Smart Growth and Land Use Committee Meeting - October 3, 2018
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Smart Growth and Land Use Committee Meeting - October 3, 2018
The Smart Growth and Land Use Committee met on October 3, 2018, to discuss key agenda items including a major long-term lease at Brown Field Municipal Airport, the Airport Division's FY2019 business plan, and a review of city-owned residential properties. The committee approved consent items and voted unanimously on the airport lease, directing staff to prepare additional financial analysis for full City Council consideration.
Consent Calendar
- The committee approved the records of action from September 19, 2018, by unanimous consent.
- Three consent items were approved without pull: the Cannon Street Pocket Park (noted for preserving Portuguese heritage in Roseville), an agreement with the FAA regarding the Brown Field tower (operating agreement with no compensation, attached to the land lease), and other routine items.
Public Comments & Testimony
Item 4 – Brown Field Airport Lease: Six speakers expressed support. Clarissa Falcon (on behalf of South County Economic Development Council) read a letter stating full support for the redevelopment concept and ground leases, calling the project essential for Otay Mesa's long-term economic stability. Richard Sachs (developer, Metropolitan Air Park) provided detailed testimony on the project's history, infrastructure investment, and economic benefits; he yielded time from several other speakers. Robert Pippen and Jason Christopher (for MAP) yielded their time to Sachs. Alejandra Mier y Ibarra (Otay Mesa Town Council) expressed excitement and urged support.
Item 6 – City-Owned Residential Properties: Two speakers addressed the committee. Joyce Sanyata (District 3) thanked staff for the report but noted that only 22 of 1,600 properties (0.013%) were identified as suitable, calling it a metaphor for the housing crisis; she asked about funding in the Capital Outlay Low-Income Unit Purchase Fund. Gilman Bishop (local real estate developer) suggested creating a “surplus with restrictions” list to allow developers to negotiate directly on sites not immediately available, citing missed opportunities for affordable housing.
Discussion Items
Item 4 – Long-Term Ground Lease at Brown Field Municipal Airport (MAP Project): Thurman Hodges (Real Estate Assets, Airport Division) presented a request for a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute 59 leases, right-of-entry agreements, and an agreement for rent offset with Metropolitan Air Park, LLC, covering 207 acres. The project includes four phases over 20 years, with private financing ($119M minimum infrastructure investment, $26M Phase 1 investment). No public money is used. The 50-year lease term commences per parcel. Rent is based on $6,500/acre appraised value (February 2018) at 10% return ($650/acre/year), with CPI adjustments capped at 3% annually for first five years, then market rate appraisals every 10 years (years 21, 31, 41) without caps. Total benefits to the Airport Enterprise Fund estimated at $1.4 billion (including ~$300M rent) and $400M to the General Fund. The developer (MAP) has already spent $32M on entitlement and will invest ~$200M in infrastructure. MAP will pay $250,000/year advanced rent for five years to offset loss from an existing tenant, recoupable from future rent above $250,000 baseline. Mitigation includes 36 acres off-site (acquired) and 46 acres on-airport (pending FAA and USFWS approval). Fuel flowage fees, 2% transfer fees on hangar/office sales, and possessory interest taxes are additional revenue sources. Committee members asked detailed questions about rent structure, financial projections, and transparency. Councilmember Alvarez noted the project's importance to Otay Mesa and moved to approve staff's recommendation with a request for additional financial analysis for the full council. The motion passed unanimously.
Item 5 – Airport Division Business Plan for FY2019: Rod Prop (Deputy Director for Airports) presented the business plan, developed in response to a 2014 performance audit. Goals include safe and efficient operations, financial self-sufficiency, FAA compliance, customer focus, environmental stewardship, and staff training. The airport fund is financially sound: $45M total assets, ~$4M liabilities, $16M cash. The fund generates ~$2M annually in fuel flowage fees ($210K at Brown Field, $125K at Montgomery, total 2.1M gallons pumped). Recent achievements include 100% staffing, completed master plans for both airports (fast-tracked in 18-24 months), and elimination of holdover leases. No public comments were received. The item was informational only; no motion required.
Item 6 – Review of City-Owned Residential Properties: Mary Carlson (Real Estate Assets) presented the results of a comprehensive review of 1,600 city-owned properties to identify those suitable for housing development. After eliminating properties in use as parks, police/fire stations, long-term leases, etc., and manually reviewing zoning, 22 properties were identified as potentially suitable for residential development (mostly vacant land, some as small as 0.16 acres). An additional 251 non-residentially zoned properties were reviewed; 8 under three acres were deemed sellable, and 15 are more challenging (odd shapes, landlocked). The city does not speculate in real estate; properties are typically acquired for public projects. Sale proceeds go to the Capital Outlay Fund unless specified otherwise (e.g., enterprise funds). Next steps: staff will process the 22 properties through the clearance process, notify affordable housing developers, and use brokers to reach buyers. If multiple offers include affordable housing, council selects the buyer. Councilmembers discussed the need to make properties available quickly, the role of community plans (e.g., Grantville), and the workload of the Real Estate Assets department. Chair Gomez suggested posting challenging properties on the website to spur unsolicited interest. No action was taken as the item was informational.
Key Outcomes
- Consent Agenda: Approved unanimously.
- Item 4 (Brown Field Lease): Motion to approve staff recommendation, with a request to provide additional financial analysis for the full City Council meeting, passed unanimously (Alvarez motion, Sherman second).
- Item 5 (Airport Business Plan): Received as information; no vote required.
- Item 6 (City-Owned Properties): Received as information; staff to continue processing identified properties and consider posting all available sites online for developer inquiries.
- Next Meeting: Scheduled for October 17, 2018 at 2:00 p.m.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning. Welcome all to the special um Smart Growth and Land East Committee of September 27. This meeting is called to order for the record. We have committee members Alvarez as well as Mr. Sherman are present and myself. We also have uh the presence of Melissa Abel with the city attorney, uh Lee Friedman with the mayor's office, uh Baku Patel with independent budget analysts, and Karina Johnson, committee consultant. The committee records of action for September 19, 2018 will be approved by unanimous consent on this poll for discussion. I hear no request. They stand approved. We'll move on to agenda uh non-agenda public comment. Do we have any? We have no requests. Uh we'll move to committee comment. Are there any members from the committee that would like to make any comments this morning? Mr. Alvarez, uh good morning. I just wanted to um uh ask or inquire I'm not really sure where this is at. Uh the I I believe the city was gonna work with the uh either the nonprofit community or architects on a manual for uh granny flats, sort of over the counter stuff, and I just don't know where that's at. If anybody um has info, I'd love to hear about it. Uh I'll be hosting and I'll be posting it uh on my social media in the next couple days, but there's an architect who's offered to work with community members to help draw up some of those uh plans. But I remember that there was a conversation about having either a nonprofit or someone do master plans or over the counter um a manual, excuse me, to be able to do some granny flats and I thought I thought we had given money to that the city had, but I maybe not. I know that remembers anything. I believe it was some people from uh association architect association that was working on some templates. Um Sarah Jarman, who used to be in my office, is now upstairs in the mayor's office, was working on it and probably get all the information from her fairly quickly. We'll check with her then. Yeah, that they were working on it, and it was basically a set of templates for for granted flats to make them easy. Right. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah that's it. Okay. Uh definitely do some follow-ups on that. Um just for the record, um, Councilman Barry Lori Sapp has joined us as well. Um other comments from committee members. I see none. Uh does the city attorney, IBA, or mayor's office have anything to share this morning? I I too have no comments. Um are there any requests for continuance? Hearing no requests. Uh we'll move on to our consent agenda. We have three items and consent. Um are there any requests to pull any uh other items? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Uh just a quick comment. You know, the Cannon Street Pocket Park. Um, this is uh really great. We've been working on it for a while, and uh what I uh really appreciate that is that it's going to retain that Portuguese heritage of the Roseville community, and uh this also has really widespread support.
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