AgdaPkt 2019-11-25 Joint SA PFA - Laserfiche WebLink

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6.H. - Page 2 of 47 Staff reviewed the proposals and determined three firms to have satisfactorily met the requirements of the RFP and have the highest review scores. Those three firms are Gensler, M -Group, and UPP. The recommended firms demonstrated an understanding of the City's community planning needs and processes, and have experience with a variety of projects consistent with City discretionary planning reviews. These projects include single- and multi -family residential developments, and small and large mixed-use and commercial development projects. Additionally, in 2017 Governor Jerry Brown signed a package of housing bills aimed at addressing the state's housing shortage and high housing costs. This package included S132 funding grants, which provides funding and technical assistance to all local governments in California to help cities and counties prepare, adopt and implement plans and process improvements that streamline housing approval and accelerate housing production. The grant is non-competitive and the funding amount is allocated based on a city's population. Based on Redwood City's population, the eligible funding amount is $320,000. To receive funding, City Council must adopt a resolution committing to use the grant to support the development of housing. ANALYSIS The City has historically utilized consultant planning services to help augment the work of City Planning Division staff during periods of peak development activity. This includes assisting in providing customer engagement for planning -related issues and questions, review of discretionary project applications, and other related functions. Many of these services are provided on a cost recovery or user fee basis, with user fees offsetting the City's labor, material, and professional service costs. While much of the processing and review of development applications is performed by City staff, there is greater need for these services than is typically needed due to staff vacancies and the present Planning Division workload. The positions of Planning Division Manager and a Principal Planner currently are vacant: the City is in the process of recruiting a Planning Division Manager and currently internal staff is serving in an acting Principal Planner role, resulting in a temporary vacancy for the Senior Planner classification. Additionally, the City continues to see a consistently high level of development interest in Redwood City. Due to the goal of providing responsive customer service and reasonable turnaround of application review, staff recommends entering into agreements with the three firms in order to provide the City with the flexibility to allocate consultant staffing services as needed. It is necessary to have access to three consultant firms because the firms have limited staffing capacity due to their existing agreements with other cities experiencing similar staffing constraints and development activity. Following direction from the City Council at their meeting on November 4, 2019 to direct staff to develop a resource plan to support a community visioning process for development downtown in central Redwood City, staff have also provided a resolution, indicating commitment to use the SB2 funding grant toward this initiative as well as future updates to the Housing Element, as needed. The resolution must be signed and approved by City Council before the $320,000 funding grant can be awarded to the City. FISCAL IMPACT Funding for these contracts is included in the Fiscal Year 2019-20 Planning Division budget. The majority of funding would come from budgeted expenditures for professional services in the General Fund and the Page 2 of 4 City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcity.ore 214