 15th 2023. Are we live? I think we're not audible in the room. Okay. Okay. We'll try again. Good evening and welcome to the June 15th 2023 meeting of the Planning Commission for the city of Santa Cruz. It's nice to see everybody. Could we have a roll call please? Commissioner Conway here Dawson here, Gordon Kennedy, McKelvie, Maxwell, Olehamas. Here. Okay. Do we have any statements of disqualification this evening? Seeing none, we will move on to oral communication. This is the point in the agenda where anyone is welcome to speak to the Commission about anything that is within the Planning Commission purview but is not on tonight's agenda. So members of the public are invited to speak. Okay. Thank you. Seeing none, we will move on to approval of minutes. We have before us approval of the minutes of May 18th 2023. Is there a motion to approve? I just have a question really quick. I thought I remembered that I made the motion for approval. Does anybody have the recollect? I didn't have a chance to go to the video, so if nobody else remembers, we'll probably just skip it and approve it. We can pull them and have them on for approval at the next meeting. Can we do that? Because I just didn't have a chance to look. I appreciate that. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So those will be referred to the next agenda. Okay. We have one public hearing on tonight's agenda and we will move along to that. This is a public hearing regarding 1811 and 1815 Mission Street, which is project number CP22-0045 APNs 004124-34004124-32. And do we have a staff report? Yes. So good evening, Vice Chair Conway and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Rina Zo and I am the project planner for the project at 1811 and 1815 Mission Street. The applicant is proposing a three-story mix-use building and they're proposing 23 single-room occupancy units, which is SROs for short, and four flexible density units, which is FDUs for short, equating to 27 residential units at this property. The applicant requires a residential demolition authorization permit, a boundary adjustment application, a special use permit, design permit, as well as a density bonus request for the proposed project. And they're also proposing a ground floor commercial space. So to start off, the project location, it's made up of two sites located south of Mission Street, east of Dew Forest Street and west of Palm Street. There was some, there may have been some confusion regarding the location of the project with people thinking that it might have been at the corner of Dew Forest Street. So I do want to make that clarification that it is bound on three sides with other properties and it's located like one property in from Dew Forest Street. So these two properties are designated as community commercial CC and the general plan designation as well as as zoned as CC as well and located in the Mission Street urban design plan. And all of these designations and zoning support mixed use developments in this location. So to talk a little bit about the timeline of the project on January 21st, 2022, the pre-application was submitted pursuant to Senate Bill 330. So SB 330 seeks to streamline the review and entitlement of housing projects, including affordable units. On April 4th, 2022, a community meeting was held and this provided the community with the opportunity to view the proposed project, ask questions and also to provide feedback. The pre-application was deemed complete pursuant to the Housing Accountability Act on April 12th, 2022. And what this means is that the project was only is only subject to the local ordinances and policies in effect on the day that it was deemed complete. So this project is not required to conform to any of the recently adopted city ordinances. However, it is permitted to take advantage of any state laws that have come into effect prior to the approval of this project. On September, 2022, the formal application was submitted and that's what we're discussing tonight. So this is a picture of the buildings that are proposed to be demolished. Because they were built in 1920 and 1926, they are more than 50 years old and so they require residential demolition authorization permits in order for staff to also review the relocation assistance and replacement housing requirements as well. Relocation assistance and replacement housing under Senate Bill 330 is more restrictive than the local ordinance and it applies to housing development projects such as this which proposes two or more dwelling units. So the applicant has advised that one of the dwelling units was occupied within the last five years and because the income level of the tenants that are living there is unknown and cannot be determined, as per state law, staff have to assume that lower income households occupy that units in the ratios prescribed in state law. So by that calculation, it means that the applicant is required to provide one two-bedroom replacement unit that is restricted at the very low income level. So as you can see on this slide, this is the proposed second and third floor plans and you can see that there are 11 SRO units and two FDUs provided on each floor. So in their first submittal, the applicant proposed 27 SRO units and in this current proposal, they're proposing 23 SROs and four FDUs and the reason behind why they're proposing FDUs at this point in time is because, as I mentioned earlier, they have to provide one two-bedroom replacement unit and since SROs are studios, they don't have a bedroom count and so in order to meet that requirement, the applicant is now proposing FDUs as well so that they can provide that one two-bedroom replacement unit. So now I'll explain a little bit more about affordable units. So because the property is designated as community commercial in the general plan, they have an FAR requirement but there's no specific density range provided in the general plan and so our zoning ordinance has specified that the base density has to be calculated based on a project that meets all of the applicable development standards. This is like setbacks, heights, FAR and so that's why there were two plan sets that were submitted for this proposed project. The base density plan set shows that 20 SRO units can be built at the maximum FAR which becomes the base density units that we do all of our calculations off of. Now for the inclusionary housing requirements, 20% of the base number of SROs have to be made available to very low income households when there are SROs proposed in a housing development. So with 20 base density units, four affordable units are required at the very low income level in order to meet that 20% inclusionary requirements. Now the applicant is proposing three SROs and one FDU to be provided as affordable housing units at that very low income level and the one FDU unit that they're proposing at the very low income level, they're going to count as both their inclusionary as well as replacement housing units which is consistent with state law. As per state law, affordable replacement units can be counted as both replacement and inclusionary units if the most restrictive requirements are met. And the inclusionary units in the zoning ordinance are required to be maintained as affordable and perpetuity while the replacement unit requirements under state law are required to be maintained as affordable for 55 years. So in this case, the inclusionary units in the zoning ordinance are more restrictive and that's what would apply for that FDU. So that FDU will be maintained as affordable and perpetuity. So as per state density bonus law, if 15% of the total conforming base density is designated as very low income, then development projects then qualify for a 50% density bonus. So this project is eligible for a 50% density bonus but instead they are proposing a 35% density bonus. So this is calculated based on the base density of 20 units again. So it results in seven density bonus units with a total of 27 proposed units. I do also want to clarify that density bonus units are not included in the total units when calculating the number of affordable units as per the inclusionary housing requirements. So that 20% inclusionary housing requirement is calculated based on the 20 base density units and not the total 27 units that's proposed in this project. And this is in accordance with the municipal code as well as state law. So now I'll talk a little bit about the proposed waivers and incentives and concessions. So the first request that's made is a waiver to allow for an FAR of 2.34 which is greater than the maximum FAR of 1.75 allowed in that CC general plan designation. With the base density design plan showing that there can be 20 units constructed at that 1.75 FAR any additional units constructed as per the density bonus would result in a greater FAR and so that's why they're proposing a waiver for that. The second request is an incentive and concession to allow for one accessible SRO unit located on the ground floor which is currently not permitted in the Mission Street urban design plan. So an elevator is required to provide handicapped access to the second and third floor if the applicant is not able to provide a ground floor accessible unit and so the applicant provided a letter and a cost estimate explaining that the expense of installing and maintaining that elevator would essentially render the project infeasible from an economic standpoint. The third request is a waiver to open space requirements. The applicant is proposing a common area located in the center of the second and third floor and so since it's fairly enclosed staff don't really consider it to meet the common outdoor open space requirement in the zoning ordinance so to that extent the applicant is applying for a waiver to those open space requirements. If they had to redesign the building to meet our open space requirements it would have to be a smaller building and that would impact the number of units that they can construct and I also want to add that this waiver for open space requirements can also qualify as an incentive and concession because in their base density plan set the applicant also shows that they can meet their open space requirement through providing a rooftop deck. However they would have to construct an elevator in order to do so and they already provided that cost estimate explaining that the elevator would be too expensive. Just to go back one more slide I just wanted to also emphasize that the city is required to grant the requested waivers and incentives and concessions unless a specific adverse consequence to health or safety would result in no such adverse consequence has been found by city staff. So now my next few slides are going to talk about how the applicant has addressed some public comments and concerns as well as staff public comments staff comments and concerns as well and so to start off with the parking concerns we've received some public comments about the number of parking spaces provided in this development to the ratio of the number of residential units being proposed. So as per assembly bill 2097 which came into effect on January 1st 2023 a public agency is prohibited from imposing any minimum automobile parking requirements on any residential commercial or elder development project that's located within a half mile of a major transit stop which these properties are located within and so the city is essentially prohibited from imposing any minimum automobile parking requirements on the proposed project. With that being said the applicant is still proposing 11 parking spaces for this development and they are also offering to pay for a neighborhood permit parking program for two years. However I do want to note that the neighborhood permit parking program does have to be initiated by the neighbors and will be dependent on the administrative procedure noted in the municipal code and whether or not it gets approved. So we've we've also received public comments and staff have also provided comments regarding fire access concerns as well and so on this slide you can see that the previous design shows this proposed development built almost to the property lines with decks on all elevations and no way for the fire department to access the back of this building. With the current design the applicant is proposing a different construction type they're proposing a construction type 3a with fire sprinklers which means that they no longer require emergency escape and rescue openings which means that they no longer required fire department access to the back of the building to access any emergency escape and rescue openings. Having said that even though it's not required the applicant has heard the public comments and concerns regarding having no access to the back of the building so they are still providing a way for the fire department to access through the lobby a fire rated lobby, fire rated corridor through a fire rated stairwell to get to the back of the building where there is a roof over the garage so that the fire department will have access to those units at the back. And we did also receive some comments about concerns regarding the potential for that stairwell to be obstructed and so we are now proposing to include some conditions of approval about providing a signage on that door to ensure that it remains unrestructed and I will read that into the record now. So the first one is prior to issuance of the building permit the building permit plan set must show the location of where the permanent sign will be posted on the door leading to the rear of the second story of the building. The sign must state that the door must be locked at all times for fire access only and that the door must remain unobstructed at all times. Prior to finaling the building permit a permanent sign must be posted on the door leading to the rear of the second story of the building stating that the door must be locked at all times for fire access only and that the door must remain unobstructed at all times and that's the second condition of approval. So aside from the fire access concerns there were also comments and concerns regarding privacy. This is the previous design that's shown on the slide and it shows that essentially on all sides of the elevation there are decks proposed and they're almost built to the property lines. With the current design the applicant has they pulled back the rear building wall as well as the decks and so now there's an 11 foot setback to the rear of the building from the property line and a seven foot setback to the back of the deck from the property line and the applicant has also separated these decks out instead of having one long continuous row of decks they've now separated them to to decrease the size of the decks and to discourage any large gatherings from occurring out there to kind of help to kind of help with the privacy concerns and any impacts to the residential houses located south of this development. The applicant has also removed all the decks and windows and openings from the side elevations since they are built to the property lines except for these two openings on the west elevation here which is set back five feet to allow for some light and air into that center common area. So staff has also received some comments and concerns regarding traffic circulation in and out of the proposed development. So with regards to this comment I do want to note that there is a solid double yellow line along Mission Street I'm also known as Highway 1 and it is legal in this state of California to cross a double yellow line in order to enter and exit a driveway approach. So with that being said staff proposed another condition of approval to be included which will prohibit any left turns coming out of this development turning left onto Mission Street and so I would like to read that condition of approval into the record now. Prior to finally the building permit a sign shall be installed at the driveway entrance slash exit to prohibit left turns out of the proposed development. So I do want to continue to note that based on the low level of trips that will be generated from this proposed development no traffic study was required and regarding any potential changes or improvements made to the road alignment on Highway 1 or Mission Street we've received questions and concerns about that. I do want to note that Highway 1 is under the Cal Trans jurisdiction and if there are any proposed changes to the road alignment there is not really necessarily related or tied to this project specifically. So with that being said staff was able to make all the findings for the project approval and I do want to make some notes to regarding revisions to the conditions of approval. The first one is to delete the condition of approval number 58 because it is a duplication of condition of approval number 56 and the second is to revise the first bullet point under condition of approval number 32 to obtain a building permit for the construction of the new mixed youth building instead of noting it as a single family dwelling unit. So with that being said staff recommends that the planning commission acknowledge the environmental determination and approve the proposed project with the revised conditions of approval and that concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions. Great thank you very much. I failed to take the opportunity to welcome Ms. Zoot to the staff. Did I pronounce your name right? Yeah so okay thank you. So this is her first presentation to the planning commission and nice job. Thank you. So yeah welcome. So for starters I wanted to see if the applicant was planning on making a presentation. Okay and so go ahead. You have up to 20 minutes. Hello everyone. Can you hear me? My name is Andy Goldberg. I am the developer of Mission Studios Santa Cruz. Peter Spellman and I, Peter is the project architect. We both live locally so it was especially important for us to envisage a residential building that would enhance the city in general and the west side in particular where we both live. So thanks for your interest in the project and thanks also to Rena and the other city staff who have worked so closely with us to create a project that will provide the much needed housing on the west side and also maybe hopefully kickstart a much needed upgrade to Mission Street. This aspect was put in perspective for me when a former UCSC professor came back to visit recently and she was astonished. Mission Street is exactly the same as it was 10 years ago she said to me nothing has changed. And with one or two exceptions she was totally right so hopefully by the next time she comes she won't be able to say that anymore. We believe we've hit the sweet spot with our design that it's the right project in terms of the size and impact on the neighborhood that it's the right project in terms of its west side location and that with demand for a housing at an all-time high it's also a project that's coming at the right time. This project is one of the only multifamily projects to come to the west side in recent years. The west side is a part of town that is dominated more than anywhere else by single family homes and I hope we'll start seeing some more density come there in recent years even if providing this housing is going to take some getting used to my current residents. You know Mission Street right now is a hodgepodge of strip malls, legacy stores, gas stations, fast food outlets, and non-conforming single family homes. So if you want to the next slide. So Mission Street is exactly the kind of place where Santa Cruz should be building housing. On major thoroughfare it's close to all amenities that city has to offer and which is perfectly located to access them by bike, by foot, and by the plentiful public transportation options that are close by. Our design goal was to find the right balance between providing attainable housing that will provide quality places for people to live whilst minimizing the impact on the existing neighborhood in terms of design, traffic, and other effects. What we came up with was 27 unit building on three stories including four very low-income units. The ground floor will have 763 square feet of commercial space, a lobby for residents, 11 parking spots, and one living unit that's fully compliant with ADA requirements making it suitable for a disabled person. There will be 13 units each on the other two floors both of which will be served by welcoming open seating areas that will encourage residents to mix and congregate on the interior of the building and thus reduce any noise impact to neighbors. Talking of neighborhood impact, next slide. Because of the location's great transport links and the city-approved bike share program, amongst other things, we felt that we should go with a minimum number of parking spaces and at the same time to discourage the use of cars by residents by providing secure bike parking for each and every unit and by encouraging the use of public transport and other mechanisms. The adjoining parcels to the south of the project and also on Mission Street, they're all zone commercial and the building design and location means that there'll be minimal shading impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. Next slide please. Mission Street traffic, that's another major local concern but this project because it has such low number of parking spaces it's not going to make the traffic on Mission Street any worse, it may even make it better because now there'll be 27 people who will be able to access all these local services without driving. A lot of people are concerned about cars turning left into the parking lot but there's only 11 spaces there and I venture to say that there'll be less turns in a day into that parking lot than there are in 30 minutes to do 4th Street where Starbucks is, they get a lot more traffic. Next slide please. We had a successful community meeting last year where we explained the concept and design to the neighbors and as we promised then we made a lot of changes to address these concerns. So delivery trucks will now be able to enter and turn around in the parking area, it'll be easy to roll out the trash containers, the size of the balconies was reduced to discourage gatherings that might interfere with the neighbors and we agreed to fund neighborhood parking program. Some neighbors also had concerns about the fire and safety codes and we worked very hard in recent weeks with Tim Shields and John Gervisoni to address those concerns and you know right now the building far exceeds all fire and safety codes. Next slide please. So we think that our design is a significant upgrade to the Mission Street streetscape and is very complimentary to the Mission Street urban design plan that was created over 20 years ago and which has only had a handful of projects so far come to fruition. Next slide please and we're going to start talking more about specifics of the building so I'm going to hand this over to Peter. Good evening commissioners thank you for your time. I do want to thank also city staff on this project. Rina and Tim, John, Gervisoni they've all been really important allies in trying to figure out what's the right design for this site. It's been a long process and the community involvement has been robust in the past month which has resulted in a better project. There's been good dialogue even this week with folks that are representing a larger portion of the near neighbors so I want to thank those people for reaching out as well. You know in the big picture this is exactly the project that the city has been looking for a west side location. Almost every project that we've reviewed in the past decade has called into question the density being placed in other parts of this town and why not on the west side so here we are we finally found a place that we feel is trying to sensitively place a decent number of very small affordable by design homes into the neighborhood. You know this is two essentially single family home size lots right it's just under 10,000 square feet to the two 5,000 square foot lots and given the community commercial zone standards right to have the mixed use component all the amenities that are required for a building like this it's it's a tight fit right so fitting in parking commercial space upgrading the urban character of the sidewalk experience adding people and bike parking and some landscape to that environment are some of the you know benefits that we're able to bring to this project you know we're required to build to the property line so you have that as your beginning point and then we try and figure out how do you get residential units above that that are trying to be sensitive in all directions to the neighbors. Conceptually we tried really hard to make this as small a feeling building as we could right it started out with this party of a three-story walk-up for cost reasons right can we do a cost effective three-story apartment building that feels like it's in Santa Cruz right it's essentially two buildings right that's open to the sky in between and we fit in between there the common open space for all the units we felt like it was a you know a pleasure to have a space between where people are moving out throughout their day and going back and forth to their units and just having a place to engage with their neighbors in a simple way right we'll get into some of that design as we look at those plans so that that was our challenge and our goal and the site plan that you see up there now again you see the commercial and the lobby spaces facing the street right it has this sort of urban look to it it's a small blip on your car ride as you go by but it's really meant to enhance the you know 20-year-old mission street design guidelines which unfortunately we haven't been able to promote with much development over the years so we're hoping that we can continue to encourage that there's an in and out driveway secure areas for bike parking for both the commercial and the residential uses and close the trash area and mechanical space it was a great idea from the near neighbors questioning so what's going to happen when you know Amazon pulls up and they're dropping packages off hourly if not you know daily kind of scenario and so we were able to fit in a temporary parking space in front of where the trash area is and that has a you know a backup space where it can come in and out park for 10 15 minutes do their thing and not have to sit out on mission street and back up the traffic so that was a great idea from from neighbors and I'm glad that we were able to you know solve that in a in a very small footprint um again the parking we have 11 spaces before the state law came into effect this project only required 12 spaces so we almost meet that we only lost one space because we decided to keep the dedicated fire access to the back of the building even though it wasn't required so we lost the parking space to do that but we felt it was a good trade-off and a good um you know I'm not saying a nod to the neighbors I think their persistence in questioning the fire safety of that condition is what prompted you know even further design thought into you know how do we make that a safe space and we feel like it's something that will enhance the project going forward I would also provide you know maintenance opportunities onto that roof over the garage as well as fire access over time let's go to the next five Rena this is the second floor of the building again you get a sense for the open space in between it looks a little diagrammatic I would expect that tenants are circulating left to right through that space there's some planting areas there's some fixed seating areas for people to sit and share some outdoor space it is open to the sky the the third floor let's go well let me tell you one a few other things that let's go back to the second sorry so the orange spaces here are the inclusionary units right we have two of the SRO units on the left side facing on mission and then the larger flexible density unit which is a really small two-bedroom unit essentially in the back of the building the other FDU in the upper left corner is a one-bedroom unit the rest are all SRO non-dedicated bedroom spaces yeah and the yellow one is a dedicated manager's unit so we we are required and have a unit on site which will also be a conduit for communication to the neighborhood both after this project is built if there are concerns if there are noise complaints that tenants are you know not being good neighbors there's a there will be a plan in place to to address those issues so the third floor third floor is very similar to the second floor albeit the open space has three 10 foot by 10 foot wide light wells let's call it that bring light and air if you're standing on that second floor and you're looking up you're looking up at the blue sky we tried really hard again to give this building this feeling of not being in a sort of enclosed corridor condition and you have this kind of outdoor living space that's part of your unit and part of your living experience we were able to keep to the bottom of the page a large opening at each level which is about 40 square feet so it's a 10 foot wide by four foot tall almost window opening let's call it to the west so you'll get really nice late in the day sun coming through there light and I think it enhances the experience of that open space for the next slide Rena this is just an enlargement of a typical unit one of the SRO units so as you enter off the corridor on the right you have a space that's open that could fit a queen size bed it could be the sleeping area you've got storage as you enter the unit and a fairly efficient kitchen with a full-size refrigerator and cooktop sink storage space and a full bathroom with a shower toilet sink and the front of the unit is meant to be again fairly flexible could be the living slash workspace slash sleeping it's really up to the tenant to sort of figure out how to use that space and then each unit has a small deck in front this is the mission side of the project those decks are only three foot six loud as a projection over the mission right of way and they are slightly larger in back they are just under yeah they're three ten they're just under four feet in depth go to the next slide please uh the building materials we do have a material board i don't know if you guys had a chance to see that you know the general um thought behind this is where we're sort of a modern interpretation of a Santa Cruz vernacular we're taking influences from places like the tannery art center where you have board and bat siding stucco siding and we introduced a wood element for the balcony railings that try and give it a little bit more of residential flavor to it the ground floor garage walls are all concrete masonry units and the windows and storefronts are all black just to give it an overall theme for the building for the next slide these are some overall 3d views kind of giving you a sense for that massing although you never experience it this way the slide on the right is is the mission street facing side where you can see the attempt to break this up into two two buildings you see the driveway into the building on the right storefronts on the front the relationship to the single family home on the corner at dew four the image on the left shows you the backside of the building we're looking at it sort of from the east looking looking west and north and you see the the garage with the roof over it and the residential balconies on that side of the building the roofs are all single shed roofs that are dialed in for solar access it's sort of a perfect setup right we're on the right side of the street both for solar and minimizing the impact from a shading standpoint to structures around us right so we don't shade it all the properties behind us the single family homes we do have minor impacts to the two adjacent houses that you see in this slide um in the worst scenario in the middle of winter solstice where the sun's low and the shadows are longer we cover the house until about 9 30 10 in the morning and it opens up pretty quickly so I was presently surprised that there's very little impact in the at the worst time of the day in the summer we only cover about a third of of the structure on either side of us we'll go to the next slide please and then this is a this is a section through the building cut north south and looking towards the east to give you a sense for sort of the open common space in between the two buildings where people would be circulating and getting into their units and an idea of the relationship at the back of the building with the roof over the garage there's diagrammatically some fire department ladder shown there with those would be accessing the third floor units if and when needed they wouldn't be there permanently they would be brought brought in if there were a fire emergency and then you know significantly we've altered the the makeup of this structure by the construction type right a 3a construction type is significantly safer from a fire safety perspective very robust sprinkler system all the exterior walls are two hour fire rated walls there's fire separations between the garage and the residential above so any fire it would there were a fire in the garage it's not going to spread to the rest of the building and vice versa and again it it took us out of the requirement to have a fire department access to the back of the building that's it right nicely timed yeah thank you all thank you very much so at this point um i'd like to ask if commissioners have any questions of either staff or of the applicant um after which we will open up for public comment sure does so this isn't necessarily um about the specifics of the project it's more a question about the zoning and you know our one of our main jobs here on the planning commission is to make sure we have consistency with the general plan and so i was just wondering if staff could talk a little bit um so you said that this was zoned community commercial um and um i know that there's been some changes that the council have made around fdu's being allowed in community commercial but as a general plan sits right now is it consistent with the general plan to have fdu's in this project thank you for that question commissioner dawson um i do want to um clarify say yes um that fd that proposing fdu's is consistent with the community commercial designation i so the intent of the community commercial designation is really to accommodate businesses that serve the general needs of the community and includes like retail service office establishments etc and so there are um multiple different types of uses as well in this area um as well as mixed use projects that include um like commercial uses on the ground floor and for mixed use pros projects for that residential unit type um that is like the SROs are a type of residential um unit type that is allowed within that community commercial zone district um if as long as a special use permit is obtained and fdu's are also included within that um kind of like that list as well that where they are allowed within the that's community commercial zone district um as long as the applicant is obtaining a special use permits um and that's why that's one of the entitlements that they would require okay thanks for questions i think i think for now that's it for questions okay thank you anybody else yes commissioner polham is thank you commissioner conway um i just want to follow up on our our email conversation about the potential for um of course i'm going to forget the name let me look up the email we talked a little bit about um what they called delineators or something like that that can run down mission street i know that we talked about how technically this is kind of cal trans's call right and this is a highway and um we're sort of limited or at least the sense i get is that we're limited in terms of what we can require in terms of trying to limit those left turns and so is there any more information about that or is it just kind of like this is cal trans's jurisdiction and there really isn't much we can do with that um so from my understanding you're right it is cal trans jurisdiction um and so i think with that signage um prohibiting left turns out of the development that will definitely help with some of those like the with those traffic um concerns and then i think from also looking at the aerial photograph of the um the site um this morning we talked it through with the public works traffic engineering and it also doesn't really look like there's enough right of way space there to have like left turn pockets or other types of improvements as well um and so that's kind of um the response there yeah i drove by it on the way here it's it's tight um probably not a lot of space for that and i guess the reason that i ask about this i mean aside from you know driving on mission street my entire life and generally trying to avoid it because of those left turns and the nightmare can become um i just the intent here is to not make a bad situation worse and so i'm just trying to see kind of what we can do um and the other question i had is that those parking spaces are not dedicated parking spaces correct to the residential component they're just spaces um yes that's correct from my understanding they're not like assigned i think in the so in the draft um SRO management plan the applicant might have included some information in there about how it's like a first come first serve um basis where those tenants can purchase um parking permits essentially so they're not like specifically assigned in that sense and i think there are also a portion that's going to be um dedicated towards that commercial space as well yeah that's my big question is that with um the commercial space there and those um parking space is not being assigned that creates a different dynamic than say if it was just tenant parking or you know restricted to tenants or something like that um okay thank you i will in response to that i will say that um and this is even reflected in our zoning code um that there is an element of shared parking that happens with the peak demand for residential happening in the evening times and then residential during the daytime so there is um sort of that shared parking model and our code even has exemptions for parking in that scenario right okay thank you yes you'd have a couple of questions um i understand that there are limitations on what the city can ask the developer to do we don't want to stop feasibility um having said that was there any thought given to even a stair climber for that a da unit i'm i'm really the we're trying to squeeze a whole bunch of stuff in here and i completely acknowledge that and it's uh it's a very i think you guys have hit virtually all the targets um i just am a little bit concerned about the the address of that a da unit being on the entry side sort of this the storage area and the the out the outdoor space being a very isolated patio in the rear and i completely understand the motive the basis for doing it in terms of accessibility but was there any thought given to any something short of an elevator like a stair climber or anything like that is there is have you had any thoughts about that because if you could get up to those open spaces that would be a i think a life-changing thing uh for that particular unit so that's and i i have some general questions that maybe we'll get to later but that was the one thing that really jumped out at me so i don't know if you want to add a second thought about it obviously the elevator is the way to access that if there's a way to do something different we haven't really thought about that concept yeah i'm not sure it could be it could be maybe either stairway obviously would have impacts on the other units but sure one aspect of it for both the nature of the unit the nature of the access to it the opportunities for socializing um the placement of the outdoor space relative to the other the other unit so yeah no i i hear your your comment um our our thought was and this was even brought up by staff early on um you know the lobby is another common space right that people will be congregating in utilizing living in let's call it so that was our saving grace was that they still have that space that they can use albeit they can if they were a handicapped individual provides opportunities for those you know short kind of glancing connections for people and those are really important but just the nature of the placement and the access and everything it feels very isolated that ada unit does have the advantage of having a private open space and we've taken special measures to ensure that there's plenty of light coming in there um so i think all in all there will be a very nice place to live thank you okay more questions from sorry i just had a couple more so i i heard um did hear in your presentation that you said it is consistent with state law but i i would like to ask you to be a little bit more specific about how a one-to-one replacement of an affordable unit gets counted in the inclusionary requirement um to me it seems very if you're going to do a one-to-one replacement of an affordable unit that would be counted as one thing and then the affordable requirement should be you know applied to the project so i think there may be some interpretation there and if there's our there is an ability for us to make a requirement um to have that affordable unit be placed one-to-one and then have our inclusionary going i i think i would be interested to hear about that um so thank you for that question um so so with regards to that question it is written within um within state law directly within government code sections um 66300 d2a2 as well as 65915c3a1 um that the that any like replaced protected units can count towards that local inclusionary requirement um if they meet the requirements of the city's inclusionary ordinance and and so that that that's the part of the state law that that explains that um they can basically be double counted um and that the more restrictive um requirements do take uh do take precedence and so that's kind of why i explained that the inclusionary um requirements are where the units have to be maintained as affordable and perpetuity whereas under the state law if they're just doing that one-to-one um replacement unit it only has to be affordable for restricted as affordable for 55 years and so the applicant is is choosing to do to double count both like to count um the replacement unit as the inclusionary unit as well and to provide that affordable unit as affordable and perpetuity rather than just the 55 years and i just want to add sorry i'm in the broken chair again so i'm really low but um that we we on previous projects we had been relying on just our local code our local ordinance which um had the term may in it um and that has been interpreted by the planning commission um for some projects to mean that there's the discretion involved and that we could allow for it to be counted as an inclusionary unit or not um and that was prior to this state law section coming into play which um further defined it and specified that it has to be able to be counted as one of our required affordable units yeah i mean i will i will just say can is different than shall and i mean we don't have to continue go into it but i what i do want to just state to the public is what that this result is us getting less of affordable units now right like instead of five affordable units we're getting four affordable units so um i'll probably have more questions about that thank you okay um i guess i'm down to really i just have um one question well i guess first of all i'm assuming that what you're calling the leasing office is also the property management office that's always available so there's somebody there for that which i was you know very glad to see and also the is their visitor bike parking this is one of my current pet peeves is that in front that is okay good um that's easily accessible and lockable and all that great thank you for that i have um rhetorical questions that i'll save everyone from which is really just hand wringing but what can we do about mission street so um you know we'll skip that um okay with that with questions i am going to open the public hearing members of the public are invited to speak for three minutes what we'll ask you to do is line up over here um sign in and if you could please state your name also um prior to the meeting i was asked whether um one person could also speak for a neighbor who's unable to be here and um we have enough time to allow for that um so you can also make your neighbor's comments on his behalf uh you can just state his name it would be helpful oh wait three minutes and then she can have up to three i don't think her comment is comments will take that long but i'm gonna allow that a little over three but i'll try to speak fast there will be a yellow light giving you a heads up that your red light is coming so my name is dana ray filled i live at five four three palm street and i have concerns about the mission street project the first one is privacy uh the second and third floor on the back side will be looking down on numerous properties backyards that for most people are considered private looking at the plans i acknowledge and appreciate the developer's use of privacy handrails which is a solid wood and not the wire transparent railings um so i appreciate that um the third one is parking i know the intention of the developer is to incentivize biking and discourage driving but the reality is that we are not there as a country state or town in california the average household has 1.68 cars with 27 units that's 45 cars and with what looks like 11 parking spots on the project this will account for 15 percent of residents i would assume this is actually much lower since i'm sure some of those spots for the commercial some of those spots would be for the commercial patrons and workers onto four and palm parking after work hours or at peak coffee times can be challenging to stay the least perhaps parking needs to be provided and added to the plans for all 27 units if that's not feasible at the minimum palm and to four need to be permitted and santa cruz city not allow for the mission street parking residents to get those um permits the third one is fire safety and rescue i am a firefighter here in the county i feel that i have a significant understanding of how to perform rescues i understand that it has passed code currently it appears that there is zero setbacks on access to either side of the buildings this will prevent easy access to the back of the building for fast rescues if there is a fire in the rear apartments they have two options their front door or their back deck if the fire starts at the front door that leaves the back deck i saw the updated plans with the access to the stairwell we cannot get ladders of stairwells interior stairwells we cannot we only allow for attic ladders can go up stairwells so to get to the second and third floor we have to have access outside of the building to throw a 24 foot ladder that will access the second and third floor so now to do that you're going to require us to go through neighbor the neighbor's yard to probably break fences to then try to make it up and over to the property to that second and third floor for people hanging outside of those decks so with no access on either side of that building we cannot get there in a time an effective matter and now the big picture so i'm concerned that the planning commission we're not thinking of the future and we're not too concerned of what oh dang it and what is in front of them okay um you can finish your thought okay looking under you guys this significant projects and the active planning applications there are 45 applicants of those 36 are residential of those 36 residential that's 2886 s or r s ro's condos and apartments when a quick which can't equivalent it up to 6000 to 7000 people okay thank you right now our part our streets our water our sewage our parking does not go there as a job as a firefighter right now santa cruz city has the 10th busiest fire station in the united states are you guys prepared for an additional fire station that costs 30 million dollars to build for your comments 10 million dollars for the lot thank you for your comments i just don't think we're there yet and you also had comments from your neighbor yes so this is from bruce um his main one that he wants to talk about is fire safety on mission studios remains a major concerns especially revised plans including the package agenda for June 15th the revised plans are more dangerous than the previous posted plan plans because the revised plans limit rear building firefighter access to a stairwell that is more than likely to become instructed than an 18 foot wide parking entrance shown in the previous plans the revised plans also provide no way for firefighters to access the rear wall of the building from the ground floor if the stairwell is obstructed fire department access to the rear wall of the building needs to be more thoroughly revised the previous design is clearly safer than the revised design that is contained in the engine to pack it the previous design can also be made more fire safe by using class a building materials on the rear decks fire safety remains a major concern and one of the cities and one that the city should take seriously for the city will bear liability for any loss of life or property that occurs due to shortcomings of the fire department access access aspects of building plans approved by the city safety position i petition the planning commission to only approve this project if the following condition or an equivalent is added to the conditions of approval quote prior to insurance of building permits the building permit plan shall show a design that is determined to provide the least likely to be blocked and i don't know what that word is broadest access to the rear wall of the building as determined by a panel of no less than five firefighting building and risk assessment professionals with at least one member from each professional group whose determination is documented in a publicly available written report end of quote it would also be a good to add a following condition as well quote property order agrees to have the fire department perform annual inspection of missions mission studios to make sure fire sprinklers systems and access pathways are operational and in good order end quote my neighborhood eyes neighbors and i are very concerned about the fire safety because the fire mission street studios could have significant adverse impacts on the health and safety of nearby properties that's bruce thomas thank you thank you very much and you can go ahead and sign in while you're waiting if you'd like hello my name is jill hudson i'm a resident five three nine palm street live with my wife and two kids my primary concern is the adverse in fact this will have on you know palm street do four street cross the other side of mission bald one berkshire olive uh with the parking the traffic um the parking i think it's too many units with not enough parking spaces and i know this is meets all the guidelines and you know these guys have done a good job trying to address neighborhood concerns but i think to pretend that persons living in these units will not have vehicles is not being realistic in the city of santa cruz and the developers and and additional projects throughout the neighborhood that will certainly come to follow will really negatively impact you know not only our quality life but you know safety and you know other concerns and parking number one access to our homes and then also baby school just around the corner increased traffic increased competition for parking during drop off and pick up times so i think it's just um if you extrapolate out that there's five other parcels that are community commercial on that block you know and he is developing two of them um you know that could be you know several times what's there so you're looking at close to a hundred units with you know 30 or 40 parking spots and all those cars are certainly a hundred percent going to be covering the neighborhood and i've you know i've spoken with many um folks who do property management and they've just absolutely agreed that persons you know a lot of ucsc students of course bring a car to town and so i think believe that that's not going to be the case and not addressing it with either off site i don't know how it's you address it because you're trying to get as many parcel uh many units as possible in a small space i understand that but um i think it's too many too much with not enough concern for where these people are going to use their vehicles and also the the other issues on mission street you know safety getting on and off mission we in our backyard at 539 palm i could sit there and listen to car accidents daily come in front and i'm sure the fire department's going to test to the number of car accidents right there in front of that starbucks so it's just i feel like it's too much on too small of a space but you know that's just my perspective and i think if the parking could be mitigated then you're going to get more buy-in from the folks nearby not that that matters but that's i think a valid concern so thanks thank you for your comments feistman 519 do four um so back to your rhetorical question what about mission street um i've been thinking about how people are going to access right this project i turn left onto do four street often daily um and the traffic that gets blocked up trying to go left you're adding more cars just slightly off you know from the the the do four street access you've got another driveway right next to it so people are going to i mean i will i have to wait behind this car to get to the next left turn to you know what i mean it's just going to be a freaking mess on do four street on mission street the other part of that is okay you're going to turn left you're going to have a a sign that says you can't turn right no you can't turn left out of the project you can only turn right so how are they going to go north they're going to go right on mission they're going to go right on calm they're going to go right on seaside and then they're going to go up the next street which is the one where the fire station is i forgot the name of it so i mean the traffic in the neighborhood is going to be affected not just by this you know right or left turn but they're going to be going all the way around the neighborhood just to get anywhere because of mission street um the delivery trucks backing out of the project after doing a delivery can you imagine a delivery truck backing out that's the rhetorical question the other part of that is okay i'm done with the parking and the driving no the driving done with the driving sorry i'm nervous the offer to pay for two years of parking permits very kind however how long do the developers plan to collect rent from this project because we as neighbors on these streets plan to live in our homes for a lot longer than two years two years is nothing so that's it thank you thank you um hello my name is nicholas ivy i live at five four six do four street um so my first concern i want to talk about is something that's mentioned in the the 225 page document which is the sentence a sun shadow analysis was provided that which shows that during the summer the proposed three-story building will not impact solar access of adjacent properties however um so my the owner of the house i live in went and compared the sun shadows thrown by the building across the street the other three-story apartment building and that doesn't seem particularly plausible um since the shadows by that building go across all the way across mission street um i believe i'm not sure if these were submitted to you what did you she attached photos to that document um and so you know even technically solar access will be there you know we have you'll have some sun at some part of the day but even if you lose a couple hours of sunlight due to um due to the building being included that's like 15 20 percent of your energy um you know so if you need to add 15 20 percent more panels that drives the cost of your solar installation up um so that was my main first concern you know the parking parking has kind of been talked a lot but um i park i park on 24 street myself um just the other week i had the second time uh someone bumped my bumper just you know going back and i don't even know when they did it because they didn't leave a note first time left a note second time they did not um so i'm also concerned about parking we just have now we have four people living in the house that i'm at so it's going to be it's already it's already a nightmare shuffling cars in and out of the driveway and dealing with the spaces in front of the house where you know some so there's four people can fit in front of the house but some if someone who doesn't live at the house parks in front they'll often block out two of the spaces but parking in between them so then we have to take up more and more spaces across the street um so those are my main concerns so that's it for me thank you is there anyone else who would like to address the commission welcome by the way you're a good speaker and all of you guys i'm looking i'm sitting there looking i'm going oh god these guys are so stiff i'm never gonna get anything across but you're all smiling now you know it's like okay i'm gonna come up and anyway my name is will you make first and and i own the two houses right next door now this is and these are all my friends and in the whole neighborhood they're all complaining and um and you guys did a really good job i liked your presentation on your building the problem is i wanted to develop two and i got two more houses right next door to andy's and if i developed that's 27 more units because i'm going to duplicate what he's got and that's going to freak out the whole neighborhood and so i'm here because i want everybody to win including planning department and you guys and you guys and so how can we resolve this where we're all going to be happy and so so anyway that's all i got to say thank you thank you we appreciate your comments would anybody else like to address the commission seen you know not typically i'm sorry with that i'm going to close the public hearing and thank everybody for their comments first of all i'd like to ask if either staff or the applicant have any responses that they'd care to make to anything that came up i see the applicant nodding go ahead yes thank you just quickly a couple of things parking comments about that as well as the delivery trucks delivery trucks can turn around inside the garage they don't have to back out on the mission no that that's okay this isn't a time for a conversation the applicant has a chance to respond to specific things yeah so delivery trucks would would enter into that garage they have a temporary parking space and then they're able to turn around inside the garage on parking right this is really simple to me right we can provide no parking in this building we would be soliciting to people that didn't have a car if there were parking permits in the neighborhoods these people cannot get a permit on those streets they couldn't park on your streets it's that simple right i live downtown everybody uses my street to park right i have a parking permit and supposedly they're supposed to leave in a couple hours but you know it's just the way it is right you can't you can't protect the parking in front of your house right that's a public street that's open to anybody but the parking program works if anybody on the parking ticket it works and it keeps people that shouldn't be there from being there very long so i i don't see a parking impact from this project to the neighborhoods if you don't have a parking permit process in place yeah they've got the opportunity if they have a car to unfortunately park in your neighborhood so we're encouraging that and that's why we're offering to jumpstart the process in your neighborhood by paying for that for two years balance to protect against thank you and rena did you have um comments uh yes um is it possible to share my screen again please right so i did i just i just want to bring this slide back up again just to show everybody um that over here um in this right corner on the current design there is that um temporary parking space for the delivery trucks to park and then the applicant has provided this um turnaround space so that they can back up here and then turn around and be able to drive out onto mission street so that this prevents delivery trucks from having to back out out of the development um so i did want to show the visual of that um and to um to kind of reiterate what i also explained during my presentation as well with ab 2097 um the city is prohibited from imposing any minimum automobile parking requirement on this proposed project because they are located within the half mile of a major transit stop um and they are also located within an urban environment and they're providing um you know a lot of bike parking spaces as well and so people can they can walk because it's located close to other residential uses um where they can bike to get to these um commercial the commercial space as well um aside from driving um and to clarify an aspect um like regarding the traffic concerned um comments about the amount of traffic that this proposed development could generate um from my understanding as part of the city's traffic impact fee program if this project is not likely to increase 25 additional trips in the am or pm peak hour at a critical intersection then they're not required to provide a traffic study and so we think based off of the low level of um trips that this uh proposed development will make um with 11 parking spaces it shouldn't um there shouldn't be like a like a impact with the traffic situation already on mission street um so i did want to make those clarifications and thank you for providing those comments as well um and i also wanted to ask if tim shields might want to come up and clarify the fire access concern comments thanks tim i was gonna ask too so vice chair commissioners thank you for having me today so i just wanted to briefly touch on the fire access and what we really worked on looking at solutions to the emergency escape and rescue windows at the rear of the structure um we had some difficulties in addressing that but once the developer architect proposed a 3a construction that exempted the need for emergency escape and rescue windows so they're no longer required per code so there is no code section that i can require access back there having said that they still did provide a rated corridor for us to get to the rear of the structure um i understand there are maybe some logistical challenges um but i can't what if all the scenarios i have to apply state code to this and that's how i look at it at this point in the process it's just the design review um there will be another thorough review of building permit review where we have a third party contractor review that set up plans independent of um my department so that'll get reviewed again and if there's issues then we'll address that question sir nope that was i was just gonna ask you to comment out in general okay thanks thank you for your comments that was very helpful uh one additional one there was a concern about annual um fire life safety inspections and her state law um we're state mandated to inspect this type of um structure in our two structure annually anyways but that is something that we are ready to be inspected great thank you for that clarification okay um with that i will uh return to the commission for deliberation and i would just like to start by thanking neighbors for their active engagement this project um represents a huge change um and asking questions and advocating for your concerns is really helpful and clearly you've had um some really positive effects on this project so thank you for that um with that would any of the commissioners like to lead off okay okay commissioner poe um mckelvey sorry i didn't know i'll uh i'll disriterate i know that there are so many stakeholders and competing interests and layers of regulatory uh it's a nice word for that uh trying to fit it all into a package like this on a small piece of land is an incredible challenge and i i do think the developer has tried really hard to satisfy uh both the technical requirements and kind of the the community concerns um i do still have a strong desire to see something happen for that accessible dwelling unit um i think that the public has made a number of other uh concerns very apparent and it sounds like there has been a fairly robust exchange of ideas and requirements and um i think that i'm hoping that there can be maybe a continuation on conversation amongst the parties but um i i i do think that uh there's been a it's it looks like it's evolved to me and i i'm i'm thankful for that okay is that it that's it for now okay commissioner poe hamas um i just have a few comments and then um try to sew this up pretty quick here um okay for the first one i just had a question for the developer and i'm just curious um this project was entitled to a 50 density bonus and i'm just curious why you didn't take it you know yeah okay um thank you for the question um the the 50 density bonus wasn't practical it would have meant putting even more units into a confined space and a greater impact on the neighborhood and so that was something we wanted to avoid thank you yeah as as expected i'm just curious just want to get it all on the table um okay um so just really quickly i want to just address some of the comments of the public um just on density on traffic on parking just general increase in uh in population in this particular area um you know i'm a i'm a west side resident i've lived on the west side my entire life and in particular very close to this particular location and i share a lot of those concerns specifically around the impacts of traffic and parking like especially with the left on southbound mission cutting across a couple lanes of traffic backing up people who are traveling in that left lane especially when there's a left into the you know katrina takaria slash pizzeria vanti lot there's the due for lot there is palm there's a lot of lefts that are lined up in that particular neighborhood and so you know the impacts of that are pretty clear to see at least to me and um i completely i get it um you know if i was king for a day i would make turning left on mission street a criminal offense because i hate it so much but um the fact is that we are um incredibly limited um especially in this location in terms of what we can require not only um from the state and caltrans in terms of doing the markings on the street um but also in terms of what we can require from the developer so for example um legally with this project we can't require any parking and generally speaking there are entitlements that we do have to give once housing projects meet certain criteria and that's state law and when you fight it um the only people really who benefit are the lawyers right and so we'd like to avoid that too um with that said um i do think there is something that we might be able to address on the parking concerns and i do um agree with the developer in terms of creating a parking program they are effective i've lived in areas with parking programs that really do limit um the amount of impact that it has on particular side streets on particular neighborhoods the problem here is that the developer as i understand it cannot be the person or at least the party to initiate a parking program and so what i would like to see is potentially outreach with uh i believe the name is bruce thomas or whoever is sort of the the point of contact for the do-for-neighbors and this would be more of a direction of staff um and it would be to request that staff do out outreach with the head of do-for-neighbors um bruce thomas on the neighborhood parking program indicating what they will need to do to establish one and then also uh making them aware um to the extent that they're not of the developer's commitment to as i understand it pay for two years of a parking program or at least two years of investment in getting a parking program started so whatever that means um i think outreach to the neighborhood group and um seeing if this is something that they want to move forward on would go a long way with that particular neighborhood and so um that would be my motion okay well we're not quite having motion yet okay we'll be holding that and you'll be adding that to them to the motion um or did you want to treat that separately how do you want to do this do you want to well i i think we're gonna have we could put it on the floor now i'm fine we could also do it later i'm fine to do it separately because i don't want to yeah hold the project hostage you know if there are people that disagree okay sure would you like to state exactly what your um motion sure uh i would move that staff do outreach with the head of do for neighbors bruce thomas or another person in his stead whoever that person is on the neighborhood parking program indicating what they will need to do to establish one kind of walk them through the process of what that really means and what the options are and then also make them aware of the developer's commitment to pay for two years of the parking program or otherwise fund and participate in designing a parking program is there a second to that motion i'd second and then offer maybe a friendly amendment i could we up the developer pay for five years can we get the developer up here house three can we can we say that i'm willing to consider it favorably but i'd want to study the numbers how big the parking um zone is going to be um but i think i've shown in the past that i'm committed to try and ameliorate the impact on the neighbors so i will consider it favorably but i can't commit to it at this point without knowing what the numbers are um oh hey um i just wanted to point out that the addition of approval that right we had recommended was just the ball just the one block could you just i'm just curious what's the cost of that um annual um parking permit program we've got Curtis Buzinard from public works here okay one of that um i'd also like to add while Curtis is coming up that um we really don't have an objective development standard um regarding what we're talking about so from a legal perspective i think it'd be a difficult uh condition to pursue unless the applicant were agreeable and wanted to offer it up thank you for that clarification yeah go ahead oh god has had just as a point of clarification does this fall into the same category of of uh creating impediments to development it could in a legal sense it could sir i mean it's it's a cost okay so i'm Curtis Buzinard good evening fishers with public works engineering so the parking permit program off eric touched on it we can't require it we have no standard objective for it uh the residents have to initiate it they are the ones that have to go through the process and come to the city they'll vote on it it's the 2 3rd majority vote to pass uh the cost would be associated with it is for the actual parking permit city incurs the cost of the signage all that stuff but other than that it has to get voted on they don't receive a vote people impact it is considered a no vote so there is some okay um go ahead yeah and so i lived up on mcmillan um closer to the university in that parking program and my understanding was it's not just the permits like the printing out the physical permits but then also the uh covering the the parking enforcement as well isn't that part of it as well or not to my understanding okay i think that's incurred in the cost right actual permit i don't know what the limitations are how many permits you can get per household i'm not sure of that i can't answer that right because the permits the fee for the permits pays for the program correct correct right okay okay sorry just to sorry just to add something to what kurtis has said um so i actually as i found the fees that would that it would cost per permit so i believe every household can buy up to five permits and they cost thirty dollars per permit okay thank you for that per year correct yes per year one year yeah and how much is your standard ticket that i'm not sure i think it's forty four dollars so if you get one ticket it's not worth it to try and skip around that's what i tried to do and then i got a ticket and then i wouldn't bought the permit okay okay no that's okay to that point i would like to say this is just a general planning act team as far as i'm concerned but parking permit programs the tickets come from the program from having a program and parking permit programs they tend to coalesce around a particular driver a university or development etc and there are some unfortunate side effects just in the sense that becomes a donut where the problem is pushed to the outside of that donut and then that those neighborhoods are affected and then it gets they say we want parking permit and it just continues to grow and then eventually the entire you know if you pushed out to the so i am going to ask that we um return what we had was a motion on the floor we had a second we had a request for a friendly amendment and we were getting information that would help us determine whether or not to accept at right now the decision is whether to accept a friendly amendment to go from two years to five years or simply to put the motion as stated on the floor could i ask the maker of the friendly amendment could we do anywhere between two and five years as determined by the process in the neighborhood sure sure and accept so there is a motion on the thank you very much for that was very helpful as were the other comments i think we we um uh elucidating some more information on the impacts of parking programs isn't it's exactly the right time to be doing that um but our motion on the floor now is um to require the developer to uh pay for a parking program for the one block that is included um in the current condition of approval for a period between two and five years well my understanding is that we couldn't put a condition of approval on the project but we can direct staff to facilitate the outreach and to let the neighborhood and the developer come to their own democratic conclusion correct that's sort of that was my thought sure we can facilitate the outreach and that sounds that sounds different so that is a request to staff to facilitate a conversation so that is what is being here i'll restate um i'm the motion is that's to uh direct staff to do outreach with the head of do four neighbors bruce thomas or uh another head of do four neighbors on the neighborhood parking program indicating what they will need to do to establish one and the to make them aware of the developer's commitment to pay from anywhere between two and five years for the parking program okay are there a discussion on this motion further discussion on this motion yes please go ahead thank you um by sure i could i also suggest that maybe we um put an end point on that as well maybe up till the time that the building is finaled or um maybe a year after the building permits final so that that obligation is not in perpetuity that's a good idea so um to specify that um we're asking staff to facilitate a discussion which sounds like it's already happening to me from um between the developer um and the neighbors on on this um parking program um and that staff will continue to work with the neighbors to try to come up with to come to an agreement up until the time that the building permit is issued can can we see the language on the screen by chance are we ready for that i just want to make sure we're looking at what we really want to do here thank you we're we're up until building permit issuance it's up until building permit application oh yeah okay it's finaled is that what it's up to the maker of the motion yeah i i what did you mean i would defer to staff um i mean i heard up to one year after the permit is finaled or by the time the permit is fine i mean i what do you think is reasonable i think i also heard up to one year after the building permit is finaled i think that's fine that'll give us some flexibility and um i think the um the longer we allow that window um you know with that extra buffer of a year um it might be an opportunity for the residents to get a feel for whether it's really necessary or not so uh it's a good point one year would probably be the way to go okay thank you for that um i think that's helpful okay are there is everybody clear on what this is are there further comments or um about this did you want to speak further about it i do have concerns about it um and first of all i really appreciate um the concern for the impact on the neighbors um because of this and i i think that's that's really what i'm hearing in this um and i also hear that on the part of the developer that there's a real concern and a real interest in working together um i feel concerned about um and i think we've satisfied that we're not requiring um an additional commitment and i think that that would be unacceptable um and illegal um but encouraging a discussion to flesh out and understand the immediate neighborhood impacts um what i'm really hearing there is that we're keeping a dialogue open um but i i do want to be clear that we're not requiring um the offer of two years of financial assistance to get a parking neighborhood parking program up and going um to go further than that um it'll be at the discretion of of the developers but i agree with mr marlott that um continuing that discussion for a year after i think is going to help um and and as is the case with many things about this project i think it's really going to help our city understand um how to integrate these new housing types into our community and i think that having the discussion is helpful so um as it was revised i am going to support this motion does anybody else have any comments they'd like to make okay with that let's call have a roll call vote just to clarify there i'm looking for the condition um but the other condition that would be affected by this motion would be the one that we already have um that speaks to paying for two years and we would just include the language two to five well that there will be further for that there will be further discussion between the neighborhood and the developer to extend that okay you cut that in the existing condition someone's keeping track okay with that roll call vote commissioner conway hi jocelyn hi mckelvey hi all him yes hi okay that motion carries uh commissioner jocelyn yeah i just wanted to move on to some of their parts so um i had a couple of uh clarifying questions and then perhaps some comments to follow up um i did not see in the conditions of approval um i did see uh number 36 that talks about the affordable housing agreement i did not see in the conditions of approval and i may have missed it um something speaking about the replacement housing and that being part of the conditions of approval it did did i miss it or is it not in there you're and when you when you say that i mean because there is that overlap that's allowed in state law are you speaking to uh mention of the affordability levels uh i'm just mentioning uh about the replacement requirement like that isn't called out that it is called out that there is an affordable housing agreement it needs to follow state law but there is not a condition that says that that there needs to be the the required two bedroom replacement unit and i i'd like to see that as a condition of approval if i did indeed miss it i think we can add that in um and just revise that condition to specify the inclusionary units you know the total units and and which is for which you know how many units are required for replacement how many units are required for inclusion yeah i just would like to see like the word replacement in a condition uh just to be really clear um the other question also is for staff if you could just and i don't want to drag this out for everybody but i i'm just wondering like as i use bike as my primary primary mode of transportation and i'll tell you you cannot pay me to bike on mission ever um we've had fatalities as a community on mission um it's a real issue um it's scary enough to drive down mission let alone bike and so i'm just wondering like can you talk about any discussions we've had or like the process to work with caltrans to get protected bike lanes to do something because if we're saying that we're encouraging folks not to drive um and you know i i have real concerns especially that these are sROs likely a lot of students who come to town and don't really know the history of that street i see students the beginning of every quarter writing down that and i literally roll down the window and say go over to kink do not ride this road so i'm really we're i'm really concerned about that so this public works did look at that in the past about bike lanes on mission street it's just not feasible okay the design the roadway width they did put up an alternative bike route on king street as you know you probably use that so as far as i don't foresee that okay is there ways that we can work with caltrans to get signage to like direct folks to the alternate bike path and and also direct safe spots to cross you know i mean that's been on public first radar for years we have worked effortfully trying to do that i can uh we do have a new transportation manager i can spark up that conversation with him i think that's our key but once again it's i know mission streets of scary street okay you know if i could follow up on that point i do think that it is within our our purview to request that the developer be sure and provide information materials on safe bike routes because i mean i agree i was planning my bike route out of this project as well and you know between the rail trail and king street and you know ucsc has that parking might think hub at cvs i think that um you're just asking to provide information in the new tenant would go a long way for residents of this property it doesn't solve the water larger problem but i thought that was a good point yeah i guess this would be a question to the developer would you be amenable to a condition um to have you know perhaps you know permanent signage or something you know doing thank you thank you for pointing that out yeah before you even raised the question i had my hand yeah i saw that i'm gonna put i'm gonna put posters on the bike lockers erecting cyclists king street okay the bike trail uh and to all the other safe routes yeah and i don't think this needs to be a condition of approval i think um a request that's been responded to is adequate for me at least yeah i i mean i i i would like to see it as a condition of approval um so i probably will go ahead and motion to see if i can get the votes here um i appreciate the veliver being amenable to it but it's just nice to have it in writing it's also something that we can point to when people come to us and say hey what about the biking we can show that the developer has you know it is going above and beyond to as you have for in in many cases here so i would like to um propose a condition of approval um that the developer will post um signage indicating safe bike routes then in the surrounding area um and leave it kind of open so uh we can leave some flexibility for the developer so i'd like to motion a condition of approval see if i can get a second here well i'll second for discussion and i guess what that means is i need to hear more about this i'm definitely nowhere you're heading but just want to know yeah i mean i i want to just put in writing what the developer said that they're already going to do which is you know they're going to post um you know the city can provide um you know the safe bike routes in the area we already know that um the um public works just said that there's an alternate bike route on king and so just directing people to that directing the safe route to get to the cps bike i just worry about new folks to the community they don't know these things they don't know the history of mission and and um you know just putting in writing um again um yeah it's good to hear the developer is already going that direction i just love to see it in writing so that's that's all i'm i'm not trying to make this onerous but i i just would like to kind of set it down in writing is all maybe mr rosenhardt could address this but the city does have a number of safety guides and route guides and things like that do they not i believe so but i don't know how they're up to date but obviously the rail trail just went in recently segment one and two i believe work on segment three so there are active we are actively increasing bicycle routes in the city east west movements in the south but to the commissioner's point i'm wondering whether there is material that could be perhaps condition providing it displaying it uh as part of the lobby uh experience something like that rather because there's a i mean in a way it would it would if you said it was a condition for the developer to make the information they would require constant updating as these things i think you should condition it to work with public works traffic engineering on a safe bicycle route missing street bike route alternative yeah that's that um go ahead i'm waiting i'm waiting me to turn here um i was i was going to say that maybe we can uh amend this motion uh the language of the motion to include as provided by public work so that it doesn't put it on the onus of the developer to constantly be figuring out what the safe routes are um that should be part of what we're doing in the city you know we're we're prioritizing bike transit so we need to have these materials and so can can and we just go ahead and add that to the condition um as provided by um you know safe biking routes as provided by uh city public works or just the city and whomever public works has a bicycle coordinator right and i just would imagine those materials and so so then that would again leave it up to the developer whether they wanted to print out a sign or they just wanted to have brochures and i think that that as written i think the bar would be fairly low and give the developer maximum flexibility to do what they were already going to do anyway uh mr marlott yeah it looks like um the bike maps are provided through the rtc okay so i knew there was somewhere somewhere so help me yeah okay okay thank you for thank you for your help with that so do we have some revised language uh do we do we have something based on can we take a look at that and tweak it a little bit um they don't show um so i'm just trying to not sort of pin this in and just make it the lowest bar so uh you said it's by the rtc uh i want to help me with some language just as provided by local government or something really we could say the regional transportation agency or or other or the city yeah i don't know that we have them i think if we do we have them in the future and they may be more city specific is what i'm saying so i just want to leave it yeah i i agree and should be flexible uh or other appropriate local authority yeah sure that's yeah i think that's okay okay are you happy with the language yes i'm happy with the language okay and go ahead commissioner mckillan that's right looking at the language uh the owner shall post signage is still in there and i'm wondering if that's i'm i'm trying to get away from having a static you know thing that you know the sign company made these sticking in the ground or a plaque on the wall i'd like it to be something that's dynamic as these routes develop it's it's the brochure that's next to the mystery spot you know i'm i'm just you know it's it's something that that people can access and see and it's going to change and but it's just it's just talking about a place to have those things for the tenants i agree that i wouldn't i wouldn't but can find it just to the bike lockers you know i put them in the lobby you know what would be information that that renters have when they receive their information package so you know they exactly make information available okay so i don't know how i what you feel comfortable uh i mean signage can be dynamic with a qr code or something like that um i i also know that uh younger folks don't take a lot of brochures um so uh you know having a sign where they could actually visibly see it and take a picture on their phone or hit the qr code to me actually would probably be more effective for the demographic that's probably going to live there um so i would be much uh she'll make information available there we go sure that's pretty flexible okay uh on the site well about yeah and sorry let's just come back and be recognized by the chair before we go forward um commissioner mckelvey did you want to finish your course just i i know that we talked about um sort of caltrans overlaps and transportation overlaps about you know signage to direct people that are on and i think that was directed at people that may not even live at this address i'm not sure if that was the intent but for this project it seems uh appropriate to make a place for that information to be qr codes are great and and uh the tenant manual is great the resident's manual um i just uh it is broad but i think in a way that's kind of what we're aiming for to to be dynamic provide you know the opportunity to be dynamic rather than prescriptive commissioner pollhamas did you want to make a comment nothing nothing you're good language okay um i guess um what i'd like to say is i'm actually not in favor of a proliferation of conditions of approval that are going to bobble along with the land forever um i really appreciate that um the developer is willing to step up and play a role in making sure that people get educated you know that said making the point and i do feel like this project is going to be a model for projects to come um so making a point that um developers are responsible um to make sure that their tenants are educated in terms of how to safely get around um as a pedestrian or as a bicyclist i do think that's important so i'm just about overcoming my um regret that the proliferation of conditions um that i think have i and um and i say that not because i really think this is very well intended and i and i completely agree with it because i bike over there too all the time and it is a nightmare um so um with that i think we have language and both the maker of the motion and the second have agreed to the language um and with that can we um uh Mr. Conway yes hi kelvi hi Dawson hi Paul Hamas hi okay um so does anybody else want to um have any discussion at this point if not i have some comments um that i'd like to make um and for starters i'd like to thank the team um and also the staff i really agree that this is the right project for this location um and it is about time um that you know it's mission street has become more and more derelict and the fact that this project comes in and has worked hard to address a really complex situation i think is um i really appreciate that and especially i know you worked hard to address neighbor concerns i know they're not all addressed and uh but i appreciate that and thank you um i really appreciate the accommodation for delivery trucks we've talked about that with every single multifamily project that comes forward in every location around the city and i think this is a creative solution i don't know how scalable it is but this is an idea that um you know i'll sure have in my mind for projects that uh come forward um i also think that the plan to accommodate the accessible unit without the cost of an elevator was thoughtful i appreciate your concerns um most definitely but um one of the many obstacles to getting this kind of project has been the cost and um i think this was a thoughtful approach to um to meet all the needs um and you know three-story walk-up seems like a great idea to me um and also i mean i could go on about um re-establishing mission street as a vibrant commercial corridor with 24-hour use i could go on about that but i think you did a really good job of that um a comment that i'd like to make that you know maybe we don't all think about is that um site assembly is really vital to getting any redevelopment of mission street these parcels are really shallow they're really difficult to develop without site assembly which adds costs and complexity to every project um so you know again the community acknowledged that mission street is outgrown at single family home character decades ago but because they're so shallow it's been really hard to move forward so it's nice to see this happening i also thought that the steps you took to make open space usable and pleasant for tenants and respectful neighbors i really appreciate the steps that you took to do that um and then i also want to make a comment and welcome the get-go property management firm who i'd never heard of um but i know from experience that Santa Cruz can be surprisingly isolated by that road um and so getting a first project over here for a new entity is challenging um and i've been talking to developer or property management firms about this for a long time um and this firm seems um seems good um i was really happy to see the kind of projects that they've worked in i really liked um their management plan and getting a draft management plan that doesn't make me sneer at this stage made me really happy so um thank you for that um and i do think that property management is really an underrated an underestimated component to making a project like this work in a neighborhood and it's one of the reasons why i've always complained about all of the you know the mapped condo projects that turn into rentals because you have no one to talk to you can't form a relationship when you've got you know 50 different owners who are taking different property management approaches and um i know that that it might not seem like that to neighbors now but for me knowing that you're going to have someone that people are going to know and can form a relationship with um i think it's going to make a real difference to the livability of this project um within the neighborhood um and uh let's see i'd like to put in while we're talking about property management um an extra plug um another one of my pet peeves which is um to ask if you would be willing to make an extra effort this is not going to be a coa this is just a conversation um but to utilize try to utilize that accessible unit um for someone who needs it um which is problematic we have a huge number of accessible units that are not being used um by people who have physical limitations and there's a whole set of reasons for that but i just like to ask you to be sure to do outreach to the central coast center for independent living um which and make sure that their folks know that there's going to be an opportunity and i know the property management firm has some choices and some latitude um you can't discriminate for anybody just like you can't discriminate against but you can do outreach and there's a lot of things that can be done um and i think that that would be important i also think that there was a tiny typo in management plan 90 which said that the maintenance of vehicles is included but not limited to changing oil again this is super petty um not necessarily our role but in case in case you didn't see it um and that concludes um my comments does anybody else have any requests just have a couple more okay go ahead i just want to circle back to the affordability and i'll be really frank that um you know i'm not going to make a motion around that because i know that i don't have the votes tonight but i just do want to state for the public again that um you know this state policy as staff has pointed out interacts with local municipality um ordinances and policies um but but we do have some latitude about how we interpret things and what we push and you know we have some latitude about pushing interpretation around affordability um i i feel like this should be a five unit affordable project not a four unit affordable project but again i just wanted to state that for the record um i'm not going to make a motion around that i do want to really thank the developer um and the architect as well um for taking in uh the community comments we do have a lot of projects come that aren't as responsive um and so i i think it is um really to be commended that you took as many steps as you can um i will always continue to sing the song of affordability um we need affordable units now we need as many as we can um and uh you know we we need to as a city we need to be pushing it where we can and pushing interpretation where we can so i just wanted to put that out there and um you know i i do agree that this is the type of the development that the east side has been seeing um constantly and it's a big change uh traffic is really you know regardless of of what we do now we were designed the traffic flow was designed for single family homes um and and it is going to be a tough thing for us to swallow as a community um we're going to have the same kind of situation on water street with the projects that are going that's going to back up all the way to moracy through the exchange around the corner um so you know just want to encourage our staff and our electeds to be thinking about how we can you know accommodate this kind of density because it it it's here and it will continue to come thank you thank you for your comments mr polhamas thank you chair um i just wanted to say thank you to staff for the wonderful report and all the work they did on this and then also i wanted to just repeat the comments of my my colleagues here about uh just the the developer team really did go above and beyond in terms of what was required of you to reach out to the neighborhoods and to actually take in some of the public comment and and be responsive to that in the design process and everything and um i think it's uh it's a good um precedent to set especially for the west side is more and more of these developments come in um you know how is the conceptualization of development teams and development in general going to be conceptualized with um you know people who aren't quite as responsive so thank you very much for the amount of work and the amount of outreach you did to take some of the neighborhood concerns into into your plans um just as a you know a general comment um you know these types of projects are i mean as my colleagues have noted they're going to keep coming um there is change going to be headed on to you know every major transit corridor in the city but especially so cal especially ocean especially mission street and um you know the public should be aware of that and uh again there's limited ability for us as you know public officials or you know the city council themselves to really um make greater demands on these types of projects and so things do get complicated they do get messy um you know not everybody is going to be happy with these projects but at this point in time this is what the state has decided the direction of the california housing industry is going and um you know it's it is what it is and we are to try to mitigate as much of these impacts as possible so um i just wanted to put those comments out there and while i'd love um you know the the three-story height that you guys have done to this i think it's perfect for mission street i think it's very appropriate for the location for the neighborhood i think it has um you know a good mix of uses um and a decent mix of units in terms of size in terms of function everything like that so um you know this is an ideal situation from from our side of things so thank you and i think that's it did you have more comments i would entertain a motion i will move the staff recommendation although i should probably say it out loud sorry let me pull it up really quick okay no don't need to see myself okay there we go okay um going to yeah move the staff recommendation that the planning commission acknowledge the environmental determination and approve the residential demolition authorization permit boundary adjustment special use permit design permit and density bonus request based on the findings listed below and the attached conditions of approval in exhibit a and uh did you want to make uh acknowledge the um as amended we have a couple of it as did we vote on those these are yeah we voted on those separately so this is included right the conditions are included and then the uh the motion to staff is already passed correct yeah so that would include our revised conditions that miss so okay great that's why i want to do it thanks can i second please do i second the motion okay is there any further discussion with that can we have a roll call vote mr conway yet i jocelyn i kelby i olhamis i and with that uh the uh motion passes um and again congratulations thank you for all your hard work neighbors developers staff it's gonna be a good project okay okay so moving on and thank you staff um everyone who came um it was really helpful that you came thank you so moving on to information items it's a couple quick updates um first the water department's in the process of um doing a fairly significant upgrade to the gram hill water treatment plant which is sort of an isolated area of the city it's surrounded by an incorporated property and they're in the process of preparing an environmental impact report for that so most most of that project is exempt from any local zoning codes under state law but there are a couple of components of the project um that will need entitlements and would involve the planning commission um on tuesday the city council took action to um invoke these provisions of the zoning ordinance that um essentially puts them in the driver's seat for approving the permits with a recommendation from the planning commission um and there's a variety of reasons for that outlined in the staff report and i'm happy to send you all a link to to that report um yeah so just wanted to give you a heads up on that um the draft eir is expected to be available for public review in the late summer early fall timeframe and then we're we're thinking uh spring of next year is when you'll be considering those entitlements so i just wanted to give you an update on that and then as far as schedules goes we have nothing yet scheduled for the july sixth meeting so there's a pretty good chance you might have a holiday week um on the 20th we do have a tentative application um scheduled involving a mixed use project on soquel avenue that's all i have if you have anything so okay great thank you for that just want to make note of that um and we have no subcommittee or advisory bodies right now so we'll have no oral reports we did refer one item to a future agenda which was the minutes from may 18th and with that this meeting is adjourned thank you all thank you thank you great job really nice job