Recommendation to direct City Manager to schedule a City Council report to review progress on the city's Report on Revenue Tools and Incentives for the Production of Affordable and Workforce Housing, adopted by the City Council in May of 2017. Include updates on all 29 action items, including progress on the inclusionary housing policy, short term rental policy, and updates on new funding from recent State legislation including recording fee legislation. Direct City Manager, through the Department of Development Services and the Housing Authority, to present research and findings on potential polices to support tenants, protections for seniors, rental assistance programs, and support for renters to move into homeownership. Policy considerations should include: • A "Seniors First" program to ensure vulnerable seniors receive priority in rental assistance and relocation programs; • Options for new and/or expanded rental assistance and relocation programs; • Policies that support tenants adopted in other cities; • Programs to assist renters with homeownership programs;
Since entrepreneurs are yeses. Okay, thank you very much. Now we're doing item number seven and then item number six. And then item number ten. Communication from Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilman Andrews, Councilman Austin recommendation to direct the city manager to schedule a city council report to review progress on the city's report on revenue tools and incentives for the production of affordable and workforce housing. Thank you, Councilman Gonzalez. Yes, I first would like to thank my council colleagues, Andrews and Austin, for joining me on this item. However, I know that other colleagues have taken great part in these housing discussions, and I thank all of you as well, and I appreciate everyone that has participated in the discussion relative to housing issues and renters. Advocacy for renters. The issues of displacement. Finding ways in which we can empower renters in Long Beach with resources, education and policy while working with both housing advocates and property owners, is certainly the spirit of this item. As we know, we are almost 60% renter populated, and I don't believe we have any choice but to address the issues that so many of our collective residents are facing. This will be a challenge, I know, but I really urge all of us to be open minded to the process. Renters, property owners, and all who truly care to make the city more housing inclusive and supportive on all levels. We will review our progress on the city's report on revenue tools and incentives for the production of affordable and workforce housing. So much work has been done there, but we will ask city staff to work on a seniors first program as the immediate downtown area. Somewhere I call home is home to over seven senior restricted housing locations. And for that reason, we should have a vested interest in finding more programs for them. Options for new expanded rental relocation programs from renter, from renter to home ownership programs will also be included in this package. In addition, I'd like to include a few more items. First, a review of our covenants for restricted housing properties. I know we have quite a few restricted housing locations that exist in our city and council districts one, two, four, six, seven, eight and nine. And the majority, of course, are District one. But I would like to have city staff provide options the city can take in either keeping the covenants in place or finding some sort of next step. Number two is create a meeting of the minds between all housing advocate groups and property owner groups. So Housing Long Beach, La Brea Apartment Association, the California Apartment Association and Small Property Owners Alliance and provide insight on research so they can provide research and insight on these policies. And lastly, we should include in this report the report on citywide rental rates, which was dated on September 26, 2017, which will include more information and provide a larger context to this discussion. And lastly, we included last but not least, and I think a lot of this is what I certainly have focused on, but want to ensure that we focus on ongoing, is that very small percent of negligent landlords. We know that they exist. They're about 1%, maybe even less than that in our city. And they are the individuals that are consistently putting their tenants in serious quality of life issues. They create blight in our neighborhoods. They disrespect our neighborhoods while also putting renters at risk for being evicted. It's unfair and unjust, and as a city, we need to finally address the issue of slumlords even more than we're doing now. So with that said, I look forward to my council colleagues, their discussion, their insight, their input on anything in here that they'd like to see. And I also look forward to this report coming back in 90 days. And if we cannot get it back in 90 days, let's at least get a two from four that says that we're still working on it. So we know that this is still a life document. Thank you very much. Thank you, councilwoman. Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez and Andrews for bringing this item forward. I know I've had some extensive and heartfelt conversations with the mayor about this issue as well, and I'm happy to sign on in support of this. I think it's time that the city council and we've had we've kind of played around the edges a bit, but I think we need to jump right in and have a full discussion about housing in our city. And I do believe that we should be looking at housing for all, but we should also be looking at housing in our most vulnerable citizens first. This this particular item asks for us to look at, especially seniors, and looking at affordable housing for students and working families and those experiencing homelessness. I am obviously disturbed with a 2% vacancy rate in this city. Obviously, it means that, you know, we have a high demand here in the city of Long Beach and we should be providing assistance to tenants. I would love to look at and see and understand what the best practices are in that area. I want to see how Long Beach compares to in our housing issues compared to other cities in our region. Regionally, I want to I want to look at it from a broad perspective as well. I want to know what how we compare to other big beach cities in Orange County, in L.A. County. And I do think that it would behoove us to and we've talked about it in other forums and other issues, but in other agenda items, forgive me, but exposing those who are irresponsible landlords, I mean, because I think a lot of the responsible players get get painted with with a broad brush because of the the irresponsible actions of a few. And so I know that this is going to be an issue that we discuss citywide. Anyway, we're having this conversation city wide, but I think it's responsible for the city council to try to lead the discussion today and have it throughout the course of the year, because I don't think the issue is going to go away. It seems to be more exacerbated by today, and we need to be looking toward solutions. So I'm happy to support this item and look forward to a report back from staff. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Councilman Andrew. Yes, Mayor. First of all, I would like to thank our Councilwoman Gonzales for bringing this item forward. You know, I really believe it's time for us to have a progress report on actions and, you know, underway for affordable and workforce, you know, housing. You know, the report has already addressed housing needs and opportunities to create housing, you know, for various opportunities. But at this point, I think it's important that we create a program, especially for our seniors. And I'm looking forward to seeing these updates in the coming years. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Longo. Thank you. I read a interesting. Study recently that came out from L.A. County and five or six other nonprofit and foundation partners that came together to talk about health and life. Expectancy. And if you take. The time to read the report, I think that you'll find that housing has such a. Huge impact on people's life expectancy. If you take the time. There's a particular. Study that compares Cudahy and another community that is so significantly similar in terms of demographics, education, all the different components and the. Various things were not the determinants of length of life. The major determinant was. Housing and the availability for people to own their housing. And so. I would only ask that we also look at the opportunities. And incentives. For those that have apartments to convert those and allow the people who live in them to buy them and own their own future. So I look forward to hearing this. I think it's great work. I know there's lots of great work still to do. Well, I appreciate comparing. Us to other cities. As a person who lives here and loves it here. I don't know why anyone would want to live anywhere else. And so I know why we have such high demand. Because everyone wants to. Live in the greatest city in America, Long Beach. And so it's hard to compare the most amazing downtown by the water and the greatest residents in any city in America. And so. For that, I look forward to the. Report and thank you for leading on this. It's really important that Long Beach stays ahead of the curve. Thank you. Yes. I want to thank my colleagues for agenda raising this. And it's great to hear that so many of my colleagues feel like housing is a big concern. Obviously, housing, jobs and education are the three things that determine life expectancy. And as you guys have heard me mention in my district, there's a six year difference in life expectancy in my district alone. And so dealing with the issues of housing are really. Important and. Critical to me. I just wanted to say that I think the timeline of 90 days, after all the work that's already gone into this is really reasonable. And so I hope that staff does come back in 90 days with some information so that we can start moving on the work that we've been doing for a long time . Thank you so much. Thank you. And Vice Mayor Richardson. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just wanted to chime in and just say that, you know, as a part of the everyone in conversations, we've been taking a look at it, some of the home ownership piece of this. And it's an important, important part of this. Homeownership is still one of the chief means of wealth building. And whether we want to acknowledge or not, we have a real issue around the racial wealth gap in our city. You know, we just saw a presentation from the Green Lighting Institute that study Long Beach, Oakland and Fresno. And what it really did was paint a picture that, you know, homeownership is taking place in our city. We're seeing a lot of investment in all of our neighborhoods, even in the low to moderate income neighborhoods. But we're not seeing is those loans being originated by or to low to moderate income individuals. So people who actually live in those those neighborhoods. And and so there there's a lot of work to be done specifically on that issue. There are some programs we've learned a lot and some of these conversations. And and we're going to be coming forward with some of that, some of the feedback from those discussions in a matter of weeks. So I think this is all timely. I think it's great that we can place a focus on it. But I don't I see homeownership is called out. And I think we there's a lot that we can do to make sure people can and can enjoy that that dream of owning a home and then realizing those benefits. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Just two things that I think obviously are one, very supportive of this. I worked with Councilwoman Gonzalez on this agenda item, just crafting it just to make sure that we had the right the right focus. And also, I had spent some good time with Councilman Austin also as well, and Councilman Andrews. And so I think we all are obviously interested in how we protect our folks and to allow them to stay in their homes, particularly in these issues around folks that are receiving rental assistance currently and those that are in covenant properties . So two things I think that are important. The first is we need to make sure that the first part of this motion, which I don't want that to get lost either, is going to happen much sooner than 90 days, which is this council needs to have a public report on. The work that happened over the last year and a half around housing production and around affordable housing. And so I know that will come hopefully in the next few weeks, I assume. And I just want to just point out that some of the key pieces of that are going to be the issues around ensuring that we do the inclusionary housing policy for new developments. The issues around short term rental agreements. And so those items especially are important for that report. And I think there'll be a lot of questions from the council and others about the status of those. And so I think that's important. And then the second piece of this is these new items. I think the the critical piece of this agenda item, I think also is looking at what kind of best practice and policy is around the country. And we should never be scared of good research and we should never shy away from getting as much information as possible as to what other cities are doing in this area, whether it's around vulnerable populations in rental assistance, whether it's around policies that support tenants across the country, in other cities, or rental to homeownership programs. And so this is an opportunity to have all of these discussions at the table for the Council. So obviously very supportive. And I want to thank the council members, all of us, for working together on this item. Council Member And I'm sorry, was this back? Okay. Sorry. Councilmember Pearce Oh, yes. I recall that there was a two from four that was possibly already done on the Mello Act or maybe it was inclusionary housing. Is that true? Do we already have some two from fours out of this study? I'm going to ask our housing bureau manager, Patrick Geary, about that. We councilwoman, we actually have several different force that have gone upstairs, and we can highlight those when we come back to do that update on the revenue. Tools, incentives for if we're. Going to ask just for like a email tomorrow, that includes all the two from fours that stemmed from the study. Just so we have that in the meantime. Sure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? Please come forward. Thanks again, Mr. Mayor. Gary Shelton. Councilmember Austin, you mentioned I want to see this and I want to see that, and so do I. And Mr. Mayor, I think. Well, while you were expressing your thoughts on Patrick, you're might have been taking notes that kind of look that way. I'm not sure. Some things that I would like to see in this and thank you very much, Council Member Gonzales, for bringing this forward and the others with you. Council Member Andrews The move from homeowners, from renting to home ownership, we have an imbalance right now about 40% to 60%, I think ownership to renters. And if we were to bring parity, if we could do 5050 on that, I would like to see something in this report that would address how we're going to move 25,000, 25,000 housing units from renters to owners. There's a lot of condos that would be converted. There's a lot of housing, affordable housing ownership opportunities that have to be created. But we're talking about 25,000 just to bring parity. So this is a long term goal that hasn't gone anywhere. And we're going to try moving it. We have to start moving it now. So I'd like to see how that might be taking shape. I'd also like to and I've talked to you all about this before when we've had these housing sort of summit informational meetings around town, affordable with a Capital A, I'd like to make sure that the report is very, very clear on what that means in relation to affordable housing for the workforce folks, which is moderate and above moderate. We hear a lot about Low Maid. Well, the low is all we ever hear about in the below moderate level. There's also very low and extremely low. And you talk about the seniors that are in the in the in living their final years trying to seek affordable housing. And many of them are extremely low housing, are extremely low income. And you should know that that's less than $19,000 a year for an individual. So that's important to know that there is something other than low when it comes to workforce housing and low, low mod housing. And then finally on on rental assistance and relocation programs also for vulnerable seniors, but any rental assistance, a relocation program, I would like to see how they plan on perhaps focusing that on rental assistance and not on simply relocating people. So as long as we are wishlists, Patrick, if you can ask some of mine, I would really appreciate that. And an encouragement that you can give Patrick to do that from the council would be greatly appreciated as well. Thank you much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank council members. My name is Jordan Winn. I'm a community organizer for Housing Long Beach, as well as a member of the Long Beach Tenants Union. I'd like to thank once again Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing this forward tonight. We're really eagerly looking forward to this review. And one of the things that we wanted to bring to attention. I know. Guess he was just talking about many of the different things that we want to look at the other cities have done. And we, of course, want to bring forward the issues of renter protections that's rent control and just cause eviction. These are things that we definitely want to see, hopefully considered by the city council, as you probably know. Last Friday we resubmitted language for a rent control and just cause eviction as well as the rent board ballot initiative that will hopefully be seen on the November 2018 election. So we're hoping that whatever review occurs in about 90 days that these things are brought up by city council and we're looking forward to these. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Mayor City Council, Don Darnell are asking me. I'm a commissioner. On the Senior Citizen Advisory Commission and also their housing committee. I want to applaud Councilmember Gonzales, Andrews and Austin for bringing this forward. I think it's a very timely and very necessary one. We're going through so many housing issues, as well as the homeless issues at the same time. I retired from a 30 year military career and myself took advantage of a program in the city of Long Beach Head at that time to help obtain housing. And so if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to live in my condo right now. So that was a good program. I don't know. The details of it, but whether it could be brought back. But there are some details that certainly should be considered. Of course. The people that. Should benefit from this, of course, and you've put seniors first is great. But we're talking about low income people. We're talking about skinny veterans. Disabled and great. Many of the seniors are disabled to some extent at least. But displaced people and homeless people, it's very important. I would and of course, as you recall, as you know. Seniors are very high propensity voters, too. So don't forget that what I would request. Two things I'd like to request is that the proposed program be very specific. In the range of rents and the costs that would be involved and excuse me and defined. As affordable, a clear definition of what's affordable. Different parameters there. And also, I'd like to request the city manager allow. The the Senior Citizens Advisory Commission to review and comment on the proposed program before it's submitted to City Council. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Yeah. Hello. My name is Harry Hap. Gideon and I belong in First District. What I want to say is a one week ago. I was at the state of the city. I enjoyed your presentation, Mr. Mayor. And it was. A very, I should say, enlightening and very exciting speech. Three. Two days after that, I found myself in Sacramento in a committee chamber discussing Costa Hawkins. I'm sure you're all familiar with that. And the restrictions. It's an archaic law that places restrictions on housing. There was a vote taking place. There was public comment and a vote taking place, and it was defeated by one vote. The the measure was to eliminate has the cocoons. And that. Yeah, that. That was disappointing, but not as disappointing as the number of people. That had come there to a to object not to object to the repeal of it. And that was. That was really, really disappointing. And so what we'd like to see what we'd like to see in Long Beach. Like the speaker. A couple of people before me is. Is just cause evictions and rent control. So with that, I thank you all for putting up with me. But the horrific thing that I saw that took place. I believe that there's large amounts of currency that's coming into this country as buying up properties, raising property values and causing my time's up. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Next speaker, please. Hello, honorable councilmembers and mayor. My name is Fred Sutton with the California Apartment Association. Thank you for all your time on this dais and spending time on this issue. The association is very thankful to see housing providers and their expertize is to be consulted on items that could affect their communities. There are many operational nuances that need to be taken into consideration as we have these discussions. There are policies in other cities that work very well and there's policies in other cities that are very counterproductive, both to our shared goals and to the housing stock. We look forward to working with the city and all the council members on these issues. And thank you very much. Thank you. And our final speaker. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Dr. Garcia. Vice Mayor Richardson and members of the council. I'm here this. Evening on behalf of the Small Property Owners Alliance, and we very much appreciate Ms.. Gonzalez, Councilwoman Gonzales, including our organization, as we've we are an important. Organization representing owners in Long Beach as well. So we greatly appreciate that. We look forward to being able to work with the city as we build on your report. Mayor Garcia of last year, those 29 recommendations, we want to. See what has happened. We're interested, too. And we also want to work with the city on the issues that are being brought up this evening. So we thank you very much for that opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, we will close the public comment. There's a motion in a second to approve the recommendations. Please cast your votes. Motion carries. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and do. Where is my list? We're doing six and then 10 to 6 is a day work program for Councilman Price and then ten is the audit bid. And I know that our amazing auditor is here. See, now she's getting a taste of all of these lunch. I know she wants to run for the council after this. That's all I keep. I keep I keep hearing that. And actually, that's that's that is actually correct that we have her is my thing here we I actually we it's so late they so here is Ken is Ken Roth here? Here. Ken, please come down. Is Jordan win here or win? I'm sorry if I got there. He talked to you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Is Robert Pete here? No. Okay. Mr.. Mr. Roth, these are.