Recommendation to request City Manager and all relevant City Departments to assess likely Citywide impacts of SB 9 and SB 10 and report back to the State Legislation Committee, prior to any established hearing date at the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
All right. So I lost my paper that showed me which item was doing that. Okay. We're going to take we're going to pick up item number 25. Communication from Councilwoman Mongo Councilman super not councilmember your UNGA Councilman Austin Recommendation to request city manager to assess citywide impacts of SB nine and SB ten and report back to the State Legislation Committee. All right, Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. Many of you know that this item has been in committee, and I think it's important. I get a lot of calls with questions. And sometimes the questions are so specific that I don't always know the answer. I spent a lot of time calling development services back and forth, and I think that there would be some value in having development services provide some context and information very globally and by district to the state committee. State committee is an open forum so community members can participate and attend. And then we can use that information, put it out in our newsletter, provide additional information to the community so that people know more about SB nine and SB ten. There are parts of SB nine and SB ten that people agree with, and there are parts of SB nine and SB ten that people hope that will still change . But I think that it's really important that. They know the facts so they can both advocate for or against whatever they have. So with that, that is my agenda item and thank you for those who signed on. Thank you. Council member Turanga. Thank you. I think it's important for us to know exactly what's going on with these two legislative items here. I know there's going to be a lot of staff trying to take it up. And I think. Mr. Quincey, you're you're out there. Can you give us an estimate as to what you think would be a time frame for this to come back to the state led committee? So I'll be working with Dr. Crowley here. We'll both be working on this item. Know, in a perfect world, to give you perfect information about, every single district would take six weeks. I understand it may be scheduled faster than that. So based on, you know, when you schedule the item, we will provide you the best information we can at that time. The same staff that will be working on this item are also working on the data related to the just cause item that was just heard by council. And we do have some issues with our software that we all talked about a few weeks ago. So it does take some time. I apologize for that. But we will do our best to provide counsel, the best information we can in the most timely basis as possible. I want to thank Councilmember Mongo for bringing this forward and for taking it to the state led committee, which I think would be the appropriate committee for it to be heard first before we expect it in court for a full hearing. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Price. I, too, want to commend Councilwoman Mango for bringing this item forward. We are. This is probably the topic we get the most emails about in my district. So I really appreciate this approach. I do have a request for city staff when this item comes back. You know, one of the things that I've shared with our delegation is this idea that Long Beach. We're working so hard to try to meet our housing goals. And there are so many cities that are not taking that approach, and there are many cities that are ignoring the mandates. And so I wonder if that's possible for Long Beach or cities like Long Beach who are working so hard to expand our housing stock to be exempt from some of these policies or somehow build build an exemption through our work such that if you're meeting the goals or if you're. You know. Making progress in meeting the goals, then maybe you get a credit so you're not subject to the same requirements or the same state intervention. I don't even know if that's possible, but I feel like we should be treated. Differently than cities that are completely rejecting the reality of housing. And I don't like the fact that we're being all lumped into one, because just in the third district alone, we're producing 10% of the required housing for the city of Long Beach in the next three decades. So I would love to see if there is a way that we can advocate, of course, through through discussion at the state ledge committee. But how can we best advocate for Long Beach to either either be exempt or have different standards? So I don't know. Is that even something that you guys have talked about? We'd be glad to report back on that and then just share two items with the council. You know, there's a lot of interest in these two bills. We may remember several years back, a bill called SB 35. And there is a lot of concern about it. It turns out we haven't had a single SB 35 project in the city, but that bill had triggers. So if you are meeting your Rina, you are totally exempt. If you are meeting certain portions of your RINA, you went on to middle category. So that's a model that already exists in other legislation. We can report back about that and then we can also report back separate from these two bills. There is a provision making its way through the legislature called the Housing Accountability Unit, which would hold cities that don't follow housing mandates accountable. I know there's a lot of different opinions about that just sharing with you. I think it's a frustration to staff that we invest. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to understand every year all the rulemaking and legislation that comes down from Sacramento and following it to the letter. Some of our peer cities don't take the same approach, and this would provide staff at the state level to take enforcement against those cities that aren't aren't following the rules. Oh, well, that's good. Thank you. So as to right now, does SB nine or ten have those triggers in it, or is that something we might be able to advocate for? Those triggers aren't in in the legislation today. And I'll work with Dr. Carley to see what's possible. Right. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Thank you all at my comments here. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongeau. I think it's the right approach. Hey, let's sometimes the legislation, you'll see a lot of smaller cities will get together and advocate one position or the other. And as Mr. Coons just, just stated, we have our own a governor affairs apparatus here and here in Long Beach. I'm a part of an executive board of two organizations that they do that they they look at what's best in general for cities like Skaggs. Their position on on SB nine was oppose unless amended with some very specific things that they requested contract cities this year for one year I'm on the executive board there. Their position was, I believe, the same, I think here in Long Beach. I think this approach of asking staff to actually place the lens of Long Beach on the policy and see what's, you know, is there an impact along Beach? I don't see that that the bill actually benefits us very much. I don't see a benefit to it. I think there are things like SB six, seven, nine that will open up the playbook for funding. And years ago we were very, very clear that Long Beach we've done we've allocated, I think, 28,000 units, the Orlando minus element, the spaces there to build our biggest barriers, funding to make housing affordable and to incentivize development. The legislature took our biggest tool away redevelopment, where 20% of every dollar will go to accelerate affordable housing production. Specifically, the most important and impactful thing we can get from Sacramento is reestablish a finance mechanism and tool to build and produce housing. Now that's Long Beach. Now there are issues in other communities, but that's not a Long Beach issue. So I think whatever our position is in Long Beach, it should be proportional to the impact on Long Beach. If is not much of an impact on Long Beach, then we should put our focus on being proactive in Sacramento on the bills that we think will actually help us solve the problem. If this bill, I would love to see the report back on what the impact of this is. Not much of an impact on Long Beach. I think we should we should just be very clear what what our position is. Let that be known. I'll put a finger on the scale if we need to. But we should really be putting our resources behind the things that we know will actually help us solve the problem, in my opinion. But I think I support this item. It allows us to take the steps to have more clear understandings, a lot of misinformation out there. And my hope is that this process will help to clarify those things. I don't see any other council comments, any public comment on this item. There is one public comment on item 25. Jacob O'Donnell. Thank you. Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of the Long Beach City Council. My name is Jake Jacob O'Donnell, field representative to Senator Lena Gonzalez, who is coauthor of Senate Bill nine. So California is in the midst of a housing crisis per the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Only 27% of households can afford to purchase the median priced single family home, which is 50% below the national average. And of those renters, it's over half of renters, and 80% of low income renters are rent burdened in the state. So in response, SB nine builds on the successful approach of current ADU law and expands options for homeowners who wish to be part of the solution in solving the housing crisis. So this bill has a number of safeguards to ensure that local governments maintain control of zoning and design standards, that community character is respected and that tenants are protected from displacement. There is an owner occupancy requirement in the bill. And that historic neighborhoods are preserved. And this bill also expands opportunities for homeowners to build equity while also generating affordable units excuse me for working families and seniors, creating new home homeownership opportunities for those currently locked out of the market. And it provides flexibility for multi-generational housing. So as the vice mayor kind of alluded to, that as benign as it's currently in will have little impact on most single family neighborhoods in Long Beach because of the local control components of the bill so as to be nine provides local control over zoning and design standards as long as they do not conflict with the bill. So this is specifically prohibiting duplexes or physically precluding the development of two 800 plus feet square units. And in addition, SB nine prohibits the demolition of more than 25% of the existing exterior structural walls unless the ordinance allows a local ordinance would allow that. And again, it has a tenant. Owner occupancy requirements. So far the structure had been occupied within the past three years. That would be exempt as well or excuse me, protected as well. And I'd like to conclude my comments with the some comments from the Senator directly. So the senator wants to thank the council for bringing this item forth. She's thankful for the hard work of the City Council and agrees that this bill is going to bring some perspective on both as a benign and as an SB ten on next steps. And she's looking forward to just engaging individually and collectively on, you know, solutions to go ahead and address this crisis for our mutual residents. Thank you. Thank you. Send our regards to the senator members. Please cast your vote. Motion carries eight zero.