City Council
City Council
lun, 20 de marzo de 2023
Puntos de agenda
Registros de votación
Resumen del debate
Transcripción
RESUMEN DE REUNIÓNGenerado por IA
Concejo Municipal — 20 de marzo de 2023
Esta fue una sesión ordinaria del Concejo Municipal de Petaluma, destacada por la adopción del Housing Element 2023–2031 de la ciudad y un ajuste presupuestario de mitad de año. La Vicealcaldesa Cader Thompson participó de forma remota mediante Zoom con dificultades de audio durante toda la sesión.
Presentación: Presupuesto y actualización de tarifas del año fiscal 2023–24 de Sonoma Water
Jake Spaulding, Director de Finanzas de Sonoma Water, y Lynn Roselli, Directora de Servicios Administrativos, presentaron el presupuesto propuesto para el sistema de transmisión de agua que abastece a Petaluma y otros contratistas regionales.
El presupuesto total propuesto es de $68.3 millones, compensado por $18.15 millones en subvenciones, ingresos de bonos y saldo de fondos. Los principales factores impulsores incluyen la infraestructura envejecida (con entre 40 y 65 años de antigüedad, de la cual el 40% tiene solo entre el 10% y el 20% de vida útil restante), el aumento de las necesidades de mantenimiento, los proyectos de mitigación de riesgos ($6.3 millones propuestos) y los proyectos de resiliencia hídrica ($5.9 millones). También está en marcha un importante programa decenal de mantenimiento y revestimiento de tanques por $88 millones.
El aumento de tarifa propuesto para los clientes del Petaluma Aqueduct es del 9.42%, inferior a la estimación inicial de aproximadamente el 20%, reducido mediante el aplazamiento de mantenimiento, recortes presupuestarios, mayor uso de subvenciones y reservas, y la reducción a cero del cargo de capital del Petaluma Aqueduct para este año. Aproximadamente el 90% del aumento tarifario se debe a la menor entrega de agua: la tarifa del sistema es completamente volumétrica, lo que significa que a menor consumo, mayor costo por unidad. Sonoma Water prevé cuatro años de aumentos tarifarios en el rango del 9% al 11% antes de moderarse a alrededor del 8%.
El Miembro del Concejo Healey señaló la naturaleza contraintuitiva de que la conservación eleve las tarifas, pero la situó en un contexto histórico: la conservación agresiva evitó un proyecto de desvío en Dry Creek de $120 millones y un acueducto paralelo de más de $50 millones, lo que a largo plazo representó un ahorro mucho mayor para los usuarios. Expresó su intención de apoyar el presupuesto en la reunión del Water Advisory Committee (WAC) el 3 de abril. El personal de la ciudad indicó que un estudio de tarifas de agua al por menor se presentará ante el Concejo aproximadamente dos sesiones después, el 17 de abril.
Esta fue únicamente una presentación informativa; no se realizó ninguna votación.
Calendario de Consentimiento
Los siguientes puntos fueron aprobados en conjunto sin debate sustantivo (Puntos 1, 3, 4 y 5):
Punto 1: Agenda tentativa para la reunión del Concejo/PCDSA del 3 de abril (el Concejo señaló que se debe agregar una sesión cerrada sobre las negociaciones de la propiedad de Fairgrounds).
Punto 3: Resolución que acepta la finalización del Petaluma Boulevard South Road Diet Project por parte de Azul Works, Inc. y autoriza la liberación del 10% de retención.
Punto 4: Resolución que autoriza una solicitud conjunta con Danco Communities y SMART para financiamiento del programa Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) destinado al proyecto de vivienda asequible Meridian at Corona Station en 890 North McDowell Boulevard. Un comentarista público expresó preocupación por el hecho de que SMART no ha celebrado audiencias públicas en Petaluma sobre sus planes para la estación, y cuestionó la contribución de $2 millones de la ciudad para un estacionamiento en lugar de mejoras de acceso al transporte.
Punto 5: Resolución que autoriza la compra de un vehículo eléctrico 2023 Toyota bZ4X a Hansel Auto Group. Un comentarista público cuestionó si la compra de un vehículo eléctrico nuevo era verdaderamente responsable desde el punto de vista ambiental, dado el impacto de su fabricación, y expresó preocupación de que la compra debería beneficiar a empleados municipales reales en lugar de consultores.
Votación (Puntos 1, 3, 4, 5): Propuesta por Healey, secundada por Barnacle. Aprobada por unanimidad, 7–0 (Cader Thompson indicó afirmativamente mediante video).
Punto 6 — Ordenanzas de Zonificación de Scott Ranch (Segunda Lectura): Adopción de las Ordenanzas Nos. 2839 y 2840 que aprueban enmiendas al mapa de zonificación y al texto para el proyecto Scott Ranch en D Street y Windsor Drive. El Miembro del Concejo Posakay se abstuvo por conflicto de interés.
Votación (Punto 6): Propuesta por Healey, secundada por Barnacle. Aprobada 6–0 con Posakay abstenido.
Punto 2 — Restauración de Pavimento: Garfield Drive (separado para discusión independiente)
El Miembro del Concejo Barnacle retiró este punto para analizar el diseño, en particular la seguridad de ciclistas y peatones. Tras recorrer el vecindario en automóvil y a pie, Barnacle expresó su preocupación de que repavimentar sin medidas de calmado de tráfico resultaría en mayores velocidades vehiculares. Una comentarista, Ali Gaylord, elogió la incorporación de señalizaciones de carriles bici Clase 3 y describió a Garfield como un conector importante hacia Weissman Park y las escuelas. La discusión del Concejo abarcó la ubicación de pilones en ensanchamientos, árboles en la vía pública, patrones de tráfico cerca de Caulfield/Eli durante la entrada y salida escolar, y el peligroso cruce en Garfield y Washington Street. El personal confirmó que el diseño será revisado por el Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee (PBAC) antes de la demarcación final. La Gerente Municipal Peggy Flynn se comprometió a presentar futuros proyectos de pavimentación ante el PBAC previo a la aprobación del Concejo.
Votación (Punto 2): Propuesta por Barnacle, secundada por un miembro del Concejo (no claramente identificado). Aprobada por unanimidad, 7–0.
Audiencia Pública: Ajustes Presupuestarios de Mitad de Año del Año Fiscal 2022–23
La Directora de Finanzas Corey Gabriellio presentó los ajustes presupuestarios de mitad de año. La mayoría de los cambios reflejan acciones del Concejo previamente aprobadas, desplazamientos en el cronograma de proyectos de capital del año fiscal 23 al año fiscal 24, y aumentos de ingresos que reflejan una recuperación económica más rápida de lo esperado. También se actualizó el cuadro de puestos.
Una comentarista pública (Taryn Obade) expresó preocupación sobre los "ahorros salariales": dinero presupuestado para puestos vacantes que es absorbido por empleados existentes a través de horas extras y pago por vacaciones no utilizadas, en lugar de destinarse a la contratación de nuevo personal, en particular en los departamentos de policía y parques.
El Miembro del Concejo Schribs preguntó si alguno de los ajustes representaba un cambio significativo de política; el personal confirmó que los cambios eran en gran medida ajustes contables de carácter técnico.
Votación: Propuesta por Healey (para introducir seis ordenanzas presupuestarias en primera lectura y adoptar la resolución del cuadro de puestos), secundada por el miembro del Concejo Now. Aprobada por unanimidad, 7–0.
Audiencia Pública: Adopción del Housing Element 2023–2031
El Director de Desarrollo Comunitario Brian Oh y la Planificadora Sénior Christina Paul presentaron el borrador final del Housing Element de Sexto Ciclo de Petaluma, que abarca el período 2023–2031, para su adopción por el Concejo.
Antecedentes: La ley estatal exige que cada jurisdicción actualice su housing element cada ocho años y demuestre capacidad para acomodar su Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). Petaluma llevó a cabo un extenso proceso público de dos años que incluyó encuestas comunitarias, talleres, revisiones por parte del General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC), la Comisión de Planificación y el Concejo Municipal. HCD revisó el borrador durante 90 días (extendidos desde los 30 originales) y emitió una carta de comentarios relativamente breve de cinco páginas, lo cual el personal señaló como un indicador de la calidad del documento en comparación con jurisdicciones similares.
Elementos clave del borrador final:
El inventario de sitios identifica parcelas ya zonificadas para vivienda; no se propone ninguna rezonificación nueva.
Un ajuste menor redujo la producción asumida de ADU de 18 a 16 unidades por año, con base en el requisito de HCD de utilizar datos de 2018.
Se incorporó nueva redacción que establece plazos específicos para actualizaciones del código de zonificación, incluyendo la definición de viviendas de Habitación Individual (Single Room Occupancy, SRO) y su autorización en zonas de uso mixto y comercial, la reducción o eliminación de requisitos mínimos de estacionamiento para viviendas multifamiliares, y la autorización condicional de instalaciones de cuidado residencial para 7 o más personas en zonas comerciales.
Se agregaron metas de producción de unidades, pero son aspiracionales y no constituyen umbrales de cumplimiento obligatorio; la ciudad debe demostrar ante HCD un esfuerzo de buena fe.
Un adéndum a la Declaración Negativa previa satisface los requisitos de CEQA; no se identificaron nuevos impactos ambientales significativos.
El personal informó que la ciudad ha presentado su solicitud para la Designación Pro-Housing del estado con la puntuación máxima de 50 sobre 50 puntos, duplicando los 25 puntos obtenidos hace dos años, impulsada por políticas como la ordenanza de visibilidad de vivienda inclusiva y la ordenanza de reducción de tarifas de vivienda asequible de noviembre de 2022.
La discusión del Concejo incluyó: preocupaciones del Miembro del Concejo Healey sobre si los Pacifica Apartments (aprobados en 2020, sin permisos solicitados) fueron contabilizados en el inventario de proyectos en curso (no lo fueron); escepticismo sobre si 0.4 espacios de estacionamiento por unidad es realista en el proyecto Mid-Penn Washington Square, especialmente si se busca financiamiento para vivienda de trabajadores agrícolas; preguntas sobre las definiciones de SRO; e interés en un análisis de propiedades subutilizadas para orientar futuras reurbanizaciones.
El Abogado Municipal Eric Danley abordó las preocupaciones públicas sobre el "Builder's Remedy", una disposición de la Housing Accountability Act que limita la capacidad de una ciudad para denegar proyectos de vivienda asequible cuando su housing element no cumple sustancialmente con los requisitos. Manifestó que no ha identificado ningún proyecto actual en Petaluma que califique para las protecciones del Builder's Remedy, y que la adopción de un housing element conforme elimina esa vulnerabilidad.
La Miembro del Concejo Cader Thompson preguntó sobre el estado de la actualización de los mapas de zonas de inundación. El personal indicó que se espera presentar mapas revisados que utilizan modelos de ríos atmosféricos en una gran reunión comunitaria del GPAC a finales de abril o principios de mayo.
Los comentarios públicos fueron sustantivos. Los partidarios (incluyendo al Director de Políticas de Generation Housing, Callum Weeks) elogiaron el proceso e instaron a buscar la mayor puntuación posible en la Designación Pro-Housing para maximizar la competitividad en la obtención de subvenciones. Varios miembros del público (Darren Recusen, M. Sullivan, Taryn Obade, Bev) plantearon preocupaciones sobre: el incumplimiento del plazo de presentación ante HCD del 31 de enero, lo cual generó un período de vulnerabilidad al Builder's Remedy; la responsabilidad del consultor (M Group) por ese retraso; la rápida presentación por parte de la familia Johnson de dos grandes propuestas de desarrollo en zonas de inundación durante el período de incumplimiento; el análisis insuficiente de las zonas de inundación en el inventario de sitios; y la resiliencia climática en términos más amplios.
Votación: Propuesta por Barnacle, secundada por Posakay. Aprobada por unanimidad, 7–0.
Puntos clave
Housing Element adoptado: El Housing Element 2023–2031 de Petaluma fue aprobado por unanimidad y será presentado ante HCD para su certificación final en un plazo de 60 días, eliminando la vulnerabilidad de la ciudad al Builder's Remedy.
Tarifas de Sonoma Water aumentan aproximadamente un 9.4%: Los clientes de Petaluma enfrentan un aumento del 9.42% en la tarifa mayorista de agua, impulsado principalmente por los bajos volúmenes de entrega y no por nuevos gastos; el impacto en las tarifas al por menor se presentará ante el Concejo alrededor del 17 de abril.
Solicitud de Designación Pro-Housing presentada con puntaje máximo: El personal presentó una solicitud de 50/50 puntos, duplicando la puntuación de la ciudad respecto a hace dos años, lo que podría hacer a Petaluma más competitiva para subvenciones estatales de vivienda.
Pavimentación de Garfield Drive aprobada con compromisos de seguridad ciclista: El personal se comprometió a presentar futuros proyectos de pavimentación ante el PBAC antes de la aprobación del Concejo, una mejora de procedimiento motivada por esta discusión.
Propiedad en Weller Street (Jonas): Varios miembros del Concejo expresaron interés en gestionar la adquisición municipal de una parcela privada en Weller Street como área verde/espacio abierto adyacente a Kavanaugh Landing; existe una tasación y es posible que haya fondos de tarifas de impacto de Parkland disponibles.
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Qué ocurrió en esta reunión
Agenda Tentativa para la Sesión Ordinaria del Concejo Municipal/PCDSA del 3 de abril de 2023
Item 1, the Tentative Agenda for the City Council/PCDSA Regular Meeting of April 3, 2023, was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote and no public comment recorded.
Resolución que Autoriza la Adjudicación del Contrato para la Restauración de Pavimento 22/23 Garfield Dr. C16102248 a Ghilotti Bros., Inc. y Determina que Esta Acción No Constituye un "Proyecto" Conforme a la Sección 15378(b)(5) de las Directrices de CEQA
Resolution Authorizing Award of Contract for Pavement Restoration 22/23 Garfield Dr. to Ghilotti Bros., Inc. was presented by staff. Public commenter Ali Gaylord spoke, and councilmembers asked questions of staff before adopting the resolution 7-0.
Resolución que Acepta la Conclusión del Proyecto de Dieta Vial de Petaluma Boulevard South C16101601 por Azul Works, Inc., Autoriza la Liberación de la Retención del 10%, y Determina que Esta Acción No Constituye un "Proyecto" Conforme a la Sección 15301(c) de las Directrices de CEQA
Resolution Accepting Completion of the Petaluma Boulevard South Road Diet Project by Azul Works, Inc. was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote.
Resolución que Autoriza al Administrador Municipal a Presentar una Solicitud Conjunta con Danco Communities y Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit para Financiamiento a través del Programa Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities para el Proyecto de Vivienda Asequible Meridian at Corona Station ubicado en 890 North McDowell Boulevard y Determina que la Autorización para Participar en la Solicitud de Financiamiento de la Subvención AHSC No Genera un Cambio Físico en el Medio Ambiente y por lo Tanto No Constituye un Proyecto bajo CEQA
Resolution Authorizing the City Manager to Submit a Joint Application with Danco Communities and Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit for Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program funding was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote.
Resolución que Autoriza la Adquisición de Un (1) Nuevo Vehículo Eléctrico 2023 Toyota bZ4X de Hansel Auto Group, Autoriza al Administrador Municipal a Suscribir Todos los Documentos Necesarios para Completar la Compra, y Determina que Este Asunto No Constituye un "Proyecto" Conforme a las Secciones 15378(b)(5) y 15061(b)(3) de las Directrices de CEQA
Resolution Authorizing Procurement of One New 2023 Toyota bZ4X Electric Vehicle from Hansel Auto Group was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote.
Puntos de agenda (8)
Consent Calendar
1Consent CalendarAgenda Tentativa para la Sesión Ordinaria del Concejo Municipal/PCDSA del 3 de abril de 2023
Qué ocurrió
Item 1, the Tentative Agenda for the City Council/PCDSA Regular Meeting of April 3, 2023, was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote and no public comment recorded.2Consent CalendarResolución que Autoriza la Adjudicación del Contrato para la Restauración de Pavimento 22/23 Garfield Dr. C16102248 a Ghilotti Bros., Inc. y Determina que Esta Acción No Constituye un "Proyecto" Conforme a la Sección 15378(b)(5) de las Directrices de CEQA
Qué ocurrió
Resolution Authorizing Award of Contract for Pavement Restoration 22/23 Garfield Dr. to Ghilotti Bros., Inc. was presented by staff. Public commenter Ali Gaylord spoke, and councilmembers asked questions of staff before adopting the resolution 7-0.3Consent CalendarResolución que Acepta la Conclusión del Proyecto de Dieta Vial de Petaluma Boulevard South C16101601 por Azul Works, Inc., Autoriza la Liberación de la Retención del 10%, y Determina que Esta Acción No Constituye un "Proyecto" Conforme a la Sección 15301(c) de las Directrices de CEQA
Qué ocurrió
Resolution Accepting Completion of the Petaluma Boulevard South Road Diet Project by Azul Works, Inc. was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote.4Consent CalendarResolución que Autoriza al Administrador Municipal a Presentar una Solicitud Conjunta con Danco Communities y Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit para Financiamiento a través del Programa Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities para el Proyecto de Vivienda Asequible Meridian at Corona Station ubicado en 890 North McDowell Boulevard y Determina que la Autorización para Participar en la Solicitud de Financiamiento de la Subvención AHSC No Genera un Cambio Físico en el Medio Ambiente y por lo Tanto No Constituye un Proyecto bajo CEQA
Qué ocurrió
Resolution Authorizing the City Manager to Submit a Joint Application with Danco Communities and Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit for Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program funding was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote.5Consent CalendarResolución que Autoriza la Adquisición de Un (1) Nuevo Vehículo Eléctrico 2023 Toyota bZ4X de Hansel Auto Group, Autoriza al Administrador Municipal a Suscribir Todos los Documentos Necesarios para Completar la Compra, y Determina que Este Asunto No Constituye un "Proyecto" Conforme a las Secciones 15378(b)(5) y 15061(b)(3) de las Directrices de CEQA
Qué ocurrió
Resolution Authorizing Procurement of One New 2023 Toyota bZ4X Electric Vehicle from Hansel Auto Group was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 7-0 vote.6Consent CalendarAdopción (Segunda Lectura) de las Ordenanzas Nos. 2839 y 2840 N.C.S. que Aprueban una Enmienda al Mapa de Zonificación y una Enmienda al Texto de Zonificación para el Proyecto Scott Ranch ubicado en D Street y Windsor Drive (APN 019-120-040 y 019-120-041) y Determina que Este Asunto Fue Analizado en el Scott Ranch Final EIR (SCH# 2004072137)
Qué ocurrió
Ordinance Nos. 2839 and 2840 N.C.S. approving a Zoning Map Amendment and Zoning Text Amendment for the Scott Ranch Project was adopted on the Consent Calendar with a 6-0 vote, with Councilmember Pocekay recused due to a conflict of interest.Public Hearing
7Public HearingIntroducción (Primera Lectura) de Ordenanzas para Modificar Ciertas Apropiaciones para las Operaciones de la Ciudad de Petaluma del 1 de julio de 2022 al 30 de junio de 2023; Resolución que Actualiza el Calendario de Puestos Permanentes Autorizados y Financiados; y Actualización de Mitad de Año del Fondo General FY 2022-2023 y Determina que Esta Acción No Constituye un Proyecto Conforme a la Sección 15378(B)(5) de las Directrices de CEQA
Qué ocurrió
Corey Garberolio, Deputy City Manager/Finance Director, presented the staff report on mid-year budget adjustments. Taryn Obaid provided public comment, and councilmembers asked questions of staff before introducing the ordinances and adopting Resolution No. 2023-037 N.C.S. with a 7-0 vote.8Public HearingAudiencia Pública y Resolución que Adopta una Enmienda al Plan General para Derogar el Elemento de Vivienda de Petaluma 2015-2023, Adopta el Elemento de Vivienda del Plan General de Petaluma para el Período 2023-2031 con Determinaciones de que Cumple Sustancialmente con la Ley Estatal de Elementos de Vivienda, e Incluye la Aprobación de un Addendum a la Declaración Negativa Previamente Aprobada para el Elemento de Vivienda 2015-2023
Qué ocurrió
Brian Oh, Community Development Director, along with Christina Paul and Heather Hines, presented the General Plan Amendment to adopt the 2023-2031 Petaluma Housing Element. Public commenters Darren Racusen, M Sullivan, Taryn Obaid, Calum Weeks, and Bev spoke during the public hearing; staff responded and councilmembers discussed before adopting Resolution No. 2023-037 N.C.S. unanimously 7-0.Votos adicionales registrados en actas
Approve consent calendar items 1, 3, 4, and 5
aye 7
Barnacleaye
Cader Thompsonaye
Healeyaye
McDonnellaye
Nowaye
Posakayaye
Schribsaye
Approve consent calendar item 6 (Scott Ranch item)
aye 6 · recused 1
Barnacleaye
Cader Thompsonaye
Healeyaye
McDonnellaye
Nowaye
Posakayrecused
Schribsaye
Approve consent calendar item 2 (Pavement restoration Garfield Drive)
aye 7
Barnacleaye
Cader Thompsonaye
Healeyaye
McDonnellaye
Nowaye
Posakayaye
Schribsaye
Introduce ordinances and adopt resolution for mid-year budget adjustments (Item 7)
aye 7
Barnacleaye
Cader Thompsonaye
Healeyaye
McDonnellaye
Nowaye
Posakayaye
Schribsaye
Adopt General Plan Amendment to repeal 2015-2023 Housing Element and adopt 2023-2031 Housing Element
aye 7
Barnacleaye
Cader Thompsonaye
Healeyaye
McDonnellaye
Nowaye
Posakayaye
Schribsaye
Transcripción literal disponible
130 segmentos de transcripción indexados
foreign okay we're live thank you recording in progress thank you and good evening welcome to all to the regular meeting of the Petaluma City Council in Petaluma uh Community Development successor Agency for Monday March 20th I'll now invite Martin riverola and Maria Galvez to provide information to those who want to participate in Spanish good evening everybody interpretations Fantasia is dioma thank you we're ready and thank you may we have roll call for the evening councilmember Barnacle here councilmember Healey here council member now here council member posakay here council member schribs yep vice mayor Cader Thompson mayor McDonnell here um vice mayor care Thompson has not yet joined us I believe she was planning on joining us if I see her come on do you mind me interrupting bring her in as quickly as she arrives thank you very much and let's stand for a pledge of allegiance and now a moment of silence foreign moving into tonight's agenda Let's see we don't note any agenda changes for tonight's agenda at this time so that would move us right into our presentations for the evening and I would like to invite Jake Spaulding the finance manager of of Sonoma water to make a presentation for the evening thank you and um I think one of your staff members is going to be running it for us so while that's getting set up um thank you for having us here my name is Jake Spaulding I'm the finance manager at Sonoma water I'm here with Lynn roselli our administrative Services director
CITY OF PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL & PETALUMA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SUCCESSOR AGENCY (PCDSA) City Hall Council Chamber 11 English Street Petaluma, CA 94952 MINUTES Monday, March 20, 2023 REGULAR SESSION - 6:30 P.M.
to give you a quick overview of our fiscal year 2324 water transmission system budget um so each year we do uh develop a budget that meets all the Water Systems Operations maintenance capital and Regulatory demands this year similar to last year we do have a heightened need for uh infrastructure repairs and upgrades so that we can continue to operate the system both reliably and 24 7.
CALL TO ORDER Mayor McDonnell called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. • ROLL CALL PRESENT: Mayor McDonnell, Councilmember Barnacle, Councilmember Cader Thompson (joined at 7:35 p.m.), Councilmember Healy, Councilmember Nau, Councilmember Pocekay, Councilmember Shribbs ABSENT: None • PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE • MOMENT OF SILENCE AGENDA CHANGES AND DELETIONS (TO CURRENT AGENDA ONLY) PRESENTATIONS • Sonoma Water FY 2023-2024 Proposed Water Transmission System Budget and Rates GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT During General Public Comment, the public is invited to make comments on items of public interest that are within the City Council’s subject matter jurisdiction and that are not listed on the current agenda.
Public comments are limited up to three minutes per person. Depending on the number of persons wishing to address the Council, time will be allocated in equal shares totaling no more than twenty minutes, subject to the Council’s discretion (Cal.
and thank you for bringing that up um can you go to the next slide please foreign thank you yes thank you for bearing with us yes okay so um the water transmission system has three main aqueducts um the Santa Rosa Aqueduct which is shown in purple on the map if you can see that the Petaluma Aqueduct which is shown in blue and the Sonoma Aqueduct which is shown in green each one of the water contractors is located off of one of these three main aqueducts and per the terms of the restructured agreement for water supply each contractor pays the rate that's associated with the aqueduct that they're off of um so each year we submit a draft budget to the TAC ad hoc subcommittee and we do that in mid-January and then we work in a collaborative and transparent process with all the water contractors before bringing the rates to our board in mid-april the restructured agreement does require that our board approve these rates by the end of April each year can you go to the next slide and then actually one more please so the water transmission system it's actually quite complicated it's uh it includes multiple different funds some of the funds are listed on the slide here each one of these funds has its own budget and rates and then all those are combined into the overall rate that each contractor would pay next slide so the uh water transmission system It's relatively robust but we are facing several challenges which are not unique to us in the the world of water most of our facilities
Gov’t. Code §54954.3(a), Petaluma City Council Rules, Policies and Procedures, III). Bernie Album Diane Sue White Lendri Purcell Patricia Kite Susan Kirks Taryn Obaid Mayor McDonnell opened General Public Comment.
are currently uh 45 to 65 years old they've expended much of their useful life in fact uh 40 of our infrastructure has only 10 to 20 percent of its life left not too much not too different than owning you know an aging car maintenance needs increase with age Sonoma water does have a preventative maintenance program that we operate but corrective maintenance and emergency repairs have been increasing in in the past couple years which really is an indication of the the age of the system and then in addition to the effects of age on the system we are also subject to an array of natural hazards primarily flood fire and earthquake with earthquake being our biggest vulnerability in terms of extensive damage to the system and also disruptions to service serving the community um I'm saying all this just to let you know that the budget we're presenting today has uh projects and measures in it to address all of these concerns obviously we can't solve them in one year but we are in a multi-year effort to bring everything up uh to par uh next slide uh so what's in the budget well on the capital side um we've actually have or will be completing a couple key Hazard mitigation projects this fiscal year and next fiscal year we're proposing to do an additional 6.3 million dollars in Hazard mitigation projects um you know these projects are on various lines of the system and and help all of our water contractors um we have been able to secure roughly 10 million dollars from FEMA for hazard
mitigation projects in the recent past um and we do anticipate seeking additional funding for the projects that you see on this slide next slide in addition to the hazard mitigation projects that we're proposing we're also proposing 5.9 million dollars in additional water resiliency projects in the capital program the projects that you see on the slide here do have 1.1 million dollars in offsetting revenue and fiscal year 2324 from Grants uh so when you combine the the water resiliency projects that are on this slide with the hazard mitigation projects that you saw in the previous slide we're proposing a total uh capital projects budget of roughly 12.2 million dollars next slide um the budget includes 40.4 million dollars for projects related to operations and maintenance we've highlighted a few of those projects on this slide there are many more than you see here but these are a few of the top priorities and they include a multi-phase cathodic protection program which helps prevent corrosion in the aqueducts that serve each one of the water contractors as well as a 10-year 88 million dollar tank maintenance rehab and recoding project um these are the highest priority projects um you know they're really they're integral to water supply reliability and making sure that we have a system that that serves all the communities that we serve next slide uh so I'm going to keep going through all the various funds we have so we do have uh what we've refer to as the sub funds we're
Peter Tscherneff Katherine Bobrowski John Hanania Larry Jonas Tom Maunder Michael Parks Robert Hansen David Donnenfield Darren Racusen Taryn Obaid M Sullivan Mayor McDonnell closed General Public Comment.
proposing a budget of 9.8 million dollars for the biological opinion water supply planning and water conservation um in particular uh you know the Dry Creek habitat enhancement project which I'm sure many of you are aware of um is making important progress on phases four five and six and we do experience significant cost savings because the Army Corps is picking up 65 percent of the cost of these projects um this budget does also include a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Grant match contributions towards uh the Potter Valley uh Potter Valley Project Russian River water Forum Grant if we do get this award the county of Sonoma County of Mendocino as well as Sonoma Waters Russian River projects fund are all going to be contributing match as well um and then in addition to implementing a very robust and comprehensive water conservation and education program we are seeking 3.8 million dollars in additional grant funding this year uh from the Department of Water Resources to uh supplement and facilitate additional water conservation and and education programs next slide so as you can see on this slide we're proposing a total budget of 68.3 million dollars which is offset by 18.15 million in Grants use of fund balance and bond proceeds of note when you compare this fiscal year 2324's budget to the previous year's budget you'll see that we're proposing a budget that's 3.5 million dollars less than the previous fiscal year um the operations and maintenance budget does show an
COUNCIL COMMENT Councilmember Barnacle Councilmember Healy Councilmember Nau Councilmember Pocekay Councilmember Shribbs Vice Mayor Cader Thompson joined the meeting at 7:35 p.m. Mayor McDonnell CITY MANAGER COMMENT City Manager Peggy Flynn CONSENT CALENDAR At the request of Councilmember Barnacle, Mayor McDonnell announced Item 2 was pulled from the Consent Calendar and would be considered immediately following the Consent Calendar.
Councilmember Pocekay announced he would recuse from Item 6 due to a conflict of interest. 1. Tentative Agenda for the City Council/PCDSA Regular Meeting of April 3, 2023 3. Resolution Accepting Completion of the Petaluma Boulevard South Road Diet Project C16101601 by Azul Works, Inc., Authorizing the Release of the 10% Retention, and Finding this Action is not a "Project" Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15301(c) 4.
increase of roughly 4.4 percent and that's the indication of uh you know that's related to The increased infrastructure needs and maintenance needs that we talked about earlier but all the other line items are showing decreases um next slide please I did just want to show you this slide just to show you know the allocation of where our costs typically go roughly 60 percent go to operations and maintenance or another 18 is going towards capital projects followed with the the sub funds and then Debt Service at less than 10 percent in the next slide so I wanted to give you a real quick uh primer on on how our rates are calculated um it's uh according to the terms of the restructured agreement for water supply and what that agreement says is basically we need to take the cost of operations and maintenance of the system and then divide that by the lesser of either the last 12 months of deliveries or the last three fiscal years annual average um when you do that you can see on the slide here that the 12 months is the lower number this year it's 41 847 acre feet um so you divide that and you come out to about 1173 dollars per acre foot the main purpose of this slide is to show you that our rate is fully volumetric and that means all else being equal the lower water that is in uh the budget the higher the rate is going to be um in fact you know if you compare this uh this number the 41 847 to last fiscal Year's budget it's 8.5 percent less in deliveries that were budgeting off of and
Resolution Authorizing the City Manager to Submit a Joint Application with Danco Communities and Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit for Funding through the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program for the Meridian at Corona Station Affordable Housing Project located at 890 North McDowell Boulevard and Finding That the Authorization to Partner in the AHSC Grant Funding Application Does Not Create a Physical Change in the Environment and is Therefore Not a Project Under CEQA Guidelines Section 15378 5.
uh that makes up about 90 percent of the difference in the rate increase that you're going to see on a preceding slide next slide so Sonoma water is a Ware that raising rates is not a an ideal thing to do um you know we did take a lot of steps to try and keep the rate increase to the lowest number possible in fact we brought it down from an initial rate increase that we were showing of roughly 20 percent down to about 10.56 we did this by doing a couple different things we deferred 2.4 million dollars in lower priority maintenance projects we trim budgets where we could lately utility costs have been moderating at least for the the supply mix that we have and then we also increased drastically the the use of Grants bonds proceeds and fund balance in addition to that the water contractors do have a discretionary charge that's built into their rate that is for capital projects um and you'll see on the next slide that some of them did elect to reduce that for this fiscal year and lastly I did just want to point out that we are predicting that we are going to use 1.5 million dollars of our prudent Reserve this fiscal year to make up a revenue shortfall that's currently estimated between four and six million dollars due to lower deliveries than what was budgeted this fiscal year I'm sorry to interrupt you you're at your 10 minutes so if you could drop up thank you um so the whack may want to consider increasing that at a at a later time next slide um so this this slide shows the
rates as you can see they vary between 9.42 and 10.56 percent including the use of that grants Bond proceeds and fund balance of 18.15 uh Petaluma and snowman Aqueduct customers did elect to reduce their Capital charges as you can see the Petaluma Aqueduct Capital charge was reduced to zero this year that charge is used as a rate stabilization tool and to build fund balance for future projects to prevent raid Sikes um but this year it is going to be zero and that puts the Petaluma AQ cost increase at 9.42 I would just say uh you know because it's fully volumetric once again the lower deliveries is what's causing 90 percent of the rate increase the other 10 percent is uh the additional maintenance needs that are required mostly because we have deferred projects in the past to keep rates low in fact we've kept them under five percent for the last uh 10 5 and 10 year period uh next slide and sorry I know I'm running low on time so I'll go very quickly uh so this slide shows you that we have uh roughly 317 million dollars in capital projects that we need to do on the Petaluma that affect the Petaluma rate payers uh in the next few years through fiscal year 2030.
Resolution Authorizing the Procurement of One (1) New 2023 Toyota bZ4X Electric Vehicle from Hansel Auto Group, Authorizing the City Manager to Execute All Documents Necessary to Complete the Purchase, and Finding This Item is Not a “Project” Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15378(b)(5) and 15061(b)(3) 6.
this includes Hazard mitigation resiliency and maintenance projects next slide and it looks like the chart is missing here but uh so our current estimates for the future you know what does this mean for rates in the in the future uh right now we're showing four years of rate increases between 9.4 and 11.3 percent and then that would moderate in later years down to about eight percent I do just want to say this is a very conservative model uh does not include any additional grant funding that we would get and we've been very successful at getting Grant funds and bringing those costs down um and next slide uh so real quick Sonoma water you know our water rates continue to be very low compared to our competitors we're on the far left hand side there I would note all these other agencies they're experiencing the same constraints and the same conditions that we are and they are all anticipating sizable rate increases this year ranging from 5.5 to 15 percent and next slide so next steps uh we're presenting to town councils right now then this will go to the water advisory committee for a vote on April 3rd and finally adoption by our board on April 18th and with that I just say you know we uh you know we've done a lot to try and bring the rate down moderate it as much as we can unfortunately this year there are a lot of things working against us mostly just that lower deliveries with our volumetric right um and I can answer any questions you may have uh thank you very much let's do
Adoption (Second Reading) of Ordinance Nos. 2839 and 2840 N.C.S. Approving a Zoning Map Amendment and Zoning Text Amendment for the Scott Ranch Project Located on D Street and Windsor Drive (APN 019-120-040 and 019-120-041) and Finding That This Item Was Analyzed In The Scott Ranch Final EIR (SCH# 2004072137) Mayor McDonnell opened public comment on the Consent Calendar.
that um councilmember Healey thank you a couple of related questions um first is what's the current fund balance and the discretionary Capital account you mentioned for the Petaluma aqueduct okay thank you and and the related question is um what's your estimated remaining life for the Petaluma aqueduct well the Petaluma Aqueduct um remaining life we're not anticipating actually doing Replacements on the Petaluma Aqueduct at least until out in close to the close to 2040.
Duane Taryn Obaid Mayor McDonnell closed public comment on the Consent Calendar. Motion to adopt Items 1, 3, 4, and 5 (Resolution Nos. 2023-033 N.C.S. accepting completion of the Petaluma Boulevard South Road Diet Project; 2023-034 N.C.S.
so I'm just Petaluma Aqueduct replacement so that's what's on the long-range financial plan right now it's it's close to 2040 we would back up a few years to begin design work what would you be your estimated cost at this point for that cost would be but in the long-range financial plan we put a placeholder of about 10 million a year for five years okay so about a 50 million dollar project okay thank you and then I had a follow-up question for for City staff on this and I don't know if anyone's here can answer this but my understanding is that the wholesale rates we paid is Sonoma water is um about half of our water utilities um expense expenditures and so if we have a ten and a half percent increase in wholesale waste rates from Sonoma water what are we looking at for our retail rates coming up if anyone can answer that it's not a snowball water question we're going to have a a rate study coming to Council in a probably in two meetings from now yeah so we'll have a little bit better I mean this will obviously be a pass-through but I don't know what ours are going to look like thank you yep council member schribs okay just uh I want to go over the um the budget for the water that you have which is going to be less than it was before however we were that was middle of a drought and everyone was conserving carrying five gallon buckets up and down stairs and such so um with once we have a full Reservoir now people are going to be a little bit more relaxed about watering their
authorizing a joint application with Danco and SMART for funding through the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program; and 2023-035 N.C.S. authorizing the procurement of one new 2023 Toyota bZ4X electric vehicle) made by Councilmember Healy, seconded by Councilmember Barnacle.
Vote: Carried 7-0 Yes: Mayor McDonnell, Councilmember Barnacle, Councilmember Cader Thompson, Councilmember Healy, Councilmember Nau, Councilmember Pocekay, Councilmember Shribbs No: None Absent: None Recused: None Motion to adopt Item 6 (Ordinance Nos.
lawns and doing that so I would expect water usage to at least climb at least first year for folks to kind of recover and all that but yet you still have the total water budget going down even with population increase with more housing coming in year after year so um uh how is that how are you able to to look at lower water use it coming out of a drought High conservation effort and still saying lower water use so on that model are we just expecting everyone to continue conserving like they have um or how did you come up with a lower water use for this next year or two well the water use is not lower than uh than what it has been so it's based off of the the amount of water that we sold you know you are correct that there we would anticipate you know logically you would think people would use more water once we we get out of a drought and we have full reservoirs right now our Water Resource planners are not forecasting a large increase in use and there's a there's a couple factors that go into that you know one we have to look at it from a portfolio perspective of all of our water users and what we sell some of our water users do have their own reservoirs and surface reservoirs and in fact during the drought they're in their use increased because they were able to take flows uh in stream flows when there was excess flows right now they're not anticipating uh increasing their use in fact they're anticipating decreasing their use for at least the next three to eight weeks um
some of our some of our other contractors have told us they anticipate small increases but others have told us that that they're not anticipating that and part of it is that water conservation that you're talking about a lot of that is sticky um you know it's it's hardened the demand um as you know I believe the figures they've taken out more than a million million square feet of lawn um so there's a lot less lawn too to uh uh water you know that being said if water deliveries do come in over what our budgeted number is any additional Revenue would go into fund balance and every year when we're doing the next year's budget which which is required under the restructured agreement we use as much fund balance as we can to moderate the rates the following year so you know this year we're really in a spot where we've had three years of drought and it's just been historically low use in fact we just had the lowest water use uh month in in decades this last month in February so um it's it's not I don't know if that answers your question um but you know if there is any increase above what we've budgeted that can be used to offset rates in future years okay so just uh in response to folks that are um looking at our growth housing growth and getting very concerned about water um we have the capacity is about what I'm hearing and that we're anticipating all that from your point of view um from the volumes and usage that we're seeing now and water agencies saying okay we're going to be
2839 N.C.S. approving a Zoning Map Amendment and 2840 N.C.S. approving a Zoning Text Amendment) made by Councilmember Healy, seconded by Councilmember Barnacle. Vote: Carried 6-0 Yes: Mayor McDonnell, Councilmember Barnacle, Councilmember Cader Thompson, Councilmember Healy, Councilmember Nau, Councilmember Shribbs No: None Absent: None Recused: Councilmember Pocekay 2.
Resolution Authorizing Award of Contract for the Pavement Restoration 22/23 Garfield Dr. C16102248 to Ghilotti Bros., Inc. and Finding This Action is Not a “Project” Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15378(b)(5) Mayor McDonnell opened public comment.
good yeah I mean in fact we really want to say congrat you know thank you to the community you know the water conservation that has been done uh Not only was needed because it was mandated by the state but our water use patterns have decreased over the years in fact you know 10 years ago we were using consistently over 60 000 acre feet so even with the growth in population we are using less water than we used to and that has allowed us to keep rates low to the point that they are because if if we hadn't done that we would have had to implement additional capacity projects that would have been even more expensive and increase rates even more council member Haley's question to the city staff on rates so when will we see rate structures and is it possible we can uh how how easy is it to actually shift rate structures maybe increasing the cost in the top tiers to encourage lower usage by our most heaviest water users so it when and how does that happen thank you well we're going to start our utility rate study and like I said I believe it's it's not the next meeting with the meeting after I think it's the April 17th meeting Chris um and I you know anybody who's you know are heavy water users actually and I don't know I don't have staff here and I don't know if Chris can weigh in but they're definitely at a different tier of cost for water or for heavy heavier users so they're already in that in that upper echelon of of rates and if I could just briefly add council um our
commodity charges for water are prop 218 rates and so we have to justify the tiers based on cost of the system it can't just be an incentive structure there's case law that says we need to show a cost basis to make sure there's not arguments that some rate pairs are subsidizing other rate pairs thank you um and I just want to be clear when you said there's going to be about a 10 increase and will that anticipate in every year Well there'll be a 10 increase is what you're saying that's what our very conservative model has in it at the moment um you know there's a lot of assumptions in there so there's a very good chance that it would be less and and residents that are continuing to conserve would probably not see a 10 increase that's just the cost per per acre foot that's going up okay just uh just so we know to anticipate that coming down the road here thank you thank you very much um and no other so my question is uh you know with our um incredibly small housing growth rate and less than one half of one percent and that knot pushing the units up and you know drought hardening and not pushing the units up um yeah it has the drought hurt the reserve funds such that you'll be needing to put money into to recover that have you dipped into the reserve funds in which you want to recover that we've had three years of extreme drought right and so I mean prior to the drought when we had more deliveries we were able to build fund balance up and use that fund balance over the course of
Ali Gaylord Mayor McDonnell closed public comment. Councilmembers asked questions of staff. Motion to adopt Resolution No. 2023-036 N.C.S. authorizing award of contract for the Pavement Restoration 22/23 Garfield Dr.
the last three years and drought but we've gotten to a point now where we've used those reserves largely and we couldn't use more reserves to bring the rate down further um and so we're hoping that when deliveries if they probably will go up at some point when they do rebound then we would be able to start building up fund balance again as we move forward yeah thank you I I'm glad to hear us thinking about the next drought and trying to get back on good footing for that and um there are no other questions uh there is one more question from council member Healey it's not a question I was just going to take this opportunity as your whack representative to say that uh um it will be my intention to to support this the next whack meeting two weeks from this morning unless the council wishes to direct me otherwise and and there's some interesting historical perspective that we didn't get into here tonight because of time constraints but I'll just mention a couple things you know it may seem counterintuitive that we're being punished by a higher rate increase because people have done such a good job of conserving but but the bigger picture is kind of the opposite if you go back 15 years there was talk of building a Dry Creek bypass which would have been at least 120 million dollars and because we've been so good at conserving that cost has just gone away we're not going to have to build that and it was a few years ago that the city had a temporary urgency moratorium on development
C16102248 to Ghilotti Bros., Inc., made by Councilmember Barnacle, seconded by Councilmember Nau. Vote: Carried 7-0 Yes: Mayor McDonnell, Councilmember Barnacle, Councilmember Cader Thompson, Councilmember Healy, Councilmember Nau, Councilmember Pocekay, Councilmember Shribbs No: None Absent: None Recused: None PUBLIC HEARINGS AND MATTERS FOR CONSIDERATION 7.
because it looked like we needed the second Aqueduct the parallel Aqueduct not as a replacement for the first one but to increase transmission capacity because our water demand was projected to increase and that was as Lynn mentioned at least a 50 million dollar item as well and we haven't had to pay it for that so on balance notwithstanding this conservation pays for itself and we need to continue what we're doing thank you and thank you very much we certainly appreciate the update thank you and uh on a presentation item we do not take uh public questions and comments there's no public period for that so we'll be moving on to our next item at this time and our next item is uh general public comment and um I would like to invite Peter chernf to speak to be followed by Catherine brobowski just as a reminder during general public comment the public is invited to make comments on items of public interest that are within the city council subject matter jurisdiction and are not listed on the current agenda members of the public attending online or by phone should do as follows if they wish to make a comment first raise your virtual hand or press star 9 if participating by phone next the moderator will call on participants in turn to unmute and begin speaking attendees will be muted when they're allotted time expires or when their comments have concluded whichever comes first and both with online and in person speakers are encouraged to be respectful threats of violence or
Introduction (First Reading) of Ordinances to Change Certain Appropriations for the Operations of the City of Petaluma from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023; Resolution Updating the Authorized and Funded Permanent Position Schedule; and Mid-Year FY 2022-2023 General Fund Update and Finding that this Action is Not a Project Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15378(B)(5) Corey Garberolio, Deputy City Manager/Finance Director, presented the staff report.
Mayor McDonnell opened public comment. Taryn Obaid Mayor McDonnell closed public comment. Councilmembers asked questions of staff. Motion to introduce (first reading) Ordinance Nos. 2841 N.C.S. (General Fund), 2842 N.C.S.
obscenity are grounds for removal from this meeting and again as a reminder we have a simultaneous Spanish translation please make sure to include pauses in between sentences do we have a great staff for when I skipped right over then and and they got us back on track um I have uh five um comment cards here and we should look on the zoom but have we received any from the public prior to our meeting uh I have four um okay thank you and mayor we did receive six general public comments prior to the meeting which are posted online with the agenda packet thank you very much and 9 into 20 20 minutes that's tonight's going to be a two two minute night so thank you please set the clock for two minutes okay Mr Channel well I gotta tell you it's almost like the censorship going on at the high schools not by not allowing the media to be there you want to talk about 88 million dollars for 10 years you would be wise to consider bringing in as a consultant Brock dolman who is the County's number one water expert you would be very wise to do that so at the high schools there there the principals are obviously lacking the American Freedom Liberty and Free Speech principle perhaps they don't want the students to know about how many high schools filled with students were bummed into dust by our military and other militaries over the last 30 or 40 years perhaps they require the students not to actually think but rather just react with plenty of useless therapists who will never address these
most powerful students in the world who are now knowing that there's no answer to this world's Insanity to be found within the system St Patrick's there's never been any snakes in Ireland and they didn't have any corn as far as corned beef as simply a slaughterhouse marketing Ploy Easter is the same thing feed my sheep feed my Lambs yet adults continue maintaining the Silence of the Lambs and and someone said that they're actually killing and putting sheep on the fence post draping them there before they get their their scheduled Slaughter slaughterhouse murder date so I want to make mention of the fact that a young trans woman was recently arrested Ember Autumn Rose Leona by five police officers she was working she was at school at the JC getting straight A's from what I understand and it was a question of a freedom of speech issue that she's now in jail had her vehicle stolen had her dog stolen and Louis lost her job and was kicked out of school and they're telling her to pay back 700 what in the fudge is going on with that and maybe it's because I put out information that causes people consternation that they just kicked me out of the library system in Sonoma County for an entire year and lastly forty two thousand cancers patients and 44 heart attacks happened today and are we attribute our house industry Mr Sharon your time is expired thank you Mr Sharon thank you thank you Catherine babowski followed by John hanania Police Department don't want to do their job they
(Enterprise Funds), 2843 N.C.S. (Utility Funds), 2844 N.C.S. (Internal Service Funds), 2845 N.C.S. (Special Revenues, Trust and Debt Funds), and 2846 N.C.S. (Internal Capital Projects Funds) to change certain appropriations for the operations of the City of Petaluma from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023; and adopt Resolution No.
2023-037 N.C.S. updating the authorized and funded permanent position schedule, made by Councilmember Healy, seconded by Councilmember Nau. Vote: Carried 7-0 Yes: Mayor McDonnell, Councilmember Barnacle, Councilmember Cader Thompson, Councilmember Healy, Councilmember Nau, Councilmember Pocekay, Councilmember Shribbs No: None Absent: None Recused: None 8.
allowed this vehicle big part on the where it says no parking and blocking the Farley and also to uh this one all night also too I got thousands of pictures showing this the police department don't want to do their job they don't want to respond when they're called because they're allowing their friend to sell a cruise his family and her friends be parked illegal on the far Lanes day and night and her amateur drug dealer friends that pay parking against my mobile home all the time and dealing their drugs and this is against law your Police Department should be a site uh have 10 000 ten thousand dollar liability shirts if they don't respond if it costs people their lives the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for a police department like this and if they if some like I said they need to have liable assurance that they don't have liable insurance that costs people their lives with this then they should not be police officers and they don't want to do their job thank you uh John hanania to be followed by Larry Jonas thank you you may again people who live in Glass Houses they shouldn't be thrown stones um February 6th at the regular council meeting I was standing back there we all know Peter like talk too much so he leans over said something to me your police chief Ken savano comes over right away and he said we need to step outside if we're going to talk I respect that I have no problem with that but here's the problem that I have zero tolerance and no respect for two ladies were
Public Hearing and Resolution Adopting a General Plan Amendment to Repeal the 2015-2023 Petaluma Housing Element, Adopt the Petaluma Housing Element of the General Plan for the Period of 2023-2031 with Findings that it Substantially Complies with State Housing Element Law, and Including Approval of an Addendum to the Previously Approved Negative Declaration Approved for the 2015- 2023 Housing Element Brian Oh, Community Development Director, presented the item along with Christina Paul, Principal Planner, and Heather Hines, Special Projects Manager.
leaving the audience what did Ken Savannah do he initiated conversation and carried it on inside the cancel chamber so I sent him text message right away and it read can I think you should Practice What You Preach you come over and you ask me to step in the hallway to speak but yet you have no problem taking your time speaking to the lady right is that double standard does the best give you that right he wasn't happy with that but I'm not a person who holds anything back can savano have long history of double standard unfortunately I don't have the time to go over it one by one so Kevin as a mayor I think I would like for you to send this very strong message to the staff that they need to obey the policy and follow the rules I had the conversation with Kendall who said that she is going to relay that message to you thank you thank you Larry Jonas should be followed by Tom monder Mr Mayor members of the council um I own the property with a a partner on Weller Street I believe you have the picture of the property there and um I've owned it for almost 45 years with my partner we were going to do a drill and Grill but that fell to the side and being that I was a dentist drill and Grill and um anyway so now it comes time where I want to sell the property and I would prefer selling it to the city as a park and if you look at the picture you see the Boating across the street and this is a real opportunity for the city my partner and I would actually sell this to the city at less
Councilmembers asked questions of staff. Mayor McDonnell opened the public hearing. Darren Racusen M Sullivan Taryn Obaid Calum Weeks Bev Mayor McDonnell closed the public hearing. Staff responded to public comments.
than what we could get commercially but we both are long time residents I've been here almost 50 years I've been on so many commissions and boards that we would think they'd be better suited as a park one of the conditions that we want is he and I both would like to have a memorial plaque for two children that we lost and um so that would be part of the condition is that we put this plaque on the property and we'll provide that plaque um so I guess what I need is the council to direct staff to further investigate this there has been a or an appraisal um already done on this property and it's just ironing out some details on that um I guess my attorney has talked to Mr Danley already and so I guess just before we go any further the council needs to direct staff to go further I think that's it any questions uh alasis is not a question moment but um I'm sure staff is in touch with you and Council has heard you thank you very much this evening and um so our next speaker will be Tom monder to be followed by Michael Parks mayor McDonnell and Council good evening the tenant protections Workshop all nighter on March 6th revealed how sausage is really made in Petaluma and calls for some feedback as if trapped in a bad dream or a scene from an Iran novel helplessly silent I watched six of you carve up and divvy out the fruits of another's labor Like Pirates at one in the morning these discussions should have occurred a year ago in the full light of day before this ordinance ever snuck
Councilmembers discussed the item. Motion to adopt Resolution No. 2023-037 N.C.S. adopting a General Plan Amendment to repeal the 2015-2023 Petaluma Housing Element, adopt the Petaluma Housing Element of the General Plan for the Period of 2023- 2031 with findings that it substantially complies with State housing element law and including approval of an addendum to the previously approved negative declaration approved for the 2015-2023 Housing Element, made by Councilmember Barnacle, seconded by Councilmember Pocekay.
out of the cloak room and into the municipal code housing providers are still scrambling to comply with ab1482 this state law is thorough and thoughtfully crafted by the smartest guys in the room please give it a chance to work postcoded it only wants two adjustments number one exempt small landlords with three units or fewer number two raise the relocation assistance payment to two times rent with a cap of nine thousand dollars that's it nothing else oh and given an expiration date even the TPA sunsets in seven years in April this important decision which affects so many lives and livelihoods May well be determined by only one single vote just as it was last January still one of you chooses not to participate in the tenant protection discussion presumably because he co-owns a second Petaluma home yet there is another among you on the diocese who owns two condos in Cotati and he has not recused himself I voted for and respect both of you and right now the public expects your full disclosure and needs your full participation thank you thank you Michael Parks to be followed by Robert Hansen good evening council members mayor staff my name is Michael Parks I am the President of the fourth daa Sonoma Marin fair board each of you council members and staff should have received an email today from our staff outlining the requested budgetarian Financial forecasting numbers to show a potential monetary impact the fair board only running the annual five-day fare with the city assuming
Vote: Carried 7-0 Yes: Mayor McDonnell, Councilmember Barnacle, Councilmember Cader Thompson, Councilmember Healy, Councilmember Nau, Councilmember Pocekay, Councilmember Shribbs No: None Absent: None Recused: None ADJOURNMENT Mayor McDonnell adjourned the meeting at 9:35 p.m.
all other property management in spite of very limited criteria as to what facilities and how much of the property would be available to US during the five-day event and interim time the fair board has positioned excuse me the fair board has responded with the most accurate Financial representation possible but if more details are needed and a clearer picture will need to be made available to us so we can respond accordingly since many of you have stated individually that this financial information was key to any meetings between the city council and the fair board we once again look forward to sitting down for the first time as either ad hoc committees or in another public format of your choosing so we may finally discuss face-to-face the possibilities for the property and the impact the loss of the services would mean to the community in efforts to educate and involve the community the fair board will be hosting an open house on April 5th at 5 30 pm I invite all of you to join the public in learning more about our vision for the property and how a partnership with City and possibly other local agencies to continue serving the community as we have for over 80 years thank you thank you and Robert Hansen thank you good evening everybody my name is Robert Hansen Mr Healy that retired Carpenter Grandpa I'm here because I'm tired of talking to my twin ten-year-olds I do not support the Biden I do not support the Newsome Administration for one important reason they're going after
our children and that's out of bounds you go after my children my grandchildren I do not support you I'm part of the first war in this 60-year corporate War we've been fighting [Music] more up protect the cultivation and transportation of opium when our federal government surrendered that cultivation protection and transportation moved to Afghanistan president Donald Trump stopped this 60 years of war he broke that chain at least for four years Joe Biden has both promoted and funded two Wars Afghanistan and Israel the 85 billion dollars in U.S arms and Equipment now surrounds Israel and the only thing stopping an all-out attack are the Abraham Accords thank you president Donald Trump I do not support the Biden Administration I do not support the museum Administration because they're attacking our children and that's out of bounds thank you thank you that's our last speaker card for in the council chambers I'd like to push us over to zoom and have those have an opportunity yes we have uh Four Hands raised and the first is David donenfield followed by Dara rancusan Mr donafield please immute yourself you can go ahead hi I'm David Don and field with a group of residents questioning the wisdom of building an industrial scale battery energy storage complex close to home schools and businesses in fact there are two energy storage systems cited less than a half a mile apart submitted to the County's review process together these two facilities pack more power than two thousand tons
of TNT I use this descriptive analogy because three distinguished Professor researchers so described the danger of these installations in their July 2021 report these enclosures are caught fire for a variety of reasons they're not like conventional fires it takes enormous quantities of water just to contain them the fires can lead to explosions and toxic gas releases one project intrudes into the approach of our airport while the other is close to the historic Adobe uh Vallejo Dobie and both are within two to two and a half miles of the most threatening earthquake fault in the Bay Area our own Rogers Creek fault that runs the length of Sonoma Mountain has been assessed by the USGS is capable of at least a magnitude 7.1 earthquake we question whether 250 or so battery enclosure units containing millions of battery cells will withstand such a potentially destructive seismic event few Petaluma residents know about this proposed battery Farms while our elected officials at all levels of government have been noticeably silent our group citizens for battery transparency has taken upon ourselves to educate our fellow residents all of you city council members have received a copy of the information circular we are now Distributing door to door we want everyone including our city officials to demand that the county commit to a full environmental impact report and carefully assess the risks that these two enormous installations pose to our safety as well as our environment we refuse to
be the guinea pigs the energy industry nor will we agree to absorb the cost to our homes and our health if the worst occurs thank you for your attention and your requested support work thank you our next speaker is derod recusen followed by Taryn obade Darren you may unmute yourself thank you moderator I'm going to start by advocating for our tree advisory committee and Affiliated tree policy throughout the city first and foremost I'm going to Advocate that Council pushed to include a City Arborist in this year's budget this would be a point person between Public Works planning and Parks up excuse me planning department and Parks roles including tree care and maintenance plans coordinating Tree Management between departments to pursue Optimum Health of Street trees trees in our parks and public land and then this point person would also be in charge of assessing Tree Care removal and maintenance replacement mitigations when it comes to development applications I would encourage updating the tree committees enabling legislation to be involved in reviewing planting designs or projects before they come to planning and then if not having a landscape designer on staff encourage Public Works to work with local Landscape Architects when it comes to Public Work projects us so we don't end up with another treeless sidewalk like Petaluma Boulevard South so advocating for those items for tree advisory committee and then a more General comment building on the last commenter is to
encourage our city staff to have more study sessions and open public engagement on capital projects and big policy issues often and earlier in the process one of the examples is the current Ami Advanced metering infrastructure that we're going to have some presentations on this week at technology advisory committee I believe one hosted by the city but by the time now we're having these presentations the direction of the project and how we're going to spend this grant money the technology we're going to use has all already been decided we're going with 5G Wireless meters it sounds like I lobbied since last May to pursue another Direction exploring fiber metering and while I did receive some staff feedback there wasn't an open Forum to discuss this item before it's basically already in some final form form thank you thank you our next speaker is Taryn obade followed by m Sullivan Taryn you may go ahead thank you my comment tonight is about vendor management and city council fiduciary responsibility it is not about the housing element which I know is on the agenda tonight my comment is about liability for damages suffered by the city and residents due to General plan consultant or Consultants failure to fulfill their contractual obligation and missing the state housing deadline leaving us vulnerable to builders remedy city council you are the ultimate boss of our city and you have broad fiduciary duty to uphold the public trust it is standard business practice to hold
Consultants accountable for fulfilling their contracts our City's long-standing policy is that all consultant contracts include professional liability insurance with errors in a mission coverage this insurance is exactly meant to protect us from exactly this sort of thing the next step is for city council to initiate an independent audit and end dependent audit is required to mutually assess damages and determine which Consultants were at fault city council this is absolutely required when mistakes of this magnitude are made City and residents must not suffer an economic hit of this magnitude without restitution but the good news is a city council independent audit will not disrupt staff an independent audit is outside of Staff operations to avoid appearance of conflict of interest so it will not bog down their workload and the payout will offset their extra work due to the problems resulting from these Consultants that made the mistake of not submitting something by a deadline and the Johnsons submitting two applications that put in Peril The Greenway Park property values climate action [Music] thank you please initiate an independent thank you and our last speaker is uh M Sullivan M you may unmute yourself now please go ahead can you hear me yes we the Petaluma public are paying 2.4 million for two layers of Consultants to update our general plan note that cities like Healdsburg do this in-house with their own city planners despite this huge outlay of monies the am group
overseeing The General plan failed to get their first deliverable in by the required deadline this effectively allows developers to propose Housing Development projects that do not comply with either the zoning or the general plan and indeed the Johnson's Acclaim properties immediately submitted two huge development proposals in our floodplain just above the USA's Ace flood control wall this area is currently saturated with water from winter storms full of vernal pools which is a type of wetland and we know the wetlands sink and slow flood waters I'm asking our city manager Peggy Flynn who routinely refers to the m group as her staff to hold the M group liable for breach of contract and to consider terminating their contract and Hiring Our Own in-house planners whose salaries and bonuses are not tied to advancing developer schemes that are at odds with the best interests of the Petaluma public and our safety we've just come through Wicked atmospheric storms a lot of City monies will now need to be directed to stopping the Johnson's inappropriate flood plain development so this has cost the Petaluma public considerably Peggy Flynn and City attorney Danley it's your responsibility to sue the M group for breach of contract we Petaluma citizens deserve no less thank you and mayor uh that that uh is the last speaker thank you thank you very much and that closes uh public comment for the evening I'd like to bring it back up to council and offer the council a chance to have Council
come in and I'd like to start from council member barnacle thank you Mr Mayor excuse me um last week I went to the Petaluma Equitable climate action committee um presentation on transportation and it was um insightful the the projects that the young people took on um the next day I had a Bay Area Air Quality Management District meeting which was not an insignificant meeting we had three and a half hours of one minute public testimony for a zero knocks so noxes Knox nitrogen oxides or oxides of nitrogen highly taught uh polluting [Music] things that cause asthma cause cancer cause things like that and the board adopted a zero knocks rule for space and water heating with water heating coming into effect in 2027 and furnaces coming into effect in 2029 and essentially what this means is that appliances that produce Knox emissions will not allow to be sold in the uh the Bay Area region starting at those times um I would say importantly there was no no votes um we had support from PG e we had support from The Building Trades we had support from um there's probably two dozen Physicians there saying that you can save more with this vote than I can save in many careers we had um the eighth grade class from Urban Promise Academy which is in one of the most polluted communities in East Oakland come in and share stories about how prevalent asthma is in their school and their families and I would I was not the only board member that was brought to Tears by the testimony um for sure there
was some pushback but um in in written emails but um with the 100 like 20 people that spoke in uh in person that day there was one negative comment every other person was for it and it was um truly a historic vote it was first emanation so um yeah just wanted to share that thanks thank you councilman Healy yeah thank you um three things briefly first of all um the league of cities um governance transparency and Labor Relations Committee Matt policy committee met virtually last week and uh your city clerk and I were both there representing the city of Petaluma um just highlights we did a deep dive on workers comp issues legislation that's an hour of my life I won't be getting back um and and perhaps of more interest um there is a bill in the legislature to add a to our mandatory training every two years for elected officials in the state in addition to the ethics training and the harassment training that we already do and this would be designed to promote Financial understanding and the feedback on that was um was interesting my personal feeling is I don't know that you can do much in two hours every two years to promote Financial understanding but the the argument that resonated with the group more was that hey here's the legislative legislature I'm coming up with another mandate for local officials and they're exempting themselves so not surprisingly the the recommendation to the league board was to oppose so I'll let you know what happens with that after the next lead
League board meeting um and then there was also a North Bay division a coffee chat last week on the topic of the builders remedy and the takeaway from that was that nobody really knows what's going on and we're all equally in the dark so we'll be finding out I'm sure and then I wanted to comment briefly on Mr jaundice's um presentation on the property he owns I think this is something I would like to see pursued it didn't make the the top 10 list for the city's priorities but if you look at Tate page 10 of last last week's staff report there's an acknowledgment that there will be some other projects and this one is specifically listed that we we can move forward on this property is shown in our planning documents as a future public Amphitheater and I think we should take the opportunity to acquire it before it gets sold and the building gets put on it which could happen um as as Mr Jonas indicated an appraisal has been done it's still current and and we have plenty of fun balance in our Parkland acquisition impact fee account to to accommodate this so I really do hope this does move forward thank you thank you council member now well thank you um going along with Parks um we did bring this up to um in the during our Parks meeting and um everybody is pretty excited because that Jonas property is right next to the Kavanaugh Landing which is a strip of grass um right next to this photograph photograph and it's about as wide as a park bench and this would widen the Kavanaugh
landing and make more access to the river and the um new docs that are going in at our parks and recsa music meeting last week we had the council chamber full of skate enthusiasts and they came and they thanked us for what we are doing with the proposed skate park coming in new to this I was very overwhelmed with all their gratitude and it was really nice to hear how excited they are about the process that we have listened to them at all our meetings and we've had them in the community meetings and the Consultants have listened to their suggestions and it came down to maybe Lucchesi park being the best um land suitable for a new skate park that was what the gist of the um gratitude was and on April 29th is the Reuben cutting for the new chess tables on Water Street that were installed last month but we're waiting for some enthusiasts to um stir plane chess and we'll have a ribbon cutting after the rains on April 29th and more information to come the summer camps are filling up in the rec department but they are in desperate need of some recreational leaders so if you knew some college kids that are coming back for the summer tell them to apply for a recreational Leader's job the Fourth of July Community survey went out and it's now currently being processed many of the public want the city fireworks display to return and staff is meeting with the fire safety to fit officials as we speak so stay tuned there's more information coming um I see a hand sorry I was trying to catch
you or catch mayor McDonnell after your comment okay okay thank you very much mayor it appears uh our vice mayor Cader Thompson may be in the audience can I ask her to confirm that it is her in our Zoom Janice if you are online right now if you can please identify yourself I've allowed you to unmute it looks like it looks like she is uh as an attendee so yes I'm trying to confirm that it is her before we promote her into the meeting Janice if you can hear us if you can please unmute and identify yourself we're gonna we're gonna keep trying mayor but we have had Zoom bombers before so just to be sure it is her we're not going to promote her at this time I'll keep working on it I appreciate the effort and the caution uh council member posakay thanks mayor um I had several uh Continuum of Care meetings since our last meeting and uh I guess the first thing is that we're working hard trying to make our funding decisions more objective and it's very difficult I'll leave that at that for now we could the work continues second thing is that on the brighter side that after we haven't quite approved yet the final long-term funding strategy that's been offered by our consultant Andrew Henning but one thing he had recommended was trying to move more of our Section 8 vouchers to homeless folks and we we sent a couple folks to negotiate with the County Housing Authority and pretty much they were able to negotiate what Henning had recommended which is about 120 extra vouchers for homeless
folks per year not quite exactly but but it's good that's uh last thing is I also had a Transit Commission meeting and we went over the goals for the year most exciting to me was trying to achieve 20 percent increase ridership that's all I have thank you council member schribs okay I attended the climate Commission meeting and it was a first in-house live meeting that they've had several since they've moved from virtual the last couple years so the first thing we did was in fact the old about the only thing we could do was the brown act and uh we had a wonderful presentation and the discussions on that to make sure everyone was up to speed on on the brown act and all that we could do as committee members now that we moved from uh virtual to in-house so so we weren't able to get much action done at that time but there's lots of possibilities coming up some big issues coming up one of which was was mentioned tonight uh I think David donenfield mentioned about the lithium storage facilities that are being proposed through the County on County regulated land um and I I just want to let him know that yes I read all the materials he did send there was also some other materials other folks have sent and trying to get speed on all of that and there is some definite concerns that we need to work on there is some possible potential hazards but there are some mitigations there are some changes there may be slightly different Battery Systems that might be available compared to what was
being used so but this topic needs to be transparent and I'm hoping that we can bring it forward and um you know I would propose that at least the climate commission actually take a look at this at some point in time in near future to catch up on it um so at least we are listening um you know that Mr Dan and Phil know that we are on that one so we'll make sure that it is there's some transparency and discussions and look at that and I'm definitely hoping we get a proper studies done ahead of time on that topic um it's probably we all know that energy electricity the way we're going we definitely need more electricity and production going and more safety in our whole system so it's going to be a very interesting challenge to do that given the possible hazards but we need to mitigate and work on on it and make it sure it's all transparent anyway that's my discussion for the moment thank you thank you very much I too would like to support council member Barnacles report on the pcac the Equitable climate youth presentation on transportation and uh I think if we're going to get our mode shift it has to come from every different corner of of our town and people and and uh they they definitely came strong on knowing what that need is and Pathways to it so and thanks to all the council members who attended that um from my efforts at the county I note that there'll be re-budgeting their measure oh mental health money come in April and there'll be added opportunities for mental health
support funding through our community uh and a lot of that overlaps with the homelessness Community but other goals as well and it's nice to have opportunity for funds um then um I'd like to um second the notion that the Jonas property would be a valuable opportunity for the city uh just in terms of open space and Views through the corridor when opportunity arises I think it's it's wise to examine whether it's got the value you need and then lastly I've been putting some effort into having butter and eggs they have a real robust bike ballet effort so that everyone can ride their bikes downtown and not and not bring their cars and not wonder where to park a car but to have a place for their bike when they arrive and I think we'll all enjoy better and dig butter and eggs parade more with that and that is my report I'd like to refer first to the city manager thank you mayor city council Community this Wednesday we have a virtual informational meeting and I said Wednesday uh Tuesday March 21st we have a virtual informational meeting regarding the city's Ami water meter Technology Program and that is on Zoom so if you go to our website at cityofpetaluma.org am I a m i you'll get the information where the zoom link is it starts at 6 pm and goes till 7 30.
there's also a place on the website to sign up for updates I would encourage Mr Rec Houston and others to attend and ask questions and provide feedback this is just that first kind of informational session that staff plan to have with the community and we will be providing updates to council as that as that project begins to to move forward also tonight you will hear from our staff our planning staff regarding the thorough process that the city has uh led to ensure a robust engagement that's resulted in very comprehensive draft housing element and I believe I see some supporters generation housing and others that have strongly supported our process and I stand behind that process very proud of the work that we've done and many jurisdictions have rushed through that process and now find themselves challenged in with their housing elements so I want to thank staff for doing that extra work and and fully supportive of that so thank you very much and that concludes my comments thank you very much and um please for the record vice mayor cater Thompson did join the meeting at 7 35 pm and she is online via zoom and can hear us I haven't confirmed if she can unmute if we could just test the audio very briefly not not only shall we test the audience but we should offer her a chance to have any Council comments she may wish to bring thank you so much Janice are you able to unmute she's shaking your head it appears she's having the video is good the video is good and she can hear us but
she's having trouble unmuting her audio we do have staff working with her in the background and we'll continue to try to to assist her okay thank you very much then uh we'll move at this time to our consent calendar and I have one request to pull item two uh the pavement restoration Garfield drive from the consent calendar and um are there any other items that staff Fields need pulling council member posakain um yeah simply because I need to recuse myself from that item I'd like to pull that I guess that's right item set six the Scott Ranch item um and I don't believe we're going to call that a a polling from the agenda I think uh we'll just note that you'll be recusing on that element and so um let's see Mr Mayfair I could just note because that's a consent calendar item um council member postgate does not need to leave the room or the Deus we just have to be clear that he's not voting on the item we'll separately vote the item yes thank you okay thanks for the clarification and um then I'd like to provide an opportunity for public comment on item two separate from the others so I would love to call uh to start with a requesting a motion for item six do we have an emotion for item six only I'm Sarah thank you good thing we have uh people looking over our shoulders here um so public comment for items one through six uh I'd like to open that I currently have no cards for that do we have any uh prior to submittals Madam clerk on the consent calendar we received two public
comments both for in regards to item two those are posted online with the agenda packet thank you very much and let's uh ask if we have any public comment for items uh one three four five and six from the zoom audience I'm not sure um what items they're commenting on but we do have two virtual hands raised um so I so let's offer them the opportunity and ask for clarification that it's not item two okay uh uh Dwayne and Taryn obeyed and may we start at the there's a script we need to read yeah of course yes uh again during public comment the public is invited to make comments on the specific agenda item that is being presented to the city council and public comments are limited to three minutes per person uh members of the public can bring up their speaker cards which we didn't have any uh and members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand this time we have two hands raised virtual attendees will be muted when there are a lot of time expires or when their comments have concluded whichever comes first speakers whose comments do not pertain to the specific topic will have their microphone turned off or be me or be muted and as a reminder again speakers are encouraged to be respectful threats of violence or obscenity are grounds for removal from the meeting and as a reminder we have simultaneous Spanish translation please make sure to include pauses in between sentences and to clarify then mayor uh these are comments for items except for item two okay and
uh Dwayne uh you may uh unmute yourself please oh thank you very much and uh good evening um I wanted to talk about item number four some brief comments uh on the joint application that you're working with with smart and Dan Co and the city has done a great deal of work uh on on the um helping smart get the train uh station in and and that's to be much complimented um my point to this evening is only that uh that smart has announced that they're working on a Construction level drawings for their for their station and that they have had a lack of public hearings for Petaluma this Mart has not had public hearings at all on with the plans for Petaluma they seem to take great pleasure in going to other cities and having hearings but for some reason Petaluma has been left off of their their list um I won't go into the specifics of what what they should have been listening to um but I I will point out that it's it's interesting that um that the city is providing two million dollar subsidy not to build the station that is they they own the land to build a station it's to build a parking lot and it's it's interesting to see it an organization that has eliminated uh new gas stations is putting two million dollars of public money into building a parking lot uh rather than uh augmenting the bus transportation to that station to see the seat to it that everybody living on the east side of town would have easy access and also those people who are riding the bus to get to the junior
college would get there quickly to the junior college in time for class but the the you you would think smart would be interested in maximizing their ridership and uh that's uh basically all I have to say and thank you very much thank you and uh the next speaker is Taryn obade Taran um I'm gonna allow you to talk and can you let us know if you have a comment for items other than item two and yes hi thank you it's for item number five okay go ahead thank you um the most climate friendly thing we can do is not consume and we keep buying cars and I would like to see in the analysis what's the car that we're forsaking what's the vehicle how many miles does it have because a lot of people drive around cars until they're well past a hundred thousand miles and for us to let go of a car we take a big write-off on selling a car that we bought for brand new the price just goes way down and now we're selling it to buy a new EV well just because that feels good and sounds good in one sentence to us doesn't mean that that's climate responsible behavior China is the worst polluter with the biggest carbon footprint on our planet and most of these vehicles are made overseas we are not being green we are not being climate friendly we're just going on a shopping spree and pretending that we are so I would really like to see us hunker down and use what we have we don't need to buy new stuff all the time especially when the city doesn't have budget for staff like the parks department if we say
we don't want to be wasteful and that we want to conserve resources going out on a shopping spree is not the way to do it using what we have is the way to do it so I would really like to invite us to think outside of the box and not just push our carbon footprint over to the poor people in China and the children that have to mine lithium and Cobalt it's not a pretty sight and I think we should stop diluting ourselves thinking that this is just a pretty fun shopping spree let's buy some EVS aren't we the best people in the world no we're not no we are not and we really need to be acting a little bit more responsibly the second comment I have about this item is I'd like to make sure that it's freeze by staff genuine real true staff not people like the M group who are Consultants that get paid 40 extra due to their contract they're not employees they're Consultants I would like to be sure that when we buy things like electric vehicles with big money that is for Real employees and not Consultants that go around masquerading like their employees like their staff because they're not thank you mayor there are no more um virtual hands raised thank you thank you that closes the public comment for that coming back to council I'm looking for motion Mr Healy so I would move agenda items one three four and five and and uh so that's a motion and do we have a second second and uh second by barnacle and I did have one comment on that one we have the tentative agenda in there and I want to
note that it doesn't uh note the closed session on uh at our next meeting April 3rd uh and that do we provide title it's um Fairgrounds property negotiations as a title uh working title at this time that works okay good thank you very much we have may we have a roll call yes she is raising her hand yes we take that as a yes Healey uh yes McDonnell yes now yes Jose yes shreds yes motion passes unanimously and and now I'd like a motion on the on item six for which uh council member um posa K will be recusing so moved motion by Healy second second by Barnacle roll call Barnacle yes Cader Thompson she's given an affirmative yes Healey yes McDonnell yes now yes post okay I'm sorry Andrews yes motion passes unanimously with council member posa K recust thank you and now bringing it back to item two um I'd like to invite council member uh Barnacle to comment yeah you know I take that if I if I may back that off um I think we have a public the public comment we promised for this item as well uh yes thank you mayor um again during public comment the public is invited to make comments on the specific agenda item and and this is going to be item number two uh members of the public attending in person should bring in their speaker cards up uh members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hands or press star nine speakers whose comments do not pertain to the specific topic will have their microphone turned off or be muted and may lose some are all their remaining a lot
of time again speakers are encouraged to be respectful and please because we have simultaneous Spanish translation please make sure to include pauses in between sentences mayor we have one person with their virtual hand raised Ali Gaylord okay thank you very much I have no in-chamber cards I'd like to ask the clerk if any comments were submitted item two we did receive two comments prior to the meeting which are posted online with the agenda packet wonderful thank you uh let's invite in our Zoom okay ali um you may mute yourself please good evening mayor council members and staff Ali Gaylord Eastside Petaluma resident commenting on item number two on the consent calendar um I wanted to thank staff and the council for consideration of the adding of class 3 bike lane markings to the Garfield Drive repaving project um as noted in the materials that were added to this item I and other cyclists appreciate this I just wanted to underscore the importance that a signed Bikeway will have in this location as well as the fact that the road conditions on this street as far as with traffic volume and speeds are similar to many other streets in Petaluma so this will be a great first step to see how the implementation of this treatment works in other locations as new repaving products are brought forward Garfield drive as noted in the staff report is a major connector for the community for several Community assets such as Weissman Park and the schools as the mayor and council member
Barnacle both noted today that pcac presentation last week was very impactful and highlighted the importance of making the city bike friendly to Youth and students in order to get our transportation mode shift and move towards carbon neutrality by 2030.
thank you mayor there are no more hands raised in our Zoom room thank you thank you very much that closes public comment uh back to council council member barnacle um yes I um genuinely agree with what um the commenter said um I also just as a matter of practice I want to see plans for you know large capital projects like this as someone who rides my bike and uses the road as a walker I have opinions on these things and I haven't been able to voice them yet I mean I just got the plans today so I haven't really even a chance to really soak everything in I did spend three hours driving around this neighborhood though and walking around this neighborhood on Sunday morning so I have a sense for what it's going to be like I have a feeling when it gets paved we're going to see cars going faster than they do today um and um so um I don't even know what questions I have right now um I know I have one specific question with where we're doing the bulb outs are we going to be putting pylons around the radius or are the pylons going to be not going around the radius answer that question director bold thank you yes and we have some other team members online I'd like to defer if I could we can easily add those as a short answer for sure and uh we I just wanted to say that we do plan to take this to pbac and also seek Community input I think that's uh been made clear by our responses so I just want to assure you that we're hearing the concerns I want to defer to Bjorn and or Ken to answer
that question about adding vertical elements at the bump outs I'll I'll go ahead and start um thank you mayor council members this is Ken eichstead traffic engineer so no we can definitely add the vertical elements on that and um we you know what we have right now is is um sufficient to to start with that and then if we need to if we feel like there is an advantage uh to putting vertical elements within the the striped Island area we would we would go ahead and do that so um that's easily done not a problem okay is there any Street trees going to be either removed or um planted as a result of this project there are not on this project there are no Street trees that are that are going to be removed um and I do on that item I want to I've met with relief multiple times in city offices and we are moving forward on Maria and North McDowell uh with with the tree uh implementation plan working with relief okay so to be clear um what Mr bolt said we're going to see this at P back before the final striping plan is is done okay absolutely great thank you I'll move it then all right well we have a um we have a motion and we also have other Council comments so I'd like to go to council member posake I had a question uh for Mr bolt um in the staff report it says bicycle facilities and you know listed with other stuff and I wondered what that referred to you know uh based on what we've heard since um I'll defer to Bjorn to answer that question please bicycle bicycle facilities referred to
in the staff report is what you're requesting correct why is that language there what did it mean um I'm sorry good evening councilman mayor and council members um I'm actually not familiar with how off the top of my head how bicycle facilities were referenced in the stock report what I can tell you is that we reviewed uh we reviewed this and we review all of our Paving projects against our adopted bicycle and pedestrian master plan to look for opportunities to implement or upgrade bike facilities and Garfield Drive is actually um not in our adopted bicycle and pedestrian master plan as a proposed bike facility that being said based on the feedback we've received in the lead up to this to this evening we certainly can consider adopting this as a class 3 bike route which would be shared people on bikes sharing the the travel Lane with vehicle traffic if we wanted to pursue Class 2 bike Lanes uh though that would require removal of parking from one side of the street and um though we'll we'll outline basically our um ability to provide bicycle facilities um uh to both be back into the community for additional feedback thanks I I suppose I I just wanted to express my hope that that's not just in there as boilerplate correct thank you uh council member schribs okay on uh Garfield since I'm traveled down uh Eli Boulevard going to Costco in high school for many years while I was teaching there um I noticed there's definitely a traffic pattern and one thing I would recommend that
the Traffic Engineers take a look at how the traffic in the morning right before school starts well there's there's several hundred cars coming down to drop off students or whatever on that side and other sites and there'll be several drivers that seem to want to take Garfield as an alternative route and I've seen them actually take off from Eli head up to Garfield come around and actually beat me to school so they must be really zipping fast down Garfield at that time in the morning so I want to make sure that we make an observation of the traffic pattern especially coming off of Caulfield right there a lot of folks will set we'll we'll take a quick turn and then somehow get to school before before I did so I just want to make sure we check on that and we really want to make sure that the um the speed is reduced down on on that and and discourage that little shortcut that long shortcut that they're doing for time and the length um patch that but Garfield definitely I I've used that for for bicycling to and from going up towards Sonoma Garfield's much more pleasant Drive than than Eli and so it definitely is worthy of a full bike lane travel to go to and from uh and ending up there on Washington and but we also make sure that as we do this that connection once we get off at Garf when Garfield meets Washington uh getting across the street right right there so we have to come down so just be take a look at that intersection at Washington because I I have to come across there or
come on down to the intersection and cross over so just so that we have a little maybe if we can do any any form of precaution uh at that intersection it would also be nice thank you thank you city manager you have a comment yes thank you and thank you for this conversation I mean this actually uh really uh identified um an improvement that we can make in the process and I think I mentioned that in our q a back to council is that we will bring not only the design with any uh request for uh consideration for bids but also that we take it these type of projects to the P back prior to it coming to the council for feedback and with our update on our bike and ped master plan I would expect that a lot of the roads that we are Paving that might not be in our current bike and ped plan will be considered because we are trying to get that mount shift to occur so thank you I appreciate that um and then note that that back and forth in Council is posting public comment for all to see and that's a pretty cool more recent transparency effort and appreciate staff's effort there um I also appreciate staffs um Zoom backdrops when they call and uh because it gives us a chance to look at the works they're working on over their shoulder and uh and I note that Caulfield our first uh quick build effort is not done with any vertical elements nor are the stop signs relocated more into the parking Lane and and the similarly the effort at the corner six and Mountain View the signs are not moved and
there's no vertical elements but uh at B Street I I think I want a root root root for for that one because it does have Curb stops and it does have the the stop signs moved out further into the lane so um I would love that to be our prototypical uh f effort and um and and and I've um gained a little experience about what people's hot button issues are as I've knocked on a few doors around town over the last six months and um and people um they are not enthusiastic about bike Boulevard because the title is intimidating but they are super concerned with speed and every street in town has a speeding problem because that's where they live and their kids are so um I would love for this to have not be a bike Boulevard though that's what I would call it but to implement traffic calming measures uh and and I think that would go in without public great part of public participation because public understands calming traffic and and uh so it would be supported especially if we're trying to say that this is the new and Alternate biking route as opposed to others have mentioned that Eli it has such high speed rates naturally uh you know posted and this should not this should be the safer bike route so traffic calming would be my request to staff on this one we were at a motion and do we have a second a second by council member now and a roll call vote please Barnacle yes Cader Thompson got affirmative thumbs up Healy yes McDonnell yes no yes okay yes shrimps yes motion passes unanimously
I think that closes our consent calendar and we are moving to our uh public hearings for the evening item seven [Music] okay we um do we have a roll call vote on item six yes good so we can move to seven and then um that is a introduction first reading of ordinances to change certain Appropriations for operation of the city of Petaluma July 2022 July June 2023 resolution updating the authorized funding permanent position schedule and further elements and tonight I believe to help lead us through this we have our finance director Corey gabriellio on Zoom is that right yes thank you Mary McDonnell and members of the city council the City reviews its Budget on a continual basis three budget adjustments are typically presented annually when at first quarter one at mid-year and the final one at year end the proposed mid-year budget adjustments before you this evening are to the adopted budget for fiscal year 22-23 the majority of the budget adjustments presented are resulting from approved Council action since adoption of the budget along with project adjustments to better align fiscal 23 project budgets to actual estimated expenditures ahead of the fiscal year 24 budget cycle also included our Revenue adjustments increasing revenues to reflect recovery occurring sooner than expected resulting in increased revenues expected through the end of the fiscal year a detailed list of all the budget adjustments is included in the packet adjustments to non-general funds are mainly due to
Capital project changes and adjustments also included for informational purposes is a general fund update which provides a recap of the revised budget and an updated forecast as of mid-year we will be back to council with another update in a little over a month with the fiscal year 24 budget workshop and and budget process so it is recommended then this evening that the city council adopt the attached ordinances to amend Appropriations for the fiscal fiscal year ending June 30 2023 budget it is also recommended that the council adopt the resolution updating the authorized and funded position schedule and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have so any questions out from the council and seeing none I'd like to open our public comment period okay just share my screen and again um uh members of the public intending and attending in person should bring up their speaker cards members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand or press star nine if participating by phone virtual attendees will be muted when their time allotted time expires or when their comments have concluded whichever comes first speakers whose comments do not pertain to the specific item topic will have the microphone turned off or be muted and may lose some or all of their remaining a lot of time speakers are encouraged to be respectful threats of violence or obscenity are grounds for removal from this meeting we have simultaneous Spanish translation please make sure to include
pauses in between sentences and mayor we have one attendee with a hand raised thank you very much I have no cards from the council chambers and do we have any from online earlier no comments were submitted on this item prior to the meeting thank you very much let's go to our Zoom audience okay uh Taron obaid you may begin speaking foreign I'd like for the city council to please uh clarify what these items uh requested to being transferred or carried over whether any of the salary will be used for quote unquote salary savings we have multiple open positions I know of in our police department and also I believe we have some in our parks department or we did recently where is the parks department staff um indicated that they uh they would like to have new people hired into those positions but what's going on is the set the money allocated for the salaries of those positions is actually being sucked up by existing employees who want to earn extra who want to stay late and earn um overtime who want to claim their lunch hour for work who want to do vacation buyback so I'm not really clear on how all of that works I've just heard the discussion of various staff members within City Hall and I would like please if the city council could clarify or exclude how about exclude salary savings so that we can get new staff into some of these departments that are really hurting for Manpower right now rather than just holding these buckets of money aside um as kind of like a a perk or an added
salary drums like a bonus is how they describe it to people that already work so get new staff with the salaries don't appropriate it to something else and I don't know if it there could either even be something else that that salary could be used for other than salary of an existing staff extra salary but I hope not so so please only salaries for new hires to alleviate the understaffing conditions that have persisted in some of the teams some of the Departments thank you very much thank you and there are no other speakers with their hands raised thank you that closest public comment for the evening I'd like to bring it back to the council and um council member schribs um let me uh ask it this way if we just get a just quick review because the um the report was pretty um not detailed but we just be just sort of like accounting needs to be done and is there anything substantial or anything that substantially change or any policy that is being affected by the current what's being discussed no if you're and if you're talking about um the the movement of some of these transfers or capital projects um a lot of those I would say the majority of those projects are already underway and it's a timing difference from you know what was planned to happen in 23 that is now going to happen in 24 um so the budget is being reprogrammed for those capital projects and it could be a combination of Construction contract costs it could be um include some design work that is also performed by our
staff all of that kind of goes together to have the project move forward so that's what's occurring with the transfers that are related to all the capital projects thank you um anyone have any other for comment or a motion yeah if there are no more comments I was going to make a motion to introduce the six ordinances and have a first reading on those attached as exhibits uh three through eight of our staff report and also to adopt the resolution attached as um attachment nine thank you Emotion by Healy I'll second that second by now uh roll call vote please Barnacle yes kater Thompson yes Healey yes McDonnell yes now yes postaque yes shreds yes motion passes unanimously thank you can you hear me now okay great thanks and now for our last item of the evening welcome aboard and um the last item is public hearing and resolution adopting General plan amendments to repeal the 2015-2023 Petaluma housing element adopt the Petaluma housing element of the general plan for the period of 2023 2031 with findings that it is substantially complies the state housing element law and includes approval of an addendum to the previously approved negative declaration approved for the 2015-2023 housing element and um I think we're inviting our community development director to Brian o to present thank you thank you mayor and members of the council members of the community um I just thinking about all the different um topics that the council has discussed today and it pretty much covers anything
that I imagine myself with my family to cover at the dinner table and so just mindful of the time and um and the importance of all the work that this this group is leading the city through so thank you for the opportunity for us as a Community Development Department to um talk to you about the housing element there's a number of opportunities that we have done as staff okay that's okay um and so um what's before us before we you know do a deep dive into the housing element and the potential consideration for adoption um you know wanted to just spend a little bit of time um with a couple slides to talk through um why we're doing this and and why we're here and so um you know really um this is the um as much as it is a exercise um that each jurisdiction is required to go through every eight years it does provide a lot of guidance and direction to our staff on how we can move forward to house our community and that covers the full spectrum and so just wanted to highlight a few action items and opportunities that this Council has prioritized over the last handful of years with the the um and so back in 2020 identifying the need for a crisis intervention um unit for safe so we're heading into year three and so that was a program that was identified as a critical need for the community and now we're seeing that payoff really throughout the region as we're starting to see that program expand and the visual just to the right is our people's Village and so this was put forward by city
council completed April of 2022 and again it identified the most vulnerable vulnerable community members are most um vulnerable unsheltered population and put them on the right path to housing stability and so again you know two programs we're going to return as a department in May to talk through our year two of our strategic plan to end homelessness and so we're really looking forward to the opportunity to talk through all the different programs and action items that this Council has prioritized and then really what we're left with in the spectrum is this balance um so we're seeing uh this five-year Trend here um on the average home price in in Petaluma and so we're talking our market rate and so um similar to what we're seeing as a region we are seeing sort of a trend up um on um your traditional sort of average home price for a single family home that is changing hands here in Petaluma and so on the flip side of that is also housing affordability and so mindful of our renters and so um you know we've we are part of this Coalition both with our counterparts in Napa County and in Sonoma to really understand the challenges um that the market has and to really come up with some solutions and and so again just an important distinction to note between housing prices the for sale side as well as the the rental market as well and so through this spectrum we identify different policies and programs and so we've spent as a department a better part of the last two years working with
the community working with our general plan advisory committee working with Planning Commission as well as city council to put forward you know what we feel is a robust set of policies in a way that we can achieve our Regional Housing need allocation as a city um and so just a few examples of um you know what we're seeing on the ground and so um you know we we with the current housing element and the different policies and the different incentives um there really is a wide variety of housing um that is being um entitled and processed through the city and so everything from transit oriented development projects um to Nick's use so we have the Cooperative housing on the top right and then we're seeing um you know just your typical single family your one for One upgrades to also multi-family so whether it's market rate rental as well as 100 affordable housing and so we are seeing that that wide range I think the other thing that and I'll just close with this is you know one thing that is clear when we look at how we did in the in the last cycle is you know what are the creative ways that we as a city can move forward to prioritize affordable housing development and so just a couple examples here um over this last cycle the Brody Ranch subdivision that's sort of where you would see your typical inclusionary affordable housing so that was 15 percent of the total unit count and then we had a discussion a couple months back on the mid pen project and so that's on Petaluma Boulevard
and that's 100 affordable and so um there's not one way that we're seeing affordable housing um uh successfully done in the city and throughout the region and so um it's the different policies that this city council has really been prioritizing as recent as late last year around the fee reduction for affordable housing projects you know those are the things that are really going to make the difference um you know we're better understanding how we can accommodate the needs and so you know what we have before you today for your consideration takes all of those needs into consideration as we plan for the next eight years and I'll just close with just a thank you again um uh to members um stakeholders that are out there in the community this city council really for you know providing those checkpoints um throughout this process because you know we've um you know it's been a couple years and um I think I just think it's really important for us to ground ourselves in why we're all doing this work and so with that I will turn it over to Christina Paul our lead project manager for General plan thank you Brian for bringing us back to why we're all doing this work mayor and council members uh thank you for having us with you this evening we are here to review the can you hear me okay uh to review the final draft of the housing element and Associated environmental documentation for the folks who are new to the housing element process we will go through just a couple of slides of
orientation the housing element is a required element or chapter of the general plan that is adopted by the city council into the general plan they are ultimately certified by the State Department of Housing and Community Development we call them HUD one of the key functions of the housing element is to demonstrate the capacity the development capacity in the city to accommodate the housing assignment or allocation that we get through the state and through our regional planning organization which we call our Regional Housing needs assignment Arena the it's also an opportunity beyond that compliance to address our local housing challenges and to develop goals policies and programs that will help further the community's vision for housing the housing element is renewed on an eight-year planning cycle and this is a draft of our sixth cycle housing element the housing element is accompanied by quite a few appendices the housing element itself is where you will find the goals policies and action items in this particular case because we are not suggesting the rezoning of any Parcels this is really where the the muscle of the housing element is the places that the Petaluma is is innovating as we do the other key portion of the housing element one other key portion is the site inventory that's found in appendix C the other appendices provide the state with background information on what the needs of the city are and uh and how we've determined that review of past accomplishments how
we are complying with State requirements on furthering fair housing and then how we have Incorporated public participation into our planning process that public participation began actually in 2020 when we sent out a survey to the community for the general plan and began asking about where folks might want to see housing we have continued that questioning throughout the general plan engagement process beginning in in 2021 and through the present we had workshops last year and meetings public meetings with the gpac Planning Commission and City Council on the housing element and have been doing concurrent analysis throughout that Planning Development process our administrative draft came out in the summer of last year and we really wanted to make sure that the draft was reflective of all of the priorities that we had heard throughout that planning process throughout the engagement process of the general plan and that was summarized in the general plan advisory committee's Vision document that they presented in January of last year I won't go through all of the bullet points because we've talked about this a little bit before but it's it's all there um we had a public draft of the housing element that was out for the required 30 days we want to note that one of the pieces of the process here is to make sure that we're in compliance with hcd's requirements in terms of how long we leave the housing element out they had then had we they had originally planned for a 30-day review
period they extended that to 90 days so we needed to allow a 90-day review period for uh for hcd to look at the housing element that happened starting at the end of October of last year and then we got our we got a couple of questions in the last week so we clarified some data and then we got our final letter from hcd on the 90th day uh but but we were we were in fact pleased with the letter and we can talk about this a little bit more if the council is interested but because we had put such an effort into the development of the housing element and gone through the process of making sure that we are in compliance with state law Etc our letter was relatively quite short and we got public comments from transform and other uh consortiums of interested parties saying that this was one of the more complete elements that they had had seen drafted and that was reflected in rather than getting a 20-page letter we got a five-page letter uh we since getting those comments in late January have been working to produce a draft and review a draft as quickly as possible so we brought some comments and suggested actions to council uh in February and then came back to Planning Commission and are back with you today with a proposed final draft now which we anticipate if it's acceptable submitting by the end of the month for hcds then 60 days of a loud review before they make a decision on uh certification I won't go through this slide I just said it uh it is important to note that in the site
inventory there have been no changes since we presented this last time all of the sites that are identified in the site inventory are currently zoned for housing we haven't we haven't suggested any changes if you look at the table that summarizes how we might accommodate Rena you will see some numbers change but that's because hcd said that we needed to incorporate 2018 numbers for Adu production which brought our number down from 18 to 16 which required the update of the entire affordable affirmatively furthering fair housing chapter but that is that is complete uh last time we were with you we went through these five points and I'm going to go through them one at a time and talk about the action that was suggested and that is reflected in the current draft uh regarding single room occupancy development the council and Planning Commission and general plan advisory committee and I won't go through all of those groups again uh recommended creating a definition working on a definition in the zoning code again that won't be part of this element this element is part of the general plan the general plan is very high level so it suggests actions to us updating the zoning code is an action that is repeatedly described in the housing element which we anticipate updating uh actually as the general plan completes as we have some direction around land use we can start going with that zoning code update uh and we anticipate looking at sros in the mu-r4 and R5 districts as well as
potentially other districts and we're targeting that zoning code update for the end of next year we also got the instruction to consider consider minimizing tenancy timelines uh four private open space that is the open space that's on a multi-family development uh parcel we are planning to look at other jurisdiction standards to continue to prioritize livability making sure that Community character is part of our considerations when looking at new standards and we could potentially look at our existing definitions dimensional requirements or potentially allowing developments to consolidate that space that's associated with an individual unit into more communal open space roof ducts Landscaping on the ground or even publicly available privately owned open space on the subject of residential care facilities for seven or more folks we are writing that we will consider work towards conditionally permitting those uses in our mixed juice and Commercial zones uh evaluating appropriate design and operational characteristics and assuring ensuring that ground floor activation is still required in our mixed juice zones where that is a that's a community and Leadership desire on the subject of parking we are looking to remove or reduce the current parking requirements for multi-family units and to look at our parking requirements comprehensively which work has has begun to a certain degree already and to encourage that mode shift that we were talking about earlier on thinking about bike
parking Etc and keeping keeping in mind the awareness that different parts of the city may have different requirements overall this is an overarching statement the state wanted us to be clearer in our language to say not we'll consider this but we will consider this in this year and then by this year or whatever date we will take action we also made a few clarifications around complying with housing law and added some unit production goals and worked to clarify methodologies following councils queries on that last month uh talking about those measurable targets for units developed again this was something that hcd asked for we wanted to be clear on on one point which is that if we say that 50 units of this type in this type and this type could be developed that one unit could count for those different types so for example one unit could count as an affordable unit a senior unit a veteran unit and a unit for somebody with special needs kind of depending on what the funding and the restrictions were for the the occupation of those units one target that we worked with in particular was the fact that given the tax increment financing approximately 50 units is a very achievable size for an affordable housing development we've been seeing quite a few of those in town and so that that's something that you'll see a multiplier of um and then other unit counts like saying you know we think that it is possible for example to convert to unpermitted adus to permanent adus per year our
best estimates given the number uh given the level of demand that we anticipate these aren't requirements that we have to comply with what we need to do is we need to demonstrate a good faith effort to do this work to hcv that's really what they're asking for uh okay happy to answer any questions on those so some examples of a couple of projects that we looked at to think about our targets are for example the pet River City Senior Apartments that was completed last year and actually was completed after the deadline for counting it in this housing element so we do get to count it in this housing element it's a excuse me it's a 54 total unit building 53 of those units are affordable all of those units are seeing our senior units and because of their funding 25 of those units are dedicated to Veterans and so similarly looking at the Mid Penn Washington Square development which is currently in process so it's not fully designed so we don't have all the firm unit counts yet but they have one source of funding which is targeted towards Farm worker housing and so we know that some of our units will come from farmworker housing that's a good example of ways that staff can help to meet the targets that are in the housing element by helping to find funding sources that are relevant to the different different audiences and it's worth noting that several current projects have been focused on permanent supporting housing which for very low income residents which is particularly difficult
to to build there were some updates to the appendices largely fixing typos and making sure that the updates that we made were reflected throughout the document and providing a little bit of additional information making sure that our counts were up to date and and so on uh that was not in the right okay so we don't need to go to public comment right now the comment is that we got one letter from transform which is in the packet in response to this round of the housing element if you go on the general plan website at planned petaluma.org all of the versions of the housing element are there and all of the comments that we've received are there if folks would like to review those on the environmental analysis front uh the California Environmental Quality act gives cities jurisdictions some discretion in deciding the level of review and in this case the lead or responsible agency may choose to prepare an addendum rather than a supplemental or subsequent negative declaration if the following findings are made that no new significant impacts will result from the project or from new mitigation measures no substantial increase in the severity of the environmental impact will occur and no feasible Alternatives or mitigations it would reduce impacts previously not found to have been feasible are now found to be feasible and this is the approach that the city took because again we're building off of the last housing element all of these sites were previously evaluated from an
environmental perspective they're all identified they're all they're all already zoned they're not all identified in last housing there are already zoned for housing so that's not a new impact that's coming coming with this and there our SQL team is on the call if folks would like to ask some questions um so this is the this is the route that we took we found that the element as written will not result in potentially significant impacts not previously identified or analyzed nor would they increase the severity of any impact and no previously and feasible alternatives are now considered feasible the um the housing element update was found not to have physical environmental effects it would itself not propose projects future development will require Project Specific development review because it's not possible for us to know everything about a project at this stage it's this more of a policy level review so the recommendation from staff is that city council consider adopting a general plan amendment to repeal the current housing element to adopt the drafted housing element and to approve the associated addendum to the previously approved negative declaration for the last housing thank you ready for questions okay I'll bring it back to council to see if anyone has a question about the presentation tonight and uh council member shreds good questions actually um just for everyone's uh knowledge everyone up to speed on SRO single room occupancy and you had other numbers that were
associated with it could you please just Define SRO and what that what those letters might meant up there and and what practically what does that mean yes so I'm also going to call in Veronica Tam who is our housing consultant from raymian Associates she is on the line but SRO stands for single room occupancy and not being an expert in sros my understanding is that it's possible for the city to Define what that could look like now it historically looked like rooms with shared facilities you know potentially shared kitchens and bathrooms it's more common now to have smaller units that have some of those facilities integrated so for example the conversion of the America's Best Value Inn could be considered an SRO and so that's something that we need to look into in more detail as we develop our zoning code it's not something that we need to do now Veronica did you want to add anything um yeah I think you know you generally have a correct there is a definition in the health and safety code um of what an SLO is but when you come to housing element and also how slos are developed today they are typically they do typically include um like a kitchenette and also um uh some bathroom facilities as well so they a lot of the times you you it's just not very different from a micro unit um what is also important to know though is um if a an SL unit does include plumbing and cooking facilities and they are usually permitted as a residential unit those do do get um Rena credits but if you
define if you're restricting uh SLO to not have that type of facility then they are considered thrip housing and will not be um will not be qualified for arena units good so I just wanted to make sure that sros like someone in their house renting out a room um that's not quite an SRO but um the folks that are that have lots of homes and lots of we have lots of single-family homes here but this is an opportunity to expand instead of a separate Adu they could be expanding different ways which include this new category SRO slightly different from having an Adu um slots are calling multi-family jurisdictions today actually permit slos as multi-family housing usually about you know four or five units plus it's they're not um they're not necessarily the same as they're typically not allowed or in in single-family neighborhoods so most communities do they do permit slos in multi-family or in commercial zones so we're just looking at just the opportunity what it actually means practically for for what we're looking at what's this going to look like down the road here right sorry can I just briefly interrupt and ask all speakers to please pause between your sentences for our Spanish translators thank you I just want to re-emphasize also that one of the things and we talked about this a little bit when we were here talking about those policy discussions was that our code doesn't currently Define sros and so part of when we come back with the zoning text Amendment we will be creating a
definition there was some acknowledgment that we wanted to explore maybe beyond our multi-family and Commercial zones but we haven't done that yet so that's there's like a a placeholder in our in our housing element that says we will do that but we haven't done that so we will have some option to come back look at the appropriate definition look at the appropriate zones that we want to allow sros when we make that text Amendment I'm good thank you um uh the next question deals with the um some of the practicality of the beating the arena requirements like some of the charts there were some numbers that were on the charts that were shifted here and there it looks like cleaned up quite a bit a lot of the language was cleaned up as I went through the uh the new housing element um but the question that I was coming up with was um how are we going to support or what are we going to do to outreach to encourage developers to help us meet the arena to do it on the properties that we have selected because I know this is like opportunity for this is what we'd like to offer they but they're going to come up so oh well we want to do it over here and this is what we want to do so how are you what are we going to do to really discourage going outside of those properties and encourage working in the properties we we would like to see developed so I'm I'm glad you asked that question because I do think there's a subtlety here that is a really important thing to reference so in the housing
element there is a site's inventory and that is where the city has identified capacity to meet our Regional Housing allocation that doesn't mean it's they're the only sites in the city where residential can be built because there are a lot of properties in Petaluma that have residential zoning or zoning that allows residential that are not on that site inventory so that's one thing that I think it's really important to acknowledge and just be really clear that not all properties that allow residential are in the site inventory one of the things we did with this site inventory is we took many of the properties that were identified in our fifth cycle housing element as our site's inventory we don't have those on our six cycle and some of that was because we're in a different context we didn't want sites that were high VMT we didn't want sites with sensitive um resources on them we didn't want sites that were in the flood plain so we really modified that site inventory to respond to the discourse and conversation we're having in the community now one of the other things that will happen is with our general plan we will be looking much more comprehensively at our land use and so if there are shifts in our land use as we're going through that process and maybe that changes some of the sites that we want on our site inventory we can come back and modify and amend this site inventory and resubmit that to hcd if we if we desire because we are in the process of a very significant
Community visioning conversation creating the plan for our next 20 plus years in terms of incentivizing them there are some things I believe there's a program about publishing um available property and updating it annually so that developers can have a sense of what what properties are are there for um residential development so I think there's a program in there I think a lot of it also is working you know proactively with our affordable housing providers with our you know it was one of the things that was on the list I believe when we talked about the goals and priorities last week or I think it was just last week about the downtown Smart Station property and and wanting to start really looking at that so the things we can do to be proactive and guide guide development to the sites we want to see the housing occur and we will we will be doing that very good thank you um and we've heard some concerns about some deadlines that may have been missed and some repercussions that may have happened and all may be tied in with Builders remedy and I'm not really clear about any of that uh so with the gpac I thought we were meeting all deadlines like could you could you just talk about that a little bit sure um so there has been a lot of shift um through this process at the state level at across all jurisdictions as council member Healey mentioned in a meeting and talking with about Builders remedy and and stuff coming down from the state everyone is working very hard to try to
address all all of the new statutes all of the new as Christina mentioned in the middle of this cycle the review requirements shifted to require the 30-day to require the 90-day that hcd so while all of that was shifting and we were out there trying to get robust Community involvement and trying to put forward a housing element that was the very best for Petaluma there there was time involved in that so we Are Not Alone um we are submitting ahead of most jurisdictions in a bag but what is being referred to as Builders remedy is part of a state statute that my understanding is it has been on the books since the 80s or 90s I think um that um that is what is being referred to and it's basically it is um if a city's housing element is not in substantial compliance that there is one of the findings that the housing accountability act lays out to disapprove a housing project that you can't use until your housing element is adopted Eric anything to add to that thanks Heather that's that's accurate um and maybe another way to say it is that um there's a Prohibition in the in the housing accountability act against disapproving or making infeasible by the decision-making body meaning disapproving or making it feasible by conditioning projects that include the required affordable housing components when that jurisdiction does not have a a a a housing element that's been confirmed as being substantially compliant with the with the housing element law um there's we've heard talk from
members of the public about this and concerns about it and and we've certainly been focused on that because one of our jobs is to preserve the council's discretionary authority to balance all the competing interests it needs to balance when these projects come forward including delivering of housing including preserving Community character including preserving our environmental resources um Etc um so it's these are exceedingly complicated statutes I know one of the things that I've been working on is president of the City Attorney's department of the California League of cities with Mike colleague officers is to get more focus and pool more of our expertise on exploring and reaching conclusions and sharing information with the member cities which is virtually all of them about these topics because even the experts are struggling um with it and and we are we're we're starting a practicum series of getting the the City attorney Department practitioners to have these discussions and suss out more of these issues but so far what we've seen um and Petaluma and you'll be able to impact that depending on your decision tonight as I've not seen any projects that are able to qualify for the Builder's remedy fix if you will to what would otherwise be a non non-conforming project that wouldn't be eligible to be approved because it wouldn't satisfy applicable General plan or zoning requirements what the what the Builder's remedy really does is kicks that out kicks that non-conformance out
as a basis for rejecting a project but so far from what we've seen I've not seen um any projects that are gonna accomplish that and and and um be eligible for approval when they otherwise wouldn't be as a result of the Builder's remedy and once the um once we have an approved housing element that threat goes away okay so we didn't have that there's no technicality that we may have missed that would cause US problems down the road here um that that's being referred to so these technicalities uh were equal to or or all the other cities that are dealing with the same situation that we are um so it's like um I'm just looking for that yeah a typical reason why why some developers with their lawyers might come back and say okay well we're going to force something down to you because you didn't meet something it could you know you can concede you can I think it's easy to see how it could be very attractive to a developer with a project they want to build that's not conforming with the applicable zoning and general plan that gets to bypass that hurdle um but an antidote for that is an approved housing element okay so we're on the right track still and everything so that's right so basically we shouldn't have to worry about that at this point we are looking at it very closely there's no projects that I'm seeing right now that are able to take advantage of that and and um as I say um an antidote for that as an approved housing element okay thank you which is before you tonight that's
all my questions thank you council member Healey thank you I had a couple I'm kind of down on the weeds questions um I was intrigued that um a visual of the Pacifica Apartments was was put up um are we counting those as a pipeline project in our housing element we are not really okay right we did not include that in a pipeline project no we did not okay I like that question made me doubt myself for a second but you know I was curious because um I think that project got approved in 2020 and and they haven't pulled building permits or turned any dirt so when do those approvals expire they actually just um submitted a their I believe it might be their final extension request for extension so I I don't know the exact date but I think it might be the last of the three one-year extensions that they could ask for they did submit an application asking for the extension are you in contact with them is there any possibility that they might actually move forward with it yeah they they are about modification I assume that's kind of in the cost saving category correct okay um thank you okay well I'm actually glad to hear that it's not considered a pipeline project because I think it's pretty tenuous at this point um and then the the newer mid pen project came up and the the fact that it's some they're targeting um financing that would support Farm worker housing which which is um I'm sure very needed category but I don't really recall that being part of the presentation when we approved
spending half a million dollars of City funds on that correct me if I'm wrong but you know Farm Workers seem to be the least likely group of folks who are going to ride smart or public transit to get to work and um I think that just underscores my concern without project that 0.4 parking places per unit is probably wishful thinking on steroids um especially if it's going to be targeted Farm Workers I mean how else do you expect those folks to get to work so I think there do need to be some reality checks in what we're doing around here um I'll support the housing element tonight I think parts of it are unrealistic but we'll see thank you councilmember barnacle thank you um so would sros include non-congregate interim housing as well foreign non-congregate interim housing potentially I think one thing that our consultant had identified um is we have yet to Define it and so as we go through that process um you know we'll fully engage stakeholders to best Define what SRO means for our city great um so again I uh I follow some people on Twitter that like live tweet housing element workshops and this is notably calm so it shows that you have done a good job because we would um we would definitely hear about it if we hadn't um I just want to call out that in our uh in the table that's on in C4 um the very low income 25 units uh people's Village was in there and um that's extremely cost effective way to develop housing thirteen thousand dollars a unit and um we've got the the
Montero project that's coming online and I'd love to see more of the non-congregate shelters put around there um I think that that's just I would love to see more of that in general there's a it's we can't give everybody their own bathroom in their own kitchen but I think we can give everybody their own roof and a locked door um for uh I think it's feasible so other than that I really appreciate the um the work that went into this all the community workshops and efforts so thank you thank you and uh councilman posake yeah I have no uh questions or comments but I just want to uh say thanks to the staff I think you've covered everything that the state asked and covered everything we asked the last visit thanks thank you um and I had a couple questions um so I appreciate in this in the site inventory that we're saying it neither prohibits nor promotes any individual site over another site but our policies could I mean that's that's how we incentivize in there not not through the sites um and in terms of what things can change um uh if VMT is a filter in a screen on which sites so if we change something like improved bus routes on the boulevard wouldn't that open up a site like the vartner site or South Boulevard sites or North Boulevard sites that would provide um better return than any of the sites maybe in the project I mean so that would do that if we make a change we could affect what the best sites are and then but what is the benefit of resubmitting why would we resubmit
instead of just doing our thing and going ahead I mean we are we measured on the submitted plan well it would just on now okay um I think I don't know that we will resubmit but part of it is looking at what happens when we're talking about land use more holistically not just around the housing element but when we talk about land use more holistically is there something that comes up where we really one site isn't right or we want to I don't I don't know all the ifs that we could run into we're not compelled no we're not compelled but what I was just trying to say is we're also not locked in stone because we're doing such a big city rethink we're just I was just trying to emphasize it it doesn't mean we can't change anything for eight years thank you and and I too was intrigued by the uh pretty photographs they attracted everybody's eye uh riverscape was one of the photographs on on there and um I believe the first passage that was 10 years ago when entitlement happened or seven eight Riverfront area and um and then it's been through lately again with a revision for work live um two two years now back um but my question is Azar have you heard from them about a building permit are they a real project or once I mean because we entitled 10 times the number of things that actually build actually with riverscape it even though it was approved kind of in Concept 10 years ago with the full Riverfront project the the town home part of the riverfront project but it just came last year
um so that project is still relatively on on schedule I think they need a final map because it was a town home project with actual land so I don't know if they've submitted their final map yet they they walked away from the riverfront entitlement for whatever it was supposed to be apartments or and they kind of things take forever my point I guess yeah it was going to be I think 40 or 42 town homes and it ended up being I believe 50 and there was some work live units along uh is that Hopper that turns the corner there so some of that Frontage and then um there was some smaller flat units added and some adus so it evolved during the that Spar project The Spar and the individual um map project for that component so what was approved with the riverfront was kind of a concept of about 40 town homes in this section of the larger project and I if I may add I was just talking with the project Planner on that that I understand that the town homes were coming and then also some potentially some apartments around that oval roundabout different pieces filling in two different development types are going in there yeah um because it just um it the length of time to completion is staggering uh Brody Ranch is still being touted and that's 10 years but it did great thanks for putting inventory into condo affordable as well as single family available um but your slide three showed 26 housing sold in a year and um is there a policy that I mean two perspectives one if people don't move people
don't get to move in and people age and there's no family housing in the community and you know is there a policy that addresses that and then of course there's the second one is if no house is sold our property tax base doesn't go up and was there a policy on fixing that two questions there may be uh thank you mayor there may be a policy um you know that we would have to do and coordinate at the state level as it relates to property taxes um but you know I think the point the intention of why I had included that um is you know just that is it does take time I mean there's um this is one piece of the puzzle when we think about um entry point entry level for a family or um you know someone that wants to enter the housing market and that's just one piece of the pie and it's it's you know it's worth noting um but there's a lot more that goes goes into that to make that happen um and so that's where we start to look at different policies there was a question by um I believe council member schribs earlier about you know how do we incentivize um more in places that we think is more desirable in the city and that's looking through policies um to incentivize uh you know more production uh different housing types that may be naturally affordable so we hear a lot of discussion about missing middle income as a housing product that we don't typically see and so you know that's one thing that we are looking um collectively as a region to try and address to bring more units you know at
different price points online and I know we talked about missing middle scale as well I mean the three-story not you know not a tower not a single family but stuff in the middle is necessary but if no houses get built and no houses turn over we have inflation a cost increase so we have an affordability crisis on all housing and that's bad um so let's go to the public comment period of the evening on this Council memberships um just wanted to make a note that a lot of the properties that we have in an inventory are either vacant lots for the most part or parking lots that might be able to be used pretty much vacant buildings do we happen to have also well we have gone through this whole process where have we been able to create a list of properties that have self-shaped very old buildings that are worthy of demolishing that might be also appropriate sites if the current owners were willing to convert over to something do we have is there an inventory like that that's above and beyond what we currently have here do we have a list of possibilities that we might be also direct developers at so Council memberships we might call that an underutilized property analysis where we would look at the value of the use on the site and the value of what might be produced we have not done that analysis but that is something that we could look at in in particular areas that we're interested in as we go through the general plan or Zone include updates yes I know several folks have talked about
several sites on in the town here where it's like okay that that's that's pretty ancient stuff here and and maybe it would be nicer if it's something else that we need and so that's whole that's like missing in this report and it's kind of missing but we need to have that in our back pocket I think so that's just one thing I'd like to see at least worked on down the road here whenever there is time and effort to do that to actually identify those properties that might look really uh useful if we did that conversion because right now we're only looking at base pretty vacant lots and parking lots for right now if I'm if I make Council it sounds like Council memberships is reminiscing about the loss of Redevelopment because that's that's what we used to do the blight findings Etc and and helping direct um the Redevelopment dollars to incentivize by you know things like property acquisition and other ways of partnering with um with developers to turn over the infrastructure that's how we got the Theater District for example that was probably the city's biggest Redevelopment project um and it's difficult to incentivize private property owners because you may you may deem that their property is underutilized um but they may not so we don't want to get in that yeah in that okay the public comment uh period please uh yes um mayor um it's a reminder to the public that during public comment the public is invited to make comments on the specific agenda item public comments are limited
to three minutes per person we do not have anybody in the audience uh in person members of public of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand or press star nine if participating by phone virtual attendees will be muted when their allotted time expires or when their comments have concluded whichever comes first speakers whose comments do not pertain to the specific specific topic will have the microphone turned off or be muted and may lose some or all of their remain remaining a lot of time speakers are encouraged to be respectful threats or violence of violence or obscenity are grounds for removal from this meeting as a reminder we have simultaneous Spanish translation please make sure to include pauses in between sentences and mayor we have 10 virtual attendees and five with their hands raised um and I would like to start with um Dara Darren rakousin followed by m Sullivan Darren please unmute thank you moderator I just want to say this most recent iteration I think there were some great changes particularly to program 27 for Farm worker housing I appreciated the downshift in assumptions on parking lot Redevelopment for some of the reasons why that's a challenge that was that were just discussed uh and in the last Planning Commission meeting where we reviewed this I did bring up the topic of this kind of window and I appreciate the feedback on that January 31st deadline that a lot of municipalities are are struggling to hit that Mark and with a three-month
turnaround time with the state you can see why that would be the case but um you know I at that meeting sent a letter to Dylan Brady uh regarding in November 2022 rolling by a state district court where a judge ruled that state housing laws do not apply to a project until after a city certifies the Project's environmental review and this was coming in regards a response to a San Francisco development and that ruling uh which I had not read has been challenged although I would imagine it's being appealed uh was made in November 2022 and could serve as a precedent so that if any developer does in the interim before our final housing element is approved the developer does try to come in and invoke Builders remedy or just invoke that part of the decision Matrix where they can say look the housing affordability act does apply so now there is no discretion for our city to deny the project because you know as Danley uh attorney Danley rightfully pointed out having a compliant housing element is really the only discretionary tool retains as a a bulwark to retain any sort of discretion to determine if a project is consistent with the objective General plan zoning subdivision and design standards and criteria if that development has 20 percent affordable or low-income housing a hundred percent affordable moderate or midter income housing or an emergency shelter so if you don't have a compliant housing element suddenly you can't disallow or down downsize that project's my understanding
even if it's inconsistent with our general plan and Zoning so I just wanted to point out that you know although the development project that everyone's kind of referencing per attorney danley's feedback may not be invoking Builders remedy in this scenario I think it's important to take this November 2022 uh State ruling into our repertoire and use that to to retain this council discretion if developers try to take advantage of of this exposed window regarding the housing element thank you thank you our next speaker is M Sullivan followed by Taryn obade and [Music] um let me just m you may unmute now yes good evening I have two points I'd like to make one is that per the governor's office of planning and research the housing element encourages integrating considerations of General plan goals and policies in regards to sequa if you simply adopt the prior site inventory from 2008 when no one was talking about climate change or including precipitation on the land such as atmospheric storms and sea level rise in the flood bottling that's used to delineate the floodway and floodplain how then does that constitute a robust analysis and the second point that I want to make and I and I actually hope that Janice Cader Thompson and John trips will in particular address that because they were on the natural resources um and and the second issue is that Heather Hines mentioned that a number of cities are delayed in getting their housing element in and I feel like that's the material
regards our contract with the m group because it's still a deliverable that was not delivered in a timely manner and resulted in the Johnsons immediately submitting their proposals for their development opposite Sid Commons so clearly the Johnsons were aware that this delay was going to occur in other words someone notified them because they never could have submitted it within 48 hours in such a short window if they hadn't been previously notified and I don't know if that was Mr Healy again I know in the past he's worked on behalf of the Johnsons to notify them or if it was City attorney Danley or or somebody in M group um so where I work for the state I'm going to ask the state if these delays are the result of outside Consultants that are being paid millions of dollars or if these are are in-house planners like in a city like Healdsburg because I don't get and I I hope that the city council and and the city uh mayor Flynn in particular and Danley I don't understand why we have metrics for consultants if we then don't require them to be met and if we then don't hold them accountable for not meeting those metrics such that the safety and the public good ends up being impacted when you open these windows of vulnerability such as this Builder's remedy and Mr Healy and all of you on the city council who did not address this after Taryn and I raised the issue it really disgusts me because it's it's just unacceptable for uh for us to look like where we don't know what we're doing
and that we're not monitoring this contract and that we're not holding people accountable I mean this is 2.4 million and two layers of Consultants so let's see which other cities didn't meet that and if they had um you know these professionals working thank you thank you uh our next speaker is Taryn obade followed by Callum weeks Taryn you may unmute thank you wow that was a terrific comment uh public comment a couple of them thank you um I can tell you that experts are not struggling yeah some cities um their staff may have missed this there are some cities but that's not an excuse that reminds me of my dad telling me when I was a kid and I would use an excuse well so and so is doing it and he said well if they're walking off a cliff would you too that's not an excuse when we're paying millions of dollars experts are not struggling I attend Cali meetings and it's common knowledge that you needed to get your housing element draft in over three months in advance because they had to turn around finalization so if I know that and I'm not even a planner how the heck is it that we're paying millions of dollars to people that flubbed it and with all due respect Danley you say that you don't see quote unquote see a risk that doesn't sound like the attorneys I know and how they address dress risk and with all due respect you said that you didn't see how to decertify the Rainier connector when a citizen is a land use attorney the very next day set the city sent the city council a
letter showing them exactly the proof how other cities decertify their highways and streets that are on their agendas and I don't see staff really being on the side of the people when I see Dan Lee and Peggy Flynn saying oh we don't need a moratorium just a few months ago we'll address it we'll restrict Riverfront development with our general plan and oops we blew the general plan deliverable now we might be vulnerable that's not acceptable and how about them inserting 69 million dollars for Rainier into our last budget presentation and what about the Greenway Park that everybody's working on how is that being compromised now in terms of their attempts to acquire their hard work to acquire land for the Greenway Park which is a part of our general plan and now it's potentially in Peril facts or facts we hired the M group for a deliverable and they can make excuses and they can Giggle and put out energy that oh this is no big deal but you know it to the public it is a big deal and the fact that we're talking about it right now this is money time is money staff time is money this is not something that just group think and act like we're all friends and shove it under the rug this is money and we must hold them accountable we're still not compliant you haven't finalized it and I don't see that retroactively when you uh approve this tonight that retroactively the Johnsons who 16 of them contributed maximum campaign contributions to healy's campaign are going to go away thank you
um the next person to speak is Callum weeks and um Callum will you unmute please good evening mayor McDonnell uh council members and staff my name is Callum weeks and I am the policy director for Generation housing take the opportunity to thank everyone tonight for their contributions to the housing elements and Incredibly complex process time consuming um I'm sure great many of us have invested a lot of Sweat Equity and and a lot of Our Lives into this process and so I just want to be here today to really truly offer that note of gratitude apologies for not being able to uh attend in person I'm juggling quite a few meetings but um you know one of the things I just wanted to to emphasize and I know Petaluma is is definitely very interested in executing this this Vision um and and pursuing this opportunity is is the pro-housing designation I I know we've been in your ear quite a bit about it but you know as as a a tool and a means to to Really enhancing you know our overall sustainability and Community goals um it's really the best way forward in terms of really achieving everything that we want to um that's been baked in the housing element I I think and I correct me if I'm wrong but I think you know councilmember Healey expressed concerns about accomplishing everything and certainly it is daunting task um but you know this was a daunting task and and we've you know gotten pretty far along and and I gotta say uh to to councilmember barnacle's point if if we weren't happy it's
absolutely true we would be barking in your ear and so so I am I am grateful for all the work especially from the gpac in the community that they've invested into this um circling back the pro housing designation I would just really encourage that we we really shoot for the shoot for the moon as it were and and try to get the highest possible points we can so that our grants uh applications are as competitive as possible because what we've noticed is um that cities are essentially being forced to compete among one another now that they've secured the pro housing designation so the higher the score the better the chance you have of actually getting your application for a specific Grant viewed um and processed prior to everyone else so it's a competitive Advantage an advantage that we should definitely take advantage of so as we move forward it's definitely in everyone's interest that we're um I think very um very very focused and very committed to to kind of achieving the highest bar we possibly can and of course we're happy here uh happy to assist you in whatever way we can um and then moving forward you know with with executing this Vision I'm very much looking forward to working with your planning staff and and the team at the city of Petaluma to help execute a lot of these policies and goals and and help realize you know that 15-minute city um that the the community is really seeking to realize and so with that I I would just like to again you know thank you so much for
for everyone that's the best time and effort into this and and then I'd like to uh you know I really look forward to actually our continued collaboration so with that have a wonderful evening and thank you so much for your service thank you our next speaker is Bev Bev you may now unmute okay thank you I am floored I feel a little bit like the uh The Emperor's New Clothes here you know like the little kid who says the emperor has no clothes and everybody's going oh no look at the emperor's beautiful clothes so we have a hole here a big hole which is the fact that we do not have our housing elements until May which is a hole that you could drive an army of developers through how is it that the taxpayers have paid money for the services of the M group and they have left us so vulnerable this is really upsetting and the other things that I'm concerned about are related to climate change and we are not um we are not protecting what we have we are not protecting our river banks our riparian habitat our biodiversity and people have their eyes fixed on these words on paper that were created years ago before we knew about climate change before we had the atmospheric Rivers and they point to these words on the paper and say no everything is okay it's not okay I think of the uh this there one time when there was a spaceship and someone had made some very tiny mistake and calculations but as this thing flew into space it was it got to be so far all off course and that's what's happening
to us we are going way off course and we need to stop and I would like you city council members to step up and make sure that we are on course and not with our eyes focused on Old statistics we need to be here now and take care of an emergency that's like uh you know like a freight train coming in our Direction and we're just sort of standing on the tracks saying well the train isn't supposed to come by for another half hour the train is coming thank you thank you and mayor there are no more um uh virtual hands raised thank you very much that'll close our public comment for the evening and uh let's see city manager did you wish to I was just gonna get heather on pro-housing yeah yeah um thank you mayor and so um uh per the direction that city council had provided us last month we were able to submit our designation for pro-housing consideration to the state um and we submitted um uh based on WE Max we maxed out the eligibility so 50 out of the 50 points um and just a little bit of background and a testament to our particularly um our planning um Division and team um we we essentially doubled our score from 25 to 50.
um just in the matter of the last two years because of a lot of the Forward Thinking policies um that the city council adopted our staff has brought forward and so um just wanted to recognize and acknowledge the great work that went into it and we do expect to hear back on that it's a rolling application and So within the next couple weeks we hope to be able to share some good news on that application that's um fabulous regarding pro-housing Brian yeah a question on that um where there's can you mention the specific policies that got us the doubling score or I know probably wasn't one thing but just wondering what the suite of things that we did that um doubled our score that's fantastic certainly um and so the most recent uh policy um the two that come to mind the visibility ordinance um as well as the policy that city council passed in November around the fee reduction and so again these are just two examples of a number of um policies that city council and staff have put forward um to make a successful application thank you very much bringing it back to council I realize we have a council member on zoom and I've not allowed them to join the conversation I'd like to invite council member kater Thompson to uh comment uh maybe even questions I think I skipped you in question apologies oh thank you Kevin it's pretty early in the morning here um I do have I appreciate the staff report actually and looking forward to getting this approved by the state but when our week is the
city going to complete the updated flood mapping I would like to know when that's going to be done and I know it's through the general plan uh the the city is currently working with the Consultants at West Consulting and Sherwood Engineers uh we actually drafted a round of maps of the flood plain and were considering how to do technical review and how to work all of the modeling into the general plan process and after quite a few conversations and then also after bringing in technical experts from from outside the region so we brought in Roger Leventhal who's on the gpac who is part of our climate adaptation working group and then also Chris Cho who I believe is from Marin they gave us some advice on the models and we're redoing the models to make sure that we're accounting for atmospheric rivers and current best practices and are working with the existing Maps you know so we're working on some refinements with the general plan we're working on the existing Maps and looking at land use and adaptation while we're making sure that we've crossed all of our T's and dotted all of our eyes for that mapping exercise and we anticipate that we will be bringing some of those Maps forward to the gpac and having a larger Community discussion about them might be our first in-person gpac meeting and it might be a big one at the community center so that folks can come and look at the mapping we anticipate that that will happen in late April or early May we're just working on getting the
consultants in from where they need to be and making sure that all of the logistics are in place so much more to come on that thanks Christine and just to follow up on that um how does that interface with the housing element because if if we if the Housing Bank gets approved we still have to look at all the um all of this information before approving anything correct we were fortunate enough to have some early runs of the flood plan modeling while we were developing the site inventory and we did double check the site inventory with the drafts that the consultant had developed we also were very intentional about stepping back away from the river even outside of any known flood area we didn't identify any sites that were within the riparian corridor and as part of feedback from Council a couple of cycles of this conversation ago we actually took some sites out that include Petaluma Bounty Farm around the Cinnabar area to further come out of that area thank you I think I want to thank the staff that work on this because I know in the background there's a lot more work than the public really realizes that's going on so thank you and thank you for helping me with my zoom tonight I really appreciate that too for Aaron and Kendall well I'm glad that worked out and um so council member barnacle I'll go ahead and move the item and I'll just read the read the motion so I'll make a motion to adopt a general plan amendment to repeal the 2015-23 2023 housing element adopt a general plan
amendment to approve the city of Petaluma housing element of the general plan for the period of 2023 to 2031 with findings that it's substantially complies with State housing element law and improving the associated addendum to the previously approved negative declaration for the 2015 to 2023 housing element the second and council member posa case II was that your comment as well tonight yes all good okay um I did want to uh weigh in and I really appreciate um well I mean both the work product that we're seeing and all the individual effort and and um uh energies that went in from staff to put this together and to keep it on timeline and to make it a very Petaluma document where the people got their voice heard and got included um I appreciate the aggressive schedule that staff has pushed on this and and that we are in fact ahead of those huge wave of all of uh abag in Northern California that has to get through this state agency I appreciate that we looked at things like flood level and modified uh regarding that and with other uh critical issue issues as raised by the public so that responsiveness is wonderful I get all the time requirements I mean read the policies my goodness the the amount of nuance and depth that goes into the policies of stuff running and and then read the record of public participation and transparency to be at this point is aggressive and very solid work and I wanted to thank y'all for the not just the work product which is going up to the state but
for the energies the quality of individuals that get us to that level we have a motion and a second I mean we have a roll call them barnacle yes kater Thompson yes Healey yes McDonnell yes now yes post okay yes shreds yes motion passes unanimously thank you and I believe that is our meeting for the evening we are now adjourned at 9 35.