To: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
From: BRANDY FORBES, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
TITLE
title
DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ON AGREEMENT FOR CONSULTING SERVICES BETWEEN THE CITY OF REDONDO BEACH AND LISA PADILLA DBA CITYWORKS DESIGN FOR PREPARATION OF OBJECTIVE RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES
APPROVE CONSULTING SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH LISA PADILLA DBA CITYWORKS DESIGN FOR PREPARATION OF OBJECTIVE RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $139,955 TO BE REIMBURSED THROUGH SB2 GRANT FUNDS FOR THE TERM OF JUNE 1, 2021 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2022
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
City Council set a Strategic Planning item to update the Residential Design Guidelines. To fund this work, the City included the scope in the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) SB2 Grant application, authorized by City Council on October 15, 2019. The grant was awarded and HCD initiated the grant agreement in June 2020.
Staff prepared the scope of work and issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for this work at the beginning of February 2020. The RFP was distributed to over a dozen design consulting firms, with a submittal deadline of March 12, 2021. The City did not receive any responses as of the submittal deadline.
Staff contacted multiple consulting firms to determine the reasoning for no responses. Many of the firms were preparing Housing Elements which all have the same deadline, thus an excessive workload was the reasoning. And since, the SB2 Grant has a set completion deadline, the consultants were unable to commit to preparing the residential design guidelines.
Since the City did proceed with an RFP process, albeit with no successful responses, staff was able to then negotiate a contract with the firm Lisa Padilla DBA Cityworks. Design. Although Cityworks Design does not prepare Housing Elements, and therefore did not have related workload time constraints, they had not initially submitted a proposed at the time the RFP was issued, since the increased pandemic restrictions still in place at the time of the RFP deadline had created uncertainty on some of their other projects. However, once the restrictions started lifting, Cityworks Design was able to have more certainty in the timing of their other projects and were able to submit a proposal. This firm has the expertise and significant relevant work experience.
This consulting services agreement to prepare Objective Residential Design Guidelines is for an amount not to exceed $139,955 for the term of June 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022.
BACKGROUND
In 2019, the City Council set a Strategic Planning item to update the Residential Design Guidelines. To fund this work, the City included the scope in the SB2 Grant application, authorized by City Council on October 15, 2019.
The City received notice of grant award from HCD and the grant agreement was fully executed on June 12, 2020, with ability to proceed. After the grant was executed, staff awaited clarification on procurement process from HCD. Once confirmation of procurement was received in late August 2020, where the City could utilize its own procurement policies, staff obtained scopes of work from similar projects in other municipalities and prepared the Request for Proposals (RFP).
Unfortunately, at the time the City was ready to issue the RFP, restrictions were put in place due to increased COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations leading into the holiday season, and there was concern that there would be difficulty reaching various consulting firms with changing schedules/offices closing. Therefore, staff issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for this work at the beginning of February 2020, as the revised COVID-19 surge response orders started lifting restrictions and normalizing operations. The RFP was distributed to over a dozen design consulting firms, with a submittal deadline of March 12, 2021. The City did not receive any responses as of the submittal deadline.
Staff contacted multiple consulting firms to determine the reasoning for no responses. Of those who responded, many of the firms were preparing Housing Elements which all have the same deadline, thus an excessive workload was the reasoning. And since, the SB2 Grant has a set completion deadline, those consultants working on Housing Elements confirmed that they were unable to commit to preparing the residential design guidelines per the timing in the RFP.
Since the City did proceed with an RFP process, albeit with no successful responses, staff was able to then negotiate a contract with the firm Lisa Padilla DBA Cityworks. Design. Although Cityworks Design does not prepare Housing Elements, and therefore did not have related workload time constraints, they had not initially submitted a proposed at the time the RFP was issued, since the increased pandemic restrictions still in place at the time of the RFP deadline had created uncertainty on some of their other projects. However, once the restrictions lifted, Cityworks Design was able to have more certainty in the timing of their other projects and were able to submit a proposal.
The proposal for this firm demonstrated the expertise and significant relevant past work samples. The proposal is within the SB2 Grant funding amount for the task of preparing the Objective Residential Design Guidelines. This consulting services agreement to prepare Objective Residential Design Guidelines is for an amount not to exceed $139,955 for the term of June 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022.
COORDINATION
The agreement has been coordinated with the City Manager’s Office and the City Attorney’s Office.
FISCAL IMPACT
The cost for the contract is $139,955, and will be funded through the SB2 Grant Funds awarded by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
APPROVED BY:
Joe Hoefgen, City Manager
ATTACHMENTS
• Agreement for Consulting Services with Cityworks Design for Objective Residential Design Guidelines
• Cityworks Design Residential Design Guidelines Proposal April 23, 2021