 I'm just going to suggest we just posted and say it's on the court, but Katie said she's going to check for the city manager to see what we should do, so I'll just read it today. Oh, that's good. We know when your clock is 7 o'clock, Katie, we'll get started. Or let me know when we're... Oh, it is 7 o'clock, so I'm just going to check with Louie one more time. Louie, are you ready to go? Yep. Pre-61. This meeting is not physically open to public. Commissioners and staff are meeting. There are several ways to watch and participate. Information on how to join the meeting is... And 6B. For the SB9 ordinance, it was a memo that was put out by the Coastal Commission, and that was made available to the Planning Commission, as well as available on our... Explain that meeting or at least reference it during the... During 6B agenda item. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Does any commissioner have additions or at least additions to the agenda? Hearing none, let's move on to item 3B, which is public comments. This is the opportunity for the public at large to provide short communications that are not on the agenda. If anyone wishes to speak or free up to three minutes on items that are not on the agenda but are worthy of Planning Commission's attention, please raise your hand or email us now. Katie, do we have any public comments? Sean. Do not see any comments at this time, and I do not have any hands raised. Hearing none, we'll move on to staff comments. I did want to bring up to date on that just a brief intro about the Kaiser project. You had asked for an update of whether or not they were going to study the 40th Avenue throughput, and they looked at it in their preliminary CEQA, but they've decided that it's not going to be one of the options that is looked at within the project. So it's not ready to go to hearing yet, and I'll make sure the Planning Commission is aware once that is going to hearing. They expect it to be at least a few months out, and that's it for comments. Okay. I have no questions on that issue. Any other questions of staff? If not, we'll move on to item for a for a which is approval of the December 2 2021 regular Planning Commission meeting minutes. Move approval. I hear a motion for approval by Commissioner Ruth and a second by Commissioner Westman. Louis, could we have a roll call vote? Hi. Hi. A point of order. I think Commissioner Christians should abstain because she was absent at that meeting. I was for the two for October 7 and October 4. This is for December 2. I'm sorry. I thought it was for the last meeting. No, last meeting. Thanks. All right. Very good. Let's move on to the consent calendar. I see no items on the consent calendar. Is that true, Katie? Correct. Okay. Then we'll move right on to public hearings. Public hearings are intended to provide an opportunity for the public to discuss each item. The procedure will be as follows, staff presentation, Planning Commission questions, followed by public comments, Planning Commission deliberation, and finally a decision. First item on public hearings is item 6A, 1820 First Street, Suite A. Yes. Good evening, Commissioners, and thank you. Just real briefly on this item. 1820 First Street conditional use permit amendment. We had a late request for continuance from the applicant. They're requesting continuance to April 7. A reason given was they wanted more time to think about the recommended conditions and they also had a scheduling conflict. So there is no formal presentation from staff or the applicant this evening. But as a matter of procedure, we didn't notice this item. And so we do need to take any public testimony during the hearing. So that's all I have for this item and the update. Very good. Well, if we're going to follow Robert's rules of order, then we'll ask if there are any Planning Commission questions of said continuance. Nope. If not, we'll move on to public comment. Does anybody wish to comment on 1820 First Avenue? Any hands raised or e-mails? And I'm going to look to Sean again. We don't have anything new at this time. Okay, then we'll turn it over to Planning Commission. Does anybody wish to discuss this or make a motion? I'll make a motion to continue this item to April 7. I hear a motion from Commissioner Westman. Do I hear a second? I'll second. And I hear a second from Commissioner Christensen. A motion and a second. Any further deliberation? Not, Louie, could we have a roll call vote for a continuance? Aye. A motion on Newman. Aye. So, we'll move on to the responses. Let's move on to item 6b, which is a citywide ordinance applicable to single family zone ordinance 1049. Do we have a presentation? Yes. Good evening, commissioners. I just want to begin by, again, Laila's with us this evening from Burks. our attorney's office and Layla has put in a lot of work on this ordinance so it's been great working with her and any questions that come up tonight, the two of us will tag team and work through any questions you have. And also want to just say that Brian and Sean have been very instrumental in brainstorming this ordinance and we're hoping with all these brainstorms that are going on in the office is going to improve by the next time you see it so I'll jump into it, our SB9 ordinance. A background on this was September 1st, 2021, the California Legislature passed SB9. It was signed into law on the 16th and then it went into effect on January 1st, 2021. The Coastal Commission put out the memo that you'll receive today and we had a meeting yesterday and within, originally I thought that it would go into effect even within the coastal zone and they clarified that because our existing LCP does not have any guidance for urban lot splits and two unit developments, it will not come into effect in our coastal zone until we've created that ordinance and until it's been certified by the Coastal Commission. And now SB9 is effective outside of the coastal zone. So in talking with the Coastal Commission, they were advising that we should consider how proposed lots of residential development might impact the public access since it habitats recreational areas and other coastal resources. They also advised that the new LCP provisions that limit or prohibit subdivisions in vulnerable areas subject to sea level rise and that appropriately account for coastal hazards and coastal resource impacts including an associated sea level rise for new residential development. So right now there is some clauses within the ordinance about flood areas but when we, I think in our next revision will work towards implementing the recommendations also of our Coastal Commission and to date they have not had one certified. So their memo also as I just explained that our future LCP cannot be in conflict with the Coastal Act. The currently certified provisions of our LCP are not superseded by the new SB9 legislation so until we have an LCP amendment in place and where there's any conflict between the two they must be consistent with the new law. The LCP provisions should be updated to be consistent with SB9 to the greatest extent feasible while still complying with the Coastal Act requirements. I'm sure as you read through that sea level rise is a real focus of that memo that came out. So we'll be looking at what areas we have, we have maps tied to sea level rise and it's something that I think in the next round of this ordinance modifications we'll be bringing back to you, okay. So overview of S, yep. Excuse me, could we maybe interrupt your presentation because I think that's kind of like a separate issue that there might be questions of just the Coastal Commission portion I know I have a couple. Yes. And I'm just looking, it looks, I just wanted to see, okay, I think that's fine. We have one attendee on our Zoom meeting and I think this is more of like a work session item at the end. My recommendation tonight is instead of adopt or a positive recommendation will be asking for a continuance. So I think it's fine if we work through things as we go. We just have to remember to open the public hearing. Yeah. Okay. Well, so this is more of a question than a discussion. But so the notion of the sea level rise in areas I guess mostly the village, don't we already have new building requirements that someone was to tear down a building and put in a new one? And there's things like you have to have garage on the bottom floor, that kind of thing. Yes. So when we, when we, when you would do this, you would, you know, to what extent would you like be bringing environmentalists or engineers or whatever to rewrite this or would this be kind of like, okay, we already have these requirements, we just need to adapt them to this new sport collects or whatever. So the Coastal Commission, they talk a lot about not intensifying uses where there's, you know, within areas that will probably be subject to sea level rise, the point being, if we know that they're not going to, that they won't be there for that long, why would we intensify the use there and make more of a problem? They have those guidance documents that are currently on sea level rise that has not been adopted, adopted by the state at this point, so it's just a guidance document, but I don't think if, I think if we submit an ordinance that allows urban subdivisions in an area where they'll be, where, is it within the sea level rise map that they'll be pushed back from the Coastal Commission, I don't think we can just engineer ourselves out of it, I think they don't want to see intensification of use in that area. So you're, this likely, this item is likely to be tabled for a while before it comes back to us, right? It depends, I mean, if we write our ordinance so that it's, the SB9 is not these two unit developments and lots that they're not allowed in areas subject to sea level rise, then they won't have concerns if we're including those areas, then I, I think we'll get pushed back from the Coastal Commission. All right, any other questions on, on the Coastal Commission item before we push on? Yeah, I think you have three hands raised. My screen doesn't have, doesn't show, just shows this, maybe if I hit, no, I don't have a gallery view button. So I have one hand that I see raised, which is Ed Newman. Well, I was raised first. Okay. Well, sadly, my screen doesn't show her, but okay, go ahead. And, and I'll actually defer to the attorney if she wants to go first, if he wants to clarify this, I just wanted to say, so there's no confusion. I think the current regulations about having buildings above the garage and that are flood regulations that are in response to FEMA requirements. They don't have anything to do with what the Coastal Commission has asked us to do or seems to be planning on asking communities to do based on their, um, I forget what he called it, their letter that they put out that hasn't been adopted yet. So they haven't really adopted any regulations the way I understand it. We're working under FEMA. That's all I had to say. Thank you. That was very informative, Susan, uh, or Commissioner Westman, uh, other hands raised again, uh, if you could speak up, cause I don't have a screen that shows anybody, but Susan right now. Well, the city attorney and Mr. Commissioner Newman, a commissioner Newman, would you like to go ahead and raise your hand or go ahead and speak? Yeah. So the way I can, I'm going to work on my screen in the meantime. Yeah. Maybe if I go ahead of time, uh, city attorney can maybe respond to my, uh, confusion, which is I'm trying to put together what I am hearing and what I have read in terms of where we are in the interim period here. Well, the, uh, staff, uh, works on dating the LCP to try to, to harmonize these, uh, these two laws. Oh, if I understood what I'm understanding is that outside the coastal zone, the SB nine housing, uh, provisions to facilitate housing are pulling in effect inside the coastal zone. The way I read some things are that the SB nine requirements are in effect as long as you take into account the requirements of the coastal act. Uh, but then I'm also hearing that they're not in effect at all in the coastal zone. So maybe I can get some clarification on that. Okay. Yeah. Staff, can you chime in? Yeah. I can, uh, I can kind of jump in at this point. Um, I'll go ahead and introduce myself as well. Um, my name is Layla Moshe-Refdanash with Berk Williams and Sorenson. Um, and I work with Sam Zuttler, the city attorney on a regular basis and have been working with Katie and staff on the SB nine ordinance. Um, these are great questions and particularly looking at what the coastal commission has recently stated. Um, it's interesting because there seems to be a bit of a tension, right? Between the, the statute of SB nine and, and versus kind of this memo that we've received recently from the coastal commission. Um, and, uh, you know, I think what we definitely want to make sure we're doing is ensuring that the city is not caught in the middle between these kind of two, uh, entities, right? So the best way I would say it's definitely a challenge to at this point be consistent with both, um, SB nine as well as what the coastal commission is saying and it's memo. And I think that the best way to approach it for now would probably be to see if we can read or harmonize the two together, looking at our LCP at this point and seeing if there's a way to, um, kind of incorporate some of the SB nine, um, development using our current LCP. Um, and that's just from, you know, some research that would, I did the last few days is to ensure that we're still applying with us, complying with SB nine, but we're doing it in the spirit of also being consistent as much as possible with the coastal commission. But I think, um, what Katie mentioned is, is crucial in that ultimately we do need to update our LCP so that we are more in line with, um, you know, so we can kind of overcome that inconsistency. For me, they, they answered your question, uh, commissioner Newman. You're on mute. That makes sense to me. I think we need to, um, not just completely ignore SB nine inside the coastal zone the way I read it. But to try to, uh, to, um, implement it to the extent we can without, uh, violating the coastal act in our LCP. Yeah, I think that was probably, if that's possible, that would probably be the best approach. Um, again, Katie's absolutely right. According to the coastal commission, um, you know, they're saying SB nine doesn't apply, but I think we just have to, you know, look also at SB nine itself, which doesn't, uh, come to that same conclusion. So that's kind of what makes it a little bit uncomfortable. Well, if the, if the coast commission doesn't want increased risk due to density, I would think that's the, that's the stumbling block right off the bat unless we start putting pilings down to bedrock. But I'll let the lawyers worry about that. Any more questions on, uh, this section on the coastal commission specifically? If not, we'll move ahead with the rest of the presentation and go ahead, Katie. Okay. Thank you. Um, so SB nine, the intent was to increase our housing stock and to do so is by increasing residential densities within the single family neighborhoods. Um, all eligible properties within a single family zone, maybe split into two lots with two residential units on each lot. I, this is our zoning map and I'm highlighting all of the R one areas within the city of Capitola to kind of get a feel of what, what could be the impact of, uh, where will we see this densification happening? Um, Brian went through and looked at all of the neighborhoods and just a bird's eye view, um, using aerial imagery to see how many lots are currently developed in such a way that they have a lot of open space and could take it, could utilize SB nine without having to tear down their home and likely could build at least a second unit if not a duplex, maybe in the backyard or an area of open space and looking at the different neighborhoods. These numbers represent the lots that we saw potential for SB nine without doing a total demolition of the properties. So, um, and then once, uh, we've got the updates from the coastal commission. I just want to point out that there's a coastal boundary in purple. And so this area you're seeing over in the top left hand corner is really the area that currently, uh, applications can come in and be reviewed or be reviewed prior to this adoption and we'll take that once we've adopted, uh, the ordinance and then the area within the coastal zone once certified by the coastal commission. So, um, it'll give us some, a trial run while we're getting going through the certification process with the coastal zone to see what occurs in the, in our, uh, in that corner of capital. So the SB nine ordinance tonight, you're going to see four different sections of code. We added section 16.08 for a definition of urban lot split. We added a section 16.08 020 for the urban lot split. Sorry, I've got the number wrong for the definition. Um, a subsection for applicability within our ADU section of code. And then we added a chapter of 17.75 that describes, uh, the applicability of procedures and standards for two unit development. So that's a new chapter. And it follows right after our ADU chapter. So urban lot splits and at any time, go ahead and raise your hand. I can see the hands on my end. If you have questions, we'll stop. Uh, urban lot split is the one time subdivision of an existing single family residential parcel into two parcels. Um, each property is allowed up to four units total with two units on each parcel. And I see, um, chair will have the hand up. I do. Let's see if I can now lower it. Lower it. Okay. So my question is, so you're creating this ordinance update. What happens to applications that come in before it's adopted? Before it's adopted, we follow the standards of the law and we can apply only the objective standards within our code. So that being high setbacks, Florida, Florida ratio, um, of our existing code, so in the far one, they would get a height of 25 feet. Um, the setbacks would be, they would follow the setbacks of the state law for four, but on the side and okay. So you don't need to repeat that repeat all of this. But my question would be like, for example, one of the things we have been, and your proposed update would be, you have to have room for a driveway. Right. And so I don't know, is that, so are there things in there that would indicate that well, if we want to have more control over this in terms of driving driveway parking utilities, you have it, we, uh, it's, uh, it's in our best interest to get something on the books quickly rather than dragging our feet. Definitely. Yeah. So we want to be able to guide it right now. We don't know much guidance and how development should happen until we adopt just something. So they would, they would have the ability to develop and they'd be required one parking space per unit. And SB nine, sorry to interrupt, uh, SB nine also includes, um, several permissive sections, which allows the city to decide if they want to require something or not. And so in order to, you know, take, take that opportunity, we certainly, you know, want to adopt something or we recommend that we would adopt something in order to be able to kind of hone in on the specifics of how to comply with state law. Commissioner Newman has a hand up. Uh, I'll yield to commissioner Ruth since he hasn't had a chance yet. Then I'll go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just, just a point here, looking at the diagram, I'm guessing the way it's configured, there's probably 90% of the lots of capital that could not meet that configuration. I know it's not to scale, but I think it's a little deceiving because it just doesn't represent reality of the size of capital, a lot of what we're seeing on the screen. That's my comment. That's a great point. And we have a slide. Actually, we'll go through an example of that later in the presentation. Well, my question was, are these urban lot splits done by a typical parcel map and the same process? And so you have two, two separate lots with assessors, parcel numbers that can be separately alienated. That's correct. Yep. So they can be sold separately after the subdivisions recorded. I'll move on. There's a list of eligibility that was some, that's related to state law. And I want to process this presentation by saying we took a really conservative approach to council. The planning commission can always loosen the standard. We just took a really conservative approach to the standards that you'll see in here. So again, no more than two, two lots will be created. Each lot has to have a minimum of at least 1200 square feet. And each lot has to have at least 40% of the lot area of the original parcel. And it has to have access to or joins the public right of way, sufficient with fire cones. The second item has to have at least 40% of the lot area will be probably the hardest requirement for most developed lots to meet because most homes and capitol are situated in the middle of the lot. I've got a question from Commissioner Newman. He just never took a stand down. Also eligibility standards that must be in the single family zoning district. The density limitation is not a reason to deny an application. The state has a list of qualified sites in which they cannot be located. They're tied to specific definitions for farmland, wetlands, fire hazards, hazardous waste, fault zones, floods. I won't read them all to you. They're not subject to income restrictions. So if there's an income restriction on a property, if there's rent control, if it's subject to the LS Act, or if it's been rented in the past three years, it's the property is not eligible. It also cannot be part of a prior urban lot split. So you can't do this twice to your property. And then the map itself must comply with the subdivision map act. And it looks like I have a question from Commissioner Rood. Yeah. Is the 1280 square foot requirement, is that spelled out in SB 9? It is. OK, thank you. So objective standards that we've put into this chapter. Partsals, this was actually taken, they were taken from our regular subdivision standards. So parcel lines at right angles to the street. There, this is new minimum frontage of 20 feet. Or minimum 20 feet for a flag lot or maximum of 40 percent of the lot width or 20 feet, whichever is left. We came up with a 20 feet minimum because our smaller lots are about 40 feet wide in Capitola. So we thought the minimum frontage of 20 feet would be realistic in Capitola and then the 10 feet for a flag lot. I'll note for that standard, their minimums. At the end of my presentation time, I'm going to talk to you about whether these should be maximums. So also the other objective standards are one parking space per lot. There is exceptions based on the proximity to transit and car share. We don't meet the exception for transit. We don't have our metro doesn't run every 15 minutes through the city. There's no lines that run over two minutes of that. That's the qualifying qualifier for the type of transit listed in the state law. And then no setbacks for existing or reconstructed structures. And the lot split shall not result in the splitting of any structure between two lots and cannot create a new encroachment. And Commissioner Newman. So these are standards that are applied administratively, right? There's no administratively. Yeah. So, for example, number one, if someone, for one reason or another, the parcel line is not at right angles, but it's at 85 degrees. And can they come to the Planning Commission to loosen that standard? They cannot. We didn't set this up in our ADU ordinance. We have it that way. And then if they don't comply with all of the regulations, they can go to the Planning Commission. But no, at that point, the only way that we could modify that or make it be more flexible for them is if they can prove to us that they wouldn't be able to achieve two lots on that property and not be able to build two 800 square foot units if the right angles was prohibiting them from doing that. So Commissioner Rooth. How is the residency requirement monitored? There is. The way we've drafted the ordinance is that they would have to sign an affidavit, I believe, that would be recorded. And is there any teeth in that? There is. I think it's similar to what we've done with ADUs in the past for residency that we can follow up and enforce. OK, thank you. So just a quick image of what the 20 foot minimum looks like for a lot split and 10 foot for a flag lot. So the filing process, I'm sure you all read through this. I won't go through every step of this. But the biggest thing is that we've got to take action within 50 days. It's ministerially approved. There's no public hearing. It's a staff decision. And then it's really hard to deny these if they comply. So it either doesn't we can only deny if it doesn't follow all the standards or if there's a finding of adverse impacts on public health and safety or the environment. So use and development requirements also for the urban lot split. I'm sorry. All right, here we go. The vacation rental is prohibited within these developments. Residential use only, maximum 800 square feet, two dwelling units per lot. And then that guaranteed allowance. So the objective standards apply to all urban lot splits, except where such standards directly conflict with the provisions of the SB 9. And whether the applicant demonstrates that such that implementing those standards would have the effect of physically concluding the construction of two units on either of the resulting parcels that would result in less than 800 square feet residential units. So any questions about Commissioner Westman? So in looking at your example of the flag lock, which was sort of my impression, how a lot of these would happen because there is going to be an existing residents there and they're going to try and add one in the back part of their property. The front house can't be more than 800 square feet. As well as the back house, 800 square feet. Correct, we've drafted it that way. There's a gap. OK, I just want to clarify. We can talk about all this later. Thank you. So that that's our standards. We've put together for urban lot splits. And next, I'm going to go into the two unit developments. But any questions and just to clarify as well, commissioners, there could actually be two 800 square foot units in the back and two in the front, technically, under S.B.9. That are maps of 800 square feet? Yeah, yeah. So Katie, I have a question. Real quick, this vacation rental thing, I'm just trying to see if there's, you know, how that would apply. If someone has a vacation home already, they say, well, I'm going to split this. Wouldn't it be great to have two vacation homes? I'm in the vacation rental zone. You would you would split it. But then they would say, I'm sorry, but you have to live in one of these vacation homes, but you could rent the other one. You can rent that long term more than 30 days. You would not be able to rent a short term anymore. So so even if even if it's in a vacation zone, it's beach house rentals would have rent this place. And he decides, split it. He says, well, I'm going to split the slot, live in one half and to continue to rent out the other half. The answer is no, you can't do that. That's correct. OK, thank you. And Katie had one more question. Dan is related to Mr. Sherwell. So now the two parcels are legally split and they're now able to be sold, hypothetically. If the person that sells it, is there a deed restriction recorded per parcel that's then transferred to the new owner that restricts all of these requirements? Or is there something that... Go ahead. That's a great question. I need to read. Look at the... Do you know the answer I can, Layla? I believe that we may have included some type of a deed restriction. And I know that... Yeah, go ahead. This is curious as how would the next owner or five owners down the way understand that this to 1,200 square foot lot could no longer be used as a vacation rental or had all these different limitations? Yeah, that's a great point, Commissioner. We will review the draft and see if we need to make some clarification on that to make sure that that scenario would be covered. I know we require a deed restriction. I'm just not remembering if it's part of that urban lot split, which it should be for that. You know, if I do it at the urban lot split and it's also tied to the two-unit development. So make sure of that. Any other questions? We added section 17.7404.0M to our ADU chapter. And this is just stating that no accessory dwelling unit or junior ADU shall be permitted on any lot in a single family zoning district if and one being an urban lot split has been approved here in and to a two-unit development with two units has been approved for construction pursuant to chapter 17.75. Other jurisdictions have been looser with us. They're allowing the lot split, the two units through the two unit development and then they'll also allow an ADU for a junior ADU. We've drafted the, because our lots are so small, we drafted our ordinance to not allow the ADU and junior ADU in addition to the two units. That's something you could direct us to change this evening. And that's why some of the articles you see in the newspaper talk about four units per property, some up to six, there's some flexibility of where you can go with this and how don't you wanna make your single family. Commissioner Ruth? Yeah, so if you do a lot split, then the requirement is you must put two units on each lot or on the lot you've split off, you must put two units. It's up to two units. So if you only do one unit, isn't that the same thing as an ADU? It's the difference is that it can be sold as a separate lot. And the other difference is our ADU, you can build up to 1200 square feet and within this ordinance under SB 9, you can only build up to 800 square feet. Okay, thank you. Mr. Newman? So as this is gonna come down, property owners will be weighing whether or not to do an ADU or two units and look at the different requirements for each of those and see which one works best for them. Is that why you see this working out? I do. The ADU ordinance is almost more permissive and where you can decide the requirements and parking, whereas the SB 9, if your motivation is to sell off a piece of your property and it's probably the way to go. Well, if you split it, but if you put two houses on it and then there may be also be big differences in terms of utility fees and that sort of thing depending on which direction you go. And to be clear, is the two units on the new parcel or the same parcel cannot be sold separately there? Okay, so now we're moving on and we just went over the general promise for the ADUs. Now into the new chapter 17.75 for two unit development. A lot of these standards you've already heard. So the first one is just that you can only have two residential units in total on each parcel and they can either be two new units on a vacant lot or one new and one existing. And then any urban lots that has to comply with the standards we just went over. The eligibility requirements, we put them in both sections. So it's really clear to an applicant. They don't learn that they're ineligible once after they've gone through their lot split. So I'm not gonna relist them here for you. The permitting process, again, it's an administrator review. The city has to take action this time within 60 days. The postal development permit may be required. No required noticing, but no public hearing. The reasons that I listed prior are the only reasons for denial. And then once they have an approved application, it would go to the building permit stage. And we wouldn't allow it to go to the building permit stage until the urban lot split parcel map has been recorded. So the objective development standards, again, in this ordinance, we're only as staff allowed to apply the new objective standards. So the unit size, we did a maximum of 800 square feet. The state law says we have to allow at least 800 square feet. So tonight after my presentation, I will be asking the planning commission if they wanna increase that number or keep it the same. The setback set by state law is the first story. It's the same as what your R1 district is at 15 feet. You have the ability to decrease that if you'd like. We have a second story for the front yard of 20 feet and, oh, sorry, that's just, yeah. And then for the garage, 20 feet, consistent with our R1 zone. The rear and side yard have a requirement to be at least four feet by state law or it can be a maximum of four feet. The height, I incorporated the height standards from our ADU ordinance, the 16 feet for the first story of 22 feet for a second story. The story maximum, just in case there was a really large law that it wouldn't be, the development wouldn't be forced into a second story. I said it as a single story. We can talk about changing that this evening as well. And then an open space requirement for each unit is 48 square feet. Any? Questions here? If there's only one story allowed, why do we have all these objective standards for the second story? Because I think in many situations, the lot sizes won't be large enough to accommodate in 800 to 800 square foot units within the first story. So we should have standards for a second story. It would make sense to increase that to two stories. What does maximum one story mean, then? That if the development can occur within one story, then it has to occur within one story. But only if they... That's not very clear to our consumer public. No, I think that we should probably amend that because I don't think there's many examples in which you get two 800 square foot units without going to a second story. Yeah. Commissioner Ruz? Yeah. A large portion of the lots in capitol, as you stated, are 40 by 80 lots. And the calculated footprint of a lot split on a 40 by 80 lot is 732 square feet, which would be allowed. But you're allowed an 800 square foot unit with a 732 square foot footprint. So what happens is we have to make some changes in the setbacks, either the rear yard setback has to be decreased, the side yard or the front yard setback. So I'm not clear on why we're having all these requirements when they don't really apply to a 40 by 80 lot if you split it in half. So that's a great point. I'm gonna run through an example of a 40 by 80 but it reflects exactly what you just said. With a 40 by 100 lot, which we have some of those in capitol, these standards could be met. So tonight I will be suggesting that we create less stringent standards for the smaller lot. So we'll get into that shortly. Okay. Okay, any other questions? So parking requirements, one parking space per unit is allowed with an exception for the transit or car share. Tandem spaces for separate residential units are not allowed. That's something we put in there, just thinking it'd be pretty inconvenient. My commission can direct us to do otherwise. Parking design required off-street parking may be located within the minimum. Required setback areas from front side and rear property lines. Hollywood design with two parallel strips of pavement. If the parking space were to be put in the front yard. Parking access from an alley shall maintain a 24 foot back out area, which may include the alley. So these standards also carried over from our 80 units. Separation between residential units. There's a minimum 10 feet from any other structure on the parcel. However, the exception being units may be adjacent or connected if the structures meet building code safety standards and are sufficient to allow a separate conveyance. So this separation between residential units, I do think also will confuse. This is one I'd like to be amended because it says there's a 10 foot minimum separation. However, as long as you build it to code, it doesn't apply. So by state law, so I think it's better for us to probably just remove that standard and just list number two that they must, they have to be building code. And then exceptions to development standards, non-conforming structures, they can be rebuilt in a place that they were and there's no setback requirement for existing non-conforming. Any questions? Just the existing, excuse me, can I have a quick question? The existing non-conforming structures, is there a percentage that is, is it just kind of defer back to the percentage of demo that you can do to the structure to keep it within the existing non-conforming standards? You know, this is the state law. So it doesn't follow our 80% rule for non-conforming. If any non-conforming structure can be rebuilt in its exact place under, within the section of code. Okay. Yeah, and it deals kind of more with, you know, the setback requirements, for example. So say you have a structure that is not complying with capitalist side or rear setback requirement, provided that the new structure is built in exactly the same footprint as the old one, then we would have to allow it. So you could completely destroy that. I mean, it completely takes the house all the way down to the foundation and rebuild it within the same footprint and it would still be within the existing non-conforming structure. Yes. Yes. Okay. Unless there was some other, you know, issue going on with it that wouldn't allow for demolition like historic structure or something like that. Yeah. I see. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then we built an objective design standards. A lot of these were, oh, Commissioner Westman? So just so I understand how this works. Right now we have an ADU ordinance which basically allows anyone to build a second unit on their property up to 1,200 square feet if they meet certain requirements. And the main difference between that process and the result is that the ADU cannot be sold separately. And with SB9, the purpose is to create small units that end up being sold separately from the original parcel. And so when we get into creating parcels that are going to have individual owners with an individual unit, then it seems like, you know, the setbacks do become a bit of an issue because I had sort of thought you were going to have two 800 square foot units like on the back of a flag lot. Those units probably should not have any separation. It should be more like a duplex. But then you get into issues of how are those individual duplexes being, can those individual duplexes be sold separately or does it have to be sold as a duplex? So for two units on the same lot, anything on the same lot has to be sold together. So with that example of the duplex on the flag lot, it would sell as a duplex there. They can't condo it and sell them separately. Okay, so, you know, I think we have to look at them in that case, it would make sense to me to not have a setback between those two units because there's not going to be space to do that. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Can I interrupt with that raise of my hand real quick? So Susan, are you suggesting there'd be like townhomes with the common wall in between them? That's what I'm suggesting. I mean, if you're going to have two units on a parcel that small, I'm not really envisioning how you could design them and make it work if you put, you know, particularly a 10 foot setback between the two of them. And doing so would result in more meaningful open space. You know, there's a little bit of space between the two units. You allow them to be joined as shared while you result can be more open space. That would reduce that 732 square foot print even more. So we should definitely take out number one under your separation. Can't be a nod of heads for that. Yes, I would love to take out number one. All right, thank you. So in the objective design standards, these are taken from our ADU ordinance. And so the entrance orientation, primary entrance to face the front or interior is an exception for alleys and both side streets. Privacy impacts, so walls with windows within eight feet of a residential property line. First story, they should have a six foot solid fence on the property line. Clear story or opaque windows for all windows facing the adjacent property. And then on the second story, all windows facing an adjacent property shall be clear story or opaque. And then decks and balconies are prohibited and covered porches and patios. There's 150 square foot max. And a third of that must be attached to the front of the dwelling unit. Materials and colors. I'd love to see you back on this one. The new and existing, if there's an existing home and a new, they must match the materials in color, except what is the existing material is not permitted by building codes. And then for two new units, the ordinance is drafted to say they must match material and color. So these are the units on the, two units on the same parcel. So should they relate, should they match? So if, what you're saying is that if you have an existing house and a new house gets in the back that's going to be sold, they don't have to match. They do. There's no way once you have two separate property owners to enforce them having to paint their house the same color. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant on the same lot. No, if they're on separate lots, they don't have to match. No. You're just saying that the two units like the townhouse development on the individual lots have to match. Yes. So if there's an existing home and they build a new two unit development, a new unit behind them on the same property, it would have to match the existing home. Or if they created a new lot and built two new units, they need to match in material and color. But if I was going to build an ADU, I don't have to match the materials in color of the front house, do I? I cannot remember off the top of my head. I'm going to, I don't know if Sean heard that question, but we're asking whether or not an ADU is required to match the primary home. I think it has to, I don't want to answer. I don't think so. I don't think so because I've seen a few around town and they don't match the house at all. I can chime in here. Okay. Are you sure? The standard for materials, exterior materials, are within the objective standards, which do not apply for our limited standards ADUs. That would include one of the more common scenarios of a detached ADU that's less than 800 square feet and complies with minimum setbacks. So a common scenario would not have to apply that. Okay. Thank you. I see Commissioner Ruth and Commissioner Newman. Yeah. Yeah, Katie. I think when we talk about adding two units to a lot that has an existing house and the existing house remaining there, that doesn't apply in very many circumstances in Capitola. I think what we're going to see more likely is the small cottage type homes that you see in the Riverview Terrace and the Jewel Box. I see those houses being demolished and then the lot spits taking place. I don't think we're going to have that other kind of scenario very often. The other question I have is the front porches and patios. Would those go into the front yard setback area? Or would they have to be confined outside that setback area? That's a great question. We should add to the ordinance would be allow encroachments or projections into a setback. Because if we want to allow it to be within the setback area, we should state that within our homes. Well, then that reduces, if you allow 150 foot fortune has to be in the setback area, then that reduces the footprint on a 40 by 80 lot to roughly 580 feet. Yeah, is allowing a deck to project into a front yard acceptable by the planning commission? No. No. What? Can I ask why Commissioner Ruth or Commissioner Wesson? For your reasoning? Yeah, for me, the standard setback in most of all our neighborhoods is 15 feet. So if you have a deck extending out beyond that, you're encroaching probably in parking areas and just basically encroaching into the neighborhood. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I guess I would agree with that as well. Yeah. I don't agree with E at all though. The materials and colors seems to be getting too far into the weeds. That's where I was going also. I agree. I'm impelled to restate what I've said many times, which is I don't think we should be the aesthetic stars. And the best example of that is Venetian courts, which would of course never be built under E and has been one of the outstanding features of Capitola. I can agree with modifying E and getting rid of the matching materials and colors. Why don't we say complimentary? They compliment each other. Yeah, and who's going to decide that? It's not a too much of an objective standard. Yeah, you could say that they have to have like 25% of a shared material or something where you could forget it. Forget it? Yes. Okay. You're trying to design something where you don't even have a template for. You probably won't see one of them from the street anyway, right? We'll have to plan the other. Okay, so we'll take that out. I did want to clarify though, on the covered porches we do in that, in the R1 districts in our front yards, we allow landing places, patios and decks, 18 inches or less from grays to, they can be in the front yard as long as that five feet are maintained. So that's an allowance of the front decks can go 10 feet into the front yard just to be clear. And we do allow them in side yards, but they have to maintain three feet where our side yards are so small here, it wouldn't make sense. But so if you wanted to allow a deck to go a certain distance into the front yard, it would be consistent with the R1 standards for right now. You know, porch. But porch, yeah. I would agree with that. I'm kind of, as long as there's, I think if designed properly, I feel like that would be, it would complement the street and allow parking, obviously, but not, but. What about the prohibition on all decks and balconies? That's for a second, sorry, that's second story decks and balconies. So I shouldn't, I take that in incorrectly. And I assume the commissioners, based on our recent attitudes would agree with that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Commissioner Westman. So I have a concern and I don't know where really to bring this up, but by doing this, we're greatly increasing the amount of impervious surface that we have in town if these units get built. And for example, in the Riverview Terrace neighborhood, there is no storm drain system. So all of that water simply runs down the street. And because so many people have been putting in more decks and land, you know, impervious surface, it's beginning to become a problem. So at what point do we look at, you know, the storm water for all this new development for the, providing the water for it? I mean, where does any of this come in? Because if you have a lot more units going, you know, the neighborhood above me, you know, we already flood now, we have for about the last five years. When does all of that come into play? And usually in a subdivision, there's something that deals with stormwater and stormwater improvements and how those things get put into place. And actually that's one of the biggest parts of a review of a subdivision now to be in compliance with the state law. It's really challenging. We've seen a lot of applications come in that get held up on stormwater. So that is an excellent question. And it might mean that Laila and I need to do more research. I'm not sure, Laila, if you're prepared for a question on whether or not we can, I believe we can require stormwater requirements and that typically it's a, when you, it's part of our master application and it's something we have not addressed in this ordinance. So we can come back with more information on that. But it is an issue. And currently our normal process is stormwater is reviewed separately by public works. And there's a lot of review that goes into that to make sure it's in compliance. It seems like we might need to require a lot more onsite in filtration. Yeah, I mean, there's gotta be ways to do it, but we just need to make certain we have that done so we don't create a problem for our community. Yeah, and one option might be as well to potentially require that certain landscaping include low impact development as well as more pervious soils and substrates and things like that. But we can definitely research that a little bit more commissioner and get back to you. So I think that is a really, yeah, that is a very important point. Thank you. Okay, continue. Okay, next are the general requirements for two unit development. I found a couple errors in here that you'll see with strides through underline. But the utility connections, each unit shall be on a separate utility connection. It's stated directly between each dwelling, which made it sound like you had to put the utility right between the two dwellings, which the intent was that it has to extend from each dwelling unit to the utility for water, sewer, or electrical utilities. So just having that connection to the road. And then we're allowed to require a dedication of any easements for public services and access to public right of way. The second standard for fire sprinklers that should be removed, that was tied to the ADU law. And I apologize, I repeated that through this ordinance, but really, all these developments have to meet fire code and so I don't wanna put an exception in there. Vacation rentals are prohibited. Separate sale of primary dwelling units within a two-unit development on the same parcel may not be sold or conveyed separately. The guaranteed allowance is listed here. Again, I had a reference to accessory dwelling units, so I'm gonna strike that when I bring it back. Converting and replacing existing structures. This is the non-conforming that we've talked about already. And then the land use is that it shall be unlawful to use at any dwelling unit under this chapter for any use other than residential. Any questions on the general requirements? Does that mean home occupation use is prohibited for offices and so forth under G? Yeah, you know, if we wanna allow a home off, we should probably state that. Yeah, Layla, would you agree? Yeah, yeah, and we would definitely wanna make sure that still the primary use is the residential use and then if someone is using an extra room or something like that for some type of home occupation then we can probably specify that but the main point is that it has to be residential use. Well, I think that's implied in our home occupation requirements. Exactly, exactly. I had a quick question. This is Commissioner Christensen. I, about utility connections and possibly even public works requirements with stormwater like Rich was talking about. I know that new connections and stormwater especially can be pretty cost-prohibitive. Is there any subsidies through the state of California that they're allowing discounted connection rates or water allowances or anything else? Does anybody know any information about that? Not that we've heard of yet. Unfortunately, a lot of times when these types of regulations come down from the state it's usually the regulation first and then helpful programs and things like that sort of trail. So hopefully that would be something that will come forward in the future but right now I have not seen anything like that. Okay, thank you. Additional questions on two-unit development? I have one. I'm not sure how you're going to answer this but how do you create two 800 square foot units on a 1,280 square foot lot and meet our setback requirements? You can't. You can't. So we would have to, if we had that scenario somebody having a 1,200 square foot lot which is the minimum allowed by state law we would have to allow them to go higher and to build out into the setbacks. They could not comply with the standards we have in place. But they could build two 400 square foot houses? They could but they're permitted to build up to 800 and so... Well, then they should have a bigger lot. Exactly. Yeah, it's the state law setting that minimum square footage of the 800 square feet that kind of tends to supersede almost any objective standards that we put in. It's kind of intended to be read throughout all of the objective standards that, yes, these are the objective standards that apply but if any of them happen to preclude the construction of two minimum 800 square foot units on either lot then that particular requirement would not apply. That's sort of the trunk part. Yeah, so within your example, if it was limited to one story, I mean, they would be able to develop from the front. There would be no setbacks and they could go up because you can't get 1,600 square feet in a single story and a 1,200 square foot lot, so. Good questions. I'm gonna run you through an example. If you want we could open the public hearing now and then do an example and then I'll have specific questions for the planning commission. Would you like to do that? Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. We can open it up to public comment. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this item now is your chance to get in your issues and comments for our consideration. Any hands raised, any emails? I do not see any hands raised at this time and I do not have any new public comments written in. We should put this in the city newsletter that goes out every month. I did just get a hand raised. Okay. I was sent an email as well as a hand raised so I think I'm gonna unmute Paula Bradley and see if she'd like to explain her comments. Okay, Paula Bradley, you have the floor. You're muted. Thank you. I sent an email with several questions so I was hoping I could get a response to the email if it was received as a public comment. So Kay, are we taking questions from the public or are we just making them available to comment? Typically, they have up to three minutes to comment. We could, if you wanna read your email or... I don't see a copy of the email so if you wanna go ahead and... Okay, let me find that email here. Yeah, it's quite a bit of, quite a few questions. So... Well, you could go ahead and read it and I don't know that we'll necessarily answer all the questions but it'll be food for thought and we can address them as we feel appropriate. Go ahead. Okay, the first question is in the ordinance section 16.78.020 about eligibility and the D3. I didn't understand that section and I was hoping someone could explain it. Also, with that question, I was wondering where that requirement comes from? Is it from 7.09 or does it... If you could speak into the phone or the microphone. Oh, okay. It's very difficult to hear you. I mean, putting my headset on, can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure about that. So I was asking if someone could explain ordinance section 16.78.020 eligibility and under that D3, that's in the staff report page four or the packet page 34. And I was wondering where did that requirement come from? Is it from Senate Bill 9 or is it from the government code reference, the ELIS Act? And then I can continue reading my questions. Yeah, yes, please continue. Okay, and I can send it also, try sending it again. We have it. Oh, you have it. Okay, so if I understand correctly, it seems like with the requirements of D3 and D4 that an urban lot split is only intended to be allowed for an owner occupied unit prior to the lot split. And then the next one, section D3 and D4, if I understand it correctly, only applies if there is a demo, but not if there's an existing unit not proposed to be demolished. And furthermore, so an existing unit could be either owner or tenant occupied and still be eligible. And then section eight further down, does that section mean that an owner in the city can only apply for a two lot split one time ever? That's what it sounds like to me. And then number six, only a new unit on a new second lot is restricted to the 800 foot maximum, but not an existing unit, and an existing unit then could be any size, whatever size it happens to be. And then do the setbacks, if there's an existing unit and a new lot, would the existing unit have to meet the new development standards for setbacks? And then seven, I think I heard Katie say that one lot can be sold with a two lot split, but if it's two separate lots, they can both be sold, right? And then, I know she said something like if there's two new units on two new lots, they have to be sold together, I'm asking for clarity there. And the last question, bear with me, is a two unit development is two detached units. And I'm just asking, is that right? Oh, those were my questions, sorry, there's so many. So, Katie, let me jump in here and just say that some of these questions seems to have already been answered, but let me ask you a question. I mean, these can be answered by a visit to the front desk, for the most part, right? And the advantage of this is Bradley bringing up these questions to our attention, we'd be to stimulate planning commission's questions and concerns and things that maybe have not been addressed. I frankly would be interested in a review of D3 and four. Maybe you could just go over those quickly. I really don't know how to handle questions in the public comment section. Maybe we should just digest these and ask if there are any more public comments before we start answering questions. Yes, Sean, are there any more public comments or? There have been no other comments, maybe. All right, well, I would think we deserve some. Go ahead, Katie, you have the floor. I'd be happy to bring back a response to all of these questions in the next packet, if you'd like, or what these are, they're in-depth questions. I think it is actually a really good question that number four about sections D3 and D4 and whether or not that applies. A lot of our, we have in our, there are a lot of really good technical questions in here, Paula is a great local planner. So she knows her stuff and I'm glad to get these questions, but I would like to take the time to review them and get accurate answers. One, like, definitely if you do a lot split, I just want to clarify that there's two new lots. You can only sell the two new lots, each lot separately. They can each have two units on them. The two units on the separate lots cannot be sold individually. Or the two units on the same lot cannot be sold individually. I'd be happy to bring back this list with a response to the next planning commission. I'd be happy to meet with Paula beforehand. Sooner or other than later. I would like to hear the answers to three and four. Right, so why don't you go ahead and do that then and plan a slide with these answers for the next presentation. And then also meet with Paula if she so desires. Sounds good. Is that okay with the commission? Sounds good. All right. So if we have no more public comments then we can go back to planning commission deliberation. Katie, you wanted to ask some questions. I had more presentation. Yeah, I have some really pointed questions. I'm getting a good feel I think where the planning commission is headed. But I wanted to run through an example. I think Nick has already run through this example verbally but just quickly. So an example of a 40 by 80 foot lot is seen here. A minimum of 20 foot front edge. This is our typical lot in Capitola. Divided straight down the middle. Well that's not showing up right now. You put your screen chair back up please. Okay, thank you. Screen chair. Okay, screen two. You see that? Yeah, here we go. Okay. So here's our example of a 40 by 80 lot. It's subdivided into two lots. It needs the minimum front edge of 20 feet. We put in our setbacks 15 foot front yard and then four feet around the other yard. What we're left with is 732 square feet. And we have a requirement by law to be able to build two, not just one, to 800 square foot units on each lot. So there, and here's that objective that guarantee that the objective development standards and objective design standards of this chapter shall not prohibit in two unit development with up to 800 square feet. So in this scenario, we would, the planning commission would be good for our ordinance to identify where we wanna be flexible. So does height matter the most? Does setbacks matter the most? Do front yard setbacks matter the most? So in this example, to get those two units, they'd be going up to three stories for sure and breaking the height limit. So what we did is we looked at our typical lot by neighborhood and broke it down for like the jewel box. You typically have a 40 by 80 lot, 44 First Avenue, West Capitola, a 40 by 100. So we broke down the different neighborhoods. We mentioned a lot. And then could they accommodate two 800 square foot single story that is appeasable? And what we found is you really need a minimum 4,000 square foot lot in order to comply. Within the standard. So a lot of our neighborhoods would not. The jewel box, Riverview Terrace, Depot Hill, does a mix. So my next question for you is now it was concluded that the ordinance we drafted doesn't really work for most lots under 4,000 square feet. Where does the planning commission see room for us to be more flexible? But I do think we need to develop some different standards. We can either outline different standards for lots less than 4,000 square feet. So we could decrease the side yard step back to three feet and the front yard step back to 12. And then they'd have a bigger building pad is height less important and they could go higher. We already talked about the fact that as drafted really should say two stories. The side yard step back, the rear step back should decrease the open space. That's I'm looking for some feedback on this item. And if you'd like, I'm happy to bring this back if you want time to think about it and me list questions as a follow-up or if you want to work through them tonight. But I have a few slides like this. Could you run through your calculations to screens back? I didn't understand them. I just picked the jewel box one. I just need one so you can tell me how you calculate these things. Okay, so the jewel box, the typical lot is 40 by 80. Once you take the four foot setback soft it becomes the building pad, which you can build on is 32 feet and the length of the building pad, when you take 80 feet and subtract the 19 feet for the front yard step back and the rear yard step back to 61. Yeah. So then when you multiply that together the 32 by 61. Okay, I get that. And why can't you put two 800 square foot single story homes? The building pad is only 32 square feet. So, you know, what we didn't do here is we didn't do the subdivision. So then you would like divide it in half. On your smaller lot. So then you get 976, which you could still. And there's an extra like 221 for the additional, the new side yard that you've just created on each of the two lots. And they're attached. What? Unless they're attached. Well, but for the, so sorry, I should have run through that table a little more thorough at the end, but the 732, this is the correct number based on you would have created two more setbacks of the four foot setbacks. So that's those numbers were wrong. Sorry. But going through that exercise for all of the lots that are 40 by 80, this would be if they did an urban lot split, the 732. You know, Katie, actually, if we leave that 10 foot separation standard in there, it's even less. Correct, yeah. But it's just the footprint. You can go two stories. Why did you say three stories? Because if it's the, you're, you get up to, you get two. So you can't meet the 800 on the first and second. You need to go into a third story. Isn't it 732 feet of footprint? Yeah. Yeah, but you got, you got to put two units in that 730 square feet. So you need 1600 square feet. Oh, you need two units. Three units. You're allowed two units. So does the parking count in the 800 square feet? So we haven't specified in the parking, if the parking needs to be covered or uncovered. I was assuming uncovered that I do have slides on parking as well. But the parking. Before you leave that slide, what happens to Commissioner Newman's suggestion if you just squish those two units together, what's the square footage of the gap between them? These are two separate lots. So you wouldn't squish these two together. You'd have two units on each block, on each blue building. You can have attached lots and attached units. Within our, It could be like, like roadhouses, right? Yeah. Sound houses. We could, if we design it that way, the way we drafted the ordinance, you could not have a structure over the property line into the neighboring property. So we can get it right up. So what is that square footage though? That's, would we get our 800 feet if we were to say you can build right up to the property line? Between the houses? We would. We would meet that. I think that's the way to go. Yeah. Or we would also. That's an easy fix. Yeah. And also if we went to three feet, step back for the side and rear, we would hit the 800. That makes it a little close to your neighbor. Yeah. Better to have them attached. Okay. Between the, where their new property line in. Yeah. Yeah. Do this really quick. So I went through that exercise and I actually have a slide. So if you took the, if you decreased your step back to, from four feet to three, you'd have an 854 foot pad. But if you were to allow it to have a zero foot step back in the middle, your building pad is a lot larger at 976. Yeah. I think it also makes sense. Maybe instead of doing it that way, you could also reduce the front yard step back slightly. Go back to this list. So it seems like the, the internal step back between the two lots could be decreased to zero. And then any more thoughts on the front yard step back? That's commissioner. Who is this? Justin. Yeah. I prefer that other than increasing the height or reducing the side yard rear yard step back. Yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree. Well, no, wait a minute. So if we did the, if we did the zero lot line between the two units, you've got your 906 square feet. You don't have to compromise on the front step back. Yeah. But if you chose not to do that. Well, then you don't, it's not approved because you have to meet all these step back. But we require that as a, one of the objective standards, they have to have a common wall. Well, no, only if, only if it's, if it's what's small enough lot, they can do whatever they can't want to. It's the last thing enough. But in the case of, I don't disagree with that. I'm not disputing that, but I'm not, I don't know that we can require a zero lot line. That would be my question. And if we can't, then I'd prefer the front yard set back to be reduced rather than anything else. But yeah. Commissioner Wilk, it's not that we're requiring it. We're saying here's the requirements and that's the way you can meet them. Yeah, exactly. And I would, I would be reluctant to change the front yard setback because that's what sets the community is, you know, the, the amount of the yards and everybody in, you know, the streets, the streetscape and the curb appeal and all that has to do, that's what the whole community enjoys. So a lot smaller front setback would, I would think would have a bigger impact on the community as a whole, but I think the common wall makes more sense because then obviously you get into some design things and perhaps they would like to compliment the two front structures that they have a common wall. I think it alleviates a lot of those kinds of problems. But remember, there's going to be no front yard because you're going to have to have two driveways there to provide parking for these units. The lot's only 40 feet wide, 20 feet up, it's going to go to do two 10-seat driveways. So they're going to be Hollywood style. They're going to be, they're going to be very grassy. All the driveways are going to be wide. All the more reason not to shorten the front yard setback. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, the cars are going to be poking on the sidewalk. Okay, so I'm hearing, don't modify the front yard setback, modify the internal setback. You see open space requirement of 48 square feet? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've got a few, we've got some square footage to play with if we have a zero lot line because that brings the total footprint up to 900 some square feet. So we could reduce or increase the rear yard setback to give someone a little bigger rear yard. Layla, do you have a... Yeah, if I could just ask this clarifying question because I'm not a planner. So that I understand. When we're talking about reducing the internal setback between the two properties to zero, I'm just thinking of the scenario where we would have the lot split and then the construction of two units on each lot is what the planning commission is saying we would reduce the internal setback to zero. So the two units on either lot would be very close together. But then if we're talking about four units, would those also be connected or I guess... It'd be like a four-plex. Yeah. You know, there was a time when zero lot line subdivisions were pretty popular. And so I think there's some pretty good examples out there of ones that have been done. We have some on Gray Street. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, I sort of go back and forth for this because I understand we have to abide by the state law. I understand there's a need for providing additional housing and I think our ADU ordinance could work pretty well. This one gets so complicated because they're for sale units. And that makes it a little more complicated, but I mean, they're definitely going to have an impact on the neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would like to make a suggestion and just incorporate the zero lot line and increase the rear yard setback to make the footprint 800 square feet. The one concern I have about that is good design usually isn't just a box. You usually like to have a little articulation in the structure. So if we were to limit it to 800 square feet, we would, you know, they'd be able to produce it, but it's going to be a box and really keep the tradition in the flow of our neighborhoods. I think we wanted more articulation. Yeah. That's a good point. Adds maybe helpful facts. Is that the parking requirement where I'm sorry, state law allows for the city to and requires access to either units and either a lot that's created by the lot split. However, state law does not mandate that that has to be in the form of a driveway or a separate driveway for both lots. So there is a contemplation there if the planning commission wanted to consider it to potentially also have a shared driveway, but then, you know, still requiring the off-site parking or sorry, on-site parking for each unit. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I think that creates again, some more complications for for sale units and the fact that we don't want tandem parking going on in that driveway. Of course. But, you know, at this point, I think we've given Katie some pretty good ideas to look at and I don't, for me personally, I haven't pardoned fast excluded, you know, any new changes that she wants to propose. I'm just trying to give some direction. And I do have some slides on parking. So the maximum unit size, we have it at 800 square feet and the R1 is the floor area ratio. Katie, I think Commissioner Christensen had a... Oh, sorry, go ahead. It's okay. No, I could cover that when you talk about parking. Okay, okay. So maximum unit size 800 square feet, I'm just looking for a nod of head if you'd like us to keep the mask at 800 square feet. I know Los Gatos is allowing 1200 square feet. I think Oakland's allowing a lot more square feet. So how do you feel about 800 square feet? So that's the minimum and the maximum then? It's the, yeah, the maximum of our code and the minimum by right by the state law. I don't think we can accommodate anything larger on the size of our lots. What if they could? What about lots in Cliffwood Heights, for example? And I think, can we have different standards for different sized lots? Yeah. So it's like Commissioner Newman said, I mean, there's a huge difference in a 9,000 square foot lot in Cliffwood Heights and in a 4,000 square foot lot in Riverview Daris or the Jewel box. So maybe for, we need to have two sets of standards, one for lots up to a certain size and one beyond that size. I know it makes it more complicated, but it would be more realistic for the city. So if we're gonna cram everybody in the Jewel box, let's cram everybody in the Cliffwood Heights too. Let's make everybody suffer. Susan, I don't think we really need to do that. If we just have a larger maximum, like Los Gatos, it will only apply in the larger lots because we're having enough time, trouble fitting the 800 square foot units in the Jewel box. That's true, cause it's not a guarantee when if we were to have 1,200 listed, the guarantee is only up to the 800 square feet. Okay, that makes good sense, Commissioner Newman. Yeah, that's fine. And then the questions, what is that number and why? Well, isn't it within the ADU that you can, you can have a minimum, I think for a single bedroom or a studio, it's 850. And then for if you provided two bedrooms, the minimum or the maximum of 1,000, correct? Is that right? 1,200, could that apply in this circumstance? Saying if you had the maximum square feet for a single occupant for a unit, it would be 800 and the maximum would be 12. And it's the lot, it'll allow that. I think that really muddies the water. Yeah. I could go with Commissioner Newman's proposal that if we have it at 1,200 square feet, you're not guaranteed to get that. That just says that's the maximum it can be. What you're guaranteed under state law is the 800 square feet. So if you can't fit it on and meet the step back requirements, you don't get more than 800 square feet. I mean, that seems pretty clear to me and would work. And Commissioner Christensen's point, do you want that tied to bedrooms as our ADU ordinance, the requirement for two bedrooms? No, I don't care how many bedrooms they have or they want one big room up to them. I'm with Commissioner Westman. So the notion here is that we should have the square footage for our maximum ADUs be consistent with our square footage for the two unit development. So that won't be a driver as to which way they go. For me, that's they're really not connected. I just think it's a good suggestion to have the 1,200 square feet, as Commissioner Newman said, because it gives a little more flexibility for people who do happen to have a larger lot. Are you going to define a minimum lot size for that? Well, what we define is they'd have to meet all the step back requirements that we're going to impose. They also, the minimum lot size is 40% of the existing lot. That's set up by the state law. So what safeguards are there that someone can't build a 1,200 square foot on a 40 by 80 lot? Yeah, no, they won't be able to, but we better make those ordinance. So it's easily a method because this is work in progress. I mean, we could go on all night on this. So I was thinking, I'll take your comments from this evening and I'll come back with an updated draft and we'll work through it. But I'm hearing to consider 1,200 square feet and knowing that the guaranteed allowance is only up to the 800 square feet. Are you going to define that 1,200 square feet in certain size lots? No, because it'll only... Are you going to exempt 40 by 80 lots from that 1,200 square feet? No, the 40 by 80 will be forced into the 800 square foot by suit or sag. Because we're making some, we're decreasing the standards for lots under 4,000 square feet to be able to accommodate the 800 square foot development. So possibly the best route is to only allow units greater than 800 square feet on lots that are greater than 400 square feet because we're getting decreased setbacks. Yeah, you'll have to look at it and study it and come up with a... Suggestion. A suggestion. Okay. More sleepless nights. You know, but before we leave this, I've been sending all of you some information from this organization that started to the chagrin of the city attorney. But there's a movement of foot to repeal SB 9. And it's being led by the mayor of Redondo Beach, Bill Brandt, and Jovita Mendoza, a council member in Brentwood, California. You know, it's been supported by the Southern California Association of Governments. And a recent poll on January 28th showed 71% disapprove of SB 9. And the organization is called Our Neighborhoods... Or what is it? Our Neighborhood Voices. And it's a coalition of a lot of different city governments and neighborhood leaders. You can Google it for information, but I would advise everyone, people listening, all of you on the commission to take a look at this, because they're attempting to get enough signatures to put this on the ballot in November to repeal SB 9. And I think it stands a good chance of being repealed at that time. Hopefully they'll get enough signatures. And just one other thing. The city of Woodside, I don't know if you saw this, declared themselves a wildlife sanctuary so they don't have to follow the SB 9 regulation. Woodside. I think we should secede from the union. David Jefferson. At least from California. Back to the top of your hand. Okay, next I wanted to discuss height and flexibility within height. I think one of the, one of our guiding principles is we're looking at this ordinance is that we really want to make sure that the new unit that was in our single family development. I had taken the ADU allowances for height of 16 feet for the first story and 22 feet for the second story. The R1 standard is 25 feet. If the planning commission would like, we could make that, those numbers consistent with the R1 standard. So we're looking at 25 feet. So anything that doesn't look a little bit shorter than the single family homes that are around. The difficulty is they're not going to have the same setbacks that a single family house has to conform to. You know, it's 25 feet fine if you have, you know, a 15 foot rear yard. 25 feet has a huge impact if you have a four foot rear yard. It's also a solid wall, Susan, because there is no additional setback to the second story. That's right. So for me, I would, I'd leave it the way it is tonight. Okay. The only thing that I would comment on is that these teams pretty consistent with the ADU ordinance. So, I mean, regardless of whether it's 22 or 25, it's just going to have a structure that's closer to the rear and side property lines and, you know, in any given rear yard. So it doesn't, I don't see too much difference in my opinion. Okay. So I'm going to move forward with how it's drafted in terms of height, but we will add, we'll take out that maximum one story as discussed previously. Yeah. Setbacks we discussed. Thank you. Open space we discussed. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Parking. This is, I think the last big discussion for us on this. So the parking requirements is that there's one required space per unit and there's exceptions for transit or car share. Tendon space for a separate residential unit is not allowed. Parking design required off street parking may be located within a minimum required setback area from front, which is the state code, the state law. This, the second standard is from our ADU ordinance. Hollywood design with two parallel strips of pavement is allowed. If you do a, if you do parking in the front yard. Also parking is accessed from an alley. Shall maintain a 24 foot back out area, which may include the alley up from our ADU standards. So thinking about parking, this, this is a strategy. I'm going to do some real big concerns came up. Within the urban lot. We also have requirements. Lots without 20 feet or more front edge on a street will not be permitted. Except that front edge requirements flag lots maybe satisfied by driveway or private road access industry with a minimum of 10 feet. And with our maximum of 40% of the lot with, I've tried to put what parking would work with this example that we showed previously. And you're starting to see, not only is parking an impact, but we're gonna lose a lot of street parking because of all the new curb cuts that would occur from that support fence. So we have the ability to direct that. We have the ability instead of saying a minimum driveway width of 10 feet, we can say that's the maximum. We can also state that there can only be one curb cut per development so that there'd be shared access points onto these lots. We were allowed to have agreements put in place or we could have access to agreements. So the thought being here is that we were to allow a subdivision that we could create standards so that there's still only one curb cut so that we maintain the street parking. Because as we lose that street parking, not only do we have a minimum requirement on the site, but also we won't build makeup for it in the street. So I wanted to see if there was support for, should we add standards to minimize curb cuts? We'll think through it. This is really rough right now and it hasn't been assessed at all, but if you'd like us to look into it, we can look into minimizing curb cuts. And also, should we create maximum driveway width tied to these really tight subdivisions rather than minimum? I agree with limiting the curb cuts and having a maximum width on the driveway. I would agree with that. I'd also suggest on the 40 by 80 lots that the driveways be required to be on the outside property lines of each lot to leave the center area open for landscaping. Well, yeah, so for clarification, Commissioner Roof, you're saying to push the building to the outside interior lot line and to use the center. No, no, no, I'm saying push the driveway to the outside lot line on each side. I see. That might be challenging in this scenario. That would keep 20 feet of open space in the front of the houses. You know, they're gonna park in front of the, one of the parking spaces is gonna be in front of the houses. So I think one of the big huge problems of this whole ordinance that we have, you know, ability not to comply with is gonna be the impact on parking in our neighborhoods big time as this starts to evolve. And anything we can do to lessen what's gonna be a tremendous, to mitigate what's gonna be a tremendous negative impact. Some of our neighborhoods already have parking problems. And this is not gonna help at all. Can't you agree with a minimum curb cut? Minimum curb cuts and I know we just want objective standards so we can't put something in along the lines that the driveways have to be designed so as to minimize impact on off street parking. But we can come up with some objective standards that end in that direction. I had a question, Katie, for staff. With these ordinances, I didn't really hear anything about placing parking possibly underneath the structures. Or it's like given an option to, in your slide here, the one on the right-hand side. If you came down the center of a shared driveway, say, and the parking was located, if the height was increased and the structure was built on the second story and there was parking available underneath, would that be something that would be allowed or encouraged or how do you feel about that? Do you mean like digging down or sub-parking or covered within the first story? Within the first story. Okay. Yeah, I think if it can be accommodated in the square footage, I also think we can guide the parking, we can say that parking should be behind the homes if we want, you know, we can build in some standards like that for, I'll look at what's out there and bring back examples of how we can kind of direct parking to meet the objective of minimizing the impact to the street as well as preserving our front yard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just looking around in the village, I see a lot of development that's shoved into very small spaces. And it just seems that a lot of them, I mean, that are creatively designed can, you know, tuck parking in, you know, you go through a driveway and you hook around and you can park inside of a, you know, covered area that's within the primary structure or, you know, under the primary structure. And it seemed to work well for, you know, small spaces. Thank you. Yeah, that might work in Cookwood Heights. It certainly won't work in the rest of the community. But again, my suggestion is if you push the driveways to the outside of each lot, you have a 20 foot space in between, you can still maintain an on-street parking spot for a small vehicle, a compact vehicle. And you've also allowed 20 feet in between the two driveways to accommodate some landscaping. So that would be my suggestion. And it may also depend commissioners on the location and orientation of any existing residents or existing structures. That might be something that also just kind of keeps in mind. And one of my main goals would be to create parking that's gonna be used for parking. I have become to be not a big fan of garages because particularly in the neighborhood I live in where people have small homes, very few people use their garage to park a car in. So in this case, I would like to see the parking, you know, it could be covered but not as a garage. I would tend to agree with that as well. Are there comments, Mr. Christensen? No further comments. Thank you. I'll bring back some standards. And here I just list the objective design standards. I just want to see if there's, I think you've already provided me feedback on this. So there's no more comments needed there. And that is the end of my presentation and questions for you. So I really appreciate your attention to detail tonight and getting through this. And I hope to bring back something. Layla and I will be working on this and bringing back the next round. Any comments on the overall process or questions? I have a question. Go ahead. Go ahead, Commissioner Wefner. So I have a question a little bit about process. I agree with Commissioner Newman that, you know, this is something that we want to get done because I think we can build in some safeguards that will help our neighborhood. I also feel like I don't want to see staff caught in this back and forth with the coastal commission, which I know can be extremely time consuming. So I would like you to give us some update on where they are with their requirements because I really don't want to submit something to them until we have a pretty good, clear understanding about what they are going to require to get an LCP amendment adopted. So I think we sort of have a two track thing going. We need to do our work as a city, but we also need to know what the coastal commission's doing. So in the end, we can link those two together to have a successful submission to them. So I hope you'll keep us updated on their thoughts as we go through this. I will. Usually I try to share an ordinance well in advance with the coastal commission, which we do with our outdoor dining. And yeah, we are in discussions now and hopefully they'll be able to give me more direction because they were very vague during our meeting of exactly what they expect to see. Are you gonna give a presentation to the city council? Not yet. I'd like to work through with our planning experts, the planning commission first, and then they know we're working on this, but I really want to fine tune it with you all first and then we'll bring it to the city council when it's ready. I had one last question. Is outside of the coastal zone, just for clarification, I'm sorry if I make you repeat yourself, but this is enacted now, so people can actually do this now. Is there outside the coastal zone? Correct. Okay. But inside the coastal zone, there's a little muddy or it's basically they can't. They cannot do it now. They can't bring us. So I think there's disconnect as Layla pointed out earlier between what the state law says and the interpretation by the coastal commission. So what I've heard from the coastal commission is that we shouldn't be reviewing any SB9 applications within the coastal zone until we have our ordinance certified by the coastal commission. I see, okay. We know how fast that happens. Thank you for- All right. Any other questions on item 6B before we move to the director's report? Let us then move to the director's report. Katie, do you have anything else? I do not. I'm going to be publishing the RFP for our housing element update, which is another fun project ahead of us. That's it. No other information for you tonight. And then you're going to maybe have something on balconies next meeting. We're hoping for the next meeting. We're putting together, we're doing some research and looking into, we're going to bring forth about five different examples of from different cities and what their objective standards are. We'll also go over the floor area ratio and how we remove the second story duct from the floor area ratio. And we're not going to come forward with an ordinance for you. We just want to get kind of less than we had tonight just direction or work session item to see whether or not you want us to move forward with an amendment. Thank you. Commissioners, communications. Any commissioners wish to make a final statement? Hey, look, if I could just suggest that we take an action on the SB9 item. I think Kay had mentioned potentially continuing the item. And then we could keep public comment open or we could close public comment at the commission's discretion. Well, I didn't think we had an action on 6B. It was just a presentation. So we need to authorize the second presentation. No, there is action within the recommendation. Sorry, I don't have a slide for the recommendation. Can I make a motion to continue this item to our March 7th meeting? And I think it's appropriate to continue to leave the public hearing open because this is going to impact our community and we would like to hear from them. I would second. Correct point of clarification. I think it's March 3rd. Okay, March 3rd, sorry. Okay, I have a motion by Commission Weston and second by Commissioner Ruth. We have a roll call for continuance. Okay, now we'll move to commission communications. Do any commissioners have final words? Your hand is raised. Oh, no, my hand's been raised for a while. It's gone, sorry. All right. Anyone else? Okay, with that then, this meeting is adjourned. Good night, everyone. Good job, Katie. Yeah. Good bye.