 Hello and welcome to the planning capital planning commission meeting of June 2nd, 2022 in accordance with current Santa Cruz County Health Order and the governor's executive order in 2920. This meeting is not physically open to public missioners and staff are meeting via zoom and there are several ways for the public to watch and participate information on how to join the meeting using zoom or a landline slash mobile phone along with how to comment during the meeting tonight is available on our website cityofcapitola.org on the slide now shown and on the published meeting agenda as always this meeting is kept live on charter communications cable TV channel 8 and AT&T U earth channel 99 and it's being recorded and to be replayed the following Monday and Friday at 1 on chart channel 71 and Comcast channel 25 meeting can also be viewed live on our city's website and our technicians tonight are Olivia and Brian so with that we can open this meeting with the roll call we have roll call please here we'll go on item two oral communication are there any additions or deletions to the agenda tonight no just one quick announcement the community development director is not going to be at the meeting so i'll be serving as the acting director for the meeting tonight luck with that Brian all right we'll move on then to public comment this is an opportunity for the public to make a short comment on items that are not on the agenda Brian do we see any hands raised or emails regarding public comment no emails no hands raised okay so nothing that is not on the agenda how about the commission comment are there commissioners who wish to comment on something that is not on tonight's agenda oh let me go to gallery view to see if anybody's hand can i do that no i don't know how to do that i'm gonna assume no one's hands are raised and therefore move on to staff comments staff do you have any comments no comments okay i can you know how i can do that all right okay then we'll move on to item three on the agenda approval of the minute we have two meeting minutes um items a and b why don't we try taking them both at once are there any uh comments or anybody want to make a motion on minutes approval this is commissioner westman i would make a motion to approve the minutes for april 7th and for april 21st 2002 second okay we have a motion by commissioner westman and a second by commissioner root any further comments or question the uh seeing none uh shall we take a vote let's let's vote on this second we have a roll call vote please lee christensen hi i'm shana newman hi westman hi minutes are approved we'll move on now to the consent calendar um there are two items on the consent calendar does anybody of the public in the public or in the commissioners wish to remove any of these items on the consent calendar um brian are there any hands raised on that no emails no hands raised okay uh then uh are there any discussions on on this that we wish to bring up i'd love approval of the consent items i'll second it commissioner westman okay we have a motion by commissioner root and a second by commissioner westman uh if there are no any no other comments why don't we go ahead and take a roll call vote on approval of the consent calendar um louis can we have a roll call vote hi hi hi consent calendar approved unanimously let's move on to public hearing we have one item on the agenda which is 4800 opal cliff drive staff that we have a presentation here yeah thank you chair will could be delivering the staff presentation we have a slideshow for you um so 4800 opal cliff this is before the commission with two entitlement requests a coastal development permit and a conditional use permit the site is actually located right at the city boundary and you can see in the upper right corner of the photo here this is the three-way intersection of opal cliff's drive and cliff drive and specifically related to this request is some repair work to a shot creek bluff wall the approximate area of the wall face is about 6500 square feet and was originally construction in 1998 with a larger project that also included the bluff tow c wall that you see below but to be very clear tonight there's no proposal associated with the c wall the uh the shot creek bluff top wall this photo is from an inspection report that was prepared by the applicant's engineer and helps define what's actually being proposed in terms of the physical work on site so i've highlighted uh this is the up coast side of the wall in blue there's a a bit of overspray of the original constructed shot creek wall the proposal is to cut that back and make it flush and reduce some of the erosion that's happening behind it and then there is a 22 square foot section shown here it's 11 by 2 as described in the inspection report it's at the base of the shot creek wall and it's been deteriorating and lost some debris down onto the beach my shapes here are relatively of scale probably that rectangle is not of the exact shape but it would have to conform to the bottom of the wall and it's approximately the right size i'll also point out the the person standing there at the base of the wall so you can get an idea of the scale other area of repair this is toward the middle of the wall at the base is a 30 square foot area there's a void that is documented in the inspection report that has also fallen away and the proposal is to dowel into the the base of the existing shot creek wall and add new shot creek additionally with the proposal is a maintenance monitoring agreement and so this would be a recorded with the property and agreement between the property owner and the city and the template that is attached to staff report was based on a template that had been used for the prior project with the county coastal commission staff and city staff both did several rounds of edits on it the one of the trade-offs is and the coastal commission was interested in this is that every five years we would get an inspection and monitoring report and the trade-off for the property owner is that for minor repairs such as this uh they wouldn't necessarily have to go back before the commission if the community development director determined the repair maintenance um just wanted to tie that this is a little outside of our our usual business so i've got a couple of slides to talk about code and policy and what led us to our recommendation so tying this back to why is a coastal development permit required i've listed the code section here so a bluff retaining wall and associated maintenance that requires permanent construction materials is a trigger for a coastal development permit and then conditional use permit and accessory structure in the environmental sensitive habitat area is the trigger for the use permit as well the 1998 approval included a use permit so there's an amendment there too the land use plan of the local coastal program there's a couple of policies that are pertinent to the proposal uh roman seven dash seven this is talking about beach and bluff erosion specific to bluff and clip top development shall be approved only if design is set back provisions are adequate to assure stability and structural integrity for expected economic lifespan at least 50 years so tying it back here our conclusion was the wall was built in 1998 it's in year 24 of its life cycle and the maintenance is appropriate uh roman seven dash nine goes on can we interrupt there yeah and i look at that policy it looks to me like that's about building a house above the uh bluff rather than stabilizing the bluff yeah i would i would respond to that by saying that the that this wall is also defined as development in the in the um the zoning ordinance uh the coastal overlay but yeah and and also to even elaborate further there was no specific policy or section that specifically talks about the situation so it is a bit of a tying a couple of policies together to uh to make a determination and ultimately a recommendation so understood as far as uh policy roman seven and nine it talks about shoreline structures shall be permitted only to serve coastal dependent uses and to protect existing development shall be permitted only if non-structural solutions have proved to be infeasible so our conclusion was that the wall being built in 1998 that determination had been made at that time the wall is existing and protecting existing development and therefore the maintenance is also appropriate with this policy uh just highlighting a couple of the specific conditions this is uh just some paraphrasing about it condition number nine this specifies an aquatic herbicide there's going to be a requirement to remove some invasive panthers grass but the the method would be just to cut off at the root top and apply an herbicide so the coastal commission wanted to make sure it was a an aquatic type of herbicide condition 10 there's some noted in the inspection reports and debris on the beach this could actually happen anytime there's a requirement that that be removed and then we added a condition to comply with the migratory bird treaty so there's some protections around the bird nesting season and protocols if work is going to happen uh within the nesting season and then lastly would be the shotcrete to match existing color and texture um that just about does it i one other point i'd like to make is is i noted the wall surface is 6500 square feet and uh collectively this is a 52 square feet of area it's less than two and a half or just about two and a half cubic yards of material so it's a relatively minor project in the overall scheme of of construction but there's layers of policy here and the coastal commission being involved so we're before the planning commission i do understand the applicant wants to make a brief statement and that's the conclusion of my report and i can take any questions are there any questions of staff on the presentation let me get my hands up see if anybody's raising their hands uh mr westman yes uh i just wanted to make certain that i understand what's happening where the pampas grass is growing through so those areas the grass is just going to be cut back and an herbicide is going to be used to kill the pampas grass but it seems like in those areas they the pampas grass is broken through the shotcrete so there'd be a hole there are those going to be repaired as well or are they just going to to leave that yeah with the proposal tonight it's just as i defined so the applicant can talk about potentially there's a future plan for those but that's not not part of the proposal okay thank you other questions i have a couple questions um this 1998 approval it talks about a 50 year structure could it be interpreted that since it didn't last 50 years that the whole uh agreement is null and void i mean it's a 50 year structure so let's see what happens when the 50 years runs out yeah i'm glad we have a lawyer present because i just want sure go ahead lila yeah yeah so um typically in in agreements like that when you talk about a 50 year structure um you know that that doesn't preclude repairs or maintenance um it's sort of anticipating that the structure itself will be viable uh you know for a period of 50 years provided that you know adequate repair and maintenance is conducted um and then at the 50 year mark is typically when you know you would look at things like potentially replacing the structure entirely or um demolishing it that brings up my next question which is this maintenance agreement uh which i guess the terms minor repairs are involved who determines what a minor repair is let's say at year at year 30 the thing is completely crumbling and they quote repair it by reconstructing it is that would that come before the planning commission or is that considered a minor repair or is that tbd yeah as it's written it's it's the determination of the community development director um i mean i would say that this part of that determination would be to probably look back through records and to see how delicately this was handled i would think that would be part of the decision um so it's left to the determination there's uh there's not actually any like measurable specific sense of what percentage of the wall or so by agreeing let me may understand so if we agree to this maintenance agreement then they could maintain that wall in perpetuity without ever having ever coming back in front of the planning commission that correct for minor maintenance yes and they would also have to continue with their inspection and monitoring program so what about after 50 years it would still wouldn't come after uh up to the planning commission to review the after 1998 50 year agreement is expired yeah as it's written right now there's no there's no sunsetting provision or or expiration of the agreement okay thank you any other questions of uh staff all right let's let's move on then at susan westman your hand is still up is that i assume that's just sorry it's going down okay um next uh i guess we'll move on then to public comment you said the applicant wishes to make a statement yes uh i'm going to turn on the microphone now didra can you hear me yep we have you thank you thank you so yes my name is didra hemelton and i am the property analyst representative on this matter um i don't have a presentation as such but i do want to answer some of the questions and comments and maybe give a little background and texture to um the conversation that your commission is having um i actually started working on this in 2020 um it started out as a application to do some minor repairs on this seawall and not just the upper portion but the entire wall and um george groom who i believe is also um on the zoom call and is the contractor that is going to be doing the work and susan later on we can have him answer your question about the pompous grass um but he's not in touch with me because uh previous to this he had done some with minor repair work on the wall had gone to the capitol and had been given a grading permit to do some minor repairs on the wall but when he went in this time he had been told that he's not only needed to get a grading permit but he needed a coastal permit and at that juncture he needed to get a coastal permit from the coastal commission um so he brought me in to help him with that particular um entitlement so my first conversation was with the coastal commission with rainy at the coastal commission we went through and we dug through all of the entitlements that had gone through the city of capitol as well as through the coastal commission uh itself and as brian outlined to you that had been a permit issued in for the nineteen uh 98 permit that was issued that that actually been appealed to the coastal commission there were some additional studies and work that had to be done that appeal was withdrawn and the permit that was issued by a capitol was reinstated um at that time as you mentioned there was a 50 year lifespan that um didn't necessarily sunset it didn't mean that the wall was to go away in 50 years but when you give an approval for a coastal protection structure it has to last at least 50 years so when they grant an approval the engineer that is designing that structure has to guarantee that it will last at least 50 years and the attorney is correct that also assumes that there will be maintenance and repair done over that period of time in order to ensure that that 50 year lifespan can be realized so over the 50 years span with maintenance and repair there shouldn't be any difficulty at the end of the 50 years if you get another 50 years out of it you know that that looks like a bonus year that will be excellent but the work is guaranteed to last 50 years and the approval is based on a minimum of of a 50 year lifespan um the other thing that I want to mention is the maintenance agreement the maintenance and monitoring agreement is the requirement that came through our discussions with the coastal commission it wasn't something that came from us organically we originally when we were talking with the coastal commission they weren't wanted to originally take jurisdiction of this whole thing and I'm sure you've had experiences dealing with the coastal commission we probably wouldn't even though this took two years to get to this point to do what was it 26 27 square feet of maintenance and repair it probably would have taken 10 years to get this far with the coastal commission so we decided that it wasn't worth the time effort or expense to go through that so because the area in question one it had been approved um and entitled by the city of capitol and two it was um above mean high tide line capitol could take jurisdiction of this area so reigning and she's checked with her superior's of course agree that if we only focus our application on this one section of the wall and if we agree to say maintenance and monitoring agreement to go along with the application then they would not appeal that to the coastal commission because that was in keeping with the way that they themselves issue permits um when they do their coastal permit and the purpose of doing the maintenance and monitoring agreement is so that these sorts of minor repairs that it really isn't necessary to have this sort of review to remove compass grass it's a little bit ridiculous so in order to have things move along more expeditiously you submit your maintenance and monitoring plan to the planning director the planning director along with either a geotechnical engineer or a geologist reviews it the plan is prepared by an engineer so it's it's not just something that's written on the you know back of a map and it is a professionally prepared plan that plan is reviewed if in the view of your staff this is something that warrants coming before the planning commission then of course it will not be approved as maintenance and monitoring it is something that would have to be an amendment to the permit but it's essentially just a piece of rock fell off let's say a you know a piece of the uh shot piece fell down and needs to be repaired or you know that compass grass that we were talking about that needs to be cut away and and herbicide needs to be put in i don't think you really need to have that go back to the planning commission again for an amendment to the permit that can be done as ordinary maintenance and repair and shouldn't really be considered development under a permit so that's really the purpose of the maintenance and the monitoring agreement it's very ordinary these days to have this sort of maintenance and monitoring agreement and actually that one came from a project that i worked on for the county of Santa Cruz i've done about three or four of those for the county of Santa Cruz on various projects and i've also done them in the city of Santa Cruz um and i've done a couple for the county commission projects as well so these aren't unusual at all they're they're pretty commonplace nowadays and i can answer any other questions you might have about them um and any other questions you have on the project and if george if you're there if you can raise your hand or i think he may be on the phone i'm not sure how they're telling you to do it for the phone but he might be able to answer commissioner westman's question about the compass grass i think the answer is the intent is to cut the compass grass off apply the herbicide and to close up the crack there but how the crack is going to be closed up he'd have to answer that for you i don't know technically how it's going to be done okay thank you mr hamilton um are there any questions of uh miss hamilton while she's on the line very good that was very very helpful and it struck it thank you um are there uh are there any brian are there any other comments from the public i'm not seeing any other hands raised no emails all right if there are no more public comments we'll move on then to planning commission deliberation anybody wish to uh make a comment on this proposal uh seeing no hands raised off i uh i have a concern you know you brought up brian you brought that illustration of the of the cliff illicit cliffside and and that just that just disturbed me um i realized that that this is a maintenance this is something that's already been established we're not creating a new structure here it was already approved in 1998 nonetheless i think it's not in the spirit of the lcp lcp talks about scenic and visual qualities of coastal areas shall be considered and protected as a resource of public importance and they are to minimize the alteration of the landform um i worry about what's going to happen on uh depot hill as that cliffside continues to erode and it starts to reach property lines is that are we going to suddenly approve shot creek all along that uh all along that side as well um you know england's got their white clips of bill birds capitol's going to have their shot creek cliffs of capitol it bothers me that uh that we're heading down a path or continuing to head down a path that um you know the coastal commission they would like to weigh in on this but you know they backed off i i just assumed here what the coastal commission's attitude is i mean they i know it's controversial but they talk about managed retreat this doesn't seem this seems like a mismanaged retreat to me um with regards to rising tides and and and climate change so um having said all that um i find it difficult to find a real rationale to disapprove this i mean um i would like to but it's pretty solid case and and it's an order who just wants to maintain their property and it's and there's plenty of precedent and this is by far not the first or even the most egregious instance of armoring the cliff side so um i just uh um you know those are just my comments um i'm willing to hear any other comments or or emotion ah you have some hands raised good commissioner newman okay yeah i had my hand raised in the old-fashioned way and that didn't that work i i just promise i don't have uh i don't have a camera over here okay i don't like dowry it's like into your face i only have this participant thing up all right okay so uh i guess i'll respond to your comments which is really sort of ties in with what i was going to say is that this is a very different hat we're wearing than we usually wear in our uh meetings when we're dealing with uh buildings being built in capitol and it we're really um enforcing the coastal commission act uh as it uh intersects with our lcp and the coastal commission has an appeal rights over over those kinds of decisions in general and they are much stricter uh than i think we have ever been in terms of enforcing the our goals of the coastal act so if they signed off on this then it seems to me that uh i don't really see what issue we have as far as future armoring i mean it's so difficult to to uh to get a permit to do that now that i don't think you need to be concerned that this is opening the door to more armoring of the health of the bus so i just think we follow the coastal commission on this if they approve it uh i don't see any reason not to but i do um technically find the maintenance agreement a little bit uh in need of polish and i would recommend that the city attorney do one more review of that just in terms of the uh sort of the draftmanship of it that doesn't go to the substance of the agreement i i don't have any comments on the substance are we suggesting that that that that portion of the proposal be removed from the from emotion like you don't know no i just i'm i'm throwing it out as a just kind of a suggestion that there are some i'm not i mean there are misspellings there are some references in the i i think it was a layman must have a hand in that in taking it from another document that's how it strikes me yes uh commissioner the city attorney's office would be happy to review that document yeah i think it needs uh not not to say that attorneys are the only ones that can draft documents or at all but i think this one could use a little bit of help thank you commissioner newman i hope you're right about the armoring of the hillside uh i see commissioner weston has her hand raised uh yes um actually commissioner newman that made most of the comments that i was going to make um it seems that this was a project that was approved in 1998 and uh at this point all we're talking about is some maintenance of that project and i think we all understand that anything constructed that's supposed to last for 50 years needs maintenance even if it's the golden gate bridge they have to constantly maintain that to keep it standing so i would like to make a motion to approve the project um uh and include in that motion that the um agreement be reviewed by the city attorney's office prior to it being signed so that's a motion to approve the project with the staff conditions and including mr newman's request that the city attorney review the maintenance agreement it was a racist to do to second to it i think uh commissioners evening okay we've got some motion by commissioner weston and the second by commissioner ruth i don't have any further discussion on this motion before we take a vote yes chair willke i just wanted to uh clarify again the city attorney's office will be happy to take a look at at that agreement um we can certainly make uh cleanup changes but we would not be changing any of the substance of the agreement just to clarify so that it will match um what is being approved tonight at least some substance and we'll just make sure that um it's a little bit cleaner that's certainly what i intended uh is that okay commissioners weston and ruth okay if there's no further discussion uh louie could we have a roll call vote very lucked and i unanimously good luck with your project okay let's move on to uh directive report item six on the agenda do we have a directive report yeah just one update is that uh we are agendized for the outdoor dining ordinance to be reviewed by the coastal commission on june 10th um is that that's just the staff in the coastal commission there's no yes it's not a public uh need oh no it is the public meeting it's the it's the it's their review and that's going to be is that listed on our calendar of um we received a notice i i can send that i can forward that to the commissioners i think that would be helpful uh anything else nope nothing else all right let's go to item seven commission communications if anybody wish to make any flat minutes comment it's not uh nick i think you're gonna get your wish for a short meeting i figured it would be okay with that we will adjourn thank you everybody we'll see you next time