 He's getting ready to be a bachelor for a week, so he's a happy guy. Tomorrow morning. He's going to Autocrat Saturday. He's going to drive the race car down here, and he's going to take his helmet. He's not going to drive his race car. He's going to ride with another guy, and the other guy might drive his race car. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the Capitola Planning Commission, and I'm going to call the meeting to order, and we will begin with a roll call. Please, Jackie. Commissioner Newman. Here. Commissioner Smith. Here. Commissioner Welch. Here. Commissioner Westman. Good. Chairperson's story. Here. Will you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. So, before we begin on the agenda, I do want to announce that this meeting is Cablecast Live on Charter Communications, Cable TV Channel 8, and AT&T U-Verse Channel 99. It's being recorded tonight, and will be replayed next Monday and Friday at 1 p.m. on Charter Channel 71 and Comcast Channel 25. Meetings can also be viewed on the city's website in real time at www.cityacapitol.org, and tonight, our technician is Lynn Dutton. And also, as a reminder, if everyone could please make sure your cell phones are turned off. So, next on the agenda, we'll go to Oral Communications, and the first item is Additions and Deletions to the agenda. Do commissioners want to request any additions or deletions? Seeing none, staff? No additions or deletions. Okay, next on the agenda are public comments as opportunity for members of the public to address the commission on items that are not on tonight's agenda. Does anybody want to speak to us on non-agenda items? Seeing none, we'll move on to Commission Comments. Anybody got any announcements, updates? Okay, seeing none, we'll move to staff comments. I should announce that there was an appeal for the 205 Magellan, and that will be heard on September 27th by the City Council. Thank you, Katie. Next, we'll move to the approval of the Minutes of the Planning Commission regular meeting of June the 7th, 2018. Are there any requested changes, and if not, a motion to approve? Chairperson, I have a change. On page 18, it's talking about, it's the minutes about the retail marijuana sales, and it mentions that Commissioner Welch has some thoughts and concerns. I'd like to just have those stated what they are. So I gave the comments written down, so they could put those in there. It just discusses what I stated at the meeting. Based on the studies in Colorado and Washington, the count of sales may have a negative impact on our community, and I don't believe our law enforcement is staffed to handle the potential problems. So I just wanted that included in the minutes. Yeah, well thank you. And the other commissioners, how would you like to handle this item? You want to approve the minutes for the addition that TJ has mentioned, or wait for the actual draft minutes to come back? I would move approval with the changes that TJ's recommended. Second. There's a motion in second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Which brings us to the consent calendar for this evening. Consent items will be handled with one vote. Unless anyone requests that it be removed from the consent agenda for further discussions. Do commissioners wish to pull a consent item? There's only one, so. None? Do any members of the public wish to pull a consent item for further discussion? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar. Also move. Second. There's a motion in the second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. We have one abstention. So the motion is 3 to 0 with one abstention. Due to having property within the 500 foot radius. Okay. Congratulations. Yes. You're welcome to stay for the rest of the agenda. Thank you. So which will bring us to public hearings for the evening. We have one public hearing. This is concerning 1816 Warf Road. This is an application for our coastal development permit and variants to decrease the setback from the Riparian Corridor East Soquel Creek for a pen pile retaining wall located within the A-R-R-R-1-E-S-H-A zoning district. With that, we'll begin with a staff report. Okay. Thank you, Chair Story and good evening commissioners. Before you this evening is a coastal development permit with a variance for a new pin pile wall at 1816 Warf Road. I should clarify that the staff report that you read was written by our new staff member Sasha Landry, who is presenting tonight because many questions have come up and the technicality of this. So that was her fine work in the report. Quick overview. The Riparian Corridor is shown in this image in green. And from the Riparian Corridor there's a 35 foot setback for development. When the home was developed, the home received a variance for the setback requirements for 15 to 20 feet, 15 to 20 foot variation for the setbacks. There was permitted existing a retaining wall right at the edge of the Riparian Corridor. And so one thing I want to clarify is that this application in our initial analysis thought it was one foot within the 35 foot setback. It was actually right on the edge of the Riparian Corridor. In the previous staff reports from 07, it states that the wall was going to be within a couple feet of the Riparian Corridor. So by placing this wall just directly inside the other wall, we can pretty much assume it's at the zero setback line to a one foot setback line. And being out on this site, so much sloughing has taken place in front of the wall that it doesn't seem to be much of a habitat area right along the wall. But there is one native tree that's maybe five feet in from the wall. So we can assume that the Riparian Corridor, actually the owner did follow up with a biologist when this application first came in to ask if the Riparian Corridor limits had changed since the 07. And they said no due to that native species tree being so close to the wall. So here are some images of the sloughing that's occurred. There was, as we all know, large rainstorms two years ago that caused this problem and the existing wall has now been undermined in the need of repair. What the applicant is proposing is a pin pile wall and it'll be located just outside the existing retaining wall. In here you can see the pin piles, the pins themselves are located five feet apart from one another and they're quite substantial pins that go into the ground. I think it was 28 feet. 32 feet, thank you. This image shows there is a similar pin pile wall on the neighboring property 1810 Warf Road and it was just put in a few weeks ago. And so the image on the left is at 1810 Warf Road and this is essentially what it will look like with the pins going into the ground, the 32 feet. And on the right is 1816 Warf Road, the area that's failing and I've just highlighted the area of the future pin pile wall and it'll actually line up similar to the property at 1810 Warf Road. And the engineer that is here this evening, I believe designed those plans as well. Next door. That is a great plan done by the technical engineer. Oh, okay. So here's an image from the side showing the existing residents and the slope going down the hill and how the pin piles go into the ground 32 feet and you can see there's an intermediate retaining wall that's placed between the piles. That goes five feet deep. And this area up here is where the existing wall is today. The applicant is requesting a variance because they're within the 35 foot setback. The unique circumstances tied to this lot is that it's extremely steep and that it necessitates the wall being just outside the existing wall so therefore it has to get closer to that, the edge of the riparian corridor. At grant of special privileges, there's been numerous walls, actually, for retaining down Warf Road. A lot of the previous applications actually didn't require a variance for being located in the riparian corridor, but going back and looking at the applications, they probably should have because they were so close to the riparian area. So there are quite a few circumstances on Warf Road that 1840 and 1850 Warf Road, which are more similar to this property in that the lot doesn't have much depth before it comes to the river or to the stream. In reviewing this application, I've listed additional conditions that should be added to this permit. Some questions came up from Commissioner Smith asking how do we ensure that all the conditions placed in the geological reports are enforced when the wall is built, so we've added conditions and many of these are actually from the first time back in 2007 permit when the first wall was brought in. The other is that a condition has been added for drainage from the house, shall be directed away from the slope of Warf Road. That was in the staff report and a requirement of public works and was not in the conditions, so that's also been added in that, but the rest of the conditions speak to making sure the geotechnical consultants and all the plans are followed as recommended within the reports. So with that, staff is recommending approval of the application for the pinpiled wall based on the findings and conditions of approval and the conditions as amended. The owner is here this evening and she also has her specialist here who can speak on the matter and this one is very technical, so any real technical questions, I'd defer to them. I'm happy to answer any questions. Maybe the... Maybe Mr. Cooper will be able to answer when you have a chance. We wait until you get up there so everyone can see you at home. But would it be a geologist that approves the report or the geotechnical engineer? It's the geotechnical engineer. I was noticing that. I'm not clear that we have a geologist involved here. We have a geotech. I think that needs to be fixed on condition number two. No, not yet. Other questions from commissioners on the staff report? One other question, the drainage from the house being directed away, the requirement of public works, is that during construction or is that permanent? I believe that's permanent. But they did, in the backyard, there is drainage setup that's going to filter actually from the backyard. It goes down directly behind the new wall and then there's an area in which it goes back into the backyard. So if we could build in some flexibility with that first that it meet the requirements of public works would be better because I don't think it's exactly how the public works. A further on that question because I went and visited the site and I noticed there's the catchment that leads out over the embankment and toward the creek. And the plans show that the drainage would be going out in that direction. So I'm not sure how this condition is going to be met with that some sort of pump up because it is sloped down in that direction. Yes, I think we should I'd like if we could have an amendment to that first condition that drainage meet the requirements of public works because they have reviewed these plans when they were modified and brought back in. That was one of the questions that came up from Arkansas. And once these plans came in they were okay with the way it was draining. So I think it would be best. I think at first they were requesting that it be drained towards Warfrobe but once they saw the plans and the existing drainage they were okay with it draining at least back onto their property. So sorry for the confusion on that one. No, that's fine and thanks for that clarification but they're going to be will public works be adding requirements so that it's not contributing to the erosion on that slope. In other words, piping it all the way down to the river instead of just letting it run off onto the slope. I believe they want it to run off onto the slope because for stormwater purposes you don't want it to go directly into the river. You actually want to try to have some of it be absorbed into the ground. But I can check with them but I know they weren't satisfied with the plans the first time they came through and then upon the second review they were happy with them and I'm not sure if there's any engineering from where the water comes out and maybe catches it so that it goes deeper into the ground at that point but I can make sure it satisfies their conditions or their requirements for groundwater. Thank you. Any other questions on the staff report? And I did have a question and maybe when you do your presentation you could address it but I'm just how is this work going to be accomplished because it's a small area? How exactly are they going to get in there and dig these deep holes in the ground for the pile? Do you know that already? I know that there's a push to get the permitting approved as soon as possible. We tried to get this to hearing as soon as possible because of the development next door. I don't think they're expecting to pour their foundation for about four weeks. Speaking with that applicant we can issue a procedure on risk tomorrow to get building plans in and reviewed. They get reviewed by a third party because of the engineering aspect of this and hopefully after the two-week appeal period is finished we'll have the plans that have been reviewed and she could start with her contractor at that point and hopefully the neighbor would be amenable to allowing her to utilize access. So gaining access from that. That's the whole. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay, good. With that I'll maybe open it up to the applicant to... I'm Joanne Kisling and I don't have a lot more to add except that this project is very important because the slope is so steep and further erosion could threaten the house. The reason that we're doing this is that the current wall has been breached by the slide so it really needs to happen in order to protect the house and as quickly as possible hopefully to be able to take advantage of access through the neighbor's yard which he has agreed to assuming he hasn't started to pour his own foundation and that kind of thing which would become a problem. And then the only other thing that maybe I should address is the drainage was designed to not erode the cliff. The piping goes down far enough to be below where there's loose soil and that's the intention of it and the whole property is sloped so I mean this is a question for public works but all water is going to want to go towards the creek whether it's underground or above ground so that's why we built it's a pretty robust drainage system as it is. So it's in the spirit of trying to prevent any further problems for the biology of the area as well as the property. Okay any other questions? I had one though I read in one of the letters that was a reference to landscaping but I didn't see any landscaping plan but I just wonder what was being thought of is it just going to let the natural vegetation grow or are the things put in? Well we had to remove there was nice native landscaping already but we had to take all that out because without a new wall there the concern was that more moisture going in behind that wall could create pressure and we didn't know what the winter was going to be like after that really hideous winter of 16, 17. So we made the decision my brother-in-law is a builder and so we took out all the landscaping covered it with tarps as you saw today to prevent more water going in behind that wall. So we can develop a landscaping plan one thought and this is I'll have this conversation with Public Works is to not put in plants but to cover the ground so that more water doesn't go in behind there because again I don't think it's contributing to aquifer it's just creating potentially creates more problems but if that's not allowable then we can work on another native foliage. Thank you. Yeah. Anything further? Not for me. Thank you. My name is Moses Capril I'm principal engineer with Harrow-Casunage & Associates I'm available to answer any questions if you have any. Any questions for commissioners for Moses? I have one question. It has to do with the corner where in the photograph we saw the neighboring construction and where it comes and is going to meet so the picture on the left represents what's at the neighbors and where it meets with the pile retaining wall at 1816 is slightly off level. Is there going to be any way to tie that across so you don't get a failure in that corner? Well if you keep the two systems within five feet of each other it's not necessary to have them in line with each other the arching between the soil or excuse me between the piers will still be acting so if you have one that's say staggered off downslope a few feet from the adjacent pier and their spacing is still five feet the soil is going to have difficult time arching between the two or flowing between the two so if they are further than five feet apart they just have one pier staggered towards closer to the pier the downslope almost like you would a retaining wall that starts heading in the downslope direction so the trick with these things is just to keep the piles close together and the arching capability of the soil does the rest so these are what I like about these walls is that they are not you can't see them right away they're underground they are basically buried retaining walls based on the arching action of the soil and eventually the soil will naturally mobilize in front of it in the active zone what we call considered the active zone which is basically the terrace deposit it's not the bedrock and so it can continue the hillside continues natural erosion process which I know is some concern to certain agencies and when that time comes the pin piles will become exposed vertically and you can either excuse me you could put some kind of a lagging between them boards, wood boards or even a shot creek and so that's down the roadways but I heard you guys discussing how could we build this there's many ways to go about constructing pin pile walls in limited access environments we do them all the time on opal cliff and on beach drive and kingsbury and sea cliff if she has enough room you can get in small equipment that could drill to those depths the bedrock is drillable and it's it can be excavated if there for whatever reason is just too tight there are contractors that specialize in coming in and hand digging these pin piles and they can go down 40 feet they shore it the whole way down it's all Kalosha safe type of an operation so it's feasible to construct and you know they do work so I think it's a good solution for Ms. Kisseling at this time thank you sure and I do note that on the plans those two corner pilings are 5 feet apart so shouldn't be an issue yeah I'm working on the neighbors property as well I did the pin pile recommendations for that one so so do they go to the same depth no as you're targeting are they deeper or shallower well there are different slope gradients on the adjacent property so it was they have a 1810 has a bench and we ran the same type of standard of care we checked for stability and found where we thought there would be future erosion and made sure the pins were seated well below that line and so for Ben's property or Mr. Schrock's property that line was higher they had that bench in front it just has more setback to the face of the slope so that didn't require to go to the same depth however it is the bedrock I think is a little higher off the top of my head and so his pins are similarly seated into the bedrock as well so they're both going to be around for you know good while okay well thank you you're welcome any other questions from commissioners just let me ask any other members of the public wish to address the commission on this item certainly yes I am talking to one builder I forgot about your concern about how we're going to build obviously anyone who's going to bid on it is looking I've had a couple of people out already but I'm talking to one who does do the hand digging so by hook or by crook this is going to be able to be built right okay and then yeah I've lindic caught that Ben's last pier and my first pier are five feet together and then there was one more thing oh my the short answer to your question is my peers are a little deeper than Ben's okay obviously it's in construction now and we just tried to target it let's get it within five feet of the neighboring retaining wall and that way his property is secured and just by she's going to be doing the same thing well it'll continue on down the line okay I have one more question if I could go ahead lindic just one more question and it's something that's concerned me looking at this because this is such a new property it's nine years old I think somewhere in the neighborhood extreme weather we have and we expect but is the type of wall that was used originally is that the problem or why did it fail so soon well the original wall is what we call a soldier beam tied back wall unless you run that thing clear down to the bedrock platform which is I don't know 20, 25 feet down it's always susceptible to becoming undermined and that's what's beneficial about these pin piles is you're going clear down below the bedrock and you're allowed to have the soil you rode out in front of it and this will no longer be an issue so I wasn't involved in the design of the original structure but I come across them all the time doing coastal engineering and geotechnical engineering in this area it's not uncommon to see a soldier beam wall and it get undermined and typically what we do when we come across those is we have them drop down a couple more boards and run a whaler and some tie backs and just continue the wall down slope and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and eventually and going from what we call a cantilever type soldier pile wall as you keep going down and down and adding tie backs it becomes a compression wall and it's being held just kind of how you would take a book you're using the friction of the wall or the slope in that case the wall if you're holding a book up using the friction on the wall to hold the book in place with just a little finger that's kind of the same way you're that's the repair at least so you know I can't speak to what their design considerations were at that time you know if they were targeting you know 50 years we don't want any issues but it's not a favorable thing to do with bluff tops these days you know people don't want to see Shot Creek clear you know 30 feet tall it's just not popular so they were probably making that consideration and thinking okay well we can get hopefully 15, 20 years out of this without an event occurring and when it happens it'll have to get repaired similar with the pin piles you know eventually they do become exposed and someone's going to have to get in and face it it's just a little maintenance we should focus a little on the issues that are before us today later we'll learn how to build walls sorry not off track thank you okay anything else I don't believe so okay okay thank you for the presentation seeing no other public comments on this matter I'm going to close the microphone and bring it back up to commissioners for discussion action I'll go first unless somebody else wants to go ahead I mean just to focus on the issues that are really our issues here which are one variance we've we've had other variances on this this location for the same reason basically this is very trivial so I think it satisfies the requirements for a variance and I don't really see an issue there's no public access issue here that's I'm trying to think of what the concerns are of our coastal plan here there's no public access issue I haven't heard anything about any habitat or paleontological issues with this so the last one is whether or not it has an adverse effect on local shoreline sand supply and I really tried to get my head around that because probably a lot of people here don't know that we lost our beach in the late 60s retaining walls on the river it's all because of the southern drift of the beaches and so I mean it's sort of like no to me it's a non-issue I mean I don't see how this could affect our significantly affect the sand supply so I I mean I just think it's an easy application to support I would concur I do see how this could be it's what they're insured and certified for but at the one-on-one grant I believe they use a similar system we did have that major slide afterwards that now we don't have Esplanade Park anymore so I could see how this could have an effect but this in this case it's not going to affect anybody in that way or in a detriment way so I don't have an issue with it but I do think that it's important for us to learn when stuff like this happens because the worst thing that we can do is have new houses that we allow to give built and the next thing they're falling in the creek so it did concern me that it's such a new house and that the failure is this big so I went and read almost 450 pages and the construction and everything trying to figure out if there was some way that we could do something better and I couldn't find it I mean we ask all of the questions we reviewed all of the information we did have engineers and it's one of the reasons that I ask Katie we did condition in the original approvals the implementation of the recommendations report and I think that we should do that again I think it's important that it not only be the recommendations be adhered to but that they be inspected and that the property owner know that it's being built to the best possible way when somebody builds a house and I've seen this in Capitola more than other places that I've lived there's this process going through the government process and we try and make sure that everybody's doing everything right and they rely on us and their experts but sometimes it's difficult to get all of the right experts talking in the same direction so I think we owe it to ourselves to learn from things like this that happen and move the things forward but this looks as complete and I think you know we move forward as quickly as we can so you can get it done with the access thank you Linda and does somebody want to make a motion to on the side of I'll move approval with the conditions as modified during the earlier discussion just maybe to clarify that motion conditions as modified there were concerns concerning the drainage the first one was that the drainage would be for the public works direction and the other one was that the inspection or certification would be by the geotechnical engineer and I would like to add to that that the landscaping plan be submitted with that I'll call the question all in favor I any opposed hearing none the motion passes unanimously congratulations and good luck with that project it looks like a really big one so with that that brings us to the director's report so very briefly the library funding there has been additional monies that have been brought forward so the library project will be moving forward council reviewed this last week and will be I'll bring you any updates in the future of any modifications that will be taken out for cost savings within the library but at this point they are moving forward with the library project so thank you good news so which brings us in communications anything from commissioners thank you good time to say that I disagree a little bit with commissioner smith's view of our role here I think I don't think we're qualified to get too deeply into the technical aspects of applications and we have to pretty much rely on the professionals I mean it's a dangerous I think direction to go that the planning commission will figure out what we're doing is really from an engineering standpoint valid that's not what I'm implying but we line the experts up and we make sure that they have the right ones I'll take that I don't want to be an engineer I can't figure it out I think the way I view is she was just trying to have us be informed so we can share this information for future applications with that you want to have the last word well I just wanted to say that you know with my own experience when we did our remodel we hired an engineer and the city hired an engineer and then the two engineers duked it out and it's like that's good with that I will adjourn this meeting to the next regularly scheduled meeting of the city