 Good afternoon everyone this is design review board chair Scott Kincaid just wanted to let you know that we will be getting going as soon as we can. Thank you. Hey Trisha can you hear me. Yes. Can you hear me good. Yes. Hey Scott and Paul. Yeah. Can you guys when you get a sec put on your virtual background please. Thank you. Thank you. Oh. Hi Alan. How are you. Fine. How are you. Great. Thank you. Any luck on presentation for LTSPA. Yes, a lot of luck. You think I'll have it by Friday. You can have it before that because I'm not going to be here. Great. No, I just need to put one more spot on it and then. Then I'm good to go. Perfect. Thank you. Adrian, why is my knee only flower that's on. This side. Why everyone else's is on that side. Did I did I actually download it in reverse. No, it's correct. Everybody's looks that this is actually an ongoing joke. It looks fine. Mine looks backwards too, but I'm sure mine looks. It looks right on your screen. I'm with you Alan. I've said the same thing from the beginning. The only difference. Backwards. Thanks. Like why am I the cheese that stands alone on this one. You guys are all cutting. I think you're cutting out Tony. Yeah, everyone's cutting out. I'm not having that issue. Well, I guess that means Tony's just here to observe today. Did you hear that Tony? No, you cut out. Hey, Adrian, can you see that? The meeting will start shortly screen. Okay. Yeah. I say we just leave it. And then once we start live. Transfer it over. So leave this. Yeah. Hi, Dave. He just put his earphones in. Dave, you there? Yes, I'm here. How's my virtual background? I was trying to get your attention so I could say that. Thank you. I'm finishing up another zoom call over here. So, but I don't think I have a speaking role for a while. You're good. I'll text you if you're needed. I got my eye on it. Hey, Adrian. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Everyone but Jason. Did he say he was going to have someone. Join besides him. No, let me just text him and see if we should proceed without him. Okay. And Adrian, if you want to, since it's five 31, I could always broadcast this. And then we could leave this. Okay. Until you're back from him. And then that will allow for us to start renaming the residents. Okay. If that works for you. If not, we can hold off. You just let me know. Yeah, we could. I just realized we were both supposed to be on another meeting right now. So he might be on that other meeting. I think I haven't heard from it. He didn't text back yet. And I don't see any little dots going. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for taking time to join us this evening. I'm Adrian Mertens and the chief communications and intergovernmental relations officer for the city of Santa Rosa. You are on the information and community input meeting for the city of Santa Rosa's PG and E settlement funds. This meeting was specifically set up for our fire survivor group. We are hosting the fire management meeting with the Mayor of Santa Rosa County and the Mayor of Santa Rosa County, which is located in San Pedro hidden valley, Montecito and Oakmont neighborhood areas. I do want to touch on a few housekeeping items for the meeting and then I will introduce our participating city staff. So as community members join this meeting, you will be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and your camera will be muted and turned off. Privacy concerns are hosts, Trisha, who you cannot see, but is on the meeting right now, will be renaming your viewable phone number to citizen and only the last four digits of your phone number will be shown on the screen. So we'll start the meeting with a brief background presentation that will provide more information on the settlement funds. But really this meeting is a time for all of you who have joined us to ask any questions and also to provide your input on how you believe the Santa Rosa City Council should prioritize the settlement funds. So after the presentation concludes, we'll open for questions and community input. At that time, we'll ask that you raise your hand in Zoom using the raise your hand feature. Our Zoom host will move one by one down the list of attendees with their hand raised. And once you've asked your question or shared your input, the Zoom host will lower your hand. And if you're dialing in from a telephone, you'll want to use star nine to raise your hand. And to introduce our city staff participants, we have Alan Alton, our interim chief financial officer from our finance department. We have Dave Gwine, our director of housing and community services. We have Jason Nutt, our assistant city manager and director of transportation and public works. And from our fire department, we have chief Tony Gosner, fire marshal Scott Moon and assistant fire marshal Paul Owen fall. And then we also have, and who we are very grateful for, our two co-hosts Trisha Mason and Elisa Rawson, who will be helping with the transitions between presentation and community input and questions. They'll also be recording notes from the meeting to ensure that we document all of the input received. So in addition to this meeting, the city has held one previous meeting with our coffee park fire survivors. And we do have one more community wide meeting that's planned for tomorrow evening. This meeting as well as that meeting that's tomorrow were rescheduled. They were originally set for late September and had to be rescheduled due to the glass fire. So I want to thank everyone for your flexibility and patience as we got those rescheduled and back on track. Additionally, we have a digital survey that's running to collect public input. It's being circulated throughout the whole community. We've had a few thousand survey responses so far. We did extend the date of that survey and it will now in this upcoming Sunday, October 25th. And we will provide the URL on how you can take that survey at the end of the meeting. And so after all of our input has been collected and we get through those meetings and the survey deadline ends, our staff will be working to compile all of the input that we've received throughout this process into a comprehensive report that will be provided to city council. And Alan, who will be our presenter will share a little more information on what will happen after that during his presentation. So at this time I would like to turn it over to Alan Alton, our interim chief financial officer and we'll give Trisha just a second to transition the slides. Thank you, Adrienne and good evening everybody. I hope you all are well. Let's just kick on to the first slide here and we'll run through these kind of quickly here. So the city filed a claim with PG&E to recoup from our damages from the 2017 modifier that weren't covered by either federal or state aid or insurance. And from that settlement we received about $95 million and we received that in July of 2020. Next slide please. So there are no restrictions on how the funds may be sent and the council made it or spent and the council made it very clear that they wanted to get input from the community to help with the prioritization. So some of this has been discussed during council goal setting or with the long-term financial policy and audit subcommittee. But this is really these meetings and the digital survey are our way ensuring that we're reaching fire survivors and the affected community to be able to get that direct input and report that back to the council. Next slide please. So we are post-fire and there are still things that the city needs to recover and rebuild. I would say that just for a little bit of context going in here, the city has worked since the fire with FEMA and Cal OES on a number of disaster recovery projects. In all we have 29 projects that were approved by FEMA and which allowed us to establish a budget and begin work. And those projects are in some state of being underway. All of our projects related to the response of the fire. So the fire is not just a fire, but to the response of the fire. So the folks fighting the fires and all of the other city response that went to the incident itself, we've received that reimbursement back. So what we are dealing with when we talk about funded projects or obligated projects, those are the ones that are needed to actually rebuild in the community. Unfortunately though, some projects have either been denied and are therefore unfortunately unfunded. So next slide please. So one of those and probably the most iconic one is the fire station five that was on Newgate that was destroyed in the fire. We are looking to rebuild that station in a new site within Fountain Grove that is more fire hardened, if you will. So far while we continue to appeal FEMA's decision to deny this project, it is still currently unapproved and therefore unfunded and is something that would fit in for the use of these dollars. Next slide please. In addition to that, we have there were roads that were damaged both in the areas of the fire burn scar that were as a part of the debris removal mission. The large trucks that went through there, it put weight on streets that deteriorated them greatly. We've estimated the cost of those streets to be repaired at around $24 million. Next slide please. In addition to streets, sidewalks were also destroyed or damaged greatly both during the fire and the debris removal mission and we're looking at about $4.1 million of cost estimate to repair those. Next slide please. So over the past couple of years, the city's removed hundreds of heritage and street trees and other right-of-way trees in the burn scar area. There are still hundreds of private property hazardous trees included in the city's initial assessment that still remain. And so the fire department is focusing on private property dead and drying trees that present fall hazards both to immediate structures or neighboring structures or simply infringe on the defensible space around the structure. And we are estimating costs there of around $5.1 million. Next slide please. So what I have here are a number of items that have come up in previous public forums. These are all included on the digital survey that Adrian mentioned before. These are things that would sit as items that could be used for the money, the PG&E settlement money, looking at vegetation management and fuel reduction, evacuation route, either construction and improvements in the wooly, home hardening incentives and the system programs, wildfire readiness. We're even to looking at jumpstarting affordable housing opportunities through incentive funding. So kind of moving outside of fire specific projects, but something that noting that the fire was a community wide impact of course in some areas it was very directed, but it affected the community as a whole. So we're looking at ways to kind of rebuild the community as a whole also. So we would also look at looking at our resiliency through backup generators or micro grids, things like that that we can maintain our critical facility functionality through disasters, looking at business and workforce recovery, loans and grant programs, community assets that are libraries and community centers, homeless services, repairs that are not necessarily associated with fire recovery, park improvements, broadband internet, all of those. So it's a, like I said before, it is a, there are no strings on these funds that could be used for everything. And as you can tell from these that have been brought up in other areas, there's a wide range of possibilities for that. Next slide, please. So believe is the end. So we, as I mentioned before, we are looking for your help. We're looking for input. We'd like to have that as a way to help the council prioritize where this will go, as Adrian mentioned before, after the survey has completed on Sunday, we will tabulate and analyze that data, we'll take the input from these meetings, we'll take the input that has come in through emails and letters and up in other public forums. And we will somehow compile a report to the long-term financial policy and audit subcommittee. That is the council subcommittee that has been tasked with doing the initial prioritization of these prior, before it goes to the full council, the subcommittee meetings. And the one that we are targeting to take this information to will be the November 12th meeting. It is a Brown Act publicized meeting. We do use it through Zoom, so it's much like this. And that will be the first attempt for three council members to go through this. And then the following Tuesday, on November 17th, we'll be in front of the council during study session to go over this report for the full council. Now, study session means that they won't be making a decision on that there, but they will hopefully provide staff with direction on how to move forward and when they would like the next meeting to go or how they would like that to move forward from that spot. And with that, my presentation is done and we'd like to hear from you. So I'm gonna turn it back over to Adrienne. All right. Thank you, Alan. So we will now open the meeting for questions in your input. And again, I'll just remind you of the process for that. If you'd like to make a comment or provide input or ask a question via Zoom, you wanna use the raise your hand feature in Zoom. And if you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to indicate that you're raising your hand. All the input that is collected here, as Alan said, will be part of that report going to council. And I do wanna mention that when council gave us direction on putting our input process together, they did emphasize that it was really important to them that they heard directly from our fire impacted neighborhoods. And so that's why we have set up these meetings specifically. So this is a time to ask questions of our subject matter experts that are here, but certainly also to weigh in on how you think those funds should be prioritized. So I will turn it over to Tricia now who is going to transition us into question and input. So the first speaker will be resident Lamba. Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for public record. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay, yeah, my name is Sequinda Lamba. So I'm a fire survivor from Fountain Grove. And so we have a group of 40 odd homes which are rebuilt now in Fountain Grove. And one of the questions I have for the panelists here is the biggest risk for the city right now, as we toiled through these years to rebuild. And now we found that Skyhawk was hit this year by another fire. We keep on getting hit by these fires, right? And the risk is from the insurance perspective. We are very fearful that insurance companies will start denying the insurance to say Fountain Grove and Skyhawk homes. And that has got a rippling, that could have a rippling effect on the city, right? If they start denying and we are not able to get insurance, it reduces the desirability of the city for people to come in and it'll have rippling effect on the economy and everything else. So I think as we have these funds, I would like a city to consider the maximum funds, go towards that we do not have these incidents year over year again and again, right? And I see some suggestions about vegetation management and things like that. There wasn't any mention of technologies like drones and sensors and all that. I know that when Fountain Grove was hit, there was a report which said that Skyhawk Hills and Lincoln Valley Hills are number one risk for the city. And no wonder that's what happened this year. Skyhawk was hit and we had many residents who lost home in Skyhawk and Lincoln Valley. So the point is these areas are known and the risk is known. And how can we mitigate that using these funds so that we can prevent it? Vegetation management is one, you're making the fire breaks, definitely we need to fund the fire station. You know, when the fire happened in Skyhawk, we know that the fire department was scrambling to get the firefighters because we are running out of firefighters. It was very fortunate. We are so thankful for the fire department to not make Skyhawk event or not let Skyhawk event become a Fountain Grove event. But I think we need to stop this happening from year over year. Otherwise the whole city's desirability economy and if insurances start, stop denying the insurance, we'll be in a much, much worse situation. So that's my comment and request to the people who are making these decisions to direct these funds. Thank you. There are no hands raised at this time. So if anyone else, oh, I'm sorry, I spoke too soon. The next speaker will be Jenny. Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for public record. My name is Jenny. I am a Fountain Grove fire survivor and rebuilding. And I've just briefly reviewed what was brought up on the slide as possible options for using the funds. And I feel that it's a bit disheartening to see many items on there that are not related to the fire. It seems that the number one priority for the funding is to bring back the areas affected by the fire to the level that they were before. Streets, lights, signs, infrastructure, water, water meters, whatever that might mean, that that's the number one priority, that the money needs to go to where it's supposed to be directed to, which is to those areas directly impacted by the fire. Once that settled and back to par, so to speak, then maybe we can all have a conversation about, hey, okay, it costs this much money to bring us back to par. We have this much money left in the settlement. Now, what do we wanna do with it? Now, where do we wanna focus our direction and intention? But absolutely, the money should go to where it is supposed to go, which is to fix what was destroyed and make us all whole again. Thank you. I'm assuming she... Okay, the next speaker will be Ron. Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for public record. Oh, hello, my name's Ron. Do I need to get my last name or does that matter? It's up to you. I'm a Fountain Grove resident survivor of the 17 fire. And I wanted to kind of just add on to what Jenny just said, I agree 100%. It is kind of upsetting that we have gone three years and very from the looks of it living here currently, seems like that just not a lot of effort is put into rebuilding this area and the fact that they wanna put funds into other areas that are not related to the fire also does not go down too well. I mean, I feel like first and foremost, more effort and time and money needs to put in to get in our community back, helping processes with building, cleaning up the area, debris removal has still hasn't happened, sidewalks, streets. There's burn trees still from three years ago that are just in areas everywhere. All you have to do is drive around and see them and no effort has been put in. I agree with putting funds into assisting the fire department and whatever they need to harden the area, et cetera. So that's my input and that's it, I guess I just kind of agree with what a lot of people are saying that live here. So thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be resident B. Mills and then Jenny, please unmute yourself, unmute your microphone and identify yourself for public record. Yes, hi, my name is Brian Mills, my family and I lost our home in 2017 in the Hidden Valley neighborhood. And certainly not to sound like a broken record, but I wholeheartedly agree with the last two individuals. To hear, and I don't mean this maliciously, but to hear someone say in the opening presentation that this funding is no strings attached funding, I think is 100% the wrong mindset to have here. We received that money in a settlement to help make Santa Rosa whole again and to repair the damage done. So until every last little thing is addressed and fixed, that money should not be even considered for anything else. This discussion should be more realistic in the fact that we received X amount of dollars in the lawsuit. We're faced with more than that and repairs that need to be done. So we'd like to help prioritizing what we consider to be the most important repairs to make, but to even consider that we would use this money for something other than making the city whole again, I think is deplorable, I'll be honest. I don't know how else to describe it. To even think that that's a discussion that needs to be had to me is very disheartening. So I would definitely say I too, when I drive around Santa Rosa, especially three years later, in the areas that were affected, they don't look even nearly close to being back to where they were before. I understand that it takes longer than that, but the fact that every single tree and all the medians has disappeared, even with the new houses, it doesn't feel like Santa Rosa in those areas yet. And that means to be our goal in my mind, those areas need to be restored back to as close to we can, feeling like the lush green Santa Rosa neighborhoods that they were before. So I can't as a victim and a resident at the same time, I can't condone the idea of using that money for anything different than rehabilitating the city back to its previous state as best as possible. Thank you. The next speaker will be Jenny. Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself again for public record. Thank you. Thank you. This is Jenny again, a found growth, rebuilding and fire survivor. I just wanted to tag on to this conversation, just knowing a little bit about city politics and bureaucracy and the fact that we have, the city has this money and it is there to be used. I also feel very strong about the fact that action should be taken sooner than later. This isn't about a one year plan, a two year plan, a three year plan, a five year plan. We've already been waiting three years and just this in the last few months, the first phase of some tree removal started. And to everybody's point, it would be nice now that the money's here to see action taken more immediately and not as a long-term or multi-year process. Thank you. Duncan had their hand raised. I'm not sure if you would like to speak or ask a question. At this time, there's no hands raised. Oh, okay. Duncan will be the next speaker. Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for public record. I'm not sure if there's technical difficulties. Can you hear me? We're getting a lot of feedback when you talk. Sorry about that. I'm not sure. I'll have to send my... Your question or comments. Yeah, Duncan, if you'd like to, if you have a question that you want to send in for one of our panelists to answer, you can go ahead and try to email me right now at it's my first initial A and my last name. So amurtans at srcity.org or you can send me your public input in that way too. Thank you. At this time, there are no other hands raised. So I don't know if we want to wait for his comment. Sure, we'll give him a minute. I actually wanted to take a moment to open it for our panelists and appreciate all the feedback so far in your comments and I think there were a few things in there that maybe your panelists want to address or there were a few things that came up that I think they might want to provide comment on. So how about I start with Paul or should we start with Alan? You want to? Yeah, I will. Okay. I will. So clearly I was not artful in my use of words when I said no strings attached. I didn't mean to put any type of to make the work in the fire area insignificant. No strings attached on money coming in was merely meant that that it literally could be used for anything. And if the council decided to use all of that in the fire areas, that's absolutely what they can do. Sometimes we receive settlements and they can only be used for certain things. So that's all I meant. It was not at all to slight your area or the work that needs to be done there. And your comments have been received and they're very pointed as and I can absolutely empathize with what they are and that will be brought back to the council. So I just wanted to make that clear. I didn't mean any offense that they came across that way. It was just an artful turn of phrase and I apologize. And then fire department, does anyone wanna address anything? Hey, yeah, thank you. I wanted to follow back up on a couple of the comments specifically on trees and then vegetation management. So we do recognize that there are a significant number of dead and deteriorating trees. It's kind of quickly shifted from dead and dying to more of a dead and deteriorating status. We have a couple of ways that we have been actively addressing it. Right now we have been holding up and or holding people responsible for removing some of the more hazardous trees that are presenting that fall hazard to the right-of-way potentially and or the structure itself or our neighboring structure when rebuilding is taking place on a case-by-case basis. So we have been able to use that. We're also actively looking at the potential of creating an addition to an existing ordinance right now. A lot of you and found over familiar with our weed abatement ordinance. So that's something we're actively exploring is adding the trees to the existing weed abatement ordinance that will give us the ability to address trees like Mr. Altman had described that do present that fall hazard to the right-of-way to a neighboring property and or are within the areas that would be directly impacted or in close proximity to rebuild. One thing we do wanna make clear that we've been trying to be very clear about it up front is there was a lot of comments early on in the recovery process from residents that were adamant about all of the dead trees being removed from the burn scar. There is not a plan to do that at this point. A lot of the trees, primarily in the open spaces or areas where they do not present a threat to falling on a neighbor's property onto a structure and or encroach on what we'll ultimately be working on is defensible space around homes. A lot of those trees will be up to the resident as to whether or not they wanna remove them. A lot of the work that we did was specifically to those trees that present the hazard or wanna infringe on the areas that we've been working to bring into our recommendations for defensible space and vegetation management around structures. Regarding vegetation management, we have in a couple of the speakers did comment on the threats to Rink and Valley specifically the areas above Skyhawk. That was confirmed. The fire department wrapped up our community wildfire protection plan that was approved by council in September last month. The plan did identify a number of threats to the community. The number one threat was that unburned area between the nuns fire and the tubs fire, which a good portion of it did burn during this particular event. However, there are still a number of threats to our community that have been documented very well. That also include found road. Found road is an area that we have been actively working to secure grant funding at both the state and federal level since 2017. Unfortunately, we have been unsuccessful in securing any grants that we have applied for with the exception of the grant that helped actually develop the community wildfire protection plan. We have seen the volume of regrowth in found road, the change of the ecology in found road with the lack of a canopy has really changed the brush and a lot of the growth that's taking place. And with that, we have already turned in for additional notice of interests even as these community meetings are taking place for several million dollars worth of grants that we're hoping that we'll be able to help with improving the vegetation management around our evacuation routes and vegetation management within our wildland urban interfaces, which includes found road, the areas that are included in this community meeting. So we're hopeful that the plan will help with that. But ultimately, as we've unfortunately seen in the past, it's they're not a guarantee, but we are continuing to actively try and address the concerns that have been raised by us as well as the community. And then one last piece, there was the comments regarding the landscape or mediums. That is actually an active project that's taking place. In fact, a couple of us that are involved in this meeting, Chief Moon and I are meeting with several community representatives on the found road landscape project that's currently in progress and design right now. Thank you, Paul. I know Assistant City Manager Nett wanted to make a couple of comments as well. Thank you, Adrienne. There were several comments about the length of time it's taken for us to deliver projects moving forward. We've spent the first two years really coordinating and working with Cal OES and FEMA in an effort to ensure that the project that we identified as being a recovery effort was consistent with federal and state guidelines. In most cases, we were successful and we've been in the last year completing the design associated with a number of those projects. There were other projects that we were either unsuccessful and as Alan mentioned, we've gone into an appeals process with them or it has taken just a significant additional effort to get FEMA to understand the nature of the damage and why it's important for us to move forward with these. In most cases, we've been successful and we are actively moving forward with the delivery of a majority of the projects to recover our community back into a fully operational area. In Fountain Grove, we've got a number of lift stations, sewer lift stations and water pump stations that are in the process of being built this winter and into next summer should be completed by next fall. We're excited to see those projects come to fruition. As Paul mentioned, we are also looking at doing a revigitation program along the medians and the landscaped areas along the roads in it as well as re-vegetating and improving the park areas that were damaged. There are six park areas that are currently being redesigned from a landscape perspective. And in one case at Fur Ridge, we'll be looking at replacing the play structure. That program is currently about 75% designed and we're hoping to begin construction at various parts later this winter. There are a few projects that we've been very unsuccessful unfortunately with FEMA. Alan mentioned we have a number of items that FEMA has denied. Those were the projects that Alan specifically related during the course of the presentation today. And that's why we've included them as we feel that these are important components to help our communities recover from this devastation. And we believe that they're a legitimate project. We're continuing to push on FEMA to try to get them to assist us with financing. But in the event that we're unsuccessful, we believe that this is a potential funding source to try to make those projects complete. And Adrian, that's all that I wanted to provide updates on. Thank you. I will just give one more opportunity for any additional questions or follow up from our meeting participants. So Tricia, if you wanna allow for that. Yes, resident Lamba has their hand raised. So please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for public record. Okay, thank you again. This is Lamba again for Founder Grove Fire Survivor. So follow on questions for, thanks again for the fire update, fire department update. There are two items which I wanted to ask question about one is, you know, if the event like Founder Grove and Skyhawk happen again, I know there was a talk about creating fire breaks so that the fire doesn't move as fast to our communities. And I wanted to get some comments or some thinking around that. And the second is use of technology, right? So we are in the hub of, you know, greatest technological place on earth. We have drones, we have sensors which thermal sensors which can detect fire very quickly. You know, major problems in Founder Grove and Skyhawk had been that the fire grew so fast and so wide that it became uncontrolled. If you are able to act quickly and attack the source of the fire, these technological, you know, things could help. And I'm wondering if the city is considering using the technology to help us be secure next time. So I'll jump in first on the fire break comment. Yes, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan addresses nine different subjects. And within the subjects, there's 46 actionable items. One of the actionable items is very specific to we're referring to as compartments for the consultants that we use for the development of the plan, identify compartments throughout the community, the wildfire interface, which includes Founder Grove and what kind of fuel reductions should continue in some cases and in other cases where it needs to be improved and then maintained as time goes on essentially. So there's already work that's gone into starting to develop some of the GIS data that is one of the recommendations that the consultant also put forth to us that will kind of help start to coordinate where the fuel reductions taking place either by homeowners associations, by the city and or additional vegetation management and compartments that need to be addressed moving forward. So the plan does very well break it out and lay out a successful path for us. The funding source is where we're at right now. So as these community meetings are taking place to determine funds being utilized through the settlement, that's why I mentioned earlier that at the same time we are submitting notice of interests for fuel management projects that would start to tackle those compartments. I'll hit on the technology and I'll see if Chief Gosner has anything to say. The Santa Rosa Fire Department did attend a technology summit in Sacramento. Myself and our emergency manager, Neil Bregman, did attend that. Those are ongoing communications between the private sector and the fire service that will hopefully continue to help lay out the framework for how technology can continue to improve our responses to fires. Technology did play a significant role in how the fire was essentially attacked this time versus 2017. In 2017, we did not have the technology that we have today. A lot of the decisions that were made were made based on boots on the ground seeing actually what was happening and reacting to it just as our residents were reacting into it as well. Santa Rosa worked hard with not only the county but the state and the federal level and has continued to work to make improvements to ensure what happened in 2017 doesn't repeat again. That technology in one form came from the use of fire cameras. The fire cameras blanket our entire county now and those cameras were what was used to actually start laying out the framework that led to the early notification as well as movement of resources into the communities that were affected by the glass fire. So myself, Chief Gosner, Chief Moon, Adrian, a lot of us were actually on the phone with each other. Even before the first initial response was at scene of the glass fire, we used the technology, those cameras as well as our new, the improvements that we've made to how we alert and control emergency alerting at a local level to initiate a significant response from the fire service into Rankin Valley following a very successful evacuation of that area, giving them several hours to exit that side of Santa Rosa. So it's extremely unfortunate what happened in 2017. Clearly there was a lot of lessons that were learned from that event. Technology has definitely changed and it's improved how we're functioning today and moving forward. And that technology also is what helped put together our community wildfire protection plan. Technology played a massive role in the development and understanding of our fuels, climate, a lot of data and a lot of technology was used to develop the threat assessments for our community that was what we'll use over the next five years, which is the life of the plan to start working on those actionable items. Thanks, I'll tag onto that and just say for those that may not be aware that a network of cameras that Paul mentioned is actually publicly available if you go to alert wildfire.org, anyone from the public can see those camera views. All right, Tricia, do we have any other questions? Your hands raised. There are no hands raised at this time. Okay, then I think that will conclude our meeting for this evening. I wanna thank all of you for taking time to participate. And if you did not provide input tonight, you can still do that by taking the online survey. And Tricia, do we have that slide available that has the survey URL that we couldn't put it? Thank you. So that's srcity.org forward slash 2017 fire settlement. And that survey will be open and available for residents to take through Sunday, October 25th. Please share that information with your neighbors and friends so that they can be aware and also participate. And on that website, you'll also see the meeting dates that Alan mentioned earlier for when council will be considering all of this public input that we'll be providing to them and we'll be posting updates about the settlement process on that site as well. We'll also have a recording of this meeting available there within the next 24 hours for anyone that couldn't make it tonight. And so feel free to pass that message along to others as well. And so with that, that concludes the evening. And again, thank you for your time. Historic preservation districts and contributors. So this recording later, staff is would very much like to continue any discussions to further go over what floor area ratio means. As we mentioned, we did get direction from the council. So we're continuing to work through how we will respond to that and what the solution ultimately will be. So I would say that they can reach me or Amy Lyle or any of the staff, Amy Nicholson, we'd be more than happy to continue those discussions. Great explanation, Mr. Rose, much appreciated. I think that covers the members of the public's comments and concerns for the moment. Again, appreciate you allowing for further dialogue. I think if the chair doesn't mind too, I think Amy has a couple of additional clarifications for the board. Sure, please. Yes, I do. And it's in response to a public comment. We just as a little bit of background, we've been making changes to these maps based on public comment and also based on comments from the review authorities. I do believe that our transitions, that maybe there is a graphic in one of the slides that doesn't reflect the latest neighborhood transition. I believe Roy mentioned, so I just wanted to share my screen to show that I believe this was the area he was speaking about and there is a neighborhood transition here. And this was applied, I believe during the planning commission meeting to reduce the impact of new development along college on these properties on Lincoln. So we should have that all in good order. And I apologize if there was confusion from any information that was provided as part of this packet. I also wanted to take a moment to go over a proposed change that I went over quickly during the zoning code discussion. And I want to make sure that that process change is clear. We currently require, I'm sorry, I apologize, I need just a moment to pull this up. We currently require that both the design review board and cultural heritage board act on design review for projects that are within preservation districts. This zoning code text amendment would split would split design review. So it's just the design review board that's voting on the design review entitlement. And then the cultural heritage board would continue to be the only review authority acting on the landmark alteration permit. So that's an important distinction there as it relates to process. And then additionally, the zoning code clarifies that a concept meeting would have, it would be required to be both the cultural heritage board and the design review board for downtown projects within our combining districts. And so right now, it's not actually mandatory that the cultural heritage board be a part of those concept meetings. Now it is required based on the zoning code amendments and the roles of both the design review board and the cultural heritage board are clearly outlined for that concept meeting. And so that information can then be taken in by city staff and the applicants to continue in the actual review process for both design review and landmark alteration. I can answer any follow up questions about that information as well. Great. Thank you very much again for a clarification and for bringing us back to that point. Let's go ahead with questions on the last portion of the design process. And then also you can chime in on any questions about the procedural process change between the DRV and CHV review. So board member Sharon, question. Thank you. And thank you again, Planet Nicholson for another thorough presentation or continuance of the presentation. One question. What we have in the design guidelines for section 2.1 pedestrian realm and streetscapes. I think you had a different title for that section. Something didn't quite jive for me. Was pedestrian realm and streetscapes the terms that you had? My recollection is that is the new name. That's the new name. And it was previously ordered as currently public streets. Okay. And with these design guideline amendments it would be changed to public realm and streetscapes. Okay, great. Because yeah, it's in black. And so I guess it just says it's replicated. So okay, thank you for clarifying that. Related to that in terms of streetscapes and pedestrians, bicycle infrastructure. And I'm just kind of wondering where that fits in or doesn't fit into this and thinking about of bicycle transportation and active transportation through the areas. And I see lots of design guidelines for pedestrian experience, but specifically bicycles and bicycle infrastructure I'm not seeing. So you say it says streetscapes. And I'm wondering if that also refers to the general urban infrastructure, streets and roads, or if that is covered more under to the bike and pedestrian master plan or if that's in more TBW or I'm just wondering why it seems that kind of some of the bicycle transportation infrastructure is not, I don't see it in here. Sure. I'm actually going to have Andrew Ville who is one of the planned consultants on this call answered your question I think you can provide you with some more detail. Hello. Can you hear me? Gotcha. Yes, thanks, Amy. So as Amy said, my name is Andrew Hill and with Titan Batya. But I think commissioner Sharon, you've hit the nail on the head. There is a bicycle master plan that contains a lot of detail about the bicycle routes and the different classifications. And so a lot of that, a lot of the detail around that is already included in that. And so we didn't want to replicate it. I would point out that there is information in the design guidelines on the design, the preferred design of bicycle racks, for example, which is on its items 26 through 29 on page nine. Thank you. Yeah. So there are some elements of design of bicycle infrastructure within that public ramen streets get section. But we didn't want to replicate what's already in the bicycle master plan. Okay. I was wondering if there is a location, if it's not captured in here. And I guess why not of the deeper dive in terms of how bike lanes would be built and classified because it could be a very important part of the streetscape in the downtown area. Yeah. Is there, maybe I would turn it back to you and see if you have a particular, was there a particular concern? Is there something that you felt that wasn't done to the right extent in the bicycle master plan that should be picked up in the guidelines? Not necessarily. I was just, I wanted to make certain that that was also being incorporated because parking pedestrian design is specifically called out, but a big portion of that is the infrastructure for bicycles in the downtown area. And so is it, is the sort of precedence will be the bicycle, the master plan? Correct. Okay. Yeah. I just want to make sure that it's covered somewhere and being incorporated and not, it seemed interesting to be left out in this because I know that that was one of the main topics of discussion both from the community and from various board meetings that I've been in is thinking about pedestrian and bicycle and various types of transportation in the area and the flow and how it's being constructed. And if we're calling out specific things as you mentioned with the bike racks, there's a specific model and provider called out why some of the more infrastructure isn't called out. Yeah. We also wanted to be conscious of the format of the other sections of the guidelines, for example, the north station area. So we wanted to replicate and be consistent with that. So that's another reason. I would also point out that the mobility chapter of the plan itself does try to draw to bring everything together and present sort of a consolidated in one place, everything you need to know about bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, but it also points to the bicycle master plan as the primary driver for all things related to bicycles. Okay, great. Yeah, I just wanted to hear that it was being covered somewhere. And yeah, I appreciate that. And first questions, I think that covers the main hits. That covers the main hits. Thanks. Thank you, Board Member Sharon. Board Member Wex, questions for the last portion of the presentation? No questions on the last portion of the presentation, but I would like to ask a follow-up on the B3 properties. And Amy, if you could pull up, I wish you could show both of them simultaneous. So I'm pretty sure I know what it looked like before, but if you could pull up the current one that you just showed to answer some public comment. So sort of between 10th and 7th Street on the East side of B Street, those all used to be the 4.0 FAR or? The lower block was four. So down here, there's kind of darker purple color. Okay. And then the two more than blocks were on the B3. Okay. So there's still a few that are non-contributors that Council decided not to take out of the FAR rather than having a full block, no FAR. They left the non-contributors with FAR. Yeah. Okay. I think I can, when it comes time to comment, I can address my feeling on that. I'm trying to give you some helpful direction. Thank you, Board Member Wicks. Vice Chair Hedgemouth, questions? Yeah, I think I'm good. I wanted to echo Chair, Board Member Wicks comments about the B Street area. I just want to say one thing maybe in preparation for that. Let's take, for example, the Saturday afternoon club building. My mother was a part of that for years. And that's a two-story building on a site that is a consideration. We've had members of the public show concern about what heritage buildings like that might have in their future. And the placeholder was five-story in the area. We're revisiting it. So the whole question about the Cultural Heritage Board and the fabric of the city and the authenticity of projects possibly being preserved, perhaps the purple buildings, the ones that are continuing on their FAR path, some of those are in action right now being considered as buildings not FAR from the Saturday afternoon club that are multi-story. So I think a central question slash comment is going to be what buildings are going to be earmarked as long-term heritage projects, whether the ownership is put in foundations or somehow they're preserved and not left abandoned, where less than five-story or some kind of quote, I'll mention the word in perpetuity category is earmarked and whether the downtown guidelines can have in perpetuity sites. Maybe it's a different category in that delicately said we have historic districts. We have a landmark earmarking of how to redefine what a landmark process is. And I'm not a CHP board member, but I'm just trying to be empathetic here about the question about quote, D2 thing or taking out the capacity to have some sites be ones that aren't earmarked for freefall development, so to speak. So maybe Henry, I got into this a little deeper, but I'm trying to get my head around how the city would look at sites that are owned by the city, they're owned privately. And as decades go by, how to preserve those sites, what is there? We lost the Hogue House years ago because it was an old building but it just didn't have the capital to be put anywhere other than a downtown site and even then it didn't work. So I only bring this up as a curiosity, thinking and anticipating that some of these sites that wanna be pulled from the FAR can have an in perpetuity clause, hopefully without being in a disrepair or an abandoned state over time. So that's kind of a quasi-question and thank you for tolerating it. And so do we wanna address that question as if that is possible? I'm happy to address that. So the item before you tonight is the zoning standards to design guidelines related to the specific plan. I'm not aware of through the specific, and so the specific plan is what's guiding in driving this. It's the vision, the zoning and the design guidelines implement that through the more granular detail of how you implement that vision. I'm not aware of a mechanism through a specific plan process to have some property burdened in perpetuity by some specific restriction. As board member Hedgepeth referenced, the landmark status is, I think it's effectively the highest status we can put on a property in the city and there is a process through that and it's separate from the specific plan and the related zoning efforts that are before you tonight. The other thing too, back to the, I started to talk about it with the FAR requirements. I'm not aware of a mechanism for the city to put on some kind of a restriction that would last in perpetuity on private property to the degree that I think is being described where it would greatly restrict development potential. It's not to say it doesn't exist. I'm not aware of it and I'm certainly not aware of a process through the specific plan to do that. So I think the other thing to keep in mind is short of that kind of a restriction, there are a number of things in place that do guide development in the city and I went through them earlier. It's the designer view process. It's the landmark alteration process. And any number of standards and regulations and guidelines that guide that development. The other thing we haven't spent much time talking about tonight is the CEQA process. So anything that requires a discretionary permit is going to be required to go through a CEQA process as well. And as the board knows, one of the topical areas within CEQA is cultural preservation, cultural resource analysis. So that's another way that the city, the state effectively governs development on properties that have historic and cultural significance. We frequently require studies to document what is the resource, what is its value and how does the proposal impact that resource? And if it reaches a level of significance, then we go through a process to identify mitigations and those can take any number of forms. So there are things in place to guide and govern development, but I don't think it would be appropriate to put a prohibition or some kind of a restriction in perpetuity on a property, private property, through a specific plan process. Thank you for the explanation. All right. So I only had one clarification again. I think it's worth rehashing or re-stating in public as far as the process for the cultural heritage board and designer review board moving forward. The way I understand it is that concept review would be held as a joint meeting. And then separately in separate meetings, individually the DRB would act on the designer review portion of that project. And then separate meeting CHB alone would act on the landmark alteration for that project. Is that correct? Yes. Perfect. All right. Make sure I got that down. Okay. So we've really got a couple of things here to tackle. You want comments in a resolution approved for the designer review changes. And then you want comments on the zoning code amendments. Is that you want them separate in preference? No preference, whatever's easier for the board. Okay. Well, why don't we go ahead and start with comments. We can tackle all your comments. That way we're not jumping back and forth between board members. So board members Sharon, if you want to start comments on the, both the design changes and then zoning code amendments. I wonder if we could flip the order. I'd be interested in specifically with a board member Hedgepeth's years of experience on the board hearing his take on this before I weigh in. That's possible? That's certainly a fair enough request. And I think a wise one. So vice chair Hedgepeth, why don't you kick us off with the comments. All right. Well, in general, with respect to the guidelines, is that okay that I'm starting with the guidelines? Was that fair enough? I think in general, I don't want to wear a stout tonight. I'm going to just focus in on, we're going to go to page 17 together. And it's actually focusing on some of the architectural issues. So on page 17, there is a background in regards to upper story, lower story design. And I've mentioned in the past on the board, some of the questions about the building base, the building shaft or its midsection and its roof. And we recently had a building come before the board and there were, there were a lot of questions about its form and its articulation, its breakup. And if, if I were to look briefly at, I'm just going to read these really quickly. I think this is going to go fast. In the upper story design, I'm just going to read 22 through 24, recess and projecting balcony should be introduced as part of the composition to contribute to the scale. 23 upper story set step back should incorporate features that activate set back areas such as balconies, terraces, living roofs. And then designing roofs to be an integral part of the overall buildings design, incorporating rooftop gardens. The 26th is tower elements. One of the things I'm wondering about is, is when some applicants come to us, are we, could we take three out of five of these? We've had applications where the building starts at grade. And some of these are like eight story buildings. They have roof articulation. They have some balcony elements, but I've yet to see a building that, that is specifically stepped. And I say this with, with tenderness because we don't have a 20 story building yet. One of the, one of the comments early on in the guidelines staff aptly said it was that if an applicant comes with a project that doesn't necessarily comply with or doesn't necessarily address a specific shall or goal that that applicant should give reasons. And delicately said in the case of the Senate on one center's Avenue, the applicant had some reasons for perhaps not having a commercial wrap at the base and transparency, those reasons were stated. So I'm just the comment I'm giving here is that all of these 22 through 26 have virtue. They're wonderful comments. I'm just wondering as we as board members, I'll hypothetically say a 14 story buildings coming to town in the year 2022 in April. Okay. That's a hypothetical. It's 22 stories. So there will be thoughts around articulating the building. Maybe the whole thing isn't just a giant vertical cheese block. It's going to have breakups. It's going to the top of it won't be the same size as lower levels. That's a, that's a bigger building, 14 story. So I'm just saying that as a board member, a little bit of flexibility here may be in order. I'm not sure that the Rosenberg building itself was in 1926 is a cheese block building. It has a scalloped talk to it and it has an entry for the residential. So it complies with a lot of these. So I just wanted to say that as a comment. And I wanted to move on and talk about, well, you can see on page 18, there's a stair step kind of a Zodra building in another town. That's the, that's down in San Francisco. That's the battery district. That's the Levi building where Lou Jean's built a future with heavy capital and they got to take Masonry and do a beautiful job there. So, so that's, that's welcome when it can happen. I wanted to jump down and just catch AGA before we forget about in 1990, finally, when just, just let everyone know, briefly said, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, that was the year they looked at equality and they jumped right into buildings. And it took from 1968 to 1990 to have the sundown happen to where mandatory ADA was going to happen. So from 1990 on, take no prisoners, ADA. So if you look at number 36 on page 19, we can all jump to that a minute. It has some beautiful buildings with layers and steps. And item 36 says include at least two steps up to a portrait or entry to enhance the separation of the private area from the adjacent public street areas except for instance, designed for disabled or senior use. So we're saying here about disabled or senior use. Now, some of the pictures shown by staff are wonderful. Like Brownstones in Brooklyn, if you have an ownership unit, these typically aren't 14 or 20-story buildings. They're row houses. Those buildings can be exempt from ADA in that you can as the owner because they're private, have a non-ADA earmarking. I don't know if there needs to be a little asterisk in 36 because when we look at larger buildings where we have to show ADA compliance, particularly if it's done with federal dollars and maybe that's the language I'm looking for there. We're not gonna be seeing a lot of these stepped accesses for the entrances in a more monolithic building like a 14-story. You're gonna have an elevator. A developer may choose to have some stepped units but I would generally say this is just a general comment. A lot of two, three and four-story, maybe up to five-story buildings, probably max would be earmarked financially to have this Brownstone kind of a look where you can just directly come up from the street. Larger monolith buildings are going to abandon such a thing. But I'm certainly, because it's gonna come up because of COVID, because of the next 11 years or 16 years, retail and office and commercial are gonna be a, let's just say a more of a paused thought than perhaps an active future. I hate to say things that way because things need to be versatile. But in commenting on that, there are projects around that have residential on the ground floor. Sometimes they're raised. And I think some of the biggest concerns with the board are when you put a party right at grade level that's gonna live there. It's gonna have a bedroom curtain. It's a tough thing. And you can step back and layer. If you look at that image, figure 37 on page 19, that's an example of how you can buffer. You can show some dignity to where the sidewalk path of travel is a buffer to you and your dining room or bedroom lamp. And that's the kind of thing that potentially with landscaping perhaps has a future, but there's gonna be some key discussions in the core downtown about why perhaps we shouldn't live with retail without retail, excuse me. So my personal thought is I don't wanna see a desert of no retail. And I'm hoping for some proud and somehow financial future where mobility works and we get around pedestrian, train drop off wherever and we shop the downtown. So I'm gonna just raise my hand noting that I want a strong retail future in the city. That's enough said, but the core of my comments tonight are if we're gonna do residential downtown and you wanna open up those entrances right to the street, you don't wanna have an elevator core in interior hallways. That figure 37 to me is a strong guideline to make that happen. So, I think in general, I'm open to a city that doesn't necessarily have stepped diagrams of going from the seventh floor and stepping back and the 19th floor and stepping back. And I bring you to Vancouver, BC. If you've never been there, Vancouver actually has 20 and 30 story buildings where the first two stories are stepped back. You drive down these alleys, maybe you've never seen Vancouver, but what's wonderful is that you don't feel overwhelmed, you're not in the Grand Canyon because you have your main streets, but two to three stories up, there's a step back there, then the buildings really zoom and those were financially viable. So I'm not gonna be intolerant about what staff's done with these step backs, but I'm just saying some of the images shown show eight and 10 story buildings that are straight up with maybe a piece of the building that's stepped back vertically, but it isn't so much horizontally. The only real thing I wanna say on the zoning, and I can say this quickly because I wanna respect people's time, is I'm very happy. I'm impressed and thankful that staff looked at that side yard step back. It was perhaps triggered by a recent project we had over by the press dem. And it was, I believe, addressed in a way where the fire department and life safety front and back of buildings for access is honored, but that side to side buildings, as you shoulder, like some people know about soldier coursing, I know Henry, you know that, but when you take bricks and lay them vertically, it's called soldier coursing. So we're gonna have a lot of different bricks, different soldier bricks coming in downtown and they're gonna cozy up. And thank you staff for cozying up right to what I call the seismic limit. This is where science is the driver to zoning. Zoning is going to follow Mother Nature usually because Mother Nature will always win. And Mother Nature says when you build multi-story buildings, there is a seismic moment as you go vertical where there is a setback at seismics, not five feet. So I think I've worn everyone out enough, but maybe it's short and happy. There's a big smile from the chair because I cut 46 minutes out. That's totals for Warren, okay? Thank you, Warren. Very insightful as always and appreciated. So I think we'll continue with the theme of taking some more experienced folks before we get to Board Member Sharon so that he can absorb. So why don't we go ahead with Board Member Wicks comments. Thank you for that kind way of saying the old guy. And Warren, what's the date that 14-story building's coming before the designer view board? I wanna be on either vacation or... Yeah, it was, well, Larry signed and tried it. I think it was 1982, but I was saying April 22. It was just, so I may be all wet, but I'll throw it out. April 22, it is. I'll bring it on. I look forward to reviewing it under these new guidelines. I would echo your comment about the step backs on the buildings. I think that the recent couple of projects we've seen, the one by the President McGrath in particular was a good example of it not needing a step back at the street level that on the sides, it did step back. And I think a natural occurrence with FAR is the buildings, unless it's a single story building, they're gonna have natural step backs and step backs to them as they go more vertical they go, but less footprint they're gonna take. And I'm gonna do a tangent like I typically do, but I'm gonna address the B Street and my comments on B Street. That same thing could occur there. If the property is deemed for the various reasons that Bill stated, a property may, some sort of mitigation may happen for that property. The building may be located somewhere else within the historic district or within the city. If that clearance is obtained for the site, I would suggest that the city and the council reconsider re-implementing that FAR that's adjacent to the other properties in that block, not the one across the street because the one on the corner of B and 7th Street, I think across the street or the, forgive me, it's late, or the brew house used to be the rail, sorry, to the south and east of 7th and B Street, the FAR is eight, so the contributing building on the corner of 7th and 8th Street, maybe that's moved someday, maybe it stays exactly like it is forever, who knows, but the developer and the landowner should, if they can mitigate, they should have the opportunity to develop that site based on adjacent FARs, in my opinion. So back to the other aspects that we're looking at, I too would strongly encourage retail to be maintained in our downtown, particularly in the core. It doesn't have to be retail such a tough word right now with COVID because we can't go downtown and shop like we used to and can't go inside a restaurant and eat like we used to, but I believe there's gonna be a time and in the very near future where we are going back to eating in restaurants and shopping, Christmas is coming up and it's gonna be a tough Christmas for us all because we're not gonna be able to go down and go to the local retail stores downtown and experience the Christmas is like past, but on a more positive note, we will get back to that and I don't wanna see all of the street fronts being closed up by window blinds because they're all residential. I think there's some appropriate spots for that to occur but there are some, and I've made my opinion known before, there's some places in the downtown where it's not appropriate and to not have a step and Warren was spot on in that figure 37 that reason why that residential on the ground level works is because it is stepped up and there is a buffer between the pedestrian way and where a bedroom or a living room window would occur. I would approve and support projects that came forth with residential on the ground level designed to that level. So I'm picking a few things to bandwagon on more and a little bit, but I wanna thank staff, I wanna thank all of the public and everybody that contributed to this new downtown plan. It's an evolution of a plan that's been in place for a while. It had its faults, but at the time when it was revealed, it was a good plan and helped us architects develop good guidelines for the downtown and the building. It didn't take off like it was conceived to do, but I think this is a much better time will tell but I think this is a much better iteration and will give developers and the community a downtown that Santa Rosa deserves to have. So I would support that we approve the documents as they are. I know it's gonna be a little like a recipe where there's gonna be some problems and I'm sure there's an avenue to tweak this plan as we move forward. You know, but it's got the meat and potatoes that we need and a little bit of salt and pepper tweaking, I'm sure will evolve over time. So thank you for allowing me to try to add some constructive comments to this plan would again would support adopted members. Okay, thank you, Board Member Wicks. Board Member Sharon, the time has come for your comments. Excellent. I just see how many pages I got left in my notebook here, I've written them all, so. Yeah, first off, I wanna commend the city and the consultants on a great plan and a great process. It's been valuable to be involved as a board in this whole process. Appreciate all the feedback we've been able to give and the briefings that I've had and another board that I'm on we've also received the briefings too. So it's been a very responsive process and I know that it's been that way for the community as well and in the presentation and in the write-ups and in the plan itself. The, you know, you make specific reference to the community's design preferences and community input and consistency with public input. And I know that that's a very, that's been a very important concern and factor in this whole process. And I know that with the public meetings, I think that that's the key input really. We can all provide advisory feedback and criticisms, but the people that are actually going to be living and growing and putting down generations here in town. Really, I'm glad that there's been a robust response to this process. And it's interesting that it's wrapping up in this time when we're meeting on Zoom and that we're not able to have this. I'm glad that this happened over the best couple of years rather than the best, you know, eight months. And so, yeah, I think that this is a really great update and provides some really good guidance for our design guidelines and what we're all thinking about and how we can move forward. And I think that there's definitely some great innovation in here. I think that all the additions are really valuable. I'll focus a little bit on the parks and public spaces, the more kind of look about their design landscape side of things a little bit. I'm glad that there is some of the meat and potatoes that Henry just mentioned to talk about the design of public spaces. I think that table is a really good, clear way of laying out some thinking of taking what the community's priorities and what different boards have prioritized for these new developments and saying what we have and what we want to have in this area. I think it's a very clear distillation of what has been brought up. And I see things that, you know, from other meanings that I saw that are incorporated in here. So I think it's going to really nimble process. And I think that it's going to really, it provides some very good pointers for how we are constructing our urban public spaces, which are going to be really important with a lot of the development that is being talked about in here is going to really craft the experience of our downtown area. We're bringing out a lot more people down here. I think that also having the thoughts about retail and that life on the street is very important. We want to have the residential, but we also have to have some of the amenities and programming. You guys also in that public space area talk about programming, it's good that that is also a concern as well. It's providing space for urban life to happen, but it's also influencing a little bit and dictating some of what could be there. And I think that, yeah, definitely having the retail, the life in our downtown areas is a really key component. One of the great things about the silver linings of the past few months is the fourth street closure that it's in a way enlivened that corridor a lot and it's brought a lot of people out and shown that we can come outside of our buildings and use the public spaces and come out and there's people walking around and there's the public art programs. There's a really vibrant exchange. And I think that that's called out in this plan, not specifically the open and out program, but enlivening these new urban areas. I think one retail piece that could be, I don't know how it could be called out or encouraged is, but with all of these people to have some kind of grocery retail of having, we don't want to have a downtown food desert, we want to be able to have people that can take advantage of this walkable transit oriented development to have the amenities we want here. I don't know if that's smaller retail establishments or an encouragement somehow of some larger grocery stores here to have something that is encouraging that. That being said, I think that one of the strengths of this plan is that it's providing pointers and wayfinding, which literally, I think that the wayfinding section is great, but for this it's providing some really nice wayfinding, but it's giving us, giving the city and developers flexibility as well. We're not boxing in and trying to define everything that's been talked about. I think that it provides good pointers and it doesn't necessarily prescribe every little detail that has to happen. I think that's also a strength of what's here is the flexibility. I think that that covers my comments right now. Thanks again for this process and for having it be important that you get our input. I appreciate it. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Board members Sharon kind of echo the same comments as my board members before and I won't go on to repeat them. On the design document changes, I just had a couple of things to point out since we're adopting or we should be adopting the actual document as part of the resolution. I did note that some of the figures called out in the specific items didn't match up to the actual figures that they're purportedly pointing towards. I was just gonna send them off to you, but since we're gonna adopt it, I'll just call them out really quickly. On page nine, number 33, it says recommended ballard is shown in figure eight. They're actually shown in figure 14. On item number 51, page 11, shows the recommended grade types are shown in figure 13. They're actually shown in figure 18. And then on page 17, item number 19, I could not find or it couldn't find a reference of what it should have referenced, but in figure number 22, which is not showing any corners of buildings. And so again, I wish we would have caught those before the meeting and just sent them off, but since we're gonna hypothetically adopt the document tonight, I figured I'd call them out. The only other comment I would make on the guidelines is in regard to table one on page 14, public space size and programming guidelines. I'm just wondering, and again, I think we had a little discussion on this when it came through previous times, but recommended elements in public plazas, there's no recommended element for public washrooms. Recognize that public plaza might be a little bit small for a restroom, but I'm wondering if programmatically it might be better just to look at areas within the downtown, where bathrooms end up getting located and just kind of peppering them through so that someone's not saying, well, I gotta walk three blocks to use the public restroom. So just some of the think about versus prescribing. On the zoning code amendments, I have a couple of kind of question changes do we want to. So I'll just leave those considered, if you will, and you can take them back and discuss them. I don't have a page number on my document in my packet, it was page eight of 40, but it is item number G, creek and trail activation transition. Right below the table, item number two says new buildings within 200 feet of the creek shall be constructed and at least one pedestrian entrance that faces a creek. I'm wondering if we want to clarify 200 feet from the creek, what is at the center of the creek? Is it the creek bank? Is it the setback of the creek development standards? So I just might want to clarify what that is. And then following that item number three says new development shall provide a pedestrian path of a minimum 15 feet connecting the development to the creek side trail. I'm guessing that's 15 foot width, but maybe needs to be clarified as to what you're looking for. I think width would be appropriate if it's connecting the development to the trail and that people coming to and fro can pull over and take a breather off of the trail or off of whatever it's connecting to and still allow passage. So again, something to consider elaborating on. And then under item number H, active ground floor overlay, number two lists several bullet points of items that could be considered three or more of the following could be considered by development for their project. And I'm just, I mentioned this before and I don't really know how to deal with it. So I apologize for that, but I kind of see this as a place where a developer could go for the lowest cost option on every development. And then we end up with the same three items for every development throughout the area. And I'm wondering if there should be either just some discretionary authority in there to say, unless other surrounding properties have the same three elements chosen or, I mean, again, I don't have a great magic way to do it, but you can certainly just say restrictions may apply. So that we end up with a variety of these elements versus the same lowest cost effective elements being repeated throughout. And those are my comments. I want to cycle back through the board one last time and see if there's any other comments based on the things that were heard from other board members tonight. And then we'll go ahead and ask staff about any clarifications. So board members, it looks like Vice Chair Hedgepeth has something to add. So let's start with you. Thank you. Excellent, Scott. I thought your comments were well said, very minor but important. And I want to go to page 14 of 40 in the zoning ordinance because I didn't want to catch this. You, Chair Kincaid, brought up about the procedure about concept design, design review in general. And if you look at 14 of page 40, it starts with the design review process, the stages. And it goes number one concept, design review is highly advised and provides the applicant with review authority's tentative reaction to the general design concept. One of the things we've had happen over time is that usually an applicant that is truly intent, not on tire kicking, but going to the city and doing a project. I'll say this delicately. You have a civil engineer, you have a survey. You specifically have done some due diligence. It would seem strange for anyone to want to enter the downtown and kind of wistfully go through the process and try to enroll both the city and volunteer boards that their project has efficacy if the truth of a survey isn't in place. And I've sometimes I've been a voice in the past, delicately said of wanting to make sure staff doesn't take on projects or put them in the pipeline that perhaps have this issue. Because I think what we're really talking about tonight, this is in your talk about eating the apple, I'll use your example in metaphor. If it's one bite out of the apple, there can't be worms in the apple. The apple is pure, clear, and has the guidelines of understanding CEQA, if need be, if it's over five acres downtown, it's going to have a CEQA deal. And if the downtown station area plan to staff and the wonderful consultants here is in itself a CEQA document. And I don't want to know what six figure or seven figure number has been spent in the latest iteration. But between capitalization of infrastructure, all the various things that feed into a downtown plan, if a CEQA overlay is in the works as a companion to the guidelines, the actual capital to put the pipes in the ground. And here we're in election. In the first week in November, there's even a petition to look at a quarter cent sales tax to help infrastructure in the city. And if it does pass that quarter cent sales tax to be implemented on 4th Street or 9th Street or whatever to put pipes in the ground. I think that's what that is really saying. We're not dead sure it's going to pass. But I just wanted to bring up that as a framework that this guideline document actually has other moving parts to it. And many applicants would have to do that. Many applicants would hope that in its adoption it itself is a CEQA engine. You can go right in one by out of the apple. So my flag here is that it's a chance for staff to write that just whether it's concept review or whatever you want to do, note that the application has to have enough efficacy that embarrassing questions would not be asked of the applicant because I've experienced such things on the board where there have been applications where surveys weren't done. I didn't know where things were up or down, what ramp sizes were, whatever that created a flag. So that's my summary. And thank you again, Scott for bringing us back to refreshing. I wouldn't have it in the other way. Board Member Sharon or Board Member Wicks, any further thoughts? Okay, then I'd like to go ahead, Board Member Sharon. Oh, no, it's just going to say I didn't have anything especially because Warren took back that 45 minutes he seated before us. So it's good to have some fun at these board meetings. So I'll go ahead and turn it back over to Senior Planner Nicholson and Deputy Director Bill Rose to see if staff has any clarifying question for us. Yeah, I'd be happy to add a little bit to it. There's no way I can be as poetic as Vice Chair Hedgepeth and Board Member Wicks as well, well said tonight. So some of the comments came up right about flexibility. And so I think what's driving this whole thing is the specific plan. And that specific plan came from direction from the council and the idea was what can we do to stimulate and catalyze development in the downtown? That's really the primary goal, right? We've all heard that our existing plan it's been on the books for a number of years and it really hasn't resulted in the kind of performance we were hoping for. So how can we get that? And that's what really drove this and that's what specific plans do their visionary. And then what's before you tonight as I mentioned earlier are the specific implementation tools. And what we've seen, and I think you've heard this from us frequently is where you have a standard, that's a standard. And that's what you have to comply with. When you have a guideline, you have a goal, that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to achieve that guideline and goal but there are a number of ways to get there. And so flexibility is certainly inherent in this document. You might meet one guideline completely, you might meet another guideline partly and some you might not meet. But what we do look for on those that you don't meet is a very clear and concise reasoning, why? And that's what we do at the staff level is really encourage the applicants to come forward and have that discussion with you so you can really fully understand what their motivation was and how they achieved the compliance with those guidelines. And lastly, what I would say is in some respect, that whole notion is reflective of what we've seen done very successfully by this board. I know we've had that discussion and we've seen this board chew on that and say, you know, this one really does apply kind of more importantly. So we're gonna focus on this, not so much on another one. And at the end of the day, you want that superior design and the board has been very focused on it. So I like to look at these guidelines in some way as just kind of find what we've seen this board do over the last several years as it's just gotten much more in a partnership role with the development community and also with the public and taking seriously what the public has to say. So I hope that responds to what was brought up earlier. And I think that essentially it lines up with what Vice Chair Hedgepath was indicating. We wanna make sure that the architects and the designers have room to come up with the best design and we wanna give this board also some room to be able to do that as well. And even the standards, I'll just go back to that for a second. You have the standards, but you often have mechanisms to adjust those. So parking for an example, we have a number of ways throughout the city, not just in the downtown, the downtown obviously is changing how we approach parking, but you can do parking reductions and you can go all the way to a variance if that's appropriate. And we don't see those too often, but that's another way to also deal with the standards. So I think overall we're looking for flexibility, but always an adherence to and a goal to have maximum compliance with the guidelines. Thank you for that. Deputy Director Rose and Senior Planner Nicholson, did you have any questions or clarifying items for the board to address? I don't believe I do. I appreciate some of the items that were pointed out that need to be corrected before these move to the city council. I'm also explaining commission for the zoning for components, so we'll make sure to clarify those items. I did want to respond to the comment regarding the concept for view and the types of material analysis that's done prior to a project coming before the board. A whole month ago we released a new application that provides a lot more information for applicants to understand what types of items they need to submit so that they can get more meaningful feedback. And so we hope that as the project moves through the process, the concepts and meetings are more beneficial for everyone involved in that there's additional information provided from the beginning of the concept application. Great. I wanted to make sure everyone got that. I had a little feedback on my end. Okay. The other thing that I just wanted to address real quickly is that I didn't make any comments on the B street at they are removal that city council desires. And so my thought would be just to go back to the previous guidelines and leave it at that for those 12 properties. It's my thought. So I know we're looking for a motion to adopt the resolution, but the resolution a little bit messy because we lost a quorum from the cultural heritage board. So I'm going to take a stab at cleaning it up and maybe staff can follow along. So on page one, in the resolution itself, we would remove and the cultural heritage board. The rest of page one looks like it was previous meetings. So those should be accurate. And then on page two and three, we would just remove anything to do with the cultural heritage board, including the approval and vote that look accurate. Yeah, that's correct. And then the only other item that I wanted to just ask real quick if we wanted to consider amending is on page one, it is the one, two, three, four, five. I missed you, sorry. I got it back out here. One, two, three, four, five. In the sixth, whereas it talks about walkable streets, increased civic recreational and open space opportunities. And I'm wondering given the change to section 2.5 and renaming it to public spaces as opposed to open spaces, if we want to change that to read public space opportunities. And I only caught this because I was going through every line by line. I don't think there's an issue with that. Amy, do you have any thoughts? Hi, I think that's a good suggestion. I was just trying to find the whereas. So that sounds good. I'm a good change. So with that, with the changes and removing the cultural heritage board where I previously mentioned and changing open space opportunities to public space opportunities. And adopting and also with this resolution exhibit A, do I have a motion? I'd like to make a motion adopting the design guidelines and agree with the comments as outlined and mentioned by Chair Kincaid and waive the reading of the text. Second. Okay. I've got a motion and a second and any further discussion on the item. How do you may have a roll call, please? Okay. Board member Sharon. Hi. Board member Wicks. Hi, as well. Vice Chair Hedge-Peth. Hi. And Chair Kincaid. Hi. And thank you for a great presentation, public input and board input and it's been a great process as was mentioned previously by other board members. So it's very much appreciated. Okay. Get back to my agenda here. Probably closed it out by now, where am I at? Here we go. All right. So we are on to item number seven, board member reports. Are there any board member reports this evening? All right. Seeing none, we will go ahead and move on to item number eight, department reports. No department reports for tonight. I just want to thank everyone for your flexibility being available tonight as we work through kind of getting through the quorum issues and for all of your really thoughtful comments, very helpful. So nothing else, but just wanted to say thank you. Excellent. And thanks again to staff members of the public, those interested in watching in the various channels. So appreciate all the collective input. And with that, we are adjourned. See you next time.