Recommendation to Award Contract in the Amount of $256,292 to Cultivate Studio and Urban Planning Partners (UPP), Inc. to Prepare the Main Street Neighborhood Specific Plan for Alameda Point (AP). (Base Reuse 819099)
So that's our plan for addressing some of the feedback we received around height. Finally, we have a really competitive cost here, so it's about $435 per meter head and about $121 per meter per year. So it's about $10 a month per meter per year. The these rates are based on a Sacramento contract with much higher volumes. Essentially, we had Sacramento purchasing about 6000 of these meter heads. We're only purchasing 822. We were able to get those same Sacramento prices, but in Alameda with a lower volume, we probably saved in the range of $50 per meter. And with that, you've got our recommendation to both purchase and install 822 smart parking meters. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Does anyone have any clarifying questions? Remember, they. Suck. Now, I believe, like in Walnut Creek when I use that, I think. I don't think it takes Discover Card. Are we just limited to MasterCard and Visa? Liz, the court is going to correct me in a moment, but I believe right now it's MasterCard and Visa and we can elect to bring in American Express. And I'm not sure about Discover Card. Yes, we can bring in discover. Cards that we can elect. We would elect to do that. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other clarifying questions? Do we have we don't have any speakers, I believe, on this item. Oh, we have one. I do. Thank you. But you're still going. All right, Rob Rado. I'm glad I asked for speakers. I. Rob Reiner, executive director of the Pass Through Business Association. And I'm sure this is going to come as a big surprise to you that I am here this evening to emphatically endorse the 822 smart parking meters, not only for Park Street, but for the entire city of Alameda. Leon was a little dainty in his explanation of. What happened when the previous council raised the parking rate we got in the first week. We got lots. And lots of complaints about the rate. From then on to today, we get complaints about, oh my God, we got to bring £3 of quarters with us to get 2 hours of parking. So that was that's been a huge problem. We've had these in for a number of months. And I'll tell you, the folks I've talked to who are members, every last one I've talked to wants this. And how I know that the members that I haven't talked to want this because they haven't emailed me, called me, or come to a mixer and complained about the smart meters. And most of you know my membership, and if they have not complained, then they don't have a complaint. I believe there were a number of years ago when we did streetscape phase two, Pittsburgh backed. The chaos at the time. And I will tell you why. Because at the time, that was the best. Technology available. These were not available then. Unfortunately, the kiosks have proved to be problematic. They have some maintenance issues, not a lot. But when a kiosk goes down, unlike when a meter goes down and you can just screw another head on it, a kiosk goes down and you're walking, you know, halfway down the block you're walking across to get the little you know, the little slip. And frankly, it proved that a lot of folks don't like the little slips. Sorry, we tried, but this technology is absolutely what we believe is going to work, not only for Park Street, but for Alameda . So, of course, we are urging you to vote and let's get this stuff done as quickly as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have another speaker first, Linda Fortuna. I just wanted to comment that when I was traveling in Riga, Latvia, about three, maybe four years ago, they have a really good, smart meter. They have it so that you can take your cell phone, pay your parking bill on your cell phone. And it's it's all it's easy. And you can download an app. Or is that? Thank you. Thank you. This. Go ahead. Remember, Audie. So as excited as you can be about something at 1120, this is I remember they excited about this and this is little anecdotal, but I had a meeting with with Doug Biggs the other day and we had to end early because I ran out of of and it never changed to to have a long enough meeting. And you know, West Cafe's a really good place. I'd like to sit there a little longer sometimes. And then this afternoon I was in Oakland, but my 45 minutes in and didn't have to worry. And actually, you know, the city got extra money out of me because I was done in 15 minutes. But to the to the public comment that park mobile I'd like to see us consider that park mobile it's it's really convenient they have it in Oakland you punch in your zone know you can renew it. I don't know if we want to do that, but you can renew it. You know, if you only put a half hour in and you end up staying an hour, you can renew it on your phone to 30% charge extra and truly convenient. And, you know, I'm excited to see this technology come to Alameda. Absolutely. So in the survey of the public, it was very clear that using the credit card that was folks is number one priority and then it's down the list from there. But paying by phone would be another. We're hopeful that in June or July, when we come back to report on the results of the parking meter study , that one of the recommendations we're going to make at that point is an option for paying by cell phone. And is this are we doing this all at the same time, or is Webster Street going to get some smart meters before the rest of Park Street or what's the rollout schedule look? Well, the pilot is on both. So the pilot is on. It's already one block of Webster, one block of Park. The big task in front of us is to figure out this meter height challenge. We're going to do that within the pilot areas and then we'll try to roll them out across the city. After tackling that challenge within, you know, it'll probably take four weeks to do the whole city, I'd imagine. The other member member ASHCROFT. Thank you. So if I understand correctly, the option of paying by cell phone could be considered, could be added, because I will also throw in I haven't been to Latvia, but in British Columbia, Canada, and probably ten years ago I was visiting and I thought it was really cool that the relatives I was with, we were at a restaurant and could go, Oh, we got to add money to the meter and I was ready to run out and it just whipped out the cell phone. Would it cost more to add that feature? It depends. So the short answer is most cities choose to put the what they call convenience fee on the user. So I believe in San Francisco it's around $0.45 or the city can elect to essentially absorb that. I wasn't saying I wasn't offering that. You know what I mean is would the meters themselves, themselves cost more if they also had the smartphone capability? Probably not. Probably not. So I just think more options are better than less. And especially I mean, it's one thing if you're just one person going back and forth, sometimes you're a parent with little kids or, you know, someone who's elderly who might not want to have to hassle back because they realize they didn't put enough time in. So I would strongly, even if the survey doesn't show that, I think some people might just might not have experienced that feature. But I have to think you'd love it once you try it. Let's keep that in mind, please. Of course. So I have a question in regards to that. If it's a two hour parking space, can you add time via your phone to go beyond 2 hours? No. You can build in restrictions so that it maxes out of that 2 hours. You cannot add beyond that. Thank you. Do we have a motion? Well, I met a mayor. I'd like to move stats recommendation and include the comments regarding use of cell phone and discover card. So second. Oh, American Express as well, if you can take a look at that. We had a second. All those. Any comments? All those in favor, I suppose. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next item six D. The recommendation to adopt plans and specification and authorize call for bids for fire station number three. Evening, Madam Mayor. Member of the City Council. Bob Hahn, Public Works Director. The item before you tonight is a recommendation to adopt plans and specifications and authorize call for bid for fire station number three located on Wayne, a vista adjacent to Herbert Street. This is really a 15 year project. If you remember in the year 2000 is when the existing fire station number three was declared uninhabitable and seismically unsafe. And since that time, the firefighters on station three have been renting a house next door and living in that house. The city's female hazard mitigation plan has identified the replacement of fire station number three and the EOC as a critical item. This process started in 2012 with in the fall of 2012, with three meetings, community meetings around the site, and followed by another meeting in July of 13. There was an outreach to all the community around the station and quite a discussion. And these meetings were well-attended. On October 15th, we executed the contract for the EOC. The EOC was bid a short time later in the fall, and we had a bid protest. One of the reasons we were bidding in the fall was to kind of get ahead. It was the September bid. We could get a foundation in the ground, start the EOC. The EOC was fully funded as opposed to the fire station at that time. And so the decision was move was made to move ahead with the EOC. Even the bid protest was was basically an issue regarding subcontractor licenses being listed on one of the forms. One of the contractors threw up a protest on that. By the time we resolved that protest and would have gone back out to bid, we would have been right back in the middle of the winter again here and precluding us from getting a foundation in the ground. So at that point in time, the decision was made to combine the two projects. The reason for combining the projects were is that cost savings and some of the cost savings would be we would only have to do one mobilization. Contractors typically charge anywhere from 50 to $100000 for what they call mobilization. Bringing a trailer out there, phone lines in battle lines, erecting the temporary fence and things like this. By combining the two projects, we eliminated that need for to pay for two fencing, two trailers and stuff like that. Because there was always a possibility we would end up with two separate contractors with each one of the structures. We only have one contractor now for the entire site. We don't have any finger pointing back and forth between contractors, the contractor contractors, not blaming it on the fire station contractor. And so we have a much cleaner project in that respect, too. We're gaining an economy of scale where you have a larger project, more materials, and therefore there should be a significant cost savings on that regard to. It's a coordinated project. We have one contractor now, so everything is coordinated between the two structures. There is interaction between the two structures in the event of an emergency that they actually act in concert. The fire station is kind of the public face of the of the complex where the piano would be located, the volunteers would be dealt with at the fire station site, and the EOC site would be separate. And lastly, we would have more competition with a higher number. Generally a contractor like Arma Rosso that are that are built our library across the street, they usually have a de minimis amount of $10,000. They did give us a bid on the EOC kind of as a favor to me, but this certainly made it more attractive. All of the three contractors were pre qualified. These are essential structures. These structures are designed not to fall down in a 7.0 on the Hayward fault. There's a lot of rules and regulations and criterias and certifications involved in the construction of these contract, these structures. And all three of these contractors have put up a number of these structures. So we're very confident in this particular group. If you look in your staff report regarding the the closeness of the bid on the EOC, that really shows it speaks well of the architect. The numbers were relatively close for this type of work. And so the architect of that just indicates the architectural plans were very tight and everybody came up with the same number, more or less. So I am recommending that we move forward on the plans and specs and build the fire station and the EOC together here. And just as an aside, we are working with the city of Napa in the construction of their new wells EOC, because both the city's EOC up at Napa and the county EOC up at Napa both failed in the event of that recent earthquake. And they were both in in interested in constructing a separate EOC at this time. I'm available for questions. Do you have any clarifying questions at this time? And we do have three speakers. One when madumere one clarifying question I have is the estimated debt service is not to exceed $300,000 annually. So that's principal and interest. That's the debt service, $300,000 annually. But in total, over a 20 year period in total, the debt service, principal and interest when we repay all back will equal $6.9 million over 20 years. But when I when I add $300,000 a year over 20 years, I get $6 million, not 6.9 million. I'm going to turn this over to our interim finance director. Forward. Everyone. Good evening. I'm Julian Boyer and I have served as the interim finance director and I have come back to answer questions on this financing since I've been working on it. You're probably correct that the total debt service, which includes principal and interest, is the greater amount. Yeah, you know what actually it means? Julian Boyer, the city mayor, just actually did the math for me when I was looking at $300,000. I was looking at it. Not take into account their $50,000 annual savings. That because when you add up the $350,000 over 20 years, that comes out to be $7 million, which is roughly 6.9 . Okay, I'm satisfied. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate. It. It was a great job. Happy? I could answer your question. Thank you. Remember, Audie. This may be the last time we hear from you for a while. So I do want to thank you again for your your service. Absolutely. Clarifying questions. Member Ashcraft. I am. This is something that I actually raised in an email and thank you for answering me during the afternoon. But and I thought member de SAC was going to touch on it. But when somewhere in here there is a table that says the total amount. It's probably the other staff report says that the total cost of the the fire station it is it's exhibit three the staff report from July of 2014. And it and it talks about the different funds that are being put into the construction of the the fire station three, which I support. But it says total cost of fire station three is $5 million. But then as we go down into the financial impact paragraph, it's well laid out, but what all the financing costs were. So that was my email. The question was. So what is the total cost of fire station three, really? And I likened it to if you buy a car on and you take an auto loan out, you would have on because it's required by state law the amount of principal you're paying and the amount of interest and what the total amount of your purchase is. And the same if you have a mortgage on your home. Only it's even more startling. So just for the sake of, you know, the public information and the councils is well, if there is a way that we could call the total amount, the total amount, because after all, it is what the city is going to be paying over time. But I do also want to echo Councilmember Odie and thank you for your service and patiently explaining all these things to us at these really ridiculous hours. And we do appreciate it. All right. I watched and I took a nap. So you're right in that the principal amount is $5 million. That's what it cost to construct the building. However, what does it cost to finance that $5 million over approximately 20 years? So we have a lot of internal funds and we had proposed a 3% interest rate on those internal funds. Some of it is cash from the sale of the existing fire station. When everyone's moved out and it's abandoned, then the sale of that was included in that list of funds. It's included with the equipment replacement equipment replacement fund and sale of the property. At 1703, Grande Street is estimated at about $425,000. So that's a part of it. So that doesn't have any interest attached to it, but it comes at the very end of the project. What what I have been able to determine is that the. 2013. Excuse me. Let me back up a minute. Those funding sources for the fire station are mostly internal, so the interest rate is about 3%, which is about 50 to $82000 a year in debt service, 1.6 million. The eye bank loan of 3 million is yet to be determined, but we believe that we have a locked interest rate of about 2.95%, much lower than had been predicted in July. Right. Yeah. And numbers went down. Yeah. So the question at this point is, has to do with the term how well along that loan would be. And it probably will be about 18 or 19 years rather than 20. But the debt service on that is about $217,000 a year. So we're looking at that in the neighborhood of 3 to 400000, 33, 50 a year in debt service. We'll have it pinned down as we get to negotiating with the bank and get the details really finalized on that. And we we have a cap of $3 million that the council previously approved for the financing. So we're working within that. We've also identified some unspent bond funds from the redevelopment agency that we are looking at the possibility of using. If we do that, that will relieve some of those internal loans and we won't have to pay interest on the internal loan funds, but we will be looking at the repayment of the unspent bond funds. So that sounds better still. And can you clarify when you said a cap that's on the principle of the loan? Pardon me? The cap of 3 million? Yes. On the principle of the loan? That's correct. The total cost. The total back. The loan. Thank you. And the total cost that you're estimating is 6.9 million over 20 years of what the city will be responsible for. That's correct. Okay. And this doesn't say in here, but would this money be coming from where the general. Fund. That this would be encroaching upon the general fund? Yes. So out of. Do you know where it would be coming from? More specifically, what we would be taking it away from? Well, taking it away from. I'm not sure that that's how I would phrase it, but it is an additional expense added to the existing $75 million or whatever the budget number is in that particular year. So are you suggesting we have extra money annually in our general fund that would go towards us, that we it would not impact any other appropriations that are currently made? I don't know the answer to that question yet. The budget has to be developed and this would be accommodated within the budget. I'm sorry. Could you repeat your answer? There was. There's chatter. I couldn't hear you. So the the debt service would be a part of the budgeting process and would be accommodated within the within the budget. Thank you. Any other clarifying questions? All right. I'm going to go ahead and call the speakers. The first one, Neill Flicker, and then Gerry. And you holler. And then Gretchen LeBeau. It's late. My name is Neal Pflueger. A 25 year resident of of Alameda. I am a CERT member. But my my. Main interest. In being here tonight comes from from my 20 years experience with Alameda County Office of Emergency Services as a volunteer. And I'm glad we've gotten. To this point. It's. In my humble opinion, overdue. Thank you. Let's let's move forward. Thank you. Hello. My name is Jerry Jala. I'm a member of the Alameda Executive Committee for those new on the council, surf stands for Community Emergency Response Team or Volunteer Group under the Alameda Fire Department's Disaster Preparedness Office. Over the last 15 years, we've had over 1200 people trained by the fire department in personnel and disaster response. One of the functions of the executive committee is to provide ongoing training and exercises to keep everybody skills up to date and sharp. And the new EOC will help accommodate that going into the future. Thank you for your support of this event. I do have one question. Have you taken into account the cost savings of not having to rent the building next to Fire Station three in the future? Okay. Thank you. The bill. I think she may have left. It's a 20 to 12. So no other speakers. My understanding. Remember? Comments, questions. And America. Yes. I mean. I think the existing fire station is inadequate. And we've been renting a house in before that, a trailer. So this part of the of the proposal, I think, makes sense, especially with the comments made by our public works director. I don't see how we can't delay this. And the opportunity is now as we put more jobs and put a new facility out at and made a point of we're going to need the coverage. So I'm supportive. Any other questions? Comments. Number Day. Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, I've supported this proposal when it was a stand alone AOC and I continue to support this when it's combined with a fire station. I think it's important that we move forward, especially with the new EOC. And clearly, the fire station on Grand Street, we all know it's inadequate. You know, it's going to cost money. You know, money doesn't grow on trees. We all know that. And it's going to come from the general fund to repay the amount. And, you know, but these are tough decisions that we have to make. And I and I know one thing, not having an up to date emergency operating center and not having the best modern fire station that we can have centrally located in town, I mean, there's certainly a ticking time bomb cost there. So we have to factor that in. So I'm going to move I'm going to certainly support this action night. And Ashcroft and I would echo the two prior my two prior colleagues on that. This is a it's a as was noted, a very centrally located on the island fire station. And it's a quaint little house, but it certainly doesn't even accommodate the size equipment that we have now. And yet this is a very important station that will will serve all over the island. And while I had my differences over the design of the EOC, I know it's now going to serve even more public functions. And the training of the search teams are very important. So I think you're right. Councilmember Desai This is coming out of our general fund, the debt service. But I think one of the high priorities of our residents is public safety and they want to know that when there's an emergency that our our public safety first responders get to them. And so part of that is having the appropriate facilities to house both our public safety first responders and their equipment that help keep us safe. So I'm supporting this as well. I'm ready. I'll be brief and echo the comments of my three colleagues. And then also, you know, this is way overdue and I appreciate the work of Mr. Horn to figure out a way that we can do these two important projects together and actually do it more cost effective. And thank you very much for your hard work on this. I also appreciate combining the bid process to save money. However, I'm not satisfied with the answer from our finance person that the general fund in regards to the General Fund 6.9 million over 20 years will just come from the general fund. Unfortunately, that it doesn't just come from the general fund. We do have if you look at the city's multiyear budget, we are running deficits in the future. We also have the highest unfunded OPEB liabilities in the county as a percentage of our annual general fund, as in its 140% greater than our annual general fund revenue. It is a serious problem. I think it's incumbent upon staff and the council to designate where the money will be coming from. And I would prefer waiting until we go through the budget process and answer that question. Thank you. I'm going to I like to move recommendation to staff report to adopt plans and specifications and authorize a call for bids for fire station number three. Number PTW 1214. Dash 18. If you have a second. Look at. All those in favor. I oppose the vote passes 4 to 1. Six e recommendation to award contract in the amount of 256,292 to cultivate studio and urban planning partners to prepare the Main Street Neighborhood Specific plan for Alameda Point. Good evening. Mayor Spencer, council members. I want to introduce myself. I'm Liv Kushner. I've been working for the city since September, so. Not so long. So I haven't had an opportunity to meet some of you, but very excited to be here. I'll be talking about the main street specific plan just to give you guys a little bit of background on the a little bit of background since it's late on what's come up before this. In 2000, eight city staff applied to MTC to have Alameda Point named a priority development area PDA. This is basically some there's a bunch of PDAs around the Bay Area basically allows us to receive grants for planning documents and for transportation. This is the same kind of grant that staff applied for and want to fund the town center plan, which was approved in 2014. And we've then applied for and received been awarded this grant in late 2014 to pay for the Main Street neighborhood specific plan. These kinds of specific plans, they all are required by the Alameda Point Zoning, which was passed by City Council in 2014. So it may seem that there are. Quite a few documents about how made a point in having worked here for a few months and read some of them. There definitely are. But these specific plans go into more detail than the master infrastructure plan. Zoning. They go into a finer grain of detail about these subdistricts, and we'll talk about what specific plans do and what specific plans don't do. They do serve as a platform for extensive community outreach. They create essentially a framework for the built environment. The community gets to dove in and talk about, you know, what these neighborhoods could look like. The they inform a street typology. So, you know, will the streets be wide? Will they be narrow? What will the streets and what with the open spaces as well look like? I also. Should say. That the specific plan specifically for Main Street will allow the Alameda Point Collaborative APEC to move forward with their development plans. So as you can see, they have quite a bit of property in the Main Street neighborhood and they are looking to consolidate and build new buildings for the supportive housing that they offer for the community. And because the zoning requires the specific plan to be completed and approved before any development happens, they are waiting for this document to be written and approved. But I do want to clarify that specific plans do not commit the city to any sort of development timeline, and they do not address disposition issues. They are strictly a planning document to talk about a framework for future development. If a council decides they want it to go forward at some time in the future does not supersede Council's ultimate authority to deal with disposition issues. And finally, the specific plan does not allocate housing units between different neighborhoods. So speaking more directly about the process for this particular specific plan, staff issued an RFP in September 2014 to over 160 firms architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, urban design firms. We received five proposals and these proposals were reviewed by a selection committee that comprised staff representatives from Alameda Point Collaborative, the planning board, as well as someone from the Alameda Association of Realtors. Of the five firms that submitted bids, the selection committee reviewed three selected. Three of the different submissions to review tend to interview. And of those three, it was unanimous among the selection committee that Urban Planning Partners was head and shoulders above the competition. Specifically, some of their strengths are community outreach. When we called all of their references, they all said that they had a real ability to speak both the language of municipal government and of communities and to bridge the gap that sometimes exists between the two. They have excellent design skills and placemaking. One of the things that staff agreed was that their the proposal was very not only very well thought out, but very appealing esthetically. And that kind of attention to esthetic detail can really speak to what kinds of designs are put into the illustrative, not illustrative plans, excuse me, are put into planning documents and thought about what the neighborhood may look like in the future. They also have a supporting housing expert, a historic preservation expert, and interestingly, they have an urban agriculture expert on their team. You know, your first thought is what is an urban agriculture expert? And I thought it was very interesting because specifically the Main Street neighborhood has an existing urban agriculture facilities with plowshares, as well as the urban farm. And I thought it showed staff thought it showed a real attention to detail for this is what's in this neighborhood. This is what could be done to leverage the existing facilities in the neighborhood to increase the community benefit. And it just showed a strong attention to detail. Finally, financial. This is a $250,000 grant from Mtc's staff is the city is matching that with staff time as well as an additional just over $6,000 because the cost of the consultant exceeds the $250,000. That's my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Any quick clarifying questions. Member Data. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me hear what your thoughts are on this issue. I think in a way, city council as well as staff have to act like a master developer, that we have to take a look at what we're doing at Parcel A in conjunction with, say, the Main Street neighborhood in conjunction with, say, the historic district. We have to look at how all these different interact. Understanding that there are different needs and different place in it in the different sub areas. So are you saying that if we move forward with the Main Street neighborhood planning, that there's enough flexibility in there to deal with issues in different areas that might be somehow treated by planning in, say, the Main Street neighborhood? Let me give you a case case example. Overall, we have a 1400 residential unit number for Alameda Point of the 1400. We're looking at roughly 800, possibly at the parcel, a specific town center. Now, that means that there's roughly 600 to be divided somewhere at Alameda Point, some of which will be at Main Street neighborhood, some of which could be at the at the historic area, the adaptive reuse area. As we move down the pike with Main Street area, at some point in time, we're going to move down the pike with Alameda. The adaptive reuse area and the adaptive reuse area has certain costs there unknown. But we know that there are costs that are associated with dealing with the historic structures, costs which would be in part underwritten by the ABI residential parcel potentially. So to the extent that we isolate in on the remaining 600 balance or Main Street neighborhood, that could then have some effect in terms of residential for the historic area. So the question is, is there enough flexibility to take in the fact that there are these different areas, these different costs in different neighborhoods, and that the residential outside of parts of L.A. now is getting less and less. And yet it's the residential that is potentially a source to help, not the full answer, but to help deal with these different costs in different areas. I'm glad you asked that question. Yeah. I mean, there is definitely a amount of flexibility in these documents. They do look at, you know, first I should say, as I should repeat, that it doesn't the document specific plans do not allocate housing units directly. So they are a higher level view. And they they they do talk about the different financing issues. But specifically, you're just as these documents allow the flexibility by creating a framework within which development can happen. So they're not directly they want spillover from I guess I'm what if this is what you're asking they don't spillover from one district to another. Right. So it'll it'll give you the framework for what the street neighborhood may look like physically, and it'll give you a sense of the density of what the development may happen. But it it's not going to directly apportion different housing units to different neighborhoods. So what you're asking it's. Part I am partly asking about apportionment apportioning quantitative units, but it's also apportioning types of units because to the extent that you say that, that the adaptive reuse place is going to have. Actually, to the extent that you say Main Street neighborhood is going to have single family homes rather than multi-family homes, that has fiscal impacts in terms of revenue generation, feed generation that could be used towards dealing with, say, the costs that that are the historic renovation costs in the historic resource area. So it's not just a number of quantities of where the quantities are allocated, but it's also knowing that we're going to have enough flexibility in terms of the types of housing , because whatever business deal that we strike with whomever is as the main street area, there might be more revenue generation through single family homes rather than multi-family homes and is in it. And it doesn't matter whether it's multi-family homes, single family homes. We can only deal with 600. Correct? No. That is the flexibility that we need to deal with those. How much? Is there a question? But the question is, is there left flexibility? Yes, the answer is yes, absolutely. And Brody. Can I kind of add to that? Can you kind of explain to some of us new on the council what exactly is going to be in this specific plan? Because, you know. I've been told there's location studies in there, but then maybe that's not true. And then there's, you know, financial analysis. My concern is not getting to count somebody's socks when he said they're 625. You know, we have to take care of APC and of that 200 and we're only left with 425, so. Correct, I guess. So what when we see this stock, I mean, what what are we going to see, you know, in layman's terms or or rookies on the council? Sure. Specific plan generally includes, you know, they'll be chapters about building typology and street typology. So talking about the physical nature of the space and what the open spaces look like, how they may be arranged. There also is a financial analysis that looks at the different costs and how things different unit types and how things may pay for different types of financial strategies that that we may take to move forward. There's also. Let me think about. They're kind of the constraints issues, right. So you look at the types of. Constraints that we face. So like the first chapter is basically going to look at, you know, what are the seismic issues, what are the, you know, floodplain issues, how do they affect this specific area and, you know, as opposed to just the base as a whole? And so you get a chapter on constraints. You get, you know, a section of finance, you get a section on the built environment. It's kind of a big picture of it. And then what are you using as the base? I mean, are you using an idea of 600 units, 400 units? I mean, or there has to be some, you know, some guidelines where you're going forth and doing the specific plan. Sure. I I think there's a there's an ultimate sense that Main Street neighborhood is going to be of much of a lower density than the town center. We're also very aware, you know, that there's a limit on the number of housing that can happen. And so the documents definitely take that information in mind, but it won't specifically say, you know, this number of units have to go here and this have to go here and you have to keep these things in mind as you go forward. But it won't be specifically dictating those things. Thank you. Any other council questions at this point? Hey, I have a question. We had spoken before as a council in regards to transportation plan, and I don't know if you were aware of that conversation. That's my understanding. At some point, staff will be coming back to us in regards to an overall transportation plan. Will this be considered in that plan or will we be or are we being asked to approve more housing without a transportation plan? You know, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I know you. Yeah. So we will be coming on March 12th to talk about a response to I'm sorry, 10th. Night. At 12 at night. Now March 10th next week to respond to Councilmember de. SAG's referral. Regarding a comprehensive citywide transportation solution, Alameda Point in particular already has an approved transportation demand management plan, which is essentially a transportation strategy, gets into a lot of detail about costs, how we're going to fund it, what. Services are going to be provided, how fast those services are going to be provided. Who gets to do a lot of detail that was approved in May of last year, and then every project that comes through is then required to actually submit and get approved at what's called a TDM compliant strategy or essentially a transportation compliance strategy. So they have to show. Every project. Has to show how they're in compliance with that overall. AMI 2.2 plan. So we absolutely have a plan for transportation at AMI two point. This project was contemplated as part of the Aluminum Point EIA Environmental Impact Report. Which studied. All the potential traffic impacts related to the 1425 units in the five and a half million square feet of. Commercial. So we believe that we have we've addressed these issues, but these issues as the team plan, clearly states are going to evolve over time, have to adjust. We have to adjust what's successful, what's not successful. And so a big part of that plan is monitoring, you know. Every year, doing surveys. What's working, what's not working? Are we meeting our goals? And if we're not meeting our. Goals and things aren't working. Then how do we. Tweak things? We might need to spend more money to do something to be more effective. And so these plans, even though we've put in the framework and we've approved them with a lot of detail. There needs to be. Constant kind of monitoring and evolution of those plans to make sure that they're successful. And as part of this plan, will there be a designation, for instance, of affordable housing for seniors or affordable housing for vets or affordable housing for families? Well, the the settlement agreement with the city has requires 25% affordable housing. For. All new market rate units, which that settlement actually actually excludes the collaborative units. So in addition to. 200 supportive housing units gained rebuilt the new facility, which is the plan that provides supportive housing for. Veterans, for women. Survivors of domestic women. And children, survivors of domestic violence, and families at risk of homelessness. Those are the 200 units that are being rebuilt on site. And then an additional 25%, which will. Be 9%. Moderate income, 10% low income and 6% very low income. So it's. Actually when you actually add those. Together to even. You know, it's going to be over 30%, you know, even more of affordable housing. And in regards to the selection of so it's my understanding we're being asked to approve the selection of a specific planner this up. And have they done any projects for the city of Alameda in the past? Yeah. Uh, uh. They worked in, uh. A while ago on the on the northern waterfront, they did community meeting facilitation and they worked at the city's behest to. There was a citizen advisory council that the 15 member citizen advisory council that they worked with. Is that included in the report tonight? I didn't see it in there. And I just think that if we have if they if an entity has done work with us in the past, that should be included and disclosed to the public when you recommend not use specifically, but when they're being recommended again, because the public then will know if they may have an opinion, if they agreed with the projects that a certain company had been involved with in the past. Does that could be included in the future? Sure, absolutely. So they were involved with the Northern. They worked on a quite a few projects out at the base as well as the Northern Waterfront. Yes. Okay. And then do you know specifically what people were involved on the panel from the community that are not staff members? I'm sorry. Is this the silver lining? Mm hmm. It was Doug Biggs from APC, as well as Donna Alvarez. Is that her last name? Tanya Alvarez. And then, I don't know the name of the woman from the Alameda Association of Realtors. And to Bartolo. Thank you, Stephane. So there was really one member of the public and a buyer leaving this because I believe Doug Biggs works for APC and Donya is on our commission. But. Thank you. And, um. And then the timeline to accept this grant. When when does that expire? The current grant is the. With the grants. You know, we've accepted the grant. We're slightly ahead of schedule for some of the other communities, municipalities. But there's there's not necessarily a timeline. If we delay beyond a certain amount, it's possible that they ask us to reapply for the next grant cycle. But I don't know of a specific timeline. Okay. So so in regards to narrowing it down to one firm that's being recommended, do you know what criteria was used? Yes. Because I think our choice is really to go with this one as well. You really asking us to approve one planner this evening? Yes. This is the you know, the selection committee reviewed all the different applicants and decided this firm was superior. I can read you the selection criteria. Would you like that? Yes, thank you. A the consultant teams project manager and key staff persons, persons past experience and results with similar projects and demonstrated expertize outlined in section four. Role of the consultant. Of this request for proposals. B The consultant teams demonstrated understanding of the proposed project in the Alameda community and of the need for an efficient and effective approach to successfully completing the project. C The consultant team's ability to deliver a high quality, specific plan within the budget amount of $256,500 in 12 months schedule. D The consultant team's ability to meet the city's standard contract requirements. Thank you. And in regards to the the percentage of far below market rate housing. Is it possible that this planet could come back with a higher percentage of below market rate housing than the 30%? Because I think we all know that the 200 are used all the time that we could. Absolutely. Is a greater percentage in our community. I'm sure we belong to look into that. Thank you. One more question, but I think I've already asked question if there is a. I am Mormon. Oh, and that the mayor's comment about the affordable housing just reminded me. I really like this yuppie consultant agreement exhibit too, and I think this is pretty exciting. But it does have this section on phasing and financing that I think you use the term fine grained Mr. Christian, but it talks about the cultivate slash urban planning partners team will identify existing priorities and conditions that will impact implementation and establish a plan for the chronological order and location of proposed development. This chapter on phasing and financing will include a financing strategy for infrastructure, transportation, affordable housing, open space and other capital improvement elements necessary for specific planning implementation. And then into the next paragraph it talks about. In addition, the strategy will include discussion of how financing needs relating to the reconstruction of the supportive housing facilities. At some point, collaborative can be integrated with the overall specific plan implementation. It is assumed that the affordable housing developers selected by the locals, supportive housing providers and or collaborative representatives will provide information on project financing gaps, i.e. subsidy needs that would remain after accounting for anticipated project revenues, tax credits and other affordable housing funding sources that the developer anticipates utilizing. I appreciate that depth of information being in there and also that people who know a whole lot more about financing affordable housing projects. I know it's a lot of cobbling together of different sources from the ones that I've seen, but I know that they'll do their best to include as much affordable housing as possible. I'm sorry, is this. So I'm just asking is that that would be part of the to look at how much affordable housing could go. In. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I have a question. Yes. Now the the parcel a process started the specific planning process started by getting. So I think it was someone to be the outfit that did the specific planning for parcel a which kind of which did a great job of kind of filtering out, tweaking what we had done through the zoning process . And I imagine that for the Main Street neighborhood yuppie, that would do the same. Now the thing about the parcel a so and process, the city council was not as involved in that process. So what thoughts have you given to having council involved in the process with through that this process and Main Street neighborhood. That we're definitely committed to involving council in the in moving forward with Main Street specific plan in much the same way that we're doing with the city development. Wonderful. That's great news. Thank you. And Brody. Thank you, Madam Mayor. My question back on flexibility. Hypothetically, this is Question Time. Hypothetically, if the council later on today says we just want you to focus this specific plan, the priority is the 200 HPC replacement units. Mm hmm. And then we're not going to prioritize the remaining 425 or the remaining part of of the main street neighborhood. Is there a flexibility in this specific plan that we're going to ask to, that we can separate an evaluation of APC and from the rest? So if we want to move forward with APC and we want to shelve the rest or delay the rest for some undetermined period of time, will that flexibility if the council decides they want to do that well, that flexibility be in there? That's a good question. I would imagine, like you can defer to Jim, but I would imagine that we would since we're required to do this document, it would make the most sense to do the whole neighborhood while we're at it. You know, if you've got the hood up, might as well do the work on the entire neighborhood. And then you can always choose to move forward in phasing as council decides. You know, and again, this this specific point doesn't really speak to disposition, you know, issues such as that. This is really just creating a framework and city council can decide as at a later date to move forward and whatever phasing they decide. Yeah. Just want to add, as I think we could absolutely. In this specific plan. And I think Doug. Biggs executive. Is probably going to make sure we do this. Is that we create a phasing plan that contemplates them moving forward without the rest of the neighborhood. So that when we talk about our infrastructure. And financing and. Implementation approach in. The specific plan, we do it for the whole neighborhood. But that we're very clear that there's a way that this. Project, his project, can move forward without the rest of the neighborhood and start. And if there's. Some potential infrastructure issues with that that we outline what those are, so that it's very clear how he can march. Forward. Without the rest of the neighborhood. I think we can absolutely do that. I think that we would probably be. He's going to make sure we do that. Okay. Thank you. Now remember questions. We have a speaker, Doug Biggs. Speaking of. Thank you for being so patient. Good morning. My name's Doug Biggs. I'm executive director of the Alameda Point Collaborative. And I guess since I'm. Not a member of a public, I get to talk a little longer than 3. Minutes. Thank you very much, Mayor. Appreciate that. But I'll try not to. ABC as you do know, I was a partner of the grant submission to the MTC which has funded this proposed project. Our role in the project is a critical component since we make up the bulk of the housing and community space that's in this area. A key outcome of the proposed project is to do a site and financial analysis looking at alternative locations in the Main Street area within which we can rebuild our community. I can't overstate how important it is to us. And I can't read this thing right now. I can't overstate how important it is to us and our families that we have housing that supports efforts to overcome homelessness and allow children and families to thrive. As I like to tell folks and some of you have heard me say this before, I think we've built a pretty amazing community out there with really crappy housing. It's time. You know, we could do so much more with accessible, appropriately sited housing. We can't get there, though, unless we take this important step. And as was mentioned previously. We need to have a specific plan in order to move forward on any development out there. That that's part of the agreement that's in place. We need to. Look at alternative locations because that's going to impact the financing. And you can't do that in isolation of just doing that component. You have to look at what's going in around you, what's potentially going in around you, whether that's phased in later or not. So so it all is kind of tied together and it's hard to pull out one piece. The grant was awarded in June. Of 2014 and written up in the local papers. Shortly after the grant was awarded, we worked with the city to help identify prospective planning firms. We brought to the process skill sets around supportive housing that we would want to see in a firm. We wanted firms that would be able to talk our language and know the people that we're working with. After RFQ was sent out, there was a well-attended applicant briefing that was held to discuss the project, and we participated in that as well. Once the applications were received, interviews were held and we participated in those. And as live mentioned, while there were several firms that impressed us, Urban Planning Partners brought a breadth of experience and approach that was very much in tune with our desire to build on the successes we had already achieved. We believe that the UP team has excellent, supportive housing expertize and one of their team members, Bruce McCuddy, who's actually worked with us for several years on community planning efforts. He understands our community. He understands the people we're working with, and we're really excited about Sage, the urban agriculture experts, because bringing them in really indicates that they're willing to work with what's out there already. They're willing to help us create an innovative, sustainable main street. And to build on the work we've. Already started. DeLay of this project can greatly impair our ability to provide the services our residents need and desire. Moving forward will provide critical information and data that can inform our process. At the end of the day, though, as has been mentioned several times tonight, this is a planning process only it does not break any ground. It does not approve any development. It only informs and as we tell our youth every day at our education center, information empowers leaders, approve this contract and allow us to move forward. Thank you very much. And I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any comments? Vice Mayor What I'd like to get out of this for Alameda is, number one, that we take advantage of spending other tax dollars that don't come directly from our general fund. So that's number one. Number two, I'm looking at the tasks that have to happen, and I would like to prioritize the repair, upgrade, redesign and rebuilding of the 200 collaborative units as the top priority. I'm looking at test number two, where where it says cultivate up will prepare a market assessment of various housing types and densities. And then working off this marketing study and in meetings at Task one, they will prepare a series of site planning alternatives. I'd like to have them include a site planning alternative that caps the number of units to what exists they. Not what was talked about in 2008 or in 2012 or 2014, because those didn't anticipate the multifamily overlays outside of the base and the northern waterfront. So I'd like to have an alternative that's discussed that that puts the cap. On on building new units over and above. What's there? I'd like. An alternative that preserves the neighborhood around the big white. I'd like an alternative and that comes back to the Council for a preferred alternative is selected so that the council is the gatekeeper of what's the preferred alternative. I think it's very important to look at this not only in the context of other development at the base, but the other development in the rest of the city. And I think that goes back to the comments about addressing the transportation, addressing it both locally in and in the city. So that's that's what I'd like to see us. When in place is controls and guidance for this group provide us with a specific plan because that specific plan is going to be the foundation of how we zone it and then what's built there. Make no mistake. Amber Ashcraft So I was thinking about this. Mike Grant It's it's pretty impressive that we have this $250,000 grant to work with and, you know, $6,000 of our own money. But we're leveraging quite a bit because when I represented Alameda on the Alameda County Transportation Commission in the last administration, it was a constant source of frustration to me that I would see these MTC grants being doled out to other communities around this large table. And Alameda wasn't even eligible because we had very few PDAs planned development areas because at that point we still hadn't had the conveyance from the Navy. So it wasn't our property. We couldn't do, you know, the things that were required to get this grant. And so this is public money and yet it was going to trust me. And Oakland got a lot of it, but every every other jurisdiction around the table. So now we're in a position to take advantage of this. And I did enjoy reading the staff report in the consultant agreement, and I did have some questions that I emailed to staff earlier. And one of the a couple of things that I want to make sure are incorporated is I asked if our existing development guidelines require that new construction be energy efficient or achieve zero net energy objectives. If not, how can we include these objectives in this specific plan? And the answer I got was that staff intends to address sustainability issues in the Main Street specific plan, much as was done with the recently completed town center plan. And I, I'm also pleased to see that there will be sustainable streets. So again, not just complete streets that look at all different modes and users, not just autos, but bicycle, pedestrian transit, but also taking the concept one step further, including bio swales or something similar to treat runoff on site. I love the urban agriculture component of this and that's important for so many reasons. First of all, there's not a lot of places around the Bay Area where you have urban agriculture. And I have been out there. Mr. Biggs gave me a lovely I think we walked for 3 hours one day tour and his residents in a lot of them, the young people are out there and they're working in these various agriculture enterprises, whether it's the beekeeping or the planting and the orchards and plowshares is lovely. And I want to see and you know, we're doing a community garden at the Jean Sweeney Open Space Park. I mean, this is something Alameda can really be known for. And so I'm glad to see that that's a big part of this specific plan. And I'm the OC and so I think it was Councilmember de SAC raised this my question was with regard to the preferred alternative selection, I wrote how and when does City Council offer its input on development and evaluation of these alternatives? It seems like everyone but the City Council will be consulted, yet we have ultimate responsibility for approving the draft specific plan. I prefer a process similar to what we're doing with City I. Monthly updates to the Council with Opportunity for input and I. The response I got was that's what we're going to do. And a couple of things that I especially like about this was the development standards I thought were very well stated, the flexible form based standards regarding existing historic structures and compatible new construction. I know Christopher Buckley has left, but he would he would like that too. And finally, in the in the agreement on pages 17 and 18, I said I'm very cool online participation platform, so not everyone can come to a meeting that lasts until 1230 at night, but everyone can sit at their computer or a computer somewhere and let your your thoughts and your your opinions about this Plan B be heard. So I'm looking forward to seeing this go forward. Thank you. Remember, Audie. So this was the other item that I was very torn on. In addition to the weather one. You know, in an ideal world, we would put this off, we would take care of make a decision on siting and see where we're going on site, a work on a site, B, developing the enterprise zone and put off the decision on more housing until we're further down the road on site A and we've had an opportunity as a council to evaluate traffic and show the public that we're taking the results of the election seriously. But on the other side, you know, we have the 200 substandard units that the folks in APC are living on a living in. So we need to, you know, rebuild and relocate that the APC housing, I mean an ideal world we'd have that inside a and then we wouldn't have to worry about this and we could push this off for another couple of years. But I don't think that's going to happen. But these people need better housing. They need to be better situated. They had the same infrastructure issues in the housing that we've heard from the business, the businesses that are out at Almeida Point, you saw the map. They have a huge footprint. We want to have a smaller footprint for APC. So. I, I like the idea that the Vice Mayor suggested that we really have a robust series of site planning alternatives. Again, if APEC was not in here, I would not be voting to move this forward. I would just say, let's not deal with Main Street neighborhood until we've we've taken care of site. But, you know, we do have a social responsibility to the folks that live in APC to get them out of their substandard housing as soon as possible. So I'd like to see the, you know, the hypothetical I mentioned where, you know, we focus on taking care of APC and, you know, the alternatives, maybe some that turns out do nothing. Maybe the alternatives are having the cap. Maybe, you know, the alternatives, you know, are banking the land and dealing with it, you know, in five or ten years, I don't know. But I'd like to see those alternatives, but not hold up the process of of taking care of the APC residents and getting them into higher quality housing. Well, thank you. First and foremost, I want to say thank you very much to Doug Biggs for coming out to my office hours this past Thursday. We had a great conversation. He, you know, let me know about the planning that the homeless collaborative Alameda Point Collaborative has undertaken and why this is an important step in moving that along. It seems to me that in moving forward with the Main Street neighborhood, we can certainly help his cause even more. And it is important to remember that, you know, base conversion isn't just about, you know, working with the catalysis of the world or working with the streams of the world or the slums of the world. But it is intimately about also working with the Alamo to point collaborative of the world for that reason, you know, to give real meaning to turning arms into plowshares. I think it's a vital part or what we're all about at Alameda Point. So I think we should, you know, be unapologetic in and in doing what we can to assist Alameda Point Collaborative in achieving their goals. From my take, I think the framework began when it comes to residential is the 1425 and of that 1425 we're looking at roughly 800 for parcel a and I hear clearly what staff is saying with regard to Main Street that that we're not locking in into any particular numbers. But I do want to raise, though, that the point that Vice Mayor Matt R.C. raised in terms of putting a cap that could have substantive effects. So I don't I think, you know, if Vice Mayor Matt, R-S.C., would like to include a cap in his in his approach, then I say, fine, include that in your one of your analyzes. But as one of the analyzes, because it seems to me that if you put a cap based upon what's existing there now in total