City Council - Planning Committee

okay I'll take us back in here and turn this over to our next committee meeting which is uh planning and that is typically headed up by Lisa Anderson council member Anderson is not here this afternoon and so in her stud council member lilyquist will uh chair that that committee and can you inform the public the makeup of the rest of the committee yeah so um skip yeah so I'll be chairing I'm on the committee skip William on the committee and I believe agreed to serve as a third member for our committee for today we have one item before the planning committee which is an ordinance relating to the establishment of identity theft prevention measures for registered Residential Properties throughout the city establishing a requirement for secure locking mail receptical in chapter 6.15.18 identity theft and discarded bills can have a significant impact on the financial well-being of an individual Andor household an efforted to support the need for safe and secure housing for all residents the city is establishing a requirement for locking or could be establishing a requirement for locking maale receptacles for all properties registered through the rental registration and safety inspection program uh planning director Blake Lion's here to present this and in your comments I hope you will address uh what properties already are required to Prov provide locking mailboxes certainly and thank you Blake line director of planning and Community Development um as council member list and many

of you might recall this was an item that was brought before uh staff and requested some time ago a couple years back in fact uh and through our work plan we have now had the opportunity to get to this particular issue um as council member liquis has indicated these are already required in multi Family new multif family construction that's further codified in items 14a here where it talks about new construction uh if you've seen any recent uh development in that multif family oftentimes what you'll see is kind of a multi uh individual locking male receptacle so you might have a male room or one that's near curbside and somebody will go out um and be able to retrieve their their mail from those particular locking mailboxes this uh requested change to the ordinance would allow for us to go back in and retroactively require those for existing uh residences in initially in its thought process it would be applied just to multif family we've extended that to all rental registration properties as you know that there are many of uh our properties within and throughout the city that are single family homes that are often rented by multiple individuals and so the ability to have um that protection through the identity theft and uh just overall Financial Security is one that is important to this community and one that I think um certainly with the rising and increasing cost of housing we want to make sure that people are in a position to be financially stable and make wise choices and

this helps facilitate that so we've um suggested the revisions that are put forth to you in your in the staff report um and we're interested in any feedback the reason we chose to bring it to the planning committee in and of itself was simply because of the the change instead of to apply it to all residential rental properties rather than just multifam and as it's uh requested the opportunity is to if you recall in the rental registration program we have an annual registration requirement so at the end of each calendar year uh those that own rental properties are required to register them for the following year um and then through the rental safety inspection program uh we have the opportunity under the state law and the local ordinance to inspect those units uh no more frequently than once every 3 years so what we're asking for your consideration is to incorporate this effort into that rental registration program it it is an opportunity to be efficient with utilization of our staff time we can add it to our rental checklist and as we're going out and doing those inspections we can verify that those those exist that's what's before you today if you have any questions I'm happy to entertain okay thank you so also in the packet was a memo drafted a little while ago that had to do with the issue of identity theft um since then and since covid there really has been an enormous increase in the use of mail order businesses and package theft has also become a significant issue and I

believe for the larger um uh apartment buildings when you provide locking mailboxes there's also a USPS code when you need to include a parcel box as well would that just be enrolled in and again it has to do with the size of the mailbox we we would certainly use we're using the USPS guidance uh for these and so to your your points well taken often times what you'll see is a smaller kind of uh letter mailbox and then maybe directly below that is a parcel uh you know not every parcel is going to fit in there but they're they're certainly larger and they have a universal uh key to them so the US PS and different postal carriers can can access those for the for the residents right so before opens up for the committee discussion I would like to point out and thank uh one individual Mr Todd Lusty who brought this up issue several years ago and he actually drafted draft ordinance to get the ball rolling to kind of remind us this work was UN unfinished I want to thank Todd for uh staying on this issue and for staff for staying on this issue committee members well this seems to be a move in the right uh Direction you would uh discuss something about um um extending the effective date of this right so um I drafted some language so as it's currently written as soon as we adopt this and it goes into law in like 15 days after uh it becomes a requirement right away and and technically speaking within a month everyone would have to go out and buy install mailboxes which seems unrealistic

um also as you pointed out to me the registration is on an annual basis January one is when people re-register I think to give people several months to come and do compliance why don't we just have the effective date begin with that annual cycle and so I would like to make a motion to add section two to the ordinance section two entitled effective date and it would read the effective date for compliance with BMC 6.1 5.04 B subsection 14 shall be January 1st 2025 a one-time extension may be granted at the plan director's discretion for individual properties on a case-by Case basis upon a showing of unique hardship and extenuating circumstances to an effective date of March 1st 2025 I don't know what those extenda circumstances would be but they might exist and this gives some people some flexibility to comply with the law um so I would make that motion why don't we discuss that and that's that's then then turn back to actually how we'd handle the rest of it um is there any discussion on that and Mr L you saw that language earlier I believe other council members may have any discussion all those in favor of the amendment signify by saying I I I all those opposed okay that pass un now an amended ordinance let's go ahead and just discuss that in general committee members council members well it's like uh you um as I read this um maybe it might be appropriate to move this to the committee of the whole for next month or the next uh meeting and so I would make that motion okay

there's a motion before us have move to the committee of the whole uh with the Amendments for further discussion are we going to move this forward with any recommendation positive or negative or neutral at this point I would say I would say neutral neutral Hannah so and I could if it's going to come back for discussion in Committee of the whole it could wait um the one question that I had was just with respect to right enforcement that that implementation piece when you mentioned the annual registration requirement then rental safety inspections and I wasn't certain if this being added to the checklist if this was within the sort of initial registration and to qualify but then if some so uh as it as it exists right now in the rental registration program um if you are instituting a either building new construction or bringing an existing home onto the rental market you have to go through that inspection checklist when you're initially going to rent the property if it's an existing property that's already in the rental registration again you have that annual renewal but the inspection cycle is no more than once every 3 years so again if you're bringing a property into the registration program you would be required to provide consistency with the ordinance at that time otherwise you're subject to the once every three years and so I know that within the council discussions about parental registration those safety inspections the homeowner has the option to have the city conduct

that inspection or a private inspector and so I'm expecting that the city shares those checklists I mean if that's unique yeah both the private inspectors and City inspectors work from the same checklist that's part of the training that we provide both entities and so they would be obligated to to adhere to that regardless okay and otherwise I mean you'd answered initially the questions that I had about whether this was pertaining to all right um all properties within the um rental registration program or just multifamily and so I'm happy to hear that it would be um applicable to all residences so yeah great um Mr L are you prepared to speak to estimated cost if not I can give some off-the-cuff numbers have you looked into any further particularly you know how it would spread out across larger units you might have economies of scale for a group box versus an individual um there are a wide range of different uh price points for the mailboxes so I can speak a little bit to that um you know individual mailbox and again depends on the number of units within the particular facility so if it's for example a single family home no adus just one residential unit you might be talking in the order of $100 to you know and up depending on how elaborate you wanted to get with that particular mailbox receptical as you get multiple units obviously the size of the mailbox grows from there and it depends a little bit where you start to get added costs are if you start to have to build a

concrete pad and a pedestal and other things of that nature uh and so that would be in the order of probably multiple hundred but amortised over uh multiple units you're probably talking in the in the order of you know $50 a unit or something in that range okay thank you so any skip so one thing um one of the thoughts I had um in my neighborhood we have one of those for every house and if you had a neighborhood with five or six or however many single family rentals uh does this would this mandate that each one of them would have to have it on their property or could they coordinate and if if there's let's say 10 rental houses in a neighborhood could they all come together and say okay we'll put up that pedestal and have a multiple box unit somewhere the USPS actually prefers that Consolidated location uh so that their mail carriers can you know provide uh distribution of the mail to in kind of in one location and then it becomes the the residents or the tenants responsibility to then go to the mailbox right um you know so that's kind of the the order or the range of consideration but that is a preferred alternative it's just one location where it's all coollook yeah and and then those could have a parcel box in ours has two so I'm looking at an example here you know uh it's a you know 10 unit 15 unit uh box and it's on the order of about $2,500 uh for for that so it's a little more than what I had described to you in that that 50 so it's kind of that 50 to 100 range in terms

of what you're talking about um but yes it would be Consolidated into that location I guess a follow up to council member Williams question then what I heard him saying is if there were perhaps different Property Owners right but wanting to work together to build something collectively I'm expecting that that would go in the public right of way or right because that would often times if you're talking about a residential subdivision as an example you might have common area ownership uh entry features where there might be a sign or a gate or um you know common area to that particular HOA as an example um if it is something that they were identifying as being put put in the right way uh then they would go through the public facilities contract the PFC and make sure that we identify appropriate locations so that it's not impacting fire Lanes or turning radius or site visibility and so we would identify that through the process those rules are already in place if correct non-locking versions as well right exactly and they're in place for the requirement for the existing multif family as well and have been for sometime so it would it would be no different and I mean I'm definitely supportive of right the principle in the policy itself as far as the need and understanding the the impact of male theft and those pieces I guess one of my questions when you're speaking to a cost and then right the lift from the city as far as implementation and then enforcement is thinking about what

we're hearing from tenants right locally with concerns related to cost of housing and whether that would be if we we can't predict you know but whether there could be a significant cost that may actually have an impact on um what tenants are paying for rent um and thinking about right calls for additional safety inspections and the need for additional work from the city on that enforcement side just sort of safety concerns that I might say I don't want to prioritize but whether they're elevated or on par with this and whether we see that to have right any impact positively or negatively on the other work we're trying to accomplish I don't want to uh minimize the impact of The Upfront costs because there is certainly some there um I think the concern about identity theft and the potential disposal of things that will Impact Credit would far outweigh the in the initial impa act that would be there part of the recommendation for why we're implementing it in this manner where it goes into the inspection checklist process is so that there from a staff perspective there's not an undue burden you're going out there and you're looking at a checklist that is you know 14 15 items you know sections long this is one element that would take a couple more minutes where you're already out on the property so it was a from an implementation standpoint it was a much more costeffective way to propose doing it any further discussion if not the motion before us is to uh refer this item as amended

to uh the next uh meeting or no the committee the whole whenever it's can be scheduled any further discussion on the motion all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed no okay that is a motion I don't think we need to bring that forward tonight except just to report it out I don't think we need to vote on that okay okay and the committee it is 207 our next committee is committee of the whole that meets at 2:10 so we've got a couple minutes here