Okay, so it's nine o'clock and I'm calling to order the rules committee meeting of the San Land City Council.

Today is July twenty-second, twenty twenty-six.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the role to establish quorum?

Council Member Simon is absent.

Councilmember Bond.

Present.

And Mayor Gonzalez.

Present.

So we do have a quorum.

Um may we have your public comment at this time, Madam Clerk.

After each agenda item is presented, the mayor will ask for committee member comments and then take public comment.

You will have two minutes for your comment.

A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and attendees.

So our agenda today has one item to a cannabis policy next steps for discussion amongst these the committee members present.

Council or I'm sorry, Council Member Hutt.

There you go.

I don't know if that's an emotion or what that is.

But we've got uh our deputy city manager uh Eric Ingelbart here to present on this item.

Welcome.

Good morning, Mayor, members of the rules committee and members of the public joining us today.

Appreciate the opportunity to present on this topic once again on the topic of cannabis policy and proposed code amendments.

And today's pro presentation does follow on our last discussion on this topic of the rules committee in May.

Uh just as a reminder, and as we've shared previously, today's presentation does align with the city council's adopted economic development work plan.

Just a little refresher.

Um probably some of the prior deliberations by this body as well as the city council over the past year.

There's been about, I think this is maybe our perhaps about our ninth meeting on this topic.

Um call back in May of last year.

Uh uh in these chambers, the council ordered the fourth cannabis permit operating permit to Nug Wellness, and also directed staff to bring to the rules committee a potential expansion of the number of licenses and related processes for awarding them and to treat other dispensary operators comparably.

And that's really what initiated a lot of this these discussions here in the rules.

Uh then from December June through December of last year, the rules committee deliberated on the topic at about three meetings, and then that culminated last December when the rules committee directed staff to bring forward a package of proposed code amendments for full council consideration based on that direction.

That package was considered by the full city council at the March 9th meeting of this year.

Uh ultimately the council directed the project back to rules committee for further deliberation.

Uh then this item for that consistent with that direction.

We brought forward the item in April.

That was subsequently continued to the May meeting.

And you can see those three bullet points at the bottom were some of the uh action items coming out of that meeting, including there was a desire expressed by this committee to drill in a little further on the youth center definitions as well as to share definitions from other jurisdictions.

A copy of those or those definitions is included as an amendment uh an attachment to the agenda packet today that's available for public review as well on meeting central.

The the committee also asked for a legal analysis regarding the possibility of of limiting cannabis dispensary permit awards in the future only to districts three and five, and then there was uh there was clear consensus expressed by the committee in May to not to not allow downtown as an allowed area for potential cannabis expansion.

Um just a little refresher as well from that March um city council meeting.

There was clear cons there were some areas where there was clear consensus, and there was areas where there was a lack of consensus.

And you can see on the top, the areas where there was clear consensus across the city council was to kind of hone in our universe on the possibility of two additional cannabis operating permits to be issued for a grand total of six, because four have already been issued.

And there was also uh support for allowing setback modifications to account for physical barriers such as freeways or waterways, which we discussed at our last meeting.

Uh that there was that lack of consensus on the sensitive use distancing requirements, as well as what potential zoning districts could be expanded to allow cannabis, and then at that time uh the re the downtown uh discussion was still there was not a consensus.

Uh also worth uh refresher here on youth center definitions.

This should look familiar.

It's it's we've presented this definition for that we borrowed from the city of Alameda during our prior presentations on this topic.

I know this is a rather verbose definition, but at a high level, the key takeaway is that you know basically a youth center it needs to be something where at least you know more than half the day, five or greater hours a day is devoted to youth serving activities in order for it to qualify as a youth center and then be subject to the setback requirements as a sensitive use.

Uh and then just as I mentioned earlier, we did include as part of the agenda packet today a compendium of all those definitions from other jurisdictions here in Alameda County that allow cannabis uses, and you could see in there what the how they define youth centers.

I think the key takeaway from all that is that most of those other definitions are quite broad and they provide less clarity as compared to the City of Alameda definition that we are recommending for incorporation here in San Leandro to provide that clarity.

Regarding that legal analysis request that came out of our last meeting in May, City Attorney's Office did review this and kind of the some of the takeaways are essentially that the city already regulates dispensaries under both our municipal code and the zoning code, and that significant findings would be required to demonstrate the legal basis and the rationale for using political boundaries rather than traditional zoning districts.

And so without findings to establish the nexus between a council district boundary limitation and the impacts of the dispensaries, the city could be potentially vulnerable to a legal challenge.

So our recommendation today at the front staff is to really focus on utilizing the Muni code or the zoning code as the framework for future regulations as opposed to political boundaries associated with the council districts.

This chart should also look familiar.

It's been included in all of our prior presentations as well, acknowledging there's a lot of information here, but again, I want to kind of focus in initially on these last two rows here, and you can basically see the existing distancing requirements here in San Leandro, and you can see the majority of them are about a thousand feet or a thousand feet from sensitive uses.

And you can see the staff recommended proposal is to basically align with the state and modify those thousand-foot setbacks to the 600-foot setback, which is really the statewide's typical standard.

And then also note that we're recommending the elimination of the residential setback.

As we discussed at prior meetings, that setback has been particularly challenging because the vast majority of our commercial areas are in inherently just adjacent to residential areas.

So even though our current code says that certain commercial districts are allowed for cannabis, when you overlay that residential setback, it essentially creates a de facto prohibition in those areas in spite of the code saying that there are otherwise allowed.

And so, and you'll also note that the vast majority of other cities here in Alameda County that do allow cannabis uses do not have any residential setback, with the exception of Union City, which has that modest 100 foot setback.

These these maps should also look familiar to do as they've been included in the past presentations.