Introduction of Ordinance Amending Alameda Municipal Code Chapter 30 (Development Regulations) to Modify Accessory Dwelling Unit Regulations to Implement and Comply with State Law and Make Other Administrative, Technical, and Clarifying Amendments pertaining to Appeals and Youth Centers Definition, as Recommended by the Planning Board. (Planning, Building and Transportation 481005)
and clarifying amendments pertaining to appeals and youth center definition as recommended by the Planning Board. Thank you. And who is that? You, Mr. De? This is L.A.. Hi. Hi. Yes, I can hear you and see you. Good evening. Great. Nice to see you all. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor and members of the City Council. This is Valentine City Planner with. The Planning. Building and Transportation Department. So this is an ordinance to amend Chapter 30 of the municipal code, otherwise known as the zoning ordinance, specifically the amendments pertaining to accessory dwelling units or more commonly known by its acronym. And the purpose of the amendments is to bring Alameda and new regulations into compliance with the new state laws. Eddie is referring to backyard cottages for those who aren't familiar and granted units or second units that California law allows by rights when associated with a primary show unit. These units are accessory to the main house, and state law prohibits cities from applying any sort of density rules to use or otherwise try to limit the number of abuse in their city. In 2019, the state. Passed a number of new laws that standardize many requirements for any use in California. These laws are in effect as of January 1st of 2020. The new requirements mainly pertain to zoning standards such as height limit, minimum unit size, building setbacks. The laws also allow 80 use now on multifamily lots, as well as making way for greener, more efficient use. Overall staff. Definitely the changes in the law make it easier and more economical for Alameda residents to build, and new staff has already begun implementing the new requirements as mandated under state law. The Planning Board held a public hearing on February 10th and recalled City Council approved the ordinance. The ordinance also includes two very minor cleanup. Amendments related to appeals in. The definition of use centers. These cleanup amendments are administrative in nature, as described in the staff report, so I won't go into detail unless the council has specific questions tonight. Staff is recommending that you approve this ordinance, but with a slight modification, which is to omit. A. New provision identified as subsection J on page ten of the ordinance published on the agenda tonight. And just for me to explain, this provision allows you to be sold separately from the main dwelling by a nonprofit to a low income buyer. This is not a mandate by the state. And on the surface, sounds like a good idea. But after consulting with the city attorney, we believe this matter raises some larger policy questions that warrant further study. So we ask the council to omit subsection K on page ten if there's a motion to approve this ordinance tonight. That was my staff report, and I am here for question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tiny. And then, quick. Do we have any speakers on this one? We do not have any public comment on this one. Public comment. And so any clarifying questions of Mr. Ty, Mr. Otis. Councilmember Odie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just briefly. I mean, do we I remember when we first tweeted a couple of years back, there was a fear that there'd be a mad rush of ideas. If you know, can you tell us how many we've had in the last couple of years? If not, it's fine. Right. We actually do have we have been tracking very closely. We since 2017, which is the last update to the ordinance, we have seen 30 to 80 use construct in Alameda. So meaning the definition of pass inspections, about half of those are really in basements that are basement conversion, very hidden and the remaining half are backyard cottages, conversion of existing garages. And the average size has really been under 600 square feet. I think comedians are taking advantage of opportunities to create units for extended family or rental opportunities with the least cost. Thanks. 32 total, not 32 per year, right? 32 total since 2017. And the city has approved 120 applications to date. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was all your question. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Let me know when you're done. Okay. Any other clarifying questions? Council. Okay. Well, then council comments. I I'm going to actually lead with comments because this is a topic near and dear to my heart. This year I am the co-chair of the League of California Cities Statewide Policy Committee on Housing, Community and Economic Development. My colleague, Councilmember Vella, sits on the committee and we have worked very hard over these last couple of years to promote more building, especially of housing that is affordable, whether designated affordable or affordable by design because of its smaller size, and also to work to remove some of the roadblocks that were in place in some cities that made it difficult to do something that shouldn't be so terribly complicated. And so what I can say is that the housing crisis in our state is not going away, not because of the COVID 19 pandemic or any other reason. And in fact, it has really highlighted for those of us elected officials who are being given mandates by our governor and by our county public health officers to go into encampments and get people out of them, because it's just a place where the virus can grow and flourish. And we're scrambling to find hotel rooms. The governor's working with Motel six in the South Bay to do that. And at the end of the day, we need more housing. People should not live unsheltered. They should not be sleeping under our overpasses or in the bushes. And I mean, it's a complicated a complicated topic, but we need to to pick the low hanging fruit. And ideas are certainly one of them. And I also want to just note that until last year, I was a member of the Casa Compact CASA Combat Practice, a suite of very aggressive housing protection bills. And so I was one of the committee that oversaw the recommendations to the legislature. And I want to say it was maybe a planner from San Mateo County had brought to us a really nice booklet like a how to that San Mateo County does either San Mateo County or the city of San Mateo. I think it's the county. But anyway, so if you came to the counter and said, hey, I think and I want to do an ad for you in my back yard, you would get this or that. You can probably download it from the website and it's it's a how to and it makes it simple and easy. Do we have anything similar to that or anything in the works? Mr. Tanner. Mr. Thomas, whoever wants to answer. By the way, I'll just note for the record, when I'm writing my notes and I'm identifying who spoke. I just put your initials. But when I've got Alan Tie and Andrew Thomas, I'm going to have to write someone's name out. But it's okay. Which of my eighties would like to go this year? Yes, thank you. That helps. I will go to that one. Mm, yes. I think one of our next steps is really to focus on developing collateral material and doing some outreach. So, you know, some of the ideas that we've had might even include working with the building department and building inspectors to do maybe a community workshop or something that would be very informative, that would let residents understand the entire process from the initial application to some to think about the construction. So we've seen other cities successfully do that, and that's something that we would certainly love to model. Oh, that sounds great to me. Did you want to add anything, Mr. Thomas? Yeah, this is good. Okay. Yeah. Great idea. I'm all for that. Okay. That's all for me. Who else wants to speak or make a motion or what have you? As I said earlier. That's right. And then you. Councilmember de. Sure. I'd love to move approval of this. I will say really quickly that I did listen to the planning board discussion on this, as is very frequently the case. They had a fantastic discussion about it as some really good, tough, clarifying questions, and I think it was very well vetted. I really appreciate. And it's always a testament to the work of Mr. Ty on this issue, how well this comes forward. I really am very grateful at that. So I'm very happy to. Tim, if approval. All right. Well, thank you for the comments. And we've got a motion and we have a second councilmember. Dave, thank you. Had your hand out. Yes, thank you. Just quickly, I appreciate the modification that had been raised with regard to I think it was item J of the item. But for me, the larger concern is still there. And I think you you all your staff especially know where I'll be coming from. This is a larger concern about Measure a Chapter 26 of our city charter Part three. I'm I'm not sure how the ACTU really is aligned with with our city charter chapters 26 item three. It might be and might not be, I don't know. I mean, maybe it is state law, as some might say, you know, trumps everything. But so for tonight, I, you know, I'll need just to look at this a little bit further. So tonight I'll just I'll just abstain on this and then I'll come to a decision next time we have the ordinance. Thank you, Mr. David. So I don't want to leave the audience with any mis interpretations or misimpressions. So if someone want to step in and talk about it can be one of the lawyers or Mr. Thomas, you'd be in a good position to sit here. Yeah, let me just just for the audience and giving this and we certainly respect member Dave Dog's position and need to think through our interpretation or interpretation of you know, state law. You know we are our ability as a city to pass local rules and regulations and laws is confined by the limits imposed upon us by the state of California. As a member of the state of California, as a city within the state, we we have our laws must comply with state laws. And the state has been, at least from the stats perspective and our interpretation of state law, and this is supported by our communications with the State Department of Housing Human Development, which we, we communicate with them on a regular basis. In fact, they they pointed to our ordinance selling this to too modest. He didn't tell you about that our how the state has requested to use our new ordinance and amendment as a model for other cities. But there are there are conflicts between the city charter and and and new state law around housing and and abuse. Absolutely. I think the voters, you know, state law and the laws around second units that we have today in California are not the same that we had in 1972 when the measure was passed in 1991. It was then further added to in our charter. So it's not the first time we've run into these conflicts with the charter around these these kinds of housing issues. In this case, it's pretty clear to us, with the exception of that section J, which which Alan mentioned, the state law is very clear for all cities that you , the accessory dwelling unit, cannot be considered when considering whether you're violating the the density limit imposed on a particular piece of property. So essentially, under state law, a second unit doesn't count towards the density. And I think that's the provision that Councilmember de Song was referring to the one unit per 2000 square feet of land with density standard in our charter. Under state law, you cannot treat accessory dwelling unit as a as an additional unit. It's accessory to the main unit. I'll just leave it at that. But that's just for the public, just sort of how that plays out. Thank you. And I will also note that the governor, certainly before he became consumed with leading our effort to fight COVID 19 and doing a spectacular job in our in our state, he had had said that housing is his priority. He is very well aware of the crisis, the housing crisis we have in this in this state and has even taken a city or two to court over some of their housing laws. So I want to make that clear, too. And then if I could just go back to the makers of our motion, both Mayor and Council Member Odie, you were making the motion with the request about S.J. Inc, correct? Yes. I'm sorry. I should have been more explicit in my. ED just to make sure. Okay, perfect. And then, Councilmember, do you had your hand up? Well of because I agree with everything you said except for the part where you serve on the committee, because I don't. But everything else I agreed with committee as a you can take a video of that minute because it seems every couple of months you have to repeat yourself on that. And also, I just want to extend my congratulations to Mr. Ty for. I had heard that about the the ordinance being used as a as a model. And that's and we're very proud of you. So congratulations on that. And so right back to you. So anybody else want to comment or should we vote? But. Okay. Let's take a vote then. Councilor Vella, that's not. I think we should vote. Do you think we should vote? I agree. All right. Now I'm quick with your roll call. Vote, please. Councilmember de SAG. Exiting. Next site. Hi. Odie. Hi. Bella. I may as the enthusiastic I that carries by four eyes one abstention. Thank you. So, item six. Thanks, everybody. Staff who was on this one? Item six has been withdrawn and we move to item six e introduction of ordinance authorizing the city manager or designee to execute a 12 month amendment to the lease with Pacific Pinball Museum. 501 C3 Nonprofit organization with the option of for one year extensions for Building 169 Suite 121 located at 1680 Viking Street at Alameda Point. And the thing is that. Mr. Levitt, you're presenting it. Who's presenting. And then that's here and go.