 Good afternoon. Welcome to our 2 p.m. session of the January 12, 2021 meeting of the City Council. I have a few announcements and then we will move on to our regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television, Channel 25 and streaming on the City's website, CityofSantaCruz.com. All Council members are participating in this meeting remotely. I want to thank the public for staying home to review today's City Council meeting. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, please call in at the beginning of the item you are wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. When it is time for public comment, press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. When it is your time to speak during public comment, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes. You may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Watkins. Here. Here. Calentari Johnson. Here. Vice Mayor Brunner. Present. And Mayor Myers. Present. Thank you. Before we get into our first presentation today, I just wanted to just have a moment of silence to recognize the officers who were killed at the Capitol last Wednesday. And also to just take a moment to just show our solidarity regarding, I believe, something we all share, which is that we believe in our democracy and we don't see tyranny and the things that happened last week as something that is acceptable to us in the U.S. So I hope I speak for all of you, but I would appreciate just maybe just taking a quick moment of silence to recognize and you know, just really just acknowledge what happened last week. I think it greatly impacted our everyone that saw it and so we'll do that real quick. Thank you. And on to much more joy of things. Our first item today is a mayoral proclamation declaring January 12th, 2021, as Sharon Esther Papo LCSW Day. And Sharon, I'd like to, there you are. I love your background. Sharon, it is my great honor, January 12th, as your day here in the city of Santa Cruz. And I'd like to read a couple of lines from the proclamation, which typically we would be in the city council chambers and you would be able to see this beautiful proclamation. I will read some lines from it and we certainly will get this to you as a recognition of all your work that you've done for our community. I'll read a few lines here. For over 15 years, Sharon Esther Papo has been a community activist in the Santa Cruz County community, standing for justice and lived equality for the LGBTQ plus community. And whereas for the past eight years, Sharon Esther Papo has served as the executive director of the diversity center of Santa Cruz County. And whereas her Papo has successfully led the diversity center through numerous funding policy and pandemic challenges. And whereas with Sharon Esther Papo's leadership, the diversity center tripled its financial support from community members, governmental agencies and foundations, allowing for greatly expanded services to the LGBTQ plus community. And its two year $1 million safe harbor capital campaign, which has created a larger and more permanent center for the LGBTQ plus community. Now, therefore, I Mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim Tuesday, January 12 2021 as Sharon Esther Papo LC SW day in city of Santa Cruz and Sharon just for the just for the broader council. I want the council to really understand the significance of what happened in December, which is that the diversity center closed and raised all of the money to close on buying the diversity center building, rehabilitating it and really just they've put a true, they've put a true stone down in this town and it's not going anywhere. It's not going to move anymore. They found home and due to Sharon's leadership that she achieved that right in the lasting few days of your of your time there. And also, I think many people saw the press recently that you also had a significant court win in the past week as well, standing up for LGBTQ plus rights. So Sharon, I'd love to have you say a few words and council members, please, if you would like to say a few words, just raise your hand. But Sharon, I'd love to turn it over to you and just want to say thank you and just extremely proud to know you. And I think you've done amazing things for our community. And you'll have to unmute yourself. There you go. Thank you so much. This means so much to me, such a such an honor. And first, I want to give a huge shout out to the the board staff and volunteers at the diversity center because all of those accomplishments happened because of a wonderful group of committed individuals who all came together and love this organization and stand proud for the LGBTQ plus community in Santa Cruz County. So a huge shout out. This is all of ours and it feels really, really humbling and wonderful to be acknowledged. And I also want to give a shout out to Deanna Zachary and Ashlyn Adams, who I am passing the torch to the leadership torch at the diversity center in there, taking over as interim executive directors to bring the diversity center from from strength to strength. Well, congratulations, Sharon, and I'll open it up to council member Watkins. Thanks, mayor. And I just wanted to just say a few words just how much I've appreciated working with you, Sharon. Also in my capacity and education, your advocacy for our LGBTQ I plus youth has just been inspiring and essential to their school safety and their well being as they enter into adulthood and the diversity center serve such a remarkable space that's safe for our youth, which is so important. And your leadership has been extraordinary over these past eight years. And I just wish you the absolute best in next steps and next life adventures for you. So it's truly been an honor working with you. And I look forward to being connected with you in a different way. So yay for today being your day. Council member Calentary Johnson. Congratulations, Sharon. Sharon, I experience you as joy and compassion for yourself for people around you and everyone in the community. Thank you for everything you've contributed that I know you'll continue to contribute. In particular, thank you for all the work you've done for the LGBTQ plus youth in our community. We've worked quite a bit around substance use prevention and addressing youth and young adult homelessness. So thank you. Congratulations. Any other council members? Just a big round of applause in our very good zoom way here. Sharon, congratulations, and we really wish you all the best. Hopefully you'll get some well earned rest and enjoy your family for a while. And hopefully you're not like I don't think you're going anywhere. So I'm sure we'll see you around. And I also just also want to acknowledge your board and as you said, your staff and all the leadership that you're that diversity center has been bringing with regards to all these important issues for our community. So thank you and congratulations. We'll miss you. Okay, moving on to item the next item, I do have a few announcements and then we'll move on to our regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website, city of Santa Cruz.com. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, instructions are provided on your screen. We will provide these instructions throughout the meeting whenever we move into an agenda item that will be opened up for public comment. Please note public comment is heard only on items council is taking action on and not regular updates and reports. The items that will be open for public comment during today's meetings are numbered items six through 13 on our agenda. I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today. Seeing none, I will move on. I'd like to ask the city clerk administrator to announce any additions and deletions to the agenda. There are none. I will we will now move on to oral communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications today will occur immediately or after agenda item 13. If you wish to make a comment during oral communications, please call in towards the end of item number 13. And we will move on to the city attorney report on closed session. I'd like to call on the city attorney to provide report on on the closed session. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Myers, members of the city council. This afternoon the council met in closed session at 1 p.m. via Zoom to discuss the following items. The first was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims, the claims of Brittany Ballin, Gabriella Chapa, Bristol Santa Cruz LLC, and Dan L. Ebert. Those items are also listed on your consent calendar this afternoon as agenda item 10. Secondly, was a conference with legal counsel concerning existing litigation. First case that was discussed was the case Santa Cruz homeless union at all versus the city of Santa Cruz currently pending in the U.S. District Court in San Jose. Second case was the case of Save Our Big Trees versus the city of Santa Cruz currently pending in the Superior Court. There was no reportable action on those items. However, I will just mention that item 7 on your consent calendar is related to the Save Our Big Trees case. Thank you, Mr. Condati. We will now move on to the city manager's report. Mr. Verdahl, would you like to give us a report? Yes. What I was going to do this afternoon is to ask our First Art Police Chief Chief Mills to do an update on the concerns surrounding potential violence around the inauguration date around the country and in their community. And then afterwards also our Fire Chief Chief Hydra to give us an update on COVID as it relates to what we're experiencing as far as the numbers as well as the vaccinations process. So first I'll turn it over to Chief Mills. Thank you. Thank you, Manager Bernal. And good afternoon, Mayor Meyers and Council members. Just to give you an update on where we stand nationwide, we've got a situational report from the FBI and some of the other intelligence agencies in the nation to alert us to the fact that serious concerns over violence surrounding the transition of power in Washington and the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. And we're taking that seriously. We've read the reports. We are collecting local information on top of it to make sure that we're looking at the threat streams as they come in. If in fact there are threat streams and then preparing operational plans to ensure for the safety of our community. To be direct, we will do everything within our power to make sure that people have the right to protest, the right to address government, the right to be heard. What we cannot accept and will not accept is any violence associated with that. And we have plenty of staffing available. We have plans in place. We have alerted all of our colleagues in the region to make sure that we have the support we need in case something does touch off here locally. On top of that, Mayor Meyers and I created a video today that will be released a little bit later as well as a press release that will be coming out from the city to make sure that people are informed and aware and comfortable that we are ready and we thoroughly thought this through and we've been prepared to deal with any threats that may come our way. The intelligence is poignant. We do not want to be clear. We do not expect there to be violence here in our city. There are no specific threats to our area of responsibility. However, we're continuing to search and I'm getting reports every day from our investigators to make sure that the threat picture does not change for our area of responsibility. So if anything were to come up, I will make sure that I keep the city manager and the mayor informed and within the proper guidelines of the Brown Act, we would give information to everybody as appropriate so that you are aware of what's going on in our city and in our responsibility. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Committee council members have questions for Chief Mills. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chief. Martine, are there additional items for City Manager Report? Yes, we'll have Chief High do an update on the COVID-19 status. There are City Council, Jason, and I to your fire chief. I'm going to get a brief update on the status of COVID and also hopefully outline some of the questions regarding vaccinations that have come up. What you're seeing right now is a this is from the county health page for COVID and I would recommend that anyone go to that website if you have questions. It is updated and this is a public health emergency and this is very much a public health run problem. What you're seeing on this screen is just the state of COVID here within Santa Cruz County and you can see there's been a significant spike starting right around Thanksgiving and they expect that this is going to continue because of travel and gatherings over the holidays. The last spike that we had within our community was in the summertime back in July and the numbers are glowing. Our hospitals are full, they are able to take care of people but our numbers are mirroring what's happening in the rest of the state and so they really want people to pay attention to that and if you look at where the majority of transmissions are occurring it is person-to-person household. It is in closed quarters and closed space with people that know each other and so all those measures as far as space coverings, hand washing, social distancing that's really what they're recommending. So that's where we are as far as COVID and again this is the county health office and you can go to the county website and they do update this. We go to the next slide. Scenes are coming into our community and there's been a lot of talk about and I've gotten these questions from my mother, from my wife, from my friends you know how do I get a vaccine and really this is a federal and state run process where the allocated doses are projection. Those are approved at the state and submitted to the federal level before those vaccines are brought in. The federal they authorize the order and they submit the request to the manufacturer for those vaccines. So currently the physical possession of the vaccines and the ordering of them is a state and federal public health run process for how that gets into our community. In the next slide and there's four main distribution points and they're all being ramped up as we speak and again this is outside the city. This is within the county and at the state level for public health. The federal pharmacy program is one mechanism multi-county entities, the CalVax and then your local health jurisdiction and so the federal and CalVax and local health I think people are familiar with that. What multi-county entities what that means is healthcare systems that are in place that can be that can vaccinate and you're going to see that come up and that would be Kaiser that would be Sutter that would be PAMP that those healthcare organizations are approved for an allotment of vaccines that are within the parameters that the public health officer and the state health officer and the federal are recommending and if you go to the next screen where you're seeing this and this again you can find this on the county website. These are the tiers or phases depending if you're on the federal or state level for how they are allocating these vaccines being distributed and so if you have a health public health office and they make a request this and they they get X amount of vaccines these are the tiers that they're working through. Right now we are currently in phase 1a and those are basically healthcare providers. Those are nurses in our ICU's those are paramedics in the field and then also really high high-risk populations within our skilled nursing facilities and assistant living facilities and they are working through this right now. They're optimistic that they can get through this by the end of next week hopefully and then they'll start moving through the next tiers or phases for prioritization of those vaccines and if you can see it includes law enforcement includes critical infrastructure and then it starts breaking down into age groups and so what I would ask of everyone regardless of who your employer is or what you fit within that you are aware of where you fall within these tiers and if you have access to healthcare whether it's Kaiser or PAMP or Sutter or whatever provider you have or the local county health office that you know where you fall within these tiers so when they start rolling these out and they become available that you take advantage of that but again this is not a city-run program we are not determining access to this this is you know through the state and through the county that is an arm of the state and so these as they run in as they run through these phases they expect some time in spring to get down to phase two after they get through the initial phase one and then as more and more vaccines are available they will push those out following these parameters so it's unfortunate that it's not as robust as it could be but I'm optimistic that we are starting to put vaccines into people and that is the beginning of ending the pandemic that we're in right now and returning to normal as soon as possible. Questions? Questions from council members? Council member Golder. Come to me and I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer it is is regarding the allotment per county and so people are asking you know if they're in Santa Clara county or Monterey county are they on different different tiers and why I don't and I don't have an answer I don't know how you see where anybody is. I don't know about the allotment per county I believe it's based on population it's also based on what what numbers they have within those tiers but that allotment is there's requests they're made from the local level up to the state that's approved from the federal level and so how those exact allotments are made I don't know that but again that is this is very much in the public health realm both the state and the federal level. Councilmember Watkins. Thank you for the presentation and overview I don't know if you have an answer to this question but you know we have the identification of the new strand that's more highly contagious to have I know they found that strand in California but have they seen any patients locally that have contracted that version of the coronavirus that you know of? I'm not aware of that specific virus being in our community yet and my understanding of it it's not necessarily more dangerous as far as the effects of it however it is more contagious and that is the concern but I'm not aware of that that strain or that variation being within the county at this point but and sure if they do detect that that would be something that the public health officer would communicate. Okay great thank you. Councilmember Cummings. Thanks for that presentation I just had a quick question I know that we now have a testing site at the Civic and I'm just wondering for members of the public what's the best way for them to. Again like I started off with this is a county health emergency and they're very much at the forefront of this and we partner with them opening up that site at the Civic. If you go to the county health or go to the county health or the county webpage there's a COVID-19 and if you click on that there is questions about employers or questions about vaccines and also testing and anyone can get tested you have to create a profile and make an appointment and once that's done you can get tested for you or your family you don't have to be symptomatic you don't have to have an exposure you can get tested but you do have to go on and create that profile I believe you can do it in person at the site itself and there's numerous testing sites available to the public throughout the county the Civic is one of them and it's very convenient within our city right here. Any other council members with questions I have one if no one else is very good just a quick comment maybe just to add to Tony and thank you for the report I did attend the there's a weekly mayor's briefing that the county is doing again because we're because of the status that we're in and there wasn't a phone number that was announced by Dr. Newell they have sort of established a vaccine liaison in county county health the number to that office is 4544242 that's 4544242 the purpose of the liaison is to sort of field questions from the community and help people understand when various you know batches are coming in sort of just understanding really understanding sort of how the phasing is working I believe also people can understand where they should call to get signed up to to you know get ready to do the vaccine so whether that's with their health care provider so the Lansing's office is really meant to try to help the public understand as much as possible about how to get the vaccine where to go and sort of the timeline on that so that might be a just a great number to just tuck in your notes as the council member in case you get any request from constituents and also during that meeting last week she also mentioned that there are additional ICU nurses coming in to Santa Cruz County in the next week there you know we are maxed out and they are having visiting nurses come in they were able to secure a number of visiting nurses to come and fill in because we are maxed out right now in our ICU so you know she Dr. Newell very much emphasized that we are in crisis care mode right now and we're this is a very very serious situation so yeah quite a sobering report from her so I just wanted to share some of that as well since I was able to be being on that call on last Friday anything else martine from city manager on your report you know no thank you very much that concludes my report thank you thanks martine thank you chief mills and chief hydrogen okay we will move on to item number five which is the city council will review the meeting calendar attached I'll now call on the city clerk to provide any updates to the calendar there have been no updates great okay we'll move on to our consent items our consent agenda first up is the consent agenda and these are item six through 12 on our agenda for members of the public who are streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you want to comment on item six through 12 instructions are on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device press star nine to raise your hand and listen to the queue saying you have been unmuted all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion are there any council members who wish to pull any agenda items I don't see any hands I am going to make one correction on item number item number nine the appointment of representatives I just need to make one correction on there are there any items who are there any council members who wish to only comment on any items please so in your hand learning this job do I take those comments now before we go into taking public comment I don't think it matters we don't have any hands raised okay in the public right in the attendees okay uh council member Bruner you wanted to make a comment on an item I wanted to note that I will be abstaining from item number eight minutes of the December 8 2020 city council meeting since I was not present at that meeting commentary Johnson as well it is and I can let Tony jump in but it's not required for vice mayor Bruner either okay because if I if I understand the city attorney it's approving the content not the validity so much it is approving the minutes as the official record of the meeting and so abstaining is not required and and and that's the advice we've consistently given over the years okay do you still want to register and as an abstaining vice mayor Bruner we can't register that no problem oh you're muted again Sonya I'm sorry yes if it's not necessary for that for that record yes however for the vote in in it as an official record of that meeting then I don't need to abstain is my understanding yeah that's true okay thank you I'll move on to uh if there are any members of the public that would like to speak at any and on any to any item on the consent agenda with the exception of items pulled by council members which we have done at this point now is the time to do so please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you've been unmuted the time will then be set to two minutes are there any members of the public who would like to pull an item are we seeing anybody there are no hand raised okay great the correction on item number nine that I'd like to make is that um in my haste to fill this format um for the revenue committee I would like to speak vice mayor bruner not not council member colder and I've notified both both folks Bonnie can you record that I got it change thank you I'm now looking for a motion on the consent agenda can I have a motion to move the consent agenda forward I missed whoever raised the further for your hand first I'll go ahead and look to uh council member Watkins sure I'll go ahead and move the consent agenda and um note that you made a correction to item number nine in regards to the appointment and I'll call on council member colder I'm sorry I couldn't see who came up first but I'll call on council member colder a second okay can we have the vote please council member Watkins Calentary Johnson vice mayor bruner and mayor Cummings that's oh my gosh I'm sorry if mayor Myers sir and I keep wanting to call I keep wanting to call Justin mayor Cummings today too so I'll move on to our public hearing for the day and that is agenda item number 13 public hearing for 418428440504 and 508 front street application number CP 18-0153 for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item we want to comment on now's the time to call in using the instructions on your screen if you're interested in commenting on 418428440504508 front street application number CP 18-0153 please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will be then set to two minutes prior to taking public comment we will go ahead and I will turn this over to our presenter today which is Sam hasher principal planner from the city's planning department and we will go ahead and start the presentation by the staff hi good evening city council members um Samantha hasher from the current planning department and um I am here with you today to present the project that we refer to as the front riverfront mixed use project can everyone see my screen I'm going to put in the yeah slide show you everybody see it okay yeah great okay great story development consisting of three buildings with a ground floor and river facing commercial and 175 upper floor residential units the project requires approval of all the permits that you see listed on the screen before you it was heard by the historic preservation commission on august 5th 2020 it was heard by the planning commission on september 3rd 2020 and both commissions provided recommendations of approval to the city council the item was heard by the city council on november 10th 2020 and it would continue to allow for staff to review last-minute correspondence that was submitted by the california coastal commission the item was continued to december 8th and the applicant requested a further continuous to today's date which was granted I provided a full presentation of the project at the november 10th meeting so I'd like to focus this meeting um on our discussions with uh the coastal commission staff and our follow-up analysis of the letters that we've received um but I'll also provide a brief summary of the project so this is a project site here it's located east of front street between front street and the San Lorenzo river the project site consists of five parcels that are proposed to be combined to create the project site as I mentioned the project includes 175 residential condominiums and 11 500 square feet of commercial space facing both the river walk and front street it also includes the creation of a publicly accessible landscaped area between the building and the river walk path and two pedestrian passageways between front street and the river the the building is seven stories and due to the grade of the levy that results in six stories above ground floor commercial at the front street frontage and five stories above commercial at the river walk frontage um there's no disturbance on the river side of the levy or within the river channel these three buildings are connected by basement and ground level parking a parking garage the project complies with all requirements of the downtown plan with some exceptions the applicants requesting that this self passageway here um is located about 80 to 100 feet from the future extension of elm street rather than 50 feet as required in the downtown plan um and they requested this as a design variation and staff are supportive of that variation given that there are many variables associated with where that future extension of elm street is going to be located if it's a straight extension of elm street it right now is located in the metro site and so we're currently evaluating how such an extension would cross the metro site how would interact with bus movement or if it can be located in a similar area um that would result in an active useful connection and not just dead space um but for this project for measurement purposes we anticipated a straight extension of elm and the passageway measured to um 80 to 100 feet north of the extension so that is being requested as a design variation the applicants also requesting a density bonus waiver they're requesting a reduction in the step back the required 10 foot step back above 50 feet at the front and river front frontages the building does provide step backs it just doesn't meet the required uniform 10 foot step back above 50 feet um they're all required also requesting as a density bonus waiver um the addition of one story and an increase in height of about 11 feet um the application includes a density bonus incentive concession to allow for the elevators in the south pedestrian passageway to encroach into a required 10 foot step back above 35 feet um the justification to support these requests was provided in the um november 10th staff report to the city council and we've also provided those diagrams to you today as attachment k to your staff report in importance with sika sikwa we also prepared a checklist and a um held a public scoping meeting to determine potential significant impacts of the project um we knew that cultural resources uh was an area that we needed to further evaluate given that the project includes the demolition of two buildings that are eligible for listing in our historic building survey um but through that public scoping process we also identified um other areas to evaluate in the eir including energy and biological resources geology and soils and land use the draft and final eir are attached to your staff report as exhibit e um we did receive public comments regarding concerns about soils and geology particularly related to the project impacts on the levy the applicant was required to evaluate these impacts both for our analysis in the eir and as part of the section 408 permit that they submitted to the army corps of engineers the applicants submitted a geotechnical evaluation for seepage and slope stability and that addressed the issue um for the section 408 permit that report concluded and i quote the current numerical analysis shows that the proposed project will not have an adverse effect on the integrity and performance of the san lorenzo river west project levy with regard to under seepage and slope stability problems as a the ectopla gradient at the critical point of the development will not cause any quick conditions in the blanket layer and be the factors of safety against slope failure for post construction site conditions are significantly above the minimum criteria dewatering will be required during construction and the applicant has determined that they will obtain a permit from the regional water quality control board to discharge the storm drain um one of the the bigger issues for the project was the potential for liquefaction and lateral spreading towards the river the applicant further evaluated this impact in a report prepared by rockridge geotechnical um who recommended the use of the matt foundation on soil strengthened with drill displacement columns um so these concerns were evaluated and the technical reports have and um are available on our website for the public to review um for the cultural resources ultimately the uh historic preservation commission and the planning commission voted to recommend that the city council certified at eir and approved the project to allow for the demolition of the buildings with the added condition of approval that the project provides partial preservation to allow for the significant characteristics of the building to be conveyed in the features of the front facades the applicant has already revised the building designs to incorporate um these features and they specifically preserved the features that were called out in the historic evaluations as significant characteristics so these um facades would be provided in addition to the conditions of approval for photo documentation and an interpretive display on on the site um so now i'm getting to the coastal commission letter we received a letter from the coastal commission on november 10th at the public hearing for the project the letter listed many concerns with the project and some we can tell we're inaccurate right away but others were not as clear um so the item was continued to allow for us to review the letter and coordinate with coastal commission staff as the project is located in the appealable area of the coastal zone since the november 10th meeting we have met with coastal commission staff twice um the first was a more of a general meeting to discuss the concerns with the project and the second meeting was more of a working meeting we went through the um details of the project and the applicable regulations of the downtown plan and discussed density bonus state law the coastal commission staff noted three main areas of concern in their letter um the first was that the inclusionary housing calculation provided by staff was not accurate um that impacts to co that the project would impact coastal resources due to the additional height um and the cumulative cumulative impacts of the variations that are being requested um and the third is that the project should provide additional public benefits to justify the variations that are being requested the coastal commission staff noted coastal resources being impact and they noted that that was visual and that the building was not compatible with the surroundings but the staff didn't provide any additional details supporting these conclusions such as which review shed would be impacted or how the building mass is not compatible with the downtown they simply noted that a building that exceeds the maximum height allowed in the additional height zone results in a coastal resource impact that the inclusionary housing calculation provided in the staff report was accurate um and they agreed to write a follow-up letter to redact some of the inaccuracies we did receive a follow-up letter on December 30th 2020 um and that letter um it it essentially resates their position in a more general and less project specific way um the main points of that follow-up letter is that the city should use their discretion in approving variations from the LTP and that the city should require additional public benefits to allow for such variations so just want to give you a quick background on the process that went into adding the additional height zones to the downtown plan and the coastal commission impact input at that time in 2017 we amended the downtown plan for various reasons one was to eliminate the recovery component because that was the effort was essentially completed we also wanted to recognize the appropriateness of density increased density in the downtown area and that's due to it being a transit priority area the benefit of the shared parking district that is within walking and biking distance of commercial and recreational areas and then in recognizing the appropriateness of this density we increased the height of the buildings to 70 to 85 feet in certain areas we also strengthened the regulatory language to better implement some long-standing goals in the general plan and in the downtown plan and in the San Lorenzo urban river plan that seek to enhance the river as a natural amenity and as a recreational resource these amendments were approved by the city council in 2017 and they were approved by the coastal commission in 2018 and what's important to note here is that in the coastal commission staff report they evaluated these amendments for consistency with applicable coastal act policies in particularly in particular those related to land use and visual resources and public access and recreation the coastal commission staff found support for the amendments for all the reasons that we described that is an appropriate area for increased density that's the transit priority area that it strengthens our requirements to highlight the river as a resource and they specifically cited that the amendments allow for research. Leverage is the ability to build larger structures for sun features that provide and enhance opportunities for public access and coastal recreation while avoiding significant adverse impacts to coastal resources as such the proposed IP changes can be found consistent with and adequate to carry out the certified LEP and the proposed LEP changes can be found consistent with the coastal act they also note currently the levy block street level views to the river in the downtown area and the additional 20 to 35 feet of allowable building height in Pacific Avenue between Pacific Avenue and the riverwalk will not block any public views that would current would exist currently if the area was developed to the present 50 foot limit and then below coastal commission staff make a clear argument in support of the increased height and density as consistent with the coastal act in their own staff report. The staff report also does call out the design criteria in the downtown plan for the additional height zone as design criteria that will limit the lateral extent of buildings and provide recess facades that break up the building masses so in this case because they're asking for variations to the design criteria as a part of the density bonus we evaluated those the impacts of those variations on this particular site. I just want to provide an illustration here or visual to illustrate that the applicant is not requesting a full exemption from any of the requirements here is a line that represents approximately the 50 foot height limit so pursuant to the downtown plan this whole area below 50 feet could be completely built out to the property lines and then above that 50 foot line the building would have a uniform step back of 10 feet so it would be you know the wedding cake design. The applicant is requesting flexibility to provide step back to varying depths throughout the height of the building and not just this uniform 10 foot step back providing a 37 by 20 foot step back at the middle of the center building they're also providing four foot to 10 foot step back at the corner of the building and 14 to 15 foot step back at the top story and then on the southern building they're providing three foot to six foot step back at the corner of the northern building and then similarly on the river front side there's that 50 foot height limit they would be providing a two foot step back at the corner a seven to eight foot step back for that entire length of the building wall a 10 foot step back at the corner 35 foot step back at the top floor to allow for the skydeck of recessed balconies six foot step back at the corner and five foot step back at the corner a 13 foot step back again at the top story on the northern building so even though they're not providing the full uniform 10 foot step back they are providing step backs that will also help to minimize the perceived height of the building from the pedestrian view and give the building some articulation without necessarily providing the wedding cake design since staff noted that the building would not be compatible with the surrounding development so I want to provide some photos of some of the surrounding buildings downtown both existing and approved and soon to be constructed this is the university town center this is on pacific avenue but it's across from the project site this is 69 and a half feet tall this is 1010 pacific this is directly across from the proposed project and this is 66 and a half feet tall to the top of the sixth floor and then here we have the cooper house which is 80 feet to the penthouse and then this is the palomar building this is 92 feet tall the pacific front laurel project was recently approved and it reaches a height of 85 feet and then the pacific station project was also recently approved and that is an 80 foot tall building so noted that the building impacts visual coastal resources so this is a map from the lcp that identifies protected scenic viewsheds the project site is shown in red in that dashed line and and historically in front of an area of the downtown that's identified as a protected urban skyline there are two arrows on the laurel street bridge that identify the views up and down the river as a protected scenic resource and the project site is clearly peripheral to that viewshed it doesn't block or otherwise impact views of the river from the river or the bridge the map doesn't identify distant mountain views from the river as a protected viewshed and the downtown view of the river is already blocked by the levy so while this map is not easily easy to decipher this is the resource in the lcp that we rely on to evaluate impacts the public viewsheds in the coastal zone and the project site is clearly not impacting the viewsheds the applicant provided these matching diagrams to respond to some blanket statements made by the coastal commission staff that an increase in height above 70 feet that's allowed in the additional height zone automatically results in coastal resource impacts which they later implied to be visual so these massing studies show the development in the context of existing and recently approved surrounding development to show that it's of compatible size and math and also show the differences between building that's constructed to the allowed height versus the density bonus height of one story one additional story so in this case this is from the Soquel bridge and it shows the Pacific front mixed use development alongside and so this clearly shows that there is barely a decipherable difference in height between the two images in this diagram again the Pacific front mixed use development and the Pacific station redevelopment and then the front street project also showing that there is not a large difference in the height this is again a similar image and a view of the project at 70 feet and then with the additional story on the right this is a view down calf cart from Pacific Avenue and this is a view down front street of the project site and I can't tell the difference between these two buildings here and then finally a view of the project site from the from the Trephel bridge is provided as another comparison of the proposed height showing impacts on the distant mountain views to the northwest so this is the project as proposed with the additional story allowed in the density bonus allowed with the density bonus this is the project without the additional story so this is the building built at the 70 foot height limit still blocking distant mountain views and then this is the project with the additional story so we should also note that as previously discussed this view shed is not identified as a protected scenic view shed on the lcp map but in any case there is no difference in the impact beyond so I just want to quickly go back to the coast of commission recommendations and note that the project meets the criteria in the downtown plan to be eligible for additional height in the additional height zone b as detailed in your staff report the project includes a request for a density bonus under density bonus state law they are eligible for variations in development standards and have requested incentive concessions and waivers as a part of the project we're not aware of any open-ended policies that allow for staff to ask for unlimited public benefits rather when it comes to public benefit the downtown plan specifically states that the project shall provide a clear demonstration of the public benefit relating to two principal objectives high quality public access between front street and the river and the appropriate treatment of the river front edge along the riverwalk and both of these public benefits are met with the proposed project the coast of commission seems to take issue only with the additional height proposed with the density bonus and not the 70 feet allowed with the additional height zone they have concluded that any height over 70 feet is an impacted coastal resources however these impacted coastal resources have not been identified and the lcp map does not identify this project site area as a protected scenic view shed and then finally it's also unclear why the coastal commission is concerned with this additional height which is permitted with a density bonus request because in 2019 the coastal commission approved an lcp amendment that was intended to harmonize the coastal act and state density bonus law the policy acknowledges that density bonus projects will vary from the lcp standards as long as there are no impacts the coastal resources and again coastal commission staff has taken the position that any height over 70 feet is an impact without identifying what that specific impact is this project provides more affordable housing than that which would be provided in a non-density bonus project we were able to confirm that a conforming project and a density bonus project result in similar view shed visual impacts we have not been able to identify an impacted coastal resources resource nor a regulatory path to require the developer to provide more affordable housing or other public benefits as requested by coastal commission staff and the project meets inclusionary housing requirements and density bonus law is intended to allow for specific projects with to allow for projects with specific percentages of increased affordable housing to vary from site development standards and it doesn't grant local jurisdictions the authority to increase these percentages how well I chose there but also include that even in the in light of all of this analysis the applicant is willing to voluntarily provide such additional public benefits in response to the coastal commission's comments so you should have received a copy of the draft finding and condition of approval that outlined these contributions I believe that the clerk sent them to you during the course of this meeting I'm going to have to unfortunately read them aloud for the record so feel free to read along or tune me out finding would be added to the resolution and it would be included just before the therefore it shall be resolved section of the resolution and it would state in finding that approval of the project is fully consistent with the local coastal program the city has fully considered the issues raised by the coastal commission staff in the letters dated November 10th 2020 and December 30th 2020 and has concluded that no changes to the project or additional conditions of approval are necessary in order to satisfy the requirements of the lcp or the coastal act nevertheless it is recognized that the coastal that the coastal permit is appealable to the coastal commission and because of the positions taken by the by the commission staff there can be no assurance that the coastal commission will not find a quote unquote substantial issue if the project is subject to such an appeal hearing the applicant has indicated that the council understands that result would be substantial cost and delay for the project that may endanger the ability of the project to proceed in a timely fashion or at all and improvements to riverfront access and and therefore may risk all substantial benefits of the project including but not limited to significant improvements to riverfront access and 20 affordable dwelling units including 15 units for very low-income families and five units for low-income families therefore in an effort to mitigate this risk the applicant has voluntarily agreed to provide additional public benefits as enforceable conditions of approval said voluntary condition of approval is included in the attached exhibit a as condition number 69.1 under the prior to building permit final occupancy heading although the city finds that such additional conditions are not required to achieve consistency with the lcp these additional conditions benefiting the riverfront area and affordable housing are consistent with the city and coastal act policies in adopting these additional conditions the council understands that one in the event that the coastal permit is appealed and there the finding of substantial issue the coastal permit will be subject to de novo review and as a result these and all conditions of the coastal permit will become null and void unless imposed by the coastal commission and further too as a result of any such appeal process the applicant will incur substantial costs and as a result the applicant has indicated that they may oppose the re-imposition of the above condition by the coastal commission because this new condition is not required for the coastal permit to be consistent with the lcp and is instead proposed in response to special circumstances the imposition of these additional conditions shall not be considered to set any precedent for any future projects within the coastal zone the new condition of approval for the permit would state as an additional condition of approval for the coastal permit only as voluntarily agreed to by the applicant the project shall make the following payments prior to certificate prior to certificate of occupancy being issued unless otherwise specified a pro-rata contribution not to exceed $50,000 towards the city's upcoming preparation of a San Lorenzo river management maintenance and enhancement plan including the associated studies and secret documentation that will address activation public amenities environmental habitat restoration and climate adaptations along the river second bullet a contribution of $400,000 to the city's affordable housing trust fund and the third bullet is a funding offset for a portion of the front street signal improvement adjacent to the project can be secured then a 50 matching amount of so this I'm saying that this language has been revised just a bit from what you're reading there so let me start over on the third bullet if a funding offset for a portion of the front street signal improvement adjacent to the project can be secured then a 50 matching amount of the funding offset up to $100,000 will also be provided by the developer to the city's affordable housing trust fund period and then the further language in the condition states if the coastal commission finds substantial issue and considers an appeal that appeal is a de novo proceeding for the avoidance of any confusion given that this is a voluntary contribution in the event the coastal commission finds a substantial issue and asserts jurisdiction in the event of an appeal then the city acknowledges that due to the de nofo nature of the coastal commission's hearing this condition will be null and void and the city understands that if it is proposed as part of the coastal commission approval it could at the applicant's discretion be challenged by the applicant the approval of this project in addition to that one the historic preservation commission recommended partial preservation of the historic buildings that's already been addressed and is being proposed as a part of the project the planning commission also suggested conditions of approval that ensure that the murals are completed as a part of the project and this condition has been added as condition number 32 the planning commission also recommended a condition of approval to require that to require the applicant to provide inclusionary units in addition to affordable density bonus units and we received advice from both our city attorney and barbara kouts of gold farb liven who specializes in density bonus law that case law has deemed such an action to be inconsistent with density bonus law attorney barbara kouts is here to answer any questions around that concern but we're currently not recommending that as a condition of approval and then staff added condition of approval 33 are that restricts rooftop mechanical equipment to a height of five feet above the maximum building height and we also added condition of approval 36 to require that the developer install fiber conduit during their sidewalk construction almost done you received all public correspondence for this project there was a packet that was saved as a post packet production correspondence from the november 10th meeting and that was mistakenly left out of the staff report but it has been sent to you for review so that was why some of the comments that you receive noted that their comments weren't included as a part of the report one community concern that's been raised throughout the life of this project has been with regard to the relocation of the 418 project that is a business that's currently located in a building that's proposed for demolition i spoke with laura bishop of the 418 project in november and she indicated that she was interested in purchasing a place for a permanent home for the business but that she was not able to come to an agreement with the developer for this site so while city staff have been encouraging the developer to work with this business there are no regulations that allow for us to require them to lease to a specific tenant so i don't really have any further information on these communications between the developer and the 418 project but the council can certainly ask the developer to respond if you'd like additional information so finally the staff recommendation to the city council is adoption of the resolution certifying the eir adoption of the resolution of adopting adopting findings of fact mitigation monitor the mitigation monitoring and reporting program and a statement of overriding considerations and adoption of the resolution approving the project with the design amendments proposed by the applicant to meet the recommendations of the hpc and pc and based on the revised findings and revised conditions of approval and so we have the applicants team here to answer any questions that you might have we also have our sequel consultant stephanie streelo and sequel attorney sabrina teller here to answer any sequel questions and then barbara counts is here to answer any density density most questions you might have and that concludes my presentation thank you um sam i'm wondering if when we get into deliberation i'm going to open this up for helpful questions but i'm wondering if when we get into deliberation if we might be able to get that information that was read off i know we were emailed it but i'm wondering if there's a way that maybe bonnie bush could maybe put that up especially the language around i think it was a the additional condition or the let me look here the new condition of approval the local coastal permit just because there was a lot to take in and you know if we could maybe get that up that would be great before we we get close to the vote okay yeah i can i can put that i can put that on the slide for you okay um and i um am happy to open this up for council questions and clarifications and i want to check with the clerk or my previous mayors here um so we're going to go ahead and do questions and clarifications first to staff we'll then open it up to public comment and then we'll come back to the council for deliberation and i'm seeing um mayor coming in mayor walk-ins both nodding so it's good you guys are booking on the screen so it's very helpful if i could um pop in really quick mayor um i we usually offer time for the um applicants as well yeah so we'll yeah do and bonnie do we usually do that um uh right before deliberations or what's the proper proper time we usually do it before public comment okay great so why don't we go ahead and get um questions and uh comments or clarification clarification or questions from um from uh council members for staff then we'll hear from the applicant who is here today and then we'll go into public comment and then we'll come back for deliberation so i will go ahead and look to see if there are any comments or questions from council members council member coming in thank you mayor thanks thank you for that presentation um i had some questions regarding the public benefit that was brought up in the i think one of the things that they brought up you know i think that a lot of the laws that have come up you know density bonus the increase in the height from 50 to 70 feet measure o are all initiatives and push to really try to increase affordable housing in the community and um and so i just had a few questions around um in particular this this combining of the inclusionary units with the um the density bonus affordable units and um and kind of to that point it was brought up with the planning commission because um i know we received some correspondence but it doesn't seem like the city has some discretion around whether we can combine that or if we need to you know have the developer meet the afford the inclusionary requirement under measure o and then in addition to that you know meeting the requirement of affordable units under the density bonus law and so i'm just wondering if maybe the city attorney or someone could speak to that because you know i think that you know with 175 units being proposed with currently only 11 percent of those are going to be affordable and that's not even meeting the minimum 15 percent under the previous uh inclusionary ordinance that we have and so i think we all want to maximize affordable housing in our community this is an opportunity for us to do so someone to make some comments made on why um we're required to combine the inclusionary requirements with the density bonus requirements so we based that on uh a reported appellate court decision called latinos unidos versus a map of which word essentially said that the city can't stack density bonus affordability requirements on top of our inclusionary requirements um it's the case held that uh the density bonus statute does not allow a city or county to use its inclusionary ordinance to increase the minimum number of affordable units over that called for by the statute in order to qualify a housing project for density bonus um and i will allow barbara to weigh in here as well but i just want to point out that there's been an argument made that uh the latinos unidos case doesn't apply here because measure o predated the density bonus uh statute and and the reason why um i mean if you think about all of the the zoning code changes that the city has made over the last two years to comply with changes in state law um and and measure o is not a no no exemption from the um when state law preempts the city from doing something it doesn't matter whether the ordinance was adopted before the state law went into effect or after it's it's still subject to the state law so we view that as a very clear uh um issue in terms of uh the city's ability to apply density bonus on top of the inclusionary requirements uh simply conflicts of state law and barbara may want to weigh in yeah i um i completely agree with what the city attorney had said um i think it was mentioned in the staff report we were actually the uh firm that represented nappa county nappa county had also had a uh an inclusionary ordinance for many years it had been adopted in 1993 a little bit later than your measure o but still way before the density bonus ordinance up the statute was adopted it wasn't a new requirement but they amended the inclusionary ordinance in 2010 and at the time required that the density bonus uh units be be provided in addition to the inclusionary uh units exactly what your planning commission is recommended and so this was challenged that ordinance was challenged not by developers but by latinus unidos which was a group representing lower income latino residents and represented by a public interest law firm which you know may have had an impact on the court and uh basically they argued that there was a greater development burden that the county's requirements would place a greater requirement on developers than was permitted by state law and would make it harder to develop projects at all that was essentially the argument that they made to the court we brought up many of the same points raised by the planning commission uh regarding the county's interpretation of state law it had been an issue of some disagreement that the county's policy as what your planning commission is recommending resulted in more housing that more affordable housing than what the planners were arguing but the court held that the density bonus statute was very clear that any affordable units provided whether they were provided by the inclusionary ordinance or just provided voluntarily would qualify the project for a density bonus and that the units could not be stacked so the court was quite the the court was quite clear really we did our best on trying to make the planning commission's arguments but the the court just did not disagree they looked a lot at the legislative history there was actually conflicting history but but at the end of the line they uh they accepted the plaintiff's argument and as I said I think because the lawsuit was brought by a an affordable housing group representing lower income residents uh that may have had an influence on the courts and the court's decision in terms of some of the issues raised by the planning commission and the the public access policies in the city's coastal plan don't relate to housing they relate to they relate to recreation and the coastal commission does not have unfortunately the ability to require more affordable housing in the coastal zone that was their mandate to protect and provide for affordable housing was removed in 1981 I'm not sure what the history was about that and as the city attorney said laws adopted by the people don't have any more rights if you like than laws adopted by uh a board of supervisors or a city council so um as a consequence uh the city really is just not permitted to require that the inclusionary units be provided in the or in addition to the ones required to achieve the density bonus and I'd be happy to answer questions I didn't have one other question was not related to the density bonus but was uh really just above a question of process so as I was reading through the staff report um I noticed that the project first came um the application first came on August 7th to 2018 um a community meeting was held in July of 2018 and then the application was complete uh July of 2019 but the density bonus law will as we 330 didn't come into effect until 20th October of 2019 after this application had been submitted and accepted and so just like out of curiosity and you know the private went through this whole community process and now there's more units than was initially proposed so were there other subsequent community meetings or how did we get to this point where um it went through the process but now today before us we have you know 175 units rather than 133 yeah that's a good question I um I will I can look up those dates for you um there there was a point in the processing where they increased the units and added the density bonus to the project and I um don't recall at the top of my head where that fell in terms of the timing of the community process but I will look up that date for you for questions whatever coming council member brown Myers you said questions and comments but I think we reserve our comments until after yeah I meant uh questions and clarifications yeah sorry I just wanted no one I don't miss my opportunity for that I just wanted to follow up and uh thank you for the um your uh your recommendations and your analysis of the density bonus rule is of the the coastal act and the local coastal plan I um and I think this may be an area where we will respectfully agree to disagree in the end but I did want to try to clarify just a little bit more following up on uh council member Cummings questions um related to uh role that the coastal commission plays um the you know the the coastal acts does supersede the density bonus rules so and that has been acknowledged I think all around and so um you know this is uh you know something that has been contemplated by the cultural commission when uh the lcp was amended I believe in 2019 um and it was amended to recognize that the changes made within the coastal zone um would be consistent consistent with the density law was to encourage the development of affordable housing so I'm not sure what that what the respect uh assertion that the coastal commission does not have the right to uh weigh in on uh for housing for the number of units for a unit in a project so clarify that helpful yeah the coastal I said the there used to be a mandate I think it was called the mellow act where the coastal commission did have the right to require affordable housing in in the coastal zone they have adopted an environmental justice component and where they say they would like to encourage developers to provide more affordable but it's not um but it does not appear that they can require development you know because of the removal of this authority it does not appear they can require them have affordable housing obviously the coastal commission has many ways of applying its own pressure but councilmember Watkins um thank you for those clarifying um comments and questions for my colleagues my my question is a little bit different I think um off this topic and maybe would be most appropriate for our planning planning staff um or potentially for the applicant later but we've received a number of correspondence in regards to um the bike access and sort of the accessibility with this new development proposal and I'm wondering if you could speak to that kind of some of the concerns that were raised by the community yeah we did receive a request from different members of the public regarding the need for a ramp at least in one of the public pedestrian the passageways and the applicant did evaluate the potential for a ramp in the Elm Street passageway um it is a very large switchback ramp um whereas now they're providing sort of a more welcoming set of stairs with a bike rail that allows for people to um push their bike up the set of stairs or if they have a larger contraption they can utilize the elevator to get up to the river walk um but we also reviewed the um we weighed the benefit of the bike ramp against the ability for somebody to um use this um bike rail and utilize the elevators or um simply walk to the end of the block and get access to the river walk from those points which are flat and um allow for easier bike access so um the downtown plan and the downtown plan EAR they don't require a bike ramp per se they do require bike access um we felt that the um bike rail was enough given the other points of entry that are in close proximity and the fact that they're adding the bike rail um and we also preferred the design of the staircase um it has a more welcoming pedestrian um access point to the river um but I know that that's still an area that some members of the public would like to see as a ramp. Any other council members with questions at this time? Um Mayor Meyers I uh I do have a response to um council member Cummings question um so it looks like the plans changed to a density bonus project around June of 2019 so that would have been after the um community meeting that we had for the project um and um although we did not have an additional community meeting um we did have other ways for the public to engage in the design process we had the um environmental um the environmental impact report scoping meeting which was a public we had many members of the public attend that meeting um we had all of the project information on the website and we received numerous comments through that venue as well um and we um posted the site with different um notifications to allow for people to communicate in that way so um that's correct we did not have another community meeting after the density bonus was added to the project um but we did have other areas for the public to engage. Any other questions before I um invite the um the applicant to come up um I just had one quick question myself um can you remind me I know it's in the staff report but that's several hundred pages long um the um the targeted um income I guess adjusted um median income uh levels for the very low income and the low income are I believe the units are at 50 percent very low that's very low correct so that's 50 percent AMI and then the additional five units I believe are at low income correct that's correct 80 percent and for anyone um in the public who wonders what all those um acronyms and percentages mean and really wonder who can live here um is there a salary range or a two-income household kind of salary range that is is identified for those units um or with regards to that that 50 percent AMI um I'm just curious if that's available or we can pull that up at all quickly. Mayor Myers this is Bonnie Lipscomb um I what we have what how we do it is we do a formula and then we um establish what the maximum rents are and so for the 50 unit it ranges for the units in the project between one person studios up to three person two bedroom and so that range for the 50 unit is from nine hundred and sixty three dollars a month as the maximum rent that will be paid for those units for the one for the one person studios up to 1200 a little over 1200 for the two bedroom unit and then for the 80 percent of area median income um that range is for uh a studio 17 a little over 1700 up to 2300 for the two bedroom and that's the maximum rent that's the maximum rent got it okay thank you just wanted to clarify okay um I will go ahead and invite up the applicant now um and I believe that's Owen Lawler but I'm not sure Owen if you have additional members of your your team or your group that will be attending I'm happy to make sure that you guys all have access as needed Owen are you is it just you today well no we have other uh other members of our team are available for questions they won't be making a presentation but um Adam Alpine and uh Ian Murphy from BDP Architects is available and Doug Ross my partner is available to have uh answer questions they're only construction technology and and uh so we're here but I just have some brief comments because um you know Samantha's presentation was so excellent she really covered pretty much everything I think that everything's been covered so I just want to just thank staff for all the hard work that's gone into this over five years to get to this point it's hard to believe it's been five years but it's taken five years to get to this point and um and I want to really recognize Samantha through a fire evacuation and a pandemic kept working sometimes day and night to put this application together and get this to you it's it's a tremendous amount of work to get to this point and as you just kind of getting the tip of the iceberg here um and and I want to also thank um that the coastal staff and we've we've been lately working with coastal staff and we understand there are a lot of competing issues uh in the community and this is a big project and a new chapter development in downtown Santa Cruz and they I know they have to balance competing interests but but we we've made these additional um uh contributions in the attempt to to make the point that we really want to find a path forward to get this done and start construction on this really important project in downtown Santa Cruz um you know we're here for the long run we'll do what it takes but but we want to get going sooner than later um and I also I want to I want to just um kind of put this project in context a little history and and and that five-year application process has really uh started in a lot of ways back in the fifties when the levee that was that we couldn't have along the the river was built and really broke the connection between the river and downtown and what this project really helps to do is reconnect that connection something that uh I think really is widely shared in the community to re-establish a real strong connection to the river and wow the affordable and all of the housing is critically important that reconnection to the river is really a community aspiration that's been you know in I think when when people realize it was broken when the play control project was built uh there was an immediate need by the 1960s to try to find a way to reconnect it and so it's been in the plan the city's plan since at least 1977 to re-establish this connection this will be the first project that will actually begin that process so I want to I just want to bring that up and I think it's really important to remember this is a uh it's the beginning of a of a change and as we come out of COVID you know reinvesting downtown is going to become doubly important to support our downtown merchants and to find ways to revitalize downtown and bring more even more activity downtown to a place that we all love and we all know needs to be nurtured going forward and we think this is an important this project the investment the people living downtown are important ways to nurture downtown and bring it and make it more vital um and you know I'm here to answer questions you know I think Samantha covered a lot of stuff really well but the main thing is there's you know we've got the downtown plan the general plan 2030 the downtown first principle the urban the slurp the housing blueprint two uh two year uh work plan for the downtown strategic goals all of these things reinforce that this project is really key to implementing so many things that that we've discussed in the community for years and years and years so we're excited to move forward our team is here to answer questions and um I think I'll leave it at that thank you thank you line is there any council members that have questions for the applicant for Owen going going on let me yeah council member Cummings and council member I'll go with council member Cummings first and then council member Brown yeah thanks for those comments I had some questions regarding the affordable units and I was just curious what kinds of units those would be because I know that well low-income families and so I'm just curious like what the mix of those units because I think one concern that people have is okay we're going to build these affordable units are you know are they just going to build 20 studios you know are they're going to actually be three bedrooms like what's the proportion of the different units and so I was just wondering if you could I understand it the ordinance requires that the units be reflective of the mix of the project and project is studios one bedrooms and two bedrooms so there's going to be affordable studios affordable one bedrooms and affordable two bedrooms um and 15 like 15 units is affordable to very low income which um are the hardest units to deliver for a whole variety of reasons and that's what this project does it's you know um so so no we're not going to I don't think we could and we're not intended to make all the product all the studios affordable Bonnie I see maybe could answer this question better than me yeah and I would just confirm what Owen is saying so when we enter into the affordable housing agreement with the developer we have the um the affordable units reflect the overall makeup um of the units in the project as far as breakdown of unit size so that's why we give the range of the uh for one person to the two bedroom units we'll have that be represented in the affordable unit one other follow-up question because my understanding based on some analysis that staff was able to do uh last year is that one way to meet some of these affordability requirements is to have section 8 housing vouchers which you know those units would be at market rate so the person would have the voucher that the government would subsidize the cost and so you know I'm just kind of curious and maybe city staff can also comment on this as well but you know I get the state density bonus law um and and I just and understanding that it's the work will come out of this will be 11 percent of the units will be affordable rather than and a minimum time of meeting on 15 and knowing that's something that our community really wants to see is more affordable units I'm just kind of curious if you can speak to you know the potential for having more affordable units under and utilizing that especially because that helps to finance them as well thank you thank you councillor coming to our question so a couple of things on section 8 the importance uh as you may know state laws and changes uh you can no longer discriminate on on someone who has a section 8 voucher so every unit we bring online the community is a potential place that a section 8 voucher holder can can live we I was on the housing authority for directors for four years with councilman or browner um one of the most um horrifying aspects of that is that people after waiting five six years on a on a on a waitlist receive a voucher and then go out into the community and can't find a place to rent and that's a direct result of not building enough housing in this community and there's no other way around this than increase the supply of housing and um I'm glad that the state laws have been changed to allow to to to make sure that section 8 vouchers cannot be discriminated against we need to increase the supply this is I'm hopeful that the new Biden administration will follow through on its plan to increase the number of vouchers nationwide and we'll need to correspondingly increase the supply of housing to house people and thank you for the question councilmember brown councilmember Cummings got one of my questions but I um would I I also I just have two questions I'm just wondering if you could elaborate um one um and I recognize that some of this has been elaborated upon in our uh you know the city zone in the downtown recovery and um but so one is um if you could just talk a little bit more about that reconnect to the river and activating the river um we use that terminology a lot and I have I'm still a little bit at a loss as to what that means given this is a uh uh market you know primary market rate housing project and retail space commercial space um how is it that um this isn't you know the people have access to the river now and you know it's not necessarily increasing access to the river um it may increase the number of who are you know proxmen to the river because they live there or they might shop there or engage in commerce there but other than like can you just explain you know give me a little bit more on what you mean by kind of reconnecting the river I think it's a great point and I got my mind around it and then just really quickly the other question is on the um the revisions the new conditions that have been uh submitted for our consideration uh on the the uh contributions to our affordable housing trust fund I'm just wondering uh you know a little bit more about how you came to that um it's actually the river is something that many communities around the world are built on rivers and traditionally those connections involve housing commerce uh all aspects of community life and um when we've all been to great cities around the world that have great urban river experiences and yeah technically it's true people can now I ride my bike on the bike levy all the time we have a wonderful bike path that circles uh you know from the mouth to the to highway one and it's a tremendous asset to community but what what really changes this dynamic is when people integrate the the the rivers they're 24 hour lives when people live work play bring their families and on the rivers when it really becomes alive and that's the only way to do that is to bring activity there and create it along the river and that's what you see in all these experiences around the world and we have a chance here to really have a world class experience um on our river that connects our downtown and it really becomes a vital place a meeting place and the place people want to hang out we saw we have a little um vision of this uh in avid square where avid square was available before the recent revitalization but it's most people who traveled by there before the revitalization it was a pretty desolate place even though it's technically open to the public but now it's a vital place it's a part of our community that people want to seek out and want to be part of and that and that's what we're trying to achieve here on the on the on the river to extend that experience to a place where families and people the community and visitors want to be and spend time and come back to time and time again and that's what's so exciting about this project and I think you had a second question sorry thank you you know I really was just wanting to hear you know your in terms of your vision of what that means and that's really helpful uh the other question was uh related to the uh new proposed conditions of approval including uh contribution to the affordable housing trust fund and I'm just wondering if you could uh talk a little bit about how you came to in the in the conversation the the figure the $400,000 uh contribution and um I think I I think I understand on the signal enhancement but than just that that part of the that condition well you know it's a it's a balancing act we understand we want to help encourage additional housing downtown as you know there's other projects across the street from this project they'll be coming forward there's a significant amount of affordable housing and we want to be helpful to create that housing and help make sure that that moves forward in a timely time frame and but we want to balance that with the the cost to the project because this is extremely expensive project and and frankly it's a very skinny project to get built with all of the expensive uh um public improvements around the levy the um open space uh connection from in the cathart street and the other open spaces it's an expensive expensive project and so we've balanced the number arrived at really balancing between uh what you know trying to find a way to be helpful to uh uh facilitate even more affordable housing downtown and not not burden the project to the point where it's unfeasible council member coming did you have another question i don't go to council member bruner you forgot to lower your hand justin okay uh council member bruner oh you did have a question okay i just i just was upon you um i did i'm just wondering you know we have these additional conditions of approval um and i'm just kind of thinking you know based on some of the letters that we received from the coastal commission i'm wondering if there is the willingness to add an additional condition which would be the six units um we could designate those units are available for section eight i think that by designating certain ones to be specifically available for those section eight vouchers um would at least get us to the 15th port and as we've all been mentioning that you know trying to figure out ways that we can get affordable housing to make that work and so i'm just wondering if there'd be a willingness for us to be able to include that and also wonder i'm asking that as well because i'm wondering if this does go to the um you know the coastal commission you know could this be a way of all of our community and trying to you know maximize i would say this there's 175 units that are available to vouchers if this project is built and i you know i don't know a way to specifically designate and i don't know that of a way uh to designate um anybody who owns this project anybody who owns any new housing will have to um can't again can't discriminate on the basis of someone holding section eight voucher i so i you know i i guess i'd say i'm open to ideas about how this you know could but i i i don't really have a a thought about how to um expand it beyond what's what's um really laid out in state law is there anyone on city staff who might be able to comment to another our economic development department and it's helping us with our inclusionary ordinance and part of that was you know increasing um the inclusionary from 15 to 20 with doesn't you know using section eight as part of that offset so bonnie want to do any thoughts on this um thank you for that question i'm kind of thinking this through i i think this challenge is the timing of when this project was deemed complete and um the housing ordinance that was in effect at that time so i think any additional um requirement or condition would have to be voluntary and agreed to by uh by the developer um existing units in the project you know it sounds like owens really open to having you know any number of those be open to section eight vouchers and obviously by state law they they are already but if you're asking for additional units on top of those that are conditioned in the project versus specifying that some of the inclusionary units are set aside for section eight can you clarify i think it's additive right i mean i think if it was voluntarily uh they wanted to to do that that would be up to the developer but i don't think we could condition that the our 20 ordinance is um you know is a 2020 uh inclusionary so it's a little different yeah and i i get that um but i'm just you know trying to um you know because within that ordinance one of the ways we figured out how to make that work was you know designating units within buildings as section eight and so i'm just trying to get a sense of is there a way like how would we be able to do that in a project because it sounds like there's an openness to you know having you know figuring out how we could make units you know section eight units so that we can increase this one room i think encouraging for if there's any vacancies of the non-inclusionary units to consider accepting vouchers um you know for those units if they stay vacant over a certain period of time i would think that the developer team would probably be open to that but i don't know that that's something that we can require the thing is i'm not asking i'm not asking for to be a requirement necessarily but with something that we can agree along because for example that looking through you know these conditions for approval i imagine that you know um contribution of four hundred thousand dollars to the city's affordable housing trust fund that's not something the city requires a developer to do but it's something that's been agreed upon right so i guess that's what you know where i'm coming from is is there a way to you know to in the spirit of trying to increase the amount of affordable housing that we're getting projects is there some way that we can have some kind of agreement and i'm saying that could be i hear what you're saying and and that could be accomplished through if there was a vacancy you know for longer than 30 days the developer were open to accepting section eight vouchers on the non-inclusionary units that could be one way well yeah so you come on out and there'll be any comments on that as well all right thank you council member Cummings um i was debating whether or not to chime in here i i will just share my thoughts um you know i i see two separate um sort of questions here um the current inclusionary ordinance that does not apply to this project takes a segment of the 20% inclusionary housing and says that that will be offered to section eight housing choice voucher holders and i want to make that distinction because i'm hearing something different from you council member Cummings which is additional units that would be made available to housing choice voucher holders versus taking some percentage or the some amount of the inclusionary units and giving them preference to section eight housing choice voucher holders and while the inclusionary ordinance that is in effect for this particular project the prior inclusionary ordinance does not set forth provisions related to that in my recollection um i do believe that the applicant could agree to give preference to section eight voucher holders for some of those units um and so that those were the thoughts that i had related to this i haven't talked through those with with bonnie or with the applicant um they would need to agree to that given that that would be separate from the requirement and and look at this we've got our uh one of our legal advisors barbara couch looking like she may want to comment on that as well well i i was just saying from a practical standpoint the house the uh there's a maximum rent that can be paid for for section eight i don't know what it is bonnie perhaps you know but if the units are basically if the market rent is too high then it doesn't then it doesn't work is that am i accurate that's all i was going to add yeah i mean the it's fairly close right now the section to the market rate rent but depending on which units we're talking about um yeah we would have to we would have to look at that as well so i wanted to make that distinction between um the uh inclusionary and density bonus restricted units versus what i heard you asking about councilmember comings which is additional units above and beyond that and um there may be a different willingness from the applicant to um uh to pursue section eight housing choice vouchers as a priority for those two separate components but that would be something that you would need to ask them and councilmember bruner and to the applicant olyn mauler what and i'm tagging on to councilmember comings question in addition to the question i originally had so i'll start with that would it be feasible to to designate six of the homes to be voucher holders knowing that the whole all units would be available to section eight voucher holders should they be eligible but to give preference to designate six units as preference i honestly don't know the answer that question i think bonnie maybe was on to something in that when units were vacant maybe there's a certain number of time um i think it's incumbent on any owner uh if there's a qualified person with a section eight voucher and the rents are nearly identical i don't you know i don't i don't think could be an issue i you know again state law is clear you can't discriminate on a on an applicant because they have a section now because it was section eight voucher so i i don't know if it makes sense to designate i mean one way to look at it if you said well we designate six units does that mean the rest of the units are not eligible for section eight or i mean we would we be eliminating that somehow for for the other units i just i i never really thought about the question that way so i don't really have a good answer yeah and i and i wonder um i don't see it as you know excluding the other units from being eligible as well and i'm not sure this has been done in other you know developments uh but and and what that length of time would be you know versus it being vacant or holding out essentially saving it for someone who was available with a section eight voucher um so i think we could look more into that my second question uh was you know there's been a lot of letters and emails sent in that we've had a chance to go through and um one of the the questions i have is um on bicycle access and it was brought up uh to have a rideable access to the river between i i believe it was so cal avenue and laurel street currently there are several access points that are kind of those ramps uh ways up to the river from front street and um i know in the plans there was and and sam mentioned the uh that kind of bike guide up along next to the stairs but you can't really ride that up is are there options or is there a plan for rideable access um somewhere in that well uh yeah thank you for the question so so we looked early on at at a bike ramp that would be rideable and the because of the the 12 foot elevation difference between the top of the levy and front street um a bike ramp would would essentially take over the entire um space with ramp and and i think even we did some drawings and somewhere in the package cement to have them it would look like if we did were to construct that and the problem is is that you would take over the whole space as a bike ramp i'm a bike rider i ride every day um there's a great access to the bike path that's so cal and i i had it in fact i had a discussion today with jenna kohl tenacruz county bike thank we you know we talked about this point and and yeah they would like to see that but they also understand the the drawbacks of that and we looked at it we we went for a bike ride together we looked at that we think um there's an opportunity to improve the access from so cal albany bike bike lane that that um uh we think there's a better opportunity to do a ramp from that bike lane potentially as part of um you know connecting the levy better and to a better place to ride is on so cal or or on the laurel street to connect to the levy then try to give over the space to a big bike ramp to make it rideable because i think it would make detract from it being attractive to to to uh pedestrians and people sitting if it was all taken over as a bike ramp so you know that that's um anyway we looked at that i think that's part of the best way to to address that see martin's daughter um any other questions thank you oh i mean i just want to add one more thing while i'm thinking about it because like we haven't mentioned the 418 project and that's come up in the past we've tried uh i wanted to say i um we've tried work hard to try to find a way for them to be in the project after the two or three year construction period um and um as of now i i'm not sure that we're going to find a way uh that works for them but we're we'll continue as we get closer to actually potentially building this project to look to see if we can we can we can be helped in that process i know covid has been extremely difficult on dance troops and all kinds of gathering activities and indoor gathering activities so so anyway i just wanted to mention that that that uh that we had been in discussions with them so i had um council member walkins up next and then council member brown question is made more for um mr conjati or somebody from uh economic development but we've talked in the past about sort of the preference option i know we talked about wanting to have like local preference or other types of preference and kind of came up against um what ben is discriminatory and so i just wanted to hear your thoughts about kind of the the direction of going above sort of preference like you need for section eight yeah for section eight uh i think i would prefer to defer to barbara on that because she she is more of an expert on other types of issues than i am let's see the issue with fair housing laws is whether if you give a preference to somebody um it preference you know there's a discriminatory impact you know doesn't preference people from one ethnicity or race whatever um i have not heard objections to preferences for section eight i'm trying to think what the issues what the issues might be i guess if south in section eight voucher holders were tended to be concentrated in one ethnic group possibly somebody you know could could make a could make a claim that that it violates that it violates fair housing law but there's no specific requirement there's no specific prohibition against a preference for that reason okay and i have a question with council member brown yeah i guess this is just a follow earlier questions around uh the section eight uh preferences and um and barbara thank you for weighing in on that um not hearing that there there is any specific uh prohibition on that uh you know i'm i'm really interested in in this avenue or you know potentially going trying to move uh in this direction um because i think we you know we are are all very much interested in getting maximizing the number of affordable units um either through the inclusionary um the requirement for the for rents or um section eight uh housing choice vouchers and so i guess i'm wondering and it sounded uh mr. lawler like you were uh suggesting that you haven't um really thought about it and you weren't sure how that might be accomplished um and so what i'm just trying to think about is is there a mechanism um that maybe we could like is there a possibility for uh trying to negotiate or that or discuss that with our um our city staff to to try to make that work because um and i appreciate your commitment to uh you know uh section eight voucher you know having uh making sure that there's no discrimination against uh section eight voucher holders um and that is the law however we know that um it's not always the case and it's very hard to prove uh discrimination and given the high demand for housing and the limited number of units we have um it makes it all the harder so um you know having that set aside uh i think would uh provide some uh you know not assurance but uh certainly some uh a higher level of comfort that this the project actually could uh provide additional affordable housing beyond the supply um and i will say as i always do that you know i don't believe that uh supply and demand uh is really that those arguments really hold in a community like Santa Cruz where i don't think we can build our way out of our affordable housing crisis um so i'm just kind of wondering um if there's so the question your question seems to be more about is there a mechanism that could be uh uh utilized and um and so i just wanted to kind of gauge your willingness there you know i mean i i'll just say in my uh a very scientific small and uh sample a survey of section eight voucher holders in the the you know outreach in the community that i've done um every section eight voucher holder who is currently housed in a rental unit in the city that i have spoken with has expressed uh worry about um their uh you know their ability to stay in that those units they don't come you know for example when they ask for repairs or you know these kind of different you know landlords can't discriminate but they can tell their tenants well you know that's just a little too much and you know i don't have to rent i'm not required to rent to section eight voucher holders if there is somebody else who you know who can rent the the unit so i'm just i'm just trying to get at that that challenge of actually achieving the nondiscrimination goal um knowing that it happens and again not suggesting that that would happen in this particular project um but you know we don't know who's going to be making those ultimate decisions you know it's i imagine it's not going to be you deciding which tenants occupy the building um on a you know consistent basis so again just trying to find a way to uh recognize that commitment that we have in the in the real you know significant need that we have for uh affordable units um just wondering if you might having not considered it before and not being sure how it might work if you would be open to uh looking at that in conversation with our economic development staff for example again i i think that uh we may see this differently i think this constrained supply has worked very much again section eight voucher holders and that if we don't have more supply first of all people with new vouchers won't get into units and um and and landlords don't want to invest don't need to invest in their properties i just say i don't have an answer voucher you know i want as many people to get a voucher as possible and as many units to be available to those voucher holders as possible and we'll comply with state law and i mean it is i mean up until the passage of that law it was completely acceptable that you could simply say i'm not running to you because you have a section eight voucher so that those law that's gone you can't say that anymore and and sure i don't i think um if if people are good quality tenants whether they're section eight voucher or not landlords will want to keep them in their units and and um so that's you know i i i mean i i'll just say also just as a uh what i've heard for instance on the new units that have come downtown during 2020 that come online a lot of those people have moved out of other housing in Santa Cruz to move downtown so those that those units that people move out of that maybe are older and i'm sure these are people with resources who can move into to expensive new units and i'm well aware of that that these are only people who have big incomes but they're moving out of other properties that aren't so nice and so those properties become available in the market so we have a healthy housing market you've got a lot of supply and about people the best way i think to house people ultimately the most people is going to be through uh more section eight vouchers being available so that's that's that's all i and and then more units available when they get their voucher so that they have options to find a place to live other questions from council i will go um thank you owen for really answering all those questions and taking the time to work through what i think are interesting ideas um uh and uh we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment now um i see uh i'll check with the clerk um i see phone number ending in three six six zero is our first public comment and you have two minutes can you hear us go ahead please i'm hi i'm mark cd miller a professional civil engineer and a former two-term planning commissioner during my time on the planning commission the commission updated the downtown plan which was subsequently adopted by the city council the riverfront project before you today is exactly the type of project the downtown plan envisioned a new mixed-use commercial residential project that will infill the dead space between the levee and the building transforming that area into a park along the banks of the beautiful salmon under the river a project that will provide not one but two pedestrian promenades connecting our downtown to the river and fulfilling a long time community desire to more intimately connect downtown to the natural beauty of the river a project that offers 175 new housing units to our city a city with an acute shortage of housing a project that offers 20 units of deed restricted permanently affordable housing 15 of which will be occupied by residents earning only 50 percent of the area median income meaning rents will be between 963 and 1200 dollars per month a project that by virtue of its location in the heart of one of our region's major employment centers in our very walkable downtown across the street from a public transit hub and across from the future home of the farmer's market will dramatically reduce vehicle miles traveled greenhouse gas emissions and the number of car trips making our streets safer for everyone please approve this project and move Santa Cruz towards a more equitable more sustainable and more prosperous future thank you thank you and the next caller will be with the phone number ending in 5542 you should be able to begin a good afternoon merry new year mayor and council members the proposed development on front street does more harm than good for overall housing affordability by driving up the area median income as market rate housing bring in higher income tenants how much of these new units going to rent for why in heaven's name would the courts allow less affordable housing in a development when the intent of the density bonus law is to assure more affordable housing adding measure requirements to the density bonus units appears perfectly logical and appropriate please give the city attorney to go ahead to bring this case to a higher court the money spent will be well worth the cost to get additional affordable housing another concern about staff's recommendation to approve this development is it still abrogates the california coastal act in the city's own local coastal plan i would recommend delaying the project hearing and approval for at least another few weeks so it could be considered again by the city and the coastal commission i think such an approach would bring the project significantly closer to the requirements of the coastal act and lcp and greatly enhance public benefits of public access and coastal resource protection please expand the public benefits by using the tax advantages created by the opportunity zones that were created in this area under the 2017 federal tax law this means this project will reap millions of dollars in benefits to its investors opportunity zones provide wealthy investors a means to shelter recent and future capital gain even the tax savings this project will offer investors we suggest the tax savings be applied at the front end by increasing affordable units why should the city of Santa Cruz allow a tax tax haven to be built as staff is proposed rather than achieve a project with sustainably more public substantially more public benefit i recommend expanding public access performance additional approval to fund public and and park spaces thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration thank you the next caller i've got is the number ending in 7100 you can go ahead uh good afternoon council members and mayor my name is uh jesse bristow from slumson builders i was just uh calling to speak in favor of this project and would like to commend uh planning staff the applicant and coastal commission all working together to move this project forward it's been a long process and we um also have a project further north that ties into the riverfront uh activation and we're happy to see this project move forward the um city of Santa Cruz certainly needs more housing especially after all the fires and um as owen mentioned earlier it's very hard to bring uh very low and low income housing units online and this project is an example of that and just for future reference uh you know for people who call in in i guess any confusion regarding density bonus law there is some material from mires nave that help kind of educate people regarding how those matrixes matrixes work and um just additionally appoint this year ab 2345 move forward and it changes the density bonus from those increases up to 35 percent to 50 percent so we just like to highlight that you know projects moving forward such as 190 west cliff such as this project the density bonus is being utilized and and it's providing more uh lower income units more affordable units for the market and so we're excited to see this move forward and see the levy and riverfront activation plan come to fruition and uh we ask that you approve this project thank you thank you the next caller has a phone number ending in seven four nine six or i'm sorry three three four nine hello hello i'm donna murphy uh resident of Santa Cruz and with copa colleagues and working to support projects that provide more housing in our county i asked you to approve the riverfront project you have you've begun to hear and i think you'll hear more from some of my colleagues from copa about how important it is to have housing that is near jobs transit and services in addition to the very low income affordable units in this project it also adds a variety of housing types to meet different lifestyle and demographic needs another appealing part of this project is that it provides housing and community amenities amenities along the San Lorenzo River creating a walkable and bike friendly access to both downtown and the river speeding development of housing in the heart of downtown should be a community priority and i encourage you and urge you to support this project and move it forward thank you thank you and the next caller i believe is ending in numbers uh your phone number is in seven four nine six please and we can go ahead good afternoon mayor mires and council members my name is map daryl and i'm the vice chair of the downtown commission and i'm speaking this afternoon on behalf of myself not uh on behalf of the commission as uh advisory body um i want to urge you to approve this project i think uh the pedestrian connections that are identified in this project proposal realized some long sought access to the river that was identified in the original San Lorenzo River design plan which was developed in the 1970s secondly i think that um developing affordable housing close to the metro center is a great exercise and equity and i think that it will also create great opportunities to improve the mix of downtown residents in terms of their different income levels thank you for your time and uh your hard work the next caller is identified as mr kelly so you're ready to go everybody this is kind of telling i just wanted to call in support of this project i also wanted to point out something for for section eight that i don't know if people are aware so in the when the state law passed um this past year i actually tried to identify some of the the current people that had craigslist listings um that wouldn't allow for for section eight vouchers and it was looking really hard to enforce against them um to try to report on it an individual actually has to do it um and and if i contrast this to some of the people that i know that are at the water street projects who are formerly at um 555 pacific was that a well-run development was much more likely to accept section eight vouchers know what to do and use of it guaranteed income and the mom and pop landlords were largely the ones that were being extremely discriminatory and finding kind of tricks and ways to get around it so personally for me i i really like that these kinds of projects are going on um because a lot of the kind of corruption that is throughout the city happened a lot less with these ones especially when it's a local developer that that's doing it this is my perspective and what i've seen within it i'm hopeful that we can do a lot more there's a lot of people that could really use this right that right now get on a list or try to find a place or in the case of the fires we lost more than 900 market rate homes and people need to find homes people need to find places to live i mean i i i used to live up in the santa cruz mountains myself and and i want homes for for family and friends this is really important to me and and so i'm really hoping that you can find find a way to approve projects like this help them go through and especially when this provides other bike benefits and other infill development that can help help lead us away from our our dependence on cars so thank you thank you and the last caller that i've got down for today is ending in 1204 go ahead i'm in city council my name is Jorge Savala i'm a copa leader with shenankees community health and holy cross and since the pandemic broke out i've been managing the holy cross food pantry prior to the pandemic we were serving about 40 people a month and now we're serving over 1200 consistently in the last four months and so i have seen the exacerbated needs for affordable housing here through the stories that they've shared many of our leaders here watching this call have participated in house meetings where we've heard many stories about the need for affordable housing and the construction for additional housing we have teachers probation officers social workers and others that can't afford to live here and serve the community that they love and so we are in support of this project and future on developments with the inclusion of more affordable housing and thank you for your time we look forward to meeting with each and every one of you in the near future have a great time have a good day and happy new year take care thank you um to the callers or to the public commenters i do want to mention and just make sure i haven't missed anybody we do have spanish translation available um today i don't know if any other callers would want or need that um that service but we we can do that if there's additional people who would want to comment um if your spanish speaker we'd be happy to accommodate you today um mayor i think um if peter can hop on and kind of make that announcement in case they are spanish speakers yep sure uh can you all hear me yeah can you hear me good uh buenas tardes para los hispanos y los latinos americanos que nos están escuchando los que están hablando español la alcaldesa dana mayors quería avisarle a la gente que pues como me están escuchando tenemos el puyo los puede interpretar o sea que si tienen comentario sobre esta agenda esta parte de esta agenda o la anterior o durante el día ya que sepan que hay alguien que habla español los puede escuchar y necesitan ayuda pues aquí estamos a la disposición gracias peter i'm just wondering um not being a spanish speaker uh were you able to read off the directions in terms of it does look like um someone has uh called in so you were able to to read off the information regarding how to call in and and etc no i did not translate that part okay let me look it up right now yeah let me let me see if we can get this one caller in peter um so peter the number the number is ending in 1503 can you announce that oh so again the number is ending in what 1503 for the speaker and they can speak and begin speaking peter thank you mayor mayors and um vice mayor bruner in city council this is kasey byer from the santa cruz county chamber of commerce i want to um give a shout out to your city staff for their due diligence on working through all the nuances of this very complicated project it is uh it is uh because i've got time to see an opportunity to bring a project with housing mixed use and to open up the downtown to the san lorenzo river that has been a goal of the santa cruz county chamber since the 1900s when early on chamber leaders led uh led a public hearing event to uh ask the city and the public leaders to communicate and open up their businesses and point towards the river instead of back putting their backs to the river it was unanimously supported by the city council and the city leaders at that time here we are all over 100 years later and we're still looking at an opportunity to bring the river to the downtown this project is a key note to that opportunity and there are other uh projects that are in the pipeline that can follow suit there's been a lot of conversation between the city staff the uh the project developer and uh the city council in regards to housing housing is the number one priority that santa cruz county chamber without a strong vital uh economy and people to live near work uh we cannot make it through the pandemic and into the next uh millennium the opportunity here is in front of you i would think this would be the greatest opportunity to create a vital downtown i believe you this one comment uh there are a lot of people that have suffered greatly and it was mentioned about the firestorms that have displaced you know 925s uh homeowners they're now looking and searching for home that has exasperated the rent in in santa cruz county many of them have now relocated because they can't afford a place in downtown they can't afford a place in the county at all so i think it is an opportunity to find housing for all the people that want to live in santa cruz especially in downtown thank you for your time okay i am not seeing any additional folks trying to reach out um so i will go ahead and um close the public comment at this time um and if if we don't mind uh if council doesn't mind i think if we take about a about a five to six minute break um just to just to stress for a minute get a glass of water a cup of coffee and we'll reconvene um at uh 440 so thank you okay we'll go ahead and get restarted um i'm going to reopen our public comment um i'm going to go i did miss a raised hand so i'm going to go ahead and reopen the public comment to to get this last comment and then we'll bring it back to council for further deliberation uh so i am looking at phone number ending in 1884 please go ahead looking at number 1884 okay they're ready peter mayor mires i'm sorry interrupt but um perhaps the direction about how to unmute with the star six would be helpful i don't know if i did that if i thought they're already unmuted yeah okay muted them to talk bonnie can you unmute them again bonnie are you able to unmute them i'm not i can ask them to unmute peter can you tell them to press star they're unmuted go ahead and speak are you there i'm not hearing them bonnie yeah i i heard them talk they're talking okay okay thank you this is jenna cole from bike shana cruise county go ahead jenna hi thank you so much um just uh a few comments about um bike access um mr lalar and i have had multiple conversations in a bike ride um and while we do understand um the confines and the constraints of the um of the stairwell and the access for pedestrian with the bike rail i really just want to reiterate that a bike rail doesn't work for everyone um folks that have a heavy bike like an e-bike would not be able to push their bike up a bike rail nor bring it down a bike rail um folks with kids or with a cargo bike or with a recumbent bike that's not an acceptable access point um for them um i am happy to hear that um that there will probably not be street parking on front street in front of the proposed building that um takes a little bit of pressure off of cyclists if we can maintain a straight line um of travel on that side of the road in in front of the the new proposed building i would also like to recommend that the bike um the bike lane is extended around the corner onto so cal and that potentially we could have a a way to access the levy at that at the bridge where there is a already access point except that that a hard right hand turn a 90 degree onto that um sidewalk and then onto the the levy trail would be nearly impossible to stay on your bike so if there is a potential to have kind of like an on ramp or a a curb cut that would allow for that that would be great we would also recommend that leading from the levy trail to so cal that there's some kind of treatment that would assist bikes in crossing so cal thanks for the time thanks for taking my call thank you peter we now have a caller with the number 2174 if you could announce that and see if they need transportation and many others participated in the downtown recovery plan and we gave a consistent message that this proposed building was too big too tall uh totally understand the needs for affordable housing we don't have a need for housing in santa cruz we have a need for affordable housing there are still trying to lease units in 555 pacific well 20 units maybe better than none it is a very tiny percentage that means 150 units at market rate which obviously bumps up the area medium income so in the long run this makes it less affordable in our town i disagree that that extra story does not impact views as i looked at your visuals especially from laurel street it is very impactful the extra story jargon about bringing the river to downtown etc etc i and many others don't see how this massive building does that basically it blocks the river from front street from other areas but the character of santa cruz dramatically i happen to be one who loves that little the units where university copy etc those buildings those small buildings over the heart and soul of santa cruz and this will turn it into generic um usa we're very sad to see this i think there are other ways to get 20 affordable units and finally i just say i don't see why it's a legal question that you could require a condition that the extra units be for section 8 housing the council has that authority to make that a condition of appeal thank you very much thank you 362 and if you could we are ready to hear you if you can unmute yourself mute by preparing star 6 on your phone so that you can hear that right now you are not listening hello good evening good evening council this is judy grunstra i am not opposed to this project but i think it does need tweaking i think you shouldn't downplay the coastal commission's concerns the public benefit um one of those things that i am concerned with is the 418 project it seems to be an unresolved issue and a lot of people in the community are concerned that we will lose that arts opportunity um so i'd like you to even write in something in the agreement with the developer that there will be provision for an arts organization in this building which will very much contribute to the vitality of our city so um you know we need your support to show that you really support the arts by you know guaranteeing that there'll be some provision in this project for an arts organization such as 418 project um and um i didn't know if there's solar guaranteed in this project or not um also the public benefit i seem to recall that there was some sort of an amphitheater discussed along the river walk and i didn't see that in this particular presentation um and lastly it does matter what our buildings look like the height increase is will set a precedent for future oversized projects we know the city is changing but so far all the buildings that are being built are look alike very unimaginative unimaginative projects thank you good night you okay i'll uh return it back to council and i have uh councilmember Watkins yes thank you mayor sorry my dog was just barking let me quickly quickly apologize for that um i just want to thank um i want to thank the staff and uh the coastal commission it's really heartening to know that there's been you know just working meetings that are proactively trying to find reconciliation to move things along i want to thank those that also called in and just the work that went in to try to get to the concessions to move forward i um i also really appreciate the added benefits and i know that we were hoping to have this put up at some point so um you know i would like to see those at some point visually for us as well for consideration and um i have a few few comments and then i'm i'm prepared to make a motion to keep the conversation um in the policy direction going um having been on the council in 2017 when we approved the downtown plan it really was about listening to our community really wanting to have more of our um density in the downtown to really think about integrating our transportation and our business and our downtown in a way that's um uh you know the healthy downtown for all and a big part of that was also really thinking about how are we as a community really thinking about our incredible natural resource which is our river and this really is that first step in connecting the downtown to our river and really does provide this sort of new um new access and new um activation of the river so i it's really exciting um to get to this place i also at the time really talked about in 2017 when we when we did do this about the need for child care and i don't necessarily have that in my direction but i do want to just really state that for my colleagues and for the community and that um it is essential if we're thinking about bringing our uh families and we're thinking about our workforce and we're thinking about not having people drive across town for child care that we really think about how we're um kind of integrating that critical infrastructure into our planning processes although it may not apply for this project i do want to just sort of state that i also think that uh 418 is a great asset so however our economic development department can continue to work with them to help them secure a location i am definitely um supportive and encouraging of that as well as that bike um access and modifications for an integrated system of transportation um so i think just with that said i i feel that we have gotten to a place where um i think this project can really move forward and i also feel that even um with the you know what i heard from the developer is really an interest in wanting to have additional section eight housing and so i don't know if there could just be an informal type of recommendation um as part of sort of just the the council consensus but um at this point i feel we've gotten to a place where we have a project that's really been able to reconcile some of the concerns of the coastal commission um and after five years it's ready to move forward so that said i will go ahead and make a motion to um move the recommendation as proposed as well as the what just sort of flashed up um additional um community benefits that have been also added to uh to the recommendation so my motion is um as outlined in our staff report with the additional community benefits outlined uh through our staff as well and i will i will go ahead and second that for clarification really quick yes i assume that the motion would incorporate the uh revised additional finding uh and and the additional condition language that um that sam uh read off at the end of her presentation yeah with tony we had it we had a visual on it for a few seconds and then it just it was taken down but yeah i believe sorry i if samantha wants to put it up i had it up but i can't type the minutes at the same time so if councilmember walkins was that your intent with that was the intent of the emotion that was the intent i apologize wrong wrong language but the intent absolutely everyone see this go ahead and uh continue to councilmember coming so we have a motion on the floor uh councilmember coming and to um the developer for bringing us forward and the members of the community and one of the things that um really stands out to me as i was reading through this um this agenda report is just how much has been done to try to increase affordable housing in the community so you know the the purpose of the density bonus law is really was really to try to get more affordable housing and make it feasible for developers in our community pass measure o because we care about having more affordable housing and even when you know staff works with the coastal commission to to update our lcp you know the it sounded like through um through our agenda reports that you know the the real reason why the or one of the main reasons why the coastal commission was in favor of increasing that height was because there was an argument made by the city that this would help for there to be more affordable housing in our community and um you know and in previous discussion staff has brought up you know in order to get more affordable housing we need to restrict the housing you know there needs to be programs that are going to create more affordable housing and i think this is an opportunity um for us to try to work with the developer who's expressed interest in you know trying to make more affordable housing work especially as it relates to section eight housing vouchers and so um i had a substitute motion i wanted to put on the floor um and i'd send it over to the clerk but it would be to direct staff to work with the developer to discuss and attempt to negotiate a commitment of a specified number of units with a minimum of 15 units that would be that would increase the number of affordable housing affordable units through the use of sectionate housing vouchers and or the creation of a mechanism that would increase the number of affordable units through the use of sectionate housing vouchers prior to approving the project as a community that's it there's one um prior it's on um line number four that should be stricken from that those are typo i would second that but i did want to clarify um uh council member Cummings do you mean uh an amendment to the motion because that piece is just to um the question around affordability so we have the other items to also be considered so are you proposing an amendment i guess the reason why i was saying a substitute because if we my hope is that if we could negotiate those benefits they can be included and then if it comes back we could approve everything i mean i just am focused on a way in but i just everything and we asked the staff to go and you know i think that we need to you know see if this discussion can be had so we passed everything all in one motion um so that was the intent of having to be a substitute motion is allowing for that discussion to happen because it sounds like um these are comments from the developers and based on comments from staff there might be a way to make this work but people aren't sure and i think trying to hash that out this evening is probably not feasible but if we can allow them to try to work this through and have it come back to us you know i think that it will increase affordable housing and the reason why i also added the second portion of the creation of a mechanism is because obviously over time when units become vacant there may be an opportunity to have some kind of 30-day policy where it's offered to section eight i'm trying to create um the opportunity for in the future for there to be people who can use section eight boundaries and and get into housing thanks for the clarification so yes i'll second that so we have um mr kundadi and and i'll need your guidance just kind of you know armchair armchair uh quarterback with me here so we have a substitute motion on the floor can we put that up back up i'm not sure that i caught that with the second um tony we have to vote on this substitute motion you have to vote on whether to accept the substitute motion and then uh if the council votes to accept the substitute motion then you can call the question and vote on the motion for all the council members hopefully that is clear we the first step will be to accept this motion and then we would vote on the substitute motion um i'll take a few minutes just a way in here um i i appreciate this approach um and also want to acknowledge the work that has been done by the applicant and the additional effort that they have come forward with in terms of um their proposal to add uh mining into our affordable housing trust fund as well as um upwards potentially as much as half a million dollars uh i i look like there's a real commitment from them as well to look at um not only just bringing the the housing to the river but also participating in sort of how the river will um sort of be managed and maintained and some other benefits there uh i've been running running around on that river for a long time and um was part of a lot of the planning work um after the earthquake with regards to preparing um some of the new plans on the river um and participating in a large citizen committee that that was convened by the council back then that actually prepared the San Lorenzo Grumman river plan and um in that process we actually had we had full consent about really around bringing um some housing to this part of the river um because of its location next to transit and other things um and i think what i'm seeing on is um and many of our conversations kind of come to this point um with regards to housing housing projects and development projects and that um you know i think we all feel it's incumbent to get as much benefit and as much affordable housing out of every project um but i think also the intent of some of the state law um and especially the um the new the new law that you can't discriminate against people with section eight vouchers which is an incredibly important uh rectification of what was really um not a functional system um i think that that law and the recognition um by the applicant actually and acknowledgement of that um is really important that um we're working with a developer and we're working with a set of folks who are wanting to do public benefit with regards to what what kinds of outcomes may come from this project especially connecting a river down to front street and then you know basically across um what's going to become a much more active area i think they're well aware of of the obligation that comes with um the new laws around section eight uh and i think you know 20 units is is significant yeah we would all want more units but not every housing project that's going to come before the city of fancruz is going to be able to accommodate all the things that we want and i do believe that it's important that we recognize that you know we need a mix of housing types downtown is the perfect place to do that you know i've talked to people who you know want to retire and move into a small place like this downtown and have the flexibility to you know be here but also you know not to have the burden of of maintaining a large house or other things i know that is a a problem that not everyone shares in this town um the kind of person in this town allows us to have more more mobility in the rest of our housing market and i think that that's something we often forget is that um the way that we have a housing ecosystem is that we need bits and pieces of all kinds of housing so that we get that that possibility between the different types of unit sites and so um the most exciting thing i think about this project is i look at it in the context of the neighborhood that it's going to be in and it is going to be a neighborhood that has um you know well over 100 units of 100 affordable housing across the street with the with the metro project the south and north project we've got some other market rate on the other side we're hoping to have additional affordability uh in two other projects just walk away um obviously we've we've already committed to the tannery and other projects along the river um i think again my my opinion um as far as it goes is that i try to keep my eye on the fact that we need to create lots of different housing and i think this project does that uh and i think i've heard a really good commitment that and a recognition of state law that um frankly i didn't even know that that had occurred so this this ability for people to section eight vouchers to get access to housing is it's just critical so um i really appreciate it i really really appreciate the the motion at this point but i feel that it is somewhat of a redundant attempt to basically um try to i i understand the intent but i do think we're covered under the new state law with the section eight vouchers and i think it's incumbent upon um our economic development department and our planning department to be working with anyone who's building housing now to really understand what that is and to make sure we we're communicating that as much as we can with regards to our existing housing stock so i won't be able to support the motion i do appreciate um its intent but um i am um i won't be voting for the substitute motion so those are my comments and uh and i will go ahead and um call on uh member uh call on tarish johnson thank you mayor mires um i was going to speak to the first motion but i'll just speak in general i first want to thank the staff mr lowler and his team for the incredible work that's been done over the years i um spent since thursday night looking at the very thick agenda packet um the thorough information that was in there listening and watching the previous council meeting and reviewing all of the um correspondence that have come in since then um you know this project is well thought out it's aligned with multiple city plans as as mentioned by mr lowler and an outline in the agenda report it also operationalizes the three pillars of our recently adopted framework of health and all policies um that of health equity and sustainability and it does this by really shifting our downtown culture to be a space that people can live work and recreate um the project provides an opportunity to house a wide array of individuals and incomes including young adults um this is a group that i've worked extensively with that um having are really struggling with finding a place to live in our community um yes i i agree with the um comments around uh we would we'd like to have more affordable housing um and i think the the um direction that council member watkins proposed uh pursuing an informal process process to explore the um providing preference to section eight vouchers for units that stay vacant for a certain amount of time um what bonnie lipscomb um provided so i think i think if we could do that through an informal process and not delay this project any further um would be the direction i'd like to go you know just in looking at projects there's always there's always a flaw in every project in every policy and i think that if we stay in the loop of find the plot find the flaw for every project we really won't make any progress towards our vision of a vibrant community um and we'll perpetuate the housing crisis which of course impacts so many other of the challenges we face in our community so i think that this is um again a well thought out project that is aligned and meets many of our city goals and visions and um thanks for all the work that's gone into it thank you and i've got council member brown um and tony i just want to make sure that um i'm doing this right in terms of you know just continuing to have dialogue but we will go back and and need to get back to that um substitute motion correct okay i just want to make a few comments uh which are relevant both to the substitute motion and uh the final vote on the the initial motion should we go that route um so first i just want to say i really want to support a housing project and i actually believe that this location and higher density location is appropriate um you know there are many i'd like to see a number of changes to the project um many of which have been raised by members of the public so i'm not going to repeat them but you know related to design and height um the bike path and certainly uh you know would like to having talked now for at least you know four years with laura bisha from the 418 project find a way forward to support their being able to be part of this project i think um we absolutely uh would want to encourage uh you know creative spaces spaces for for people to engage in the kind of artistic activities that 418 uh sponsors and promotes and and makes space accessible for those activities um and i recognize that we don't have uh the discretion we don't have discretionary authority for a lot of those things so i'm uh while i'm just raising that here i'm not suggesting that um that would uh those would be the basis upon which i determine my supporter opposition to this project um i really want support for a housing project um and i've i've just been frustrated that there have not been uh projects coming to us that actually that make a real meaningful commitment to our affordability crisis um i appreciate the constraints that you know developers have in financing um and at the end of the day my responsibility is to the public interest and public benefit and you know i believe that there is a case to be made for stacking the uh inclusionary and density bonus affordable affordability requirements i i know that that is uh not what our legal counsel has uh has suggested is is the way forward but i think i've talked with other land use attorneys and affordable housing advocates and and i believe that this is up to interpretation and ultimately it might be settled in the court at some point moving forward whether here or in another community um and when it comes to the arguments about needing uh you know a variety of housing options you know i recognize that that's important as well but i want to remind my colleagues and the public that we have exceeded our above market uh rena original housing need assessment requirements we have exceeded uh our requirements and uh on market rate housing overall we are woefully behind when it comes to low income and very low income units that have been built we are we are so far behind that it's it's you know it's kind of just it doesn't it's unfathomable to me that we would be supporting uh high-end luxury development which is likely to bring uh a new mix of uh of residents to our community and as was suggested uh likely contribute to increasing our median our area median income which will just exacerbate the problem for those who are not able to um you know who are working in in those um you know low low paying jobs that we depend upon as a community um so you know i just i i just wanted to say that um you know i think that uh the you know the the coastal commission's letter is um not certainly not definitive but um you know they've made a case that um encouraging affordable housing is a priority and that public benefit is a priority and i don't believe that simply building uh you know space for commercial activity and high-end housing is a public benefit in and of itself i just disagree with that um you know the inclusionary requirements and the density bonus requirements um are provided in our you know separate zoning code chapters they're they're independent of each other um and the stat you know staff has said that um the code does not say we are uh required to uh stack those and for those those requirements to be additive it also doesn't say that they shouldn't and so i think there is room for interpretation about about our discretion in that regard uh i'm sorry that we were not able to get some kind of uh you know more uh positive response about the potential to use uh section e is set aside for meeting those requirements and um so uh you know and i i would hope that we could further that discussion before we approve this project at the end of the day um with that i'll just uh say that this is these are my my rationale for supporting the promotion made by councilmember Cummings and um i'll leave it there for for now thanks thank you councilmember brown councilmember golder thank you to everybody for your comments it's given me a lot to think about um one thing that um i'd like to share but i um is that i've been in talks with the 418 project as soon as this afternoon and they um said with this whether they'd be in here or another spot they're not going to be going out of business and they're they've got other spaces already kind of that they're working on so that they're willing to share much more than that publicly yet but i just wanted to share that the other thing i would like to say is that while i am fully supportive of um councilmember Cummings intent with to substitute motion i also think that having a project pencil out and have it actually get built is a benefit to the community and when you think about the reasons that housing costs a lot and you think about the high cost of real estate just the raw land in california the value of that then you talk you add in the high higher wages that um are paid here in california as opposed to you know other states or what what have you it tends to you know um increase the cost of the project and then to balance out if you don't want super luxury apartments yet that has to be a perfect you know nothing safer it has to be a balance where if we increase the amount of affordable units in this project the the developers will have to make the project pencil out in order to get the financing that they need then the other units are just going to cost more and so i think finding that balance is really delicate and so it's i just think adding more restrictions by putting um that there has to be a certain number that are only to section eight would make it more complicated and might slow the process down and then increase the total cost overall which would increase the rents in the long run and so that's why i don't think i can support the substitute motion council member coming and then i think i'd like to if we can um take a vote on the substitute motion and i've got uh and just and did you yeah i just i just put my hand down so sorry okay it was up and i'm down so quick okay yeah come on please so i just wanted to um mention for the purposes of clarifying how the vouchers are used and the book correct if i'm wrong because i know there's some people who are very familiar with putt the recipient of that about section eight actually wouldn't affordable units to be at market rate but they'd be subsidized using this as a mechanism because it actually would allow for the project to pencil out recent the number of affordable units so i just wanted to say that because it sounded like there is um a misunderstanding with the use of section eight housing vouchers and i wanted to make sure that was clear thank you uh council member bruner thank you mayor meyers uh you know this has been a really good discussion and i appreciate all of the information since thursday when this packet was delivered and the correspondence and many uh questions answered since thursday regarding many of the uh points that have been brought up and um i think that uh i just want to say thank you also for the due diligence to everyone involved with this and to all the points that have been brought up i think it's really important to hear from you know people in the community that have brought up points that maybe uh some of us were not thinking of or were not aware of and uh you know certainly um you know that's important to take into consideration when we're making a decision with this uh i have of all people are really strongly for affordable housing i've said that through my campaign and um every day through um supporting housing and affordable housing in this community is a priority and a uh necessity uh and we have to um really do our best to support that in all ways and with this uh development um i just have to emphasize the 15 very low permanent deed or shifted permanent homes are so key and needed and um i i see that um you know i i think that was uh uh council member Cummings uh substitute motion i'm curious about this process because i see that more as a direction to staff to work with um on on this and uh i i i just wanted to put that out there thank you council member burner i think that um we'll go ahead and um take a vote so the process is that we will vote to accept the substitute motion correct Tony yeah depending on the outcome of that vote then we would vote on the substitute motion which would mean um that the original motion um it would not be on the table at that point so i just want to make sure everybody i know we have new council members so this is all new um and so what the substitute motion would be if it if it is approved that would um eliminate the original motion that council member Watkins uh voted on so let's go ahead and i will call uh after a roll call vote on uh accepting the substitute motion council member Watkins no talentory johnson no brown boulder no vice mayor brunner no mayor meyer no so that motion fails with council member Watkins voting no talentary johnson voting no council member boulder voting no council member brunner voting no and mayor meyers voting no council member brown voting yes and council member Cummings voting yes so with that decision we'll move on to the original motion and that motion was to accept the uh staff recommendation which includes adopting the resolution certifying the environmental impact report adopting the resolution adopting the findings of fact the mitigation monitoring and reporting program and a statement of overriding considerations excuse me overriding conditions an adoption of a resolution approving the non-residential demolition authorization permits cultural permit design permit tentative map special use permits administrative use permits revocable license for outdoor extension area heritage tree removal permit and street tree removal and the addition of condition in i need that language i'm not sure who has it sam do you have that you may have that up additional language in the um condition yes yes how do we refer how do i refer that in the motion is that the december um january 12th condition uh let's see um it's it's just condition here okay does this have a name or do i how do i refer to it they just refer to it the condition added on january 12th eight that's revised on january 12th okay and i will take a wrote roll call vote okay sorry go ahead uh i think it's this whole samantha isn't it the whole this is can you go up a little bit on your screen oh i see where it says and as an additional condition okay got a new condition of approval local culture so it's all it's all of the bullets there yes this is the finding that would be included in the resolution and then this is the new condition of approval it goes down to the second page got it great thank you well is there a clarification you need councilmember comings before i call the vote i just have a question and want to just make a brief or a comment okay please go ahead um so i don't know if maybe somebody from and maybe i mean this is related um but i'm just curious if if there's any information on how he is tracking or if we can get information back on how the state is tracking the um the new regulations around section eight because um while you know there's not supposed to be discrimination um for housing we've heard people in our community um over time feel like they've been discriminated based on the race or sexual orientation and so i think it'll be really important uh moving forward that we you know determine how we're going to track our discriminating based on section eight because my hope would be that you know after this building is built some of these units some people with section eight vouchers could get into these units but you know if there's not a way to track thing and um whether the discriminatory practices are happening i think it's going to be really difficult in our community to enforce that i also wanted to say um that i do project and what it's going to do for the river i do believe that um this project has the potential for uh activating that space in a in a much more positive way um recently or a couple years ago in fact chicago and a lot of the chicago river they used to not have they used to be a lot of um vacant unused space and they when they after they reactivated it by putting in businesses and and um and bars and places for people to hang out in restaurants it really created this um really inviting and vibrant space around the river and so i'm hoping that with some of the projects that we have coming forward that we'll see the river turn into a very active space um but you know i think as we've been discussing and as councilmember brown pointed out we have a substantial market rate housing in our community that is above and beyond our original goals and um you know some of this housing at this point you know due to covid uh they are you know a lot of these market rate units are offering incentives for people to move in and a lot of that's because people can't afford to live there and you know when we think about how badly people have been impacted these days by covid and through the loss of jobs and the loss of income having affordable units is going to really be critical and um and really trying to you know make sure that we're not gentrifying our community because even if seniors can move out of the houses at their end uh into some of these units um for example you know those units that are going to become vacant oftentimes are then jacked to market rate or to higher rates and um and so you know we're we're building a lot more market rate units and while we're building up you know more affordable as well i think we really need to continue to ensure that um we bring down the cost of living in Santa Cruz we're the fourth most expensive place to live in the world um when you look at cost of housing to median income and as a tourist community we really need to continue to push for policies and to push for more that increase affordable housing and more affordable housing so i'm just going to say that because um while i i think this project has a lot of good that it's going to contribute to the community um given that you know when i'm going to be able to take a couple more weeks to try to maximize that affordable housing i can't support the project in my comments um and yeah i hope we can continue trying to find ways to increase affordable housing throughout the evening thank you and uh councilmember uh what do you have a comment or i'm just trying to get this oh i think you understand okay i have i do have a really quick comment i just really want to thank and acknowledge peter for being on here this evening as well and providing access to our spanish-speaking community members and thank you mayor meyers for um after seeing that up i think it's really essential so i just i had thought about that earlier and i just needed to say it so thank you for giving me that moment thanks very much okay we will do a roll call vote on the motion uh councilmember walkins can't uh excuse me councilmember calentary johnson i councilmember brown no councilmember coming no councilmember golder councilmember brooner and mayor meyers votes aye the motion passes with councilmember walkins voting yes councilmember calentary voting yes councilmember brown voting no councilmember coming voting no councilmember golder voting yes vice mayor brooner voting yes and mayor meyers voting yes the motion passes five five yeses to two nos and that concludes this item for this evening um i do want to reach i do just want to reiterate um all uh thank the staff um for all of their work this was an incredibly complicated project um just a huge amount of um work done on all the um policy analysis and working with the applicant i want to thank the applicant i want to thank my fellow council members um these are hard decisions and i appreciate everybody's comments this evening and um we'll move on to our final item of the evening which is oral communications oral communications um is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda if you are interested in addressing the council please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand you will have two minutes to speak when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted you request that you clearly and slowly state your name before making your comments so that we can accurately capture the meeting in the meeting minutes however it is not required please remember that this is a time for council to hear from the public we are not able to engage in dialogue with each other with each member of the public but we when we are able we will address the questions raised after oral communications has been completed and i see bonnie it looks like we have three attendees in in our with three hands raised so i will go ahead and start this is for oral communications and just again this is for items not listed on today's agenda i see phone number 1810 please go ahead town native activist obsessive 200 year old grievance mongering with a privileged platform was not prior proper city business but is typical of leftist elevating victimization relevance of stale events ignoring that with each new day the past becomes a less relevant the el Camino bells roadmark or agenda items false pretense fabricated those bells as a glorification symbol of indigenous oppression despite never being such when it sucks a position consider we have our own disingenuously installed authentically real present day glorification symbol of violent marxist anarchist vandalism arson assault looting of BLM terror right in front of city hall the leftists aren't interested in removing that actual and currently relevant violent mob glorification symbol or instructing 10-year-olds in the wider gory details of that movements marxist malcom x inspired destabilizing destructive hatefield mob anarchy revolution resume change and other motives despite or failed educational systems stale oppression obsessions the other removal fib the message mission history has not been told does not make virtuous the 2015 indigenous inspired desecrating hate crimes meeting out against catholic church put up with sarah statuary after canada's canonization sainthood which produced huge volumes of similar angry published narratives and the truthful scholarly record of events has been told relation versions sufficiently hid by 100% of mission the horrific native population reduction was instead truthfully due mostly to defenseless deaths from deadly european diseases food resource issues and later post mission events and not as solely expressed implied purposely all done by missionaries which slanted your narrative into one-dimensional mudslinging epidemics are not genocide nor are convertive natives into proxy colonist farmer ranchers that intended them to live as colonists not die stakeholders should be ejected boot to rear if they associate mission history as genocide with inappropriate modern-day moral judgments instead of a severe epic tragedy in a different time update vowed that churches of today are compassionate and charitable and it's time for forgiveness and acceptance after 200 years which in no way denies ancient fatalities terrorized natives or the catastrophic consequences of colonization thanks next is caller with the last four digits three one three five bonnie hi i believe i got four minutes for group time is that correct i was not notified of your request for the four minutes i sent you an email three days ago i did not receive it i don't know why it was you you're a d mires in city of san jacuzzi right yeah but i did not receive your request well are you prepared to let me go ahead or are you going to allow that to stop me i will give you four minutes this evening mr north you know i'll send you a copy of it to show you i'm not i'm not trying to mislead you okay here's the story i'm a little concerned that there's nothing on the city council agenda tonight regarding the issue of the edict issued by uh city cat city manager martin Bernal that has now led to what may be a rather costly lawsuit but even more important it would be it seems a particularly outrageous behavior in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of winter in the situation of fiscal crisis to be using police funding to drive people away into what amounts to the downtown area and other neighborhoods this is a similar argument and a similar problem that we had a year and a half ago with the ross camp but it's even more pressing in the times of this pandemic so naturally people went to court and said hold it and the judge agreed and has agreed again today as you probably know already the temporary restraining order granted a week ago has in fact been continued for another week as the city attorney and his deputies frantically flail about looking for pretexts to claim that they have some kind of alternate shelter or affordable housing which they don't and that's pretty which pretty much well known it was admitted to the judge and the judge kind of you know cocked her head and looked at them anyway the community needs to know that there was a renzo park has paid off the absence of this council's authority in its refusal to take any action in the winter rolling away on winter vacation while other people are out there freezing and facing covid and then also facing the police it's incredibly well i think it's both stupid in terms of any kind of actual solution of the situation even on a short-term basis so i'm i'm urging the community to again mobilize to assist this community this is where the city council will not i also want to note that there was a violent police assault on a disabled epileptic activist a guy called eric the partner to alisha cool of the santa cruz homeless union you know the real one not the phony union that you had you gave special presentation time to that has no union but there actually is a union that's suing you in court if you've heard the details of this case but you need to and if anybody here is interested i suggest perhaps sandy brown perhaps just in coming perhaps two of the new incoming council members perhaps you donna you are the mayor and i've also requested of course an interview with you in case you wish to go into some detail about what you your platform and your program is regarding people who are outside there's continued harassment of rvs around delaware avenue people do not have places to go there is a limited association of safe communities and vehicular safe zone area but it is insufficient and in this in the situation that we're in particularly it's important that police let people shelter in place and the kind of right-wing activism that alarms some communities that we saw in washington dc last week is apparently perfectly acceptable here in in santa cruz against homeless people particularly it seems to be even connected with the police department where people like deborah elston of next door doesn't mind multiply ticketing people who have no funding whose only survival is their vehicles i think this is outrageous and i would expect the community to stand up and feel the same way and i think perhaps some of them do in any case sum up a few of the points that i think you need to consider here uh people are not liking this i'm not just talking about trump supporters i'm talking about people who are poor in this community where you build these massive non affordable projects masquerading is affordable housing you put it here in the situation where there's no real housing and no real shelter and no winter shelter you also refuse to do any winter sheltering so i'll leave it at that community do take action where this mayor and this council will not thank you the next caller is ending in 3135 please go ahead good evening my name is janine roth and i am a santa cruz city resident i'm also calling to talk about the dispersal of people in san lorenzo park and i just wanted to say that i hope you're disappointed in the manager and the parks director approached that dispersal firstly they chose to do it under the cover of a holiday break when automated voicemails and emails told citizens of residents of the city that the city was off until january secondly they used the pandemic as part of the justification and the authorization and yet the dispersal was explicitly against CDC guidance regarding encampments we heard earlier this evening that the pandemic is at crisis and the communications you know the executive order was all about city resources and money in a manner that is insensitive and inhumane if this were another wildfire we'd consider those affected by homelessness as our community and have all sorts of positive here's what you can do messages but for the homeless it's only here's why they are a problem in fact i understand that chief mills wants to present in ordinance to effectively criminalize homelessness that's not acceptable they are not other they are people in our community i know you're hearing from unhappy residents who support dispersal i do hope that they're not also the ones that complain to you about development projects i also hope they're not the ones who voted against measure h which would have brought money for more homeless services of housing some of us are just simply unhappy because your plan appears to be to repeat cycles of displacement you know i am tired of hearing that the problem for the city is that the county gets all the money what do you want a city resident to do with that i want to help so help us help you help the community thank you for an opportunity to speak thank you the next speaker is with the phone a flat four digits of 4409 please you can go ahead hi there this is uh danny drivesdale i am a city resident and i am the ssp coordinator for the harm reduction coalition san kris county i'm also calling in about the dispersal of folks at the san lorendo park um yeah just as a local service provider uh who does a lot of work with our unhoused community i'm also distressed by this order um especially distressed by the way that happened over the holiday break um without you know action from council i think that is setting a very scary precedent and also it's just like uh not the way that we should be addressing the situation especially in the midst of this pandemic um as others have already said this the sweep does go against cdc guidelines very strongly um gail newall did say that she wouldn't have supported this as an advice but she wasn't even advised on this i think if we are going to take actions that are uh supposedly to address the COVID-19 pandemic then we should be following the lead of our public health professionals and champions like gail um so yeah as someone who does a lot of work in that in this area i i i think it's scary to think that all those folks are going to get swept along i was there um on the first day of the sweeps the the ones that went through um before everything got paused by the court situation and it was you know really hard for folks to try and move their stuff that quickly um had a conversation through a translator with a monolingual spanish speaker who had no idea the sweeps were going to happen because there's nothing close to in spanish um and he had to have folks that were just there that day like translate for him to explain what's going on i think that that is also like this shouldn't be happening at all but at least you know a sign in spanish would be nice for people um who aren't going to be able to read science post probably in english and then beyond that yeah i think this is just like a really dangerous time to be uh possibly you know to be dispersing people throughout the community and possibly increasing the spread of COVID it's going to make it harder for service providers to access these people and i think it's a huge mistake i think there's recountful action to reverse it thanks thank you final speaker for oral communications has a phone number ending in 2377 you can go ahead and speak please um body to unmute you should be able to unmute yourself by pressing star six and you're we're we're ready to hear you speak this is for numbers 2377 ending in number 2377 there you go thank you yeah Nicholas whitehead as we march into a brand new year an old unresolved problem places us outside our homes the dilemma of unhoused people in large numbers in our streets camper vehicles tents in our parks we have to unite as a community in a reasonable sensible manner to reach some agreement on what is permissible and what is impossible to accept we need to combine our best thoughts and our power of will to design programs that provide more survival space and essential services to homeless population at the same time we must insist on more personal responsibility from individuals depending on our goodwill and tolerance we need to combine every sector of our society in a common effort to re-envision this whole human degradation that means for business community the tax paying property owners past and present members of the judiciary the legal profession law enforcement people from labor unions human service providers and communities of faith and we must include groups who are concerned with the welfare of children teenagers at risk unhoused families homeless seniors and disabled people out on the street until we the public create a better vision of the way ahead there will remain a need for emergency survival in camp fortunately a dynamic visionary mr. Brent Adams of footbridge group has drafted a well-conceived proposal for responsibly run transitional tent camps a big improvement from the current unmanaged camps city council of management please you need to take a thorough look at these proposals from the footbridge group and i wish you well in the coming year thank you seeing no other hands up i will go ahead and conclude our meeting for this evening uh this meeting is now adjourned thank you everyone good night