DATE: June 28, 2016
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Director of Development Services
SUBJECT
Title
Downtown Specific Plan Project Update
End
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
That Council accepts this report as information only; no action is necessary.
Body
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
The highly anticipated Downtown Specific Plan project formally kicked off on April 3, 2015. The Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC) awarded a total of $950,000 in project grant funding while $75,000 originally came from the City of Hayward. The grant funds are part of the One Bay Area Grant ("OBAG") program, of which a portion of Priority Development Area ("PDA") planning and implementation funds was allocated to ACTC from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for local PDA planning and implementation projects.
After delivery of substandard work products and the fact that the originally retained consultant team, led by Dyett & Bhattia, performed with no clear plan or vision for the Downtown Plan area, City staff worked with the ACTC staff to terminate the contract with Dyett & Bhatia, "for convenience." Such decision was made due to significant delays in work product and lack of creativity and engagement by the consultant team. Formal consultant termination was effective on Monday October 19, 2015.
Since that time, City staff has worked to help secure and retain the next qualified consultant team, Lisa Wise Consulting (LWC), pursuant to the ACTC's highly structured and complex process for retaining consultants associated with their grant fund guidelines, as dictated by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Working with ACTC's staff has presented an incredible challenge, requiring enormous amounts of paperwork and documentation from the new consulting team, including related to contract disclosure requirements.
City staff believes execution of a new contract with LWC is imminent and that formal contract...
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