 Do any of the commissioners need time to review the new material before we get started? Mayor, do you need some time to take a peek at that? You know what, I can look at it. All right, good evening, everyone. We're going to open this evening's meeting. This is the December 19th regular meeting of the Planning Commission. Could we have a call to order, please? Commissioner Schifrin? Here. Conway? Here. Spellman? Here. Nielsen? Greenberg? Here. Singleton? Present. Chair Pepping? Chair Pepping is out, so I'll be acting as chair this evening. And also, Christian Nielsen was absent with notification. Do we have any statements of disqualification this evening? Seeing none, we'll move to oral communications. This is a time for anyone in the public to speak on items that aren't on our agenda tonight. We have someone. Good evening. My name is Rafa Sonnenfeld. I'm an affordable housing advocate. And I just wanted to, I guess, express my dismay at the city council's decision to move forward with the inclusionary ordinance, adoption of the inclusionary ordinance without sort of a clear plan for looking at the nuts and bolts of how that could be implemented in a way that would actually result in more affordable housing. And they're going to be looking at 20%, but there's a lot more pieces that have to do with an ordinance than just the 20% inclusionary. So I would encourage the council and you folks, I know later this evening you're going to be talking about looking at a subcommittee. I don't know what relevance that subcommittee for the inclusionary ordinance has to how you can inform the city council prior to the adoption of the ordinance or the implementation of the ordinance. But I would hope that you guys could look at some specific policy areas like that would impact affordability, things like scaling all fees by a square foot, not per unit, deferring development impact fees until the certificate of occupancy, enhanced bonus density provision, rental bonus for inclusionary, reducing commercial space requirements for mixed use, and things like that. So those were all recommendations that came from the MBAP, the Monterey Bay economic partnership. And I hope that you guys take a look at those white papers if you haven't already and consider some options for getting us more affordable housing in Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So seeing no more speakers, we're going to move to our first agenda item tonight, the downtown plan amendment. We have a staff report. That might be better. Good evening, council planning commission. I'm Catherine Donovan, senior planner with the advanced planning division. And I'm here tonight to bring you some downtown plan amendments. We have a blank screen. You do? I don't. That one turned off altogether. These monitors up here are off as well. This one is working. Really turned on. Is that the monitor that is the public live feed? I know it's a little ways away, that monitor. But I believe that Catherine can cover the information without you necessarily needing to see the slides very carefully. There is some text on the slides that may be hard for you to decipher, but feel free to let us know if you'd like to go back or if you'd like to have Catherine read any of the information up there, but hopefully you can get it from the presentation itself and what we've got on the far screen. Can you switch that screen test to the PowerPoint? If you'd like me to ask them, I can switch it. We've survived staff report. Yeah. How did that happen? My ears still can barely hear you. Why we can't move on? Who needs information? I would prefer to have the PowerPoint. Lee is going to check with the tech guy, so let's see what he comes up with. Reboot. I could start and go slow and then we can look at the pretty pictures afterwards if we need to. Let's do that. Just a brief history, the downtown recovery plan was adopted in September 1991 after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Approximately 10 years later in 2000, the city council reviewed the plan and how the plan was working and they, through a series of public participatory actions, they adopted strategies and actions to implement the plan and one of the things that they included was prohibited uses which had not been a part of the plan before. Those uses that had been prohibited or that became non-conforming from this change were given a 20-year amnesty and that runs out on October 10th, 2020 and included in those prohibited uses were tattoo parlors and the sale of alcohol for offsite consumption. In 2017, there were some significant structural changes to the downtown plan and other changes that included increase in height and other things that helped us develop what we're seeing coming forward along the riverfront and included at that time was a review of the prohibited uses and in particular the sale of alcohol for offsite consumption and the intent of the suggestions at that time was to allow alcohol sales when they were incidental to the primary principally permitted use and also when they took a small percentage of the total square footage and so direction was given at that time and adopted into the plan for staff to come back with the exact percentage and to establish operating criteria, operational criteria for these incidental use of alcohol. So in the operational criteria we were specifically asked to bring back comments on hours, security, the location of alcohol in the store and limitations on single-service containers. And so what we're proposing now in this amendment is to limit the hours for alcohol sale to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and to have mitigation for security and the location of alcohol within a store be reviewed by the police department as part of the use permit for that specific use and then to limit single-service containers to craft beers. In addition to the alcohol amendments, we're also looking at tattoo parlors which were originally one of those prohibited uses. Since 2000, the way society views tattoo parlors has changed and the legal parameters. Yay. The legal framework relating to tattoo parlors has also changed. And Case Law has determined that tattoo parlors must be treated just as other personal services are. And so we're proposing for this amendment to simply remove the word tattoo parlors from the list of prohibited uses. You see it? Okay. And the third area we're looking at is the personal services restrictions. Currently, personal service use is required to have an administrative use permit in all of the downtown sub-districts except for the North Pacific area. And on the Pacific Avenue retail district, personal services are only allowed in interior spaces, 75 feet off of Pacific Avenue and 40 feet off of the side streets. So what we are proposing is to change those limitations so that personal services would be allowed by right except on the ground floor in the Pacific Avenue retail district. And in that district, they would still require an administrative use permit and they would be restricted to those same restrictions except that if they provided 40 feet of retail in the front of the building and then the personal service was behind that retail, that would be allowed. We are also, because we've had a lot of experience with this, we're also proposing that if, because there is some physical restriction of the building, they can't provide that 40 feet. Or if the use is something that would contribute greatly to the character or the mix of uses in the downtown or would be a significant draw to the downtown, that as part of that use permit that 40 foot restriction could be altered, not waived entirely, but altered. And then the final amendment that we're proposing is in that same section about the personal uses, there is a finding that any physical changes that occur to the building have to be in compliance with conformance, have to be in conformance with the storefront and building facade guidelines and standards and capable of being transformed into retail use in the future. And that statement, anything is capable of being transformed or almost anything if you spend enough money. And so just to clarify exactly what the intent of that statement is, we are proposing to add without extensive remodeling. And those are the proposed changes and our recommendation is that the Planning Commission recommends that City Council approve the resolution amending the downtown amendments. And any questions? Thank you. Andy? I have a couple of questions. Why is the hours of operation suggested for 7 a.m. to start at 7 a.m. as opposed to 8 a.m.? We looked at the existing stores downtown and what hours they operate. And we wanted to provide as little inconvenience as possible to the existing stores. And the CVS opens at 7. We considered 8 o'clock, but in our discussions with the police department, they said they didn't really think that there was going to be much difference between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., I mean 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. And we're also aware that there are people who like to run their errands before they go to work. And one of the things they might want to do is pick up whatever they're having for the dinner that night if they're entertaining or something. And while it doesn't necessarily apply right now that you would do your grocery shopping at 7 a.m. in the downtown, we're hoping with all the residential development that we're seeing come to the downtown, that that will actually change and some of those hours will expand. I thought at one point CVS was open 24 hours. What if downtown store like CVS was to be open to 24 hours? Would they be restricted from selling their alcohol between 11 and 7? Yes. My second question has to do with the definition of personal services. Is it defined somewhere in the ordinance? I didn't find it. It's not defined. Our land use designations are generally not defined in the zoning ordinance. And we work from a list of land uses that, you know, there's categories and subcategories below that. But we did do a little research after we got your question and looked at what some other local jurisdictions have as a definition. And they're amazingly consistent actually. San Jose says personal services includes establishments which provide non-medical services of a retail character to patrons which may involve the sale of goods associated with the service being provided. These establishments include beauty or barber shops, shoe repair shops, self-service laundries, tanning salons, tailoring establishments, interior decorating, clothing rental, portrait photography, and diet and weight reduction centers. I guess my concern was I think that's good to have something because I think anybody could start any business and say it's a personal service. And that's what makes me a little bit nervous since in many areas in the downtown they're going to be allowed by right. That simply means that somebody could move into a facility and start offering some business that may or might not be what one would generally think of as a personal service. We do actually have a process when someone comes in to apply for a business license before they are issued their business license. They need to get a zoning clearance and that is literally they come to the zoning counter and we look up what they're doing, where it is, and whether it's allowed or not. I think it would be the problem of not having a definition on what basis could anybody be turned down if they're self-defining as a personal service and we don't have any limitation in that code for what a personal service is. That's just my sense of it that it would just open up a door to abuse. I can't think of anything, but it just seems like anybody could come in with any kind of operation and just say this is a personal service. I'm a person, I'm providing a service to other people. If the planning department disagrees with that, we would not approve of their, approve their business license, their zoning clearance. What would be the rationale for not agreeing, have no basis in the code, would we be liable by just, would the city be liable by just saying, no, we don't think that's a personal service and the person would come back and say, well, you don't have any definition of what that is. I'm just wondering why since other jurisdictions do have a definition, whether it would make sense to try to include that in the code as well to avoid those kinds of problems. So it certainly can be. I actually looked up a few of the cities, the prior cities that I worked in as well as the city of LA and two of the cities did not have any definitions. Three of the cities that I found so LA and city of Santa Clara did not. We found definitions in Gilroy and San Jose. Thanks, you printed that for me. Oh, and then I found a definition in Berkeley. I just, you know, quickly went to the municipal codes there to see. Some cities do have uses clearly defined their pros and cons of both. When you, when you start defining uses really, really specifically, thank you, it can limit flexibility and how that is applied. And then, you know, the con as you've cited is, you know, there could be someone who's claiming that they fit within a definition. I think what we typically do is we look at the whole series of uses that we have and which use category do you most closely align with. So, you know, if you're claiming to be a personal service, but you're, you're providing real estate services, you know, there are professional offices, for example, that are identified as a use category. And so we would be looking at that and medical offices, for example, I think most or at least some of the definitions clearly say that they are uses of a non medical nature and we typically have, you know, medical offices identified separately from personal service uses. So it's, it's something that we could do. I think there are the way our code is structured. There are not a lot of uses that are defined. There are some cities that have many of their uses or all of their uses defined and others that that leave it more flexible. So pros and cons of either way. I wonder if there's a relationship between those that define and those that don't with whether the there's the ability to start the use by right or whether they have to get a permit. I think the thing that makes me concerned is that now the one of the proposals in the code is to allow a personal service used to go in anywhere in the downtown except the main retail by right. And that means that there's no public review. There's no permit needed is, you know, all they need is a business license. And that that's really not a land use issue. So I don't, I mean, I don't think it's a big deal. I'm just, you know, it just seems to me that it's a potential problem that the city is going to face and not have a very good I'm not aware of any personal service uses that we've that we've turned down outside of the primary Pacific Avenue locations. That's not to say, I mean, you're right, there could be something that comes up that that we would be looking to to want to limit. There are a lot of places in the city, the commercial corridors where I would expect personal services are allowed by right. I'm assuming that's the case. Personal services are probably allowed by right along. I believe in the CC district. So all the major corridors. Right. Yeah, I would expect that to be the case without looking specifically there. There are a lot of places where they are allowed by right and and the periphery of the downtown is one where we have not only brought these businesses in and encourage them to fill vacant spaces in the outside. But with the changing nature of retail, we are looking to remove barriers to businesses locating in the downtown and still make sure that we've got some ability to ensure that the pedestrian experience particularly along Pacific Avenue is one that is engaging. And personal services can provide that, but generally they're less so than retail, which is why we've got that criteria in there about one requiring the administrative use permit and two typically having that 40 feet. But in general, in talking with the planning team as well as with the economic development team, we aren't really concerned with personal services moving into that peripheral area. And, you know, the places that are in the most desirable locations will likely have higher rents and likely would not be attracting, let's say, lower quality businesses because those businesses aren't going just aren't going to be able to afford those higher rents, even if they are on a side street, they might be on a side street that is, you know, less heavily traveled or doesn't have as much of a retail presence or as much of a draw for the pedestrians, but those things change over time as well. And so that would be relying in part on market forces in areas where it where personal services would be permitted by right. Any other questions for staff before we open it up to the public. I was wondering about the limits on single service containers and the decision to restrict it to craft beers and I was just wondering what the thinking was behind that. Yeah, a lot of this was developed in concert with our police department. And one of their major concerns is those single service single serving large malt liquor type cans and this has been something that we've been working with them on use permits all over the city as they come through and this type of a limitation has been put in and the idea is that part of the idea is that the craft beers are not going to be the cheapest way that you can buy alcohol. Whereas you can get a large amount of alcohol in a big container for not very much money in those in those malt liquor type containers. There might be an argument that, you know, it's restricting people's ability to craft beers. Understanding that you want to that people, you know, simply trying to purchase as much alcohol as possible. Publicly, but I don't know, I could see I could see arguments on either side. Well, it's kind of like they seven o'clock, you know, the police. Their, their feeling was that an hour one way or the other is not really going to make a difference if somebody's going to be drinking that early in the morning. I have a question about the hours. So, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. 11 11 p.m. All right. Okay, I just I wanted to make sure that I was clear on that because I was a little bit afraid that we were causing a need for people who are downtown and otherwise wouldn't need to get in a car to go drive. Yes. No, I'm sorry. I misspoke it is it is 11. I'm okay with 11 nine was making me a little. And just one question on the 40 foot issue. That's the depth of the retail. Right. Right. So it's not the width. No, it's the depth. Okay. So the services would happen beyond the 40 foot exact space. Okay. Got it. Also the question on the store hours. So 11 p.m. was what our police department recommended. And we also, so there are four stores downtown right now that sell alcohol for offsite consumption. Three of which it's it is an incidental part of their service. And of those three, two of them close at nine and one closes at midnight. And so just discussing amongst all of us planning police and economic development. There's plenty of activity downtown. Like, you know, movies are getting out at Tanish and so, and so we wanted people to be able to, you know, pick up something on their way home. But we didn't want to leave it open as late as midnight. And that's the third store is open till midnight. That's the CVS is open until midnight. And so 11 o'clock seemed to be a good compromise. The time that, you know, most people are have finished their downtown business and are going home or they're out somewhere listening to music or a show and they're going to go home afterwards. And so, you know, part of this is trying to control social behavior and keeping undesirable behavior, trying to kind of nip it in the bud. And if we can do that by sitting the hour at 11 instead of midnight, it seems like a reasonable compromise. Okay, so just in terms of the practical nature, it's really just one store, one hour. Right. That's a compromise I get. You know, for practical purposes, it's fine. My concern, though, is that last call for liquor serving establishments in downtown for most of the places is one. I think it's two under California law, but most of them stop at one. I just in recognition of what Commissioner Conway said earlier, if we can prevent people from getting into a car to have to go to a safe way another 24 hour establishment that will honor that same alcohol purchasing. I would prefer to not have that. But in this case, it seems like it's only one store and they already closed at midnight. So the last call thing doesn't really line up. So for this sake, the compromise seems warranted. And if I could, Catherine identified that there are three stores that have incidental alcohol sales that only one of them is open till midnight. The other closed at nine. But there is also Benicio's, which would have to substantially modify its, its selection of goods in order to comply with these criteria, but they are open until two. Well, they may be open until after two, but I believe they sell until 145 or 2am. So should they choose to modify their selection of goods such that they meet the shelf space requirements and other provisions, they too would be affected by the change in hours. So the one being CVS that's incidental and then the other, should they change to an incidental would also be affected. Just wanted to make sure that that was clear. I just clarify a question about that. So if they don't make these adaptations, then I remember we consider them at great length a couple of years ago, and they had like a period of time to adapt their, their business strategy. And they'll simply not be able to stay open in the form that they are now understanding. Right. About the enforcement of this limit on single service. So like how people are going to know necessarily it's really about the size of the container. It's the, there's a license type, which is that's the change that you've got in, in the packet today. There's a specific ABC license type for, for small beer manufacturing. And if the beer is made by one of those small beer manufacturers, then it qualifies as a craft beer. And so it's, it's pretty, it would be pretty easy for us to check and see if what they're selling qualifies. And it would be very easy for the store owner to know whether, whether they were buying something that was. What if someone got a small course or something like this that was not a craft beer but was cheaper and they wanted to have a picnic, you know. They're more likely to be able to do that from Trader Joe's or from CVS and it'll be cheaper than it would be from, you know, the strictly liquor store. They would need to buy that in not a single servings, not a single servings, right. So you could still sell a course or a Budweiser. But you couldn't have, if you wanted to just get one beer, one beer, it would have to be craft beer. It would be a craft beer if. Interesting. Yeah. You know. The size I can get. Like the fact that you have to buy more. What almost seems like an incentive for craft beer outlets to spring up versus. Discovered our secret. Hurtailing a liquor store. A particular brand. You know, we had a long discussion about this last time. The problematic behavior is not people who are buying a single beer to attend a social event. It's people who are buying forties to pound them in and create really serious social problems. So inexpensive access to alcohol. I don't think it's an issue about that as much as it is about behavior. About deeply problematic behavior. Yeah. You know, would be the cost of the beer. That seems to be, you know, potentially discriminatory against people who have less money to buy a single beer. But, you know, it's putting that out there. But I think, you know, the concern is that you not have the ability to publicly when, you know, problematic behavior be facilitated. But the cost of the product should not be. So the cost actually, you know, we're not mandating the cost through this ordinance. I can speak to you and Commissioner Conway is correct in terms of the part of the conversations that occurred. And sort of how this morphed in the conversations that we had with the police was in the starting point of, well, from their perspective, the single service containers were problematic in terms of behavioral issues. And so we started with, well, should there be a ban on all single service containers. And then we went to from sort of an economic development perspective. Well, we have a lot of local breweries here that sell their craft beer in 22 ounce bottles, for example, that are single serving. And if you go to, say, you know, newly for Trader Joe's or these other establishments, you can buy those. So we started wondering, you know, one, would we be hurting those businesses that are aiming to distribute their products? And two, the breweries, would we be hurting? And two, would we be hurting the businesses themselves who for someone who's choosing to or desiring to just get, you know, maybe one of those craft beers they may choose to drive up to shopper's corner instead of going to New Leaf downtown. And so that was part of the sort of way that we morphed to, well, is there a way, not considering price, because there can be, you know, a craft brewery that sells their beer at a lower price. I think it just is less common because, you know, they don't have the economy of scale that larger manufacturers have. So we aren't saying that they can't have a special on 22 or something. But we were cognizant of the police's, the concerns that the police had, and we tried to meet the police halfway. So it's sort of like half coordinating with police and half coordinating with our economic development and kind of meeting halfway. So that's sort of how it evolved to the recommendation that we came to. And, you know, we're certainly cognizant of the concerns that you raised. Was there any discussion of quantity though, like limiting the... There could be, you know, the challenge is that some of the problematic single serving alcohol containers weren't necessarily in 40 ounces. You know, they may also be in a 22 ounce. And so that's where we said, all right, well, police, we get your perspective. How can we help address your perspective? And so that's how we got to a place where the police were okay. And, you know, we also were able to be generally supportive of some of our local breweries. Any further questions for staff? Okay. So seeing none, we'll open it up to the public. If there's anyone who would like to speak on this item, please sign in. Tell us your name and you'll have three minutes to speak. I hope off us on them full again. Regarding the time of these alcohol sales, I think it would be worth considering the fact that there are service workers who, you know, work in restaurants downtown who may not get off of their shift until after 11 o'clock. And this is potentially a limitation on their ability to, you know, purchase things after their shift before they go home. And we require them to, you know, drive somewhere else in town, even if they happen to live and work downtown. I also agree with Commissioner Greenberg on the potential problematic kind of discriminatory language of limiting a certain type or certain quantity of alcohol. I understand the police's concern with trying to mitigate sort of problematic behavior. But, you know, this is America and we, people, if they want to get their, their fix, they can get it somewhere else. So, you know, I don't think it's necessarily addressing this behavior directly. It's just sort of outsourcing it to another area in our town. Thank you. Thank you. So seeing no more speakers, we will then open it up for deliberation with the commission. Anybody have any additional thoughts on this? Move the staff recommendation. I'll second. And let me just say, I don't think, I think it's euphemism to say that we're concerned about the police. For me, I'm concerned about alcoholism downtown and alcoholism downtown is a serious problem. All you have to do is go down there in the morning, walk around. And I don't think we should be facilitating it. And therefore, I'm supportive of this approach, recognizing that it is somewhat discriminatory. But we've got a serious social problem on them all. And this is a very small step to try to get around this. I don't want to discourage personal uses downtown. That was not the intent of my concern. I'm happy to support the staff recommendation and hope that we don't end up some day sitting here looking at some use that we wish would go away and refuses to. I remember when massage policy first came in, there was a waha about having them in the downtown at all and kinds of massage policy that went in were particularly problematic. And, you know, there's, you know, it's, you can't always, the problem of unanticipated consequences is a real one. So at least I'd ask that staff think maybe a little bit more about whether it would make sense to have a definition so that it would provide the city greater protection. But based on the staff recommendation, I'm willing to support the staff position. I'm willing to support the recommendation. Yeah, I'll be supporting the staff recommendation for the sake of practicality. You know, given that we're really only talking about one particular establishment, which I don't think will be able to change its process of doing business in terms of shelf space based upon other regulations to really warrant a problem or further consideration of this because if we're talking about one CVS being open for one hour later, then it could have otherwise been and sure single use containers limited to craft beer, which tend to be stronger. But yes, more expensive. I, you know, right. I'm sympathetic. I don't think it really work. I don't think we're going to really that particular change is not going to be the impetus for discouraging antisocial behavior as much as the shelf space regulation itself, which will very much limit the alcohol. So for the sake of just moving that main thing along and the fact that the single service craft beers are not going to result in a greater incidence of antisocial behavior downtown. Sure. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Can we take a roll call vote, please? Mr. Schifrin. Hi. Conway. Hi. Spellman. Hi. Greenberg. Hi. All right. Great. So that passes unanimously. We will move now to item number two on our agenda tonight. This is the discussion of the formation of a potential planning commission subcommittee focused on housing. You can see my PowerPoint presentation. I can't. Like the opposite of what I can open my own copy over here. And I can see it there. That's fine. Everything's fine. Okay. So good evening, Sarah with the planning department and advanced planning section. So I was here just last month to talk about ad use and during that conversation, your commission expressed an interest in forming a subcommittee of some type to work on housing issues sort of broadly defined. So we have come back with some recommendations about a work plan for a subcommittee and how that subcommittee might be formed. So just a little bit of background. Housing is obviously a topic of great interest at all levels of city government. And the city has a few guiding documents about housing policy that are already in effect and in existence we have the housing blueprint that was completed. In 2017 to 2018 and then the recommendations of the housing blueprint subcommittee of the city council came with went to council on June 12th of 2018. Staff in several different departments is still working on implementing this document and the policy agenda items that were laid out here. Our section and advanced planning is also continuing to work on implementing housing element. That's something that's a document that the city updates every on a regular cycle every seven years. That's the housing element of the general plan. It's one of the key components of the general plan. So we also have work that comes from that and the AP work plan is what really sets our immediate priorities. And I provided that to you in an attachment that's that was the six month work plan that the council approved in September. So that carries us through the beginning of 2020 the items that are on that work plan. And so I had we provided all this information to your commission so that you could kind of see the thinking and the direction that the city has been taking on housing recently. And then after after our discussion here in November when the inclusionary item was at the city council last week the city council actually gave direction to the planning commission to work on inclusionary housing. So this seemed kind of a natural fit that we were already sort of starting work heading towards creating some kind of subcommittee or there was some interest in creating subcommittee and here the council has provided you with a work plan item. Isn't that happy accident timing. So next slide. So there is obviously some statewide concern about housing crisis the housing crisis there were over 100 bills that were introduced this year. This is an illustration that shows the bills that were still still alive in September at the end of September this month. I haven't been able to find one that shows all the bills that actually got signed because there weren't 100 but there were lots of bills related to housing that actually did get signed by the governor. So we are very much of an of a piece with the rest of California thinking about housing and all the various ways that we can address the various issues related to housing rental housing for sale housing. There are different types of housing within each of those tenancy categories. So the way a subcommittee works per your bylaws is that the chair of the planning commission may appoint members. The member that subcommittee members that are made up of a less than a quorum so up to three members may be on a subcommittee. Those members then work on a discrete topic of work. They report back to a quorum of the planning commission at a regularly scheduled meeting. That report may be either oral or written. The work must be completed for an ad hoc subcommittee in less than six months. And also ad hoc subcommittees are not subject to the Brown Act. I expect that the work that a subcommittee does on housing would involve a lot of community outreach and participation and a relatively high level of transparency. That said, you wouldn't be subject to noticing requirements the same way the Brown Act committee would be. And your meetings wouldn't have to happen in public, at least not all of them. That would be more of an optional component of the work plan. So now I'm going to talk through the options for subcommittee work. So the first option that we are recommending is the inclusionary housing item. Council gave direction to staff and the planning commission to come up with ways to streamline the ordinance and look for ways to provide flexibility for workforce housing projects that would serve the local workforce. And specifically there was a project by the school district that the council was concerned might be negatively impacted by the decision they took to change the inclusionary requirement from 10% to 20% outside the downtown. So there are lots of pieces that you could think about in working through the inclusionary housing issue. So what kind of flexibility might we need for workforce housing and what exactly is workforce housing? Maybe we should write a definition for that if that's something we're going to be specifically calling out. Are there options for compliance with the 20%? Might there be ways where you could combine some portion of providing a number of units and paying a fee or providing some units and doing a land dedication? Are there those options that are worth considering? Are there ways that we can support developers in still bringing forward projects that are financially feasible and still meet this higher threshold of 20%? What is beneficial in terms of simplifying the ordinance and what exactly would that mean and how have other jurisdictions written their inclusionary ordinances and what kind of factors have they taken into consideration? Then importantly, how does the inclusionary housing threshold interact with the density bonus, both the density bonus and the local density bonus? So that's the inclusionary item and that is the one that we're recommending for your subcommittee. There are two optional work plan items. Both of these items are pieces that come out of the housing blueprint, the subcommittee recommendations. There are pieces of work that staff has not had a chance to get to just yet. We sort of have them in our next 12 to 18 to 24 month horizon, sort of topics to start digging into. The first of these is about housing types, options for housing types. So specifically in the housing blueprint, we talked about SROs and SOUs. And the way that those ordinances are currently structured strikes a number of people as a little bit odd. And so there might be some work that could happen around those. So an SRO, single room occupancy, those are typically, those are not typically, those are exclusively rental projects. SOUs are small ownership units. Those are intended to be exclusively for sale units and they have slightly different size thresholds and amenity regulations. And there's a question of, should we have two different types of housing in this very small range? Or should we just have one type of housing and stop regulating the tenancy for which it's used? So things like that we're sort of, you know, sort of wondering and thinking about with SROs and SOUs. Other pieces that are sort of different types of housing are co-housing. So it's not really defined in our code, it's sort of defined in different ways by different members of the public. Co-living, which is I guess what the kids are calling it these days, which is essentially like an SRO, that top picture there is actually of a co-living facility in LA, which is kind of like a dorm room. It's like a, not quite a dorm room and not quite an SRO, but it involves a lot of communal living amenities. You know, dorms, should we be looking at ways to create or allow market rate dormitories. Also detached bedrooms is an issue that comes up a lot. That bottom picture is a site in somewhere in Oregon, I forget what city it's in. That's where they remodeled the two bedroom house to be like a communal living space and then there are four detached bedrooms on the site. So that's something that comes up periodically. It comes up a lot in code compliance where people have created habitable structures without permits and they want to legalize them, but they don't want to plummet, they don't want to make it an ADU, they want to make it a detached bedroom. Some jurisdictions allow those and the city hasn't historically, but maybe it's something we should think about. And then lastly should we expand, you know, the use of junior ADUs. Should we allow those in multi-family housing? Should we allow maybe more than one on a property? So these are sort of a bunch of different questions that you might ask, a subcommittee might ask about different types of housing. What types of housing units are really demanded in our market and aren't being supplied or maybe are being supplied but aren't technically allowed under our codes? Should we allow detached bedrooms? Should we keep this distinction between SROs and SOUs? The development standards that we have for SROs and SOUs, does that make sense? Are those still the right standards to have? Should we have standards that are specific to co-housing? Is that useful or beneficial? Should we consider allowing more than one junior ADU with a single family dwelling or what about allowing junior ADUs with multi-family housing because that's not currently allowed? And then just generally what kind of housing should we, does the city want to kind of facilitate to support the needs of students and new young professionals? You may also ask yourselves the same question about seniors. We do have some code language about senior housing specifically, but we don't have anything specific at the other end of the age spectrum. The second optional work plan item is to take a look at the local density bonus. So with the adoption of AB 1763 this year, which made some pretty big adjustments to the state density bonus law, projects that are 100% affordable are now eligible for up to an 80% density and bonus. Our local density bonus currently maxes out at 35% for any affordable project that's over these thresholds that are shown here. So a 100% affordable project under our local thresholds will only get to 35%. So there's a really wide range between 35% and 80%. And maybe there's some more tiers that could be added and some more scaling that could be done. The county has a local density bonus and enhanced density bonus and it was recently updated. So we hate to be behind the county and we currently are. So that would be another thing to work on. So we would think about what's the right level of affordability? What's the right percentage of units? What's the amount of density bonus that we would top out at? Would we go all the way up to like 75% and then the state law would take over at 80% for 100 units? Or would we top out at 50% asking those kind of questions? Again, how would this interact with our inclusionary ordinance? Because there would be this interplay between the density bonus and the inclusionary ordinance. And then this language about the production of affordable housing and the impacts of new development, that comes directly from the language in the housing blueprint subcommittee report. And so what is that right balance of producing the right kind of units that we want to see and then accepting the sort of effects that that has on existing residents and neighborhoods? How do we add affordable housing into existing neighborhoods? What are the right tools for that? Is density bonus going to help us get there? This project that you see right here on the bottom, this is in Virginia and it's a bungalow court. So this took over two existing single family lots and rebuilt them with, I think there's a total of eight homes on there. So density bonus can be used to do things like that that really just sort of diversify the existing fabric of a single family neighborhood. And then are there other different solutions for sites that are being the whole scale redeveloped? Did they need maybe some different tools under the density bonus? Can we use density bonus to really encourage the production of very low and extremely low income housing, which is so hard for us to meet for our goals? And then again, here are there other options for getting a density bonus. So there are other things that we would accept and, you know, in exchange for additional densities such as in lieu fees to be going to a housing trust fund, donating land to a nonprofit developer, doing rehab of existing affordable units, or are there other creative ideas that the subcommittee may have? So with that, our recommendation as written on your staff report is that you, your commission establish an ad hoc subcommittee to work on the inclusionary housing policy and consider additional work plan items that could be assigned to the same or to a second ad hoc subcommittee. And we are available for any questions. Thank you. Do commissioners have any questions for staff before we open it up to public comment? Okay. Seeing none, we will open it up for public comment and seeing no one else here. I don't know how much time you think you want, but I'll give you up to five minutes. All right. Good evening again. I'm a I'm a affordable housing advocate. And, you know, I would just encourage you all to think about like every possible sort of the avenue of increasing density in Santa Cruz, whether it's zoning or density bonuses. San Diego, I think, has an enhanced density bonus program where they can have up to 50%. And there's some pretty startling figures that support the increase in the number of inclusionary affordable units that actually got built there by adjusting their density bonus. So like I said, I just encourage you all to consider every avenue that you can when it comes to density. Look at ways that we can get more SRO, large scale SRO projects in maybe in places that are currently zoned in residential areas. I believe right now they're only allowed in commercial zones and there are just lots of ways that we could add a lot of units, affordable units for the lowest, the least well off in our community. Just look at program after program at things that we can do to reduce our displacement of people, especially renters and do whatever we can do to get more density in neighborhoods that aren't particularly dense now. I know there are concerns about things like water, but our own water commission looks at numbers and something like three apartment units usually uses the same amount of water as a single family home. So we can add a lot of density without really putting a lot of strain on our existing infrastructure and we can make a real difference in terms of affordability in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no more speakers from the public, we'll bring it back to the committee for discussion. Albert? I think we've all talked about it a lot. I want to be cognizant of the demands it might have on staff though. So I'm happy that it's a sprint more than anything. It's a sixth month work plan. I think that's good. You know, in terms of the inclusionary item, I think obviously that should be a core focus of it right out the gate. I think probably the best step for a good inclusionary ordinance would be to not change it so often. So I guess I'm looking forward to I guess the positive light of being able to hopefully get a solid ordinance adopted sooner rather than later with a lot of the flexibility that I think council is looking to see by virtue of them wanting this kind of a subcommittee appointed. I would love to be involved in the subcommittee. Consider this a volunteer throwing my hat in the ring to be on it. I've dealt with every single issue, policy issue that was brought up in the staff presentation and the staff report. Looking at the case studies, looking at how that progressed, looking at, you know, whether it's ADUs, junior ADUs, the different kinds of zoning we're looking at, the different ways that we can do a density bonus. I was part of the Advocacy Coalition of Affordable Housing Advocates that got the enhanced density bonus adopted at the county and worked with you, Julie, on that ordinance. And we got our first project approved through just this week. And so I'm excited about the opportunity to do a lot more good in that realm and answer a lot of these tough questions that council may want some guidance on. Yeah. Andy. I'd like to say something first about density bonuses. It used to be that the general plan had integrity in the state of California that when a community did a general plan, it had a land use element, the land use element determined what the kinds of uses would be in different parts of the community. And it had some integrity. It was felt that that was what the community was going to look like. Density bonuses overturn that, essentially. They say, well, maybe the general plan says it's 20 units an acre, but we'll give you 40 units an acre if you do ABCD. And I think that there's, you know, at this particular moment in time with all the emphasis on let's have as much housing as possible. That scene is an easier technique since you don't have to do meetings. You don't have to revise your general plan. You can just double the density in the city and in all the neighborhoods by more just because state law says you can. And then even you can just the city can say it can. So I think that it really raises a very fundamental problem or issue around public planning policy to essentially use the density bonus as a substitute for the general plan. And I think that's what I see all the density bonus recommendations beating to. But what I really, that's my philosophy in terms of what's before us, I want to go through what the council actually move because it isn't really reflected in the staff presentation. The motion carried to refer the revised inclusionary ordinance, housing ordinance to the planning commission and direct the planning commission and staff to work with community stakeholders to consider options for making the ordinance more effective including one provisions to streamline its operation and to increase incentives for development to meet its requirements and to priority regarding possible flexibility of workforce housing projects intended to meet the housing needs of the workforce. So the council didn't ask the commission to set up a subcommittee. It directed the committee to work with community stakeholders. Many of the commission staff and the commission is what and it's in our staff report the language from the. So as I interpreted that it was and I've talked to playing director and we have a read to disagree. Unfortunately it's not that unusual. But I think what we should hold is a series of study sessions where we invite members of the development community affordable housing advocates. I prefer tonight neighborhoods to come and give us input for what they think should be done to change the ordinance to make it more the inclusionary housing to make it more streamlined and increase incentives for developers. We could see one that really one meeting that really focused on streamlining and another meeting that really focusing on financing but rather having rather than just having subcommittee which I would like to be on too for sure. It's a long term concern of mine that's dealing with these housing question inclusionary housing questions and some of the others. I think first we should just give the concern public a chance to make their suggestions on what the what the what the improved ordinance would look like. So it's not into the world for me. I don't you know I don't think it's worth having a huge but I think that it is a question of what's a what's a good way to proceed. And I kind of think hearing from the public first and the concerns stakeholders first and then you know working maybe in a subcommittee to take what we're hearing take what the staff is saying and try to work out some. To the ordinance that then could go back to the public and then the commission could act on that seems to me a more efficient process and frankly a less staff driven process. I think also. One of the problems I I have with the housing blueprint process and with some of the parts of the staff report is my sense things get done when you focus when you have a million questions. It's really hard to focus on what you really want to get done. And there are a few aspects of few of the questions that were asked that I think are really priority questions. Major ones have to do with the inclusionary ordinance but some of them have to do with I think the touch bedrooms and SRO you know is there a way of making. I'm not quite sure what the problems are but having more alternative housing choices I think makes a lot of sense. If there is if the commission majority wants to have go with the subcommittee approach. I would support that I don't think it's the best approach. I did want to suggest this alternative approach as a way of getting input from stakeholders I think it's more consistent with what the council directed, but I'm not sure it's that big of a deal. That's my suggestion. I'm happy to hear what other commissioners have to say. Really. Thank you. So, I thought that the staff recommendation came back. Making sense of trying to fulfill the council's direction. I disagree with the idea of a series of public meetings taking the commissions time commission is a mandated deliberative body. And I do think that there should be a lot of opportunities for interaction with the public. Both, you know, perhaps through the ad hoc committee structure will come out, you know, making recommendations around that. But to take up the commission's time when there's there's a whole range of issues. I just think it'll be it'll be a roadblock it'll stop progress. I do think it's critical to find a way to get a lot of input, you know, and and and bake that into the process. So, you know, the ad hoc committee is a way to really add to add some conversation to how to fulfill some of the really pressing needs that you know the city needs needs to address. There's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of conversations to be done. I think what what is reasonable for staff to do to keep on moving the agenda forward of a work plan is is deeply concerning to me. So obviously, taking up include the inclusionary housing that has some nuances to it that I assume an ad hoc committee will will add. As to I'm concerned about putting too much on this committee. And I do think that the conversations about housing types are important questions, some of them more so than others that could provide some some very real tools and very real housing options. And they're worth considering. I'm not sure that I think that they should go with this ad hoc committee. If they don't, I think one of the things that could come out of it because I don't believe that that it's in the work plan for staff to be addressing any of these questions about the especially the alternative housing types in the next six months. Well, so we are in month three of our current six month work plan, you know, kind of takes us through March. And we are going to be drawing up our 12 month three year work plan something. We'll be working with the council this spring. Early, early spring, late winter on a three year strategic plan that will help direct our work and some of these items that you're seeing are things that came in part from the housing blueprint subcommittee and were prioritized there, but aren't part of our current six months. So they aren't coming up in March, but they certainly could benefit from the work that a planning commission subcommittee could do in terms of research and recommendations and outreach. And I do think that, you know, forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn here planning director. It had been our intention to get at least to the housing types thing within the next year to start that work. So it's not these aren't things that won't happen if you it's not taken up by the subcommittee. And it would be helpful. There is helpful work that could be done there to make that ball roll faster once it starts rolling. Yeah. That's helpful because, you know, for me, if if you're saying that it's that this that this is a reasonable augmentation to, you know, the the department carrying forward its work. I mean, I think these are fascinating issues and we brought you work we would actually benefit from. So there's nothing here that's just busy work. These are all things that we I wasn't in point will be getting to and and want to get to and you could provide really genuinely useful input. They're very important, very fun things to work on, frankly, and we would love to be working on them. But we've got other priorities right now and we look forward to working on them. And if the commission has the opportunity to dedicate some time towards them, that would certainly give us a big head start. And and so, like Sarah said, we wanted to bring something to you that would benefit us but also that we felt could be a real benefit to the community could help steer forward. Okay, thank you for that clarification. I'm glad to hear it. I agree that they're fun things to talk about. I also know that updating and inclusionary ordinance is a lot of work. And so it's not completely clear to me how this is going to be fulfilled. But I expect that part of the work of an ad hoc committee would be to work with staff take some, you know, to in order to come up with a methodology. I mean, even to the point of what is it that's being taken on. So so I'm glad to hear that. And I would also be very interested in serving on that committee. Thank you. So and I would just say that I, I agree with Julie on this. I think that it makes sense for a subcommittee to, you know, research this issue to reach out to key stakeholders on that. It strikes me that, you know, there's so much that this subcommittee could bring to the commission and that there could be an open session that could invite more public discussion. In response, my one of the things I was struck by, you know, at the last discussion of the inclusionary was that, you know, the, the image that Sarah shared with us in terms of like, you know, all the state legislation was not really included in some of the comments that were coming from the public. So you had stakeholders who were concerned about the impact of this ordinance who were perhaps thinking about their experience under current conditions of, you know, local and state law. So what does it mean that all of these changes are coming down the bike from, you know, from the state? And how do we rethink these kind of market and policy contexts for an inclusionary ordinance? Similarly, you know, I shared with Lee, you know, research that's going on about what the impact might be of different levels of inclusionary on existing communities in terms of this placement and so forth. And how do we understand that and how do we search that? So it strikes me that there's a use for this kind of a research group as I see it reaching out to different stakeholders and also thinking about other examples of inclusionary ordinances in California, in other places where they're being implemented and this is sort of this ongoing thing. So I think that there's a good reason for that and would also be very, you know, happy to volunteer to serve on it. It's something that I'm kind of constantly researching myself and find really fascinating and an exciting moment to be thinking about it. Yeah, so taking just a slight step back, it's interesting that this came around so quickly after our discussion. I think we have had rumblings of, you know, what can we do? How can we contribute? How can we have a more proactive role that sort of came out more actively at the last hearing? And here we are next hearing after and we've got agendized items for creating some groups. I'm fully in support of that. I do think it's the right venue for allowing that discourse to happen. I think I also am leery of piling on too much. I think we have to be cognizant of a short time frame and an ability to bring issues to the surface from the community, hopefully, and start the dialogue on how we're going to address and make a successful inclusionary ordinance. It seemed like, you know, the changes have been made and we haven't fully finalized what the issues could be with that ordinance. So I think there's the potential to craft that and make that into something that everyone supports. Yeah, I think, you know, this is an issue that we're all engaged in on this commission and within the community. And I think it's a good venue for us to open it up and get folks to feel like they're having a chance to have a say in this conversation. That's sort of what I took from the motion from council is that if there's a way that we can provide that vehicle, then I think it's a good one for us to entertain. So I'm also interested in this committee. I think we need to somehow come to terms. Obviously, we can only have three members on this committee. I think my hope would be if we're able to establish one, have a work plan defined, and we get into something and there are four other pressing issues. Maybe we develop another committee potentially that could deal with other issues. I'm leery of opening two committees tonight, especially in lieu of missing two commissioners as well. So I think we could address the council's directive this evening and hopefully either agendize or find the next opportunity with the full commission to have a little bit more robust discussion around the rest of these issues. Yes. Let me just say that all five of the commissioners here this evening want to be on this subcommittee. And I think that's indicative of the fact that the commission as a whole really is very concerned about this issue and has been is very involved in one way or another in dealing with it. The council has just adopted a new inclusionary requirement. One of the things I think they're asking us to work on is how to make that requirement work as you said, and I'm not sure I mean maybe this is really a question for staff given given the level of interest on the part of all the commissioners who are here. Is there some way what is the benefit of having a committee that sorry just not having to meet the brown act requirements and not having it just come to the commission either as informal meetings. I nobody like my idea of a study session but as a regular meeting. The commission is going to need to talk about these issues staff is going to have to prepare material for it. We both said we want to hear from the public. I'm not, I mean, if I'm not allowed on the committee or if I'm not appointed to the meeting, I'm going to be ticked off because I really care a whole lot about it and I would think everybody else would too because we all care a whole lot about it. So I'm just wondering if there is some way to structure this discussion in a, in a way that moves it forward expeditiously because I think that's important. Staff has identified the issues particularly with the, you know, certainly with the inclusionary things that need to be talked about. Is there some way that this can be done as a commission project rather than or I guess the question is, is there some really some special benefit of having a three person committee that excludes these two and maybe more commissioners who would really care about participating. Well, I can kick it off and you know, there is no right or wrong way for this. I mean, we had that exact conversation today about how there are many ways to work the with a subcommittee or the commission. And I think the the basic and typical structure of the commission is actually not a good one for public engagement because you know the public gets up they have their their three minutes and and maybe there's a response to that maybe it gets more and a half of other comments and the person goes away feeling like they're they're not heard. And so there's less of an opportunity for dialogue in this type of format. And there is there are also some instances where people aren't necessarily comfortable talking in front of a group or talking on television. And so there are some benefits in that in that respect in terms of having a subcommittee that might be able to one not necessarily need to notice public meetings in advance and have that formal process but still has a high level of engagement with the community and maybe sort of bringing it back to your your idea. I think if a subcommittee is formed, you know, the commission is certainly all interested and understandably so in participating in very much appreciate the willingness of everyone to to step up and take on this this extra work. And so I think if there is a subcommittee, then that would need to be a critical component of that is, how is that then going to be how is how is that process that engagement process going to be brought back to the full commission so the full commission can benefit from whatever the subcommittee is hearing in these smaller discussions with focus groups and if they're if they're hosting a larger community discussion, the full commission could certainly be invited to those. They, you know, obviously we need to be careful about Brown Act issues with that and not have discussions sidebar discussions and so forth. But I think there would be both small scale engagement and large scale engagement and the full commission would need to be involved one way or another, whether, you know, it is not through a subcommittee. It would obviously be or if it is with the subcommittee that subcommittee would need to come up with the the methodology for how they want to engage the community on this particular issue and then how they want to bring that back for deliberation with the full commission that will be critical. So, from my point of view, the reason that you would form a subcommittee rather than having the whole commission is that the the role of the full commission is to make decisions. The role of a subcommittee is to do work on a work plan. And what we heard from all of you, I wasn't here for the inclusionary conversation, but when this came up on the ADU discussion, you really want to get involved in doing some work. And being able to have a work a working meeting requires dialogue and that is not the nature of a public hearing or a study session or anything like that. There simply isn't a good way to provide conversation, which I think is going to be really important to this. I understand that everyone wants to be involved. Keep in mind you can have as many subcommittees as you want. This is at the privilege of your commission to have one subcommittee focus on inclusionary and then have more, you could have three or four subcommittees. How much time do you want to spend doing this? You are welcome to give yourselves a workload. So that's my comment on that. Thank you. Julie. I was just going to say that the fact that we're all interested, I think really does speak to everyone's commitment to being on here. I do think it's important to have the subcommittee structure. It gives an opportunity for really rolling up some sleeves and having some conversations. Obviously no decisions are made by the ad hoc committee. The best we could hope for is that we would bring back some recommendations. That would directly relate to some policies. And otherwise what we bring back is the result of conversations where we disagreed. And then we'll leave it to staff to come up with a way to swim through those perilous waters. So I think that there are a lot of advantages in having it as a committee. And particularly one whose job is going to be to figure out. I mean I think one of its main jobs is going to be to figure out how the public conversation will occur going forward. So one of the things that seems important to me is that we have a three-member committee and it should be diverse. It should be we have all kinds of different opinions that we all bring and perspectives that we bring in here. So I think that a three-person committee that's appointed should represent not be overweight on any one of them. One of the ways that we tend to fall out. Of course characterizing that is not the easiest thing either. But I do think that that's one of the most important things. Thank you. Robert. Yeah. So with all the discussion about the extent of topics and amount of work that we could engage in on a subcommittee level. I would agree that we should have one subcommittee of three people hopefully from a diversity of opinions on and perspectives on these housing issues. I will gladly pull my hat back from the ring given the exuberance with which all my other commissioners wanted to accept this role. And I would actually move a recommendation that we form an ad hoc planning commission. An ad hoc committee of three planning commissioners to look at at least the inclusionary ordinance in the very short term and how with regards to Council's motion and direction. I think I'll leave it at that. And to decide the level of public engagement and other topics amongst themselves but make sure that we get the at least the inclusionary ordinance and response to Council's direction in that. Again I will happily pull my hat from the subcommittee ring but I would be happy to nominate Commissioner Conway be on that. Thank you. Well so I think we'll I guess it's on me to put a committee together. Well there hasn't been a second to the motion and it hasn't been voted on. So I think that that before people start to be appointed. Okay well I will second that motion. So to speak to the motion I'm willing to support the motion in the hopes that I will be on that committee. I think it's important to have that diversity as the member of the commission was a strong advocate for the 20 percent inclusionary ordinance. I have a real interest in making that work. I think being on the committee that's going to try to figure out how to happen I think is important. I think we don't tend to use this word but diversity and when we're talking about it here is really euphemism for politics. And there are serious politics in the community on the commission as well as on the council. I do think it's important to have that political discussion and you know it's one thing to say ultimately the commission will make the recommendations. But those of us who have been around a long time the recommendations that come from the subcommittees and the recommendations that come from staff drive the discussion. They don't always get approved but it's very hard not to approve them and to come up with something completely new. So the work that the subcommittee does and the work of the staff is critical in terms of what's going to shape the... Thank you for that. So well I am just excited about this prospect. I mean I think that I got involved on the commission in the first place because of my concern about the affordable housing issue. And I've devoted the last few years of my professional life to studying it. And I'm just really interested in having Santa Cruz be part of this larger regional and statewide conversation. And so I think I could contribute in that way. And you know think that sometimes it's been challenging for me on the commission because I want to have a conversation and I have to just you know follow the protocols understandably of a commission. And so this would be an opportunity to really engage in a dialogue and a back and forth and think about you know multiple kind of best practices that you know that are being proposed in other areas and to think about their relevance or lack thereof in our community. And to consider you know not only folks who might come and speak in short little snippets to our commission but to invite people from a diversity of perspectives to speak to the subcommittee and also to perhaps you know some key readings and so forth that we might share. So you know I would be I would be excited to serve if I clarify the motion I think I would ask the maker of the motion and second to just make it a motion to subcommittee rather than having it also include. That's probably. Yes so so changed. You accept that and we both accept that yes. Yeah so this is not an easy decision obviously there are four of us who are chomping at the bit to get on this committee and begin this work. There we go I mean keep this thing as diverse as we can I don't I don't see light years of difference between what happens here. I'm not a political person. This isn't a political decision. I'm going to nominate Commissioner Greenberg Commissioner Conway and Commissioner Spellman to this committee. I would second that. Support that. There's no vote on the motion. To establish a commission that really should. So let's go ahead and take the roll call vote to establish the committee. Commissioner Schifrin. Conway. Yes. Spellman. Aye. Greenberg. This is a hard one. I guess. I will support it. Aye. Singleton. Aye. That passes four to one and then we'll follow with the same recommendation for the subcommittee commissioners Greenberg Conway and Spellman. And just just for clarification the chair has the ability to appoint those individuals. The commission has the ability to make a motion an alternative motion should they choose to do so. The bylaws do allow the chair or in the case of the chair's absence the vice chair to assign members. The bylaws do say that the planning commission may form a subcommittee so that was the vote on forming the subcommittee. And then the chair has the ability to the bylaws say seek a volunteer seek participants and then assign it is within the commission's purview to also make a vote should you choose to do so. So so the chair can make those appointments if anyone chooses to make an alternative vote that that's a possibility. Okay. So there is an appointed committee on the floor. We vote on that. No. There doesn't need to be a vote if there are concerns. The commission can commission individual commissioners can express those and can propose a motion. So should we vote again just on the commission? Do we need to have a new if you don't need to but you you can. But I'm going to make a motion that the makeup of the ad hoc committee be very Conway and shuffling that we have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second? Is that a motion? Is that the right way to handle that? That's that's correct. So seeing none, we will stay with the. Missioners as appointed. I have a question about how this works. So, you know, let's say we want to. So with Andy or Robert as a subcommittee. You know, or the other non members who aren't here. So you can't have a meeting of a quorum. You could send it. You can't have a serial communication either. You know, sorry. So there can't be a serial communication. So that subcommittee will need to operate independently from the remainder of any of the other commissioners. They so to to have a meeting of a quorum. So that would be part of the. The design of the. The how that the subcommittee develops of how are we going to reengage the. The full commission. And that's where those discussions would need to occur. And the. Every commission meeting. One of the standing items is a report out from any committees. So one thing that would happen is at every meeting, there would be a report out on what is going. So I, while it, there. That committee won't have done any work that is. Making a recommendation. It will be reporting on what it's doing. And how it's doing it. And as a commission, then, when we're seated as a commission, all seven of us could, you know, provide input into what the agenda is and, and that sort of thing. What if one of the commissioners wants to share information with us? For us to refer to, for us to review and refer to in our subcommittee. Like what if, you know, this issue of, you know, what we were talking about on the email. I was trying to disseminate studies, you know, that kind of a thing. So the, this is one of the things that I've talked with the attorneys about recently. And the. So I think that's one of the things that I've talked about. The factual information, like here's a study, that kind of information can be sent out. What, what becomes challenging is if commissioners begin to opine on an interpretation of that study, or here's my summary of the study, or here's my thoughts on why I agree or disagree, or think it is, or don't think it's great, then that should really occur in the public forum. So the Brown act really wants the, the, the focus of the Brown act is to have those deliberations occur in public. So once that fourth member gets involved, that should be done as part of the deliberations of the, the full commission and to commissioner Conway's point, there is no reason why, I mean, you know, it could be an agenda item, even if there isn't a full report, it could be an agenda item that provides an opportunity for discussion at every meeting. So that, you know, there is at least more participatory, you know, there is at least more participation offered for other commissioners. It would be in this public forum so that we're adhering to the Brown act and having those conversations of, of a planning commission majority for more members happening in the public sphere. As I said, my email to you, I appreciate getting some written reference from the city attorney citing the fact that commissioners can't send information, even with their opinion to other commissioners. That's different than deliberating sharing information, sharing points of view, and just putting it out there without asking anybody to get back to you. I just would like to see where in the Brown act that says you can't do that or what court case says you can't do that. I think it just, I think it's fine to do things in public, but it's also if commissioners have something they want to share with the rest of the commission, as I said in my email to you, if you think the public should know about it, put it on the next written correspondence, put it on the next agenda's written correspondence, but I don't think there's anything in the Brown act that prevents a commissioner any more than it would present to prevent a member of the public from writing a letter to everybody on the commission saying I think you should do this. I think this is the right thing to do. It's not making a decision. It's presenting a point of view. So I look forward to hearing from the city attorney although I doubt I ever will. As an agenda item that is separate, the challenge that you have is if you're providing your opinion, someone else could provide their opinion in response and there is a deliberation which is exactly what the Brown act is attempting to prohibit. I have to say I feel like, you know, we're here. We're a commission when the seven of us are sitting here. We have a louder than typical citizen voice because we are here to deliberate and make decisions. And, you know, to me, this is where that conversation belongs and I was surprised that as individuals, some of commissioners were, you know, besides the commission also speaking to council people just because I felt like I thought this is where we got to have our chance to act. So I feel like it should be structured about how our communication happens and this is where it should be. Sharing information through staff is something else. Like you said, if there's a study, I mean, the Turner Center, I certainly read that. I mean, in the course of my day, we'll read different things. But I think having it be somewhat structured is important particularly during these times. I think it's fine for everybody to have their opinion. The question is, what does the law require? And that's what I'm talking about. I have a different opinion, but that's fine. It's like, I don't want to do something illegal and I don't think it is illegal to be sending out information. Somebody shouldn't, if we start sending emails to each other, that's a real problem. But for a commissioner to send an email to staff, ask that it be distributed to commissioners or to a commissioner to send an email to all the commissioners when something is coming up and wanting people to think about it before they get to the meeting so that they don't have to try to absorb all the complicated issues. It's just, what we're really talking about from my perspective, my political perspective, is staff control. The way the staff interprets the Brown Act gives them maximum control and gives us minimum control over what we do. I know other people don't agree with that, but that's how it plays out. If we're not able to, if the only information we can really have when we come to the meeting is the information that the staff provides us and then anything else that we get either from the public, actually we get more from the public because if they send a letter, we'll get it. But we can't send a letter that responds to what's in the staff report. It doesn't make any sense. It just minimizes our ability to work in a cooperative way when we're at a meeting. But let me just say this is all out of order since... It's an important point, though, I think, to get clarification on. So in your opinion, in that context of sending information to staff, that gets distributed to other commissioners, that's not allowed under the Brown Act. You're confident that the attorney has weighed in on that and that's not an allowed scenario? That's correct. My communications with the attorney, and this was on an after-the-fact item, something that the commission had already made a recommendation on, but something that could come back to the commission at some point in the future. And that was the determination that was made so as to prevent that debate from occurring outside of the visible public forum as the Brown Act desires. I wonder if you would be willing to ask the city attorney if I would send a letter and email to you and request that it be added to the agenda as public correspondence if there'd be any Brown Act objection to doing that, because then any member of the public would get it and all the commissioners would get it. So it'd be a way of providing, just as the same kind of input that the public's able to provide wouldn't be sent by a commissioner to other commissioners. It'd be sent to the staff, just like a member of the public sends a letter to the staff and has it put on the public correspondence as public correspondence and then it's sent out to the commission so that it just seems crazy to me that we're not able to react to the written staff reports before the meeting and provide additional information or responses that would go to the public and go to everybody else. So I would ask that whether that is any reason why a commissioner couldn't send a letter to you that would then be added as public correspondence. So the commission will recall that's one of the things that we did previously and that created some challenges. However, we're happy to look into that specific issue again and see if there are any abilities to do that. That is how we had treated things previously and we can look at that again. But again, we do want to make sure that we are very clearly adhering to the Brown Act. Right. And I think it would be very helpful to get the citation in the lawsuits that justify the city attorney's position. Okay. So are there any informational items this evening? The couple of things. One, the council recently adopted a health and all policies framework and we have one of our team members, Tiffany Wise West out of the city manager's office will be providing an update to the planning commission in early 2020 regarding the three pillars of the health and all policies, sustainability, equity and public health. And we have the application subcommittee that I think is nearing conclusion. So I believe vice chair, you are a member of that. If you wanted to give any updates, I think it's coming ready to come back fairly soon. I believe in January it's going to be on the agenda. Yes. And other than that, I would just say, thank you all for your work this year. And I hope that you all have a great holiday season. Thank you. Any other subcommittee advisory body oral reports? Then we are adjourned. Thank you.