City Council — 2021-08-24

Mayor Sticks here. Mayor Pro Tem Wyrick here. Council Member Blatz, Council Member Francina.

consent calendar. Oh I'm sorry public communication gal

do we have any, any on zoom. The only person I have listed for zoom is Bill Miley and I believe he's there in person so if he would like to speak on. Oh, I think he wanted to speak on the consent calendar. So we have no one listed for public communications. Okay thank you Gail. All right well moving on to the consent calendar

a motion to approve everything?

Mayor Sticks I have a quick question on item F okay very quick if we could pull that.

Okay any other items? Okay second all right all in favor

Aye.

Or nay? Yep.

Excuse me, who was the person who made the motion?

Councilman Haney made the motion.

Thank you.

Haney and Weirich. Thank you. OK. All right. F? Very quick question for the city attorney. There is a list of issues laid out here in terms of the planning commission to take up on the study assessment guidelines. I want to make sure that we're not exclusive to that list Like if something occurs to me or other council members, they can... They're free to bring up in an open-ended way issues within that overall framework. It's not limited to the issues named in other words.

Absolutely! The list is the list to include for sure but additional items could be added on top. Okay well with that understanding I move approval.

Second. All in favor? Or opposed? Aye. Okay um I just got uh thank you I just got one public comment Cindy Jones

Thank you. I got that in a bit late. Since agenda item number six has been taken off, I just want to briefly talk about it. While I think the EFN proposal has mostly good practices and good goals. I think it's far overreaching, and it could be much simpler. It appears to be a plan that was already implemented in the city of Malibu and other large cities, and it just looks like Whoever did that just took in, cut and pasted and tried to make it appropriate for Ojai.

And I have several questions about the proposal and I know that you're gonna bring it forward in the next meeting after all of you guys had time to vet it. But in the meantime, I do have a question. Why were the notifications about That being taken off of the agenda, only sent to members of the Green Coalition.

The city didn't send any notifications about it? Somebody

did

because

they knew I

can answer in part if I may. We sent the cancellation to the same people that we sent the announcement to. And we also posted the cancellation on Facebook and social media, we received information at very last minute yesterday morning that changed our perceptive on parts of it and we felt it was better to continue it at a later date but was there a

problem? I agree it is better to go back and review some things, but I don't do social media. So, I just happened to be a member of the Green Coalition and I got the email. And so I alerted other people to it. Because other people

didn't know. We tried to send it out to everyone we could think of that had been involved in the past. We sent out maybe three or four hundred notices, not just also the people that belong to a group known as Transition Ojai, you know, Pesticide-Free Ojai. It's

still not kind of the general public, is what I'm saying. And it seems like the general public gets left out of a lot of things that are going on in the city and kudos to Randy for earlier saying that we need more public participation in the Ojai plan. I heard you earlier on Zoom talking about that and we do and we need younger people involved as well So,

just to clarify for you. It wasn't technically off the agenda until we just voted on it right so that's why it's kind of confusing to had we known as a council and been able to say it was taken off I think as a city we would have provided some notice, but we couldn't because Procedurally it was put on the public agenda, which means it's only taken off if we vote on taking it off. So this was an interesting situation where the proponents of it in the last minute decided they were going to advocate for taking it off so it wasn't really official but it was kind of a courtesy notice. So it's a little bit of slipping through the cracks on how things work making the sausage but unfortunately yes we should do better. We were very concerned about a number of people showing up and You know, it's always an unlucky situation where we have something like that happen and people want to speak about it.

But thank you for showing up anyway.

Yeah well I wanted to make sure that I made my point clear that all of the community needs to be involved in these decision-making processes and it seems like the Green Coalition is like really embedded with the city council, to me. And it leaves out a large group of people. I happen to be a member of the Green Coalition but I don't know how many members there are but certainly not all of Ojai and certainly not all of Ojai does Facebook so just wanted to...

May I respond, Mayor Sticks? All of Ojai can sign up for these notices. You know we have an app now it's so easy and people have to take responsibility because we have an excellent website the information is there. We can't lead people by the hand you know to do the reading for them. So in fairness we make every effort also i want to make sure the public understands that this policy applies City property only. It's not private property.

Thank you. I still think it's far overreaching because it only starts here with the city and then it'll go into our private properties. Thank

you,

Cindy. Just one comment. It is just bad optics what took place. It's just bad optics. It sends the wrong message to the public that there's a small group of individuals that are getting more information than the body of the whole, which is the whole community no matter if the community belongs to Facebook or Twitter or all the other nonsense that's out there but it's just bad optics and we have to

do better. And we want to encourage everyone to sign up for the agenda that gets sent out email in fact, I get the agenda faster signing up through the city than I ever do from the city itself and I'm on the council. So I always get it first through our last email and then I get it directly from the city. On this one, unless I'm mistaken. There would not have been any notice if you had the app or sign up for anything there was no, there would have been no notice on this so I don't want to mislead anyone. There's nothing you could have signed up for someone just let the Green Coalition know apparently what they believed was going to get voted on in a meeting, which I don' think is how it probably should have gone but it was kind of a courtesy so that people would know not to show up and make sure they were here for the next time when it does come

Thank you, thanks Cindy. All right moving on to discussion items number two the adoption of an ordinance to create a two-year pilot program for inclusion of tiny house regulations into the ADU section of the Ojai Municipal Code. James may we have the staff report please?

Yes, and this is the second reading so I'll give a brief staff report that will be very similar to the one last time but for those who may have missed that. The Planning Commission had reviewed and recommended a movable tiny homes ordinance back on August 1st 2018 On August 28 2018 the City Council reviewed the ordinance as well but chose not to adopt at that time.

Earlier this year, when the city council discussed goals one of the main goals, just like today's joint meeting with the PC was potential housing options that can help address the city's need for housing stock. One of the potential programs identified at that time for return for council consideration was the idea of a two-year limited pilot program for movable tiny homes.

The City Council voted to direct staff to bring forward that ordinance. That ordinance was brought forward at the last meeting and is here today for the second reading, and just to reiterate, The ordinance would be a two-year pilot program that would allow 10 permits for tiny homes, movable tiny homes per year. That would result in 20 total tiny homes at the end of the two-year period.

To be eligible a movable tiny house must be an accessory building, meaning it's accessory to a principal dwelling unit on site just like an ADU. And it treats tiny homes similar to ADUs in multiple ways. The movable tiny house must be licensed and registered with the DMV, must be built to ANSI standards similar to an RV Must be towable or on a towable frame and designed not to move on its own power. Must be an appropriate size to be movable on public highways.

Must have at least 150 square feet of first floor living space. Must include living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation areas. Must be designed to look like a conventional building and will be subject to the design review for that purpose. It won't be able to look like a traditional RV Must be sited behind the principal dwelling unit before the rear setback line, must be placed on a permitted permanent foundation with the wheels removed or with jacks to prevent movement and must have an all weather surface pedestrian paths that will be provided from the street to the main entrance.

It's also required to have at least 80 square feet of exterior decking and subject Same utility requirements as accessory dwelling units. The ordinance also includes a prohibition on excessive movement, meaning the movable tiny homes can only be moved once a year. They can only be moved onto a property once a year. There's a couple questions that we received that we wanted to just answer for the council and the public.

Some of them we answered, maybe short or quickly last week but one is the question we've received multiple times have are these tiny homes going to count towards the city's Rains affordable housing numbers. The answer at this time is that we do not believe so, but it is unclear if that's going to change or if HCD will make these count at some point. We also were asked if these tiny homes are built to the same building standards that the building code is built to?

I don't know, it felt like my microphone cut out. Was it working? So to reiterate these tiny homes are not built to our city building code standards we had received questions about if that means that the fire hardening that the building the city adopted in the building code standards is applicable. It's not because they're not built to the building code they're built to ANSI standards Also, the city's reach codes would not be applicable because again that would be applied through building code and these will not be subject to the building code.

We also received some questions about how these would be insured and how they would be taxed. And in short, the insurance question is a question each homeowner should talk to their insurance provider and determine how it will be treated. There is no standard answer for that at this time. Taxes, these may be subject to reappraisal or it may make somebody's property subject to reappraisal depending on the circumstances. So that is something that property owners should consider before installing as well so but with that I think that was the bulk of the questions. We were asked by council last meeting to look further into the affordability issue and whether the pad or the house itself can be required to be affordable, and so we have analyzed that it was a legal analysis so i'm going to turn it over to the city attorney for that discussion quickly

Thank you, Mr. Vega. So we took a look at whether the city can require movable tiny homes, the pads of both to be maintained affordable, to limit the rental price? The answer is no in short but in a little bit fuller as to the units themselves that is the person who rents the unit to live in it they are exempt by state law from rent control because they will be newly built after February 1st 1995 As to the, and that applies both to the rental of the unit itself. So if somebody just a landowner rents the unit out or if they rent the unit in the pad together however the contract is structured, if it's a rent for the unit that is exempt by state law from city's rental regulation.

If it's the pad only so this is the second category where movable tiny house is owned by the movable tiny home owner or the resident, and then they drive it onto land owned by someone else and pay them rent for the path. That's a bit of a gray area. My best assessment is that a reviewing court is likely to conclude that the city could impose that but it will likely be challenged and it's uncertain because the most analogous area of law is the traditional mobile homes. And for traditional mobile homes, any newly built space that is newly built pad after February 1st 1990 is barred by state law from being subject to rent control. Now these movable tiny homes are not the same as traditional mobile homes so there's a window but it's a bit of a narrow window And I'll caution the council that if there's interest in further assessing that we'd be happy to do so and really, really drill down into that.

But it, it, there is substantial risk of litigation there. There is an exception. The exception would be if the city by contract through a development agreement or otherwise were to grant special permission in return for required affordability. We see this with affordable housing projects that may come through in the future, where you get an extra 10 or 15 units in return for X amount being kept affordable. The same thing could be done with tiny houses although it would be difficult to do so on a one-off basis. That would make more sense than a tiny home village context which is something a bit different than what's on the table.

Thank you.

The exemption from state law that you cited that affords to all ADUs, not just tiny houses. Is that

correct? Yes any ADU that is newly built after February 1st 1995 is exempt from rent control And period. And I'll note now, the city has no rent control right now. Rent control or rent stabilization, the city does not have that. If the city were to adopt it which is a council choice, not on tonight's agenda, that could only apply to buildings built before February 1st, 1995.

That's the Costa-Hawkins Act, which you may recall there was a proposal on the last general election ballot to undo that that failed But it's a topic of discussion in Sacramento.

Okay, let me see if I understand that okay? What did you say the date was that rent control could apply to if we did go in that direction?

February 1st, 1995. A residential rental unit had to have existed before February 1st 1995 for the city to have any power to regulate its rent

And are you saying that we could never have any power to regulate the rent on ADUs, newly built

ADUs? Yes. Because every ADU is built by definition after February 1st 1995 with the possible exception I will say any newly built ADU out an ADU that existed before that was converted maybe. The challenge though is Well, actually the challenge point there is that single family homes are also exempt from rent control and ADUs are under single family homes. So likely you're out of it two ways. The one point I will add that wasn't discussed in staff report because it wasn't the question but it's worth noting.

There is some state control of residential rentals that does even apply to single family homes depending on how many of the homes landowner owns So that may apply, but the city would not have power to do it if the ADU or the tiny home is built after February 1st, 1995. And that's state law we don't have a power to fix that unless

Sacramento does. Okay let me process that. Randy?

I have a couple of questions. The first one is We gave them a... I'm missing the word here, but it'll come to me in a second. We gave them the status of an ADU. Which then exempted them with that status from the high fire zone construction practices. Am I correct, Matt or

James? It wasn't the ADU status that exempted them it's subjecting them to ANSI standards which is essentially saying they can be built like an RV.

And I'll add just one complexity to that. The current proposal is ANSI or NFPA, similar standards but yeah by allowing them to be built to standards equivalent to modern RVs that exempted them from the billing code.

Then if we did that then why didn't we give them an ADU standing? I think that's where I'm conflicted, is we created a gray area for them to be exempt from standard construction practices in the community. Yet, that's on one side of the construction part of it. And then we give them all of the other components of an ADU which are exempt from sewer connection fees and solar and maybe Title 24 electrical.

That's where I get a little lost here is we created a box, we put these in it, we gave them all types of status of breaks, and then what are we getting in return for that? That's one of my concerns. Just right up front, I'm letting the council know that it's one of my biggest concerns is how we came about this entitlement which in turn prevents us from doing some of the things that we want to do with constructing in a high fire zone which we all are in agreement with. That's pretty...that's a pretty big concern right now.

The second thing is, I guess you touched on it with the taxes. So if a family of four moved into a tiny home and two of their children were going to school could be three people could be one child doesn't matter are they going to be assessed? The school tax that goes along with that assessment on your house am I correct?

So it would be treated like an ADU. So the property owner, the owner of the parcel would pay their property tax adding the tiny home may potentially increase that property tax but the person living in that tiny home would not be paying you know school bond or things like that

so then the

person who technically hold on a second I need to stop right there the current Bonding schedule in the community facilities district that the district that took over Golden State Water includes that if you have two dwellings on the same property, you pay two taxes. So that may be true for school but we I don't, I cannot i mean Like if you put an ADU on your property, you get double the Mellow Roost tax on the water bond.

Yeah so the correct answer I guess not to generalize they're treated like ADUs. So if the ADU is subject to the tax that movable tiny homes.

So yeah you may get another water bond there may not be another school bond

or... Right well that's a different issue but I'm glad you brought that up because that would be the same thing. So again the individual that's allowing this structure to be built on their property needs to be aware of these. So do we have a, have we prepared? Are we going to prepare any form of a punch list that we hand out in the permitting or in the planning phase that acknowledges all of the issues that might be related to putting one of these I'm very concerned that there's a lot of hidden fees and costs in this, and we're going to make it sound like at this great proposal we know the public

has indicated that they have some interest in doing this. And I'm very concerned though, that somebody is gonna roll one of these in their backyard, put a pad up and not realize all the extra expenses they're gonna have because it's not clear whether they're exempt from sanitation or not. It's not clear whether they're exempt from these bonds, the taxes, the tax implications, not being able to move it for you or do anything else.

And the fact that they're not cheap, the building requirements are a little strange compared to regular other dwellings and ultimately It's, you know they're they're not inexpensive and the numbers as they pan out are not overly affordable so it's just important that we make sure if people want to do this that we don't end up with people who are trapped losing money by trying to help. And that's what I'm worried about people with good intentions trying to put a tiny home in their backyard and go through all this process and find out the hard way that it's much more expensive, which I do know specifically some people who went through that with ADUs. And they went from 200 to 300 to 400,000, they ended up with 900 square foot ADU, it's 400 grand so...

This point of order, are we deliberating

before we take public comment? We're still asking questions. Any other questions for staff?

There was a simple question in there I think which is have we prepared materials you know giving that information the answer's no would we yes if this is adopted we would prepare a punch list and materials for the public.

Any other

questions

Oh, I just want to apologize because all the questions I asked were in the staff report. But of course it's of interest to the public too.

Yeah.

Gail,

any public comments on Zoom on this item?

The only person I have signed up for a public comment is again Bill Miley but I believe he's there in person.

In person,

okay. All right we have four public comments

Leslie Hess, Bill Miley, Larry... Larry you need Feingold okay It's tough, your handwriting. And then Dale Hanson.

Hello my name is for the record Bill Miley. As you know I favor modular houses and manufactured homes or accessory dwelling units but in this case if y'all are going to adopt a two-year pilot ordinance for tiny houses i have some comments and some positive suggestions so let's assume it's adopted Competition one, competition for tiny house pads to place your tiny house on is going to be really high. In my limited research on Craigslist I found one in California at $750 a month.

Two, regarding costs what about using a pad at Lake Casitas? Casitas Recreation charges 40 dollars per night for a full hookup and you only can stay there 14 days each month. There's no bird program allows up to six months if available, and they charge $40 per night which is $1,200 a month. Three new pads in Ojai with full hookups look like they would be very attractive to folks living elsewhere wanting to spend time in Ojai.

Price per night is unknown. We don't know what it will be, but likely the market rate for having a full hookup pad and buying in placing a tiny house on it and making it affordable does not seem possible unless the owner offers subsidized rent. Number five, to make a tiny house rentable for a family probably no more than two people the property owner is going to have to offer subsidy or agree to rent it at a low rent not market rate.

Six and last. Since the primary goal of adding more house units here in Ojai is to create workforce housing, an affordable workforce housing, a cooperative program with city government is suggested. I've mentioned this before. The city helps the property owner buy the townhouse in exchange for an agreed affordable rent over a number of years like 10 or more after which the owner would buy the city out over a period of years. So in summary Full pads for rent will probably get us new residents.

Maybe somebody wanted, some of them wanted to work here and I see tiny houses or pads would provide family residence additional guest stays and we'd likely only help our workforce if subsidized for affordability. Thanks.

Thank you Bill next we have Leslie Hess and then Larry and then Dale

I still think the tiny house pads should be investigated further by the staff, and that possibly the pads could be rent controlled. And if you could please direct staff to explore all options to make tiny home pads available to very low and extremely low income households, and include that in the tiny pad ordinance. The tiny pads would help people with the highest need. And if you want to give them help, this is a good way to start at small but I think it's important. Thank you.

Thank you, Leslie. Larry?

Thank you. I think ADUs are interesting. It's a cross between mobile home and RV in the house. I think they're good for possibly affordable housing as long as they go toward the ref fee Is that what you said, the housing that we have to comply to? If it goes toward that then fine. If it doesn't then it's not going to be affordable but my concern is parking a family of four two cars three cars who knows where are they gonna park? Are they're gonna require off-street parking because if you have ADUs on drown there's not gonna be any space on drown The fire marshal, I don't know what not coming from here and don't know the rules and regulations regarding fire access. But does the fire marshal approve where the ADU goes so that they can have access by the fire apparatus and personnel?

Because lots of homes here have gates and walls and what have you. The metric that you're going to use for either extending the program or killing it two years from now. You should be started one and a half years from now, and the metric should be very specific. I mean what are the metrics? Like they're definable, it's easy, it's simple, it is transparent, there's no big deal. Airbnbs I understand are not involved in the city correct? Not permitted?

then there should be a law that says nobody can use this ADU as an Airbnb, or they have to remove the pad and remove the ADU. You lose it. There's no nonsense, there's nothing. Either you have a law that says no Airbnb, and that's fine but you gotta pull the mobile home goes, sorry, the ADU. But that's the big thing, but it's a nice place if you can figure out. That's where you're going to put grandma or you're going to put your son or somebody from college or they're coming home and it may be great for workforce, but it really isn't a home. It's more like a shed with a toilet.

I mean, we're either going to do it or do it right. I mean permit more housing but not in a commercial zone because you don't have much commercial here and if you turn this town into all housing, you want to see prices go up through the roof? You ain't seen nothing yet so that's thank you.

Thank you Larry. Dale Hanson

Thank you, I'm Dale Hanson. I live in the city of Ojai. I think my question or comment might've been handled already with what Randy Haney said but I thought when the city manager was speaking about the tiny homes that there was a comment made that and maybe I'm mistaken that they wouldn't be the same fire codes that are elsewhere and since we may even have more Fire hardening issues coming. I was just wondering, are they going to meet those fire hardening codes?

Thank you,

Dale. You want to answer it?

I could quickly answer that. So these are the ANSI standards apply to these or I think it's NFPA was the other one that we drafted it too but the building code does not so any fire hardening in the building code would not apply to this.

Thank you, James. Normally I would speak last. I'm going to use the mayor's authority tonight to speak first because I really want to make sure that we approach this in the right way and for the right reasons and that these homes benefit people who really need them. Limiting rents on tiny home pads is a great start in providing places to live for very low and extremely low income households These are the folks who need the help the most. This is the point of the ordinance, isn't it? To provide homes to those who need them most. Mobile home pads and trailer pad rentals have been regulated for decades in other jurisdictions throughout the state.

Though a maximum 20 tiny home pads can be approved over a period of two years, the council has an opportunity to make 20 homes for very low and extremely low income people. Unlike stationary ADUs in Ojai where rents are unregulated, tiny homes are not mandated by the state and we have discretion. Come on council let's use our discretion to help those in need rather than feeding the Ojai gentrification machine that continues to push those of modest means out of our town.

My support of tiny homes in Ojai is contingent on whether or not this council has the will to make this option within reach to very low and extremely low-income people, and to examine all options to do so before approving the ordinance, not after the fact. And I have a motion I definitely want to hear from the rest of Council, so thank you.

Mayor? Could I ask our city attorney and city manager to respond, to find out if this is possible?

Yes it's possible. It's a matter of policy choice where the council wants to put the policy choice. The council could choose to introduce the ordinance as proposed with modifications and then second separately decide to pursue affordability requirements for the pad rentals Option one, option two as proposed by the mayor would be to tie the two together and move the ordinance forward contingent only upon making an affordable pad rental requirement which would mean in tonight the direction will be staffed to go back and us to draft something for review by full council because obviously we don't have a rental regulation component drafted tonight.

Option three would be to take no action at this time. It's possible, there's risk inherent in that choice. The risk is that the property rights advocates may seek to strike down the affordability requirement. As I noted in the staff report, the law is uncertain here. I can't guarantee the outcome and I'm not revealing anything that anyone doesn't already know in this public statement, the law is uncertain on this. We'd be the first city in the state Councillor John Gallo, City of Kingston.