 Andy, are you there most people will be able to. Access the information on their computer. Okay, great. On there on the website, I'm going to go start the encoder and start the webinar. So just consider it hot and then I'll let you know when I'm back at my chair. Okay, have we heard from commissioners filming? I have not. Probably still intending to be here. Why don't we wait a couple of minutes before. Sorry, I ran into him today and talked about the meeting tonight. So I expect to be here. Thank you. Interesting at the. Transportation commission meetings, you can see. Okay, you can do it here too. I mean, who attends it is possible to do that. Okay, there is commissioner Spelman. I'm going to call the November 4, 2021. Meeting of the city of Santa Cruz planning commission to order to please have a roll call. Commissioner Conway Dawson, Greenberg. Here, Nielsen here. Maxwell and chair shifrin. Here, and I understand that commission on Maxwell is asking with notification. Are there any statements of disqualification? We'll come to all communications, but before we do so, because I've heard that someone at the last meeting wasn't able to call in. Because they weren't able to access the website. I'm going to ask the clerk to put up the information for people who want to call in. Not, we're not going to leave that up. If anybody's listening on community TV and needs wants to call in, write down that number right away so that you can do it because we're going to go back to, I'm going to ask the clerk to stop sharing the screen in a few seconds. Oral communications is a time when items, not on the commission's agenda, but appropriate for the commission can be talked about by anyone for up to 3 minutes. So, let me ask the clerk to please remove the shirts clean and open it up for communication. Is there anybody who would like to speak to the commission on an item that is not in our agenda. The, uh, Kyle Kelly, um, as a hand up, thank you. You have 3 minutes. Yeah, thank you. I just want to say thank you for proving 130 center street at your last meeting. I wasn't able to attend, but I was delighted that you were able to move it forward into get 4 extra units of affordable housing. So just a big thank you. That's all. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to the commission during all communication? Okay, um, we'll move on to the minutes of. Number 20 of October 21st. Are there any comments on the minutes? Does anybody in the public want to comment on the minute? Well, somebody like to move approval of the minutes of October 21st. I'll move to approve the minutes of October 21st. Is there a second? I'll second. Um, let's have a roll call vote. Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Conway Dawson, Greenberg. Hi, Nielsen. Hi, Philman, your share frame. That is unanimously we'll move on to the consent public hearings. This is an application for the pathway. Could we have a staff report and explain how consent public hearing is different from a regular public hearing. Is that a situation where I can just ask if anybody wants to have a public hearing? And if not, um, the commission, uh, there could be a motion just to approve the staff recommendation without a staff report. Yeah, that's correct. This item we believe is relatively straightforward. We haven't had any concerns expressed by any members of the public. Um, so you can forego the staff report if you'd like, um, ask questions. And I also, since it is advertised as a public hearing recommend checking to see if there's anybody here from the public that would like to testify before making a decision. Okay, thank you. Um, is there anyone on the commission who would like to have this be a public hearing? Is there anyone in the audience in the public that would like this to be a public hearing? Seeing no one, um, back and forth, uh, the commission, and is it correct, Mr. Marlitz, that somebody can just make a motion to approve the staff report if that passes that sufficient? Motion and second. Yes. So they'd like to make a motion to approve the recommendation to plan commission, acknowledge the environmental determination, approve the coastal permit, design permit, and slope variance based on the findings and conditions in the staff report and exhibit a. I'll make a motion to that effect. Is there a second? Hold second. Uh, just to, before we have the vote, let me say, I went out and looked at the site. And it definitely needs the work that's proposed. So I don't have a problem supporting emotion. Did you want to speak to it? I don't know if we have a chance to ask a question. I said, 1 simple question, right? This. The damage that was done here was done in 2017. Here we are at the end of 2021. I'm curious, is this a financial. Issue that took us this time to get here or was it more of a process driven. Um, solution, just curious. Thanks. We have Josh from public works. Who's the, um, the applicant here and he can speak to that. Yeah, uh, yeah, I'm Josh Spanger senior civil engineer public works. I don't know when my video is not working right now. But it's not. So, um, really it's staffing shortage is more than anything else. We haven't had available manpower to tackle this project. At all. Until now, I mean, this has been in design for a while and now applied for the. Uh, coastal permits, which entitled, which entailed obviously a archeological review and then biological review. Um, and then during the, I mean, it seems like there was 1. 1 hang up after another, uh, there was then there were the fires last year, which. That's which, uh, sidelined a bunch of the people doing those reports. So those are all delayed a few months. Um, but, and, and my staff is still down 1 person and we only filled. Uh, uh, another spot within the last couple of months. So. It's, it's been a challenge to get to this. I'll just leave it at that. It's not so much of money. Or a financial thing because it is, uh, at least partially. Supported by FEMA and California office emergency services. So, and we've been in contact with them continuously throughout this whole process. With, uh, with regards to, you know, extending the deadlines for getting this done and whatnot. But really what it is is just, there's too much work and too few people to do it. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for that clarification. Of course. Are there any other questions or comments by commissioners? Yeah, I just quick question and I fully admit that I may have missed this, but I wonder if staff can just comment how this aligns with our climate climate adaptation plan. And, and if, you know, we're, we're taking the route as far back as we possibly can planning for. You know, future sea level rise, which we know is coming. So something can just either point me in the direction in the staff materials and just say I missed it or comment on that. Well, I'd be, I'd be happy to respond if, if, if Mr. Marlott believes I'm the appropriate person. Um, the so, uh, so there are two, there are two comments I have to make to that. First of all, we can't really push the path back. So, uh, just as a, as a brief overview of the project, that the, the failure along the left side of the path was not due to, to wave action or sea level at all. It's due to overtopping from the storms from the February 2017 that dumped a lot of rain and were declared a disaster. It was a series of, I think four or five storms over a course of a week, something like that, that that's what exacerbated the erosion right there. So your question about sea level rise, uh, I, I, I don't know how relevant that is to this particular project right now. This block is about 30 feet above the sea level right now. So barring some, uh, catastrophic sea level rise event that that shouldn't be an issue as relates to pushing this far as far back as we can. As part of the, the idea of this project is we're not touching the bluff face at all to try to first of all mitigate any concerns from the coastal commission and second of all to stay away from what would be an overwhelmingly expensive project. So we're pushing this back the path back towards, towards, uh, west of drive. And we're supporting the, the new section there will be supported on a 20 or 30 foot drilled concrete peers. So it, it should, it should, I mean, and hopefully it'll last the rest of my lifetime at the very least. Uh, and, and not even, even if a continued erosion were to occur on that bluff face, it shouldn't impact it overly. But so at the end of this project, there will be. There will have to be a guardrail along west of drive and then there will be maybe four or five feet of slope before the path that we've retained by a retaining wall. That's it will be poured in Tigreal with the path and the pony wall of the outside edge that will support them. The railing. So it's, it's a fairly robust project. We could have, we could have designed a project. Probably that would have been a lot less expensive to build, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't have lasted very long. This, this we think was going to be there for quite a while. I don't know if I answered all your questions, but, but I'm happy to answer answer more. Yeah, just a quick follow up. Thank you for that description. And yeah, it does look very robust. And I should have been more clear. I just want to make sure that we're all continuing to think about climate impacts and it's not just the level rise. We know that storm intensity and frequency. Is is predicted to increase. And so. Storm surge and constant pounding, you know, along the bluff is something that as the city, we're going to have to continue to think about as we continue to make decisions about West West. Because that's something that's coming down the pipe for sure. So thank you again for the work on this and thank you for answering my question. Of course, and I agree with, I agree with everything you're saying and like, like you mentioned, this is a robust project and it's not addressed specifically in the West Cliff plan. Although it does embody some of the elements that are put forward to the plan specifically planned retreat. You know, and, and resiliency in the face of coming climate change. So, but, but like I said, it's not addressed specifically, but I do believe it meets so the goals that that are elucidated in that plan. Are there any other questions or comments from commissioners. There's a motion and second to approve the staff recommendation on this item. Could we have a roll call please. Mr Conway. Hi, Dawson Greenberg. Hi, Wilson. Hi, salmon. Hi, different. Motion passes unanimously. We'll now move on to general business item number three objectives. Development standards for multifamily housing community. Review address study session. Let me propose the following approach, which would be. The staff report. I'll probably presentation by the consultants. Questions from commissioners. Opening open up to the public for public comments. And then back to the commission for consideration. And action. So, let somebody objects will move right into the staff report. Great. Good evening. My name's Sarah noisy. I am a senior planner with the advanced planning division in the planning and community development department. I am joined tonight by our truly wonderful. Consultant team. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and we are going to usually at this point in the presentation. I say, I'm going to run through a couple of things really quickly. We're going to have a chance to look at the materials. And what I'm actually going to say today is there's a lot of stuff in this package. And we are going to go through it with the detail and attention that it deserves and demand. So, um. I hope you're all comfortable. I hope everyone has a beverage. This is going to be a long presentation just to warn everyone at the beginning. Can I ask you to say how long you think it's going to be? We are going to be in the neighborhood of 45 minutes to an hour is my guess. Is that going to be staff and consultant? Yes. Okay. That's that's fine. I just want to make sure there'd be enough time for community input. Yeah, of course. So, um, as I said, my name is Sarah noisy. I'm a planner with the city of Santa Cruz. I'm also joined this evening by Meredith rough from urban planning partners who's been project managing this project. And I'm also joined by a consultant side as well as Kristen Hall, who is the senior urban designer at Christian Hall City design, who has been so helpful and so insightful in terms of getting these standards together and interpreting the feedback that we've gotten from the community and bringing it into standards that we can implement and enforce as objective standards. So what we're going to cover tonight are we're going to do some background and talk about the community engagement that got us to this point of having some draft standards to discuss and look at. We're going to go through that draft that we have now. And then I'm going to talk about the mixed use districts and some other of the policy items that were also that are also sort of included right now in this package as sort of a first day lighting of these options. Then we'll have some next steps and then of course we'll have time for feedback and questions. So our objectives this evening that your commission understands the community engagement that's been conducted that you understand the proposed draft standards and the mixed use zone districts. As far as they are, you know, sort of in the preliminary state. Um, but your commission and the public can also understand some of the trade off and relationships between the standards and the community priorities that we heard through our focus groups and surveys. And then that there's an opportunity for direction in terms of how your commission sees further refinement being necessary of these standards. And then also having an opportunity for your commission to provide comments that will be that can be incorporated into consideration when we bring this item to a study session at the city council level, which will happen at the end of November. I'm going to talk about just some very quick projects background. As we all recall, the city of Santa Cruz has a general plan 2030 general plan that was adopted in 2012 and our zoning does not fully implement that plan. We pursued a grant to fund the creation of these objective standards because the housing crisis act of 2019 states that jurisdictions must use objective standards when reviewing. Housing development proposals and they further must implement those objective standards to the extent that they allow for fully realizing the planned capacity of housing on a given property. There is language in there about, you know, jurisdictions shall not apply standards in such a way to reduce the intensity of housing. This is a piece that I pulled out and put in your staff report for you. And it includes reductions to height, density, FAR, which is a regulation of building mass, increased setbacks or open space, anything that would quote unquote lessen the intensity of housing. And then we have here our example of a subjective standards development must be compatible with the character of the neighborhood. We have very similar findings like this and are currently in our design permit findings. And then objective standards, which are things that can be measured and documented and essentially fit on a very, very easily identified as being a yes or no in terms of reviewing and development proposal. So, a little more background on this project. So, when the, when the general plan was adopted, it envisioned a new land use pattern for the city and it made some changes to some of the land use districts. There was an effort to implement that general plan that was not well accepted by the community. That was a process known as the corridors plan. And when that process was set aside, the city council gave direction to staff to begin a new process to reconcile the zoning and the general plan. And part of that guidance was that outreach be more effective and that we consult with neighborhood groups that we prioritize protection of neighborhoods and protection of local businesses as top city priorities. So, when we were writing our grant applications for this project, we really had goals to have very broad outreach to make sure that we were reaching all kinds of voices about housing in Santa Cruz. And then we knew we were going to be focusing on multi-family and mixed-use housing just at several key sites because, as I mentioned, the discrepancy that we have with our general plan is really focused on a few key areas on Mission, Ocean Street, Water, and Hotel, two nodes on Brand Support East. So, one of the reasons we selected UPP is that their proposal really focused on equity and social justice, which was one of the key things that we wanted to bring into this discussion about housing. They were focused on well-informed participation, so a really important educational component of our outreach and engagement. And they are brought in a lot of new tools. This engagement that we've been doing so far has been not entirely but almost completely done online in the age of COVID, which has been a new thing for us to work with. And it's been a challenge and it's also been a really remarkable opportunity for us to pursue new ways of getting engagement and stretch ourselves in new ways. We wanted to make sure that we had, so that some goals that we set for ourselves with our community engagement were to increase inclusion of historically marginalized groups and ensure that we were getting representative participation. So, based on our census demographics, are we actually hearing from a representative segment of the population? We wanted to provide education and information to the community so they could provide informed feedback to us as we were collaborating to develop these standards. And we wanted to really add to the discussion about housing that we're having currently in Santa Cruz. And we'll continue to have over the next several decades. So, we went through, so we've gone through several stages. You know, the last time we were here talking to your commission about this, we had done, we had completed our test fit analysis. And we had done that in, we had gotten some information from a focus group of developers to make sure that we were considering all of the right pieces and thinking about how what affects the feasibility of developmental multi-family housing. And we discussed the results of those test sets with you about a year ago. In the spring of 2021, we had the opportunity to do our diversity equity and inclusion event, which we call designing Santa Cruz for all. And we talked about, we had just this wonderful opportunity to really talk about housing policy that affects communities across the nation and the effects that zoning has had over time and how those effects have not been equitably distributed among the population. And following on that event, we had our survey to define community character and I'll be going through some of the results of that tonight. And then following on the heels of that survey, we did some focus groups to make sure that we were filling in any gas that we had in our demographic data. So, I'm going to show you some slides from our designing Santa Cruz for all event. If you've had a chance to watch the presentation, it is on our website and I am actually pretty proud of that work. So that the presentation is there to like to watch it its entirety. I'm going to show you some of the slides that we use. I won't be going through all of this information in detail, but I just want to highlight a couple of things that we were able to discuss with the community and some education we were able to provide. We were joined by two guest speakers Gretchen Regenhardt of formerly of California Rural Legal Assistance and Diana Alfaro of Midpen Housing to talk about some of this history of zoning and the impact that has on affordable housing development. So this event was intended to educate people about the project and inform them. So why would we, you know, how would equity connect to objective standards? Well, you know, it does a lot of things. It creates certainty for all the participants, decision makers, community developers. It limits the ability of communities to reduce the number of units or to deny housing that should be built and that's planned to be built. Ideally these set standards for high quality design and then everyone gets to play by the same set of rules. So affordable housing developers have an equal playing field with developers that are better resource. Why would, why might we need some of these standards here in Santa Cruz? Well, a lot of the state legislation is really focused on production of housing units. I understand that not everyone is a supply side economics believer and that's the direction that the state legislation is taking. There are lots of components that fulfill a housing policy. Like I have this pie chart here that has the three P's. I've also seen this displayed as the three S's where it's stability, subsidy and supply. And this project, what we're talking about really is focusing on this production. The tool that we have in zoning and that we have in development regulations really has an effect on that component has an effect on how many units can be built. There are a lot. There are other components of a healthy housing policy and the city is involved in many of these. Some of these are heavily influenced by state and federal policy. They are all important. And what we are talking about today in terms of zoning tools is really focused on production of housing units. And the state is focused on this because of the existing housing shortage that we have in the state of California statewide, you know, their various estimates, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.8 million units needed between 2018 and 2025. And that would be a production rate of, I think, 180,000 per year. And we've been producing between 70 and 80,000 per year statewide. So, falling short of that target. We got a chance to talk about the racialized history of zoning. So, this is a deed restriction for the wrist and mansion over in Capitola. This was actually published in the newspaper like just several weeks right before the event that we held that identifies that there were actually racialized deed restrictions and neither common in homes around Santa Cruz County. These can no longer be enforced as of, you know, 1917 you can't enforce a specifically racialized deed restriction. But it sort of just demonstrates how housing has always been connected to social equity and racial components. So, yes, this can't be enforced as of 1917, but then following on that we got into a history of redlining, which I won't go into because it's a very long story. But redlining has only been illegal since 1968, which is really, that's barely 50 years ago. So, in terms of patterns of development and generational wealth, 50 years is really not very much time. So, all of this together we were able to, you know, bring all this information together to talk about how does zoning can zoning start to address racism. You know, when we have a fair set of standards that apply equally to everyone, all types of housing have a better chance of getting built and we need all types of housing to serve all types of households. So, we're ensuring that our processes can be more fair and then, as I mentioned before, we're creating more level playing field. This is a map that shows a representative of one dot per person for the this is based on the 2010 census. The 2020 census get data yet when we made this map, but you can see that certain neighborhoods are heavily concentrated, especially with our Hispanic population, which is shown on this map in orange. You can see that that population is really concentrated in the lower ocean and in the beach flats area and then a little bit around Grant Street Park and along the Ocean Street corridor. And those are places that are zoned for denser housing and the areas that are shown in yellow on the on the on the on the map and covered in blue dots. Those are single family neighborhoods that are primarily occupied by white families, white households. So, this is how this lingers in our land use pattern today. So, what have state and local governments done to combat housing segregation and move towards greater diversity of housing options for all income levels. In the theory is that we have state laws that get implemented by city programs that lead to increased housing supply and that is the the ethos that we have taken into this project. We are implementing a state law and the end goal is to increase the supply of housing unit. I wanted to also just point out to your commission. The state is extremely serious about this is I pulled here two screenshots from the one on the left is a press release from Governor Newsom that he's, you know, he signed 31 bills related to housing this year. And he's also dedicated a whole bunch of money toward housing in this in the current budget and, you know, focused on holding cities accountable for providing their fair share of housing. Right. This is just announced yesterday by the Attorney General is that they are the Attorney General's office is forming a housing strike force to enforce the state's housing laws and also in with cities and then also in terms of like tenants rights and homeowners rights and foreclosures and things of that nature. So the state government is getting very serious about this. And I think that we are just at the beginning of this conversation about housing and in terms of implementing new legislation as it as it rolls down from Sacramento. That's a lot of background about, you know, that was sort of our first event. We got to discuss, you know, the history of zoning, and then our next big outreach piece to the community was to do a survey to define the character of Santa Cruz. So we want, we want development that fits in with Santa Cruz as we build new housing. So let's define that. What does that mean? We got a total of 819 responses. 40 of those were in Spanish language. And we saw. So we got really great information out of this. We saw that people are really interested in having active space on the ground floor is sort of how that what exactly that means to be active. It wasn't quite as clear, but people are interested in having like active walkable spaces, wider sidewalks. Excuse me. Outdoor amenities and open space. We had a lot of comments about landscaping and trees as well. We did see support for making housing development more feasible, although that was in exchange. So we had a question about, you know, having feasibility versus reducing mass and bulk. Right. And that was a pretty close question. Actually, it was about 51% were in. Hold up. We should just do whatever it took to make housing more feasible. So definitely some concerns about, especially in the lower rise neighborhoods, how new development is going to fit in with the neighborhoods. We also heard, and this shouldn't be a surprise, but Santa Cruz is, is a fan of diversity in terms of architectural form. And they wanted to see a lot of freedom for architects. And then, and for the, for the most part, these responses were relatively consistent across demographic groups. We did kind of break it down by demographic groups on several questions to see if there were major differences. And there were a couple exceptions. I'm going to talk about one right now, which is about the height of buildings. And this one broke down about based on the language that we got our survey responses in, which I thought was interesting. So this was a quick question says for apartments with a mix of market rate and affordable units. What's the maximum height that you support on support on major commercial streets. So this is, you know, we're thinking about water, so tell an ocean street here and mission to some extent. And based on the test bits as we discussed last year, you know, we know that for these sites, especially on on so tell and water and on ocean street. We need a minimum of four stories to accommodate that four area ratio that we that we need to be able to accommodate. And so we were interested to see that, you know, when we look at all responses, which is by graph on the left, we actually have 60% of our respondents that chose something that was taller than four stories, so either five, six or no maximum height. And yes, four stories was the, you know, plurality response got a little bit over a quarter of the total responses. And 60% were ready to accept more. In Spanish language, the difference was a little more stark. So, in fact, in the Spanish language response, you know that that desire for four stories was much more popular had 41% of the responses. And also interestingly, the answers to this question relate to that. So we had a question about what are some good trade off to create create the option for less expensive housing. And the top answer was increasing building height, so allowing taller buildings, if that can somehow affect and reduce the cost of housing, that's the option that we want to see. And that was also the true, that was also the option selected by Spanish language respondents. So there is, I think, some tension, you know, and some, like, as is true in so many things about land use there's some tension we want. We want it all we want two things that may be hard to accommodate at the same time. So, you know, that's just sort of some some of the information about what we heard in the survey results. We also thought there was a lot of support for having exclusively residential buildings and commercial areas, which is something that's currently allowed in our code. So that's, you know, that's interesting and good to hear. We asked about, you know, how much space for retail or restaurants on the ground floor and kind of got a variety of of answers on this. But seem to indicate that, you know, some level of activity is really desirable, especially on these like on these corridor streets. So our standards do go into that to some extent. So this is so in thinking about balancing bulk and massive buildings and making rental housing more feasible because one of the things that our tests that showed is that, especially on these lower density sites, these are all sites. And now with, you know, SB 9 having passed our one site for you can develop a duplex. It's kind of hard to make those pencil out, especially in a way that would support rental housing, which is typically a little less profitable than making than doing for sale housing. And so we were interested in how the community thought about that. Is it should we be trying to make rental housing feasible or should we is it more important that we reduce bulk and like sort of keep the building small so they fit, you know, they're harder to distinguish from the other existing single family homes in the neighborhood. And, you know, we had a little over half that were much that we're more interested in making things feasible. So we've done we've added some things to kind of help for that along but this is one of the things that is just really challenging to accomplish with land use. I'm going to go through the rest of these kind of quickly. So other important things, even if they do increase housing costs, people were really interested in seeing architectural details and buildings with variety. Ground floor shops was another popular answer and then more parking was also something that people would like to see. So you prefer for buildings that are uniform in in design or eclectic. Absolutely Santa Cruz is an eclectic place architecturally and that's what people were interested in seeing. We also asked questions about how strictly to regulate things. And I was interested to note here there's almost there. There's nothing here that the community in general wanted the city to dictate a very tight standard about. There were a few things where it was a more popular answer to have to create some options for the architects to choose from rather than just leaving it completely open. So we've incorporated the feedback into the standards that we've written. So based on the we also asked them demographic questions with our survey to make sure so that we could. Evaluate if we were really reaching a representative sample of the community. So we were looking for who is missing from the survey response. And then we also wanted to think about you know based on where we do see this more intense or level of housing coming online as planned in the general plan. You know who's likely to be like living in that new housing and where is it going to be located. So we hold together six focus groups. We talked to students. We talked to adults under 35. We talked to low income households. We had a focus group with renters folks group with east side neighborhood residents. And a focus group with the Chiton X we cut Latin X community as well. So we talked to 40 participants overall. We also did two one on one interviews with folks who lived in low income households as well. So make sure that we were hearing from filling any gaps that we had in our survey data. In general the focus groups. Had similar themes to what we saw in the survey responses with strong opinions about architecture but very eclectic. So we they liked architectural features but there was no strong consensus about exactly which features are preferred or a specific type of architecture that people wanted to see. We also got feedback about you know what it's really like to you know thinking about development standards from a point of view of living inside the unit rather than just trying to regulate the outside of it. Which was really insightful and and brought us to standards that we that we've implemented around security. And private open space like really moving to a preference for private open space in these objective standards that's based on feedback we got through these focus groups. There was some sentiment in several of the focus several of focus groups that sometimes building heights or shadows of parking can be used to constrain housing stock and reject good project. We heard that repeatedly. Overall what we heard from our focus groups was that we should in these standards we want to prioritize affordability. We want to be looking to create livable and newer housing stock. We want to have neighborhood serving commercial uses things that people actually need in their neighborhood medical offices pharmacies grocery stores hair salons like things that people want to use on a regular basis. We heard a lot of comments about environmental sustainability both for buildings and then also for transportation. So a lot of comments about making it easier to walk and bike more inviting to walk and bike through the city. And then we also heard a lot of comments about landscaping and trees and the importance of adding trees maintaining trees having access to nature as part of new development. And now I am going to hand it over to Meredith and Kristen to walk through how we took that insightful commentary from our survey and focus groups and change put it into a set of objective standards. Sarah, I'm going to walk through the standards but Kristen is here our urban designer to really dig into things in the question and answer if you as a native. So before we get started just a couple more framing pieces. There are of course things like the sighting of curb cuts and the dedication of roadway. Those are absent from tonight's presentation. The hope is they'll be included in the final package that's up for adoption but for tonight we're focusing on the building design aspect primarily. Also wanting to acknowledge that there are lots of great area plans and Santa Cruz that have varying degrees of subjective and objective standards in specific neighborhoods. And we're currently working with city staff on identifying them and figuring out which of the subjective ones we should tweak to become objective and how those will work with this package of standards that you receive in your packet. And so that's an ongoing process and one that we actually are interested in any feedback you have. And then finally, we want it to be clear that these standards are a floor for building design not a ceiling. So we know you have the general plan area plan zoning code and where they might be subjective and unenforceable will have the safety net the objective standards to really try to ensure the high quality design where there might be gaps. So we have two sections of the standard one focused on site design, second focused on building design and the items in bold here are the ones that I'm going to touch on tonight. You of course have a whole packet and we welcome questions and discussion on any of them, but the ones in bold are the ones we heard the most feedback from on the community. And it makes sense because I think they're also the ones that are most noticeable to the average person walking down a sidewalk. So the first thing to hit on is, as Sarah mentioned, eclectic is very Santa Cruz. We heard, you know, there's a love for just different types. She mentioned also prioritizing smaller projects and something that's important to people and the desire for a newer housing stock and a need for multi families. This really came through when we did our focus groups with students and young adults. There were many of them who were living with family members and just wishing they could have a place of their own. And so in response to this piece of the feedback, we've done a couple things. One is trying to incentivize stacked flat building typology. You can think of this as like a fourplex where the circulation is shared within a building and the parking is not included in the envelope. We've proposed reducing the parking requirements by 50% for those types of buildings to try to incentivize these missing people at all types. We also introduced a new housing type, a work unit, and this is dwelling in that includes the commercial component. Thinking is the commercial use would be dictated by the underlying zoning. And then finally, in addition to the smaller fourplex, duplex, we have standards for larger mixed use buildings, higher density apartments, town homes. So we're really just, we're trying to increase the diversity of housing here. Sarah mentioned this. I won't go into too much detail about what we heard, but walkability was very important to people. We did some interviews with people who live in senior housing projects in addition to students and young adults and the full age spectrum of residents. That have a car free lifestyle. And of course, green space and landscaping is really important to the walking experience. So we have a lot of standards just around walkability. The whole section one B in the packet is about walkability. A lot of those standards are focused on creating more connectivity. So we have a standard that would say you cannot remove any existing public pathways or if you do, they have to be relocated. The net numbers still have to remain the same. And if your project is in the middle portion of a block, that's a larger block. So blocks that's greater than 500 feet, you would require a new public connection. So an alleyway pedestrian path and something so that you don't have these mega blocks that are just impermeable. We require such pathways to connect to adjacent public ways. And finally, we would require lots of entries on average of every 50 linear feet in the commercial areas. In addition to connectivity, we looked at how our crowd for design can really help make the environment more inviting for pedestrians and visually interesting. And so there's a whole section section to ease on ground floor design. The notable things there are that in the commercial and mixed use zones, we're proposing a minimum height of 15 feet for the ground floor. And there would be a transparency requirement of 70% for the majority of that round for really just trying to create visual interest and inviting commercial spaces that can be more viable. And then lots of standards related to circulation as well, requiring sidewalks at least eight foot wide, feet wide on the corridor and actually 12 feet wide when when face the corridor for most of the building frontage. And we also prohibit parking between the front lot line and predominant building space and residential parking screened from view. And we're just a couple of the things we're doing to try to improve walkability after ground floor go hand in hand with this. They are touched really well on this, but we heard from survey respondents that they do want some level of activity. There was some nuance and what types we heard some prefer retail over offices or lobby type uses. And we also heard in our survey that residential only buildings was a good trade off for less expensive housing. So kind of we're trying to balance a couple of different things here, but what we've come up with for this draft that in the end you districts that there will tell you about later and CC and our key districts. We require 100% active uses on the public frontage. So that's the part that faces the public street or public open space and that would be to a minimum depth of 25 feet. And active uses you can think of as pretty much the uses that are allowed in the CC zone, except ones that are related to manufacturing or auto uses. Plus the work units, new unit types and plus residential amenities like lobbies or gyms as long as they meet certain requirements. In addition to this active frontage requirement, we would require 100% non residential uses on corner lot. Those really have a special place in commercial landscape and finally allowing the work units on ground floor where residential is allowed on the ground floor in commercial. And when even open space Sarah mentioned this came over came through loud and clear in our outreach. One thing I'll tease out a little bit is that we asked in our focus groups about trade off between public common open space and private open space and while we heard there's a need for both. We also heard you can find public open space in other places, you know, gathering places, parks, whereas it's really a premium on your own private balcony or stew. And a lot of time people said that their four yards in their buildings weren't even used. And so hearing this, we did try to prioritize private open space. That's what standard one s one and one s three, which would allow you to substitute common open space for private open space at a ratio of two one. So, for example, 80 square feet of common open space could be substituting for 40 square feet of private open space. We also have a lot of standards about landscaping and trees requiring eight square feet of planted area for every 40 square feet of building frontage and street trees every 30 feet on the corridors. Really in response to how much of an emphasis to be heard on greening and landscaping. And then finally we heard a desire for amenities. So you would include some programming for reusable open space. You would have to choose three, at least three out of seven options, things like shade trees or playground or public art. And then the last thing that I'll touch on here is that we do propose decreasing the amount of required open space in the commercial and excuse zone. In talking with developers, we heard that open space is really difficult in the CC zone. Given the desire in the community to prioritize usability, we are suggesting removing the 100 square foot of private open space and 150 square foot of common open space in CC zone, changing it to the 40 square feet of private open space and 24 feet of common open space per unit. That's something we will definitely be going to the community for feedback on all of us. We will be, but that's something we do want to hear about. And we also have a standard that is called the upper level taper and this goes back to what we've heard about sensitivity around the neighborhood. When asked what is the best, you know, good neighbor policies, people most commonly said that they would have upper story side setbacks to reduce massive impacts on adjacent properties. We heard just in general concerns about shadow and privacy, and then a little bit intention with some of this, you saw that there was support for increased building height. When asked what a good trade off is for less expensive housing, the number two answer wasn't free schooling height. Trying to put all these things together, we've come up with this policy where the uppermost story of a building greater than four stories or greater than 90% of the allowable if they are would have an upper level taper. And so 15% of your uppermost floor would be reduced compared to the floor below it. And you can't just take a notch out of your building, you have to include a 15% reduction in the diagonal of the building too, as you can see in this diagram. And that is time to really have your designer move the bulk of the building around and just hiding it. And I'll note in that blue box here, this is something that we're being really deliberate about and getting feedback from the community. And Sarah also has some additional setbacks in the mixed use districts that we're exploring. But this is where we landed tonight. I'll just touch on the shadow and privacy impacts. We can talk about this a little bit more in the comments, but we did hear this loud and clear and we did some testing on ways to reduce shadow. And we just could not find a standard that was actually effective at doing so. And so we haven't carried that through with this draft. But I don't want you to think we just ignore that we really did. We'll get some options there. Getting to the near end of my part from hanging there. For building articulation, although we didn't hear, as Sarah mentioned, a resounding favorite architectural style, I think it was pretty clear that most people disliked really boxy looking architecture. And we also heard that people prefer architects to be able to choose options amongst a menu of things for breaking a blank wall. And so where we landed is with standard to see there are three different ways that architects could choose to decide to break up building frontages that are longer than 30 feet. So different projections, sometimes in conjunction with the change in material as you can see here. So we get corners that become a little bit more robust just because on corridors, especially the corridor corner parcels. We want to be pretty prominent. And so we once again have a menu of three options that designers and developers could choose from, and they could have a chamfered corner where the diagonals cut off they could create 30 square feet of open space or they could increase the height on that corner by three feet over the adjacent roof line. And finally, the one, the last one we're going to touch on for this part of the presentation is architectural detailing, and this was something the community really valued. When we asked what's important for a building to include even fit does increase how many costs they said architectural detailing, but they also once again asked that things like color and decorations be left open for the wonderful architects working in Santa Cruz to decide. And so we have some standards that provide a menu of options for architectural details and building materials to be able to choose from for architectural details. It's a category. There's four different categories to choose two of those. And that's something we're going to test with the development community as well. And I think that's all for me now. So I'll pass it back to you sir. All right, so tonight there's a lot of information here. So thank you for your attention. I'm going to go through now some preliminary standards that we are kind of putting together to create some new mixed use zone districts. So, you know, one of the things that in order that we need to do in order to fully implement our general plan is that we, we do need to create some new zone district. This is a map showing the areas in the city where new land use designations were created in the 2030 general plan. And these are the areas where we have conflict currently between the general plan and the zoning ordinance. These general plan land use designations are not fully implemented by the current zoning code. So we need to create some new zoning districts to do that to implement the general plan to bring the zoning code into consistency. So the current concepts that we included with your packet includes six discreet zones. This happens because of the intersection between the standards that are set here in the general plan. And then the standards that are set in the Ocean Street area plan. So I'm going to go through these six districts. I'm going to group all of the Ocean Street ones together because they are that that one is a little bit more complicated. Just the Venn diagram of how things overlap along Ocean Street makes things a little bit trickier. But the existing zoning that applies in over 90% of these parcels is the community commercial or CC zoning. The height for that is three stories and 40 feet. And currently there's no additional height from excuse. And there are no setbacks in that zone district by, you know, as a standard where it's adjacent to a residential zone. They're required to meet the adjacent residential setback. I'm sorry if there's a mistake on the slide this ignore this. We're having a week this week. Okay, so I just wanted to show this to everyone so that we can understand sort of like what we're starting from what's the change that we're experiencing. So where in the CC zone district today, you can do a residential only property that's an allowed use when you do a residential only development, there is a density typically that applies to that development. It's established by based on the RM, the mid density multi-family designation. When you do mixed use in the CC, there is no general, there is no density established in the zoning code. So those are the developments that I think lots of us have kind of become familiar with where we get to our total number of units based on reviewing the site standards and how they apply on the site. So this is the context within which we are working to implement the state law, which says we cannot reduce the amount of allowed housing. So this area shown in purple here, this is a long just to orient you the this is so Cal right here. This is branch of 40 and here's water street. So these are areas that are identified in the general plan for mixed use high density. The general plan says that these sites have a 2.75 floor area ratio and they have a density of up to 55 dwelling units per acre. Now we also have several types of units that don't have a density that are allowed to exceed the density established by the general plan. That's all kinds of small units. It's single room occupancy units. It's studios and one bedroom. Apartments and condos. So what we're suggesting here for this, this is, these are our preliminary thoughts on what a zone districts, what the zone districts might look like. Based on the feedback we got in the survey and the analysis that we've done, we're starting with a recommended height of allowing up to five stories and 55 feet. This for this district, we wouldn't have a minimum height. We would allow, you know, shorter buildings, of course, to be however tall they wanted to be. We're in all of these mixed use zone districts. We are currently contemplating requiring mixed use. You know, if we want to preserve space for local businesses and we're, you know, we have direction to. Preserve local businesses as one of our top policy priorities. We want to make sure that there's space for businesses moving forward and that as redevelopment happen. Commercial spaces included so that there are places for businesses to go over time. The setbacks that we're looking at right now are all kind of subjects to change. So you'll see some aspects on here around the height and around the setbacks. And that gets into this question that we need to get into with the community about how do we want to transition between more intense land uses and less intense land uses? What's the way to do that? And they're just our trade off as you take, you know, a given volume of a building and if you push it further away from a property line, it necessarily needs to get taller as you do that. And so there's a trade off to be made here between height and setbacks and how we transition. So that is one of the key pieces of feedback we're going to be looking for with the community as part of our next engagement to review and go over these standards. So these places where you see asterisks are, we are expecting to refine and adjust in response to that. So what we hear from the community about how best manage those transitions. So as we're thinking about this now, these mixed use zone districts would not be governed by a density. They would be governed by a density in the general plan, which as I mentioned that that density number applies to housing units that have two or more bedrooms and smaller units would just be governed by the site standards. And that sort of replicates the situation that we have currently under our mismatched general plan and zoning code. And that is our understanding that this is the capacity that we have to accomplish and accommodate. We also have seen through our test fit that allowing a little more height and allowing these smaller units to really, you know, max out the building envelope. That's how you get housing that pencils out. That's how you get housing projects that can really work and that can really get built. So now I'll talk about this are the, these are sites along mission streets. So these are designated in the general plan for mixed use medium density, which the general plan defines as having a floor area ratio of 1.75 and a maximum residential density of 30 dwelling units per acre. All those same caveat supplied a density, density applied to dwelling is with two or more bedroom. And so in this area, we have a lower floor area ratio. So we're recommending a smaller height to start with four stories in this location. And again, no minimum height. We're going to require mixed use and we're going to refine these setbacks and height based on feedback we get from the community. So in terms of building typology in this area, we're seeing more ground floor retail with three stories of residential above, whereas in mixed use high density, we're seeing ground floor retail with four stories of residential above. And now we're going to get to Ocean Street and Ocean Street. I had to split onto two slides because it does get a little more complicated. So what we are trying to accommodate here are the general plan creates uses two different land use designation along Ocean Street. It has an MX VC, so a mixed use visitor commercial. And it also uses that same MX MD, the mixed use medium density that we have on mission. So both of those land use designations are present here on Ocean Street. And then the Ocean Street area plan has several height standards established within that plan. So taking the intersection of height and floor area ratio meant that on Ocean Street, we actually end up with four discrete zone districts that have distinct floor area ratio and height combination. And so that's that's the basis of this zone district type. And that's why that's why we have so many concentrated here along Ocean Street because of the way that these plans sort of interact. The Ocean Street area plan also sets minimum height for structures in certain locations. So there are places, the places that are shown in orange and in dark blue. The Ocean Street area plan actually requires a minimum of two stories. So in those areas, new development, we're requiring that to be a two story structure. We're not allowing one story development in those areas. So, you know, the mixed use 01 and 02, those are places where we have the lower intensity mixed use land use designation from the general plan of a 1.75 floor area ratio. And then the mixed use V1 and V2, those have that higher floor area ratio. So that's the blue areas have that more intense floor area ratio. The orange and yellow areas have that, that less intense floor area ratio. And then the heights are a bit of a mix. So in these locations, the way that height and floor area ratio relate to each other are a little different. And so the way that we handle step backs and step backs in these locations is going to have to be different than we handle it in those other areas that are designated for mixed use, because when we have, as we do in the mixed use V1, which is that light, those light blue sites, we have a high floor area ratio combined with a low height. So what that means is that those sites are going to be harder to develop. We're going to need to look at reducing setbacks in order to accommodate that. And we may need to think about, you know, whether there are any other tweaks for specifically those sites relating to perhaps parking or landscaping or open space requirements. Because it just gets tricky to fit 2.75 into three stories and meet all of the other existing standards. So these are going to continue to be refined. We're going to get some feedback from the, from the public. And this may be an area, especially this area along Ocean Street, that we may, as we do more work, we may kind of realize this needs to become a little bit of a phase two, in terms of really refining these zoning standards, because some of these areas, the way that all of these different standards sort of mesh and line up, it's not as smooth as in other areas. I also just want to mention the areas that are in yellow and orange are more sort of similar to the areas that are on Mission Street and on Soquel and Water, sort of like, you know, brown floor commercial residential above. The make the areas that are shown in blue are really intended to be more focused on serving visitors and creating opportunities for lodging and creating other commercial opportunities. So you're going to see that when we, when these, when these own districts come back with like a full set of zoning ordinance language, you're going to see that reflected in the way that the uses are described that those areas are going to be more focused on commercial, making it easier for commercial uses and it may be a little less accommodating to residential and then the commercial uses that are included are going to be more focused on visitor serving here along the Ocean Street corridor. There were several other policy items that were in the package this time that we kind of wanted to just bring up with your commission at this point. Some of these have been very well thought through others are just kind of ideas that we've had and we're interested in any feedback you all might have. And so I'm just going to kind of run through these. So first of all, the location of the standards, you know, there's nothing in the state law that says the standards have to be codified or adopted into the general plan of the zoning ordinance. They could exist as a standalone document. There are some pros and cons to that. And I was actually just alerted today to reminded that, you know, there could be some issues with how these standards apply in the coastal zone if they're not part of our zoning ordinance. So that's something that we're still kind of working through and thinking about where is the right place for these to live, but we are interested in that conversation and hearing any thoughts from from the commission. We also are considering making an amendment to the text of the general plan to basically clarify what we're allowed to implement under the state law. So there are two places in our general plan where we make reference to a set of standards as defined by the planning commission. And those standards don't exist. And therefore, you know, certain provisions that say, you know, you get this much floor area ratio, this many density, this many dwelling units by right. And then if you meet these other certain standards, you can get more floor area ratio and a higher number of number of dwelling units per acre. We don't actually have any standards that implement those policies. And so we are proposing to just make an amendment to that text section so that it reflects what we're actually able to implement in terms of, you know, under the change state law from when the time that the general plan was written. Thinking about in the context of the state law, moving toward objective standards, how are existing permitting processes might need to change in order to just really reflect and be most effective and productive. We're thinking about changing the process so that projects that conform that meets all of our objective standards that are not requesting a density bonus that are not requesting any kind of variance or, you know, a full variance or a minor variation from any of the standards. We're considering changing those so that they're processed administratively without a public hearing. Essentially, you know, the way that the state law has changed, it's really altered the utility and change the way that public hearings can function. So, you know, we still have our community outreach policy in place. So, you know, that would still be in effect and development projects would be required to hold a community meeting to be an opportunity for the community to give feedback to the developer. And we're just thinking about, you know, altering our process so that it really reflects, you know, where what our ability is in terms of implementing our standards. If something meets the standards were pretty much obligated to approve it. So we could just handle that administratively and then, you know, bring requests for density bonus request to vary from standards to your commission or to the city council as necessary. So the same would apply for design permit findings. So essentially, you know, the design permit findings we have are subjective. They were written to be subjective on purpose and be applied on a site by site basis, case by case basis. We're contemplating an amendment to that code section saying if you meet the objective design standards, then you are automatically interpreted to conform to the design permit finding. Another idea that we've had this has become available recently under state law is to use the floor area ratio as the density bonus calculation. So this would just provide a simpler way of granting a density bonus. So instead of like having a base project and calculating the number of units and then calculating the bonus based on those number of units to be the number of bonus units. We would just look at, you know, the floor area ratio that's allowed and then grant an additional bonus of additional floor area ratio. So if you're allowed, you know, the floor area ratio is two and you're allowed a 50% bonus based on, you know, the project proposal. You could get to a floor area ratio of three and it might just be a little more clear to process applications that way. That's a piece that we're going to have to do some more analysis about and, you know, really do some more thinking. So if we, if your commission is interested in this, we can bring it back for further discussion and further work. But that's something we just kind of wanted to daylight with you all at this point. Another thing I did want to bring up is that as Meredith mentioned, we are, you know, looking at, you know, going through all of our existing area plans. Looking for places where, you know, making sure that we've identified all the stuff, all the standards that we do have currently that are objective so that we're not creating conflicts as we adopt these new objective standards. And then also looking at, you know, another thing we realize we can do is kind of make some tweaks to those area plans as sort of like next phase as we roll into 2022. To make a couple of changes to those to bring them, you know, more into compliance with needing to be objective standards. And one of the things that we've noticed is that there are there are a couple of these plans that are really old. So we have the Seabright Area Plan and we have the Western Drive Plan that are both, you know, late 70s, early 80s. And we're just, we're kind of wondering, you know, how, how worth it is it to be kind of updating those plans and including them in the checklist and how much, you know, work should we do to really dig into them. Versus some of these newer plans that, you know, you know, Ocean Street Area Plan was adopted in like 2014. So we want to be sure that we're implementing that that's recent public input and a lot of work went into that. And so we're just kind of trying to think about like, how do we treat these really old area plans that are, you know, two general plans ago and no longer reflect the needs or sensibilities of the community potentially. So we're interested in any feedback your commission might have about that. And then I also just want to mention, you know, we reviewing the 831 water projects, our first SB 35 application really helped the whole city realize which standards we have that are objective and which standards need further refinement. And there were several standards that came up that are under the purview of public works relating to traffic and roadway standards that they are reviewing and working on to kind of bring into conformance with this objective standards requirement. They're working on that on their own. We are supporting them to the extent that we can. And ideally, those would come and, you know, get onto a similar timeline when we, when these come back for public hearings, we would be able to, you know, they would take those to their commission and transportation, public works commission. We would bring our zoning standards here to your commission. And then when we go to the city council, we'd be able to tie these, you know, these two pieces together. So, you know, I'm optimistic that that could happen. And if they're not on exactly the same time scale, they, they could follow very shortly after, you know, within the next few months. Just wanted to let you know that that is happening on a parallel track. Similarly, we're working also with the parks department to create standards around street trees. And we're working with them to figure out exactly what's the right place for those standards. I think that we've provided them to you. They're part of the packet. And I think at this point where we're headed is that, you know, the standards requiring that trees be planted and how many and how to calculate how many trees are required. Those would be part, come part of the zoning ordinance. And then the, the really like specific standards about exactly where and exactly how far from various different features on a site, those trees should be planted. Those might be more appropriate to be in the parks and rec standard, because that gets into more like the how is it done, not like, is it done into what degree, which is more in the zoning code. So we're still working that through with, with parks, and it's been a really good partnership where I'm excited about that stuff. So the intent is to keep all of these, you know, as close together as possible, you know, they also have a parks and recreation commission that they have to take their stuff to. So we're thinking about all of that and collaborating across departments, but some of these do really require some specialized analysis that does not. Doesn't happen in planning and is not part of the scope of work for our consultant team. So now I'm going to hand it back to Meredith to talk about our next steps. Our immediate next thing is launching the financial feasibility calculators that strategic economics help us with. This is a great tool that lets you look at different policy leathers. The options in the green and the screenshot are things you can change. So number of stories or the mix of units. And then on the far right, you get to see how that impacts the feasibility of a building being built. And these are just concepts that are, you know, high level. Trying to think of trade off and giving the public more context. And so as a caveat, there are some of these scenarios that go beyond the current allowable as they are. It's not being supposed now, but it's just meant to be a learning tool. And the thinking is that this could also be integrated into some of the city's future planning efforts, perhaps with the upcoming funding elements. This was in your packet, I believe, and will also be available on the project website and our engagement website. And then in terms of more event based next step, we are mentioned are going to the city council later this month, November 30. We have the website being launched next Monday on November 8 and will be open for four weeks. So through December 6. During that time, we'll have a launch event where we walk the community through some of the context behind this and how to use the website. And then if while they are using the online activities, they want to talk to city staff or the consultant team, we have a couple of office hours that are on a drop in basis where they could ask questions or talk things through for clarification. The financial calculator will be ongoing available to the public. And in November, we're also working on a focus group with developers and architects to get their feedback as the ones who would be implementing this on the development side. And then finally, in early 2022, we'll be coming back to you and to the council to hear the adoption of the final standard. And with that, I'm going to open it up to feedback and questions all turned over to you, Sarah. We have gone through so much stuff. This is a very dense packet. I just I commend all of you for bringing your thinking brains to the meeting tonight. So, you know, there are some specific areas that we're interested in feedback. Of course, we can answer any questions we can talk about whatever your commission is interested in talking about. But, you know, in terms of handling the permit processing and thinking about these older area plans and then a couple of areas in the draft standards, thinking about ground floor uses, building articulation and then transitions to residential neighborhoods. Those are kind of areas where we have the most questions for ourselves and are interested in your feedback. And so with that, I can leave this up on the screen or we can just we can just head into our discussion over the chair would like to handle it. Okay, why don't we put this back up if it becomes, you know, when it becomes relevant, but let's go take it at this point, we'll have questions, just questions from the commission. Then we'll have public input and then we'll have discussion by the commission. Okay, so the commissioners that have questions. I don't believe I'm going to be the only commissioner with questions. So go ahead. I just wanted, I think this is a question about how you're reporting results. So, and this is a little bit backwards because you guys have already felt the standards on these but something that stood out to me and looking at how you were presenting results is one of the things is that something like a select all is a notoriously weak. I mean, statistically and reporting just saying in several parts of the presentation brought up several times and it was on the trade off for more affordable housing saying to the public that the most people selected that is not an accurate reflection of the actual statistical analysis of a survey tool like that. So, I guess I just want to caution us that when we're presenting statistics. I mean, actually it's not. You just counted the number of responses and without a statistical analysis of the survey tool like that. That's not accurate. It may be, but I don't know by you just presenting the count. So I just want us to be very careful because when we do survey. We have to extrapolate and we say things like most people said that they wanted higher height. When you do select all you don't acquire people to select how much they like something over something else. And by not doing that, you really reduce the ability to make any conclusions about things like that. So I just want to caution us all that as we go through processes like this and do survey outreach that we're careful about how we. So this is a comment that we've got from a couple of members of the public and I will be honest, I have statistics in grad school, but I am not a statistician. So could you explain how we should explain that? I mean, to me, I look at the pie chart and I add up the other numbers and that's, you know, we had this many that are under we had this many that selected other options. I'd love to get that right. So, this particular one that I'm speaking of was presented as a bar chart, and it was just the count for people who said height. People who said something else people, let me just pull it up really quickly. So, I know what I'm saying. It was something else to your parking spaces, less expensive materials. So you just presented a bar chart. And you said that you had eight. What did you say? What was the total number of responses? Eight hundred and something. Right. The total number of survey responses. That's right. 819. Right. So if you add up those numbers, they don't add up to 819 because people could select all right. So they can select, they could select up to three. Okay, but you, you didn't have them ranked though. Didn't rank those statistically just providing account doesn't really tell us what people actually thought. And so, if you're going to use a tool like this, I would. I mean, I'm not a statistician either, but that just really. It out to me because it was brought up several times that most of the respondents selected increased building height. And that's not necessarily reflected in the survey unless you statistically analyze. Not just. So, you can Google it. I Google it. Okay. Just to make sure I knew what I was saying. Okay, sure. All right. That's helpful. Thanks. Well, let me follow up on that question because I want to just clarify whether. Staff consultant thinks that that survey was a representative sample of the community as a whole. I saw it as being indicative. Myself. Looking at the participants almost have had incomes over 100%. Over 100,000 where only 37% of the. The population of that and only 10% that in terms under 25,000 where 24% of the city. Residents. So, you know, from my perspective, I thought the. Those were interesting, but. In my mind, it's not methodologically representative sample of the of the population as a whole. I didn't get the sense that that was how you were presenting it. I see it as a helpful way of. Getting a sense of where. Different groups. Coming from maybe what overall people think about things. But I guess that's my question. Are you. But your sense that this. Survey really was representative. They were all self selected. God knows is in itself a very. Well, I think we need to verify a sample. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, this is a community survey. This is not a scientific survey. You know, we weren't sending out door knockers. We are not. The census. You know, so the idea here was to get. What we would hope what we were hoping would be a representative sample. There were some gaps as you've correctly identified. That's why low income households are one of the focus groups that we help. We also had a significant gap in terms of young adults. In that in those demographic data, and so we were sure to have a focus group talking to those. So we're what we're looking here for here is like representative. Sample of voices. And some of those were achieved through focus groups and some of those, you know, we kind of pulled through the survey together. It gives us information. We're, you know, we have drafted standards and we really want to be collaborative with the community about the standards at this point. You know, that's the whole this whole next engagement. We have, you know, four weeks because it's a lot of content. Right. I guess my concern is using the word representative as a sort of a methodological implication. I think what you, from what I understood from looking at the survey, you had a range of views. And so, using those views as a basis for some of the standards. And if it may, if it also made sense from the consultant's best point of view as a good first step, but at the end it needs, they need, they may need refinements. Some may be better than others. I think I don't think I guess what I'm saying, I don't think it can be argued that this that these standards or what the community said that they wanted. This is these standards that resulted from a process where there was significant community input that was helpful in developing these draft standards. And, you know, I want to thank the consultants and thanks for all the work that went into this because there was a lot of work and, you know, I felt positive about a lot of it. So, you know, I don't, this isn't meant as a criticism. I just trying to put the focus groups and the survey into a sort of broader context that these aren't the end all be all these are helpful. Right. Yeah. No, we didn't take these individual standards and like try to go out and make sure we heard from an exactly representative segment of the population. You know, that's not, it wasn't the goal that wasn't what we were trying to accomplish. And I do think, you know, I do just want to reiterate the city hasn't typically collected demographic data on community engagement events. This is, we are just starting to do that now. You know, we did it in this project. It's happening the climate action survey that's action plan update that's happening currently. We're going to become one of our standard practices to improve our outreach and in and ensure that we are getting more and more representative of, you know, actual our actual demographics. So, what's that or at least knowing how representative it is. So, I think that we have some, we have some context for who's giving us feedback. And, you know, to our understanding, this is. You know, a more diverse range of respondents than we've had previously. I don't want to belabor the point. I do have a couple of comments or one question on the community survey. I'm going to go through my questions through the attachments because I didn't read the staff report until yesterday when it came out. So, I normally would stop my questions on the staff report, but I want to be ending with the staff report. This is, this is my own ignorant. The survey talks about capital BIPOC as a group. Who is that referring to? I couldn't put the acronym together. Sure, that's an acronym that stands for black indigenous people of color. Okay, so it's not white. Right. Non white, non Asian population. Okay, let me also say I have an even I have a pretty good size monitor. Even when I looked at the PDF on my full screen, I had a really hard time differentiating between the different colors. Okay, I would say the legend, the colors in the legend, they did the boxes should be bigger. And the difference between the purple and the blue and it was so small that I really had a hard time looking at it. So, that's a suggestion that shows the, those be, you know, as you go out to the public to sort of show the results of the survey, but that more people can really evaluate it as it happens. Then I had some questions about the district best standards. That whole discussion seems to me to be delusional, because nobody's using it. In every case, what we're seeing now over and over again is people using density bonuses and density bonuses to go from three stories to six stories. As we just saw in Center Street, the project downtown going from whatever the requirement was to a pie. So, how meaningful are these, I'm sort of reluctant to, I mean, they're already, we've already dug the hole in terms of the general plan. And so this probably doesn't make it any worse. But I do think it's important to recognize that the density bonus law really undermines all the, that's my view of it. You would disagree with me, but to sort of put too much to say, this is the way that to give a sense of this is the way this project is going to come through is not reflecting recent reality. That was the problem I had with defense kids and that's the problem I have with the standards is that they're not very meaningful anymore, because the density bonus, particularly when we don't have any density limits really. One of the recommendations is that the city start using far that's what the, that's what the space has been using in the recent projects, because they're on a density limit. The studios and one bedroom, they're on a density limit. So the only limit is the. And so I'm not sure that's going to really represent much of the change given the way things are going and what the whole. So, am I misunderstanding something here? Well, I wouldn't say that you're misunderstanding it. And I would say there are a couple of factors at play. I think, you know, one of the, one thing is that. Seeing a bunch of density bonus applications is an indication to me that something in our standards or our process doesn't facilitate development. And so people pursue a density bonus in order to have a feasible development. So, in theory, creating standards that actually do work and create feasible development allow feasible development to happen shifts those incentives to some extent. And the other thing I want to say is that this is where, you know, we're looking for how can we incentivize conforming development and one of the one of the tools that we have is faster processing time. So if that's hence our recommendation to move conforming processes conforming projects to an administrative process. So they don't pay a fee for a public hearing. They don't have the delay of a public hearing. They go through an administrative process with staff if they're conforming and meeting all the standards. And that changes the decision making for a developer as well. If the density bonus always has to go to a public hearing. And a conforming project does not and it still has to provide the inclusionary standard. And not request any waivers concessions or incentives. I think that does start to change that calculus for developers. I just wanted to add Sarah, if I can. The last time that we presented to you, we showed you a number of tests fits on different sites and we also did an economic analysis. And this is a while back, but it turned out that actually none of the projects were feasible within the existing height limits and they are. So I think that really underlined Sarah's point about projects just aren't feasible at the moment unless they use density bonus. And that's definitely consistent with our findings. Yeah, I mean, and that's current market conditions, right? So that's current construction costs that's current friends and for sale prices. So yes, all of that can shift and does. And, you know, we're trying to think about like, how can we incentivize conforming development? And, you know, one of the biggest incentives we have is timeliness. So that's our suggestion. And that's not just a legitimate concern. The density bonus changes a lot. You know, density bonus projects can do a lot of things that conforming development can't. And, you know, that state law comes out of the same ethos of creating more housing units is part of addressing the housing shortage. So I understand that's not necessarily a value that's shared universally. And that is the state law perspective that we are operating within. Moving to the financial account. I don't want to. This is a time for questions, so I really don't want to engage in a debate about what's right to the city. But the was a slide that gave the address for the link for the financial calculator, which I thought was very useful. I would appreciate it. I wasn't able to write it down. I have a terrible time going through the city's website. I never can find anything. I always get deep into it and I would find out I'm on the wrong page. So if it would be possible to send out that link, I really appreciate it. And then I have some specific questions about attachment nine, which is the street, street, street standards standard was would require a two year maintenance agreement. My understanding from projects, at least in the county, maybe in the city as well, is that they started to really require a five year maintenance agreements because two years really isn't enough for new vegetation to take hold. So I would just ask what was the, I guess my question is, what's the basis of that. Two year. Just my understanding that that was our current practice, but if we're moving to five year, you know, that's an easy swap. Maybe you're not in the county is and I'm just aware of what the county is doing, but I know that, you know, people in the field have just argued that two years just isn't enough time. For vegetation to take hold. And actually, some of the standards go beyond five years, but they also include the requirement of replacement. Should the, should the, should the vegetation die. And I think that that's an important standard as well that's that's not that they have to maintain for five years, but if they keep the pocket as it was, they be replaced. So, I'd ask for that. You know, I think it's. Well, and then I wanted the 30 foot frontage for three trees. I thought was a good objective standard, but, but I wonder what is the spacing of the trees on the mall on Pacific Avenue mall. Is that 30 feet? Because that seems like a good, you know, I know there's a lot of debate about the kinds of trees and people seem to satisfy with that. So, I just wonder how does that relate to what the standards are on the mall? I don't know the answer to that. I can look, we can look that up. I just want to add one thing to that because the standards, the way the standard is written is that it's one tree for every 30 feet of frontage. They don't necessarily have to be placed every 30 feet. You wanted to allow that to be, okay, as long as it's great. Okay. Yeah, we can also look into that and yeah, consider how, you know, how that relates. Then I'm a attachment a standards themselves on page three, as I understood it was saying that the standards would apply outside of downtown for multi density development. Why don't they apply downtown as well? Mostly because the downtown plan is already really specific in terms of design standards and has some of the, the only really existing objective design standards in the city. Also, the downtown has really different density limits than anywhere else in the city, like. Yeah, just a really different. Okay, it just seems, while there was talk about all the other area plans, how it all related to that, you know, there was the only exception. So, maybe if that was explained, it would be, I have problems and I would imagine the architects on the commission won't, I'm not sure much needs to be done about it, but I had problems understanding how the parking. We need standards would work. And as well as how the roof form standards would work and the frontage, it will be helpful to have some examples of those. Some of the standards do show examples of how they would operate. I think those are areas for nine architects. I would think I wouldn't be the only one who would benefit from being able. And then a question I have has to do with how, on the building's side, it was interesting that in the survey results, it seems like there was a strong emphasis on the need for private open space. But as I saw the what was written in on page nine, the usable space, it was possible to substitute common open space for private open space on two to one basis, which seems to me would have could eliminate any private open space, which in the ending to contradict what the survey is found. So am I understanding that correctly? Would that common open space substitution essentially allow for the total elimination of private open space? Can you want to jump in? Yeah, we have stated a preference for private open space. It would allow the total elimination of it. I think that's problematic, especially given how strongly people seem to want it, want the private open space. So maybe worth giving that another look, maybe to an extent to the open space. I don't know why. I don't know if any of you are following what's going on with UC Santa Barbara, where this very wealthy person wants to find a 11 story building with no windows and have all public opens, all common open space and no private open space. And it seems more like a prison than anything else. So I would, you know, that did seem like a contradiction. I just wanted to consider it. In terms of the upper level paper, I thought that was an interesting approach, but I wonder why you chose 15% as opposed to 20%. What was having the upper stories set back seem like a really good standard, but I don't know how you came up if there was any particular logic to the 15%. We tested it out on our test fit site. We tested it out on our test fit site. And 15% seems to get us kind of a feasible reduction in area. Once we got up to 20%, it was for hire. It was starting to be too much of a reduction in area. Particularly on those kind of really large sites where especially it's, I don't know if you recall, we looked at one of the kind of a courtyard style building as you start to get a bigger percentage reduction. When you have a courtyard in the middle, it becomes very infeasible to have those kind of smaller dimensions on the upper floors. So we're trying to always balance between feasibility while also achieving the kind of desires of the community for having those steps back. And then my final question, I guess, is, or at least difficult to add was on page 13, the building modulation, which requires articulation of building frontages or building a building that's over 30 feet. Again, I think it would be really helpful to see some examples of that. I really understand what that means. Let me just say that the way one of the examples where there was a good drawing that shows how the standard work, which was requiring that there be no parking allowed in the frontage between the frontage of a building and the property line. It immediately made me think of a project I'm very aware of where that would make it in the project infeasible because the design sets the building way back, but has, so it has a lot of open space in front, but then has a driveway coming in with parking along the driveway, a lot of angle parking or, you know, sort of inward parking and none of those spaces would be allowed to make it impossible to meet the parking requirements. So, you know, I was thinking, okay, well, that's a bonus waiver. So I think that I recognize there's really difficult to have to come up with these standards in many areas. I appreciate the work that's been done. I thought many of them really made sense and we're trying to go beyond simply increasing the capacity of housing and the production of housing, but also being concerned about what is this going to look like? What is this going to do to the area around it? What are the kinds of concerns that it's going to raise in terms of having a city that has some standards and doesn't each for the lowest common denominator. So again, now I hope I'm trying to keep my comments here as closely questioned. I will definitely have comments once other commissioners ask their questions in the public attitude. So thank you for, again, for the staff report. Mr. Nielsen. This is the question period. At least we can try. I have some questions, but first before you even ask my questions, I want to thank staff and the consultants for doing such a great job. There's a lot of information here. You guys have done a great job in the presentation tonight. And it was a lot for us to get through over the last week, too. So thank you for putting in the time. I want to start with my questions are really around the objective standards and the first one is page five. And I'm curious about the, the stack flat versus the town home and what the, what the reasoning is there for the 50% parking reduction. I'll actually, Kristen, can I start? And then did you say this is page five? It's thought. Yeah, this is page five of the standard. And it's okay. Yeah. That's a walk ability. No, no, no, no, no, no goals. It's maximum. We're looking at maximum building length right now. Part a one of the things that we learned through doing this. process and doing the test fits is that, you know, when we looked at our RL sites, so our low density multifamily sites. It was really pretty difficult to come up with a product on those sites that met all of our development standards and still hit a price point that we felt like could be rental housing. And that was something that we were interested in trying to achieve. And it was something that, you know, as I mentioned, at least 51% of the population was interested in trying to have us achieve. And one of the ways that we have learned you can do that is by pursuing sort of what are called missing middle housing type. And one of the things that one of those types is specifically a stacked flat. So it's a four flex or it's a six flex where the where the flats are stacked on top of one another in order to do a development type like that. You need the right dimensions a lot so that the so that the dimensions of each unit kind of makes sense relative to each other. So if there are best in places where there are alleyways, Santa Cruz doesn't have alleyways. And so one of the things that we were trying to achieve was to allow this building type to happen because that type of building the units tend to be a little bit smaller. You know, if you think about our current standards in the RL, we allow two and a half or three stories of structure. And so if you have it, you know, a townhouse that's built on that where you have the parking that's within the building envelope to the park on the ground floor and you have backed above that, you know, those units can be 2000 square feet, like, pretty easily and then they're essentially the cost of a single family home. And so you're not really getting any economy in terms of, you know, what's available in the marketplace. So we wanted to pursue this different building type and really encourage something that was like a traditional style, four flex, six flex with stack flats where the units tend to be a little bit smaller. If they're sold, they're sold as condos instead of town home. And you get you can hit up a lower price point and it can conceivably come in for rental housing and thinking about how to do that, how to balance all of these different things. It really came down to how much parking is required. And so then we went to this incentive of like, well, let's reduce the parking by half, and then, you know, we have to fit less parking on the site. And so that can work better with the dimensions and the configurations of parcels that we have in Santa Cruz. Anything to add, Kristen? And in a way, basically what you're trying to accomplish, it sounds like, is hitting that, well, hitting the rental housing market. So, you know, what we can, right? Yeah. Yeah. By taking this parking out of the building, you kind of run out of space on the site on the lot if you try to surface park it. So by cutting it in half, we allow them to take the parking out of the building, which means they're not building housing for cars, they just have to build housing for people, which really reduces the cost. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The cost to build housing for cars is very expensive. Let's see. On the same page, this is now down in the walkability section, and it's section three, subsection I. It's talking about the block where you have block lengths that exceed 500 feet. And then creating, if a project is mid block, let's say, or 50% of the block, I don't know exactly how the wording goes, but basically connections are created there. Now, my question here, I mean, I think it's a great idea, but I think what my question is, if a connection is already there or somewhere within that mid block area, you're not requiring another development to add that and add in another connection. Because it's just the way it's written doesn't doesn't make it super clear. It almost makes it look like if you're in the mid 50%, then in your developing a project, you have to put in this connection. So, so somehow just if that's not the intent, then, then I think just taking a look at that would be would be a good idea. It's still in the same section, but this is section four of the walkability piece. Is this is this saying that property. So this is properties that are adjacent to parcels developed with a public way shall include connection to that way. Is that does that mean that the parcels that are adjacent to the parcels that have the the connection also are adjacent to the connection itself. Not I just I don't quite maybe I'm just not understanding exactly what what's being said here or kind of what what the goal is with that one. Yeah, so I can try to answer this because I think we kind of voice to this standard on the consultants from the city side. So what we're trying to get at is if there is a path, if there is a roadway, if there is any kind of pedestrian easement or vehicle travel path that is adjacent to your parcel. As new development goes in, we want to make that permeable. And we so there are standards in there about like if there are any existing crossings on the site you have to maintain you can't reduce the number of crossings that are on a site. And I was thinking about, you know, like, for example, at the site where where Ross and World Market are, you know, the there are two bike lanes and pedestrian path that cross that site to connect to the levy trail. And so, you know, 50 years from now and a different general plan or something, if that were to redevelop in any kind of significant way, we would still want to see two paths cross that parcel. And so, additionally, any other paths that are any other parcels that are adjacent to that levy trail. If they're redeveloping we want them to be connecting to that levy trail if they're adjacent to a roadway we want them to be creating a connection to that levy trail. And, you know, one of the things that we want to keep in mind is that you know we may have like one side of a block developed before the other side of the block so and we may the standard could in some cases sort of create a dead end or a path to nowhere. And we would still kind of want to create the past so that we preserve to that opportunity and then as adjacent development happened that can connect to that path. And we are trying to find a way to say that and I, you know, won't we probably haven't hit the most elegant way of that articulating that yet. So, you know, I we are we are refining we are open to comments and suggestions on that, but that's the intention. Well, well to chair chipper and point I am an architect and I do and even I had difficulties with reading through some of these standards as well and and it's There's a lot of meat to them and but but having it some sort of diagram helps greatly with things like that. So, whatever, you know, that that would be helpful. I think in terms of help if you're having if there's difficulty in kind of creating language to make it clear, you know, diagrams are obviously really helpful. The next question I have is then is under public frontage is and this is section for a public frontage is and it this is talking about entries into primarily. This is page six. Yes. This is primarily this is entrances into primary into primarily residential districts so entrances into the building I think is what we're dealing with. And it's saying, um, Ground floor units that face the public frontage shall provide an entry facing towards the public frontage that provides access into an entry area, living area kitchen or hallway, not a bedroom or bathroom, which is great. I think that makes sense. But how, how do how do you handle studios in this situation, just because studios don't really have a designated bedroom. It's a good point. We need to clarify that doesn't apply to studios. I think that's a good point. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then the next, the next question, this is, this is actually going to the, the, um, the, the diagram about the parking in front of the building. So this is, sorry, this is page seven parking location and screening. And Commissioner Schifrin kind of pointed to this. This one already, but my question on this is if, if we're not going to allow parking in that in front of the building. And I don't know exactly what the, what the setbacks, what the front setbacks are in all of these areas. So, um, is there a way if we don't allow parking there. Is there, can we, can we get some reduced step back there so we can push that building forward to allow for that parking to maybe be behind. Because I think that's the goal here is that we're, we're trying to get to parking in the, in the behind, you know, off the, you know, away from the street. So anyway, it's just something to look at. I'll not. See, I only have a, like maybe one or two more. Oh yeah, I think I just have one more. I have a question. This is on, sorry, this is on page 19. This is the building material section. It specifically calls out penalized material such as cement board, med board panels and metal panels. I'm curious what it, sorry, it calls these out as being prohibited as materials used on the frontage. So I'm curious what the thoughts are around the, why, why not using or why not allowing these. Most of these design standards are from 360. So they go all around the building. This is 1 of this year that only 5. And the idea there is that the. I mean, we know that those kind of panelized materials can be more affordable, but they also tend to wear show where. Much more quickly and kind of deterioration, and especially where you see them coming together and they start to split or the kind of big drip. Lines that you see this evening, they tend to be much more common on these types of panelized materials. So it was a way to kind of speak to the communities. And we've only put, we only have this restriction on public frontages because you can use them on the other. But we want those frontages. Okay, I understand. I understand that. I think the 1, 1 thing I would just as a comment and the caution about is. Maybe there's a different way to qualify what material, what materials are not appropriate. We've, I mean, I've seen cement, cement panels that are that are thicker. Like, if you're speaking directly to like, you know, hardy board or something like that. And then that's that's 1 thing, but there are other products that have to have a much thicker reveal to them or that are produced in that thicker fashion. But they are cement fiber. I mean, that's just that's what they're made out of, which, you know, is a durable material. And there are ways to make and they do look nice. I mean, there are options for that. So I just would be careful about just like maybe getting maybe it needs to be a little bit more specific, like in terms of maybe what the thickness of the material is and what you don't use or what's not allowed. Because that to me that particular material, I think is, I think it could be fine used in the right way. And maybe, but, but I agree with you about like, if we're talking about party panel, I mean, there's, it's, you know, the thickness and it creates waves and, you know, and it has, it does have issues. So, that was just, that was kind of normal. That was it. That's all my question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, yeah, I'm going to hold my comments until later. I really just have one question. And it's a little bit broader. It's, I think it's relating to designation of live work as being the only residential use. I think it's in the mixed use zone district. Is that right? Are we saying we don't want any residential under any circumstances on the ground floor? Certain degree. So that are designated in the general plan for mixed use. Those are our like outside of the downtown. Those are our core commercial areas. And so, in those areas, we are currently considering and proposing that we not allow fully residential buildings that at least that frontage of the building that has to be a full legitimate commercial active use. Other areas that are zoned for commercial development, so places that are in the beach area other places that are zone CC sort of like further out on so Cal and like, you know, in other areas along mission. Currently, you can do residential only projects there. And we want to continue to allow that. And based on the feedback and interest in active uses, one of the things that we're proposing is that those ground floor uses when they face a major street like that. That they incorporate, or they have the ability to incorporate a commercial use. So they're built to that dimension. They have the floor plate height to accommodate that. And, you know, those are for the units that face the street. We can still do like regular residents units as they face the rear of the property. So there's still sort of opportunities for accommodating, you know, any accessible units that might be, you know, required to incorporate into a project. But this is really about creating that like activated commercial frontage. Even if it's a fully residential building. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for that. That makes sense to me. I think commissioners that would have questions at this time. Yeah, thank you. I look forward to talking more about this after we hear public comment. But one question I had was on public works and on the roadway analysis. I know you're referred to it a little bit, but is there an opportunity for the more comprehensive kind of. You know, considering what our roadways are. We're how we want to use their interaction with our, you know, each block of development. It sounded like it's kind of a. It's a little hard to fit it in and I know that that in the past, we really wanted to do a more comprehensive discussion about that. I'm not sure I understand your question. You're talking about like making plan lines. Well, not, no, not down to that detail necessarily, but the, the comment that, you know, the, where was it? It was traffic and roadway standards. That we're definitely going to try to develop some objective standards because we need them. And I think we've known that we need them for a while. So it sounds like public works is, is looking really hard to come along with this. And I was just wondering if there's a more. If there is any opportunity for a more comprehensive. Consideration of traffic and roadway standards, or are we going to be doing them. Just following right along each of these development standards. Does they play a big role? Sure. Yeah. So let me see if I can try to answer. You know, at this point, we don't have anything in our work plan that would be taking this more like comprehensive look at like, how do we use our public realm, what's in within the right of way. What we're talking about is public works sort of. Stopping some leaks in their current standards as they, you know, discover that a lot of them really are written to. It involved a lot of professional judgment by the city engineer and the director of public works. And that, that really doesn't work under this new framework. So it's really more focused on just sort of. Trying to capture what the standards that they already have. It's not at this point, they're not looking at, you know, creating any kind of new standards that we don't already have some basis for. So places where we have policies or standards that are like. Written, you know, to the, to the approval of the city engineer, such and such as, you know, things shall be performed like they need to rewrite that so that it's an actual measurable performance standard. So it's more like that level that they're working on. We also, I'll just add, we also have a minimum setback. Minimum sidewalk. That's along the corridors. So that any new buildings that come along will at least achieve a minimum sidewalk. In terms of the setback, and then also, as Sarah mentioned, the kind of street tree stuff, the problem is, or the challenges that these are standards for private property. And actually, as we were going through the area plans, you guys have a lot of great thinking about public realm for all of, especially for all of these corridors and. Eight ways and landscaping. It's just that there's no way to implement that through private development right now. So we did that was, that was something that we talked about too. It feels like there's opportunity to kind of build on these lands, but this piece of work didn't feel like the place to do that. Okay. Other commissioner questions before I open it up to the public. Okay, I see two hands up. I'm going to start with Rafa center found you have three minutes. Good evening commissioners. First, I wanted to appreciate all the hard work that's gone into this, especially the efforts to do the community engagement to bring in underrepresented groups. I think that's really important for us in our community. Santa Cruz is an exclusionary community. We have 60% of our households that are more than 200% above the poverty level. And we're white, whiter than our region as a whole. We're 60% white in our region is only 40% white. So I think if we want to have equity, we need to have more representation and maybe there I say over representation from minority groups. When we do these sorts of analysis, so we really have our meeting the needs of the future of our community. The other thing I wanted to bring up is, you know, following state law, especially at the 330, like was mentioned earlier, you know, it's really important that we not reduce the intensity of land use development. And I appreciate that we are really thinking carefully about how these objective standards may constitute a down zoning and how we can, you know, balance reductions in height or increased setbacks with increases in height, et cetera. So, you know, the Attorney General's office just announced yesterday that there's a new housing accountability housing strike for each CD has a new housing accountability unit. So, you know, we really need to get this right in terms of following the law. But I just wanted to highlight a couple of things that that I'm looking at, you know, from that lens of following the law. I just want to make sure that, you know, as we move forward that that we do so legally. And that's, you know, things like the the the open space requirement, the the height limit, the setbacks, the upper taper goal, you know, all of those things, you know, in a vacuum, like, you know, good sort of design things, but if they, you know, are reducing the intensity of land use and, and, you know, the square footage that's possible on on the on a parcel, that's technically illegal unless we have a commensurate up zoning somewhere else for our general plan or through zoning changes. So, you know, we really need to be intentional about how, you know, if, if we are put putting limits and you know, we have certain zones now that have no limits on density, I don't see how we can have any sort of objective standard that reduces that density for, you know, a studio or one bedroom or an SRO, if, if they're currently allowed under the law, and we're putting objective standards limit that building envelope, I don't see how that's a legal enforceable thing that we're doing. So, you know, I think, finally, I just wanted to mention, I think we're moving in the right direction thinking about ministerial approval for zoning informing project. That should also apply to density bonus projects. You know, they are housing accountability act conforming on the city's legally required to approve them anyway. You know, just a couple weeks ago, this commission approved 130 Center Street unanimously unanimously with the extra affordable units on the condition that it not be appealed. Well, Nimbus are appealing it and we're losing four affordable units because of this was a ministerial process. Yeah, sure. Maybe there wouldn't have been that that negotiation that you had to get the extra affordable unit. But you know, this would be a process that would happen much more quickly. And there would be less risk and we would have more more opportunities for developers to bring housing into our community that we need. So, I also just wanted to appreciate the financial feasibility calculator. I think that's a really important tool that that's good for the public to understand. I think that's all my comments. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. Kyle Kelly. Three minutes is the court keeping track of the time. I'll wait for the question to be answered before I speak. Yes, you're not able to hear the timer. The timer went off. Did you not hear it? No. Okay, then I'll just butt in when it's your time. And then you can decide. Okay, Mr Kelly, go ahead. That's great. Good evening. Thank you, chair, chair for members of the commission and city staff. It was really great to hear the overall presentation. The outreach to different groups. So, I didn't say introduce myself. Well, I guess it happened. I'm Cal Kelly. Not too long ago, I wasn't applied mathematician before transitioning to building tools for other scientists from data analysis. Earlier, there were questions about the survey data and the methodology. I think when presented in context of how the survey was done. Personally, I think this was fine, especially when it's kind of get basically some basic sampling. The important thing to do is probably to release the data. I think at the end of the day, it's worth analyzing. Maybe some people just didn't like the results. But some people thought all our buildings would be okay. And then it would result in more housing. And I especially want to point out that affordable housing also has to follow these objective standards. These and other zoning restrictions are the reason that 415 natural bridges 100% SRO project by the housing authority. That lies right on the rail and trail where rail would possibly be has only 20 units and it only three stories. When we have a severe need, like any, any choices that are made about housing, like these homelessness is a policy choice by rent or or a policy choice. 20,000 people commuting into Santa Cruz. That's a policy choice. You all have the power. And I point this out because time and time again, when we go to commissions and city council meetings, we get to hear from homeowners. They've lived here a long time and have collected the gains for years, some of which you yourself are homeowners. And I want you to reflect on how much your home value has gone up and how much people need housing right now. So get these objective standards going, find ways to produce more housing, not less, because I know what's about to happen. What will happen next is it will be a very tight window on, oh, what do we want? How do we want this to look? Bring it forward, make something better. It's going to affect affordable housing, too. Thank you. Thank you. Julian Green site. You yourself. Okay, can I start again? Thank you. Starting now. Thank you very much. And thank you staff and consultants. That was a very clear presentation. I really appreciated all the detail. I guess if you didn't know the context, you might think that this was an occasion of designing a new town. And in a way, that's what's happening here. And a couple of things I'd like to point out. One, I really appreciated the outreach to Spanish speaking members about community. And I thought it's very significant that the Spanish speaking community was twice as likely to prefer the lower height of four stories than the alternative twice as likely as white residents. And I think that shouldn't be glossed over. Since our Spanish speaking residents largely live in dense and taller housing supply, that maybe that should be looked at further. Maybe there are reasons for that. I also think that you need to acknowledge the density ban. When you talked about this corridor, five stories high on this corridor, four stories, people will buy or believe that that is the height. And with a density bonus, it could be double that. And if you don't want people really up in arms at the other end of all of this process, I think somewhere in your charts and your speaking and your presentations, you have to acknowledge that those heights could be subject to a dramatic increase up to double. And I can't accept that if it's a ministerial and if there's not a lot of issues going forward that developers will be happy to stick with that height. If you can get a density bonus and supply just the amount of affordable housing that you would supply at the base density, why wouldn't you want to go higher with market rate housing, which we know puts affordable housing further out of reach of low income people because it raises the area median income. I think also the comment where people in the survey took as high as a trade off for affordable housing, there needs to be a little bit more honesty in this. We don't always get affordable housing with increased height. So I think I hope people aren't being misled with some of these questions. And lastly, I don't know where my time is. And to me, this is pretty important. Save our big trees, which is a community group to try and preserve our heritage trees submitted a detailed proposal for objective standards. Most of our heritage trees are in people's private areas. If you're going to knock down single family homes and businesses and go up to the time you're going to just I just have to finish my sentence, you're going to lose your heritage trees and we put in detailed objective standards and they appear nowhere, not good. Thank you. Thank you. Vera, Philippines, please. You have three minutes. They're a Filipino. First, I want to acknowledge that we are all on a wash wash territory tribal land now called Santa Cruz. I want to thank Sarah for all the hard work that she and the planning staff has have put into this first draft of our objective standards. The draft has community use and public access or walkability components that reflect the community survey. However, they are primarily focused on converting our subjective standards around community character to objective standards. What is much more important is that we adopt objective standards that protect public health and public safety. As an example, both earthquake and shade concerns were brought up by a number of people in the focus groups and are not reflected anywhere in the draft standards, but you can read them in the subject material. Also, the survey and focus group questions were very leading in how they were constructed and imply quite directly that there will be more affordable housing if a B or C are traded for that affordability. Let's be honest. We know this is misleading. We know that the state density bonus law allows for up to 50% increase in density and that all of those density bonus units can be market rate. This is not increasing, but decreasing our affordable housing allocation and raising our AMI and waivers to things like height regulations and other objective standards are then given to developments along with those density bonus market rate units. Overall, though I'd like to see more amendments to the current draft standards in the categories that were included, the aesthetic elements provided a starting framework for converting community character type standards to objective standards. But what is the utmost importance is that objective standards are drafted and adopted to protect the health and safety of both the current community and the new residents that need housing with significant development. This will help smooth the development process, hopefully for affordable housing and limit the community concern and potential opposition going forward. Please let's remember health and all policies as we develop these standards that dictate our future here in Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. One more hand up if anybody else wants to speak. Please raise your hand. This is a 31426. 357 you're up. Hello, please introduce yourself in that three minutes. Hello, this is Alan Spital and I will not take my three minutes. I just have a question really for the staff. And that is, has any thought been given to the neighborhoods adjacent to Mission Street and so Cal Street as far as making these residential neighborhoods more like into transition zones. So you don't have two story houses next to five, six or seven story buildings. That's a simple question and just want to know where that stands as far as the work's been done so far. And thank you for your hard work. Thank you. I'll have staff to respond, but let's use what there is. Okay, I guess. There's another person on the line 818203 4965. Go ahead, just muted yourself. Just muted yourself, I think. Hello. Yes, go ahead, please introduce yourself and your. Yes, my name is Candice Brown and I find this a fascinating discussion. I'm going to really come full circle to where we were with the quarter plan, which was originally proposing a mixed use with five stories, but it didn't have a density bonus. This particular scenario, and they were looking at transportation issues, which were of great concern and the impact of the commercial zone. In this case, they are just focused on the housing, not on the transportation, not on the traffic issues, not on whether we're going to solve the commute issues for people coming into town. We're also not looking at the large student population. We had no focus group for the commercial people along there. I might add that the last quarter plan, there was a petition of 300 business owners who signed against the quarter plan and now we're dealing with a plan that's even more impactful. When the original quarter plan was discussed, Joe Epnerod, who is a commercial broker, talked about the fact that if you reduce parking, which was at that time just one parking space per unit, you would be dealing with commercial dead zones. This area is the neighborhood community area for the east side, more than the town area. If you're going to reduce the commercial areas, then you're looking at an unsustainable environment, you're reducing the reasons for walkability. You're also not even considering the safety issues for protected bike lanes and for pedestrians, you know, purpose for going to those areas in the first place. There is a need for housing. We all agree. Show me where this can bring more affordable housing and I'll be on board. I've seen many projects downtown, such as the one next to the metro, the 205 luxury condos. I didn't hear any of these people that speak about housing talk about, you know, bobbing and being activists for affordable housing in those areas. We need to address housing for students. We need to address housing for families, young families in particular, and we need to address housing for senior citizens that need accommodation. But again, I don't hear any of this with this quarter plan. This is still a quarter plan and it's not clear to me that it's going to bring more affordable housing. And that's really what the true need is in our community. And I'm really sad to say that there's no discussion about transportation being on the Transportation Commission in particular. I found that very interesting because this is supposed to be transit oriented development. This is supposed to be sustainable. There's been no discussion about the demographics, looking at gentrification in our town using the studies of UC Berkeley and Karen Chapel. There's a lot of data to show what's happening in our district right now. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was a question from the previous speaker. My memory is so bad. I hope, Sarah, you remember what it is. I just asked about, if we had looked at the neighborhoods adjacent to socalization, if we were considering creating some transition zones and sort of up zoning those neighborhoods so we didn't have such a stark contrast between what's, you know, plan for the streets and what's currently built behind them in terms of single family neighborhoods. Great question. The answer is no, we have not looked at that. That would be a general plan amendment. And at this point, this project is really just focused on zoning and getting design and development standards into our zoning code. Opportunities to update the general plan will be, you know, sort of on the horizon in the next, you know, decade. Typically, you start a general plan update about five years before your current general plan expires. So that has us looking at 2025 to sort of start that work. And, you know, that certainly could be one of the further, you know, refinements to our land use pattern that comes out of that process, but that's a really big, you know, long involved community wide process thinking about where does development belong, what type of development belongs and what location. So that's not part of this project. Okay, thank you. I'm going to close the public discussion part of the public testimony, part of the meeting and bring the matter back for the commission for discussion and potential action. Is there somebody who would like to go first? As usual. Okay, Mr. Spelman, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I want to thank staff and all the consultants as well. I mean, obviously, this is heavy lifting in a short period of time to try and, you know, wrap our heads around where we're headed. How can we be more open and equal in our participation in our city process? So I'm really encouraged on many levels about this. And I'm also, I'll just sort of throw out how my my thought process works, right? I think we're, I think this is definitely a continuation of the quarter slam and a lot of levels. I think we've, we've lost quite a bit of time in the interim of sort of squelching that process. And having to pick up the pieces now and sort of being forced based on state law to it to address many issues. I thought we were getting very close on the quarters plan and it was controversial. The high five stories was, you know, causing a lot of angst in the community. But I think we were about to dig into defining what it is, you know, we want our city to be. And getting into the neighborhoods of so Cal and Branson 40 and even ocean admission and doing the real work to understand what those places are and how we can craft zoning language to define them. And that's what I was hoping we were going to get to with the objective standards. And I think we're, we're touching on it. Things like, you know, the public realm and the streets sidewalk with interaction with the roadway and bike traffic and people traffic. And there's very little language in what we have before us on those issues, other than say, you know, a minimum sidewalk with. But that doesn't really get us to that definition of, okay, what what is defining, say, downtown midtown areas along so Cal, right, as opposed to, you know, those same types of conditions along mission. So what are the real, you know, architectural articulations and width of walkways, you know, they're different street conditions, they're different walking conditions. I was hoping that we were going to get into that kind of differentiation and maybe we will. I think the process that's been started that has added the voices of our community and albeit we still need to add more to that. But just understanding who's not represented right allows us to go out and and make those voices heard. And I think we would have a, you know, a more balanced approach to what we're we're trying to understand. You know, as a professional who deals in a lot of these code issues, you know, on a daily basis. This is a lot of information to try and digest right it's it's fairly abstract. Complex ideas, even the way things are broken down into diagrams, I think are pretty dangerous. Right. I think showing images of actual buildings that are doing what you're proposing is a much clearer way to communicate what you're asking or what you're asking somebody who's not educated in these terms to actually make an opinion on right just the cartoonish box building that is showing modulation and in a very abstract way. I don't think that's that's helpful right as opposed to a photograph of an actual project where you can show okay this building is doing this. Is that a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of comments. I think some of our few participants tonight have been very spot on in some of the observations. Right. I think the corridor plan has been brought up by by several of the members as this feeling like that process. I think the reality is is we have to face these hard issues. And if we put it off before it hasn't gone away. Right. We've got to figure out a way to address it. And I do think we have to be extremely focused on how we're going to achieve more affordable housing in this community. And if there are, you know, that that should be the lens that we're approaching some of these decisions. I questioned some of the topics that were brought up right if we're potentially limiting development how do we reconcile that concept of more housing, more units. If it on the face of it, it appears that we're decreasing potential density and unit counts. I don't know the answers. I'm just I'm just throwing that out there as a as a comment. So, I think this information takes three, four readings, understandings to get through it. Again, even for myself who have been through this information, probably three times fully in the past week and listening to your presentation again tonight, it's it's it's big stuff. And it's it's on some level it's very hard to be asked to make a critique on specifics when, you know, the big picture still seems like it's in its forming stages. And that's that's all I have to say. So, if I could go, you know, I, I want to agree with much of, I think, right, what, where I think commission is coming from about understanding your comments correctly. As a staff has said, the state has focused on housing production, but there are other concerns as well. And, you know, my goal is to try to find a meaningful balance between the variety of the range of concerns that exists for making a community desirable community for everyone who lives here. And, you know, I just want to make a couple of comments about some of the things that we said in the staff report. Racism has certainly been a reality, but it is intimately connected to housing affordability. Housing affordability is really the key. And it disproportionately falls on the problem disproportionately tends to fall on various ethnic groups, given the demographics in our culture. And I think it's ironic, given the relationship between race, ethnicity and income, that the state is focusing so much more on market rate housing, which is boiling from people of cannot are unable to afford rather than requiring statewide a greater level of affordability. So we're now ending up with projects that have less than what is traditionally been since the passage of measure a the city standard of 15% of the housing larger projects be affordable. With density bonuses, we're getting less than that. I think that is a very unfortunate. From my perspective, simply approving objective standards with site design and building design. Well, I agree with many of them. I think it's insufficient, especially since state going now so for severely damaged local discretion over housing development. I think that my own feeling is that the course itself complicated because it's so such a significant issue. I think we should take more time on it. I understand the staff wants to move it forward. And I think that one of the concerns here is that there are two processes that are going on at the same time. Once is the one is the contract with the consultant, which is really focused on building design and site design and that's understandable. But the other thing that's going on is that this is our opportunity to really consider those kinds of standards that are necessary to be able to have some assurance that the new development is not going to overwhelm overwhelm the community. I think there are things that we can do in terms of affordable housing. I think there are things that can be done in terms of quality of life and in terms of environmental sustainability. I submitted a list of potential potential suggested additional standards in these three categories. I submitted them to staff. I can't submit them to the public correspondence because I've been told by the city attorney that that's a violation of the Brown act. I didn't submit them earlier to either the commission or the public, but I did ask the staff to have them ready to be put up because I think this is our opportunity to need to look at objective potential objective standards in a much broader with a much broader lens than what we have before us. For instance, I looked at in a general plan, there are all sorts of policies about a conservation policy. Not one of them would be considered an objective standard. It's to minimize land movement. I can't remember them all off hand, but what I tried to do in coming up with some additional suggestions, which I'm not, these are things that I think need a review to see whether other people agree with them, whether they really are objective standards and whether they're, you know, they move in a direction where I think a number of people have said we'd like to move, including staff, that there are other concerns that need to be brought into the picture, whether they're traffic transportation concerns, and whether they're environmental concerns, or whether they're affordable housing concerns. And, you know, I think it is important also to keep in mind that all of this is in the context of identity bonus law, which, from my perspective, in many ways, makes the mockery of objective standards, because the identity bonus law allows for waiver or concession to eliminate every objective standard. So we're going to go through an exercise, which I think we should, to recognize what the values are of our community and come up with some standards to fulfill those priorities, but recognize that we have very limited ability to enforce them due to the, due to the density bonus law. I would like to say, since a number of people have brought up the corridor's plan, that it might be helpful to remind the commission of a council action that accompanies a direction to terminate the corridor's plan. And the objectives of what staff was to do was to reconcile the zoning code in the general plan, and to do two things, preserve and protect residential areas and existing city businesses as the city's highest level policy priority, and through a current appropriate new residential and mixed-use development specifically, including enhanced affordable housing and appropriate locations along the city's main transportation corridors. And I think what we've presented to us tonight is a good step in that direction. I, could I, I sent my proposals to Matt. Is it possible to put them up? Matt, just share the screen so that... Sure, I can pull them up here. Yeah, that's her. Okay. Thank you. Can everyone see that? Is it big enough? And so I divided the standards into three categories. Affordability, quality of life, and then at the bottom of the page is environmental sustainability. And, you know, my sense is that, you know, as projects get bigger, their affordability requirement should increase. And I made some suggestions about since the law prevents applying inclusionary requirements to total price to density bonus units and only to base density, I think. And as if projects are going to go for, if we're going to get large projects, and if we're going to, you know, these density bonus continue to be used, the affordability requirements should increase. I have a, you know, I tried to come up with a standard solar access. I know that Steph talked about their struggling with shading. And, you know, I think it's worth looking at what, you know, how to protect adjacent residents solar access. Find the limit structures, you know, the ones that are here are related to the trying to have some recognition of what's, what's going on around the project. Having some noise level, noise standards, having some PDM requirements for increased fees for very large projects that are going to generate additional traffic. Requiring more usable bicycles for a large project. And then, you know, requiring certain kinds of community gathering places for 50 plus units. You know, these I think should be at least considered in the mix. And then why the sidewalks. I'm collector and studio streets and then what I try to do with environmental, the environmental sustainability is suggest standards that were related to the climate action plan that, you know, requires that documentation that the stone water drainage and air quality standards will be met. I just at the discretionary or ministerial approval stage, so that the project doesn't get approved before it's clear that those standards are going to try to have to really push for climate action with requiring meeting building standards, although I'm not sure how much that changes what the current requirements are. The next ones are all kind of trying to convert the general plans conservation standards into objective standards, because they're now all considered and they are discretionary standards. So, I would ask that the, you know, the commission agreed to refer these to staff for consideration. I also want to add that Rick Hyman, Mr. Highland submitted a long letter with a number of also proposing a number of objective standards. And I think they should be responded to maybe they'll work. Maybe they're contrary to state law, maybe the ones that I'm asking for contrary, or suggesting contrary. But I think they do represent a more more comprehensive approach to dealing with what seems to be under the housing. The housing crisis act, the only area where the city and have any kind of discretion over what kind of development comes into the city. Let me take one final thing to respond to the step quest for input in terms of what should be the, what should be the process for looking at, at these projects, whether we should really try to, you know, minimize, make the moment. Serial minimize the public hearings. I think the 831 water street project is a is a really good example of why we should do that. Objective, there are different ways to interpret whether objective standards have been met or not. And the staff can have one opinion about whether objective standards are met. And in the case of a 31 water street, the council had another opinion about whether the city's objective standards have been met. And to sort of take out the public rule, take out the role of the elected officials, I think it's a mistake. I would not support. So thank you for, let me submit my hope for considering the, the additional projected proposed objective standards. And those are my comments. Any about any commissioners want to respond or the staff want to respond. I've buried my soul here. So now it's your turn to tell me what to say. I can just give some high level responses. So, you know, we can definitely take these, you know, and integrate them into the feedback we've received and take a look at, you know, which of these maybe we can implement under the state law. Several of these are things that are already accomplished in the zoning ordinance. So, you know, we'll double check and make sure that they're fully objective that as they're currently written, but we do, you know, we have a whole slope ordinance and grading and geologic hazards regulation. So, you know, I do think a lot of that is accomplished already in the zoning ordinance, but, you know, we can certainly take these under advisement and look and, you know, see which, which one's possible to integrate. There's certainly a lot of really good ideas here. Thank you. And with that included, Mr. Hyman's suggestions as well. Yeah, I actually, I've emailed with Rick a little bit about those. And, you know, one of the things one of the things that he's really focused on is transitions between intense uses and adjacent single family homes. And that's going to be like a significant component of the engagement that we are doing around all of these objective standards is that we want more feedback from folks about how do we manage that transition. Rick has been really explicit and clear about how he, you know, wants it to go and thinks it ought to go. And there's certainly very well thought out ideas. And so we've created a question to actually ask the broader community about that. Like, are we, you know, what's the best way to handle this setback? We need to, we'll need to do based on that feedback we get from the public. We'll need to do some allowance analysis and make sure that we're balancing, you know, the FAR with the height with the sort of setback or like daylighting plane or step back increases that folks are most interested in seeing to sort of address those transitions. Because we do want to make sure that we aren't reducing housing capacity. You know, that is like a primary goal of this project. That's a requirement under the state law is that we are achieving that 2.75 that they are in such a way that housing can be built and developed. So, yes, we are taking all of that feedback in. You're not going to see all of it word for word, you know, show up in the standards. And, you know, I'm happy to talk with individuals or, you know, I can email with Rick again about some more of those standards. And the same, you know, we heard some comments about from the save our big trees and I just want to point out, you know, all of those standards aren't reflected in the standards here. And what we did do is that we did what the crux of what that was was about preserving heritage trees. And one of the best ways we can do that is by allowing more flexibility in terms of how a site can be constructed so that you can like push a building around an existing tree and maintain it in place. And so what we did is that we have a standard for when you're counting the open space, any area that's under the canopy of the tree counts double. So that there's an incentive to keep that space that's under the tree as part of your landscaping. We also kind of looked into, you know, there were some just some suggestions in those standards about requiring that trees be relocated. And we talked to our urban forester and discuss the feasibility of that and the sort of consensus around that in the arborist community is that it's not usually very successful with mature trees. And so, you know, some of that didn't end up being incorporated, but this long story long, we have gotten a lot of really good suggestions from folks. We are definitely analyzing them and taking them into account and incorporating them where we where we can. And when you see this package come back for adoption, you're going to see these objectives, you know, sort of site design, building design standards, and then there are going to be a bunch of other little code amendments. You know, we're going to like making our archaeology archaeology art studies, like you have to comply with the findings of the art study so we have an objective standard that you have to do one but currently the standard that requires that you incorporate those mitigations into the project is not objective so we're going to fix that. And I think there's going to be, I think some of these things that are in the list here from chair Schifrin are in kind of that category so they exist in other places in the zoning code and we'll be taking a closer look to make sure that that language is really tightened up. Thank you. Are there comments from other commissioners? Commissioner Stelman and Commissioner Nielsen and Commissioner Greenberg. Yeah, mine is brief just on that point. I mean, I, you know, I appreciate the effort to put the paper, you know, some of your thoughts around where some of these objective standards should be focused. And Mr. Hyman as well, but I would also say, I think we're in the discovery phase still, I mean, I think those are opinions and those are our thoughts, right, but I don't think they should dictate, you know, code at this point, I think we need to where is our collective voice and how are we going to get there I think is is important here. I agree that not their suggestions for consideration. Commissioner Nielsen. I would agree with that. Definitely. I think one other thing that I just wanted to talk about was this idea of, you know, maybe doing administrative approval or, you know, I think one of the, one of the things about this is that it's not just about, you know, obviously we're trying to get to a place where things are more objective than, and as, you know, as Chair Schifrin said, I mean, even, even objective standards can be interpreted different ways. And that's true. I mean, they can be and but the more that we can get to a place where there's their, you know, live more solidified and that and objective, I think is the right move and more. I think the reason why I feel that way is from a developer side. They're really they they it's important for them to have predictability in the process. Because if it's not predictable, then it just it ends up being more costly and to be able to actually produce the housing that we're trying to get. And we saw it. We saw this in our last meeting. I mean, we're with with the with the Center Street project where the developer just wanted to know that there was not going to be a an appeal. I mean, you know, obviously we don't have control over that. But that was their objective because they want predictability. And so, so I think this process needs to take that into account as well where where it is. And maybe it's, I guess what I'm getting at is I think there I think there has to be a place for administrative review in some cases and maybe the 831 Water Street project would not is not a good example for that because maybe the size of that project, but maybe maybe has to do with, you know, different sizes could be possible for them to be able to go through administratively if they meet the objective standard. And so I just wanted to, you know, bring, you know, kind of from them, I guess, from the point of view of the developer that that the predictability is really important. Yeah, thank you so much to Sarah and to the staff for this incredible work on this and the months and months of of it and really appreciate the presentation and the comments of my fellow commissioners and the public on commissioner Nielsen's point, I would agree in and thinking about 130 center and the kind of the question around it. Ministerial review and the idea that an incentive is significant, you know, for developers to be able to expedite the approval process. And I think that planner noisy, there's point about how that is one, you know, one way we can think about the potential for affordability that is that accompanies these objective standards. I found that to be a compelling point and I bring that up to say that I also find compelling points from the public and share shift from around, you know, what is the affordability bonus. Of going in this direction. I know we can talk about, you know, approval processes and predictability. We can talk about, you know, the idea of affordability by design and that, you know, that there's conceiving if we can build more multifamily housing and more density. There's the potential for more affordability. And I think that there are certainly arguments along those lines at the same time. You know, Sarah brought up in the beginning the notion of the three P's and that simply adding supply simply adding focusing on production does not ensure that affordability is going to be accompanying that if in fact you're operating in an environment in which there's very limited costs and protections and so forth. So, similarly, if we were operating in a production environment where we're so enormously dependent upon the private sector to provide the housing. If we were operating in an environment in which we had much more state and federal funding for affordable housing and larger trust fund affordable housing trust fund. It's more conceivable that we would have more dense affordable development. Unfortunately, we're operating in this environment. As we know, and we're all hoping for the best out of the build back better plan in which there's very limited state and federal funding. And so we're dependent upon the private sector. So in that sense. You know, just given the kind of realities of our current moment and trying to think about. The impetus behind so much of this and the presentations that we're done about exclusionary zoning that we're done about the history of red lining in our community, the history of the intersections of race. And income and exclusion around housing. Significance of the public feedback and the priority that was placed on affordability and the hopes. The hopes for more inclusivity, more equity by doing this. I do think if there was any way, and given that we're operating in this kind of private market driven housing development reality. If there was any way of including objective standards. In addition to expediting the process and so forth that that emphasize affordability. Would be, I think, really compelling. For a lot of folks for the in the public who, you know, put that as one of their top priorities and so forth. And I know that. And I guess a question I have really. I'm really, I'm really intrigued by the suggestions of chair Schifrin on the affordability front. Around whether projects with the base density of 50 or more units shall have a 25% inclusionary requirement. For instance, those kinds of ideas. Is that even something we can talk about? Is that something that is, you know, we, you know, you've mentioned that the suggestions around quality of life. The suggestions around sustainability are things we can talk about are things we can add. And are they objective standards around affordability that stipulate, you know, for instance, expanding the inclusionary requirement and beyond simply affordability by design or through or procedural. Procedural means, i.e. expediting approvals. Are there other forms of regulation around affordability that can be considered objective standards? And that might allay concerns that in fact we're going to be. And we're going to be adding a lot of supply, but doing it in a way that is not necessarily affordable. I think that that is a question that I have and maybe I don't know if this is a moment in which there can be any response to that. I'm just wondering what your reaction might be to those ideas. I'm happy to respond to that. Yeah, so as we have mentioned previously, revisiting the inclusionary ordinance isn't so to be part of this process. We don't have the right staff or the right team involved to really do that study because it is something that involves a specialized kind of analysis to really take a look at. And I certainly hear and understand that, you know, that's the most direct route to creating affordability. Right. It's to just increase that inclusionary percentage. But unfortunately, it's not always necessarily tied to the number of units that doesn't necessarily adjust that like yield on cost that a developer is trying to like pencil out projects with more units. Involve elevators, they involve a lot more grading like they're just their economies of scale and the way that, you know, development. Kind of pushes and pulls on itself when you like add more units and then you have to add an elevator and then suddenly you need like a lot more units to make that work. It's not a straight line. And so, you know, the way that our inclusionary ordinance is currently set at 20% is, you know, we're pretty sure that that can work well. We actually haven't studied that our last last study that we did indicated that 15% was a more feasible option in order to make sure that development could continue to happen. And I, you know, I hear that this is a concern. And I also want to just be clear that, you know, part of what got us into this challenge that we are in with housing is a failure to build multifamily housing. So by zoning so much of the city so much of California and the nation for single family homes and excluding the type of housing that is called for in our general plan that is called for by the state law that is more likely to be affordable to lower income household, not guaranteed, but more likely in denser multifamily properties. It hasn't been created. And so we're taking a stab at rectifying that and you're right that it doesn't guarantee affordability, but it starts to make it possible. And so, you know, at this point with this project, that's what we're able to do. I mean, you can always discuss changing the inclusionary requirement, but that would require a different kind of study and a nexus to be created. Right. Thank you, Sarah. So I just wanted to respond to, you know, comments from the public and so forth that are concerned with that and the suggestion from chair shift from. And so it sounds like, and I guess it's another corollary would be, if we know of any other communities in the state who are also in the process of creating objective standards that have included. Are there other means of producing affordability vis-a-vis objective standards that we haven't considered? And I don't know. I mean, I'm really curious to know if there are other creative ways of considering that with as an objective standard. But I do see, yeah, there is a reality of affordability by design. I've said this in the past in this space of, you know, I think density is necessary, but not sufficient. We need to increase density. We need to meet the capacities of these areas. We need it for affordability. We need it for sustainability. We need to create, you know, the capacity for the mass transit to be able to move along places that have enough ridership and so forth along corridors. So, I think there's so many benefits to infill housing development. And I'm a huge, huge supporter of it at the same time. I don't think it's a panacea. And I think that, you know, that we, that we need to, if we're going to be going in this direction. We need to be exceedingly and increasingly vigilant about finding other means to enable us to accompany this potential for development with affordability. And that might include means of increasing our own affordable housing trust fund so that we can pitch in more as a city. It may mean, you know, other forms of, of regulation around rents and so forth to really be creative and thinking about how we can balance the three P's in this, in this moment. I'm just going to chime in here for a minute. I'm Dean and Belzer, and I'm with strategic economics. You all might have met my colleagues suggested to justice. And Sujata has moved over to work for a nonprofit. So I'm here tonight. And I just want to say that there is a lot of evidence academic evidence. Somebody cited Karen chapel from UC Berkeley recently Karen has moved on now to the University of Toronto, but she's continues to work in this field. And some of her work shows that by continuing to produce housing, particularly at the high end, what happens is the people who can afford it move into those units. And they often create that filtering process. So I think that there's a lot of indirect affordability that create gets created across a spectrum. So it's not an either or density or affordability. I think we should be really careful about not again, assuming that this is kind of an all or nothing. And that production also contributes to preservation. So I just want to make that. Yeah. And I, you know, that's, I mean, I didn't want to get into the weeds of that. I mean, I think that, you know, there is a report by Karen Karen chapel and Miriam Duke in response to an L a report on the concept of filtering that is actually quite critical of the concept of filtering. Right. It was, it was, it was critical of the methodology, but there's more recent. So anyway, so there again, I think the most important thing is that anything we do to cut off supply. Even at the high end, we're actually exacerbating the problem of affordability. Well, I think there are certainly arguments for that. There are also cases where the gentrifying effects might mean that we're going to change the nature of the, you know, the AMI of the community. And I think she also found that, but she found that in. To these transit or into development, but did not include affordability. It actually had this contradictory effect of driving out low income people. Outlying areas where they were more likely to drive cars while attracting high income people who are more likely to drive cars into the, into the center of the city, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions for the region. So I think that she somebody who I have worked with and really agree with in linking the importance of ideas of affordability and density. And so, at the same time, there are market dynamics that certainly, you know, supply matters. I totally agree with that. I think, and I just, I don't want to be a broken record here, but that we, if we're going to go in this really pro density direction in this town statewide. We have to find additional means statewide, not just at the city level, but statewide and federally, obviously as well to increase equity and affordability alongside of that. I agree with that. So I thank you. Are there other commissioners who would like to weigh in here? Any comments? Yes. Yeah, thank you. And again, I really want to thank the staff and the consultants. I think that this is an amazing piece of work. And it's been said by many people, but the fact that we actually understand who's participating in our community feedback is, it just can't be overstated how important that is. And thank you for the passion that you brought to, and the commitment to making that bring us forward in that it's about time. I also want to thank you for prioritizing the importance of making rental housing feasible. And especially making small rental projects feasible. And I think it's a point that can get varied in the very large amount scope that's happening here. But what I appreciate about that is that it's recognizing what our actual land use patterns are. And establishing some policies that say that rental housing is important to us. And you did it in a way that incentivizes, and I think that this can help a little bit with some of the angst for feeling about the density bonus. And some of the way state law is handled. But if we can find ways to incentivize. Just following the rules as we want them as a community without, you know, going to density bonus and sort of the state imposed rules. I feel like that's a pretty big win. And again, I think that in the context of what actually happens in our land use patterns that makes it really important. So, let's see, this is a big project. I hear a lot of us saying that it's not as big as we can imagine it being. And as maybe we've even tried to bite off. Before we know we need to create this tool. It's a really important tool for our community. Creating objective standards is going to help us going forward. Even if it and as far as I'm concerned, we can't do it fast enough. So, keeping this process moving. You've done some really important work here. I think we've also identified that there's a lot of important conversations that we want to have happen going forward. The staff report also raised some really specific questions that I don't know that we've wrestled with. Maybe this isn't the time to start raising them, but I think that they were some important questions to have in. You know, the conversation about just, you know, where do we put this thing? Is it going to be in the code? Is it going to be a separate document that we can maybe manage differently? And there's, I think that's, I think that's a really useful question. Our conversation tonight has gone in a different direction. So, I'm not going to start digging through those now. But thank you for identifying them. I know that they're going to continue to come up in the future conversations around completing this project. I also think that we've what we brought up tonight are raising some future work. But I also want to thank the members of the public that participated, you know, all of them, the ones that I really hardly agree with and the ones not so much because I know we all love our community, right? But all of everything that we're doing, these are policy choices and they've resulted in the community we have and we know it can be better. We know we love our community and we know we can do it better within by addressing a lot of things and a lot of policies. So, I think always being aware of that is important. And this project does this both in the way that you've approached it and the many of the questions that you raised. And again, I really want to thank all of you, including my fellow commissioners on your thoughts on this in reading this voluminous material and great presentation. Thank you. Anyone else before we close. Okay. I just want to say one last thing that that just listening to everyone's thoughts on this just kind of brought it to life for me. And maybe this was kind of touched on earlier, but these are what we're talking about our objective standards and in a way when I when I look at that or think about that it's kind of it's a way of regulating. And what and so what I had in my mind is what if we flipped that what if we were to flip and this is this is kind of revolving around the the affordable housing piece. But what if we flipped it around and we were we were to think about objective incentives, rather than maybe objective standards. Is there is there so and I admit this may not be initially within the scope of this process and with these consultants but something to think about like because because we we're all trying to get something and in order to get it we may need to give some things up and and I don't know what that is but it but it would be but but to what what Sarah was was expressing earlier about the tree when she was talking about the heritage trees, the idea of being able to give double the outdoor space for for that for you know underneath an existing tree that to me that's moving in that direction of like incentivizing keeping the tree rather than saying you have to keep the tree for these reasons but like incentivizing those things. So I think that that would be I think that's a really good example of kind of this idea of incentivizing so that was just a follow my head. Thank you. The commissioners. Yes, commissioner Greenberg. That's a really interesting idea, Commissioner Nielsen and I'm just wondering if did you have ideas along those lines for incentivizing affordability or I don't know if you had any or have heard a little bit I mean I did Yeah, as it relates to objective standards I my thought was okay well for talking about wanting to make things predictable for developer like being like maybe there is some incentive to, you know, if you provide a certain amount of affordability you can go straight through without public hearing maybe there is some sort of way to do that. Or maybe there's other things that can be reduced out of the out of what the of what the zoning is like parking for example I mean maybe that's another one I mean we know that parking is very expensive right you know for in development and if you know if if more affordability was what's provided maybe the parking can be reduced or you know things have on those lines if that's an option. That's a great question is that I think along the lines of creative thinking around affordability and that's an interesting one. I don't know if that's something that communities have used as an objective standard those kinds of incentives. Well, so those incentives are already built into the state density bonus. So you hit a certain level of affordability in the state density bonus you don't have to provide any parking at all in many locations. So like that when we talk about incentives around affordability, all of that is going to intertwine with what's already built into the state density bonus and I'm hearing a lot of concern about the state density bonus. So, you know, we want to we just need to like think through all of those factors, you know, like if we if we automatically require a 30% inclusionary requirement for certain projects, every all of them are now density bonus project at a very high level. Right. So that's all of these things relate and kind of come back to each other and that state density bonus law is like it is it's so what I'm looking for. It incentivizes so much that that trying to think about ways to like get out of affordability that don't trigger it. I think it's really challenging. I mean, I am absolutely open to suggestions. I know that this is a concern from the community. And and also I know that the state law is really clear, but I see Kristin just jumped in like she maybe had something to ask. I was just going to say, I think in a lot of ways that's what the concessions and waivers about is about letting individual developers. Sort of tell you what they need in order to make a project work. I think I mean, I don't know how often you guys have seen Santa Cruz, but we're hearing this all over that a lot of times they're using the density bonus without even actually going for the density just so they can get the streamlining process. And so to your point about the ability, you know, this suite of laws has kind of enabled developers to identify the things that they would need in order to incentivize them to build projects. And I understand that it makes it definitely a different process for review. But I think that in a lot of ways is kind of the intent that allows them to select the incentive concessions and streamlining that would be helpful for them to be able to get the projects through. And I'll just add that this is something we talked a lot about as we were developing these standards, you know, how does it, how would these work if there was a density bonus on top of this? Or what are the things that people might ask for concessions and waivers from? Should we try to make it so that we have, we're making the most feasible possible development so that people don't need to ask for a lot of concessions and waivers? But what are the places where we're hearing it is really important for the community to have certain features retained like the architectural detailing is a place where it was pretty clear. It's not just in the survey, but also in the focus group from the various conversations we have. That's a place where people do want to make sure we hold on to a few things. So it's just kind of careful. I have no sound. I think the sound just cut because it's cut when the one lady was talking. I think they can all hear each other, but I can't hear anybody. It's zoom related because I can get sound and not from them. I can put sound over the air, but it's not there. So it's from the zoom. You might want to text them or something or just interrupt them and tell them you're having sound problems. Coming up with policies that maximize the amount of affordable housing that we can get, but at least optimizing it. And as we see with entity bonuses that are essentially getting to what currently now can be set back on by 50%. I think it makes sense to be considering increases to the density bonus requirements. And we can do it now. It's a political decision. If we ask consultants who always say you can't do it, they'll say we can't do it, but we have done it. And it's, I think it's working. So I think we need to consider continuing to do it even more. Okay, so that's my final fire speech. So there's no action that we need to take. Let's move on to the next item. I want to thank the consultants for all their work on it. But one thing I learned tonight of nothing else is that it really was a human job to get all this information before us. I wondered why it was taking so long. It was supposed to come in August. I now understand that such a delay was not unreasonable. So let's move on to item number four, which is to consider proposed changes to the planning commission bylaws. We've all received the proposed changes. They're pretty minor. Sarah, are you going to do the staff report? It'll take less than a minute, Chair, if you all need it. You have it pretty plainly there to request from Bonnie to update the terms for efficiency, consistency, and clarity in her office, as well as making the language gender neutral. So pretty straightforward. Happy to be here if you do have any questions. I only actually have one question. The language in section two, the membership year was a little confusing. It says the membership year should be from the first month of the first commission meeting after the February 1st to January 31st of each year. But that doesn't make any sense because February 1st comes January. In other words, if it starts on January 1st, January 31st is the next year. So I think Bonnie's providing time for it to go to council to make sure it's appointed. I don't have any problem with the process. It's just that the wording seems weird. The wording seems to be that it's going to be from February 1st to January 31st of each year. But it's not. It's from February 1st to January 31st of the following year. Yeah, we can update that to make that clear. That was the only thing that sort of threw me from. Do any other commissioners have any comments on this item? Is there any member of the public who wants to speak to this item? So would somebody like to make a motion to approve the recommendation with that one minor change to the section two? I'll move to do that. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, let's have a roll call, both please. Mayor Conway. Hi, Dawson. That is unanimously. We'll now move on to item, the potential pursuit of a new commercial linkage of portable housing impact fee. I put that on the agenda. And I really want to apologize to commissioner Greenberg. We worked together on this. And I did a draft. He approved it. And the probably should have been from both of us. So I never, it didn't occur to me out until after it was on the agenda. So this is commendation that the commission recommend to the city council as they initiate. Process to adopt a commercial linkage fee to fund affordable housing. And direct the chairperson to write a letter to the mayor requesting consideration of this recommendation. About the meeting. This is, you know, this is something that somehow I think just got overlooked. At least it appears to me that the council, the county of Santa Cruz has had a commercial linkage fee for, which I think it's called a non residential affordable housing fee. Or I think Commissioner Conway was involved in the adoption of that requirement. And the city of Watsonville has it. It certainly seems a reasonable thing to ask. I don't think it should apply to very small commercial development, but larger commercial developments that are providing. A significant number of jobs should be helping to provide some affordable housing because many of those jobs for. Our income employees. So. Did you want to anything? I'm not going to go through the letter, given the latest of the hour and wanting to get to commission discussion. Yeah, no, I'm really glad. This seems to be a very. Common and popular policy that is increasingly, if it doesn't already exist in many cases is being upgraded or is being added. In jurisdictions throughout our region, including most of the jurisdictions in the Bay Area Silicon Valley have been adding these. These ordinances and particularly in a situation in which we're seeing additional commercial development. And that commercial development is geared towards providing jobs. You know, one of the reasons we want commercial development. And so it's in many ways considered. Kind of a smart growth policy. It's it's kind of a win win in the sense that the commercial entities that employers want to know that their employees are going to have a place to live. Obviously, we want to know that we're not going to have increasing commuting to get into, you know, people aren't going to be displaced to outlying regions. As we were saying before, and people can live close to their jobs. So it's, you know, it's an environmental policy. It's an economic development policy and it's a policy oriented towards equity in our community. As we were saying, there's so few means of funding besides the private sector and hoping developers will do the right thing. We have so little often on the city side to add to our affordable housing trust fund. And this is another means of doing that. So it seems like a hard way to go. Okay, let's start with questions. Every comment from commissioners and they see if anybody in the public wants to speak to this and then we can have consideration by the commission. How did you want to comment? Do you have a question? I'll comment later. Thank you. Okay. Are there any questions on the proposed action? Why don't we see if there's any? Is there anybody in the public? Yes. Rathford is selling cells. You have your hand up. You have three minutes. I just wanted to generally support this idea. I think it's a pretty common sense thing for our community to create more opportunities for affordable housing. I do hope that it's looked at to make sure that it's not like a detriment to the commercial development in the sense that, you know, we do want to be adding more jobs in our community along with more affordable housing. And I would hope that, you know, we don't set up a fee that's too high that kills that possibility for more jobs. So, you know, the next study that goes along with this linkage fee is going to be really important. That's really all I had to say. Otherwise, I think it's a smart move. Thank you. Vera, you're up. I just want to say I have a huge amount of support for this potential. I want to thank Commissioner Greenberg and everyone else who supports this and agree with Rafa. I think it's really important that we increase affordable housing coming from the commercial sector makes a lot of sense. But we do need to balance it because we know that part of our long term sustainability does also involve the commercial sector and making sure that it's not burdensome for them. So, creating the right amount for sustainability for our overall future is really crucial. Thank you so much. Thank you. I don't see any other hands. I'm going to bring it back to the commission. Commissioner Conway. Yeah, thank you for bringing this up. First of all, and I, I agree with what Rafa said, this will need to be supported by a next study. The crux of the whole matter really is nexus and proportionality. And I appreciate that you attached the study. The next study from the county from 2014. That was also a lot of work and went through a lot of process. I'm sure everyone had time to read it. And realize that what it's found is that all development creates a need for housing for people with lower incomes. And I'm wondering if and I don't, I don't in any way mean to make this more complicated. I feel like it's fairly straightforward. But it will require a next study. One of the things that the county found is that a substantial driver of the need for affordable housing is the development of market rate housing. So, in other words, people who live in market rate housing rely on people in service field construction education and many of which are lower income. I'm wondering if you would consider including an examination of the housing impact fee for single family development on a per square foot basis. Meaning that smaller houses will pay a low cost per square foot because we don't want to make it harder to build, but that larger houses will pay a higher cost per square foot. And I do think that in a meaningful way, this could incentivize the construction of smaller homes. And it also would create would add to affordable housing funds. Taking a quick look at what happened with the county's housing impact fees. They've collected more money through their graduated residential impact fee than through the commercial impact fee. So, again, I don't want to make it more complicated. If it's more straightforward to go ahead with simply a commercial language fee. I'd be supportive of that, but I wonder if we should think about it if we're opening up that next. If I could respond, I think it's a really good idea. I'm wondering whether it would be better to keep this kind of simple and maybe refer that idea to the housing subcommittee and have it come back to the commission as sort of a sort of a thought through proposal that then could be moved up to the council because I think it's, I think it is a really good suggestion. But my sense is it will just create. If we tried to add it to this. That would be what I would suggest. Is it any other discussion by members of the commission? Would somebody like to make a motion? I would just like to go ahead and make a motion that we, the commission recommend to the city council that they initiate the process. Mercial linkage fee to fund affordable housing and direct chair person of the planning commission to write a letter to the mayor requesting consideration of this recommendation at the next city council meeting. Is there a second? I'll second that discussion. What I would just add, I really appreciate commissioner Conway's point. And that's really interesting and good to know. And, you know, I, and in so far as we're going to be recreating this affordable housing subcommittee, maybe that's the way to go. But I think that we should really explore that in our region and elsewhere. I mean, I think that. That there, you know, there may be feelings about the fees that residential developers are already facing and so forth. And it might affect the, you know, how people feel about commercial linkage and residential development linkage fee. But, but I would support that, you know, if that's feasible and if that's something that people can support. I think the next study idea is makes a lot of sense. I know that in the Bay Area, they actually fundraise through the community foundation to do a. A next study because I know it can sometimes be expensive and time consuming and cumbersome and look hard for the county. And so it's conceivable we, there could also be fundraising to support and fund a next study that might not only be for our community, but be for other communities in our region, like the other 4 cities, for instance, in the county. I know that Watsonville already has has this underway has already done this, but for other for other places to join in and do an economy of scale around a next study. So that's just an idea, but certainly, and that could be a part of this. There's no further discussion. Could we have a local vote on the motion. Commissioner Conway. Hi. Awesome. This is unanimously on to item number 6 establishment of an ad hoc. Subcommittee to review a proposed flexible density unit ordinance. This came out of our discussion. Let last meeting of the flexible density unit and small unit proposals. And so what I would recommend is that we just reestablish the if the members is still willing to be on that reestablish the committee, the subcommittee that existed. But I don't think met more than once over the last 6 months or so, because staff was so involved in other things. So. Committee was commissioner Greenberg commissioner Conway and myself. Are the 2 of you still willing to be on the subcommittee. I think I'm going to decline at this time here. I just, I don't think that I have the capacity to do it. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you for all the work you've done on it. Commissioner Greenberg. You want to be on it. I'm happy to if others want to, I'm also happy to, you know, I don't know if we want to have a discussion about others who might want to be on it, but I would be willing to be on it. Well, there's 1. They can, they can see. Is there either other commissioners who would like to be on the housing side to me. I would like to throw my hat in the rain consideration. Not seeing anybody else volunteering. So, the housing subcommittee will be commissioner Greenberg. And I think is it. Maybe we can have a get a meeting set up and not just in future, so we could get a report on the. Have a discussion on the sexual density. But I would also say, I'd also like to add the Congress notion of a graduated. Housing affordable housing fee for smaller units. Somebody wanted. Yes. Larger unit, larger unit. Yeah, I just have a general comment. I mean. Do you have a sense for what the actual scope is for the committee? I mean, the proposal was for flexible density unit. That thing, let's call it that proposal. I would hope that maybe you would come back to the. Commission with some sense of what you think the scope of work would be for, for what you guys are going to do. Sure. But the first thing we're definitely going to do is to work on what was on our last agenda because we continued it in order to have that kind of discussion. So hopefully that will get back to the commission soon. Thanks. Mr. Marlowe, I see your face. Did you want to say something on this item or are you gearing up for the next one? No, I just wanted to remind commissioners that ad hoc committees are typically supposed to be single purpose committees. So. With, you know, no more than six months in duration. So I'd recommend that, you know, perhaps you start work on the. The FDU ordinance. Conclude that word report back to the commission so that we can keep that moving along and then perhaps reestablish. You know, committee for another single purpose, which would be commissioner conways. Suggested ordinance. Well. Certainly not philosophically opposed to that, but I remember when the housing, when I first got on that commission, I think in the housing subcommittee was first set up and had about six or seven things that it was considering. So we'll take it a step at a time. I think the high priority now is the is the flexible density unit ordinance. And then maybe when we come back with that, we'll propose a work program along the line to spell man has talked about, if necessary, reestablish the committee to carry out that work over. Okay, any problem with that. Any commissioners, I'll say then hopefully we'll meet soon. Can I ask a question? Chair, just don't sure. So, um, I believe that this will fall within the noticed item on the agenda, but just since we didn't get a chance to discuss it at all last time. Um, could you just sort of, from the commission, from the subcommittee members, I just be interested in hearing like, what are the topics about us to use that you're going to want to discuss so we can have a productive first meeting. We do want to kind of get that rolling as quickly as possible. So any. Any issues or challenges or questions that you could kind of preview for us right now, we can start working on that so that our first meeting can really be a working meeting. Well, the one thing that I remember that I had a real concern about was what I understood to be the proposal to eliminate any density limits on bedroom units. That's what stays in my mind. The rest of it is a blur, especially after all it's objective standard stuff. I mean, I'll try to get it all mixed up if I try to come up with something else. Does any other commissioner have an issue around them that they want to sort of highlight around the flexible density unit? Okay. Does that give you a little something? It's a start. We'll work on, we'll be in touch with schedule a meeting. Okay. Very important question. I just want to say why, why we have a committee to study this. Is a member of the public that had their hand raised to address the commission on the side. Oh, okay. So we're still on the housing subcommittee. Go ahead. Given the lateness of the hour, you have two minutes. Thank you very much. I hope this won't take too much. I just wanted to propose, you know, while you are thinking about this flexible density unit thing, you know, at the last meeting, we talked about looking closely at the parking requirement changes. And, you know, to the extent that there are other things that you're studying within the context of this. You know, you could be looking at creating a ministerial approval process for flexible density units. You could be looking at zoning reform for flexible density units. Creating new transit quarters via up zoning along the rail trail perhaps. You could be looking at eliminating, eliminating parking requirements within a half mile of transit. You could be looking at requiring unbundling parking. You could be looking at, you know, a number of things. And I just want to make sure that that, you know, in the context of this ordinance that you are open to the possibilities of what you could do to produce more affordable housing. Thank you very much. I just wanted to, to appreciate that comments. There's, those are all great ideas. And I, I think that those are things that I'm glad it's recorded and these are all those are all things we can discuss. Thank you. Okay, so let's, if we can move on to item number seven, the status of various projects. And we do have a written staff report. And a bunch of correspondence. So we get the staff report. I'll then allow for commission questions and then open it up to the public. Sure. I'll, there was a number of items that you had requested follow up on. So I'm going to talk to you about meeting format and the downtown hotel. And then I'll turn it over to Sam to talk about the 100 Laurel and 324 Pennsylvania projects and then Matt Van while we'll conclude with the update on the UCSC LRDP process. First, though, I wanted to mention as part of the updates. It was mentioned earlier that the 130 Center Street project was appealed to city council that that in fact is true and we're targeting the December 14th city council agenda to hear that so just a little update on that project. As far as the meeting format issue goes at your last meeting, you had some questions around whether the commission actually has the authority to decide meeting format or if it needs council approval. I'll start by noting that as part of the city manager's report at last week's city council meeting. There was a presentation on the move to hybrid meetings at the city council level. That's expected to begin on November 23rd. If you haven't watched it, I'd recommend that you do so. It's both a technological as well as a labor intensive effort. The expectation is that in the city council chambers, there'll be staff posted at each of the two entrances to check temperatures, look at proof of vaccination, perhaps a third staff member from the fire department monitoring occupancy and social distancing. And then for those meetings where there's items of significant interest, there's a plan to use the Tony Hill room and the civic for overflow, which also requires staffing to perform those very same functions. So, you know, ultimately it's going to be a council decision as to, you know, whether this staff intensive operation will be extended to advisory bodies as there are budget implications to that and the expectation is that all of the advisory bodies will be treated similarly. So, you know, if you have hybrid meetings and so will the parks commission, public works commission, et cetera. Council decision, definitely. I also want to note that recently adopted AB 361 requires that in order to hold or to continue to hold these virtual meetings during the state of emergency, the council must make findings every 30 days. That there they've reconsidered the circumstances of the state of emergency and that it continues to directly impact the ability of members to safely meet in person. So this applies to hybrid meetings also as well as advisory bodies. So my point is that the council is going to be revisiting this every month. In fact, at next week's council meeting, there's a resolution to that effect to have 30 days of hybrid meetings. So that's the report on the meeting format for the downtown hotel. There was a memo in your packet that describes the project, the status, as well as the entitlement process. And then it also speaks a little bit to this general plan consistency determination that's associated with the sale of two city owned properties that are part of the project site. This proposal, which was submitted last April is to construct a six story hotel with 232 rooms of 50 foot wide the sale that connects front street to the levy and then other amenities. There's a note in the memo that we have created a website that has the plans included in them. So you're interested in looking at the details. It's all there. That application has a number of entitlements that will ultimately require city council approval. It's currently incomplete, but we're getting pretty close to a completeness determination. We're expecting that a community meeting will occur later this month. And then hearings before the downtown commission and the planning commission can begin as early as December. And then with respect to the sale of city property, there, there is a provision in the government code that requires a planning agency to make a determination of general plan consistency generally within 40 days of a referral by the city council, which, which hasn't yet occurred. You'll recall at your last meeting you received correspondence from the building community, not hotels organization suggesting that you direct staff to agendize this determination. We've also included this correspondence in the packet and the memo that's included your packet concludes that based on an analysis of the government code definition of planning agency. The municipal code definitions or provisions that govern your body and then your bylaws that it's really the staff's role in making this consistent consistency determination and less it's referred to you from the city council. But just recently, we came across a provision in the general plan that confirms that the city council has assigned the function of planning agency to the planning commission. I knew it was somewhere. I was not find it, but I had read it somewhere. Well, we found it before you did. I even look at the general plan. It's on page 10 if you want to, if you want to check it out. So, um. So, um, we're expecting that this item is going to be before the city council later in the year. So at that point in time, um, we're just going to inform the council. Um, that this consistency determination is going to be included on your agenda. Um, and it will, you know, we'll be making a recommendation on it. Of course. Um, it could come independently of the project. I mean, ideally the timeline will work out so that we can have both the entitlement package as well as this consistency determination on the same agenda. But it really depends on, you know, timing of completeness, whether or not the applicants want to make any changes based on community input, et cetera. So, um. So that's, that's what's happening there. I'll turn it over to Sam to talk to you about Laurel and Pennsylvania. Thank you. Good evening. I have a really quick update on, um, I'll start with Pennsylvania. So for 18 Pennsylvania, this was a project that was approved by the city council on appeal in February of this year. And it included the demolition of an existing detached studio and the construction of three, three bedroom townhouses and that's on a site with an existing two bedroom. Single family dwelling that was remaining. So, four units total was the result and the project wasn't subject to any inclusionary requirement, but there were specific conditions of approval on the project for replacement housing requirements. And the way the income verification worked out, the developer was required to provide. One unit at 50% AMI in perpetuity. So, um, when the applicant submitted their building plans, they requested that they construct an ADU in one of the garages. And, um, as you probably know, the ADU ordinance change dramatically of the last two years, you can build ADUs on multi-family properties now or convert space with a ministerial permit only. So, in reviewing that plan, we did receive comments from Mr. Spidell. Um, and I apologize if that's not how you pronounce the same regarding the feasibility of the ADU being the affordable replacement unit. Um, but at this time, the property owner has decided to not construct the ADU. And so they've decided to be restrict the front two bedroom unit instead. Um, the affordable housing agreement will identify that front unit as the specific affordable unit and the agreement is going to be required to be finalized prior to building permit issuance. Um, we have been in contact and in communication with Mr. Spidell and he's asked for us to provide him with updates and we will do so. Um, and I just want to reiterate that the applicant's decision to not build an ADU at this time does not preclude them from building an ADU in the future. Um, a multi-family site is eligible to construct two new construction and a conversion ADU up to 25% of the existing dwelling units so they can provide one in this case. And are there any, I don't know if there's any questions on that? Why don't we get through the whole staff report and then ask questions on all of the projects? Okay. Chair, we need a motion to extend to extend to adjourn to a time certain because it's 11 o'clock. So I like to make a motion to go to 1130. I make a motion to go to 1115. Is there a second? I'll second. All those in favor? Well, I guess do we need a roll call vote or can we just do that? If there's anybody opposed? Why don't we do it by consensus? Okay, so we have a very quick 100 Laurel Street. That's the specific front Laurel project. Your question was that you had heard that they had come into contact with groundwater. Yeah. There's no below grade parking at that site. The parking is all at grade and on the second level. They did hit some groundwater in the basement of the Salvation Army building. But that has been filled at this time under the supervision of a soils engineer. They are working on their drill displacement columns right now. And that's all also under the supervision of the soils engineer. And the building department says that the soil engineers on site at all times that they're drilling and that they have to reach a certain level of pressure and resistance before they can stop drilling. So that level is varying between about 18 and 20 feet. And if they hit water, then the water isn't providing that amount of resistance that they need. So they would need to drill down further. So. So no underground parking there and all of the columns and work are being done under this direction of the soils engineer. Okay, thank you. Matt, did you want to say something very quickly about UCFC? Yeah, this is just a brief update, chair. Thank you. So in late September, the region's approved the LRDP and adopted the final EIR sequel document. And the city had provided comments on some potential issues that they found with that sequel determination. So since that approval, the city has entered into a three way tolling agreement between the university, the county and the city. And those issues noted by the city should be resolved by the end of January, because with the tolling agreement, the city has the ability to file a lawsuit by that date. And as I understand now, the city, county, and university are just beginning the process of those negotiations. That's the update for the item at this time. Thank you very much. Okay, let's have questions from commissioners on any of these items. Commissioner Nielsen, I think I saw you first. Yeah, I had a question on the Pennsylvania project. So, and we got it, I think we saw a letter from the public on this too. I understand what the code or what the law is for ADUs, but I guess my question is around existing, converting existing space. So, and so I would just wonder, can you just explain kind of what the city stands on that? Well, my understanding is that there's no direction from the state regarding the timing of a conversion ADU. So it's sort of unclear whether, you know, what level of construction you need to get to before you can do an actual conversion of space into an ADU. I mean, in this case, the concern was around the ADU being designated as the affordable unit. And so the, I think the most effective way to get to that would be for your commission or the city council to be very specific about their preferences in the conditions of approval. If the preference was to have a three bedroom unit, B is the deed restricted unit, then we could specify that in the condition. Okay. Yeah, I wanted to follow up on that too. I mean, I think this has a lot broader implications as far as ADUs being allowed on new proposed projects, let's call it, right? I mean, as an example, you're building a small apartment project. It has parking. Why couldn't that project design in the ADUs and be approved as opposed to waiting for construction? In fact, I've been told that by planning staff in the not too distant past that that wasn't allowed, but now it sounds like the interpretation is leaning towards entitlement, meaning you could have a design permit approval. And then between design permit and building permit, you could actually include the ADU and eliminate parking to do so. Is that, is that, am I reading that right? Well, Eric, you can jump in on this if you like. Our thought process around it was that, yeah, so why would we require someone to do a two step process for an ADU that, you know, required to be a ministerial review. And I think we probably need to put more thought into it and just make sure that our interpretation is accurate and see if we get any more direction from the state on that as well. Okay, yeah, I mean, I think it's the right way to go. I think it's silly to, you know, build a new project knowing that you're going to convert it the minute it's done. I mean, that just makes no sense, right? And if we're going to get to new small units because of it, we should be encouraging that development as opposed to restricting it. Yeah, I think, you know, we think it makes sense from a, you know, a green building standpoint, a staff efficiency standpoint, you know, why should we go through two different plan checks? There's all kinds of good, I mean, it's consistent with the state's goal of creating ADUs. But absent any, you know, state guidance on this, I mean, we think it's probably a good idea that we should maybe come through with some clarification in our code. So as part of our annual code update that we do where we do some cleanups, you know, if not before, we're likely to, you know, include this as a code amendment just so that everybody, so it's crystal clear and not, you know, just some staff interpretation. Sure. Okay. Yes. I just, I mean, not opposed to the idea of what you where you guys have landed necessarily, but I was kind of thinking about this in our last planning commission meeting when we were when 130 Center Street was was brought to us. And I don't remember exactly how many units that that was, but let's say was 100. Let's just say it was under units. That means that 133 that means that they could. Okay, so, so, so a quarter of that is, you know, 50, 50 units, 50 plus units could be, you know, they could basically have wiped out the entire parking level, the first, the first level of parking kept maybe the ground floor. I mean, the underground parking and converted all of that to 80 years. So it's just something to think about because in and because there is no within the within the law, there's it's 25%. I mean, of converting of it was called existing space in the law. So just something to think about. I mean, I'm not not saying I'm against it. It's just, I think it needs to be thought about in terms of how impactful that could be because it's it's going to, it's, I mean, it's, it's going to add, you know, all the data use, which is great. And it's, it's, but it, but what it does is it reduce it removes all that parking and brings in more housing with, with less parking. You know, so it's just amazing about Okay, let's hear from the public. I see two hands up. I'm giving the fact that we're 1110 was supposed to end 1115. I'm going to give each speaker one minute. Micah poster you're about a minute. Can hear you. You're speaking. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Sorry, took a bit there. Well, I was going to go on and asking about why you are the planning agency, but it looks like staff found that in the charter so that's great. I'll skip all those comments. I'll just speak more generally about the fact that are my request that you really have a robust public process about the hotel. You know, make sure the public knows weeks in advance and not four days in advance. I want to point out that this project has been planned and supported by senior staff and at least one council member for more than two years before talking to the public in any way shape or form. The videos made a consideration that there's these two parcels, which could obviously be used for housing or deemed as affordable surplus, which goes against the spirit. It's not the letter of the affordable. Of the surplus land back in California. So this, this project really needs some democracy or really need some, some openness to the public. And I don't think the public wants a huge hotel there. So I'm just asking you guys as, as people that help the public understand planning and projects to, to make sure there's a robust process and that people know about it. So thanks for that. Thank you. One, two, six, three, five, seven, please introduce yourself in your one minute. Thank you. And it's very late. I'll just make this very short. I'm glad that the two commissioners. I'm all the same discrepancy that I'm seeing here. And that the plans that the city council and the planning commission look at with the public and debate about and finally approve or disapprove. Suddenly morph into something completely different when it gets to the very end of the planning process. When the garages disappear and all of a sudden we have a to use. And so what will we talking about in the first place back in the commission hearing. It's just troubling. It's not very transparent. And I can't really believe it's what the state intended. Thank you. And good night, people. Thank you. You have one minute. Thank you. My comment also had to do with the proposed surplus parking lot. And with my understanding that that still had to come back to council for a determination to do the surplus land. And so far, the direction of staff was just to conduct, you know, the usability or whatever sort of process that had to go along with that. So I hope that there is more opportunity for for the public to and for the city to put conditions or or review that process before it before it is finalized. Thank you. We've got 2 minutes. I do commissioners have any responses to the staff report. I have a quick question. Mr. Marlatt based on his what he led with. I was curious. If what if you knew what the grounds were for the appeal of 130 center street. I didn't look at it in any great detail. I know that there were some. Some claims that it was inconsistent with certain general plan policies. There were also some concerns. Regarding the amount of traffic that the project would generate Sam, did you have anything to add on that? Yeah, I think it was mostly based on traffic and I think that there. There might have been a claim that it was inconsistent with the secret exemption as well. Thank you. I have 2 comments. I'd like to make one having to do with the hotel. I think it would be really desirable to have the consistency comment the same time as the project. Rather than go through 2 separate processes at the commission for a project that's going to be very controversial. If we only have if we can hear it once, I think that would really be desirable. So if there's any way to make that happen, I would really like to advocate for that. Thank you. My second thing point has to do with the 418 Pennsylvania. My concern with that, particularly I understand and appreciate the other points. I don't think ADU should be allowed as affordable units. I mean, the whole rationale behind ADU is that they're supposed to be more affordable. And therefore, I think we need to think about whether it should be made clear that the inclusionary requirements are met by project units, not by ADU. And I appreciate staff's suggestion that the inclusionary units be identified in the conditions. But it's not always possible to do that, particularly for larger projects. So I think we need to, I would hope we would think about whether we would want to get some provision in the inclusionary ordinance. At least I would support a provision that would not, not use ADUs to meet inclusionary requirements. It's a contradiction. So if there are no other comments, we've exceeded our time by a minute. I would just be careful there. I think it's worth further study with potentially an ADU is going to be much larger than typical units in a project. Well, that's true too. Okay, but I'm raising a general concern. I think if we get into it, we should talk about those. Any other comments on information items? Are there any items to be referred to future agendas? Let's do any final comments. I want to thank everybody for hanging in there. We got to our agenda and we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you for your line.