Recommendation to request City Manager to direct the Department of Development Services to review existing planning and zoning law and to provide recommendations for, by ordinance, the creation and/or allowance of accessory dwelling units in single-family and multifamily residential zones.
Thank you. Okay. We're moving on to the agenda. We have a hearing on the agenda. I'm going to go in here. Councilmember Mungo's item, I think for some people that wanted to speak on item 24 and court. Item 24. Communication from Councilman, Councilwoman, Mango and Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request City Manager to direct the Department of Development Services to review existing planning and zoning law and to provide recommendations for by ordinance the creation and or allowance of accessory dwelling units in single family and multi-family resident residential zones. Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. Today we heard a lot about affordable housing and the need for more inventory. I think this is a step in the right direction. I think we need to be creative with this. I know that some of the granny flats that are within our city are micro units and others have different types of opportunities for people to come in at a rate that is affordable for a different lifestyle. And I hope that we can put together a process that's streamlined and easy so that these can be safe, affordable places for people to live. I appreciate Linda Tatum's work in supporting the information that was necessary to get this item on the agenda tonight. So thank you, Development Services and Linda, specifically. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And thank you all, Councilmember Mongo, for bringing this forward. I watched this legislation in Sacramento pretty closely and carefully over the last year. And when it was signed into law, I thought myself, well, perhaps we'll build one ourselves at our at our home. I mean, there are a number of neighborhoods and space in our city where this would, I think, be a good fit and would help us deal with our affordable housing crisis here in the city. And I'm very, very confident that our Development Services Department will give us some sound guidance on on how to make this. The secondary units, granny flats, top quality and in the way, in the spirit of of our city, the way it needs to be. So I'm happy to sign on and look forward to getting a report back from my staff. Councilman Price. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. I think this is an excellent item for us to at least consider and talk about. I do know that we have, in addition to talking about the affordable housing issues and concerns and goals that we have as a city, the the situation of senior housing and aging parent housing, you know, the traditional granny flat type scenario is one that is becoming more and more relevant for people in my demographic as our parents begin to age and want to maintain their independence, but being near family. So I think this is a really great consideration for us to have as a council. The one thing that I would hope the item would include is the issue of density and what areas this would be appropriate for. Because my biggest concern is we have some in some areas that we have parking impacts and we also have a some infrastructure and resource limitations. And certainly we don't want to continue building in those areas. And so if we could have the report back includes some possible areas where consideration could be given to modifying our current ordinances. I think that would be a really great, informative and meaningful report. So thank you for bringing this item forward and I think it's an excellent one to learn more about. Thank you, Councilwoman Pierce. Thank you. And thank you guys for bringing this item forward as well. I have the same concern that my colleagues Price has, which is looking at parking requirements or any mobility requirements. I mean, and Alamitos Beach. My street has multiple of the back houses. And so just including that in but I think it's a great opportunity to talk about affordability and increasing our housing stock. So thank you guys for bringing it forward. Thank you. Councilwoman Mongo. I misspoke. Do you want to mention anything regarding the parking requirements in the state ordinance or the state law and how it was passed? Perhaps I could shine a little bit light on the requirements. You know, I actually do not have the requirements with me right now, but we can report back on that. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I'll just add, I think it's important that we do explore this seems like pretty good stuff. As long as you like grandma, it might not be a good thing if if you know Grandma step grandma, you might not like too much, but in theory, in theory supportive here. Is there any public comment on this item? Race to the podium. I go home? Actually, I wanted to stay for this one because this is very important to me. I brought with me today the article in From Hawaii. I keep a house in Honolulu as well as a house here. Life is good. You can join it. Guest bedrooms available. We call them ohana units in Honolulu. Ohana means family, but we extend the idea of family to being besides mother and father. Because we do something called hanai. We can adopt people outside of our own family and they become actual parts of our family. So in a way, Long Beach is our hanai. You know, we have a huge family here. We used to have zoning for this, but we restricted it quite some time ago. I've been in the city since 1984, so I remember when we did that there was a movement in Belmont Heights that they wanted to down zone. So they changed the zoning from our two end to our one N so that the only one house on a lot and it was supposed to preserve the quality of the neighborhood and it was justifiable. Absolutely. However, there are areas of the of the city where traditionally we've had ohana units, Rose Park for one. A lot of ohana units and or Granny Flats, as you want to call them, throughout the city. But at this at this point, we're not allowed to develop them at all. There are some statue requirements in this thing here that I think that maybe you should take a look at, for instance, the size of the lot requirement . They say that you must have 3500 square feet or more in order to buy because we have five foot setback requirements in the zoning code. Makes sense to me. Also, they're talking about how big it can be. So in Honolulu they limit it to 800 square feet. So at least this is something where we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Let's take a look at what Honolulu did, because it's a really important issue for them, because if you think housing is expensive here, go to Hawaii. There is no more land to get. You know, that that's unless you're going to the big island. And I wouldn't recommend that area where we're getting more land. But the Ohana Unit thing, if we could loosen our zoning and this is about really making an analysis of what sections of the city this would be more appropriate for . Like it maybe it's not appropriate for Belmont Heights. But on the other hand, it might be an incredible first of all, property tax increase and value increase for the sixth District or the seventh District. And I think we can all get on the same page with this working together. So I applaud you all for bringing this forward, and I will give this to the city clerk if you want. I'll review this or come to Honolulu and see me. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Okay. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening, honorable vice mayor and council members and those of you out in TV. I want to commend the council. This is a great idea. It's low hanging fruit. And Nancy Ah, my mentor, before she passed away, a story that she told me she used to love to say. Did you know that in World War Two, the City of Long Beach issued a call to action to its residents to help house American servicemen? So the residents of Long Beach were building things to house people, you know, garages, attics, things were built. And and this was a patriotic act. This was part of the war effort to help our country. And and so they were rewarded. We got some housing for the servicemen. And then in the intervening years, that notion was lost. And these things fell through the cracks and they became illegal bootleg units. And I think that if we could find a way Nancy was very fond of saying we if we could just do a permit holiday and allow these units to be made legal, and they would bring in more revenue, they would bring in more taxes, everybody would benefit. And it would be a very low hanging fruit way to get more affordable housing for the city. So I just want to thank you again for bringing this up and have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Elaine Hutchison, and I'm going to continue the trend here very much. Honorable vice mayor this evening and members of the city council. I am here to say thanks to Stacie Mongeau and to Lena Gonzalez and Councilman Nelson for signing on and putting this measure forward. It is a very important measure because it is one of the things that can be done quickly to make legal and to give permits for the housing that's already here so that people can legally rent those houses and make it available. We have a need for more affordable housing in Long Beach. This would free up some nice housing that's already here and allows for more to come to pass. So thank you very much. We urge your support. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Yes, thank you very much. I just wanted to address some of the points that were made. And like I said, I followed the legislation in Sacramento. There was quite a bit of debate over over this particular legislation from many of the cities because they were concerned about losing local control. This is state law now. And so we have to comply with the law. I think what we are asking our development services department to do is to help us, you know, make sense of this for us as a city here in Long Beach. And like I said, I have full confidence that they'll do a great job and bring us back some guidelines and our residents guidelines to move forward with with honoring this law. So I look forward to supporting it. Thank you, Councilmember Young. Yeah, I just came out right now because I. I've never read this law. I have no idea. No clue what it is. Can somebody clarify it for me? Or if nothing else, I request that when you come back with asylum to please explain first what it is that we want to study. You mean state law? Councilmember Mongo, you want to chime in? Certainly, sir. We are preparing a memo that describes what occurred. But there is a state law that was passed and is effective January 1st, 2017, which does require cities to allow accessory dwelling units. As of right, there are certain limitations and we're exploring what those limitations are. But they are as of right. And we are trying to determine what sort. Of. Development standards, if any, can be put. On those. Accessory dwelling units. Well, thank you for enlightening me and excuse my unawareness of. Thank you. So no further public comment. Members, please cast your vote. Councilman Pearce. Motion carries.