 All right. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's planning commission meeting. Today's date is August 24, 2022, and the time is 930 am. Today's meeting is completely remote via zoom. There are a couple of ways to participate in today's meeting. If your computer is equipped with a microphone, it is recommended that you participate via the planning commission zoom meeting link, which is posted on the planning department's homepage at sdcoplanning.com. Alternatively, if your computer is not equipped with a microphone, you may provide comment by telephone. The call in number is 669-900-6833. The collaboration code is 814-8152-8029. Again, this information is posted on the planning department webpage. If you forgot the phone number or the web link, it is there. All right, a little more information about how the meeting will go. During key points in today's meeting, time will be provided for members of the public to provide their testimony. Speakers will be muted until called on to speak. I will ask participants who wish to provide testimony to either remotely raise your hand by selecting the hand icon on the zoom link, or if calling them by telephone by remotely raising your hand by pressing star nine. I will call on participants by either your name or the last four digits of your phone number. If you're participating via the zoom link, when I call on you to speak, you'll see a pop-up on your screen that asks you to unmute. Please accept the pop-up and state your name for the record and provide your testimony. If you're calling in via telephone, you must unmute yourself by pressing star six. And I will remind folks of these instructions as we move into the public hearing. If at any time you're having difficulty connecting to the meeting today, we do have support staff with us, Michael Lamb. You can email him anytime and he will let me know to pause the meeting so that we can make sure you can that you're connected. His email is Michael dot lamb lamb at Santa Cruz County dot us. So he'll be checking his email periodically today. And he's on standby and ready to assist. All right, so those are the instructions. Here's where situated. I see our commissioners are with us today. I'll turn the meeting over to chair Tim Gordon. Good morning. Good morning, Justin. How are you? Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Good morning commissioners and members of the public and everyone else listening today is August the 10th. And we're going to start our planning commission hearing. It is now 933 and we can call this meeting to order. Wanted to start with a roll call if we could please, Ms. Drake. Right. Commissioner Dan. Here. Commissioner Lee's and be here. I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And chair Gordon. Here. Thank you. Thanks. Quick housekeeping item just wanted to put out there early on that we're going to take a 30 minute lunch break at 1130 today. So wherever we are in the agenda, we're just going to take a quick pause right when we get to 1130 and take a lunch break. That being said, we can move on to additions and corrections to the agenda. Do we have any today? Yeah, this is posted on the agenda on the website, but I just wanted to remind everybody that that might be listening today that the item number six has been changed from the agenda today that is the appeal of 22702 East Cliff Drive. That project will be a renoticed in the future when we return to the planning commission with that item probably in October, it's looking like. And then I have another correction actually to the agenda, which is to item number seven, the growth goal item. Correction is that on the posted agenda and the advertised agenda, the description for that item was incorrectly, incorrectly reflects a recommended growth goal of 0.25%. That number should be corrected to 0.5%. And so I wanted to make that correction to that agenda item and I think policy staff will reiterate that in their presentation as well. And there are no further corrections. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Are there any members of commission that would like to declare any expert a communications today. Commissioner Lazenby. No, I have no. Okay, thank you. All right, great hearing none we can move on to agenda item number four oral communications. This is the time when members of the public have the opportunity to speak on items that are not on the agenda today. Ms. straight we have any members of the public that would like to speak at this time. Yes, and if we could get two minutes on the timer for these comments. I see that we have one hand raised. Good morning, please state your name for the record you have two minutes. And you need to unmute yourself by pressing star six on your phone possibly caller with the last four digits to 915 if you wish to make a comment. Please unmute yourself. You have two minutes. I see another hand raised and maybe we'll go to that person. First, I see a hand raised by gentlemen named Oliver. Good morning, Oliver. He's state your full name for the record you have two minutes. Good morning. Good morning. Hello, please state your name for the record. My name is Oliver Carter. Good morning. Good morning. I'm just speaking in. The zoning of 3051 and 3055 Portola Drive. My wife and I are the current owners of blown out wetsuit repair and surf shack located in the historical landmark at 3055 Portola Drive. This 98 year old building has a very local rich local history, and it's the site where Freeline surf shop began in 1969. I remember that Doug Hout had a surf shop here. And it is also my knowledge that currently this historic building is being considered for rezoning. Oliver, if I could interrupt a quick second I apologize and we can add some time back to this if this is in regards to the sustainability update. Yes, that okay so that public comment period has not started yet this part is for any that's okay I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yes, sir, thank you. I will wait. Sounds good. Appreciate that. Thank you. All right. So I'll go back to the first caller. Last four digits to 915. Good morning. If you would like to make a comment on anything not on the agenda today, please state your name for the record. You have two minutes. Hello, can you hear me now. Yes, we can. Good morning. Excellent. Thank you I was pressing star six madly many times and it didn't work so this time the announcement came on that the host would like me to unmute myself so thank you for connecting that ability for me. Good morning. This is Becky Steinbruner. I live in rural Aptos and I have a couple of comments when is that I had some difficulty in finding the access information for today's meeting it is not on your agenda and I would like to ask that it be put on your agenda. I'm sorry. Agenda masthead. I had to go to the planning department's home page and scroll down and find it there. So, I request that for future better public access and more expedient that all connection information including the code star nine to raise your hand. I don't have it there, but I, you know, we've all gotten used to this. So I start trying that and it worked to raise my hand, but it's not anywhere in the planning commissions or planning department. Notification. My first request. The second request has to do with the upcoming water issues in our county and I do note that that is still a big issue in the county's growth goal, but apart from all of that, I want to let you know that there are major restrictions on water permitting coming down the pike. Governor Newsom issued an executive order and dash seven dash 22 that will require any new wells and possibly repairs of existing wells to be reviewed. First of all, by a geohydrologist that will authorize and put their name on a statement that the well will not affect neighboring wells. That's going to be hard to get somebody to do. And then second of all, those permits have to be reviewed by the appropriate groundwater agency group. So, the county environmental health water resources department is has developed a form and rudimentary process, but this is a big deal. The other thing I want to let you know is that yesterday, I might interrupt that we appreciate the comment we're over time. And so we appreciate your feedback and input and thank you so much. Okay, our all comments today going to be reduced to two minutes. I'm notice it's two minutes for for a general comment three minutes for comments under the public hearing items. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's see. Seeing me check and see it looks like we have a hand raised. I'm having a hard time. Let's see, bear with me for a second. It's appears we have a hand raised but I'm not able to locate it here. Yeah, I'm seeing a hand raised but I'm not able to see the hand, the person whose hand is up. I'm not sure why that is. Oh, it went down and it went back up again. Jocelyn I see Mando more loss has a hand raised. Can you see that. Thank you for that. I you scroll all the way up on the attendees seeing that person. Thank you for that. I let's call on Nando. Did you say it was Nando more race. Mando more loss Monday more loss. Okay. Good morning Marla Mando will you please restate your name for the record. And you have more everybody. This is Mando. Can you all hear me. Yes. Okay. If I understand correctly, this is the meeting about the general plan. Yes, but the public comment period for the sustainability update will be later in the meeting. This is for this is the time for folks to provide comment on anything on the agenda. Okay, so this is a once in a generation of opportunity for us to try to make our community better. And I just found out about this meeting yesterday. So as important as it says with housing and transportation agriculture on that list goes on or not. Code modernization. I'm hoping that you guys can get together with the local media the Sentinel Department Roni and such so that you can make an announcement so that those of us in the public can have more time to prepare for this so we can give you guys some better feedback. And that's all I gotta say. Thank you. Thank you. I'm comment. I just wanted to say that this will go before the our meetings. We have one more meeting on this and then we'll be through but it is going to all go to the board. So everything's online. And you can view it there, but you can also appear at the hearings. Next time and in front of the board. So there still is time for your input and comments. All right, thank you Renee. Do we have any additional members of the public who wish to provide provide comment at this time I see a hand being raised. Hi, my name is Andrew. Good morning Andrew, please state your name for the record. Oh, yeah, Andrew Paulini. I live in Boulder Creek. I just want to raise my hand. Thank you for coming off with the last commenter said. In terms of making these means more available to public I understand that making online is intended to make it more available but I think the times because I understand it like the planning commission you know they don't they have like a work from like 935 right, but so but like having at 930 I think that tends to limit who can participate in these meetings a lot of people who may be young people who are working or students, or in general people who had just 930 am on a weekday is often I think it restricts the people who can participate to mostly say retired people or others who can afford to take time off. I think I'd note about like making this more accessible to the public at large. Since in general I think one of the issues with a lot of these kind of public meetings to get public input is that it's not really the public it's just whoever what part of small fraction of public that has the time and energy to devote to like attending one of these meetings. They're not often located at the best times for most people. That's all I had to say. Okay, thank you. Okay, and are there any other members of the public who wish to provide general comment at this time if so, please raise your hand by pressing star nine or using the hand icon on the team, the zoom app. I don't see any at this time so I will turn it back over to you chair. Great thank you so much and thank you to everyone who spoke and we do really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be here with us and to provide us feedback so thank you so much. We understand that it's not always easy. That said we can close oral communications at this time move on to the next scheduled item which is the approval of minutes of the August 10 2022 planning commission hearing. What any members of the commission like to make a motion on this. Commissioner leasing me I will move to adopt or approve. Thank you Commissioner leasing me. I'll second that in a second from Commissioner Dan. Thank you so much. All those in favor of this please say I, I, I, I, any opposed. And any abstaining. Great with that the motion passes. And we can move on to our next agenda item as stated previously by mistake agenda item number six has been removed and is going to be renoticed. And so we are going to move on to agenda item number seven today, public hearing on recommendation to the board of supervisors regarding the proposed year 2023 growth goal. So we have staff and a presentation for this item. We do, I believe. Natasha Williams is with us this morning and we'll be presenting this item. Yes, good morning commissioners let me share my screen presentation. Okay, can everyone see the presentation. Yes. Great. Okay. Good morning commissioners my name is Natasha Williams I'm a senior planner for the community development and infrastructure department. And today I'm here to talk about the year 2023 growth goal. The county's growth management system was instituted in 1979, following the adoption of measure J. To address the resource and public services impacts of population growth in Santa Cruz County. As part of the growth management system each year the county is required to set an annual growth goal for the upcoming year that represents a fair share of the state's growth. The 2023 growth goal report is before you today for consideration. And before we get started I wanted to kind of reiterate what Jocelyn had mentioned to note that there was an error in the published agenda for this item the agenda incorrectly stated that a 0.25% proposed growth goal for the year 2023 when in fact it is we're proposing a 0.5% growth goal and we'll discuss this in more detail later in the presentation. So this growth goal report examines various factors used in establishing the year 2023 growth goal for the unincorporated area, including analysis of population growth trends resource constraints the status of this year's allocation, the county's housing needs including progress towards meeting the county's required arena or regional housing needs allocation. It also includes a review of demolition permits and density bonus projects approved in the past year, as well as an ADU annual report. And this year's report also includes a discussion on the pipeline of current subsidized affordable housing projects, as well as the continued impacts of recent state law on the county's growth management system. So basically growth goal report notes the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County had an estimated negative 3.2% growth rate last year and all jurisdictions in the county except for the city of Santa Cruz also saw around a negative population decline, which is a stark contrast to the year before when populations were up about 1% everywhere in the county except for the city of Santa Cruz which saw a population decrease of about 11%. And these big population shifts in recent years are really closely tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and the stay at home orders, particularly in regards to the student population to at UC Santa Cruz. The county as a whole has seen declining population totals in recent years with a 0.0% growth in 2021. And the state population actually decreased for the second year in a row by 0.3% in 2021. The annual population estimates for cities and unincorporated counties are determined using the housing unit method by the Department of Finance, which means that the number of new units constructed each year plays a really large role in determining the annual population estimates. The OF also notes that the state's unprecedented negative growth rate in the last couple years is the result of a few major factors including continuing declines and natural increase as baby boomers age and naturally increased meeting births minus deaths, as well as continuing declines in foreign immigration that have been accelerated by recent federal policy and delays in the process. So the continued increased number of deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, there's been a decrease in domestic or increased in domestic out migration. So while population has steadily grown in the state of California and the county as a whole. In the 20th century population growth in the unincorporated area has had a slightly different trajectory as shown in figure a the unincorporated areas population grew rapidly in the 1960s and 70s surpassing growth rates in the state in the county as a whole. But growth rates declined in the following decades and population actually decreased in our area between the 2000 and 2010 census year. Like these recent you know declines that we just talked about from the year to year population estimates reported by the dof the 2020 census data actually shows that overall the unincorporated county population is actually on the rise with an average annual growth of 0.2% over the last decade and a total increase of about 2400 people since 2010. The growth goal also summarizes the current status for the 2022 residential building permit allocations. And this year, 26 allocations have been granted as of July 1. And if demand continues at the current rate 52 allocations will be granted by the end of the year. And this is higher than last year when we saw only 21 building permit allocations granted as of July 1 2021. The monthly increased demand for allocations has remained low compared to previous decades and staff anticipates there will be more than enough permits available for the remainder of this year. And although allocations remain low this year. There are a number of major projects currently in construction in the county, including three density bonus projects. We have a habitat for humanity project on Harper street the mid pen housing project on Capitol Road, and the Soquel Town Homes project. There's also an 100% affordable residential housing project in South County, known as Pippin orchards to which is in the construction phase. And all of these projects are reflected on table 10 of the report which shows that 219 housing units were issued building permits as of July 1 of this year, including 125 affordable And this pipeline of county projects also includes applications for three new density bonus project applications submitted as of July 1 of this year and three density projects currently in preliminary review. In accordance with the housing crisis act of 2019 Senate bill 330 which was updated with Senate bill eight. Santa Cruz County will continue to not enforce the measure Drake measure J growth goal limit on residential allocations within affected county areas, while the statue statue is in place. Which will be until January 1 2030 in Santa Cruz County. This includes the following CDPs live oak pasta tiempo paradise park and a messy as shown in blue on the map on the slide. All other aspects of measure J unrelated to limiting building permits and populations such as the county has affordable housing requirements are not impacted by SB 330 or SB eight, and staff will continue to track measure J allocations in the growth goal report and subsequent building permit issuance for reporting purposes. In addition, pursuant to San Cruz County code, all residential units impacted by the CZU August lightning complex fire will continue to be exempt from the measure J residential permit allocation system. So based on this analysis included in the report and more details staff recommends that the growth goal be set at 0.5% for calendar year 2023. In past years, the county's growth goal has been consistent with the states, the state of California's growth rate. Constituting our fair share of population growth as dictated by measure J but as we noted earlier, there were a number of anomalies in the state's growth rate that contributed to population decline. And moreover, census data indicates the population in the county is actually grown over the past decade and that and bad projections show that this study increases likely to continue. In addition, the number of housing projects currently in the county's permitting pipeline, as well as the elevated permit activities in recent years point to a potential increased demand for market rate permits that may continue through next year. It's important to consider that state legislation continues to refine state housing and ADU laws and passion path additional bills aimed at streamlining housing permits and increasing infill development such as Senate bill nine which will allow up to four units to be built on an existing single family lots. In light of all of this staff is recommending a 0.5% growth rate for calendar year 2023. This rate would result in an allocation of 256 market rate units available for the year 2023 and allocations would be distributed in the between the urban and rural areas out of 75 to 25% ratio in order to recognize the greater potential for infill development in urban areas. The 2023 growth goal report also recommends as in previous years that the unused market rate allocations from 2022 be carried over to 2023 in accordance with policy 3.2 of the general plan housing element. So this would was results in a projected total of 334 market rate residential building permit allocations available for 2023. The office found that establishment of the 2023 growth goal is exempt under sequel the California Environmental Quality Act and a notice of exemption has been prepared. And so that staff, therefore recommends that the planning commission one conduct a public hearing on the proposed year 2023 growth goal. To adopt the attached resolution exhibit a recommending a year 2023 growth goal of 0.5% for the unincorporated portion of Santa Cruz County and three recommend the filing of the sequel notice of exemption exhibit be with the clerk of the board. This concludes the presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much miss Williams we really appreciate that. So it's so much so helpful to hear it said, and get some clarification along the way so right now just bring it back to the commission and see if anyone had any questions they'd like to follow up with on this topic. Is there any chance we could stop sharing the screen also so I can see all of the commission again. Thank you. Okay. If no one had any questions I had a few. And this is just something that I know, you know we see but I saw last year I just still want to make sure I get it all right in my head here so just to be really clear, this, this growth goal the units that are allowed are allocated for building permits next year 334 units that does not include areas in the affected zones by SP 330 and SP eight, and it does not include affordable housing, but correct. So, you're right that it does not include affordable units it also does not include accessory dwelling units. But we are counting areas in those, you know those those blue county affected CDPs. We are adding those to the allocation they're just for reporting purposes we wouldn't enforce that if they somehow reached the limit that's how we're kind of treating that to make sure we're consistent with state law. Got it. Okay so. And how is that allocated, like is there a percentage in the affected areas in the percentage that's not, or is it just like, you know, it's only divided between the urban area and the rural area. Most of the affected areas in the urban area I think there might be some like Tampa might be just outside of the urban services line. So, we just we just track it and identify what CDP it's in and ensure that it's not being that the growth goal is not being treated as a limit in those specific areas. That makes sense. And then just as this relates to Rena cycle which is obviously big deal these days in a lot of units so we need to permit. You know, with, like you said things getting faster with permitting process. You know from state bills and things like that. I guess my question is if we actually met our Rena numbers we, we couldn't actually build them based on this is that correct, or could we is there a way around that. Our, our Rena numbers for the rest of this cycle. Let me get the exact number I believe it's, it's less than the recommended growth goal for this year. So, we're just looking at market rate permits. Just as a reminder, so if you look at the market rate permits that we have for the remainder of the cycle. It looks like we are. So there's a total of 570 that remain for this rena cycle including 266 market rate units so this growth goal allows for us to meet it within the next year. And, you know, yeah, so. Okay. And then on the next cycle will the Rena numbers because they're going to go up substantially. Correct me is the next cycle start after next year. I believe it starts after 2023, but I think I'll hand it off to Stephanie to talk a little bit more about the upcoming rena cycle. Okay. Good morning commissioners. Good morning, Stephanie Hansen assistant director and CDI. The, the, the thing that we don't want the growth goal to do is, is limit unnecessarily limit growth. And so staff monitors, the numbers as we go along the way, especially as we get toward the end of the year if we think that boy, we might be actually for the first time since like the 70s or 90s build, build, build more than, than we had predicted. And in that case, there is an option for staff to return to the board to ask them to increase the number of units. And so with the changes going into place with the state law initiatives and maybe not next year, but the year after with some of the sustainability update changes we're making, we're hoping to see those numbers increase and the growth will logically be higher to accommodate, to accommodate that. If that makes sense. We don't necessarily look at the rena and go, okay, we need like 800 units every year and then set the growth goal that that way because we're not, we're not convinced that a lot of jurisdictions are going to be able to meet those rena's, you know, the numbers are extreme. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. And so I appreciate that. I cleared it up for me. I didn't have any other questions. So I'm not sure if anyone else did or we can move on to public comment if no one else had any further questions. Okay, sounds good. Well, then at this time we can move on to the public comment portion of this agenda item Mr. Are there any members of the public I'd like to speak on this item. Thanks. Like so, if we could get three minutes on the timer that would be great. And I am seeing a hand raised again by color 2915. And so good morning if you could please state your name for the record that would be wonderful. Good morning. This is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me. Yes, hi Becky. Thank you. Good morning. I'm interested in why with reducing with declining county population. The recommendation has been to increase from previous recent years a growth goal of point 0.25% to now 0.5%. It's not really consistent with the existing trends that we are seeing. And with the economy and housing prices, I don't expect that to really change. So I'd like some discussion about the justification for increasing. The county's growth goal. I also want to ask about some information. I'm seeing table eight on page 24. The measure J residential allocation status. Can you talk about that? What, where are the measure J units going to be I understand that process and that they are deed restricted. So if you can please let us know if any of these affordable units that have been supposedly allocated if those are going to be measure J deed restricted units. I also have a question on page 23 about table five allocation status of approved major projects. The Aptos Village project has a total market number of 59. There are a total of 69 units there, 10 of which are measure J units. But I don't understand the units from previous allocations 49 and that there are 10 remaining allocations for that project. That doesn't make sense to me and I would ask that you explain that. I wanted to let you know that the CZU fire rebuilds are going to face a new hurdle because of action. The county board of supervisors took yesterday regarding the new septic system regulations. It's called the lamp and it will in effect restrict building and rebuilding in many of the rural areas of our county due to septic constraints that have just been passed as of yesterday. It will require people to put in very expensive alternative treatment systems that cost upward of $80,000. And all supervisors yesterday acknowledged this will harm the CZU fire people as they tried to rebuild. I also want to point out that once again your water issue is here in the growth goal and in exhibit A number seven, it talks about the safe yield of the basin. That has not been established yet. So I would like a scientific reference to what the safe yield is in the growth goal. And because it to my understanding has not been established for the basins. Thank you Becky we appreciate it. Thank you. Sorry. Thanks chair. All right. Hi, I'm seeing a hand raised by Andrew Paulini. Good morning, please restate your name for the record. Oh, Andrew Paulini. Oh, my comment about was kind of a response to the last comment about why the counties increasing his growth goals considering the decline in population. And also why were the county seems to be wanting to be kind of let more housing be built. I mean my guess is I guess you can answer but my guess is that's because the plan is to reverse the trend of population decline. I think it's a particular this that you know Santa Cruz is often a place you play through it's higher to but in the end that tends a declining population growth can lead to us becoming more like some Midwestern towns become ghost towns over time because people sort of leave So we're trying to encourage more people to come and live here to try to reverse those trends. I know in my area in Boulder Creek we had to close when I was a little kid. Because declining growth rate we had to close to our elementary schools. And also close I believe one of our middle schools as well. I think that's, I mean you can correct me if I'm wrong but I assume when I saw the plan I assume that that was why you're increasing the growth goal and trying to make it easier to build more like multifamily housing is to try to reverse those trends, which is something that I I very highly approve of I'd like to see more housing especially like duplexes or apartments get built. I'd like to be able to live in Santa like near like the center Santa Cruz someday where I could you know I don't have to drive down to to you know go hang out with my friends who live there. So that would be nice. Keep housing prices down. Yeah that's what I had to say. Thank you. I am. Now I am seeing man no more loss. Good morning again, please restate your name for the record. Good morning. This is one more and I had a question you guys. Maybe you can use remainder of my time to answer that. How far behind are we in residential units by whatever matrix or use either by the state or my local people can answer that. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Well, listen to all of the public comments first and I'll turn it back over to the planning commission. Are there any additional members of the public wish to speak on this item if so, please raise your hand by pressing star nine on your phone or using the hand icon. I'm not seeing any chair I'll turn it over to you. Great. Well, thank you everyone for your comments. We really appreciate it. And this time we can close the public comment and bring it back to the commission for discussion. And I'd like to open it to any commissioners to ask any other questions or comments and you know if at some point I'd love to hear some of the responses on some of the public questions as well. Maybe we could start there unless another commissioner had a really wanted to go first. One question in particular, a couple people asked was, why are we raising the population growth and I, you can just explain that that'd be helpful. I'll take a crack at that and a teacher can follow up with numbers the, the growth goal, the way we kind of project the units is designed to reflect the way we see the trends moving. Yes, there has been a decline for various reasons. It's been an unusual couple of years with with COVID. In, in particular, however, for the reasons that netisha explained in this, the presentation, we have a number of pipeline projects that will come into permitting. We anticipate that the initiatives out of the state that are designed to start to increase housing will start to take effect. So, there's, there's a lot of factors that go into, you know, whether we see things continuing to go down or increasing, we don't, we don't see that the decline will continue if some of these factors really come into play. So, we, we would probably never recommend a negative growth goal to the planning commission or the board, because we really don't want it to restrict our ability to to build in any way. So, point five is pretty low, and we did have it in the past two years we had point two five reflecting about as low as we can go. But we are hopeful that growth will continue and even start to increase in the rate of the number of units built. The purpose of trying to encourage housing is that while there are state mandates, we also just need housing here we need affordable housing we need housing options for all people in our community, not just wealthy people who have vacation homes. So, it's a, you know, when we talk about the housing crisis, I would say we're a good, we're a good candidate for what that where you can find the housing crisis. And then there are state mandates for how many units we're supposed to be able to accommodate. And so while I'm at it I'll just kind of say we're about two thirds of the way there, and have about a year to go on that rena so we, we, it is very unlikely we will make that number. I think I can. Chair. Yeah. I think I want to say that the growth goal was a, you know, it was something the voters voted on in a much different era. There was a proposal out by the lighthouse to build a community of 30,000 people, and this was in reaction to large developers that developed this area in a much different way. Times have changed. And we don't have enough housing for people really want to live here of normal means. On the other hand, it's the hottest housing market in the country for rentals or second or something. Unfortunately, housing prices continue to climb. So it's a much different community, and this kind of the growth control measure, which is kind of an artifact actually manifests but it is still a momatic of the fact one thing doesn't change is people want this to be a nice place to live and don't want to kill the goose plays the golden eggs of why it's special to live in Santa Cruz so our task as a public and as a government is to figure out how to have more housing affordable housing enable people who grew up here to stay here without making it, you know, like many fabled Southern California communities are over the hill, but so so we are dealing with this every year because it's mandated so if it doesn't always seem to make sense it's because it was voted on in a time when people felt like we were going to become Los Angeles very quickly. I would just like to thank Renee for that history and background and in conjunction with that lighthouse field plan was also like five lane freeway that was proposed to go downward Delaware Avenue is currently. So, yeah, there is some history to this so it's important to understand that history to understand why we are here right now. And then I just like to say also that we are not alone. As being a community that is an example of one that's suffering from a housing crisis, you know Stephanie pointed out we are one of dozens and dozens of communities across the whole country so I don't want to make it seem like it's just a Santa Cruz thing. This is something that's a nationwide problem. Very good. Thank you, everyone for that input that was really beneficial for me. I'm ready to make a motion if we're ready to have one. Great. I'm ready. Yeah, let's move the staff recommendation. I'll second it. Okay, great. We have a motion and a second. And if there's no further discussion, we can move on to a roll call vote. Mr. Drake. Commissioner Villalante. Yes. Commissioner Shepherd. Yes. Commissioner Lazenby. Yes. Commissioner Dan. Yes. And chair Gordon. Yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you commissioners. Thank you. Okay great. With that we can close agenda item number seven. And move on to agenda item number eight. This is a public hearing to consider the proposed ordinances. Resolutions related to the sustainability policy updates. And recommendations for the board. Chair Gordon, could I just say something real quick before we get started? Yes. I think there was a public comment during oral communications. That was kind of starting to question the process a little bit and suggesting that the times of our meetings, you know, are convenient, which I understand most certainly is true for a number of people, but I just wanted to make sure to recognize that I think staff has done an excellent job at planning meetings at a variety of times throughout this process. So that people with a whole different schedules can make it so all of the community meetings last spring were in the evening which I heard from a number of people was like an absolutely terrible time for them because they have young kids and that's like the worst time when you have little kids to attend a public meeting. Also, I've heard from students who are young people who have told me that the mornings are great times for them because they don't usually start their day with classes until the afternoon. So I just wanted to commend our staff for providing a number of opportunities throughout the day for people to participate and just put it out there for folks who are listening that from my perspective, written correspondence is actually the best way to communicate because you can be as detailed as you want. I for instance just got an email this morning from someone in the district asking about something. She cited a specific part of the plan. I was able to look it up. And I might be asking a question about that this afternoon so I would just encourage folks to use written correspondence. We all read it and it's really helpful. So thank you. I don't know if I may actually, I appreciate Commissioner Dan saying that because I was actually going to respond to that comment as well. I understand that some people don't always learn about some of these hearings until late but this process has been going on for quite some time and I wanted to acknowledge the fact that there have been several opportunities to participate through a numerous nighttime so that these were then recorded and available online and an alternate opportunity so people weren't able to participate live in those nighttime opportunities they were also recorded so that people could do exactly what Commissioner Dan is talking about which is communicating in a written format with the Commission or even staff to to participate in this process so I'm sorry to hear the people and learned about this process today that's always unfortunate because we want people to engage we want people to be able to participate but I do think staff should be commended on providing a multitude of opportunities and and putting that out I know that this the county did press releases of all of every single one of those opportunities for each one they didn't just put out the master central but they then released each hearing and we did have participation and each of those opportunities was then recorded and put online so I do think that they've done a good job I know that no time is ideal for everybody. As Commissioner Dan said, warnings can be bad for people who work evenings we bad for people with small children or who are caregivers in general. So I know that that's that's why we provided this diverse opportunity of times. And so I just, I want to make sure that we respond when there are sometimes these statements that there are only one opportunity that's certainly not the case here. And so I just, I do, I do feel that sometimes we need to respond to comments like that that characterize these things as being singular or last minute which this. I think the comments that this is a large, large change and but I feel like staff has done a good job of responding accordingly in terms of the writing opportunity. Chair Gordon. I had two cents to add to that one is what I heard from the public is that they didn't get that the sustainability update is really a general review of the general plan. The idea of nomenclature here was a lot of people didn't get that. That's what I heard. So I'd like to suggest that when the board advertises their hearings on this topic, that the word, the fact that we are updating and changing the general plan. Somehow that language gets involved, because the word sustainability. People don't know what it means. So I do want to say that and I wanted to let anybody who's still here remind them that they have still have plenty of time to participate. This all gets goes before the board of supervisors and gets discussed in detail again. So I think Commissioner Dan is absolutely right. Get a hold of a copy look it up online and then put your comments and writing to your supervisor because they do get read. There is one thing that I, when I did talk to Annie about a few things and I wanted to bring it up again. Reading it online is of course useful and saves paper but I have found it real difficult if you're looking at a chart or grid. And you look on one page and then three pages later it shows what's changed or what's different. It's not really hard to go back and forth. Scoot down three pages and try to remember what you saw three pages ago so I think these complicated documents if you could put them up with side by side pages so you can at least compare things. Or at least put a printed copy in the library or at the planning department so people actually want to come and compare parts of, you know, some of the grids of what's permitted and what's what the changes are. I had a hard time finding what the changes were compared to, said what they will be but didn't say what they were or if it did it was a few pages different. Is it possible to have the documents an option for pages being side like a book so you could refer back and forth easily. That's one suggestion I had. But I just want to say that. Great. Thank you so much I really appreciate everyone's feedback, obviously second everything everyone said so. With that I will move on with a couple housekeeping items on this topic just as a reminder we have an 1130 lunch break today so 30 minutes at 1130. We'll just take a hard stop at 1130. As long as we're not in the middle of presentation or you know something that was a really awkward spot to stop at you know plus or minus a couple minutes there. Second thing on this topic is we do have a rough hard stop today or close to one o'clock. And so you know my recommendation would be that we, you know, and I'm going to follow Miss Hansen's lead here because she's kind of got the plan to how to get us through these things one at a time. But that we kind of find a rough stopping point around then and would move to continue to the next hearing for motions on any of the topics. Well, I'd like to discuss that. I don't think we're going to get this through this thing by one o'clock, and we only have one other meeting. I would be okay with going ahead and getting everything done this afternoon and I know that's a burden for Allison but either that or just have another extra meeting. I don't see how we can get everything done in one meeting in September. I think Commissioner Laysenby also has a lead by 130 so that would be two commissioners that would be leaving between one and 130 so I'm wondering if that would be it. Can I propose something? Why don't we go forward here to the staff presentation and then those commissioners and then we try to get through as much as we can and then make a call at 120 and see where we are and what we need to do next. Does that sound good? That sounds good but I want to at least open the option of having another half day meeting. Yeah, 100%. Let's discuss that like let's stop like 10 minutes before the hard stop whenever that is and then have that discussion, leave 10 minutes for that discussion. I just want to make sure that is possible. We had another extra meeting for like, you know, four hours. Well, usually this is where Stephanie says, well, we can't afford the time and it has to go to the board and so on. I would guess that we would schedule that before the 14th. Yes. Yeah, so we can stay on schedule. But yeah, okay, sounds good. Great. Okay, so I think we're all pretty much on the same page. Great. So with that then we can move on and Ms. Hansen if you could give us a little bit of an outline of, you know, what our process will be that'd be really helpful for me. So you can kind of, you know, march through this one at a time and then obviously staff presentation. Yeah, thank you, Chair Gordon and commissioners. See I have a reputation to work on in terms of trying to keep us focused and Commissioner Dan is is right there is an opportunity for more meetings certainly, and it'd be helpful to have them in around before 914 if possible. So, Chair Gordon and I were have been discussing how to organize our review here in an orderly fashion that's kind of clear to everybody, so that we can get everybody's input and have it be straight forward for for people can get kind of crazy with motions when folks are making motions so what we talked about is for today, we're going to do the staff presentation we'd like to be able to get through the whole presentation. And then what we're recommending to to the chair is that for any commission comment. We go, we open the public hearing and in here from the people who are attending and waiting, especially with such a large project we want to make sure that the people have taken time to be here. They can can have their input, and you know, aren't don't have to return and are required to kind of come back at a later date when they've been waiting for four hours so we were recommending that we go right to public comment. And then, and then we can have commission discussion after that. And we understand that it may not all happen today. And we're hoping if there's, you know, if there's any direction that the Commission wants to offer to staff that were that we get we get that. And then when it comes time to make the motions which I am hearing would not probably not happen today because I think there is some discussion that needs to happen. We'll, we'll work with chair Gordon to break out the documents so that we're accepting motions first on the first you would have the straight out motion to, you know, recommend approval as as the staff recommendation is, and then we would have a series of recommending motions. We start with the general plan. And then we'll go through it chapter by chapter so chair would call out and say any, what are any comments on the built environment element on introduction built environment access and mobility and we'll just go down down the line. And then we'll go through all the chapters of the general plan. And then basically we do the same thing for the county code, break it out for search title five and title 12 those are fairly minor I don't think we'd have too much there. Chapter 1310, which is the big one and we'll take some time chapter 1311 and so forth until we get through all the chapters and the title and the code. And then we'll move to the third component which is the design guidelines and see if there's any amending motions there. Then the fourth component would be map amendments and see if there's any motions there. So, you'll see in the staff report we've tweaked the recommendation just a little bit because there are items that we know we're coming back for on 914 so the, the recommendation is shifted a teeny bit for that. So I think that that that would cover it and then that'll get us through kind of today we can have a reminder you're at the continued hearing whether that's on 914 or before. And then kind of pick up where we left off at that point. And then so I anticipate some discussion before we get to the motion part of this and that's probably the best way to do it anyway. So, did I, did I cover that okay. Yes, perfect thank you so much I think that's really clear so you know we'll get through discussion today and then as do motions, one at a time and so you know as commissioners are, you know, kind of thinking through responses and getting ready for the coming weeks are coming of making motions I just asked that you know try to organize in that fashion, you know, general plan intros and built environment, you know, etc. County code by each title, then design guidelines, the map amendments as Miss Hansen said I think that then we can really walk through these much more easily. Thank you so much. Can I just have sure it's okay to organize your comments and suggestions by going by the staff report organization that's how I have them right now. Is that what you kind of meant. Yes, it kind of. I think that, ideally, we would vote in in sections of general plan and then sections of code. So it would be one, one motion to approve with amendments and then each separate amendment would be based on those sections. I'll just say it generally does follow the staff report organization. Yeah, good because I understand that. Yeah. Otherwise there's these three three inch volumes here and I have trouble figuring out what all everything since everything's name is kind of different. Understood. Thank you. Chair, I just wanted to be clear and maybe I misheard but this suggested organization which I think makes sense is for when we take action on the 14th. Yes, yes, ma'am. Absolutely. So, yes, that would be it so then we can really clearly adjust certain sections as a group. You know, I think that if there are kind of voluminous amended, you know, suggestions to add into emotion, it's probably helpful to put those on a separate document so that we can all share screens if possible, because I mean, you know, if I have, you know, recommended changes that run two or three pages to have to read those aloud will be too much so what I'm doing is preparing separate Google Docs for all of those which then, you know, if we're still remote which I imagine will be, you know, we can share screens or send them to staff and staff can put them up for our discussions. I'm doing it. That's an awesome idea is that possible Miss Hansen as we go through to combine these and you know someone can be typing them as we're saying them so we can like read through it as a group, you know exactly what our amendments are and then agree to that document. Staff wouldn't be typing as we go along I think what Commissioner Dan is saying is she's preparing a document with her proposed changes and share her screen so you can all visually see it. Instead of her having to say one thing after another because I know that she's been conducting a detailed review so that's excellent. So wouldn't be an iterative thing. And then staff will have to figure out how to go based on the discussion go back and come back with changes on the 14th. I just don't quite understand so I understand that we are and I don't want to see me to get on with it but we're going to hear the staff report we're going to hear from the public. And we may or may not have more time today. We're going to consider an additional meeting at that meeting we can give comments on this which was under consideration for today. And in that case I I don't have any complicated Google Docs but I have some suggested changing and wording things I don't agree with them why I don't agree with them. And that's what I was planning to do and then the 14th. That's a kind of place to kind of have the staff should by then would respond to her suggestions. And that would be the final rapper. And I think you know I maybe I shouldn't have you know weighed in on this I think everybody should should prepare how in a way that works for them. So yeah I think with you know the way you do what you operate is just fine so yeah. To be clear though, we're going to provide feedback and then before the last hearing and before a motion we would have an updated response from the planning department on our comments correct from the majority of things if assuming we can get through it before we go to make motions. If it's day of changes and obviously would need to be an amended motion but I'm going to think we'll have to see what they are right. Yeah, if we're if we're getting this sense that there's kind of unanimous agreement from the commissioners then I think we could come back with that change. There may be some items that the Commission doesn't agree on and in that case we would ask the Commission to, you know, make the motion and then we'll see how the votes go and then. So it's going to be probably a little bit of a mix if it's if it's real clear cut we can bring it back and then but if it's something that we're seeing may people may have differing opinions on then that that'll need to be motion driven so there's a vote on them. That makes sense and that reflects what you've done so far I mean if we look at like what's in the packet from the last meeting, you responded to some things change some things responding and but not everything so that's just something we then have to go bird dog and then make determinations on our own, what we want to do with that. Some some of these things are policy questions and that's why we're here at the Commission to have the Commission set the policy help set the policy for the board. That makes sense to me. Thanks Stephanie. Yes. I'll probably move on then to the presentation. Thank you. Okay, I'll get us started today. Welcome everybody we're very excited to be here at the first hearing. Let's talk a little bit about the public outreach that we've conducted so far. I, I know for some people this is new but as commissioner commissioners, Dan and Vialante mentioned it has been somewhat extensive. So I'll be presenting today and with me today also presenting is Daisy Allen and Annie Murphy both senior planners. We also have on a shank who is our transportation planner. Natisha Williams is with us on deck she's sharing her screen and helping the project with the presentation. Also with us today are Stephanie Striello, and I think Catherine Wade, who are with do deck who prepared the environmental impact report for us if there's any questions about about that report. Okay so a little bit of organization here will begin with a review of the background goals and outreach for this project, follow by an overview of the general plan amendments. And then, as we've been talking about the county code amendments and the design guidelines, the map amendments, and then we'll just do a quick overview on the final environmental impact report as well. For today's discussion, we're going to be fairly focused on the changes that we've made since the original draft documents have come out in February. These are meant to reflect the changes that staff saw, as well as planning commission comments that we've received along the way. As always, we encourage folks to visit the project website to view the changes, the new ones are highlighted in yellow on on the documents, and also the all of the presentations and community meetings that we have had over the last months are also posted on the project website will will show the link for that as we move along here. Okay, so a little bit more background. The sustainability update, which is a regulatory and policy update to our general plan and county code has four main components. There's amendments to the general plan, which includes our local coastal program. There are amendments to the county code which implements the general plan. There are new county design guidelines that are proposed, and then there are amendments to the land use and zoning map maps and we'll we'll discuss each of these components and more detail as we go along in this presentation. The sustainability update has several project goals. The first one is to implement the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan, which was a planning study accepted by the board back in 2014. The project aims also aims to streamline and update and modernize our development codes. And that incorporates the code modernization effort that began in 2013. With these things together, we, we are hoping to implement a vision for more sustainable urban communities. The amendments primarily deal with our urban areas. And also it addresses projected growth. Santa Cruz County like all jurisdictions is required under planning law to plan and accommodate for a certain amount of population housing and economic growth. So the update of the general plan is a 20 year document has a 20 year planning horizon from 2020 to 2040. And finally consistency with newly adopted county plans and state legislation regional plans. Also informs the project planning law requires that jurisdictions reflect and be consistent with a variety of state laws, as well as the regional plans for the area and the California Coastal Act for jurisdictions like ours that are near the coast. So, you know, a little bit about the outreach that has has been done so far. The, this is a multi year process and the draft documents were released back in February of this year. And last week we updated them to reflect the new changes that we've talked about and the planning commission's feedback so far. The new drafts include some minor changes that are kind of more cleanup items, as well as items from the planning commission as I mentioned, and feedback from the public to. We're including additional staff analysis and input from other agencies, all substantive changes are shown in underlined and strike through and highlighted in yellow. The outreach for the sustainability update builds on previous visioning and public meetings that were originally completed for the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan, which had a variety of community meetings and you know when was really a visioning process for urban areas. There were also several meetings that were conducted from 2011 through 2015 related to modernizing the code. Our website for the project was launched in 2020 and provides access to all the documents, as well as summaries fact sheets in English and in Spanish provides a variety of opportunities to comment on the project and the documents includes a project survey that people can take. And as of August 5 we've received 155 surveys back. Those are exhibiting in the planning commission packet. The project website also includes a public comment portal, which provides an open forum so far we've received more than 100 written comments, and those are included in your packet as exhibit L. We've done a social media campaign and email outreach which has been extensive reaching over 3000 members of the community with every email. This also includes the stakeholders and groups and local agencies and community organizations and those folks who have commented and reached out to us. We had seven community meetings this spring that focused on various topics. Community meetings had over 160 attendees and recordings of the meetings are also available on the project website. May and August of this year we conducted 10 study sessions at a variety of county commissions to review major updates proposed for the project and identify recommended changes there were four here at the planning commission, but also we visited the advisory commission, the Latino affairs commission, the agricultural policy advisory commission, and a couple of different bodies at the regional transportation commission. And so that's a little bit of background on our outreach and with that I'm going to hand it over to Daisy who can begin the discussion on the general plan. Hey, great. Thank you, Stephanie. So the amendments to the general plan include updates to five chapters. Chapter one, the introduction has been rewritten to focus on sustainability and to align with recent local regional and state planning efforts. Chapter two land use has also been rewritten and has been renamed the built environment element. This creates the existing general plan chapter two land use and chapter eight community design with a focus on residential and commercial development. The built environment element and the related code updates were reviewed at the planning commission study session on June 8 for anyone looking for more information about that. Chapter three circulation has been renamed the access and mobility element to reflect a focus on movement of people rather than movement of vehicles. This chapter and related transportation regulations were reviewed at the planning commission study session on June 22. The thoughts in the built environment element are strongly linked to transportation concepts in access and mobility in order to focus new development along transportation corridors and to promote the goals of sustainable development. The project also partially amends chapter five, the conservation and open space element renamed agriculture resources and conservation changes to this chapter focus on substantive updates to agricultural policies. These changes to policies for groundwater timber and other resources to ensure consistency with state law and to implement best management practices. Partial amendments are also proposed for chapter seven parks recreation and public facilities to be consistent with the park strategic plan and to ensure that county facilities are adequate to accommodate projected growth. Changes to these chapters were reviewed at the August 10 and June 22 planning commission study sessions respectively. The general plan glossary and appendices have also been updated to align with updates to these five chapters of the general plan and all the draft general plan chapters as well as the glossary and appendices are available on the project website as Stephanie mentioned. The remaining three general plan chapters will not be updated as part of this project. Those chapters include chapter four housing, which is scheduled to be amended in 2023 chapter six public safety, which was amended by the board in 2020 based on commission recommendations and is currently pending certification by the coastal commission and chapter nine, which will now be chapter eight noise, which was amended in 2019. Now we'll go ahead and explain several key substantive changes that have been made to the draft general plan amendments based on feedback received from the public and from the planning commission since February of this year. The staff report provides a detailed analysis of all of the substantive changes. And they're all highlighted in yellow and exhibit F of your packet as Stephanie mentioned. And although not all the topics will be included in this presentation we're happy to talk about any other changes that commission would like to discuss today. Okay, so there's a couple of key changes to note on the built environment element since the public draft was initially released in February. In addition to residential development and density staff received a lot of comments about the new proposed land use designations. The, sorry, the new proposed land use designation residential urban high flex and the associated RF zone district. This designation and zone district have been updated to allow ground floor commercial development in order to address the concern about the potential loss of commercial land uses on sites that are zoned RF along commercial use such as Portola Drive. Staff did stop short of requiring ground floor commercial uses in the RF district in order to maintain flexibility for developers and to keep the focus in this district on the provision of housing. The staff is not proposing changes to the proposed density range of 22 to 45 units per acre in residential urban high flex comments were received this density was too high and comments were also received that it is too low. This indicates to staff that the proposed density may be about right for the highest density residential district in the community at this time. When the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan was developed an early estimate of the maximum density that could be achieved in this district was 60 units per acre. However, a maximum density of 45 units per acre encourages developers wishing to achieve higher densities to incorporate affordable units and pursue the density bonus program. For the RF zone district zone district staff is proposing updates to open space and floor area ratio standards, which I'll discuss a little bit later when we get into the county code portion of this presentation. Regarding commercial development and density staff conducted initial additional analysis to address concerns raised by commissioners and members of the public about the proposed maximum floor area ratio of 1.0 for commercial land use designations. The concern was that this FAR was too low to support the intensity of development needed, particularly for housing and mixed use projects and for projects with underground garages or podium parking, which is an above ground parking garage with commercial residential development above. Staff found that for commercial developments with surface parking, a maximum floor area ratio of one is generally sufficient because the square footage required for parking, it becomes the limiting factor for development. However, staff is proposing two updates to commercial FAR to accommodate cases where the required parking square footage is reduced. And these updates would apply to mixed use projects as well. So the first update would be increasing FAR from one to 1.5 for all commercial land use designations except industrial, in order to ensure that FAR does not limit commercial development for projects where surface parking requirements are greatly reduced. And then secondly for projects that accommodate at least 75% of their parking with a multi-story garage, underground garage or podium parking, those projects would now be exempt from maximum FAR. So that would ensure that FAR is not a limiting factor to development of those types of projects, and that aligns with the proposed policies and design guidelines promoting these various alternatives to surface parking lots. And then finally, as a result of coordination with coastal staff on the draft built environment elements, staff made two key policy updates. Policy, the policy regarding conversion of coastal priority uses was updated to address each use separately and add more specificity as to what criteria would allow for such a conversion. And then staff is continuing to coordinate with coastal staff on this policy and it's, it may be tweaked further, as that coordination continues. And then secondly, it was determined that it will not be possible to update policies related to the existing memorandum of understanding between the county coastal commission and city of Watsonville regarding development west of Watsonville without considerable coordination between the MOU parties and an update to the MOU itself. For that reason, the existing general plan policies and programs regarding this MOU have been retained and moved to a new objective within the built environment element. I'll also note that the planning commission study session on June 8 there was a request for more information regarding the proposed change to calculate urban residential density using gross site area, rather than net developable site area, and staff did provide an example with analysis in the staff report and can clarify further if the commission would like. Now handed over to Anise to discuss updates to the access and mobility element. So the key changes in the access and mobility element relate to transportation demand management and responding to comments from the Santa Cruz County regional transportation commission. We often just say SS SC, SRTC, excuse me. The changes related to the TDM include a new appendix, which was added to bring clarity on TDM options for applicants. So that's appendix I of the general plan, which includes categories of design measures so people can see which measures are related to infrastructure and therefore one time investments versus measures that are ongoing and require monitoring. And these are labeled as incentives in the appendix. Also, a new general plan strategy was added to consider allowing paid parking and other parking strategies as TDM options beyond what is provided in appendix I. This is based on the EIR mitigation for sequel impacts related to VMT, as well as input from the first and fifth district supervisors. There will be more discussion of sequel at the end of this presentation. A number of changes were made based on comments in coordination with the SS SCRTC. I'm just going to say RTC for the ease of speaking here. These include updating language in the chapter introduction to acknowledge benefits of reducing the empty other than greenhouse gas reductions, as well as updating texts related to the locally preferred alternative for the real corridor, which was based on the transit alternatives analysis conducted by RTC. Also language around vision zero policies and implementation strategies was updated to correspond to best practice vision zero philosophy. Additional changes include generalizing policy language related to metros upgrades, adding transit to potential multimodal impacts that new development should consider when analyzing level of service and policy changes to address accessibility based on public feedback. At the planning commission study session on June 22 commissioners requested additional information to help clarify some other concepts presented in the access mobility element, including high quality transit Dutch intersection. The difference between level of service and VMT or vehicle miles travel. So those have been provided in the staff reports starting on page 11 of your packet. In that study session planning commissioners also requested clarity on the Portola Drive streetscape concepts that are analyzed in the EIR and to what extent, and how they will be implemented. The Portola Drive improvements are conceptual in nature and include both near and long term concepts. Before these concepts can be implemented there would need to be further engineering and design to provide more detail than the draft concepts provide projects would need to be added to the capital improvement program and grant funding would be required. The streetscape concepts are referred referenced in the access mobility element and appendix J of the general plan appendix J is the appendix that includes future roadways and intersection improvements. The commission may consider an amendment to this appendix to further analyze improvements related to the Portola Drive streetscape concepts. Staff also recommends removal the term adopted in the introductory language to the appendix. So now I'm going to pass it back to Annie to talk about the argument. Thank you on ease. Indice have been made to policies in the agricultural natural resources and conservation element related to agricultural land and visual resources to address comments from your commission. Regarding agricultural policies, both your commission and the Coastal Commission were concerned that amendments allowing for the expansion of water and sewer districts to serve CA parcels were overly broad and could lead to the conversion of agricultural land. In response, policies have been amended in coordination with the water resources staff to clarify that water and sewer districts could be expanded to serve CA parcels only were necessary to serve existing development with failing septic systems or with wells that do not meet state drinking water standards. Staff did discuss with water resources the idea of limiting the size of service lines or requiring a non access strip around these lines. However, water resources staff was concerned that these amendments may inhibit the ability to extend service where needed and believes that the proposed language provides appropriate safeguards for agricultural land. Regarding the placement of new water and sewer lines on CA land in the coastal zone previous amendments that would have allowed new water and sewer lines to serve public facility uses on CA have been deleted. The provisions allowing the placement of water and sewer lines to recharge groundwater or reduce salt water intrusion has also been updated to apply only to areas served by the Pajaro Valley water management agency or PV water. PV water supplies recycled water to parcels in the district, including CA parcels in order to reduce salt water intrusion and recharge the groundwater, which is essential both to protect public health and the long term viability of commercial agriculture. Policy language has also been amended to clarify that hookup to trunk lines may be permitted where necessary to provide water and sewer service to CA parcels where otherwise allowed in the general plan. Moving on now to public and quasi public uses on CA land. In response to planning commission comments from the August 10 study session, as well as coastal but mission comments regarding the conversion of commercial ag land to accommodate public policy public uses. Staff has proposed additional amendments to protect commercial agricultural land and ensure consistency with the coastal act. These changes have been replaced provided as replacement pages to your packets with changes highlighted in green. The previous general plan draft included a new general use category of public policy public use that would be allowed on both CA and a parcels intended to accommodate a variety of essential public facility uses. In the updated draft, this broad use category would no longer be allowed on CA. However, the draft retains and as references to the specific community and public facility uses allowed on CA in the agricultural uses chart. This approach will allow appropriate community and public facility uses to be added to CA in the future, while otherwise limiting new public facility uses to those currently allowed in the ag uses chart. Language has also been retained that allows a landfill as well as a transfer station on CA, accommodating the Buena Vista landfill site. Staff has also deleted the new provision that would have allowed the conversion or subdivision of CA land to accommodate a public facility use. The new public policy public use as a general category would continue to be allowed on a zone parcels, expanding sites where PF uses can currently be considered. Minor changes have been made to policies in Chapter 5 and other general plan chapters to address comments from the drainage division of the CDI department, which ensure consistency with county design criteria and best management practices. Your commission requested additional information regarding deletion of septic policies. John Ricker has clarified that the deleted policies include very specific requirements that are better addressed in the county code. And was also mentioned John Ricker recently brought to your commission an update to the county code and septic policies to be consistent with the county's local management program for onsite wastewater treatment. And once these are approved, these policies will be included in the general plan. Staff has also made several changes to policies for visual resources. Policy language regarding development visible from a public beach has been clarified. Removing the phrase adversely visible and retaining the intent of the existing policy. There was also discussion about retaining this existing policy language that does not allow the creation of new parcels, which would require structures to project above the ridge line. Language has been added to retain this policy intent and other policy language that's been clarified. Finally, regarding the proposed amendments to remove the local scenic designation for the urban portions of highway one commissioners expressed concern about the loss of trees along the highway. For commission comments, a new strategy has been added to direct the county to coordinate with Caltrans to replant trees along urban portions of highway one. The strategy will help screen new development, enhance the urban forest and improve the visual qualities of the high recorder while allowing development to proceed along on sites along the highway within the USL. The second component of the sustainability update project is amendments to the county code. These amendments include updates to title 12 building and title 13 planning and zoning regulations. These amendments include changes to zoning design and coastal regulation chapters, as well as a new parking and circulation chapter title 18 procedures has also been updated. And there are also other minor associated changes to titles five and 15 key amendments to the code include a new permit system, replacing the current processing levels with more descriptive permit terms. A new residential flex zone district and a new workplace flex on district that provides centers of employment with a flexible mix of commercial online industrial land uses meeting the daily needs of workers. Code updates also include new agricultural and event regulations, updated zone district use charts, revised design review regulations and revised development standards for several districts, including new mixed use standards. Overall, these code amendments serve to both modernize the code and align with general plan changes. Updates related to the new zone districts reviewed at the June 8 study session and code modernization was discussed with your commission on August 12. Today's presentation will focus on key changes to the code related to agricultural and event regulations, animal keeping and transportation, as well as development standards. The staff report provides detailed analysis of all substantive changes to draft Canada code amendments since they were last presented to your commission. These changes are highlighted in yellow in exhibit G of your packet. And although we are not discussing all topics in the presentation we're happy to talk about any other code changes your commission would like to discuss. Regarding changes to agricultural regulations, the Coastal Commission commented that amendments allowing new or expanded ancillary uses should include standards to limit the conversion of agricultural land. In response for several agricultural support uses, staff has added back in size caps on the development area, which is the total area that can be covered by structures or materials that may impact the agricultural soil. These stated size caps have been previously considered by the Agricultural Policy Advisory Commission and the Farm Bureau, who found the proposed caps acceptable to address coastal commission comments and concerns regarding cumulative impacts on agricultural land, including multiple ancillary uses on the same site, staff has amended the county code to limit the total development area of the site for residential and ancillary support uses to 60,000 square feet. This cap is sufficient to accommodate agricultural processing facilities, large agricultural storage areas serving multiple parcels or sites that may have a residence as well as agricultural support uses, while limiting the conversion of agricultural land. Staff will also follow up at the September 14 hearing or future study session with updates to the county code to be consistent with general plan changes reviewed today regarding public facilities on CA land and water and sewer service to CA parcels. Staff has also made several changes to animal keeping regulations in response to coastal commission comments. Regarding small animals, staff has updated code requirements to limit roosters, peacocks and other noisy fell to four birds per acre. For large animals, including horses, the side and rear setback requirements for paddots has been reduced from 25 feet previously proposed to 20 feet, which is the current minimum setback. In response to commission comments, planning staff has also followed up with environmental health staff who indicated that they differentiate between paddocks, which are unvegetated enclosures for horses and livestock, and larger pastures or turnout areas which are vegetated. Environmental staff has clarified that the 25th setback should be applied to paddocks, but it's not necessary for vegetated pastures. Staff is proposing to update the code accordingly and will bring this language to your commission on September 14. A reference has also been added to the code to newer management plans as required by environmental health. Responding to your planning commission comments that noticing proposed for community events in rural areas may not be sufficient. Staff has updated noticing requirements, adding that when there are fewer than 10 parcels within 500 feet of the subject property, a 500 foot distance would be extended in increments of 50 feet until owners of at least 10 properties have been notified. The planning commission also asked whether events with fewer than 100 people are subject to the regulations for community events. Since community events are defined in part as non-profit events with more than 100 guests, events with fewer than 100 guests will not be subject to regulations for noticing requirements for community events. However, such events will continue to be subject to code regulations protecting properties from offensive noise and regulations which declare it unlawful to host a loud or unruly gathering. Regarding commercial weddings, commissioners asked whether the code includes standards that specify the maximum number of guests or number of events allowed per year. The new regulations do establish appropriate zone districts, minimum parcel size, permit reviews and noticing requirements. However, appropriate limits on event size and frequency may vary depending on the location and proximity to other residences. Parcel size, road access, parking availability, potential noise impacts and other factors. In the proposed regulations, limits on event size and frequency would be established during the discretionary review process with input from the required neighborhood meeting and noise studies were appropriate. Now Anna East will review code changes related to access and mobility. So there's two sections to this slide. One is clarification on questions that were asked previously and then the other part is changes. So planning commissioners had asked for clarification at the study session on June 22 about whether TDM requirements in the proposed code would apply to existing development. As was mentioned in the last session TDM strategy or TDM requirements are not required for existing development staff has confirmed that this is in the first section of that code. Commissioners also requested additional information to understand how parking standards have changed and clarify whether those new standards would reduce or increase parking requirements for specific uses. There's a bit J which explains the existing and proposed parking ratios for various land uses and whether these changes result in fewer or more parking spaces required. Commissioners also requested information regarding why the parking standards are different from multifamily than single family residential development. The parking standards for multifamily are based on square feet rather than bedrooms to encourage smaller units that are more affordable by design. So there's a question related to this about market demand for parking. Staff would like to know that there is guest parking provided for multifamily where there is not for single family. There is also a question about whether bicycle parking standards have been updated and whether there are exceptions that allowed for vehicle parking reductions or vehicle parking maximums as a TDM strategy. The existing code prior to any proposed changes contains a provision for a maximum increase of 10% above the required parking and staff is not proposed to changes maximum. Proposed code does include an increase to bicycle parking ratios from the current existing ratios, as well as includes requirements for secure by parking, which is parking that is covered in walking. Proposed code also includes a requirement for for providing shower facilities for specific land uses. It includes an allowance to convert up to 10% of vehicle parking to bicycle parking and staff has not proposed any changes to that proposed code for the bicycle parking provisions. Only supportive comments have been received thus far on those particular bicycle parking provisions. There are also parking reduction allowances that are carried over from the existing code that are not proposed to be changed at this time. For example, an allowance for shared parking is provided for the existing code and there are several reductions based on state laws, such as for ADUs. Staff is not proposing to create a separate set of parking ratios for coastal areas as was suggested. The purpose of the modernization project was to simplify the code. However, there are a few changes to the parking that address comments made previously. Based on the comments from public, the large employer threshold for implementing TDM was reduced from 200 to 100 employees, and the language to explain TDM requirements in the code was simplified, simplified wherever possible. In addition, what was provided or as proposed as a change to allow parking reduction for residential projects of 10 or more units that are within the USL and within a one half mile public transit. If those projects provide annual Metro passes extra bike parking and charge separately for parking from the housing costs, and this change was made based on District one and District five supervisors direction. The amount of van parking required for commercial and tourist based land uses was increased to two spaces, and this was made to accommodate people with disabilities and a comment that the van ratios have been too low in the past causing people to park far away. The guest parking requirement in the load of sales done as though which includes pleasure point was increased from 30 increase to 30% from 20% and the reduction for projects within a one half mile of high quality transit was removed for these areas. Additionally, there was a new requirement for shared parking analysis for these areas, which requires an analysis of visitor parking demand for the for those uses. Now Daisy is going to discuss code changes related to building standards. Great. Thank you on ease. So staff proposes several key updates to building standards from the February 2022 public draft. This response to Commissioner questions and after coordinating with development review staff, the shading study requirement has been added back into chapter 1311 to align with current practice and ensure that shade considerations are accounted for during design review. Also for commercial districts, they are floor area ratio has been increased from one to 1.5 in alignment with the update to the general plan that I discussed earlier. Finally, several updates are proposed to standards for the residential flex zone district. First, as explained earlier in reference to the built environment element of the general plan staff proposes that commercial uses should be allowed on the ground floor of the RF district. In response to comments encouraging higher allowed density in the RF zone, staff proposes to increase the FAR allowed, which will help developers achieve the intended densities while not increasing the density range or height or lowering parking standards. Staff analysis indicates that for projects with surface parking, parking standards will continue to be the limiting factor in achieving the higher end of the density range. The RF zone district is intended to provide smaller affordable by design units and therefore the FAR standard of 1.1 provides an important check on development of large luxury units in the RF zone district, especially in cases where parking standards are waived or reduced. For this reason, staff proposes an FAR standard of 1.1 for developments less than 30 units per acre and 1.5 for developments equal to a greater than 30 units per acre, which ensures that FAR is not a limiting factor for projects that are higher density using density bonuses. In addition, similarly to commercial districts, an exception to FAR standards for RF developments is provided for projects with underground multi-story garage or podium parking in order to encourage those more efficient alternatives to surface parking lots. And then third, based on additional analysis, staff proposes to increase the minimum open space requirement from 10% to 15% of growth site area for the RF district. This reflects commission comments that open space is a key element to ensure quality high density developments and particularly important for the new RF zone which proposes to increase the county's maximum urban residential density. And staff looked at several examples of projects that have already been built to RF density, and those projects did incorporate open space at about 15%. Okay, and then next I wanted to take a moment to talk about planning commission project review. So as Annie noted, the amendments to the county code include an introduction of a new use permit and site development permit framework. So as part of that new permit framework, staff reviewed permit requirements for various project types and right sized approval levels where appropriate. So no substantive changes are proposed to these procedures from the February 2022 public draft, but the commissioners did request a summary of typical project types that would be subject to planning commission review under the new permit framework. So we wanted to provide that information. So overall proposed changes allow some project types to be approved administratively where a public hearing was previously required. And many project types are proposed to change from planning commission to zoning administrator review in order to give more time to the planning commission to devote to larger more complex projects. And these changes also allow the planning commission to continue with its core purposes as laid out in the county code to develop and maintain the general plan. Develop specific plans as necessary review the annual planning department work program and budget and review the capital improvement program. The commission is intended to be primarily a policy focused group, and the proposed changes to permit reviews would allow the commission to regain that focus on legislative actions, such as code and general plan amendments, as well as weigh in on more controversial projects that come to the planning commission on appeal, rather than reviewing less significant individual project applications. For those of specific project application types that the planning commission would continue to review. Those would include certain agricultural infrastructure commercial and cannabis uses permanent room housing projects subdivisions with more than five sites, and certain medical projects, and certain mixed use commercial and residential projects, as well as senior housing projects. Note that in the staff report, there is an error in that the agricultural uses and the mixed use projects were not included in the list, provided in the staff report of the project types that the planning commission would review. And then regarding senior housing and mixed use commercial and residential projects, staff did identify an inconsistency between the draft commercial use chart and the site development permit chart. We do propose an update that would allow for a planning commission review for projects with more than 10 units, rather than for projects with more than five units as indicated in the use chart. Since per the site development chart residential projects generally do not require a conditional site development permit unless they include more than 10 units. The planning commission is amenable to that change staff could bring that code amendment to the planning commission on the 14th, or the commission could make that amendment as part of the recommendation process. Okay, and then wanted to talk about the design guidelines as well so the project includes adoption of new Santa Cruz County design guidelines that provide best practices for building design site development and connecting private development to the streetscape. The design guidelines are intended to guide the design of all projects, but especially multifamily residential and commercial development in the urban area. There are also guidelines specifically for the pleasure point commercial corridor included as an appendix to the document. The proposed guidelines provide overarching guidelines, as well as specific design guidelines for multifamily residential and mixed use commercial and workplace flex project types. The design guidelines would be adopted as a separate document or are incorporated by reference in chapter 1311 of the proposed code amendments. So since February 2022 the guidelines have been updated to address planning commission comments, add clarity and correct errors. And similarly to the code and the general plan all chain substantive changes are shown with yellow highlight. And attached as exhibit each one key change that we wanted to note was an update throughout the guidelines to clarify which aspects of the guidelines are attended to be enforced as regulations, and which are optional guidelines only at the study and staff clarify that the guidelines are generally not quantitative and are intended to model best practices. Projects that undergo design review are required to substantially conform recording stopped guidelines in the updated draft guidelines staff has further clarified. Can I interrupt for a quick second I'm so sorry, we just heard that the recording stopped and I want to make sure for that we're okay. Thank you chair, I heard that as well so let's just check in. Back up zoom. I'm going to try to resume it but we're still recording up. Oh yeah. So we can, we can continue. Okay, quick question though we are running up to 1130. And so natural breaking point anyway, just wondering how much of the presentation we might have left and we wanted to try and get through that, before we take a break. So we are currently on slide 17 of 20 of 20. Sounds like we're almost there would it be all right with everyone if we just finished the presentation before we take a lunch break or was that 1130 pretty hard stop streak. I think I'm hoping that's fine I should be fine. Okay. I think it's 17 of 23 sites. Maybe we should go ahead and take the break and then come back but I think we're looking at an extra session anyway you got it. Yeah, agreed. Okay, if we have yeah that many more let's let's do that and I apologize miss Allen did you want to finish a thought before we take a break and since I just interrupted you right in the middle of the sentence. Yeah, why don't I finish the discussion about the design guidelines since I was almost finished with that and then we can pick up with the map amendments when we come back from the break. Thank you. Okay. So, okay, so I was noting that in the in the updated draft guidelines staff has further clarified the relationship between the guidelines and the county regulations by making note of relevant quantitative county code standards and county design criteria that are presented in the guidelines. These notes appear throughout the guidelines and orange text with explanation provided in the introduction as well as the beginning of each chapter. And text was also in some cases, updated to remove language such as require or ensure and add language such as consider. And then another key change to the guidelines was an update to appendix B, which addresses development along the Portola Drive corridor in pleasure point so in alignment with the pleasure point commercial corridor study and updated general plan policies. Language was added to encourage delivery trucks going to businesses on Portola Drive to remain on Portola Drive rather than on side streets. Language was also updated to clarify that all of the overarching design guidelines do apply within the pleasure point commercial corridor. Staff does note that members of the public have expressed concern about language and appendix B page B12 number three regarding consideration of an easement on Avis Lane staff has not made any text change to that portion of the guidelines at this time. And so that concludes our comments on the guidelines and then after the break, Stephanie will pick up with the math amendments. Great, thank you so much. Thanks everyone for getting us to this point and we'll go ahead and take a break right now 30 minutes and be back just after noon although five let's say and continue from here. And maybe we could have some potential dates for another meeting. So we can. So we can be sure when we're going to meet. Okay, I'll coordinate with Stephanie during the break. Right. Thank you everyone see you soon. See you at 1205. This window. I just don't want to make sure that the recording has stopped. Yeah, I'm going to mute you and a. Are we back yet. I'm back. Okay, well, that's true of us anyway. Okay, thanks I saw I always want to make sure everything's working. Thanks. No, thanks. Good afternoon, officially. 1205 and recording in progress. Perfect. I think I'll just wait to see more people and make sure what's here and then do a roll call. Please. Go from there. I heard Judy and Renee during break. I think they're here. Yeah, I'm here. Great. We should do a quick roll call. Yes, please. All right. So I'm sure do you want to reconvene the meeting and. Yes, please. Let's reconvene and continue with the roll call and then move on or back to the presentation for agenda. Great. So welcome back everyone. To the August 24th planning commission meeting. I will take a quick roll call commissioner. I'm here. All right. Commissioner shepherd. Thank you. Commissioner Villalante. Here. Mr. Dan. Sure. And chair Gordon. Here. Right. Thank you. We are all present. Miss Hansen, can we please continue with the presentation for agenda item number eight today. Yes, we can. Okay. So now we're going to talk a little bit about the map amendments. The project includes targeted land use changes and rezoning on 23 parcels. Located throughout the county. There are two types of land use changes. The first type are amendments to eliminate inconsistencies between the general plan maps and zoning maps on 13 parcels. The county is required by state law to ensure consistency between the general plan maps and the zoning maps. No intensification of land use as a is proposed as a result of these corrections. Okay. So now we're going to talk about the proposed map changes in North County and South County, a total of five. The second type. See, I think. We had a correction. Don't we. Oh, nope. That's on the next slide. Okay. The second type of amendments includes targeted rezones of 10 key opportunity sites along transportation corridors to implement the new residential flex zoning district. As discussed earlier, the, the project also includes, sorry, a little glitch in my notes here when we move on to the next slide, Natisha. Great. Thank you. In mid County, there are also eight properties that will change to correct zoning and land use inconsistencies. These are shown on the, on the map on the left. Staff is aware that one of the property owners upon Glen Haven Road has submitted a comment saying they would like their two parcels to be removed from the project. Staff has reached out to this property owner. Actually, we've had a few conversations with them. And they've confirmed to that they would like to be would like to be removed. So when we return, you'll see that those two parcels come off the list. That just has a really quick question. You didn't understand why is the what's proposed for the general plan different than the soap proposed zoning. You don't understand that. There are two sets of maps. The, there are land use designation maps in the general plan. They tell you what kind of land use designation you're going to have on a property. Then there's a zoning map and the zoning map has zone districts and you might have in some communities you have more than one zoning district that's allowed in a general plan. Land use designation although ours tend to be more one for one. And so both sets of maps need to be updated. And land use designations are termed a little bit differently than zoning districts. The second type of land use amendment is intended to implement the project goal of increased housing options and help to address the housing crisis. This portion of the project includes rezoning of 10 underutilized parcels including key opportunity sites along transportation corridors. There's one six acre parcel at Soquel Drive and Thurber Lane, which is also shown on the map on the left. This is vacant and would be rezoned to a mix of residential flex and commercial to facilitate a mixed use development. The map on the right shows nine additional parcels located along Portola Drive. These would be rezoned to residential flex to facilitate a transition in this neighborhood to a mix of multifamily residential interspersed with neighborhood commercial consistent with the vision for the corridor. So this is a pleasure point vision and guiding principles planning study. The commission has also received some community feedback regarding the surf shop at 3051 Portola Drive. This is shown as parcel number one on the map on the right. I would like to clarify just like the other properties that are proposed for residential flex zoning. There's no development proposed at this time. We also note that this property is not designated as a historic resource in the county's inventory. This property just like every other property that's older than 50 years old would be evaluated for inclusion on the local inventory if a development is ever proposed. Okay, a little bit about the environmental impact report as required by state law the county has prepared an environmental impact report or EIR to analyze the impacts of the sustainability update project. The EIR analyzes all topics as required by the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA. The draft EIR was released on April 14 and a public comment period was open until May 31. The community meeting on the draft EIR was also held on May 9. The final EIR was released on August 12. The final EIR largely consists of responses to comments and corrections to the EIR text. For this project is a program EIR, which means that it's higher level countywide it's not project specific in its analysis of the environmental impacts. The EIR analyzed all elements required under CEQA and found that there were some significant and unavoidable impacts that could occur in the following resource areas despite the inclusion of mitigation measures. These are largely associated not so much with the adoption of the policies or the general plan itself but in the growth that could occur under the general plan in the next 20 years. So those significant impacts were in agriculture. So what I think is that ancillary uses support services and the essential public facilities and utilities that could be located on CA land could result in a conversion of prime farmland unique farmland or farmland of statewide importance. And the major proposed for this is to add public and quasi public facilities to the types of projects that require special findings and requirements to address conversion of agricultural land and biological resources. The project includes the redesignation and rezoning of that six acre site on Thurberlain. The site is a site that's bisected by a stream is bisected from north to south. So further development on this site couldn't impact that stream, particularly if it's piped or moved and the preparation. There could be a permanent impact to the repairing habitat on the site. So mitigation measure bio to be would require the preparation of a mitigation plan, detailing replacement of habitat areas at a two to one replacement ratio, as well as maintenance and monitoring for the establishment of plants in the restoration areas. The natural resources, although it's unknown at this time, there could be future development that could result in a substantial adverse change to undocumented historic bill resources. And if preservation or avoidance isn't feasible and to mitigation measures would address this. One would be the preparation of the historic resources evaluation and measures to avoid impacts. And the second would be to require the historical buildings that are proposed for major alteration or demolition be thoroughly documented, according to industry standards which includes written and photographic materials. Transportation impacts are measured using vehicle miles traveled, which we've discussed this is a number of miles generated by by vehicles one mile traveled by one vehicle is one VMT. In this way, transportation impacts are more closely tied to the reduction of greenhouse gases, which is a major state goal, and also county goal. And the county has adopted VMT thresholds for new development as required by state law. So the urbanized development pattern policies and programs in the sustainability update will reduce VMT when compared to current conditions and growth under the current general plan. The IR found that VMT would not be reduced enough to meet the county's adopted threshold in the residential and non retail categories. So there would be a cumulative impact when you consider other developments and developments in the pipeline. So mitigation measures that are proposed would be t r a one which would develop a regional mitigation program to create a mechanism for funding transit bike and pedestrian projects and multimodal transportation improvements. Private development would be able to offset their VMT impacts by contributing to the projects. And mitigation measure t r a two would add an additional implementation strategy to the general plan to evaluate additional parking related measures such as paid parking and the use of parking fees. In utilities and services systems that EIR also found that there would be a significant and unavoidable impact to water supply. Future potential development and growth appears to be within the growth projections developed by the water districts serving the unincorporated area. However, depending on the timing of development potential growth in live oak and the city of Capitola could approach or exceed the city of Santa Cruz's forecasted housing units in their urban water management plan and soquel creek water district, including Soquel and Aptos and La Selva Beach, could also approach or exceed that district's forecast. These impacts are therefore conservatively considered potentially significant and no mitigation measures were identified to offset them. See during the public comment period, there were 14 comments received on the draft the IR. Thank you to the next slide. Thank you. And responses to these comments are addressed in the final EIR, which was released on August 12. The county received comments from local regional and state agencies, community organizations, as well as members of the public. The comments and staff responses are summarized in the staff report starting on page 33 of your packet. The comments span a range of topics as indicated in this slide. Responses to the comments include corrections to the EIR text as needed, and as shown in chapter three of the final EIR. These comments were acknowledged but did not really address environmental impacts directly. And some of these comments were much more policy oriented so they're being addressed and some of the changes that we've been discussing today and will continue to discuss. We're starting agricultural impacts associated with utilities and public facilities, coastal priority uses, the memorandum of understanding for development west of Watsonville repair and mitigation banks which has been added to the general plan. So we're going to take a look at some of the species with, which we've corrected with the new appendix to the general plan, as well as the IR changes and some parking reduction strategies that also resulted in new policy changes. Again, we just wanted to take a moment to go over the timeline for the project. The draft amendments were made available to the public at the end of February and the August 2022 hearing drafts were released last week. And project documents will remain available for review and comment throughout the public process until the documents are adopted by the Board of Certified Board of Supervisors and certified by the Coastal Commission. Today's meeting marks the first planning commission public hearing and we'll return to your board either on September 14 or the date you said when we have discussion. And at that time, we'll be requesting a formal recommendation to the Board of Supervisors as shown in your packet. The Board of Supervisor public hearings are scheduled to be held in late October through just probably November and maybe into December if necessary. After that adoption by the board, most amendments will need to go to the Coastal Commission for certification. Our recommended actions today are to conduct a public hearing to review the proposed amendments, continue the public hearing either to September 14 or a date that you set. So it's a little bit of a change from what we had in the staff report. And as necessary to address any final changes to the documents. And then under number three, we have the Attach Resolution, which we're recommending that the planning commission adopt in order to recommend the amendments to the board. This would recommend certification of the EIR based on findings of fact and statements of overriding considerations which are attached to the resolution. And then adoption of the proposed amendments at the adoption of the new County of San Cruz design guidelines and map amendments and then directing staff to submit the amendments that are coastal implementing and the general plan, which is our local coastal program over to the California Coastal Commission for certification. So the final language that we would ask for is included in number three. And with that, I think we'll end our presentation and turn it back to you chair. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for the presentation. Very thorough and you explained a lot made it really easy to understand and I really appreciate that. Before we go on to mission or discussion or questions. We talked about opening the public comment. And so I think we could go ahead and move that up for that part of the hearing right now. So, Mr. could we could please open public on this item. So if we could please have three minutes. Put up on the timer for each speaker that would be great. I will start with Barry Scott. Good afternoon please state your name for the record, you have three minutes. Well, thank you my name is Barry Scott and I live in Aptos. And I'm grateful for this opportunity to speak to the plans. The, you know, plan should be aspirational and facts, fact based and sometimes the facts change. And it's good to be a bit idealistic. And it's essential that as conditions change planning documents change to meet those changing facts. So with regard to all the housing and mobility chapters and especially at any amendments to the general plan, the current draft of the sustainability update recognizes that there's currently no high quality transit in the county. But recently in June the county residents overwhelmingly rejected a proposition that would have converted the branch rail line and rail quarter to a trail only, preferring to keep rail transit planning in our general plan. Earlier this month, the RTC voted unanimously to proceed with an EIR and preliminary engineering for electric rail transit, as well as continued progress on the coastal rail trail. Unfortunately, most, if not all of the community outreach for the draft in front of you today and comments you have occurred before the the significant boat and these recent developments. The branch rail line is connected to the state rail network and is included in Caltran state rail plans. Monterey County is building a Salinas to Gilroy passenger rail extension progress project that will include a station in Palo where our rail line connects to the main line. The rail line provides one of the last best opportunities in the county to develop higher density housing and get cars off highway one. That's helping the county meet its access and mobility goals and sustainability goals by planning for that development in areas along the branch rail line to be serviced by electric passenger rail, as well as the wonderful coastal rail trail alongside the tracks. Chapter three on mobility and access does not mention high capacity transit, but there's an opportunity to include it now. Land use planning supporting transit oriented development needs to occur as our rail system is planned. And that could mean starting the visioning process now of how development will look when rail was implemented. And accordingly, sustainable planning documents for housing and mobility should include goals for transit oriented development along the rail line and include zoning changes in order to support our future rail and trail system. These policy issues will need to be addressed and waiting to belong would create more burden on future policy makers who will likely be faced with an even more urgent housing and climate issues. Thank you. That concludes my comments. Thank you. All right. Next, we will hear from last four digits to 915 I think this is Becky, but we will find out the state and the record. Hello, this is Becky Steinbrenner. Can you hear me. Yes. Thank you. I did send an email to several of you during the break that you have visibility of slides coming in on a telephone. I do not. And so I ask that you include those slides as an attachment in any future planning commission materials on the agenda so that those of us coming in on telephones and follow along and get the same level of information. I want to come right along on the draft of Mr. Scott regarding the residential ultra high flex the RUHF zoning, the new dense development, none of those parcels are near the rail corridor. And to, as Mr. Scott pointed out, we need to really change our thoughts where our dense development goes to dovetail with infrastructure and putting ultra high dense development near along the rail corridor will support that. And we'll in fact encourage the use of passenger rail in the future. So I really question why all of this is being put on Portola Drive, which they're actually recommending to reduce the number of lanes of that currently four lane corridor. But the dense development near right along the rail corridor that really needs to happen. I also, because I don't have the slides I'm having difficulty following along I've tried to link into the documents and follow as best I can. But what I'm concerned about is some of the agricultural conditional uses are changing on page 5-25 and 26 ARC 1.1.7. It includes other community or public facility uses allowed. And it bothers me to hear that there could be ministerial approval of some of these. That has brought a great amount of controversy to the county in the past. And I really want to see more public input rather than more ministerial approval eliminating public input. Regarding ARC 1.1.13 on page 5-27 it talks about that the new policies will prohibit expansion of water and sewer in county controlled areas. Your commission needs to know that the state and Santa Cruz County LAFCO are moving to consolidate many of these utilities. Becky, I hate to interrupt again. I apologize. I really appreciate your feedback. This isn't fair. This is so much information and we only get three minutes. But I understand I'll send written comment. My final thing is that none of these documents are available in hard copy at the public libraries other than the guideline document. So please get them to the public library so people can review them. And thank you for this time. Thank you, Becky. Okay. The next person with their hand raised is identified as Janine. Good afternoon, Janine. Will you please state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Janine Ross. Can you hear me okay. Yes. Okay. I'm Janine Ross and I'm speaking on behalf of Santa Cruz Yimbee. Santa Cruz Yimbee advocates for abundant and affordable housing in our county. And first of all, thank you to everyone who put an incredible amount of time and effort into developing this sustainability update, including these presentations and the community engagement. We have sent in the comments and written format. I hope you've been able to see them. I'll cover it in a lot less detail today. So, firstly, we do want to recognize that this update offers a really significant opportunity to address the housing crisis with zoning and standard changes. But I do want to highlight the urgency to getting going on the work and it ties back to the earlier conversation about planning for significantly more housing in the next greener cycle. As proposed in the sustainability update are estimated to increase the capacity by about 4500 housing units over 20 years. The Rena for the period of 2023 to 2031 are high. The Rena is a minimum of 4634 housing units for the county so it's about the same number as the sustainability update, but less than half the time period. So the rezoning and the standards that the county adopts through the sustainability update allows us to start addressing the housing crisis immediately. The additional rezoning in the housing element is likely to take another three years, which is nearly mid cycle for the Rena cycle. I know that if we don't adequately rezone to accommodate housing needs through its sustainability update, it'll probably be next to impossible for the county to be on track to meet the Rena goals, and will be subject to the streamlined approval of SB 35 and 2027. So there's no way that you could permit the thousands of new homes by 2027 if you don't finish zoning for them. So there's some specific feedback on the update for residential, the increases in height and floor area ratio and allowable dwelling units per acre are still inefficient to meet the housing needs, especially along the corridors. The metrics of the floor area ratio and units per acre are becoming less useful in land use planning circles because the metrics based on form based zoning are more efficient. We appreciate the principle of missing middle housing, but the update limits the far of small housing units to the minimum required by the state SB 438 so we recommend increasing the far there. Our place flex district should include residential development, including in so called live work occupancies. We stress further use of the Dutch intersections. Thank you for the focus on bike parking and further decrease parking to encourage alternative transportation. Finally, the Board of Supervisors approved moving forward with the prohazard designation and this input is has strong synergy with that. Thank you. Thank you for mentioning. All right, I will now call on Mark, Joe Hansen. Good morning, please or I guess afternoon please restate your name for the record. Good afternoon. My name is Mark, Joe Hansen and I'm going to resident to have tasks. So without repeating some of the prior comments in light of the community rejecting the proposition recently, the winner converted the Santa Cruz branch line to a trail only, but instead the committee decided to proceed or indicated that wanted to proceed with the county's preferred alternative passenger rail, along the Jesse Jason trail line. So the Santa Cruz branch line is one of the last and best quarters to improve our housing situation to get cars off of highway nine, but planning for the densities on that quarter needs to start now. And that can start with the land use planning, supporting transit or development in the planning documents that you're reviewing today. That includes comments and visioning process of ability and access process and start adding goals for development. The problem you're going to have if the delay in any kind of zoning activities that will be required for the identity line that quarter is it will if it's not in conjunction with the development of the real system. And the delay, having a successful system along that line, and also delay some of the housing and sustainability issues, but see. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Okay, going back to the list. I'm just going to remind everybody that to provide comment today you would press star nine on your telephone or call on resume. Okay, you see a hand raised by Jean Rocklebank. Good afternoon, Jean. We state your name for the record. I see the clock has started but I haven't started to speak yet. Can you hear me. Yes. All right, thank you. Thank you and to the commissioners. Definitely want to continue the public hearing at least to September 14 the fact that only 14 comments were received on the EIR the draft EIR should tell commissioners a very overwhelming this entire sustainability update process has been. The department staff started stated regarding trails. I'm here to speak about the environment by the way, at the planning commission studying session. There were concerns labeling any open space passive trails as transportation routes, and they said, it's only the Monterey Bay Scenic Trail and any other future trail design will be managed by the parks department and would be subject to a future parks master plan. I'm going to ask what parks master plan. There is no plan for a parks master plan. Meanwhile, the parks department is allowing trails to be built and is very chummy with the mountain bikers association. I don't think this association has credentials for hydrology erosion or biological impact so I'm concerned about that. I'm very concerned about what was described as future development at Thurber Lane and so kill drive property can't be mitigated. We're going to cover up we're going to destroy another stream. And there is no mitigation except that we can, we can possibly do replacement of habitat areas in a two to one replacement ratio. We don't. We're destroying habitat areas we can make new habitat areas. Last regarding sustainability and resource protection. And here's where I'm really serious. I wonder why the planning department did not review chapter 16.92. Environmental principles and policies to guide county government. Why didn't they look at that and renew 16.92. Not only renew it that make it part of this. The main purposes, of course of 16.92 are to state the determination of Santa Cruz County, relative to environmental policies and principles to direct county government to utilize its powers and resources to endeavor to provide for more efficient use of renewable energy to protect biological diversity and human health protection and restoration of the environment. And so I really hope that the Well, I think what I'll do since I only have about 15 seconds left is I'm going to take the time and write these comments and send them both to the planning department and the planning commission, because I care about the environment, and I want to see it protected. Thank you very much. All right, and I see Oliver has his hand raised. Good afternoon Oliver please say your full name for the record. Hi this is Ishtar Carter speaking on behalf of my husband Oliver Carter and myself. We are speaking today in regards to the eclectic and historical culture on Portola Drive. Oliver and I are the owners of blown out wet seat repair and surf shack located in the historical landmark at 3055 Portola Drive. The 98 year old building has rich local history. It is the site where Freeline surf shop began in 1969. Before that how surfboards was located here. I would like to acknowledge that the historic building we currently run our small business out of is being considered for rezoning. I would also like to know that there are three residential units on this parcel with families. None of us were notified that our parcel was up for rezoning. We find this very discouraging. Renting happens in the current properties at 3051 to 3055 are potentially demolished for larger scale apartments and shops. Our business and the current long term renting families will ultimately suffer displacement, financial strain and unnecessary stress blown out has been an institution in our community for over 25 years. We represent pleasure point surf culture. We are highly respected highly appreciated and most importantly a sustainable business serving the pleasure point in greater Santa Cruz County communities. And we are asking you to reconsider this rezoning. Last year we repaired over 600 wet suits, thus keeping 600 wet suits out of our county landfills. That is sustainability. We donate hundreds of used suits to those in the community who are less fortunate. We support our local youth with an extensive program that gives every child and every team in our community a chance to have a wet suit, regardless of their financial situation. Our business is sustainable, and we support the local community in ways that cannot be expressed in three minutes. We are at the proposed sustainability plan envisages mom and pop shops and families in the new units. We are your mom and pop shop, and we're representing pleasure point heritage surf culture ourselves and other local families who are at risk with this proposal. We invite you all to come spend a few hours at our shop and see the rich culture and the hub of community that we represent. We are historical culture. Please do not tear down our building or propose rezoning, making it more desirable to tear down and sell. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you all listening to us. Thank you so much, Charles. Okay, we're going back to the list of attendees. This is the time for you to raise your hand. All right, I see Andrew Polini. Good afternoon Andrew, please restate your name for the record. Andrew Polini. Okay, I'm not sure this is so let me know if this is like an appropriate place to make this comment, but this would be in response to about the building at the rezoning at 2055 Portola. I'm just in response I'm looking at it I understand that I just like to encourage a playing commission to keep in mind that like, while occasionally some residents, the rezoning does not mean that her residents will get displaced. I think we have to keep in mind that when people are concerned about like, you know, suppose it historical buildings. A lot of places count as historical is the truth. I mean I live in a house that could theoretically counts historical. And it shouldn't keep us from building and just an allowing change to happen. So we think about this place in the current residents who also think about the displacement of people who did live here or want to live here but could not afford to I have friends who've had to move out of the state friends who've had to move out of the county, because they could not find housing the area. You know these people who grew up these are people kids who I grew up with who grew up here in the county. And then they become an adult, and they either have to live at home with their parents or they just have to move somewhere else that they want their own place. And so I think it's important to mind that rezoning the signs lead to some short term pain for some people that you know maybe a building gets torn down and replaced with something else that is bigger and allows more shops and more housing. It's healthier for the community. And I just wanted to make that comment there that more people getting displaced by not having enough housing, then probably might then might get displaced by rezoning. Thank you Andrew. All right. Are there any other members of the public who wish to provide comment at this time. Press star nine on your phone if you wish to make a comment and you are calling in. I'm not seeing any additional hands chair. If I see one pop up might just pause and check in just to make sure. Great. That sounds good. Thank you so much. And thank you for everyone who called in and it's around to give us your feedback we really appreciate it and are thankful you're able to make it here today. For now then we'll go ahead and close the public comment and bring it back to commission for discussion. And then do a quick time check so everyone's on the same page we got about 13 minutes. So I'm sure we'll not they needs to take off, and then about 20 minutes after that we got to really figure out what our next date and all that is so maybe we want to start with the next date of the hearing while everyone's here. And then just to make sure you have consensus on that actually and then and then move on to comments. I think we're able to find any. Stephanie and I actually did not have an opportunity to connect during the lunch break so I'm not sure Stephanie has any. Perspective dates there that we can. Thanks just London. Chair Gordon night. Staff has some flexibility with with this will will defer to the planning commissions schedule. Particularly if we're talking about a four hour session, you know, in between our two hearings here. One thing I would say is maybe sooner rather than later to keep what we've heard today fresh in our heads so that we don't have to, you know, repeat information. We can just focus on the commission's comments at that point. Okay, I want to make sure that I see that Michael lamb is with us right now I want to make sure that we have ample time to notice an additional meeting so. So it looks like he's here so when we're looking at dates I just want to check in with him to see if there's adequate time for noticing so. Okay, well we typically meet on Wednesdays but we don't need to meet on a Wednesday we can meet on a different day of the week, but I wonder if we should see if we can meet on a Wednesday since that's our usual date. I think that's when your question of noticing I think is the first thing that needs to be answered, which is the, what is the soonest we can meet and, and, and meet the obligation of noticing because I don't want us to ask questions around dates and then realize that we are to. Right so it's going to so I was going to propose that we asked Mike about September 7 and I think that would be probably the soonest if we're looking at a Wednesday but I wanted to check in with with Mike. September 7 would not work as the notices would have had to gone out three days ago. I know there's a little bit of a buffer but if they went out today, we could probably meet the bare minimum deadline. But the notices do take a few hours to print. There's so many for the rezoning properties. Can I ask a question Jocelyn, if, if the Commission postponed to a date certain does that require the 10 day notice, maybe Jason. If you continue to date certain. Probably work I was thinking we probably would want to notice it just since we heard some comments today about ample notification but that might be okay. You could still do a notice maybe it wouldn't meet that same 10 day. Yeah. Jason is on it. Yeah, I don't have a clear answer to that at this point I would suggest that you go ahead and continue it to a date certain that you pick right now and then staff can follow up with that. You if you want to meet on September 7, go ahead and meet on September set to go ahead and schedule that. And then. And then, if it turns out that we cannot do that, for some reason, then we will so advise the Commission. Well, if we have an on September 7, I am planning to propose some changes and I know I expect other. I'm sure other commissioners are as well. Well, just making sure that if we give you changes on the 7th you'll be able to incorporate them for the 14th. We would not be able to do that. Well then we got a problem. We're going to have to change the 14th because we are going to be giving you changes that's our job. But I think that what Stephanie is suggesting, even when we know I, for instance, have provided some changes at previous meetings they've incorporated some they haven't. Other so the ones that they haven't incorporated. So, so you can bring up your questions I think what I was thinking was the extra meeting would be to get questions answered and clarification. So we should all be prepared with any changes we want to make that we'd have to just be prepared to do that on the 14th. That's kind of how I'm seeing. Okay, so what you're saying is, we could come up, we can have the meeting on the 7th, ask lots of clarification questions, maybe, and if we want to propose changes, we could propose them, and on the 14th week, or we could make them on the 14th. At this point, we're ready to if they're proposed changes it's going to be through us voting as a commission to make motions and they're going to be final. They're going to be for the recommend at least that's that's impression I'm at is where we're at as a commission which is like someone's going to make a motion to recommend that amendment to go to the board, we're going to vote and send it onward and those things are probably going to happen on the 14th. So I think very systematically versus our conversation on the seven is for us to get any final discussion questions for staff, or even if there's anything we want to have amongst ourselves but it's more of a questions and clarity that that's where I feel we're at as a commission. And then that's what the four hours or four was for us to kind of the guy questions on some of the changes that were made or I wasn't able to participate in one of the hearings and so I have a couple follow ups but I didn't think that we were going to make staff make changes between those two hearings that's not where I thought we were any more. I think if we had the opportunity today to respond there would have been time to make changes and I was kind of excuse me the hope for the 14 so that we could come back like kind of clean. And then we'd have less amendments, you know, but seems like that might not be possible anymore. I should be honest I don't agree with the documents entirely and I do have amendments to suggest. I would hope for clarification and understand the rationale why some things are there get my questions answered and then if we're up against the 14th will just have a long meeting and we can. That's when you would as as Commissioner Dan said bring back changes but let's see how it goes. I guess the best we can do is the seven, which is too bad because that but they gives us all two weeks to get very clear on the parts and questions we have I've already got a bunch and I know. It ought to be razor sharp and two weeks. Should I chair would you like me to do a quick vote to see if folks are available for the seven that's I haven't heard any. Yeah, I have one quick question. If we're before we do that just if we are going to do do postponements to a date certain and the noticing doesn't in fact matter could we do it sooner like next week in order to have staff more time to make adjustments. That would certainly my preference. And we do that that would be best 31st. Um, if we do a date certain to the 31st continue to date certain 31st what we could do is just do any courtesy noticing that we could do but just not the public hearing noticing I think that I'm sorry, I actually cannot do the 31st. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Can you do the seven. I can do the seventh. And I can do. I can do, wait, I'm sorry, I can do the. I can do the second. Also, if we want to have it next week. I can do this. Can others do the second that's possibly. Yes. I can do it. Yes, I can do the second as well. I assume the first doesn't work for you. The 31st. I'm so sorry. The first. The first. I have to find I have to make a call before I could say for sure. That's fine. Let's go for the second since we can walk away knowing what we're doing. Okay. Jason. Yeah, I was just going to ask a, but I don't want to interrupt you. Please. Yeah, from a procedural standpoint, if it turns out and for noticing reasons, we cannot do the second. What does that mean in terms of will we still be able to move it to say the seventh. What problems does that raise for us? If we don't set a date certain today. Yeah, what I, what I. What I'm trying to understand is, is that you have a date certain set for September 14th. And that's already been noticed. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, so. As a legislative body, you can have a special meeting on 24 hours notice. You can also continue this public hearing. To a date certain. The question that we don't have answered right now, but I think the question that the staff needs to look into it more deeply is whether or not there's a certain number of days that you have to notice to continue the public hearing. I don't believe that there are, but we need to confirm that. So my suggestion and recommendation would be that you go ahead and select the date that you want to have it. So that's why I'm here. So my question is, except for, or somebody, somebody proposes a motion to continue this public hearing to that date certain. And then if we look further into it and find out that we can't do that because of the noticing issues, then staff will consult with the chair about. Canceling that meeting that you just scheduled on. it. Will that how will we be able to I guess is my question to that to then schedule an alternative date between the two so we will will we be essentially kind of forfeit in our ability to have one say the week of the fifth if it turns out that the second doesn't work. No that's what you're doing right now I mean you're just you're trying to set an interim meeting and so if it turns out that you can't set an interim meeting then you wouldn't be able to do it between the second and the 14th anyway because the notice because if notice is a problem then notice is a problem and I'm sorry we just don't have the answer to that question but aren't we close what is the public hearing anyway well was that question well we closed the public hearing of the public comment portion of the hearing I don't think we close the public hearing so where are we I'm very confused I think the second would be fine or the seven so it would be better for staff it seems like we can choose a date between now and the 14th there's a chance that it might not be able to happen due to noticing but we won't know that right now so then I guess the next question is if we don't have the opportunity to actually have a meeting between now and the 14th and we need to push another week or something you know this answer to that going to be a huge issue seems like we need the time somewhere so I'd really encourage you to find an interim date if possible so that we can continue to make our board meeting schedule yeah I think that's right I think we are desperately trying to do so but there is an information available on whether we can do it or not but I would agree can't get till the 14th we need another meeting whenever it happens we're treating it as a continuation we don't need to re-notice we've never re-noticed a continuation to a date certain I was saying we could do a courtesy notice that wouldn't be the public noticing but we have a you know a noticing list that we could send the information out to you but but Jason we haven't ever noticed a continuation I not sitting in front of the code right now but there's a code section that speaks to us I think we're fine there we will double check but I think I think we will be fine it's and it's sounding to me like the 7th is is a date that everybody is available at this time the second is a maybe for for Commissioner Dan I mean I would prefer the 7th to be honest but I can do either and I will make the first or the 31st I can readjust things to make those work as well so I'll just be flexible okay so we will follow up right after this meeting with the commissioners to confirm but I think that we're safe and and moving forward with selecting a date so well the advantage of choosing an earlier date is simply that if we want to make some suggested changes they could be incorporated so Rachel is so you're saying of the three early dates I'll make the 31st work if that's what everybody else would like to do yeah I think any of 31st first or second is fine for me I have a meeting on the 31st I could look to move but I do it smack in the middle unless yeah I do I have a complex on the 31st I could look to move but I do so what about Rachel you said the second is clear for you I can make the first or the second Allison the first and the second could work for me me too yeah yeah absolutely you know I can rearrange a lot of things and that's what I'd prefer to do so and probably rather than later so my my preference would be the first the first I think we're choosing the first works for me the duty may in let me hear from my son be she here there she is so you guys are looking at a Thursday the first yes I'm sure that works for you Judy yes yes I'm back I think yep you're back we're looking to to move or schedule the next meeting for either Thursday September 1st or Friday September 2nd and just looking for consensus on the best day there so did you have a preference or I have no preference on either one I can I can be there either day well let's go we'd be let's choose a day just to clean it up let's go for the first then great everyone's okay with that yeah are we meeting 91 or one of you know morning or afternoon I should probably I don't I'm just thinking just quickly about confirming with CTV staff the folks who host our meeting I will text her really quickly this September 1st and that works for your team Stephanie right yes we can make that work okay all right I'm texting them I think we should be able to find someone oh she's asking I've CTV staff checking just to confirm I see a hand raised by Annie um yes thank you Josh and I just want to mention I did look up the code section which is in 1810 223 E which reads notice of continuances any matter may be continued from time to time the proposal need not be renoticed if at the time of the public hearing for the proposal the matters continued to a specific date otherwise the continuing matter shall be noticed in the same manner as the original hearing thank you any thank you thank you let me let me let me just add though there's there's additional considerations in addition to what's in our county code that arise out of the Brown Act the consideration is whether the meeting is being continued or adjourned for less than five calendar days no new agenda need be posted so long as a new item of business is not introduced so it's making me believe that we do need to post Jocelyn because this is going to be for a continuous this longer than than five days so we'll have to consult on that okay okay let's consult on that okay as I'm waiting to hear back from CTV staff I would propose the same meeting time if that works everyone is we're used to the 930 time and if I could make just one more suggestion if it's possible I wonder since we're kind of reserving these for commissioner comments if we could just start with commissioner questions and if there's any public comment then you hear that and staff any staff presentation become maybe even just if there's anything staff wants the commission to know maybe that can just be sent to us via email I think that's a good plan that's right I don't think staff would have a presentation to to add and we could move right on to commissioner comments or public comments as you wish okay just do I need to make a motion or do we need for the chair or what to continue the hearing to that date certain I will make a motion to continue this hearing to a date certain of September 1st at 930 second thank you we have a motion and a second to move the hearing or continue to 930 on September 1st any discussion before we move to a vote on this item I think we've discussed it a lot great well let's do that Mr. Drake can we please have a roll call those Mr. Lazenby yes commissioner Dan yes commissioner Shepard yes mr. Vialante yes and chair Gordon yes wonderful that passes and so then with that we will move on close an agenda item number eight for today and continue it on next Thursday so we can move on with our next regular schedule agenda items at this time we have the planning directors report do we have a report today mr. Machado hello yes good morning thank you chair and commissioners you know I've been meaning to give a little info on water and I think it's appropriate since we talked a bit about water today and so I want to just give a high view and offer some more detail as we go forward but you all probably know a lot of this but I'm gonna give you some facts and figures I just need about two minutes so as you all know our region relies on surface water groundwater and recycled water there's actually three primary groundwater basins the Santa Marta Rita the mid-county in the Pajaro there's 15 principal watersheds the largest being the San Lorenzo River watershed and interestingly in 2020 and total our entire county region used 51,500 acre feet without half of that being used by our ag industry in the Pajaro Valley of all this usage 19% with surface water three sorry 19% surface water 78% groundwater and 3% was recycled water notably though the city of Santa Cruz who serves about a hundred thousand people they do serve people outside of their jurisdictional boundary they rely on surface water for about 95% of their of their supply and each of our urban water suppliers have a urban water management plan where these plans in addition to including drought measures they also project adequate water supply for future growth combines these plans show a population growth of about 40,000 people by the year 2045 current urban water supply today is about 23,000 acre feet per year we so we as an urban community or our urban area uses about 23,000 acre feet per year and the projected use by 2045 for the additional 40,000 people in our urban area is projected to be 26,000 acre feet so about a 3000 acre foot per year increase is projected over these next 3033 year 23 years right and so and this is where it gets interesting I want to put that in perspective of other components of water in our region so I'll first start by comparing it to rainfall and so our county consists of about 400,000 acres and even during a drought year we receive more than 24 inches of water every year and by the way our average rainfall in the coastal areas about 36 inches in our mountainous areas we get about 60 inches but even in a drought condition we still get more than 24 inches so using the 24 inches over the 400,000 acres of land that can that make up Santa Cruz County that's 800,000 acre feet of rainfall lands on our county every year so that's just perspective in terms of how much we use and how much water actually falls in our county another underutilized water source is actually wastewater and so the city of Santa Cruz wastewater treatment plant they discharge about 36 acre feet per day out into the ocean that equals about 13,000 acre feet per year and with minimal additional treatment that water could be used for irrigation and with further treatment it could be used as a potable water supply in conclusion there are real opportunities to increase our total water supply by better utilizing our existing resources versus not having enough resources to supply our needs I just want to point out the water resource that we have in our county it's vast you know we're not necessarily using it all today we're not even managing it all today but there's definitely opportunity I share this with you because if you would like more information more detailed information about water supply in general we could certainly schedule a future presentation for your commission and that concludes my report today thank you well I just have to say that's a really helpful but those are such a gross overview I mean I think to really assess the water you'd have to talk to the water districts I mean just saying would we get this much rain and this much you know that doesn't really tell me I mean that's helpful and interesting but doesn't really speak to the issue of you know so it's too high level I agree with that and that's why I'm offering a detailed presentation by our water providers and we do have a group and so we do have an integrated regional water manager and so I'd be happy to arrange for a detailed presentation to get into those details I agree I'm just I'm just trying to whet your appetite for a little more water conversation is all I'm trying to do um to to what end do you think the planning commission needs to hear this at this point in time what why what's going on I think it would be a good future conversation I don't think it's today I think we have our hands full today but I'm just planting the seed for the future no time certain I think understanding our water supply is an important part of all of our jobs and so I think there's value in understanding the details and the future potential and the opportunities for for utilization and management of our water resource which is I would say one of our most important resources that we have and so I'm just planting a seed now for a future discussion if the commission would like to well thank you I I think that's helpful but if we had a future discussion I sure like to hear from the Soquel water district in the San Lorenzo water district in the city and scott's valley because they all seem to have different opinions about everything thank you chair I yeah absolutely and I just want to add I find it fascinating and I would love to have more conversation at some point whenever the time's right and uh be able to understand those points a little bit better and you know um yeah so thank you I really appreciate it thank you um great and uh we are scheduled to talk about any report on upcoming meeting dates and agendas we talked about that quite a bit but um I suspect we have further discussion on that um well just quickly it sounds like we'll be meeting on September 1st a special meeting and then we'll be meeting again on September 14th and those are both meetings to um continue the discussion on the sustainability update and then the next meeting after that is September 28th and so far we have one item on that agenda which is the C-Cliff Hotel project and if I can just interrupt very briefly Jocelyn I have confirmed uh during that colloquy there that we we do need to post an adjournment of the meeting within 24 hours uh and uh the continuance the adjournment and continuance of the of the public hearing uh to a special meeting on September 1st which we will have to post so we have to post both of those things the continuance of the meeting within 24 hours and then the special meeting uh agenda will have to be posted within 24 hours of the uh September 1st date. Jason can I ask a clarification question on that? Sure. Does that just need to be posted on the county's website and a paper copy on our department floor or what what's the extent of the posting? It needs to be one second. Thanks. Yeah a copy a copy of the of the order or notice of adjournment slash continuance uh has to be placed conspicuously posted on or near the door of the place where the regular adjourned regular special or adjourned special meeting was held within 24 hours after the time of adjournment so you need to post it I would do both I would I would post it like you do regular agenda materials. Okay thank you. It's a good lesson in the applicability practical applications of chapter 1810 and the use conspicuously which is subjective. Um yes I agree and I'm going to follow up with you Jason after the meeting just to be clear on continuances but I don't want to take up our time with that. Today's meeting great thank you. We didn't uh so yeah that's that's it for future upcoming um agendas chair. Great um thank you we didn't um finalize maybe direction on this but are we going to send out courtesy notices for the hearing next week? I think it'd be beneficial if we're able to do so. We have a we have a list um that we can send out um an email list as I recall so we can send it out to those folks if we want to do a courtesy notice um that maybe that same one that we're going to post um we can email out. I'll I'll confirm with Stephanie how she wants to handle that but I I agree that if it's easy to do that that would be good customer service. Yeah okay awesome thank you um perfect then last uh item on agenda county county councils report anything to report today? No thank you very much. Okay that sounds great with that then we are through our agenda items and we can go ahead and adjourn the meeting today and I appreciate everyone's help and you know effort getting through this and looking forward to the next one. Thank you chair. See you on the first. Okay bye. Yes thanks everyone bye.