 I believe we got it sorted out, so I'm going to go ahead and start the webinar, and we will be live. Thank you very much. I wanted to apologize to everyone who's been trying to log into our meeting. Because of technical difficulties, it's had a delay. Is it now possible for people to call in if they want to call in? I believe everything should be a go. We just had to switch some things around in order to make sure all the technologies were accessible. Okay, I'm going to call the December 3rd meeting of the City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission to order. Could we have a roll call, please? Commissioner Conway, Greenberg? Here. Nielsen? Here. Spellman? Here. Maxwell? Here. Chair Schifrin? Here. Okay, well now we move to the next item. There doesn't seem to be anybody absent. Are there any statements of disqualification? Seeing none, we'll turn to oral communications because of the delay getting on, activating the meeting. We may need to come back to this. But at this point, if there's anybody who wants to testify on an item that's not on the agenda, but reasonably before us, this is the time to let us know and you'll have too many people to have up to three minutes to testify. Is there anybody on the line for oral communication? Chair, there are several people on the line at this point. If there are any members of the public who wish to address the commission for oral communications, if you would please press star nine to raise your hand, we can recognize you for oral communications. This is not the time to talk about an item that is on the agenda because you'll have an opportunity when we get to that item. Okay, Chair, I do see someone has raised their hand and I've unmuted them. If you please introduce yourself and you'll have up to three minutes. Is it my turn? Yes. Oh, can you hear me? My name is Bear. Steve Bear, I live on Pennsylvania Avenue and I'm calling in reference to the new project Up the Street. Is that correct? Give you a testimony on that project. Yes, I'd like. This is a time for items that are not on the agenda. Okay, then I'll come back later. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Anybody else who wants to talk about an item that's not on the agenda? There is a person who indicated they'd wish to address the commission and oral communications. I've unmuted them. Please introduce yourself and you have up to three minutes to talk about an item that is not on our agenda for tonight. You're on the line. Hi, I'm waiting for 418 to talk so I will not talk right now. You'll have a chance when we get to that item. Anybody else? I do not see anyone else. Okay, we'll now move to the approval of the minutes. And as I said, if people arrive late and want to talk about oral communications, we may come back to that item since we started so late. We have the minutes of October 15, 2020. Does any commissioner have any comments on the minutes? Anybody who's called in with comments on the minutes? We'll move the approval of the minutes of October 15, 2020. I'll make a motion to. Thank you, Commissioner Spellman. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Nielsen. Let's have a roll call. Vote all in favor say aye. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Greenberg. Aye. Nielsen. Dawson. Spellman. Aye. Maxwell. Chair Schifrin. Aye. I'll move to the approval of the minutes of November 19, 2020. Does any commissioners have a comment on the minutes? Yes, Commissioner Spellman. I don't know. So you click on the minutes for November 19 and the supporting docs come up for the 11-5 meeting. I don't know if that's a problem or not. Those to the 11. That is a problem. We can pull those and bring them back to your next meeting because I want to make sure that, not having it in front of me, I want to make sure that the public has had access to see those minutes. Good catch, Commissioner Spellman. We'll continue this to the next meeting. And I ask, is there anybody here who, how many people are here who want to speak on item number three? This is the inclusionary housing requirements. I know a tremendous amount of correspondence on the 418 Pennsylvania item. And if there are a lot of people online who want to speak to that, I propose to move that ahead of the inclusionary housing requirements ordinance. Unless there are a lot of people who want to speak to that. So could the clerk sort of find out how many people are on the line who want to speak to each of those items? I see one person has raised their hand for the inclusionary item who is, I believe, someone that is part of the presentation. How many people are there for the 418 Pennsylvania item? There are quite a few call-ins. Let's see. There are over 13. I would say rather than making all those callers wait while we talk about the inclusionary housing requirements, I propose that we would move to item number four, 418 Pennsylvania Avenue. And then have the inclusionary housing requirements ordinance come after that. There's no objection. Why don't we do that? And I'll ask for a staff report on item number 4, 418 Pennsylvania Avenue, the appeal of staff's approval of a residential demolition authorization permit, a design permit to demolish an existing accessory unit and construct three apartments on a site with an existing single-family residence on a parcel located in the RL zone district. Do we have a staff report, please? Hi, thank you, Chair Shifrin, and good evening members of the Planning Commission. I just wanted to jump in real quick to clarify a couple things before Planner Brianna Sherman does her full staff report. I had an opportunity to speak with the appellant, and I spoke with her earlier this week, and also in reviewing some of the correspondence that was submitted. I just wanted to make sure that some things were clarified. This application, when it came in, it was assigned to one of our senior planners, Clara Stanger. It came in during a time when we were just starting to wrap our heads around SB 330 and the requirements that came along with that. And so we were moving from this very subjective design review process to learning our limitations through SB 330. And so you can kind of see in our correspondence that the evolution of our recommendations and with the understanding of that new law. And I also wanted to point out that the recommendations that an applicant receives are really recommendations that are provided by the department. They're not any, like a personal planner's recommendations. We discuss projects weekly at our staff meetings, and the assistant director and the planning director are often very actively involved in the feedbacks that we're getting applicants. So, yeah, the planner is the point person, and the communication often comes from them directly, but the recommendations really are from the department. I also wanted to point out that I think it was around August or September, Clara left on maternity leave. And so the project was still in process and it was reassigned to project planner Breanna Sherman. And so that was the only reason for that change of hands there. It was not taken from Clara for any other reason besides to let her go and have a baby. And so I wanted to make sure that that was clear and I don't want to take up any more time. So I'd like to pass it along to miss Sherman now to go ahead and give you the full staff report. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Can everybody hear me? Okay, great. I am going to share my screen. As you mentioned, I'm Breanna Sherman, associate planner. And we are here tonight to consider an appeal of staff approval of a project for 18th Street Avenue. This applicant submitted an application for design permit and a residential demolition authorization permit. They are proposing to demolish one existing second building unit and proposing to construct three rental apartments. On a site list and existing single-family homes. Staff approved this project because it fully conforms to all the applicable objective development standards in the zoning ordinance and the general plan. However, an appeal of staff decision was filed by the neighbor adjacent to the Norfolk 426 Pennsylvania Avenue. This applicant cited concerns with area compatibility, building mass and design impacts on the privacy and fuller access of his property. So I just want to note right now as well that I've received 26 letters of public comment on this appeal. Seven letters of late correspondence came in this evening, but totals to 33 public comment letters. Nine of those letters are in support of the approved project and 24 are in support of the appeal. The project site is located on an 8,729 square foot lot on the east side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Pennsylvania Avenue runs perpendicular between so-called Avenue and Broadway, and the site is accessed off Pennsylvania Avenue. The property has a low to medium density residential or L.M. general plan when used as a nation. This designation accommodates a variety of residential building types. These fit within single-family neighborhoods. They include low-rise apartments, condos, townhomes, and this L.M. designation allows for development with a density of 10.1 to 20 dwelling units per acre. So the subject parcel is 8,729 square feet or .2 acres, and the general plan density range allows for two-to-four dwelling. So a lot of the public comment that we received brought up the project not meeting density requirements. A maximum of 20 dwelling units per acre are allowed. And so if you divide 20 dwelling units by 43,560 square feet, which is the number of square feet in an acre, you get 2,178 square feet. So if you multiply that number by four, which is the number of dwelling units that are proposed, you get 8,712 square feet. This lot is 8,729 square feet. So the project exceeds the minimum square footage requirements. There are also numerous general plan policies included in the staff report that this project meets. Generally, the higher end of the density range is supported. And goal LU1 seeks residential land use intensities to ensure the highest utilization of infill parcels. And policy LU3.7 encourages higher intensity residential uses in accordance with the land use designation. And then also policy LU3.7.1 encourages development to meet the high end of the general plan density range. Unless constraints associated with site characteristics or zoning development standards require lower density. I also want to note that this project is not located within an overly distressed or a specific plan or area plan that would encourage a specific design or architectural style. The parcels also not located within the coastal zone. So the property is zoned RL, which is multiple residents low density. The purpose of the district is outlined in the zoning ordinance and it is to, I'll quote, to promote the development of multi-family townhouses, condominiums and apartments to stabilize and protect the residential characteristics of the district and to encourage a suitable environment for families and single persons. This RL district density is based on minimum lot area per dwelling unit square footage. It's important that the minimum lot area for one bedroom and studio units is 1600 square feet and the minimum lot area for two or more bedrooms is 2,200 square feet. So smaller units than what are proposed could actually result in a higher density on the parcel. The RL district allows for multiple drawings as a principally permitted use, like approval of a design permit. And because the use is principally permitted, a public hearing and public noticing was not required prior to staff approval of the project. So although there is no public hearing or public noticing, staff did hear from many of the neighbors early on in the review process. We kept a list of those folks who wanted to be notified of the project status and we maintain communication on status of the project. We provided information on when it was approved and when it was appealed. I also want to say, as many of you know, the city adopted a community outreach policy a few years ago to ensure that the community has an opportunity to engage in the development. And the project development early on in the discretionary review process. Community meeting requirements are based on project size. So this project results in a site with four dwellings and under the policy, this doesn't even qualify as a small development project, which is a proposal that would add five to 10 housing units. So for that reason, a community meeting was not required. The property is currently developed at the single family residence, a second dwelling unit and a few accessory buildings. The property is surrounded by single family and multi-family residential properties on all sides. The staff report and the findings refer to the second dwelling unit as an accessory building unit. However, it was recently determined that the structure was never officially approved as an accessory building unit. So moving forward in this report and presentation, I'll refer to it as the second dwelling unit that would be demolished. The project proposes to retain the existing single family home, which you can see on the left. And it's going to retain the residence and demolish the second dwelling unit and the accessory buildings. It's going to construct three attached, three-story, three-bedroom rental apartments. Each unit is approximately 2,300 square feet in size. These proposed apartments meet the objective development standards for the RL Zone District, and the project complies with the zoning ordinance off-strait parking requirements. I know some of the public comment brought up guest parking, and the zoning ordinance does not require guest parking for rental apartments. I also want to add that there are no inclusionary housing requirements for rental development with two to four dwelling units per the zoning ordinance. So I'm going to briefly render the project floor plans. The first floor consists of two car garages attached for each unit. The second floor plan has a kitchen, living room, and a balcony on the north elevation. And the third floor has three bedrooms, a few bathrooms, and a balcony on the second elevation, or on the south elevation. So I want to jump into the appeal. The appellant raised three concerns in her letter. The first concern was with respect to area compatibility, and the appellant asserted the project does not maintain architectural character of the neighborhood. She cited it has an incompatible scale and argued that the project will be highly visible from the street. So the three apartments will be located behind the existing single-family home fronting Pennsylvania Avenue. The existing landscaping and the existing residents will provide a buffer between the public view and the new apartments. And so the overall view of the site should remain relatively consistent with the existing character of the surrounding neighborhood. The appellant also claimed the existing single-family home will not block the view of the development, and that is correct. The new apartments are 30 feet tall. This is consistent with RL Zone District Standards and also consistent with many other two-story and three-story single-family and multi-family residential buildings in the area. The site is configured so that the new building is 66 feet approximately from the front property line. And so as you can see in this photo, only the south elevation and the second portion of the second and most of the third story will be visible from street view. This kind of site design is not unusual for an infill development project. I do want to say the project site is located within a single and multi-family residential neighborhood. So the street includes Pennsylvania Avenue, includes a mix of one and two-story homes. However, the surrounding area has a variety of architectural styles, including traditional, historic, mid-century residences. And as I previously mentioned, there's not an overlying area plan or specific plan that this neighborhood establishes or that this neighborhood is within. So there are no established design guidelines that limit the new development to a specific style. These photos show existing houses surrounding Pennsylvania Avenue and on Pennsylvania Avenue, including on the street to the north, Cuyaga Street, and to the south, Winger Street. So as you can see, many have a similar kind of boxy design, flat or relatively flat roof, a simple front articulation, and many provide multi-family housing as well. The house with the peak roof in the middle is located across the street from the project site, and at its peak it appears to be close to 30 feet in height as well. So while staff recognizes that the architectural style of the proposed development is more contemporary than some of the older homes in the area, some of which are considered historic, the zoning ordinance regulations and the policies in the general plan, they confine the limits of building design in this location. So the second concern raised by the appellant is with respect to solar access. I want to note that the appellant indicated that the solar study was incomplete as no solar study was submitted with the application. The land use application in effect at the time of applications in the middle did not include a solar study. So the application is not technically incomplete, but staff requested a shading study as an additional resource to gauge the maximum amount of shadow that would be cast from the project. So the applicant prepared this study based on the height of the development, and the study evaluates the solar impact during the morning and afternoon of the winter solstice, which is when the sun would be at its lowest daily maximum and the shadows are the longest. So as you can see the bottom study shows the existing impact. There's currently a considerable amount of shading on the property to the north, due to the existing heritage trees on the site. And while some of the shading impacts that will, I guess I would say some of the shading impacts are expected to occur with this type of infill project. So the proposal limits these solar impacts to the greatest extent possible. The development is located in the center of the property. It provides a 10 foot step back to the north property line. And the replacement trees, which I'll get into a little bit later in the presentation, will also add a buffer or will also reduce the solar impact. So the appellant also indicated that the project does not comply or is inconsistent with design permit finding number five. And the design permit number five basically says the project is required to maintain a compatible relationship to and preserve solar access for the adjacent properties. The proposed departments meet the objective development standards pertaining to heightened setbacks. They don't create unreasonable impact on adjacent properties. And the zoning ordinance and the general plan currently do not include objective design standards related to solar access. So the third concern raised by the appellant was respect to privacy. The appellant specifically cited that the proposed location of the second third balcony and the first third patio on the north elevation will be impactful to her property. And the RL zone district requires a minimum side yard setback of five feet or one foot per every three feet in height. The proposed development does meet this requirement on the north side. This photo shows the shared northern property line and the appellant's house is located on the left and the developer's house is located on the right. So this rendering shows the north elevation of the new apartment. These second story balconies add private outdoor areas for residents. However, I want to note that private open space is not a requirement to meet objectives zoning ordinance standards because the project proposes rental apartment. So while the balconies add some articulation to the northern building wall, removal of the balconies will not negatively impact the proposed project and will not reduce the density of the development. The third story balconies provided on the south elevation would continue to provide private outdoor space for the residents. So removal of the balconies would help to lessen the potential privacy impacts and they wouldn't result in a project that would be inconsistent with the zoning ordinance or state law for that matter. With that being said, though, I do I do want to note that. I do want to note that the second floor plan shows these balconies in question and, you know, they would have limited solar access and would likely be occupied less if the space was habitable space, given their location on the north side of the building. So if this were a bedroom or a living room with windows, it would probably result in a greater privacy impact than the proposed balconies. So with regard to the appellants concerned with the patios on the property line. The zoning ordinance allows for porches, I believe a previous materials, 20 inches or less above center grade to extend into the conforming interior sideyards without restriction. So the patios near the property line are permissible. The appellants argued against fast determination that the project does not create an unreasonable impact on adjacent properties. She claims that the project does not maintain reasonable amount of privacy for her property and that the trees are not a solid enough visual barrier to block the view into her yard. So again, the zoning ordinance and the general plan do not include objective design guidelines other than setback and height restrictions that help protect the privacy of adjacent properties. However, as they previously stated, removal of the balconies on the northern wall would lessen the potential privacy impacts and it would not be in conflict with state law or impact to the project density if the balconies were removed. They're not required to meet open space requirements either. If the apartments were relocated to accommodate existing trees, the project would no longer meet objective fire access development standards either. So I want to talk about the landscaping and the trees a little bit. Landscaping is commonly used to provide a screen or a buffer between adjacent properties and the view of the buildings. Well, I guess I said the zoning ordinance requires all yards to be landscaped and that landscaping needs to be permanently maintained. So like I mentioned, there are numerous trees on the property. Some of these trees qualify as heritage trees. This project includes the removal of three heritage trees. One is a pine tree and two are liquid amber trees. The pine tree that's going to be removed is due to poor condition and the removal of the liquid amber trees is recommended due to high construction impact. So the city arborist reviewed the consulting arborist report and performed a site inspection with planning staff and it was determined that the site cannot be redesigned to retain the heritage trees without reducing the density of the developer. So, you know, while it could be argued that the heritage trees are site characteristics that could justify a lower density in an effort to retain them, the Housing Accountability Act, which I'll discuss on the next slide, only allows a reduction in density when we can make a finding that the project creates a significant or adverse impact to the public health and safety. So true removal would not be a reason to lower the density under the Housing Accountability Act. As you can see on the proposed landscaping plan on this slide, the new landscape will have, you know, several shrubs and ground cover plants and replacement trees for the heritage trees that will be removed. And there will also be two trees provided adjacent to each balcony. I also want to say that staff added condition of approval number 26, which requires the trees along the northern property line to be maintained in a healthy and mature manner. I also want to note that because this property is not located within the coastal zone, a separate heritage tree removal permit is required to be obtained by the applicant from the Department of Parks and Recreation. So we received a number of letters from the public with concerns pertaining to the project design. Samantha touched on this a little bit at the start of the presentation, but this project came in while staff was just learning about the state law limitations and objective versus subjective development and design standards. So the zoning ordinance currently has fairly subjective design guidelines. And in the past, while we've had more flexibility in what we can ask for with respect to design changes, we're more limited now due to the housing crisis. So I want to provide a brief overview of the Housing Accountability Act, which is 83194. And this is the California State Law designed to promote infill development. So it limits the ability that local governments have in restricting the development of new housing. The Act also applies to housing applications that meet these three criteria. So if an application meets these three criteria, the city is required to approve the application. If the city denies an application that meets the objective standards, we're required to make a finding that the project creates, as I previously mentioned, the significant or adverse impact to the public health and safety. The law eliminates the ability that we have from proposing modifications to a project that would reduce the number of units or the density that is proposed to be developed. So there's currently no case law available to interpret the term lower density, which is the term that's used in the law. The law, however, we did consult the city attorney's office and they let us know that there were amendments made in 2017 to the Act that specifically define the term lower density. And this term includes any conditions that have the same effect or impact on the ability to provide housing. So based on that definition of lower density, staff argues that the reduction of bedrooms equates to a reduction in density and it would impact or a reduction in the number of bedrooms would impact the ability to provide housing. So at C330, which is the Housing Crisis Act, it expands upon this Housing Accountability Act and it limits jurisdictions from requiring a development to reduce density to meet subjective design standards. So as you've seen in this presentation, the three new apartments and resulting four unit projects, they're consistent with all these zoning and development standards. The apartments meet required setbacks which are intended to provide adequate privacy and polar access between properties in these urban areas and a reduction in the size or the height of the buildings would lower the density of the project by reducing the number of bedrooms within each unit. So staff cannot find that the project design results in a specific or adverse impact on the public health and safety. I'll also note that the project is categorically exempt from environmental review under Secure Section 15 Breathe-in 2, which allows for infill development. So to conclude, this project meets all of the city's objectives, zoning standards, it's consistent with general plan policies and the project maximizes infill density on a parcel that's principally permitted zones for multifamily residential uses and the parcel is also unconstrained by environmental resources. So staff recommends that the planning commissions deny the appeal and upholds staff's approval of the project. I also want to note that, or I guess jumping back to SB 330, the project is proposing the demolition of a dwelling unit. So while our local ordinance doesn't require replacement housing for demolition of fewer units, SB 330 applies to any unit that's going to be demolished. So the application was being complete while after SB 330 took effect. And according to the findings used on the staff report, the unit to be demolished has been vacant for over a year. So, SB 330 has a cutoff of five years. Staff hasn't received any confirmation from the applicant that the unit was vacant for more than five years or that a previous tenant was not of low or very low income. So we've added the condition of approval number 27 to include the replacement housing requirement for SB 330. So that's all I have for you at this time. Does the board have any questions for me? Thank you very much for the staff report. Since this is an appeal, I'm going to ask staff what's the appropriate process. First, I would assume we have questions from the commission. Then a presentation by the appellant and then maybe a response from the applicant and then opening it up to the members of the public at anyone else who wants to testify. Then after all the public testimony, maybe we can have a response by the appellant and a response by the applicant. Is that approach acceptable to staff? We haven't had more of these since I was on the commission. I'm not quite sure what the correct procedure is. Yes, that procedure is generally the way we've handled the handful of appeals we've had in the past. So yeah, that's acceptable. Okay, so then why don't we start with questions from the missionaries on the staff report? Commissioner Spellman, I see your hand up. If you could close the shared screen and I could see all the commissioners. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes. Hi, Brianna. Yeah, thanks for that presentation. My question goes to the site plan and specifically the parking scenario. I've never seen a solution for the 24 foot backup presented this way. It looks like the actual dimension is just over 20 feet as opposed to 24 feet. Yeah, so that's correct. The spaces in the, or that I guess I would say the uncovered spaces for the single family home provide 24 feet of backup area. The spaces in the attached garages provides less than 24 feet. The planning ordinance allows for, you know, an alternative backup configuration. And the applicant provided a diagram demonstrating an adequate, I guess, turning radius based on the, I believe it's the American Association of State Highway and transportation officials. So the reduction or the reduced backup area was reviewed by the public works department. They confirmed feasibility and, you know, while the turns will be tight, especially for the rear apartment. I think they, the applicant utilized an SCV and the turns are achievable. So staff move forward with, you know, as a lot by the zoning ordinance, we move forward with an alternate backup list. Could you just elaborate on that for me? I've never seen this solution. Where in the zoning ordinance do we, do we find the allowance for a different solution? Sure. I can look it up. I don't know the specific code section off the top and I had perhaps Samantha Eric do. There is a provision that allows an alternative as approved by staff. Okay, that's fine. I can look that up later, but that clarifies for me what. Thank you. Commissioner Dawson. Oh, it looks like Samantha found the section of the code. I just, I'm sorry. I just wanted to also say that we have utilized this on a handful of other projects as well where, where it is, how we ask for them to submit this turning diagram to confirm that a car can actually pull in and out of that space. Commissioner Dawson, did you have questions? Yeah, I just had two quick ones, I think. So I just wanted to confirm with staff. I was looking on the plans and they, there was designated on the plans, of course, where the electric meter was going to go, but it said electric and gas meter location. I just want to make, I just wanted to clarify if this development is under the new electrification ordinance and that it would be electricity only. That's the first question. So I'll stop there. I believe it came in. I believe the project came in under the 2019 ordinance or building code. So the application was submitted in September of 2019. And it's, I believe it's under the old requirement. Okay. Thank you for that. And then my next question is there was a part in the staff report that says that you also spoke about in your presentation that a reduction in the size of the heights would lower the density of the project. What evidence has, did you receive or could you provide to us that this project couldn't meet the requirements with two stories? So I first want to say, I know on the land use application right now, street sections and site sections are required to be provided. Again, this application came in before the land use application was modified. So street sections and site sections were not asked for as part of this application. I believe that I have some building sections that I can certainly show. I can share my screen again and show those sections. I believe the project is proposing eight foot ceiling height. And I believe the minimum ceiling height requirement under the building code is seven feet. So the most the project could be reduced is by a total of three feet in height. And when considering 27, a 27 foot development versus a 30 foot development, there wasn't a significant change in the impact on solar privacy. Okay, but I'm just trying to understand if there's a way with concessions for parking and other things that three bedrooms in the parking needed could happen in two stories. I just, I'm curious about the evidence provided by the developer that that's not feasible. Sure. And that may be a better question suited for the applicant to see if they've explored that. Great. Thank you. It looks like Samantha also has something to add. Also the applicant hasn't, this is an identity bonus project. Is that correct, Brianna? It's not. Right. So they're, they're not requesting a density bonus. That would include any concessions to eliminate parking. And I believe that the way they haven't laid out now. The parking is on the first level. All the bedrooms are on the second level and all the living space is on the third. So, yeah, you're correct. They would have to get rid of the parking in order to consolidate down to the two floors, but they haven't requested that they've requested the parking on the first floor. Could they? Did you want to follow up? Yeah, I just wanted, I mean, they, they could request, I mean, just because they haven't requested, I mean, they, they have the ability to request that for this project. Is that true? They would, I'd have to review the parking requirement for the new parking requirements for multi-family. We could take a look at that. Okay. I don't want to hold this up because I know a lot of folks want to speak. So thank you. I would also add, I believe that under the new parking requirement, they would still be required to provide two spaces for each unit. So I don't, there may be a change in the best parking requirement, but there would not be a change in the number of residential spaces that are required. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question about the inclusionary requirement that you brought up in your staff report. Maybe I'm, maybe I misunderstand, but is, does the ordinance require inclusionary once we have three units or more? So for rental development, the ordinance requires inclusionary after four units. Okay. So rental developments between two and four units do not have any inclusionary housing requirements. Okay. Understood. Now I understand what you were saying. The other question I have is, can you explain, you were getting, you had made a statement regarding the balconies saying that it's, by removing the balconies, it would create a more of a privacy impact on the neighbor. I'm just curious, can you explain that? Sure. I understand what you mean by that. Sure. It was a little bit confusing. I agree. The balconies proposed on the north side of the building, you know, they're not required or they're not there contributing to any open space requirement. So rental developments aren't required to provide private open space. So because of their location on the north side of the building, you know, they're probably going to not receive a lot of sunlight and they'll be darker. And so staff was saying that removal of the balconies, you know, that wouldn't affect any density that would, you know, that's required by state law. Removal of the balconies would remove some privacy impacts on the adjacent property. However, we were saying that if the balconies, you know, were turned into a habitable space and were part of the living room or the kitchen area, that could maybe even result in a larger impact on the adjacent property because it would maybe utilize more than the balconies, which will probably be darker and colder throughout the year. Okay. So that's assuming that you're talking privacy through windows, lack of privacy because of windows being there. So that's assuming the windows were, you know, that's assuming windows were installed lower down on the wall, correct? Yeah, I would say privacy through windows and as well as noise impacts. Okay. Was there any discussion regarding the balconies being on the south side of the units? Yeah, staff recommended that the balconies be relocated to the south side. The applicant chose not to relocate them. There are balconies provided on the third elevation, or sorry, the third story of the south elevation. And yeah, you could definitely ask the applicant about why they chose not to. So I guess I would also add, which I may have mentioned in the presentation, but removal of the balconies would not affect, you know, they're not a staple or a feature element of this project. So it's something that could be added as the condition of approval and address with the building tenant stage. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Any other commissioners have questions? And I'm going to ask my questions. I have a few questions. Is there any requirement that the applicant apply for the maximum density? So there's not a requirement. However, the general plan which has those policies that I mentioned that encourage development to be at the higher higher range of the land use designation. I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh no, go ahead. That's all I was going to say. General plan also has policies to preserve neighborhood quality. So the general plan has a variety of policies, some of which would match with maximum density, some of which would preserve neighborhoods. So I guess my question is, and I'm asking this question because there was a letter from the applicant where as I read it, he indicated that he originally came in and asked for fewer units and was told that he should ask for more density. And I just want to clarify whether applicants actually have the ability to ask for the project they want as long as it's within the density range of the district. Otherwise, why bother having a range of density if it's going to be required to go to the maximum density? Yeah, good question. So it looks like Eric wants to speak as well, but first I'll say that the applicant came in with this project as proposed and how you currently see it today. We didn't receive a request by the applicant for fewer units initially. But I'll go ahead and let Eric speak on the general plan. Oh, that's correct. This application came in basically as you see it today with some design changes. We do oftentimes when we meet with applicants encourage them to conform to the general plan policy that seeks to maximize density on lots that are unconstrained by environmental resources. But you also have to remember that we've got this SB 330 so that when an applicant does come in to us and ask for the maximum density, as long as they meet all of the objective development standards that are contained in the code, the only circumstance under which we can deny an application or reduce density is if we make this finding of a public health and safety impact. So that's the broader framework. It's just whether there's a requirement that the applicant request the maximum density. And what I hear you saying is that the answer is no, but this applicant did. Yes, and we do encourage applicants to conform to that general plan policy of maximizing density on infill lots. Well, as I say, there are other general plan policies as well. Would there be any, there was a statement made in the staff report about that implied that density was defined by the number of bedrooms. I always thought that density was defined by the number of units or the way we're using it now for a ratio which gets converted into the number of units. Where in the code does it say that density is defined by the number of bedrooms? So, sorry, that may have been confusing. Then the city and the zoning ordinance is defined by a lot area and square footage. So, I see 330 has a definition about, or I guess the term lower density. And while there's no case law to support this, you know, we consult the city attorney's office and determine that a reduction in the number of bedrooms. Would equate to a reduction in density. So, that's not in the zoning ordinance, bedrooms. The zoning ordinance does have minimum square footage requirements for bedrooms. So, one bedroom and studio units are required to provide 1600 square feet per lot area. And then two or more bedrooms are required to provide 22 or have 2200 square feet based on the lot area. Does that answer your question? It really is one of, if a commission was wanting to reduce the height of the building, it might, it would not reduce the number of units. Because still before units on the property, they may be smaller units they may have, or they would be smaller units, they might have fewer bedrooms. I'm just trying to understand, I would just like to see where in the ordinance, besides some vague statement by the city attorney that it says that the city cannot reduce the number of floors as long as it's the number of units. It's still being approved. Sorry, so I, it looks like Eric wants to speak and I'll let him speak, but I'll reiterate that the bedrooms comes from, it's not, it doesn't come from case law, but it relates to SB 330, not the zoning ordinance. But I'll go ahead and let Eric add some thoughts. That's correct. So, we're essentially dealing with two different bodies of law. That state law under SB 330, which basically says it defines lower density. I'm going to read it to mean any conditions that have the same effect or impact on the ability of the project to provide housing. So we've got a statement from the applicant who's indicated that they want to provide housing for families. We believe, as does the city attorney, that a reduction in the number of bedrooms would impact the ability of the project to provide housing. And again, the only way you can lower density or deny a project is if you have this health and safety impact finding. The other thing I'd like to add, this sort of goes with what Rihanna was saying, is our own ordinances do have a bedroom density calculation. In this very zone district, in the RL, you can go 10 to 20 units per acre. But if you're constructing a project that's all studios and one bedroom, you can actually go up to 30 units per acre. So our very own ordinances also consider bedrooms as a function of density. Okay. I'll return this after the public hearing. I wanted to ask a question about the replacement housing. If I understood you correctly, the staff report said that there is a requirement for one affordable replacement housing based on the fact that state law requires that even though the city's ordinance doesn't. If I'm understanding this correctly, does that mean that the city's ordinance is going to get a recommendation to amend the city ordinance to bring it into conformity with state law? I believe, of course, the goal would always be for the city's ordinance to comply with state law. This is coming from SB 330, which was introduced earlier, and Eric can probably add to this, but I would think that the city's ordinance will eventually reflect the same replacement housing requirement. You're muted, Eric. Thanks, sorry. It is certainly a cleanup that we should conduct at some point in time. This particular code is part of the local coastal program, and under state law, we're only allowed to amend our LCP three times per year, so we need to be strategic in when we process that amendment. I mean, the important thing now is just that we've got an awareness among staff that these provisions exist in state law and that our applications reflect criteria that we can ask for income verification with submittals, and that we've got conditions of approval that we can add to make sure that we're in compliance until we amend our codes. Okay, thank you. That's what I was looking at here. On a small question, will the windows in the project be double-pained, given that there was a concern about noise? For that, I would just defer that question to the applicant. I can certainly look it up, but it may be, and maybe Samantha has the answer right now. I was just going to say, I think that that's a building code requirement for energy calculations. Commissioner Spelman or Commissioner Nielsen might actually have more information about that as well, but I believe will likely be required for energy. Okay, thank you. Now it's time to hear from the appellate, and I first want to ask how much time do you think you'll need, and we'll see whether that's reasonable or not from our point of view. Chair, this is the clerk. You wanted to hear from the appellate or the applicant, I'm sorry? The appellant first. So the appellant is in on the attendee side, and I can't differentiate from the number of hands that are raised, so I'm going to lower the hands of all the people that have them raised, and if just the appellant raises their hand, then I'll know which one of those numbers is the appellant. So there she is. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, good evening. How much time do you think you're going to need for your presentation? I was given 10 minutes, so I prepared 10 minutes. That's fine. Go ahead. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Beth Purcell, and I've lived on Pennsylvania Avenue in my home for 30 years. I'm a taxpayer and I run a local woman-owned business. With two approved, city-approved rental units on my property have also been a Santa Cruz landlord for 30 years, always with excellent long-term tenants. My tenants have a direct relationship with me, and they love living here. I'm a caring neighbor. I've been a neighbor here forever, and we all know each other. Santa Cruz has grown over the 30 years that I've been here. I embrace this growth. We need affordable housing. When housing is added that considers sunlight, privacy, and neighborhood aesthetics, it keeps our community inclusive and equitable without infringing on our quality of life. But ad hoc building without adequate concern for neighborhoods and community preservation, infill for the sake of infill, will not create the supply we need, much less solve our affordability issues. This proposed development adjacent to my home and numerous interactions with the applicant have left me feeling frustrated and ignored. At two points leading up to my appeal, the applicant sent messages threatening negative action unless I agreed with his plans. This is not neighborly. During several occasions throughout the design review process, the senior planner in charge at that time addressed numerous objective points that were somehow left unmodified. During the 11th hour right before this appeal deadline, the applicant said he would remove the balconies for the written suggestion from the associate planner. However, based on my negative correspondence from the applicant leading up to that point, I felt the need to continue with this appeal process. I'm appealing this development and have chosen three objective areas, solar access, privacy, and neighborhood aesthetics. These are in direct conflict with the general design permit criteria. In chapter 24 of the general plan, the first of which is access to sunlight. Section five states that the orientation and location of buildings, structures, and buildings will be such as to maintain a compatible relationship to and preserve solar access of adjacent properties. A sun study was conducted as required by the general plan. The study was done only for December 21st until this coming week during the appeal process. Anyway, and it shows a 53 foot long shadow cast over my garden and my art studio where I earned my living every day. My entire backyard, including my lawn, my established garden with fruit trees, and my studio will be subject to a major reduction in sunlight that will impact my work and my trees and my plants. The shade from the proposed building will cast a shadow larger than any other development in this neighborhood. The findings mentioned two developments of similar scale at 1005 Cayuga and 1008 Soquel, but they are only two of the 176 dwellings in between Cayuga and Pine Street. In its findings of the demolition and design permit, the planning commission has stated that the development will not create unreasonable privacy or shading issues for adjacent properties. The commission also says that the apartments meet and or exceed required setbacks, thereby not creating an unreasonable solar impact on adjacent properties. This is simply not true. The solar company Alterra recently conducted a site assessment on my property that concluded 75% of my electricity could be harvested from panels on my studio roof. They also said that if the 418 project goes forward as proposed at 30 feet, solar energy collection would not be feasible. I am planning to install a solar system. How is it equitable that I be prevented from doing so? Does the planning commission really believe a development is reasonable if it inhibits the adjacent property from receiving renewable energy from the sun? This is not neighborly. It doesn't allow for a carbon free future at my property and is clearly not a quote compatible relationship as required by the general plan and does not support the city's climate change goal. The senior planner wrote twice to the applicant that my property could be negatively impacted with a reduction in sunlight, but again, no changes were incorporated. I'm requesting that the proposed building height be altered so that I can retain my solar access. The second objective point of my appeal is privacy. Section 10 of chapter 24 states the site plan should respect the need for privacy of adjacent residents. This is a major concern as the proposed development would greatly impact the privacy of everyone living on my property. The proposed plans include balconies and windows on both sides of the project. The north balconies are positioned at 10 feet above the ground and face directly into my backyard, garden and studio as well as into my tenants, bedrooms and kitchen windows. The proposed development were changed so that it faced south meaning it was directed towards the south. It would have a larger setback and would impact my privacy to a lesser extent. I therefore request that the proposal be altered so that the development faces south towards another southerly oriented apartment building on the other side of it. All the windows on the north side of the project should be positioned without a direct line of sight into my home and the north balcony should be removed. It is extremely frustrating that this topic was raised by a senior planner on several occasions throughout this development review process. In review letters written to the applicant dated October 2019 and January 2020. The senior planner wrote the second floor balconies on the north elevation may be better suited on the south elevation since that side of the building has a greater setback to the adjacent property. Consider relocating the balconies to the other side of the building. This very important point was made not once, but twice and the architect and applicant made no changes to the design. My third appeal objective is neighborhood aesthetic. Section two of the general plans design criteria states that the exterior design and appearance of buildings and structures and the design of the site plan shall be compatible with design and appearance of other existing buildings and structures in neighborhoods which have established architectural character worthy of preservation. The final project finding states that the project design has evolved in an effort to maintain a balance of scale form and proportion with the surrounding neighborhood. This is completely false. The senior planners review letters were sent back twice with no changes made. There are no other three story buildings on the street. The street is comprised of older single story and two story developments. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the majority of comparisons shown by the architect don't compare at all. Aren't most of these examples in different zoning districts? I believe they are. You have to look at them yourself. The examples are not in the middle of an established neighborhood but on busier streets and with commercial buildings adjacent to them or parking lots behind them that buffer any residences more than would occur on this mid block of a residential area. The newest development on Pennsylvania behind 324 Pennsylvania is a more tasteful, sloped roof, two story apartment building. All other older apartments on the street, the ones the findings say are non-traditional architectural style, are two story or single story. The charm of the street is in the many older Victorians with the majority of homes here built before 1910. Three story duplexes recently built at 630 Windsor are more compatible with our Seabright neighborhood because the architects incorporated sloped roofs, gables, and dormers in the design. Those design strategies should be used here to reduce the impact of this project on this neighborhood. This is a flat roof barrack style box building. Squeezing minimalist industrial architecture behind an adjacent to established historic homes on Pennsylvania will not enhance neighborhood character. It would clash with it. And I'm not the only person that feels this way. This review letter sent to the applicant from the senior planner again dated October 2019 and January 2020. The planner writes in regards to design permit finding number three, building, massing, and design. The proposed massing is much larger and out of place compared to the surrounding area. In addition, the square modern style is not compatible with the existing house that features gable roof lines and shingle siding. The project should be redesigned in terms of massing and style to achieve compatibility with the existing house and surrounding neighborhood. This was sent twice to the applicant from the senior planner with no revisions made. In addition, in response to a concerned neighbor's letters, the planner initially assigned to the project responded that the proposed architectural design is not compatible with the more traditional style of your street, and I will only support approval of a project that has a revised design and that is more compatible. The design of this project is not utilization of space for quality of life, but rather maximization of space to achieve maximum rent for the owner and not affordable housing, which we truly need. These are three bedroom, two bath townhouses. This is, you know, my kids live in this neighborhood and they rent two bedroom, one bath house and they still pay a fortune. These are going to go between $3,000 and $4,000 each, I assume. In terms of housing, I understand that we need housing in Santa Cruz, especially affordable housing. I strongly believe that we as a community can do better than infill anywhere and everywhere. We can plan for inclusive, equitable and affordable housing. In the town hall meeting for the applicants project on Hanover Street, he's got a project over there. He said by the applicants that they understood that Seabright residents do not want three-story developments. Therefore, the applicants said that they reduced this development over on Hanover to two stories. This is the same neighborhood. These same considerations for the neighbors should be made for the Pennsylvania Avenue project. I'm amenable to development, and yes, even a development at 418 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the development needs to be neighborly. The development that doesn't adversely affect the adjacent properties and development that doesn't affringe upon the privacy of others in the neighborhood. As you can see from the petition signed by numerous other Pennsylvania Avenue residents, many others agree. The proposed project does not meet three of the most important design criteria outlined by this planning commission, as I have described above. I ask the planning commission to remove the north-facing balconies, have all north-facing windows be high windows with no direct line of sight into my home, reduce the height of the north 30-foot wall and reconsider the aesthetics of the design. I urge the planning commission to reconsider this development and the negative impacts it will have regarding solar access, privacy and neighborhood aesthetics. We can do better than that. Thank you so much for listening to me. Thank you very much. We now hear from the applicant, and let me know how much time you think you need. Hi, Shiffrin. This is Breonna. I am a panelist, and I can share my screen however the applicant cannot. So I'm going to share my screen with the applicant's presentation at this time to prepare the PowerPoint. Again, I have this issue, Chair. The person that just unmuted, are you the applicant? Could you identify? I'm not able to hear you if you're speaking. Can you hear us now? Yes. Could you identify yourself and let us know how much time you think you need? Yes, sir. My name is Tim Gordon, work bench. If we could have like 13 minutes, that would be ideal. Well, I think it's only fair to give you 10 since the appellant only had 10. Can you squeeze your presentation? We will take the 10. I do want to make a quick note that there's a bit of a lag between our call and the screen. And so I will say next slide, we're going to follow along the end here. Okay, so hello. My name is Tim Gordon. I'm one of the founders of work bench, a very local design build company located in Santa Cruz. First off, I want to say a huge thank you to the planning department and to our commissioners for taking the time to meet with us tonight. We really appreciate all that you do for our community. Our time is short, so I'll jump right in and I'm happy to answer any questions that come up throughout the presentation. This project located at 418 Pennsylvania is a family oriented housing complex consisting of much needed three bedroom rental unit. Next slide, please. I'd like to discuss briefly one on topic in our area as well as California that we have a great need for housing. Like many places in California, Santa Cruz has historically not built enough housing to accommodate its existing and growing population. Per the general planning zoning code, most of Seabright areas made up of multifamily residential housing has been for many years. The primary intent of this project is to provide housing for families in this beautiful area of Seabright. The one real point on this slide that I want to mention is the thing that I think is the most impactful. At this time, there is zero three bedroom rental units on the market in the Seabright area. On top of that, there are only about 30 in the greater Santa Cruz area in total. Hopefully this statistic is alone enough to pass this project. Next slide, please. As a major point, remember here that this project meets all of the objective standards set forth in general plan and zoning ordinances. Additionally, we want to show how we believe it also meets the subjective standards as well. Brief note, our team has met with the planning department, including the director and assistant director, multiple times on this project. We have gone through nearly roughly 30 different site plans to create the best project possible that meets all of the applicable standards. I want to speak briefly about some of the biggest objective goals and restrictions of this lot and how we've met or exceeded them with no variances or exceptions requested. The fire code, we meet perfectly in order to follow the fire code. We had to put the driveway on the side that is located on. Setback for music and building and property lines, we meet and exceed on the north side adjacent to the appellant property. Parking calculations, we meet. Density, open space, every other item required by the general plan and building code has been met on the project. Next slide. After submitting the presentation, I'm sorry, can you go to the next slide? If they may or you might be there. Ron, if you go to the SB 330 slide, I think slide five. I can't tell if you're there or not. I apologize. After submitting the presentation, I became aware that the commission is going to hear a presentation following ours on the standards and regulations of SB 330. So to that effect, I'll skim through a lot of this slide and only point out this couple major items. The most important factor here is that the project must meet all of the objective standards in the general plan and zoning code, which we have done. As you well know, all of the items in the appeal are subjective standards and cannot be considered if they reduce density, bedroom counts, square footage, intensity of use, style, height, financial feasibility of the project for the owner, et cetera, unless they come with a preponderance of effort in writing that states that the project will have a negative effect on the health and safety of the public. We have quite the opposite on this project. We have preponderance of evidence showing that we have met all plans as provided by the planning department. Just on SB 330, all the local planning codes don't require any affordable units on the slide. Today, we understand that we may need to provide a deed restricted to affordable units. I just want to say that we are very happy to do so. We appreciate the protections that this law brings. And we are also willing to do our part to achieve the vision and goal of this bill by creating affordable housing. Even that in mind, I'm going to turn it over to Dan Stark, our lead designer on the project. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for your time and consideration. My name is Dan Stark. I'm the architectural project manager on the project at worktime. Next slide, Breonna, please. And I apologize again. We have quite a lag here, so I'm just trying to follow along. Trying to be quick. Okay. So as Breonna mentioned, the density of the, or the first, the remainder of the presentation is the direct response to the submitted appeal. My intention is to show standards full subjective and subjective present in the municipal code and the general plan and how we're attempting to satisfy those standards. Appeal number one is an appeal that the building doesn't fit in neighborhood context in massing. So I just want to mention briefly that density based on our municipal code zoning and general plan put the project in the range of 10.1 to 27 dwelling units per acre. And also general plan section LU 3.7 states the objective of allow and just encourage development that meets the high end of the general plan land use designation designation density. So we're meeting the general plan by proposing three units, three or four units rather three units would not meet the upper density requirement of the general plan. A second objective standard that applies to this appeal item is that the 30 foot maximum principal building height Santa Cruz municipal code 24.22.162 defines building height as the highest point of the coping of flat roof or to the average midpoint of roof plans of the highest gable of pitch or hip roof. So a pitch roof building could actually result in a taller the taller rich and still meet objective zoning standards. I want to mention that the building has a ground floor first level in either nine or 10 foot floor to floor height, which is very close to the minimum required by the California building code which requires seven foot six inch ceiling at most habitable spaces. The seven foot ceiling is only acceptable in the kitchen or bathroom. Next I want to address what what a neighborhood is so Santa Cruz municipal code 24.22.560 objective objectively defines the neighborhood as an area within a one half mile radius of the site. So next slide please. Okay, so this slide shows the number of projects. I just want to walk through quickly and per the municipal code all of these projects are actually within a one quarter mile radius of this site, which is which is tighter than the requirement of one half mile in order to be considered a part of the neighborhood. Next slide please. So this house is on 117 Galt Street. It's a three story multifamily residential project. Roof are slopes, hip roof, but there's such a low slope that such a low slope that they objectively appeared to be the same as a flat roof. Next slide please. This is 1041 Cayuga Street. It's pretty comparable project under a quarter mile from our site three story multifamily residential development with flat roof. Next slide please. One thousand eight. So Calab is another very similar project a quarter mile away from a two story plus multifamily residential development with flat roof and balconies on the property line. Next slide. One thousand five Cayuga Street is directly adjacent to our property on the next block over it's a two story multifamily residential development with flat roof. No separation of balconies and adjacent buildings and the property. Next slide please. Next, the next item on the appeal to address is the solar impact on the adjacent property. Some study that was originally submitted with the application was one on the right side of this slide and it shows the date and time with the most restrictive solar access. This is a typical winter condition for much of Santa Cruz indeed the United States and the shade effect on the property would be from about sunrise to noon or earlier in the winter. The solar study in the middle of this shows the existing trees to be removed and the important thing to note here is that the solar impact in the winter of our development may be less significant from the impact of the current 60 foot Paul liquid amber tree. And please also note that these studies only show the effect of the adjacent property on our proposed development. So you're not seeing much shading in the backyard. From the existing trees of the product property to the north but pretty much all the surrounding buildings would would put that in shade in the early morning of the winter hours. Next slide please. These slides show solar impact afternoon and at three o'clock. And you can see that the impact on the roof is negligible and probably less significant than the current impact of the trees which will be removed. I do want to mention that the trees can't remain without a reduction in housing density on the lot or a reduction of open space or parking requirements or fire access. And we have been through a lot of iterations on them. Also worth mentioning is that we're replacing those three trees with 13 appropriately sized trees, including two that sit directly behind the balconies. Next slide please. The slides are June 21st and they show that the solar impact is non-existent. It doesn't even cross the property line. Next slide please. Appeal item number three is the impact of privacy revolving from the balconies on the property line. It should be noted that these homes are meant for family and would not create the same type of noise that a college rental or one bedroom or two bedroom typically would. The balconies themselves are four feet deep. They're not deep enough for a significant gathering or probably even for a table for eating other than one or two people. These balconies are really intended for parents of children to be able to keep an eye on their kids as they're in the backyard and also to get fresh air and sunlight into the unit. The minimum side yard setback of the five feet is required for the municipal code section 24.10.450. We've gone beyond that setback to 10 feet in order to provide open space and increase privacy to our neighbor to the north. As I previously mentioned, 13 trees replace the existing trees and two of these fit in front of the balconies. Santa Cruz municipal code 24.08.430. Number nine allows landscape elements to be used to create privacy, which is indeed what we're doing here. But it should be noted that some of the factors affecting the privacy at the property line are beyond our control. The neighbor to the north has legal non-conforming setback of three foot from the property line. Also worth mentioning that the property line, the fence on the property line currently sits about nine to 12 inches onto our site. We could propose to replace the fence with a six foot good neighbor fence on the property line to further mitigate privacy concerns. Next slide, please. And this is the end of our presentation. Commissioners, thank you for your time. I hope you understand that it's proven difficult, but we do want to be good neighbors in addition to providing much needed housing for Santa Cruz in a place in fashion that has been predetermined to happen. Most of the residents, most of us at work bench are residents of the city in the county and we do have several team members living in the sea bright. And I just want to mention that we are willing to provide affordable housing and other concessions as required. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm now going to open it up to the members of the public. And given the lateness of the hour and the rest of the agenda, I'm going to limit the testimony to two minutes each. When your hand is called or when you're unmuted, could you please give your name and just your testimony for two minutes? Thank you. You're on the line, Speaker. Hi, we can hear you. You're on the line. Oh, I didn't know. Good evening. My name is Allison Russell. I am a sea bright resident and oppose the proposed plan for development at 418 Pennsylvania Avenue is followed. We do need housing, but we need affordable and attractive housing that respects the surrounding neighborhood and adds to quality of life. The proposed development is a massive unbroken ball crammed into every inch of available state. It's not in sync with the neighborhood and it's not welcoming. The similar proposal on Seabright Avenue was improved by lowering the height, dividing the buildings into two instead of one and planting trees after neighbors expressed opposition. At the very least, the same should be done here. Altering the design with sloping roof lines as well as lowered height would at least help integrate the design with existing homes and buildings and would reduce what is sure to be extensive shadowing to the north. The north side balconies clearly interfere with the privacy of the neighbor to the north and should be removed. To bring the scale down and add some breathing room. The design could be changed to three smaller, more affordable units by upgrading the existing front house and adding to two bedroom units behind it. That would provide green space, a play area or more vehicle backup space, all of which would improve quality of life. The proposed development could have families of tenants in our college town. However, it is more likely that the development will have multiple tenants living in each unit and that many of these tenants will have a car. Street parking on Pennsylvania is packed all the time. Adequate space for multiple cars must be included in the design so that on street parking isn't made even worse. Thanks for your consideration. Thank you very much. Nick. I live in 426 Pennsylvania apartment B. So I'm actually the middle tenant of Beth herself. And I would like to attest to what she said about the solar obstruction. Outside of our kitchen window, our bedroom window, living room window and bathroom window. We are facing what would be the development. And all of those areas receive really bright sunlight all throughout the day. So that would cause a huge change to our, our standard of living. Thank you very much. Travis Tindy and I'm a C by C bright resident residing at 310 Pennsylvania Avenue. Thank you planning commission for providing an avenue for public comment. And for the community outreach policy before development approval. I'm speaking out today, not as a naysayer against any development and growth, but as a resident who believes that our. Equitability goals can be achieved through proper planning that seeks to find balance between. Those that support maximum infill. And those that oppose any new development. Our current trajectory seems to be somewhat aimless with our zoning ordinance. Being out of sync with the general plan, especially as it pertains to objective guidelines. And because of this misalignment. The C bright community with our low, medium density is especially susceptible to infill with two to four units, which as Brianna stated earlier, has no inclusionary housing requirements. The applicant's argument stating that his project should be approved because there are no other three unit rental units in the neighborhood. Is in line with the profit objective, not an inclusionary objective. And because recent state measures limit our ability as a local jurisdiction to downscale. I am for this planning commission to take bold action for a better growth plan that allows for infill strategic infill, not anywhere and everywhere. So, I do believe a naivety exists among residents in the city when it comes to preservation or saving Santa Cruz. We mustn't fall victim to infill anywhere and everywhere. So the applicant's argument with the intention of the balconies to keep track of children in the backyard. I mean, that's course you at best. So the rental units are not required to provide open space. And I believe that we can do better than this provoked proposed development at 418 Pennsylvania. So thank you. Thank you very much. Next please. Hello. Hello, we can hear you. Please introduce yourself. I'm Alan Spital. I live on 823 Cayuga Street in the Seabright. I just made only have two minutes, but I'll do the best I can here. I want to challenge the applicant who made several assertions that I think are incorrect. The first one being, I think he said that the majority of the units in the Seabright neighborhood are multi-dwelling, multi-unit dwellings. And that's clearly incorrect. The comparisons he offered for the building on this proposed from Pennsylvania included several buildings that are not in the same zoning district, including two of them that are in the RM zone and one that's actually in the commercial corridor on Soquel. So using these to compare with a building that's going to go on the residential area seems relatively ridiculous. When we were discussing, and this is all new to all of us, the state laws which don't allow us to reduce the number of units, and maybe even the number of bedrooms, although I understand that's up for debate, the applicant also made the assertion that we could not reduce the square footage, which is clearly ridiculous because then anybody could design a huge house with huge rooms and we wouldn't be able to object to the size of them. I think there's a way out of the problem of this bulky and monstrous building that would incorporate gables and slope roofs and dormers that would blend into the neighborhood better. I would suggest that the place to start would be to eliminate that second story balcony, add that to the square footage of the house, move one of the bedrooms down to that floor, reducing the number of bedrooms in the third floor, and perhaps reduce some of the ceiling heights, which I believe on the plans are nine to 10 feet in some spots. And so doing allow you to create dormers, gables, slope roofs, something like that to reduce the massiveness of this building and have it blend into the neighborhood a little better. This is the kind of thing that we could request, you know, we'll redesign and I think based on how alien this current building is, I think it's the best course that the Planning Commission can take tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next please. Hello, my name is Thomas Miller and I'm a resident of Seabright neighborhood and so fairly recently was resident on Pennsylvania Avenue. Thanks a lot for listening to all of us and I just want to put forth the idea that this project actually would fit nicely on Delaware Avenue west of Swiss Street in an industrial post industrial area. I was on that stretch of Delaware today and there are numerous buildings with similar lines to the building design that's proposed for it came Pennsylvania Avenue. There are in the residential areas. There's no three story buildings with with such lines. There are some two story apartments with square lines but again they are much less close to adjacent lots. Most of them have parking lots or greater setbacks due to the site that they're in. The 30 foot industrial style block building it doesn't fit in the block of Pennsylvania Avenue between Soquel and Broadway and frankly it really doesn't fit anywhere in Seabright except perhaps on those transit corridors that were identified way back in 2012 and it's unfortunate in some ways that transit corridor plan didn't happen and it seems like a consequence of that not happening is that this instill in these the idea of building three story buildings and in our residential areas is being pushed into the neighborhoods. I mean I know their legal definition of the neighborhood includes everything on the as the architect was saying within us what half mile radius but that's not what a neighborhood really is the neighborhood is what you see when you go out your front door and there's nothing on Pennsylvania Avenue like this 30 foot building which will be visible from the street. And we've heard the staff's opinion that this project fits within all the guidelines and also the staff including the city attorney's opinion that that hasn't been tested anywhere that you can't reduce the number of bedrooms. Well you could reduce the size of the bedrooms. These units are 2000 square foot plus 2000. I was just in a 1000 square foot home on Pennsylvania Avenue that's got three bedrooms a kitchen living room dining room bath and laundry room within a 1000 square feet so it's not inconceivable that the bedrooms and living area in these proposed apartments could be reduced and therefore lower the height of the building reduce it to two stories which would fit better with the rest of the neighborhood indeed. It would make it fit with the neighborhood. There's no other three story buildings on the block and I'm defining neighborhood by the legal definition. I'm defining neighborhood by what you see when you come out your front door and what you see when you go down the street. So I know that this is a ticklish area that there are statutes that seem to circumscribe the boundaries that the commission can move in. What I would ask the commission to do is to use your discretionary powers to modify the project to lower the height and change the aesthetics. And just use your discretionary powers. I mean it doesn't say anywhere in my readings of the code, the general plan and even the state law that everything needs to be maxed out and it absolutely doesn't say anywhere that I can discern that you cannot reduce the square footage of a proposed project. I think that's about it for me. Again, I just want to say this project would fit nicely over on the west side on Delaware Avenue west of Swiss Street but not in Seabright neighborhood and certainly not on that block of Pennsylvania Avenue. And I do want to also appreciate the civility of the architects in your presentation and we do need more housing and I do appreciate the architects voicing their willingness to provide a willing to replace that unit that I used to live in, the little cabin behind 418 Pennsylvania. And it was within the five year boundary that was brought up by city staff and I'd be willing to testify to that or show documentation as needed in the future. Thanks a lot for listening and thanks again everybody for putting energy into this and certainly thank you to the commissioners. Thank you. Before I hear it in the next person, could I ask if the clerk is keeping time? Yes I am. Do you not hear the beep? I hear no beep. Okay then I'll unmute my thing so you can hear the beep. It does beep. I didn't want you to hear me writing. Hello. You have two minutes. Go ahead. Hi my name is Kira and I'm a neighbor on Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm sorry I'm not prepared. We just put our baby down for bed and we're trying to eat dinner right now. It's a little bit later than I expected. I just wanted to voice my opposition to this project. I do support infill housing. I often find myself on the other end of the argument when projects come up that neighbors complain about, you know, I know we need housing. But if you look at the examples that Workbench provided, you know, at 618 Winter Avenue, I think those really fit into their neighborhood much more than the project that's been proposed for this Pennsylvania Avenue. And I just find it absolutely ridiculous that the developer thinks that this is going to be family housing. You know, I went to school at UCSE. I was one of the students that lives in a house, a three bedroom house with five other roommates, six other roommates. My husband lives in a three bedroom house with 10 other roommates. Like there's no guarantee that this is going to be family housing. And when they say that, you know, the balcony space will be able to provide room for kids to be outside with tenants. There is no way I would let my 11-month-old out on a balcony. And I just think that that's a very wishful thinking, and it just doesn't seem like reality. So I would just like to urge you guys to somehow push this back for redesign for something that really does fit in the neighborhood with more of a, you know, cropped-and-fell house with, you know, gable roof for something different than the big clock shape. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much. So my name is Jameely Cannon. I am also founder of Workbench. And I'm speaking to you tonight as a renter in Seabright. I currently rent a 1,250 square foot home with my three children, our large dog and Tim, and the fact that there's one other rental that would fit our family or be about half of the size that would ideally fit our family in this neighborhood. Is this heartening to say the least? And I would really urge you to support the project and to support more rental housing in Santa Cruz. It is desperately needed, affordable or otherwise. Thank you. Thank you very much. There is a caller with their hand raised. The last four numbers are 1790. Would you please press star six to unmute if you wish to address the commission? I just spoke. Oh, thank you. Yeah, thanks. I'm Jody Bear and I live on Pennsylvania as well. And I'm against this project. I don't think a developer has the right to block sunlight from your neighbor. And I just, this is too big and I do not understand why that you have to build to max. Our neighborhood is small and beautiful, and we do not need a monolith. And I call this not low density. So please we send the project. Thank you. Thank you. Chair, I don't see that anyone else has their hand raised. So I would ask that any of the many speakers that are on the line that wish to address the commission at this time, please press star nine. Hello. Hello. Hi. My name is Brad Burkhard. I live at 207 Pennsylvania. And we had a project somewhat similar to this approved on Windsor just about four months ago. And it was much more attractively designed. However, I want to point out something about the density on this project. It appears to me that the the planning department is being held hostage to some kind of nebulous density laws. All right. There is no requirement for maximum density on this site. Okay. And I want to also point out that these so called garages have nine foot ceilings. I believe there's a bathroom in the garage. They're going to be turned into a fourth bathroom for students who are living in these places. Okay. This project is not very attractive. And it's ugly. I would think if I were the architect on this project I would be ashamed to have designed it. I agree completely with the person who talked earlier that it is up to the planning commission to exercise their discretionary abilities to revise this project. The planning department is merely going by rules that they think are absolute and they're not. They don't go according to our general plan. The planning commission is the only group of people who can overgo this terrible project. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Are there other speakers? My name is Juanita Usher. I live in the Seabright neighborhood. I am concerned that in order to build this project the developer has done it under rules and regulations for rentals only. And that means no visitor parking, no open space need be required. However, and then you know then turns around and says he thinks it's going to be family oriented, which there's no guarantee for that. But that being said, my great concern is that what is to prevent this owner from turning around and converting these from rentals to condos and selling them? Could there be a covenant invoked that the development can never be converted to saleable units and must remain rentals for all eternity? So that you know, if he doesn't have to do visitor parking and he doesn't have to do open space and then turns it around and sells it, he's gotten away with a lot. And again, the land use code says the objective for new building is to stabilize and protect the residential characteristics of the district. And I don't believe this design fits that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi, please identify yourself in two minutes. Okay. My name is Shelly Hatch. I was looking through on the internet at Santa Cruz plans because I was trying to find why these are called carriage houses. And I hope someone could explain to me workbench on their plans that says because they are carriage houses, they do not need to be accessible. What are the accessibility features that would be required if these were not named carriage houses? I've never heard that before and I don't understand why it's being used and I'd like to know what accessibility features are they losing? Thank you if someone could address this. While I was looking I found this quote from a document that was about building ADUs and it said this one sentence I will quote. It is best for new roof lines to mirror the roof line of the existing house. To me this policy when I read it made a lot of sense in order to achieve a cohesive look. Especially when you're crowding so many units onto such a tiny parcel and the front one is completely different. But I also remember like Alison said how the prior planning commission I think it was did have one come back and took it from three stories to two because they felt that the three bedroom, three baths were definitely going to be student housing. So I was curious when I read that the owner said these are family apartments. I mean the carriage houses, they're family carriage houses and of course no open space because they're for families and the three by three design aspect seems ready to house six or more students in each unit. So what determines that these will be rented to families not students? I don't know that we can do that. And hearing the talk about the solar is really depressing because any of us can imagine if sunlight and warmth were removed from our south facing windows and our yards what life would be like. There would be no point to live in Santa Cruz unless you could leave and go to the beach all the time or maybe go to the another part of town that doesn't have as much zoning like this that might have more R1-5. So I think those people are going to really score but the poor east side is going to get all of this that no one can speak up about that supposedly you have to just pass it all. Well, I think you've done things before that add more detail, more articulation to buildings, change roof lines and your own document says that the roof line should mirror the original house. Thank you very much. Thank you. Was that a beep I heard at one point? It was a beep. I think I need to move it closer to the speaker. It's clear what it is. If there's another speaker could we hear the next speaker please. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thanks. My name is Max Morgan and I live on Pennsylvania actually 426 the adjacent property on the north side. Thanks for taking time to let us express our thoughts and feelings on this. I'd like to provide context to what I think would happen if this project went through. I'd be concerned about privacy and sunlight. Currently, we do have our neighbors looking at us from the southern property and that would be even more prevalent if this went through. And also, I rented this unit due to the sunlight that it had and seeing where this proposed. Well, then would be would walk out that this would actually cause me to think about, you know, moving to a different location. So I'm asking you guys to consider something that's more in line with the elevations of other properties around to use the quality of life the same for the current residents. Thank you very much. Next speaker please. Can I ask the court how many more people there are who are going to want to speak. The speaker that's next is the last hand that I see raised at this time. Hey, great. Please identify yourself. You have two minutes. Hello, my name is Tiana Shaw and I am a resident renter in Santa Cruz. The first thing I just wanted to say is that I'm like appalled and astonished by the number of nimby fellow residents I have in this town and it's really upsetting, especially knowing the current housing crisis that we're all experiencing and knowing that our fellow residents and friends all just so many of them just lost their homes in Santa Cruz County in the mountains and are looking for places to live and wanting places to live here and for us to say, you know, you can't not hear why don't you find somewhere else. It's just really upsetting. But aside from that, you know, I just want to say that we desperately need housing and I encourage the commission to move forward with the project as proposed. But you know, even with Rihanna explaining many of the points of this project and how it's by right and following different rules, they still continue to hear people misquoting what the rules are and the zoning regulations. And so I'd also encourage residents that are, you know, complaining and upset to really look at what's agreed through the zoning rules and listen to the planning, the planners that are trying to explain to you what the rules are. Thanks. Thank you very much. I'm assuming that that was the last member of the public who wanted to speak on this item. I'm going to let the appellant have three minutes to rebut and then have the applicant have three minutes to rebut or make final comments, not necessarily rebut, but have three minutes. Hi, I'm back. I just want to, can you hear me? Yeah, go ahead. Thanks. I just want to say that it's really interesting these proposed apartments. This has already spoken a little bit, but they're 2000 square feet with three bedrooms. I live in my home is 1000 square feet with three bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, one bathroom and laundry in 1000 square feet. And I just wanted to address the last caller because she's worked for work bench that we're not ninbies. We want remodel, we want development next door. That's fine. But just be have to be respectful of the neighborhood. And, you know, these units are going to go for three, 4000 at least a piece. This is not the kind of rental that I don't think she can afford or that, or that my kids can afford in this town, three bedroom, two baths. The other thing too, is that the, the examples the architect gave on galt street, Cayuga and so Cal, these are all commercial housing with huge lots around them, driveways parking lots on either side. These examples are not examples of what's going to go in next door and squeezed into a residential street like this. So, just in conclusion, I'm not against development and I don't think anybody that spoke tonight is against development. We all feel like we need housing, but it needs to be respectful and inclusive and neighborly, you know, it's, that's it. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening all of you. Thank you so much. We hear from the applicant for three minutes, please. I know comments. Hello, can you hear it? Yes, go ahead. All right, so we appreciate everyone's time tonight and all the comment and the ability to present this project to our community, which we all live in. We really appreciate the comment from Santa about, you know, making sure that we're prioritizing housing at a time when we need it most and that's really important, I think. And here are these, you know, there's a few things that were kind of misquoted along the way and some clarifications that we can make, but also millionth in the day. You know, this is a project that meets all of the general plan requirements, a general plan that takes years and years and hours of everyone, including the community's input to create and put together as well as all the zoning code, which mirrors and follows the general plan. So, I think it's a project that fits in exactly as it should to be a progressive and then I'd like to ask the end to comment on where footage of the unit. I think that's one thing that kind of came up. So, so I care a lot of the 2000 square foot numbers thrown around the actual square footage of the habitable space is closer to 15 or 1600 square feet. We do have the ground floor garages, which is what qualifies the project of the carriage unit. If you look at the site plan, then I hope you would understand that the reason for that decision is because it's a fairly limited lot based on the density requirements before the municipal code and the general plan. And we need pretty much every square foot of that for for parking provided part of the municipal code fire apparatus acts of open space. I do want to mention that I've heard a lot about open space not being provided for private open spaces and required on rental housing. That's a little bit of a misunderstanding. We do have the required open space on the site plan. The the the requirement that it be private is just means that it's distributed evenly to the units and we actually do have that we have open space meant for private use by every single unit. Yeah, I mean, to me, it seems like the crux of the issue here is that see bright neighborhood has been designated previously for increased density. This is an RL zone, which is a multifamily residential density zone, which we're meeting all the general requirements and then municipal municipal code requirements. And, you know, I wish the project was left contentious. We do really want to be good neighbors and good partners to Santa Cruz. But I think the concern is just that see bright and dense flying. And that's been preordained 10 years ago. Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to appreciate all the testimony that we've received and close the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission. Why don't we just have before anybody tries to make a motion? Why don't we just have comments or additional questions of staff. And, or anybody for that matter and proceed to action. So do any commissioners have comments they'd like to make or quite off additional questions to Commissioner Nielsen. I actually had a question for the applicant. Okay, that's fine. Are they, are they on right now? Talking for a minute. Okay. What was my question? Oh, why was, I'm just curious why there was, why the choice was to keep the front house on the property rather than developing the entire site. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, so that's kind of a couple of parts there. Number one is, you know, there's a good way to feel to reduce the massing effect of a project is to have a lower structure towards the street, as you get taller towards the back of the lot. So that's one thing that we, you know, wanted to make sure we can incorporate here and keeping that front unit is a really good way to do it. Another, another thing there is, you know, Santa Cruz, it's keeping existing houses is, is, you know, can what makes is one thing that could make or break a project. You have a few projects like this where, you know, if you buy a property that has an existing family home, prices that things are selling at today, if you're going to demolish that home and try and rebuild it. You know, you're going to, you know, essentially lose money. So there's a bit of a financial aspect to it as well. But those are two main main main. So it sounds like it was financially driven mostly. Well, both of those things, both financial ends, if we were going to rebuild there, it'd be at the same size likely anyway, so it didn't need to be removed. Additionally, there's some, you know, some replacement housing qualifications and that unit slated to be remodeled anyway. So it's going to be brought up to a lot higher standards than what it's at currently. Was it ever under just a further question on that? Was it ever considered? I mean, did you guys ever consider removing it and put together any designs that, you know, site plan designs that showed what the impact of developing the entire property would be rather than the way you're doing it now? We don't have anything that's as far along as this would be. We do have very preliminary site plans. As I mentioned kind of briefly, and I apologize, our presentation felt a little rushed, but I did, we have gone through, I would, 30 is a minimum number of site plans have gone through on this, both back and forth with the planning department and internally with every variation imaginable. And I think the planning department could attest to that with the amount of time that we spent on this project. But that being said, we don't have anything I would say like pretty as what is here as far as like a design that's far enough along to be something we would show, but we have done a fair amount of site planning, including that. Yeah, the pretty aspect is not the important part to me. I just was curious if there was a thought in terms of how you could achieve, if you were able to achieve the similar four units in a less impactful way, meaning could it have been a two-story or two-and-a-half story with removing that front house? So, I do want to mention that the decision to keep the front house in place was a fairly early decision in the process. It does have a fairly significant financial influence on it. The cost of demolition and construction in Santa Cruz is significant. Now, I don't want people to get the impression that that means that, you know, we're an out-of-town developer just trying to make the most money off of Santa Cruz and leave as quickly as possible. It's just the truth of development that if a project doesn't make sense financially, it doesn't happen. So, you know, Santa Cruz needs housing. We should be welcoming developers into our community. And it's not a matter of maximizing profit. There are otherwise other ways to make more money on this project. They were for sale units, for example. But certainly the financial aspect of the decision is important and significant. And, you know, please don't equate that with us being like an out-of-town developer just trying to make money off the town. That's not the case. We're trying to provide housing for the city of Santa Cruz. Yeah, that's understood. I just was, I mean, it sounded, I just was clarifying that it really sounds like it's mostly a financial, there's really more of a financial decision to keep out from house. That's what I was, that was my question. The other question I have is relocating the balcony to the south side. I know there was some testimony that you stated that it has to do with having visual on the yard area for the unit. Was there any other reasoning for not relocating the balcony to the south side? I mean, it's really just a matter of the function of the balcony. You can actually see the third floor of our unit does have some small balconies, which is just kind of like a spot on the third floor on the south side of the unit, which is just a spot for the occupants of the master bedroom to go outside and get some fresh air. Putting the larger second floor balcony on the south side of the project really doesn't make a lot of design sense to us. You would basically be sitting on a balcony watching cars coming in and out of the driveway. So that's okay. That's the reasoning. Okay. Thank you. We start with questions. Do other commissioners have questions of the applicant of staff or the appellant? I had a couple of questions just to follow up on some of the testimony. One of the speakers asked about conversion of the rental units, the kind of mediums. My understanding is that probably wouldn't be possible, but could staff respond to that please? Hi. Can you hear me? Now we can. Okay. Correct. Our subdivision ordinance includes provisions that prevent condominium conversions from occurring as long as the vacancy rate below 5%. And I, in the 18 or so years I've worked here, we've never had the vacancy rate. So it would be difficult to guess what that happened. Did you want to add anything to that? I was going to say exactly what Eric said. The other question had to do with the definition of a carriage house, which seemed to have something to do with where the car garages were located. It was about accessibility and could staff speak to the accessibility issues with this project and with carriage houses please? I can add a little bit and I think it looks like Samantha and Eric want to. The building department reviewed this application and if the development was not considered carriage units, one accessible unit would be required. However, based on the definition of carriage units, there is an exemption that the project meets. And the applicant provided a determination from a certified access specialist, which involves analysis of the project against the fair housing act and building code and the building department reviewer accepted the carriage unit classification. So I'm happy to read the definition of carriage units into the record right now if that would be useful. But perhaps Samantha or Eric has something to add. I see one commissioner shaking a yes. Okay. Why don't you read that into the record? So the CBC defines carriage units as a dwelling unit with living space on one or more floors immediately above a group U, private garage or garages. The footprint of the garage or garages is used as the footprint for the remaining floor or floors of the units above and the garage level contains no habitable space. And then there's a note that says dwelling units located over a common garage shall not be considered carriage houses. The carriage house, if it is defined as a carriage unit, it does not have to be accessible. Right. So the requirements for disability access under both the state and federal regulations, they don't apply to the project because they're considered carriage houses. And that was confirmed by a certified access specialist and our building plans reviewer. Thank you. Are there other questions from commissioners? If commissioners want to provide any Mr. Marlett, did you want to say something? Yes, thank you. I just wanted to follow up on a question that Commissioner Dawson had posed earlier and then as well as some of the comments that were made from the public if it permissible. Go ahead. Okay, great. Thanks. So there, as I understood the question from Commissioner Dawson, she was exploring the possibility of using density bonus to perhaps eliminate cover parking through a waiver provision. A couple of points. A, we can't as a city compel an applicant to file an application for a density bonus. The other point is that to be eligible for a density bonus, the project has to include at least five units. This only has a net of two units. There are also a number of comments from the public expressing concerns with architectural compatibility of this project with the neighborhood. We, the staff absolutely understand and respect those concerns. We had very similar concerns early on this project's been in for a while and we did attempt to explore different designs as the applicant mentioned. But that was before we got a full understanding of the Housing Accountability Act and its requirements. You know, bottom line absent any objective architectural development standards or perhaps an applicant that was willing to provide something like a pitch roof. The city just doesn't have the legal authority at this point in time to impose that requirement at the condition of approval. This really highlights the importance of this upcoming item you have on your agenda involving objective development standards. I just wanted to mention that as well. Thank you. Any comments by commissioners? I have comments myself. I'm happy to make them and then maybe we could turn to somebody who could make a motion. I think I understand what Mr. Muller is saying in terms of design. My own opinion is that the existing house is the most particularly pleasing part of this project. From my perspective, just looking at elevations, I think it's going to be, it's not going to be a positive addition to the neighborhood. I do think it's too tall and I don't think that I'm not convinced by what staff has said that by reducing the number of stories that we are taking up, taking a position that is undermining the ability to provide housing. Whether the housing is two stories or three stories, I think there is a ability for the commission to have some discretion to decide whether what's more appropriate in this area on this site. And my point of view is the housing, the things are too tall. The site is overdeveloped, but I think it is true. There have to be, the density has to be allowed in four units. I don't think that density has to be allowed on stories. So as some of the testimony has said, smaller units could have the same number of bedrooms, although I don't particularly agree that reducing the number of bedrooms reduces the density because I think density is really a function of the number of units. So I would support this, our continuance for this development to come back, this applicant to come back with reduced scale for the four unit proposal. Yes, Commissioner Dawson. Yeah, I would just like to just thank everybody for their comments and just make a comment that I also didn't hear in the comments. People not recognizing the incredible need we have for housing. And I concur with Commissioner Schifrin. I feel like the size of each of these units allow for some consideration about redesigning them and making it more compatible and still allowing for this housing. So I would like to make a motion for a continuance of this item for a redesign to be more compatible with the neighborhood, especially around the height and taking into consideration the other comments around the balconies, high windows on the north side. So I would like to propose a continuance and a redesign for this project as a motion. There's a motion on the floor. Is there a second? I second that. Okay, can we have discussion on the motion, please? I saw Commissioner Spellman saying and then Commissioner. Yeah, I was just hoping to make some some general comments. Is it not appropriate to do that now? I'm sorry, I missed you when before the motion was made, but it's appropriate to make them. Go ahead. Yeah, so again, I also want to thank the applicant, the appellant, as well as the community for their engagement on this project. I think, you know, on the face of it, there's no denying that this project has impacts. I think it's unfortunate, the setup that this property has. We all are concerned about getting additional housing in our community. And I think that is been a goal for the city for several years and most recently, you know, part of the crisis that we're in. And the state has, you know, taken action to make it more difficult for bodies like us to put severe constraints on the development. So I am in support of the project. I am concerned about the overall massing and scale of this building, the fact that it's, you know, 100 foot long 30 feet high. No articulation, no break in the roof line. And mostly as it impacts the neighbor to the north, you know, I'm not opposed to a more contemporary design by any means. But in this case, it's really more about the impact to the neighbor. So I don't know how we can propose a few refinements, but I think one, the balconies on the on the north side are one pretty impactful. They have an open railing as well as being close to the property line. So this means that people inside those living room units, you know, have a have a view into the neighbor's yard. They don't have to be in balcony or on the balcony itself. So I think we could hopefully encourage either a more opaque railing condition if it stays on that side, or move it to the south side altogether. That's the sunny side. There's more setback. It kind of mirrors the layout of the property to the south, which is another, you know, two story combination one and two story apartment building. It has looked what appear to be the bedrooms and back and entry and balconies are on the south side on the driveway side of the property. So there's limited impact from the backside of that building onto the proposed developed property. This, this process is just highlighting, I think the one, the overall zoning in the general area around this property. I think a couple of the callers made some astute comments about corridor plans stalling and potentially encouraging or more of a green light, let's call it for development in these neighborhoods. And we just, we don't have vehicles at our fingertips or tools at our fingertips, so to speak, to to prevent that if they're meeting standards. So it other means our standards need to change, which, ironically, it sounds like part of our agenda tonight is how do we actually address standards and have a little bit more control over projects that are being proposed. So we need that toolkit, which we don't currently have, you know, shy of that at the moment. This is, this is what we're left with. I'm in support of the housing. I would just encourage some relief of that 100 foot 30 foot wall that's facing the neighbor. And I do think there's ways to reduce the plate height. Maybe it's on one unit. Maybe it's on two units on the backside that would just provide some minor relief as opposed to, and we're, you know, this isn't taking units out. This isn't taking bedrooms out. But I think there's a way to sensitively make some very small moves that would reduce the impacts significantly. Before I call on Commissioner Conway, let me just follow up on that because, well, in that staff, whether in fact housing accountability law, which would say we can't deny the project does provide that up to five, there can be no more than five hearings on a project. And I think that that does recognize that the Planning Commission and other city council does still have a role in trying to refine project. And I think that that's being, I mean, that's what's being talked about here. So I don't think it has to be approved at the first particular hearing that is before us. But Mr. Mollett, would you comment on that? Because maybe I'm remembering housing accountability. Two devices here on mute. Yeah, SB 330 does place a cap of five public meetings, essentially, on any project. I'd also like to remind you, though, that the zoning code for for continuances includes a provision that allows the applicant to request a decision rather than accept a continuum. So if this is a direction that the majority of the commissioners are headed, I'd recommend that you call the applicant up to see A, not only if they're willing to accept the continuance, but B, discuss potential design revisions that they may or may not be willing to pursue, you know, given the constraints of the Housing Accountability Act. Thank you, Chair Schifrin. And I really would like to thank both the applicant and the appellant as well as all the neighbors. Yes, we really thoughtful comments tonight. I also very much support this project. I'm delighted to see three bedroom readily and it's going into the city. And at the same time, I appreciate these comments that could articulate, could make it fit in better with the neighborhood. And if the applicant was willing to, you know, take into account some of those changes. I personally would be in support of that. One of my concerns. Oh, the last thing I wanted to say is if we needed a better example of why we need to develop objective design standards, I don't think we could have found it. And my main comment about this is, while I appreciate the appellant concerns, I do not believe that any of those concerns would qualify as an objective design change. So for that reason, I actually believe that if the appellant, if the applicant isn't willing to accept some of these changes, and I hope that they are, but I don't believe that we can deny them, because we don't have objective design criteria on which to base that. That's, that's my understanding, at least, and that's my comment. Other commissioners want to comment on the motion on the floor. Commissioner Nielsen. I just, I mainly just wanted to also just kind of back up what Commissioner Spellman had brought up originally. I'm also in favor of this project, you know, from from kind of the bigger picture standpoint, I do have concerns about the overall math and and the impact on the neighbor on the north side. As I was looking at this, I was, I was thinking it was considering or think about considerations that how it could potentially be changed. I think some of these things were brought up through public comment, possibly moving a bedroom down to the second floor, you know, based on kind of what I see in terms of the square footage on the second floor. It looks possible to be able to do that and maybe have two bedrooms on the third that would allow for some sort of math change on up at that third level, which I think could be, I think it should, I think it should be explored. And, and I think there could be a pretty large effect of reducing the, the overall math of the building. I also was thinking, I'm kind of, in a way, I kind of feel like, I feel like the applicant must have looked at this, but I'm just going to put it out there just just because it seems like there could be the potential of mirroring this entire development. And that the driveway is on the north side versus the south side. I think there, there are some impacts that would on them on the front house that would have to be mitigated. There's some stairs that come down. But I mean, they're already, they're already proposing removing portions of the house to allow for that driveway on them on the south side. And maybe there's some ways that they can, if they have to make adjustments to the house, they could do that on the north side. And that would just put the, you know, that puts further separation between the northern neighbor in this, in this project, which then, in my mind, it allows them to get the balconies. I mean, they could still have the balconies over the, over the yard, if that was a desire, and also put the balconies on the south side, which I feel like is a, is a, is a good design solution. So anyway, that was, was primarily what I wanted to say. I don't, I mean, I think the other thing that came up just as something to consider how to do with installing neighborly fences or good neighbor fences. I think we've been through this before where on some other projects where we potentially could go taller than what is allowed by the ordinance. I can't remember exactly how maybe Mr. Marlott has some information on that. But I feel like there's some ways that we could get taller fences if that's desired by the neighbor and the applicant. But that was, that was primarily, those are my comments. Based on comments from commissioners, let me ask the applicant, if they'd be willing to, well, I guess the municipal code says where an applicant chooses here, she may request that their project be acted upon rather than continued. So I'll give the chance, a chance for the applicant to speak at this time and weigh in on this issue. You've heard where commissioners have spoken of raised concerns about the design, prior to piece of modifications, motion on the floor to continue it to allow for consideration of those. I have your chance to say something. Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. We appreciate everyone's comments and it's all, you know, very, it's a very serious concern of ours, the privacy, the massing, everything. It is, and I hope, you know, I wish that everyone could be with us during the process from start to finish so you could see instead of just having to believe us that how many iterations we've gone through to get where we are and how complicated that process actually is. And I would say that along the way, you know, we have worked with city staff, you know, from Breonna and Clara, Sam, Eric, Lee, Leroy, all the way up, you know, everyone to get to where we are. And so there's, you know, to just say we should go back for redesign as much as I like want to be helpful and appease that idea that really there's not, you know, that's not a quantifiable thing. And what it feels like is we're going to come back with a three-story structure that, you know, is similar and we're going to end up in the same place. And so, you know, this is like, it's tough for me to say, yeah, let's continue, I think, my gut. And I know, and I'm speaking for a client here as well. So, you know, this is not a workbench project. We have a client here. I think a continuance would potentially not be helpful. You know, I would honestly rather talk through something around the balconies right now to get this approved. And it's hard for me to understand in a quantifiable way what those subjective standards mean, you know, from person to person. And so there's not a way to say, did I check all the boxes yes or no when it comes to things like massing and, you know, roof design and all these other things. And so I hope I'm not babbling too much here, but I guess the point is that I would prefer to not continue. I would be open to talking about the balconies and how I could address those. I thought Commissioner Spellman's idea to, you know, a simple idea to enclose that balcony more would be extremely helpful. Something like that. Let's do that. That's a great idea. Otherwise, yes, I guess my inclination is to say, no, let's please let's take a vote on it and avoid a continuance. Thank you very much. Let me just say I looked up that vision in the code. And what it really says is that the commission has no discursions, has no ability to turn down a project. But it has no ability to continue a project to make it better from the point of view of the public or the city. And I refuse to go along with that. I think that there's nothing in the law that prevents us from continuing it. And the idea that the, I think this provision in the code was written at a time when the commission could recommend denial or deny it and it could be appealed to the council. That would be my preference rather than we're not necessarily the final decision-making body. I'm not willing to support a project that I think needs Commissioner Dawson. Yeah, I just want to, you know, recognize all the work that the applicant has done and realize that this is really complex. But, you know, in Santa Cruz in this highly desirable area, you know, we're going to have to continue to strive to do this very delicate balancing act of trying to address these incredible housing needs while recognizing that Santa Cruz has been here for a while and that there are established neighborhoods and, you know, there is going to be impacts. But I believe that this is a project that we really can reduce the impact significantly to the surrounding neighborhood and still achieve this goal of providing this type of housing that is needed, especially with what sounds like an affordable unit being part of it due to the replacement housing. And so these are big, you know, 2,300 square feet, 16, 17, that allows for some room to work to think about how to redesign. I think, you know, both the architects had some really great suggestions about that. And I think the height is really something we really need to take a look at. And with the square footage, the way it is, I think that there are some abilities to move this. So I really believe that there's a way to do what we need to do here and really reduce the impact while still providing the housing. And I think it's going to require, you know, some redesign, like a significant redesign. And that's what I want to support. Well, let me just say something else. Really looking at this provision that says the hearing body on its own motion may continue a hearing from time to time. When an applicant so chooses, he may request that their project be acted upon rather than continue. And the applicant has requested that it be acted on. The code doesn't require that the commission adhere to that request. And because under the law, it is possible to have additional hearings. I think we've heard what the applicant wants. I think most of the commissioners who have spoken have had concerns. I think the code does not prevent the continuance. Irrespective of whether the applicant requested or not. Commissioner Conway. I wanted to ask a question to staff. And I am not sure I agree with you, Chair Schifrin, on our latitude. But my question for staff is, do we have the ability of providing some direction? The applicant has said they're willing to incorporate some of the changes that commissioner architects have made, such as including the balcony. Could we approve the project on adding that condition and thereby addressing some of the appellant's concerns and go forward and approve the project? That's my question. And then I have an additional comment after I hear your answer. Mr. Marlick. Yes, thank you for that question. That was exactly what I was going to suggest. You know, that there is yet a third option to, you know, continuance or denial and that's approval with conditions and, you know, the applicant under that scenario would essentially get a decision from the commission and then decide whether or not to appeal. So my thank you for that. That was what I was thinking. I feel like we would be better serving the community on this project if we did add additional conditions of approval to have the project conform to some of our concerns. I am concerned. First of all, the applicant has requested that we do that. Second of all, I am really concerned about stretching it out. And I don't think we're going to get anywhere with it. I think they've been really clear. The other thing is adding another layer adds, I think, further expense and difficulty for the appellant. I feel like we would be better off simply adding conditions of approval and approving the project and making it as much better as we can, lacking the tools that we now lack with objective standards. So that's where I am with that. Well, there is a motion on the floor that would continue it. I think the commission has the ability to continue it under the code, having asked the applicant whether they would be happy with it and they're not. So I see Commissioner Greenberg and then Commissioner Spellman. And then if there are no further comments, we'll vote on the motion. If it fails, then somebody can try another motion. Commissioner Greenberg. Yes, thank you. And thanks to everyone, the appellant, excuse me, and the applicant and the public and my fellow commissioners. And I think we're all trying to find a balance here within constraints, obviously, in terms of what we, the latitude that we do have. I concur with my fellow commissioners that I support the project. I support the need for housing of this type, the need for a mixture of types of housing in Santa Cruz, in this neighborhood and throughout Santa Cruz. And I really appreciate the addition of the affordable unit. So proportionally, it's really a significant contribution of affordable affordability within the total size of the development. And at the same time, recognize the concerns. I haven't really heard so much response to, it seems like the concern around the height has so much to do with the sunlight issue. And I haven't heard so much response to the presentation by the staff as well as the applicants that in fact, there wouldn't be a significant reduction of sunlight. So I just wanted to put that out there. That said, I support, you know, a lot of these creative ideas about how certain kinds of alterations could be made while wanting to ensure that it's feasible for the developer to carry through with this project, considering how important it is to add housing at this moment in time. So, and what those, there's height issue, there's the privacy issue, which I see as somewhat separate issues with the first having to do more with the sunlight issue. In terms of the privacy issue, I appreciate the idea about balconies. I appreciated the point about, you know, potential for the the neighborly wall. The, the ideas about also the planting of trees and other and other types of, you know, mitigation of lack of privacy. And so would love to figure out creative solutions along the line. So, I think I'll leave it there. And thanks so much. Yeah, I wanted to follow up on what Christian suggested as far as flipping the project. Obviously, this is a complex site. These guys have been working on this different scheme, etc. I think that would be the single most effective. Now, let's call it to the impact on the North neighbor, which in my opinion is the biggest deal here. We're talking instead of a 10 foot setback for that building, it's more like 14 feet. Everything else being equal, you know, it puts the balconies that can stay where they are and now they're facing south. And there's just that much more breathing room that much more access to light and air, etc. So I would support a motion to at least investigate whether that's feasible. I have no idea whether it is or not, but it does have impacts to the front building. But it seems like that building needs some renovation anyway. Well, the commission could continue with some very specific direction. I think it gets tricky if the commission is going to answer that kind of significant redesign and approve the project without seeing what it would look like. My own concern is I just think the housing, the houses are too tall, they're crammed onto the site, and I think it's visually very intrusive. So I would like to see a project that was only two stories. And that's what I would want. That's what I would recommend for redesign. But I think, you know, it sounds like all of the commissioners would have changes that they'd like to make. And the question is how easy is it going to be to make those changes here tonight as part of an approval motion or to continue it and have it come back? To say tonight it's not going to get built tomorrow. There's, you know, many steps that the development will have to go through to get the building permit and to get actually construction. So the fact that there is a, you know, a housing need, that housing need isn't going to go away. And I look at, you know, I live in the Blackburn neighborhood. I look at some of the apartment buildings that were approved in the 60s. And I shudder to see how they really destroyed that neighborhood. And I think, you know, sitting on the commission where we're going to have to look back from around in 10 years and say, I approve that or I was on the commission that approved that. I would like to, and I think we really did that with the project on Seabright, where we made the project where maybe I'll go look at it and when it gets built and say, yeah, we made that a much better project. I don't feel that this project will be a positive addition to the way that it's been designed. I appreciate the work that the architects have done. There is a motion on the floor. It passes the commission's direction for when it comes back. If it fails, then someone, others will have to make another motion and get in their condition. So if there's no further discussion, the motion is to continue the project for redesign. Nelson, did you want to speak before we vote on this? Yeah, I just have a question. I mean, in terms of how this motion is put before us right now is, I mean, if the continuance to redesign, but there have no, but we don't, but there's no direction attached to this motion. So I don't like, you just brought up that you would like to see this project designed as two-story, but honestly, I don't see this coming, but I don't see this being able to be designed a two-story. I don't see it's feasible to design a two-story. So if that's the direction that is going to be given to the applicant or, yeah, to the applicant as part of this motion, I don't support that. I just don't, we didn't, it hasn't been given, there's no direction given yet in terms of what they are like within this motion, exactly what they're designing to. So I don't know exactly what I'm voting on. Well, I think we can make some additions to this motion. Chair, is it okay to speak? Sorry, I jumped. Okay. So I'm happy to take amendments, but what some of the things that I would like to see attached to this motion explored specifically in the redesign. I think the suggestion of flipping the design and moving the driveway should be included and there should be analysis of why that can or can't happen on the redesign. The balconies, if it isn't going to be flopped, then moving the balconies to the south side where they can actually be in the sun. In addition, I would like the developer to show the analysis of why the square footage couldn't be changed and the height decreased. I think the suggestion of dropping a bedroom and potentially dropping ceiling height should also be explored. And I think I would stop there and ask if any other commissioners would like to add more specific guidance for the redesign continuance. Commissioner Dawson, can you just clarify what you mean by dropping a bedroom? So the current design has three bedrooms on the third floor. So changing the square footage or doing whatever they needed to do to take a bedroom off the third floor and drop it down to the second floor. It could potentially change the massing and then also just looking at ceiling heights throughout the development that could potentially drop the height overall. That would need to be. The other commissioners have talked about massing. I'm looking at the elevation now and it just is like one long block of housing. And I think trying to reduce the massing of it would definitely be helpful. There are no further comments and we can just... Commissioner Conway and then Mr. Marlowe. I'd like to hear what Mr. Marlowe has to say, please. Okay, Mr. Marlowe. Thank you. I know we've already heard from the applicant once, but that was before more specific discussion ensued over potential changes to the design. I'd recommend that you call the applicant up once again to discuss willingness to pursue one or more of these options. If they choose not to pursue any of these, then a continuance really isn't going to be useful because we're just kicking the can down the road for another two weeks or so. So I'd recommend you bring the applicant back. Thanks. Okay, although let me say if the commission votes to continue it, that sends a message to the applicant as well. Go ahead. I'm happy to hear from the applicant. You've heard some of the changes. We're here. Yes, you can hear it. Hi, thank you for the opportunity to jump back in. I really appreciate it. So just briefly, I want to address the option of flipping the project so that the driveway would be on the north side of the site. It's not possible given that we need a 15 foot wide driveway. It would require demolition of the front house almost in its entirety. If we were to do that, that is something that we looked at fairly extensively early days. So I think that's a non-starter and hopefully I've answered that question right now. I'd like to let me answer that a little bit there, Dan. We actually just have another little point of history there. We started with it on the other side. Fire code would not allow us to keep it over there. So it's a fire code related item. Okay, Dan, go ahead. And then as far as the other possible revisions that we would be amenable to that we're happy to explore, or if you could condition and approval with us, we would be happy to make the floor-to-floor height go to, it would be 8 foot 6 inches? Nine. Nine would give us an 8 foot ceiling height. Nine foot floor-to-floor height on all floors would give us an 8 foot ceiling height, which would allow us to meet the CBC minimum height requirement. And we could drop the height of the thing probably by about a foot or so across the board. And we are also would be happy to either enclose or relocate the balconies on the north side of the project. So if those concessions help us, we'd be well pleased to provide them. Thank you, Commissioner Calmer. Yeah, I am going to be voting against the continuance myself. I don't think that, and for all of the reasons I've already said, I don't think it's appropriate for us to be providing the kind of direction on a complex project like this. I think we provided the applicant with a lot of feedback that we, you know, have quite a lot of agreement on. And I just wanted to make a pitch for we have a way to address some of our concerns and move the project along tonight. And I think it's the only appropriate move that we can make. Any other commissioner comments? Mr. Creer, I think we do have an independent, we have a job to exercise our independent judgment. But let's vote on the motion. This is a motion to continue based on making the changes to the design. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Conway. No. Greenberg. No. Nielsen. Dawson. Yes. Spelman. No. Maxwell. Yes. Schifrin. Hi. The motion fails four to three. Does anybody else want to make a motion? Yes, I would make a motion to approve the project with conditions that we just outlined and that applicant seems willing to address. One is flipping the balconies to the south side of the building and reducing the floor-to-floor height so that the overall height of the building comes down. So we're at nine foot floor-to-floor for all levels. I'm sorry, was there anything else? That's it. That's it. Thank you. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Second by Commissioner Nielsen. Is there any further discussion? We have a roll call vote, please. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Greenberg. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Dawson. No. Spelman. Aye. Maxwell. Schifrin. No. The motion passes four to three. I want to thank staff and all the members of the public and the applicant for their patience, testimony, and particularly their patience. It's been going on for quite a while and we've even got a late start. So thank you all very much and we are ready to, I think we need to talk about what we're going to do because it's kind of late and we're going to be able to get through everything on the agenda. You know, we're supposed to stop our meetings at 11. I wonder my own recommendation. I don't know how long the staff report would be on item number three, the housing requirements. I have a number of concerns with proposed ordinance, but of course I have a number of concerns with the objective standards as well. I think my fewest concerns are with the objective development standards community engagement strategy. So what do commissioners want to do? Commissioner Conway, do you have a suggestion? You're muted. Commissioner Conway, you're muted. You're muted. I'm sorry to hear you, Julie. No, I was dropped three times and I'm concerned that perhaps commissioner Conway has been dropped if she's not able to join. I think I'm back. Yes, okay, good. You're back. Okay. I apologize for that technology. What I was going to say, I was going to suggest that we continue the inclusionary housing item to a later meeting because I do think that we want to hear all of the concerns on it and I think that the community engagement process and the objective standards item can be handled tonight and I think it should be because that timeline is pressing. That would be my suggestion. Would somebody like to make a motion to continue the inclusionary housing requirements ordinance for the next meeting? So moved. Is there any discussion? Can we have a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Conway. Sorry, that was me. That was my fault. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Greenberg. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Dawson. Spellman. Aye. Maxwell. Schifrin. Aye. So I don't remember three. Continue to our next meeting. We now will go on to the objective standards. The complex item. Let's see if we were able to get through it or not. Do we have a staff report, please? We do. I would like to just start briefly with a minor administrative note. There are two items tonight related to the objective standards work. Do we, is this a commission's desire to try to hear both of those items tonight given the hour? And if not, would the commission prefer to select one to hear tonight and one perhaps to continue to a special meeting? I would like to get both of these items turned before that you're next hearing on the 17th. So if we are continuing one, staff would be requesting that we find time for a special meeting next week. And given, you know, like the complexity and the depth of each of them, it seems like that may, it may be kind of an act to get through all of that this evening. Well, my own preference would be to continue the number of items that fit. And one of the reasons is I had a concern about a number of sort of detail concerns. My major concern was with the examples. And it seemed like the examples were all based on the underlying zoning instead of what would be allowed under the mixed use identity zone and identity bonuses. I was hoping to see examples based on what was actually allowed general plan. I'm sorry for doing the hearing. Maybe if we can give it a little bit. So I mean, I could respond to that. Do you want to get in? I mean, we could have just a brief conversation perhaps. So the tests that are not going to examine density bonus, there are more variables than we can accommodate in a test fit scenario. The test fits evaluate all the existing objective development standards that are currently part of the city's landscape. So those are the standards in the general plan and the standards in the zoning code. So that's what those tests will do whether we hear them tonight or next week. Based on what density? I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand your question. Maybe it would be better to wait on that because based on the densities that are defined in the general plan, based on the FAR, based on the unit count, based on the way that we count units, all of those things, based on the way that we apply density in mixed use projects and residential projects, we took all of that into account. Well, because the discussion on item number four, our five is, I think, more complex in my mind in item number six. And given the hour, I would suggest that we, at a brief staff report on item number six, and act on that and continue the objective development standard test fits to a special meeting next week, as recommended by staff, if that's what is necessary. And maybe I'll provide staff with some comments, some of my concerns, and sometimes I misunderstand what the staff report is really doing. We can definitely make time for that during daylight hours. Happy to do that. So is that acceptable for the commissioners that we put off? Do we really need to have a special meeting since we're going to be meeting in two weeks, rather than just put it on a regular agenda? I'm not sure why. Because the test fits are going to the city council and we are trying to, and the recommendation that the commission makes relative to the test fit, we'll be going to the city council, and we are doing everything that we can to have that happen at the first meeting in January, due to some other scheduling issues that are happening on the city council agenda. So that's, you know, that's sort of the reason for the time pressure on that item. Is it enough time if we heard it on our next meeting? Isn't that next meeting? Do we have another meeting in December? I guess that's a question. Maybe Matt or Lee could jump in on that in terms of the timing for the noticing and the deadline for the staff report. Looks like 12.17 would be okay, according to Mr. C. Matt, did you have something you wanted to say? Yeah, I was just saying that we could move the test fits to 12.17. It would just require moving the city council meeting out further. So we'd have to move to the 126 meeting versus the 112. That's okay. We can do that. Okay, great. We're not having an additional meeting. So if there's no objection from other commissioners? I'm so sorry. I just, the consultant isn't available on the 17th at your next meeting. And that is a pretty significant component of the test fit. So the consultant is available next Thursday? Yes. Tuesday or next Thursday would work for our team. All right. I guess we do want to have the consultant there. There's no objection from the other commissioners will continue item number five through a special meeting next Thursday at seven o'clock. Commissioner Maxwell. Yeah, I will be unavailable next Thursday, but I will be available the Tuesday. Councilman, same for me. Always the most fun thing we have to do. There's always something out the chambers. So we can't do Tuesday. We can't do Tuesday at all. So Thursday is the only day and we can't, and then we only have five commissioners. Oh goodness. Tuesday the 15th, there is no city council could push the test fits to January. That would be another option. They're really less time sensitive, I think. You know, if we're not going to make it to the first meeting on January, that was really the only time pressure that I was personally aware of relative to the project that we're doing. The feedback on the test fits and the decision of the planning commission chooses to recommend about them won't affect the rest of the timeline for that project. So conceivably we could push to January and then just go to the city council in February. I certainly would prefer doing it at a regular meeting the whole commission there. Yeah, okay. So let's, we'll find a meeting in January. So continue the item number whatever it is. Five, I think. Five to the first meeting in January. Okay, so let's move to the objective standards community engagement strategy and have a brief staff report please. Making sure everyone has the dates. Okay, so there's a lot of communication flying around right now. Standards, we have heard a lot this evening already about the need for objective standards and why we are, you know, finding ourselves in this position of suddenly talking about objective standards very much. And let me get this slide show going and then share my screen. This project that we're working on about objective standards these are, we're developing objective standards for mixed use and multi-family housing. This project falls under a broader umbrella of direction that we got from the city council in the summer of 2019 to any work the department might have been doing on what was known as the quarter plan and begin a new effort to reconcile differences between the general plan and the zoning code. The initial outreach that we did following that direction sort of indicated that really broad outreach was going to be necessary. It was sort of clear that, you know, the community was really not of one mind about what, how to understand and how they interpreted the direction that we had gotten from the city council that involves direction to preserve existing neighborhoods and existing city businesses as a top priority and look for increasing opportunities for affordable housing in appropriate locations. The SC2 grant came available around this, you know, as part of a package of funding from the state that was intended to promote the creation of new housing, affordable housing, market rate housing, all housing. Objective, creating objective standards for development was one of the project types that was guaranteed funding under this umbrella of reconciling these differences. We took advantage of this funding source to provide us some funding so we can hire a consultant to help us through this process of updating our zoning code and evaluating through that process of updating our zoning code sort of evaluating the utility and need for perhaps the general plan amendment. You know, we got into this situation because there had been quite a lot of community concern around the prior effort to implement the general plan, which that effort was called the corridor plan. The development capacities that were used in the corridor plan are defined in the general plan. And so, you know, this project is really going to be looking at, you know, how, how do those existing, you know, objective standards work? And when we talk about the test bits, we'll get our first taste of that. And how can we write standards that really capture what Santa Cruz is in an objective, measurable way? So, an objective standard is something that has to be measurable to an outside standard that is commonly understood. It's part of the definition in the state law. So, that'd be two grants. It's going to allow us to develop objective zoning standards for housing, multi-family and mixed-use zoning for land use designations. These exist at really key, visible sites and properties around the city. And so, the development standards and guidance that we provide for developers on those sites really are going to shape the public realm. And they're going to shape the built environment moving forward. So, it's really important that our engagement, that the community that we reach with this is really a representative community. So, when we were reviewing proposals, the proposal from UPP really stood out to us because they have a focus on equity and social justice. So, they're really looking to reach out and include voices and communities who have previously not been part of our processes, either through, you know, sort of lack of feeling welcome, lack of being informed about how to access government. And, you know, and honestly, also, sort of a history of exclusion and not being welcomed in these spaces. So, that was really appealing to us. They're focusing on having well-informed participation so people, participants, really understand what it is that they're contributing to, what the outcomes of the project are going to be, and how they will look to see that their contributions are being reflected in the final product. They are using proven tools for bringing in new participants that we haven't had engagement with before, and the proposal that they've brought forward is one that we think can be really effective during COVID, which is, of course, you know, a consideration as we move through this process over the coming year. So, just to highlight, the areas of the city that we're going to be, that this project about objective zoning standards, mixed-use and multi-family, the areas of the city that that will affect, just for a little bit of context, it's everything on this map that is shown in orange, in this lighter pink color, and in this dark brown color. Those are our mixed-use and multi-family zone districts. So, you know, the yellow is single-family, the green is parks, the deeper pink, one of these deeper pinks is public facilities and different types of commercial that aren't as likely to develop with mixed-use housing, although most commercial zone districts can develop with mixed-use housing. It's most common in the CC zone district, which is this lighter pink color. So, just kind of gives you a sense of the portion of the city that's affected by these standards. So, with that, I'm going to introduce our consultant Meredith Ruff from Urban Planning Partners who is going to walk you through their approach to community engagement. So, Meredith, I think, are you there? Can you hear me? Yes, there you are. Okay. Thank you, Sarah. Good evening, commissioners. Thanks for hanging with us this late evening. I'm Meredith Ruff, and I'm the project manager for the Objective Standards Project on the consultant side. I'm also joined tonight by Lynette Diaz, the principal in charge of this effort, also with Urban Planning Partners, and Lisa Aboud from Inter-Ethnica Multicultural Marketing and Community Engagement Firm who's helping us with the strategy and implementing all the Spanish language engagement. We were really energized by the city's commitment to equity for this process, and look forward to learning from you all tonight some other things to consider and hear what you think about our approach. So, when we formed this approach, we really considered what voices have been missing in the city's past engagement processes, and we came up with three groups, the Latinx community, which includes those who live and or work in Santa Cruz, low- and moderate-income households, and university students. And we thought participation from these groups would be really important to the success of this project, and so when considering how to get these groups involved, we have kind of refined our approach to include more smaller meetings and make sure the meetings are in convenient locations or in convenient digital medium, as it is now, that they're culturally appropriate, that we use stipends if needed to encourage engagement, and that we really work with partner organizations that are already doing great work in these arenas. Like Sarah mentioned, there's a pretty robust information-sharing part of our approach, and I'm sure the community is well-informed on state laws connected to this, but also the non-aesthetic elements of this project. It's certainly about heights, but it's also about what makes Santa Cruz Santa Cruz in terms of community building, and so we really wanted to add this new lens to the housing discussion, which I will talk about a little bit further in our next slide. We have three phases to our approach here. The first being inform, listen, and understand, and this is where we really want the community to come away knowing what objective standards are and why they're necessary. Anyone who was on the call earlier probably sees that now, and we want to share that with the community. We also want them to see the connection to state law, and we want to start hearing their concerns. An example of an event that would occur during this phase is our diversity, equity, and inclusion event linking housing to a practice of exclusion and seeing how this project is one way to rewrite past wrong. Our second phase is called define and measure community character, and here's where we try to remove some of the subjective meaning of community character and try to measure it. And one example of an activity during this phase is a targeted discussion with one of the groups that we identified and trying to really have a rich discussion about the community, the aesthetic element stand, like I said, the non-aesthetic ones. In the third phase, shape and refine objective standards, we would preview our work to the community and then be able to tweak it upon hearing back from them. And an example of this is our online kickoff event showing visualizations of our draft development standard, walking the community through what we've come up with and answering questions and getting feedback from them. And a fourth thing to note is that throughout all this we would, of course, have a website consistent with the city's community engagement strategy and this would be a hub for resources and project updates throughout our timeline. If we are successful in these phases and in our approach, we have four outcomes that we hope to achieve. Number one, the discussion on housing in Santa Cruz connects the project, the state housing legislation, systemic racism, and non-aesthetic elements of what makes Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz. Two, the voices of underrepresented populations have been heard. And three, the community understands what an objective standard is and why they are important. Four, perhaps most important, the community sees their input in the final objective standard. And with that, I'll pass it back to Sarah and I guess potentially the commissioner's feedback in question. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. Yeah, so our staff recommendation is that your commission review the report, provide comment on the proposed community engagement strategy for the project to develop objective development standards for multi-family mixed-use housing. And we are here to answer any of your questions. Oh, you're muted. Chair Schifrin. Chair, we can't hear you. There you are. Oh, we're still not hearing you. I think your computer might be muted now. So the phone in the computer. There you go. Okay. Someday this will all be over. There you go. All right. Thank you for the staff report. And hearing from the consultant, do the commissioners have any questions or comments they'd like to make on the outreach strategy? I have, let me just say, since I'm not saying anybody is just jumping up, I have a question on commission economy in a minute. And I think it's great that the focus, there's going to be a real focus on lower income communities that have not participated very much. The only question I would ask is in one of the objective standards that the city has is an inclusionary housing requirement. And I'm just wondering if one of the options that's going to be made available to these communities, given our affordable housing crisis, is the possibility of increasing that, going to be a desire to increase that requirement? That's an interesting, interesting question. So I guess my first response would be, you know, we are, we are definitely accepting any and all feedback that we get from all of these groups. There may be certain standards that folks are really interested in that may fall slightly outside the scope of this project. And we may come to a place where we make recommendations for future work, because really the end product that we're going to be getting to is a set of zoning and development standards. We haven't scoped doing some yet more work and revisiting the inclusionary ordinance, which has just been updated. So I'm not going to say no, it's impossible that that would be a recommendation that would come out of this process. I am also going to just acknowledge that we're not currently scoped to do the level of analysis that would be required to really do a full investigation of a different inclusionary requirement. Right. I'm not recommending a change. I'm just sort of saying that giving, you know, the need for such housing and particularly among lower income members of the community, I think that is a development standard. Yeah. It's a standard and it should be with other standards, which I think are important as well. I'm not minimizing them. I think it's important to acknowledge that particularly in talking to communities that have traditionally been excluded, I think that would not surprise me if that's a concern that they have. And I think that that needs to be incorporated in the process. That's good. Yeah. Good. Your hand up. Did you call on me? I'm sorry. Commissioner Conway, I did. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. And thanks for that staff report and also to the consultant for hanging in here through a long night. And I really just want to say I'm really excited about this process. I'm really pleased to be leading with inclusion and equity. It gives me so much hope. And I just wanted to say, you know, welcome and I'm excited. I look forward to all of our discussions. Thank you. Commissioner Dawson and then Commissioner Greenberg and then Commissioner Spellman. Yeah. I just wanted to thank you so much staff and the consultants again for hanging in there. I also want to just build a little bit on what commissioner Schifrin said that I just want to reemphasize the need, especially to groups who haven't been traditional participants in sort of these processes that we need to lay out the full gamut of options for them. And that includes understanding that what they can convey to decision makers includes the need for affordability and how that affects their day to day lives, not just the height of the building or how building looks or the other potential standards that we should be talking about. And so I just want to again reemphasize that this needs to include the whole suite. And I know that there could be a tendency because there's timelines of things to become a little bit myopic, but I want to just encourage the consultants to take the time to lay out the entire suite because again, some of these folks have not been part of the process at all. And so it needs to be time woven in to allow them to have the full set of options on the table to provide feedback. And I'll leave it there. And thank you again. Look forward to working together. Thank you, Commissioner Greenberg. Yeah. Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you so much. And I'm very excited about the participation of the consultants and the focus on diversity, equity and inclusion and on the history of exclusion that has been so much a part of the history of this town and the reason why we're in the situation that we are in terms of the affordability crisis. And I would say that one thing that undercuts the, you know, the groups that we've been talking about that unites the, you know, low income, moderate income and Latino communities and students is that their majority renters and renters have historically been very underrepresented at planning commission meetings and so forth and meetings relating to these standards. And so the degree that you consider the needs of renters along with homeowners and the idea that, you know, renters, there's kind of a popular conception that renters are not as specifically engaged as homeowners and, you know, that's been proven true. It's just that renters are often more precarious and don't have as much time often in a community if they're getting priced out to get engaged. And so how we can include tenure in that, in that understanding would be one thing. And in addition, the points that Commissioner Dawson and Shifrin are making, I agree how we can, in addition to their exclusion, making it clear, but I think that sometimes people don't get involved because they don't see the material relevance of getting involved. And so the non-aesthetic category, what is meant by that to what degree could these decisions about a protective standard really make a different point when it comes to affordability as well as, you know, the mixture of housing types and other things, and how that can be translated and presented clearly, I think will be really valuable. So I really applaud your efforts and really appreciate that we get to be part of this process as well. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Spellman. Yeah, thank you for that. I think those comments are all really astute, you know, observations of this process. I mean, you know, I've been on this commission for seven years and to see the potential for, you know, real outreach and impact, you know, relating to a city-wide objective for inclusion and equity is really exciting. I don't think we would be this far along this quickly, so I'm incredibly encouraged by the team that's in place and the potential for, you know, just opening up the dialogue to the, you know, less fortunate folks in our community that are, you know, underrepresented. So yes, on board and ready to contribute where we can. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just say that under our rules, if I remember correctly, we're a little after 11 if we want to continue. We have to make a motion to end the meeting. I'm not sure if commission, we're really not, there's not a recommendation to take action, but to sort of provide our comments. If there are other commissioners who would like to make comments, we can extend the meeting. If there are comments of brief, you can just make them. And then we can finish this item for this evening. So do any other commissioners want to make comments? No, none. Yes, Mr. Commissioner Maxwell, go ahead. It's really brief. I'm also going to just concur with everybody tonight. It's exciting. So that's it. Okay. Thank you very much. Seeing no other comments. I want to thank the staff and consultants again for their work and for their presentation. We'll be seeing you again in the future. If there's no other discussion on this item, we will move to information items. I see you have joined us. Please share your wisdom. I think you're muted. Sorry about that very quickly because I know that it's late. The work master plan was approved by council at the last meeting and the last set of inclusionary housing updates that you all did related to section eight. The first reading was approved at their last meeting and the second reading is coming up at their next meeting, the first meeting in December this coming Tuesday. I understand that 418 Riverfront is coming back on Tuesday as well to the council. That item is going to be continued on the 12th, excuse me, on December 8th. That will be continued to January 12th. Okay. I saw it was on the agenda. Have a nice chance to read the agenda. Thank you. Any other information items? Nope. Not here. Usually we get a preview. Maybe, Mr. Marl, it would like to give us a preview. I can say it. I'm happy to say. I'm happy to say that. You've got some. At the next meeting, there'll be the discussion about the. The commissioner comments in advance of hearings. And then there's one project. I don't know if Eric. Knows the project. I can pull it up. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm happy to have the requirement ordinance. Mr. Marl, did you want to add something here? Yes, there's a, there's going to be an application that involves a general plan amendment, rezoning local coastal plan amendment to. Reconfigure the interface of a couple of downtown parcels for an upcoming affordable housing project that's, that's on the horizon. So that'll be on your, your next meeting agenda. Okay. Yes. Commissioner Conway. Question about, we continue the inclusionary item. I wondered if we needed to name a date certain in order to avoid renoticing. I meant to ask that earlier. Just a question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are next meeting. Yes. That's what I heard. The next meeting, which I. Okay. 17th. That's good. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Are there any reports or advisory body reports? Are there any items to be referred to future agenda? Agendas. Seeing none. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. We're now adjourned. So I'll see you on the 17th. Thank you. See you soon. Goodbye.