 I'm going to call to order- this meeting of the- Capitola Planning Commission- welcome thank you for being here tonight and- and I do want to acknowledge- that we have in our audience are still acting mayor of Capitola so welcome Michael to the planning commission. So with that let's have a roll call please. Commissioner Welch. Here. Commissioner Smith. Here. Commissioner Westman. Here. Commissioner Newman. Here. Chair Story. Here. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. A Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Before we go any further I do want to announce that the meeting is being cable cast live on charter communication cable TV channel 8 and AT&T U-verse channel 99. It will be recorded and replayed next Monday and Friday at 1 p.m. on charter channel 71 and Comcast channel 25. And anyway can also watch the meeting on the city's website at www.cityacapitola.org and tonight our technician is Lynn Dutton. Thanks Lynn for broadcasting our meeting. Next I'll ask under oral communications whether commissioners have any additions or deletions to the agenda this evening? Seeing none. Staff? I just wanted to mention that for item 4C106 Sacramento Avenue we did have additional correspondences that came in one from the coastal commission and one from the applicant's attorney and should that stay on consent calendar there is the first condition that was suggested by the coastal commission we would like to add to the conditions of approval. I like to comment so I'd like to pull that from the consent calendar. TJ can you hold that until we get down there and then I'll recognize that motion but no other additions or deletions to the agenda this evening. And so with that next we'll move to public comments. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the commission on items that are not on tonight's agenda. Does anyone have anything they would like to speak to the commission about? Good evening mayor. First planning commission meeting I've ever attended while I have not been a planning commissioner. And it's threefold thank you chair story planning commission thank you all for your dedicated service and I want to say that including the planning commissions I was on you are still ten times better. This is the best planning commission I've ever observed in the city of capitol. People think the city council make the city what it is this is where it happens and people often forget that. So thank you all for your service I appreciate it. Thank you chair story for stepping up and coming on to the city council. I sleep a little better at night when you're there. And lastly I want to single out one planning commissioner and she knows who she is. For eight years Linda Smith has served as my planning commissioner. She has done so diligently. She's been decisive. She has never come to me to ask the way to vote because she always knew how to vote and I was wise enough not to tell her how to vote. She also did one special favor for me. She didn't quit halfway through and make me scramble for a new planning commissioner. She has served eight years continuous. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are a colleague. I consider you a peer and I also consider you a friend. And that is all carry on. Thank you. Thank you very much Mayor Termini for those really words of commendation to us. I'm not sure if it does ring true of all the planning commissions that have served the city of capitol. But I think we will accept that with gratitude and hopefully live up to it this evening in our last meeting together. So thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to make a public comment at this time? Seeing none I'm going to move on to commission comments. There's nothing here nothing on this side. Can I say my piece now? And I'll leave it to you whether you want to do it now you will have another opportunity later but the room is packed now and it may not be later. The room is packed out so early and I would like to if the commission would allow me so while Mr. Mayor is still around. Tonight is the last night I'll sit up here. It's a little bit bittersweet for me and I really want to thank Mike Termini who I think might still be in the building for allowing me to serve in this way. Seems like a long time ago it's been eight years and I sat here for the first time a little bit overwhelmed but I had the privilege of sitting up here with some of the most experienced and thoughtful leaders in our city. My fellow commissioners in 2011 included three multi-term mayors, Gail Ortiz, McRuth and Ron Graves and Ed Newman one of the most level-headed, wise and balanced people that I know. Don't get a big head but what a great place it was for me to start. TJ came along and brought an objective and pragmatic approach and although I don't always agree with you I've been honored to serve with you and Susan has a wealth of experience and wisdom and capital of government history that was invaluable in helping us do the zoning code. I've learned a great deal from you and I thank you for that. Sam what can I say? I've been proud to serve with you and I'm really glad you'll be sitting on the council once again. Working with staff has really been a pleasure. I know I'm going to miss some names so forgive me in advance but Danny and Jackie and Linda and Ryan and now Matt and Sasha and Chloe. You've all been responsive, ready to do whatever I needed and to help me out in all ways and Katie you're just awesome. Rich was the right director at the right time and Capitola's really lucky to have you stepping into his shoes but right now I think you're what Capitola needs in the position. We've processed a lot of applications over the past eight years. We developed a new general plan and a new zoning code. We've had good discussions. We've had some disagreements, a lot of collaboration and I can honestly say I don't think that we've approved any bad projects. I enjoy walking around town and seeing projects that came to life that were approved while I've been a commissioner. I've seen the ones that we helped to tweak in the right direction a little bit and they're really good things and I hope that the community agrees that we've listened and have helped make controversial projects better and have stayed the course on Capitola's vision. Our new zoning code establishes some controls that have never been in place in Capitola before. It relaxes and clarifies restrictions that interfered with good projects in the past. It's streamlined. It's easier to navigate and it's going to be a better tool for people wanting to improve their properties. And all in all, staff is going to have a whole lot more authority to help those projects that meet our requirements, get through the system faster, reducing costs for everybody and really taking a step in helping Capitola develop the right way. Many hours over the past three years have been spent trying to put together the best zoning code we could. And there are a lot of details and it gets complicated and staff has waved through it. This commission has really waved through a lot of stuff and it's a balancing act. In the end, what you want is enough control to make sure the community grows in the right way and yet enough freedom to be creative and to welcome new people and new ideas into the community. I'm not happy with every detail of our zoning code, but I think we managed to do that and I'm really glad that we got that job done for the city. Someone told me much once that that which does not grow dies and so it is with Capitola. I'm proud to have been a part of building the infrastructure that the general plan and the zoning code represent and I'm really proud to have worked with you guys. But now it's time for me to say farewell to public service for a while and thank you again for allowing me to serve. I guess I should speak up now too because tonight's actually going to be my last planning commission meeting and I was simply going to say goodbye to all of you and that it had been an honor to work with you. I think this has been an exceptionally good planning commission and we accomplished a lot and it was a pleasure to be here with all of you and I look forward to coming back to the meetings and sitting in the audience and speaking from a different point of view. Well, any other comments from commissioners at this time? Well, I thank you both Linda and Susan for your service and I know I'm going to miss working with you. I'll have some more comments later at the end of the meeting and but for now let's why don't we get on with the city's business and well and which brings us to the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of working with the first. Does anybody have any requested changes? I'll make a motion to approve. Okay, there's a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Motion is second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? So unanimously, Chloe. Next we'll come to the Consent Calendar and I've already heard one request to pull item 4C, which is concerning 106 Sacramento Avenue and I'm going to insert that under item 5A, which is 116 Grand Avenue, so we'll consider 106 after one sixteen Grand Avenue. And I will take this opportunity to announce that because of the proximity of where I live I have to recuse myself from a 106 Sacramento project application. So I'll be turning it over the meeting to the vice chair at that time. Do any members of the public wish to pull any of the other consent items? We had two other ones. A is six 20 capitol avenue which is for a sign permit and item B is a project at 607 Oak Drive. Any request to pull either of those items? Seeing none, commissioners, any desire to pull out of there of those? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar. Also move. Second. Second. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion that motion passes unanimously Chloe. Next we'll move on to our public hearings for the evening and the first item will be 116 Grand Avenue. This is an application for design permit and conditional use permit for in addition to a historic single family home located in the R1 zoning district. We'll begin with staff report. Good evening commissioners and chairperson story. The applicant is requesting approval for a design permit and conditional use permit for in addition to an historic single family home in the single family zoning district. The existing single family residence at 116 Grand was built in 1905. The single story three bedroom home is approximately 1499 square feet and has a 420 square foot detached garage. The proposed 320 square foot addition will sit on the back of the home and the exterior materials will match the existing wood siding, wood trim windows, and shingle roofing. A small covered breezeway will attach the garage to the home. Because the home is an historic structure the plans were submitted to the city's contracted architectural historian Leslie Dill. Ms. Dill requested that a piece of vertical trim be removed and language highlighting the home's historic nature be added to the cover sheet. The applicant submitted plans with Ms. Dill's revisions. The property is in the geological hazards district as it is within 200 feet of the bluff. Capitola municipal code requires a geological report for any bluff top development proposed within 200 feet of the cliff edge. The report must show that the project's design and setback provisions are designed to assure stability for at least 50 years. The applicant submitted a letter from Zinn geology indicating the property and new development are outside the projected 50 year bluff top retreat line. The property is non-conforming because the existing home sits within the front and side yard setbacks. However the building official determined that the proposed structural alterations are less than 80 percent of the present fair market value of the non-conforming structure so they are permissible structural alterations. Staff recommends the planning commission approve project 18-0481 based on the conditions and findings for approval. Thank you. Other questions from commissioners on the staff report? Hearing none I'll open it up to the public. Is there a presentation by the applicant or the applicant's representative? Dennis. Good evening honorable members of the planning commission. This is you probably a few of you have seen this application before and we did the remodel on the main house of this thing and I think overall it's really kept within the historic character of the house. The garage was added in the last application now we're connecting me to we're adding a bathroom in a closet. It's not been an easy process we've been in process 10 months and not due to staff's problem but problem in actually when you build on depot hill now the 200-foot setback requires the geologic hazards report to be done that's now being enforced and the other issue was was we had to do a number of modifications to get through the historic part of it as far as Leslie Dill's approval but I think we've made it there I think we have a good project here someone walking down the street wouldn't know that what is historic from not being historic she's a lot of us to match the siding we do have a demarcation strip on there but the siding is being matched and so I think I think it's a good project. I also have with me is Joe McLean who is the owner of the property and a couple neighbors have also showed up so thank you for your time we approve of the conditions of thank you and one question all right for Dennis yeah Dennis if one question for you when we reviewed this in 2013 that there were carriage doors that were sort of important is there any I didn't see them in the plan is there any plan to continue their use like they are now or are they being removed that's that's a good question Linda because it was required of us in that in the initial application and Leslie Dill did not do this story Leslie comes in a different story and she said they're goofy why are you doing this and so she asks us to take them off there and so we can see to do that okay okay thank you any other members of the public wish to address the commission on this item seeing none I'm going to uh yeah commission uh my name is Mark Kane my wife and I live one house away from Joe and Gloria's home we just went through the whole process and and had a nice result you know thanks to the to the board you know you guys and I just want to say Maureen and I are in support of the project and we love that it's not going up another story that's thank you thank you Mark any other comments yes step on that yeah of course has already left the barn as it were but I still have it stuck in my craw that that house was allowed to encroach on city property with their rock retaining wall that has caused an incredible bottleneck for people who drive up there park try to get turned around and uh unfortunately in the past did damage to the the neighbor's gate and from experience that little supposed turnaround driveway that faces the bluff that was added later really does no good to facilitate facilitate the use of that particular property so with any luck at all someday that will change and the city will take back the property that the public deserves to have access to thank you thank you anyone else wish to address the commission uh on this project seeing none um I'm going to close the microphone up front I'll bring it back to the commissioners for discussion and uh action um Sarah a particular commissioner that would like to begin or well I'll I'll jump in um I agree with Dennis's comments that the revisions that were made after the 2013 review were very well done in in keeping with the historic nature of the structure um the there were two items I went back and looked and there were two items that were really important back then one was the carriage doors and the second was um the turnaround and I see in these plans no effect or no change on the turnaround so I'm assuming that that stays and the the carriage doors um Leslie did not include them at all in her report I personally don't feel that they helped tell the story so I'm fine with having them go um I think the implementation and what we were looking at when we approved them being used as shutters was different and um I have no problem with the approving the plan the way it's proposed now all right thank you any other commissioners I really don't have any comments I do like the fact that the exterior material is going to be the same on the building with the demarcation line I think that's a nice word I think this would be a consent item except that it's uh conditional use permits are required so yeah no problem I see no issues right um I would say I well I don't really have any issues I would concur with the lady that got up and spoke about the property because I learned a valuable lesson on that as a planning commissioner uh don't um well you have to be a little more inquisitive about things I actually take a tape measure with me now so on the staff report the homeowner may not know this I'm sure you know there's something about it but uh the staff report said no bollards to be removed which the little metal posts out there and I took the staff report being where was that and they actually removed two bollards and expanded the yard out which um creates a little bit of a issue for me one I live in the area so then all the neighbors want to go want to know why do they get a move into the public right away it was until after the fact that we made them put the turnaround in because the neighbor's gate was getting bashed in from turning around so I do have that hard burn but I can't put that on the new homeowner that's really more I think to do with the way we handled that with internally in the city so with that I support the project and I don't really care about those doors in the front of the house that hung up there so okay um would somebody like to make a motion then I'll move approval of this project as documented okay yet there is a motion to approve is there a second well second there's a motion in a second so under just under further discussion I just want to not even though this is a historical home but it complies with our regulations in every respect it has the architectural historians blessing and consultation on the project and with that I see no reason to deny the project or add any additional conditions so with that I'll just call for a voice vote all in favor hi we opposed the motion passes unanimously Chloe congratulations thank you next that brings us to the item pulled from the consent calendar which is concerning 106 Sacramento and as I had stated earlier I have a conflict because of proximity so I'm going to recuse myself and turn it over to the vice chair to run the meeting thank you okay excuse my voice I apologize from the very beginning and I'm going to pass my cup down and hope I can get just a little more water um this application is for 106 Sacramento Avenue it's a design permit for a 764 square foot addition with a new second story to the existing single family house um and we will have a staff presentation thank you vice chairman westman uh yeah the project site is a large 30,719 square foot lot located at 106 Sacramento Avenue within the single family r1 zoning district and the geologic hazards gh district the applicant is proposing a 764 square foot addition to the existing 3943 square foot house the new addition is located outside the required 50-year bluff for treat line the addition requires planning commission approval of a design permit and a coastal development permit the application complies with all development standards of the r1 and gh districts just really quickly there's the existing site plan and I'll explain the two lines in just a second here's the proposed site plan as you can see a portion of the existing home is located within the 50-year setback shown in dark blue making it a non-conforming structure the proposed additions are shown in light blue the building official determined that the proposed structural alterations are less than 80 percent of the present fair market value of the non-conforming structures so they're permissible structural alterations here's the existing floor plan and the proposed floor plan on the first floor and the additions are in light blue and here are the second story additions our addition singular as you can see it's outside of the the blue 50-year setback and the 50-year setback plus estimated sea level rise influence indicated in red here the existing and proposed northwest elevations existing and proposed northeast elevations southeast elevations and southwest elevations also included is a rendering from the end of sacramento avenue it doesn't include all of the trees and shrubs and things indicated on the landscape plan but it does give you good idea of the proposed development and here's the proposed landscape plan and with that staff recommends the planning commission review the application and approve project application 18-0143 based on the conditions and findings for approval plus one additional condition which community development director hurley he mentioned earlier which i will now put up on the screen in response to the coastal commission's letter we are requesting that planning commission include the condition recommended by the coastal commission that acknowledges the coastal hazards risk associated with bluff top development as shown in the slide and at this point i think the community development director will provide some additional commentary related to this project yes thank you matt so you received a letter yesterday afternoon from the coastal commission and under our policy we look at the development of a project we look at 50 percent of structural improvements to the property and we had our at the time building official review the project and they worked with us continuously until it came down under the 50 percent of structural improvements to the project in in that knowing that they hadn't exceeded the allowance for future armoring of the bluff we continued this project at multiple hearings because the applicant continued to work with the coastal commission to they wanted an assurance that they had done their calculations correctly and that they wouldn't be subject to that in the future the coastal commission in the letter we received yesterday they they're applying a new standard that is drafted within a sea level rise policy document the policy document was i'll pull this up shown here is an adopted document but it's a policy and what's enforced is the california coastal act and at a local level what's enforced is our local coastal plan which is in fact our zoning code and at several other portions of our municipal code but we've followed our municipal code in the review of this application we have not applied the new policy guidance in this document and there is actually another guidance document for residential development that hasn't been adopted to this day because of the the way in which they're calculating new development and they're looking at a cumulative development over time since the time that the coastal act was adopted so anything from i think it was 74 forward any you know the cumulative improvements to a house would be calculated within their 50 calculation under the new documents so at at this time what you're reviewing is in addition to a single family home we're not looking at armoring for a for this property in the future when they do come forward to the to look at if they'd like armoring that will go to the coastal commission it's their purview and at that point the coastal commission with the law that's put in place will review that application under the law that's in place so we feel that it would be um incorrect for us to add a condition for an application that is not in under this time and it should be reviewed under the law that is in place at the time that that application goes forth to the coastal commission so with that we're just suggesting we do think the first condition is good stating that yes you're on the bluff and there's some risks involved and they're willing to move forward with those risks that are involved well thank you for that explanation it makes it a lot clearer for me and i hope for everyone else what was happening with this sure yeah it's still not real clear to me okay how does the do we know how the coastal commission determines what percent the modification they've got numbers for the roof and numbers for different components and how do they put all that together so they that that's what's in the new policy document is breaking it down from just previously a structural calculation to actually looking at every component of the the roof accounting square square feet i believe of the roof i mean what we've got really doesn't tell me how any that was determined it's just kind of conclusory well it's it's very subjective right i mean i agree we don't we don't have any valid information about how the coastal commission came up with their analysis okay well you answer my question i'll have some comments when we get to okay for real on so it is their methodology is in this it is in well it's stated in this first document that was adopted but it's refined better within the residential policy document which has not yet been adopted by the coastal commission and is subject to a lot of feedback from different jurisdictions not will it you know yeah i don't have any uh specific access to the application of that not yet adopted policy to this project yeah other than that document one question if i could go in your staff um so um katie the the condition that you're suggesting that we include did we have any legal review of that condition we did i worked with tony kandadi closely today on this application and his suggestion was move forward with that first condition but it's not the appropriate time for us to have the second the other conditions but he felt that this condition was worded correctly it's not um item e the property owners responsible that any adverse effects to property caused by the permitted development shall be fully the responsibility of the property owners that statement to me is really vague it's what property are they talking about are they now going to say that the effects to property anywhere along the bluff i i don't i'm not if i were the homeowner i'm not really sure that that would be clear enough for me could you repeat which which section um it's number one e the very final one that any adverse effects to the property caused by the permitted development shall be fully the responsibility of the property owner yeah it's to property not to the property that may be one of my issues with that there there's not the word the is not in there you could add the word the so it's to the owner's property i just before we before we condition it that way i'd just like to make sure it's clear and and perhaps we might want to ask the owner if they're comfortable with the wording change in that condition okay that concludes staff's presentation i'm counsel for the morrises that the property owners here i appreciate your your questions and your confusion about this issue um maybe i can just make my comments briefly i think i may be able to address the question that you have i think it's been made clear that the new development is all landlord of the 50 year setback and that the entire scope of work is less than 80 percent of the value which is the applicable standard and so therefore the project as designed and as contemplated is consistent with the capitol lcp ultimately the morrises are entitled to rely on the lcp and actually the city of capitol is bound by that lcp as well and doesn't have any authority to go outside of that to look at other guidance and other documents um or what the coastal commission has done in other jurisdictions because those are not applicable um the solana beach lcp is applicable in solana beach only a denial or an approval or a condition in marinn county has nothing to do with what's allowable or what conditions are required or permitted or not permitted under the capitol lcp i think that i think that's very important to address the the guidance i've got a a copy of the link first of all did you all get the a copy of the letter that i submitted today okay good i think that pretty well lays it out but at the very beginning of both of these documents both the unanimously adopted um guidance from 2015 as well as the still not yet adopted march 2018 version of the guidance says this document is guidance this document is not regulations it says the guidance is advisory and not a regulatory document or legal standard of review for the actions that the commission or local governments may take under the coastal act such actions are subject to the applicable requirements of the coastal act the federal coastal zone management act certified local coastal programs and other applicable laws and regulations as applied in the context of the evidence of the record for that action i think that pretty well spells it out um these are the hopes and tensions and desires of of the coastal commission to limit left top development but it really has nothing to do with what's allowable under the lcp and i believe that staff is interpreting the lcp properly both as to the new development landlord of the setback as well as the 80 less than 80 value threshold for the entire project so if you have any other questions about that i'm happy to address them i don't have any questions anyone have any so if we ended up with some kind of condition such as has been suggested just a notification that there's a geological risk here what would be the applicant's position on proposed conditions four and five for deed restriction and real estate disclosures oh it would be at it would absolutely opposed to that i mean the coastal commission has no authority the coastal commission has appeal authority over this project only and even as to a future seawall they've only got appeal authority and if i could read here so under the coastal act it's coastal act section 30603 b1 the coastal commission's appeal of a capitol approval of a project quote shall be limited to an allegation that the development does not conform to the standards set forth in the certified local coastal program or public access policies set forth in this division of the coastal act well since the project has no impact on public access that means the basis for any commission appeal of the project must be limited to the project's consistency with capitol as lcp and there's nothing in capitol as lcp that requires even what may seem like an innocuous condition that's been proposed tonight it's i think it's a fairly slippery slope and so certainly with with the with the waiver conditions that there there's no way that though that those can be upheld and as to the first it just it just seems sort of pointless it's sort of like saying to some degree a chainsaw is dangerous well of course it is but once we begin or once the the capitol planning commission and city council begins to allow the coastal commission to start imposing conditions that really have no tie back to the applicable document which is the capitol lcp i think i think we're all in trouble that answer the question okay any other questions no thank you mr oliver i appreciate you're welcome i i do have some comments for you move forward i guess miss uh miss mrs graven is not in the audience or anybody else from the coastal commission yeah that's a shame i got a few questions or are actually comments probably i find this this process um uh well appalling is really only where you can come up with right now that we uh have an agency a government agency that puts these type of restrictions on property owners on and i don't i'm not going to argue climate change with anybody that's not what it's about really let's just give it the credit and say there is sea rise although the document they use from the 2012 nrc says it's synthetic data meaning we don't have the data so they use computer models to present that but let's just say it is what and let's say that uh it'd be unfortunate for uh the morrises maybe in 35 years 50 years to have their house teetering on the edge of the bluff but you know sometimes we take risk as property owners you look at what happened up at the campfire in paradise we just lost what nearly 14 000 homes up there but that fire had been predicted for 50 years up there and uh we live in environments like that you're going to live on the bluff you take an accepted risk and as mr oliver said it's it's almost um ridiculous they have to state the obvious so i would almost agree that not to go along with the coastal commissions recommendations even for item one i to me uh and we're we're going through this process with the uh this the adoption with the city council right now with the coastal commission right now but this idea that they can tell us we can are the property owners along the the bluff can only do improvements up to 50 percent unless they're going to re-riff their house and that can only be so many years and by the way it's not just on the bluff it's also along the riparian the creek that goes up those homes up there are under the same restrictions i find way overreaching from the coastal commission you know what take i'm all for having our safe Monterey bay i'm glad that um it's a sanctuary bay and that we take care of the water out there and we i'm all for all that but property owners uh should not be um have to deal with the this bureaucracy you look at the expenses even at the 116 grand they had to do a report uh a geological report the morsies had to do a geological study the coastal commission didn't do their math correctly the first time until the attorneys caught the error in their their math and had to set back much closer than what it was so um and and now they had to pay attorneys the morsy have to pay attorneys on top of that i i'm venting is what i'm doing right now but i hope the city as we go through uh the adoption of our zoning uh codes with the coastal commission holds fast and unfortunately we're a very small community and it would be nice to be you know working in uh collaboration with the whole coastal in the state to stand up to the coastal commission because uh i i don't know how in 15 20 years when they need a new roof they're going to have to come up and say well you're beyond your 50 percent uh valuation so now you don't you're not allowed to do the repairs on your house and anyone who lives on the bluff uh or anywhere in capitol especially the bluff realizes that you know windows for example uh have to be replaced there's a lot of work that goes on to maintain these houses so um i wish someone from the coastal commission was here so i could vent to them and not to you and not to the people in the tv audience but um yeah this this is very unfortunate so i'm all for the project but i would uh be in favor of not adding the uh item number one is recommended by staff do we want to come to a quick finish the public hearing i think that we did we probably need to close uh we weren't getting your way tj i think we had a commissioner who was anxious to get some comments in hi dan germes fused architects on the architect on the project the morseys wish they could be here they're out of town unfortunately um i just wanted to state that um we've been this project's been a long time in the works and we actually had a more extensive proposal that still fit within the lcp and based on our discussions the morseys wanting to do kind of what they thought was best in the interest of the city of capitol and working with the coastal commission we actually worked extensively with the planning department and with coastal commission going back and forth sending them documents figuring it out and they agreed with us they agreed with everything that they had proposed to us and all the restrictions that they had set and so what happened is that the last minute they came back with some more stuff that became that obviously is what mr oliver stated and it was frustrating for us because the morseys have spent a lot of time and committed a lot of their efforts and our efforts into doing this and to presenting a project that we thought would be a great addition to the city capitol and so we agree with planning staff's initial recommendations and we hope that you guys agree as well and that this project can move forward thank you thank you is there anyone else in the public that would like to speak to us before we officially close our public hearing okay we'll close comments from the public and bring it back to the commission we've heard from commissioner welch i'd like to hear from the balanced man at the end thank you for your comment at the beginning well first this is just kind of an aside it's interesting to me that the coastal commission has evolved over time for the first ten or whatever years the coastal commission was at war with individual property owners um fighting cases and winning most of them and now it's at war with local jurisdictions up and down california though the battle is between the coastal commission and the cities and the counties has kind of shifted here we have the property owner too but i do have a concern about this that the fact that all the new construction is inside the bluff line is significant to me if there were anything that were over the bluff line maybe we'd have a little different issue here but the only concern i have is notice to future property owners as property owner that there is a there is an issue here with least with the coastal commission and when we approve something members of the public tend to make that more than it is sometimes and think that because the staff approved it or because the planning commission approved it that everything is fine and there can't be any any further problems with it but here there is there is a potential issue with armoring down the road on this property which i think it would be nice to anybody i probably anybody who buys the property be aware of that anyway but so i kind of favor what the staff has recommended they have some kind of notification included in the conditions and i mean i i even thought some kind of deed restriction notice would be appropriate also because we do do that on on occasions so that anyone who got into this property would at least have their eyes open eyes to that issue other than that i mean i i have no problem with the application okay um before serving here i was a realtor and i know that in the state of california disclosure laws are detailed and deep and if you know anything you have to disclose it or there's trouble to be bound the problem that i have with the recommendation from staff and and i really appreciate that you did review it with the attorneys and that you've eliminated a lot of the conditions but the wording of this is not something that um i'm really comfortable with if it said something to the effect of in 2018 when this remodel was done this was the map and this is where the 50 year lines were i would be fine with that you know conditioning that that notice needs to be somehow attached to the property but the way that they've gone about each and every bullet um if i were putting myself in the place of the homeowner and looking at it myself i'd go hire an attorney to review it before i'd be comfortable signing that so i don't think that i have enough knowledge legally in this case to condition that all of those items have to be included so what i'm hearing from you just so i'm clear is that you're not in favor of adding this condition number one that was recommended by the community development director that's correct and commissioner welch the same way um commissioner newman attended to favor having that condition added i don't think it's particularly harmful to the applicant uh just as i stated i think the additional notice is a good idea i don't really see how it affects the progress of the project in any way well i think we're sort of divided because i i agree with uh commissioner newman i i don't see the harm in adding this particular condition to the application and i also think that over the years we have had a pretty consistent history of including a condition that we have something record recorded that would make future property owners aware of issues like this on properties and i don't think that would be something new that we were doing just because the coastal commission you know it had come up on this application uh my recollection is it's been done a number of times throughout the city for for various issues um so i'm trying to figure out where where we go well i'll i'll move because i'll tell you i i'm totally in favor of the project and really my only bent against it is given the coastal commission any any a hand in this and because i'm just obviously frustrated with their overreach so i don't think it's it's asking too much of it to me it's stating the obvious as it was mentioned so i could move to include that i just think again it's on that so i think when um as mentioned in fact i'm kind of familiar with this house being sold there's a lot of studies that get happen when people so it's not like they're going to go into it naïve and also well we didn't know that the the ocean was a harm to our property but if that's what it's going to take to move it forward then i'm not going to obviously vote against it i just don't see the need um if i may we forwarded um our intent to bring this to you tonight with the change in the recommendation to add the condition number one so the attorney may have spoken with the morrises and i'm not sure if they're open to it wasn't exactly clear to me whether or not if condition one is on the permit if that's an issue or acceptable i apologize i understand that public comments have been closed but um i guess at a minimum i would ask that the word the be added okay as commissioner smith is suggested and then and then we can go from there um but again i i yeah i made my point so okay thank you yeah under discussion i mean in a way this might be beneficial to the applicant because it doesn't really slow down their project and it may prevent uh an appeal i understood you know i agree okay so we have consensus about adding a condition one with the word the added in as recommended by commissioner smith and the other item um which you raised was the restriction the deed restriction and i i agree with you that we do that quite often and i mean it would actually be the exception if we didn't i mean don't we have i don't like their language but don't we have a more standard language for a deed restriction in this situation yes um you know we utilize deed restrictions all the time with secondary units making it clear that the owner has to either live in the primary home or the second home so there there could be a deed restriction on this that it's subject to a coastal development i think i i can check back at old permits i haven't run into one recently and i've been looking at fluff permits well let me try a motion to approve and may i go go ahead to approve the project with uh the condition one as proposed by uh the staff and a deed restriction condition that is not as proposed by the coastal commission but is a standard capitol deed restriction for this situation hey can we have a second i can't go that far now i i can you got me part away but i can't go with the deed restriction clarify the deed restriction the deed restriction would simply um notice that there's hazard here yes basically notice condition one i'll second that motion okay not any of the wording here and not any of the item number four real estate disclosure but just a standard that we've used in the past for bluff hazard notice so it's not really restricting anything on the deed it's simply a notice on the deed okay so we have a motion in a second um do we want to have any more discussion or go for the vote well i i'm i'm kind of holding tight i i met you part away there i i don't i can't i just don't want to give them any more than what they have but to me it's a it's just obvious and anyone purchasing is going to understand so i don't know the need to add more conditions on a project that would if it was the next lot over we we would have been on the consent calendar so i guess my logic is i don't want to penalize these guys i'm not gonna penalize we're gonna get this passed tonight one way or the other okay all right so uh can we have a roll call vote yes commissioner welch no commissioner smith yes commissioner newman yes and vice chair westman okay thank you congratulations so the project passes and sam can come back and i'm excuse my voice again but hopefully at the end of the meeting we can have a little further discussion about the new zoning ordinance and coastal requirements okay thank you susan let's move on to item five b which is uh an update to the general plan land use element and land use map staff report please let's take one minute to fix my display settings all right there we go okay no okay before you tonight is the general plan cleanup our general plan was originally adopted in 2014 and we brought rich actually gruno the previous community development director brought suggested changes to you in march and i'm sorry that i'm back in december with the final edits but we also he brought them to city council as well and it wasn't on the i should have got it here sooner but anyway we've got it out it was noticed for a 60 day period to the public and notice was sent to all the entities that need to be noticed for a general plan update we've circulated notice throughout capitol i'm sure you've seen the signs around town for all properties that are going to be changed under the land use map and really what we're doing is um some cleanup here there were some issues with our previous land use map within the general plan that we caught at the time of updating the zoning map there are also items that were after all the conversations on the zoning map that the general direction in the land use map was incorrect and we took a step back to say okay now this is the direction we're going with the zoning codes or general plan land use map needs to echo it um and then there were a couple specific items that when this was brought to you previously um there was the recommendation to proceed with the recommended changes but also clarification that the parcel with additional floria ratio was specifically for the capitol a theater site and then also that the land use map should reflect the the the zoning code and in the terminology that we use such as instead of sf r1 and just make it really easy for the general public to understand and for us to understand so with that i'm going to jump into the proposed changes to the land use section element of the general plan and then after that i have a slide for each of the properties that was under review for the land use map and i'll ask which ones you'd like me to speak to rather than going through every single property and if members of the public are here with questions i'll have slides and i can provide explanations of any of the proposed changes we have had quite a few phone calls this week due to all the posting that was placed around town and the notices that went out so um so the first change is a revision to the land use table now that the wristband to add the planned wristband mansion park and then to remove the term planned in front of McGregor park also to revise the image of the map to show the wristband park on the map parks next this is that one of the larger items that i think you may want to discuss this evening but in our previous general plans throughout the years there's only been a maximum density related to residential uses so within different residential uses for multifamily there's specific densities that can be achieved from anywhere from one 10 units per acre up to 20 units per acre but under commercial there's never been a maximum dwelling units per acre it's always been a subject of floria ratio so really what a developer can achieve within a certain box is how it's always been regulated under the general plan and here i have the old general plan up and you'll see the note that commercial for commercial it allows for different different intensities and types of commercial activities within the community and that's really speaking to the fact that there isn't a limited number of dwelling units per acre um and under the new general plan that was the intent um residential there's max densities and then within the commercial there's max floria ratios that were assigned and within the new general plan there's also those incentivized areas that were all well aware of one in the village at the theater site and one on 41st avenue on the next slide the the old zoning code was also consistent with that how the old general plan was commercial and mixed use zones never had max density limits they were controlled by floria ratio and development standards however the new zoning code there is a new maximum of 20 units per acre that's shown in the community commercial and sorry it's the regional commercial and the community commercial zones under the new code the mixed use neighborhood which is previously cn still does not have a max density limit i believe that the max limit was accidentally put into the new zoning code i i went back and it came at the first zoning draft that was published it was in there i don't know why there you know it wasn't one of our issue and options items that we discussed you know typically when folks call in and ask such as like the mall property what's the max density there the answer has always been oh it's floria ratio but i'll let you know that under the residential it can go up as high as one per 20 so we wouldn't suggest going over the one to 20 one per 20 it's really just a good frame of reference but so this in me taking over this project of the general plan update it's in realizing our new code has a maximum in the community commercial and regional commercial if we want to keep with the original thinking that you look at form and you look at development standards within your commercial zones then i would suggest that when we do our zoning code update that we remove the one per the 20 per acre so that that would support the proposed revision here that this it was a clarification that residential uses in commercial mixed use land use designations shall be subject to far and not density calculations and i put sorry this image here to show that it's not you can't tell by the box how many dwelling units are in there but they had to fit within the box the floria ratio and that's how it would be calculated under the new code so that is staff's suggestion there i don't know if you'd like me to stop to because i think this is the one item that yeah that's in my mind this is a significant item it may be a good well maybe the pause and see if there's questions from commissioners on this issue or i raised this item with staff simply because they saw there was this contradiction going on which didn't make sense to me but i agree with their analysis you know in the general plan we've always used floor area ratio not density and you know i'm comfortable with that because that's going to regulate you know the size and shape of the box that's going to go there and for me personally i'm not concerned as long as they meet you know the parking requirements which they would have to whether they're you know four small units in there or two medium-sized units i think that's something that the to be evaluated project by project with the developers right thank you um anyone dj no no i would just concur that i i think we could clean that up and you know i would agree okay um i did have a i mean i wanted to ask you know this question that may be raised this concern um i think normally i would be fine with reverting to the you know floor area ratio and our other form standards within the commercial zone for residential within the commercial zone however with the movement coming from sacramento to encourage the development of more housing and to prohibit local jurisdictions from using for example parking standards i i'm just i i well i wanted to ask what do you see is maybe the consequence of that and if we eliminate the density all together could we find ourselves maybe creating such density and not being able to assert our parking requirements and of course we know what the consequences of that may be so i i think i just wanted to ask um along those lines and what those impacts may be and and maybe this is just a matter of passing on our recommendations and concerns to the city council on these particular questions excellent question within the density bonus regulations you're allowed to add to actually what the box would be so what the floor area would be you're allowed to utilize so many exceptions depending on what type of affordable project you're bringing forward and the amount and the level of affordability so i'd like to take time with that and i could put that into the staff report if you want to recommend that we move forward to city council or i can return with more conversation about this in the new year but i i can take a closer look at what those regulations you know what the impact could be because my next slide is actually talking about the fact that in our general plan currently we don't specify the different levels of densities that are allowed within mix within multifamily and how that could hurt us within the density bonus calculations and that's why we want to tie those back into our general plan so excellent point and i i'd like to sit down and pencil this out to make sure i understand exactly what the implications could be if we don't have a density tied to our commercial areas well i was thinking with the clairs project that we did didn't we run into that problem where our density bonus density was in this 20 per acre was more lenient than what the state was doing so it seems to me like it was kind of hurting us in that project so that's why i was right as i recall we were required to round up right on the calculations right you know and and i know we have the bonuses for affordable housing and i certainly support that but i'm even i mean the atmosphere that i'm noticing out of Sacramento and with their i guess push to provide more housing and for local jurisdictions to meet their rena numbers they're required you know housing numbers i'm afraid that that i am but i can just see that going to well now all parking requirements for any type of housing are being eliminated and i just think i mean that would be serious consequences to us now on the question i i guess i'll leave it up to other commissioners whether you would like to those of you that are going to be going continuing on would like to see this come back to you for more discussion before moving in on the city council negative to getting more input on this are we holding it up in some way no um there's no negative we can bring it back it's been noticed it doesn't need to be you know we would just continue it and well from my view i think it would be worthwhile for it to maybe for katie to be able to study that look at the real consequences on our community and to bring back a fuller nas analysis to the planning commission great well carry on to the next item in the land yes thank you element um so this speaks to exactly what happened on the claire street project they were in a multi-family low density zone at 12 at 10 dwelling units per acre and the um the density bonus program written by the state states that the applicant is subject to the density as um outlined in either the zoning code or the general plan and our general plan was not specific about the um multi-family low it just states that design the the multi-family designation as 20 units per acre is how it was worded so we'd like to modify that to say designation is between 10 to 20 dwelling units per acre depending on the zoning classification then i'd also suggest adding parentheses after that to make it really clear that rml is 10 dwelling units per acre rmm is 15 and rmh is 20 so there's absolutely no just question that it's it's in sync with both documents so um and then next is visitor accommodation so previously we've had visitor accommodation as a um as a land use designation within the within the code when we updated the zoning the zoning map we got rid of the just visitors serving and the um we have visitor serving now as an overlay and all um all zones have will have a an underlying zone such as the monarch coven became r1 with the vs overlay these again these document the maps have to be in sync so by removing the visitors serving in the zoning code we need to remove the visitor accommodations and the general plan land use map so they'll have their underlying zone shown in the land use map and of course under the zoning code they're still privy privy to the visitors serving uses and there'll be an overlay as well on the general plan land use maps so they're just again reflecting one another and being in sync and then this is relative to the theater site so prior it set a hotel in the village and now we're specifying a hotel in the village at the former capitol a theater site for the increased floor ratio allowance is it adequate to call it the former capitol a theater site or should we put an apn in there and be really specific i mean does it matter i believe this is adequate um there's actually about three different apns for that site i think we added the apns into the zoning code so if you'd like the apns i'm happy to add them just clarify for people that don't know where the theater was because the farther we get away from it having been there okay so add apns right and katie on that factor of 3.0 um for that site did you see in the records where that there was any estimation of the number of hotel units would would be generated from that factor no but it was very clear that you can't go i don't know the number and i don't think that was part i i do recall the the discussion at the time of general plan adoption regarding this number and then also it would be allowed on 41st avenue and landing on a floria ratio that was okay but i don't recall and i apologize designs created during that process for the site i think there were around 40 units or something like that i could oh yeah some well some of the initial designs were up to 80 units and so what i would just encourage you know future commissioners to try to correlate that factor with what may potentially be built there in terms of the number of units because i think the number of units is what has the greatest impact and i know that that's a discretionary number the 3.0 on the part of the council but um i i would just caution and hopefully the commissioners and council will evaluate that question when they're relooking at that and look in the impacts in the village and another thing i noted in the staff report is that on 41st avenue the factor is 2.0 and i couldn't i couldn't quite logically figure out why it's 2.0 on 41st avenue which has the greatest land or land area and ability to do development and 3.0 in the village which is much more constrained so it just didn't that those didn't seem to be consistent in my mind and so i just wanted to bring that up and maybe you know maybe have you look at that as well when you bring it back sure and i um in terms of the 3.0 you know the the other limiting factor was that the bluff has to the top of the bluff green has to stay visible from certain point so i think the 3.0 but as well as knowing that there's a large bluff behind it and that that view had to be maintained was a comfortable box at the end of the day but um yes i recall that meeting when there is a lot of debate and when that final number came through so and we do have a diagram in the general plan that shows what the former capital of theater property is and there are a number of other restrictions in there about you know how tall the hotel can be so all of those probably should be looked at and next was this was along the same lines of cleaning things up after the zoning code update and the zoning code we clarified where the additional floor area could be um and that it would include the entire mall property so that's more clear in the new explanation um i have slides on each of the changes to the map i have a feeling we may have a couple questions on certain locations so with that we're recommending approval or continuation tonight of this matter but with that i'll conclude my presentation and i'm happy to bring up any slides all right thank you um any other questions from commissioners on katie's report are there any members of the audience that would like to address the commission um on the general plan report hearing none um no come on up yeah i'm a 35 year resident of capitola and i have some concerns about the change of the zoning change for the 9 11 property on capitol avenue for a multi-use and existing there right now is a historic building it's the carriage house and the tea room that was built in the 1870s and i'm just curious on what the multi-use would make changes to this or what would be happening to those structures okay um so currently this property um was i'll talk about the general plan map first and then the zoning map the general plan historically has shown this property as multi-family and it's always had a commercial use upfront and then residential in the back but it's like a business and it's in a business in the back so um during the zoning code update we realized there were there were two designations on there at the front of the property was a mixed use designation of community neighborhood commercial neighborhood commercial and the rear portion of the property was zoned for multi-family medium density so when we cleaned up the zoning uh map we said this is really the better fit for this to allow flexibility in the site is mixed use neighborhood you're actually allowed to have residential mixed use within the mixed use neighborhood so it really fits the historic structure in the front it will not impact because we have separate standards for historic so should they choose to come forward with the development proposal this is one of the oldest structures in capitol and it would be protected under our our requirements for historic preservation okay that was my concern thank you thank you anyone else wish to address the commission on this okay okay i'm gonna see none i'm gonna close the public hearing portion of the meeting i'll bring it back for uh to commissioners and see what your will is i guess we're gonna continue at least that one issue and we want to approve this as a package i think don't we or do we want to take it part by part um i think it'd be best to approve it as a package and it would probably be helpful for me to educate the new planning commissioners on it in the next in january so they're all aware and we should probably just continue so i'd just like to make a couple of comments since i'm not going to be here at the next meeting um i did go through um all the comments and and from march to october it's it from march to december actually it's been a long time but i was really impressed with the the level of matching between all of my notes and all the conversations that we had and i i couldn't find anything you missed um the the 20 in commercial i didn't have any notes explaining anything about that so i'm kind of with you i don't know why that was in there like that i would caution as sam said and really you know figuring it out because when i think about some of the projects that we've seen we did manage it um we managed the number of units based on the parking and we determined that um certain projects really couldn't happen them the way that they needed to pencil out for the developer because of that restriction so if we lose that and we remove any maximum it could really present a a crazy place in the mall site specifically but i i just wanted to say my hats off to you for you know getting it getting it done and getting it um to this commission um and there was a lot going on last year so don't don't feel bad about that thank you understandable thank you linda for your comments and with that i guess is there a motion to continue this item to um well we'll just say future meeting um let's actually if we could say a date certain because there was a lot of noticing involved with the mapping so all right the january it's not our typical it's the third uh i give you no time to the next plan of the next planning commission meeting that will give me plenty of time okay okay so there's a motion to uh continue the item and to the next planning commission meeting um well i'll make that motion okay there's been a motion made and seconded i'll second it and then second it all in favor i isn't that a reverse frequency that's what you call shoveling it off kicking the can down the street moving it down the motion passes unanimously um the next item is item five c which is uh a proposed guidance document on story polls and kitty you want to give a presentation on this actually sasha is going to give the presentation on this this evening thank you sasha on september 6 2018 the planning commission asked staff to consider developing story poll guidance for applicants this presentation provides an overview of the guidelines created by staff a detailed guide will be posted on the community development department's website the city of capitol planning commission may ask applicants to have story polls and project identification signs installed on the site of an active development application story polls help illustrate the massing and height of a proposed structure and make it easier for city residents and staff to understand a project they also provide a visual notice to the community that a development is being considered on a particular property when story polls are required the applicant must submit a story poll plan to show the locations where the polls will be installed the polls and netting should be installed one week prior to the planning commission hearing and be kept in place until the project has been acted upon and the appeal period has ended the number of story polls may vary with each project but they must demonstrate the height and mass of the project and be constructed of sturdy material at least two-foot wide orange woven plastic netting must be erected to represent the roof lines of the proposed structure once installed a licensed surveyor or a civil engineer must submit written verification that the height and position of the polls and netting accurately represents the height and location of the proposed structure sites where story polls are required must have a color perspective drawing and project identification signs that indicate the scheduled public hearing date and availability of plans for review at the community development department once a final action is taken and the appeal period is over the polls and netting must be removed at the applicant's expense within 30 days thank you that's the policy i think one thing that at 210 central and that application went through we should have had a color rendering on site i think a lot of people would have walked by and like looked at the image and understood what was going on rather than just a notice stating that there is an addition proposed to be really nice for them to put the pieces of the puzzle together yeah that's what i was thinking because i did hear people expressing not knowing what those were for what what do they represent what am i looking at yeah i was wondering could we add something to the project identification sign that would inform folks about if there were story polls what what they're meant to represent that is in the draft document that it be required to have a color rendering it you know we should probably move it earlier rendering no it doesn't seem seems to me that that that's a pretty expensive little item to add in there maybe just a rendering because that would come with the plans in elevations an elevation or something like that i don't think we want to go to making them do a colored rendering okay but we will i'm not even sure if you had a even a rendering when people are just looking at the orange netting and if there's nothing explaining what is that what's that meant to show if you have a drawing of what it's going to look like that would help them understand what they're looking at but a colored rendering is something quite different than yeah okay i i think the confusion is that where we wrote it in the pamphlet the information that you're required to all we're also required to have the elevation or the rendering on site is beyond it's after the noticing requirement so we'll do a better job of putting that statement earlier in the document because i think um it's easily missed okay okay so you have the you have the sign that says notice of a proposed development that describes what's happening here and then if netting is required then you also have some kind of a sketch or drawing or that's acceptable to the community development department that's my understanding of what that yeah anytime there's story pulls there would have to be an image of what the story pulls represent okay i have some comments on this i think the criteria are very good but what's missing is some standards for when we require these and i think they should it should be very rare absolutely because number one i think they're an eyesore number two i think they're misleading and our last example that was the best example all these people signed a petition and thought the empire state building was being recreated and depot hill and it was all mistake it's all a big mistake um i think you need to get a coastal permit because it's a development under the coastal act to put those up yeah and uh yeah so i think we should be very uh we should have something in there about when story pulls are required and i think it should be very uh rarely i mean the standard should be a bit tough one i would suggest that we place that in the uh design in our chapter on architectural and site review and design permits so that it's actually in the code i'd hate to make a determination of when they're required in a poll in yeah in a policy document that should really it belongs in the code so when we when we do our revisions to the code i'll put that in as a note as something we need to because it just says upon request if if the planning planning commission yeah it actually says the city so we could make that much clearer that only upon the request of the planning commission i was thinking we should have like a supermajority requirement or something i'm i'm with commissioner numeral i'm totally against the netting one i mean it's it's a cost thing it's a cost issue and really it comes out of i don't want to say the word hysteria it comes out of maybe some uh misleading concerns of neighborhoods of people and i think as planning commissioners we can make that determination and where you see this orange netting is where they have other standards in place uh for um view concept like car mail for example it's because of viewshad uh solar light i mean there's a lot of different things and for me i think it's that slippery slope but i i've been pretty negative tonight so i didn't want i'm glad you got up there and i'm not done being negative so yeah that's all the bike thing to go so i'm with commissioner numeral on this i think i think it's not if we're going to make someone do it then i we need a standard obviously but to have a policy that it's like this is what we do it just to me i think is misleading and i hate to see this uh start going down a path and the 210 central is a good example because they met all the requirements of any structure other than the that a historical home so the massing would have never been a discussion and we you know it's just a big expense i think for the homeowner that's unnecessary but it gives opponents a tool an extra tool kind of delay and defer and absolutely thank you yeah i actually agree with both of you i i think they do tend to be pretty much of an eyesore and i think for the average person it's hard for them to judge or get a perspective from probably there are going to be some cases however where because of community concerns and your desire to work with the community you're going to want to ask that they be put up so it's nice to have a standard of what they should be but it seems like that should come from the planning commission if you feel there's no other valid way or option to solve that particular development and i guess my question would be can it be an industry standard that we refer to it so it's not like a policy or so it's just okay we we're going to request this for whatever certain situation that rare circumstance that we decide to do that and then we have a document to say this is the standard that's not something that's really available to to make it so it becomes a an exception that's used more often than we want it to yeah we can look at how it's been applied in different jurisdictions and show you different thresholds right if a house meets the requirements for heights and they're not going above the height limit and what would be the necessity for them i agree well if i may i'm going to present a different point of view and and one i think that the reason this has come up is because we did ask for that particular project to put in story polls and i know i mean on the two years that i've been on the commission and and then involved with the council i don't believe that it's ever been done i don't think this is meant to say that well now this is become a standard part of the process i think it is going to be rare uh and based upon time and place kind of circumstances um and the benefit that i see in it and what because what i view is that we are assessing projects based upon two-dimensional renderings they're all just two-dimensional pictures and drawings and lines on paper and i don't think that we or the community gets a real sense of what is going there and when you have and there we were dealing with a historical structure which and in that case there was a house just down the street which had been built without story polls and and and it is fairly overwhelming in that neighborhood and i think that that's what brought these together so i think there are circumstances when there are appropriate and i think this policy is just about well if we want to have that tool um that there should be some standards that we can refer applicants to to be able to use but i i mean it should be on a limited basis when the planning commission feels that it is necessary to do and hopefully that will be under rare and unusual circumstances so um but i do i mean i think one it gets us out of of you know trying to um process um you know three-dimensional projects based mostly on two-dimensional renderings um so so that's that and um so i i guess the now where we are is um maybe me asking the public is anyone in the public that i would like to join this conversation yeah peter come on up thank you peter wilk um i have no problem with story polls the thing that got me was uh you know you mentioned something about being certified so i actually was requested at one point have story polls put up and i envisioned it to okay i need to put up six foot and some orange netting and and done but the notion of then having me go out and have somebody our survey with their land survey or certify the height i think the idea was just that there was a commissioner who wanted to get a sense like sam was just saying of you know what what what it looks like and i again i hate to put an undue burden on the applicant um to ask you know to get more more expense with consultants and surveyors and that kind of thing all right thank you peter thank you so i'm a little confused we have a policy here that's great except it doesn't tell us when to use them and how do we approve this policy but also add something to our design review standards that says something along the lines that story polls are an option in an unusual situation where there's a perceived need that can't be met in other ways can we not just use it as it stay like as a guidance document not as a policy it can be just more of a pamphlet that that's available the frustration on the part of the owners when the story polls were requested and we had nothing in place so this can be our you know more of a pamphlet not a policy um and then we should come back to you with the edits to the zoning code to state when yeah when when it it's appropriate and i also kind of got hung on the certified somebody certified has to come and look and i know that we want to make sure that what we're looking at is really representative of what's going to get built but it's usually the contractor that's involved that actually puts up the story polls and i think that should be that that should be good enough we shouldn't have an additional verification requirement on top so the example there would be on warfroad when they um he was 1890 warfroad the strong residents they they put together polls and they showed what the future garage the location of it would be and the height and they based it on their measuring tapes but that was a voluntary measurements for it was voluntary and measurements from the fence but whether or not the peak that you saw was it exactly the height that a surveyor would have said it was that and they they their guys knew what they were doing and they're going to build this in the future so it's probably pretty close story polls i mean they're up there moving around yeah it's going it's not going to be you know eight of an inch so if you're if you're comfortable with that we can rewrite that portion to make it yeah it's a more general homegrown really there to generally tell you what the massing is going to be they're not they're not ever expected to be absolute okay um you guys feel like you have the direction to maybe i do work this and yeah we'll come back with the when i'm not here yeah i'm not here either yeah but we'll have a little pamphlet in case it ever comes up again but that'll be available okay next uh but bike share so the city council asked staff we brought bike share to them in um early october and they asked us to can to start looking into researching bike share and reach out to the public and see if there's support in capitol for bike share as we're seeing all the little red bikes show up in town regardless of having a bike share program or not so i looked into some of the policy documents that we have our long-range planning documents our 2011 bicycle transportation plan is definitely supportive of a future bike share it's interesting you know we talk about 20 percent of trips and increase from um city by goal of five percent of all trips and 20 percent of work trips made by by school by 2020 actually bike share is a great way to measure that now that the smart technology is there and we can see ridership will actually be able to come to and say the new how we're meeting certain goals through this new technology also under the general plan there's um you know calls for complete streets enhancement for mobility throughout capitol and capitol village and a complete network of bike ways and bicycle facilities in capitol so definitely again supportive of bicycle infrastructure and the possibility of bike share and then the climate action plan actually calls out encourage and support non-profit or volunteer organization and creating a bicycle program i i think the reason why it says um a non-profit or volunteer organizations because as the city we don't want to take on the cost of these in the previous um ways that bicycle shares were set up but now we're there at no cost to cities if you set set up the contracts correctly um i think that would have that measure would have been drafted differently under today's new programs that are out there so bike share growth in the u.s i found this fascinating how much it's taken off from 2010 to 2016 and this has a lot to do with the new technology that's tied to bikes and also the pedal assist it's really i don't know if any of you have ridden these the jump bikes or gotten on an electric bike but it's really amazing what how you can ride up a hill and it feels like you're on flat level ground it's made it a lot of fun and uh what happened to the ones that aren't electric i think they're they're i think they're getting phased out you know i heard of someone recently told me of a story of going traveling to denver and they have their own the old bike share program that nobody's utilizing and it's the and then they've had other systems come in and everyone's utilizing the electric and they're using the scooters so like two years ago there was hundreds of line bikes all over the place you couldn't even avoid them and now they're you can't even find them it disappeared there's no time because they're not set up for the electric and i wondered why we're doing an electric version rather than a pedal well it's both really they're both there's like electric and yeah so it only assists you when you need it to you know it don't have to utilize the electric all the time so it depends on the bike so jump bikes the electric kicks in as soon as you start pedaling so it really makes it a really easy bicycle ride um so i actually had the opportunity to go out with multiple community development directors in the region and we went and tested the bikes and we had a lunch and we talked about bike share different but you get on these bikes in there those ones are automatically pedal assist i think you can buy different types of technology you know different types of bikes to trigger it on or off so the new the new smart technology is the electric bikes they've got gps so they can track these anywhere you can pay for them so just on my phone walking up to a bike it gives me i tell them where i am they tell them where the bike is it gives me a code that i can put into the back of the bicycle and they pretty much are they're dockless they are self-locking or they can be locked um they have that little bar that goes out that can be locked to anything so and here it's showing just the the gps technology this is what you would see on your phone for santa cruz you go to a red dot and you pay for it and pick up the bike and they're relatively inexpensive so the first what are the black dots i think they're in use possibly or i'm not quite sure what the black dot is docking station oh that's the docking station which i've noticed there's not typically bikes on the docking stations unless you see them first thing in the morning when they've been um so the steps to establishing a bike share program public outreach and research that's where we are now um the other ones are not in any specific order based on another step is that we'd have to select a vendor we also have to under our circumstances i'd like to update the municipal code to make it um one of the biggest problems with bike share is parking and where they're parked and how they're in the way and parked anywhere our municipal code is not very strong in in regulating that right now and i'm preparing if there's with the support that i'm seeing for bike share so far to go to the city council in early of next year to look at new bicycle parking standards and regardless if we adopt a bike share program i think we have to make those tighter because bike share if it's adopted by the county is definitely coming to us where it's out of our hands at that point and then also encroachment permits we're going to look at the language and encroachment permits to make sure that they're strong enough um if we're going to be considering more bicycle parking um infrastructure so the public outreach we um put out a community survey for a month and we um noticed that on our website and we put little cards around town and some of the restaurants and coffee shops we had a pretty good feedback on that and i'll bring up a couple of the items that came back i've also presented this to the commission on environment and the traffic and parking committee so really good comments came out of both of those one for the commission on the environment one really good point was well how do they are when we look at vendors make sure they're responsible and how they recycle the batteries and then a lot of concern about parking the the bikes and just really thinking about the village because of the tight circumstances in the village and how we can manage that and then uh research we've been looking at best practices so that when we do move forward with new standards to make sure that we've really thought it through and how we can prevent any issues um contacting different bike share companies seeing what's out there and then one of the big things is within Santa Cruz if we really want this to replace the car for certain trips um looking at regional coordination so we've been talking with the county seeing what they're doing we definitely know what Santa Cruz is doing we've had to look at their contract so we're just going through those steps and seeing could you know how could we set this up so it really is an alternative at the regional scale to the car um and then from all of that research we'll identify the appropriate program parameters and move forward selecting a vendor and i already discussed this that we'll have to update the municipal code looking at street vending bicycle parking and encroachment permits and the more i look into the parking there's good examples out there of cities where they just don't allow bike shares to have their um there's uh just areas in which you simply just don't allow the bikes um and i'm sorry i'm forgetting the name of there's a you know we're mussel beaches down in venice so venice along their um coastal um sidewalk there you're not allowed to take the bike share bikes on there and i think one influence of that is probably because they've already established a great rental program there with local companies that are renting all these bicycles out but they're getting to the point and i actually saw it um when i was down there as you would see scooters approaching that area and then they they have some type of technology that they can't get on to the sidewalk and get on to that area so that there's the technology is that smart that it avoids the avoids the issue in talking to the planner down there they don't have that technology built into the bikes yet but they built it into their regulations so at such times the technology is available they want the bikes to decrease their speed limit when they come into certain areas so something we can you know ask for and request it's not here yet but it's a dreamy idea and it may help us in the village in the future but um so we'll be we'll be looking at are there areas in different ways to warn folks when they go to park especially in the village like this is you know they can you can get a message sent to your phone that makes them aware that they have to be parked to bicycle docking station or so in in well the jump bikes do they have in their business model like incentives to have riders return them to the docking station so santa cruz is um requesting that they build that into their program now so if you return a bike to a docking station you could actually get a monetary uh money back or you know so incentives age limit there is um you're supposed to be 18 to ride these bikes um because the helmet you have to wear a helmet at 18 so yeah i saw that that was a big concern was the helmet issue and who is the uber vendor because i was reading your survey there's a lot of anti uber bike people that's jump jump is okay yep uber about jump do we know what the problem what the the people who were complaining about that one specifically do we know what their issue is with the jump bikes you know it wasn't clear so um so a little bit on the bike survey results when we asked you know do you support bike share which best describes you there was straight support for 60 by 60 percent we um we had a standard at the bottom that said i support bike share as long as the city you know as long as we consider this and 25 percent of our responses were in that category so really high um 85 percent support some of those comments were safety of the bicyclists and the pedestrians utilize the same system as Santa Cruz that regional aspect um make sure there's permanent drop in pickup sites prevent bike parking issues observe bike laws it was safety safety safety most of the comments and then helmet safety and limit the number of bikes so limiting the number of bikes we would want to do a staggered rollout to make sure there's not too much of a implication on the residents um if the city to or initiate a bike share program which of the following would you prefer and regional was definitely we heard that loud and clear so again we're talking with the county talking with the city oops sorry about that okay which of the following would you like to see included in new bicycle parking regulations so the number one was offered incentives so people park them correctly so we'll definitely talk to the vendor future vendor about that um do not lock them to trees however make sure they're locked to a fixed object and to allow them in public spaces as long as there's no problems with flow so and then the others park on any curb if there was something there they could lock them to it seemed it was more about um yeah as long as you maintain as long as so that one was kind of more open ended of allow people to park so yep you could park on maybe um wide sidewalk a wide sidewalk as long as you maintain a certain area or you could park your bicycle in the park as long as it wasn't on the foot path and it's in the grass and out of the way of interfering with any circulation that one was a little bit unclear and then the others that the comments that were generated under other were to limit to designated areas no parking on sidewalk so a little more restrictive than the make sure this four feet of clearance just flat out don't allow them on sidewalks um make sure there's more bike racks i think that's the best approach actually in this when we're looking at bike share is make sure there's plenty of bike racks and that there's penalties so um and in thinking this through as you go through Santa Cruz and you see all of their docking stations i almost think it would be better for Capitola after seeing these docking stations that are empty a lot of the time that we just um have a standard eyes you see those like the loop bicycle parking stations that just have something standard so if i ride to work on my regular bike and and i'm going to work in the village i can i don't feel like i'm attaching to some private company's bike um rack it's everyone can utilize them but they should be plentiful and then one of the big things we heard throughout the survey was concerned for the village this picture was taken a few days ago and just we really need to the village did you guys stage this no oh no it was uh were they left there for a long time i mean do people were people using them and they went into a restaurant and they parked them there and they came back to them or larry lorant came back from being down in the village and he's here he sent me the picture he said oh check it out jump bikes with the splint out so i've seen him down there a few times yeah so i don't know what they were i wasn't there i haven't seen him there for you know abandoned if you will down there and that's what they're for so people can ride down and go shopping and do what they want to do and ride back yep and there's a penalty if you if you did take a Santa Cruz bike and you wrote it here and left it the first time i think they let you off but if you do it twice it's a $25 fee for leaving it outside the geofence which is their terminology for the trial and error that's going to have to take place here so you have to make sure you don't lock in something too soon yeah okay so that concludes my presentation any any comments you'd like me to bring back to the city council on this well i was just um when wondering whether chief mcmanus has weighed in um and um on the program and and i'm thinking whether he's actually spoken maybe with the the Santa Cruz police department you know really on what their experience has been what they're enforced you know how engaged they are in enforcing the rules are dealing with these bicycles and just so we have a sense from the enforcement side because there will need to be some and who's going to do the enforcement is it the police department or is it going to be you know another agency within the government that does it so from the from what i understand from Santa Cruz the burden typically goes back to public works and then the other part of enforcement is the public enforcing these through their phones and just going on the jump location and reporting bikes and then in your contract you can build in response times to any complaints that are received but but i will check with chief mcmanus the definitely public works has been very involved so far because in there's a with what's been happening with scooters being dropped off we're making sure that our code is strong enough to make sure they get they don't get dropped off in capitol yeah so and i would caution i think it could be just speculation on my part but the bikes that i see are the jump bikes so the anti uber bikes um might simply be because that's what they're seeing and they're bright colored and you start noticing them and they have been coming into capitol but i haven't seen them abandoned anywhere i've seen them you know being used and one of the huge benefits of that specific program is that the bike is self-locking so people who have their own bikes and had them stolen and now don't want to go make the investment and get another bike they can ride these down here and they can't be stolen because they've just locked up so there's a huge benefit for that and and i would expect there would be a lot of traffic bringing them in because people don't want to bring their own bike down and have it get ripped off thank you anything else thank you right thank you i think with that we've come to the end of our agenda for the evening um and um and i think just in closing uh since this my um last time as chair and last planning commission meeting um i did want to thank all the commissioners for your support it's really been um a pleasure and a really education for me to work with each and every one of you i've learned a lot in my two years here um and i'll just say i look forward to collaborating with all of you uh and staff as well in a different capacity so thank you and thank you capitola uh for your support um and and i do want to announce let everybody know that uh the swearing in of the new council members will be on december the 13th uh at seven p.m uh here in these chambers uh with that i'll adjourn this meeting good night and if i may oh and happy holidays everyone i just really want to express my appreciation to all of you um it's been an incredible five years since i've been here and working with each of you during that time um your individual unique attributes that you brought to the planning the code update it's really i think each of you has it takes a different angle and approach to and has a different perspective of capitola and it really made for a solid um a great document in the end in which i think the thought that was that you all brought to the table and the amount of homework and how many nights you probably fell asleep reading the zoning code i'm sorry but um the the dedication of this group has been amazing and it's just really been a pleasure working with all of you and in the future as your as residents and coming in to speak please feel free to stop by anytime let us know if you have any items you want to talk about but we i look forward to continuing the relationship moving forward and all the best as a council member so um and thank you for your continued dedication to the city tj and i really appreciate your all the time thank you thank you kate susan and then uh thank you