Two of the City Council's policy committees are in action this week -- Land Use and Housing on Thursday and Budget and Governmental Efficiency on Friday.

If you'd like more detail on anything summarized here, click the agenda, then click on the item. Over on the right side of the page, you'll see links to a staff report and other pieces of supporting material.

Land Use and Housing Committee -- Thursday, Nov. 12

The LU&H Committee meeting, chaired by Councilmember Chris Ward, begins at 1 p.m. The agenda brings two discussion items:

• Pet Friendly Housing Ordinance: Back in late July, Committee Chair Ward brought forward a proposal for a Pet Friendly Housing Ordinance. He noted that lots of people have pets, and that San Diego doesn't have lots of available housing, and lots of rental properties don't allow pets. So, it's hard for renters with pets to find housing here, and lots of pets get abandoned as a result. Ward said an ordinance could potentially address issues such as household pet minimums, pet rent, pet deposits, responsible pet ownership, and renter’s insurance requirements, and his initial idea was for it to apply to both market-rate and subsidized affordable housing. However, the committee tasked the City Attorney with analyzing the issue and limiting it to affordable housing.

In 2017, the state Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, AB 1137. Authored by San Diego Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, it required all new state-funded affordable housing developments to be pet friendly, allowing residents to share their home with one or more pets. Ward's proposal would apply to City-funded housing developments. The committee will consider asking the City Attorney to draft an ordinance.

• SRO Hotel Regulations: In late October, the City Council took action to implement a number of recommendations in a report, Preserving Affordable Housing in the City of San Diego, released earlier this year by the San Diego Housing Commission. Now, the Housing Commission is back to tackle another one of the report's recommendations to preserve San Diego existing stock of affordable housing. 

On Thursday, the LU&H Committee will entertain proposed amendments to the City's SRO (single-room occupancy) Hotel Ordinance, whose purpose is "to ensure retention of the existing number of SRO hotel rooms and to provide assistance to tenants of SRO hotel rooms that will be displaced by the demolition, conversion or rehabilitation of existing SRO hotel rooms...." The Housing Commission will ask the committee to strengthen the SRO Ordinance with 11 substantive changes and six clarifications.

Budget and Governmental Efficiency Committee -- Friday, Nov. 13

The Budget Committee meeting, chaired by Council President pro Tem Barbara Bry, begins at 9 a.m. The agenda includes these discussion items:

• Living Wage Ordinance: The City Council back in 2006 enacted a Living Wage Ordinance to ensure that private companies doing contract work for the City are paying their workers enough money to get by in San Diego. Because the ordinance refers to “taxpayer-funded agreements," the City Attorney wants to make it crystal clear that the ordinance applies to contractors regardless of whether their contractors are revenue-generating, cost-neutral, or require City funds. 

The Attorney also wants to update the ordinance's definition of “City facility” by removing "Qualcomm Stadium" (more recently known as San Diego County Credit Union Stadium and since sold to SDSU) and changing "San Diego Sports Arena" to “Pechanga Arena San Diego.”

• First Quarter Budget Monitoring Report: The City Council passed the City's current-year budget in June. Under Council policy, the Department of Finance is required to provide quarterly updates on revenues and expenditures. On Friday, the number crunchers will present to the committee the first quarterly report for the fiscal year 2021 budget.
• Fiscal Year 2022-2026 Five-Year Financial Outlook: The money people will also present to the committee the annual report known as the Five-Year Financial Outlook, a long-range budget forecast that helps shape the budget for the coming fiscal year.
• Public Utilities Department Five-Year Financial Outlook: Numbers and dollar signs will surely be dancing in the brains of committee members after they get yet another budget report -- the Five-Year Financial Outlook for the Public Utilities Department -- a focused look at the City's water and sewer revenue funds.

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Anyone can participate in these virtual meetings and make comments by dialing 619-541-6310 and entering the access code 877861 followed by # when the item you're interested in comes up (full call-in instructions). Watch the meetings on cable TV channel 24 or AT&T channel 99, or stream them online.

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