 I guess we're live. Okay, we're live. We'll call the January 20th, 2022 meeting of the Capitola Planning Commission to order. May we have the roll call, please, Lewis. President. Here. Now, if everyone will please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. To the public, which stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, just as a reminder tonight, Kingston Rivera is our technician for the television broadcast. And it appears we're going to have several people weighing in on the meeting tonight for various items on the agenda. And while you can't be physically here, it is open to the public. And there are several methods that you can join in the meeting. And if we could have that screen on line there now, there we go. So you can email comments. You can participate by dialing in. We have another screen to portray. There we go. So you can call in using that 669 number. Join the webinar. Raise your hand when you're ready to speak. And because we are likely to have numerous people participating in the meeting tonight with comments on various agenda items, we're going to limit comments to three minutes. So if you intend to comment, please gather your thoughts, be succinct, and state what you want to state in the three minutes. Okay, with that, we'll go to oral communications. And the first item under, oh, I'm sorry. That's not it. We're getting rid of me. Okay. At this time where each chair serves for one year, my time is up. And we're going to be nominating a new chairperson and new vice chair tonight. And so I will open it up for nominations. I have a nomination. Commissioner Newman. I will nominate Commissioner Wilk for chair. I'll second that. Commissioner Westman. Okay. We'll take these one at a time. Are there any other nominations for the chairperson? Okay. May I have the roll call please, Lewis? Congratulations, Mr. Wilk. Since you are now the chair, you can entertain nominations for the vice chair. Well, I'll do exactly that. Thank you, Commissioner Ruth. Let's open it now to a nomination for vice chair. We'll hear a nomination. I will nominate Commissioner Westman for vice chair. I hear a nomination from Commissioner Newman for Commissioner Westman and a second from Commissioner Ruth. Can we have a roll call please, Lewis? Thank you. Congratulations. And we have a new chair and vice chair. Let's move on then to item number three, which is oral communication. Okay. Do you have any additions or deletions to the agenda? There's, we did receive additional public comment late this afternoon. I want to say it around 4 p.m. regarding 115 Saxon, which is on the agenda as item 5b. But other than that, nothing has changed in terms of additions and deletions to the agenda. Could I ask the commissioners that they had a chance to review that additional input? Yeah. Or anybody who hasn't had a chance to look at that letter? No. Okay. So we've all had a chance to review that. Thank you very much. Let's go ahead then. Does any of the commissioners have any additions or deletions to the agenda? I have a comment, Chairman Will. Yes. I've been sending informational broadcasts about the efforts to repeal SB 9. And yesterday I was chastised by the city attorney saying I can't do that, that it could lead to a violation of the Brown Act. I seriously dispute the fact that I can't send information to all the planning commissioners that doesn't result in any action or affects any action. So I told the city attorney that I believe it's no different than a private citizen sending information, the same information to the planning commission. I told her I would abide by her recommendation, although I disagree with it. So I think a private citizen will probably be sending you that same information. So did you want to add that to the agenda? Well, at some point, I would like the planning commission to take an action supporting the efforts to repeal that state law, but not today. Okay. Then let's move on then to public comment. Do you have any other comments other than that? And did you want to talk to Katie about actually putting that on the agenda for next time? Not at this time. Okay. Are there any other comments from commissioners? commissioners or public? Well, since we started with the commission, well, all right, we'll go back to the public comments then. Public comments, short communications from the public concerning matters that are not on the agenda. So are there any members of the public who would like to speak on topics that are not on the agenda? Now is your time. Any other, is anyone raising their hand? The attendees on zoom, there are no hands raised. And I'm going to check the email system and no no emails either. Okay, very good. We'll move on then back to commission comments, which is the item free C. Are there any other commissioners which would like to speak out at this time? Yes, I have a comment. Mr Chairman, chair recognizes commissioner Newman. I would just like to acknowledge Commissioner Ruth service as chairman in the past year, although it was all virtual. He did his usual excellent job in running the meetings. Thank you, Mr. Newman. The good thing was and I can put my pants on. Yeah. And commissioner Westman concurred as does chairman will any other comments? There are no other comments. We'd like to move on to the staff comments. The staff have anything they'd like to. I do. I have a few items for you tonight. First, it's my pleasure to introduce two new capitol employees. I personally think capitol is a very special place to work in our small community. And it makes it even better when you get to hire great new people and have them join your team. So first, I'd like to introduce our deputy city clerk, Louise Osamwege. Louise comes from the city of San Jose as the deputy clerk, clerk, legislative secretary. He's worked in election offices at the county of Santa Clara. Before coming to the United States, he served as the Canadian armed forces in the Canadian armed forces. He graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada with a masters of art degree in international relations and strategic studies. He is fluent in Spanish. He's very happy to move to the Santa Cruz area with his wife. And it's been a pleasure getting to know Louise and Louise. It's yours. Yeah, thank you. Nice to meet you commissioners. It's great to be here in the city of Capitola, and I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you. And we look forward to working with you. Thank you, Louise. So Louise will be joining us and taking minutes at all of our meetings from here on out, and it'll be a pleasure. And next, I'd like to introduce you to our new senior planner, Brian Freilich. Brian has over a decade of experience in progressively responsible planning department positions in the Bay Area, and most recently worked for eight years in the private sector as a development project manager. So he's worked on both sides of the counter. We're happy to add this rounded knowledge base and experience to our staff. It is allowed for a fast onboarding immediate contribution to project processing and a balanced perspective. Brian has always lived in the South Bay and Central Coast regions growing up in San Jose and Hollister. He now lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He went to school in Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and has a degree in city and regional planning. So it's just been a pleasure getting to know Brian, and I'm looking forward to you all getting to know him better as well as true asset to the team. Brian, would you like to say a few words? Yeah, well, thanks, Katie. Thanks for that nice introduction. It was a pleasure to meet the Planning Commission. I've been with the city here for a little over a month and a half, and it's kind of the onboarding has gone really well, but it's come pretty fast. But Sean and Katie are such a strong team. I'm really, really blessed to be here. I've worked in a couple of very proud communities in Belmont and Los Altos Hills, but I have to say that being here in Capitola, one thing I've really recognized is just kind of the happy feeling that I get when I interact with residents and stay. That comes through when they're taking a visit to the planning department. I think that's really saying something. So thanks again for the intro, and I look forward to serving the community going forward. Thank you, Brian. Welcome, yes. Katie, anything else? Yes, I have one more update for you. I wanted to let you know that Ambag, it's that time of... We're back into the identifying RENA numbers for affordable housing development. We're going to be updating our housing element portion of our general plan. It's due in December of 2023. I've been attending planning director meetings with Ambag, and the board has been meeting to decide on their RENA methodology. In the fifth cycle, which we're now in, we were assigned 146 units to zone 4 for affordable housing within the city. In 2018, a lot of the legislation for housing changed and had a really big impact on how this six-cycle distribution is going to work out. It was last week, the board met and they passed a new methodology, and under this methodology, Capitola would be assigned 1,300 new units. We were expecting... I kept hearing three to four times the amount of the first round, so I was prepared for 600. I think I'd been saying at a few meetings. We're at about nine times our previous numbers. Next week, I'm going to city council. I'm going to launch the... Get our RFP out there for our housing element. I'm thinking this is going to be the year of housing. Hopefully, we get great participation from our community members. We're going to need to involve all parts of our community and get some really good feedback on where we're going to plan for our 1,300 new units. We've got our work cut up for us, but I just wanted to give you that update and I'll be bringing you updates regularly on that as we launch this process. Planning commission will be very involved throughout, so thank you. It's hard to take that seriously when that's an impossible task. Yeah, I can only take out about 900 roommates myself. So does the city have about 4,200 housing units now? That's correct, yep. So it's more than a 25% increase in the housing units we have now. It is. There's a lot to the formula of how they came up with this distribution. It's surprising to me they've gone further away from looking at your developable land standards, like how much area you actually have to develop. They're looking to put more density within existing cities and also one of the larger factors is equity and because Capitola has such great resources we're a resource rich community. A lot of the places that don't have such great resources, I think it was something about like 42% of the overall, there's 30,000 units that have to be distributed within our region and the way the equation breaks down, it's somewhere around like 40, 42% of regions that have really good facilities, great schools, job opportunities are going to get the higher numbers in this round. So I will bring to you the final formula. It's not done yet. At this point what AMBAG board approved now goes back to the HCD and they'll provide them with comments and that will come back to the board for a final decision and then at that point, so I've been tracking it closely and council member Peterson is our person on the board so she's been doing a great job of representing Capitola and our concerns but as this progresses I can bring you more information on it but it is, it's more than a 25% increase in existing units. So when you say that we are going to be involved you would come to us with some zoning recommendations in order to accommodate these 1300 units? Is that how that would work? Yeah, part of the RINA numbers is once we're allocated numbers we need to make sure that we have sites in which to accommodate these numbers so we have to go through our zoning and make sure that we have enough sites zoned to be able to fulfill our RINA numbers and there's really strict guidance there of having to meet these deadlines within specific by specific timelines and rezoning your areas within specific timelines to stay compliant with the state. What's the penalty if you don't meet their threshold of 1300 units? We could lose funding it's it's tied to a lot of the grants that come through. Doesn't it depend on willing developers? So it sounds like we just need to allocate the location. We have to plan for it and zone for it. We don't necessarily have to we're not always going to find the developers but there has to be enough opportunity under zoning to not to not get in the way of these developments happening. So there will be more sorry for the bad news it's a big number but it's not the final number so we'll see. Okay those are my comments. Okay so no more comments from staff we're ready to move on to item four which is the consent calendar. These are items that are taken approved by the council with one vote. Does anybody wish to take any of these items item either A or B off the consent calendar and bring them into public hearing? I'd like to pull item B. Okay Katie can we pull item B 1515 Prospect Avenue and bring it into public hearings? What do you think should we put that at the end or the beginning? Let's put that at the beginning since it's since it's probably the first thing in the package. So is everybody okay with just pulling that? Does anybody want to pull 4A? If not I'm ready to hear a motion for consent calendar item 4A only. I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar with 4A only. Okay we have a second. That's to continue 4A. I'll second it. Okay I have a motion from Commissioner Westman and a second from Commissioner Ruth. Louie can we have a roll call vote on the consent calendar. And Chris? Aye. Here aye aye sorry. We know you're here here. I hope I am. Aye. And the Commissioner Christensen is not here so we don't need to point that out continually. Okay so let's move on then to public hearings item 5 we'll move 1515 Prospect Avenue to the top of that list. Do we have a presentation from staff? Good evening. Thank you. Commissioners and Chair Wilk. The applicant is proposing to amend the previous permit approval to include exterior modifications and a new second storey rear deck to the residence located at 1515 Prospect Avenue. The previous approval included first and second storey additions to the existing 1500 1518 square foot single family residence. The current application complies with all development standards of the R1 zone and the application the original application also included details of a new detached 540 square foot accessory dwelling unit which was located in the rear and it was approved under a ministerial permit. The existing residence at 1515 Prospect Avenue is a non-conforming two-story single family residence. The lot is located in the jewel box neighborhood and it's surrounded by one and two storey synced family homes. This is the proposed site plan. The amendment would not actually modify the approved building footprints, landscape, or parking. It also wouldn't modify the ADU or the landscape plan or the original encroachment permit. So it's really just focused on some of the exterior to the primary dwelling unit. The proposed second floor plan, second storey floor plan, excuse me. The new rear deck is shaded in blue towards the north side. A condition has been added requiring the applicant to reduce the rear deck width by two feet in order to comply with the minimum width of the side yard setback of six feet. Previously approved elevations are the proposed today. The previous approval included a design that had horizontal hardy board siting, hardy board fish scale tile at the gable ends, and a new Brava slate tile roof. The proposed elevations and modifications maintained much of the original or the previously approved exterior materials with modifications including changes to first and second storey ceiling heights, moving the front deck columns forward, adding horizontal siting to the front second storey deck, and a new rear second storey deck, as well as minor alterations to the windows and doors along the front elevation. The areas shaded in blue represent the new rear second storey deck. The applicant is proposing a frosted glass privacy barrier along the north side property line, which is shaded in green. The city received comments from property owners at 1505 Prospect Avenue and of 5055 Garnett Street, citing privacy concerns regarding the proposed rear deck. The properties are located to the south and southwest respectively. We've overlaid the site plan and blown up some of the locations of the footprints. The green area that you can see there is the deck in question, and the red addresses are the addresses with privacy concerns. Design criteria F requires that the city consider and minimize privacy impacts of adjacent properties with building features such as entrances, doors and decks. In considering adjacent residences, staff estimated at the nearest of the two residences is approximately 26 feet from the proposed deck. That would be 1505 Prospect. With that, staff recommends approval and we can answer any questions that you might have about the elements of the application or the deck itself. Thank you, Sean. Do any commissioners have questions with staff? Yes, I have one question. Mr. Newman. When I went out there, I did not see the noticing, although it seems like all the neighbors were aware of the application. Was it was a notice placed on the property? Did anyone know what happened to it? I walked by there on Monday and it was there on Monday. Oh, okay. Oh, I must have just come down recently. But anyway, I'm just asking that because I do believe everyone who is affected by it was aware of the application. Are there any other questions of staff? A question. It seems to me that there have been a lot of second-story decks that are coming before us. And this is as a result of the change in our code, which now no longer includes deck, decking as part of the floor area ratio. So I was curious maybe staff could clarify, can you recall why we changed that? What was the rationale for changing that in the code? I know I was part of that, but I just can't remember. Sean, would you like me to answer that? Sure. Yeah, Katie, if you can remember, and then we can ask the other members of the commission, but what was your take on that? So my recollection of that is that when we looked at updating our floor area ratio and what would contribute towards floor area ratio, we were really looking at massing and considering massing and what should be added towards the overall massing on the site. So the idea there was that these second-story decks, because they don't have a rooftop over them, that they would not consider beat and they're not enclosed, it doesn't contribute towards the massing. And however, we would require a design permit so that the Planning Commission could review them and make sure that the concerns associated with the design and privacy and you know, all of the criteria within a design permit, they would still be required to be reviewed by Planning Commission, but they would not be limited in size and tied to the floor area. That's my recollection. Is that the commission's recollection as well? Yes, that's basically my recollection and since the topic's come up now, I was actually going to ask Katie to put on one of our future agendas, talking about the whole issue with second floor decks and I can bring that up at the end of the meeting, but I think it's something that we need to talk about. That seemed to be very controversial. Yeah, let's bring that up again in comments because I'd be curious to know maybe you can formulate exactly what you'd want to discuss specifically, whether or not we want to change the code or what have you. Okay, so my understanding of the privacy issue is we have this two-foot setback on second stories. Katie, is it your impression that was intended to address the privacy issue? I'm sorry, is this question directed at 1515 Prospect Avenue because it might be helpful. Sean, if you could pull up the slide. No, no, it's a general question because I mean the general question of second story decks and privacy issues comes up on every application and so in my mind the thought is well you have the two-foot setback on the second story and to me that's oh that perhaps was intended to to address the privacy issue but maybe there was it was a maybe just a design issue or something. Again, I'm not sure the history of the two additional two-foot setback on the second story. Sure, so within our zoning code the first story has to be set back 10% of the lot width and the second story 15%. So it's they call this type of zoning like the wedding cake effect of the second layer being stepped in. The purpose of that is for articulation in a building. So by having the second story have to be articulated and within the massing. If somebody wanted a flat plane on their on the front of the home they would or on the side of the home they would just have to step it in at the second floor level. But it really the purpose of that is articulation. I don't think the intent of the additional 15% setback on the second story was ever intended as a solution to privacy. Typically the planning commission will look at windows where they're set within a second story and decks to ensure that they're cited correctly to ensure privacy in our dense neighborhoods. Okay, thank you. Any other questions of staff? Okay, let's move on to comments, public comments. Does the applicant wish to make a statement? And again what we'll do is we'll limit our comments to three minutes. Keep your comments short if there are a lot of people here we want to want to be close this meeting in time and give everybody a chance to to comment. So Katie is there other comments and we'd like to get the applicant the first shot at it if they have a comment. I have opened the mic for Peter Shem Showy and we can speak now. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. All right, thanks. If I can, I really would like to go last just to hear what other comments might be. As the owner of the property, I kind of like the chance to answer any further questions and concerns. I think I've been trying to do that through the whole process. So if you don't mind, I'd love to go last, please. I have no problem with that, Katie. I don't suppose that's a problem with Robert through Lord or anything. No, that's fine. Okay, let's open it up to general public comments then. Are there any other members of the public who wish to comment on this item? I'm looking at the attendees in the Zoom meeting and I'm not seeing any hands raised. Oh, I do see a hand raised. Let's see. The name is Managing Stress Code Name. Sorry, it's Denise Rovi and Anthony Rovi here. Anthony is going to speak on our behalf. Rovi, go ahead. Oh, hi. So I've been involved in this process since the beginning and back in April 2nd of 2020, I believe it was, when it first came to the council, I said I totally approve his plans, except I just wanted to make sure that his big flat roof in the back would not become a rear deck. And then the next thing I get is a postcard a few days ago. I saw no other noticing. I have not seen any other plan changes. And now it's like, okay, here this thing is here. And now we're talking a rear deck. I mean, his main idea was to be able to have a place to sun himself in the backyard. He had a full wide open backyard that he could go and set himself in, but he decided not to do that. He decided to build the ADU. So he has no space in the backyard to set himself and wants to put it now on the second story, in which looks into our living space and our child's bedroom, along with the neighbor's bedroom and bathroom. To me, it seems like the wants of the one is not meeting the needs and benefits of his neighbors. I also read the letter that the neighbors on the other side written for him, and it looks like there's a lot of verbal guarantees that are not enforceable, no smoking cigars in the deck. That's not an enforceable. That's a verbal contract. So I'm like, you know, they wrote a letter to try and be a good neighbor. And I'm sorry, I think that this process, as you guys are noticing with the second story rear deck, is an issue. The other thing is, who's going to move in there later? We don't know who's going to move in there. What are their intentions for the decks? I'm just saying, second story backyard decks are just a bad idea. Having them even be available puts neighborhood stress. I understand Pete wants it. Clearly, he knew that I was opposed to it. And he has a ginormous front deck that is quote, nonconforming, which is fine. Hey, great. Keep it there. But he's also asking at that time to increase the size of this nonconforming deck. So to me, it's like he gets in a group plan and then he pushes the limit. Oh, yeah. And oh, by the way, now I'm going to flip the height of my flooring. I don't care. So now he's higher so he can look in easier to the backyard. It just does not, it does not feel good and does not feel right for our neighborhood. And I'm really sorry that it comes to that, you know, and all for the community. All right. Thank you. Your time is up. I think you've made your point. Thank you very much. Any other public comments other than the applicant? Yes, we have Roger Sheehan, and I've, he can now talk. Go ahead, Roger. Roger, please unmute. There we go. There we go. Hey, guys. You're muted again. Can you hear me? No, we can. Okay, sorry. Technical issues here. Thank you, council, for the opportunity to speak. You know, I've known the Shamashoyan family for quite some time. I also built a home on Arnett Street. I'm familiar with several builds. I've done several builds and I have been astonished at how clean and, and, you know, well organized. This project has been from the start. I did see all the notices on on the property. I've received them in the mail. So I don't know if if there's a if there shouldn't be any question about knowing that this project was going on. And now looking at the plan in more detail and believe me, I've read several blueprints like you and I understand the process. I can't see any way that that deck looks into 1505's yard. It's so far from that that it doesn't make any sense to me. Now it's just, you know, an elevation and a deck in the way that it's there. I just don't see it. I think there might be some contention and I can feel it in the in the last conversation. Furthermore, one of the things that I noticed was that, you know, there seems to be a fence at that corner that's not even conforming at that 1505 property. Now it's not my problem, but I'm just wondering how, you know, one can say one thing versus another in saying that someone's not conforming. That property fence is, you know, two feet from the street. My point being here in taking that all aside, looking at the plan, I don't see how that that deck is causing any sort of security issue or privacy issue because I've seen some really bad deck plans and and elevation plans and this isn't one of them. This is a beautiful plan and I'm surprised, but that's my that's my, you know, thoughts on it, our opinion and I fully support this project. Thank you, Mr. Shaheen. Any anybody else? I'm not seeing any other hands raised and I'm going to check the email now. There is one email that has been received and it's from Denise Rovey and it says the fence has a variance and is documented at 1505 Prospect and that's the only public comment that we've received on this item this evening through via email. And I'll check. Okay, show you. One more time and we do have another hand up. No, the hand is down. There was a hand up by Anthony Rovia. Well, we've heard we've heard from Anthony Rovia already. Yeah, we've heard from him. We don't want to get into a conversation here. So if there's no no other public comments, we can take it back to the applicant Peter Shamshoian. I pronounced that right. Peter, you'll have to unmute. Yes. Hi. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. Thanks for your consideration here. So, um, you know, I feel I feel for Anthony's situation. I've tried real hard to account for private concern, privacy concerns of all my neighbors in the original design that Anthony referred to. I actually shared the designs with them in detail and frankly he said the designs are great. And then at that meeting back in 2020, he objected to a rear deck, even though I told him it was my intention in the future to add one. So I was really surprised by that. And so that was that was at a time when I had the design with the deck on his side of the property, completely exposed to his windows on a second floor, which are actually halfway back down the property. So I realized that, okay, he's not going to go go with that. I moved the deck to the other side of the house and recessed it into the house so it's blocked by a privacy wall. And from his windows on his house, he can't see that deck. It's recessed into the house on the diagram that Sean showed. His windows are kind of behind the I think it's the barbecue area there. Um, so about halfway back down the house. And so, um, at this point, I'm kind of wondering, you know, I don't he's not giving me anything really I can try to alleviate. I've done that exercise with both the neighbors behind me and the neighbors to my side that have direct views of this deck. And I've addressed their concerns. I've worked real hard at that. So in Anthony's public comedy puts any says he fears this thing and that his views into his children's room, but his his his two adult sons, they're in their 20s. And so I don't I don't understand it. Um, I've put a private recessed it into a house to make a private. I actually if you look at my landscape plan on my bill plans, I put place five tall emerald green arbiter ver a plants as a hedge because his second floor windows look right into my A to U bedroom. So I need to put some sort of privacy shield there. My opinion is that we live in tight quarters in Capitola. It's everyone's obligation to work towards privacy and address each other's concerns. You need to take steps to ensure your privacy work with your neighbors and limit impacts. But frosty glass, blinds, hedges there. They're also ways to mitigate. You can't expect your neighbors to shoulder 100% of the privacy burden. It's a compromise and the, um, I just I just see it as a two way thing. I don't think he can see my deck the way it's proposed. It's recessed into the structure and I do intend to plant a shrubbery on a tall shrubbery because I I have those windows overlooking my yard when he built his house. I never objected to that because I figured, okay, it's his right to build a house the way he wants. I wasn't comfortable with those windows overlooking the yard. Also, I do not get sun in my backyard. The sun is completely blocked by trees and structures. The the the yard sits down in a hole between all the all the adjacent houses. And so there is no sun back there. The front of the house doesn't get sun after about noon. It's very cold. I just want a small place I can have a glass of wine with my wife in the back. I've taken every step to minimize the privacy impacts of it. So if you look at that design, I also sent in a separate email to you showing views from that back wall and lines of sight with the detailed diagram of the adjacent houses. I do regret that the other property there on Garnet that they expressed reservations that that houses are rental. Those people don't they aren't resided. They aren't resident there. And the people who rent a rent there, we've never had much issue with. So I didn't realize they would have an objection. And I don't see them around to take that to them. So I have been very proactive with this. That's about it. I'm just looking for a place to retire. I intend to live here the rest of my life. My bonus house since 2003. At the same time, the robots purchased the corner. And I've tried to try to coexist. Again, I modified this plan greatly to move the deck away from their side. And I don't know how I could do anything more to alleviate concern. That's about it. Thank you, Mr. Shamshoian. Let's move on then to commission comments or commission. Yeah, commission comments and discussion. Any commissioners wish to weigh in on this item? I see Commissioner Westman's hand raised. Yeah, does commissioner Ruth want to go first and see pull the item? Well, I pulled the item because I knew there was some community concern about it. But I've lived with a rear deck, second floor deck behind my house for several decades. And even though I knew the neighbors well and it had a five foot parapet wall separating it from my property, it was obtrusive. And fortunately in the remodel it's gone now, but it was replaced with a four by four window that overlooks my backyard, which I know which is worse. But yeah, I think privacy is important and I'm not a fan of second story decks. So I would like to hear from the other commissioners before I decide. Well, I pretty much agree. I think that second floor decks become a problem. And I don't think decisions that we make should be based on one particular owner who is there now, but as the planning commission, you know, it's our job to look at what gets constructed in our community and how it's going to work for the long term. And for me, I think that second story decks do become intrusive. You know, even if it's not a visual issue, it often becomes a noise issue. You know, everyone can hear people out there and what's going on. So for me, I'm having a hard time being willing to approve a second story deck in this situation. And I'll hear what my other commissioners have to say. See if I can figure out how to lower my hand. Did you just call on me? I did. Okay, thank you. Well, first, I need to say one thing by way of preface, which is that we got communications from neighbors that at least for me as a planning commissioner raised issues that I would not consider in looking at something like this, which this is not a popularity contest. And it really doesn't help me for neighbors to weigh in and say that the applicant is a good person or the applicant kicks his dog. Basically, I just want to know about the planning issues. And so I just encourage members of the public who want to comment on items to try to address the planning issues and not just the fact that they like someone or don't like someone. As far as the deck issue, I would like our ordinance to provide more guidance than it does. It's a pretty vague standard. The design criteria that we have that really doesn't doesn't help me a lot in solving an issue like this, where the applicants and the neighbors have differences of opinion. Just in my experience as a planning commissioner, as far as decks go, this one is not the most egregious intrusion on privacy that I've seen. The distance of the neighbors who are concerned from the deck is fairly significant as these things go because capital is a tight, tightly built area. And I mean, I think the general principle that we're working towards is basically that decks should be treated like rooftop decks, rear decks. And they're in most cases not allowed. This is where we're, but that's not what our ordinance really says. So, I'm conflicted in terms of action on this item because I think that the neighbors who are concerned about this particular deck are not as closely affected by it as some of the other neighbors who are not concerned. So, I'm on the fence, basically, at this point. Commissioner Ruth, you have your hand ready? Yeah, I just wanted to remind the commission that it's been some time ago, but there was a point in time in Capitola when Second Story decks that were not in the front were banned. They weren't allowed at all. And over the ensuing years, that has kind of changed and worked its way into the zoning ordinance again. So, you know, I think we were correct when they were banned and we've kind of moved away from that. And maybe that's the direction we should go back to. Well, my comments are I'm not conflicted with it. I don't think this is the deck to take a stand on in terms of deciding to change the general plan or the policy about decks. We've approved decks before rear decks. To take this to an extreme, you say, well, if you're really worried about privacy and people looking in the backyard and you just, you wouldn't approve Second Stories because Second Stories have windows and windows have viewing opportunities. So, to me, again, if you wanted to take a stand on rear decks, I would say let's, you know, let's try to find an example or maybe have staff as per Commissioner Westman's suggestion come up with some rules or better guidance. I don't think this is the application to suddenly change our attitude towards rear decks. Like I said, we've approved them in the past and I think the privacy concerns have been mitigated. And I just don't see that this is a special case where we should start suddenly changing our attitudes all over. Just to remind the Commission also that we have denied Second Story decks. The most recent one I recall was up on McCormick Street because of privacy issues. And this is Commissioner Westman. For me, I don't think my stand on Second Story rear decks has ever really changed. I've always considered them to be a concern for the neighborhood, if not with this particular resident, but the long-term effects that they can have because something we can't control who is or is not going to live in those housing units. And they change. Okay. Ready to hear a motion if anybody wants to throw it out there? I will make a motion to approve the application without the rear deck. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Westman and a second by Commissioner Ruth. Any further discussion? I would like clarification. Does staff understand what this motion is? So the application includes some decking, but not the rear deck. What are we just, what are we approving? Right. My motion is to approve the application as it's been submitted with the conditions that the planning staff has put on the application with having the rear deck itself removed. I don't have concerns about the front deck. Okay. That's what the motion and that was the second. If there's no more discussion. Oh, there is. There's more discussion. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Newman. Yeah. The nature of this motion is a problem for me. And what I'd like to do is propose an amendment to the motion to be voted on first. Okay. And the amendment to the motion is that the, see, how do I want to do this? That that's the second story deck be approved. I guess I don't quite understand. Well, because if that's voted down, then I will, I would support your motion. I thought you wanted to, you want to make a motion? Yeah, because of staff recommendation. So it's a subsequent motion, subsequent motion. It's not an amendment to the No, it is an amendment to the motion because that way the way the motion's phrased, I can't approve the project without the deck because I mean, I think we should first vote on the deck. And that's the only way I can think of to do it. And then we can approve the project if the deck fails. So you want to, so basically you're proposing we move, we basically approve staff recommendation. Right. I'm amending the motion to include the rear deck. Well, that amendment's not acceptable to me. I'm certainly willing to discuss. Well, Commissioner Westman, could you table your amendment and we can vote on staff approval first and then you could come up with a second amendment. Maybe that's a better way to do it. Because I want to support, certainly support them the basic plan. Right. And I can't do that on your motion. Yeah. All right. So we have a motion to approve staff recommendation as submitted. Do we have a second? I will second this. Chair will second it. So we have a motion by Commissioner Newman and a second by Chair Wilk. No more discussion on this. If not, Louie, could we have a roll call vote? No. So it's a tie. And as I recall, I mean it's not approved. So the motion to approve this application was denied. So I will make a motion to approve the application with the rear deck being removed from the design. And Commissioner Ruth, do you second? I will second. Okay. Let's discuss this one because I've got some questions. It's this, I guess, parliamentary question. So this gets also denied by split vote. That means we have no motion that has been approved. What happens, Katie, to this application? So both motions would have failed and it's essentially a denial of the application, which could be appealed, though, to the City Council. That's not going to happen. Well, it may or may not happen, but okay. So but if it's approved, at least this thing is approved without the rear deck and they can actually appeal to the City Council whatever we vote on, correct? Correct. So if they want the rear deck and we deny it, they can always appeal to the City Council to overrule our decision. Correct. All right. So we have a motion and a second. We have a roll call vote, please. Before you go to roll call vote, Chair, well, can I ask a clarifying question on the motion? Yeah. So there's a door leading out to the deck in the plan. It would be great within this discussion to understand with the Planning Commission if this were passed like those, like the doors to be modified to windows and at a certain height. I'm happy to amend my motion to say that the door going out on the deck needs to be changed to a window that's, you know, approved by Planning staff. But clearly it's intended to be a window, not a door. Do you agree with that, Commissioner Ruth? I do. Okay. With that, a motion and amendment, let's call for the roll call vote. With that, we have a unanimous approval of an amended application. And with that, I think we need to move on to our next item. That means no sunroof. Oh, no. We have to apply now to put a sunroof on it. Okay. Our next item is 619 Sunset Drive, which is item for the agenda 5A. Do we have a staff report on 5A? Yeah, thank you, Chair Wilk. I'll be giving the presentation for this one. So at 619 Sunset Drive, we've got a design permit for a second-story addition, along with the entitlement stack also includes two minor modifications for consideration, one for a rear setback and one for a parking space depth for a substandard parking space in the garage. Property is in the R1 zone in the Riverview neighborhood and is a 3000 square foot rectangularly shaped lot. Next slide, please. So this is the curb view from Sunset Drive, existing single-car bay. I've got a hip roof with composition shingles of 4 and 12 pitch and existing stucco. Next slide. This slide is an overview of all the items under consideration tonight, so I'll go from left to right introducing them. So the rear yard setback is a minor modification to extend in parallel from the first floor upward to the second story at 14 feet 2 inches, where 15 feet would be required in the transparent brown there. That is the actual footprint of the second-story addition. Looking at the garage, you can see the projection of the kitchen wall. That's the bay short by also 10 inches. That's a 4.5 percent reduction on 20 foot clear. And then not a minor modification, but an item per code that requires planning commission consideration is driveways and parking that are wider than 40 percent of the front edge. The proposal here is for a ribbon-style parking with two tread strips perpendicular to the existing driveway. Existing driveway, just of note, is non-conforming for a parking space in that it's about 12 and a half feet deep and 11 and a half feet wide and just not really any opportunity to modify it to get anything close to a compliant parking space. Next slide, please. So looking at the design review aspect, this is a 362 square foot addition on the second floor, matching existing roof slope and materials with the comp shingle. This is a horizontal cement board lap siding to be painted to match over the stucco. I'll point out the window locations on the front. That's over a stairway. And in the rear, there are elevated daylight windows with a sill height above finished floor at about 50 inches. So some care was given there to avoid privacy conflict. Next slide. And so same view of the side. Nothing really really to introduce here other than the windows. Again, actually, all of these windows are located either in a bathroom or closet or at the top of the stairway. So in the design, the care was given to avoid privacy issues. Next, with the minor modification analysis, we actually wanted to get a little further down the line with understanding the structural needs. And so we've laid out here just to understand the kind of structural upgrades that would be needed. And so the blue line there represents the existing perimeter foundation. The red line is new footing foundations and shear walls that would be added to support. And then the red squares are new piers and would be tripled up structural framing on the first floor of the house. So in order to continue that line, ideally, I think in a general sense when you're laying out a new weight on top in the form of a new floor area over the first floor, you want to lay it out as much as you can over the existing perimeter foundation to limit cost and also for engineering purposes. So that's what we wanted to show this slide. Next, please. Giving into the minor modification here that the app can actually provide it a couple of photos. So while they weren't meeting the 20-foot depth, they are actually able to functionally use the garage. In also analyzing this, we looked at what the average length of a car is, and it's about 15 feet. So other than a modification to that kitchen wall, this is originally built this way and primarily functions as a one-car bay. This project is required to meet parking standard, which is two parking spaces. So reason for the modification is to acknowledge that this is a compliant parking space. Next, and this is the other parking space. So adapting the front yard to permeable paver of two and output wide tread strips. This is a compliant dimension of a 10 by 20 parking space. And the applicant is upgrading the front yard landscaping with some shrubs and flower clusters near the sidewalk and a drought tolerant ground cover between the tread strips and a mandarin orange tree closer to the property line. So this is the findings. We did an extensive review of these in the staff reports. So I'm not going to really go into this in any great detail, but I did want to highlight finding C just because it talks about necessary due to unique characteristics of the property structure and use. And so typically if we're looking at a variance, things like the structure of the use wouldn't come into play. Although the word necessary does mean that the bar should be pretty high for justifying these. We also in addressing this finding looked at the purpose section for the minor modifications. And there's a phrase in there that talks about small deviations to accommodate a project that meets the property owner's needs. So in this case, the need is a third bedroom, a second bathroom, and the necessity is to limit demolishing major portions of the building that would involve upgrading structurally and using maybe steel construction methods that are more expensive. Next slide. So with that, we are recommending approval of these two minor modifications and the design permit. And that concludes the summary. I'd be happy to take questions. Any questions of staff on the commission? I have one. Commissioner Ruth? Go ahead. Is the parking in the front yard required for them to meet the parking standard? If that parking space is denied, does that mean they can't do the modifications they've proposed and have the second story? Yeah, that's correct because the parking space in front of the garage is more than a 10%, so it wouldn't qualify as a minor modification. I'm not understanding your answer. The simple answer is yes. It would make the project nonfeasible. Okay, so if we deny the parking in the front yard, the project can't proceed. Is that correct? Correct. Okay, thank you. A follow-up to that question. What is the depth of the front driveway? Well, about a half feet from garage door to sidewalk. Okay, so just widening the driveway, you'd have two non-compliance spaces as opposed to one. All right, thank you. Any other questions? Okay, let's move on to public comments then. Do we have the applicants or any other public comments? Brian? Janet Ward would like to speak. Okay. Janet, you'll need to unmute yourself. Sorry about that. My husband, David Dixon, is here alongside me, and I just wanted to make a comment regarding the drive that, you know, I feel like we're actually, you know, enhancing the neighborhood by providing additional parking. The reality is that we'll probably continue to use the driveway the same way right now. My daughter and her, my son-in-law and their baby girl live in the house. And right now, they drive, they park in the garage and they park on that 12 and a half foot driveway. I think they're going to continue to use that. And we're trying to make that ribbon parking as attractive as possible. And in the event that we do need to use it, if there was a space needed, it would get used. But I think for the most part, it's going to just provide quality landscaping and hardscaping to the front yard. I just also wanted to say thank you to the Capital Planning Commission for your time this evening, and also to Brian Folick and Sean Sassanto for all the support they've given us. I just want to add that providing the additional parking area does alleviate some issues with that street, which is very narrow as you know. I grew up on that street, and I'm 73 years old. So I've been around for a long time and my grandparents owned that and my aunt owned it. And so it would be nice to make that front look really, really nice and acceptable and provide an additional space. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other comments? I think we're concluded. I know my designer is out there and I'll let Brian continue. Well, okay staff, Brian or Katie, are there any other public comments other than the applicant? I do not see any hands raised in Zoom. And I'm now going to the public comment email page. And there are no public comments on the public comment email page. All right, with that, we'll close public comments and move on to commission comments. Is anybody commissioners wish to comment on this item? I'd like to move approval of the application. I'll second it. We have approval by Councilman Ruth and seconded by Councilperson Westman. Are there any discussions on the motion? If there are none, let's call for a real call vote. Louie, could we have that please? Motion is approved unanimously. Application is approved. Good luck with your project. Let's move on then to the next item, which is 115 Saxon Avenue Item 5B. Do we have a staff presentation? Yes, and thank you, Chair Wolk. The applicant here is proposing to convert a flat roof into a second-story deck by single-family residents located at 115 Saxon Avenue. The proposed second-story deck is located on the side and the front of the property adjacent to residential uses, which requires a planning commission approval of a design permit. This application was previously heard by the commission last November and continued pending revisions to address privacy considerations to the adjacent property. The existing two-story residents, as it appears today, surrounded by one and two-story single-family homes in the Deepa Hill neighborhood. The existing structure is considered not conforming because it encroaches into the rear and side setbacks. The applicant is proposing exterior modifications that would convert an existing flat roof into a new second-story deck. You can see it here. Originally, they had proposed a glass wall over the parapet wall there, which is at the edge of the property in green, and to increase the privacy considerations. They removed that from this revision and also reduced the size of the deck to an area of approximately 235 square feet. That was down from 342 square feet. Under the zoning code update that went into effect earlier this year, covered and uncovered exterior spaces such as decks do not count towards the floor at a calculation. There's a little more of an involved diagram. The property owner of the adjacent residents at 117 Faction Avenue submitted a public comment citing privacy concerns. Design criteria F requires that the city consider and minimize privacy impacts of adjacent properties with building features such as entrances, doors, and decks. In considering the adjacent property, the applicant submitted a revised proposal that would set the deck area 12 feet back from the shared property line. The original proposal had the deck six feet from the proposed, from the shared property line. That is delineated by a inset railing barrier or that serves as a barrier, and the green area is the space that would be not used as a roofed deck, essentially, whereas the blue area is the revised proposal of which would operate and function as a deck. The existing parapet wall was constructed as a first story architectural element and is set back four feet from the side property line, which complies with the first story setback. On the side you can see an example of the railing they were posing to inset eight feet into the eight feet behind that wall that you see there. To comply with the setback, this would actually more than comply with the second story side setback at 12 feet when the standard is six. At the top here you can also notice we went out and took photos from the top of this roof, and from this position it's approximately 12 feet from the property line, and that red line is just underneath the top of the neighbor's outer fence, the exterior fence facing the street. There's the proposed elevations, the areas shaded in blue indicate the area where you would have exposure to the deck, the areas around it where you can see it, especially in this bottom right area, are portions that would not be functional or accessible other than they all be behind that barrier. So it would otherwise have a limited visual impact on the existing appearance of the residence, except for a new deck doorway and some railing post caps. With that, staff recommends approval of the project. Okay, thank you, Shawn. Are there questions of staff on this presentation? I have a couple questions of staff. Commissioner Weston. So I was trying to remember because I was on the planning commission when this remodel got first approved, and it was my recollection that it was a non-conforming structure, and they built it the way they did so that they wouldn't have to provide any on-site covered parking. And when it came to us, and there was this sort of flat roof with the wall around it, that the planning commission was told, well, you know, they did that design feature because they were constrained with what they could build and not have to provide parking. Is that correct? And do you remember that? Does staff have any record of that? I would have to look at the threshold of the previous report to know if it would have triggered the covered parking, but they were also at the maximum floor area ratio limit. So having a deck would have exceeded that under the previous zoning code. Okay. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions? We have a comment. I guess it's a question. When we heard this here, I think it was last November, we continue this item so the applicant and the neighbors could reach some kind of agreement on privacy, and it appears that agreement hasn't been reached. Am I correct in that? Commissioner Ruth, you are correct in that, but you had asked that staff work with the applicant and the neighbor, and we did meet with the neighbor and we met with the applicant. In the end, we can't force the two parties to come to an agreement. That's really, it's up to the decision of the planning commission. So we did meet with the neighbor. We understood their concerns clearly and expressed those to the applicant. The applicant modified their plans. We actually saw two different drafts. The first draft, I think they moved the wall in between. Was it an additional two feet, I think? So at that point, it would have been eight feet from the property line, and we met with them. We said, we really don't think that's addressing the planning commission or the neighbor's concerns at that point. From that point, you could visually look into their yard. So then they came back with the current proposal as you're seeing it, and prior to making a recommendation, Sean visited the site, and as he stated in his presentation, stood on the roof to ensure that from that location of where they were proposing the divider that they could no longer see into the yard. It was not practical to get to try to get both of the neighbors into the same room together, but we did meet with them separately. Okay, thank you, Katie. I have a question slash comment. Go ahead, Commissioner Newman. Okay, so when this item was heard previously, I mistakenly did not participate actively in the decision to continue it. I have followed the genesis of this application, and I am qualified to participate in it, so I will participate in it. Thank you, Commissioner Newman. I have a question of staff. Could you bring up the plan view of this application? My concern is based on our ruling on 1515 prospect. I'm wondering how this is going to go. So the drawings? Yeah, okay, I guess that's good enough. So let's see. So the revised, if we were to, based on the earlier ruling, if we were to deny the side deck entirely and only approve a deck on the front of the house, there's a door there, right, that basically goes out to the side of the house so that if they were to access a front deck, they'd nevertheless have to go out that side door, correct? If you're referring to where the proposed access to the deck is, at the top of the stairs right here. And that's the side of the house? Correct. So if we were to approve a front deck, they would nevertheless have to access it by some sidewalk or some mini deck on the side of the house, right, barring, putting a new doorway in. So no matter what, they would need to construct a doorway somewhere because there isn't currently one. But there's a staircase in between the master bedroom and the stair, the top of the stairwell. So those are really the only places you likely find a new doorway opportunity. So I'm looking at this, I'm looking at the front, what I'll call the front deck. And it looks like maybe there's a window there at the top of the stairs. If you go straight up the top of the stairs towards the front of the house, could that be converted into a doorway and then have direct access to a front deck and eliminate side deck entirely? You know, I don't think it readily meets the dimensions of a door frame. It's a somewhat raised window. It's a very wide window. I guess what I'm getting at is if we're now suddenly not liking rear decks, I would assume that we also don't like side decks for the same reasons. In that case, I would say, well, we could nevertheless approve this based on the side deck being just a walkway, which is maybe only two feet from the house. And that would have a railing all the way until you got to the front deck. Is that something that sounds feasible? I mean, currently they're going to have this door at the, not the top of the stairs, but that's a landing, I guess. Right? I guess I'm going to use. Okay. Can you see this pencil? Are you saying if there was a line like this, a walkway to this front area here? Well, I don't think we should be we should be modifying the design. I'm just wondering what's feasible. If we were to approve a roof deck, I mean, would that even, is that a ridiculous approval? I mean, the front deck, I'm just wondering if that's a feasible thing to approve a partial deck or not. And if the plans don't allow it, then you just deny the whole thing. But if you can do like Susan did before, approve half a deck, we want to make sure that's at least doable, right? And that's, so that's my question. Is it doable? And it doesn't seem to be as that clear. So I'll just withdraw my question and move on to public comment. So let's do that. Are there any comments on this item from the public, Katie, that we can or Sean, that we want to entertain? Yes, there is public comment from John Schenck. And he had sent in a letter earlier that you all have received and read. I did notice that he resented through the public email as well, but we won't read through that. He's here to speak tonight on. All right. And we have the three minutes limitation on any comments. So Mr. Schenck, welcome. Thank you, Chair Newman and commissioners and staff. I'll try to go quickly here. I'm long. I've got a lot to say, you know, but letter was long because our concerns are significant. I am John Schenck and my wife, I are the owners of the two homes that are on one lot that are adjacent to this side yard. We did share our deep concerns at the prior hearing and did submit the letter to you earlier with a lot of the details. I want to point out because I was curious as I've been doing my research on these things. You know, why are we, why is the design permit? You know, why is why the process? And it's because, and I did highlight this last time, council, as they considered allowing these roof decks expressed great concern. You know, for protecting privacy, you know, when they're proposed and they're the highest level of concern with for side yards. And here we are. And you know, it's appropriate that you guys share my concern or share our concerns for the protection of privacy. I find it informative that the staff report earlier tonight for just the prior item discussed in the design permit hot, you know, highlights there. I think they're just a few sentences. And one of them was that pointing out that the second story windows along the rear and south side elevations are small and raised. This is a quote, you know, which limit the privacy impacts to adjacent residential properties. The same point was made when this house was approved back in 2017, I believe, that the side windows were, you know, they work to elevate, make them smaller and do these sorts of things to protect privacy. And, and, and the privacy goes both ways. And that was appreciated. And I think that you're what I perceived as your collective concern over privacy issues is should remain and we don't throw it out the window because there's, you know, as one of you pointed out, you know, not necessarily perfectly clear language here in the in the zoning for when and how these things should be permitted. And I'm talking about second floor roof decks because of the concerns. And I also, you know, take exception to the to the staff's recommendation here, obviously, because I think, you know, to think we've solved privacy, and I'm using air quotes here on privacy, because at a single point, somebody standing five and a half feet above an unfinished surface, can't see into the yard. That's not that's not a privacy test in my mind. Privacy is so much more than just a visual. And by the way, if we were to, if Sean were to, you know, have walked to his left and looked over the side into the yard, but without the benefit of the screening existing parapet wall, he would see in and I imagine if he goes to what I think chair Wilk was pointing out as being the front portion of this proposed roof deck, you would then look back at the property again, be visible again, up on the second floor without a screen. So I can finish up quickly. You bet the findings A, B, D, E, and F, I just I'm unable and I hope y'all would discuss them if you're going to move forward with this to document how how those findings can be made. I thank you. I'm happy to answer questions if that's appropriate at all, but I will be listening in. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shank. Are there any other comments from the public? I see the applicant is here Danielle wise, but she does not have her hand raised, but I'm sure she's available for questions. I'm going to allow her to talk if she can unmute herself if she'd like to or but otherwise. She's certainly welcome to speak if she wishes to. No, I'm okay, but thank you. I'll be happy to answer any questions. All right. If there are no more public comments, we'll bring it to the commission for questions and comments. Do any commissioners wish to speak on this item? A question for you, Commissioner Wilk. When you when you spoke of the of the front deck, that's still all that's not a separate deck from the deck we're discussing. That's all part of one deck, correct? Correct. Correct. Okay. So I've got a general question for the the commissioners here and and that is, are we going to do the same thing on this as we did on 1515? In which case, if there's a motion, I just assume the motion be to approve staff recommendation and then we can amend it from there. But you know, let's let's hear what does anybody think about this? Are there questions, comments, general tendency to approve or disapprove? Commissioner Weston has her hand raised. Yes. As I mentioned, I was involved in the process when this remodel was originally approved. And the planning commission had great concerns about that area being used as a deck. And I believe that I'm going by memory, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, that the planning commission put a condition in there that they changed the window they were proposing to be a smaller window. So it didn't look like a door and that this area was not supposed to be used as a deck. And for me, that's what we approved when the remodel was done. And I understand that, you know, the zoning ordinance has now changed and we don't count this as square footage. So it won't have any impact on them having to provide parking now. But for me, I think I'm going to stick with what the planning commission originally did in 2017 and and say that this area shouldn't be used as a deck. Thank you, Commissioner Weston. Any other comments? Commissioner Newman, you're gone off mute. I'm just thinking back to your question about modifying the deck. I think if the commissioners wanted to go that direction, that what we would probably want to do is just either continue it for modification or deny it and let the applicant figure out their own proposed revision rather than try to come up with something that might work. As far as, but I'm not saying that's the direction I necessarily want to go on this, I think it's really the same issue as we already had, which is balancing the interests of the two neighbors based on a standard, which is vague and uncertain to me. So I have the same problem I had with the other one, which is what criteria do I really use to decide whether or not enough mitigation has been made by moving it back the number of feet that they did? I agree with your procedure. I think we should first see if the application as proposed, the approval as proposed by the staff will pass or not and then move on. I'm going to go ahead and make that motion, then we can all discuss it. Well, I'd like to hear what the other commissioners have to say. Oh, there's only one more. Commissioner Ruse, would you like to speak? I'm kind of torn on this one, but I just feel that we have to look at these in the long term. I just don't see any guarantees that that deck at some point in time is not going to be expanded to include the whole roof area. You know, the design lends itself to that. I just have reservations about it. I guess my final comment is I also had those reservations, but I thought staff did a good job researching this and eliminating site lines and then putting conditions in the approval that would prohibit the further expansion of that deck, at least legally. So yeah, I'm a little bit torn, but I tend to lean towards approval. So with that, I think I want to throw out a motion. No motions. No motion. Well, I'll move approval then. Staff recommendation. I will second. Any further discussion? All right, let's vote on it. Louie, could we have a roll call? No. No. It means that the application is denied. And I guess that's it. I'm sorry, the applicant. And let me just ask just a general question. I don't know if this is really just an order, but I would like to get an understanding since we seem to be breaking new ground here on the decks. I'd like to get an opinion of commissioners. The issue with the roof decks, the second-story decks in the backyard and the side yard, again, it has to do with privacy and viewing into other people's yards. And therefore, when it comes to frontage decks at the front of the house, since those tend to look mostly on the street, commissioners in general would be more likely to approve those. Is that a fair assessment? I think so. All right. I would agree. I just want to get a sense of where we're heading as a group here. Okay, that's it. We'll move on to the next item then, which is item C5C report on C-wide alcohol sales. Sam? Yeah, just a second while we get the slide show up. Thank you, Chair Will. And this item is before you, prompted from the November 4th Planning Commission meeting of last year, the Commission to express some interest in just exploring and more of an overview of permitting for alcohol sales and just the broader process of how we handle these. So I've got a brief report here of some permits that we've issued recently on the next slide, please. In the last three years, we've issued six conditional use permits for a mix of on and off-site sales. We've got one in the pipeline that is scheduled tentatively for February 3rd Planning Commission meeting. And we've also got a table here showing you for on-site sales, we've got 57 total in Capitola and for off-site 22. And we provided a ratio of that to the rounded off population. Go ahead and go to the next slide, please. But in terms of process, all of these go through a conditional use permit. The only real extent, well, when they're new, they go through a conditional use permit process. When they're a transfer, ABC verifies with the city that there is a use permit on file and good standing. So the bullets, I don't need to go through those, but so it's a case-by-case review. We've got to make the findings for use permit and the bullets explain what we usually look for. The ABC is kind of, you know, the state's process, another layer. They, at certain points in their process, defer back to either planning or the police department. And an applicant can't really move forward, whether it's a transfer or a new at a certain point unless there's a local sign off. There's also a posting and noticing process for ABC, you'll see posters and windows. So they solicit feedback with that as well. In collaboration, putting the staff report together and exploring this city-wide out-call sales, we worked with the police department and Captain Sarah Ryan has graciously joined us this evening. She's on the phone. She informed us that the police review things like service calls and arrest history when they're reviewing these. And they have oftentimes an option to not renew as well. I'd point out that's the enforcement mechanism with the conditional use permit is planning commissioner or the community development director could always call up a conditional use permit for a re-review of a new impact that was never analyzed is suddenly coming from a use like this or they're not operating under their condition. So there is some back-end enforcement, but on the front end, these are handled case-by-case. So with that, both planning and Captain Ryan are available for questions. Thank you. I have some questions, but I'll let the rest of the commission weigh in first. Are there any questions of staff or the police? Chief? Go ahead. Raise my hand. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Commissioner Westman. Yeah, I just wanted to thank staff for bringing this information to us. I thought the report was pretty informative and helpful, at least for me. And I appreciate them taking the time to do it. And that's my comment. Okay. Any other hands raised? I have a comment. Go ahead, Commissioner Newman, which is basically to echo what I just heard from Commissioner Westman. But I don't recall ever having received a report like this in the past. Maybe I was not paying attention at the time, but is this the first time we've done this? Well, I think this actually probably comes based on my question when we approved the English Ales application. So I can give you my rationale for why I stress some concern. And that was, you know, the village in particular has a lot of bars and restaurants. And we've been approving, you know, obviously, on Esplanade, there's a lot of bars and restaurants. But then we kind of let that spill into the mercantile and the pizza joints there and now serving beer and wine and English Ales now brought in Capitola Road is now another place. So my question was, well, is there any guidance in the general plan or in general where we wanted, had a mix of retail versus, you know, alcohol serving a restaurant? I mean, do we would be okay to have the entire village convert from retail into bars and restaurants? Is there a keep out zone? We want to have, you know, so many yards from nearest residents. You know, it seems to me that there, you've mentioned that not enough guidance on balconies. I didn't think there was enough guidance on the commission approving alcohol sales. So I was hoping to get some more clarification on what guidance we did have. Now I remember that you requested this information. I did. And I don't think that I have any more guidance now. And I guess I'm okay with that. So, you know, I don't think it's really, it's gone to a crisis level or anything. I just wanted to know if we had more guides when say the place, the shop next door to English Ales says, hey, this is a good idea. I want to have a beer life too. You know, well, is there any reason not to keep approving them? When I lived in Palo Alto quite a few years ago, there was a section of the city that was called Liquor Gulch. So maybe that's what you're thinking. Well, I think we already have that. It's like, that's not as like, you know, bar away or whatever you want to call it. And I just want today we want to have a Capitol Road become Liquor Gulch. And I guess I'm okay with that. Hey, I enjoy it. If we don't have any guidance, then we'll just handle it a case at a time. That's fine. All right, with that, I guess, go ahead, Katie. Would you like to hear from Captain Ryan tonight? She's joined us and she's she's done so much work in our village over the years and has seen how this process, the process that we have in place works and how they have the ability to pull back on permits if there are problem businesses down there. So I think where Sarah is, Captain Sarah, Ryan, are you available to speak? I'm here. I'm Hello, Commissioner, Katie, Brian. Can you guys hear me okay? We can. Thank you, Captain. Okay, I'm heading up the South Lake Tahoe and I've hit snow. And so my service is just a little spotty, but I am here. So I missed a little portion. I just was able to jump back into the call. Yeah, a long history of keeping an eye on the village. I was hired, I mean, just not to get in my whole file, but hired in 2005 2006, Chief Ely appointed me to the village because I had a lot of rest came in with bartender and restaurant business experience to fix a lot of the alcohol related issues that have been going down there on down there. So, you know, 2006 to now there's been a lot of really solid partnership with ABC. We don't arbitrarily sign off on entertainment permits. We've been known to to suspend them when calls for service provide data that their alcohol related crimes are on the rise and it's an issue. So I mean, currently right now being that it's January all the bars and the restaurants are currently, you know, submitting their entertainment permits. And a lot of information gathering goes into that on my end. As I embrace this new role of the captain really looking at statistical data and reviewing calls for service, any reports, arrests, all of that, all of that information is taken into account before we before we okay anything because on the back, I mean, as we know, on the back end, we're going to end up dealing with it if we sign off on something that is irresponsible. So that's that's the approach that that we take and it's been very proactive and been beneficial in terms of keeping the village, the village in particular, because it is a high concentration of bars and restaurants state from the outcomes that we all know that sometimes alcohol consumption can lead to you also taking into account neighbor complaints of noise. Yes, that's another component. Good question. So noise is it's a huge thing. We have a lot of residential and vacation and, you know, things going on in the village. And so absolutely that those are actually conditions that are placed on entertainment permits with guidelines and and then they're they're monitored throughout the the duration of the entertainment permit. We also have access to ABC grants. We've partnered with them a bunch to do compliance checks. Sometimes we've done stings if we are hearing that there's something that needs to be looked into from more of a covert approach. So yeah, the noise and consumption and also underage drinking that that's another thing we we we are really active when it comes to that too and over serving. Have you been asked to get it given the input into the upcoming outdoor dining ordinances? I personally have not. Oh, we're losing him. That's moving forward. I oh, do you hear me now? We can hear you. Nope. All right. Well, I think I think you've answered the question. The answer is no, you haven't had any input on that. Maybe you will be asked that sooner or later. Mer. All right. Thank you, captain. You know, for for those of us that were around back in the 80s and 90s when live in our neighborhood allowed to continue until I love to join. Okay, I think I think we're we're happy with your response so far. Thank you captain. And we'll put you on mute. Yeah, to continue with live entertainment was allowed until one o'clock in the morning in the village between those days and now it's like night and day a world of difference. Okay. I was involved part of the council when we had the lawsuit where we changed the entertainment permits from one o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock at night and went to court on that in the city one. So we were sued by the owner of the Edgewater at the time. Well, okay. Good history. If there's nothing else on this, we can move on to the directors report. No directors report tonight. I gave you all the updates during staff communication. Okay, then we'll move on to item seven, commission communications. Commissioner Westman, I know you wanted to speak again on this topic. Yes, just simply to reiterate, I would like to see staff bring back to the planning commission the issue of second story decks and history about why we decided not to include them in the floor area ratio. Happy to do that. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Newman. I would suggest that we expand that inquiry further into modifying the or proposing suggesting that the city council consider some modifications to the ordinance to add some criteria to make it easier for the planning commission to deal with applications on second story decks. That's a great suggestion. So is that something that staff would come up with is a series of proposed modifications to the code based on the input you've gotten from us on the last two rulings? You have enough information to come up with some proposals? Yeah, I think what I'm hearing is that you'd like some objective design standards that are tied to second story decks. Well, we might want to look at what other jurisdictions have done with that. And I'm not sure exactly how to improve the ordinance in that regard, but I think it's worthy of discussion. Yeah, so I think that's a good idea to have some other do some research on some other municipalities to see how they've handled it. That sounds good. We'll look at that as kind of a work session item for the planning commission. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Any other commission communications? No, I just want to thank you for electing me, Chair. And I guess, yep. And with that, we'll adjourn. Good night, everybody. Goodbye. Goodbye.