WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.950 --> 00:00:25.150 On this week's episode: the City Council writes rules for delivery robots on sidewalks and in bike lanes, opens exclusive talks with a new developer for the city-owned Arena Hotel, and lends up to five point seven million dollars to turn a former hotel on North First Street into housing. 2 00:00:28.494 --> 00:00:34.854 Ten council districts, nearly a million people. Here's your weekly debrief from San Jose City Hall. 3 00:00:35.454 --> 00:00:42.950 Tuesday's council meeting opened with proclamations. October is National Arts and Humanities Month in San Jose, and it's also Filipino American History Month. 4 00:00:42.950 --> 00:00:58.594 And Wednesday, October seventh, was Walk and Roll to School Day. Vice Mayor Pam Foley brought that proclamation and called for continued investment in crosswalks, sidewalks and protected bike lanes. City transportation staff said the walk and roll program now has a hundred and fifteen schools taking part. 5 00:00:58.594 --> 00:01:11.631 Two dates came up. The Cornerstone of the Arts Awards are October sixteenth at the Hammer Theatre Center. And San José State's new Filipino American history mural is unveiled Friday, October thirtieth, at one o'clock, with the whole community invited. 6 00:01:11.631 --> 00:01:29.883 The council also adjourned in memory of a lifelong San Jose resident who died in September. He taught and coached at Yerba Buena High School from the year it opened, 1971, until he retired in 2010. He taught business, led the cheer program and coached basketball. His family spoke. 7 00:01:29.883 --> 00:01:37.054 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 8 00:01:40.397 --> 00:01:51.550 Our top story this week: on Tuesday the council approved an ordinance to regulate delivery robots, covering the robots on sidewalks and in bike lanes. Staff is still drafting the detailed regulations. 9 00:01:51.550 --> 00:01:53.990 Wait, are the robots already out there? 10 00:01:53.990 --> 00:02:19.433 Some are. Staff said three companies came to the city this spring: Coco, Serve and DoorDash. Coco and Serve already run sidewalk robots here. DoorDash's robot rides in bike lanes, goes up to twenty miles an hour and stands five feet tall, and it was waiting on this vote. Staff said no state or local law covers these devices right now, so without an ordinance the city has no direct authority over them. 11 00:02:19.433 --> 00:02:21.175 So what are the rules? 12 00:02:21.175 --> 00:03:10.667 The agenda sets an annual permit fee of two hundred dollars per robot on sidewalks, and two hundred fifty per robot for a pilot permit on roads and in bike lanes. Robots are limited to five miles an hour on sidewalks and in crosswalks. Their lights have to stay on, and their identification has to be shown in braille and raised letters. A broken-down robot has to be moved within thirty minutes. Fines are a hundred, two hundred and five hundred dollars for a first, second and third offense. In bike lanes, on the advice of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, robots would keep pace with cyclists instead of having a fixed speed limit. The Transportation Director can change the rules or suspend operations, and staff said rule changes can take effect on twenty-four hours' notice to the companies. 13 00:03:10.667 --> 00:03:11.712 Who had concerns? 14 00:03:11.712 --> 00:03:52.839 Vice Mayor Foley raised several concerns. She said she's very concerned about crowded sidewalks, and asked whether the companies have the money to back up their promise to cover the city's losses. She said outreach to people with disabilities had reached only a few organization leaders. She also said the fines didn't seem stiff, given the harm to someone in a wheelchair whose path is blocked, and she said she wasn't sure she could support the item. Staff said the city has to be named as an additional insured, with coverage limits set before any permits go out. Staff also said they'll work with the Independent Living Center on a focus group of San Jose residents with disabilities. 15 00:03:52.839 --> 00:03:54.581 Did anyone see an upside? 16 00:03:54.581 --> 00:04:15.842 A councilmember said downtown has been the testing ground, and that robots taking the place of car trips and double-parked delivery drivers could make streets safer overall. Councilmember Pamela Campos asked what other cities charge. Staff said Los Angeles charges ten thousand dollars for up to fifty robots, and that San Jose's fees are reviewed every year in the budget. 17 00:04:15.842 --> 00:04:16.887 And public comment? 18 00:04:16.887 --> 00:04:35.359 Four speakers. People from Serve and Coco supported the ordinance. One caller predicted it would be a disaster. A resident was cautiously optimistic, but called thirty minutes too long to wait for a robot to be moved, asked for penalties by the minute instead of flat fines, and asked for wider bike lanes. 19 00:04:35.359 --> 00:04:37.102 How did the vote go? 20 00:04:37.102 --> 00:04:52.437 It passed, with Councilmembers Peter Ortiz and Domingo Candelas absent. Next, staff plans to run the bike-lane pilot for about nine months, then take about three months to study it before reporting back to the council. The robots keep running in the meantime. 21 00:04:55.781 --> 00:05:01.988 Our next story is a fresh start for the Arena Hotel, a city-owned property in District 6. 22 00:05:01.988 --> 00:05:03.023 What's the backstory? 23 00:05:03.023 --> 00:05:21.989 Staff said the city bought the site in 2023 through the state's Homekey program. The plan was permanent supportive housing for people earning thirty percent of the area median income or less, built with the developer Urban Housing Communities. Now the project is being reworked as mixed-income housing, in two phases. 24 00:05:21.989 --> 00:05:23.713 So who's building it now? 25 00:05:23.713 --> 00:05:51.300 The council approved three years of exclusive negotiations, with two possible six-month extensions, with Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco. The group would turn the hotel from interim into permanent housing, and could build housing on the parking lot for households earning up to a hundred and twenty percent of the median. Staff said the lot could hold about two hundred units or more. If Episcopal Community Services doesn't deliver, the city can turn to the runner-up, Propertyworx. 26 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:52.679 And the original deal? 27 00:05:52.679 --> 00:06:17.852 The council also authorized staff to negotiate a change to the Homekey agreement with the state housing department, dropping the original developer and its partners and leaving the city as the only grantee. Staff will ask the state to let the city put the thirty-percent units on another site. Staff said every approval goes through the state, which has been open to the city's requests in early talks, but nothing is guaranteed. 28 00:06:17.852 --> 00:06:19.921 What came up in the discussion? 29 00:06:19.921 --> 00:06:58.888 A councilmember said the city spent forty-six million dollars, from Homekey and Measure E, on the site for eighty-seven units. He argued the neighborhood was promised new investment and got the opposite, and that the project had gone to a developer that wasn't qualified. Councilmember Campos asked which parts of the change the city controls, pointing to a similar situation in her district at 1 Branham Lane. Staff said the city's twenty-two interim housing sites are too different for one approach, but the city wants a consistent policy. In public comment, one speaker asked the city to tell residents how they can help bring about more hotel-to-housing conversions. 30 00:06:58.888 --> 00:06:59.923 And the outcome? 31 00:06:59.923 --> 00:07:14.061 It passed unanimously, with Councilmember Candelas absent. It included direction from a memo by Mayor Matt Mahan and Councilmember Michael Mulcahy: staff will report back on the negotiations in six months, and return with the amended Homekey agreement when it's ready. 32 00:07:17.405 --> 00:07:44.384 Our third story is also a hotel being turned into housing. The council unanimously approved a loan of up to five point seven million dollars to the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, again with Councilmember Candelas absent. The money will help turn the former Comfort Suites at 1510 North First Street, also in District 6, into fifty-seven homes, with services, for residents earning thirty percent of the area median income or less. 33 00:07:44.384 --> 00:07:45.786 Who would live there? 34 00:07:45.786 --> 00:08:21.525 Staff said the Housing Authority plans, if it can, to move about forty-three people from the nearby SureStay interim housing site into the building. The Housing Authority is developing the project and will use its housing vouchers to cover operating costs. Staff described the financing as a nine percent low-income housing tax credit project, with about eleven million dollars from the Housing Authority. A councilmember said the area needs a lift, and has been a challenge for the neighborhood around it, including Rosemary Gardens. Construction is expected to start at the end of the year and take about twelve months. 35 00:08:24.868 --> 00:08:40.276 Now some shorter items from Tuesday's meeting. The city has a new director for the City Manager's Office of Racial and Social Equity, starting October twenty-fifth. Staff said the office has six employees and a yearly budget of about three point three million dollars. 36 00:08:40.276 --> 00:09:00.477 The consent calendar passed unanimously. It included a one-year deal worth a hundred nine thousand, nine hundred seventy-five dollars for police access to the county's criminal justice records systems, and contracts to measure flows in the city's sewers. It also set a public hearing for November tenth on adding land to the Communications Hill community facilities district. 37 00:09:00.477 --> 00:09:05.955 Interviews for two seats on the Civil Service Commission were moved to the October twentieth meeting. 38 00:09:05.955 --> 00:09:19.308 And in open forum, a speaker described glass, bolts and thorny branches in the Santa Teresa Boulevard bike lanes through Coyote Valley, and said the plastic posts keep street sweepers out. The chair said the city would follow up. 39 00:09:22.652 --> 00:09:39.998 Before we go, here's what's ahead. This Tuesday, October thirteenth, at one o'clock, the City Council holds a special joint meeting with the board of Valley Water, the county's water district, which is separate from the city. The meeting is at Valley Water's headquarters on Almaden Expressway. 40 00:09:39.998 --> 00:09:58.452 On the agenda are updates on preparing for El Niño flooding this rainy season, the Anderson Dam earthquake retrofit and the Coyote Creek flood protection project, and Pure Water Silicon Valley, a plan to purify recycled water for drinking. Public comment is only on those items. There's no open forum. 41 00:10:01.796 --> 00:10:08.036 If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on this episode's page to tell us. Corrections are read on air. 42 00:10:08.036 --> 00:10:11.716 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.