 All right. Welcome everyone. Before we call the meeting to order, I'm going to turn it over to staff for Chloe to give a couple comments about how to join tonight's meeting. Thank you Mayor. Hello and welcome to the special City Council meeting. In accordance with the current Santa Cruz County Health Order and the Governor's Executive Order N2920, this meeting is not physically open to the public. Council and staff are meeting via Zoom and there are several ways for the public to watch and participate. As always, this meeting is Cablecast Live on Charter Communications Cable TV Channel 8 and will be rebroadcast on the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. and on Saturday following the first rebroadcast at 1 p.m. on Charter Channel 71 and Comcast Channel 25. Our technician tonight is Kingston Rivera. Thank you Kingston. If you are watching our community on community TV and would instead prefer to join the Zoom webinar, please visit the City of Capitola homepage and click on City Council meeting under upcoming events as you see on the screen. As a webinar attendee, your microphone is muted for the entire meeting unless you request to be unmuted during the public comment period. You do not need a microphone, camera, screen or computer. If you only want to listen to the meeting, the meeting is accessible by landline or mobile phone. To join the webinar using a telephone only, dial any of the following numbers shown on the screen. The webinar ID is also provided. Remember that the Mayor will announce the public comment period. There are several ways to make a comment. If you are a Zoom webinar attendee, simply click raise your hand and wait to be unmuted by the moderator. If you've called into Zoom over the phone dial star 9 to raise your hand and wait to be unmuted. To email a comment, send your email to the address shown on the screen. One comment verbally or by email per person is allowed. If you send more than one email about the same item, the last received will be read or displayed. Comments received outside the public comment period will not be included in the record. Thank you for attending the meeting and Mayor Peterson, thank you. I'll turn this over to you. Great, thank you so much. All right, we're going to call tonight's meeting to order. Can we have a roll call please? Yes, Council Member Bertrand. Hi. Council Member Botsworth. Here. Council Member Story. Here. Vice Mayor Brooks. Here. Mayor Peterson. Here. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any additional materials for tonight's meeting? We do not have any additional materials. Great, thank you. Do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda? There are no additions or deletions to the agenda this evening. Great, thank you. We're going to move on to City Council and staff comments. We'll start with staff. Are there any staff members that have comments this evening? No comments. Great, thank you. Then we'll go to Council Members. Any Council Members that have any comments? Go ahead and use the raise hand feature. Council Member Story. Well, thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to report out from our last Arts Commission meeting and just let everyone know that the Arts Commission did officially take action to cancel next end of October's Plenair Artist's event that we normally hold in Capitola. So I'll just say look for that to come back in 2021. Thank you. Great, thank you so much. Any additional Council comments? Seeing none, we'll move on to General Government Public Hearing. And tonight's only item on the agenda is to continue discussion of zoning code items. So I will turn it over to staff for a staff report. Okay, good evening Mayor Peterson and Council. I hope you're all doing well. This evening we are going to be talking about the zoning code update. As you know we've been working on this for some time and have been working closely with the Coastal Commission staff over the last year. This will likely be our last zoning code update meeting prior to publishing a full update for public review comment period and then adoption hearing. So good news. We're kind of on that final almost to the final step. So as you know in 2018 we adopted a new zoning code. It took effect immediately outside of the coastal zone in all areas inside the coastal zone. The zoning code does not take effect until it has been certified by the Coastal, the California Coastal Commission. Where we are in the process currently City Council adopted the code. The Coastal Commission provided us provided us red lines. That was in November of 2018. In March of 2019 the Planning Commission provided a recommendation on this on the Coastal Commission red lines and since that time we've been working diligently with the Coastal Commission at the direction of City Council to find common ground. And the current step is for City Council review and recommendation. Following this step we'll be publishing a final draft for adoption hearings. We'll put that out for public review and come back to the Planning Commission for a recommendation and then City Council for adoption. Following City Council adoption we will put together a packet for the California Coastal Commission. We'll submit the zoning code update which is referred to your local coastal program implementation plan to the Coastal Commission for adoption. It will get scheduled for a hearing and what I'm hearing from the Coastal Commission is that because they've done so much work on this up front they expect to get us scheduled for a hearing within 90 days of acceptance. If it is approved then it would be certified. They have provided us with all the red lines that they expect to provide during our submittal process so if we were to have accepted all of their red lines we would have almost been guaranteed a certified approval. At this point we're just going through some of the items that they had given back to us in trying to find common ground. So when we do submit they could approve that if they approve they'll either approve it and certify it or approve it contingent to us adopting their red lines. So if we accept the red lines that they provide it becomes certified. If we choose not to adopt their red lines but propose new revisions we would start over. We would have a public hearings and then we would submit it back to the Coastal Commission for their review and see if we can get to the place of approval and certification. If we didn't accept their red lines and we chose not to take any further action then we would the submittal would lapse and we would have two separate codes. Before I continue any questions on the process? Seeing none I'll move forward. Katie? Yes? I just want to let you know your presentation isn't on zoom with your camera. Okay sorry about that. Can you see this? Okay can you see the screen with the adoption and certification process? Yes. Yes okay so any questions on the certification process? Okay seeing no hands we'll move forward. So the there we go. So our first topic tonight is the Monarch Coven. Yes? I think Council Member Storey has his hand up. Council Member Storey you're so on mute. There we go. Yeah thank you Mayor sorry about that. I just wanted to disclose that I have a property interest within 500 feet of this project. So I'm going to refuse myself and step out virtually. I'll come back when you're done with this item. Okay and I should clarify that we're going to review three topics tonight and at the end of each topic I'll be asking for direction before we move on to the next topic. Okay so with that so we'll talk about the Monarch Coven. The Monarch Coven is located on Depot Hill at the very end of Escalona Drive and El Salto Drive and historically this property at first it was utilized as a single family home and then it was modified to a bed and breakfast in which the current owner has lived and worked out for many decades and run and this zoning code update change was due to the the current owner would like to retire and no longer operate the bed and breakfast as a bed and breakfast but would like to operate it as a single family home. Within our land use plan which sets the long term the long-range planning goals within your coastal areas this property is identified and within the maps it's identified with the pedestrian and bicycle accesses to and along the shoreline the property is identified as a viewpoint is having a view and then it talks about the other pedestrian accesses along the bluff. Currently how this property is utilized there's on the parcel that's labeled number one there's an office with a car port and a one bedroom cottage. The parcel number two which is right of way that was dedicated to the owners is it has a two bedroom cottage and then the bed and breakfast it's on parcel three which is an 11 bedroom bed and breakfast. Under the existing zoning code the requirement for this property is that residential use is by the owners and their family members the current standard to do residential use requires that the owner and their family members of up to one unit per parcel can be used as residential on the three parcels as long as a minimum of six guest bedrooms are available for visitors serving uses within the three parcels. So that's the current standard so it it requires a little less than half of the bedrooms on site to always be utilized as nightly rental for visitor serving. Within our 2018 adopted code we move forward with a zoning change on this property zoning it before it was visitor serving we changed it to visitor serving overlay with a R1 single-family zoning as the base zone and within the land use table we the the first draft was that single family dwellings require a conditional use permit and shall comply with all the standards of the R1 district when we submitted this to the coastal commission staff they changed our note within the land use table and said single family dwelling is only allowed if ancillary to visitor accommodating uses so that would say it has to be secondary to visitor accommodating uses so within that we would it would suggest that probably seven of the rooms would have to be utilized as visitors visitor accommodations and the planning commission when they reviewed this last year they added they modified the note to say that single family dwellings you know it requires a conditional use permit but it would be allowed in conjunction with visitor accommodation uses use or a grant of a public access to a viewpoint so in looking at this the actually I'm going to first bring you to we did receive a proposal that was in your packet from the owners of the monarch coven I just want to let you know that what you're seeing tonight if if a single family use were to come forward in this note were to exist in the future code all details of a proposed viewpoint would be worked out then it would not be worked out during the zoning code update it's just stating that the way it's drafted is that a viewpoint would be provided by the owner so the planning commission and city council in reviewing the planning commission I guess in reviewing their conditional use permit would take a really thorough look at this but this is actually a good practice just so to get the vision of what a viewpoint could be in the future so on the left hand side of the slide you're seeing a photo of the existing pathway and that is within it's a piece of land not it was dedicated to the city but we never accepted the dedication so it's still owned by the original map the person that originally owned the property and it goes way back to 1888 however the parcel that's outlined in red is owned by the blodgett family that owns the depot I'm sorry the monarch cove in and they're showing on there a corner in which they would propose the viewpoint dedication so the pathway would lead to the dedication and here they've provided a photo of where that view is and a site plan and then just a conceptual picture of what that could look like when spruced up with some benches so with that staff is recommending that the council provide direction on requirements for the single family use of the monarch cove in specifically does the council support the planning commission recommendation to allow an alternative to visitor accommodations through a grant of public access to a viewpoint also are there other visitor serving uses the city should propose to coastal commission as a compromise to allow a single family with that i'll take any council questions prior to going into public hearing great thank you I see a council member retron has his hand up so in terms of the right of way that's not quite certain yet if it was determined that we didn't have access to that right away and there was a public viewing place then we'd have to go across the blodgett slam could that be arranged in some sort of agreement in the future the way that the condition is written in it could be arranged in the future if that access were not available my understanding though is that existing access just hasn't been accepted by the city at this point but it has been offered okay so even that offering was so long ago we could still accept it but who we're going to accept it from that's an issue so we would need to work out all those logistics at the time of the review of the application but if if not if that were not still being my understanding is the offer still stands from the prior view of the proposed hotel expansion on the site in terms of the wording of the proposed proposal from city planning could we also request that there be an airbnb offering on each side yeah you could the council could give direction tonight for other visitor serving uses or other items that they'd like to see incorporated into those conditions okay so there's three units could we could we request the the main building to stay visitor serving and the other two could go to a single family got a possibility you could propose that tonight yes okay so we could the blotches could have access to single family do what they want to two of them and the historic monocles could stay as a visitor serving and potentially could also get the viewpoint those are possibilities yes okay thank you uh councilmember boss work also it looks like has a question thank you mayor job kind of got close to the questions i was going to ask but specifically to katie i i kind of didn't get a clear answer on are we going to move forward with with acquiring that piece of property or is that something that was predicated on something else happening i didn't get a formal answer that we're going to accept how we're going to accept that dedicated property so in speaking with the public works director about this my understanding is that the last time our legal staff which was the previous legal staff reviewed this offer of dedication that the offer still stands because there hasn't been a quiet title that has been exchanged for this property we would have to work very closely with our city attorney to accept that offer of dedication and make it city property and then we would just within our acceptance we would be accepting the area of the dedication that is for the trail typically you accept the improvements is my understanding so all the steps that are required within that we would make sure that would happen if they were to come in with a proposal for a single family home if it were something that the city council wanted to look at separately than the zoning code that is something that we could talk about separately of the zoning code but within what we're proposing for the zoning code if an if an application were to come in for the r1 we would move forward if they came in with an application for a residential with looking at that accepting that offer of dedication okay thank you for that explanation that's all my questions thank you as i say your brook hi yes um katie i think i'll i'll need you to not elaborate but be a little bit more clear about that answer that you gave councilmember bossworth um if it's a two-part process um where we need to include some language in this for uh first and then we follow up on it and then my second question is um i couldn't i didn't really hear if there were any other viewpoints other than that particular area you showed on the map so as um as presented so those are my two questions okay um so i'll try to be more clear on that so for an offer my understanding is that there was an offer of dedication for i'm going to pull um show the map so where the existing pathway is here there was previously an offer of dedication to the city and that goes back to when the original map for this area of depot hill was created it's still owned by the original owner um which we would have to go back and do title searches and find out exactly who has rights to it at this point but because the offer was made and not accepted and also because nobody else has taken ownership of it the offer still stands and the city has the ability to accept that offer um in terms of the proposed does is that clear so so that can happen within a future application for a residential um if the planning commission wanted the viewpoint to be accessed through that pathway that could be done during that review of a single family home on that parcel or that modification from bed and breakfast to single family use it could also be done separately should the city council choose to to want to own that piece of property where the dedicated the offer still stands is my understanding your second question was is that the location of the viewpoint dedication or are there other proposed viewpoints at this point this is just this is a viewpoint that the owners of the in are have identified they worked with an architect and they thought this was the best uh place to have it on the site and i because it it's leading from that existing pathway to this area so it's what they've proposed if a future application came in the planning commission at the time of reviewing the conditional use permit for the residential use could could um they would evaluate the viewpoint and whether or not that's adequate or if there's a different area that they would want the viewpoint so um and just to be more clear on um councilmember batron's question if if the existing pathway were not the pathway that the planning commission chose but they say wanted a different pathway to a different area of a viewpoint that would be considered during the planning commission conditional use permit as well is that clear yeah so i guess my follow-up question would it be in our best interest to to examine or possibly stay in the language that instead i think it says one viewpoint in planning commission proposal um you want to go back i'm blocking it allow or grant of public access to a viewpoint i don't know if it would be necessary then to edit instead of to a to several i don't i mean it since it sounds like there's just so many options out there and i wouldn't want to you could in the pot yeah you could make a um a change to to one or more viewpoints if you felt that that's something you'd like in the language this evening okay those are my questions thank you you're welcome i see that uh councilmember batron and councilmember bautour both have their hands up are these new questions or uh old okay let's start with councilmember batron yeah so based on your presentation key i get the impression that on our own the city capitol could request from the owner that um access which includes the viewpoint the potential viewpoint and the city could acquire it on its own is that correct no um on our own we could acquire the access but not the viewpoint the viewpoint is on the property the monarch cove in property okay i thought it's just the follow through of that original access street no so this the red outlined parcel is owned by the monarch coven the portion owned by the pre by the subdivider of debo hill originally is this parcel out here that has we've never okay so then the the end whatever the history of the end is because it goes back quite a distance they acquired that extension the end of that extension correct i think that was part of the grand avenue right so they actually acquired that um so there must be some deed record of that acquisition okay comment thank you right uh any additional questions from council seeing none katie so are we bringing it to public comment for each item within this agenda item or one public comment period um public comment per item per item okay all right so we're now going to open this up to uh public comment and uh do we have our moderator that's going to keep track of that and and open that up for public comment yes hi um i'm checking right now hey great we've got planner sean sessanto this evening and i should also mention we have been noble with us this evening who has been the author of the zoning code update and also is available for any questions great thank you so much okay the public comment period is now open we'll be taking verbal comments first please raise your hand or dial star nine if you would like speak the timer will be set to three minutes and checking our attendees to zoom and i do see one hand raised it is a monarch code in on us so i'm gonna go ahead and all right so you've been unmuted but you will have to there they go okay um am i off mute yes great and please uh should i start talking and let me know when go ahead um i'm one of logic and i'm sitting next to my husband robert involved in column and we came for us today to help move this forward so first of all thank you mayor and city council for taking this on your lap and we really appreciate what you're doing and we would like to thank you for the opportunity to present our solution to the proposal given by the capitol prank mission which will be established our original zoning back to our one slash visitor serving in 2014 we put together an expansion project called the monarch coven hotel project and the residents of deep old hill did not support our efforts it was very clear during that time what our neighbors did did not want this expansion this inability to expand though created a real hardship in that it created an endless cycle of being caretakers for a property that demands a very high maintenance profile while not having enough room to financially support that demand bob and i respectively are 72 and 77 and we must soon retire we suffer from serious health issues and we will have to close the end it is our heartfelt desire to once again use our property to enjoy as a residence for ourselves and our family as it has been historically for over 60 years we strongly feel that the goals of the california cosa commission in maintaining public access to our coastline is an important issue for now and in the future but to impose a visitor serving zoning surrounded by single family residences creates many potential issues this is a zoning issue that we've struggled with since its inception in 2004 we now feel that the capital planning commission has come to a solution to this dilemma it addresses giving public access to maintain the obligations to the coastal commission in fact this solution absolves the issue completely it allows public access to the viewing of the coastline with a dedicated parcel we will dedicate a parcel to the public as a new overlook in our dedication of this parcel a beautiful overlook and walking path would be created for visitors and citizens of capitola for many years to come we again thank the city for their recognition and support of this proposal and recognize the value of what the solution will provide and the benefits it will be to move this plan forward and please recognize again that because of our age because of serious health issues we do have to retire we have to close the end and we'll be here for questions would you like to hear bob three minutes at this time or hello yes i think that's acceptable unless staff has any objections i believe that each individual gets three minutes so i think he's welcome to speak at this time also okay thank you good evening mayor and council members my robert boggess i'm here to elaborate on our proposal for the escalon overlook the escalon overlook proposal will create a dedicated public location for enjoying long views out to monterey bay the overlook will be at the very end of escalon the drive on deep hill hill and will report the coastal views from c cliff all the way to monterey county the existing escalon the drive public right-of-way extends toward the coast on its easterly and but stops before reaching the coast of left i currently own a parcel of land between the end of escalon the drive and the coast of left while most of this parcel includes inaccessible cliff areas there's an opportunity to create a public viewpoint safely set back from the cliff lon and i want to explore dedicating a portion of this lot for public coastal access area and viewpoint we will develop the viewpoint area install benches and manage the upkeep of the overlook similar to the elicitation this remarkable location will allow the public to enjoy the dramatic views it provides this location for public access will provide the sweeping views sought by the coastal commission staff during the ongoing discussions of this is serving zoning for the monor coast properties appropriate signage at the easterly end of pathway on an escalon the drive with the direct pedestrian visitors along the existing path leading to the overlook location creating this new public access to coastal views will provide the opportunity to protect coastal access as sought by the coastal commission and at the same time provide the residential zoning for our property at the end of escalon the drive we can answer questions if you like great thank you so much do we have any additional public comment either via zoom or via email not see any further attendees with their hands raised and there are no written comments okay great so we will close public comments at this time and bring it back to council for discussion and emotion i see councilmember vertron has his hand up oh thank you mayor um i did have a question for the blodgers if i may absolutely thanks um so bob you suggested and i should disclose i did meet with them earlier that you would like to move to one of the three houses in your retirement stage in life which i'm in also so i respect that which one would you um want to move in there's the the main house which is you know the main portion of monaco than the other two uh the main house that's where i lived when i was going to cabrera college and that's where i spent a lot of time the main house uh the other houses i would have uh our children live in okay and will you think of the idea of having some portion maybe at least one room given to an air bnb offering to the public um that would be all right not a room but maybe a structure a separate structure separate structure another cottage you know a little cottage that would be better yeah you do have some cars i think on property one and property two you have cottages is that correct yes yes the property yes the property property one there's a small cottage and that could remain for air bnb and then another house could be built on that parcel and then the center one which is actually at the end of else also drive that's kind of a problem for building another little structure there because it is in the road but there's obviously lots of room for a little structure on the the opposite side yeah and especially where the big victorian is they could easily put another small house over there for air bnb it wouldn't cause any problems whatsoever so we just don't want to run the business anymore right got it um so may i just want to follow that so you know there is an historic nature up there which i i'm sure some diplomats are well aware and in consideration of the coastal commissions um need to have coastal access so i'd like to ask you bob again in your life would having a structure or two to continue that and also the outlook meet with your plans in retirement uh i would i would change so you know we would we would we could do that we would prefer just the outlook the outlook but yes we would do it we basically uh want to live on the property as our houses uh legally as as our residences uh with our family with our family and having those extra little rooms uh it's income but it's not running in we don't have employees we don't have the same pressure we let you know i'm going to want to start at the monarch podium and i love the concept but uh you know i found out that i'm not going to live forever so we just can't do this and there was a lot of time a lot of times when we the business was losing money and we supported that the property with other income from other businesses for years and we're now breaking even now but that's not you know that's not good enough so anyway we we really it's our health uh it's really the problem you know it's just it's just not going to work out we a lot of time stints in our heart and summary so i'm sorry that's the way it is thank you so much and thank you councilmember retron for your uh comment i'd like to share i have some concerns with requiring or mandating um that they move forward with air b and b if that's not something that they're um comfortable with or something that they want to do um it seems slightly concerning that we have lots of air b and bs in town but we would never require any of those individuals to maintain uh an air b and b if they didn't want to or to run a business when they were ready to retire so i just want to share that i do have um some concerns with a mandate for them to to uh maintain one of their structures for an air b and b i'm i don't have a problem with the council highly encouraging it um but as for it to be part of a motion and a vote to mandate that that um these individuals maintain an air b and b i i do have concerns with that so i do want to share that with the council um and continue the discussion if any councilmembers have any additional comments mayor peterson and i'm not seeing any councilmembers with additional oh just kidding vice mayor brooks and then after that we'll get a councilmember botwork sorry can you go back to the language again i just want to have it up on the screen because i um i have the same feelings i i not that it's a terrible idea to suggest that they they continue having an air b and b but i just want the language to be flexible um for so many different reasons um and i just want to circle back just to see in conjections of visitor accommodations or grants of public access so um councilmember vertrand were you saying to add language in there um what was your suggestion there i'd seem to be clarification well i would like to add something in there so that um there could be an option for them to develop an air and b and b or an ad of some sort so the visitor serving could be still accommodated um i wouldn't force them to do it it's just an option they could take advantage of and like an option excuse me on parcel number one that's going to be one of the children's um possessions i believe at some point and so they could take up that option so i wouldn't want to force anyone to do anything but in the spirit of visitor accommodating i'm trying to do something so the coastal commission will go along with this um it's been a hotel i mean a visitor serving facility for a long time there's a lot of history goes way back before the blotchets there's cabins up there very famous people have been there has guessed for a long time so i could see that because of the history the coastal commission wants to keep this visitor serving on some level the viewpoint is very beautiful um but it doesn't give the visitor serving in the same way it did in the past i've gone out there many times and sat in with the ocean with my wife i totally like the place and the improvements that the blotchets would like to do i think would greatly add to it i've talked to neighbors about it they kind of like it to be a hidden gem sands and stuff like that may not be to their liking but if it's public use then we have to do something like that so to summarize i'd like to have um the option for them to do that an airbnb only is in one area of the city so we'd have to do something to set this aside if the owners of the property as it moves forward want to do that then they would have that option so i don't want to force them to do it but i want to let the coastal commission know that we will provide some a way to move forward to keep the visitor serving going so that's my point i say thank you councilmember vitran katie is that what the language implies um in the planning commission's note there it says allowed in conjunction with visitor accommodations would that cover what councilmember vitran is suggesting so i i think it would include that you could get a little more specific um and add another sentence following that that in conjunction with visitor accommodation uses um you could specify visitor accommodations may be created um within accessory dwelling units within the same parcel as the single family use if you wanted to get a little more specific and allow for a secondary dwelling unit is that or i'm sorry to interrupt but if we left it general they they could they would have to do something in that in regards to what councilmember vitran was suggesting is that correct they could they could propose um okay visitors yeah and it's more open to anything they would okay um mayor peterson i'd like to make a motion okay to uh to accept the planning commission's uh suggestion with uh an amendment that the note 12 single families dwelling allowed in conjunction with visitor accommodation use and grants not or and grants um public access to to a view point i'll second that here we have a motion in a second we'll continue discussion uh councilmember bothor how does hand up um before i go to you councilmember member bothor if i just want to put clarification uh it sounds like when we're referring to visitor accommodations we assume that specifically means hotel or air bnb but wouldn't the overlook uh viewpoint itself be a visitor accommodation just to clarify no um it would be a viewpoint but an accommodation would be an overnight stay okay specifically okay thank you councilmember bothor thank you i'm gonna uh i'm listening well my computer was saying i'm stable so i'm gonna turn my picture off but i'm gonna leave it on until i start to please we'll see what happens okay so i'm trying to follow um vice mayor books his motion and i guess kate i just want you to explain to me what's the difference between and or or is that she changed it to or grant and i don't know what's happening yeah so um thank you for the question i would i would want that both of those things exist on the property so that an ad you would be part of the property and that that viewpoint access still um with the photo that was presented still be created um and still a little iffy on and katie if we need to agendize for another for a later date on whether we need to come back regarding obtaining that that parcel or whatever you called it in order to follow through on that viewpoint so that's why i said and okay so that would for the purposes of a future single family dwelling that would come forward at the time of review of the application the the only reason we would bring it forward separately is if the city council asked for it separate just because we wanted to acquire the land but not okay yes in order to acquire the land we need to request it as an agendized item correct correct and it would be separate from any development application okay um and so with my vote did i answer your question councilmember boxworth possibly i'm going to ask katie to clarify it okay because the way that i'm reading this is the the uh the owners have the option of providing visitor accommodations or granting the viewpoint and it appeared to me that they are more leaning towards granting the viewpoint not necessarily providing visitor accommodation and i don't want to mandate that they have to do both and that's why i was asking katie to clarify and we're mandating that they must do both because what i would rather give them the option to do it if they desire but if we put and in there then i'm reading that they have to do both and i just want to do to clarify that katie that's correct the planning commission put in or as an option to providing on-site visitor accommodations by changing the or to an and they would have to do both right and i'm from what i heard the blodges say is that you know that they want to live there they don't necessarily want to provide accommodations i'm sure that if they decided to vrdo or any other type of option they could do that at their own will they don't need us to authorize that uh but by putting the end in there here i am again dictating what they have to do and i'm reading that the reason that they're granting this viewpoint was because that was the way for them to get their property back retire in peace and allow the coastal access by the word or and i believe the planning commission was going down that path so i don't want to undo what was what was been done i or i'm not comfortable i'm personally not comfortable with mandating that i think that the the the ability to have any type of overnight stay on that property should be up to their discretion so i i'm not i'm not going to be comfortable with the word and in that thank you thank you councilmember botch work um i see uh ben noble has his hand up so we'll go to you next and we'll come back to you councilmember vertron okay thank you so um depending on how the council goes um on this if if you do decide to keep open the option for a vacation rental um but not mandate it uh what i would suggest is we make sure that it's very clear that vacation rentals isn't allowed use right now under lodging it lists hospitals in bed and breakfast and hotels as a conditionally allowed use i would want to make sure that there's no confusion that vacation rentals is also an allowed use on the property and then the other thing i was going to say is that if the council decides to um require vacation rentals on the property it might be useful to specify if each individual parcel requires a vacation rental unit or if there just needs to be one or two in total on all three properties okay let's go to councilmember vertron i believe you are next with your hand up and then we'll go to councilmember botch work um thank you um uh ben i appreciate your clarification um so my my main thrust here is to make sure that the coastal commission accepts what the city council capital would like and i believe their main issue is coastal access in terms of staying overnight and not just to walk up to the view and so i'd like some clarification on that because it's all they care about is a view and that's good enough then fine um so a nominal one bedroom to one of the houses or two of the houses and i agree with you then we have to specify not a hotel or anything like that but something that's busy with serving the blotches could um take advantage of in the future or some future owner could take advantage of and so i only bring that up because i want to get this thing to the coastal commission and this is why i asked the blotches if this is something they were comfortable with and there seemed to be agreement to do that so um i don't think they feel is enforced they're being offered an option so i'd like some care clarification came from you so in terms of getting this through a coastal commission what is their main objective do they care that much about a viewpoint or are they really still wanting to keep the traditional use of a visitor serving a facility that actually has rooms and all those options that go with it so in in bringing you know when we submitted the update that you can see the second box on the slide the coastal commission would they were willing to allow a single family dwelling only if ancillary to visitor accommodating uses so in in reading that um it would have to be secondary to visitor accommodating uses so right now the they've got 15 bedrooms on the site i read that to say that they'd like at least half of those to be utilized as visitor accommodations it's not they they're very clear that they still want to visitor accommodations on the site if the city council this evening wanted to utilize the planning commission language but then add something more specific of what those visitor accommodation uses are it would be i think it would help in the long run for when this does get when an application would go before the planning commission to specify as ben suggested that it would be allowed for nightly rental it would also be helpful um to specify if you know we heard from the owners tonight say that although not ideal they could live with a secondary unit on site that was a nightly rental to write that in the code is a little is more helpful if that got adopted by the city by the coastal commission because then we have it in our code and it's very clear that the intent was to allow secondary dwellings that could be rented nightly how it is now it's kind of open with allowed in conjunction with visitor accommodation use or a grant of public access to a viewpoint there's a lot of interpretation for the in conjunction with visitor accommodations so if you do want to make it a little less strict than what the coastal commission staff was recommending then i would suggest putting stronger language in there that would support that vision if if and just remember the coastal commission staff their red lines are really what they wanted to see us adopt so i think it's very clear what their intent was for visitor accommodations to remain on the site if we want to better define that it may be helpful for future application are they willing to compromise i mean the blotches would in the sense like to get out of the hotel business but moving partway in the direction of the coastal commission do you think that would be something they might agree to i mean you can't read their minds but you know we're we're trying to provide something of you know if the motion gets changed to recognize them yeah i i think if we have better chances of getting it passed if there's some type of visitor accommodation use is on the site okay and by visitor accommodation you you mean overnight lodging right and we would like to better define that as overnight lodging so i didn't make the motions but um maybe ben could offer some wording or katie could offer some wording now that might get us a little bit closer to a position the capital could take that would meet the city um excuse me the coastal commission's needs and desires thank you um council member trans um yeah i i wouldn't mind i would be okay you with defining the visitor accommodations reflect overnight lodging vacation rentals and if we should go so far as to say um at least one um to katie's point with the uh coastal commission note that they were suggesting that about half maintain um be maintained on the property as overnight accommodation and so kind of by saying at least one overnight accommodation and the viewpoint access i think would you get us closer to what the coastal commission um suggestions or recommendations were um and not put so much pressure on the current um owners of the property also i'm comfortable with my my my um my motion because we don't we want to i feel that i should create we should create language not just for those who own it now but for their children and whoever owns it in the future and so by opening these two things um would allow them we wouldn't be saying that they couldn't do anything any longer should someone want to come back and reopen the historical property aspect of it so i'm comfortable with the motion with adding some language from mr novel and katie um if if that's okay with you guys it's okay with me um the idea is to craft something that's workable with us city council and coastal commission okay i believe we still have a motion and second council member bautore if you have your hand up i do thank you mayor katie um in this entire large document that we're trying to approve is this the only red line that we are not accepted are there any other red lines that exist any other uh ordinances there there are quite a few that we've come to compromise on we'll see in the final document because we did make quite a few changes over the last round so um i i think we're we're on the same page for the majority of the document we but this is one of the the ones that i wouldn't be surprised that if if we modified it uh to not require visitor accommodations that we might get a red line back on this but then if that were to happen you know it would come back to the city council and you could make the decision whether or not to accept the red line and have a code adopted or uh work on another round of revisions but there's still multiple changes that we've made yeah but one is worth um i i don't feel that we're uh we're doing the uh the owners any favors by forcing them to have visitor accommodation thank you thank you councilmember bachorf uh do we have any additional comments from our question from council member seeing none i believe we have uh a motion oh just kidding my apologies councilmember ritron yeah um so i think we're on a timeline here to some extent so i'd like to get a better idea of katie um if we had to go back and forth on the monocove um i'm wondering how much time that could take and then there's another question more to the point maybe we could get some time to figure this out can can we have a carve out for monocove while that gets hashed out and the rest of the city code if it's adopted by the coastal commission go into effect is that a possibility at this point i wouldn't suggest that we have that chapter is part of a bigger picture for visitors serving we created a new visitor serving overlay it would just it would impact the rest of the code dramatically not to include that chapter at this point my best advice would be to move forward with something that the city council is feels um comfortable with and um at this point and then we may possibly get a red line from the coastal commission at that time you'll make a decision of whether or not to accept it or to go back through the process which would require going to you know public hearing at planning commission with a recommendation and city council so well madam mayor if i can make one more comment um i remember when this first came before the city council i think you were pretty clear that the coastal commission wanted to retain this as coastal as visitor serving in the terms of a of a hotel motel monocove it's it's called right now so i think they've been pretty adamant since the beginning and since the beginning of the discussion you've been relaying that position to us very clearly so i think that we need to offer something that allows for a compromise to the coastal commission something that clearly from the comments from the blotchets uh bob in particular they're willing to take a little bit um but not everything and a little bit is to provide some accommodations to people who would like to rent a home uh or an ad you or um you know something of that sort but not not what they've been doing which they'd like to retire from so when it comes to vote i think we should think in terms of we would like the coastal commission to be in a position to agree with us and we'd like to be in a position so that the code can move forward there's a lot of issues that aren't being covered the way the city council would like to have it covered because the coastal commission has not approved of what we've approved some time ago we've had the pain ups and we need to move forward thank you thank you councillor batron i see uh ben nobel has his hand up it's just a couple of things for the council to consider um i would be very surprised if the coastal commission doesn't uh require additional revisions to the zoning code overall um in addition to this issue um so i i think i think based on my experience you can you can expect a conditional certification that will require you to make additional changes to the zoning code and this may may just be one of many the other thing to consider is that there's a difference between coastal commission staff and the coastal commission itself sometimes the the commission takes a different perspective or position from staff so it might it might be preferable to move forward with the city's preference on this particular issue even if staff has a different perspective and wait to see what the coastal commission does when it comes before them that's your grip looks like you have your hand up yeah i just have one question about air vnds for katie um when we say overnight accommodation is that even or is it even required that there's language in our zoning codes that around that like do we even need to have that language so should they in the future want to have an air bnb on one of their properties do we need that sort of language in the zoning code we do for this property so our vacation rental zone is specifically in our um in our village and so if we wanted to allow vacation rentals which is defined as 30 days or less on this site we would want to specifically call that out okay thank you um i'll go ahead um if mayor peterson may can i call the question sure we can go thank you let's uh let's go ahead and we have a motion in a second and vice mayor versus call the question so let's have a roll call vote please could could we get clarification on the if the original motion was amended to include a vacation rental in there as well as there was mention of possibly requiring just one of the three units to be utilized as vacation rental is that question for me or for chloe um for you okay or vice mayor um so single family dwelling allowed in conjunction with overnight lodging and visitor accommodation um i should say with at least one overnight lodging and visitor accommodation then i'm going to help use your help if you want to jump in um is that cover what we were discussing yeah i think um with at least one of the three structures correct um and i think are we sure instead of overnight lodging should it be vacation rental then so my my understanding of the discussion is to um require um one overnight lodging unit on the property not necessarily that in an existing structure needs to be converted into overnight lodging but that if the if the property owner wanted to construct another accessory um building for example and then rent that out as overnight accommodation uh that would be okay but we wouldn't we would not be requiring one of the three um buildings to be utilized as overnight accommodation and the ultimate right kitty did you get that piece of it i did so okay so allowed in conjunction with at least one overnight accommodation on the property and grant uh public access to a viewpoint on the property okay so uh staff has the motion we have a motion in a second it's been called the questions we have a roll call vote please yes council member bertrand aye council member botorf no council member store excuse me council member story is recused vice mayor brooks aye and mayor peterson no so motion dies uh or or motion fails to pass i suppose a busy appropriate language uh so it returns to council uh council member botorf you have your hand up uh thank you mayor i think uh i appreciate the motion and the intent i think what's uh what's important here is has been pointed out this is not the only item that we object to i don't particularly like that the coastal commission demands stuff from us and what's being happened here is this is as ben mentioned coastal commission staff not necessarily the commission who ultimately makes the final decision um i don't feel comfortable with the language i feel comfortable with what the planning commission spent a lot of time coming up with it may not be what the coastal commission staff wanted but as ben mentioned this is not the only item that we have red lines up so i would like to make a motion that we approve what is printed uh the recommended action as printed uh and pass this and return this back to the coastal commission we have a motion do we have a second i'll second for a discussion okay we have a second to take a discussion um i have a question uh katie and ed afterwards please let me know if you feel comfortable with this katie would it make sense to keep the planning commission language and then add a sentence that says um that essentially that visitor accommodations are allowed on this property at any time but not required so would it make sense to say that single family dwelling allowed only uh in conjunction with visitor accommodations use or grant of public access to a viewpoint but visitor visitor accommodation use is always allowed on this property should they decide to to ever utilize that option so i believe in the land use table that visitor accommodations are allowed um so that that's already set up within the visitor serving overlay there's does that make is that clear so with no because we were we were talking earlier about would the property owners have the right to do something like an airbnb and we were uh if i if i heard correctly the answer was no because the um that that is specifically to the village so i'm just trying to find the ways that we can put it in the wording that they need to you know the the public access to the viewpoint is essentially required um and that they can have their single family dwelling as long as they provide that access to a viewpoint but if at any point they decide they want to do an airbnb or a visitor accommodation of some other sort that that is their right to do so so that they don't have to come back and have a whole other conversation with us about the tot overlay essentially okay so to clarify visitor accommodations has a separate um definition than nightly rental so one thing you the city council from the conversation from what i'm hearing we may want to change the from the planning commission recommendation the term visitor accommodations okay um so within the planning commission recommendation they utilize the term visitor accommodations and i'm going to look to ben but i believe ben was clarifying earlier that visitor accommodations is defined as a hotel um use and there's a separate term within and there were a couple other things that fit under there maybe motel but a separate term that's used in the zoning code which we keep referring to is our um vacation rental so if we want this to be utilized as an airbnb vacation rental um i would suggest changing the terminal terminology for visitor accommodations to vacation rental and then um mayor peterson your comment if if we've had a sentence after that that said vacation rental maybe you know it would actually by saying allowed in conjunction with vacation rental um we could add vacation rental to the land use table as an allowed use that would be the appropriate place to put that um and ben i'm going to look to you for if you're in agreement that changing the term visitor accommodations isn't is aligned with this conversation so so what i would suggest is changing visitor accommodations to overnight lodging which is more clear and then adding to the land use table specifically that vacation rentals is an allowed use um with clear up any ambiguity on that which i think is consistent with what what what this motion is contemplating that would allow them the opportunity but not require they do it correct right correct um councilmember botwork would you be willing to accept a friendly amendment to your motion for that wording or no uh yes as long as the word or remains in there because that gives them the option okay and and and and i'm fine with the substitution of the term that totally leads it up to the property owners to decide how they want to provide overnight accommodation at least that's what i heard Ben say i was fine with that explanation great and councilmember ritron uh do you accept that amendment as well as the seconder um yeah i i do have a question though and um i'd like to get both to some degree but nonetheless uh because i want to get an agreement from the post commission does this wording as if it's accepted um allow for some future owner of the mean monocobe building to turn that back into a an air bnb of some sort yes okay i hope it all remains an allowed use right okay i just want to make sure okay with that i accept the amendments the amended wording okay councilmember botwork councilmember ritron you both have your hands up still i just want to make sure you don't have any further comments mine still okay all right seeing none um the staff do you understand the the motion in the second as it's been okay yes all right we have a motion in a second so let's uh have a roll call vote please councilmember ritrand why councilmember botwork all right councilmember story is recused vice mayor brooks hi and mayor peterson hi great motion series unanimously thank you all right let's uh invite councilmember story to return next year and we will move on uh to topic number two of the evening i believe is village parking everyone's favorite and i will hand it over to staff great okay and we have councilmember story is back great okay uh thank you mayor but tonight we're going to discuss village parking um our our village as you all know is extremely unique and one of the characteristics that here's a different place that looks very lively and unique as well one of the characteristics that makes it unique is all these storefronts that are right up to the sidewalk and minimal curb cuts once you start introducing curb cuts it really changes the experience of the pedestrian walking through your village so typically um the villages that we've come to love have this setting of storefronts right along the frontage and the pedestrian feels safe as they walk along the sidewalk and they're not looking for cars entering they can just look at the next shop as they're walking along a restaurant and here we've got a nice picture of our our vast sidewalks connected with minimal curb cuts back when the zoning code was updated for the section that we're going to talk about it was actually in our land use plan that's for the coastal area that set the tone for this code amendment stating that minimal curb cuts and talked about having parking that could be required for development but it had to be located outside of the village and then there were a few exceptions when we took this to planning commission so here's the the existing current standards these were adopted I think back in 1989 and it says that parking must be provided on sites outside of the village area but within walking distance or a remote shuttle the exceptions to that was for non-historic structures in residential overlays so with a non-historic structure when you're building a new structure there's usually an opportunity to put some parking right on site then also the capital of theater site and the mercantile site and it was clear that driveway cuts should be minimized the ground floor frontage should be commercial development and that parking areas structures should be located on the interior of the site and that they you can also make an exception to onsite parking due to FEMA regulations for flood when we brought our updated code we had removed the exception for historic structures and the specificity on well just the historic structures when we brought to coastal commission staff they added back in the non-historic structures within the residential overlays to allow the exceptions to offsite parking and then they created greater specificity for the capital of theater site to the point that they in the red lines you see it may may accommodate limited onsite parking to serve ADA so for disabilities guests and valet or similar shuttle system however offsite parking is strongly encouraged to the maximum extent possible for any parking located onsite driveway cuts shall be minimized and parking areas will not be located along the street frontage i want to call attention to that capital of theater site and the additional language put in by the coastal commission about strongly encouraged for offsite parking to the extent feasible within our review of a future hotel on that site we would be looking at a parking study and one of the findings required is to make sure that whatever development is proposed that it has minimal impacts to traffic and that would be looked at through the process of looking at a study seeing what's proposed and making sure that the finding is met that whatever is being proposed for the theater site that it has a minimal impact to to traffic on the village so when when we saw the the coastal commission edits really one of our main goals in updating our zoning code was to make the language clear and easy to understand we felt that this revision didn't quite hit it and the planning commission when we brought it to them they said you know it's still unclear please take this to the city council for further discussion and clean it up further so i don't have a i have a new recommendation from staff on this one that the planning commission has not reviewed but their suggestion was simply staff please make this more easy to understand that this is more about curb cuts and not everything in between so we've cleaned it up and gotten a little more specific we did not add the the coastal commission recommended changes of strongly encouraged to the maximum extent feasible we feel that will be within the findings of any application that will be reviewed but we outlined exactly what what the regulations are and instead of saying having an exception just for historic sites we included the actual residential overlays and where you can have on-site parking because it's not within our commercial core and any project that is tied to residential if it's a historic property will be reviewed by our architectural historian to make sure that it it complies and and the parking is adequately placed so we've also added a map within the zoning code to show exactly where the curb cuts would be prohibited along the commercial core and where they would be allowed along the cherry av residential area river view and cliff drive so this is the new language and and staff is recommending that council provide direction on the requirements for the parking for parking in the village i do want to add that the reference to off-site parking is for our in lieu program and that is a policy which is separate from the zoning code and we do not want our i would recommend that we do not incorporate our in lieu policy into the zoning code because of then it's subject to lcp updates and coastal commission review every time we change make modifications to it so tonight we're not asking for an in-depth conversation on our in lieu program we're always happy to bring that back right now our in lieu program can be utilized for a future village hotel or a smaller hotel and with that we will i'm happy to answer any questions thank you i'll bring it to council for questions i see that council member bertrand has his hand up yeah um he i was trying to find out um a little bit more from your perspective what was the problem with encouraging a shuttle system in a town where traffic has always been a problem and also considering that the input of the people that came to the many means we have on the general plan one of the issues that brought up a lot of resistance was a large parking accommodation on a future hotel on the theater site and the other thing is the in lieu program is something from my understanding it can be taken advantage of it's not necessary necessary to require the hotel owner what would do as a way to provide parking so those are my two questions okay um the option to um under on the slide under um one b the planning commission may still allow offsite parking um either within walking distance of the use which it serves or located on a remote site served by shuttle so that that is still um an allowance within this review okay so that we're not we haven't removed that so it either has to be within walking distance or within a shuttle system and it is a great alternative um but but we're taking away as i'm sorry don't want to stop the comments and okay so more specifically you're asking um why we didn't accept the coastal commission um edit saying offsite parking is strongly encouraged to the maximum extent feasible you're welcome to put that back in as staff we have a special section of the code that's for um development either at the theater site or at the the area around the mall for increase the incentivized areas and within the capital of theater site there are specific findings i think there's five findings one of which is that the proposed development will not have um will protect existing public parking as well as uh not have a you know there has to be findings that it's um not impacting the village um traffic you know it's supposed to mitigate the traffic so it's i felt like within the existing findings for that incentivized development we have to really look closely at what they're proposing in terms of the parking and circulation mix to make findings to support the future project so that it's not so that it's mitigated so whether or not we want to it felt it felt um too much to add it add almost this finding and suggestion within this criteria rather than that that of course is something that when an application comes in we'll be looking at and what the impacts are for whatever they're proposing in terms of parking does that answer your question council member charne hi i'm just a strong suggestion that we want to emphasize our shuttle system um i'm already hearing broadcasting from this one since that you know based on their experience with the public parking now that any kind of parking on the side for the hotel would be fine um they're already taking up positions based on data is collected from totally different values and they're going to keep pushing this issue and i believe unless capital takes a strong stance in our hope and suggestion that we have a shuttle system in place um early on we're not going to get something that meets the needs of the capital residents and the main impact here is people who come to capital and it's crowded really crowded and um have cars shelling back and forth um is going to impact that and the experience of people visiting capital is going to be minimized so i want to suggest that we do suggest strongly the shuttle system be part of the consideration okay thank you tell my point thank you councillor return just a quick reminder that this is just the time for questions from council we still need to go to public comment on this item so does anybody have any additional questions now would be the time okay hearing none or say oh vice mayor brook do you have a question all right i'm i'm trying to get that button clicked on as a language um i just want a clear definition katey on intensified uses your mev zoning district um i believe it's on the other slide yeah new development and intensified uses i was just curious on what you your your intention of that was that is whenever you um a new land use um so if you have a retail shop that transfers to um to a restaurant the intensified use is defined in the code as the increase in parking requirements so at that point if the parking requirement is increased it's considered an intensified use and therefore there would have to be uh the parking requirement need to be met and that's something that the coastal commission defines so they define intensified uses by parking great thank you and katey can you talk a little bit into the mic i'm having trouble hearing you oh i'm sorry um so did you hear that the intensified use is based on parking calculations so if a developer were to go from retail to a restaurant there would be an intensified use because retail is at one parking space per 240 and i'm just estimate and uh a restaurant is one pace one space per 60 square feet of restaurant so therefore there would be an intensification of use and it's based on the parking requirement for that land use thank you all right there's no additional questions we will bring this item to public comment and i will turn it over to our moderator to let us know if there are any public comments uh either through zoom or via email thank you uh i do see one hand raised so i would take that jesse bristow hello good evening uh jesse bristow with swanson builders good evening mayor and council members uh i just wanted to uh comment on um item number two or number two of the location of parking um with the outlook for potential hotel right now there's currently two curb cuts uh an entrance and an exit and i think if we um under our current plan or redesign plan the main access would be off el Camino Medeo and as part of that and with the general plan and even in this in this red line it suggests a valet or a shuttle system so um which we're all about supporting uh we just want to emphasize that we do have a kind of drop-off concept on Monterey for a potential valet or a shuttle system we just want to make sure that this red line wouldn't impose any restrictions on on a future hotel especially since we'd be eliminating a curb cut and having an exit and entrance on Camino Medeo so that's the only comment i have at this point for for this red line so thank you you uh do we have any additional public comment via email there have been no public comment via email okay great so at this point we'll close a public comment bring it back to the council Keady can you speak briefly to the question that was just asked would the redlining as as the coastal commission red lines prohibit a drop-off or pickup valet service or shuttle service i think the coastal commission red lines would support that for a coast for a drop-off or pickup and the the revised i'm going to go back to that slide for you um under B for the capitol of theater site mercantile site if driveway cuts are minimized to the extent possible so it gives some flexibility there and parking areas are generally located on the interior of the site so planning commission uh in reviewing the hotel site wanted to maintain a lot of flexibility in the standards that was clear from our discussion on hotel height which is next but um just keeping it flexible for future developer to bring in the best design great thank you but i don't think i keep by saying sorry go ahead Keady it it doesn't stand in the way of um it keeps it flexible for drop-offs and valet any uh vice mayor brooks did you have your hand up no okay my apologies are there any additional comments uh or questions from council councilmember bachor if i see your hand up thank you uh thank you mayor um i like this section i think it's written very well uh i'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve staff staff recommendation with one small modification in item B of the between this is being displayed where it says the planning commission may permit off-site parking for non-residential uses i would like that to be rewritten to residential and non-residential okay we have a motion do we have a second there um i'll second the motion uh with the amended language okay we have a motion and the second uh with amendments amendments to the language on the screen here uh council member story did you have any additional comments well i would like to follow up maybe um just to convey to the full council in the audience my reason for supporting the motion um um you know i i'm not sure if it uses the best language um some of the wording is uh rather generalized and uh and vague uh such as to the extent possible and um and on the interior of the site um however i view this provision is really placing the destruction and authority on the part of the planning commission um and it gives them a wide i think flexible path the work of any developer to come up with whatever the appropriate solutions may be for capitola in the future um and you know maybe that is a combination of on-site parking maybe that's uh valet parking maybe that's off-site parking and um i'm confident that the planning commission um can work out the right issues for capitola at the time taking all the factors into consideration um and you know and working with the developer the board um i think uh project that's trying to be um um i think overall beneficial in the city so those are the reasons why i seconded the motion and will support it thank you thank you council member story council member trans you have your hand up also no i i believe that the um staff that came up with this recommendation did craft um something that is very easy to understand and maybe now it's vague as you earlier but i don't think it reflects strongly what um city residents have expressed many times in the past about how we need to control traffic in capitol village and with the possibility of a hotel at this point with 76 or so rooms and the cars and traffic that come with that including unloading and such for um just the maintenance of the place is a bit much and this this um does not really address what the city of capitol residents have said you know starting with the city planning excuse me with the general plan process and moving forward so i'm not going to vote for him thank you council member retron are there any additional comments or questions from council vice mayor brook yeah thank you um yeah reading this i agree with council member story that the language is very broad and that it allows the planning commission to go in in any direction um necessary i feel that there's um you know the truth is that there's just we just have a parking problem and a circulation problem down in the village and it is a hard issue to resolve and with the one process the possibility of adding more parking um just so that we can have a process in place that that will allow for for many people to talk about and brainstorm storm through this allows for that process to take place so i'll go ahead and um i'm in an agreement with the motion on the table thank you guys mary brooks uh let's see i'll give it a second just to see if there's any additional council comments oh uh katie did you have yeah i just wanted to clarify i think um this would be in line with the the motion that's on the table but under b i think we should strike for non-residential use and therefore it would include both residential and commercial and be in line with um council member botorf's uh motion but rather than say that they're both allowed we just strike for non- residential use council member botorf uh how do you feel about that idea for a potential amendment to your motion i you know katie you kind of broke up if you could say that again i'm a little clear for for b i would suggest that we just strike for non-residential use so it's say the planning commission may permit off site parking if the spaces are within walking distance of the use which it serves and located on a remote site therefore it would include both residential and non-residential fine that your wording is probably better thank you thank you and council member story you had seconded that motion are you in agreement with that amendment um yeah that's acceptable great okay uh there's no additional comments from the council can we have a roll call vote please yes council member britain's vote council member botorf all right council member story i council member brooks hi and mayor peterson hi thank you motion uh four to one thank you uh we're going to move on now to the next topic within this agenda item which is related to specifically to the potential future village hotel site i am live within a certain boundary that will require me to recuse myself from this item so i'm going to turn the meeting over to vice mayor brooks and virtually step out until the remaining until this item has been concluded thank you thank you mayor peterson we'll go ahead and go move into staff's presentation for topic three village hotel and height okay thank you vice mayor brooks so this last topic is about the future village hotel height as i mentioned earlier this property is zoned within the updated zoning code to have incentives for additional height and floor area ratio if it meets certain criteria as public benefits in reviewing the village hotel height the coastal commission made some coastal staff made some recommendations to modify the initial language that was adopted in 2018 and their modifications are shown on the screen specifically they made one change to fix we had one of the apn numbers not included so they've added that second they um in the the planning commission it had had set the maximum height of the hotel that it must remain below the elevation of the bluff behind the hotel and the coastal staff modified that to say including so the maximum height of the hotel and then including all rooftop architectural elements such as chimneys cobalas etc and all mechanical appearances such as elevator shafts hvac units etc remain and they also added at least 10 feet below the the top elevation of the bluff behind the hotel so they got much more specific in the criteria of how that would be measured they also added the bluff the viewpoints that the bluff behind the hotel remain visible from and they added the capitol of beach cliff drive and the capitol of wharf as a green edge and added above the visible top of hotel with existing mature trees maintained on site we took this to planning commission again they really wanted to allow maximum discretion for the best design in the future and so they suggested not adding not accepting the changes for the 10 feet as well as not accepting the changes for the projections above the rooftop for mechanical equipment and then further they suggested revising the viewpoints so capitol of beach is much lower than the hotel site and from that vantage point it'd be very difficult no matter what size building was built there to to maintain that visible line the coastal commission staff we've talked to them about that and they agree with removing that suggestion of theirs for the viewpoint from the capitol of beach we also thought it would be the planning commission suggested for the cliff drive viewpoint to get more specific in the description of that so here you're seeing the planning commission recommendation of crossing out capitol of beach getting more specific that the southern the southern parking lot along the bluff or cliff of cliff drive and adding and the capitol of wharf as a green edge above the visible top of the hotel so here i've got some visuals to show you what this means so sorry there's the zoom information is in front of the the language but to the maximum height the planning commission was saying to remove the 10 foot requirement here we have the proposal this was the conceptual review that went before planning commission and city council i wanted to give you an idea of what the 10 feet would look like and i think this elevation is better so what you're seeing here is this is the line of the bluff the top of the bluff is at 63 feet here is the the height of each story so as we go up 10 feet below the bluff would be between the fourth and fifth story of the conceptual review that came before city council the proposal as it was the elevator was five feet below the bluff and the fifth story was six and a half feet below the bluff just to give you an idea so if you were to go with the coastal commission recommendation the 10 foot line would be somewhere within the fifth story and also none the elevator would not be able to go beyond that so most like you would be seeing four stories with an elevator or you know that that's what could fit within that area also the planning commission recommended modifications to the the view point so here's the view from the capitola wharf taken today so again as as that parcel is built up there would still need to be a a green edge that's visible from the top of the hotel with existing mature trees maintained on site and here is the view from the southern parking lot of cliff drive so with that we're looking for city council feedback on the planning commission recommend recommended changes and i'm available for any questions thank you katie so we'll go ahead and open it up to questions for council members i see that council member stories hand was up first and then council member for trend you'll be next thank you by snare brook katie i i had a couple of questions one from the coast commission do you have a sense did they explain why 10 feet one out five one out 20 just i was just wondering how they kind of latched on to that number and then on the planning commission's recommendation that the height should be below the top elevation of the bluff were they meaning was is that implying that any architectural features could extend above the height of the bluff and those are my two questions themselves okay um so why the 10 feet was the first question and i think in talking with the coastal commission they thought it would be better to have something numerical that we could measure from and just easier guidance to follow for as the applicant and they didn't say exactly why 10 feet but i think it's because they thought that would achieve the goal of you know this language of maintaining the the green edge comes directly from our general plan and so i think it was the intent of the coastal commission just to make it um something that we can measure and be more quantitative rather than qualitative is is what i got from their feedback the second question of the planning commission did they consider these architectural elements and i think is there i believe their intent with this was that the architectural elements and h-fax systems would still have to be under that maximum height and be below the elevation of the bluff it couldn't go beyond that but not to specifically call it out as 10 feet and include within that 10 feet all of the um mechanical and architectural elements thank you kate thank you councilmember story um next uh we i see councilmember butrand's hand is raised and councilmember story um your hand is still raised if you can please unraise your hand thank you yeah i was dealing with the same question that sam brought up and um you know this discussion i think came forward in the general plan and i'm glad kate referenced that so kate um would you please comment on the relative height of the other buildings that are on el dominio a menu never get that name right that are up against the bluff they seem to be definitely way below 10 feet from the bluff top um do you have a sense of what those distances are i i don't know the distances of that i haven't measured but um they are below the bluff definitely those those homes you know the way in which we measure height is from existing grades so as you as a with a steep slope you can continue to work within your height requirement buildings can step up the slope so that's what you're seeing in el comino media um but to estimate i i would say you know the the closest one to the hotel seems to be the closest to the bluff that that gap there might be 10 feet or probably more because it's all relative to where you're standing and looking at the image so i i hate to give you an inaccurate number i'm just not sure but no that that's all right i i'm just trying to get to where the closely commissioned thinking and i sort of agree with sam what was there i'm excuse me the same concern sam had and i think the whole idea of a green strip that you would see is where they're trying to you know go to you know they want to preserve that that sense of uniformity and i was just wondering is that the way the coastal commission approaches this as opposed to allowing something to go over the top and you know being completely out of place is that a sense of where they're coming from perhaps you know in when when we reviewed this standard with them they were clear that the intent was really to to have a number there that would make it so that there is no ambiguity of what the what the height of the hotel could be so is to remove that ambiguity which is more of a quantitative standard to say that 10 feet rather than to maintain the green edge that's a qualitative standard and would have to be reviewed from viewpoints and it was really their intent just to make it easier to measure okay i i could see that and sometimes having a number is easier to define than the qualitative that maybe the residents would talk about when they're saying preserve the view when we look up at the depot hill they're not thinking of 10 feet they're probably just thinking of the green edge and how do you get to the 10 feet you get to it by trying to preserve the green edge okay thank you thank you from the member trans are there any other questions seeing none i'll go ahead and move this to shawn for public comment shawn so i do see one hand raised jessie all right mr brusto you have three minutes all right thank you uh did you mean again um so i just wanted to comment once in stance that we were in support of planning commission's recommendation and if i recall you know at that at that um hearing it was pretty much the process is discretionary anyways so planning commission and city council will be able to approve the right product and um this objective 10 feet that the coastal commission's proposing and no articulation and and you know no flexibility in what could uh potentially go into that 10 feet was a little unnecessary essentially coastal is trying to make uh design the project before having a project to be critiqued uh essentially and so just to um a little background to to council member story's question we've never proposed anything over the bluff we've always wanted to keep it um under that bluff would be respectful of the homes above and um so essentially we we support planning commission's recommendations and that and you know we we just want to have the flexibility of it we don't want to exceed and we want to be respectful of maintaining that green strip um you know we've since our conceptual review with planning commission and council we've reached out you know prior to coveted about um a lower unit count and maybe doing like a four-story product um but having that flexibility you you're able to still have um rooms that go from you know nine feet to 10 feet you know you you have less rooms but they're a higher end and that's something that we were getting positive feedback on so we just want to have the the flexibility and not really pigeonhole ourselves to um this arbitrary number and so that's uh those are our comments on on the on the hike there so thank you thank you mr bristow shawn do we have any other public comments via email or raise him no further comments in okay thank you shawn i'll go ahead and bring it back oh there are no emails thank you shawn i'll go ahead and bring it back to council deliberation do we have any further comments wait i did see a hand pop up at the last second okay this is keith odo mr otter do you have three minutes yeah so real quick there was an email that was sent in i don't know why you did not see it it was from a resident there that would be adjacent to this property um perhaps you can double check that to capture their comments and then from the uh the items that were expressed from the speaker prior sounds like there's going to be some relaxed language that potentially the council here is going to vote on and it's to produce a product that all we'll be happy with hopefully then if the residents that reside adjacent to this parcel have some objection when that final product is produced and it does not align with some of the items that were discussed here hopefully there'll be an opportunity to place those concerns and adjust the project accordingly thank you i was hoping we could get clarification on keith otto is that correct for the record of public participation kate i just wanted to clarify for the record so it's clear the last speaker's name and it just popped up as keith otto is that correct shon yes okay and it would be good as the when the public makes comment to introduce themselves clearly for the record okay i i've checked our email again i do not see any emails that have come in there is a second hand that went up at the same time i can enable that person to talk i'll keep refreshing our email la okay shon thank you um we see someone in the can be sent by our air hello hi thank you sure i send email a little bit it just didn't make it through is there anything being done to address the height of the buildings uh over on the El Camino Medeo side which would basically be a wall uh facing these houses as well as the traffic impact over there i mean i'm trying to picture what it would be like i do on a home there i'm trying to picture what it would be like both from the bluff and from those homes it looks to me like pretty much just a big blank wall and even the uh the two stories uh along uh yes ma they're on one array would uh would also be um you know pretty detrimental to that whole to that whole area and i just want to i'm sorry sir we cannot hear you and if you could please give your name i'm sorry we lost me for a second if you can go ahead um if you can give them some time yes um addressing the height issue along el Camino Medeo both in regards to uh blocking and being you know pretty unsightly on that end as well as the traffic impact on El Camino Medeo i just want to voice my concerns about those items sir could we get your name for the record please sure my name is Larry Abbott ball thank you thank you sir okay Sean do we have any emails that have come through for anyone else with raised hands i do not see any further raised hands i am checking our inbox i still do not see any messages that come in okay thank you Sean so we'll go ahead and close public comment for now and bring it up to council deliberation i see council member stories hands up and then council member botwork council member story yeah thank you vice mayor i wanted to begin by responding to um actually the the last comment that was made by the speaker concerning the massing of the wall on the medial side as well as traffic and i wanted to you know let the speaker know that when the design review came up about a year ago there were i think expressions made by council at the time about concerns about at that time the project being kind of masked toward the El Camino medial side and that it needs to needed to be more balanced so it's spread out the massing over the entire project and so um that message is already come up and been sent back to the developer as well as issues of traffic these are things that are going to be studied in the environmental impact reports and and then those impacts will need to be mitigated so i think that anything that we do tonight is not going to affect the public's ability to speak to those issues and to express their desires or maybe changes in the project at the time now with that said i'm going to say that i you know i support the planning commission's approach to this of not having an arbitrary height limit just that again it gives us more flexibility to develop the right project taken into consideration many factors and and the height just being one of them with that said though i would like to as part of my motion recommend that we in item a where it says the maximum height of the hotel and to leave in including all roof cut architectural elements such as chimneys couplers et cetera and all the kind of appliances shall be um those other items remain below the elevation of the bluff it sounds like that was everybody's intent and that's i think that that is you know the top line for me in terms of projections going up over the top of the bluff so i'd like to make that motion with that amendment to the planning commission's language all second that motion for discussion okay we have a first and a second on the table councilmember busworth thank you vice mayor i pretty much agree with everything stan said i i believe that when asked when the coast admission was asked for a number the number was arbitrary and 10 feet was given up the number could as far as i'm concerned be five six five feet or six feet but i'd rather not limit as i gathered leave it as as uh captain of the story suggested this is a project that needs to come before the planning commission on the council it'll be thoroughly vetted and at that point you know the restrictions that we all wanted i think the one that were important was nothing was to go above the bluff and i think it's all about maintaining the green edge i do have one concern in here in the in the last sentence in item b it says uh with existing mature trees maintained on site i really have a problem with the eucalyptus trees that are located uh you might go back to the first picture i think it shows kind of getting a picture of the trees uh adjacent to another one it's uh there you go the trees to the left of the picture they're kind of by the stairway i don't have a problem with those trees but we've had problems with the ones behind the apartments uh up on grand avenue and i'm specifically concerned about the trees from the borderline of the britain arm to the bathrooms so uh if you want to go back to the language katie in the anti the language says uh with existing mature trees maintained on site i would like to make a friendly amendment to put some language in there that uh would allow for unsafe trees uh to be removed and i don't know katie what kind of language you would prefer to introduce in there uh you know i i appreciate the idea of maintaining mature trees like the proximity of those trees so whatever building is going to be there is a potential hazard and the fact that they're not made of eucalyptus trees i don't really have a problem with their removal they're not part of any butterfly habitat in that location so that would be my a friendly amendment for a uh to uh councilmember sculley councilmember story yeah that's acceptable to me okay so the motion remains um i see councilmember pertrand can be raised yeah i certainly echo sam's comments about excuse me ed's comments about the trees um san francisco we call those widow makers they fall and win and they have very poor roof structures and so next to a nice new hotel they're going to cause a problem eventually hopefully not too soon but it's going to be a problem um with sam's change in uh section a that's sort of a compromise in one sense um i still like the idea of ten feet and the reason why is we need to give a strong message just when some builders that the comments we received at the public hearing were taken to hark by the city council the main comments at that hearing and subsequent discussions that i had with multiple people in city capitol is that it was too massive you know with something like ten feet that may mean that they'll have to redesign the top floor or eliminate it and get something that is less massive and i think i believe swenson realizes that the pushback from capitol is to get something that doesn't stand out in such a massive way they want something that fits in a little bit better you do want a hotel but we want something that fits in and something that has as many floors as they anticipate at this time and it's if we could go up to the line of the bluff that's what we're going to get and it's never going to pass at least if we have people in city council that listen to the people of the city so you know i can't support it as it is i would prefer the ten feet to stay in there so that we can send that clear message to the swenson builders thank you council member bertrand any other council comments okay seeing none we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote council member bertrand council member story using this on the table thank you thank you council member bertrand nope council member bautorf hi council member story hi vice mayor brooks hi and the mayor is recused motion passes thank you chloe okay i believe that brings that takes us to the end of our agenda if mayor peterson would like to return to close today's meeting thank you vice mayor brooks thank you all so much for your participation this evening thank you council members for this conversation and for staff for all the work that you've put into this again we we really appreciate all the the comments the public comments this will conclude tonight's meeting thank you so much take care of yourselves and take care of each other have a good night thank you thank you