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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Written CommentsReceived After Agenda Printed March 8, 2022 Written Comments March 8, 2022, City Council Agenda Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( iimmosher(@-yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item SS2. Recognition of the Freeway Fighters I have no way of knowing either the genesis or content of this item, originally scheduled for the January 11 Council meeting, but postponed. I might guess it was prompted by an article in Stu News Newport last November highlighting a "Newport Beach in the Rearview Mirror" podcast episode about the Freeway Fighters (to which there was a postscript episode). For those interested, it is a subject for which considerable resources are available. That is due in part to Newport Beach Library Services Manager Natalie Basmaciyan having had the scanning of the library's microfilm collection of local newspapers as a pet project prior to assuming her current duties as Homeless Coordinator. As a result of the creation of that (somewhat) searchable database, one can now locate and view online the back issues of the Newport Ensign in which the freeway opposition groups published multipage "supplements," including the April 30, 1970, issue (with a list of the highest profile Freeway Fighters on page 12 of the 14 -page PDF) and the election -eve March 4, 1971, issue (featured as an illustration in the Stu News article and reprinting the ballot measure and the arguments for and against rescinding the freeway agreement on pages 13 and 14 of that 17 page PDF). The March 1971 arguments in favor of the freeway (that is, against the citizens' initiative to prevent it) are signed by five Council Members, including Mayor Ed Hirth, who is, curiously, listed in the April 1970 issue as a member of the Freeway Fighters Executive Committee. Bill Lobdell, the creator of the 2021 podcast, was perhaps unaware that in 1976, with events much fresher in people's minds than they are today, Cal State Fullerton's Center for Oral and Public History conducted an oral history prosect on the Freeway Fighters, consisting of hour-long interviews with seven key figures. Those were E.T. Telford,' the Caltrans District Engineer for Los Angeles and Orange Counties during the initial planning, who Mr. Lobdell portrays as a somewhat sinister and unyielding "Mr. Freeway;" his successor on the project, Bill Hashimoto; The Irvine Company's engineer, Gordon Jones; Robert Wilson, a former mayor of Costa Mesa; Newport Beach Council member and later Mayor Howard Rogers; resident/activist and Hoag Hospital board member Carroll Beek; and current Council member Duffield's father, Marshall Duffield, Sr. The CSUF Center scanned their transcripts of these interviews at the request of local resident Peggy Palmer in 2017 (in connection with proposals to widen PCH through Mariners Mile), and briefly posted them and the recordings online. The Library may wish to obtain copies. ' Mr. Telford's extensive review of the status and plans for freeway development in his district can be found starting on page 30 of the March -April 1965 edition of California Highways and Public Works. March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 11 Additional insights can be gleaned from the many Council resolutions related to freeway issues adopted over the years as can be found by searching on "freeway" in the City Clerk's Laserfiche archive. As Mr. Lobdell's podcast indicates, freeways (which were not always envisioned as 12 -lane behemoths) were originally embraced by many as a logical way to relieve traffic congestion and get people to their destination without the delay and frustration stop lights. They were not always viewed as the blight many see them as today. And while opposition like that which materialized in Newport Beach may have contributed to the eventual decline in the rate of freeway building, some attribute it2 more to increased costs and the drying up of its original funding model. As early as 1956 (Resolution No. 4559), the Newport Beach City Council actively encouraged the state to explore developing an inland "highway" (though not necessarily a freeway) paralleling PCH to relieve congestion on it. By 1962 (Resolution No. 5653), the Council had endorsed construction of what is now the 73 Freeway along Bristol (which was then called Palisades Road) near the Airport, as well (with Resolution No. 5579) a particular route for the new Coastal Highway. To be sure, the Council did, soon thereafter (with Resolution No. 5813), object to the state's selection of a Coastal Highway route different from the one the Council preferred, and through various additional resolutions lobbied for the planned interchange at Newport Boulevard and PCH to be moved to Superior and PCH. But by two resolutions in 1968, it had agreed that if the 55 Freeway through Costa Mesa got to PCH along Superior, the City would not object to a large interchange there (Resolution No. 6884), and had signed an agreement with the state for construction of the Pacific Coast Freeway segment from Bayside Drive to what was then the City limit at Buck Gully (Resolution No. 6890). Some points that might not be entirely clear from the podcast: 1. The coming of freeways to Newport Beach was apparently pitched as both inevitable and something to look forward to as late as 1968 in the Newport Tomorrow public visioning conducted in preparation for a General Plan Update: a. "The completion of the Pacific Coast Freeway will likewise generate a cycle of growth in the West Newport area" b. "The Pacific Coast Freeway and Corona del Mar Freeway will be of significant impact on the rejuvenation of commercial properties in the Corona del Mar area" 2 That article is based on a PhD dissertation ("When Finance Leads Planning") by the same author. And UCI has a copy of one of the key academic references cited in it (California's Freeway Era in Historical Perspective), although it mentions the demise of the Pacific Coast Freeway only in passing. March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 11 c. "The commercial parking problem also can be improved in other areas through utilization of surplus lands remaining as a result of the development of the freeway system." 2. The Council never signed an agreement with the state as to the construction of the freeway segment from the Santa Ana River to the Upper Bay crossing. As a result, the 1971 ballot measure recounted in the podcast was a citizen initiative to rescind only the Council's 1968 agreement to the eastern freeway segment through Corona del Mar and to amend the City Charter (something that at that time required approval by the State Legislature) by adding Section 422 requiring voter approval of any future freeway agreements with the state. Residents voted overwhelming to rescind the existing agreement and only slightly less overwhelmingly to amend their Charter. 3. To its credit, the Council honored the vote and promptly rescinded its 1968 agreement despite Caltrans refusal to sign on to that (Resolution No. 7443, see also 7640). 4. At the same time, it continued to push vigorously for the completion of the freeway connecting Bristol to UC Irvine (Resolution No. 7614), something the Freeway Fighters seem not to have expressed an opinion about. 5. The only measure ever presented to voters as a result of Charter Section 422 was in November 1983 (Resolution No. 83-12) when the Council sought voter approval for the extension of the 73 freeway along Bristol from Jamboree to MacArthur, something that was, according to the resolution, "overwhelmingly approved" by voters, although I have no recollection of that measure and have been unable to find a resolution certifying the vote. The further connections at Bison and Bonita Canyon Road may have been constructed before those areas were part of the City? 6. Although the City escaped complete freeway disaster, Caltrans did acquire the parcels on either side of Superior just north of PCH and left the coastal bluffs at what are now Sunset Ridge and Sunset View Park forever scarred by what I understand was their excavation of them to use as fill dirt for freeway construction elsewhere. 7. The story that all five Council members who opposed the citizen initiative in 1971 were voted out of office seems somewhat apocryphal. While it is true that Ed Hirth lost to Paul Ryckoff in 1972, Carl Kymla, Richard Croul and Lindsley Parsons do not appear to have run again, while Milan Dostal, who joined the Council in 1970, was reelected in 1974 and later selected Mayor. Item 1. Ordinance No. 2022-7: City Council Redistricting Map It is probably little-known that the boundaries of the City's seven districts (nowhere referred to as "councilmanic districts") were originally specified by detailed "metes and bounds" descriptions in Sections 1006 through 1012 of the City Charter, and per the original Section 1005 the Council was to reassess those boundaries every four years, and was permitted to change them by ordinance without changing the descriptions in the Charter. March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 11 The by -then -obsolete boundary descriptions were deleted from the Charter by a ballot measure in 1966, but it was not until 2010 that the four-year boundary review cycle was changed to a ten- year one to coincide with congressional redistricting (see the committee recommendation and the proposed Charter revision from 2010 Measure V). The staggered Council terms remain as they were with three of the numbered districts being voted on at one election, and the four remaining numbers at the next based on, pursuant to the original Section 400, who won with the most votes in the first election held under the charter, in which people from all seven districts ran. As I have repeatedly pointed out, unlike in congressional voting, Newport Beach elects its Council members from districts rather than by districts, with the sole purpose of that being to ensure geographical diversity on the Council. Hence, Council redistricting has the very limited significance of affecting in what election year a particular otherwise qualified person can run for Council and who they may run against (namely, other candidates from the same district). It has nothing to do with who can vote for whom: all voters have an equal chance to vote for or against every candidate in every election, irrespective of how the districts are drawn or where the voter lives. And to the extent elected representatives represent the people who elect them, every successful candidate represents the entire city, not just the district in which they happen to live. But as many can hopefully recognize, this becomes a highly flawed system as soon as the electeds, City staff and the public in general begin referring to those elected as representatives "f&' (as opposed to "from") the district in which they happen to live. This is because if one accepts that terminology, the residents of a district have very little to say about who will claim to be the representative "for" their district. For by this design, those residents hold only roughly 1/71h of the votes used to elect. As a result, there are numerous cases in Newport Beach history in which the person a district's voters tried to choose was outvoted by a choice of the 6/7t"S of voters who live elsewhere in the City. And there are far more numerous cases in which the voters of a district, voting as they do for all the candidates from all the districts, showed a stronger preference in their voting for an elected Council member different from the one who purports to "represent" their district. Indeed, the fragmentation of eligibility and the disconnect between voting and representation has led to the unfortunately frequent phenomenon of candidates from a particular district running unopposed, so that in practice the voters of those districts find themselves with essentially self-appointed representatives voted in by the rest of the city, with no practical choice at all as to who will purport to represent their interests. In short, Newport Beach would likely be better off: (1) eliminating districts and going to strictly "at large" elections, in which case the trouble and expense of this decennial redistricting exercise could be dispensed with entirely; or (2) going to "by district" voting, in which case the outcome of this exercise would have some true meaning in terms of determining representation. As to the Charter's original and continuing objective of ensuring geographic diversity on the Council, it would have been interesting to see a graphic of where elected Council members have resided to see if there are areas that have been historically under- or un -represented, and whether the lines could have been drawn to correct any deficiencies detected. I would guess, for example, that although it came within a few votes of happening in 2018, there has never been a Council person from the relatively recently annexed area of Santa Ana Heights. And I would guess there may never have been a Council person from the considerably older West Newport March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 11 Mesa area. But by the same token it is difficult to imagine how lines could be drawn to ensure the correction of such deficiencies unless districts with quite different populations were allowed. That said, it appears that if this proposed ordinance is adopted on March 22, as of its effective date on April 21, Council member Duffield, who has said he lives in the Bayshores community at the terminus of Dover Drive, south of PCH, will no longer be resident of the district from which he was elected. Pursuant to City Charter Section 401,3 this would normally disqualify Mr. Duffield from being able to continue to serve on the City Council after that date. However, there is a savings clause in Section 1005 which allows members displaced by redistricting to remain in office until the term to which they were originally elected ends. Regarding the proposed ordinance: 1. The staff report (but not the ordinance) says (on page 1-2) that "The Committee reviewed the results of the U.S. Decennial Census 2020 and determined the current districts were unbalanced and did not meet the minimal 10 percent deviations for each district to be considered "equal population"." I believe that was intended to read "maximal": districting maps are considered suspect (but not necessarily invalid) if the difference in population between the most and least populous districts is more than 10% of their average population (not less than 10%).4 2. The current district boundaries were established by Ordinance No. 2011-27, which described them by "metes and bounds" as in the original Charter, and as seems to have been the case in all previous redistrictings except Ordinance No. 2003-11, in which the Council simply adopted a new map. The present ordinance, for the first time, proposes to describe the districts by means of a "Census Block Equivalency File." While Exhibit B to the ordinance (on page 1-11 of the staff report) assures us that "This electronic standardized format is recognized by the U. S. Census to assign the Council Districts to established Census geographic boundaries," and while it appears to provide a simple and efficient system that is most likely what the Orange County Registrar of Voters would like to receive, it is not clear it fulfills the Charter requirement to "define the boundaries." Instead, it lists what district boundary each census block is inside without explicitly saying where the boundary that is being used to make that decision is. 3. The proposed new map of Exhibit A does not indicate the district designation of much of the City. Instead, it identifies, by color, only the designation of land areas. By contrast, the map adopted by Ordinance No. 2011-27 showed the full boundary lines including where, over water, one district ends and another begins. Those now 3 Section 401, as currently revised, contains an odd redundancy: it requires candidates to be "a registered elector of the district from which he or she is nominated or appointed" for at least 30 days prior to that nomination of appointment, and then additionally requires them to be "a registered elector of the City" for at least 30 days prior to that election or appointment. Since all the districts are in the City, and the election comes after the nomination, it is hard for me to see anyone who has been qualified to vote in district would not be qualified to vote in the City. So stating the latter qualification (for which there was previously a different and longer time requirement) appears, now, entirely superfluous. 4 The 10% "maximum deviation" criterion, which is not a hard-and-fast rule, is based on US Supreme Court rulings, as explained here and here. March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 6 of 11 missing lines seem important since a Council candidate could potentially live on a boat in a marina or on a mooring and the Council cannot visualize what district they would be in, since the map does not indicate to what district the census blocks over the water have been assigned to. 4. Exhibit C to the ordinance, apparently attempting to provide a legal description to the split of "Census Block 1023" (full name: 060590627011023), is both a bit confusing and appears to contain some significant errors: a. Many of the areas shown are not part of the census block being split. b. The reference to "Parcel 1 of Resub 998" (which parcel is the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club property, part of which, including the part south of EI Paseo, is submerged under water, but could possibly be the home of a liveaboard voter or Council member) means little in isolation. To be a legal description, I believe it would have to include reference to the Orange County tract it is a resubdivision of, which is not evident from the exhibit. c. More importantly, according to the US Census Bureau's 2020 Census Address Count Listing Files Viewer for 1601 Bayside Dr., Newport Beach, CA 92625, and the depiction of Census Block 1023 and the District 5/6 boundary in Attachment B (staff report page 1-15) and in Exhibit C to the ordinance, before even considering the split, does not match the data file of Exhibit B. Without the split, the Block 1023 boundary jogs in, as shown here by the Census Bureau: F, at what appears to be the bayward extension of the property line between Lots 11" and "12" in Exhibit C. In particular, according to the Census Bureau, the water area, part of "Parcel 1" and all of "Parcel 2" falls in Census Block 1024 (full March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 7 of 11 name: 060590627011024), which Exhibit B assigns to District 5. Yet, Exhibit C shows "Parcel 2" as being in District 6. Moreover, the proposed boundary along the "Southerly Lot Line" of "Parcel 1" splits not just Census Block 1023, but also Block 1024, even though Exhibit B lists Block 1024 as unsplit. d. Attachment B shows further areas where the Census Block 1023 boundary does not follow property lines, producing areas of yellow extruding out of the hatched Census Block 1023 into what is Census Block 1024, most prominently along Bayside Place. The proposed split will put these properties partly in the red (District 6) and partly in the yellow (District 5). To resolve this and create logical district boundaries, Census Block 1024 (which is mostly docks and water) also needs to be split near the extension of EI Paseo Drive. Without that, the areas below he hatched areas that are colored red in Attachment C (staff report page 1-17) would remain yellow. e. I think the most logical split would be not along the "Southerly Lot Line" of "Parcel 1," but along the bayward extension (through Census Blocks 1023 and 1024) of the northerly lot line of "Lot 12" (= 1611 Bayside Drive, the first residential lot south of EI Paseo Drive on the bayward side of Bayside Drive). The proposed split along the Bahia Corinthian lot line puts those folks boats and docks in a different district from their homes. 5. The Census Bureau map says the number of housing units in the unsplit Census Block 1023 is 156 units, yet Attachment C (staff report page 1-17) says it is 162. The assumed number of occupants per unit (1.1) also seems extremely low for the kind of housing it is, unless staff assumes many of the units are vacant. 6. 1 have not attempted to review in any detail what other anomalies may have been introduced by this switch from describing the geographic boundaries of City districts to listing the census block numbers that fall within them. But as best I can tell they may involve things like the Census Bureau defining all or part of the right of way area of a public highway as census block. As a result, where we would have traditionally used the centerline of the highway as the district boundary, we may now have to arbitrarily assign that piece of right of way, if the highway is used as a border, to one district or the other. Item XIV. Consider supporting the City of Huntington Beach creating a memorial for HBPD Officer Nicholas Vella in Newport Beach I have no idea what kind of memorial the Huntington Beach City Council may have in mind, the crash site being accessible only through a private community. The Newport Beach City Council should at least be aware that since 1997 it has had a Policy B- 11 of remembering the sacrifice of fallen City employees with plaques at Bob Henry Park. Although it may have been forgotten in the wake of the Ben Carlson tragedy, and although by a strict reading it applies only to Newport Beach city employees, Policy B-11 should, perhaps, be remembered now. An exception could be made for a City of Huntington Beach employee performing service for the City of Newport Beach. March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 8 of 11 Item 2. Minutes for the February 22, 2022 City Council Meeting The passage shown in italics below is from the draft minutes with suggested corrections shown in str4keeu underline format. The page number refers to Volume 65. Page 261, Item XVI, paragraph 2: "Patricia Ann Litten discussed her ownership of a property that had been designated R-2 since 1965, outlined the timeline of land use designation changes, and noted the City's responsibility to correct property titles and notify the Orange County Tax ^^mer Assessor of changes, and requested the City grandfather her property as an into the R-1 designation." [see video at 1:40:00: The request was not to designate the property as R-1, but rather for the City to notify the Assessor of the continued existence of two separate ownerships on the lot despite the City's rezoning of it as R-1 in 1989.] Item 4. Ordinance Nos. 2022-5 and 2022-6: Amending Title 20 and Title 21 of the Newport Beach Municipal Code Related to Accessory Dwelling Units When this ordinance was introduced on February 22, 1 noted that much like with the Housing Element, California Government Code Subsection 65852.2(h) requires the adopted ordinance to be submitted for an up to 60 day review by the Department of Housing and Community Development for compliance with statewide regulations. If HCD finds the ordinance non-compliant, the Council has 30 days to make the suggested modifications to it, or, alternatively, the Council has to adopt findings explaining why it believes it is compliant without the modifications (much like overriding the Airport Land Use Commission). On February 22, 1 also tried to point out one area of almost certain non-compliance, but failed to explain it clearly. That problem area has to do with the number of ADU's that must be allowed on a single-family zoned lot. The proposed ordinance, based on 2020 state law, allows R-1 lot owners to develop a JADU within the primary residential structure as well as a second ADU, but only if it is detached unit. As HCD pointed out in their pre -review of the City's ordinance reproduced on page 11-115 of the February 22 staff report, a little -noticed amendment to state law effective January 1, 2021, changed an "or" to an "and". As a result, cities have to allow a JADU and a second ADU of any sort: internal, attached or detached, not just detached. This new rule is explained on page 15 of HCD's ADU Handbook and in their non-compliance letter to Rancho Palos Verdes. Correcting this will require some modification to the ordinance language, and also seeking certification by the California Coastal Commission of those changes being compliant with the Coastal Act. I also commented that the proposed ordinance's prohibition of separate conveyance of ADU's, even to non -profits, may make unworkable the business model of some organizations, like March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 9 of 11 Habitat for Humanity, trying to provide housing for low-income people — something Newport Beach needs to meeting its RHNA requirement. That interpretation is taken from the "bill analysis" of AB 345, a recently adopted state ADU amendment that went into effect January 1 and is intended to assist non -profits by facilitating the separate conveyance process. The Council may not be aware that prohibiting what the state wants to allow they are thwarting this effort. Item 6. Resolution No. 2022-18: Reestablishing the City Council Homeless Ad Hoc Committee It is good that City staff sees the need for the Council to formally reestablish this committee But is it not a problem that the committee has continued functioning for more than a year past its original expiration date? Did the previous committee present its recommendations to the Council as it was tasked with doing? And is there any assurance the reestablished committee's investigations will culminate in a report of recommendations to the full Council? Or will it simply be reestablished year after year, becoming a de facto standing committee, whose activities the Brown Act would require, like the City's Finance Committee, to be conducted in public? I have an uneasy feeling this committee sees its role as not being confined to making recommendations to the full Council, but rather as existing to provide guidance to staff. If it does that, I would have to question how it can speak for the other Council members without getting guidance from them in public. I also have a feeling the committee may have some public members not named in the report, which would again require it to conduct its business in public. I would feel less uneasy if I did not believe there are other Council committees and task forces, such as the Ad Hoc Solid Waste Committee, that have never been formally established or appointed, and yet seem to have provided guidance to staff and made decisions that a majority of the Council, and certainly the public, might not have agreed with had their input been sought as it is supposed to be in a properly functioning government. Item 7. Balboa Boulevard and Newport Boulevard Pavement Rehabilitation (Project No. 22R11) - Approval of Professional Services Agreement with Psomas (Contract No. 8833-1) The design of street pavement projects seems something the City is continuously involved in. As such, is this a function that could be brought in-house? Or does it involve too many sub -specialties? If so, could the main work be brought in-house with only the sub -specialties not needed full time contracted out? March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 10 of 11 Item 8. Amendment No. 1 to On -Call Professional Services Agreement with Perry's Truck and Equipment Repair, LLC for Vessel Removal, Storage and Disposal Services Although not identified by number in the staff report, this item appears to refer to existing contract C-7703-2, approved by the Council as part of Item 12 on the Council's May 25, 2021, consent calendar. This report, as did the earlier one, says the actual work is agreed to through letter proposals. There was an agreement several years ago at the Finance Committee level that to fulfill the City Charter Section 603(c) obligation for the City Clerk to make all contracts available for public inspection, and to simply increase transparency in general, the City would begin archiving the letter proposals approved in connection with its many (once rare but now common) on-call contracts. Despite $120,000 having been reportedly expended, I see no letter proposals archived with contract C-7703-2 (or, likely, any other City on-call contract). Item 9. Amendment No. One to Revocable License Agreement with PCHS Facilities, LLC, for Use of City -Owned Property at 1499 Monrovia Avenue I found this item rather confusing. Nothing in the agenda announcement associates it with Pacifica Christian High School (for which "PCHS" apparently stands). Although the staff report references Council Policy F-7, nothing in the agenda or staff report makes clear the proposal and staff recommendation is to continue leasing at no cost (per existing lease paragraph 5 on page 9-23) a public property for which staff estimates the fair market value at $28,665.00 per year. I see no justification for this, which seems essentially to be a rather substantial public contribution (or should it be called a subsidy?) to a private institution. The staff report cites Policy F-7 and possible findings for charging less than fair market value for use of a public property, but seems to miss paragraph 7 on page 9-42 which suggests the less - than -fair -market value option is intended for leases to non-profit organizations meeting certain criteria. Is PCHS Facilities, LLC such an entity? I don't see it listed in the IRS database of tax exempt organization filings. Beyond that, even if it qualifies, "less than fair market" does not mean no rent at all. I believe the City pays leases for use of other agencies' property. Even the Girl Scouts (C-1955) pay $1 per year. Why should this religious organization be more favored? And does this not raise questions of using public funds to favor one faith over others? March 8, 2022, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 11 of 11 Item 10. Budget Amendment to Accept a Check from the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation and Appropriate Funds to the Library's Fiscal Year 2021-22 Budget While I'm sure this gift to enhance the Library's Children's Collections is much appreciated, the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation's primary purpose in life is to raise money for the City library. Yet its once -large annual contributions to the City seem to have dried up in recent years as it raises money to pay its share of the Library Lecture Hall, largely to benefit its own private pay - to -view programming. Fortunately, the separate Friends organization seems to have kept its original purpose in mind. Item 11. Ordinance No. 2022-8: An Amendment Authorizing Staff to Extend the Time to Complete Construction for One -Unit and Two -Unit Family Dwellings The staff report appears to describe a problem that it anticipates to be temporary, yet a solution that would be permanent, never returning to the pre -problem status. Attachment B makes deciphering what that proposed solution may be unusually difficult, for instead of providing a redline showing changes to the existing code, it shows changes to a previous ordinance which may itself contained redlining, or at least passages crossed out to possibly me no change to them is being proposed. The cryptic Attachment C (Expiring Permits Chart) is equally baffling. Is this confined to showing permits for one- and two -unit family dwellings of the sort contemplated in the ordinance? And what is the significance of the ones 5 and more years old? Even with a 2 -year lapse due to COVID impacts, aren't they too old? Have they been extended by a hearing officer? When were those hearings held, as they do not seem to be noticed on the City calendar?