 to begin with a roll call, please. Supervisor Koenig. Here. Cummings. Here. Hernandez. Present. McPherson. Here. And Friend. Here. We can begin with a moment of silence. Would any Supervisor like to dedicate this moment of silence? Okay, if we could just begin with a moment of silence before the Pledge of Allegiance, please. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation. Good morning, Mr. Palacios. Are there any changes to today's agenda? Yes, Chair Friend and members of the board. There's a couple of changes to the consent agenda. Item number 18, there's additional materials. The revised memo packet pages 258 to 259 are replaced. The analysis paragraph two sentence two should read the initial public release of the new app as anticipated in late September and will include all functionality from the current my Santa Cruz County app with an updated user interface design. Subsequent updates to the new app throughout the pilot period will introduce several of the following blockchain based services. In addition, item number 25 on the consent agenda, staff requests that this item be deleted. This is packet pages 304 through 322 and that concludes the corrections to the agenda. Okay, are there any items that board members would like to pull from the consent agenda to the regular agenda? Chair, I would like to remove item 15, the response to the grand jury reports. Okay, item 15 will become, do you think this will be a brief item? Should I put it at the top of the regular agenda? I think it can go at the top. I don't think it'll take too much time. Okay, it'll become item 6.1, Madam Clerk. Are there any other items we'd like to pull from the consent to the regular agenda? All right, see none. We'll open it up for the community. It's an opportunity for you to address us and items that are not on today's agenda, but within the purview of the Board of Supervisors or within the consent agenda or the regular agenda if you are unable to stay. Good morning. Hi. Welcome back. Thank you. Can you just give me like two seconds to take a deep breath and get kind of centered before you start my time? Yeah. Cause I, you know, I want to be present and calm and, okay, I'm ready to do my talk. So my name is Kirsten Jewel. I am a licensed clinical social worker and our senior mental health client specialist for our county. And I'm here to address the CEO's rebuttal to the grand jury report. I find that many of the responses to the arguments are very weak and omitting many truths. The first one that I would like to address is the argument that this is a nationwide crisis and therefore it, whoa, did it go away? And so to me, that argument seems to be very equivalent to saying that all my neighbors are drunks and abusive and therefore I don't need to get sober and stop hitting my kids. I think that this argument would not be acceptable to the child welfare system. It would not be acceptable to the criminal justice system. And I'm angered that the CEO and some of the BOS has also used that argument and given that argument to our community. I also want to address that the CEO states that we have 288 funded positions in the behavioral health department. Unfortunately, 30% of those were vacant, which is roughly 90 positions. We have a third of the staff doing the work for our entire community. Of those 90 positions, 43 of those positions are licensed mental health or licensed clinical workers. And these are the people that have been trained and educated to serve mental illness in our community. The positions that are being staffed are for community health workers, which is peer support workers and people that do not have a graduate degree that are trained and able to meet the needs of our community mental health needs. I am angered that the argument is leaving out this information. It's leaving out the information that our community is suffering because our behavioral health department is so broken. It is common knowledge that us in the behavioral health department tell our clients, we tell our friends and our families to go elsewhere for psychiatric care. We tell people to go to CHOMP, we tell people to go to Good Samaritan because you will not get the care you need in Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Is there anybody else that'd like to address us? Good morning. Good morning, welcome. Good morning. My name is Maxwell Calcioletz. I'm also a social worker with Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health following up with Kirsten. When the grandeur report came out, it was a rallying cry for us. It was the things that we had been screaming and shouting for years upon deaf ears. It was validation for all of the things that we had been trying to argue when we were negotiating contracts, when we were discussing with our bosses. And most importantly, when we were discussing with our clients explaining to them why we were unable to provide services, the CAO response was a punch to the guts. I understand that their responsibility is to demonstrate that they are doing their job and doing their job well, but to contest all of the major issues and then attempt to slip it into the agenda without there being any more discussion or debate was devastating. I have written a brief rebuttal that I have included that you all have access to, but I'm just one social worker on Google at home on the weekend. I'm not an analyst. When you hire analysts, when you go through the work of crafting a report, crafting a grand jury report, that is the standard that I would hope you go by. These are professionals doing their job and telling you what the problem is. And they were not subtle, understaffed, overworked, underfunded. It was extremely clear and any rebuttal that challenges those key points is madness to me. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else I'd like to address us before we go online? Good morning. Yeah, good morning. My name is James Ewing Whitman. What is it? September 12th, 2023. Wish I had a chance to write this down and be easier to read. I'm kind of not just addressing this county, but all 3,100 counties. According to this information, it seems valid to me, hospitals across the United States have killed COVID-19 inpatients since May of 2020, as witnessed by hundreds on record, testifying that the COVID-19 protocol is murder by numbers. The crime proceeds as follows. One, isolate presumed COVID-19 inpatients and family and friends, so that they are without allies. Two, deny them basic health and hygiene so they fester in their own filth. Three, limit fluids and nutrition to IV so they starve. Four, deny them exercise so they atrophy. Five, administer oxygen at levels that damage their lungs so that they are unable to be removed from hospital equipment. Six, administer remdesivir that inadvertently against the patients and their families wishes damages their kidneys so it causes them to fail and their lungs. Seven, ventilate them against them and patients' families wishes. Eight, medicate and overdose them to levels. So I'm totally questioning the fiduciary trust. I'm standing on this side of this maritime courtroom. There's like six different legal jurisdictions that I could actually talk about if I had some time. My biggest issue with this board is that we cannot pull different items off the consent agenda and talk about them. Further, in the city of Santa Cruz, you can talk for three minutes on all the subjects and a citizen or an individual can pull an item off the consent agenda. The consent agenda item number 18 about the digital wallets. If people really knew what was going on, they'd probably make some changes. So that's enough for now. It's great to see all of you here. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Liam McLaughlin. I'm staff with SCIU 521 represents the county workers. I was just here in support of Max and Kirsten in the Behavioral Health Department. Also wanted to thank Supervisor Koenig and the board for pulling that item and having fully a good discussion just about the work that still needs to be done in the Behavioral Health Department. Our worry and our concern was that the CAO has recommended a response. I kind of suggest that there's nothing more really to be done at this time until the next contract negotiation. We believe that that's pretty much not the case. The workers who came before you today are very urgent. I have a lot of urgency around this issue. So just encouraging you to please not take that line that we can just wait until the next contract to address the dire issues in the Behavioral Health Department. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning and welcome back. Good morning. I'm Tiffany Cantrell Warren. I am the director of the County Behavioral Health Department. And I'd like to use my time today to thank the board for proclaiming that the month of September 2023 is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in our county. And I'd like to read off some information that I think has burdened to anyone listening. The month of September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. And it's a time when we promote awareness of suicide prevention resources and we really encourage people well year round to seek help when they're in crisis. Suicide is a very serious public health problem that causes immeasurable pain, suffering, and loss for individuals, families, and our community. In Santa Cruz, an average of 40 people died by suicide each year from 2018 to 2022. That's a death rate of 14.76 per 100,000 people, which is higher than the state average of 10.7. Suicide is, excuse me, the 10th leading cause of death among Americans and the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 34. The Santa Cruz County Suicide Prevention Plan outlines a path to supporting those who are feeling hopeless and works to raise awareness, provide education, and support services for suicide loss. We work toward reducing and ending suicide deaths and we urge all community members to play a role in prevention and promoting health and wellness. We also want to let people know that 988 has been established as a national suicide prevention and crisis hotline for anyone who is seeking immediate help. And I just wanna say that for those in our community who have lost a friend or a loved one due to suicide, we see you and we grieve with you. And for anyone who is considering suicide or has considered suicide, please, I want you to know that you are irreplaceable and to please call 988 if you are feeling like you need any support or services. We are here for you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome back. Good morning, Becky Steinbrenner. I have had three claims to commit suicide. It's devastating. I want to speak briefly about Consent Item 17, adoption of a resolution so Santa Cruz County Fire Department personnel can participate in and be compensated for mutual aid response. Thank you. It is high time that the volunteers of Santa Cruz County Fire be recognized and compensated as equals in our fire agencies. And they're just as well-trained as those who are full-time paid firefighters and emergency responders and they care about the community and they know their communities. To that end, I want to again ask your board to have an after-action review of the CZU fire with County Fire staff and the volunteers. That has not happened. We're three years past the CZU fire. There was no after-action report by CZU by Cal Fire and the county's only attempt at it was to ask them why not. The county's only after-action review was with the operational administration end. The volunteers of County Fire saved many homes at a time when they were told by Cal Fire to go home. This needs to have an after-action review so we can plan effectively for the next time, something like the CZU fire happens. It's still in the public's eye. I was at Congressman Panetta's town hall meeting at Capitola City Hall talking about FEMA. CZU fire came up. It's not over yet and we have a lot of work to do and it should start with an after-action review with County Fire. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers that would like to address us? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online? Yes, Chair. We have speakers. All in user ending in 8204. Your microphone is now available. All in user 8204. Your microphone is now available. Excellent. Hi, good morning. My name is Diane and I'm calling today to talk about the digital wallet number 18 on the agenda. And I just wanna make people aware of these digital payment apps like my city of Santa Cruz is offering. I think as people are being shuffled towards these form of bill paying, just be aware that they, electronic payments are still hackable. They're still insecure. And in the long run, they really invade our privacy because as we've seen in China with social credit scores and such like that, everything we buy can be tracked and traced. We have no privacy anymore. Even using government entities like the city of Santa Cruz or FedNow, having that intermediary body to have all our payments go through, just really set this up to be cut off from our own finances. So as convenient as it is, I just want people to really think about keeping cash alive and using it and having that cash economy. It really serves a lot of poor people in this county and we really can't afford to let it go. So I say, as we move forward, investigate this stuff more for yourself, learn about why it's important to keep cash alive in the community and we're gonna really need to start recognizing that we're gonna go into harder times to help each other, find your courage and be good citizens towards each other. But do our best, but please educate yourself a little bit further on all these digital apps that are being offered to us now. All right, thank you very much, bye-bye. Rachel Soto, your microphone is now available. Hi, thank you. I would like to underscore the importance of what the previous speaker said about the digital wallet and I wanna express concern that there's a vast discrepancy between the seemingly benign things that are offered like a swim pass and an RV license or something and the possibility that government services generally could be provided in Streamline if you move on to a digital format and government through your cell phone is tyranny, it's absolute tyranny. The most frightening example of this would be the DIA, the digital wallet that the USAID provided to the Ukrainians, one of the most corrupt countries in the world and it's just really something to be concerned about. I would suggest we have a complete moratorium on it. In my remaining minute, I would like to reiterate a suggestion that the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors, Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors convene something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to fully and transparently evaluate what is transpired during the COVID era. A good example here might be Gavin Newsom as you probably all know he was featured on Meet the Press this last Sunday and said that California did almost everything wrong and that he would rethink everything, that the criticisms of the lockdowns are valid. I previously made an appeal directly to Chairman Friend, I'd like to directly appeal to Supervisor Cummings at this point. If I remember correctly, when Supervisor Cummings was mayor of Santa Cruz early in the lockdowns, he suggested that this was going to be policy until we get a vaccine. I'd like to invite Supervisor Cummings to reflect on and to share with the community his decision-making process and his sources of information. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional speakers online? Full and User 1, your microphone is now available. Hey, this is Marilyn Garrett and thanks to the previous speakers for their valuable factual input and regarding COVID-19, I have a brochure here called Miss and Truths About COVID-19 Can Tages Virus or 5G Microwave Technology? There's a lot more to this whole issue than what the Board of Supervisors is revealing. That's why I and others put facts into the record here. You can see this document at wistenaprize.org slash coronavirus. Here's the connection. And for years, I provided you with data on the hazards of microwave radiation from all of this 4G cell phones, cell towers, 5G. So here's many COVID-19 and the 5G connection. Many epidemiological observations and biological studies indicate the disease called COVID-19 is actually radiation poisoning caused by exposure to microwaves used in 5G wireless technology that first appeared in Wuhan, China when the city turned on 10,000 5G base stations. It spread to Spain and Italy as all these nations deployed 5G technology. And my own comments here with the county is installing 5G technology everywhere, including these street lights. And it needs to be. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. Are there any other speakers online? There are no further speakers. All right, we'll bring it back to the Board for discussion and then action on the consent agenda will begin to my right with Supervisor McPherson. Do you have any comments on the consent agenda? Yeah, a couple of comments on item 17, the firefighters' mutual aid response issue. I want to thank the general services for bringing that to the Board this resolution and I support our efforts to recruit or retain our volunteer firefighters. Providing mutual aid is a great opportunity to gain more experience and it's funded through the state, which is great. So I really want to say to those volunteer firefighters to what a tremendous job you do and how valuable you are to Santa Cruz County. I was going to have some comments on 25, but that's been pulled. And item number 30, the Janice contract. I'm pleased to see us bring back the recovery center across the street. It has been a valuable tool in helping address people's immediate issues without directly incarcerating them. And it's a burden on law enforcement and it takes up space in the jail, which is always seems to be overcrowded. And I appreciate the partnership with Janice and the sheriff's office in this issue to make this happen. And I'm pleased that most of the funding again will come to the state. I think it's over 90% of the funding comes from the state. On item 33, the behavioral health housing. Thank you to the behavioral health department and health services leadership for pursuing participation in this program. It's designed to help those who are the most vulnerable and difficult to serve in the realm of people experiencing homelessness now. It's a high percentage usually is what's recorded those in need of behavioral health services who are homeless. There's a lot of conversation at the state level about housing and mental health priorities and funding methods. We really must ensure that we have permanent support of housing for folks coming out of the shelters and other situations. And the stability of the housing is such an important element that we need to address in the effort to maintain good mental health and behavioral health services in this community. Usually in the homeless issue, it's at least a third and now most estimates are that half of those people who are homeless are in need of some kind of services for behavioral health. So it's a great step we're taking forward. Thank you. Thank you, supervisor first and supervisor Conan. Thank you, chair. On item 22, a resolution in support of a California carbon fee and dividend program in support for AB 858, the climate cashback program. I want to thank supervisor Hernandez for co-authoring this item with me. Now, 2023 is set to be the hottest year on record. It's impossible to wake up these days without reading about some new unfolding of the climate crisis. Today we heard about catastrophic floods in Libya that have killed more than 2000 people. And so it's clear that we have to do more and we have to create comprehensive programs to address the climate crisis. If there is one policy that could be called a silver bullet to deal with the climate crisis, it's carbon fee and dividend because it puts our entire economy at work adapting to the crisis in front of us. Basically it's as simple as to put a price on carbon that everyone pays, whether a price that goes on things like feedlot beef or goods imported from China, things that have an emission profile associated with them. And then it takes the proceeds of this program, divides it up evenly and gives it back to everyone in the state. So the result is that people who aren't flying around in private jets are probably gonna be paying, people who are lower income are probably gonna be paying less in fees than they're receiving back in dividends because that's money in people's pockets to actively adapt to climate change. I know some would say that a comprehensive system like this is impossible to get everyone on board with but I think we've got to ask. Everything's impossible till it's done and we have more clout in the legislature, more seniority than we ever have. So I think it's a good time to put this forward and say that it's a priority for our legislatures to work on. And of course, there's ABA 58 is in effect, currently proposed bill, the climate cashback program that's an opportunity to set up the dividend side of this program. So kind of a one-two step potential here. So again, thank you to Supervisor Hernandez for seeing the wisdom of this program and co-authoring it with me. On item 30, approving an agreement, a chance for the operation of the recovery center, also called the sobering center, just also want to express my thanks to CEO Amber Williams who's here with us today as well as the entire Janice team for operating this program. You know, we always hear from law enforcement how important this program is, is a way to divert people from the jail and it'll be really great to have it back at the beginning of next year. And then also on item 33, I wanted the $10 million we're set to receive from the state for behavioral health bridge housing. Just want to point out, we are doing exactly what everyone keeps saying we should be doing and we agree which is using modular construction to quickly build housing for people experiencing homelessness on county property. It's exactly what we're going to do. We're also going to uphold our commitment that this board has made to build at least 120 of these new housing units in the unincorporated part of the county so that we're sharing the burden equally with the cities. So again, excited to see this move forward. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Koenig. Supervisor Koenig. We had similar comments to Supervisor McPherson. I just wanted to thank the county for moving forward on item number 17 with the volunteer emergency response personnel to participate and be compensated for mutual aid response as it relates to firefighting. I mean, we're going to need all hands on deck as often as possible when we're fighting fires. And so to the extent that we can incorporate our volunteer firefighters into these efforts, I think we'll be much better off. And so I want to thank the staff for bringing this forward. Also, I just want to express my appreciation for item number 30 with the Recovery Center. It's a great way to keep people out of our criminal justice system and provide them with opportunities to sober up and find a better path forward. And so I just want to thank the county for continuing to, well, for reopening those services. And then item number 33, the Behavioral Health Housing to Supervisor McPherson and Koenig's point. I think it's really good that we're continuing to move forward with providing support for homeless residents and a place for them to go where they can receive care and support that they need to get back on their feet. And so just want to continue to acknowledge the efforts that the county is making on homelessness because sometimes it goes underappreciated. And so I just want to continue to see how we can work on this effort moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Hernandez. Any comments? Okay. Items, 20 and 21. I want to thank staff for these items, for working with the commission on these items. I think that the mobile homes that we have in our county are really the last passion of real affordable housing in our county and really the only form of great control of any kind in our county. So I appreciate staff working on these items with the commission. And item 22, I want to thank Supervisor Koenig for allowing me to partner also to address climate change needs in our county. And I want to thank the ACIU workers from Behavioral Health for showing up and I appreciate them bringing the concerns to us. I believe that there's probably more that we could do and I want to make sure that we find out more of myself personally, what we could do and possibly form some sort of fact-finding committee to address these issues. Being from South County, I know for sure, looking through the lens of equity, I want to make sure and assure that we also bring in, that we bring in more Spanish-speaking behavioral health workers and we retain them as well. And of course, compensate them for this as well, fairly, so that's one of the concerns that I would like to see addressed in this as well. But that's pretty much it for my comment. Thank you, Supervisor Hernandez. Supervisor Koenig. I did just want to make one comment. I know item number 25 was removed. This is an item that I placed on the agenda, but I was informed this morning that SB 423 actually passed yesterday and so reached out earlier to County CAO to pull this item given that it's already voted on at both the Senate and the Assembly. And so just wanted to bring that up for transparency to the board and to the community. Thank you for that clarification. Supervisor McPherson, you had an additional comment. Yeah, I just wanted to make one comment on item number 40. The notice of completion of the East Sianee Road project that came in just hundreds of dollars under the budget, the bid price, but this is critical up there in the center of the Valley. It's a critical egress ingress road for the people up in the Sianee area. So I just want to say a job well done and thanks to our Matt Machado and his team for getting these things done. We have such a backlog of road improvements to do, going back to our 16, 17 storms. It's difficult to catch up. We're doing the best we can and I think our departments are doing a very good job of getting there with the funding that we have. Thank you. I'll make some brief comments on the recovery center as well. First, I just want to actually acknowledge the sheriff who when he very first ran for sheriff said that this was his primary issue that he wanted to address and brought this forward to the board and it's something that has been a primary focus of his and I think is really going to help transform the local criminal justice system because it treats an issue that really is a health issue as what it should be, which is the health primary issue. In most local jails in the state of California, the number one arrest is for 647F for public intoxication or issues associated with it. So clearly this is not something that should be tying up the local jail resources and something that should be treated as a health and addiction issue in Janice. There's no better local social service provider than Janice to do exactly that. And so I'm glad to see Janice's partnership and appreciate the work of the sheriff on that. All right, that was my only comments on consent. Is there a motion for consent? I'll move consent agenda. Second, we have a motion from Supervisor Hernandez. A second from Supervisor Koenig if we could have a roll call vote, please. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson and Friend. All right, and that passes unanimously. We'll move on to the first item of the regular agenda, which was the pulled item on consent, which was item, never the number 15, 15, sorry, which was item 15 originally, which is the approved except in file responses to findings and recommendations of two, 2022, 23, Santa Cruz County civil grant jury reports and take related actions as recommended by this CAO. We have the board memo and the responses on various issues. Supervisor Koenig, you had pulled this item. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I pulled the items that we could talk more specifically about the response to the behavioral health report. We've heard from a few members, a few county employees today who work in this department. And I can assure you having met with them that there are many, many more who feel the same way who were not able to show up this morning. And so I just felt that, first of all, in deference to the gravity of this issue that the board should discuss a little bit further. And second, I do have a proposed additional action that we could do here and thought the board should discuss and see if this is sufficient or if there's other things we wanna do. In my time discussing with our current employees, the issue they brought to my attention Monterey County recently did a 10.9% increase for some other classifications within the social worker and program manager division. And looking at that, it seems like it would be appropriate to start a similar process and run a salary survey for the social worker series. Really, I think as quickly as possible, say by the end of the year, so that we can ensure that our social workers are being appropriately compensated. So that's the, that would be the additional action that I would recommend. But again, one of those items that we could have a discussion on, Mr. Palacios. I'm just trying to understand if you could be more specific, are you talking specifically about behavioral health unit and the mental health client specialist, the social workers in behavioral health? Are you talking more broadly about all social workers because they're social workers in numerous departments? I'm sure I was contemplating this, the social workers within the behavioral health unit. In the behavioral health. Okay. Why don't you go in and comment about that? And are you with the motion be to request a salary survey as additional direction as opposed to making decisions about salaries? And the reason why I ask is because this was not agendized as part of this item. And so I'm trying to... Yeah, that's the issue. The motion, the additional direction I'd recommend is that we run a salary survey for the social worker series within the behavioral health unit by the end of this year. Are there any other comments from board members on this item? To Vice-Chair Hernandez. You know, in terms of like which, which job categories are, haven't been filled if we can sort of prioritize those as well too. I know that there's a lot of openings that are very detrimental to our departments, but they just haven't been filled if we can also prioritize those as part of the survey study. Kind of friendly. I don't know if it's even a friendly amendments, probably. I think two parts are going to probably intense that in this motion, if those are... Again, just to clarify, you're talking specifically about behavioral health division. Yes. Okay. Yes. So kind of prioritize the ones that are in desperate need, right? I think that the ones that the department has prioritized, they are needed. And I'm sure that that's what Manu intends, right? But generally speaking, yes, but I think we're doing enough specificity to ensure that staff has sufficient direction. I had a couple of questions related to this and members of SCIU reached out to me last time and I've actually had an opportunity to meet with some of the behavioral health workers in here, many of their concerns. My understanding is that in fall of 2021 as part of the labor contract, there was the creation of a health services agency recruitment and retention committee. I'm just wondering if that committee is still working and if there's any way we can get an update on the progress that they've made today. Sure. Really, we have the director and division manager from health services agency as well as personnel. I believe can comment about the status of the recruitment and retention committee. Do we know who all was in that committee, by the way? Yeah, we can show, okay, clarify right now. Good morning, Nisha Patel, deputy director of personnel and the HSA recruitment and retention committee was formed in an effort to review not only the recruitment side of things, but as well the second part of it, which was the hiring side. And out of that committee, we did create, we actually have a dedicated team for HSA that is working on the recruitment specifically and also working directly with the health services agency hiring supervisors and managers to identify areas where we can collaborate and improve our efforts in recruiting and hiring. That committee has been working over the last 18 months. We also did a review of each of the divisions and the work that we create. We did in the unit was to identify where we can make some improvements. So those are things that are work in progress at this time with the dedicated staff that we have for HSA recruitment. We know who's in it and is there a report available? So I was part of that committee as was the current director of behavioral health, Tiffany Contrell, there were other members of the personnel department, recruiting staff and also other members of the HSA recruitment, excuse me, the managers at HSA as well. And we can, there were, you know, the director of admin services from HSA was also a part of the committee and we had a recruiting analyst as well. Anyone from planning, CDI on there? From the planning department. No, this was specifically for the health services agency. Okay. Has there been a report or is there a planned report coming up? We have had some internal discussions with the health services agency around the efforts on that. And so we've had some internal discussion around what's come out of those reports or those meetings, excuse me. Is there one that we'll see or? We hadn't anticipated that. Back to supervisor Cummings, is that okay? All right, supervisor Cummings. Well, thank you for that update. I do think that in addition to supervisor Connick's direction, I think it would be good if we could get a report out on the work that that committee has conducted and recommendations. It sounds like based on recommendation number one that there have been some incentives. For example, they mentioned the public service loan forgiveness program, but it seems like, and they've also, and I also, when I met with personnel yesterday, there'd been an increase in salary, but it seems like that's still not enough of an incentive. And so being able to see kind of what recommendations are being discussed in that committee and being able to understand what opportunities there are for us to create more incentives, I think would be important for this board to take into consideration. There might be hiring bonuses, how assistance with housing, because we know that housing's a big issue in this community. But I think that as we move forward and understanding this compensation study, it'd be really good to understand what the personnel has been hearing from staff and employees on what we can do better at retaining staff. And I think that's important that during this process that the members of this committee are also working with the employees because when we met with the employees, there were a number of different things that they highlighted that would be helpful for them. And I think that if we can have that listed out and understand what action this board can take, it'd be really helpful at us trying to understand what things help with recruitment and retention of employees. So I'll leave my comments on that there. And so I don't know if that needs to be incorporated into the motion as a friendly amendment that we get a report back from the HSA Government and Retention Committee at the end of this year. That's certainly amenable to me as to make it a motion. Yeah, okay. I'll second the motion if that's been seconded. All right, well, we haven't gone to the community yet. We haven't made a motion yet. And so let's make sure that we actually have an opportunity. If you've already spoken on this item though, actually you can't speak again, unfortunately, but is there any additional member of the community who'd like to address us on this pulled item? Yes, so my name is James Ewing Whitman. Mr. Friend, I appreciate that you allowed the public comment. I was looking forward to saying point of order but didn't have that opportunity. So it seems interesting this item talks about two items and but when you look on it and I couldn't open it up on my phone for reasons that are unimportant but it's actually six different items and four of them, the title has to do with surveillance with the Sheriff's Office, the public defender. So I think if you guys are gonna pull an item, maybe you should be a little bit more informed about that item. I know that if I was more informed about it, I would be, I did apply to be part of the grand jury but I told them, hey, they want an example of what I'm doing. They can look at any of hundreds of times I've spoken publicly. Of course they didn't choose me. That's enough for now. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the chambers who'd like to address us? Madam Court, is there anybody online? Yes, we have speakers online. Colin, user one, your microphone is now available. Here, I found a witness report. I'll read from a complaint about a friend of mine named Melinda. I put this report in your hands, supervisor Koenig a year ago. The report, and this is on the official record and it was to Santa Cruz County Sheriff Department and this took place on Friday, July 22nd, 2022. I was frightened and horrified to witness Melinda screaming, trying to protect herself as she was being held down and a needle was being thrust toward her. Six sheriff personnel, a paramedic or two, and Shannon Dean with, in quotes, mental health were all ganged up to inject 69 year old Ben Melinda. I heard Melinda yelling repeatedly, no, no, stop, help, get away from me. Suddenly she went limp as she was injected. Later she was taken to telecare and I commend social workers and I think they do need to be better paid. I spoke with Carrie Rose with telecares crisis stabilization unit about 10 p.m. on Sunday, July 24th, 2022. She told me that Melinda was there on a 5150 hold by order of the sheriff. They are a lock mental health crisis facility at 2250 Soquel Avenue. Carrie medically assessor, Shiedlund. Is there anybody else online? No further speakers, chair. Okay, we'll bring it back to the board for emotion supervisor Koenig, do you have emotion and Mr. Floss is there something additionally you want to say? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify again the salary survey. Maybe HSA staff can comment. Right now I'm not sure as social workers is the right classification. So we're picking the broad view that supervisor Hernandez brought up with positions with high vacancy rates. But I want to clarify if we want to specify the actual position because I'm not sure social workers is the right classification. Good morning, board. Monica Morales HSA director. I will add that what I'm sensing too is that you want us to explore the classifications do an assessment in general of which ones, how they compare to neighboring counties and then from there maybe bring a proposition to the board as what we're noting and I'll let our director of behavioral health give more detail of the ones that we're struggling with but it definitely is our licensed ones. And go ahead, Daphne. Yeah, the classification that we use in behavioral health for our mental health workers is the mental health, thank you, mental health client specialist and then senior mental health client specialist is the one that's for licensed professionals. So I would start with those two. We don't use the social worker classification in behavioral health. Okay, thank you for that clarification. So it'd be the mental health client specialist and senior mental health client specialist positions. Got it. So then I would move that we adopt the recommended actions for item 15 with the additional direction that we run a salary survey for the mental health client specialist and senior mental health client specialist positions and any other positions with high vacancy rates that the department deems necessary within the behavioral health division that the board receive an update from the HSA recruitment and retention committee by the end of 2023. The end of 2023 deadline would apply to both the salary survey as well as the report. I'll second the motion. Thank you for articulating clean motion Surveyor Koenig. Are there any other comments? Please. I just wanted to make one more comment and just express that I believe that this board is very supportive of the county workforce. And I think that we need to do everything that's necessary to address these issues around recruitment and retention and continue to have these conversations throughout the year. I know that we're going to be back in bargaining I believe next June but we have an acute issue right now with vacancies and those vacancies leading to employees being overworked and under compensated as we've seen in this Granger report. And I think that we need to take that seriously and continue to have conversations with our employees to understand how they're feeling around burnout or if they're feeling like they're being well supported and that this needs to be something that's ongoing so that we are maintaining a strong workforce especially in these departments that provide some of the most essential services for many of our low-income community members. And I also think that as part of that city it would be good to understand because I do want to commend the staff's work to date. They did highlight being able to recruit and hire more positions but one of the things that stood out was also that between January 1st of 2023 and June 3rd of 2023 there were 159 employees that left the HSA and so we really need to make sure that that's not happening and that we have more hiring and more recruitment than we're seeing people walk away. And so I think together we can really make a difference and I look forward to working with our employees and our county leadership to make sure that we can continue to have strong recruitment. Thank you. We have a motion and a second if we get a roll call please. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson. And Brent. The map passes unanimously. We'll move on to item seven of the regular agenda which is a public hearing to consider application 221359 a proposal to rezone APN064-201-14 and 064-201-20 from the SEO or special use zone district to the TP or timber production zone district to determine the proposals exempt from the requirements of CEQA and approve and concept the ordinance amending zoning plan and map pursuant to chapter 13.10 of the Santa Cruz County code changing from one zone district to another to schedule the ordinance for final adoption on September 19th, 2023 and take related actions out on the memo that FDCAO and director of community development infrastructure we have the memo, the CEQA notice of exemption the ordinance, the planning commission resolution minutes and the cover sheet staff report. Good morning. Welcome back. Thank you. Good morning, chair, friend and members of the board. Evan Ditmarsh development review planner. This is an application to rezone two parcels to the timber production zone district and it requires a zoning map amendment. The two properties are located roughly between Bonnie Dune and highway nine on the outskirts of Felton, specifically 1.2 miles west of the highway nine and San Lorenzo Boulevard intersections and immediately adjacent to the Felton Quarry. Together they total about 43 acres of steep undeveloped and forested land. The property owners, Cheryl and Seth Noble live locally and are interested in pursuing a commercial timber harvest which requires a TP timber production zoning designation. The two parcels are presently zoned special use. The rezoned to TP would result in a designation which is consistent with the Mount residential plan designation. There are required findings to rezone a property which are detailed in Santa Cruz County Code 1310215 and noted here on this slide. Findings number one and two are mandatory and at least one of five additional findings are also required to be made. The additional findings made in support of this project are listed here as finding A and E and detailed on page five of the staff report. The map here on the left represents the various zoning designations in the vicinity including multiple adjacent TP zone parcels which are represented by the dark green shading. The map on the right gives an idea of the topography of the properties which are quite steep and span either side of a canyon which is to say that future development of this property is highly unlikely to occur. This proposal is supported in that active forest management in the form of timber harvest. It represents a public safety benefit to the neighborhood and economic benefit from the production of timber. This proposed rezoning to TP is statutorily exempt from CEQA under section 15264. And I will also note that while the proposal amends the zoning designation the timber harvest itself is subject to additional evaluation by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Therefore, the staff recommendation for application 221359 is as follows. Conduct a public hearing on application 221359. Determine the proposal is exempt from further review under the Environmental Quality Act. We're assuming to article 18, section 15264 statutor exemptions for timberland preserves. Approve and concept the attached ordinance amending the zoning plan and map pursuant to chapter 1310 of the Santa Cruz County Code changing from one district to another. And to approve application 221359 based on the findings and conditions contained in the staff report to the Planning Commission dated May 24th, 2023. And to direct the clerk to the board to schedule the ordinance for a second reading and final adoption at the September 19th, 2023 Board of Supervisors meeting. That concludes my presentation and I am available for questions. Thank you, Mr. DeMarzo. There are questions from board members. Seeing none, this is a public hearing. We'd like to open up the public hearing. Would any member of the community like to address this on this item? Yeah, hello, my name is James Union Women. Maybe I'll be brief. This piece of property came up a couple months ago in discussion, did it not? You may have seen this at the Planning Commission. They hear. This specific property, no. It was a, there was a separate property, also zoning. Okay, then I was, my specific comments for if this were a similar one. This is separate. Okay, thank you, but I will say that and I wish I had the dates when this County rubber stamp through information on the 1310. What I discovered at that time, I thought there was something odd going on, but when you look at the meeting calendar, when you look on the day, you can look at the agenda packet or the agenda or the video. But if you actually press on the date, you also have access to all of the documents that are more than 30 pages. Like for example, when I came on the afternoon to talk about the 1310, they had length 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 and 18 together, always one item. I thought I was going to be able to comment for two minutes on each one. Anyway, on the binder that's outside, that was the generally available, there's about 270 pages on those five items. But when I opened it up a different way, there was more than 24. So I think it's interesting that you guys are adding another piece to that 2400 pages of information. I'm just kind of stating that I will, I'll do some more research on that actual piece of land. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else during the public hearing and chambers specific to this item? Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. I just have to say that nothing he said mattered. He's a friend. If you have a cold, make some money and see. And that's all I have to say. Because I was supposed to have a bunch of people here earlier. And this is... Thank you for me. I apologize. All right. Thank you. Is there anybody else who'd like to address us to the public hearing? Please. I'm the neighbor of Seth's and he reviewed this with me and I have no objection to it. I support it. Thank you. I'm only adjacent to Corey and myself or adjacent to his parcel. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to come down for the hearing. Are there any other members of the community that like to address this during this public hearing on this item in chambers? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online? Yes, we have speakers. Colin, user one, your microphone is now available. Marilyn Garrett, over 20 years I've gone to board of supervisors, meaning in person until I've got too much radiation with all the Wi-Fi, et cetera, and tennis on the roof. And I have seen numerous applications like this for timber production. And looking at the overall picture, which includes applications like this, then the vast amount of trees that have been cut down since I moved here 40 years ago is just appalling. And it's going on now everywhere. And the trees are the lungs of the earth they provide habitat. And this should not be exempt from the sequence. There are, of course, environmental damage from all this logging. Anyway, I'm opposed to all of this, like clear-cutting, degrading our county, very disturbing. And I have a question. I have not seen before where there is an application and an ordinance on the same item. It seems to me, the requirement should be when you're passing an ordinance, you have a second reading as this. Let's see, schedule the ordinance for final adoption. That should be separate from an application. Could you explain this? It seems like an incorrect, maybe illegal procedure. Please respond. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gerard. Are there any other callers on line? There are no further speakers here. Mr. Dittmarsh, do you want to just address the question regarding the ordinance? Yeah, my only comment is that this is standard practice for the timber production rezoning. And I'll just add that an ordinance that is a subject of a notice public hearing does not need to go through two readings according to law. Thank you, council. We'll close public comment and close the public hearing and we'll bring it back to the board for action as there are motion on the side. No, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I've seen this meets the planning zoning criteria and the planning commission unanimously approve this. It does not involve clear-cutting per se at all. So I would move the recommended actions. We have a motion from Supervisor McPherson and a second from Supervisor Cummings. If we have a roll call, please. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson. Aye. And Friend. Aye, and that item passes unanimously and thanks for those that waited this morning for that item. We'll move on to item, thanks Mr. Dittmarsh, by the way, item eight, which is to conduct a study session on the draft sixth cycle housing element and take-related actions. Zotland, the member of the deputy CAO, director of community development and infrastructure with the agenda, board item, the housing element as well as a number of the appendices associated with it. This morning, we are joined by a number of folks. We have Stephanie Hansen, our assistant director, Mark Connelly, the principal planner of policies. Suzanne, I say the principal planner of housing as well as Mr. Sun, as well as senior planning policy. We appreciate all of you coming for this item. We'll turn it over. Who's taking it also? Good morning and welcome back. Good morning, chair, chair, friend, supervisors. Thank you for having us here this morning. We're here to present to you the draft 2023 housing element. We have a staff presentation then we'll have time for questions and public comment. We have a number of folks here who have worked on this item, but we have a team of about 10 people and three consultants who have helped us get through the draft and the process. I just wanted to take a moment because we don't really address this exactly in the presentation, but the reason why we're here is because the state of California, our jurisdiction and other jurisdictions are in a housing crisis. And we need to find ways to accommodate more options for people to be able to rent in our community and purchase houses. As it stands now, my children won't be able to live in our county. And I think a lot of you also know that situation. So I just, as a precursor to what we're really trying to accomplish here, I wanted to offer that up. And then I'm going to turn it over to Mark to talk about the agenda. Good morning, chair, friend and supervisors. The agenda we have for you this morning, is we're going to first give you a little background into the housing element and why we're doing this. We'll then go into a look of our community outreach and engagement that we performed. And then we're going to give you a little structure of what the housing element is and how it's formulated. And then something new to the sixth cycle housing element is an analysis of fair housing. That's an interesting thing we'll go through with you today. Then we'll go through the major policies and programs that we have, not all of them, just to highlight mainly the new ones. And then we'll share with you the site inventories and some of the rezone sites that we have. And then we'll just wrap everything up with letting you know what the next steps are. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to senior planner, Matthew Sun. Good morning, chair and supervisors. Thank you, microphone, I got beyond. Testing, very good. Good morning, chair and supervisors. The housing element is one chapter in the county general plan and must be updated every eight years. This year it is due to the state of department of housing and community development by December 31st. The housing element is a policy document that must include actionable items, the implementation programs that the county will report progress on every year via the annual progress report. The element must also be accompanied by housing sites inventory, which shows that we can accommodate the assigned number of housing units specified in the regional housing needs allocation, commonly referred to as the RENA. The RENA is handed down to local governments by the state and the association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, also known as AMBAG. Let's go to the next slide regarding community engagement. There, thank you. Following board direction, staff implemented a robust community engagement plan beginning in early 2023. Staff engaged a consultant who specializes in community engagement and who created two focus groups. The stakeholder group was comprised of representatives of businesses and community organizations that are involved in housing and the citizens panel was comprised of residents who represented the county's demographics and those affected by the housing crisis. The full results of the stakeholder group and community panel meetings are included in Appendix C of the draft housing element. County staff also sought input from the public. Three public meetings were held this spring to solicit public input. The results of these three community meetings are also included in Appendix C of the housing element and reflect similar priority themes as the stakeholder group and community panel. Next slide, thank you. Here is a list of some of the top needs and solutions identified through the public engagement process. We found a lot of support for more multi-family housing at higher densities and heights, housing to address needs of the workforce, housing for teachers, and housing to accommodate people with disabilities. Next slide, please. The housing element contains the topical areas that meet the State Department of Housing and Community Development requirements. Section two contains the goals, policies, and programs critical to addressing housing and central to the element. The Appendix C support the housing element with maps, site inventory, review of the previous housing element, a fair housing report, and the results of the public engagement process. Next slide, please. The draft housing element has six goals. These goals address housing supply and direct new housing into infill areas of the county. For us, this means primarily within the urban services line, commonly referred to as the USL. Other goals, such as maintaining the stock and affordability of housing, equal opportunity to housing, housing for those with special needs, sustainability, and working with community partners are also addressed. Housing element requirements now include an assessment of fair housing practices, which incorporates an analysis of the relationship between available sites and areas of high or low resources and concrete actions in the form of programs to affirmatively further fair housing. Providing housing opportunities in higher resourced unincorporated areas to accommodate higher density is key to meeting AFFH requirements. Condex A of the housing element, which contains a fair housing report, provides data and analysis to support the AFFH related programs, policies, and sites inventory. High resource attributes include proximity to transit, access to high performing schools and jobs, access to amenities such as parks and services, access to healthcare facilities and grocery stores, proximity to available infrastructure and utilities, sites that do not require environmental mitigation and lastly, presence of development streamlining processes, environmental exemptions, and other development incentives. Next. Thank you. This map created by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, or the TCAC, shows which areas of the county have more or fewer community resources. The map is used by TCAC to evaluate locations of housing projects that are seeking tax credits or development of lower income housing units. Communities must now consider these maps when preparing new sites inventories for their housing element updates in order to avoid locating most affordable housing in low resource areas. The blue areas on the map within the county's urban service line are moderate to higher resource areas where most community amenities, employment opportunities and services are located. Much of the county's rural and agricultural areas are shown in light green, indicating that they are low resource areas, meaning that resources such as transit, schools, jobs, shopping, and other urban suburban amenities are not as widely available in these light green, green areas. Next slide, please. Proposed new programs, of course, this is a partial list. Many ongoing policies and programs that the county had in the fifth cycle will be retained in the new housing element. However, we wanted to highlight some of the newer programs that will be included. This list shows some of the new programs across all six goals in the element, many of which were suggested by participants in the community engagement process, such as H1F, which considers various updates to the development standards, including studying four to six story development in appropriate areas, such as major activity centers. Other programs address rezoning as necessary, code enforcement on vacation rentals, next to study on inclusionary housing and fees, housing for people with disabilities and all electric housing. Next slide, please. In 2022, the county adopted the sustainability policy and regulatory update, the major overall of the county's general plan, zoning and development standards. One of the main goals of the sustainability update was to allow more housing units and more housing options, especially along the county's major transportation corridors. The project included key changes in development standards, such as increasing the number of housing units that can be developed on each acre of land and zones that allow housing and adjusting codes to allow more units, creating a new zone called residential flex, which allows 22 to 45 units per acre and is the high end of the county's density range, allowing additional units in single family zones called the missing middle housing, rezoning some properties along transportation corridors and allowing more housing in mixed use projects in commercial zones. At this time, I pass on to Suzanne to address the housing sites inventory. Good morning, supervisors. This table shows the county's regional housing needs allocation, also referred to as the RINA, and also summarizes the site's inventory analysis. The site's inventory is a list of parcels in the county where new housing can be built with key data and estimates of how many units can be built on each county's zone. The first column in this table shows that the county needs enough appropriately zoned land to accommodate 4,634 units across four income levels as shown on the table. State guidance suggests adding a buffer of at least 10% to provide more flexibility in case some sites are not developed with housing during the eight year planning period. We've included a 10% buffer in the second column of this table for a total of just over 5,000 units. The third column shows that the county's existing zoning and general plan applicable to the sites in the inventory provides capacity for 4,100 units, leaving a shortfall of nearly 1,000 units to get to the target number of 5,000 in the eight. The numbers in this table reflect a conservative approach using minimum densities to estimate capacity of each site unless more information was available from project applicants or staff for certain sites. Next slide, please. State guidance requires various factors to be considered in the site selection process and to estimate the number of units that can fit on each site. Zoning and general plan designations are some of the key factors considered in this process. Parcel size is another factor. Larger parcels are needed to accommodate most multifamily developments such as apartments, townhomes and condominium projects and most affordable housing projects, particularly those that provide housing affordable to lower income households, should be located in higher resource areas to meet the fair housing goals of the element. Staff also considered factors such as site availability, owner intentions and pending projects. Next slide, please. This table summarizes a rezoning approach to meet the county's RENA. Staff estimates that the RENA shortfall could be accommodated by rezoning approximately 76 parcels distributed throughout the county's urbanized unincorporated areas. Just over 1800 units can be accommodated by rezoning approximately 30 larger parcels to urban high density or residential flex and by rezoning a few commercial properties from service commercial to a commercial zone allows mixed use such as C1 or C2. Staff proposes rezoning the remaining 40 or so parcels using a recent law called SB10, which allows jurisdictions to rezone properties to allow infill of small missing middle housing projects such as duplexes, triplexes and quads in existing lower density neighborhoods. That rezoning approach creates capacity for another 375 units. Both multifamily housing and missing middle housing are badly needed in the county at this time to provide housing options for all people, including many local workers who need housing they can afford near their workplace. Accommodating the RENA for lower income units is key to achieving a compliant housing element. Most lower income units tend to be in unsubsidized projects, which are likely to have units at various affordability levels. So the yield projections for most sites also include units in the moderate or above moderate categories, except for sites that are known to be proposed for 100% affordable subsidized housing projects which would be projected as all lower income units. Next slide, please. This map shows the general distribution of sites in the housing inventory, most of which are infill sites within the urban services line. More detailed maps are provided in your packet and also online in appendix F to the draft element. Blue and purple shading on this map indicates parcels that are already zoned for housing that have capacity for additional units. Yellow shading shows the sites proposed for rezoning. In some cases, while an entire parcel may be shaded yellow, in some cases only a portion of that site is preserved to be rezoned. Consistent with the sustainability update and the factors noted earlier, most housing is best accommodated near transportation corridors and other urban services in existing neighborhoods and business districts, in areas without environmental constraints, in areas that help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions and plan for climate change. Because we're focusing on infill opportunities in the unincorporated areas within the urban services line, the proposed rezonings are in districts one, two and four, because the other two districts don't have unincorporated areas within the USL. Next slide, please. This slide shows the existing and proposed rezoning sites in the Aptos area. In particular, if you'll notice on the Seascape Golf Course parcels, only the Black Cross has attached portions of those two parcels, which cover the existing surface parking lot for the clubhouse are proposed to be rezoned. Next slide, please. This map shows the existing and proposed rezoning sites in the South County area outside the city of Watsonville. And now I'd like to hand it back to Mark Connolly. Thank you, Suzanne. To summarize, here are the next steps coming in the adoption process. After today's study session, we'll have a study session at the Planning Commission. We visited the Housing Advisory Commission last week on the sixth. We're expecting a set of comments from the state by October 23rd and we're finalizing the CEQA document now. We'll then be back for the start of the public hearings, ending with an adoption hearing before the Board on November 15th. This hearing would be an adoption hearing of the housing element. But the rezoning hearings wouldn't begin until an implementation that would start next year. Just acknowledge if the county's housing element is not deemed compliant by the state deadline, the county could lose eligibility for various state funding programs for housing, transportation, and other local needs. Also housing projects with at least 20% lower income units may be exempt from county zoning and general plan policies until that element is in compliance. And that is pursuant to state law that's commonly known as Builders Remedy. So with that, that concludes our presentation. We thank you very much. You can answer any questions you may have. Thank you for your presentation. I'm sure each board member will have comments on this Supervisor McPherson, or is it okay if we begin with you? Yeah, thank you very much. I think we're discussing probably the biggest challenge this board or this county is gonna have for the next six years to more than triple our requirement under RENA. We've discussed this before. It's gonna be a very, very long, long haul. And I would like to really thank our planning staff for the study session today and what you're gonna be facing in the near future. This a great amount of work and it's really detailed. And it really gives a great, excuse me, give us a great outline of what we need to do. I especially wanna acknowledge the effort to include additional opportunities for housing along the rail corridor. I asked our staff for more than a year ago to make sure we identify as many opportunities as possible to develop housing along the rail corridor as this is how we will best position us on ourselves for the state and federal funding that was mentioned. And those funding sources look for population, NSA and ridership, transportation of all modes as imperative conditions before we move ahead. In terms of my fifth district, and as was mentioned, the third district as well, we're not in the urban services line. With the exception of the city of Scotts Valley, building ADUs, junior ADUs and tiny homes represent the most feasible way that we're gonna be able to expand our housing stock as I see it. But still the constraints are considerable. We have one acre minimums. We have water issues, geological concerns up in the Santa Rosa Valley in particular. The cost of an enhanced septic tanks as we've seen after the fires and the building and maintaining roads for fire access and equipment and dealing with the geological conditions as I mentioned before throughout the mountains are really huge barriers. And I don't wanna make this an excuse for the fifth district, it's just a fact. And I know that some people in that district are concerned with the impact this might have. But overall, countywide, I think this represents a great effort, a really great effort to meet the requirements said by the state, especially for affordable units. And I know that previously there were some board members that said we should separate this equally among the five civil visorial districts, but that's just not gonna happen. So it's a big challenge to more than triple what we have done the previous eight years. And I think that we have some things that this county has wanted historically, measure J and its limitations of 1978, nine in the city of Santa Cruz, which is doing a phenomenal job of building more housing downtown. But in protecting agriculture lands, as I mentioned, the fifth district impacts and limitations we have that are in place and not being within this urban services line. So I really wanna say congratulations on a tremendous presentation of how we can hope to get to the target that the state has put on us in the arena numbers. It's a job very well done and much appreciated. It's gonna be a huge challenge for this county in the unincorporated area to meet the criteria and the numbers that the state wants us to have in the next eight years. Thank you, Surveyser Koenig. Thank you, Chair. I also wanna thank planning staff. I know this has been quite the sprint to get this done this year, especially coming off the heels of the sustainability update, the largest change to our general plan in over 25 years, which this board approved at the end of last year. So from maybe out of the frying pan into the fire. In any case, it's important. I think it's clear now to see that the work we did with the sustainability update has set us up to be successful in accomplishing this housing element. And I also wanna thank you guys for being so responsive to the public's initial feedback. The maps and inventory lists are a lot easier to read now with the updates that include addresses and everything. Also, of course, all of the work that you've done with public outreach is really impressive. And again, I know you had to launch that very quickly at the beginning of this year with the board's direction for that to be representative and deliberative and I think you did a commendable job. I'm gonna provide McPherson said this is an incredibly important planning document that's gonna shape our community for years to come. I mean, certainly the next eight years is we try to accomplish all this housing construction, but it's certainly beyond that as well. And you know, given the constraints we have in this county, I totally understand and accept that the majority of this new housing will and should be in the urban core of the unincorporated county where people do have access to grocery stores on foot or doctors or gyms or schools or any other of those facilities. And where we also have the best chance of providing a frequent transit service. So of course that does mean that a lot of it ends up in the first district, which you know, again, I think it'll ultimately do a better quality of life for, you know, not just new residents to our county but the existing residents who maybe finally have adequate housing. I have a few questions. The first is clearly we are relying on our new highest density zoning designation, residential flax and a number of, for many of these reasoned parcels. But we're still waiting for the coastal commission to actually review the sustainability where we created that designation. Does that create any kind of legal conflict where we could submit this to HCD and say, well, we're going to do all this with this zoning designation and just isn't in effect yet? We had the same concerns. Thank you, Supervisor. We actually did talk to the state about it. Just like with the rezonings where we have three years, if everything goes well, we have three years to do that. We also have time in the program to actually implement the things that we need to implement to get there. So the state knows, for instance, with rezonings, it's not done yet, but it will be done as a part of the program. Despite the fact that the coastal commission this week approved a year-long extension to that, to getting that sustainability update item to hearing, we're working very closely with the staff. They are aiming for a December hearing. So hopefully we will get there quicker rather than later next year. Great, thanks. The second question is in regards to many SP10 rezonings. Some of the greatest hope we have for adding more housing capacity quickly is all the advances in modular housing, both stacked and also just kind of individual units that you can drop on the ground. And now I understand there might be some challenges with our existing definition of multifamily housing. I mean, does it have, it might correct to understand that multifamily housing has to actually share a wall between multiple units? So not necessarily. So I think there may be some confusion based on some of the existing language in our current zoning ordinance, which is prior to the sustainability update changes. But basically there's different jargon for housing development and different groups of people use it a little differently. So there's attached, semi-attached and detached housing, right? And then there's multifamily. What multifamily means is it can be all attached. It could be all units in one building, but it could also be multiple units on the same parcel that share an APN. So like you can think of them, sometimes they call them little senior cottage developments or dwelling groups. So there's different ways to get it multifamily. They don't necessarily have to be attached. I think there's some wording in some of our zoning district where it talks about different levels of review if a proposal comes in and it's either lower than the available density on that site or if it's sort of the wrong product type where it should be either semi-attached or attached if it's in some of the higher density multifamily zones. And part of the reason for that is you can't really take advantage of that density if all the units are detached, right? You're only gonna be doing basically 10 or 12 units an acre at most if they're all detached. Right, no, of course. But so if I'm hearing you correctly, the SB10 rezoning would still allow for cottage type. Sure. Development, okay, great. It depends on the parcel size and what the owner wants to achieve. Right. Okay, we'll have to look at that more closely just to make sure there's not anything that can hang us up in terms of requirements from setbacks from internal roads or other things to just make sure that those kinds of projects can move forward. Those are all my questions for now. Thank you again. Thank you Supervisor Comings. First, I just wanted to start by thanking the staff for their work on developing the draft housing element that's before us today. I know it's been a lot of work with incorporating all the feedback from the community and trying to make sense of all of it and get it in a document that we can send off to the state. And so I just wanna appreciate all the work that staff has done. Because this is a serious attempt at trying to meet the state requirements and I hope HCD is gonna treat it as such. In particular, I do wanna appreciate the revisions that staff included to strengthen our commitment to affordable housing and tenant protections. And I do have some further recommendations that I'll bring up in a second because as we all know, Santa Cruz County is facing a serious affordability crisis. We're the most expensive rental community in the entire United States and we have some of the most expensive real estate markets in the entire world. The housing prices are excessive and burdensome for our low and moderate and middle income families. And we really need to try to do everything we can to maximize the production of that housing. And there really are only two ways that we can act to ease this crisis in affordability. One is to support the construction of subsidized housing developments for low and very low income people. The other is that we require market rate housing to provide affordable units as part of the development. Right now the county's inclusionary ordinance requires that 15% of the units have the 15% of the units in market rate residential development are affordable. However, there's some serious limitations. For example, the state density bonus law prohibits applying affordability requirements on density bonus units. So while the number of units in development can be increased to 35 or 50% of developers request the total number of units don't even meet that 15% level. And so trying to address that in terms of production of affordable housing really needs to be something that we focus on. And so, and the other thing I wanna point out too is that with all of the streamlining that's happening around housing production, density bonus law is the elimination of parking. We're really incentivizing the developers to build housing but we're not seeing that reflected in the cost of housing. And so I think is one of the things that we should be moving forward is really prioritizing and increasing the affordable housing that's in new developments and eliminating the fees that allow developers to actually not produce the affordable housing onsite. That's something that in terms of meeting those requirements we need to make sure that developers are actually producing the affordable housing if we're gonna meet our target housing goals. And so at a point when this comes back I'd like to propose some suggestions knowing that we as a board haven't had an opportunity to really weigh in on this prior to this getting sent to HCD. And I'd like to make a few suggestions that may be community incorporated when we hear back and that we can see reflected when this comes back to the board for final adoption and then prior to when it goes before the planning commission. I don't know if there's public comment. Yeah. And I mean, not as a motion but do you want to introduce some of the concepts so the board can discuss what your interests are? As part of the H3H program that it be revised to include the following components updates the affordable housing fee for residential developments, project size thresholds that trigger inclusionary requirements, affordability levels for inclusionary units and harmonizing the inclusionary program with state density bonus law. In addition to that another issue that comes up is around the replacement of affordable housing. So when we see affordable units get demolished how those are replaced. And so the replacement of affordable housing units demolished as a result of larger new developments shall not be counted as part of any inclusionary housing which should be in addition to them so that we see those units get replaced and in addition to that we see the inclusionary units come on board from the new development as another part of H3H in order to encourage additional affordable housing units and to provide an incentive to density bonus projects inclusionary housing requirements for projects of 10 units or greater shall be increased to 20% and for 50% density bonus project the inclusionary requirement shall be 25% and so exploring the possibility of us being able to do that with the state density bonus law I think would be something worth including. And then the lastly because of changes in the housing market regarding financing of rental projects making such developments more financially feasible the inclusionary ordinance shall require onset provision of all inclusionary units unless impact fees are approved by the decision making body such as provided in section 1710034C and I've copies of this I can pass around folks so they can take a look at it. Okay we can discuss that more in a second as supervisor Hernandez. I'll be brief I just want to thank also staff for all their work and doing their community meetings as well throughout the county. I know if it's one thing we really do need housing and both affordable housing and workforce housing you know there's been a part of the pandemic in South County who used to have actually housing that went in the high 500s and 600s and that is non-existent anymore. We've had a lot of folks from both that have been affected by the CCU fires just and weren't able to build or rebuild come over down to Watsonville and purchase these homes a lot of folks from from Santa Cruz and mid count or Santa Cruz mostly and you know with the pandemic and work from home situation they have driven up home prices and in South County up to $800,000 to a million dollars so what was once considered the affordable part of the county is no longer affordable and it's moving folks from Watsonville further out into Hollister, Casterville, Los Baños and you know the further parts of the state and so it's definitely something that we have to address to you know build both affordable housing and you know and I think that it's relative right of what's considered affordable in Santa Cruz and what's considered affordable in Watsonville. It's you know we used to have prior to the pandemic a median income of 41,000 in South County and in closer to 100,000 Santa Cruz so it's very different and so what's considered affordable to buy a home is very different in South County so those are the kind of situations that I think have to be addressed and I think some of the things that Justin was mentioning would address those things as well but I mean those are the things that we're facing and so it's like I think in command all the work that you guys are doing it's one of the biggest challenges that we're facing so thank you. Okay I have some comments and some questions associated with this as well also appreciation for the work that went in also appreciates for all the time that the planning commission has spent on this so a significant amount of time and input was spent there before I get into specifics on the housing element my colleague had presented some ideas such as in essence the elimination of the in lieu are a lot of developers or any developers still using the in lieu component or is it because of the board had considered it as a pilot my understanding is that we'd sort of move from that but is it still being used as a primary tool? I can speak to that so some of you may recall I believe it was 2018 or 2019 we updated several county code sections including portions of the zoning code the density bonus chapter as well as the inclusionary chapter 1710 and at that time we changed the policy for the in lieu fees so that they have to seek the board's permission or if it's a small project and it's only going to the planning commission the planning commissions permission in order to be able to do entirely in lieu fees and we've only had one project since that time actually pay fees and that was really because of extreme financial hardships that happened with this really quick run up and basically doubling or tripling of interest rates over a six month period so it was really an exception staff would not normally recommend that the board approve that option unless there was some hardship situation like that that was putting the development in a situation of facing for closure or something like that but so we really haven't had any other developments use the 100% fee option now that said the way our ordinance works is we no longer round the inclusionary percentage up to the next whole unit what they can do is they put the number of whole number of affordable units in the project and if there's a remaining fraction they can pay a fee what we call a fractional in lieu fee for that remaining fraction of a unit or they can opt to just round up and provide one extra unit so that they have a choice about but that's kind of tinkering around the edges that's not putting fees for the whole project Okay, I mean it seems like this would be a redundant action from what is already in place number four anyway, just in a secondary question I mean there's probably I don't know if it's ideological or scientific on the percentage of what the inclusionary number should be I think the board's goals to build is to ensure that the most number of units are built and particularly most of them are affordable housing units are built my concern is adding any additional burdens on that may actually have the inverse effect of reducing overall affordable housing so do we have a sense and also normally there should be historically the use to have to do justification studies on these kinds of numbers, et cetera which this doesn't state it just is providing additional direction to include this in so make sure that my understanding is correct on the law on nexus studies associated with affordability and whether there's any sort of understanding of baseline thresholds that actually starts to decrease the total amount of affordable housing because I have a reservation of increasing a baseline number if it's gonna mean less housing we get built in this category So we do actually have a program I believe the commissioner mentioned I'm sorry if the supervisor mentioned the program in the document currently which is to do an updated nexus study and economic feasibility study of our current inclusionary program and consider any options for improvements that people might wanna suggest so I believe the supervisor suggestions already fit and are covered by that existing program it is a requirement under state law now since some new bills were passed I think I wanna say 2015 that if any community in California wants to increase a mandatory inclusionary requirement above 15% there's sort of what you wanna do to be safe and then there's the bare minimum of what the state requirement is so the state doesn't strictly require us to do a nexus study but it does give the state housing and community development department the ability to request from us an economic feasibility study of our program if we place that number above 15% so it's sort of like a safe harbor number you could consider it at 15% and below and so that's why we've developed this program because we have heard these suggestions from some community members and we've basically built the program in to study this and commission those required studies to be ready if the community wants to make any significant changes to the program And Chair, if I might add we had this state, HCD representatives reviewing our element come out and visit us we got a van and took them around to different sites and along the way we got to talk a little bit about some of the programs they were interested and you know where the pain points might be what might be difficult we did bring this one up they're very clear about frowning upon anything above 15% they view it as something that does not help our housing along that housing developments would not be encouraged by it so we think the right approach here is a little bit of a balancing act is to study it and see what the results of the study are that way we have a good background information that if we are going to do any changes or increases we have a formalized study to back that up Okay, so thank you I've got some questions specific now to the housing element there was a slide earlier that talked about some of the community input and some of the preferences of the community including like senior housing or teacher workforce housing my understanding is that there's no way through the element to specifically discriminate for against any sort of sub-population correct so even though there was an actual community request that the housing be used for certain purposes there's no way for us to actually dictate that be the case Yeah, it's more about providing the different options higher density provides smaller units that can be great for the workforce you don't always need a large family unit you often have singles and seniors so it's more about providing those options kind of by design and then definitely saying this is for the workforce there are options though or workforce housing where specific school districts or developers and their properties have some options on who will be renting from them so but I don't think that's something we wanna necessarily build into the element Something we don't necessarily wanna do or we can't legally do those are two different issues We have no zoning mechanism to put in place to require senior housing or anything else but besides that public facilities housing that really does speak or public facilities owning that really does speak to providing for workforce housing we do have that in place already Okay, which explains like St. Stephen's for example and their ability to do that so to that end as we've had previous discussions from the sustainable Santa Cruz plan when we held community meetings seems like a long time ago now at the Grange and such an Aptos the highest profile locations in my district in particular the par three property is it's sort of co-clear known the old golf course there the old par three golf course and at that time I mean it's a zone for parks and recreation the feedback and the understanding from the community was would be that it would be either an assisted living or senior facility which is we desperately need and then the second part of it would continue to be a harmonizing park space that could be used by those that are rehabilitating there including Soco Creek water had talked about creating a retention pond or lake there that could be used to help charge the aquifer we had extensive discussions about this as you recollect over a decade ago there was a pretty significant housing proposal there that ended up failing at the board level and then that's what led to this secondary discussion because of ingress and egress challenges through there my concern with what's proposed because we don't have the ability to specify senior housing we just less than a month ago received a pretty significant study about the need for senior housing in our community and the grain of our community is that we're function of replacing one type of community need with another type of community to meet on the same parcel as a result of what we're doing in the housing element and I don't see a way for the board to specify that preference even though that is not just my preference as the community commitment that was made during sustainable which we're relying on as the baseline EIR for this anyway I mean, so this was the discussion that was used and the community commitment that was made this actually doubles the amount of proposed units that had been proposed there 10 years ago, 11 years ago so I wanted to ask a question about because we have a 10% offer number that we've gone to an extra 900 something units and these are two parcels and the concept had always been to maintain well to rezone something there to allow something to happen there like a assisted living facility or senior facility and still have some parks element could we not do a split zoning on the par three property or just reason one of the two parcels which would still be 200 something of the 400 proposed units we'd still be well over the HDD requirements we'd be slightly below the 10% you know pad that is recommended but not required it sounds like so walk me through why that if that's possible and how we can go through that. So in terms of the buffer I can just say that it's part of the guidance the official state guidance so they put out a memo it's like 20 some odd pages this is saying what you have to do so you know whether it's recommended or required I would say it kind of feels like it's required to have at least a 10% buffer so they give communities an option you can either take the lowest end of the buffer range which would be 10% and use a very modest approach to projecting yield unit yield on each site which is what we've done or you can use a higher percentage buffer and use a more ambitious way to project unit yield so I'll give you an example let's say in our urban high zone that actually it's not a zone it's a general plan designation that allows a range of 11 to 30 units an acre that's a pretty wide range 11 units an acre is really a single family density based on the state guidance we had to use 11 units an acre to project unit yields for most parcels in that type of general plan designation unless there was countervailing evidence such as a pending application with a different number of units or so forth so that's what they mean by using a conservative approach to estimating unit yield it's only because we took that conservative approach that we're basically going to be able to hopefully get approved with just a 10% buffer if we were to project density or unit yields in the middle of that range so for example it's something like 20 units an acre instead of 11 we would need even more of a buffer so the staff is trying to follow the guidance as best we can to maximize our chances of getting this housing element certified by the state so if we were to say we're only going to do a 5% buffer I worry that they might not certify us I mean it wouldn't equate to a 5% buffer is what I'm saying I mean just mathematically it wouldn't but my point though is that I'm looking for some more creative solutions that were presented to me on these two parcels I'm confident that there's going to be community concern about this that may delay this implementation anyway and in order to land in order to smooth that over since the goal here is to have something certified the goal is to not end up in a builder's remedy situation the goal here is to also meet the commitment we made to the community not that long ago on the document that's predicated that we're predicating this other document on I'd like to see a way on these parcels to not have the size and scope as proposed and also to do the least degree possible specify the preference of the board that the senior housing be provided I mean that's been something that's been committed to and so that's where my concern is sorry, Supervisor Koenig Yeah, question I mean so my understanding is we sort of approve and concept the rezoning through the housing element the specific rezoning actually will come back to the board in the future one by one so I mean at the point that we were considering these two sites and couldn't we can't when we put in some kind of I don't know a de-restriction we have to agree to by the owner themselves or like can we make it a condition that a de-restriction for 55 plus housing be added in order to achieve this rezoning or something to that effect Suzanne will probably speak to this better than I can but that would in part depend on what the property owner is proposing and what the conditions are that the Planning Commission and the board see it at the time you know I think there could be an option for kind of like we did on the other golf course site of rezoning portion of it maybe there's a portion of that site that remains in open space lessen it a little bit however if we're going to lose the units there we're just making our very low income number by one unit and that's dependent on as we said in the presentation on developers who are also providing higher level income units and portion of those projects would go into that lower income category so we're very mindful of the fact that we're just squeaking above the line there so really to stick with that 10% buffer and make sure we can accommodate those very low income units we probably would have to find other locations to rezone to make up for the loss and I think we should look at that I mean that's and I understand what Suvvajar Khan I appreciate by the way what you're saying right now that it would come back this is the time to have these discussions because this sets the expectation of both county staff in the state of understanding what will or will not happen on those parcels and so I think now is the right time to do that I mean we have the business is almost 13 acres and we have the ability as two parcels but I mean it's they're connected I mean we have the ability to say that some of that acreage won't will stay in the not open space per se but it will stay within the parks and recreation space the goal was to use the development to fund another park there which by the way I think would probably be an essential amenity there's no other park over there for whatever that community may be historically we had said it would be a senior housing I understand we can't have that specific deed restriction but I let me put it this way I'm in favor of the entire housing element except for this proposal right and so what I'm asking here and it's not an unreasonable ass this is my district and it's a historically high profile location that we work together here to try and come to a place that I can easily communicate to the community as to why because we're already communicating the community they need to have some sort of housing and that's not that's established but how about this I don't want to have to make a decision based on the fact that you're just barely meeting the number like that's not that that's a false choice for us as policymakers that that throughout the entire system that it's all now coming down to this situation so my preferences would be the direction would be on this that there be a preservation of some of the space for the park's usage and that we have a commentary non-binding I understand but the exact expectation that the preference and outreach into the community be that this still be preserved for senior or some sort of assisted living because there's an unquestionable need for it and it would still meet our HCD requirements and a lot of the community outreach over the during sustainability was specific to that issue and I have a concern that we're pulling that back to non-specificity I would just like to clarify that senior housing is fine we have codes in our setting code right now that allow for what they call congregate senior housing and things like that but assisted living facilities do not count toward the arena their beds their people are admitted under admissions agreements not leases so they don't give you tenure as a renter or owner so they don't count as housing thank you for that clarification I'm fine with the senior housing component of it I don't even know how we meet the covenant of what we just had a study session on one month ago unless we actually start having I mean unless we specify these kinds of things so what would your suggestion I've thrown out my desires but I'm not the prying professionally here so what would your professional recommendation then be on these locations for that well I completely agree that with this 13 or 14 acre site there's a lot of great opportunities for approaching a master plan on the site and providing a good amount of open space and protecting that I think any projects that were to come in to us would be required to provide a significant amount of open space and the more that the projects can go vertical the more footprint of the site can be preserved for open space and other amenities so I don't think there's any conflicts there and you know the housing element is really a policy document we're not at this point in time really needing to engage in site planning issues or you know responding to development proposals we're not even at the zoning stage I think there can certainly be communicated that the neighborhood has an interest in seeing some of that housing be senior housing but as a fair housing matter I don't think we can zone for it or as a county preclude the owner or applicants from proposing all-age housing because that would be kind of discriminatory based on age or familial status which is not something we can do as a public agency so communicating desires intent all of that kind of thing can be done with a future applicant but I don't think we want to put a deed restriction or you know zone or age right nothing that was just communicated to me though establishes that that'll happen in five years so what I want to be able to say in this during this planning process whether it ends up I mean I started this conversation asking the question about whether we could put it in was told no so I get it but you just said that there would be a guarantee of open space how would I know that that's not put anywhere that's just what you're saying to me right now I want something that would be that this board is saying that in these two parcels because of community commitment that and one of them is a split zoning option right I mean what is it we just say I'm taking five acres off of it and then I know guaranteed right I mean there's two well one of them is five acres that one of the two parcels shall not be rezoned it could be something this board does and yes there's a density or height change to the second parcel but maybe that solves at least the second component of it the first part of it then would be I think it should be stated as we move forward in this study session that the board wanted it to be used for a certain purpose even if it's not specified in the housing element that it was such because there's a difference between a preference and a legal requirement right and that's where uh... I was hoping you would you would help me land I mean so does that make sense as you say sure and I I was referring to in our zoning code we have open space requirements for residential development so the more units you have the more open space per unit you have to have and that can be a combination of both common area open space and individual unit open space that may or may not be enough for what you have in mind but that's what I was commenting on and it's not I mean just it's not right so because we're literally rezoning something that's designated for parks and was it was historically had been and we're saying we're gonna remove that so I don't think a common area green space meets that criteria of the historic commitment to the community on that so I think that maybe the best option here I mean because I've been convinced otherwise is to do a split zone is to only read is to say that they shall be limited to one of the two the larger the two the seven or eight hour acre unless you can come up with or that it shall be limited to a certain percentage of the total two acres maybe sixty percent or seventy percent uh... in order to do that I think if we we try to go down this road we should talk about a percentage of open space uh... the world is changed since we did the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan I believe that site was designated for commercial and in the plan uh... parcels are parks and recreation and I think what we do is try to work on a way uh... to to dictate the that a percentage of the site of both parcels using both parcels as a single site a percentage of that site would be dedicated to open space and then you know let the the housing component play out according to to the zoning uh... just trying to offer some helpful ideas here we could put some kind of park easement on the property or something like that to ensure that with the open space create would be accessible by the community I can only hear what you're saying probably as far as the planning and development at being able to use both the sites together is going to probably ultimately yield the best park assuming we have you know that requirement because you know it allows you to whatever put it closer to the existing homes or in a way that's more accessible than just kind of a or b one parcel of the other but um... yeah with some kind of public access easement help satisfy the requirement idea we can study that for sure um... you know I think I think that part of the discussion that we're not having here is that county has very you large sites right thirteen acres is a huge opportunity for us to provide some housing especially affordable housing hopefully a portion would be senior housing that kind of thing we we just don't have them any opportunities and so this well well there may have been discussions about this property in the past really feel like this large property along the highway is it is a distinct opportunity for us to build more housing in our community so just want to kind of put that balance out there yeah well miss hanson we're proposing building hundreds of units there so I think we satisfy that comment the question is how we harmonize those hundreds of units with um... the needs of the new residents which currently apparently aren't being taken into consideration to with historic conversations with the community which I think our word is the county actually matters we have these community meetings half of your document talks about the community input you received in this thing so clearly it's used as a leverage tool to justify policy making and so I want to honor the fact that not that many years ago we had pretty significant communications with the community uh... community meetings that I've had um... with some of your predecessors in any way in these roles on these issues so I think that all those things matter right I mean there isn't something that matters more and what we're talking about is still building a lot of units there uh... the question is where and how um... who gets served there and what can make still the the broader community value there um... so I feel like I apologize that I'm unauthorizing this entire conversation but this is the opportunity that's come to us to do so and I think it's time to open it up for the community but when it comes back I still need some resolution associated with this I'm not right resolution but direction because obviously there's still this is an iterative document that things are changing and I think we can do that so we'll open it up for the community as part of the study session is there anybody in chambers who would like to address us on this item good morning and welcome good morning members of the board I um... my name is Sandy Brown I am here in my capacity as a member of the Santa Cruz City Council this morning um... I felt moved to speak in response to some of the discussion that came from chair friends questions about the inclusionary how to handle the inclusionary zoning provisions uh... for the county in your housing element and um... so I just want to end the question about ideological versus scientific uh... rational for making a decision in this regard is is apt I think I think you know it's it's very hard to find uh... social scientists and I have not seen any data to confirm one way or another um... we have studies uh... that suggests kind of different ways that this is handled or that it plays out excuse me um... but what I want to say is that we do have some anecdotal evidence from two jurisdictions here within the county uh... the city of Watsonville and the city of Santa Cruz both have uh... twenty percent inclusionary uh... housing affordable housing rate in their uh... their local ordinances and um... I can't speak in particular to the Watsonville experience but it was helpful for us at the city of Santa Cruz when in 2019 we voted to increase that inclusionary rate to twenty percent at the time um... we were told a study was needed uh... we couldn't do without one we said with the political will we think we can we did it uh... it did not in fact affect housing development applications we have seen more than ever um... post uh... implementing that twenty percent and essentially if you leave your uh... inclusionary rate at fifteen percent what you're gonna end up getting is like between nine and eleven percent affordable in those density bonus projects so I would really encourage you to think about having the political will if you care about affordable housing to move forward um... and make that commitment to try to make it work thank you thank you miss Brown for speaking on the item is there anybody else who'd like to address this in chambers Madam Clerk is there anybody online yes we have speakers online call in user one your microphone is now available Sandy Brown there it seems that we have quite a few unjust laws that favor big developers and doesn't really provide for housing the unhoused at all I think of the bumper sticker I used to have and I'm a retired teacher it will be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to have a big sale to buy a bomber we have over half of our taxpayer money going towards military operations 800 military bases the US has all over the world in billions to Ukraine arms manufacturers from this country food not bombs says it doesn't have we need food not bombs housing not bombs schools not bombs and quoting the co-founder of food not bombs Keith McHenry in an article the logic of letting millions of Americans move on to the streets this is from September 2021 but there is plenty of money and the state's coffers to make sure no Californians are forced to live outside in June 2021 Governor Newsom reported there was around 75 billion dollar surplus yet these funds have failed to provide rent release or provide housing for the unhoused according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development it would cause 20 billion to and homelessness in the United States that's quite a figure we need to shift the fund thank you Ms. Garrett is there anybody else online yes Rafa your microphone is now available thank you very much this is Rafa Sunfield I live in Santa Cruz I'm just calling to comment on the county's efforts on the housing element particularly development last week that the coastal commission could be delaying the implementation of the sustainability update for up to a year it's really critical that the county include a program in its housing element to implement that local coastal plan change with the coastal commission and the reason why is that the densities that the housing element relies on on the site inventory are all based on the land use element density updates that were passed by the county through the sustainability plan and while the county has passed those those density changes my understanding is that those aren't actually implemented until the LCP is approved by the coastal commission so at this point my belief is that the entire site inventory relies on densities that aren't actually legal at this point because the coastal commission hasn't approved them and until the coastal commission does sign off on those higher density land use element components we basically have to treat the LCP as a mandatory rezoning under our housing element and we should be committing to that in the housing element we're already doing it anyway it's just important that we stick to our principles and include the LCP revision as a policy in the housing element thank you thank you for your comments there are no further speakers here I see there is an additional person in chambers please thank you Becky Steinberger I'm sorry that I missed the presentation I was in a proceeding in the courtroom but I did attend the county housing advisory commission meeting last week and saw the information some information presented it was a very good discussion amongst the commissioners my question at that time that didn't get answered was what is happening with the what was going to be the Kaiser medical facility land that is still one of the I think the last remaining are combining zone properties and was owned at 102 affordable units can that be made with more density to help us achieve arena numbers I also learned I also have a question why your board declared the county owned property at Seventh and Bromer above the harbor as excess property to sell off when our county needs to be building housing and you've said that you would be building housing on county owned properties that's a real puzzle for me why would the county get rid of a property like that at a time when we need property like that for housing I learned at the housing advisory commission meeting when I asked the question about the part three area in aptos what if that owner does not want to build affordable multi-story housing and wants to build luxury homes and the answer was that the county is imposing a minimum building development density and that all property owners would have to build at least 75 percent of that number that was news to me I'd never heard that before my my question about all of this is the infrastructure is never addressed and that is a big piece of it so I hope that you will also address the infrastructure as we move our work to identify these properties for dense building thank you this time runner sorry anybody else in chambers okay we'll close the public comment we'll bring it back to the board and recognize there'll be a motion made which I can't make what I'm really just asking for is I think as you go back to the planning commission you incorporate these concerns and comments that I made so that what comes forward next includes I would submit I mean to me I think the cleanest way is just maintaining one of the parcels in its current zoning I recognize that I'm not you know that may not be the best way to do it but I mean to me that seems like the cleanest way but I think that you've heard I'm confident that you've heard the concerns and the interests that I've put forward and so to me recognizing that there was a commitment made to the community on that I think it would interplay very well with the development anyway and the secondary component on senior housing to the degree that at least a preference is specified non-binding understood but as we move forward then because at the end of the day we're going to be doing develop excuse me we're going to be doing outreach to developers and so we have the ability to have conversations with them about needs that the community has and one of them is senior housing and I think that that'd be good but anyway let's please do something for you know to some of Zach's comments you know I have to say that there is a need for senior housing you know just in in our city alone we have one council district that's entirely all senior mostly senior housing district seven and we've seen housing go for there from 300 400 parts of the pandemic to about six 700 right now and I've actually walked that district multiple times and I've seen a lot of transplants coming from north county santa cruise mid county the entire demographics have just shifted in that in that district and so to me it showed me that there's there's definitely a need for senior housing in santa cruise and actually all housing in santa cruise and so to really you know quote a silly movie you know I'd say that we really need housing just in mid county if we can finally begin housing in in mid county any housing in mid county santa cruise and if we can finally begin to rebuild the housing in north county I think that you know our wildest dreams would come true in south county and the dreams of home ownership in south county would become a reality so I think that we got to begin that process thank you and I and you know I think the other thing is that with the inclusion and housing ordinance and what that sandy mentioned in in watsonville I've been there I was there nine years and also in the planning commission two years and with that 20% inclusion house ordinance we've seen no problems with it we've seen both affordable housing and market rate housing yes even market rate housing with this 20% inclusion housing ordinance and even more recently we've seen some workforce housing that's come to our to the city as well and there's been no issues with with that 20% inclusion housing ordinance in the city of watsonville and I think that our ceo was I guess during the tenure of that creation of that of that inclusioning housing ordinance at the city of watsonville too supervisor conan yeah I will move that we accept and file this report on these draft six cycle housing element and presentation and include the direction to the planning commission to consider options for specifying that the marvista drive sites also known as part three includes some kind of provisions for senior housing and publicly accessible open space and is there a second another maybe additional direction but is there a second okay supervisor comings I did have a couple additional questions I know that you all mentioned the next study I look back at the language that was in the housing element doesn't really talk about any direction of where that next study is going to go in terms of exploring inclusionary the percentage of inclusionary housing and so I just wanted to understand because the priority of getting affordable housing is really dire at this point and my concern is that if we move down the route of a nexus study that that's going to punt this out another five years but potentially or that's going to punt it out a very long period of time because what it also mentioned the report is after the nexus study that has to be a year long and planning study that needs to take place after that and by adding all these additional all this time it seems to me that we might lose lose out on opportunities to create affordable housing in some of these new developments that we're going to see coming forward so just like to get some clarification on you know when we talk about conducting a nexus study what does that time frame look like and how quickly can we have this take place so we did include some draft completion dates it's a requirement of the document that we put in target completion dates for each of the programs that we include and basically which chapter two of the element and I don't recall offhand which date we put for this one but I believe I want to say it was 2025 that doesn't mean we can't complete it sooner if we have the money if we have it funded and you know we have the board's direction to complete it sooner we certainly can but if we are late in what we promise the state then they can come back to us and you know it wouldn't reflect well on the county if we're late in meeting milestones so it's a balancing act we don't want to over promise completing something earlier than we feel confident that we could deliver that project as far as a year long planning study after that I'm not clear I don't recall that being in there but then maybe Stephanie chime in I think um the supervisors referring to the fact that hcd can ask you to do a subsequent study I think our goal would be to do one study and have it address everything so we're not doing two separate studies that that would be the purpose yeah and I don't recall the date either I want to say it was the end of 2024 but it certainly is in the document yep um I'll take a look at that again um and then the other question I had um is a little bit more conceptual but um based on kind of what I've heard today it sounds like the zoning changes that have been made to accommodate the numbers that we're supposed to produce is pretty much the best that we can do given the amount of developable space that we have and so I'm just wondering at that when this next cycle comes up um what's going to be our ability to kind of meet any future development because it sounds like we're kind of building out to the capacity of our infrastructure um but is there more opportunity to to build and how is that going to relate when we get our next round of arena numbers yeah I mean that's a really good question because I think it's only going to get more and more difficult um and I I would say we're not exactly built out you know I think by selecting 76 parcels for rezoning um and also uh using our minimum density as our methodology um we could be really setting ourselves up for actually meeting the arena it's possible but I think when the seven cycle comes around the choices will get more and more difficult and also the state requirements are going to be that eventually if you didn't make your last rena you're still going to be held accountable for making the last rena right now we've we're kind of able to walk away from the fifth cycle and say here's our new six cycle but in the future I don't think that's going to be the case and so the choices will get more and more difficult thank you and I guess the last comment I'll make is that it just um to me that comment really reflects I think the need for board members and other elected officials to really communicate with our state electeds on you know as we move forward with building housing really trying to make sure that we're building the housing that meets the needs of of the communities I think to supervise a friend's point and to you know what we the discussions we had around senior housing we obviously we need that we need workforce housing and the ability for us to meet the needs of our community is really going to be reflected on the type of housing we can produce and so I think we should really start having those conversations because just you know saying you need moderate and you need market rate and you need this it's really not helping us meet our needs and so my hope is that we can try to work together to really bring back some local control since a lot of that's being stripped away from us um and so and then I guess the last thing I'll say as it relates to um moving forward um I do want to see if some of the recommendations that provided can be taken into consideration um you know when we talk about increasing inclusionary within this document it's not locking us into changing our ordinance immediately what it's moving us towards is trying to see how we can increase the amount of affordable housing and new development so that we can meet those affordable housing needs it's only going to help us um you know meet the goals of the arena and meet our arena numbers if we're really trying to push for more um affordable housing and so um given that this is gonna there's still some opportunity for um exploring um increasing inclusionary percentage I'd like to um well a couple things one would be to add item number two um regarding replacement out of affordable housing units um demolished as a result of large new developments to not be counted as part of any inclusionary housing requirement but should be added to them um I think that that would be worth having in this next review um as it's going to go back to the planning commission and staff can look into that further as well and then along with that um the exploration of increasing the uh inclusionary percentage to 20 for projects of 10 units or greater and for 50 density unit projects um having that inclusionary percentage increased to 25 percent um having that called out whether that's going to go into the next study um or can be explored between now and when we need to adopt the cycle the um the final housing element I think would be worth um considering and then again updates to the affordable housing and new fees for residential developments and harmonizing the inclusionary program with state density bonus so I think the other two bullet points around um projects threshold that triggers inclusionary requirement um was kind of included in number three and then affordability well and then also I think it would be good to include affordable affordability levels for inclusionary units um supervisor Hernandez did mention that there are differences in between um what is affordable in south county versus north county and I think that making sure that we um are exploring um the different levels of affordability and having that called out would be important so I'll just comment as the maker of the motion uh I'm not willing to include any of these provisions at this time I think we are on such a tight timeline with getting a document submitted to the state that can be approved we've heard that the state has a general bias against um some some of these programs and so they could definitely be problematic in ultimately getting our housing element approved and that said I appreciate your desire to create more affordable housing in our community um and to want to have a greater discussion um and bring forward some potential solutions I just think that we should make sure that it's a discussion that's decoupled from the housing element um you know I would also just as it's my own you know in this and I think we we all agree uh it's it's incontrovertible that we have a housing crisis here not enough affordable housing um but I think that maybe we disagree on the cause um that you know I think we have too many broken restrictions on building housing and and ultimately these are more restrictions um they're not it's not an incentive to a housing developer to add additional requirements for what they they can or can't do um so just you know and you know it's pointed out by the council member from Santa Cruz uh that we need to still see projects move forward with a higher inclusionary percentage the city also has um you know much higher height allowances right now than the county in general so that um is something that facilitates those those developments and those inclusionary percentages so you know I think this has to be a balanced discussion of give and take you know if we want to add a requirement for affordable housing um then how can we still help to make the job of building that housing easier um so again I I'm not supportive including them at this time happy to have the discussion later on separate from the housing element um I appreciate um we're coming from on this um Supervisor Koenig and I would just reiterate that um a lot of the density bonus laws or actually the density bonus laws are actually incentivizing more housing construction the removal of parking is making housing less expensive for developers and also the streamline process is also making the housing the the time it takes to get projects approved um it's reducing that time which is all going to incentivize more development um I feel very strongly about this so I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to make an amendment a motion to amend the main motion um and I'm going to include the following program h3 h3 hb revised to include the following components updates to the housing and loofies for residential developments um affordability levels for inclusionary units harmonizing the inclusionary program with state density bonus law um the replacement of affordable housing units demolished as a result of larger new developments shall not be counted as part of any inclusionary housing requirement but should be added to but should be in addition to them and that in order to encourage additional affordable housing units and to provide an incentive to density bonus projects inclusionary housing requirements for projects of 10 units that greater shall be increased to 20 percent for 50 density bonus projects the inclusionary requirement shall be 25 percent supervisor just to be clear your your amended motion includes the the original motion as well is that right yes so it's a substitute motion was that two and three yes in part one it's the ordinance right minus four oh yeah okay so there's a substitute motion is there a second oh second okay so the procedure is to vote on the substitute motion first I need to say that I'm gonna not support it in part because it feels redundant because we're literally doing this as part of the nexus study um some of the other elements I think I could be supportive of but not but I think just taken separately from the housing element such as like the replacement of the affordable housing units demolishing it's a very good idea but I mean I'm not being presented I'm being presented with a binary choice so I have to I have to treat it as such um so we have a substitute motion um if we get a roll call on the substitute motion before we consider the original motion please supervisor conag no supervisor Cummings uh Hernandez yes McPherson no it might my concern is timing and friend yeah no all right so we'll move back to the original motion which was a motion from supervisor conag and a second from supervisor um McPherson Lemail so say that what's good is that we're all in agreement about I mean there are a lot of communities in the state that aren't aren't able to meet this number I mean they're telling their state their communities that are being sued by hcd and such and what we're actually talking about here is how do we meet the number and go beyond and I think that that's a very good statement here the disagreement that you're seeing up here is actually toward the same goal in different ways to get there and I think that's a very healthy discussion to have supervisor Cummings yeah I just would like to say that I appreciate the comments that the other board members made and um would like to see us move forward at a future date on some of the items that have been discussed especially because I understand that there is a timing issue and that's been expressed by my other colleagues and so I hope that we can explore some of these items further um it sounds like outside of the housing element but it sounds like there is a desire to explore these further so just wanted to acknowledge where you all are coming from and that there's a desire to continue working on this thank you so we have a motion in a second if we could have a roll call in the original motion supervisor conic hi Cummings hi Hernandez yes McPherson and friend hi and that passes unanimously looking forward to you coming back for final certification or approval from us in couple months appreciate all your work on that before we move into closed session councils are anything that we intend to be reportable at a closed session no okay then we will move into closed session thank you all for attending today's meeting