Recommendation to request City Manager to work with all appropriate departments to report back to the City Council in 60 days with recommendations for implementing a pre-approved Accessory Dwelling Units program.
Thank you. Now we're going on to item 28, please. I'm 28. It's a communication from Councilwoman. Councilman Alston. Councilwoman Sarah. Recommendation to require city manager to report back to the City Council in 60 days with the recommendations for implementing a approved accessory dwelling units program. Thank you. Council Member Austin. Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank Council Member Sorrell for joining me on this this item. And as we begin 2022, we've heard a lot of goals about our our housing crisis and the need to build quality, affordable housing in our city. And this is just another tool in the toolbox. This item aims to assist the city as it looks to increase the number of quality, sustainable and affordable housing units in our communities. In November, we proposed the proposed housing element, Long Beach's arena allocation increase to 26,502 units, with over 11,000 of those being low and very low income . We've fallen short of these goals in the past, and only 16% of our affordable housing target is the fifth housing element cycle permitted. I hope this item can be a useful tool that we can leverage to increase production and alleviate the housing crisis in our city. 80 youth presented a unique solution because of their small size and compatibility with single family housing and zoning. Wait times and design costs can can become barriers for projects prospective residents interested in constructing to use. And we want to eliminate that. For these reasons, the cities throughout California have started adopting approved edu plans to streamline the approval processes for employees and residents alike. Our developments the services department previously intended to develop a new preapproved program for those plans were direct but derailed by the pandemic. This item makes use of the preliminary research already done by the department staff and ensures that we develop a program based on best practices for the city of Long Beach. And I just would note that the city of L.A., La, San Jose, Chico and other cities have all adopted strategies to streamline their development processes, and this will decrease permitting time. Pre-approved 80 plans will provide applicants for 80 new construction plans. They've already been reviewed by the city with necessary permitting staff, which potentially could streamline the approval processes for able to use from weeks to days. And so this is an efficiency item as well. And so with that, I would. That's what my colleagues support on this. All right. Thank you. Next is Councilwoman Sorrow. Vice mayor. I want to thank Councilmember Austin for his leadership on this item. You know, last month seems like a lifetime ago because of the holidays. But just last month in last year, we just finalized the housing element plan for the city of Long Beach. And I think we heard loud and clear consistently that we need to increase housing and we need to explore every option possible. And I think that one of the ways that we can do it is through making it easier through this preapproved accessory dwelling unit program. And so I think that and I think that it's just, again, one of the many avenues we can take to make sure that we just really ensure that we're meeting our numbers, but most importantly, ensuring there's increased housing. So for that reason, I completely support this item and understand that hopefully, you know, when we get a report back is seeing what are the various options people can choose from based on the pre approved plan. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. This is a very interesting one for my district. On one side, we're very supportive of reducing government regulation and red tape and barriers to entry and finding ways for people to be able to get through city processes faster. On the other side, we also don't want to incur additional government costs. And so I hope that when the report comes back, we would be open to when a. Applicant plans to use one of these, that they would have a small nominal fee that would go towards reimbursing the city for the cost. So let's say that they cost the city 30, $50,000 to move forward with this program of a current application fee is $6,000, maybe it's 6200 because they're using one of the previous plans. It saved them in architectural and engineering $9,000. So the $200 fee could make up for and feedback into that pot. I know that there's a lot of discussion and calls to our office regarding individuals who want to use to use to. Allow family members, particularly parents, to move in with them. I know that there's one that's pending right now. That is for a daughter who was recently left by her husband and her kids and and her are going to move into a adu at her parent's house that they're building. And those delays are significant. When you don't have somewhere to live, being able to move a process forward more quickly can mean the difference between months, months of living care for an elderly parent. So I've been torn on this item because I know that there are conflicting feelings. But I do want to reduce government regulation, and I do want to support a plan for a nominal way to reimburse the city for that. A lot of these ideas that Council Member Austin have brought forward are very innovative and I appreciate the research and I look forward to seeing the report back with the recommendations in 60 days. Thank you. Councilmember Super. Now I was going to go to public comment, but because I've inherited a lot of Councilmember Mango's district, I might as well just follow up on what she just said, and that is it. We don't even have to go to the merits of aid to use and affordable housing or what impact it will have. To me, this item is about reducing staff time and improving these units or streamlining the staff process. So I would love to get there, but I'd also like to ask staff now. That's a great goal. But but is it going to be minimal impact for the study to happen? Do you see much time spent on that? Mr. MacGregor. Mr. TIM. Because some of it is. Is development services on the line? Yes, department services is on the line. Go right here to ask if you could respond. Thank you, Mayor and council members. What we plan to do is report back to you with different options, some of which could provide the staff with additional time and expenses that we currently don't have. There are other options that potentially could be easier to administer and quickly and cost the city with little impact in terms of funding . So we'll well, what we'd hope to do is provide you with those options. We have already done some preliminary investigations, including the use of pre-fabricated modular units and a housing project and a funding for such a for those types of projects. So we'll provide that information to you in short order. Okay. Thank you for that. Mr.. Morsi. And so based on that, the fact that the study is not going to impact staff time tremendously with the goal of streamlining the process and taking some burden off planning or development services. I'm supporting the item. Thank you, Councilman Price. Thank you. I'm very supportive of this item. And I just want to say I really appreciate the frequently asked questions sheet. It really helped break down the issue for me. I guess my question would be to the to the author of this item. I mean, it seems to me that this also affords an opportunity for people who want to have an EDU to be able to do so at a reduced cost, because the all the investment that they would have to take to build an idea would be such a deterrent for most people. And it seems like this item does that. Am I reading it correctly? I think you're reading it absolutely correctly. If you look at the cost of building 80 youths that are not pre-designed in prefab. It's significant today and I think it becomes a barrier. And so we need to remove barriers as much as possible. I agree. I mean, it's it's no secret. I've spoken very publicly about the fact that I thought our council did a very good job outlining our new laws. We listened to public comment. We incorporated many characteristics and variables that we wanted to make sure were met before we allowed an ADU and our ordinance was superseded by the state. And that's just a reality that sometimes happens and it took away some local control. So now that that ordinance is now in place or that state laws in place allowing for a readily accessible way to use and more of them, then I want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to participate in that process and that cost is less of a barrier, although let's not make any mistake about it building. And Adu is very expensive with this item or without, and it is a barrier for many people. But if it allows folks to have an opportunity to earn some additional income on their property, then I think we should try to remove those barriers. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. Just to circle back, I think that after finishing reading the FFA cuz I think it's important to kind of highlight a few of the things that Councilmember Austin has brought to the forefront, which is that the costs of ADU use for garage conversions all the way through detached units, really in construction costs alone, you're talking 90,000 to this says 180,000. But I'm aware of a bit of a recent ADA in our our area that was over 250,000 just for construction costs. And the individual had mentioned not only had they already been in for thousands of dollars in engineering and architectural costs, but I don't think that they were aware of the fees. And so one of the other things I'd love to see on this, because the family was pretty blindsided, is there a set of fees associated, whether they're sewer fees, Long Beach, unified fees, all these different fees. And in fees alone, they had upwards of 6000, $10,000 in fees. And a lot of those fees are directly tied to the square footage. And so there's calculations that are involved. And so I would love to see that if we do bring back something that discusses the specifics of these different little options that you could have. So like San Jose says, okay, here's here's a two bedroom floor plan for 500 square feet. Average construction costs in the Southern California area are x per square foot. And by the way, your sewer fees would be this year. Let me unified fees would be that your community college fees would be this and that there should be a schedule so that people know what their all in costs are before they get started. Because once they do get started, a lot of people are all in and then they overleverage themselves or they try to get loans and they can't afford to finish the project. And we have a couple of projects that are just stuck because people ran out of money and that's also not good for the community. So if we could get those fee schedules attached and some estimates, that would be very helpful. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I'll I'll add my support here, then we'll go to public comment. First of all, I love this. I think it's a great item. It's not a referendum on IOUs use. We already proved a to use in the city. I think this is a recommendation to make it better and I support that. It is a tool we're counting on to use. We are certainly counting on to help meet our arena numbers and our housing shortage. And so if this helps make that happen, I'm supportive. Growth is going to happen. This just helps make sure it's done safe and up to code and not haphazard and illegally converted garages and things like that. I think cut sheets are good. Like when we have cut sheets on other things and make it easy, you can say, hey, build it like this and it's approved. It takes one layer out of the planning process and that's always good. I also think, you know, I always get these cards. I'm sure my colleagues do, too. Hey, we can build a you and your backyard and all that. So, you know, I've called some of them and it's not Stand B, they can't give you a flat rate. They have to do a lot of work. Just to give you a quote, I think doing something like this, when you standardize, hey, this is what this is what this size will look like, so that looks sides look like. I think the business community will respond and say, I think people would actually design businesses around where they're at, you, experts in Long Beach, so on and so forth. So I fully support this. You know, I think I think just a suggestion. I think it would be good if staff were to just work with the apartment association or developing companies that are developers of this to help make sure it actually, you know, that that is something they will utilize and that'll work. But I love this item and I'm happy to support it. Let's go to public comment and congratulations, Councilman. I think I will go let's go to public comment. We have three votes and I can say John Edmond and Tiffany Davey. So now you're up. So I said I can face six votes for president. I want to commend first of Councilman Austin for bringing this to this item to the agenda. And, Dr. Sophy, sorrow for second unit. As we know, 80 youths are the future. And it's a very harsh reality to the affordable housing crisis that we have here in California. A You seem to be one of the few very visible examples of development, specifically towards the income brackets that need the most housing and so falling in support of it. UC Berkeley says that UC Berkeley did a study and they said the average ADU cost is about $156,000. We need some teeth. With respect to this program, I think that a preapproved, a streamlining effort will help some solutions. I would like to offer would be very simple. I think there should be no fees. Forgive me, Councilwoman Mongeau. I think that the city should eat all the cost. The reality is that if the city incentivizes the free market to take advantage of something like, you know, fees and stuff like that, you're talking about, you know, 12 to $18000 in fees, blueprint blueprint fees and the planning permits and loan that $18,000 added to the cost of whatever you have to use. If the city was to eat that up, we would easily knock out a lot of the arena issues that we're facing. You know, we're behind and we need to incentivize the market to take to take advantage of this. A second thing that I would offer is that we create a, you know, similar to the gun buyback program where we allege that we take guns off the street, even though most of them are not guns used in crimes. We need to actually actually incentivize people who have illegal garage conversions to legalize them. And, you know, if that's a one time fee, like you're talking about a nominal fee where people are incentivized to bring their illegal garage conversion or granny flat and make it a legal one. I think that those units, when then legally added into the our arena unit that were behind would help us a lot because people have already done this, they just didn't do it legally. And oftentimes people, you know, are in fear of either selling their house or making it unaware that they have to use because they didn't illegally get it converted. So I think if we created a process for people, that would help a lot. And then finally, I think that RFP should be put out for a pre fabricator, a sizable one to do modular adus and the city also using maybe some of the code good money to eat up the cost for them. Thank you. Thank you. Next is John Edmonds. Hello. It's not even here. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember, city manager, city attorney, city staff. For all your hard work. Greatly appreciated. Wonderful item. Thank you so much for putting this forward. I'm speaking on behalf of the Apartment Association of California Southern Cities and in many ways city staff is fantastic, but their hands are tied a lot of the time, so the state constantly changes and then the city has to update their rules and regulations and codes to meet what some of the state rules are. But I think we can we can do more, right? I think there's always an opportunity to do that. I ask if there is a way that we could work with local stakeholders that are their subject matter experts on this issue, that can aid the city in finding, you know, more opportunities to be able to do a to use couple of examples that come to mind. We have a new construction of new apartment buildings which allow under state law the the one of the parking units to be converted to EDU and the person has to fill in the concrete, put all the things up, and then submit for an application. You know, why can't that be done concurrently? Why can't we have the inspector come out before you fill in the concrete, make sure all the pipes are there, and that we make sure that we have these units done successfully to protect life and property, but that we have a more streamlined system so that under new construction they're able to fully maximize the number of units that are able to be made. To me it seems like a no brainer, but the city's hands are tied because it doesn't speaks clearly to that issue. And I think that we can work together on finding those types of solutions in terms of process, right, because they have a lot on their plate. The second thing is like, for instance, height, there's duplexes that are within the height restrictions for the state. But because it's a duplex, it's not a single family unit, it's not viewed the same way and being able to have an ADU and so therefore staff, you know, again, have their hands tied because. Current code does not recognize what the intent surely of the state. I mean, whether it's a duplex or a single family home, as long as the heights compliant. What issues with there really be. So I think that looking at real world market examples of what the current limitations are and applicants that have gone through the process that have been denied and finding sort of, you know, common sense solutions, I just welcome that and hope to be part of those conversations. So it's fully enveloped and we can really capitalize on all the opportunities. But tremendous hats off. Wonderful item. Thank you very much for being able to bring this forward and thank you city staff for all their hard work that they do to make this happen and make Long Beach. Great. So thank you. Have a great evening. Thank you, Mr. Redmond. I think that concludes public comment. Or do I have another one? We have one more. Davey? Yes. Oh, yeah, please. Thank you. Good evening. It's not every Tuesday that housing advocates and the California Apartment Association are on the exact same page, but we are definitely in support of this item. As we all know, the conversations regarding housing being the need for housing being a crisis requires innovation. That said, beyond just this program, which I'm again, fantastic, I saw the 13 units example with three different sizes, a wonderful way to bring more units on board as soon as possible. But to the two comments from the previous speakers in regards to those that are already in existence, we do need to have a streamlined process for that as well. I shared I believe in last year that I had a lot of experience during the pandemic, speaking with homeowners who had been denied within the past 15 years to have their units go online. And we have units sitting empty. We also have units that were very reluctant to even take part in the census for the shame of living in an illegal unit and of fear of just reporting that they live somewhere to protect both their landlords and themselves. Housing is a human right, but it's also something that during the pandemic we have fought day and night for. Whether you're working till midnight, helping folks with emergency rental assistance applications, or again walking door to door to make sure every community member is counted. Thank you. That concludes the public comment. Thank you. We'll go back comes from Austin. Thank you. I'd just like to thank my colleagues for their input there on this particular item. I think it's very important that we come out in 2022 with a real aggressive approach to dealing with our housing crisis here in the city. And I think this item certainly speaks to that. I'd like to just step to to speak to what is already been done in terms of the the pre-approval or the template for garage conversions. Because I heard a little bit about that and I think we need some clarification on that. Yes, thank you. Council member staff began in two page process before COVID. The first phase we were successful was successfully implemented and that was the conversion developing country that someone mentioned earlier or typical to help those individuals wishing to convert their garages into EDU. So that's there that's available online. And it's it was something that we in the city paid for to be able to more easily convert garages. We started with looking at the different options that you listed in the council letter as well as visiting several different locations, a pre manufactured edu type. Of. Fabrications throughout the surrounding area in hopes to be able to learn a little bit more. So we've already done that. One other thing too is that the state rules regulate the amount of fees and funding you can charge on these fees. So that regulated by them. We do still, however, and again, as Councilmember Mungo indicated, it depends on its size. So we have that information that we will provide to you and report back. So there have been several efforts done, but again, COVID and funding kind of limited our phase two. So we're hoping to get back to completing our efforts. So we do appreciate this. Councilor Councilmember Hoffman. All right. Thank you. And my my just last words is we've heard a lot of good comments from an input from the council as well as public comment. Please take that all into consideration. When you come back with some recommendations, we asked for the best options possible for this Council to consider with the goal in mind to expand and streamline production of a to use in our city. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I just have another question for our director, Oscar. Are the fees regulated only for the city or are they regulated for every government entity that you pay fees to the regulated for every government entity that we pay fees to? That is correct. Wow. There are certain fees. We will engage our city attorney's office on the school fees. School fees are requesting fees and there may be a bit of a conflict there, but we'll get you that information as well in our report back report. Good to know. Thank you. There's a motion and a second and we've heard public comment to members, please cast your votes. The motion is carried. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. We're moving on to our next item, which is going to be item 27.