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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1981-12-07 City Council Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL MINUT€S Regular Meeting Monday,_: December 7, CITY OF PALO ALTO ITEM PAGE Oral Communications 1 4 7 8 Approval of Minutes 1 4 7 8 Minutes of September 14 1981 1 4 7 8 1 4 7 8 Minutes of October 5, 1981 1 47 Consent Calendar 1 4 7 9 Referral 1.4 7 9 Action 1 4 7 9 1 4 7 9 Minutes of September 21, 1981,. Final Subdivision Map - El Camino Real/James Way (CMR :548 : 1 ) Carpet Replacement - Award of Contract (CMR:531:1) Specific Plan Enabling Ordinance Ordinance re Signs at,Ecco Ristorante, (2nd Reading) ' Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Just Cause Eviction Ordinance (Continued from 10/19/81) Resolution Authorizing Staff to Amend Subdivision Agreement Allowing Substitution of Off -Site Below -Market -Rate Unit (CMR:539 1) Planning Commission Reviewed the CalTrans Proposal for Ramp Metering on Highway 101 (CMR:541:1) PUBLIC HEARING: :.Vacation of Easement for. Public Street' Purposes, Na e,ly a Portion of ._,public Avenue between" Park and SP .Railroad Tracks Final Subdivision -Map re California Avenue/Park Boulevard, (C14R":5!49.1 Ordinance to :Repeal Chapters 2.10 and 2.11 - Conflict of Interest 1 4 7 9 1 4 7 9 1 4 7 9 1 4 7 9 .1 4 8 0 1.4.9 7 1 4 9 ..8Th _ 1 4`9:9 5 0. 2 1 ,5.0 2. X7/8. ITEM Gamble House - Interim Lease American Society of Interior Designers (CMR:542:1) Request of Mayor Henderson re Interviews of Planning Commission and Human Relations Commission Candidates Adjournment PAGE 1 5 0 3 1 5 0 8 1 5 0 8 Regular Meeting Monday, December 7, 1981 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, at 7:40 p.m. ti PRESENT:. Bechtel, Fletcher, Henderson, Renzel, Levy, Witherspoon, Klein, Eyer'.y, Fazzino ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 14 R. J. Debs, 3145 Flowers Lane re a) Policy and Procedure Committee referral re Architectural. Review Board/Planning Commission; b) request re California Avenue area .to be referred to Planning Commission; c) request re "watchdog" view of traffic controls. MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 14, 1981 Councilmember Renzel had a correction as follows: Page 1243, insert the following two paragraphs prior to the last paragraph on the page: "Councilmember Renzel inquired about the effect of naming de- tailed projects which were not yet built. Mr. Schreiber said that although the State wants the plan to be very specific, identifying future projects does not commit the City to approving any particular future developments for a site. The City always retains the discretion to approve, modify ordeny projects based on the specific features of an application." Councilmember Witherspoon submitted the following correction: Page •1245L_Fourth Paragraph - Delete "such as..." and add, "such as the one allowing increased density for providing BMR units or for providing housing above commercial property." MOTION Vice Mayor Fletcher moved, seconded by Klein, approval of the minutes of September 14, 1981 as corrected. MOTION PASSED unanimously. MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 21 1981 Councilmember Renzel had a correction as follows: Page i290, Second to last aragra,h third line, insert after the words "there overnight" the . following: "She saw nothing new in Mr. Zaner's report that had not been thoroughly.;discussed in Com- mittee and she was concerned that the Council had had to..." MOTION: Vice Mayor Fletcher moved, seconded by Fazzino, approval ofthe minutes of September 21, 1981 as corrected. MOTION PASSED unanimously. OCTOBER 5. 1981 Councilmember Renzel had , the following cOrrect i on Page 1307, bi nni nq with the fourth line, reword the next four Tines to :read: '`,. the Council heard from' the Fire Department :that sideyard ''setbacks were an important : factor in: protection f from fire and adoption of the daylight plane would by widening that space lessen the "chimney effect" if there w.°kre a fire in the neighborhooe." Councilmember Witherspoon submitted a correction as follows: Page 1307, third paragraph, second sentence - Delete "and they were faced" and add "of course, which meant they started out." MOTION: Councilmember Fazzino moved, seconded by Levy, approval of the minutes of October 5, 19131 as corrected. MOTION PASSED unanimously. CONSENT CALENDAR Councilmember Eyerly removed Item 0:3, Resolution authorizing Staff to Amend Subdivision Agreement Allowing Substitution of Off -site Below -Market -Rate Unit, and Councilmember Renzel removed Item 04, Ordinance to Repeal Chapters 2.10 and 2.11 - Conflict of Interest. MOTION: Councilmember Witherspoon moved, seconded by Fazzino, approval of the Consent Calendar as amended: Referral None Action FINAL SUBDIVISION MAP EL CAMINO REAL/JAMES WAY (CMR:548:1) Staff recommends that the City Council approve the final map. CARPET REPLACEMENT -- AWARD OF CONTRACT (CMR:531:1) . Staff recommends that Council award the contract to Interior and Textiles, Inc. and authorize the Mayor to execute the contract. AGREEMENT - CARPET REPS: ACEtMENT Interior & Textiles Cdrpor'ation SPECIFIC PLAN ENABLING ORDINANCE ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO ADDING CHAPTER 19.06 TO THE PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL CODE ESTABLISHING A PROCEDURE FOR THE CITY TO ADOPT SPECIFIC PLANS" ORDINANCE RE SIGNS AT ECCO RISTORANTE (2nd Reading)' ORDINANCE 3319 entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING PC ORDINANCE. NO. 2006 TO INCLUDE A SYSTEM OF ILLUMINATED PARKING" DIRECTIONAL SIGNS FOR. THE ECCO RISTORANTE AT THE HYATT PALO ALTO, 4290 EL CAMINO REAL" (1st Reading 11/16/81, Passed 8-0, Fazzino absent);' MOTION PASSED unanimously. AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS: City Manager, Bill Zaner advised that Item . 3, Resolution Autho- rizing Staff, to Amend Subdivision Agreement* would become Item 10-A;;, and Item 4, Ordinance to Repeal `C,haoters 2.10 and 2.11, would, become Item ,.10-B. 1 1 MOTION: .Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by Fazzino, to bring Item 9, Planning Commission- recommendation re 77 acre Arastra site, forward for continuance. MOTION PASSED unanimously. MOTION: Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by Witherspoon, to continue Item 9, Planning Commission recommendation re 77 -"acre Arastra site, until January 18; 1982. MOTION PASSED unanimously. JUST CAUSE EVICT ON ORDINANCE iI:o tiinnued from 1O/19%81}� • Assistant City Attorney Marlene Prendergast,s said that currently there was no just cause eviction part of the ordinance. If the Council_ were to adopt a just cause eviction, a landlord: could evict only for one of. the main causes. is -e procedure Would be basically as outlined presently in State law. She said that the - Cal ifornia Supreme Court had basically stated that that procedure was pre-empted, which was why the. City Attorney's Office had riot spoken to procedure in the ordinance. If eviction were to occur, it would occur under Code of Civil Procedure for Unlawful Detainer or the notice provisions under State law. Mayor Henderson clarified that if a landlord wished to evict a tenant and it was one of the items listed under just causes then from that point, on the procedure would be the same as it was now under State law. Ms. Prendergast said that was correct. Mayor Henderson asked if the Attorney's. Office felt that the ordi- nance covered all of the just causes, cr did it leave a vacuum in that some causes were covered and some were not. He asked if there was any possibility that it_ .would .be better merely to list causes which were not valid for eviction.'' He was.. not sure if that would work, but he could see that some causes were covered, and then saw some circumstances that did not seem to fit. Ms. Prendergast said he was correct. She said the City Attorney's Office tried to predict the various situations that would be just cause, and when the ordinance was before. the Council and the Human Relations Commission (HRC) they received a lot of phone ,calls from landlords and_ tenants suggesting other situations and it went on and on. She was not sure that they had covered every situation that should be a just cause. The City Attorney's Office had re- ceived a lot_ of input and considered it, and there probably were other situations that would. arise. Mayor Henderson said that regarding the lease situation, he clari- fied that after one year, the . landlord and tenant must reach a new ,agreement as :to whether there would, be a further relationship. With this ordinance, he was not sure whether that would still happen after one year or not. He said that under Section 9.68.030, under. Renewal of Lease, it stated, "upon expiration of the initial written ease which -as :a, i inim um term of one year, a lease must be offered again in accordance with the procedures of Section 9.68.030." He said that according to -the procedure 11, Offer, `" if a pro9pecti ve tenant wishes to'' rent tt!" unit from land- -lord and if'' said landlord wishes to rent th prospective tenant, then they °must offer a one year lease." --He asked if that meant that the«.:renewal time was not din'4automat1c. "requirement to offer a lease,- that they then, go hack th step ti, and i f the - landlord dew c'i ded he did not Kant ."to keep:the _ tenant, the landlord- Would,_ not have to 'offer the ,renewal > Ms. Prendergast responded that it was meant only to require that the landlord offer the lease, and at the tenant's option, the ten- ant may or may not accept the renewed lease. Mayor Henderson stated that #1 , Offer, did not say that. It did not say you had to offer a year's lease, it said if the two parties agreed. He said .he had been concerned= about it being in effect a. lifetime guarantee lease situation, and as he read it, he was not sure. Ms, Prendergast said it was intended to be a situation where at the tenant's option, the tenant could stay. The intent was that each year, the landlord offered a lease.. City Attorney Diane Lee, said that while she thought the section might require some clarification, she thought they were clear that the intent was that there would be an annual offer, which could be accepted at the option of the tenant after the original lease period. If it was the desire of the Council that it be changed, • then that could be done. Mayor Henderson asked about uses of the. property, under Section 9.68.040(e). _ One just cause mentioned was that if the tenant was. using the premises for an illegal purpose, and he asked about the definition of "illegal." Ms. Prendergast responded that it was "illegal" in terms of "against the law." Mayor Henderson clarified that if the landlord had a certain regu- lation or use of that room that they did not want, then eviction could not occur under those circumstances. Ms. Prendergast corrected Section 9,68.040(b), on page 4 to read, "the tenant has violated a lawful covenant of tenancy or reason- able roles and regulations generally applicable to all tenan- cies..." then add after 'tenancies,' "within the premises," Councilmember e Levy asked if Retaliatory Evictions in Section 9.68-.040, paragraph 2, on page 5, prevented a landlord who other- wise had a just cause for eviction from evicting. Ms. Prendergast:said said that the intent of the section was _so that .if the tenant could prove that th ,e:iction was brought in retalia- tion for the tenant exercising some right under the ordinance, the ordinance would provide additional rights to the tenant. - -. Councilmember Levy said that even if it were brought in -'retalia- tion; if it was brought for a cause enumerated in that section, the eviction could still becarried through, and he asked if that was correct, Ms. Prendergast said yes. Councilmember Levy asked if. the ordinance would be, just as strong if that section were deleted. Ms. . Prendergast said that in terms of just cause, yes, it would. ounci lmem+ber:. Klein said he was ._ concerned' about how Section 9,68.050(2),, Tenant's Remedies, would work in actual practice.. He asked why third s np e a defense;.in increasing the rent, and asked what the attorney had . in mind. Ms. Lee said she supposed that prior to the time when the lease expired and it, would be _eppropri ate to raise rents, the landlord thought to bring an action based on the non'payment,= 1 1 Ms. Prendergast said that regarding the last line, "...legal action•brought by the landlord to collect rent," there had been a recent case in Berkeley where the trial court held that this would not be a defense to an action to collect rent, and they decided that at the very most it should provide that any increase in rent provided a defense to the tenant. She thought Councilmember Klein's point was well taken and would not be adverse to eliminating that paragraph because in number (1), she thought the tenant was given a proper right in an action to recover posses- sion. Councilmember Witherspoon said that the last sentence in the third paragraph on page two of the report from the City Attorney read, 'And, the interest in real property provided -le the lease vests i- immediately so no contingent future interest is created," and she asked what that meant. Ms. Prendergast responded that it was a reference to the problems they encountered. There was a rule against perpetuities, and basically the rule provided that any interest in real property must vest not later than 21 years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. She said the problem was that if a landlord were required to offer a new lease every year forever, there would be a problem with the rule against perpetuities. Therefore, the City Attorney's Office concluded that if it ran only to the tenant personally and not to a sublessee or a succes- sor in interest, then the problem would be solved because the right would vest immediately in only the tenant and would not run with the land. Councilmember Witherspoon asked if that meant that on the other side of the lease, that future owners of the building would be bound. Ms. Prendergast said that the person who bought the building would be subject to the leases that exist, and if the renewable provi- sion remained in the ordinance, the landlord would need to make the offer each year. Councilmember Witherspoon asked if the ordinance was, substantially different from existing State law? Ms. Prendergast said there was a proposed State law that was very similar and listed just causes; however, it had not yet passed and it was questionable whether it would make it out of committee. Ms. Lee said there were provisions of State law that provided for certain circumstances specifically where tenancy could be recov- ered. State law did provide that at the expiration of the tenan- cy, possession could be recovered. Under the ordinance, you would not be able to do that unless the tenant chose not to renew the relationship.. Councilmember Renee] asked what the retaliation clause of the ordinance:- did. She thought that tenants, for'. the ' most part, were. at a disadvantage financially vis-a-vis the landlords, and:. to the extent that their ability to deal with the courts . was facilitated in cases ,where there was no fault, she said : that it..; was reason- able. If the retaliation clause did not do., that, : then it did not make sense to have it in the ordinance,: Ms. Lee said she did not think the City could alter, proof in, a_court of law by anordinance. Counci #aieiber Renzel . said she understood the r`eta1 iati on clauseto mean that if a landlord=, began, to withhold services, that would be. called retal iatOry. eviction without the tenant actually going through an unlawful detainer action, and she thoughtthat provided l 4:"R 2- 12/7/81 a cause of action for the tenant to get the services they had con- tracted for in the lease. Ms. Prendergast: responded that -she thought the Ordinance would operate sas a --defense if the landlord brought an eviction action and. the tenant couldI prove that' the predominant motive of the landlord was in retaliation. Counci lmember Renzel clarified that it would not act as a cause .of action to say that a landlord had stopped providing services. Ms. Prendergast said no. Vice Mayor Fletcher said that under the State's limitations to eviction, she thought there was -a time limit. She was under the impression that if -a landlord evicted and the tenant protested, then after 90 days his rights would run out and the landlord could evict in any case. Mayor Henderson hypothesized that if he were the landlord and had an unpleasant tenant, who paid the bills- on time, did not, make any noise, but created a very negative atmosphere within the complex such as using rough language-- or being slovenly dressed or mean in conversation toward others, which caused an atmosphere within the building that discouraged other prospective tenants from renting - in the property, was there anything under the ordinance that would. give hip: the right to evict that tenant. Ms. Prendergast, said probably not unless it rose to the. level of being a nuisance under the law, or unless the tenant substantially disturbed -the peace and quiet of the other tenants. Mayor Henderson said supposedly one of his tenants was a drug dealer, and he was certain of that because of the people he saw coming and going, but he did not have the resources to bug the apartment or to get in and get proof, would he have any basis for eviction? Ms. Prendergast said that unless the action violated one of the reasonable rules, and regulations of tenants in the building, or eviction was done under the illegal purpose section which the landlord would be required to prove, she did not see that eviction could occur. The landlord should probably report the activities to the proper authorities for investigation. A. S. Mays, Hawthorne Avenue, Palo Alto, said he rented an apar:t- ment, aed was also a .landlord. He had lived in -Palo _ Alto for.. over 50 year -s, and was not a big-time operator as far as apartments. He thought he had a good relationship with his tenants, and tried to act in their best interest. He read a couple of letters from' past tenants of his which were quite complimentary., He said he tried to keep his relationship with his tenants on the up and up. He was concerned that the City of Palo Alto was coming in with un- necessary regulations concerning housing Management, which he. thought was counterproductive to development or maintenance of the level ., of housing available in Palo Alto'. He said that ."they ° were not building regulations, they were regulations ;that told the manager/owner what he had to do, and : how he had to run ' his place. If he had an objectionable tenant, he wanted to. maintain the prerogative of eviction. He thought the rent control ordinance was impairing management. He tried:°'to keep his rents low, and was selective with his'Aenantsr Keith Suddjian 3284 Greer Road, said he represented the Palo Alto Board _ of Real tors,. and was- the, Leg isl ativee 'Chairman: of the Board r, and was. also a member of the City. of Pale Alt() Rental Housing Mediation Task " Force, but was het speaking , en behalf of the Ta k. Force. He addressed the.ordinance in three areas, --1) the need 1 1 I the legislation; 2) the educational and enforcement procedures of the proposed ordinance; and 3) the effects of the proposed ordi- nance on rental stock. First, regarding the need for such legis- lation, he had attended the Council meetings and Human Relations Committee (HRC) meetings where the proposed ordinance had been discussed, he heard testimony from both. sides, and wanted to know. if the City had taken the testimonies, and itemized them into those that ;;are applicable to unjust eviction, and from there fol- lowed up on those to determine more about the facts of each case to quantify the number of truly unjust evictions. He did not think a study had been done because from his experience with the Task Force about 1% of Palo Alto's rental stock tenants had called in and complained of an unjust eviction over a year's period of time. From that 1%, to his knowledge, there was no data of how many of the calls, after checking the facts as presented by both parties, actually were unjust evictions as well as how many were resolved through the Rental Housing Mediation Task Force (RHMTF). He thought the procedure for doing it was- feasible, and volun- teered his time to help do it. He made suggestions of how to find out if there was a need for such an ordinance. Regarding the edu- cational enforcement procedures of the proposed ordinance, he thought that many of the: parties affected by the ordinance were unaware of it, or had incomplete knowledge of the terms of it. He based his concerns on his' daily contact with tenants and landlords in the City and in noticing their lack of understanding by many of the market participants. He thought that without a proper under- standing of the ordinance by the marketplace, the likelihood of achieving the goals of the ordinance were diminished. Mr. Suddjian cited Section 9.68. 050(2), and said he understood that paragraph to mean that should a landlord who did not offer the tenant a one-year lease under the terms ofthe ordinance, even if they were unaware of its existence, and wished to raise the rents on the property, the tenant could use, as their defense in any legal action brought by the landlord to collect an increase in rent, the fact that the landlord did not abide by the ordinance. This meant that the landlord was not educated as to the ordinance, and he or she might find themselves in court ` upon a rent increase which was both bad for the landlord -tenant relations as well as potentially costly to the parties involved. He saw education of. the existing one-year lease, as well as the proposed ,ordinance, as a problem-. With regard to enforcement of the proposed ordinance, he understood . that the City, because of budgetary concerns, among others, was unable to enforce the proposed ordinance. Thus, the ultimate enforcement: responsibilities were with the court, which was also unproductive for tenant -landlord relations as well as costly for the parties involved. Regarding the effect of the ordinance on the rental stock, he assured the. Council that most of the common questions among prospective tenants were did the City have a rent control ordinance, and what types of laws exist in Palo Alto which affected the rental property. His professional opinion was that the existence of such an ordinance was a strong deterrent for those interested in investing capital in the Palo Alto market in the form of purchase and upkeep of existing rental stock as well as a deterrent_ :to those considering construction of such property. He said that not oily: was the proposed ordinance a deterrent, but the concern of what the ordinance was a; trend of was a deterrent. The effects upon current owners of rental prop- erty were 1) there Would be potential cost increases involved to both: tenants and landlords, 2)'there-.would be an;.outflow of capi- tal used to maintain, develop and improve investment property i_n Palo Alto, and 3) there would be a potential loss of rental -stock in the City because of the. _change in :uses of single-family homes, and lower ..,unit number complexes to ,owner -occupied from ,tenant- occupied : because of the effect of the, ordinance and: its potential :future _ application to single-family homes. He mentioned a; side, effect of the ape -year, lease ,ordinance which had now been in fect foe ,some time, which was to increase -in rent to some tenants 1 1 who would not have experienced the increase without the ordinance. He asked the Council to remember that a goal in the Comprehensive Plan was to "Maintain and increase, if possible, the number of rental units in Palo Alto." He felt that the proposed ordinance would lead to a decline in the number of rental units as well as prodding a disincentive toward increasing the rental stock. Steve Harris, 1130 Waverley, supported the just cause eviction ordinance because he had been evicted on what appeared to be arbi- trary reasons and could attest to the hardship and the burden of being thrown out of one's own home. .He did not need any scientif- ic quantified studies to tell him what was just and humane and what was unjust. He thought that considering the fact that the vacancy rate hovered_ on 1% in Palo Alto, it was clear that land- lords were in an overwhelming position of power vis-a-vis tenants. He thought _that the Council needed to take action to try and ef- fect more balance in the relationship between landlords and ten- ants. He urged that the Council support the just cause eviction ordinance. Eva Maiden, 958 Lawrence Lane, said that Mid --Peninsula. Citizens for Fair Housing (MCFH) urged the Council to pass the proposed just cause eviction section of the rent stabilization ordinance. She: said that failure to adopt that critical section would seri- ously weaken the impacts of rent stabilization. She called the Council's attention to the statement of purpose which read in part, "Council finds that tenants are entitled to a contractual relationship with a landlord that offers some assurance. of .stabil- ity both as to terms of a lease and the amount of rent so as to minimize the incidents of arbitrary eviction." She thought that. section stated that the Council had recognized the need to miti- gate the problem of unjust evictions. She said that not only -would the just cause section help'stablize the rental market, but would also help to establish a good tenant landlord relationship by spelling out the rights and responsibilities of both parties. MCFH received many complaints which indicated that racial discrim- ination was a probable motive for eviction. Even if that happened 1% 'of the time or less, it was a significant social problem in Palo Alto, and .just cause eviction would help in the f=ight against discrimination. •MCFH strongly urged the adoption of the, just cause eviction section. Vice Mayor Fletcher asked how one was prevented from using .the existing legislation which outlawed discrimination in housing. She asked if that law was inadequate to cover discrimination cases? Ms. Maiden said it was: possible - to use -other excuses if the land- lord was required to show cause. Clayton Rost, 568 Channing, said he was a tenant in Palo Alto and was in . the process: of buying a fourpiex in Palo Alto. He was in. opposition of the ordinance because he did not think the ordinance would carry out the policy that it set out to achieve. It did not increase the rental liousi ng stock in Palo Alto, but rather : created a preferred class of people in Palo Alto, i.e., those who had found a place to live. He thought it basically gave those people a lifetime ; lease on- that property and that the people who sought housing had some rights. Regarding the -effect ,.of the ordinance upon the administration of : the law and the : landlord -tenant rela- tionship, as a property 'owner, he was delighted to have a tenant who paid their rent, cooperated with other tenants and kept the property up Or notified him when; something was in disrepair. He was not ''about to ; throw, out a person like that, those were not the . kinds of tenants who -created problems. 1e challenged the necessity of this kind ,of ordinance for the tenant who followed good practices as `:tenarrtS. He " poirtea : out a number of circum- stances created by an `Undesirable tenant, and said the landlord,: 1 would have a terrible time trying to deal with the tenant under the proposed ordinance. He had experience in dealing with situa- tions where there was Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) financing, and there was a code of regulations to be fol- lowed in order to get a tenant out. When a tenant's child was creating a disturbance or picking on other children, that had to be shown at a hearing. He thought the ordinance created a pro- cedural monstrosity in order to get a tenant out of the particular occupancy. It also had to be shown that a tenant had violated and failed to abide by reasonable rules and regulations. He thought that the Retaliatory Eviction Section'was not needed because it was covered by State law. He said that the tenant had an advan- tage under that section because if the: tenant was given notice.. to get out: because the TV was being turned on after 10:30 p.m. and was disturbing the other tenants, the tenant could -move out and under the Damages Section, he could bring a civil action for his damages, ask for a. penalty, and say that the landlord conducted a retaliatory eviction and he wanted $500 in addition. He agreed with Mr. Mays that the person who would end up paying for the ordinance was the tenant because the rents would have to be increased in order tocover the unanticipated problems. Andrew aressoud, 480 N. 1st Street, San Jose, President of the Tri-County Apartment Association, said the Association , had ex- pressed its opinion to the City on several occasions, because they thought the proposed ordinance was pre-empted. by State law. He noted that in the City Attorney's letter to the Board on December 3, reference was made to the fact that governmental agencies were excluded because it was questionable that a City could purport to regulate tenancies where the state or federal governments had ex- pressed a contrary intent. Regarding renewable leases in perpetu- ity, the Association held that position that if there was no right to terminate a lease, a perpetuity was created. He said he would be interested in hearing the statistical data which prompted the proposed ordinance.. Section 9.68.050 did create rent control, and by virtue of raising as an affirmative defense the right of the resident to claim that an increase in rent was a circumvention of the ordinance, was not the intent of the ordinance in his opinion. He said the just cause eviction had been brought up before in both the State Legislature and the Assembly on a number of occasions, and in all instances h-ed been defeated in'both the Committee and on the floor. He thought the Council should acknowledge the fact that it had been discussed at the State level. He pointed out that there were a number of difficulties which arose in putting out the bad tenant with such an ordinance, and that such an -ordi- nance would also create a burden `.on.the court, Bill Cane, 636 Webster Street, re-emphasized the need for an, ordi- nance which established some semblance of contractual equality as e guide for eviction proceedings. He said that of the 754 calls received by_, the Palo Alto Information and Referral Service ; (PAIRS) from July to October, 1931, 107 calls or 14% concerned eviction. He said that 40..of the 107 calls concerned about evictions were ✓ iewed as unjust, by . the tenants involved. Since PAIRS received only a small percentage of the calls= from affected tenants, it was clear that eviction proceedings were a considerable problem. Secondly, he thought the ordinance needed to cover single-family houses which were excluded by the existing lease law. He stated that`. the'' Assistant City Attorneys had stated in their memorandum that : the ordinance should.. be consistent with the law regarding the e xtension oef leases, and that the Council needed to have some rationale or some policy if the _consistency was not ..adhered to. He ,thought ' that comparing' the lease law With just. cause_ eviction was like comparing apples and':oranges. He said a:lease: was nice, but just cause was basic. He. said that, if -single-family houses were excluded, it would exclude 30% of the 'rental units in Palo. Alto. They would be denied :the, protection they. deserved. He said that renters in single-family: houses faced the same threats of eviction .as renters in apartment buildings. In fact, renters of single family houses often were more interested in maintenance and in calling needed repairs to the attention of landlords. He thought it was in the City's interest to encourage maintenance of single-family houses as well as apartments. He thought the ordi- nance did very little to change the procedures for eviction. They would become no more lengthy than they were currently and basi- cally the ordinance would substitute the existing provisions for a three-day notice for those of a thirty -day notice. The only dif.- ference in procedure was the requirement of just cause which_ was basically required for three day notices. He urged the Council to take a stepforward and pass the ordinance. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme, supported the ordinance.` He clarified that it was not a rent control ordinance, rents could be changed at the end of year's lease,. Secondly, he said there was a. need to pre- vent unjust evictions. It was also not necessary for the City to wait until there were thousands and then to act. He said that if there was a problem and the people had to go to court to resolve it, obviously that kind of ordinance was required. He thought there were= some ambiguities in terms of the ordinance, for exam- ple, Section 9.68.040(1)(b) regarding a .violation of a lawful cov- enant of tenancy or reasonable rules and regulations. What if a reasonable rule and regulation was no children and a tenant became pregnant, would that be a reasonable reason for eviction. He did not think so, but under the ordinance, it would be allowed unless there was a specific provision prohibiting age discrimination. Section 9.68.040(1.)(j) related to terminating the tenant's employ- ment. The staff report talked about a manager as an employer, and in that context the section was reasonable; however, there would be some housing units purchased by Stanford at Oak Creek if the conversion goes through.. and constructed at Stanford West which were to be leased only to Stanford employees. If those people ceased their employment, under that section they could be evicted. He did not think that was a good policy for the City to adopt. He urged that it be reworded so that it referred to only employment which was directly rel`ated to that property, not just the employer as an employer. In Section .9.63.040(2)(a), "The predominantfmo- tive of the landlord in seeking to recover possession is retalia- tion against the tenant for exercising his or her rights pursuant to the ordinance," --he thought the following should be added, ",.tor pursuant to the U.S and California Constitution." For example, if :'a tenant were to engage. in political activity support- ing a candidate for City Council, the landlord could evict him if he did not like the candidate you were supporting. He thought that was a basic right of the public, and he thought it should be explicitly protected. John Rogers, 921 Maddux Drive, was in favor of the ordinance He agreed with Bob Moss, and said he was evicted because he had at- tended a Council meeting about eight years ago, and spoke in favor of preserving the low rental housing stock downtown and his land- lord was also at the r eeti ng. His landlord took offense to that and evicted him. 'pie -thought it was important to protect tenants' rights, and that tenants should be allowed to express themselves publicly without the fear of. eviction. That fear was something that. discouraged a lot of people from actually speaking out pub- licly. Bill Carey, .1830 Cowper said he supported the ordinance. .He said he had good landlords, but did not think it was something that should be left to good fortune. Scott Wei kart, 3328 St..: Michael Drive*' said he :i as in . favor of -the ordinance. He was concerned that single family dwellings were exempted.. 1 1 Louis L. Fisher, 178 Ely Place, said he had never evicted someone for their political or social views, and he did not plan to. He thought those arguments were ridiculous. He had been a landlord for over 20 years, and had never had . a problem with evictions or tenants unless there was a problem such as damage to property, or nonpayment of rent. He had always maintained good relationships, and did not want to get involved with all the legal tangles of ordinances. He said it was clear that a lease stated the duties of the landlord and tenant. He -'said- they sometimes felt that the Human Relations Commission (HRC) had a policy of harassment against landlords. He did not want to get tied up with all the legal things and the legal fees. He asked if the Council had ever tried to evict a tenant and found out what it cost. He ..asked if they had seem some of the damage which could be caused by certain tenants. He said most tenants were good, but there were some poor ones which did a lot of damage and could cause a loss in rental property and repairs. He reiterated that there was no need for the ordinance. He thought the Council should tell the HRC to get off the landlords' backs. G. Richard Hilbers, 1918 Middlefield Road, said he thought that managers of rental property had enough problems without additional controls. He said there were State laws which dealt with evic- tions, and in some cases, the burden of proof that an eviction was for just cause had already been placed on the owner or manager. of rental property. If a tenant was evicted for cause other than nonpayment of rent or some equally provable cause, it took about 50 days for the manager to take possession of the apartment. He said rental properties were not being built anymore because of the threat of rent control. Dianne Dryer, 2631 Elmdala Ceu.rt, said there were a number of un- just evictions which took place that were never reported. She wEs in favor of the ordinance. Jon Parsons, 356 Hawthorne, was an attorney who spent a substan- tial amount of time representing landlords and tenants. He was in favor of the ordinance although it was not as broad as he would have hoped. He thought it was a beginning, and that it was neces- sary. He thought the time had come t.o do something, and at least see how it worked. The real impact of the ordinance was that it restricted the landlords' rights and denied them the absolute right to kick someone out for no reason. He thought the ordinance had been needed for about five centuries, and it was about time that an enlightened City like Palo Alto did something about it. Ward Low, 181 Coleridge Avenue, said he was a small landlord whose object was not to evict. ; Hie wanted to keep :the few units he had, rented by amicable, pleasant relations among tenants. His tenants''`, got along well and enjoyed one another, He was concerned that bad tenants would delve out good ones. Frances ,Dyer, 501 Forest Avenue, thought that the proposed ordi- nance was terrible. She said that in 35 years of managing rental Property, it had been their experience that they had never actual- ity had an eviction. She did not believe all of the emotional stories about people being evicted. She thought it went two ways as in any other kind of business --if you had a good business and were good with your People, they were good' to you and kept coming back. She said that reading the ordinance itself, smacked of downright un-Amer i cacti sm .i n .law. "She thought that if ;she was an attorney, she .would try to establish a way to file suit against the Council. She . thought that the one :.thing the Council would es- tablish tias the fact' that the;; National Housing Authority' -would try and `withhold any subsidies to any city- with rent' controls. She thought that legislation would happen, and if it does', the City of Palo Alto would; lose some pretty nice projects. She thought it - would be ,Justified :if Palo Alto lost those projects on the : basis of a few people screaming emotionally that they had a friend that was evicted. W. R. Anderson, 890 Seale, said he thought the proposed ordinance was a miserable one based on the fact that for fifteen years he and his wife had owned units and managed them in Palo Alto, and had never even come close to an eviction. He was appalled at the lack of evidence presented to the HRC as to the actual incidents of evictions. . He thought for something_ as important as this, there would be some factual basis or some real numbers. With the number of units in Palo Alto, the number of calls received was nonsensical. A lot could no.t be written for every little problem which comes about'in a lifetime. Further, he said he had 25 years of experience as an administrator in a municipal organization. He had assisted the City Attorneys in writing the ordinance, he had administered them, and he thought this one was an abomination. He thought the ordinance protected the bad tenants because as written there would be a problem getting them out. It would hurt the good tenants because they .would, have to live with those kinds of people. If Palo Alto wanted to get more.. rental housing, it would need to knock off the disincentives because if he sold his proper- ty, they would never build an apartment complex in Palo Alto even if it were financially feasible with things like this ordinance on the books. Bodil Gordon,. 635 Chenning, said she did not support the ordi- nance. She said that regarding tenants' rights, if the ordinance were passed, the property owners' rights will be infringed upon. She said that those landlords that had good tenants would never dream of evicting them. She could not understand why the City would want to protect the bums. Jennifer Gates, 113O Waverley, said she supported the ordinance. She ,thought that the most important thing about it was that it in- volved peoples' homes. She said that the ordinance would not af- fect good landlords. She pointed out that not all landlords had good relationships with their tenants. Lou Fein, 1540 Oak Creek Drive, said he endorsed the proposed ordinance. He believed that the benefits to tenants, and the con- tributi,ons to City objectives far outweighed the costs. He said that whether the fears of eviction, were justified, they did exist. Larry Paulson, 4029 Park Boulevard, said he would be leaving Palo Alto shortly and was happy about it because the housing situation had been a -nightmare since he lived in Palo Alto. He said he could easily makea salary of $30,000; to $40,000 and would not be able to buy a house. He said there were a lot of people who were established ' in Palo Alto who owned houses who had bought them when the interest ratese:were lower. There were ai so a lot of people in Palo Alto : i o woud ` be renters for the rest of their lives, and he thought this ordinance would apply to future citizens of Palo Alto who may have no :fiance of owning a house. He pointed out that he lead lived in single-family homes since he had : been in Palo Alto, and he thought the- ordinance should also apply to singla-family homes. Russ Haag, 159 Walter.Hays Drive, said he was opposed- to .:the, ordi_ nance. He said that the Councilmembens along with'the legal coun- sel cold not even agree- to the -language of the _.ordinance, which he thought illustrated : what a cai',' of worms _ the ord_ i nance. wou l d be ,.for anane that owned rental property in Palo -Alto, He had had rental .property -for "about 15 years,' and.,had never ..had' an: eviction. The closest he had come _ to an- eviction was ,a person who had two children._In _-the front unit, and the petson :in tie back; unit wanted the vother person_ 'evicted be.ause of the , noise made by the child ref. He said that because `of the financial ,hardship, of: the woman 1:4 8 .9 12/7./81 1 1 with the two children, he reconciled the matter with her several times over the 15 years that she lived in the unit. He thought that with the constant push for the Council in placing greater burdens on anyone that had rental property or was considering.hav- ing rental property, someone would be insane to want to build ren- tal property in Palo Alto. 1 RECESS FROM.2 5U .m. TO 10:05 Vice Mayor Fletcher was in favor of the ordinance, and said that the Human Relations Commission's recommendation- was not pulled out of thin , air. She said they had held public hearings and heard ex- tensive testimony. At about the time that the issue was dis- cussed, she received a ` number of phone calls and some letters from tenants who were. reluctant to speak publicly for fear of losing their rental units. All she could say was that there was no legal_ provision for protection. She said many of the tenants were afraid to tell their landlords of repairs that were needed, and were afraid to speak up when their rents were substantially in- creased. They were also afraid to take part in political activity and to speak publicly in favor of measures such as the Just, Cause Eviction ordinance. She said that if there were a free rental market as there used to be, when • tenants had ample opportunity to find alternate housing, she would not be in favor of the ordi- nance, but the situation was such .that there was very little al- ternative when a tenant: was evicted. MOTION: Vice Mayor Fletcher moved, seconded by Klein, approval of the ordinance for first reading. ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF_ THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PAC ALTO AMENDING CHAPTER 9.68 OF THE PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL CODE REQUIRING LANDLORDS TO OFFER ONE YEAR WRITTEN LEASES TO POTENTIAL TENANTS OF RESIDENTIAL HOUSING AND ESTABLISHING JUST CAUSE ,AS THE GROUNDS FOR EVICTION OF TENANTS OF RESIDENTIAL HOUSING" Councilmember Klein said he assumed that the change that staff had recommended in Section 9.68.040(1)(b) on page 4; line 3, to add the words, "...within the premises" after the word "tenancies," was already included. AMENDMENT: Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by Levy, to delete 9.68.050(2) on Page 5 re defense for increases in rent. Councilmember Klein _ said he was concerned that the paragraph was disproportionate. He said that a speaker had pointed out that if the landlord erred and refused, through inadvertence, to offer a one-year lease at the r°l ht time, the tenant could then have a defense that he/she had to pay increases in rent. He, did not think the paragraph fit the crime. He thought it resembled rent control, which he wanted to stay as far away from as possible. He did not think a tenant needed that kind of defense --the tenant had other remedies which were listed under Section 9.68.50, which followed what the landlord would have done incorrectly. Councilmember Levy recollected that the subparagraph was picked up from a former ordinance that had been before the Council on rent control. He agreed with Councilmember Klein that it was inappro- priate in this particular ordinance Councilmember Renzel said she thought the reason for the paragraph was. that if the landlord raised the, rent outside the terms of the agreement betwee,p the.',.landl;ord and _: tenant, ' and then attempted to. collect "it. She thought thatrather than delete_ it, it would make more sense to clarify the language so thOt it,speeified .. that there was a defense if the landlord raised the rent outside of the lease.: provisions and then attempted to collect. it by way of an unlawful detainer. She thought that was the intent, and she thought there should be a way to do it. SUBSTITUTE AMENDMENT: Councilmember Renzel moved that language be substituted to clarify that unlawfully increased rents would not be a basis for an unlawful detainer. AMENDMENT FAILED FOR LACK OF A SECOND. AMENDMENT PASSED by a vote of 8-1, Renzel voting "n AMENDMENT: Councilmember Renzel moved, seconded by Fletcher, that the City Attorney's Office provide clarified language that it was a defense for a tenant if a landlord brought an unlawful detainer action for collection of rents which were raised beyond the provi- sions of the lease. Councilmember Renzel said she would support the entire motion because it was so disrupting to people when they were booted out of their homes for flimsy reasons. She thought this was not an unreasonable ordinance --it provided reasonable protection for .landlords for the common kinds of -problems encountered with ten. - ants for nonpayment of rents, nuisance, destruction of property, and a variety of reasons which were legitimate for landlords to Wish to evict tenants. At the same time it provided the, tenants with some reasonable protection and predictability about their housing in a market which was hostile to just about everyone. She thought that because housing was an essential component to peoples lives, and because the vacancy rate was so low, the proposed ordi- nance would provide some protection for tenants. Councilmember Witherspoon was opposed to the ordinance. She said that many good arguments had been made. She felt that . the Council at one Council meeting wanted to keep the rental housing stock, and at the next Monday night meeting made it more difficult for those who would have provided the City with more rental housing. She said that the ordinance, in effect, offered a lifetime lease. Regardless of whether it was fair, no one iri their right mind who was managing rental property would lose a good tenant if they could possibly help it. She wondered about the reason that people indicated that they lived in fear of being evicted all the time, and said there must be more of a reason than just that they were seen at a public meeting. She did not think the ordinance was a law that would have the long-term effect of preserving the rental housing stock and to increase it if possible. Councilmember Levy said there were two elements in the ordi- nance --the one year lease and just cause eviction. He wanted them to be separated in voting because he remembered the one -year -lease which had been in effect for about one year, and did not seem to have any negative effects. In fact it• seemed to be positive in terms of giving the renter a certain security as to the terms of his lease for the coming year. He said that the element of the proposed ordinance enabled that the one-year lease be renewable, and he thought it was. positive. .However, he had seine problems, with the just cause eviction element. He thought there ...was . no -question that there had been unjust evictions in Palo Alto over a number of years, but_ he was not convinced that:: there had been enough to justify a just cause _eviction ordinance. Contrary to Vice Mayor Fletcher's experience, - there were no unjust evictions brought to his `attention during the past 1.1/2 years. Further, he had served on the Rental. Housing Mediation Task Force (RHMTF): and had had the `opportunity to experience: first hand the actual state of what: happened when an'. unjust eviction OS -reported, ':ant the actual facts.. In some cases, the eviction-: was unjust, but in most cases, it was not .unjust. He said, there - were many situations that transpired between ,both the renter and the landlord. In terms of the need for renter protection, he did not.;consider a .5 1 e or 1.0 percent vacancy to be that onerous. With I% being 100 units, that meant that during any given month there were 100 units available for rental in Palo Alto. The standard used to be 300 to 500 units in terms of rental availability, but it still gave the renter the opportunity to'choose from alternatives. Councilmember Levy said that in addition to the fact that he did not see a major need, he thought the properties differed a great deal. Some landlords had higher standards and when an across- the-board ordinance for all property was passed, it treated every- thing the same without recognizing unique situations. He said that one landlord mentioned that he was developing a four- plex as an art piece. It could well be that he had to be extremelycare- ful if he was trying to maintain an older building in a certain prestigious condition. He thought that uniqueness should be rec- ognized and not discouraged. Further, he felt that an ordinance of this nature discouraged small landlords, and encouraged larger landiorders who understood the legal aspects and could afford to hire managers and attorneys to keep records and pursue laws, etc. He was reluctant to impose the just cause element on Palo Alto. Councilmember Klein was troubled by the ordinance although he would vote in favor of it. He thought it was a close question and that there had been too much emotionalism involved. He did not think the ordinance would accomplish much, but did not think it would harm anyone. He said that with the less than 1% vacancy rate in Palo Alto the landlords had all the bargaining power. As several of the speakers pointed out, business was not being dis- cussed --it was people's homes. He said it was very traumatic for people to have to move. He thought that before they were required to :Hove, they should be protected. .He said there many areas of the law which had protections like this where there was a dispar- ity in bargaining power, i.e. insurance contracts. He said sever- al of the speakers seemed to think that everyone was going to court immediately, which would be horrible if it were true. He thought basically everything would proceed as before. The '.: land- lord who wished to evict a tenant would merely have to provide a reason for it. Most tenants would not try and go to court because going to court costs them money -as well as the landlord. He did not see a flood of cases in court, and did not think there was a problem of many bad landlord or many bad tenants. He thought the prime advantage to be gained by the ordinance was the feeling from tenants that they had some rights and could not be moved from what was their home without compliance with a minimal and fair set of standards. He thought it was appropriate for the City to pass the ordinance. . City Attorney Diane Lee said her office reviewed Section 9.68.050, and: on further -reading, it appeared that the section attempted to cover the situation where landlords had failed to comply with one_. of the sections of the ordinance and thereafter increased the rent. In that event, the section would provide the tenant with a defense in such an action based on the failure to comply with the. ordinance. With that clarification, she asked the Council's pref- erence. Councilmember Renzel asked what the current remedy was if the landlord failed to comply:, with the requirementt to offer a lease? Assistant City Attorney Marlene Prendergast said that the section currently provided a remedy to collect rents et al, and a recent case questioned if that was, legal, therefore', they drafted the language to collect only the ;increase in rent. She was not ad- , verse to deleting it because she was not tOtally -comfortable t that either. . Councilmember Renzel pointed' that it was the only place in the ordinance which- provided . some, remedy; to the tenant; who found. him-' 1 1 self in the position of rent increases when they had not been offered the stability of a lease in advance. Ms, Lee said she thought there were other remedies provided which were contained under tenant's remedies. She said numbers (1) through (4) in Section 9.68.050 all talked 'about' the particular types of remedies. She said that as Ms. .Prendergast had indi- cated, originally'the section was to collect the rent; and, in view of the. case that said that could not be done, the Attorney's Office had tried to draft something to cover it although they were still not totally comfortable with the'paragraph. Councilmember Renzel asked if a tenant would ° be able to go in for a civil action ._for= damages under Section 9.68.050(4) for excess rents collected-. Ms. Lee said, yes, that if a tenant could show he was damaged, and if the court were satisfied. She said ,there was..a potential there which would depend upon how the courts dealt with the ordinance. Councilmember Renzel .. said that with that new interpretation, and with the consent of her second, she would withdraw her amendment. Vice Mayor Fletcher said that the staff -report pointed out that the . HRC recommended that single-family dwellings be included in the just cause eviction ordinance, and that the City was being in- consistent if it did not because the lease law also applied to sieigle-family homes, AMENDMENT: Vice Mayor Fletcher moved, seconded by Renzel, to amend Section 9.68.020(4) on Page 1, to add single-family units to that section. Vice Mayor Fletcher said there were quite a few single-family homes which were small developments, and which were all rental units owned by the same owner and yet technically, they were single-family. She pointed out that 30% of the rentals were in single-family. Councilmember Witherspoon said she could not remember the final wo ding arrived at when single-family was put back in the lease law. ''.,She said many of the single-family homes were only rented for half -a -year because the owners were out of town that long, and so the policy was put in toexempt rentals that were not available for a year. She thought that aspect should also be reviewed if single-family homes were to be included. She was opposed .to in- cluding single-family homes. She thought the whole ordinance assumed :a professional landlord/tenant situation, and she did not think that was true when people rented out their homes.. `' As she readthe ordinance, there was no application for that provision. Mayor Henderson said: that in this particular situation, when : it was said that the rentals were individual ownerships, he knew of people who owned a number of homes and rented them in Palo Alto. If the ordinance was not good for single-family houses, then why was it good for rental housing. He did not quite see the dis- crimination. He thought that either all renters should be pro- tected by the just cause eviction ordinance or none of _ them. The 1975 statistic indicated that at least 30% of the renters were in single-family. Ifanything, that : figure had increased. AMENDMENT FAILED BY .A VOTE OF. b-3; Renxel , Fletcher and Henderson voting' "aye." Vice Mayor Fletcher_ asked for clarification on page 4, :Section 9.68.040(1) (i i) and (iii) ,: which dealt with . payment: of rent and how many times a renter could he -late, : and: -'the returned 'checks for insufficient funds, and asked if .it was an equ1 sitdation "or.:.:was 1.4 9 3 12/7/81 the tenant allowed to have more bounced checks than nonpayment of rent. If not, she wanted them equalized. Ms. Prendergast said that failure to pay the rent under Section 9,68.040►(1)(i) was a one-time thing for which a tenant could be evicted. Habitual late payments of rent as defined 4.ras three times or more, and a returned checks as defined was three times or more. Ms. Lee said there was a difference, and in (i) it was based on the fact that the landlord was not getting any rental payment at all ever. The tenant would never pay, as opposed to paying late which was why it was written that_way. If the check was not made good. under (iii) that would fall back under (i). She thought that the basis for eviction. was reflected under the present State law. Councilmember Fazzino felt that the proposed ordinance was a terrible case of overregulation. He thought that the State's Retaliatory Eviction Law protected tenants from serious situa-. tions. He agreed with Councilmember Levy that the overwhelmingly positive landlord/tenant situation in Palo Alto did not justify -a burdensome law beyond State protection. :In fact, he did not think the proposed ordinance provided any real protection, but only increased the hassel factor for both landlords and -tenants. The burden of proof also became exclusively the -landlords. He said the ordinance would. decrease rental stock in the City, and no one in their right mind would add a unit to the rental stock given how he or she would be held hostage to the proposed law, -He thought it was incredible that after moving ahead with the law, the City would decide to exclude itself from the provisions of law regarding its own rental units-. He thought that Marlene Prendergast had done an outstanding job on the ordinance, but des- pite that, lingering ambiguities were hanging in.the air-. He said hat if the Councilmembers could not decide what the ordinance allowed and .did not allow, how could they expect landlords, ten- ants and the courts to interpret it. He pointed out that even Council supporters of the ordinance said they were troubled by it and did not think it would have much effect. He thought that was a poor way to write laws. He preferred continued and strengthened Mediation efforts on the part of RHMTF. He would vote -against the proposed ordinance. AMENDMENT; Councilmember Bechtel moved,, seconded by Fletcher, on Page 4 to add subsection (iv) "or a combination of (ii) or (iii) for the third or any subsequent time in any twelve month period." Vice Mayor Fletcher agreed, with the consent of Councilmember Klein, to include that wording in the main motion. Councilmember Bechtel thought that would get at the problem of someone who might one month be late or habitually < l ate,' the next month pay with a check which bounced, and the third _month pay late again, and,the, fourth month, a check that bounced. She said that could go on for quite sometime, and knew that the small landlords in particular still had to pay the ;bank or whoever was carrying the note, and that that could cause them serious problems. Councilmember Bechtel said she thought the proposed ordinance was divided by those who= strongly supported it and those . who strongly opposed it. If it were a market where there were a 20% vacancy rate, and landlords. were Scrounging to find good_.` tenants, she .thought the case would be very ,difficult. She said a less than I% vacancy rate meant it was very easy for a landlord' to find a new tenant when one tenant decided to leave. She felt the ordinance would cause hardli, any difficulty for a landlord, that the ordi- nance was very _-similar .to.,, the current ordinance. If a landlord wished to evict a `;tenant, notice would have to be given under State law, as it was now, an the odds were that most tenants 1 U 1 would not fight the eviction because of the cost involved. She thought the ordinance simply spelled out reasonable reasons for eviction. She would support the motion. Councilmember Eyerly said he could not support the ordinance be- cause it worked against two stated Council objectives: It would not help the preservation of rental stock, but would work the op- posite way; and, it would increase rents. He thought the Council was on the wrong track with such an ordinance, and should be work- ing on ways to try and encourage the building of rental housing in Palo Alto. Councilmembe'r Renzel commented that as long as condominium con- struction was allowed, the City would see no rental housing built. Mayor Henderson said he did not like either side of the arguments. He recollected that in early 1980 when the Council was talking about rent control, there was -lots of input from people who had problems related to their rent. At that time, he followed up on the complaints and learned a lot. He said that on this particular situation,_ he was sensitive to tenants being evicted for unjust cause. He did not want any retaliations for political reasons or otherwise, He thought athe ordinance appeared to be open-ended, and couldn't possibly begin to list all the just causes that, could come forth -over time. As someone else had said, it was a can of worms. He said that at the beginning , of the meeting, the Council had barely touched on the possible questions, omissions, differ- ences of interpretation, etc., and yet he was thoroughly confused and had heard all kinds of interpretations. He said that when he finished his work in 1980, he felt that first the Council should establish -some kind of mediation board, or give extra power to RHMTF. He would vote against the motion. He -said he would make a motion after the vote on the ordinance which would give RHMTF ex- tra Tower -to require a landlord or tenant to appear before them to respond to a complaint. RHMTF would follow-up with .a ruling, which would be advisory. He was convinced that appearing before a board for a public hearing was not something that most landlords looked 'forward to. At the same time, he thought landlords: would welcome such, a review process when they felt that the charges against them were unfair. MOTION AS AMENDED FAILED by a vote of 5-4 as follows: AYES: Renzel, Klein, Fletcher, Bechtel NOES: Eyerly, Henderson, Fazzino, Levy, Witherspoon MOTION: Mayor Henderson moved, seconded by Fazzino, to direct staff to prepare an ordinance that would change Rental Housing Mediation Task Force duties to provide the following; On receipt of a complaint from a landlord or tenant, that RHMTF be. given the power to require that a landlord or tenant appear before them to respond to the complaint. Vice Mayor Fletcher said she felt the: or:4inance would be useless because most landlords were absentee landlords, there were many Be- ment firms in charge, . and the landlord could not be located. The City Attorney had indicated at the _ time it was discussed that it would be practically impossible to enforce the ordinance to re- quire landlords to appear. Mayor Henderson clarified that he meant landlord or representative of the landlord. He' thought the .Count i l . needed to take that kind of a step first so., that they "could prove to themselves that there really was a problem of a magnitude that required ` that kind of ordinance. Councilmember Renzel said she agreed that if a landlord chose not to come, it could put RHMTF in the position of having to go to court to compel their attendance, and then what would the sanc- tions be if they failed to appear. It seemed to her that a lot of litigational problems would be created. She was not sure that the court would be willing to compel a landlord to come for nonnnanda- tory advice. Councilmember Fazzino felt the proposal was excellent. It- was incredible to him that those Councilmembers that claimed they were concerned about tenants and tenant problems would ::not support the motion. He thought the proposal was very fair in that it would require public appearance and public discussion if a problem were serious enough. He felt that if member; of the community were to be convinced that an actual ordinance was necessary, a route which was both advisory and involved some enforcement would have to be followed. He, thought the proposal was modest and should be sup- ported. Mayor Henderson said that one of the main points of_the proposal was the public impact if a landlord refused to appear or appeared and the testimony was overwhelmingly against him, and RHMTF recommended that it was an unjust cause and the tenancy should not be terminated, it would be a public hearing, would be in the news- papers, and he did not think many people wanted that kind of pub- licity. Back in April, the reason given for not suppor=ting his motion was that one member of the Council had said they were not hearing any support from either side. Mayor Henderson said he had countered that they were not hearing any objections from either side either. He had checked that out again, and no one was sup- porting it because both sides wanted to hold to their positions, but on the other hand, they were not running forth to say that it was a bad idea. Councilmember Levy asked Mayor Henderson if he was talking about a general complaint, or an eviction which was followed by a com- plaint. 1` Mayor Henderson responded that it was the type of thing that would be brought to RHMTF by a tenant or landlord. It could be what they felt was an unjust rent increase, unjust eviction, etc. Councilmember Levy said he would oppose the motion because he was concerned that the motion was more onerous than the motion which was just defeated. He thought Mayor Henderson was suggesting that any complaint by either party could compel a appearance with all of the time that it required. He said that it was too vague. SUBSITUTE MOTION: Councilmember Bechtel moved, seconded by Fletcher, to refer Henderson's motion re appearance before the Rental Housing Mediation Task Force to the Human Relations Co,mmis- sien and Rental Housing Mediation Task Force. SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED by _a vote of 5-4 as follows: AYES: Eyerly, Renzel, Klein, .Fletcher , Bechtel N0ES, Henderson, Fazzino, Levy, Witherspoon MuYor Henderson said that the renewal of; leases was ._still open- ended. He asked 'if the lease had to be offered each year. Ms. Lee said that was the intent. MOTION: Mayor Henderson moved, seconded by Fletcher) that. guageLbe added to Section 9.68.030(5)-4o follows: 1 "(5) Renewal of leases. Upon the. expiration of the initial written lease which has a minimum term of one year, if a tenant wishes to rent a rental unit from a landlord, and if the said landlord wishes to rent said unit to the said ten- ant, a lease must be offered again." rouncilmember Witherspoon agreed with offering a new lease, but thought clarification was needed that both parties had to be. agreeable for a renewal to exist. Councilmember Klein asked what the present wording was? Ms. Lee said that as she read the existing ordinance, that option was with the present landlord and tenant. Mayor Henderson said that at the time that the ordinance was passed, it was stated that it was for one year onlyand was not to be renewed, and he was trying to make it a continuing opportun- ity. Ms. Lee said it was a continuing- opportunity, but was an opportunity that both parties had a mutual acquiescence. It was not as was intended to give that option exclusively to the ten- ant. Mayor Henderson said it was not the proposed ordinance which was before the Council, it was the original ordinance which was passed by the Council to be a one-year ordinance period. After that, the tenant and landlord could make whatever arrangements they wished, but did not have to offer a one-year lease. He wanted to say that at the end of one year if the two agreed, then the landlord must offer another one-year lease to the tenant. Ms. Prendergast said that the way the ordinance was written now, it did not actually say it was just a one-year term. It said a landlord must offer the one-year lease. She said the City Attorney's Office had said it was not renewable because the Coun- cil took out the renewable provision ore year ago when it was re- ferred to the Human Relations Commission. MOTION WITHDRAWN by Mayor Henderson. City Manager Bill Zaner requested that Item 3, the -resolution authorizing staff to amend the subdivision agreement be iri_iurht forward. MOTION: Ccuncilmember'Eyerly moved, seconded by Henderson, that item 10-A; Resolution Authorizing Staff to Amend Subdivision Agreement, be brought forward for consideration. MOTION PASSED.unanimousiy, RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING STAFF TO AMEND SUBDIVISION AGREEMENT Councilmember Eyerly asked staff how the decision was arrived at. As he interpreted the action, it could be detrimental to the hous- ing stock. Staff was recommending that the below -market -rate unit be transferred to Oregon Green, and it would be in the same price range as the builder would -have to offer to Cedar Terrace -on Homer Avenue. He said that the Oregon Green units retail price was around $110,000, and if -the below -market unit was transfer -e, -, .= that .pric:e housing would be lost, and instead: there would be units for $165,000 to $175,000 at Cedar. Terrace. He realized there was a difference in homeowner fees, etc., but did not agree with the Wisdom ,of transferring the $45,000 below -market -rate unit to a complex which was already a lower price retail. 1 4 9 7 12/7/81 City Planner, Glenn Miller said it was true that there was a dif- ference in the market rate of the two units. It was difficult to say exactly what the difference was. He said that although the unit was nice, the location was not that great. He said that the income that would be needed for the Oregon Green unit, .which was $125,000, 16%, 30 -year loan, if it were available, would be $53,000 to $54,000. He referred the Council to the 'Comprehensive Plan which contained a table which showed the various monthlypay- ments. He said the units at Cedar Terrace would probably take an income of $75,000, which was a very high income. Councilmember Eyerly said that the below -market unit no matter which location would be a $45,000 unit, and the qualification to buy would be the same in either place. He thought the City, would be smart to keep the unit in Cedar Terrace than have a lower priced housing unit in Oregon Green. He didn't think the units of that size would sell for $125-,000. He said he had watched the ads and seen them at $110,000 recently. He said he would not move the resolution and would vote against it if someone else did. MOTION: Councilmember Fazzino moved, seconded by Renzel, approval of the resolution. RESOLUTION 59.15 entitled "RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AUTHORIZING STAFF TO AMEND SUBDIVISION AGREEMENT ALLOWING SUBSTITUTION OF OFF -SITE BELOW -MARKET -RATE UNIT FOR CEDAR TERRACE UNIT" 1 Councilmember Fazzino admitted that he was -somewhat concerned when he saw that the development excluded children for, so-called "safety reasons," but supposed the City had no legal means to pre- vent the development from moving ahead on that basis. Councilmember Levy said he would support the motion, but deplored the trend of placing the low income units apart from the basic developments in so many cases. One of the concepts that he thought underlayed the below -market -rate program was that --the BMR units would be spread around town within normal market -rate units- and would basically be indistinguishable. Essentially that was happening,-: but more and more ---a tendency to group the BMR units in one project was being seen. Councilmember Renzel wanted to be certain that the Oregon Green units were not already BMR units of some sort. Mr. Miller responded . that there were no BMR units at Oregon Green. MOTION PASSED. by a vote of 7. 2, Eyerly and Witherspoon voting "no." MOTION: Councilmember Bechtel moved, seconded by Henderson, " to bring forward Item 10, Proposal for Ramp Metering on Highway 101. MOTION PASSED unanimously. PLANNING COMMISSION REVIEWED THE CALTRANS PROPOSAL FOR RAMP :'1s,s>>srr�F or 1�E11rtiStv ; al A I•3 e 4CiC �4QU1\; 1L��TS .(CMR:5( ) MOTION Councilmember Bechtel moved, seconded by Fazzino, to adopt Planning Co lstian recommendations and staff recommendation that the City Council direct the Mayor to send a letter to CalTrans to be read at the public hearing on the project and its environmental assessment. The letter should include specific reference to the Planning Commission comments and should call for mitigation Measures 1, 2, 3 and 4 as stipulated in CMR:541:1 (dated December 3, 1981). The letter would also state that with- out the inclusion of these mitigation measures as part of the pro- ject, the negative declaration recommendation in the environmental part of the project, then a mitigated negative declaration would be appropriate and the City of Palo Alto will support the pro- ject. Councilmember Renzel commented that she thought the staff had done a good job in preparing the report, and she would support the motion. Vice Mayor Fletcher cautioned that if when left -turn lanes were added, that the curb lane not be made too narrow so .as to accom- modate bicycles. Also, there was an elimination of one lane on Charleston, that currently there were two lanes and one left -turn lane, and the proposal was to make two left-hand turn lanes and one through lane. Director of Transportation, Ted Noguchi said the report referred to a retention of two lanes going southbound as well as a double left -turn lane. He said it was stated as one of the mitigation measures that the State be required to maintain .the two through lanes going toward the freeway. MOTION PASSED unanimously. MOTION: Mayor Henderson moved, seconded by Klein, to bring for- ward Item 12, Final Subdivision Map re California Avenue/Park Boulevard, to be considered after Item 8. MOTION PASSED unanimously. PUBLIC HEARING: VACATION OF EASEMENT FOR PUBLIC STREET PURPOSES, IV u City Attorney Diane Lee advised the Council that the City had been advised today that a temporary restraining order hearing_ would be held to restrain the Council and other public officers from taking any action with respect to Items 8 and 12 on the agenda. and also from issuing. building permits. She said they had appeared before Judge Phelps and he declined -to' issue a temporary restraining order which meant that there was no court action blocking the Council from proceeding with those items. Councilmember Levy said that regarding the initiative .:map, he thought it excluded the parcel north of California Street that was now the lumber yard. He asked what the size of the lumber yard parcel was, and asked if it would continue to be zoned commer- cial.: Ms. Lee responded that the lumber yard parcel was exluded. Director of . Planning and Community Environment Kenneth Schreiber responded: that the parcel was 45,000 square feet, and that it would continue to be zoned commercial unless the Council took some other action, Councilmember Levy said that if it was 45,000 square' feet, that meant that there would be over 1000000 square feet of commercial development that could be put on that parcel. Mr. Schreiber said yes, thatthe community commercial zone allowed three times the site area, which would be about 136,000 square feet of commercial and office, which was the maximum allowed by 1 4 9 9 12/7/81 1 i zoning. Councilmember Levy said that if the initiative was approved, then the total parcels now being considered could hold something- like 100 residential units, and over 100,000 square feet of commercial development. Mr. Schreiber said that if the initiative was approved, the bulk of the California Avenue project would,be zoned RM-3, and that could have 104 -dwelling units. The lumberyard site would remain community commercial and: could have, up to almost 136,000 square. feet of commercial, or that same square footage could be divided' up between 46 .dwelling units and commercial space up to a maximum _".f about 136,600 square feet total. Councilmember Renzel asked if the City had any obligation to aban- don the easement. Ms. Lee. responded that it was discretionary, but in order to do so, the Council would have to find that there. ,were no present or prospective use for the particular easement by the City. Mayor Henderson declared the public hearing open. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme, asked that the easement note -be vacated at this time. He said -there was an initiative which presumably would be voted on by the public in early spring. If the initiative passed, the Council might find that they had a need for that par- ticular easement. Also, he said there was a court decision which said that the City owned, that property. The area was slightly more than 36/100ths of an acre. He said that at the modest value of $450,000 per acre, more than that would be paid for the Terman Site, that was a value of more than $168,000. He didn't think- it was proper for the- City to be giving a valuable piece of property like this for no consideration. He thought that if it were a $20,000 or $30,000 piece of property, it might not matter, but $168,000 was significant; and, if an easement like this were to be given up, there should be some kind of consideration in exchange. He thought that if the -Council vacated the easement with no con- sideration, a charge might be brought. against 'the .Council of mak- ing a gift of public property which was improper. He urged that the easement not be vacated without some financial return to the City and the people of Palo Alto. Mayor Henderson asked if the Council would be liable for some court action. Real Property. Administrator, Jean Diaz said he did not think it was technically proper to indicate that the City owned the strip of property. He said there was a possible easement right the City had which was a right in real estate which was significantly dif- ferent than . a fee : ownership. When a public agency acquired an easement, and that easement was no longer required, vacation was the proper mechanism. He said the City did receive consideration. The City. had ,a processing fee which was required for vacations which had been paid in this case. In this case, there was a sub- stantial question whether the City had an easement because it was not referred to in any easement deeds, and was not shown as a ded- ication on the map. He said it showed up in a reference court case where SP was quieting title,: to some of their property, so staff thought there was even a question of what right the City had in the strip, and there was no fee value to be associated with. whatever interest the City did have. David Jeong, 4056. Park Boulevard, thought the Council should not rush into the vacation. He didn't think the public's right to use the land should be taken away and given to a private developer especially when the public had not yet decided if it wished to do- 1 1 nate the right to the project. The right should not be given to the developer until the public had an opportunity to vote on the matter. He said a premature action would appear to be a deliber- ate attempt to deny the people a chance to express their wishes. R. J. Debs, 3145 Flowers, said he thought the Council was setting a precedent which was extremely dangerous. He thought they were forgetting to look at the Comprehensive Plan in that area. He thought the Council -had allowed,a yap to exist between- the design review of the Architectural Review Board and the long-range plan- ning impact that would be considered by the Planning Commission. He felt that the gap allowed, probably through inadvertence, the staff to consider that there would be a negative declaration for the environmental impact, and to start mitigating the process which meant wheeling and dealing with developers which could pro- duce good things. It'could also produce bad things when it came down to long -range -impacts. He said they were -talking about traf- fic signals outside the zones, traffic impacts An neighborhoods nearby, and traffic irispacts upon the commercial area .of California Avenue. He said that:sooner or later the Council would have to face the music. Mayor Henderson declared the public hearing closed. Councilmember_Renzel agreed that there were some major planning. issues which were not considered by the Planning Commission, and, therefore, may not have been given the kind of consideration that the Council would like to have seen in planning such a major area. She said that the vacation of the easement was predicated on the substitution of .a new easement through Sheridan Avenue, and as she said before, the proposed signal which was almost inevitable at Sheridan and Birch, created tremendous implications for traffic coming up off of Oregon Avenue into the California Avenue business district. She said that if there was a red d light for even 20% of the time to that access off of Oregon, it would be disastrous. Furthermorre, she thought that the petition of initiative had 'pale ified for the ballot, Council knew that a rezoning was possibly pending, and that many' of the councilmembers in running for elec— tion indicated that they would give the voters a choice. In order for the voters to have a meaningful choice, the project should not be built prior to the voters having a chance to make' that deci- sion. She pointed -out that the easement was a discretionary deci- sion for the Council and that the final subdivision map was not. If the Council wanted to uphold the right of initiative and pro- vide the voters with a meaningful choice and be fair to the 6,300 people who signed the petition of initiative, the item should 'be continued until the matter was resolved. MOTION: Councilmember Renzel moved that the item be continued until the matter is resolved. MOTION FAILED for lack of a second. MOTION: Councilmember Fazzino moved, Seconded by Eyerly, approval of the resolution. RESOLUTION 5976 entitled "RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO ORDERING THE VACATION OF AN EASEMENT, FOR PUBLIC -STREET PURPOSES BEING A PORTION OF GRANT AVENUE BETWEEN PARk=. BOULEVARD AND THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY .TRACKS" Councilmember Bechtel said she had heard before the mention of . a light being almost a sure thing at Sheridan and Birch and asked Mr. Nobuchi for clarification. Mr. Noguchi said it was :not a sure thing in his view. Staff di.d not know yet' what the -.impacts would be, but in context with miti- 1. 5 0,.1 12./7181. gation payments the developer was requested to provide, it was considered that might be one of the mitigation measures which should be required.at the intersection. Councilmember,Bechtel asked if a light was even possible.consi_der- ing its closeness to the off -ramp from Oregon Expressway. Mr. Noguchi said it was possible, but was obviously very difficult not to create the backup into the underpass. Staff was not quite certain how to accomplish it, and would have to work with the County to try and achieve it. As a matter of fact, the City staff was working with the County in the other parts of the underpass to try and resolve some of those problems. He said it was an ongoing effort with the County. Councilmember Renzel said she would oppose- the motion. She thought it was. unfortunate that the Council seemed to feel trapped into having to go along with an earlier decision without reassess- ing the situation -in light of a public initiative.- She -thought the Council was creating a tremendous deterrent to public trans- portation to have a signal at Birch and Sheridan which would. be the -main access for people attempting tp catch trains on tight schedules. She thought there would be accidents in that area, it was a serious problem, and did not think it was an acceptable sub- stitute for the easement and thought it should be'opposed. MOTION PASSED by a vote of 8-1, Renzel voting "no." FINAL SUBDIVISION MAP RE CALIFORNIA AVENUE/PARK BOULEVARD Mayor Henderson asked City Attorney Diane Lee for a statement of what the Council should do. Ms. Lee said she thought the Council's duties were ministerial in terms of as long as there was compliance with the tentative map, and all the certificates indicated that there was, the Council did not have discretion not to act. If the Council chose not to Ao so, she -thought that after next week, the Clerk could just sign off on the map without the Council having acted. MOTION: Mayor Henderson moved, seconded by Fazzino, approval of the final subdivision map, Councilmember Renzel believed it would be more appropriate if the Council considered the matter next week in conjunction with accep- tance of the petition. She thought it prejudged how the Council would react to the petition when it was presented. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Councilmember Renzel moved to continue the matter for one week. SUBSTITUTE MOTION failed for lack of a second. MOTION PASSED by -a vote of 8-1, Renzel voting "no." ORDINANCE TO REPEAL CHAPTERS 2.10 AND 2.11 - CONFLICT OF INTEREST Councilmember Renzel. said she removed the item from the consent calendar because she felt the .Council might Wish the matter be revie»ed at the Policy and Procedures Committee. The old ordi- nance specified certain boards and- commissions and council ap- pointed officers and the new .ordinance said those. positions should be designated_ by. resolution, which wasone aspect of the ordinance she =wanted. looked at by the Policy and Procedures Committee. She said she' would like to refer the matter to the Policy and Proce- dures Committee to see if there were some `aspects_ of 2.10 and 2`.11 that the City might. wish ,to incorporate in.2.09. She said she had l_5 a 2 12/7-/81 discussed the matter with the City Attorney, and there was no problem to refer the matter and consider possible additions. MOTION: Councilmember Renzel moved, seconded by Bechtel, approval of the ordinance for first reading, and to refer Chapter 2.09 to Policy and Procedures Committee. ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING ,entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY _OF PALO ALTO REPEALING CHAPTERS 2.10 AND 2.11 OF TITLE 2 OF THE PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL CODE" Mayor Henderson asked if there was an ongoing assignment regarding conflict of interest in the City Attorney's Department. Ms. Lee said yes, and that she. believed it related-. to updating those categories of an official who would be covered. MOTION PASSED unanimously. GAMBLE —HOUSE - INTERIM LEASE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF INTERIOR 1 . m �. - Real Property Administrator, Jean Diaz pointed out that CMR: 54,2: I indicated that a temparary.use permit would be required. As a part of that, staff wanted to make sure that residences within 300 feet of the Gamble House were, advised of the Council's possible action on the matter. He said courtesy notices were provided to residences within -300 feet of the Gamble House, and to date, staff had received one complaint. The person had indicated --that he would not be able to attend the meeting to express his concern. be- cause of an illness in the family. The concern was primarily parking and traffic related Essues, which concerns had been given to Bob Brown, the City's Zoning Administrator for his considera- tion in preparing the temporary use permit.. Mayor Henderson said the report indicated that staff continued to be concerned about significant staff resources which may be re- quired. He asked Mr. Diaz if he was in a position to elaborate in general on the type of things that might be involved. Mr. Diaz said staff was concerned that every hour they spent on the ASID proposal for the show case use of the Gamble. House took them away from other important projects, such as the process for determining-. the ultimate use of the Gamble House. Staff still had quite a bit of work to do on Terman to finish it, and many other projects the Council was very concerned about. Counctimember W4herspoOn asked if the $12,300 for the landscaping maintenance included the teMporarfly hired gardener? Mr. Diaz said yes. Councilmember Witherspoon said it looked like in any case the City would have to paint the exterior of the house, and asked who would choose the color of paint, and how would it be brought into. the aesthetics. Mr. Diaz said the City would choose the color, but staff had indi- Cated that they would accept input from . the American Society of Interior Decorators. Councilmember Witherspoon strongly urged that :that. be done. Vice - Mayor Fletcher wondered what the contents were of the rot,i to which was sent to the surrounding residents and if there was any indication as to the traffic and parking impacts-, 1 Zoning Administrator Bob Brown said that the notice basically in- cluded the anticipated use and generation figures for traffic and parking which were based upon previous experience with the show- case in Atherton. He said it was estimated that the maximum gen- eration would be about 150 persons and most likely about 75 vehi- cles during each day, with possibly more_ on the one evening for a two hour period. He said he received two phone calls and both were in favor of the use. Councilmember Bechtel said she was glad that positive comments were received. Councilmember Levy said he was not in attendance when the matter was discussed, and asked if there was an expected return to the City. Mr. -Diaz said it was_ unknown. Staff suspected there :would be some; but unfortunately it was not known precisely what the plans were for any of the interior work to be done by the interior decorators. The City had the control -_over the approval of the plans and, therefore, in what condition the, property would be left. He said staff presumed there would be some.improVement to the interior of. the structure by viture of the interior decorators work. She proposal, did not provide for any rent during that period of time. Councilmember Levy said that of the $28,000, what would be re- quired if the City rented the house on a caretaker basis for a six to nine month period,. Mr. Diaz responded that all of the expenses except for the exte- rior painting were previously recommended including an interim residential rental. Councilmeiilber Levy asked Mr. Diaz how much staff time was likely to be needed in connection with the matter. Mr. Zaner responded that it was difficult to give the Council an accurate estimate of the staff's time mainly because it was not known the extent to which the City's inspectors and plan checks would have to review the material nor was it known how much con- tinuing liaison would be needed with the ASID organization. If the project went smoothly, the liaison might be very slight, but if the project had some difficulties, Fr. Diaz could be tied Up for some time. Councilmember Levy asked if there was any concern regarding public safety because of access or wiring? Mr. Diaz said there were many of those concerns initially. He felt that they had been addressed, and. the special provisions which were written into the lease satisfied all : of the relevant City staff including Building Inspection, Fire Marshall, etc. Councilmember Renzel said that in the earlier staff report, Jim Krokee had indicated -that he thought painting the exterior of the house, and protecting it from further dry rot was a high priority i tem . and, had not been included in the budget before. :She asked if short of demolishing the house, whether at Some point the City would have to incur that expense. Mr. Diaz responded that if the City were to keep the structure as one of the -permanent uses, et some point exterior painting would have to be done, and, therefore, any of the exterior damage repair that was necessary. He said that if the Council decided..-to sell the structure, one of the options could be to sell it as s in which case the expense could be passed on to: the buyer which would result i n reducing the sales prise ._.to the City, Councilmember.Renzel asked if the $8,000 would be recouped if the property was sold. Mr. Diaz said that was difficult to answer. Today's market was very difficult to project how any given property would sell. He said a lot would depend upon what kind of conditions the City could offer. Certainly cosmetic work would serve to increase its general appeal- and may have the effect of increasing the price above the amount of the work. Mayor Henderson said in his experience with Squire House, and the Council's attempts to save it, the Council found. themselves going off in various directions to try and find a public use for it, and tremendous expenses were encountered -before the end. He asked eif staff had thoroughly gone through the Gamble House so that those kinds of expenses would not be encountered. 'Mr. Diaz said -they had not been through the property to the extent. of -what was behind the walls._ He said staff made a structural assessment, and a termite inspection.which indicated that eventu- ally there would be some significant work required. The $8,000 included in the report provided for exterior dry rot repair and repairing termite -damage which should be done as part of the ex- terior painting. - They had delayed some of the ether work, He said it did not appear _there was anything really significantly wrong with, the structure at this point, however, w;.an you get to the point of taking of ceilings and walls, you might be surprised at what was behind it. Ruth Soforenko, 1800 Guinda Street, was a designer and owned a gallery studio in downtown Palo Alto. She felt the showhouse use of the Gamble House would serve to enhance the cultural and com- munity environment of Palo Alto. She said the Americas Society of Interior Decorators (ASID) usage co.id be the start of many other participating organizations. She said that not only could the Palo Alto Garden Club be involved, but the Palo Alto Historical Society might be interested in tieing in a tour of historically interesting homes with the ASID showhouse. She said that other community based groups could be inspired to use the House for an- nual meetings, teas, art exhibits or other fund raising events. Palo Alto was known as the center for design in all fields. She felt it was fitting for the City to recognize it by allowing the ASID to showcase the Gamble House. Kathleen Malloey, 125 University Avenue, President of the Local Chapter of ASID, said she was comfortable with- the lease. Her legal counsel had reviewed it and there were no major provisions that they objected to. Regarding the parking and the impact on the neighborhood, they had gone one step further in that they informally rang doorbells and polled 20., of the neighbors on Waverley and Churchill that would be most- severely impacted. Four- teen of the people indicated positive support of the proposal and the other seven were not at home. She said that the staff recom- mendation regarding lost revenue indicated a loss of about four months rental income of $1,500 per month for a total of $6,000, and as an' interior designer with ten years of experience, she could al- most guarantee the Council that they would get at least $6,000 of improvements to the interior of that house. She said that if any of the councilhembers had done any interior refurbishing at 011, the painting estimate for the house was $4',500. She pointed out that they were talking about much more than just getting a surface painting, they were talking about refinishing floors, replacing light fixtures, repairing plaster, and removing wall paper that was stained and water damaged. She thought that even though the City was forfeiting =four -months ,=worth of rent, it -would .snore than re- cover that in the improvements plus the benefit to the community by having it opened for a 30 -day period in March. Once the ASIA moved closer toward the March 1 opening, it would become a real community event. She said the Garden Club was excited by helping on the ex- terior gardens, the original landscape architect was excited about helping with plan identification. She was very excited about the project, she thought it had a lot of intangible benefits to the City of Palo Alto in addition to the dollars and cents. Elizabeth Melvin, 1537 Parkmoor, San. Jose, represented the American Cancer Society of Santa Clara County (ACS). She said she had brought a detailed listing of what the organization did. She said ACS was grateful to have been chosen by ASID and hoped they could have their showcase and show the people of Palo Alto that they were active and that the Council was in support of that acti- vity. Mr. Laver called the Council's attention to the statement which read, "Access to this exhibit in this building is jay fee." He said there was a $6 fee and the building and the exhibits were not generally available to the public without payment of the fee. Councilmember Renzel thought it was . a positive proposal and a way to spruce up the house and to make it available to the public. Although there was a. fee, it was a fee that would go toward sever- al good causes. MOTION: Councilmember Renzel moved., seconded by Witherspoon, the lease agreement and the budget ordinance. LEASE AGREEMENT Showcase House. -.Gamble ORDINANCE 3320 entitled . "ORDINANCE '3F THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 1981-82 TO PROVIDE FUNDING FOR STRUCTURAL AND GROUNDS MAINTENANCE AND MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSE FOR THE GAMBLE HOUSE" Coueeilmember Eyerly said it was his understanding within the lease that _painting and floor finishing, etc. was not just cosrnet- ic,,,,,but that service preparation would be properly done and asked if that was true. Mr. Diaz said that ASID had to submit plans regarding all of their surface treatment, any structural repairs and basically anything they intended to do with the structure. He said the plans were subject to the City's review and the City could suggest modifica- tions if there were problems. Councilmember Eyerly said he was concerned because on page, 2 of the Lease Agreement, the first paragraph below the number 7, indi- cated that the City Manager or designee could do certain things as far as the proposals, but wondered if there should be something put in about proper surface. preparation. He asked if they were willing just to paint and were not willing to take.: off plaster in. a damaged area, would the City be able to force preparation. Mr. Diaz responded that in the case of ASID proposing some partic- ular treatment - in a manner which did - not take care ;of the problem, the City had sufficient controls to request a change in that par- ticular treatment. Further, the City had the--typical requirement that they obtain any and all permits or approvals prior to com- mencement, and they were also required to use licensed rontrac tors. Generally, he felt the City had sufficient controls. Councilmember Eyerly thought that the security deposit of $2,000 was lowfor what might be doneto the house. Mr. Diaz said that staff had reviewed the -present review provi- sions. He said they would have to identify art the steps they 1 5 0 6 12/7/81 intended to take with regard to construction, storage of fixtures, and how they intended to leave the premises. He felt that with those conditions written in, $2000 would be sufficient. Councilmember Eyerly said that on page 12 under Special Condi- tions, it indicated that, "inside and outside handrails shall be provided on -the stairway of the main house." He surmised that Mr. Diaz would make sure they were placed in the proper decor of the house, and not something that was just put up,. Mr. Diaz said .yes.. He said one already existed and the only one. at issue was the inside rail. Councilmember Eyerly said he would support the motion. Vice Mayor Fletcher said she shared staff's concern last time about the amount of work involved. She thought that the lease must have taken untold hours of work to put it together_ She com- plimented staff on a very thorough job. Councilmember Klein said he thought the Council was making a serious. mistake. He thought . that in effect the City was giving away public funds to a particular charity, regardless of how worthwhile the charity., and further thought public funds were being given to the Decorator's group. He felt that they were a worthwhile organization, but were a private noncharitable group and he thought it was a bad precedent for the City. He said pub- lic funds were being given away by spending the tremendous amount of staff time that would still have to go into the project. He said that -since the City had not decided what use would ultimately be made of the building, he did not know that the project would have any value, and the work that would have to be done inside might not be worth anything. He said that within the last month, the Council ',e.d adopted a policy with regard to how City -owned properties would be leased to private organizations, and the Council was thoroughly ignoring the policy just adopted. At this time there were many demands on the City's staff, and by adopting the motion many more staff hours would be expended on a project he felt was a low priority, compared to the major projects the City faced. He would not support the motion. Councilmember Levy said he was sensitive to Councilmember Klein and he begrudged the use of the City's staff time, and did not want to -see too much staff time spent on it. However, he felt that moving ahead for .the next four months was proper and -appro- priate. He did pot think public funds ,were being given away, or that the the Council was violating the policies enacted for the use of public area because this was a temporary use where time was of the essence, Something had to be done over the next six months as a "stop gap" use of the property while deciding what the longer term use would be. He said it was not a,..permanent use, but merely occupying the property in a positive way while those other deci- sion! were being made. He thought the use was exciting and a way of showing off to the citizens of Palo Alto what the new property was and what the new gift to the City was. In that sense, the ASID- was also providing the City and citizenry a service. The fact that a fee of $6 was .involved did not bother him. The only negative in his mind was the impact on staff and he was -satisfied that the impact on staff would be appropriately moderate for the positive benefits he expected from the project. Councilmember Fazzino said ",thee issuewas tough for him because he agreed with every thing Councilmember Klein said, but intended to vote. in favor of the motion because. tee Council was talking About an interim use during a transitional time. If he was sure that the City could move ahead quickly and make -a long-term decision regarding the site, he would =-probably vote against the motion, but recognizing how long , the Council took with issues of this nature, 1 S 0 7 12/7/81 1 1 1 1 he did not think there was any way this particular concept could take anything way from the eventual proposal. He was troubled by the fee, but felt the positive outweighed the negative and would support the proposal. Mayor Henderson said he was feeling very receptive toward the pro- posal, but was reminded about it being a bad precedent. He was disappointed because otherwise he thought it was a. good proposal. His experience with the Squire House told him to back off and to make the decision as to the ultimate use of the property. MOTION PASSED to approve the lease by a vote of 7-2, Klein and Henderson voting "no." MOTION PASSED to approve the budget amendment ordinance unani- mously. REQUEST OF MAYOR HENDERSON RE INTERVIEWS OF PLANNING COMMISSION AND HUMAN RELATIOrs MM S Vice Mayor Fletcher said she was concerned because some of the applicants who applied during the 'first round might have applied again if they had known that one of the encumbents was not re- applying. She wondered whether the Council would consider opening up the applications again with that added information. City Attorney Diane Lee said that Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 2.20.015 talked about the manner of appoint►gent and from that section, it appeared that the Council had to select from candi- dates included on the list. Councilmember Renzel said she felt that the entire procedure was designed to encourage people to apply and to keep their applica- tions on file. She did not think anyone should be discouraged that encumbents were applying although she felt the Council always felt obligated to reappoint encumbents. She thought it was up to the Council to periodically make new people feel welcome to apply regardless of whether encumbents were applying. She felt it was inappropriate to open up the applications before Council decided on such a- policy. MOTION: Vice Mayor Fletcher moved, seconded by Levy, to open up the Human Relations Commission applications. MOTION FAILED by a vote of 7-2, Fletcher and Levy voting,"aye. MOTION: Councilmember Fazzino moved, seconded by Klein, to inter- view a maximum of 5 candidates for both the Manning Commission and the Human Relations Commission and each Councilmember to submit 4 names. .. MO.TION PASSED unanimously. MOTION: Councilmember Fazzino moved, seconded `by Bechtel,: to :..set interviews far,_,Monday, January .4, 1981. at 7:30 p:ih. MOTION PASSED unanimously.. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned .0.1r