 I can hear you, Andy, do you want me to start broadcasting? So the only way people can hear me is if I talk on the phone. Do you have it on speakerphone? I think you did it on speaker last time and that worked. Can people hear me? Yep. Okay. Yep. Well, I'm sorry, I'm so used to being able to just use my computer audio that I forgot that I needed to call in. So recall the meeting to order the June 4, 2020 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Planning Commission. Could we have a roll call, please? Commissioner Conway. Here. Greenberg. Here. Spellman. Here. Maxwell. Here. Nielsen. Here. Dawson. Here. Chair Schifrin. Here. So are there any statements of disqualification? None. Are there any members on the line who might want to do oral communication? Who's manning the phones for the staff? I am. Remind the members of the public, please, chair to raise their hand if they wish to speak on an item. So I'll know that they're here to speak to the item and not just be present to hear. Okay. So we're at all communications and this is a time for anyone to talk about them. Before the planning commission tonight and but is an item that will be for us. Are there any oral communications? Yes, we have one chair. Okay. Please identify yourself and you have up to three minutes. I see that the attendees raised their hand, but they're not a person calling from the 916 number. Did you wish to speak at oral communications? Thank you. Only a comment out of one meter on carbon arrow. Okay. Thank you. There are no other speakers on the line chair. Okay. Move on to announcements. Are there any announcements? Are there any presentations? I haven't heard of any. So I assume there aren't. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move to the approval of the minutes. We'll go first to the approval of the minutes of April 16, 2020. Is there are there any comments on the minutes? Somebody like to move. I have a question. I just have a quick question. I'm wondering if I'm not reading this properly. But let's see for the Eric circle. I'm not sure if we, it looks like there was two motions. Within that and with an action, but there was only one action, but I thought two motions, but only one action. So are we missing an action here? In terms of the actual vote for the, for the item. I'm glad you mentioned that because as I remember it, there was a motion and then there was an amendment to the motion. And that was then accepted into the motion. With some jiggling. But the minute it's not reflected. That's true. Okay. Well, it appears that there, it appears the amendment may have made it in there, but. But involving the common use building and, and regarding the. Sorry, just, you know, I think, I think they made it in there, but the, it shows that there was a motion made for this, you know, originally there was a motion made that was to extend the meeting and it looks like there was action taken on that, but then there was a motion for the actual item, but it doesn't, in the meeting minutes, it doesn't show that there was any action taken on that motion. So I'm just wondering if I'm misunderstanding that or something else. This is the clerk. May I speak? Yes. Go ahead. Would you like to pull the minutes and I can review that and prepare verbatim and then bring it back to your next meeting? Okay. Is there a motion to. Continue the. Continue the minutes of April for 16th to the next meeting. So we can get, I'll be sure to have any clarifications made that need to be made. Yeah. I'll go ahead and move to, to pull the minutes and have that amendment made to reflect the motion that I made and the discussion around that. Is there a second to that? I'll second. Second. I think that. I think that's fine. I think that's fine. Okay. So I'll move on to the motion to the motion. Commission Nielsen seconded it and commission endorsement made the motion. I got it right. Is there any discussion? Let's have a roll call vote please. Give me sure. Conway. I greenberg. I spellman. Hi. Maxwell. Nielsen. Hi. Dawson. All right, so the minutes from April 16th have been continued to our next meeting. And now we move on to the approval of the special meeting minutes of May 22nd. Are there any comments on the minutes? Anybody like to make a motion to approve them? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Is there a second? I'll second. I'll move by Commissioner Spellman, seconded by Commissioner Nielsen to approve the minutes of May 22nd. Can we have a roll call, please? Commissioner Conway. Aye. Greenberg. I was not present, so I can't, I think approve. Is that right? You're abstaining. I'm, I abstain. And Commissioner Spellman. Aye. Maxwell Nielsen. Aye. Dawson. Aye. Chair Schifrin. Aye. Um, we don't have a consent agenda, so we'll move to public hearings under general business 238 Carbonara Drive. Um, could we please have a staff report? Hi, everybody. Can you guys all hear me okay? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, um, this is, um, I'm Clara Fanger, senior planner. Um, this is, um, a project for a single family home at 238 Carbonara Drive. The location you can see, um, outlined in red right here. Um, this lot is the last undeveloped lot from a subdivision that created the lots that run along the south and west side of Carbonara Drive right here. Um, the lots in this area all have similar constraints with regard to trees and steep slopes. The west side of this site, or kind of the west and south side of this site. Um, and, um, what for the other houses is a large parcel that's owned by the city. Um, that parcel includes Carbonara Creek, which you can see running through the west side of that lot, so pretty far away from the site in question. Um, the other houses that have been developed within this subdivision are pretty much all two stories tall. They range from about 2,500 to 3,000 square feet inside. Um, and they're all located on our adjacent, adjacent to steep slopes. So this site, um, is 16,924 feet. The zoning is R17, which has a standard lot size of 7,000 square feet. Um, and accommodate single family residential developers. There are several heritage trees on the site, including a redwood grove that you can see right here, um, on the eastern side of the site. The western side of the site is Nordic-German. It involves some uncilivated grading that was done by a neighbor in the past. This site is also not for sensitive archeological resources. However, in archeological investigations found there is a very low probability of resources being present on this site. Method of site agriculture is key to this site. Um, and the foreclosure of this site drops a 3,200 square feet. It's okay. He'll come. Five bedrooms and single family homes. So here we can see, um, the existing slope conditions that were not by Belmont and Williams. The ores areas indicate slope exceeding 30% and the gray areas indicate slope exceeding 50%. Um, as you can see, there's a flatter area at the, um, rear left side of the site here. That's the area where the neighbor had graded the site. This is associated with an unpermitted skateboard ramp that was required to be removed as part of a code enforcement case. The grain caused this area to be flatter on the site. And in this area, that's just down slope of it to become steeper than what was originally there. There's also a steep area adjacent to the street where the site dips down and then back up. This was created by, um, the grading that was done when the road was built. So Belmont and Williams also did a slope map of, um, forensic slope conditions to show what the slope would have looked like without the man-made grading that occurred on the site. As you can see, pretty much the whole western side of the site now has slopes greater than 30%. But pretty much no part of this is greater than 50%. In addition, the area next to the street would have had to look less than 30% if it weren't for that, but I think it'll go out. So, voting ordinance section 24, 14, 031, exempts minus total landforms from the provisions of the slope ordinance. This is important in this case, because the slope ordinance requires the net lot area to exclude areas of 30% or greater slope, and it also prohibits construction on slopes over 50%. So, the forensic slope survey shows a net lot area of 3,980 square feet that's still less than the 7,000 square feet for a standard lot in the All 17 Zone District. So that means this law is considered substandard for the net lot area, and a design permit is required to build the house. Design permit findings will look for a house and site plan that has a consistent design that's appropriate given any site conditions such as topography and is compatible with the surrounding area. You can see on the slope survey the outline of the driveway right here, and the proposed house behind it. As you can see, under natural conditions before the man-made grading was done, this entire area has slopes less than 50%, which means it would not be prohibited to build up this location. But it does include slopes over 30%, which means that a slope variance is required to build the house. So, to meet the findings for slope variance, you have to show that an exception to the slope regulations is needed to allow the property owner to exercise the property rights and help with the things that such as the site plan of providing an appropriate amount of landscaping and usable open space. So, as you can see, in this case there's so much slope on the property that it seems 30%, it will be virtually impossible to construct a house without going on or within 10 feet of the 30% slope, which is the threshold for slope variance. So, here's a proposal of the site layout. It's turned a little bit in the site plan. So, the proposed house is on the northwestern side of the site, on which here is shown at the top of the site plan. And the proposal proposes to keep the existing landscaping on the site, which is kind of a wooded hillside. As you can see, there's gray dots on the screen. Those all represent trees. Right here we have a grove of heritage coast redwood trees located just below or just next to the house on the screen. There were also two other heritage trees, an oak tree and a California bay laurel tree within the footprint of the proposed driveway. Those trees were removed with a heritage tree removal permit in 2018. However, since their removal was related to the proposed house location, I did consider their removal in the analysis for this project. So, the decision to allow these two trees to be removed stem from the site constraints. There's really no physical way to develop the site without removing any heritage trees. The eastern side of the site, which is the bottom part of the site plan here, has very steep slopes that was located at construction. And then in the middle of the site, we have this grove of coast redwood trees. And the city of Arbor is ultimately determined that this grove was more important to retain than the two trees that were removed. And so that's kind of how that decision came to be made. Beyond their removal of those two trees, there are no additional trees that are proposed to be removed for the project. In addition, the project arborist, Kurt Sout, reviewed the proposed project and provided recommendations to protect the existing heritage trees on the site. Those recommendations have been reviewed by the city arborist and included as conditions of approval for the project. Right here is a side version of the house in relation to the slope. You can see the dashed line is the existing slope topography. And the proposed house really minimizes any grading on the site. The driveway will be either supported on here or it will have a built up salve along concrete foundation, but it's not going to cut into the slope at all. The house itself has a pure foundation and it will step up to the health side. So this is the first floor of the house and then here's the first floor of the back. So it's stuck there right there. So it's really not going to cut into the grid at all. And that keeps it in performance with the natural grade. It's also on the design for the findings and also the slope variance. So here we see the front elevation of the house. There are the two cars in large at the front of the house. And then the driveway also accommodates two cars. And that meets the four cars parking space requirements of the project. This is the left side of the house. As you can see a consistent design is carried around the house. You have vertical board and baton sliding on the first floor and hardy wall sliding on the second floor. These materials help to visually break up the first and second floor. And kind of create a horizontal break visually in the last thing of the house. Also with stepping the house to the whole side it visually breaks up the house vertically. Although you probably won't see a whole lot of this in the street view. Now as you can see there's also quite a few balconies and decks with those on the house. These will help to ensure open space for the residents. Also the first floor at the back of the house opens up onto that flatter area of the lot that was previously graded for that skateboard ramp. And so that will provide some private open space for the residents too. So as we see the back of the house the design is carried consistently around the back. And then again on the left elevation. As you can see the second floor of the house is the same size as the first floor. And the second floor of the house is the same size as the first floor of the house. So in this case a variance is needed to that section to allow the second floor to exceed this limit. To meet the requirements for a variance there must be a hardship. So the second floor of the house is the same size as the first floor of the house. To meet the requirements for a variance there must be a hardship to meet the property. The variance must be needed to allow the owner to exercise the potential property rights. And the variance must not create a privilege not granted to the neighbors. So in this case the site is substandard because of the net lot area and not the total lot area because of the amount of seats on the site which is considered to be an unusual circumstance. The buildable area is also constrained by several heritage trees such as this mudwood grove. So that it kind of really makes it impossible due to those two constraints to span the first floor of the house which would reduce the second floor and create a better ratio. The lot itself is pretty big. It's nearly 17,000 per feet and it's in the neighborhood with larger lots and houses that are spaced out pretty far from each other. The proposed house is 87 feet and 150 feet from the two houses on the entire side. And it's also buffered by the wooded environment so there's really no questions regarding privacy between the dishes adjacent neighbors. Therefore any concerns associated with crowding or privacy on truly small lots which is kind of the driving intent behind this limitation really doesn't apply in this case. Allowing the first, second floor in the house does not constitute a privilege not granted to other properties under similar circumstances. I did some research on these four properties leading north and west right on Carbinaria Drive directly adjacent to the property. These lots all have a similar size. They all range from about 15 to 18,000 square feet. They have similar constraints with regards to slopes and trees. The houses are all similar in size as a proposed house. They're all about 2,500 to 3,000 square feet. They're all constructed within 30% slopes and they all have second floors but they're about the same size as the first floor. Therefore allowing the variance for this house to actually keep it right in alignment with the other houses in the area. In conclusion, planning staff recommends that the planning condition acknowledges the environmental determination and approves a project with recommended conditions. I want to know that I received five comment letters with concerns about preserving existing property growth, workability of trees, and also requires a project to follow recommendations to protect those trees. There's also a condition of approval requiring the applicant to follow recommendations from their geotechnical engineers to support stability on the site. One of the comment letters questions, the categorical exemption under SQL Guidelines section 153.3 for any single family growing. The letter had concerns of the slope removal of two heritage trees and potential habitat for two animal species created an unusual circumstances on the secret terms that would disqualify the final exemption. With regard to the slope and heritage tree removal neither of those are considered unusual circumstances for SQL Guidelines. In that both of those circumstances already have a general plan policy and through the zoning ordinance and the specific code. The letter stated a concern that there may be habitat on the site of two species, the Bionti Bandlin graph hopper and the answer is kangaroo rat. The graph hopper listed under deemed dangerous species act while the rat does not appear to be listed species in the federal state law. It appears that these species are found in sand hill habitat which is further up in the sand who is now present on the site. In addition the official wildlife service critical habitat that mentioned for the graph hopper does not include the project area. In addition neither of these species is noted as present or even potentially present within city limits. According to the secret analysis prepared for the city general plan. That found no evidence that such habitat exists on the property. So that concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Do any members of the commission have just questions for staff? Well, I have a few questions. Let me first say that my phone has a lousy speaker. So I wasn't always clear on everything that was in the staff report. So I apologize if I ask questions that you already answered. But was a biotic study done for this site? No, a biotic study was not done. The site is not mass for biotic resources and there's no indication there are any sense of biotic resources on the site. Okay. And then you mentioned that there wasn't much grading. How much grading will be done? Is there very much cut and feel that's going to be required for the site? I got confused because I didn't know what forensic slope diagram was all about. So I might have misunderstood with that. Okay. So the proposed grading is very minimal. The house is going to be built on a pier foundation. The driveway might be on pier or it might have a built up path so it would not actually grade into the slope. I believe they're going to be doing a very small retaining wall around the side of part of the house that might grade it just a very small area to create a little pathway around the side of the house. Again, cut and feel. I'm sorry? There's not going to be significant cut and feel? No. In terms of the forensic slope study that just showed that there's grading that has already been done on this site. So that just showed it did like a forensic analysis to show what the site would have looked like before that grading happened. Okay. I think I understand that now. I also had a question about the heritage earlier from the staff report. How many redwood trees are going to be cut? Did I understand it that the staff report said there were 15 heritage trees on the site and 12 will coast redwoods and the audits recommends actions to protect six of the heritage coast redwoods. Does that mean that the other six are going to be cut? It wasn't clear how many redwood trees would be cut down. Okay. So the proposal is to cut zero redwood trees. Two trees which are not redwood trees were removed. There's one heritage tree that is remaining that's not a redwood tree. Some of the redwood trees need to be protected during construction because they're near the proposed house. The rest of the trees are farther away so it needs specific protection measures. None of the redwood trees are proposed to be cut. How many trees will be cut as part of this project? So two trees were removed in 2018 which were related to the project and there are no more trees that will be cut down related to this project. Okay. I really didn't understand the staff report around the trees. Sorry about that. Okay. If there are no more questions from commissioners are there any members of the public who would like to speak to this item? We have three minutes. There is one member of the public. I'll go ahead and I believe it's the applicant. I'll go ahead and unmute them. I think there was somebody who wanted to talk to it. I'll go ahead and unmute them. Yes, chair. This is the clerk. There is one member of the public. I believe it's the applicant. They're on the line. Yes, this is Dave Morris. I'm the owner applicant of the property there. And just highlights on here. The two, three years is over a third acre of land that is 25 feet of street crunch. And the home is built. It will provide an abundance of on street and off street parking. And this is a neighborhood of large lots with no parking congestion. All the utilities were connected to the property at the back of the existing sidewalk in 1979 when the subdivision was created. And there will be no excavation in the street to making utility connections. All of the heritage trees will be preserved and protected as specified in the arbors report tree preservation as shown in the report 2 J. There are 20 actually on the whole lot. The map you have shows the area of building that shows 15 trees on the whole lot. There are 27 heritage redwood trees, two bay trees and one heritage fir tree today. All of which will be protected. The 124 foot rear property line borders about 14 acres of open space for city property. Our landscape plan is to preserve all the heritage trees and preserve the natural setting of the property. This house design complies with all of the city council's development guidelines and staff recommendations that were made when they approved the original carbon arrow wood subdivision in 1979. Prior to that approval, all environmental concerns were addressed in great detail and the engineers had to document that all lots were over 7,000 square feet of net lot area. But because of the grading and airway, we were unable to re-certify that number. The house design complies with all the city. Okay. The 17 exhibits attached to this application represent the work and product of reports, tests, maps, surveys and studies completed by a long list of licensed professionals, which includes civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, structural engineers, arborists, building designers and surveyors. These professionals certify the quality of design and the integrity of construction of the project. In response to the letters from the neighbors and their concerns regarding tree removal, we're not asking for the removal of any of the 30 existing heritage trees on the site of this application. All existing heritage trees will be preserved and specified in the arborist and tree protection plan. The two trees referenced in the application for removal were actually removed in 2018. These two trees removed with city arborist permit and approval and only after required public notice and completion. One bay was unhealthy and one smaller oak was removed for public safety. All fees were paid and a $300 donation was made to the finding fund. Absolutely no heritage trees were removed because of this planning commission approval. The grading in 2012, the previous neighbor at 232 carbonarily over 3,000 acres of land on 238 carbon arrow to install a competition by grant without a grading permission. The city issued a citation this required only to do erosion control and did not require any property to this natural slope as shown in slope survey 8 2B. The house plans for 238 carbon arrow include grading plans that address and mitigates any potential negative grading issues in a forensic topo map to show the grading concerns referenced in the neighbor's letter to the planning commission today was not the natural slope of the property and the 50% slopes did not exist prior to the illegal grading done by others as shown in attachment to C. In addition to the potential negative grading issues and every effort and expenses and made to create a natural setting in a home that the neighbors would be proud of. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak to the commission on this item? They're not. Hearing no one, I'll bring it back to the commission for discussion. I have anything to say about this item? Commissioner Dawson, you want to lead off? Yeah. Thank you for the applicant for being here and his effort so far in moving this project forward. I did want to speak to having some concerns about using the categorical extension for this project. In my day job, I was in compliance with water quality regulatory requirements and part of that is developing pollution prevention plans. A big part of that is erosion. I've also been an ecologist for California State Parks. I brought some of that experience when I went up to the site and looked and I do have some concerns. I think there are unusual and potentially significant impacts for this project, environmental impacts. I think it's important that it get a full review. I think it makes those concerns make it ineligible for the categorical extension. As far as looking at the forensic grading report, as staff just mentioned, even if you go back with that reconstructed slope, there is going to be construction on 30 to 50 percent. That's why they're applying for the slope variant. Best practices when there is a variant for existing regulations is to have the fullest extent of review. The staff report itself actually calls out the project as having unusual circumstances. Really my primary concern and I'm going to bring up a slide to share with everyone here is related to the environmental components. If you look at the slide, is everybody able to see this slide? I can see it. Yes. Okay, great. If you look kind of in middle right, kind of just to the left of Dale, there's an icon there with a little white dot. That indicates 238 carbonara. And what we're looking at is the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Critical Habitat. And so Zianti Bandit, Banween Grasshoppers, Hedacruz Tar Plant, Marble Merlet and Robust Spineflower. These are all within a mile of the project designated critical habitat. So I believe this applies significant substantial evidence that there could be a likelihood that some one of these critters or plants may have moved into the area. And so I'm really interested in having this have a biotic survey so we can just make sure that this development is going to not have any unintended consequences for the environmental habitat. So I believe that the staff report has not provided substantial evidence that this project should receive a categorical exemption. I feel like there's substantial evidence actually that there are unusual circumstances as called out by the staff in the report. And I just want to make sure that this goes through the normal environmental review process and that there's a biotic study and based on those data goes through the normal process whatever may be found there. So at some point I'd like to make a motion in that direction, but I think I could hold off making my motion until we hear from other commissioners. Go ahead. So Commissioner Spelman did you have your hand up as well? Yes, thank you. Yeah, thanks for that information. Yeah, I think the project is given the site constraints of the project has been done in a sensitive way. I think I've been convinced that we don't have a secret issue as it relates to the slopes on this project. And given the minor cut and fill disturbance of that existing soil, I'm pretty confident that there's not going to be that much disturbance out there. I don't have knowledge of the habitats that you mentioned. And I do believe there was a full blown study done back in 1979 when the subdivision was created. So I'm curious if your opinion would be that since that time the habitat would have changed significantly to warrant further review. That's pretty much what I have to say. I think it's a very similarly designed home to what's in the neighborhood. And I would support the development of the project. Thank you. Other commissioners would like to any comments? I would like to do with the vegetation on the site. I understand what Steph is saying in terms of previous studies and the fact that there's no mapped special status species. But from my point of view there are two justifications for doing a biotic study. One is that the site is adjacent to a large parcel of open space land that the city owns that's in its natural state. And the use of this property development of this property could affect the city's open space. But what seems even more significant to me when I went out to look at the site was that this site seems to be the only site nearby that has redwood on it. And so it seems to me what we have are two vegetative types adjacent to each other which often leads to different kinds of biotic responses. So I think just to be on a safe side that there aren't any negative environmental effects to biological resources. I would support doing a biotic study. So any other commissioners Christian Nielsen your hand up go ahead. Yeah I have a question I guess maybe for staff in terms of what the normal review process is on this. So if it's not if the site is not in a mapped area is therefore biotic study not required? That's our typical process yes. Okay, so that is the normal review process. Okay. Okay, thank you. If I might add to what Miss Nanger said the sensitivity maps that we currently have in our general plan are based on what I would consider to be very robust biotic analysis that occurred as part of the EIR that was prepared for the general plan. So there was a lot of background studies reviewed in defining and mapping those sensitive areas. I'll also state that upon receipt of the correspondence from one of the neighbors that expressed concern with the potential for the Zioni band wing grasshopper and the Santa Cruz kangaroo rat being present on the site. The both of Miss Nanger and I did some background research and it appeared that those two particular species also depended on a soil substrate and the area that they were focused in was out in the area between Scott Valley and Felton where there's a high concentration of sand. From time to time even though reports not required because of mapping and someone from the public can't know what that is. Alleges something we do look into it and we did in this case and we just didn't find any reason to require a biotic study. I just wanted to respond to a few things. First Commissioner Spellman asked a question about the comprehensive study that when originally made in 1979 we all know that there are well documented changes in our environment due to climate change impacts and one of the ways that's affecting both plants and animals is the fluctuations in temperatures and the extremities and how long those extremities last has changed significantly over that time. There is the potential that maybe that wasn't great habitat for these plants and animals in 1979 and certainly could be appropriate habitat now. It's a highly vegetated site. I went up there. It's a beautiful spot but there's a lot going on and as Chair Schifrin mentioned about 14 acres of additional land and also I would say that how surveys for critical habitat is done is like a lot of science has done things are gridded out and then they're randomly selected based on constraints for appropriate habitat for that species so every single location that the species could possibly be in is not surveyed to make critical habitat maps and so one of the things with that redwood stand, one of the species that I'm most interested to ensure is that we do that site as a model near let because there are nests quite close and other stands redwood and it's kind of prime habitat for that species on there so again I think I agree with what other commissioners have said about addressing some of the other issues but just having a biotic study to ensure that there aren't impacts on any special status species I don't think would necessarily hold up the project but it wouldn't just sure there would be any mitigation if there needed to be and if not it could go along at pace. Thank you. You have to unmute yourself. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So thanks for the information we have that this project meets the standard and there's been adequate review there's been a suggestion that additional review beyond that may be appropriate. I am wondering what is the impact to the project to do this these additional testing I realize after some questions are they necessary but I just want to air on the side of protection if it's a benefit what's the cost to both the project into the timeline and is it a reasonable thing to require an additional test to I think in 17 studies and tests that were attached that's my question is this a reasonable additional request I guess I'd ask Mr. Marlott The reason is often in the eye as a beholder but I think Marlott would you like to even ask a question would you like to provide your response? The first part of the question was about what kind of impact it would be on the timing of the project it's probably going to be a few months delayed the applicant would need to go out and retain a biologist on our list of approved consultants get somebody who's available get them out to the site within their time frame and have the analysis done and then of course we need to schedule it for adhering so I'd say two to three months minimum would be the impact on that Okay Is the risk commensurate with that I mean I guess there's going to be a difference of opinion about that whether or not we're convinced by the potential of particularly it was the Marlott that I think you were most interested in I mean I'm satisfied as to the environment of the fine standard beetle grasshopper grasshopper I'm sorry up in the sand hills pretty different environment well I would just say that what I'm contending here is that this does not meet the standard for categorical exemption I think it is an unusual circumstance given the habitat that is exist that's the point and the argument I'm trying to make and perhaps I mean if there's additional discussion it's up to the chair or if we're ready to call the question then I can make my motion and we can see where we're at well I'm about to ask you to make your motion Commissioner Nielsen has something he wanted to say and then there's something I want to say so why don't you go first Commissioner Nielsen okay so this question is for Commissioner Dawson in terms of I mean is it possible to point to something very specific that you're looking for within this biotic report and the reason why I ask is if the biotic report is done and nothing is that particular thing is not found to be there is it possible that we could approve this project with the condition that that report is done and if that is not found to be that they don't have to come back to the commission in the event that the report doesn't find what it is you're looking for would that be an option well let me before sort of get my two cents worth in because it's related to what you're asking to me that two points one the mapping that occurs as part of the general plan and these sort of wide ranging areas I don't think they're necessarily meant to be site specific I know the county has all sorts of overlays for different environmental resources but on particular sites the question is are there some peculiar aspects of the site that may make it worth taking a closer look than what was coming through in the general studies or the general mapping and I think what seems to me that to be peculiar about this site is having the grove of redwood trees adjacent to the other vegetation that's in the whole area so my sense is that's what you know that's from my perspective that's what I would like a biologist to take a look at to see if in fact there are any special status species out there or habitat for species that would need to be protected as part of any development on the site and it's not I'm not there's no particular species that I'm concerned about it's just that these are different habitats they're different biotic communities often times and in those situations there can be different species that you don't normally find in one of those areas so from my perspective it makes sense to do the biotic study to see if there are any special species that need protection so in terms of your sort of commissioner Dawson but in terms of your suggestion that could we approve it conditioned on a biotic study being done and should any potentially significant biotic impacts as a result of this project be identified that it would return to the that would return to the commission but on the other hand you know I think it might be best to have particularly since we do have at least one commissioner with a background in this area to have that study reviewed by the commission itself would be reasonable so that's my view of why I think we really need to have a biotic study Commissioner Dawson do you have anything to add and then I would ask you to make your motion up go ahead Commissioner Conway you had your hand up yeah I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt there I guess I'd just like to say in particular there is a reason for mapping and there is a reason to you know look further and I feel like just part of a question of fairness I mean those the research for studies is really intended to be driven by you know where do we need to look more carefully and I understand the argument that you're making is that there might be it's a beautiful site, it's a special site and you have a feeling that there could be that we might find something but I feel uncomfortable just as a fairness point to open up and add layers of review without more evidence than that so I guess I have to say I'm not I'm not convinced about additional study that's my point let me just respond because I think what you are I agreed with the first part of what you were saying but not the second my concern is not that this is a beautiful site that there are unusual circumstances by having these two different types of vegetation I sort of looked around the neighborhood and these are the only redwood trees I could see and having redwood trees adjacent to this sort of more normal vegetation just seemed to me to in those kinds of situations I think oftentimes there are different species than that are generally in the area and it would be worth a look to see if that's the case so it's not a question of this is a beautiful site so let's make the ethic and spend more money it's a question of there do seem to be some big biotic differences between what's going on in this site and what's going on in the general area and it just seems reasonable to ask that that be looked at in order to determine whether in fact are any special species that are existing in this what I think is an unusual part at least for this neighborhood so Commissioner Drossan I'm sorry I held you up but do you want to say anything else or make a motion? Yeah I just want to just kind of sum up and say that I'm making a science-based argument it is a fact that redwood trees about that far from the ocean are habitat for nesting mirelets it's a fact that some of the vegetation there in the area and the exposure to sunlight make it appropriate for some of these special status species plants so my argument and my point of unusual circumstances is that these two vegetative communities that are there provide appropriate habitat and it would just be good for us to have an abundance of caution ensure what the status of if there is any of these special status species and then go from there so I am going to go ahead and move that 238 carbonara be continued and that biotics study be prepared and that the project would not receive a categorical exemption but go through the normal sequel review process. Is there a second? I'll second that. If I can ask a point of clarification on that motion if so hypothetically if the biotics study gets prepared and the conclusion is that there are no sensitive species on the site I don't see whether it would be a need to do any more environmental review beyond the categorical exemption. Thank you. I was going to ask for whether the maker of the motion would be willing to given the importance of the biotic issues in terms of the categorical exemption decision whether at this time you'd be willing to amend your motion to just continue the item for a biotic study that would then return with the item to the commission and hold off a decision on the categorical exemption until we know the results of that study. Would that be acceptable to you? Yeah, that's fair. So I move to amend that motion so that it's amended to ensure the maker or if you agree to just have to continue the item biotic study and have it returned to the commission that's sufficient. Okay, yes, I agree to that. Okay. Is it further discussion on the motion? So there's a motion on the floor to continue 238 Carbonara Drive for a biotic study to return to the commission for consideration. Could we have a roll call vote please? Commissioner Conway. Hi. Greenberg. Hi. Spellman. Hi. Maxwell. Nielsen. Hi. Dawson. Hi. Schifrin. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. We'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is on the agenda. 612th Street is located on the hillside above the Harvey West neighborhood. It's adjacent to the program of open space to the north on the west and adjacent to office and industrial uses to the south. The site is accessed from and to the street via a 50 foot wide easement that straddles the southeast corner of the site. So here's a small close-up of the existing site. It's 13.5 acres in size. The zoning is RF2A which is residential for bourbon zoning with a minimum of 2 acres. The general city designation is very density residential which accommodates single family residences on larger rural sites. The site is currently developed with three houses which I've identified with the yellow stars and there's also a number of natural features on the site. So first there is quite a bit of slope that exceeds 30 percent. The folks survey was done by IFRM engineers and you can see the areas of 30 percent are dated to 30 a week. The 30 percent slope is on the Watt side when creating a new Watt. And in addition building envelopes on the new Watt must be at least 20 feet away from any 30 percent slope. So there's also a creek. Pomona Creek runs along the north side of the property right along the property and pretty much. And you can see the creek setback area in the way. There are some previously structures, a dirt driveway, and some other debris that has been partially resolved as part of a co-violation under a previous owner. A condition of approval requires the applicant to obtain a water force development permit to complete the rehabilitation of the creek setback. The system is a city-wide creek management plan inspired to refurbish some different habitat sites on the property. So in the purple down by the creek we have bacteria and woodlands. There's also a redwood grove right here in the north part of the site. And then down on the southern part we have coastal theory habitats and mutograph grassland habitats. There's also quite a few heritage size trees on the site. And the trees are identified on this map. You can kind of see the tiny little dots with the numbers. There's all the trees. So the proposal is to demolish one of the three dwellings and to divide the site into four new parcels. And that will result in two parcels that retain one of the two remaining dwellings and then two parcels that will be vacant filled with a lot. So here's what's on site layout. Here's lot one over on the west side of the lot. Lot two is in the south here. Lot three is kind of squished in the middle and then lot four is up on the east and north side of the site. Each of these parcels have their own size of two acres that are required by the zone district. And again, this lot size excludes areas of 30% of data slopes. The building envelopes, which you can see in the dash lines are all 20 feet away from the 30% slopes and they also meet the required setbacks for the zone district. And our work support is also a project. The result is our work support and some recommendations from the city over these building envelopes have been modified to their current configuration to create buffers from any healthy heritage trees that should be retained during development of the site. And again, there's no street access for the site. So the proposal would need approval from the planning commission for a variation to walk standard to prevent these new parcels from requiring street frontage just as we've just been parcels already doesn't have the street frontage. The access to the new parcels is going to be via a on the easement and then a shared driveway that goes across lots one and two and then an existing driveway that will go across lots three and four. Conditions of approval require easements for these driveways and utility lines that will be running under the driveway to be included in the legal property description for the new parcels. So here's a close up at the proposed new driveway for lots one and two. It cuts through about 152 square feet of land that has slope 60 and 30 percent in slope. That's shown in the little areas that you can see on the screen here. A slope variance is required for driveways that encroach on the customer base 30 percent of the greatest slope. To define for a slope variance to show that there is a hardship to secure your property, the variance is needed to exercise substantial property rights and the proposal conforms to the topography and provides chosen spaces as much as possible. So in this case the steep slope on the site creating a unique situation of property where it's really not possible to construct a driveway without cutting it to the slope a tiny bit. Access to lots one and two is a substantial property right. You need to be able to access your lot if you own a lot and the driver can provide that access. The driveway is also required in order to meet fire access requirements and they require a fire access road that slows no greater than 20 percent. The grading for this driveway will need to get through some corners of the existing 30 percent slope in order to in order to keep the actual slope of the driveway 20 percent or less. In addition the proposed driveway location conforms to the existing site topography as much as possible and the driveway is supposed to be only 12 feet wide which is the minimum required for the driveway so that really minimizes the amount of grading needed in the 30 percent slope and the amount of disturbance of the open space. The first driveway has also been designed by a registered civil engineer with F1 engineers and a geotechnical evaluation was completed by the Heritage time associates. The that review recommended actions to grading and erosion control and those recommendations include the conditions of approval. Here's the profile of the proposed driveway as you can see there's a very minimal amount of grading the solid line is the proposed driveway and the gas line is the existing so for the most part it really conforms to the site topography. Okay so I want to talk a little bit about the houses on the site. So the applicant proposes to demolish one of the houses which is going to be on lot 3 and that house is shown on the bottom left corner of the screen. This house was originally constructed in the late 1950s without a permit and it is part trailer and part wood frame construction. There was a code compliance case on the site that resulted in legalization of this house review of the house found that there are no eligible tenants that would be eligible for relocation assistance and some of you found that the house doesn't have the historical quality that would want a historical review. So the findings for a residential demolition authorization permit to demolish this house can be met the condition of the recruitment requires this house to be demolished for the far home that was reported in order to ensure that there is only one house on the resulting site where the map is recorded on any parcel. The project entitled to the minor modification to retain the house on lot 4 which you can see on the upper right corner of the screen. This is actually the original house on the site that was constructed maybe in the late 1800s a condition of approval for the second house on the site which was approved in the late 1950s required for the first house to be demolished however the first house was never demolished. This house is in good shape and there is no need to demolish the house at this point since it will be on a film lot. So for environmental review an initial study in a mitigated negative declaration were prepared for this project. There were potential significant impacts related to biologic and geologic resources. The big one is the impact to the coastal prairie and needle grass grassland habitat. You can see on the screen the coastal prairie is in purple and then the needle grass grassland is in blue and you can see that the driveway cuts through part of the needle grass the two buildings on board for lots of one and two cut into the coastal prairie habitat. So the general plan does not prohibit development on sensitive habitat areas on however it does require mitigation as part of the environmental review process for the project. So this project for those of mitigation at a 4 to 1 ratio of how the habitat is disturbed the mitigation area is shown in the shaded dotted area on the plan and a mitigation measure in the mitigated negative declaration requires implementation of a mitigation management and monitoring plan for this mitigation area. Other mitigation measures in that document include types of birds and also to prevent revosions during construction of the road the driver wants one of these. There was a public review series for the mitigated negative declaration that ran from March 30 through April 28 the city did not receive any comments from the public or any other government agency during this time. So in conclusion staff recommends that the planning commission will determine the mitigated negative declaration and approve the project with a recommended condition. This concludes my presentation and I am available to answer any questions. Any of the commissioners have questions? Is there anybody from the public who is here to testify? I don't see anyone raising their hands chair. Wait, there's one. Okay, please and you have three minutes to testify. Welcome. Hi, this is Eric Barbic. I am a member of Coastal Asset Holdings LLC which is the applicant here. I won't waste three minutes everybody's time. I just wanted to thank staff. This has been a long arduous process on this property with all the constraints and challenges that we've faced and tried to keep it the property in its natural state so here to answer any questions if there's anything that we can help assist in helping educate you guys on this. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else? Okay, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back before the commission to say before I ask for discussion that I had some concerns when I first actually with the mitigated negative declaration and then with the staff report and I want to thank staff and the applicants for giving me a tour of the property so I could actually see what was proposed because there really wasn't much visibility of the site from outside of the property so my major concern was the proposed houses would be visible from Pogonip but having gone out to the site and looked at the vegetation I don't think that's going to be the case and I do recommend as I remember the houses will need design permits and they will be very visible from Harvey West so I think I would expect that plans would do what they can to blend into the hillside but I don't have any objections to this and feel supportive of the staff recommendation. Are there any other commissioner comment seeing them would somebody like to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation? Commissioner Spellman? I just wanted to make a quick comment obviously this is a very unusual site lots of challenges I sort of see this what I would consider development as a win-win for the city from a public safety standpoint to be able to get fire trucks back into that area that has been impacted in the recent past with fire scenarios going on we know that the area off of golf club drive just on the other side of the creek is limited in its access from the fire department because of the low trestle so if and when something happens there's still going to be significantly limited access so I think it's trying to take a very challenging site and I think ending up with a positive solution for everyone so I'm in support of the project. Would you like to make a motion or somebody like to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation? Yeah I'll make a motion to approve the staff recommendation. Is there a second? Okay A motion by commissioner Spelman seconded by commissioner Maxwell any further discussion? We have a roll call vote please. Commissioner Conway? Aye. Greenberg? Aye. Spelman? Aye. Maxwell? Nielsen? Aye. Nelson? Aye. Schifrin? Aye. Patrick unanimously will now move on to item number 5 914-16 C. Bright can we have a staff report please? Good evening. Can you all hear me? Yes, good evening. Hi. So I'm excited to bring this project back as you might recall this is a project that was heard by the planning commission on May 16th of last year. It was continued by the planning commission for redesign to reduce the building massing and to also stay within the density range and if possible to provide a diversity of housing types. The planning commission noted that consideration of the application of a density bonus shall not be precluded in this project. The project previously proposed to propose the demolition of three existing residences and the construction of a nine unit townhouse development at the parcel known as 914 and 916 C. Bright Avenue. The project as revised continued to require approval of a residential demolition authorization permit a tentative map and a design permit however this revised project also includes a request for a density bonus waiver to the open space requirements. This is the project site is located on C. Bright Avenue has access from C. Bright Avenue and from the cul-de-sac at the terminus of Stumner. The parcel is not within the boundaries of the C. Bright area plan and it's within exclusion area A of the coastal zone and is eligible for a coastal permit exclusion. The site zone RL which is a multi-family load density district and it's surrounded by other parcels that are also in the RL zone district. This is just an aerial photo of the property showing the existing development. There are two there's a duplex unit at the front that consists of two one-bedroom units that face C. Bright and then towards the rear there's a two-bedroom cottage. There's also various fruit trees on the property but no trees that would qualify for this street. Here's a photo of the existing duplex facing C. Bright. It's panoramic view showing the properties to the north and south and then this is another photo of the properties to the north and then this is the view of the project site from Sumner Avenue to the right that's a newer ADU that was constructed and then a single family residence on the left and then this is just the site and the trees that are there and then the cottages further up. I just want to go through some slides showing the original development that came in and then the proposed development before you tonight. The project originally proposed nine attached three-story three-bedroom townhouse units. The applicant went to great lengths to great lengths to address building mapping and so he's now proposing four units and has reduced two of the units to two-bedroom units and revised the parking to a tandem arrangement to allow for a break in the building where a 24-inch box size pink crate myrtle will be planted. I don't know if you can see my mouth but the break is here in the middle. The pedestrian path is still provided through the parcel and the planning department continues to recommend that this pathway be made open to the public to provide connectivity between the neighborhood to increase coastal access and to encourage walking and biking as an alternative form of transportation because the pathway will continue to be located on private property and not within a public access easement or a public right of way. The building department determined that the accessibility requirements shown in the original proposal are not required. The access point is Sumner continues to be dated and would only be accessible by emergency vehicles and sanitation trucks. Here's a comparison of the north elevation. Additional changes were made to allow for greater compatibility with the existing surrounding neighborhood and also to assist in reducing the building mass. These wide dormers that were originally proposed are replaced with front-facing gables and the exterior materials are now differentiated between units to provide some individuality rather than the appearance of one big building. South elevation has similar updates providing individual balconies to break up the long building wall and then of course the height difference between the two. This is a building section that shows the building in relation to the existing buildings to the north and the south along sea bright that dashed black line there identifies the originally proposed three-story height the new proposed two-story structure is a compatible size with the two adjacent units and other two and three-story residences in the surrounding area. This image also shows the height difference that they're proposing that red dashed line shows the 30-foot height limit measured to the midpoint of the roofline on the original proposal and measured to the roof peak on the project that's before you today. We also can also submit a revised shadow study this was based on the revised height of the development the shadows we looked at impact during the morning and afternoon of the summer and winter solstices and shows that there are limited impacts on property to the north. We expect some shading impact to occur with an urban infill project but this proposal limits these to the greatest extent possible it locates the development at the south property and provides a 20-foot setback to the north property line and then the reduction building height also reduces shading impacts on the north adjacent properties. This is one of the renderings that was submitted. This is the rendering showing the view of the development from Seabright Avenue and then a rendering of the development from the Sumner cul-de-sac. As part of this project the applicants will be provided with a bonus waiver of the open space requirements. The project is being complete part of the adoption of the current inclusionary ordinance that requires 20% of the project to be provided as excuse me for a minute my computer to die. This project is subject to the prior inclusionary ordinance that requires 15% of the total units in the development and inclusionary units and that's at 80% area median income. For this project it's equal to 1.35 so they'll be required to provide one unit and then they can pay an in-loop fee for the fractional amount. In order to be eligible for the density bonus the project must provide a deeper level of affordability providing 10% of the total units of affordable to lower income households at 60% AMI. The applicant is level of affordability and is therefore also eligible to provide two additional market rate units as density bonus units pursuant to the city's density bonus ordinance and the state law. The applicant is not proposing to construct the additional units however the applicant is requesting approval of a density bonus waiver to the open space requirements. The requested waiver would allow for the rear yard areas where they have dimensions of less than 10 feet. It would also allow for an approximately 20% reduction in the total open space requirement and would allow for units 4 and 9 to provide 70 square feet of private open space for each unit. In order to be eligible for the density bonus waiver the applicant needs to show that the full application of the open space requirements specifically preclude the construction of the project with the density bonus unit. The project as proposed complies with all other requirements imposed by other city departments such as the building department and the fire department. The applicant has also reduced the sizes of the unit significantly to meet the design preferences of the planning commission and provides unit amenities such as appropriate sized living areas. The final implementation of the open space requirements would further reduce living area within the unit and would require the development to encroach north into the minimum width driveway as required by the fire department. And this is all without providing the two additional units that they're entitled to. We obtain the advice of the city attorney because there's very little direction regarding the definition of physically preclude. The application of the application of the open space requirements specifically preclude the construction of the project and a waiver of the open space requirements is recommended. It indicates that features such as ceiling height are considered to be amenities that are not intended to be stripped of a development that would provide affordable housing under the density bonus ordinance. The minimal living area proposed within the units is consistent with this application. It is recommended. It is one last thing. The project includes the demolition of two one-bedroom units and one two-bedroom units. And those are passed by low to moderate income households. So under the city's housing requirement the property owner is required to replace 50% of the bedrooms to be demolished. The replacement unit must remain in the rental unit in perpetuity. The property owner wishes to maintain ownership of all the units and rent them out. And during this rental period the code allows for the replacement unit and the inclusionary unit to be provided as one unit. A three-bedroom unit in this case which is representative of the unit mix of the majority of the unit mix I should say. This unit would be provided at the most restrictive income and rent in this case would be to 60% AMI required by the density bonus. At the time when the first unit is sold the inclusionary unit must also be made for sale. Available for sale. However the replacement unit will be required to be maintained as an affordable rental unit in perpetuity. So with this project we're getting the payment of a fractional and loosey. One affordable unit provided at the most restricted level of the unit. And then when the first unit is sold we're getting a for sale affordable unit as well as an affordable rental unit. This project meets all of the city's objective general plan and zoning standards with the exception of the density bonus waiver to open space and the housing accountability act that's not considered to constitute inconsistency or nonconformity. The project maximizes infill use and provides a public pedestrian connection between neighborhoods consistent with several general plan policies and objectives. And the project has been designed to meet the preferences of the planning commission and the neighbors. I did receive public comments on this project and those have been provided to you and attached to the staff report. It's recommended that the planning commission be submitted to the city council to approve the project as proposed based on the findings in the attached draft resolution and the conditions of approval in exhibit A. Thank you very much. Are there people in the who've called in who want to testify on this? I don't want them to start. I just want to know how many people are wanting to testify. Chair, this is the clerk. I want to know how many people are wanting to testify on this project as well as a member of the public. Why don't we start with questions from commissioners. Any questions on the staff report on this project? Yes. Commissioner Conway. I have a question about the way the affordable housing is provided. I don't think I've seen before how affordable housing is rented for a period of time. I don't know that we've seen it before where one of the affordable units was going to continue to be rented. I think it's actually a pretty good solution to getting some deeper affordability or at least potentially a good solution. I wonder if there's any question about ongoing management of that unit in the future. When the rest of the unit sells, that one is going to continue to be held by home and what's the management plan? We haven't received any formal statement about how they're going to manage that unit from the applicant, but it's possible that a way could handle that will probably require that a management company is responsible for it. It's also possible that one of the owners could buy that unit and be responsible for the continued rental status as well. Does the city certify the eligibility of the occupant? I know they do. I'm not exactly sure how they do it. Or is that good? Both of the units would be covered under a affordable housing participation agreement. I would assume it would get into that level of detail. Okay. Thanks. That was a good question. I have a couple of questions. One has to do with the access from Sumner. It sounded from the staff report as if what was being proposed was only emergency vehicle access and not pedestrian access that was available all the time. Could you clarify that, please? Yes. The vehicular access would only be allowed for emergency vehicles and sanitation trucks. But we do have a condition in the report that we're recommending that would allow for public to access the pedestrian walkway to have through access. The pedestrian walkway would remain open to the public, but the vehicular access would be closed to the public. Okay. That's what I thought, but here in the presentation. Then I had asked staff to put on the replacement housing ordinance because I have a concern due to the fact that we're ending up losing three affordable units and for an uncertain period of time of one affordable unit. So I would like if you can to put on the replacement housing ordinance and ask that the commission look at section 1B because what that says and this is under the requirement that affordable housing demolish be replaced half of the bedrooms be replaced and it says inclusionary rental units located on the site may also be counted as replacement units and to my mind that gives the city discretion to require that they not be counted as inclusionary units and it made me think about under what conditions would they for the city to not allow the replacement housing unit to be counted as inclusionary units. I think generally I have concerns about that but I particularly have concerns when what the project would do is reduce the number of affordable units in the community. So I wanted to bring that to the attention of the commission that and just check with staff that my understanding is correct and which is why still a question why if my understanding is correct that the city the commission can recommend and the council can require that from the beginning there be two affordable units as part of this project replacement affordable unit and inclusionary unit. Is my understanding correct? The code does say May. It does not say May. So my understanding is that it is the discretion of the planning commission to allow it to be counted as a replacement unit and an inclusionary unit. I think that the applicant would probably like to address the amount of effort that they put into addressing the design preferences of the planning commission and the impact of those design revisions on the sizes of the units that were proposed and how that affected projects from feasibility standpoint. So we might want to hear from the applicant on that as well. I'm sure we'll definitely hear from the applicant on that and anything else that he wants to tell us about. I just wanted to clarify from that point what discretion of the commission was in responding to the staff recommendation. Okay, are there... I don't think I had any other questions at this time. Are there other commissioners with questions? Okay. I'm going to open up the public hearing and we'll first hear from the applicant. Oh, wait. Clear question. Yeah, I just wanted... And maybe this is something for the following discussion, but to clarify the recommendations that the commission made originally had to do with questions of the size of the units and the diversity of the size of the units not only from a design standpoint, but I believe also from an affordability standpoint. And so there was some question about, you know, with the size of units that would preclude the possibility of a variety of price points for the different units. And I don't know if that's part of the staff report or part of the you know, the submission by the applicant. Well, maybe we'll hear from the applicant about that aspect of it. Any other questions? Yes, Commissioner Dawson. Yeah, I just had a question for staff related to it's conditions 13 and 30 that speak about having an easement pathway from Sumner to Seabright. I know the general plan does encourage connecting transportation corridors, encouraging coastal access. But as a resident of the east side and if somebody has reviewed the traffic studies available, Seabright itself is actually one of the more dangerous roads in the city. I think if I remember correctly on top five for vehicle accidents as well as I think pedestrian accidents. So I'm just wondering why the staff included that as a condition. To require the pedestrian access through the site? Yeah. Seabright area, Seabright is fully improved. So they have sidewalks to keep the pedestrians off the streets. The end of it connects the end of Sumner with Seabright Avenue, which Seabright is an arterial it provides through access to the city so it could provide a lot of connectivity between neighborhoods. There's also goals in the general plan that encourage increased coastal access and Seabright provides direct coastal access as well. So the intent is really to meet those policies that encourage connectivity between neighborhoods. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, again I'll open the public hearing. Let's hear from the applicant. How much time are you going to need? No more than an hour. All right. Three minutes. That's what I've got. That's what I'll take. No, you have more than that if you need it. I'll try to keep it short. Good evening commissioners. A lot of transpired since we last met. We took the heart of the... Would you like to do yourself, please? I'm sorry, Derek Van Allstine and we're the project designers and I represent Bill and Jerry who are the owners. Okay, go on. A lot of transpired since we had... We first submitted this a couple years ago and we took the heart of what we heard at the neighborhood meeting. There were a lot of concerns about mass size and I think that was reflected in the subsequent planning commission meeting where there was also a lot of discussion about mass size. We were given the guidance that the commission would like to see it be more diverse in unit sizes and affordability that they would like to reduce the mass and increase the number of units in the use of the density bonus. Well, this parcel really doesn't like... It wouldn't like to have more than nine units on it. We were able to reduce the units approximately 30% which is a huge reduction and take one story off. So we we reduced the also the reducing height by about 20% by doing away with the third story. So we're now at a floor area 14,000 square feet where the previous application was for 22,000 square feet as a significant reduction. That means also a significant reduction in the revenue stream from the rentals. But it also means that those rentals are less expensive than they would have been quite by quite a bit. So and we also have two additional two better units instead of being all three better units. So quite a difference in the way that the building looks and feels and we were able to separate it and a great deal of time was spent trying to address all the issues staff was really great working with us to get it to where we wanted both staff and my staff worked very hard to get it to work properly. It's a tight site. I think we've got the best that it can possibly be. The if we were to have to do another low income unit it may tilt the scales and not make this project viable. I think that the configuration we have now is probably the best that it can be. And the other thing that I would mention is that the walkway as shown is something that a lot of neighbors didn't want to have they didn't want to have people cutting through their neighborhood. That came out loud and clear when we did the neighborhood meetings. My client also would not like to have the pedestrian walkway cutting across the property for obvious reasons. So we would ask that you approve this project as submitted and that condition 13 be removed. I know that it's a suggestion by the general plan that you do that wherever you can but I think that also in this case the neighbors have spoken and I can see if I were living in one of those units I wouldn't want to have people cutting through all the time but it just asks for a nuisance. So with that I'll leave it and if you have questions I'll be glad to answer. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the public that would like to testify on this matter? Yes. Chair Schifrin and members of the commission thank you for this opportunity to comment this evening. I understand I have three minutes. My name is Walt Wadlow and I am a member of the Summoner Street which is on the Summoner Street cul-de-sac which will be impacted by the proposed project. There will be two of us commenting on this phone line this evening so when I have completed my comments if you are amenable to it I have another individual who would like to also provide comment. Well it is three minutes per person not phone line. Understood thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Schifrin and members of the Summoner Street cul-de-sac are originally scheduled as item 4 for the May 7th 2020 planning commission meeting. I will not repeat those but I do want to highlight just a couple of things from those comments. First I would like to express gratitude to the city staff and the applicant for their efforts to reduce the mapping. We understand that emergency vehicles need to have that access but we appreciate limiting it to those. Three specific concerns remain and the primary one of these is the unimpeded public pedestrian access from Seabright Avenue to Summoner Street. The agenda report justifies this on the basis of reduced walking distances to Seabright Beach for Summoner Street residents and as being in conformance with the general plan and local coastal program policies as somebody who lives on Summoner Street I want to note that that's a theoretical construct as virtually all of our neighbors and we know almost all of them owners and renters access to the beach via Frederick Street steps to the harbor and hints to the beach rather than traveling down frequently busy Seabright Avenue. For the agenda report makes reference to this increased access supporting the city's new health and all these ordinance and I'd like to note that the new ordinance also specifically include support for public safety in the findings and that is the concern that I want to raise to this evening. Our neighborhood already experiences petty theft from vehicles parked on Summoner Street as well as from our garages in a discussion a couple of years ago with the Santa Cruz police officer he noted that our neighborhood is quote along the route between Ocean View Park and Arana Gulch and we're lucky we're a cul-de-sac. Additional access which will accommodate not only pedestrians but bicycles could very likely increase access to and potential escape from the cul-de-sac resulting in an increase in crime on our street. The third and final concern that I want to raise is there are already a large number of vehicles parked at the end of the cul-de-sac sometimes three deep from the curb. The curb cut for for vehicular access and a proposed fire hydrant will reduce the parking even further making even more difficult access for fire trucks to the end of Summoner Street than it currently has. I would request that the commission direct staff to consider eliminating the unimpeded access from Seabright to Summoner Street which is I believe the point that was raised by the applicant just a minute ago and that concludes my comment. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker please. Hello. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Good evening chair Schifrin and commissioners my name is Allison Russell I'm a homeowner at 548 Summers Street and would be impacted by the proposed project. I'm going to highlight comments I've made previously in emails to the commission. Generally I think the project is trying to force too many units into the space. I would prefer more open space also for the people who are going to live there to better reflect the character of the neighborhood. Seabright well not an officially designated transportation corridor is very busy and the project is located between two intersections that have already been identified as problematic by the city. Seabright has frequent traffic problems and has had numerous accidents concerning pedestrians and cyclists. I'm concerned that the proposed project will exacerbate these existing problems. The project site should be able to accommodate all vehicles including residents vehicles visitor vehicles trash green waste and recycling trucks and emergency vehicles with nine units I doubt that that's possible. While I'm okay with emergency vehicles occasionally using Summers Street to exit the development I feel strongly that all other truck and visitor traffic should be prevented from using our street which is already over parked. Also small children are routinely play at the southern end of Summers Street so there's a safety issue there. Regarding the proposed pedestrian walkway I am concerned that it will bring additional property crime to Summers Street. We do not need the walkway or want it. We already walk and cycle along existing street we have plenty of connectivity. We ride our bikes to the beach we ride our bikes downtown we walk we do not need the walkway and we do not want it please do not build the walkway. The property now provides housing for three low income households and as I see it Santa Cruz particularly needs affordable housing. The project should really try to keep at least two units of affordable housing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public who would like to testify on this item? There are no other speakers Chair. Would the applicant like an opportunity to rebut any of the testing? I guess not. Nothing I would assume that he doesn't. I will close the public hearing and bring the matter back to the commission to see if there is any discussion. Who would like to comment on this application? Sure. A couple of things. Before the commission will from staff. Let us know what we need to know. The argument with the general plan with the pedestrian pathway was in the staff report that was originally provided to the planning commission. Provided as an attachment. I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the number of policies this pedestrian pathway would support. To provide connectivity between neighborhoods and districts to provide a well connected street and pedestrian network it implements the master recommendation for improving the pedestrian network. It would discourage through traffic by encouraging bicycle and pedestrian movement. We also have an active transportation plan. The objective of which is to create a bicycle and pedestrian network to establish a comprehensive bicycle and transportation system that is integrated with the existing city network. Provide a complete bicycle and pedestrian network on residential areas. Complete and maintain the city sidewalk system. The member of the public who spoke mentioned that they take a different route down to the beach. This connectivity would also allow folks to access the commercial services at the end of Seabright as well and as well as the beach. This pedestrian path is important in terms of implementing a lot of our general plan goals. I believe that the condition does allow for them to close that access point during the night time so it wouldn't necessarily need to be open at all hours. Could I ask a follow up question? Is that access shown on any bike or pedestrian plan that the city has adopted? I understand what you're saying about the general plan but the city does have some plans for bike routes and pedestrian paths. Is this connection shown on that? Any of those? Bear that it is shown specifically on any plan that the city has adopted. I would recommend a way to provide connectivity that allows for alternative modes of transportation. We would recommend that we take those opportunities. Thank you. Members of the I think Commissioner Spellman would you go first? Commissioner Dawson. Thank you. I would start from the bigger picture than focusing down. I do think this public access issue is an important one obviously to the community that surrounds this project and it seems overwhelmingly that the community is against allowing that connection and I would tend to agree with that. I do think this is sort of a one-off condition to the larger general plan policies that Samantha is pointing out. This property currently is developed with some units in a driveway like many parcels are in that area and it has a very large open space in the back abutting onto the summer side of the property. I think a lot of folks in that neighborhood are communicating there is some sense of safety in living in a cul-de-sac set up and they sort of feel that this is an invasion of that scenario. So I think there is I would recommend that we remove that condition from the project. If we don't remove it and there is strong sense from the rest of the commission on that I would make a suggestion that the current way that the sidewalk is drawn as it exits on the Sumner it currently goes right along the property line which is right up against that existing accessory dwelling unit that was built if at least that sidewalk could be moved and be contiguous with the curb so it's closer to the actual street and you could have some small buffer between the sidewalk and the property line in that existing unit under that condition. Then I had a couple questions I was hoping you would come out in the discussion of the project. It looks it is a very tight site the way the parking has now changed from a let's call it a side by side two car garage in the previous the middle it's now a tandem set up. There's very few dimensions on the plans and proper backup scenario from those parking spaces as well as the actual dimensions of the parking spaces themselves. My estimation based on the limited dimensions that were given is that it looks to be short on the space needed even if I were counting one of those tandem spots as a compact parking space it looked like it was coming up short if it is it's a few feet so I don't think I would hold up the project based on that but it'd be interesting to see if it's up to the current standards. I want to commend them for the change in massing yes this is a significant reduction in what was presented before. I do think there's potential to go even further it looks like we now have a ground floor and a second floor plate height and then just an attic space above we no longer have living spaces taking advantage of the the roof space and so I wonder if that roof massing could be reduced even further and have less of an impact certainly on the neighbors to the north of the project. I realize there's some gables and let's call it larger dormer conditions that are providing the individual front elevation massing for those units that has to be contended with but from what I can see in the drawing there's still some potential to reduce that massing and then there were several other comments from the public on the number of units on the massing some did that they felt like the minimum was done I think from my perspective we certainly are looking for a project that is pushing the bound the allowable density on this site so I don't think significantly reduced is a thing that would be supported that's been a mandate that's been given to the commission yeah I think that's just in my comments and I think I'm in support of the current I would encourage even further sensitivity to the roof massing moving forward again I wouldn't not approve the project on that is the the project moving forward to that issue could be even further thank you thank you Commissioner Dawson you are next yes I just want to concur really strongly with what Commissioner Snellman said about I'm in support of removing conditions 13 and 30 that require the pedestrian pathway I live in Seabright I bike almost exclusively in fact I biked over to the project site yesterday and while cutting down Seabright to the project there are several cars missing their rearview mirror that was laying on the ground Seabright is a very dangerous road I avoid it at all costs and even walking down it so I really think there's no need to put additional pedestrian traffic on that street people access the businesses from other ways at the end of Seabright there and so I would strongly support removing conditions 13 and 30 when we get to that point and then I will say that I'm not going to the labor the point I'll give other commissioners a chance to get into this but I absolutely believe we should use our discretion to require three units so that the replacement units are not counted as the inclusionary unit is not counted as the replacement units so that we are replacing three units we're losing three units of affordable housing and we need to replace three units not just the veterans thanks comments Commissioner Nielsen yep I am I muted? so I would just like to first of all I would like to commend the applicant for all the work that was done to get this to what it is now I mean I know it's not easy to to cut out about 30% of the design and still have it work and make it work and so I recognize that and I think it's I think he did a commendable job on that I also had in addition to Commissioner Spelman I was also curious about that back out distance it appears to me that I think that it's a standard space in the garage and maybe a compact base parked tandemly but even still I think from the compact car it looks like there's not the 24 foot back out distance so I'm curious about that and maybe I don't know as information on that even though I do appreciate the reduction of mass on the building I think there's I was really happy that Samantha showed what was presented originally and then what is being presented now it's not it's not even just the building height that has changed but it's also if you look at the elevations of the building the kind of the ins and outs that happen with the with the decks on the front elevation really helps break this building up and so I was really I really did appreciate that and then and obviously putting the break in between that long building would certainly helpful as well I also I do have a quite I guess I'll just ask so Samantha I'm wondering if you can answer another question it's it's on the north property line there's a six foot tall wood fence that's being proposed is the what is the ordinance I mean are they able to do to do the extension on top of that six foot to get up to eight feet by right or does that need to be I mean can they do by right or does that need approval that is a six foot fence so that would be yeah that would be the question here's the question the neighbor on the north I was reading in some correspondence the neighbor was requesting an eight foot tall fence and so I'm just wondering if can is the applicant able to do go up to an eight foot tall fence by right or does there need to be special approval for that that would require a conditional fence permit but the six feet is by right that even with a two foot extension like the lattice on top of the fence that conditional fence permit yes could we could we make that as a condition of this application that we that we would allow for an eight foot tall fence if the applicant desired that if that's the desire of the commission yes okay so that would be my that's what I would recommend is that we allow for the applicant to build a fence up to eight feet tall if they choose but just because that came from the neighbor so I thought that would be something that we could or that they could do if they chose to do that so yeah all in all I'm yeah I'm much happier with the project we have in front of us now what we're looking at the last time it was before us and that's in some support of this project so thank you thank you other commissioners comments well I have some yeah yes thank you I also want to appreciate the applicant and I also want to agree with Commissioner Spellman and Commissioner Dawson as far as removing 13 and 30 I think we've definitely heard enough from the neighborhood which is immediately impacted and I also used to live in Seabright and agree that I would definitely be okay with removing 13 and 30 myself and also the eight foot fence idea was something that came up to me and I was reading and it makes a lot of sense so I appreciate Commissioner Nielsen for bringing that up as well because something that I was interested asking about the main thing I wanted to bring up was just again what kind of taking back in off of what Commissioner Dawson was saying around the replacement housing requirement and the counting for the inclusionary housing requirement again since we are losing three affordable units and only gaining one that just doesn't seem to be maybe that doesn't make the most logical sense if our goal at this point is to increase affordable housing in Santa Cruz so I definitely you know it seems that the requirement where the wording may is used I think this would be a very important time to use the may and ask that the inclusionary housing not being part of the recommended housing requirement have to be separate and therefore getting two units that's all I have to say. Thank you anybody else I have yes Commissioner Greenberg I just wanted to ask a quick question in terms of the walkway bike path whether there were transportation studies done or the perspective from transportation planning in terms of whether it would necessarily increase traffic or the likelihood sorry of there would be increased pedestrian and bike bikes that would make it more dangerous for those pedestrians and bikers or whether it might reduce car traffic to some degree and that that's the reason for the general plan making these recommendations but I don't know if that level of granularity in this particular project you know if it can be analyzed you know at that scale I'm just curious about that though I also hear the concerns of the community around this I think it's significant as Samantha mentioned that the path can be closed in the evening and that there would be you know potentially eyes on the street in terms of the people living in these units in terms of questions around safety but I do hear the concern and I'm curious about again from a perspective the danger to pedestrians and bikers from this path I also concur with some of my fellow commissioners on the significance of you know having eliminated affordable units and needing to to the best of the ability to replace those units and not to have replacements you know to have the inclusionary separate from the replacement units in order to maintain two affordable units would be something I would support so those are my two points one is a question and the other is a concurring thank you Would staff like to respond to the question around the transportation planning work that may have relevance to the proposed walkway? Yes, Chair Sherford I can address some of the questions that have come up we don't have a study that looks at this site in particular and addresses the potential for you know increased pedestrian traffic you know how that would be increased by this connection but we have seen it in other places in the city and we do believe that that connection would provide an alternate route for people and would allow for people to cut through and more readily get to services and the coast also wanted to address somebody had brought up that there were three units on the property now and that we should replace those three units the code specifically states that we can only get 50% of the bedrooms demolished from a replacement unit so they're required to provide two bedrooms in this case because the majority mix of units is three bedrooms they're required to provide that as a three bedroom unit so even if you were to go the route of requiring a separate inclusionary unit from a replacement unit we wouldn't be able to get three units from it so you would still be limited to the two bedrooms so I think Commissioner Spelman and Commissioner Nielsen you're correct a parking parking space compact space compact size the back out space is 22 and a half feet so it's a little bit less than what we would normally require of the 24 but it's still feasible from okay I have some comments I really do express my appreciation to the applicant for making major changes to the original project I think it's still a pretty intense use of the site but I don't know how you can get nine units on the site without being an intense use of the site and I think that reducing the size of the units reducing the size of the project really has made it much more made it much more acceptable from my perspective let me say something about the walkway bikeway because when that connection all along I was in favor of that and I think that it's because of the general principle that it's better to have more pedestrian pathways and bikeways than not it provides alternative transportation opportunities for people but I think then we have to look at the specifics and the specifics here is who is this going to serve there are other speeds in the neighborhood it's not providing access improved access to anywhere except Sumner's Street and the people on Sumner's Street almost university don't want it prefer there other ways of getting to the beach or getting to the commercial activities so from my perspective I since there are this is not a pedestrian or bike access that really opens up an area provides connections that otherwise don't exist and makes for you know real encouragement of people using alternatives I think from as I can the best I can figure is it really serves the people on Sumner's Street and for them it's a matter of balancing is are the benefits that it provides to make it easier for them to get the Seabright and back from Seabright worth the dangers that they see in terms of intrusions in their neighborhood safety concerns so I'm willing to support removing those two conditions in terms of that requires the pathway in terms of the fence it's interesting the applicant hasn't asked to have an 8 foot fence it's the neighbor so I think it really comes to us I don't you know we can ask the applicant to be sympathetic to it he does have his hand up okay let me I'll call on him my sense is whether he's sympathetic to it whether we put it in the condition that he can apply or we don't put it in the condition that he can apply he's able to apply anybody as a property owner you can apply for a conditional use permit if we want if we think that an additional 2 feet is worth doing we should have a condition that requires him to apply and that seems to me that's the way to provide the protection for the neighbors if that's why we're doing it so I hadn't really focused on that but I think if other commissioners feel that this um higher fence is an amenity that should be allowed to provide a better neighborliness then I think we need to have a condition that would require at least require the applicant to apply for it let me just say one final thing before I call on the applicant about the affordable units I certainly understand the wording of the ordinance that the most that the city could require two units affordable units I'm concerned about when we make decisions we're setting precedent and I can't think of situations where the city would exercise discretion to require that the inclusionary units be counted separate from the replacement units in a situation where if it wouldn't require when we're getting when the net effect is losing units so I think from my perspective we need to set the precedent that if we're going to lose affordable units to the extent they can be replaced through the replacement housing ordinance they should be I understand that the hardship for the developer and um you know I appreciate that as a concern I appreciate that lowering the square footage of the units does reduce their rent levels but on the other hand I think we're setting a very important principle at work here as we're getting more and more higher density developments more and more conversions of properties that are supposedly underutilized at least in terms of the zoning and general plan we're likely to see more developments where existing housing is being demolished and it seems to me that in those situations we need to have a good precedent that says if the certainly if the total number of affordable units is going to be less after the project and before the project the inclusionary unit should not count as replacement units so that's my position on that I'm going to call on the applicant's representative and then Commissioner Conway this is Derek Van Allfine again I actually tried to respond earlier and one was unable to so evidently it didn't get registered so there's very little that I have to say except that I feel as though the this is going to be not being able to combine the affordable unit and the replacement units is going to be is going to be a crucial step for us I think we have to stop and analyze it and see what it will take to make that work the I think that's all I have to say for the moment would you respond to the question about increasing the fence would you object to a condition that would be that you would apply for a conditional fence permit to go up to do you have any objection to that or do you think I don't have any specific objection to it I'm I'm I'm perfectly willing to I think we'd be willing to talk to the neighbor about it and I think as you mentioned it can be done with a conditional fence permit just about any time I wouldn't want to see it conditioned without talking to my client okay thank you Commissioner Conway yeah thank you yeah this is this project is a big change for the neighborhood and an infill project of this type has a big impact and I want to thank the applicant for really listening to the neighbors and to the planning commission this is this project is still going to represent a significant change obviously but it is are superior in terms of sitting in with the character of the neighborhood and providing that those diversity of housing types that we were really asking for and plus I just think it looks a whole lot better so thank you for that and I would like to make a very strong plea for not abandoning the connectivity and I hear what everybody is saying I understand concerns and I disagree well first of all let me just say that a lot of development, urban development all over the country but certainly in Santa Cruz that was enamored for a time and what it required it assumes a car dependent community we're trying to move away from that and that's why all of the policies that Manta specified are in place and any opportunity that there is to improve connectivity needs to be taken really seriously of course and also have to balance with concerns but I think assuming that residents of Sumner Street are the only ones who are going to benefit from that connectivity I think it's short-sighted I know that for a time I lived in that neighborhood for a long time I lived on James Street and I had family on Sumner not far from this and also right around the corner you know the to be able to easily walk or bike to connect to that part of the neighborhood gets people out of cars and that's the point not everybody can hop on a bike to go down and get their pizza you know but allowing people a pedestrian access I think it's a tremendous enhancement and I think that those policies that the city has adopted are tremendously important and I think it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to improve the connectivity I do very strongly support it being lockable and not necessarily open all night that's my point on that one and on the affordability I have to say that I don't agree with adding additional affordable units of course we need them desperately and we also need units desperately this was an unusual approach to creating them I appreciated the unusual approach because I think it brings us a depth of affordability and perpetuity that we don't get from the older homes on that on the site now and I think that well we can't deny the project because it's consistent with our policies and I think to add this layer of affordability is risky because it really does make the project infeasible and I would again make a plea for wanting to see this project get built as being of paramount importance and getting the de-restricted in perpetuity along with the much smaller units making them more affordable by design makes this project a very valuable project to the housing stock and meets the affordability requirements thank you other commissioners to say my you know again my sense is our job is to carry out the policies in the general plan make sure the policies in the general plan and the zoning ordinance are carried out I would hope that the project would be feasible even with two affordable units and I don't think that's our business is to set good public policy and losing affordable units just does not seem to be good public policy so I appreciate the comments that Commissioner Conway has said but I think really we do have a terrible crisis and we need to we're going to be losing three units that are affordable and that's significant in a city that has the kind of housing crisis that we have and I think getting nine units getting seven of them being market rate units does deal with the problem overall but it still is increasing although to a more minimal level the affordability problems that we have so I see Commissioner Maxwell's hand up are you ready to make a motion Commissioner Maxwell? Yes I am yes I am yes I'd like to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation with the following directions one that the replacement requirement housing not be counted as an inclusionary housing requirement and also to remove number 13 and 30 regarding the walk. Okay is there a second to that motion? Yeah Is that Commissioner Dawson are you seconding it? Yes I second that motion. Okay now we're going to have discussion. Commissioner Greenberg you had your hand up. Yeah I was just wondering if we could move on to two different things. Yes we can. They have to be joined. Okay when we vote we'll vote on them separately. The motion is to approve the staff recommendation with the added condition that the replacement housing unit not be counted as an inclusionary unit and that two conditions 13 and 30 that require the pedestrian pathway be removed. Commissioner Dawson did you want to follow up with comments and then Commissioner Greenberg if you can I did moving towards a non-car centric way of getting around is not really a choice. I mean we certainly have to move that way and that's why I bike everywhere. However as a resident who rides across that street down that street it is a real safety issue and I'm actually concerned about tourists and other people who don't know the neighborhoods who might be riding around on jump bikes and think that it's a good idea to come on to Seabright. It's a very unsafe for both pedestrians. I know that it's been improved. I know that the sidewalks have been put in. It's still quite a challenge to cross that street or ride down that street safely. So my concern about moving 13 and 30 isn't as much as the petty crime thing. It's the actual safety of encouraging people to use that thoroughfare on their bikes or walking. So I just want to throw that last thing in about that. Yeah. Sorry. Yes, I should have raised my hand. I hear that. That makes a lot of sense. I just, I guess I wish sort of similar to our previous discussion on wishing that there was additional study here. I just am not convinced that that will exacerbate, will create more of a danger for people. Because if in fact it results in a car off the road, that could alleviate some of the pressure on Seabright. And I feel like we just don't, and if so, as Commissioner Conway was suggesting, people not only on Sumner, but adjoining areas feel that they can now access Seabright to do their shopping and what have you, there will be fewer cars from surrounding neighborhoods going on the Seabright potentially. To make that decision that it would exacerbate the safety issues. And I felt like a lot of the concerns from neighbors surrounding safety at having to do with crime could be mitigated by allowing for the walkway to be closed at night. And I would imagine to have good lighting and so forth around it. So that, I would, I would appreciate that these will be two separate motions, I think, right, if I understand chair Schiffern's that we can both separate. Okay. And then I also, I, you know, I recognize that these are unusual times and that this is a question of policymaking and setting a precedent for what happens when we eliminate existing affordable units, whether it's around Seabright, or downtown. I feel like this is going to be a big issue when we get to discussions around downtown development as well. And that we really, you know, in terms of the recommendation we're making to council, that we let it be known that we and insofar as there is that leeway within the policy around may versus shall that we that we set this precedent and say that we expect to the greatest extent possible these units be replaced and not have the inclusionary mixed in with that replacement. So I would support that separate from the issue of the pathway. Thank you. Other commissioners comment, commissioners Conway. I just, I appreciate you being willing to break it into several motions and I was going to ask if you could break it into three motions support for the project support for or denying the pathway and then break the affordability one separately. And let's see, I did want to make one other point and agree with you that policies are important and we have decades of policy that make it very difficult to build housing and my advocacy would be to set policies that make it feasible to build housing. Thank you. Go right ahead. The units that are on the site now are not designated affordable units. They are occupied by tenants who are meet that level, but they're not restricted in terms of who can live there. So technically they're not restricted affordable units. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. And then the other thing I wanted to ask is if you do make a motion to not approve the pedestrian walkway, if you could have that be sort of broad, I've noticed that it's in a few of the conditions and if you could just make a motion to not accept the pedestrian pathway as part of the project, then I can go through the conditions. Make sure I collect all the specific conditions of approval. Okay. We've got a bunch of requests here. We have a motion on the floor that would recommend approval of the project with changes to two of the condition, adding a condition regarding the replacement housing and deleting two of the conditions that have to do with the walkway. Is it acceptable to the maker of the an assist to change the language on the walkway to just recommend elimination of the pedestrian walkway from the project and have that reflected in the conditions? Is that acceptable to the maker of the motion in the second? I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Is that okay with the second as well? Yes, agreed. I give you what you want, Samantha. Okay. Then in terms of I guess to satisfy everybody or at least procedurally why don't we sort of take it that the motion on the floor is to approve the recommendations the staff recommendation. There's an amendment to add a requirement that the affordable unit not be counted as the replacement housing affordable unit not be counted as an inclusionary unit. So why don't we vote on that as sort of separately and then we'll vote on the walkway being separately and then if they're they pass they can become part of the motion. So I don't see how we can vote on the motion separately if it's going to include these conditions if they should pass. So could we have a roll call vote on the amendment? Excuse me. I don't think I quite understood that. I'm not sure I quite understood what you said. Are you suggesting that we can't vote on this project setting those two amendments aside that we can't vote on it that way? Because I don't want to approve the project and then not be able to vote on those two conditions. Normally what you're asking for wouldn't happen. We could separate voting on one and voting on the other. To set aside two. I'm not sure I understand because it seems not uncommon to say that we have two points, two conditions that we know we have a difference of opinion and to set those aside and vote on support of the project itself. It seems typical. Those conditions and I think there are people who don't want to support the project without the conditions that they only support the project with conditions. You see the problem which comes first? I see how you're setting it up. Absolutely. I don't think it has to be set up that way but I do understand. Okay. Why don't we vote on the condition to require that the replacement housing unit not be counted as one of the inclusionary units. Does everybody understand that? Let's have a roll call vote on that. I'm sorry, I don't understand it. So you're basically wanting to vote just on the condition or approval of the project including that specific condition? Just the condition. We've been asked to separate out. I just wanted to be clear that it's just the condition. We'll vote on the condition as an amendment to the motion on the floor. I'm going to treat it as if the motion on the floor is a project. There are two amendments. One would be to add a condition to do with the replacement housing unit not be counted. The other would be to add a condition that would eliminate the pedestrian walkway requirement. So we're first going to vote on the amendment to deal with the replacement housing unit. Thank you. Let's have a roll call vote. Commissioner Conway? No. Greenberg? Aye. Spellman? No. Maxwell? Aye. Nielsen? No. Dawson? Aye. Chifrin? Aye. The answer is four to three. So now we'll vote on the proposed amendment to the motion, the main motion that would eliminate the pedestrian walkway and have the conditions changed to reflect that. Any questions about this being voted on? Okay, let's have a roll call vote. Mr. Conway? No. Greenberg? No. Spellman? Maxwell? Nielsen? Dawson? Chifrin? Aye. The motion passes five to two. We now have the motion on the floor is to approve the staff recommendation with the two conditions that have been amended into it, regarding the affordable units and pedestrian walkway. So again, if there's no further discussion on the amended motion, can we have a roll call vote please? Mr. Conway? Aye. And I want to thank you for providing the opportunity to separate those pieces. Greenberg? Aye. And I echo Julie on that point. Thank you. Spellman? Aye. Maxwell? Nielsen? Dawson? Aye. Chifrin? Aye. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you all very much. It's a complex project. Thank you staff for all your help. And I appreciate the time that we spent to try to see how close we can get to agreeing with each other. We're now on information items. Are there any information items? Can you hear me? Yeah. Great. So a couple things. First off, the project at 418 through 508 Front Street at the 175 unit mixed use development between 311. We currently have a draft environmental impact report out for review with the comment period concluding on June 24th. Comments can be made through the city's website. We're expecting that hearings on this project will likely occur in the July and August timeframe with the project needing to go to the historic preservation and planning commission before council. Of course that timeframes dependent on how many comments we receive and how long it will take the consultants to respond to those comments. At the May 12th council meeting the city council unanimously approved the 111 Erip Circle project. They actually approved both alternatives and this was a request by the applicant just prior to the council meeting they were considering a modified alternative to where the multi-family unit portion could or would be detached condominium units. They had some real conceptual sketches and the council chose to approve both alternatives with the caveat that if the applicants pursue alternative too that the site plan and the infrastructure plan has to return to the council for final approval they gave authority to staff to approve the designs of the individual unit assuming that the site plan gets approved. So that action was taken also on that agenda the the council took action on the 1930 ocean street extension project. Some of the commissioners who aren't familiar with this project give you a brief background. It was approved by council back in September of 2018 it included a general plan amendment and a rezoning to basically increase density on that site for a 32-unit project and included a tentative map the design permit and the plan development permit. There was an EIR prepared for that particular project shortly after its approval there was a lawsuit filed against the applicants and the city by the ocean street extension neighborhood association who challenged the city certification of the EIR as well as how the plan development permit was approved that essentially allowed a reduction in the slope setback last January the court upheld the EIR that was certified but it remanded or directed that the city rescind the slope setback portion of the plan development permit and without getting into the nitty-gritty details of the decision there are a number of ways that the applicants can address this particular order from the court and so at this point we're waiting to hear as to how the applicant wants to proceed so this project could very well be back before you at some point in time at the May 26 council meeting the city council appropriated $310,000 that the city received from an SB2 grant in order to engage consultants to develop objective development standards for multi family residential and mixed use housing and then they directed staff to report back a key project milestones the RFP was recently released and the schedule has staff selecting a consultant by August and then that contract would need to go to the city council for final approval looking out at the upcoming schedule for your next meeting on June 18th we've got a project involving a slope variance and then also you might be receiving an update from Tiffany Weiswest on the west clip drive plan and then out in July there are some cleanup zoning code amendments that we're looking at processing so there will likely be hearings in July on that and that's all I have thank you I'd like to add a couple of things related from my perspective the decision on the solution street extension project was very significant because one of the concerns I have with the way staff uses the plan development permit is that it makes a mockery out of the zoning ordinance it's so easy to get an exception to almost anything and call it a plan development and what the court essentially said is that maybe you can get away with that with most things but you can't get away with that with the slope regulations and the city in approving the project essentially said well we're going to use the PD instead of requiring the applicant to get a variance for the slope regulations and the court did say the different chapter you can't do that I think it was a very useful decision in terms of trying to set some limits in terms of what the PD can be used for and what it really means is if the applicant can move the project so that it doesn't need a slope variation a slope variance then it doesn't have to come back to the planning commission if they can't as Mr. Marlott was saying the commission and ultimately the council maybe would have to vote on whether to grant the variance for that project the other thing I'd like to ask Mr. Marlott is whether on the objective standard item the council gave any direction or indicated any role for the planning commission in the development of objective standards Nothing specific to the motion the staff report which I would encourage all the commission to read does speak to various points in time or scenarios where the planning commission may be involved throughout the process we know that amending adopting the objective development standards is going to require an amendment to the zoning ordinance which you of course will have a role in depending upon what comes out of the consultants initial work include an evaluation of what we have on the books what that's yielding in terms of housing there could very well be recommendations to change the general plan and that were the case you would be involved in that as well so nothing per se if I could speak to the ocean street extension project the plan development ordinance clearly allows slope setbacks to be modified there's no question what the judge expressed concern with was a provision in a slope ordinance that prohibits lots from being created that requires the house from being located 20 feet from a 30% slope the city was of the opinion that house infers single family residential not condominium units the judge didn't agree but that was really the basic point of contention in that portion of the lawsuit having read it over the judge's opinion over it was a complex issue that's not quite the way I understood it but that's fine the point I wanted to make was that draft EIR for the wolf master plan the comment period has ended and so as I understand it once the final EIR is done the wolf master plan and the final EIR would be coming to the planning commission before it goes to the council is that correct Mr. Marlott I I would need to confirm that I can't say for sure I think it said that in the EIR I haven't been directly involved with that but I can certainly give back to you on that for the entire commission for that matter would you please and would you also please send all the commissioners a copy of the staff report you referred to that went to the city council yes okay so does anybody else have any information items are there any subcommittee advisory body oral reports yes Commissioner Conway yeah I'd like to give an update on the affordable housing subcommittee this scheduling the subcommittee has certainly been delayed due to COVID but it is back on track and we expect to be getting together very soon we don't have an exact date yet but we'll be getting together soon I did speak with staff today and I would like to get an answer as quickly as possible on the we've got two main areas of work one of them is around the section 8 working on the inclusionary ordinance is about the use of section 8 a lot of work has been done on that already I would hope that we could move that quickly the other one is the workforce housing which is definitely more complex work has started on it but I think it's going to take some you know a fair amount of work I do plan on the next report that I give I'd like to have a nail down a work plan and a timeline for completing the subcommittee's work and I'll do that the next opportunity you'll submit that to the commission I'll be making the next time I'll make a report to the next commission the next an oral I'll just do another oral report unless maybe there'll be an opportunity to have it written up at the memo but I'm no game well I would if it's at all possible I would appreciate it just because it's useful to get the reports and something like that it's such an important subcommittee to get the report and writing in advance you know we could think about it but I don't think it's going to take a long time to get it written up Greenberg did you raise your hand go ahead yeah I just wanted to add that in our initial and there was kind of an original meeting about the subcommittee and what we're going to focus on and it sounded like from my from looking back over the emails there were three areas of focus we didn't end up focusing on another was variety of housing types and I think what we ended up doing was shifting focusing on the inclusionary ordinance and then related to that the workforce housing and that may be all that we can do in the time that we have we did also and it seems relevant given our discussion today the discussion of variety of housing types being something that we might address and you know but I also understand that subcommittees are subcommittees and you know these are ongoing issues questions of affordable housing only so much can be done with this particular subcommittee but I would hope that the issues surrounding and recommendations that our commission might have around the variety of ways to really move the needle on affordable housing in our community to the commission in a variety of ways so we'll you know we'll see how much I don't know what the time limit is on this subcommittee and what's realistic in terms of what we can address within that time frame but insofar as there are other agenda items we might want to include we think of other ways to do research and or you know enable us as a commission to have recommendations along this line as I understand it and this is when I first got on the commission this is what was happening in terms of the subcommittee that participated in development review meetings with the public in order for the subcommittee not to be required to meet the requirements of the Brown Act can't be in existence for more than six months but it can be reestablished after that six month period is gone so maybe in your report commission where you can clarify when that six months the current six month period and the commission can how it wants to reestablish the subcommittee yeah and I think that the timeline is a really important issue and we could we could request an extension and certainly there's been extraordinary circumstances that it seems to me would warrant an extension but yeah we'll talk about that at the next update I don't know if the governor passed an order that would extend the subcommittees beyond the six month lifetime to avoid the Brown Act but I look forward to hearing about that so any other subcommittee advisory body reports I don't have any report on the west cliff project somehow I don't know whether I fell off the boat or the boat's not moving but I guess we'll hear at our next meeting from Tiffany Wise-West what's going on I'm sure the process is continuing with the consultants working away even if the committee isn't really doing very much it's hard to get a whole 25 member committee together during this during the pandemic so I don't have a report any items to refer to future agendas okay we're adjourned thank you all very much goodbye