 to the public with both in-person attendance at the City of Capitola Council chambers at 420 Capitola Avenue and remote attendance as well. Planning Commission and staff are attending in-person and remotely via Zoom. There are several ways for the public to watch and participate. Information on how to join the meeting via Zoom and make public comment during the meeting is available on our website cityofcapitola.org on the meeting agenda. The public can also live stream the meeting on the city's website or on YouTube. As always, this meeting is cablecast live on Spectrum Communications Cable TV Channel 8 and AT&T U-Verse Channel 99 and is being recorded to be rebroadcast on the following Mondays and Fridays at 1 p.m. on Spectrum Channel 71 and Spectrum Channel 25. A recording of the meeting will also be available on the city's website after the meeting. Our technician tonight is Melissa. As a reminder, please turn off your cell phones during the meeting. Okay, so first we'll do roll call and pledge our roll call. Commissioner Estee, Commissioner Westman, Commissioner Wilk, Vice Chair Jensen and Chair Christensen. Here, okay. And the Pledge of Allegiance. Do you have any additions or deletions to the agenda? No additions or deletions this evening. Thanks. Additional materials. There's additional information submitted to the city after there's item 7A correspondence received. Do we have additional materials? Yes, staff received one PowerPoint presentation after the agenda was originally published and that was added to the agenda packet and posted online and produced in the back as well. Thank you. Okay, and item four is oral communications. This evening I just wanted to remind you we've been, with these meetings, we often go back to the video to pull information from the planning commission and direction. So just trying to keep your microphone close and if you can hear it in the background, I mean, you're doing a great job. So it just, if it doesn't pick up, we can't hear what you said in the video later. So we'll take notes, but please be mindful of that. Second, there is going to be a special town hall next week and that is on February 21st, which I believe is Wednesday at 6 p.m. in city council chambers. So please help us get the word out. The two buildings at the end of the wharf are in needing demolition and we really want to engage the public and talk about next steps and where this is headed. So in the next year, we'll be doing a robust public outreach and discussing what will happen at the end of the wharf in the future, but just if you can help us get the word out. We'd love to have people there and collect feedback as well as there'll be a presentation on exactly what's going on at the end of the wharf and why the buildings need to come down as well as next steps. So thank you. Thank you. Or thank you. Oral communications. Hi, my name is Oral Klapec. I live here locally in Soquel. I shoot baskets every day almost at J Street Park where I encounter sometimes gang activity such as gang signs being posted in the men's restroom. That's not only that one hotspot that I encountered, one time I made a call to an officer that I know personally very well. Then somebody painted a gang sign. I don't call it graffiti. Graffiti is very ugly. I'm from Europe. I know what graffiti art is. Somebody by Whole Foods in the back of Whole Foods, somebody painted a gang sign there on 41st Avenue to mark the territory. That's for gang activity, always like that. So that was on my chest to begin with. I hope that one day my dear friend Sarah Ryan, she's the captain of Capitola PD department, will be the police chief. So that things can change drastically sometimes. Thank you very much for listening. Take care. God bless you. Bye-bye. Thank you. I think we took... Is there anybody else? Hearing none. I think we took care of the staff comments before the Oral Communications but having no commission comments. Moving on to the consent calendar. There are none? Okay. Now we're moving into public hearing. Public hearings are intended to provide an opportunity for public discussion of each item listed as a public hearing. The following procedure as it follows. Staff presentation, planning commission questions, public comment, planning, commission deliberation, and decision. Item A is citywide zoning code update. Project description is a permit, excuse me. Permit number 24-0026 for future amendments to the Capitola Municipal Code Title 17 zoning. The first zoning code ordinance amendments will impact the development standards and regulations for properties citywide. The zoning code is part of the city's local coastal program. The LCP and amendments require certification by the California Coastal Commission prior to taking effect in the coastal zone. Recommended action provide feedback to staff on zoning discussion items and direct staff to prepare an ordinance to amend Capitola Municipal Code Title 17 zoning. Thank you. Okay, with that we'll jump in. So I'm excited to introduce Ben Noble to you tonight. I think a few of you know Ben well and Ben may be a new face for others. Ben has worked on our zoning, he worked on our general plan. He was at the last meeting via Zoom and he's here in person tonight to lead us through some of the more difficult topics associated with the housing element update. So Ben Noble, Ben Noble planning, welcome and he's going to jump into the work session and tonight it'll be an open dialogue. If you have any questions feel free to raise a hand and we can answer questions and then we'll get to certain slides where we're asking for feedback from the planning commission directly. So this working okay? Okay this is the microphone that works apparently. So good evening planning commissioners. Again my name is Ben Noble. Happy to be here tonight. So as Katie mentioned I've been working for Capitola for a long time. I think over 16 years at this point, off and on, worked on the general plan update that was adopted 10 years ago. The zoning code update adopted in 2000 and more recently a variety of zoning code amendments including the SB9 ordinance, the objective standards for multi-unit residential development and other miscellaneous zoning code amendments. I'm an independent consultant specializing in development code updates as well as general land use planning. So I'm really happy to be back in Capitola tonight to talk to you about these topics related to the zoning code update and zoning code amendments. So as you're aware the housing element identifies a number of zoning code amendments that are necessary in order to implement the recently adopted housing element. In your packet there's a list of all of those topics and tonight we would like to focus on five of these topics to share with you some background information and then to get your initial feedback which we're going to then use as we draft the amendments and bring them back to you for your consideration. So on the screen are these five topics and what we propose for tonight is for each of these topics we'll give a little bit of background information, share some possible approaches to address in the zoning code amendments and then to have a planning commission discussion for you to give us feedback that we could then use as we move forward with drafting the amendments. So with that the first topic is missing middle housing and there are two programs in the housing element related to this topic that calls for the city to develop strategies to provide for missing middle housing and then also to allow corner lots and single family neighborhoods to accommodate duplex units. So when we say missing middle housing what we're talking about is smaller scale multi-unit residential development that fits in to the character of a single family neighborhood. Here are some examples of housing types that fall within the missing middle category. So include duplexes, a housing type that sometimes called a side court where you have multiple units that are on one side of the lot with a driveway providing vehicle access on the other side and it could be more intensive where the units are attached to one another. You can have a housing type that's called a motor court where you might have a central driveway that provides access to units that way. And I should say that these images on the screen come from a resource prepared by AMBAG that identifies infill housing types within Santa Cruz County to be a resource for jurisdictions to use when they're thinking about lower intensity residential infill within communities in the region. And so given that's what missing middle housing is as referred to in the housing element the question then as well is missing middle housing currently allowed in Capitola? And so on the screen is a zoning map showing the zoning districts within the city and so within the R1 zone and you're seeing a single family zoning district you can have one primary dwelling. You can have a primary dwelling with an ADU but you can also have two primary dwelling units per lot under SB9 which is the state law that requires jurisdictions to allow for two primary dwelling units on a single lot within a single family zoning district provided that the unit meets specified criteria within the state law as well as any locally adopted ordinance which Capitola does have. So it's important to keep in mind that already within the R1 zoning district some of these missing middle type or missing middle housing typologies are already permitted. Some of you may recall that when the city adopted the SB9 ordinance we were looking at what is required under state law and how best to accommodate that within Capitola. So on the screen are some of the diagrams that we used with this work. So on the left here is a typical 5500 square foot lot and under SB9 the city needs to allow a lot split and then two primary building two primary dwelling units on each of those lots with those units being up to 1200 square feet. So you can see the resulting density on a project like that if one were to be proposed is 32 dwelling units per acre so relatively dense. As you know in Capitola there are residential lots that are smaller than 5500 square feet and some of your neighborhoods and so in those cases the city still needs to allow up to four units with a lot split and the densities can get pretty high in that case. So as dense as 62 dwelling units per acre with 700 square feet per unit if there were to be an SB9 project on a lot that's 2800 square feet. So that's currently what's allowed in the R1 zoning district under SB9. So moving into the multi-family zones is there was a question? How do setbacks come into play when we look at that like that illustration? So the city is required to accept four-foot setbacks from the side and the rear property lines. And front? Front can be what the city has but in our ordinance we found or in our studies for the ordinance we found that we could accommodate the required four units with a front setback on larger lots but on smaller lots that becomes infeasible so the city had to make some tradeoffs and what the city ultimately decided is that it would rather accommodate the onsite parking with the units moved up to the front without a front setback. It was a tradeoff the city couldn't accomplish everything that it wanted to under state law so ultimately city council decided that this was preferred. So on the smaller lots didn't we go to three stories? Or two and a half I think. Two and a half. Yeah okay so that's the R1 zone. Has there been any SB9 applications in the city? Yeah we've had inquiries but one that came through so in deep oh hell. So that's the R1 zoning district and then there's the multifamily zone so the RM and on the screen it's just a summary of the development standards that apply within the RM zoning districts and I think the most important is the parcel area per unit and the density they're both sort of related to one another so in the low in the RML allowed 10 dwelling units per acre and the RMM you're allowed 15 dwelling units per acre and the RMH you're allowed 20 dwelling units per acre and that maximum density is the primary standard that dictates what kind of multifamily multi-unit residential development is possible within these areas. And just to jump in for a minute you'll recall we had a lot of examples in our general in our housing element of different densities and these numbers are much lower than some of the developments we have in town that go up to 40 dwelling units per acre and in the 30s along Park Avenue the larger buildings so. Just as a frame of reference a typical town home development sort of with modern parking provisions is about 12 dwelling units per acre a typical sort of garden style two-story apartment might be 28 dwelling units per acre. Okay so it's interesting to compare the development standards in the RM zones to these missing middle typologies that we were looking at before so looking at the the amp bag prototypes that they prepared for the infill design toolkit most of these are not would not be possible within the RM zoning district so a duplex on a smaller lot wouldn't be allowed in RML and RMM attached side court attached motor court I can't see what this thing that also would not be allowed in the and then and then also the the four unit development that would be allowed under SB 9 in larger R1 zoning districts that also would not be allowed in all of the RM districts because of the density limitation so for us that sort of raises some questions that we would like planning commission feedback on given what the housing element says about exploring allowing for missing middle housing in Capitola as well as allowing for duplexes on corner lots within the R1 zone we Katie and I see a number of options to consider that we'd like your feedback on so in the R1 zone one option is to just continue to only rely on SB 9 to not go any further from that and just leave it as it is another option would be to allow duplex homes on all corner lots subject to the same development standards as a single family home so within that development envelope that's allowed in R1 for a single family home to say okay as long as the duplex fits within that development envelope and provides for two units rather two primary dwelling units rather than one that would be allowed and then a third option which is sort of a mid middle ground between those two is to say that okay on lots that meet the minimum lot size standard of 5,000 square feet on a corner lot okay you can do duplex there but on smaller corner lots say in neighborhoods where typical lot sizes are non-conforming and smaller than 5,000 you wouldn't be able to do a duplex instead if you want it more than one primary dwelling dwelling unit on that lot you would need to rely on SB 9 and the size limitations that come with that question two questions one is so the feedback from hcd was we don't have enough middle housing and yet you just pointed out all these areas where we do and and SB 9 activity that we can allow so what what are we missing what where where are we falling short in terms of the housing element so I think you're absolutely correct we have a lot of options in our R1 right now from SB 9 and 80 use so this is to allow duplexes within our R1 zone which currently they'd be limited in in terms of like a single-family home with a ADU or else an SB 9 development which has a maximum square footage but a duplex would the way that this is set up would be subject to the single-family home standard so if you're on a 5,000 square foot lot and you could build a 2400 square foot duplex it's kind of an incentive rather than going the SB 9 route where the units have to be smaller so SB 9 would limit you to parcel that the parcel being split with the 800 unit on each parcel all right so the SB 9 you could on one lot you could develop two primary homes but they're limited in their square footage or you can go even further and subdivide the lot and have two single-family homes on each lot so yeah this adding the duplex under option two would provide an incentive not to go the SB 9 route because you could have a home that's a regular size that functions as a duplex we went through it so you wouldn't have to split the lot you could just say okay i'm just building a duplex on my on on my lot and it i'm not invoking SB 9 and right and and again hcd said you don't have an you don't have enough incentive for this middle housing these options this would be one more incentive in our toolbox so it would be in our land use table where we list single-family as a permitted use we would have duplex as a permanent use with a note that says on corner lots only i mean you could go further and say we'd like to allow duplexes on all lots in the single-family zone but this is what we committed to in the housing element update was to look at corner lots for duplexes so you had a dialogue with the hcd i'm assuming and they said you need more middle housing and you said well SB 9 is one way to do it and they said well that's not a really an incentive and duplexes came up and they said well yeah if you had more duplexes or then and maybe we approve it or something yeah hcd told us we need to go beyond what the state has allowed so this is us creating our own land use allow allotment within the the r1 so when we got our comments from um hcd it was that we need to go beyond what because we said we've already got sp9 and we've got all the ad use and we're up to date and this is us going beyond and we identified some lots in our housing element that we called out that could be duplexes was that correct on corner lots yep and then um how does that work from uh like selling standpoint you know duplexes a lot of times are sold um not as one unit um it would be um one ownership we um we wouldn't set it up that it could be condoed so it would just be unless the planning commission wanted them to be able to be sold separately but it would for a property owner there'd be one owner and they could rent both units and then um how does uh the parking requirements work does it differ between a duplex or a single family home yep um a duplex requires two spaces per unit a single family home it depends on the square footage of the unit so we i'm lost a little bit on the math when you see it's an advantage to do this go back to page 14 and a 2,800 square foot lot two units end up being 1,400 per unit if we use sp9 that basically you fill up the lot with houses you know if we adopt this rule saying corner lots need to use the standard residential require or one requirements for far don't those duplexes end up being smaller than these 1,400 square foot things so why would i want to do that if i'm maximizing my floor area which most people try to do okay so you're at the top right two units 2,800 square foot lot um i'm gonna look that up right now the only one i know is 4,000 square feet is 0.56 but it's scaled so i was trying to do that one to see if it was feasible that ends up being 1120 per duplex on a corner lot this 4,000 square feet which we think have a fair number of uh those kind of following up on Jerry's comment about what's the opportunity here i don't know i don't know how many corner lots we have that are like 5,000 square foot so if the maximum far enough let's let's just for like to keep it simple in our heads a 5,000 square foot lot maximum far of approximately 0.5 so 25 0.58 or something 0.58 for the 2,800 so total just in my mind simple 2,500 so let's say approximately 1,200 5 okay so maybe a little bit they could maybe achieve a little bit more um floor area under a a traditional duplex as opposed to the sp9 project i think that the city there would be advantages from the city's perspective to see a duplex rather than an sp9 unit because they would have to comply with the minimum setback requirements and so if somebody were to take that option rather than the sp9 option for whatever reason i think we would want that we would prefer that because of because of the um buildings being setback a little bit right but we're trying to and the increased parking so in sp9 we have to accept one parking unit one parking space per per um per unit um whereas with the traditional duplex depending on the size of the floor area you require two spaces per no applicants for the city's perspective so sp9 has to be approved through a ministerial process so it would be less much less expensive um and much quicker process for now i'm just trying to understand why anyone would want to go the duplex route so one thing is you're limited to 16 feet in height 20 if you for one story building two story building has to have a plate height of 20 so you can get the 25 feet within the r1 so you can build to the regular standards but i was just looking up all the with the square footage requirement so if you have up to two units it's 1200 square feet each but then once you go to three units it drops down to 800 square feet each but i see your point paul of on a smaller lot sp9 is probably more advantageous than a duplex in terms of the math so um step back yeah when we heard from hcd did they just want this middle housing in the r1 district or do they want it cdy because it seems like we have a lot of opportunities in our multi residential districts to come up with situations where we could add more middle housing so both both um yep they did ask us specifically we're supposed to look at duplexes on corner lots for the r1 but then we're also supposed to look at our density limits within our multifamily so um we could we could come back with options for the duplex that's kind of um i guess one question for the planning commission is do you think would you prefer to see duplexes on corner lots rather than sp9 development that can come closer to the street have minimal setbacks because we could set up the we could look at what the incentives are there and try to make it more advantageous than the sp9 is in terms of the drainage um issue that we're talking about i think our last work session with parcel splits i mean there's nothing you're considering the entire parcel when you're doing a parcel split to to then decide which tier you're falling under when we do a just straight duplex i mean that's not considering that type of tiered drainage right so i mean would that be an advantage for the applicant they don't have to go through with when they go through sp9 they would have to go through all the drainage evaluation but with the parcel um the duplex that be in factor yeah we would we would look at it for both but most likely they wouldn't um tiered out here become a tier two or tier three if it's just a it is essentially the same development as a single family home yeah um so that would be an advantage as well i mean for for me we talked about this before i think duplexes on corner lots makes so much sense and you know it seems like that one is sort of a a no-brainer for the city to do that it's just how do we figure out a way to do it where there is some for people to do the duplex rather than the sp9 uh because if you build a building that looks basically like you know the same size as a single family house it's going to go there but you'd let it be two units i mean that really doesn't have much of an impact on the neighborhood what's the maximum size of an adu hello it depends on how many bedrooms you have right well a two bedroom adu at 1200 square feet which can be attached to your house would be just like a duplex that we're talking about because it can't be sold anyway yep yeah this is very similar to all the other solutions that are out there but it's something new and it goes beyond what's required by state law i think the only other thing would be to look at is by the site pacific i mean i agree is susan's comment on corner lots but um you know usually on a corner lot you know you get to an intersection and if you're now you're having a uh what a curb cut for a new parking at 20 feet you know on a corner and you are you know it's already struggling with that it's just something interesting to see what the site by site i mean because if we approve this on all corner lots then it kind of takes the evaluation of if that's safe or whatever kind of out of the hands of the city right i mean it would just be automatic no we could review these with a design permit so we what we're um i do think we should put some objective standards in there as well um one would be definitely for a parking lot like the parking access maybe suggesting that they only have one driveway cut but if they do two that they be a certain distance from the intersection the other is like just how the building faces where the entrance is relative to facing the street so it looks like single family is from both but we can that would be something we could get into the details on if there's general support to go with option to and then we'll come back with some objective standards to try to make it fit most duplex that you see set up you know and they have they usually have parking on like entrances of both sites i mean they are clearly defined so that'd just be interesting some seems residential it seems like one of the difficulties we have is we do have some little very small lots and so um would they be upset if we went to you know allowing duplexes on corner lots that are say you know 3200 square feet or you know some number in there that becomes workable and i don't know exactly what it would be but then we we would have i mean we don't want to see a duplex try and go on uh you know you know i think there's some thousand square foot lots in in my neighborhood and i mean i can think of the one on the corner of river view and blue gum there i i don't think that lots even a thousand square feet so i think we need to have some minimum standard in there certainly not five thousand square feet that's something in the 3200 square foot range many many of our lots are 40 by 80 and i'm actually going to look toward shon right now because i know shon does a lot of mapping for us and i think a 40 by 80 would cover most not all of our lots but i think that would be a good cutoff point but i'm just looking to shon to see if he agrees or if he thinks it should be a little bit lower okay so 40 to 70 and 40 to 80 or 40 by 80 40 by 70 so 3200 or else 2800 so i would be happy with the 3200 if that works for other people i don't i don't necessarily have too much of a problem with um the minimum size lot i think the a near pleasure point there's a lot of small lots that people have very small duplexes on that are just little surchecks and it seemed to work out all right but i mean they still have to adhere to setbacks and in all that other development standards design standards right so even if they had a small lot they would still have to they can't just build directly to zero outline correct yeah there would there would be no like guaranteed allowance with this sp9 has a guaranteed allowance that they can move into certain areas if they can't quite fit the development yeah it would just be a shame if somebody had you know just under the threshold and they didn't want to go through the full sp9 and they were beholden to um kind of the subjective that we didn't necessarily intend to address them so i'm hearing um with option option two under chair christensen's opinion would be the best and then under um commissioner westman option three but having a 3200 square foot minimum for the lot size and if the rest of you could weigh in on that that'd be fantastic so i'm still confused i'm basically on paul's point so the duplex are there instances where you would opt for a duplex where you'd have a larger floor area ratio than sp9 on a larger lot yes on a small lot no okay add to that there there are other eligibility criteria for sp9 having to do with recent rental history of the units and so there may be there may be some instances where um sp9 is just not possible on a lot but a um a typical so with regards to then the small lots um the duplex doesn't buy you anything you could always default to sp9 but you're saying on the larger lots we would then go with a duplex they um it would be advantageous to go like on the corner lot on a large lot to have a duplex because um you could put get more floor area ratio than if you went at the sp9 route correct so up in cliffwood heights corner lot 6000 square feet you'd get more square foot so you're concerned about the small lots doesn't apply sorry for my confusion but it's it seems like option two covers it because if the duplex it makes sense on only the larger lots and on smaller lots they can just default to sp9 to get the far that they're looking for and we don't need to go option three because option two just adds our the middle housing fills in that gap we're missing kind of maybe yeah and option two if they came in with a duplex it would at least come before the planning commission on a small lot whereas sp9 it's administrative review by staff and it's subject to our so it could get yeah closer to the setbacks and so there there's opening up options because that's just weird to see a word of all corner lot every corner lot it'd be something yeah but but reality is I mean if you do the math on the small lots there's you're gonna end up with like 600 square feet as of our standard nobody's gonna do I would assume most people would not if they had another route get something so I'm okay with option two and as Peter said that they figure out if you need to go the sp9 route and go through all the hoops okay our tech sort of self you know eliminate our tech is um concerned that they their mics aren't picking up so just a reminder to bring the bring your mic nice and close I mean option two works fine for me as well I just think it's gonna create some expectations that aren't going to be able to be fulfilled we've heard from all commissioners on the r1 missing middle and then there's the question of missing middle housing in the rm zoning districts and this is maybe part of a larger discussion about allowed density within the rm zoning districts but just focusing narrowly on the missing middle question given that existing development regulations prohibit a lot of these missing middle housing types within our rm zoning districts one potential zoning code amendment would be to modify the rm development standards to allow these projects and that would likely include some kind of increase the building coverage maybe not a lot but probably some but most significantly a reduction in the minimum parcel area per unit as well as an increase in the maximum density so we're interested in planning commission reaction to this I'll just remind you for that rml at 4400 square feet our single family zone is at 5000 so it's really low if there's a there's almost no difference you know 600 square feet parcel size so does anyone have any questions on how this works like for the low density for each unit you have to have 4400 square feet of land area and then medium density it's 2500 and then high density is 22 for me I could live with an increase in the building coverage you know 40 pretty low and I could also reduce the parcel size particularly in the rm low you know it seems like that number could come down and you know and then as a result of those the density is going to increase yeah I don't know if it's possible but on do you give us go back to page eight and look at that those duplexes they look like the real pictures so they're real somewhere if any idea bent what those numbers would be equivalent numbers would be in this locale okay so house on the bottom is on probably a 4000 square foot 100 by 40 a 4000 square foot lot so two units there so yeah so two minimum lot size of 2000 square feet per unit and then the top is probably a slightly larger lot use the size you'd like I can pull up the densities of from our general plan that we presented prior just to give you an idea of that be helpful this will not be on zoom but okay um well just to give you I could talk you through some of these if you want to pull up your slides or you could go to the general bay avenue 750 bay avenue the senior housing is at 22 dwelling units per acre so that would be high density jade street and roby court area it's at 22.8 dwelling units per acre so the development right across from the jade street park the villas of capitola 925 46th avenue are 23 dwelling units per acre 900 capitola avenue I think that's the mansion and that's at 25 dwelling units per acre so at 25 dwelling units per acre you're already beyond what can be done it in any of our high density um opal cliff drive the smaller units or the opal cliff drive right at the corner after you go over stockton bridge the two big condos are at 28.8 dwelling units per acre the beach villas 1066 41st avenue right next to the rail trail um are almost at there are 29 dwelling units per acre so I don't know if if that's helpful to know if what ranges you'd be careful like be comfortable with for the high if something should be able to be developed up to the beach villa density of almost 30 units per acre or um you know I think one example that's often used is um you know there are two projects in town that were developed by the same developer the one over on ruby court jade street area you know those sort of fourplexes in there and uh when they got developed there was a pretty big outcry in town at that point that they were way too dense you know not what capitola wanted and they were working on the project up on kennedy capitol annul so I think it's called at the same time so they greatly that's where this 40 percent and I think 4400 square feet came up at that time because I think that's what that project is developed at so um for me the unknown in what we can't control is the design because like the bay avenue seniors project that works great there and you know that that density doesn't bother me at all um I I do think that you know sort of the four pecs project over on ruby court in that area that seems more cluttered and dense even though it's it's not um but definitely we could raise our densities yeah and always when we're thinking about raising densities there's also the acknowledging that there's the state density bonus so whatever we raise them to they can always go higher if it's an affordable project so okay well we'll take a look at that um the ruby court project and I think you're right about the design has a lot to do with the outcome so that's at 22 almost 23 dwelling units per acre um the villas of capitol are at 24 that's 925 46th avenue but I think the one up the street is it that's at 25 dwelling units per acre that's the um at 900 capitol avenue so that's actually right on the corner um which is different it's like an apartment building one building it they've got some open space around it and so in drafting this I wish um maybe you could pull up our website just so they can take a look I think for me it's going to be sort of hard tonight to say well that number should go up to from 10 to 17 percent because we really you know don't have too many examples of that um you know maybe we can get a consensus that we think you know uh the numbers can go up there can be more density and the multi-family zone and when they come back you can give us some examples and we can sort of choose between those examples because I think tonight we could waste a lot of time trying to figure out something that we don't really understand and that was exactly our expectation just sort of the green light that the planning commission is open to exploring increased densities and if that's the case we'll come back with more yeah all of our examples are beyond 20 building units per acre so we'll bring some lower ones for you too okay and actually see my so are we ready to move on to the next topic so the next topic is alternative housing types so there's a program in the housing element to review and revise as appropriate the zoning code to facilitate alternative housing types and the housing element provides some examples of alternative housing types including SROs, live work, micro units, and co-housing so um just you know a few definitions so single room occupancy SRO means a single room dwelling unit with um limited food preparation or sanitary facilities so usually with some shared kitchen or bathroom facility or residents and typically 4,000 square feet or less for the unit and there are some local examples such as El Centro and Santa Cruz and then over the hill in San Jose here's an example this is actually transitional housing for persons experiencing homelessness whereas in Santa Cruz this is more permanent housing in the SRO units so that's one example of a alternative housing type co-housing is another where you have residences with some sort of um shared indoor and outdoor space really focused on creating a interdependent interdependent community life and there are some local examples as well coyote crossing in Santa Cruz as well as the new Brighton co-housing so private residences plus shared facilities for residents within the development micro units micro units are distinguished from SRO units in that they are completely self-contained units with complete kitchen and bathroom facilities and these small units are typically 350 square feet or less and the recently approved center street project in Santa Cruz has some micro units as part of the project and then in Berkeley we see a lot of micro units as well and you see a lot of them as well in San Francisco and other sort of much higher density intensity areas and so this is actually a plan view of a micro unit in Berkeley here is a photograph of unit I think this is about 300 square feet okay and then live work it is a space that contains both a residence and a place of work for one or more of the residents of the unit and we have examples locally the tannery in Santa Cruz as well as Swift Street in Santa Cruz these are live work units and focus on artists and artisans okay so we're looking for some preliminary planning commission input on what if anything the zoning code should do to promote these different types of alternative housing and so on the slide I for SROs there's what the existing code says and so currently an SRO is allowed in Capitola it's classified as group housing which includes other types of group housing like dormitories and it's permitted in the RM it's sort of a by right use and requires a CUP in the MUN and in the village so if the city wanted to do more to promote SROs what is possible is the city could define SROs as a sort of separate from other types of group housing could allow this use as a permitted use in the mixed use zones and could establish additional objective standards as needed given that that use would then become a by right and wouldn't be subject to the usual conditional use permit process so that's for SROs and I have similar slides for other alternative housing types do you want to talk about SROs now or do you want to see similar information about the alternative other alternative housing types I'll proceed with I'll proceed with the others okay so for co-housing currently your zoning code is silent on co-housing and if the city wanted to in the zoning code do more to promote housing co-housing what you could do is you could define co-housing development have a definition of this use type identify this as a permitted use in the R1 in the RM zones so that there's no confusion or discrepancy about whether this is a permitted use or not so is it a typical co-housing situation like a senior center where there's a central dining area and then they all have their own units that an example or is that something separate so that would be that would be something separate but it would be I guess a similar a somewhat similar situation but without any kind of age restriction can I ask I don't know if you have access to this information off the top of your research but is there any danger and in the city promoting these types of housing units as opposed to duplexes or you know the more I don't want to say independent maybe like more like the micro units where you have fully independent not co-housing and not so much so highly densified that where there's shared space is there any thought to increasing crime or increase and just I mean maybe that's not desirable for people to live in those types of situations so they would opt for another type you kind of maybe am I being clear and if we were devoted a portion of the city to say co-housing we had a developer come in and make a bunch of co-housing and people just decided that's not their their thing and they were to have opted to do something more independent is that do you see anything going on like that is that usually highly occupied I don't know if I'm asking a really clear question I'm sorry I just I'm just wondering well I actually have some similar thoughts it's like when it talks about the micro housing I think that's fabulous and I think that would work really well here in Capitola I look at the single room occupancy and I'm going I don't really see how that works here because there aren't places people would have to go out and eat all their meals out somewhere because there's no kitchen you know the one behind the house the apartment the situation exactly behind my house is one of those is a bunch of units and a shared one right co-housing works for me I don't have a problem it's just curious that's why I'm asking what co-housing really means I would clarify that as single room occupancies they each have their own room and they share a kitchen that's what I but what I've heard Ben say is there is no kitchen facility provided in the single room occupancy units there's a shared kitchen yeah like a shared kitchen in a single room occupancy so just as Paul is it's very similar right there's the shared kitchen yeah so with an SRO there's some sort of shared kitchen and or bathroom facilities an SRO unit might have a little hot plate for example and a toilet but then the shower is in a shared area and a more complete kitchen is in a shared area okay so I mess under slightly better than the dormitory it depends on how you look at it yeah I guess I guess what my question was is that if this was a large section of housing would it be utilized and enjoyed by the demographic or by the public in Capitola so right now someone could come into Capitola and apply for a co-housing project and they would have there it could be any of these like townhouse developments we see and they would just have some aspect of that that's shared like they usually have like a garden shed that has shared gardening tools and then a community center where they share a mail so very similar I think one aspect of the co-housing I know the new Brighton co-housing it's a condo so you can actually own your unit and then you're vested in this communal aspect of it and I think at the new Brighton co-housing you can opt whether or not you want to participate in community dinners or participate so but if someone were to come in with a co-housing application today we wouldn't turn them away it would be allowed but it's just for the purposes of the code we could call it out as an allowed use so identified it's identified yep a little more clear it's more of a promotion thing as opposed to is that that's what I keep struggling with as well it's like what in the code forbids any of this and and the answer it seems to be well nothing really but what we're trying to do is in the housing element show that we are proactive in promoting these kinds of units yes for some of these so the I'm going to get these confused now but the micro unit that's correct we don't have a density limit a developer could come in with these small micro units they just have to have sleeping accommodations a kitchen and a bathroom and that you know that can be one unit so we don't have any like limitations on number of kitchens per unit or something currently in the code that would be controlled perhaps by soak out water or something like that but we do have a limit on how many kitchens you can have but a unit must have a kitchen must have cooking and sleeping facilities and we don't control the number of those units so right yeah except we we control the number of the units in our multifamily zone we do not we have no density limits in our commercial mixed use but within the multifamily we have a density limit of how many units so one of the things that's happened in the last years I know there's several buildings in capitol a village where they had small sort of very small studio units and all of those units used to provide housing for people who worked in the village and they've all been converted to vacation rental units so is it possible for us to have some restriction if we built something like you know a single room occupancy that it doesn't turn into you know places that get rented for vacation rentals I think we there is multifamily in the fan mar neighborhood within the so the only place you can do vacation rental is down in the village and there is multifamily along the hill over here so that we could probably put some standards in there that if you're going to do multifamily um I thought there was a deed restriction that came along with well 80 years right now it's 80 years yes but not but we could do something similar probably for SROs if we wanted to define it and call out like the smaller units could not be rented but um because I think if we're going to go that route we want them for housing not vacation opportunities and that the deed restriction get removed from the news just portions of it about owner occupancy but other than that there's still deed restrictions on 80 years so we've we've moved into discussing these should I continue with these okay all right so micro units so currently the zoning code is silent on micro units it would just be treated as multifamily or a mixed use if it was part of a mixed use project but there is a minimum unit size in the building code that is 220 square feet per unit I believe um and so if the city wanted to do more to promote micro units it could define micro units in the zoning code and specifically call it out as an allowed use in certain locations where the city wanted to promote smaller units and higher intensity development so that might be in the cr zoning district around the metro or example currently there is no density limitation in cr so you don't have to worry about that but sort of calling it out is like commissioner will mention sort of a way to promote this alternative housing type then maybe the need to relax certain development standards to accommodate this much higher intensity type of housing and then there's also a question about in the rm zoning districts are there any locations where the city would want to promote these micro units and if so that would require some sort of alternative density standard or an exception to the density standard because these units are so small they would likely exceed the density of the rm zoning district so we're we're interested in planning commission do that you'd have to define what a micro unit is you would need to size I guess and square feet I think yeah I think I think it would so many square feet I'm sorry yes that's what but why not also in the cc cr and cc why wouldn't we do both our thinking is that the cr because of the mall redevelopment and the transit center becomes sort of the highest intensity area along the 41st avenue okay and then two more so live work currently zoning code is silent on this I think that if an applicant came in today wanting to have sort of some workspace within a residence that the city would treat it as a mixed use project and zoning wise would be okay building code another story but if the city wanted to do more to promote live work it could be called out as an allow as a permitted use in the mixed use in commercial zoning districts maybe some development standards would need to be adjusted such as waving the parking for the non residential residential loot uses for example and there might be other development standards that might be need to be adjusted as well if this is a development type that the city sees as you know being desirable and worthy of promotion and then the last alternative housing type is what you might call employee or workforce housing so an example might be an affordable housing project that's reserved for employees of the school district for example and this sort of housing type of course is currently allowed in the city but if again if the city wanted to do more to sort of promote this sort of thing that maybe the community benefit program would be a way to do that to specifically call that out as sort of an available benefit that could be used for granting increased intensity so so those are the I just have one quick question about the single room occupancy we had the project for the assisted living on Capitola road and basically that was a single room occupancy with a common kitchen where they served people meals and stuff but we were told that does not count as housing right that's correct that's so it's a really good point so this is the one kitchen it was the fact that the rooms didn't have kitchen so that's something we should look into with this assisted living project there was one you know they're looking for the residents and if they had added kitchens to each room they would have counted towards our arena but they don't count towards the arena because it's more of a yeah and senior housing they're sort of you have like more independent living that's clearly a residential use and then in the continuum of care you get to more assisted living or skilled nursing where it becomes more of a resident a medical facility that is of a residential nature and then that affects the way that the state allows jurisdictions to count housing on that purpose we have a few group homes in Capitola like transitional housing and I those would count as one unit not right we wouldn't count the bed per bedroom it I just want to make certain if we do single room occupants that we have units that are going to count toward our housing numbers right you want credit for them on the workforce can you go back to the slide can I ask one last question about that last point real fast with the the senior living especially these this this is all addressing affordable housing as as it incorporates the middle missing middle right so with that if with the senior housing that proposed he wasn't really suggesting that he's going to be within that bracket of affordability right no there was no they weren't going to be no right so it would just count towards Rena it was just I wanted to clarify yeah it would not have counted towards Rena and there was no affordable so no community benefit over okay thank you on the workforce housing so just my question around that would there be then criteria set up for what workforce housing is and like who's qualifies for that yes so if if we were to do something like this we would clearly define okay in order to sort of qualify as a community benefit you would need to do x y and z things so we would define exactly what but limited to so kill you no no no that's just meant as an example it could be other other types of employee work for force housing and if the planning commission is interested in this we would sort of work out some of those details and bring that back to you for further discussion not to be labor that but what's the enforcement something like that I mean I mean somebody's right at that threshold and then they get a step raise and now they're you know how does that how have you seen that work in the past I was going to say this is really tied to the place that they work and not their income level I mean it would be great to get something with a school district but it would be tied to the workforce so it's okay if they're if their pay is higher it's really looking at trying to decrease the VMTs and have a local workforce live close by so it's not so much an incentive for affordability as it is to like to have people live close to where they work okay so this will be some sort of promotional thing where like for example if it was the so-called school district the source as part of their hiring practices or whatever they would say there is this promotional opportunity that we've dealt with the city of Capitola to provide teacher housing and you know and here's the program here's for sure how it all works and you know and that's recruiting opportunity for them that yeah I think districts view you know subsidize housing as a very important teacher retention strategy and when the mall development came in in 2019 there there was discussion about can you provide workforce housing there were a couple council members that were interested in that so we did have some discussions actually with Soquel unified elementary a couple of the local hospitals as well as um Cabrillo college to see if they'd be interested and it's it becomes a partnership where the school say if it was Cabrillo is actually like investing in the mall development into an apartment building for their employees so there's an exchange of money and they become the the landlord essentially and so if you were to include this as part of the housing element would you have to pre-coordinate any of that um to convince the hcd that yeah we've told we reached out the hospitals and school board and and they've shown some interest and it's I mean I'm just wondering how well other communities are doing there was that uh even on the radio this morning Santa Clara was crawling about how they did this and they're on their third teacher housing county basically exactly saying the county owns I believe they own or they're leasing the facility and then they're turning around leasing back I don't think hcd is going to complain if we do I think it's really just trying to understand it really incentivize okay yeah that that's what we're trying to get at is do we want to one do we do we like this idea and two to make it um economically viable do we want to incentivize it so for the example of the mall they're going to want to get the highest invest use out of that property when they build their housing but if we incentivize this somehow that there's more incentive for local workforce housing then they might they might engage in the conversation if it works out for their bottom line and there's new state regulations around the school districts and they can build on their properties but this gives another opportunity saw the mgp letter where they were complaining about our insistence on all this affordable housing stuff this is one way it's not necessarily affordable housing because the county or the school district or whatever it's a relatively easy thing I don't know if your mic is picking up is I mean I think it's I think it's a good way to to incentivize mgp to add some of this to that mall project personally I think we got another question on a different topic okay I think for this one am I seeing support okay what's the other topic the live work so um you're talking about um commercial uh not requiring a commercial use permit now to have someone work in their home at least start an auto shop in their garage and now that's just okay no not yet so we wouldn't set it up that way um that would be a home occupancy permit so if you're thinking of a single family home someone's doing a shop out of their garage and they're working within the the rules and regulations for home occupancy that that's your single family home this is more live work would be multifamily um it's actually like allowed right now within our commercial zone as mixed use but we would be defining it and possibly one one advantage I would suggest if we were to do a live work in our mixed use zones is to acknowledge that the people that live there work there and we would allow a decrease in parking because they're not because we typically we would calculate the square footage of the commercial area the square footage of the residential and count it all twice but if it's a true live work you decrease the overall parking and that would be the one incentive in the zone but this is essentially allowed I one question for the planning commission would be would you want this um I don't think you would want live work in your multifamily zones you wouldn't want to introduce commercial into areas where you have multifamily so give me an example again of the live work you have a multifamily but there'd be a common what laundry or something what have you been to the tannery in Santa Cruz or the tannery yes right off of highway nine there's a dance studio there's art studios and then the most of those units that are there the artists work at the tannery and or a certain percentage I think of those units or live work the sort of traditional live work is an artist loft where an artist lives in the space and it's also the artist's workspace as well and um it differs from say a home occupation in that there could be more commercial activity going on there such as sort of customers coming and so would you or would you not need this uh commercial use permit to create that live work tannery or whatever it is you would need a commercial permit at the tannery because they they there they have actual galleries the public can come in and buy goods they also have like dance studios and teach dance lessons so you would be required to have a business license theaters theaters yep I'm just wondering in terms of you know some very noisy or obtrusive business that you know an artist or a dance studio may be very you know sound great but say if it's an auto shop or the guy here just trying to explore the edges of this yeah you know there's there's permutations here and what you could do you could continue to require a c up for this use um but like he was explaining wave the parking um or the non-residential use just to remove some of the barriers to this so if we yeah so if we were to do that but still require the c up so it would come before us and we could say oh wait a minute no this isn't what we had in mind we could still deny that yeah would that be administratively anything we could set it up as a conditional use permit so it wouldn't be administrative I guess my feeling is we we got a lot of things you have to do and the probability of us turning you know making our own tannery row is probably pretty low I would focus on us personally I could see that in our insect area well also we have in our code that if you have a mixed use project we allow you to do a study to say if the parking should decrease this is just kind of a way to check a box but it's not really necessary yeah you know Katie and I have had some discussions about this and I share with her my perspective that's I think similar to Commissioner Estes that you know live work is probably not a housing type that's sort of really ideally suited to capitol and there might be some other alternative housing types such as smaller units that would be more appropriate that said it's still in allowed use and so if somebody did decide you know they really wanted to do a live work project in the mixed use zoning district it's still a possibility um under existing terms of affordability I remember going over when we were talking about the housing element before that the developers are beholden to a 50 year commitment is that correct am I remembering that right or is that not that completely affordable yeah there um if they're proposing intensified you know um density and height limits and all this stuff they're only beholden to 50 years of providing affordable housing I believe it's 55 years or the life of the building so it it's longer so whatever whatever comes first kind of thing I think a lot depends on their funding source yeah yeah that's curious I'm just wondering if yeah we updated that recently when we updated the inclusionary housing ordinance we tried to align things but it is a lot of it has tied back to funding sources and I think now um a lot of the loans are set further for the affordable so I don't want to I don't want to waste time going deeper into it but I just was maybe I'll an example of that is the Dakota departments they're just about to hit their 30 years they're coming back in for a rehab project in which we'll get another 30 30 years of affordability by working with them on this rehab project but a lot of those things are tied to the original development agreements for the developments that we have in capitol currently okay so new development is 55 so I think to kind of summarize I think some of the themes that we've heard so far so interest in promoting employee workforce housing through community benefit programs seems interesting that live work maybe nothing's needed in the zoning code right now since it's already allowed um micro units some interest in defining that as a distinct use type and um allowing that or encouraging it in certain locations such as around the transit center um yeah that way we didn't close on should we allow that in rm yes we should discuss that because that could be an incentive to lots that are in the rms relax a developer stand I think it'll um depending on how high you go with the densities and your high density but you could you could incentive if you want even more because you allow micro units that that would be that next thing so that's what I was thinking um micro belongs near transit micros typically tied towards decreasing parking requirements because they're so small that usually you wouldn't have two people living in a micro um so I think if we were to set up a true ordinance like incentive for micros it should be the near our transit center so near the mall we were to go that direction multifamily maybe within a certain distance of metro there's quite a bit of multifamily north of capitol a road um that it might area I was thinking of along clear south of southwest whatever of clear street between clairs and capitol a road that area should be close to there is close to the new transit center I would like to see it located sort of tied into the transit center going into start um doesn't mean we can't ultimately change it and say we want to have it in you know the multi residential zones but right now for me I would want to start sort of in the mall area within a certain radius of the transit center which would take in part of capitol you mean you could take in part of capitol a road you could have you know a distance from the transit center not on the mall property okay I agree I think we've already increased the density in in rm right we talked about that in terms of middle housing mid housing so if we're already increasing density around clear street we're allowing that to step in that direction and if we focus the micro housing just a closer westman saying closer to the transit center it's right here I know I don't understand what microphones fault not mine I think you're right so I'm here and close to the transit center for now increased densities in the multifamily zones okay in terms of do we go to SRO single room occupancy so this is typically your group housing and it wouldn't count towards our rena we don't think you know I think it's per you have to have a kitchen I'm not a big fan of the SROs right now in capitol I think you know the micro housing would sort of fill that niche for us oh out of curiosity how is the city attaining or getting rena with the junior ADUs as they did they are they counted towards rena if people bring in like a detachment of junior because the junior ADUs don't necessarily need to have a full kitchen they could have a very simplified you know hot plate and and that's counted so I mean it if we're talking about an SRO with they could have a hot plate potentially that it's it's allowed I mean if it's not necessarily specified I just don't understand why it wouldn't count towards that as in terms of a benefit and incentivize for cities yeah I guess um we could draft it so it meets the requirement for rena but it doesn't I don't know if that yeah I would research a little bit more because I think SRO is sometimes a broad term there might be certain types of SROs that you can get it would it would just seem like a shame if we had a big development of SRO and then we didn't get anything for it it seems kind of silly so we'll look into that in co-housing it's basically allowed do do we want to spend some time on that or not really I don't see that we really need to I don't know how much benefit you think we would get by listing it separately I mean if you think HED is going to love it if we list it separately then I don't care if you list it separately but um just don't think if you don't need to don't okay maybe we list it and like the definition of multifamily including co-housing so yeah I think it's essentially what the city of Santa right so parking so the housing element says a few things about parking uh one of the one of the things that says is that parking standards have the potential to constrain development or limit density on a site due to the cost of constructing parking facilities and space limitations on the screen here is a table of existing on-site parking requirements and so for single family dwellings it ranges from two to four units depending on the size of units for ad use at sp9 units it's limited to one per unit under state law for duplexes two per unit one covered and for multifamily dwellings two point five per unit one covered so existing on-site parking requirements for residential uses program 1.6 and housing element says that the city's parking requirements for multifamily housing do not vary by size of the unit potentially constraining the development of smaller units and discouraging higher density and the program says that the city will revise the multifamily residential parking requirement based on the unit size or number of bedrooms and will also revise the current covered parking requirement or multifamily development it goes on to say to review review and revise as appropriate parking requirements in general to remove constraints to housing and then also to include reduced parking standards for senior and special need housing some of that is dictated by state law so this past year there were some new state laws adopted related to parking the first one says that if there is an addition or a renovation to a single family home cities cannot require additional on-site parking so this is new so this will affect capitol and then the other law is that there's certain types of shared parking so shared parking means if you have say a commercial and a residential use on a site that those uses share the parking because the parking demand occurs at different times of the day like office and housing capitol currently has shared parking provisions in the code where the planning commission has the discretion to approve shared parking what AB 894 says is that in certain circumstances cities must allow shared parking if it meets certain criteria so there's going to need to be I think a few small amendments to your shared parking provisions to address AB 894 so here is a table let's see if I can do this again so here's a table showing what some of your neighboring communities require with on-site parking so in Santa Cruz the parking is is dictated by the number of bedrooms so one space per unit for a studio or one bedroom and then two per unit for a two plus bedroom Scott what does that asterisk mean at the bottom that means that in in Santa Cruz's housing element that they make a statement that they aim to eliminate parking minimum citywide by January 2028 so city of capitol uh I'm sorry city of Santa Cruz says in its housing element that it wants to eliminate parking minimums within the next five years and so this slide I won't go through each one but sort of gives a little bit of context what other local cities are requiring in terms of their on-site parking for townhomes and multifamily it seems like our choice is either to go size or bedrooms yes we could be Santa Cruz and eliminate it are they just hoping that it'll even itself out just that over the span of like just densifying and then it'll just be like meh everybody I'll figure it out it's interesting so that state law that just came out that says you if you do in addition to a home so in the past whenever someone does an addition to the home we'd require if it goes above a certain threshold of square feet they have to provide the parking and that's by state law we can no longer require additional parking um so really thinking about what are what do we want to tie these to so that we get parking spaces on the on the site but you're seeing here most of them are a maximum of one to two spaces other than Watsonville so and this is including in the coastal zone the that state law because we I think for 80 years we were saying that we still had to preserve one on site parking spot within you know that's a great question I didn't notice any coastal zone exemption but we should double double check the trouble if you go with bedrooms then you have to decide what a bedroom is exactly our recommendation on this is to go by size rather so you don't have to worry about it makes sense to me so here here's um a table with some potential parking adjustments the parking we've highlighted the parking requirement for a single family dwellings because you know I think because of the new state law we were thinking it it might be preferential to have just a two per unit requirement regardless of size um to avoid people gaming the system and then with 80 years and sp9s that's all dictated by state laws and no change there no change for duplexes and then a multifamily you know I think our recommendation would be to tie it to floor area rather than bedrooms so you don't run into this problem of having to determine what's a bedroom and what's not and the numbers um that we have up here for us sort of feel about right given what other communities are doing it in the area and but that's of course open to discussion just out of curiosity what's the rationale for requiring covered I don't think there's any good ration I don't think there's any good rationale for requiring covered I think most covered parking in capitola is not used for parking unless it's in the flood zone under the house most cities do it for aesthetic reasons yeah and and we don't have a garage credit in terms of our standard design or our design standards so it's if we create a covered parking space it takes away living space essentially right yeah there's a floor area for a small lot there's an exception oh the floor like if you have a lot that's below a certain size we give you additional floor area towards your garage it's 250 square feet I think a garage space we could propose eliminating the required covered parking yeah that I would love that feedback tonight of whether or not you think it's appropriate to remove the covered parking standard oh and a lot of this you end up seeing at the apartment buildings are these really long car ports and I don't know that they're really protecting the cars from much other than falling trees but I could go with no covered parking requirement and then a flat I don't see a need for covered I think this is a pretty good start this chart up here for parking requirements just eliminate the covered and then just having a flat requirement for two two spaces uncovered covered whatever yeah for the large you want to provide coverage again if you don't and then for anything over 20 uh 2000 feet we're just requiring two spaces I could live with it seems over 2000 or over well 2006 or well over 2000 instead of being three spaces three per unit it'll just be two per unit yeah so it's an over 2,600 it'll just be instead of four per unit that'll just be two per unit I think that do do you want to create something in the um multifamily dwelling we've got one per less than 500 square feet I think for micro and if we've got if micro is tied to transit would you want to see it less than one space because tied to transit yeah so a micro that's within a certain distance of transit could be a like 0.5 yeah 0.5 isn't that we had a 4401 capitol right that seems appropriate also there's a section in our code currently that I think that we could oh I can't remember exactly but it's um if you're within a certain proximity to a bus stop you can reduce your parking requirement or I can't remember how it said it's been a while it's state law um we talked about it a lot with the 80s and sp9 that if you're within a quarter mile of a high frequency transit that you don't have to provide parking there's um but we don't have those we don't have high frequency what's to find is high frequency um having has to come intervals every 15 minutes during peak periods that's what metro's doing right now metro's headed there they're they're trying you're not there yet well I mean their goal is this year yeah I thought we were they were going to get there this year at mall they're we're expecting within this housing element this next cycle for it to happen and um you know once they get bus on the bus lane on the highway I could see this getting us closer but right now they're not quite there so I'll be shocked I know I mean it's just it's pretty highly publicized that that's their goal to be there this year for 15 minutes so I don't I don't think they're even proposing that they will be that way at every bus stop I think they're saying that at the transit center they might meet that requirement but not everybody's going to be within a quarter mile of the transit center okay you ask about bus stops that you know the quarter mile from bus stops but it's not going to happen a quarter mile from most bus stops well and that brings me to what I think it came up with that application that was um on uh 47th the can't remember the name of it 4401 cap road thank you that um that people were asking like what it doesn't mean even though there's 0.5 parking spaces per unit that they're allowing it doesn't guarantee that people aren't just going to have you know three cars that their name I mean that's not something we can necessarily control but um is that something we can necessarily control nothing no it's just the landlord can control it on the site the city can't control it other than making them move their their cars around right so then that I mean are we going to maybe it's a question for another day just the regulation of parking up in those areas seems like even by jade street it just seems so impacted all the time but anyhow thank you we've reached consensus on this one thank you for patience I think so uh sorry but just to go back so the 4401 cap road the planning commission did ask us to bring up to um our public works director as well as city council making them aware that the planning commission is interested in looking at the avenues up there and re-looking at how the parking's designed to possibly get more parking to fit so I think that is something on our long list of improvement projects for capitol so that was heard during that review and it's definitely on a list whether or not it becomes a priority in the next year or in five years is up to the city council but yeah welcome and so the housing element also calls for the city to make some adjustments to parking requirements for certain special needs housing types and some of this is dictated by state law I don't know if we need to sort of belabor it tonight um but on the table is sort of what we were thinking with senior housing to sort of distinguish between independent living and sort of elderly and long-term care in terms of what the parking requirement is to sort of tie it more to the nature of the use um let's see with um group housing one per unit get rid of the guest space requirement residential care um one per three beds for emergency shelters and transitional housing and religious and institutional uses these are parking requirements that are dictated by state law so we would just follow what requirement is for them so again this we would bring this back to you you could look at it look at it at a future date with a finer tooth comb I will say for myself as I go to a lot of these facilities um that is a hospice volunteer and whether it's ages in Aptos whether it's specific manor here in Capitola or almost any of them the hardest thing is to find a place to park I mean you always end up as a volunteer parking in the neighborhood around it because none of them have enough parking so I do think these kinds of places need to have some provisions for because there are always a lot of visitors there I know we have to follow state law now this seems like a natural result of something just you can see coming big ominous car cloud little kid to move on from this okay um and then a few other little changes we need to implement state law about the no additional parking for a remodel project but if we're changing the single family parking requirement to two regardless of size then we don't need to worry about that and then also a few tweaks I think to the shared parking provisions pursuant to AB 894 all right so the second to last topic before we talk about um asking is lot consolidation so um I think as you know lot consolidation means if you have a development site with two or more lots as part of the development project um you reduce the lot sometimes merging all of them together into one big lot um so that the development becomes more feasible um from a physical perspective but also you then have it under single ownership so um development is facilitated due to that so here's just an example of lot consolidation so a project 4401 capitol a row there was two parcels as part of the development project they merged those two parcels into one parcel for the entire development site to accommodate the development project so the housing element addresses lot consolidation and calls for the city to develop incentives to encourage lot consolidation and identifies some strategies that might be used such as ministerial approval of lot line adjustments and flexible development standards for large sites so the housing element does go into some sort of depth in its discussion of the lot consolidation issues particularly related to some of the sites the non-vacant sites that are identified as opportunity sites so here's the map of what the housing element calls a consolidated site analysis so it identifies all of the sites where there are multiple parcels that are part of sort of a larger development opportunity site area and some of them are under single ownership in fact most of them are under single ownership but some of them are under um have multiple owners and I think the single ownership sites are fine we don't need to worry about that um if the owner as part of the development project the owner will merge the parcels and there's nothing the city really needs to do to encourage or incentivize that um I think it's the cases where you have um fragmented ownership of these contiguous parcels where there is a role for the city to come in and try to encourage or incentivize lot consolidation so there's really three of those areas right now that are identified in the housing element there's um on bay street zone cc um these two parcels are under um different ownership at the corner of 41st embromer there are three parcels um that have multiple owners that are identified opportunity sites and then here capitol avenue um just north of the bay avenue intersection those um are separate owners as well so the question then becomes okay well what can the city do to incentivize lot consolidation and um in its guidance to cities and their housing element hcd identifies a number of tools things like deferring fees expediting permit processes um adjusting development standards um actually devoting financial resources to these projects um and other incentives such as increasing allowable density um lot coverage and floor area ratio where a lot lot consolidation occurs um so there are other tools that cities can use beyond what hcd um identifies some cities will sort of designate specific area areas where lot consist consolidation is either encouraged or required in some form so contributing financial resources to incentivize um lot consolidation and maybe investing infrastructure improvements in certain areas and some of these things fall outside of the zoning code not really something for us to think about now but others are um tools that can be incorporated into the zoning regulations so um you know I think to incentivize lot consolidation on opportunity sites where there's fragmented ownership um I think one of the things that the city can do in its zoning code is to sort of just allow increased intensity um for a project that consolidates lots because I think that you know to maximize the development potential of housing including affordable housing on these sites with fragmented fragmented ownership I think the city does want to see lot consolidation um because more units will be um possible so what does that look like so for example in the MUN district for these two sites without lot consolidation um or any kind of community benefits what's allowed currently is an far of one um in a height of 27 feet but if a project were to come in say with lot consolidation and community benefits to really maximize the development potential of this opportunity site the city could say okay now you're allowed an far of 1.5 and additional height that's how that might work and then similarly on um these other sites on the CC district currently maximum far of 1.0 and height of 40 feet um to incentivize lot consolidation the city could say okay if you consolidate lots and you provide some degree of community benefits you're allowed additional far of 1.5 and a height of 50 so um you know there's only for residential projects yeah I would say so I mean that's the whole intent of this is to maximize the um development of these opportunity sites for housing and specifically for more affordable or attainable housing I would I would think yes that would be the case this is also I should mention um one area that we're continuing to work on with HCD they were they had concerns about the sites that aren't owned by the same folks so we might have more information coming out to you in the next couple weeks as our housing group is working on on this is one other area that we have to massage a little bit like the the non-vacant sites with multiple owners I think HCD is really kind of doubting the realistic development yeah there there's a chance that we might actually remove these from our inventory if necessary because of their questioning how we're going to go about this so as you saw a lot of the incentives are like tied to money which the city doesn't you know kind of got limited funds in order to to help that way but um this is one idea is but it would have to be tied to really strict standards of like producing the arena on site it's something like that in order to get that extra far in height yeah that's what I was wondering how how would you write the code make it happen right pretty hard yeah sort of we would identify qualifying projects with objective criteria and I think sort of meeting certain just typically call them out yeah like you called the potential hotels called that yeah yeah so under the community benefits zone we would have a separate section for lot consolidations with multiple property owners if it makes the state happy you know it takes a few hours to write it up sure I don't think it's gonna happen I think you're right at a future time though the next round of declared sites if you got them to yeah we would check a box okay so no support for that in our last topic so um a topic on massing I think where Katie asked me to focus on a couple of specific issues so in the pre 2020 zoning code before the major zoning code update was adopted in 2020 all covered open space areas below roof eve I'm sorry all covered open space and areas below a roof eve over two feet count it towards the far with the zoning code update that was changed so that these areas are now excluded from the far calculation and so I think that the the concern of this rule change or a concern of this rule change is that when you combine this with floodplain requirements to elevate living area that's going to encourage top heavy buildings maybe similar to the photographs that you see here and Katie also asked planning commissioners to provide photos related to this topic of massing commissioner wilk submitted these photos which we've included in the presentation and another sort of narrowly focus issue related to massing is in the zoning code interior area of a building with a floor to ceiling height of greater than 16 feet is counted twice in the floor area calculation is the rule and I think as you remember from the recent 605 escalator project there might be ways to kind of game this rule in a way that you include sort of a large roof trust in a way that keeps the floor at a ceiling height less than six feet but the visible massing of this building element is greater than 16 feet so that may be a concern so I think there's sort of sort of two sort of targeted massing related amendments that we've been thinking related to these issues one is to sort of go back to the old way of including covered open space and roof eve over two feet in the FIR calculation another would be to include in the FR FIR calculation areas with the floor to rooftop height of greater than 16 feet to count that twice as opposed to ceiling height which is the current rule so that's it so that's sort of all I had to say in the subject Katie do you have anything to add on the massing issue yeah well yeah one one thing to add if we could go to that slide just about the two feet overhang so for architectural features it is nice to have a nice roof overhang it adds a lot to a building your typical craftsman has a really nice roof overhang so maybe if two but what we're seeing we've seen a couple of examples where the image on the left it's a really large roof overhang it's not quite a carport a carport would cover would would count and so it's just should that count is that does that add to the massing of the structure for you in the past we would have counted that so that's that overhang I'm going to say is 8 to 10 feet on the there and so in the past we would have counted that so you wouldn't have such a large projection coming out and then if it was turned into a deck how does that fit into it because then you have walls that go up and yeah so if it was turned into a deck a definition of what is a roof overhang and also I mean all that space if we're talking if we're talking about floodplains all that space beneath that the two foot over the greater than two foot overhang is virtually unusable I mean except for a carport but or commercial space but the I would think it'd be a shame to underutilize that that that area underneath I mean it's it doesn't seem to be a deck because we have limitations on deck that would then limit your far so I mean but like a green roof could be an overhang like if they planted that whole thing just it seemed to be a shame to limit that that that modulation from the street taking advantage of all the floodplain area or the base flood elevation underneath I just I mean yeah so in your in your floodplain I think you all are aware of this but your condition space is limited you can have a garage on the first floor you can have commercial on the first floor but in terms of living space you have to get that space out of the floodplain so we've seen some projects actually the most recent approval across the street the bedroom on the first floor was elevated I want to say two feet to get it out of the floodplain but in some some circumstances closer to the river your first story is really limited in terms of probably a garage for a future redevelopment or just storage area with no heat and then once you get into the second story so we will see as as homes are redeveloped in the floodplains people aren't going to want to put that much of their floor area into the first story they're going to want to elevate it and so I think the big question here is um that top heavy massing do you want us to put more controls on it because right now we're cantilevers we we wouldn't count that towards the masses the massing of the building so how do you define massing it sounds like you're defining massing in terms of overhangs and ratio first to second floor me massing is like flat roofs with giant buildings that loom over your neighbors and you know block the light from the neighborhood and building volume I would say in my in my in my view the building volume on the on the upper story is greater than the building volume down below and so I think I'm just confused if you're not going to use the building volume on the upper story and you're in a floodplain how do you utilize your living space except for building in a stack so you're saying that massing in your definition is using your floor area ratio up high as opposed to low you can't really utilize the floor area ratio down below because there's no living space allowed within that flood area yeah I understand that I'm just trying to understand trying to get definitions here because so it is the question we're talking about now massing are we talking about just the floor air how we calculate floor area ratio how we calculate floor area ratio relative to the two foot do we want to bring that back to avoid these scenarios where the second story is cantilever over the first story cantilever story cantilevered over the first story no I mean it's the only practical thing they can do get even they're in the flood plain right they want to get the living space I guess question are this is only in the flood plain we're talking no this would apply citywide right so we're focusing on the flood plain but then we can take this example up to the foot heights right yes and in the flood plain you know recently we approved a variance to floor area to allow a double a double garage for just this reason it it made sense to allow you know allow for a two car garage that didn't count towards the floor area knowing that they needed the living space above I remember also with the old code when they had like porches that was not necessarily cantilevered but it was you know it had posts with or without posts that would count towards the far and that was a challenge to try incorporate you know amenable outdoor areas on the first level with overhangs that wouldn't count towards their and so then just any given the constraints of the small lots in capitol I just I'm my my opinion at least is conserving that far that we are allowed to distribute it amongst the bathrooms the kitchens the living spaces the bedrooms are every square inch is important in it and eliminating those whether it be well especially for just empty overhangs I feel like the overhangs create architectural modulation and really add character depending I mean it could be modern it can be craftsman it could be traditional it it just adds character to every single house and if you and if you constrain that overhang you're going to get these big blockhouses where they're just maximizing everything they can you know so can we be a little more fine tune and have regulations that are for the flood plain area because it seemed like on the house that we approved across the street that you know that was raising that elevation of the bedroom two feet that was not really significant and a lot of you know that happens in a lot of places when you start talking about having a flood plain elevation that's 10 feet then that's a whole different scenario than the majority of capitol is in and there's really only a small area where the flood regulations are that significant so I wonder if we can have you know something that talks about homes that are in a flood plain area you know and have rules for those that are different than what they are in other parts of town because I don't think you would want to see this applied like on clipfoot heights you know having sort of the top heavy house up there you know and that kind of neighborhood doesn't seem like it works so but it does cover porches and porches are used a lot in in you know a number of different design Victorian style houses craftsman style houses and they're scattered all over the place and that's supposed to be the unique culture of capitol over trying to preserve so we now force people to eliminate porches because they want living space you are going to end up with a lot of Silicon Valley like block homes in my opinion but I think we changed our zoning ordinance to allow people to have porches without counting it in the floor area ratio yeah and so I think there are a lot of things we can do you know when we start sort of trying to pass these rules that apply to the entire town because there's a problem with the houses that are in the flood lane I don't think we're doing the whole community a real good service it seems to me that we can be sophisticated enough that we can come up with regulations that deal with that specific problem and then you know we can talk about exactly how we want to calculate floor area ratios in you know the rest of the community I would add to that that you know I do think the way in which that last application was reviewed and that we applied a variance is the correct way to utilize a variance variances are tied to the property right and the circumstances of the property so this one if we want to do something just tied to the flood plain I believe the variance is actually the right tool for that because you really do want to look at those properties instance by instance rather than I would worry that we would create just another issue by trying to draft up just for the flood plain we can look into it we'll definitely we'll look into it and bring it back for discussion and I absolutely think you're correct I think those people that are in the flood plain could be entitled to variance because you know the rules are that there's something unusual about you know the size shape or topography of the lot and you know not being able to build because of the topography in the flood plain is a valid reason for granting a variance in those situations actually we recently received a new application that also takes a similar approach of just leaving the garage on the first story and all the living will be on the second so you'll that'll be coming in the flood plain in Riverview so and that one the flood plain is much higher than what we saw across the street yeah um in in if this does come back around I think showing um a different like I understand the principle in showing these photos those two especially in terms of massing but showing um like there's one for sale with the huge porch there's another you know just any type of entrance overhangs of different varieties and different architecture I think is applicable to this and that I think communicating these types of buildings shows um kind of a narrow view of this type of massing because it could be applicable to you know and you know little portals going into homes of any way can somebody explain what we're going to do so so I'm I'm hearing sort of a diversity of opinions on this issue um uh and including the concern that going back to the old rule may discourage um architectural features that create visual interests and is inconsistent with the capitolic character and so I think what Katie and I will do is maybe explore some ways to sort of address this top heavy building massing concern while also um not discouraging um these architectural features and um maybe bring something back that tries to do both of those things um for further discussion right because I do like the idea of you know front porches and some of those things not counting in the floor area ratio because they do add to the character and style of the home and I think we could come up with a legitimate list of those kinds of things the thing that again I'll bring it back the thing that bothers me about the top heavy buildings is the daylight planes for the neighbors the specific ones on capitol uh um avenue here where there's on river view there's these tiny little bungalows and all of a sudden there's these giant buildings looming over them and they've lost all their light it's like what happened to my mornings so I I would think that we could do something in terms of daylight like we have in the village right we have daylight planes that's why we have roof uh you know um you know I don't I don't think our daylight plane was in our code when this one went through planning commission but for the most recent application next door we have the daylight plane I'd have to go back and check but I don't think because it's in the coastal zone it didn't take effect until 2021 so yeah this this wasn't subject to the daylight plane it'd be really interesting we could actually come back and show you what the daylight plane what would have been cut out of this if it were subject to that so because now we do have a standard that in mixed use neighborhood if you're adjacent to residential you have to have that daylight plane that's good yeah also with the massing um being closed ceiling spaces that circumvent rural intent um I remember there's an application a while back with the depot hill um the the 72 foot chimney and the I can't remember that was on cliff anyway they their proposal we granted a variance because they proposed dropping the ceiling down to mid span of the double hung windows to meet that requirement and I just I feel like it was so such a silly proposal you know but I because after we met when I was listening to all the different um comments for this the the really high ceilings I I see the point that's what I'm trying to say the only thing that I think that this would be applicable the disadvantage would be like a stairwell or something being counted you know all the way to the top if you had some type of large um area top to bottom or climb and stairs you know no we don't we changed that we did okay I'm sorry um sir so I'm hearing that to address this issue in some way there's interest in doing that and so we can put something together and bring it back to you is there a downside and are there any unanticipated you might want to add a foot to it to accommodate the roof you know in between but otherwise I think that was the intent there I was I was thinking about that a little bit and worried that maybe this would um discourage pitched roots in certain circumstances we have that the standard that is in the village that we allow extra height for a pitched roof we could come back with some form of that to see if the planning question is interested I mean to Peter's point we can just apply the same type of um massing stipulation of the daylight plane and I mean we do but it just seems like greater massing within the roof area could present the same problem but in a different way we'll come back with some additional items okay well this we'll we'll plan for what meeting we can get on next to bring more changes to you as we work through I did want to I have a director's update for you we're ready to move into the next thank you for all your great comments this evening very helpful are we going to talk about the other items we got in our agenda packet not this evening I just have one minor minor comment I think where there's something in here about a bar I think we need to come up with a definition in our glossary of what a bar is and what we're talking about there because that could be a wine bar taco bar uh liquor bar you know just a definition when we come back thank you any other comments on the future list shall I jump into the director's yes yeah I just have one update on the housing element update so after me the the meeting we had two weeks ago the direction that we could move to 75 feet on the mall site keep it at the mall site and allow the far to have an exception for parking garages took the same conversation to the city council and while we were there they're Merlin guyer representative david geyser geyser stood up and he also brought up a new aspect of this in that the number of affordable units placed on the mall is is too high and a burden and they don't see themselves redeveloping with the I think there was like 460 affordable units just on the Merlin guyer sites so city council directed us to continue working with Merlin guyer and we they also directed us to move forward with publishing an update to the housing element while working with Merlin guyer so I've had a meeting today with Merlin guyer and I've had two meetings with our housing consultant and at this point we're thinking of kind of sharing the love amongst the whole mall site before we didn't include the target we didn't include the Macy's site or the the Ross site so where we're going to increase the height to 75 feet for the whole mall parcel we're doing the analysis of what 15 percent and the our inclusionary ordinance requires 15 percent what 15 percent spread over that whole site looks like and that's it's looking like it might work out that we'll have enough on that site if we include the other parcels and not put such a heavy burden on the Malone guyer so I was very confused about that I was watching that city council and and he talked about that was a 419 units or that sounds like way more than 15 percent right I mean it is yeah so where why why why is that such a huge number yeah it's the way that our consultant has been advising us through the process um and it's how just based on the the overall size of those lots and building I think it was that we put in a density of 29 units per acre which now with the 75 feet it'll be 48 units per acre so we're just trying to make the economics of this work as well but to your point it it is high the number and when you have development projects come in like some two of our development projects this year are 100 percent affordable and so as we see different projects come in these numbers will balance out we expect that we're gonna have to utilize that additional buffer that we've been putting in the housing element for no net loss so if if Malone guyer were to come in tomorrow and they said to make this feasible we can only produce the 15 percent that's required by code we would then use our no net we'd have to make no net loss findings and find additional sites in which that buffer could be used to say that we can still produce this housing somewhere else so I also got the sense that they weren't interested in in increasing their numbers up to 1300 units because the argument was that that's too many affordable units 400 units right and so the ratio it's the pressure I got was the ratios were wrong they did more high-end units and so they weren't willing from what I could tell to increase the total number of units up to as much as 1300 units which was something that a number that was bandied about they didn't seem to jump on that did it was any discussion about the increasing the total number of units when you talk to them so they when I talked to them they said they think our math is correct now at 75 feet 48 units per acre is what we'll be looking at so they agreed with the math they have not been working on our project so they really haven't been say like they're not willing to go there in terms of like what what numbers they're looking at and without we don't have a density limit there but they're saying they agree with our assessment with ground floor commercial and then living space above five stories living space above yeah and that's been the model I sent you before I updated it to include the higher roof height and they can get 1289 units with them with a far of 2.0 and that ends up at a density of only 25 per acre and they should be able to afford they should they should have plenty of market rate units to offset the affordable housing yes I don't quite get their argument oh to deep to only provide the 15 percent yeah it doesn't make sense the math doesn't to me the math works in their favor as now that we've raised the height and taken the parking out of the far calculation and you still will stay within the 2.0 far you guys should be happy my calculations but I don't know I'm just trying I'll send you this new model okay thank you so that's I'm hoping to have the updated housing element published on the Friday before our next meeting and then I'll bring an update to you at the next meeting in March and that concludes my director's report thank you thank you you have a question about the warfare from the lab commission comment so now that we're going to demolish the bate shop and the restaurant there's not like what are we just going to deck over top of what's there now or leave a hole I mean how I'm not sure how the how that works what's because construction that company has plans that include those two buildings so with the demolition of the building the deck will definitely be replaced before that we were doing some of some of the pilings were being fixed underneath the buildings this will actually give us really good access and we can repair more time more of the pilings underneath the buildings in terms of we'll definitely run the utilities out there for future use there there's been no decisions on what happens next there's discussion on whether or not the bathroom should that you know the Portland Lou should it be installed at this point I think that's part of what these you know the town hall discussion next week just to get feedback and then city council will make the ultimate decision but at this point you should expect to see a flat deck all the way out to it's where it was planned to be built and it's in really bad condition right now because we lost so many more of the boards in this last storm too on the front of the war so the utilities will be run the bathroom was in that condition of state funding so that I think right now with that bathroom I know Jessica is doing a lot of research to see to see exactly what what can happen with that bathroom and due to what's I was conveyed to us and that was like really a hinge point for state funding like you know it was like when we were talking about how that some of the feedback from the community was about the bathroom having to be there and the type it was I thought it was pretty clear stated that it was really connected back to the how the funding was set up for the war from that it would jeopardize that that wasn't put out there so yeah yeah yeah but we're going to get a rebate from the construction company because it's a lot easier with those buildings gone if I were if I were negotiating this contract and I was a commercial operation that's what I would ask you guys you guys bid this thing with those buildings in your way while you were placed pylons underneath them now you have full access it's going to take you a fraction of the time give me some money or give me something else the cost of the new pylons versus doing the sleeve is less so there will be a cost savings there I think the bathroom conversation just to go back I think that was tied to the like the state contract I don't know if it was I think it was already bid that way with the bathroom out there and had to be followed so I think we're working through all of that currently under the new circumstances but maybe that could just be probably we're going to get a wharf update sounds like in March right yes and we'll be bringing the other bathroom that Exilu was delivered we'll be bringing some other options for you in terms of colors and possibly materials but in the new wharf design I guess with the potential that the bathroom the but the buildings won't be there just go I guess we'll research and give us an update is that bathroom I mean there's concerns about that bathroom being out there but we thought it's going to be pretty sheltered from other buildings from a viewing standpoint if there's nothing out there and there's just one single stall um might be even more but maybe she can update that I was pretty clear maybe it was Kayla she might even know that it was really much it had to go there because it was really based on the funding from the state that it was part of the project so maybe that can be alleviated because of the storm damage or something we will see I'll look into that all right thanks anybody else questions all right then we're adjourned thank you we're adjourned to the next regularly scheduled meeting of the planning commission on March 7th 2024 at 6 p.m. thank you