BACKGROUND

The Town of Hillsborough is a residential community located in San Mateo County, California, incorporated in 1910. The Town has an area of 6.23 square miles and a current population of 10,927. It is west of Highway 101 and El Camino Real and east of Highway 280 within a short commute to San Francisco and minutes from San Francisco International Airport. The Town performs essential services including police protection, building permitting and inspection, land use management, and maintenance of roads, public facilities, water, sewer and storm drainage infrastructures. The Town also funds fire protection services provided by the Central County Fire Department.

The Town is zoned exclusively single-family residential, but existing non-residential uses include public and private schools, a country club, a racquet club, public facilities, utility installations and open space uses. The existing General Plan emphasizes retaining the Town's residential character by assuring that design and land use are compatible with existing neighborhoods and natural resources.

California state law requires that each Town adopt and regularly update their general plan. While it has been amended several times, the Town of Hillsborough General Plan has not been comprehensively updated since 2005 (Housing Element updated in 2015).

SCOPE OF WORK

The consultant's role will be to provide professional planning services resulting in an updated General Plan, related CEQA analysis and updated development regulations no later than January 2023.

Element Updates

Work product will include comprehensive updates to the following Required Elements:

• Land Use
• Circulation
• Conservation
• Open Space
• Noise
• Public Safety

Development Regulation Updates & CEQA Analysis

While the Town's Housing Element is in the process of being updated under a separate contract, the selected General Plan consultant will also be responsible for drafting updates to the Town's Zoning Ordinance, Subdivision Ordinance, Design Guidelines, and any other affected development regulations in response to any changes made in the both the General Plan and Housing Element Updates. The consultant will also be responsible for conducting any analysis required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), either via an in-house CEQA team, or via contract with a CEQA sub-consultant.

General Project Management

The selected firm will be responsible for ensuring that the project is effectively managed, ensuring completion of the project on time and on budget. At a minimum the Town will expect the consultant to successfully provide the following project management services:

• Identification of critical path tasks and key benchmarks;
• Development of associated timeline to ensure project completion by Town deadline of January 2023;
• Direction on best practices for execution of each critical path task;
• Development of strategy for ensuring tasks are timely completed;
• Consistently achieve agreed-upon timeline(s), ensuring project is delivered on-time and on budget;
• Effectively and proactively communicate with Town staff should issues arise, should modifications need to be made to the project scope, budget or schedule, and at key decision points.

SELECTION PROCESS

Based on the responses received, Town staff may choose to interview consultants or solicit specific proposals for the project.

Consultants that work with the Town of Hillsborough are required to enter into a standard Town of Hillsborough Contract.

EVALUATION PROCEDURE

In reviewing a firm's Statement of Qualifications (SOQs) submitted to the Town in response to this RFQ staff will be considering the following criteria:

• Firm Experience: Demonstration that the firm has the ability to successfully provide services for projects of a similar nature and complexity as those described herein (see experience details below);
• Staff Qualifications: Demonstration that Principals, Project Manager, and Project Team members are qualified to undertake the project;
• Approach to Organization & Project Management: Demonstration that the firm understands and can execute the critical path tasks that are necessary to successfully complete the scope of the project on time and on budget;
• Quality Control and Assurance: Demonstration that the firm has processes in place to ensure the quality of their work product and is committed to assuring client satisfaction;
• Positive Professional References: Confirmation that the firm has successfully undertaken projects of a similar nature and complexity via confirmation from positive professional references.

Experience

The successful SOQ will provide an overview of the firm's experience in the following areas:

• Developing and Managing Successful General Plan Update Processes
• Positive Community Consultation & Stakeholder Coordination
  • Conducting meaningful community outreach, including experience in effectively and clearly presenting technical material to highly-educated, non-technical audiences;
  • Collecting and sincerely considering community input and making adjustments to work product based on community feedback without ego;
  • Managing/mitigating conflict to achieve informed consent;
  • Experience with community consultation in person and in a virtual setting.
• Developing Visually Appealing Maps and Graphics
• Conducting CEQA Analysis and Drafting Appropriate CEQA Documents
• Drafting Updates to Development Regulations
  • Zoning & Subdivision Ordinances, Design Guidelines, etc.

COST OF STATEMENT OF QUALIFICATIONS PREPARATION

Town shall not be liable for any pre-contractual expenses incurred by any submitting Consultant. Each submitting consultant shall protect, defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Town of Hillsborough from any and all liability, claims or expenses whosoever incurred by, or on behalf of, the entity participating in the preparation of its response to this RFQ. Pre-contractual expenses are defined as expenses incurred by Consultants in:

• Preparing Statement of Qualifications in response to this RFQ.
• The cost to prepare a project specific scope, and cost to negotiate a contract; and
• All other expenses incurred by Consultant related to preparation of Statement of Qualifications or preparation of project specific scope and cost proposals.

SUBMITTAL REQUIREMENTS

Please limit the response to fifteen (15) pages. The SOQ submittal shall be provided electronically as a tabbed and bookmarked PDF. PAPER SUBMISSIONS ARE NOT REQUIRED AND WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. For fullest consideration, the PDF must provide the items below in the following order:

TAB #

1. Cover letter: Letter of Interest, to include an understanding of the scope of services and the firm's approach to delivering services related to that scope.
2. Executive summary: Provide a brief summary of the Consultant's understanding of the services requested, a summary of the Consultant's related qualifications, and the Consultant's proposed approach to the services contemplated.
3. Project Team and Qualifications: Indicate the location of principal office that will be responsible for the implementation of the contract and provide an organization chart indicating the staff members which might have responsibilities related to the project tasks. Indicate on the chart the names of the project manager and key personnel, their titles, and their responsibilities for both prime and sub-consultants. Include a resume of each key staff member identified.
4. Billing Rate Sheet: Provide an itemized billing rate schedule that identifies hourly rates for each proposed staff members and expenses. Include any proposed cost-plus charges on sub-consultant work.
5. References: Provide a list of references for which Consultant has performed similar work. List should include client name, address, phone number and a brief description of services provided.
6. Proprietary Information Statement: Provide a statement indicating that no materials included in the submitted RFQ are proprietary. All submitted materials shall become the property of the Town of Hillsborough.
7. Liability Insurance: provide a statement that all required insurances will be in force at time of contract execution. The firm will be required to have professional liability insurance, worker's compensation insurance, professional liability insurance and vehicle coverage insurance (including comprehensive and collision insurance) at a minimum of one million per occurrence for each policy. Insurances must be primary and non-contributory, naming the Town of Hillsborough as additional insured and waiving subrogation rights.
8. Additional Information: Provide any additional information which Consultant would like to have considered.

RFQ SCHEDULE

The anticipated schedule of activities related to this RFQ is as follows:

• RFQ Issued: March 17, 2021
• Last day for questions to be submitted: March 25, 2021
• Qualifications Submittal Deadline: March 31, 2021 @ 5:00 p.m. PDT

AMENDMENTS TO RFQ

Town reserves the right to amend the RFQ by Addendum. If necessary the Statement of Qualifications submittal deadline will be extended to allow submitters additional time to respond to the RFQ Addendum.

INQUIRIES

Questions related to this solicitation shall be in writing (email preferred) and addressed to:

Sarah A. Fleming, AICP, Director of Building & Planning
Department of Building & Planning
Town of Hillsborough
1600 Floribunda Avenue
Hillsborough, CA 94010
email: sfleming@hillsborough.net

NON- COMMITMENT OF TOWN

The successful selection of a consultant does not constitute a contract for service nor does it guarantee that the Town will request a project specific scope and cost proposal. The Town shall not be obligated to respond to any proposal submitted, nor be legally bound in any manner by the submission of the proposal.

The Town reserves the right to accept or reject any or all RFQs received, to negotiate with all qualified sources or any portion of any proposal, or to waive any irregularities or informalities in the RFQs or in the RFQ process, or to make awards on the basis of that item or combination or items which, in its opinion, serves the best interest of Town, or to cancel all or part of this RFQ. This RFQ does not constitute any form of offer to contract.

DIGITAL SUBMITTAL

Statements of Qualifications:

1. Must be in PDF format.
2. Qualifications packages must be submitted electronically, via email to Sarah A. Fleming, Director of Building & Planning, at sfleming@hillsborough.net or via a platform such as DropBox, Box, or other similar, cloud-based .FTP site. PAPER SUBMISSIONS ARE NOT REQUIRED AND WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

Qualification packages are due no later than 5:00 p. m., Wednesday, March 31, 2021 and shall be addressed to:

Sarah A. Fleming, AICP, Director of Building & Planning
Department of Building & Planning
Town of Hillsborough
1600 Floribunda Avenue
Hillsborough, CA 94010
email: sfleming@hillsborough.net

All submittals will become a public record, available for review upon request.