 Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Can you hear me, please? Can you hear me? Let's be quiet, and we can get started. Actually, we're not going to get started, but we try to start on time. So all I'm doing is announcing to you that the commissioners received some printed correspondence that we do want to go through. So that's why we're not really going to start immediately on time, when we have a nod from all commissioners that they've read this, because we do want to read all correspondence, then we'll get started. I just want to let you know what we're doing for the next few minutes. Go ahead and get settled, and we'll start in just several minutes, probably. Can I have your attention, folks? Can I have your attention, please? We have received three requests from groups. We have received three requests from groups for extra time. So if those representatives from those groups could come to the front and confer with staff, so we can arrange for your extra time, please do that. And I understand it's Clearview Court, HOA, and Save Santa Cruz, and I don't know the third one, so please come up if you've asked for extra time in advance. Two. Is there a third group? Time is up. Andy, you're good to start. Yes? Yeah? Good evening, everyone, and welcome. We will call to order the regular meeting of the City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission meeting for August 15, 2019. I'll ask for a call to order. A roll call, please. Commissioner Schiffrin? Yeah? Conway? Yeah? Spellman? Yeah? Nielsen? Greenberg? Yeah? Singleton? Yeah? Chair Pepe? Present. And Commissioner Nielsen is absent with notification. Are there any statements of disqualification for this evening? Yes. So I'll be recusing myself from the item before us tonight, the public hearing. Back in December of last year, I passed out some flyers that were advocating in favor of this project. Given the quasi-judicial nature of this body and the importance of maintaining a sense of impartiality when reviewing projects and policies, it was inappropriate that I did that. And I take responsibility for that. And because of those reasons, I'll be recusing myself. Anyone else? Now is the segment of our agenda, which is oral communications. We will invite folks who have come here to speak on agenda items to address the commission. But for this section, it's to address the commission for anything that is not on the agenda, but it is part of planning commission business. So I imagine most of you are here to talk about 190 Westcliff, but anyone can come up now and address the commission on anything not on the agenda. Please come up now if you'd like to. Next is approval of the minutes. I would invite a motion to approve the August 1st meeting minutes. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Abstain. Passes unanimously with Vice Chair Spellman abstaining. And the next item on our agenda is a public hearing 190 Westcliff, and we have a staff presentation. Yeah, good evening. Good evening, Chair Pepping, members of the commission. Ryan Bain's going to be given the staff presentation tonight. Also note that with the staff tonight, we have John Barrisoni, who's representing the city attorney's office, Chris Schneider, who's the city traffic engineer and assistant public works director. We have Jessica Mallore from the economic development department, the housing section, and then Stephanie Striello, who prepared the CEQA analysis for this. So they're all available for you to ask questions of, if need be. Also note that we did receive some questions from Commissioner Schifrin, for which we prepared written responses and distributed them to you. We also have provided hard copies over there next to the agenda in case the public would like to review those as well. And then also wanted to note that since the packet went out on Friday, we've continued to receive correspondence, and we've daily posted that correspondence at the end of the business day. So that's been up on the website as well. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Ryan. Thanks. Thank you. All right, thanks. So we're looking at 190 West Cliff Drive. In terms of the site location and information regarding the site, it's a 2.2 acre site that's located on the northwest corner of West Cliff Drive and Bay Street intersection. Commercial and residential uses, as you can see, surround the project site. It's founded by Coastview Mobile Home Park on the west and on the north. It'll tell you to the north and east across West Cliff Drive and multi-family townhomes to the south across Bay Street. A mix of visitor serving, commercial and residential areas characterize the beach area to the north of the site and the residential uses generally are found in the area south of the project site. The site is currently an at grade parking, paved parking lot with the associated areas of landscaping that includes some mature trees. There's a total of 55 existing trees on site, 17 of which are heritage, pursuant to city regulations. The project proposal is a four-story mixed-use project consisting of two levels of underground parking, ground level, commercial space, a public plaza and 89 residential condominium. Here's a basic look at the proposed site plan. I'll go into some of the details in a little bit later, but you can kind of see it's somewhat of a U-shaped structure. We have West Cliff Drive. Dream Inn is directly across the street in West Cliff Drive. The plaza, the central coastal passel opens up to West Cliff and opens up to Dream Inn. The commercial uses all face West Cliff Drive and are kind of encased by the residential. I should also note that along to kind of mimic the townhomes that are across Bay Street, there are some multi-level units that face Bay Street. So starting with the general plan designation, it's regional visitor commercial and the designation applies to areas that emphasize a variety of commercial uses that serve Santa Cruz residents as well as visitors. Mixed-use development is strongly encouraged in RBC districts. Specifically, the general plan RBC designation calls out the beach area to, quote, emphasize visitor serving commercial uses such as hotels, motels, restaurants and amusement parks as well as residential and mixed-use developments in the beach area neighborhoods. The general plan also calls out and has a range for the floor area ratio, which is 0.25 to 3.5. The project falls within that range at 2.016. There are quite a list of general plan policies that this project meets. I don't wanna go over all of them, but I'll kind of go over them really quickly. In neighborhoods, near-visitor areas get priority uses that serve both visitors and residents, which this project does. Encourages higher-intensity residential uses and maximize densities. Which this project does. Allow encouraged development that meets the high end of the general plan-use designation density unless constraints associated with site characters and zoning standards require lower density. Allow the following residential uses. This is in regards to density bonus, which is involved in this project. Reduce automobile dependence by encouraging appropriate neighborhood and activity center development. So this is very centralized and the idea is to get people out of their cars and be able to walk. Create pedestrian-friendly frontage and streetscapes and attractive pedestrian-oriented areas. Projects send a good job of that. In terms of economic development policies, the general plan, they wanna support the development and expansion of businesses that make a balanced contribution to the culture, environmental, and economic health city. So this is an expansion of the Dream Inn, which has been a longtime business here in Santa Cruz. Encourage the development of year-round business and then visitor activities. That's gonna be, and also attract and engage local residents. Encourage the development of new lodging facilities. This is basically an expansion of the Dream Inn to have visitor amenities. Encourage the development of fellows that would accommodate conferences and conference goers in conjunction with existing or new hotel development. And coordinate and expand beach area services and employment. So I'm not gonna go through all these, but all of these policies, the project is consistent with. It's also in the beach and south, it's located in the beach and south of Laurel Comprehensive Area Plan. And it's specifically in the beach commercial sub-area of the beach and south of Laurel Plan, which also includes the Boardwalk and several hotels, bed and breakfast and commercial uses that all along beach street and in the area. The beach and south of Laurel Plan indicates that the project provides an opportunity for potential residential development, which this does, it maximizes the development potential of an underutilized site and provides visitor-serving uses. So the project meets all of these beach and south of Laurel Area Plan goals. Here are some other beach and south of Laurel plan goals, which is that the project meets, provides giving opportunities for beach commercial area redevelopment of underutilized land. So this is just a currently a parking lot. So it'll provide attractive retail entertainment, lodging and support uses that will appropriately extend the operational activities of the beach. So this project with this mixed use of residential as well as the ancillary uses for the dream in commercial support this. Develop a comprehensive program to ensure general upgrading of entire beach area lodging inventory. So this is an upgrade to the dream in with ancillary uses being proposed. Multi-level large scale development to optimize use of opportunity sites. That's occurring here, locating parking lots to the rear structures and wherever possible underground or within structures. In this case, the parking is two levels underground or underneath and hidden from view and screened from view. Balconies, terraces, courtyards and similar outdoor spaces to take advantage of use and create street vitality which this project meets all of those. So in terms of zoning, the zoning for the property is Motel residential performance overlay. The purpose stated in the zoning code for this zoning district is to establish and control uses to ensure development which protects neighborhood integrity while supporting appropriate uses. The goal of the district is to limit the future development of Motel or Motel rooms in the district but to allow ancillary hotel support facilities as well as additional residential development. So the project is accomplishing this. Also indoor and outdoor recreation facilities and other facilities related to existing hotel or Motel facilities require a special use permit and are listed as an allowed use with a special use permit in this zoning. And in terms of what's being proposed the ancillary uses for the hotel are fitness gym, spa, restaurants, cafe and small retail components which are very common in today's hotel industry for larger resort hotels. So in terms of just taking a look around the site you can kind of see it's in a somewhat of a transition area. The purple is showing a lot of the commercial and this kind of brownish is residential and so it's right in this kind of transition area between those two general uses. So just taking a quick look at some of the levels of the project. This is parking level two. This is the lowest level. This is for the hotel and commercial overflow parking stalls which will be provided. There's 216 spaces currently on the existing parking lot and there's 217 here. So basically this is replacing the hotel parking. And this would all be valet parking. The next level up for parking, this is all residential. So this is the parking that will be specifically for the 89 units. You can also see that there's storage and bike storage and everything for the residents here. So this is the main level. This is the ground level. It's kind of a U shaped building with access to the project site provided from two new driveways running along both the western and northern permitters of the site. One from West Cliff, the other from Bay Street. The proposed ground floor commercial spaces as well as the Paseo front on West Cliff and are directly across from the Dream Inn. Commercial spaces are an extension of the hotel amenities and include a spa. You can see a spa, fitness gym, retail, cafe and market hall as well as administrative offices for the hotel. While these commercial spaces are designed as amenities for the hotel, they will be open and available for the on-site residences as well as the general public. The central Cospa sale will be a public open space providing indoor and outdoor dining. The indoor outdoor market hall will incorporate outdoor seating for dining on a raised deck facing West Cliff with several different types of seating options. Also toward the rear and within the structure is our 52 commercial retail short-term parking spaces that will be provided and those also electric vehicle charging stations as part of that. Additionally, centrally located is the residential and retail trash enclosures. The second level is basically all residential. There are open space courtyards for the residents both in these locations as well as facing over the Paseo. There's a fitness gym and yoga. Then on the level three, there's a pool deck and residential amenity here and level four are mainly just residences. And then there's also roof decks on the roof. So here's, let's see here. So the project has been designed in a Spanish colonial revival style and is consistent with the previously listed Beach and South Alloral plan design guidelines. The Spanish colonial revival design incorporates a variety of exterior finish materials including white smooth trialed plaster, rammed with walls, synthetic wood, siding and trellises, metal railing systems, brown aluminum windows and decorative exterior lighting. Additionally, this is looking from the Bay Street elevation. The overall building masses is broken up by architectural treatments including decks, trellises and overhangs. Roof top equipment is incorporated into the roof design and screened from adjacent properties and utility installations. I'm sorry to interrupt. Folks, could I ask you to be quiet? Every person here is gonna be invited to speak every single person. People do have trouble hearing, including some of us. So I invite you to please be quiet and respect staff so that you can hear, everyone else can hear. Please honor that, thank you. Go ahead. As I mentioned, utility installations such as the trash enclosures, storage units and parking are designed into the building making them accessible but screened from view. Here's taking a look at the north and as well as the west elevations and here are some site sections. So the maximum height allowed in the zone district, our TB zone district is 36 feet. However, California State Density Bonus Law and the city's corresponding density bonus ordinance provide tools to incentivize affordable housing and or deeper levels of affordability. So one incentive is that applicants can utilize a waiver or modification to development standards that those standards would quote physically preclude construction of the density bonus project. For this project, the applicants are proposing a waiver to the district height. Standard to allow for an additional story bringing the overall height of the building to 47 feet. This height will be similar to the multiple family residential condo complex across the street, which I think you can see here, which is 48 feet. The height will be, so it's gonna be similar to the height of those townhomes. Certainly it falls well below the height of the Dream Inn, which is 83 feet in height. While the neighboring 21 foot tall hotels of the north as well as the mobile homes which are generally 12 feet in height are much smaller in scale. The proposed structure maintains a 25 to 28 foot setback to avoid moving over those neighboring smaller scale uses. There are roof structures that extend above the 47 foot height, including stairway housing for access to roof decks and trellises that house photovoltaic panels. We do have an ordinance that does allow for certain architectural features to exceed the height limit and these stairway and elevator and those types of elements are allowed to exceed the height limit. I should also add that the Beach and South Alora plan guidelines also call for flat roof buildings to incorporate porches, windows, overhangs, trellises, walls, and things like that to avoid bare box appearance. So the stairway housing and trellises would therefore be exempt from the height limitations and follow the Beach and South Alora design guidelines. Just going over it, we kind of went over height a little bit in terms of the density bonus waiver. The project meets all the setback requirements. They're either met or exceeded. Off-Street parking is met and open space requirements are met and there's more details on that than there are standards to have to report. Other standards that are listed actually in the zoning code section are kind of specific to the Beach and South Aloral, which the project meets all of these designed to create plazas and pedestrian spaces. Shade benches, outdoor dining has all of that, articulated wall offsets. So these are all listed in there and I'll meet those requirements. In terms of landscaping, as I mentioned, there are 55 existing trees on the site currently, 17 of which are heritage trees. The project would retain five existing trees in place, including one, I won't go name all of them, but basically there's some very large redwood trees here along Bay Street that would be saved, as well as a tree along West Cliff. And then also there's a Mexican fan palm that would be picked up and relocated to the plaza. There would be 33 new trees planted as part of the project, all 24 or 36 inch box of some larger trees, which would meet the two to one replanting ratio. Other new landscape, there's a detailed landscape plan in your set that throughout the project would be coastal native and regionally adapted with a focus on minimizing water use. So a project traffic analysis was completed by Pinnacle Traffic Engineering, which evaluated impacts to seven intersections. The traffic analysis evaluates impacts with proposed installation of a signal or mini roundabout at the West Cliff and Bay Street intersection, which is included as part of the project. All study intersections are currently operating within acceptable level of service during the weekday PM peak hour, based on city and Caltrans standards, except at the Bay Street and West Cliff drive intersection that currently operates at a level of service E. The West Cliff and Drive Bay intersection would operate at LOS B during the weekday PM peak hour with the installation of a signal and LOS A to B with installation of a mini roundabout. The city's public works department requested a qualitative evaluation of the pros and cons of traffic signal control versus a mini roundabout. And while both alternatives would meet the objectives of improving the level of service for that intersection, public work staff is recommending the installation of a mini roundabout based on several reasons, a few of them being reduced flows and delays, slower but more consistent traffic flow. They feel it's safer than a signal, a better pedestrian experience where you don't have pedestrians grouping and waiting for a signal and then less greenhouse gas emissions from cars sitting and waiting. In terms of what's involved with this proposed project, there's a design permit, coastal permit, special use permit, the density bonus, an encroachment permit and a tentative map. So those are what we're all considering tonight. We already discussed a lot about the design of the project, so I'll move on to the coastal permit. So the project is located in the coastal zone overlay and shoreline protection overlay districts. In terms of the coastal, the project will not affect coastal views because the property is located on the inland side of West Cliff Drive. It's not visible from the wharf under existing conditions due to the existing dream in hotel, which borders the shoreline and stands between the wharf and the project site. The project site is not located within any sensitive natural habitat or resource areas as mapped in the general plan and the local coastal program. It includes a plaza that will be open to the public, permitting public access to the site that is currently a private parking lot, improved street alignment, sidewalk widening, bike lane improvements and the addition of a roundabout will all improve public access to the coast. The proposed expansion of the hotel, ancillary facilities will provide new visitors, serving amenities, providing food and retail uses for visitors, the new residents of the development, as well as existing residences in the West Cliff area. Due to its location in the beach area, the project will draw visitors to tourist destinations along the coast, including the boardwalk and the wharf. And so as proposed, the project is consistent with applicable policies of the local coastal program, which seeks to minimize the impact of development and coastal resources and provide visitor serving in the beach area. As I mentioned, a special use permit is required for indoor and outdoor recreation facilities in the RTB zoning. The purpose of considering a special use permit is to ensure the proper integration of essential or desirable uses. And the project is consistent with the 2030 general plan and the beach and south of Lower Plain that we had kind of gone over already, providing visitor serving uses and maximizing the development on this infill site. Taking all these into consideration, because use incorporated in the project will not constitute a nuisance or be detrimental to public welfare of the community. Our density bonus. So to address California's needs for affordable housing, the state enacted the density bonus law to encourage the provision of affordable housing units by offering a combination of benefits to developers. The amount of the density bonus is based on the number of affordable units at each income level that are provided by the project. So to determine whether a project qualifies for a density bonus, the percentages of affordable units is based on the maximum number of units that would be permitted under the city's zoning code. And in this case, the base density is 66 units. So the project provides a higher amount of affordable units or units at deeper levels of affordability are entitled to a range of increases in density, ranging from 5% to 35%. Increase in the total number of units that are allowed. The additional units help offset the increased costs associated with the increased number of more deeply affordable units. So in addition to allowing more market rate units to offset the costs of the affordable units the law also provides a variety of tools that applicants can utilize to make projects physically and more economically feasible, including a waiver or modification to development standards that would physically preclude it. Construction of the density bonus project. So in this case, they're requesting the height waiver which we discussed earlier. So by committing to making eight of the 66 units affordable to very low income households and then two low income units, it's eligible for a 35% density bonus based on state density bonus law. So with the 35% density bonus, the project can accommodate 89 total residential units that obviously includes the eight very low and the two low. State density bonus law does limit cities somewhat their discretion when reviewing density bonus applications and cities are generally obligated to grant a density bonus and incentives, concessions, waivers to development standards so long as the proposed development complies with the applicable affordable requirements. As I mentioned, encroachment permit is being also part of this for instruction of the roundabout or signal as well as a number of improvements. There's gonna be a major realignment, a lot of major, but an improvement in terms of the realignment along West Cliff Drive. So they'll be maintaining two southbound lanes on West Cliff Drive at Bay Street. There's stop controls for the driveways. They'll be widening the sidewalk on the east side of West Cliff Drive, widening the existing mid block crosswalk pedestrian refuge island and also including some rapid flashing beacons, installation of green bike lane, undergrounding of utilities and installation of street lights. A tentative map is also included as part of this proposal. These are for sale airspace condominiums, so that is part of the tentative map. It meets all the subdivision ordinance requirements and there'll be CCNRs that are gonna be subject to review and approval. There were two community meetings that were held, the first on December 3rd and the second on July 10th. The community meetings were attended by the project development team, several city staff members and members of the Planning Commission subcommittee. There were approximately 150 members at the December meeting and approximately 60 at the July meeting. Formal comments were submitted by the public at the meetings and city staff noted key issues raised during the meeting and those are all listed in your staff report. In addition to the community meetings as part of our outreach policy, we have a project webpage that was created on our city website and that allows for members to submit comments as well as review plans and reports. In analyzing the project in terms of CEQA, the city may consider whether existing environmental documents already provide an adequate analysis of potential environmental impacts. An earlier analysis maybe used pursuant to tiering where a program ER has been prepared and a certified or other CEQA provision if it can be determined that one or more effects have been adequately analyzed in an earlier EIR. So CEQA allows a lead agency to avoid repeating analysis that were already provided in a certified general plan EIR for a development project that is consistent with the general plan which this project is. So as part of CEQA streamlining section 218.3.3 in its parallel CEQA guideline, 15.183 provide for a streamlined environmental review for projects consistent with the general plan for which an EIR was certified. Pursuant to section 218.3, if the development project is consistent with the general plan for which an environmental impact report was certified, the application of CEQA shall be limited to the effects on the environment which are peculiar to the parcel or to the project and which were not addressed as significant effects in the prior EIR or which substantial new information shows will be more significant than described in the prior EIR. An effect of a project upon the environment shall not be considered peculiar if uniformly applied development policies or standards will substantially mitigate that environmental effect. So the purpose of the environmental checklist that was prepared is to evaluate the impact categories covered in the city's certified general plan EIR to determine whether the project's impacts have been adequately analyzed in that EIR or whether any new significant impacts peculiar to the project or project site would result. So based on the CEQA review, it's been determined that the city's general plan for 2030 EIR has adequately addressed issues and no further environmental review is required. So therefore, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission acknowledge the environmental determination and recommend approval of the coastal permit, design permit, special use permit, density bonus request to exceed height, encroachment permit for street and intersection improvements, and tentative map for the proposed project based on the findings and the conditions approval included in the staff report. And I'm available for any questions. Thank you, Ryan. And I believe the applicant's here to present to the commission. Welcome. I believe you'd asked for 10 minutes, is that right? Yes. Okay, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to first thank the staff and thank the commission for giving us the opportunity to be here tonight. I'd like to start out by, I'd like to start out by trying to figure out how to work this presentation here. There you go. Could you identify yourself, please, for all of us? Okay, thank you. I'm Tyson Sales with Ensemble Investments. And we are the representatives for the project applicant. Ensemble's been a part of the Santa Cruz community since 2006 when we purchased the Dream Inn and we've renovated and restored it twice now. We brought back the name, the Dream Inn, and we're long-term owners. We're committed to Santa Cruz. The Dream Inn is a crown jewel for our company and a big part of our identity. And we're very proud of the jobs we've created and the job we've done curating the Dream Inn and being a part of this community. I'd like to thank staff for their thorough job in the staff report and the presentation. And we're here just to provide a brief recap of the project and address some of the most salient points specifically the outreach process, housing affordability, and traffic. So, staff's already talked about existing conditions quite a bit. This site has been a paved parking lot since before the 1980s. There was the Daughters of Charity Hospital that was torn down and it's been a parking lot, just solely a parking lot since the 1980s. And the city identified the site as a prime opportunity for high-density housing since at least 1998 when the city adopted the Beach South Laurel Plan and the General Plan of the LCPs. This is not really a new idea. The site is located across the street from the Dream Inn and as staff pointed out, is similar in height and scale to the townhouses across Bay Street and significantly lower than the Dream Inn. Instead of a parking lot, this is the vision of what the project's gonna look like when it's complete. It's not a single monolithic one big block. It's a collection of four-story buildings plus some lower buildings to provide articulation that open around to clown floor plaza. And as the staff report laid out, the project was designed to comply and be consistent with the city's General Plan, the Beach of South Laurel's Area Plan and zoning. And the project does qualify for an increase in height under the State Density Bonus Law at this level of affordability. It could actually have asked for additional waivers or concessions and we chose not to and we're not asking for any changes to the zoning ordinance or any discretionary variances. The project is also consistent with the local coastal plan and was designed to fulfill the goals of the local coastal plan, including not impacting view sheds, no impact on habitat and specifically enhancing public access. Our efforts began several years ago and has evolved considerably over time with dozens of studies and reports done in response, both the planning process as well as community outreach. The process started in 2015 and 2016 with a visioning process and a lot of conversations with local stakeholders and retailers, a lot of the thought started around the plaza and what should it be and how successful would it be and how appropriate would it be. So we went out and talked to the best in Clowis local merchants and retailers and we took a lot of inspiration from Swift Street and talked to all retailers up and down Pacific Avenue and affordable housing groups and groups like Bike Santa Cruz to try to really understand the site better and what the location could be. And through that process, we also started meeting with the neighbors and we did a first large open format meeting which is in addition to the community meeting staff referred to in 2017. And that led to a complete project overhaul. And in 2017 through 2019, the outreach continued and that's when we started the technical study process with staff. So this has been a four year process to this point. So as I mentioned, the outreach started with a visioning exercise and meeting with various stakeholders, retailers, makers, bike groups and that led to a series of community meetings. And the first community meeting, we got a lot of negative feedback on modern architectural design. We were working with another architect that was proposing a more modern design and in response to the feedback from that meeting, we chose to do a number of things. One, we undergrounded the parking to increase the open space and break down the massing of the building. Two, we opened up the plaza and create a lot more public open space. Three, we changed architects and we got more positive feedback on Irving Gill design and the coastal Mediterranean and we went in that direction. Since then we've had over 70 meetings, both formal and informal and that's led to the two formal community meetings in December and July of this year to get input, listen, answer questions, provide answers and it's also really shaped and guided the technical studies. We went out and did two additional geotechnical studies because there was a lot of concerns brought up and we care very much about the integrity of the cliffs and the dream in and the last thing we'd wanna do is do something that would put that at risk. And we've set up multiple meetings with neighbors over this period of time. And I wanted to point out just as a consequence of those meetings, we've specifically chosen to increase the setbacks. We're expanding the size of Clearview Court's existing easement onto the parking lot property to move the fence line to be able to construct a sound wall and additional landscape buffer. So we're actually increasing the open space on the other side of the fence from the property as well as the setbacks on the project side of the fence. We're arranging and committing to pay for inspection and monitoring and any repair of any foundations accidentally damages during construction as well as foundation bolting for any foundations that happen to not be bolted today. We're gonna engage third party monitors to address any other impacts during construction. We've signed letters of intent cruzio and contacted the satellite providers to arrange for no interruption in antenna coverage as well as to also bring high speed fiber to an area to benefit other residents as well. We agreed to remove a lighting feature at the market hall and we're also committing to noise standards under the CCNRs that will exceed the city standard because there's been a lot of concerns about amplified music. And we also conducted a whole series of additional studies some of which were not asked for or required in the CEQA checklist including supplemental air quality analysis, supplemental shadow studies and responded to specific questions from the neighbors to help a leg concerns where we could and we've not been able to obviously allay a lot of concerns. We've allayed what we can and we've developed a frequently asked questions document that's been on the website and updated to try to communicate as effectively as possible through the process. Slide here. So first and foremost, this project is a housing project and the project was really designed around three key principles. The first is housing specifically, onsite mixed use or mixed income housing. The second is connectivity and public open space with streetscape improvements and the third principle of sustainability. I wanted to just highlight the affordability here for a minute because the city has its greatest need under the regional housing needs analysis for very low income and Santa Cruz has only added 12 very low income units over the last four years where by the Rena numbers which are granted based upon 1% growth which is a lower population growth than Santa Cruz has been experiencing, it's expected to need 180 units. So these eight units equate to 75% of the city's entire production over the last four years. I wanted to also just highlight the level of affordability for a two bedroom, three person household at 50% of area median income in 2019. That is about $49,000 a year which is $1,000, a little over $1,000 a month, almost 1,100 a month of monthly payment. This was governed by Mejaro. This would be to be negotiated if the project's approved. One of the conditions of approval would be a development agreement with a affordable housing development agreement with the city's housing department and the incomes and the payments correspond. So the total payment, including homeowners association, insurance and utilities would be capped at 30% of the resident's income. So these are estimates because we've been asked by the public for estimates and this is based upon the day's mortgage rates and our preliminary analysis today of what the HOA do's might be that the state DRE has not approved the HOA budget yet. So these numbers are very speculative at this point but that would equate to a purchase price of about $140,000 for a one bedroom. So highly affordable. For a two bedroom, that equates to about $208,000 purchase price, assuming a 20% down payment and a $1381 a month total housing payment. And for a three bedroom unit, those numbers are $226,000 and $1,500 a month. And I just bring this up to just illustrate the level of affordability or the deepness of subsidy of these units. In comparison to the city's standard, a one bedroom at today's interest rates might be $380,000 a year based upon $1,969 a month. Two bedroom unit for 30. And I wanted to also just bring up the streetscape and traffic improvements. So you'd asked for 10 minutes, is this? Can I have two more minutes please? You actually usually get more but I'd asked you how much time you needed. So I'm gonna ask everybody to keep to their time. So I'd like to do the same for you. I realize that's pretty short but. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yep. So we're not gonna go to public comment right now but because we're having some interruptions I wanna just plead with you all. Everywhere you look today there is discourse that is bitter and it's ugly and it's rude. Everywhere. And we get to be different tonight depending on how we show up. Clearly everyone here cares. Lots of things we could be doing and you care, you're here to demonstrate that you care. Thank you for that. We do wanna hear what you have to say. I'm asking you as chair, it's a hard job. I'm just pleading with you to be silent while other people are speaking. And I'm asking you to do that and I hope they'll do that for you so that we can all hear. All of us wanna hear what you have to say. As someone is speaking during public comment if you're cheering them there are a bunch of people that are cheered after cheered after cheered and then the next person up has a dissenting vote. They're not gonna feel very welcome. I wouldn't invite you to be silent whether it's cheering or jeering or clapping or snapping or anything so that we can hear those dissenting votes so that people do feel welcome coming up and sharing their views. Hopefully you wanna hear those dissenting views as well. It's a plea to please be quiet while other people are presenting. It's a request, I'm asking you. We're gonna ask, the commissioners are gonna ask staff and they may ask the applicant for some clarifying questions and then we'll go to public comment and then come back to the commission. Any questions of staff or the applicant right now? Mr. Schifrin. Would it be possible to bring back the slide with the beach and south of Laurel standards? Because I was confused by the fact that the setbacks for all the floors in answer to the question that I raised are meeting the city's requirement to being more than 15 feet or 25 feet or whatever it is. However, I remember there was a standard that said that the third story will be setback, number C, any third story element of residential or support development shall be stepped back from the two story element by at least 15 feet from the property lines at the streets. I'm a little confused about that. The implication is that the third and fourth stories would be setback further than the second story but are you interpreting that so that isn't really the case? Yeah, we actually had some in-depth discussions about this because it's not really written very well. It's not exactly clear. If you take away that last portion, then I think you're right, it could say 15 feet, but when you add that from the property lines at the streets, we discussed that with the planning director and kind of went through different iterations to try and determine how we should interpret that. And ultimately, through our discussions, we determined that the 15 feet is from the property lines at the streets. And so this project does meet that requirement in terms of the... Except as I understand it, at the sides of the proposed development adjacent to the residences, that's not a street. The street is Bay and West Cliff. That's essentially a driveway. So your interpretation is that that standard would apply to the driveways as well. I see what my problem is with the interpretation of that because it does give the impression that the higher stories will be set back more than the lower stories. And that on those two sides, they're not really adjacent to the streets. They're adjacent to the residences. So it would seem that would be the whole point of that policy would be to set the development back from the adjacent residences. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think there are different ways that it could be interpreted. I think the way we looked at it was, when it says from the property lines at the streets, that that requirement was specific to the portions of the structure along the streets. And you're defining the driveway as streets. No, I was referring just to West Cliff and Bay Street. So wouldn't then the parts of the project that are adjacent to the driveway need to be set back 15 feet at the third and fourth story? Which, as I understand it, they're not. Along the driveway? Yeah. Well, that's what I was just saying is that I think that the way we interpret it is when it says from the property lines of the streets, we're saying that the third story element setback is specific to the areas along the streets only. Not anywhere else. The way we talk about it. That's an interesting interpretation. Okay. No, I agree with you. We went round and round. I think you could interpret it different ways. Ultimately, we had to land on an interpretation and that's where we landed. My next question has to do with page four of the staff report, which is the technical report. And there was a geotechnical investigation said that there was an anticipation that the groundwater was perched rather than part of the groundwater basin. And I asked what was the evidence for that and when I went back to the geotechnical report, it just sort of said it was a conclusory statement that really didn't say where the evidence came from. And I think that needs to be, yeah, 5.3 says. 5.3 groundwater. Based on our observation during drilling, we anticipate this groundwater is perched. That's not necessarily convincing that it is perched. I would expect a more definitive statement about that. In fact, based on the analysis, it's not part of a groundwater basin. Makes it sound like it's not quite certain that that's the case. So I do have that concern. My first thought is out to the applicant if maybe their geotechnical person is here. Maybe they might be able to expand on that, but if not, then we might have to look into that further. Mr. Schiffer, do you wanna ask the consultant to come up? Sure. Okay, well. I think one other thing just to add is this is a registered professional geotechnical engineers, expert opinion based on the borings they performed. So that's the evidence. Right. And that evidence is that it was anticipated rather than assured that it was perched. Okay, let me move on. As you know, I had a question about the congestion due to the proposed stop sign at California and Bay that was looked at as part of the traffic study. And maybe Mr. Schneider is here to respond to my concern because the response was that the total congestion at the two California intersections with Bay would be about the same. But my sense was that as a result of moving the stops sign on Bay from California coming from the West side to California by the railroad tracks as part of the second and seven project, it would increase congestion on California Street. Now, the overall congestion on Bay Street might not be changed, but that could be a potential impact of the project that should be looked at is how significant would be the increase of congestion on California. I'm not saying there's evidence that it would be a significant impact, but it seems to me it will change because it will take much longer for during high traffic periods for cars to make a left turn or even a right turn off that segment of California Street. Am I being clear? Not very clear. I'm sorry. California Avenue or California Street? Mr. Schneider, could you introduce yourself so everyone knows who we're hearing from? Schneider, Assistant Director of Public Work, City Engineer, and just as a correct Eric's introduction of me, I'm not a traffic engineer. That's not a registration I currently hold. I'm a registered civil engineer. Okay. I'll still trust you to answer my question. Is California Street where there is currently a stop sign on Bay and California? No, that's California Avenue, which is closer to the ocean side. So let's say on California Avenue, as a result of taking away, if that's my understanding about what's gonna happen with the implementation of the segment seven rail trail, taking away the stop sign on Bay and moving it to California Street, that the congestion on California Avenue might increase significantly because it's gonna be much harder for cars to turn off California Avenue. And I don't know whether that would be considered a significant impact, but it seems to me it should be analyzed in the traffic study. And as far as I could tell, hadn't been analyzed in the traffic study. When we originally put in the stop locations and decided which to choose California Street or California Avenue to have the three-way stop, the side street volumes on California were very similar. And we chose that at the time, the location that we put them in, removing it to California Street by the railroad track to improve access for the rail trail project. We're also providing for a free right turn, which is going to improve the operation of that intersection. Yes, California Avenue entering Bay is gonna be more congested than it currently is. My concern with the environmental analysis and the initial study is that it has many conclusions, but it really isn't providing the evidence that's needed to justify those conclusions. So the question in my mind is, will the change in the placement of the stop sign increase the congestion significantly due to the project? And I just think that needs to be looked at. I'm not saying that it will, I'm just saying that it needs to be looked at in order to provide the evidence that the project is not having a significant impact on traffic. Well, based on cumulative traffic and the general plan analysis, the intersections, both of them, are a traffic impact the intersection and improvements are mitigation for the general plan. And currently what we have is the potential for signalization, which would be complicated with the offset intersection, but also providing free right turns. And that's part of the traffic impact program, which those would be implemented over time. Okay, well, I appreciate the information, but I don't think it really responds to my concern, which is a sequel concern and having to do with potential impacts of the project and what that will do to the congestion at that intersection. So that's... Well, with the general plan traffic volumes, which look at cumulative impacts of development in the city, there is that has been evaluated as part of the general plan, EIR, and provides for improvements to those intersections. Except that the general plan EIR, as I understand, it didn't anticipate taking away the three stop signs at California Avenue in Bay. That wasn't looked at in the general plan. The general plan EIR assumed the current situation in terms of those intersections. It's the segment seven of the rail trail, which was not anticipated or expected when the general plan was done, or the EIR, as far as I know, that is different from what was looked at in the general plan EIR. That's something wrong about that, and you can correct me, and I'm sure you will. Same, both intersections are being mitigated as part of the general plan anticipated traffic increases. Okay, well, I'm not gonna beat a dead horse there, but I would also, in terms of a traffic impacts, want to ask you about the truck hauling off for the excavation, and I understand that that's been considered, but it didn't seem like that. That certainly wasn't anticipated in the general plan EIR. There's, if I remember correctly, 65,000 cubic yards of fill that's gonna be taken away. I don't remember how many dump trucks that will be, but it would seem to me that needs to be looked at in terms of its impact on traffic. Again, I'm not saying that that will be a significant impact. I'm just, my point is that the environmental analysis needs to look at those impacts. I've never seen the environmental analysis address haul routes or excavation for projects. We, they're required to submit a truck haul route, number of trucks that are being used, and we in the Public Works Department regulate that by the routes that are chosen, the hours of operation. We look a lot at PM peak hour as our standard, so generally they don't operate during the PM peak standard or we don't allow it. I tend, I kinda remember that there are UCSC projects that look at construction impacts of trucks hauling away fill, but I hear what you're saying. I also raised a question about noise impacts on Clearview Court, and the response was that the sound wall is gonna be put up. This isn't really for you, so thanks a lot, Chris. But again, my concern is that there's no analysis as to what the effect, the noise impact is gonna be after the sound wall is there. It may well be that the noise impact is going to be minimized, but I think it needs to be analyzed and there needs to be a study that looks at what the noise is gonna be, what it would be before the sound wall, what's it gonna be after the sound wall, there's a feeling that it will meet the city's standards, but as I end up, from my reading of the initial study, that wasn't, there was no noise study to document that. Am I wrong? You're correct, but we, since you posed the question, Stephanie Strillo, our SQL consultant, did do some research on that, so if she's available, I might ask for her to come up. She, I think she spoke with her, her noise consultant part of it. Good evening, my name is Stephanie Strillo with Dudek and we prepared the environmental document, and we did talk to our noise specialists about this. In general, residential uses don't have the kind of permanent stationary noise sources that would cause a significant change in existing ambient noise levels, and in this case, the commercial uses are located towards the front of the property on West Cliff Drive. You also have the factor of the existing use as a parking lot and will now be, the parking will be underground, so basically the conclusion was that there would be no significant increase in sound levels and that the city's noise ordinance would enforce any kind of violations, loud parties, things like that. My, I thank you. My concern is that the access driveways to the project are along the residential, adjacent to the residential areas. So there's gonna be cars moving in and out both for the residential as well as for at least some of the commercial. So again, I'm glad that this has been looked at. I would like, I just think that before the project gets finally acted on that there'd be something in writing that really does document that. And let me follow up, because I think vibrations are also an issue that has been talked about and I appreciate the applicant saying that they're gonna, you know, take care of the houses if there is a problem. But again, I think CEQA requires that the potential impacts be looked at and I didn't see any vibration analysis that could be a result of the excavation. And it would seem to me that while it's very nice, I think it's desirable for the applicant to wanna solve any problems that exist or the residents of that area, they'd like to know if there are gonna be any problems that are gonna exist and some kind of a vibration analysis seems reasonable to include as part of the, to one, understand that there are gonna be problems or to understand that there are not gonna be problems. We could provide some more information, but I can say this based on Caltrans and other agency standards and thresholds, general construction equipment, other than pile driving would not result in substantial significant vibration that would cause any damage to structures or harm to people. And there's not gonna be any pile driving as a result of this project? Not to my knowledge. I'm happy to ask the consultant to respond to that. I mean, the applicant to respond to that. Mr. Sales, you're invited to come on up. But we can further answer that for you. Thank you. The geotechnical study does address temporary shoring. There are no permanent piles, but there are provisions in the geotechnical study for temporary shoring and it specifies the specific means and methods to avoid vibration. I think that's fine and may mean that there won't be a significant impact from the project construction. My point is that that is a potential impact peculiar to the property and it should be analyzed in the environmental document. So I'm not saying that there is a significant impact. I'm just concerned that the environmental document does not include an analysis of it. So thank you. My final question at this time has to do with the density bonus affordable units. I ask questions about whether they be for sale or not. And as the applicant said, the intention is to sell them. But my question is, can they be rented under the city ordinance? Is there any requirement that they be sold? Does the applicant have the option of renting them to a very low income family or household? I know for many condo projects in the past, there have been 10 years they could rent them. And I'm just wondering if that provision applies to this project as well. Jessica Miller, Management Analyst Economic Development. In the city ordinance for sale units, we only allow rental under special conditions and that would be subject to council approval. And it's usually for circumstances where the property owner would have to vacate to care for a family member for their own health generally. That's when we would see affordable units being rented. Well, my understanding was that the project at 555 Pacific, which was a condo project, had an affordability requirement. It's a condo project, but the applicants went to the council and got approval to rent those affordable units for 10 years, I think. And at that time, the council allowed them to be rented without any affordability restriction. Well, that was council discretion to choose to do that. They chose to work with the developer to do that. But under our ordinance, it's not strictly allowed. Like we, it's not. The developer could ask for that. They could ask that, but that would be at the council's discretion. Okay, thank you. The 555 Pacific project is a little different. It was an SOU project, so it's a small condo project. The SOU ordinance allows a maximum of 50% of the units to be rented at any one time. What the developer did after the project was approved was come back to the city and asked for a development agreement to allow all the units to be rented for a time certain. I think it was 15 years and in exchange, we got a higher level of affordability and some contributions to the affordable housing trust fund. So that was done with the development agreement. Staying corrected. I do have one other question that came up during, I think it was a staff presentation and that has to do with the fact that there's gonna be a development agreement for the affordable units. Did you say that or did the applicant say that? I said it. Commissioner Sifrin, are you, is this that question for staff or are you inviting the applicant? It can be for the applicant because I forgot who said it. I said it, I may not have used their correct term, but there is an agreement between the developer and the city that provides a deed restriction and perpetuity and allows for the terms and conditions of how the units are sold. We don't, the applicant doesn't necessarily decide who to sell the units to. There's a process through the city in Mejaro. I think that's called a participation agreement. A development agreement is something different on this state role. Under condition number 30, it refers to that. Yeah, that's under condition. Thank you, those are my questions. Vice Chair Spellman, I think you were next. Thank you. Yeah, I have a couple of questions for staff. The first is, this is kind of the first larger density bonus project we've seen. I'm wondering if you could clarify for us what the parameters are, what controls do we have? I know you said we have limited discretion at what we can ask for when a density bonus is requested. I wonder if you could highlight that for the benefit of everyone here tonight. And I know the applicant mentioned a point about they could have asked for more. How many waivers are you allowed if you could elaborate some on that? That'd be great. I'll be the first to admit I am not a density bonus expert whatsoever. In fact, this is my first time working on a density bonus related project. So I don't know that I can answer that question. But, actually, I don't mind it. But yeah, in terms of state density bonus law, there are certain limitations as to what our, as a city, what our purview is. So if, I think they originally were looking at doing encroachments into the setbacks as well as the height extra story. And we had determined that we didn't really think that the expanding out for the setbacks was justified, but certainly the extra story in order to gain the 23 units was. And so they removed those, removed those rock prop outback, the setbacks along Bay Street. And certainly we did a study and looked at the extra height and determined that it was justifiable just to be able to include those additional 23 units. It couldn't be included otherwise. Okay. Yeah, I'm additional. The statute states the applicant shall receive the following number of incentives or concessions, one incentive or concession for projects that include at least 10% of the total units for lower income households, at least 5% for very low income households, or at least 10% for persons and families of moderate income in a common interest development. So I think with 10 out of the 66 space units at very low or low, it comes within that parameter there. And the one incentive is the height variation that they're requesting. But I guess that's what I was looking for was more of the, what are the concessions that they could ask for, right? And it's clear that they meet the standard to ask for the density bonus and include those units in this project. I was looking more for where do we have wiggle room to potentially dictate how those units get executed? My next question is on, if we could go back to that RTB standard. I too had a hard time with that setback description. And I think I'm even more confused after your explanation to Commissioner Schifrin. So that statement C says, and it starts off by saying the third story shall be setback from the two story by 15 feet. Forget about the street and property line issue. Why would they say that if there isn't a setback from the third story and the second story? If your argument is it only relates to the property line and the street. I have a hard time reconciling that. Yeah, it's very, very poorly written at best. We struggle with it. It's difficult for us to interpret otherwise because of the reference to property lines at the street. I mean, it's easier to interpret the other way. That last six words, seven words make it difficult for us to interpret it any other way. Okay, appreciate that. The third question, it's not really a question, it's more of a clarification if you could pull up the site plan. You know, there's a lot going on in this project as far as movement of people and vehicles. I wonder if it's not prudent to either have yourself or applicant slash architect walk us through what the circulation is on this project from a person who lives in a unit that would enter off of West Cliff and or off of Bay as well as valet service circulation onto the site and then maybe talk some about pedestrian movement around this project as it relates to the hotel, the intersection. I'd like to understand that a little bit more clearly. Certainly, I'm trying to figure out if I can use a pointer here or? I can point to it. I guess we'll start out with the vehicular movement. The parking lot currently has two. Thank you. So, I guess we'll start out with the vehicular movement. The parking lot currently has two driveway entrances, one on West Cliff a little bit to the south of where it's proposed to be after the development. So, and then there's another entrance currently off of Bay Street. And there will be two automotive entrances proposed here. These automotive entrances will be gated, but there's an area for queuing of cars and the gates would be more, it's more of a traffic control system and those gates would be closed at night but open during business hours to drive into the public parking areas. So, someone could drive in off of West Cliff or off of Bay and this will be posted at I believe eight miles an hour. This is a driveway, not a public street. So, they would be able to drive into the building. The area with the parking spot shown here is covered by residential homes above. And there's a second set of gates to go down to P1 and to P2 and there's two separate ramps. So, the ramp where onto the south where Ryan's showing his pointer there, that goes down to P1 for the residents. So, the primary residential access would be off of Bay Street. The valets currently use the, primarily use the West Cliff driveway and the valets would be able to go directly down to P2 which is the valet level. And there's a secondary motor court here adjacent to that driveway. So, that if a resident or a visitor is using a ride share, those ride shares would not be waiting on the street and causing traffic disturbances on West Cliff or Bay or if they're just waiting for their friend to pick them up. So, we have a drop off area there. Just a secondary area for people to wait. So, if there are any cars idling, those cars would not be idling, uncovered adjacent to the neighbors. They'd be under the covered portion of the building. The residential lobby there as well as some hotel offices are adjacent to that drop off. And the Coastal Paseo, the plaza, is open on three sides. So, there's pedestrian access as well as viewpoints from the guest parking as well as from the motor court as well as views from Bay Street all the way through the plaza to the north so that the plaza is really open on three or four sides. And the fourth side is a wide Paseo kind of a gallery. We've envisioned it as an art wall and we've talked to some local cultural groups about possibly what we might display in that area. But the idea would be that that is an art walk that would display historical photos or perhaps items that are relevant to the history of the site in the area. So, does that answer your questions to the automotive before the bond industry? Yeah, so the level one ramp, the residential ramp, let's call it, that's the only way to get to the residential level. The other ramp doesn't take you down there. Correct, that's the only way to get, so that would be card key access for the signed resident only. And if someone's coming in for the visitor parking, they're in the visitor parking zone and they see a closed gate and they wouldn't be able to get in. But the residents are gonna drive in through primarily through Bay Avenue and down that ramp. And vice versa, the ramp to P2 is only valet, how hotel parking. Correct. Yeah, I think that clarifies what I was looking for, thank you. And if you could highlight the pedestrian movement? Yes, yes. So there's currently a crosswalk, where this crosswalk, or approximately where this crosswalk is shown, that connects the dream in to the parking lot and that's used not just by valets and hotel guests, but there's a fair amount of just neighborhood pedestrian traffic of people that are crossing the street there. And unfortunately, it's been a very challenging intersection because of sight lines, because there's power poles that are in the sidewalk that obstruct sight lines and you've got cars merging in a hill. And so we're proposing to improve that intersection, although that is already underway with public works. There's, I believe, a project to put a flasher in there. We're proposing additional improvements beyond what's already proposed. We're proposing to widen the pedestrian refuge and enlarge it, and some additional improvements to that crosswalk. Then there's crosswalks at the corner of A and West Cliff that will also remain. We are widening the sidewalk. We're proposing to widen the sidewalk on the, actually east side here, but the ocean side of West Cliff as well as to improve the bike lane. And to do that, we're taking a piece of the parking lot and shifting the right of way. So we're proposing a small land dedication at the corner for street purposes, but this would actually be an easement for sidewalk purposes. So the realignment of the right of way would happen within the current right of way, but we would be dedicating an easement for sidewalk purposes within the dream and parking lot site to actually widen the coastal side of West Cliff Avenue as well as to widen the bike lane by a foot or two. So the sidewalk goes from like six feet to eight feet or so, I think Chris or, anyway, the information's all in the diagrams and someone could clarify that, but it's a widening of a couple feet of the sidewalk in the bike lanes as well as undergrounding of utilities to improve pedestrian safety and sight lines and also to allow for hopefully pedestrians and segways to use the sidewalk as opposed to what we see a lot of times right now as pedestrians and people with baby strollers are hopping down into the bike lane to avoid the power poles. So there's a conflict right now in front of the hotel where pedestrians and bikes are both using the bike lanes. So by improving the sidewalks, hopefully that'll also improve the bike lane. One more question. Is there an accessible access to the Paseo other than off of Bay? Yes, there is. There's some stairs that are not accessible but there's a ramp in front of the stairs just immediately to the south of the stairs. I'm not sure if you can see it. On West Cliff Drive, if you move, yeah. There's a little bit of a switchback sort of ramp with some coastal-mounted landscaping. So the Paseo is accessible directly off of West Cliff as well as Bay. Thank you. Mr. Conway? Yeah, thank you. And you could stay up there. I have some more questions for you. First of all, thank you for your presentation and for explaining your project to us tonight. And for your, you've obviously gone to great lengths to accommodate needs in the community. I have a few more questions kind of in the order that they came up. So first of all, it partially answered. I was struck by, I think the bike parking, is it on the lower of the parking or is it the first level? I'm not sure you count underground parking. Yeah, so we've designed large storage spaces. Make sure to use the mic, please. Thank you. So we've designed large storage spaces in the upper level of the garage. We have a couple different bike rooms. We have a bike room for employees, for both the hotel employees who currently don't have a dedicated bike room. They use, there's bike racks in front of the hotel and sometimes they're able to use valet storage but there's no dedicated bike room currently at the hotel. There's gonna be hotel offices here as well as there's retail employees that may ride bikes to work. And on the main plaza level, we've designed employee lock rooms with showers and changing areas and employee bike rooms to encourage the use of bikes by employees both for the hotel as well as retail. And that is separate from the residential bike parking. We have a large amount of storage for the residences. This is envisioned for a family that lives in a two bedroom may have four or six bikes and not one or two and they may have surfboards. So these storage spaces are approximately five by eight by 10 at the smallest size so that people don't necessarily have to take all the bikes and surfboards upstairs, downstairs in the residential elevator but we have a large freight elevator that's accessible from the Paseo that goes directly to the storage for access to that bike area or board storage. Is there, do the units themselves have any accommodation for bicycles inside of them or expecting that it's gonna be in these various storage areas? Oh, I mean, I could use myself as an example. I'd say, my road bike, I would keep in my home but my beach cruiser, I'd keep downstairs in the storage unit. Sometimes we see some fancy parking hooky thingies. I'm just wondering about that. So then my last thing is just on the security but I'm a bike commuter too. So I'm concerned about that. It looks like there's, it's not gonna be public access to where bikes would be. If we can go back to the site plan, we have a number of bike racks that are in prominent locations in the plaza so that there would be direct line of sight so that if you're sitting in the cafe, you can have your bike in front of you. So there's really, there's bike storage for visitors, there's bike storage for employees, there's bike storage for residents and the needs of all three are different so the configurations are different. Okay, thank you for that. I have, while we're here, could you show, I have a couple questions about the affordable units and how you're treating them. So the first one is I'm wondering if you could show me, have you already identified where the affordable units are in the project or is, sometimes it's done at this stage and sometimes it's not until you get a little further along. I know that they've identified the types, one, two, three bedrooms, the number of each of those but I don't know, have you picked the actual units themselves in the location floors? No, I don't, I don't know. We did not specify it in the application. So the fact that you haven't done that, it's gonna answer one of my questions. I don't know the cities ordinance them as well as I know the counties but I think it does have standards that the affordable units, how comparable they are to the market rate units and it sounds like a lot of, sometimes developers don't try to cut any corners for the affordable units and sometimes they sort of pare it down to make it as minimal as they need to. We paid attention to those standards but the, the residences stack vertically. So, you know, we have like for example, one bedroom floor plans that range from the city's minimum size of about 650 square feet to closer to 900 or 1,000 square feet. So there are no units designed that are in the entire community that are below the city's minimum standards and the units that are sold for affordable will be identical in square footage and the basic amenities but not necessarily in say the flooring as the market rate units. So the project was designed with the city's policies in mind and we can work with staff to determine whether it's the first floor, the second floor, the third floor or which particular residence ultimately becomes designated as affordable but they all meet and exceed the city's minimum standards. Yeah, I mean, and I think what they typically do is you have to have the average number of bedrooms of each type has to be equivalent in the affordable. So there, you have to have the same portion of three bedroom affordable, a do-do market rate and so forth. And we did specify that in the application. Yeah, so are you planning on selling these units right away? Yes, provided that the economy supports sales, but yes. I know that that has happened but sometimes developers are going forward and they wanna build a rental project and they say they're building a rental project and they file a map and I just have to tell you it drives me crazy. I think it causes problems down the line for the community and so forth. And I know sometimes it happens because of financing that's available. So I'm really glad to hear that you're filing a map and you're intending to sell the units. So that's good. Then my next question is about traffic and I know Chris is here but actually the best picture I saw was one we caught a glimpse of in your presentation. Would you mind bringing up your, there was a picture you were showing about the roundabout? Let's see if I can speak to that. Okay, and maybe. I just have a mouse. Keyboard to exit the, I threw it, you know? All right, there we go. There we go. A little further. We didn't really get a chance to, so while you're looking for the picture, I have to say that traffic is obviously, it's a concern of the community. I know it's one that I'm really concerned about. Also it's a, there we go. That's the diagram that I don't think I'd seen anything that illustrated it. This is right where the presentation left off. These are the two different alternatives that were analyzed. And the general plan and the capital improvement plan currently specify a signal, I believe in 2021, 2022, but I'm not sure that the funds have been allocated and that's not fully designed. So there's been design work for these intersection alternatives that's been undertaken through this traffic analysis as well as simulations and depending upon whether it was a micro roundabout or a signal, there would be a small dedication at the corner to widen the intersection between a couple feet and eight feet or 10 feet or so, depending upon which of the two alternatives were chosen. One important point is this micro roundabout is possible only with a land dedication. So this project makes the possibility of a micro roundabout an option for city council to consider that would not otherwise necessarily be there without a land dedication. Okay. So I do get that roundabouts reduced greenhouse gas emissions. And we've had a number of presentations about that, but that one of the things that was stated was that the city feels that the roundabout is safer than a signalization. And I was wondering if you would mind explaining that a little further. I think that's not our system director of public works. The in general roundabouts are safer than traffic signals there are. There's no ability to have a perpendicular accident. Someone can't hit the side of another car, everybody's flowing in the same direction. So while there may be some accidents, there the severity is a lot lower. With the roundabout, traffic's anticipated to be slower, flow more smoothly. One serious concern I have with the traffic signal is that pedestrians who are waiting for the signal to turn green, particularly on the ocean side, are gonna stack in the bikeway because the sidewalk isn't really that wide there. So it's gonna be about eight feet, which is a good width, but it'd be better if the pedestrian activity can be more free flowing. And thank you for bringing up my actual personal concern. Could you also explain how, I think I can see on here, this is an intersection I bike through all the time. How do the bike lanes work in the roundabout alternative? It looks like the green, I think the green on there isn't actually the green lanes. Yeah, the bike lanes are dropped and the bicyclists merge with traffic. So it's kind of like it was, it is down at the... Right, at the depot side, it's what the depot intersection as well as the work intersection, aside from the two-way bikeway that's on the south side, on the ocean side. Okay, I guess that's my question that I have right now. I'm gonna go to Commissioner Greenberg next. Thank you, and also really appreciate the detail of the application. I had some questions that I don't feel like they've come up around some of the economic impacts in terms of employment, which is one of the goals of the plan for this area. And if there are any estimates on the number of jobs that are gonna be generated as a result of this development? There has not been a separate fiscal impact or job creation analysis for this amount of hotel ancillary space, retail space. Typical ratios might be a couple jobs per, maybe up to 10 jobs per 1,000 square feet for food use less for general retail. But that analysis has not been a part of the application. Okay, and sorry, along those lines. So I think one of the wonderful things about the Drain Man is that I believe it's the only unionized hotel in Santa Cruz in terms of the workers there. And I don't know if that would extend to the jobs that would be generated at the new development. This would be a separate development in terms of the Homeowners Association and the restaurant space would be leased, not necessarily a part of the hotel. The hotel is the only union jobs in the city. And I think that would be a separate facility. And the final question along these lines is, and I realize if you haven't done this analysis fully, but maybe you've thought through, I feel like at some of the earlier meetings, there was kind of an idea that potentially some of these units could be purchased by employees of the Drain Man, and in so doing could mitigate traffic as a result and could enable people to walk across the street to work. And if you have any estimates of the degree to which employees of the Drain Man would be able to afford the units in this development and the mitigation that might create in terms of traffic. That was part of the motivation for doing very low income units because those correspond to service worker jobs. And the Drain Man employees are significantly better compensated than your typical, I think believe Santa Cruz's current average wage for service workers is about $12 an hour and the hotel wages are significantly higher than that, but those employees are still within the very low income and low income category. Predominantly the largest number of them would still qualify for those very low income units. Now we can't show any preference, the process would be dictated by the city and the city standards, but it would be wonderful if long-term hotel employees who've been commuting for years or other folks that work in the war for the boardwalk area that our service workers that need affordable housing can buy some of those units. And that was certainly a part of our thinking when we decided to go do very low income units as opposed to a greater number of say, low income units or moderate income units to qualify for the state density bonus. That's my question, thank you. Mr. Schifrin, you had another question. I just wanted to follow up on the roundabout. I thought the roundabout was being recommended as the mitigation for traffic. Is that not the case? Is it still undetermined or? Either solution of traffic signal or roundabout will mitigate the traffic impact of the congestion. Use them, can you lean into the mic, little Chris? You know, either solution, traffic signal or roundabout will mitigate the intersection impacts. However, staff, public works staff recommends the roundabout, we prefer the roundabout for reduction in greenhouse gas, pedestrian activity, flow, traffic flow is gonna be slower, more better regulated, and also safer in general. But that's not a condition of the project. That's sort of a little confused about what would be approved. Oftentimes as the rest of the staff recommendation is pretty clear about what the staff is recommending, it seems like the recommendation about the traffic mitigation is not so clear. It would seem to me if it's part of the recommendation that would go to the city council if the commission was recommending approval of the project before the roundabout, is that part of the staff recommendation? That's our preference, yes, public works department. Yes, okay, so that the project at this point is would include the roundabout. And can I ask the applicant? It was a little, I had understood that the applicant had voluntarily agreed to pay for the design and construction of the roundabout. Is that the case? While the applicant's coming back up, Ryan, I wanted to give you a chance to clearly answer Commissioner Schifrin's first question about, is that part of the encroachment permit or? Correct, the encroachment improvement includes, excuse me, the improvements to the intersection. The roundabout is what's being recommended over the signalization. I think the thought was to hear from the community their preferences or hear from them. And then ultimately it's gonna be up to the council as to which is chosen. But the staffs, as Chris indicated, our preference is the roundabout, okay, thank you. And I wanted to clarify that as the applicant, we don't have a say or a stake in the decision as to whether the traffic improvement is a roundabout or a signal. So we analyzed both scenarios in the application and the traffic analysis analyzed both scenarios because it's not our decision, it's a city council decision. And I wanted to clarify with your earlier question about the cost of improvements. We are voluntarily paying for the sidewalk widening and the west cliff improvements and the bike lane improvements, the cost of the signalization, the cliff and bay, intersection improvements are already a part of the capital improvement program and we're making our traffic impact fee contribution, which Chris, I believe, was somewhere in the order of magnitude of what was there, somewhere around $400,000, which would go towards that and other traffic improvements, but that is not a city project or necessarily a developer project at this point. So if I'm understanding what you're saying, although it seemed different than what I read in the staff report, the development is not paying for the roundabout, either design or directly paying for the design or construction of the roundabout. My understanding of the staff report is that you had agreed to pay for those in addition to the traffic impact fees. At this point, I'm hearing that that's not the case. Now, I think you are correct. The improvements are part of the proposal of the application and anything worked out in terms of additional traffic impact fees will be worked out at the next stage, but the improvements are part of the proposal. Well, the applicant looks a little bemused there. Is that your understanding of it? This is a significant... Yeah, it's a significant point. That is not our understanding. Christian Eider, the traffic impact fee is estimated at $539,000 and the traffic impact fee ordinance allows for development contribution to the cumulative impact of the intersection and credit allowed for the work that they do. So it may be that such that part of the traffic impact fee that they're paying will also be paying for the intersection. My concern is that the recommendation is that it be installed and operating prior to occupancy. And I guess my question is, how much is that gonna cost? We don't have an estimate at this point. This is a conceptual plan that's before you. Between now and the building permit stage, there will be a final designs for all the offsite improvements. At that point, their engineer will have to calculate the cost of those things. But their commitment is only 500 and some 1,000. If it's a million dollar project, does the city have the money to complete the project? There is a fund balance in the traffic impact fee program. I don't anticipate a million dollars for a mini roundabout. Now, they are also required to pay that's not included as part of the traffic impact fee program, but all the other improvements they're talking about, which is the sidewalk revisions, this bike lane striping, undergrounding of utilities, and all those improvements as well. I get that. I would recommend that, assuming this goes on to the council, that the staff report really made clear that the applicant is not paying for the roundabout. It's not directly paying for the roundabout, which is the recommended improvement. If I certainly didn't understand that in reading the staff report, I thought the applicant had agreed to pay for both the design and the construction. Well, and it would potentially be a credit to the traffic impact fee. They have to pay. I understand that now, but it wasn't clear that that was the case from the staff report. Well, we're on this topic is the dedication part of that equation as well, credit? No. No. Okay. Dedication would be required of the project condition. But not an economic credit. No. Okay. Vice Chair Spellman, I think you have one more question for the applicant. So in the literature, I don't know if it was in the set of drawings or in response to community comment, but you talked about sustainable design standards and attaining a lead gold certification for this project. Did you elaborate on that? Is that something you're still committed to? And if so, could we add that as a condition of approval? Yes, it's something that we're committed to and you could add it as a condition of approval. Thank you. I have one question for you, Mr. Sales. So EIR, the EIR process is extremely expensive. So you sound like a silly question to ask. Why didn't you do that? But you've also gone to extensive cost and effort with all of the non-EIR processes and analyses you've done. Did you consider just doing the full EIR? I would say that the level of studies and the expense and the time has been equivalent and greater than some EIRs that we've done. When we started the process, there was a discussion as to whether an EIR was appropriate here or not and we consulted with city staff and the city's CEQA consultant and the determination was that the tiered EIR approach, which is what we took, was the most appropriate and we voluntarily did additional studies and we've had community input on the process. So while it's not an EIR, it's certainly not a shortcut of any means. And certainly, I think if we'd realized that the traffic analysis and the technical analysis was gonna take two years, we might have started out down a different path. Thank you. Commissioner Schifrin? And I follow up with that. Just to clarify and staff can correct me if I'm wrong, the decision on what the environmental document is not determined by the applicant, it's determined by the city. So if the city had decided to do an EIR, the applicant would have done an EIR. There may be consultation, but the city is responsible for the environmental document and deciding which environmental document needs to be prepared. Is that not correct? That's absolutely correct. Just a couple of other comments on the whole CEQA process. Really the purpose of CEQA is to disclose and mitigate impacts. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it's about. There's also these streamlining provisions that apply and I think there's somewhat of a misconception out there that we're saying that there's no impacts associated with this project. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is that there's impacts, but those impacts are mitigated through either mitigations contained in the general plan EIR or from these uniformly applied development standards such as the heritage tree ordinance. That's really what we're saying at the end of the day. And then if you look at what we did, I mean, there's a very extensive analysis. It's not only the technical reports, but it analyzes how those impacts are mitigated through existing mitigation measures that are on record. This 21083 does not have any public comment periods. We actually posted the draft document. I think it was 70 days prior to the second community meeting. CEQA requires just for comparison on EIRs a 45 day review period. So this is almost twice that. We really went out of our way to provide as much disclosure as possible on this. So I guess that's what I need. But to answer your question, yeah, it is ultimately our decision. And we've applied, we've processed CEQA documents this way before. I think we've done seven or eight. So it's not uncommon. Mr. Conway. I just, it seems like a really important clarification and thank you for the points that you made about noticing and so forth. But I feel like this conversation could be misleading if there's a perception that either a project has an EIR and therefore has environmental review or if you don't, then it doesn't have environmental review. And I feel like it's kind of been set up that it's one or the other. And this project, I think what you're saying is it has gone through the level of environmental review that the city, which is the responsible agency, has determined is appropriate. So it's not like it didn't have it. And the difference between, you know, the choices the city made, I mean, the difference between doing an EIR or an initial study and all of the, you know, looking at all those studies are what? I was wondering if maybe either you or Ms. Striello might explain the difference in terms of what is really the difference between doing an initial study and which is the level of review that this project has gone through tearing off an existing EIR and doing a full one. Well, CEQA sets forth the process for environmental review when a project is analyzed. And the first step is to see if it's subject to CEQA. The second step to see if there are any exemptions that would apply. The third then is to look to see if there's any existing documents that have reviewed the impacts that are associated with the project. The next level is then to do an initial study to figure out whether or not a project would have a potentially significant impact that would trigger the preparation of an EIR. And then the EIR is the last step in the process when there's either a potentially significant impact that can't be avoided or any of the mandatory findings of significance are triggered. The section that Eric mentioned is just one of probably a half a dozen tools in CEQA that encourage streamlining by looking at whether or not another document has adequately addressed impacts. And in this case, we went through the process of a checklist that's very similar to an initial study and looked at every topic to see whether or not the general plan evaluated the impact, what the level of significance was, and whether or not the project impacts were within that scope of the impacts previously analyzed. And this was supported by a multitude of technical studies. And at the end, the conclusion was either that yes, it was covered. The scope was covered within the general plan EIR or that with the provisions in the project, there would not be a significant impact or that with the application of these uniformly applied standards that are applied to any type of similarly residential project, there would not be a significant impact. So that was the basis for doing it that way. The city's general plan is still relatively new having been when EIR having been adopted and certified in 2012. And this is just one of several techniques that is now encouraged, especially for mixed use projects to streamline the environmental review. That's helpful, thank you. Can I restate the question? That's helpful. What percentage of the full EIR work and analysis was done in this case? What was that? A number of steps were taken. There was an environmental analysis, but not the EIR. I think it's in your staff and the report is the environmental checklist that went through every topic to discuss how was evaluated in the general plan and then specifically with the project site what the impact was and if that was within the scope that was covered in the general plan EIR. In totality, there's an EIR which is a cost and process and heavy lift and then there's what was done here. Can you compare the percentages? Percentages. How much of the work for a full EIR was actually done here? Can you assess that? Probably 90, 95%. Okay, that was the number I was looking for, thank you. So I'm gonna go to the open and public hearing unless commissioners have questions for staff or the applicant. I'm gonna hold additional questions and concerns till after the public hearing, but I wonder if we might take a break. Okay. We're gonna take a break for five minutes and then we're gonna open the public hearing and invite everyone to speak if you'd like to. We're starting with the two groups that asked for extra time. Can I have your attention, please? We're gonna get going again. Could everyone take their seats and please be silent? We're gonna get started. Could everyone please take their seats and remain silent? Please take your seats so we can get started again. Thank you everyone, we needed a break. So we're gonna open a public hearing and I'll repeat my plea to seize this opportunity to demonstrate how we are unique. Our special community, we get to show emotional maturity and listening skills and respect for one another. So please be silent while others are speaking so that everyone can hear. I hope they do that for you. So I'll repeat that plea and that's about all I can do really is ask you for that. So that's my plea for you. And we have had two groups that have asked for extra time. Everyone will get two minutes to speak and address the commission. We do wanna hear what you have to say. We thank you for coming here and we have to balance the intention, the interest in hearing what you have to say with process and getting the work charged to us tonight. So we'll limit it to two minutes and I ask you to, there's a timer, there's red, yellow, and there's green, yellow and red lights and then there'll be a beeper that goes off when your time is up. So I ask you to honor that and help me manage the meeting by simply finishing your sentence at the end of that time and then letting the next speaker go. We invite you to say your name. You don't have to do that but we welcome you to do that and invite you to do that. And two groups, everyone will get two minutes and we invite you to stand up, line up on the right hand side of the room, sign in before you come up to the lectern and speak. Everyone will have two minutes except for the two groups that have asked for extra time and I would invite the clear view court representatives to come up first. Welcome. I'm sorry to interrupt, how much time would you like? I think I could talk fast for 10 minutes. Okay, 10 minutes it is, thank you. And being recirculated is what I sent you in your packet as well as a supplement today because I know I'm gonna run out of time. And I'm gonna read to stay focused. I hope you had a chance to read those comments in your packet and we're able to visit the project site and have a firsthand look at clear view court's proximity to its north and western borders and how most homes windows are three feet from the shared fence line. You would have seen the 55 trees that help cleanse the air and dampen the noise from the congested traffic on this corner. They help moderate temperatures off the streets and black tops provide shelter and nesting sites for birds and other wildlife and absorb artificial light. If you came to our side of the fence, you would have also seen the sky and sun which help us grow our food gardens. It lights, warms and dries our homes and property particularly in the damp days of winter when we depend on the sun's help. And the trees even help by dropping their leaves so we receive full benefit of the sun rays. We even have some ocean peaks from various spots along the western border. These are all important environmental features that contribute to our basic quality of life and environmental health that will be jeopardized by this project as proposed. Clear view court is a community of 68 small homes mostly manufactured, they are not mobile. 85% are resident owned. Our vulnerable community is largely fixed low income seniors, disabled, limited mobility persons and young families all of which have worked hard in an expensive area to buy our small homes. We have struggled to maintain a simple quality of life here and health and the vast majority cannot afford to move in the face of this latest threat to it which is why we stand before you asking for impacts upon us to be included in evaluating this project which can only fairly be done through a full environmental impact report. We've outlined our concerns in a 13 point list given to the developer and copy to my submission last week covering round the clock noise amplified by building mass and design, air quality degradation in car emissions, trucks, commercial vehicles, significant shadow impacts with the loss of light and sun equating to increase in residential expenses for maintenance to keep mold moss and mildew at bay and increase use of lighting and heating and the loss of our food gardens year round. Also blockage of signals. This was the first I heard dish and possibly looking at our digital TV antennas that go over the air, not everyone can afford subscribing to such things. Vacation uses of the homes and other safety items we feel we're not adequately addressed in reports. Most of the items on our list have not been discussed with us for solutions. Some information was withheld such as the uppermost measurements used in the shadow study actual measurements and or denied discussion. Items mentioned by the developer rather vague in the agenda report which I will speak to concerns about health impacts have attempted to be thwarted by last minute post last week to the agenda under a traffic health risk assessment. It's filled with errors, omissions and program analysis default limits. You can compare the plan sets to the report and I'll stand out. I've mentioned some in my letter with links to resources for verification on a myriad of known health impacts from such use exposures. A sound wall other than and other sound dampening features and materials for building in roadway are a requirement of the general plan 2030. It's on page 94. These are not a give to clear view court residents but a responsibility of the developer and many are not addressed or incorporated into the project. Eight foot sound wall would be needed to have some type of benefit to our homes. It's identified as six feet in the plans and our home set 18 to 24 inches above the ground. So if you see over the wall, you can hear everything. That certainly doesn't eliminate the impacts of street canyons that amplify sounds from all uses, including from building design on the north side, especially it swings towards the park creating a arc and the upper stories all around hot days and nights like we're having now, the windows are open due to lack of air conditioning. So close, so a close direct hit for this major new source of noise and emissions disrupting sleep impacting air quality and health. The same general plan page 24 gets and air quality requirements also and our concerns about air quality impacts have been denied in spite of high intensity abuses, replacing 50 trees, massive building, blocking wind and space that currently help with dissipation of emissions by the time it reaches our windows. For our residents to have cruise IO internet, the building, for our residents who have cruise IO internet, the building would have blocked signals. So then putting a 10 on the building is a minimum mitigation. And one that happens to give the developer free and discounted internet for their building too. Ignored is potential blocking of the digital TV antennas that hasn't been looked at. Again, this project towers 45 feet above our average roof lines. There is a fifth level, it contains 26, 10 foot tall stair towers, you gotta look at that. They aren't counting it in the 47 foot measurements. The inspection of clear view court homes is good. For good anchoring will limit the developer's exposure to liability, so inappropriate due diligence in response to resident concern on this issue. But it doesn't forfeit liability for damage that may still be caused to our homes during and after construction. And we do have a very antiquated sewer system that has not been considered. The portion of the property for clear view court residents was stated to be an 18 inch wide strip along the western border. It's unclear where that measurement starts and ends and what if anything will sit atop it. But this was in response to a resident request for a little more space, so it is a nice gesture. Again, most homes are only three feet from the fence borders. And that's where the project's new two-way busy road will be placed. None of this has been provided for in writing to clear view court. Many items remain that require solution discussions. We should not be made to bear the burdens of impacts, including costs of those and EIR is required. A great concern is setting a precedence for West Cliff Drive commercialization, which will destroy the very ambiance that people come here for. And that experience starts really down at Depot Park. Focus needs to be on protecting this valuable and coveted multi-use pathway for visitors and future Santa Cruz generations to have an urban escape and improve its safety for its many uses. Remember, ancillary uses are not the same as amenities and they're being lumped together here. Ancillary are essential to the running of the hotel business, such as parking, maybe storage, maybe offices. Amenities are things that would be nice to have and already exist inside the hotel and in abundance on the Wharf and Beachfront with more in the pipeline coming in those areas and along the Pacific Avenue spine, as it's called in the Beach South Lower Plan. It's been repeatedly stated that the general plan EIR did not include this site nor identify impacts. Its use is dictated by Beach South of Laurel, which zones it for residential and hotel ancillary, not amenities. Enough controversy, faulty reports and concerns exist to illustrate an EIR as needed, saying it meets the general plan EIR for city-wide buildout, even though it exceeds the beach area buildout estimates, is a stretch that does not justify the intensity of the project here. State density bonuses do not entitles such concentration of uses either, nor are they needed with an abundance of visitor services already directly across the street. In closing, Clearview Court residents are deeply concerned, we will be left with a non-livable community from impacts that we will suffer from and have to pay for, particularly for those with compromiser-sensitive immune systems and the added insults of loss in home values. Please require EIR, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Please be quiet while in between public comments as well. Is there a representative of SAVE Santa Cruz? You'd ask for attendance as well. Yes. Welcome. I'm going to hand in these petitions, major. Yeah, we can wait to start the time. Just like to read this real quick. This is a petition list opposing the 190 West Cliff project and furthermore, attached is a printout of the petition and the signatures collected by SAVE Santa Cruz Westside in opposition to this project. The total number of signatures collected so far is 1066 and we're still taking signatures. Signatures were collected both online and in person over the past year in response to the following petition. Quote, we, the following are opposed to the proposed expansion and over development of the dream and parking lot, which has been submitted to the city of Santa Cruz Planning Department. And so I'm a member of the SAVE Santa Cruz Westside and tonight we're going to be talking about the traffic issues. My name's Stu Phillips, resident of the Westside. Here's Bruce. He's going to talk about the traffic issues. One more thing. I want to hand out these pictures, but we can pass out to the commissioners. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Planning Commission. My name is Bruce and I'm a member of the SAVE Santa Cruz Westside. I'd like to talk to you this evening about traffic on Dream Inn Hill. This is a name I use to describe the hill in front of the Dream Inn Hotel. The Dream Inn Hotel is not alone on this hill. It shares the hill with three motels, a B and B and a condominium complex. There are five pedestrian crosswalks on the hill, two at the top, two in the middle, and one at the bottom. On the Dream Inn Hotel side of the hill, there are four driveways serving the hotel and a city parking lot driveway at the bottom of the hill. Also, there are two high-speed bike lanes in front of the Dream Inn Hotel. They run from the top of the hill to the bottom of the Dream Inn. Every vehicle that enters or leaves the Dream Inn Hotel must cross a crowded pedestrian sidewalk, then cross two high-speed bike lanes in order to get the queue up in the, that was a vehicle, every vehicle, just queue up in the downhill traffic lane. Currently, this is what pedestrians facing, crossing of the five cross. They have to step off the sidewalk curve directly into the back of the path of oncoming bikes using the two-way high-speed bike lanes before they reach the single traffic lane, continuing to the other side that there will be another bike lane installed by the developer of the project is installed, approved. It's obvious to any open-minded person that the Dream Inn Hill is totally maxed out, overburdened, and extremely dangerous to pedestrians. To add anything more to this overburdened Dream Inn Hill is absurd. Oh, this is where it gets interesting. There's only one traffic lane directly in front of the Dream Inn Hotel, and that goes down the hill and is 13 feet wide, okay? The single lane starts at natural bridges and ends at the clock tower in front of the, at the Pacific Academy, just one lane end to end. That's all we got. Every car, city bus, truck, fire engine, police car, ambulance, lifeguard, resident, and tourist depends on that single lane. Currently, virtually the only people using this pedestrian crosswalk in front of the Dream Inn lobby, virtually I tell you because I live right there in the corner, are valets and occasional guests, that's it. I should mention that over the years, this crosswalk has been the site of countless pedestrian injuries and people have died at this location. We are to believe the traffic, how are we doing? If we were to believe the traffic, we report commissioned and paid for it by the developer, everything is going to be just fine and the proposed development is built, when it's built, there's nothing to worry about. The report takes the position that it's okay to introduce several hundreds of pedestrian crossings per day and year-round to the five crosswalks on Dream Inn Hill. Why am I not surprised? The computer generated traffic reports, as they have been doing, has nothing to do with reality on Dream Hill, nothing. Just ask any local, get this. The developer plans to install flashing yellow lights at the crosswalk in front of their lobby. This is the one that will connect their lobby to their new building of the cross street. Kind of flashing light, the kind of lighting system that activates when a pedestrian pushes a button on either side of the street, okay? Can you see where this is going? On a busy weekend, this flashing yellow light will never stop. It's just gonna be people walking back and forth, kids, people in the wheelchairs, crowds, and they're all gonna be heading to the new building. There'll be tenants in the building, there'll be all that going on, plus they'll be heading to the building to enjoy it, and it's gonna be a mess. Let's see, can you see, okay, so most tourists visiting Santa Cruz end up on Dream Inn Hill. This area is a major tourist destination on the central coast. People come from around the world to see and experience the wharf, the boardwalk, Pacific Avenue, and the ocean views along West Coast Drive. The Dream Inn Hill area is an economic engine that powers the Santa Cruz economy. We don't wanna mess this up, do we? Most visitors will be tourists who will go home and tell their friends about the lousy time they had sitting in gridlock traffic with whining kids in the back seat, and they will not be coming back. I'd like to share with you my experience in regards to fires. For 24 years, I was the first responder to the San Francisco Water Department, General Foreman, energy operations teams. Our team had plenty of things to do every day, but our most important responsibility was supporting the San Francisco Fire Department. 24, 7, 365 days a year, and two alarm and greater fires. There was always at least one member of our team on duty at the Water Department field operation charge station next to the radio room, ready to roll in less than five minutes. All first responders drove special trucks with red lights and sirens and advanced radio equipment in touch with all the other first responders involved. Our job was to get there first and fast, cross the fire line, and with portable radios in hand, check with the fire chief, then stand by his side, and do whatever he ordered. In many cases, the call was for give me more water. We all noticed as the years went by that we were encountering more and more traffic, night and day, which was slowing our response down on time. This is all in San Francisco within city limits. It was apparent that the slower response time of all first responders was leading to fires that were more advanced and dangerous. In my career, I went to great many fires. I saw things that I can't forget to this day, and to this day, I still wonder if we could have reached the fires quicker, could some of the tragic outcomes been avoided? Our city response was caused, let's see a minute on this page here. Okay. Our increased response time was caused largely by the city of San Francisco push to build countless, high rise density buildings and increase the population in the city from roughly 500,000 people when I retired to the current population of around 1 million. Does this sound familiar to anyone in this room? To me, it sounds very much like what the city of Santa Cruz is doing. As a veteran first responder who's seen it all, I respectfully asking the members of the planning commission to think first about their families, friends and neighbors when they cast their vote. I've seen what the increased response time to first responders can do, and I can tell you, something sometime nightmares can never go away. I have a question for the city planning department. I'll pass on that. Our group, safe Santa Cruz, safe Santa Cruz west side recommends that you do not approve the dream in expansion project. There are far too many unintended consequences if this project is approved. Thank you very much for listening to me tonight. Yeah, since we have one more minute, I'd like to, I noticed that it wasn't really clarified on the traffic flow around this project. Like every hotel guest that ever comes to the hotel gets dropped off at the hotel and the valet parking is, goes down the hill around the roundabout at work, back up into the project. And then every car that ever goes to the hotel has to come out on Bay Street and make a left turn on Bay Street, sometimes backed up, like we were talking about the California Avenue and Street. So it's gonna be really hard for every single hotel guest to come out at that driveway and make a left back to the hotel to pick up the guests. All right, well, thank you. And one more thing, thank you commissioners for what you do and for your time. And it's much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. So the timer will be set for two minutes for every additional speaker. And I know some of you are experienced this and for some of you, it may be your first time. It is hard to fit something useful into two minutes and I've done it, but I know you can do that. So, and you might be nervous, but we really do wanna hear from you. So thank you for being here. And it also is a little ungratifying sometimes because we won't have a dialogue with you. We will just listen to you. So I don't want you to waste your time waiting for a response. We will attempt to address all the comments that and questions that we get from the public in our dialogue when we bring it back to the commission. So welcome to the next speaker. Good evening, chair and commissioners. My name is Mark Maceti Miller. I'm a professional engineer and a 36 year resident of the city of Santa Cruz currently living on the West side. Our city is in a housing crisis. Been in a housing crisis for a long time. It's gonna be in a crisis for a long time longer if we don't start building housing. This project will provide 89 units of housing. The mix will be one, two and three bedroom units. They range in size from 650 square feet to 2700 square feet. Not only that, 10 of these units are permanently deed restricted affordable units and eight of these 10 units are deed restricted permanently affordable to families earning 50% of the area median income. I know you know what that means. That is hard to accomplish. In fact, in the last four years, only 12 units in the city of Santa Cruz have been built that will serve families at 50% of AMI. Not only, so this project will provide a diverse set of unit sizes, a diverse set of socioeconomic classes. This is the kind of mixed use diversity, housing development we want and we need in this community. Not only that, we get a substantial public infrastructure improvement that benefits everyone. We get an improved intersection that are sidewalks that are bike lanes. This will improve the safety of the people using that intersection, cyclists, pedestrians, active transportation users. This is a way of getting people out of their cars, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. I urge you to approve this project. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. My name is Russell Weiss. The city must require this project to go through a full site-specific EIR. And the 2030 general plan EIR doesn't address this project in any detail and the project environmental checklist is inadequate and inaccurate. I'll focus on traffic-related problems with the checklist. Section 17 incorrectly states that the project will not conflict with the transit program or policy. This ignores weekend summer holiday and special event traffic. When beach area traffic is heavy, cars now back up from the Deep Hope Park and wharf roundabouts up the hill to Bay and West Cliff, creating near gridlock. The measurements and level of service in the checklist don't include any of this. The impact of additional pedestrians crossing Bay Street and West Cliff due to the development is ignored. More crossings from residents, commercial and parking users will increase the gridlock. The current level of service deed that in reality is EIR below during heavy traffic is unacceptable. Minor traffic mitigations proposed for the project will be drowned out by increased traffic and crossings. Section 17 incorrectly states that the project will not impact emergency access. Fire, police and paramedic vehicles currently pass through the Bay and West Cliff intersection multiple times every day to patrol and handle emergencies along West Cliff, the beaches and the near lower West side because it is the shortest, fastest route. With increased traffic from the development, these vehicles will be rerouted more often and have to travel twice as far losing valuable minutes in an emergency. Increased traffic and pedestrian crossings will also impact the feeder streets, slowing emergency vehicle access to the main beach, the wharf and beach hill. Section 21 incorrectly states that the project... Thank you for your comment. Thank you. My name is Janine Lovett, I live in West Cliff and I prefer the small roundabout choice. I'm mostly concerned about the roundabout in front of the pier. I see that it is already currently a problem and I've seen three cyclists crash there without any thought of another car just because of the way the design of the traffic furniture. And I've been a cyclist for way too long, like 40 years and I find that also that runabout pretty frightening at times. So I think we need to redesign that roundabout, we need to include that into the cost of the city. It is just not, right now it's currently a problem and it's gonna get much worse. I'm also concerned about the trucks and the elementary school on Bay Street because I see that there's already a lot of traffic there and I worry about the kids there. And I think we need more planning with the traffic before we can approve this. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. It's my first time. My name's Gretchen. I thank you for your time and for everyone's time here who's spoken and stayed so late. This process is important and it's hard to be the minority. I'm in support of this project. It takes a lot to come up here in front of community members that I love and respect that I surf with and have for 35 years and share an unpopular opinion. But I'm here because I think it's important. I've lived here for 33 years. I studied planning during the Vision Santa Cruz when after the 89 earthquake I've seen a lot of development in this town and I'm not a knee jerk pro-development person. I think it's really important that good design is not only beautiful but it's forward thinking, responsive and embraces change and development. Change is hard. Density is hard. Density is also green. I'm a lead green associate. I really believe in green building and I like those elements of this project. I invite those of you that are knee jerk anti-development to take a moment and think of a couple different definitions of development that I found in Webster's. A state of growth or advancement. A new and refined product or idea. We live in a small town that is growing into a small city and we need to respond. I think that's what everybody's saying here and our safety and safety of our pedestrians and our bicyclists are number one in this project and I trust you guys to really look at those studies and really find out how we can fit more bikes and more pedestrians safely whether it be a roundabout or a light. I'd love to see a full pedestrian crosswalk light honestly. Oh, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Good evening, my name is Doug Kiner. I'm here representing the, sorry, the City Bluff Homeowners Association. We're a common interest development. A few parcels west of the proposed development on Bay Street. Unfortunately, none of the parcels on this area of Bay Street north, excuse me, west of the development are part of the permit parking zone that exists across the street in the Lighthouse neighborhood. So we believe that the combination of elimination of on-street parking spaces if the roundabout method is the method that's approved or recommended will further pressure vehicles and visitors to this new complex to park further up Bay Street where there is no restriction on parking. We believe that the overflow onto Cliff and Bay Street will exacerbate the current problem which is not enough parking for guests and residents. And as I said, our residents at our complex as well as three or four others there on that side of the Bay Street are not eligible. Obviously the street itself is not posted for permit parking. We would strongly recommend that if the Planning Commission does decide to recommend approval in any form or fashion in addition to the obvious other traffic and impacts that were brought up here tonight far more eloquently than I can bring them up that the direction or the recommendation include city staff initiating and facilitating the process and amending ordinances as required to expand the permit parking area to include both sides of Bay Street on from Cliff Drive through Laguna Street so that permit parking passes would be available to residents and guests. And then obviously that traffic impact fees if appropriate and in addition to other authorized forms would be used to mitigate any cost to the city to post this area or implement such a program. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Good evening Fred Geiger, Santa Cruz. This project as currently proposed is completely incompatible with the neighborhood. The height, if you will graph it out when you get home you'll see is completely off the chart. The general plans requires you had all these economic goals that are in the general plan that also requires things to be compatible. That's what zoning's all about with the neighborhood. The commercial use is also highly incompatible. You can have diesel trucks coming in right next to these people's houses. Who knows what time in the morning unless one of you who's gonna tell me that you're gonna put some conditions on this where no one will be coming in the early in the morning or she's gonna stand there waving the conditions and blocking the driveway. It's gonna happen. I've lived in San Francisco. The clattering of the unloading of goods, lift gates, the beep, beep, beep, the trash trucks, slamming dumpsters. How would you like that in your backyard or 15 feet from your house? This is called incompatible. Another issue I think maybe needs to be investigated, visualize a giant concrete cube, inflexible, two stories, 25 feet by a hundred feet by a couple of hundred feet. Take this huge monstrous concrete block, bury it in the ground across the street from a 30 foot cliff, next to some three story buildings and shake it at about a seven and a half magnitude. What could go wrong? You need to find out. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Thank you. My name's Marcy Road. I'm actually a homeowner two blocks away from the proposed development. I have big concerns also about the accommodation for parking. It sounds like there's 52 public spaces that are not associated with the hotel or with the residences. It was stated that you could expect up to 10 employees per thousand square feet of retail space. It looks like there's close to 18,000 feet of retail space plus all the employees who would work on a normal day at the hotel across the street. I'm hopeful as is everyone else that they will ride bikes. That's still a huge number of people that would need somewhere to put their transportation. I don't believe all of them will take public transport or ride their bikes. And then we need to include the people. I think there's two eating establishments proposed as well as retail space and other amenities that may not just be used by hotel guests. So that's an additional amount of parking. And it doesn't sound as if this parking will be restricted or I haven't heard any details about that to prevent other people who may not even be using the amenities there from parking there. And again, as someone said earlier, this is going to overflow into all the adjacent neighborhoods. Some do have a permit restricted parking but it's only from Memorial Day to Labor Day, I believe. And some streets very close to this development do not have any restricted parking. It was, I believe, a block by block decision that was made by residents. And again, we've talked a lot about the traffic circle and the traffic flow on West Cliff and Bay but this traffic's gonna expand into all these side streets. We had a similar problem in Moscados where Waze was telling everybody to take Santa Cruz and they actually just turned that into a one-way street to respond to the Waze diverting Highway 17 problem. The same thing's gonna happen in the neighborhood on a lesser scale. Thanks. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Hi, my name's Andrew Palin. I've lived here my whole life in the county in North Boulder Creek. I hoped one day be able to live to afford to live in Santa Cruz, the city. I'm feeling conflict about this project. My favorite part is the housing and my least favorite is sort of everything else about it. I, in my ideal world, we would have, I know this is going to cause some people to both love me and also hate me at the same time, would be to have replaced this project with mixed use with a five-story apartment building with just like basically apartments the same size as the homes that are behind it. And but as long as we're talking like that's a fantasy. So that's not what we're dealing with. And with the current project, I mean, we need housing and the problem is if we're not gonna have it here, then where else are we gonna build it? Because it seems like each time I understand their concerns here, especially the people living in the small mini homes out behind. And I understand those concerns, but if we don't build housing here, the thing is where else are we gonna build it? Because it seems like every time I've been to Plank Beach, meaning Santa Cruz, I've been to them in Scotts Valley and even one in San Jose. And it seems like whenever we try to build somewhere, we build higher density or even just like higher dense and we're to like make it so we can fit more people into a smaller space like maybe making this a little bit more fertile by adding a little bit more to the housing supply. Everybody who is in the neighborhood just comes out at once and says, no, we don't want it here. And that's really the problem. So no matter what there's always going to be all these people around it who say, no, we don't want it here, but we gotta have it somewhere. I'm young, I'm in graduate school to become a teacher. I have friends though who have worked in, I have friends who I've known who've worked in the tech industry and they earn a pretty high wage. And they had to do things like live in their cars for a year before they could afford to even say of enough to like rent an apartment or even in one case, illegally subletting under someone else's home in their basement with only like a tiny little window for ventilation. And I think that clearly something has to be done. So I'm conflicted, but I'm edging on a yes essentially or some kind. All right, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. I'm Adrienne Pearson. Here is some solid information that could actually make your task tonight quick and easy because the only option supported by facts and law is to vote against approval of the permit application. Why is that? Elevations provided in the permit application show five levels and a height of 56 feet higher than the fourth level already permitted. There's actually a misrepresentation in the application of the true project height. The explanation offered in the permit application allowing height modification quotes from the section 24.12.150 zoning ordinance, allowing couple of scenery lofts or other roof structures for the housing of elevators, stairways, tanks, ventilating fans, air conditioning, or similar equipment used solely to operate and maintain a building. Let's see how that compares to the applicant's plans, which can best be visualized by page 93 of the application. All shaded areas are private decks, 27 total. Each deck has a stairway to it. 27 decks, 27 stairways, each directly above the fourth level condo directly below. It appears the fourth level condos are actually two level penthouses with a fifth level exclusive private deck. The entire fifth level is covered. It's obvious the plan clearly sets out a fully functional fifth level outdoor living area far beyond the need for occasional access by service personnel that the code section references. 45% of the project's open space is on this fifth level, over 13,000 square feet on the fifth level. Open space that can't be accommodated fewer than five levels indicates an overbuild of units. To find legal standing for permit denial, commissioners need look no further than the applicant's elevations, floor plans, an open space plan for code violations. A vote to recommend approval would be a vote to approve ordinance violations which is indefensible. And please, if I can just follow up, the commission's duty bound to uphold regulations. It could make your job quicker with the unanimous vote tonight to reject the application. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Thank you. My name's Lisa Johnson. Real quick, I've lived in this area for 60 years and I live on the West side, seen a lot of changes and my parents weren't fortunate to be able to afford to buy a house here until after Proposition 13 passed. I have to say I have to prove this project not necessarily as it stands because everybody here is right. Nobody here is, everybody's concerns are absolutely valid. But we have so few tools in the tool chest to build housing that regular people can buy. I mean, this is ludicrous that we have to deal with the devil in some ways. I mean, that's how I feel sometimes. I had developers feeling like they are on the hook for providing housing now and they don't feel they should because we're a capitalistic market driven system. Too few tools, absolutely, but we can get 10 homes that somebody might be able to afford. I have to support that. I would also like to see that the condos are owner occupied or primary residences. Now, one of the things too is I'd like to see union labor in the building and the construction of this. A pedestrian bridge over the road from Dream Inn to the new condos. Also, the roundabout, they have them all over Europe and they work quite well, we're just not used to them. And then I am wondering why the EIR wasn't recommended at the council at that time and I think that was 2015, 2016. So I'm just curious about that. And one more thing to the developer. Hebble Beach, I don't know if this is all private investors but the Hebble Beach Corporation built housing for their employees, so. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, Chairperson, Commission. Rafael Hernandez, Housing Program Associate with Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. I'm speaking in favor of this project as it implements our housing policy recommendations. MBEP supports infill projects that reflect high quality design, high density at every income level. We encourage reducing parking requirements, optimizing height limits and density calculations and the implementation of enhanced bonus density ordinances to improve housing affordability and supply by providing greater incentives for the production of more affordable units. This project design has been amended to reflect community input gathered through many community meetings and will increase local housing stock, including eight very low income and two low income housing units. 15 resident leaders from local businesses and organizations wrote in support of this project through our Action Center. Increasing housing stock and facilitating production in affordable home ownership are critical steps in meeting our housing needs. Given this proposal's alignment with these goals, we support this project and I ask that the commission support it as well. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. So a lot of time people who live in buildings aren't gonna be advocating for those at housing because they don't live there yet. I moved here about four years ago and every single place I've lived was long before that. I don't think there's been any home that I've lived in that has been built in my lifetime. Santa Cruz, California, still growing, people need more homes. So I'm Evan Seroge, I'm in support of the project with Santa Cruz EMB. We didn't collect over a thousand signatures but I did send letter where we had almost 50 people in support with my and a few other people with minimal organizing efforts. So there's 89 units in here and a bunch of retail, some retail. So maybe if two people live in each unit, that's 178 people that'll have a home. And maybe there's retail, maybe there'll be a hundred unique people that show up there every day throughout the year on average, I don't know. But let's just go with those numbers. Let's also say that 10 friends of each people household come over and visit and they all enjoy their time there. And so if this is 100 people with retail a day, 36,500 unique people a year, in over 30 years people move maybe every seven years. So that's 768 unique households. And these 10, with the retail and the friends that come over, you're talking lifetime over 30 years, over a million people that will enjoy this place. So adds up, there'll be more people in support than you think that are here tonight. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Thank you, Chair, Commissioners. Jillian Greensight, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors did a very important landmark study. You can look it up. Basically what they found was for every 100 market rate housing, it created the need for 30 new low income housing. So this building, it's 10 low income housing, but that's if it's for people who live here low income, it basically is making our problem worse. Our housing problem is being made worse by new developments at market rate because the consumption lifestyles of the people who can afford, and these are luxury apartments, let's not mince words here, their lifestyles, consumption patterns create the need for 30 low income housing for the folks who serve their needs. So this is not a panacea, this is not housing that is going to solve any problem, it actually makes the problem worse. That's a conundrum, we've got to work around that, but we cannot ignore it. Under the purpose that you had as a slide, there's a phrase that I think is being forgotten, protect neighborhood integrity. That is one of the purposes of developments while it does other things. I see nothing in this that is protecting neighborhood integrity. The traffic study does not account for the fact that with restaurants that will be advertised, will bring in a lot more people, what's the impact of that? And just a couple of clarifications, this can be seen from the Wharf, and this is not an area that was stated by staff that is surrounded by commercial and residential. It basically is residential except for the dremen. Had more, have to stop now, thank you very much for the time. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Good evening planning commissioners. My name is Jim Conway, and I've been a resident of Santa Cruz since 1972 and have lived in Clearview Court for over 20 years. I've been in the construction industry for 45 years. The last 20 years is a senior inspector of record and owner's rep at UCSC and the chief bill inspector at CSUMB. As a person responsible in the design stage to analyze the construction process, I am familiar with these types of reports and documents. I've looked at the 2030 general plan, the beach south of Laurel plan, 1998, the local coastal plan and all the documents associated with this project. I've been looking at these for a year and a half, but I've been dealing with all, looking at all these documents. I hope you're able to read my four letters, containing comments on the EIR caring process, on the final report parking analysis, on the traffic impact report. Am I requests for the dates of the required public hearings for the change in the 2030 general plan use and the designation map for the dream in parking lot? This is what I'm asking you guys for tonight. You can find these dates for me because of my limited time, I've provided a packet for each of your commissioners containing my four letters on and my data used to make my analysis of each subject. With my time left, I want to discuss my requests for this commission to help me find the dates when the three decision-making bodies, the city planning commission, the city council and the California coastal commission held their required public hearings to approve the change in the 2030 general plan use designation map for the dream in parking lot from RTP, RES to regional visitor commercial. This is a change in the 2030 general plan use designation map that the city planning department is using to allow 17,436 square feet of commercial use. Anyway, everything's in the packet there. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. My name is Julie Phillips and I just wanted to remind you that commissioners, you know the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA requires that a full environmental review be prepared for any proposed project that might, MIGHT might have a significant adverse impact on the environment. And I think the planning staff would probably want to hear this as well because it seems like something that you guys are dealing with quite a bit. This is one that might. The list we come up with of potentially you've been hearing it from everyone is traffic excavation of two-story underground garage removing 58,000 cubic yards of sandstone across the street from the dream in that literally sits on the beach. And as many as you know, have you looked at your climate action plan which is amazing resilient Santa Cruz the climate action plan of the city of Santa Cruz is amazing. And some of the statements in it are that you have to be planning for the $1 billion of impacts was rising sea levels that are happening faster than any of us predicted. Noise pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, greenhouse gas emissions will increase. You're talking about 421 additional cars including additional traffic. So when they're saying there's gonna be no greenhouse gas emissions, that's ridiculous. As someone who taught climate science in college I would not say something like that. That's just ridiculous. And it goes on to say that we think there's no doubt and we urge you to insist that such an ERB be prepared before you consider and vote on the project. The CEQA process is designed to give the public an opportunity to respond to a draft ERR with the city then required to provide detail and specific responses. To be honest, I've been at every public meeting we've met with the developers and I appreciate their time. They've been very courteous about it but they haven't responded to a single concern of ours. And so again, that's been one of the problems. You know, it's just a lot of talk but there's no, nothing has changed the plans for when we first thought over two years ago. And that is substantial. And again, I'm urging you to please require an ERR to take a step back. You know, and I think the city council will hope if you don't do it, they'll have to do it because this project is significant and the impacts of small area will be significant. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I believe you've already addressed us. Isn't that right? Yeah, for one minute on the safe Santa Cruz can I speak for myself? I gave you 10 extra minutes. I'm sorry to, I'm just trying to balance inclusion with time limits. Thanks. No, I'm giving one, every speaker has one try. Hi commissioners, thank you for being here today. 10 affordable units does not justify 79 market rate units. Right now on Craigslist, we have 530 rentals available. Santa Cruz, Capitola, Scots Valley, SoCal. This is an average number on Craigslist. You can monitor it just like I do. It's pretty amazing. There's a lot of housing out there. This is a massive structure on a 2.2 acre lot. Well, guess what? Usually a home, look at the large lots in this town. They, one home will take up nearly a half an acre or maybe a quarter acre. One home. So 2.2 acres, we're saying four, five, six homes. No, we're saying 89 with over 159,000 square feet of building on a 2.2 acre lot. Cars at 530 picture it. They're all coming home from work to afford their nice place that they bought. And they are coming in that one entrance and it's backing up all the way to the wharf. And we have the roundabout at the wharf that is a problem. Well, guess what? You're gonna sit all the way up on the other side because you're not even gonna enter the roundabout because it's gonna be packed with cars because they all got home. 530 because they couldn't wait to walk West Cliff Drive. So with that congestion, you have literally some two bedroom homes. Potentially two adults in each of those bedrooms. We're talking over 300 cars. We're not even talking the hotel employees or the people working in the shops that we don't need because people are buying stuff online. Why do we need the shops? Boy, I have more. Very comments. Welcome. Kathy Westside resident since 1977. School teacher for 35 years. I am in support of the project but certainly not on that corner. That corner is already busy. My daughter works as one of her jobs for the fire department in Marine Rescue. She needs to get from the house to the beach in 10 minutes. That's her job. How could she ever get through that intersection and get to the area on West Cliff where she's needed? I think this is a really ludicrous idea. I think that possibly it's kind of enabling people to make a lot of money and it's not really thinking about our quality of life. And I think quality of life is such an important part of this world and our whole world. So please don't let this go through. I think it's a great idea. It looks like a wonderful design but not at that spot. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Hello, my name is George Lewis. I'm opposed to the Dream Inn project and believe a full EIR should be done. I agree with many of the comments that have made only 10 out of 89 of the units will be designated affordable, increased in traffic, the concern about the flashing beacon, pedestrian traffic, the underground two-story underground garage so close to the ocean. But I'd like to talk about the trees and I'm gonna ask Tess, I think she already passed around. I have three photos, two were taken from the wharf looking towards the land. The developers plan to cut down 50 out of 55 trees and 12 out of 17 heritage trees, including two approximately 100 feet tall Canary Island pines. The environmental checklist, quoting from page 13, states the trees proposed for removal are not visible from a wide-ranging area, are not visually prominent or distinctive and are not considered scenic resources. I strongly disagree. If you look at those two photos taken from the wharf, you can see that the trees provide a beautiful backdrop for the cliffs. They're a valuable scenic resource that have taken decades to grow. And this is one of the areas where the environmental checklist doesn't really take into effect the impact. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you for your time. Welcome. Hi, my name is Orly Noffre. My family lives in the mobile homes. And just, I wanna make something very clear that I heard someone mention that the parking lot, for the three main, has two entrances, one in Wesley, one in Bay. It's true there's an entrance on Bay, but it's never open. It's always blocked. It's very rare when a valid have to move a car to that entrance. So now we're planning to open that for entrance for cars, now we're adding more traffic. And this is really bad traffic. You go to Costco in the middle afternoon, come back, it takes you 25 minutes to get from Costco to that corner, as it is right now. Now we add more cars, add more families that go to Costco, add more traffic in that area, it's gonna get crazy. And that left turn, at the same making that left turn on Bay is already hard. If you plant cars pulling through that entrance, it's gonna make it impossible. I just wanna make it very clear because nobody has mentioned that that entrance is always blocked. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Good evening, Chair, commissioners. My name is Matt Huerta. I'm the Housing Program Manager with the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. You heard from my colleague earlier that we're very proud to endorse this project. And so we've been engaging several stakeholders. I really wanted to hit on just a couple key items that I hear a lot. And I travel across the Bay area, we work across the three counties. We have a huge need. The studies have come in, the data's in, the forecasting that was done and everybody kind of agreed on said that we need at least over 12,600 homes based on the needs that we knew about just about three or four years ago when everybody in the region went through their regional housing needs assessment. And that's a low bar. That's like getting a D and we're nowhere near close meeting those needs, especially at the low, very low income range. So when we see a market rate developer actually stepping up and utilizing state resources, okay, because this is a resource. This is a very unique bonus density program that very few developers use. In fact, affordable housing developers use it quite often. Market rate developers hardly ever use it. They don't even know about it most of the time. The fact that they're utilizing it here in a very thoughtful way and working with the community, I know they're not agree with all everything, but they're going beyond the call of duty to mitigate as much as they can. The housing has to go somewhere. Someone said that earlier, it absolutely does. I'm pleading with you as I do everywhere, please do your fair share here in this community because it is an environmental issue. It's a social justice issue. The more that you can develop high quality, higher dense, affordable homes here and a mix of housing here, the less vehicle miles traveled you're gonna see and we have to do our fair share. Not only here, but in Monterey, Hollister, Salinas, everywhere we go, it's the same thing. Thank you very much for your leadership. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Good evening, planning commissioners. Thank you for your service. I wanted to say I attended both community meetings and also cognizant of the service you do as planning commissioners where you have a very narrow set of responsibilities. And that is to review applications based on the general plan and zoning and approve those applications based on the general plan and zoning. I personally support this project, both the residential and commercial component. Our household is two blocks away. I don't believe in denying future residents the ability to live anywhere in the state of California where the land is already zoned residential, which allows them to live there just the same way residents today and whatever dwelling they live in today that was zoned residential. I also support the state's density bonus law, passed by our democratic legislature and signed by our democratic governor. And that bill was to incentivize density in housing and to create inclusionary housing within at no cost to the taxpayer. 89 units here built in a traditional Santa Cruz environment of single family homes would consume 25 to 30 acres. We don't have that unless you build that agricultural lands and we've had a green belt in place, you have a general plan in place and it's your duty and responsibility to approve applications that can form both with the general plan and zoning. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We just have two more, come on up, sir. We have two more speakers unless anyone else would please line up and prepare. Okay, thanks. My name's Henry Hooker. I'm impressed with the arguments against the project that have been provided by the neighbors. I'm also impressed by the quality of the design and the quality of the research and care that's gone in from the planning department. I think that we have a housing crisis in Santa Cruz. We have a housing crisis in California. We need to deal with it here. And this is one spot where we can actually make a difference. And I think that you should figure out a way to approve this project at the same time that you mitigate as many of these possible concerns that have been raised. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Residents really from all over the world come here to enjoy the nature experience of West Cliff unlike Beach Street and the Boardwalk Commercial Zones and the Wharf. They come to enjoy the marine life, ocean views, mountain views, the lighthouse, lighthouse field, you know what they come for. No one wants commercial introduced to West Cliff Drive. They have 15,000, almost 16,000 feet of commercial. There is no commercial on West Cliff now except for the Snack Shack. I really don't think it's a great idea to draw people up from Beach Street and the Wharf and to begin to do that on Dream Hill, as he called it. Hundreds of people will be crossing West Cliff Drive in front of the Dream Inn lobby, causing a lot of problems as everyone's explained. The 1,500 daily new car trips are unbelievable. If approved, this congestion generated by the complex, especially with that big food court or whatever they're calling it, with pop-up venues of music and other activities will have choked off this gateway access to the crown jewel of Santa Cruz and change the nature of the experience. If approved, the traffic congestion would be difficult if not impossible to mitigate. And I know I read in Jessica's article, Mr. Schneider gave one opinion of it could become an A or a B, it's a little hard to believe. A lot of this is a little hard to believe. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Hello. I've been a resident of Lower Bay, for the last 22 years, a retired Cabrillo teacher, which I couldn't afford to buy now, but this is the wrong corner to do this massive, huge construction. It's too big. It's going to ruin Santa Cruz West Side Corridor. This is the corridor for all of West Side Santa Cruz, for the medicals. I've hear them all day long, and all the people that are going to be trying to get through just to commute, just to get through 1500 extra people a day. Excuse me. I've sat for an hour on that corner on a weekend trying to get drive through. I've been on a bus, which was 45 minutes late because it couldn't get through. How in the heck are you telling me all these people crossing West Cliff and then driving in and out from Bay are going to get through? This is unrealistic for this part of Santa Cruz. Build, yes, but not on our coast, not on our way of life in West Side Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Welcome. Good evening. Mark Garibaldi, I'm a resident of the West Side. I live about 200, 300 feet from the proposed project. And what I would like to say, first of all, is that any times these kind of issues come down to the neighbors don't want it and everybody else does, okay? I would probably say that most people, myself included, is very much in favor of building more housing. And I feel very bad for people that maybe cannot afford housing. But in this particular situation, we're gonna make 80 homeowners happy. We're gonna make thousands of other neighbors unhappy. Me included, I will be one unhappy neighbor. Currently, you mentioned at the start of the meeting that we should all be respectful. Well, I feel that this project is not respectful to me. Coming in and invading me, for example, I work at home and I live on Cowell Street. And every single day, there are trucks that come down Cowell Street making deliveries to the dream in. Those trucks should not be on my road. Why are they doing it? Because of the traffic, okay? Of course, there's danger issues. Of course, there's police, there's fire. All of those access issues are real. But I don't believe that they should be forced upon all of the residents just so we can have 80 new houses. And eight of them, a grand total of eight people are going to have a very reasonably priced home. And that's great. We did not complain about other properties downtown. The Pacific Avenue building was recently finished. And I think most people support that. But I think this is the wrong location. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. Good evening, everybody. I am nervous. I've never done this before. So I apologize if I don't sound good. I've been coming to Santa Cruz since I've been five years old. Love it here. Just love it here. Why do I come here to get away from the big city, to get away from the hustle and the hustle and the bustle? That's what Santa Cruz is all about, right? And to take that wonderful corner, which is Bay and West Cliff, which is the driveway to the beach, to just put this monolith there will be horrible. You come down, first of all, if it's built, you're going to have a wind tunnel. Just like San Francisco, you've got the West, Big Tall Forest, this one. Boom, wind tunnel, straight across the street. And if not that, when we do have all the traffic, we're going to have the pollution because the cars are going to be stuck there, right? So where is all this pollution going to go if the parking lot is gone? All going to just stay there. Anyway, this is a beach community. It's a wonderful beach community. And I really would like to see all these other people have a place to live also, but not there. It just doesn't work on that corner. Let me make sure I got it all. Last little thing, as I come walking up the hill, even though this means nothing, from the beach, and by the way, I do have to tell you, when I was at the beach last weekend, there was about six people there all together, and they were so angry. They said by the time they had to wait and wait and wait and wait to go down Bay Street to get to West Cliff, to get to the parking lot, they said we're not coming back anymore. We're not going to come back here anymore. This is ridiculous. Well, what is the core of Santa Cruz all about the beach, the boardwalk, coming here? Anyway, thank you all, and I hope you think about this project. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. We've had two fires there, the presentation. I have stupidly gone out on weekends in the summer, once 45 minutes from where Front Street came in, up to Clearview Court, sitting there, creeping along. I don't see how some of these responders could get there. One of the gentlemen in West Cliff Drive didn't die in the fire. He's in an electric wheelchair and he can't get out of bed alone, and some of the neighbors came in and carried him out. I'm also concerned about the cliffs. Many of you in this room, especially if you're surfers, probably remember the bathroom on Cowles, the ex-bathroom. Mother Ocean took it. If you walk up to the surfing museum, Mother Ocean is after that, and those motels next to the Dream Inn, how many times can they fill in the cave? But at high tide, the surf is beating against the cliff there. Sooner or later, I think it's going to go. There's been cliffs falling down. It happened in San Diego. It's happened in Pacifica, where houses went, digging 21 feet down into the cliff. It doesn't say, you know, it isn't granted. It is not granted. I'm very concerned about that in an age of climate change. I remember East Cliff Drive as a two-lane highway. It was. I don't know how much longer West Cliff Drive will be. All of the extra big trucks, the construction trucks, the extra traffic, the vibrations are going to take a beating. And I never thought about it, but that gentleman who mentioned the earthquake, the new project is proposed to be higher than the condos there. What would happen in an earthquake if they came down on these cliffs, which are not very secure? Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome. This will be the final speaker unless folks are, if you're able, please line up now. OK, this will be our final speaker. My name is Todd Manoff, and I live on the third block of Bay Street. My family's lived on that Bay Street from Laguna to Liberty Street for the last 110 years. I'm opposed to this project. I think housing, we need housing, has been the main topic here. That's why this project is underway. But correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the same developer building those massive projects at the end of Pacific Avenue and along the river there? Do we need really more housing, more mass density housing, than what's going to be built down there? I think this location could be much more better utilized for other purposes. And that will make the neighborhood happy, the neighborhood better, Santa Cruz better. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We'll now close the public hearing, and what we do now is bring it back to the commission. And we'll just have a discussion so a commissioner can invite a member of the public to come back up to the lectern to answer some questions. But other than that, we'll ask you to be quiet while we have our deliberation. Does the applicant have a chance to read on the slide? Yes. I'm going to do that now. So Mr. Sales, you can address the commission before we discuss in 10 minutes sufficient to? I'll just give a brief summary or conclusion. We fully recognize this project will have impacts. We get it. We've worked hard to bring forward a project that has real and meaningful and deep affordability. And we've worked hard with city staff to find the solution to the traffic problem that already exists there today. And we really think it's going to improve the quality of the visitor experience for hotel guests and the quality of life for residents to have this intersection improved. And we've worked hard to listen and adapt and change the project to address some of the concerns and needs of the community as we've heard them as best as we can within what we can do with this project. And we've worked hard to bring forward a project that's consistent with the local standards and requirements. We've designed it to be consistent with the LCP and the specific plan and the general plan. And we've designed this around pedestrian and bike safety improvements and sustainable design. And with that, we respectfully submitting a project for your consideration tonight. And I hope that you find a way to approve the project. Thank you. Questions or discussion? Who wants to go first? I'm always willing to go first. I want to ask a few questions in response to the public testimony before I get into my own questions and concerns. One of the speakers asked, and this is really for Chris, about the impact on traffic with the increased pedestrian activity resulting from the retail use and the residences. Was that taken into consideration in the traffic study? The traffic analysis does. Level service analysis does include some pedestrian activity. The study did do pedestrian and bike counts during some of the also the traffic counts. I think one of the issues that's often misunderstood is a three-way or an all-way stop is one of the most inefficient methods to control traffic. And what you see a lot of backup from is the stop sign installations. And if you can change that to a traffic signal, obviously, or a roundabout, you can improve traffic flow. One other comment was emergency access. The fire department did review the application as does the police department, all departments do, and have made their comments to the project. One of the primary comments with the roundabout was not to install speed bumps, because that would affect their access times, as well as, potentially, their fire trucks. Another question that was asked was about permit parking on Bay Street. I think there really is a likelihood that at least at times there's going to be more parking demand on Bay Street. What's the story about increasing the amount of permit parking that exists in that area? It's a coastal commission issue, also. And that is something that has to be addressed with the coastal commission. But there are streets that have permit parking on them. Very limited amount in that area. The next question has to do with the height. We had testimony that additional structures on the fourth story were supposed to be limited under the zoning ordinance to things like, as you mentioned, elevators, air conditioning units, et cetera. And I wasn't clear when I read the plans, but there was a concern, or at least the allegation, is that there are decks that are going to be built there that essentially are amenities for the units that are at least partially requiring taking up that additional space. And that that is, in fact, a violation of the zoning ordinance. Would you speak to that, please? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a matter of interpretation for that section of the ordinance in terms of what's allowed above the height limit. And so in the staff report, I was trying to find the location where I had the staff report in the code section. But it does list for stairway, stairwells, and elevators, and things like that to be allowed to go above. And that's what's being proposed is the stairwells above the height. Well, what does that mean, stairwells above the height? It sounded like they're decks that people will be able to have private as private open space. Right. So there are decks proposed on the roof. The decks don't really go above the height. You think they do go above the height? They don't. I mean, basically, the deck is on the roof top, the flat roof top. So the actual portions of the structure that are going over the 47 are the structure that houses the stairwell. And I think there are some photovoltaic as well. So what you're saying is that there are no private amenities that are going that are going to be allowed on the roof of the fourth floor to serve individual units. But what's there are necessary structures to serve the whole building. No, they're proposing to use the deck as open space. But that's not increasing the height. The deck and where you're standing is in increasing the height. But the actual stairwell structure to get to the deck exceeds the height. How can that? I'm not quite sure. So let me make sure to use your mic if you're going to. So what you're saying is that there'll be a stairway going up to the fourth floor or up to the roof of the roof. But it will go beyond the roof to allow for somebody to get off at the roof and lie down on the deck or do whatever it is. Use the open space of the deck. Correct. Well, I guess I understand that. Can I jump in while we're on that topic? Sure. Or do you want to keep going? No, no, no. Go ahead. So if you were building, so the deck is just the deck and you stand on it, if you were building an enclosed space, we would count the roof. Do you count the, I'm not quite six feet tall, do you count me and the stuff we're doing up there? It's not an enclosed floor, but it's a floor, kind of. How do you measure that? Does that make sense? I understand what you're saying. In terms of height, though, the height is the structure. So we're not talking about necessarily a person standing up there. So any portions of the structure that exceed that. And so that section allows for certain structures on a roof to exceed that height. The floor. You count the floor. So our interpretation was that these stairwells fall within that. Thank you. So could I just ask, in terms of the stairwells, so they're going above the deck and people are walking down to the deck? Is that why they're higher than the deck? Well, the deck is a flat roofed building. So basically, the flat roof is going to be used as an open space deck area for someone to go. And then the actual stairwell will go above that roof, flat roof area, in order to allow people to get to the roof. Otherwise, it would be like you're climbing up a ladder. So you're not going to climb up and come down, you're just. Up and over. Yeah. You're just going up and out. I think I understand the stairwell situation. But are you saying that the roof will have flat decks with no fences around them that will set them off as individual open space? I mean, how will they be? There are small parapets. So that are on the facade. For each of the individual decks? Well, there's a parapet that goes around the entire area. I mean, it's private open space that's being provided. Correct. How is that designated for the units that is provided for if it's just a flat deck and there's no increase in height? I think I have the roof plan here that I showed earlier. I think also just as a one point of clarification, the stairwells allow for maintenance of the equipment on the roof. Yeah, I think I now understand the stairwell. Why there's a justification for the stairwell. What isn't clear is whether these various decks are going to have anything around them that's going to go above the roof. Because as I understand it, the roof is at 47 feet, which is the right. Maybe I could ask the applicant. What is above that is the question. Mr. Sales, could you come address this question? I don't know if you heard that. Can you repeat the question? Yes, I'm just wondering the roof plan shows in yellow, I guess the individual decks for the particular units. How are they going to be? Are they going to have any kind of structures around them, or are they just going to be flat pieces of wood on that will be allocated to different? So the roof will have a parapet wall around the entire perimeter. Make sure to use the mic so everyone can read. So the roof will have a parapet wall around the entire perimeter, which is allowed above the 47 foot height of the roof. And the decks will also have a wall around the deck that's the same height as the parapet wall. So I think that's what the complaint is about, is that those are essentially amenities to the project that are not necessarily, I don't remember the exact language from the zoning ordinance, but it didn't appear, it didn't seem to allow for additional height for unit amenities that what it was supposed to provide for is the air conditioning unit to stairwell to do maintenance, et cetera. All of that, the elevator shift, all of that, I can certainly understand. But essentially what's being, if I understand it, what's being proposed are unit amenities that are not just on the roof, but raised above the roof, which I think is, am I wrong in understanding that that's contrary to the ordinance? Yeah, the code allows a variety of things. It recognizes that there's a variety of structures that can be on a roof. And it's very deliberate in not counting them towards height. There's nothing in that exception section that dictates whether it can be for an amenity or not. So what is the meaning of a 47 foot height limit? If the project's supposed to be 47 feet, but then they can go up another X number of feet for the units in the project as opposed to support facilities that are needed by the structure as a whole, are we really talking about a 47 foot height limit, or are we talking about, I don't know how high these individual parapets go? But if it's another five feet or six feet or even four feet, that means that the height of the building is 51 feet, which seems to be a violation of the ordinance. I think the other thing you need to consider is visibility. I mean, the perimeter of this roof is going to have a parapet wall. If you're standing even across the street on West Cliff looking up, those railings, especially with the center portions, it'd be difficult, if not impossible, to see whatsoever. It really depends on the architecture. But the code allows these exceptions. It recognizes that we've done it before the project that was referenced at 555 Pacific has a very large deck for all the occupants of the residence. It has a garden up there, a rain garden. And for these types of multifamily residential projects, it provides a valuable and creative way to get some open space. Mr. Connolly. Well, I just have to say I'm confused about why we wouldn't want those rooftops used as open space. I'm assuming we have to have something going around it that makes it safe. But to me, it seems like, particularly, because we do need to use land most efficiently, this provides the opportunity for outdoor space, which we encourage. And by popping staircases up there, it's not a story. It's not exceeding the height limit. And it seems to me that it's well-allowable within the code. And I don't understand why using it in this way isn't a real positive. I can see having shared open space on the roof makes sense. Essentially, these are really part of people's units. I mean, when they have individual. And what's wrong with that? Well, we don't have a 47-foot height limit. We've got a 47-foot height limit with additional feet for the private open space. I mean, usually, private open space for a lot of these projects is the balconies on the side. Putting privates, I don't know whether we have other projects with private open space on the roof with individual fences around that private open space. I'm just trying to understand what maybe this is done all the time. But it doesn't make sense to me. But let me go to what my fundamental concerns are with this project. Is this still on height? Because if it's not, let's beat that a little bit more, because I think we need clarity on that. I thought I'd beat it to death. Well, I think others want to join you, just so we are clear. The top of the stairs is 46, or 56? The highest point of the stairwell structure is 56. Correct. 56. And the density bonus does not allow for that. The density of the limits allows for exceeding height. You're not making an exception. It doesn't have a limit per se, yeah. There's not an equation that gives you a number. You just make an exception. It's allowed with or without the density bonus. Exceeding height. The density bonus is not what allows you to make that exception. No, that's a code exception. Granted, at your discretion or code exception, why? Well, with the caveat that this project is requesting a design permit. So we need to make the findings and support of the design permit. But the code exempts those types of structures from counting towards the overall height. OK. Vice Chair Stahlman. So any project could propose roof terraces and the appropriate access to get to those roof terraces. There's no special condition being asked for in this project. The height of the building is the height of the building. And yes, you have elements that go above that to create access for those spaces. That's a common, and it's an opportunity. We should be using more of our roofs, right? I would encourage this project to actually utilize in other ways, whether it's water or solar valve power or what have you. But we'll get to that in a little bit. I agree. I just wanted clarity on the number and on the if there wasn't allowance. So that's helpful clarification. Do you want to make another point? I wanted to just pick up on the pedestrian thing if we're done with the height issue and just or not. You're done with the height, I think commissioners different wanted to keep going. But do you want to defer? I interrupted you so that we could. I've got a number of comments and questions. So if somebody else wants to. OK. Go ahead. I may have other things after you. But just quickly, the suggestion for a pedestrian bridge over West Cliff, I was wondering if that was considered to deal with that very problematic intersection or not. And if not, why? Is that a question for staff or? Yeah. And for the applicant? I don't know if the applicant considered it. But I did work on the project back in 2005. And that was that was part of the proposal. And it didn't sit really well with the community. I can give you that feedback. That seemed like a useful suggestion to me. Back to commissioners. And if others have thoughts on that, do you want to put that out there? One of the things that isn't mentioned in the staff report, I did raise it in my questions, has to do with short-term rentals. And the importance of prohibiting, in my view anyway, short-term rentals as part of this project, since it's a housing project, and the major rationales that they're going to provide housing and not vacation rentals. I, the response I got was, I received was that the code doesn't allow it non-hosted. It does allow hosted, that code could change. Would there be any objection to having a condition that prohibited short-term rentals? If it's a condition of approval that can agree to. It's probably a question better posed for the applicant to see if they would agree to a condition like that. Because we have a city-wide ordinance that allows it, in a project like this, allows the hosted. So if the applicant wanted to agree to it. In terms of assuring that the project is a housing project, it would seem that that could be a legitimate condition that the commission could impose. I'm not sure why the conditions that the city puts on the project have to be approved by the applicant. That seems weird to me. Vice Chair Spellman's trying to weigh in on this, if you don't mind, Commissioner Shipman. Yeah, I had just had a question around that as well. Does the underlying zoning not allow additional hotel rooms? I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? The hotel rooms are short-term rentals, right? So we wouldn't be allowed to have short-term rentals in this building under that zoning is the way I kind of thought it read, right? Which would mean, yes, we could condition that we can't short-term rental. I didn't know if the code was specific that the zone district does not allow any additional hotel rooms or it just discourages. I didn't. Yeah, it doesn't allow hotel rooms. It doesn't allow, so. But the vacation rental ordinance or the short-term rental ordinance allows these types of uses in single-family neighborhoods. Right, but they're not in the residential or the RTB district. They're in a residential zone district. Right, but hotels aren't allowed in the R1, I think is sort of my point. I guess my concern, absent applicant concurrences is that we have an ordinance that would allow that use here. And by conditioning that we'd be violating or going against our own ordinance. Would we be violating it? Would be the legal concern I would have, but. There's, if an applicant accepts a permit with conditions of approval in it, some of which would limit options that are ordinarily available under the code, but he accepts it and it takes the benefits of the permit that he cannot challenge that condition afterwards. Well, I guess I'm willing to ask the applicant if he would accept that condition. So it's our intent that this is a housing development first and foremost. And we're not looking to increase competition for the hotel across the street with additional Airbnb units or anything of that nature. We did not anticipate restrictions beyond the city ordinance. And I would wanna make sure that residents, if say a university professor goes on sabbatical and they need to generate some income and maybe they've rented out for a year or maybe it's a hosted rental. I haven't thought through the combination permutation. So I wouldn't wanna just blanket agree to some language before I've actually seen the language, but our intent is to have housing here. And if somebody wanted to rent out an extra bedroom here and there with a hosted rental, I haven't thought through all those combinations and permutations, but generally in a condominium building the HOA documents would have restrictions that are above and beyond the city ordinance. And that would be our intent here as well. We wouldn't wanna have just a transient type of building where people are coming and going without knowing their neighbors. The intent here is to have a residential community, not a transient building. So I think we'd be willing to work with staff to look at some language that exceeds the local ordinance but I would wanna see that language and carefully make sure it's thoughtful and well thought through. And the other thing to bear in mind is the city approves CCNRs and the CCNRs can contain conditions of that nature. So to the extent that the ordinance is awkward but there's another work around that addresses your concerns and addresses their concerns, you can incorporate that into the CCNRs and those are binding on the homeowners in the future and the city retains the ability to, in case they wanna change the CCNRs they'd have to come back to the city to do that. Right, but what would make, what would require that it would be in the CCNRs if the city has to approve the CCNRs before they can go to the department of real estate? Right, so could we add a direction that the city not approve the CCNRs unless they include prohibition of short term rentals? That's essentially a condition of approval. Yeah, you would just indicate that to be included in the CCNRs. Mr. Sales. It would be the way to provide the, okay, so it's a different way to do it. The one thing that just interject, Mr. Sales, the hypothetical that you apply, since you said you need to think about this, the short term rental ordinance only applies at 30 day and shorter rentals. So the hypothetical that you shared with the professor wouldn't be impeded, that person could rent it out because it'd be more than 30 days. And let me just say also that the intentions of the developer are not always carried out by the occupants of the unit. So that's why it's important to sort of try to tie down the requirements. The next concern I have has to go, goes back to this and I'm sort of a little reluctant to do it. I've been trying to think about the setback requirements and the language and the code. And I understand the staff confusion with any third story element of residential support development shall be stepped back from the two-story element by at least 15 feet. And then it goes from the property line at the street. But it seems to me, if you use that 15 feet from the street, then the first part of the sentence makes no sense. I mean, you'd never set it back. Second, the third floor would never be set back from the second floor because it's always, they're always 15 feet from the street. I mean, at what point would the third story be set back 15 feet from the second story? If the second story is set back 15 feet from the street, which it has to be in order to meet the setback requirements. I'm just trying to understand, I understand that it's not well written, but on the other hand, for the provision to be meaningful at all, it has to, the intention, I think, was to have upper story set back from lower stories. That was sort of- That's the question now, what is the, what was the intention? Which I'm not sure what was. Why write that language if that wasn't the intention? Why say that you're gonna have the upper story set back if you never intended to do that by the second part of the sentence that said, well, you know, it's 15 feet and you know, the second story is 15 feet till they all have to be 15 feet. So I'm just, I just don't think that that interpretation is correct. I don't know if other- I had a question. Mr. Conway, go ahead. I have a question about your point on that. And about your concern, your concern is that it should be stepped back further to reduce the massing and you feel like that's the intention or are you concerned because you feel like it is not honoring some of our design considerations? Well, I wouldn't be raising it if I didn't think it was not honoring the design standards, but my real concern is this building is overshadowing the adjacent mobile home park. The units are very close to the property line. So the impact of looking up and there may be debate about the effect of the sun shadows, but assuming that the staff analysis is correct on that, it's still you're gonna get a wall of the building that is going to be overshadowing the mobile home park. There may well, I don't remember whether there are windows on those unit at the end of those units, but there could be privacy issues as well. If it was set back 15 feet, that would mitigate that. So I think that's kind of what I'm concerned about, which I would think was the purpose of the design standard to begin with. Yeah, I think that looking at that code section as poorly as it's written in my mind because of the street property line reference, it really has more to do with the public view of the project than a private view from an interior lot. That's my impression of reading that section. I have a question just kind of on the point that you're making and I appreciate the concern for impacts on the mobile home park. I mean, I feel like it's really important. It's one of the really important things that we have to deliberate about tonight, but another one is the extent to which we make, this is a density bonus project and which means that it's eligible for all sorts of benefits. One of them, if you're feeling like this setback isn't met, I think you mentioned that this project has not incorporated all of the concessions that are available to it. If the concern is a fuzzy reading of, and of course we want it to be very consistent if we approve this project, we want it to be 100% supportable because it's really our role with the city to protect the city's vulnerability. So I can appreciate that if this fuzzy language seems like it makes it hard to approve, I wonder if there was an application of an additional concession, which it sounds to me like in the reading of the density bonus ordinance, it did not fully utilize all of the concessions it could have asked for because of the depth of the affordability. So I don't know if we need it in order to be solid with an approval, but I feel like that might be a tool that's available. I need to chime in here because staff has just pointed out to me that our bylaws say we need to adjourn at 11 p.m., which we often go much later than that, so we need to adjourn at 11 p.m. Unless someone make a motion that we continue the meeting after 11 p.m. I'll second that. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Thank you. It's time certain. So I have to say a time. Can you? I'll say 11.45. Second. Is there a second? Sure. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. So we'll adjourn it. My intention is to complete our work this evening if we can get done by 11.45 grade, but a lot of people have come out. They've stayed the whole time. No, I'm just trying to follow the process. I understand. I'm with you. Let me now talk about my biggest concern. I interrupted your, you teed up a thought to offer. I don't know. I think I made my point. I think that there's that, first of all, I think that the way the staff interpreted it makes sense and I don't have a problem with it, but if there is a concern of any type of vulnerability, I wonder if that isn't an additional tool. That was just a question. So next, biggest concern. Commissioner Surin, I mean, not withstanding your dislike of the clunky sentence and contradictory within that one sentence with regard to this project, you have concerns about the lack of setback. Yes. Yeah. I don't, you know, if in fact the applicant could ask for an additional concession to allow a variation to the beach south of Laurel's area plan design standards and the city would have to give that concession, then I prefer to do it that way than to essentially, from my perspective, make that design standard meaningless the way it's applied. So, because I think one of the things we're doing is just, you know, we set precedent when we take decisions, we make decisions like that. And do we need to clarify whether, in fact, 15 foot setback for upper stories means a 15 foot setback for upper stories or it doesn't? I'm confused though. Do you want to change the project or you just want to stipulate that we're not setting precedent and we're, do we want some comment in there that we don't want? Well, I would say that that design standard would be applied unless the applicant is, requests and receives an additional incentive under the density bonus law. And to be clear, this project does not, if you chop off the last half of the sentence, we don't have those setbacks, stepbacks, right? Okay, so my biggest concern is really about affordable housing. And I appreciate the city attorney being here. I met with Commissioner Hanway yesterday to talk about my belief. And I think all the commissioners have received my little memo about why I think the affordable housing interpretation that staff has provided is not sufficient, not acceptable. My sense is that under and in meeting with Commissioner Hanway and talking about, could, does the affordable requirements, the affordable units requirement, does the inclusionary unit requirement and a density bonus requirement have to be overlapping so that the density bonus requirement is met as part of the inclusionary ordinance requirement or are they separate? And my feeling is that they should be separate in reading the city's ordinance and reading the state law, the density bonus law. The way I read it, the city can't acquire more inclusionary units based on the density bonus than it would without the density bonus. So in other words, the underlying zoning is 66 units, a 15% inclusionary requirement would be 10 units. It can't because the project is getting a density bonus which gets it up to 89 units. It can't make the 15% requirement be for the 89 units. That's how I read the law. Now, the case that we, the case that seems to be the case that the city attorney referred to and as well as Commissioner Hanway, which I read and actually consulted an attorney myself about how to interpret it. It was a case called the Latinos Unidos versus the County of Napa. And it's really is that we need to be guided by that case or can we make an interpretation based on our individual, the zoning ordinance that we have and the determinations that we make. And let me give a few reasons why I feel that that case should not apply. First of all, the case itself was fundamentally different. The city of the County of Napa adopted their density bonus ordinance at the same time as it adopted a 20% inclusionary ordinance. It was pretty transparent that the inclusionary ordinance was adopted to undermine the density bonus ordinance. That's very different from what we have here. What we have here is an inclusionary ordinance that results from a vote of the people in 1979 that required that newly constructed affordable housing provide 15% to average and below average income people. There are a variety of ways that that inclusionary requirement can be met. It can be met through onsite units. It can be met with offsite property dedications. It can be met by providing offsite units under the density bonus law. There's only one way to provide the affordable units. You've got to build the units onsite and it's very specific under which if you want to get the 35% they got to be low income units. You don't want, if you want to have lower income, if you want lower as opposed to very low then you only get 10%. I mean, you can't go as high as 35%. So the density bonus law is very specific in how it can be met. The case itself talks about how the author, it refers to the legislative history and talks about how the author of the bill and the bill went through a lot of different changes. Sometimes it was sort of you can't combine them. Other times it was maybe you can combine them and the author didn't really want to be able to combine them but he did say that that could still be argued. Finally, or maybe not finally, but the case is an appellate court case in the, is from a different region. It's a region that includes Napa which is a wealthier county than Santa Cruz and it's not binding on this, on the city of Santa Cruz because we're in, it's not precedent for us because we're in a different appellate court district. If we're challenged, if the commission and ultimately the council would agree that based on our history of the inclusionary ordinance, based on our, the city's desire to separate the inclusionary requirements from the density bonus requirements, then that can be challenged. Facts of the case will be argued and maybe the city would succeed, maybe it wouldn't succeed but the underlying motivation that I have is from the notion that we need more affordable housing. I can see supporting the 89 units with the density bonus. I'm not opposed to that. I think it will have an impact on the neighborhood, on West Cliff, whether it's significant or not, I'll talk about next but I think certainly it's going to be a change. On the other hand, I'm not opposed to that location for multifamily housing. I can see the need for additional density. However, to have additional density and have 89 additional units and not get almost anything more than we would have gotten with 66 market rate units seems like we're doing a disservice to the community that needs affordable housing, not market rate housing, whether it's working people or not, I think that's critical. The font, can we, I think you're gonna, let's, can we discuss that a little bit before you go on to your next point, your mind, sure? Well, I was gonna talk about another whole rationale for why the, why it makes sense to separate the density. Okay, go ahead if you. I actually, we have 45 minutes left when we started on the point and I think it's worth jumping in at this time because we all have, need to make a point. So I'd kind of like to jump in on this density bonus point if you don't mind. I understand you're continuing to make your case just because I think it's important. So first of all, I really appreciate your advocacy for affordable housing, your establishment of the need. I just can't say enough about how much I appreciate that. And it isn't only that case that has led jurisdictions across the state to reverse what had been, had been our policy in the city, it had been our policy in the county and all across the state of being basically additive. You give us what our local ordinances say, you're gonna give us, and then after that we'll talk about additional density. And fundamentally what that was found to do was to discourage additional units and to discourage the deeper targeting that's required here. So in other words, while it sounds on the face of it, like this is a pro affordable housing discussion, what's been found across the state is that that's not the case. That what we really need is housing built and fundamentally and it states very clearly in the density bonus ordinance, which I have here if anybody would like to read it in your spare time of listening, but it's actually worth noting that it concludes that this chapter shall be interpreted liberally in favor of producing the maximum number of total housing units. And this move of adding density bonus on top of inclusionary units has been found repeatedly to actually discourage the creation of housing. So I am concerned that in making a move, I think it's really risky. I feel certain that we will lose as a city if we take this move, it will delay the project. And contrary to its intention of creating additional affordable housing, it won't do that. And it'll just make the project harder to build. So that's my point on it. And again, with all due respect of what of your actual goal here. I'd like to hear from a couple of other commissioners on this point, because we do have other points to talk about. So Mr. Greenberg or Vice Chair Spelman. Yeah, I essentially agree with Julie. I think it's done appropriately at this point. And I think we need to get the very low income units and that's what this is achieving. Mr. Greenberg. This is a really important conversation. And there's different ways to think about this. I mean, one of the points that was raised by someone from the public that I think is an important one. And in my reading of the impact of kind of unaffordable density that's been added in the state and other parts of the country is that it does address the issue of the lack of supply of housing, but it doesn't address affordability. I think that the idea that adding additional unaffordable density on top of a very important and very hard one number of deeply affordable units is going to improve the supply of housing at a very high end. But the idea that it's going to increase or rather that it's going to address the affordability crisis that we're suffering, I think I haven't seen evidence for. And so in that sense, I think it's problematic that we're kind of, you know, I guess there's kind of two different conversations. One is that we do need all kinds of different housing as we know from our regional housing needs assessment. We need more even on all levels than what we see in that assessment. We do see that we have been achieving at or beyond goals at the high end. And we are very, very far behind at the low end. And it's true that this development is a dramatic contribution given the very low base of the affordability at the low end. But I think it's also true that adding this degree of unaffordable density is going to increase the disparity that we're already seeing this kind of trajectory historically being produced in Santa Cruz. And so anything that we could do to mitigate that. And I think that there's all kinds of reasons not only in terms of kind of equity that we would want to consider that. I think that a lot of the concerns about traffic and the concerns about the fact that they could provide more units of housing affordable to employees at this hotel and in the downtown, which would mitigate traffic rather than people who may be able to afford these luxury units and commuting over the hill, for instance. Even while we're trying to develop more of a job space for high income people, but those jobs in large quantity don't exist yet in the way that they do in Santa Clara County is something to consider. There's social equity benefits. There's environmental benefits that are far outweighed by affordable density rather than unaffordable density. So are you in favor of the stacking that Commissioner Schifrinz? Okay, so I am not in favor of that. And I actually wanna applaud you, recognize you for your commitment to affordable housing. I wish your interpretation was the way it is, but there's no way. So Commissioner Conway pointed out that it gets in the intent is not what the effect is because it gets in the way of any units. It gets in the way of units being built. I have a bigger problem with that. The city attorney advises us that there's case law that calls this that approach problematic. No way am I going there. And their legal opinions are opinions, but I wouldn't as a commissioner recommend to counsel to go out on that limb, even though you've laid out a case for maybe it's not applicable case law or whatever, but I'll just take my discomfort going there. So could we call that kind of 3-2 against that stacking approach? I think I should be, since I had the floor and it was taken away from me, I think I should have the ability to respond to the comments that were made. I understand that. Do you mind doing that with awareness of how we've got other issues just as instinctively as you might? Yeah, and I wanna talk about those, but this is a critical issue. I really will resist the commission trying to close down discussion of it. Well, as chair, let me just, my request is just to have awareness around this topic and many others in the next. Okay, well, then let me finish my point. I was willing to give up the floor to let other people respond to it, but one of the problems I have with the staff report and one of the problems I have with the commissioner Conway's statements is that they're conclusory. We have no evidence that it's, everybody else in the state has done it, has stopped doing it. We have no evidence on the economic impact of requiring the 18 units as opposed to 10 units. We have a special housing market here with an extreme demand for housing. I think the point that commissioner Greenberg made about how getting more market rate housing increases the need for affordable housing and somebody else in the public said that. I think that's those are telling points. So I understand the votes are in here, but I think it's important to get on the record that there are other legal opinions about the possibility one that it would be upheld, two that we have no economic information to the contrary that it couldn't work here. I wanna make one other issue because the second part of it has to do with the Coastal Commission and the Coastal Act. And again, commissioner Conway pointed me to a case and there is a section of the density bonus law that says nothing in this section shall be construed to supersede in any way, alter or lessen the effect of the application of the Coastal Act. The Coastal Act includes as affects the city's local coastal program. All local coastal program is approved under the Coastal Act. It includes our housing element which includes a 15% affordability requirement. Let me read from the case. This seems to be the case in point, Camel Gardens versus LA. The Coastal Act seems to strike a balance pose between the policies of affordable housing and coastal protection stating only that it is quote, important to encourage the protection of existing and the provision of new affordable housing. Again, I know I'm not gonna get agreement here in terms of a majority, but I think it's important to recognize that there is a case that can be made that the Coastal Act will trump, if I can use that word, the density bonus law provision that you can't keep them additive. So I'll move on. I don't wanna, you know, I'm hearing that you're concerned about time. Let me make my concerns about the secret analysis. I've been concerned about the process that the staff report provides in doing that analysis. I don't disagree that it's possible to use the general plan EIR for analyzing the impacts of this project. And I appreciate that there's a lot of studies, technical studies that were done and that the initial study provides useful information and relevant information. But I do object to the staff reports and initial studies use of cross-referencing to the general plan EIR for justifying why how general plan policies apply. I think those policies should be a part of the initial study so that the public has easy access to it and decision makers has easy access to it. I think it's totally legitimate to use that, but I think just simply saying it, or just saying where it is and you have to go track down 25 things is not consistent with what CEQA requires. I raised that point and I think staff responded that they could provide that. I think that would be helpful. Is that documentation? Yeah, it's sort of documentation of what's there. The other issue is this notion of using the general plan zoning ordinance and university-applied standards. I'm not quite, any provision or policy in the zoning ordinance could be, or the general plan could be considered a uniformly-applied standard. And it may well make sense, but again, they should be enumerated, not just say, which is it says in the staff report and parts of the initial study, if I remember correctly, that the general plan, zoning ordinance and uniformly-applied standards show that in all these impact areas, there will be a less insignificant impact. That may be true, but they should be listed. We should see what standards they're saying. The city wants to use to justify that there aren't gonna be any significant impacts because that's what it comes down to. The city is ultimately making a finding, staff is recommending making a finding that there are no significant impacts from this project based on the general plan EIR and the general plan zoning ordinance and uniformly-applied standards to the impacts peculiar to the property. And I'm not saying that that isn't the case, but that information should be provided to the public and to the commission or to the council if this is moved on to the council. So finally, I think there are issues that have not been studied in the initial study that are peculiar to the property, where there are general plan standards that uniform standards that may or may not apply and where there is the potential of a significant impact. I think a noise study is important to simply say that the sound wall will reduce the impact to a less than significant issue with no evidence is insufficient to say that the vibration will not be a significant impact when the applicant is already saying he'll redo the houses if they start to fall down is not sufficient. And I also, despite the comments from the Assistant Public Works Director, I think some specific analysis of the impact of traffic on the highway on Bay and California Avenue as a result of this needs to be looked at. And I'm not saying that the impacts are going to be significant. I happen to think contrary to much of the testimony that we received, but that putting around about at Bay and West Cliff is gonna improve the traffic over what it is now. Will there be days that there'll be gridlock as there is now? Yes, but is the given this improvement will the traffic from the, should the traffic from the project be considered a significant impact on Bay and West Cliff? I don't think so. I think that that I think there's sufficient evidence the substantial evidence in the traffic study that that won't be the case. I'm not as convinced up on California. So from the environmental consultant did indicate that possible to look at some of the, take another look at the vibration impacts, take another look at the noise impacts of the project, having the road running right adjacent to these residences to just say that there's not gonna be a noise impact. Just is not sufficient undersecret as far as I'm concerned. So I would hope that the commission would, if the majority wants to approve this project, or recommend approval of this project, that there would be the addition that the, that the additional environmental information be provided to really justify the finding that there's not a substantial impact and an EIR doesn't be, shouldn't need to be done because I don't think that evidence is there right now. I'm not sure I would agree with the testimony that there has to be an EIR. Okay. Commissioner Silvernaut, I really need to interrupt you just, just thinking about five of us and the amount of time. Okay. Well, I'm willing to go beyond it. I think we need to discuss, this is a critical project. And I, I'm just gonna ask you to just think about their five of us, their five of us. So just share the floor. I mean, you asked me who wanted to go first. Nobody raised their hand except me. I'm interrupting, okay. I'm interrupting you just so we can make some. I'm almost done. I mean, I'm essentially done. I was just making a recommendation to the commission that the additional environmental information as I've outlined be provided. Mr. Conway. So I do think it's important to need deliberation and having set a 45 minute time limit and taking two thirds of it, which is, I do, I'm not saying I don't value all of your thoughts, but I would like to make a move that we extend the time if we have to do a date certain and we can't just stop talking when we're done. Could we extend the time? I don't think we all probably need a half hour, but if we did, we would need another hour. Could we extend this meeting until 1230 if we need it? I would make that motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Time is certain of 1230. Thank you. I hope it's not that long, but just to take the pressure off. Thank you. And I still want us to share the floor. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah, so I'm gonna start my comments as I start most of my comments. This is not an insignificant project. This is a very significant project that has potential impact for a very large area. And I'm a bit concerned and know we're working on our ordinance to improve the level of documentation of projects, but I'm a little disappointed, let's say, that the quality of representation is not where I would have hoped it would be in the age of computer renderings and computer documentation. The fact that we have no massing studies that would clear up all of these questions about roof terraces and roof stair elements and shadow studies is a little disheartening. The fact that all we have are squiggly line renderings of the perspectives. That's gonna be my ramble. This isn't a take to the applicant. This is something, an ongoing discussion we're having with the city and we're very close to addressing our standards that are communicated to folks who are submitting projects. But I think there could have been a lot of simple ways to communicate some pretty complicated things that are going on with this project and been much simpler for people to really understand what's being proposed. Because I think there are, there's a lot of moves being done in the articulation of this building that I think are positives that aren't easily seen or communicated. And I think that's an opportunity missed, let's call it, for this project. So, yes, this project is going to have significant impacts to the neighborhood. We can't deny that. Most importantly to Clearview Court on the West and the North sides of this. I think we need to be as sensitive as we can be. Putting the fire lane where it is certainly helps on a gross scale, that impact. I think I've request to go to eight feet on the sound wall if that is something that helps the acoustic quality of that condition should be something that we condition for this project. The, just to clarify, I believe eight foot is what's being proposed, I believe. It is eight foot, it's not a six foot wall. Okay, so if we can clarify that, I saw it written as a six foot anyway. So, essentially elevation drawings that are hand drawn for a project of this scale and complexity leaves, in my opinion, a lot to be desired. I do want to get into some minute details too. If we look at the elevation and the floor plans facing Bay, right? I don't know if you can call that up quickly, Ryan. But something's bugging me with the perspective renderings that are shown. We look at the rendering, that rendering, right? That shows the third floor and fourth floor for that matter essentially step back from the second floor along that elevation. And if you look at the floor plans, the third floor is the only floor that has balconies essentially projecting beyond the 15 foot setback line, which does not jive with that drawing. So I'm confused of what's really happening there, right? If you want to flip to those floor plans quickly, there you go. So you see the red dashed line that's representing the setback line around the project. At the third floor, all of those decks, plus or minus a couple of them, are projecting beyond that line. And that is not represented in those renderings. Either the line is wrong or how those balconies are drawn is not correct in those renderings. So I don't know what I want to say about that. Are the projections allowed? So the deck projections in that? Okay. So I mean, I think that's one of the successful components of that rendering is that as you come down bay towards West Cliff, right? You see the building, the building isn't top heavy and can only bring out over. It's actually stepping back and following the sight lines and actually opening up as you go down. So I don't know where the error is, but there's an error there somewhere. And I would encourage the correction to be in the favor of stepping back at those levels as opposed to creating more impact along that street edge. So then other potential impacts to Clearview Court. I think I'm in favor of the roof balconies. I think we need to take advantage more of our roof conditions. But I think having glass balconies that face onto Clearview Court are a potential sort of nuisance type of impact. If those were not glass and they were opaque railings that gave privacy to the single story residences below, I think that would be a nice gesture there. I also think requiring some sort of a traffic management plan on site for this project to minimize the amount of car movement through the fire lane would be an important component. If we can avoid circulating the building essentially and having cars continually as close as possible to the Clearview Court, and if we can avoid that with simply encouraging the residences, for example, to come off of bay, clearly know that they should be turning in immediately and going down to their residential level or utilizing that surface parking that's underneath the building, I think that should be encouraged. And the same goes for the dream in parking. The more we could avoid just unnecessary movement on that property, I think would be important. And I don't know the answers to it. Maybe that can be addressed in our noise study if that's gonna be done for the sound wall. If it's a non-issue, then maybe it's not that big of a deal. I think also guaranteeing that their Wi-Fi access is provided should be a condition that's been talked about. It's sort of been approved. I guess the imposition of the project eliminates what they currently have, so that if we should be able to guarantee that they have the Wi-Fi access when this project is said and done, if it is approved. And I also think permit parking. I know it has to be a coastal commission thing, but I think whatever we can do to encourage allowing the permit parking in the adjacent neighborhoods, we should do that. So back to the site plan. I think it's gonna be a welcoming addition to the experience of West Cliff and coming to and from that thoroughfare that wraps the edge of our town. Having open space and public space with people engaging and utilizing that, I think is a positive scenario. I struggled initially with the location of that plaza because I think it's not gonna have enough sunlight most of the year. It's essentially an east-facing outdoor plaza that has a 50-some-odd foot wall around it aside from summertime that's really not gonna get much light penetration into that space. I don't know if there's the possibility to encourage more of that with the way the courtyards are laid out, but that's something that, there's a trade-off there, obviously. I mean, it's the right location for presentation to West Cliff Drive, to the hotel, to people coming up that way. On some levels, I think that I've sort of reconciled myself that that's an okay situation. I think the organization of the courtyards in back that essentially break this building up into three buildings from the Clearview Court side, from the West-facing side, or another positive effect, you're essentially looking at the single-story element with three narrower buildings that have the most imposing character over that development. So I think as opposed to Bay, which is a long line of a building, the impact of the neighbors next door, it's a similar condition, it's a very urban condition, and I think the articulation on Clearview is more sensitively done this way. So I'm encouraged by that nod there. So those were the parts that I think we want to be sensitive to Clearview Court. I'm in generally, I'm obviously in support of the project from a housing standpoint. I think we need to be very serious about how we address this. I do have some concern about high-end, top-heavy housing. This is an 89-unit project. It's not a three or 400-unit project, and we're getting eight good-quality low-income units. So that's the way I have sort of rationalized my support for this project. We need to have housing in every neighborhood. West Side is not immune from having housing, and I think a surface parking lot is certainly an underutilized condition here, and I'm in support of this project. Commissioner Greenberg. So thanks everyone for your comments. Yeah, and I would just echo that we need housing in Santa Cruz, in all kinds of neighborhoods, and we need to, I think, in some ways address the underutilization of parking lot spaces. Similarly, in the Upper West Side, in areas that have been dominated by single-family homes, I think that's really one of the things that's produced a lot of the situation that we're in, is the underutilization of the space that we have for housing, and the lack of multi-family housing in particular. So I was very supportive of that use for this space. Similarly, the public space, and the kind of careful and creative ideas surrounding the public space, I recognize that there are questions around access and this intersection and so forth, which hopefully there can be further discussion of in terms of particularly pedestrian and bike traffic, which others know more than I do about, but clearly I hear the concern that many people voiced, and I think it's a real one, that also was brought to us with the rail trail proposal, which will also be kind of happening simultaneously with this. And so hopefully that can be part of a larger kind of regional transportation alternatives conversation around this increased use of this intersection and corner. I would say I also support the economic development aspect of this. Again, the fact that the Dream Inn is the one, I mean, in Santa Cruz the only, and probably in our region, more widely unionized hotel, it's the one that I should say, like my department at UC Santa Cruz only ever uses because of that, many conferences that come to town wanna have a unionized hotel go there. The idea that there would be additional space for conferences across the street is a really welcome one and would really, I think, contribute to ongoing already existing kind of activities and really beneficial kind of economic development impact. I think that the fact that workers at the hotel, potentially at different levels and from service level workers, but maybe higher income also could potentially have access to units across the street if that was thought through would be amazing. Similarly, I think the point was made to the Pebble Beach Community Project, I think is something that would make this, for me, so much more exciting actually. I mean, I think the idea that that was really kind of intentional is both, again, something that would so much benefit our community on a social side as well as an environmental side. I mean, immediate environmental impact of having people be able to walk across the street to work. And so those are things that attract me about the project, the potential of the project in that regard and the kind of, if you want, precedent that other employers should be thinking along these lines as well in terms of workforce housing and something that I think is an ongoing conversation in our community. So at the same time, I am as somebody who, trying to look at these laws surrounding the density, bonus ordinance with the inclusionary ordinance, think then the kind of lack to me in reading the materials of clarity on this issue. It strikes me that this might be a precedent-setting situation in and of itself, that we haven't had in this community a situation in which we've added, is that fair to say, in the city of Santa Cruz, an inclusionary ordinance providing development that's doing the inclusionary alongside of a density bonus? Has that happened? So for many years, when the policies were to layer it on top, we got exactly zero projects. That happened across the state and that is a lot of why these, that's part of the underlying argument against doing it. But we did get projects that just did the inclusionary. Of course we got projects that did inclusionary, but adding the density bonus to that, because remember the density, I mean, I think we've settled this issue, we may not need to talk about it anymore tonight, but on a theoretical basis, I understand it's compelling, but it ended up being, it conflicted, it didn't produce more housing. The purpose of the density bonus law and the fact that this, that jurisdictions don't have a choice, but to apply it is in order to create more housing. And so that's contrary to what you were doing. So no, we didn't get any because it did not make projects more feasible. The purpose of the density bonus law is to get affordable housing while allowing additional units, making projects more feasible. If those additional units make it harder to build, which is essentially why it fell, then you're not accomplishing that. You're not providing a tool to developers to add units and make projects more feasible to build at greater densities. Yeah, I think that the concern I have and others in reading criticism of this have is in the literature is that there's a feeling and it, one of the people in the audience mentioned, and the public mentioned this kind of insufficient tools, obviously we only have, we have very few tools for producing affordable housing and we're depending on developers often, but one of the concerns is that the need for these additional incentives when this is an incredibly lucrative market and they're already going to be having, 85% of their housing if they were to be doing the base at this high end, that they would need an additional 30, this additional number for the density bonus to locate in one of the most desirable spots to develop housing in the country, in this town which has the greatest affordability crisis arguably in California. It's just, it's hard for me to understand why we need to be giving that additional incentive, A, and B, not consider the impact of building this additional number of unaffordable units, which one can also do, and in addition to an environmental impact statement, one could do a kind of, as happens in some communities, a social impact statement of having increased density of luxury development. And this is, in the field it's a enormous debate obviously and there are some people who believe that there's filtering when you build at any level but ultimately it's going to filter down to become affordable over time and then others have found that that doesn't actually happen. Points were made about the impact in terms of the need for additional workforce to serve higher end residents. I think the point could also be made that so many of these residents are going to be commuting longer and longer distances because the lack of jobs in this area for people who can afford those kinds of units. So why we would want that increased density of unaffordable units is unclear to me. Absent and some kind of concession of the need for increased affordability. So the idea that we would similarly ask for, I think that Commissioner Schifrin was talking about 18 as opposed to 10 affordable units seems completely sensible to me and would be a real I think in so far as the appellate court made this decision in Napa, it could be I think a real beacon to the state that for many communities that are perhaps not as in such dire straits as we are but in equally dealing with housing crises across the state that this is something that could be duplicated. Would I think be perfectly in line with the kind of model of sustainability that Santa Cruz seeks to establish? We seek to establish ourselves as a model of economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and sustainability in terms of equity and understand the interaction of those things. And I think doing a project of this kind if we do it at this maximum level that asks for increased affordability would be incontinent with that and I would totally embrace that. So I wanna put that out there. Mr. Conway, do you wanna respond to that? No, are you done? I mean, it's open for conversation. I think it's, you know. I think we already decided we don't have three, you don't, there's not three. People don't have any response to that. I'll say it's compelling, I think it's inspiring to refer to it as a beacon and maybe we get new case law. And that's what I hear you saying is you've got new case law and people are like, wow, those people are hurting for housing and they could have killed the project, but they did that and that's a big deal. It could kill a project. And again, I just didn't wanna play amateur lawyer. I kinda wanna trust the city attorneys take on that, how offering that case law and that it should guide us. That's the other caution I have about it, even though it is a compelling case you make. I have a point about the use of the units that maybe might be on a similar thread, which is, a lot of people have expressed it. You know, one of the things that's upsetting about building units is that they remain empty. And I feel like if we really wanted to make a case, we can't compel owner occupancy. I've never been able to hear anything. I wish we could compel owner occupancy of these units or just occupancy, frankly. Let's just start with the number, we have a housing crisis and there's a tremendous number of vacant units on any given night in this community. So the solution for that, if we wanted to get to work on, I don't wanna call it chaotic because I actually think we should do this, but not as a planning commission. But would be to allow mortgage interest deduction only on one home. So rather than people having second, third, and fourth homes in our beautiful communities that stand empty most of the year, they get a mortgage deduction for that, which basically means that it's a subsidy. So to me, it is infuriating that we are subsidizing second, third, and fourth homes. So not a matter of the commission, but I'm just putting it out there because I think, yes. I mean, clearly there's, it's this very holistic approach that would have to be taken. I completely agree with that. Yeah. I'd like to make some comments. Also, I mean, do we wanna talk further about the layering, the density bonus and inclusionary? Any other responses to commissioner Greenberg's? I just make one comment. My first reaction to looking at this project was we only have 89 units, right? And two plus acres. You look at the size of the units, it's an average of 1300 plus square feet per unit. A little bit disappointing on some level, right? Could we get more and by design more affordable units? But I think that's a different discussion. So again, I really appreciate the fundamental values of social equity and the role that development plays in our community in delivering social equity. And this project isn't probably a bad example for that. This is a change. There's no doubt about it. And change is hard as one of the speakers addressed. I think it's a beautiful project. I appreciate the efforts that have been made to be responsive to what the community feels comfortable with. And I see that there were a lot of efforts made. And I think there's a lot of balancing going on with this. I don't feel like the CEQA argument is compelling. I feel like there was a thorough environmental review done. And I feel like it meets the test. The city feels comfortable with it meeting that it would stand up. I do see your point about that it is easier to not have to flip back and forth between documents. And I think that that's a good point. But I don't feel like there's additional study needed on a CEQA basis. Although I really like the idea of a traffic management plan. And I could support additional noise study to have a good understanding of what's happening with the residents of Clearview Court. So I guess that I would support that. See if there was anything else. I appreciated a lot of the things that are being done by the project undergrounding the utilities was one of the things that I had to write up. I can't believe we don't do that more. I know why we don't, it's expensive. I also think it hasn't been focused on that much but the need for streamlining approvals is mandated by the state in order to get projects approved. There's a reason for that the state is making it harder for communities to say no to projects as long as they meet certain standards. More objective standards. There's, we can't, it's harder for communities to bog down projects with additional environmental review that isn't furthering it. It's adding cost and complexity. And to the extent that it's used to prevent the development that we've been preventing for all these years that's part of how we got here. I actually think that streamlining is a good thing. I think it is incumbent on the cities as we write it up though to make it easier to understand for people who are, seek was complicated. It's really hard to understand and to make it as easy as possible to read. So I guess with that, I'm ready to make a motion. You wanna say something? I wanna say a couple of things that you know what, you can make a motion and there will be discussion under your motion. Okay, I will move that the planning commission acknowledge the environmental determination and recommend that the city council approve the coastal permit, design permit, special use permit, density bonus request to exceed height, encroachment permit for street and intersection improvements, and tentative map based on the findings listed below and the attached conditions of approval in exhibit A. Second. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. So this is no discussion. I wanna share a couple of things that I'm not gonna repeat what, try not to repeat what some of you have said, but I'd like to talk a little bit about trees. I really would like to keep mature trees. I really wanna do that. It's about aesthetics and carbon sequestration and air quality and slowing stormwater runoff, which is about water quality. They're just special. They should be spared and saved and moved even at considerable cost. I was at the site today and the city arborist was there, Leslie Keady was there and she was talking, she was pointing out to me the compromised health of some of the mature trees there. And given that, the low likelihood that they would survive a move. So she was talking about $150,000 to $200,000 to move two big redwoods. And to think about that cost and relative to the likelihood that they would survive was dampened by enthusiasm for keeping them. She also pointed out that what we could do was expand the size of the required. We got a two to one ratio for requirement of tree, for replacement of trees and we could expand. We could go up to 48 inches on the containers, 36 to 48 inches. And she said that would actually that those trees have more, if you're thinking mid and longterm mature trees on this site, that approach has more a likelihood of success of having that on the site. So that was compelling to me to hear her informed opinion of that. I actually liked the idea of a noise study and on-site traffic management plan. The geotechnical, I just wanted to say that the lay person, both my lay person brain and the scientist in me questioned him so deeply right next to the cliff, but I trust Gary Griggs. I know him and I know his credentials and his track record and his opinion was an expert review of a licensed engineer. So it's a review of a review. And that sells me even though I had my own questions. So I'm scratching my head all about that initially. With regard to the EIR, I get it that this project seems to warrant a full EIR. I really get those comments from the public really resonate with me. They really do. And I understand the dislike of the term tiering and the dislike of the whole notion of streamlining, like just go fast and do, just ignore EIRs. But it's really telling to me to hear Stephanie Striello say that 90 and maybe 95% of the issues that would have been addressed in an EIR were addressed here. And we can add some that weren't addressed, but I would not favor doing a full EIR to do the full EIR. I appreciate some of Commissioner Schifrin's comments about documentation and process. And I substantively, I think much of the work had been done. I know it's the city as the agency to require the EIR, but that's why I'd asked the applicant because they've done so much of this work. I was curious if they hadn't wouldn't have just elected to do that, but it's more cost and money. So of course they wouldn't wish elect to. I wish it was done because then that would be a non-issue and it'd be five or 10% more work. Looking at the mapping showing the use is allowed for this site, it's, I mean, it's so confusing. The motel residential performance overlay and the coastal zone overlay and the short line protection overlay is tricky. And once I wade through that, I look at that simple map that says it's mostly like hotel commercial right next to residential. So it's in transition. And I think this is kind of a hybrid approach. Like looking at the floor plan or the types of use that's gonna happen in here, the residential, the retail, the restaurant, the hotel, adding up all the square footage of each of those and then dividing it by the total, this is an 88% residential project. And that was illuminating to me to view it that way. 88% residential and it's gonna feel commercial. It is gonna have an impact. It's mostly residential and we need housing. I like the approach and philosophy of getting more affordable housing included. And I think that in practice, the tools that we have don't let us implement that philosophy, I don't believe in this case. So that's why I'm not in favor of the stacking. Well, property, yeah, property owners have rights and this is close, it's close to by right. So I am in favor of the project as well. I'd like to propose some amendments to the motion on the floor. My hope will be acceptable, so my no won't. But I think your concern about trees is one that I've been thinking about as well. And I wonder if you'd be, if the maker of the motion, the second would be accept the following change to condition number 46, which has to do with the disturbance of trees. And it would be an added sentence that would say, prior to removing any heritage tree, the applicant shall contact a qualified tree mover acceptable to the city to determine if the relocation of the tree is feasible. Do we want any more information on feasible or are we gonna leave it up to them? And where do you care where it goes? Well, city staff would have to approve it. I mean, this would just, and then feasibility is, will it survive and how much will it cost? Those are legitimate feasibility concerns. I wanna just have it looked at because there are disagreements between experts as we know and the arborist might say, you can't do it, somebody else would say, there's no problem doing it. So it's acceptable to the maker and the second I suggest that. How many trees are we talking about? Are you wanna put a limit on it? Because I mean, if we're talking about the kind of cost here, you know, again, we don't wanna render a project infeasible. Well, that's why there's still feasibility language that would have to be feasible. And I know that from one of the testimony one testimony we received with the photos, there were these two very, very large trees that I do think have real scenic value. But again, I think I wanna just leave it open. If you wanna put a cap on it, you know. 17 of the 55 are heritage. Do you wanna? How many of those are gonna be, some of them are gonna be saved, right? Not all of them are gonna be. Six, six, five, six. So you've got 11 heritage trees to be considered. Right. You wanna cap on it then, or? You know, I have to say, I trust that the city staff in coming up with a viable site plan, I know the priority that we place on trees. And I really believe that the staff took every effort they could to have a site plan that it was planned around. The idea that some of them could be viably moved. You know, again, I don't know how to say how much money that we add to a development. Where does it tip? Does it tip at 300,000 more, at 600,000 more? I don't know how to make that assessment. And so I don't know how to judge doing that. If, so I would agree to the language if it was pretty soft. So in other words, if we wanted to tighten up the language of the condition that says that there will be an analysis to potentially moving some trees, if it doesn't make the project less feasible, and if they truly have a chance to survive. I mean, we're replacing the trees is an adequate mitigation in my mind. Are you saying that the motion, the condition offered is kind of already been done? Are you rejecting it? Okay, well, then I'll see how where our chair is coming from on this. I'd make the motion that we add to the motion on the floor. We amend the motion on the floor to include the following language to... You make sure to use your mic, Andy. Your mic. I'm sorry, we amend the motion on the floor to include the following language in condition number 46 prior to removing any heritage tree. The applicant shall contact a qualified tree remover acceptable to the city to determine if the relocation of the tree is feasible and will not affect the feasibility of the project. And as a maker of the motion, I would accept that language. Okay, great. All right. You don't care. Sure. So procedurally, you don't have a second. Your amendment is not needed. You don't need a second. It's still... No, no, no. Well, I actually was able to come up with some language you like. I don't have to make it a step as much. I would move that the motion be amended to include the following direction on the sequel analysis and that when this project goes before the city council, there'll be documentation and explication of the general plan, EIR policies that apply, that the specific uses of the uniform standards of development be made clear, that a noise study be done that includes consideration of vibration impacts of the excavation on the adjacent. Can I just take that one apart before I accept that as a motion? Because I think that these are two different amendments. One of them, I believe what you're asking is that prior to the project going to the council, the staff report will be rewritten in order to incorporate the language that's referred to from the general plan EIR. Is that manageable? Yeah. So I'm okay with that one. Yes. Okay. And then the next one. Was that similarly the situations, the impact areas where the initial study is based on the conclusions of the initial study are based on the general plan zoning ordinance and uniform standards of the development be made explicit. So it's clear when and what standards are being used in making the determination that the environmental impacts, the potential impacts are less than significant. This is still the documentation effort, right? Totally document. I mean, I don't, okay. Then, Sure. Yep. Yep. Then the next part was that at the time that the project goes before the city council, the results of a noise study be presented in terms of the noise, the potential noise impacts on the adjacent residents and the any mitigations that might be necessary and that the noise study would include a review or an analysis of the possible vibration impact. So I'm concerned about that one. And is Stephanie still here or did you? No. So I am concerned about this requirement. I don't know that we can require it or that we should require it. And I'm concerned that it may delay the project. So I'd like to have some more feedback on that. I mean, it's more than, first of all, it's not that easy to line up a noise study and get it delivered. And what's been done, specifically what would we get out of an additional noise study than what we've already gotten. It's not clear to me that we would get more. Does anybody have any information about that? Well, I think Stephanie's firm has an acoustic consultant in-house and she has in response to some of these comments that were made has had some preliminary conversations with that individual regarding the analysis. And so I think that's something that's feasible to do. I'll also say with respect to the environmental document, it's my intent to not only take the SQL related comments that were made here this evening, but those that were also put in writing and have a formal response to them much like we would do in an EIR for the city council. So that's something that staff intends on doing. There was a conversation. Are you clear with the amendments we're making though? Yeah, I thought you were puzzled, but yeah. And then you- No, we were just confirming. I think some of the uniformly applied development standards, they're in there, trees. The city's heritage tree removal ordinance is discussed. I don't know how much work that's really gonna be for us, but we can look at it. All right, and so my concern about, I didn't wanna be adding a study that was going to cause a delay or a bunch of expense or be something that wouldn't get us where the intent is, which is to get more information to the neighbors and to make it more clearly accessible about what the noise impacts are gonna be on the near neighbors. So if that's good, I'm good. So you're receiving, you're accepting? I am accepting. And vice chair Spelman? Yes. Well, just let me add that my concern goes beyond the ones you've just mentioned. I do agree that they're legitimate concerns, but I think it's important that in terms of making what the staff recommendation that the streamlined CEQA process meets the requirements of the law, it requires that the impacts peculiar to the property be analyzed. And the noise impacts on the adjacent mobile home park is a potential impact of the project as is the potential vibration impacts. And the only noise study that was done according to the staff report was on Bay and West Cliff. And so I think in order to be able to provide substantial evidence that there's not a need for an EIR, the noise potential noise impacts have to be looked at. And what I heard from Shreelo is that that was not a big deal. They have a noise consultant, they can do it. Doesn't take that long to go out there and take some measurements and make some, as I remember noise studies can be done relatively rapidly. So I don't think it's a big problem. And it sounds like that's what staff believes. Yeah, we're confident based on our conversations with Stephanie that that can be done. And the conclusion will be the same on the environmental document. Okay. I think we accept that. That's accepted. Okay, I would ask the maker of the motion if they would be willing to accept that the railings be opaque. I think that was something that Commissioner Spellman raised in terms of firing that. And that was opaque on the Clearwater Court side. I think any of the front down to Clearview Court. I'm sorry. Yep. Get in late. That's been accepted. I would ask the maker of the motion to include a requirement that a traffic management and internal traffic management study plan be a part of the development and that there'd be a guarantee of Wi-Fi access to the adjacent residents. Let's take them one at a time. Oh, if you prefer, I was trying to streamline on private. Yeah. I support the having a traffic management plan. Yes. Okay. What about requiring guarantee Wi-Fi access to the adjacent development? So about that, I'm not sure what you mean. Well, I'll ask Commissioner Spellman It was a concern of the residents. Apparently they have existing access that this project will block. So I heard that differently. And I may have misunderstood the comment because I mean, I understand that there's going to be some sort of one of those cruise IO things. I probably don't understand this real well. I mean, I agree that the residents of the mobile home park should have the same access to internet at a similar cost that they experienced now. That I do support that. Yeah, I think that's reasonable. So maybe the way to word it is that the project would assure that availability of Wi-Fi access as a result of the project. Then again, to follow up on one of your concerns. I heard your preference was that the decks on the project along Bay Street should be set back and not within the setback area. I make that as a... I guess I am concerned on that one. I definitely understood the point about sometimes renderings aren't, because these things happen over such a long time and consistency is important. I'm concerned about adding a condition right now that because I don't understand what the consistency is and I don't want it to make an unintended and uninformed change to a site plan. What I really support is what Commissioner Spellman spoke about earlier, which is to have to review it and make sure that it's consistent. And but I'm not willing to require a step back that I don't understand the impact of. Well, what do you mean by consistent with what? Consistent with the... Well, the zoning code. There was a substantive concern, as I heard what you said, which is that it would not be desirable to have the balconies in the setback area. And either the renderings or the view showed them in the setback area and the other didn't. We didn't want them in the setback area, which kind of made sense to me. So since this is a time for the Commission to give their design recommendations, I would support that recommendation. And it needs to be, you know, if it's going to be meaningful, it needs to be a condition. If to just say we open that way, that just says they can do whatever they want. Mr. Conway, do you want to ask the applicant? I think the applicant had a point he wanted to make. Could I ask you to come to the microphone so we can all hear it? And if you could clarify my lack of clarity. I think we might be able to offer a clarification because, and our architect here, and he can speak to this in more detail. The top floor does setback. That deck is a different setback line for the second floor versus the third floor. If you can flip to the third floor plan, that setback is measured there. There's a, oh, it's actually on the full application, you can see the distance from the street here, just the way the slide's cropped, you can't see the distance. I could show you just a conceptual diagram in our study, but the set, but if you, but there on the set, on the third floor, the setback is about 12 feet from the street, or maybe it's 15 feet from the street, but if you go to the level two, see the setback gets closer to the property line. The third floor actually is setback from the second floor, the way the rendering shows, because the setback line moves, because the way the setback is calculated, it's a different setback for each different height. There's a base setback, and then the setback steps back further as the building gets taller, much like Commissioner Schifrin was expressing like the ordinance should. Yeah, that's it. Because the setback requirement is one foot for every three feet of height. So basically, first floor as you go up, it goes back. A shorter setback than the second, third, fourth. So it does that already and the materials aren't clear, and so what we're asking for is clarity about the presentation. Yeah, so the red line indicating the setback is different on each level, because the setback's different for each level. Do you feel that there needs to be a amendment to the motion, or are you sort of satisfied? No, maybe it's just a note on the floor plans that are showing, dimensioning that and being clear about that. So if somebody looking at it can make that assumption easily. Yeah, that's fine. And then I would request that the maker of the motion and second approve a change saying that the third and fourth story setbacks adjacent to Mobile Home Park be 15 feet from the second floor as required by the beach in south of Laurel area plan unless the applicant requests and is granted density bonus incentive. So, again, last minute changes to design that haven't been considered are concerning to me because I feel like we don't, I don't think we should be taking steps that we don't understand what the impact is. I think that the reason you're asking for that is you wanted to clearly, you really wanna change the way our code is written and clarify it, but you're seeing that there's a path for approval as designed. I don't wanna redesign the building at 1230, 1225. Right, well that was, when we discussed it, that was what you suggested it sounded like that could be done. Yeah, my problem with it, my problem with doing it at the last minute, I do think it's a good point. I am not crazy about it as a condition or a recommended condition because it hasn't been analyzed and I would rather it would be a, if we're gonna do something like that, it would be a recommendation to analyze it and to ask the staff to take a look at it. Is it needed? Is there a way to meet this objective? But recommending it as a condition is something that could really kind of fundamentally change the geometry of the building that I'm concerned about. Well, I mean, my sense is from what I heard, the staff has gone around and around and they ended up with an interpretation that I don't agree with in terms of that, in fact, you don't need to set back on the third and fourth floor because everything's set back 15 feet. And I don't think that's the intention of the Beach and South of Laurel plan. And my sense is if you don't do something, if you don't take an action to do something, it never gets done. I'm reminded of Commissioner Spellman's attempt to change the application requirements to get the information that you want until the commission directed a committee to be set up to change it, the workers staff to change the requirements. All you got to do was complain every time they didn't do what you wanted them to do. And my sense is if we don't make it clear that for the Beach and South of Laurel area plan to be meaningful, we need to have a make that to state that then that's fine. And as that, then we need to do it. And my sense is because this is a density bonus project, then that's going to be, that can be taken care of so that the project doesn't have to be redesigned. I also believe that to be true, but I don't know that to be true. And therefore I'd accept it as a recommendation that staff analyze it and bring that information back to the council, but not as a change to a condition. It seemed very different to me. I would support the second statement. I think giving council clarity on how they made the determination of that clause is important because we've all picked up on something doesn't quite make sense, but I don't think it needs to be a condition on it. Because then if it's determined that it's a big deal. That's not a big deal to me in terms of I think it's, you know, I would prefer it otherwise, I don't care. And then I want to, I would make a motion that we amend. I would make a motion to amend the motion on the floor that the project require 10 units of inclusionary, 10 units of inclusionary, 10 inclusionary units and eight density bonus units. I won't accept that. I wasn't asking you to. Motion to amend. How does that work? Well, I can make a motion to amend it. We'll vote on the amendment and it kind of forces the. I would second that. Any discussion? I don't want to. Any discussion? Do it all over, have your discussion over again. I just would say in our market, I'm not convinced and we haven't received any evidence that this requirement would not be economically feasible. And I think that the need is great that requiring a higher level of affordability is essential. I agree with that. I trust Julie as a professional in this working on affordable housing every day. Swayed by the, by the approach and the, but I don't support the tactical approach. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. No. Wait, what are we, what are we in favor of now? What are we going to do? The amendment or your second. Oh, layer. Okay. Of this amendment. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? No. No. No. So the motion fails. Do you have other amendments? Yes. I wanted to make an amendment having to do with. Actually, I'm sorry. Commissioner Schifrin, someone needs to get us some more time. That's why I made that motion on the affordable unit. So I couldn't be closed out by nothing able to extend it. I would move that we extend the meeting 1240. 1240. I don't have very many more. And I don't think. What if, what if we do? And we can extend it again. Need a second. A second that all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. So I wanted to make a motion to add to the conditions of approval that the CCNRs be required to prohibit short-term rentals. And any application to allow short-term uses shall be processed as a major modification. Objects permits. This is a motion. Yes. That's a second. We haven't, you're amending. You're doing an amendment. I'm just making another amendment to the motion on the floor. So it's not a motion to amend. It is a motion. It's a motion to amend the motion. And the argument being that. It needs a second before we can discuss that. Oh, right, right, sorry. Or you can ask to declare. Okay. Discussion? So the argument being that if the ordinance were to be changed by a subsequent city council, then we could experience a similar kind of situation as in other cases where. My sense is this is a housing project. The applicant got up and said he wanted it to be a housing project. And then once those units are sold, the applicant has no further control over them except for the CCNRs. Okay, and you did make your point earlier. And I'm cognizant of the time starting to get tired. So I hate vacation rentals. We spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours deliberating it. It's a tough issue. And I don't feel like a sideways nip at it feels fair. I heard the developer, I believe that he wants to provide housing here, but he was kind of put on the spot about how comfortable he is with it. And I don't know that I'm necessarily against asking him to do this, but not on the spot. And it might be something, and I also think that he should have a fair chance to say no, and to just say that, if we don't like the ordinance as it's written, change the ordinance and not necessarily a specific application, maybe I'd be comfortable with that, but I don't feel like there's enough time for it. So I'm against this amendment. My concern is, I mean, my response to that is, we're trying to streamline this process. There are a lot of issues that I think could justify continuing this application for more information. That would be one of the things that we would, I would think would be a legitimate to ask to come back. But we're not doing that. We're trying to move this process along. And this is our one bite of the apple, as it were. And so I think, you know- You made your point. Let me finish. I didn't interrupt you. I don't want you to interrupt me. That's for the chair to do. He does a pretty good job of interrupting me when I'm going on too long. So, I mean, my sense is this is our opportunity to have the project be what it says it's going to be. And I think putting in a condition that requires that the CCNRs not allow short-term rentals in a housing project where there would be a lot of pressure to have short-term rentals because it's right on the beach. And I think it really could undermine the integrity of the project as a housing project. And I don't think future owners of the individual units should be basing their buying of the units on the investing in the units with the notion that they'd be able to rent out their rooms or rent it out and we'll go away at some point if the council decides to loosen things up. So I mean, I think it's, you know, as you say, you have concerns with vacation rentals. This is a way to prevent that from happening in this project. Vice Chair Spellman. Yeah, I mean, I would say if legally we can make that statement, I would support that. I mean, I think the ordinance, the short-term rental ordinance is a separate thing and this project gets to participate in whatever rules have been established by that ordinance. I don't know that we can just, you know, surpass that, but I think it's a great idea. Well, the staff said that that was the way that we would be able to make it a condition that they couldn't be short-term rentals, but we could make it a condition that the CCNR is not involved in short-term rentals because the staff will be approving the CCNRs. That's how I understood what the staff. I support the intention. I think it's clunky. I mean, I've heard you critique piecemeal hacks and I think this is a piecemeal hack. I think to do what you're trying to effect, I think you ought to go back to the short-term rental ordinance. The short-term rental ordinance at this point says you can't do it, but. What are we doing? Well, but that can change. Then it should change for this. It won't change for this. Once this is done, the requirements go with the land. The commission can't decide that, well, oh wait, the ordinance changed. You wanna go back and change your condition for this project. We're not allowed to do that. This is our chance to decide what we want this project to be. If we don't want this project to have to become a vacation rental project, then this is a time to prevent it from happening. And it sounds like the way that we can prevent it from happening by requiring that the CCNRs prohibited. Okay. I'm able to curtail discussion on emotion provided that every commissioner has spoken and they have. Do you have anything instructive to guide us with before we vote? Well, I can just put it in a perspective briefly. The short-term rental ordinance regulates hosted and non-hosted. Non-hosted are not allowed. In fact, those are being phased out. Hosted, there's 250 permits available city-wide. To date, we've issued about 120. So by the time this project gets approved or built, assuming it's approved, I don't even know that there'll be any of these hosted permits available. If they're not available, one gets on a waiting list until it's 249. So I just don't think it's gonna be that big of a issue for this. But that's up to you. Thank you. All in favor of the motion? Aye. Aye. All opposed? No. No. So the motion fails. You wanna continue with your... I'm done. I just follow up on that. I mean, we did change that ordinance a year ago, right? So that the non-hosted's phased out and we capped the number of units. So to say that we can't make adjustments to that ordinance and would affect this project, I don't think that's a correct statement. That's what I'd be in favor of doing. Are there amendments to the motion or discussion? Can I make an amendment to the motion? I don't know. I think so. I think you can. Of course you can. Yeah, so I wanna add a condition that the project is lead gold certified. I second that. I mean, do I need to second it? Are you a friendly amendment thing? Yeah. Okay, so that's in. The gold you mean? Yes. It has to achieve at least a lead gold certification. Did permit parking get included? No. Okay, do we want to? It's a tricky one. I mean, I was thinking that all you could really do is encourage that permit parking be allowed in the, it's really not a part of the project. It really would be a direction to staff to work with the neighborhood to try to expand permit parking in the area. Staff looks intent on chiming in. Well, I mean, that's absolutely correct. And this isn't the first time this has come up. I mean, we've had council members advocating for certain neighborhoods to get these permit parking programs in place in the coastal zone. And we've really run up against the wall with the coastal commission. It's a public access issue. And let's not go there then. Is that? Yeah, it's just, it's a difficult. It can always be applied for and, you know, it's... Let's not shoehorn it in here. Are you in agreement there? Okay, so I think we have a fully baked motion with amendments, right? Any other discussion? Oh, thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? No. No. Okay, so the motion passes by a three to two vote with Vice Chair Spellman and Commissioner Conway and myself in favor and commissioners Schifrin and Greenberg voting against. Thank you all for your participation and endurance on that. I would move that we continue the next item to the next meeting. You... Second. Yeah, there's an issue with that. I think we get through quickly. This is the subcommittee appointment item. Yeah, it's just that we've, you know, we've been treating this as an ad hoc committee. This planning commission committee that attends the community meetings. Sorry, folks, we're gonna try to finish just a couple more minutes of business. So if you're gonna, could you please take your conversations outside and exit quietly? We just got a little bit more work to do. Thank you all. So this involves or relates to the community outreach policy which provides for a planning commission subcommittee to attend meetings on larger projects. We've been treating it as an ad hoc committee based on language and the bylaws. And it's a six month term. The last time we made appointments was end of February. So it's at the end of six months. We've got another project that's ready for a community meeting. And we don't have any business yet scheduled for your meetings in September. So it would be good to have three appointments made. If we reappoint, then we don't need to meet in September. As of today, there's nothing set for September. I can't guarantee that. So what do we need to do to reappoint? We need three members appointed. And we, so some are reappointments. So it was, and there's, yeah, you can reappoint. I mean, the previous three commissioners were Spelman, Nielsen and Singleton. Let me just say that the council at its next meeting is considering the having the subcommittee. Certainly my hope is that they'll disband it. So I think if you use the mic, it's kind of ridiculous to, but I'll just vote no. So you can do what you want. Yeah, I mean, back, I guess it was in March as a commission, you took action to recommend that the council provides some direction on the subcommittee. That's what's happening at their next meeting on the 27th. So to the extent that affects anything we've been doing to date, we'll certainly report back to you on it. But I think for tonight, where we're at right now, we need a three member subcommittee. So if we reappoint the current ones, they'll be in place if they're needed up, depending on what council does, which would supersede whatever. That's right. All right. Well, I would move that we reappoint the existing and as long as providing the council maintains that subcommittee structure. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. So that passes for one with commissioner Schifrin as the dissenting vote. And there are no information items, I don't believe. Are there? Well, I can give you some, but it's pretty late. Make it quick. I'll make it quick. The rail trail appeal was heard by the coastal commission, August 9th and Eureka. They found unanimously no substantial issue. So that project's approved. We are in litigation on it though. So the other thing is the Kaiser Permanente application that you heard at your last meeting, that was called up by a council member. We don't have a date scheduled yet for it, but we're thinking maybe sometime in October. So update on that. Telecom. Would you say which council member called it up? Myer? Yeah. And then the telecom ordinance, the second reading was before the council on Tuesday. They had some further changes that weren't articulated there in the afternoon. So it had to revert to another first reading, which is gonna happen in October. And the changes had to do with intent and purpose. The preamble part of the code. And then also with respect to noticing not only the distance, but the timing. So, and staff's gonna be working with the subcommittee of the council on those changes. So it's back, it'll be back before them in October. So that's all I have. Any subcommittee or advisory body oral reports? Well, we have the meeting on documentation required for submittal. We've met, we've made progress. Staff has done additional work. We're meeting again shortly soon in the next week or so. So hopefully in a meeting or two, we can bring a more substantive update and potential recommendation for updating that. Great. Thank you for that. We're not gonna have any meeting. Thank you. As of right now, we don't have anything scheduled, but we've got applications in the wings. So it could happen. We'll let you know that as soon as we know. Thank you. Thank you. We're adjourned. And violation of our stated.