Planning Commission Shifts Council
In Which: Councilmember Syrop pushes back on NIMBY rhetoric, Councilmember Andrews goes hard for NIMBY Commissioners, and Mayor Salinas threads the rhetorical needle.
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Council Pushes for Service Provider Accountability
The City Council took a second look at the Supportive Housing Zoning ordinance. I know this is getting repetitive: welcome to City Government. You’ll have a break from this after today, I promise. But this meeting was heavily influenced by the Planning Commission meeting last week, so take a look at that if you haven’t already.
NIMBYs Give Comment
Two members of the Hayward Concerned Citizens, a group known for being pro-police and anti-reparations that has ties to Planning Commissioner Ron Meyers, called in to express concern about the proposed zoning.
One made the distinction between “vulnerable and established residents” as though unhoused residents don’t have an established life in Hayward. Research shows that the vast majority of unhoused people tend to stay in the community they lived in when they became unhoused. They also contribute to the local economy by making purchases with the money they have.
The other said that housing changes would be bad for the City. “The more high-density and low-income housing, the worse this City is gonna be,” she said.
Giving Strong Support
The opening comment from Councilmember Syrop was supportive of the proposed changes. “When we say we’re in a homeless and housing crisis,” he said, “this is the kind of action that’s required to get folks off of the street… Homelessness is a top issue.” He then asked about allowing SRO-type development in medium and lower density areas, but staff said that this niche is filled by Group Homes, which are allowable in any residential area.
Councilmember Syrop was also concerned about the concentration of zoning on Mission Boulevard and asked about other thoroughfares like Tennyson. “The other thoroughfares just don’t have the level of transit to get people around,” Staff said.
Pushing back on the Public Commenters, Councilmember Syrop talked about the reality of low-income in the Bay Area. “I find [the second comment] a little offensive, to be honest,” he said. “In the Bay Area, where you have a median income of over $100,000, that means hairdressers, or restaurant workers, or teachers… would be considered low-income.” He stressed that SRO-type accommodations are not just for recently-unhoused residents.
Finally, he addressed concerns about losing tax revenue to SROs. “It’s the other side of the coin,” Councilmember Syrop said, “yes, we could generate revenue from a hotel, but we also lose revenue when we don’t have folks with adequate shelter. And I see there being immense savings for the City and our tax payers by getting folks off the street.”
Councilmember Roche talked about why these changes are needed. “We’ve all seen new faces on the street,” she said, “we can’t do nothing. And I think one way we can try to satisfy this is to come up with more opportunities to build shelters, find SROs, to allow for group homes, because otherwise it’s a public safety issue.”
Councilmember Zermeño again brought up people who allegedly don’t want to be housed. “Think about those folks who don’t want a living situation,” he said. Staff explained that it takes time to build relationships. “Service engagement takes a lot of work,” they said, “It takes multiple encounters with individuals to engage them just in a conversation, let alone to get them to come inside a living environment that may not be suitable for them or of interest to them.”
Councilmember Bonilla was also supportive of the changes. “When you think about how we deal with and tackle housing and homelessness in our community, we need to make sure that we have every tool available at our disposal,” he said, “and this definitely enhances the toolbox.” He also highlighted the issue of over-regulation. “The more regulations we put on, the more I feel like it’s going to dis-incentivize the activation of what we’re trying to do with these zoning changes.”
Andrews Pushes On Commissioner Issues
Multiple Councilmembers said that they watched the Planning Commission meeting last week, and Councilmember Andrews showed strong alignment with Commissioners Meyers and Stevens. She asked about recovering the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenue that may be lost from hotel conversions by having a mixed-use of hotel and SRO. Staff said it was allowable and a viable option for struggling hotels.
Councilmember Andrews also pushed for more engagement with the community, though she admitted, “I’m not sure how that would look like.” She then asked if Staff had responded to Commissioner Meyers’s previous comments. “Some of the comments [Commissioner Meyers] made were pretty concerning,” she said, “There is a location he lives by and he’s having some issues in his community and [I] wanted to see how staff is responding to those issues.” Staff admitted that there hadn’t been enough time to address them, considering they were voiced less than a week before.
Switching back to Commissioner Stevens points, Councilmember Andrews then asked Staff directly if there were any service providers in the room or online. She seemed annoyed when Staff admitted that there were none, but Staff explained, “Providers obviously have a really hard job and they work really long hours so they’re not always available to attend meetings.”
Andrews was unmoved. “I would say we should compel them to come to the next work session or discussion on this,” she said, “and make adjustments to their work schedule because now we’re having some issues with some of their locations.” Staff likely has no authority to force anyone to attend any meeting—they’ve said as much before—but they did not speak on that during this meeting.
Safe Parking Focus
Although Councilmember Andrews took her talking points from the upset Planning Commissioners, the rest of Council focused on Safe Parking. This initiative is of particular importance to the City, because Hayward is the only regional City without a Safe Parking Program, and to Councilmember Goldstein, who has tried to address RV parking in residential areas.
Councilmember Roche shared her positive experience with Safe Parking sites. “I visited Safe Parking sites,” she said, “and they’re really not as scary as you would think. These are great safe spots for people who are living in their cars to spend the night.” She also highlighted that there are many working people who live in their cars and need a place to sleep where they won’t be forced to move.
Councilmember Goldstein asked if it was possible to use non-paved parking for the sites, but Staff said that Water Pollution Control insisted that any RV parking be paved in order to reduce ground water pollution. He also suggested looking into pump-out services that could stand in for RV waste hookups—allowing residents to use the bathrooms in their own RVs, if available.
Councilmember Bonilla asked about security at Safe Parking sites, and Staff said that any management plan will need a security element. Though they stressed that the plans will vary on a case-by-case basis, as informed by the Fire and Police departments.
Compassion With Accountability
Although more tempered than Councilmember Andrews, many others on Council—including Mayor Salinas—wanted accountability for service providers. Councilmember Roche asked Staff to look into strategies to be proactive about outreach to neighbors—similar to what the Planning Commission discussed. Councilmember Bonilla also stressed accountability, though he wanted supportive and “non-punitive” approaches.
Mayor Salinas also seemed aligned with Planning Commissioner concerns, recognizing Councilmember Andrews’s comments directly, but he tried to please both sides. “There’s this element of compassion that needs to be said over and over,” he said, “so that people understand that and people see the work that we’re doing.” He stressed that he wanted “compassion, accountability, and standards,” seemingly concerned about bad actor service providers.
Mayor Salinas praised the use of Administrative Use Permits as an enforcement mechanism, but worried about the difficulty of closing a shelter, for example, with people who live there and rely on it. Council did not discuss how additional oversight, whether in the Permit department or Code Enforcement, would be funded.
Emergency Batteries On City Buildings
The City of Hayward is partnering with AVA Community Energy—the folks who bring you the 100% renewable energy on your PG&E bill—to add solar panels and battery storage to 4 different city facilities:
Fire Station 1
Fire Station 7
The Hayward Corp Yard
The Cinema Place Garage
The program has no upfront cost, the City will only pay for energy generated by the solar panels in monthly installments, and the total payout is less than it would cost without using this project. Also, the contract stipulates that all labor will be paid the prevailing wage, a boon for local workers.
The project starts in Spring of 2025 in order to make a deadline of April 2026.
Council Is All Smiles Again
Mayor Salinas highlighted the zero upfront cost and prevailing wages before comment even officially started, saying it was a huge win for the City.
Councilmember Roche asked what other cities are participating, because the project involves AVA working with multiple other cities. Berkeley, Fremont, San Leandro, Oakland, and Pleasanton are all participating. AVA also stressed that it was important to move away from diesel backup generators, though Staff said that they would be kept in case of long-term power outages.
Councilmember Bonilla confirmed that the project will save $500,000 to $800,000 for the City over the life of the contract. Though AVA explained that there will be a repricing soon which may change that number. Councilmember Bonilla was especially happy about the emergency preparedness benefits. “I also appreciate the added benefit of how this would double back as a resiliency hub for our community as well.” The idea is to provide heating/cooling centers for the community if the power cuts out during extreme weather.
Both Councilmembers Bonilla and Zermeño were interested in expanding the program to other partners or City buildings. The Acting City Manager said that the City is a victim of its own green energy success and that most buildings have solar panels on them already. AVA also said that it was hoping to expand with new partners, and hopes to explore more next year.
Councilmember Goldstein was concerned about equipment failures, which would be handled by the finance company, as well as who would be responsible to replace or add things later in the life of the contract. AVA said that so long as their company is around, they’ll take care of everything.
The Last Bits
There was also a change to the procurement policy, but it was fairly uncontroversial. It raised the amount of money a project would need to cost before Council has to approve it. “We’re talking about the top 3% of purchase order requests,” Councilmember Syrop said, “that would receive Council Review.” This change seeks to streamline Staff time and requests, he said.
Councilmember Bonilla reassured the public that this wasn’t a huge deal. “A lot of these changes are very consistent with other surrounding jurisdictions,” he said.
Mayor Salinas, during the Announcements portion, also highlighted a project in an unnamed Southern California town where converting 3 struggling Motels to Supportive Housing revitalized the area. This gives anecdotal evidence that the loss of TOT isn’t always something to worry about.