 Okay, since it's seven o'clock, I'm going to call the August 6 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Planning Commission to order. Could we please have a roll call? Commissioner Conway? Here. Dawson? Here. Greenberg? Here. Here. Can you hear me? Yep. We can hear you. I'm here. Bellman? I see you. You're muted. Peter? I'm here. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Nielsen? Chair Schifrin? Here. Commissioner Nielsen's absent with notification. Are there any statements of disqualification? Are there any oral communications? Is it time for items that are not on the agenda but are appropriately before the commission for up to three minutes? Chair, I do see that there are two people with their hands raised. I'm not sure if they're wanting to speak at oral communications, but I can check with the first if you wish. Yes. Would you please? I will. Hello, speaker. You're on the line. Yes. This issue isn't on the agenda, but it's something that I'm very concerned about. I'm a local public school teacher. I've worked in local environmental organizations for about 25 years here in Santa Cruz. Would you mind getting a name? Yeah, Kersha Durham. Thank you. Sorry. I'm a bit nervous. My main concern is I've lived in Santa Cruz for over 40 years and my primary residence my only home is on Felix Street. I know the neighborhood very well. I've lived here 17 years. I've walked through Cypress Point. Several times a week I walk through to access Neri Lagoon. And I feel like that area is a local treasure. It's a gem. This is not about NIMBY-ism, but I think the plan for one-on-one feelings street to add density to the Cypress Point apartments that are already extremely expensive. And so they're overcrowded. That's not the place to add density. This development site, it's next to a beautiful wildlife refuge. And Laurel Creek, which is a watershed. It flows out to Cowles Beach, adding what would be not just 160 residents, but I know because I lived here so long that those units are packed full of people. And the reality is they all have cars. We do not have any street parking. Even now during COVID, there's no street parking. Often the driveways are blocked by Cypress Point apartments. Neri Lagoon Wetland. It's the riparian habitat. It is home, if you don't know, to 228 species of birds. That's 228 species of birds. Endangered wildlife, like the western pond turtle. All of these creatures are very sensitive to light, noise, taller buildings. Cutting down 22 trees. Human activity. The construction of this project, it would take the developer says one and a half years, maybe more. And ongoing construction and associated pollution, human activity. This disrupts the nesting and breeding birds. The bats. They're members of our community. They're members of our community. They're members of our community. They're members of our community. They disrupt the nesting and breeding birds. The bats. They're members of my family. I see an owl pair. Barn owl has come out of the trees at Cypress Point. They're very sensitive wildlife. I want you to reconsider and not have this building. I believe in affordable housing. I work with families and a public school teacher. But this is not the place to put it. The parking area is just a few yards. It's a really sensitive wetland. I have seen oil dripping from cars going down into the creek. Runoff from a construction site. The parking area. It will pollute Neary Lagoon, which you know flows out to call us beach. You have 30 seconds. Thank you very much. I just want to say that I'm speaking for the owls. The red shoulder hawks. that we see frequently and observe them in those 22 trees. They're very tall trees, birds are attracted, and those would be slated to be cut down. And we move to this area and live here because of natural gems and treasures like Mary Lagoon. Please do not allow this development at 101 Felix. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just say for the record that if this project ever comes before the commission, I have a conflict of interest. I live within 500 feet of the proposed project, so I will not be participating in its consideration. Since we've just got a oral communication about that, I thought I should make it clear right from the beginning that I will not be participating if this proposal ever comes before the commission. Is there a second speaker for oral communications? Yes, there is. Please give us your name and you have up to three minutes. Yes, good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you. Yes, thank you. I appreciate you allowing me to speak this evening, and I'm honored to do so. My name is Lori Wensink, and I've been a long-time resident and visitor of Santa Cruz and recently heard about the development at 101 Felix Street. I want to strongly say that I do not support this development due to the reasons of habitat and endangered species that live there on the land like the western pond turtle and the barn owl. I do not follow accounts for money to keep Santa Cruz's natural beauty before greed. Also, the overcrowding of over 3,000 tenants on a dead end street will create further dangers, extreme dangers, as evacuations due to fires or tsunami problems will cost the city exorbitantly, and this will be disastrous. So again, I just want to stress that I do not support the development of 101 Felix Street, and I second everything the previous speaker said. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Is there any other member of the public or anyone else who wants to testify during oral communications? Hearing that there's no one else, we'll move on to announcements. Are there any announcements? Are there any presentation presentations? We don't have any minutes to approve to this evening. We don't have a consent agenda, so we'll move to general business. Public hearings number one, be keeping on residential and non-residential properties city-wide. Could we have a staff report please? Yes, good evening. My name is Sarah Noisy. I'm with the advanced planning section of the planning department, and I'm going to be sharing the presentation tonight with Ethan Avalar, who's been our planning intern this summer and has been able to take on a lot of the work and research related to this topic of beekeeping. So Ethan, if you are ready, if you could go ahead and share your screen. Sure. Can you see it? Is it visible? Yes, yes. Great. Thank you. So we're going to be talking tonight about our beekeeping ordinance. The last time the city updated this ordinance was sometime in the mid-80s, so 35 years ago about, and currently the current regulations that we have in those code are very short. It's about four lines of code, and it says you need an administrative use permit and all your hives have to be set back 20 feet from all property lines. So this is pretty restrictive, and acquiring an administrative use permit requires a fee in excess of $2,000. It also requires process both on the part of the applicant and on the part of the city. And it was brought to the city's attention sometime a little over a year ago that this was really excessively burdensome and not conducive to supporting beekeeping as a viable and important hobby for folks in the city. We know that pollinators are really important, and I think that the city is actually very interested in supporting bees and supporting pollinators and allowing beekeeping in appropriate locations within the city on all types of properties. So with kind of, with that in mind, with this amendment, we're going to be recommending that we amend it because the permit fee is so costly and the 20-foot setback is so burdensome. We're relying on some guidance from the California Food and Ag Code, which states that beekeeping is important to the economy and welfare of the people of the state of California and promotion of this industry in the interest of the people of the state of California. So we set some goals for this process. And first and foremost, we want to promote safe beekeeping in the city of Santa Cruz. We really are interested in encouraging this as an activity that folks can do on their properties. We want to reduce the financial burdens for local beekeepers, eliminating that permit fee. We want to encourage healthy bee populations within the city. And then we also are cognizant of public safety. People are very aware of fees and bee things and we are keeping that in mind as we're developing these, our recommended ordinance language. And then we want to establish some best practices so that if conflicts do arise and we do get into a situation where code enforcement is obligated to respond, that we've set in place standards and practices that are pretty objective and measurable. And then they're written in such a way that we can really prevent anyone from being negligent with their beehives to the greatest extent possible so that we're caring both for the health of the human neighbors as well as our insect neighbors in the city. So with that, Ethan is going to explain the provisions of our proposal and then we'll both be here afterwards to answer any questions. Thank you, Sarah. So as Sarah just said, I'm going to run through the points of staff's recommendations to the planning commission line by line, although the points that are mentioned here are simplified or shortened from the draft ordinance, which is publicly available and can also be found in the staff before the planning commission. So the first goal of the city of Santa Cruz is to reduce a financial burden for beekeepers. And as such, we're recommending that the installation and maintenance of the areas does not require a use permit at all and this eliminates the fee to beekeepers. It also eliminates costs to the city that are required for the archiving and the maintenance of these permits. However, the removal of a permit requirement or a permit fee does not hinder coding enforcement's ability to regulate the best practices of beekeeping as they currently do and as they have that being on a complaint basis. Our next recommendation is that apiaries should be accompanied by a constant and permanent source of water on site with hives. The reason for this is that bees seek a consistent source of water near their hives and when that source of water dries up, they will seek another consistent source of water, which will often mean going to a neighbor's property, for example, and using their water as a consistent source. To mitigate that, SAC is recommending for this on site accompaniment of a water source. This is also just a widely understood best practice for beekeepers and it's reflected in several beekeeping manuals, as well as in the ordinances of local jurisdictions in California. For beekeeping on non-residential properties, and this includes public property, beekeeping would require the beekeeper to stencil their identification, that being their name and their phone number on the hive boxes. SAC is also recommending that beekeepers obtain the consent of property owners before installing and maintaining apiaries on their properties, as well as a recommendation to give a courtesy notice to all neighbors within a 50-foot radius from this apiary site. Our justifications for this, for non-residential beekeeping including beekeeping on public land comes largely from the city parks department, who sees promise in beekeeping on public land, for example, the homeless garden project and several pollinator gardens throughout the city. Additionally, the city is aware of current beehives being maintained on commercial properties and does not see this as a problem considering lack of complaints given and staff would like to allow those operations to continue given that these protocols are followed. Additionally, if a beekeeper wants to keep bees on their own property, but they're unable to for whatever reason, this option provides them with an alternative and gives them several weeks to follow so that they can practice their hobby elsewhere. The next is for multi-family residential use spots in which staff is recommending that beekeepers first obtain written consent from the property owner and also to provide a courtesy notice for all current tenants on the lot similar to neighbors with non-residential properties. Again, this consent will be required before installing and maintaining an apiary as well as the notice. This allows landowners to maintain control of their properties, but it also allows tenants to have the opportunity to raise concerns about beekeeping on the properties that they live in. The next series of recommendations are all centered around one goal and that is the goal of identification by which I mean that staff wants to construct enough space between a beehive and members of the public such as that when bees exit their hive they will be able to disperse and to not disturb members of the public in a way any different from, say, common encounter with a bee that could be found in nature. The first recommendation to achieve this goal is that no hive shall be installed or maintained less than 10 feet from the property line. This justification of 10 feet comes from research conducted by staff which found that bees typically disperse within 10 feet of their hive engines. However, it was brought to the planning department's attention by some concerned beekeepers that a 10 foot setback is overly burdensome and that dispersal can be met within the bounds of this 10 foot distance. So staff is laying forth an alternate language for discussion and consideration from the planning commission and that is that no hive shall be installed less than three feet from the property line. If bees are to be kept any closer than 10 feet from the property line from the front property line, they're mitigating factors. For example, orienting beehives away from property lines as well as the construction of a non-penetrable barrier on the front property line that is no greater than 42 inches. Staff has not had the time to fully research the efficacy of the suggestion. However, we do want to put it forth for discussion based off of the concerns of local beekeepers. Next staff is recommending that at least two out of the four criteria must be met to encourage dispersion before flying up your neighboring properties or enchanted members of the public. The first is orienting hive entrances to face the interior of the property rather than facing outward into other properties. The second is the placement of hive boxes at least 10 feet from property lines. The third is placing hives behind a barrier of at least six feet in height, and this would be a non-penetrable barrier that bees are not able to fly through. And lastly, that bees can be placed at least 10 feet up the ground, for example, on a garage or a roof or a car court. The following of two out of these four criteria fall under the assumption that there is geographical variation within different city properties, and some of these requirements are easier or more burdensome to meet depending on which property one would keep these on. So we would like to encourage the best practices of beekeeping with a combination of either of these two. I would like to direct the planning commission's attention to this straight through an underlying section on section III to replace the language of within five feet of to behind. It was pointed out by a concerned beekeeper that by allowing a five foot space between a fence and the end of that space, while also having a 10 foot setback allows for the sort of five foot dead zone where bees aren't allowed to be kept. And this is an area that wishes to rectify the language change in the ordinance amendment. Next, when located to adjacent to a pedestrian right of way, I shall be either set back a minimum of 10 feet from the right of way, or similar to the language change of the last being placed behind a barrier, a non-penetrable barrier of at least six feet in height. And I would like to direct the planning commission's attention again to this desired language change to clarify and to rectify this five foot no man's land of beekeeping. So here is just a full summary of the points made on the current ordinance amendment. That would be no registration or permit across the non-site source of water for non-residential properties, written consent and a courtesy notice to neighbors as well as for Senselling and ID on the beekeeper's hive box, from Multi Family A lots that we are recommending that the owner obtain written consent from the property owner, as well as the courtesy notice from tenants. A 10 foot setback from property lines or a three foot sitback with mitigation factors that staff would like to suggest for discussion. four, orienting high entrances to face interior properties, a 10 foot setback, a six foot non-penetrable barrier, or positioning high speed feet off the ground. Lastly, one out of two of the following criteria must be met if adjacent to a right of way that being a 10 foot setback work done. Again, the staff recommends the Planning Commission strike the five foot setback adjacent to barriers to sections F and G and discuss the alternative language for section D relative to front yard setbacks. Moving forward to staff recommendations, the staff formally recommends that the Planning Commission recommend to the City Council approval of the proposed amendments to the Municipal Code of Regulating Beekeeping. Staff formally recommends that the Planning Commission directs staff to correct the language relative to the five foot setback, again, this being the error that creates a no man's land adjacent to non-penetrable barriers as written in sections F and G. And lastly, staff formally recommends that the Planning Commission discuss the alternative language for section E relative to front yard setbacks, that being changing the setback from 10 feet to three feet. Before taking questions, just some next steps, staff anticipates taking the recommendation of the Planning Commission to the City Council on August 25th. And if the City Council takes action on that date, staff will move forward towards the second reading of this ordinance amendment for the City Council on September 8th. And lastly, if this ordinance amendment is to be adopted by the City Council, the ordinance will go into effect 30 days after the second reading. Thank you very much. Staff is now welcoming any and all questions from the Planning Commission. Thank you. Andy, you're muted. Thank you very much for the staff presentation. The commissioners have any questions for staff? I don't see any. I have one. I'll actually have two. Where the multi-family project where it says the recommendation is for written approval of the property owner and notice to the tenants, why doesn't it say written notice to the tenants? I'm a little concerned that it's not clear how the tenants will be notified of the decision. I'll go ahead and take that one, Ethan. Sorry. That's a language change we could make. That is our intention that it would be written notice. We're actually planning to have a little website for beekeepers that would have a form letter for this notice where it would list the beekeepers name and contact information on the property owner's name and contact information for both of these scenarios, both on the multi-family properties and on the non-residential properties. So that is the intention, would be that it would be written, it doesn't say that in the ordinance, but that's certainly something we could, in addition, we could make to the ordinance. So it just struck me as someone who lives in a condominium project, how would that work for a multi-family condominium project where there's a homeowners association and then each of the homes are owned separately? What if one or two of the members wanted to have hives on the property? How would that work under the proposed ordinance? So the HOA is technically the owner of any common parcel, so the HOA would be responsible for granting or denying consent to place those hives. It might be good to add a language that explicitly deals with condominium projects because the condo owners are not tenants, they're owners. And it might be just somehow reflecting that what's being proposed is that the condo owners be notified, which is fine, I mean I don't have an objection to that, but I think it should be made explicit. Right, so we would change residents, we would change it from all current tenants on the lot to say all current residents. Lots to think about exactly how to work that because there's condos, there's technically individual lots, but yes, okay, we can think about how to phrase that. And then my final question is you, the staff report indicated we should have a discussion about E, but what's the, this is I guess the 10-foot setback from the property line. What is the staff recommendation for that? So staff is recommending, staff is, the staff recommendation is 10 feet. What we heard after we published that, we heard from some beekeepers that were concerned that was excessively cautious. And so when talking with them, we came up with this alternative language, which maybe we could put that back up on the screen, Ethan, can you get that slide up again? Yeah, I have a few things that I can share with you. I can try to get it back up though. Okay, so we came up with this alternative language that staff believes that this is acceptable. We, you know, we talked this through with the beekeepers. They were concerned that, you know, some parcels really only have sun in the front yard and sun is important for beehives. And so it was important to them that they maintain the opportunity to keep these in the front yard. And, you know, this is one of those times when we really are, we're kind of, we're addressing multiple different goals. We do have a goal of supporting beekeeping. You know, I, I think it's okay to say that that, you know, staff is interested in doing that, the city I think is interested in doing that. And we are still concerned, you know, we're, we're sensitive about these front property lines, so how are people are going to be interacting with these hives potentially, who's going to come in contact with them without really realizing that they maybe are there. So if hives are going to be that close potentially to the front setback, they would need to be, the entrances would need to be oriented in such a way so that bees weren't entering and exiting directly across the front setback line. And then they would also need to be behind some kind of barrier. And in the front yard, that fence or hedge can't be taller than 42 inches. That's a, you know, existing code language. And this is, this is the alternative that I think a number of the beekeepers really would like to see. We think it's something the planning commission should discuss and make a recommendation about either the staff recommendation of 10 feet or this alternative that uses a combination of factors to sort of achieve that same goal of dispersing the bees before they are crossing a property line or interacting with other members of the public. Okay. Thank you. Are there members of the public? Are they, are there, um, who are at the meeting who would like to testify? I don't, I didn't see that other commissioners had questions. So, yes. Amen. Did you have a question? Yeah, just a simple one. Um, do we have a sense for how many apiaries we have in the city limits? Is it a, is it a growing trend? Um, if I may answer that, uh, but no, we don't. However, the beekeepers that we have spoke to have informed us that the number of, of hives that an individual would keep on their property would not be, um, would not be many. Um, it would be around, uh, three to five, depending on the time of the year. Uh, and whether or not these times would need to be, um, we need to be combined or whether or not they die. Um, but, you know, we have no information regarding the total number of apiaries in the city. Um, we also were informed by local beekeepers. There are no large commercial, um, or you might say industrial operations of beekeeping in the city. I think there probably are some beekeepers ready and waiting to provide some testimony on this tonight. Maybe they can fill us in. My sense is that it's in the range of dozen rather than hundreds. You know, I'm guessing there's maybe there's probably fewer than 50, but that's just a guess. And you know, the beekeeper's guild may have some more, um, specific information about that. Perfect. Thank you. Are there any commie, any further commission of questions? Okay. Um, can we hear from members of the public assuming that there are some who would like to testify? Hi, chair. This is the clerk. There are several members of the public, one of which has raised their hand. If the other members of the public wish to speak to this item, could you please press star nine so that the clerk knows that you want to be in the queue to speak to this item and please identify yourself and you'll have up to three minutes to testify. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to, um, start the first and only speaker that's identified that they would wish to address this item. You're on the line. Okay. Hi, everybody. Um, my name is Miriam Stombler and I'm a beekeeper in Seabright. And having said that, I just admitted on the public record that I'm a scoff law. So I'd want to thank the staff for the very thoughtful work on this. And, um, I want to start by saying that the, the good news is that beekeeping in Santa Cruz is not a problem that needs to be fixed. Um, our beekeepers are very, very responsible. We have a very strong support group in the beekeepers guild to encourage us practices, make sure we're being good neighbors and make sure that our bees are healthy. And, um, as a result in 35 years, the city has only ever received two complaints that we know of. We were notified about that by planning staff last year. So I think it's great that we're working towards getting rid of these sort of arbitrary restrictions to beekeeping with the high expense and the very limited siting requirements. So I'm really excited about the work that the staff is doing. I appreciate their hard work and I support the ordinance with sort of two exceptions modifications. Um, and the staff has approached the siting requirements very cautiously. Um, with sort of the worst case scenario lens, which is, you know, what they do, um, but you can see from our long history of drama free beekeeping that we don't need to be overly restrictive to the point where we're eliminating good hive placement opportunities or at least like putting creating the presumed nuisances where people are citing hives in areas that are not specifically allowed by the ordinance. So to understand that my concerns, I think it's important to know a couple of things about how bees work. I think for people often like sort of envisioned as this river of bees flowing out of a hive directly onto a neighbor's property or onto a sidewalk. But that's not really accurate. Bees trickle in and out of a hive all day long. They tend to fly up and out to forage. They can fly as many as several miles. And, you know, unless you're standing right in front of a beehive, you're not likely to run into a bee. Bees don't just concentrate on adjacent properties just because they're close by bees will go where the food is. So the first thing is understanding bee flight patterns. And the other is understanding hive placement. Hive placement is tricky. You can't just put a hive where you want to because it's convenient. You have to consider the sun exposure, ventilation, orienting to the cardinal directions, typically like facing the entrance south, accessibility. And so given a very small loss in Santa Cruz, there's not a lot of space to choose from and how these these practical limitations. So the less citing restrictions you have, the more beekeeping opportunities we will have. So the first issue is this 10 foot property front property line requirement. I really support the alternative that the planning staff has presented. You can easily place bees within 10 feet of the front property line safely and comparably by doing the mitigation measures that the staff has recommended, the 42 inch fence or vegetation and orienting the hive entrance away from the pedestrian right of way. OK, and the other is along the side and rear lines. They're requiring that you meet two of four listed criteria, whereas any one of those criteria alone would be enough to mitigate any kind of incompatibility with them with the neighbors. So when that kind of mix and match must do two or four, I would suggest that it be amended to say must do one of the four following mitigation measures. And I'll be on call. Many of our beekeepers are here. We'd be happy to answer any questions for you about beekeeping. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? There are. There are speakers on the line. This is your last chance. If you'd like to speak on the beekeeping item to please indicate by pressing star nine now, there are no other speakers to this item. OK, I'm going to close the public hearing and bring them out of back to the commission. Can we first have commission comments? Commissioner Dawson, you have to mute yourself. Yeah, I just wanted to really commend the staff for a great presentation. And I've read a lot about bees for the last 48 hours. It's really interesting. And I would also just like to go ahead. And I don't know if we're take. Are we taking motions at this point? I would prefer to have commissioners just speak before I have a motion, but then I'll give it back to you to make a motion. OK, well, I would just like to say the resident of a substandard lot in the city of Santa Cruz that can present a lot of challenges. And so I'm really I really commend the staff of working with the beekeepers to come up with some alternate language for the 10 foot step back in the front. And after the other conditioners speak, I'd like to make a motion on that. So thank you. Other commissioners have comments. I actually have some comments. I'm a person who lives with somebody who is allergic to bees. I'm also someone who gets who has gotten stung by bees. And, you know, one of the things that occurs to me is that a reason why there might not have been more complaints is that we've had a very, very restrictive ordinance. And it looks like there have been violations over the years, but I'm sure the cost of the permit and the restriction on the number of hives has limited the number of of beekeeping, amount of beekeeping that's gone on. So while on the one hand, I'm supportive of on a policy level. I'm a little concerned, as the speaker said, bees fly around. If you happen to step on a bee on a school ground or it happened to, you know, hit you on a adjacent property, if there's going to be a significant increase in the amount of bees that are kept in the city, they're, you know, I think they're all legitimate concerns. So I'm willing to support the staff recommendation. I think it's a major change to having a limit of two hives and to having no limit on the number of hives. And the ability to essentially impose hives on multifamily projects with simply notification of other residents. So I mean, I'm happy to give this a try, but I'm reluctant to support making it even more lenient than it already is, because it's been a, as I see it, a really very, very significant increase in the opportunity to beekeeping in the city. So those are my comments. I guess where I would end up is just to support the staff recommendation and as a recommendation to the council. Do any other commissioners have comments? OK, Commissioner Dawson, unmute yourself and you can make your motion. Yes, I would like to move that we support the alternate language for Section E that the staff has recommended making the front boundary set back from 10 to three seats. So the alternate language that staff has proposed. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second that motion. Commissioner Maxwell seconds the motion. Is there any discussion on the motion? I'll support the motion just because I don't want to vote no on the ordinance overall. But I'll be interested to see how this all plays out, assuming that the council is as willing to go along with as the commission is. Any further discussion? Commissioner Conway. Yeah, I also want to thank the staff for some really thorough work and also the community members who helped to craft a path here for something that I know is going to have strong support among a lot of people in the community. And I appreciated the speakers request to take the less cautious mitigations rather than requiring at least two or four requiring one of four mitigations. And I thought that was a compelling argument. On the other hand, as Chair Schifrin has mentioned, these can be a big issue for a lot of people. And I'm okay with the staff recommendation of requiring two or four recommendations to mitigation. Any further discussion by commissioners? So there's a motion on the floor to approve the staff recommendation with the amended language for subsection E regarding setbacks, the 10 foot setback, changing that to what the staff presented as an alternative and I won't repeat it. So can we have a roll call vote? Yes. I'm so sorry. I should have mentioned this earlier when we were talking about that. Making that, I just, just to be clear, making that change to that subsection E will create some inconsistency through the rest of the code. So if that's the policy direction, then we will also be making some other changes within this ordinance to be constitutive with that. So. Is that acceptable to the maker of the motion? The second, can I also just make clear whether the, for the maker of the motion, the second that amending the language to clarify written notice through tenants and putting in some language regarding condominium projects is acceptable as well. Is there any objection? Yeah. Except as a friendly amendment. Okay. It looks like the second commissioner second is okay. So let's have a roll call vote, please. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Dawson. Aye. Greenberg. Aye. Maxwell. Spellman. Aye. Chair Schifrin. Aye. Motion passes unanimously, excuse me. Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very thorough and all the information that I never had before that is quite fascinating. So let's move on to the next item, which is item number two, the amendments to the city of Santa Cruz municipal to exempt electric vehicle charging stations from historic alteration permits and to revise the variations to district regulations allowed as incentives for historic properties. Could we have a staff report, please? Good evening, this is Catherine Donovan and let me just bring up the presentation. Thank you. We are working on amendments to our historic preservation ordinance to address electric vehicle charging stations and to make them exempt from historic alteration permits and to revise some of the variations to the district regulations allowed as incentives for historic properties. You probably remember a couple of months ago we came forward with an amendment to our ordinance to allow EV charging stations, and it was in response to the assembly bill 1236. At that time, we just missed this little piece, which is that in a historic district or on a historic property, they would be required to do a historic alteration permit. So we're coming forward to just fix that little piece of overlooked regulation so that we will be in compliance with the state requirements. The variations to district regulations used as incentives, there are two areas we're looking at. One is related to parking. In this section with the variations to standards, there's a list of different standards that can have variations. Parking is included in that list, but then after that list of allowed variations, there's some specific language related to parking, two different paragraphs that get into... To Catherine. minutia, yeah. Sorry to interrupt Catherine. It looks like your PowerPoint isn't working. It's still on the first page. Hello, DC. Okay, I'm gonna close this and Sarah De Leon, can you share or Matt, do you have it up? Well, it says enable editing. If you click on enable editing at the yellow line above the, that may allow you to move it. I don't think that. It should be that. And... It's moved. There are variations to district regulations as incentives. Is that where we're supposed to be? Park, ADUs? That's where we're supposed to be. Okay, we're there. It's supposed to be because my connection is, I'm having trouble with my connection, but we'll hope it works the rest of the way. Okay, so there's, in the parking section, there are some two paragraphs that contain quite a bit of detail. And some of the detail that's included in those paragraphs as incentives, refer to standards that have already changed so that they're now allowed city-wide and would not serve as an incentive. So what we are proposing is to remove those two paragraphs and simply leave the reference to parking. The other issue is that we have discovered that people sometimes think, when they read those two paragraphs, that those are the only incentives related to parking that are available to them. And so by removing those sentences, or the two paragraphs, we both remove some information that's no longer relevant and we also remove some confusion that we've discovered people are operating under. The second change to this same area has to do with the information listed for ADUs. As you know, the state has been rapidly changing regulations regarding ADUs. Each of the past three years have been significant changes and the city has changed the ordinance in response. And so now all of the detail that's listed as incentives for ADUs is no longer relevant because those same numbers would be allowed by right anywhere in the city. So again, they don't serve as incentives. And since the regulations around ADUs are now so lenient with the caveat that the state regulates the maximum size, we don't really have much to offer as an incentive for historic preservation that relates to ADUs. So at this time we're just proposing to take any mention of ADUs as an incentive out of the ordinance. There's one other small change that we are making in the list of incentives. There's a reference to the downtown recovery plan and the name of that plan was changed in 2017 to the downtown plan. And so we're just proposing to remove the word recovery. This item was heard by the Historic Preservation Commission on July 15th and they recommended approval of the changes with the recommendation that we keep those two paragraphs that had the specific detail about the parking incentives. Okay Catherine, I'm gonna share my screen because yours is still frozen. Okay, I'm gonna stop sharing then. I'm so sorry, I live on the edge of my providers service and sometimes this happens to me. All right, that's where you're at. It was on the Historic Preservation Commission, yes. So they approved the recommended approval of the ordinance with two changes. They wanted to keep the two paragraphs with the parking incentives and in the second of the two parking incentive paragraphs, they wanted to add, it already says reductions in residential parking requirements may include and they wanted to add but are not limited to. The problem is in that second paragraph of parking incentives, there's three specific items that are listed. Two of those items have already been offered to citywide so that they're no longer incentives and the third is proposed to be changed. It's coming forward and an ordinance will be bringing shortly. So that particular paragraph is basically obsolete so staff continues to recommend that that be removed. Now the first paragraph on parking incentives is not obsolete but the language is very specific as to exactly what can be offered and planning staff would prefer to not have such specificity because it allows more flexibility. So if we simply leave parking in as one of the standards that can have variations, that allows staff to work with the project applicant on a case-by-case basis to find the incentive that is appropriate to both the property and the project. These incentives are offered so that an applicant will come forward with a project that would provide historic preservation and so we don't wanna give away the store if they're only gonna paint the front door. We wanna have a more nuanced approach here. So that can you forward? So staff continues to recommend the original amendments leaving the parking as a standard that can be modified but leaving out those specific paragraphs that are either obsolete or limiting next slide. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, thank you very much. Do commissioners have any questions of staff on this matter? I don't see anybody. Oh Cindy, do you have a question? Commissioner Dawson, did you have a question? I'm sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I found this very challenging to unwind all the language and I did wanna just ask staff if they could talk a little bit more about how their recommendation differs from what the Historic Preservation Commission approved and I know you just went over it but if you can give it one more shot to understand the difference between what the Historic Preservation Commission approved and maybe a little bit of reasoning why they were moving towards those recommendations versus what is staff recommending that would be very helpful. Thank you. Okay, Matt, can you bring up the red line version of the ordinance? I think that would be helpful. I don't want to take a second to get that up. Do you wanna start speaking to that Catherine while I'm setting that up? Sure. I'm not exactly sure why the Historic Preservation Commission felt so strongly. I know that they were involved in the original ordinance and so it could be that they worked hard on it. They had some strong ideas about it and it's possible that they simply didn't realize that those incentives that they're offering, the variations that they're offering, since the rest of the zoning, other areas of the zoning ordinance have changed and those are allowed by right now. You can't, if somebody can do it anyway, then it's not really an incentive. So my feeling is perhaps they didn't quite understand that. Let me see if I can show you on the, I'm burying it up now. Okay. Well, in the ordinance, it's not really, they're not really talked about as incentives but as variations. And so what you're saying, if I'm understanding is the language is variations to development standards, district regulations for high stories, parking, setbacks, et cetera, may be modified to the extent that it promotes preservation maintenance or rehabilitation of historic structures. And then it has specific parking-related incentives. And if I'm understanding what you're saying, that these are already a right or a variation, these are variations that are already allowed by the ordinance. So it's redundant to include these as potential variations here because there are variations everywhere. Is that, am I understanding that correctly? Yeah. That's partly correct. Partly there, it's redundant because there, if you look in A, variations to development standards, district regulations for high stories, parking, setbacks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, may be modified to the extent that it promotes preservation. So that is the list of all the things that can be offered as incentives, a modification to what would normally be allowed in a residential district or a commercial district, whichever. Now, in the second paragraph that's crossed out where it says reduction in residential parking requirements, they list three specific things, a waiver to covered parking, a credit for one parking space in the front setback, and a credit for up to three spaces in tandem. Now, since this ordinance was adopted, there have been changes to the municipal code and we now allow parking in the front setback. So there's no credit because you're already allowed. And we already allow three tandem parking spaces for multi-family. So those two things are already allowed. We're also looking at doing some significant amendments to our parking regulations, and those will be coming forward pretty soon within the next month or so. And that would include removing the requirement for covered parking. So those things are no longer even relevant. And so that's why we want to take that particular paragraph out. Now, the paragraph above it, where it says reduction in parking requirements, that is very specific about exactly how much, may enlarge at least 150 square feet or a maximum of 15% without requiring additional parking. We would like, there's nothing wrong with that and it's not obsolete, but it's so specific that it's not always helpful and we'd like to have more flexibility and that's why we're proposing to remove that paragraph. There's no dusting, is that in? There's no dusting, is that in? Yes, thank you. I guess that's a great question for me for that one because that sort of sets a limit on how much parking requirement can be reduced. The language that you're, to just take it out, would allow significantly more reduction, theoretically, is that not the case? Theoretically, and it was, you know, as I said, we want, this has to be nuanced because if you're doing something very minor, we're not going to make a major concession. But if someone wanted to do something that would significantly improve their property but might be larger than a 15% increase in the size of the building and they didn't have enough room to put in additional parking, we would want to have the flexibility to be able to approve that. So this is a kind of a traditional dilemma between giving the public and applicants certainty so that people know what the requirements are versus the flexibility where anything could end up going. So as I learn more about this, I'm starting to feel more sympathy for the recommendation of the Historic Preservation Commission, at least in terms of that first paragraph. Are there other commissioner questions? I don't know if there's anybody from the public who would like to speak on this item. Is there anybody from the public? I do not see anyone who wishes to speak on this item, Chair. Thank you very much. So it's back before the commission, I thought this was going to be totally straightforward but I guess it's not totally straightforward. What would the commissioners want to do? Commissioner Dawson. Yeah, I would be happy to hear from other commissioners but I'm really leaning strongly towards asking to keep in that first paragraph that we just discussed. I think there's a lot to be said by clearly defining for applicants and the public the boundaries in which development is being done in the city. I'm sympathetic to wanting to be nimble and flexible but I like the, it's there now and it's predictable for applicants. So I'm certainly leaning towards trying to keep that paragraph in there. Other commissioners, let me just say I agree with that. I'm not hearing, Commissioner Spellman. Yes, so question for staff under that scenario, if we kept that paragraph in the code, what is the avenue for an applicant if they want to propose additional square footage and they can't meet the parking, they would apply for a variance, is that an option for them? So the overall goal here was really to support historic preservation and allow as much incentive as possible to do so. So what we wanted to do with this was increase that amount of flexibility and allow applicants to work with our current planning staff to RECCY and coming up with any suite of options that might work best for them while maintaining historic preservation principles. So that was really our goal here was to remove the redundancy and provide more flexibility to staff and to applicants. And then also parking is the only incentive here that's really drawn out into a list on that none of the other incentives have a list below giving examples to those incentives. So what we really wanted to do was streamline this a little bit and just keep it as an incentive but just on the list of incentives and provide staff with more flexibility in that regard. The question, I'm not sure you got question answered in terms of whether if this language is kept in and applicants. Yeah, so it would require a variance then if it can meet that requirement. Well, it would require a variance, did you say? Correct. Commissioner Spellman? Yeah, just to follow up to that. So I'm curious, it seems like there's a lot of discussion on parking and parking reductions in this whole list of variations to development standards. It's really the only one that's singled out. You do know the backstory behind why that's the case. I mean, if the goal is incentivizing, preserving in a more fruitful way, the structures themselves, et cetera, right? We want better historic preservation projects. I'm wondering why parking is being so singled out whether it's specific or not specific. I don't know the exact backstory, but yeah, it seems that it was just pulled out to give people examples of options for that, maybe to provide better information on that. But what's happened, like Catherine says, is that many of those options that we list out are redundant now and are obsolete. And then we've also heard from our current planning staff that listing some of those out, but not listing all the potential options is also very confusing. And so sometimes customers find that they think because this is a list, is it two of the only options? And historic preservation committee did try to address that by saying adding language that would say this list and hand others essentially, but staff still recommends just taking out the list itself. If I could jump in for our shifrins, would that be okay? I'm sorry, who's speaking? I'm sorry, this is Samantha from the current planning division. I just wanted to ask some information, if that's all right with you. Sure. So the HPC, they did support the proposal to make this section more flexible and to take out those specific limitations that are listed in the reduction of parking requirements. But they did that by adding the words including but not limited to. So, we work with the public quite a bit and are interested in making this as clear as possible just for staff and the public. And so when you add the words including but not limited to it brings up the question as to why these specific examples are even provided. So if a member of the public came in and said we want to apply for historic variation and expand the building by 180 square feet and not add additional parking. By adding the words that the HPC recommended including but not limited to, that's something that we would be able to consider. But it would beg the question of why this specific limitation is in there that says that we're limited to 150 square feet. So it would put us in an awkward situation. We wouldn't be able to consider their proposal without looking at this example that's in there now. So we felt like it would be better to remove the ambiguity of the example and just have it be listed as a potential variation. Same with similar to the height and stories. We would review it on a case by case basis. And I should note that all of these historic variations go to the Plant Mission, the Historic Preservation Commission. So they would hear all of these and act on them unless they were part of a larger permit. So they would have the ability to review those as well. But having these in there, it really, I feel like we should either have them in there and have them be the limits or take them out. But having it be in there and then say, here's an example of what you could do provide, it just creates a lot of confusion. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Conway, did you want to speak? Yeah, thank you and thanks for the report. I just wanted to say that I appreciated these amendments and I support the staff recommendation. I feel like it meets the dual goals of being easier to operate for the public and staff while still really honoring the commitment to historic preservation in the city. So I'm in support of the staff recommendation. Commissioner Spellman, did you have something you wanted to add? Yeah, I think, yeah, I agree with that last statement and I support the staff report as well. I think especially that second paragraph is very confusing because I think it really applies to commercial projects, right? A commercial project when you have square footage increases, right? If it's an office use, you trigger more parking, right? If it's a residential historic building, just adding 150 square feet will not necessarily trigger having to include more parking, right? That's more about adding bedrooms and potential things like that. So it just seems awkward to me. I don't see a reason to include the specificity of that more than the initial paragraph that calls out parking as well as stories, height, et cetera. I think it's really confusing. So I'm in support of just striking that. Any other commissioners want to give that point of view? Does somebody want to make a motion? Commissioner Conway. I'd like to move the staff recommendation. Is there a second? A second. Is there a third discussion? Let's have a roll call vote. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Dawson. Yes. Greenberg. Aye. Maxwell. Aye. Spellman. Aye. Chair Schifrin. The motion passes four to two. We're now, where are we? We now move on to item number three, which is the, to the parking residential, non-residential, residential and non-residential land uses. The staff recommendation is that we continue this to the regularly scheduled meeting of August 20th. Do we need a motion to do that? Or is there any objection to doing that from any of the commissioners? You need a motion so that it can be publicly, for noticing purposes. Would somebody like to make a motion to continue this item to our August 20th meeting? I'll make a motion to continue item three to the regularly scheduled hearing of August 20th, 2020. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second. Two seconds. Commissioner Dawson. Yeah. Okay, it's been moved for a second. Is there any discussion? Let's have a roll call vote, please. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Dawson. Aye. Greenbird. Aye. Maxwell. Aye. Spellman. Aye. Schifrin. Aye. Passes unanimously. We'll now move on to information items. Are there any information items? None. We'll move on to subcommittee and advisory body roll report. Do we have any subcommittee? I'm sorry. I have to start my video. I do have an information item for you. Okay. You gotta be fast. Go ahead. So we have the Front Street Riverfront Project. That's the project that is between Front Street and the levy that's scheduled to be heard before your commission on tentatively scheduled now for September 2nd. So something to keep a lookout for. And then also 101 Felix. That project is scheduled to be heard by the city council on August 25th. And that's not adhering to take action on the project. That is a discussion for the city council to review the proposed amendment for rezoning and to consider that project from a policy perspective. So if the council would give direction to staff and the applicant as to whether they should continue with the processing of the application. Okay. Thank you. Let me just mention it. The final environmental impact report is out on the Front Street Riverfront Project and the draft EIR and final EIR are fairly voluminous. So we're going to hear it on September 2nd. The commission has its work cut out for it in terms of getting on top of those documents. Okay. Any other information I can pause to see if there are any others? Yes, one more chair. I just wanted to make the commission aware as well. We were just discussing the items continued to August 20th. And in this past week, it looks like there's been needing even more coordination with the coastal commission. So you'll likely hear more from us soon, but that item will be continued to September rather than the August 20th meeting. Do we have to set a date or could we just continue it indefinitely and just bring it back when you're ready to bring it back? Chair, this is the clerk. The purpose of continuing it to a date specific is to avoid having to re-notice because you've opened it up in a public hearing, you're continuing it to a date specific. So the board could do what they would or the commission could do what they wish, but in order to avoid more costs with display ad or whatnot, you could just do it in this open meeting to another date specific if you choose. Okay, so let me just clarify that Friday, number three on the code amendments for related to parking. The public hearing was opened and the commission unanimously voted to continue the item to the August 20th meeting. I understand the reason for doing that. Unless there's some objection. Okay, so now let's move on. If there are no other information items, let's move on to subcommittee advisory body oral reports. We have any, yes. Commissioner Conway. Yeah, I will lead it off. I'm a little limited of voice tonight, so I'll hope that my colleagues on the committee, subcommittee can weigh in as well. As everyone knows, this committee has worked like so much for the world pause for a few months. We were really glad to be getting back to work recently. We've had a number of very productive meetings. And at the next meeting, the August 20th planning commission meeting, we will be seeing the ordinance language around the section eight language. I see Jessica Dewitt, the housing manager is attending this meeting. She could answer any questions that we may have specifically on process, but that is expect that that'll be at the August 20th meeting. We've had some great conversations around workforce, the definition of workforce housing. We do expect to wrap up our work after, but we need another couple of meetings in order to do that. We met this week and we didn't determine exactly is it two meetings, is it three meetings? We're not sure, but we do have a work program going forward and we anticipate bringing that work back soon. Peter and Miriam, do you have anything that you might wanna add? No, I think that's a good summary. So we weren't on the agenda, we're really just tonight talking about the update, correct? Yeah, and next meeting we're officially on the agenda. Okay. That's right. Yeah, I think that's really where we're headed, right? We have the section eight essentially done and we have the workforce housing definition in front of us to wrestle with and come back to the commission with a recommendation for what we think is a solid option for the city. Yeah, I would echo Peter and Julie and we're in the list, I think really, of researching definitions of our own way of understanding workforce housing because there's nothing really officially on the books on this concept and so how we're going to frame it so we're looking for other models and examples and what others may, how others might inform our decisions on this as well and then have a discussion about that. I wanna welcome Mr. Witt from the Economic Development Department. Did you wanna add anything? Just I'm here to answer any questions. We've published the legal ads that were ready for the August 20th meeting. Okay, thank you. I had a question in terms of the status of the subcommittee. My understanding was that the subcommittees not be subjected to the Brown Act requirements could not continue for more than six months and then they had to be formally reestablished. What's the status of the housing subcommittee? So I can respond to that. So the city manager around March 17th when the pandemic had put out a notice to the public that basically said commissions, several other public body advisory body boards are postponed or put on hold during the pandemic. And so therefore we basically didn't start meeting until January 27th. And the last meeting we had was March 4th and basically we got stuck in the middle of the pandemic. So we essentially lost three months between March 17th and June, mid-June. I think we started meeting again by June 16th. We really only met three months. And there is no, when you read the language and the bylaws it really doesn't say, it just says a term of six months. It doesn't say it has to be a calendar six months. So in a sense, we only met for three. Yeah, and we, oh, sorry. Thank you, Mr. God, Julie. Yeah, I was just gonna say that we do expect that we're gonna complete the work, the charge of this subcommittee within that period of time. What period of time? Within a six month, within six working months. And I mean, so I mean, I think we're close too. And we're well underway. I guess you might also say that I think that we've done a fair amount of background work. We've had quite a few discussions. Obviously any recommendations that we make will be brought to the full commission to be, you know, better than adopted. But I think that we can efficiently, most efficiently meet the charge of this subcommittee by completing our charge. Okay. Thank you. Anything else from the housing subcommittee? We're gonna get the 20th, the draft ordinance. Thank you. I don't have anything, the technical advisory committee on the various climate change contracts is moving along. More information comes out and we haven't had a meeting for quite a while, but we get documents. And I think the commission got a report not long ago from the staff. So I'm still unclear about when it's likely that there's gonna be conclusion that might come to the commission for action. I know with the coastal commission beach study, the goal is to have LCP amendments, local coastal program amendments. And when that finally happens, that will be coming to the commission. So when I know more, I'll definitely pass that on. So any other subcommittee advisory body oral reports, any items to refer to future agendas? Seeing none, I want to thank everybody. I want to thank the staff for their reports and the meeting is adjourned. See you on the 20th. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.