CCMIN040406 - Laserfiche WebLink

consideration which will raise the City's level of responsibility. Compared to other cities, Pleasanton is in a better financial position, which will not allow the City to plead poverty in terms of its ability to build these units. She suggested that Council take bolder actions beyond what is suggested in the staff report. She did not believe Council should be approving any additional market rate residential developments until it sorted this out because everything Council approves is making it more difficult to solve the problem. She also suggested that Council rezone the land and consider reserving a substantial number of units based upon the City's future needs. Charles Clark, a Pleasanton resident, said he was interested in purchasing the Greenbriar Apartment complex. He believed the property has bond financing which did not allow for any secondary financing nor did it allow for underwriting of additional financing. As a result of this, the property could not sell. He noted that he was the owner of Pleasanton Manor, which falls in between the low and very-low income and needs a significant amount of improvements. He pointed out that the City could not have people living in Pleasanton in horrible conditions and there should be some middle ground. If Council was considering new development as a means to address affordable housing, he believed mixed use should be considered. The retail or business component of a development could help fund low or very-low income housing as part of this type of project. He presented a letter to Council from Marshall Reddick, a real estate network, who was willing to buy every unit at Pleasanton Manor for individual investors who will then rent to people in the area but be individually owned as condominium units. Maurine Behrend, Director of the Tri-Valley Interface Poverty Forum, reported that the Forum held a Housing Conference in 2001 and 125 attendees were trained to appear at their respective City Council and Planning Commission meetings to request additional affordable housing. Last year in response to the needs that the Forum had determined, it issued a housing report. Based upon the work of the 125 advocates, 248 people were identified as moving into new low and very-low income affordable housing in the Tri-Valley. This year, 903 people have been identified as moving into low and very-low income units. The RHND numbers are based upon need mainly from two areas: people are living longer and localities need to accommodate the fact that there will be more senior citizens and secondly, cities such as Pleasanton have business parks which attract low-income workers. In the Forum's efforts with the Business Council Housing Committee, it has tried to put a face on the low-income workers. When the Forum prepared its housing report last year, the City of Pleasanton came in last of all of the five Tri-Valley cities meeting only 3 percent of its regional housing needs for low-income workers. She pointed out that it is real people who the City will be helping when it tries meet the affordable housing needs. Michael O'Callaghan, a Pleasanton resident, mentioned that in the early 80's, he built and developed two affordable housing projects, one of which he retained for ownership and rented out with no subsidy using market rate financing. In the long run, subsidies of any kind and the City's Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance will catch up with the City and only solve the problem temporarily. He encouraged Council to zone properties high density, back off on the development fees and expedite the process of getting plans and projects approved which will eliminate 25 to 40 percent of the cost of a project. He pointed out that development fees for some projects are approaching and exceeding the cost of the finished product. He suggested gathering the support of this community by proposing a tax initiative to support affordable housing rather than having the developer defer the cost of a low-income unit into the high- income unit. Pleasanton City Council Minutes 9 04/04/06