 The meeting tonight is open to the public for in-person attendance at the Capitola City Council Chambers at 420 Capitola Avenue if anyone's out there and would like to attend. The meeting is also cable cast live on Spectrum Communications cable TV channel 8 and AT&T Uverse channel 99 and is being recorded to be broadcast on the following Mondays and Fridays at 1 p.m. on Spectrum channel 77 and Spectrum channel 25. This meeting can also be viewed live from the city's website www.cityofcapitola.org or watched on the city's website any time following the meeting's adjournment. Our technician tonight is Brian Robinson and as a reminder please turn off your cell phones and we will start with the roll call. Missioner Estee. Present. Missioner Jensen. Present. Missioner Wilk. Here. Vice Chair Christensen. Here. And Chair Westman. Here. And now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The next item on our agenda is oral communications and oral communications are for short comments from the public about items that are not on tonight's agenda. If you would like to have your name included in the minutes you're welcome to sign the sheet that's on the podium and we will include your name. So is there anyone who would like to speak to us about an item not on tonight's agenda? I don't see anyone. So do we have any commission comments? I have a commission comment being a commissioner. So there's a lot of residential applications on tonight's agenda and it brought to mind a topic that I brought up to this commission in the past and maybe it's something that if I can get some sort of interest in we might want to put it on a future agenda and that has to do with the color and material board. So all these applications are asked say okay for residences it says okay well what color are you painting your house and what materials are you using and it occurs to me that certainly anybody can paint their house whatever color they want and change their siding without approval of a planning commission unless of course it's a brand new remodel or a new application. So my thought is that well maybe the notion of looking at a material board and colors and materials might make sense for a large commercial project but not for residential projects. There aren't any municipal standards for what are acceptable paints in the village or in residences or is there material standards? They're there just I don't know why they're there. You know it occurs to me that well perhaps you have your application approved and you decided the last minute you don't want to paint it that color. Does that mean you have to apply reapply for your application because all of a sudden you're not doing it to print? It just seems to be an unnecessary irritant to the applicant to have that requirement and it might also influence their decision as to what materials they use or what colors they choose because they want to be safe and get their project approved so they'll use you know they won't paint it polka dot like they initially planned. So I would like you guys since we have a whole new group of people since last time I brought this up maybe you guys can think about that and if it tickles your fancy maybe we can bring that up at a future agenda. Thank you. Okay anyone else have any comments tonight? I actually have one. I'm sorry I missed the last planning commission meeting. Me too. And it looks like the item was continued and is going to be coming back so I have a couple requests of staff. When it comes back I would like you to include in the packet the communications that I receive from the city attorney regarding my request to consider employment in the preferences of people living in those units and I would also like some information on how this affordable project is going to work. We're making all of these exceptions because someone says I have an affordable project and for me I just want a little understanding of who's running that affordable project how it's going to work is it the housing authority because I understand they're involved is it the developer just some general information on how the project is going to work in our community. Thank you. Are there any staff comments? Thank you chair and planning commissioners. Staff comments tonight will be for me and Katie my comment is that there will be communications being sent out some of you attended our commissioner workshop this week regarding onboarding training for new commissioners and we went over some of the requirements of new commissioners like training requirements and code of conduct and different forms that apply. So staff will be communicating the requirements to you this week via email so please keep an eye out for that. As a reminder there is a training requirement for the planning commission it's state mandated ethics training so communications will be going out to you regarding that training and how to complete it as well as which forms need to be turned in and by which dates. So just keep an eye out for that email hopefully tomorrow maybe Monday but it will be headed your way soon. Oh and another reminder I wanted to share is that per state regulations during COVID there were changes made to the Brown Act which impact open meetings and how they can be conducted and that's how we were able to use Zoom for commissioner attendance during these meetings but with the declaration of emergency ended by the governor at the end of February that will change how commissioners and council members can attend remote meetings in the future because the rules are reverting back to original statues as they were prior to COVID it refers back to the Brown Act before all of this change so with that remote attendance will be less convenient to do if commissioners wish to attend meetings remotely they would need to post an agenda at their location 72 hours prior their location would have to be open to the public so if you're trying to attend the meeting from home your home address would be published on the agenda which is a public document and you must open your front doors to the public to allow them to join you in your home as you participate in this meeting so it's an option and if that's something you are interested in pursuing we can discuss it it would just ask that you reach out to staff I'm including myself to make sure that we're following the Brown Act requirements however the main you know the easier way to do this is to refer back to how we were doing things prior to COVID which would mean in-person attendance and that is kind of the intention of the Brown Act is to conduct meetings in an open setting and in person so members of the public will still be able to attend meetings via zoom and participation for members of the public is still permitted via zoom it's really just attendance on the part of the commissioners or the city council and it's not prohibitive if you are in an instance where you cannot attend a meeting in person we can address feasible options to make sure you're still able to attend remotely but like I said the requirement is that the location of the meeting is agendized 72 hours prior the actual address of the location must be included and an agenda must be posted at that address as well so that members of the public can attend in both locations should the need arise if there are any questions about the ruling so it's assembly bill 361 and the Brown Act which is the open public act for meetings if there are any questions about that myself and the city attorney would be happy to answer them just send me an email or give us a call or drop into City Hall to visit me during business hours okay thank you Julia and I've just got a couple other updates for you for item 5b 117 Saxon you should have received an email on that yesterday so there was one additional material also at the last public meeting we had a long discussion about whether or not you could increase the noticing and just following the meeting and looking at the muni code there's definitely a section that says the community development department can provide additional notice as determined necessary or desirable so for just wanted to highlight that that at the time of the meeting I was unable to look into our new code but we definitely have a section allowing for that and so we'll revisit that at this time we haven't we don't know when that item will come back but we'll make sure to talk with the chair about re noticing prior and then also I just want to give you a quick update on our outdoor dining as you know many of the outdoor dining locations were wiped out during the storm and right now our policy has been because there's a decrease in the amount of overall parking in the village we've asked those who had dining decks that were destroyed not to bring back the temporary world and to move forward with their prototype design so right now we do have one building application in for the for Britannia arms and we do have I've seen signed contracts and I know that deposits have been made with a local landscape architect so I do know that he's working on many designs right now but we're just waiting for them to come into the city so and then the two dining decks that are existing that did not get wiped out in the storm as long we're also seeing that their applications are moving forward so we're allowing those to stay up until the prototype design is ready to be built so those are my staff updates for you this evening so on the noticing we don't need the permission of the applicant no it's it's pretty open and it's based on as necessary okay thank you and I will give one piece of advice to my fellow commissioners when you take the ethics training it doesn't matter if you get a hundred percent what matters is how long you spent taking it so if you go too quickly even if you get a hundred percent they send you a notice and say you have to do additional training because you didn't spend enough hours doing it so the requirement is two hours so my advice is don't sign off and say you're done until your two hours are up or you'll get enough of us to do more training I should have talked to you I was an hour 58 minutes and I'm pushing me all the way back to the end took me a little over two hours so yeah good for you it took me a little less than two hours and they came back to me okay the next item is the approval of the minutes for January 25th and I will need to recuse myself because I was not in attendance of that meeting so do we have a motion to approve the minutes I'll move approval of the planning commission meeting minutes of January 25th all second that okay can we have a roll call vote aye aye aye aye okay the next item is the consent calendar the consent calendar is considered by the planning commission to be routine and will be enacted in one motion in the form listed below there will be no separate discussion on these items prior to the time that the planning commission votes on the action unless members of the public or the planning commission request specific items to be discussed for separate review so we have one item tonight it's 524 pilgrim drive it's a design permit for a single story addition and remodel is there anyone in the audience that would like to pull this item for discussion no one is there anyone on the commission who would like to pull it okay I believe we have a commissioner who is going to recuse himself commissioner Denson and so I'm looking for a motion in a second on the consent calendar I move the consent calendar a second okay can we have a roll call vote aye aye aye okay now we're going to move on to our public hearings and the first public hearing is 203 Esplanade it is for a window replacement at Zelda's restaurant and we'll have a staff report we can but I'm not certain can you hear me now okay Brian's pulling up the slideshow this is a and we added this item at the last minute it's for an emergency coastal development permit for Zelda's restaurant at 203 Esplanade so I'll jump into it without the slides at this point so as you know Zelda's restaurant was recently impacted by the storms and the rear wall that faces the ocean was severely damaged and there was structural damage to that wall our building official after reviewing the preliminary analysis from the structural engineer asked that they do further demolition in order to get further into the wall and see exactly what was going on structurally so in doing that they took out the windows have been taken out there's I think some of the there's some boards that are still up but there's very very little left to those walls at this point the applicant when they open the walls approached staff asking if they could change the system on the window system on the rear walls so they would like to utilize a window system that is a sliding window system and there are there's a series of three different sections within the rear wall some with three window panels and I believe two with four window panels so they want to keep the amount of panels within each section so it'll have the same like look and feel to the back wall but have a different function and the sliders will allow more air to be in the restaurants and we know after COVID there is a preference to having more air within restaurants and so here's the here we go so here's the on the slide here you can see a picture of Zeldas after the storm and the boarded up windows and the reason we're here tonight is I'm as the community development director I'm allowed to issue emergency coastal development permits this one because it's tied to a historic structure I would like to have the Planning Commission give guidance on because I will have to come back for a an alteration permit for a historic structure so this this is just preliminary guidance so the applicant knows how to put together their application for this future and if they were to move forward with ordering the windows it's at their own risk until this will come back at your next meeting for an alteration permit so next slide please so here's a picture of the impacts to the storm you can see that wall is bowing inside and the impacts to that so those windows have been removed there's essentially very very little left along that rear wall next slide this image is showing the 1940s to 1960s photo are not exactly sure of the date and then a more recent photo and listed on top is from our historic statement for Capitola and describing it doesn't just describe one of the structures it describes the whole block for the Esplanade and that should say 199 through 231 Esplanade is an eclectic Capitola Esplanade and it describes it as evolving the structure is evolving since the 1920s to its present configuration and the reason for its evolution is based on different ownership as well as storm periodic storm damage which we most recently saw so and it also notes that the bandstand is the oldest continuing operation so as you can see there have been modifications over time to this building on the right hand side you can see the very clear change in the windows and how they were previously in the change of to what they are now next slide please so the transom windows on the top the applicant would like to remove next slide please this is showing the three different sections where they'd like to have sliding windows it would be that repeat ribbon design they would match the number of window openings in each section next slide please and actually if you can go back sorry around the door they would still have fixed windows on either side of the door and they would replace the door but it would look similar to what it is today and then the last part of the request is to raise the sill height four inches this is to align with the table heights within the dining room but it could also help with future storms just giving them a little more protection next slide please between the windows right now there's a four-inch trim that with this new sliding system would be decreased to two inches I know the applicant is here the owner of Zelda's Jill Ailey and she has been looking around for other solutions to this we originally I requested this to be at four inches to match but she's not been able to locate a match for that system next slide please so tonight I'm asking for direction on three items is it okay to lower the sill height or to I'm sorry to raise the sill height four inches and then can would you like them to replicate the existing windows as they are today or is it okay for the new sliding window system and to move the windows above and then if there is support for the sliding windows is the two inch aluminum mullions okay or would you like to see the four F four inch alternative be found so with that this isn't an item that's been posted for public hearing it's we're really looking for direction the applicant is here to answer any questions and the outcome of this is what I'll base my emergency CDP on all right thank you does anybody have any questions this now looks like Jill's here so would you like to speak to us yeah so tonight we're really looking for direction on this design so that Jill can order the proper windows and then we'll come back with an application to be approved all right well I'd be happy to jump in if no one wants to in my opinion the historical nature of this building is the fact that it's there there are no significant architectural features that impress me as a historical it needs to be a seaside business that the public can have access to and enjoy and that's kind of it so you know in my opinion would be whatever works for you I wouldn't be all for yeah I would I would agree with Peter I think the sliding idea is good because you get more ventilation as director pointed out that's good in these years of endemics with COVID etc moving the sill up makes sense to I don't know why it was down lowered in the first place yeah the tables brought over the windows so I guess people were shorter in the 20s but yeah I and I the four inch versus two and one sixteenth I don't see that makes a huge difference in the design I would just echo both comments I agree as well I think it'll make it a really nice airy environment and they're I mean operable yeah I agree as well I think the sliding windows would be a nice addition to it obviously the back of this building's been destroyed and remodeled and there's not much historic left except what Peter said the fact that it's there so I would be in favor of the new sliding window system when the application came back for a formal review I would add a condition in there just so we make certain that everyone's aware of that that deck back there is a public access it's in our local coastal plan and that needs to remain open to the public but other than that I think it's a great idea thank you so do you have your direction yes thank you okay so we'll move on to item B which is 117 Saxon Avenue it's a design permit to legalize an internal attic conversion located in the R1 zoning district so I have to recuse myself do you want me to leave I think you probably should leave since we're gonna discuss it we will call you back chair Westman I just had I received a text from one of our consultants that will be presenting tonight and they're saying there's an audio issue with our zoom out to the public so I'd like to take a moment to resolve that so we'll take a five-minute recess while they work on that however long it takes I never read that one so would you want to correct yourself well maybe we can get Julia to give it an update update the next five minutes corrected did you want to correct it no it's correct testing testing testing okay I believe we've resolved the issue okay we're back to our meeting and having a staff presentation on 117 Saxon Avenue and thank you chair Westman good evening commissioners so we have a design permit for 117 Saxon Avenue this is a remedy to some work that was done without the benefit of permit I've got a just an aerial just to give you some context is on the corner of Saxon Avenue and El Salto Drive and a little more context is building according to our records was originally built in 1910 it's noted as a one-and-a-half story it's got this low-profile dormer on the front and the attic space is inside what you see is the steeper roof pitches and so specifically this is an area that covers 574 square feet it's within the original constructed attic and then the background that we have more recently and what brings us to today and this permit request is in December of 2021 the city received a complaint about a window and privacy and whether or not this area was legal to be habitable condition space we did an investigation dug up some records both with through the city and the county we reached out to the owner in March of 2022 and the owner did not have any further records and we shared what we had and our findings and I think after figuring out several of the paths forward the owner agreed that filing a design permit was the way to go hired a local designer and made a submittal in October 2022 so this is just a site plan view the shaded tan area is the attic above this is representative of the first floor and the site boundaries and then this is what was that shaded area in prior slide so this is got essentially a vaulted and sloping ceiling throughout runs along the the cross length ridge of the the roof I'm going to use the pointer here I'll point out those glass blocks that were in that front elevation that we looked at the low-profile dormer and then here's the window that generated at least a portion of the original concern that was filed with the city the window really is kind of the the primary topic here because technically it's a design review but we're not really looking at anything design related other than this window we did some investigation as noted we were not able to date the window so we don't really know if it was part of the original construction or if it was added with this modification but where we landed in terms of a nexus and looking at this from a mitigation standpoint was that the area is being activated and so it does present a new potential privacy issue and so we are recommending a condition that the lower half of the window receive a treatment for privacy that's condition number 13 so here is just a real-life view of this window it faces generally south toward the toward the sea and the property next door most closest to the window you can't even see the home here because it's the way that that lot was developed that home was a really tight to the rear property line so it has a bit of a view over the what is the front yard I just this is just a bit of cleanup on our recommended condition in preparing the slide show today I look took a closer look at this window and there's actually five vertical divided lights so that the check rail which is the bottom cross piece of the the fixed window the upper portion of the fixed window there's only two divided lights in there and there's three on the bottom so bottom half is a little bit you know would just present an immediate question for this condition I added it in present parentheses in the written condition in the staff report for clarification but in fact it makes it more confusing so just want to modify that on record here and just say at the check rail and below so that would be all three level all three the pain horizontal and that window opens yeah the the three pain portion is operable so with that we did receive an email from the neighbor that has the the property that this window faces their front yard and they were supportive of staff's recommendation and I do believe the applicant is here and wants to discuss the item as well thank you does anybody have any commissioners have any questions of the staff oh no the applicants here would you like to address us please good evening my name is John shank I'm the my wife and I are the owners of the home here at 117 Saxon echoey I first want to apologize and that I addressed the letter to you all incorrectly I think it's too early in the year for the city's website to have updated in it you don't show his chair that's okay don't worry about that part my apologies I want to thank staff especially Katie and Brian for their professional courtesy caring communication helping us kind of work through the how did this happen sort of a moment that we had a year ago or so we appreciate staff's recommendation we take no issue with it it whenever this happened we don't really know we've tried to look and figure out when I know that it's been a bedroom for at least 20 years but we can't really figure out what happened before that when we bought the home in 2007 we did what I think is pretty normal diligence our lender did diligence the brokers the sellers disclosures I looked through it nothing it's just been a bedroom I think you know commissioners you guys may recall from a year ago or so the second story side yard roof deck issue that was before you all that sort of became this complaint about the privacy issue and I think my my our request is that we not I don't know frost or treat the window I've looked at the street very carefully there's not a second-story south-facing window that has a treatment even all the way to Escalona and then I looked around I couldn't find frosted windows anywhere as you saw in the photo our window is over the front yard it's not even at the house and as I tried to point out in my letter I thought you know they they it's a beautiful new home it's a brand new home of a few years old and they cited it and floorplanned it and all of those things knowing hey there's that house with that bedroom window doesn't mean it's right we were here because it there's a there's a lack of compliance and we want to get that corrected but the light and air and the view the peek-a-boo view that everybody loves to enjoy when they can is something that we very much value and we'd like to be able to keep that I intended to provide a few extra photos if they were helpful I happen to send you the same one multiple times and I brought the few other photos if those are interesting or helpful but with that I'll stop but I guess my one other request would be if you do find that the right thing to do is to require the frosting I mentioned to Brian I was going to ask I think in the recommendation it says that we would do that within seven days and my request you know for us to figure out what materials and procure them and get somebody and get it all done at these days it feels like a miracle to get anything done in a week but if we could have more time or maybe tie it to the there's a building permit process we're gonna have to go through after this and just tie the work together if you really think we need to do it I just I there's a part of me that worries that worries I shouldn't be worrying about other people but it does feel that in my homework of the your city's municipal code etc when looking at the roof deck issues it seemed that there were very very clear categories of where of privacy expectations in the front yard was the least expectation compared to backyards inside yards etc and I just thought you know if anytime somebody gets a permit if somebody gets a well I don't like that one we're gonna frosted windows all over the place and I don't think it's great just as I noticed that there were none but I'll stop there and of course answer any questions if you guys have any thank you thank you for your comments does anyone have any questions you want to ask the applicant now okay thank you we will bring this item back to the Commission for a discussion else in the public who wants to oh sorry is there anyone else in the pop thank you for reminding me anybody else in the public want to speak on this seeing no one won't bring it back to the Commission sir right who would like to start with this one look my way I'll be happy to jump in so I think that the fact that we allow second stories in this community right off the bat is going to be a problem with privacy because there's going to be very few second stories that don't have windows and I was actually kind of surprised staff recommended the frosting because that is to me is a slippery slope this window does not look directly into anybody else's anything it overlooks a yard which like as he points out all windows over gonna are going to overlook something so I just I mean it's hard press to see why we would put any conditions on that window especially since and this really doesn't apply but I mean it's an ocean-facing window and you know that's why we're here as we like to look out if even if it's a peak or even if it's the clouds you want to look out and and if it inadvertently overlooks someone's rose garden and you want to bring out your binoculars and count the rayfids I suppose anybody could do that but I just don't think this is this is something that we should put any conditions on and I would I would support deleting condition 13 entirely anyone else like to make any comments I agree with Commissioner well coal-heartedly and I'm curious as to what have we ever required anybody else any other applicant to have frosted windows we have with within a setback okay so I just I can we see the site played one more time just up yeah okay yeah I echo Commissioner Wilson sentiments exactly Commissioner Johnson when you said that it's been required in other projects can you elaborate on where that generic where that's been when that came in issue I can comment on that so we have seen this on prior projects I think typically it's been when a new house goes in next to an existing home and there's windows in close proximity for privacy and also within bathrooms we've typically asked that the opaque thank you so I'll actually make a comment on this one Peter and I don't often agree but I agree with you on you know clearly this has been there for at least 20 years because the people have occupied the house that long and so it's it's nothing new and I could go along approving the application without requiring them to frost the window so that I'll make a motion to approve staff recommendations and with the deletion of condition 13 I'll second okay we have a motion a second a roll call vote hi hi hi okay so someone should let fall know where you can you can come back in the room so I'm gonna leave for this one okay so the next item on our agenda is 1555 Lincoln Avenue it's a design permit historical alteration permit and variance for an addition to a historical single-family residence and the deletion demolition of a non-historic accessory structure so thank you and good evening so as mentioned this application includes a design permit historic alteration permit and variance for a single-family residence it's located at 1555 Lincoln Avenue within the single-family residential zoning district this is the existing residence as it appears today located within the jewel box neighborhood near Warf Road the applicant is proposing first and second story additions to the historic primary residence the project would also as mentioned include the demolition of a large accessory structure in the rear yard that was constructed constructed excuse me in 1984 this is not historic this is the proposed site plan the additions shaded in blue are located in the back half of the structure with the totaled first and second story additions the proposed project equals 81824 square feet for a floria ratio or FAR of 57 percent which conforms to the maximum FAR of 57 percent for the lot the proposed parking are noted and with those x's there and we'll come to that at the end of this presentation this is a rendering of the proposed design I'll go ahead and go through his side-by-side of the existing and proposed elevations this is the front and east facing elevation is also most publicly visible elevation the bulk of those additions will replace a previous shed roof addition set approximately 24 feet back from the front wall the exterior cladding on the additions are horizontal wood lap which are differentiated using wider widths than the original cladding this is the right north side elevation this is the opposite side elevation and this is the proposed and existing rear elevation this is a photo from the assessors records circa 1975 of the home you can notice a few differences here such as the absence of a balcony fence so some additional historic context the resident was residents was constructed around 1890 in the greek revival style the home was modified in the 1920s with a rear shed roof addition and a 1970s conversion of the front porch covering into a balcony in 1984 the city approved the construction of a large accessory structure in the back it required a variance the project was reviewed by architectural historian Seth Bergstein who noted the structure retains numerous sorry numerous character defining features including steep gable roof original entrance right I think that should fix it so the project was reviewed by architectural historian Seth Bergstein who noted the structure retains numerous character defining features including a steep gable roof original entrance with top light and side light windows clapboard siding and numerous wood detailings throughout the structure the final design presented and proposed incorporates the summary of recommendations provided by mr. Bergstein which were focused on preserving the original openings differentiation and reductions to the new massing following the incorporation of these those design changes which are summarized above mr. Bergstein found the overall project in compliance with the secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation as well as the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA as mentioned before this project requires or includes two variances one is for the parking dimensions of the covered space or the garage as well as the nonconforming calculation or the structural alteration alteration limitation of 80% of the fair market value the 80% calculation based on the architects middle and staff's review was approximately 80% but just in good practice they opted to apply for a variance because it's just an approximation and sometimes they change when we get to building the proposed covered space measures 9 feet 5 inches wide by 17 feet 8 inches sorry 17 feet 8 inches deep whereas they typically are required to have a minimum clearance of 10 feet wide by 20 feet deep the specific considerations relating to this variance request include the unique circumstances of the historic status and the associated protections within the municipal code as well as CEQA strict compliance with the nonconforming code would be contrary to the preservation of this structure as the historic elements of it are also the ones that don't comply with code namely the front and side elevations similarly the reduction of covered parking dimensions reduces forward massing of the addition and enables the preservation of forward first story a forward first story window on the corner on the south southeast elevation the project also complies with all other zoning standards and meets the required number of on-site parking spaces similar exceptions have been granted in association with historic resources such as 124 central avenue and more recently to 16 central avenue therefore staff was able to make findings in support of granting the variance for both requests of the non-conforming calculation and the covered parking dimensions included almost included in the application no problem the applicant is proposing remove up to six trees for which are regulated within the city's forest and tree ordinance they they may not remove up they may not remove the entirety of those trees but they're requesting the authorization to do so just in case it's required for construction the area of this sort of hedgerow of trees are low or indicated in orange above and that that line there to the south of the structure the green are all the other trees that they're proposing to preserve including the most notable oak tree in the front yard because of the remaining trees staff does not believe that this property is likely to be under the minimum required canopy coverage so we did not include conditions as we're pertaining to these removals and with that staff recommends approval based on the attached conditions and findings thank you any questions of staff the applicant here would you like to speak to us I'm Tara Zorovich we're the owners yeah we just decided to follow the rules we now live in a house that's bigger than this but we really want to live here so we were willing to just you know downsize a little bit just to be closer to the beach so yeah we just followed all the rules in the garage as Sean said we just had to shrink it to satisfy the historical society so I think that's that's it and the house is in it's not in great condition it's the wood is rotted and so it definitely needs to be done so anyway I just wanted to thank Sean and Brian for their help with the process thank you thank you anyone else in the public or on zoom that would like to comment on this okay seeing no one we'll bring it to the Commission for consideration and deliberation would someone like to start oh I think it's a good design I like the way you've differentiated the new from the old the only thing I thought was a little strange but I guess it's not historic looking at the record is the second railing on the second story balcony is different than the fence on the first story but looking that picture from 75 that wasn't there anyways no way it's fine I don't really have a problem with the request for the variance of the parking or any of that I think that it serves its purpose I had a question about the trees I just clarification I think so they're requesting to remove the green the on the plan you had the orange so the orange is being removed silly okay and then the green is remaining correct that's that's I have no problem with that thank you okay well I don't have any problem with it either I think they did a very nice job on their design to maintain sort of the historical character of the building while making it a bit more livable for them so someone at this end of the table like to make a motion to approve the project at 1555 Lincoln okay and that includes the historical alteration permit in the variance is there a second yeah I'll second that all right we have a motion and a second on this project I I I I so the next item is 517 Oak Drive and I need to recuse myself from that so vice chair Christiansen will take over for this particular item all right so item D 517 Oak Drive it's a variance for the required parking dimensions to construct a first-story additions without meeting current parking standards the part the project is located in the R1 single-family residential zoning district do you have a staff presentation yes thank you so as mentioned application only includes a variance does not include a design permit it is located in the single-family residential zoning district in specifically the Riverview Terrace neighborhood this is the existing residence as it appears today to the right of it I actually did speak with the neighboring property owner and he asked that I just mentioned this that they have a unusual shared driveway so to speak they are separate properties they serve the separate properties but they look contiguous and and that's kind of how they ended up here based on the unusual development pattern of these two separate lots this is the proposed site plan except for the parking the proposed additions comply with all development standards and would not require even a design permit due to the zoning code exemption for a residential addition not in excess of 400 square feet not exceeding 15 feet in height and located towards the rear of the structure if a variance is approved the applicant could apply for a building permit under this design permit exemption as shown the proposed additions would increase the existing structure by approximately 217 square feet proposed parking arrangement is shown above this is what the structure would look like from the front you can see that while the additions are located behind there are some prominence over the existing residence that said the maximum height of everything including that addition is 13 and a half feet this is a rendering of the same remodel but from the rear the addition is on the left and as proposed the additions would exceed 10% of the structure's existing floor area which means that the uses full parking demand must be provided including the dimensions of those parking spaces the use requires two uncovered parking spaces in a tandem configuration such as the one that exists and is proposed that would mean two parking spaces that each measure at least nine feet wide by 18 feet deep the variance includes a proposal for two uncovered parking spaces that measure seven feet wide by 16 feet six inches deep for context there's a parcel map above showing a three block area around here around the surrounding neighborhood of all the lots visible above only six lots are less than 40 feet wide and only one lot is narrower than the subject property the lots the lot is also proportionally smaller than the other lots around it due to that narrow width and Riverview Terrace lots are already among the smallest in Capitola's single family neighborhoods which is about on average 40 feet wide by 70 feet deep this lot is 33 and a half feet wide the applicant also submitted photos of their two vehicles using the approximate area included in the proposal so you can see what that would look like the project will comply with as mentioned before all other zoning standards and meet the required number of on-site parking spaces therefore staff was able to make findings in support of this variance request and with that we are recommending approval based on the attached conditions and findings a question so your staff's rationale for the variance is basically the size of the lot for the parking variance correct do we have precedent on this we grab other Riverview Terrace where we where we've accepted smaller lots seems me we've accepted a lot of them but I don't want to be setting precedent here there is one example I can think of up on Depot Hill on Central Avenue on the the side closer to the village right there was I can't remember the address for it but it was a it's a really small lot it has a tan house on it that's about a story and a half and they came in for a second-story addition towards the back but they couldn't meet their parking requirement and there was a variance granted there because of the size of the lot but it was also tied to being historic I'm just channeling Ed Newman here because he always say well why do we have every requirements if we're gonna have variances all the time so I just want to make sure that we've got good rationale for the variance and I think we do well beyond that what did they do in the other three lots that are skinny lots for parking you know I can't tell you for certain I I'm guessing that like many of the other properties along the Soquel Creek one of the six that I start on that parcel map is along the Creek I'm assuming it doesn't have parking the majority don't in that section one of the other properties shown is the neighboring property which has a it has the exact same non-conforming set up and I'm not sure about the two flanking it on the opposing street but we clear we're not losing parking it's just great yes it would still be two parking spaces provided that you accepted the the arrangement hello I'm Mike Moore I'm really just kind of here to answer questions I bought the property with my wife back in 2003 and we cherish the village we rented in two different spots prior to buying and we have a 19 month old boy now and we are just humbly looking to add a bedroom and really I think our contractors actually might be available on Zoom but we've been working very very very hard for quite a few years to find a solution here Sean's been very supportive as have the balance of staff in kind of guiding us and yeah so I mean just for clarity we aren't losing any parking we're maintaining exactly the status quo as is you know we're demolishing a shed that's in the back and just adding a bedroom and a half bath back there in the back corner of the property so I'm happy to answer any no questions and again our contractor we've been working with Taylor and his team for for many years numerous iterations to try to find a solution so we can just have one more bedroom so we'd end up with a small two bedroom cottage so I am happy to answer any questions I've got lots of context for our very deliberate approach here and again our contractor can speak more technically to it I'm not sure how they since we haven't heard anybody present by zoom yet I'm sure how that's gonna happen or if it needs to happen Taylor last name darling okay yeah so he's prepared to speak to all this as well in case commissioners need further clarification yeah thank you of course do we we come back to the deliberation other public public thank you is there any okay you're welcome to speak now there we are yes yeah I've been working with Michael for a few years trying to come up with a solution for him and his wife to add one bedroom and a bathroom to their house and we've been through a lot of iterations and run them by staff and this this seems to be the best solution that we can come up with and just to give a little context that you know the house is very small it's it's only 625 square feet we are basically forced to do this variance because anytime you add more than 10% you have to go through the variance and 10% when you have 625 square feet is is very small so nor you know a normal sized lot this project you know likely would not even need the variance but this law is so small there's there's really no other place to fit any even small addition there's a there's a setback in the back for sewer that constrains the lot there there's just nowhere else to go and I think what we're asking for here to do a very small bedroom addition with a bathroom is you know it's as efficient as we possibly could have done it and you know unfortunately the parking the width is is narrower than normal but without demolishing the house and and moving it there's no other way to meet the parking requirement so yeah we're asking for for this variance in order to do a pretty small addition on the back of the the property and yeah I'd be happy to ask any other questions thank you so we can turn it back to commission for deliberation does anybody want to have any comments I'll just go ahead and move to approve staff recommendation second hi hi hi thank you appreciate it very much okay so the last item on our agenda tonight is a discussion of the city-wide housing element okay thank you this evening we have Brett Stinson of rrm design and Veronica Tam of Veronica Tam and Associates Incorporated who are going to Veronica is going to lead the presentation this evening I'm excited to introduce these the two of them there are our experts in housing and we've got a big job ahead of us this year of adopting a new housing element which needs to be adopted by the end of the year by December 31st and we'll jump right into it but we've got a lot of units that we not need to figure out where they're going to go and capital in the future and we've got a great team to work on this for us so too so with that Veronica I'll let you jump in everyone hear me yes okay and you can see the PowerPoint yes okay great so I'm just gonna go quickly to give an overview of the housing element what we're doing why we're doing this um and tonight regarding the housing element mainly we're going to talk about the key issues and challenges that we have facing updating the housing element and what are the next steps that we need to do housing element part of the general plan is one of the seven mandate elements of the general plan but it's very different in the sense that it has various regulatory requirements we have to look at the needs in your community not only the current needs of your residents but also projected needs in the future it also has a very tight deadline we are dealing with December 31st 2023 as the deadline of those unlike the rest of your general plan that usually have a longer time frame the planning for the housing element has to be updated every eight years what is also different about the housing element is that it has to be reviewed by a state agency for compliance with state law the agency will be dealing with the state department of housing and community development hcd and you'll hear about hcd quite frequently over the next few months the housing element as we mentioned before that has these particular requirements we look at the needs we update the programs and actions that you're going to undertake in the next eight years but it has to be reviewed by the state in two very critical stages one during the draft housing element prior to adopting the housing element you must consider comments provided by the state and then after the adoption we have to also let the state review the housing element as whether they would consider overall the housing element become by the state law and throughout that process we will have opportunities for the public to provide input on the housing element once you have adopted the housing element and certified by the state implementation will be throughout the next eight years probably um as i mentioned before has very um kind of like a statutory requirements in terms of the content we need to look at the needs in your community but we also need to look at the constraints and opportunities that you have in addressing those constraints those housing needs we when it comes to constraints the focus is on governmental constraints and we will talk about that later on in future workshops we also need to look at what you're able to accomplish over the last eight years what works and what doesn't work in your community and how do we modify in order to provide for a variety of housing types in your community through the housing action plan so what has this really been able to accomplish over the last eight years you actually did quite a bit and and a lot of accomplishments over the last eight years particularly you updated the entire zooming code in order to accommodate mixed use into your commercial corridors you have also adopted objective design standards for all multi-family mixed use development types and then you also have prototypes of ADU designs so that will be plan ready and build a plan ready and easier for homeowners to pursue ADU construction you have also provided an ADU guidance document as part of the implementation of ADUs you updated the inclusionary ordinance to provide update housing impact fees in order to generate resources for affordable housing you have also implemented emergency shelter or emergency housing programs and rental assistance for lower-income households also provided we have a lot of assistance to some of your lower income for homeowners when we set the housing element to the state for review the goal is to achieve something called a finding of substantial compliance with state law it is very critical because the housing element is the most frequently lit up a little data element of the general plan when you do have a housing element that's deemed to be a compliant with state law by the state agency then in the event of a lawsuit you have the presumption of validity under in court you also have the ability to pursue state funding not only for housing but infrastructure transportation type of funding as well when we send the housing element to the state for review a critical component of that review is whether you have enough sites to accommodate housing growth in the future if you're not able to have enough sites to accommodate your regional housing needs allocation which i will go into a little further later on that would not get your housing compliance but more critical is that whatever you're not able to to accommodate it would be an additive to the next housing element cycle but if you're able to provide the sites that's your obligation production is not the obligation the housing needs allocation is a production in terms of good faith effort but it's not an obligation well if you have a housing element that's out of compliance to state law you would also see enforcement efforts from the state specifically the state agency has created a new division housing accountability division which will be monitoring jurisdiction for the compliance and enforcement of the housing programs you have a tool today i think that before we start like looking at your needs some of the things that we need to kind of get an idea about is that currently your housing stock is generally between i split between single family and multi-family you also have a very large mobile home that's about 11 percent of your housing units on mobile homes in terms of single family 36 percent but multi-family that's apartment type of building and it's a little bit lower at 16 percent so while there is an even split you are also leaning towards more the lower intensity type of housing in terms of your current income distribution when we look at housing programs the state has defined income categories based on income comparison to the area median income the five different categories that we typically deal with in housing elements they extremely low very low low moderate and above moderate income based on comparison to the area median income area mean meaning the counties median income for capital your income distribution is leaning towards higher high proportion in a moderate and above moderate income about 63 percent of your households are between moderate and above moderate income another 37 percent or so that are very low and low income in the last 10 years or so in terms of demographics so you you barely increased in population by 20 percent the 20 percent so not a very large increase at all but in terms of your overall housing situation you have also have more home ownership compared to 10 years ago slightly increasing home ownership in relation before a critical component of the state's review of housing elements the regional housing needs allocation we know that is a top down process from the states that estimate how much growth is needed in the entire state and allocated to subregions in your region the embank association of bay area government moderate bay area of government so that has about I think three or four counties in included in that with a 33 000 units overall allocation for the embank region for senators county the overall allocation is 13 000 units or so capital gets about 10 of that now what is very important to also know is the fact that your regional regional housing needs allocation we know for the sixth cycle housing element is almost 10 times what you were allocated back in the fifth cycle due to a variety of reasons one overall arena for the entire state is significant me finding I mean the fifth cycle to there are at least there is a new state law that requires jurisdictions to look at the housing needs that from the past 20 years that have not been met so you have to not only look at future growth needs but you also have to compensate for lack of growth in the last 20 years or so and then there are also new methodologies and factors that the state uses in order to calculate who you know the allocation on of units in again the regional housing needs allocation is divided into income categories what is important to understand if it's not anticipated that you will have the ability to build other units by these income categories rena is a planning goal not a production obligation and the state uses density as a way to estimate what type of land use policies or zoning would be able to allow jurisdictions to accommodate the house region housing needs allocation by these income categories we'll talk a little bit about that in terms of density public outreach is a critical component of the housing element update already as well there is an ongoing housing survey to look at the needs in the community and this city has also conducted stakeholder interviews there are also additional workshops that have been planned throughout these the process of updating the housing element today is one of the first meetings that we will go through in terms of study sessions but we will have another one with the city council next week and then a community workshop for following so far from what we have done in terms of outreach what we have heard a lot from stakeholders particularly is the need to streamline entitlement and permitting processes in order to encourage housing development there's also critical ways to get housing built in the community is to work with non-profits in order to provide housing that is needed for your lower income and certainly persons with special needs in your community also opportunities for housing in in in capitol uh public lives primarily in the next use area for example you know capitol mall sites that are one of the key sites for housing in the future in identifying sites the state has adopted a lot of new state laws to really regulate what kind of feasible sites in developing housing for different income and for a different household type what we have to do in the housing element is to make sure that we have we identify the site um you know parcel specific and explain how these sites are feasible for development and whether there are um there are access to infrastructure and services whether there are major environmental constraints whether it will be able to facilitate a variety of types of housing including multi-family single-family um and also senior housing and other types of housing we we absolutely need to identify sufficient capacity and without that the housing element will not be certified by the state so that is going to be a challenge in capitol as a small community and what we need to the to do when you're looking for sites is to certainly respect the city's future the vision for the future but in in looking at that and in aligning with your current menu policies look for opportunities for redevelopment look for accessible ad use development and look at some other opportunities such as state owned properties and there is new state laws that govern housing um educational and religious institutional aspects um so that we can go into a little bit of that in the a little later um one piece of state law that uh a game um that talks about site inventory for the Wiena is something the concept of no net loss when we as um identify sites in the housing element and make an estimate about how much growth can be a growth can be a problem in other states it may not actually happen exactly that way if the state is developed even when the fact is developed and is developed at lower density of fewer units than assumed in the housing element or not exactly at the at the income level assumed in the housing element the state requires the jurisdictions to do an ongoing accounting that we still continue to have the ability to accommodate your remaining regional housing needs allocation and if you are unable to do that you have to replenish your site inventory and for that reason the state actually recommends that when you identify sites in your housing element you do create a buffer you do identify a buffer between 15 to 30 percent uh is a recommendation but we try to um to to get to that um as as feasible as possible um particularly the um the buffer is important for the lower income categories because most housing developed at market is not going to be affordable for lower income households. Religational sites and educational sites have been two um changes in state law um AB 1851 allows development of affordable housing for lower income households on congregational religious institution properties basically like um you can have a church um or of some other religious institution um on site um but utilizing the uh parking area or other unused area and they can provide housing on site partnering with the religious institution and they're not required to replace the parking that they they took up to 50 percent of the original parking um AB 2295 that's brand new um uh institutional educational and institutional um um uses currently um for example um public schools, colleges um they have the ability to provide housing for their employees without requiring a zone change um that is new state law. So when we're looking at the sites inventory there's certainly one strategy is to look at your ADUs. Now unfortunately at this point we we're seeing an increase in your ADU trend but it's not increasing um um at a very high rate yet um but we are able to project based on the trend um currently we can project how many ADUs that we can achieve over the next eight years so we can um assume some uh housing production um as ADUs in the future. We can also as we mentioned before look at um the um institutional uh our religious facility sites um that is a becoming a very um viable and very um popular trend um right now in California is to have churches partnering with nonprofit developers for affordable housing the example we're showing it here is in garden growth where they're taking about two acres of the parking lot area of the church site and then provide 47 family housing and 16 units of senior housing. I mean in exchange for that the church gets a new community center they get programs and offices um that that they are on site for the um for the for the residents but then their office is also for other local nonprofits so this is one example but there's been many many examples now in in California. If there's sites inventory we you know given the magnitude of your arena we really have to look at every um um corners of the city trying to find out what would be the most appropriate um places that would have the either vacant or underutilized properties that we can facilitate um or encourage redevelopment. One thing is important to know is the state considers sites that are at least 20 units to the acre that can accommodate housing that's at least 20 units to the acre to be feasible for accommodating lower income. So as I mentioned before um the state doesn't and doesn't expect you to actually build all the units um at the that the income distribution is shown in the arena but you do have to provide sites at appropriate density and development standards and what is considered appropriate for lower income is about 20 units to the acre. So looking at the various zoning districts in your community right now you do have a few that do accommodate 20 units to the acre such as your multi-family high density is close to 20. Your mobile home part um although um it's um we're not seeing a lot of new mobile homes um to be redeveloped to be developed in these days. You have the affordable housing overlay and the village residential overlay that's up to 20 units to the acre that would be um that can be used. You do have mixed used um um categories that have no density limit but however we do have to demonstrate to the state what is the trend of development in those areas what is the average density yield. So with that um we're going to actually have to look at um possibly doing some kind of rezoning because what you currently have is unlikely to be adequate to accommodate almost 1400 units of arena. Um when you do the rezoning there is a deadline the statutory deadline of the rezoning is December 31st, 2021 and 23. You go you can go past the statutory deadline but um but if you're able to to do the rezoning prior to the statutory deadline um of the housing element and prior to or at the same time as adopting your housing element is that you will be able to avoid a lot of restrictions or um requirements that's imposed on the city if you end up having to rezone properties after statutory deadline. One key thing is that um we talk about 20 units to the acre being a default density um as being um feasible for facilitating low income. If you have to rezone after the statutory deadline then not only do you have to have a maximum at 20 units to the acre you also have to have a minimum of 20 units to the acre because you cannot have a zone district that has the maximum equals to the minimum therefore your maximum will have to be pushed up to beyond 20 units to the acre. So most of the time when that happens we the range would become 20 to 25 units to the acre or 20 to 24 units to the acre. Could you repeat that? I didn't follow your okay so yeah the the zoning district that you you uh you need to or the zoning density that you need to facilitate lower income is 20 units to the acre. If you're able to rezone adequate properties to accommodate your lower income arena you can have a zone that is set zero to 20 units to the acre but if when unable to achieve the rezoning prior to the statutory deadline that particular zone cannot be zero to 20 anymore it has to have a bottom of 20 units to the acre so because you cannot have a zone that the bottom is 20 and the maximum is also 20 then you need to push up the maximum to be something else so then your zone to accommodate your lower income arena would have to have a density range of 20 to 24 or 20 to 25 uh 20 to 25 units to the acre so the the the the maximum density of that zone would have to be pushed out because you now has to establish a minimum of that zone and 20 units to the acre. Okay thank you. And there is also another requirement that the sites that you can qualify for lower income sites even if you have the adequate zoning the site has to be large enough to accommodate at least 16 units so you cannot include a bunch of smaller sites to to accommodate your lower income arena you must find sites that can be consolidated to a point where at least 16 units can be achieved on those sites. Also another thing that is critical is the buy right approval if the rezoning occurs after the statutory deadline then if a project comes in with 20 affordable to lower income then the project would be eligible for buy right approval and buy right approval under state law is um ministerial review uh or no discretionary review uh no sequel no public hearings so um that's the requirement if you're unable to rezone what you need before the statutory deadline. So Veronica I'm just going to take a moment and say so we thought we just had to update our housing element but this is a really a big piece so that we don't we can avoid these other obligations so this this will be will be uh going through and like and just tracking these at the same time and hoping to have our densities updated by that December deadline so that we won't be subject to all these buy right approvals and other stipulations so I just want to highlight that because that um this is new state law that's come out and new requirements so do you do not only have to have the city approve it but does it have to have coastal commission approval before December? It does so um I believe so that that's a great question but I'm thinking it has to be in place so that means we have to have it certified by coastal so this is going to be one of our first stops is and we'll get into this in some in the future slides but is really looking at our densities and starting that process right when we thought we had enough data code but we'll be coming back with modifications because we have areas without any density limits and now we have to cover ourselves for um we should have density limits because otherwise we'll be subject to the lower and upper ends of density limits so okay continue thank you great and um another thing that is important um to have the zoning um done as well uh because we're most likely going to rely heavily on mixed use properties for your for your low income arena which essentially higher density development uh if the uh if you don't have the zone in place or the site in place at the time then uh rezoning to mix use to allow mix use development requires that you allow standalone residential um in those mixed use sites um and that if a mixed use project does happen on the on those mixed use sites you cannot require more than 50 percent of the residential more than 50 percent of the floor area to be non-residential that is if you rely on rezoning and of those rezoning more than half of your lower income comes from mixed use um a zoning so that's another um wrinkle that we have to deal with in terms of identifying sites and trying to strategize about rezoning so with that I'm going to pass it to you okay I'm through some of the um uh available sites and and get your input on what those um what the city strategies be thank you um so here is the map that's included in our fifth cycle housing element and it's identifying the the previous rena sites and noted on here is the terra court um development of 11 units on 38th avenue which shows us developed and then also um the entitlement of the hotel on hill street which we went through that the process of no net loss um previously so when we when we allowed the hotel we had to find other sites to make sure that we could still fill our rena obligation and we used the sites of 4401 capitol a road and then another site on 38th avenue right next to the rail trail or the the rail um so we're familiar with that action of having to have additional sites in order to allow different projects come in that don't quite meet the numbers will will it tie to rena next slide please so can I ask a question on that so there's something that we're in the middle of approving or disapproving now that's a high density thing on capitol road so if that was a that if that was uh part of our one of our sites for high density housing and as she pointed out you have to constantly update to see okay so now it was developed but if the density wasn't appropriate then you have to have a buffer you say okay that wasn't enough so now we have to find another area that will accommodate the higher density correct so if in our no net loss for the hotel we had placed um i'm going to say 20 units on the 4401 site um and if that application got developed at 10 units we would have to find for to meet the no net loss we would have to find another site that could accommodate 10 the 10 units so that we can still meet our rena obligation within the city limit so the 4401 is the one that's the capitol road don't know we're talking about and so that that in fact does meet the density allocation that you had assigned it when we did the hotel i believe it does yes because i would hate to think it it must but i'll go we'll make sure of that okay yeah because i think you need to make sure that we do we need to make sure that so um so yes so this is now i'm thinking forward of where are we going to look at potential sites so at this point we have more public outreach we've got our survey online um we've we did stakeholder meetings back in november we're also planning on the 16th to have a public a public outreach meeting via zoom um so we'll be getting that flyer out i'm hoping by monday and circulating that we're letting the planning commission know and the city council and we'll be getting that on our social media but what we've heard in general so far from the stakeholder meetings um is when we're talking about future sites really looking at and what our general plan has talked about is looking at that 41st avenue corridor so on this slide you're seeing the area in kind of the the darker red peach color is includes the capitol a mall and 41st avenue north of capitol a road and south of capitol a road so that's the regional commercial zone and then south of capitol a road is the general is the community commercial and one strategy we can utilize here is really looking at the whole zoning district and um whether or not we want to take an approach of looking at the whole zoning district and assigning rena numbers kind of to any to to most properties that could be redeveloped due to their age and available availability of open space on the lot um another approach you can take in your rena calculations is identifying kind of what we did with our last update is identifying very specific properties and allowing them higher densities and probably higher height limits to get there so if we can go to the next slide please so on the 41st avenue corridor you're seeing these are the um so the north and south of capitol a road site so again I just went over that but those are the two zoning districts along 41st avenue really starting to look at mixed use there and the potential for more density all along within those zoning districts next slide please another site that always comes up in these conversations um you can remember we had a um conceptual review at the mall with 637 new units proposed and mixed use when we're thinking about potential sites we also have to think about um incentivizing redevelopment this is a huge site in which it plays a very important role with our commercial and future residential so we don't want to over burden sites that really are in need of redevelopment so there's going to be um there's going to be a lot of fine tuning to this because it's a huge site it can hold a lot of housing how we distribute the differentiation of what types of affordability on this site we really have to think be really thoughtful about because at the same time we want to make sure that the developer that comes in to redevelop the site is an over burdened by um or future housing needs here because it plays a very important role in economic development as well so when you select a site do you need to make sure that it is a candidate for uh this redevelopment soon for example you couldn't pick a site that was just developed and you know it wasn't going to get changed for another 30 years you'd have to evaluate and say this is like this is kind of old a little dilapidated or whatever or this was how would you make that so so if we went um we'll take terra court for an example um terra court is it's of 11 townhomes it's a two stories if we were to take that to the hcd and say oh well we you know this is our in our incentivized zone and we'll allow them to go to five stories they most likely are not going to accept that site they're going to say you develop that in the last they're going to look at for each site they'll look at when they were last developed so there's they're really they will be combing through this so um that site most likely would not make the list whereas the mall yeah okay okay next slide please and then i'll let you take this one Veronica anything to add um yeah actually um a great question from the client commissioner uh when you adopt a housing element there is uh under state law you have to make a finding uh because we're relying on underutilized sites not vacant sites for most of our regional housing needs allocation you you have to make a finding that based on a variety of factors that we use in selecting the sites that there are some signs of evidence that the the existing uses are not going to impede future development and that you have the ability to um to like that that has the potential to be redeveloped for the next eight years so that finding um has to be incorporated as part of your adoption resolution so um that's something to keep in mind um the given you an example of how you know that we have to calculate um capacity this is a site that currently has three parcels and um it's some cc um and currently um being used as commercial but it's a single story uh kind of commercial use restaurant and some other uses but has very very very large um um like surface parking area that can be considered as underutilized so if we were to um rezone it and then allow for housing there are many different ways that you can redevelop this you can um and you can just develop on the parking area you can incorporate the existing uses to do adaptive use or you can um and you can build brand new things and then um with existing uses moving back into um you know the commercial space as well but in estimating the capacity one thing we have to um look at is realistic capacity with meaning that just because you zoned it at 20 units to the acre or 30 units to the acre in this case we just use the assumption of 30 units to the acre you cannot understate law you cannot just use the maximum density to estimate your capacity you can only use realistic capacity based on your trend to to estimate capacity at this um this particular example of 1.5 acre site um at 30 units to the acre if we were to redevelop the entire site we estimated that based on only a 70 percent of um achievement like the average density so about 21 units to the acre um and so that would yield about 31 units so every single property that we estimate we have to be um we have to take that discount factor based on the fact that currently very few projects in your city are developed at the maximum density um and and something that um even for your commercial corridors some of the commercial properties that says no maximum um if we can only demonstrate an average of 20 units to the acre that's probably what we can use to estimate capacity but I think most likely we'll see um lower than 20 units to the acre in other commercial properties so that's something to to keep in mind um what we can so it may be helpful to have actually a maximum and some kind of a minimum maybe um looking at um density range at appropriate locations so the good news there is we've got capital of beach villas at 30 units per acre so that that helps us say we've we've accomplished this in the past thank you great but but on the mixed use um parts what's our historical trend there so that actually is a mixed use that is considered okay okay so that's okay thank you go ahead Veronica okay so I think um what we you know certainly want to um hear from you is um what are the primary issues uh in the housing element that you you want us to reflect in the housing element and also pay special attention to what are the areas of sites that you think are appropriate to be included in the site inventory and there are um any other issues and topics that it's important for us to consider as part of the housing element updates so can I have a question so you you talked about the site uh that you showed us the potential site on capitol road and it was 1.5 acres and um you were saying that that could equal 31 units does that take into account parking because the project that we were looking at on capitol road was 38 units uh I think on less than an acre um which is you know a higher density I mean I I don't I don't understand how how it works if it works in you know the scenario where someone can come in and propose something and they don't have to provide parking but when we're proposing it in our housing element do we have to provide parking so um go ahead then yeah you can go ahead no I think um when we look at the housing element when we look at the sites we we don't know what developers are going to come in and propose we um they can do small units and get a high density um they can't get really large units they can have density but definitely the city does have parking requirements in um in most cases and so what the housing element does and when we estimate it we try to be as conservative as possible um using an average density um that would include parking provided parking as well but that what we are estimating the potential based on average density in order to minimize the the no net loss situation that you will um experience in the future so but when actual projects come in they can go higher they can go lower okay thank you our next step here will be for we'll be analyzing we'll be looking at the city at maps and looking at sites and bringing to you you know we'll be looking at the sizes of parcels the ages of buildings um where they're located and I think what we're really looking for tonight is um we know there's a lot more study to be done so we're not asking for specific sites we just want to hear back in general are you supportive of us looking at our mixed juice areas is the focus on 41st avenue where we've kind of put an intent in our zoning code which like us to really focus on that the commercial corridor as well as looking at ad use within our single families and also maybe revisiting the density limits within our multi families so that we're I don't know where we're headed and then we'll be coming back with maps on specific sites and what we could really accomplish with that taking that that first step um so it'd be looking at our commercial centers capacities we could place for mixed use above existing commercial considering ad use within single family and starting to project based on trends and then also looking at our multi family zones and the existing densities there and whether or not we'd have to increase the densities to get actual to be able to um say that those could be redeveloped seems like one opportunity we might have is we do have some multi family projects in capitol that are fairly old and we have some multi family projects that are in need of you know rehabilitation like the four plexes up on 46th and 48th and um I'm wondering if we can include some of those based on the age of those residential units that um they're going to be needed to be redeveloped you know I like the idea the commercial corridor but I think we ought to look at everything yeah I would think I wouldn't I would be wanting to lean more heavily on what you just said that rather than the commercial corridor just from a former treasurer standpoint we get our income from sales tax and tot tax so to start suddenly turning businesses into residential areas it affects our bottom line so um yeah I would tend to lean towards renovating existing multi multi unit areas and increasing the density there but but in the commercial area I think we're talking about more of a mixed use so the commercial would stay there um we're not talking about reducing the amount of commercial space we're talking about doing you know commercial and residential all in one project similar to what they were proposing on the mall over retail kind of a thing yeah and and I thought your comments about the mall are right on point because we absolutely want that site to be redeveloped because it is one of the big financial pieces that makes this city operate and so we do have to be careful that while we may give them a fairly large number of units trying to give them all low or very low income units would be a real deterrent for them to be redeveloping that site so it's sort of a balancing act can I ask a very basic question which is the rena number itself so from what what I understand is that Santa Cruz County was given this 12,800 whatever that that number was and that was just allocated right we didn't have any input that with that came from the state where did that so that came so let me just finish so that came from somewhere and then there was the then that was allocated by ambag I guess and was split up by some equation which I would like to see but so yeah where did where did those numbers come from so the state allocated certain numbers to each metropolitan region so ambag we received 30 we can't question 33,000 so yeah so the ambag we received 33,000 you can't really question that number that came down from the state we were assigned that if you could go back so then at the ambag the board they've gone through multiple durations of how to how to split those numbers up based on guidance from the state and there's more guidance now than there has been in the past so first off the the number has tripled the original number from ambag I think the last round was probably around 10,000 that number tripled then when they started dividing up between Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey the they looked at different so was that was that a political decision and we had representation or was that a hard formula it's a it's a formula that ambag and the board accepted it's a negotiated decision and we had rep representation on that ambag and we felt that we had a proper representation on that board it's a negotiated decision but it has to be approved by hcd so there's fair housing act is tied to it because we're a high resource city and we have a lot to offer in terms of schools and parks and we've got great amenities that also required us to take on more housing because we have something to offer you know we were on the high resource city also because we're a high income city we had to take on more than other cities so it's interesting when you see the breakdown between Capitola and Watsonville Watsonville is much larger than us and it's a bigger city it has a much higher population and we're at 1300 units and Watsonville just over 2000 so big it makes you wonder to what extent the existing density was was considered because if there's no more room than like Watsonville is a big place yeah so was that part of the equation or again was this just a political negotiation or can we is there any quick an algorithm that we can look at and say hey here's an error here like you did the other day on the consultants thing on the it's like oh hey they got they got a number wrong here that's not the mean income of our families that you know so at this point there's no changing these numbers it it did go through it went through the ambag process it was appealed and those appeals did not did not win so nothing none of the numbers were re um that ship has sailed yeah so that ship has sailed i am happy at any point if you want to come in i can break it down for you exactly how we were assigned our numbers we were very active in this process we wrote quite a few letters to the ambag board um and your spot on and that it really did not consider our land area um the only things that were considered really tied to land area were um um like fire and sea level rise were two items of risk determination that we some numbers were deducted for our city because of our close proximity to the water and flooding and also um but but fire other places such as scott's valley had numbers deducted for fire because they have more fire risks so right but in the hcd's eyes if if you live in a dense city that's you know and we're trying to decrease vehicle miles traveled and become more sustainable that's where more housing belongs so that you know that's really when we say we don't have vacant space they um it oh we also know we're not near a transportation corridor so high density doesn't make sense unless we're in santa cruz or a high density transportation hub but yes so they it's like um yeah we're not argue that i guess okay so that's where we're at now but i'm happy to meet with any of you to walk through that it's there's five different factors that go into the equation and we did we did participate with letters from city council to ambag during that process and we we sent in a letter against it but we did not appeal knowing that the outcomes of these appeals is has almost no chance so okay okay a question for you on the about the community outreach and stuff that's been going on um you know like we all were at the last meeting you know talking about the project on capital avenue um how is that community outreach being handled and you know can you leverage that because um i think that's where you know us as a community we need to talk about because like it comes all the way back to that project you know and then we talked about pacific project and at that meeting we all talked like our hands are tied from different standpoints but it's all interconnected back to this and so i think this is an overall um you know educating our community of where we are and what the mandates are and where our hands are tied and i was wondering if you could elaborate on how that's being handled in the past and going forward and you know Veronica do you mind bring up this slide of uh next steps i think it was our public outreach so right now so we've had an online survey that's been posted i want to say since november so we're getting comments back on that and we have it up on on our website we have a web page dedicated to the housing element update um we did our stakeholder interviews and right now we're just um let's see so in the continuing public outreach opportunities this is really our kickoff tonight a planning commission and we're doing the same meeting with city council next week we're one of three things i believe on the agenda so it will really take the focus of that night and from there so we'll have a flyer that gets posted next monday letting the public know that our first community workshop will be february 16th at 6 30 p.m it's going to be via zoom i've talked to a lot of other community development directors in our region and everyone's doing these meetings through zoom i guess it's been really well received that way people can um interact like interact from home and so it has been a successful forum um the community the second community workshop will happen once we have and correct me if i'm wrong veronica but i think it happens once we have our first draft and that's really when we expect i think the majority of the people to come out as we start identifying these sites and people have more of a um a relationship to their you know their home and where the sites are and relative to their home and parking and all of these things that we've seen so i'm i'm expecting the first work session to be attended but um i think once we have that first draft out that's in and that's what i've heard in the past um is that's really when the public will how's your responsibility been so far to date like with some of the outreach and the i mean i mean i'm not i'm not asking for an exact number but i mean are you been happy with it um so the the stakeholder interviews were well attended that that was an invite you know we we came up with i want to say eight different stakeholder groups from businesses to religious organizations to the school district um to a resident group so those who are well attended um that i don't know where we are in terms of how many people have filled out this survey but i think that will get more traction as we get the word out about the february 16th meeting um the storm kind of threw us back on some of this we were hoping to do the the these kickoff meetings back in january and then that 16th meeting um would have fallen probably three you know three weeks behind our launch dates but we'll we'll get it out there we'll have uh chloe and julia helping us post it on the website and get the word out to the public but i mean as we get uh numerous emails about projects that we're just getting right now i mean that should be automatically beginning of making sure those people are very informed about being invited to the first round of meetings right i mean like yeah you know we could add that to the bottom of our emails for getting that messaging out there and then another question i mean it's going to come down to a certain point i think right at city council level if i'm correct you know that we talked about you know mall development um you know from the impacts of having tax revenue to having housing right and how that you know if that if the community decides there's a council under direction and it's going to focus that's on the 41st corridor or if it's going to go out to the mall that's really going to come down to a decision that i mean it's going to be a why at the certain point that you're going to have to kind of design or give some guidance very strongly with the mall or the 41st corridor is going to look like compared to how if that is a certain direction that we're going to keep those numbers low and it's going to impact more of the community and other neighboring areas that correct so i've got a question about your how you're selecting these units are you sticking to the 28 20 units per acre or are you thinking well i'll do 40 units per acre over here and then only you know how do you how do you select those sites from a density standpoint so you've heard from Veronica tonight and earlier i introduced brett brett is kind of specialized in looking at the maps and the gis and all all the layers underneath and so he's going to be the our wizard in the background looking at the size of a lot the age of a building how much developmental space is available on that lot and starting to play around with densities so the you know we have to get to that not only do we have to get to the the special number of the 1300 i'd like to see us exceed that so that we can allow developments to come in that are under the requirements so getting that number to probably 1500 so brett's looking at he'll be looking at that and being doing the wizard work behind with gis and that's what we'll be bringing to you um is where where they're and as um you know bronica tam has had a lot of experience getting approvals of housing elements done in the past so we really um leaning on their expertise and their guidance in this and then working with our with the planning commission and city council and the public to really get feedback of where to direct so it's going to be those two elements of the experts knowing what sites are best and then us knowing our city best and finding that balance between the two it's going to be a bitter pill it is immunity to swallow because you know we're talking about adding 25 more to our town and we're not talking about adding 25 more to our water supply to our streets to anything else and you know the the character of capitol has always been this sort of small beach community and you know the state sort of saying you don't get you don't get to have that anymore we have decided that you need to be a different kind of town and so it's going to be it's going to be hard but it's going to be something you know we're going to have to do if we want to continue to function as a city because we live under state laws yep so this will be a challenge so there were uh it was reported there were 109 municipalities this is a question for bronica 109 municipalities in the state had to keep be approved by the end of january only 20 were approved by ecd what what are the consequences of not being approved and then in the follow-up to that is how do you get approved if the if the success rate is 20 percent or less actually like well yeah what do you do that is certainly one of the challenges that we have to face um the issue is really of the house rivers um ultimately the um the guess approved uh it just may take time and i'll give you an example even in southern california scat region that house no one was due uh october 15 2021 as of now there's due less than 50 percent of the housing hours that's approved in the scat region and they have 198 jurisdictions in the scat region um a lot of times you need to go through multiple reviews with the state um if you do get pat live you do not get certified by you know the deadline for the 120 days that would allow you to do the rezoning um take a long time to do the rezoning uh you you just continue to work with the state but in the meantime you will not be eligible for state funds such as the plha public um public housing no public local policy housing i can't remember the acronym lha is the funding that came from sp2 um uh before and and that's something that is um you're entitled to receive it if you have a certified housing element all you have to do is ask um if you um if you're a permanent local housing allocation plha um if you don't have a certified housing element you will not be eligible to apply for that round of housing until you are um there are other like housing trust funds there are funding for ad us there are fundings for affordable housing development those you're just going to be not eligible until you do um there is also the risk um that you might have heard about um builders remedy that if you don't have a certified housing element then you cannot deny a project based on the fact that they are not compliant with your um with your general plan of zoning um policies so that's um what builders remedies are you cannot um you cannot um deny a project based on using that funding but our goal is to get to a say an adopted housing element before the end of the year before the statutory deadline which um if you self-certify you're complying the state law then you can afford builders remedy at that time but ultimately you want to continue to work with the state until you get to a certified housing element um I you know and I you know Katie mentioned a bit um before that um you know I do have a very high success rate um with getting housing elements certified I believe out of the the 45 percent of the housing elements in southern California um at least 25 came from me 25 percent of the 45 percent came from my group so we we do we we always have a way to get you there um have a certified housing element the um the the um point is well taken that it is going to be a bit of pill um um there are um hard decisions that the planning commission and city council have to make um and it's a matter of um making also the state understand um your situation and try to come up to a um a negotiated um kind of agreement on you know what can be what is within state law um that you you still have to do but what can be um what can have some flexibility okay um I think that wraps up our slide presentation I um we we did be possible I thought there was some really valuable information in the slide presentation for us to get a copy of that yes Veronica already sent me a pdf so I will I'll send that off to you great um Katie did you want to look at the next steps slide oh that would be perfect and then we should we do have one member of the public here I'm not sure if we have anyone on zoom but for next steps so this is the other timing is everything right with this to get it done in time once um we will be proceeding with the site's analysis and bringing that back to you we'll be producing our draft housing element document and housing programs we're hoping to have this to you as early as late March early April um so we can get our 30 day public review period started where we um get this out to the public and then we'll hold that second study set we'll hold hold a step a study session and do some more public outreach at that point after the 30 day review period we have 15 days to respond to the comments um and then we will send it to the hcd and they get 90 days to review it so right there we've lost four months a little a little over four months um and we are in February right now so we've got 10 months so um so hcd will review it they have a 90 day period and once they get comments back to us we'll start moving through the public hearing process which will be early fall this is what i'm expecting we'll get the comments back probably at the end of the summer um having our public hearings in the fall and then mandatory adoption deadline is December 31st so that means that our city council has to adopted the housing element update by December 31st so we do we do have one member of the public should we ask would you like to comment one question on the schedule Katie while he steps up the coastal commission review starts when in that whole process so that would be a separate process if we want to update our density and which we should because we're protected that's a separate process so typically from the time we um well it's going to be at least six months from the time that we start that with planning commission to the time six months is optimistic for certification by the coastal commission so i will we will start plugging down the road because i think i'm seeing from the planning commission that you'd like us to try that um the hurdles we can run in there is uh related to sequa because as we go through this analysis if we have if we have any sequa studying to do or um that also takes time so hi guys uh bear with me i'm terrible public speaking uh to answer peter's question if i recall correctly christin brown was the president of ambag when this was all done so we had a city counselor was the leader of the group that assigned these to us so we really had that uh i'd like to just talk about how serious the builders remedy is uh it hasn't been used a ton but if we get to that point uh the groups involved these days this is a whole new cycle they are ready to use the builders remedy especially in towns like this uh we are right on the top of the list uh i'd also like to talk about trends and findings uh she wants to get to 1500 because everything gets lowered uh because we didn't build for 20 years it's one of the reasons we have such a big number right now and that means our trends are very very low uh and that's going to make everything so much harder for us uh and that's really all i would like to say i would like to talk about the residential flex zone uh on portola that the county is going to do do we not like have the option to pull something like that off or is it not useful to us or okay well that's all i got guys off thank you so much and really uh good luck uh i do not envy you okay so just one i'm sorry one more question can you have we um when we're looking at this everything have we heard anything from the wall developer or anything recently or anything the latest from the mall developer is that they've been focusing their energy on a larger project i think up in alameda currently so where they have much higher densities and height limits so that that's what i know at this point um so we are will be in terms of the mall we plan on as we start talking about the budget update for next next budget cycle we'll be talking with our city council about our goals and that's one item that i'm planning on bringing to city council is starting to talk about redevelopment of the goals and different avenues we can take in order to get there thank you okay anyone have anything else on this item okay thank you very much for the presentation if this is going to be exciting thank you Brett and Veronica so where are we on our agenda uh we're at the director's report do you have anything else i just want to remind you that from here on out our meetings are starting at 6 p.m so we'll see you here at 6 p.m commission communications if not our meeting is adjourned