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The Board of Directors of Brooktrails Township Community Services District met in regular session March 14, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. at the Brooktrails Community Center.
A. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
B. ROLL CALL
Roll call showed the following Directors present: Ziady, Orth, Horrick and Skezas. Also present were General Manager Chapman and District Counsel Neary. Director Williams arrived at 7:03 p.m.
REPORT ON CLOSED SESSION
None.
C. ADDITIONS/ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA
D. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS
1. February 14, 2006 - Director Orth moved to approve the minutes with the following changes:
p. 3641, delete last sentence of fourth paragraph under Item 4 as it has lost its context; p. 3643, add "as we will seek both federal and state funds to offset costs" to last sentence of paragraph beginning "District Counsel Neary said." Director Orth also commented for the record that the Potter Valley road project referred to is reconstructing an existing road, while our second access road would be an entirely new project. Director Ziady seconded and the motion carried unanimously.
E. SPECIAL PRESENTATION
None.
F. PUBLIC HEARING
None.
G. PUBLIC COMMENTS
Wallace Stahle of Rose Terrace asked that the new rules for wood-burning appliances proposed by County Air Quality be researched and commented on by the Board.
Bob Terry announced the upcoming CERT graduation. John Lemmer of CERT complained about changes made to the CERT forms that the District had prepared; he handed out copies of original CERT forms and changes made; General Manager Chapman said he would review them.
H. CONSENT CALENDAR
2. Review of Accounts Payable report and authorization to issue checks. Director Orth asked if the $1,440.00 charge for telemetry service was one-time or recurring; General Manager Chapman advised it is a one-time maintenance charge for the SCADA system. Director Orth moved to approve payment of the outstanding invoices; Director Horrick seconded and the motion carried unanimously.
I. ACTION AGENDA
3. First discussion - Brooktrails Lodge Subdivision Proposal - Dr. Robert Gitlin.
Dr. Gitlin reviewed the process for his subdivision proposal principally by the means of slides. He reviewed his summary of benefits from the project and the various other attachments in his presentation to the Board. He mentioned that he had written Bruce Burton of DHS and they had no objection. He said he would need from our Board a "will serve" letter for utilities and a conceptual approval. He mentioned that the Mendocino Planning Department would be having a series of meetings regarding the proposal, after which he would submit his application for agency feedback, with written comments to the Subdivision Committee. Then it would go to the Planning Commission for approval or denial.
Director Ziady said at this time the District was asking homeowners to submit full plans when getting on the waiting list, and the Board did not know what Dr. Gitlin was really planning. She said there were seven new homes, and variances for their construction and for zoning would be needed; she said she didn't feel the Board could go ahead and say go for it, and we'll negotiate later, when there are legitimate concerns. She said she had reviewed the Specific Plan, and said that some of Dr. Gitlin's supporting quotations were quoted out of context. She referred to a process in the Specific Plan of a committee addressing such matters, and said there should be public meetings.
Director Orth said he would start with negative commentary but would end up being positive in his final recommendation. First, he said, he did not like the concept. He never felt the existing buildings as configured would be the final determining factor of the property. He felt this proposal was generated because of current conditions and the limited options that Dr. Gitlin currently saw. He further said his own suggestion would be to change those conditions so that the community will have "buy-in" to whatever will exist at the end of this project. He then referred to a proposed project in Willits with a zoning change to Planned Development (PD). He saw little value in retaining substandard units on the property, and said a redesigned Smart Growth project with PD zoning would fit with the property. He said the Specific Plan identified senior housing opportunities for assisted living as one of the potentials this property has, and this proposal will not do it as written.
Director Orth continued that affordable housing was not a good idea for Brooktrails in that we do not have localized services within walking distance, and the County has identified this as a problem. However, we are identified as affordable housing by the County in that we still have houses under $300,000.00, and we have multi-family housing. He said this property had the advantage of existing connections, which allowed reconfiguration of the property up to that connection limit. He then turned the discussion to a Smart Growth type of project with two-story multi-use structures. He felt a townhouse approach would be far more reasonable. He made various specific suggestions about reconfiguring the property and moving the structures up, away from the street. He said he thought PD zoning allows participation on the local level so that the project meets community and private property needs and felt this increases the ability to configure the property for those issues.
Director Horrick wondered if rather than one big project, it was possible to unbundle some of the items; for example, to treat the motel separately.
President Skezas commented that the motel would be going from temporary use to permanent usage, which is not what the District agreed to after a two-year discussion. He disagreed with the DHS assessment and said fixtures don't use water, people use water, and a lot of the time, the motel rooms are empty. He saw it as a roughly $2-3 million project to convert these units into individual homes on parcels, and said he would never agree to have just one sewer line for all of this today; each home would have to have its own sewer line and water connection. He noted that some proposed houses appear to require going through someone else's property to reach them. He further said he didn't appreciate seeing this item in the newspaper prior the Board having a chance to look at it and comment. He said in his opinion $250,000.00 was not affordable housing, no matter how small it was. He concluded by saying he couldn't see this being on a fast track, and the limitation of March 2007 was unrealistic.
General Manager Chapman reiterated the connection situation. His first concern was how this worked against the philosophy of the Specific Plan, a plan where we're trying to merge lots, not unmerge them. Director Orth said many years ago Brooktrails had some people who wanted to do resubdivisions within the District, and a policy was passed saying that such would have to come up to utility codes such as water/sewer lines and road standards, and he believed this policy still applied.
President Skezas asked for comments from the audience. Wallace Stahle asked what would prevent investors or landlords from buying these and renting them themselves. He also asked if there was anything to prevent broken-down vehicles from stacking up. Eric Idarius said when Dr. Gitlin had first shown him his idea, he thought it was great to provide affordable housing within the next year but he didn't know how that could be done, but Dr. Gitlin had said that most of the homes were already there and just require some remodeling. He supported the idea of this housing for young couples. He said the only way they can see to create affordable housing is to have small homes on small lots. Esther Baruch, manager of the rentals at the Brooktrails Lodge, said that families staying at the cabin units were satisfied, and suggested renovated units would be better because they would be bigger.
Dr. Gitlin apologized to Director Ziady about the quotes from the Specific Plan and said he was not trying to misrepresent something. He questioned Director Orth's comment about PD zoning that allows commercial intermingled with residential, citing more commercial competition to Willits. He referred to President Skezas' comment about water use and said that John Osborn of Environmental Health had said if the motel were booked 24/7, the water use would be out of sight. As to the one sewer line, he said he had mostly new sewer lines to every one of those units. He talked about the difficulties of renting out the Lodge for events and the overhead costs. He agreed that the project would take longer than one year. Responding to General Manager Chapman's comments, he asked for the Board's comments on the goal being to merge and not unmerge; he thought that had more to do with saving water hookups.
Dr. Gitlin said he guessed resulting square footage would be around 700 - 800 SF for the duplexes and 800 - 1,000 for the fourplex. Director Williams referred to local house prices and said that $250,000.00 was affordable housing now and realistic. Dr. Gitlin then drew sketches at the easel of the interior designs. He said he has spent over $1 million just bringing the rental units up to code and it would be counterintuitive to tear them down. He invited the directors to do a walk-through with him of the property.
Director Orth said he did not think any of the renters would be able to afford a $250,000.00 mortgage, and he again encouraged Dr. Gitlin to consider PD zoning and a completely different proposal. Director Orth said the Board has to consider the potential for the property. He cited access and a sidewalk for this property along Birch Street. He noted that PD zoning would allow smaller footprints with more height and generate more parking. He mentioned fire sprinklers should be installed when structures are crowded up as in this proposal. He said everything on the property would have to meet current standards.
Director Orth then said the rentals were providing affordable housing right now, and the proposal did not improve upon that. Dr. Gitlin asked what, if any, affordable housing projects in Brooktrails have met the standards he's proposing today. Director Orth said there was an eight-plex on our waiting list today, which would be a lower price per unit. He reiterated that Brooktrails was not close to the services that low-income people need, and when you add the transportation costs the affordability issue increases. Dr. Gitlin asked how Brooktrails was going to meet the affordable housing mandate. Director Orth said that all subdivisions needed to make allowance for affordable rental housing in their zoning.
Director Williams asked to wrap this matter up, and said that if Dr. Gitlin can find a way to get the parking, and it looked like the back driveway might be a way for people to get parking at their houses, he said he personally would vote for the project if it met all the other requirements for Brooktrails, and he would work with Dr. Gitlin to get it done. He said there would be diversity of opinion in the community as to what they wanted to see there, but if what Dr. Gitlin was proposing was an improvement to that end, and got people who were owners rather than renters, he saw that as enough of an advantage that we would encourage him to do this.
Dr. Gitlin said he has other projects in this community where he's not making any money and the bottom line was his project comports with many, if not all, goals and objectives of the Specific Plan. He said in Mendocino County affordable housing started at $300,000.00, and he said this is out of touch, and should be $250,000.00. General Manager Chapman said he could talk to Frank Lynch of Planning & Building, and that we would be coming back to the Board in May/June because we needed to get more information from the County.
President Skezas said he'd like to bring this back into focus as we are in the water, sewer and fire business. He summarized by saying these were going to be individual homes, none of which will have paid a sewer hookup, and we had one owner and gave him 20 hookups for $20,000 five years ago which was a major concession /contribution. He said we're going to have hookup fees here, and we're not going to be able to go to Dr. Gitlin and say #7 has a sewer problem; we're going to have to go to the owner of #7. Addressing Dr. Gitlin, he said the design process had to go through our architectural process and the County, whether they were approving smaller units or not. His concern was that this was brought up in the initial approval process (5 years ago) -- that Dr. Gitlin was now going to take the District to the cleaners later on these water hookups -- and he said that's what he sees happening now. He and Dr. Gitlin exchanged comments about water hookups.
Director Ziady said we gave him special accommodations for sewer and the cost of the water and how the water hookups were paid, with the understanding that there was a trade. She said he would have to look at those hookups as costs, and certainly individual sewer. Dr. Gitlin said when he bought the property there was existing water to everyone on the property which had been there a long time, and he was told he wouldn't have to pay any extra monthly fees on those hookups once he got them, but the month that he got them put in he started paying $55 on each unit each month for empty units, and he said that wasn't in our agreement, either. General Manager Chapman said he recalled this well, because Directors Monteleone and Estabrook were very adamant about charging hookup fees of about $100,000+ for the sewer and the water each, because this was looked on at as a cluster development. And in the negotiation to activate the cluster development, the concession came down to $20,000 for just water. Director Horrick said under current use you have your 21 meters, but under change of use he would like to know, addressing District Counsel Neary, what rights Dr. Gitlin had. District Counsel Neary referred to paragraph 6 of the agreement with Dr. Gitlin that requires conformance to District standards in the case of redevelopment. He said an affordable housing component might offer justification for not enforcing that provision, and that would be a Board decision.
Director Ziady said there was one sewer line serving that whole area and you would have to have separate sewer hookups instead of one trunk. Director Williams asked if it was Dr. Gitlin's understanding that he would continue to own the sewer line and somehow provide sewer services to all those residences. Dr. Gitlin said he was here to ask for feedback. President Skezas commented that Dr. Gitlin had paid no sewer hookup fees. Dr. Gitlin then referred again to the monthly charges. Director Ziady said that was not a hookup fee, and Dr. Gitlin never paid hookup fees because the Board liked his cluster concept and wanted to help him out. Now, she said, he wanted to change it to individual lots, and therefore the Board wanted individual hookups. Dr. Gitlin said the Board had the prerogative. Director Horrick said the change in use would revert Dr. Gitlin back to what any other individual had to do and pay, with new hookup fees for both water and sewer.
Director Orth asked about the access road through the middle on the proposal and said that was a county road. Dr. Gitlin said DOT told him the County would assume ownership of that road and maintain it. Director Orth said we needed to pull up our policy on resubdivisions within Brooktrails. District Counsel Neary said this project would require a County General Plan amendment.
President Skezas asked if staff and Counsel could come back with a recommendation as to what the Board should do. General Manager Chapman said he would need two months to do the research and work with Counsel.
4. Discussion/direction - waiting list and water connection procedures for future ordinance. General Manager Chapman reviewed a proposed timeline of steps to be taken by applicants and the District and timelines for each step. Upon receiving an allocation from DHS, first would be a 30-day period within which the applicant would be notified of the available allocation and respond, confirming ownership and intention to proceed. Next would be a two-step phase to be accomplished in the following 90 days. The first step would be reapproval of plans by the District Architect to compare with then-current codes (30 days suggested for this). The second step would be to obtain the County building permit and pay connection fees. The last step would be construction, with 365 days allowed. Director Orth said he supported all of these suggestions.
President Skezas asked about whether new plans could be submitted, or whether only existing plans are reviewed. He agreed that variances might happen during the initial review process. District Counsel Neary said the architect does certify that the construction was pursuant to the plans. President Skezas said that is the final inspection.
General Manager Chapman then addressed specific points. He reviewed Director Ziady's comments from the last discussion about a moratorium market not being entirely a free market. He said he heard the Board basically say they did not want to delve into the profiteering issue, but he pointed out that the emergency ordinance currently in place did say there should be no transfer of property during the construction phase. Director Williams asked a question as to why we should care, once someone is in line, if they sold the property. Mr. Chapman reiterated the public complaints of the past -- about allocations having been sold after hardship exemptions had been granted by DHS (but apparently no hardship existed). Meanwhile, those with actual hardships could not build. He said some people had taken the money and run the next day after receiving their exemption. Director Williams asked if there were a claim of hardship for those on the waiting list and was told no.
President Skezas noted that there were two people on the waiting list where the property changed ownership and so they are now dropped from the list; Mr. Chapman clarified that that applicant was never actually the owner of the properties in question. Mr. Chapman said that in the past, we have accommodated for death or divorce. President Skezas said we're going back to the hardship cases, and he would still insist that if they're selling it, they're selling the whole thing including the plans; they can't come back in and change the plans. Director Horrick noted that if they're on the waiting list, there's no guarantee they have a hookup. Director Williams said that part of it is speculation, but said sometimes people just run out of patience, and if someone is willing to pay a premium for the chance of getting a hookup, he felt we run a slight risk if we do care about this. Director Ziady said if you look at it that way, where you're buying someone's place on the list, but you have to use his or her plans and you can't build the way you want, she said she could understand that. She said what had happened in the past, with the hardship exemptions, people had sold the vacant land and someone had bought it and submitted new plans. Director Orth said if that is the process, he agreed that we shouldn't care.
Mr. Chapman asked about applicants being the owners, and owners designating an agent. He said he had had a situation with an owner, an agent, and a contractor who was separate from the agent, and we were confused as to whom we were sending paperwork to. Director Ziady said the application should say we will only contact one person, and have the owner list who that would be. Discussion followed with consensus that an agent could be designated, in writing, as part of the application, and the owner must notify us in writing of any changes to this designation.
As to death and divorce, consensus appeared to be that that would be accommodated.
5. Request for additional funds - Contract with Hanson Engineering (rubber spillway). General Manager Chapman said we currently have a ceiling of $15,000.00 with the engineering firm, and are at $14,000; therefore, he asked to raise the ceiling to $25,000.00. Hanson Engineering has recommended a civil engineer for the CEQA process. They were talking with the Division of Dams daily on the pending report, and Division of Dams has said that a core test drilling needed to be done at the base of the dam, as well as on top of the dam. Previous cost approval for test drillings on top of the dam was $35,000.00, but the matter of adding a fourth would be returned to the Board in two weeks. Mr. Chapman outlined that we will try to start the CEQA process on June 1 and this will take at least 90 days. Then the preliminary engineering report will commence and cost about $50,000.00. All of this has to be completed by October 1, 2006, to match the federal government fiscal year. He said we would potentially spend $100,000.00 by October 1 to get this done.
Director Orth moved to authorize the General Manager to increase the rubber spillway spending ceiling to $25,000.00; Director Horrick seconded. Mr. Chapman said that Division of Dams would charge $20,000.00 just to review the drawings, and David Zweig, the CEQA engineer, should run at least $25,000.00. He said he couldn't spend any money until the core test results were back. Director Ziady asked whether the CEQA was only for the rubber spillway. Mr. Chapman said yes, but we were killing two birds with one stone and will ask questions now that will apply as well to raising the dam. He said he and District Counsel needed to address the issue of lakeside properties that could be affected by the 3' increase; we will have to notify every lot owner in the area with an interest when the CEQA process starts. The motion carried unanimously.
J. ADDITIONS TO FUTURE AGENDAS
Director Orth asked that bird flu be discussed as to what District plans would be in the event it spread to humans, and to have a County health officer speak at the meeting.
K. SPECIAL REPORTS
Directors: Director Orth noted receipt of a letter from the Specific Plan Committee asking that the herbicide issue be sent to the Recreation Committee instead. However, Director Orth noted, this appears to be a matter where we do not have regulatory authority and so we do not need to concern ourselves with the issue. Director Ziady announced the abatement class to be given Saturday, March 25th. She said she would like to see this included in the calendar of events that the paper has too. Claudia Reed of the Willits News asked what the April date was and was told April 22, 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. President Skezas announced the Finance Committee meeting Monday, March 27, at 6:00 p.m. Director Orth said the Willits News had reported that he attended the March 8 Willits City Council meeting, but he clarified that he had attended to speak personally on a zoning matter and was not there representing the District; it just happened that General Manager Chapman was there giving a report to the Council.
District Counsel: None.
General Manager Chapman: Mr. Chapman said they were currently sandblasting the interior of the tanks at the water plant. Also, the Division of Dams has approved our request to place our flashboards March 15th, and this will be done at the first break in the weather. The storm damage claim to FEMA was still in process. A week ago we had a dam inspector show up and during the inspection found the steelheard had arrived, trying to breach the dam.
L. PUBLIC COMMENTS
None.
M. ADJOURNMENT
Director Horrick moved to adjourn and President Skezas declared the meeting of March 14, 2006 closed at 10:04 p.m.
GEORGE C. SKEZAS
President
MICHAEL V. CHAPMAN
Secretary to the Board of Directors
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