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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-01-2014 pc whiteKremke, Kate From: Mejia, Anthony Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:39 AM To: Kremke, Kate Subject: FW: Numerous ideas Attachments: 2014 05 30 Zoning Regulation Marcus Carloni.docx; 2014 04 30 Lending Subsidies.doc; 2014 04 Code enforcement ideas.doc Public Comment for 07/01/14 JUN 24 ?014 Anthony J. Mejia I City Clerk CAA' 01'. 5.111 I MS OW -;�)O 95)o P alrn Street �� AGENDA San Luis Obispo' cep 340_ � CORRESPONDENCE tel 1 �05.781,710 Date L' _w 1� f Item# E t From: Linda White [ mailto :lindaleewhitelSCcbgmail.com] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 9:44 PM To: Smith, Kathy; Mejia, Anthony; Christianson, Carlyn; Dietrick, Christine; Carpenter, Dan; Marx, Jan; Ashbaugh, John; Lichtig, Katie; Codron, Michael Subject: Numerous ideas Mayor Marx and Council Members, I am leaving town in a few days to take my granddaughter on an American history tour and will be gone until late July. However, a number of important items are coming to the City Council while I am gone and I want you to know my feelings. I have had ideas on a number of issues and I have been sending these ideas to the appropriate City Staff or Council members that have publicly expressed interest in the same concerns. In recent months, I have come to suspect that the City has a problem of the tail wagging the dog. I always thought that the City Council set the agenda and the City Manager and City Staff worked to implement these goals. Since I have been attending City Council meetings and watching the issues more closely, it appears that the City Manager sets the agenda, the staff writes reports to support that agenda and then the finished product is brought before the Council. I'm not sure how informed you are kept prior to the finished product being placed in front of you for approval. I am also not sure that you are given all of the facts in all situations. For this reason, I am sending you copies of recent concerns that have already been sent to staff. In the future, when I address a concern, I will be sending you copies. Thanks for your time, you may breathe easily until I return on July 25. Linda White 5/30/2014 Hi Marcus, I have been thinking since the meeting on Wednesday about the difficulty of defining what is and is not a bedroom. Architects /Speculators /Developers will always be able to come up with more creative names to get around zoning regulations and increase the mini -dorms within our neighborhood. Instead of tightening the definitions of bedroom, library, loft, home office, living space, granny unit, etc., why not change the standard. Instead of using "bedroom" to determine fees, density, etc., use bathrooms or more specifically sewer lines. A mini -dorm must have bathrooms to service the bedrooms, no matter what the bedrooms are called on the plans. Change the manner in which you evaluate the plans and look at sewer not bedrooms. Determine parking needs by numbers of bathrooms, laundry rooms, craft rooms or rather sewer lines. Look over the most egregious plans for single family homes and determine, based on what you know the density will be ultimately, how many parking spaces would be necessary to accommodate that density. Then back into the new formula, using the sewer lines as your new standard. Take for instance, the 323 Grand Ave. 5 bedroom single family homes. Those plans call for four and five bathrooms (and probably laundry room). You know that there will be at least 5 students in each house with 5 vehicles. Require 6 parking places (one for each resident and one visitor). Count the number of sinks, tubs, toilets, showers, bar sinks, etc. in that proposed plan and see how many sewer lines are actually needed for five bedrooms. You could do that on a number of these dorm plans masquerading as single family homes and determine a new sewer /parking ratio standard. By requiring more parking, you have also solved your problem of the massive dorm covering such a high percentage of the reduced lot. After providing adequate parking, the architect would not be able to fit five bedrooms into remaining buildable lot. This further solves the error of allowing four sub standard lots. You can approve these smaller lots but based on the new sewer /parking requirements, you limit the size of the structure built on the smaller lot. There truly are buyers out there who would like homes on smaller lots with a master bedroom and bath, library or home office or hobby room, living room, dining room, kitchen and guest suite with bath, and guest bath. This new standard would allow them to build their ideal home and when they sell to students, it would still provide the number of parking spaces to accommodate the higher student density. I think that a stricter parking requirement at the time of pulling permits is the most effective and easily enforceable method. The noise, unruly disturbance, etc. issues can be handled through police citations. Alterations after building can be handled by the code enforcement. You will be preventing the bulk of problems at the outset. This is clear in my mind because I have been thinking about it. But it is very difficult to explain on paper. Feel free to call me for any clarification. Linda Lending Your idea of Cal Poly assisting staff in purchasing or renting neighborhood homes is a good one. However, I have a few suggestions. Cal Poly purchased the three or four houses on the corner of Slack and Grand Ave. for $1.9 million. These same houses had sold for $1.2 million only a few months earlier. This makes us wonder whose brother -in -law held the property for a few months and made a cool $700,000. Seriously, this overpayment for property hurts the neighborhood. It raises the prices asked for other available houses in the neighborhood as this becomes a new comparable. Now the foundation has at least $1.9 million tied up in these homes and they just sit there empty. They can't be rented or sold at a price high enough to warrant the price paid for them plus funds to rehab them and bring them to code (if they did). The return on investment is just too low to justify the cost. A more efficient program would be for CP Foundation to team with a local lender such as Sesloc. Instead of buying the homes outright, they could subsidize the loans of their employees. A program could be devised whereby geographic districts would be set up. CP would provide subsidies to those employees who purchased homes in those districts only. This would need to be open to all employees not just professors and administration. We want a diverse neighborhood with janitors, electricians, professors, and secretaries. Our neighborhood stock has homes for all levels. Sesloc should be pleased to team with CP because they would be making good loans on local properties with loan guarantees from CP Foundation. The employee /buyer would have to have credit checks, job security, or loan program availability after a certain (to be determined) number of years employment at CP, and meet all other normal lender requirements. Because you are working with a local lender, the subsidies could be variable according to the needs of the buyer. 1. Prices are high all over SLO and usually too high for employees. However, if the term of the loan was extended to 40, 50, or 75 years, an employee could afford a house at a price higher than he would normally qualify. Cal Poly would pay for this longer term out of their funds available. These loans could be rewritten after perhaps 10 or 15 years at which time, the buyer /CP employee will be making more money, the house will have appreciated, and the buyer /employee will probably qualify for a standard, non - subsidized loan. 2. Interest rates are low now but as they rise, CP could buy -down the interest rate with their Foundation funds so that the buyer /employee can afford the loan. 3. As prices return to an affordable rate, the need for subsidies will reach increasingly lower wage earners or be a perk of employment at CP. The amount of money expended by Cal Poly is able to go further since they are providing a fairly small percentage of the home price in subsidy, rather than owning the whole house. These homes could have the deed restriction that you spoke of whereby the home could not be rented and when sold would have to be to owner /occupant rather than speculator /investor. The idea of Cal Poly accepting homes where the giver is given credit for taxes higher than what the home will be sold for will also skew the neighboring homes. The higher price will also be used by Realtors as a comparable for future sales. Renting Years ago, before Craigslist, CP had books of rentals available. One book was for student housing and another for staff housing. Owners placed their rentals in the appropriate book. I have four rentals in Monterey Heights and Alta Vista. Two are rented to Poly students through the Newman Club. There are very strict rules and the students are screened by their fellow housemates. There are consequences for bad behavior and they are all responsible for each other. I would never consider renting to students who were not part of Newman. Have other CP organizations that want safe housing for upper classmen adopt a similar program. Require off - campus housing to be code enforcement inspected for the safety of the students. This needs to be done yearly, as owners will work the percentages figuring that the chance of being caught is so low that it is worth the risk. Have a system for owners of rentals to register their homes as staff housing. The owner would agree to a lower monthly rental for the peace of mind of less wear and tear on the house, no late night calls regarding out of control parties, no fines. These houses would also be inspected by code enforcement for safety. I have a family rental coming up next month and I have rented it at a reduced rate for a short term so that I can advertise it when the students are not looking for housing and I will be able to attract a family. Another concern of the neighbors, that is gathering traction, is the feeling that Cal Poly and the City both want to see the neighborhoods surrounding Cal Poly continue to become Cal Poly housing. It would be easy for the City to abdicate their responsibility for Alta Vista/ Monterey Heights, Foothill, and Highland neighborhoods. Cal Poly will benefit by no longer needing to expend funds to build on- campus housing. Parents are more than happy to spend $600,000 to $1 Million on homes for their children to live in with five or more of their nearest and dearest friends. After six years they can sell to another parent and break even or make a profit. As to the City benefits, businesses will continue to collect increasing tax dollars from the students and their families to cover City salaries and minimal City services. Students don't want police protection, they want to be left alone. Police could concentrate in neighborhoods that do not have students. Students don't care if there are potholes in the streets and don't complain or demand City services. The level of service required by students is much less than a long -term resident. Students also don't attend City Council meetings or question council members. These are some of my thoughts and much work is needed at refining these ideas but I believe that this is a starting point. I believe that the City and Cal Poly have to come out with strong codes and more importantly, strong enforcement to stop the deterioration of our neighborhoods. It is always possible to ease a regulation but very difficult, if not impossible, to put more teeth into it, after the fact. In Monterey Heights and Alta Vista, it is no longer a matter of preserving the neighborhoods, it is restoring the neighborhoods. What we have now, is not acceptable. 04 2014 Joseph Lease • Find the ratio of rentals /owner occupied in HEALTHY College and non - college communities. Set a reasonable SLO Healthy Community Goal. • Require all non -owner occupied homes to have a permit in addition to a business license. Set fees for permits to cover the code enforcement inspections. Determine the added police and fire protection needed for the different levels of occupancy. Add a portion of this to the permit fee, 9 Have levels of permits with differing costs and requirements. 1. Single family home lived in by owner and also rented to others. Require five -year inspections to maintain code enforcement. Payment of business license. Follow existing City ordinances, zoning, and code requirements. Safeguard against parents putting student /children on the title to avoid higher permit fees and more frequent inspections. Make these homes adhere to the same ordinances and code requirements. 2. Single family home rented to traditional family. Require five -year inspections to maintain code enforcement. Payment of business license. Follow existing City ordinances, zoning, and code requirements. 3. Single family home rented to 3 non - related occupants. Require two -year inspections to maintain code enforcement. Payment of business license. Follow existing City ordinances, zoning, and code requirements. 4. Single family home rented to more than 3 non - related occupants. Require yearly inspections to maintain code enforcement. Payment of business license. Follow existing City ordinances, zoning, and code requirements. 9 Rigorously enforce existing ordinances, zoning, and code requirements. 1. Strengthen existing ordinances, zoning and code requirements to assist in the goal of neighborhood wellness. Re- define (if this is the reason for lack of present enforcement) definition of public intoxication, drinking in public, open containers, etc. to better address the negative behavior of the students e.g.under -age drinking, and serving of alcohol to the underage, front yard beer pong, parties spilling into front yards, sidewalks and streets, excessive noise, etc. Encourage police to cite offenders rather than minimize student action. Treat students as vigorously as the homeless are treated downtown. Increase police presence on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Caesar Chavez Day, WOW, Open House, and other party occasions. Hire special officers to work part-time on busy party nights. These could be young men who have gone through police training and would like to be hired on full -time. They could work their way up from party cops to full time police officers as openings become available. 2. Re -visit " Infill" with zoning, planning commission and architectural review. Tighten the requirements on infill. Define infill as filling in with like properties. Don't allow PUDs in R -1 neighborhoods. These PUDs are nothing more than mini - dorms. Keep lot sizes the same as surrounding properties. Keep construction similar to surrounding homes. Do not issue multi- occupant permits to new construction until the City Healthy Community goal has been met and permits become available. Examples of approved infill that defeat the idea would be the Aurignac homes on Grand Ave. and McCollum, the completed home at Grand & Hope and the recently approved PUD at 311 ? Grand (Frequently cited home for noise and underage drinking set on back of lot). 3. Establish a code enforcement program to adequately inspect R -1 homes for compliance with current codes. Have a point of sale code enforcement inspection. This could be sold to Real Estate Brokers and Agents by pointing out the liability of inadequate disclosure. This would not diminish sales any more than the Diablo Nuclear disclosure or Home Inspections lowered sales. Educate Realtors on codes and disclosure requirements. Hire enough code enforcement inspectors to inspect or, license contractors or home inspectors to certify homes to be in compliance. When these non -city employees are doing code enforcements, the inspector has a contract with the City no matter who pays for the inspection. Photos can document the home at the time of the inspection. Make the non -city inspectors liable for any violations that they do not report. Do spot checks to determine the accuracy of their reports. 4. Determine occupancy levels by lot size, square footage of building, available on & off site parking, bedrooms, etc. so there is a formula to which everyone must adhere. This formula could be similar to the building code percentage allowable building square footage to lot size. 5. Make housing permits non - transferable and non - renewable upon sale or change in ownership until the City Healthy Community Goal is met. 6. Establish ordinances similar to those for vacation homes, limiting the density and closeness of high occupancy homes within the neighborhoods. Spread the high occupancy houses throughout the city. 7. Revoke the occupancy permits if there are violations of code enforcement. Violations could be rated according to severity. The most severe infraction would result in immediate red - tagging. Other, less serious infractions could require two or three before revocation. This is where the regulations could be very strict but would allow for refinement on an individual basis. The non -owner occupied homes, for the most part, are owned by non - locals. Non - locals can't vote so the argument of a strong City Council not being re- elected is moot. However, this would need to be sold to the local owners of rentals by pointing out that values of homes will not go down but will increase at a slower rate at first. With slower rises in price, families will be able to move back in, restoring a diverse and healthy neighborhood. Once neighborhoods are restored, prices will rise normally and not be forced up by out of area parents. This could be sold to Realtors by stressing the limitation of disclosure liability with code - enforcement inspections and permits. Their buyers will be families, middle -class residents, professionals, etc. rather than out -of -area buyers. For the most part, out -of -area buyers are one - time -only buyers as opposed to locals who move up or downsize and return to the same Realtors making the industry healthier. Finally, the cost of code enforcement inspectors to implement and enforce these measures should, in part, be borne by Cal Poly. It is due to Cal Poly's increasing enrollment and lack of on- campus housing to house their increasing student population that has caused the deterioration of the neighborhoods. This should not be paid for by the entire city out of General Funds. Measure Y funds, should be somehow segregated in order to pay for the City's portion of the code enforcement instead of threatening that if Y doesn't pass, code enforcement officers and neighborhood police will be lost. However, Cal Poly should participate also. As the SLO Healthy Community Goal is reached and fewer inspections are necessary, Cal Poly's percentage could drop. As more on- campus housing is built by Cal Poly and the neighborhoods are restored to diverse residents, Cal Poly's percentage could be lowered.