At its regular meeting Thursday, the Benicia Planning Commission considered a proposal to amend its municipal code regarding “large family daycare,” discussed the city’s progress on addressing the need for affordable housing, and honored former commissioner Susan Cohen-Grossman, who resigned recently due to other business commitments, for her years of dedicated service to the city. Commission Chair Donald Dean read a proclamation honoring and thanking Grossman on behalf of the entire commission.

Large Family Daycare
Benicia Principal Planner Amy Million provided the commission with a summary of the city’s progress toward drafting an amendment designed to ease the process for home day care providers to transition from small to large designation, in order to care for more than eight children in their homes.
In her written report to the commission last July, Million noted that the city had received only six such applications since 2004 and that all had been approved. She also noted that the city had not received any complaints regarding any of the subject homes over that time period.
The proposed changes include mandating a 300-foot separation between day care provider homes; no signs or other advertising on the premises; hours of operation not to exceed 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday; possession of a valid state license; noise levels in compliance with General Plan standards; enclosure of outdoor play areas by natural barrier (shrubs), fence or wall not to exceed a height of six feet; and compliance with existing parking regulations.
Cities are mandated by the state of California to limit their regulation of large family day care homes to one of three options: 1) Allow them to be established without requiring a permit; 2) Require a non-discretionary permit with no public hearing requirement; or 3) Require a conditional use permit, with further specific restrictions including requirement of a public hearing if an affected party requests one and a minimum 100-foot (property line to property line) public notice process.
In a sampling of 17 jurisdictions in California including all cities within Solano County, staff found that few jurisdictions require a permit process with public hearing, and that all but two require a notification radius of 100 to 300 feet. Two of the surveyed districts, namely Benicia and Chula Vista, currently require 500 feet.
Staff also discovered that while neighbors of applicant homes often raise concerns about anticipated issues with noise, safety, traffic and parking, the concerns have not proven to materialize in any case.
Commissioner Trevor Macenski asked staff about the maximum number of children allowed under the classification of “large.” Contract Attorney Kat Wellman answered that the maximum number is 14.
During the public comment period, Solano Family and Children’s Services Executive Director Kathy Lago spoke regarding her agency’s role surrounding the issue of home day care.
“We support family child care providers who open their small family child care and expand to large when they’re ready. We are (the agency) in between the provider and the licensing agency, which is the Department of Social Services.”
Lago pointed out that people can easily start providing child care without obtaining a license, though there are systems in place for anyone concerned to report those incidences. Once a person begins providing care for more than one family besides their own, she stated, that is when they are required to obtain a license.
“Typically, someone who is licensed as a small family child care provider has up to eight children, then after a year or two ends up with a waiting list and must apply for a large family child care license in order to add any more clients.
“Essentially, when someone applies for a large family child care license, their business is already running well and they need to hire assistants in order to meet the required adult-child ratio. We look at it as a business expansion.
“I appreciate that you are a forward-thinking city,” Lago concluded. “This offers continuity of care and helps small businesses to expand. We urge you to support the measure.”
Benicia resident James Claverie also spoke in support of the initiative.
“While we were in the process of moving to our current home,” he told the commission, “we spent a significant amount of money in order to continue our business, paying two rents during a six-month period waiting for approval.”
Claverie’s wife Christie, a current, licensed child care provider, spoke next.
“Because of the high cost of housing, many of us are rentals,” she explained. “If our landlord decides we need to move, then we will face this issue again, to obtain a use permit at the new location.”
The Claveries purchased a new home in Benicia, but since state law required that a care provider reside in the place of service, they were unable to move into their new home until a new permit could be obtained.
“The appeal process took months to complete. It cost us about $15,000, just about our entire life savings (paying two rents at once). Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to stay in Benicia,” she said.
“We have friends facing the same situation who are considering moving out of Benicia for this reason.”
Christie Claverie added, “All of my neighbors attacked me viciously. Called me in the middle of the night. I had to call the police. But I had to live with these people, even after what they had done to my family.
“Two months after we moved in, I got a package that UPS had delivered to me by mistake. It was for a neighbor who had spoken up against me at every hearing during the public hearing process. I knocked on his door and he answered. He asked when we were moving in. I told him we moved in two months ago. He asked when we were going to start the child care. I told him started two months ago. He laughed and said he didn’t even notice.
“I hope the City Council will vote in favor of this change so that people in Benicia, working women, can take their children to care in their own neighborhood, with people they know.”
Further questions and comments from commissioners and staff centered on the specific provisions of the proposed amendment, mostly regarding the notification distance, which would decrease from the current 500 foot requirement down to 300 feet. When the issue came to a vote, commissioners recommended passage of the amendment by unanimous vote.

Affordable housing
The commission heard from Principal Planner Million regarding the city’s progress on the its affordable housing plan.
The ordinance defaults to state definitions, Million explained. A unit is “affordable” based on a monthly rent of 30 percent or less of the income of low- or very low-income households, which is in turn based on figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Solano County. “So you would be revising the ordinance every year based on those figures,” she suggested, regarding the option of continual monitoring for compliance.
Commissioner Steve Young offered that the city should pay equally close attention to both new and existing affordable housing units. “Rents have to remain affordable to the families who are in there. They have to be monitored in some fashion. We need to know the scope of the problem (of the shortage of available, affordable housing).”
Young also addressed the issue of secondary units, for example same-lot in-law units. Staff confirmed that the state does allow cities to classify secondary units as affordable housing units. Young expressed concern that in order for a unit to be counted toward any affordable housing unit count, it should be actually housing a low-income resident or family.
“Someone making $100,000 can own a secondary unit and call that affordable housing, with no restriction on who lives there. We shouldn’t call that affordable,” he opined.
Community Development Department Director Christina Ratcliffe offered that typically, an accessory or secondary unit is smaller and thus more affordable, to which Young countered that such a unit could be rented out by a person making, say, $68,000 a year. “Under no definition is that person considered low-income. Therefore that unit, even at a rent of $1,000, cannot be considered ‘affordable.’”
Ace Hardware owner Gene Pedrotti addressed the commission in order to provide further background data, based on his own experience with the issue, and to suggest that the commission confer with professionals who have dealt with the issue in other cities. He suggested this might save the city precious time and other staff resources.
Commissioner George Oakes suggested that the city consider some kind of outreach in order to identify potential abusers of the city’s affordable housing policies.
“I have heard that there are a lot of secondary units that aren’t legal. An outreach opportunity is here.”
Oakes also suggested that reports regarding the issue should include a narrative summary. “We see a lot of numbers but no summary of these numbers. We talk about how many Benicia housing units. I had to add it up to get 261. But I still don’t know what that represents as part of the total and those that should be allocated as low- or ultra-low income. A summary makes information simple to access and easy to understand,” he suggested.
Planning Commission Chairman Donald Dean suggested that, in light of the number of concerns and their individual significance, the commission should compile a list of priority concerns, to be discussed and prioritized at a future meeting. The commissioners and staff concurred.
The meeting concluded with a reading of the proclamation issued to former commissioner Susan Cohen-Grossman.
A video transcript of the meeting is available on the city of Benicia’s web site at ci.benicia.ca.us. Written minutes are generally available about two weeks after the time of each meeting.
The next planning commission meeting will be Thursday, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. at Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 East L St. For more information, visit the web site or call the city at 746-4200.

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