 Welcome everyone. I'm going to call the October 21st, 2021, regular meeting of the Santa Cruz City Planning Commission to order. Could we please have a roll call? Mr. Conway? Here. Dawson? Greenberg? Here. Maxwell? Here. Nielsen? You're muted. Sorry. Here. Thank you. You said you was here. Again, welcome. I will now move on. There's nobody absent. Are there any statements of disqualification? None. We'll move to our positions. This is the time when anyone can speak for up to three minutes on an item that is not on tonight's agenda, but is legitimately before the commission. And I did hear from one person who wanted five minutes, who said he was speaking for a group of his neighbors. And if he's on the, if he sees one five minutes, I will be off giving that extra time. So let me open up all communications and hopefully we'll all go smoothly. And Chair, could you, for the record, could you tell me who the individual is that you've allowed extra time for? His name is Alan Spelman. Alan Spelman. Ego. Ego. There are several people who wish to speak. Hi there. This is Ralph Salman-Belt. I was just speaking. I was hoping that the Planning Commission could consider taking up resolutions in support of the empty home tax. And in opposition to the Greenway initiative, and I'm also asking for the commission to oppose the future initiative. I think the empty home tax is a really good idea, moves us in the right direction towards funding affordable housing for our community and reduces the ability of speculators to sit on homes that are sitting vacant that no one can live in. I think the downtown, our downtown, our future ballot initiative is misguided. I do agree generally that we shouldn't be trying to increase the net amount of parking that we have downtown. But the idea of basically handcuffing the city by changing our general plan to mandate the uses of parking in downtown Watts, I think is misguided. And the Greenway initiative, I think, also sets us back for generations in terms of transit access. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next person, like a prisoner, you have three minutes. Go ahead. You have to unmute yourself. Go ahead. Hello? Yes, we can hear you. This is Micah Posner. And I'm part of a group called Build Communities, Not Hotels. Hope you're aware that the city is considering selling two small parcels on Front Street to a hotel developer, a consortium, and to be run out of a, be a boutique hotel run out of an outfit out of New York. And I thought this was really outrageous because, I mean, for one thing, it goes around the spirit, if not the letter of the surplus land act. But then additionally, I felt like, well, you know, how could the city just sell properties to someone they like to put them to have a big capitalist project, you know? So I talked to a lawyer, we did a little research, and I say this letter, but it turns out that to preclude these just handing their friends properties, there is a law that says that the city has to find the planning body, which I think of as you guys, has to decide that it's in congruence with the general plan. This is very apropos in this case, because in this case, the city staff want the hotel to make money for the city, but that's not necessarily what's generally in the best interest of the community. And the general plan is our guiding document that says where we think about what's best for our community. So the city has to do this anyway, but I'm asking you guys to officially put on the agenda a discussion about whether the city should be selling these parcels to a hotel developer instead of using them to encourage affordable housing, which is what the spirit of the surplus land access. And whether that really makes sense, why that's in accordance with our general plan. And there's been no open conversation about this at all. It's happened for years in closed session at city council level, and you guys representing the public and thinking about planning and shepherding the general plan would be the right body to bring the public in and have a conversation about whether this is really in the best interest of the community, not just the city as a business enterprise. So hopefully you will talk to staff and get that on your agenda once the staff has finished studying the issue and made their findings. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much. Anyone else? I can see a hand by a random solid. Go ahead. Hi. Hi. I want to support what I said about the empty home tax. I've seen that it worked in Oakland, and I think that would give us a bunch of money to build more affordable housing. And on the affordable housing theme, I support totally what Micah said, that surplus land policy is meant for the city to build more affordable housing. I can't believe in the first place that the credit union sold to a hotel. The city owns the two parcels next to them. That means that the city has the ability to say no. We're not going to be supporting rich hotels, which we have plenty of already here at the expense of the possibility of building affordable housing. So I think you all understand what I mean. That policy, the surplus land policy was designed specifically to increase affordable housing. And we need that so much here. Please think about how to present this so that the city council actually can take some action on not selling those parcels to the hotel. Thank you. Thank you. If there's someone else? I see a phone number. 831-426-3857. If you would unmute yourself and identify yourself, and you'll have to up to three minutes. Are you there? You need to unmute yourself if you want to talk to us. Perhaps I should go to the next speaker. Why don't you go to the next? Oh, hello. Hello, who is this? Hello, my name is Alan Spital. Oh, okay, Alan. I did say that you were, because you're representing your neighbors, some extent at least, some of your neighbors, I'll give you up to five minutes. Thank you very much. And I have supporting documents that I would hand out if we were in a meeting in person. I can provide these at your request. My concern tonight focuses on the direction that the planning department is taking the city and also whether or not they are fulfilling their obligations to you in the staff reports that they prepare for appeals hearings such as ours. A brief summary of our appeals hearing before you left, December 3rd, might remind you what I'm talking about. We were before you talking about 418 Pennsylvania, the triplex behind an existing house, three stories tall with a flat roof, 100 feet substantial neighborhood opposition to this. And I hope you recall the hearing, December 3rd. State law trumped neighborhood concerns then and you voted 4-3 to approve this permit. Our appeal went on to the city council and they approved it five to two on February 9th and that could have been the end of the story. You may also recall that the best feature of this project was that the developer was going to make one of the three bedroom units deed restricted for affordable housing. The applicants went on to emphasize this before the city council. Indeed, it was the primary focus of their presentation. I do have transcripts of this presentation if you are interested in reading them. After the council approval, but before the permit was issued, the developers submitted a plan revision to the city about a month ago. It's currently under review by all the relevant departments. The proposed revision adds a fifth unit to the project, which they want to call an ADU. The unit replaces one of the garages, which of course results in a loss of off street parking. The revision takes away the three bedroom affordable unit they promised and designates the new fifth unit, a much smaller one bedroom unit as the affordable units. The planners that we've talked to have labeled this a ministerial review. Apparently that means a rubber stamp situation, even though this is now a very different project. No public hearing and crucially, no course of appeal should they sign off in this revision and issue the permit. Our first question to you is whether this is just. Very different project is emerging from the planning process, different from the one we all looked at last December. What was the point of that appeals hearing if the real project was hidden from us? My suggestion that the planning department staff knew about this different reality and withheld this information may strike some as a very serious chart, be careful here. I have a letter from a senior planner that I think validates my claim. Briefly, her argument asserts that state law requires the replacement unit in this project to be comparable in size to the unit that is to be demolished to make room for the triplex. Here, let me remind you that there was no such unit on the set up that the commission was given. Now I quote her email, the designation of the affordable unit was a condition of the approval of the permit. The attention, intention being that it would be met at the building permit stage in some manner. She is referring to condition number 27 on this permit, a condition that was added during planning process well before our hearing. In short, the planners anticipated perhaps they knew that a fifth unit would be added in the building permit stage of the process. In other words, at the very end and that this would become the affordable units. And they did not report this to you, the planning commission, nor did they report this to the council. Maybe I'm mistaken here, like us. Did you believe this to be a four unit project with a three bedroom affordable unit as part of the deal? It really troubles us to imagine them in our December Zoom meeting with you, maintaining a silence about this important detail. Don't you commissioners and donor-elected representatives on the council deserve a more thorough report from the city staff? It's obligation here. Our second concern focuses on whether this, where this will lead if it's unchecked. In the same set of letters, which I can provide, the planner concedes that there is no state law that compels them to accept these specific plan revisions. This revision is what's known as a BU conversion. And state law does speak about that, but only in reference to existing garages. That's the keyword in law. Existing garages can be converted into ADUs and ministerial actions. No hearing necessary, no notification needed. That's five minutes. The letter from the, allow me to finish please. Yes, I'll try to wrap this up. The letter from the planner concedes this and explains why the department has developed a policy that extends the state protections to these virtual garages. And that's what's happening here. How many other projects want to go this cynical 11th hour transformation? In summary, you and we saw a four-unit project with a three-bedroom affordable unit. This is what the city council saw and heard as well. And yet the reality all along- Finish up, please. It was not a four-unit project, but a five-unit one. And the deed restriction affordable housing is not big enough for a couple, much less for a family of kids. So thank you for your time. And I hope you can look into this for us. Thank you. Okay, I see Tom Naughty has his hands up. Go ahead, you're up to three minutes. Thank you. Yes, I'm intending to ask the same thing that Mr. Posner asked for earlier, that you put on your agenda a consideration of this sale of the small parking lots on either side of the credit union site. This luxury apartment is not, it doesn't speak to affordable housing. I'm afraid that a lot of the community is gonna get the idea that this is just neighbors, trying to protect themselves from new housing. This isn't housing. This isn't affordable. This isn't unaffordable housing. This is a luxury hotel downtown. The credit union has decided they're gonna go for it. I'm hoping the city will be more serious than the credit union was in allowing the public to address this. And I'm hoping that can begin, at least at this organization planning. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Ron Pomerance. I see your hand up. And then Chris Cromer. Good evening. Thank you for your time. The city's excess surplus, I say that, and it really doesn't have surplus land as I see it. Most of the property I'm speaking of is the Osner and Tom Naidie has spoken to it already. And it should not be acted upon with haste or transparency. I too, I'm asking the planning commission, you all to take on this issue to see if it fits in the general plan. Once the city's property is sold, it is gone. It's gone forever. In a luxury hotel, I don't believe is in the community's best interests. Open space, park, truly affordable housing would certainly best fit our future needs. But please, I'm off to you. I'm begging you to put this on your agenda to see what would happen with this surplus, supposedly surplus land. This is pretty valuable. And I have to see it disappear into a luxury hotel. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Cron, you're up next, right? Thank you all for your service. Can you hear me? Yes, but we'd help if you spoke a little louder. Okay, I'm gonna speak louder. Thank you all for your service and planning commission. Of course, I would like to see that service come to fruition and I urge the planning commissioners to come to fruition, meaning that the planning commission should meet more often for the sanity of the community. I wanna urge the planning commissioners to place the so-called remnant parcel that the city is seeking to sell to an out-of-town hotel developer to make the project work at the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union. I urge you to place those on your next agenda for a discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sheila Carrillo, you're up next. And that's the last hand I see. So if anybody else wants to speak, put your hand up. We'll let the clerk know. Hello, everybody. I just wanted to add I'm also exploring you to consider the sale of those two lots for a use that would benefit. And I wanted to just add the thought that I believe this luxury hotel's gonna have something like 270 rooms that will be full. There'll be 260 cars driving into that intersection and there'll be people here vacationing, being here for the beach and showering and using our water, two or three people possibly to a room, 260 rooms. There's nothing about this project that is of use to our community can see is detriment. So I'm imploring you to please put this on your agenda and give it careful consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to speak during oral communication? Clerk, is there anybody? Okay, then I'm gonna close the all communication section. I mean, we cannot consider items that are raised during our communications at our meeting because they weren't noticed, which they need to be under the brand. So I think if the commissioner will support this, I would like to ask staff to provide a report on our next meeting on this, what's the status with the proposed hotel downtown and what's going on with the 418 Pennsylvania project? I think the concerns that were raised should be responded to and it might be helpful to have a response in writing for the commission to see it and for the public to comment on. So is there any objection from staff from providing some report at our next meeting on those two proposals, both one project and one proposal? Samantha? Yeah, good evening. No, that would be fine, we can do that. Okay, thank you. And then in terms of the initiative request, any commissioner can ask that the commission take a position on an initiative. Whether that's a good idea or not, the commission can discuss it and sometimes the desire to sort of let the public decide, but it's not unusual for public bodies to take positions on these matters. So if there are commissioners that wanna bring any of those three initiatives to the commission for a recommendation or if the commission has no role in the process, the initiative process, that would be up to them. Is there any other anything to say about what we've heard from oral communication? Okay, then let's move on. Yes, Commissioner Greenberg. Yeah, so I think it's a good idea for us as a body to discuss the empty home tax which two people brought up. And is that something that I can propose for the next meeting that we discuss whether or not we wanna take a position on that and get to share information about that? As I understand it, and my guess is that staff will correct me if I'm wrong. You could put a letter on with the empty home tax and a recommendation for what you would recommend the commission would do. And then the commission can discuss it and decide whether it wants to take any position at all or if it wants to take a position, what position it wants to take. As far as I understand it, that isn't related to planning in the city. And so I don't see any reason why a commissioner can't put a letter on and say there's a proposal. I think that the commission is supported or whatever. Is there any, does staff have any problem with that? I would submit a letter with the initiative. I don't know who to ask from said Marla. Yeah, I don't believe that there's any problem with taking a position on initiative. We'll certainly check it, double check it with the city attorney on it, but immediately aware of any issue with that. So if you would like the commission to discuss it, you can just put a letter on with the initiative. Okay. Anybody else? So let's move on to public hearings. Item number one is 130 Center Street. And this is what I wanna propose for a process here that we get and allow commissioners to ask questions on the staff report that we then hear from the applicant and then commissioners can ask questions of the applicant. And then we hear from the public. And then after we hear from the public, we close the public hearing. And of course, if commissioners have questions for members of the public, they can raise them. If not, the public hearing will be closed and it will be cut to the application application will be back before the commission for consideration and action. That makes sense? So then we start out with a staff report. Okay, can you guys hear me? Yeah. Okay, this is Ryan Bain, senior planner. I'm gonna try and do my best to share my screen here without screwing this up. Oh, let's see here. Do you see that? Do you see the PowerPoint? No. Nope, sorry. Okay, let me try this again. Okay, I'll go ahead and share this. Yeah, we can see now. Okay. Okay, there we go. How's that? Perfect. Okay, great. Thank you. So good evening, Ryan Bain, senior planner. What we have before you tonight is the 130 Project at 130 Center Street. And excuse me if I, after two years of not getting sick, of course I get sick yesterday. So if I get any coughing or wheezing, I'm sorry about that. So the project, let's see, we'll start out here. It's approximately a 1.19 acre project site located on the eastern side of Center Street just north of the center and the front streets. And there's commercial and residential uses that are surrounding the project site and founded by an auto body shop to the north, hotel use to the south, and multi-family to the east, and then some commercial and depot park across Center Street to the west. As you can see, there's no trees located on the site. We did give this tree survey because there are some trees that are abutting different properties, but it's mostly a paved site with two existing structures. So the project involves a proposal to construct a six-story mixed-use project consisting of one level of underground parking, ground level commercial space, and 230 single room occupancy units. The subject parcel has a regional visitor commercial general plan designation, and this designation applies to areas that emphasize a variety of commercial uses that serve Santa Cruz residents as well as visitors. Mixed-use development is strongly encouraged in the RBC district. So specifically, the general plan RBC designation called out the south of Laurel as intended for mixed-use and residential development along with visitor serving and neighborhood commercial uses to connect the beach area with downtown Santa Cruz. The general plan allows the floor ratio of range of 0.25 to 3.5 for parcels which are located in the RBC and are included in the area plan. And the proposed project is 2.94 SIR falling within that range. There's a numerous general plan policies that the project is meeting. Just to go over a couple in neighborhoods near visitor areas, give priority uses that serve both visitors and residents. So the mixed-use has both residential and available to visitors and residents. Encourage higher intensity residential uses and maximum densities in accordance with general plan land use designations. Allow and encourage development that meets the high end of the general plan. Land use designation and less constraints associated with the site. Allow the following residential uses to exceed the maximum densities in the chapter. So using density bonus, which we'll get into a density bonus as part of this project. In terms of economic development policies, it encourages the development of year-round business and visitor activities. And attracts and engages local residents. Provides to residents daily shopping needs and local serving neighborhood commercials with the commercial spaces that are part of the mixed-use project. Encourage neighborhood shopping and those with commercial development that serve residential areas and have adequate transit, pedestrian, and bicycle access. So this is very centrally located with transit and pedestrian and bicycle access all around the site. Support the development of neighborhood gathering places in conjunction with local serving neighborhood commercials. So again, it's meeting a lot of these economic development policies laid out in the general plan. The project is also located within the beach and south of Laurel Comprehensive Area Plan. So it's basically here. And that plan was adopted in 1998 by the city council and it's located in the south of Laurel sub area of that plan and it's strategically located between the downtown and the beach area. So it's street system for the south of Laurel area which includes Pacific, Front, and Center Street which this project is located, really links these two areas. And as a physical link between these two areas, the location of the south of Laurel is seen as a strategic economic and transportation component of a comprehensive strategy. So there's numerous beach and south of Laurel plan policies that the project is meeting, just going over a couple of them that protect, enhance the charming small-scale residential neighborhood in south of Laurel while encouraging the significant development opportunities presented by vacant and underutilized parcel. So this is a, while it's not vacant, it's certainly an underutilized parcel. Encourage mixed-use development in the residential sections of the south of Laurel area on major arterials, Center Street being one of them, multi-level large-scale development to optimize use of opportunity sites, locating parking lots to the rear structures and wherever possible underground or within structures. So the project does have underground parking that's located not in view. Balconies, terraces, courtyards, and similar outdoor spaces to take advantage of views and create street vitality. And encourage mixed-use development in the residential sections of the area on major arterials by overlaying the mixed-use zoning district on appropriate areas and encouraging a mixture of market rate and affordable housing, which this project offers. The project is located in the RTC, tourist residential beach district, the zoning district. So the purpose of this district is to establish standards for development of residential uses mixed with neighborhood commercial motel and regional tourist commercial. These standards are designated both to improve uses and encourage new developments in a manner that maintains the harmonious balance between residential and regional commercial uses. Also in RTC, the two uses that are being proposed, the mixed-use residential, which does have some ground floor residential, is basically states that the project would be subject to the RTA district regulations and then also it's a single-room occupancy SRO project in units or more. And so both of these for the RTC district require a special use permit and design permit, which is also part of this proposal. So for the RTA development standards, there is a maximum building height of 36 feet. However, California and the city's corresponding density bonus ordinance provide tools to incentivize affordable housing and our deeper levels of affordability. And one incentive is that applicants can utilize a waiver or modification to the development standards that would physically preclude construction of the density bonus project. So for the subject project, applicants are proposing a waiver to the district height standard to allow additional stories with the highest point of the building proposed at 75 feet. In addition to the height waiver, the applicants are also requesting a reduction to the required setbacks. So with the exception of the height and setback standards, all the RTA zone district permits are being met. So as I mentioned, these are the permits that are part of this package, as part of this proposal. Polition authorization permit, a design permit, a coastal permit, special use permit, and then a density bonus request. So for the non-residential demolition, there are two commercial buildings on the site that are proposed for demolition. The primary structure is a single story commercial building that was constructed in 1963. The other is the Hertz-Ronalkar structure that was constructed as a detached showroom. So pursuant to the non-residential demolition authorization permit ordinance, really the purpose of it is to evaluate requests for demolition structures over 50 years old and determine whether they have any historic value before they're demolished. So a historic evaluation was prepared as part of the application, submitted as part of the application, which included or concluded that the property and does not appear eligible for listing on the city historic building survey. So this is a taken look at, as I mentioned, also a design permit is required. This is kind of the site plan here. So it's kind of an unconventional shaped lot. It's generally flat with approximately 182 feet of front inch along center street. It's not located with any map potentially sensitive habitat or resource area. So the proposed mixed use project consists of six stories of a long level of underground parking with a footprint that covers the majority of the site. Its site plan includes a U-shaped building with access to the project site provided from a new driveway from center street near the Northern property line, which is right here. The driveway provides access to both grade level parking as an underground level. Here's just taking a look at, this is the north elevation from center street and then here's a look at center street with it. So it has a combination of 13 feet of sidewalk as far as the right of way in addition to a 15 foot setback. So the building is supposed to be a setback approximately 20 feet from the backup curb to provide a pretty good expansive sidewalk and they'll kind of have a public plaza feel. And actually looking at this, I think it actually is gonna have a deeper feel to it. But yeah, it's gonna be setback quite a bit from the roadway. Here is a site section shows the proposed building. This is center street and then across the street as well as behind. And then also looking at from center street, looking at the hotel and the body shop to the north. So just kind of just go just quickly through some of the floor of the ground parking which also has storage lockers for all of the residents as well as parking at the ground level. The first two floor frontage consists of two commercial spaces that total 2356 square feet of retail or restaurant space in addition to a lobby and leasing area for the residential use. There's also a bike cafe. The bike cafe basically is a area for residents or visitors of residents or anyone coming to a retail or commercial uses where they can basically safely store their bikes. So that's basically the thought behind the bike cafe. And let's see what else. Yeah, so there's also, as I mentioned, there's also residential uses as well as storage on this level as well. And a shared community open space as well. So the residential uses will be located primarily on level two through six. The second floor that's shown here also includes residential amenities such as a game room, a fitness center and a large podium level open space with seating and landscaping. And all of these amenities will be available to all of the residents. And as I mentioned, the rest of these levels are mainly all residential units. On the sixth level though, there is a community room and a larger outdoor recreation deck that's facing Center Street. And just to give you an idea of the, so the proposed 233 SRO units are broken down into three configurations. There's 78 micro units, which is averaging 295 square feet. There's 65 standard, which averages 320 square feet and the extended units are averaging 400 square feet. So the Beach and South of Laurel plan design guidelines were also adopted in the eight and as an appendix to the Beach and South of Laurel area plan and part of the city certified local coastal program. The guidelines are provided for the South of Laurel area in which the proposed project is located, which recommends the use of either Victorian, Spanish colonial revival or other traditional architectural themes. So the new residential element is basically the whole point of the design guidance is for new residential development to exhibit the high quality design and detail of traditional architecture in the community. So the proposed building, as you can see, has been designed in a Spanish colonial revival style. It's consistent with all of the Beach and South of Laurel plan design guidelines, incorporates stucco walls, courtyards, arches, towers, balconies, decorative iron and tile detail, tile roofs and other features typical of the Spanish colonial revival. This is a single room occupancy or SRO project. And so there is a specific chapter of our zoning code that regulates single SROs. And here's the project is meeting all these requirements. There actually are limitations on the size of the average size. All of this, all the units can't exceed an average size greater than 300 feet. They all have kitchen and bathrooms, closets. They're certainly exceeding the common usable open space by quite a bit. 2330s was required. They're providing almost 20,000 laundry facilities, storage units, as I mentioned in the basement, there's storage units, like parking, and then also they provided a management plan. So they're meeting all the requirements of the SRO ordinance. In terms of parking, so there's a parking garage with two levels, one at grade, one underground. We locate on site and provide, they're providing 209 off-street parking spaces. So the parking requirements for SROs is one space for each dwelling unit, and that the commercial spaces are calculated at the higher restaurant requirement. A total of 20 parking spaces would be required for the commercial. So 253 spaces required under our standard ordinance. But as I mentioned, there's a density bonus that's being requested as part of this application and the density bonus ordinance does allow for reductions in park housing developments with at least 11% very low income or 20% lower income units are within one half mile of a major transit stop, which this is, and have unexpected access to that stop. The residential parking requirement can be reduced to 0.5 spaces for bedrooms. So with that being said, 137 spaces would be required for this project and they're providing 200. So that's a 72-based surplus based on the density bonus parking requirements. The proposed project is currently, as I mentioned, there's no trees on the site. It's pretty much paved. So the project is proposing 61 new trees total as part of the project, as well as other new landscape plans proposed throughout the project will be coastal natives and focus on minimizing water use. The proposed project requires a coastal permit because it is located within the coastal zone. It's not in the appealable zone, it's just in the Fusio district. The project is consistent with the beach and south of Laurel area LCP policies. It will not affect coastal views. It's not located in any sensitive, natural habitat or resource areas that's mapped in the general plan of those local coastal programs. And the project includes floor commercial space providing food and retail uses for visitors, for visitor serving uses and the new residences of the development as well as existing residents in the south of Laurel area will be able to use those commercial areas as well. And so the project is consistent with the applicable policies of the local coastal program. As I mentioned, both the SRO use as well as the mixed use with non-commercial uses on the first floor require a special use permit. So that also requires this project. So the purpose of the consideration of a special use permit is to ensure the proper integration of essential or desirable uses in certain locations or zoning districts. So the project is consistent with the general plan and beach and south of Laurel plan and that's providing important affordable rental housing, visitor serving and neighborhood commercial and it maximizes the development potential of an under-usualized site. Also all the utility installations such as trash enclosures, storage units and parking are all designed into the building making them accessible but screened from view. Getting to density bonus. So becoming more popular and this was but it's been around for a long time. So to address California's needs for affordable housing the state enacted the density bonus law in 1979 to incur provision of affordable housing by offering a combination of benefits to developers. So for projects that include the requisite number of affordable housing units and upon the request of an applicant cities are required to one, allow more rate market rate units to be built than otherwise allowed by the applicable zoning designation and also to provide incentive sessions such as reduced development standards that result in actual and identical cost savings or also provide waivers or modifications that would physically preclude the project from being constructed as well as allowing reduced parking. So cities have very limited discretion on reviewing density bonus applications and are generally obligated to grant the bonus and incentive sessions or waivers to the developer. So to determine whether a project qualifies for a density bonus the percentage of affordable units is based on the maximum number of units that would be permitted under the city's zoning code. So a base density. So in areas where there is no density range which this happens to be that case the zoning ordinance requires an applicant to submit base plans or plans that show a project that's fully conformed to the objective standards in order to determine the number of units that could be constructed on the site thus establishing the base density. So basically meaning the setbacks, heights all of the RTA in this case development standards. So the applicant has provided those base plans that meet all of those RTA standards and we determined that the base density is 155 units. So the market rate project providing certain percentages of affordable units or units at deeper levels of affordability are entitled to an increase in a density up to 50% of the total number of units that are allowed under the city's zoning ordinance in this case 155. So I'll offset the increased costs associated with increased number of or more deeply affordable units. So by law the percentages of affordable units that qualify a project for the density bonus are based on the base project only and not the base project plus the density bonus units. So pursuant to our city inclusionary ordinance developments in a residential development comprised of SRA units 20% of the single room occupants unit shall be made available for rent to very low income households at an affordable rent. So with a base density of 155 units 20% is 31 very low income units that will be provided as part of this project. And according to AB 2345 if 15% of the total conforming base density is designated to be very low which that's the case here 20% development projects then qualify for a 50% density bonus also this particular project up to 233 total units. As I mentioned there are two waivers being requested for density bonus laws. An applicant actually requests as many waivers as they want there's no limitation like there is with concessions. In this particular case they're requesting two waivers, one to exceed maximum height which I kind of touched on previously as well as a reduction in setbacks. Our city's community outreach policy for planning projects applicants did have an online webinar for the community to learn about the project, ask questions and give input. That webinar was held on August 4th of this year. There were approximately 25 members of the public that attended the meeting with questions and discussion items, traffic, parking, water consumption and property management and leasing restrictions regarding the number of tenants per unit as well as some questions about whether vacation rentals would be permitted. So while the previously mentioned users were part of the discussion, overall the responses to the project were supportive specifically in regards to the design, addition of high density housing in the south of Laurel Corridor which many felt was needed and the provision of various units. In addition to the webinar as with most of our projects we have a project webpage that was created and has any members of the community have access to the information on the project. The California Environmental Quality Act provides several categorical exemptions which are applicable to categories of projects and activities that will lead to the term of generally do not pose a risk of impacts on the environment. The project consists of 233 SROs and ground floor commercial and it's within a developed urban area of the city and there's basically an infill site so the project has been determined to be exempt from CEQA under a categorical exemption for the infill development exemption. So in closing the development will implement the city's vision for the south of Laurel area as expressed by the general plan and the beach and south of Laurel plan by providing much needed deeply affordable and market rate residential units and providing a connection between the downtown and the beach area. The project has been thoughtfully designed to be attractive to both permanent residents and tourists with emphasis placed on compatibility of design, landscaping and site planning and compliance with the design guidelines of the beach and south of Laurel area. Additionally with a request for a density bonus the project will maximize density while providing 20% of units of very low income which will be a significant addition to the city's affordable housing stock. So as conditioned the proposed project meets the requirements of the zoning ordinance and provides a development that is compatible surrounding area in terms of scale and design. Therefore staff is recommending the planning commission acknowledge the environmental determination and recommend approval of the coastal permit, design permit, density bonus request to exceed height and setbacks, encroaching, sorry that's, and exceed height and reduce setbacks of the proposed project based on the findings and conditions of approval provided in the staff support. And I'm available for any questions. Okay, thank you very much. The commissioners have questions of staff. I have a few questions. Could you say something about the distribution of the affordable units in the project? How are they distributed to the various SRO units? I don't think that we've gotten that far with the applicant in terms of labeling specific units the applicant might be able to speak to that better than I can. I know they do wanna be can give a presentation but in talking with, I wanna say that I don't know if they're gonna label specific units as it may move around depending upon. That wasn't my, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear about my question. It wasn't whether there's specific units but since there are three size units, many standard and- I'm sorry. Will the 20% be distributed at the same percentages as those three categories? I don't know the answer to that question but I'm thinking the applicant probably could respond to that. I don't think- Okay, I was just wanting to go ahead and say that's fine. We have a particular one, yeah. Commissioner Spellman, did you have something to add here? Yeah, I have a couple of questions. Sorry, I didn't get my hand up quick enough. Well, okay, go ahead. So one question I have is regarding the inclusionary numbers and maybe you can clarify this on the state density law, right? So SROs are required to have the very low in resignation as a starting point, right? So we don't have a lower level of affordability as an option, right? We're already at the lowest level. So how do we reconcile that they're offering additional inclusionary incentives if they're already obligated at the lowest level? I don't know if I'm understanding your question. So they're meeting on 20% of very low and then you're asking if there's- It could be better. Understanding. So what I'm asking is typically projects are offering additional affordability than what's required by the zoning in order to get qualified or additional incentives under the state density law, for the bonus law, sorry. Do I misunderstand? Well, I think, and I might have touched on it, is that, I mean, it says state density bonus, I'm definitely not the expert at, but my understanding is that in order to get certain incentives and waivers, et cetera, and to get the 50% density bonus, you have to meet certain percentage of low income third levels of affordability. In this particular case, they're well exceeding that already just exclusionary requirements. So I think it was 15% at very low. If you provide that, you're automatically based on density bonus law, guaranteed to do a 50% density bonus. And so with the 20% very low required by our city ordinance, they're already exceeding that. And so automatically qualify for that 50% density bonus. I don't know if I answered- Let's see if I can clarify what, at my understanding of the question, it is whether SRO ordinance requires a level of affordability for all the units. Is that what you were looking for? No, I mean, the code is clear. The code says that they have to be very low income units. That's not a negotiation. That's required for every SRO project. And so I, we've reviewed a few projects over the past couple of years that didn't need to have the very low designation. And I understood that they chose to make some of those very low in order to get the bonus, right? That's not only already at that level. How do they get something if they're already required to do that? That's my point. Yeah, they automatically get it. Yeah, I think basically with density bonus law, I think there's different variations, certain percentages of different levels of affordability to qualify for 50% or 35% or various differentiations of the density bonus increase. So with this SRO and with our specific density bonus density bonus requirement, 20% very low. I mean, they basically qualify for most anything with in terms of the density bonus. It's already going above and beyond is my understanding. Okay. Right. Yeah, I can add on to that too. That's for actually the 20% very low qualifies them for the density bonus as well. They can count those units towards the density bonus. Okay. Miriam? Yeah, so I just wanted to pick up on commissioner Sloan. So is it the case then that the other 80% are low income? If in fact, as commissioner Sloan is saying, all SROs have to be low income, is that with no? No. That's a 20% 20% 20% 20% So I thought you were trying to get the unit in an SRO project had to be. All the inclusion. The rest of the market inclusion. Okay. That was my understanding as well. Okay. I still have a couple more questions. Could you close your stop sharing your screen please? Oh yeah. Another question is some of the correspondence that came in with questioning the qualification for the parking reduction, right? And I guess the criteria goes to the being close to the bus stop and people were questioning whether that interpretation of the bus is the standard in order to qualify for the parking reduction from one to half per unit. Could you clarify that point please? We actually have Clara Gallagher here. She could probably answer that much more eloquently than I can. So I'll just give it over to her. Yeah, thanks Sloan. Clara Gallagher, transportation planner for the city. And in the simplest terms, state law defines what a high quality transit stop is. And when you use a density bonus that gets amended to also include stops that are included within a regional trend or a MTP SCS, Metropolitan Transportation Plans with A&B community strategy. In our region, that plan is the AMBAG MTP SCS. Pacific Station is clearly mapped in that document. We have mapped all of those stops on our city GIS are still available on both the public facing side and the internal side there. And this project location is definitively within the distance required by that section of state law. Okay, thank you for qualifying that. No problem. And then an interesting article came through in the correspondence from the public as well. One in particular was a letter from a lawyer, representing local labor or laborers union, essentially. And their claim was that, and what I understood anyway, so the construction of this project, not that this particular site had air quality issues, but the construction of the project itself would essentially create the issue that would be problematic, let's call it, in order to summarize. Has Steph looked at that? Has anybody on the legal side looked at that letter? Is it? We did, yes. We actually forwarded to our city attorney's office to have them take a quick look at it. We just did it again this afternoon. And kind of as I suspected, I mean, FICO really focuses its analysis of the project impacts on the natural environment, not so much the project's environment or impacts on future residents within the structure. That's really more regulatory scope, which I'm sure you're familiar with in terms of Cal OSHA and health and safety standards. So it really is not applicable in this particular case in terms of when it comes to SQL. Okay, thanks for that. And the last point is a clarification on the traffic study. There were several comments and correspondence relating to whether the time that the studies were done were appropriate, basically a weekday study, weekend study, the weekend traffic numbers were included in that. Could you speak to that issue, please? I might call Claire back to that. She's probably a good one to answer that. Yes, happy to. So I needed some clarification on what that question was exactly because under the California Environmental Quality Act, we no longer evaluate projects on the number of trucks that are generated or level of service. We use vehicle miles troubles for that metric. And this project, as you can see in the traffic study that was submitted is clearly below the DMT thresholds of significance that were defined. If you do want to get into counts that were done on only weekdays versus weekends, we also do have study guidelines that we use with projects that are coming in. Those are weekday counts. They could also have weekend counts at the discretion of the city engineer or the transportation manager. We did not ask for those at this location. And the primary reason is because and it's one of the exact reasons that SB723 which changed our level of analysis from level of service to vehicle miles traveled where it's implemented is a location that is an infill location that is located in an area that has traffic. The traffic there is not from this project. Traffic there exists before this project or exists after this project. And on the weekends, those conditions exist not because of this project. So during counts, during the weekend wouldn't actually change the level of analysis that much that we would see. And the reason that we do these counts now is because we use our TIFS calculations for how much we're acting for fee-based programs associated not for any level of environmental review. So the only things that we use those counts for are fee-based programs. So two separate things. One, is there an environmental impact related to transportation? No, the vehicle miles traveled is much below our threshold of significance. Were the counts done on the weekday? Yes, and that was just for the fee-based calculation. I'm happy to clarify any of those points there because we've been going through a change with this in the last couple of years. Sure. No, that's helpful. Thank you very much. That's all I had. Other commissioners? I may follow up on some of the questions that were raised, but I did have two other affordable housing. One, the slide that talked about the density bonus affordability requirement. And it said it was based on a funding source. And I didn't understand what that was all about. That might have been a typo, actually, but my apologies for that. OK. And then I just want to clarify, in the NBU staff report and in the staff report itself, it says that 20% of the project is affordable. And that really is not the case. It's 20% of the basic density that's affordable. Actually, it's 13% of the total project units are affordable. I think it's important to make that distinction clear. The state law and the inability to calculate density bonus units in figuring the inclusionary requirements make that necessary, but it has a profound effect on the project, reducing the overall number of affordable units. So I hope that that can be made clear in future staff reports that there is that distinction between the base density requirements and the total percentage. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. And I agree with what you said, yeah. Samantha? I just wanted to answer one of your, I think it was the first question you asked. What types of units are going to be the affordable units? And we do have a standard for inclusionary units in section 2416-025 that the inclusionary units need to be representative of the market rate unit mix. So that will be a requirement for affordable housing agreement. That's what I thought, but it wasn't in the staff report. So I wanted to clarify it so that everybody understood that although your affordable units wouldn't be just in the smallest unit. So they have to be distributed just like the market rate units are distributed. That's right. Tomorrow, Eric, did you want to say something? I was also going to add that that same section of the inclusionary ordinance also allows for inclusionary units to be slightly smaller than the market rate units. They can actually be as, they can be, they just need to be at least 75% of the average size of the market rate units. So I know these are all pretty much studios, but they do range in size. And that's requirements that's in the code. Okay, thank you. The commissioners have any more questions of staff before we hear from the applicant? I assume that the applicant's representative is here and now's your chance to make a presentation. And I'll just mention that I have their presentation. So if it's Jesse or the project architect that's going to give the presentation, but if you just want to cue me, I can cue it up for whoever wants to. Okay, I see that Jesse Bristow's hand is up, so I'm going to call on him first. Yes. Okay. Good evening, everyone. I was just responding to Ryan, Jesse Bristow is once another, I'll be presenting. And yes, Ryan, if you want to run through the presentation and I'll just say next slide, that sounds great. Okay, sounds good. Let me just bring this up. And then additionally, we will have our architect on, I believe he called in to speak and perhaps he can, I think it's dialing the rates, his hand, but perhaps if we need to call on a plan, he could then do that in an access zone. I'm not sure how the process works to unmute him. Can you please give me this guy? Can you guys? I'm sorry, this will be clear. David, David Meath. Okay, he's going to speak. I'm sorry, I'm just saying about theirs. Yes, he's our architect. This one certifies the presentation up. Yes. Okay, great. All right, great. Well, good evening, everyone. Good evening, planning commission, commissioner, chair Schifrin, commissioner Maxwell, Greenberg, Nielsen, Conway, Bellman, and Delfton. So thank you very much for your time and your public service. Ryan's presentation was very thorough. There's just a few things, and I do a little redundant, but there's just a few things that I'd like to focus on, hopefully answer some questions or provide clarification. It is 130 Second Street, also known as Calypso and everything. But what I'd really like to highlight is as this group knows that there are some complexities that that's divine. So I'd just like to go over that. And then the city of Santa Cruz, back in 2019, the council elected to go from a 15% inclusionary requirement to a 20% inclusionary requirement for all new development. And more specifically, for the single room occupancy ordinance, there was language put in there that all units of the 20% are very low income. And so with that language, we cannot offer a blend. We have to provide those units to be very low income on the speaking too. In other projects, there's probably maybe a 10% low income and then a 5% moderate income. And then it would have gotten a 35% density bonus, for example. But because we, by the fall, it'll apply to the state density bonus, the 50% increase kicks in. So we had a conforming model on the 36 split height and the object setback. And so with that design, we came up with 155 SRO units. So based on this 20% allocation, we have 31 units. And again, the California state density bonus already kicks in because that requirement, the city's requirement is more than what the state requires. So that 50% bump comes in. So 50% of the 155 is 77.5. And usually when it comes to inclusionary and just normal practices, we round up. And so that'd be 78 units. And this project mentioned is 233 units with 31 units allocated to very low income. And so I'd like to highlight these 2020 numbers. This is the most recent information I could find and maybe it's changed. But over six years, the five to six year cycle for the Rena cycle, the city was able to build 57 units at very low income. The remaining quota is 123 units for very low income. So we are providing 31 for just this one project. And additionally, I would like to note the next cycle, which I'm sure a lot of you are aware of, 2023 to 2031, the Rena quota, the S is just for the very low income unit, not low income or moderate, just very low. The estimated need allocated is 800 units just for the city of Santa Cruz. So that hasn't been completely affirmed up, but I just want to highlight that, when these Rena numbers come out, this is an obligation for the city and the region to try to accommodate these numbers. And it's a huge number compared to what we've seen in past as a community. So we're hopeful that this project will start to meet some of these quota numbers and then in the future as well. Next slide. In community meetings and engagement, and as you guys discussed our unit, so we have a micro and extended, and they're pretty much studios, they have kitchens and whatnot. Project is proposed. We have 78 micros or 295 square feet, 328 square feet, and then we have 90 extended units at 400 square feet. And as Ryan mentioned, we are beholden to the 345 average plan. We did receive comment from public like, hey, why aren't you building larger units? Why aren't you building three bedroom apartments for families? And we do recognize that we have a major need for housing, housing people from all walks of life and all types of units. Our hope is that this project will be able to provide housing for single young adults, young professionals, couples, and maybe couples that are downsizing from their home that wanna be closer to community services that are in the downtown or with London Nelson community center, amenities like that. In addition to, this could serve as a housing for students as well. You know that UCSD is struggling to house their students but this could help in some recovery. Additionally, it is required that there's a 24 hour on site management ad required by code and we haven't provided that. Go to the next slide, please. The VMR allocation to speak a little bit to what Samantha discussed. The materials need to be in kind. At the market rate, we completely understand that. And as a builder, it doesn't make sense for us to provide a lower standard of living that doesn't make sense. You order and build some land kind and that's what we do. Additionally, we would not minimize those units that are affordable. That wouldn't make sense from a building standpoint, building efficiency. As you saw, it's a very well laid out floor plan where those units stacked appropriately. Mining that, that 75% would not make sense nor would we wanna do that. But the allocation for that breakout of the 20% is based upon the 155 unit model. And so on that model, we had 73 units total for the micro that's 14 VMR and then we had a 28 units for the standard. So that's 6%, that's six units VMR and then only extended we have 54 units. So that's 11, totally 31 units. And that's how that would be allocated in the six story model. So you would take those units and sprinkle them in the building and that's my understanding in speaking with that. Pretty standard medium sized deck. So one component that we really try to add to the project, you do understand SROs are more of an efficiency unit. And as you saw, we've provided a lot of amenities on site and in addition to that, the balconies are not counted against the square footage. So we feel we have a combination of this side deck for a balcony and then we have Julia balconies and we have a little bit larger side balconies. But again, just kind of provides that personal open space and a smaller unit. So we hope this is something that residents appreciate. Next slide. This is a standard unit, so a little bit larger, probably more appropriate for a couple or maybe two students could share something of that sort. Again, we're excited to have a lot of different types of people and then you can go to the next slide please. Here's the extended unit, which is a little bit larger. You could probably play with the floor plan a little bit more with furniture and things like that. Just a little extra space. And this is an example of one of the larger decks. And we have quite a large number of units that house decks and so we're excited to provide. And so the amenities overall, as we really wanted to make the building, the amenities space because the units are restricted. So a brown floor area, we have a small spa that people could use. And then that leads up the second floor, that podium deck that is at 10,000 square feet, just over. We have that game room and fitness room that Ryan mentioned. And then on the sixth floor, we have a recreation deck and community room. So really hoping to break out the building and have you saw there's certain step-backs and architectural articulation that accommodate these that kind of serve to provide a Spanish colonial style and also serve as amenities to the residents. And as Ryan mentioned, all of these units are all of these amenities to be accessible to everyone living in the building. I put up a wrong number on this, but Ryan did go, hey, we do have eight guests. We have four commercial, we have 20 and I apologize, I'm encapsulated on the residential, but there are 139 out of all of them, the 209 that are ED compatible. Some of the ADA are ED compatible and commercial as well. The private bicycle parking, the lockers, as Ryan mentioned, every SRO is required to have a private locker. And in those lockers, we have a hanging bike rack that is secure. Additionally, we have a 72-base bike cap too will be for the private residents and then visitors and whatnot. And then we're gonna allocate 10 to the bike cap day for people frequenting the commercial or who works there. And then additionally, we have actually a 17. So again, you know, there's discussion about proximity to the transit. We really wanna promote alternative uses here and as a community, you know, it's a delicate balance by providing too much parking and kind of enabling the use of cars and also, but you know, people still need to park their cars if they wanna encourage other uses such as bike use and close proximity to transit. Next slide, please. And just to, I mean, Ryan went up pretty thoroughly, the Beach and South of Oral Planet, it is a little dated, it was adopted in 98. And so we just wanna highlight, you know, there are some, I guess, more subjective callouts, but again, what was objective in there and the overall, we're hoping that we're meeting that. And we do have that large street frontage. So overall, that total setback from the curve is gonna be 28 feet. There's 13 and a half feet of sidewalks and 15 foot setback. So we're hoping that promotes street activation. Center Street is considered connecting avenue to the beach. I think it's certainly overlooked because of Pacific Avenue and Front Street. And but that overall Beach and South of Oral Planet call for that, you know, that connection, that tree line street with palm trees and just really kind of incubating people and creating that connection. Again, those setbacks, a lot of those setbacks in our waivers, you know, we aren't trying to impose on setbacks that's where the building, you know, is inappropriate. We're really just trying to accommodate that type of architecture and accommodate the units. So on the front setback, I believe the only waiver component would be the street front staircase that kind of articulates out a little bit and then goes back in. So it creates that kind of diversity on the face of the building, the cloning of the level. Additionally, we have our retail and lobby health branches so we're really hoping that stimulates some commercial activity, especially with all the events that will go on at the park. And, you know, I'm hopeful that maybe those tenants will work with the city and maybe doing a parklet program on the street. I think that'd be really nice and help connect people down to the beach and kind of lead the eye of the downtown and Laurel Street. The connection, you know, right across the street from Depot Park, less than a half mile radius, there's I think at least eight bus stops, seven or eight bus stops. We're literally down the street from London Nelson Community Center, walkable to Neary Lagoon and the Santa Cruz Riverlog and you could connect to the rail trail that the city has been, you know, doing a great job of completing. So we're really excited to have that connected. So there are, you know, all these local amenities and people don't need to get in our cars. No, next slide, please. Green energy is just like the highway that we will have solar on the roof and per code, this building will be 100% electric. So we are adhering to everything we want, the buildings to help the city meet its greenhouse gas goals and central post community energy pre-CE is considered renewable energy for there. And that's where the city sources of power from. And so we are, we're working with the city on that. And yeah, so water demand, we do have a letter from the water department that they can provide service. It is a developed lot with existing water and I'm spoken to them about it and they do not have a concern. Most recently, I think what's really highlighted kind of the state of our city and region. The lookout article in September and it was presented by the water department. So we are actually consuming a similar rates similar to 1981. And that's with a 44% increase in population while achieving a 45% reduction in water use. So, and that's due to water efficient fixtures, smart meters, improved infrastructure and community education. And so we've done a really good job as a community to not be wasteful of precious resource. And that article was summarized by saying, our needs for housing and when we're smart and building about it, it's not gonna impact what we really need. Storage during these wet events as they are getting smaller every year. And additionally, just from a regional standpoint Mid-County Groundwater Basin, they submitted their groundwater sustainability plan and that's what's most recently required by the state of California and then the first full basin to be approved by the department for water resources. So I think regionally we're doing a very good job. And so I just wanted to touch on a lot of people have concerns as you heard and open comment people are concerned about a new hotel and as they should be. So Center Street just give perspective and you can see that that's that's it in this room and the staircase that leads up to the deck. You know, the closest building to us we pulled so you could see the map being built. Next slide please. As Ryan mentioned, I think Henry doesn't really do it justice as far as the setback. And I'm not sure it's about the depth issue, but there is actually from the face of curve a 28 foot setback. So, and then you can see all those big racks we're providing and you can see in this one too. You can go the next slide, right? And again, this is just across from Depot Park and you just kind of give people feel for it there. You can see the roof top, the recreational deck on the sixth floor that step back and we have some architectural features such as the belt next slide. So again, thank you for your time. I'm here to answer any questions and more specifically for architecture. So David, we hope that tonight you guys can feel you can support our project. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there commissioners with questions? I have a couple. You were talking about the balcony. The team from the unit plan that the balconies were really very important. It wasn't clear what percentage of the units would have balconies and would they be as equally distributed for the affordable units as for the market-rate units to the extent that not every unit would have a balcony. We could go back to your presentation. I could describe where those balconies are. Well, could you give an overall percentage for the number of units that have balconies? Certainly, I'm just looking at the plan set in front of me. I can... The plan? I think you're in the basement. So I guess we're on the first floor. Yeah, so if you want to go to the second floor, the next slide, we could speak to those balconies because all those ground floor units, they have some, I believe, except for one. So here, to allocate it, and some were highlighted green, some were not. And maybe those were the juliettes that weren't highlighted. So secondly, they're not supposed to go out on them. It's just an opening. So the ones that are highlighted green are ones that you can actually go out on. The ones that are not highlighted green look like our juliettes when they're not meant to go out on. So can that maybe 75, 80 percent of them? What's your intention in terms of distributing them among the 31 affordable units? You know, honestly, I did not really think about that distribution. And tied to that is how those units, because certain micro units only have juliettes, some do have balconies. I think we did try to provide so I mean, it's certainly possible that that can be accommodated. Okay. And I guess the other question I had had to do with the amenities of the project, which are pretty impressive. And in a specific point, it was made, it was stated that those amenities would be available to everyone. The management plan doesn't, as I read it in my memory of it, doesn't really speak to that. And I wondered, is it the intention to make those amenities, except for parking, of course, available at no cost? And is that a reasonable, would it be reasonable to add that as a condition? Yes, I think it's reasonable to add that as a condition. But we, as you may know, we've worked on quite a few buildings throughout downtown and we have never done anything like that of separating amenities to a unit that would be DMR. So that is not, one, I don't believe it's legal through fair housing practice. And that's not something that we would have ever needed to be required as a condition. Everyone that gets to live in the building gets to be a part of this community and gets to utilize all the amenities. And if there were a restriction, then that would mean that there'd need to be someone policing that. And I don't think anyone wants to do that or see that happen in our community. Okay, thank you. Those are my questions at this time. Do any commissioners have questions? Is it possible to get a show of hands of the members of the public who want to speak to this project? Seeing a bunch of hands go up. Okay, I might, since the step presentation was fairly long and the developer had a pretty good amount of time, I'm gonna give everybody three minutes to make their presentation. And I'm gonna start with Rafa, Sonnenfeld. We have three minutes and you're on. Okay, thanks very much. Yeah, I'm calling for myself as an individual as well as on behalf of Santa Cruz EMB and EMB Law. We are supporting the staff recommendations to approve the project with the listed standard conditions. Now, this is a good infill project. It's close to bus line. Gonna offer much needed housing that's likely to be used by students and young professional. This one project alone will provide over 17% of the city's very low income housing rena need. Clearly, that's gonna be more in the future, but we are not producing that housing now. And as was mentioned in the report, these kinds of projects are the most needed in community right now. I also just wanted to mention that the Housing Accountability Act requires the city to approve this project. There are no health or safety impacts that can't be mitigated as noted in the staff report. And so the city is actually legally borrowed from disapproving this project. And you're also forbidden from placing any conditions on the project that would impact the feasibility of the affordable units or reduce the intensity or density of the project that's been proposed. I also just on the personal note, I'm excited to see projects like this that are going in on the lower center street. It'll help make our neighborhood more walkable and pedestrian friendly with the ground floor commercial storefronts. So please approve this project this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Emily Ham Happens. Hi, good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Great, thank you. So good evening, Chair Shifrin and members of the City of Santa Cruz Commission. My name is Emily and I'm the Executive Director of the Santa Cruz County Business Council. And I'm here to express our support for 130 Center Street and respectfully request your aye vote for this project. For those of you who aren't familiar, the Santa Cruz County Business Council was founded in 1996 to provide a collective voice for county-wide businesses and support a healthy local workforce. And a key component to that mission is increasing our local housing supply in our cities overcrowding and bring people closer to their jobs. Last month, our Board of Directors unanimously voted to endorse the project on the basis that it supports these goals and fulfill several city objectives, including the promotion of sustainable and compact community within defined urban boundaries as stated in the 2030 general plan. And it also calls for transit-oriented housing, redeveloping underutilized sites within the down and along major corridors, increasing density and facilitating housing at key opportunity sites. The impact of bringing 31 very low-income households closer to where they work or study is immeasurable but has the potential to reduce vehicle miles traveled and promote more walkable cities. Increasing our cities overall supply by the proposed 233 units is also critical to attracting and retaining professionals and students to the local economy. So I thank you very much for your leadership on promoting affordable housing and a healthier, more equitable and environmentally friendly workforce. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Michael Lozo. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name. Not a problem, commissioner. Michael Lozo, Local 270. We submitted the written comments already today to a reference by commissioner Spellman. They're concernedly raised the cities relying on the infill exemption, class 32 exemption in the CQA. In order to use that exemption, the city must have substantial evidence that among other findings, and show that the approval of the project would not result in any significant effects relating to air quality. We submitted comments from an indoor air quality expert, Mr. Buttofferman. The project will introduce formaldehyde, which is a toxic air contaminant to air inside the project opposed to significant risk to future residents as well as the employees of the commercial spaces. Formaldehyde's a known human carcinogen listed as a toxic contaminant by the state. The air district has a significant special for cancer health risks of 10 in a million. Mr. Buttofferman calculated for the residents that assuming the project complies with the California Air Resource Board's formaldehyde requirements, which are called airborne toxic control measures, that the risk to the residents would be 120 in a million, which greatly exceeds the 10 in a million threshold. And also, even for future employees who'd be less exposed, of course, we calculate the risk of 17.7 cancers per million. And these, again, just assuming that all the materials being used in the project will comply with the carb rules. I appreciate the fact that Steph could take a look at our comments and apologize for the notice on our part. But I would have to point out that the Supreme Court disagrees with the response that that provided you. Steph indicated that Secret doesn't address impacts to residents or users of projects in the Supreme Court. Steph just said that's wrong in the case of Cal Building Industry Association versus the Quality Management District. Under Secret Lead Agency must disclose and analyze impacts on a project's users or residents that arise from the project's effects on the environment. Here, the formaldehyde emissions are gonna come from the materials in the project and those residents and users are entitled to the analysis under Secret Determin whether or not there might be an impact to them. And the exemption is excluded from looking at that. So we certainly encourage you to question whether or not the exemption is appropriate and consider preparing a mitigated negative deck, at least, or perhaps any priorities that's necessary. And with that, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. The next person is Ryan McGrody. Sorry, I'm here. I'm a recent addition to the area and I'm calling in support of the project. I know that the area drastically needs more housing and in order to meet that goal, this project alleviates a great number of units and as a citizen of the downtown as well, I know that this sort of development would help alleviate issues within the area in the sense that it would help vitalize the walkable areas was mentioned previously and as well as providing opportunity for students and young professionals, even though this is the sort of opportunity that this city shouldn't pass up on and I would highly recommend an approval on a yes vote. Thank you very much. The next person is Elizabeth Collin. You're up. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your time. I just wanted to give my perspective as a visitor here in Santa Cruz. I have a good friend who lives in a 300 square foot studio on Beach Hill and prior to that, she did what many of us do in looking for affordable housing in Santa Cruz and that's go on a trip list and find a room somewhere in a house where you split different people and at 32 she was just like, I can't live with random people anymore telling me I can't use the kitchen or I'm not doing something to their approval and so she's on this studio and she's so happy and it may not be the cheapest place to live in the city of Santa Cruz but we need small rental options like these for people who see significant mental health benefits from not having to share living spaces with random people they meet on Craigslist. Some of those situations can be good and some of them are disaster and so I just really urge you to think about options for people in the rental market here in Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next and last person who has his hand out is Henry Hooker. So if there's anybody else who wants to speak on this matter please raise your hand or some other way notify the clerk that you do wish to speak. So Mr. Hooker, you're up. You're up to three minutes. You need to unmute yourself. How about that? Can you hear me? Yes, now we can do it. Okay. I'm excited that there are 233 units of housing, 31 of which will be very low income. The project is a friendly addition to the neighborhood close to transportation and services and there's reason to believe that the required parking will actually be utilized due to its walkability and its proximity to transit which is a very good thing. I hope that this project will have your unanimous approval. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anyone else who hasn't spoken who would like to speak to this project? Seeing anyone, so I'm about to close the public hearing. Does your last, oh, whoops. There, I just saw somebody new. I'm Zenin Blyatikro, sorry if I murdered your name. No good, no good, no words. Yeah, hi. My name is Zenin. I'm a first year here at UC Santa Cruz and I'm just calling in the project and actually important you guys if possible, recommend lowering the parking minimums so we can make sure we can get this housing more affordable for everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, I don't see anybody else's hand up. So I'm going to close the public hearing and bring them out of back to the commission. Would now that ends and comments and discussion, who would like to go first? This is Spellman, commission of Spellman, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I want to thank staff, thank the public for their correspondence, very thorough presence. I think this project is an example of something that we're going to probably be seeing more of. We have projects taking advantage of the new state laws and the part that I take so listen with this project is there's obviously been quite a bit of attention to designing a building that's appropriate and still taking advantage of adding the additional units which I am fully in support of. Yes, it's tall and large, but the building is very well articulated. It's going to area of Center Street, which is sort of aside from the soccer field and the usage down there, it's going to put people down there and really take ownership of that area. I think it's a good start to potentially, you know, adding substantial housing to that whole neighborhood. So I am in full support of this project. I've thought about this quite a bit. I've asked questions about entity bonus law and the impacts of those to this project and others in the future. I don't think we have much ability to stop essentially the increased densities that are going to come with the state density bonus law projects. And even if we had objective standards in place, the incentives that were requested on this project will be in play, right? We wouldn't have the ability to stop the additional height or the setback issue even if we had objective standards that address that. So I want to commend the presenters and the owners of this project for designing a sensitively community-based project, which I think will be a very nice amenity to the downtown. And I'm ready to move the project for approval after other comments. Thank you. Somebody else have comments that they'd like to make? Richard Dawson. Thanks to staff and thank you for the public, for the written correspondence showed up today to speak. I just wanted to take a step back and I think make a comment around that I actually believe there's substantial evidence available to support that there's a reasonable possibility of there being significant environmental impact and that a categorical exemption is not fit for this project. You know, due to the location of the project, due to the size of the lot, location in proximity to the war and to the boardwalk, I really think the project requires a full sequel analysis and then we'll have more information to inform our decision, but I don't think the categorical exemption is appropriate for this project because there are unusual circumstances. I don't think the staff report or the available information provided substantive evidence that this wasn't an unusual circumstance. And so I really believe that there should be a full sequel analysis. And I just want to make a couple of general comments that I absolutely agree with Commissioner Snellman in that state law is driving what's coming as far as density goes, but the fact that as we're thinking about these projects, I would at least hope that we could have more discussion around the fact that our infrastructure in the city was not laid out for these high densities. And if we're going to have the opportunity to mitigate these densities that are coming our way, we're going to need the maximum and the amount of information available. So this is an example of wanting the maximum amount of information available, including a full sequel analysis so that we as commissioners in the public have all the information that we can and if there are challenges around the development that we have the opportunity to mitigate them. I think there's some real challenges around traffic. Yes, there is traffic there, but this is going to bring more traffic. And I don't think that the analysis available really took that into account. And then I just want to publicly state that I'm very frustrated and I understand the constraints around our ability to do anything around the percentage of affordability, but 13% is not enough as far as affordability. And I hope that my fellow commissioners will consider the three instituting the housing subcommittee to think about work exclusionary because of these density bonus laws and because that's applied to these base units. We're getting stuck with these affordabilities that is far below our requirement, right? So this is 13% if this project is approved as proposed to us. And that is not enough to meet the need of this community in these affordability units. So I'll leave it there and thank you for letting me rant a bit. Other commissioners, Commissioner Greenberg. Yes, thank you, and I am quite supportive of the project on the need for density and a mixture of housing types downtown and on corridors. One of the questions at the end by the public was of interest to me having to do with whether the parking requirements might be limited in this case. And I was interested to hear others opinions on this. I know there's concern about lack of parking being associated with street parking. But my understanding is that in the downtown and south of Laurel area, it would be a pretty straightforward place to lessen parking requirements as street parking is already regulated. And there's from studies that have been done on the parking there's space available in the parking garages should people not have space in the development itself. But in addition, it could potentially lower some of the costs of the unit. And I'm just curious and thanks, yes, there's any thoughts on that particular suggestion. My second point was just about my concern about the concern about the formaldehyde in the building materials. And if there's any consideration being taken into mitigating matter using other materials and to echo Commissioner Dawson, I am very appreciative of the 31 units. I recognize that if this continues that we will be kind of circumventing the 20% January by having these density bonus buildings that end up resulting in overall development with 13% affordability. And so I support the idea of studying that issue in a renewed affordable housing subcommittee. So those are my three points. But overall, excitement about the direction that this for needed units downtown. And thanks for responding, Claire, about the, sorry, Gallaghery about the question about- It's a tough one. Okay, sorry. The question about- No problem, thank you. Yeah, that would be, I'll say question here. This location is not located within the downtown parking district. So a piece of clarification, these residents would not be eligible to buy permits within the existing parking structures there because the parking district ends at Laurel Street. Right now, there is a planning process that's in a way looking at, and this is within that study area and parking ratios are one of the questions that's being considered. That wouldn't be retroactive. So it wouldn't necessarily apply here. But yeah, what I would say is that's a bigger policy question. It's like Eric has something to add there. But the one thing I really wanted to add in is that outside the parking district, so that supply would be off the table. Okay, thank you. I think Claire took the words out of my mouth. Right now, we're in the real early preliminary phases of doing some work on expanding the downtown plan south below Laurel. And so there's gonna be some outreach opportunities, public input that Matt's actually gonna talk to you a little bit about towards the end of the meeting. So that might be an opportunity to explore another parking district or expansion of the existing parking district or possibly reduce parking standards. To your question about the formaldehyde issue, I did talk to our green building staff person and there are some points, opportunities available for using formaldehyde free insulation and then also some testing before the buildings are occupied. If it has a certain level of formaldehyde, it doesn't exceed a threshold. In other words, they can get points for that too. So there is some incentive in the green building code. I think that was, yeah. Okay, so they're incentives, but there's no regulation. Well, it's all regulated by Cal OSHA really. It's not really a sequence. This is within those regulations, this level of formaldehyde. Yeah, and I'm not an expert by any means on formaldehyde and air quality, but we did, you know, we did, when we got the letter, we read it carefully, reviewed it with our city attorney and they confirmed that it simply wasn't a sequence issue. Okay, thank you. The commissioners, Commissioner Nielsen. Just going back to the parking discussion that just came up. I mean, there's a surplus of parking being provided in this project. Is that right? Okay. I mean, obviously there's, you know, there's the minimum requirement and the developer in this case is choosing to provide a surplus for their own reasons, which, you know, they know better in terms of, you know, who's going to be using it, and it is not, I guess. But anyway, I just wanted to confirm that that's the case about the surplus. The other thing is, just in terms of my comments, also I would like to thank staff and the public for all their great comments today. And I would like to just state that I'm in very much agreement with what Commissioner Spelman said about the project from an architectural standpoint. I think, I think this project, I think they've done a great job with the design of this. And I'm very pleased and happy to support this project. One of the things that I do want to bring up at the do with the living units, but actually, but has to do with the commercial space. The, I did notice on the plans that there was a call out for potential grease interceptors within the two commercial spaces that the architect's developer should actually look into that to see if those can be inside from an environmental health standpoint. I'm not sure that they'll be allowed to be inside the space. But because they are calling those out as being in the space, I'm assuming that there's a potential for there being a restaurant use being in those commercial spaces. And if that's, and I would like to suggest that they provide some sort of ability to provide the necessary ducting for, for hoods within, within their, the commercial kitchens. I did not see that in the, in the floor plans above the commercial space. And I think it's a good idea for them into account. The, I worked on plenty of projects where, within the types of buildings where there's, where with, with residents above commercial, and it's very difficult to deal with that after the fact. So if they could deal with that now, that would be, that would be ideal. So, because it's much easier to deal with it right now. So that's, that's it. Thank you. Well, could I follow up on that and see whether you, would think that would be a reasonable condition to add? I'm fine with adding the condition if, but I would like to, it would probably, I'd like to hear from the applicant. If that's a condition they'd be willing to take on. Can we take a moment and hear from the applicants about that? Cause I think that's a very, I know that on the mall, there have been terrible problems, retrofitting buildings for restaurants that were designed for them. And the extent that there's any hope for having restaurants in the commercial space. And that is a, you know, a desirable use. The point you raise is a really important one. So could I ask the applicant what, whether they'd have a problem with a condition that requires a facility to I'm sure adequate potential for restaurant use. So in this instance, and I apologize to my architect for having trouble with the community, but so we have vertical space next to the staircase and elevator. So of the two commercial spaces to the south towards the lobby, there's a staircase and elevator and we have vertical space to go to the roof top. So it doesn't interfere with the restaurant. I think that's something that would come out bearing our design drawing and construction drawing versus our, this submittal package for planning. Additionally, we would use air scrubbers for the smaller and it really is a potential tentative course, right? We have two spaces, there's potential for that to be combined and laid out differently before we actually have a potential tent there. But I think we can accommodate air scrubbers. The building would already be designed to accommodate that. So would you be able to do a condition just, just to ensure that adequate space is provided for future ducting of mechanical for, for kitchen, commercial kitchen hoods? Let me, let me just double check with my architect. I believe it's already designed. Yeah, he says that should be fine. We'd make space for that. So it's just not designed to that detail at this point. Yeah. And I completely understand that it may not be, I think we just want to make sure that, that there's some, some ability or just a condition that, that makes sure that you guys do take that into account. Yes. We can do that. Okay. Okay. I'll commission that kindly. I'm sure you're going to hand out. Go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, chair. I could echo comment. The commissioners and especially I really thank you. You know, the developer, the staff and the, and the community members have weighed in on this project. It is, you know, in my mind, I mean, this is clearly an in-sale project that's badly needed. I also think that it was a really creative way to, you know, meet a lot of needs for residents while providing small units. The thing that I'll highlight about it, that I really like is that it's 100% readily project is always going to be a rental project. The map projects that act as rental projects, I think are real problem and particularly in these projects with very small units. So I want to thank the developer for bringing a project forward that I think is actually feasible. I also would like to echo that what several people said, I wish that there was a way to get additional affordable units. I think it is a really important question. On the other hand, I think that this is a feasible project. It appears to be, and I think it'll get built and that's really good news for the community. And it'll really activate that part of the whole city, I think, really benefit from the project. Thank you. Commissioner comments. I have a few by me. Let me just first say, I agree with the comments about the quality of the architecture. I was impressed with how it looked. And I recognize that. Having a six story building with 233 units is something that the city has very limited. I think that's one of the worst parts about the density bonus law is that it's supposedly for affordable. But in fact, we end up with a lower percentage of affordable units with a density bonus project than we would with a non-density bonus project. One of the things I would like to point out, I think that's one of the worst parts about the density bonus law is that it's supposedly for affordable. One of the things I wanted to thank the staff and the developer for providing was the drawings that showed the base, how the base density was calculated. And as we know, as we've learned as I've looked, is the calculation of the base density in a situation where there's no density limit on the number of units. And for SROs, there is no density limit on the number of units. And what limits the size of the project, from a base density point of view, is the floor area ratio. So it was very useful to me to look at the drawings that were provided and how the base density was determined. And my sense is that since the base density determines the percentage of affordable units, and they can't be more than 20% under the density bonus law, then the base density, the question about whether the base density was really accurate or not, was that the right, was that justifiable base density? And I recognize that if the base density has increased, the total number of units could increase, but that would also increase the total number of affordable units. And one of my concerns with the way the base density calculated is that the amount of parking that was, the amount of space that was provided for parking kind of mirrored the amount of space in the proposed project. But the number of cars was that were required for the base density was significantly fewer because of course there were 155 units instead of 233 units. And it seemed to me that the, if I understood correctly how the parking was provided in the proposed project, there were about 167 parking spaces in the basement and then the rest of the parking spaces to get to the 200 I were on the first floor. Well, that 167 parking spaces was less, was more than was required for the, for the base density project. And so my sense is the with the base, the base density in fact could be greater based on additional units being, being provided on it. And I, given, you know, the repeated concern about the need for low income units, very low income units, affordable units, I am concerned that this project isn't providing as many affordable units as it could based on the calculations of base density. So that's sort of a fundamental concern we don't have in our staff report a real explanation about how, you know, you have that drawing, but that's kind of about it in terms of the justification. So I have a real concern about that and wonder whether it would make sense to calculate it. I know it could lead to even a bigger project, but it would lead to additional affordable units. So that's one concern. The other concern I have is really about traffic and maybe I missed it, but did we, I want to ask staff, did we, did the commission get the traffic study? Look, got it. But I didn't see it in our, it wasn't on my agenda. So I never got to read the vehicle miles travel study. So I felt a little at a loss getting letters from people saying, you know, the traffic study was inadequate. It wasn't the right study, but we never, we never bought it. So I just wonder, did I miss it? No, I might apologize. Yeah, I did not attach it to the staff report, but it is available on the, on our project website. So that's why people were able to have access to it and see it. But it was not something that I included with the staff reports with my apologies. So I, and it's relevant for a couple of reasons. We've been told that, you know, I'm the sequel, the city really only to look at vehicle miles travel, ladder levels, level of service. Well, this project isn't really subject to sequel because it's getting, it's being recommended for a categorical exemption. However, some of the findings we have to make have to do with traffic. I think for the special youth permit, it talks about traffic. I think the coastal permit talks about traffic. So traffic is a concern. And I guess, I mean, my feeling is that it's given the amount of traffic that's there in the weekend during the week. It is a legitimate concern. At least mission. I was concerned and I did mention this to staff that the staff report didn't talk about traffic at all. They didn't talk about transportation demand management. There's no requirements for bus passes. You know, I think there's very limited conditions that the city can impose that would have, you know, a significant amount of traffic. I understand that we don't have objective standards about traffic, which I'm hoping that permission will think about when we finally get around to talking about objective standards. But I do think that since we need to make findings about the traffic, we at least should have information to what the traffic impacts are likely to be and whether there are any reasonable transportation demand management requirements. Maybe there should be a few zip cards. Maybe the development could offer some bikes to check out to residents as a variety or there are a variety of transportation demand management issues that I think are proposals that, you know, are not inconsistent with the direction that the applicants said they want to go in terms of encouraging people not to drive. But it's not considered a legitimate, at least as far as the staff report is concerned. And I think that's problematic given the findings that we're being asked to make. The final issue I have and it kind of mirrors what Commissioner Dawson talked about has to do with the exemption itself. And I think we, I think the commission should have more information about what the really justifies the exemption. I'm not, I kind of agree with staff about the response to the air quality issue. I don't, you know, certainly sequence is concerned about their quality and the health of the public and the health of the, that could be generated by the project. But on the other hand, I, while the study that was sent to us was a general study about, you know, building materials, there's nothing specific to this project that provides substantial evidence that in fact is going to be a significant impact. And I think we need to find the letter convincing. However, I do think the point that Commissioner Dawson made about the potential finding of unusual circumstances, given how the scale of the project is so much greater than anything around it. I think we need some response from the, the attorney why, why there aren't unusual circumstances here that would justify a more detailed environmental review, because I think there are real, you know, there are unusual circumstances and their visual impacts and traffic impacts. That if there is a finding of unusual circumstances could provide a fair argument that there is a potential significant impact. So I do have these three concerns. They're in the context of being supportive of the project overall. And frankly, if there are more affordable units of the willing to think about some of my other concerns, because I think the affordability is so important. But I think these other concerns are legitimate. And I think the concern about the base density is very much to the point about what the number of affordable units should be. And I think what it all said to me in the end is that we really, when we get these projects with these entity bonus projects, we really need to take a very close look at how the base density is calculated. Because that's the only area where we have some potential discretion to determine how many affordable units are going to get from the project. So I guess in the end, I would, given what's before us, I would support continuing this project so that we could get a reevaluation of the base density calculations. We could get additional evaluation on the traffic and the unusual circumstance. Did the applicant want to say something? No. I was just making a recommendation. Does the staff want to respond to the concerns I raised at this point? I'll start with maybe the secret question and then if Sam and Ryan want to weigh in on the base density, they can do it. So in our mind, something unique or unusual with this proposal might have to do with, let's say hypothetically, it's in a high archeological sensitive area and we have a report that indicates that there's a strong likelihood that resources might be present or maybe there's a creek with sensitive vegetation across the site. Those are the unique circumstances or special circumstances that would take this out of being exempt or eligible for infill and kick it into possibly doing an initial study. We really don't have that here at all. It's a infill site almost completely paved over with respect to the concern or comment about infrastructure, our public works department and water department each looked at this application. They didn't express any concern with respect to the ability to serve projects. So we really didn't see anything whatsoever that's unique or special that might warrant a more in-depth environmental review. Okay. So did somebody else on the staff on or yes, Samantha? I'll just add to that. There is case law. It's the 2011 Wilmer v. the city of Berkeley that tells us that the increases in density and variations that are approved with a density bonus are considered consistent with the general plan and zoning. So they, you know, in itself wouldn't disqualify a project from using the infill exemption. So that would still be an appropriate exemption for a density bonus project. I'm not sure I'd get that. I mean, how does that deal with unusual circumstances? The structure would be more than twice as high as anything around it. And the number of units is far exceeds any project in the area in terms of the traffic. So it's not a question of whether it's consistent with the general plan because it clearly is. It's a question of whether environmentally there are unusual circumstances that are different from anything else nearby. That's correct. And so per our sequel consultant, the unusual circumstances finding is really based on what's coming out of this particular project. So what's particular to this project that would not happen or occur with a similar project, similar size or density in that same location. So, you know, we don't find that there's anything that's particular to this project that wouldn't be, you know, something that would be more of an impact from any other project. Required for us to find with the infill exemption are all being met consistent with the general plan designation and zoning. Besides five acres or less and surrounded by urban uses. It's not a habitat for endangered or threatened species. There's no significant effects related to traffic noise, air quality or water quality. And it's adequately served by utilities and public services. So that's how we got to that, that finding. Okay. In terms of traffic that way will be. The commission didn't get to see the analysis that documents that. Is that correct? I mean, you're, you're basing that on the vehicle miles travel study that was done. In terms of saying that there were no significant traffic impact. That correct. Yeah, Claire, do you want to jump in on that? Yeah, I ran with the empty analysis on this project and there's even, even if you did successful environmental analysis on it, what traffic there would be no significant impact. Yeah, the transportation. Out of my parents. This project screen throw is being far below our thresholds of significance. Both on a map based in on a project numbers. In compliance with SP 743. Well, I'm certainly. Happy to hear that, but it would be useful if the commission had ability to read the. Analyzes before I take. Spellman. It's step on a response to the concern about the base density. Calculation. Yeah, I was just, I was taking a look at, I was trying to understand. Your thought process on parking. And so I was just taking a look at. The parking requirements on the base. And count that. The base project. 154. Parking spaces would be required to providing 166. So 12 surplus. Oh, I'm trying to understand your argument or your. Your thought process in terms of. Are you saying that that 12 surplus. Bases. Should be or. In there. Provided in the proposed project in the basement. I'm sorry. Spaces are provided in the proposed project. In the basement. In the basement alone or just total. Yeah. That's in the basement alone. Okay. I was just looking at the table that didn't look. I didn't actually go to the basement. Fight plan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My comments where we're going to talk about this point. At first glance, it does appear that, you know, there's an equal amount of parking in the base density tool. And versus the project is being proposed. If you look a little closer, you look on the ground floor. There's actually 30 units. On the base density. And on the next level up the base density unit. There's 57 units compared to 48 units on the proposed scheme. So, I mean, I think they've. They've tried to, you know. Appropriately. Scale up the base density unit to try and fit in as many, many units as they could. I don't see it as being a bad comparison. I think there's, they came down in density as far as number of units per floor. I'm saying 140 bases in the basement and 26. On the first floor for the base density. Plants. But what about the proposed plan? On the proposed plans. I got a couple of different plans here. Let's see this one here. On the proposed plans. Basement has 155. 54 on the first floor. So in the base density, it was 140 in the basement. But if they put 155 in the basement. They could add additional units to the first floor. That's the point that I'm trying to make that they could. Push all of the requirement. If not all of the requirement. I counted more, but maybe you're right. By counting the same number. Providing the same number of parking spaces. In the basement as they were providing on the first floor. As they were providing. In their proposed project. I see that develop. I think. Hand up. Did you want to speak. Brisco. Sure. Sure. And so I just want to clarify. Regarding the three story model, the conforming model. If you look at those plans. That is a circular plan. And yes, we had more units on the ground floor. And that is what happened with the density bonus is it actually allowed us to open up the building for solar orientation. That's. Commercial spaces on the ground floor. And, and allow those, those actually units to have all the amenities that we discussed. If you look at the conforming, you know, it is a very tight building with 155 units. Because. We added more stacker parking. The basement. Is still a common. Yes. And I guess my point is. The fact that you did that for the proposed project. For the density bonus project. At least that to me, that it could be done for the base density project. And if it was done for the base density project, there would be more space. There would be more space. There would be more space. For the base density project, there would be more space on the first floor for. We did everything we could to make a livable conforming. Project. I'm in favor of providing more units. It was pretty tight with 155 units. And, you know, again, these are SROs. And we have to have some unedited space. So to provide more units. To get more affordable. I see the intent, but. I don't disagree with that. But. My concern is a number of affordable units. But. You're at your handout. And then commissioner Nielsen. Yeah. I just want to. Quickly. Back. To the. We designed a very efficient way. And it was very tight. So by able to. You know, I don't disagree with that. But. My concern is a number of affordable units. But. You're at your handout. I just want to quickly balance back to the. The unusual circumstances in the case that there was a lot around defining that. And. I just turned staff mentioned. Air quality. So there's, there's inside air quality and outside air quality. And we all know. If we've gone through this area pretty much at any time, but certainly on the weekends that. There is a. Two already. So it's not going to take much to. Increase the time of idle. For that traffic in that area. As that extended. Potentially cause a significant air quality impact. But. My point in, in continuing this and asking for a sequel and analysis and saying. So. So. I just wanted to note that. In continuing the categorical exemption. In this case is to give us that information. If there isn't going to be air quality impact. We need more information about that. And the category. Well, just assumes that we're not going to have any environmental impact. And I don't think that's appropriate. For a project of this size. So I again. I just wanted to. Continue this and ask for a sequel and analysis. Commission Nielson, did you have your hand up? Okay, but it was only, it only had to do with the base density. Discussion. So, I mean, it's not really so much a question. It was just more of a comment, but. If we want to continue that conversation about base density. We find it. To speak up about what I was going to say. Well, I, I, I think you should, because. From my perspective, that's still an issue that. Okay. When I talk about the amenities. We're talking about. Right. Understood. So basically in looking at the. When I look at the drawings and look for base entity, I'm not. I understand kind of, I think what you're. You're expressing about having enough parking to add more units. But what I don't see is the ability to add more units. Unless you can express. Like where you think they would sit. In looking at the. Floor. The way that the way that this is shown, there's just, I don't really see a way to get more units on the ground floor. And then as you go up to the second and third level, it's, it's basically a complete, you know, ring of units. And they need, they do need a certain amount of light and ventilation provided to those units. So I'm not sure. I'm following exactly kind of where you think that those units might come from. I guess my, my thought was that. If the parking on the first floor was eliminated. That would create space that could be used to provide units. I mean, I think that would be a good idea. But it's a good idea to have all the parking, all parking, all parking at the ground under. All the parking would be in the base. That, that's was my. That was my analysis. I mean, I. I could be wrong, but I think. The issue was so. The issue of getting additional portable units, if possible, is such a major concern, that I think it's worth taking the time to get more I just on that point, I'm curious about there wasn't really a response to why there's the felt need for the surplus parking above and beyond the requirement. Then that would relate to your point about fitting the parking on the ground floor. I think that's a different issue. Is that a different issue because it's to do with the density bonus project? Yeah, because there are parking requirements. So there weren't surplus in the base density? I don't think so. Okay. We're going to come away. Yeah. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to comment. First of all, I share your interest in filling with a very complex project, but I want to point out that I really don't think it's our role to redesign the project at this point. We've been project has been brought forward to us that has considerable study behind it. Decisions have been made that about the amount of parking that can be done. I also, as I expressed, I wish that there was a way to do more affordable housing. We don't have those tools right now. This is a strong infill project and I'm not going to support a continuance. I think this is a project that's ready to be approved tonight. Okay. My concern is I would like to support this project. I would like to approve it. I think overall, it is a good project. It is our role in terms of being concerned about the amount of affordable units to try to get, you know, to respond to a situation where essentially getting only 31 units out of a 13 percent out of a 233 unit project. I have concerns about that and I think it is legitimate to it's not tinkering with it. It's sort of dealing with, from my perspective, a really fundamental issue, which is how many affordable units can be provided because I think that's the critical need. There's a need for housing overall. There's the need for smaller units. I think the points that members of the public made are really valid points. But I think to the extent that a few more affordable units is worth pushing for. Yeah. And I just, I disagree. I think that's a policy matter that there's been a lot of interest expressed in finding a way to address it as a policy matter. My point is that I don't think we have the tools to do that in this project, in this context. The thing that makes it so difficult though, Commissioner Conway, is that there are no density limits. But normally you could say, okay, you can have 30 units an acre and with a density bonus, you can have 45 or you can have 60 and go up to, you know, there are normally in history, there was the ability to know how many units the general plan is learning. But this has been filled with in so many ways that we can't. So with SROs, there will be a million units. There's no limit in the general plan of the zoning ordinance. It comes down to this floor area ratio of how many can you squeeze on the, on the property. And so it becomes, it becomes a variable rather than a constant. When you know what you're doing, you have a constant. You may like it, you may not like it, but everybody knows what it is. When you start talking about floor ratio and base densities, it becomes a variable. And I think it is an area where the policy of trying to maximize the number of portable units. That's the only area where the city has the ability to come in and say, look, that could be more portable units here. And, you know, there's no magic to creating as it turns out, at least as I've calculated it. There's no magic in deciding what the base density is. Go to some ordinance general plan and say, this is what the underlying density is. We don't have that anymore in much of the city of different kinds of projects. So anyway, I don't know if somebody's willing to make a motion. Let's see if we can reach a decision on this. Rachel Spellman. Yeah, I'm ready to make a motion that the recommendation from staff, we acknowledge the environmental determination and approve the non-residential demolition authorization permit density bonus request to exceed height and reduce setbacks, special use permit, coastal permit, design permit based on the findings below and the attached conditions of approval exhibit A. And I think we would include the conditional tool to make sure the project accommodates restaurant vertical exhaust hoods. Okay. Thank you. Is there a discussion? Oh, second. I heard the second motion by Commissioner Spellman. Seconded by Commissioner Coway. Here. Is there any discussion or ultimate proposals? Okay. Seeing none, we're going to have a roll call vote. Commissioner Conway. Hi. Dawson. Is there another motion? Sure. I'd like to make a motion to continue this item. Seeing with the direction to staff to provide additional information on the exemption and traffic study. Would you add about on the debt based density as well? Yes. And based density as well. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second that. Can we, is there any further discussion? Well, I'm not as concerned, I have to say, with the CEQA and the traffic study. I'm convinced by what I've heard from the planning staff. And I hear what is being said about the concern about the and of itself. I think the point with the vehicle miles traveled is that the overall environmental benefit of having infill development outweighs, you know, the kinds of impacts that local traffic might or might not have. The fact that we would be mitigating larger scale traffic, you know, throughout the city and the region, outweighs that from my perspective. And the benefits of infill development. On the other hand, I'm really, you know, interested in the point that was raised by Commissioner Schifrin about the potential for rethinking this flora area ratio. And, you know, and I think it's going to be a significant question for us insofar as density bonus buildings are going to be going up. How the base area density is being calculated is going to be very important for us. And while I understand the concern about delaying this any longer, I think it's important enough that that we clarify that potential for increasing the number of affordable units based on the base area density. And so on that basis, I seconded the motion. Motion to stop. Yeah, I think we're setting a very dangerous precedence here. I mean, we're we're saying to the community that, you know, small unit rental apartment project, we're really going to, you know, put them through the ringer even further on clarification on a traffic study and a base density calculation. Look at the plans. The plans are using their adding small units from the proposed project to increase the number of units that they're able to fit on the on the base density submittal. Okay. They're not going to get more units on that site. You can't just throw units in a garage space on the interior portion of a, you know, the perimeter of a building. You know, it just doesn't work that way. They have to have access to natural light and air and all of those things. I think the numbers are there. Could they reduce some of the larger units and get smaller ones? As I look at it even closer, I don't think so. I think the widths of those units are very similar. I don't think you're going to get, you know, even one or two more units than what they're currently showing. And I would guess that the developer would be incentivized. Do that if they could. So I don't, I don't see us getting a larger base density number. And I think we're sending a very wrong message to the community that we're not, you know, supporting this project 100%. I don't see the issues being germane on this project. Yeah, well, I disagree. I think the message that we're trying to send is affordable, getting as many affordable units as possible. The, the density bonus project has on the second floor a very open site plan with a podium in the middle. I guess what I'm thinking is why can't that be on the second floor and the first floor and the units that way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's important enough to try to get additional affordable units to take a, take a meeting to find that, to find that out in terms of the traffic issue. I have mixed feelings about it. But I'm always a little bit concerned about voting on something when I haven't received the material. I think they're prepared to be convinced that the vehicle models travel, the traffic study deals with the concerns adequately. But I'd like to see that study and I think it's legitimate and it sends the right message to the community that the commission's not going to make decisions without being fully informed. So I'm going to support the motion. Is there further discussion? Yes, commission. It looks like maybe the applicant has raised their hand. I can't tell because the screen's been taken over by the. Okay, let's go back. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. That's okay. Sorry, I just wanted to speak to the three story models. So we have to provide, we are utilizing parking stackers for the residents. Those are controlled and managed by the management. And but as far as the commercial parking, we are required to provide standard parking spaces. So that's why the floor is open as you see it for the, for the conforming models. And then also back of house connection for, for trash. The development deals in our correct. We designed it as the best we could and we fit in as many as we could. The units are all the same width. The only difference is the length when you look at that unit blend. So as far as redesigning the project at this point to get more units, I don't think that is a feasible option for us at this point. Question. I think, I mean, just, I mean, just based on that answer, I'm not comfortable with setting this back. I don't think we should delay this any longer. I think we should, you know, we should vote on this project. I don't believe it should go back to redesign to the base density. The answer that was just given is sufficient to me to know that they did the best they could and they got as many units as they could on the base density. Let me just, I'll question our neighbor. Your hand up. You're muted. I was just quickly going to say that the staff didn't need to do anything else since they've already produced the traffic study. We just need to be able to continue it. The issue would just be to read that study. But there's the question on whether we continue it and the response to Commissioner Nielsen. So I'll leave that open. Well, let me just say, it's not like we've continued this before. It's not like this has been before for months. This is the first time we've seen it. I think the questions that are being asked, and also, as I understand it, there is no request that the project be redesigned. It's not that, you know, that's not the, at least that's not my intention. My intention is just to get a better understanding about and, you know, but some better justification for what the base density can't be increased. And then it's the developer's decision whether they want to redesign it or not, or whether they just want to identify a couple of more affordable units. But I'm not convinced based on the material that we receive that, you know, the base density can't be increased. And I'd like to see, you know, more of an analysis of that. We've gotten a few projects where staff has come in and said, this is the base density. And, you know, this is, you know, I think the commission, since it's the only area where we have any discretion at all, we have the, you know, we have a responsibility to really determine whether it is the appropriate base density or not. Go ahead. I mean, I just, I just feel like we, we just heard from the applicant and they explained how they laid out the parking in the basement and how they laid it out at the ground floor. The ground floor is basically the 20 parking spaces that's required for commercial, not co-mingling those spaces of commercial to, to residential. And that's why those spaces are on the ground floor. And therefore there cannot be any more residential spaces at the ground floor. That's how I heard it. And so based on that information, I don't see how this could be, how the base density could be increased. And I think that's what they're, I think that's the point that the applicant was making is that that's how they, this base density. And I wasn't saying that, that, that there's any requests for redesign. I'm just saying that I don't think we need to send it back to them to relook at the base density because they've done that. They've gone through that effort and they have provided us with what they believe to be the, the base density for this project. And, and, and with the, with the information that they just provided about the parking, I'm, I'm satisfied with that. And I think the base density is what they show. Can I ask for clarification from the maker of the motion exactly what the additional direction is? Because based on the conversation I'm hearing, it's not clear to me what staff is being directed to do versus what perhaps the applicant is being required to do. And I need to make sure that's clear if to record the motion properly. Well, as I understand it, the motion is for the staff to come back with an analysis of whether the, the base density could be increased or not based on the parking analysis. And I'm, I've been a little distracted, I was trying to find where in the staff report they talked about what the parking requirements were and that somehow the parking for the, if there's a requirement that the parking for the commercial has to be on the same floor or kind of be on a lower level. I think I'm, I'm not sure it has to be. And I just, it's worth getting that analysis. So from, and the maker of the motion can correct me, but I think it's, it's not requiring an applicant to do anything but asking staff to provide more of a analysis of the, you know, the possibility of increasing the number of the base density by reducing the amount of parking on the first floor. Yeah, I, I wouldn't add a little more clarification on that because I've been looking at it, I've been looking at it while we're talking and I don't know what else in that one of their analysis that really is to do at this point. It's pretty clear. So if you have a specific thing that you think that is sure has been done incorrectly or we go over look, I would appreciate some direction on that. Yeah, thanks Ryan. I've been doing the exact same thing and, and you know, the thing we have to keep in mind is that we still need to provide access into the garage. So that eats up a lot of space on that first floor. And then when you throw in the egress requirements, I think it's very difficult. I mean, we've heard from the applicant that they've maximized density. We've got two design professionals that currently sit on the commission. And they, they're both of the opinion that would be difficult if not impossible to increase density. So I, I'm not sure what more we can add to the analysis. So just just for clarification, a lot of the things that have been said in the discussion over the last few minutes are not in the staff report. So what could be done moving forward is to clearly articulate these and, and draw them out. So it's easier for the public as well as all of the rest of the commissioners. How it was arrived at this space. In addition, more information to around the categorical exemption. And specifically around how that this project will have no impacts to air quality. And then additional, you know, including the traffic study as part of the packet. So again, the public has time to do all of this. Commissioners have time to be thoughtful that we have the most information available is really what this emotion is about. And then we can consider it and go forward from there. Okay. Thank you. Let me just say I could be convinced, but just I'd like to, and I'd like to, you know, I'd like to read the analysis commissioner Conway. I just wanted to speak against this motion. I think I already made my point, but I don't think we have a credible reason to delay this project. It's clearly an infill project that clearly meets those requirements. And the traffic study has been available. And so I just, I don't see that we have reason to delay. So I'll be voting against the motion. Well, let me just say about the traffic study. It would have been nice to have it mentioned in the staff report. So I would have looked at it. Yes, it's available, but I don't check out every website for every project. I look at the agenda. That's the place to find the material. Okay. So we can go around and around on this. Is there any final discussion on the motion? I'm sorry. I'm still unclear on the motion in terms of the category. Do you want from staff an analysis of how that was read? Categorical extension. I'm not clear what you want from staff to put in the motion about that issue. I would like staff to give more information about how this does not meet the legal threshold for unusual circumstances and specifically around environmental impacts around air quality. So yes, more information about how they reach that determination and how they do not consider this unusual circumstances. Does that answer your question? Yes. Any further discussion on the motion? Commissioner Greenberg. Yeah. So I, and by the way, I see that Jesse Bristow has his hand up. Well, it's been up. I'm not sure it's going to look for something new. Yeah, I can provide some clarification, but I'll let Commissioner Greenberg speak and then I can respond to a lot of items. Well, no, I'm feeling conflicted and I'm feeling like, you know, perhaps part of the issue is that we, this will be like a, you know, one option would be that this would be a learning experience. And in the future, all of these elements would be included in staff reports. And, you know, that would be one consequence of all of this. And I'm just wondering what can result from, as I'm interested in hearing from Mr. Bristow about, you know, the potential for further analysis of the base area density. Certainly. So I'm going to go through a couple line items, but just to point out the SRO ordinance requires individual storage per unit. So the more units the add-on is made, we have to provide storage area and then we have to provide ingress and egress. There is no more room to accommodate that. So even if we looked at the base density and try to add more SROs, even if we did a couple more, we have to add some of the storage area where they're meeting those design requirements. That's one item pertaining to the garage side as well. We were told by, that we had to widen the drive aisle. By widening the drive aisle, limited how many parking spaces we could have and how they were oriented in that layout. So in many regards to the air quality, and I'll just try to respond to how I understand. So for public comment, when we build something, demo something, we are required to adhere to Title 24, calendar standards, all those construction innovations. We've been, we're a fourth generation construction company. We are aware of all those. We've been building in Santa Cruz for over 30 years. So we're aware of those and we are, we'll use best practices. We've done a lot of building that's mentioned and we'll continue. That's our reputation. It comes to cars. I'm a planner by trade and so I do understand transportation analysis. It's hard to regulate existing uses such as the boardwalk, such as the work, such as that tourist industry, which we tend on. And then yes, also trying to balance residential uses in a traditionally hotel area, a visitor serving area. But it was identified as an opportunity area in the south of the plan. Again, it is that balance. We could, I think in future projects, or there was a blanket policy that said, hey, reduce parking and also don't, you put restriction on street parking, to really promote people to use alternative. I think that's appropriate, but to try to add it on to every project, they think it's an efficient. Additionally, we have 139 charging stations. They think that promotes electric and hybrid mobility, which helps reduce gas emissions. So with that said, I just wanted to speak to the the bigger item is the, the affordable house. And although we're not required, and I think that in moving forward, I think we would be willing to offer up four units additionally. So that would be 35 units. Those units, we could promote micro units. They would be the smaller units under the condition that that is the only addition to the project. There's no more discussion and it's not appeal to the city council. That I think we can offer to the city and as a benefit as a community, in addition to the project, we don't want to continue it. We both want to provide housing now. And I think we could accommodate the plan commission with additional four units. Would you be willing to accept that as a, make that as include that as a condition? If it's allowed, I know someone mentioned about Housing Accountability Act, but if everyone's on board, I would be willing. Well, but, you know, it's up to you. The city cannot, you know, the commission can't impose it. But if you're willing to edit on it as a condition, I'd certainly be willing to support the project tonight. Then yes, as long as that's the only condition, and this project is not under the condition that's not appealed to the city council. Well, we have no control over that. But if somebody does appeal it based on the testimony we received, it doesn't seem to be anybody who will appeal it, but we can't control it. But then it's up to the city council to raise the discussion. So I'm satisfied with that concession. I'm very appreciative of the applicant for making it. And so what I would recommend if it's the make of the motion that's willing to withdraw their motion and, you know, maybe make a motion to approve the project with this additional condition, I think then I think that would be, I think it would be willing to support that. So is the make of the motion willing to do that? Yeah, I'm willing to withdraw my motion and make a new motion for approval with two conditions, which would be the four units. And then just that there would be, architect, you might have to help me, the access for the kitchen access. How do we say that? Do you have any problem with that condition, which was in the original motion? I do not. We plan to do that anyway. But that's like the appropriate happening there, so thank you. So just so those with those two conditions for the four additional affordable units, micro units, and then the ability to restaurant condition, the restaurant condition for the restaurant, for the commercial space. Is that acceptable to the second? Yes, it is. Is that for the discussion? Did she second that? She was on the withdrawn motion. She made a motion. Oh, I see. Is there another second? I see. Okay. So I, sorry about that. So I second that. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Dawson, seconded by Commissioner Spelman. Discussion, Commissioner Conway. Yeah, I'd like to thank Mr. Bristow for offering that up. I think that meets an awful lot of our needs here. I just wondered if we needed to clarify that that condition will be nullified if this approval is challenged. Do we need to do something like that? I heard him say. Well, as I heard it, that's part of the condition. It is. Okay. I wanted to make sure. The condition would include these four units unless the project is appealed to the council. Is that your understanding, Mr. Bristow? Yes. Okay. Any further discussion? I just wanted to express appreciation to Mr. Bristow as well. I think that's great. Me too. Okay. So let's have a roll call vote. Conway. Hi. Dawson. Hi. Spelman. So thank you very much. Staff and particularly the developer for your flexibility. And it's 10 o'clock. Do we want to, do we want to, there's been a bunch of concern about the next item on the agenda do people feel energetic enough to take it on? I know I have plenty of problems with it. And actually my recommendation would be to continue it and send it to a reestablished housing committee because I think it raises a number of issues that need for the discussion. But I'm willing to go through sitting and hearing from the commission. And otherwise I would recommend continuing it. But what is the commission want to do at 10 o'clock at night? Commission to Dawson. What do you want to do? I would move to continue the motion and to to reconstitute the housing and have it go to them and then have a report back from the housing committee. I'm not sure since it's a public hearing that we can just do that. We may need to open the public hearing, but let's hear from other commissioners. It may be that we would open the public hearing and then if somebody really felt the absolute need to talk about it, then we could listen to them. But what do other commissioners before we hear from staff? What are the commissioners, commissioners Greenberg? Yeah, I would be concerned that we wouldn't hear from the public because it's so late. And so I would support continuing it even while I'm very interested in discussing it. Other commissioners, any preferences? Okay, let's hear from staff. Is there any reason we can continue this? Hi, good evening commission. And so yes, we're all up a little past our bedtime at this point. So there is no reason that you can't continue it. And I just have one favor to ask at this point. This item has been, has had a lot of work done on it by our intern that's been with us this past several months. And so my only humble request might be that we could hear the presentation and then take a motion to continue it. Just in the interest of him being here for a limited period of time. That's all. Of course, you're welcome to continue it, to hear it in whatever manner you deem appropriate. There isn't any other sort of time limit or reason, deadline for hearing this item. So it's up to your commission. Okay. And so you're saying that the, you will not have this, the intern could not come to the next meeting to speak on this? He could come to the next meeting, but actually, so the next meeting on the fourth, we're hoping to bring you objective standards for draft review. And I, that to be a very lengthy discussion. So we're talking about potentially pushing this later in November. And he's only going to be with us through December. So, you know, we could, we could push it out a few weeks. If you want to push it out and then we refer it to something else. And then maybe he wouldn't get a chance to go to a public hearing. That's, that's my only request. And it's just a request. This is not, you know, a demand or something you have to do. I just, it would be a favor to me. Let me, there might be helpful to him in terms of his work to meet with the subcommittee and talk to the subcommittee and have not just staff input, but also commission their input in terms of the work that he's done. So, I mean, I think sitting there wanting to hear from him, but it sounds like it really is an essential that we hear from him tonight. Useful to him. And I think will be useful to us. At least I really think we, you know, a more detailed discussion. Now, we really can't set it on the agenda. So we can't really reestablish the subcommittee tonight. So I think maybe what I would suggest that it's okay is that we continue this or and on our next agenda, just reestablish the subcommittee. And then that would be something that the subcommittee could work on. That makes sense. And hopefully staff will make sure that this is a legal way to do it. Thank you for that. I was stressing out about that. It's not on the agenda. You can't do that. I think that sounds like a reasonable proposal. I mean, Eric, did you have anything you wanted to say? But we can't hear you. You seem to be muted, Eric. Sorry, I got two devices going here. I was on the same page as Tess. We need to agendize the reestablishment of the committee. We can't do it tonight. So that was the only thing I was going to add. So what I would suggest is that we hear from anybody in the public who feels they need to speak tonight. Since they're still here, they've been waiting quite a while. But with the understanding that the commission is going to continue this matter and send it to a housing subcommittee where that is reestablished, hopefully at least to be considered. It's reestablishment being considered at the next meeting. So let me see if there's anybody from the public who feels that they can't wait until this comes back. I see Raffer, your hand is up. Thank you. I realize it's late for everyone. And we were looking forward to seeing the presentation on the site in this evening. Once again, I'm speaking on behalf of MB in support of the, well, most of the staff recommendations for the small ownership unit, SRO, new zoning type. But we did have some concerns that this change in zoning is going to increase the parking minimum requirements for SROs that currently don't have parking minimum. And we'd hope that the commission takes a strong look at eliminating the parking minimums for this new zoning category rather than increasing the parking minimums for the SRO category, which currently has zero. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is that it? I don't see anybody else at this hand up. So could there would make a motion to continue this item and to put an item on the next commission agenda to reestablish, to consider reestablishing the housing subcommittee? I'll do it with nobody else. I will move to continue this item and to agendize consideration of reestablishing the housing subcommittee at the next meeting available. Is there a second? I think the chair can second the motion just to move things along. Is there a discussion on the motion? Commissioner Greenberg. Well, I just didn't hear anyone. Maybe people feel like it's important to discuss this tonight, and I just wanted to know if that was the case. And I mean, I appreciate Sarah Noisy's concern about the intern, maybe that issue, but in addition, if there are other reasons why folks feel this. I didn't ask if anybody really felt that we had to deal with it tonight. I mean, I just, you know, the list item took a lot out of me. I don't know if it took a lot out of other people as well, but, you know, since there is no details coming tonight, I thought putting it all makes sense. Commissioner Spellman, did you want to say that? No, I agree with that. I mean, this is not a simple issue, right? There's a lot involved here. The only thing, you know, I personally learned by listening and seeing and hearing other perspectives. So this is probably going to take two or three rounds to flush out. We want to put off the first round for a bit. I think that's fine. Yeah, I think it's just an significant change. So worthy of having more detailed involvement. Other commissioners? Yes, Commissioner Conway. I guess I'll just say that I would have preferred to proceed with the item, I think, and then continue it afterwards. But, you know, I'm not against it because I do think that we will, I think it was inevitable that we were going to take some time and go through a couple of iterations. I just didn't see a reason to postpone it. Any other Commissioner Conway? So there's a motion on the floor to continue the item and to agendize the reestablishment of the housing. So next meeting, can we have a roll call vote? Commissioner Conway? No. Awesome. That is unanimously. Thank you all very much. I apologize to the inter. It's not unanimous. It was a no. Oh, I'm sorry. It wasn't unanimous. It was six to one. Oh, sorry, Commissioner Conway. One of the reasons for putting it off. Okay. So we are now up to information items. Could staff give us some updates? Sure. It's been a while since we've met. So before I get into the upcoming schedule and some of the problems we've got going, I'd like to have Matt Van Waugh give you a brief update on a couple advanced planning efforts that are currently underway and how and when you're going to be involved with those. Great. Hi, Chair, Vice Chair, and Commissioners. This is Matt Van Waugh. Hi, Matt. Principal planner with advanced planning. So some updates as far as what's coming up next for Planning Commission, the next 7-4, November 4th. We have our objective standards check-in where we're going to be sharing our first draft standards with you all and walking through the work that we've been doing since our previous check-in earlier this year. So that'll be an extensive meeting. We look forward to hearing your input on those standards and working very hard to show you. And Sarah's going to have a good presentation for you then. And then just some other updates on that. We also have a community meeting on November 6th on a Saturday for objective standards. And that's going to, I think that's tentatively planned for 10 to 1130. There'll be a website and email blast going out this week on that. And then the following week, we're anticipating having a downtown plan expansion community meeting on November 13th, also on a Saturday. And just a brief of the commission on that. In our schedule, we intend to come back to the Planning Commission around February on the extension after the series of community engagement activities with draft development scenarios. That would be in February. So a little bit further down the horizon. But you can see how that work is leading up to a February meeting with the Planning Commission on that. And then, as we discussed today, we'll be working with the Planning Commission subcommittee on housing regarding the small unit ordinance. And hopefully coming back to that potentially on November 18th. That's what I have to share right now for coming up on my calendar here. Thank you. Any other information? I do want to add one more thing we're working on our local coastal program update. And to bring that up to dates with our 2030 general plan. And we also anticipate bringing that to the Planning Commission for the review sometime early in 2022, either January or February. We're going to look out for that as well. Thanks. May I help you? Yeah, a couple of props. Oh, sorry. May I help you? I got one question. Since Matt, since Matt's here, I have a question. Is staff going to come to us at all? Or is there a need to come to us about SB9 and standards development standards regarding SB9? We are anticipating doing some kind of a legislative legislation. I can't say that word right now. Legislative study session with City Council. And that looks like early in the new year as well. So that's something that potentially Planning Commission can join in on to see that. But we are working on going through all that legislation and we're starting to put together guides and things like that that will eventually be putting out on our website at some point too to help the community along with that legislation as well. So be on the lookout. But we will have a formal meeting at some point probably early in the next year. Okay. Thank you. And then to the extent we need to do code amendments, you'll of course be making recommendations to the Council for those as well. Yeah, Commissioner Dawson? Well, I just, I'll go ahead, Eric, and then I can go with it. I just heard a clarification about one of the reports that Andy or Chair Shifrin asked for. Well, maybe I'll just say now. Samantha mentioned that you were going to come back to us at some point with kind of an update on the front street project, the hotel. I just wanted to make sure that staff is going to include specific information about the sale of the two city-owned plots and how that relates to the Circus Land Act. Just make sure that that was in there. I just wanted to state that probably. Yeah, sure. No problem. Thank you. Okay. Just a couple of project updates. The it's looking like the front riverfront project building. We're expecting building permits to be submitted any day now. That project's moving along and if all goes according to plan, they'll probably break ground in the spring of next year is what I'm thinking. The 831 water makes use project. This is the SB35 application at the corner of water and North Branch of Florida. That was heard by City Council last week at their October. And they took action to deny the application for failure to meet certain objective development standards and in their decision, they cited the project's inconsistency with city ordinance that requires the affordable units to be integrated with the market rate units. They also had concern with proximity to a 30% slope of completed stormwater and drainage plans, a noise study, and traffic study. So the applicants are currently in the process of determining their next steps. And we'll see where that goes. We'll be updating the webpage for that project as information becomes available. So if you're interested in that project, make sure you sign up to be notified anytime we add information to that webpage. As far as the upcoming schedule goes, we at our next meeting, as Matt mentioned, we have an objective standards check-in with you as well as a West Cliff Drive walkway repair project. And then on November 18, an appeal of staff approval of a minor modification to a coastal permit for a project at 109 Seabright Avenue as well as the FDU ordinance. And then on December 2, we've got some public access improvements in and around Antonelli Pond that are on that agenda. So we've got, looks like, items for the next three agendas. Commissioner Greenberg. Thanks so much. I'm sorry if I missed it, but when was the discussion of the surplus land in the front street? So how going to be on the agenda? You had requested that we provide that to you for your next meeting. Good afternoon. Okay, got it. Participate in the status report. Is it possible? Okay, that's just a status report. So we wouldn't have like a procedural motion associated with that or? No, there is no action for you to take on that per se. We're happy to provide you with information on what we know so far about that and the process moving forward. It would be helpful to know what our role is because there's going to be a lot of confusion. Yeah. So I think having a report on that would be very helpful. Certainly. And we did review the correspondence that came in from the attorney for that organization and did some legislative review and we can include our conclusions on that and what role you may or may not have in this matter. Great. Thanks. You have anything else? No. Well, I have a few. As you know, we are meeting virtually and other agencies, there's a new law that allows us to meet virtually. I have two questions. I think the commission can consider or we should hear from staff about one, does the commission get to make its own decision about how it wants to hold meetings? Because one of what the county is doing with other agencies are doing or having hybrid meetings where people can come or people can come virtually. And I think there's a lot to be I know, at least I understand that the city council chambers may not be set up for that, but maybe moving in that direction. I would like to get a report on what the status of virtual meetings are and what the commission's authority is to determine the way, the kind of meetings it wants to hold. Is that okay? Yeah, I believe that's something that's going to be considered by the council at an upcoming meeting. I don't know the specifics, so I can certainly look into that for you. Can we get a report on that? Maybe, you know, it's a no big deal, just even if it's just an oral report. Sure. So, let us know how things stand on that and what our role is, because it isn't really clear whether we have an independent role or whether we just do whatever the council does. And then some questions on some projects. Could you update me on what's happening with the various downtown affordable housing projects? I'm aware of three projects that are actually potentially four, and I'm just wondering where they are in the process. Yes, and I have Sam, Sam still on the line, and she's pretty close to some thing between the two of us. We can answer that. The one that comes to mind is Pax Tows, first. Pacific Tows is the one that's just was that north of the Pacific Front Laurel project, so there's another one. Pax Tows, I believe, is working through some issues on measures. They have some soil contamination issues from previous uses of the site, and so they're having to make sure they do some mitigations like install a vapor barrier. So, I believe that they are working through that and also working on putting together building plans. So, they have an applicant and there's a project, and it's getting to figure out the construction, right? So, it doesn't have its financing? Oh, I thought I don't know if they have their financing or not. I don't know if there's anyone from housing here. They would be closer to that. I know that Jim Renler for the future housing is the applicant, but let me see if they've actually building plans yet. I believe they have. Okay, well, that's exciting. That's enough. Sam, what about Pacific Station? Whatever that's called, so. Pacific Front Laurel is the one that's under construction currently. That's the one at the corner of Pacific Front and Laurel on the corner there. Interestingly, we've also had the soil contamination issues, so they're working through those as well, but they are under construction. Now, that's the 100 Laurel Street? Yes. I had heard and that's why I wanted to raise this, that there was water table problems and then the project was going to have two levels of underground parking, but it can't. It can only have one. And what's going on with that? Is that a problem or is it just really the soil contamination that's a problem? I haven't, I'm not aware of those issues. I haven't heard that, but. Constituent forwarded to my attention and I sort of indicated that I'd ask them to look into it, so maybe if you could check with the building department, I would think if they can't have the two stories of underground parking that they'd need a modification to that. If that's the case, please let us know. Okay, we'll do. And then the Metro Center project is... How's the project? The other affordable housing project is called Pacific North. They have not submitted their building permit plans yet, but they have received their entitlement. And so there's a non-profit that's doing their project? Yes, that non-profit is... Eric, do you remember? It's okay. Then the development on Ocean Street that never seems to reach completion. And I went to the sort of early opening during Affordable Housing Month, and it's a very impressive project. I'm looking forward to the opening, and I really encourage the whole commission to go because it really shows what an affordable housing project can be like. And it's in a very difficult location in terms of traffic, but I think they've done a great job. But they never seem to finish the sidewalk. Do you know what's going on with them? Yeah, I think you're referring to 350 Ocean Street. They are working on finishing up their construction. They have a few things left. I did go out and do a final inspection already. I know they're wanting to get their occupancy soon, but they do have some outlying issues with an easement on their property. And so we're trying to work through those issues, and we're hoping that they will be able to resolve that before we final the project. I know they were hoping to occupy in July, so it's problematic that it's taking so long causing them a fortune. So that's unfortunate, because that'll be a really good project once it opens. Yeah, we have suggested that we amend their affordable housing agreement to provide some parameters on them finishing up that easement issue, and we're currently working with their attorneys on that. Okay, well good luck. I think it would be helpful for the Commission, given what's going on with the UCSB Long Range Development Plan, to get a report of a future Commission meeting on the University's plan and, you know, there are negotiations going on between the city and the county and the University. I just think the Commission should do the plan that the University and the Long Range Development Plan will have a massive impact on the city, depending on how it's carried out. And I think it would be helpful for the Commission to get a report on what's going on, because it hasn't really been to the Commission before. Is there any problem with it? Yeah, we'll look at when we can schedule that. Definitely and it would be best to give that report. And I think, you know, the applicant on the Board of the Contemporacy Project talked about ringing numbers and the scary future in terms of more requirements than can possibly be met. What's your intention of giving the Commission a report on what's going on with the status of the next housing element and the meeting number and the background on that? Matt, did you want to respond to that? I saw a speaker come on. There he is. Sorry, I missed the last part. What was that? Whether it made sense or when it made sense for the Commission to get a report on status of the next housing element and the ringing numbers and where they are and how, you know, what's really going on. There's a lot of discussion, but none of it's official and I get nervous about that. Oh yeah, thanks for bringing that up as well. We intended to have a Rina update along with the legislation update to City Council. So, we have been working with AMBAG this past year on the Rina methodology and we'll be presenting both the Rina methodology with AMBAG most likely at the meeting as well, Council, and then go into how that informs our housing element process over the next several years. Okay, great. So, that'll likely also take place in the new year and that'll coincide with when we will likely be getting our final draft of the Rina numbers, which are currently still in draft form at the moment. Okay, thank you. So, we will be getting that at some point. Last thing I have is to alert staff and the Commission that I'm going to be putting an item maybe for the next agenda that would be a recommendation that the Commission recommends that the Council that they initiate a process for establishing a commercial affordable housing linkage fee where the county has this, the City of Watsonville has it. We make demands of housing developers to provide housing, affordable housing, but at this point commercial developers who oftentimes create jobs for lower income residents have no responsibility to help with the affordable housing crisis that we're in. And having a linkage fee that relates to, you know, that requires a contribution from commercial developments of a certain scale to support affordable housing in the community I think is worth pursuing. So, my intention is to, I know Julie knows about, I wish that Caroline knows about county and the county said for a number of years and I'm going to, my intention is to put a letter on the next agenda to recommend that we make a recommendation to the Council that they initiate the process to establish that to fee. So, I just wanted to get that out in public. So, I can try to avoid also any kind of Brown Act issues being used for it, but I want to alert you that that I'm intending to do that. I don't have any, I appreciate the Commission giving me the time to go through all, we haven't met for so long or this hasn't been an ability to ask questions about all the stuff that's going on. A lot's been going on. It just hasn't involved us. So, I appreciate the updates on these various items. So, any other commissioners have information items that they want to bring? Okay, we're now to committee and advise your body all reports and I don't think we have any advisory bodies left. I don't think there's anything there. Is there any region that we shouldn't adjourn? Okay, then we're adjourned. Thank you very much. And I'll see you at the next meeting. Thank you. Thank you all.