Redding City Council Update 10.18.22

Redding City Council Update 10.18.22: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Redding City Council Update 10.18.22: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
I'm Katie. And I'm Steve. And this is the City of Redding podcast.

Steve:
Welcome back to another city council recap. Today, we will recap the meeting from Tuesday, October 18, 2022. As always, we encourage you to watch the full video which will link in the show notes as Kate and I will give a brief synopsis here.

Katie:
It was a lengthy and important meeting with a lot of great discussion, so we highly recommend you tune in to the video for full details.

Steve:
To begin the meeting, Mayor Schreder gave several proclamations for the City of Redding, including a proclamation presented to one safe place declaring October 2022 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the City of Redding. A proclamation was also presented to the Shasta County Youth Peer Court, also known as Youth Option Shasta, declaring October 2022 as Global Youth Justice Month in the City of Redding. Thirdly, a proclamation was presented to nation's finest Redding, a veteran focused nonprofit organization for their 50th anniversary on November six, 2022.

Katie:
Finally, a proclamation was presented to Shasta County in support of Operation Green Light for veterans declaring October through Veterans Day on November 11th as a time to salute and honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women returning from active service. To do this, you place a green light in your place of business or residence in the city of Redding also. Redding Fire Chief Jared Van Langsam introduced the new city of Redding Fire Marshal Patt O'Connor. He was hired from within due to his experience and expertise after a nationwide search. He comes with years of local experience and several service accolades. The city is very excited to welcome him to his new role.

Steve:
Now, a few notable mentions from the consent calendar. First up, our local libraries received a library grant award for building maintenance through the State of California Budget Act of 2021. This means our local libraries will benefit from some improvements, including lighting, HEPA filtration, new carpets and security cameras, along with other items.

Katie:
The fire department will donate old equipment to a few local fire training agencies. For those who weren't aware, the Redding Fire Department just celebrated four new fire engines with a traditional ceremony. These new engines bring the latest fire technology and advancements to our community.

Steve:
Now under the public agenda. The first item on the agenda was a report on the downtown parking plan to adjust parking rates in the downtown core, along with a traffic control map outlining paid and free parking zones for enforcement. Director of Public Works Chuck Ashland gave an overview on which areas would be subject to paid parking and a plan to accommodate employee long term parking options. Some of the items discussed were as follows Parking rates will be updated from their current 1989 rate structure and become $1 per hour in the downtown core. Employers and employees will be eligible for a downtown employee parking pass. There will be two hour zones, ten hour zones and short term zones for quick stops downtown. There are still a few residential parking zones and employee parking lots for long term parking downtown for those who will work downtown. And also paid parking areas will be subject to enforcement.

Katie:
For background, the city has leased six public lots to offer free parking downtown While construction has been taking place in April of 2022, the City Council decided to move forward with a user paid system based on a parking strategy study with a parking consultant firm. The goal of the paid parking system is to ensure that cars are moving in the downtown core to keep traffic flowing through local businesses. The council approved 4 to 1 to amend the traffic control map, establish no parking loading and paid parking zones, set hourly parking rates at $1 per hour, and establish an employee parking program for $25 a month, along with a few other small parking related items. So ultimately you will start to see some changes along with new parking signs and enforcement starting downtown soon.

Steve:
Next up, City manager Barry Tipton gave information on the state of California Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program, also known as AHIP. And this program, the state lays out goals for counties to meet the housing needs of local jurisdictions. If counties meet those goals, the state will pay out incentives. Just the county is currently to understaffed to manage this program. So the city of Redding is stepping in to help out so that our county can benefit from the nearly $8 million in state benefits available. In this agreement, the city will draft an MOU or a memorandum of understanding with the Partnership Health Plan of California for OHIP to manage the incentive payments and allocate and execute agreements with service providers to administer this program. The Council was appreciative of the effort and initiative for the city to take on this additional work for the county and approve the city to move forward.

Katie:
The next item was a big one. Development Services planning manager Lilly Toye brought before the council proposed changes to the short term rental ordinance for the City of Redding. Among these recommendations were several new restrictions. Some of the proposed restrictions included only one vacation rental per 1000 feet on the same street and 500 feet on different streets. Only two vacation rentals could be owned per person. The home must be owned for at least one year before it becomes a short term rental. Maximum size of short term rentals would be four bedrooms with a maximum occupancy of 25 people. Additional restrictions state that the owner must be a natural person, meaning that it couldn't be a company that owns the short term rental, along with the stipulation that the owner must be the applicant. Property management companies could not apply for the owner of the property. The owner must be on the application. There were. Several other restrictions around parking and a new proposed complaint response time of 15 minutes. This is down from the previous 60 minute allocation.

Steve:
As you can imagine, there was a lot of discussion among the council and the proposed new restrictions. They modified some, agreed with others and added a few suggestions, most notably debating whether the owner or the property manager must reside in Chester County in order to operate a short term rental. It was a very lengthy discussion, so we highly encourage you to tune into the video beginning at the one hour 52 minute mark and watch the full debate if you're interested in this topic. Ultimately, the proposed ordinance changes will go back to the Planning Commission for a full review and come back before the council before any ordinance is approved. For many in the community who feel strongly about this issue, the new ordinance will include language that grandfathers in existing short term rentals for a period of time before they need to come into full compliance. For some in the community, this would mean they're operating licenses will not be renewed.

Katie:
Next, Community Services Director Kim Nemer gave a report on the current capacity and usage of local ballfields for baseball and softball. The report found that we do need additional facilities so the city will look at improving current facilities and the possibility of a new complex. The council accepted the report and agreed with staff recommendations to continue working to improve existing facilities while exploring the possibility of a new complex. Along with working with local area leagues and schools.

Steve:
Lastly, the Redding Fire Department asked the Council for direction on a FEMA staffing grant called Safer, which stands for Staffing for Adequate Firefighter and Emergency Response, which was awarded to Redding Fire earlier this year. As the grant was written, it would use the funds to hire 12 firefighters and use city funds for the additional cost of staff to support a new strike team. As the economy is more uncertain now than it was six months ago, Redding Fire would like to modify the grant to accept the 12 positions only and pause the additional costs of the new strike team until the economy returns to a more stable condition. The council agreed, and if FEMA also agrees to the modification, Redding fire will move forward with the hires for the fire department as a whole and will revisit the strike team at a later date.

Katie:
That's it. It was a very exciting council meeting and we encourage you to watch the video for full details.

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