Recommendation to receive and file the proposed 2017 Report on Revenue Tools and Incentives for the Production of Affordable and Workforce Housing, adopt recommendations, and direct City Manager to work with the appropriate departments to take necessary steps to implement recommendations.  (Citywide)
Item 17. Item 17 is a report from Development Services. Recommendation to receive and file the proposed 2017 report on regulators and incentives for the production of Affordable and Workforce Housing Citywide. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to I'm going to turn this over to our our department services staff will be giving a report, just to recap also. So a few things. So I just want to again, some of you are probably or most of you were at the actual study session where we went over kind of a lot of the details about the recommendations. I think we spent probably about four or 5 hours going over those details, which I think was very good information. A lot of questions were asked by the city council. And so today we're going to focus more, I believe, on some of the recommendations that are going to be that are going to be brought forward by staff. And I also just want to just take the moment to thank everyone that participated in any of the three roundtables or citywide conversations, the folks that participated in the Affordable Housing Task Force, as well as the numerous meetings, whether it was with affordable housing developers or private sector developers or other advocates that we're all involved in, in the recommendations that are before us today. And so with that, I'm going to turn this over to anybody, our development services director. Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, thank you very much. And to go along with that, you've probably heard enough of me over the years related to affordable housing and some of the goals that we've been trying to accomplish with affordable housing, particularly related to our housing element. I think we have gone a step further than expected with our our views on on where we should be with affordable housing. And with that, I'm going to ask Patrick Geary, our housing development officer, to give the staff report. He is our premier expert within the city on the production and preservation of affordable housing. He has worked on every single major affordable housing development project in the last ten years, and we're very fortunate to have such an expert on staff. So with that, I'm going to ask Patrick to give you this update. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. In February 2016, Mayor Garcia assembled a group of area housing leaders and advocates to form the Affordable and Workforce Housing Study Group. The Study Group worked with staff to prepare a report on the revenue tools and incentives for the production of affordable and workforce housing. The goal of the housing report is to recommend policies that may increase the production of affordable housing. The report was developed through a collaborative process that includes research input from the study group, community meetings with stakeholders and industry experts and public study sessions. Between February 2016 and February 2017, the study group held 15 meetings. In addition, Mayor Garcia, the Study Group and staff held a roundtable with housing advocates on September 19th, 2016. A roundtable I am sorry, a Housing Resource Fair and Community Forum on September 24th, 2016, and a roundtable with housing developers on October 14th, 2016. There were over 200 attendees at these community meetings. On February. On. On February 21st, 2017, the city council held a study session, and during the study session, staff presented Amy presented a rather lengthy report on revenue tools and incentives for the production of affordable housing, which included data on housing issues, housing accomplishments, best practices, and a list of policy considerations presented by the Housing Study Group. The Study Group spoke. The City Council shared comments and asked questions, and both the Study Group and the City Council asked staff to conduct additional research on a number of items for anyone who missed that City Council study session, I just want to take a moment to summarize some of the city's affordable housing accomplishments over the years and over the past ten years, over 2000 units of at risk housing have been preserved. And most of those occurred within the last four years. 1737 affordable housing units have been developed in the past ten years, including 342 units that are under construction now. The total amount of funding invested in affordable housing over that ten year period is $560 million, which includes about $136 million in city funds and $414 million in funding leveraged from the developers. We've helped rehabilitate 367 existing housing units and helped 335/1 time homebuyers purchase their first home. In addition to 342 units that are under construction, we're working with developers on five new projects with a total of 275 units. This slide provides a list of items that the staff conducted additional research on. The additional data is included in Chapter X of the final report, which you have in your pockets. Staff also conducted research on rental rates, but found that the data was conflicting and in some cases not current. The section on rents has been removed from the housing report and is included in a draft rent report that was forwarded to the City Council separately. The draft rent report is a work in progress in order to address the concerns over the accuracy of the rental rates and data presented. Staff will contract with a firm that provides professional real estate data to provide current and accurate rental and vacancy rates. The final housing report includes recommendations that are a synthesis of research, best practices and input from the study group, the City Council and the public. Those recommendations are presented in three sections Section one. Policies to implement immediately. Section two. Existing Legislative Requirements and pending initiatives. And Section three. New Initiatives for development and implementation. Policies to implement immediately. This section includes policies that are already in use or that can be implemented without additional City Council action. And these policies include the following 1.1 Encourage the preservation of existing affordable housing. One point to encourage project based vouchers in new, affordable developments. 1.3 Continue to waive developer impact fees for new affordable housing. 1.4 Promote the city's density bonus program. 1.5 Continue to partner with, partner with developers and other community stakeholders in the pursuit of funding. 1.6 explore the potential development of student housing. 1.7 tracked federal and state legislative activities and support legislation that increases funding for affordable housing. 1.8 Support. Seek a reform that encourages the production of affordable and workforce housing. 1.9 Create and maintain a database of public, publicly held properties for potential housing development. Section two includes existing legislative requirements and pending initiatives that are in process. This section includes new state requirements and initiatives that staff is already working on that will be that will be presented to the Planning Commission and City Council in the near future. 2.1 is the first item under this section, which includes the adoption of an ordinance that supports the development of accessory dwelling units. The section, this item is actually something that staffs are already working on and will be presented to the City Planning Commission in the near future. 2.2 implement state law that reduces parking requirements for affordable housing near transit. 2.3 conduct a financial analysis and Nexus study to update the coastal zone in Lee and Lucy program. 2.4 Review and update the Condominium Conversion Ordinance. A study on the update updating the coastal zone in Lee and Lucy program and the condominium conversion ordinance is already underway and it will be presented to the City Council in the near future. Section three includes new initiatives for development and implementation. 3.1 began exploring a local bond measure to capitalize the housing trust fund. 3.2 immediately began the development of an inclusionary housing policy. I'd like to point out that current law allows the implementation of an inclusionary inclusionary policy for ownership units. But the legality of implementing an inclusionary zoning policy for rental units is in question. We plan to move forward with the preparation of a study and an ordinance that includes a policy for both ownership and rental housing, with the hope that current legal issues are addressed. 3.3 investigate the possibility of establishing a local document recording fee to fund affordable housing. And 3.4 investigate the possibility of dedicating city resources for the housing for housing during the annual budget process. 3.5 Modify the Housing Trust Fund Ordinance. 3.6 modify the moderate income debt definition from 80 to 120% of AMD to 80 to 150% of AMI 3.7. Encourage the adoption of specific plans with programing hours. 3.8. Consider expanding one for one replacement of lower income units. 3.9 develop and offer first time homebuyer programs. 3.10 Encourage regulations to incentivize the use of shipping container construction for housing. 3.11. Develop a plan to include micro units as a method for encouraging housing production. 3.12. Study the potential for short term rental regulations, as are vacation rentals. 3.3. Ensure that sufficient resources remain available to implement the city's proactive rental housing inspection programs. 3.4 explore the feasibility and mechanics of using new structures such as the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Tool to capitalize the Housing Trust Fund. 3.15 explore the and propose an Article 34 referendum. 3.16 Provide staffing resources to manage the growth of affordable housing production contemplated by these policy recommendations and recommendations through the annual budgeting processes. As resources allow. And then for next steps staff is recommending the adoption of these policies. If the council chooses to adopt them tonight, staff will take the necessary steps to implement them, including drafting or revising portions of the Long Beach Municipal Code for Future City Council consideration. And before I conclude, I would like to thank Andrew Chang on my staff, who has put a tremendous amount of work into this report and collecting data. So thank you, Andrea. And that does conclude my presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. And let me let me say a few comments. I may turn over to the council and of course, we'll have public comment as well. Let me first just begin by thanking the staff. I know that there's been a lot of community conversation, but the team has worked really, really hard on this report and the multiple community meetings and the multiple conversations. So if we can just give staff a round of applause, I just want to thank you guys for for your real hard work on this. And and I wanted to share what why I'm supportive of these recommendations. And a couple of questions have been asked and then turn it over to the council. The first thing, just to be clear for for the council that has the presentations, I wanted to make sure that you all were able to see, well, there are 30 recommendations or I think 2930 recommendations. There's a few of them that have an asterisk on those that you saw that you have in your report. So those are the recommendations that were added either by staff or by a council member at the study session that was asked to be included. And so if you had a question about that, I just wanted to point that out. And the rest, of course, were brought forward by the by the Housing Study Group. In addition to that, I just want to point out that what what this report and this process has been focused on is how we build more workforce housing , how we build more affordable housing for low income families, how we provide access for families that are here to get into homeownership and provide a long term, hopefully solution to building more affordable housing. There are a couple of items that I want to just point out, which I think are really important and I think are in particular these are what we have in front of us are some substantial changes and moving forward on this discussion in this policy. I want to point out some of the areas that I think are really important. I am particularly supportive of beginning and moving forward on on developing a policy that is that for inclusionary housing within the city of Long Beach hopefully was clarified that the intention of course, is to do a policy that includes all units. But of course we have to also wait and see what's going on with state law when it comes to the conflicts currently around around the rental piece. And so that will be studied as part of this whole this whole process. I'm very supportive of looking at trying to build additional student housing with our Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach Partners. And they are as well, I think, promoting the city's density bonus to all multifamily developers I am very supportive of, I think is exciting. The fact that we're talking about building micro units, which I do believe there's an opportunity to build in the appropriate areas, denser units at a lower cost. If we look at our code and what we allow as far as the size of units to be built. I also believe that and I support the idea of developing a first time homebuyer programs for not just city employees, but for those across the city to provide them access to buying their first home. And I also want to just point out here that I think that all of these items, a vast majority, came from the study group and the explore, whether it's the exploration of a bond measure, whether it's looking at changes to the current code, the way we do some of our fees, I think it's all been, I think, properly vetted. And so I just want to thank staff and I think there's some really good stuff in here too to move the conversation over to the next step. I also want to turn this over and note that I this is a there is a lot of policy in here. So I do expect that council members will have some questions and have some conversation about certain parts of this policy. There are 30 separate additional recommendations in here. So I expect that as well. And so with that, I'm going to turn this over to the council and then we'll go to public comment. Councilmember Pearce. The public comment first. Okay. Well, we can do we can go ahead to do. Councilman Gonzales, your final public comment first. Okay. So we'll do public comment first. So please come forward. Good evening, Mayor City Council. My name is Robert Fox and I'm the executive director of the Council of Neighborhood Organizations. We have resurrected ourselves. Yeah. So we're here to participate in the city council, to give recommendation and advice and to share our problems and our concerns with you. Frankly, I was not prepared to be so joyful this evening. The staff listened to our data that we presented, incorporated it into this new proposal, and I couldn't be more pleased. I didn't think it would be that successful. And I'm shocked and amazed. And I supported 100%, except for one little thing. Of course, you knew how to be one. There is a question at the end of the Affordable Housing Report regarding conversions, condominium conversions. I want to clarify that with the City Council so that we in the staff can review that. If it's talking about converting apartments to condominiums, I can understand the point. Alamitos Beach, which is that most high density neighborhood in the city of Long Beach, has owner owns. We're probably the only city in California that has so many own your own associations. These are not condominiums and we are converting them. We started converting them when Bonilla was head of the zoning department here. I helped write that law for the city. And what that does is it converts an on your own into a condo. The reason this is important to the affordable housing plan is because the only way you get to buy and own your own is by cash. So even if they're lower priced at 150,000 or 200,000, it sort of leaves that out of the ballpark of anybody who's low income. You'd have to have a lot. You have to have a lot of money. If we convert them to condominiums, then the standard practice of having a 20% down or a 10% down to buy the condominium makes that a very affordable product. And since we have such an amount of that kind of housing, I would beg that the council reconsider a moratorium on conversions or specify it to leave on your own out of it, because I think that would do more harm than good for the low income population. Certainly, I started out with an own child. So, you know, I know how difficult those things are. So I would hope that we would take into consideration that issue. And I also support the idea of really looking at formulating a lot size and unit size for the granny flat issue. We've submitted some documentation to you all and it's high time we get that done as quickly as possible so that we can move forward in construction in the neighborhoods in a compatible way. And again, thank you so much and thank the staff so much for listening and being so cooperative and incorporating our concerns in the final report . Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, mayor and council members. I represent a group of landlords and landlady here in Long Beach and we're very much interested in affordable housing. We provide housing to the working population of Long Beach, and our housing is very affordable. Long Beach is has the most affordable housing between about the beach cities of Los Angeles or Orange County. And the distinction of Long Beach is that I don't know the exact number, but probably half of our housing is older housing, you know, built in the forties, fifties and sixties. So that means that we have to spend the rent that we take in for maintenance and for upgrading our properties so that we can compete with the newer properties, such as what you have here on Broadway, across the street from us, and also in downtown Long Beach. Not much housing is being built in the other areas of Long Beach. So we have to maintain the housing stock that we have, which is very desirable to our to our tenants. And I want to say we've just gone through a very long, extensive recession period. And so rents have really not gone up very much. So now the recession is over, they tell us, and costs are rising. Property taxes are rising, which go towards providing the services that we have here in Long Beach. The minimum wage is going up, that which we use to pay our employees. So costs are going up and rents. Modest increase in rents will be going towards maintaining our property and upgrading our property so that we can compete with the newer properties. And again, as I said, Long Beach has the most affordable properties. Rents in and of all the beach cities. So I'm saying this to say that we are against rent control. We want to be able to maintain and upgrade our properties and to keep Long Beach a desirable area for our working population. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Daniel James. Home ownership is one of the primary considerations when it comes. To. Having a safe and wonderful city. And so I strongly encourage anything that you can do to have on your own. I'm the gentleman Mr. Fox just mentioned something about on your own. I think that needs to be strongly taken in consideration of how you can encourage people instead of renting to own their own homes. I mean, that contributes to the good of the entire city. And I would like to bring back a something that you just passed maybe a month ago regarding the property on Norwalk. It would have been a perfect property to create condos or on your own. You could have had a much more dense property there, and it was near transit. It would have been perfect for the East Side to contribute to the to creating more affordable housing. And yet this council chose to make it either one and a very expensive housing at that. So what I'm seeing is you're saying one thing and doing another. So, I mean, what you're saying here in this report I think is great, but what you're doing is something very different. So please be an integrity in congruent do do in your actions what you're saying. So thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name is Sunil Cheng. I'm executive vice president of Link Housing. We are a nonprofit, affordable housing developer based here in Long Beach. And I want to say thank you and commend you, Mr. Mayor, and the Council for this study that has been fabulous. And the approach and the process of getting all the stakeholders involved has been great. So thank you for that. I think this group knows affordable housing benefits everyone. It benefits the people who live in the housing. It benefits our local employers because they have a local workforce that they can hire from. It benefits our businesses because it means that our people are spending less on rent and therefore have more money to spend locally. It's this great flywheel that helps entire communities. And I think one of the things I'd like to do tonight is to offer you the practitioner's perspective. As someone who does develop affordable housing, I think a lot of the recommendations are really great and including the focus on density, on things that we can do to expedite the process. I'm particularly heartened by the revenue tools that are recommended in the in the program and would encourage. That for this study to. Have the greatest impact and for these recommendations to have the greatest impact that we really do look at ways of funding that affordable housing trust fund. We're in a very fortunate time right now and that there's a lot. Of political will to build affordable housing. Because we recognize the great need. We also happen to have a county that is funding those initiatives and a state that's also looking at those resources. But at the end of the day, all of those funding sources rely on local funding. They want to see that the local jurisdictions are participating. And so that's where really making sure that those revenue tools that are being proposed, which include a housing bond, they include looking at recording. Fees, include looking at in lieu fees that those are. Really considered and carried forward. I think that's important in order for units to be. Produced, affordable units to. Be produced, and for this to really have impact. We as a city pride ourselves on being a diverse city. And it's really important for us to remember that economic diversity is an important part of that. Every community needs to have its child care workers and its. Clerks. And its baristas. And so that's an important part of making sure that everybody can be housed. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Peter, please. Hi. My name's Matt Houston. So and I just the thing that stood out to me and also some of the things that the other speakers have touched on already. But but the main thing that stuck that stuck out to me initially was there was a Section two point something I can remember that was it was something about parking and incentives or or to me, it felt like it was kind of pushing the parking off, whether there's, you know, some sort of a discount or whatever it might be in some way for this parking. But there's already in downtown Long Beach there, I don't know if y'all have noticed, but there's already kind of a little bit of a some parking difficulty there. And so I was thinking it might be good to kind of build in like some requirements instead of having, you know, an option to offset the parking some other way because it's still going to add, you know, parking needs to the to the to the pool and the and I was thinking, you know, then there's a funding issue and all this kind of thing. And just to throw it out there, it might be something that could be done, like have a, you know, to facilitate something like a credit unions and this sort of thing so that, you know, we can get tax breaks and people can reinvest and they can do things like the home ownership and also have a pool, too, you know, and and Inglewood, I was thinking having like a L.A. Rams and a Chargers credit union and working it out, the cards, everybody would like to have the cards and that could help to kind of offset gentrification and that sort of thing possibly . And then have like some diversity type things built in as well, which I think is really good. But you know, building, building parking structures might be good. I think the main reason that I think that's an issue is, you know, as Ben Carson says with urban development, that it's kind of you have to look at the whole the whole person. And if a person and me as as someone who was, you know, lost a little bit of my freedom and had to kind of start over as a software developer and with a lot of skills that I've developed over the years without without a car. A lot of the people who have those jobs that that I'm seeking that I'd really like to have, are kind of nested away in places where they're kind of tucked away from public transit. It's almost as though some of those businesses are actually trying to hide from people who rely on public transit, transit. And so that's that's something that's that can be become like a class separation. Mechanism. If people don't have access to vehicles and employers are kind of tucking their businesses in places where it's very difficult to get to through public transit, then it makes it an unfair situation. And so the breach that remains a barrister, if the breeze there wants to be a breeze, so that's great. But you know, the opportunities for other things should also be there as well. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Thank you for having us. My name is Trevor Griffith. I am a lecturer in labor studies at UCLA. I also work part time as an organizer with the California Faculty Association at CSU Long Beach. And I'm a member of Democratic Socialists of America. I'm here with two brief requests. The first is that going forward with your rent study that you'll be sure to pay attention to the years between 2015 and 2017, which is absent from the current draft report entirely, and b, that you pay attention to neighborhood level level data by using Zillow and publicly available data that Zillow makes available. I was able to identify that over the past two years we've seen the price of a studio apartment go up 38%, the price of a one bedroom apartment go up 31%, and the price of a two bedroom apartment go up 25%. It's true what landlords are saying about rent staying flat during the 2010 to 2015 period. But the last two years have been different, and especially if you pay attention to Southwest Long Beach, you'll see that that's where really these rent increases are taking place the most. So that's point one. The second point is I'd like to request that you take proposal 3.6 to modify the moderate income definition from 80% to one 20% all the way up to one 50% of area median income. And you separate it out from the proposals and vote on it separately. And the reason is because and you may or may not already be aware of this area, median income, median income, excuse me, is determined based on a metropolitan region that includes Los Angeles and Glendale. Long Beach is a city that is poorer than those two other cities. And as a result, the area median income determined by that proposition is much higher than actual median income in the city of Long Beach. So in 2015, the median income for households in Long Beach was $52,783. But according to HUD's median family income for the L.A. Long Beach area, it's 63,000 per year. So that's a 20% difference. And what difference that makes is Long Beach. The city of Long Beach uses that HUD data, that metropolitan region data to determine its affordability settings. And so when you're talking about raising what is currently 120% of median income at roughly $75,000 a year to 150, you're talking about subsidizing households that make between 75, 75,000 and 100,000 a year. But we already know that at least in 2015, 150% of median income in the city of Long Beach was already $75,000. So you don't need to benefit the top, you know, 33%. We need to focus our resources on those who need it most. Thank you. Thank you. Good grade data, by the way. We're going to and I know that there's some questions about the the AMA, which I think staff is going to address during the during the council comment. So next week. Staff members and so second district resident and also coming as a member of Democratic Socialists of America Long Beach Branch, I would just like to say that the proposals that are being put forth are all very interesting and very show that broad range of experiences that are going to be going into developing this new plan. However, I would say that they're a little bit more stilted towards the issue of the adequate housing supply, which of course is a very serious issue. Instead, I would also I would request that you look further into legal avenues in order to strengthen the basically the the demand issue or the costs that are going to be associated directly with the individual individuals seeking housing in the city of Long Beach without adequate statutory protection for rent control, adequate statutory protection for folks being displaced for any particular reasons, including those that might even be that violate the 14th Amendment. It's really imperative that that Long Beach get ahead of this. Landlords have, especially in this particular city, lacking rent control, have a host of particular areas to be able to or avenues to displace residents and very limited resources on the on the actual for the individual residents to be able to combat this in any particular legal manner . The city of Long Beach right now in Legal Aid, I believe, only has one full time housing attorney. You can go go down and go to the across the street, to the county courthouse any day of the week. And you'll see that an increasing number of evictions are happening every single day. And those people lack any legal representation for the most part to be able to combat them. So it really again, it really falls on the city, therefore, to increase its own its own statutory protections for, again, their own residents. At the end of the day, the city must be serving its residents. Over the individual landlords you're going to be looking at. You know, when I worked in the 14th floor, a lot of the landlords calling for complaints. We're we're calling with 714 area code phone numbers compared to the residents who are again, find themselves displaced at a record rate because of the rising prices between 2015, 2017. Thank you and have a good day. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. City Council members and Mayor Garcia. We are Cal State language masters in social work students working on our capstone. Project for graduation. My name is Rebecca Gomez. I am one of the four students. That will be speaking to you today. To finalize our Capstone project, we decided to present our findings with city council members to bring attention on some important issues that many Long Beach residents are faced with, and to support the policy recommendation to allocate resources to prep. As part of our project, we were tasked with going out in the community to assess the needs of our chosen ZIP Code 90813, which is District one represented by Lena Gonzalez. During our needs assessment, we interviewed community members, community service providers and business owners. We attended a city council meeting, the mayor's roundtable with Housing Advocates, the Homeless Study and Community Forum and Resource Fair. We encountered that the main concern for many residents is housing, such as affordable housing, unjust evictions and substandard living conditions. Since our group's academic concentration in integrated health, we decided to focus on substandard living conditions after hearing residents testimonies and how this has affected both their physical and mental health. This became the main focus of our capstone project and we created a survey to capture the extent of these concerns. We went back to the community, door to door and in public facilities such as laundromats and parks. To speak with. The residents about their experiences. After this, we decided to gather another perspective on how substandard living conditions are addressed. In the community by the Department of Code Enforcement. We interviewed a code enforcement officer bureau and. The effort to come in as a neutral party. Another component of our project was to speak to political representatives. We were successful in meeting with the chief of staff from Roberto Franco's office. My fellow group member, they were present. Our summary of our findings. Thank you. Thank you. Great work, students. All of that. Yes. Copy. Good evening. City Council members and Mayor Garcia. A name is Lacey Salinas and I'm a member of the group project and I will be presenting on the findings of three of our interviews with residents in the Code Enforcement Bureau. First, it is my duty to. Provide a depiction of the stories of the residents of the ZIP Code. 90813, which is in District one. We have learned that overcrowding is apparent in multifamily apartments. For example, one resident mentioned having eight people. In a one bedroom apartment. Imagine that. I know it would be impossible to to understand them and to understand what this family. May be experiencing. Most rapid concerns are related to not. Having healthy and affordable housing, which is pertinent to today's agenda item. Nearly 30% of residents are unaware of code enforcement and what they can do for them, and only about three mentioned having a positive experience with them. Those who were unaware of code enforcement share that. They were fearful. Of reporting their concerns because. Of retaliation and unaware of their tenants rights. When asked the miracle question of what they want from their landlords and their city, the majority said that they want renter. Protection against rent increases and. Evictions. Which we have. Noticed is not part of the policy recommendation. To our understanding and speaking to the housing organizations. Renters protection is part of preserving affordable housing. We also explore how these substandard conditions might be affecting their mental health. One fourth of the residents stated that they had persistent worry become easily annoyed or irritable, feeling depressed or hopeless and trouble sleeping or staying asleep, which we have learned are symptoms linked to anxiety and depression, mental health disorders. Second, our interview with Code Enforcement Bureau Kurt J. Kinane played a key role in identifying some of the barriers that. Code enforcement officers may face. And the experiences of our residents. We learned a lot about how the code enforcement division is structured and how the procedures are carried out. Kerr further explains the process of the violations and the time. Span of handling these concerns. What we learned from our interview is that code enforcement programs such as Prep is not able to protect tenants against retaliatory harassment or allow code inspectors to enter their dwelling. So why would your resident speak up if the odds were against were already against their against them? Therefore, if additional resources are allocated to prep, then we hope that some of these. Resources can be used to protect these actions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, city council members and Mayor Garcia. My name is Daniella Ruiz and I am also a master's of social work student from Cal State Long Beach. I am also a new Long Beach resident and district too. I moved to Long Beach a few months ago because I had heard and experienced many of the great things that Long Beach has to offer. As many of us know, Long Beach is known for being diverse, welcoming, friendly, protective and inclusive. And in many ways, living here has allowed me to feel welcomed and included. However, during this project, I had the opportunity to meet people who have not been protected by the city in terms of housing and adequate living conditions. These people have shared stories about the rodents and other critters that invaded their homes and families. They have spoken about how their voices have not been heard when they have attempted to take action. And some have even shared stories about being evicted when they have attempted to take action. They also shared how they feel anxious, worried and fearful of being evicted. So instead, many of them choose to live in the apartments that they can afford, even though they pose a threat to their health. It's disheartening to learn that a city which appears to be so welcoming and friendly is allowing such an injustice to occur by not protecting its own residents, by not ensuring that their homes are habitable, by not creating affordable housing for the most in need. Additionally, as part of our project, we were tasked with connecting with political representatives. This was the most difficult part of the project since we were experienced many barriers when attempting to connect with elected officials. Despite our various efforts and avenues, we were only able to set up two interviews. This speaks volumes about the barriers that residents must experience when attempting to make their voices heard. If, as master level social work students, I found it difficult to engage my own city government. I can only imagine how isolated and disconnected other folks must feel. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, city council members. My name is going to go in and I'm a resident of Long Beach, currently residing in District seven. Information Project has enlighten us as to the tremendous need of the community. It is our hope that you, the City Council, will continue to find. Solutions for some of the following concerns. First is education. If additional resources are allocated. For prep, we need to continue. To educate our. Residents on how the program functions and education around complaint based code enforcement. From our interview, it was alluded that outreach. Was already taking place, but. The residents we talked to had not been reached and let alone know how to report it. Second is protection. If the residents are not protected, it is very likely that they will not report at all for. Fear of retaliation and most importantly. The fear of eviction. Even through the prep program, there's no guarantee renters will not be. Retaliated. Against if they allow. An inspector to enter their unit. Third is more safe, healthy and affordable housing. As you will note, the 90813. Area is the most impoverished area in Long Beach and therefore the most in need. And we notice from this policy recommendation the need of these minimum wage earning, working class people of color will not be addressed. As a resident of Long Beach for 25 years, a single working mom and a student from Cal State, Long Beach, I am looking to you, my city council, to ensure that those most in need live in safe, healthy and affordable housing. Thank you so much for your time. The women I come from in birth. My name is Angelina Ramirez. I live in District six. I'm a community organizer for obvious reasons. And power in general or recommendations needs to have stronger commitments and timelines. We support more funding for affordable housing, such as increasing coastal zone and new phase, a bond measure for funding more affordable housing . We need to preserve whatever affordable units we have, and we support expanding one for one replacement for affordable units, a way we support dedicating more resources for HIV. We need to make sure our city is able to keep our homes safety safe and healthy. We strongly oppose changing the moderate income definition to 150%. And am I? We cannot support the city subsidizing how simple people making more than 100,000 a year. The city is already focused on moderate income housing and we need housing for the working class families of Long Beach. Inclusionary housing for home ownership units only. We need to have inclusionary housing for rental units and for working class families. A prime environmental impact report. We oppose this type of EIA are in the downtown plan because of the impact the has this has in the surrounding community and the community to be able to have input on what is being developed in our communities and by having a program are our voices will be silenced. In addition, when we are talking about preserving affordable housing, we need to include renters protection in the discussion. They are not two separate items. When the protection helped keep people like me in their homes and help keeps the rent affordable for families. You cannot say the rental protections are not part of the affordable housing discussion. There are related. We hope to see that these recommendations are not equitable. The city wants to move toward more equity and these recommendations will not do anything for those in it and focus development on the higher income level, not for families like me. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. My name is Lilia Ocampo and I am a Liberal member. And today I come to speak for the people that does not make the low income, for the low income people, the very low income people, and also the extremely low income people which I belong to. Suddenly I look, I realize that the affordable housing plan is for the work force. What I don't belong. Where I don't belong to yet. I belong to the work class. And we are not included and are planned. And I want to ask Mario Garcia to first include us, the people who serve. The people who work. The people who. Sorry. But the people who make the economy, who spend the money and the city who work for the city, for the service, for the service and also for for low income families. We have a children's that if we're not included in the plan, we're going to end homeless because we're not going to be able to afford to pay for the rent of an apartment. We're not going to have a house to live in because we're we're not going to. We're not making enough money to be a condo plant. So thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. When I stayed with Senor Alcala, they miembros they'll consiglio me nombre de recalcitrants eb en el distrito or no estoy aqui representan como miembro they leave it para todos or you part they they. Barriers or so partly various organizations are guilty that they long. Good afternoon, mayor and councilman. My name is Ricardo Cervantes. I live in District one. I am here as a member of labor. I am also part of various other organizations in this city. Killed in a year and in battle. Aqui Bible in the city that they long be central mi familia e miss e hos i order minutos e i i erin travel aqui in thumb them your free una they last mother scare is is tavern a stand luciano opera la luna una bartender beneficios para la comunidad durante el plan the fandango may even look good in is toluca pork then they entonces sat service members then can be OC event account that is they plan. I have always rented in the city of Long Beach. I raise my family, my daughters and now my grandchildren in the area of downtown. I was one of the mothers who was fighting for the benefit package for the community during the downtown plan. I was involved in the fight in this fight since then because I knew that it would cost a this plan would cause a change. I order estamos pray S.A. aqui for all seen estamos ah Rolando they be vendors. I said see Willie says bueno de la seu that is they considerando mas puntos para this model year of bbn thus SLC release apple yandel i the intent c is the intention. And now we're here present because we are now talking about affordable housing. It is good that the city is now considering more funds to develop affordable housing and we support this recommendation. Better look in those people. But ask estamos recommend recommendations. No, but reflect on the necessity that is been struck on monetary trouble. Mi familia no esta representan though esto recommendation this is aim for the estate is too little Barack here removes applejack construction is the baby and thus para la familia scape gunmen must they sing went out me do you need those L.A. esto no representa mi familia. What concerns us is that this recommendations do not reflect the needs of our community, community of workers. My family is not being represented in this recommendations. The focus of this study seems to support the construction of affordable housing for those who make over $55,000 a year. And that does not represent my family. Ah, they must get in most cambios la the fee, the FEC, the law lower and lower us more. They are not Barack Incluyen familiar square gardening classic sing sing me Lola is esto no incluyen amy familia in Oakland como neither others no opinion eso recommendation. And now we're here trying to change the definition of moderate income for families who make over $100,000 a year. That does not include for my family, does not include my community, and I do not support this recommendation. Necessity must aim for calmness in Los Trabajadores. Okay, gaman in minimal loss they there say to add that incluyendo losing capacity. Does he get any meaning rational feel if I mean. I mean we need to focus on workers who make minimum wage family, the elderly, the disabled, those who have a fixed income and families like my. Las Comunidades Estamos preoccupy those poor. Keller's recommendation is no. Some considerable. I see no one. Moussa Kiwanuka yeah those sick say it Amos or Luciano opera mask Bebe Anderson says civil espera but familia como como la mia? Gracias. We, the community are so narrow. Spencer indicated that instead of the OC. Thank you with the community our concern about the recommendations that do not consider do not consider us and we will not stay quiet. We will continue to fight for affordable housing. That includes families like mine. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. I just want to clarify something and I wanted to ask Patrick, I think it's important to the recommendations are for all levels of low income and very low income housing. However, I think the piece that's being pointed out, which I think is an important point of conversation, is the the change to the AMA on the moderate side on the higher end. And so I think there's going to be some questions about that and why the staff recommended it. But I've had a couple of people say that the low income housing or very low income is not included. That's that's that that's not correct. So that is all a part of this project. This is for all levels of low income housing, affordable housing. And we will talk about the ambit piece at the council discussion in just a few minutes. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Karen Rhys side. I'm a resident of. The First District. In one of the low income affordable housing units on seventh and Pacific. And I want to thank everybody that participated in the process because this is kind of really the most open dialog. And thank you, Mayor, for leading this effort and this very, very serious issue. Tonight, I'm going to speak on behalf of the Gray Panthers. And we have sent everybody our position paper dealing with affordable housing. And we're also not in support of raising. The AMI until we hear additional information. There's a couple of things missing from the proposal, and one, we would really like to have cohousing consideration considered as a part of the proposal. Actually, Maggie KUHN, who was one of the founder who was. The founder of the lot of the Gray. Panthers, was one of the first advocates for co-housing in the US, and co-housing consists of placing elders with college students. It's a very successful program economically, very supportive and creates great understandings and support for both of those age generations. There's no mention of multi-generational housing. We would like to see that included as part of the process. The other thing that we feel is missing and maybe it's not appropriate to put it in this particular report, but our tenant protections and we all know our city is experiencing incredible rent increases. In my day job, I am at the senior center on Fourth Street. I listen to the stories and they are increasing every day the heartbreaking stories of our seniors who have received rent increases that they cannot afford. They come in crying because they don't know what they're going to do. It is just heartbreaking. So we really want you to consider renter protections. I live in an affordable building. I looked for section two or two HUD, because they're more protected. My building, if they sell the building, there's no protections for me. In this plan. It's going to be too little, too late. So please consider those things. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Margaret Hennessy and I'm a retired master's level social worker. When you are on your way to being old, an elder, a senior, you are very busy living, working, solving problems and raising children. When you realize you are eligible for senior housing, senior transit passes and free lunch, it's almost surreal. But it happens to all of us. The dictionary definition of a displaced person. It's a person who is forced to leave their home because of war, persecution or natural disaster. A refugee when someone is evicted from their home due to rapid inflation of rental cost, that is also a displacement. We older adults have been told by the city that there is commitment to Long Beach senior citizens. But as I look at the gentrification process, we senior citizens who have reached this stage of life where we are no longer able to compete and generate new increased income, we older adults are becoming increase. Distinctly vulnerable to displacement. Starting over does not come easy to many older adults. And choosing to move away from a place that they considered their home, their roots because they are no longer able to afford inflated rent is heartbreaking and humiliating. Surely there is a way to work this out without driving seniors into homelessness or storing them in shipping containers just to get them out of the way of progress. We older adults know you need money for social programs. Developers have money. Let them know if they want to develop in Long Beach. They will need to do so with the moral compass in this beautiful, developing, diverse city on our beautiful coastline. We want to remind the city that we seniors are part of this rainbow. In fact, most of us work very hard to get us this far. We challenge this council, both individually and collectively, to legislate senior rent protections like just cause and rent control, especially since our income isn't going any higher. Thank you. Thank you, madam. Next speaker, please. My name is Liana Noble. I live downtown and part of the North Pine neighborhood. District one. And I also want to thank the mayor for your initiative in convening the study. Group and that. We've got this kind of a comprehensive document in front of us, because I think we all the one thing we can agree on is we have a hell of a housing problem here in our great city. I have got four concerns, and my concerns are from a neighborhood perspective. I'm lucky. I am in the process of buying a loft. Whether I'll pay it off before I die or not is another question. But I am officially a homeowner. But most of my life I was a renter. And the majority of the residents in my neighborhood are. We have more than 60% renters in the North Pine neighborhood, which is our citywide average. We are up around 75 and 80%. So what happens to renters happened to me in my neighborhood, and that is my motivation. My concerns are that these are not recommendations that are specific to the very general. I understand the challenge of coming up with specific recommendations. But I think we are at a crisis and we need something that we can measure and evaluate. Secondly, as other people have raised, there is nothing. Even though there was a lot of discussion in the public comment from the 200 plus people that took this seriously and participated. There's nothing in here about renter protections. And I know from my neighbors that unless there are renter protections, we are not going to solve our housing crisis. There's a lot of talk in the report about homeownership. Obviously, I think homeownership is great, but we are not going to become majority homeowners in Long Beach. That is not the economy that we live in. It isn't the reality of this country nor of our city and our city's history. We've got to address the needs of affordable rental housing. And as people have already said, with an emphasis on the low, the extremely low, everything that's below moderate, that the renters that live in my neighborhood up above seventh and up to Anaheim. That's what we need to address. My final concern is that when we talk about workforce, I sure they hope that we are going to define that, to include my neighbors who keep the restaurants open, who work in the hotels, who work in retail and have minimum wage jobs. That is our workforce. Thank you very much, speaker, please. Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Neal Richmond. I live in the third. District and I'm the I was the director of Community Corporation of Santa monica, community based nonprofit. Housing developer in that city. And for nearly 20 years, I taught affordable housing finance. At the UCLA. Department of Urban Planning. First, there were some very good policies that have. Been proposed, like a bond measure, to create a local source of funding for affordable housing production. However, there's a lack of emphasis on the. Preservation of affordable housing. The central problem in Long Beach is an overreliance on the model of housing filtering. That leads to what critics. Call trickle down housing policy. This is the assumption that the production of higher income housing. Helps those at the bottom of the market. I recommend that elected leaders and staff read. The May 2016 report of the Institute of Governmental Studies, California's oldest public. Policy research Institute. The filtering process takes generations measuring that, meaning that units may not filter the rate that meets the needs of the market's peak, and the properties may deteriorate too much to be habitable. Further, in many strong market cities, changes in housing preference has increased the desirability of older, architecturally. Significant property, essentially disrupting the filtering process. Typically, my neighbors in Belmont Shores are not moving to new and. Shiny developments in Santa Clarita. Or for that matter, often near Ocean Avenue and relinquishing their old and used homes to. Deterioration and occupancy by lower. Income households. Homes are not cars where most. Buyers do prefer new. Over old. The institute did argue in favor of the production of more subsidized housing. We are losing out on getting private capital investment through the. Low income housing tax credit program because of a. Strong, dedicated source of housing funding that is required to package projects. Federal funding has declined, and, of course, redevelopment money has evaporated. What can the city do? Well, here are three ideas. First, commit to at least 20% of boomerang funds going directly into a. Housing trust fund. As you know, these were once tax increment funds that that were used by the city for those purposes. We'd like to see them dedicated again to producing affordable. Housing. Second, we'd like to see follow the lead of the city of Los Angeles and commit to both commercial and residential linkage programs. It's important to just respond to the housing market. From from new real estate production in Long Beach should begin immediately to make a strong commitment to a Nexus study. Thank you for this opportunity to speak and we hope the Council will strengthen the proposal before it. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. My name is Georgiana Charles. Linda. I live at 327 West Sixth Street. I just gave some pictures to you and the conditions I'm living in because I'm low income housing. I'm also here with liberal because we need low income housing and it all sounds good and the mental health thing is great, but it's like you guys keep waiting and dragging. What is a senior at my age going to do? Buying a home? I don't have a chance. You know, I live on sort of security. I just saw some pictures up there of that's the condition of my house I live in right now because I'm low income. They treat us less than I cut 14 mice and less than seven days. I'm afraid to go to sleep because they got in my bed and scratched my face. And that's how we get treated because we're low income and now our building has sold. I was here before because the building I was in before sold and they gave us a 60 day notice. Now, that same owner, Donald Me, is buying up all the properties. An apartment that I paid three, seven and 54 now is 1195, and all they did was put in a new floor. There's got to be something that you can do. Your city hall, you guys have the owners phone numbers. You guys have luncheons for everything else. Why not invite some owners and have them, you know, have a discussion about letting people in? They're still handing out vouchers at Section eight. There's no housing. No housing. We don't make two or three times the amount of rent, so they won't even look at us. I have perfect rental history, but because I'm low income, I don't have a chance. So I know there's something you guys can do. If not, you'll see me every week and I'll just come up here and complain. You see the pictures? I'm afraid to sleep in my apartment at night. And the owners will not do nothing. They will not even buy me traps. By the time I pay my rent and buy food, I can't afford traps. People are buying them for me because they know the condition. I called the Health Department. Nobody are doing nothing. So we got to get some some code enforcement or somebody involved in this. I should not have to live like that. Thank you. Thank you. And, ma'am, I'm not sure, obviously, where this apartment is, but you should just leave the address and we'll make sure that someone's up. Okay. We'll take we will take a look at that. Okay. Next speaker. My name is David Wagner. I'm a fairly recent resident of Long Beach here in downtown. I'm speaking in support of Libra, and I'm also a professor. Retired professor has written nine books on homelessness and poverty. First thing has to be said, obviously the focus is local, but you have to look, we're in the USA and this gentrification process has been going on now for about three decades. It's not news. Look at every city up and down the East Coast, every city on the West Coast. Fewer and fewer poor people and fewer and fewer working class people are remaining. This is not. Localized to Long Beach. So we ought to have some recognition of that. Anybody who talks about diversity and wants a city where everybody makes 100,000, well, it needs to be called out on that. What kind of diversity are you calling for? I've heard the mayor, I've heard the council. I've heard them say they want a diverse diversity where I mean, the barn door is already closed. I can't afford to live in downtown anymore. You need about $100,000 of income in your family to live downtown. You need probably close to 70 to live elsewhere. So this is really years and years and years after this problem emerged and it emerged in New York and it emerged in L.A. and emerged in Philadelphia. What we're doing is basically the European model, which is the rich, occupied the cities. The poor had to go out to the suburbs like you see outside of France, whether they're big projects in the suburbs. And that's what's happening in the United States. I think it's important to keep in mind for both people on both sides of this, this is not new. So I think any proposals that don't have rent or protection has several other people have said are doomed to failure. Check out all the other cities. And secondly, no protection for eviction. I understand there is no just cause language in this state. You could be evicted for any reason whatsoever, and that's got to be remedied. And finally, a couple of people have spoken about this, the 3.6 change in the median. Am I I'm not even sure you could do this, really. But it would essentially, as several people have said, raise the so-called affordable housing to 90,000 a year. And this is something that really once again takes us to the new diversity issue. What kind of city do you want? I mean, is this Malibu then? It's after what you want. Fine. And I'll leave with it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thanks so much, Max. Good evening. My name is Suzanne Brown. I'm a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. We want to thank the city for its continued efforts to look for housing solutions that are right for Long Beach. And we're happy to have this dialog with you tonight. I'd like to address four of the cities housing recommendations in my comments this evening. First, we support the creation of an inclusionary housing ordinance. However, the ordinance and any. Underlying economic studies should include. Rental developments. Assembly Member Assembly Bill 1505 by Blum is expected to become law and it will clarify any legal uncertainties regarding inclusionary housing for rental projects. Second, while we agree with the recommendation to increase coastal zone in lieu fees, we are very concerned with the timeline. The city made a legally binding commitments in its most recent housing element to complete an economic study in 2015 and to increase coastal zone in lieu fees as part of the city's budget process in 2016 to 2017. The public has not seen any such economic study and these fees were not increased as part of last year's budget . We urge the city to share this study if it exists, and to set a clear timeline for increasing these fees right away to be in compliance with law. Third, we do not support changing the definition of moderate income to 150% of area median income. This is contrary to longstanding definitions set by the federal government at HUD and the California State. Department of Housing and Community Development. It's also contrary to Long Beach's affordable housing arena numbers. SAG has told Long Beach it needs to reduce. 4009 affordable units by 2021 to meet the existing affordable housing needs of residents earning 120% or less of Mary area median income. In light of this, the city should not change its definition of moderate income to 150% of am-I. Fourth, we encourage Long Beach to adopt an affordable housing linkage fee for new residential and commercial development to maximize local revenues for affordable housing. This very important recommendation was not included in the city's report, but it is a critical. Tool for housing development. The City of Los Angeles is currently in the process of adopting such a fee. Finally, I shared a legal memo with you earlier from land use experts at the Public Interest Law Project about inclusionary housing impact fees and access studies. One really important point from that memo is that nexus studies are not required for and low fees of any kind, albeit coastal zone in lieu fees or inclusionary housing and low fees. Nexus studies, which are more complicated and expensive, are only required for linkage fees and impact fees. Please utilize this memo from experts. In Sacramento. As you make policy. Decisions tonight. And in the coming months. As it sheds critical light on how to best craft much needed. Affordable housing policies without creating unnecessary burdens on the city. Thank you for your time and dedication this evening. Thank you. Speaker. Yes. My name is Holly Stewart and I live at Fourth and Pine. And I'm fairly active in my community. And I thank the mayor and all the council and especially my councilwoman, Nina Gonzalez, for your concern about these issues. And I'd better be talking about a bit different than many. My concern is, as I walk through the neighborhood now, I'm retired, by the way, so I spend a lot of time out walking around. I see children and families where they're in stressful situations of worrying about things like eviction or how are they? Are they going to have a decent house? How are they going to have that house taken care of? And I think the effect of this on the children is very, very bad, just as it is for seniors who are facing things like eviction. And I think part of our part of our goal has to be to, again, as everybody has been saying, protect affordable housing and try to make sure we even have more of that so that, in fact, we get stable neighborhoods where children grow up looking ahead to their school from one year to the next and for even for a whole semester. And I know our mayor here as an educator also, and I worked in education for almost 30 years, that kind of primacy among the children ends up also making a difference all the way through education of whether young people are successful and get on to college and learn the skills they need to have a different kind of life. And I think that is one of the crucial things about this, is that we don't end up also seeing a situation where if we don't maintain affordable housing over a broad area now I'm until about land area. What happens then? We end up with a different kind of segregation. It's not like the old things have Latin groups or black groups, or there's that being the victim of segregation that ends up being segregation by income, and that has just disastrous effects. I was poor and white. My family were. And I know that I went through some trials and errors. I saw my mother fall through the wood, the feet on the floor of a house because we couldn't afford to live in a better place. And I know that later when we got more permanency and in our family and we were still not high income or even moderate median income, but the fact that we had permanency from one school to the next and from one school year to the next, gave me the courage to keep on going in school and then go on to university and graduate school and things like that. But there was times when I wondered, Why am I in school? But I think this is what all of us, this job, all of us back here, all of you at the table is to try and get these neighborhoods. So we keep people of all incomes and all creeds and races and ethnic groups able to live together and build that future for our children. I really believe this is something that we can do and we need to do it. And so thank you very much. Thank you very much. And quiet before you go up, I want to make sure I have for that speaking. So I have the gentleman in the back because my last speaker. Right. And because I'm closing the speaker's list. And so and so looks like there's another speaker behind him. She's the last speaker. I'm closing my speaker's list. And the speaker's list is closed. Okay, no more. And we're going to take everyone that's in line right now. Yeah, go ahead. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. City council members who are here, Rivero with Libra and my compadres motors, they already went before me and spoke of where we stand in both support and opposition, of what revisions need to be made and what still needs to be addressed as part of this discussion around affordable housing. From the very beginning of this process, from the formation of the Study Group to the other community workshops, renter protections has always been part of the community's conversation. Yet here we are considering recommendations and not a single form of such policies is being considered. Mr. Mayor, I hear you and several others say that this is about affordable housing and not renter protections. You speak of them as though they are two separate and distinct things. Renter protected protections is directly tied to the preservation of what is affordable for families right now. Are you limiting your definition of preservation to just covenanted or project based units? Because that's not what we mean when we are speaking of affordability. We want to keep the homes that are affordable to us now. And that means having conversations about resident retention policies, which include renter protection excuse me, renter protections. We cannot have an intelligent conversation about preserving affordable housing without this, and we will continue to invite this into the discussion. Now I want to turn my discussion to the idea of equity. It hasn't been long since you all voted to establish the Office of Equity and even less time since it has been operational. This office was supposed to be the guiding light, steering us into a more equitable city and to understand its true meaning. We were even shown a cartoon graphic that. Showed everybody given the same opportunity. I invite you to seriously think. About the intention behind this office, which you all unanimously had put into place. It was to symbolize a new path for the city. So I invite you to honestly ask yourself, do these recommendations. Speak to that idea of equity? Do these recommendations provide for the most in need? Do the any of these recommendations. Give everyone. The same opportunity? Because if you believe that they do, then I have to sincerely. Question that. Which guides you. However, if you don't believe it is equitable, as if you don't believe as I do, then I implore you to seek the counsel of your conscience and vote to make it so. Equity is not changing the moderate income definition. Equity is not focusing development on moderate and above moderate income levels. Equity is a citywide inclusionary housing policy, including rental units. Equity is resident retention and renter protection policies. Equity is funding affordable housing developments for the lower income levels. That is what equity looks like and that is what you should all be striving for. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. City Council City Staff Brian D'Andrea, senior vice president with Century Housing. As you know, Century is the nonprofit steward of the villages that Cabrini West Long Beach. We're home to 1300 formerly homeless residents on any given night. We work very closely with the city and all our partners to restore a sense of help, health and hope in the lives of our residents. I'm also here this evening as a member of the Mayors Study Group, chaired by Bonnie Lowenthal. And first, thank you to the mayor for convening this group and lifting up this issue of housing affordability. Tonight's a really proud evening for all of us on the group. I also want to acknowledge the efforts of city staff that work diligently to prepare a really incredible report, including Patrick Geary, Andrew Chang and Amy Burdick and their entire team. All of us know this is an issue that acutely affects and impacts households across the income spectrum here in Long Beach, and one that's putting real strains on our communities. This evening, we encourage City Council to not only receive and filed this report, but to keep it handy. City staff has done a great job outlining a set of really compelling and progressive recommendations that can form the backbone of all of your policymaking efforts here in the weeks and months and years to come. It's clear that the Council has many policy tools at its disposal, tools that will invariably require choices. But we think these choices can ultimately spur housing development, generate economic activity, promote homeownership, and alleviate the affordability burdens facing our city and our residents. In closing, just like to say thank you on behalf of century and that we look forward to continuing our work with the city. Thank you very much. We look forward to your new projects that you're building right now. So thank you. Please. Next Speaker. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor. My name is Cheryl Cole Rowley of 327 West six, apartment two. And I live in Ms. basic apartment and the condition is very bad there and I don't know what's going on. She sold the property, not telling anyone what I have to deal with. The rats and the roaches. This doesn't make no sense. I'm a senior citizen and I don't complain. I don't call the health department. I don't call a code inspector. It just don't make no sense. I can't even sleep at night. Dealing with the mouse is running all across my floor and I. I contact the manager and she told me that you do it yourself. It should be up to date about this. And when I can't tell a complaint, I call everyone out. I just sweep it up on the rug. Ms.. Beasley, I sold a property. But they didn't want our money on time. I'm a senior citizen. I shouldn't have to live like this. I'm stressing out every night because the roaches and all this stuff, I don't have the money. I don't I don't have the money to buy all this stuff. But she does. So the problem is basically it. And the manager tell me, write a letter. Write a letter, this part. So all of this. I wrote a letter and I went to the health department. I don't call it a code inspector. This should be studied about this, sir. I mean, this doesn't make any sense. I'm a nervous wreck. I got to wake up every night and think the rat gonna jump in my bed. This is terrible. Oh 327 Beasley I never miss Beasley. And it's just terrible there. I shouldn't have lived like this. And I just want to thank you guys. But if I had to keep coming out here, I will come. And it doesn't make any sense. But then management to rent on time. But they don't do the condition there. What do I do for this? I don't call the health department. I don't call the code inspector. Miss Beasley, I sold the property and I'm still doing the same stuff over and over. I don't have the money to keep bad dog stuff and a mouse and all that. I'm on a fixed income. I live upstairs. I live on. It's just terrible there. I'm not sure I should live like this. I'm a senior citizen. And if I could go somewhere else, my rent might be too high. I can't afford it. I'm on a fixed income. I just want to thank you guys and just hear me out. My name is Coleman, Sherlock Holmes. And if you can leave the address with the clerk and we're going to we're going to send someone out. Okay. Absolutely. You, too. Mr. Mayor and city council members, thank you for addressing these very important issues. My name is Steve Askin. I am both a homeowner and a rental property owner in the second district where my wife and I have raised four children. Now, this hearing has focused mostly on a report that deals with long term development. But I am here to ask that the Council also take action on some of the immediate rental crisis issues which are threatening our city's diversity, as we've heard from some of the witnesses tonight. I only need to look down my block in Rose Park to see how rapidly rising rents are moving. Some of my fellow landlords, I'm sorry to say, to chase out good tenants so that they can bring in wealthier tenants. We just heard an elderly woman tonight who experienced just that. The common problem of being pushed out on 60 days notice and a feeble excuse. Now, to preserve our diverse neighborhoods, the neighborhood where I'm so happy that my children have had a chance to grow up. We need to protect the tenants, the tenants who helped us landlords prosper specifically. And I was it's not part of this report, but it is part of the overall housing mandate. I urge this Council to address the immediate crisis by reasonably restricting the landlords right to throw out tenants without just cause and by considering putting some restraint on the excessive rent increases which we've seen in this city. I'm speaking as someone with 32 years as a rental property owner and based on that experience. I also have to ask all of you to ignore the claims that we've sometimes heard that protecting tenants is unfair to landlords. The truth is, our tenants need protection far more. Than us landlords. The truth is also. That anybody who's bought rental property in Long Beach over the last ten, 15, 20 years almost certainly has seen both their property value and their rent revenue soar to highly profitable levels. We landlords, quite honestly, though some will tell you differently, do not need unlimited rent increases just to maintain our properties. My fellow landlords know that they're earning more than they ever dreamed possible. While many of our tenants suffer for the good of our city's tenant majority and for our entire city, I urge all of you to support fair rental practices and ignore the shrill voices that we've sometimes heard from a few self-serving landlords. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Amy. York, and I'm currently a renter in the seventh District. And I spoke at one of the forums before. On the need for renter. Protections. And I, too, like many people here, was really surprised when I looked through the report and the saw no discussion of renter protections. And anyway, I did want to address one section of the report. Which is letter D on eviction. And displacement, because it was unclear to me why this was the only thing that was addressed on eviction. And basically what what the report says is further investigation needed to be done into the number. Of unlawful detainers that had been filed. And apparently the goal of that is to get a better understanding of displacement. Yet there were first of all, the the term displacement. Isn't really defined here. Number one. And number two, there are other forms of quote unquote, displacement that aren't addressed at all, such as gentrification and rising rents, that type of thing. So I wasn't sure why those issues weren't discussed as well. And there was also a. A distinction between. Unlawful detainers and 60 day and 30 day notices. Almost as if 60 and 30 day notices are legitimate. And not a form. Of eviction. They are, in fact, evictions. And yet those aren't being investigated. Only the unlawful detainers. Anyway, I wanted to go back and talk a little bit about my experience. When I spoke at the forum, I explained that I'm a victim of a retaliatory eviction. This was when I was living in District two. And after months of dealing with an issue with. Management that they refused to remedy, I emailed the owner to discuss the issue, which I had a legal right to do, and four days later I received a 60 day notice. To vacate. No reason was given because under the law they don't have to give a reason. But what they didn't anticipate was that if I could show retaliation, I may be able to recoup some of my expenses which which I did in small claims court. And I was awarded my expenses, but nowhere near. What it cost me in terms of time and stress. And thank you, ma'am. Time's time. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Oh, good evening. My name is Libra, a United States Navy vet and. Resident of Long Beach. I came here. To speak on behalf of some of my fellow vets that was put out on the street because the city of Long Beach gave them affordable housing vouchers, and the new developers that came in and bought the buildings that they lived in forced them right back out on the street. I had a friend that he was in the hospital getting the heart operation and he had to come out of the hospital and go right to a homeless shelter. You know, I understand we got these New York real. Estate developers or Michael Bloomberg who funded the housing. Developers or whatever. But I don't feel that New York is the city that we should be modeled after, you know, to take care of our people. I believe City of Long Beach has always taken care of the homeless. L.A. County has always taken care of the homeless. So I feel we need to represent as a city and where we always have been. Instead of, you know, letting some people from a model city like New York that doesn't. Never take care of the homeless. In my book. I visit the city several times. I was raised in the West from California. And, you know, I feel that we need to take care of our own. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Josh Butler with housing Long Beach. I want to thank the mayor for having me. Maybe a part of the study group and for the council for taking up these recommendations, as well as the many members of the public who gave countless comments to us to help guide where we're at today. And there. Is a situation which we have waitlists for. Affordable housing, which are anywhere from 3 to 8 years long. We have 19,000 people that signed up for the Section eight waiting list. We have 1000 vouchers that are currently out and cannot be used. We have vacancy rates that are dipping as low as 2%, and we have rents that have risen anywhere from 20 to 30% over the last three years. So does with that backdrop that we were asked to put together these recommendations and start to build for the future. And I think we've done a very good job of doing that. Unfortunately, I feel like we have left the city council a great deal of heavy lifting to do because we have not addressed the immediate need as some of the folks here have mentioned. They may pass away while they're waiting for an affordable housing development opening to come through for them. These are seniors who are living on fixed incomes who, when they move, are being asked to verify that they make three times the rent when they're one on a fixed income. That's not possible to do. So where are they to go? When landlords speak of 1400 dollar rents, I often wonder if they would let me borrow their landlord time machine so I could go back into the past and warn people about the impending disaster that will be facing us in the future. And that would be if we would have passed inclusionary housing ten years ago. How many units would we have on the table if we would have included affordable housing in the downtown plan? How many units of housing would we have had? And maybe the urgency with what you are faced in terms of dealing with this plan would not be as great. But it is. And so housing Long Beach, while we were part of this group and we certainly support these recommendations, we'll ask the council to go one step further, as we have for the last year, and that is to enact a just cause eviction protection ordinance for the city of Long Beach. If you're paying your rent on time, you're following the rules of the lease. You should not be kicked out of house and home. I think that's a basic standard that we should be able to meet. We are the largest city on the West Coast without any form of renter protections beyond what the state provides. That's simply not enough. And every day housing Long Beach, we see the victims of that policy coming through our office. This report does not focus on the displacement that has occurred in our city. The data is readily available and we've been working on trying to get that data and we look forward as this process moves forward and working with working with city staff to help better identify where we are seeing short fallings. I think looking at Edison Shutoffs as something that we could also take a look at, we've seen an increasing number of shutoffs there. So the health of the community is not fully reflected in this report. I think this report tries to make very poor situation look very good. I'm not sure why we did that. We have a lot of work to do and I don't know why we would need to reframe our current housing stock as having gone anywhere needing the need of which our residents are facing right now. So I would employ the Council to take a deeper look at some of the challenges that we're facing right now and take a look at coming up with a stronger solutions possible to build upon the work that we have done. And thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And just just also one thing that I had brought up a few times. So I know that multiple council members have asked and requested staff to provide rental information. As far as some of the numbers and some of the some of the data points that were brought up today and certainly some of the data points that both the some of the housing advocates, as well as some of the property owners have asked to be included. So staff is right now working on a lot of this data collection. I know that they're reaching out to some of the groups. It's kind of it's taking place currently. I think there was a draft of an initial data that has been collected. I think that is an ongoing process that's going to happen over the next few months. It's been asked, I know, by multiple council members for that information. And so just for for folks that are here, I know that staff is working on that and they'll be reaching out to everyone to ensure that the data that is being actually collected and shared is reflective of what's actually happening. And so that's I think it's important for everyone to have correct data on all of the rent, all of the rental issues that are happening across the city, and to hear from all all sides and hopefully bring folks together as well. So I know and I think that Josh was just up here. I'm not sure he went. He's up there. So those I that's something that you've asked for as well, Josh And that's that data is is being collected. Next speaker My name is John Kendrick. I'm a vice chair of the Long Beach Gray Panthers and a member of Labor Day. And I've been in Long Beach since the eighties. And I want to hit on four things. One, renters protection. The first time I got evicted, it was illegal because I reported my. Landlord. To the city. It was during El Nino year and we have a. Mold in our apartment. My landlord took documents for somebody else. Why did it out? Did a sloppy job. And then said, He served me, but I never got served. And then I got a three day notice to vacate. Now, when I went to court because I found out I can get documents and I found out and I saw on here where he used documents. For something else, which I've been told, you can't. Do that on any kind of legal documents. Use Wite-Out and you can see what he messed up and this and that. And I never got served. When I took it to the court, the judge left it off. There was no protection at all. Second time, I got legally evicted. I look on the website. And I brought up my landlord. I got evicted. Single parent of three kids going to college. One child in special needs. I ended up in Curbelo Village for two years because the people there, the director, the staff was taking money from the people. And doing things they shouldn't have been doing. It took us almost two years to get enough information to report them. Well, they did a surprise visit. The director and her husband and staff all got fired. So even the people to supposed to be helping us, we down at the lowest we can be. They're not helping us and there's no protection. It costs me years to go from obviously to college with a two year degree to not be able to go to Cal State Long Beach, because I couldn't afford the debt to go farther with that. And my children suffered during that time. Also, do you talk about the homeless camp? It's off because. Anybody being homeless, they know. We're out and moving around at 3:00 in the morning. When you start that survey, the signs up. Everybody's all over the place and this people just aren't even counted in a survey. When I looked at it and then I took part in your talks that was going on. And there was things that. Were brought up. Like one district one, two and three, they're in prime areas. For sea level rise. As it's growing. When those areas go underwater. Which they will, we don't find a way. That means other areas that's considered not prime real estate will become prime real estate and. Those people will get pushed out even. Faster. Thank you. Here we. Go. One of the things where we are, we got to we got to get you would never talk about artificial intelligence. We're losing jobs real fast. So they. Could think. How can I afford a house? Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. And also, I know I mentioned earlier, but I think Ms.. Where is the last speaker we did that? We close the speaker's list. So you're the last. She's the last speaker. Sorry, sir. Okay. I think you really spoke, I believe already, sir. So she's the last speaker? Yeah. No, it's okay. Not. Not not a problem. Next speaker. I'm Kevin Yeager. I'm a resident of District two and a member of the Long Beach Democratic Socialists of America. My mother, my sister and I were all living independently and searching for housing in Long Beach, and we ended up moving in together with a fourth roommate in a three bedroom in Alamitos Beach. My father, my mother is a Long Beach librarian, and she's choosing to live with her kids just so that she can afford her community. My sister is a CSU Long Beach student, as well as a full time worker, and we've already heard hopefully about the homelessness crisis that's facing our students. And so this is not a hip, new millennial trend of living with your parents. It's an economic coping mechanism. We don't need homeownership encouragement. We need you to recognize that our workers incomes have been stagnant and or declining for the past few decades and implement real renters protections. I hope we can all agree that we want our students and librarians to live here rather than commuting in from the Inland Empire where they can afford it. In particular, the protections and preservation recommendations by the Affordable Working Housing Study Group put forward. They were woefully inadequate. I don't understand how an affordable housing study could fail to recommend that it failed to recommend rent control and just cause eviction protections. We can certainly do more than analyze, contemplate and enact policies to address Airbnb or consider a policy to limit condo conversions. Also extremely problematic is raising the moderate income definition to 150% of AMI. And I don't understand why the study group would recommend this other than as an immediate concession to the developers to allow them to build closer to market rates. Housing, market rate, housing. Excuse me. But the truth is, there are real alternatives that we can consider, like rent control, like just cause evictions, like community land trusts. And we need a city government willing to stand up to the speculative real estate industry. We need a city government that stops talking about housing as a financial commodity, as a market demand to be fulfilled, and starts treating housing as a human right. Until we do this, our city is letting the real estate industry profit while we pay the price. And these protections we are asking for are not politically impossible because unlike the developers, we, the renters, make up the majority of your constituents. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Brock Howard from downtown Long Beach Alliance. Good to be with you again on behalf of the commercial and residential stakeholders of downtown. I want to thank the Mayor for convening the study group and for council for having this conference. A conversation tonight on a very important topic. We also want to thank the study group and the city staff for the amount of work, the hard work they put in on this and for all of the community meetings they also took part in and hosted. The recommendations. The deal has already started to look at these recommendations and prioritize them, and we look forward to having to be part of any conversation involving policy and implementation in the future and look forward to hearing back from you as to the direction on those those recommendations and the implementation of the recommendations. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor, and the members of the city council. My name is Johanna Cunningham, executive director for the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities. Tonight, I would like to thank the city staff, Patrick, Amy, as well as Andrew for including us in this study and asking our advice. HCC was present at many of the meetings and we wish to express our availability as the City of Long Beach continues to further define and address the issue of housing. I would like, however, to address one particular topic this evening, and that is of course the rent rental housing industry. While I appreciate the work of city staff conducted to try and better serve this issue, I want to. Address the disconnect between what. Is being reported online and the reality of real rents. I'm going to use one example, real life example that I have encountered just recently. It is in the zip code of 90802 and concerns a group of rent rolls that I was examining. The average rent there was $851. Once again. Far below. All the reported agencies that are online. American Community survey as you stated reports 994 apartments dot com reported an average of 1450 dollars. Craigslist was reporting $800. There are a few additional factors that I'd like to. Note. Here. The rents listed. Online represent really only about 20% of what's being advertised, and that many of these rentals are not listed online, so they are far above what is actually being represented. Most rentals are either self-managed or they have management companies and they don't use the online forums. Owners hang out signs outside the building and you'll see those all over the city. Those rents are usually anywhere between 20 to 30% below what is being advertised online. Long Beach has a great number of long term residents who have been in their units for five, ten, 15 and even more than 20 years. The rents cited are newer builds fully monetized. Recently renovated or newly. Purchased properties that still need to be renovated. All of these factors will change the data and. Collection and the outcome. A CSC is working on compiling data that is not online from our members. To help report a more accurate reflection of rents. In Long Beach. Other questions that we would like to be considered are the age of the building. How long have residents been in place? What improvements have been need to be or are planned to be made within the future? What amenities are available? At what. Point does the rent rate affect the amenities. Being offered? Thank you for your time. And we look forward once again to continuing. Our discussion with the city. Thank you very much. And let me just add also, Joanna and and obviously, we look forward to continuing working with you and obviously all the other groups as we try to make sure that we're getting accurate data. And I think no one should ever be afraid of data and of getting good data and being able to make decisions based on real data that we can that we can agree to what the right and correct factual data sets are. And so I think that's something that we're going to have to work ourselves out in the next, you know, in the in the weeks and months ahead. But that's something that's really important. So thank you. Next speaker. Excuse me. Good evening. Members of the council. Mary Garcia, I want to thank you for addressing this issue and for enduring an hour of our comments. Some of you looked like you're suffering and you're suffering. And when I was up there, I'd be suffering with you. I mean, this is way beyond my attention span. What I want to address briefly is something John Kindred said, who is the go spoke 3 to 3 guys before me and he didn't sit it tonight. He told it to me 17 years ago when I took over managing the El Capitan condominium complex on 33rd and Santa Fe . He said, Andy, if you can fix this place, you can do anything. And the complex was in disarray. We were averaging two calls for police service a day. It was on the brink of financial collapse. And if it had collapsed, that is 150 entry level homeownership opportunities, homeownership units that would have been lost to the city of Long Beach. And so I was able to bring it out because I have the time. I'm in the real housing business. I know how to fix things like this. But when you are addressing these policies and you mentioned this tonight of increasing homeownership opportunities, that really means. Minimums. And what I want you to do when you're formulating your policies is to think about how things might affect how those complexes are run, because most of them. Are lucky to have a real estate professional. Running for them. It's people. Ordinary. People generally, who are not really sophisticated with real estate, who are have the responsibility of running their community for things. For example, I traveled to one Atlantic Avenue in your district, Mr. Austin. We have a fine complex run by a great board, but they're lucky they have someone who is a real estate management professional running that organization . But she won't be there forever. So we need to craft policies that will not make it difficult for those complexes to get rid of the bad actors when they get in, because it can be very difficult to get rid of them. And I know that, for instance, there's some talk of just cause eviction. Why? To bring that, it makes it much more difficult to get rid of these people. When I was trying to get rid of the gang members and the drug dealers, I didn't send out fines to the owners because once a drug dealers, oh, he had the music to out things that really wouldn't be you know evict able under a just cause the eviction scenario. So I just want you to imagine it when you're crafting your policies. How is an unjust, sophisticated board going to deal with a situation where they have bad actors in the community who are more violent and more threatening , better funded that they are. So thank you very much for your time. Have a good evening. Thank you very much. And although our speaker, please. The council. Mayor, I want to thank you. I want to thank you, Amy, because you took some time. Patrick, you took time to meet with better housing for Long Beach, and we gave some. Input and some of that input was implemented. And I really appreciate it. I wanted to just address a couple of things that were said tonight, because I was getting a little concerned that you might get just one side of a story and there's always two sides to every story. So there was one gal that spoke about being a great tenant, and I don't want to call her name out, but I know that particular story because one of those tenants was given a relocation fee and has two evictions on the record. So sometimes we don't always hear the truth up here. We hear people coming up here telling stories that aren't always really accurate. I'm a property owner. I manage quite a few units. All my units are my own and I take good care of the units. And I welcome good, you know, good renters. But there are times where most of road and issues are caused, 90% are caused by the renter. So, yes, that's not accurate because I deal with it every day. So when you want to target and attack a property owner, you got to look at the whole picture because there are two pictures in this. There are two stories. So there's a couple other things I wanted to address. You know, when you tell a lie long enough, people start to believe it. And so I want to say that there's a lot of misinformation that comes up here. And, you know, one gentleman mentioned Legal Aid and Suzanne Brown and I, I just I just talked to someone about legal aid. I don't know if you guys know David Clement. You gave him an award, Jeanine. You gave him an award and he let the tenant live there for one year. And then legal aid took up a case and now is suing him for free. So but I don't know if Legal Aid knows that David gave that tenant a year to live there for free. So these are stories you guys don't hear because we landlords don't come up here and tell you all the good things we do for the renters. And yes, we do do a lot of good things for renters. And so I think it's important that, you know, when when, when to thinking about things like, you know, implementing Prep, you guys implemented Prep. There is a class action suit going on in L.A. right now where the renters, the property owners are getting together and suing the city because they don't like intrusion in their units. I have talked to almost every one of my tenants about these forced inspections, and they're not a fan of them, especially undocumented tenants. They don't want that kind of intrusion in their units. So the people that are pushing force inspections need to think about the unintended consequences that can come along with it. So there's a lot of issues that we need to really address. And I think that, you know, when when people talk about housing, taking information from people that are giving housing, not people that are talking about trying to put housing providers out of business, because if you lose the housing providers, you're not going to have housing and it's a difficult process. So thank you, guys, and thank you. Thank you for letting me share. Bye bye. Thank you. Okay. We're we're going to go ahead and take this back to the back to the city council. And thank you, everyone, that had a chance to comment here and at all the other various sessions. So I just want to ask one question and I think Customer Pearce was up first. Will, I'm sure have some questions too. But Miss Bodak. On there. Obviously, there's 30 recommendations on on here. The one that has had some of the most questions was 3.6, which is about Amy. And so I know that currently and please correct me if I'm wrong. The current moderate income definition that we have at the city is 80 to 120. Is that right? Yes, sir, that's correct. And so the the proposed recommendation here and just to be clear, the the the proposed items on here. 80%, 90% of these are recommendations that came from the study group. There are also recommendations in here that came from staff or the consultant. Staff consultant. So this is one of those. So I wanted to ask where the recommendation came from. I just want to be clear that something that staff brought to the table as a recommendation. So I just wanted you to explain, Ms.. Burdick, the reasoning. Because I also want to just also be honest. It's my understanding that even if the AMA was raised, there's no real funding for this. I mean, the truth is that the state and federal funding right now, is it funding this level of moderate income housing anyway? Is that correct, too? That's correct. Mayor and members of the City Council, RMI and the definitions of extremely low, very low, low income and moderate income bring forth a lot of confusion and discussion. Currently there are there is no funding opportunity for any type of housing production or housing preservation or affordable loans or first time homebuyer mortgage programs that address any moderate income category. And right now, moderate income as defined by HUD is 100% to 120% of AMI. And yes, we do use Los Angeles County AMI. That is a requirement of our HUD documents. We do have to comply with those as well. If we were to, I would just want to give you this perspective. As the implementers of first time homebuyer programs in particular, a two person family of moderate income makes up to $62,000. They would be able to afford a mortgage of $230,343. That is infeasible in this city where our average median is 550,000 and excuse me, our median is 550,000 and our average is 630,000. If we increase the the range for moderate income, we would actually capture folks who can two person family who would earn up to $77,750. But as you said, Mayor, we do not have any funding sources available. The idea is that if there were an unencumbered funding source that we were able to achieve through one of these recommendations, whether it's a bond issue or an A in lieu fee or a recording fee, that we could allocate some of that money, that it does not have restrictions on it to the moderate income category without cannibalizing any of our other funding sources for the other categories, which we already have. So that's the rationale for why staff was interested in increasing it to 150%. We used to have first time homebuyer mortgage programs. We had to discontinue those programs because we were not able to provide a big enough subsidy for the mortgage for a first time homebuyer because we were only able to qualify them under the low income, very low income or extremely low income categories. So because of that, we no longer have a first time homebuyer mortgage program and we no longer offer silent second mortgages like we used to as well. Having said all that, I understand there's an emotional reaction to this idea that we would only be focusing on moderate income. And if that is a concern to the city council, we can certainly discuss these issues further and, you know, look to define that definition more at a later date. Hopefully that answers your question, sir. Okay. Because currently it's 80 to 20 on the median on the idea. That's where we currently are today, correct? Correct. Okay. Thank you. So we'll we'll let the council ask questions and go from there. So thanks for some of that clarification, Councilman Pearce. Okay. I want to thank everybody that came out and spoke tonight and everybody that's sticking around for items later. I know that this is an important issue to a lot of folks, and I definitely want to thank the mayor for all the hard work that he's done over the last year, year and a half, to bring together the issues and bring together experts in this field to talk about how do we generate income, how do we generate dollars to build more affordable housing? And that's what the discussion is about today. And I know that there are some of us on the council that want to talk about the important issues of renter protections. As I've said many times, I myself am a renter. But today we're talking about at this moment, this critical issue about getting enough income to build are enough resources to build affordable housing. And I want to say one thing that I think is really important. There's a dear friend of mine, Bob Smith, from the painters, and he says, you've got to have three things in life to be successful and to contribute back to our community. And it's education. It's a good job and it's housing. And I think Long Beach in a long time has come a long way on education and jobs. And I'm really proud that today we're starting to have that deep conversation around housing. So I have a couple of questions. I'm going to try not to be as lengthy as my 25 pages of notes that my staff prepared for me to go to the Army. Question me 1/2. I wanted to ask you mentioned that HUD defines it as 100 to 120 as at the OECD as well. What is their definition for moderate income? It's the same. Okay. And how many other cities in California have changed their definition to moderate income? I don't have that info on my. Okay. And what's the maximum income level a person within the above moderate category can earn? Do we have. A single person? Yes, a single person. $68,050. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. I want to just say on this issue, I think, you know, you guys were really clear that it was a concern. And I think we have to be really important that we're not creating trickle down housing. Right. We know that whenever we create one of these market rate housing, it takes several years, three decades to be exact, before somebody can afford one of those units. And so while we're creating a lot of opportunity to build other housing, I think that on this item, you know, I have a real challenge supporting this one item . I would support being able to come back and look at maybe how our funding options are working every single year. I want to hear the rest of what my council colleagues have to say. But on this one issue, it's the one that we have to ask ourselves who are we trying to develop housing for? And when we look at the last several years, we've been developing market rate housing. It's been happening. We've done a great job with the downtown plan to help generate that, and our market is meeting those needs. So on that issue, I think it's really important. Number two, I want to I want to thank you guys for including the rental issue when we're talking about inclusionary housing to ensure that the consultant study looks at both ownership and rental housing. Thank you for that clarification. I definitely appreciate it. And look forward to should the state change their policy as being able to implement that here in Long Beach. I would like to ask on one other item. I know that we have done a great job on the 30 something policies on here. I would like to ask staff to report back to council in 90 days on Long Beach's developer impact fees and comparison to other cities in which cities have impact fees and inclusionary housing. If there's cities that don't do both are cities that have both so that we can have that full picture moving forward. If I may. Two weeks ago you authorized a contract for a developer environment assessment contract, and that work will be actually included in that contract. Thank you. So I don't know if it will be concluded within 90 days, but that that specific task and line item is a requirement of this study. Thank you so much, Amy. I really appreciate it. I'll wait to hear the rest of my colleagues comments. But again, I want to thank the council and the mayor for bringing this stuff forward and everybody that's that's stepping up to discuss these issues. Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes, thank you. This was a very comprehensive report. I know we had a lot of our input already put in to this report. And so I have basically three items I'd like to discuss. So I would like to touch on the multigenerational housing. I was actually researching that a bit, so I have another component to that. So specifically with 3.11, that recommendation, it does look at micro units, but I would also like us if we can expand that to look at Co-Living. As mentioned before by I believe it was Karen who maybe herself. Okay, great. An example that I found was common space in Syracuse, New York. I believe it's multigenerational, but it focuses on students as well. But I'm looking and I'm liking that we're exploring more of that, especially joint use agreements between our the city and our educational institutions to provide more of that, those housing elements and then the inclusionary housing. I'm looking forward to seeing that come about and seeing what the court rulings decide for us. And then I have a question on the income restricted rental units. Can you define that specifically? I know it's state and federal mandated units. So what would that look like exactly? Do you can you refer to a specific policy? What are. You. Well, it's income restricted rental units in here. It's in the. In the hope. So. So income restricted rental units, that is our technical term for covenants. So all of the units that we develop for affordable housing based on various income levels, whether they're extremely low, very low or low income, we place covenants on those units for either 45 years or 55 years, and they are restricted at that income level. So if it was developed as an extremely low income, affordable housing project, all of the tenants must be, you know, income qualified when they sign their lease and when units turn over, the next tenant that comes in must also be that same income qualified level. Okay. Great. And in terms of density, the density bonus program, the projects that we have. So I'm looking at the data on both the income restricted and density bonus. And it seems I mean, we have a lot of those types of projects in specific areas of the city and it seems like they're more so in some areas than others. So I guess my question globally would be how are we influencing these types of projects to be citywide? And I know it addresses that sum somehow in this this report. But, you know, for instance, 1700 units of income, restricted housing is in the first district and we have about 250 of density bonus affordable units in the district, which is great, but how do we get those types of projects in different areas so that people can see and have opportunities elsewhere? The short answer to that is your upcoming general plan. The land use element is the guiding document that establishes where height and density and residential development will be occurring in the city. And so it is up to ultimately the city council to determine where that height and density will go. But we are pushing certainly and the state is pushing height and density along transit corridors and they define transit corridors, not just as light rail or fixed rail. They do define transit corridors as those that have bus stops with very frequent headways of bus service. So our land use element, which we'll be presenting to you in a study session next month, is going to show you where we think there's opportunity for height and density to be developed over the next 20 years within the city. That is your opportunity to spread density throughout the city. With density comes opportunity for additional housing development. Okay, great. Thank you. And then the final I appreciate that. And we'll we'll look into that certainly a bit more. And then the final item is the report on rental rates. So what is the timeline that we expect that to come back fully and comprehensively back to the council? I'm sorry, which one was that? The report on rental rates. Their report on rental rates. We're working with our economic and property development department to establish the the a consistent data source. And so I suspect that the goal would be to evolve that into a consistent reporting mechanism that we can present to you on a semiannual basis so that you have an understanding of of trends. Okay. And when do we expect that? Do we expect that in six months? Is it looking like we'll get that data in? I don't have a timeline for you right now given the other 29 recommendations as well. We'll be balancing that. Okay. Well, I. I can. I can. Like. Yeah, I would like a more firm answer. Yeah. I mean, listen, I want to just. Just jump on there, too. I know it's being right now. I think Mr. Chrysler is kind of driving that part of that process. So just in some casual conversations, I expect that over the course of the next couple of months, next month or two, I think a lot of that data is being collected and there's some discussions happening in the community. So I don't expect it to be six months expected to be over the course that. Mr.. Mr.. WEST over the course of the next 60 days. You think we'll have that data? Yes, 60 days we'll at least give you status reports along the way. Okay. And that's going to be between development services in the economic development department? That's correct. Okay. So I would just like for us, as it's being developed, to just include a few things for consideration because I think we should include them. And we've heard this and I certainly would be remiss if I didn't include this or didn't talk about this now and have it included in the report. So what I'd like to just kind of have us wrap our heads around is just displacement and what that definition is and what that looks like in that report. Also identifying demographics affected right now. I think we just have information as to cost burden, which I think we already know and have, but we also have median rent information. But that demographic information would be good. And then how do we I know we've been working with housing Long Beach and Apartment Association, but how do we and I mean, maybe this is a bigger question, but how do we come together to be able to maybe create a list of resident retention programs? And I don't know what that looks like, whether it's education, I'm not sure. But I think there needs to be some sort of clause in this rental report that includes kind of that what that looks like. So just something to keep in mind. Other than that, I think this is a great report. I'm looking forward to hearing more and we'll see where it goes from there. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And first, I want to thank all the speakers for for coming out. This has been educational beyond my expectation on this evening. I also want to thank staff for this very, very comprehensive look at the report on a very, very complex issue. I think there are some creative recommendations here. And the recommendations, I think, do take into account the input from most, if not all, of the stakeholders who participated in the process. Getting to this point, I think we need to obviously take a realistic approach. And so that's why I will be supporting the recommendations here tonight. I think I'll be supporting staff's recommendations, not because, you know, everybody necessarily agrees with everything, but it represents, I think, a step forward as moving the bar. And I think a lot of many of the recommendations actually address much of the challenges that we face here with housing in the city. It's been said that we have a housing crisis in the city of Long Beach. We have a housing crisis in the county. We have a housing crisis in the state. We also have a jobs crisis. I want to respectfully disagree with one of my colleagues who said that we've addressed that issue and we're doing great in terms of jobs. We're doing great in terms of our unemployment, but we're not doing great in terms of good jobs. We have an empty factory right next to the airport. They used to employ thousands and thousands of people on a daily basis and those good jobs were lost. We still need to get back to that now will continue to to be on that program, because I think there is a nexus between the jobs that we have in this city and the housing that we in the housing crisis that we have. The issue of affordability particularly I also heard from a number of residents here just this evening that I think validate the need for prep. Right. We we hear that we have a quality issue as well with some of our housing and prep does exactly address that. And no matter where you are on that issue, you know, if you look at the data here, our inspection rates have gone up significantly. And I think we're going to get good data and sounds like there's there's results happening as a result of prep. And so I'm glad that this council has moved forward to. To support that, and I hope we'll continue to do that as well. I did have a question regarding 3.5, and I would love for this border if you could read that policy and explain exactly what we are seeking to do with that. Certainly. So there is an ordinance. On the books called the Housing Trust Fund Ordinance, and it was to be the repository of matching funds at the time for a program that was run by the state OECD. So you would qualify for matching funds if you had a housing trust fund ordinance in place? We established a housing trust fund ordinance, but the ordinance was written so that it only the funds that would put were put into it would only be eligible to be used by extremely low income and above moderate income purposes. The Housing Trust Fund Ordinance, as it was defined, was not funded on a regular basis and it did get very limited capital in it. However, the. City has a restricted housing assets fund that all of the funds that are in the restricted housing asset fund total approximately $35 million. And that is really what we use for the production and preservation of affordable housing. So the idea of modifying the Housing Trust Fund ordinance is to expand it, to allow all of the sources of money that we have in our housing asset fund and to be able to spend those moneys on all of the income levels and not just the two that are currently defined in the ordinance as it currently stands. Okay. So in terms of diversifying and promoting economic diversity, it would expand. It would allow us to say that we have a housing trust fund ordinance that has $35 million in it, as opposed to a $175,000, $35 million in it, excuse me, as opposed to 150,000. It would allow us to spend that money in the way that we spend all of our housing asset funds as well for extremely low , very low, low and moderate income. And so they're moving forward to the next point, 3.6. Is there a nexus to modifying the moderate income definition from 80% to 120 in the area, median income to 80 to 150? Well, yes and. No. If you chose not to modify the moderate income definition up to 150%, it would still be at 120%. And we could still utilize any funding sources that are unrestricted for moderate income. Okay. Well, thank you for for that clarification. And I guess my next question, maybe you've answered it, but I had a question prepared is why are we changing the HUD standard? And I just would make clear on that. It's in there with the idea that if we. Receive locally available, unrestricted dollars, that we would be able to help more folks in a income strata that we cannot currently reach. And our focus really is on homeownership. And as you probably remember from the rental report, we are are our homeownership opportunities are decreasing even from five years ago. So we are becoming a a more intense renter city as opposed to a homeownership city. The idea, again, that staff was supporting was if we increased it to 150%, we might be able to work on some homeownership opportunities for that that income strata. Well, I'm looking at the data provided here, and I don't know what page it's on, but it shows homeownership versus renters here in Long Beach. Yes. Nationally that that number doesn't seem to have moved much over the last 50 years. In the seventies. I think we are at about 70% renter and 30% homeownership. That is very different from the from the nationwide average. We did decrease over time five years ago. We were at, I think, 57, 58%. We now think we're up 58, 59%. So we are creeping back up. I believe the the average for the United States is 30% renter. Is that correct? Patrick? Page 37 of the report. It's a. 55%. Right. Okay. Well, thank. You. And I don't know if that matters much to somebody who is at risk of, you know, losing their home or or or who who can't afford to rent today. I do get that. But I think these numbers tell a story that they need to be looked at more, more clearly. And bottom line, in my opinion, this is like I said, I'll be supporting staff recommendations. But the real issue, I believe, again, goes to the the shortage or the available of existing housing stock. I think we have to build and we have to build at all levels to to accommodate, you know, the demands of our constituents citywide . And and we need to address the quality of the housing stock. I think our proactive rental housing inspection program is helping in that regard. And obviously, I think we need to deal with the affordability of the existing housing stock at some point as well. And so I will be supporting this. I think staff has done a great job. I think and I think in reality, I just want to be realistic. I don't think we're going to be able to implement all of these recommendations in time enough to solve our crisis. But like I said, I think tonight if we we make this vote, we will be taking a huge leap forward and in addressing an issue that has it's a growing issue here in the city. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember Arango. Thank you, Mayor. I do want to commend everybody who came out tonight. Your voice is very important and it's a compliment to the city of Long Beach and to you as residents who come out here and get involved in the decision making so that we make it here in the city. And your civic engagement is certainly welcome because we need to hear what you think about what decisions that come before us and the studies that we have to deal with in. Regards to the council. Comments that have come thus far. I want to commend Council members from the first and second Gonzalez and Pierce for the issues that they brought up. It's very insightful in terms of what they see as important issues. I'm not sure that I can recommend adoption of all these recommendations because there are some that I have a question on. But more specifically, I have one that I think should basically be removed, that I don't see any benefit or aspect to it. And that would be item 1.8, which is dealing with the sequel, supports equal reform to the city's legislative actions with that encourages the production of affordable and workforce housing. It's just a statement that's put out there with no explanation whatsoever as to why it was put there or any explanation as to what. Would be the benefit. Revisiting Sequel. My interpretation of it at this point is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Leave it alone. Why is it there in the first place without any explanation? From my conversations with individuals in the building trades. They're fine with Sequa as it is right now. And if we're looking at affordable housing and the development of affordable housing, Revisiting Square would basically change some rules that may be actually detrimental to what we want to accomplish here. So I would I would suggest that we either reevaluate that recommendation with an eye on removing it or if it needs to stay there. Tell us why. I mean, why do we need to reevaluate that item and come back with with with the more clear, more clear explanation as to why needs to be there and what do we want to accomplish with that other and that I think the other comments that have been made regarding the the income levels and the whole aspects of rental properties and inclusive housing has been is right along the lines where I'm at and I. So I'm looking forward to moving forward with this. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to first just thank the audience for for bearing with this discussion and excuse me not to step in the back for a little while, not feeling that great, working on a few hours of sleep, got a newborn. So excuse me for that. And I'm up on caffeine. So if I come a little jittery, it's. It's the caffeine. Thank you. So I want to acknowledge just the mayor, the city council, everyone. This has been a really well put together process. Everyone has had ample opportunity to come to the table. Speak, and we're still at the beginning of this. And so that that really says a lot about our sincerity as a city council, our mayor, sincere sincerity to really do something meaningful around affordable housing. I want to thank the task force and staff for their hard work. And I just want to say that it is not easy. It's very difficult to develop affordable housing. From identifying the site to entitlements to identifying financing, going through the tax credit process and then 18 months of construction. You're talking about five years from, you know, the idea to actually opening, opening up a building and then there's there's the lease up period as well. So you're talking about five years. So so, you know, we should all there's going to be plenty of opportunity over the course of this time to really evaluate, reevaluate, check ourselves and make adjustments as we go. But as we move along, I tend to agree that, you know, with the recommendations being up all night gives me an opportunity to really review the the city council agenda. There's a lot of good stuff in here. And we could go we could go stronger. There's things that we can improve. But I'm going to support this tonight. And I have some thoughts and some areas where I think we should some considerations moving forward as we continue this process, so on. So I want to say congratulations and thank you to both the the task force and to city staff on these recommendations. I can tell that these are things that you think we really can make, you know, that we can implement. So on inclusionary housing I support it is becoming standard in in major cities. I, I the angel is always in the details obviously. So as these ordinances are developed and you know, I want to keep a close eye on those. I do believe they should apply to ownership and when we figure out the legal circumstances and to rental housing as well. So I do support both of those and I'll continue to watch that to better understand the legal circumstances. In terms of revenue, we still don't have a replacement for the 20% set aside from redevelopment. We don't have that. That was our major our major source of revenue. So I do support a revenue, a bond, something that is dedicated to to housing because we need a local source. So we're at these other table, these other regional tables like SAG and other cities are dealing with the same thing. The state the feds do not provide a dedicated source for us to really develop this. We have to, you know, for a foreseeable future, we have to think and protect ourselves and think about a local source. So I do support that on the armory discussion. So I'll follow it that the 120 versus the the 150. And I have a quick question in and some thoughts on that. So and I know that this is this has come up, but one more time for a family of four and 120 versus 150. What are we talking about for a family of four in terms of the the income? So for a family of four, let's see, under the current definition, it would be a family of four with an income of 77,750. They would be able to afford a mortgage of 282,875. That's current. That's current 77 total. Yes. So you're talking 35, less than 40. Okay. So for 14 floor, that's you know, when I started working up here, there was the field field deputies or two city council members. They got married. They may be able to afford and possibly afford a house. And I got to tell you that I'm. Already married, Rex. So, so so, you know, I could see I can understand why we want to justify going to 150 a 150%, if that means, you know, to teachers or, you know, to field deputies on the 14th floor are able to buy a place. I don't think that's unreasonable for a family of four. And but again, the angels in the detail. So I followed the portion. We said we don't have rent resources, as many resources to help lower moderate income ownership. Now, when I was purchasing my my home, we didn't have down payment assistance in some cities, had it in some cities didn't. And that impacted my decision on where to go. And luckily I was able to get here in Long Beach. We didn't have we didn't have that tool. So tools like that do make sense. But my concern is, are there tools, are there resources that could be going to, you know, extremely low income that will be some somehow taken away and given to the moderate income owners? From my original understanding, there really weren't because there aren't resources available. But. I'd like to understand for the sake of tracking and evaluation, if we could like as we move forward track by, by category, what resources were actually utilized. So our density bonus is only being utilized by a certain subsection. Is it just the moderate or is it just extremely low using using density bonuses or whatever incentives come out? So so my question for staff here is how can we evaluate this on a regular basis, six months, a year to see are there certain categories that are absolutely not using incentives? And how can we throw some incentives at them? Because I believe this is a both and situation. Not a not a no. But it's a it's a both. And so so how could we or what is the cadence we anticipate on reporting back and can we report back by category? We absolutely can report back by category. We can tell you exactly how many units are covenanted for extremely low, very low and low income. And we can tell you how many are covenanted for moderate, which are pretty much almost. Well, you. Know, I mean, like moving forward, like are we building in these categories? We are building in all those categories because we're required to do so under post redevelopment dissolution law. So we have very, very defined categories that we can spend money on. And Patrick, I don't know if you know them off the top of your head, but they're very prescriptive. Yes, Amy. So we can't use any of our existing funds to serve moderate income households. A minimum of 30% of our funds have to serve extremely low income households. A maximum of 20% of our funds can serve low income households earning up to 80%, ami the remaining 50% have to serve households under 60%. AM I? Thank you. So I get that what I'm really interested in is a year from now when we look back or a year from when we implemented certain changes, could we look back and say over the course of last year, the last year, this category use this many density bonuses or this much of an incentive, this category did not. So we can understand if certain categories need additional help, we can. Absolutely, we can do that. Okay. Fantastic. That's what that's what I would like to see. And then finally, I think we have some opportunities. You know, we have a lot of motel motels that are being misused. And and frankly and I know that, you know, we've had conversations, but, you know, just once they are in the open, I think we should try to, you know, free two birds, one key and, you know, clean up nuisances with these motel motels and create housing opportunities for people who need it. And so that that's something I think we should make a priority and set a premium on because we can literally help the quality life of people who are already being I mean, you probably heard was a terrible incident at a motel, motel, and they happen all the time and that's housing opportunity. So we should figure out how to hold these folks accountable and update those uses to be something that we actually meet. But overall, I just want to say, I know I've spoken a lot, but I want to I just want to say thank you to everyone I think is a good first step and I look forward to tracking the progress. Great. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. Yes, thank you. I appreciate the discussion. I wanted to ask one more time. I know the Army is the topic of fun today. And for a family of four. What is the the. Moderate income maximum and and minimum sorry. The maximum is 77,750. So I have I'm looking at a graph that tells me that's the minimum and that the maximum is 97. 97,000 would be if we increased it to 150%. Okay. So I'd like to go ahead and go and make a motion to approve the study. But leaving out the recommendation for Am I in hope that we could come back at another time and do what Vice Mayor has suggested, which is kind of look at where people are using our resources and also look at other first time buyer incentives where when we look at the bond measures and everything else that we're talking about doing so I'd like to make that motion. Is there is the second Councilman Gonzales or do you ever to have a second or is there a second? Yes, but although I would just I guess to kind of feed off of that, I would like to see what other cities are doing relative to AMI and making that. I think we we've we've kind of talked about this quite a bit. And I think it's it's very important that we address this. So if there's some sort of information we can receive before we move forward with that piece. So that would be great. And so I think I think that the motions to receive and file and adopt the recommendations but remove 3.6 because the current AMA is already what it is. So that just wouldn't the status quo wouldn't change as far as what it currently is. So it would just be to remove 3.6 and just do some further study and some further information about what other cities are doing around around. Am I? I believe that's the motion. Okay. Councilman Gonzalez, is that the second? Yes. Correct. Okay. Councilmember Andrews. Thank you. C'mere. For those of you who are not keeping up with the time, we have 21 more items to go, and I. We might as well wake up now, because I just want to, first of all, thank everyone who was a part. Of this, you know, bargaining for this document to come forward. And a lot of this is because I think the development and service and, you know, the numerous. Sarkodie's who came out and took time to be a part of this study group and people have a body the input, you know, this. Housing is a very sensitive issue. And when we mention affordable housing becomes, you know, an urgent. Matter. That faces us in California. But what I really like to say is I think that with individuals. Like our Mrs. Amy Bodak and her group and a lot of work that you all of you guys have come to gather and you're very study groups. I'm sure that we're going to be able to come to something here. Where we can all be, you. Know, satisfied with. So thank you again very much for sticking around tonight because we're going to be here for a while. And in the can you just keep getting longer? So we will. Councilman Austin So I'll be sort of following up on Councilmember Andrews's comment, recognizing that we do have a big agenda ahead of us. But I do want to didn't they want to just just point out something that one of the some of this data here that that I think is pretty compelling. The 2010 Census had our population at 400,060 462,000 residents. Today, the Department of Finance estimates our population to be 484,000, almost 885,000 residents. That means I've heard a lot about people leaving Long Beach, but the numbers show that people are actually coming to Long Beach and this is creating a serious housing crisis for us. And so I think the I mean, the numbers don't lie. I mean, that we have a population growth that we're dealing with as a result, we have a housing challenge as well. So just wanted to make that point. Thank you. Councilmember Orengo. Thank you. To my previous comments regarding seek work with the makers of Motion. Consider including the removal of item 1.1.8. I would. It. Thank you. Okay. And I'm fine with that. But this is also a reminder of, I think the reason why staff put that in was because it's part of your guys's legislative agenda on the city council that you pass through the state legislative agenda that Councilman Austin chairs. So I think that's why it was put in there. So I think that if you remove it, you guys have to revisit the legislative agenda that you have as a state budget committee as well. I don't know if Councilman Austin has a comment on that or not. I do have a comment on that, I think. I think as we discussed, there's a housing crisis throughout the state and cities are looking at ways to to be able to build and address their housing crisis in a in a manner that can be expedited. You all know, we've we've said it. This is a crisis. If this is a crisis, do we want to have roadblocks? This council approved a housing development in my district a little over two years ago. Right. And that process was delayed significantly because there was it was challenged. It was challenged. And there was no merit to the challenge. But it could be challenged through the existing school process. And so and not to disparage those who had a difference of different opinion on that. But if we are truly serious about addressing our housing crisis, we, I think, have to look at modifying that that that that legislation and to to to be able to effectively address our issues. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just want to speak to the speak to the motion and directly to Councilwoman Pierce for a moment. So I just want to direct just directly to Councilwoman Pierce for a moment. So the the 122 150, I think and correct me if I'm wrong, I want to have a back here quickly. Is there is the hope that resources are not pulled into a higher category, higher income level that somehow is taken away from where we need extremely low and low income? That is the expectation is that we don't take resources away from that level. Okay. And the fact that the market right now is already creating housing at that level and we're not creating housing further down. Okay. And so would it be would it make sense to then say, you know, we want to evaluate that. We want to study that additional one 2150, not stop whatever incentives we're going to try to prepare, but craft it in a way that it does not limit whatever we have dedicated or whatever resources we have dedicated to . But you know, up to 120 level the traditional because I think we have to just think not. No but but yes. And even if it's a we have hesitation on the one 2150, we should still continue to evaluate it, craft some programs and see how we can try to meet those needs. I can tell you, I grew up, lived a renter, understand completely. And at one point I did make the transition and it was hard to transition as a, you know, single guy wasn't making a lot of money. But transitional homeownership and having local resources to help achieve that is essential. It is essential to just building wealth, generational wealth, like getting into that. And I don't want to I don't want to limit it because we don't understand it. Right. And that's why I think it's good to to study it, bring it back. I think the flag for me was the comment that if there's money that that has no strings tied to it, that it would go directly to this this area. And I want to make sure if we have funds that will have strings tied to it, it goes to where it's the most need. Sure. So I think. Well, same page. I think what I would ask then, if you could just amend emotion then and just say, you know, about, you know, continue to evaluate and study the one 2150 but bring any programs that are going to, you know, any funding, any programs that would bring it back to council, all of it together so we can understand. So the 120, you know, that's going to have to come the council anyway. Right. But that marginal stuff, we want to see it all together. Yeah. And give clear direction account to staff that we want to building mechanisms to ensure we're tracking and ensuring that we're not you know, stealing from, you know , robbing Peter to pay Paul. Right. Right. And I would I would want to see, as we discussed, having that be a continual report. Absolutely. An annual report back. So you're going to put that in your mode, just some reporting tracking and continue to evaluate this. We're not necessarily saying no, but we're. Yeah. Yeah. All I'm in my motion to include that fantastic things. Okay, then the motion has been amended. Councilmember Supernova. Thank you. I'd like to thank staff and all the speakers here tonight for spending their time with us in particular. Andy Whalen, I'd like to thank you for your moment of comic relief. We desperately needed it. You know, we've discussed the sequel issue, but I would just like to give staff an opportunity to weigh in on it . Okay. You have 10 seconds. That's a joke. Go ahead. We support 1.8. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for that brief response. That's all I have. Councilman Price. Okay. Well, I think any of just a little bit more direction than that. How would your recommendation be impacted if the motion were approved now with the friendly in regards to the sequel issue? So in regards to the sequel issue sequel, it can be a extremely expensive undertaking for an affordable housing developer. And there are some discussions at the state level that would impact their ability to do projects. We would like to be able to be going through the state and federal pledge. Well, the State Lodge Committee to support sequel reforms specifically for affordable and workforce housing, making it simpler for them, therefore less expensive for the housing developer, the affordable housing developer to proceed. And if I can add for the implementation, the way we would do this is you'd be giving us direction tonight to start thinking of some of those ideas, too. On how to make that process a little bit easier for affordable housing developers. And then we would be bringing you through your legislative committee, some specific wording to give staff the direction to work on. So that would be the implementation. You would see that again. Okay. So I guess the question I have for Charlie is how does the friendly regarding secure change staff's proposal? If I understand, I need some clarification after the last discussion here between Vice Mayor and Council Member Pearce. But as to 1.8, the way I have the motion reading currently is the it is a motion to adopt staff recommendation without 3.6 changes and to remove section 1.8 entirely. Well, if I can just chime in, I would be supportive. First of all, thank you to the staff. You've done a really great job. I would be supportive of moving forward with a receiving file on the staff rapport with all of the friendlies that have already been made. Absent the the secure, friendly. So if there's a if there's a recommendation, a friendly and it's been accepted, which I'm not totally clear on, then I might want to make an amendment. So I'll just wait to hear some more and then I'll chime in. Okay. I want to actually show that Councilman Pearce is going to go back to the motion to make a comment and I'm going to ask Miranda. Yes. So understanding that if we left that in today, it would still need to go through different committees and still come back to council and go through that whole process. I would I'm okay with keeping it in today. So I'd like just so we can have a more public conversation around it, I don't think any of us have had a detailed enough conversation to leave it off the table. Yeah. So I think. Roberto, you. Councilman Miranda. Go ahead. Customary lingo. Okay. But my my purpose for bringing this up, obviously, is because there already is and state ledge. It's just misplaced. I don't think it belongs here in this and on this item here, because we are going to be addressing school reform through our state pledge committee. So, you know, I would just turn to this issue for this today. You know, if it's if it's going to help anything, then I would draw my friendly as long as we know that it's a state led issue in that on this 1%. Thank you, councilmember appreciate that. It's it's on the state ledge book. So. Okay. So we have a motion and a second and I'm going to repeat it. Mr. City Attorney So the city attorney is supposed to adopt all of the recommendations and to move on item. Gosh, which one was that one? And in relation to item 3.6, did you want to repeat repeat it. Vice Mayor tried it on I believe it was to move forward with with reviewing all items of all images and to actually review all of them. But to bring back to council a report on what actually changing 80 to 150 would actually mean. That margin. That margin. 20 to 150. And how that would impact. Other other available things. We can do that. Yeah. Okay. And the report. Right. Report periodic and the report report by category. Yeah. Okay. There's a motion. Any second members, Pisco and Castro votes. First. It is. Motion carries. Great. Congratulations, everybody. Very nice. I have an announcement. If there's someone actually left their keys on the podium. If anyone found a set of keys when they went up to the podium to speak and maybe just grabbed them thinking they were theirs there. Someone's actually missing a set of keys. If you can just return them to the clerk. If you have them, that would be great. So if you have a set of keys or found a set of keys, please bring them to the city clerk. Thank you. We're just going to take a just 30, 32nd, one minute recess and they're going to start the council agenda in a minute. We're going to go and call the meeting back to order. If it was called the Great Depression, you know, I would talk about that. All right. You know, it's not like you were saying, oh. Okay, I'm calling to order. If you're chattering to go outside, please. So maybe mean called to order. If you're chatting, including our staff, you guys can go outside. She. Thank you. Welcome. Councilman Gonzalez. Councilmember Pearce. Councilwoman Price. Councilmember Sabino. Councilwoman Stacey Mongo. Councilman Andrew's. Councilmember Younger. Councilman Alston. Vice Mayor Richardson. And Mira Garcia. I'm here. Thank you. I have a I'm going to do open public comment right now. And we'll get back to the items in just a minute. I have one, two, three people here, I think, for all the same item. Can I have Dale Dixon? Sergio Gutierrez. Victoria Osuna. They're all here for the Rainbow Harbor kiosk issue. Is that right? Okay. Please come forward. Is that is of Velcro also? And Fanny Martinez. The is that a different issue? It's all the same issue. Okay. So then let me let me do it over. So then Dale Dixon, Fannie Martinez, Gutierrez.