 Okay, Mr. Rhoads, if you can check your mic and camera, please. There it is. Can you hear me? Can you see me? We can see and hear you. And we have one, two. We have all board members here. We're going to have two absence. So I think we have them all. Yep, we do. So it's about that time. Let's turn on our cameras and get ready to roll. Patty, I have 430, so I'd like to call the meeting to order. Is that cool? We are ready. All right. So it's 430. I'd like to call the regularly scheduled meeting of the city center of the design board to order. I'd just like to remind everyone why we're in this virtual environment due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders N2520 and N2920, which dispense certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the county of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19. The design review board will be participating via Zoom webinar. Members of the public can participate in the meeting virtually by going to www.zoom.us joining the meeting. The meeting ID is 948-0971-1719 or call toll-free by telephone 877-853-5257 and enter the meeting number ID I just read. You can also watch the meeting on the city's website being live streamed and it is also available on Comcast channel 28 and also on the City of Santa Rosa's YouTube channel. Okay, so Patty can I get a roll call please? Yes, let the record reflect that all board members are present except for Vice Chair Hedgepath and Board Member Sharon and that we also have a new board member, Board Member Walski, in attendance today. Awesome, thank you recording secretary and we'll get to the new board member here in a minute. So let's do the approval of the minutes. Did everybody get a chance to look at the draft June 3, 2021 minutes? Does anybody have any issues with those minutes? Is everything accurately portrayed? Henry? The item 8.1 I believe was the first item and bullet point eight. I know these are condensed minutes of what we said. I thought we also gave them kind of the option to go terracotta or bronze and maybe that fits in the spirit of earthy and natural but just wanted to get your feeling on that Chairman. Yeah I think so. I mean we're going to see it again so I think we were pretty clear in our comments and the what's reflected here I think is accurate in terms of what we were talking about. That's just my opinion. Anybody else on that? I struggled a little bit with it too just the same as I struggled when we were in the meeting and I couldn't I still couldn't do better in the in the five minutes that I had to look at the minutes. I think again I also believe and Henry I hope you do too that Board Member Wicks that the point was well made and I so I hope we didn't project an image that's going to come back as you know moss green and sunset yellow but I think we got the point across and I'm not sure if we can improve the minutes or not but I thought about it as well so. Bill do you have a thought on that on how to maybe improve the minutes since you popped on there? You know we could we could add a clarification if you think one would improve it. I tend to share Board Member Virch's comments I don't know what more we could actually add but I feel the fact that it's coming back to the board gives me comfort that I think we can address this so I think we probably got it as close as we're going to get it. My fear was that we you muted Henry. My fear was that just like like Board Member Virch just said that we would get something back but I as long as they don't go by the minutes which I doubt they will like I think they'll probably remember what we said and if they had any doubts they could go back and hit the replay on the video so maybe it's fine but I just struggled with earthy and natural I mean it as that as the summary I just don't want them to think that they can't use the alucabon panels and come back with something that that fits in the range of that product so we could put in parentheses such as terracotta or bronze we could put something like that we can add a little bit to it if you'd like. Yeah I would agree I think let's put parentheses and we could say such as terracotta bronze quart and steel weathered other weathered metals you know that that type of thing does that does that capture Michael and Henry kind of what you guys were thinking yeah we were two weeks ago what do you mean where was that I was there I said this I said quart and steel I said you know I think that that I think that a little more of a litany of what the pieces of what those items could be would be helpful and I do hope that they heard and understood the the direction you know and I don't mean that in a in a negative way but I do think that getting those getting those materials into the minutes would be helpful for us. I think I think also there was a comment specifically about the materials and Michael I think it came from you that that might beubis to add as well on that line item you were talking specifically about how that location is an entry point to the city right from the south it's on our the edge of our urban growth boundary and I think the materiality is critical to that right in terms of what you're saying we got to get it right because it's it is that kind of gateway location. I don't know how we would reflect that in that comment because it was kind of all wrapped together with the materiality of it all. And further and further to Henry's point we were very encouraging that there is a wide range of materials in the you know aluminum break metal panel rain screen variety cost points different Drew you especially throughout three brand names I you know it's not it's not a luke bond or a break metal material or a rain screen material specifically it was the color selection and I think not having a clear enough idea of what the material was or its reflectivity so it seems like the a quick addition of a list of colors maybe a note about the importance of the of the materiality of the building based on its entry point location into the city and that you know select from a wide range of materials available for rain screens and break metal building I don't know just to get if we want to get real specific I think we could do a little bit more than maybe what's there it's a good point Henry. I just want to be careful that we're not kind of rehashing it since it's not particularly on the agenda we just need to capture what was stated so we could also direct the applicant back to the minute or to the video they can get verbatim what was said I would recommend just a brief summary like we said in parentheses terracotta bronze core 10 as an example with a with a matte finish bill you're spot on all right we can do that those those items were discussed so we can say terracotta bronze core 10 with a matte finish and we'll just put that in parentheses that's good okay thanks all right so with that addition hearing no other commentary on the minutes I guess we'll have approval of the minutes so now we'll move on to public comment this is where we open up for public comment on any item not on tonight's agenda members of the public may speak on items not on our agenda but germane to our preview are there any members of the public wishing to speak at this time sure we go we have no public attending at this point and no hands raised well then we'll close public comment then so item four board business this is where we read the purview and review authority of the design review board from zoning code chapter 20 52 030 f project review the review authority shall consider the location design site plan configuration and the overall effect of the proposed project upon surrounding properties and the city in general review shall be conducted by preparing the proposed project to the general plan any applicable specific plan applicable zoning code standards and the requirements consistency of the project within the city's design guidelines architectural criteria for special areas and other applicable city requirements e.g. city policy statements and development plans does anybody have any board business i'm five seeing none i'll move to department of reports in them deputy director bill rose the floor is yours thank you chair weigel members of the board it's nice to see you all just one item for tonight and it's like to introduce our newest board member a board member sheila walski welcome sheila it's nice to have you sheila comes to us from the town of windsor she's a city planner there so it's nice to have a fellow planner on the board we really look forward to your tenure and your service we hopefully you'll like it we had a chance to talk earlier today and i'll just echo for the board what we discussed which is we really want to make this a meaningful experience for you for our customers as well so we strive to make sure you have the materials that you need and please reach out to any of the staff members ahead of time if you'd like so we can make sure that that happens so welcome aboard it's really nice to have you and we look forward to working with you welcome welcome and sheila is there anything that that you'd like to say at this time um not too much i just want to acknowledge councilmember alvarez for the appointment and city staff for moving so darn quickly with this i was responding to a city newsletter that said to uh there are vacancies on board and i've been following this one for a number of years and so i think i put in my application last week and i'm here today so patty pacheco gregg did a great job and so did terra norm and getting you ready for tonight um lived in the city for 34 years and uh been with windsor for 16 years i'm working in their planning department and i enjoy planning and serving the public which you all do here so i'm just looking forward to learning from my fellow board members expert expertise and uh and speaking better in the future well thanks so much uh i i'm excited we thought we have a full board we haven't had a full board for a little while here so it's nice to have a full our seven seven members now we're full up which is great uh so looking forward to that and thank you for your your volunteer volunteerism to join our board we appreciate it um so anything else bill or was that it that was it okay that's it for tonight cool and then uh number seven statements of abstention i don't think we would have any on the scheduled item considering it's a report on the general plan and so we'll move on to item 8.1 report on the santa rosa general plan update and input on the santa rosa forward division statement and with that i will turn it over to supervising planner amy lyle great thank you so much good evening and welcome new board member wilski nice to see that city of santa rosa background on you there um so this evening i'm actually covering for andy who's at the who actually might be joining us shortly because he's just finishing a presentation to our bike and pedestrian board but we are making the rounds and wanting to have a conversation with you all about our general plan update so hopefully this is a a little bit different than what you're used to and we can have a good discussion about some of the work that we're doing on the policy side so i'm going to go ahead and share my screen and get the presentation started here all right so we're going to provide a little bit of a presentation overview on um what is happening with the general plan update and then go into a little bit of a conversation or workshop around um what you all want to see as far as the future of santa rosa so we'll just start off talking generally about what the general plan is um but it really is the constitution for all land use it's the overarching policy document all our zoning code specific plans guidelines come from our general plan it's a little bit of a once in a lifetime opportunity as an urban planner because it only happens once every 10 years if you have the funding and we're very blessed here in santa rosa to have a well funded general plan um so we're really excited to be kicking this off so the general plan really looks at the city on like a 30 000 foot level so how our communities are interwoven so the circulation network the land uses open spaces all of those features that you think of when you think of the city and your community but it's not just the built environment we're also looking at the social aspects as well so we're also looking at um jobs and education and being able to age in place and civic engagement and opportunities to be part of government decisions as well so our general plan process uh we have coined santa rosa forward um so it is branded we do have a great website available um but this is the opportunity to kind of rethink where we want to be and our horizon year is 2050 so this is just an overview of where we're at in the schedule so we're still at the beginning stage so well i'm going to go through what we've accomplished so far um but we are at the very beginning as far as asking the community what the vision is and setting that vision is really vital for the rest of the project because this fall we will be going into alternatives so setting up circulation and land use alternatives and then we'll get into those really intricate policy discussions and environmental review and and i think andy is on patty if you're able to promote him we might tag team this presentation a little bit here and i also just wanted to know with this general plan effort it also serves as an update to our housing element and our climate action plan we're also updating um our safety elements and uh due to a new state law we are including environmental justice as a new element and then we also have a grant from Kaiser permanente to do additional outreach to our vulnerable communities as well as to infuse health policy so we've hired an equity and public health planner her name is Beatrice and so um she's really fantastic and is helping us um do that extra engagement work and so there will be more to this general plan effort than what we've done in the past and and also as we know um rosalind is part of our city now so um it really is a chance to kind of revisit and rethink the community as a whole andy are you on yet you're do you want to take over right here for us here i was enjoying your show usually sit back and but i certainly can help out um let me just introduce you real quickly uh i'm sure some of you know andy but andy is a senior planner on our advanced planning team and he is our project manager for the general plan and between him and i and Beatrice we've been doing quite a road show um so uh i will this is our second or third presentation of the day today so i will um let him carry on with this and i'll i'll pick up the presentation again when we get into our visioning statements excellent thank you very yeah so for me thank you for allowing this opportunity to present the general plan update or as you may have already learned our set over as a forward project um part of our outreach is um not just uh to the community but also to a focus group and we have formed a community advisory committee and we were very pleased to be able to seat members who really represent the diverse neighborhoods and interests in the community in terms of age gender ethnicity interests and this group is going to be really vital to help us throughout the program throughout the three years to give us input as we're delivering projects or products to the public for review they will also serve a vital role to help us get the word out they will serve as liaisons and reach the community in a way that we project team cannot possibly do they will multiply our ability to extend the information out to to the city next slide in addition we do have a technical advisory committee and those uh that that committee is formed of members who are uh representing city departments and also um what i call responsible agencies it's our our partners or our peers colleagues at the county sub-regional agencies who will review our work product to make sure we get the technical details right after all the general plan does have a number of technical components like traffic studies and wastewater generation all that we need to make sure we get it right and they are part of the process they helped us at the onset of the visioning process to really look forward to see what they saw were the big issues facing the city and opportunities that we had um so they will be continuing to operate or help us but they help us now with this set of vision statements that annie will present to you shortly thank you so you need to know uh a couple things from my point of view uh bookmark santa rosa forward dot com it is a project website we have all our documents that are released for review will be posted there and uh it has a schedule and then just information um that can help fulfill or enrich your understanding of the general plan and why it's a important and consequential document um we do have there also a comment form you can send us email and uh and we will be periodically putting out surveys we have one running right now and you may have um annie may have mentioned that we do have a vision survey that you are encouraged to fill out next slide at the start of this phase of the vision statement of formulation we set up 10 workshop meetings set they were held in each of our city council member districts throughout the city they were they were virtual meetings we did have three spanish only um language meetings and that was our first broad public outreach for starting the conversation on the vision statements and um so they went through the public went through the exercise you're going through this evening thank you next slide and annie if you if you don't mind i would also just note that um we we have been challenged to have to do engagement on this effort virtually um so we've been doing our absolute best and not only did we do those um vision workshops with the district at the district level we've been going to organizations at their meetings and sometimes their meetings are in person so that's been really fantastic but um it's been very challenging so the next round we hope to do more in-person work right and that's an important point that annie brings up of you ordinarily so much of the information we collect is is um full of nuance and how people react to and express issues um our consultant team has a lot of experience in public engagement and like us are experimenting and they have some tools that you see here that they use during their district workshop our district workshop meetings i should say to um help record and and collect the comments in a way that begin to fill up these different words or vision principles um next slide we did have a survey issued last february and uh that was initially uh asking a couple important questions we wanted some contact information we were inviting people to get updates on the general plan and we were asking them how we might best contact them throughout the process for program but one of the very interesting things we asked is how do people define their centers of their neighborhoods and how do they define their boundaries and these two exhibits here show the result of this survey which was um completed by over 1300 respondents which is a really incredible number um you can see on the left is neighborhood centers that are identified throughout the city so we really feel confident that we got good participation city-wide and then the the image on the right shows those centers but around those is is an aggregation of city or neighborhood boundaries that those um participants drew so we hope that we'll be able to take this data and begin to see how um places overlap next slide next slide and and how those centers are defined we can see a lot of people just thought of it geographically that is in the middle of their neighborhood but many were thinking more in terms of like not the geography but rather their activity centers places where they shop and get services or or a place that they strongly identify with these are important concepts I think when we go forward with our general plan we've heard a lot from our respondents that we really need to be organizing thinking on the neighborhood level we also were able to ask what what are the important issues and here you see a ranking that came out of of the responses and and clearly at the top level item is what's concerned about it's primarily wildflowers wildfires protection from that that natural hazard that we've had to deal with unfortunately in the last few years but also housing is on the minds of everyone large percentage indicated that was a big issue we needed to deal with and you can go down that list these are topics which we will have to treat equally but we can see here what's foremost on people's minds likewise yes so then so these survey results gave us kind of a picture of what people were thinking including what what is most important that we need to address in our future solving housing problem making sure our environment is clean that we have environmental protection equity jobs and better neighborhoods all fell together they are they are super important next slide all right so I'll talk a little bit about the vision statements so this whole process will conclude with a joint meeting with the planning commission and city council and at that point we're going to report to them what we've heard from throughout the community through the boards and commission meetings and then also through our meetings with different neighborhoods organizations and community groups and so right now we have some draft vision statements for you to react to and this is really a combination of different words and the words really represent a different statement each of them so we're just going to walk through some of the statements as they're written right now and these will change to what you'll see going forward to the city council and planning commission based on your input and and many others but the first two words are inclusive and just so inclusive really representing the opportunity for everyone to be able to be part of government and participate in their community and and in the city and then just representing that environmental justice component that we really do want to look at the historical perspective of how our communities arrived where they are and which communities have disproportionate access or impacts related to environmental issues or hazards and a lack of just mobility or other issues and then healthy and resilient so healthy looking beyond the built environment they're really looking to see how those built environment or aspects impact people and their personal health and then making sure that we do have policies in place to increase the the health metrics that we'll be looking at and then resilient resilient has been one of those words that has caused a lot of conversation in our workshop some people are very tired of being called resilient and some people were challenged to understand what it represents but in this framework it's really looking at our ability to bounce back from disaster or from any type of challenge that our community experiences and then prepared and sheltered so prepared in that same vein really making sure that we have hardened our city and against hazards either human caused or natural and making sure that we are prepared as as a city and as a city organization as well sheltered really looking at that concept of housing for all so creating a mix and a diversity of housing at an affordability that really makes sure that we can keep our our local workers here and residents have an opportunity to be able to purchase or live in our community and then equitable making sure that everyone really does have that access and not just to the built environment but also our social environment that we want to create here in Santa Rosa successful and this is representing a lot of the economic pieces so making sure that we do have an equitable opportunity for people to engage in our economy either as a business owner or as a patron but also that we have adequate places in our city where people can actually cite new businesses making sure that we're forward thinking about what does that mean is retail changing is the industrial framework changing so we do have a market study that will be looking at all those things but this is really representing that that need of our community to continue to be successful and then connected representing our ability to be multimodal so not just in our single occupancy automobile but making sure that we have transit facilities and bike and pedestrian connections that that everyone can circulate throughout our city safe and educated so safe looking at public safety but also encouraging people in bolstering neighborhoods to be able to organize themselves and support each other and then educated making sure that we have access to education throughout all times of life so even our seniors making sure that we have the opportunity and that our policies really represent that cultural making sure that we have the opportunity to really understand and celebrate the culture we have here in Santa Rosa and to be able to provide equity to that component and then sustainable so looking at our natural resources this came out as a very big thing about why people love to live here in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County is because of our natural resources so how do we protect those and and make them accessible for everyone whether that be a garden or a regional park or open space so with that we can move into a discussion with you all so there's two questions and so Chair Weigel we might want to ask you how you'd like to orient this the two questions are pretty simple so we can ask the two questions and you can each discuss what you would like or we can go question by question up to you so what we typically do for a project is we'll just go around the horn and you know give comments in the project I think we can probably do that here just go around the horn on these questions each board member will answer the question and then maybe we'll circle back and if one answer from somebody triggered something for somebody else they'll have the opportunity at the end to add an additional thought does that sound good to you that's that sounds great and i'm not sure if there's any public on the call but um up to you on when you'd like to do the the public comment component also this has been a challenging piece of going to the boards and commissions because um that it's not as freeform as a normal workshop that we've been convened in but we do want to provide that opportunity as well um well for the public component how how many questions did you say that were you just said there's two we just have two questions um but we can also just talk about the vision statements themselves so i can put up the slide with the vision with the words and we can just um stay there as well um i don't know bill what do you think i'm i'm thinking maybe we do public comment first on the two questions and then and then go into the the board comments what do you think yeah that's what i'd recommend i think we've done that in the past it it usually results in just a more informed discussion with the board you have the public comment the benefit of that so that's what i would recommend okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna read these two questions here uh just in case we have members of the public just on the phone as opposed to watching question one what do you like the most or what or what inspires you the most about santa rosa that's question one and then amy could you go to quick question two what would you change or improve about santa rosa in the future so we'll go uh patty we'll go to any public comment right now i'll say there are many members of the public wishing to answer these two questions for us uh chair weigel there are no members of the public we have three staff members so any of the staff members would like to drink them um otherwise we don't have anybody raising their hands well then i guess i'll close public comment that makes it easy um so then we'll circle back and we'll we'll go to question one i think and then we'll just kind of we'll go uh we'll go maybe reverse alphabetical on question one and then alphabetical on question two and so henry that means you get to you get to start on question one here once we bring it back up on the screen well um at the risk of using that resilience scheme that i'm sort of tired i i get tired of it because of being in the situation i was in with with my house burning down but i i do like the fact that santa rosa and the people in santa rosa on uh whether they had a tragedy or whether they observe somebody that had the tragedy they they all come together and help and i i i think that unity and how we make decisions how this board makes decisions it's it's one of the things that i like the most about santa rosa and what inspires me to to uh be a santa rosa cool um and so we'll go to i just realized actually sheila has the the last name now with the o there w o but probably good to go to a more seasoned board member first there just this was your first meeting so let's go to sheila now for her answer to this question i think my answer to this question has to be uh santa rosa junior college i i think it's just this wonderful resource and a jewel that we have right here in the center of santa rosa um it's it's an affordable way for people to get a top notch education you can gain wonderful economic opportunities after getting educated and then it's there for for lifelong learning if i want to take a course right now i i can do that and benefit from it and plus the grounds are beautiful so i just love walking around there so that's me is what i love best about santa rosa and we'll go to board member mckew well what uh what inspires me most about santa rosa is that we are all willing to step up to the plate and to donate our resources to to help others and i i reference the last election when you know the passage of the the various initiatives all were set up to really help people who were a bit disadvantaged and need some help and so i'm really excited about that and i and i look forward to us uh nurturing that and making that uh much more uh present and inviolable in the documents that we produce and we pay attention to that thank you john uh anything else or okay i'm good all right we'll go to uh michael board member birch yes hey so i really i have to to say that i uh the great answers ahead of me certainly um i am a huge fan of the burgeoning diversity i was born in santa rosa um i love the change that i see around me and i think my answer to question two will highlight some of that to board member wolski's comment about the santa rosa junior college i think uh it is it is a gem in the middle of the community that pulls together so many elements of the diverse community and impacts what they do it really to me i hadn't thought about the junior college but it feels like the center of the it's feels like the center of the wheel of what santa rosa uh can be um when you when you really pull all of that the diverse community people who've lived here for 50 60 70 years people who have been here for five or six or seven months so i do love the changes that i have seen my lifetime as santa rosa has grown into a multicultural um community and then i guess it's my turn uh having been compared to michael i'm a newbie to santa rosa being here about five and a half years um and i think uh for me um having two young children uh i i like the idea that that we're an evolving and changing community and that um you know my kids can see that as as the community grows and changes as as uh different diverse uh ethnicities races cultures move into the area and provide a catalyst for new uh new activities and epicenters for neighborhoods um you know i think what uh is different about santa rosa compared to maybe like uh marinn county for example is that we do have a lot of multi-generational families in our community so we we have sort of a level of sustainability built into the growth of our community i mean marinn is a bit of an aging community in a way um and i think they're going to struggle here in a couple years to to reinvigorate with some youth and i think we have uh some diverse uh uh businesses and and uh sectors of of the market here that allow for kind of this uh reinvigoration that i think i start i i see it starting to pick up a little bit particularly with uh younger folks perhaps moving up here you know those sorts of things but i think that's what is gets me most excited about where where we can go as a city and and and where we can grow and and and pave the way for our county even perhaps great thank you so much and then we'll go to question two and then we'll go back the other way and we'll start with uh michael this time yep um change your improve about santa rosa i think that uh i think that the um upheaval uh civil rights wise over the past couple of years not not just uh across the country but even here in northern california in santa rosa we started to recognize some of the work that we have to do so inclusivity and justice and equitability are really high on my list of things that i would like to see improved i i think that they lead to a broader outcome uh and i think one drives the other and that is around cultural uh life and cultural activity um i think santa rosa um rests a little too hard on uh its wine country um image i believe that there is a lot of room for cultural life outside of wine and food uh those are two of my favorite things to enjoy and appreciate here but i i'd really really like to be spending more time in cultural activities before or after a dinner in a bottle of wine um then then is available now and those cultural institutions here in santa rosa they struggle a little they're still on the level of kind of a festival or a fun family thing which is awesome we need that component but i do think that we need a broader cultural uh life here and i return to the point about inclusivity justice and equitability uh other cultures that are here in santa rosa we are poised and drew you touched on this we're poised at a very unique opportunity to reinvent a community um that is not about you know 17 italian families from 1950 who attended santa rosa high school but about a community that just has a broad base of race religion identity taste everything across the board so i i really think that uh cultural advancements uh they drive inclusivity justice and equitability and i think that the inclusivity justice equitability and the and the diversity of our community drives cultural uh the cultural life and i hope to see the two really hand in hand become a big part of how santa rosa grows as we go forward thanks michael uh john you're up well i think the single biggest change to improve santa rosa has to be housing we have to be able to design and to build and to create housing that is affordable to the vast majority of our of our citizens but i'm concerned because when we when a good housing project comes up we get a lot of blowback uh from citizens who are concerned about things like affordable housing and i'm thinking about stony point flats and the issues that came up around stony point flats having nothing to do really with design but very much the fact that they didn't want that development in their neighborhood and yet that development should be throughout the city so i think housing is the biggest thing though not that we have to crack and i don't know how the general plan or sustainable uh portion of that actually is going to play out but that's the biggest thing that i think that we have to deal with and so that's what housing is the thing we have to uh that's my thing that's the thing that's single biggest thing that i think we have to work on thanks john no thanks john i appreciate that sheila you're up i also agree that housing is a major issue and i i think i'll get a little personal in that um there's a lot of things with housing that that affect quality of life so previously um i my family lived in the jc neighborhood and we could very easily walk over to what i'll call a neighborhood center i don't know exactly how it's defined with uh Santa Rosa forward but i could get milk i could get really anything i want i could get a little slice of pizza and that that really changed our quality of life our family's quality of life it made it much more healthy prior to that we were living out in Lincoln Valley and anytime we wanted to go into town you know it was the 15 20 minute car ride um so you know in the context of offering housing which is desperately needed if there are opportunities for little commercial centers i'm not talking about a a power center anything like that but opportunities for the neighborhood to to gather for that neighborhood or maybe a few others where they don't have to get in the car and drive to services to me that that's ideal and that that makes the community well thank you very much sheila henry great answers tough to follow but i'm gonna i'm gonna hit on a nuts and bolts thing i i'm for years i've been bothered by our city being divided in two by a freeway 101 and um a mall and i go back to rudat from 1995 when i was a very young uh i don't think i was licensed quite yet when when that happened but one of the one of the changes that that was suggested out of that meeting was a reunification of of our downtown and not have a west half and an east half and i would love to see some solutions brought forward for um uniting those two even at that and since it's a general plan and we're all talking um beautiful things that could happen to the city of santa rosa i i would love to see it under grounded and i know there's a uh civil engineering firm that ran the feasibility of doing that and while it would be expensive i think it would be the uh crowning achievement to reunite our city cool thanks thanks henry um gosh this is hard i've i've lived all over the u.s. um and so for me it's i think it's there's no one single thing unfortunately um everybody's touched on something that i think i would 100 agree with um housing uh connectivity of our city right um you know there are a lot of cities in the u.s. that are divided bifurcated really by interstates and highways at lana it's got a big giant thing running through it dallas uh is another example of a large city that's just got an interstate slice in it um uh so i think um the way that i might answer this is i i think we need to be as cheesy as it sounds santa rosa forward is we need to be forward thinking about the ways that we develop our city um and so i think like sheila said you know uh having community gathering locations within our housing elements you know good development doesn't uh separate housing from businesses or housing from schools that integrates them all together uh and um we've kind of got the fabric of two of those things in santa rosa we have kind of the uh the town planning mentality and on many levels where we have schools close to grocery stores close to housing close to businesses but then we also have kind of the other piece which is the suburban development component which would be where we have housing separated uh from groceries and schools and businesses and so i think as we start to develop and we look at this general plan um you know we've got an urban growth boundary that's been defined for a long time that that is the city limits right so how do we engage nodes of activity or nodes of uh services for all of our housing and and i think we we need to start looking at ways to bring mixed use development to those areas that incorporate all of these elements um it's gonna i think it's gonna be a bold action on the city's part to perhaps develop an eir for these areas so that a developer doesn't have to do that they can come in and the 500 units of housing are approved for this area and they grab a lump of 150 and build that with the mixed use and the infrastructure improvements right i think you know long beach has proven that that that can work um in some areas so i think that that to me is how we can improve is we just we really need to be smart about the way that we increase the density of our city and and and we can't do it piecemeal um so we need that we need to be a tactic through both the zoning and also really laying out plans for these areas uh that we're we're concerned about how they're going to grow and and what what they're going to need and what types of housing or services that that require so i think um just do we want to do we want to go back to the board one more time just if anybody has an additional thoughts on these two questions based on what everybody said um and then we'll maybe turn it back over to to a supervising planner lile and and see what else she'd like to to talk with us about that sound good to everybody we'll just go we'll we'll go back through the list here so i'd like to start with uh with Sheila this time any additional thoughts i think i'm good for now thank you uh henry yeah just a just a quick uh footnote on what i i'd you know a far-fetched idea and drew you pointed out a lot of successful cities that that do get um sliced in half um and and bifurcated from each other but um i just i just remind that that in phoenix they did the papa go freeway tunnel and it helped reunite the downtown of phoenix so if if if it carries any traction and and hopefully in in 2050 um people will see the wisdom and it's not wisdom that i've come up with it's it's it's a uh a group that came in and evaluated our city many many years ago and and made that suggestion and they also suggested that we reunite the the the square and that happened so you know you get a vision on something that would drastically change our city and you hang on to it and and over time maybe it can come true cool thanks henry uh john well i like the idea which you use you said regarding uh uh you know an eir on on a area of the city or something where the developer doesn't have to do that and we admit it makes it easier for that developer to pencil out housing and community improvements and that sort of thing so i'm very supportive of that and i would like to this the the planning department and as you put this together really start to think about that think about that in in real creative ways so that we can get housing on the table and community and build these kind of communities i think that would be really important cool thanks john and then we'll go to michael yeah and i'll um i'm going to piggyback on on john and and really um uh board member walski and and henry a little bit too um on housing um i was part of workshops around the planning for the abandonment of the caltrans right of way for highway 12 on the east side of town uh several years ago now i guess and i think that what john points out is the difficulty and i made comments last week the difficulty of of getting neighborhoods to accept affordable housing as a as a as a critical piece of their own life here in santa rosa and that process has to move east so the idea of eir's for certain places and areas that would allow for that affordable housing to be built uh in the east the west the north and the south is really important um i i have really always thought that the concentration of where affordable projects are being built is not pointing toward any kind of um you know as board member walski said quality of life in rink and valley would improve dramatically with some mixed use projects that brought some resources to neighborhoods so um anyway across the board i think everybody touched on a little bit of the housing element i want to make sure that i would love to see that the new general plan in santa rosa forward really encouraged the opportunities for that housing to be built not just south and not not just west of 101 and south of 12 i would love to see it be encouraged and be available and give developers the opportunity to do that work um everywhere so uh thanks so much and uh i mean i i guess one final thing that i might add is i i i would love to see um just diversity in the types of things that we build um i you know and i i think i i also get really frustrated as a local architect when the architect from san diego gets brought in um i think it'd be nice to have our our local guys figure it out because uh i think we know we know more about our community and i don't know how we would do that uh within the confines of development but it might be nice great these are all great comments so i'm just going to move through some conclusions here um so we're documenting all of this and um and andy if you want i can give you the next steps um discussion but i did want to note that we do have a new survey out with similar questions that we've talked to you all about tonight so um please go to our website we've got a link to it directly on from our websites in english and spanish um please share that with your community and people that you know would like to comment on these same words and and just provide that same level of feedback we want to give everyone a front row seat to being able to shape the goals and and what we want for the city and for next steps andy did you want to talk about what what's happening next you're you're muted thank you amy um i think we're it's worth saying we're continuing with i think what amy called at a roadshow um to the end of this month and then we will be presenting at the joint study session at planning commission and council on the 20th of july um so that'll be a discrete step completed in the project but the visioning doesn't stop i would say we'll have a informed statement that will then help us in the next phase in developing the land use circulation mobility alternatives and those will be prepared informed by the vision statements and we hope to be able to bring those out to the public for review in the fall and at that time i envision we will be going back to groups to committees to city boards and commissions um and getting feedback on that and i look forward to those conversations we will really be seeing tangible plans in front of us and we'll be able to roll up our sleeves and have folks conversation i love the idea about creating active knows places where people can gather in neighborhoods that is a common theme that we've heard in these meetings um so these comments yours and the ones we received for less two months will be summarized and cast into a form that will be presented on the 20th um stay tuned stay involved thank you so much for your service on the design review board you are engaged in a part of the city's development process that's really important i'm very encouraged by the comments that i heard tonight and please bookmark our uh santa rosaforward.com website go there if you have questions direct anybody that you encounter that might want to learn more to the website or have them call us or send us an email and we would love to engage them in conversation and then i'll make a shameless plug for our community advisory committee we are constantly looking for people who are interested to serve and if you know somebody in your work or colleagues friends that might be interested to join us to help give input have them contact us and we can we always have openings and uh i think it's going to be a kind of group where we'll see people coming and and and joining the CAC over this now two and a half year remaining on our project thank you for hearing us this evening and look forward to the next time we meet thanks andy um i do we have anything else to cover uh amy and andy or was that that pretty much it that was great yes we're we're documenting everything and and uh we're good awesome um so then i think that's it unless uh bill you have anything else uh or will you want to move towards adjournment or no i don't have anything else thank you all for the comments those were great um as we indicated we took good notes so thank you and um no i'm looking at the agenda i think we're at item nine turn it over to you drew well thanks so much um so thanks very much andy um without further ado that concludes our uh regular scheduled design reward meeting and so uh i will call us adjourned and we'll see you guys uh next month have a good one