 I'm going to call the regular meeting of the Senate Proceeding Planning Commission of January 20th, 2022 to order. Could we have a roll call, a roll call please? Commissioner Conway? Here. Dawson? Here. Mackbow? Here. Nielsen? Here. Solomon? Here. Here. I want to apologize for our late start. If anybody is watching or listening due to technical difficulties which seem to have been solved. So I want to thank Steph and CTB for their work on it. I don't think there are any absences. We don't have any statements of disqualification. We'll now move to oral communications. I'm sorry, oral communications. Is there anyone who would like to speak to the commission about an item that is not on the agenda but is properly before us? Okay. Thank you. I would like to make a very brief oral communication. Looking at the city council's agenda for next, at the next meeting, which is next Tuesday, they are going to be appointing two members to the Planning Commission. And as I understand it, commission is fell in the commission and Nielsen were essentially turned out. And this may well be their last meeting of the Planning Commission. If the council does appoint more people and they would then take over at the next meeting. I just wanted to thank both of you for all your work here. From my perspective, your architectural knowledge will really be missed. And I do hope the council appoints on I know Kushner Maxwell has some design background, but I think it would really be valuable to have that kind of architectural perspective in terms of the extent that the commission is going to have any input. Any input on development projects is probably going to be around the notion of the architect design. So I did want to thank you both for for the service and the time that you are on the commission and all the work that you did. Commissioner Conway. I just want to echo that it has been a great pleasure and I've learned so much from both of you. And you will indeed be missed. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll move on to the approval of the minutes of December 16. Are there any questions or concerns about the minutes? That doesn't seem to be anybody in the audience. So I'll ask for a motion to approve the minutes from December 16. I'll move to approve the minutes for December 16, 2021. Is there a second? One second. Is there any discussion? So let's have a roll call, please. Aye. Dr. Greenberg. Aye. This is unanimously. I will now move on to general business. This is for the nomination and election of the chairperson and vice chairperson. Does staff want to say anything about this before we get into it? I actually asked to just present if you needed any refreshing of your recollection, but we've done this a couple of times before. We just looked for nominations. The commissioner being nominated, accepting the nomination, and then a vote for position. You can do it either individually or together depending upon your preference. Okay. We'll move to the election of the chairperson first. Let me just say under the bylaws, I don't know if you'd all be rushing to try to reappoint me as chairperson, but I cannot be chairperson because this is my second year and the bylaws limit the chair to a two year term. The way I'm used to doing it is we open it up for nominations. You see who gets nominated, whether they'll accept the nomination. I would move that I would ask for motion to close nominations when there are no further ones. If there's only one person who's been nominated, just ask that that person be appointed by consensus. Otherwise, we do a vote on what the different commissioners would like to appoint. So I'm hoping the floor for nominations for chairperson. That's Julie. I nominate Commissioner Greenberg. Are you willing to accept that nomination? I'm really honored Commissioner Conway, but I do not accept the nomination. I don't feel like I would be the best person for that position at this moment. Is there another nomination? Commissioner Spellman. Yes, I would like to nominate Julie Conway for chairperson. Commissioner Conway, would you accept the nomination? Yes, I would accept the nomination. Are there any other nominations? Commissioner Maxwell. I'd like to nominate Commissioner Dawson. Commissioner Dawson, would you accept the nomination? Yes, I would accept the nomination. Okay, are there any other nominations? Is there a motion that we close the nomination? Is there a second? A second. It's been moved and seconded to close the nominations. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Just to close the nomination. This would go much faster if we were in person and we didn't have to have a roll call, but since we do. So what I'm going to do is just sort of go around and ask each commissioner who they would vote for. I think that seems like the best way to do it. We've got two nominees. So I guess, yes, Commissioner Dawson. So I assume that Mr. Conway and I just don't vote and then... No, everybody gets to vote. You can vote for yourself or you can vote for somebody else. So the clerk, why don't you just sort of read it off and read off the commissioner's names and when your name is called, say who you're going to vote for. Mr. Conway. Mr. Conway. Mr. Conway. That's okay. Excuse me, Dawson. Different. Commissioner Dawson. So Commissioner Dawson, you are the new chairperson. Does she take over the chair at this meeting or the next meeting? It's the next meeting according to bylaws. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Sorry, Tess. So now we'll move to vice chairperson and I'm going to open the nominations for vice chairperson. Is there... Anybody want to make a nomination for a vice chairperson? Commissioner Conway. Commissioner Greenberg. Commissioner Greenberg, would you accept the vice chairperson role? A nomination. Could there be any clarification on what is involved in being a vice chair actually? If the chair doesn't show up and if the chair has a conflict, then the vice chair would move into that role. Otherwise, you just have the benefit of being able to say you're the vice chairperson at the city planning commission for whatever good that might do you. Right. Okay. I'll accept that. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Are there any other nominations for vice chairperson? Commissioner, do I have a motion that nominations be closed? I'll move. You're second. I'll second. It's moved and seconded. Do we have a roll call, please? That's it. Since there's only one nominee, I would suggest that Commissioner Greenberg be a appointed vice chairperson by acclamation. If there's no objection, we won't need to take a vote for that. Okay. So congratulations to our new chair, chairperson and vice chairperson and look for the future. I've appreciated being the chair, but I am happy to pass on the gavel if there was a gap. Okay. We'll now move to item number three, which is consideration of ordinance revision. Consideration of ordinance. I'm sorry. Consideration of ordinance revision, increasing inclusionary requirements for density bonus development. How this is brought before us by Commissioner Greenberg and myself. I'm not sure what the appropriate approaches with one of us should sort of introduce the item or where the staff would like to have that do that. So let me hear from Steph about how you may want to... Is Steph okay with the... Is that presenting it or do you want to present it? I'm not sure. This is sort of a fairly unusual way of doing things, so I want to make sure that I don't assert the role of Steph. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think since it's coming from the subcommittee, you can go ahead and make initial comments. I know we may have some comments as well as follow-up, but it's your item, so your floor. Okay, thank you. So I can give a little background and maybe Commissioner Greenberg can expand on it. As you know, the state density bonus law has changed recently to make it almost impossible for the city to deny density bonus project or density bonuses. And in addition to that, from my perspective, the density bonus law has a negative impact on affordable housing possibilities in those communities with inclusionary ordinances, because as you all know, the inclusionary requirements can only be applied to the base. So we may end up, we may have an inclusionary requirement of 15% to 20%, and as we've seen in some of the recent developments, with the density bonuses, the inclusionary units are less than 15%, going down as low as 13% and even 11%. And given the need for affordable units, this has been seen as, at least from my perspective, this has seen as a very unfortunate outcome of a law that was passed in order to supposedly encourage affordable housing. So at the Housing Subcommittee meeting, the question was asked whether it would be possible for the city to adopt a separate inclusionary requirement for density bonus projects. The density bonus, the inclusionary requirement would just be applied to the base, but it would be only applied to density bonus projects and not for non-density bonus projects. And what that seemed to do, what that would do was to give the city the opportunity to end up with a net inclusionary unit either at what was traditionally the 15% or as was discussed in the subcommittee, the current requirement did it at 20%. So the question was asked to the city attorney and staff, and at the next meeting the answer was, well, yes, it could be. It's not prevented by law, however it needs to be reasonable, and it can't make the project infeasible, financially infeasible by adding that requirement. So those have kind of limits on it. And staff suggested that if the commission wanted to pursue it, maybe they would probably recommend that we do a study, but that would be up to ultimately the council that the commission was willing to go forward. So Commissioner Greenberg and I got together and we put together this letter that sort of goes through this background analysis and then recommend that the commission consider amending the inclusionary ordinance to increase the affordable requirements to density bonus projects, and two, to request staff to prepare appropriate ordinance language consistent with increasing the inclusionary requirements to density bonus developments and return to the commission within one month for its consideration. So one question that's before the commission tonight is, is the majority willing to support these recommendations? The other question is, well, if there is a willingness to support the recommendation, what should be the inclusionary requirements for density bonus questions on a project? So there, I would say there are two relatively, you know, straightforward answers to that second question. One is that the inclusionary requirements to density bonus should require that 15% of the overall project be affordable or should be affordable units. That would be consistent with what measure you require. That would be consistent with actually the current ordinance where for 35% projects with the density, with the inclusionary requirement of 20%, which is the current requirement, the overall inclusionary requirement would be 15%, about 15%. The inclusionary requirement for 50% density bonus projects would then need to go up to 25% in order to end up with a 15% density bonus. The alternative approach is based on the notion that our current inclusionary requirement is 20%, and therefore the total project requirement should be to get to 20%. And that would require, as I remember, and it was the attached spreadsheet I think shows this, it would require about 25% inclusionary requirement for 35% density bonus projects, and it's 30% inclusionary requirement for a 50% inclusionary density bonus project. So that's how I would summarize the choices. Commissioner Greenberg, is there anything that you would like to add to that? What corrects that if I got a move? So that was a great summation. And so yeah, I think we're open to discussion of both the overall initiative to do this revision as well as the discussion of the different models, the different scenarios that we might adopt. And this is also in with some understanding that a lot of the, and this is something else to ask of staff, a lot of the projects that are going to be coming before us are going to be these density bonus projects, many of which will be at the 50% level. And so just to kind of come out ahead of that and be aware that that's what a lot of the development may be before us as well. And so this could be a significant moment to do this. So, thanks. Before asking for a staff response, I want to ask Commissioner Dawson, she was on, she's also on the housing subcommittee and had no views on this. So I wanted to ask your Commissioner Dawson if there's anything you would like to add? Thank you, Chair Schifrin. I just really would quickly add that the current housing inclusionary ordinance, as was pointed out, is 20%. So that was the intent of the city council. And I think we should really, in making sure that we functionally get 20%, you know, we can look at the scenarios in which we need to do that. Given our direction from the council and our role to ensure that these types of directives are implemented, I think it's, I'm really looking for the conversation of, and pushing for us to get punctual in 20% and likely what Mr. Greenberg brings up is going to be a lot of the developments coming before us are likely going to be taking advantage of this dependency bonus. We really need the affordable housing 20%, 20% functionally. It seems like a reasonable approach. Okay, thank you. As there's staff, the staff wanted to respond to the proposal. Hi, Chair. Good evening. I'd be happy to briefly speak to this item. I just wanted to say again that, the staff is okay with, you know, considering these types of policies. And it's certainly worth forwarding on to city council. The planning commission so chooses. We do just wanted to reiterate that, you know, analysis for these types of changes is very complex. The market has changed since we've done this analysis previously. And this type of analysis to make sure that we're not, not cooling housing production to an extent that it's infeasible. It's just an important consideration for the commission to consider. Our analysis in, throughout the objective standards process have shown that the margins for development are very, are very thin as it is given the current market. And it's, it's likely that's one of the, one of the reasons why we're seeing so many density bonus projects as it is. It's because projects really, projects that can form the current standards really can pencil out at this time. So just points again to the name to study this carefully. And in the past that process has taken considerable time and was led by our economic development division. Do you have anything else to add, Eric? I'll take a couple other points I'd like to make. And the chair sort of alluded to this in his opening comments. If, if this recommendation does pass amongst the majority of the commissioners, we'll bring this forward to council. And then it's going to be up to them as to how, you know, if they want to pursue this, how they want to prioritize it. Our advanced planning staff has a lot going on right now. We've got the downtown plan expansion. We've got objective development standards, a climate action plan, local coastal plan. We're implementing state laws such as SB nine. So something is going to have to give if they, you know, want to make this a priority. The part of the recommendation that speaks to returning to the commission in a month. That could be difficult for a couple of reasons. One is not alluded to. We would be recommending a robust analysis. The other is outreach and that's consistent with city council policy. We want to make sure we go out to the community to get their thoughts on that before, you know, coming to a conclusion on a proposed amendment. And then, you know, one other thing just to sort of consider, we've got a housing element that we're going to be embarking on here in the very near future. And that's going to, among other things, set policy for how we meet our rena numbers. And there's going to be a host of solutions that we're going to be looking at this. This could very well be one of them. So that might be, you know, the most efficient time as well as the more sensible time to consider it in the context of other solutions. So that's the only other comments I have. Okay. Thank you. They're coming from other commissioners. Is there anybody in the audience that might want to talk to this test or we just sort of have a discussion questions and discussion from commissioners and combine all of the discussion at one time. I don't see any members public. Okay. So why don't we just turn it over to commission discussion. Did I see your commissioners coming? Yes. I wanted to clarify one thing with staff. There's been some discussion around ending density bonus projects. Do we, are we aware of in the queue that there are, there are several projects pushing for, let's call it higher density bonus allocations? You're new here. The ones we have, I know we have a project on other than the appeal that we have before council. That's already in the queue. So wouldn't be subject to any changes. We have some affordable housing projects that are making use of a different density bonus that this really wouldn't apply to because you know, they're already well above what you're striving to attain here. I can't think of any off the top of my head that are in the queue. That's not to say that there wouldn't be any, you know, coming forward. Okay. I appreciate that. That was a project on ocean street that was making its way through the process. Is that not, is that project not happening? That's a, that's an SOU project. And I don't believe it includes any density bonus in terms of number of units because there is no density assigned. And I don't believe they're asking for any concessions or waivers on that. I can check that real quick, but I don't believe that's a density bonus project. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for that. So what I will say is, you know, this is a very complex issue. It holds density bonus. Combingling with inclusionary ordinances is a tricky one. It's not one that I pretend to be an expert in by any means. I think in the big picture of providing truly affordable housing for our community, there's no question that we need to find ways to make that happen. I do think this specific issue has quite a bit more nuance to it that needs to be sort of understood and vetted. I think from one perspective, we're kind of in this reactionary mode because of the new density bonus law and the lack of objective standards that sort of protect, you know, some of these regulations from, you know, preventing things that are, let's call it growth, exaggerations of current zoning and something that's allowed under the new laws. So we're, we are working towards shoring that up with the process to create our objective standard. So there's this moment where we're, I think, not just us, you know, most municipalities in the state sort of feel like we are exposed and don't have the tools to control some of this. And there is this notion too that, you know, the density bonus is an incentive, right? There's been decades where density bonus rules haven't been applied not to projects. It's really just been, you know, very recent that developers have taken advantage of this. And I don't know the nuances of why that is. Is it just because of the new rules? Are there new financing mechanisms? I don't understand that completely. I do know that we're in a very unusual time for cost of construction in an exponential, you know, uptick in costs for doing projects. So I would want to be extremely sensitive to essentially eliminating future development and future potential units that we would be getting into our community if we come down too heavy-handed on this. So I would certainly, I mean, I support the notion of trying to find the balance between what is correct and what projects can afford. And I'm not sure how that analysis gets done, but I know that that piece needs to be a very critical piece of the argument. I mean, what we do know is if we put laws in place that aren't feasible, they don't get used and it is a real, you know, stifling mechanism to, you know, potential projects coming to the city. Other commissioners? Well, let me, Commissioner Conaway, go ahead. Thank you. And thank you for your work on this. I agree that this is a potentially interesting tool. And I particularly like the idea of aiming to have this fit in with the upcoming housing element as a tool that could help us meet our reading numbers. I guess that I think that I do have some concerns about it, of course, especially, you know, that we can do this. First of all, I'm fascinated that this is a potential tool. But again, it's as long as it doesn't make projects infeasible. And that's a huge thought. And I would be concerned that the city very carefully does consider and document the ability to, so that we can stand up with whatever we pass and whatever we end up supporting and knowing that it's going to stand up to a challenge. So I would say I do support this potentially, but it really would be with that caveat that it needs to be thoroughly analyzed. And we really need to understand what it is that we are getting. Commissioner Nielsen. I would like to say that I completely agree with the things that have been said by both Commissioner Stelman and Commissioner Conway. The one thing that I would like to add is this idea about incentives. I mean, it's something and I do agree that that just needs to be analyzed by staff or by a third party or something to really get to the root of what's going to be a feasible, you know, feasible changes that will not truly affect the ability to create housing. But, you know, if, you know, from my perspective, Commissioner Stelman bothered up already. The cost of construction right now is at, you know, record highs in our area. And just not alone in making construction and housing, you know, it's going to make it difficult. So, by adding on, you know, further, I mean, I'll call it a restriction. I mean, adding on restrictions like that just makes it, to me, makes it more difficult. And so, if there's going to be additional guidelines or restrictions or whatever put on it, then what can be added to that as an incentive? And I think that's something that I think staff should look at in terms of what incentives could be added that may kind of net out the cost of that. Because we are talking about the, there's costs associated with all these decisions. So, what can be done to make it that, so that that cost is, you know, negligible and get the housing that we're talking about. So, I don't know exactly what those incentives would be. I mean, you know, maybe something related to parking or, you know, you know, I think that's something that they can look at and determine. But that's what I wanted to add. I think the idea of creating further incentives within, you know, within the Density Bonus Program is a good way to look at it. Thank you. And the other thing, I think your article alluded a little bit to other municipalities that have entertained or even incorporated some of these into their ordinance, you know, increasing the numbers and placing the inclusionary requirement on the additional Density Bonus Unit. It wasn't clear if that was the case or are we aware of that? I think it would be good to have some examples of who's doing this and how that's working. Just to answer that, I'm not aware of any other community that's doing it at this time. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done. It just means that certainly nobody else has thought of it or at least I'm not aware of it. I don't know if Steph is aware of any of the communities that might have separate requirements for Density Bonus Project. Let me just say, when the question was asked, I was probably as surprised as anyone when the city of Thurnley came back and said that it could be done. I didn't expect that. Let me respond to a couple of points that I've been raised. Many of which I think are reasonable ones. The question about why was the Density Bonus Law used in the past? In two recent years, and I'm sure Commissioner Conway can correct me if my memory is wrong since she worked in the housing area for so long, it was possible for local governments to impose requirements by Density Bonus Projects, which many of them did, including the local ones, but not let it work to increase this incentive. And the reason was, from my perspective, is that what the Density Bonus does is undermine the general plan. You go through a general plan process and you say that this is the density that you want in various parts of the community, and the Density Bonus Law comes along and says, well, that's all very well and good, but all of that can go up by 35% or 50%. Or now, in some cases, even 100%. So it sort of, from my perspective, really is inconsistent with the general plan and with the whole community process that develops the general plan. You go to the community and say this is what you're going to be potentially seeing in your areas and then it can increase on a project basis significantly. So I think there was a lot of concern by a lot of communities about that role that Density Bonus has played. And it's just been in recent years when the state law changed to make it essentially impossible to turn down that Density Bonus project that developers have started to use it. I think the concern, let me clarify a couple of things. There is, there seems to be an agreement that this would be a desirable thing to do if it makes sense that there was properly studied. If it wasn't a disincentive to development, maybe if there were other incentives. A lot of what I'm hearing is similar to what was presented at the time that the request to increase the inclusionary to 20% was made. We should do a study. We need this. We need outreach. We need all these things. On the other side of that equation is without a crisis we need to do something about it to try to get more affordable units. And I think that's similar to what's going on here. The other thing I wanted to say is that in fact the if the goal is to have an overall inclusionary requirement of 15%, that already exists for 35% entity bonus project because 20% on the base will lead to 15% on the total. From my perspective that's consistent with what's been going on since measure 0 passed. It's long-standing policy resulting from a vote of the people and it's very, very reasonable and it seems to be workable. We've had at least one project that's come through with that density bonus 20%. In fact at the time it wasn't really developers that opposed it and thus far it hasn't been a problem. Then in terms of the 50% density bonus I thought it was very interesting that the first project that came to us with the 50% density bonus was the industry project. And the developer of that project was willing to have an additional four units for additional affordable units through the project in order to get the support of the commission. That brought it's an overall requirement of 15%. From my perspective there is evidence that the 15% as an overall requirement is not unreasonable. It has shown itself to be feasible and we should then it would be simple to support it. While I would prefer if the world wasn't the way it is that we could go for 20% overall what I would recommend is that we go that we recommend an ordinance with a 15% overall inclusionary requirement which would only require a change for density bonus project of 50% which are getting a 50% density bonus. That and then let me say I appreciate the amount of work the staff is doing I appreciate all the other projects they worked on. Coming back with and they could certainly come back and recommend all sorts of other work but coming back with an ordinance that simply adds a line that density bonus project of 50% density bonus would have a 25% inclusionary requirement. I think it's not a lot of work could be done in a month. And then obviously it goes up to council if the council doesn't want to do it it doesn't want to approve it without a study. They'll impose a study or they just don't want to do it at all they won't do it. I think that from my perspective the crisis in affordable housing and the need for affordable housing is just the primary concern that I have. So I would hope that the commission would approve the recommendations with understanding that the ordinance language would provide for an overall 15% inclusionary affordable requirement. I have a question on the other hand. I'm just regarding the Center Street project. Let's not forget that those additional four units it's affordable units that the developer was willing to concede where it was based on the assumption that the project would not be appealed. So I think it comes down to in that case it comes down to a sense of certainty for the developer. So I think that's something that needs to be understood that and from what I heard from from Mr. Marlatt is that it seems like that project is going in front of council just now or soon. So how many months ago did we hear that project? And so we're talking about adding on multiple months to a project by going through an appeal. So yeah I mean I can understand why you know giving an additional some additional units would be beneficial but it all comes down to certainty and because time is money especially in this market. And so if there's a way to build in better certainty with you know as an incentive in some ways then maybe that's another thing to look at. So thank you. Well the council will be considering it next Tuesday it may well be that the developer I agree with you I really tried hard to convince people to appeal that project I really think it was unfortunate that it wasn't true. However my understanding is that the developer might still be willing to include the four additional affordable units. So while I agree in general that more certainty it would be desirable and time is money but this project can't be turned down the city cannot reduce the density and under the housing accountability act it can't turn down the project. So the the biggest uncertainty that the state has removed the developers is one that they spend all this money getting their project before the decision makers and get turned down or as we've seen with numerous projects for the decision makers and they cut after units from the project that kind of uncertainty of course in fact it's very a very major. So while I agree with you it will be interesting to see what happens at the council in terms of where the blue says four units which I think is unfortunate in the grand scheme of things that forced of the additional budget I don't think it's that great it makes that think of a different so we'll see if the commissioner approves this and comes back we'll see what the council does and what the developer does in terms of the project. Commissioner Dawson did you have your hand up? I saw another hand. Yeah I was just ready to make a motion was there any comment Commissioner Greenberg if you wanted to say so? Yeah I was going to say that you know I would one thing is to keep in mind from my perspective that while I am very supportive of density and creating opportunities and even incentives for greater density density without greater affordability of complicated effects so if you bring larger numbers and density of market rates housing into an area that is adjoining in the case of let's say Ocean Street or the downtown plan some of the last neighborhoods of some of the last remaining relatively affordable housing the impact in terms of gentrification is greater and so I think it behoogs us to figure out ways to really not get the situation with increasing levels of density and lower levels of inclusionary you know overall in terms of 13 or 11% and so forth and I know we've had debates about the filtering concepts and so forth but I've you know over the years of my career and life in different cities seen great impacts in terms of gentrification and displacement when there is increasing rent gaps between high-end development so I think that's motivating me here this combined desire for greater density and infill development, downtown development while being really careful and in fact in talking about the importance of doing studies I would love to do a study on this kind of what are the potential impacts not only environmental impacts but social impacts and there are cities that do this kind of work Seattle does this kind of work, New York does this kind of work looking at the impact of bringing dense high-end development into areas that are proximate to more affordable housing and what degree does that drive up rent in the areas around and so forth and I don't know if the city is interested in doing that kind of research but but certainly the idea that we be really careful in both welcoming and trying to ensure to the greatest degree possible that we at least stick with our current very modest and time-tested 15 percent inclusionary requirement seems to me perfectly reasonable and I also would support if there was broader support for it trying to support the recent shift to the 20 percent I could go either way to the 15 percent in terms of these scenarios based on what people think is reasonable but I don't know, I agree with commissioner Schifrin but I don't know that it really requires certainly the 15 percent level extensive study to figure out that we want to maintain at the very least the 15 percent given what we know can be you know really problematic impacts of bringing a lot of dense market rate development and concentrated in an area that adjoins areas of relatively affordable housing All the commissioners Commissioner Conway Thank you for this discussion I think it's really good to be talking about it I would like to point out that one of the things is what our goals are and our goal is to get housing built with the highest percentage of inclusionary units that are feasible that will get the housing built and it's that that I really do think need to be tested I thought it did before I still think it needs to be tested in particular because while we do have a notion of the city attorney that this can be done there are no other jurisdictions that have done it and because of that I think it is very important that the city be very sure that we're taking this on and again as I said that it would stand up to any challenge and I wouldn't support proceeding with such an ordinance without a study and although I'm very interested in both the idea of finding out what are the number of units that work and in which projects they work because as many as can be done and still get projects built is what we need to be going for other commissioners Commissioner Dawson were you wanting to make a motion it was I would like to make a motion to request staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance language for increasing the inclusionary requirement for density bonus development and to return to the commission within one month for consideration and that includes both options so prepare the ordinance language for 15% and prepare functionally 15% on the overall project and functionally 20% on the overall project is there a second I'll second that okay can we have discussion on the motion Commissioner Conway would you accept a friendly amendment that would direct staff to bring it back after the financial feasibility of this has been studied I would not accept that other commissioners comment on the motion on the floor Chair can I just clarify is that recommendation to come directly back to Planning Commission or to go before City Council for a recommendation to bring this back to Planning Commission within one month no as I understand it is just to bring it back for consideration by the Planning Commission and then if the Planning Commission majority of the Planning Commission wants to recommend either one of those two options to the City Council or both of them they could do so that is correct Commission does that answer your question Matt yeah yeah Eric just to be clear it's the Council that directs and manages our department's workload so before anything happens assuming the Commission is supportive of moving something forward tonight the next step will be for us to bring that recommendation to them to see how they want to proceed, when they want to proceed that type of thing so that would be the next step and then depending on their desire we'll act accordingly after we brought it to them but that's the next step do I need to modify yeah I think it would be a direction to staff to request the City Council to let me maybe give it a try here so the motion would be to present this information to the City Council and request their direction to request their direction to prepare ordinance language for consideration and recommendation by the Commission well maybe let's look at recommendation number one maybe it is to request the Council to approve amending the Inclusionary Ordinance to increase the affordable housing requirement with density bonus project to result in either 15% overall requirement or 20% overall requirement so the motion would be to request the City Council to amend the Inclusionary Ordinance to increase the affordable housing requirement for the density bonus developments to either 15% or 20% overall so with that how do you want to read your motion? for clarification then that would just we would not have an additional conversation of submission it's basically going to them for their decision whether they want to amend the ordinance back and if they don't they won't if they approve it wouldn't it just go directly to staff and then they would do the they'd approve the process as I understand them I'm sure I'll be corrected if the Council would approve moving forward with the ordinance they would direct staff to prepare and send it back to the Commission for consideration am I understand you're shaking your head Eric is that correct? that's correct we prepare the language and then it needs to go to you first for a formal recommendation on the ordinance so you're rewording your motion along that line I don't know did you second the Commission of Greenberg the original motion? I did will you continue to second this revision? is it clear to everyone what the motion is it's to request the City Council to amend the Inclusionary Ordinance to increase the affordable housing requirements for density bonus developments to result in an overall inclusionary affordability requirement of ease of 15% for 20% is it for the discussion on that motion? yes yeah I just would like to be clear that I would absolutely support a they're increasing the inclusionary requirement if it was based on a feasibility study and I would at the highest level that can be demonstrated that will ensure that projects still get built I would support that most definitely and I would particularly support that work which is a big undertaking but having that work dovetail with the plans for achieving arena numbers in the next round so I just wanted to be clear about that I think that it is something that I think is a very good question and I will not be supporting this motion as it stands now okay thank you any other commissioner comments before we have a vote on the motion? Commissioner Dawson I apologize I just want to reemphasize what's been said by other commissioners and that the city has had a 15% inclusionary rate for decades and I know that conditions on the ground change but as pointed out we are in a crisis and we have a massive government move to do study upon study before taking action and I think we have a lot of data to support increasing the inclusionary and so I hope commissioners will think about that as they go and maybe just to piggyback on that I wonder if there would be any difference of opinion on this if it involves the scenario that maintains the 15% that we've had since the 80s versus the scenario that moves the more recent 20% as the functional net as affordable units overall of course if there's any difference there Commissioner Spellman yeah I have trepidation to supporting it as stated I mean we have a 15% inclusionary ordnance in play nobody's denying that we also happen to have a state density bonus law requirement in play the way this reads and I think the way that the message is being communicated is that oh we're not we're not getting our 15 I don't even know why we're saying 15 because 20% is our current ordinance and it's in my opinion not a defensible position and one that's actually quite confusing without having the study done to further validate this I think it's just another measure to essentially put a halt to further projects coming in and I think that's the wrong strategy I think the reading numbers are going to show that we need significantly more units on the ground and this is going in the wrong direction I'm not saying that we you know and don't need to find ways to get more affordable truly affordable units into our community I just don't think that couching the argument this way and presenting it this way is helpful in this moment okay thank you but I'm hearing the response to Christian Greenberg as it doesn't matter whether it's 15% or 20% there's the fundamental disagreement that if it would go forward it should have a study and maybe shouldn't even go forward so are there other comments from commissioners is it clear what the motion is commissioners Conway did you want to add something you know I just wanted to agree with something commissioners elements said earlier and disagree with commissioner Dawson I don't think that we have good information on this and this is an incredibly complex metric as is you know financing any construction at this time and I don't think we know what the impact would be and I also don't think we know at all that this would stand up the challenge and I'm concerned about that adding increasing cost and complexity not just to project which is what you know we're talking about ostensibly but also with our efforts at the city to come up with a realistic plan to get housing built and thank you any other comments by commissioners I guess I would just say that I hear you and I think that I mean this is a discussion we had with with the inclusionary being raised to 20 and I say I'm really glad that we were able to do that certainly with 35 percent density bonus which has netted us again 15 percent overall for these projects being affordable and that you know I guess sometimes it comes down to whether you know we think that any housing whether it's very high end housing is really what we need to have built more of in this town or whether we think the crisis is such that we really need to to advance as we did in the 80s when we were one of the first cities to put an inclusionary ordinance on the book that we really prioritize projects that can balance the poor affordability in this community particularly in the downtown and with the new plan developments around the stadium and so forth and along ocean and particularly given their location so I think that a question I guess I would have also is that so I think that we can frame it in a way that's pretty clear along those lines we want to stick with as much as possible given the state of a crisis in a city that is one of the worst in the world in the state of California in the country and indeed the world we need to sometimes really be bold in saying that it's a very complicated place to build it can be very costly things are changing on the ground it's also an incredibly lucrative place to build and we need to hold our ground that we've had the 15% at least you know ordinance on the books for decades and we need to hold on to that given the crisis that we're facing so that's one thing but another is would we is it conceivable that we could have two motions maybe this motion but also a motion that would involve one with it with a study and that it's touched in relation to the arena housing element process is that something that anybody should make a motion to do whatever like that as the commission to do the housing element comes into effect in 2023 it's going to be filled with other housing elements have been filled with a great many programs that could potentially do a great many things and actually do nothing unless it's follow up in one of the programs prioritized so from my perspective what the request to sort of incorporate this in the housing element is a request to do nothing to maintain the status quo and I think that the status quo with the density bonus ordinance is a way of getting a lot of identity housing for sure with a vast majority of it being unaffordable to lower in some people and what we're doing here is trying to each up the number of affordable units if you look at that spreadsheet and see the difference for the different size projects with the number of affordable units you get that either 15% overall or 20% overall it's not that many compared to what you get now but it helps and I think that one of the reasons I support the 15% as opposed to the 20% overall not only because we've had the history but because the inclusionary requirements are a burden on the private market it's a burden that they've by and large come to live with and the market sort of reflects that and with this increased density allowing for many more units I think that the market could absorb that now would a study show one way or another well I'm always as you know somewhat suspicious of studies because you just change the variables you change the assumptions and you end up with a different outcome and we're living in very volatile housing as people have talked about it here of course the construction has gotten out of sight well the price of housing has gotten out of sight the cost of housing has gotten out of sight does that mean that this can't be absorbed my sense is if the developers know what the rules are and the statistics by those rules they will figure out a way to do it in a market like this where there is there is the ability to charge the kind of prices that can be charged on that doesn't mean that the development won't go bankrupt the real estate is risky and some developments will succeed because the market will be going up and other developments will fail because we get into a recession but in the long run the price of housing in Santa Cruz has appreciated greatly the university continues to grow the Silicon Valley continues to grow this is going to be a market where housing prices are going to go up we have limited land and even with the rebuilding there are limited sites and we are all people with lower incomes going to live it's great that the city is moving forward with the affordable projects that they are doing but it's not going to solve the problem and to the extent we can put some reasonable burdens on the private market to help meet the affordable requirements it's legitimate there are new thank you chair the problem is that we don't know whether or not this is reasonable you said these are not unreasonable we don't know that I hope they are not supportive of going towards a higher towards 20% if we had some certainty that that was going to be the case now one of the things I could point out here is that everyone here is an advocate for getting housing we all want that we all think that the other strategy is an obstacle to getting that housing which is the reality of trying to figure out something that is doesn't have an answer we don't know for sure but moving forward one of the things first of all we need to absolutely acknowledge what the reasonable process is we do not direct staff the city council does and they have their reasons for doing that if we recommend I feel like the most that is really almost our place to be is that this is a potential area that could help help us fill our housing gap you know there's the points in here that we need to be careful of is that it won't dampen construction and I agree with you 100% Chair Schifrin we should not be bouncing around all over the place what we've learned over time with our inclusionary ordinances is that when they're stable the market can take them into effect but when they're bouncing around and unpredictable they really it can dampen the creation of more housing so I would just like to say that I'm really landing on that we need to know that what we're doing is actually going to move us forward I can stop on that I think I made my point yeah just a couple more points to add you know we often at these meetings say things like feasible and pencil out the word that we leave out that is connected to that is profit so developers aren't just covering their costs unless they're a non-profit developer and so when we're talking about being really creative and thinking outside the box to cover the types of units that we really need so you look at the RENA numbers now and where are we underperforming we're not underperforming in the moderate plus income bracket we're underperforming in the lower income bracket so just talking about housing production we're at large without making that distinction I think it's a little bit of a disservice to the conversation because where we are underperforming is in these lower income levels and likely the RENA numbers coming forward are going to be even higher in those levels so thinking about how we move forward and actually address that I think is really important and not forgetting that there potentially are non-profit developers who can come in and take advantage of existing programs to make these things work I would also like to say that all the developers including the for-profit developers are living right now under 15% and 20% and it doesn't seem like we have a positive of building happening in the city right now it seems to be if anything ramping up and so we have data that supports somewhere between 15 or 20 I think isn't really reflected and the last thing I will say is we can do studies for days but it's a modeling exercise nobody has the answer of what exactly what they're going to do is they're going to take a whole bunch of variables they're going to talk to a whole bunch of people they're going to try to get their error as well as possible it's a modeling exercise so paying for a very expensive study is a best guess and so I do think we have decades of data to support the 15% I of course would like 20% but I think the conditions on the ground really show us that we're not having people walk away from Santa Cruz at these levels because it is of all the things that share shift from it is desirable it will be desirable in the future and I think if we as a community want economic diversity which in the past has made this a vibrant very desirable place to live then we have to think outside the box and do something now not a year from now, not six months from now and I would just echo that what we also know is that with the pandemic with the remote work possibility the reason that our housing prices in escalating 15, 20 even beyond percent annually has to do with the current conditions this is going to continue to be one of the most lucrative markets to build anywhere and people with the rezoning of the downtown and the capacity of these 50% density bonuses there's going to be enormous incentive when we talk about incentive enormous incentive to build small units for people who are commuting and so forth telecommuting and so and dense development for people who want to live downtown so particularly with the stadium projects and so forth so we know that and we've seen stadium projects and what they've done downtown all over the century so including San Francisco so I think that we are able to kind of look beyond we were able to look to the history of decades of 15% and we're able to look at the impact of massive amounts of high-end development to know that it's not going to solve the problem of the crisis that we're facing and so if we can just hold on to this little bit that we currently have and it's quite modest and you know I've long said I mean inclusionary is low-hanging fruit in a sense it's what we can do given the fact that there's been this you know abdication this retrenchment by the state and the federal government and we need other kinds of investment in social housing but in the meantime in order to staunch the outmigrant the flow of people being displaced from this town it's the modest thing that we can do and I think it's I think we can take for granted that it would be reasonable given the history that we've been holding on to this and also given the profitability of this market okay unless somebody feels we need irresistible need to say something more I'm going to ask for a roll call vote on the motion that's on the floor are there any questions about what the motion says yes Mr. Conway would you please we have the motion read please can I quickly read the motion or should I do it I think it would be best well nearly as eloquent well thank you very much the motion being taken the planning commission recommends that the recommends that a city council be requested to amend the inclusionary ordinance to increase the affordable housing requirement for density bonus developments to result in that affordability requirement of either 15% or 20% okay can we have a roll call vote please Mr. Conway I'm going to vote no with regret I would support it there's going to be some study to substantiate it Mr. Duff Inver hi no hi it passes on a 5-2 vote thank you all very much we will now move on to the next item on the agenda which is item number four the spoke regulation amendment ordinance and I think Catherine Donovan is going to be the staff person and I have sent in extensive comments on the material so Catherine do you want to go over how that's going to be handled yes Commissioner Schiffen comments on Monday Tuesday I was able to get him a response mid-afternoon today and he made a response to my response so there's a lot of material there and we had discussed the potential of providing that material to you and taking 15 to 20 minute breaks to give you an opportunity to review that I think you as a council as a commission would need to make a motion on that so the motion would be test something I have been posted the record of the matter online so you all have it as well as I don't know make a motion but we'll have it go ahead Catherine do you need to make a motion to have a break I don't think we need a motion to do it but it would be a question for the commissioners do you want to take some time to read over the comments or do you want to just push on forward they're pretty extensive if you'd like to have a 15 minute break that would be fine if you don't want it that would be fine as well so what's the pleasure of the members of the commission are you going to be discussing what you email I mean are you going to be talking about it anyway I mean maybe we just talk about it I'm happy to do that there's a staff suggestion that it might be helpful to you to read it before we get into the discussion but it's up to you any other commissioners have thoughts about whether you'd like to take a little break to read it over the material or whether you just want to move forward you can spell it I'm happy to move forward and listen to the discussion okay I see commissioners are shaking their head yes so why don't we this is what we'll do we'll get a staff report then the questions from commissioners seem to be two attendees from the public so ask any body members of the public for their input and then we bring it back to the commission and maybe I'll lead off going through my comments and concerns is that acceptable to people okay so can we have a staff report please okay let me bring up my presentation sorry there we go this is not showing centered on my screen can you see it yes we can see a slide with a slow regulation updates planning commission Thursday January 20, 2022 perfect okay so first of all I'd like to provide to you with some background as you know the general plan is the guiding land use document and the zoning ordinance implements the general plan the 2030 general plan updated the policies related to development on slope but the zoning ordinance still reflects the 20.05 general plan in that section and here are slope policies from the 20.05 general plan I'm not expecting you to be able to read all that but basically they reflect the requirements in our zoning ordinance related to slopes from 30 to 50 percent and no development on slopes 50 percent are greater these are the revised general plan policies in the 2030 general plan and these policies have been they've totally removed the requirement for the percent of slope and they want to ensure development is designed to be in harmony with natural topography and vegetation they talk about dealing with UCSD they ask that we update the zoning ordinance to address new construction techniques and best management practices related to construction on slope and review the slight slope development provisions of the zoning ordinance and update them being necessary so you can see we've moved away from a very prescriptive requirement in the 2005 general plan to much more things related review in the 2030 general plan so in going through these regulations our updates were to comply with the general plan we also wanted to reduce and streamline the number of applications we get for minor projects and to allow development on slopes where it is feasible and to require site specific geological reports with science based engineering solutions when they're needed the specific changes that we propose would be that for development on our near slopes with 30% or greater we would require a geological review of the site and if that site specific review indicated that there were issues related to the slope instability or other issues then if there were engineering solutions possible those would be required if they were not possible then development would not occur on the slope areas we've also there's a section of exception from the requirement to get a slope permit and we've revised those exemptions so that rather than requiring allowing up to 100 cubic yards of grading we're reducing that to 50 cubic yards we've also added some specific examples of the types of projects that would be exempt such as stairways and walkways and then we've added in a provision of similar types of minor projects as approved by the zoning administrator we've also updated the findings to address visual and environmental impacts and we've removed the slope regulations from the list of regulations that plan development can vary the standards of we believe that for plan development being required to have a geological report done if there's a slope makes total sense and that there shouldn't be a variation from that also we're proposing to update the application process currently there are two permits for slope development either an exception from the slope regulations or a variance and we are proposing to create instead just a simple slope development permit and we're changing the public hearing requirements currently if the development would be with greater than 10 feet from a 30% slope it goes before the zoning administrator and if it's within 10 feet of a 30% slope it goes before the planning commission and what we're proposing is to remove the requirement of public hearing if it's on or within 20 feet of a 30% slope which is the standard for requiring a permit and having a public hearing before the zoning administrator if it's on or within 20 feet of a 50% slope I'm sure you are aware that a lot of these minor slope development permit come to you as consent items and so they're really not gaining anything by having a public hearing requirement so we're trying to simplify and make it cheaper for applicants who have minor projects to not have to go through a public hearing process. We've reviewed the proposed changes and in terms of consistency with the local coastal plan and find that they are consistent with policies related to coastal access and geoprotection and they would prevent or mitigate development on unstable slopes by requiring the geotechnical review and then either engineering solutions or relocation and the amendment will also retain the existing findings for slope permit. One of the issues that came up is whether the proposed amendments would increase the amount of development on slope properties. The general plan requires that property be developed at least the minimum density unless there are constraints associated with a natural environment that require a lower density the the having a specific percent of slope either 30 or 50 alone is not a constraint. There are many areas with slopes that are developed. You need to have a geological report to establish whether there's actually an underlying pitch to related to the slope instability issue. In order to develop at less than the minimum density the current ordinance does not allow that and because the 30% or 50% is not a constraint you need to establish the constraint through that report. We also reviewed the slope amendment with respect to SB9 because this is one of the issues that Commissioner Schifrin was particularly concerned about. The state approved SB9 last year and it went into effect on January 1st. The basic premise is that it allows two units on any single family parcel that allows single family parcels to be split into two lots so those lots can have two units. The important thing about SB9 and this amendment is that the amendment does not make any change to the number of units or the number of lots that would be allowed under SB9. It has no impact whatsoever on what SB9 would allow. Another issue was a concern is a fire danger. We know that wildfires are becoming an increasing danger and we also know that they are exacerbated in slope conditions. The state has mapped about the very high fire hazard severity zones and that's an environmental term of art and none are mapped in the city. However, the city is concerned about the issue and we added a wildland urban interface ordinance in 2015 and what this ordinance does is it flags properties that are within that wildland urban interface and allows the building division and the fire department to apply additional standards for fire protection for those properties. And we just wanted to reiterate that the proposed amendment would not add density would not add additional units in areas of better in the wildland urban interface and I'm providing here. I'm sorry it's difficult to see. This is a map of our general plan land and we have a map of these designations with the areas that have 50% slope. So you can see that the slope areas are the black areas. The areas that are residential are single family residential are the yet butter yellow areas. We can see that the vast majority of the 50% slopes are actually in the green areas which are parkland or natural areas. And the majority of the remaining 50% slopes are along in the low density residential areas and you can't quite see it but there's a line along the coastline also. For our sequel review we retained Dudek an environmental and planning firm to review compliance for the general plan EIR and Dudek prepared an addendum as they determined that there were no substantial changes to the general plan from the proposed amendment that would invalidate the analysis of the EIR. And this is an area where many parishioners shepherds questions arose and so we consulted with our city attorney related to SB 9 and the proposed amendment and we were told that based on cases after climate change analysis became required under law the case law determined that regulatory changes did not invalidate prior analysis and also that new laws that create a mandatory duty of compliance are not considered to impact and do not invalidate prior environmental documents and finally they told us that any increases in development due to SB 9 are speculative at this time and do not create a duty to revise our existing environmental documents. We also had questions about whether the amendment would increase development and as I wrote before the amendments are determined by the general plan and they need actual constraints rather than the constraint of a generic 30% slope in order to lower the density and that those actual constraints are provided through those geotechnical reports so the proposal would actually decrease rather than increase development capacity. There is also a question about whether it would change where development could be located and one of the problems that we are seeing these days is that there have been a series of state regulations that have basically removed local control including SB 9 and the Housing Countability Act and those state regulations require specific development capacity that can supersede what we allow with our development standard so if one of these state laws requires that we allow higher capacity than is allowed in either our general plan or our zoning ordinance, those higher capacities would require that would nullify our locational restrictions and allow that development in the 50% slope if we just left it as it is. Another question again about the wildfire danger and just reiterating what I went over before is the very high fire hazard zones very high fire hazard severity zones set by the state there are none within the city limits we adopted the wild I'm sorry that should be wild land urban interface ordinance and that allows development plans to be reviewed and specific fire safety standards to be applied within those areas in order to recommend the ordinance for approval there are specific findings that need to be made and to conserve space I have abbreviated these findings but you'll find the full findings in your staff report and the findings are that the amendment serves in furthers of necessity and general community welfare that the proposed amendments serve in further zoning practice and that the proposed amendment is in general conformance with the principles, policies and land use nation in the general plan and local coastal plan and that is my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions or comments. Questions from commissioners? Yes, commissioner Dawson. I had a question for staff, thank you so much for the zero presentation but I guess I'm having a little hard time wrapping my head around the contention that so first of all just to make sure I understand correctly, we currently our current slope regulations have a total prohibition on development of 50% or over is that correct? On slopes that are 50% greater. On slopes that are 50% greater right now there is no way to develop those within our current code. That would not allow it however that state law supersedes their code in certain instances so although our code does not allow it does not mean that it can't have new information so that's good to know. But I guess the part that I'm having a hard time understanding and hoping to get some clarification from staff is that so I guess maybe it's not as much of an issue if the state law allows it anyway. It's just hard for me to think of this as not substantially increasing develop. I understand the zoning the density is not going to change but if I have a plot of land where 50% of it is 50% slope and previously I couldn't build anything over there and now maybe I can put an ADU there that I couldn't. It seems to me that functionally this is going to be increasing the density and the amount of development in these areas that are in the which there are challenges around that and also as something that we haven't talked about at all I'm also wondering if staff has done any analysis or any information about the risk of extreme participation of precipitation events so debris flows and just the kind of monsoon like range we can get now is not something that we previously had to think about. So just climate impacts and then also the density part. Thank you. Your raise. I want to question staff about this notion that state law requires development on 50% slope. You did in certain instances and I think that's critical a critical caveat as I understand state law and you can criticize me and you can correct me if I'm wrong the state law says you can't use the 50% to prevent additional development if additional development is allowed. However depending on the parcel you can direct where that development occurs so that it doesn't occur on the 50% slope. So using Commissioner Dawson's example you have a three acre parcel you have a four acre parcel two acres around 50% slope two acres aren't. You want to divide that parcel into two parcels and put four units, three additional units on it. You can do that and not be in violation of state law but the city could still require that you're not do it on the 50% slope that's correct or is that wrong? That's correct to a point chair. We do have those standards in place and they can be used so long as they're not preventing the density allowed under the general plan. So certainly if there is a scenario where housing units could be moved to a different location the city could require that but what we're saying is to clarify there is a possibility where the city would have to require or have to allow I should say development on a greater than 50% slope but the allowed density underline on that parcel wouldn't be changing. Right but it doesn't depending on the parcel it doesn't necessarily have to happen and the amendment would eliminate the ability to stop the development on the 50% slope. What we're also saying though too is that the slope itself isn't a feasibility issue if the way we're changing and now if there's a study in place that can show that that development is feasible on a 50% slope there's no longer that constraint that's in place so it would allow that development on a 50% slope without the city trying to move it so that would be one change I will say though that developing on a slope is significantly more expensive and it's highly likely that property owner would avoid developing on a 50% slope as much as possible and we have very few properties that have 50% slopes that are residential that can be developed with residential so we really don't see that that impact in any real way. Well except that under SB 9 every parcel that's a single family parcel is potentially developed. I'm sorry we've been having you all for it. I actually wanted to respond to something that Commissioner Dawson said which was about the ADU ADU is under state law we the local jurisdictions are required to allow the development of up to 800 square foot ADU and if the standard if there's zoning standards would get in the way of that then the zoning standards would not be allowed to apply so under those circumstances it doesn't matter whether we change our ordinance or not they would still be able to build an ADU and the same is true as Commissioner Schifrin was saying about the SB 9 unit. We must allow a minimum of two units of at least 800 square feet on any single family zone lot but to Matt's point generally people are going to develop where it is easiest and most economical which is not going to be on the most low portion of your property. And I'll further mention that SB 9 applies to only single family zone properties which the city is currently determining to be the RS and R1 zone districts which again have very few high slope areas in the city. A lot according to figure 2 in the addendum there's a significant number of areas that have deeper slopes that are all single family areas. There are other questions we can get into this further. I want to give the members of the public a chance to testify before we get into it. Commissioner Greenberg? Thank you so much and thanks for this great presentation and I was just curious in understanding what motivating this might help the public as well. Why does this felt need to make this change now? And when you talk about the benefit to the public what is the benefit that you hope to gain from this change? There are two driving forces. One is the direction in the general plan to reevaluate our zoning ordinance with respect to slope properties. And the second is that we get a number of inquiries and sometimes applications from people who are in a situation where they have a slope and they want to do some sort of minor thing. Deck expansion come up a lot. People want to make their deck three feet wider. But to do that they would have to put new footings in. And in a slope that is greater than 30%, they have to go to a public hearing. And that is expensive and it's time consuming. That kind of development can normally be done quite quickly. But it's two to three months process to go to a public hearing. And it uses that time that could be spent on projects of more import. It doesn't make sense for staff to be bringing things to the planning commission on the consent calendar because that basically means they don't really need a public hearing. There's no need for it to be aired to the public because it's not a complicated issue. It's not an issue that has a lot of impact. So that in the advanced planning division we get comments from the current planning division about what they want us to do. And this is when it continually comes up. We've heard from both the community applicants and as well as developers that we've talked to that are current standards based on just percentages are arbitrary and they're not tied to what can and can't be built safely. And what we really want to move towards is this science-based approach where we're allowing engineers to tell the city what can be built rather than a number that we've created. That's interesting. There are a number of questions. I don't know what we have. I see two attendees and one of them has their hand up. Welcome to public hearing and recognize John Hall and you'll have three minutes to testify on this matter. So go forward. Thank you very much Commissioner Schifrin. My name is John Hall. I'm a citizen of the city. I really appreciate the clarity of the staff report. I know that there are a number of technical issues that are frankly beyond anything I would comment on. I would reinforce the statement made by staff that my understanding is that architectural techniques have advanced significantly since this code was written and that there are ways of building on slope from 30 to 50 percent that are not at all problematic and indeed it may be the case that building on a slope will decrease the problems of debris flow precipitation and so forth the site will be engineered. I think it makes a lot of sense to put it into a sort of demonstration by engineers and by the applicant that here's what we propose to do and here's how it will mitigate or avoid any kinds of problems. So without you know I certainly don't want to take away from the technical details that you all are discussing but I think that the idea of making it on a case by case basis according to engineering that takes into account modern construction techniques makes a great deal of sense and I hope that you'll keep that however you fine tune the details I hope that you'll keep that in mind as an advance over simply a wrong number of 30% or 50% and I hope you'll be able to make the recommendation for the proposal to the city council. Thanks very much for your time. Thank you. There's somebody on the phone 831-120193 are you wanting to testify? I don't see your hand up. That's the clerk. Is there anybody else on the phone that's going to testify on this matter? I don't know. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing and bring this back to the commission. I want to take some time to go to my maybe I'll go to Poitzer and I have comments on the staff report and as well as the addendum and my biggest problem frankly is with the addendum and I think the problem I you may know I teach a class at UCSD an environmental assessment that's essentially a SQL class and so I spend a lot of time thinking about SQL and what its requirements are and I try to stay on top of the legislation and case law and an addendum is allowed in those situations in those movies where there are minor changes and where there are minor changes in the project and the project was the general plan and where there are minor changes in the circumstances as you probably know people require that the analysis of a project's impact be based on the environmental setting and the environmental setting is defined as a state of the environment that's pretty much at the time of the beginning of the environmental review process so those are two kind of fundamental requirements of SQL well what I try to argue and I'll go through them in more detail in my comments is that one the reality of SB9 while the amendments don't change the density the environmental setting has changed in a potentially significant way by allowing for additional of essentially quite doobling of the units on single family sites now I understand that the the city doesn't have the ability for SB9 project to review on the SQL but this is an amendment to the zoning ordinance and as such it needs to follow the SQL requirement and my fundamental problem tonight anyway is whether the addendum is an appropriate document for reviewing and analyzing the impact of the proposed amendment my concern is that in fact it isn't because the circumstances have changed so that now the SB9 allows for the splitting of all the single family properties and then two units on each and you know I would take the issue with the city attorney to say that the impacts of that are speculative I mean it's pretty clear that the city has no choice if a property owner comes in and says he wants or she wants to split their property be it one acre, two acres, anything down to I think 2100 square feet they can do that and put two units on each of them and do a lot. I don't know who the addendum how many lots there are staff says there aren't that many so the map and the addendum of figure two indicates that you know it looks like there are a lot of areas in carbon era prospect heights that we're going to check on the west side where there's buildings on deeper slope that needs to be analyzed to be adequate on the sequel in addition you know I the issue of wildfire impact is an area that's changing under the case law but as we know it's a very serious concern the staff as I understand it seems to be arguing that since there aren't any very high hazard fire areas in the city then this isn't their own potential wildfire impact I know from friends who live in the prospect sites area who live on deep slopes who have the you know wooded areas around them that there are concerns about fires creeping down and one of the things that's become clear in the law at least with SEQA is that SEQA concern is whether new development increases fire danger and allowing additional units on these slope areas is I think needs to be looked at that can't just be dismissed in an abandonment so I mean I'm just those that some of my concerns I was also concerned that the staff report makes it seem as if the 2030 general plan requires the changes that staff is recommending the general plan does take the specific that might have taken out the specifics because they're already in the zoning ordinance they don't need to be repeated I have a different interpretation the general plan says you have to re-evaluate the the slope regulations well I don't disagree with that and make changes deemed necessary well I'm not sure I don't necessarily agree that the changes that the staff is recommending are unnecessary I have a concern about allowing development simply based on an engineering geologic report I look at Daly City I look at San Francisco and engineers can engineer development on slope 90% you just give them the task and they will do it and I think there is an environmental concern about having houses popping up on 50% slope and I think to the extent that that can be avoided and if it can be avoided on 30 to 50% those are good policies and a law-extending policy and in fact one of the concerns that I have given that the only standards we can use in evaluating development are objective standards they are one of the few objective standards we have that provide any environmental protection at all so I have a I have a problem with the proposal but I also have my problems tonight and why I really think that this that the item needs to be continued because I think the agenda is inadequate and inaccurate in parts and inadequate under sequence for example let me do say that I do support the changes from minor projects I think that those are justified and if there was some way to separate them out from the rest of it I would support moving forward with those I think those are my concern is the development you know what are going to end up being large single family houses on deep slopes in wooded areas where there is increased fire danger and where there is you know where as far as I am concerned those are not appropriate places for the development if it could be abandoned instead erroneously that the existing regulations prohibit structures on slopes greater than 50% unless an exception to the regulation is approved and replaced by a new requirement for slope development I am sorry I added too much prohibit structures on slopes greater than 50% and less an exception to the regulations that is not correct as mentioned by Steph and others that 50% prohibition is absolute under the current ordinance it goes away under the proposed amendment and that is in my mind a fundamental problem with the abandonment it is just minimizing the effect of the amendment on the environment by saying well you can do it now so what is the big deal well the fact of the matter is you can't do it now okay that that statement is repeated a number of times and then the addendum states numerous times that the proposed changes would not alter density and indirectly the number of new units that would be constructed and that as far as I am concerned this is not the case under SB 9 the amendments might not increase the density but density can be increased and development can occur on slopes where it now can't be built and what that and maybe the council will decide that that is what they want but the environmental documents we should evaluate well how many parcels are we talking about what are how many of them are 30% slopes how many of them are 50% slopes staff said that they're only as I understand it they're only 40 undeveloped parcels that are on slopes of over 50% so the worst that could happen they all have got stopped into two parcels and two units in each and it doesn't talk about how many parcels there are that are already developed on 30% and 50% slopes that under SB 9 could be subdivided and have additional units put on them that's what I think the CEQA document needs to look at and it doesn't it doesn't take that seriously I'm concerned provided staff on set of the biological resources where it says the CEQA said ask this to propose project with any local policies or ordinances protecting biological resources. I think the slope regulations do protect biological resources and eliminating the requirement to limit development on those slopes as a potential for increasing the impact on biological resources. We saw that with that single family house the project in Carboneira where while the property wasn't in the mapped area of sensitive habitat well and behold when an environment when a biologic study was was conducted with sensitive species that inhabited that parcel and that led to the revision of the of the of the of the revision of the project. Well you know it isn't possible under state law to have environmental review of individual SB 9 project this is the opportunity to try to look at what that what that development what kind of environmental impact the development of the under SB 9 is going to have a notion to be looked at as part of the change circumstances that potentially lead to significant significant impact. I think I you know with the hazards that I have concerns about the whole while I've mentioned it I'm sort of not wanting to say too much time much more time but there are wildfire impacts that we don't know anything about because there's no data in the in the environmental document so the potential impacts are just dismissed because it's not a high as an area and it's you know there are standards but it isn't the question of whether there's standards it's a question of are there potential impacts and that's what Steve was all about is to sort of look at what are the potential impacts of a proposed project and the removal of the 50% prohibition will allow for development on 50% slopes which the only requirement will be by and of geotechnical requirements there won't be any sequel review because these projects won't be subject to sequel so you know this is the opportunity and I think this is the time when it's required to really look at are there wildfire dangers that new development on these deeper slopes that would be allowed under SB 9 will lead to I don't know maybe there aren't but I think under speak with it needs to be that analysis so my recommendation is that we continue the commission continue the item for additional sequel review that incorporates the potential impacts of development in areas with steep slopes from the implementation of SB 9 that provide the additional analysis of wild potential wildfire impact from new development and evaluate the elimination of the prohibition of development specifically on 50% slopes under the SB 9 density so those are my concerns with the addendum and the recommendations from this there. I appreciate your patience so letting me go through my concerns I guess first we'll hear from Katherine and then from Commissioner Scott. I'd like to respond to some of those concerns the first thing he said was that disordnance would allow additional units that are not currently allowed that is not correct. This ordinance does not change how many units can be built anywhere it does not change the number of units the same number of units that could be built prior and still be built so that's that's not what I'm saying I don't disagree with that I'm saying that in terms of environmental review the circumstances in the city have changed from when the EIR and the general plan was done such that now SB 9 allows for additional development in these areas and that the change of circumstance needs to be recognized in the environment of Dawson May I continue to respond to you? So according to the city attorney case law has shown that when there are regulatory changes they do not invalidate a prior environmental analysis and that new laws that create a mandatory duty of compliance such as SB 9 are not considered new impacts and do not invalidate the prior environmental documents so I understand and sympathize with your desire to have SB 9 projects have some environmental review but that doesn't mean that you can require environmental review of SB 9 on another project this project is not SB 9 and the impacts of this project are not the impact from SB 9 and so the SB 9 project can be built whether or not this ordinance is approved there are no changes to what SB 9 does related to this ordinance so there is absolutely no justification for doing a secret analysis of SB 9 for this ordinance there isn't any way that it can be legally required I just want to add too that we started our up Catherine I just wanted to add to your point too that we started this work a year and a half ago even back in 2020 we began this work and this work on the addendum started in the summer of 2021 before SB 9 was even approved so in addition to Catherine's point that's just another point that this work couldn't take that into consideration anyway given that timing I would like to acknowledge that the addendum did mistake the development on the 50% slope the current ordinance does not allow development on 50% the new ordinance would however as I said before the ordinance would not allow an increase in density and so there would be no increase in the number of units that would be built so you're not putting houses that could not be built otherwise it might be built in a slightly different place but it's still the same houses so it's still the same number of households that could be exposed to wildfire danger it's still the same number of units there that would be built without the ordinance so the addendum is the appropriate environmental review because there are no new impacts related to an increase in the number of units that could be built um and one thing you asked for was a review of how many SB9 units could be built since there's no impact on the number of SB9 units from this amendment there is no need for an analysis of the number of SB9 units that can be built citywide the amendment does not affect the number of SB9 units things I covered there are a couple of the misstatements about the 50% slope we will be making that correction prior to bringing this forward to council but we can't review SB9 for this amendment because it's not part of the amendment so I have a question I have a question for Matt I just wanted to add Catherine's comments at the end there we brought on DUDEC insulting as our vendor who is a statewide professional and the addendum process recommended to us early on, even out of an abundance of caution, there's some professionals that would say this work could even be an exemption potentially under CEQA. So we feel that the addendum document more than adequately covers this work before you. Thank you. Michelle Spellman. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to add potentially another perspective here and where I thought the direction of this ordinance change was going, right? I think there's significant knowledge in the community that minor development, whether it's for an addition or a deck or maybe even an ADU or even potentially a home on a site, there are certain restrictions in place that it seemed to be overreaching, right? And as an example, we know that the county has no slope ordinance currently, right? So there's no restriction based on a percentage of slope. In fact, I called the county geologist just to get his take on, you know, was that a wrong decision? I mean, this is something that's been in play now for over 10 years on their slope ordinance, right? And, you know, some of the comments were, you know, 30% slope is not very steep as far as a slope is concerned, right? The 50% and over 50%, yes, you start to get into conditions that need to be controlled severely for, you know, runoff, engineering, et cetera. But I think there is a whole host of opportunities to allow for, you know, simple development on parcels that might have minor impact with slope. And I guess I don't know how we arrive to that number, but maybe it's just allowing development on 30% slope that meet the criteria of the proposals. And, you know, maybe the 50% is too much. I'm not an expert in that area and I don't know exactly where that should go. But the current process of requiring folks for minor variations to go through a public hearing to go to that expense and to pay for those scenarios, and in most cases, ending up not even being heard by the, you know, body that could approve it, it seems a little bit silly. And I think there's a lot of pent-up energy around that in the community, right? Not just developers, but, you know, single-family homeowners and folks that, you know, happened to live in those areas. And I think by default, you know, what's even more dangerous is that given those restrictions, people resort to doing stuff on their own, right, without permit and without review. And that's not a situation we want to be in, right? That's where we get into scenarios that aren't engineered appropriately and are even greater risk to the larger community. But I think we ought to be smart enough to figure out a way to separate out simple amendments to the slope ordinance that may be eliminated based on a certain threshold. I think that would be a very constructive thing for us to do. I do think the FB9 thing, and I think Chair Schifrin, thank you for your analysis and detailed, you know, breaking apart of this whole situation. I certainly didn't dig into it on that level when I reviewed this. Forgive me if I'm wrong. The FB9 part wasn't even in until later in the presentation here. But I don't think, I think staff answered just now on that issue is fairly appropriate. I don't think we need equal analysis on FB9. Whether or not we need equal analysis on development over 50% slopes, you know, that's potentially a different issue for me. And I do know that, you know, the municipalities that have already addressed FB9, it's not allowing granted sequel can't be required on those parcels. But if they are in areas of map, biotic sensitivity, well, those are still in play, right? Those don't get eliminated by the same way if you're in a high fire zone, which apparently the whole of Santa Cruz County is not. And that would be a criteria too for not allowing that development. So those don't go away either with FB9. And I think even our one commenter had a good point, right? And I think it speaks to the, what is the level of risk to the community that, you know, makes sense here. I think that most projects that are minor in nature are going to improve properties that are potentially a greater risk today without any development. And I think you could enhance the protection from wildfire and potentially from landslide, et cetera, water events, earthquake events, by allowing some development in areas that are less risky. So that's my take. And I hope we can, I know this amendment, let's call it, to the slope ordinance has been something that's been anticipated in the community for a long time. And it seems like we finally got to the finish line, and now it's kind of blowing up. And I think it's important to try and get some salient points out of this that we could actually move forward with in a simple fashion. Well, let me respond now, call on Mr. Dawson, because first, let me say that I totally agree about the minor project. And in fact, the proposed change to section 24-1403-0G, which is minor projects, not including buildings or grading over 50 cubic yards, main approach on slopes greater than 30 percent, minor development can include and it lists a bunch of things. And it's essentially, you know, allows for, you know, those kind of minor projects. And if there was a way to simply approve that as you're kind of indicating and move that forward and get that before the council and approve, I have no problem with that. My problem is with the 50 percent slope. And let me say a couple of things in terms of SQL. Contrary to what was stated about the fact that the addendum was started before SB 9 passed, that is not relevant under SQL. It is, SB 9 is the law now, it has to be taken into consideration to the extent that's relevant. But I'm realizing in the way this conversation has gone that maybe my mistake in my comments was constantly referring to SB 9. It's really not a law itself. There's now a law that, there are a lot of laws that allow for additional development, but there are laws that, there is, there is changes in the law that allows for single family, lots and single family zone districts to be subdivided and then have two units on each parcel. That's now the law. That law is going to affect development throughout the city. It is also going to affect development, influence or affect it by this amendment. All I'm saying is that now that the law allows for this significant increase in the amount of development on single family parcels, that needs to be considered in environmental review. You know, I think what Steph is saying about, we don't have the right to, you know, do environmental review on SB 9 or regulate, it's a law not a regulation, but we don't have the ability to do that. We don't have the ability to seek a review of projects going forward under SB 9. But the reality is, just like the Density Bonus Law allows developers to increase the density and any sequel review will look at what the proposed density is under the, as we saw with the project on Bay and West Coast, the sequel review looked at not the base density, but the total density because that's a density that's going to have the effect on the environment. And that's what the sequel is looking at, what will the project do to the environment? And that's what's relevant here. And in this case, there is a, you know, the development potential of single family a lot. It's now quadruple, and it is, I think, necessary and appropriate for sequel documents to recognize that additional development potential. So that's why, from my point of view, I'm realizing that it shouldn't have kept repeating SB 9 because it's really, it's not the law that I think the sequel review needs to look at. It's the, you know, it's the change in the development potential of single family a lot throughout the city, and in this, as far as its amendment is concerned, for a lot that are subject to the pro-regulation. So, maybe I know you wanted to say something, so go ahead. Yeah, thank you so much. So, I think maybe just in my own head, it's helped me to really think about this in that in the environmental setting, we can throw out the talk about SB 9, the environmental setting and the potential for development has changed since the EIR in 2012, right, so significant. And so, by removing a current prohibition, so, and I find it interesting that in the staff report and also in the due deck, they really kind of go like ended around the fact that they were removing a prohibition, I mean, it may be a good idea, it may not be a good idea, but we are removing a current prohibition of building up to 50%. And the other thing that's helped me in thinking about this, like, there's the geotechnical side, there's the engineering side, right, engineers are really brilliant, construction techniques have advanced, so that's one thing. And, but then there's the climate crisis part of all this. And so, yes, the number of units to be arranged a certain way with the 50% prohibition, but if we were to that 50% prohibition, now we could be built into a defensible space or a buffer zone between the actual dwelling unit and, you know, an area that wasn't developed because this prohibition exists, those are the kind of things I would want to understand better before deciding whether it was a good idea to remove this prohibition that is existing and has existed for a long time. I want to absolutely concur with the other to have spoken on the minor adjustments in the section that Andy brought for. I would be happy to vote affirmative and move that on the minor adjustments. I think that makes absolutely total sense, but I don't see how we can make an informed decision about removing a prohibition in the current state of the environment in a climate crisis where most of this occurs in the wooly. We have the extreme precipitation events, we have increased fire danger, and without really understanding how development would arrange itself, removing the 50% for prohibition and having a full people analysis that, I just don't feel like I'm informed enough to say whether that's a good idea or not. And so, again, I would be happy to move forward on the minor variations, but I think we need to continue this for a full people analysis on the removal of that 50% prohibition. I would just like to briefly say that that line of thinking would essentially invalidate every general plan EIR in California. We have, we talked to our attorney and there's case law that shows the, you know, 10 years ago or so when climate change was, climate change, studies were being required in general plan, that change in the state did not affect current general plan EIRs, so those were still intact and were valid. So there is case law showing that changes at the state level cannot constitute an impact that would require additional study at the general plan EIR level. Brinley, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I can even remove the part about climate in that given the current environmental conditions which Piqua is going to look at, we know that there's going to be building where there isn't building right now. And so I just feel like I want to understand the environmental impact of that before moving forward on removing an existing prohibition. Other commissioners, Mr. Conway. Yes, thank you. And thank you for raising the issues. I know all of us probably I certainly always do wonder about development in sensitive areas and I appreciate having a chance to talk about this thoroughly. I think it's important we're talking about it at some depth, at least if we're not talking about it thoroughly. I just wanted to say that I really do support the goals of this effort. You know, staff started out talking about with three important goals. It sounds like we are pretty much on the same page about them, especially in terms of the streamlining and allowing we may we may differ on on whether we the goal of allowing housing to be built where it currently isn't if and only if it is feasible. And I think faith is a big word because probably nothing feels very safe right now. But I just wanted to say that, well, I certainly appreciate and share a desire to this contemplate what are we doing in in not just our city, but overall with how and where we build. I do think that I'm comfortable that this equal analysis follows the requirement. And I I question whether it is a good idea to decide to stray from very well accepted and tested statewide process for what constitutes an adequate equal analysis of on an existing general plan. So I guess I just want to say that I am really glad of these questions. I don't know that it is reasonable of us to continue the matter to study something that I am not convinced that we that will get there. And I actually support the staff recommendation. Let me clarify that I'm a little confused. I'm not sure whether you know, sort of a red herring has been raised. I mean, I'm certainly not saying that the city's general plan EIR is inadequate needs to be thrown out. It's used regularly to justify projects. And what we get is an analysis of whether things have changed. That and sort of remembering that from the Bay and West, the project, a whole sequence analysis was based on that was just using the general plan EIR and the justification is that there weren't any changes specific to the project that could potentially cause additional significant impact. And that was the argument that staff made and people come to argue about it. And, you know, the project move forward. Well, that's what's really going on here with this agenda. The agenda is saying that there are no, there have been no changes. Either in the general plan, yeah, in the circumstances that were consistent at the time of the general plan, that justify additional environmental review. And that's where I have a problem. I think that the amount of additional development that is now allowed is a significant change in the circumstances that were looked at in the general plan. I remember with the analysis of the general plan analysis that was done for the Bay and West, the project that looked at, well, you know, this project is going to, this project is going to allow for 80-some units. How many units does the general plan allow for? How many units have been constructed? How many units are in the pipeline? Okay, there, this project can be, go forward, it doesn't expand what's in the general plan. And so what the general plan analyzed is what this project would go, you know, with it, with that project was, it covered the density of that project. Well, the general plan, the circumstances have changed. The state law now allows for additional units from single family development on slopes that it didn't at the time, the general plan was adopted in 2012, that or when the EIO was adopted or when the agenda was first started. And what a number of the agencies have found to their detriment, that if they don't look at what the current law required in their CEQA analysis, that's what they're going to be held to be not following it because the law says what are the impacts of the project on the current environment. And the current environment is not the environment on as far as slopes to concern than it was when the general plan EIO was done. So my recommendation is the following, that the permission and approval motion to continue the slope regulation amendment for additional CEQA review to incorporate the potential impacts of development in areas with steep slopes from the increased development potential of projects of parcels in single family districts that were not considered in the 2030 general plan EIR to provide additional analysis of potential wildfire impacts to evaluate the elimination of the prohibition of development on 50% slopes with the increased development potential from a single family district. And finally, to request that return at the next meeting with an amendment of the slope regulations for minor projects as proposed in 2014-03-03 of the staff report. So, yes, Cindy. They're muted, Cindy. Did you make a motion or was I? I can't make a motion. That's what I would propose if somebody else is willing to make it as a motion. I would, I would, as you just stated, I would propose that as a motion. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second that. Seconded by motion by Johnson, seconded by Maxwell. So, Commissioner Conway, then Commissioner Spellman, there's a motion on the floor, so I assume everybody will now speak to the motion. Go ahead. Yes, I would just like to say that it is not appropriate for us to direct staff to come back at a next meeting, you know, that language really needs to get changed. That was a request. I'm sorry, I did not say, if I, if I said that I read it wrong first, what I wrote was request that to return to the next meeting with an amendment of the slope regulations for minor projects. That doesn't change. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that chair, but I still think that that is not, it's not appropriate for us to say that direct their workload and when it's going to be. So if, if this, if this motion does pass, I think that should be changed to as soon as feasible time. I'm willing to make that. I'm happy to, that isn't friendly. I would say as soon as feasible, I'm just, I'm actually just the, the language I suggested initially was responding to the desire to move forward with minor amendments as quickly as possible. I think pretty much, you know, I'm not sure what kind of change to the proposal and perfection, both of you would require to be consistent. If there's some language in now that would make it impossible to approve it tonight and send it forward. If I felt we could, I'd support approving it and passing it on to the council, but I think it might need to be a tweak a little bit. This recommendation could result in an additional work for staff still substantially, and we would recommend instead of continuing the item that you, that the motion, not accept the addendum and, and recommend that council, if that's, if that's what you're choosing, but if you can have additional comments on, on that denial of the addendum, you can include that in the recommendation of that non acceptance. Yeah, I think because there's this sort of fundamental disagreement between staff and some of the commissioners on the sequel approach, and that includes the city attorney, that, you know, perhaps the best way of going about this is just seeking concurrence on what you as a commission can support and, you know, maybe moving those amendments forward. And then maybe as a separate motion or action indicating that you don't believe that the addendum for, for reasons stated is appropriate for the entire amendment package. Well, I'm not sure you're, whether both of you are saying the same thing or you're saying something different. I don't, you know, from my perspective, the commission has the ability to continue an item. If the staff wants to disagree, they can appeal that to the council, but they, by continuing it, we, the motion makes very clear what the concerns with the addendum are. Staff doesn't want to move forward, you know, to respond to those, the commission recommendation. I would, you know, if the staff would suggest a language for moving forward with a minor amendment, and I certainly would be willing to support that and to, you know, to separate out that, to make that as a separate motion. The only problem I see with O3OG is that it refers to a slope development permit, and maybe if it just took out without a slope development permit, we could approve the rest of that, that code section. Now that I read it over again, it really isn't necessary. So the saying we're not, it's going to be without the permit. Well, I don't have to say that. So the, so the, let me just read what it says, Richard Dawson, and I'll turn to you. What it says, what would be, the action would be to recommend to the council approval of section, the revision of section 24-1403 of G, which would read minor development, not including buildings as defined in section 24-22-154 or grading over 50 cubic yards, may encourage on slopes greater than 30%, minor development can include things such as walkway fences, retaining walls less than feet be high above existing grays, plantar boxes, stairways, deck extending not more than 5 feet into the slope greater than 30%, and similar features for civil and minor development, as determined by the zoning administrator, may encourage on slopes greater than 30% purity. So it's okay with the maker of the motion. And I don't, we can, we could separate it out as a separate motion if you prefer, but it would be to recommend approval to the city council of the proposed amendment of the slope regulations for minor projects as proposed in 24-1403 of G with the elimination of the last section. That refers to a spoke development from the step on a react to that, is that, is that something we can do tonight? If that's the, you know, the consensus of the commission, we can certainly move that particular, you know, amendment forward. You know, as your recommendation, we'll also be bringing our recommendation to the council as well. Well, I guess I would suggest that we split the motion. Yeah. That we take out the part on that loop. And so if it's okay with the maker of the motion and the second, the motion would be to continue the slope regulation amendments for additional secret review to appropriate potential impacts of development in areas of speed slopes from increased development potential of projects on parcels in single-family districts that were not included in the 2030 general plan EIR to provide additional analysis of the potential wildfire impact and to evaluate the elimination of the prohibition of development on 50% slopes with the increased development of potential in single-family districts. So if that's okay with the maker and the second, that would be the full motion. Is that okay with Mr. Dawson? You're splitting the motion. They're keeping them together. No, that would be the motion. And if that after the commission acts on this motion, we could do another motion that would help the minor amendment. Yes. Yes. Is it okay with the second? Yes. So that's the motion on the floor. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Not hearing any. I'm going to call for a roll call. Mr. Connolly? No. Motion passes four to three. Let's turn to the, if I can state, the second part of the motion as it now is, is the motion to recommend a approval, recommend a approval for the consideration by the city council of an amendment of the spirit of the resolution of the smoke regulations for minor projects as proposed in section 24, 1403 with the elimination of the last craze having to do with the permit. So is that, is that your motion? Mr. Dawson, are you willing to make that as a motion? If you get somebody else to make a motion, anybody else interested? I guess I can make the motion for that one. And I should add that I feel like that is what, you know, when I asked that question about what is the kind of public benefit of this change? And when John Hall was speaking about, from the public about the needs for this, that seems to be like the urgent matter from my understanding in any case. So I could make a motion about these, the only problem is that I haven't written it all down. Well, I can wait what I have and see if we like it. Is there a recommend approval to the city council of an amendment to the smoke regulations for minor projects as proposed in section 24, 1403 without the last craze relating to a permit? Yes. Can I just say that that's what I would, that's what I'm. So that would be your motion? That's my motion. Is somebody willing to second that? Your second. Commissioner Stelman. Yeah, I'm going to support this motion, but I would hope that I think the anticipation is that there is something beyond, you know, just decks and walkway encroachment into these areas. Right. I think the task before us is what's reasonable. And I don't know that we have it spelled out in front of us yet, but I think I still think there is a very large perception that the slope regulation is overly prohibitive at the moment. And again, I don't know where that fine line is, but I hope that the arrow is not going to be let out of the balloon and then this is it. I mean, I think we need to be smart and approve these minor changes. But what I consider minor or somebody else considers minor, I think is vastly different than what this language is, is reading. So I would hope we could find a way to have fruitful discussion around what is appropriate. Yeah, I agree with that effect. I think that's a really important point. I would hope that there could be a conversation not just in the city of Santa Cruz, but in the county, you know, in the aftermath of the CZU fire. I know there's been a lot of issues in the unincorporated areas around slope regulation being modified and the need for people to move back and so forth. I think it is a concern of mine that, you know, I know everyone shares, but certainly the research about the role of WUI development on not only being impacted by wildfire, but actually generating increased wildfire risk, even independent of climate change. So we, I think it would be great to have a broader countywide conversation on this as well personally. Because it's affecting people, you know, the fires are not observing these lines, these boundaries. And nor is the major, the inundations, I mean the erosion of the slopes as well in the aftermath of fires as a result of rain and everything. So I think that that would be a good, broader conversation to have. I just want to agree with that. Any other commissioner comments on the motion on the floor, which is to recommend the approval of the change to the slope regulations for minor projects is defined by the slope regulation. And then can we have a roll call vote? Commissioner Conlon. Hi. Commissioner Dawson. Hi. That passes unanimously. Thank you all very much. Difficult and complex issues for sure. We now move to information items. Does the staff have any information to give us? Oh, let me, let me just thank staff for all their work on this and for the work also responding to my comment. I wish we had been able to reach a meeting of the mind. Equate is a complex law and subject to lots of different interpretation. As the city knows who lawsuits have to divide. So I want to thank staff for all their work on this. So information items. What, what's in our future? Just couple, couple items. Just wanted to note that the project you had, the appeal you had on your last meeting in December on the improvements to the 109 Sebrite residents was appealed directly to the coastal commission. So hasn't been scheduled yet, but just an FYI. I talked about earlier about the 130 center street being on Tuesday's council meeting. That agenda and staff report will be posted on Friday. In case you want to review that upcoming schedule. Already there. Oh, is it? Okay. Thanks. But up late this afternoon. Great. In terms of items for your February agendas for February 3rd, we have the small unit ordinance returning to the commission for consideration. And then on the second meeting that in February on the 17th, we've got an appeal of the zoning administrator decision to approve applications, authorizing development associated with the oversized vehicle ordinance in the coastal zone. And then there's also a use permit for a fitness studio and mission. So that's what we have definitely on the schedule for February. Is it possible for me to ask that when the RV ordinance come that we get some reports from the coastal commission staff? I mean, I'd be concerned if he is going through this process and it would be, I don't know whether the coastal commission staff is weighed in, but if there's any information from them, it would be very helpful for us to hear that. Yeah, I haven't been close to this effort at all. I can say that there have been discussions between the two staffs. Whether there's any written information, I can't say for sure, but to the extent there is, we can certainly, you know, include or characterize the discussions in the staff report. That would be very helpful. Now, is there a potential date for the LCB amendments, both for the objective standards to come back? I don't have, Matt, do you have that off the top of your head? I can look at the draft schedule. Yeah, we currently, we anticipate the objective standards in April, I believe, the April, the first April meeting on the 7th. And what about the LCB amendments? Matt is anticipated for March 3rd, this time. I know that the amendments are, the proposed amendments are out in the public draft. They're pretty extensive, so I would certainly recommend that the commissioners, you know, try to get an early start on that, because there's a lot there. No, are there any more information items? No. Okay. There are no, the housing subcommittee hasn't met. And the February 3rd meeting will have the recommendations from the housing subcommittee, so the item is referred to future agendas. Does anybody have items referred to future agendas? None. We'll be adjourned. Thanks to our, there's a February 3rd meeting. Thank you all, and stay healthy. And thank you to Salman and Mielson, too. Yes. Salman and Mielson, too. Working with you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your work. Thank you, and an honor to serve. Likewise. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.