Recommendation to Authorize the Interim City Manager to Execute a Reimbursement Agreement for Estuary Park Access between the Successor Agency to the Community Improvement Commission, City of Alameda and Catellus Alameda Development, LLC. [City Council and SACIC] (Community Development 256)
However, we did not get approval at that time for the actual reimbursement agreement. So we're back before you this evening for approval of that agreement, which involves Catullus has an obligation to build a service road that would connect from phase three of their project, which is north of Mitchell Avenue to the parking lot at Estuary Park. However, that obligation to build that service road is not triggered until they have actually constructed the residential project and the city staff thought it might be a good idea to accelerate that construction project. And because we were reimbursed last year for some expenses that could tell us, oh, the city for some cost involved, that the demolition of the hospital building and the construction of a star while the funds were available to accelerate the project. That's why the council appropriated the funds in the midyear. And now what we're asking for is approval of the contract such that we can have Catullus construct the road, the city will front the funds, and then when Catullus reimbursed, builds the resident, or they will reimburse us for those expenses. And that's what's before you this evening. Thank you, Miss Potter. Mr. Knotts. Why, Vice Mayor? That's right. Sorry. Thank you. So I know we want to hold up the item itself, but I want to thank Ms.. Potter for taking some time to meet with me about this issue. Earlier today, in approving this record, also approving a roadway design for what is ostensibly being called a temporary roadway, but is likely a roadway that will be connecting one of our new and very important parks for 5 to 10 years at a minimum, and that the way that the market's going could be even longer. I was surprised to see in the packet that the connections to this park for biking and walking were actually below our standard recommendations for how we do that and that we're over building wider roads than necessary for the car access. It's not expected to be really high volume and I would really appreciate support for a motion that would approve the agreement, but also give direction that perhaps we make sure that our priority mode standards be met as we're designing this street that will be connecting many of our new residents to this park, as well as kids who are going to practices and games. Miss Potter, from a staff perspective, do you have any thing that we should take into consideration? I would like to defer to Scott Wickstrom, the city engineer who worked with us to develop the cross section. That is an exhibit to the reimbursement agreement. And Scott is here this evening, and he is prepared to talk about why this is the cross-section that staff is recommending. Thank you. Please, Mr. Ricks, please. Address this. Good evening, Madam Mayor. Members of the Council. My name is Collection. I'm the city engineer. It's a question that Vice Mayor Knox White posed a couple of days ago about how the street section came to be and what are some of the rationale for it. It's the first thing to start out with this. This is a driveway or a temporary access road to the backside of Astoria Park in their future, expanded parking lot. One thing to keep in mind when you start thinking about driveways as driveways, you typically think of as a relatively short distance. This driveway is over 800 feet long. It's longer than three city blocks. It is effectively a road. I mean, there's no other way to look at it that it's really a roadway connection from the individual to the parking lot for Estuary Park. And as we start looking at roads and looking at typical roadway design, the first thing to start looking at is what is the typical curb to curb with? And I know there's a lot of talk and discussion in the masterplan about narrower lane ways to reduce speeds to kind of keep the speeds at a 25 mile an hour limit. But the one that considerations that always comes in from an engineering perspective is what is a lane with by definition as it comes to a legal definition that is defendable in case something should ever happen. And we we as the city, would find ourselves in court. And if it does have some guidelines in terms of curb and gutters are not included in the lane list, nor are. And you also do apply for some shy distance away from vertical curves. So the goal was to keep basically to ten foot lanes and allow enough room for the curb and gutter. So effectively you have a a 22 foot face curve to face curve. And unfortunately, I think at the exhibit in the packet shows 23 foot. That is incorrect. It's actually a 22 foot base of curve when it comes to the pathway and the rationale for the pathway. I was again, the general plan talks about guidance and stuff like that, but I was looking for actual hard value numbers that came across our city of Alameda, pedestrian design guidelines that date back to 2011. They do specifically talk about multi-use path trails and their adjacency to roadways and recommend, at a minimum, Caltrans standards of a ten foot wide road. And that was the basis for the design that was provided. Again, this is a temporary road. One does can see that it by its length. It is more than just a typical driveway. And should the roadway ever connect all the way to Main Street, which is envisioned in the general plan, there would certainly be an opportunity to look at the enhancing the pedestrian and bicycle connections at that time to something more suitable for a long term pathway. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Wikström, what's what's your timeframe on moving forward with this. Catalysis prepared to move forward shortly after this authorization? And if the decision were put off for a couple of weeks, would there be any detriment to this agreement? Not significant. No. I'm going to. I defer to my colleague, the vice mayor. Do you. Do you have a, um. A motion, a modified motion you're prepared to make? I mean, the motion I would make is that we we approve the agreement, so it doesn't need to come back, but give but but ask that a design that provides that preferred 12 foot mixed use pathway and to ten foot or a 20 foot fire code rated for a driveway or any street be met there is the and that the cost should be enough that the cost differential should, if anything, be positive for the city. It should become less expensive because a lot of these pathways are built at a much cheaper level and that if for some reason it is found that that can't be built, that they can bring back, that they can bring back that issue on consent, we can approve it. So I mean, this is from my standpoint, this is a this is a driveway. It doesn't need to be built, is why it is the Golden Gate Bridge. It's something we want. People driving low in nine foot lanes are perfectly acceptable. So it may be that FHA has guidelines, but now it also has guidelines for these types of streets. Caltrans says perfectly acceptable for us to follow narrow and for a driveway to a park. I think we should be really putting our money where our mouth is and building the streets that give us the access to parks that we we want, which is on using active transportation. So I'll just note for the record that I feel somewhat at a disadvantage because I have not seen the diagram, that it's not an attachment to this. It's it's a page seven and eight of the attachment. That. They just have. Haven't. Oh. Oh. Are they? Okay. So could this interim city attorney chime in here? Is it? Are we providing sufficient direction to city staff? Is there a way to do this with some clarity so we all get what we're looking for? Well, I think the motion that Vice Mayor Knox White has made will improve the reimbursement agreement and give direction to staff in terms of what he would like the. The project in question to look like. And if there's council support for that, I think that's ample to do. And I think the part of the motion was that it could not be built that way to bring back that aspect for the Council to consider further. The interim city manager wanted to comment. On the the road with there it looks like it well it calls at 23 but you say it's 22, correct. And would it be used as a fire lane? It fire access road would need to be 22 feet. No, a fire access road is is by code is 20 feet. It comes down to the definition of what a what a lane is relative to the vertical curve. So there's a little bit of nuance and a lot of it comes down to what would happen should should an accident occur and should the city be held liable . And then that's when things start looking at, you know, when at what point, what our actual lane was, what are the defined definitions of it? It gets to be subtlety. It's a nuance and it gets to be at some point, it's a legal issue. Anything we do in a public ride away has to be based on some recognizable, undefined standard Pashto. FHB way NAC do is a guidance, but it's not the same as FHB Wiranto. So the recommendation for the 2020 flight was not looking at this as a driveway per se because it is 800 and 880 feet long looking at it really is it as a functioning roadway? It's more than three city blocks long that it's it's a bit of a misnomer to refer to it as a driveway. Granted, the the amount of vehicles on it are going to be relatively not to tremendously high use. But however, just the pure length of it take to consider a driveway is a bit of a bit of a misnomer. So further clarification. Clarification question, how would the city council know what a modified design, if any, that is, is is achieved? If I may suggest it's probably best if maybe perhaps Vice Mayor Knox White and I meet separately off line and discuss this through, and then we could come back again in a couple of weeks and content with hopefully something that is agreeable to both parties and to the council as well. Well, I mean, this is a decision for for the whole council to be made aware of, although. Okay. Any any other thoughts from my colleagues here, Councilmember Odie. Thank you, Madam Chair. So help me through the chair. So the drawing here on page eight shows ten foot of pedestrian bike path and then 23 foot of roadway. I mean, what's the proposed? What do we want them to come back with? Because it's asking the vice mayor. Yes. Yes. So so what I would propose to Mr. Wikström is comment that the number is actually 22. So the idea would be to reduce that to 20 feet to ten foot lanes or to nine foot lanes and a one foot gutter, both of which would be defensible and a 12 foot multi-use path. Which would then meet our preferred standards for multi-use paths. Okay. So then my question would be to our city attorney. I mean, this is an attachment to the contract, right? So we'd have to make sure. They went we went back to and they agreed to it. And we didn't give notice to the public that we were doing. You know this. So I'm a little sure. Just want to make sure we don't run afoul of any Sunshine Ordinance things and that we're, you know, we're not. I'm perfectly supportive of the change, by the way, but I just want to make sure we do it the right way. And there's another party to the contract, obviously. Sure. It it certainly seems to me that the the exhibit, which is part of the agreement that was that's been available to the public, indicated a certain design, a certain with the modification being suggested here does not seem much different than what is proposed here. I mean, it's a three foot difference in round numbers. So I think it is within the ambit of what has been described in the agenda report as well as in the agenda title. So I think if the council took action tonight, that was certainly to be appropriate. If the council has some concerns about having the more a a revised design as part of the reimbursement agreement that the city engineer and and the vice mayor can discuss and see if there might be some some redesign. We can certainly bring back the reimbursement agreement in two weeks or a month and have it considered. I don't think there's a time a time crunch here. Okay. I appreciate that, Councilmember Vela. I think at least what I would appreciate is if there is some sort of alternative plan that could be put forward that we as a council get to weigh in on what we're actually approving and that it gets agenda. So it sounds like there isn't a rush to get this approved tonight. I my preference would be in an abundance of caution and transparency. Wait here. This. Okay. So what I would propose, if everyone is agreeable to this is actually just what our city engineer proposed. Could you and the vice mayor arrange to meet offline? This is a former planning board president and go over, you know, have a chance to sit down face to face and with drawings in front of you and and then bring this back to us when you're ready as soon as possible. Yes, I would probably guess I'd probably be a month. Considering the turnaround timeframes on counterpart, so they would likely be back in a month. That sounds fine. Do we need a comment, please? Council member Desai. Thank you. I just want to say that we have our engineer here giving us some insights, recommendations on professional expertize when it comes to building a temporary road that's almost 800 feet. So this is, for all intents and purposes, a road. And I think what caught my attention was his reference to safety and how that relates to legal issues. For me, that was a it's an important point because, you know, at a at a park like estuary park where activity will occur, there is a possibility of people getting injured. And for example, from myself during the Alameda City tournament, I experienced incredibly grave cramps such that we actually called the the fire department. And I was transported by the ambulance to Kaiser. And to me, I believe a fire ambulance back into I think on a close to the where I was laying on the ground prone because of incredible cramps. So I think this is not an issue that that we should take lightly the safety related issues and how we could, you know, how we would serve our residents in the event of of some emergency. And also the related legal questions at this point, I'm satisfied, frankly, with the with the recommendation from our staff. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. de SAC. Okay. Do we need a motion to continue this? Sure. I'll make a motion to continue. This item to, I guess, the first meeting in February. Okay. I was actually asking procedurally, is that the best way to do that? Okay. Okay. So we have, uh, I might leave. It's your motion, but you might want to leave the date open. I'm happy to just. Continue this and whatever date. Soon as possible that it can become a back end with. With the understanding that you will meet with the city engineer. Councilman Brody. I make a suggestion that you also add to it to incorporate the comments. From the dais. Thank you. I'll second that. Thank you. And all the comments, including all of our colleagues. All right. Okay. So we have a motion in a second. Can I make one comment or comment after it's done? I just wanted to. I have actually met with Mr. Wickstrom. I appreciate his diligence and care and know that you know that to Tony's there. Council member disagrees comments very does take safety and whatever else. I also know that he understands very much that there are lots of ways to look at safety and design and whatever else. I just want to thank you for this. I'm sorry that we didn't have a time with my travel schedule to connect on this before the meeting. In the future, I will try to avoid that. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we have a motion in a second. All in favor. I. That was unanimous. All right. Thank you, everyone. Okay. Okay. So then we move on to the regular city council meeting. Roll call. Roll call has been noted. Five present. Are there any agenda changes? Hearing none. There are no proclamations, special orders of the day or announcements. I'm Madam Clerk. Do we have any public speakers on all communications? Not agenda. We do. All right. Okay. So thank you very much. Okay. So under oral communications, a limited number of speakers may address the council on any member, any item that is not on the agenda. And you will have 3 minutes to speak. But the time for this particular item is 15 minutes. So use your time wisely. Okay. So the first speaker we have is Paul Medved. Good evening, Marissa Ashcraft and council members. Paul Medved, 74, Justin Circle. My wife and I have enjoyed life in Alameda for nearly 40 years now and raised our two daughters here. Like so many others, we love Alameda and want to see its vitality protected.