 afternoon if everyone can turn on their pros, council members that are present, welcome. Are we streaming yet? Connie let me know when you're ready. I'm ready do you want to hit start? Ready as well. All right good afternoon welcome to the one o'clock public portion of the closed session of the January 25th, 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. If you'd like to comment on a closed session item now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. In this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony thereafter the public line will be closed and inaccessible. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there is a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device you may miss your opportunity. I would like to ask the clerk please call roll. Okay mayor, council member Cemetery Johnson, Boulder? Here. Connie? Yeah. Vice Mayor Watkins, Mayor Brunner. President. Okay at this time are there any members of the public who would like any of the items listed on the closed session agenda? You can raise your hand by either dialing star nine or pressing star nine on your phone. Select raise hand in the webinar polls on your computer. When it's your turn to speak you will hear an announcement that you've been unmuted. The timer will then be set two minutes and you may hang up once you've commented on your item. Tendies list. We have zero attendees at this time so I will pull it back in that there are no attendees and no public comment on closed session agenda. This meeting will then go into adjournment and council will go into closed session. Thank you mayor. This is Laura. Give me a minute to put people into the holding room. We've got quite a few on. Pretty quick are you ready? We will begin. Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to 05M session of the January 25th, 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council and I would like to ask her please call roll. Members, voluntary Johnson. Here. Here. Thank you. I have a few announcements and then we will move into our regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website cityofsantacruz.com. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, call in at the beginning of the item you are wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please meet your television or streaming device. Call in and listed on your phone. Please note there could be a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, may miss your opportunity to speak. When it's time for public comment, raise your hand here by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar polls on your screen. Please note that the public comment is heard only on items council is taking action on and not regular updates and reports. The items that will be open for public comment during today's meeting are numbers five through 29 on our agenda with the exception of item nine. I'd like to ask council members if there are any statements of disqualification then I'd then like to ask the city clerk to announce any additions and deletions. Okay, there was the deletion of item nine. The packet has been updated for if like that. Thank you so much. Okay, moving on to oral communications. This is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will occur at 6 p.m. If you wish to make a comment during oral communications, please call in at 6 p.m. I'd like to call on the city attorney to provide a report on the closed session. Yeah, the council met in closed session labor negotiation. It's labor negotiators, fast labor negotiations. The council also met with the city's attorneys to discuss one item of initiated litigation and during that session the council authorized to initiate litigation against T. Santa Cruz and the UC Regents rising out of their approval of their 2021 long range development. The council also met in closed session to discuss one item of current litigation. He's Tessner et al versus the city of Santa Clara et al at Santa Clara County Superior Court. In that case, after the Santa Clara County Superior Court granted cities motion dismissed based on the proper venue, the council approved terms of a settlement by agreeing to a waiver across consideration of the right to appeal. And there was no other report of action from the council's position. Thank you very much. The city council will now review the meeting calendar attached to the agenda and revise it as necessary as I call on the city clerk to provide any update. How are you? Thank you. There is a special meeting that we scheduled for March 29th, CBRA, one of the required public hearing. That was not added during the packet. March 29th for the California voters writing a right time. But council member coming. I know that myself and many of the council members have been receiving communications about the item that's going to be on the RTC's agenda related to the adverse abandonment of the roaring camp rail line. It's supposed to be considered by the RTC on February 3rd. I've been getting some concerns that people in the city of Santa Cruz, for example, are in opposition to the adverse abandonment and many people wanting to see the city take some kind of action. Initially, members of the community were asking if we could have emergency item placed on this agenda. However, I've been reaching out to the mayor and staff and I know staff has been in communication with some folks in the RTC and was wondering if council is willing to consider today potentially either putting on a special meeting for February or having this item heard on February 8th. The reason why members of the public have had interest in hearing having this item come before the RTC meeting is that there is the potential for RTC to take action on this item on February 3rd. Should the RTC move in that direction, it would be in our best interest to try to have the city's position expressed before that meeting. However, I know that some members of staff have had conversations with RTC and that it sounds like there might not be any action taken on the 3rd. So I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for us to just take a minute to determine what makes the most sense in terms of being able to put this item on the agenda and then have it discussed so that we're meeting the needs of the community in the terms of the community in a timely manner. Thank you, council member Cummings. I'd like to call on city manager Matt Huffaker to respond with the latest information of the regarding that item. Thanks Mayor Burner, potential reason that council member Cummings in response to some of the concerns that were being raised by the panel brought forward by some of the council. I didn't have an opportunity to check in with RTC's staff to make clarification on exactly what actions should maybe be taken at their February 3rd meeting relative to the Roaring Camp adverse management considerations. Their plan is to bring forward an information item of that meeting and ensure us that the commission will not be taken action at that meeting with regards to considerations around rail banking or adverse contaminants as well as what implications that may have for Roaring Camp's operations. So what I'd like to suggest is scheduling and I've had conversations with the mayor with this program scheduling a general business item for February 8th. I've invited Mike Preston, the executive director for the RTC to kind of speak on the issue. It's complex. I imagine it's got lots of moving parts and he's agreed to do so and we would do that in coordination with our own staffs so we could bring all that relevant information on this complex issue to the council or direction. And I think the timing will allow us to do so given that the commission will not be asking for your favor. Thank you. I didn't know if I still had the floor but I was going to ask city manager I'm happy to make a motion if that's necessary for us to put that on the agenda sure that it goes on and just we'd like to see if that's the direction you'd like us to provide for this item. I don't think that's necessary that item is already scheduled to be on the February 8th agenda based on information as of this morning. Councilmember Brown. Thank you. So I just wanted to say a quick thing since I am your representative city of Santa Cruz representative to the RTC and I talked as well this morning with folks. Can I hold my stop for a second and would this be more appropriate in the updates from council in our group? It's a quest it's just a quick question. So in terms of the follow-up I just wanted to ask Matt if you in that conversation because I do want to say that is intended to be an informational item and we have a commission that may or may not proceed with that recommendation from the staff about taking information versus taking action. So if something does happen at our meeting on the 3rd is your intention Matt to still have an item and have a request and come because I mean I think it would be useful for folks to hear about what's happening and get a little more information this is going to be an issue of concern ongoing. So would we still do that that you're thinking? I think that makes sense Councilmember Brown. Again RTC staff is a choice because it's an information item and I'm happy to just for the for the record state what what they plan on discussing and if you don't mind I will read it. I got several moving parts to it so it'll be information report on potential preservation and accrues branched line by rail bank to future potential adverse abandonment actions for heavy freight only termination of the ACL agreement. So that's what they plan on discussing as an information only item and I think allowing that meeting to take place whatever happens at that meeting will make sense for us to bring forward a discussion on it. Thank you. Councilmember Cumming. Just final question I've been in as I mentioned before I've been in conversation with a number of community members who are concerned about this some of whom are going to be bringing letters forward regarding this issue and I know some union members were interested in providing language for resolution what would be the appropriate way for us to help include that information as the end of packet is being drafted so that you know because it sounds like this is moving more towards something that's going to be brought forward by staff rather than council members. So I'm just curious as to the appropriateness of how we should be bringing items to be included on this agenda report forward. Councilmember Cumming, I would think it would happen as with any other report that the information that's submitted in advance of the item or letters to that effect would be included in the public record and attached to that item. Of course we would welcome any public comment when we bring that forward. So as to whether this would be something brought forward by staff would still be the council request but it started we can sort it out between now and then but we will also be in its mind to include the staff report that RTCs can be forward on the third a lot of relevant backgrounds will attach that for as well and yeah that's my thoughts. Great and I'll just I'll follow up with any other questions or concerns I have regarding the agenda item. So thank you and thank you for putting this on the agenda on the 8th. I'll let folks know who've been contacted about it. City Clerk Bonnie Bush. I was just had a question if RTC has information from their meeting on the third that is the date the packet goes out. Thank you. Okay thank you so much. We will move on. This is this is the time now for council members to report out on actions at external boards, committees and joint powers authority meetings. For future meetings please come prepared to provide an update on any meetings or actions that have occurred since the last council meeting so that council and public can be informed and I will begin with council member Cummings. Thank you mayor. I'll start with Ambag. So at the last Ambag meeting the board was tasked with bringing the first draft of our regional housing needs assessment numbers and there's been a bunch of discussion. This item actually supposed to be active on in November but had been brought back in December because it was about the numbers back again in January in order to not have a further delay board took action on this item and adopted option Z which was somewhat unfortunate for the city of Santa Cruz because and for the jurisdictions within Santa Cruz County because of the 33,274 units that need to be distributed throughout the Ambag region Santa Cruz County received 12,979 units of city of Santa Cruz being allocated 3,736 which is and I will say that city of Santa Cruz has done a really great job of trying to meet their numbers. I think of all the cities we were number one in meeting those goals with producing 78% of our target numbers and that was you know in the order of close to 800 units that were that we were tasked with creating and now we've been first draft ground is allocating 3,736 so this isn't the final arena allocation this will go to HUD and then the ACT board but that's just an update on kind of where we're at and of the cities in the Santa Cruz County region Capitola Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley all go to the proposal. One of the other missions I'm on have not that yet and Santa Cruz County Lafko be just voted in our new chair and vice chair and I guess it's a significance first time in history that there are two women who are their vice chair of Lafko that's very exciting for us and I think it was the special meeting we had recently regarding the climate action report that's a good enough update on where the climate action task force is at probably the most adequate update I have to take for that and with that I think that foods um oh and the um the public safety committee will be meeting on the 31st and thank you folks I believe it's at 6am and I don't know if somebody can staff believe me. Thank you. Okay I will move over to councilmember Brown. Thank you mayor. Uh so I'll start I guess I'll start with the RTC um already on there today uh so I currently the chair of the RTC uh in the um for the 22 2022 year and um so settling into that role uh interesting the uh the RTC did vote at its last being in closed session to place an item on the agenda the title of which you heard um from uh from our city manager just just passed and um the so the item is that are um an adverse abandonment decision for freight on the Felton line which has generated a significant number of messages from the community it's part of the reason that we talked about trying to get this on our city council agenda and I'll just say that when this you when this became clear to folks in the community um to generate a lot of interest and I personally as an RTC commissioner have received almost 3,000 messages in opposition and so it's clearly something that is uh generated community interest and so that will be on our agenda uh for February 3rd and so folks who are interested that is also a great opportunity to make your voice heard about your perspective on that um it's not intended for action and like I said possible action it's possible action will be taken um but the idea is to hear more about it and try to provide more information to the community so a good opportunity to learn more and weigh in uh the uh area agency on aging at our last meeting we had uh a conversation about our platform for this coming year and really the areas that we want to work on and so I'll just give you a sense of what those are the first area is really addressing and combating ageism and and equity promoting equity for elderly and disabled community members through a variety of of panels and secondly to support developing a local playbook for the state's master plan on aging heard me talk about age-friendly communities and the possibility of Santa Cruz becoming an age-friendly community the state has gone through that process and has we are now officially an age-friendly state using the um the A or B tools and as a result of that we're coming out of that work uh have developed a um a master plan on aging tenure plan and which will come with some hopefully significant resources uh it's looking good for uh for funding in the coming years and so uh we want to develop a local playbook I am going to be talking with uh I talked with council members uh council member Myers and vice mayor Watkins about this so you'll hear more from us on this as we move forward with things we can do at the city kind of integrate and you know and collaborate on on those topics um as well uh we got to have a report with some data about uh you know responses to what's happening with seniors in our community and one of the things that just stood out to me that I wanted to share um was that um the fastest growing population of unhoused people in our community are seniors and um so it this is an area that is you know obviously on everybody's minds and just wanted to put that out there and let you know that that's something that I'm very much committed to working on as part you know as the city's representative to the AAA um and then uh with the agenda item that will be forthcoming and I think yeah the airport isn't meeting till February so I'll leave it there thank you thank you council member Brown council member Goldert so um we met as an ad hoc um uh council member Myers vice Watkins and I in regard to district thing and and discuss some different scenarios and we'll be seeing bulls and I think they might already been in lock but I'm not sure if they're available to public get but full maps and meet again I don't really have any more to update other than that at this time so I'll see if anybody else add on but the map will be very shortly maybe today I'm not sure if that can please your that's all okay and um let's see council member Myers so one of my reports done by I did attend the meeting number um there was a great adjustment in action that was decreases in crisis uh those are corrections uh that will she had basically have a lot of lives and those were really valid out um in the fourth there is also already started effort workshops um work with member agents to give you um uh track tons of various projects within hopeful so there are a number of there's a special I know our uh policy board I know those are uh another it was not announced it was the other meetings um not held or so I think that district the holders covered that council member Calentari Johnson thank you um I will report that our newly reformed health and all policies committee met this week and we are looking at implementation of many of the racial equity action steps that were adopted last November um which are very much aligned with the health and all policies work plan so just met that just was just yesterday it's already been a long week um so we met yesterday and there's a great implementation plan um for working with wise bus and team to put that forward so that's really exciting uh we also have the oversized vehicle ordinance ad hoc committee with myself and their runner and member golder we met a couple weeks ago and got um update from staff around the various years working diligently on tier two and tier three of safe parking program and we really are a piece that we can work with providers in the community and there's more details on that I'm sure the homeless response team can provide that and then this is not a formal committee but a small group of us did meet to discuss the children and youth bill of rights uh just to make sure that that the actions identified in there um have a home and that we are with towards implementation none of my other committees and board met yet hey thank you so much and uh vice mayor why thank you mayor and thank you my colleagues for the updates a lot of great work is happening in the community and I appreciate all that you do I honestly feel most of mine have been covered the only um you know specification in regards to public safety is that that meeting will happen on the 31st at 5 30 so to clarify what comes when we're coming to broad app the other additional input I can provide is that that ad hoc revenue committee is meeting on a regular basis although we did not meet last week but that we are moving forward with full so city residents if you get a phone call or a request to participate in the poll we'd love your your input and we will continue to do our work um and do diligence around revenue opportunities for our community and um and then also just the two by two conversations I was able to in that with a number of our county uh partners and continue trying to work together and collaboratively on how to best leverage resources and um address some of the nuanced challenges of our homeless issue in our community and I think that covers all that I've written on it thank you vice mayor Watkins and um I think everything uh has been covered for me as well I will also just mention that our visit Santa Cruz board meeting is tomorrow at the clock so we have not met with that our last meeting and um our health and all policy committee meeting was the first um very first meeting mister and so we also will be meeting every other month and we've had that kind of draft agenda for the year um so I'm hopeful with that that work we made a lot of progress and um the ad hoc revenue committee we have authorized the poll as vice mayor Watkins mentioned and I believe that poll has been to a select random group of voters so might be getting that call to ask questions and that's the report out thank you so much for those updates and uh we will now move on to the portion of the consent agenda and these are items six through 15 on our agenda with the exception of item nine for members of the public for streaming this meeting now is the time to call in to speak instructions around the screen please remember to mute your streaming device and raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar control from your computer listen for the cue saying that you have been unmuted all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member further discussion are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any item I have council member brown I have a comment on item 11 okay brown item 11 and council member talentary john comment on the same item okay then item 11 is accepting the library new right gift agreement for the alice and dirt memorial children's room at the branch supporting branch library okay are there any questions or comments from council members on any of the other items okay so we go right into your comment when I am 11 right thank you mayor thank you mayor so this item is about the naming rights for the alice and under children's room at the branch 40 public library this is the result of an amazing campaign fundraising campaign to make this happen and I have a couple of things I wanted to say but I also was in communication with Rachel Dan a very close friend and co-worker of Allyson's who really spearheaded this piece of the fundraising campaign did tremendous work and she can't be here today so she did send me a quick statement and I'd like to just read that and share it with you all as well as the public so I'll just do that right now good afternoon mayor and council members I'm writing in reference to item 11 to accept the library naming rights gift agreement for the alice and dirt memorial children's room at the branch 40 branch library as you know the Santa Cruz public library has been engaged in a system-wide fundraising campaign to supplement the voter measure as funds to improve our public libraries throughout the county the campaign provided an opportunity to honor and recognize exceptional community members in Santa Cruz who have made this community a better place allison entered was one such woman for the last 25 years beginning with her time at UCSC allison dedicated her career social justice supporting the public schools equity for all we lost allison a year and a half ago and we're still heartbroken today however I would like mayor council and Santa Cruz public libraries the opportunity to honor allison by naming the children's room after her and recognize the hundreds of individuals who donated to this campaign to help keep her memory and her work alive and I would just add as you know I met allison 25 years ago working on local social justice campaigns when she was a student and I was just out of school and I just her her spirit and her her commitments were just so unparalleled profound she was really a force to be reckoned with and and I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to honor her in this way as well and so thank you thank you for sharing that councilmember brown councilmember Calantari Johnson thank you mayor and thank you council member brown I share your comments and sentiments I just wanted to know how beautiful it is to have this item before us in memorializing allison entered in this way I haven't known her for 25 years but I've known her for a long time and her commitment to children and youth and families in our community was always inspirational to me and I think so many in our community so I'm just really touched and heartened and want to thank Rachel Dan and want to thank everyone else for a lot of work thank you okay is there any members of the public that would like to see any item on our consent agenda now is the time to do so please press star nine on your phone raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been admitted timer will then be set minute if anybody has their hand raised okay I don't see any hand raised why we'll bring it back I'm now looking for a motion and I have vice mayor Watkins oh sure I'm happy to move arc hello motion by vice mayor Watkins and councilmember Cummings let's second the second by councilmember Cummings the consent agenda passes unanimously we didn't vote on it thank you we will now vote and if our speaker can give a roll call vote our councilmember Calentari Johnson holder vice mayor Watkins hi motion passes unanimously we will now move on to our agenda and that ends our consent agenda so we'll move on to item number three which is the establishment of per city relationship between Geerit's front and the city of Santa Cruz for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you'd like to comment on that was the time to call in using the instructions on your screen first the order will be a presentation of the item from staff followed by questions from council we will then take public comment and then return to council for deliberation so I'd like to introduce Rachel Calsten recreations superintendent of the parks and rec the perfect presence welcome Rachel thank you mayor and good afternoon council members I always expect you to hear me okay so okay uh Rachel Calsten recreation recreation department and liaison committee today I'm pleased to be here to present the recommendation from the city's committee to add Barrett's branch as a to the city of Santa Cruz I am joined by Prince these committee chair and chair to the Barrett friendship city Doug Hall I'll provide just a quick background on the two-year friendship community relationship party and Santa Cruz then I'll turn it over to Doug for about two parties here it is including the recent mayoral nation as well as both future topics the first just to ground us for the discussion the purpose of the Santa Cruz's city's program is to encourage the people of Santa Cruz and the people of its district cities to understand one another as individuals members of their community citizens of their country and part of the family of patients the boss for continuing relationships of mutual concern the people of Santa Cruz and the people of its currently the city of Santa Cruz has five these relationships you can the school of auntie italy Ukraine the type of Nicaragua and for to look at us should be noted that the relationship for the list really is currently and I reached France on September 9, 2019 first committee unanimously approved recommendations soft body France as a as a friendship city and to establish a formal relationship then on October 8, 2019 city council house resolution designates the city of buddy's France friendship city so this action as well as letters support from both mayors officially started the friendship relationship and according to the Santa Cruz friendship as sister cities adoption policy a friendship will be two years at which time it can be wide evaluation better the concept that the adoption policy is conditioned prior to the grant or status I would say at the start of the friendship relationship the delegates with some provide artists by the city fair dug hole discussed a variety of topics shared exchange that included water quality control seasonal activities ocean erosion and life-guarding programs over the two-year period a variety of sessions and how you can place in the two cities unfortunately due to covid and travel restrictions and limited to virtual platform so a virtual delegation on June 29, 2021 representing Santa Cruz for then mayor Donna Myers 50 wise best three Bryant grant Hodges did the waves and he's a city member of the hall representing party for the mayor of buddy vice chair Richard Tardis as Pfizer refers to environmental sports as travel restrictions lifted thankfully a planned mayoral delegation was able to move forward then mayor Myers I'm an action coordinator to twice but just shared on all hands remember vice chair Martin that's traveled by brands and was welcomed by the body and from September 21st, 26, 2021. So again, don't call will expand on the shared expenses over the three in this comment and then I'll just you know on November 8, 2021 the subcommittee on various grants presented a full report both city regarding this friendship relationship full report is attached in the packet then at the city's committee meeting on January 10th to the species devoted and approved recommend to consult a resolution adopted by France as the 9th members paper when opposed there's one print vacant in terms of health and all policies the item before us council strongly supports the health and all costs for sustainability as both cities have identified in this change over ideas climate change and its impact so now turn it over to Doug for about three. Hi mayor, council member thank you for this time. We are extremely lucky that Barry accepted our initial invitation two years ago because it's a incredibly good fit the city that a lot in common with Santa Cruz including as a coastal city but also as a city that attracts tourists and a very very active surfing probably one of the most active surfing in Europe and also active in the tech startup we went in September and received an absolute boiled treatment reception from the mayor and staff. We were introduced to the tourism director for the city, San Sebastián in Spain, we don't know if you know but Yadid is just a few miles from the Spanish border on the Atlantic one of their major partners is the city of San Sebastián and this is relevant also because their long-term interest is in establishing a marine sanctuary work with us in our own experience we do the same thing in India there are a lot of really good overlaps in the two cities and what we did is get together and agree on focus of all events coming up this coming September but all future events on an annual basis we focus on sustainability in particular climate change adaptation coastal erosion and green food economic or job economic the first event first week in September that is an event organized with the participation of UCSC and the an international non-profit called the Ocean Climate Platform its initiative C ties which happens to be located in behind and the groups provides a platform for scientists share information as well as with the elected officials on strategies to manage coastal erosion ocean quality that will be the first week there is a there are a lot of tech startup that match in some cases almost exactly some of the tech startups here at Santa Cruz and we're working with Doug Erickson fashion follow-up event through the forum the science based forum sometime also in the first 10 days September and then finally last major event that will take place at the end of September and regards elite junior surfers lifeguard members or elite junior lifeguard turns out that in the area there's a very active lifeguard community of yachts there's only 25,000 lives there from the summer they swells to about 300,000 but they have a lifeguard club that has 1600 members which 600 are very active when we were there we see them every day training and they're very excited the possibility of establishing contest or competitions as part of the exchanges of junior or 17 to 19 year old elite members both of the surfing community and the lifeguard the overall that's a beautiful match we're extremely lucky so it'll be the first new relationship established in Santa Cruz in 35 years and the only fourth city that guides lists as a assistive city so you can like answer any questions we're looking for is to start in September rather small scale events to grow them each year with the participation of eventually corporate sponsors we've already mentioned an interest because it turns out that a lot of international insurance companies very very all in mitigating risk or coastal cities facing coastal erosion issues happy to answer any question we have great support about it from the side thank you Douglas and thank you Rachel the information and the presentation I will bring it to council members for any questions or comment that's a member of my errors yeah I just had a member of the delegation that wanted us on a quick trip and pretty exhausting there and back two days but yeah I echo Doug's Doug's comments that it you know we explored many many topics of overlap other additional that they're very interested in work they have a pledge to develop they're very interested in our certain a lot of energy and also also a great interest and I was just very impressed with their delegation with all the representatives of various various topic tourism or kind of really great they'll take especially learned a lot driving the very big national designation risk coastal policy potentially develop their grant by play a lot of that just a lot of the other activities will dovetail from that whether there is a aspect it's I think it'll be a really productive also recognize always hurting okay the motion then I would love to make the motion if possible I will bring it out to public first I have to think about my process or is the time I will bring it out to public comment if anyone is interested in commenting on establishment of specificity relationship between Vera France and the city of Santa Cruz now is the time to raise your hand by either dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar controls on your computer when it's your turn to speak it will hear an announcement that you unmuted and the timer will then be set for a minute so let me take it out to our attendees we have some attendees if you don't anybody with their hand raised comment on item number 16 nine raise your hands we'll bring it back there is any further discussion as I see hands council member minors and then council member folder I'll just yeah make the motion because our dues and council member Boulder is a former sister cities committee member and half a second okay we have our first by council member minors and a second by Boulder and I would like to ask the city clerk to please call roll mayor um I just want to clarify that it's to adopt a resolution establishing um as um council member calentary John's nice mayor watching thank you so much Rachel and thank you so much Douglas thank you thank you all thank you okay our next item is item number 17 this is a downtown recovery programs update and resolution for members of the public who are screening this item if this is the item you would like to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen first the order will be a presentation by staff by two of our staff here and then we will it'll be followed by questions from our council members and then we will take public comment and return to council for deliberation and action so I'd like to introduce rebecca unit economic development manager and Bonnie Lipscomb economic development director thank you mayor and good afternoon mayor and council um before our economic development manager rebecca unit um provides update on our recovery programs I wanted to just provide free context for our effort um you're going to hear about and they're linked to our interim recovery plan that's also on the agenda today um but I want to say that the last have been um in no way business is normal both obviously for businesses but also for economic development professionals and doing traditional business protection attention and how we do our work so um you're going to hear about a program today um but I want to just say that um the last two years of the pandemic have really put a strain on businesses and local economy we're all aware of this but um I just think it's it's really important in this context really talk about that for a minute we have incredible a billion businesses do opportunities creative adaptations over the last two years and even new businesses start during the pandemic and while we've even most recently seen some improvements in sales tax numbers and transient occupancy tax um in the city the unpredictability of the pandemic most recent surge you know is a really good example of this along with the longevity and the unknown nature of just how long will this continue um it's really put this unprecedented strain on and really an increase to be to external fact something that we're really experiencing with businesses right now there's an overall increased risk for businesses even the most resilient um and I just wanted to frame that because you know while we have programs and we're providing the update there's a real need for us to be responsive in real time and there's a real need for us um that's pretty unprecedented to look at individually some cases what businesses need long-term businesses that we all know and love so well in Santa Cruz are feeling things at this point because of the just how long the pandemic has gone on that you wouldn't necessarily expect so um recovery is going to be a really long prospect and I believe we need to do everything we can to support these businesses going forward and I you know we really do that and and you know it is an ongoing process um listening to the needs of the business community it's really critical to developing and adapting um any successful recovery plan and that's really what we've had to do is it's it's we're adapting in real time we will continue to listen um and be flexible um for our business community going forward and you're going to hear in addition to the updates today Rebekah's going to introduce a new ordinance for your consideration to uh sorry a resolution to extend the commercial use permits and again that's something that um has been a real identified need particularly over the last few months um so she's going to tell you more about that today there's a number of things that we're doing that you won't hear about today um but you may hear out out and about in the day-to-day you know we're here to answer questions that you have um and just wanted to provide that context some of the things that you'll with that I'll turn it over to Rebekah um going to find an update on these programs thank you great thank you Bonnie good afternoon mayor city council great to be with you this afternoon to provide an update on what we have been working on and um sort of what we're going into uh in 2022 as we enter our unfortunately third year of the pandemic year um we have a lot of great work that we've accomplished and I'm really excited to sort of share with you where we're at so um as we've talked about in our response to COVID-19 and support for businesses you know we've sort of looked at this recovery and rebuilding period that um we entered in 2021 and as we've seen with the variants and just the different um fluctuations with the pandemic things have changed and you know this is an ongoing process and we're learning every day as things continue to adapt so um this afternoon I'm going to be covering uh five different items for you in uh that covers sort of the different programs and activities that we've been doing in the downtown over the last year and that are continuing into 2022 um so I'll start with our downtown popped program this is our vacant storefront activation pilot program that you'll approve for us last year and we were able to get underway in the summertime um so last year I presented this map that showed a lot of the vacancies that we were experiencing downtown some of these as I mentioned during that presentation existed prior to the pandemic and many of them did about in a response to the pandemic when we launched downtown pops which is our program that's intended to activate vacancies provide opportunities for new businesses local businesses to have their chance to get started in downtown um as we sort of explored these different spaces we really got an understanding of um what's behind the scenes and sort of when you're walking down the sidewalk you see a vacant storefront there's a lot more going on behind the scenes in terms of different scenarios and sort of what stage these spaces are at so um it's been really great to just learn a little bit more about that and really focus in where we can be most beneficial and and help improve those conditions so I made some modifications here to that vacancy in terms of what we've learned um and you'll see that um there's been some activity in terms of the private sector in leasing these spaces and activating them really exciting to see new businesses um take advantage even during these challenging conditions there's also a lot of spaces that are sort of looking at potential tenants they're in the inquiry stage they're in the lease negotiations so considering the permit process and so we've been able to sort of support those conversations and connect with those businesses to help move things along um and then we also have had a few applications through downtown pops that I'll tell you a little bit more about and more in the works that we're hoping to bring online in 2022 um and then there's additional vacancies that are still out there for various reasons if it's tenant improvements that the space needs if they're sort of a shell that's new construction um or just different scenarios that might be impacting the ability to build those spaces and so we continue to work on those conditions to help get them into the pipeline and ready for activation um and then of course we have a lot of construction that's occurring in the downtown currently and will be coming online as well um that's not all reflected on this map and that's something that we're actively tracking as well um just to be aware of sort of where businesses are going to be shifting around how that impacts the businesses as well and how that impacts sort of the current retail and real estate landscape downtown so I'll go into a few of our downtown pops space activations which I'm really excited you have been able to connect with these businesses um one of our first spaces that we were able to bring online in September was 703 Front Street graded by the sea this is a art gallery um in a beautiful space she's made a lot of improvements to the space um she was previously operating uh this Melissa crisis a business owner she was previously operating on a month-to-month lease um and through downtown pops we're able to get for a six-month lease that gave her a lot more certainty in terms of you know knowing that she would have the space and have the ability to build her business so um with that timeframe she's been able to uh really schedule out artists and appearances and have many special events participated in first Friday um had music and just create a really um successful art gallery seen there and has also partnered with a lot of the other galleries throughout the city too for some really cool events um so we're talking with her about an extension of that lease again to just continue that runway and get her ready to you know build her business further and get into a longer term lease with the property owners who have also been very very supportive and been great to work with all the parties in that project our next activation was 1349 Pacific which is a company called Rev and they launched a holiday pop-up um they started in November um and have continued on we're also talking with them about an extension they uh this husband and wife team and they have been operating on the west side they do a lot of really incredible handmade products really craftsman type of products and they've been doing more of the wholesale side and wanted to try retail all right so this is a great opportunity to get them into a pretty small retail spot um in the heart of Pacific Avenue and test out their concept um it's been going really well and so we're looking to give them a little bit more of a lease length here to continue to model um we also were able to partner with the downtown association in activating the pop-up space next to snap taco to be able to support their downtown Santa visits um so with COVID conditions being able to have a space and room to have out for lines and things this is a really good partnership um an opportunity uh so we're able to get that going and we're also looking at the potential uh future activations of that space as well um as the pop-up space was intended for those purposes so we want to keep that going uh into this year um and then some of our future downtown pops activations spaces that we're hoping to bring online this year our planning to bring online this year today um 11 22 Pacific Avenue this is our Del Mar theater retail space this is a city-owned space that um has been ready for renovation and to be able to just get that construction started and we're currently doing the tenant improvements we're hoping to bring that space online in the spring and uh connecting that with downtown pops tenant uh we've also been working with swanson on uh an activation for five to the big avenue so this is the last remaining um retail space in the 555 mixed project dumps of the avenue so we've got a lease agreement in place and we're just um working on connecting it into that space they're also finishing up a few last-minute tenant improvements there as well and then we're also looking at ways to creatively use the former low-go space so uh you know this is an unfortunate vacancy for quite some time in the downtown and there's been some negotiations with various tenants and so we're looking at seeing if there's some uh creative weekend uses makers markets or other type of events that we could bring into that space on a temporary basis to keep that active and give the 1100 blocks some more interest um so that's a little bit of an overview of sort of the results of downtown pops so far we're continuing to work on some of these um so i also wanted to highlight some of the private sector activity that's been happening and just some really incredible entrepreneurs who have you know taken the chance during these challenging conditions and really invested in our downtown so um one space at 1519 pacific avenue a new retailer elliott this is a sister store to uh shilshul which is a leather goods store on look history currently expanded into this space they actually applied to downtown pops and expressed interest in this space and was able to just negotiate with the landlord on her own and get a long-term space which is the absolute goal that we want it's really great to see that happen and then i love this that santa cruise food scene is always so creative we have a new santa cruise waffle shop that's opened up at the metro center i haven't checked it out just yet but it's definitely on the list um so that was really cool to see you pop up um especially in that section of pacific avenue just seeing these creative ideas come about um and then on walnuts avenue um there's been quite a change over on walnut avenue with a lot of vacancies that sort of popped up in 2021 2020 um but there's been a lot of new interest and a lot of new activity so uh twig's tap house is coming soon currently in the permitting process and they would be going into the former 99 bottles space uh so similar type of operation and also local owners so we're excited to see that i come together and then on the other side of walnut avenue we also saw arslan's turkish street food come in where the falafel house was previously so it's great to see um that transition of businesses and being able to mean in that presence here um and then at 117 walnut j-15 located from their locus street uh into this larger space that was previously striped men um and that was also a great opportunity because wallflower boogie who's also on locus street was able to then expand into these former space um it's really good to see those businesses sort of be able to accept their offer and then finally in 2021 walnut avenue a new vintage store uh loved me two times as um so it's really nice that that whole stretch of walnut is almost entirely filled up oh i'm just good to see those investment so if that is a quick run through a downtown pop um more it will keep updated uh we're working on we're finding some of the processes and and starting to match the intent again as we enter this new year and new shopping season uh so on the perclet program a few updates uh as you all know we did extend this program the temporary outdoor expansion program to the end of this year december 31st 2022 uh we have brought villain designs on board with us a local landscape architecture firm to help us do uh two perclet design models so helping us actually build out the schematics for what a permanent perclet would look like as pre-approved designs to make it easier for businesses uh to get back through that process we're currently looking at those internally and then we'll bring it out for external feedback as well um and then we are also working with any department to do an assessment of the private property after practices so um this was basically looking at sort of what are all of what's the current process that these businesses would have to go through what permits would they need would they be allowed to make that transition and from that assessment uh figuring out if there are changes that we need to make the code or to the permit process um to help them be successful and so my department's working away on our quite long list there and so we're doing that it's going to be complete at the end of this month so we can start doing that analysis of and next steps moving that forward and then also we have direction to reopen the 1100 block of avenue in early 2022 so now that the holidays are behind us we're working with the um percolates that are currently operating there to make the necessary revisions to their uh you know how far they exceed into the street so we can get that feel so we're hoping that'll be resolved uh in early February so we can get that moved okay and then we did uh our next program is the top cruise holiday so this is building on the work that we did in the summertime to just promote our shop Santa Cruz uh campaign with our banner program that are up in all of our commercial districts and we partnered with the downtown association on this program and to really push local shopping during the holidays um so it included a variety but the bridge signage the banners in downtown that the downtown association produced we did some paid advertising on radio and in local press and then we also had a really great opportunity to do some advertising in the San Francisco Chronicle holiday guide so we were able to get several local businesses um bought in for ads on this guide and it went out to the whole bay area um and just really we were able to promote the shopping local and shopping and fanfares and inviting all of our neighbors to come to Santa Cruz during the holidays and so it was really great to see that come together and downtown association hosted a lot of really incredible events that they're well received so it was really nice to see the streets busy uh during the holidays downtown okay and then on our card program this is our city arts recovery design program just want to give a brief update on some of the uh progress that's been made there so our arts program is looking at uh 20 double ready projects um and looking at matching them with uh different partners for implementation uh many of these are plated for the downtown so we'll be bringing those forward and just excited to see uh these are really great proposals um come to fruition okay and then our final item this afternoon um is a new approach and a new um strategy for our sort of recovery toolbox and we want to bring forward for your consideration um so one of the challenges with pandemic is that um you know with the changing business conditions there's been so much uncertainty businesses have had to close businesses are wanting to reopen but the economic conditions are still very challenging and just um the goal so one of the things that we can control at the city is the life of use permits and the length of time that businesses have to sort of make decisions and take action so um what we're looking at with this resolution is um providing a more sure timeline for the length of use permit um the goals of this would to provide more time for businesses to receive the use permit but we're not able to act with it because of the uncertainty of the pandemic provide an extension of the life of use permits to allow business owners to resume operation after closure of more than six months and provide a streamlined permitting process for businesses who want to take over the operation for their previous use after business closed during the pandemic um these are just some of the major examples of what the benefit of this resolution would be um but basically in our current scenario if a business uh basically you know planning department issues commercial use permits that says you can do your business operation in this location um and if a business goes on and you know begins to operate if they were to close typically they would have there would be six month period from when they closed to another business or for themselves needing to in operation again for that permit to stay act um so through this resolution we're hoping to extend that period to be one year beyond the end of the emergency declaration so that we can just have those continue to be available businesses can take action really quickly and just resume those operations and fill these vacant sore fronts or or get back to business if they had to close for whatever reason so there's um two main components here that we're discussing and proposing this resolution the first is the extension on the use permit expiration so that scenario is if someone were to get a commercial use permit between March 4th and up to the expiration of the local health emergency we would give them an additional one year from the expiration date of the emergency declaration to act on that so that's if they got a use permit and they didn't start business we give them that longer time period to act on that and then the other major piece of this is an extension of these permit abandonment period that's that six month time that I mentioned that um basically stamped expired you know cannot pass unless it you know the use permit expires after that time period uh so the uh in this scenario all active commercial use permits and non-conforming uses that have ceased operation between March 4th 2020 and up to the expiration of the emergency declaration would have the six month abandonment period automatically expended to expire one year from the expiration date of the emergency unless otherwise extended um what we're seeing from this uh is it's really a benefit to our recovery in that it streamlines the entry process for businesses wanting to take over a business a previous business operation it provides a longer runway and assurance for businesses recovering from COVID closure impacts it makes vacancies more marketable as well to have approved use ready for businesses to take on that operation and it reduces the cost and timeline we've had quite a few businesses and I really want to thank the planning department and city turns office for helping pulling this resolution together fairly quickly and just being really responsive to some of the inquiries we've had but we've had businesses come to us that say hey this was previously uh you know a restaurant use and I'd like to just take that over but the time period has passed so they would have to go through that whole process again and we want to support those businesses we know that we want that type of use happening and we allowed it previously so this is just a simple mechanism to make that happen and be able to uh really can you know create an easier process easier access for business so our recommendation for you today is to accept the report on the status of the downtown recovery program activities and to adopt the resolution of the city council of the city of Santa Cruz authorizing the temporary extension of commercial use permit abandonment period in connection with the COVID-19 summer and I will open it up okay um council member question that looks like council so now we have council member questions uh council member Cummings and then council member Boulder thank you mayor um I just want to thank uh the economic development department Rebecca doing your team over there um for all the hard work you've all been doing with this project really helped know not only keep our our downtown vibrant during this really difficult time but also providing opportunities for people who may not have had the opportunity to kind of get their business into some of these spaces and kind of get their businesses off the ground so I think it's providing a really huge benefit to the community and I just want to express my appreciation for all the work that you all have been doing and great um it's this my question is kind of related um it's not really um specific to the work that's been done downtown I'm just curious because um I have been noticing more businesses for example in other parts of the community that have been going out of business and some of those storefronts being left vacant and so I'm just curious if there's any um discussion around expansion of this kind of program into spaces that are not in the downtown and I'd imagine you know capacity is always an issue I'm trying to work on these kinds of projects but I'm just wondering if there's any efforts underway for any discussions being had around expanding these kinds of programs other areas yeah I mean it's it's definitely we could definitely consider that um we've really been targeting the downtown because there's been such a concentration of vacancies but absolutely recognizing that you know we need to keep our other commercial district areas full it's something we can look at um I'd be interested to yeah have my team look at um you know what those vacancies are and really map that out again um we haven't studied that just as closely as downtown but definitely worth looking into and um yeah expansion and it's been a great test run as a pilot program just learned a lot over you know the last few months of implementing this so I think I you know it's good to look at those areas great yeah and I think it and you know at that point just really helping the people who normally couldn't get their businesses launched I think it's great because there you know people with that entrepreneurial spirit out there it's a great way to see if we're moving forward we can you know keep this going but like really help gets so I just want to thank you thank you thank you thank you council member golder and then council member kawantari johnson I want to echo council member coming um expression of gratitude to the economic development department and Rebecca and Bonnie and everybody big office up and running and pivoting so quickly to support our local our local person um it's really you know great to see I did a lot of shopping down there through the holiday season and downtown seems really vibrant and um you know it was great to see and I just want to ask actually my questions for me at bruner because you spend more time down there than many of us what would you say is like the foot traffic like this time of year compared to this time of year last year or the year before a typical year you know what I mean is it even after the holidays is it typical or continuing to be on an upward trend from your perspective um I'd be happy to talk about that more with you um outside of the council meeting but in general I will just say the international tourists are probably the most noticeable reduction and more regional um visitors what we've been seeing and foot traffic this this pre-study well thank you that's all I don't know if Rebecca has any additional comments on that I'd be happy to add to that um yeah I mean I guess just sharing sort of what we saw with our most recent returns on bill tax numbers for the third quarter of 2021 just got a really strong increase especially in our food and restaurant categories and I think we saw that in you to be a high foot traffic and high presence in the holidays downtown um I think right now we're sort of in the post-holiday dip you know we have the shoulder season now but I'm hoping that once the you know the most recent searches come down I can use to pick back up with folks here and um just continue to give it yeah it was really good I think this holiday season um definitely a lot busier thank you uh council member commentary johnson thank you mayor thank you Rebecca and Bonnie for that great presentation and all the tremendous work that you're doing um I had a couple of questions actually one was around the the sales tax brought up and it kind of relates to interim appropriate as well but do we have a comparison um with the appendages pandemic and so it's great to see the increases that's really encouraging and do we have a comparison with them they can how far are we from getting back to baseline yeah I mean I think what we saw most recently for the third quarter so it's always a delayed reporting for the sales tax um but the some of the categories we're getting close to the pandemic levels um and definitely much higher than 20 levels um we do have quite a few public reports that we can share with you um that you know track those trends over the year so we could pull that together um uh an update of where the sales tax and and I would just add to that for back to my comments at the beginning as we look at the latest surge um you're likely to see a impact of that as well and that also carries through I'm not for our you know brick and mortar you know retail business but for our hotels as well but on the positive side of that there's always an incredible destination to visit and a lot of people who aren't willing to fly are willing to drive and a cruise and enjoy activities outside and including you know shopping downtown and eating outside and going to her so I think we'll still tend to be very resilient through this but people like impacts when we compare this current quarter um to thank you um my other question is around the downtown pops really it's really nice to see them and visit them and get the report uh I'm just wondering if you can touch on like do we have um how many how many are we hoping to end do we have a number I can't remember that and then I know that there was a component that part of the strategy is to encourage diversity in our businesses in the downtown area so have we seen that how are we tracking that and what are some of the strategies that are being used to encourage diversity with these top-up participation yeah great questions um so I think when we originally presented this we were hoping to get about eight and 12 activations um and so I think that's definitely still the goal um and you know we'll just continue to try to activate more spaces and use this program creatively um when we did the initial launch of the application we did definitely collect demographic information we're really you know trying to reach a broader diverse audience in terms of potential tenants um and so the we also realized that our process was a bit too complex and it probably needed to be or you know you're using our sort of standard RFP template and so as we're entering 2020 we're looking at really um tearing that down making a lot more approachable making it really easy for businesses to fill out and express their interest and really trying to build that applicant pool so that we can you know really go through and and select candidates that we um want to target for this program so we get that diverse piece that we're that we're interested in getting into okay thank you that's it um I will ask I'll insert myself and uh ask a question um can you you have a number or an estimate of the use permits like how many citywide we're looking at that fall into the category of potentially needing extension um so with this resolution that you know be available to all potentially permits like apply across the board the inquiries that we've received so far I would say we have about five different spaces that this could be kind of official to um and they range from fitness studios restaurant is lots of restaurants actually since they were so hard to hit but yeah we have about five that we know of that have uh reached out and you know been interested in these spaces and kind of fit from this I can uh guarantee there are many more out okay are there any other council member questions so now bring it out for public comment if you are interested in commenting on downtown recovery programs update and resolution raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar controls on your computer when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the timer will then be set two minutes go out to attendees and I have hands raised the first one is I am watching you that's star nine hello yes I'm full of these temporary extensions of the COVID accommodations to mitigate the harsh COVID restrictions but I mentioned your resolutions whereas it is clear that the longer the emergency declaration is in place the more difficult it will be for operators to return and reopen their businesses this could not be true or it's soon time to end the emergency declarations and not be part of the continuing decimation of America at the hands of the corrupt immoral and enough politicians and corporations peddling fear and free money as if we won't be paying for that forever in inflation loss of individual freedom are totally unnecessarily damaged to the memory of more denied treatment dead and the other shuttered business I call attention to the fact that the UK and other countries have ended most all COVID restrictions by today and the final few in place will be removed in total by March alpha and delta COVID are becoming a memory and over from is like the flu or cold and I speak with cases dropping by 500,000 in the last two weeks you do not have to be part of all the continuing emergency declaration you do not have to enforce bad regulation you do not have to deny the power of natural immunity you do not have to use the following orders excuse let the county state are fed do their own dirty work the back peddling on the misguided in that and probably correct motivated COVID response has begun as the truth is hard to suppress forever and there are those now fear brainwash that will never evaluate your information and should not reinforce that state of mind for instance blockbuster now finally acknowledges having been near useless Fauci is losing approval the end of COVID the unraveling of the fear narrative and some recognition of the enormity of the malfeasance will probably take place by March don't be any part of the continuation of the failed response that is taken and will take unfold lives the economy was destroyed by the government and it loaded the American people with printed trillions in debt economic ruin while treatment for sick people was repelled and the toy are five favor of not so effective not so safe not so long as to be legally mandated jobs are healthy we're calling in public comment I will now to get out to Udra Hamilton or unmute yourself can you hear me yes welcome thank you um I won't take up much of your time I do want to climb in on the resolution that's before you today I am a hundred percent in support of the resolution I think that the businesses that are are hearing sort of speak between they're not people open themselves and the people who are looking to reopen there it's very difficult because we are looking at a very long expensive permitting process because it's taken a while for the negotiation for the lease for the preparation of plans all of the things that go into having to submit to get approval for such businesses so I have talked to Rebecca and I talked Bonnie and I've actually talked to you as well mayor about a particular situation in the downtown area and this particular resolution though 100 percent go to help resolve the issue that we're having in terms of the use permit not currently being acted so if I could raise two hands I would support the passage of this resolution and anything else that you can think of to help these businesses get back on their feet or if they are moving on for the new businesses that are interested in revitalizing our downtown amen and takeover I'm also supportive I'm all ears and um hoping to see more of the same so just thank you thank you thank you thank you for calling in are there any other attendees for a public comment on item 17 downtown recovery programs a seat and resolution okay I will pull it back to council and vice mayor Watkins and then council member commentary Johnson thank you mayor and um you know thank you and a thank you to our development department for all the hard work that you're doing for our community and to all the businesses that are choosing to stay and hopefully survive here and following it there's you know comments I'll I'll raise two hands and um make the motion to support the staff recommendation which is twofold one to accept the report on the status of downtown recovery program activities and two to adopt the resolution authorizing the temporary extension of personal use use permit abandonment creating thank you we have a motion by vice mayor Watkins and uh council member commentary Johnson yes thank you a second by council member Calentari Johnson and uh I'd like to ask the clerk to take a roll call vote member Calentari Johnson hi holder hi vice mayor Watkins that motion passes unanimous and thank you so much to Bonnie Lipsom and Rebecca unit for that update and information presentation okay moving on to item number 18 on the agenda re-envision Santa Cruz interim recovery stand update for members of the public we're streaming this meeting if this is an item you'd like to comment on that was timed all in using instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from council members we will then take public comment and return to council for deliberation I'd like to hand it over to Laura Schmidt assistant city manager thank you mayor I'm here to present to you your fourth update on re-envision Santa Cruz our interim recovery plan for building a future for everyone together it seems like just yesterday we started this update to our strategy but it's been a year and there are about six months left in the interim recovery plan but that was before we knew about Delta and Omicron and everything else that was happening so I will keep my presentation here today fairly brief we coordinated with economic development and one of the main focus areas for downtown and business revitalization you've just received a great and extensive update from our economic development department and that has a lot of information related to the recovery itself so we'll cover some accomplishments at the high level and our metrics and then a brief mention of the equity relationship of the metrics moving forward just a reminder of our three focus areas their fiscal sustainability downtown and business revitalization and infrastructure and within infrastructure the city council had an innovative include in the infrastructure and that are our parks and open spaces so our natural infrastructure here in Santa Cruz is included in this piece and it's not just the traditional facilities and brick and mortar that you might see in other municipalities our accomplishments and our accomplishments run one quarter ahead of so our metrics and the numbers lag because we wait for the statistical data from especially from our consumer sales tax information so these accomplishments are for the quarter ending December 31st of this last calendar year so on the fiscal sustainability all this information is in the attachment in the agenda packet probably the major highlight that council members have already reported in is this past Monday we started a poll related to a recommendation to explore a possible ballot measure from the current council ad hoc revenue committee so that poll is in process and that revenue ad hoc committee anticipates coming back to the larger council in February with an update as far as how that went on the downtown and business revitalization front again you've heard a lot of amazing programming that we're doing from our economic development department and helping our local businesses I think the other fundamental focus area here is foundational policy updates and that's related to mandated housing and other development policy infrastructure that we need so planning and community development is looking at the downtown expansion plan objective standards as well as a mandated housing element update so those are all making strong progress and then on the infrastructure side we have a nice myth of sustainability and green economy climate action work as well as vegetation and open space management and then core infrastructure work like our new will create dam and let an outlet project with the water department that's approximately 70% complete on the metric side and just as a reminder these lags so these are numbers and updates from July of 2021 through September of 2021 I think at a holistic level as you step back from these figures we're rebounding fairly strongly on the consumer and revenue front our businesses locally continue to struggle with key programming from our economic development department to help with that we're still seeing some closures and our occupancy rate downtown remains flat the consumer indexes for the transient occupancy tax sales tax and admission tax rebounded strongly especially during this time frame because it's our peak tourism months from July through September you'll see the amazing admission tax is 82% as compared to the previous report's trends and sales tax is higher as well as transient occupancy tax so those are all doing well we can anticipate probably a continued mix back of tricks moving forward because Omicron hit and that has impacted all of our abilities to continue to go out and try to resume our quote unquote standards slash normal lives so we'll see probably some uncertainty still reflected in the numbers moving forward on the health and all policy side related equity lands this is just re um celebrating ourselves back from the last update so when last you heard from us on this um three months ago we had anticipated in fiscal year 22 Q4 reporting in for the first time the equity aspects of these selected metrics the departments are still working do that but in order for us to hit that fiscal date of reporting for the first time in Q4 we will need to have those numbers available in Q3 and we're still targeting that staff is working very diligently on that but it is a really tough set of data to figure out and start to collect because these are all brand new collections for the departments so I just wanted to hedge a little bit let you know that the departments are doing their best to get this information but it is it is a tough road to hoe at this point and then additionally as a reminder data point that we won't have any competitors to um being back to for these because these are all new data factors for us as a state with that I said I was going to be brief and that's pretty brief so that's the update and your request of the council is motion to accept our most recent quarterly progress report for reinvision Santa Cruz and provide feedback as desired thank you thank you Laura for that presentation uh let's I will bring it out to the council member questions and I council member Meyers followed by council member I know the other part of it an actual method because was sort of the uh are uh basically our legislative platform of last year hitting a time you know with the state budget plus could we have a method that shows sort of um grants that have been it is not one of the metrics that we chose to track at the beginning when we develop the plan we do have a grants quarterly report of grants that we are have been awarded and our tracking that comes from the finance department but that does not have the net net of five four versus one of those yeah I'm just curious like have you had any revisions you know it's just with the amount of funding coming in you know the large project my head you know a lot of money I mean all of those grants resources we bring in to those project city those obviously it looks odd so I'm just wondering if with the infrastructure investment housing just being missing sort of a urban economic um you know the piece that you know helps us understand how those kinds of processes you know play out I know just something to think about maybe recovery but also you know maybe with of trying to realize an understanding of development jobs all those just seems that we you know you know our our departments are yeah they're bringing in really hundreds of dollars fighting so great but then we'll we'll take a look at that thank you great and thank you for all for thank you thank you thank you um thank you for that presentation Laura I have a question that's kind of tangentially related to this around infrastructure and just some projects moving forward that can have impact on the local economy as we're working through recovery um main question is you know there's been we've also received communications around the Murray street bridge and I was wondering and this might be something that um we're fiddlers somebody from public works could answer but um I know there's been a lot of concerns around the fact there's going to be work on so fell work on how we won and then also the Murray street bridge and then with the recent tsunami um there's been some impact the harbor and so climbing around um when the Murray street bridge project might be moving forward has come up into question so I'm just wondering if you might be able to speak to that because kind of as we're talking about um kind of um moving forward past the pandemic and the impacts we've experienced and folks have been concerned about how that might impact tourism in the summer and folks are just kind of wanting to know um where things are at um with everything that's been going on sir I'd like to address that more general director of public that's a great question um the Murray street bridge project is a the last bridge in the city for that needs seismic retrofit and it is coming the design is finished uh with PC funding um we should be able to uh did that project most likely towards almost summer i was getting a summer and then we would start rocking in the fall as the rest um we're waiting on the permit and once the permits are received we're ready to go so um that is a major uh construction project will affect traffic in the west direction obviously the public works director for the county and myself as well as the art director will be having um conversations uh probably monthly to look at schedules and coordination so that we don't have closures have same uh direct same day and try to schedule those to minimize the impact of it there will be impact that's a major project um keep it open probably a 30 month project to look at what would it be if we close that bridge and um if it can speed up the construction so we'll look at all those all try to reduce the traffic great and are there any concerns with the recent tsunami and unusual um structure probably no i the construction at the harbor they um they lost a lot of their electrical um work because of the flooding salt water to the transformers i don't think that's going to have a major impact um on the brush of the bridge that we won't slow their construction and they really thank you mayor you're muted thank you for those questions thank you for the assist vice mayor walk in thank you for the update and for the and in the work that's gone into the plan i i my question i think kind of dovetails a bit off of uh uh councilmember meyers question in regards to grant tracking and one of the things i know we spoke about was also capacity to seek grants and have a well positioning and i think that came up for me when hearing the needs around the equity indicators so i just wanted to touch base and see if you had any updates on um some of the grant support that the city could access for some of the funding that's available sure um i can definitely give you an update on that um tiffani wise west who is our climate action program manager is also helping lead uh pilot grant writing process with a managed service provider so we are working with that provider um we did a request for quotation and they were the successful company selected so she's in the process of working with that company and based upon the um results of that pilot grant application with them we will determine whether or not and the scope and the extent to which we will work with them moving forward so that is in process she is also putting together and coordinating across all of our departments right now to basically get the um demand signal so trying to understand the different projects out there that the departments have that they are targeting for grants and then putting together a plan and a roadmap for us over the course of the next months and year or so of what are the key target areas that we want to go after so that we are basically primed to be able to then work with some people to get assistance in those areas right yeah no i appreciate the update and i you know just sort of thinking about also a real heightened interest in equity and understanding some of these big equity indicators particularly for a government institution um i think there's potential there for some support as well and so i'm happy to hear that update thank you welcome thank you what's a member calling tary johnton thank you mayor and thank you so much laura for the work and the presentation my colleague stepped on some of my grant comments but i but i will just kind of plug in as well that um there is definitely going to be a lot of opportunities and thinking outside the box as it sounds like we're doing is going to be really important um because i think we can thread across departments and across some of these initiatives um i also just i wanted to comment really question but these metric the metric grants i geek out to um some members i love looking at those but they're great to see and i wonder if and if we have the capacity to do a simple sort of dashboard and we were talking about this a little bit in our health and health policies committee but a simple dashboard that's sort of some of the key metrics you know how have we done on sales tax revenue between now and eight months ago i'm just using that as an example but just pull out some key indicators and do a simple dashboard for us to see up down that would be helpful as a visual and then my last question is so so the year has gone by very quickly and so six months more on this plan and what next and i'm sorry if you already touched on i had to step away from it what do we do um what's our what's our plan moving forward so currently the plan as you know with um our bear change over at the end of December and then we also had our new city manager start in january currently the plan is for us to coordinate with the council a retreat in the spring and then dovetail that retreat to create an updated strategic plan that would transition and take over as the re-envision Santa Cruz 18 month window closes so that's in process we're starting we've already got that on the radar and starting to have conversations among the city manager the mayor and staff to get some feelers out there find a facilitator for that process so we will we will get you all together in the spring and we'll get an update then excellent thank you so much you're welcome thank you Laura thank you councilmember calentary johnson are there any other questions from council members at this time i will bring it out to public comment wait i say oh sorry i i'm jumping the gun but i will bring it out to public comment if you are in the public and interested in commenting on re-envision Santa Cruz interim recovery plan update please raise your hand now by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar polls on your computer and it's your turn to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the timer will then be set two minutes see it in our attendees i have one person there are hand raised phone number ending in one seven nine eight go ahead and press star six and mute yourself great good afternoon everyone this is Judy Grunstra and um it's a very small point that i wanted to make um but it speaks to the idea of misinformation that is spread around on the quarterly report bullet point five about the mixed-use project secured approval of a two-story library with over 40 000 square feet of programmable space but just last night bonnie let's go spoke at the library advisory committee meeting and he mentioned 30 to 35 000 square feet so i mean when people see 40 000 square feet you know it just gives a wrong impression and so i just you know say when you see numbers like that be skeptical because you know hard to know what's the real back these different members so thank you very much good afternoon thank you for your public comment uh let's see are there any other members of the public that would like to speak to item number eight being done we'll bring it back for deliberation and emotion uh i see council member mires and then council member coming yeah i'll make a motion progress for public safety thank you we have a motion by council member mires and council member comings by council member comings for any further comment or deliberation and we'll um ask the clerk to do a roll call vote thank you mayor council member scolatori johnson holder nice mayor one that motion to accept the city's most recent quarterly progress reports on re-envisioned santa cruz 12 to 18 month interim recovery plan and provide feedback as desired classes thank you thank you laura moving on to item number 19 this is an ordinance repealing chapter 16.03 public plumbing fixture retrofit regulations of the santa cruz unison code for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you'd like to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and return to council for deliberation and action so i'd like to uh call rosemary minard and then neal christin water conservation representative and rosemary minard our water director presentation good afternoon mayor and council um we get to do something we don't get to do very many times uh in this world we get to stop doing something because we've achieved a major uh goal so i think that that's what this particular item is about we have um been working on this program for a really long time i'm going to let neal give you a brief a very brief um kind of overview of what the program is and what it's achieved and um then we're going to um this is the first reading of an ordinance so come back the next time final act so with that um let me introduce neal christin who is a water conservation rep in our water department good neal all right thank you rosemary mayor council members good afternoon i'm honored today to have the opportunity to introduce for publication every skill ordinance or santa cruz municipal code chapter 16.0 chapter 16.03 was enacted in 2003 established the authority for water department to implement the plumbing fixture rich fit regulations in city neal if you want to spare your screen or do you want me to do it oh please i could also grab that or not i'm trying to get and let's go one slide up okay great thank you rosemary sorry for that uh chapter 16.03 enacted in 2003 established the authority for water department to implement the mutual retro regulations within city the regulations required retrofit upon resale any applicable plumbing fixture toilets shower heads or urinals that did not meet a minimum standard the goal of the program was to accelerate conversion of high water using plumbing especially the old 3.5 gallon to ensure the uniform application of the program about our service area water conservation staff coordinated with county and city of capitol staff to establish county code 7.69 city of capitol municipal 13 since 2003 the pfr program is highly effective proving water distribution throughout our service area next slide during the nearly 20 years of administering water conservation staff have facilitated the certification of 10386 properties and documented the replacement of nearly 1,000 toilets over 7,000 shower heads next slide this is a recently updated program activity map with the certified parcels highlighted in within our service area this map tells a compelling story of a highly effective program that was dependent on a high level of outreach education in addition to the collaboration between water conservation staff real estate agent professionals property next slide proceeding with the repeal ordinance formally in the administration make applicable state regulations senate bill 407 the state regulation applies to the same scope of plumbing fixtures and efficiency standard and requires the disclosure of the requirements private parties to sell or limit and does not require a safe service the repeal ordinance would also eliminate recent costs of inspection property and and eliminate the procedural burden ensuring thank you for your consideration leaving me out of time for public comment thank you neil so much for that presentation thank you rosemary uh i will ask council members for any questions okay i will bring it out through public comment for any attendees questions we have one hand raised is i am watching you please press star six and mute yourself a minute yeah sure yeah it was i was hoping i'd see an obsolete costly and publicly burdensome ordinance removed someday nice i hope to see more i would have you consider though a change in existing property ownership by itself never justifies any permanent holding coercion to achieve some unrelated objective nevertheless the government taxes and charges fees anyway like having to pay a small fee on a newish car even when no small cash is required many times mandates and fees are really just lazy and different government overreach think developer child care impact the type of disconnected justification similar to probably a lot of kind of sale inspections like sewer laterals didn't the construction age or previous permitted replacement or time since the last section or sale figure into it doors could last 50 to 100 years but some properties are new or both fight off and making repeated inspections redundant and expensive and others may go unsold for a lifetime new construction is a different story but even their design mandates like requiring ev charging stations or who knows what else to come vice to kill let's go green anything go mandate eat a hard look for lack of respect for individual private property rights which i'd say has not always been the case this ordinance had a similar redundant intent for the 2016 plumbing code but even there that code seems like an unconstitutional overreach there is a requirement there that if a remodel of one bathroom takes place requiring code upgrades all the other plumbing fixtures in the house also have to be upgraded including expensive smart hot water 125 degree regulators in bath showers to me that seems like an illegal ex post back to a retroactive law since the other perfectly good fixtures were legal when it's called such as government overreach using the permit process but no one's going to the supreme court over a car or a shower i guess some regulators skip the biggest problem your recent climate action study section gave me the willies when you're resident climate action activist manager preferred to permit leverage as the process to force the public to stop using natural gas leverage being the polite buzzword for coercion i'm not allowed the time here to explain the current hypocrisy of carbon neutrality the natural gas is the last not the first fossil fuel one would eliminate in a green currently fantasy land world thank you so much for your public comment yet there are any other public comments on item number nine this ordinance repealing after 16.03 plumbing fixture retrofit regulations of the standard municipal i see none we'll bring this back to council for deliberation and a motion council member mires item okay we have a motion from council member mires introduced for publication and ordinance repeal after 16.03 plumbing fixture retrofit regulations of the standard municipal code there a second i'm happy to second that there comes some by Sarah Watkins okay and is there any further comments or discussion on this item i will ask this for a roll call vote please member talentary johnson by Sarah Watkins hi hi that motion passes unanimously thank you so much neil for the presentation thank you rosemary boots that item we will now move through advisory body appointments and reappointment for members of the public for streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you would like to comment on items 20 through 28 on the agenda the advisory body appointments and reappointment instructions are on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device and raise your hand thereby dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar on your computer when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set in minutes i'd like to call on this first playing the nomination and appointment process thank you mayor council members every year you know we have the annual appointments who had your interviews last um tuesday uh the mayor will um move through the commissions alphabetically and council member will have a chance to begin the nomination period so please go nominate up to the amount of openings there are so if there are vacant you can provide your nomination if your nominee has already been named you don't have to nominate them again they're already nominated um after we go through and all the nominations are done i will then go council member to council member and get your sort of a roll call vote who are voting for it out of the nominee i won't be back there unless anyone has any questions sometimes it takes the first question for people to kind of hang up it so there are no questions to go on and then see how we do with art thank you so much okay let's begin we will begin with the arts mission this is alphabetically there are two openings on the arts mission one with a term expiring on january 31st 2023 and the other with a term expiration of january 31st 2026 may please have nominations starting with council member calentary johnson no problem i would like to nominate elizabeth burnbaum and everett osillin council member golder like to nominate rob blitzer and your second has already been named council member coming i too have been named but i had a question for clarification um so when we get to the point where we're voting or like how are we going to distinguish who takes which seat since there's two seats open and they um end in different that's a great question because there is a question where we'll come up against that but the difference between this one is we have um somebody who is getting reappointment uh reappointment she's seeking reappointment so she would get she would continue on her term she wouldn't there there is not the option of person getting reappointed getting shorter term okay so the reappointment will take 2026 and the new appointment that's right yeah that will just continue for the whole careful to continue their term okay thank you um my two have been named thank you council member brown uh mine as well council member mires might have been named as well vice mayor walken might have been named as well and mine have also been okay so now i'd like to ask the city clerk to do a roll call when i call your name you tell me i've put two people who are voting for um council member commentary johnson elizabeth burnbaum and everett osillum elizabeth burnbaum and rob blitzer elizabeth burnbaum and everett osillum brown elizabeth burnbaum burnbaum and um everett elizabeth burnbaum and vice mayor walken name elizabeth and everett mayor brunner elizabeth burnbaum and everett osillum elizabeth burnbaum has been reappointed and everett osillum has been okay so that concludes that mission and so we did good on that first round that was great job everyone we will now move on alphabetically to the board of building and fire of schools i would like to call on the city clerk for now um as a reminder staff has requested that council possibly hold off on appointment for the vacancy on this item in order to participate for a bit um if that is because council would like to state that i would like to add that for a future meeting okay thank you if uh if council decides to make a motion to postpone the appointment uh uh let's see if there is a motion to postpone vice mayor walken i'm happy to make a motion to postpone the statement okay vice mayor walken i'll second that and council member brown second uh like to call city clerk to call roll call vote council member calentary donton hi vice mayor walken and mayor brunner okay up next is the commission for the prevention of violence against women there is one opening council member calentary johnson's nomination on the commission for the prevention of violence against women with a term expiration of january 1st 2023 so may i please have nominations for the commission for the prevention of violence women starting with council member coming um back at this is our our error uh there it's um council member calentary johnson's nomination so we don't need to do the roll call vote sorry i apologize it's appointment thank you my turn i'd like to appoint rachel kippen through the um commission for the prevention of violence against women and we can either do a roll call vote or decide if we want to approve her nomination we have all thumbs up on that appointment so that appointment is approved and uh congratulations to rachel kippen thank you we will now move to the downtown mission i would like call on the clerk to make an announcement on this item thank you um this is the commission where um we do have two different terms expiration the person with person out of the two appoints with the less amount of the lesser amount of votes we'll get the shorter okay say that one more time there are two expiration on the firm so the person out of the two with the lesser amount of votes we'll get the shorter great thank you okay so one term will expire on january 21st 2023 and it looks like the other term will expire on january 31st 2000 please have nominations starting with council member brown i would nominate fennelly dollon vice mayor watkins there isn't a two opening sorry uh council member brown do you have a second uh i i do not okay at this moment vice mayor watkins i will add to the nominee uh the nominees thirland book and my second has already been okay uh i will insert myself and i nominate jannelly dollon and raffa sun himself council member colin tarry johnson kind of the name thank you council member golder i'm going to add bub raider and council member cummings might have all been um right and now ask us to start the roll call council member mayors i might have been might have been mayor please for roll call thank you there's a lot of writing here so the four um nominees that you have are caroline both heli jannelly dollon bub raider and raffa sun himself and you can vote that council member calentary johnson i'd like to vote for caroline book heli and jannelly dollon this is really hard i really um jannelly dollon and raffa sun afield jannelly dollon and bub raider jannelly dollon and bub raider caroline book heli vice mayor watkins name jannelly dollon and caroline book heli can i change mine or is it too late i believe uh i believe jannelly dollon and bub raider okay noted i've already no give yours okay uh so i nominally uh or i vote for jannelly and my second uh well did you say did you say raffa sun himself yes i think cut out okay so we have jannelly dollon who gets the full term of um expiring january 31st 26th and raffa sun sub raider um we'll get the january 21st 2020 can i just confirm uh there were three for caroline and three for bub oh yeah right we're gonna have to re-vote right thank you i accidentally put yours in our bus so we'll have to now re-vote for that shorter term between caroline and bub start over caroline and bub calendary jonston caroline book heli holder sub raider heli operator frown sub raider vice mayor watkins name caroline book heli mayor brunner caroline book heli okay i'll rephrase what i said earlier so um jannelly dollon has full term of january 31st 26th as the expiration date caroline book heli has the shorter term expiring january 21st 20th thank you we will now have the historic preservation commission there are two openings on the historic preservation commission both terms expired january 31st 2026 may please have nominations starting with council member meyers okay vice mayor watkins those are my nominees as well okay council member carolintari jonston uh and i nominate same council member golder same council member comings no new addition and council member brown no new addition okay to finalize that we will i will ask the city clerk we can do it by consensus okay we don't need to wait we're done with that thank you timeline process now we have parks recreation commission there are two openings on the parks and recreation both terms expire on january 31st 2026 and please have nominations starting with vice mayor watkins where i would like to nominate jane meo as my first nominee and i will also nominate you know okay i have the same nominations council member carolintari jonston same nominations council member golder i'd like to nominate bridley angel and jacob call it council member comings new addition council member brown no new addition council member meyers okay so now we will go to a vote for the two openings may the city clerk call a roll call vote you have four nominees that she's from bradley angel jane meo you know pollock jacob call it council member calentari jon jane meo and bradley angel jacob call it jane meo and jacob call it jane meo and jacob call it vice mayor watkins i'll go with the same jane meo and jacob call it mayor bradley jane meo and dino call it and jane meo and jacob call it congratulations okay thank you that concludes parks and recreation commissioners and outgoing alphabetically that brings us to planning commission i think this had the most out there are two openings from the planning commission both terms will expire on january 31st 2026 this time i will start by nominating charles pro grace and pete kennedy council member calentari johnson i would like to hold on one second sorry we have a lot of names to go through for us check mark who did you say there charles pro grace and kennedy i would like to add mark you didn't alert council member golder mine have been named council member cummings and sarah wickel and ron promaren council member brown uh my selections have been named council member mires and vice mayor watkins mine too have been named okay we have it looks like five nominations but in the city first follow roll call vote so your options are pete kennedy mark the city miller ron promaren charles pro grace and sarah wickel and council member calentari johnson pete kennedy and mark missy miller golder mine are the same me ron promaren since sarah i believe it's actually i looked in my note wickel i believe she pronounced her name when she was with us nice mayor watkins mine are the same mayor brooner kennedy and charles pro grace we have pete kennedy and mark beauty miller okay congratulations thank you and your planning commissioners we now move on to sister city's committee i would like to call the city clerk as an announcement regarding this item thank you same as um the board of building staff has requested to postpone filling the third it has three openings um they're hoping to postpone the third still on today okay can we have a motion it's our motion to postpone one of the vote the third vote uh vice mayor watkins i'm happy to make that motion to that third nomination and council member mires we have a first by watkins to postpone the third vote and second by mires uh roll call vote on that motion calentari johnson hi sir vice mayor watkins hi mayor brooner hi motion passes union in this okay so there are still two openings on the sister city's committee that we will appoint and vote the terms will expire on january 31st 2026 may i have nomination starting with uh council member calentari johnson i'd like to nominate andrey etan i'm pronouncing that incorrectly and thomas stelling council member golder mine has been named coming a new addition council member brown same council member mires vice mayor watkins same and uh my nominations are this so that so by consensus it'll be andrey kikov and thomas stelling great kikov and thomas stelling congratulations thank you and um that leaves us this is our last commission the water commission there are two openings on the water commission looks like both terms will expire january 31st 2026 may please have nominations starting with council member boulder um i'd like to nominate diana alvaro and darrett rolf council member coming by council member brown my nominations have been named council member mires vice mayor watkins i too have been named also mine have also been named and council member calentari johnson kind of a name okay the city clerk to roll call vote on the nomination nominees you have three nominees diana alvaro steams meccan and garrett rolf um calentari johnson diana alvaro and garrett rolf sir same as pre johnson coming jim meccas and diana alvaro diana alvaro and jim meccas morrow and garrett rolf vice mayor watkins same mayor bruner at diana alvaro and jim meccas and it's diana alvaro and garrett rolf hey congratulations that includes our two water commissioners and our advisory body appointment here if i could just really quick um you skip while i'm forgetting public comment and it it's unfortunately we should have done it before all of this i think we have some applicants in the pending but yeah and i didn't i don't see any hands up but i am sorry if i skip going out to public comment there is a hand raised is it too late um a hand just went up okay so i will go out to public comment and the first hand raise is vain neo a star six so unmute yourself i just wanted to thank you so so much for giving me another firm under park and vick commission thank you thank you feel great that's all that i wanted to say okay that looks like that concludes the public comment portion for agenda items on advisory body commissions and those were agenda items number the numbers i can state it 20 through 28 so that concludes those agenda items it looks like we can restass uh councilmember calentari johnson thank you mayor i'm not sure if this is appropriate time i just want to take a moment and thank all the applicants um and everyone who wants to serve our community this was really really hard there were really amazing all the applicants were amazing and you took time last week to show up and and speak um so thank you for wanting to serve and um i'm excited that we'll all be working thank you thank you for that comment thank you everybody thank you to all our new commissioners new staff and thank you council members we will return here at 6 p.m and we will dive right into oral communications and our um evening agenda which includes item number 29 public hearing on 130 center street appeal of the planning approval of a non-residential demolition authorization permit so i look forward to seeing you back here thank you we will begin in about one minute right is this city clerk ready all right then we will begin welcome everyone welcome to our 6 p.m session of the january 25 2022 meeting of the city council i have a few announcements and then we will move on to our meeting today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website cityofsanitruz.com if you wish to comment on an agenda item today call in at the beginning of the item you are waiting to comment on using the instructions on your screen please also mute your television or streaming device if you call in and listen through your phone please note there is a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device you could miss your opportunity to speak when it is time for public comment raise your hand either by dialing or pressing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand on the webinar controls your computer when it is your time to speak during public comment you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set to two minutes you may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest and i would like to ask the clerk please call the roll here come over to the commentary john president here thanks for watching here airburner president thank you now we will move into oral communications for members of the public streaming this meeting if you would like to comment on oral communications now is the time to call in oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda if you're interested in addressing the council for oral communications please raise your hand by dialing star nine or selecting raise hand on the webinar controls you will have two minutes to speak please remember this is a time for council to hear from the public we are not able to engage dialogue with each member of the public but when we are able we will address the questions raised after oral communications let me go to the attendees and see if there are hands raised for oral communications to speak on items not on this agenda okay i see one hand raised by the name of i am watching you please press star six to unmute your speakers okay my big everyone especially those so inclined to blindly follow orders our favorite extreme coercion or punishment of others refusing covid mandate to watch all five hours all five hours of yesterday's senator ron john star studded world-class health experts in the hearing on the government's malfeasance covid health care response on rumble dot com called covid-19 second opinion it remains to be seen if the cdc will ever admit to a single death from vaccination although data would suggest over 9 000 here 20 000 worldwide so various unnecessary vaccine health risks educational and emotional damage young people continues suppression of information continues the treatment withholding of the ill still goes on who will feel the inflation of reckless government post lockdown stimulus money printing forever and maybe the worst part is the shift away from informed science-based health care informed choice to a now blended leftist fascism giving support to corrupt regulators and is mostly all centered in the democratic party a dangerous shift in american politics is revealed revealed by a rascals and poll that the following democratic opinions are all too similar to early dots Germany claiming jews for all their problem well the democrats go highly endorsed this frail of fellow americans but that is not the point the survey shows 78 support vines now struck down a legal job or no job mandate 75 still approve of how to despite his flip-flops and lies 55 endorse the notion of fines on unjobbed americans 59 favor house arrest for the unjob 45 favor forced resettlement of the unjobbed a government operated facility 48 favor either finds or imprisonment for those who justifiably question the efficiency of the job on any media 29% want kids taken away from parents who are unjobbed lastly 45% of democrats they were big brother unjob tracking program while the birthplace of fascism germany and austria go to full course of mandatory vaccination similar to oppressor regimes like communist china and australia other nations like sweden and uk have essentially removed all mandates acknowledge zero covid is unattainable and covid itself has moved on thank you for your oral communication thank you for calling in are there any other colors in the public who would like to speak to any item not in this world communication okay seeing none other all right so we will now move on to the next item on the agenda which is also our final item of this evening item number 29 public hearing for 130 center street an appeal of the planning commission's approval of a non-residential demolition authorization for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen this item is an appeal which will be conducted as follows first staff will present their report and it looks like ryan bain is here okay uh the appellate jillian green site with tana cruise tomorrow will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of this appeal okay jillian is here okay the opponent jessie briscoe of swenson builders will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence and then we will have questions from the council and then i will bring it out to public comment the appellate will then have five minutes to rebut but no new information could be provided at this time and appellate may only rebut information only raised already raised sorry but then we will return to council for deliberation i'd like to hand it over to ryan bain please and ryan is the senior planner with our planning permit okay i'm just gonna bring up presentation here just give me one second should i do this correctly okay i guess one can you guys hear me and two can you see slide yes yes great thanks okay good evening uh yeah my name is ryan bain i'm senior planner of the community development department and uh what we're discussing tonight is an appeal of a planning commission approval for one project at 130 center street just give a little background so the planning commission heard this application at the october 21st hearing so i can see a little better so after much deliberation the commission unanimously approved the project and on november first of 2021 an appeal of the planning commission's approval was received from san agus tomorrow via appointed representative green side as you have mentioned the appeal expresses concerns regarding the environmental analysis and quest a secret review which would address possible soil contamination issues plus mentions a traffic study which they would like to have inclusive of weekend counts and we'll kind of get into some of that a little later on so following the middle of the appeal staff directed um our community development department's environment consultant to prepare a full secret categorical exemption review to detail how the project needs the secret guidelines that staff had concluded as a as an infill project so their the review really addresses many of the concerns expressed by the appeal and including traffic noise pollution air quality and soil contamination so just before we get to the appeal items i was just going to give you a little background um and description of the project so uh it's approximately a 1.19 acre site um it's located on the eastern side of center street you can see here um there's commercial and residential uses surrounding the project site it's bounded by an auto body shop to the north tell to the south uh multifamily residential to the east and commercial as well as deeper park across center street to the west um as you can see there really aren't any trees located on the site it's mostly just paved over in buildings so the project involves a proposal to construct a six-story mixed use project consisting of one level of underground parking a ground level commercial space and 233 single family um or i should say single room occupancy or sRO so the general plan designation for the site is rvc or regional visitor commercial and this general plan designation applies to areas that emphasize a variety of commercial uses that serve santa cruz residents as well as visitors mixed use developments such as this are strongly encouraged in the rvc district so specifically the general plan um rvc designation calls out the south of plural areas intended for mixed use residential development along with visitor serving and neighborhood commercial uses to connect the beach area the downtown area um the general plan also allows the floor ratio of 0.25 to 0.5 um and this particular project is 2.94 which falls with that ring um it's the zoning for the properties rtc um which is tourist residential beach commercial and that's basically purposes to establish standards for development and residential uses mixed with neighborhood commercial um motel and regional tourist commercial um see but pursuant to the rtc does basically state that commercial developments non-commercial uses on the ground floor subject should be subject to the rta district regulations so that's also applicable for single room occupancy so even though it's located in the rtc zoning based on the proposed project uses as part of that project we're applying the rta development standards so the rta standards basically the height the height limit is 36 feet however as you'll see density bonus that's being requested as part of this project so they'll be requesting a height waiver to allow to 75 to accommodate the density bonus units um see one incentive is that applicants can utilize a waiver or modification development standards if those standards would physically preclude the construction of the density bonus so height is obviously one of those that would limit that as well as setbacks so setbacks is also another waiver that's being requested so um the project has kind of kind of gone over project is consistent with general plan policies um the beach and south of the rural comprehensive plan policies and design guidelines as well as the rta development standards and there's also a section of our ordinance that uh that is specific to single room or sro development it meets all of those sro development standards as well so um the project permits that are involved with this um there are two commercial buildings on the site that are proposed for demolition so that requires a non-residential demolition authorization permit there's a design permit required for the new mixed use structure the project is in the coastal zone so it requires a coastal permit it's in the czo coastal zone overlay overlay zone and then both the single room occupancy or sro use um and the mixed use with commercial development um or i should say non-commercial development on the ground floor uh both require special use permits in that zoning and then as i mentioned the density bonus request so um it's kind of unconventional shaped lots generally flat 132 sorry 182 feet of frontage along center and the parcel is not located with any mapped sensitive habitat or resource areas so the proposed mixed use consists of six stories above one level of under parking um with a foot perfect a footprint that really covers the majority of the site area it's kind of a u-shaped building with access to the project site right if you drive away center street and the driver provides access to both grade level parking for all of us the underground parking here's a look at the north elevation here's a look along center street so there's a third foot sidewalk right away in addition to a 15 foot setback so combined there's the project or the structural actually be set back approximately 28 feet from the back of her so it kind of provides a wide expanse of sidewalk and a public closet feel um here's the underground parking and and there's also storage involved well um the first floor consists of uh commercial spaces two commercial spaces that can be used as retail or restaurant in addition to a lobby and leasing for residential use also located on the first floor areas that do not front on the public street is a bike cafe storage units as well as nine residential units that open on to a shared community open space so there will be residential uses primarily on levels two through six with the second floor that we have shown here including residential menus such as a game room fitness center a large podium level open space with seating and landscape so like three four and five are all residential units the six floor is residential units but also contains a community room and a larger outdoor recreation deck that faces center street so the proposed uh 233 s our units are broken down into basically three configurations there are 78 what they call micro units that average 295 square feet there are 65 standard units that are averaging about 328 square feet and an extended unit that's averaging about 400 square feet so between the three unit types the average unit size will be about 345 square feet which meets the requirements of the sro development standard so as i mentioned there's a parking garage with two levels so the parking requirements for sros one space for each dwelling unit and under the assumption that the commercial spaces are calculated at a higher restaurant parking requirement which is higher than what a standard retail would be a total of 20 parking spaces required for a total of 253 off-street spaces however our city's density bonus ordinance as well as the state density bonus allows for reductions in parking for rental housing developments with very low income units also when they're within a half mile of a major transit stop which this is and have unobstructed access to that for transit stop so based on that the parking requirement is 0.5 spaces per bedroom so with the 233 bedrooms posed the project meets these standards by providing there's 117 parking spaces required for the residential portion and then with the 20 required for the rest say assuming a restaurant higher parking requirement for restaurant 137 off-street spaces are required for project so with providing 209 spaces the overall project has a surplus of 72 spaces so um i know we've been getting quite a few density bonus projects lately so we're becoming more familiar with it so but just for those that are not so to address california's need for affordable housing state enacted density bonus law back in 1979 to encourage provision of affordable housing units by offering a combination of benefits to developers so if a project meets the requisite number of affordable housing units on the request of an applicant cities are required to allow more market rate units to be built and otherwise allowed by the applicable zoning designation um cities are required to provide incentives or concessions such as use development standards as well as waivers or modifications of development standards that would physically include the project constructed and also allow reduced parking requirements as we had talked about so cities really have very limited discretion when reviewing density bonus applications and are generally obligated to grant a density bonus and incentives for waivers in this case to the development standards so to determine whether a project qualifies for a density bonus percentage of affordable units is based on the maximum number of units that would be permitted under the city's zoning code so that's what we consider the base density so in areas where there is no agency range like for instance this one the zoning ordinance requires an applicant to submit base plans or plans showing a project that fully conforms to the objective standards being height setbacks providing open space all those type of things so the applicant has provided plans for a base project all of those rta development standards including height setbacks etc and the determined base density is 155 units so for market rate projects providing certain percentages of affordable units uh deeper levels of ability are entitled to an increase in density of 50 percent of the total number of units that are allowed under the zoning ordinance so with the additional units what these additional units do is they help offset increased costs associated with the increased number of affordable units so by law percentages of afforded units that qualify a project density bonus are based on the project only and not the base project plus this unit so pursuant to our SRO development um in a rental residential project for SROs our ordinance requires 20 percent of the single room occupants units being made available for rent to very low income households at an affordable rent so for the base density of 105 that's 31 uh the residential units will be required to be provided as affordable units very low level which is 50 percent m i um i just wanted to mention uh this was brought up we accidentally attached the wrong staff report a planning commission staff report attachment 13 to our council report it was a earlier draft i'm not sure quite how that happened but uh i sent out the actual planning commission staff report that went to the planning commission um and one of the the main components is on the early draft we had provided the wrong percentage uh and and level of affordability so i just wanted to to clarify that uh this particular case for SROs 20 percent of the SROs are to be provided at very low income level so i know the applicants aware of that the planning commission was aware of that so i just wanted to make that clear so as i mentioned the applicants requesting two waivers um one is the one is to height so 36 feet is what's required they're proposing a six-story building in which approximately 75 feet and also a reduction of seven those are the two waivers requested so um the appeal letter there's kind of four issues that are that are brought up deal one is um general plan policies that they feel are not being met the traffic study and their thoughts that it should include weekend counts which it does not and then uh a noise and air quality will impact poison air for the project and also soil contamination site that may exist at the site so um for general plan policy that they these are some of the plan pieces straight out of the appeal letter so for general plan policy le4.1.2 that involves see as a recommendation to amend the zoning ordinance to ensure that infill and intensive development sensitive to existing neighborhood and business district so uh this policy really is direction to the city to amend the zoning ordinance therefore not really applicable to this specific project um project meets all currently adopted zoning ordinance requirements and is sensitive to the existing neighborhood business district math project with respect to the privacy of the budding residents by warranting most balconies and outfaces all towards semi street and the neighboring commercial uses um additionally recently enacted housing bills such as sb 30 requires cities and counties to apply the ordinance's policies in effect in effect when the subject application is so it meets all of the requirements that are in place currently uh in response to the policy set policy set four in the general plan mobility chapter specifically m3 and m3.1 the project is located in a fill environment um near transit job um goods and services and recreation all nearby um with a complete sidewalk bike lane network that all in place so it's really easy um for it will be really easy for residents to basically access their daily residential needs um in that surrounding area um for m3.3.2 uh the city has improved access along the visitor travel uh corridors through the naming of streets coordinating signal timing on laurel street multimodal improvements on front and specific including the roundabouts that have been installed uh and a shared parking um also addressing policy 3.3 closest residential neighborhood is really the cedar spruce sycamore street on the other side of the project site and none of these those streets really provide more direct access to or from the area it's really unlikely that any traffic added to those streets as a result of congestion on center street um and that reminds me actually that that was another thing that was brought up i think there was a typo in our staff report that referenced uh congestion on cedar street actually supposed to be center street just wanted to clarify that as well um so analyzing the surrounding street layout um there was a situation where there was congestion on center street um really slow through traffic and trucks would logically use specific avenue or front street as opposed to cutting so in terms of the traffic study um the appellants expressed that in their opinion of the traffic study should increase weekend trips and particularly with the weekend traffic that occurred during the summer season in that vicinity so the city assesses transportation impacts really for two reasons one is fee-based program to apply traffic impact fees or fifth two uh for consistency with sequa analyzing vehicle miles traveled um so for the fee-based program purpose really is for the developer to pay their proportional share of the cost associated tax of the project and it's really unrelated to assessing environmental impact so the fees are collected to address locations identified in the fifth program the city uses those to make improvements to those various intersections or traffic or transportation related projects so the city uses the adopted transportation study requirements uh for development for how we conduct traffic studies so these guidelines didn't generally state that a typical study hours capacity analysis of study intersections study arterials are weekday and peak hours hours so in other cases it may include weekend peak hour and project peak hour at the request of the city engineer or transport manager but the fee-based programs are really based on PM peak hour trip during the week so a situation where the city might elect to include weekends would be plus scenarios is when peak usage of a new development is higher on weekends weekday so maybe such as amusement park or frequent in on a weekend or a facility that hosts weekend events like a soccer park or something where there's soccer tournaments or games like that on a weekend so that's generally when our public works department would include weekend trips the scope of work for the scope of work for our traffic study um so according to it each trip generation manual that we require to be used for this analysis a weekday PM peak average rates are approximately double that and our rates for SRO development so the city did not elect to have weekend counts done because analysis not have led to any changes in the case programs assessed or the impacts that would be measured as a result of the project so the project will pay their fair share uh towards TIF downtown improvements and in regards to CEQA the city adopted VMT transportation threshold importance I should say that the city adopted a VMT transportation threshold in accordance with CEQA and state requirements the estimated project VMT is 4.2 per capita which would not exceed the city's threshold of 8.7 so because the project also is located with a half mile of a major transit stop and the project's capita VMT also is below the city's threshold project would result in a less than significant impact so due to the established formal effort determining the city's threshold weekend traffic counts would not have any impact on this result um and I should mention if I'm definitely not a traffic person um but um Ethan Wynne our public works department is available if you have any specific questions regarding uh the traffic um the other issue that was brought up Bill was noise and air quality so um as I mentioned a CEQA categorical exemption review was prepared by Dudek our city's environmental consultant and the review concludes that the project would result minor traffic increase that would not be of magnitude to affect gate noise levels um additionally um a Cali mod um test for that he was used to estimate criteria air pollutant missions generated during construction and operation of the proposed project and that model that Cali mod model results demonstrated that the missions of criteria air pollutants associated with construction and operation of those project would not exceed the applicable Monterey Bay Air Resources District threshold so therefore project emissions would result in a less than significant impact um another issue that was brought up was potential soil contamination you know the site back in the 60s and 70s was a auto body shop or I should say it was a hard dealership and it's been an auto body shop quite a few years so um as part of the CEQA review Dudek looked through um reviewed so that the project site is not included on a list of hazardous waste sites that were compiled contort the PORTISI list online data resources were reviewed during the preparation of the document so there's a there's a list of hazardous waste and substance sites department of toxic substance control database there's a list of leaking underground storage tank sites from the state water resources control board geotracker that was reviewed a list of sites identified with waste situant above hazardous waste levels that was reviewed as well as a list of active cease and desist orders and cleanup of pavement orders from SWRCB the project site is not located on any of those lists of hazardous burial sites also a phase one environmental site assessment was also performed for the project site to determine the presence or likely presence of any hazardous substances on the project site assessment revealed no evidence or likely presence of any hazardous substances or petroleum product uh let's see so peanut butter farm as I mentioned farmer consultant prepared that review details how the project CEQA guidelines section 15332 um catechord exemption projects um so CEQA provides catechord exemptions that are applicable to various categories of projects and the class 32 catechord exemption is in fill it has to meet certain criteria and these are the criteria have listed here so project site is consistent with the applicable general plan designation all applicable general plan policies as well as with applicable zoning designation right so we determine these determine that it meets all um the proposed development occurs with the city limits a project site of no more than five acres potentially surrounded by urban uses that that qualifies that criteria the project site has no value habitat for endangered rare or threatened species and determine that approval of the project would not result in basic effects relating to traffic place air quality or water quality it's kind of gone up we've gone all over all of that just those that rep criteria and also in the last is site can be adequately served by all required and public services um so based on meeting all those criteria those project meets all the foregoing criteria to claim an infill that I go over will exempt so kind of in conclusion here the development will implement the city's vision for the south the laurel area as expressed by the general plan and the beach and south of laurel comprehensive plan by providing much needed the affordable market rate residential units and providing action between the downtown and the beach area um project has been thoughtfully designed back to both permanent residents and tourists with emphasis placed on compatibility of design landscape site planning alliance with beaches out the laurel design guidelines uh additionally with a request for density bonus of project maximize density while providing 20 of the units at very low level will be a significant addition to the city's affordable housing stock um as conditioned the proposed project meets the requirements of funding ordinance provides a development that is compatible with the surrounding area so therefore staff recommends that the city council denies the appeal holding planning commission's acknowledgement environmental nation and approval of the non-residential demolition authorization permit density bonus requests special use permit postal permit and design permit based on the findings listed in the draft resolution and the attached conditions I am available for any questions thank you so much for that presentation rin I believe at this time we uh move over to the appellant jillian green site um or we go to questions is that correct you can handle it you want to wait until after all of all of the presentations okay so uh so uh at this time the appellant jillian green site with Santa Cruz tomorrow will have 15 minutes and present evidence in support of the appeal and let's see if you are ready jillian great welcome thank you thank you are just getting used to the system so should I uh go ahead and start yes you may thank you thank you very much um ma'am Bruna and city council members good evening my name is jillian green site and i'm representing the community group Santa Cruz tomorrow which filed the appeal you are considering this evening we did not file an appeal to stop this project we are strong supporters of affordable housing we also support proper environmental review as you know the new state housing laws have led little discretion for local control over projects our zoning laws are now largely meaningless given that it is imperative that the city use whatever power it has left to assess the impacts of new projects and mitigate any impacts of significance via secret environment the end result will be a better project for the community for the environment and for any new residents in the project city staff is claiming a secret exemption for this project staff also claims consistency with the city's local coastal program neither claim is valid as can demonstrate under resolution three staff lists and states that the project is consistent with the beach south of laurel area plan lcp policies and it lists five of them and you've already seen those um protect and enhance the charming small scale residential neighborhoods et cetera et cetera this is cherry picking there is a notable omission in the local coastal program beach south of laurel list this is included under housing and it reads 4.2 in this area under our local coastal program promote more family oriented develop 50 percent of all new units are to be two or more bedrooms as you know every unit in this 130 cent as big project is a single room option unit ranging from 295 square feet 400 square feet this is a significant omission and violation of lcp policy 4.2 this area to make it more real a long time local family i am close to a low income spanish speaking family of five have no chance with these sr road and it is for such families the policy 4.2 was written and included in our local coastal program connected to this local coastal policy and since this project requires a coastal permit consider the following if the housing development or the commercial development is in the coastal zone can you request density bonus incentive session waiver modification modified parking standard or commercial development bonus is consistent with all applicable requirements of the certified sanded bruise lcp with the exception of density so the lcp policy requiring 50 percent of housing in this area be two or more bedrooms and four families may be of concern to the coastal commission yet it rates no mention in any staff before under secret exemption as you know staff has determined that this project to seek for exempt meaning they believe it does not need an environment consistent with their reasons are contained in their report and i won't read them all and most of them do apply except one and it's the critical one there they claim that there is no significant effects related to traffic noise or air quality note that all the basis for exemption need to apply not just some at the planning commission meeting on this project the majority vote was at first deny this project because some commissioners judge that it may not qualify for a secret exemption after majority of commissioners voted to deny the project the next motion was to continue it to obtain more information on the secret as well as on the fact when the developer offered four additional affordable units the commission traded that for their concern their decision to drop their concern does not make such concerns disappear let's examine more closely the city's claim of no significant effects relating to traffic air quality one of the basis for the exemption as expressed by consultant dudek dudek's support of the secret exemption is based on the traffic study at home in staff's reasoning for not studying the ends is hard to path they had the discretion to do so but didn't in their reasoning staff states of the project didn't force the current heavy summer weekend traffic so it didn't need to be studying as the late council member Scott Kennedy would say at council meetings it doesn't pass the straight face test under sequel one studies the impact of a project on existing commissioners and if it is found to have a significant environmental impact then mitigations are required to be included and implemented on summer weekends on center street and front street which are the arterial roads leading to the beach the boardwalk and the west side traffic pulls along at best and is often gridlocked at the roundabout with this project adding an estimated 1112 daily trips and with the roundabout half a block itself to not assess the impact on the roundabout and arterial roads on weekends is unfathomable and violates a number of sections of the general plan to add further weight to our claim of the need to study weekend summer traffic the staff report the planning commission states that this project is entitled to create up to 58 ADUs in addition to the 233 units by converting law non-livable space this can happen anytime in his outer public area additional traffic from these potential 58 ADUs has not been acknowledged nor studied another point we made in our appeal is that given current summer weekend gridlock and with the added impact projects traffic locals returning home to the lower west side will likely increasingly divert to other neighbourhood streets which are Laurel California and Bay increasing vehicle miles travel this needs to be studied staff report only studied the mp of residents of the project staff who dismissed our point for some reason labeling streets off of the Pacific as the only potential cut-through ones demonstrating unfamiliar the area they also claimed that traffic currently diverts so there's nothing to study who are supposed to study the project worsens the situation another noted omission is the impact on the adjacent adjacent center street residences which is the closest neighbourhood not even recognized in the staff nor is the impact on businesses such as stagnara's wholesale fish on washington street address such oversight needs secret review under air quality on summer weekend with center and front street traffic bumper to bumper with cars engines idling and with youth playing soccer just feet away from the traffic at the soccer courts it is incumbent on the city to study whether the additional at minimum 1,140 additional daily car trips from this project will have an impact and if it is found to be significant that mitigations be required this surely is a health in all policies issue of concern worthy of study other points the volma court decision doesn't apply here since we have not appealed to density bonus or waivers associated with the project which is the gist of volma two of the general plan policies which we claim are being violated include what prime has mentioned m3.1 which says to acknowledge and manage on jest the only city's responses about this is an infill and their plans that doesn't acknowledge and manage and jest under m3.2 there's a requirement to improve access along the visit beach area travel corridors through coordinated signs feet naming protected turn lanes city's done some of that but also remote parking shuttle shuttle programs and other that wasn't meant in defense of the secret exemption do deglaze out when you cannot an exemption namely if there are cumulative impacts over time and if there are unusual circumstances associated with associated with the project if either of those apply you can't have an exemption do deg claims neither apply cumulative impacts don't apply he says because there are no other projects in the area or planned area despite the city's current project we extend downtown zoning into this area there's no time limit on on this cumulative impact over time unusual circumstances doesn't apply he says other nearby projects are similar to this one either there are other projects in the area or there aren't can't have it both way which he is trying to do to cover both of these criteria we suggest that a project of this scale that cannot legally scale down with this amount of project generated traffic added to existing traffic that rolls along or is gridlocked on summer weekends with a soccer field full of young people playing within feet of such traffic is indeed an unusual circumstance negating an exemption requiring a sequel review that is all we are requesting via this appeal if significant impacts are found there are numerous mitigations available that will address and induce reduce the impacts to less than significant a major plus for the community and for this project thank you and i'll return out the public comment for five minutes goodbye thank you so much jillian green site okay we will now open it for the opponent jesse bristow of swanson builders who will have 15 minutes speak and present evidence good evening uh mayor maruna okay thank you good evening council my name is jesse bristow with swanson builders i also have uh david needs our architects on online as well for any technical questions later in the meeting but uh as it stands now the uh further analysis that staff has conducted and see consultants do that we have a 100 percent confidence in their expertise and their profession and will revert to staff thank you does that conclude your 15 minutes yes it does okay um at this time i will bring it to questions from council any council members have questions i was gonna hold my questions until after the comments the rest of public comment but i do have a couple of questions but i'll just hold them that's okay okay any other council members have questions let me clarify okay so at this time then i will take it out for public comment i'm going to the attendees in addition uh to call in uh public comment here i also just wanted to acknowledge um that we received 130 emails of public comment sent to city council at city of sanokers dot com regarding this item you're interested in commenting raise your hand i see some hands raised and when it is your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the timer will then be set to two minutes so the first caller i have with their hand raised is pablo the last pablo welcome a star sick unmute for us raise your hand um i'm not pablo but i was invited is what it just said on my screen fair brunner it looks like the your order may be different um so i'm looking at the list and and michael is and you also muted okay so michael wool is now gone on my screen and i see right yes okay is there a way to bring michael wool back hi can you guys hear me yes thank you michael sorry about that i don't know what happened no worries um okay well i'm michael wool um i'm a third year at ucsc and i'm also a life long county resident like i grew up in the mountains so i'm familiar with you know Santa Cruz like i kind of have perspectives in that sense and i'm just coming out in support of 130 center street and of you guys denying the appeal for the project um the housing crisis is disproportionately affecting renters and most since are in fact renters and we need to be building housing that's tailored for and especially toward if we want students stay in Santa Cruz post graduation which should be a goal of council and we should be building entry-level housing that they're able to afford not every student necessarily wants to live in a house with four bedrooms you know sometimes people want to be able to have the option to live in one bedroom or studio unit because that's what we're for that and we really should be funding or we should be um making sure that these sort of projects are prioritized you know this situation um i also just wanted to point out like you know just remember students are in fact paying or tax paying residents of Santa Cruz county and deserve the right to be able to afford thank you thank you michael our next caller is ray Diaz good evening everyone can you hear me perfect yes we can thank you go ahead and start so good evening honorable mayor and city council my name is ray Diaz i'm a first-year student at UC Santa Cruz and the chief of staff for the student union vice president of internal affairs a representative of college 10 any proud member of the student housing coalition uh so at 5 20 this evening you are all emailed a copy of a resolution passed by the undergraduate student government endorsing the 130 center street project alongside this broad coalition of various student organizations i am requesting you to deny the appeal of the 130 center street according to the 2021 uc accountability report it found that nine percent of undergraduate students at UC Santa Cruz have reported experiencing some form of homelessness which has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and in return return to in-person instruction so today i am asking you all to reaffirm your commitment to solving the housing crisis in Santa Cruz and build additional units that go beyond the required number set by Santa Cruz's current regional housing needs allocation thank you so much for your time in consideration and i'll go ahead and pass on some next thank you so much ray our next speaker is representing student housing coalition and has been approved for extra time of three and a half minutes then hi there hi thank you appreciate it um council thank you uh and on behalf of student housing coalition ucs community assembly college democrats at uc sc ydsa bug shelter we request that you deny the appeal of 130 students are facing a disproportionate housing crisis here nine percent of uc sc students are homeless a higher percentage than any other uc campus while the average one bedroom apartment costs two thousand five hundred and seventy five dollars of the cheap and abundant housing opportunity many former slug now current Santa Cruz residents were afforded are no longer available to us our coalition views 130 ministry stepped in the right direction when it comes to restoring and expanding the access to opportunity to live and gain an edge in this project the abundance of small living spaces will give students seniors looking to downside young professionals and those who can no longer afford large smaller more affordable home sizes need to stay in the city also not only do we need to provide new homes current residents moving but new places for new neighbors when we don't accommodate growth new building new residents often have more resources than current residents outbid current residents the limited number of existing housing office this is gentrification and displacement when it comes to the climate building dense housing near transit and destinations the most effective way for a mission the lack of affordable housing options in the city means thousands of students and essential workers in an everyday process making transportation emissions 60 percent of our county's carbon footprint additionally building dense housing reduces the infrastructure required to provide such as fewer miles of utilities and roads garbage collection routes stepping back look at the bigger picture this project is so much more in 233 news it represents the shifting political ties on housing for the vision of a more inclusive sustainable equitable the student housing coalition was just an idea for yet in this short time we created an organization run-in membership partnered with many established East Santa Cruz organizations and now mobilize the coalition to over 125 students faculty staff and community members send over a thousand letters in support of this project we're expanding we want to show that's an enormous effort especially among the over 20,000 student staff back UCS the student housing crisis catastrophe of unprecedented effecting equity affordability the environment almost the economy therefore we support a shared responsibility approach in the university as a crisis only happens when everything goes so we need to tackle this crisis all angles that comes from ensuring both the and university plays a part we look forward to pursuing reforms in the next months quite an affordable center if you're listening check out our website to help power this change and please counsel we urge you to support 130 center street by not denying the field this project thank you thank you then in our next caller is fierce brownstone your seat press star six unmute yourself you hear me yes hello i am a Santa Cruz local i've lived in the lower west side of Santa Cruz my entire life and i support this project i recently moved to san diego for college and as someone who would love to move back home to Santa Cruz one day i need projects like 130 center street i'm ever going to support it if you want to keep Santa Cruz a family oriented community you should also support projects like local youth like myself are being forced out of the community we used to call i'm quiet i make 80 percent of my trips by bike when my built environment allows your neighbors should never be considered a nuisance or anything thank you thank you Pierce our next caller has a phone number ending in 5542 hello hi there good evening good evening i'm Ron pomerance good evening mayor and council members i request uh that you approve tonight's appeal the written planning staff's report provides only half the story about planning commission's project approval planning commission has very very strong reasons to hold approval project during their discussion an emotion was on the table to withhold approval of this project the developers represented a step in to propose adding four more affordable units if the development proved without any objection this last-minute bribe was affected once again the commissioners then withdrew their motion and swallowed their compelling objection please ask the planning commissioners for their thinking into liberations staff says added traffic will not be caused by the project it's hard to believe that over 1100 daily trips how can they not have a significant impact the city knowingly allow consequently more traffic due to this development as well as push more traffic and yes into surrounding residential neighborhood quick study that includes summer and weekend traffic a big step for sure improving a potentially gridlock situation for residents versus alike additionally an eir is essential traffic impacts are one aspect shadowy and solar access another noise parking and auto exhaust or others an eir would explore and analyze the proposed development plan has a long history as an auto repair and paint site do we know what solvents and lubricants are in the ground what course sampling drilling was done comparable situation happened during the construction of the police check that history out an eir would also assist in predicting infill development need i would sequel for the general thank you ron thanks for calling in our next speaker is rafa sonan fell go ahead and press our but meet yourself yes good evening council members my name's rafa sonan fell uh i represent uh i'm a coley of a center for zmb and i'm also calling in tonight uh on behalf of the mb law sent in um letters in support of the project of 130 center street and uh request that you deny the sequel appeal um as uh we've written in a couple emails now um the city doesn't have any little basis for denying or for granting the appeal um there is uh as your staff has noted correctly uh the project meets all of the legal requirements uh uh proceed with uh approved project though as it was already approved by the planning commission um some of the uh concerns that the planning commission had frankly um were about trying to get more affordability out of out of the project um and hoping to apply the density bonus uh or excuse me the the affordability levels to all of the units including the density bonus units um as we've discussed in other settings this isn't a legal option that the city has so the city is required to approve the project as it's been um submitted um so uh i think there are plenty of good reasons why the project should be approved anyway i just wanted to point out that the city doesn't really have a choice unless it can find that there are health or safety standards that are objective that this project doesn't meet and can't mitigate so with that uh recommend that you all deny this appeal and uh we'll see some more housing against Santa Cruz thank you thank you Rafa her next caller is Bodie Sargal unmute yourself hello my name is Bodie Sargal i'm a first-year student at UC Santa Cruz as well as uh Santa Cruz native i've um born and raised in Felton uh i'm with the student housing coalition as well as the YDSA um and i just wanted to add another voice in favor of project and uh against the appeal um people can bring up concerns about youth playing soccer or whatever but i live a couple blocks away from where this development be uh and i absolutely no problem having more affordable housing near me uh and in fact i would much prefer to live in a world where there are a 33 additional unit of housing oriented towards students and low-income people to make Santa Cruz a better place for everyone to live um so with that i want to thank you for your time and pass it on to the next commenter thank you buddy our next caller is Demetris Rodriguez Demetris you may now thank you very much hi everyone i'm mayor and respected city council members my name is Demetris Rodriguez a fourth-year student and prospective master's student at UCSC and housing advocate as an officer for a project called slug shelter at UCSC our team focused on building a housing solution for homelessness housing insecure students 130 center street project in hopes to change the local opinions on housing encourage future projects like this i'm also excited about more projects like this that encourage diverse populations and opportunity that's my comment thank you Demetris our next caller is scd bc hi uh can you hear me okay yeah thanks this is emily i'm the executive director of the Santa Cruz county business council good to see you all um i'm respectfully requesting your aye vote for this project um unfortunately it's seldom that we have so many public commenters that stand to directly benefit from proposed housing development in the city of Santa Cruz and the dedication of the UCSC students on tonight's call is is really tested into our critical need for a single room occupancy unit in addition to a wide variety of housing types um in the city many of these students also tuned into the planning commission's hearing of this project and can attest to thoroughness thoughtless and favorability uh on behalf of the planning commissioners they urge you to listen to your constituents and trust in your planning staff by denying the appeal of 130 center street which technically has no basis nor purpose other than delay or derail the project thanks for your leadership thank you our next caller is Joseph Thompson hello my name is mr. Thompson i'm affiliated with young democratic socialist of america student housing coalition and i'm also the lead organizer for the unizing effort at carbox ocean water you know in santa cruz the average price of one bedroom apartment is two thousand five seventy five dollars you know considering 130 or 130 center street ride 233 student oriented home with 33 reserved affordable for very low income doing myself and medium income families i know this project will help address the severe housing crisis in this city even working full time at my star book and going to school full time i still would not be able to afford to place in santa cruz you need to approve this project vote for our future in both the future of students thank you thank you joseph our next public comment is caller is robert corning hello here yes welcome all right so my name is robert corning previously stated i am a third year ucsc student um i live off campus i actually live in apcos i can i was not able to find a place i could afford that was available with proper this year so like while i'm not homeless i'm obviously grateful for not being homeless it would be nice to live in the city where i go to school and not have been an additional 40 minutes on the bus um i actually i love santa cruz like it's probably my favorite this is probably my favorite part of california have ever like spent any extended period of time in and i would like to stay here after i graduate unfortunately if we don't get more projects like 130 center street approved i don't know if i'd ever be able to afford to come back so like and this is also could impact the city from the long run because the cities need to grow they need to add more people and because more people means more businesses which means more jobs more means more economic growth and to do that a prerequisite for prosperity housing and if santa cruz wants to be a prosperous city and lead the monterey bay region economic growth we will need more housing i would also like to point out that it's not just students that are impacted by this crisis this is long term residents of the city are impacted by this and while i am not from santa cruz i am from the bay area the bay area has the same problem so i am well aware of the problems here because it's largely the same there's not enough housing for the demand we need more housing and thank you and i hope you deny the appeal project at 30 center street thank you thank you for calling in robert next caller has a phone number ending in 5842 hi there yes we can um i i currently operate for over 30 years i'm in the issue at hand very well during the summer it is gridlock front street civic avenue nursery washing all leading quarrel finds up around the town about hypen's turn is then it can be being it it needs to be addressed or thank you chris for calling in our next caller is hunter easeman easaman hi um are you guys able to hear me yes we okay yeah um before i start i just like the oh it's nice here i think we all love who's the there's more sense for this and regarding the traffic um i feel like all of these comments not such a i've never seen a project and a lot of people that i've talked to are who are who have lived there who have lived here and among people who've seen a lot of kind of interesting projects and so seeing all of i feel like there's just so wouldn't make so i really would like and then also that didn't really like interesting at all um thank you hunter our next caller is hablo vlasquez welcome back hi thanks good evening our good afternoon city council my name is paul vlasquez i am a fourth year ucsc college student and the current president of the ucsc college democrat i would just like to do one section of the appeal for 130 center street i would like to say that without housing we are even furthering this issue of homelessness within santa cruz i think these appeals for sequa aren't found in real um basis and they are just excuses to push longer time for the project to be approved longer that we wait longer or longer that people are homeless and i feel like it's important to reject this appeal today and to start this project thank you good night thank you hablo our next caller ashley gower oh good evening mayor and mayor and council this is ashley on behalf of the honorary bay economic partnership i hope you're well in addition to our comment letter we just wanted to call in to reiterate our support for mixed income mixed use place-based in-chall development such as these which would really optimize land use and mobility options in downtown santa cruz while meeting both city's housing climate action goals um the successful utilization of the housing affordability act and density bonus serve over 200 individuals such as students as you've heard teachers seniors and service industry workers who would not otherwise have access to sustainably built housing that's a walkable transit rich area near jobs and services which should essentially mitigate traffic congestion this proposal is perfect for this particular site and will enhance the overall experience of this major quarter in downtown santa cruz and so based on staff's findings of the environmental determination we do support staff's recommendation to deny the appeal and to uphold the planning commission's approval of the respect for permits density bonus and parking requirement reduction requests and we encourage you to advance this project thank you ashley next public comment caller is jose bonus can you guys hear me yes good evening mayor and council council members i am just voicing out my support in 130 uh center street uh as someone who has experienced homelessness throughout my time at university of santa cruz california i believe that this project would really help students who are struggling to find housing um the reason why i wasn't able to find housing at first was because of a lack of housing as well as a lack of affordability um what this project would do was to help um set in the right direction for solving these thank you thank you jose andrew barber hi my name is andrew barber i'm a seventh year grads ucsc in the economics department i'd like to offer an additional perspective on this i'm i'm fully in support of this project i think one thing that tana cruz resident resident should consider as that this development is uh i comprised of s ro's that this will attract a lot of students which will reduce the competition for the existing housing um and should make it easier for the current santa cruz residents to be able to find more affordable housing ultimately uh just need more housing in this area uh this will achieve that goal um and for that reason i support this project thank you andrew our next is ryan meckel uh just wanted to call in to voice my support for 130 centers and to urge you to decline the appeal um it's a great project and a great location and as we all know santa cruz needs more housing this gets us closer to achieving our goal first of all to uh decline the appeal and support for the center thank you ryan see are there any other uh public comment callers please this evening two more okay um caller ending in four nine six five hi there welcome hi welcome yeah thank you oh my name is canis brown um i think the issue here is simply whether there is the right of anyone in the city to have an appeal for sick exemption because of traffic especially for a main significant development court or such as south of laurel especially in this location which is primary access to the boardwalk and to the war since the beach area of the tourist and as i mentioned for recreation if you want to consider that that is what this appeal is about and therefore i would say it would be worth considering this appeal as far as student housing if you want to make this student housing then add an amendment to say that clinton cannot have anything more than nine month leases which they've done with 555 pacific preventing students from um having leasing for students during the pandemic and i might add that 400 square feet at that unit is about 2600 dollars so if you think that this is going to be affordable for students then show those numbers having a kitchen and bathroom for each of these units is probably the most expensive housing you can create and therefore the least affordable if you want student housing they consider vendors that actually make housing and there are many there are many projects down this town is fiscal up in chicot there's great hall i would just that you look at that is off campus student housing this is not housing i find it very strange and unusual that there's such lobbying for student housing when this is the most affordable unaffordable housing for square foot that you can create please consider the appeal take seriously the traffic issues downtown especially as you develop south floral this is a great concern and i appreciate you considering that thank you thank you kandace our next caller lira filipini hi there hi thank you sonja bruner mayor bruner you're doing an excellent job by the way um and thank all of you for being here with us um so late to the evening and i see a little kitty saying hello in councilmember golders green hello kitty um i just wanted to say that it's really encouraging to see so much student activism on this project when i was a ucsc student i didn't see that much um political awareness and motivation i think that's really encouraging and they are definitely noticing as i do myself right now um someone who's living with my parents because of the expense of housing here that we really do need affordable housing i think the big question is are we going to be responsible and how we go about approving and building that housing uh the the confusion that i'm seeing around this particular appeal is that most of the people calling in um asking to deny to deny the appeal um don't understand that the appeal is not about the project itself it's about the environmental determination of sequa exemption it's really just that simple and you know no one is saying don't build this project um it's just a question as to whether we're going to actually take seriously the environmental concerns that have been laid out through a very long process of developing the sequa process itself so are we going to actually look at those details are we going to acknowledge the fact that the most important time to look at traffic in Santa Cruz or an area that is close to the beach south laurel is actually on the weekend in summer are we going to acknowledge that and say yes let's look at that and um then determine whether it's sequa exempt or not and maybe do some mitigation thank you very much for your time thank you liara for calling in our next caller is Kyle Pauley thank you mayor and council members uh i'm i'm just calling in support of the project and the appeal um i live really close to the project really walk the neighborhood to be down here i'm usually on bike or you know with a stroller walking with my kids um and the reality is we don't drive much because we live from a very walkable so i can tell you these anecdotes itself i think what's really important is that the scientists player we've done the research you know that infill development like this actually lowers the mt the the incidence of cars going through the neighborhood going through these areas those those are those are people coming from elsewhere it's not because a project and this project opens up the students that live here you know even families that live here because many of us you know we have to make it work for what's available they'll be able to walk the downtown they'll be able to walk the beach to be able to get on the bus to go to ucs this is a perfect opportunity um and denying this on environmental grounds would actually fly in the face of actually doing environmentalism i think people need to wake up to the reality of modern-day environmentalism which is actually protecting the environment by finding out how we can lower greenhouse gas emissions and lowering vmt and that starts with multi-family housing um putting it down here in transportation corridors is great um because most of our high vmt is actually the single-family home it's not it's not the multi-family um so i i'm really delighted to welcome all the new neighbors that are going to come to one pretty center so thank you again for your time thank you kyle looks like that will include our public comment period thank you everyone for calling in sharing your comments um at this time the appellant will have five minutes to rebut um and no new information should be provided at this time the appellant may only rebut information already raised and then we will return to council for deliberation and action oh but julian in sight wonderful welcome back you have five minutes to rebut thank you very much ma'am um but most of the callers who are called in against the appeal um i do think had the mistaken um idea that uh this is against the project it feels against the project and uh that is not the case and i thought i spelled that out clearly it is um against the lack against the lack of proper environmental review and i'm sorry that more of the students did not support that position it is not an attempt to slow this down by any means it's an attempt to protect all of our residents including those who might live in this um these units uh i think the notion that they're multifamily is a little bit of a strength there's single room occupancy and the point that has been made that uh apart from the 31 that took a low market rate uh the others are marked and they are expensive and there is vacancy in current market rate small size units uh so it's not as though uh there's a complete dearth of available units at market rate uh so the need that this is filling is not only very modest but one is is extra however i'll draw back through the point that the south of laurel uh local postal program requires that 50 percent of new units be two and more bedrooms or families and we have low income workers families workers who are being displaced as we speak because of the provision of market rate housing drives up the area need income which drives up the rents and i know personally of part of through spanish speaking families who are leaving the area after 20 years because of this tendency the environmental review that we feel is lack i thought the owner of 130 center street put it very clearly uh if you know this area this is not whether the new tenants will walk around or not be wonderful the estimate that was done is that this will be over 1100 extra daily traffic not even counting 58 ad us that may appear and what is the impact that on that of access for emergency vehicles and the added air quality issues for youth playing soccer those should be studied and i'm very disappointed that more students did not see the merits of that um there was a comment that you cannot deny the project you're required to approve it uh well that's not an issue here what's that issue is whether you will ask for there to be sent back to a an environmental review specifically of the issues we have outlined that is not denying the project by any stretch actually will probably make it a much more robust sound project that meets many of the criteria we hold here in our community and the mitigations are available but they only would put in a place under seek work review and i can't bring up new information but the mitigations would be a drastic reduction in the um the the tourist traffic that present diverted around the roundabouts in the uh a mistaken belief that would go downtown shock it hasn't worked it's not necessary and if we studied the traffic impact from this project that could be a mitigation for what i believe would be significant issues we are missing that opportunity and with most projects of this size it would be just pro forma to require a proper seek for review and the i'll finish just by saying that i don't feel that the reason staff are given for not doing one looking at the traffic impact the or uh we'd only study it on weekends if there was a no need then for something called a boardwalk event i don't think that stands must but thank you for your time and attention i hope we'll vote to uphold our thank you jillian okay that um is the five minute read but and now we will return to council for deliberation and action okay this here is council member Cummings and then council member callan sorry John thank you mayor and i just want to thank um staff welfare community for all um you know being here tonight and making their comments on this project this before us i have some sentiments and that you know a degree and disagree with some of what's been said but i think um you know terms of questions um you know in particular i do want to see if staff maybe comment on um you know what the city can do to address some of the concerns related to traffic safety i know that in our general report um first two pages or the second and third page um um there's no points made about um improvements along the the visitor beach area and shovel corridors um there's also um some points made about signs and street naming and curious if staff might be coming on you know could this project move forward what kind of um traffic improvements will be made this area if any i'm gonna invite Nathan up here he is good evening uh council members this is Nathan Lennon the assistant director of public works slash city engineer and um with regards to your question uh council member Cummings uh i'd like to recognize the fact that the traffic in fact the program does recognize congestion it is something that is identified through our 2030 general plan and all right it addresses our full plan build out which is what the program is developed for it's to for the developer to pay their fair share to help offset mitigations to offset congestion from their those projects so there is an actual instrument that the city does have with regards to congestion as for the planned improvements um i don't recall exactly the in the 2030 general plan build out intersections will will likely be adding the right turn lanes or additional bike lanes um can't speak to them specifically out of my head but i just want to point out to the fact that there is a mechanism in which the city staff the city of the whole recognize that congestion isn't is a part of a project um and i'd also just like to say at this point that CEQA from the CEQA side of things um for SB 743 which really forced or put all local agencies throughout California to use to convert from congestion to VMT analysis with regards to CEQA review that's essentially what we've done and what we're doing with all these projects moving forward so from a CEQA standpoint um the project does comply with traffic as as ryan pointed out in his presentation it doesn't ask our threshold in which we consider a significant impact so from the CEQA standpoint it complies yet we still have our traffic in the program to help us offset that congestion thanks and then just as a follow-up for that i've got a couple other questions this is a follow-up can you just for people who are watching members of the public can you provide an example like no one when staff says a significant impact traffic i'm just wondering what you what that refers to um and i also say that with you know because i live in this i live in the area where this development's gonna go and you know in the summer as it is you know it's gridlocked on the weekends between 10 a.m and 5 p.m and you know that's largely driven by the fact that as a tourist community we're trying to attract people to our beaches to you know the boardwalk board and you know whether you know we build 20 tiny homes or we build a large apartment complex i mean that's not really going to change the fact that we see tons of people coming to enjoy our beaches when the weather's nice out and so um so i guess you know when we think about significant impact traffic one would think that's you know go above and beyond you know what we're currently experiencing and so i'm wondering if you speak to you know the determination of what is a significant impact to traffic sure so that's as i mentioned earlier the state law of the senate bill 743 essentially asked agencies to start looking at generating models of what we felt was a significant threshold for vehicle miles traveled so there is a countywide model that was developed i mean that we city adopted through a public process in which sets that threshold and again in the staff report i believe it was it has to be 8.7 bmt in which is considered a significant threshold for cqa analysis and so that again does not take into account congestion about vehicle miles traveled so that's that that is essentially the threshold in which it would enact a significant impact yes okay um next question i'll try to be quick with these because i know the other members of the council question but um the talent brought up comments related to lcp um you know related to the two and three bedroom that are required within the coastal area and um i'm just wondering what the potential is if this move forward i'd appreciate a field coastal commission based on the comments that we heard earlier i'll pass that on to you that uh the planning staff tonight question yeah i can speak to that um and just just let you know this actually is not in the coastal appealable zone so it's been a difficult solution but um yeah we did look up the housing policy uh the lcp that was brought up by uh by the appellant and it does what it states is promote more family oriented development by requiring at least 50 of all new units to a more bedroom and it has page 29 that's in reference to the beach south of laurel plan page 29 uh when you go to page 29 of the beach south of laurel plan um it's specific to the beach flats um the beach and south of laurel plan is broken into four different areas there's beach flats beach commercial beach hill and south of laurel so that specific um policy is for specifically each flats area this is south of laurel area so um it is an applicable risk thank you and then um there's there was a comment about the ad use and i'm wondering if you could just explain that i mean it seems like based on the kind of schematics of the project but um you know it's kind of taking up a very large footprint that wouldn't allow for the construction of more ad use i'm just wanting to speak that a little bit yeah i mean as you're well aware um we have ad u the ad u ordinances or state laws regarding ad use are being updated feels like every six months it's hard to even keep up um with all the new regulations c has to uh update our ordinance to be consistent with state law so what we've been doing is with most projects is we like to just make people aware that that based on ad u ordinance what you know what could be proposed in terms of ad use um in a project so that's something we've been trying to do on a regular basis projects and so um we were just being upfront and honest that based on the ad u ordinance up to 25 percent this is state law and then in our ordinance that up to 25 percent of the number of units for the project could be you could do a conversion ad use so non habitable space within the project could be converted to ad u based on our order so it's not to say posing that i don't think planning to propose that but we were just trying to be uh transparent and make people aware that based on our ad u ordinance that is what the ordinance would allow and then i guess the last question because this came up a couple times um related to you know student housing and affordability i'm just curious what if is their project what the um you know market rate right could be because these are rentals my understanding and what would them rate rent be on these units and and from there i mean it will help you understand you know what the affordability level would be at the here i i might have to direct that to uh jesse risto applicant i we haven't discussed that at all so i don't know jesse's available sorry my um my screen's turned off but um at this time we would need to do uh further research with with um crime management marketing it's going to be a two-year bill so you know i don't know where the market but they will be market rate the ones that are not um restricted to the bmr and for the bmr the very low income i would uh refer to housing division um because it depends on who's applying to uh it's based on on what their um average salary is it's 30 of that so it could flush rate i like to it could be $800 or $900 but that's all i'm gonna ask okay uh those are all my questions now thank you council member coming uh council member calentary johnson and council member brown thank you mayor um i really appreciate all the work that has gone into this by the planning commission and staff and thanks to everyone who called in tonight um you know i i had the opportunity to dive in and talk to folks about the project and and it seems to me that it really has been through a vetted process um staff's presentation tonight in response to the appeal was very clear to me um i understand traffic concerns i also live near the development and as an individual and as a family we change our habits in the summer when we know the visitors are coming they will come whether there's development there or not on our bikes walk we do what we can um and i understand the legal requirements and justifications we heard earlier today from council member Cummings let our new rena numbers will be there's there's all of that in the background i did find most compelling um the young adults in our community are really urging us to think differently and to be proactive about building all kinds of housing um i wanted to actually ask the bristo um a question at this time i i saw and heard in the presentation or somebody brought up that um you had offered four additional affordable units at one stage in the in the during the planning commission discussions um and i know you know and we hear tonight housing affordability is one of our biggest challenges in our community and i understand that this isn't a legal requirement but i'm wondering if you could um speak to whether this is something you would offer again and consider could we deny this appeal sure so um as as it stands out the reason why we offered those four was to kind of try to um as discussed you know there were there are concerns about traffic and but also i'm very excited about the project and it was a condition that we put on ourselves um i will note that the continuance was um just to because with all due respect planning to the planning commission wanted more time to study the traffic analysis so the traffic analysis has been available since february so i i completely disagree that they didn't have enough time to look at it um and i hope it kind of did darn so um i think it really depends on um on where the rest of the conversation goes on a funnier press council um before we uh okay thank you mr. Burstow um and and i i can understand the um um concerns and frustrations um but thank you for being open to that discussion all right those are my those are my comments and questions for now thank you mayor thank you member kellentary johnson councilmember brown thank you mayor i do want to thank uh all of the uh the folks who have shown up tonight and and uh communicated with us uh our staff for uh preparing uh the agenda reports for this and and giving us a very clear uh overview um some statements have been made by um kind of various parties which i do and do not agree with but um you know i i want to just get to the the very particular questions that i have and actually they've been mostly been asked but i'm gonna do a little bit of follow-up here if you'll indulge me so my my first questions are for our uh planning staff and possibly nason um back to um i guess i'm i'm i'm still um not here about uh that to which the the arguments for not doing a weekend traffic study um i just am not sure that they entirely resonate with me and so i i'd really like to hear more about that um in you uh so and i understand that the traffic impact program is intended to be utilized for traffic mitigation but paying the money in and of itself does not change anything about the restructure the traffic patterns etc so the mitigations themselves the infrastructure related i assume and possibly others um and so and i understand and um nathan that you said those are laid out in the general plan uh but having not had opportunity to reference that it was we had a lot of material to get through so i didn't um go back there but i i would like to better understand what those mitigations might be possible here and um i guess another question is really about the decision-making uh you know what what was the basis for deciding that for assuming that SROs do not generate more weekend trips i guess um may keep it simple um i heard that there is an assumption there and i'm just maybe i didn't catch it uh in the materials or in your what you were talking about but um you could explain where that assumption comes from yeah sure i'm happy to jump in with regards to with regards to the weekend versus weekday volume so i'll start with let me start with the traffic impact fee program itself so um the traffic impact fee program is based on a level of congestion and the volume trip generation you are critical intersections again identified in the general plan 2030 EIR um we uh particularly we selected the weekday volume count because um it's based on the institute of traffic engineers the ITE and both that transportation professionals use in order to generate the type of volumes from their development so it's a standard thing that all developers you know commonly use and with that weekday traffic or residential developments such as this project it as was noted in the presentation is double that of what is on the weekend anticipated on the weekend because these are people that are going to work in the morning and then coming home in the evening um versus weekend traffic for residential in which there's some weekend trips maybe to the beach and so forth but the volumes are based on this ITE standard is really a half and so uh when we were reviewing the scope of work for the traffic study we stuck with the weekday we felt like the weekend wasn't going to provide us any additional info maybe at the time for our traffic impact fee as we know that we want to have the higher volume counts we um provide as much funding towards mitigating the traffic comes from this development but then the weekend count again wouldn't have met the threshold neither met the weekend nor the weekend would of course have met it either so that that's the reason why the study can only include a day count and was again still to maximize the you know the the amount of traffic the traffic impact fee program as well as just roadway itself okay so if I as I understand it then you're we're talking about you know like making decisions about what what models do is and what assumptions go into those models and however imperfect they are this is kind of the conventional wisdom about um this kind of housing the other factors that you okay um thank you and then I did want to I guess the question has already been asked but so I won't ask it again but I I did want to raise issue of the potential for the inclusion of an additional condition of approval to include those those additional units you know I'll I'll say and and just recognizing that there are members of the public who have noted that this was an extra incentive for planning commissioners the context of not approving the project um to provide to offer those additional units I understand that um and I am a council member who is uh first and foremost learned about affordable housing I um I agree with the comments that have been made about the optimistic view of this project creating affordability and access for low income renters or otherwise um for for units that aren't that are our market rates because just know where we live you know we know what's happening here and um and so I think that I just wanted to say that because I'm I'm not suggesting that by by doing this we're going to you know end up with a lot more affordable units I do think that the location the zoning and the general plan uh you know are compelling um you know obviously the comments that have been made um are compelling because I I feel that too you know I was one of those and I didn't have the same experience and and so I do want to um acknowledge it and I also want to say that this is not an affordable housing project but to the extent that we can get affordable units in it and we have a developer in this case willing to actually provide those units on site I think that is a really really significant um uh positive aspect of this and we that doesn't happen um for those who don't pay attention all of the taking around projects that come before us that does not happen and so um you know given my interest in affordable housing I am I'm very much reconsider that as people get to that um so I don't um Dusty I guess I'll just say that and I don't know if I'm gonna say anything more right now but um it was a question and I did a comment yeah I think it could be appropriate um if just um wait until the end after all comments and we back to that issue I think that would be appropriate and um so I'll let you guys thank you thank you thank you council member brown are there any other council members that would like to comment this item okay so now we are at the point uh where I'm looking for a motion regarding this item council member brown oh well I'm usually way behind on raising my hand for motions um so I um I guess I will go ahead and try this out um and I'm gonna I'm gonna refer to the motion as it stated in our agenda packet rather than say I would I would make a motion to um I believe um thank you to deny the appeal and uphold the planning commission's acknowledgement of the environmental legislation approval of I'll rate it here of the non-residential demolition authorization that sets its bonus for the special use permit postal permit and design permit based on the findings listed in the draft resolution and the conditions of approval attached as exhibit a um with the following all condition I guess it would be um uh four additional um portable units for a total of 35 as uh as previously offered all right 35 for a total of 35 um as previously offered council member Collin Carrey Johnson are you are you seconding I'm muted all right I thought I had unmuted um I I will second uh and and I had a friendly amendment but I I wasn't sure if we were here yet because we weren't I wasn't sure if we um but I know if we um okay I see Mr. Bristow's hand up maybe he could chime in but but I did have a friendly amendment that when we get there happy to discuss but I believe that because of the housing accountability act there can be no additional conditions project well we're putting the condition on our own project as a community event I want to check with staff but we can open up questions thank you uh Bristow we have a motion by council member Brown um in a second by council member Collin Carrey Johnson and um is there uh do either of you want to reframe your your add on there as stated well because we can have that discussion and go ahead sure thank you uh Mayor Brunner I I guess I I mean I'm open to suggestions on word smithing this I was kind of taking my cue from the planning commission motion that was made um where that was the language was to add a condition of approval and it that was I guess it was to memorialize um the offer of the four addition so maybe that would say it um can I call on uh staff to just verify um the language of condition of approval for this motion is planning staff available for that question sir thank you Mayor Brunner I'm happy to time in here the Butler deputy city manager and the development director um the um condition of approval that was made at the planning commission stage um was in response to a voluntary offer to from the applicant to provide those additional four units um it is not within the city's purview to um require um additional affordability above and beyond what our requirements call for that said um the the council can certainly request that of the developer if the developer is amenable to that as was the case um at the planning commission then we can craft the condition of approval that um memorializes the developer's offer so um I think I'll uh but I'm in here because I know you had something else you wanted to add um I'll just I guess I'll just ruminate on how to address additional affordable units because I feel like we're a little stuck here um waiting to see what council other council members have to say but there was nobody paying anything else and I wanted to get us moving along so um I'll I'll get for now and council member Calentari Johnson and then council member Meyers thank you yeah my friendly amendment was to continue on with these additional four units but it seems like we're not there yet so I'm just wondering how we can um facilitate this discussion with Mr. Bristow and council members um see if we can get there all I was gonna add okay council member Meyers yeah I mean I'll try I mean here I I support and now I understand I'm like I'm this I guess my question is um uh Gaff we give you direction lowest AMI possible yeah you you certainly can provide that direction on a voluntary basis I think it would um be beneficial to hear from the applicant and hear what um they might be willing to offer you know they they were willing to offer that at the planning commission stage was um conditional upon their not being an appeal um and and so you know we did not include that as a condition of approval because you know that offer was not on the table as part of um this council consideration but um you know to the extent that um the developer may be willing to um talk with the council and commit to any of those units now um that specific language um could be included as a condition of approval so that it is formally memorialized and I think you know we're all aware of the challenges that we have with affordable housing particularly the need for very low income affordable housing and um this this project is providing 31 uh very low income units the four additional um you know every very low income unit counts really important and I know that council recognizes that um I think as the council it might be an opportunity to invite the developer up to um have that conversation to understand um their willingness to um provide um additional units at that very low income level or otherwise yeah and council member Myers if I could kind of just go up the line uh Lee's uh perfect response um I think I think the distinction here is that not something that we can condition or require but it is certainly something that you can request rec staff for uh the addition of the addition of those four additional units for the project and and uh Lee's point sounds like the developer's point engage in some discussion tonight part of that prior to making the final motion idea before we uh get to the point of uh overall thanks yeah I'll I'll conclude my kind of conversation um Mr. Bristow you and I took a walk and I heard a lot of the information you shared with about the project um and and you know I think the elephant in the room is not you know um I'm sure that as a developer and local developer and I would imagine you're worried about um you know potentially the precedent that you may be setting here for yourselves as developers and and I would say builders uh and developers and um and other folks who are are looking at projects such as this in our and you know it's it's I think yeah um in trying build housing and first day or any cases there is a lot of frank lawsuits felt that we'll try to stop so I think I was also you have a target um so I think market that you identified where your project is interesting project you know I was a lot of people kind of they kind of they need in and to live there or portion of time they're going to be in place where they could live while they you know move into employment and hopefully more economic stability and then actually be able to stay and um and so I think there's you know there's a draw for what for proposing um I do appreciate very much you know your commitment 31 units um but I mean I want to honestly um that I'm sure you're very nervous and um and I want to acknowledge that um very hard for us to lower these very low in um their value is um and unfortunately you know the city um will be providing some units but it's also important for the community to understand that many of our many of our lower some units actually do come out of projects like that the market rate project to provide the ability also to find and help build some units out redevelopment as well as not putting land all the land and various issues we would need some of these units um very hard to get built building costs today as I understand now the city is doing uh you know programmed in the next several years so um we're definitely seeing our stride in getting those hospitals and so um you know I would I would very amenable I mean look at this forward um and I also want to acknowledge that we should be in every case uh the margins on on housing and construction and out of off the how to acknowledge that there is risk on all sides and um I think that's an important at look at these part be able to show a fair game board folks who want to take a patient especially as a take away our queries uh Mr. Gaui thank you council member Myers that's uh uh council member vice mayor Watkins and council member King thank you uh thank you mayor I'm leaving off my camera because my wife I hasn't been really strong today I apologize for that but I wanted to briefly chime in and just appreciate this direction that we're going in and I essentially I think in some just sort of was wondering what direction would look like in terms of form of emotion in terms of how we would move forward with this conversation around the additional unit and so I I know that the motion as stands in terms of the the recommendation that was provided in my staff to move forward in this direction but for how we could start the conversation around the four additional portable units I was wondering what that looked like in terms of the language and so I I was just sort of wondering if maybe if it would be our city attorney or or who could weigh in on how we frame that up for those conversations or we have ours pasty Bronson is our city here tonight and I see Lee Butler you have additional input or so I think is the question about I'm not sure I understand the question the question is how I'm happy to clarify the question I think essentially what I'm hearing is that you know because we can't require these that be included given sort of the density bonus and state lot but yeah it was offered how do we start the negotiations or conversation around wanting to move in that direction in regards to our direction for tonight's motion if possible at all maybe that's not even that's also a good answer it's a tricky issue Lee do you have any ideas I might make a suggestion I think there's probably two ways I'm at this fork in the road one would be you know we could provide an opportunity for the developer to give us thoughts and that he's willing to engage with us in tonight we've not really directly heard from him yet with regards to where they stand I'm entertaining putting those four additional units on the table the other would be as I mentioned earlier perhaps as we look at the motion as it's currently written after exhibit a would be to direct staff four options with the developer add four additional portable units project and whatever form that might fit I need to add that part but that's where I would see it going you know obviously that that's a recommendation on a condition to the approval of the project but I would also I counsel welcome the opportunity to engage in that conversation with developer tonight there might be some agreement great yeah I'm happy I mean I would be wondering what could be possible and if that is the conversation for time with staff I'm open to that as well at this time I see Jesse Bristow is still here so yeah I can call on Jesse Bristow thank you so um you know and thank you for everyone's comments uh council member Myers really hit it on the head right I think um challenge is awarding fabric and uh and said impressed it certainly we're trying to move this along but in the field and the appellant says that they they want to make sure that it's the right project that there's further analysis and I really feel that that's this direction as this project has been in public view since February he had a community engagement in August it was deemed completed September and not once did um Santa Cruz tomorrow or Ms. Ruinside or any of those supportive group uh reach out and inquire and I I don't feel that that's a very constructive way called community and have no long-term goals to try to provide housing and housing needs that we have so with that said um you know and with future goals I arena goals um I wonder I'm gonna have a lot of projects coming and um and we want to provide housing and the future arena numbers for the city are pretty staggering they're 3400 somewhere in there and I bought a thousand more of the bmr unit so are we gonna hit this roadblock every time is Santa Cruz tomorrow going to appeal every project do they have the right should we make the appeal process $700 make it $7,000 because this costs us time this costs staff time this costs your time and I really feel the city should be doing things that are more resourceful more productive um with that said and I apologize for my grant and be a little frustrated um we are a local builder community builder we've been here since the earthquake done a lot of buildings and we recognize you know the homeless and I fully understand the very low units are the units that are needed for transitional housing that's the next step the low income and the moderate don't take that mark it's challenging those those groups people who are unhoused in trying to better themselves being very low so we do recognize that and um yeah it's safe to help the community um the benefit of the community and the appreciation to have this project forward um we're willing to reflect the greed upon at that time if I recall that were four micro units four additional micro units at very low income as long as that is the only condition on this project as part of this I mean it'll be general conditions build a project but as far as this and so yes we are willing to do that to elect to put that condition as long as it's only one and that this is the final approval process um hearing which it is and with that said I'm very thankful for staff's time and I'm very thankful for your time dedication with that yes thank you uh thank you jesse for so um I would just insert really like here um you know it's interesting to me that the kind of bargaining with with uh these units um and um I hope that the you know that these units are not used in that way but if if there is the ability to um at least how I saw this motion go is um or the intent was if there's an ability to offer four more very low income unit that that is included um just because like you said you want to provide housing um not because it's a requirement for a condition um if there's that ability for these four micro units that is amazing that's four more glowing units and and like you said you know that is these small micro units are needed for transitional housing for seniors for single folks for grad students for any any individual who's working the the person who's working at starback whatnot and even those who have qualified housing choice vouchers that have subsidized rent so you know there's just the options that have that those extra four even though it's not required is everything so thank you for commenting on that um council member comings at my hand up from a little bit earlier prior to what the developers said and part of it was just to speak to um you know this project general um and to impart the appeal you know unlike other projects that we see coming before us um one thing that's really struck me is that um one we haven't seen or heard a whole lot of opposition to the project going in um this is a project that is taking a a semi-industrial official site and converting it to housing so in terms of land use in our community you know we're not seeing a situation where housing that's you know was built long ago it could be an affordable destroyed to make way for new market rate housing we're seeing a situation where we're actually taking a site that um has had some has had you know industrial semi-industrial uh commercial use for a long period of time is now being converted to housing which i think is something that our community wants to see happen when we're trying to determine where this house that we need to create is going to go um as it's been mentioned it is very close to um not only you know numerous bus stops along um street where it's located but it's been walking distance downtown i think we heard from one of the callers earlier that um for those of us who live in this area being able to walk downtown significantly reduces our need to drive in this so you know we um while some of this may drive for a variety of reasons um you know the more housing that we can essentially located to fans of corridors areas of progress the less we're going to see people driving and these are the kinds of um the this is the type of housing that i think will be a really good fit for our community and the fact that the developer that went into discussion with the planning commission and offered these additional affordable units you know i just think about the benefit how you know knowing that very difficult to create affordable housing um any opportunity that we get to maximize affordable housing something that we should be trying to consider um i do um want to also acknowledge and respect the fact that you know people in our community when they have concerns about developments and process that you know the appeal process is their ability to bring their concerns forward to their local governing bodies you don't have control over that and so um like yeah as a city council and you know my hope is that um when these kinds of appeals come forward to the city council similar to tonight we're able to hear both sides we're able to try to figure out the best path forward um i think that it's part of the democratic process that allows for people to um to um express their opposition to something in this form that allows us to be able to have robust discussion and hopefully move these things forward in a positive way and it seems like that's where at night and so i'm going to be supportive of this project forward i think it's going to bring a lot of benefit to um area as i mentioned before we have a whole lot about position it seems like something that uh the community is also okay with and um you know as we see some of these other projects for like the um the la behia hotel other developments in the area i think it'll be good for us to understand think about you know what are some strategies can take to mitigate some of the congestion impact we're seeing in the beach area um something that is existing it's not going to go away whether we build a hook a new apartment complex or not but i do think that um the concerns that were raised are valid and my hope is that we can address some of these issues going forward and i also want to thank the developer for um for uh being amenable to including the four new units um the four additional affordable units and with an understanding that as project going forward we're going to have to take the affordability issues on our project by project basis that's all i mean um if i could just call on the city manager to just confirm the motion language based on what uh jessie bristow said thanks mayor i've been conferring with uh tassie in the beach area's office to just make sure the motion reflects the the developers generous offer to include the four units what i'd like to suggest is after exhibit a like you in a sentence we have there to direct staff and just simply have a reading consideration of the developers agreement to add four additional very low income affordable units project started to be a for the worst i think i think that actually was uh can you read that really quick in consideration of the developers agreement add four additional very low income affordable units the project is the maker of the motion okay with um so yeah i i believe so um you know i was trying to model the language that was planning commission motion which did then direct this as a kind of approval um exact language i can read you it looks like um jessie has his hand up um i have a few other comments i'd like to make sure why don't we hear from hear from the i would just like i would just like to clarify that we're committing four micro unit um question just so on the first specific thank you thank you so um so the way staff and whoever was present at the planning commission suffered to um uh in language that stated and it was it's in the minute memorialized applicants voluntary offer for additional affordable units the existing project um and in that case if the project is approved by the planning commission i put in city council um i mean this will get us there i my my concern is that um yeah i think it's fine it's fine the way it is i can accept that language i do want to make a couple more comments though very quickly um because i i didn't really do the question of the appeal and and why i make i've made this decision based upon my read of the materials um i recognize urns pressed by uh by scanner tomorrow and if you'll related to uh secret considerations in particular around traffic i do believe that um it's genuine concern i do believe that the members would have the right kinds of skills to um try to raise those concerns and get their local government to address them adequately and um and i you know i i firmly believe that and in this case based upon what i have learned and and be fair i don't understand modeling and all of kind of components and the assumptions that go into it but based on what i'm hearing i believe that um were we to conduct such a study it would not um change the outcome in question so um if if i i thought that that would the outcome um was the determinations then i i would um i would be thinking more about you know how to address this appeal um move forward with further study i just don't see that in this and um i do believe that it uh um in a in a location that is while close to the beach area and are adjusted uh part of our community during the summer and on weekends um i don't think this is going to make a significant impact the already um significant challenge that we have um so i just wanted to say that um but i also wanted to say that i absolutely that uh community members have the right kinds of skills i do appreciate the developers agreement to move forward in this in this way this is a this is a significant contribution to um our affordable housing need and i recognize the concern about precedent setting so just wanted to echo councilmember Cummings's comment about um recognizing that affordability will you know those conversations will play out on a project by project basis um and um i guess i'll get there i know i have one more thing that i can't remember and so it's probably not really critical to the conversation so i'll leave it there thank you thank you oh i know what it was okay negotiate sorry i just wanted to say so um my intention here is in no way was to try to negotiate and expect that we're going to have these kinds of negotiations around project i was really just trying to um make the or at least move and support the planning and so that kind of dynamic of negotiation who have already been opened up that was that was not my intention to yeah you know it was it in that way um i just wanted to support what they're and what the development thank you for clarifying that thank you councilmember brown are there any other council members that want to do that and and also i think i do need to um in regards to motion um the maker of the motion was amenable that language is the second um also yes okay great okay no other comments from council members so then i'll ask the city clerk for a roll call vote remember council member johnson hi that's older i i say or what that motion passes unanimously thank you so much everybody for participating and thank you so much for all the information that concludes our meeting for the evening this meeting is adjourned