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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 2013-04-17MINUTES o � SPECIAL MEETING H y J O c9LIF0A��� CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO P.O. Box 711 (City Hall, 400 Grand Avenue) South San Francisco, California 94083 CITY HALL CONFERENCE ROOM 400 GRAND AVENUE None. None. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013 6:30 P.M. 1. Call to Order. Time: 6:30 p.m. 2. Roll Call. Present: Councilmembers Addiego, Garbarino, Gupta, Mayor Pro Tern Matsumoto and Mayor Gonzalez. 3. Agenda Review. 4. Public Comments — comments are limited to items on the Special Meeting Agenda. 5. Items from Council: Study Session on Business Strategy Plan. City Manager Nagel advised this item was requested by Councilmember Gupta for the purpose of engaging in dialogue with fellow Councilmembers pertinent to strategies for economic development. Councilman Gupta advised he had a very informative session with City Manager Nagel and Assistant City Manager Van Duyn about the issue, during which he received input regarding planning activity. When he initially raised this issue, he was concerned about keeping up with the changing environment. He observed many factors are important in attracting new businesses and promoting economic development in the City, including infrastructure, quantity and quality of employees, housing, availability and quality of schools. He stated the City's long term land use plans are usually updated once a decade or so, which he thought was too long to stay current with the rapidly changing business conditions in today's world. First, he asked whether the City was competing effectively in emerging markets such as Silicon Valley media companies and high tech startups. Second, he queried how the City's fee structure compares with that offered by competing cities. Third, he questioned whether current planning and development operations and resources were targeted to address the specific needs of a post -RDA era. Next, he questioned whether long -term land use plans should be reviewed for compatibility with post -RDA resources. He then inquired as to whether the City was suitably interfaced with favorable businesses and retailers. Finally, he asked which infrastructure projects among those planned in the City's CIP are critical for economic growth and whether they should renew or revisit the ranking of projects. Councilman Gupta concluded that he believed research was needed to fully answer these questions. Assistant City Manager Van Duyn responded that there is always room for improvement to the economic development process. From the standpoint of where the City should go moving forward, he advised fee comparison studies would be useful. He cautioned that South San Francisco could not easily be compared to other cities in the county since the City controls 35% of industrial land in the county. In addition, the fee structure was based upon environmental studies targeting certain improvements. He acknowledged that doing this kind of work and research could uncover some interesting points and he was not suggesting that these would not be valuable to know, but questioned whether it was an efficient use of staff time over the next year or so. Nevertheless, he believed the information would be very useful when revising the General Plan. Mayor Pro Tern Matsumoto noted the CIP is reviewed and revised every year. Regarding the business plan concepts raised by Councilman Gupta, she shared her concern that the City has become complacent. She questioned whether the City had fees similar to those being approved in other local cities. She noted that San Mateo City's growth has been phenomenal and would like to see a side by side comparison of their TDM with South San Francisco's. She was pleased with the influx of cloud industries but wondered where the City plans to go from here. Councilman Addiego stated his belief that City officials and staff have done their homework and kept the City competitive in challenging economic times. He believed that rather than resting on laurels, the Council and staff through City policies had encouraged development in the City. He noted that the Jack Myers project was not the result of a City based strategy, but rather, a permitted development for a high end tenant that ultimately was SAP. He opined that a plausible strategy could be to replicate such successes through the permitting process. Mayor Pro Tern Matsumoto noted she would like to know more about the strategy applied in Redwood City, since developers were waiting in line to bring projects to that city. She wanted to know what they were doing that South San Francisco was not. She noted that at one point South San Francisco's hopes were on the development of the El Camino /Chestnut/PUC properties, which were now subject to the control of the Oversight Board. Elected Officials and staff would have to think outside the box to continue plans for growth in the City despite the demise of RDA. She believed the City retained great potential and capacity to grow. She further noted that since day one, she had placed an emphasis on bringing quality restaurants to town with minimal success. Councilman Addiego stated that the biotech industry chose this core location in order to be able to network. The same could be said of social media companies that choose the Redwood City - Palo Alto- Mountain View Area. SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING APRIL 17, 2013 MINUTES PAGE 2 Assistant City Manager Van Duyn stated that staff could look into Redwood City's development strategies while being mindful of the differences between the respective cities. Mayor Gonzalez recalled that when the economy was distressed the City necessarily slowed its plans for growth. He observed this was not due to lack of effort by staff. However, now that the economy was picking up, he believed there was more opportunity for development in the City. Councilman Gupta clarified that his purpose in raising this discussion was to consider options for the future. He advised he would be the first to acknowledge that this Council has done wonderful things during tough times and the City is in an enviable position compared to other cities in terms of the core of the Biotech Industry and activity East of 101. However, given the demise of RDA, he believed it was imperative to avoid complacency and continue discussion regarding the long term plan for the City in light of recent economic developments. Councilman Addiego stated that he is very proud of this town, which is a first class city in the North County. He believes staff has done a great job to assist elected officials in this regard. He acknowledged that the City lags on the housing side since housing continues to recover while home values in South County are moving ahead. Nevertheless he believed the City to be resilient and recalled a time when it was envisioned that the City would be home to Japanese companies. Though this did not pan out, the City became a beacon for Biotech. He believed it would continue to evolve and succeed as an attractive place for businesses to locate in the San Francisco Bay area. Mayor Pro Tem Matsumoto concluded that her frustration rested with the fact that South San Francisco is lacking the amenities such as upscale restaurants and life style conveniences that are necessary to attract companies. She noted that although the hotel industry is recovering, high end hotels are not choosing to locate in South San Francisco. She believed it would be a valuable learning experience to study why the City is being overlooked in this regard. 6. Study Session: Progress Review of Recycled Water Project and projected response to the San Mateo County Grand Jury question as to the production and use within the City. Public Works Director White presented the staff report related to a review of progress on the Recycled Water Project and projected response to the San Mateo County Grand Jury related to the production and use of recycled water in South San Francisco. Director White presented the original plan for project, which was viable to a certain extent some time ago. He noted, however, that as the years had gone by, some of the players have looked at other options. Thus, the scaled down plan is more focused on the California Golf Course and the Golden Gate National Cemetery in addition to the City's own linear park and schools. The original plan would have cost near $45 million, whereas the scaled down plan would cost $20 -25 million. Director White then reviewed the chronology of the project. In 2004, Daly City had finished construction of their recycled water project, which feeds a series of golf courses and ball fields in Daly City and invited the City to take a look at it. The City then held discussions with Carollo Engineers and asked the group to propose a plan for it. In 2005, the Carollo proposal was presented. The feasibility plan, which was paid for by the State, was completed by 2007. After SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING APRIL 17, 2013 PAGE 3 MINUTES the feasibility plan had been completed, the filterability study was underway. In 2010, Council had a joint meeting with the San Bruno Council to talk about the CIP plans for the plant overall and included a discussion of recycled water. The suitability study was then undertaken to look at all possibilities with respect to recycled water. As part of this study, samples of the turf from the Golden Gate Cemetery, Orange Park and plants along Centennial Way were drawn. These samples were tested against water from the South San Francisco WQCP and the Millbrae - Burlingame line to try to determine which water would be best suited to the turf needs. This study lead to the conclusion that the Millbrae - Burlingame water was better suited for these plants. A plan was proposed to connect to the line that comes from Millbrae- Burlingame. However, the plan failed due to the fact that the line was about a mile further south than originally believed. The additional distance was cost prohibitive after a $22 million grant application was denied. At that point, staff approached the SFPUC and requested an estimate of how much it was willing to spend on the project. This past January, the SFPUC responded that it was shelving the project for now. In the meantime, the State Water Board showed a willingness to lend money for the project; however, Director White believed the City should not be fully funding a project without firm commitments from partners and buyers. While there were no firm potential customers to report, Golden Gate Cemetery had submitted a letter of interest to the WQCP. In order to make the plan doable, however, firm commitments would be needed from strong potential customers. In response to Mayor Gonzalez's inquiry on what differentiates recycled water suitability, Director White answered that it was primarily ammonia content and salinity. South San Francisco has a higher number of industrial users which affects these factors. Some plants could tolerate this water, but turf would need some modification to make up for the salinity and ammonia deposits. Mayor Pro Tern Matsumoto inquired as to the possibility of starting out with recycled water for City use only. Director White responded that the original plan included a storage tank located at Orange Park for this purpose; however funding options were no longer clear for this option. Mayor Pro Tern Matsumoto suggested there might be public support for a partially resident supported funding mechanism. Director White agreed that there has never been a better time for public acceptance of a sustainable project such as this. Indeed, the public interest level was precisely indicated by the Grand Jury's focus on this issue and the public education component of it. Councilman Addiego observed the project would be better supported as a regional effort. He opined it would not be fair for the City to shoulder the burden alone, since the benefit is to the entire surrounding area. He noted that every gallon that is not taken out of the Hetch Hetchy is one that can be used by households, businesses or other cities. In response to Mayor Pro Tem Matsumoto's inquiry on the feasibility of using the recycled water agriculturally, Director White responded that it was possible but there were limitations set by Title 22. SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING APRIL 17, 2013 PAGE 4 MINUTES Assistant Public Works Director and City Engineer McMinn added that the Monterey Regional Plant has a program by which it provides recycled water to growers that have been using it for agricultural purposes due to problems with salt intrusion. Director White next directed Council to the Grand Jury Report, including the 6 findings and recommendations. He advised that the first 3 findings noted a growing imbalance in the county and a need to reduce dependence on water. Recycling alone cannot mitigate the growing imbalance. He recommended a response agreeing with these findings in general concept, but noting that a study would be required for definitive agreement with the application of the concepts to the specific circumstance. The remaining findings observed little or no health risk associated with the use of recycled water. Director White recommended clean agreement with these findings. In terms of the Grand Jury's recommendations, he advised that in almost all cases, the City has already been meeting the outlined objectives and in many instances, gone beyond. He stated he would recommend following the recommendation of engaging in a more aggressive educational approach. In response to questions about how much had been spent on the recycled water project to date, Director White advised that $454,000 had been spent on the project over 7 years, with $160,000 of that total funded by the City. The remainder of the funding had come from grants or the PUC. Councilman Gupta commented that like most issues of sustainability, the project would be critical to the future. He asked Director White if it would be worthwhile to keep the project on hold. Director White responded that he was sure that someday this would become mandated. If Council chose to take the aggressive but risky approach of moving to the design phase, the City would be poised to grasp public funds to support such projects upon availability. Council advised it agreed with the proposed response to the Grand Jury and looked forward to future discussions on the issue of recycled water. 7. Adjournment. Being no further business, Mayor Gonzalez adjourned the meeting at 8:01 pm. Submitted: Krista Narlmely City Cle , ' y of South an Francisco SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Approved: edr alez Mayor, City of South San Francisco APRIL 17, 2013 PAGE 5