City Council — 2022-10-25

Roll call, please.

Weston?

thank you.

Thank you Weston and welcome everyone to the October 25th 2022 meeting of the Ojai City Council. Mayor pro tem will you please say the pledge?

Still getting over the shock of Gail changing her voice. Please place your right hand over your heart, repeat after me.

fall or early winter. I think it was

spring of 2023. We had to go through with all those cities like who when can we do this right everybody's place and oh I was pretty flexible but some people some cities weren't very flexible so we had to sort of narrow it

down. That's great thank you

okay and thank you for your attention Thank you

Chris. Thanks Chris, any commission reports James?

** No, Mayor.

** Okay. All right. We will move on to public communication and just a reminder these are items that are not on the agenda and so we cannot discuss them. And we will normally public comment is three minutes so make sure that when you hear the chime if you could stop talking just be fair. So let's begin with Leslie Rule then Catherine Donwin and then Larry Steingold.

Thank you. This story starts back in the day, no doubt a hot and humid day. New Orleans early 50s two girls met first day of high school best friends ever since these two girls Vondell Golden and Bootsie Rule both married soon after high school graduation as was the southern way back then Vondell married Bill, stayed in New Orleans and had Lydia Golden a year later. Bootsy married Bob, landed in San Francisco and had Leslie rule. Fast forward to 2022 and Bootsie and Vondell are still best friends. And best friends have begot best friends. I am Leslie daughter of Bootsie and some of you may know Lydia Golden daughter of I'm the Mama Vondelle The first time I came to Ojai 30 years ago was for Lydia Golden's wedding to a local guy, Brock Bernstein.

Most years since then, I have visited in the summer and for New Year's. Lydia is my son's godmother and she has loved and loves him so much as I do her son, Lason Bernstein Her brother, Gray Golden, and his two girls, Nona and Nicole, the golden girls also live here and are my family. I am their auntie and they are my beloved We have marched in your July 4th parades under Jane Goodall's Chutes and Roots banner. We were some of the first kids to skate at the skate park and splash at the water park. We went to a Renaissance themed wedding in the East End Orange Grove. We have supported many, many school fundraisers. Come New Year's Eve we'd sit around a fire, call in all the good for the next year and send out all the trials and tribulations of the past year.

Then we would howl at the moon. We would join and be led by Lydia's dog Rosie. We were as time immemorial people, fire, wolves. We still howl at the moon and as we have done for almost 30 years it is who we are but it is also a remembrance of who we were One of my favorite memories is coming back from the beach, I think it was late afternoon and there was a horse in the carriage. Do you remember the horse in the carriage? I think it came up Canada and hung a ride on Summer. Well, my dog Bella jumped out of the car and went chasing the horse. Lydia and I, in our bathing suits, went running down the street yelling, Bella! Bella! Stop! Come back! She's just about to reach the clip-clop of the horse's hooves when she gets a big old poopy dumped on her head.

Guess the horse did not like being chased. That story has become lore in our families. The point of this is all to say Ojai is embedded in my memories and in my heart, it is who I am. And when I retired here, as I had always planned to, I felt the obligation to contribute in some substantial way. With my experience in town governance project management and as a science educator, I knew I could help the town address some of the serious challenges we will be facing in the next four years. It is up to the citizens of the town to decide if they want that help or not but nothing changes the love and gratitude I feel in being here. Thank you very much.

Thank

you, Leslie. Next we have Catherine Donwin and then Larry Steingold and then Jeffrey Starkweather

Hi good evening I'm here today to share with everyone who might not be aware That one of our preschools in town will be closing at the end of this week And it has significantly impacted a lot of the families in our valley so some of the Remaining teachers and a couple parents have teamed up to open a new preschool in its place. Our biggest hurdle currently is funding, so we are running our first annual fundraiser. It's a kids' choice car and bike show.

And it'll be on November 5th, and it will run from 1 p.m.. To 6 p. m. And one of the reasons I'm here today is just to make the community aware of this and anyone who was interested in Contributing to this fundraiser whether it be time or donations we are running a Raffle and Thank you all for joining us. be successful with this new school because it's really vital to a lot of families. Some people have had to make the difficult choice of even quitting their jobs, because they could not find alternate child care in our valleys. If we are unable to open this preschool, we would be left with only one infant program in the entire valley, which means that there is only one school that accepts children ages Six weeks to 18 months, I think is the next preschool section.

So anyone who is able to volunteer time or businesses who would like to sponsor this event, or sponsor the school in the future. It would be greatly appreciated. Spread the word Don Lalo's has generously offered to cater the event so there will be food and drinks and a lot of fun. So you can contact us I have flyers here and you can reach us at sunnysideohiogmail.com If anyone would like some additional information or would like to volunteer their time. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Catherine.

Mayor, we heard time and day but we didn't hear location.

Oh I apologize it will be at the former Holy Cross Preschool which is 1212 Maricopa Highway right across from Chase Bank.

And date and time again?

November 5th. It's a Saturday from 1 p.m.. To 6 p. m.. Thank you

The flyers with us we can leave some at the front

It'll be Sunnyside Christian

preschool and daycare Yeah, it's nice I think it's indicative of our Valley

Oh

Thank you, Catherine. Next we have Larry Steingold and then we have

Jeffrey

Starkweather.

Good evening. Everything we've been talking about since I've been here is all about water. We don't have enough water. It's not in the right place. Ventura wants to take our water, we have to conserve. We have a pipeline coming from the state but what is the city actually done? Okay I propose that you people put something on agenda that requires all gray water to stay on site and have it all done for every property within five years. And just put it on the agenda as a proposal to get passed, and then you'll kick at the planning or proposal and all the water people will come up with suggestions, and then you'll have something to vote on. So you either want to have gray water onsite or you don't. Or if it's just washing machine water because I'm on a slab Or we have the end or whatever.

Everybody collects it, but just make it a law because if it's not a law and it's not required then it obviously isn't a problem. Okay? So we either deal with the water, have it all collected. It may not do anything. It may not even move the needle. Okay. But at least we're doing something. All right. So thank you on that. So I would like one of you to propose at the next city council meeting and just have it done and then you'll get something accomplished.

The other thing is I received something today that the referendum for not having ballot to vote on valet parking has been denied. I've known you, I've seen you for three years now, four years and I don't for a minute think that you came up with this, this anti-valet thing. Nobody, I mean who did? Was it a business? Was somebody trying to interfere with the business deal? Because I'm from back east in Rhode Island. Let me tell you this anti-valet thing smells okay. Interfering in somebody's business to stop them from valeting on their own property across the street. If we're going to do anti-valet let's do it for everybody. They can't do it at the TOPA when you have a function Can't do that, and we can't have it at the inn even though it's on their own property but they don't have to cross the street.

So somebody put the bug in somebody's ear to screw up somebody's business, okay? And I think it's a travesty because valet parking is like being against toilet paper.

Thank you Larry. So

the city clerk had made a determination that there was a missing

certification That hadn't been filed. So the the clerk did provide the opportunity for the Proponents to provide that information And so I wouldn't say it's permanent necessarily yet, but we aren't We haven't yet been told that that's coming in at any point. So

Okay, thank you Jeffrey Stark weather

Thank You mayor City Council member fellow citizens I'm actually here also to speak on the Proposed referendum. Personally, I think they...I wish they had passed so we could actually have this contest because my looking at it, well it would cost the town $25,000 but that's no big thing or more. But for the first time I actually got a chance to read what they gave to voters. I didn't know what it was. Partly and the reason they got in trouble is They didn't advertise in our local newspaper so people could know what they're telling people. They advertised in the Star Free Press.

So, to me this thing is a chicken little sky's falling scare tactic. to get people to push something that we don't even need because we already regulate valet parking. Nobody can have a business, they have to go through the Planning Commission which I'm on and they have to go through the City Council to get approval just like El Roblar. The second thing was when the El Roblar was being attacked for this, they raised fears of traffic, fears of parking spaces and other fears of the city being overrun But in fact, this proposal eliminated El Boroblor's use of on-street parking.

Actually as they pointed out and the research shows this 20% of people looking for parking I mean percentage percent of traffic in town towns are looking for parking and third they made it so that actually don't go on a main street and they park their cars and they avoid traffic. So it was the opposite But I'm concerned about the language of this thing. It starts, it ends with saying there's a whole bunch of stuff about the soul of the city and gentrification and so forth. It says now in a similar effort to protect our small town from overcoming overcrowded a little too fancy and subservient to high-end tourism and commerce and instead further support our daily quality of life for residents and access to local businesses by those who live here, we propose to limit the use of valet parking.

What in the world did any of this stuff have to do with valet parking? And then finally they say the soul of Ojai. Excuse me, I grew up here. The soul of Ojai was welcoming. It was live and let live. It was doesn't matter what your religion, what your views were you were accepted. Now we got a group of people to say we want to close the gate at night have all the people drive in in the morning and then get out of town and we're not going to provide housing for them. We're gonna decide who wants to live here. We don't want people from LA when half of those people came from LA this is really Taking our city down a very dark, dangerous path. And I hope we stand up to it. Thank you

Jeffrey. Weston any public comments on Zoom?

Standby.

Thank you.

No raised hands.

Okay, thank you Weston. Let's move on to the consent calendar We do we do have one public comment Brian Eakins

Thank you, Mayor Council. I am up here just to thank you for your consideration tonight for the Historic Preservation Commission Awards. The one-year award going to Gina for all of the work she did in putting that fabulous video together as well as the timesheet Also a Lifetime Achievement Award for John Jack Fay and for Ron Polito. Just one comment on Jack, we did an oral history interview with him a number of years ago I was reviewing that oral history interview in order to do the write-up that's in front of you And I focused it on one thing he said. He said, we were trying to get a redevelopment going behind the arcade.

Everybody thought if we formed a redevelopment all we would do is take their property from them. So we were constantly fighting that. He said, it got so bad that I would stand on the corner and anybody that walked by, I would say let me tell you about the redevelopment committee. That's kind of how I feel at times. Anyway, I am thrilled that we're presenting these awards to these individuals. Great people and lasting impact in our community. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Brian. Much appreciated. Mayor,

can I quickly just note we do recommend approval of the consent agenda but we did want to recommend a few edits to the community forest management plan so if...I would recommend that the motion reference these edits which is including a modification that requires the Community Forest Management Plan to be updated every three years That there be an annual report of tree plantings provided to the City Council and that the tree committees to be appointed by the council similar to how other commissions are appointed, which is typically done in January. And so we are recommending the Community Forest Management Plan be adopted with those three modifications.

I have a question. Item C, page 3. Is that a word in the motion? It says it was to the newly empaneled council.

Is this the treasurer's report?

No. Maybe it's D.

Yeah, there was two C's we had a

type of And then there's a motion at the bottom of page three and it says it's got to be a miscalculation Although bill is known for very fancy words

Newly impaneled council that is oh that is a word It reflects

When a new body is installed or impaneled that it is a

word. I'll

be gone soon you won't have to worry about me anymore.

So thank you for those additions, James. Much appreciate it. Motion to

approve? So move to approve the consent item along with the three items that City Manager would like included in

them.

Second. Okay all in favor? Aye. Okay wonderful thank you. All right

Yes, very brief. Thank you Mayor. We'll try to keep this item and the next one very brief as I know that the following item is probably the one most people are here to speak on. Very simply every three years a California building code gets updated and every three years the city has to go through the process of re-adopting the building code. If we don't re-adopt the building code by January 1st of the following year We lose all of our city-specific amendments.

Over the years, the City Council and the Building Appeals Board have worked very hard to include fire hardening amendments in our building code. We don't want to lose those so while the BAB is performing their review which is currently scheduled for November 9th we are recommending that we adopt what we're calling a holdover ordinance it's essentially adopting the 2022 building code with all of our prior Fire hardening improvements, so we recommend doing that. We'll have to do the introduction tonight with the adoption on December 13th And so that's why we're doing it now to try to get it in place before January 1st So with that we recommend Introducing the ordinance to update the adopt the 2022 building code

Thank You James any questions from Council Westin any public comments on this item

No raised hands

Okay. All right, we will open and close the public hearing and move on to discussion.

Move introduction. Second.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Okay, wonderful. That's nice. Good start.

yeah she is happily retired but she apparently watches these meetings I guess she's watching us now fills the pole back to Ojai So because of our CalPERS rules that every agency that's members in CalPERS has to follow, CalPERS requires that whenever we bring somebody who had retired recently back to the city that we do it through a formal transparent process.

And so, this item on the agenda is simply to do that and to allow for that public process and have the City Council approve and adopt a resolution which would allow us to bring back Andrea Mackey to work part-time. It's just part of our strategy right now with the tough job market. One thing where we are doing that, we had never done these really in the past very rarely did we bring back a retired annuitant but we've done it a couple times recently with good results so we were looking to do that again. So we recommend adopting the resolution that would allow us to bring the employee back Once they are brought back, all the standard rules are in place and they report to their director and ultimately the city manager. But just for the appointment we have to go through this process with the City Council adoption.

Thank you James any questions from council?

I said so James is 960 rather than 1040 on the allotted hours Yes, a little under it's a little under half a year Part-time yes, and then do you have the discretion to use? her up to 40 hours a week as long as you don't exceed the 960. Is that how it works?

I believe that's the case. With CalPERS we always double check with them before we do that, but...

So you can use Andrea as needed as long as you don't go over your 960 allocated hours?

Exactly and it's just helpful right now with some recent staff changes to be able to bring someone in who has the experience. Thank you.

Okay great thank you. Weston any comments on Zoom on this item?

No comments no raised hands

okay all right well open up for discussion

Move to approve the recommendation. OK.

Second.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

OK, welcome back, Andrea. Thank you so much.

And we don't have to worry about it involves money or anything?

We're good. Well, we voted

on it. No, the voice vote counts. So we had 5-0 on that one.

Okay, we will move on to item number four the second reading and adoption of ordinance regarding a 67 unit development agreement at cottages among the flowers Mallory way bungalows World University in 304 South Montgomery So, you know the agenda or the schedule will have a staff report. Then we will open public comment. We will hear from the developers reps and we'll hear from the ad hoc committee council members Blatz and Wyrick.

We'll pause for council questions then we will take public speakers and there will be a brief rebuttal comments by developers and then we will close the comments. All right,

James. Mayor one second just again just um you know how many speaker cards we have?

One more

okay okay and zoom is an unknown

One hand is raised on Zoom, and if any other Zoom attendees would like to speak on this please raise your hand. Thank

you. And we have 13 cards right now. Okay go ahead James.

So we do have a presentation, it's a little shorter than the one two weeks ago and we'll try to keep it brief. I know we talked about it at length last meeting but just to kind of go over the big picture. Give me one second my PowerPoint wasn't moving. Okay, so just as a reminder or if somebody wasn't following the last meeting. What we have before council is now the second reading and adoption of an ordinance for a development agreement that spans these four sites shown on the PowerPoint before you Mallory Way bungalows at 412 Mallory way Cottages Among the Flowers at 312 West Aliso Street, World University at 107 North Ventura Street and what we're calling the Montgomery site at 304 South Montgomery Street.

The development agreement was created with the intention of being able to better protect residents with tenant protection and to increase the amount of affordable housing that could offset Those projects and so we'll get to that in a minute But last meeting we talked kind of at length about the long history of this project And I won't go through it as detailed but this Project originated with the cottages among the flowers project being approved back in 2007 15 years ago We talked about the fact that a final tract map was then approved in 2009 Time extensions were approved in 2011 and 2016. And in 2019, after the Planning Commission approved a time extension, the City Council appealed the extension and challenged the extension due to the project not meeting the city requirements for replacing affordable housing units.

And so quite the complex history. One of the challenges is that it's been approved by the city several times which would create potentially some risks to the city of trying to deny the project moving forward. And so in 2019 when the city was faced with that prospect, the City Council created an ad hoc subcommittee that was then tasked with working with the applicants to develop the development agreement again to protect both the affordable housing units and to make sure that there was appropriate tenant protection.

That agreement was negotiated through 2020 and 2021, and ultimately in January of 2022 the City Council reviewed a deal point version of the project. The council at that time directed staff to move forward with developing or drafting the full development agreement which was then presented on July 12th At that meeting, the City Council directed staff and the committee to try to improve the deal.

We've worked with the applicants since that time to add more enhanced tenant protection And also to add two additional deed restricted units that would be located at the cottages, which will also help with the phasing to try to make sure that people are able to move into other units before work on existing units start up. And so just big picture again, what we're looking at in as part of the proposal is cottages among the flowers has 12 units total.

Two of those units would be deed restricted affordable one low income and one very low income. The deed restrictions for all of these are the 55-year deed restriction. So they're essentially guaranteeing that they will be rented at the state's low, very low or moderate rates for the next 55 years so through at least 2077 at this point. Maybe longer based on how long the work takes.

The Mallory Way bungalows proposal is to have 30 units total with 7 affordable, 6 in the moderate category and 1 in the low category. World University is 10 units total with 3 of those being affordable, 2 moderate and 1 low. And then Montgomery site on South Montgomery would have 15 units total. All 15 would be affordable with 12 of those moderate and 3 low.

Again, the last bullet point there is to highlight one of the real focuses over the last month. Working with the applicant was to strengthen the relocation plan and we have that in a little more detail on the next slide. The relocation plan includes a few options for the current tenants. One, allowing the tenant to be first in line for a similar unit with moving costs up to $2,000 covered.

Another option would be to relocate to another unit within the project at the tenants verified level of affordability for one year and so that's if there wasn't a, for whatever reason if there wasn't a direct affordable unit available at the same rate they would be able to relocate and get that level of affordability locked in for one year. We don't anticipate that based on the phasing, but that was one possibility.

The final option was being able to get 12 months of current rent if no unit is available in the project and moving costs of up to $2,000. Last, I think well we have a couple more slides. We know that there's been a lot of conversation about what is affordable now. I think with real estate in California and especially Southern California and especially Ojai the word affordable loses a lot of meaning but when we say affordable deed restricted we are referring to the state's affordable limits Those limits are updated annually, so we note that in this slide. These are the limits right now and they tend to update the numbers every year so they may change over the next few years but the affordable limits in 2022 as you can see if you make up to $43,900 you would be considered in a household by yourself You would be able to qualify as very low income.

If you make from $43,901 up to $70,250 as a one-person household, you would be able to qualify as a low income and if you make then from 70,251 to $96,950 then you would be able to qualify as a moderate income one person household. And so what we're trying to show here is again, we mentioned last meeting that the dollar amounts that we showed last meeting are the ceiling not the floor. It's a maximum amount you can make and qualify for that category, not a minimum amount you can make.

And similarly, we had shown the rents last meeting. Same thing with those. The rent would be up to $878 in very low income. That's the amount that they could charge. For low-income it would be up to 1,405 dollars and moderate income up to 2,909 dollars for a one person household. I won't go through Each of these in detail, but that's a one-person household. This chart where it shows 1, 2, 3, 4, those are two people in a household, three people in a household or four people in a household. So each time you add another person to the household, the income limit goes up and the rent limit potentially goes up.

So, that is what is meant in this development agreement when we say deed restricted affordable. And it will be verified by the area housing agency authority and they'll be held to the state standard each year that it is updated. It'll be held to the state standard. Just as far as the some other key items in the development agreement. In addition to getting the deed restricted units, 27 deed restricted units for 55 years that we also in A walking or hiking trail that will go through Mallory and cottages that would be built and maintained by the owner.

We were also able to work out a opportunity to have a water recharge within Mallory Way and Cottage, to help offset some water impacts. And then also as we said one of the key things was the tenant protections via the phased development and relocation plan. I'm going to go over just quickly a couple areas of concern that we had received a lot of comments about, and then I'll turn it over to the city attorney for the last two slides. We've received comments about the historic nature of both the cottages at Mallory Way as we went into detail last meeting. Those had been reviewed previously I don't know that the HPC now would agree with the findings from 2007, but those were reviewed. And again as part of that convoluted complex history where the city had approved these things prior which limits our ability somewhat to now go backwards on those things.

In 2007, the city had reviewed the cottages at Mallory Way and put some mitigation measures in place. And so those are included in the conditions. We also reviewed the tree permits at those times and there were some trees that were potentially going to be removed Those are set to be replaced at a 2 to 1 or 4 to 1 ratio depending on the location And we also noted in the staff report now based on last meeting a recommendation to include authorization to contract with the local arborist to consult further on those on the related to trees And then finally, water usage. We got a lot of questions about water usage that ultimately is considered by Casitas Water District and the applicant I'm sure in their presentation will speak to some of the water saving measures that they are looking for such as the low flow fixtures but that ultimately is under the purview of Casitas Water District so with that I'm going to ask the city attorney to give us the last two slides.

Thank you, Mr. Vega. So a couple of points on CEQA and sort of options and perspectives. So California Environmental Equality Act for those who aren't familiar with it, CEQAs is the state law that requires the city to evaluate in a nutshell potential environmental impacts of any project as defined. In this context, the Planning Commission and the Ad Hoc Committee recommend That the council declare the project exempt from further review under the California Environmental Quality Act for several independent reasons.