The Santa Rosa City Council met in regular session on June 20, 2023, starting with a closed session at 1:00 PM and reconvening in open session at 4:21 PM. The meeting covered consent items, the Independent Police Auditor's annual report, a public hearing on mobilehome rent control, and adoption of the FY 2023-24 budget. Several key decisions were made, including the introduction of a mobilehome rent cap ordinance and approval of a budget that added two police officers and two field evidence technicians.
Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available, and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish, can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. If you are participating in Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. We partnered with Rogo Projects on our response to this the city's notice of availability. I'm sorry, I'm just now realizing my um my uh video is not on. Um anyway, I'm not gonna waste time trying to figure out how to get my video on. Um but anyway, again, we were partnered with Rogue Projects on the response to the city's notice of availability. Freebird is an affordable housing developer. Um currently partnering with the city and the housing authority on South Park Commons, which is the redevelopment of the former Bennett Valley Senior Center. We partnered with Rogel on this response because while affordable housing remains the critical need across California and in Santa Rosa, we believe it should be balanced with mixed income and market rate development to create a more vibrant, equitable downtown, increase the tax base and spur additional investment. As such, Freebird, the affordable housing developer, is taking the lead on the lot 11 and affordable housing development on the White House site, and Rogel in our proposal has taken the lead on barrage five and the mixed income development on the White House site. Um again, just going back to our partnership with the City and Housing Authority. Free bird broke ground on South Park Commons in April with great support from the South Park neighborhood. Uh we were successful in securing over 23 million dollars in funding from the state for that project. We applied for three different um gap funding sources, one uh our tax credit application, and then taxes and bonds, and we were successful um in securing each source on the first application cycle that we applied for, which is kind of unprecedented in these um competitive times. By securing 23 million dollars in state funding for that project, we were able to um reduce the amount of funding that we needed from the City and Housing Authority to make the project work. Again, we broke ground on that project um in April, and it is as you will drive by under construction and going well right now. Um we are hoping to continue um our great partnership with the city um by working uh together on the downtown site. So I just wanted um to speak today um to say you know we're we're hopeful that we will be selected for one, two, or all of the sites, and that's it. Thank you, Robin. Keith, you're up next. Once you unmute, um please go ahead. Very good. Thank you. I uh want to just express how enthusiastic we are about the potential to collaborate with Robin on these sites. We have a shared vision, I believe, about about downtown, about the kind of dynamic mixed uh varied income, varied kind of resident community that it can be, how dynamic it can be. And I know the council has been working very hard to bring that to pass. Um we feel confident about the ability to realize that these sites are actionable in a way that some others in the downtown have been less so in the current inflationary environment. Um the site on garage, I mean on uh the uh White House site as is known. We've teamed with a partner called the Groupie, G R U P E Company. Um may know that the Sonoma Developmental Center is certainly one of the major development opportunities in the Bay Area to arise in the last decade or so. That site has been awarded by the state uh to a partnership which is uh led by my company along with the groupie companies. We have a close relationship, and that's a huge investment coming into the community. Uh we would work together on this uh site and the particular product type, a five-story uh infill site is something that Groupies completed regularly. There are several they've opened in Sacramento not long ago where the economics uh have a similar relationship to those here. So again, this is a very actual site of the garage five is more complicated and complicated. Those who know me well know that that's kind of my specialty, my fascination. Um, I think it's extraordinarily important to bring dynamism to that area, and we think we've got a mixed use program we believe in. And again, it's a scale of project that can be uh can be achieved. Just by way of backdrop, I should note that our work in Napa, the build out of the Napa Pipe site will be more than a thousand housing units, three-quarters of a billion dollars. The Sonoma Valley site will be not less than 600 units. Um again, at least a half a billion dollar kind of project over time. So we're comfortable raising money. We've had success with it. Um, but most of all, I have a passion for the potential great design to bring energy, life, and beauty to a downtown core. And the most beautiful part is when it really serves a wide range of residents of all ages and income. So that's why we're so enthusiastic about this potential partnership.