Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the City Attorney’s Office, the City Prosecutor’s Office, and the Code Enforcement Bureau, to provide a report on the current nuisance violation fine structures and the feasibility of increasing penalties and/or fines or fees on property owners/managers or tenants depending on staff’s recommendations, to allow for more effective enforcement tools and resources to address nuisance activities. This should also include evaluating options for fines or fees to be based on income qualifications, and if community service was feasible in place of fines where appropriate.  This report will also include evaluating opportunities and the feasibility of bolstering the Code Enforcement ordinances and relevant provisions of the Municipal Code and aligning with best practices.
Motion carries. Maximum 16. Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilwoman Zendejas, Councilwoman Allen, Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a report on the current nuisance violation, fines, structures, and the feasibility of increasing penalties to allow for more effective enforcement tools and resources to address nuisance activities. Councilwoman Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also got a second on this, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I just want to. The item as written is pretty self-explanatory, but I just want to highlight that we're looking in this item for a report on how to make code enforcement more effective, not necessarily to penalize people. There are alternatives outlined in this particular agenda item, such as community service in lieu of fines or fees, but really encouraging. People who are living in some of these new developments that we're starting to see pop up in residential neighborhoods to appreciate the right of every resident in the community to use and enjoy their property with peace . And so I think it's a really important time, given some of the state legislation that's coming out, this limiting our ability to put into place mitigating impacts, mitigating requirements that might help with some of the impacts in neighborhoods. We're not able to do that as a result of the state. Legislation. That's come forth. So I think it's important for us to take a look at what tools we have to make sure that quality of life impacts are at a minimum. I want to thank my colleagues who signed on to this item and asking for a report. This specific item comes as a result of some recent changes to state policy, which have allowed for, in some cases, a three bedroom single family home to become an edu 11 bedroom, 11 bath home on the same lot in the residential neighborhood. I am 100% in favor of more housing and absolutely believe that ensuring we are continually adding housing to Long Beach because it's important to our city as we grow and we want to make sure that we keep seeing residents thrive and love our city. This particular development, however, is a market rate 11 bedroom, 11 bathroom development near Long Beach State. It is not an affordable housing site, and it is not a site that's designed at all to help people who are under, housed, receive housing. It is undoubtedly an opportunity for developers to take full advantage of state law, allowing them to build at full capacity market rate housing. This change and changes like this. Are important for us to look at in terms of what options are available to us to help keep our neighborhoods at their best with little negative impacts in the form of parking issues, increased noise, excessive trash, or other types of impacts to residents in the nearby communities and nearby homes. This item asks for city staff to look at ways of making our code enforcement as efficient and effective and up to date as possible. Whether that's looking at fines or fees or looking at ways of adjusting fines based on income for those who may struggle to pay a violation, as well as options for community service in place of fines. The goal of this item is to encourage good neighbors and make. Sure we have effective. Tools at our disposal to keep the neighborhoods and as the place best places they can be within our municipal code. While looking at what tools may be most effective for different neighbors. And I ask my colleagues to please support this item, which is asking the city attorney's office to really take a look at what enforcement mechanisms we have in place and how we can make those more effective to address the changing dynamics of our housing situation in the community of Long Beach. And I know that we do have some members of the public here to speak who are from that exact community. Of the development I just mentioned. But they are not alone. This is just the first of such developments and I do expect more to come in the near future. So. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That's when Austin. Obviously I second this motion. You know, sometimes the legislation is passed in Sacramento that is well-intended. But oftentimes if the details are not really identified or discussed, the unintended consequences can result. And this is clearly an outlier, not the norm. And we as a city, I think, have a responsibility. To our residents to know keep the quality of life in intact and obviously support local control as much as possible. And so I support this item and look forward to the city attorney coming back with some good solutions, hopefully. Thank you for a public comment, please, Madam Quirk. Speaker number one is Jim the tall. Number two is Katie Larson. And speaker number three, jennifer and feld. Can you please come to the podium? Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Jim Painter. I'm in the. La Marina neighborhood next door to Cal State, Long Beach. A longtime resident of Long Beach. 30 years. First time speaking before the council. So please forgive a little nervousness. And thank you so much, Susie, for your introduction to this situation. I came here with notes and comments, but I can't say it any better than what Mr. Austin and Mr. Mrs. Price has already explained the situation to you in the introduction to you. The city prepared to mentions an 11 bedroom, one bathroom adu development on a single family lot. That's us. That's our neighborhood. And we're we're scared of that. But we're here today to support this item 16. And we thank you, not because we oppose any kind of housing. We all recognize the challenges in our state. But because we want to make sure that we continue to live in a great neighborhood. And we're here tonight not only to share those concerns, but we're briefly going to talk about a success story that we may be able to share with you. I can define our concerns, but I think it might be more meaningful to hear. I have in front of me a report from Gary Sheets, the city attorney for the City of Orange, that he prepared for his city council. He talks about their concerns. City of Orange is ahead of us on this. They have several of these mini dorms. And I'd like to share with you a little bit of the concerns that they have. The many dorms already constructed have caused numerous negative effects on families residing in nearby instances, including but not limited to parking on front lawns. I like to make a point. This one bedroom development is to house 15 to 22 students. That's the stated by the developer. The impact on the residences nearby including but not limited to parking on front lawns, illegal street parking, unsafe vehicle speed demonstrations, trampled landscaping, landscaping, loud music, unruly parties, congregation a crowds from outside the neighborhoods in the front yards. Confrontational interactions with neighbors. Public drinking, numerous late night disturbances, litter and trash, including bottles and caps strewn about the neighborhood and what has been described by the residents as a fraternity atmosphere. All of which effects constitute a public nuisance to our community. The city attorney summed it up this way. The effects are swiftly and significantly contributing to the deterioration of the peace, health, safety and welfare of the neighborhoods where such remodeling projects have been constructed. And I will point out that the developer of the many dorms at Orange is the developer of the many dorms here in Long Beach . So yes, we're worried. But the time has expired. Okay. I will sum up then that I was going to show you that the city of Berkeley has also addressed this problem and using city ordinances and using nuisances ordinances. They have successfully worked with the many dorm residents and the city. I wanted to say thank you for all the work that you've done and you and Jack and I'll pass it on to my next speakers. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council people. A special thanks as well to Councilman Price for the work that she and her office have already done on this. My name is Katie Larson. I'm a resident of La Marina Estates, as well as a local realtor. I am very much aware of the housing shortage that is going on and how it has driven up prices not only on home sales but on rents. An average rent of a family single family home in our neighborhood is $4,000 a month. This bill that is going in on honorably, well, when full will be a rent of $16,000 a month, four times the rate of an average home. Of course, it's divided. Up into 11 rooms. This is not affordable. Housing being. Put into our single family. Neighborhood, nor does it adhere. To the way that our neighborhood. Has been zoned. This is not unique to East Long Beach. We are like neighborhoods in any one of the nine districts you represent. Any lot that is more than 5000 square feet. We are all vulnerable to the abuse of the housing laws. We're just first up due to our proximity to the university. We also pay for parking permits. Each home is allowed three parking permits and some temporary permits. Far more are far fewer than will be needed for this. So we. Are expecting there will. Be impact. To the parking in the neighborhood. Whether it's parking. On lawns. It's illegal parking, blocking driveways or blocking access to. Other homes. Also. What about the additional trash? I went to college. I know what goes out of dorm windows and. Out of on fraternity row. I know I've seen those things. So there's also a mini dorm, again, by the same developer going in across from tincture prep. Is that the type of atmosphere we want across the street from an elementary school? We have co-existed with student renters for many years. Most of them are very conscientious neighbors. We welcome the students. We also have had terrible student renters where the police. Have had to intervene, where we have. Been awakened in the middle of the night with music and noise. That's us with 4 to 6 renters. Imagine having 20 renters next door. We would have no recourse should there be a problem. Because right now we can go to a single owner or to a tenant and ask for help. Now, with 20 renters in there. One tenant's going to blame another, blame another. So what we really need are ordinances to put structure on how these mini dorms are released and how we can help these tenants be good neighbors. Again, we welcome the students. We want prohibitive fines on both the tenants and more. Most of all on the owners. So to prevent this and I like the idea of there being community service for. The tenants who may not be able to afford the fines. So please help us move forward with enforceable ordinances so that we can maintain what we have worked. So hard to achieve to become homeowners in our. Beloved Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our final speaker. Good evening, County Council members. My name is Jennifer Landefeld, and I've lived in Long Beach for over 35 years. 21 years of those years in my current home, we raised our children here and we think Long Beach is a gem of a city. We love Long Beach. I consider my current home, my forever home. I'm here today to urge councilmembers to approve moving forward with this item to ensure we continue to live in a wonderful neighborhood. With 11 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. 80 new structure currently being built next to my home. This is very personal. Let's find ways to ensure such structures do not have negative impacts to our communities by expanding our enforcement codes. I am open to change and co-living environments. I care about our community and want to see it thrive and continue to be a great place to live. I feel that our city also wants us to. I have strong concerns, however, of the noise, parking, litter and other issues that may result from a student dormitory with between 15 and 22 students and their friends being built next door. We have successfully co-existed with the university and its students for years and welcomed them in our community. The latest tenants were respectful. We became friends there, admired by other neighbors. However, the tenants before them were another story. I mean, they had their parties started at midnight and were ended, you know, in the early morning. This caused numerous sleepless nights. I want them to be good neighbors and with some added attention to code enforcement ordinances. I think that can be. Let's give them a path to do so. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have some folks queued up to speak, Mr. Modica. Just just a question, because I. I did read about this and I've heard as well. To me, I'm just trying to understand how you can put 1180 use on one lot. And what what I don't understand is I think the city has a proud record of building a lot of housing. We should always be building more. I think we know that. And certainly transit quarters, the downtown, we continue to build and build, but certainly adjacent to single family homes to build 11 units seems particularly for the potential of that to replicate itself. I think it's very problematic. What how how is this can you for those of us that aren't as clued in as possible price. Is this is this actually a state law? Is there some history to this project? So I'll ask Oscar Orsi, our director of development services, to talk it through. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the city council. The current state. Regulations have a bit of an outlier. So for those properties that have a larger lot. Than your neighborhood, they're allowed to build additional units. There is no limit on the number of units that you can do. So as a consequence, in this. Particular example, you have a larger than the normal sized lot in the neighborhood where they were able to come in and do the 80 you and the Jedi, you. Add to total the total of. Approximately 11. So it does meet the state edu act requirement. Okay. I mean, I think I think all of us here truly encourage homeowners to want to build ideas, use. I think we certainly support heavy use across the city. But it obviously seems that the intention, I doubt anyone's intention at the state level was to get 1180 use on one lot. Do you think this will be a pretty rare occurrence? This was a pretty unique. Situation with the size of this lot. You know, that said, you know, there are concerns that there could be some others. And so this is something we're. Required to. Process that we have to do because of the state law. But we understand there is there is concern when you get that many units. On a site. And I would like to know just if there are other sites that we are concerned about. I think I would rather proactively know about where these sites are so that we can understand and be prepared for that. In addition, I'm just wondering, and I think this is what Councilman Price is probably getting to also in this item is. We are we are certainly going to try to put in certain levels of protections or or rules around these areas. There's a reason why we don't, for example, just permit. Dorms in the middle of residential neighborhoods. So I just want to make sure that there is that that going to be reported back on as part of this item. Mayor. Yes, we can. We're going to do not. Only to visit the legislation, but also take a look at our existing legislation. We do have specific regulations that covered sorority houses for turnkey houses, and we'll make that. Analysis as well. And I support it. And I think it's great that the university, by the way, is building a lot of on campus housing. And I think I think a lot of folks support that. I'm also wondering if this is an actual because it seems to me to be it's not really about any issues which which I think people support, we all support. But there obviously is some sort of issue, I think, within the law that was passed in Council Member Let me just clarify. They meet the current regulatory. Requirements. Of one ADU and one Jay Junior Adu. What the issue is, is the number of units, number of bedrooms within those 80, as well as the home's number of bedrooms. So there's a total of about 11 bedrooms within within. The home and the the adu. So that's one of the things we also wanted to visit. Is are we working with our state partners at all to to. Because to me, this seems like a very rare occurrence that could be addressed at the state level. That's something that we've been we've been discussing with staff, including Dr. Curley. To determine what we can do. I think the City of Orange has has an option there that we would like to visit. But I. Believe we are. Very limited in terms of what we can do based upon current state. Legislation. Thank you. I look forward to report back. Councilman Mongo. Thank you. So several weeks ago I brought an agenda item where I specifically asked development services to identify the blocks of the city that would be most impacted by similar types of legislation. Many of you know, similar to Councilman Price, I have a university in my district and that university is adjacent to some of the biggest lots in the whole city. And one of the things that I hear from development services and even sometimes interns on my own staff is, well, you know, it really couldn't happen to us because you can't knock down a current structure. And I say you misunderstand. The current structures are on the very front of this parcel, and that parcel is 27,000 square feet. And it's like that because it's always been like that. You might call them double lots or triple lots, but in the forties those were the size of the lots on that particular street, and they've never changed. And there are houses that have nothing back there. You can look at the gears and see where that is. And so while we have a large number of people who are supportive of an ADU, like Mr. Orsi said, if that Adu has three bedrooms in it and another three bedrooms on the front house, already had five bedrooms, all of a sudden what you're talking about is serious business. And I think that our staff tried to do the analysis by downloading the assessor's data on parcels and the percentage of land already built. And it's a difficult analysis for my summer intern to do. We don't have a robust staff like the department services office with decades of experience. So I would like to know when my agenda item is coming back, because I think that that would help us work with those communities to then mobilize and talk to our state senators and Assembly members on what specific things we would need to ensure that single family communities don't turn into dormitories. Do we know what that timeline is? I know that. Some of them are. We're coming back to you at the next legislative committee agenda or meeting, which is, I believe, the next Wednesday. Okay. And so I'm not on the state budget committee, but I do appreciate that that is the appropriate place for it to go. I encourage you to attend. This will help identify the specific places throughout the city where that happens. And then hopefully we can create a coalition of residents and the third residents and the fifth residents of different places in the city that we could pull together and really strategize and work towards the next housing item folding in something to correct this issue. And I think that that would be very helpful. Furthermore, my my side of the city is also a little bit different. So a lot of the individuals who've owned these parcels have owned them in their families for generations. They've passed them down and that's great. So the developers aren't really able to buy the whole lot and start from scratch. What we've started to receive in the fifth District are postcards. Postcards that say. We would like to rent your backyard. We will build the ideas. We will rent them out. We will manage them for you. And all you have to do is take a cut of the income. And these postcards are going to our senior citizens saying, hey, would you like an extra two grand a month? We know you live on Social Security of 850 a month. Think how this could change your life? And we want to be sure that there's another component of this, because in my side of town, the other component of this is that some of these seniors are aging and they don't have family close by. And one of the things that we recently said is we sometimes get calls about neighbors and it goes directly to being a code enforcement issue. And what I've reached out to, Kelli Colby, our health director, and said is this might not be a health department issue, this might be a wellness check. And if, in fact, one of these seniors puts these dormitories on the back unit, I think we do need to be aware of what dynamic could come forward and the potential seniors abuse that could occur. And so I think that when looking at. Nooses, violations, all all of that. I'd love to make sure that when a violation comes in when they are owner on on premise that we also have a wellness check component for our senior community. Because as many of you know, I worked with adult protective services for years and senior abuse is a serious thing that can happen very quickly. And young people who are afraid of getting in trouble with the law might be perceived differently than they intended, and the senior might be in a tough spot. So I'd love to see a component of this because I don't see my ADA use being developers buying the full property. I see my ideal issue being more of a owner, maintaining their property with the units on the back and then a new dynamic occurring within our community. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Zendejas. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Price, for bringing this item forward. As we all know, it is for a very exciting opportunity to address our housing situation. However, we must do our best to ensure that as we move forward in implementing solutions, we did not set ourselves up for future issues and concerns that could have been prevented in the first place. Supportive of this item. Thank you. I'm cued up next. I just wanted to say that I think this is like a worst case scenario of the of what folks envisioned with the AIDS situation. I think that we certainly need to engage at state ledge around some some legislation here. I think if you look at enough cities that have examples like this, there should be a way for us to put some protections or some limits on due process. So thank you, Councilmember Price, for bringing this forward. Next is Councilwoman Allen. Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Councilwoman Price, for bringing this item forward. I agree with the first speaker I think you did a great job at. Or do you think that item? I definitely support 80 use, but my goodness, 1180 use on one property seems excessive. So I do understand why neighbors are concerned. I also support a good neighbor policies and I'm happy to see that they're processes that make it easier for resident for residents to under stand. The rules that everyone needs to abide by is going to be important. So happy to support this item. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Price. I just want to end with a couple of things. So this legislation is HB 68, and we did write I did write a letter to our Long Beach State delegation sharing with them the unintended consequences of this type of development. We did have a meeting with one of the the members of the state delegation, and we did have development services. And I'm not sure if Dr. Crowley was present. I can't remember. But we did a Zoom call. We talked about the unintended consequences. And there were a couple of things that were made clear. One was the access to parking or the parking impacts was really a. Kind of a dead on arrival issue because of the proximity to transit corridor. And the legislature has stated very clearly that the proximity to a transit corridor mitigates the parking impact issue. And so that's just not an area where it was ripe for discussion. We were also advised that if we were able to go out and talk with. So my recommendation was, why don't we tie units like this to affordable housing? Because what we're trying to accomplish is more housing that's affordable. This particular development, these rooms are going to go from anywhere from 1000 to 1400 dollars for a single room. That's ridiculous. That is not affordable. College students cannot afford that. And so if they tied it to affordable housing and had a component, it might be a disincentive for developers like these developers who I have met with and no knock on them whatsoever. But they were very clear and transparent with me that there is a loophole in state law and they are targeting college towns and trying to develop these types of housing developments. That's that's what their whole investment partnership and I appreciate it. I appreciate that they're operating within the law and they're trying to make some money, but they are targeting. That's why they're targeted. Orange Because of. Chapman This is not an outlier situation at all. We already have another application in the third district and more are going to come. So the application in the third district is already being processed by development services. There is very I mean, we can we can sit up here all day long and advise city staff about let's make sure we have these protections and that protections. There is very little we can do. It is not a fraternity or sorority house, so we can't impose the same regulations on them as we would a sorority or fraternity house. So making a recommendation like that to city staff. Sounds like we might be able to do something, but I don't want to give the residents false hope because I've been working on this issue for a long time now and our hands are tied. And that's why looking at the muni code like Berkeley did and solidifying what muni code protections we have there to protect people from noise intrusion, light intrusion, trash and other types of impacts and making sure the residents have those tools at their fingertips so that code enforcement can go out and actually educate the residents and the owners on what the expectations are, I think is very important, and that's what this item is about. This item was brought forth with full understanding of what our limitations are, which are huge. This is state legislation and the advice that was given when we met with our delegate was that if we could talk to the housing advocates and get the housing advocates on board for some tweaks to SB 68, then we might be able to move forward. But I don't know that it's the role of a single council member on behalf of the City Council to engage with housing advocates about state legislation. And so this is an item that I discussed the last time our state led agenda came forth in terms of asking for our state legislature committee to advocate for more local controls and changing existing state legislation to modify a bit in light of the realities that have presented themselves that I don't think anybody wanted. I really don't think our state legislature ever intended this to happen. Providing more market rate housing. In the third district is something I'm sure they were not envisioning when they passed this legislation. But yet that's what we have here. We have more market rate, super expensive, unaffordable housing in a residential neighborhood where a lot of people are going to be crammed into a very tight spot. Mr. Orsi Do you know the size on this particular development? Councilmember I'm going to have to get back to you. I do not know problem. But it is it's a single lot. We're not talking about a double lot property. It's a single lot in a residential neighborhood. So I appreciate the support of my colleagues. Thank you. Final comment, Councilman Sabrina. Thank you. One of the speakers mentioned preferential parking and that's going to be a major impact here. And there's a few things we can do through local control on this. For instance, the speaker mentioned you can have three permits plus a guest permit per household. So if the ADU is giving given a separate address, guess what, that number doubles. So we want to keep an eye on that. And also just the the preferential parking process in itself. So this location is near the border of the third and fourth District. So a block and a half north, we've had an expansion request for the preference of parking there. It's been pending for a year. When these things happen, those expansion requests are going to come very quickly and the impacts are going to be realized overnight virtually. And so I'd like us to look at that process, too, with the permission of the maker of the motion. I just like to add that I know there weren't specifics on what we're asking for, but perfect. Your parking is a big one and that transfers the problem to other neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Mongo, to build on what Councilmember Super said. And in our area, we also have the preferential parking district. And it's not going to make a difference how big you make it. The college students scooter and skateboard from the outskirts. So if you move it out 400 feet, they're just going to park outside that you move it out a half a mile. They're just gonna to park outside of that. So you're just continuing to transfer that issue. And I totally agree with all that's been said today. And I just want to emphasize again, I didn't even know Councilman Price was working on this. My district's been working on it in our own way. But I think that the thing that's really important is. The developers have the money to run the data and get a step ahead of us every step of the way. That is why they know exactly what houses to send postcards to when they went in and tried to buy the properties. And that wasn't effective. They have a second tier strategy and a third tier strategy, and so I appreciate that they were transparent and I'd love to learn any additional things that you learned from that meeting, because I haven't been as successful. When we call the people who send the postcards, they don't want to meet with us. Thank you. Thank you. Members, please cast your vote. I'm a yes. Motion carries. Thank you. I wanted to do that. I think there's three members of the general public comment. So let's do those, please. And they're going to do it in 15.