that it uh it's in me that much more passion to make sure that we're creating an equitable community when we talk about a community for all.

And some may say take the three units, it's only two units, but to me, those are two households, those are two families, and that makes a difference, especially Mountain View.

So, seeing no other um hands, I'll ask if we can call the question and take the vote.

Unless colleagues have other things they'd like to say.

Oh, yeah, so thank you, uh, Mayor and Council members.

Uh, like I make a quick comment.

I totally understand that BMR units are important.

Um, it's just we're here pleading uh pleading a case of hardship.

Uh before the when the project was approved, it was 15%, and now we're under the 25% requirement for a home developments.

Uh so previously when the project was approved, it was only 15-15% requirement.

So I'm here.

In 2019, when it was deemed, hold on, let me ask Steph.

Is that what he's talking about?

Correct.

Yeah, the original entitlement uh project was approved under 15% requirement for that development versus the 20 versus 25.

Okay.

So I'm here um pleading pleading the case of hardship.

So we we had a 15% approved and ready to go because of the hardship we experienced, the fire and COVID and all that good stuff.

The project was delayed, and then we ran out of the time.

Now we're back with the substantially the same project asking for 15% again to help us, you know, make the project viable.

Like I understand the 15% to 25% was created because developers are making a good amount of profit on digital home projects.

Unfortunately for us, we had you know catastrophe, I'll say it again.

So we're not we're just trying to recoup some money for for our investors.

Um that's that's it.

We're not trying to like get out of anything, it's just our investors have already lost a ton of money.

There's like holding, you guys obviously understand there's holding costs, this and that.

Um so we're just pleading the case of can you guys help help us with that?

Thank you.

Sure.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just to clarify, uh, when when the the new proposal the application was submitted, the 25% requirement was already that was the regulation that the council had approved and was enforced.

Yes.

The applicant knew that when they submitted the application.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Um, so I think at this point, uh, if I colleagues don't have any questions, we can take the vote, we can see how things land.

Uh I would say too, uh, it would be I think especially when there's changes to projects, it's always great to reach out to council.

Um, and that uh was not my experience for this project, but in a lot of times our community were quite accessible.

As you know, our staff is incredible.

We have the best staff in the city of Mountain View.

Um, and my colleagues, they're pretty great too.

So um I would I would suggest and so those are always um discussions that we're open to.

So we'll we'll take the vote and we'll see how things land.

Thank you.

We'll have to revote because not all of us voted.

We missed council member Schulter.

So we'll we'll revote.

We'll remote.

All right, and that passes 4-2.

We'll move on to item seven.

Item seven is our community ownership action plan, our housing element program 3.2.

Oh, sorry, we're on our uh CDBG home key grant closeout.

Apologies.

Housing director Wayne Chen will present the item.

If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

We'll start with the staff presentation.

Thank you.

Just give me one second here.

Good evening again, Mayor and Council.

Thanks for your patience.

This item is a public hearing for the CDBG Home Key Grant closeout.

We just have a very brief presentation for you tonight.

Just as a brief brief background, back in 2021, the state released some additional funding through the community development block grant home key program to support prior projects that were awarded through the project home key program, which was the funding that enabled 2566 Lakehorn, the interim housing project to be developed.

And so the CDBG Home Key funding opportunity was a way to support additional activities for that project.

One is to acquire 1950 Lakehorn down the street to provide more parking for the interim housing project and also for life moves to install a solar panel system at the interim housing project itself.

And in a subsequent uh period of time from the award to June of 2023, council adopted a resolution to provide some budget flexibility as costs were changing for the projects.

HCD requires that this public hearing meeting be held in order to close out the grant.

And so that's the reason why we're here tonight.

The public hearing requires a review of three uh components that you'll see here on the screen.

One is a project uh status.

Um as noted in the staff report, the acquisition of the site was completed.

Um, however, the solar panel system was not.

Uh because the parking uh was recently uh completed, there isn't data on the utilization rate yet, but right now Life Moves estimates that uh the units there and transitioning folks onto other housing options.

About two hundred and nineteen clients are served annually at the interim housing site, and we'll uh continue to monitor the utilization rate of this parking uh site over time.

Because the solar project was not undertaken, um 3.4 million of the five million was expended, leaving uh just under 1.6 million of a balance of funds that will uh return to the state.

Uh and this was funding that the city helped assist as an intermediary, but is really for life moves to undertake the projects.

Recommendations to review the results of the projects funded by the CDBG Home Key funding, and upon completion of the public hearing item, the final documentation will be submitted to the state to complete the closeout process that completes staff's uh presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Does any member of council have a question?

I am not seeing any.

So would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to comment on this item?

I am also not seeing any, so I'll take the item back for council questions and deliberation.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

First, uh I can't recall is a formal motion required for this item to approve, I guess to conduct the public hearing.

I'll look at the city attorney for.

Is there a report that you need them to adopt that you will be turning in, or are you just reporting um the closure of this project?

It's to report the closure of the project, allow the opportunity to provide this information also for the public.

Should the public have any comments.

So then I think that you could just make a motion to accept the report and um and um I think that's it.

Just accept the report.

Thank you.

So I've I've hit the the little motion button on the screen very briefly.

I I I like to dwell on the past.

Um so I'll I'll share uh I remember the council talking about this some time ago.

The this process began many years ago, um, with I think what we all believed was a great opportunity, right?

We've heard about the parking constraints, um uh burdening the residents at uh the interim housing community.

Um the uh solar panel system uh was a great opportunity to help achieve council sustainability goals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and also provide um operational savings for life moves.

Um and I I I wish I don't think anyone from my Life Moves is here uh this evening, but it's probably a good thing because I would say shame on you for not making this work.

Um what what a tremendous waste, right, to leave so much money on the table and and actually get quite close to the total cost um of both elements of the project.

Honestly, probab probably a good chunk of that was just the escalation of costs over time because for whatever reason um Life Moves wasn't able to deliver the project, and I don't necessarily want to um have staff um spend a great deal of time going over why that is.

I remember asking both the city manager and the um housing director um and others over the course of years, like what's going on, why is this so hard?

And getting a little bit of that insight.

Um, but I think just at the conclusion of the process, I'm glad that a portion of the project was delivered.

I think that it's a good thing.

It does provide relief for the residents there.

Um, but I I think it it's just disappointing that we weren't able to deliver both elements with uh a substantial amount of money provided to us literally years ago.

And I I wish things could have ended in a with a different different conclusion.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Mayor.

I Councilmember Ramirez has a very um non-cheery disposition about things, but I'll I'll go for the more curious side.

I mean, I'm glad we took the chance to put ourselves out there and partner uh with with organizations in order to get that kind of grant money too.

And they didn't do all the project, but they did some, which will which will be helpful to the residents there in the Life Moves site.

Um I remember actually touring the site uh shortly after we last discussed about it, just to see what could be possible.

And I also view that that parking lot could be a I know that there was like hope that we could do safe parking there too, and then that was kind of shut down.

Um, but as we eventually, I am hoping that people who do live in RVs want to transition out without um without like giving up that RV kind of thing.

And this would be an option for them to transition to the Life Move Center without giving that up, and then once they feel comfortable not living in that RV transition to a more permanent solution of housing.

And this is kind of how we we address our homelessness crisis, and so I'm glad that we took the opportunity to uh take a chance on a project like this.

It's sad that it's not 100% of what we had hoped it would be, but it will still make a decent dent in our homelessness crisis.

All right, uh the motion um has been made by uh Councilmember Ramirez, seconded by Vice Mayor Ramos.

Um Councilmember Hicks.

I'll just make a brief comment that to me one of the the uh this project is ironic in that in that we're often talking about how affordable people who live in affordable housing, we don't need to provide them with so much parking, yet here we're providing a whole parking lot.

And I just think that's something we have to take a second look at from time to time because I think it's often people living in affordable housing who go to work in person more often and really and can't afford to live really near where they work.

So I think this is just a cautionary tale that we need to the fact that life moves wanted a parking lot so much and wanted to pay so much money for it, that that's something we might want to keep in mind in future projects.

I was just going to say that the city um uh undertakes a tremendous number of collaborations.

We try to work with um uh groups on all sorts of fronts, particularly homelessness, and we make a lot of progress, but everything doesn't work.

And in many ways, this whole life moves um facility, which was one of the first, is really a pilot project.

And this is kind of a part of it that um for whatever reason didn't uh you know that all those pieces didn't come together.

But that doesn't mean as as um vice mayor um uh Ramos said that we should give up on these partnerships.

It just means that we have to recognize that there's a risk associated with them, and sometimes they aren't as successful as we had initially planned.

Unfortunately, this is one of those cases.

Great, thank you.

Um I don't see any others in the queue.

Um I think colleagues said it best, but all I want to do is just thank staff.

I know that it's been uh a long process, and um it's uh really grateful.

I know our council is grateful for all the work you you've done to uh that the department's done to try to uh work this through in the best way possible.

So let's vote.

Okay, now we're all ready.

Okay, that passes unanimously.

All right, thank you.

And now we'll move to item seven, seven point one is our community ownership action plan housing element program three point two.

Spanish translation services are available for this item.

We'll now hear from our interpreter.

I the manera virtual.

But you can necessarily mediate Zoom, click in a button de interpretacion, you despise elegal idioma de su preferencia.

Then we send an interpretation durante los commentarios publicos in persona y virtuales.

Great.

Thank you.

Item 7.1 is regarding the community ownership action plan, which is part of the housing element program three point two related to the city's tenant displacement response strategy.

The action plan is intended to facilitate innovative housing models not currently being developed.

There are a lot of new concepts for the city council to consider, and staff have organized the information and recommendations by topics, which are focused on the vision and guiding principles, the city's roles, and city's funding.

With that, I'll turn it over to staff for the presentation.

Housing director Wayne Chen and Housing Officer Matthew Reed will present the item.

If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Good evening, Mayor, uh Vice Mayor, and Councilmembers.

Um tonight we're presenting the community ownership action plan or COPE, which is part of the city's housing element.

We believe that the COPE provides a roadmap to support innovative housing models that preserve affordability, prevent tenant displacement in Mountain View.

Tonight we will present seven topics, and we are asking council to approve five recommended actions as seen here.

We're going to come back to these, so you don't have to hold on to them all right now, but we want to let you know what the action items were going to be.

The COPE is part of the city's overall tenant displacement response strategy, which began in 2019-2020 as part of the council's strategic priorities work plan.

We will cover the housing element and a study session that was held in March of 2024 in just a moment.

We want to take the opportunity to recognize the work that's been done since last fall when this process started in earnest.

We formed an advisory committee, which held eight meetings.

We held 18 stakeholder meetings.

We conducted research and financial modeling and refined recommendations with community partners and experts.

In the community conversations organized around the housing element, we received feedback that the existing housing system does not meet the full range of housing needs in our communities.

Market rate housing was increasingly out of reach, and affordable housing was too inflexible to reflect people's needs.

We need to explore new models.

Housing element program 3.2 requires that the city create a community ownership plan to preserve at least 50 units, identify roles for the city and partners, and create a timeline so acquisitions can occur within two years.

COPE is designed to meet these requirements as well as support longer-term program success.

The housing element completion date for the COPE was June 30th, 2025.

While behind, we continue to make progress forward.

As a part of this process, council held a study session in March of 2024 related to acquisition preservation options, at which point the council unanimously supported staff's recommendations to provide $4 million in city seed funding, to catalyze an overall funding pool of $20 million to acquire 50 rent stabilized units, to develop a consultant scope of work to create the COPE and evaluate an opportunity to purchase ACT program as part of the COPE process, and to evaluate options to provide early project funding.

And here we are.

Now to the COP.

Community Ownership Action Plan Advisory Committee, or COPAC, came to consensus on three defining elements of community owned housing.

Number one, decommodification.

Housing is permanently removed from the speculative market.

Residents' land and housing are regarded holistically, and housing affordability is preserved in perpetuity.

Second, shared governance.

Residents have meaningful decision making roles alongside community stakeholders.

Three community stewardship, long-term management that balances current and future residents' needs, stewarding the building, and often involving non-residents from the surrounding community.

Regarding topic two, the consultant and staff identified several types of community ownership models, some more well established and some emerging.

These included but are not limited to community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, mutual housing associations, and resident owned communities, which are generally in mobile home parks.

We also looked at approaches to shared governance, including integrated governing boards, resident councils and forums, and more formal tenant committees with decision making authority.

Staff proposes that the COPE support multiple approaches as long as they meet the COPES definition of community ownership that we have just discussed.

The advisory committee also reached consensus on a people centered vision, which I will read to you.

A future where innovative housing models support well-being, health, affordability, and stability for all.

They also reach consensus on a set of guiding principles to help shape the action plan and funding criteria.

In addition to the core elements we discussed already, the principles include capacity building to support local and regional efforts, system transformation to facilitate new partnerships and resources, and systems for continuous improvement.

Staff recommends that council approve this vision and guiding principles.

On topic four existing conditions, there is a we spoke to a lot of people, attended a lot of meetings, reached out to folks that we knew were stakeholders in this space.

And there is a very strong and growing interest in community ownership, both locally and regionally.

In nearly all of our discussions regionally and around the state, we consistently heard that different community ownership models are necessary, but that they are challenging.

And partnerships are often the keys to success.

In our area, a number of key challenges remain.

There's limited funding, there's gaps in technical expertise, and we lack there's a lack of common standards across funding programs in the region.

Two organizations in Mountain View are actively exploring projects with the Mountain View Community Land Trust the farthest along.

The potential of bringing expertise that exists regionally to Mountain View was also discussed at the COPAC.

Most importantly, we learned that the city can play a key role, but we cannot do this alone.

Topic five looks at city roles.

The staff is recommending that the city play four roles.

Funder to create a flexible funding program that can fund different types of projects in the city, but also capacity builder, supporting organizations with technical assistance and connections and connectedness to regional resources, convener, continuing to bring partners together, including the COPAC, policy leader advocating for policies that expand community ownership opportunities in the city.

These roles will allow us to build partnerships to maximize our ability to meet housing element requirements, and both benefit from and contribute to local and regional initiatives.

Staff recommends that the council approve these city roles.

Topic six addresses the proposed funding program.

Traditional affordable housing funding doesn't fit the needs of community ownership models very well.

Staff is recommending that the COPE have significantly more flexible terms than our traditional affordable housing loans, while maintaining a balance with responsible stewardship of public, in this case, city funds.

Greater flexibility of funding terms will allow us to respond to the unique needs of each community ownership project.

The program would provide a range of loan terms which could be structured to provide very low interest or zero interest or deferred payments or forgivable loans with no repayment.

We believe the balanced approach of flexible loans and appropriate safeguards is the best approach for the city and provides a win-win option.

Grants can come from other agencies with greater funding and from other sectors.

Staff also believes that city funding as loans will make it easier to leverage external funding and achieve the city's housing element goals.

Um and believe that the COPE will potentially be the most flexible community ownership funding program in the state.

We are still working with the $4 million allocation to leverage additional funds.

We have updated the estimates, which suggests it will take about $25 million to preserve 50 units.

Numbers are higher than were earlier estimates due to recalculations of rehabilitation needs and programmatic costs of community ownership models, such as shared governance.

If these terms are approved, staff will move forward with the NOFA and underwriting guidelines to bring back for final approval next year.

Staff recommends that council approve these recommended funding terms.

Based on council's discussions tonight, we'll be working on the program details, which will take approximately six months.

As a result, it would not be feasible to provide early funding before the COPE is adopted by council.

We are recommending launching a $75,000 technical assistance grant program this year.

Grants of up to $25,000 each will fund services like appraisals, legal support, business plan development that hopefully will help local organizations to move through some of the technical steps towards an acquisition.

So staff recommends the council approve developing this technical assistance grant program and adopt a resolution to appropriate $75,000 to it for a technical assistance grant program.

In March 2024, staff was also asked to explore the potential for an opportunity to purchase act program as part of the COPE process.

Due to the current local limitations on both funding and capacity, staff does not recommend adoption now.

Instead, staff recommends that council approve the recommendation to fund services through the TA grant program to support goals related to the opportunity to Purchase act and continue to monitor the feasibility of an opportunity of purchase program in the future.

The next steps.

If council approves staff's recommendations this evening, we will implement the technical assistance grant program this fall, create evaluation criteria and underwriting guidelines, and return to council with a target of quarter one 2026 for adoption of the full co-program.

This concludes our presentation this evening, and we look forward to your questions and feedback.

Great, thank you.

Does any member of the council have any questions?

Council Member Hicks.

I do have some questions.

Thank you for the staff report or presentation.

So members of the public have suggested an RFQ instead of an RFP process.

That would be a request for qualifications rather than a full proposal.

And I'm I'm not advocating for one or the other right now.

But what do you think of the RFQ process and what might be the strengths and weaknesses of those two different methods for this for the code?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

But other processes have used RFQs, for example, to establish a list of pre-qualified uh developers or entities to help streamline the process.

I think we can certainly consider how an RFQ might fit into a NOFA process if council wishes.

I think the staff is currently thinking that a NOFA could just be made open to interested parties, and anyone who feels like they are interested in it can apply.

The NOFA would still have uh requirements to submit information about organizational capacity and expertise, how a project will be delivered successfully throughout the whole term of the project, including acquisition all the way through the operations, tenant engagement, etc.

And through that process, we would um uh evaluate it uh through through that process.

An RFQ would be an extra step.

Uh so typically there might be an RFQ and then an RFP, and then there's a selection process, but we could conduct it over the counter the way we currently do with our funds, which is any interested applicant can just come in and apply for the funding and we'll take uh projects and applications as they come in.

So if council wishes to include this uh RFQ or even RFQRP process, that's something that we could look at.

It would take more time uh for staff to evaluate and it may take more effort for organizations to apply through the process with RFQ process.

And why is that?

Because there would be a first step of an RFQ screening, and then through the screening uh typically what happens is applicants would be invited to then uh provide a full application through the RFP process, and that would be uh more opportunity review, but it would not be as streamlined.

So it would be it would be a two-step process, okay.

Um second question.

Um, what's the difference between a flexible and forgivable loan and a grant?

And the reason I'm asking is that in my experience there's not a big difference except that you get a few more guardrails if if it's flexible and forgivable, but maybe you have a different take on it.

I think that's a good question.

It's at the heart of a lot of conversation and different perspectives about this.

It can be seen in a couple of different ways, and I'll just offer uh those ways.

One is they could in fact be very similar in terms of the project financing either way, if it's a grant or uh a forgivable loan that ultimately has no repayment at all.

Um both could have and would have milestones, criteria for determining expertise, um, requirements for compliance and monitoring.

Uh if there's a grant, there would uh staff would recommend clawback provisions if terms aren't met.

Um so there are different criteria.

I think uh basic element that is just different is that in a grant, the money is just out the door.

Whereas a loan, the money isn't just out the door, and there would still be a notion or a term that would still still stipulate a requirement for repayment, whereas a grant just doesn't.

And so there are perhaps other considerations to think about, which is does the city have the financial resources to provide a grant?

Um, given the fact that when we came to council last March, the notion of the city leaning in with four million was to catalyze a larger 20 million dollar funding pool because what we heard from protective partners is that this catalytic leaning in was necessary to get a larger pool of funds.

It's not clear whether a grant would allow us to achieve that.

We are still working on partnerships, it is true, but it's not clear that grants would allow that uh to occur as well.

The other notion is that if a project can afford to pay the terms, then we would get loan repayments.

It's not entirely clear that projects can't repay.

And we have certainly benefited from loan repayments for past projects in order to recycle those funds and fund other organizations and other projects, and that has a multiplying compounding effect for our very limited funds.

So I think those are some of the other criteria and considerations that we had when we're thinking about loans versus grants from a more narrow perspective for an applicant, there could be um relatively fewer differences in terms of the actual impact on their project finances if it's a forgivable loan versus the benefit versus a grant.

Um do you think there are other criteria that is um useful and important to consider as well.

Thank you.

Um, you know, I think when we started this process, uh one of the big ideas was that we could use uh BAFA bond money, and for people who don't know what that is, it's a Bay Area Housing Finance Authority bond money, which was supposed to be a giant upcoming bond that did not end up going through, going through when it doesn't exist.

Um so that was one of the big ideas when we started this process, and now that that bond money is not available, what are some of your it's much harder to get money?

Um, and what are some of your more recent ideas regarding funding sources?

Yes, thank you.

So we continue to focus on partnerships.

We have had uh continued conversations with our public sector agency partners, and um again, there's a lot of interest, but uh there is also limited funding in public agencies.

We have had fruitful conversations with philanthropic organizations, and I think there is movement around that.

We would need to continue those conversations to potentially bring funding to Mountain View for Mountain View specific projects.

Um there is also likely some renewed conversation about what a regional measure might look like, whether it's next year or three years from now, and whether that is at the regional level of the county or the regional level of the entire Bay Area.

Um we do think it is important and useful to continue the partnership conversation to unlock funding that currently is not part of the system, and that goes with guiding principle number five, which is system transformation.

And so we believe that we're doing our part here of system transformation by creating a local um city fund that is of the most flexible terms that we have seen, and then we'd love to be able to have other organizations and sectors be able to provide resources that don't currently exist as another way to achieve a system transformation, and we think that together through a collection of grants and a combination of loans, it can really help provide the types of financing and structure that would be needed for different types of COPE projects.

So regional measure, um partnerships, and continuing to look, attempt to unlock new funding sources.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Uh thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Hicks, for the questions about the loans and the grants, that saves some time for me.

Um I wanted to touch on Copa Topa OPA.

Um I had in the pre-submitted questions on question 29.

What could we put in place?

Or the framework and what we could do in preparation for a Copa Topa OPA within the time frame.

And it said that it would take just for the notification process, it would take 12 months or more.

What would take 12 months?

Like what does the work consist of?

If council were interested in a portion of an OPA program, for example, nevertheless, we would envision probably a relatively robust outreach process, just knowing how the process has gone in other cities.

We would have to go back and develop a scope of work and a work plan, and determine how many meetings and stakeholders we would envision potentially just even a few months of just getting those meetings scheduled in place held, etc.

We've already started um evaluation of OPA uh programs, and I should uh note that we do have um David Driscoll from the community planning collaborative in the audience who's um our lead consultant, and we have Eric Bagwell who's um senior project manager for um Echo Northwest, part of the joint consultant team.

Um, and so through that consultant process, we've we've done research on other programs, and there are different versions of it, and so I think part of the uh time it would take is to evaluate the the different versions.

There are different layers of notification options.

There can be pretty um rigorous notification requirements, there could be lighter um uh notification requirements.

We probably envision also needing to or wishing to come back to council for um for your input about what the options would be.

So just knowing how other processes have gone, just with our standard uh processes, and then adding on the recognition that these OPA programs tend to draw a lot of community input, we think it would just need that time uh to be conservative.

Um, so outreach, analysis, a public process, and engagement with council.

Even for just a notification process.

Yeah, I could um maybe see if uh Matthew or uh David has any um other input, but from what we've seen, those those pieces, even just a notification piece, the notification piece is actually one of the cornerstone pieces of OPA.

It requires property owners to do things that they don't currently have to do, and even if it's a little bit um it's something new, and then there could be various elements of a notification requirement.

So I think that's the type of information that we would want to get stakeholder and community feedback about what type of notification process, how extensive it should be, um, what would the process, what would be the staffing look like?

How is the city involved?

Do we have staff to administer uh the process?

Um, how do we get information out to the um groups?

So I think there's a lot of components still to think about, even if it is a lighter touch, uh partial OPA.

So, because I was thinking in terms of, and I I've seen the fights in other cities um very well.

Um, but one of the things I'm thinking about in terms of the notification aspect, um, yes, if we force notification before it goes on the market, that that will probably be very controversial and and probably difficult to push.

But um that's not the only notification we can touch.

We can tenants can find out after the turnover.

They they wouldn't be able to do much about it, but they without funding and a robust system, which we don't have in place yet, um, they wouldn't really be able to do much anymore.

But I was kind of looking at the right to be notified at the change.

But um I was thinking, in other cities, I remember though the big issue with notification is sometimes people don't know when they live in an apartment, they don't know that it changed hands.

Um, but to some degree, we would already know as a city because one, the landlord would have to re-register with the rent registry, and we have measure G, which means at some point, if it does change hands, like we get a tax cut out of that.

So could there be something in place from the information that landlords already give us that we could give that kind of notification to the tenants?

I think I better understand what you are suggesting, which is more of informational purposes that there is a um a transaction that that may be happening, it doesn't necessarily provide a first right of refusal to offer.

Um to the extent that that is that is just information to tenants that would likely be a a lighter touch.

We probably would still want to go back and think about um what the process would be and who would get the notices and who would send it out and to whom and probably it would still be useful to have some some type of stakeholder outreach to make sure we um are receiving feedback.

Um but I better understand what you're saying now if it's just informational that a transaction is happening.

I read through like the newspaper and you see like, oh, how many homes were like bought and for how much and like by who to who very sad that I never can afford that.

But um, but that's that's open and that's public some somehow for the newspapers to be able to get it.

Is there a way that um we can get that and tenants who live in their units can get that?

Yes, that you know, if council wanted to have staff evaluate this type of noticing as information, we can evaluate it.

Um I do want to know this is an early preview, but as part of the bring back of the tenant relocation assistance ordinance that is also part of housing element program 3.2, um, there's going to be a recommendation in there about how the city would notify tenants in a redevelopment project.

It would be later on, um, and is not related to when a project is getting marketed, but there is some additional noticing that we are envisioning for uh another program.

But with what you're saying, we can go back and take a look at it and see what it would take to develop this information notification system.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Councilmember Show Alter.

Well, I want to thank you for meeting with everyone and answering so many questions.

Um, it was very helpful.

There's still a lot of them, but this is you know, this is this is complicated.

Um important.

Um, okay, so one of the things I keep thinking about is we're trying to amass this um this uh big fund of money that's available to use for CLTs or for community ownership projects.

And we have you've done a great job, it looks to me, of getting together appropriate stakeholders who would have an interest in in taking part in that.

Yet we have four million dollars, that's what we started with.

We still have four million dollars.

So um, what do you think it seems to me when I think about what would trigger um somebody uh what are the things that would trigger an organization contributing to our fund?

And um if one of them is a project, what are the things that we really need before we have a project?

What are the things that you know that haven't quite been put together yet?

You mentioned when I was talking of pro forma and some other things.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

Would would like to offer that to the extent that there is funding that can be unlocked with just the mere presence of a city allocation and it could go directly to an organization, we're supportive of that.

If we can just unlock the system and it doesn't have to come to the city's pool, that would be um fine.

Um we do have organizations who are interested in supporting the city's pool, and I don't know that this is representative of all the potential organizations out there, but some of the feedback that we've received is that they also have their due diligence and underwrite criteria that they need to evaluate for any particular project.

They are they would be also interested in knowing how a project is underwritten, how it will be operated, what are their assumptions of costs, how it would be managed over time, all those pieces.

So there are a lot of similar uh due diligence and considerations that other organizations are also evaluating, if and how much and what type of funding.

So I think there may be a range, but the ones that we have been talking to have expressed and trying to potentially find ways to match the city's funds are also evaluating uh concepts and projects with the similar types of criteria that we are we are considering as well.

Okay.

So in a sense, when you say we wouldn't want to um uh fund a project before we finish this plan, we don't quite have all the pieces yet to be ready to fund it.

That's another way of saying that, right?

Yeah, I think so.

I think for especially public sector funding to just ensure that it's not a, for example, a gift of public funds.

The public the the city would want to know what the project is because then we can say that the funding is needed for that project.

There would need to be a demonstration of need.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to determine why the funding was needed in that particular amount and why those particular terms, because perhaps the funding could have been a lower amount and then provided to another project or fund our pipeline.

So I think those considerations are quite important and real, and without more detailed information about the operating model, it would be very difficult to assess why a project might need the types of funding that they you know they might be requesting.

Once the informational detail is provided, then it is much easier for staff to evaluate and verify that the uh project needs funding of a certain type in a certain set of conditions.

And that 75 uh thousand dollar grant is designed to help get together some of those essentially pre-project um things.

That's how I understand it.

Is that right?

Yes, I think it can it it's meant to be flexible.

In large part, it's meant to, for example, achieve OPA-like goals, which is for example, um hire a broker to uh knock on doors or build relationships with property owners.

The intention of an of a notification process for a first arrived refusal in an OPA program is to do that.

It's to provide more access to properties, and so a brokerage service can do that.

Um the other things could be uh undertaken, for example getting um technical assistance and consultant support to um help develop a business plan or further refine the operating model or determine how to operate the tenant selection process in accordance to fair housing requirements.

So all those pieces can help build up the capacity, and it would be one of our second roles being recommended as capacity builder, and it can be flexibly um implemented so that it helps build up the expertise of an organization and the pro forma development modeling costs over time to ensure that it is properly stewarded over the long term, which is the third definition of community ownership, it can help achieve that component.

Okay, and then another question that I asked and you answered, and but I want to share it with the group is that um talking about the increase in cost, total cost for the project, it went up from 20 to 25 million.

Well, that everything's going up, so that wasn't surprising.

But but what I I wanted to talk um about a little bit was how the components of this project um from a timeliness point of view and being need to pay for, maybe aren't quite the same as a standard um affordable housing uh refurbishment of, you know, say um Midpen was going to buy an apartment house and refurbish it.

They would do the refurbishment all at once, right?

Like when we did the Marcy Freeland House, which was what 20 years ago, 25 years ago.

Anyway, um that was a that was a big apartment house that had many people living in it, and um people were not necessarily required to move out.

Um they were let to know that it was going to be affordable housing and things were gonna be handled differently, and some people with higher incomes chose to move out, but basically, while they refurbished it, people moved around.

So everybody did everything didn't get refurbished in a you know, like at a three-month um process.

It took a while, and I can see how in a CLT, that could be similar.

So you would need the purchase price right immediately, right?

But some of the other costs you might not need so quickly.

And that was one another thing that I wanted to bring forward when we think about how much money we really have to get together.

It's not necessarily the whole 25 million dollars.

Of course, it might be more than that, it's a bigger project.

I don't know.

But but but the hundred percent of this cost isn't what we have to have on day one.

We have to have to make it go forward, we have to have, you know, sort of the purchase price.

And and you said that I think that you said if I find it here, the purchase price was approximately maybe three quarters of this, isn't it?

Yeah, like sixty to eighty percent based on recent transactions.

Okay, um, so you know, I I wanted to to share that that difference because I think that that thinking about these differences is in a lot of ways this is like an hoa we're creating, um, a nonprofit HOA, a little more than um when it's when it's owned by a um a company.

Um, and then the other thing I wanted to um, I wanted to talk a little bit about again was loan flexibility.

We've heard about this a lot, and I think we're gonna hear more when we hear public testimony, but um uh when you say loan flexibility, um, there really is uh a huge variation in what that could be.

And um, although when we talk about the plan and what we want included in it, well, we would want the full range of a spec of spectrum.

But when but when an organization was putting together a project, they would have specific terms.

Um they wouldn't have uh they would have specific terms if they were understood were part of the loan for that project, it wouldn't be the whole compendium of things, it would be tied down.

And I think that that's also um, you know, when we talk about the distinction between grants and loans, that's really important because we might be we might be stipulating, we very well could be stipulating a forgivable loan, and we would be defining what made it forgivable in a specific project.

But when we talk about this plan as a total thing, we don't want it to everything to be a forgivable loan because that wouldn't be appropriate.

So in the plan itself, it talks about a much broader spectrum of things.

And I again I just wanted to differentiate between what's in the plan as more general and what would be apply to a specific project.

Yes, we've been pretty consistent to articulate the COPE as a program.

Yes, you have, and it's not meant to be specific to a particular organization or to a particular um concept, but we want to be able to have the plan set up in a way that could be responsive to different types of concepts.

Um so you're you're right about that.

And regarding the flexible loan, we actually had a perhaps an illustrative example today in consent item 4.15, where uh forgivable loan that was the structure for the Midman projects for the renovations that provides some uh examples of the way a flexible term could be structured, but it still includes requirements and in many ways we feel that loans provide a necessary discipline for projects that are complex and they're almost always complex, even projects that seem small, they're complex.

And so that's an example of how we're actually doing a grant project now, not a grant project using CDPG funds to structure it as a loan, but as a forgivable loan over a 25-year period with terms, and so uh but to your point, not every renovation will need those terms, and we would want to be responsive to the needs of a particular project at a particular time, and not simply assume that a project would need a grant or would need a flexible loan.

Yeah, I um I ran a nonprofit for five years, um the San Francisco Creek Watershed Council, and we had a lot of grants.

And I when people talk about grants as if they're easy money, I just kind of have to chuckle, because um especially government grants have a lot of strings attached.

There's a lot of administrative work to um to uh to get the grant, and there is a tremendous amount of work required to um keep tabs on how the money is used, and um so uh they're not necessarily easy to deal with either.

Um, thanks so much for this for answering our question my question.

Great, thank you.

Um not seeing any other council members um with questions.

I'll now uh move on to uh public comment.

If you'd like to provide public comment on this item, um please submit your blue speaker card or raise your hand in Zoom.

You need to press star nine on your phone.

We'll display a timer on the screen, and each speaker will have uh we'll do three minutes.

Um first we will do um in-person uh public comment, and I believe we will have in the room uh translation if necessary.

Um first is Paula Perez, then Mary Lu Cuesta or Gamelo, and then Andrea from uh From Valencia.

If you could just cue up line up on the side, that'd be great.

In nombre de liderazgo del Fidecomiso de Tierras Communities de Montaigu, deseo agradecer sinceramente al personal del Departamento de Vivienda y a este Consejo Municipal for sus continuous forces for abordar la crisis de vivienda, explorando solutions realistes de las familias de Montaigne, in particular aquella más vulnerables, quienes con frequencia getan exclusiva de los programas traditionales de Vienda.

Pedimos respetuosamente que se permita al personal del Departamento de Vivienda continuar evaluando el uso de subvenciones como parte de los terminos de financiamiento flexible disponible by el plan de action de propiedad communitaria.

Limitation de los prestamos inclusión.

Esto representa un obstacle considerable for organizations emergentes, como los grupos cooperativos inquilinos in nuestro propio fideicomiso.

A differenza de organizaciones in fines de lucro ya consolidadas que pueden assumir esta deudas sin comprometer la sectabilidad de las vivienda, las organizations and capital no quentan con la misma capacidad financiera para esta organización nacientes.

For example, una persona que trabaja salario minimo gana menos de 40 mil per anno y por lo tanto no qualifica para la majoria de los programas de viviendas equivalentes basados in el 30% of organizations através de pagos massos de renta.

Gracias.

Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor Kamei and Council members.

My name is Paula Perez.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to address you on behalf of the leadership of the Mountain View Community Land Trust.

Limitations of loans, even if forgivable, even if forgivable loans must be recorded as debt until forgiveness is formally granted.

This represents a considerable obstacle for emerging organizations like tenant cooperative groups and our own trust, unlike established nonprofits, which can take on these debts without compromising housing affordability, newer, less capitalized organizations don't have the same financial capacity.

For them, carrying a debt from the start significantly limits their ability to fulfill their mission, serving those most in need.

Mountain View's economic context exacerbates the situation.

If organizations like ours are forced to carry debt, this burden will inevitably be passed on to the residents through higher rent payments, affecting the very people we seek to protect.

This will reproduce the same situation for and overburden that we are trying to transform today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Marie Lucuesta.

I live in Mountain View.

Community Land Trust Solution.

Mountain View CLT offers income base rent at 30% of household income regardless of area median income brackets with no displacement for caring for earning too little or too much plus cross subsidization between tenants.

Families who earn too much for affordable housing but still face several trend burden at market rates, often in a financially worse of despise increased earnings.

Why grants are essential, the publication will force the organization to consider tenants ability to repay debt, potentially excluding the most vulnerable families and compromising their mission.

Dear City Council members, please consider the use of grants as part of the flexible financing terms available under the community ownership action plan.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Olga muy buenas noches honorable Mayor Helen Came members of Consilio Solga Mello y agradezco mucho la opportunidad que nos dan de estar participando instaur.

Good evening my name is Olga Mello I'd like to say good evening to the honorable mayor as well as the council and thank you for listening to us today.

I'd like to also continue with my partners have already expressed and let you know that we are in alignment with the action plan as well as the uh I'm sorry community ownership action plan and this is also to affect to let you know we do not want to affect the most vulnerable and have them displaced.

It will leave behind minimum wage earners and we ask that you keep working with us in order to come up with a program that works best.

And we are very thankful that as a community you let us be a part of this process it has been a great experience and it has given us many ideas and we hope that we can continue to work together.

We have been working as a committee for over one year to allow to give you our perspective us who are in a living situation where after working a full day we're still here to try to come up with a different program that would work best for our community enfrentar este problem.

Since 2019 we've been working all of these meetings where we've been giving you our opinions so that we can come up with a better plan for our community.

The Kevana Ivanatomar in quantum recordatory como Montabu CLT escuchen.

We always had hope and conviction that you would listen to us in our opinions.

So I am here today to remind you as MVCLT, please listen to us.

We believe we know what's best for our community.

I ask you again please listen to us as a council and to keep thinking about different grants not only loans that are not forgivable.

Please do not close the doors to us please keep the doors open and listen we've seen this happen in other cities like LA Please give us the opportunity and listen.

Una forma nueva vivienda sensible niveles this is a new form and it could be revolutionary for affordable housing we ask you to please be brave and work with us.

Thank you.

Andrea and then Riva, Reba and then Anthony and then Alex.

Hi good can you all hear me?

Good evening City Council members thank you so much for having us here tonight.

Thank you to the city staff of course the council and all the co opac members who have made this program possible I'm here on behalf of Mountain View Community Land Trust as their co-director to ask that you allow city staff to continue exploring including grants in the flexible financing offerings of the COP it is an innovative solution to a serious problem and this is the city's chance to so to speak put its money where its mouth is by investing in this long term solution that will help meet the housing element goals.

Investing in flexible financing to facilitate partnerships between the city and community based organization is how we address the imminent threat of displacement for the most vulnerable members of our community.

So please, we ask that you allow city staff to continue exploring the possibility of including grants in this flexible financing terms and not just forgivable loans or flexible loans.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council members.

My name is Reva Konduru, and I'm the policy and research associate at uh SV at home.

I'm here to express our strong support for the community ownership action plan.

We really applaud your bold leadership and the staff's commitment uh to the thoughtful work behind this plan.

Uh, this is the kind of innovative and inclusive policy we need to keep uh Mountain View diverse and affordable.

This plan is a powerful tool to prevent displacement and grow the capacity of local community-controlled housing options to make it as strong as possible.

Uh, we ask you to approve the plan with two recommendations, and I appreciate the council members to have touched upon these points.

Uh, first is flexibility in funding type.

Uh, please allow staff to structure city funds as grants or loans based on uh case-by-case assessment, because for emerging community-based development, uh, receiving grant for acquisition is very important.

And this allows the organization uh to acquire loan for rehabilitation process and uh expands their capacity to get more finance.

A grant at the front uh end unlocks that ability to leverage other financing and ensures the project succeed, and also this allows that the cost of the debt is not passed on to the low-income households they serve.

And the second one uh the second recommendation we have is to recommend the use of uh requests for qualification rather than request for proposal, because uh requests for proposals can be lengthy and technical, which usually favors established affordable housing developers.

Uh the this might make it difficult for emerging community-based developers to compete, even though they have uh strong community ties and cultural competency.

By contrast, an uh RFQ is focused on establishing qualifications, which has the credibility, the local ties, and the readiness to deliver.

This process is uh better suited for community-based developers because it values their strength and creates a level playing field.

Uh, it ensures Mountain View can fully tap into the expertise and leadership of its diverse grassroots organizations we've seen here today.

This is an additional step for the staff, but it might be an important one because it's one of those policies where we need to think from like grassroots organizations.

So, thank you so much.

And tonight's action is more than a program.

And uh, this is the pathway for Mountain View to lead on community ownership and housing equity in our region.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anthony then Alex.

Good evening, Anthony Chang, 20-year Mountain View resident, board member of Mountain View Community Land Trust.

I have some prepared remarks and maybe have some off the cuff remarks if I have time.

Um, thank you, City Council, for all your consideration and work around community ownership of housing.

Thank you for city staff for all the work that you've put into this.

Um, agree with most of the recommendations by city staff and echoing and also echoing and adding on to what members of Mountain View CLT's leadership council have already shared.

I want to strongly encourage council to make a friendly recommendation to staff recommendation to include grants as part of the community ownership of housing program.

In my 20 years of experience working in community development finance and impact investing, I've seen this movie before, where well-intentioned programs like the proposed loan program run the risk of not being utilized and/or not meeting the needs of working class and low-income communities.

In this specific case, a loan program runs the risk of not being able to support the city reaches housing element goals around community ownership housing.

Although loans, although loans can be a useful tool for housing organizations that already have tens of millions of dollars in net assets, loans is not what the nascent community land trust and community ownership of housing ecosystem in Mountain View needs.

And although we appreciate city staff exploring flexible financing options like forgivable loans, CLTs would still need to carry forgivable loans as liabilities on the balance sheet and potentially inhibit additional funding and project viability.

This could limit the financial capacity to acquire and preserve affordable housing.

The city can be supportive of advancing community ownership of housing and the housing housing goals and the housing element by developing a grant program, or perhaps have its resources sit on the sidelines with only having a loan program.

Mountain View CLT is not alone in this perspective.

I understand that all city council members have received letters from other community land trusts in the Bay Area, including San Francisco Community Land Trust, South Bay Community Land Trust, Northern California Land Trust, speaking from their decades of experience and echoing these sentiments about the critical importance of grants for community land trust generally and for a nascent CLT ecosystem like we have in Mountain View.

Although we understand that it would take work on the part of city staff to develop a grant program, Mountain View doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

The city can lean on the experience of other municipalities like Baltimore and Los Angeles that already have grant programs for community land trusts and/or perhaps work with housing funding intermediaries to distribute grant funds.

In closing, want to thank you all for all the work the city is doing around community ownership of housing and echo what others have said about not closing the door.

Please don't close the door on the opportunity to provide needed grants to the community ownership um housing ecosystem by taking staff recommendation as is a couple really quick things.

Grants versus forgivable loans for the nonprofits.

You just meant to you run one.

If forgive a loan is gonna still sit on your balance sheet, it's like that's not gonna it might be forgiven later, but it's still gonna be that's still gonna sit on as a liability.

If we're talking about revolving funds, if you have a 55-year loan, you're only revolving those funds 25 every 25 to maybe 50 years, and like the housing element goals are in the next, I don't know, five years.

So like what do you need to catalyze this?

And the last thing is that the city doesn't need to do the whole 25 million.

Like our groups have already been raising money to be able to do these projects.

City doesn't have to do this on its own.

Alex, hi friends.

Uh I'm not here to talk about grants or loans.

Uh first, I want to thank staff, the consultant and the city.

I think that I'm very proud to have been part of the COPAC process, and I really enjoyed it, and I am excited that one of the staff recommendations is to continue it because I think that uh we all have uh got along well.

You can see how many different things we agreed on, and I think that this is a great goal, and it makes me very proud to be a part of the city that is trying to address a key issue in our times and help people.

So, the one staff recommendations I do, I supported the vice mayor's questions about uh recently one of our mobile home parks in the city was sold out from underneath the residence New Frontier, the Calas divested of it and sold it to Home Town America.

Uh so far I've heard good things about how Hometown America is running the place, but it was something that came as a surprise to residents.

They did not have notice in advance, and a lot of them found out well after the fact that they were now gonna be paying to a different person and having an entirely different structure under them.

There's also rumors of Moffett Mobile Home Park and whether or not it is still being held by the Okus and their LLC, or if there's an ongoing sale, I haven't been able to get any information about it.

But it's the kind of thing that is really troubling if you are living somewhere and you don't know what's happening.

So I think that at least a notice of intent to sell or a notice of sale would be great to help like the people in my community uh feel safer and hopefully maybe be able to take actions to get become a resident owned community.

Uh, in talking with a lot of our neighbors and the Mobile Home Alliance, people are interested in it.

They would love to have the opportunity, but part of that opportunity is to be able to have the timing and not to be to find out after the fact that you've missed the window to be able to get together, get to your profile pro forma and make an offer.

So thanks everyone.

This is been great.

And yeah, you guys can translate for me.

I don't I know they've been doing it.

Hi, Jason.

Bye.

So that concludes in-person public comment.

So we'll move on to virtual.

Uh, the name they have provided is Frustrated Pax Taxpayer.

Please unmute you.

Apologies.

That was from a different uh Zoom meeting that I that I attended, so it's okay.

But not uh when it comes to this.

So uh yeah, my name is Jesse.

I'm a uh uh, gosh, what 10 12-year resident of Mount View now.

Um, I currently live in one of the mobile home parks in the area, and uh this is something that was kind of always in the you know long-term view uh for or the vision that I had, you know, we had as a park.

Um I first I want to thank all the staff, everybody who's supportive of rent controls for for OM uh uh parks because it has, you know, definitely lifted a big weight off our shoulders.

Um, but seeing those opportunity in front of us for us uh for for all residents at Mountain View, but it's specifically just talking about mobile home residents.

Um I think this is a great opportunity for us to to give us a little bit more peace of mind and security um and to give us a chance to to be you know even more proud of uh of uh being Mountain View residents and uh you know owners of our park.

Um I can speak for for myself uh as a resident of a of a mobile home uh park that's managed by somebody else.

I mean, I'm sick of being micromanaged over every little thing uh inside the park.

Um and uh we already own our space and just having the opportunity to own uh the land that uh we we live on uh with our homes, uh we just give us an extra, you know, sense of ownership.

So um I would say also too for the seniors that live in the park, this would give them all peace of mind.

Um I know we have the rent controls right now, but it's it's it just gives another layer of security for them and some of the residents who are a little bit more uh less fortunate or or you know, it just helps them out.

So uh whatever we need to do to open this opportunity for for Mo Home uh residents, I I welcome it.

And uh yeah, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

B.

If you want to unmute.

Hi, council.

Hi.

Um yeah, this issue follows nicely from your earlier discussion about the lack of existing BMR ownership opportunities in Mountain View.

Uh although all of our mobile home parks have more than 50 homes, uh discussion of COP makes this a good time to start thinking about ownership of our mobile home parks as well as the 50 individual opportunities to own our homes.

As Jesse mentioned, there's a lot of frustration in owning our homes but not our parks.

Uh because of ROC USA, there have been hundreds, if not thousands of parks across the U.S.

that have been managed to purchase not only their homes but their parks, and at least 175 of them are in California.

There's a lot of interest in this in our mobile home communities.

Four of our local uh mobile home parks already have neighbor neighborhood associations, which are organizes uh organizations that could be adapted into co-ops more easily than building new groups in apartment developments, many of which only have a few VMR units.

Uh I don't know how um COPE could be adapted to not just home ownership park ownership, but I'd like you to start by following city staff's recommendations and perhaps going beyond them by starting to build the plan using the ample data that has been gathered by the OPA advisory committee.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

So seeing no other uh public comment either in person or virtually, I'll bring the item back to council for discussion uh and deliberation.

Please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report.

Councilmember Hicks.

So I want to start off by saying that um I thought the uh staff report was excellent.

The visions, principles, and overall plan.

Um I uh a little confession.

The um the decade before I moved to Mountain View, I worked with a community land trust in Alameda County that started out with a collection of kind of uh a collection of donations of different kinds of properties from single family homes to one to two, three, four unit properties, all run by volunteers because they had been donated by in wills and so forth over the decades.

And when I entered that arena, um, it wasn't going to last long term, and we needed to professionalize it.

So I'm very familiar with this.

It's not exactly where, for instance, the m MBCLT is at at this point because we we had a collection of properties, but we had no technical skill, or they had no technical skills.

I was going to planning school, so um so we professionalized it, and I I can just see the kinds of tech, I believe the technical skills are really necessary.

I think that you're ahead of where we were at in terms of ties to the community, but I believe that that enough, that alone is not enough to uh run affordable community-controlled properties over the long run.

And in particular, the things that we had to add, we had to add uh a program manager for kind of what um Mr.

Chen, you were talking about, making sure that fair housing rules are followed and that there was a rational selection process for vacant units.

Also a bookkeeper who understood just the rush of bills that would come in while you're uh developing or rehabbing a property, a project manager, and maybe I've left something out of a project manager, and oh, eventually a property manager.

Um you don't need each of those people, but you need those skills.

Um that's and I want to set this program up for success over the long term, and I think in order to do that, you need to get those skills on board.

Um, which may um my experience may involve partnering with a not with a larger nonprofit.

You don't have to hire those people, but you may want to work with an organization like uh mid-peninsula housing or Alta Housing or some other affordable housing developer like that.

There are other ways to do it, but my experience is that that might be the easiest way.

Um so that said, that's my that's one of my primary concerns that um that uh community organizations have some way to get those technical skills on board.

Um I'm gonna say I was prepared to with the vision principles and overall plan, I will vote for that.

I was prepared to add all sorts of critical comments from my experience, but the it looks like the COPE advisory committee did a really good job, and I have not one comment to make about those, um, especially uh around decommodification, shared government governance, and community stewardship.

I mean, that really is what it's all about.

Um, so let's see, other comments.

I have to say, when I was doing that work, we uh professionalized the running of the properties that we already owned, but we also purchased and rehabbed additional properties using usually the Berkeley Housing Trust Fund.

Um, and those were all loans.

So I am not as clear as the people who spoke on the need for the need for grants.

Um I'm I look forward to hearing from the rest of council.

Maybe they understand the need for grants more than I do.

Um, but we didn't get forgivable loans either.

Um, so but you know, times have changed, tell me I'm wrong, I'm open to it.

Um I am interested in uh what council member Ramos or for the Vice Mayor brought up about I I trust staff that they can't do a full OPA program right now.

Maybe in the future, like some future when I'm no longer on council most likely.

Um but um some kind of informational notification process sounds interesting to me.

Um and if not now, sometime in the future.

Um and let's see if I had any additional um, I think being really clear on fair housing law is very important, and uh I also uh, you know, I also think, and this is just an added comment.

I I also think of maybe doing community ownership for large, all affordable housing projects at some point um would be interesting, like ones we have in North Bay Shore and East Wisman.

I that's a big bite, but it would um you know open community ownership to um a larger number.

So those are my comments for you.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Clark.

Thank you.

Um I agree with a lot of the the comments that council member um picks made.

I do want to start just with a question to staff to just confirm an assumption that I made in the briefings and and through the staff report.

It sounds like nothing were by adopting this framework tonight there there's nothing here that precludes us at some point from saying, you know, larger grants may make sense as part of an overall structure, maybe it's to help with matching funds or other things.

I think what I view this as tonight, and correct me if I'm wrong is this is a starting point for a framework and it's recognizing that we don't have millions of dollars to grant today, even if we wanted to.

And so we're trying to figure out where we put our resources in terms of how we structure this, and right now, even if we were to say let's do grants, we can't do grants because we don't we we can do smaller grants, technical assistance grants, those types of things, but we don't have tens of millions of dollars to to grant instead of or even loan at this point.

But that I guess what I'm getting at is we're not completely slamming the door on you know, other funding structures at some point in the future.

I think we're just recognizing where we're at today.

Uh yes, thank you.

I I think that's um certainly right.

Um, and ultimately this is a policy decision for council in terms of the practical steps if council were to support staff's recommendation we would develop the NOFA um evaluation criteria and underwriting guidelines at this stage of the process just for the flexible loans.

If um council would like to add, for example, um something for the implementation plan later on to continue to evaluate the value viability of grants as part of the we envision this to be a five-year plan because that would run out the current housing element time frame.

That could be um something for council to consider um and if council were to say well, incorporate it now, you know, then that would be another another option.

It would it would be more complicated and it would probably delay the process, but those are some some things for you to think about.

But uh yes, even if council were to move forward with just flexible loans, um you could provide the input and direction to say double up the COP and include some something in the implementation plan to continue to monitor the feasibility of of grants.

Yeah, I yeah, whether we decide to do that or not, I I'm open to other suggestions.

I think I think the world of of grants to me is um you're there were in good references to Los Angeles, Baltimore, um the the actual granted funds from those weren't astronomical, the grant components, and then also we're not those big of cities, but but even even if we were the the actual grant amounts versus some of the other funding structures, I think weren't super super significant.

So if the world were to change and something like Bafa passed, and you know there's a really big pool of funds that we can use for grants, then I think that is very that sort of changes the the fundamental um playing field that we're on now.

But I I feel like at least tonight, I feel like this is a really really good framework in a first step.

And as some others have pointed out, um I get that um I get that grants in the sense that if they were unrestricted would be very, very attractive.

And I understand the balance sheet issue too.

You know, I've had loans on our nonprofit balance sheets before, and it's it's um uh it's it's not ideal, but also the any grants that would be made would be highly restricted.

They wouldn't be unrestricted grants, and restricted grants are from a finance perspective, you know, you have to they're they're basically separate buckets of funds because they have so many strings attached, and so um anyway, that's that's a long way of saying I I don't think we're at the point now of one being able to to grant large sums of money, but also we're I I don't want to just close the door on a grant strategy in the future, should something like Bafar or something like that come to pass.

The um I hadn't heard the RFQ RFP thing before but I've been through both of those processes outside of council and typically an RFQ um it's usually not RFQ or RFP.

Usually what happens is if you're talking about vast sums of money what you do is you implement an RFQ as like a a step point to say okay we're talking about finding a buyer for an East Wisman a giant chunk of the East Wism precise plan.

So we the first thing we need to do is screen out all the people who we know can't afford to even you know submit um reasonable offers or or don't have the financing or the wherewithal to even make it through that step.

And so I I understand the I think I understand what folks are getting at with with asking about RFQ versus RP, but I think for our purposes we really want to simplify it and make it um you know as easy as possible for someone like Mountain View CLT to be able to qualify and I think actually creating an RFQ phase might actually create an issue where we're screening out smaller organizations that we want to be able to proceed.

So I I think the the structure that you've uh that you've come up with makes more sense than adding an RFQ step because I think it will actually create additional issues for smaller organizations and make it more likely that we end up with really large organizations competing with our smaller organizations.

And then just a note on I I overall I'm I'm supportive of the framework as is um the the notifications piece I just wanted to to call out the um those frameworks exist um and are available to each and every one of us today um for free you can set a you can set a uh there are a number of services that allow you to set an alert that says the moment a specific property goes on the market I want to know and the moment a specific property is sold I want to know and um I get those notifications the moment a property closes or goes on the market and you can do that for any property because those are all public um and so I think to have a city apparatus kind of do double yeah basically recreate a process or or something that already exists I understand it there's there's value in like paper notices and all those things but I just don't think that um I think the biggest bang for your buck would be more um you know notice in advance and and creating a true opportunity to purchase and I think that is that is um as Councilmember Hicks said a whole nother um not that it's something I would necessarily be opposed to I think it's just a whole nother um that in and of its I its item is like a council work plan item by itself so um I I think overall the the work plan or the the uh the framework that we're looking at tonight makes a lot of sense to me and I'm happy to adopt it as is um Vice Mayor Robas.

Thank you Mayor um so going through the staff's recommendation um when we look at the community ownership action plan vision and guiding principles and I'm well first thank you so much for the work on this I know that it was a huge lift and news in the making and it's it's really an incredible thing that Mountain View is doing.

I do love how um I'm always so proud of how robust our community engagement is especially in in traditionally underrepresented communities.

Like this is Mountain View is known because we are a community for all to really uplift those voices where other cities don't quite meet that mark quite like Mountain View does which is why Mount V is the best city.

So thank you so much I I'm really happy with the vision and guiding principles.

It is really kind of our way to really dig into preservation um we we are both we have been very strong with both production and protection comparatively to um many other cities um in term in terms of production and but there are like three pillars that help us kind of take on the crushing weight of our housing crisis.

And so this is now showing up that that final pillar.

So I'm really proud of that.

And I love the city roles with a special emphasis on the convener aspect of it.

You really like your acronyms, don't you?

Um I'm hoping that it continues to work as because this is is it's so new and there's gonna be a lot of changes, and you're gonna need to get quick feedback on what um that kind of engagement with our community.

Um I would add almost another role, but it doesn't have to be like an official role, but our city should also be the source of truth when it comes to this program as well.

When people want to know more about this program, they should be able to find out from our city exactly what this program is.

Um, because anything that that that from my great experience in dealing with COPA, um, that that may vary.

Um, and I'll touch on that later.

Um but uh I do like the idea of our city being that that source uh truth, but and then obviously with the connections with this um with the COAPAC.

I have no idea how to pronounce that um to really use that to also disseminate that information easily.

And if even if you're not in that particular group, uh people can come, the average resident can know like what is this, um, and I hope there's also an ability for the this group because I'm not gonna attempt to pronounce it again to expand, like the people who are in that group shouldn't be the only ones that will have this opportunity to to take advantage of this program.

Um it should be something that grows.

Um and now go out to three.

Um the recommended terms for city funding and technical assistance.

So the technical assistant grant program, good 100% great.

Um I just uh as as council member Clark mentioned, I just don't like the idea of closing the door on grants.

So it's not that I'm saying that you have to do grants.

I'm just saying you have the option to do grants should you find a way to make it work.

I'm empowering you.

Next is uh four, that's uh straight to go, and then five, which is the more controversial kind of uh thing.

Well, not the technical assistance program, but COPA or TOPA or OPA or however you choose to define it.

Um and it has a wide varying definition.

Um I I recall there's a neighboring city of ours that put in their housing element that they would adopt it, and and I remember reading that, like, do you do you think they know what they actually committed to?

Cause I actually don't think they did.

And what I think they were looking at is something what we're looking at now, which is the ownership action plan, like the ability to create that ecosystem.

So you can argue that there are little components to COPA, and we're just taking a few of the less controversial ones.

So as we are going through, if you could find more of those components, like I know uh council member Clark talked about like how you could set up like already the I I feel like there is a way you could find out when when things are on the market.

So maybe we could empower those groups that we convene to find that themselves kind of thing as as as an easy way to to make it work without really putting it on staff time.

So I'm just trying to find the small elements of COPA that we could slowly move forward without the significant backlash.

Um I know when we talked in our briefing uh outreach to the realtors essentially, um, and they're an important part of this conversation.

We talked about how they could be part of the solution in this.

They could be our partners in finding these properties, like this, our our land trust, our our liquid equity co-ops, our community groups could be new clients for them essentially.

So I I hope that you also continue to to go that route.

Um because I think there it would help take the heat away from a program like this and um really get buy-in from those who who would have issues with it.

So thank you so much for your work.

Thank you uh so much for all the community residents who really work together on making this happen.

This is a huge huge point of leadership for Mountain View, and I'm excited to move it forward.

Thank you.

Well, an awful lot has been said, so I don't need to repeat it, but first I want to acknowledge the um Mountain View CLT for move meeting with me twice to um explain things, then I had some more questions I wanted to share with them, and they they were very nice to come back on a really short schedule.

So I appreciate that, and I hope we'll be able to do that in the future.

Um, then the other thing I want to talk about is the COAPAC.

Um I've been involved in a lot of uh stakeholder collaborations over time, and I found them typically to be really powerful, especially the ones that um uh kind of develop a community and continue.

There's a capacity in these groups that just isn't there with any individual purpose, person or group, and um so I think that we should sort of think think of this COAPAC as an endangered species that we have to protect and nurture and keep going and make sure that it doesn't go extinct.

So I just I just really think that bringing together all of this expertise and interesting interest and having it continue is really is what will make these projects um come to fruition, not just be something we're thinking about, but something we can go visit our friends in someday, which is really what this is all about.

Um, another thing I want to mention that uh has been said a little bit, but in a sense, this first one or two um that we do are really pilot projects, and we're going to learn a lot as we go through this, and um, especially this COAPAC will help us evaluate the lessons learned from that and incorporate them into um uh our community action plan.

I hope that this will essentially be kind of a living document.

We're not just gonna, you know, write it and put it on the shelf.

We're gonna um see how it works for a few years and come back and make changes as you know as is appropriate.

Um along with my fellow council members.

I am um kind of neutral about the idea of grants.

Um, I I can see both sides.

Uh I do think the fact that we only have a four million dollar pot at the moment is a very significant limiting factor in how many grants we could give out.

Um, and uh um so we you know that's that's sort of where we find ourselves at the moment.

On the other hand, as was mentioned um several years down the road, uh, if we were to get a bond measure passed either locally or on the by countywide or regionally that provided us with more funding, um, that might be something what which is much more um uh much more workable.

Um, and I think we should be supporting those things.

Um, and then uh the uh the thing about the RFQ versus the RFP.

Um I um I didn't hear consensus about that one way or another.

And again, I've been in situations where both work just fine.

So I think we should go forward with what would be the easiest, and um, and then if there's problems, we can adjust in the future.

Um, but again, I want to thank everybody for their um all of the all of the blood sweat equity that everybody has put into this, all of the good thoughts, the the hard work um we've come a long long way and and and we're I'm very proud of it but um uh I do think that uh what what was really gonna be the icing on the cake is when we get to open the first one so thank you great thank you um I don't see anyone else in the queue um I would entertain if anyone wants to uh make a motion oh here we go oh we have a motion by council member Clark that I think is getting seconded by the vice mayor um and I think um for for staff you've gotten a lot of um feedback and suggestions so I think before we take the vote we might want to just summarize um just so that the there's some clarity in the community on some things that maybe staff will um kind of be thinking about um and and I'll mention um a few things myself so um just my comments is just thank you thank you thank you um uh push to this innovative point through the housing element um but um as uh the vice mayor was saying being able to tackle the the preservation aspect and you know um in the conversations that I was having with um staff not only is this being able to look at home ownership but it's also a way for us to look at anti-displacement and um we uh will be reviewing many things related to the housing element about um anti-displacement but I think it kind of um dovetails nicely is a good puzzle piece to what we're doing in our city and our communities I just wanted to to state that I think that just some uh things that I'd I'd like to elevate which is what I feel like I'm hearing from the community most and the conversations I've had with them is the need for flexibility as we move forward so um I feel comfortable with the the vision and guiding principles I feel comfortable with the stack recommendation on the city role um I think when it comes to the funding of the projects and the technical assistance grant program I I like the conversation on this is like the first phase or first element and then leaving the door open for what we think is gonna work best I think right now um what staff has recommended was um loans but being able to look at grant opportunities is important I think one of the pieces that stood out in the conversation was you know having to carry that financial burden um for our nonprofits who are um um trying to to do this really incredible thing is is difficult and how might um we be able to have conversations more related to that um so that whether it's a loan whether it's a grant we're setting our community up for success I think we're all on the same page on wanting to make sure that we have a pathway to home ownership for me kind of the funding mechanism is just one component of it and I want to at the end of the day I want to be here well probably not here in this room but but in Mountview on the first commute CLT project and I and I want us to find that that path forward um so I'll just say that and perhaps staff can get back to us on that.

And then I think the last um question staff had was you know to monitor the OPA instead of creating the fund I I'm open I'm flexible I just I think that we had some council questions too where we're looking at other cities counties jurisdictions who have done this and they've gotten back to us on the feedback of what works and what hasn't and no place has said we did it and there was no issues, right?

So I I think that for me I I I you know, I think that the council is saying we're open, you know, please tell us what we think would work.

And if we go down one path, just being able to pivot quickly to make sure that um you know we keep that momentum.

Um it I think is is the most critical um in my opinion.

Um and then I I think lastly, just really want to emphasize thank you to those who are serving on our difficult to pronounce acronym of a committee.

Um you are doing this um as a volunteer as someone in the community.

Um you're not paid to do this here, and um it's so important to have your voice.

I appreciate too that we've been providing translation services in real time in the meeting we did today.

I think anything you can do to show the community that we are listening and that we're working together is is something that I would like to continue as this process goes forward.

So just a real vague thank you from the bottom of my heart on this.

All right.

Oh, and Castle Member Clark has um something to add.

Oh, you have to read the uh the motion.

Yeah, so I'll move the staff recommendation, which includes that we adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View to appropriate $75,000 from the general housing fund for a technical assistance grant program, topic six to be read and title only for the reading wave.

And then just incorporating in the motion the feedback that you heard tonight, where I I think it sounds like there were at least four of us who don't want to foreclose the possibility of grants.

So maybe you know, two examples would be if if there were a bond at some point or or some source of additional funds where it would uh switch into um or incorporating a grant strategy into you know our longer-term multi-year strategy here made makes sense, or for example, where some component of a grant from us would allow them to get matching funds from a nonprofit or something like that.

Um I guess I guess we just don't want to for we recognize that this is not kind of a near term, probably not a near-term option for us, but maybe in the multi-year plan, just not foreclosing the possibility there.

I think that's um that's really the um the the gist of it.

Sorry, it's hard to be articulate at 10.

Um does that work or do you need more?

Yeah, I was just gonna ask staff, maybe they can summarize like what they so in addition to the motion, anything else that you heard um the animus consideration on.

The way I am processing that um addition would be to go ahead and move forward with developing a NOFA evaluation criteria and underwriting guidelines currently structured as a flexible loan, um, but keep the option open and include something in our implementation plan that allows us to evaluate the possibility of grants later on and potentially develop some criteria or triggers that would enable us to include grants as part of a flexible funding approach.

I think that's right.

Does that sound like I think that works well?

And then um, and then before we vote, I just wanted to elevate a comment that um Vice Mayor Ramos made.

Um my uh my comment on the notification, like that the that's public, um, but one really important aspect of maybe the use of funds and maybe a future small grant, um, engaging the realtor community who really have their ear to the ground and know the property owners and might know if maybe someone isn't thinking about selling today, but they could be um persuaded to uh I think just engaging engaging the right folks who who really kind of know the state of things is really important, and so um I just wanted to uh I just wanted to highlight that, and you know, we're not there yet, but once we're at the point where you know an organization has the funds to to start to look at the uh the uh you know target acquisition opportunities.

Um I think I think engaging those experts would be really important.

So thank you for for highlighting that.

And then did staff have more to add on.

Yeah, just to be responsive, I feel like one of the pieces that we could do is identify potential tools that already exist that could enable easy adoption of a notification system, and not necessarily create one now, but see if there are tools that that exist.

And just a comment that one of the pieces that the TA grant could support is exactly that, which is broadening the notion of community to uh include partners that may not have been part of these processes, and that those relationships can be built over time and potentially facilitate relationships with property owners, new organizations, and possibly off market transactions.

And so I think that is very much in keeping with the notion that this capacity building effort, this infrastructure building effort could be started with this initial TA grant program.

So I just wanted to underscore what you were just saying, Councilmember Clark.

Anything anyone else want to add anything?

I think we're in a good spot.

All right, let's vote.

All right, and that passes unanimously.

So before we can continue, may I have a motion to continue the meeting past 10 p.m.?

Okay, and that is uh moved by council member Clark, seconded by Vice Mayor Ramos.

May we vote on moving the meeting past 10 p.m.?

Oh, do we need channeling council member McAllister?

Councilmember Ramirez votes no.

Um I just um and maybe we could just take a five-minute break.

So let's start at 1010, please.

All right, everyone, thank you.

We're gonna reconvene.

All right.

So we'll move on to item 7.2, amendments to funding and joint use agreement and transfer of development rights memorandum of understanding with the Los Altas School District.

Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg will present the item.

If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

And we'll start with the staff presentation.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, Audrey Seymour Ramberg Assistant City Manager, and I'm joined in the audience by community services director John Marchant and Community Development Director Christian Murdoch, who are available to answer questions.

I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the uh Los Autos School District team led by associate superintendent Eric Walukowich for constructive meet and confer process and a strong spirit of collaboration.

The same amendments that are before council tonight were presented to and adopted by the Los Altos School Board of Trustees last night.

Through the general plan and precise plans, the city states its intention to cooperate with schools to meet the community needs for educational and open space um uses.

Called for the creation of a transfer of development rights or TDR program, uh the purpose of which was to provide funding for a new public school land purchase and development to meet the anticipated enrollment needs due to development growth and new students in that area of mountain View.

Three related agreements were executed in 2018, as will be discussed in the following slide.

In 2019, the district purchased an 11.65-acre site in the San Antonio Center area, which is the location of the former Coles and Joanne fabrics.

Part of this site will be a joint use area that was to be constructed and made available to the community by September 30th of 2024.

Three agreements executed in 2018 were a TDR Memorandum of Understanding or MOU, a funding and joint use agreement or FJUA, and an open space park agreement.

The TDR MOU allows the school district to sell development rights for the San Antonio Center site to developers in projects in different locations.

The city has awarded gatekeeper authorizations for eight projects under the TDR MOU, accounting for all but 30,000 of the total 610,000 square feet available.

This total amount of square footage could generate up to 79.3 million dollars in TDR proceeds.

Through the FJUA, the city has paid $23 million to the Los Altos School District for the development and joint use of four acres of recreational and open space.

The city has paid an additional 20 million for two acres of public park.

And this diagram shows the conceptual design of these site elements as was presented in the environmental impact report.

As noted, the joint use area was not completed by the September 2024 deadline.

The city and Los Altos School District have been in a meet and confer process since that time, discussing shared and individual interests related to maintaining the strong collaboration between the two agencies, agreeing to a new date for completion of the joint use area, maximizing the community benefit to Mountain View residents in exchange for the city's financial contributions and the policy support in creating the TDR program.

Also recognizing the changing circumstances regarding Los Altos School District's enrollment and their need for flexibility regarding the type of school to be located at the San Antonio Center.

In particular, Los Altos School Districts expressed that based on enrollment, there was not a current need for a 10th Los Altos School District school serving the surrounding neighborhood.

Furthermore, the original language in the FJUA requiring the school to serve the neighborhood and be similar in size to other Los Altos schools was vague, which could make it difficult to assess and enforce.

What is proposed for adoption this evening are amendments to the FJUA and TDR MOU as follows.

For the FJUA, the primary changes are to extend the delivery date for the joint use area to September 30th, 2030 to provide more flexibility to the Los Altos School District regarding the school size and type using California Department of Education language and guidelines, and to split the proceeds received after October of last year, 50-50 between the city and the district.

Staff saw this last provision as a more viable way to achieve community benefit than to strengthen the language requiring a neighborhood-serving school of a similar size, which was not something that the district would agree to in the meet and confer process, both based on the enrollment needs of the district and their strong interest to retain their jurisdictional authority to determine the school type.

Revised language would allow either a neighborhood serving school or a charter school to occupy the San Antonio Center site.

It is our understanding that the district is considering the possibility of a charter school.

However, the board hasn't made a decision on the school type.

As for the school size, last night, in addition to hearing the item regarding the amendments to the FJUA and the TDR MOU, the district considered or was presented with an expressed support for a schematic design for the San Antonio site, and that would be for a TK through eight school with a total enrollment of up to 607 students, of which they wouldn't fully program initially with an unassigned space for 81 of those 607 students.

In addition to the community benefits of the two-acre city park and the four acres of joint use area that were originally contemplated in the 2018 City Los Altos district agreements, the amendment to the FGAUA now provides the city with the potential for up to nearly 34.5 million dollars in TDR proceeds.

The degree to which the school itself would be a community benefit for Mountain View residents depends on the type of school ultimately placed there, which as I noted has not yet been decided and may change with the changing needs of the district over the 99-year term of the FJUA.

So that concludes staff's presentation.

These are the recommendations before you tonight to approve the first amendments to both the funding and joint use agreement and the TDR MOU, and staff is available for questions.

Great, thank you.

Does any member of the council have a question?

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Audrey, for the presentation.

I have a couple of quick clarification questions.

We've gotten some uh feedback from the community expressing concerns about the school size and configuration, which had been regulated under the original agreements.

Can you share with us who agency has authority over school size and configuration and whether the city really had any ability to enforce those restrictions to begin with?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Ramirez.

The district has the authority and jurisdiction to determine the type of school and the size of school and the configuration of school.

The fact that we are in a master planning process with them for the joint use area, does give us a collaborative platform to talk about things of interest to the city, such as safe circulation and other aspects of the site plan, but ultimately our authority is quite limited.

I think that was something that the staff that were here preceding me and the team that worked with me on this negotiation, you know, they probably struggled with that as well and tried to come up with language that expressed the desire and the intent of the council, which at that time was for a neighborhood serving school, with the understanding that there was to be enrollment growth in that area and in the district as a whole.

In fact, in in, you know, the opposite has happened.

The enrollment in the district has gone down.

And so as we looked at the language that was in the agreement, it was again a clear statement of desire and intent, but but not necessarily something that would be easily in enforceable.

And when we originally went into the negotiations, it was with the intent of strengthening that language so that it could be more of a guarantee that this would be a neighborhood serving school.

But we heard a couple things back from the district at that point.

One being that they did not have the enrollment for that.

Another being that they had a very strong programmatic priority to have middle school campuses, not the junior high campuses that they currently have, and that gave them a desire to have flexibility around how they would utilize that school site, and that that was valuable to them, and that got us into a whole different level of conversation of well if the community benefit isn't to be a neighborhood serving school, what else might the community benefit be?

So it kind of took the negotiations down a different path, but also it recognized what were always likely the limitations that the city would have faced around trying to judge whether or not that neighborhood serving requirement had been met and what would its, you know, what would the consequence be for the city if it wasn't met?

And ultimately it's the same that are before you now.

The really the only consequence that we would have would be to find that we we no longer wish to be in the funding and joint use agreement with the district, and um no longer wish to have a joint use area, and then seek, you know, through the the next steps and the meet and confer process uh which would result in a return of that funding to the city, or that would be certainly the city's you know um supposition and and intent.

That's very helpful.

Thank you.

I guess just to be explicitly clear on this point, though.

Um let's say uh the council, the original language were um uh going to continue to govern these uh agreements, and the council really wanted to restrict enrollment to you know no more than 500 students or some other arbitrary number, or to guarantee a neighborhood school with the intent to um uh reduce or mitigate traffic impacts, for instance.

Our ability to enforce that, right, once the school is built is really constrained, and there really isn't much that the city can do to compel the school district to limit their pop the student population or to have a school of a particular type.

That's not really within our jurisdiction.

That's correct.

Okay, that's correct.

And they the district has shared that um, well, one point I would make is that that we do have a an EIR that studied up to study both a 500 student school and a 900 student school as EIRs EIRs often do, creating an envelope that is kind of a you know out the outer edges of what might be considered so that all impacts can be studied and and traffic was studied as part of the EIR, but as I noted in the presentation, what they are focusing on at this point is a 607 student school.

So they're not looking at that outer edge of the EIR, and when you look at what the existing enrollment is for the other Los Altos School District schools, um they vary what the enrollment is compared to what their built capacity is, and over time, those those vary where it might go over capacity, it might go under capacity, and certainly with the the bullis charter schools being at the two junior high sites, those sites with a combination of the Los Altos School and the Bullis schools are um over their stated enrollment.

Thank you very much.

That was very helpful.

One last question, um, and it may be for for um other members of uh the staff, but um I'm I'm curious to know if we've heard any interest at all in the the TDR market.

It's been pretty quiet for a long time and the markets shifted a lot in the last few years, but um I I was curious to understand if you feel like we're likely limited to the universe of applicants that we've been talking to for the past several years, or if with this extension you think that might unlock some additional or new interest, and that we might there might be a possibility where all of the development capacity is ultimately sold.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director.

I'm not aware of significant new interest in utilization of the TDR program at this point.

I am aware of one applicant whose TDR allocation expired and is interested potentially in seeking reauthorization of that.

And so I think one thing we are considering if the council supports this agreement this evening is to prepare regulations for council consideration that might incentivize expired applications to come back in is one way to allow utilization of the TDR allocations and monetize that component for the benefit of Los Altos School District and the you know newly acquired uh interest the city would have in those TDR funds.

So it's one way we're looking to perhaps uh increase interest in utilization of TDR, and this will remain an option for new applicants to seek potentially as well as the office market continues to rebound.

Um I think it's unlikely uh in most cases that we'll see you know interest uh for residential TDR, in most cases, given the significant expansion in recent years for residential projects to leverage increased density through other means under state law.

Uh, but those were a minority of the projects and the overall square footage anyways, in the initial eight uh projects that were authorized.

There were only two, and they had relatively small shares of square footage.

So I don't think that's likely to be a significant detriment to sort of the successful execution of this uh if council supports it.

That's very helpful.

I just just to clarify, um, so it sounds like one option the council may consider is not requiring the folks who have been through basically a gate gatekeeper authorization hearing to have to go through that hearing again.

You can bypass that, resubmit an application because we've already, or the count previous councils have looked at that and determined that that was an appropriate project to pursue under the TDR agreement.

I think that's one potential outcome, and probably the most advantageous for you know utilization of these in an expedient way.

We haven't done the analysis of potential options to put forward and you know make a recommendation at this point, uh pending you know an indication from council that they support this approach that staff's put forward tonight.

Okay, that's very helpful.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Hicks.

Yes, thank you.

Um, so we've had uh joint use agreements with um various school districts in the area for over 60 years, and they've worked well in a lot of ways, and then recently they've undergone some pretty dramatic changes because of more need for more security and fencing, people owning more dogs, um, and expanding um after school and uh summer programs, making a lot of the um things that we had say areas we had 60 years ago no longer available to the public on those the sites that we've been working with for some time.

I'm wondering with this with the joint use agreement for this particular uh site, um, how do you have any estimate in your conversations with the district on how much we'd be able to use the gym and the fields?

You know, we're I guess we're correct me if I'm wrong, we're paying for 50% of the upkeep.

Do we expect to use them 50% of the time, five percent of the time, only after dark, you know, when nobody can go there, or you know, what's do you have any sort of estimate?

Have you had conversations?

Good evening, John Marchant Community Services Director, and thank you for the question, um, Councilmember Hicks.

Um, the conversations to date with LASD have been very similar to that with um the type of program that we have with Mountain View Wisman School District.

So the way that works with Mountain View Wisman School District is at their elementary school sites, the city has access to the recreational areas starting at four o'clock.

So they do have some after school programs.

Um, however, we have access to their recreational areas starting at four o'clock, and then at the middle school areas, then we have access at five o'clock because they have additional sports and those types of things that is also inclusive of the gymnasiums.

So on a regular school day, um, we have access basically starting at five o'clock for the gymnasiums and recreational areas.

Uh in addition, we do have access during weekends, um, complete access, unless there's a special event, which is very nominal um throughout the year, and then also those school recess times.

Any day that there is not school, that we do have access to those uh recreational facilities during the entire day.

Um and to date, this has been working well.

Um we're able to provide the um necessary or what we see as the demand for recreational um sports and then also community access as well.

And then summers do does the public have access over the summer or are there summer programs that um students the school is using?

Good question.

And with Mountain View Wisman School District, they typically have one school site for summer school, and so we're able to work around their schedules.

And summer school is typically a truncated program with a certain number of weeks of of use, and then we have access to it thereafter, and so um we've been able to utilize that.

Um we have not talked with LASD specifically about utilization thereof of um uh summer program, um, so that that dialogue needs to continue.

And when you say we with uh MVWSD, we have access after four or five, depending on which type of school it is.

Do we use it much after four or five pm?

We do for what what do we use it for?

So there's uh, there's a different element um whether there's lights or no lights.

And so for those facilities that don't have lights, you can see if we're getting close to five, six o'clock in the evening, it's starting to get dark.

Um, and so that limits our our access.

Um but then for as an example, Crittenden middle school fields are lit, and we're able to program till 10 p.m.

And so those are heavily utilized um into the evening time.

Okay, good to know.

Thank you.

Councilmember Schwalter.

Yeah, um, I want to thank you for um all the work on this.

I know it's gone on a long time, and um I really appreciate it.

But all the um it's my understanding that all of the negotiations to date have been with um the um uh Los Altos School District, um, either board member or staff.

Um I was wondering how has the Bullis charter school been involved?

Um this discussions with the Bullis Charter School are being conducted by the Los Altos School District that hasn't been part of the city's meet and confer process with the district.

Okay, so we don't really have um firsthand knowledge of whether Bullis is interested in going to this school.

We do not.

We do not.

Okay.

And um then I wanted to to talk about we uh kind of following up a little bit on uh some of uh Councilmember Ramirez's comments about uh traffic.

Uh the way that we largely control traffic in Mountain View is really by land use decisions.

Um, is it not?

I mean, we we figure out the density of housing, the density of commercial, um, and uh uh the uh the um the actual use of the land has a lot to and and how how those buildings are designed has a lot to do with the traffic patterns.

It's not um, it's not necessarily um something that would we don't I mean that's how we control traffic.

Is that not true?

Um in general, that sounds correct.

Um, in terms of uh school site, um the we are not the um uh the regulator on the environmental impact report.

We you know they they prepare the environmental impact report including an assessment of of traffic impact and we comment on that, and so that is the the way in which for a this particular type of land use, i.e.

a school site, um the issue of traffic uh is addressed, and um then in addition, um we have collaborative relationships with um all of the schools in Mountain View around safe routes to school and the potential for crossing guards and um the ability to you know talk about multimodal transportation and what type of analysis they're um willing to do, and if if we want additional analysis beyond what they're willing to do since we don't have that same regulatory role with them, that's an option that the city could um undertake.

And um refresh my memory that uh that safe roots to school program, it applies to um uh parochial and private schools as well as public schools.

Yes, I believe that's correct.

Okay.

I think I think that's correct.

We don't have we have a few, but um, okay, um great.

Does any other member of council have any questions?

All right, not seeing any.

Would any member of the public on the line like to provide a comment?

Uh if so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

We'll display a timer on the screen.

Each speaker will have three minutes.

We will start with in-person first.

It is Ken Smith, Millie, Millie Gong, and Hyung.

So if you feel free to come on down.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Ken Smith.

I've been a resident of Mountain View for more than three decades, and I have some concern regarding how I feel that LASD is changing the original intent of the proposed school.

They're asking uh in the red line to remove the requirement for the school to quote serve the Mountain View community surrounding the school site.

So why is that?

It's because LASD doesn't want a community school.

What they want is a place to put Bulla's charter school.

They don't want to put BCS on any of the campuses that that they uh have currently and they want them off the middle school campus.

There are two primary problems with this.

The first is that North El Camino students need a local school.

Uh they currently go to three different schools.

If you can imagine the school being built and uh the parents living right across the street from the school being told, oh no, you can't your kids can't go to this school.

They'll continue to go to Covington, which is three miles away over down by Foothill because we have BCS at this school.

They are gonna be super upset, and rightfully so.

They have 1,100 students.

They are not gonna fit.

BCS also cannot make a preference for a geographic location.

They had that when they originally started the school because it was started from a specific location, and that went into a lawsuit, and they dropped that requirement.

You can't have that requirement.

It draws from the entire district, and you have you're gonna have a traffic nightmare and a parking nightmare.

The other issue I want to talk about is TDRs.

The purpose of a TDR is for the public good.

What was the public good that was uh the purpose of the TDRs?

One, get a community school, and two, share fields and a gym.

Now LESD is proposing to share 50% of the sales of TDRs with a requirement that the community school be dropped from the wording.

So what they're doing is they're saying, we'll give you some of the profit as long as the whole reason for the TDRs is dropped, or maybe not the whole reason, maybe the majority.

So maybe instead of 50%, they should be paying 80%.

And if they drop, if they say no, we don't want to share the fields, then maybe it should be 100%.

I don't think we should go down the slippery path.

Thank you.

Thank you, Millie.

It was December 11, 2018, and it was 2 a.m.

And Pat was there, and Chris was there, and many of us were there, and I'm so glad you guys put limits on that.

And I don't think we're gonna be here till 2 a.m.

But I wanted to thank you for your service.

Pat and Chris, you were in that room, and I know others of you were on Zoom, and you knew the spirit of that agreement of why Mountain View, your council passed this priceless opportunity to have a small neighborhood school when Lenny talked about carrying his cello on his back, and Pat talked about how neighborhood schools are the heart and soul and build great neighborhoods.

It's changed.

Totally respect that.

And even if you're not an advocate of a neighborhood school, there are no there's nothing that was part of that agreement that is in this red line agreement now.

I was shocked when I read the agreement.

The school district can put upwards of 900, a thousand temporarily, eleven hundred.

There are California department education-sanctioned K through 12 or TK through 12 schools that have 1700 kids on one school site.

You have no remedy if the school district decides that the only remedy you have is tonight.

You can put a stop to this.

Is this kind of feeling like threading a camel through the eye of a needle?

There's so much wrong with this agreement now that the clauses that benefited the Mountain View residents, the clauses that created a neighborhood, the clause that was substantially similar in size.

And I brought data, and I'll hand it over.

I don't know if I can hand it, that shows the substantially similar-sized schools that Al in Los Altos or Ali in Los Altos Hills enjoy on average 374 kids at their 10-acre sites.

But Alberto in Mountain View, it's gonna be crammed on a site with a thousand eleven hundred, twelve hundred kids.

I ask you to stand up for your Mountain View kids and don't let the school district discriminate against those kids just because they're Los Altas School District kids, but they happen to have a 94 94040 zip code.

Please step back and take a minute and say, is this really something that a Mountain East City Council wants to have as your legacy that you invited a charter school or some other school to have this many kids in this area that has already had not one but two traffic fatalities, and you're gonna have middle schoolers zooming about.

Have you seen them on their e-bikes lately?

It's kind of crazy.

I ask you to support alternative two to go back, litigate, mediate, and terminate this facility's joint use agreement for the benefit of your school kids.

Thank you.

I just want you to go.

Yeah.

The clerk can share it with us.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you, um, dedicated city council.

My name is Nyung, and I'm a 13 year resident of Mount View with Middle School and Elementary school children.

I'm here to ask City Council member to reject the two recommendations passed on this agenda item, and here are my reasons.

A school in that area around Shao, El Camino, California, San Antonio is not safe for 607 kids.

Two weeks like August 23rd, there was a car versus pedestrian crash that cost Gail Nakato, an 83-year-old woman her life at 3 25 p.m.

That's prime dismissal time for student.

And this is there are two facilities in that same parking lot in two years.

This lot is connected to the co-site.

Now you want to put 600 plus students there.

There'll be kids walking, biking to or from school, and then if this is going to be a charter school, a public charter school, but you have, you know, there will be family driving to drop off and pick up the kids.

So adding all of this to the cloudy mess of in that shopping center with Walmart, say we TJ.

You know, they're gonna cross and go there.

So I urge you to not build a school there, especially a commuter public school, you know, as the red light recommended.

I do not want to see a repeat of the vehicle versus pedestrian incident at the other end of Mount View on Granite El Camino on March 17, 2022.

We are middle school.

So putting a school around this area.

When please traffic and there's just, you know, when car versus pedestrian, that's just a really bad idea.

So just don't approve this deal, especially, you know, like the new one extended to 2030.

So just please do not approve this deal for you know, just for the sake of our kids.

Um, with LSD missing the September 30th, 2024 deadline.

Um, this is your chance.

This is your chance to get out of this.

This is your chance to stop this really bad idea to begin with that started in January 2019.

This is your chance to write this wrong and fix this mistake.

So please, for the sake of our kids, I don't want to see any more death.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that concludes in-person public comments.

So we'll move on to virtual, and I have Nick Baer.

Hi, good evening.

Thank you, Mountain View City Council.

I'm Nick Bear.

I'm a 15-year resident at Mountain View.

I have four school-aged kids.

I first want to just say that listening to your uh listening to you tonight.

I'm deeply impressed by your questions and diligence.

Um I also want to just say that I'm very concerned about the amendment, which removes the requirement that the school should be substantially similar in size and student enrollment to that of other district schools by removing the requirement of equitable treatment of Mountain View students and families.

LEST would be allowed to cram an indefinite number of students on the San Antonio site.

Unequal to the numerous other spacious sites.

It is disappointing that simply providing a substantially similar in size and student enrollment to that of other district schools for Mountain View students is even a negotiation point for LASD.

The desire of LASD to remind to remove what should be innocuous wording, substantially similar in size and student enrollment is a strong indication that LASD does not intend to fairly serve the surrounding Mountain View neighborhoods, students and families.

And it's treatment of our Mountain View students and families, that initial agreement that the initial agreement specifically protected against.

Please serve Mountain View residents' interests by voting to return to the meet and confer process with it with LASD and to negotiate terms that simply retain the substantially similar treatment of all LASD students, including those from Mountain View.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, not seeing any other in-person or um virtual public comments.

We'll bring the item back for council deliberation and action.

Councilmember Showalter.

Um, yes, I uh I've really given this matter a great deal of thought, and um I do appreciate the um agreement that has been struck uh with our city staff and the um Los Altos School District Board related to money, but to me, um what's really important here are one land use and two neighborhood, um and it's really hard to put a monetary value on those things.

Um I was a product of public schools, um neighborhood schools, and they uh were really the focal point of our community.

Um people went there after school to play.

People went to school there.

Um, as a small child, well, after like fourth grade, I was able to get myself to school under my own steam.

That was a good learning experience.

Um or or bike.

Um I just feel like that uh that neighborhood building is part of the tagline that we've had um at heart, a community for all for you know for really many years, and I think that um, although I I appreciate the fiscal um uh issues associated with this, I don't I don't think they um they make up for the lack of the social one, and then the other thing is land use.

We um, you know, we we don't control how many kids go to a specific school or um exactly, or or in an office building, we don't control how many people work there.

The way we control the traffic patterns is by um you know the size we can we can help with the size of the structure, the density, um things like that.

But but the specifics at any one time they do, they vary.

We don't control that, but we have found over time that these land use controls are actually pretty effective, and um, so I you know I um I uh I think that we need to go back to the drawing board for this and um and uh and not be um agreeing to these amendments tonight.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hicks.

So I was not to try to get myself out of this easily, but I was not here when the original decision was made, and I was not watching on Zoom, but I did read about it in the paper, and I was not particularly happy with the decision.

I mean I and and I'll I'll say also much of the staff, the city manager, the city attorney, the city clerk were not here either.

Not to blame it on the couple of council members who are one of whom just spoke.

Um there are a number of reasons that I from the beginning didn't think this was a very good decision, which I will not go into now because you'll probably like me even less.

But um, but now I'm hearing that we have um that we have even less control than it appears that the council members and staff who were there at the time thought we had.

Um and I'm wondering if we my understanding of why we've gotten this far and why we've gotten the proposal that we have right now is that the Los Altos school district would not agree to those other things.

So this was the best staff was able to get.

They wanted more, but they wanted some at the same time.

They wanted to come to council in the public with some agreement.

Am I wrong?

Okay, so um, you know, they tried for more.

This was the best they could get, and that's what we're presented with tonight.

So, one of my questions is what's the scenario?

I don't, I don't want just as the council members who were here that night could not foresee what happened.

They didn't know how, I assume you didn't know that you would end up here tonight in this position.

And how little control you had.

I mean, I assume you wanted a neighborhood school then and you still want one now, but you you can't get one through the process.

What happens next?

If like what's the scenario?

My question, because we are in the middle of this.

I mean, it's not like things are built and so forth.

So how does this actually I don't understand how this actually unwinds and whether we end up in a worse place or not?

And maybe no one knows, but I'd like to at least ask that.

I mean, I also I see um Sandra on the the Zoom, and I she didn't raise her hand, but I don't know if you have any um comments for counsel on behalf of the Los Altos School District.

Um I see are the superintendent on.

So that might be a question to them.

I'm not sure.

Or if it's a question to cities or city staff.

I you know, I'm just wondering legally, since we're in the middle of this, where does it go?

And sure, if if um she wants to say she can uh work with us, be a good neighbor in a uh kind of this doesn't feel like good neighborliness.

She can be a better neighbor, I would love to hear that.

All right.

Soup the superintendent, if you want to mute.

Can you hear me right now?

Yes, we can.

And if you don't mind just um introducing yourself for those who can't see.

Yeah, I was not planning to make public comment tonight, but uh just listening to your conversation.

I think the the point I would like to make at this time is um really thanking the staff, your staff and um our group who really tried to work through some of the challenges of this agreement and understanding your interests as well as our interests, because times have changed since this original agreement has come forward hugely for us.

We're looking at a 99-year agreement, and as the leader of our public school district who serves about 25% of our students are residents of the city of Mountain View.

I want to maintain the maximum amount of flexibility possible, not just for the next year or two years, but we're talking about 99 years.

So I know we went through faithful meet and confer, and we can certainly do that again.

Um, but that's really our main interest is that we're serving all of the students within our district, including those students within the city of Mountain View that we serve, but we're looking at the very long term of this 99 year agreement, thank you.

Um Councilmember Hicks, did you have more questions?

No, I'm just kind of wondering if we go down the road that council member show Walter had said, what you know, what are there any implement implications that come to mind?

Are we getting in muddier water than we're in already?

Um those are my questions.

City City Attorney uh McCarthy.

Um, thank you.

I gotta, did I get a promotion?

Sorry to it's so late.

Well, you motion Jennifer's telling me okay.

Oh, I give you a deep motion.

It's late.

I was gonna call you City Manager Kimbra, so but I was like, no, it's late.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Hicks.

So a couple couple thoughts about this.

So um we would be back at square one if we were to start this over.

Um, and I think the the biggest substantive piece of this is that things have changed considerably since 2019.

Um what underscores all of this is that we would be involved in significant, significant litigation over this.

And there are just simply things that the city does not have control over.

And there are simply things that the city is not able to negotiate or tell the district what to do.

And there are simply things that we are not able to suggest that they do.

So as mentioned earlier, the EIR always contemplated a school up to 900 students.

So the language that was a little more vague at the time, we have discovered why it was vague, and it's because the city is unable to require the district to have a school of a certain size and um have it look a certain way.

So there's a lot of things that over the last several years and during this negotiation that legally we have been able to just kind of see through a different lens um with where we're at now.

So I know that both parties negotiated considerably in good faith over many, many months over this.

Um for certain safety considerations, which also was contemplated even back in 2019.

So that hasn't changed.

So maybe perhaps the assistant city manager could speak very briefly about um the layout of this and the fact that the city would work um very closely with the school district on these sort of um safety considerations and traffic um just as we would with any of the schools in our area.

Um so maybe you could speak to that briefly for the benefit of um council and the public.

So in the council report, there is the EIR's site map, um, which shows um uh at a very rudimentary level the um circulation pattern.

Um that is still something that the school district is designing just last night.

They presented um a more um detailed set of schematics for the site again um making it the uh uh specifying the TK through eight and six hundred and seven uh students um and that process is still ahead of us to really um is part of the master planning conversations that will continue to look at the circulation on the site, the safety for bike and ped.

Also I'd like to say that the the Walmart um ingress egress will be completely separate from the school.

That's something that they discussed at their school board meeting last night, so there won't be any connection between those two properties.

Um and so the kinds of things that um are of concern around circulation will be very appropriate for the staff to continue to discuss with the the school district in the master planning process.

Okay, great, thank you.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh this was supposed to be the easy fast item.

Um so uh I appreciate uh the city manager's comments earlier.

I I had um attempted and failed to uh share with my inaugural questions why we're sort of at the point where we are.

Um we don't we're not the land use authority that that can provide a permit to the school, right?

So uh if the school is built and they want to do something different uh than what is contemplated in the agreement, there's not a whole heck of a lot we can do, right?

As soon as the school district acquired the property, um the district has has greater basically has the the the ability to determine its own fate and destiny, right there's there's not a lot we can do at this point um if uh we if the city really wanted to uh implement some meaningful controls maybe there there should have been a different set of parameters over the the distribution of funds early on but we're well beyond that point um and so I think the agreement uh the proposed agreement that um the staffs of of each of our agencies have have worked on is I think a the best outcome that we can reasonably expect.

So I'm I'm um I'll make the motion just because I'm terming out and um it's easier for me to do this than maybe for other members of the council.

But I I really do I I do think I'm I'm grateful for our staff I'm grateful for LESD staff um to uh and for the trustees for approving the the agreement last night for for uh working in good faith and and coming to as as good of an agreement as we can realistically expect at this point it may not provide uh for the the desired outcomes that were contemplated by the council and gosh was it 2016 or thereabouts 2018 I can't remember exactly when um uh but uh there are new uh or or different factors and and um uh I think there's a a better understanding of the regulatory framework uh that makes it hard for us to enforce certain provisions um so that's I think that's perhaps not what um some of our residents would like to hear but um it's it's the best we can do and there really isn't um a lot of uh opportunity for us to perhaps remedy some of the some of the errors of the past if you want to characterize it that way um so I'm happy to move the staff uh recommendation I don't see any language here to read um but uh I'm happy to just the staff recommendation okay I'm happy to move that um but um I do want to encourage my my colleagues to uh to think about um if if we're not comfortable with this agreement then really what is it that we're hoping to achieve?

What would reopening the the negotiations what what could it reasonably conclude because it will not result in a neighborhood school with a very limited enrollment those are things that we cannot control as we understand you know based on the the work that's been done over the past several months.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you Mayor so I I really struggled with with this uh uh thing largely because first I thought like we didn't really have a choice we we we had our negotiations they passed their thing last night and so at first I was like okay it it as as council member Ramirez said uh this was supposed to be the easy item of the night um because what we had as our choice is kind of gone um the the alternative is is pretty much to light our relationship on fire and sometimes sometimes I think about it as a possibility um and then I think about um the sleepless nights our city manager will base after that um but I it is hard to ignore what our residents have been asking us for it is it it's really difficult to ignore and I kind of wish that the school district did something more about it.

It's clear that we don't have that land use authority.

It's clear that we can't compel them to do the things that we initially put in in our thing.

So our only option is to walk away or accept what we got.

And it's not entirely bad but it's not exactly what we want.

And so that's that is where the the struggle is um the re pardon me.

Some sometimes I do uh I I do fantasize about actually just lighting it on fire and and be done with it.

Um but I I wish that the conversation can can continue.

I think that's we're we are very hearing very clearly from our residents um the concerns about this.

Our residents are their residents in their school district as well.

And so I'm hoping that that is is taken to consideration.

So hoping to not light things on fire.

Um and try to find a way to make everyone happy, even though it's it's slightly dissatisfying.

So I'll continue my tradition of saying unpopular things uh um uh tonight.

Look, I I was here um in a very different time when the enrollment projections were very high.

Um uh a tenth site, there was a selection committee, the school district chose a site, a bond was passed.

Um we wanted to um be part of the conversation um because we felt that there were a lot of um, even though we weren't the ones who selected the site um and and went through the whole process, we felt that there were possible advantages um to Mountain View from a public park to shared facilities to being able to possibly have a community-serving neighborhood school, um, and you know, through a lot of tough negotiations, we came up with the agreement that we came up with.

Um since then, as much as I don't like it, things have changed.

There was a pandemic, there was the enrollment projections have not come to pass, um, but LASD has chosen to move forward with the with the site.

Um at different different um uh population levels or or or school enrollment um levels than we previously thought and um some things changed um outside of that, including the the development environment and GDR environment.

And so um we uh began we went down this path to try and find a path forward in good faith, both parties negotiating in good faith.

Um I frankly don't think that either agency here is 100% satisfied with the agreement that was reached, but that is how negotiations work.

And um, and so what we're left with tonight is to find a path forward that works um as best as possible um for for both parties uh with neither party getting everything that they want.

Um I think both parties recognizing what the limits of their authority are around some of these areas, and I think it's important that we respect the negotiation process that went that went forward and do I like all the provisions?

No.

Um I don't think many of us do.

But at the end of the day, the alternative is not just to go back and with an unlimited timeline and meet and confer um the the alternative is to uh essentially end up in a world where there is an enormous amount of uncertainty and the world that we were in pre-2019 when there was also an enormous amount of certainty um persists, you know, seven, ten years later, and I don't think that is good for anyone.

I don't like spending taxpayer money on litigation and lawsuits, um, especially when two parties have met and conferred in good faith.

So um does it hurt to support this?

Sure.

Is it the right thing in my mind to do?

Yes, and that is that is why that is why I will second the motion.

Thanks.

So I see um council member showalter in the queue, but I'd love to jump into the conversation before we go for another round.

Um kind of given the the conversation, um just a question to staff.

So, should this get enough votes to go forward?

Do you feel that there's a possibility to provide some of the feedback and um have ongoing conversations about how both the the city and the school district can work to help facilitate some of the concerns that are still out there for for residents and then the community?

Do you think that that would be?

But could there be some conversations about maybe educating and maybe it would have been great to hear tonight, for example, just what they're doing to incorporate the community or the the thought process might be there or the outreach that aligns with our community for all vision.

I think just some more opportunity to have that proactive communication, or um, I know we've been doing improvements along California.

I know we're doing improvements along, you know, Paquetti, that whole that whole area.

Um this came up, I think when we were discussing it a couple months ago, and just kind of the working with the current property owner of that site on just kind of being able to walk through the site in a safer way.

I remember bringing that up then.

So maybe those things that are still lingering, do you think that there's an opportunity to have that conversation?

Absolutely, as it relates to things like outreach and circulation, um, and you know, how both the city and the school district can be good partners to that location being uh an asset for the community.

Um I think as it relates to school size and neighborhood serving, I don't think there's any degree to which further conversation on that would change that outcome.

I think I guess to another question on that, the it seems like you know, 2019 the school district brought one thing.

We're in 2025, they think another by the time they're ready to move forward, things may have changed again.

I mean, if I if I were to you know surmise anything, that would be the thing that I would bring forward.

So I'm also trying to take a step back and think things may change.

Um it's it's a it seems a bit flu a fluid situation.

I think the the other thing we talked about this on the prior prior item is just the flexibility in terms of getting continual feedback from from residents, particularly in that area.

I don't know if we can ask or you think that they might be willing to continue to hear from our residents and their concerns.

Yeah, our share, our I would call it shared concerns.

Yeah, that's a really great point because I don't think we've really heard from residents in that area.

I mean, we've we've heard from from people who have concerns, but but I don't think we've really heard from residents in that area.

Okay.

All right.

So um I'll just thank you.

Uh so I'll wrap up.

I think that um there, should this go forward?

I think there's some room to to grow our relationship with the school district.

I think there's opportunity for they had the task force, right?

I think you served on it, the advisory.

What was oh, Margaret, it was like what was it, advisory commission?

You know, maybe that we can make sure that we're having that kind of outreach as this goes forward when the time comes when the decision is made.

I don't know.

I think having um residents be able to feel like there's a they have a voice and to understand that council's hands are, you know, we're not the property owner anymore.

Um that there is a vehicle and a and a place to have that conversation is important to me.

Um, should this go forward?

I think also um making sure that all of our residents, and that includes our our youngest members, our students, feel like they're wanted in all of our schools is very important to me.

Um, and so being able to continue to to weave that message and put that out there, I think that was what was so promising.

I think um to Councilmember Show Walters's comments on a community serving neighborhood serving school.

Um, and now that that may change, I mean, maybe it'll change back.

I don't know.

I I'll cross my fingers for that.

Um, that we'd want students in the area to feel like they could go if go to that school if if possible.

Um I know that there's it's quite complicated.

So um and then being able to to share and coordinate on the road improvements will be uh important too.

All right, Councilmember Schalter.

Well, I appreciate everybody's comments, but um I I do think that uh as the you know, as the leaders of this community, um, there are a lot of things we need to consider besides just money, and um I do think that these neighborhood and social considerations are are really quite vital, and um so I I I but at the same time I recognize that we actually do have a very good relationship with the Los Alta school district, which is great.

So I hope that continues, and I for one would like to see another round or two of negotiations before this was passed.

So I'm not gonna be supporting it tonight, but I don't think, you know, there's I don't think that not voting this for this tonight is equivalent to a fire.

That's I think that's a um, you know, that's an exaggeration.

Uh when you're in negotiations with people, you never really know that you're in the end until everything gets signed.

There it's it's just always possible you're going to have another round.

And um I uh I think that I for one think we need another round or two.

But um, you know, we all get a vote.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hicks.

So with my previous question, I was trying to get I was trying to trigger an answer that but I was maybe unclear that we had how far we'd walked down this road already, that we're not at the beginning when we can evaluate and talk about a neighborhood school.

I don't think we're gonna get a neighborhood school.

I think we've I think that ship has sailed.

Um, and to some degree, if we'd researched it a little more in the beginning, we would know that we didn't have the clout to get that.

Um, that said, um I we're talking about, you know, when we we just heard from the Los Altos school district that one of the reasons they want flexibility is that it's a 99-year lease.

Well, there's a lot of years between now and 99 years.

I'm wondering if there's some way to have an agreement, um, like I think a lot you can tell me that I'm wrong, but I think a lot of us don't really uh know or care whether it's a 900 person school 99 years from now.

Things may be very different, maybe every building in Mountain View will be 20 stories high.

I don't know.

But um, but I wonder if there's a way of negoti going back.

I I hope that uh folks from the Los Altos School District have heard tonight how this what we've come to so far in this negotiation is very far from what people wanted in the beginning and very far from what the neighborhood thought they were promised, even though things have changed.

And maybe there's some way of having an agreement where over the next 15 years it doesn't go over a certain size.

Are there other things that can be, you know, is this really the end?

Is this really the end of what negotiations I mean we have discretion tonight?

So I don't know if it's this sort of litigation or if it's another meeting of minds and seeing that the community and the council wanted it to be um wanted if you know, wanted a few more things from this.

So um, yeah, that's my statement or question.

City attorney loak.

So I think I want to try to put some perspective on all of this and and how we got here.

You know, if you remember, there's two agreements here.

There's a the joint use agreement, and then there's the TDR MOU.

And part of the problem that we had is that we have developers who have agreements and are entering into agreements with the school district and paying TDR funds, and these two agreements are kind of tied together, you know, they walk hand in hand, and the 99 years, it's it's not a lease, it's a 99 years um agreement that's going to give us joint use of their property for 99 years, um, and so the other thing is they do own the property already, and backing out now or or not moving forward now leaves us with a joint use agreement that is expired because that that term, you know, is there or there was we didn't meet there were goals that weren't met in that agreement and created allegations of breach and sort of left us in this uncertain place, and I think staying in that uncertain place, and we did do a lot of negotiating.

We did work in good faith to come to a middle ground, and we don't have control over the kind of school that they can build there.

Even if this whole thing blew up, they still own the property and they can still build, and if we move forward with what we have now, we're in a middle place.

We're in a place where we're getting something, they're getting something, and we're not left with a TDR MOU that um it's gonna be very difficult to manage if we don't have a joint use agreement, right?

That they're gonna still potentially be entering into agreements and money's gonna be coming in, and it's gonna be unclear where that money's going to and whether or not we could even ever get it back in the end, you know, if if this whole thing blew up.

So I just wanted to remind council that that TDR MOU was a huge motivation in trying to really come to a meeting of the minds and and come to a middle ground with the school district so that we could move forward.

Thank you.

Well, um, not seeing any others in the queue.

I will, there's a motion, and we can see how it goes, unless people would like to continue, but it's 1121.

Not sure.

Okay, all right.

Let's uh let's vote.

All right, and that passed 4-2, I believe.

All right, all right.

We will move on to um thank you.

Thank you to staff.

Thank you for um our community members who stayed with us for during this um long um conversation.

We'll move to item eight, which is council staff and committee reports.

Does anyone have any reports?

Councilmember Show Walter.

Yes, this summer I um traveled to Columbus, Ohio to attend the National League of City summer meeting.

Um the primary reason was to go to the Energy Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee.

Um, as you've heard me say many times, we um we put together policies that uh resolutions that that the NLC will advocate for and will ask member agencies to advocate for.

And of course, this year there's just been a um kind of a war against um the idea of climate change and um protecting against climate change.

So it it really kind of hit at the heart of um of our resolutions.

So there's been a great deal of discussion about changing um some of the uh language so that the outcomes are the same, but perhaps the language isn't quite as um argumentative to uh the uh MAGA side as um as it it is now um and one of the translations I would share with you is that instead of talking about um climate resilience as climate resilience, we talk about it as something that leads to public safety because um you know if people are burning up, that's not safe, right?

So um it's uh you know it's it's um it's not untrue, but it is uh it's it's it's uh it's different.

Anyway, one of the things I've been working on, and I want to thank the staff here for helping me a little bit, and um, is a uh resolution to request that the federal government continue to fund the expertise of the people who keep us informed about weather data that's used for extreme weather events and um and also the um to keep those uh those agencies going to keep those people employed and to keep um keep uh us Americans informed about uh disasters that could be coming our way so that we can um protect ourselves against them as much as possible.

So I wanted to share that with you, and I went to a Basca meeting, um, I went to a Silicon Valley Clean Energy meeting or two, and one of the things I want to share is that um everybody's going to be getting every every um household is gonna be getting a 40 dollar credit um this month uh uh because we we uh we made a little more profit this year than when he anticipated, and as a community-based organization, we feel that it's appropriate for us to share that money back with um you know with our um our customers and thank you very much.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, since we didn't have an item eight equivalent in our last meeting, I uh do have an obligation to disclose that um I've attended the summer uh mayor's innovation project using or benefiting from um uh public funds.

I forgot the council policy that requires that.

My apologies, but um the uh the summer MIP took place in early August and uh the mayor uh attended as well.

Uh and I found the program uh as usual very uh valuable.

Um a lot of discussion about uh ways the local governments can um uh can build resilience and and uh fight back against some of the um egregious actions taken by the federal government.

Um there was a great um panel presentation about um uh climate change and and um heat specifically, building resilience uh to address um extreme uh heat events, um and there were uh like several others that I can't recall because it was a month ago already.

Um but um it was a a great series of presentations and um it was uh grateful to be able to go.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

All right, so um given the time, I'll just like disclose what I need to today, which is that I also attend the mayor's innovation project summer meeting from July 31st to August 1st.

I attended the API Lead Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, which was in conjunction with Naleo, the National Association of Latino elected and appointed officials.

Um that was just happening at the same time, um July 22nd through the 24th.

Really quickly, just so folks know, we had our first Moffat quarterly meeting uh July 29th, and Mountain View will be hosting the next quarterly meeting, I think November, and then the 129th rescue wing on August 2nd had a 5K run and open house in a community event, and they're celebrating 50 years in our city.

So I just wanted to share that.

Okay.

So seeing um no others in the queue.

I know it's late hour, but I I find it very important for nine for our adjournment.

I wanna adjourn tonight's meeting in honor of our friend and former Cubertino City Councilmember Hung Wei.

Our thoughts are with her family and her loved ones.

For myself, I had the pleasure of serving with Hung on the Cities Association of Santa Clara County on the Lee of California Cities Peninsula Division.

And she uh was uh very present in our in our community and uh Cupertino um school board member um prior to that and um what really catapulted her into um public service is um the loss of her daughter um and that's what um spurred her into education particularly youth wellness and then that led to council and so um just really want to say that what I learn from her I think about all the time and we talk about particularly Mountain View, we're very fortunate to have is um you may have different perspectives, but everyone um deserves an opinion and respect and um that that doesn't mean you can't get along on many other issues and other topics and so I think given this current climate it's really important so just want to take a moment uh to remember her.

I don't know if any other council members want to say anything about Hung, but Councilmember Hicks.

Yeah, thank you for closing in honor of Hung Wei.

I was actually mayor at the same time that she was, and she started a meeting of four cities.

It was uh Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and ourselves, um, because she thought we had a lot more in common than some of the other cities they were caucusing with, which I will not mention.

Um, and so it was really a pleasure to get to know her in small meetings and talk about a lot of things, housing development, a lot of things she wanted to learn from us and share and transportation, and I did start phoning her af as kind of a thought partner after she was um, you know, both of us were no longer mayor, and she did not call me back, and that's when I found out she wasn't out.

So um, yeah, thank you for closing in her honor.

Okay, thank you, Councilmember Shallter.

Yeah, I would also like to add that she was really um a proponent of government civility, and um uh she had funny anecdotes to share about when it didn't work and and also things to share about how valuable it was when it did.

And um, I uh I um I will miss her.

Thank you.

All right, thank you everyone.

Um, the next council meeting will be held on September 23rd, 2025.

This meeting is adjourned at 11 30.

Good night.