Paso Robles City Council meeting highlights for Oct. 29
–The following are highlights from the Paso Robles City Council meeting on Thursday, Oct. 29.
In compliance with social distancing, the council, staff, and the public participated via conference call. The public was given the opportunity to view a live stream of the meeting at www.prcity.com/youtube, invited to call into the meeting at 805-865-PASO (7276), and to email public comment to cityclerk@prcity.com prior to the meeting.
The City Council took the following action:
Reallocated Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP) grant funds to Project Homekey project: The city was awarded HEAP grant funds to build an emergency shelter on Sulfur Springs Road. Due to multi-million-dollar pedestrian access improvements required by Caltrans at the project site, and to the fiscal impacts of the pandemic, council voted to terminate plans for construction. The city’s HEAP grant award of $920,126 must be reallocated to a new project in Paso Robles or returned to the county. In recent months, Governor Newsom rolled out Project Homekey, which is intended to rapidly disburse funds to cities and counties to build facilities for Californians experiencing homelessness. Cities are not permitted to exercise zoning or land use control over these projects; the state preempted that authority. On Oct. 16, the Governor announced that Project Homekey would award $15 million to the Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo (HASLO), in partnership with People’s Self-Help Housing (PSSH) and the El Camino Homelessness Organization (ECHO), to purchase and renovate Motel 6, located at 1134 Black Oak Drive, to provide homeless services, 50 emergency shelter beds, and 63 low-income permanent supportive housing units.
While the council did not have the ability to approve or deny the project, council could decide whether to redirect the city’s HEAP funds to the project. Council first discussed the project and potential to transfer HEAP funds at the regular City Council meeting on Oct. 20 and directed staff to work with the project applicants to implement stipulations associated with a potential funding transfer, to track the applicant’s public input process that week, and to schedule final consideration of the requested HEAP funds reassignment at a Special Council Meeting on Oct. 29.
At the special meeting, the council authorized the City Manager to modify the HEAP sub-recipient agreement with SLOCO, reallocating the city’s $920,126 grant award to HASLO as the property owner of Motel 6 at 1134 Black Oak Drive to support the efforts of ECHO, PSSH, and HASLO in renovating the facility for use as a homeless services and low-cost housing center, upon satisfactory commitment to or achievement of the approved stipulations in the staff report, and with the understanding that they will engage local stakeholders in the naming of the project.
The agenda can be found at https://www.prcity.com/agendacenter and the livestream from the meeting can be found at www.prcity.com/youtube. The minutes will be available as part of the packet for the council’s next regular meeting.
The next regular council meeting takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 6:30 pm, via livestream at www.prcity.com/youtube. Public comment can be made during the meeting by 805-865-PASO (7276) or provided prior to the meeting by emailing cityclerk@prcity.com.
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