If everyone can take their seats, it is that time.

Great.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

Good evening, and thank you for joining our city council meeting of May 11th, 2026.

Tonight is Housing Night, our very first one, where we'll be focused on housing related initiatives and opportunities aimed at strengthening and expanding housing access for our community.

We hold meetings in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation available.

The city welcomes public comment on topics within these city's subject matter jurisdiction, and members of the public may provide comments as follows.

Speaker cards are located at the back table in the council chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk here at the day's.

To call the rule.

Good evening.

Council Member Chu.

Here.

Councilmember G.

Present.

Councilmember Howard.

Here.

Councilmember Padilla.

Present.

Councilmember Stricken.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Here, Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

And we'll move on to Pledge of Allegiance.

And Councilmember Howard, could you lead us, please?

Thank you.

Please join me in honoring our flag and our country.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the public for which it stands.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And all of our council members are participating in person today, so we will skip item four and move to item five.

And it is our presentations and acknowledgments for the evening.

Our first recognition this evening and in alignment with tonight's housing night theme, we're proud to recognize May 2026 as Affordable Housing Month.

A time dedicated to raising awareness, inspiring action, and advancing initiatives that promote housing stability, equity, and accessibility.

Housing remains one of the city's highest priorities, and through our collective efforts, we're committed to addressing the diverse housing needs of our community and our community members across all income levels.

This important work would not be possible without the collaboration and dedication of our valued housing partners.

And tonight's proclamation reflects our deep appreciation for those ongoing partnerships.

And I'll read a few excerpts of the proclamation.

Whereas access to safe, stable, and affordable housing is fundamental to the health, well-being, and economic vitality of individuals, families, and the broader community.

And whereas the rising cost of housing continues to present significant challenges for many residents in Redwood City and throughout San Mateo County, impacting workers, seniors, families, and vulnerable populations.

And whereas Affordable Housing Month serves as an opportunity to raise awareness, foster collaboration, and promote solutions that ensure equitable access to housing for all members of our community.

And whereas the City of Redwood City partners with several affordable housing agencies that demonstrate a steadfast commitment to advancing affordable housing through advocacy and innovative programming, and support residents in achieving housing stability and self-sufficiency.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Elmer Martina Sabayos, the mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as affordable housing month and do encourage all residents and community organizations to join in supporting efforts that promote housing equity, stability, and opportunity for all.

Be it further resolved that the city proudly recognizes and commends the its valued housing partners for their dedication, leadership, and meaningful impacts to the community.

And it's my honor to welcome the following organizations to the floor to accept the proclamation and take a photo with the city council.

We have housing partners from Eden Housing.

We have folks from First Community Housing, Habitat for Humanity, Hearts, Hip Housing, Housing Choices, the Housing Leadership Council, Mental Health Association, Midpen, and Sand Hill.

And so please, if you are representing one of those agencies, come on down and we've got plenty of proclamations to share.

We'll take a quick photo.

Great.

Thank you again to our housing partners for being here and all the great work you do for our community.

Our next proclamation commemorates an exciting moment on the horizon for the Bay Area.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 is coming.

In the months ahead, our communities will come alive with fans from around the world gathering to celebrate the global game of soccer.

To kick off the festivities, the city will host a ceremonial flag raising at Courthouse Square tomorrow, May 12th at 1230, to commemorate 30 days to kick off.

And we hope you'll join us, maybe take your lunch at a strategic hour.

And I'll read a few excerpts from the proclamation.

Whereas the FIFA World Cup twenty-six will bring together nations, cultures, and communities from around the world in a global celebration of sport, unity, and international friendship, coinciding with our nation's 250th anniversary.

And whereas the City of Redwood City values opportunities that foster community pride, cultural exchange, economic vitality, and regional collaboration.

And whereas soccer plays an important role in bringing together Redwood City residents of all backgrounds and generations, including the many local youth who participate in recreational and community soccer programs.

And whereas the City Council recognizes that the FIFA World Cup represents more than an athletic competition, serving as an opportunity to celebrate diversity, inclusion, and the unifying unifying power of sport across cultures and generations.

Since we have six games at Levi's Stadium.

Thank you all again.

We're really excited about the flag raising tomorrow at twelve thirty.

And I'd like to also quickly announce that in May we celebrate National Tennis Month in annual recognition to promote the sport, encourage participation, and highlight its health benefits with the United States Tennis Association or USTA, sponsoring activities throughout the month.

And finally, it's also important to recognize that it is Mental Health Awareness Month and acknowledge annually in May, it's acknowledged, excuse me, annually in May to fight the stigma, provide support and educate the public on the importance of mental health.

This year's theme is more good ga more good days together, focusing on community connection and accessible support.

830 856.

But commentarios publics, por favor notifica l'interprete através de la linea.

Gracias.

Thank you, Gonzalo.

And with that, I'll now turn it over to our city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we have two in-person speakers, and we have one raised hand on Zoom.

So last call to either in-person or zoom speakers to be acknowledged for public comment.

As the mayor said, uh, once we begin public comment, we won't be adding to the list of speakers at that point.

And for folks who haven't given public comment before, there is a timer on the top of the podium.

There's three lights.

The orange blinking light is a 30 second warning, and the red light with the beep means your time is up.

And the timer will begin as soon as you start speaking.

So with that, we'll close the speakers list.

We'll begin with Evelyn Weaver, who will be followed by Raksheet Mandayam, who have joined us in person.

Welcome, Evelyn.

Hello, guys.

Hello, my name can you guys hear me?

Okay, great.

Hello, my name is Evelyn Weaver, and I am a seventh grader at Kennedy Middle School.

Today I am joined by two of my fellow seventh graders who are also my classmates since kindergarten, Leo Neighbor and Oliver Pond.

And I'm also joined by their younger brothers who are both fifth graders at Orion, Auto Neighbor, and Julia Pond.

And then one of their and then Lior's younger sister, Louisa Neighbor.

Since kindergarten, I have been biking to school, and since I was in sixth grade, my family has led a small bike bus with the two seventh graders who are here to go to Kennedy Middle School.

We are here to thank Redwood City for the growing number of bike safety features.

Most notably for me, these are the speed bumps on Hopkins and Hudson.

And although I don't use these ones very often, I have heard many positive things about the bike lines on El Camino Real and Middlefield Road.

In addition to this, I would like to thank the city for the work that has not yet started all started on Jefferson near Orion School.

And although I will never be able to use this crossing spot on my commute to school, Julius does live somewhere where he will.

Twice I've seen wires been put up to potentially put in a stop sign, and twice there has not been for enough cars enough cars to do that.

Now I would like to ask again for this to happen.

If you could wrap up your thoughts, also can I also a stop sign at middle at where the new senior center is, due to the growing amount of cars that will be passing through there.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Evelyn, and thank you to your classmates for attending.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

Okay, our next speaker is Rakshit Mandayam.

And we'll move then to our Zoom speakers.

Welcome.

Hello, can you hear me?

Okay.

This is my first time.

So really I I wanted to talk about the entertainment zone.

I support creating an entertainment zone in the downtown area.

I really have more of a question than anything, so I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I just wanted to know two things.

What are the hours of how are the hours of operation being determined?

And what is the process to ensure that there's like a review every two years, which I think has to be done by law.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rakshi, and we'll have staff answer those questions a little later.

Thank you.

Okay, we will turn now to our Zoom speakers, and we have one.

Mark Ho.

Go ahead and unmute yourself and begin speaking.

Welcome.

Hi, all I hope you and at this time, uh thank you for all taking the time to listen to our comments.

One of the issues I have is about three years ago, I live at 923 Stambaugh at the corner of Stambaugh and Spruce.

My house was burned down by homeless encampment that's been that was under the bridge for 10 15 years before that.

I'm not the person that likes to complain about things.

I let bygones be bygones, but when they burned down my house, I lost about $600,000 in value.

That was out of my pocket.

So as of today, in the last year or so, another encampment has grown on the corner of Spruce and Stambaugh.

There's a GMC, Acadia Silver that's been there for about a year, and that has now fallen another friend that's there in a GMC uh in a Honda Civic, and they live in their cars sleeping there nightly.

They have grills, they have their electric bikes, they work on their motorcycles outside of that my house.

I've called the police, I've called vehicle abandonment, I have them moved every seventy-two hours.

And in those situations, when they move, they move one parking spot over.

Vehicle abandonment does not support my issues here.

I'm really concerned that my house is going to burn down again.

My kids are going to be dealing with drug paraphernalia on the floor again.

I'd like to get some help here.

I've called the police, I've called a vehicle abandonment.

I don't have a solution.

If someone can help me, help um clear this area out, because it is my house.

My property values are damaged.

My kids are concerned, my neighbors are worried, but there's nothing that anybody has done.

Any help?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

And thank you, Mark, for that public comment.

We'll ask that staff connects with you after public comment is ended.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment, Mayor.

Great.

Thank you again to everyone who made public comment in person and virtually this evening.

That was our public comments on all items that's uh on consent, not on consent.

Um, so we will move on to item seven, the consent calendar.

Items on consent are routine in nature and are approved by one motion.

Are there any items on consent from which council members are recused?

Not seeing any.

Are there any items that council members would like to pull for discussion?

Not seeing any either.

Is there a motion?

Councilmember Howard?

So moved.

And is there a second?

I'll second.

Thank you.

That was a motion from Councilmember Howard and a second from Councilmember Sturkin.

Could we get a electronic vote, please?

Motion passes unanimously, all right.

So thank you, everybody.

We will now move on from consent to our public hearings.

And before we begin our housing focused items for tonight, I'd like to turn it over to our city manager, Patrick Heisinger for some remarks.

Great.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Um, in the spirit of housing night, I just want to say a few words before we before we jump in here.

Um we have a very unique thing here in Redwood City where we have a super devoted uh housing group.

Small but mighty group, uh, of four full-time um employees.

And so before um they jump into their items and I just wanted to give them a special shout out.

In addition to the four employees in questions, um, housing is one of those things that transcends across the organization.

So um all departments, because it's one of the three primary goals of the city council, um, really help push the the you know, housing uh goal for the city.

But with that, I did want to just highlight uh a few folks.

So you're gonna hear uh each of the members of the housing team present tonight, so you get to you know get reacquainted with them.

But um, really quick, our housing team is led by our housing leadership, Alin Lancaster.

For those who may not know, Elain, when I first came to Redwood City, was my boss.

Best boss I ever had.

You know, she's tough, stern but fair.

Really appreciate it.

Um then we have Victor Gaitan, uh management analyst.

Um, Lee uh Lee Macalino.

Hope I got that right, uh housing analyst, and then Medea Hawk, who is our housing and economic development specialist.

Um, in addition to that, our city attorney's office, led by Veronica Ramirez, really provides a lot of legal analysis on all things housing, and we really appreciate it.

Housing's complicated.

There's land use elements, there's legal elements, there's other policy work, you know, there's just a lot that goes into it.

Um, but Lolita Fernandez is is the deputy city attorney primarily assigned to housing.

So with that, put a little slide together.

Thank you, Jessica, just to kind of show the folks.

But this group of individuals really produces a lot of work in the city.

So all new all new housing developments, all new all new loans, all the policy work you'll see tonight.

So before we got into it, I just want to say thank you to you all and um we look forward to engaging on these topics.

Thank you.

Thank you, Patrick.

With that, our first public hearing is on the proposed tenant protection ordinance, administrative regulations, and fair rate of return appeal guidelines, as well as adoption of the relocation assistance administrative fee and fair rate of return appeal fees.

And we have our housing leadership manager, Olin Lancaster, who will introduce the item and housing management analyst Victor Gayton, who will give the presentation.

Welcome both.

Uh thank you, and uh thank you for the nice introduction, Patrick.

That was a pleasant surprise.

Was not expecting to see my photo up there.

Um, just to reiterate, I'm a Lynn Lancaster housing leadership manager, um, and really excited to be before the city council for housing night and in recognition of Affordable Housing Month.

And I just also want to reiterate and the thanks that Patrick gave to the housing division.

Um, I could not do any of this without my amazing team, and also special thanks to Lolita Fernandez, our deputy city attorney, who also makes all things possible for us.

So really appreciate this team, um, and being able to present all these amazing housing housing items before you.

Um, so for the tenant protection ordinance item tonight, we are also joined um by Project Sentinel.

We have Asenia Masias with us as well on Zoom.

Um Lolita is also here again to help with questions.

Um I will be doing the first couple of slides and then turn it over to Victor to finish the presentation.

Um, okay.

So for tonight's presentation, we will review the questions for city council.

I'll give some background and timeline information on our city tenant protection ordinance.

And following that, Victor will review the administrative regulations, the fair rate of return appeal guidelines, um, the public comment that we did receive, um, and then lastly, we'll go over the fees associated with the tenant protection ordinance.

Uh, and so for the questions for city council tonight to consider are does the city council have any questions regarding the administrative regulations?

Do you have any questions regarding the fair rate of return appeal guidelines?

And do you have any questions related to either the relocation assistance administrative fee or the fair rate of return appeal fee?

Sorry about that.

Okay.

Um so just to give a little bit of background and kind of the timeline of how we got to this evening.

Back in 2018, the city adopted a minimum lease terms ordinance and a relocation assistance ordinance.

Um, and then that following year in 2019, the state adopted the Tenant Protection Act, which is known as TPA, and you'll probably hear us referring to as TPA uh throughout the presentation.

The TPA does include rent stabilization, just cause eviction protections, and relocation assistance.

Um, when this was adopted, though, this preempted our city's local relocation assistance ordinance, which did provide greater relocation benefits to lower income tenants, as well as special circumstance tenants.

Um, and this did make our ordinance unenforceable.

In 2022, the city council approved the anti-displacement strategy, which looked at how the city could improve tenant protections, preserve existing housing laws, or housing that was affordable, excuse me, and preserve our mobile home parks.

One of the key recommendations from the anti-displacement strategy was to adopt a comprehensive tenant protection ordinance that would make updates to our existing minimum lease terms, adjust cause eviction protections consistent with state law, which in turn would make our relocation assistance ordinance requirements enforceable once again.

So this past fall in 2025, the city council adopted the tenant protection ordinance, which we will refer to as TPO throughout the presentation.

And this does include minimum lease term requirements, just cause for eviction protections, a right to return following substantial remodels, relocation assistance, and relocation assistance requirements.

And the ordinance did go into effect on January 1st of 2026.

And just to kind of highlight some of the key differences between state law or TPA and the city's uh tenant protection ordinance.

We do have this summary chart that I'll walk through.

So the left-hand side are the state requirements in blue, and on the right hand side in green are the city's requirements.

State law requires rent stabilization, whereas our city ordinance does not.

However, landlords still must comply with the state law, and this uh sets rent caps um at 5% plus the change in the consumer price index or CPI, or 10%, whatever, whichever is lower.

State law does not require a minimum lease terms, but the city's ordinance does, and as I noted, this has been in effect since 2018.

Both the city and state law requires just cause eviction protections and includes sustainable uh substantially the same at-fault and no-fault uh just cause eviction types.

State law does not require a right to return following the completion of a substantial remodel.

Um the city's ordinance does require this at the same rental rate, plus any increases that would have been allowed under the state law had the tenant continuously occupied the unit.

However, landlords may appeal for a higher rent increase, and this appeal process would follow the proposed fair rate of return guidelines that are before the city council this evening.

Finally, for relocation assistance, both the city and state require landlords to pay one month rent or waive the last last month's rent for any no-fault terminations.

However, if a tenant qualifies as low income or special circumstance, they can receive greater relocation benefits under the city's ordinance.

And with that, I will turn it over to Victor to finish the presentation.

Good evening, mayor and members of the council.

As mentioned, my name is Victoria Aiton, and I'll be running through the rest of the presentation.

So, starting with our implementation update, uh it's been a couple months since this went into effect, and since the TPO was adopted, the city has conducted a series of outreach and education efforts, including uh three in-person and three online community workshops.

All of these were in English with Spanish interpretation.

Uh, and then we have also conducted four trainings for city staff.

Uh, the city has also sent out several direct mailers, emails, uh, and social media posts to ensure our residents are well informed of all these new requirements.

As of April 15th of this year, the city has received six uh no fault termination notices.

Uh, those are submitted to the city as required by the ordinance.

Um, and we process and approved two relocation assistance applications and fielded 26 inquiries.

Those are calls, emails, and in-person inquiries that we've received from tenants and landlords.

Throughout implementation, the city has also regularly referred tenants and landlords to Project Sentinel for assistance.

Um, and then an attachment to the staff port includes a detailed overview of all of the implementation data mentioned and much more.

And as Lynn mentioned, we do have a Senior Messias, the director of Project Sentinels' uh dispute resolution program online for any questions you all have for Project Sentinel leader.

The TPO, and I'll be referring to the tenant protection ordinance as TPO, specifies that the city manager may promulgate regulations implementing the provisions of the TPO and adopt guidelines for determining the fair rate of return appeals process.

Based on feedback received from the public and the city council during the adoption of the TPO, the initial versions of the regulations and guidelines are being brought to the city council for review and confirmation.

We do want to note that the city manager has the authority to adopt regulations and guidelines and approve any future updates to the regulations and guidelines.

And we also want to note that confirmation of these regulations and guidelines does not amend the TPO, and any changes to the TPO would require an ordinance amendment.

So for the TPO administrative regulations, these were created to provide greater detail on specific procedures, processes, and requirements for the TPO, detail that's not included in the ordinance itself.

This includes greater detail on noticing requirements, timelines, and submittal procedures, the no fault just cause requirements and process, including the right to return requirement, the relocation assistance requirements and process, including relocation assistance applications and landlord requirements.

And in addition to the development of the regulations, the city also procured software to assist with the implementation of the TPO.

The software will broadly assist with receiving required notices for no fault terminations, processing tenant relocation assistance applications, and tracking data related to the TPO.

This software will simplify and standardize the process for both tenants and landlords.

And software implementation has started.

We're currently working with the provider and we're expected to go live in summer of 2026.

Now moving on to the fair rate of return appeal guidelines.

As a reminder, under the TPO, landlords are required to offer tenants the right to return upon completing a substantial remodel and offer the unit at the same rent plus any increases allowed by state law.

Landlords may file an appeal with the city requesting a higher rent increase if the right to return requirements would cause the landlord to be unable to obtain a fair rate of return.

The TPO itself, as mentioned, includes general information about a landlord's right to appeal and some associated timelines, but lacks the specifics on how to apply the required documentation and the methodology that will be used in determining a fair rate of return.

So to assist in processing fair rate of return appeals in an objective and transparent manner, staff has developed the fair rate of return appeal guidelines.

Now the city's proposed process compares the rent a landlord could charge under the city's right to return requirements with the rent needed to justify the cost of the substantial remodel they undertook.

This proposed process consists of the following steps you'll see on the screen.

First, the right to return rent is calculated, which is the rent at the time the tenancy was terminated, plus any increases allowed by the TPA had the tenancy continue continuously had the tenant continuously occupied the rental unit, and that's the requirement that's in the TPO.

Next, uh we calculate the baseline stabilized rent, which is the annual projected rent two years after the substantial remodel is completed, and a two-year projection was selected to allow for post-construction occupancy and expenses to stabilize, which represents a conservative standardized rent level after the market has settled following the remodel.

This also assumes minimum 5% annual increases as allowed under state law, which also employs a conservative approach in the calculation, considering that historically annual allowed increases have been higher than the 5% minimum.

Nope.

All right.

Then the substantial remodel costs, this is step three, the substantial remodel costs that could be supported by the baseline stabilized rent, are calculated.

And this is done using the average prevailing market capitalization rate or CAP rate from CBRE, which is a well-known and widely used real estate services firm.

And this is a cap rate that is specific to the San Francisco metro area.

And just to note, a cap rate is a real estate valuation metric that's used to estimate an income-producing property's potential return on income.

And lastly, for step four, we apply the feasibility test to determine whether the substantial remodel costs that could be supported by the baseline stabilized rent are higher or lower than the actual substantial remodel costs.

If the remodel costs are less, or if the if the actual remodel costs are less than the remodel costs that could be supported by the baseline stabilized rent, then no further rent increase is warranted.

But if the actual remodel costs are higher, then a higher rent increase could be granted to ensure a fair rate of return.

And then in that case, we move out would move on to step five, where the fair rate of return rent would be calculated using the same cap rate, but based on the actual cost of the substantial remodel.

So, to kind of try to visualize what that would look like, we did provide an example here.

Um to make this a bit simpler, or else it would be a lot of math on the screen.

But all of that detail is included in the guidelines.

So starting at the top, as assumptions, we have the base rent, which is the rent at the time the tenancy was terminated of $3,000, and then the substantial remodel cost of 100,000.

So first, to calculate the right to return rent, the base rent is multiplied by the annual allowable increase under the Tenant Protection Act, which Alan mentioned is known as the TPA.

And here we're using the current allowable TPA increase, which is 6.3%, which would give us a right to return rent of $3,189.

And just a note, that would be the rent that a landlord would be allowed to charge under the TPO.

Next, the right to return rent is projected out two years with 5% minimum annual increases, which gives us a baseline stabilized rent of $3,516.

Then using the cap rate, the substantial remodel costs that could be supported by the baseline stabilized rent is calculated at $71,309.

And so lastly, we apply the feasibility test.

And here the actual remodel costs of 100,000 are higher than the supported cost of 71,309.

So in this case, we would move on to step five and calculate the fair rate of return rent again using that same 5.5% cap rate and with the actual remodel cost of 100,000.

This results in a rent of a fair rate of return rent of 3,647, which is greater than the right to return rent of 3,189.

So the landlord would be allowed to use the fair rate of return rent when offering the tenant the right to return.

Now there were several factors that staff considered in developing the fair rate of return guidelines.

The first factor was comparative practice, and we looked at other jurisdictions, and what we found is that most of the jurisdictions that have rent control generally have two types of petitions in which a landlord may request a higher rent increase.

Those are maintenance of net operating income petitions and capital improvement petitions.

Maintenance of net operating income petitions require an extensive review of a property's income and operating expenses, and capital improvement petitions allow landlords to recover costs for major improvements, and costs that are costs are typically amortized over a certain schedule, sometimes 10, 15 years.

And sometimes there's a cap on how much of those costs can be amortized.

Some cities have it at 70, 50, up to a hundred percent.

Now the city's proposed fair rate of return appeals process is most similar to the capital improvement petition process, but differs from typical capital improvement petitions by employing a cap rate methodology as mentioned instead of an amortization schedule.

Amateurization schedules contemplate all types of repairs and look at the useful life of repairs, whereas the cap rate methodology provides a clear and standardized metric for measuring return on investment without having to develop and evaluate complex amortization schedules.

The intent of using this method was to streamline and simplify the appeals process.

The second factor the staff considered was wanting to develop clear, objective, and standardized criteria for determining a fair rate of return.

So, in lieu of the complex and administratively dense process used by other jurisdictions as mentioned, the city developed a standardized formula-based approach so that it would be clear to landlords how appeal determinations would be made before applying.

And the last factor that was considered was administrative burden.

While jurisdictions require full hearings for, while some jurisdictions require full hearings for appeals, the city decided to have a contracted appeal officer review the appeal application and issue a decision based on the city's formula based process.

This approach minimizes the administrative burden on staff while reducing the overall cost to landlords and the time and effort that they would need to take to attend a hearing or hearings.

But due to feedback from key stakeholders, the comment period was extended to four weeks.

Throughout the comment period, staff sent four email reminders to various city email listserves notifying residents, landlords, and key stakeholders.

And during this public comment period, the city received eight comments total.

Some comments that were received had actionable requests directly related to the regulations and guidelines.

And to address these comments, the city edited the regulations and guidelines by adding clear timelines, extending some timelines, and adding an annual reporting section to the regulations.

And a summary of the feedback received that had actual requests to the regulations and guidelines was attached to the staff report as attachment F.

And then there were also several comments that asked for changes to the TPO itself and did not provide direct feedback to the regulations and guidelines.

Since changes to the TPO are not being considered at this time, these comments were not included in the summary attachment, but full copies of all of the public comments that we received were also set attached to the staff report as attachment G.

So now we'll move on to the TPO fees.

Starting with the relocation assistance administrative fee.

As a reminder, landlords are required to pay relocation assistance to tenants when terminating a tenancy for a no-fall just cause.

Landlords are required to pay an administrative fee to cover the city's actual cost to process relocation assistance applications.

It is the general policy of the city to charge for the full cost of services provided by the city when they benefit individual users rather than members of the community as a whole.

The city previously had relocation assistance administrative fees for the prior relocation assistance ordinance, and the old ordinance relied primarily on third-party consultant to manage the complex process, and the prior fee required landlords to pay for all of those third-party consultant costs and city staff time.

Now a new fee must be adopted to ensure the city recovers the actual staff cost of processing relocation assistance applications.

And for the fair rate of return appeal fee, similarly, this the TPO allows the city to collect an administrative fee for the fair rate of return appeals.

For city services that are provided on an actual cost basis, it is a regular practice to charge a deposit-based fee.

The fair rate of return appeal process is charged on an actual cost basis, and each appeal case is unique, and the actual processing times and costs will vary.

So for these appeals, the deposit must be paid at the time landlords submit the appeal application, and then once the appeal is completed and a decision is issued, the city will calculate and determine the actual cost of processing the appeal.

If the actual cost is more than the deposit, then the city will bill the landlord for the difference between the actual costs and the deposit.

But if the actual cost is less than the deposit, then the city will refund to the landlord the difference between the deposit and the actual cost.

And here we have the proposed fees.

And under the TPO, the relocation assistance process is more streamlined and only requires city staff time as opposed to the prior process that required third party consultants.

And for the fair rate of return appeal fee, in developing this fee and the deposit amount, staff considered the hourly rate provided by the selected appeal officer and the estimated amount of time the appeal officer determined it would take to review an appeal and issue a decision as well as some staff time to review the appeal packet.

So that brings us to our staff recommendations.

Staff recommends that the City Council adopt a resolution adopting the relocation assistance administrative fee and the fair rate of return appeal fee pursuant to the city's tenant protection ordinance, and by motion confirm the tenant protection ordinance, administrative regulations, and fair rate of return appeal guidelines presented by staff and to be adopted by the city manager.

So with that, I'll leave you with the questions for city council again, and Allen Lancaster and myself will be available for any questions you all have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Victor, and thank you, Lynn, for the great presentation.

We'll now open the public hearing and I'll turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we have 11 speakers, all in person.

So last call to the audience and last call to folks on Zoom who want to give public comment on this item this evening.

Go ahead and raise your hand.

We will start with the in-person speakers.

And just a quick note we do have Spanish interpretation this evening, and I do see that a few of you have identified needing Spanish interpretation.

So if you okay.

Okay, so uh note then to our interpreter that we will not be needing interpretation for public comment this evening as they have brought their own.

Thank you very much.

Okay, I'm gonna close the speaker's list.

We have no Zoom speakers, so we will start with Denise A.

And following Denise will be Raksheet Mundiam.

Welcome.

Thank you for the time to speak on the TPO ordinance.

My name is Denise, and I'm a local property manager.

I live here in Redwood City, born and raised, and I represent local mom and pop housing providers, a landlord.

And we take great pride in our relationships with our tenants.

We rent to many Hispanic tenants, and um, other uh other um local tenants, and we've we've had tenants who have resided on our properties from 17 to 20 years.

So we have a lot of long-term tenants and relationships.

And in many cases, the owners haven't raised rents for 10 years, 12 years, and they are minimal increases.

The state rent cap is five percent plus the CPI.

So the ordinances with um Redwood City are causing a burden for our local landlords, in that I saw some of the costs that were presented earlier, and we have some repairs, replacements of sewer lines in our older buildings that cost us $50,000 this year.

And if we're charging $2400 rent for a three-bedroom, one bath, imagine we're only receiving $29,000 in rent income, and we're operating in the red, we're not going to recover those costs in a year with one-year rent.

A previous year we had a $20,000 deck repair.

Paint jobs go from seven to ten thousand and up a roof replacement, $20,000 to $30,000.

We cannot recover these high cost of repairs, the maintenance, the renovations.

I mean, if the example of a hundred thousand dollar renovation was brought up, we're operating in the red.

We're bleeding money.

So this is putting a great burden on us, and the relocation, just my last point, is I'm not clear on this.

If we have to offer the same rate, the same rent level plus the CPI or this 5% and CPI to that previous tenant.

Thank you, Denise.

That's your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And if you want to write your full comments to the city council, we'll review there.

Okay.

Can I just make that last comment?

I just okay.

Yeah.

We've got to get to everybody tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rakshit Mandayan, who will be followed by Clara Jekyll.

Rakshit, are you still in the room?

Okay, we'll move on.

Clara Jekyll, welcome.

Amelia Garibai followed by Clara Jacko.

Thank you.

Um, as a Elmer Martinez Savallos y los concepters de Redwood City.

It's unplacer que nos I can do the tempito de Staraki.

Thank you, and I believe Clara will provide the interpretation in English.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

So um in English.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez Sabayos and Council members of Redwood City.

We are grateful for the city's anti-displacement work and the progress made to ensure that our families can live in dignified stable homes and keep our roots here in the city that we love.

Yet the city's tenant protection ordinance is not sufficient to meet our families' needs, and it does not incorporate the crucial measures that we have been asking for in partnership with the city for years.

To truly address our communities' needs in this displacement and affordability crisis, we urge you to approve the measure that we have filed, the Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance.

Our measure contains what the committee has asked for over many years, and the community has once again confirmed their support of the measure through more than 7,300 signatures.

So now we ask that you pass and implement our measure as city law at the next opportunity that the council has to do so.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, I believe is Guillermina Hernandez.

Welcome.

Tienen un profundo impact in the Bienestar de Nestros Hijo y significa que luchamos constantemente para mantener a nuestra familias unidas andra communidad juntas.

Gracias.

Thank you.

I believe we have William Gomez.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is William Gomez, and I'm a community worker here in Redwood City and have been for the past nine years and offering translation in English.

So through knocking on doors, phone banking, tabling at community events, and outreach at congregations, schools, apartment buildings, and mobile parks since 2020.

We have heard our communities' experiences over and over again.

Broken windows, broken appliances, overcrowding with multiple families living doubled and tripled up in small apartments or homes.

We have multiple breadwinners in each family who are working two to exercise our rights, nowhere to enforce our rights when experiencing this harassment, intimidation or lack of repairs.

These conditions have affected our physical and mental well being and have profound impacts on the well being of our youth.

They also mean that we are consistently battling to keep our family and community intact.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lorena, who will be followed by Jack Thompson.

Muchards at all, is Lorena y soy leader de FE in action.

Durante anjos participado in sessiones de scuola de escucha in escessiones de escucha inquestas y grupos enfoque con la ciudad, comparting lo que museo for nuestra profundidad relation con la community.

Control de renta y un conjunto integral de protections para los inquilinos, con el fin de brindar major stabilidad a nuestras familias que possing el 87% del Redwood City.

Muchas gracias y buenas noches.

Thank you.

And Jack Thompson.

Good evening, my name is Jack Thompson, and I'm also with Faith in Action.

We have participated in listening sessions, surveys, and focus groups with the city for years, lifting up what we have heard through our extensive relationship building with our community.

While we appreciate the work that has been done, it does not sufficiently protect us from the harassment, intimidation, unjustified evictions, poor building conditions, lack of enforcement of our rights, and the rent increases driven by corporate landlords who own 87% of apartments in Redwood City.

For those reasons, we wrote our own ordinance based on the needs that we have heard for years and filed it as a ballot measure.

We recently turned in more than 7300 signatures for the Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance.

It includes what our community has asked for, rent control and a comprehensive set of renter protections to increase stability for our families.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Teresa Berumen, who will be followed by Jennifer Newbe.

We look forward to collaborating on implementing our ordinance.

Thank you very much for working to keep our families in our city for the long run.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Jeff Shabowski.

Uh thank you, City Council Mayor, City Leaders.

I'm a Redwood City lifetime residence.

I purchased a rental property at 1122 Whipple in 2001.

I paid 650,000 for it.

I've rented it out since inception.

The tenants are really good.

I'd never raise a rent.

I had a $20,000 flood.

The tenants weren't displaced.

I'd never raise their rent.

But at the same time, the value of that property, I'm trapped.

I'm stuck.

I need a solution here or some help.

So I would ask you to please pause or not adopt the resolution or at least exempt mom and pop small owners.

The property I paid 650 for, there's a comparable unit, which was 920,000 in 2018.

Went up for sale for 750,000 in 2004.

The price has been reduced.

It is now on the market for 503,000 with a Zillow estimate of 478.

So I'm stuck.

Can't do anything.

Love to help the tenants, but I can't afford it either.

Another case in point is my family has an apartment building.

Came and told us to repair the stucco on the side of the building.

Cost was $60,000.

We did that.

They canceled our insurance anyway.

With the help of uh Senator Josh Becker, we were able to get in touch with the insurance agent and got our uh insurance reinstated.

But at the same time, uh putting more fees on the landlord is not the not the answer.

And it may be unfair to tenants too, but I think this uh uh resolution needs to be reworked before it's implemented.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And if you raised your hand on Zoom after we started public comment, um, please go ahead and email your comments to the council.

So I'll that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica, and thank you again to everybody who made public comment this evening, who wrote in, who engaged on this process.

And we will now close the public hearing and bring it back to the full council for discussion.

Thank you for the questions there, colleagues.

We would like to get us started with any questions or thoughts.

Alright, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember G for getting us started.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm not everybody raised their hand at once.

So Elena and Vicar, thank you for presenting and putting this together.

And thank you for all that came out to speak and try to on Zoom.

So I have a series of questions.

Um hopefully, I don't know if you'll have answers for tonight, but we'll get started.

So in the policy, we're looking at cap rate versus amortization.

Can you spend a little bit more time talking about why we chose the cap rate and of the two methods?

Which one's more accurate?

Yeah, I can speak to that.

So I will preface this with, you know, our policy is unique with this right to return after substantial remodel where we see most cities that have kind of a capital improvement petition process, are cities with rent control.

Um so we are kind of you know looking at example cities but also recognizing that our policy is unique.

Um, so with cities that do a capital petition process and use an amortization schedule, they will amortize those costs over a period of time, and the landlord can increase or charge an extra rent for that amortization period.

So once that's concluded, the rent then does go back down.

Um, and so we, because we don't have rent control or a rent board, uh, we didn't feel like we had an easy way to manage a process where rents are increasing for a period of time and then decreasing and having an effective way of kind of enforcing that.

And so we did look at alternatives with the cap rate to come up with a um a way to provide a fair rate of return, but not having to have this uh decrease process down the line.

Um additionally, what we looked at for other cities with amortization schedules, you know, they have kind of extensive lists of repairs and they have varying amortization schedules for every repair.

Um for a single unit property that may be fairly straightforward to figure out on properties where you know the landlord's substantially remodeling multiple units or an entire building, it can get rather complicated.

Um so we were trying to strike a balance with a more simple process that you know a landlord could look at ahead of a time when making their investment decisions.

And the second part of my question, which one do you believe is more accurate?

Cap rate or amortization.

You know, I don't know if there's uh I realize the cap rate is looking at kind of market trends, but an amortization schedule is also kind of looking at an estimated useful life of a repair, it doesn't take into consideration maybe the specificity of that repair.

Um, the cap rate doesn't, it's flexible in the type of repairs, so landlords aren't limited to those that have a set amortization schedule.

Um, and my apologies to my colleagues, I have a series of questions, so it's gonna get kind of granular, so I beg your indulgence for a little bit here.

Um, you know, in the presentation, talk about outreach, and my perception of the policy is the property owner can come in after costs are incurred, and to file for a fair rate of return.

That seems to me kind of backwards.

I mean, if if a property owner is going to make a substantial investment, shouldn't they know ahead of time rather than spend the money first, show the receipts, make the appeal, and then take their chances with the hearing officer, either the yes they can or no they can't, and no they can't could be financially problematic, not devastating to the property owner.

So can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, I will say for the models we looked at, um, all petition processes have been after the costs have been incurred.

Um we do need a way to uh verify that you know what the landlord has said they've done has been done, and we are gonna do that through receipts.

Uh the goal here was, you know, while not perfect, having a formula and kind of all of the inputs publicly available that landlords could, you know, make informed decisions before undertaking a substantial remodel, knowing what our our methodology is, what we will be looking at.

Um that was the hope is that people will have the information before they're making those decisions.

Is the hope that a hundred percent of property owners are gonna do that analysis?

I mean that that's the intent.

We are trying to provide education to property owners, um, you know, with that process is we are there available to answer questions, you know, and walk through that process.

Um we try to make our appeal form as clear as possible about what we're needing and why we need it, and you know, if there is a landlord that is looking to do this, we are more than happy to sit and walk them through the process.

What happens to that property owner who didn't do that homework ahead of time, spends makes the investment, files for a fair rate of return, and the answer is no, you can't.

No, you can't raise your rent.

Well, we would be looking at depending on the remodel.

You know, I think it depends on what those remodel costs are.

If they are, as in the example, exceeding what we've calculated, the right to return rent can support, then they could increase those uh the rent.

I understand that part in Lynn, but I'm asking the other side of the question is you do the process.

They didn't do their homework ahead of time, they didn't meet what cities staff, they've made the investment.

Now they're filing for a fair rate of return, and the hearing officer says no, you can't after the fact.

Yeah, so if a landlord, you know, the appeals officer's decision is final, um, but there are, you know, a landlord could um, and I may speak to our city attorney to explain this process, but there is a process where you know they could um seek judicial review and file um a rate of administrative mandamus with the superior court, and I don't know if Lolita wants to explain that process right there.

Who pays for that?

Huh?

And who pays for that?

I believe the landlord would incur that cost.

And what is that order of magnitude cost?

I do not have that information at this time.

Okay.

When we talk about the costs um of a substantial renovation, is it just the hard cost, the cost of construction only, or do the soft costs are included and soft costs typically are you know an architect's fees, um, building permits, debt financing, all those other non-construction costs.

Are those eligible to be included in the cost of a substantial improvement?

We are including um just the hard costs, um, but we do allow 100 percent of hard costs.

When we have looked at other example cities, most cap the remodel costs anywhere from fifty, you know, around 50 percent, 70 percent, some do up to 100.

Uh we are also allowing landlords to include the costs of relocation assistance.

So if they paid the tenant relocation assistance, that cost does get included in the remodel costs.

But the other costs I mentioned are not eligible to be included, which typically are 20 percent to 30 percent of construction costs.

Yeah, we aren't including any debt financing or that type of thing, or architect's fees or PG<unk>E betterment or anything like that.

No, let me double check on the architecture fees, but I'm sorry.

No, that is correct.

Is there a reason?

Well, we uh when we looked at neighboring cities again, um, most when they do the capital petition process, they only include the hard costs um on the maintenance of net operating income, that is where they'll look at things like um operating costs, property tax, that type of thing, and reviewing the formulas, which are pretty detailed, and it was okay to show them if you wanted to, because I think we could all learn from it.

I couldn't tell if the appeal process including property reassessments, increased property taxes or higher insurance premiums, so is that included in the formula to calculate the FRR?

It is not.

Um as I said, typically the the maintenance of net uh operating uh income, that methodology looks at things like property tax insurance, um utilities, which again makes it a much more complex evaluation process.

When we looked at capital petition programs, they don't typically include any of those.

But how does a property owner recover those costs?

Um I mean, that's where we are looking at kind of the cap rate as a a way to look evaluate their return on investment.

But I'm trying to connect with your answer before about the cap rate versus amortization versus costs and recovery and my sense that there are gaps.

Is that a fair assessment that a property owner who's making a substantial improvement may not be able to include all costs and may not be able to include recovery of all those costs in form of rent over time?

Yes, we are including all costs.

Um I think again, we're trying to strike a balance of uh a metric that is fair but also simple.

Um when we looked at you know maintenance of net operating income, it was a much more complex process.

Um that, you know, again, most cities with rent control are the ones that are implementing that.

So I'm I'm just struggling because it appears that there are gaps and that the property owner, and we're talking in my reference, we're talking more than a single unit owner, you know, four units or eight units, maybe twelve, who's gonna spend maybe a hundred thousand dollars a unit making a substantial renovation and displacing tenants and have to pay relocation and not having all these other costs.

I I'm not sure how the math works.

It doesn't seem to work, and where the property owner can file a fair rate of return when those costs are not included, and make a fair calculation.

Am I saying that correctly?

Um I guess I think it would create a much more complex process.

I'm not asking if whether it's simple or complex.

I can say something about cap rate versus amortization that would not be polite.

But is it correct that it's not being captured?

Yes, we are not capturing all costs that a property owner is.

I want to pivot a little bit to the hearing officer.

I couldn't tell what the qualifications of the hearing officer were.

Yeah.

Yeah, we are contract uh contracting contracting, excuse me, uh, with Jones Mayor law firm, and they have experience uh running serving as hearing officers for several cities throughout California that have various types of rent control, and so we that is who we've selected through an RFP process.

And what is the appeal process if there becomes a pattern of bias?

Who's that go to?

If there's starting to become issues with that, again, we can always update our uh fair rate of uh return guidelines.

Um, and that is something the city manager does have the authority to do.

But how about the hearing officer?

Is the city manager have the authority to replace the hearing officer and the firm?

Or does it come to council for contract award or termination?

I believe we have the ability, the city manager does have the ability to terminate that contract.

Okay.

In recalling some history, and I know at least some of my colleagues here in the day is we've had some major fires with multi-unit buildings, Woodside Road, two of them within probably a period of 12 months.

And those units were vacant because of that.

Um I think severely damaged probably is an understatement.

Um insurance settlements were made, but insurance typically only pays through to replicate what was there, not to make improvements.

And so in both cases, equity investments were made, were required to improve the properties, ADA compliance, you know, all the things to the current building code, even though the building was built maybe in the 50s or the 40s or 60s, but they had to be brought up to current code to be able to improve them.

In addition, at least I know one of the unit, one of the properties exchanged ownership during that process.

So how does the TPO and the FRR work in those cases?

Um, yeah, so our TPO uh I will note that in situations where you know there is a fire or other kind of uh disaster where um we have issued a government order, you know, deeming the property uninhabitable, um that is in a separate um and allowable no fault uh just cause termination.

Um and so in those situations, landlords do not have to offer the right to return.

Um it's only for substantial remodels.

So if there is a government issue, such as a red tag, then a landlord could pursue a no fault termination through that.

Um in those cases, there is no right to return requirement.

Did I miss it in the staff report or was it mentioned?

Um or is it in the or proposed ordinance?

It's already in our ordinance.

In the one here before us tonight.

The one that was in a adopted uh in last fall.

Would it be helpful to cross reference it in the ordinance tonight to the previous one.

Um I'm just making a suggestion that you know, instead of us memorizing all the city ordinances, just cross-referencing it that in a major catastrophe, please look at the other policy.

We can do that in the guidelines too.

Um maybe Patrick, how much money have we spent?

How much have we invested in ADS and TPO and all this today?

Order magnitude?

I think a lyn knows her number.

Sorry, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I know she tracks it closely.

I would say if I can maybe have Victor give you a more accurate number and we can get order back to you, yeah.

Um I can say off the top of my head, you know, the city council committed, or actually I should say the community committed uh 250,000 through the people's budget several years ago that we have used uh for ADS implementation as well as TPO implementation, and we've also gotten a one-time allocation of general fund dollars, I believe around 100,000 that we've also used for for ADS and um some of the services that Project Sentinels provided.

Um I know we still have some money left, but um we've been committed about 350,000 over the last five years for those efforts.

Okay.

Well, I'll I'm trying to thank you, Lynn.

And I'm just trying to figure out I think there the staff report in the presentation identified a number of statistics, like six no fault evictions.

I was just trying to look at the cost per appeal, cost per complaint, things like that.

Just from a uh ROI and a metric.

I don't know if that's the right math, but I don't know what the math should be.

I'm just trying to understand.

Yeah, since the ordinance was adopted, we have been tracking staff time specifically to the ordinance.

I I don't have the exact number that we've spent, you know, since January with me right in front of me.

Um, but we do have an, you know, we do plan to publish a report annually identifying, you know, how much we are spending on implementation, how much we are collecting in fees, um, and then also all of the kind of metrics that are identified in the regulations.

Do you have a field up you know per appeal per inquiry per no fault, what the cost is to the city right now running?

So based on the two uh relocation assistance applications we received, we are estimating it would be 172 to process that does cover uh city staff time and um some mailing that we do as we send certified mail to tenants and landlords.

Uh we really tried to, with the software as well, streamline the process so that we are minimizing the amount of staff time it takes to process those.

When we talk about fees, one of the things that is a major concern to me was this phrase in the staff report that any fees not recovered from is backstop by the general fund.

And as a council member, I can't give anyone, any department any a blank check on the general fund.

So can you speak to that or Patrick?

Who would like to try to take that one off?

Because I believe that's on page four.

Yeah, and that that's why we set our intent is to be a hundred percent cost recovery, and so uh our fees are set with the goal of recovering full city costs at the 1720.

If this fee, for example, were to be set at a lower rate, then we would run into the risk of having to backstop from the general fund.

But right now the staff report says that the general fund is the backstop.

And if one once we launch a program and appeal comes in, that appeal is on a c it's on a timeline.

Right?

And so if we run out of money through the deposit or anything like that, does processing the appeal stop until more money is made deposited.

And I mean how how does that match up I guess is the best way I can say it.

So the applicant's supposed to make a deposit an appeal is being processed.

If it takes more money, do you ask the for more money?

And if they don't you stop the and you say tough luck.

Yes, we are in and I don't know I'm I'm sorry for being plain spoken but I think it's just easier more efficient.

And I'll let Louisa answer that slides.

Good evening Mayor and council members is this my name is Lolita Fernandez your speaking of the first time oh I'm the deputy city attorney.

So as regards the appeal fees concerned the deposit will be paid at the time of application and um but so the estimate is made based on the average number of hours the appeal officer would take and staff would take so the hope is that that would cover the deposit would cover the fees but if we do go be if it if the amount goes beyond that then after the decision is issued that's when we would invoice the landlord and uh or the appellant and the appealant will pay the fees after the decision is issued in this case but uh the hope is as we move as we progress and you know see those cases the fees could be adjusted the deposit amount could be adjusted in the future to accommodate that.

Well thank you for that because I'm I'm just struggling a little bit because if I'm a property owner investing in a property making a substantial I'd like to have a little degree of certainty not hope that we get there hope that it's on target hope that the number is lower.

I mean if I would think I mean not any different than a planning application for a project hopefully our planning department community development will give an somewhat accurate estimate of what the processing fees might be for both CEQA planning time and things like that not I hope we'll get there.

That just doesn't feel right from a someone who's writing a check standpoint.

Am I misinterpreting what I've read and what I've heard Councilmember J if I could just jump in you know staff did follow actually the same model as uh for when a project comes in for planning purposes in order to ensure full cost recovery on the part of the city and the reality is that similar to planning or even engineering cost recovery deposits that are made if we get to the end and the city hasn't actually spent all of that time the money will be refunded.

The hope is that's where we'll be uh where we'll be refunding and if we're but if the appeal ends up taking longer uh we will collect the additional amounts and um and so it's something that we can continue to work on what that estimate is uh we do think we have a good informed estimate at this point and of course we can work through it uh as we start the process here in Redwood City uh if for some reason this model isn't working the city manager also has the ability to change how the appeals are going to be uh factored in uh from a cost perspective in order to ensure full uh return thank you for that uh the other part was cost certainty though did you provide an answer to that no and with cost recovery you can't have the cost certainty you're asking for council member that's one of the issues I have as you can tell is that if if you know one of the speakers says he bought a piece of problem wants to invest in he'd like to know pretty pretty accurately what's it's gonna take before he makes the decision to go forward and if it's off by magnitude, ten dollars, maybe it's okay, but uh order magnitude 2x, 3x, 5x, could be problematic.

And how do we address that?

I you know, I think as Veronica noted, we are gonna be closely monitoring how all of this works.

We did set this up with the intention that it's more likely a landlord would get a refund versus having to pay over.

Um, and those being maybe more outlier cases.

If we are starting to see that that's becoming more the norm that the full deposit amount is being spent or uh we're having to invoice landlords, we will definitely come back to the city council to reassess what that deposit amount should be, or considering making other changes to the guidelines to streamline.

And I'm struggling because if I heard correctly, if the deposit and the fees aren't covering the cost of administering the program, we'll just come back to council and say raise the fees.

Did I hear that correctly?

Raise the deposit amount.

Well, we raise the cost, raise the fees, raise the deposit.

I mean, it's just if it the program administration costs more, we'll just come back to council and say just raise the costs, raise the deposit, raise the fees.

Well, the intent is to be cost recovery, so that then we aren't impacting the gender.

I understand that.

I mean I've said that here too.

It's a hundred percent cost recovery, not something.

But as we launch, if the council chooses to go down this path, if our estimate is lower than actual cost, we'll just come back to council and raise fees.

Did I understand that correctly?

So the fee is not changing.

Um but you're talking about the deposit and the deposit is based on the estimate, and the estimate is something that we can fine-tune, but that's not actually changing the fees themselves.

Again, it's not giving you the certainty that you're asking for.

Or cost containment either.

And that's the last question I have is what mechanism is built into the policy to hold the city accountable for doing its part most effectively and efficiently.

I know everybody else has a role.

The property owner has a role to make sure the application is correct and complete, turn in their documentation, but who holds the city accountable to make sure we're being efficient and effective and administering the policy?

We do have set, as you'll see in the um updated regulations and guidelines, you know, we have set timelines for when the city has to take action along with the tenant and landlords to ensure that we are also, you know, doing things in a timely manner and processing things in a timely manner.

Um so we are holding ourselves equally accountable to both tenants and landlords for various timelines.

Um, we are getting a detailed accounting from the appeals officer about how long each one is going to, you know, is taking and what they are working on to evaluate, you know, um we will know kind of in real time, as part of our contract with them, we are requiring I believe it's weekly reporting on what actual costs are.

Is there a way council can see into that less than an annual basis to see how if council does move forward with this so we can see how it's working?

I'm sorry, can you repeat the first part of what you just said?

I didn't quite.

So there's an annual reporting built into it.

But given that you're seeing this in real time, is there any visibility by the council to see if this is really working, if there's changes needed, if this is, you know, the hearing officers taking instead of two hours, two years to process something?

I mean, just so there's some visibility for council to see is this really working and then working the way we thought it was gonna.

Yeah, I'll jump in here.

I think that's a fair point.

Um, you know, we could do a three-month update to council, you know, we'll figure out what with what method to do that.

But um, with it being a new program, I mean we we might not have everything perfected and dialed in.

So I think a three-month check it could be good to say did we are we pretty good or we totally miss it and just have a real open and transparent conversation at that time.

Yeah, I think that's a good point.

I I think it'd be important for everyone to see, not just council, but for the community, both tenants and property owners to see is it working?

Is it working with the thought?

Or did we miss the boat?

Or or whatever the case may be?

So Lynn, thank you and Victor for answering some somewhat difficult and challenging questions, but I'm weird.

I kind of know some of the stuff, so thank you for your patience.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Councilmember Gene, for getting us started, and we'll go to Vice Mayor Aiken.

Thank you.

I just have some clarifying questions.

I may have some comments later.

Uh Lynn, um, first of all, I would just want to set a context.

Is it the case that we are reviewing administrative guidelines, administrative regulations tonight?

Correct.

Are we reviewing the ordinance itself tonight?

We are not uh reviewing or amending the ordinance tonight.

Thank you.

And um just did I read accurately from page two of the staff report that because this is and these regulations and guidelines are administrative, that the city manager has the um authority and the ability to adjust and change these administrative guidelines at any time in real time because this is an administrative process.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, and would it be fair to say that tonight we have actually gotten a five month review of this guideline and um uh review process um and that uh that that's in the staff report, there were which was summarized.

There were, I want to say two requests for this process so far over five months.

Is that correct?

It's been two requests over about a three the first quarter, three month period.

Um but we did start some of the data that's in, I think attachment C, we did start getting inquiries about the ordinance before it went into effect, um so that's why we kind of look back from November through April, but since the ordinance went into effect, we've reprocessed two relocation assistance applications.

And did you do targeted outreach um to educate landlords both big and small about the TPO?

Yes, we uh we've done six community outreach meetings, we've done citywide mailers, um, we've had um, you know, specific emails going out to all landlords with business license, um, and we've had uh social media posts.

Um, and I just want to ask the city clerk, we had two um landlords speak at public comment tonight, just sort of off the cuff, uh city clerk.

If you could estimate how many um written comments did we receive from landlords uh for today's council meeting.

Any in addition?

About two written.

Okay, thank you.

And and then I just want to also, and and this was covered in in um attachment F.

Um, did you take into account the real-time, real-world, real happening concerns that landlords gave to you when you began creating these guidelines and regulations?

When we put the regulations and guidelines out for public comment, we received eight public comments at the conclusion of that, and we took all of those comments into consideration.

Um for the ones that were on specifically on the regulations and guidelines where we have the ability to make changes, we did take that, and that's what attachment F is.

There were several comments about amending the TPO itself.

Um, and so those because we're not considering amendments at this time, uh, we didn't get into the detail of how we responded.

So I just want to give an ask another real world scenario, real impact, rubber hitting the ground kind of question.

If if a landlord um is going to do a capital improvement on a substantial remodel, is that what I what was it called?

The substantial remodel.

Gives a notice to a tenant, you will have to leave this unit for a period of time while I do this remodel.

Under this ordinance, if it's a if it's not a low income unit, the this ordinance requires that the landlord pay one month's rent to the tenant or forego a month's rent before the tenant leaves.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is our uh our city requirement as well as the state law requirement.

Okay, and so if in the real world that tenant says, ah, you know what?

I I'm gonna move somewhere else, I don't want to move twice, I don't want to come back.

In that scenario where a tenant lawfully, no no one's upset about anything, the tenant leaves, doesn't come back, when the um improvement construction has been completed, that landlord can sent the rent of that unit to any amount they want, any amount the market will bear.

Is that correct?

Correct.

If the tenant declines to return to the unit after the remodel, okay.

And and I wanted to clarify something else too.

Um, if if you decide six months from now, if Patrick decides six months from now, two months from now, you know what, the deposit should be three thousand two hundred, not four thousand five hundred, or the deposit should be five thousand one hundred, not four thousand five hundred.

He doesn't have to get this council's permission, he can just change the deposit amount because it's an administrative procedure.

Is that correct?

Uh I don't believe fees can be changed administratively, and I will look to our our city attorney to confirm, but those do require uh city council approval.

Okay, thank thank you for that clarification.

Almost done with my clarifying questions, does do all business investments involve risk?

Uh yes.

Okay.

Or were you assuming that you were going to be efficient?

I will say, you know, we try to be efficient in in everything we do.

Uh I think in the housing division in the city throughout, you know, to the extent we can.

You extended the staff report says you extended the deadline from two weeks to four weeks.

Is that right?

Uh for the public comment deadline, yes, we did.

Why did you do that?

We had received some requests from some of our our key stakeholders for additional time to review.

What does key stakeholder mean?

And do you mean number one and number two, do you mean landlords or tenants or both?

We uh we sent the uh the guidelines and regulations out broadly to kind of all uh broadly to the community, and we did send targeted um invitations to comment to both uh landlord representative groups, so California Apartment Associations, San Mateo County Association of Realtors, SAMCAR, uh we also shared it directly with Faith in Action, Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto and Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County.

So they were sent a personalized invitations to comment.

Thank you.

Um City Clerk, did we see receive either written well uh neither Sam Carr nor the uh California Apartment Association made a um is present here tonight or made a comment made a comment, but we don't know if they're present, but neither Sam Carr nor uh California Apartment Association made a written or verbal comment.

Is that correct?

During the public comment period, we did not receive comments officially from them.

I don't know about for this evening.

No, through the normal agenda, not from those two organizations.

Thank you.

Those were thank you.

Those were my clarifying questions.

I'll have comments later.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Council, does anyone else have clarifying questions or comments?

Go to Councilmember Howard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Can I follow up with the California Apartment Association?

I I think it's really urgent that we reach out to them.

They always comment at one point or another during a process like this.

Uh maybe they need to be invited to participate, but I think they could be very, very helpful in helping us educate owners of properties as well as tenants in there and help the owners educate the tenants.

But they could be really, really helpful, and we don't ask for their help very often, even though they always come to us and say ask for your help.

So I I'd like to see us, maybe um staff could reach out to them and say, depending on what we vote for tonight, okay.

Um I still I would like to see the California Apartment Association uh take a lead role in helping us educate and and help all property owners in Redwood City understand uh what their rights are and uh what can be done, what can't be done.

Um I think they could be very, very useful, and I'd just like to see if we could if they say no, they do, but I'm just thinking we could reach out.

That would be helpful.

Thank you very much.

Um I saw Patrick say okay, so I yeah, we we were in close communication with with them, and I will say they uh comment or did try to speak, but I think their hand got up uh right after the deadline, so but no, we have a good relationship with them, so it's uh it's a good point.

Thank you.

I believe we do, so that would be great.

It would help us.

Yeah.

I know it would help us.

Um also um you did so much research, all of you.

This is incredible.

Uh, it was so detailed.

But what I really appreciated is that uh you looked at other jurisdictions and see how you could simplify and standardize what we were about to present, and I really really appreciate that.

Uh learn from others, and I'm sure you asked them what didn't work, and uh you were able to make better decisions because you did that, I'm sure.

So I want to thank you for that, because uh we wanted if we're going to move forward with this, we want to present the best possible plan that we can with little as few hiccups as possible.

What I really like is the fact that uh we're well letting our city manager have that oversight, it doesn't necessarily have to come back to us.

He can tweak and work with it if he sees things not working properly, he can do that and certainly will report back to us.

But I really like that step in between.

I also think having um every three months coming back to council, I I appreciate that city manager, because it doesn't have to be totally detailed like we're doing tonight, but certainly an update what's working, what's not working, so that we can be kept abreast of how this is all coming about.

We want to be aware of that uh as we begin this new program.

Uh, let me see.

Thank you for attachment F.

We, you know, we this is the first time that I've seen this.

And I want to thank you.

Whoever thought of it, it was brilliant.

I mean, how many times do we get a stack of letters from people, many of them repetitive with the same request?

And this really it said, here's the here's the information we received, and this is how we answered it if we could.

So attachment F is worth reading for anybody who hasn't read that, because some excellent questions came up, and you made modifications where you felt you could, and you also said we can't address that at this time.

That's not what we'll be doing tonight.

I think that really helps everybody quite a bit.

So thank you for that.

I learned a lot from that, especially regarding the fair rate of return.

Uh your appeal process, what you answered to several people, it's intended to address outlier cases and older historic buildings where rents are well below medium but have significant remodel needs and costs.

These cases, landlords may not be able to obtain a fair rate of return and can file an appeal.

And I think that's so important because as people spoke earlier, small mom and pop who came up earlier, I could see that happening quite easily.

The funds aren't there, but so but the the flooding or the roof or whatever has happened and has to be addressed.

And if you have your insurance canceled, my thanks to Senator Josh Becker for helping that family.

How do you ever make repairs and everything if you don't even have insurance on the building that you own?

So I was wondering, um, not tonight, but as we go along, if we could consider um what did I write, like utilities, we do have a fund to subsidize people who desperately need help, and we help subsidize that for a certain period of time.

No, I'm not saying we subsidize someone, but I'm saying maybe we could create a pot of money that would be available for people who want to file an appeal because they feel they're not going to be able to get a fair rate of return, but they want to do the right thing in fixing their building, and maybe that money can be used to help them with the cost of the appeal, whether it's before or at the end when the final bill is presented to them.

With the monies that we have with the housing and human concerns committee, community block grant funds.

Maybe there's a way we could create a fund and it would be designed for just that purpose.

Small, I'm not talking about the corporate landlords, I'm talking about the small mom and pops who want to do the right thing, but we're asking something they it's too steep for them to be able to handle.

So I'm just thinking we could put some thought into that to see if we can do it legally, and if we could find uh set aside money to do that.

Again, don't ask for an answer tonight.

I'm just trying to be helpful to people.

Also, um getting a small mom and pops to know the new programs that are available, like the HART program.

I mean, I can't speak highly enough about this program that heart, that's the housing endowment and regional trust program in San Mateo County.

I'm on that board, and they are working proactively to address older buildings, historical buildings that are being rented, that are in much need of repair, and they are helping either by offering to buy the property or to assist the landlord in doing the upgrades that need to be done with the monies that they have.

So it's a partnership, and I'm really excited about they've already bought one property in Redwood City, but they are open to the idea of helping landlords stay in their properties and assisting them with the repairs.

So I think we have a lot of education to do because there's much more available that maybe people don't know about.

What I don't want to see is mom and pops becoming hopeless because they feel we're kind of picking on them or um just you know, I don't want that to happen.

I want this to be as fair a program as possible, and I know we can do it, especially since we're allowed to make adjustments as we see that are needed.

I feel really optimistic about that.

Let me see here.

Um talked about the HART program.

I'm glad the city manager is going to have that ability to be a judge and jury and making the adjustments that may need to come with the program.

And I think, oh, I did want to know can you confirm the approximate percentage of corporate landlords in Redwood City versus the smaller property owners?

I do not have that number right now, but it's something that we can look into and get back to you.

I'm guessing there are more corporate landlords than smaller property owners, but it would be helpful to have that those percentages so when we talk to the smaller properties, we have an idea of how many, and maybe we're missing some and maybe need to do more uh outreach to them to let them know what what's available for them because their needs are different than corporate landlords.

So I think that answers all my questions.

And again, thank you so much.

I know housing and human concerns has been very helpful with this research and all of you that have been involved.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to Councilmember Padilla.

I'll go.

Thank you.

Okay, I would like to start off.

I have some questions on page two or page 17 attachment C.

Could we please break down under informational meetings in English and Spanish?

There it says that there was a total of six and three in person, three virtual.

What was the attendance for each meeting?

I'd like to know the online versus in person.

We had um I'm trying to say off the top of my head in in Zoom, on Zoom, it was a little bit more.

I think we had around eight to ten attendees in person.

Um we had one meeting with just one landlord, um, but we had a very great conversation and very hands-on uh learning experience for that landlord.

For the other two in person, I would say we had approximately five uh in attendees at each of those sessions.

Okay, I would say, in the future, and I think I've made this request for all departments, just in general, any time we have detailed information when it comes to online or in person.

I think it's important for us to see who's coming to what.

So that's helpful for our community outreach.

So if we have the numbers, let's provide them because here it just says 34, but I wouldn't know.

Yeah, happy to provide that.

So that would be great.

Um, then also I wanted to follow up on Councilmember G's point.

I I it makes me so nervous how many times I heard hope.

And something constantly in my life is hope is not a strategy, not when it's coming to things like this.

Um I want to go back to attachment F.

I know that there, I want us to focus on unintended consequences and and focus on that a little bit.

And we've all heard about the burden that falls on so many groups and stakeholders.

But I I like Councilmember Howard also found attachment F very um interesting, and I wanted to share some of it.

I know we didn't get to go over it.

Uh a comment that someone sent in was the requirement that displaced tenants be offered the right to return at the same rental rate, subject only to limited state allowance allowed increases, raises serious concerns regarding financial feasibility.

Substantial remodels often involve significant costs, including construction, labor, materials, financing, and insurance.

If rents cannot adjust to reflect these investments, many necessary improvements may be delayed or not undertaken at all.

Ultimately impacting the quality and safety of the housing stock.

So this will this comment here, and it goes on to talk about the burden entirely being placed on housing providers.

Uh, what I want to talk about is when we talk about the costs, we had uh someone come up here and talk about having to replace sewer lines.

What about what if we if we have the and we're talking about corporate landlords versus mom and pops, the unintended consequences?

Will things not get fixed?

Will people will maintenance go?

Will people forego maintenance because they don't think they'll have the ROI?

So I just want to make sure that we're also keeping in mind unintended consequences that will come into play to housing.

We all want people to have safe housing that is updated.

So I just want to make sure we're not putting any measures in place that are counterproductive to everyone having safe housing.

Um there were several other comments that were in line with that, just about not knowing exactly how this could affect mom and pops and people who have small unit buildings who who are not corporations who are not big private equity companies who are maybe using that to pay their you know the retirement facility for their parents or who are paying taxes, who this is this is their income as well.

So I just want to make sure that we're thinking of that and to council member G's point on page eight, I guess or sorry, page eight of eighty-five.

I look I always look at the fiscal impact.

It's one of my favorite sections in all of our reports.

And I know we talked about it, but it says the fees would be paid by landlords who initiate no fault just cause terminations, resulting in a tenant applying for greater relocation assistance, or when landlords submit a fair rate of return appeal.

To the extent the city does not fully recover its administrative costs for those services, general fund dollars will offset the activities.

I know we've been meeting here every Monday, and I feel like every Monday I tell us to be mindful of our shrinking and shrinking general fund, and I just I just want to be conscious of all the checks that we're writing out of this this fund that is so precious.

So I think it is pertinent that we keep in mind where these money comes from.

We're talking about ROI.

We we are struggling as a city financially at the moment, so I think that these are things that need to be considered.

Um, the detailed accounting and weekly reporting, all of that is passed on to those costs are all passed through to the landlords for processing the appeals and reload, yes, the relocation assistance application.

So then that when so when they're logging the hours and time per when that's how they'll do the billing per account, correct.

Okay.

Yes, I just I would like I wish that we could consider exemptions for our small housing providers and think of the way that a one size fits all approach, doesn't really consider everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Padillo.

And we'll go to Councilmember.

Um, so first of all, I wanted to just express appreciation for everyone who came tonight, although almost all of them left.

And for the intent of this policy, I really believe that the intent of every, you know, um everyone who designed it was, you know, to to prevent displacement uh for something that's fair and just and protects all parties involved.

Um, however, you know, I I I do have some clarifying questions and then some comments.

Um, so the first was a clarifying question.

So I realize that we don't um have a standard, you know, sort of timed ROI, but what's sort of reasonable and customary?

Like, you know, I have no idea, you know, when a landlord makes an improvement, what is the sort of normal time frame they would expect to recoup that investment?

I can't speak to every individual landlord, but I can speak to is uh, you know, we looked at the comparative cities, what is the amortization schedule?

So when does the city allow those costs to be recouped?

And it's usually anywhere from five up to 20 years, depending on kind of the useful life of that repair.

Sure.

Okay, so I would something 10 to 15 is about the middle, something like that.

Okay.

Um, and so and and you know, I'm 100% sure you've already told me this.

I just want to make sure I really understand it.

So say you know, I have a two-story duplex, and uh, you know, a bidet uh hose knocks off the wall and floods the entire, you know, duplex, requiring say 150 or 100,000 worth of repairs.

Um technically the building's still habitable, but obviously water damage needs to be addressed.

Um if I don't have a hundred thousand dollars and I have to borrow that money, uh say take out a HELOC or or a construction loan, is the cost of the interest included in what I'm allowed to recoup.

Our methodology does not take in the consideration the cost of financing the remodel.

Right.

So my concern with that is that you know, I did a pulled up a little, you know, um calculator, and current HELOC interest rates are between seven and eight percent.

And so on a 10 year loan, which is you know, if you have either a very large expense or an unexpected expense for mom and pop landlords, it's gonna be at least a 10 to 15 year loan, and the interest is is at least 40 percent of that cost.

You know, the interest is a huge cost, uh, when you're making repairs, and many small landlords don't have you know a lot of capital laying around, they tend to be property rich and and cash poor.

Um, so so that remains a serious concern.

Um I am supportive of the intent of the policy, but I think what we've seen in house housing policy again and again and again is that when you tax encumber or make housing more difficult or complex uh or make things more complex or difficult to do, you get less of it.

I mean, we have about two centuries of econ literature that show that people respond to incentives.

Um and and so my concerns are are threefold.

One that there will be powerful incentives not to rent to lower income tenants because should something happen, the costs of helping that person relocate are significantly higher.

Now I don't think most landlords are like doing that math, but if they have one experience where they have, you know, say an event that costs them $100,000 and they have to uh pay to relocate someone, I am concerned that over time it could result in in lower income tenants having a more difficult time finding housing or finding more um more of a headwind on on finding rentals.

I am concerned about a lot of that the housing in my community.

So most of the housing that's reaching the end of its useful life is in small buildings, and I it is my belief that I mean I mean I don't know who owns them, you know, maybe it is corporate landlords who've just let them slide for 30 years, but um the sense I get is is it is more kind of mom and pop type landlords.

Uh so my concern is that over time we're going to see a deterioration of the housing stock just because people don't have the money to repair them and interest rates are really high.

I think the interest rates are and labor costs are causing a real headwind there, um and that they don't have any mechanism to recoup those costs, which are considerable.

It's like like 40% of the cost of doing a major reno is the cost of borrowing the money.

Um, and so so what I would ask is as we track things that we would look at those three things.

Number one, um, our lower income tenants having a harder time uh finding a place to live.

Um and it's kind of hard to get that data, but you know, if there's a way to sort of track that, number two over time are we seeing a deterioration in our housing stock you know if we create a set of incentives uh that discourage renovations or major renovations I am concerned that over time people will be less likely to do them um and uh then the third uh is I would like to given the results of that um yeah um anyway that so if we can add that as part of the administrative tracking uh to to really track those two things uh and include them in any reporting um and and to council member howard's point um you know perhaps we could consider just interest or low interest loans I mean if 40% of the cost of doing a major renovation is borrowing the money making that cheaper may help you know if people really want to do the right thing if they want to improve their building and that may be a way to do it without depleting you know our precious resources so if they have to pay it back it's just lower interest.

And then I do share council member G's concern about open-ended um you know this you know we don't know how much this appeal will cost uh if a landlord is facing the cost of a major renovation um and the cost of of relocating someone uh the the cost of an appeal may be challenging um so having a if there's any way to have a not to exceed that may be a way to at least give them a sense of what they're working with um you know I I again just want to emphasize I share your goal um I rented until I was 45 we know we didn't buy our first house till I was 45 and I was a low-income renter for much of that time um but but I really want to track the unintended consequences of this policy I am worried that we will get less renovation of of buildings that desperately need it so I'd like that included in the reports so thank you thank you Councilmember Chu.

Who would like to go next Councilmember Sherkin?

Thank you Mayor to our housing team thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this is um I want to say years in the making at this point I mean it's gone to housing human concerns it's come to us a couple different times um and I just really appreciate all of the hard work and effort that went into this.

So I have a couple quick questions and then just comments um I think one thing I haven't heard tonight is about I think Councilmember G may have mentioned it subtly about electrical panel upgrades maybe but there of course are new state laws coming down the pike or already in existence that require uh substantial upgrades to comply you know with electrification implementation in in housing and whatnot does this do these guidelines allow us allow a landlord to recoup any of the costs associated with substantial upgrades as part of renovations such as such as that for example.

Yeah those types of costs would be considered in the fair rate of return calculations.

Great thank you very much.

And then when you mentioned the admin and the appeal uh fees or fee and deposit rather um that is per unit right so the uh relocation assistance appeal is per application.

Um and then the fair rate of return appeals per appeal, uh the deposit is per appeal.

Thank you.

And and just to double confirm, so that appeal would encompass the entire renovation and you know, all the units included in that renovation, right?

Yes, if they're all being done at the same being processed at the same time, it would be part of that.

Um note, you know, if there is a lot of units with varying degrees of substantial remodel, it is likely going to take the appeal officer longer to process that versus like an individual one or where the remodeling is kind of uniform.

That makes sense, but but it's good to hear that they're not having to pay these fees or deposit on a per unit basis.

It's a per renovation basis, though, with the depending on the size of the renovation, the number of units involved, that cost could be larger than the 4,500 deposit, which you've touched on already.

So thank you.

So we talked a lot about the um I said a timer, I want to make sure I don't, you know, belabor this at all.

Um, no more than three minutes, okay.

Challenge accepted.

Um, so uh we've belabored a lot about the cost to landlords, which we should.

This is significant cost to landlords, and I understand that.

But what we haven't touched on much about is the cost savings to uh tenants and um the addressing displacement, and and so I just want to highlight that um that this ordinance, these guidelines, we're focusing on the guidelines are doing would will do their job of helping keep people housed.

Um, I just want to emphasize that, and we heard substantially uh in last year from you know, CLESPA, Community Legal Services and East Powalto legal aid, uh, from our own housing and human concerns committee members uh from who expressed support for this, and I just want to emphasize that.

Uh we even had a couple of our commissioners, um, you know, Nicole Noga, for example, mentioned that she was displaced by substantial remodel and that Kate Heaster um had a neighbor across the street who was displaced by a phantom, you know, remodel.

So I just want to stress how important and valuable this is to tenants in the city.

Um and I want to thank staff for hearing the community concerns and responding um in kind.

Um with that said, I've heard a lot of great ideas um at the dais here from my colleagues of how we can soften the blow, so to speak, um to landlords who will be incurring some substantial costs, and so I want to just throw my support behind some of those ideas.

Um, you know, for example, councilmember G had suggested um just including in the guidelines that um calling back to the tenant protection ordinance itself with regards to you know when um units are red tagged.

I think you put it um Elain in the case of a natural disaster or a fire or other emergency, that those um you know units are the brew models, restorations rather are not subject to the um right of return.

So just making sure that's clear and simple for people to understand.

Um, let's see, um there was a mention of uh Councilmember Howard, you suggested a fund of some kind to help you know offset the cost for landlords that are the modern pop landlords that can't afford to do the substantial renovation uh without being fully compensated, and I just want to throw my support behind that as well.

Um the low-cost loan uh idea as well.

Um, and also the idea of reporting back to council with an update every three months or so.

I think that's a great idea.

We want to support that too.

And just acknowledge, I'm just about out of time here, that um we subsidize a lot of other programs, right?

Like our historic preservation for good reason, our um parking for reasons.

Um I'm open to subsidizing this program because it has a benefit to the community.

Um whether we have subsidizing small mom and pop landlords, you know, in support of their renovation or tenants themselves with staying in Robot City.

Um so I will end there, uh, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember for making my job easy and timing yourself.

It's appreciated.

We'll go to the vice mayor.

I'm I'm inspired, Councilmember Stirkin, and I'm gonna time myself.

I I don't know if I'll be obedient when when the buzzer goes off, but I'm inspired by your example.

So I'm I'm gonna do it too.

Just before I start my timer, let me get to.

Oh, no, that's the wrong amount.

Wait.

There it is.

Okay, there.

Got it.

Okay.

So staff recommendation number one.

Yes, I support the resolution adopting um the regulations and guidelines for um the uh resolution the ordinance that we already passed.

Second, yes, I confirm um, so so I I approve of the $72 fee for um the application and the 4,500 deposit for the appeal.

Um so I approve everything in the staff report.

I want to get that out there right away.

I um let's see where just a second.

Yeah, um I don't think we that you need to report every back every three months.

I mean, we have a three-month report right now.

There were two requests for a right to return application.

Uh both were approved.

There were six instances, four didn't want, um, didn't apply for the right to return.

I'm not sure we need to be that granular as a council.

We have a lot on our plate.

So, but that's just me.

Um, and again, I'm in I'm leery of getting too much into the weeds.

I do trust that you're efficient.

I do trust that you have degrees from universities in housing policy, in housing law that I can't even imagine.

And I trust you guys.

Um, and my trust is is reinforced by the your staff report that showed extreme outreach, a lot of thorough and logical reasoning.

I want to point out um, well, I just did, so I don't have to.

Um, so displacement already happens.

This this ordinance that was eight years since 2018 in the making, it it wasn't just uh created because people didn't have anything to do and were bored.

You know, this is one of the most desirable places to live on earth because both because of the economy and because of the climate, the level of education, and and it's a gold rush that came to a crisis in 1976, you know, 50 years ago, with the high cost of land, the high value of land.

At that time, everyone freaked out about property taxes.

Fifty years later, everyone's freaking out because there's no affordable housing or not enough.

And and so back in 2018, we said, well, let's try to do something about displacement.

And it took us um, you know, eight years.

But, but you know, in November we did.

We passed this ordinance.

And so that that train left the station.

What we're looking at now is simply the rules and regulations, the guidelines.

I trust you guys to be efficient.

Um you're implementing something that the policy that we've already approved, and I trust that that um uh city manager Heisinger will um will use discretion.

And and you know, for people fearing that the mom and pops are gonna get priced out and that it's not gonna be fair.

You know, there's a word in this report, it's a very, very important word.

It's a scary word, it's an unknown word, but the word is discretion.

The hearing officer has discretion.

So you have certainty that yes, these are the rules, these are the formulas, this is the algebraic equations, but then you also have, you know what, if it doesn't fit, if the square peg doesn't fit in the round hole, then you've got discretion.

And um, so I really feel very confident that we're gonna get a competent hearing officer.

You sounds like you already have.

We have competent staff.

I'm I'm really not worried.

Um I'm as a policy matter, you know, this gold rush that we've been experiencing for probably a hundred years, the gold rush is land, not gold, but land.

Um I'm concerned about our renters.

Um, and sure there's risk when you purchase, but um, and just on that displacement thing, it was happening that when, you know, perhaps when a um piece of real estate changed hands, um it was oh.

Okay, well that scared me.

Let me I'll stop.

Well, hold on, let me make sure I made all my notes.

I'm not in favor of um uh putting a pool of money for financing.

Not in favor of that.

That's just me.

Um, okay, I'm done.

I support the staff's recommendation.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Any other council member comments or questions?

I'm not seeing any, I'm going for it.

Um first uh Alyn, Victor, the whole team, thank you so much for your all the time that you've put into this.

I know it hasn't just been five months, but it's been a few years of work to create this um this body of policy, so thank you.

And um, to our many community members who engaged on this process, thank you for being a part of it and including your your thoughts, your feedback, your questions to make this the best policy it could be.

Um from a personal standpoint, you know, I am a lifelong renter, right?

I have lived, I like to say, in every pocket of the city, um as a result of that, but I know that the impacts to our families, our seniors, the vulnerable community members are real.

Um, and this policy isn't perfect, but um, you know, it is it is such a solid evolution in the work that's been happening.

Um I do have some areas of concern and things I wanted to clarify um with that being said, uh, around community outreach.

I I thought the amount of work and outreach that staff put into this was incredible just seeing the full list of how many ads went out and mailers and it um it was great.

I was a little disappointed to see um so few people um provide public comment during that period, so um I appreciated Councilmember Padilla's point around attendance because I think that was a really helpful uh really helpful for just understanding how many people got into the room.

Um so wondering if there are any lessons that we could learn from that, maybe have more virtual, if that's what was really popular, or you know, um that sort of thing.

But aside from community outreach, there's been a lot of ideas around funds to support the program, and um a question that came to my mind was if a uh a tenant submits an appeal, it's approved by the city and billed to the landlord.

What happens if that landlord refuses to pay the relocation assistance that they're mandated to?

Yeah, the the TPO does include several enforcement remedies um for the tenant.

So uh the we do require that the relocation assistance is paid prior to move out.

Um, so that is one of the uh requirements is that the tenant, you know, could stay in the unit until they are paid for that.

If they do move out, then they can follow kind of the more typical civil remedies um filing a lawsuit, you know, against the landlord.

Um, and I may turn to our attorneys to speak more about enforcement if you want to get into the details, but there are several remedies for tenants if a landlord does not pay the relocation assistance.

Okay.

And is there you mentioned for folks to even leave the apartment, they have to, or whatever their housing unit is, they have to have that relocation assistance in hand.

Is that right?

Did I gasp?

The requirement is the relocation assistance is paid on or before the move out date if they qualify for the greater relocation assistance for all tenants uh who receive a no fault termination notice, they are entitled to either one month of relocation assistance or a waiver of the last month's rent.

And that first, if the landlord chooses to pay the one month of relocation, that's due within um, I believe it's 15 days of the termination notice.

So uh tenants are usually given 30, 60 day, 90 day notice depending on the tenancy, um, so they would receive at least one month or waiver of the last month's rent within 15 days.

Okay, and if I'm just asking hypotheticals because I think it's helpful.

Um, if you know it comes to the point that the city has to compel the landlord with with legal action or something like that, are there are there resources that we have in place to support the tenant who, you know, I'm in this hypothetical hypothetical, you know, they're not receiving any supports, and you know, repairs are um are going on you know without work and uh and addressing that for I guess a habitable living space.

So is are there any resources?

I'm sorry.

You're okay.

So are there any other resources um available to tenants themselves?

Yeah, so one thing we didn't kind of highlight uh earlier in the presentation, but we do contract with Project Sentinel, they provide uh free counseling, education, and mediation for tenants and landlords alike.

It does not matter the income of the tenant or the landlord, um it is all a free service.

Um, and we do also provide um we have historically provided fine uh funding to legal aid society as well for their um home savers program.

So they do provide uh eviction defense services to low-income tenants.

Great, thank you, Lynn.

That's that's really helpful.

And um, you know, with the idea around um funds being used to help landlords sort of appeal to that, um, you know, I if we're creating funds, it'd be interesting to have that same fund work to assist tenants who may need some extra financial help to secure that housing in however much time they have.

Um something else that I wanted to just add my plus one on was the the expansion of the recouped costs.

Um love the idea around green investments, right?

Um, but I think there are uh there are lots of reasonable points um around the loans and the financing of these improvements, I think.

Um and I'm wondering, you know, if there's if we're gonna get uh a report back, hopefully in three months or whatever that time period is.

I would be really interested to see just what that would mean for the financial viability of the program, what um maybe the study of the um amortization rate would what that would look like and what that would impact this program.

Um pretty curious about that.

And then one thing I didn't hear from my colleagues um was the time bound restrictions.

You know, it was it was really great to see that that there's a shock clock as soon as people apply, and they could expect things to happen within a certain time period.

Um even better that it's a third party that our city staff aren't gonna be split between their regular work and this, right?

So really excited to see that.

Um I would also be really interested in seeing those restrictions work in favor of the landlords and the the tenants in the sense that if they're providing deposits um that may, you know, maybe an underestimate or an overestimate that that money is getting back into people's pockets um in a timely way.

And I know that's a big ask, but I'd be really curious to see that you know we are moving that efficiently through um through this program because it is, you know, that is not um that is not a small amount for most folks, right?

So that is just something I'm thinking about.

Um and then sort of to uh to wrap up, you know, I guess with next steps on some of the the ideas that have been discussed tonight.

Um sort of for that three month check in.

I know what's being proposed is also in an annual sort of report back on how the program is doing at a year's end.

So just kind of throwing this question out there, you know, what's happens, what happens next?

Do we hear back in three months?

Yeah, it's a great question, and I've taken feverish um notes, and you know, I threw out three months and a Lynn probably cringed over.

Here's my thought about what we could do for three three months is um there's a couple elements that I think I've heard across the council around time, cost, you know, the number of potential like denied appeals.

I feel like if we come up with like you know, six to eight real key things that we could track, we could almost create like a we love dashboarding here, but almost like a dashboard on this that we could easily produce, you know, a report on it, or it's not a super long report every three months, right?

Trying to balance that.

Um, and I'll talk to staff on that.

I think that's what we commit to in the in the short term, unless we we just get into it right away, right?

We totally miss this, we totally miss that.

I don't think that'll be the case.

Every fee that we ask the council to adopt here is somewhat um, I don't want you backfilled by by the general fund, but the the understanding is we got it wrong, we gotta we gotta redo it.

You know, and so we worked really hard on that.

We did a time study internal, so I feel confident that we'll do it.

However, with any ordinance, there's always outliers where one transaction might be for X all the all the rest, you know.

So what I what I'm getting at is I think by August, I think that's approximately three months.

We could do a look back from everything in January and really look at those timelines, the cost to say, like, are we on the right track?

Um at that point, if if we need to get feedback from the council, then we'd come back.

So that's how I look at the next three months.

Um I think the year I think is is a culmination of the various check-ins, and then is there some substantive um changes after that, you know, to that we should do on the really on the policy side, you know.

Because I I've definitely heard uh uh a spectrum uh tonight on on the policy side of the house is what I'm getting at, not just the guidelines.

Okay, and and Patrick, how about for some of the ideas of the um, you know, the the recouped costs expanding that?

I know we heard a few different ideas, so I guess how are you taking that and moving forward with that?

Yeah, it's a great question.

What I need to do, and maybe staff has a better sense for me, is really try to understand what's in the ordinance versus what is not.

So, what could the guidelines, you know, do on the you know, interest rates, things like that.

I don't want to put a lid on the spot, but is the is the ordinance prescriptive on that or those elements in the ordinance or not at all?

Um the ordinance is fairly prescriptive when it comes to relocation assistance.

Um, when it comes to the fair rate of return, it is um much more uh open ended with the intent that guidelines would be um kind of the the process for that.

Okay.

So I would say from my perspective, I think we're open.

I think we want to get in to see, you know, what are these transactions looking like, you know, and whatnot, and then yeah, be open-minded to to be willing to change that to, you know, to do what's right for both the landlords and the tenants.

So okay.

Okay.

Thank you, Patrick.

Thank you, Lynn, for that.

Um, I think that is those are all the questions that I had.

Um again, you know, just to wrap up my thoughts, really grateful to staff and you know, to all the folks for working on this.

Um I feel good that if we do get some information in three three months, I that makes me feel a lot better about what the the early impacts are.

Um yeah, I I think this is gonna be a helpful process, uh, helpful policy, and you know, step in the right direction, not without its learnings and improving upon this, but um it's gonna help uplift our community members, right?

The folks who are not corporate landlords, but the folks who you know, this is their lifeline, their retirement fund that they're operating, but also the tenants who this is their shelter, and that is so fundamental that they have that sense of security about where they live and making sure that's a healthy environment to be in.

So the work continues and get some more information soon.

But um, with that, colleagues, any other thoughts, comments?

Vice Mayor.

I move that we um approve both um of staff's recommendations, and is there a second?

Second, great.

That was a motion from Vice Mayor Aiken and a second from Councilmember Howard.

Could we get a electronic vote, please?

Motion passes with four votes.

Council members Chu, G, and Padilla opposed.

Okay, thank you, colleagues.

And with that, we will keep this show on the road and move to item 8B.

Our next hearing is on the 2026 Annual Action Plan for the federal community development block grant program and housing leadership manager Elain Lancaster is back and will give us an introduction and housing economic development specialist.

Uh Matia Hawk will give the presentation.

Welcome both.

Yes, it's me again.

Um so tonight's presentation is gonna be on our community development block grant or CDBG action plan.

Um and before I turn it over to Madeha to give the presentation, I do just want to acknowledge and thank our housing and human concerns committee or HHCC.

They spend a lot of time reviewing, scoring and deliberating on these applications.

It's uh a multi-month endeavor, and so just want to really thank them for their hard work on this.

And so with that, I will turn it over to Madiha to give the presentation.

Good evening, City Council.

Um, as Lynn mentioned, my name is Medea Huck, and I am the housing and economic development specialist with the city's housing division.

Um tonight we will be going over the program year 2026 annual action plan.

And um an outline for the tonight's presentation.

Um, we will provide background information on the federal community development block grant or CDBG, um, as well as an overview of the annual action plan process.

We will also um discuss the available CDBG funding for program year 2026, and um we'll provide the housing and human concerns committee's funding recommendations for program year 2026.

Lastly, we will share the recommended action for the city council's consideration.

Um and I did want to highlight that we have um a couple of agencies that were recommended for funding um virtually and in person.

I believe some are still here.

Um so questions for the city council's consideration tonight.

Does the city council have any questions about the requirements for the use of CDBG federal grant funds?

Does the City Council have any questions about the CDBG recommendations for program year 2026?

So using a formula on an annual basis, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development awards CDBG for communities to carry out a wide range of affordable housing and community development activities to support low-income community members and areas.

To receive these funds, the city must adopt and will develop and adopt a five-year consolidated plan or COMP plan, which is a strategic policy document that provides priorities and goals for meeting the needs of low-income community residents over a five-year period.

Annual action plans provide a summary of the actions, activities, and specific CDBG resources that will be used to address the COMPAN goals.

Program year 2026 is the city's fourth year of the current Complan period.

The Housing and Human Concerns Committee or HCC evaluates all applications and makes recommendations to the city council for the action plan.

When making recommendations, the committee evaluates whether the project or program meets funding priorities, the capacity to meet federal requirements, which includes expenditure deadlines, program impact and outcomes, budget and cost reasonableness, which includes the leveraging of funding, as well as outreach and collaboration.

So as mentioned, the city receives an annual allocation of CDBG and operates on a one-year funding cycle for capital housing and public facilities activities.

However, to reduce administrative burden on both city and grantee staff, the city operates on a two-year funding cycle for certain ongoing service activities like public services for housing, economic development, and minor home repair programs.

Program year 2026 is the first year of the two-year funding cycle, and so agencies that are approved for funding tonight will only need to submit a streamlined application to be renewed for their second year.

In terms of the funding available for program year 26, we anticipate receiving the allocation of $643,0540.

We are estimating that we will receive $15,000 in program income, and we also have just over 119,000 in unspent CDBG funds from prior years that are being reallocated.

This totals to $777,639.

And as a reminder to the city council, program year 2026 will be the first year that the city will be a member of the San Mateo County Home Consortium, and this will allow the city to pool its home allocation with other consortium members.

Moving forward, home funds will no longer be included in the city's annual action plan process.

And so in terms of the committee's funding recommendations, public services and fair housing are capped at 15% of the grant allocation and their prior year program income.

The committee recommended Bay Area Legal Aid for 25,000, community overcoming relationship abuse or CORA for 15,000, Mental Health Association for 15,758, Project Sentinel for 17,250, rate trauma services for 15,000, and Samaritan House for 18,000.

The total public services and fair housing recommended is just over 106,000.

The amount that was remaining after public services and fair housing projects were funded, was distributed between microenterprise, minor home repair, and housing rehabilitation projects.

The committee recommended Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center for 49,000, Upwards Care for 94,457, which totals uh microenterprise recommendations for 143,652.

For minor home repair projects, the committee recommended 91,000 for climate resilient communities, rebuilding together's national rebuilding day for 44,656, rebuilding together safe at home for 49,102.

The total recommended for minor home repairs is uh just over 184,770.

Um, and then the committee recommended habitat for humanities home preservation loan program for 211,500.

This program will provide uh forgivable loans for more substantial home repairs, and then lastly, um to remain within the uh CDBG regulations um public and planning and administration um cap of 20,000 20% spending limit.

Um, the committee recommended 131,708.

The recommended actions for city council tonight are to adopt a resolution approving the 2026 annual action plan and authorize the city manager or designee to execute and file documents related to the 2026 annual action plan for submittal to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, and by motion authorize the city manager to execute funding agreements with the organizations identified in the 2026 action plan.

And just a reminder of the city council questions for city council consideration, and that also concludes my presentation.

Alin and I are available to answer any questions should there be any.

Thank you, Mayor.

We do have two speaker cards at this time, so we'll do a last call for in-person or zoom speakers.

And once again, if you raise your hand on Zoom or submit a speaker card after we've started public comment, we will not be adding your name to the list.

Thank you.

Okay, so we'll move forward with our three in-person speakers, starting with Juan Molina, who will be followed by Melanie Favre.

Good evening, council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

On behalf of Samaritan House and Safe Harbor Shelter, I want to express our sincere appreciation for the consideration of funding support through the city's uh 2026 annual action plan.

Safe Harbor Shelter serves some of our community's most vulnerable residents, individuals who are working to stabilize their lives, connect services, and move toward permanent housing.

This funding allows us to provide not just shelter but safety, dignity, and a path forward.

We recognize that resources are limited and the need across our community are great.

Your continued partnership and investment make meaningful difference in our ability to serve those who have nowhere else to turn.

Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your commitment to supporting critical services like Safe Harbor Emergency Shelter and our community's most vulnerable populations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Melanie Favre, who will be followed by Kate Kennedy.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

My name is Melanie Four with Upwards.

We're grateful for the Housing and Human Concerns Committee's recommendation to fund boost as a direct investment in Redwood City's child care providers and the families they serve.

Boost equips low to moderate income in-home child care providers with one-on-one business coaching and digital tools to strengthen their operations and grow their revenue.

Providers work with experienced care specialists to build a customized business action plan covering marketing, enrollment, finances, programming, staffing, and more.

They also receive free access to our child care management software system, which streamlines all the day-to-day operations of running an in-home day care.

It also includes curriculum activities, making it easy to for them to make a lesson plan for the entire week in as little as 45 minutes.

So that not only improves the business, but also the quality of care.

The result is the providers grow their small businesses, create local jobs, and expand access to affordable quality care for working families.

A common pain point we're hearing across the Bay Area is how to optimize enrollment amid the challenges posed by transitional kindergarten.

We're uniquely equipped to help both through our proprietary matching algorithm and hands-on regional experience.

From day one, I should note that every family in Redwood City would have access to dedicated care specialists to help them find care that suits their unique needs, including emergency backup care in as little as 24 hours.

So we applied to serve 12 providers, create four jobs, and expand access for over 160 local families.

The truth is the need far exceeds what we proposed.

2025 has been the hardest year yet for child care provider in-home child care providers.

Locally, they earn less than $19 an hour.

Nationally, over half struggle to afford food, and more than 40% struggle to afford housing.

Meanwhile, there's a notable capacity gap in the city where roughly 30% of children under six lack access to licensed care.

Sorry.

Thank you so much again for your consideration.

Thank you, Melanie.

Our final speaker is Cade Kennedy.

Welcome.

Hello, City Council.

My name is Cade Candy.

I'm the Senior Director of Programs with Climate Resilient Communities.

We're an environmental justice organization that works here in Redwood City, also in North Fair Oaks, Bellhaven, and East Palo Alto.

Um we were recommended for funding for our minor home repair program, which is a program that is very near and dear to my heart.

It provides direct home repairs for residents that can't afford to make those repairs themselves.

Our homeowners who have been living in the community sometimes 50 60 years have you know fixed incomes that they're living on and can't afford large-scale repairs that really affect their safety, the have ability of their home, and their ability to stay in the community that they love.

Um, over the existence of the program, we've been able to help more than 200 families across those four communities access these vital home repairs, stay in their homes, and live safe, happy, and independent lives.

The minor home repair program is a critical piece of preserving our housing stock, making sure that the health of our communities is first and foremost, and it's key to our missions to achieve environmental, racial, and social justice.

Keeping folks safe, stable, and housed is a top priority for CRC because when you are displaced from your home, you very rarely end up in an environment in an environment that is cleaner and more protective of your health.

So making sure that our families are safe and secure is a top priority of this program, and we're very thankful to be recommended for funding and to work again with Medeha and the great folks here in Redwood City.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Kate.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Great.

Thank you to our public commenters this evening.

I'll bring it back to the council who would like to get us started.

Councilmember Howard.

Okay.

Thank you so much for bringing this to us.

I've I uh wanted to also extend my thanks to the housing and human concerns committee.

Uh having been on that committee for 10 years.

I the books, the the huge amount of material that must be researched with so many fine non-profits wanting to be funded, and I know they can't fund them all, so it's a it's a real difficult exercise in trying to be fair and reasonable and know who to give what.

And I just commend the group.

They've evolved over the years with just so many improvements to their process, and I really appreciate it.

Um I know that the program is based on our consolidated plan, is that correct?

The consolidated plan lays out our priorities for each year, and it's a five-year plan, I believe.

Okay.

And uh the theme is the themes are housing production, supporting persons, experiencing homelessness and basic human needs.

And as you go through the different agencies that have been funded that this more than covers my goodness, uh, they really did a good job in really spreading the money and making the most, as I say, bang for your book.

Uh I'm very excited about the child care uh training and opportunity.

I think that's going to be pretty wonderful.

Have we done that before?

Is this a new agency to us?

This is a new agency for us.

Okay, so I'll be anxious to hear.

Uh maybe we could ask the housing and human concerns committee uh the next time, would they mind just giving a small tidbit of feedback to us on and on how the different agencies performed?

I think that would be real nice, especially for people who are being funded for the first time.

That would be helpful.

Um I wanted to know that I and I think I know, but I I really like clarification.

How are the monies divided among the priorities?

I know administration gets a percentage, and then uh human uh basic human needs.

I think it's a small percentage.

But I mean, is there a formula for the amount of money you allocate for each category?

Um so the committee needs to ensure that we stay within the various limits that are required by the CDBG regulations, and then other than that, they're um evaluating applications based on overall funding priorities, and also criteria that's mentioned in our NOFA, which is our notice of funding of availability.

I know economic development gets a large chunk of money, but you had two organizations that qualified.

So I just I knew that there were guidelines, and it's it's it's not the agency, it's not housing and human concerns that determines this.

This is something that is um given to the committee ahead of time that there's a percentage allocated for each category.

You can't move the money around.

Do that as a pocket slide.

Um so for the next one.

There you go.

Um, there we go.

Yes, so this is a breakdown of um the CDBG spending limits and how that was broken down with this year's budget.

That's helpful.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

And uh let me see here.

Um, wanted to know we have two programs that offer home repair.

Would any of the conversation we had tonight with our landlords?

Would the landlords be able to qualify for either of these programs?

Um so the programs are for homeowner-occupied repairs, um, so that does pose a challenge because the CDBG regulations has requirements about the occupancy of the home after the repairs are done.

Sorry.

I'll just add that um low-income renters can qualify uh through the minor home repair programs for accessibility modifications.

So the program is intended for low-income homeowners with uh the exception that renters can get those accessibility modifications with uh permission from their landlord.

I'm wondering, is there a possibility in the future of um, and I'm not sure you have to make you make the change, but having money, have inviting an RFP from a group or a nonprofit that helps um apartment buildings.

I thought we had something, we the city had something like that.

Um I don't know if we still do, but it was for apartment buildings in particular.

Yeah, so we specifically with the federal money, there are pretty strict requirements on how you can use that funding.

So if we were to assist a private landlord with rehab uh repairs, they would in turn need to uh basically we'd have to deed restrict that property that the rents would then be affordable, and that's the exchange that you would have to have for that funding.

Historically, we have put out the RFP and made it available to private landlords, but most do not take us up on that offer because they do not want to uh restrict the rents separately from the CDBG program.

We do have our housing preservation program, which the guidelines were amended this evening on the consent calendar that provides funding uh for properties uh similar to what HART does, where um a developer can purchase an existing property in exchange receive city funding, but then in turn would deed restrict those units as affordable, at least in terms of what housing the funding sources we manage.

Most of all of our funding require a deed-restricted affordability uh or affordable rents in exchange for those funds.

Thank you.

And that's reasonable.

I mean, okay, thank you.

My last question is home funds.

Um, can you remind me?

We used to handle the home funds, but we don't now.

It um it becomes part of the county of San Mateo home fund.

Uh and could you remind me what was our arrangement with that?

Thank you.

So we uh the council I believe was around last year approved joining the county's home consortium.

So essentially the county will get what we used to get from home, but projects in Redwood City can apply for the larger county pot of money.

What we were finding is our home allocation was dwindling each year.

I think it was around 200,000, uh, which, as you'll see, a later item is is a kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of funding for affordable housing.

Uh, but it comes with a lot of strings attached, and so being able to pool money uh with the county and being able to give out greater sums of money may make it worthwhile for developers to undertake all of those strings attached.

We do have a few projects with our existing home money um that are still in the works, and we will see those through as the city, but any new funding will be handled through the county.

Thank you very much.

That answers my questions.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Any other questions from I just have some call?

I just since we mentioned that it is May and it's mental health awareness, and we should be getting away from the stigmas.

I just want to say how happy I was to see our investments in mental health and domestic violence.

I think it's something that's desperately needed in our community, and given that it's May, I just wanted to shout that out.

That's just those are my comments.

I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Council Member Chu.

Uh, would like to echo the comments of both of my colleagues.

Um, and just to comment on going to the two-year cycle, I really appreciate the move, both both for more efficiency and also if you've got a program, you know, it takes months just to get it, you know, just for lift off, and so having a two-year sort of span, I think is is not just gonna increase efficiency, but I think quality and and utility of the money we spend.

So I really appreciated that.

Excellent work.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Council member Storken.

Thank you.

Uh, firstly, thank you to the Housing Human Concerns Committee.

We have one of our committee members right here in the front row.

Thank you so much, Katie Gets for being here.

Um, and I want to appreciate the investment in uh child care with upwards in the back.

Thank you so much for being here tonight as well and providing that uh one-on-one, you know, technical support to in home care providers.

Excellent.

Um, and uh safe harbor shelter.

I remember you know um receiving referrals from from y'all when I worked at HIP Housing, uh helping find folks rooms to rent, so thank you for the work you do and CRC.

I think I remember you presenting to uh at a council of cities um at one point.

Yeah, last year.

So great work y'all are doing too, uh, as well as all the other applicants, and so appreciate HHCC for the recommendations, fully support them.

Um, yeah.

That's all.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any other council comments?

Vice Mayor.

I I couldn't say it better myself.

I echo all my colleagues' comments and leave it there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And um, not seeing anyone else's lights go on, I will add my thanks.

Um, I agree with what my council member, uh Councilmember Chu mentioned around the the two-year.

Absolutely.

I think that's um a nice level of what to expect for for nonprofits that are all hurting right now.

Um, you know, and I I appreciate you know how HHCC's work has reflected our council conversation last fall where we spoke about wanting to do more around domestic violence and the protections that we offer um people who are our survivors in that.

Um I'm also happy to see the child care supports that we're offering, especially for in-home child care providers where that is that is an incredible skill set to be uh a caretaker or nurturer for um for our youngest residents, and also you're expected to run a business out of your house, and that is a whole other skill set that um you know lots of people need support with, and so really appreciate the public comments we got tonight.

Um, and then of course, you know, supporting our court agencies, right?

Um, with safe harbor.

That is that is I could not think of a better way to leverage these funds.

So I'm really excited by these recommendations and um I will move the staff recommendation.

Is there a second?

Second.

That was a motion from me and a second from Councilmember G.

Could we get an electronic vote, please?

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everyone.

With that, we will move to our staff reports for the evening, beginning with 9A notice of funding availability or NOFA for new affordable housing construction funding recommendations.

And we have you guessed it, a Lynn Lancaster back.

And uh she will uh give us a presentation with um with Lee Macalino.

Thank you.

Um again, uh thank you, Alyn Lancaster, Housing Leadership Manager.

Um, so before you tonight, we have funding recommendations from our recent notice of funding availability or NOFA for new affordable housing construction.

Uh we're also joined by members of the two development projects that are being recommended for funding.

Uh we have for the 1304 Middlefield or Rise City Apartments Project, Kai Stockwell from Sand Hill Property Company, uh who's here in person, Candy Rep, who is one of the financial consultants on the project with Divine and Gong is on Zoom, as well as Fred Pollock from the design team at Van Meter Williams Williams Pollock is um on Zoom as well, and then we have from the 1580 Maple Street team.

We have Molly Neighbor and Isaac Cruz, both with midpen housing.

And so uh with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Lay Macalino to give the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of city council.

I'm Lay McLean, housing management analyst at the city manager's office.

The outline for this evening's presentation is as follows.

Questions for city council, notice of funding availability or NOFA background, overview of the applications received, funding recommendations, and recommended actions.

Here are the two questions for city council.

Does the city council support the staff's funding recommendations?

Does the city council have any clarifying questions or need additional information?

The NOVA was published in fall 2025 for up to $7.9 million, including $4.6 million in former redevelopment agency or RDA, Low and Moderate Income Housing Fund LMIHF, and $3.3 million in housing impact fees.

Staff is expecting $5.8 million in housing impact fee payment from El COYARDS at $1601 El Camino Real for their office portion of the project in summer 2026, which we are adding to this NOVA, resulting to a total availability NOFA funding of about 13.7 million.

The NOVA's goal is to support new construction of affordable and multifamily rental projects with at least five units.

All units funded through this NOVA must be affordable to low-income households earning up to 50% area meeting income or AMI, and a minimum of 15% of the units in the project must be affordable to extremely low-income households earning up to 30% AMI.

Two applications were received.

RICE City Apartments at 1304 Middlefield by Sandhill Property Company and 1580 Maple by Midpen Housing.

Applications were scored based on four criteria readiness to proceed with construction, physical design and location, looking at the amenities of the development and surrounding areas, what services are offered, and if the units are accessible to households with mobility, visual and hearing impairment.

And we also looked into affordability and their budget.

One of our funding recommendations is for 1304 Middlefield or RICE City Apartments by the developer Sand Hill Property Company.

Please note that this development received a previous city funding award in 2024 for $4.3 million, including $2.5 in home investment partnership program or home funds, and $1.8 million in city affordable housing funds.

The development received ministerial approval through the Senate Bill SB 35 and completed their environmental review.

Their proposed unit mix will serve households earning up to 20% AMI to 70% AMI.

There will be one managers units for a total of 94 units, and this might change as they secure all of their funding sources.

Of the 94 units, approximately 24 units are reserved as are reserved as permanent supportive housing or PSH units, with 19 units for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or IDD, and five units for residents who are both homeless and have IDD.

The development has a memorandum of understanding or MOU for on-site case management staff with housing choices, an organization that supports people with developmental disabilities.

Supportive services costs for the 24 IDD units will be paid by the Golden Gate Regional Center.

Their current funding request of $7.6 million includes $4.6 million in RDA LMIHF and $3.3 million in housing impact fees.

With their previous award of $4.3 million, the total funding recommendation is for is $12.3 million.

In addition to this funding recommendation, staff is recommending changing the funding source for the $1.8 million in their previous award from Affordable Housing Fund to RDA LMIHF.

This ensures compliance with funding requirements and improves flexibility for all cities' housing initiatives and projects.

Additionally, this budgetary change was approved by city council as part of the fiscal year 25-26 mid-year budget amendments.

Rice City Apartments will be applying for county funding this month and 4% tax credits later in the fall.

They hope to start construction in early 2027.

The second project we are recommending for funding is 1580 Maple Street by the developer of Midpen Housing.

The project is on city owned land and is outlined in red up below.

The city and county of San Mateo entered into a real property exchange agreement in 2021, which facilitated a land swap, allowed and allowed the city to acquire 1580 Maple Street in exchange of the county receiving a separate parcel for what is now the County Navigation Center.

While the city owns the land, the agreement grants the county with an option to ground lease 1580 Maple from the city for the purpose of building affordable housing on site.

Through a competitive process, the county selected Midpen Housing as the affordable housing developer and hopes to assign the county's option to ground lease to Midpen by early 2027.

The site is adjacent to a townhome development at 1548 Maple Street.

The developer of 1548 Maple Street is responsible for building the Bloomquist Street extension from Maple Street to Redwood Creek.

Midpen has previously submitted an SB 35 ministerial review application.

Received comments by the city and will be resubmitting an updated application.

The project is requesting 500,000 in pre-development funding to restart their entitlement process and further to design development.

Additionally, the city would also be contributing the land to the project valued at 5.1 million.

The development is proposing a unit mix serving households earning up to 20% to 40% AMI.

There will be two managers, manager units and $79 units in total.

Of the $79 units, approximately $23 units will be designated to serve people with disabilities andor other special needs population, including coordinated entry system or CES referred homeless units or homeless households.

The development has committed city county funding in the amount of 19.9 million and will be applying for 9% tax credits in 2027 with an expected construction start later that year.

Staff's funding recommendation is to consolidate RISE Cities apartments prior and current city funding request.

Therefore awarding the permanent loans totaling 12.3 million, consisting of their current request of 7.9 million, encompassing 4.6 million in RDA LMIHF and $3.3 million in housing impact fees, plus the $4.3 million previously awarded in February 2024.

As already noted, the RICE City Apartments funding recommendation includes swapping the funding sources or the funding source of the 1.8 affordable housing fund in their prior award to RDA to RDA LMIHF.

The second recommendation is for 1580 Maple Street, awarding loans totaling to 5 million, including 500,000 in predevelopment loan and 4.5 permanent loan or 4.5 million per minute loan from the housing impact fees.

The city has sufficient funding for the project's pre-development loan, however, funding the 4.5 million permanent loan is conditional on the receipt of Elco Yard's housing impact fee payment.

Lastly, staff is recommending increasing the per unit subsidy of 300,000 for non-home funds.

Home funds will follow the home maximum per unit subsidy limit published by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HED.

Here is a recommendation before you to adopt a resolution conditionally awarding 12 million in the form of permanent loans to Rice City Apartments.

Conditionally awarding $5 million in the form of two loans, a $500,000 pre-development loan and $4.5 million per minute loan to the 1580 Maple Street Project.

Approving the increase of per unit subsidy limit of 300,000 for Rice City Apartments and 300,000 for 1580 Maple Street project.

Authorizing the city manager to execute loan documents and other necessary documents, any subsequent amendments or modifications, and take action necessary to effectuate the loans for these projects.

And lastly, we're sending resolution number 16204, which includes the Rice Cities Apartments previous award of 4.3 approved in February 2024.

Great.

Thank you.

Um sorry.

Um just circling back on the questions for city council.

Alin and I are here to answer any questions, and we have our development teams still present.

Thank you.

Um, that may answer any specific um project questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, sorry for getting ahead of myself there.

We will now bring it back to the full council for excuse me, public comment.

So I will send it over to the city clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, we have two in-person speakers.

If you've joined us on Zoom, feel free to raise your hand and I'll give it a few moments for our Zoom folks because we've had some raised hands kind of later in the public comment process.

So again, once we start public comment, we won't be taking any raised hands.

So I'll give it another minute.

Anyone on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand.

And we'll start with Kai Stockwell, who's joined us in person, who will be followed by Molly Neighbor.

Good evening, Mayor Sabayos, Vice Mayor Eakin, members of the City Council, and city staff.

My name is Kai Stockwell.

I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of the developer of the Rise City Apartments Sand Hill Property Company.

And I'd like to just very briefly thank staff and the council for all the work and partnership that has gone into advancing this project over the past several years.

We sincerely appreciate the collaboration and the support from the city throughout this process.

Um I think the staff report covered the program pretty well.

Um, these are these are 94 affordable homes in a highly walkable downtown location.

Importantly, as it was highlighted, 24 of those homes are dedicated to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, helping address a critical housing need in the community.

We're proud that the project has completed its SB 35 approval.

It's advanced to the building review, and it was identified by staff as one of the most construction ready affordable housing developments currently moving forward in Redwood City.

We also greatly appreciate the city's continued funding partnership.

The city's commitment is critical in helping position the project to compete for upcoming county, state, and tax credit financing needed to move this project into construction.

Most importantly, we want to recognize the tremendous amount of work the staff has put into this effort and the city's broader leadership and commitment to affordable housing.

In particular, I'd like to thank Alyn and Leigh in the city manager's office as well as everyone who has helped move this important project towards delivery.

Um again, we're very excited for the opportunity to take this project to the next step.

We also have uh as introduced members of our expert team, uh, who would be happy to help answer any questions.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Molly Neighbor.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Molly Neighbor, and I'm with Midpen Housing.

Thank you for your commitment to housing as showcased tonight with the packed agenda, including the Affordable Housing Month Proclamation and this funding award.

Midpen is really appreciative of the funding recommendation as it's going to be critical for our ongoing work with the county and the city to move forward this community for highly vulnerable households at the Maple Street site.

Midpen just completed leasing 136 units in a neighboring peninsula city where we got over 4,000 applications.

So just a reminder that the need is greater than ever, especially in supportive permanent homes for for those of highest need.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Great.

Thank you to our public commenters this evening, and we will bring it back to the council for discussion.

Who would like to get us started?

We'll go to Councilmember Chu.

So first of all, thank you for all your work on this.

It's just been so exceeding exciting to see all the amazing things happening in our city and these initiatives.

And just to save the suspense, I will be supporting this enthusiastically tonight.

Just a couple comments.

So both projects are exactly where we should be building affordable housing.

And they can walk and they can take the bus.

They can't really ride a bike and they can't drive.

And if they lived in a walkable city center, it would transform their lives.

Right now they are trapped and they cannot go anywhere unless somebody gives them a ride.

And so the ability to uh access, you know, food, entertainment, relationships, and mobility and independence in these kinds of locations is so key.

And again, I'm not trying to litigate this here and now, but I was a little sad that uh 1580 Maple wasn't a little taller, given how difficult it is to find uh sites for this type of building.

Um every building is a is a rare and difficult opportunity.

Um, and and even to see a single story, I just yeah, I thought it'd be taller, but obviously very supportive.

Um but if we can squeeze uh some more height and housing out of that site uh as we move along, that would be great.

Um, and then finally, um just a comment on the composition of the housing in general.

Um, both encouraged to see uh the housing for adults with with intellectual disabilities and uh just want to put in a plug for family housing.

Um I think certain kinds of homelessness are more visible.

Uh we hear about them more from the community.

Um but if we can allow a child to live in our community, there's a monotonic dose response in income age 26, uh in probability of finishing college and probability of stable family formation, like the ROI on family housing uh in our city is enormous.

Um, but overall, very very excited about both of these projects uh and fully support um funding them in this manner.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

We'd like to go next.

Councilmember G.

Let's pick up the pace a little bit.

So anyway, thank you very much.

I want to thank our applicants and and um for applying, and and so I'm gonna have some clarifying questions before I get into a little more detail.

You know, for a city to come up with sort of this NOFA.

It's pretty important, it's pretty good sized pot of money.

So is there any feedback on why we only got two applications?

Um, so in terms of affordable housing projects we have in the pipeline, the only other ones that we have kind of that we are aware of of staff were um specific gatekeeper projects.

Um, and so in those instances, because those are being provided through a community benefit through an office developer, they did not apply.

But um, we've not gotten feedback from, you know, why maybe potential projects that we've not heard of had not applied.

Uh, but I think as noted in the staff report, we do try to prioritize projects that are uh most likely to move forward to construction and project readiness is one of our our key factors.

I think you know, as as councils past and future work hard to create funding availability.

I think finding out what is um incentives, what is what is the pipeline look like?

How do we get more applicants?

This is going to be important because it's hard work to come up with 12.3 million dollars to award.

Um it's not an accident, particularly given our budget future right now.

What is the levers?

What can we do to create more money?

And what can we do to create more interest and what can we do to create build a better and bigger pipeline?

Because there's a lot of effort going forward in this that I think we can all be proud of, and we want to do more, but to create a bigger pot of money and have no applicants isn't there's a disconnect, and so to the extent we can find out what the opportunities are and what the barriers are, I think we can better position for the next time we have a similar opportunity.

We can we can definitely do that.

I think that's really really key.

Now, in the applicants team can correct me.

If I understand correctly, Rye City Apartments is looking to start construction in early 27.

I think that's what was mentioned.

And 1580 Maple looks to start construction sometime middle to late 27.

Did I get that part so far correct?

1580 Maple has construction start in late 2027.

Late 27.

So what that does for me is that Rice City apartments doesn't look like keys in the door, people in the units till maybe late 28, maybe, given 16 to 18 months of construction, and 1580 maple early 29.

Is that fairly accurate?

I would say roughly um, I believe affordable projects usually have construction within two years, or at least try to finish construction within two years.

So I think your estimates are correct.

Well, these these are I think doable within 16 to 18 months, unless they pick the wrong contractor, and we have some experience of the city with picking the wrong contractor.

Um, the important thing though is that given time, um things change.

You know, construction labor, tariffs, supply chain, PGE betterment, all those different things.

And if I recall correctly on the two slides five and six that you present, there's an asterisk at the bottom of each slide that says there's the possibility that the unit mix can change, and we have had that happen here before.

And I get it.

I mean, I think you know, I live in this space, I see the changes that affect construction projects.

But I just want to let our applicants know that while the asterisk is on the bottom of the slide, when we vote yes tonight, and I will vote yes, I'm not expecting the applicants to come back with major changes to that unit mix in six or eight or twelve months.

One or two units here and there, maybe, but to eliminate you know 20% AMI and move everything up is not going to be acceptable.

Um this was an important part of the selection process and awarding those funds, and so I get the asterisk, but I don't, at least for my vote, I don't want to see substantial changes in the unit mix from affordability standpoint in exchange for the um granting and award of these funds.

I also want to add that for Rice City Apartments, there are two if awarded city or city funding tonight, they only have two more um funding buckets to apply to.

They got tax credits in the county um no flower AHF like funding that's due at the end of this month.

And for 1580 Maple, I believe they're just um waiting on this city funding and also seven um nine percent tax credits.

No, I understand completely.

I mean, I serve on the board of an affordable housing prof nonprofit in San Jose.

I get it that they're not always in control, and getting these awards is not always easy.

They're somewhat competitive, if not highly competitive.

But the proposal was made, and and yes, time changes and cost change over time.

I just want to make sure for the record, I really don't want to see a lot of changes in the affordability mix that was made in the proposals.

That's all.

And I'll just uh echo your sentiment.

Um, Councilmember G, that we do still require that a minimum of 15% of the units must serve extremely low-income um households.

So that is a baseline requirement of our funding.

So if the proposal were to change for that, that uh could jeopardize their city funding, but even from 25 to 24 units to 15, I mean, yes, yeah, and I just want for the record, you know, and thank you for doing these projects in Redwich City.

Thank you for addressing our affordable housing needs.

But again, I just don't want to see drastic changes in the unit mix.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

We'll go to Councilmember Sterken.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you to the applicants.

Uh, thank you to staff.

Um I would like to echo Councilmember G's comments.

Um, for years now, uh extremely low income units have been a priority of this council and and and prior members of the council.

I think of uh former mayor of the CIGA would usually ask a question about it, right?

Um, so I just want to echo that.

And then I also wanted to appreciate uh the emphasis and the rise um city departments on the apartments for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

I can remember um in the past we'd have housing choices, you know, chime in public comment almost every uh time we had a development project under consideration.

And they of course serve, you know, folks in the community with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

So it's really great to see that.

Um just really glad to see a couple nearly shovel ready projects in the pipeline, and uh happy that we are able to help in any way we can.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sturkin.

Council Member.

All very exciting, ready to move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Councilmember, Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Very exciting, really exciting.

I do have a question though.

Um, I noticed uh RISE Apartments, they're uh having a one-two-bedroom manager's unit.

I'd like to ask um mid-pen.

They're uh having two managers units, and I'm concerned about that.

Uh they're actually doing 79 units, whereas RISE Church is doing uh 94 units.

So uh those affordable units are so precious.

If we could squeeze another one out, but there may be a very good explanation why you need two managers units, but that's the question.

Thank you for that.

So I want to emphasize that.

Oh, your mic's not on.

Thank you.

I want thank you for that question.

I want to emphasize that the concept for 1580 Maple Street is a community for highly vulnerable households.

So you see the very, very deep income targeting up to 40% AMI, so it's all acutely or extremely or very low income.

Um, we're learning a lot at midpen housing, including from Shores Landing, about what it means to uh successfully serve um formerly unhoused or households or households on the cusp of how homelessness, what it means in terms of design, what it means in terms of um services partnerships, and also what it means in terms of property management.

Takes we have a special team now within our property management, just focused on our supportive communities because the skill set is very distinct from traditional low-income family housing.

So, this current concept has the two manager units as a way to um kind of support that stabilization and the cohesion of this community.

Might revisit it, you know, it wouldn't go up from two.

We might revisit it as we fine-tune um the design in advance of resubmitting the entitlement with the support of the city, the city funding.

I also wanted to ask, um, because you are really Maple Street out by the water.

Uh there are no buses, I don't believe, that uh go down there regularly.

We were talking about people who struggle.

They don't have a car, um, maybe they can't ride a bike.

Um, what are you proposing for transportation?

Are you proposing to work with an agency that will help you with that?

Yeah, we have we've we have we've been mapping the distance to the closest bus stop, and there is bus service, but it's not as high frequency as elsewhere in Redwood City.

This is also a um a site concept which has a lot more parking than um many of our other communities at the same milestone in the design process given that it's um not as amenity-rich of an area as um, for example, a Royal Green Apartments, the senior housing community that we developed on Bradford Street.

So there is um uh a concept for more car dependency at this community, including for service providers who are going to be coming on site to serve the highly vulnerable households, so thinking about more parking stalls than usual in part because of more staffing than is typical given the population.

Well, thank you for that information, and I understand Bloomquist is going to be moving along along with the housing project.

I'm very excited about that.

That's much needed also.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to Vice Mayor.

So on the just a couple of quick questions, and it's probably in the staff report, and if it is, or in the materials, so if it is, shame on me.

But are both of these um affordable housing um buildings going to be owned and managed or managed by the developer?

So I think with Midpen that's the case, you will be managing the site.

Is that right?

Yes, I believe MedPen has their own residence services and management group.

And will there be, will there be um, you know, vocational rehabilitation services and psych services and uh conflict resolution services?

Will there be services on site for this very high needs population or a little bit more question to Molly?

Thank you.

Um so we're we're our pro forma, our budget includes a lot of resident services staff given the vulnerability of the population.

That team will definitely include midpen case managers, a case manager acts as a connector to the individuals with additional services they might need.

So they don't have all the expertise, for example, health care delivery service uh skills or vocational training skills, but they they're um skilled in working with an individual household to figure out what else they need and then getting them to to that connection point.

We may um we we may have additional service partners come on site as we do at Shores Landing with MHA.

They're a partner that works in in tandem with the midpen resident services to provide specialized services on site to our residents.

So that the services model is is um is being defined as we iterate on this on this concept, but it will um include intensive services and specialized services to match the needs of the population.

And that'll be all managed by you on the site.

So the property midpen is vertically integrated.

So we have uh we're in-house development, but also property management as as mentioned, and resident services.

The resident services team, the midpen team will provide case management and also oversee any third-party contracts.

So ensure that they're um fulfilling the requirements that we set up in advance in terms of how often they're at at the site, how many how many case managers they provide per residence, what skills their case managers have, etc.?

Thank you so much.

And then how about um uh Mr.

Stockwell?

Well will you will your will Sandhill um be managing the site?

Will you be paying someone else to manage the site?

What give me a flavor of that whole will you have social workers on site?

Give me a flavor of that whole thing.

Yes of course the project is designed to support residents through on site services, community amenities, and close proximity to transit jobs, daily services, surrounding the project area.

Alta housing is anticipated to serve as the project's uh primary property manager and provide general residence services uh to the community on site um for the IDD units um the project team anticipates partnering with housing choices um to provide those services and golden gate um regional center to support the referrals the uh coordination and residence services and will you be the owner um once it's built or will you still be the owner and then you'll partner with these other agencies is that how it goes that's correct okay thank you and again I apologize if that just wanted to clarify thank you very much wonderful project I plan to support it thank you both both projects thank you vice mayor any other comments from council not seeing any um I will add my thanks to staff to our great uh great applicants who are here this evening to field questions um to start my questions you know I am wondering for the record if you could help us um explain what is considered affordable and the different breakdowns uh of the units that you're offering here are you referencing to both projects or over yeah what the general categories are for each of the the very low income low income ELI.

Yeah.

And maybe it would help if I bring us to the slide.

So for Rice City apartments um their unit makes ranges from households are earning up to 20% to 70% AMI this translates to extremely low income and low income units are low income units goes up to 80% AMI so I think it would still fall under that.

And what um if you could put that in sort of salary figures for me what would you know 20% of the MI look like in um in terms of someone's salary.

I don't have to give me one second I'll pull up exact numbers for you.

Thank you Elena and while you do that I you know one of the the things I see when we talk about affordable housing that we get built is I'll see people comment or just let us know what what is actually affordable and who gets to live in that building right so um just want to share who's gonna be um in these well in these particular units.

Yeah it's a great question um so just to kind of give an illustrative example um a household a family of four who's considered extremely low income so they're actually earning up to 30% of AMI which is higher than here they could earn up to $5800 or $58,750 a year so that's for a family of four.

And kind of a rent level for say a one bedroom around that is around roughly $1,100 to give kind of an illustrative example anything at 50% AMI is considered very low income so for a family of four that would be around $97,000 a year that they could earn and kind of a example rent would be for a one bedroom around eighteen hundred dollars a month up to that and then I can tell you uh kind of at the the upper end of low which again is 80% if AMI so higher than the proposed sixty or 7, 60 or seventy percent there, a family of four that is around 156 thousand dollars a year that they could earn um and that rent uh similarly is around three thousand dollars great.

Thank you, Lynn.

That is always really helpful to just be reminded of who exactly we're supporting with these kind of units, right?

So thank you um and you know, I have always appreciated that the NOFA that this fund is funding at, you know, prioritizing those projects that have 15% ELI, which are always the most expensive and most difficult units to build, right?

So really grateful that that's already built into the DNA of the program, right?

Um, and I also notice the the final level of affordabilities on the projects at asterisk.

And um wanted to just add on that, you know, is there a a threshold that we have for, you know, if we notice the affordability targets aren't met because a loan falls through, or you know, there's there are other sort of economic issues out of the control of the applicant.

Can you repeat part of the first part of that question?

Yeah, is there a threshold that we have in case you know a applicant sees a loan fall through or something dramatically change, and you know, the affordability targets that they proposed, they just aren't able to make that.

Is there a threshold before you know there's a staff conversation or whatever the next step would be?

Um so per NOFA, they all the units have to at least serve households uh 80% AMI and below, which these do, and then they have to meet the 15% ELI for our home units.

We also have specific requirements that they'd have to serve, I believe it's 12 home units for RISE City, and those units are in the 50 to 60 percent AMI.

I think if something were to dramatically change where a project say it's gonna be a hundred percent, eighty percent AMI.

Um, I think we would definitely re-evaluate whether that makes sense.

Um what we do know is since both of these projects either have county commitments or also are pursuing county funding.

The county also has similar uh requirements around uh 15% of the units being at ELI.

Um, and then also to be competitive for tax credits, uh you know, they have to meet certain affordability targets.

So unless something dramatically changes, uh, you know, we don't expect that to happen, but um I also we also know this is a very competitive and uncertain landscape for financing.

Um, yeah, thank you.

And I'm knocking on all the wood around me to make sure that that's not happening to any of the developers, right?

But um, thank you for just explaining that 15% that is the floor there.

Um, yeah, I um aside from the wanting to make sure that we're remaining and doing our best to to meet those affordability targets, right?

Um I also am thinking about the fund itself, right?

And I know part of the funding that we're gonna be um distributing tonight is coming from the Elko Yards project, right?

Um, so still in flow in flux, right?

Um, and not too many cities get to have a fund like this, right?

So it's pretty incredible that we're able to help projects cross the finish line, right?

Especially affordable housing.

Um, and I'm also thinking about what happens next.

So, you know, I know we're it is tough for everybody right now, uh, especially for cities, and so just thinking about you know, uh ways that we can start trying to prioritize um funding sources for the affordable housing fund so that we can maintain it and uh make sure that it continues to help projects affordable housing projects cross the finish line.

Um I think that's gonna be important since housing just continues to remain a priority for this council.

So with that, I will um I'll move the staff recommendation and uh Vicemar Aiken.

I'll second.

Great.

That was a motion from myself and Vice Mayor Aiken.

Could we get a electronic vote, please?

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you everyone for the great discussion.

Thank you, staff and our presenters.

With that, we'll move on to nine B.

We'll hear an item regarding potential affordable housing redevelopment in one of our downtown library parking lots.

And we're giving a line a break, and we're inviting Deputy City Manager Jennifer Yamaguma and City Consultant Jim Simon from RSG Solutions, who are here to give us a presentation.

Yes, surprise, it's me.

Um, yeah, thank you, mayor and vice mayor and city council.

As you just mentioned, I do have a couple of folks on Zoom that are gonna help with this presentation, but I will kick it off.

So we're gonna give you a brief background and site context.

We're gonna review some goals that we had as we can guided this feasibility study for this um concept, and then I'm gonna turn it over to Jim, who is gonna present some redevelopment concepts and the feasibility analysis that was taken.

And then at the end, we'll come back and talk about next steps.

To frame tonight's discussion, staff seeking direction on two key questions on the slide before you.

First, does the council support directing staff to follow the proper surplus land act procedure for this site, as well as directing staff to prepare an RFP to solicit redevelopment proposals from qualified developers for future evaluation.

So in April 2024, the city council adopted the two-year economic and workforce development plan.

One goal of that plan was to evaluate city controlled real estate for potential economic development use.

So following adoption of that plan, staff evaluated several city-owned properties and opportunities, including the potential redevelopment opportunities at the downtown library parking lot B, which is shown here.

So this is the parking lot located at 1016 Middlefield Road.

It's approximately 31,000 square feet and currently contains 98 public parking spaces.

It's adjacent to the downtown library and the future lot A parking um park improvements on the other side, and it creates an opportunity to evaluate how the site could potentially support several different city council priorities.

The feasibility study evaluated redevelopment concepts for lot B with four primary objectives.

So those were to maintain as much public parking as possible.

Of course, advance affordable housing development, preserve space for city use, and ensure future development does integrate with the downtown public library and future lot A park improvements.

So just to touch on the preserve space for city use, that reflects the reality that as Redwood City is growing.

Available space here at City Hall has become increasingly constrained, and additional space could support help uh could help support future operational needs and service delivery.

And I also want to emphasize that the concepts that you're about to hear from Jim about really are very preliminary.

This is a very preliminary feasibility scenario intended to help the city council understand what may be possible on the site.

So staff is not asking the council to select a preferred development concept this evening.

If the city council does wish to move forward, a future RFP process would help further evaluate what is in fact feasible at the site, both from a development and also from a financing perspective, while again balancing the city's goals related to housing, parking, and city space.

So I am going to pass it over to Jim Simon from RSG.

He is also joined by Rick Williams, who is the architect and an urban designer.

Jim, please take it away.

Good evening, uh, mayor members of the city council.

This is Jim Simon uh with RSG.

Uh I just wanted to go ahead and share my screen so I could go through the feasibility scenarios.

Okay.

Like I need to have the other one taken down first to do that.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

All right.

Um, well, I'll just want to go ahead and get started.

Uh, so as was mentioned, um, there was some policy advice that went into some of the land use concepts that we'll be looking at today.

Um, first is obviously reduction of affordable housing on this site, reservation of uh as many of this 98 parking spaces as possible, some city office space.

Our feasibility analysis was informed by the general plan and municipal code standards, downtown precise plan, scale development nearby, and um as publicly owned property.

We always have to consider the surplus land act and how that plays into account.

So this slide sort of summarizes the uh overall uh standards for the site, about 31,000 square feet of what's developable when you take out the uh sloped areas and easements and things of that sort.

Uh height that's permitted is about eight stories on the site or 92 feet.

Um there's no uh minimum parking requirement for the site, although parking was considered for both public as well as some of the residential uses in keeping with kind of contemporary practices of developers that we've seen in similar projects.

Uh I think we've covered this slide already, but we did take into consideration if there were any title issues or easements that were identified that would potentially be constraints.

This will obviously have to be studied much further at this stage, though we didn't find anything that would constrain development of the site in a material way.

Um you see that we've created some space around the library uh where it exists today, and it certainly doesn't affect the other parking lot on the other side of the library building as well.

So we came up with a total of uh five different concepts, two of which are kind of considered a commercial forward design, and the other three are more of a residential forward design.

The distinction which you can see on the screen uh varies from this the overall height and number of stories, uh number of uh levels of parking, uh, some of which may include underground parking, the the dark brown area there you see is the grade, and uh and whether or not there's underground parking or subterranean parks, it's called that's included in the site.

Uh the although we distinct these as commercial forward and residential forward, the overall square footage of the commercial space is you know not dramatically different.

We're at about 1400 square feet under the residential forward design and about 1900 square feet bigger at about 3400 square feet for um the more commercial forward design.

The idea that the commercial space would be used, uh how it would be used would be primarily for city use.

Uh, additional city offices could be offices or accommodations for adjacent library staff.

Obviously, this is across the street from City Hall as well.

So uh this is a breakdown of the uh overall concepts and sort of this from the site study that was done by Van Manier Williams and Pollock, and you can see the range of housing unit options.

These are um all between um 30 and 80 percent AMI units.

Um we're talking uh and a mix of one, two, and three bedrooms generally.

Well, one bedrooms were around half of the total numbers of units, two bedrooms were about a quarter, and then the balance was uh three bedroom units.

So it's a family project uh with uh emphasis obviously on single uh one bedroom units.

Um you see the number of stories and the level of subtrain parking that we summarized in the prior slide.

I think it's important to note here is the number of uh parking spaces, both for residential use as well as the library space.

We've, you know, been able to retain um 98 or uh spaces uh or more on the residential forward designs, but when you bring in the commercial space that did uh cut into the amount of space for uh parking and therefore reduce the overall inventory for library or public parking spaces.

Uh, the residential spaces were um uh generally left to like one level of parking within the structure of the building.

And you see those noted on the screen here.

Um these give you kind of an idea of how the massing study was executed and with identification of where the commercial space would be as you're looking at this diagram.

Um Middlefield Road is on the top part of the diagram, and Jefferson Avenue is on the left side to kind of help you orient where things are located.

Um for the commercial four designs on the left hand side of the screen, you see a plaza area uh in front, which it lies in front of the commercial uh 3400 square foot space, includes some additional um facilities for the residential and commercial building there as well, as well as additional parking um for at the ground floor level.

On the residential scenario, you'll see less depth of a commercial space and not as much in terms of uh relief from the right-of-way as you see in the other option as well.

So it's a little bit more of a higher massing of the overall building size.

These give you kind of an idea of some illustrations of what the might of the building might look like relative to the surrounding context.

Um, these are again conceptual in nature, so certainly don't want to read into these illustrations too closely, but it gives you a general idea of how the scale of the building might look.

Um, I think you've talked about this a lot tonight, but just to kind of recap, obviously, affordable housing finance uh is achieved through uh a combination of rental income that's paid by uh the tenants and with the balance provided through gap financing from tax credit financing, loans uh that are secured by the the income stream, and uh usually other uh gap financing, that gap financing can come from, as you know, the city based upon your earlier conversations and seeding, or as well as the state and other uh federal other programs that may be available.

Um we're gonna get into a little bit more of like how these illustrate how these projects all look to give you a better idea of what they kind of look like here.

Um in these scenarios on the C1 scenario here, you see the basement level, that's the underground parking, one level of primarily underground parking, followed by two levels of uh above grade um primarily podium development, which is contains uh commercial space and additional parking.

And then beginning in level three, you've got um a courtyard area that's constructed about 6,000 square feet, surrounded by uh the different units and some uh amenities for the tenants.

This building here that you see on screen is a um two levels above grade, and then um depending on the on the on the density here, um, another uh four levels of um of uh apartments.

So this is the an illustration of the preliminary financing breakdown.

This is generally done based on other tax credit projects that have uh been successfully financed in California and particularly looking at the local market.

Um we do this to look at a couple of different things.

Um, one is to try to understand what is the residential gap per unit.

That's the first thing we typically look at, which is at the bottom part of the screen.

That is the amount of money that is outside of what would be typically gained from uh debt financing, tax credit equity, and typically a deferred developer fee.

In this case, it works out to about 200,000 per unit for this residential gap on this project.

Um, in addition, um, you have to consider the cost to um replace the parking, which is the library parking cost.

So you have a surface parking lot today, which is obviously low cost, just the value of the land to recreate that parking in a building is quite a bit is certainly quite expensive.

Under these scenarios, we're about 74 spaces of public uh parking, and you're looking at a cost of around 5.7 million dollars to recreate about two-thirds of the parking in that scenario.

I'm sorry, three quarters of the parking that are currently on the site.

And then finally, there's another million uh dollars for the cost of the uh 3,400 square feet of uh office space getting built.

Um these costs that you see here do not include the land cost.

You know, there's a presumption that the city would uh, you know, ground lease it for a dollar or basically donate the land.

So that therefore it's been excluded from the feasibility analysis.

Um that's the first scenario.

We do a comparison of these in the at the end, so I'll kind of land on that and let them talk a little bit more about that.

This is the other commercial forward design.

This just goes to eight stories instead of seven.

So that's the distinction in this scenario.

Uh you see the cost is a little bit higher in terms of the project gap.

It's gets more units.

Um the commercial uh uh space as well as the parking costs are unchanged, however.

So the gap as a result came down a bit.

These are the residential forward designs.

Um similar to the commercial forward design, the second one where we had um a limited amount of square footage, uh, like in how plazas configuration.

This one was done primarily to again maximize the number of units and public parking.

This one achieves the 98 uh public parking units, and therefore comes at an additional cost of about $7.8 million.

But the overall residential gap is quite a bit less on this, from about $200,000 per unit to about $154,000 per unit.

Um I'll just skip through the rest of these without getting into detail to be mindful of time here for everyone.

And finally, this is the scenario which has eight stories and uh 100 spaces of parking, uh, sort of the largest uh configuration with the residential afford.

So here's the summary that I mentioned that I was gonna put up on screen.

Um, so this again shows you the cost for uh recreation of the public's parking spaces, anywhere from about 75 parking spaces under the commercial forward design to the full 98 to 100 spaces on the three residential forward designs, as well as the office space for the city uses.

Um, um the gap of the prize feasibility gap on the projects is again the amount exclusive of the um total cost of uh, you know, the the benefit from tax credits and debt financing and things of that sort.

So you could see that on screen here.

So even though the commercial forward designs um have less units, the subsidy uh that would be needed isn't necessarily uh less in all cases, as you can see.

Um, as I mentioned, the surplus land act does come into play here in any time you're dealing with public property today's environment.

There's a number of different ways public agencies can navigate the surplus land act when they're looking at affordable housing.

Um, one would just simply be to declare it as surplus land, and that means that the site has to be offered for affordable housing with preferences given to um interested parties that submit proposals on the deepest level of affordability and the greatest number of affordable units.

One of the constraints of the surplus of the declaration of the surplus process is the ability to preserve the public parking.

Generally speaking, when you're deploying a property surplus, uh there's a limitation on what one can do under a notice of availability, as it's called, once that's made by a city.

So that's certainly one of the downsides of going that route.

Um, there are other, there are several types of exemptions under the surplus land act that do allow for uh mixed use or uh essentially commercial use on the property.

Um these would potentially be more amenable to something along the lines of what some of the city's goals were around preserving the uh public parking as well as the recreation of uh some uh commercial space, and therefore they generally tend to favor the some of the goals that have been articulated by by staff and the discussions that we've had that helped us develop this presentation tonight.

So uh as was mentioned um by Jennifer.

The really the process here is to discuss sort of the feasibility findings that we've identified here, generally, which all suggests that you know there's a variety of ways that we believe uh affordable housing project could work on this site while still achieving some of the other city city's land use goals.

Um we believe there's a way to navigate the surplus land act to make that happen, and we would recommend uh exploring uh one of the exemptions that are allowed under state law for uh cities to proceed with a project that would allow for uh the city to meet its goals for both affordable housing as well as parking on the site.

And then there would be a process to go solicit uh proposals from a developer, typically through something like an RFP, where the city would make the site available, solicit proposals for you know anywhere from 60 to uh 90 days, and then evaluate those proposals and the feasibility.

At that time, that's typically when you're gonna see more of a robust analysis in terms of total number of unit accounts and the overall financing gap and assistance needed from applicants.

Um, so that uh really concludes the deck presentation that we had for tonight.

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

And mayor, I just have one really quick slide.

If I could go back to my presentation.

Thank you, Jim.

There we go.

I just want to underscore really quick that um, you know, earlier tonight you just approved nearly 13 million dollars towards affordable housing projects.

Um, so that definitely is coming out of time where those investments uh for available affordable housing funding is now a little bit more limited in the near term, but at the same time, staff does anticipate the city will receive additional affordable housing impact revenue from future developments over the coming years.

And so, given the length of time that it is for entitlement and financing and development process, it's the staff's view that it would not be prudent to wait until all of the future funding is in hand before progressing with this work.

So that's why we're bringing you this conceptual um these conceptual ideas this evening.

It allows us to kind of start planning and then go through the solicitation process as we've outlined.

I won't get into this because we just covered it, but I do want to emphasize that this is a long-term multi-year process with multiple opportunities for council direction, community engagement, and outreach to our downtown businesses and other stakeholders before any construction activity would occur.

So again, just to underscore that the earliest potential that anything would really be happening would be several years out.

I'll return to council questions in just a second, but our staff recommendation is to have city council direct staff to proceed with the proper SLA process as well as um solicit for development proposals.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Jennifer, and thank you, Jim, for the great presentations, and we'll go to our city clerk for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

We do have two speaker cards at this moment and another three speaker cards.

Thank you.

Okay, and last call to our Zoom attendees to raise your hand at this time if you'd like to give public comment on this item.

We will begin with our in-person speakers, starting with Nicholas Kennan, and Nicholas will be followed by Michael Russa Cruz.

Hi, my name is Nick Kennan, District Six resident and Yes and Ridwood City, yes, and Redwood City volunteer lead.

Um with the this lot B that's gonna be redeveloped.

Uh it's a happy surprise.

This was not on my radar.

Um, and it it makes perfect sense though.

It's uh it's a lot um in the center of the city.

Um, and if we can take it from just being a lot to being this multi-use structure that could better serve the city and you know chip away at those arena goals.

Um it was sobering to read though in the staff report the extended timelines involved, or I guess I'm just not used to um, you know, the time it takes to actually get this built from the issuance of the initial request for a proposal to breaking ground, I read was four years.

And so I just think we should get the bull ball rolling tonight and try and not have any delays and keep us on track so costs don't add up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nick.

Our next speaker is Michael Arusa Cruz, who will be followed by Dylan Finch.

All right.

Uh hello, members of city council.

Um I share uh Nick's enthusiasm for this project.

I'm honestly really really excited to see this being proposed.

I can't honestly imagine a better place to build affordable housing.

This is built would literally be six minutes walking from the Caltrain and public transportation, not to mention near jobs and services, since it's oftentimes under discussed uh the degree to which many of the service workers who actually work for local downtown businesses can't actually afford to live in the city where they work.

Um and having these affordable housing developments near where they work would go a long way towards helping them alleviate that.

Uh that being said, um a statement you've probably heard a lot.

I do have concerns about the parking.

I think there may be too much of it in that from reading the staff report, um, the cost appears to be about 14 to 16 million of um city housing subsidy for for the housing piece, and five to ten million just rebuild the parking, and most of the proposals put forward seem to have more parking units than housing units.

I worry that we're uh moving heaven and earth to um preserve these parking units when at great cost to the city, the developer, and likely reducing the total number of homes we can actually build on the site, which given that the site is again so close to the caltrain and public transportation and downtown, um, I really do worry that we're um trading off too much housing and cost for um parking units.

We've had other affordable housing units get built with lower parking requirements, and I think given the location, this is a great use for that.

I don't have time to get into the funding or the timelines, but um yeah, let's get the rubble.

Let's get the ball rolling today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Our final speaker is Dylan Finch.

Uh hello, council.

Uh I'm on the planning commission, but I'm just speaking for myself today.

Uh I wanted to comment on the proposed public parking replacement.

Um, first I wanted to thank staff for actually breaking out the cost of replacing the public parking.

So, yeah, as you saw in the report, it's five to ten million dollars.

Um, I'm not against spending money on parking.

Um, but uh we need it for our businesses, for events, and for residents.

However, knowing the cost, I think it's worth asking, is this the best way to spend five to ten million dollars on parking?

Or is there another way that we can get more bang for our buck?

Um as you can see in this picture here, uh, in and around downtown, we already have over 3,300 parking spaces.

Um, and thanks to the great foresight uh from previous councils, much of that is underground and in privately owned developments, open to the public on nights and weekends.

Um, and I believe that that 3300 number also does not include potential access to the new 1000 space county employee garage, um, which I know the city has been thinking about trying to get access to.

And um yesterday was Mother's Day, and there were a lot of people in downtown in the afternoon.

However, at 4 30, the Jefferson Garage had 120 open spaces, and the Marshall Garage had 300.

So again, my question is just if we want to spend five to ten million dollars on parking, is there something better that we can spend it on?

Could the money be used to help us um get access to the county employee garage?

Or could we spend the money on more wayfinding to the to the garages that we have, or could the garages be made cheaper?

The garages are currently very expensive on the weekends at $2.50 an hour after the first 90 minutes.

Or outside of downtown, would it be worth expanding neighborhood uh permit programs?

I don't know what the best choice is, uh, but I do think it's worth studying the alternatives.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dylan.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you to our city clerk, and thank you to the public commenters for sticking with us this late into the meeting.

It's very appreciated.

And I'll bring it back to the council for any questions or comments.

We're so close, y'all.

Thank you, Councilmember Circuit.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Uh, thank you to staff um and the consultant as well for preparing uh this options.

It is such a great opportunity, and I appreciate the alignment with our uh economic development goals um and finding this site.

What a perfect site for affordable housing.

Um I wanted to um I guess just uh firstly state that I am supportive of um uh pursuing the surplus land act procedure and uh directing staff to prepare their RFP.

And then I want to get into uh just a couple of the items here that we heard from public comment about the um I guess the parking.

So it the thought didn't occur to me that we could you know potentially repurpose those dollars to invest in our other parking programs, um, as was mentioned, the county garage uh permit parking permit program as well as the uh residential parking permit program.

So that is definitely worth noting.

Um I also um wanted to then talk about the construction itself.

And so there's quite a variety in the scenarios proposed, um, including um different uh what's the word podium podium uh levels, a number of podium levels, right?

And parking is super expensive.

Was it 50,000 a stall?

More than that, yeah.

Um, and while I understand that parking is a priority for the city, I I do want to see I'm curious to know in the RFP if we can elicit responses from applicants as to this question.

If the project did not replace all of the public parking, how many more units of housing could be built?

Not saying no parking, I'm just saying I'm curious about what options we could be presented with.

And then in terms of the getting back to the podium structure, uh, in terms of the building type.

Right now we're proposing what what what is proposed is I imagine a um podium and then stick frame structure, right?

Which is very common, very cheap uh to build relatively uh with the parking.

And so what alternatives, alternative building types are there that could be considered by potential applicants.

You know, mass timbers becoming very popular right now.

We got our county garage, not garage, county center that is a mass timber project.

Um modular is becoming more popular.

112 Vera, completely modular project and can be cheaper and quicker to build.

Um so I would like to see us hear from applicants about our options, um, particularly the mass timber, because it can be built uh faster um, you know, in a tighter space.

It can be something else I can't remember.

Um I think that could result in more units potentially.

Um, and that's really what I'm getting at is this is public land for public good, and we need to deliver the most public good for Redwood City on this land.

Uh I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Who would like to go next?

Council Member Padilla.

Thank you.

I have a different take on this.

So when I think about this and I think about that space, and I think about our library, and I think about a reoccurring thing that I hear everywhere, which is our children aren't reading at grade level, and we are failing them.

They are not reading where they're supposed to be.

And when I think of the invisible labor, I think of the caretakers, the grandparents, the seniors who are taking their grandchildren to our wonderful programs like Project Reed who are going to these places.

I just want to make sure we in our pursuit to create all these one-bedroom apartments in in fix our housing problem that we aren't forgetting our families, our senior citizens who go to these places daily as well, that this is part of their daily routine.

And what is going to happen when the construction happens?

Where is the library?

Where do all those programs go?

I just don't want us to.

I understand about thinking of the future, but I'm also thinking about those groups here who need these services now.

We all need housing, but we also need our children to be reading.

We need safe spaces for people to congregate.

And I know now we just had uh that wonderful event at the senior center.

I had so many seniors saying to me how great it was to see so many people, but how they're still afraid to come downtown.

And we can say parking, it's about communication and wayfinding and signage.

But if I'm 80 years old and I come down and I drive and I can't see the parking, and I decide not to now come down and shop or eat, that that is a real problem.

And I just want to make sure that we are acknowledging all the members in our society who and how they get to the library, how they get to these programs.

Housing is important, but so is literacy, so is the connectivity in of our seniors.

Um I I think that um currently looking at it with the way it is, I with all the gap financing needed, and given that we have already been so encouraging for other affordable housing earlier tonight.

I'm not as presented today, I do not support this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to you next.

Thank you.

Um I agree with um some of what Councilmember Padilla said.

I mean, I I see a possibility here to create something spectacular on this corner, but I agree with you in that.

Let's not forget we have a library there.

It's our main downtown library, gets thousands of people coming in, coming out.

If you've I go there all the time, and it's families who are parking there.

I'm not gonna ask a family to park in the county lot or in the underground theater lot and come with their family to uh I mean they might do it if that's all the choice they had, but I wouldn't be supporting that because I recognize when I see the women, many mothers struggling getting the kids out of the car.

Let's get in the library.

I can't imagine if she had to walk several blocks, she just wouldn't go.

And that would be a terrible loss.

But I do look at this piece of land as a golden opportunity to plan something cohesive.

I mean, first we need to identify what are the needs we want to do on this site.

And I'm not just talking about the lot B.

I'm talking about what about lot A, where there's supposed to be a park, and parking spaces are being taken away from there.

We're already hearing from our businesses that they don't have much parking near their restaurants on Main Street.

Now, here we are, we have an opportunity to maybe bring some satisfaction to the business community, the library patrons who would like to park nearby, but also how do we incorporate the park with the other side having podium parking, possibly some office space, and some residential.

I'm I want me.

I would love to see us get, I think you called it Patrick, excuse me, um Mr.

Heisinger.

Um space analysis.

I I'm I really I mean I remember when we were designing our downtown city hall, we did a charrette in the library across the street.

We asked the people who are interested, you build the model, you pay for it, and the community is going to weigh in on it.

We had the most magnificent opportunity for people to have community engagement.

We've had so many great ideas.

We pick the ultimate design that you see today, but if it's not a charrette, what do we do to kind of look at the overall picture of the whole lot?

Don't take it piecemeal.

I'm not comfortable taking a piecemeal.

I think we miss opportunity to do the right thing and get the best bang for our for the community.

So I would like to see a holistic approach to the whole land, and what that means.

How many parking spaces can we afford to do because we have this kind of need?

How much city space does the city need?

I don't know.

But it sounds like you wouldn't have put it in there if you didn't have some kind of a need.

And how does the park work with what we're proposing in front of the park and how does that relate to what's happening in lot B?

How can we make this look like a spectacular area that doesn't look piecemeal?

I would hate to see that.

You have to remember this is going to be an entry feature for people coming west to east, coming to downtown.

You come under that under overpass.

That's the entry feature.

They're gonna be seeing the beautiful buildings of downtown Redwood City.

So this is something where I think we have to give some real thought to on how do we make that corner really stand out as an entry feature with all its parts.

But how we do that, I'm not the expert, but I know that there probably is somebody who can help us plan that.

So that's and I'd like to have a lot of community engagement.

I don't want to pick something and then have people say it's too high, too small to this, to that.

Let's really make this an opportunity for our community to weigh in on something really important and permanent for the next hopefully many, many years to come.

That's because I mean, and also what are we going to do with that poor circus when we I don't want to lose our circus?

So I I have a feeling that Derek has already thought about it.

But I just wanted to remind people that's where our circus has been for years now.

And so I think we need to give them a little bit of heads up if we're gonna move forward with this and plan so we don't lose the only circus that we have come into Redwood City and don't want to lose it.

It's a family activity that we need to keep.

So I think that'll leave it at that because I I'm not ready to make a permanent decision other than I like the concept, but I think we need to give some thought and possibly some money to what does the holistic design look like, and how do we have people weigh in on that?

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Councilmember Howard, thank you very much for your comments because one of the missing pieces for me, and I'm gonna talk in a language that probably Jim and Rick will understand is I couldn't find in the staff report the project program that we're trying to achieve here.

I found the pro forma from a land use standpoint and a math standpoint, but you know, city uses public space, how I mean there was I couldn't find the project program that we all agree on, and which we can go forward with.

I and so my apologies, Jennifer and Patrick an entire time if I missed it.

I didn't see it.

And so, fundamentally, when you're looking at beginning a project or land use discussion, particularly with city land, it's incumbent on us to agree on what are we trying to do?

And the proportions of parking, housing, public space, open space, space for Zope or whatever.

That's the basis of moving forward.

This is an opportunity site, no question about it.

Should it be a gateway?

Should it be, you know, overflow for the library or for city service?

Should it be, you know, we just saw earlier a mix of affordability.

What are those out goals are?

And that's not there yet.

And there's certainly just so far, no consensus on council what that should be yet.

And that's a fundamental starting point for any work to go forward with the land use or a project description.

Couple questions for you, Jim.

You outlined several scenarios, but I was curious.

Where does the state density bonus come into play?

SB 79 and all the different things that Sacramento is doing with regard to our sites and land use.

I didn't quite see it, so my apologies if I missed it.

Well, we're we're um at the eight-story height limit right now.

So SD 79 and some of those density bonuses weren't necessarily taken into consideration, although uh if by doing so they could create more units, it would potentially reduce the amount of residential parking and increase the height, which could affect the development economics.

So we haven't really weighed in on that because it most of the projects that are getting delivered right now in this in this market or at the seven to eight story foot height, you know, podium development, you know, additional height um may not necessarily get you additional units feasibly, so that was one of the limiting factors in how we looked at it.

So to get geeky on everybody, you constrained it by type five on podium, which is wood frame stick construction on top of that was the that was the constraint, correct?

Okay, just and I'm not sure that's the right constraint.

Again, again, starting with the fundamental foundations and principles, I'm not persuaded that's a constraint that we should be adhering to, you know, given all the density bonuses.

I mean, after all, we have a 21-story senior housing application being processed or being reviewed right now.

I think there's there's room for conversation on that.

Um, did you consider, since I sit on a couple of transit boards that have TOD policies, and we have built projects where we've leased the land to a developer, but then in exchange, we have gotten a percentage of the rental income, which creates income stream for us to be able to repurpose that money into other things, whether it be subsidizing affordability or using that income for other things.

We we did not uh factor in any uh economic exchange with regard to the land.

In other words, there was no assumption that the land would be sold and the city would get paid for the land, or that there would be a material ground lease income on the land.

So that was not taken in consideration.

Okay, so I think again, there's still some homework to be done here because we've done that at Sam Trans in our TOD policy.

There's a project in San Carlos that does that, as well as we're looking at several other properties where we have that similar TOD constraint where we're leasing the land, and in exchange, we're getting percentage of income of the rental proper and rental income as an income generator or to subsidize affordability.

And we have not given up affordability only to the extent the city, and particularly in that case, reduce the height and reduce the affordability because of for politics.

But I think again, going back to the foundational elements, what are we trying to do, and how do we maximize this particular piece of property?

Because it is a great opportunity site, which leads me to my principles never sell land because you never can buy it back, the look to lease it and hopefully create an income stream so that we have some flexibility to do other things.

This is a gateway project.

Um and how do we maximize this opportunity?

And I think there's still some more work that needs to be done before we release uh RFQ and begin the surplus lands act process.

The other thing that I would ask Jennifer, you and the team and our city attorney.

We heard earlier today or this evening about the referendum coming forward.

And I need to understand the intersection between what we're proposed tonight and how that potential referendum may impact that.

Because again, I go back.

If we're going to put this out on market for development, I'd like to see the city get the most that they can for it.

And if there's and I haven't studied the language in the referendum, so I don't know what's in it.

I can only speculate, which is not of value, but I want to make sure we get the most for this opportunity, and if that is going to diminish the return on that land, I think council should know about that.

And so the timing of when we do this might be affected by that.

That was a long way of saying, being a little cryptic, but you know, I think I think everybody understood what that meant.

I hope.

So thank you, Mayor, for the opportunity.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

We'll go to Councilmember Chu.

Um, so first of all, thank you for bringing this proposal before us.

Um, and I I know that a lot of thought has gone into this.

Um I you know, I I come back to our our city priorities, which is housing, transportation, and youth, children and youth specifically.

And you know, I think in centering children and youth, it orients our city towards the future.

And if we think about sort of the concept of, you know, we should really center our transportation policy on making it cheap and easy and convenient to drive everywhere.

That's really a policy position from the last century.

It's from the middle of the last century, it's nearly 80 years old as a as a policy priority.

Um, and I believe it's you nearing the end of its useful life, and and I believe that from many reasons.

First of all, um, you know, I take Waymo about four to six times a month.

They're a delight, and I'm starting to see them swarm uh in our city, not just in San Francisco.

I believe that is the future of transportation.

They're about 90% uh they're already 90% safer than the median human driver.

Um I'm sure, you know, they're about the same as everybody on this dais, but um I don't think the next generation is going to be buying, they're already not learning how to drive at the same rates that that our generation did, and and the young youngest generation probably won't need that skill.

If they want it, they can pick it up.

And so I really believe the future of transportation is walking, biking, transit, and automated vehicles.

I mean, that's not a hypothetical, it's coming fast, and it and we're at the epicenter of it.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is that it is a fact that in almost the entire United States in the state of California, cars have stronger rights to housing than people.

There's no law on the books that says you have to have a bedroom for your kid.

But if you own a home, you have to have covered parking for two cars.

And you know, this is you know, these policies are in place for all kinds of reasons, but I don't believe that prioritizing cheap, convenient storage of automobiles is aligned with our stated goals and our and our policy priorities.

So I I share council member Stirkin's um perspective that that you know, spending a third uh of the project funding on car storage is probably not aligned with our ideals and goals as a city.

Uh, the second thing is, you know, I think about the library, I think about it as a place for children.

And so if we think about having an affordable housing project in this location, I would really, really, really like to see it be family-oriented housing.

Those are some of the hardest types of affordable housing units to get because you know, if your goal is the maximum number of units, then there's an incentive to build a lot of really small units and you know, studios, one bedrooms, and and I'm very I I understand there's demand for those and they're very much needed, but families are being forced out of California and being forced out of our area because there's not enough family housing, and particularly not enough um affordable family housing.

And I've had so many friends leave after having that second child.

And so if we're going to locate affordable housing right next to the library I would really like us to center families and prioritize, you know, even if you think about the first floor have a daycare I mean just things for kids.

And I think that that really integrates with the library I mean I realize the library is for everybody but I really think of it as a place that centers children and I think that the uses of that area should center children and I think that's aligned with our goal.

I very much liked uh council member G's suggestion of optimizing this plot uh in ways that would potentially fund transit as our as our city as our state um moves away from one car one person paradigms um transit will need funding um and it is a a great way to do that um I also wanted to echo the comments about um looking at other uh technologies I I am also really interested in the mass timber idea they're beautiful buildings uh they're eco-friendly you know all the things um and they're very strong um and I do agree that that state law and the the referendum are likely to impact what's possible at this site and sort of the economics of it um and so I do want to uh keep a very close eye on it so overall I'm very supportive of converting this site to housing for families affordable housing for families I am not as interested in preserving parking spaces you know a child's bedroom is about you know you can fit two kids in one parking space and I'd I'd rather have the kids so I'll leave it there.

Thank you council member Chu we'll go to Vice Mayor AK.

Well I want to thank my colleagues I'm really enjoying this conversation and I'm really um learning a lot I have a quick preliminary question for Jim.

Jim when you were giving your presentation you were talking about exemptions to the SLA and like would the city's objectives fit into exemptions that the SLA allows.

And I was trying to understand is parking an exemption I mean does the SLA I don't know if I heard you say and so I'm trying to understand does the SLA say you cannot use government land for parking and that but you can find an exemption so we could I I was trying to understand that.

It's a great question.

Yeah there are um the the primary goal of the surplus land act is right now is to prioritize the development of affordable housing and many of the um aspects of the current SLA that we face today um uh do not speak to other types of uses um on the site some some again as I mentioned the one um uh several of them acquire the project to have you know a hundred percent affordable housing to declare that exemption they may limit the amount of non-residential space that you're allowed to build on the site and so you're correct in that um it's an interesting predicament you're in and you're not the only one in California that faces this because you have a public parking lot which is the city use and you simply would like to just add something to it but in a sense the the way the law works today is you're essentially putting on the chopping block potentially uh depending on which way you want to go here um the preservation of public parking as well as the construction of housing.

So that's where some of the different exemptions can come into play.

So um it is a complicated law, and uh as as it is now, the way to get to preserving public parking, if that's the desire of the council um would be to look at one of the exemptions rather than what what is available through simply the declaration of a theme surplus.

Okay, so uh thank you.

And so I I guess to summarize we have to jump through more hoops to have parking on this, then according to the State Lands Act, we have to jump through some hoops that we don't have to if it's just all affordable housing.

Is that a fair summary?

Yeah, that's generally that's generally true.

Pretty much again the the emphasis is on building housing in state law right now in the surplus land act and okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Is it part of the general downtown GDAP?

Our visioning for our greater downtown area plan.

Is this in there?

This spot.

Yes.

Okay.

And so I kind of knew the answer, but just so to Mr.

G's point, this totally is a gateway spot.

It's a prime spot, and I'm really, really excited about visioning for it.

I'm I love that this is on the agenda, and um, and so I'm just gonna say some creative things because why not?

It's it's uh it we're at this space.

So I you know, I would love for us to have a famous architect um build a just an unbelievably beautiful building that receives awards all over the United States.

Why why not think big?

This is such prime location.

So that's that's something.

I mean, talk is cheap, but I think why not?

I also have a concern that um not a concern, but the the library, when when it was repurposed in the nineties from a fire station to a library, I guess part of the whole reenvisioning of this city hall and other stuff, um, and that that library received awards, it was really cool.

It is a historic building, and it tells a really beautiful story about Redwood City's history, and so I want us to be very, very intentional about whatever building goes there, is uh what they call it um the it's too late, so the word isn't coming to me, but complementary, it doesn't imitate the historic resource, but it complements the historic resource.

Um and I want us to be mindful of that about massing and um I'm I'm in concept I'm fine with the eight stories, it's already in the downtown precise plan.

Um I would love for it to be platinum, just like our new veterans building, the the the wood, that's you know, the timber, sure.

Um to Ms.

Chu's point about the world is changing so fast and the the um the the way young people are transporting themselves.

I would like us to think about um if uh you know some levels of parking, and and I don't have the subject matter that Mr.

G does about level five or whatever you call that, but um I would like us to consider that uh maybe a um convertible kind of garage, if if if indeed garage happens, that it can be built in such a way that it can be converted into apartments or a day care center, or once cars are are so minimal, and 50 years from now people are saying, why did they do two levels of this?

You know, can we, you know, they sometimes have apartments that can be converted into condos, or you build a certain way so you make it easy to be converted.

I want us to think about that.

To council members Howard's point, I absolutely agree that we need to look at the whole lot.

So where the planned park is, I think that needs to be a part of our planning this building.

You know, for example, um, what if we have a rooftop park on the other side?

And what if underneath the the rooftop park is a convertible parking area that you know can be a parking area on Saturdays and Sundays and I don't know what on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or is it parking space in 2029, but could easily be converted in 2045 to something else.

I I do think we look need to look at it.

I agree with Mr.

G and others that this is a landmark space, and we need to be very intentional.

I am very supportive of this.

I do want us to move quickly.

Um to some points about let's not wait till the money is available, let's start planning now, because sometimes money comes up quickly, federal or state money, and they're looking for shovel ready.

They're looking for shovel ready.

So we don't want to be waiting for them.

We want to be ready, um, but that doesn't mean we can't compromise quality and beautiful planning.

I love the shireen.

I don't know what charrette.

Charette.

I don't know what a charret is, but it sounds good.

So it has something to do with planning something beautiful and getting the community involved.

Um I'm open to modular.

I really would love it to be uh green.

Um, thank you, Vice Mayor.

Not seeing anyone else.

Jennifer, thank you.

Um to respond to the council questions, yes and yes.

Um yeah, I I think that this is an incredible opportunity to keep exploring and building on what staff has already done.

Um and also there are lots of ideas about what the mix of units would look like.

And I'm very excited to just see what the RFP comes back with.

But first and foremost, just really excited that staff is looking to maximize the use, right?

They're land is probably one of the most valuable resources that a city could have on the peninsula in the Bay Area in California.

And um, so really happy that we're we're thinking strategically about how to make the most of this space.

I also agree with what I heard from my council colleagues around um looking at the whole site and looking at how this is gonna blend in with the library across the street from City Hall, and it being, you know, one of the focal points of downtown and what people will see as they cross Jefferson, right, and um and make their way to downtown proper.

So you know, those are absolutely things that I'm curious about.

Um, the feasibility gap.

I you know, saw a quick line around the city should expect, you know, um many asks to make this feasible, one of them being us donating the land, which I that gives me a little heartburn just based on what I expect right from this region.

I just I see that as a huge loss if we um if we were to were to do that just to make this cross a finished line.

Um and so I, you know, am very interested in having that comprehensive look at what all of these lots are together.

Um, you know, there's I think a lot to be said about the the level of community engagement that staff is proposing, and I think it is so important for us to have an idea and something to to share, maybe options right to the community.

Um but I think they absolutely need to be a part of it.

This is gonna be what downtown feels like next, right?

And so I think folks are gonna be looking at this building, and they should they should really be happy about it when they're walking downtown.

Um the other ideas, you know.

I heard, you know, the ROI on creating more parking.

I'm absolutely curious to see what that looks like and what staff estimates if we were to build parking, what does that revenue look like, right?

Um, and what levels we might um might be seeing there, but uh you know, plus one to the mass timber and just sustainable design.

I think that would be great for this building.

Um, I'm also thinking about the orientation of the building in the courtyard, whether that's a rooftop park, which I love, or if it's that courtyard.

I'm curious.

I mean, we have so many events that happen.

I'm thinking of the fourth of 4th of July parade, right?

That I um I got a picture from Melissa last year who was on top of the library and had a great view.

So I'm thinking about those sorts of events and how do we maximize those public spaces, right?

Um also thinking about Caltrain and high speed rail and the potential expansion of their right of way, right?

Um being so close to the the rail line.

So I want to be sensitive to that.

Um and let me see here, wrapping up so fa.

Um is uh such a community asset, and I want to make sure that we're really creative around finding them a new home in the future, but in the meantime, making sure that they can you know continue to to come to town and operate, and I know they have such close family connections to the community now.

Um so we want to make sure that we're thinking about those folks, but overall just really excited for us to continue exploring what this space could be and what it will, it could really be a benchmark of what we want to see future development look like in Revit City, not just in downtown.

So really excited about us having more discussions like this to really customize it, get feedback from the community, but um at the end of the day, build some great housing, a beautiful building right next to our city hall.

So I will leave it there, and Councilmember Surgeon.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

However, first and foremost, may I make a motion to extend the meeting to 11 15, please?

I guess we have second.

Could we get electronic bill, please?

Yeah.

So motion passes with six votes, Councilmember Pettias.

I think we use more of those timers, schedules.

Thank you, and we'll go back to Councilmember Sirkin.

All right, move to approve both staff recommendations.

And is there a second, Councilmember Howard?

Well, I'd like clarification because the second one, I have a concern because uh we just talked about getting input as what are our needs?

I don't want the developer driving the ship or driving the the train, whatever he's driving, but I don't want to go out for proposals when we haven't identified what we want on that land.

So that's where I'd like to start.

Okay.

I that's just me.

I'm afraid we may get something back and it's not anything what we thought of, then where do you go from there?

So I think we have to put our steps in place that so that we control the narrative.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Councilmember Chu, and then we'll go to the vice mayor.

So, would the preparation of the let's hear uh prepare a request?

Would your uh desired, you know, community outreach and and council member G's uh concerns as well be incorporated into prepare a request.

I mean, does that mayor if I may?

Um, I believe a motion was made and is on the table unless he's going to I'll just withdraw it for the so we can have a discussion.

Thank you.

I was gonna second it if prepare included those things, it was a clarifying question.

Does prepare a request include the activities uh council member G and Council Member Howard proposed?

I don't want to speak for them.

Um I could tell you what I what I heard.

So, first of all, thank you for the the great uh conversation tonight.

And and I I really took what uh council member G said to heart.

Um, I don't it I don't think we could get direction issue to RFP until we have the substantive discussion about that.

That's kind of where I'm at.

Um, and um what but what I would say is I'm probably looking at a study session, you know, in the in the future.

I just don't know when it will be.

So I just want to be really direct with council and the mayor and vice mayor know this.

Our agendas are pretty much booked through fall.

So I just want to be really clear that you to have that study session at a substantive level.

Well, it'll probably take several months.

I just want to be really clear, clear about that.

Thank you.

I thank you.

Um Mr.

Heisinger, and in my question to um uh council member Howard's what she kind of asked it, but I want to ask it even more, or um, and that is so we do if we did an RFP tonight, you know, we say, yeah, go for it, you know.

And the sky's the limit on what they can pack into that RFP, and we can sort it out later, but I guess I'm trying to understand the difference between an RFP, then what?

Then we say to all those people that took the time and trouble and real money to say, well, this is what we can do for you, and this is how much it will cost, and then we say, ah, forget it.

We're gonna do a whole full range study with the community and outreach.

I I guess I'm just trying to understand the difference between an RFP and a charrette.

Yeah, what I would say is is the more information that we put into an RFP to a solicitation, so let's say hypothetically we went through a study session, it makes it easier for respondents to say, okay, the council concurred with staff that they want office space.

The council concurred with staff, you know, like the family units came up tonight.

That that's a really big, you know, thing that you'd want to put into an RFP.

And if we move forward as is, I think we would get trust me, I think every affordable housing developer will apply for the solicitation down the road, we would get some really cool stuff.

But would it have those real specific elements that were brought in?

Maybe not.

Could we get there?

Sure.

But I do think after hearing the feedback, I think it would be beneficial to have that discussion and then you can craft an RFP that would really hit on that, and then it makes the solicitation process a little bit more streamlined.

So a little bit more investment up time of time up front might pay off in the long run to make it a little bit more efficient.

That's all.

Thank you for answering my question.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And then Councilmember Fidel.

Well, thank you, Mayor.

I was just gonna offer, you know, when this RFP eventually goes out, respondents are gonna easily spend two 250, 300,000 responding.

And if we don't have a uniform program criteria, priorities the possibility of each of us picking a separate one is very real.

And we've wasted 250,000 for a nonprofit housing developer just to apply a proposal, and so to our city managers' comments, having a criteria or council priorities, whether it's a famous architect or a get whatever it is, we have to come to consensus, not only as a council but with the community, so that when an RFP request for proposal goes out, the responders can respond effectively and efficiently, and we can judge objectively, not just picking our favorite developer or the prettiest picture or whatever, so that we can then move forward efficiently and in good stride.

Otherwise, there'll be protests.

How can you pick that one and not this one?

The economics were better in this one.

You had two more units of three bedrooms and they had four more units of ELI.

It's gonna get really messy very fast if we don't have a stated criteria, council priorities, et cetera, et cetera.

So I would recommend we take the investment up front so that we can get really responsive proposals to this very special piece of property right here at the gateway to our city.

I totally agree.

Uh get responsive proposals responding to what the desire of our community is, not what they'd like to see it be.

And that's what will happen.

You need to invest the time.

And if we have to wait several months, I say so be it.

Look at how long it took us to build this downtown.

This didn't happen overnight.

This was 10 years of planning that downtown precise plan.

And then it filled up in less than what?

Lesson, let's yeah, boom.

But we did it right.

At least I feel we did it right.

So I would say if this study session goes forward, and I hope it does, let's make it a community event.

Let's really tell the community we want you here, we want to hear what you have to say.

Sticky notes, whatever it comes out to be.

What do you think that lot should look like?

And let's look at that.

And people may think of stuff we hadn't even thought of.

So I I'd be excited for that, and thank you to our staff because this is the most fun I've had all neat all evening.

Honestly, this a brainstorming is so much fun.

Thank you very much for getting the juices flowing like that.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Go back to Councilmember Stirkin.

Oh, I had Mayor, you were supposed to call on me before.

So my buttons are that but my yes, my comment was actually just basically what Councilmember Howard said, and something that I feel I'm constantly reiterating is that community outreach, not just box checking, but actually going out into the community is always going to be money well spent, and um that always has my support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Back to Councilmember Stirkin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, support the approach that Councilmember G has proposed.

I just have a question.

So, there's two pieces before us tonight, right?

In one motion, the surplus land act procedure, and then the RFP.

So we're not ready for the RFP.

That's that is clear.

Now, what the surplus land act procedure, is that something we can move on tonight to at least get the ball rolling?

No, okay.

What I would say is in Jim and Veronica Philbian is so typical under surplus lands, there's a nice table in the staff report, but it says that you really have to kind of know what that that unit mix might be.

Now you could estimate it and whatnot, be bound by that, but again, having a developer down the road submit something, you know, I think would be more prudent so you don't have to do it again.

Um the other thing I'll say it's not a uh Jim's firm, or she's done three of them for us, or it's pretty efficient process if you have all your ducks lined up.

So that won't hold us up down the road, but I appreciate you trying to get some balls rolling.

Yeah.

Vice Mayor.

I just wanted to reiterate that when we do this study session.

I really think we should include, and I already said it, but just that the other side of the library.

Um I already said it.

Great.

Thank everyone for your comments.

Is there a new motion?

Councilmember.

I guess I'll try to craft this on the fly, and and our city attorneys look at me to make me honest.

So I'd like to make a motion that the council number one has expressed a strong interest in making this land available, parcel or whatever it's called.

Um, but prior to doing that, council is asking staff to develop a process of community engagement, outreach, and council priority setting to make sure that we are unified in how we want to see this parcel developed, which will then lead into a surplus land act action, and ultimately an RFP for affordable housing nonprofit developers.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Second.

That was a second from Council Member Howard.

Thank you.

And could we get an electronic vote, please?

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you everyone for the great discussion.

Thank you again as staff.

And we will move on to item 10.

And item 10A is a notification of parcel map approval for 502 Edgewood Road.

This item is for notification purposes only, and materials were provided in the agenda packet today.

No council discussion or action will be taken tonight, so we'll move to item 11, beginning with 11A city council member report of meetings or conferences attended.

Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

This past Saturday, down at Public Works, we had I'd say about 75 people to 100 people there for our cleanup, our spring cleanup, and it was wonderfully attended.

Lots of young people, lots of different groups and organizations.

It was a lighter than expected turnout, but it turns out we were competing with every scout and every oh my gosh, I couldn't believe how many events there were that day.

So I was so happy to see people there.

Just wanted to let you know we cleaned up Redwood City, it's looking gorgeous, and um we had a wonderful time.

My thanks to public works for helping us on that.

The mayor and I went up to Sacramento, and uh it was I don't remember the date, but it was when uh assembly member Diane Pappen was speaking to the finance committee of the assembly, and we spoke on protecting and returning our vehicle license fees.

Um I then went on, I think it was the 7th, when um Senator Josh Becker was speaking before the budget committee of the Senate and spoke again about vehicle license fee.

I have to tell you there were over 55 people from all different walks of life in San Mateo County.

We were all there together, locking arms and going up one by one.

We were given 30 seconds, 30 seconds, and everyone did a beautiful job.

And my thanks to Mike Calaghi and um Thrive for providing the bus, but it's gonna have to happen again.

We're gonna have to keep fighting to get that money.

But I have to say we got compliments from the budget committee saying how organized and polite we were, and we hope that we can solve your problem.

So I'm holding them to it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Chu.

Uh, on Friday, May uh May 1st, I went to visit the Diablo Canyon uh nuclear power plant.

It was extremely cool.

Uh they do offer tours, and I was blown away.

Uh, really fun and uh highly recommend.

Uh, learned a lot about how we generate power in California.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

Not seeing any other lights, so we will keep this going to 11B, our city council reports, and we'll go to Councilmember G.

Transportation Mobility Subcommittee uh comprised of Mayor Martinez Aballos and Council members Chu and myself had its first 2026 meeting on April 29th.

The meeting was focused on El Community Realm referred to as ECR.

The subcommittee received an update from City and SamTrans staff on a few ongoing transit improvements and bike pad safety improvement projects on El Camero El Camino Real and provided feedback.

Sam Trans gave an update on Central ECR project, which is a joint project with San Carlos Belmont and San Mateo and covers El Camino and Rebus City North of Brewster.

Sam trans also provided an update on bus boarding islands that Sam trans secured some level of funding to be implemented in Redwood City.

City staff provided an update on ECR bike lane projects and the James Avenue ECR intersection improvement project.

And the next commit subcommittee meeting is scheduled for June 2nd, 2026.

Thank you, Councilmember, and we'll go to a quick report for personnel subcommittee, which is consisting of myself and the vice mayor.

We met on April 30th, 2026.

The committee met to discuss annual evaluation uh processes and timelines for the city council appointed positions and conducted interviews with proposers to facilitate the annual evaluation process for the city council's appointed positions.

And I'll turn it over to Councilmember Padilla.

Your mic, Councilmember.

The ad hoc committee on special events comprised of Mayor Martinez Sabayos, Councilmember Chu, and myself met on April 29th to discuss entertainment zones and voted to recommend that the City Council establish an entertainment zone on the Broadway pedestrian mall.

That recommendation was considered at the City Council meeting of May 4th, where the City Council introduced the ordinance.

That ordinance was adopted by the City Council earlier this evening.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And we'll go to our city manager.

Just very uh quick.

Uh at last week's um two by two that uh council member G and Councilmember Chu joined me with uh Belmont and uh Belmont George, Redwood Shore School District.

Sorry, Belmont School District.

We we started talking about Silicon Valley Clean Water.

I don't know if Councilmember Chu said you guys wanted a tour, so I reached out to the executive director.

He's like, I'll give you all a tour.

So I wanted to let the council know if anybody else is interested in a tour of Silicon Valley Clean Water, please reach out and we'll try to coordinate without a quorum.

Veronica will figure that out.

So but yeah, we'll work it out.

So thank you.

Great, thank you, Patrick.

That's awesome news.

And that leaves us with adjournments.

The next city council meeting is a special meeting scheduled for Monday, May 18th, and will be centered around City Council interviews for our city boards, commissions, and committees.

With that, thank you for joining tonight's city council meeting.

Have a great week ahead, and we'll see you at the flag raising tomorrow.