Public Hearing to Consider Introduction of Ordinance Amending Alameda Municipal Code Chapter 30 (Zoning Ordinance) to Streamline Design Review for Small Residential Additions, Window Replacements, and Green Roofs, Update Work/Live Ordinance Requirements, Update Lot Line Adjustment Procedures, and Make Other Miscellaneous Administrative, Technical, and Clarifying Amendments, as Recommended by the Planning Board.  (Planning and Building 481005)
Public Hearing to consider rejection of ordinance amending the Alameda Principal Code Chapter three Zoning Ordinance to Streamline Design Review for small residential additions, window replacements and green roofs. Update the work live ordinance requirements. Update the lot line adjustment procedures and make other miscellaneous administrative, technical and clarifying amendments as recommended by the Planning Board. Hello, Mr. Tie. Yes, me again. Thank you, Madam May. Or members of the Council. So this package of zoning text amendments, we are amending chapter 30 of the aluminum code, which is the zoning ordinance. What it does is it would further our climate action goals and as well as some other goals and priorities in the city to reduce costs for housing maintenance in the city of Alameda. It would encourage job growth as well as bring our standards consistent with leaders state requirements. There are three areas that we are addressing with this package of zoning amendments. The first are design review streamlining measures. We are streamlining window replacements. This would include energy efficient windows. Those would be exempt from the zoning review. So no more public hearings. Public notices. Similarly, small additions. We were allowing. Those that review. Process to be streamlined as well as green or vegetated roofs. So those have climate benefits. With regard to the work live studios, we are proposing to expand to locations in the city where they are allowed currently work. Live studios are limited to areas in Alameda Point and the Northern Waterfront. We are expanding that possibility to all commercial zones. We are also making revisions to the size, limitations or requirements for work live studios in order to get more smaller offices. We we've done a survey that kind of tells us that this small business space is needed in the city. And so. That effort is consistent with the. Economic development strategy plan. Last but not least, we are proposing changes to the property lot line adjustment process. That ordinance hasn't been updated in 30 years, so we are simply making updates to reflect best practices and to comply with current state law. So I'm available. Any questions and do we have public speakers on this item? Okay. And so do we have any clarifying questions on the staff report or comment on that discussion or. Yeah. Okay. So that's the luncheon to discussion VICE. We're not quite very short. I wanted to appreciate all of this again by listening the planning board meeting. They did amazing work on this. I appreciated the in terms of the development standards, the switch in parking, and I just wanted to flag and actually ask my council members what they thought about can't get into it's not agenda has been in terms of just discreet discretion if perhaps in the same way that we're changing parking requirements here if we could ask staff to to look at the city parking requirements citywide for the same reasons so they're having a big impact on our and I think are I time it time time is now to to have this conversation so anyway with I checked in with the city attorney he said that giving that direction would be perfectly acceptable tonight. So I'm ready to move this forward. But I also like to move it forward with just discreet discretion for staff to look at it, look at look at how we might make similar just to. Bring it back to us. So. Yes, right. Okay. And you know, I realize I had a question on the staff report, Mr. Cherry. So on page three and I support this. But the the amendment would reinforce work live studios as commercial spaces and they could essentially be located in all commercial manufacturing and mixed use zoning districts. And the restriction on work with buildings to existing work, with studios to existing buildings will also be eliminated. My question is, and again, I think this is a good thing. We need more housing and we need more. This has been pointed out in the staff report. This is a way to help improve our jobs, housing balance. And and if you live and work in the same place, you don't have to commute. But how how do we take into consideration the impact on schools if work lives studios include significant numbers of families with children because I know some do already and it means how does that is that the school district's problem? How do we how do we approach that? Yeah. So kind of the broader answer would be I think there are state laws that say that if there is development in local city, uh, we, the school fees basically take addresses the demand on school so that responsibility isn't necessarily the city's burden. But specifically with this issue work live studios there were other cities call these live work the reason why Alameda calls and work live is the emphasis on work therefore. Strict limitations are on the living portions. And with these amendments that we're doing today, we're further reinforcing that these are work spaces. And as sort of, you know, for maybe one or two individuals to live comfortably in, not really intended to big families. I mean, these are really studio spaces. So I would just say, to be realistic, I mean, there is a move toward tiny homes, you know, housing people and a much smaller footprint. And so I don't think we can pretend that some children might be a part of these households. So that absolutely is true. But in that in those cases, they're the work live studio and the occupants would have to keep a valid business license. It could it could happen. But the restrictions or requirements that we have in place are really catered toward people running businesses out of these places. So many of you. Thank you. Councilmember Odessa, thank you. I don't think that's correct, actually. I think when this ordinance was created, the emphasis was on work, not live. Yes. And the way in which that emphasis was put into life was by having a standard of 101,000 square feet of work space. So what you're doing here is you're reducing the standard of 1000 square feet of workspace to 500 square feet of work space. And. And that was that was the key issue back in 2003 when we dealt with this issue. And we're also. Voting against this back then and. We're also adjusting. This today. So I finish his comments first. I think if someone wants to reduce their work area from the current 1000 square feet standard of 500, they can get a special use permit or a variance or whatever it is. Right. They don't need we don't need to change the rules. Right. They could conceivably. If if we didn't. Yes. But what we are doing in terms of adjusting the minimum work requirement, workspace requirement to 500 is we're also adjusting the proportion of the living space so that if you do propose a 500 square foot work live studio, you will have a much smaller 30% living area. But that would also be legal. It would be a nice micro area and people can, you know. So you're really turning this into from work, live to live work. So and frankly, I think this goes against measure and that was the heart of the discussion as to why I voted against it in 2003. Because now when you make it live work, you're basically making a multi-family residential and. That's just my opinion. Thank you for sharing your opinion, Councilman Brody. I mean, I have a different opinion. I would like it to be live work, and I don't think it goes that far enough. Instead of work live, because we had this discussion with was it building eight over at that Alameda point. But I appreciate all the work you guys have done to bring us to this. I wish we could have gone further. But, you know. Maybe next time. As you come. It's all right. And I will just say that I spent all of yesterday in Sacramento at a policy meeting on addressing our state's housing crisis, and we just can't provide more housing fast enough for our residents and their ability to create jobs. And and things change. Times change in the in the intervening years since this first came about and some of you may remember it was rhythmic that wanted to go into the old clamp swing building and there was such an outcry and you know what would happen and it would turn Missouri on its head. And and it was just, you know, the start of terrible things to come and look what an amazingly successful enterprise, rhythmic, has been and has brought so many cultural offerings to our city, to our our school children, and also to visitors from outside of Alameda. And yet we placed so many restrictions on them that there haven't been very many of these work live buildings or spaces developed since then. So I you know, again, I think that changing times call for fresh looks at the way we've done things. So I'm certainly prepared to support this. Okay. Anyone else who do we want to make a motion? I made a motion early. Oh, I'm sorry. Let's get going to make it again. Okay. But I'll just I'll just point out to your point, the rhythmic that somebody was sued. Rhythmic was sued using our work live via Measure A and they lost. I mean, the the measure is the measure argument lost. So the courts have already found that this is not out of compliance with measuring. I just. Yeah. No, no, no. And I was there was a lawsuit. They found the previous ordinance. This would change that. So this this could conceivably be. I would argue that and I don't mean to, but I would argue that this actually makes it much more difficult that this is going to be house the housing the housing portions in these units become significantly smaller. 150 square feet on a 500 square foot unit is not micro-housing. That's almost inhumane housing. So we can argue and we'll see. Maybe somebody will will sue. But I don't think I, I again, I disagree with the characterization. That's fine. When I read this, I was like, holy cow, this is going to make the housing side of this much more difficult. But I think we can also rest assured that the city attorney's office has had a look at this before it it came to us. Okay. We've had a motion by the vice mayor, a second by Councilmember Vella, correct? Yes. Okay. All in favor. I oppose the motion passes 4 to 1. Thank you. All right. We move on to item six C.