Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Table 31-1 in Chapter 21.31, Table 32-1 in Chapter 21.32, Table 32-1A in Chapter 21.32, Table 33-2 in Chapter 21.33, and Section 21.52,260; and by adding Chapter 8.77, and Section 21.15.3155, all related to implementing the City of Long Beach urban agriculture incentive zone program to promote urban agriculture in exchange for reduced property tax assessments in accordance with California Government Code Sections 51040 et seq., and County of Los Angeles Planning and Zoning Code Sections 22.52.3400 et seq., commonly known as the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone (UAIZ) act, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Very sweet. Yeah, he needs a home, so it's good to get him a home. Thank you so much. Okay. We're going to go on to our agenda. We have hearings today. So where I get to, of course, like we normally do, go to all of our hearings first. So, Madam Clerk, we're the first hearing, please. Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to receive supporting documentation under the record. Conclude the public hearing and declare ordinance. Amending the Long Beach Municipal Code to establish the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone Program. Read for the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading. Adopt a resolution approving the form of the. UHC. Contract and authorize the City Manager or director of Development Services to execute such contracts and adopt a resolution directing the Director of Development Services to submit a request to the California Coastal Commission to certify an amendment to the Certified Local Coastal Program Citywide. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. We have. A short presentation by Oscar Orsi, our deputy director of development services, and Larry Rich, our sustainability. Coordinator. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Mayor. Members of council, Mr. Larry Rich, our sustainability coordinator, is here to give you a brief presentation on this matter. Thank you, Mr. Orsi. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the City Council. The item here before you tonight is the Long Beach Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones. We have an ordinance that will implement this. So first, some quick background. Urban ag incentive zones were created by the city of California in 2014. In 2016, the County of Los Angeles adopted an ordinance that would enable incorporated cities to establish their own local programs. In May 2016, the City Council requested that staff explore the feasibility of implementing the UAS program in Long Beach. And then just a couple of months ago in June, city council requested the city attorney draft an ordinance to establish the Urban AG Incentive Zone Program and to define land use zones eligible to participate in the UHC program . So what is UAC? What it means basically is that eligible owners of vacant lots can enter into a contract with the city to use their land for agricultural purposes for a period of five years at a minimum. If they do this, the owner's property taxes would be reduced based on an assessment of the property value as agricultural land. And once that happens, we would like to see that vacant lots are cultivated, which would reduce blight and increase access to locally grown organic produce. The nature of the zoning component of the ordinance that you're considering tonight would be to adopt the state definition of urban agriculture with additional language clarifying that this does not include cultivation of marijuana. It would additional changes to zoning would allow urban agriculture as a matter of right within multifamily, commercial and industrial zones. And it would require an administrative use permit within single family to family and heavy industrial zones. The other part of the ordinance would establish a Long Beach UHC program, including the approval of a form UAE, the contract that property owners would enter into with the city of Long Beach. It would authorize the city manager or his designee or the director of development services to execute UAE contracts with eligible vacant lot owners. And then the basic process that this goes through involves the County of Los Angeles to see it all the way through. But first part of the process, the owners would apply to the program through development services. Applications would be reviewed and then referred to the County Assessor's office and the Treasurer tax collector. Approved contracts would be recorded with the L.A. County Registrar recorder and then recorded contracts would be filed back with the city of Long Beach and the assessor's office and property owners would be able to realize their tax benefit. So why are we doing this? Benefits of the program. We would help build more robust local food systems and access to locally grown produce. These would potentially create gathering places for community and opportunities for gardening education. We want to reduce blight and create opportunity for neighborhood scale, economic development and green jobs. There are co-benefits and means of compliance with the proposed vacant lot registry, which you'll also be hearing in the next hearing. And then finally, the access to incentives through the county of Los Angeles, meaning the county of Los Angeles set aside funding that would offset the property tax. So none of that property tax benefit would hit the city of Long Beach. And the city can implement this and access that those incentives at a minimal administrative cost to the city. So that concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. We're going to go in. Is there any public comment on this? I know we've discussed this issue before. Please come forward. Okay. Is there anybody else? Okay, I'll just be these two speakers. That's all close speakers. Let's go ahead. Okay. Hi. My name is Charles Moore, and I'm the founder of Long Beach Organic. And Larry's history went back a couple of years, but the actual vacant lot task force organized by Councilman Ray Bensky and Councilman Alan Lowenthal was active around 1993, and there were a number of problems with vacant lots at that time due to the closure of the automobile sales along Long Beach Boulevard. And there have been quite a few vacant lots left there and there was other areas and other problems with vacant lots and a lot of ideas were put forward as to what to do with them. But the only one that really came to fruition was creating urban organic gardens, and that's when I founded Long Beach Organic in 1994. Our first one was on First and Elm downtown. We then got what we called that first, the Wild Oats Garden when they came to town along the Pacific Electric, right of way between Loma and Grand, that was. And a donation from Wild Oats to Long Beach Organic to establish that garden, which is still active and thriving. And I just want to come forward and support the concept of creating organic urban agriculture, especially important to a city that is next to the ocean. One of the jobs that we did after the riots at Long Beach Organic, when along Atlantic Avenue, several businesses burnt down, was to instead of spraying herbicides to keep the weeds down on these vacant lots, we got local gardeners and tree trimmers to bring their mulch and we hired local folks to spread the mulch and keep the weeds down that way. And then they became urban organic gardens. And actually one of the gardens then was turned into a house for humanity there on Hill and Atlantic. So it creates what we call softening of the urban hardscape when you do these organic gardens, allows rainwater to percolate, allows bioremediation of toxics before they enter the marine environment. So I sort of felt there was this land and sea connection. I started the Marine Research Foundation to emphasize the importance. They were both founded on December of 1994, and it was to emphasize that the ocean land connection and to bring that concept of softening the urban hardscape. And that's what this will do. It will soften the urban hardscape. So I encourage you to vote in favor of this proposal. Thank you. Next Speaker And actually, I had I had close the speaker's list. Ms.. Oh, I'm going to let you speak. But just, you know, once I call the coastal speakers list and no one else is in line, we need to close it. So I'm going to say you're the last speaker. Okay. Go ahead. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor and members of council Tony D'Amico here with Long Beach Fresh, co-director of Local Food Policy Council. Make it really brief, because I know we've talked about this initiative a lot. I just want to take the opportunity to thank Vice Mayor Richardson for his leadership on this and also definitely to thank city Staff. Larry and his staff and development services for their amazing work. And really pulling this together, you it's been a long process, but we're very excited to help with implementing this program. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. And thank you for giving me the word. My name is Daniel Kovach. I'm a resident of First District and a member of the Long Beach Alliance for Food and Fitness of Star Central Long Beach. And I also volunteer for the Head Start program of Long Beach Unified School District is one of the policy concepts and plus volunteer in the classrooms so important. And I live in a multifamily residential area as many of the Long Beach residents do. And I'm here today to ask you to approve the adoption of the Urban Agriculture Scheme program. And so the. We can increase the land access for the production of housing, look locally grown fruit on rock and lots. Many of my neighbors and restaurants would be happy to able to grow those natural foods themselves, and many of them would be happy to be able to buy locally grown and affordable produce. And also, this is an amazing learning opportunity which their children would be able to have during their field trips and quality family time. Being able to use this vacant lot for such a great cause and not only will make our city community health better, not only for the sustainability of our city, but it will also reduce the high deserts which are created by this work. And lots of they are full of trash and broken furniture and simply dangerous places, an eyesore. So I want to ask you again to stop the ordinance and empower all your city residents to take control over their health. And thank you. Thank you. I have close public comment. We're going to go and go back to the city council, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to just say a few things, so I want to acknowledge, Larry, the development service team, Allison, Amy, Oscar, everyone who's played a part in this. We started the conversation over well over a year ago about how this put this ordinance and a vacant lot registry could work together as a sort of carrot and stick. We know we have vacant lots and of remain vacant for 20 or some some eight years. They're a strain on our code enforcement, a blight on our corridors, our neighborhoods. And we also know, on the other hand, urban, that urban agriculture, it's exciting. It brings people together, it makes them volunteer, and it gives them some real it really inspires people to really get involved in their neighborhoods. And we've seen it from the library garden at the Michelle Obama library, the Victory Garden in North Long Beach. A lot of the community gardens, we see what happens when we bring gardening. So what happens when you take sort of penalties on vacant lots in place that partner that with opportunities and incentives and and we hope that we will become the first city in L.A. County to actually implement it in and have someone take advantage of these incentives. And so, so good work to all of you. Larry, just have one question. So what should this this ordinance and the next item both pass this hearing in the next hearing? What's implementation look like next year? Before the Urban League incentive zone. It should go into effect in mid-November after the second hearing and 31 days passed. However, there is a deadline of the end of the calendar year to get new requests in to make it into the tax year next year. So it's it's. Possible, but not likely that we will get takers that we can get through the county process by the end of December. So basically what it means is we have all of next year to sign up property owners to get their benefits secured for 2019. And then the good news is the governor signed a bill just recently that extends this program for another ten years. So once once we're looking for properties next year, we'll have ten years to sign people up. So thank you. So consider the call to action once this goes into effect in November. Let's try it. Let's you know, let's once it goes into effect after the next reading, let's see if we can get a property to take advantage of the first round so we can have an example to point to as we go through and do outreach next year. Thank you for your time and obviously as my support and I encourage city council support you. Thank you. Got some repairs. Great. Thank you. And Larry and the whole team. Thank you guys for all the work that you guys did and think you vice mayor, for your leadership on this. I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction. So, Larry, I also had a clarifying question. It seemed like a big process for folks to go through. We think they can get through that process in two months. Is that correct? Well through a whole year. You mentioned that you wanted to have people through the county process by December, is that correct? Right. It's conceivable that if we had and we're willing to work with someone prior to the ordinance officially being implemented to get those discussions going. What we don't know is how long it will take to get through the county's process. So you saw there is three different county agencies we need to check in with. So we're it's worth a shot, but people will have to come and talk to us right away. Great. Okay. Thank you so much. And again, congratulations, everybody. And thanks for the community for working hard on this item as well, too. Thanks. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. Motion carries.