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The People's Business: Dec. 7, 2020

Tomorrow, the current iteration of the City Council will hold its final regular meeting before a new Council takes over on Dec. 10. 


Blue sad emoji*Sniff*


This post previews the final batch of business that will be taken up during this final meeting.


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If you'd like more detail on anything summarized here, click the agenda, then click on the item. Over on the right side of the page, you'll see links to a staff report and other pieces of supporting material.


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City Council -- Tuesday, Dec. 8


Tuesday's meeting officially starts at 9 a.m., when the Council will listen to public comment on any items on the closed-session agenda. Then they'll retreat to closed session and return to open session at 11 a.m. The open-session agenda includes five ceremonial proclamations and 47 (!!!) consent items that are considered noncontroversial and won't be discussed unless a member of Council or a member of the public asks to have an item pulled out for conversation.


The Council's discussion agenda has 15 items. They'll also meet in their capacity as the San Diego Housing Authority, and in that role, they'll provide companion approvals for four items on the Council agenda. In addition to those, they'll take up this here matter:



  • Exclusive Negotiating Agreement for Property at Famosa and Nimitz Boulevards: The San Diego Housing Commission is asking for approval of an exclusive negotiating agreement with Bridge Housing Corporation to develop a 5.6-acre piece of Housing Authority-owned, undeveloped land at the southeast corner of the intersection of Famosa and Nimitz Boulevards in Point Loma. Bridge Housing envisions building 86 affordable apartments there -- a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units priced for households at varying income levels. The agreement would include a loan to Bridge Housing of $910,000.


And now, back to those 15 items on the Council agenda -- they include these 12 action items:



  • Allowing Brick-and-Mortar Businesses, Gyms, and Places of Worship to Temporarily Use Parkland (Item 333): From the City's Parks and Recreation Department comes a request for the Council to enact an interim emergency ordinance to allow a temporary waiver of fees for businesses or places of worship displaced from their normal venue of operation and seeking to relocate outdoors in a park. The fee waivers would be retroactive to Aug. 24, 2020, and any fees paid after that would be refunded. The latest COVID-19 restrictions that went into effect this morning will likely factor in the discussion.

  • Cracked concreteSidewalk Repair Permit Fee Holiday (Item 336): The Council on Tuesday will be asked to approve a complete waiver of fees that property owners pay when they want to repair the sidewalk in front of their property. The City has been paying out too many settlements stemming from trip-and-fall lawsuits, and the high cost of obtaining repair permits is seen as a contributing factor. The fee waiver is proposed to last until June 30, 2021. If it's implemented, property owners who want to repair their sidewalk will save more than $2,000. Roughly 100 property owners would be expected to take advantage of the program through next June, which would cost the City about $200,000 in lost fees.

  • Disposition of City-Owned Property (Item 335): At the behest of City Council President Georgette Gómez, the City's Real Estate Assets Department is proposing a series of updates to Council Policy 700-10, which governs management, leasing, and sale of City-owned property. Also proposed is the repeal of Council Policy 700-12, which establishes criteria for leasing property to nonprofit organizations but will no longer be necessary because those criteria will be added to Policy 700-10. The prime motivation here is to turn more surplus properties into affordable housing.

  • Declaring City-Owned Properties “Surplus Land” (Item 337): Speaking of City-owned property, Real Estate Assets staff is proposing to deem 10 different pieces of City-owned property unnecessary for municipal use and, therefore, surplus. The City must officially and publicly declare land as surplus before it can sell or lease it. Three of the parcels are in Linda Vista, and two are in Otay Mesa West; the others are in Encanto, Navajo, San Ysidro, Grant Hill, and City Heights.


  • Affordable Housing Bonds (Items 340 and 341): The Council will hold Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act hearings in order to issue multifamily housing revenue bonds to help finance these two affordable-housing projects:




    • The Post 310 Apartments: $17.7 million in bond financing for the development of 42 units to be located at 465 47th St. in Chollas View.




    • The Junipers: $19.5 million in bond financing for the development of 80 units for low-income seniors to be located at the northwest corner of Interstate 15 and Carmel Mountain Road in Rancho Peñasquitos.






  • Pacific Highlands Ranch (Item 343): Previously, the Council approved a project that would allow 76 homes in a portion of Pacific Highlands Ranch, a community surrounded to the east, south, and west by Carmel Valley. On Tuesday, the Council will be asked to increase that number to 81.




  • Todd GloriaDeclaring the Results of the Nov. 3 Election (Item S508): Hey, remember that election we had on Nov. 3? That was a doozy, right? Anyhoo, the City Clerk is required to ask the Council to officially certify the results in the election for Mayor (Todd Gloria, pictured), City Attorney (Mara Elliott), and Council Districts 1 (Joe LaCava), 3 (Stephen Whitburn), 5 (Marni Von Wilpert), 7 (Raul Campillo), and 9 (Sean Elo-Rivera), as well as Measures A (unsuccessful), B, C, D, and E (all successful).




  • COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program (Item 339): In October, the City Council allocated $5 million from the federal CARES Act toward the City's Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which is administered by the San Diego Housing Commission. On Tuesday, the Housing Commission will ask the Council to allow it to distribute the funding the same way it did when the Council budgeted an initial $15.1 million for the program this past summer.




As of Nov. 5, $12.1 million had been distributed to 3,272 eligible households; the remaining $3 million was expected to be spent by the end of November. In the second phase, the $5 million approved in October is expected to help roughly 1,250 additional families.



  • Capital Improvements Program Mid-Year Budget Monitoring Report and Revisions (Item 334): Every year at this time, the City's Department of Finance comes to the Council with a mid-year report on the Capital Improvements Program (CIP) and requested adjustments to its budget. This year's report proposes various new budget appropriations, reallocations of funds, and de-appropriation of CIP project savings resulting from cash-management and streamlining efforts.


  • Multifamily Mortgage Revenue Bond Program (Item 338): The Housing Commission’s Multifamily Mortgage Revenue Bond Program is a financing tool that helps the City develop affordable housing. In 2020, statewide demand for these tax-exempt bonds exceeded the state's total annual allocation, prompting the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee to turn the availability of these bonds into a competitive process, which has caused uncertainty in the bond market, which is causing the Housing Commission to propose certain changes to the City's bond program policy that would quicken the bond approval process. On Tuesday, the Council will be asked to approve these changes.




  • 12th Update to the Land Development Code (Item 342): Back in January, the City Council made 39 amendments to the City's Land Development Code (the so-called "12th Update"). In November, the California Coastal Commission agreed to certify this code update, but only if the City makes three minor changes. The Council will be asked to approve those changes on Tuesday.




Street sweeperThe agenda also include these three information-only items:



  • Performance Audit of City Street Sweeping (Item 330): In September, the Auditor released a performance audit of the Transportation and Stormwater Department’s (TSW) street sweeping program. The audit identified three broad shortcomings, involving use of data, use of best practices when it comes to routes and schedules, and use of effective performance measures to improve the program over time. And it makes four recommendations to rectify these issues, which the TSW Department has agreed to implement.

  • Performance and Evaluation Report for HUD Entitlement programs (Item 331): This is a federally required informational report on the programs for which the City receives grant funding from these U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs: Community Development Block Grant, HOME Investment Partnerships, Emergency Solutions Grants, and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS.

  • Disbursement and Use of Library “Pool” Allocation (Item 332): Prior to 2018, the City had four different programs whereby folks could make donations to the public library that would be matched by the City. In 2018, the City Council consolidated them into one Library Donation Matching Fund and changed the way the City's portion is disbursed: Half of the match would go to the library branch selected by the donor and half would go into a pool and distributed among branches identified to have the greatest need or at the discretion of the City Librarian. The Library Department will give the Council a report on how that pool portion has been used.


Members of the public can participate in the virtual meeting and make comments by dialing 619-541-6310 and entering the access code 877861 followed by # when the item you're interested in comes up (full call-in instructions). Watch the meeting on cable TV channel 24 or AT&T channel 99, or stream it online.



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