Wednesday’s Council meeting agenda includes a total of 17 items – 10 of which are considered routine and likely to pass without discussion on the consent calendar. The meeting will take place at 7 p.m. at the Council chambers, 17555 Peak Ave.
Below are some of the items on Wednesday’s Council meeting agenda.
$1.5M construction contract proposed for Council chambers renovation
As part of the consent agenda, the Council is scheduled to vote on a contract to renovate the body’s meeting chambers at 17555 Peak Ave. The staff-recommended contract with Morgan Hill-based DRP Builders is about $1.5 million, plus a cost overrun allowance of about $218,000, according to a City staff report.
The project will upgrade the current chamber layout, adding more seats without any significant exterior structural construction required, according to City staff. A significant portion of the building consists of empty offices, vacated when City Hall moved all its day-to-day operations to the Development Services Center last year.
The new configuration of the Council chambers will seat up to 280 people, with enhanced audio-visual equipment and capacities, according to City staff.
Funding for the project is proposed from a variety of City funds, including the building replacement fund, the municipal infrastructure fund and the public facilities fund financed by impact fees, according to City staff.
If the Council approves a contract, construction will start in January 2014, and would be completed by July 2014, according to City staff.
MHPD officers to work as reserves at new 49er stadium?
City of Santa Clara police are in need of officers to supplement law enforcement services at San Francisco 49ers football games when the team’s new stadium opens for the 2014 NFL season, and the City Council is scheduled to allow local police to join that effort.
As part of Wednesday’s consent agenda, the Council will consider allowing Morgan Hill police to serve as reserve officers for the City of Santa Clara on game days. The officers would be permitted to work at the new stadium – providing crowd and traffic control, among other duties – during their time off duty from the Morgan Hill Police Department, according to City staff. The officers would be paid $55 per hour while working for the City of Santa Clara at the new stadium, which is under construction.
A City staff report notes that as reserve officers for Santa Clara, local officers’ duties to Morgan Hill will take priority over any potential stadium assignment.
Ball field property purchase delayed
When it comes to the City’s long-desired effort to build new baseball and softball fields for public use, the Council is now faced with a number of options that do not include following through on the purchase of a 21-acre parcel in the Southeast Quadrant for which they signed a “letter of intent” to acquire in August.
On Wednesday, due to unforeseen environmental and planning issues with that site, the Council will consider re-evaluating other sites for ball fields that City staff have already considered, scaling down the ball field project to meet only local needs rather than serve as a potential host for area tournaments, or suspend the ball field property purchase process altogether, according to City staff.
Or the Council will direct staff to continue working with the owner of the Southeast Quadrant property, and consultants, for another 120 days to resolve some of the newly identified issues with the property before making a purchase.
In August, the Council signed a letter of intent to purchase a vacant property owned by NMSBPCSLDHB LP for eventual ball field development. The property is near the intersection of Condit Road and Tennant Avenue, and is bordered on the west and northwest sides by the U.S. 101 northbound off-ramp.
However, recently discovered issues with the property could prolong the negotiation process with the site’s owner, according to City staff. These include a “low level” chemical contamination on part of the site, emanating from a “barn-like structure” on the site. The spill can be cleaned to federal and state regulatory standards, but the cost of doing so has not been determined.
Also, a consultant hired by the City found it might be difficult to house six fields (the preferred number), more than 450 parking stalls, supporting facilities such as lights and batting cages, and a commercial development on part of the site that the City and NMSBPCSLDHB LP agreed to develop in the original letter of intent, according to a City staff report.
The selection of the site in the Southeast Quadrant was the result of a competitive solicitation for privately and publicly owned properties for ball fields that began in 2012. During that process, the City considered nine properties in and around the City limits before settling on the site owned by NMSBPCSLDHB LP.
General Plan amendment requests on hold?
The Council will consider temporarily suspending all privately initiated general plan amendment applications and service area extensions until the general plan is comprehensively updated.
The City has been in the process of updating its general plan since earlier this year, and the effort is expected to last at least until 2016, according to City staff.
The staff recommendation to suspend developers’ requests to amend the general plan is customary during such comprehensive updates, according to Morgan Hill Community Services Director Andrew Crabtree. Staff recommends allowing general plan update amendments to be submitted in 2014, with the requests considered only as part of the comprehensive update; and staff recommends not accepting any amendments in 2015 or early 2016.
“You’re supposed to be comprehensively looking at the general plan and it makes more sense to wrap in any changes into the comprehensive update rather than do a one-off amendment while in the midst of comprehensively redoing the general plan,” Crabtree said.
He added there is also a “procedural need” around the environmental review requirements to limit general plan amendment applications. “You have to have a stable project description,” he said.
Developers typically submit general plan amendment requests when planning a project that requires a change in the designated land use of their property.
Processing general plan amendment applications is staff-intensive and tedious, a City staff report noted. Since the beginning of 2012, the City has processed only four general plan amendment applications, Crabtree said. Five such applications were processed in 2011.
For more information on the City’s comprehensive general plan update, visit morganhill2035.org.
