All right, it is two o'clock.

So we're going to call our November 12th meeting of the Rules and Open Government Committee to order.

Let's start with roll call, please.

Candelas.

Here.

Duan.

Here.

Foley.

Here.

Kemi.

Here.

Cohen.

Here.

Maybe of Corn.

Welcome to the Rules and Open Government Committee meeting.

As a reminder, we expect all attending to follow the code of conduct located in the agenda.

Failure to comply with this code of conduct and behavior, which will disturb, disrupt or impede the orderly conduct of the meeting may result in removal.

Okay, we're going to start by reviewing the agenda for Tuesday, November 18th.

Meeting has a 9:30 closed session and a 1.30 afternoon session with the evening session canceled.

Consent starts on page six.

We have the Climate Smart Zero Waste Element Report.

Section 8, an easement agreement for the Santa Clara San Jose Wastewater Facility.

8.2 RFQ for the backup develop for the developer and backup developer with the regional wastewater facility, 159 acres, 8.3, the 2026 major events status report, 8.4 inclusionary housing ordinance municode update.

And we have two items on land use consent, which are noticed to be heard immediately after regular consent.

We have any public comment on the agenda?

Yes, we do.

We have uh four speaker cards right now.

As I call your names, please go ahead and make your way to the podium.

Emily, Kyra, Alison, and Blair.

Hi, my name is Emily Ann Ramos from SB at home.

Um we're asking you to defer agenda item 8.4 amending the inclusionary housing ordinance.

We're asking for this deferral to get more clarity on why the city is considering this change.

In the fourth sentence reserve for the IHO and the council adopted Mayor's March 2025 budget message, the stated purpose of the proposed changes is to produce workforce housing for working families.

But nearly 70% of San Jose's house renter households, in the vast majority of whom are certainly in the workforce, fall below those median incomes.

The rental market reflects this as San Jose's apartment's average rent is affordable to people earning about 70% of the median income.

Now San Jose has historically been at the forefront of inclusionary housing on both the state and national stage, fighting for its ability to implement the ordinance through the Superior Appellate and California Supreme Courts, as shown in California Building Industry versus City of San Jose.

The current IHO was implemented in 2019 with support from a broad coalition ranging from housing advocates to Bills business groups and championed by then former mayor Sam Licardo, he's now Congress member now, and former council member now State Senator Dave Cortez.

It was crafted with extensive stakeholder outreach, rooted in robust analysis from both consultants and the city itself and developed in partnership with the developers of market rate housing to provide flexibility to help them achieve feasibility, all elements that are missing from the process that has led to these newly proposed changes.

The IHO continues to produce benefits today.

Just last month, the Mercury News covered yet another project delivering more affordable housing under the IHO, the Facino project near the Barry SF BART station with 260 new affordable homes.

So we hope that you will defer item 8.4 to allow more time for analysis and stakeholder outreach.

Thank you so much for your time.

Hi, I'm Kira Kazanzas from Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits.

Good afternoon.

I'm also representing the Real Coalition.

Also asking for a deferral of item 8.4 and hoping that that would be heard sometime in January, definitely after the cost of development uh study session and hopefully the holidays.

Um we also would like to see some specific um guidance for staff in terms of what data should come with the cost of development study so that all the questions that need to be answered to analyze the IHO proposal are heard by a council and by the community.

Um engagement on this item was very anemic compared to what we saw in adopting the original IHO and even changes made subsequent to that.

Um there was a out specific outreach made to developers.

There was one community meeting which we got two days' notice of.

I was in error in my letter.

I said same day notice, it was two days, um, but nonetheless not enough.

And there wasn't specific outreach to the community of people who need affordable housing to understand the full impacts of the I any change to the IHO.

Uh, thanks for considering uh our request.

Good afternoon, Alison Cingalani, Director of Policy with SV at home.

Um we are pretty much always going to oppose taking a tool that is intended to produce housing that is affordable to San Jose families and shifting it to serve the housing needs of people who are wealthier and can compete in the open market.

However, that is not why I'm going to ask you to defer item 8.4.

Um, City Council has a really difficult job of making a lot of really consequential decisions that affect the lives of hundreds or thousands of people.

Um the IHO produces at least three an average of almost 300 uh units of affordable housing every year.

Uh, that almost doubles the city's share of affordable housing production uh since the city subsidizes about 300 affordable units every year directly.

Um you deserve to be equipped with and the residents of San Jose deserve for you to be equipped with all the information and analysis you need to be able to make informed decisions and to deliberate thoughtfully.

Um we also deserve to have a comprehensive plan where there's analysis of how these different policies uh programs and incentives that we're passing interact with each other so we understand um and can hold ourselves accountable to the outcomes that they're producing.

We can understand which policies are producing which outcomes.

We can lean in where those are good, we can back off when they're bad.

At this point, we don't have the benefit of any of that.

Um the cost of development study is scheduled to be considered after this policy.

Um so respectfully we ask that you defer item 8.4 uh to give time for engagement with the communities that are our most knowledgeable and most impacted by this, and so that you can have the information and the analysis you need to deliberate and make a thoughtful decision.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon.

Uh this is regarding inclusionary housing ordinance proposed changes, and this is a request for engagement and postponement.

Uh my name is Jorge Casas.

I'm a community housing advocate at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley.

Uh the law foundation provides services to thousands of low-income residents each year.

The clients served by the law foundation need deeply affordable housing and proposed changes to the inclusionary housing ordinance excuse me, and proposed changes to the inclusionary housing ordinance threaten to reduce deeply affordable housing options.

Uh this result, this will result in more evictions, which are already at some of the highest levels of any area in our region and increased homelessness because of these serious risks.

The city council should not change the ordinance before engaging in careful study and analysis.

Uh, that has not happened and cannot happen unless the council defers considering the proposed ordinance.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you.

We're beakman, uh, nice to see good public comment uh for this item.

And uh good luck with the issues.

Thank you that you're going to be addressing uh warming location issues, an amendment.

I didn't quite read what it was about.

Actually, but it's nice to see you there.

Uh you'll be talking about that issue.

People want to show up and talk about warming location issues uh council next week.

I had a comment on uh the military uh um hardware uh yearly report.

Um I'm working on my Bay UASI issues right now for a better future for Bayiwassi.

What uh how to help define that feature, understand what it can be.

So I've been writing words uh about Baywassi that can be reflective to the to the to this item uh to the item of future.

How do we uh address military hardware uh overall in our San Diego in San Jose?

Um in the following years after the events of 9-1101.

Uh it was with the purpose of uh Bei UASI and and programs like this military uh hardware inventory uh to develop uh better practices of of accountability, organizations, communication, and public oversight.

These are simply some of the highest ideals of what this country and our administrative practices should be about.

It is how to address better reasoning, positive sustainability, and ideas of peace in a post-9-11 decision making.

And from this, we can be working to heal previous more archaic concepts of continual war and its use of harm, opacity, secrecy, and divisiveness as how to resolve our community issues.

So thank you for this item.

It's really important.

I hope it's taken very seriously how we work accountably and openly to address our practices, and that way we are not going to war.

We're working towards peace and open democracy.

Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Okay, thank you for the public comments, and now we'll start with the council member Kamei.

Thank you so much, and thank you for all our speakers today.

Uh, one of the things we know that we're going to get the study session on the cost of development, and that's going to inform a lot of our decision making.

Um I think that we need a understanding of the findings of the cost of development uh to help us assess um any of the proposed changes to the IHO.

And so I I think that it will give us a better picture of balancing both our housing goals and our development realities and and really get a little bit more data in terms of the decisions that we make.

So I uh would like to move to defer item 8.4 until um such time as soon as practical after the cost of um the development study session.

And I think it's gonna be better for the council to have a more robust discussion and um not just in isolation.

Oh second.

Let me just clarify your motion.

I presume your motion is to approve the agenda for next week with the deferral of item April.

Yes, yes, yes, that is correct.

All right, thank you.

We have a motion and a second on that.

Any other comments from the committee?

All right, I appreciate the you bringing that that up for deferring the item.

Obviously, um I've been very pleased to see the huge amount of development that's been unlocked in North San Jose and downtown as a result of some of the incentives we put in place earlier in the year, and look forward to hearing more details about how those are working along with the rest of our development plans when we get the study session on December 8th, and then we can come back and in the new year and and decide how the um the IHO um whether or not the IHO needs some adjustment at that point.

Just for staff's um position.

My my feeling is that one week between the there's only one meeting left in December after the study session, really, so it makes sense to defer this to January to the new year, and I I assume that that would be uh work out okay for staff.

Yeah, either option is fine.

We do have room on the December 16th agenda.

If you do have specific follow-ups from the 8th, having staff do that work in a short amount of time frame might be difficult.

Right.

But whatever the uh wishes are of the rules committee we can accommodate.

Okay.

Yeah, it would seem um practical to me to have it in the new year and not rush it all.

This gives us an opportunity to you know, sort of take in what we learn from the study session and then not have it all rushed together and and have dialogue with the community as well.

Okay, all right.

Vice Mayor.

It looks like yours.

Which but which button am I putting pushing?

Yeah, I'm fine with deferring it uh if uh it's not deferred too far into January.

The first or second meeting, I think would be helpful to have the conversation.

I agree that we need to have the study session first to really uh understand the impact of IHOs on the cost of construction and and development.

So I I completely support it provided it's not pushed too far out.

Thanks.

All right.

Thank you now, Councilmember Kentelli.

So and I just uh uh like a friendly reminder uh for the administration to to engage um those stakeholders so to basically close the loop even after our cost of development study to keep the conversation uh with not just us as electives but with the administration open.

That's my direction of staff.

All right.

I think we're ready to vote on this.

Alright, motion carries five zero.

Thank you all very much.

And now we're on to we have no meeting to review for the week of Thanksgiving, so we're on to our consent calendar.

There's four items on consent today.

So we have public comment and consent.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman.

I just had a quick procedural uh question for for this.

Uh B items usually begin with the uh public record process.

Um there hasn't been as many public records as of late.

And in fact, I've been writing to your public record like every week now for the past for through October, uh, writing about my uh Baywassi issues I'm working on, and um they're not being presented in within the uh public record.

So I wanted to talk with city clerk after the meeting today and just kind of clear up that situation and uh hopefully uh they can be placed at some point and uh thank you for your time.

Back to the committee.

Second, all right.

The motion is second.

Let's vote on consent.

Motion carries five zero, and we are on to open forum.

Claire.

Hi, Beekman.

Uh I'm going more and more uncomfortable in how current Bay UASI and approval authority staff are addressing the possible current future of Bay UASI, they're using practices of vastity, vagueness, and uh following apathy in ways that should be very questionable, and I can speak more to here at another time.

Ultimately, everyone wants to work towards a more positive sustainable future and good goals.

I have a simple beginning plea at this time for local Bay Area governments and communities to please have more open conversations, open dialogue, and to ask questions about the future direction of Bay UASI.

Bay AWS has at least had the decency to be currently developing a Bay UASI subcommittee process.

It can be a legal structured way to invite local Bay Area governments and communities to more openly ask questions and to offer ideas and advice for better understandings and what can be best for the future direction of Baywassi emergency preparedness planning and for Bay UASI itself.

I think many people would be in agreement for local Bay Area communities wanting to take the initiative to better understand and decide their own future, and to note this would also allow for more conversation between local Bay Area governments and communities and how to develop best practices to better address local concerns with current federal administration plans for the future of local Bay Area communities as well.

Best practices, trusted conversation, and open dialogue is exactly what the mayors of San Francisco and San Jose offered the current Trump federal administration about the question of additional ICE and federal agents to work in the barrier this past October.

Thank you.

Back to the future of Baywassi and emergency preparedness for local Bay Area governments and communities can respect initial Baywasse administration ideals and best practices, accountability, and open public review.

Thank you.

We are adjourned at 218 p.m.