Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 21.68, and Subsection 21.25.506.A.7, all relating to Enhanced Density Bonus regulations, read and adopt as read.  (Citywide)
Okay. Thank you. What's up? Item 19 for you. Item 19 This report from Development Services Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing. Declare ordinances amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by creating enhanced density bonus to facilitate the development of mixed income. Multi-family Housing An ordinance related to impact fee waivers for affordable moderate income units. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and Adobe resolution to submit the ordinance amendments to the California Coastal Commission Citywide. Thank you. We're going to go to Steph. I'd like to introduce our planning manager, Patricia Defender for who will be making the presentation for this public hearing. Good evening, mayor. Vice mayor, council members. This is Patricia Defender, her bureau manager. The item before you is the proposed enhanced anti-business ordinance, which aims to facilitate facilitate production of both market rate and affordable housing throughout the city . It involves a zoning code amendment to add a new section of the code section 1268 and amends other sections of the code, as we'll discuss later in the presentation. So density bonus. This law is not a new law. The State first adopted the density bonus law in 1979. The law essentially requires cities to offer density bonuses and other incentives or waivers from zoning regulations to facilitate housing production and to help offset the cost of including a percentage of affordable housing units in privately developed market rate housing projects. The density bonus law has been in place for more than 40 years to help address the affordable housing shortage. The amendment in early this year the state law was amended and it went into effect to increase density bonuses from 35% to 50%. Among other changes to the law. And this is in recognition of the fact that the bonuses and incentives were really not sufficient to support housing production. So in the next couple of slides, which is going to describe very quickly what the enhanced anti bonus ordinance does and why we need it. So the bonus that the ordinance offers bonuses and incentives that are above and beyond the state law. They are, however, tailored to the local conditions, and we'll discuss that a little bit more further in the presentation. The proposed ordinance complements the inclusionary housing ordinance that was adopted by council earlier this year in a couple of ways. First, it helps offset the costs for providing affordable housing where the inclusionary requirement is mandatory. And then it also offers a voluntary inclusionary program for those areas where the mandatory requirement was not found to be feasible. Some things that the ordinance does not do is it does not rezone properties or change the property's land use designation. It does not up zoned any low density or one or two zoned areas, and it does not allow residential uses in areas that are planned or zoned solely for commercial use. The proposed ordinance is needed to encourage housing and particularly market rate and affordable housing, and to make it feasible in more parts of the city to ensure an equitable distribution of housing in the city. As we've noted, the state density bonus has not been sufficient to encourage housing production in the city. It has been used only in very limited instances in the past couple of decades, and usually by projects that are already proposing 100% affordable housing, providing the greater density, bonuses and incentives are needed to encourage the production of the housing. And this is intended to be. Importantly, this is intended to be a temporary measure to help achieve the city's upcoming housing element cycle. Rina goal of 26,000 housing units. It is intended to expire by 2030 or whenever the city reaches the affordable housing target of the Rina, whichever might come first. So in trying to sort of convey why this strategy is an important strategy, I just wanted to share that the staff has conducted a number of different studies that have shown that the development is infeasible in many areas of the city, even those areas that were planned for housing and mixed use development in the UAE. So analysis and study conducted, for example, through the planned North Long Beach planning process revealed that because of high land costs and high costs of construction and physical site constraints like small or shallow lots, many sites cannot be developed to the anticipated densities. These market analysis also showed that projects are infeasible and can't pencil out unless costs can be reduced by almost 40%. And that reducing costs by 20% brings densely bounded scenarios within the realm of feasibility. The study also shows that reducing parking by nearly 20% would make density bonus scenarios feasible. So these studies do reinforce the need for these tailored regulations. Okay. So the proposed enhanced anti bonus ordinance is consistent with the adopted city policies to increase housing production and affordable housing, specifically the revenue to have an incentive for production and affordable housing study that was adopted by the Council in May of 2017 and the Everyone Home Plan. It also implements the land use element of affordable housing policies. So just in trying to explain the applicability of this proposed ordinance, not all properties in the city are eligible for the enhanced density bonus bonus incentives. Only those properties where the zoning or the place type allows five or more units without bonuses are eligible for the enhanced density bonus. And again, just to reiterate, it does not rezone properties to allow five or more units, but rather five or more units as an eligibility criteria. This map shows illustrates the areas where projects are more likely to be eligible for the enhanced density bonus based on the place type. So it's a little bit hard to see on the map that you can see that the hatched areas on the map are the areas where projects or sites are likely can be eligible. And those areas tend to be in midtown, downtown and some of the major corridor corridors that were already planned for multifamily and mixed use. Multi-family and mixed use. Those areas are anticipated that their use is anticipated in those areas by the land use element. And the land use element does serve as a blueprint for the enhanced sensiblement. So just to reiterate that the areas shown, for example, in yellow that are the lower density single family areas are would not are not hatched and would not likely be affected by the ordnance. So this not just ties that the geographic the city was divided into three sort of tiers for purposes of flying bonuses. The bonuses the greatest bonuses are limited to the areas that are most accessible to transit. So most of the city falls, a lot of the city falls within the base area, which has a maximum bonus density bonus of 70%. There's areas that are along major bus corridors where there are frequent bus service are eligible for 90% bonuses. And then the airline transit stops, major transit stops and areas where two major bus lines intersect. Are eligible for 100% bonuses. And that's kind of how the that ordinance would apply. And this helps address other goals, such as reducing vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. This map shows the transit priorities areas which are defined by state law, and it sort of ties back to those three geographic areas. So you can see the areas in the white on this map are generally the base areas, the areas in the green, but outside of the circles are the high quality transit areas, that mid level tier. And then the areas within the green circles are the black circles are the highest density bonus areas. And again, it's important to remember that despite the proximity transit, it says if a site is low density and does not allow for five or more units, it would not be eligible. This is a table that shows very quickly compares kind of the state density bonus and the affordability, the percentage of affordable units that would be required to compare state with the proposed ordinance and the three different geographic tiers. And you can see the different maximum bonuses and the amount of affordable housing that would be required as a result. In this slide, I would just want to sort of demonstrate how the bonuses and the affordability requirement work. So this example is a site that would be located in that mid-tier that here with a bonus maximum is 90% and it's a high quality transit corridor area. So if you look at this example on this site where the zoning would allow 36 units, 36 is the base units. If you take 15, if the project wants to have an 80% density bonus, it will have to do a 15% affordable, very low income housing requirement. So that would mean the projects ultimately would have six units, which is the 15% of the 36, and then it would be allowed to have a maximum of 65 units, 29 additional units from the bonus, 23 of which would be market rate, and six of which would be very low. That project would also be eligible for some concessions and seven concessions, which I'll explain here. So projects that provide affordable units as a component of a market rate project are eligible for a maximum of nine concessions. The concessions ordinance proposes concessions in sort of two different kinds of concessions on menu concessions, which are by. Right. Relief from zoning regulations that are zoning regulations that are customarily projects need some relief from such as floor area increases or reductions in open space or setbacks, individual setbacks. There's also off menu concessions, which are things that a project might not might need relief from that are not on the menu. And those concessions, if requested, they count as two concessions for each request and it does require approval by the Planning Commission and specifically wanted to tie the mentioned height. Height is a by right concession as is required by state law and the enhance that the proposed enhanced density bonus ordinance would allow a maximum height incentive of two stories in the base area and three stories in the transit priority area. Additional height beyond seas. By right height concessions would be considered off menu concessions and inclusionary projects are also entitled to concessions that they are limited to a maximum of six concessions. And finally, there are some extra concessions and bonuses for projects that provide onsite childcare and large family units as a way to encourage those kinds of developments . So the this slide just shows the parking reductions that projects are eligible for. As mentioned before, a state already requires or requires cities to grant parking reductions for projects that include affordable housing. The table on the left shows the ratios as required by state law, and the table on the right shows the ratios that would be required under the enhanced density bonus. It's basically it depending on the location of the project. A project may obtain more reductions from one or the other of the options that state law does allow for a reduction of up to a allows one half of a space per unit for projects that are within transit a priority areas. So areas closest or projects closest to transit would probably obtain greater reductions from the street the state than the reductions and projects can choose, depending on which side of reductions are most advantageous for the project. So this slide just tries to explain the differences between the two parking scenarios, the two the state versus the proposed enhanced density bonus. In this example that we use from previously, if this were in the base area, essentially 36 units are allowed by the zoning. If the density bonus is 60% and 12% of the units are very low income, then this is what the parking requirements would be. So you can see based on the state parking requirements, it would be 82 and with the enhanced the proposed enhanced density bonus, the parking would be 69 parking spaces. But conversely, if there is a project that's proposed in a major transit stop area with these kind of parameters, 44 based units using an 80% density bonus because it is within the half mile of the transit is the state law would give you a point five spaces per unit. So in this example, the state law offers greater reductions 40 spaces compared to the enhanced NC bonus 89 parking spaces. So another important aspect of the ordinance is the no net loss requirement. The no net loss requirements of the enhanced density bonus ordinance ensures that both that there is no loss in total units and that there is a net increase in affordable units. So it requires the projects have to provide to both replace any existing affordable units that might be on the ground. In addition to providing a percentage of affordable units that's required in exchange for the density bonus. Affordability levels of any existing residential unit is determined by rent, by the rent level and the household income. So if either rent or income level meets affordable levels, then the units have to be replaced on a one for one basis. And this helps stabilize the number of naturally occurring affordable units in the city. So it's kind of just to wrap up and talk about some of the administrative provisions of this plan. This proposed ordinance, as mentioned before, this ordinance with sunset has a sunset clause. It would sunset unless re adopted by the city council by October of 2030 or when housing, the affordable housing is not at the arena. The review process for these projects would be site plan. Review projects would be reviewed for design and compliance with objective design and development standards, including the urban design standards and transitional height requirements and projects with request for off menu. As I mentioned, off menu incentives would be reviewed by the Planning Commission. This ordinance, as proposed, also includes a amendment to the impact fee sections of the code to include a impact fee waiver for affordable units for moderate income units. It already allows for fee waivers for lower income units, and this would extend that to moderate income units. Public outreach on this ordinance, on this proposed ordinance was conducted in conjunction with the housing element, and there were a number of outreach meetings, focus groups, Virtual Open House has been available on the website. The staff did receive a number of different comments on the housing issues in general and the enhanced density bonus ordinance. And specifically, they were definitely interested in strategies to increase housing production and to increase affordable production of affordable units. But there was also concern expressed about parking, about the quality of the housing, about impacts to infrastructure and those kinds of things. A negative declaration was prepared as the environmental clearance for this ordinance was fully posted and noticed in accordance with figure that the California State Environmental Quality Laws, the EDB, does aim to help the city achieve the six cycle RINA allocation and that the ordinance is expected to just help achieve that and not to exceed the the number of units that was anticipated and planned for in the in the land use element. And individual projects ultimately do have to have their own environmental review. So with that, that concludes South presentation. And these are the recommendations essentially to adopt a number of ordinances that would amend the code to establish the enhanced density group bonus program to update site plan review findings accordingly and to update the. See sections of the code to extend the fee waiver to moderate income minutes and a resolution to submit the ordinance to the Coastal Commission in conformance with the Certified Local Coastal Program. That concludes that recommendation. We're happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you. So I had an opportunity to talk with you about this presentation a bit. And I understand how this this density bonus program will complement the inclusionary housing ordinance. And when we adopted it, I remember we created two zone one in an area that already had a downtown midtown plan that has enhanced density bonus , is already a part of that process. And then a second area that would allow inclusionary housing, which we supported on this council. If there were incentives, if there was a set of incentives equal to or connected to the ability to provide additional unit. And you also told us, hey, we're going to create some of those incentives since the city doesn't have a dedicated source of local revenue to produce affordable housing. All of that makes sense to me bringing this forward. A couple a couple questions for me. I think one. The obvious question is if you build more units in an area with less parking standards, what do we do about parking? And I understand that there's sort of three piers. There's your rail area, there's your high quality transit area. It's not real close enough. There's there's busses and other things and then there's your base area. So that's tier that makes sense to me. I also know and understand that as a part of our Climate Action Adaptation Plan, we're talking about parking strategies to address that. Now, here's what I'm curious about. We're going to need to create some sort of parking management program or policy or ordinance to complement any new buildings that take advantage of the density bonus. And even if people don't do that, I think we need to do that anyway because there's many other state laws and other things that ultimately reduce parking. We need to be thinking about parking management or transport transit, transportation management. What do we have in the works? And is there a way to tie those two together, tie these three things together? The Density Bonus Program with the greenery, housing, your climate action adaptation plan and a parking transit management ordinance. My first question. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson. So we the city is the department is working, as you know, on updating the zoning code as a part of the implementing the land use element and creating new zones that help to implement the newly adopted plan. Part of the code amendments that are anticipated is updates to an existing transportation demand ordinance. So the city has in the zoning code a transportation demand management ordinance currently. That ordinance, the CAP Plan, the Climate Action Adaptation Plan, actually calls out as one of its actions action 87 to update that ordinance. That ordinance applies right now generally to just commercial projects, and that has traditionally been how transportation demand ordinances have been applied. And there's an opportunity to look at extending some of those strategies that are used to housing projects. So things like, you know, transit passes, having spaces on site for car share projects that are designed in such a way that they improve the pedestrian environment, they contribute to greater walkability, greater visibility through their design. Those are all different strategies that can be used to make sure that projects manage their transportation demands. Okay. And and the idea, in my opinion, would be if we're building new development and they're taking advantage of these standard, if we want folks to be able to take advantage of transit or incentivize through passes and things like that, we also need to have an expectation that the people who live there in this new building will want to ride a bike or walk. So we need to make sure that the things that they need, that daily need, should be in a walk or bike distance from their home. So we need to evaluate if we are placing higher density in these communities where their relationship to their grocery store or their market. What's the connection of bike share? And we make sure that our bikeshare programs, if we're adding them to these areas, that the infrastructure that we put in those areas intersects with where we're preparing for growth. I think another thing that we have to think about is and I've raised this before and I want to more formally ask you to look into this. We have three agencies setting policy on transportation. The city of Long Beach on your micromobility and your last mile. So Long Beach transit on the busses and metro on the train. Three policy bodies all setting policy. Three different policy decisions to affect one outcome. And I personally believe that there needs to be an alignment one body, one decision making body in Long Beach that talks about transportation, access and equity, particularly as we're making this major shift as it relates to parking standards. And so can we, as a part of moving forward, look into those two things that updating the transportation management program that was a part of the CAP implementation. We need to make it a part of this implementation and to exploring what a model would look like to create one agency or an agency but one alliance to discuss these issues across those three agencies. That's something we can do. We have the capacity, the bandwidth to do those things. I just wanted to point out that certainly that helps align with CAP implementation as well. So the CAP calls for much stronger collaboration between the city, along with transit and Metro, recognizing the criticality of improving not only access to but information about and sort of door to door service related to public transit. So whether it's our bus stop improvements, the timing and frequency of service as well as the end user experience, we hear a lot about that as we do planning outreach. For example, with that plan, we heard a lot about that as well as during the cap development process. And so I think this is a great opportunity to align those things because we know to help encourage the system change, we will need all of the players working together more. Thank you. Next, we have Councilwoman Toro and Vice Mayor. I also might add that we have a plan review process already built into the process that will allow us to look at each unique development and project and its location to be able to develop additional conditions to suit that project and the needs of the of those residents . I think that's I think the great I think what I'm looking for, though, is like these ordinances are something like they're citywide. Right. And I think those relationships between these different policies need to be thought of from a system standpoint as well. So from a system standpoint, how we engage with our transit agencies and we are now with Transportation Agency, since we're doing bike, we have to get down differently. And I think now is the time to make make sure we do that. So that's something I would like to see happen tomorrow. With Vice Mayor. I think the staff for the presentation on enhanced density bonus ordinance, you know, I have a district that that definitely has a lot has really I think met its fair share of development in how in building affordable housing and appreciate exploring ways in where we could offer this in other areas so that, you know , we're ensuring that we're meeting our housing needs. And so I agree with Vice Mayor Richardson around transportation concern. I do not have a metro line, also known as the blue line that runs through my district. That's an opportunity as well for further growth, which I look forward to exploring, to see how we can ensure that we take advantage of at least that transportation corridor. So what I support, I think, you know, offering that this enhanced density bonus ordinance and so that's why I wanted to share. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Forgive me, Councilman. Your anger. No disrespect to Councilmember Price, you know. Please excuse my frustration with this. Very nice, very colorful. Oh, probably. Okay. So when you have this chart here with all these nice colored bars inside. Meaningless to me in regards to being able to interpret. What this is saying and how it impacts my area specifically. And well, I mean, it's not a requirement to be able to counsel. I think that there should be cognizant of the fact that you have a council member. Who is sensitive to that, to this. So I would appreciate it in the future if you can provide that kind of information in in a more. In a better way for me to be able to be able to understand it. So I would appreciate that that that is the that is me. What I think is important for you to know. I come from a very strong partnership, even different. We do have a version of the map that just shows in sort of one color the areas that are eligible based on place type. And I can make sure to get that map to you. I appreciate that very much. Not to be able to by discussion is that, you know, I certainly appreciate the effort both there from from the city to create this enhanced density bonus. But there's a conflict there because you're also saying that the state density bottleneck is not working. So how does this address that? Council Member Your other sources even differ so that that is precisely the reason for this proposed ordinance because the state density bonus has been in place for quite some time and we haven't seen the results. We haven't seen it produce the amount of housing and that that one would expect with a density bonus ordinance. And that's because of what we talked about in that one slide about its terms. This is a proposal that's tailored to local conditions. It takes into account the local sort of market forces, the land costs locally and the need, you know, the amount of bonuses in terms of extra density and other concessions that projects actually need to be financially feasible. And so this is why we believe that this particular set of regulations is going to be able to finally help generate the housing that density this was intended to generate. The other count. Vice Mayor Richardson touched upon it in terms of like development that has. Close proximity to. Important businesses like grocery stores and retail stores or shopping areas. I know in my area I have a major corridor, Santa Fe, that goes from 10th Street all the way to downtown Los Angeles. And in that short period, that short stretch between TAB and Warrego, I have commercial residential areas and that's a corridor that nobody's going through and all that. So I think it would, I can't tell from this if it's included in there because I can't see it anyway. One of the things that I did a couple of months ago was that there was a development that was being proposed. I will. That would have helped. I would have met this, but at the same time did not provide any neighborhood serving services. And that's my concern is that. If we're doing these offering these bonuses to these developers. And there is no neighborhood serving serving element to it. I think it just basically. Doesn't provide any any benefit to the city because all it is. It may help us. We are reliant on it, but it certainly doesn't help the the individuals who end up living in those houses because they're still going to have to get in a car or get in a bus or get in a bicycle and ride two or three miles somewhere to go to a bank or to get their groceries. So I don't see the benefit of that in that respect and not that I'm opposing. With taking place here. I just want to put that in your radar that a lot of these developments. Art while they may not be addressing parking. They're also not addressing neighborhoods or serving elements to the neighborhood as well. So I bring that out as a concern because I certainly have one in my in my area that brought up two months ago. And I think that also needs to be addressed that you. Be around a capital city center for just want to point out that this ordinance we're aware of your concerns for your corridors Willow and Santa Fe in particular. And of course, the council adopted a moratorium to give the Planning Bureau and the Development Services Department time to develop new zones in any future. When we are developing, apply those new zones. If there's a requirement for a mandatory minimum amount of commercial space, this density bonus would not change that. This bonus density bonus ordinance could work in concert with that to actually encourage redevelopment that would then be in the form of mixed use and would bring the desired neighborhood services to the Bay Area. Right now there's just a lack of investment generally. There hasn't been new development in terms of either commercial or very much in the way of residential. And this may just provide the incentive that would entice a developer to build pardon me, develop a mixed use project and bring the commercial and the have the added benefit of bringing more residential units as well. I can use a keyword there. Mixed use. That's very important. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. So a couple of questions. I do have some concerns about this item, and I appreciate the presentation staff have provided and the briefing that you gave us in advance. But as proposed, I can't support this item, so I am going to share some of my concerns and ask for some amendment and hopefully those amendments are accepted. But if they're not, I'll propose them as a substitute. I think we can all agree that as a state we're in a housing crisis and we as a city need to do more to see more housing. I know that I'll speak for myself personally, that we were able to, in our plan, provide a capacity for over 2000 units just in the third District. And so I'm very proud of the collaborative process that we undertook with our residents to get there. But I want to mention that the land use element, I feel like we just passed that a couple of years ago and we have a lot of height limits on development included in the land use element. And now we're talking about a discussion of adding additional height and density. It feels to me a little bit surprising since the land use element was supposed to get us that additional housing we needed through the next couple of decades. And when we invited residents to community meetings and we had those very heated discussions with residents, we shared with them that if they worked with us and they walked along side this process with us, we were going to develop the capacity that we needed to comply with our state mandate. And so I can understand how residents would feel unhappy or confused about this process and specifically this proposal. I can speak for the third district in particular. We had numerous community meetings and years, six years specifically of discussion on CCF before it was finally approved after years of plans. And then we had the value added involved, a lot of community involvement and we passed it after all of those efforts. And now to have heights just allowed to be increased without community involvement feels a little bit like a bait and switch for the residents. So I guess as a clarifying question, I just for the public, because I know the answer to this with this policy allow for buildings to be higher than what was approved by this council and both the elderly and the. Councilmember Patricia Defender heard this. This audience would potentially allow projects to exceed the height limits that were identified in the U.S. and insist within the limits that were described. And that would happen without public input. We wouldn't have to go through an approval process. So, again, you know, state law does already allow a number of these incentives. The the process that I identified through the density bonus ordinance would involve site plan, review and projects. Right now, projects that are 50 units or more do have a site plan review by the Planning Commission. So those projects would involve a public hearing and sort of airing in a public setting, as would projects that, as we mentioned in the presentation, projects that would be taking advantage of any off menu bonuses. So those projects would go to planning commission, would have a public hearing. Projects under 50 units or projects that are 100% affordable. Currently, they are reviewed and approved by the Site Plan Review Committee. Okay. And I understand the state density bonus. My concern is that we're going beyond that into specific areas that are of concern to me and I've heightened parking. Parking is also a major issue for residents all across the city. And it doesn't matter if they're close to a transit corridor or not, because at this stage, parking is important to the community and individual residents. And we continue to see, despite our mobility efforts, park parking always being a topic of conflict and frustration between residents and nearby businesses. So it's really concerning to me that we could see a density increase with no accommodation for parking needs in the community. So I have a number of amendments. I don't know if I can do them in 44 seconds. So, Mr. Vice Mayor, can I put the amendments on the record now, or would you like me to to back up? I think you should put them on now, and I think you should as foreman and substitute motion. Mine is just going to be a staff recommendation. Okay. So I'm going to make a substitute motion. Then the substitute motion would be to take the staff recommendation. And make some modifications to concessions for height increases and parking as currently proposed. The proposed density bonus would allow up to two additional stories of height in the base area and up to three additional stories in the high quality transit corridor areas as on menu concessions. I'd like to propose that this be modified for the base and high quality transit corridor areas. Since I understand that allowances for the major transit stop areas can't be modified under state law, no. For the base tier area I am proposing we reduce height concessions so that only one story of additional height could still be allowed as an on menu concession. But under my proposed modification here, a second story would become an off menu concession that would then be required to go through a public review process, go before the Planning Commission and the project would be required to prove the additional height is a physical necessity for the project. This additional layer of public review would give the public greater opportunity to have a say, and the need to prove the additional height is a physical necessity. Sets a higher bar of only allowing the height if it's the only way a project could work. I understand that off menu concessions also count double. So extra height would then be counted as to concession. Similarly, for the high quality transit corridor area I am proposing we reduce height concessions so that only one story of additional height be allowed as an on menu concession. But a second and or third story would become an off menu concession subject to the same additional requirements. I just described that it must undergo a public review process before the Planning Commission and prove it's a physical necessity. As to parking amendments, my substitute will include the staff recommendation with the following accommodation or change to bump up the parking ratios for 0 to 1 bedroom to be one space per unit instead of the 0.75 spaces per unit, and which is the same as the state density bonus law. I'm also proposing to bump up the parking ratio for two bedroom units to require them to provide 1.25 spaces per unit. I know the city has a dire shortage of larger units for families who may need four or more bedrooms. So I'm comfortable providing a small amount of relief for larger units, which are in the greatest need in Long Beach, particularly for families. So I'm proposing the parking ratio be two spaces per unit for four plus bedroom, since this compromise would increase some of our parking ratios and make them the same as the state density bonus law . The other modifications I'm proposing is to clarify that these revised parking ratios would be inclusive of guest parking, whereas the staff's recommendation listed parking separately. So again, this amendment would no longer call out guest parking as a separate requirement. Otherwise, as I understand it, we wouldn't be able to bump up the 0 to 1 bedroom ratios because legally we can't be more restrictive than state law. Do those amendments make sense to staff? Yes, they do. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So I will make a substitute motion. Thank you, gentlemen. Doctor. I would love to see that substituted in writing, and my comments would be very short. I think my my colleagues have really made some great comments. I do appreciate all of the work that our development services team has put into the document and have a density bonus ordinance. And I think it underscores. The importance of planning on the local government level. Right. I don't know how much time and effort that went into creating these documents and plan. I do want to know about the community engagement. Can you can you speak to what the type of community engagement went into this? Yes. Councilmember Austin, thank you. It's a different approach. So as I described in the slide, in one of the slides in the presentation, we did do the outreach staff did outreach for this project kind of concurrent with the Housing Element Update, which is being, as you know, updated right now. We had a number of workshops starting in August of last year, kind of during the height of the pandemic. We did virtual workshops. We had a Spanish speaking exclusively Spanish speaking workshop. We had focus groups with affordable housing advocates, the developers, both market rate and nonprofit business community to understand what are the the needs around housing and what are from a development standpoint, what is needed to make housing production more feasible? We had meetings earlier this summer. We had a workshop about the housing element. Update In each of these meetings, we talked about the different implementation strategies and ordinances. As you know, Council has been acting on a number of different housing ordinances that are all part of a multipronged strategy to try to increase housing in the city and different types of housing. So that is in summary. And there's also been virtual the virtual open house that has been available to people. We've invited people to share their housing stories by video or voice message, and we're collecting all of those things. But that's been the way in which we've engaged the public on this ordinance. Thank you. And my my colleague, I'm also the councilmember Price mentioned the land use element and the process that went into that and that this enhanced density bonus ordinance would layer on top of the land settlement. Councilmember It does follow that. Mandy Solomon 27, is the blueprint. And also I think it's important to mention I may not have covered it in the presentation, but the reason why this is also a temporary measure is that there's the city, it's going to take the city some time to develop the new zones and resound consistent with that. And so this also offers a stopgap measure in this interim time while we're still developing and rezoning properties consistent with how you need to be able to take advantage of some of these density and height bonuses. But it does it can also layer on top of the value. Yes. And this particular ordinance, time sensitive. It is. Also. You mean the adoption of it is a time sensitive? Well, it is one of the ordinances that we have to demonstrate to the state that we have instituted policies and programs to achieve our RINA in this upcoming cycle, which is four times greater than the arena was in the past cycle. And there are going to be in the future penalties to cities for not being able to achieve, you know, meet its targets. And so this is viewed as one of the many different strategies as part of the housing element in implementing the housing element. And I think we mentioned this before, even during a housing element discussion. We have the plan. We have the plans on paper and an ordinance for a landing zone in possibly to add to it and have this important ordinance than necessarily mean that we are going to actually achieve those goals. It's certainly going to help us get closer to achieving those housing goals because it's informed by, as I mentioned, the market studies that show all the ways in which projects really need to achieve reduction cost cost savings in order to be feasible. So it is tailored to your point about, you know, some of the state legislation. This is tailored to the local context and is informed by what is needed in the city. Thank you. I'll make you up later. Council member. Suvarna Thank you and thank you for tonight's presentation to staff and thank you for the briefing. Two weeks ago. That was very helpful. Just have a couple of points that others have brought up to me or I forgot to ask during our briefing. But I just wanted to follow up on the statements about public outreach. Not all the staff was at the Whaley Park viewing meeting. I know Oscar Worthy was there. And Linda Tatum, it was like the Rose Bowl. It was the granddaddy of them all. I didn't attend all of them, but I've never seen anything like it before or since. So to say there's public interest in this topic is an understatement. And so I really take seriously the ah comment to my colleagues about the need for public outreach. Also on the transit question and this, residents have asked me and asked to speak to my district because we have a unique situation. We have Cal State, Long Beach on the east side of the district and the west side of the district is 90804 the most densely populated zip code in the city. Long Beach Transit is in the fourth District, their headquarters on Anaheim and Gardena. But on the east side of the district, we have it's just the volatile nature of what is provided. So we have a Cal State, Long Beach shuttle bus service, which is on again, off again at times. It's gone all the way to Anaheim and Termina to pick up students. That system's gone now. Then there's a hybrid system where students are offered free bus passes on La Brea Transit that's taken place in the past, no longer around. So my question is, if Long Beach Transit is a separate entity, Cal State Law, which is a separate entity, how in the world do we possibly lock in this public transportation element if we're going to build housing that is dependent on that? Maybe that's rhetorical. Or if you have an answer, great. I love to hear it. Well as it pertains to this ordinance. Council member, super or not, the State has defined what constitutes a high transit priority area or a major transit. Stop that map with the. If the if we can bring the presentation up, I could back up. I can show it again. But the map that shows the green and and the circle. So that's largely defined by state law already in those areas already meet the threshold. I think maybe I maybe I'm not posing the question correctly. So that enables you to get the let's say, the bonus and then say that goes away. We may have gotten the bonus and whatnot, but now we we have a problem now to get people from point A to point B because the service has gone away. So that that's my point. Maybe I'll just leave it at that. And I think that well, I guess I'll just say I'm prepared to support the substitute motion on the floor and and just also want to say that the the need for public outreach on this is is very strong. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. And they are. Thank you. They smear. As you all know, I'm all for affordable housing or any housing. And we are in a crisis. And so producing housing is definitely very important to me. I know that, you know, I can appreciate the intent of this item and all the hard work that has been put into it. I think that being able to produce more housing is essential in our in our city. But I also in hearing a lot of my residents right now with the existing construction that's been going on with, you know, this last year and beyond. And parking seems to consistently be an issue. It is consistently something that my residents struggle with. So I you know, that's that's something that that's very important. And when it comes to density, I know that what we're trying to do is make sure that we can attract those those developers that can that do have the ability and can produce housing with affordable housing inside of them. And I do appreciate that. But I think that we definitely need to look at the parking situation as we go forward. Thank you. Thank you. Couple. Couple. Mungo. Thank you. I appreciate the meetings and support and data that has been provided by our team. Excellent work. I also understand that certain parts of the cities have really produced a lot of the housing numbers. And I guess. If they keep changing the goal line, it's not really fair to cities. I mean, if the real number is now four times what it was before, it's going to be really difficult for us to meet that. But there are dozens of cities throughout the state and Southern California region specifically, which have made almost no effort to support any of it. So we're doing our part and we're going above and beyond even further. So I'll support the substitute motion on the floor. And I guess I would just say that. When I said on calls, I said on a call last week with a bunch of developers and real estate people, and the discussion was really about the amount of housing that's going into construction in 2022. And there are several other barriers besides policies. There's workforce barriers, there's resource barriers in terms of even lumber finally come back down a bit. But the cost of steel and lots of other things, it can't only be burdened on the backs of the communities to make up the difference. Inflation is not helping. And we'd love to help, but we need to see a collaborative, regional approach. And I think the moderate changes that Councilman Price has proposed are fair, equitable. And I will reiterate the same of Councilmember Sabrina. Community input on each and every one of these is critical because the transit lines constantly change and they're not coordinated. And until there's a method and a pathway forward that gives every resident the ability to go to and from their resident to a home or educational facility and transition into a job. And quite frankly. Remember Richardson and I've talked about this, the restructuring of the tax structure in the state of California to incentivize cities for us to really bring the jobs to the people. I mean, there's just so many factors that really need to be coming together. So great work. And lots of work needs to be done by others outside of our city borders, and we need to work together on how to apply that pressure. Thank you. Thank you. And I, I like a lot of what I heard from the entire tonight in terms of I mean, just to put it in perspective. We have zoned for 26,000 units and our arena requirement is 26,000 units. But the arena requirement, you get 20 years. I mean, you get nine years to implement in our land use element, you get 20. So it's the arena standard is, you know, it cuts it in half. And the reality is we're going to have to have some enhancement, but we're also doing a lot more than a lot of cities are doing. And we all hear those concerns about parking management. And so and so what I'm going to do is combine, you know, I added some some things at the beginning around report back on the transportation parking management aligning it with this as a part of the implementation of this. Exploring the alignment between our three transportation agencies in a city more frankly, without the feasibility of that grab. Councilwoman prices amendments, which I think are in alignment with the parking concerns, make a lot of sense into one motion that we can all support. So that's going to be my substitute substitute motion, combine it all and send it back to staff. So I'm happy to make that motion. Could that have been a friendly. It all could have been the family on the main motion. But I actually like this process, right? I like this part. It was clean. You were able to get out what you wanted to say. We had to hold. All right. I think we arrived at a good place. Thank you. A very public comment on the photo. There's no public comment. Members, please. Mr. Vice Mayor, we need to make sure that we have separate votes on each of the two ordinances before you and a third vote on the adoption of the resolution. Okay, let's hear all three vote. Which is scary. Thank you. The next. Whenever they're happy when we're voting, we've done we've done the right thing. Councilman Mongo. The motion is carried.