While we are all ringing outselves out from a wet Easter weekend, the City Council will be tackling the mother of all agendas. Inclusionary housing, cannabis, budget and staffing asks, committee appointments and a good project with a controversial bid history all make an appearance.

Before we jump into each of these in turn, it’s worth noting that the agenda should be even longer: an appeal from the Planning Commission’s approval of a new Raising Cane’s drive thru restaurant on Newport Boulevard was noticed to be heard at this meeting as well. The notice doesn’t tell us who initiated the appeal but I have my suspicions. The location and the presence of a drive thru was controversial at the Planning Commission hearing in light of its proximity to a mobile home park (I wrote about this a little last month). Could it have been appealed by a City Council member?

Well, whoever initiated it must be wondering where it is today.

As for the items actually appearing on the agenda, I will (attempt to) be brief, because there is a lot to cover.

Inclusionary housing, part 45,603

The inclusionary housing ordinance, this time armed with a proposed in-lieu fee schedule, will return to the City Council. The particulars of the proposed ordinance are well described in the agenda report. For once, I’m not going to belabor these points. Instead, I want to highlight three details in the agenda report:

1. Threats of being “out of compliance” with State Housing Law. First, more so than prior agenda reports on inclusionary housing, the Staff seems compelled to emphasize how very very very important it is to pass an inclusionary housing ordinance. “If the City does not implement [an IHO],” the Staff notes ominously,” the State could find the City’s Housing Element out of compliance and in violation of State housing laws” (emphasis mine in both instances). There is only one problem with this: WE ARE ALREADY OUT OF COMPLIANCE. The HCD said as much in its last letter to the city regarding our Housing Element (“the housing element cannot be found in substantial compliance until the City has completed necessary rezones to make prior identified sites available and address the shortfall of sites to accommodate the RHNA […].”). And if that wasn’t clear enough, you can check the HCD dashboard on Housing Element compliance and see for yourself. We are clearly out of compliance right now.
   
   So frankly, this rhetoric from the Staff is an empty, and puzzling, threat. We aren’t going to be found to be in compliance with State Housing Element Law until we finish our rezoning, which is likely two years or more away. So we don’t need to adopt this IHO today, or even with deliberate speed, in order to avoid scary HCD penalties. We are already subject to those penalties today, and will continue to be subject to those penalties after we adopt an IHO. So the City Council can and should resist Staff’s attempts to rush them.
   
2. What the heck is this “community input survey” on affordable housing? Staff also lets slip that, “during the community survey polling for the Measure K ballot initiative”, the city gathered survey data that strongly supported “addressing housing needs”, “providing housing at all income levels for seniors, families, and young adults”, “helping ensure more affordable housing is available for middle income and working-class families”, and “requiring up to 15% of new and redeveloped housing units to be affordable housing”. This is the first time I’m hearing of this “survey”, and I’ve been following this issue pretty darn closely. and no only is this survey suspicious for its sudden appearance, it also doesn’t provide any summary statistics or background — how many people were surveyed? What were the questions? Was it a random sample or an elective survey? Were the participants paid? etc. — and it produces oddly self-serving results. Inclusionary housing was not part of the Measure K ballot initiative, so why were we polling people about a 15% inclusionary requirement? Very odd indeed.
   
3. Fiscal impact would be… only positive? Not likely. The Staff cheerily reports that, if an IHO is adopted, the city “could potentially receive funding from payment of fees that would be deposited into a Housing Trust Fund to support and promote affordable housing programs in the City, including the administration of the City’s Affordable Housing Program.” Nothing else is said about fiscal impact. Uh, the Staff remembers that, if affordable housing is built, there are no in-lieu fees, right? Which means if the ordinance functions as intended most of the time, the administrative costs of the IHO absolutely will not be paid for by in-lieu fees. What are those administrative costs? We got a hint of what those might be a few weeks ago when the Staff previewed adding a “Planning and Sustainable Development Manager” to the Development Services org chart. Is $170k a year — plus pension — for the foreseeable future a “fiscal impact”? What about the rest of the staff and administrative positions that will be needed to support this new manager?

Expect a long, long, long discussion on this one.

Staff brings forward the cannabis reform ordinance

Believe it or not this one should be relatively straightforward. The specific reforms the City Council wants to see were pretty roundly accepted already (Mayor John Stephens’ “no” votes on some of the items being the notable exception) so this should just be a formality of inserting those reforms into our actual ordinances. One thing I’ll be looking for is specific guidance from City Council regarding how these reforms apply to existing retail cannabis storefront applications. As I noted earlier, the Planning Commission seems very confused about whether the new reforms represent current policy or future rules.

Fire Station No. 4 Training Tower project finally moves forward

I’m going to shortcut the discussion of this item and instead refer you to the very good write up from Sara Cardine at the Daily Pilot. This project has been a long time coming and has involved some controversy about how the city handled the bidding process. So head over to the Daily Pilot for the context if you are so inclined.

Mid-year budget update: will we get another confrontation between the Mayor and the City Manager over development services hiring?

This item brings forward mid-year budget update and staffing requests previewed by City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison at the City Council’s last study session. Normally these types of items would be a humdrum affair; however, given the tension between Mayor Stephens and City Manager Farrell Harrison on display at that study session, I think this segment will worth watching. Will Mayor Stephens be satisfied by the Staff disclosing how the staffing requests will affect the departmental org charts, which weren’t provided at the study session?

And last (but certainly not least): a huge round of committee appointments

Five critical resident committees — the Animal Services Committee, Active Transportation Committee, the Finance and Pension Advisory Committee, the Housing and Public Service Grants Committee, and the Mobile Home Park Advisory Committee — all have multiple openings that the City Council will be looking to fill at this meeting. If this item remains the last one on the agenda, it is almost certain it will be pushed to a future meeting. Which is why I am my crossing fingers that Mayor Stephens will use his prerogative to move this item up to the beginning of the agenda. Three of the committees are in the midst of really significant projects — Animal Services is working through a new shelter contract, Active Transportation is wrestling with significant municipal code updates, and FiPAC is knee-deep in this year’s budget — that leaving committee appointments in limbo would be a huge disservice to the committees and their members.

If the City Council punts on these appointments, I think it’s fair to question the value the members’ place on the committees — and by extension, the resident input they represent. Hopefully they get it done.

That’s all for now. If you want to attend, bring snacks, a pillow and some light reading material. It’s gonna be a long night.