Title
Planning and Building Department, Planning Services Division, Long Range Planning Unit, recommending the Board approve and authorize the Chair to sign Amendment 2 to competitively bid Agreement 5912 with Mintier Harnish to assist with creating new Commercial, Mixed-Use, and Multi-Family Residential Design Standards and Guidelines for the County’s Community Regions and Rural Centers, increasing the total budget by $400,630.84 with a new not-to-exceed amount of $707,245.84, updating the scope of work, and extending the term of the agreement by 3 years with a new expiration date of August 1, 2028. (Cont. 4/8/2025, Item 20)
FUNDING: Community Benefit Fee 31%, Affordable Housing Trust Fund 15%, General Fund 54%.
Body
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
Under the original contract, work began on the project in February 2022, including portions of original Component 1 (Shingle Springs Community Design Standards). In late 2022, however, the state enacted legislation (Assembly Bill 2011 and Senate Bill 6) to allow qualifying multifamily housing projects on all commercial-zoned parcels and qualifying housing projects must now be allowed as a ministerial (“by-right”) use with no local design oversight unless a local agency has adopted objective design standards applying to such projects. As a result of the changes to state law, the County and Consultant evaluated the completed work and determined that some of the work had to be redone.
On July 23, 2024 (Legistar file 24-1158), the Board directed staff to use in-house staffing resources to develop Countywide interim objective design standards for new commercial, mixed use, and multifamily residential projects for adoption in December 2024. The Board also directed staff to revise the contract and amend the corresponding scope of work to have Consultant build on and customize the County’s adopted Countywide interim design standards into new permanent design standards for the County’s Community Regions and Rural Centers after adoption of the interim design standards.
On December 3, 2024 (Legistar file 24-1961), the Board adopted Countywide interim design standards, consisting of Interim Objective Design Standards (IODS) for state streamlined ministerial projects and Interim Design Standards and Guidelines (IDSG) for non- streamlined ministerial projects, which went into effect on January 3, 2025, and will remain in effect until permanent design standards are developed for each Community Region and Rural Center.
Staff amended the scope of work and costs (Attachment B) based on Board direction and staff’s experience developing the interim design standards. To save costs, staff will be completing some tasks in-house. These items and costs have been removed from the proposed scope of work. Items removed included conducting California Environmental Quality Act review and documentation (estimated $46,000 cost savings), conducting community outreach and engagement (estimated $53,000 cost savings), and preparing all other documents not specified in the revised scope of work (estimated $20,000 cost savings). The total cost savings amounts to over $119,000 by having County staff complete these tasks.
This project does not include communities in the Tahoe Basin, however, Long Range planning staff in the Tahoe Planning and Building Department office have recently initiated the Tahoe El Dorado Area Plan that will include objective design standards for commercial and multifamily residential development within the County portion of the Tahoe Basin.
ALTERNATIVES
The Board may choose not to approve proposed Amendment 2, which includes the following optional tasks: added Rural Center Community Design Standards (Component 4), added Project Management and County coordination section (Component 3), removed CEQA Compliance Review (staff to handle), removed Community Outreach/Engagement (staff to handle), and removed extra Board and Commission Study Sessions (Board and Commission public workshops still included in planned work).
This would result in the Department’s inability to continue development of permanent community design standards in a timely manner as previously directed by the Board and would conflict with General plan guidance (General Plan Goal 2.4, 2.5 and Objective 2.4.1 [Community Identity], Policy 2.4.1.2 [Community Design Guidelines], and Measure LU-F [Create and Adopt Community Design Review Standards and Guidelines], result in fewer architectural styles, reduce the number of Board workshops, and remove Community Design Standards and Guidelines for the County’s rural Centers.
The Board could also elect to approve any of the following alternatives based on the cost of optional tasks as outlined on the alternative cost estimates (Attachments C & D):
1. Approve the contract/scope of work with no optional tasks ($443,286.18 total cost); or
2. Approve the contract/scope of work with certain optional tasks ($645,954.42 total cost):
• Remove the optional Board workshops in Components 1, 2, and 4 (Tasks 1.6, 2.7, and 4.6)
• Remove three out of four additional architectural styles (two architectural styles in Task 1.4 and one architectural style in Task 2.3)
• Keep Component 4 - Community Design Standards and Guidelines for the County’s rural Centers (except removing Task 4.6 - Board workshop)
PRIOR BOARD ACTION
On December 5, 2017 (Legistar file 13-0561), the Board directed staff to develop and return with a proposed scope of work to create custom design guidelines/standards for commercial/multi-family residential development in the communities identified in General Plan Policy 2.1.1.1 prior to issuance of a Request for Proposal.
On July 17, 2018 (Legistar file 18-0984), the Board directed staff to proceed with issuance of a Request for Proposals for Community Design Guidelines/Standards.
On December 4, 2018 (Legistar file 18-1834), the Board approved and endorsed a proposal from the De Novo Planning Group and authorized the Planning and Building Department to negotiate a three (3) year Agreement with a not-to-exceed amount of $250,000 to assist in Community Planning efforts in Shingle Springs, Cameron Park, Diamond Springs/El Dorado, and El Dorado Hills.
On March 17, 2020 (Legistar file 20-0326), the Board approved and endorsed the Planning and Building Department, Long Range Planning (LRP), Project Prioritization Matrix for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020-21, which included the Commercial/Multi-Family Residential Design Standards project. As part of this item, the Board provided direction to staff under the Commercial/Multi-Family Residential Design Standards project to create custom design guidelines/standards for new commercial/multi-family development communities identified in County’s General Plan Policy 2.1.1.1 (Cameron Park, El Dorado/Diamond Springs, El Dorado Hills, and Shingle Springs). The Commercial/Multi-Family Residential Design Standards project has been included on the following subsequent LRP Work Plans: 4/13/2021, File No. 21-0502; 6/28/2022, File No. 22-1101; 6/13/23, File No. 23-1059.
On September 1, 2020 (Legistar file 20-1065), based on mutual agreement by the County and the De Novo Planning Group to cease work on the De Novo contract (Agreement 3687), the Board terminated the agreement. Remaining contracted funds would be redirected to a new contractor to continue this effort.
On February 1, 2022 (Legistar file 22-0093), the Board approved competitively bid Agreement 5912 with Mintier Harnish to assist the County with creating custom design guidelines/standards for new Commercial/Multi-Family Residential Design Standards for communities identified in General Plan Policy 2.1.11 with a not-to-exceed amount of $306,615, and a term of three years upon execution.
On July 23, 2024 (Legistar file 24-1158), based on new state legislation enacted in late 2022 (e.g., Assembly Bill 2011 and Senate Bill 6) and desire to increase County design oversight of new commercial, multifamily and mixed-use development projects while permanent standards are being developed for Community Regions and Rural Centers, the Board directed staff to: 1) Develop Countywide Interim Design Standards for new Commercial, Mixed-Use and Multi-Family Residential projects to be adopted by December 2024, and 2) After adoption of the Countywide Interim Design Standards, bring back a revised contract for an amended scope of work that will, in phases, build on and customize the adopted Countywide Interim Design Standards for Custom Design Standards for the County’s Community Regions (Shingle Springs, Diamond Springs/El Dorado, Cameron Park and El Dorado Hills) and Rural Centers for new Commercial, Mixed-Use and Multi-Family Residential projects by March 2025.
On December 3, 2024 (Legistar file24-1961), the Board adopted Countywide interim design standards for commercial, mixed-use and multifamily development including: 1) IODS for state-streamlined ministerial multifamily and mixed-use projects and 2) IDSG for multifamily, mixed-use and commercial projects in the County’s Community Regions and Rural Centers.
On January 7, 2025 (Legistar file 24-2113), the Board approved Amendment 1 to this Agreement to extend the term of the agreement by six months, from January 31, 2025 to August 1, 2025, with no changes to the contract amount or scope of work.
OTHER DEPARTMENT / AGENCY INVOLVEMENT
Procurement & Contracts
County Counsel
CAO RECOMMENDATION
Approve as recommended.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The contract is currently included in the Department’s budget request for FY 2025-26 in the amount of $327,000. Fiscal Years 2026-27 and 2027-28 will be budgeted in the Department's budget accordingly.
CLERK OF THE BOARD FOLLOW UP ACTIONS
1) The Clerk of the Board will obtain the Chair’s signature on two (2) original copies of Amendment 2; and
2) The Clerk of the Board will return one (1) fully executed original Amendment 2 to the Chief Administrative Office, Procurement and Contracts Division, for further processing.
STRATEGIC PLAN COMPONENT
N/A
CONTACT
Rob Peters, Deputy Director of Planning
Planning and Building Department