Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal code by adding Chapter 21.65, relating to Interim Motel/Hotel Conversions, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Thank you very much. And then we have our fucking hearing, please. Report from Development Services recommendation to receive the supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and find the project exempt from the secure. Declare Ordinance. Amending Title 21 of the Long Beach Municipal Code to establish an interim motel conversion ordinance. Read the first time and later at the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and adopt a resolution to submit the ordinance to the California Coastal Commission citywide. We'll have Christopher Coons make the final presentation on this public hearing. And I will move quickly. Again, Christopher Koonce from Development Services. And I'm joined on the Web meeting by Alejandro Sanchez Lopez, who has been working on this project since he was an M.A. in 2017. And then we hired him in the department. So it's great when that works out. What this item is about is we have a number of motels in the city, likely an oversupply of motels in the city. But what we have an undersupply of as housing leading to our housing crisis. And specifically looking at the number of homeless residents or folks in danger of homelessness or severely rent burdened motels that become housing of last resort. But when they're operated as some blurry line between legitimate motel and housing, they can be subject to a number of nuisance issues. This program seeks to address both problems and builds upon existing efforts and recommendations from all of our various task force and reports that we need to be able to provide additional housing to provide rapid rehousing of homeless individuals and to be able to address our nuisance motels. So how does this ordinance work? Motels typically comply with a number of requirements when converting to housing, and there are certain disincentives to do that conversion. This program would allow a streamlined conversion from motel to supportive housing for a period of time with onsite social services. They would meet performance standards and the conversion itself would be a matter of right. They would not be able to expand or substantially change the footprint of the structure. This from a technical standpoint, this ordinance provides relief from sections of the zoning code that would otherwise prevent these motels from being converted into housing. It provides structure to revert to the prior use to basically revoke the conversion if necessary, by the city upon termination of the agreement with the property operator or at the request of the operator. It allows development services to review the applications in partnership with the Health Department, and it provides strict performance standards for the operators so that these facilities are operated in consideration to the surrounding community and we resolve any nuisance activity. This just shows you that this program, while it's a land use item, it's also a partnership between the city, our health department, nonprofits that may be operating these hotels. We're going to come into an agreement and we're all going to meet our expectations and our performance standards. In order for a conversion to occur, a multi-year contract has to be entered into between the operator and the city. So that would be a partnership between the operator, Development Services and Health and Human Services. The ordinance is intended to remove barriers and incentivize this type of conversion. And we did have some discussion at the Planning Commission about whether this would overburden any particular part of town. But there are motels, including nuisance motels spread throughout the city, even if there are more in certain districts than others. So with that staff as excited to move this project forward and we ask that you adopt the ordinance in front of you and I am glad to answer any questions. Any public comment on this item? There's no public comment on this item. We gave a motion to the second Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is this is this is incredible work. We've been talking about motel conversions for quite some time. Now, remember, we also made a motion on this maybe two, three years ago to look at this as a package of a whole host of things. Since then, there's been state legislation, there's been Project Homekey and a lot of focus here. But but it's taken taken some time. But I think we're now is the perfect time actually to leverage some of the state programs and figure out how we can address some of the new no nuisance motels in our city by converting them into some purpose. That actually helps us solve our public policy challenges around housing availability in our community. So I'm really glad to see this and obviously supportive. Councilor Pearce. Thank you. Yeah, I'm really thrilled with staff's work on this. I recall in my first six months on office, which was over four years ago, we were talking about this. We had a lot of staff time dedicated to it. And I think converting these to transitional housing and providing homes for people is really critical. And I really applaud your staff's work to be creative and to stay focused. I hope that over the next decade even that we can open this up to more properties. I know that we went over the property list last time, but really what we should be really proud of this effort because it wasn't an easy lift. So good work in. Thank you. Council members and day house. Thank you, Mayor. I also want to say thank you very much to the staff. I am in full force, supportive. This is incredibly important to me and to my district that we provide more benefits for for our neighbors in experiencing homelessness. It has been such a joy to see this process come about. And I think all those who came previously, for all their efforts they did in bringing this forward and now we get to experience this. And I think it's going to be a great thing moving forward. And as my colleagues have said, you know, it's going to help us provide more services that are so, so much needed, not only in the first, but throughout the city and to the whole city as well. So thank you very much, staff. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Q Mr. Mayor, I have a couple of questions for Christopher, for Mr. Coons, and that is in regards to holding strict guidelines for the operators of the facilities. What enforcement resources mechanisms? Staffing allocations, do we have to ensure that the operator will be held to the standard that we're all agreeing on? Because I think this is a fantastic program and I look forward to some of the nuisance motels even in my own district. I'm not familiar with all of them throughout the city, of course, but the ones in my district being considered but what I what I want to be able to make assurances of to residents is that the operators will be held accountable in terms of abiding by specific guidelines when they're operating, especially in close proximity to residential neighborhoods. I'm sure. So while this ordinance takes care of the land use, it also makes reference to entering into a contract. So in addition to the normal code enforcement process development services, we have a much better tool in this case and that you it's not profitable to operate homeless housing. So these providers are operating with funding either from the county, the city or another government agency. And they're entering into a contract with the city of Long Beach about the provision of those services that go along with the housing and the city maintains the right to terminate that contract, which would ultimately eliminate their ability to continue to operate the facility. So we hold not only our normal nuisance abatement measures, but we hold the purse strings and we have a contractual relationship with these operators. So working with my partners in Health, because it's not development services staff on a day to day basis doing homeless services, but we would be working as a team and we believe that additional leverage of the contract and potentially some funding provides us a greater degree of control over these facilities than you would find on a run of the mill land use, such as a restaurant or somewhere where we have to go through the nuisance process. That would not be the case in this circumstance. Follow up question, will the provisions that we're entering into this evening by way of adoption of this also apply to properties that are acquired through county funds or through county sources? So this program will apply? Yes, generally speaking, and the county we have shared the county provisions with them. And Kelly Cappelli, director of Health and Human Services, is having those discussions with the county, not myself, but the county, even if they're not legally required to, because they preempt us on some things. They have expressed their intent to meet these conditions and to operate in cooperation with the city and to coordinate entry so that we make sure that we're serving Long Beach homeless residents in these facilities, whether it's owned by the city, county or a third party. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilwoman. Next up is Vice Mayor Andrews. Okay. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank Isaac and his team for putting the item together. You know, I believe that as a council, we are always forward thinking on how to help with the homeless crisis. You know, we have one more chance to participate in this conversation. We should be doing what we can do. I mean, to streamline the process for them. I'm just hoping that in establishing locations that all districts, you know, can help with this initiative. And again, I want to thank the team very much, Oscar Unity. Thank you. Roll call. Vote, please. District one. I District two I District. High. School, District fourth. In your high. High. District five. I. District six. High. District seven. I. District eight. I. District nine. A motion carries. Thank you. Now, let's go ahead and move on to some other items. We will do 23 and then. And then the rest should go rather quickly. So why don't we go ahead and do 23 and then we'll go back and do all the rest.