 All right. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's planning commission meeting. Today's date is March 9th, 2022, and the time is 9.30 a.m. Today's meeting is completely remote via Zoom. There are a couple of different ways to follow the meeting or to participate in today's meeting. To both view and participate, I'll recommend using the planning commission Zoom meeting link, which is posted on the Planning Department's homepage at sccoplanning.com. Alternatively, if your computer is not equipped with a microphone, you may provide comment by telephone when we get to both public hearing items and we also have a public comment period as well. And that telephone number is 1-669-900-6833 When prompted, the collaboration code is 841-3361-2583. And this information is posted on our homepage. If you forget those numbers. All right. We have two public hearing items on today's agenda. So for each item, we'll be providing time for members of the public to speak. Speakers will be muted until called on to speak. I will ask participants who wish to provide testimony to either remotely raise their hand by selecting the hand icon on the Zoom link if you're connected via the Zoom link. Or if you're calling in by telephone, I ask that you remotely raise your hand by pressing star nine on your phone. I will call on participants by either your name or the last four digits of your telephone number. If you're participating via the Zoom link, when I call on you to speak, you'll see a pop-up on your screen that says unmute. Please accept the pop-up, state your name for the record and provide your testimony. If calling in via telephone, you must unmute yourself by pressing star six on your phone. And I will remind everybody of these instructions. All members of the public will be provided three minutes to speak for each item on today's agenda. If at any time you have difficulty connecting today, either via the link or by calling in, we do have support staff with us this morning, Michael Lamb. He will be checking his email periodically and he'll let me know if we needed to pause and make sure people are connected. His email is michael.lam at Santa Cruz County dot US. So please reach out to Michael if you have any questions or concerns with connecting today. All right, so we are situated. I see we have our chair with us this morning. So I will turn over the meeting to our planning commission chair, Tim Gordon. Good morning, Tim. Good morning, Jocelyn. Thank you so much. With that, we'll go ahead and welcome everybody to the March 9th, 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz Planning Commission. And the time is 9.33. We can call this to order. Ms. Drake, can you please have a roll call? Yes, Commissioner Shepard. Commissioner Shepard. Sorry, I'm here. All right. Commissioner Lazenby. Here. Commissioner Schaefer-Fritz. Here. And Chair Gordon. Here. I also see Commissioner Bialonde on the attendees here. Commissioner Bialonde is my substitute. OK, that's right. So OK, she just was added. OK, understood. So we can proceed. Thank you. Moving on to item two, then, do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda today? No, there are none. Item three is declaration of ex parte communications. Do any commissioners have any ex parte communications that they'd like to discuss? No. OK. With that, we can move on to item four, oral communications. This is a time when members of the public have an opportunity to speak on items that are not on today's agenda. Ms. Drake, can we please open the oral communications please? Yes. So again, this is for members of the public who wish to make a comment on an item or a topic not on today's agenda. And we will provide two minutes for these comments. So if we could get two minutes on our time clock, that would be great. All right, let's see. I'm seeing a hand raised by a caller by the name of Carol. Good morning, Carol. Will you please state your name for the record? Good morning. This is Carol Bjorn. Good morning. Morning. So I'm actually going to speak on an agenda item number seven to strongly oppose that. There's been no studies of wireless technology on the human body. And so essentially, when we have all this cellular and Wi-Fi going on, we're actually part of the experiment. Carol. I might interrupt there for a second. Yeah. Appreciate that, Ms. Drake. Yes. Go ahead. All right. So I was just going to say, Carol, since your comments are related to item seven on the agenda, I ask that you hold your comments until we open the public hearing for that item. This is a time for members of the public to speak on an item that is not on today's agenda. So would you mind raising your hand when we get to the public hearing portion of item number seven in just a couple of minutes? Thank you. All right. So we'll call on with two other hands raised again for comments not on today's agenda related to items not on today's agenda. So let's see. We have a caller with the last four digits, 2915. Good morning. Please state your name for the record. Hello. This is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning, Becky. Thank you. Good morning. I would like to just make sure that, and I'm sure you do, know the draft sustainable Santa Cruz County plan is now open for public comment. And the first public meeting about that will be a week from tonight. It is in the evening, 6.30 to 8. This first one will have in-person at the Watsonville Civic Center community room as well as virtual. However, all of the others are only virtual. I really take exception with that. I think it's difficult for people like myself who can only join Zoom meetings via telephone to be restricted. We can't see any of the slides that are presented or anything like that. So I don't know if you can, please, request with the planning department that there be the option for in-person or meetings at all of the others that will be happening weekly through April 20 to include in-person meetings as well. If not, I ask respectfully that the slides for the presentation be posted on the planning department website at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. I also ask that all meetings be recorded and posted on the website. Thank you, Becky. I will tell you how much time do we get? Two minutes. Your time is up there for general comment. I will forward your comments to Stephanie Hansen. And I recommend that you email her as well. Thank you. Thank you. I have done that already. But I just want to ask the commissioner's help. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. I see a caller. I there is no number shown. Call-in user one. So good morning. You have two minutes. And if you're muted, please press star six on your phone. OK. Good morning. Good morning. This is Marilyn Garrett. And I've been to planning commission meetings, hundreds of them over 20 years just for background. I'd like to recommend a very important book for county planning, development, placements of electrical sources. And since we also have a large agricultural area in our county, this is very relevant. The book is titled The Invisible Rainbow, a history of electricity and life. It's a bestseller and translated into many languages. Specifically, I'm going to excerpt a chapter titled Bees, Birds, Trees, and Humans. And I have another publication by the person quoted here. It's called Bees, Birds, and Mankind, Destroying Nature by Electrosmog. And it's German. It says, it must not be forgotten, warns German biologist Ulrich Warnke, that every insect is equipped with a pair of antennas, which are demonstrably electromagnetic sensors. And the famous whale dance, Warnke reminds us, by means of which honeybees tell each other the prior precise direction of food sources with respect to the sun. Depends on their knowing the exact position of the sun, even on cloudy days and within the darkness of the high. Thank you. All right. And I see a caller by the name of Carol, again, raising her hand. Carol, I believe that your comments are related to item number seven. So I ask that you lower your hand and raise it at that time when we get to public comment for item number seven. I am seeing a hand raised by Joshua Macha. Good morning, please state your name for the record. You have two minutes. Hi. Yes, my name is Josh Macha. Good morning, Jeremy. Yes. I'm a father of two young children, and I live in Boulder Creek. Just going to pull up my notes here of what I wanted to say. Yeah, so for those of you who are involved with the RTC and Metro, the message of implementing change for a better climate future has already been brought to your attention. I challenge those of you on this board to envision a Santa Cruz that in the coming years can become an example to the world of what a walkable, equitable region can look like. I feel that single residential zoning with setback restrictions and parking requirements needs to broaden to a more mixed-use development approach to decrease car dependence in our communities and increase resilience. Lastly, those of you on this board have a responsibility to respond to the housing crisis, which is causing ever more people to become homeless. Expanding the types of housing and development across the county with less focus on sprawl and more focus on medium-density development can usher in a new era with all the best aspects of urban life. Though I know change is never easy, and often that with strange, strong opposition, I believe with our eyes set on a brighter future, we can convince those that are reluctant to join in with the task at hand. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. Last call for comments related to any topic not already on today's agenda. Otherwise, we will move on. All right. I'm not seeing any additional hands raised. Chair. Great. Thank you so much. Then at this time, we'll close item 4, Oral Communications, and move on to the Consent Items. Item 5 is the AB 361 resolution, which we have seen before. Would any commissioners like to discuss or make a motion on this item? I move that we approve item number 5 on the consent agenda. I'll second that motion. Thank you, commissioners. At this time, we'll take a vote on the matter then. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. And any opposed and passes. Thank you. We can move on to schedule items. Item number 6 is the approval of minutes from the meeting date of February 23rd, 2022. Do we have any discussion or a motion on this agenda item for today? I'll move that we approve agenda item number 6, approval of minutes. Thank you, commissioners. Are you afraid of this? And I'll second that. Thank you, commissioner Laysenby. Then we can go ahead and take a vote on this matter as well. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And any abstaining? Motion passes. Wonderful. We can move on to our regular scheduled agenda items today. Excuse me, we're on that. Item number 7, this is a proposal to amend the wireless communications disability regulations by repealing Santa Cruz County Code sections 1310-660 through 1310-668 and replacing with new sections 1310-660 through 1310-664. Ms. Drake, do we have a planner that would like to present on this item today? Yes, let's see. I'm trying to promote David Carlson, the panelist here. And I see he's been promoted. Can we please load that PowerPoint for the wireless communication facility regulations ordinance amendments? Item number 7, fantastic. Good morning, David. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. OK. And just to confirm, as I go through this slideshow, I will have to ask for the slides to be changed. I can't control those myself. Yes, that is correct. So just say next slide. And staff will advance them for you. OK, great. OK, so the Board of Supervisors had previously directed staff to develop an updated wireless communications facilities ordinance to more clearly state the rules and remove as much ambiguity as possible. On December 7th, 2021, the Board conducted a study session on the proposed ordinance and expressed support for the proposed amendments overall and specifically for the creation of categories of wireless communication facility projects and objective criteria that would qualify a project for a ministerial permit process. The updated draft ordinance presented today contains those objective criteria for wireless communications facilities located inside public rights away and outside of the public right away. Next slide, please. So 25 years ago, the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted. That law was intended to promote competition and reduce regulation and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies regarding wireless communication facilities. The law includes a provision preserving local zoning authority, over placement, construction, and modification of wireless communication facilities, but with certain limitations, including that local governments shall not unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services, shall not prohibit the provision of personal wireless services. They shall act on wireless applications within a reasonable period of time. And we may not regulate on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions. Next slide, please. So our local zoning authority can address issues such as siting, design, and operational impacts of wireless communication facilities, including designating zone districts where they are allowed, height limits, screening, camouflaging standards, and addressing physical impacts of the placement and operation of wireless facilities, such as vegetation modification, grading, lighting, and noise. Next slide, please. Five years after the 1996 federal law, the county adopted an interim wireless ordinance, and two years after that adopted the wireless ordinance that remains in effect today, 20 years later. Over that time, we have process permits for wireless facilities and technology has evolved. Various additional federal and state regulations and legal rulings have been issued to keep up with technology and streamline the local permit process. While our local land use permit process has attempted to remain consistent with these updates, our local ordinance has not been updated accordingly. Additionally, our experience with individual permits over the years has demonstrated the need to substantially edit and clarify the ordinance. Therefore, staff is proposing a new ordinance to replace the existing ordinance, and the new ordinance will clearly communicate the review process, and the process will be in alignment with the requirements set out in federal and state law. Next slide, please. As noted earlier, federal law states that local governments shall not prohibit the provision of personal wireless services and shall not unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services. This means that we must allow a wireless service provider to substantially reduce a significant gap in service or capacity or technology, even if service is available in the same area by a different provider. The county retains the ability to require the gap to be reduced in the least intrusive manner, and that has typically been determined through extensive alternatives analysis on certain applications. The FCC has also mandated shot clocks, which are very aggressive timelines for communities to act on certain types of wireless communication facility applications, and technological advances in experience with these facility installations have led to new definitions and requirements in federal and state law for small wireless facilities, modifications to existing facilities, and installations in public rights of way. The new ordinance includes updated provisions to address this evolution in federal and state law and interpretation of the law by the courts. Next slide, please. Comparing the existing and proposed new ordinance is detailed in the crosswalk document attached to the planning commission staff report. Some of the major changes are highlighted on this slide. Currently, co-location is only encouraged and in the new ordinance it would be required unless an exception is approved. The list of prohibited zone districts would remain the same, but there would be some additional exceptions listed, including small cell, wireless communication facilities, co-locations, and modifications of existing facilities. Exceptions in prohibited zone districts would be considered based on alternatives analysis that documents substantial reduction of a significant gap in the provider's coverage in the least intrusive manner. The new ordinance includes new height standards, applicable to wireless communication facilities with a requirement to minimize height with allowances for exceptions to height based on the same exception criteria. Whereas the existing ordinance requires processing all new wireless communication facility permits at the zoning administrator level, the new ordinance proposes different permit types based on the type of facility. Basically a discretionary permit, including public noticing would continue to be required for new non-co-located wireless communication facilities and facilities on sensitive sites or in prohibited areas or the coastal zone. But other common types of wireless communication facilities would be processed as building permits or encroachment permits. Standard public noticing would be required based on the type of permit. The current ordinance requires public noticing 1,000 feet around the project site and the new ordinance would reduce that to the standard distance of 300 feet for a project that requires a public hearing. And the new ordinance includes new sections addressing wireless communication facilities in the public rights of way and modifications of existing facilities. Administrative provisions are added, including granting the authority to the director to interpret the provisions of the ordinance and to develop administrative practice guidelines. Next slide, please. The different shot clock timelines reflect the nature of certain types of wireless communication facilities, co-location and eligible modifications, for example, have the shortest timeline for the county to act on the application of 60 days. By definition, these types of facilities can generally be constructed with minimal to no visual or operational impacts subject to certain criteria. The criteria in the proposed ordinance for co-located facilities is not defeating any concealment elements of the existing wireless facility or adding concealment elements to the co-location that render the facility either completely non-visible or architecturally integrated with the building or the surrounding environment using screening or camouflaging techniques. So the facility looks like a normal part of the building or the natural environment. Additionally, the new ordinance would allow ministerial processing of new wireless communication facilities on existing commercial, industrial, or public facilities, including schools. The key criteria for these types of wireless communication facilities is either complete concealment, so the facility is not visible at all or architectural integration, like I just described. Next slide, please. I wanted to show this picture of the public storage facility on Portola Drive, which actually has wireless communication facility on its roof. And this would be considered either completely concealed or architecturally integrated. A normal person walking by the site would have no idea that there was a wireless communication facility on this building. Next slide, please. It's become increasingly common to construct small wireless communication facilities on existing infrastructure in the public right-of-way. And the new ordinance includes a section specifically addressing these types of applications. They would generally be processed as ministerial encroachment permits only by the Department of Public Works, provided they meet the definition of a small wireless communication facilities or represent a modification of an existing facility that qualifies as an eligible facility's request. And they meet the specific criteria and the ordinance. Requests for other types of facilities in the public right-of-way would not be processed as encroachment permits only and would first require a discretionary conditional use permit processed by the planning department prior to obtaining an encroachment permit. The new ordinance includes objective criteria for review of wireless communication facilities in the public right-of-way that qualify for an encroachment permit only to minimize the impacts of these facilities in the public right-of-way. The criteria include a list of prohibited locations and specific criteria for wood utility poles and metal streetlight poles. Dimensional criteria, including height and volume of antennas and equipment are the same as the definition in federal law of a small wireless facility. Additional criteria for wood utility poles include elements designed to minimize the visual clutter on the pole, including shrouding the antenna, concealing the cabling, and equipment enclosures flesh-mounted and no wider than the pole. For metal poles, their criteria is meant to achieve the same goal to minimize clutter. But in the case of metal poles, they have an advantage in this regard in that they are hollow and can house the wireless equipment internally. Next slide, please. And I have a series of pictures here of on the left is an existing wireless facility on a utility wood utility pole in Davenport. Actually, I believe this one might have been recently upgraded with some new equipment. On the right is a visual simulation from this Palo Alto, which I obtained online, which shows a visual simulation of an antenna on top of the utility pole and the equipment cabinet on the utility pole and painted to match the color of the pole. So it reduces that visual clutter somewhat. Next slide, please. Here's an image from a manufacturer's brochure of a metal streetlight pole that could house all the wireless equipment internally and the antenna on top. This image does look a little clunky, not exactly like the image of an existing streetlight pole. But if you go to the next slide, I will show you an image of taken right out in front of this building, in front of the Starbucks with the county building in the background of a metal streetlight pole with a wireless antenna on top of the pole and the equipment box. So the equipment is not housed internal to this pole. The equipment is located in that equipment box in the background and to the right underneath the tree near the entrance to the county building parking lot. And what I wanted to suggest at this point after looking at this slide is in the objective criteria that we have proposed for metal streetlight poles in the public rights way that it include not only housing the equipment internal to the pole, but the possibility of housing the equipment in a ground-mounted box like you see here in the box would be in the public right away and public works encroachment permit staff would be reviewing those applications and making sure that those ground-mounted utility boxes are located appropriately like they do with many other types of ground-mounted utility boxes. And the other advantage that has recently come to my attention of this scenario is that there is a new state requirement that wireless communication facilities have 72 hours of backup power in case of a power shutoff. And requiring all the equipment to be housed internal to the pole would make that hard to achieve because a battery bank to achieve that level of backup would be pretty large and could be housed in a ground-mounted box. And in fact, the county is processing a number of encroachment permits at the moment for battery ground-mounted boxes that have battery backups, not for wireless communication facilities but for fiber wireline facilities on existing poles. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to make that suggestion during the presentation so we can move to the next slide now. So the new ordinance also includes a section specifically addressing modifications of existing wireless communication facilities to fully and accurately reflect the provisions of federal law that apply to these types of projects. These applications are called eligible facilities requests which is defined as modifications to existing facilities that do not represent a substantial change to the tower or the base station. There are detailed criteria defining substantial change. And again, the key criteria is that any proposed modification must be limited in dimension and must not defeat the existing concealment elements of the existing tower or base station. These types of projects would also be processed as ministerial building permits or encroachment permits depending on their location. And at this location, which is the Ben Lohman firehouse there is a wireless communication facility in that tower on the roof. And so theoretically a modification to this facility within that would not defeat the existing concealment element so it could be processed as a ministerial building permit. Next slide please. And then here's another type of facility down in the Watson, the Paro Valley area. And so a modification to this facility might include additional antennas and there's certain dimensional requirements for that that would if it meets those requirements we could process a modification to this facility as an eligible facilities request as a building permit only. And then finally the last couple of slides next slide please. I wanted to just show a couple of images of wireless communication facilities that have previously been processed through the discretionary permit process. Here's a monopole disguised as a tree and aptos at the best western end. And then next slide please is another facility and at the freeway off ramp leading to Paso Tiempo. And this one is pretty well disguised and you may not even notice it's there as you drive by. It's difficult to see. I don't know if anybody can actually identify where it is in this photo, but it's the different color tree. The more it's a different color of green, yes, got it. Next slide please. Just ask, I'm gonna go look and see if I can see that. It's on the exit when you get off Paso Tiempo from on Paso Tiempo 117. Yeah, northbound 17 exit. I use that every day and I honestly don't think I'm good. I've seen it so now, but I'll go look now. And then on the next slide, this is an image on the left of one in right in downtown Davenport. That's the fire station and the background and this is right next to the post office. The equipment cabinet is down in the lower left hand corner. We required the equipment cabinet to be painted and the antennas are up in the tree tops next to the light standard. I had a question. There was equipment cabinets throughout the county from place to place up here in the valley. We have a couple of them. There's equipment cabinets. I've never known who they were that have really nice murals on them. Is that an option? Is that these or PG&E stuff? You know, they're mean. I don't know. Is that a permitted process? They're always a nice addition to the community. And do you allow it? I mean, do you have any idea what? For any equipment going into the public right away, those are processed as encroachment permits by the Department of Public Works. And honestly, I'm not familiar enough with that process to be able to answer that question for you right now as to what any requirements we might have for art on utility boxes. I had one long as I've interrupted you with one other quick question. Given that they are now required to have backup generators for 72 hours, does that mean that all the utility poles or some portion of them that haven't had those because they were installed before this regulation will need to be retrofitted with ground boxes? The requirement, as I understand it, is that the providers are required to submit their plans to the state for maintaining 72 hours of backup power for their facilities. Now, whether or not that applies to all of their facilities or major facilities is not clear to me. There is an exception process where providers are allowed in their plan to describe why they can't provide backup power to a particular facility along with how they are going to provide it. So this is like a process that's just been started. So there isn't any, I understand. We're, yeah. And then I guess one other thing on the utility boxes. So I mentioned the encroachment permit process, but as these things go through the discretionary permit process, like this facility did in Davenport, that was a condition of approval placed on this project by the planning department through that process is treating that equipment box in a manner that plays some artwork on it. So with that, I wanted to say that overall the changes in the new ordinance generally consist of clarifying language, removal of repetition, an overhaul over the overall structure meant to facilitate more efficient administration of the ordinance, the new provisions from ministerial and encroachment building permits and encroachment permits will provide a more efficient process to comply with the shot clock timelines in federal law. But certainly there remains many discretionary aspects of some of these types of applications. And an effort was made in the new ordinance to provide language that will also facilitate more efficient processing of discretionary applications for wireless communication facilities. So in conclusion, staff is recommending the Planning Commission conduct a public hearing to review the proposed amendments to the Santa Cruz County Code that would modify regulations related to wireless communication facilities with associated CEQA notice of exemption and adopt the attached resolution recommending that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to file the CEQA notice of exemption with the clerk of the Board adopt the ordinance modifying the County Code regarding wireless communication facilities and direct staff to transmit the amendments to the California Coastal Commission. And that concludes my presentation certainly available for any questions and also wanted to mention that there was two pieces of correspondence that came in one from Verizon and one from T-Mobile that have been forwarded to your commission and we'd be available to address any of those comments as well. But they did come in late, so we'll take that in mind. Okay, thanks. That concludes the staff presentation. Thank you, Mr. Carlson, appreciate that. That's a really great and clear presentation on a very complicated process. So we appreciate you doing that. At this time, we can open up questions of staff from the commission. Would any commissioners like to start off? Any questions? Commissioner Lazenby, thank you. Yes, I have a question about signage especially on the equipment or the equipment cabinets. In the past, it seems like we always had to have signage to keep people from getting too close to those or to alert people who are doing any repairs. What is the new provision for signage? Essentially that federal regulations are followed in terms of the required signage. There is a safety warning that needs to be posted in a particular location and there's requirements in federal law for that. So that's not something that the county regulates except for the fact that we require all appropriate signage to be included in these projects and that they follow federal law in that respect. Okay, thank you. Any other commissioners? I'm just, maybe this is the right time, I don't know. So putting art on those boxes is something that will be a planning or a planning department issue and you will develop some way to enable it or what did you say about that? The only definitive thing that I could say about that is certainly during a discretionary conditional use permit process that includes a ground-mounted cabinet, we would have the authority to require a ground-mounted equipment box to be camouflaged or painted or include artwork in such a way that it either stands out and looks great or blends in with the environment. Yeah, okay. I mean, they aren't exactly camouflage, they usually stand out but some of them are lovely here and we've got some birds on some utility boxes. They're wonderful paintings. I would like to see that, yes. If I might, the County Parks Department, it runs a art program called Outside the Box, Traffic Box Art Program that it kind of runs, seeks artists to participate in painting these boxes. So that's not part of the planning department but part of the parks department. Well, these utility boxes are not gonna be in the parks department purview though. Well, they run this program to find the artist. That's not something that's run through the planning department, certainly not something that we would put into the ordinance. Well, I'd just like to make sure that the planning department will continue to be open to these kinds of installations. They're very successful. First noted, thank you. Do you have a commissioner shepherd anything further on that or? Nope. Okay, great. Any other commissioners? Commissioner Shave and Freitas, did you have anything? Just a really quick question. I know that when the Board of Supervisors reviewed this in December, that one of the comments that Supervisor Friend was concerned about was trying to process these applications as quickly as possible due to the shot clock constraints. And I just wanted some verification by staff looking at what is before us now, the proposed document that the applicant has to submit a paper copy as well as an electronic copy. And I am assuming that both of those will be dated at the same time that the shot clock starts on both of them at the same time with the intent that hopefully with electronic copies, things can be processed more quickly. So if staff could just confirm that. It's... Could you show me that diagram again? Wait, I need to re-unate. Yeah, so we don't transmit the applications to any other review agency other than FIRE. And so that is the purpose of the electronic copy so that we can transmit to FIRE. We do take them in at the same time and date them the same date. And we do expedite processing of wireless projects now. We have a shortened review time associated with wireless applications. So we will continue doing that. That is something that we have in place now. I think the issue that you may be touching on is more related potentially or in addition to how we take in applications might be related to the processing level by which we process applications. Right now, we process a lot of applications at a level five zoning administrator hearing level. Ian, we're looking to reduce the permit level type on some of these so that we can expedite them in that way as well. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm afraid at least me, I did have just a question to follow in up to the letters that we did get last night and I just wanted to understand or confirm if we needed to address anything in those letters or and if that's more appropriate for after public comment that those people that wrote the letters may be on the call, I'm not sure. I can make a couple of comments now, I guess. I would say in general regarding some of the comments in the Verizon letter that rather than these objective criteria or other provisions being burdensome or inhibiting service improvements, we're not doing that. We're creating classifications of permit processes for the different types of facilities. So if your proposed facility does not qualify for a ministerial permit, we would process it as a discretionary conditional use permit. So these are not prohibitions, but it's a system of creating classifications of types of projects and being able to process certain types much more efficiently than other types that might be in sensitive locations or the coastal zone or prohibited zone districts. And then the other thing I wanted to say is there is mention of the CPUC General Order 95 and also a PG&E document that contains criteria for equipment on wood poles. And those are very important and relevant. And so staff would like time to look into that. A little bit more and possibly just modify our objective criteria in such a way that it would be consistent with those requirements. And based on what I'm reading, it seems like that would not be a very significant change in the objective criteria. And we could do that before the board, depending on what the planning commission does today, we could easily do that before the taking us back to the board supervisors, for example. And Chair Gordon, this is Daniel Sosweta again from the County Council's office. I'm happy to address any legal issues that were raised in those letters, but I think it's appropriate to do so after we hear from the public. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. If no other commissioners had any follow-up questions, we can do that. If no other commissioners had any follow-up questions, we can go ahead and move to the public comment portion of the meeting here. Ms. Strait, can you please open the public comment on this item? Yes. I will do that chair. So as the chair announced, this is the time to remotely raise your hand by pressing star nine on your phone or by pressing the hand icon on your Zoom app. And you will have three minutes to speak when I call on you. And when I do call on you, please state your name for the record. All right. So it looks like we have a caller with the last four digits, one, one, nine, two. Good morning. Please state your name for the record. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. This is Gayle Necunam. And I just want to comment that just aside from the federal guidelines, the clutter, the paint, the height, the hidden, hidden towers and the, and the artwork, the one appropriate concern I did hear mentioned was signage for repair workers. So they wouldn't get injured in repairing these towers. We are all heavily and personally invested in what is really going on here with the science, with microwaves damaging human health and the health of insects in our environment. We are paying a price. Our health in the future will pay the price of the effects. And defaulting to federal guidelines will not deflect these effects. The federal government is not going to get the health damage that we are getting. We are going to get the health damage. I have four government booklets here. One from NASA and NASA, the influence of microwave radiation on the organisms of man and animals. Another one from NASA, electromagnetic field interactions with the human body, observed the effects and theories. Another one from the Naval Medical Research Institute. And another one from the Air Force Rome Laboratory. I want to read a little bit from several of these. This is from the NASA technical translation, which means from Russian. And biological effects of microwave radiation at frequencies of 225 to 400 megahertz that remain mystifying to this day have also been reported in the literature. Monkeys were placed in a resonator and their heads irradiated. The intensity of the radiation was such that the body temperature rise occurred. At first the animals sat quietly. Then they became luggage and sleepy. A few minutes later they were excited abruptly and showed signs of brain function disturbance, grimacing, vertical and misdiagnosis, dilation of the pupils, intermittent breathing and convulsions. Half of the animals perished, apparently because of disintegration of molecules in the brain as a result of resonance effects at these frequencies. The booklet from the Rome Laboratory of the Air Force on Griffith's Air Force Base in New York. It says some Soviet investigators claim that the central nervous system is highly sensitive to microwave radio frequency radiation. Several experiments have been performed in the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe that demonstrate a variety of biological effects that incur in living organisms. Observations of laboratory animals subjected to low power electromagnetic fields showed alterations in the electrical activity of the cerebral cortex and disruptions in the activity of neurons. Exposure to microwave radiation has been observed to cause physical alterations in essential cells of the immune system and a degradation of immunological response. Thank you. And the next caller I am seeing is, has the last four digits, 1-9-9-9. Good morning. Please state your name for the record. You have three minutes and you would unmute by, there you go. Hello, good morning. My name is James Ewing Whitman. I am very glad that Gail said what she did. You know, I was at the December 7th BOS meeting and I think I made comments about the wireless communications there. I'm fairly aware of the 1996 FTC 702 that clearly states for whatever evil reason that the only complaint can be about how it looks. So where are we at? We are being saturated by these frequency weapons. For example, in 1976, 8,500 documents were declassified by both the U.S. and Russian military in about eight different three, four, five letter corporations. You know, I spoke in late November of 2019 about a phased array antenna that is probably very similar to the one that Mr. Carlson spoke about. That's in front of the four bucks in downtown Santa Cruz at the corner of ocean and water. But the phased array antenna where I was able to investigate and go into public works in the city of Santa Cruz and look at the plan, describe these phased array weapons very similar to what articles described in 1976. So I think that there's a lot of misleading information being given. You guys don't seem to be concerned about public safety in any way and you guys are hiding behind legal remedies and laws and not lawful concerns. I don't know if you guys were elected or chosen, but you've just seemed to be rubber stamping these agendas which is very similar to the city of Santa Cruz and the county of Santa Cruz. If anyone is interested in a really good history or wireless, Lena Pugh, L-E-N-A-P-U, did a presentation in Silicon Valley in September of 2019. Even when the FCC posts information about the frequency damages, they often use averages. And averages can be off by 100 to 1,000 times. In 1952, one of the 3,200 Nazi scientists that were released like playing cards to the US and Russia, Mr. Hirman G. Schwarm, created the guideline that the FCC is still using today that is based on thermal heat and that's based at 10 million where biology, excuse me, bacteria can be affected at a reading of six and human sperm can be affected at a reading of six. So I don't know if you guys need to be put on public notice or something, but you guys are behaving like vampiric ghouls. There is so much damage going on to this stuff and there's a lot of ways to detox it that you just keep adding to the saturation. It's very sad to witness, but thank you very much for your support of painting these pretty weapons with murals. I'm done. Thank you, James. All right. The next caller I am seeing is Colin user too. So no fun number associated with it. Good morning. Please state your name for the record. Hi, this is Marilyn Kara. Thank you to James and Gail for their comments. The reality here is that we have no democracy. The problem is the corporate state corporations like Verizon, AT&T, T-movable, rural, pollute, and these are toxic radiation and sites. They dictate and in essence, militarily occupy our county and beyond. The message is public health be damned. We hear about abusive marriages, but the worst marriage is that of the corporations with government because everybody gets screwed. That's what's happening here. And the fact is there's no safe amount of radiation. The evidence of the damage is overwhelming in ways substantiated. This is telecom and local government and they're joined assault on our health and environment. And with our right to a healthy environment usurped, we basically have no rights. Were you appointed to the story of us and the environment? My ethical obligation here is to tell the truth and advocate for our well-being. And to close and let you know clearly, no resident or child has authorized 24-7 involuntarily bodily microwave radiation trespass. We do not consent to these violations of our privacy, health, constitutional, or property rights. And if we were there in person, you wouldn't cut people off in mid-sentence. Would you? You'd say finish your sentence, please, or you have another minute. When you use terms like burdensome requirements to the telecom industry, what about not unreasonably discriminate, but you are putting a burden and discriminating against the health and the birds which are dying in mass around these sites and around the world? That's the real burden. And if we need to stop this, we need proof of safety, which you'll never get, evidence of harm. This needs to be stopped, this radiation assault. And now it's from satellite. The book I recommended, The Invisible Rainbow, A History of Electricity and Life, is by Arthur Versenberg. I think it should be a quiet reading for you. Bye. All right. The next caller I will call on has the last four digits of 2915. Good morning. Please state your name for the record. So this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning again. Thank you. Good morning. I want to take a moment to thank staff for really what I see putting some good effort into trying to make things more objective such that it is a better process. I see this is not a process that we can stop, but I think that your staff has done some good things here to try to help recognize that the public is affected. Coincidentally, most of those have been objected to by the late communication from T-Mobile and Verizon. That includes prohibiting sites directly in front of homes and driveways, requiring there be a two-foot restriction of intrusion into the public space from the centerline of the pole, requiring a minimum of eight-foot height above ground for equipment, preventing proliferation, requiring that it be underground and requiring a mock-up and allowing for appeals. I support all of those efforts that your staff has put into this good document. I want to ask that you have a continuance on this matter. There is so much in here, and this is a big issue for our county. So please do not make any recommendation today. I respectfully request for continuance to give members of the public who have not had the benefit of seeing Mr. Carlson's slides. I hope they will be attached to his staff report at some point so we can see them. But this is a lot, and please continue it. I want to ask these things be included that any elements put in the coastal zone be required to include wind resistance calculations so that they are not blown down and cause fires and public hazards. I want to ask that fire-resistant facilities put in high-fire risk areas have an extended area, not just 10 feet around the facility, but more like 50 feet, or something to comply with the State Board of Forestry's new fire-safe regulations for extension fire defensible space area. I want to ask that there be an automatic ability for people who are EMF sensitive to be able to register with the county planning department so they are alerted of any applications, ministerial or discretionary. This is a real thing, and it is a recognized disability. So we need to be able to know where these are going and to be notified regardless of where in the county. All right. The next caller we have with us today is, I see Bill Parkin is with us. Good morning. Please restate your name for the record in case you are not Bill. Good morning. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning. Bill Parkin with Whitworth Parkin. I was on the technical advisory committee for developing the ordinance back in the early 2000s, 20 years ago. And most of the driving factors that were involved dealt with visual impacts. So I want to make sure that the commission is careful, the county is careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I understand, you know, I know the regulatory landscape dealing with telecommunications and the changes with federal law and regulations concerning this in the shot clock. So I understand the need to update these, this ordinance. However, there are a number of changes in here that do concern me in terms of the visual impacts. And one of the things that we dealt with a lot and actually one of the examples I pointed out was actually the famous tree that Mr. Carlson pointed out in the slide in Aptos. At the time, the tree looked sick and the actual trunk of the tree, which was the big pole, was really shiny. And through the ordinance and through communications with Verizon, actually that tree was improved. And so prior to actually having the ordinance in place, it was a hideous structure. It's not great now. I got to be honest with you. If you saw it, it is not a great structure, but it's better than what it was prior to the ordinance. So I'm very concerned about the aesthetic impacts. I will note that I do not believe that this ordinance is exempt from environmental review because it is a project, it is a zoning ordinance. So any ordinances are subject to CEQA. There are potential aesthetic impacts here because I do think there are some weaknesses in the proposed ordinance that soften some of the criteria for maintaining aesthetics. And one of the examples I'll give you is that currently, for instance, these structures or facilities are prohibited in R1 districts, for instance, but now there will be small cell wireless facilities will be permitted, which the antenna can be three cubic feet in volume and the associated equipment can be 28 cubic feet in volume so you can imagine in an R1 zone district with maybe small lots with someone with a pole in front of their house or their next-door neighbor's house, one of these small wireless facilities gets put in their front yard, it's not going to look really great. And so that's one example, but I am concerned that there's some softening of the criteria to maintaining aesthetics. So I encourage you to look at that very closely. Again, I don't believe that this project is exempt from environmental review and just because future projects that will be developed may or may not be exempt, is not a reason why the ordinance is exempt as the staff has indicated. Thank you very much for your consideration. Sorry about that, I was muted. The next caller I will call on has the last four digits of one, two, one, three. Good morning, please state your name for the record. Hi, good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Thank you. My name is Ariel Strauss, I'm an attorney at Green Fire Law and Berkeley representing residents in Santa Cruz County. The proposal visions go far beyond anything necessary to comply with the change of state law or new FCC rules that apply to small self facilities in the right-of-way. Because the proposed county code changes on private property regarding which a county has much more authority and a shot clock period of 150 days as compared to 60 to 90 days for other types of applications. The county staff do have the time to get these decisions right. I understand the staff would like to make the process easier for themselves and the telecom applicants but it's clear that many, many residents strongly oppose cell towers near their homes. In fact, I'd say most residents when there's one voucher built near their home would like to make sure that the county does what it can to cite them as far from residential areas as possible. Obviously, doing this involves detailed analysis of technical feasibility that exactly what staff should be doing even if it is difficult. Now to the specific recommendations. I believe I heard Mr. Carlson say restricted zones are the same in the proposal vision. This is not correct. I want to call out the wrong fulmination of the rural residential, the RR, and residential agriculture RA zones as not restricted in section 1310660C4 which used to be restricted whereas towers can be 75 feet tall and quite conspicuous. And these locations are in fact quite similar to other residential single family zones. The commission should similarly reject weakening the alternative analysis standards in the same section, actually paragraph B of that section in which they would pose to lower the burden on the applicant from what used to be restricting the alternative or infeasible to now merely providing quote substantial evidence. And by law, substantial evidence is in fact a lower level of evidence than preponderance of evidence which means that the applicant must admit something nearly that they contend will be technically infeasible but need not be let's say at a 51% proof standard. The revised ordinance must also require the county at the applicant's expense to always hire a technical expert and last in fact lack the expertise to determine what is technically infeasible which in fact makes their job quite difficult. As you know, once the facility is built the permit must last at least 10 years under state law and later applicants to the right under federal law to co-locate on that site to increase the height and bulk even beyond what is allowed under your zoning code so important to take a long-term perspective. I also want to point out that the commission apparently received the letters from the telecom organization less than 72 hours before this meeting and apparently best they can tell are not really available to public participants at this time which would be a violation of Brown Act Government Code Section 54957.5B who won. Thank you for your consideration. I appreciate you taking time for this meeting. Thank you, Ariel. All right. I will now call on the caller with the last four digits one, three, six, eight. Good morning. Please state your name for the record. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, good morning. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, board, for paying attention to this really important product. This is Seth Barron, out in unincorporated categories. I'm really happy to hear from all the callers in that have stated their real true concerns. I know nobody wants to hear about admissions, but we have to face the fact that it's a real problem that we have to deal with. We have to face the fact that it's a real problem and not one person sitting in the room would want to live next to a cell tower. I think they can all raise their hands on that. But that being said, I'm glad that you're addressing this. And I have some requests that the ordinance include in their guidelines clearly defined setback distances for cell towers from homes, structures and property lines so the public can read it and understand what they have to expect. And also to adhere to those setbacks when the applicants are applying for a project and not issuing variances just because you can. Okay, we'll give you a variance. I mean, really stick to this, especially given the outdated data. 1996, 3G was barely alive. Now we're at 5G and the technology is moving much faster than the ability to understand what it is. And government moves at the speed of government and that's not going to come up for a long time and we are all suffering. Not knowing what's going on. I do applaud the co-location being required. I think that's a good move. I mean, put it in a corridor where it works already away from people if you can. And also I was really surprised the 300 foot mail-out criteria you guys are talking about. For many homes, 300 feet is not even one home away. That's, you know, hardly a swing shot in a field, right? I mean, keep the thousand foot notice, whatever costs fine, especially in rural areas. I mean, it's not even going to get to the nearest neighbor. And also I think that cell powers around airports, given the 5G issue, is a big deal and that needs to be also included in there. I know you have some airport sensitivity verbiage in there, but I think that that's really important with the fire equipment that comes in. They may have to use radar on their final approach for commercial jets. We don't know where the airports are going to go from this point forward as there's, and it's very important to keep Watsonville safe. And I do hope that you all do adhere to the health, safety and welfare of our people and that you keep that in mind and as so many of the callers have called in said that we want to hear you really caring and I know you do care so if we could continue this and absorb some more information, that would be great. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Seth. All right. I will now call on David Wodkowski. Good morning. Please restate your name for the record. Sorry, I was groping for the unmute button. My name is David Wodkowski, county resident. I wanted to offer comments here in response to some of the previous callers and their comments. I think that it's often represented that nobody would want this technology near their home. The reality is is that as a university of California trained electrical engineer in applied physics and microwave engineering, I don't have a problem with the notion of it because I understand the science. The background on the studies that are related to this come from organizations like the IEEE, the International Committee on electromagnetic safety and the C95 standard which was contrary to the previous callers comment about 1996 was actually updated several times since 1996 and has just recently been updated within the last couple years. I think that it's important to understand that consumers it's represented by the previous callers that people don't want this but the reality is that consumers are voting with their dollars. Over 60% of the United States has chosen to go wireless only. They no longer have landline phones. So this creates several things. One of which is a public safety question. If you're going to call 911 you want to know that your phone is going to work. If you don't have a landline phone your phone has to work. People in certain affected communities or even disadvantaged communities are also largely wireless only at this point. 70% of Latinos are wireless only and again these are national numbers. They're probably larger here in the western U.S. 3 out of 4 renters are wireless only. People under the age of 34 nearly 80% of them are wireless only. So when we fail to build these networks and make them work we affect people. We affect their lives. And so the illusions earlier to the fact that this is not a democratic process. I mean probably the most democratic thing is market force. People are voting with their dollars. They're voting for these technologies and they want them and they want them to work. And I would encourage the planning commission and the county to move forward with this. These ordinances have been problematic for a number of years. They have prevented this county from having even what I would consider to be modern technology in this regard. And you only need to look at next door to see that people are constantly posting questions. Who is the best carrier? My phone doesn't work. What should I do? And I think that people do in fact want this. They may not be on this call but I think the evidence is there that they do want these technologies. Thank you for your time. Thank you, David. Okay. I am seen a caller by the name of Maureen Krusen. Good morning Maureen. Please state your name for the record. I'm Maureen Krusen. I'm with Verizon Wireless. And I just wanted to make a couple of comments about logistical comments about the sites themselves. One of the photographs that you had that David Carlson showed of a wooden utility pole with the antenna in a cylinder at the top of the wooden pole. I do just want to comment that that is a design that has been used for many years but PG&E is now in most cases not allowing a pole top installation like that. They're requiring us to install antennas in the comm zone which is actually below the power lines. So that was one comment and the other comment is about the suggestion that the equipment should be either inside of the light standard poles on a ground-bounded cabinet. In some cases that is not possible. For instance, PG&E often has a requirement that a meter be on the pole itself along with a disconnect. So those would be cases that you may want to just in the writing of your ordinance have an exception that says unless the utility company requires otherwise. Those are the only comments I have but I am available with our questions afterwards. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. I'll make a final call for members of the public who wish to provide comment on this item that proposed wireless ordinance amendments to raise your hand by pressing star nine on your telephone or using the hand icon on the zoom app. All right. I just saw a hand pop up but it's from a caller we've already heard from Becky Steinbruner. We'll hear from everybody once. Are there any other members of the public who wish to provide comment this morning? Chair, I am not seeing any. So I'll turn it back over to you. Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Craig and we appreciate all the members of the public's comment. And at this time we'll close the public comment and bring it back to the commission for discussion and action and would any commissioners like to start off here? Commissioner Shepard, I see you on you did but I'm not sure if you were going to get something to say. I need to leave early today so I would support a motion for approval. Sorry. Before a motion may I just ask a question of staff to clarify? I believe that Mr. Carlson mentioned and I might not have understood this correctly in regards to some provision in the ordinance regarding utility boxes above ground utility boxes and I noted that one of the speakers in the public speaking from Verizon mentioned that PG&E might have comments about that and I was wondering if Mr. Carlson could clarify if he wants additional language in the draft ordinance regarding above ground boxes? Yes. That's what I suggested during my presentation that we might want to consider allowing the ground mounted above ground utility boxes as part of the objective criteria for these facilities in the right of way and additionally be given the flexibility to review the both the CPUC General Order 95 and the PG&E specs for these facilities on wood poles to make sure that our objective criteria are consistent with those requirements. Okay. So if everybody else is prepared to vote on this I'm ready to make a motion. Okay, well then I will move that we approve staff recommendation in regards to wireless communication facilities and the sequin notice of exemption and the amendments to the County Code Chapter 1310 for the local coastal implementation plan with the direction to staff to revise portions of the ordinance as necessary to address above ground box compliance issues are within their purview and as suggested by Planner Carlson. Thank you. Do you have a motion? Would anyone like to second the motion? I will second that motion. Before we go to a vote do any other commissioners have any further comments or questions? I would just like to make sure that my motion includes on page one of the staff report the actions listed under recommended actions one and two. So that's included in my motion and I would like to move to a roll call at this time. Okay. Commissioner Shepard? Yes. And Commissioner Lason B? Yes. Commissioner Schaefer-Francis? Yes. And Chair Gordon? Yes. Okay. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and close that item at this time and move on to our next regular schedule agenda item which is a public hearing to consider the 2021 general plan annual report. Okay. I'm leaving the meeting at this time. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Shepard. Let's see. Looks like we have David Carlson in the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having this item as well. David, did you have a PowerPoint for this item? Yes, I did. All right. So if we could please load the PowerPoint for this item. And Melissa, before you start, David, I'm also trying to promote Stephanie Hansen and Matt Machado to panelists. And looks like they all went through. Thank you very much. All right. Okay. So this is the general plan annual report required by state law and county code each year. We prepare this report and the housing element annual progress report for public hearing and review by the planning commission The report is submitted April 1st of each year to the governor's office of planning and research and the state department of housing and community development. The general plan annual report summarizes the number and status of general plan amendments processed in 2021. The status of major programs in the general plan such as commercial agricultural land classification reviews, park site acquisitions and changes to the general plan analysis line. And also potential future general plan amendments and updates. The report also includes the housing element annual progress report, which presents data and information on the county's progress and meeting our share of regional housing needs and housing element programs using spreadsheets created by the state department of housing and community development. Next slide. There were no general plan amendments in 2021. Regarding general plan amendments that are currently in progress last week the draft project documents for the sustainability policy and regulatory update were published including proposed general plan amendments, county code amendments and design guidelines. They're available on the planning department website along with the schedule of upcoming community meetings and I appreciate them being a member of the public earlier that also highlighted that in the public comments. The medical office building proposed on Soquel Avenue and Live Oak requires a general plan amendment and rezoning to allow professional and administrative office uses and that is currently in their environmental review process. Next slide. The housing element annual progress report summarizes applications and permits for that new housing units in 2021 in data tables provided by the state. Our overall progress in meeting our regional housing needs allocation is summarized in table B. 96 housing units were issued building permits in 2021 and those were applied towards our regional housing needs allocation or arena. Information on the status and progress of housing element programs and policy implementation intended to meet our housing goals is summarized in table D and summary tables include discretionary applications received during the calendar year 2021. The county receives seven discretionary housing applications proposing a total of 19 units. Six of those units were approved in 2021 and 13 units are still in process and are expected to be improved in 2021. And what I wanted to say about those numbers is in past years we had counted actual building permit applications received in those numbers and so those numbers had been much higher in the past year but we learned from the state this year that all we need to include for applications received discretionary permit applications for new housing. So you know that number of building permit applications received although not reported here is probably closer to the 96 building permits that were issued in 2021. Some of the state reporting forms are not included as attachments to this report but will be submitted to HCD and OPR and that includes table A which includes the housing development applications submitted and table A2 which includes all the housing permits approved in 2021. Those tables are really detailed and large spreadsheet documents and therefore they're difficult to reproduce as attachments to this report but the information is summarized in the tables including in table B as well as the summary tables included in the report. Next slide. So taking a look closer look at table B this table places the 96 new housing units into affordability categories to demonstrate the county's progress in meeting our allocated share of regional housing needs. Under California law all local governments are required to adequately plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community. Our housing element must ensure land is zoned and available to accommodate our share of the projected regional housing need. Ambeg the association of Monterey Bay area governments develops the arena for this area and the current arena plan for the Monterey Bay region was adopted in June 2014. It allocates a goal of 1314 new housing units to the unincorporated area of the county for the planning period ending December 31st 2023 and those are distributed between the four income categories very low, low, moderate and above moderate. So thus far during the current planning period shown in table B the county has permitted a total of 740 housing units and at the following affordability level 72 very low 117 low 268 moderate and 283 above moderate. The total of 602 units remain for this arena cycle in 20 I'll mention here that in 2022 we do expect to see a lot more permits issued for deed restricted affordable units including the Pippin 2 project near Watsonville that includes 80 units that was recently approved got design review approval by the board in late 2021 and then the project at 17th the tola road will likely be pulling permits for 57 units of affordable housing and that additionally there's likely other projects in the pipeline that will provide additional affordable units in 2022 so next slide please so following this overview of the 2021 general plan on your report staff is recommending your commission conduct a public hearing on the annual report and recommend that the supervisors hold a public hearing and direct staff to file the report with the State Department of Housing and Community Development and the Office of Planning and Research that concludes my presentation and happy to answer any questions as well as we have additional staff here that from the planning department that are available for questions as well so thank you thank you Mr. Carlson appreciate that when any commissioners like to ask any questions Mr. Carlson I think that just to clarify process on this because we are going to have public comment and we discuss a vote and just want to confirm if we are going to vote as there is a request for a recommendation action to the Board of Supervisors correct okay yes correct at this time let's go ahead and open public comment for this item please Mr. alright so this is the time for members of the public to raise your hand pressing star nine on your telephone or this raising your hand with this hand icon on the zoom link if you wish to make comment on this item which is the update report that David just provided a PowerPoint on alright I am seeing it looks like Becky is raising her hand but I'll just confirm you have three minutes please state your name for the record hello this is Becky Steinbruner can you hear me yes hello again thank you hello again thank you for this report I always look forward to it to get a pulse feel the pulse of the county I want to point out that the rena numbers are going to triple very soon and I would like Mr. Carlson to talk about that a little bit what that may bring for the county um Mr. Carlson you said that the county only has to report discretionary uh applications for new housing how will that mesh in the future with any ministerial permits that are required under SB 35 I would like some mention usually this report talks about water there's nothing in here about water and I would I would request some mention in there about increase in water use conservation measures that have been implemented by the county for some of these permit applications will the county anytime soon be redoing its plumbing code to require double plumbing for new construction as a water conservation matter regarding the combining zones the the Aptos Blue project had as a condition of approval a community garden however mid pen is not maintaining that community garden in fact there's no irrigation water or anything to it and how do we go about enforcing those types of conditions for approval of these affordable projects which is also a condition for a recently approved habitat for humanity project regarding the nigh property our combining zone that is where the Kaiser project want is to go and um that a new state law requires that to rezone that property for Kaiser's use they must concurrently re uh find the sites for 102 units of affordable housing concurrently so um all of the housing that was scheduled to be counting for that like the 57 units on Capitola Road can no longer be counted so um that's an issue of information in the past the planning commission has asked for a report on demolitions I do not see anything about that in this year's um report so please um include the number of demolitions of existing housing and also a report on the status of the mobile home parks and um they're permitting and uh licensing because that's a very affordable piece of housing in our community and I would like to see it acknowledged in this report thank you thank you Becky all right um last call for members of the public who wish to provide comment on this item not seeing any additional comments chair I'll turn it back over to you thank you so much I appreciate that um would any commissioners like to speak any further on the matter or perhaps a motion to be in order? yes hi um I have just a couple of questions again um I want to say to staff I know this I've prepared these kind of reports for the state before and there they take so much work to do so I appreciate all the work that staff has done on this I'm going to speak directly to the um the housing part um I had a question in terms of just the income categories of both the Pippin project and the Capitola Road I believe 55 or 56 units on Capitola Road and 80 units at Pippin are those very low income or low income? it's a combination of both um and I I don't know the specific percentages but it's limited to those two categories and it's a combination of both great so that's going to help a whole lot um in those categories yes and the other question I had is um I always get a little bit confused in terms of 80 units and where they fall when you're doing the arena how are you addressing those especially now that we've escalated 80 years um and they're hopefully going to be a lot of them yes those are included as new units and we place them in the various income categories uh non-dead restricted income categories um based on their size um and each year we do sort of a a survey of comparable units we look and see what the rental market is looking like out there for various size units and adjust our categories accordingly each year and report that you know report the 80 use in the various income categories according to that background work yeah that was one of my questions because I look at like um on the arena table B on page 15 staff report and uh I note that um very low income in both well in 2021 there were no units in very low and only four in low and it's it just seemed to me like there must have been more ad us that would be in those categories then have been counted right there well there was a lower number overall um which which you know reduce the numbers in almost all of the categories you know last year we had 142 units in this year only 96 um so uh except for uh the low income non-restricted category um all of the categories went down pretty significantly just just because the overall number of permits issued was pretty significantly less than last year but as I noted in the presentation there's there's quite a quite a few units in the pipeline in those low and very low categories that we'll see coming online in 22 so it doesn't necessarily occur every year you kind of see looking back in the table that there's some years where there's a really high production of very low and those are just the projects that have come to fruition and it it it demonstrates that it takes sometimes several years for these types of projects to come online right right but um is your suggestion then that most of the ad us are probably more in the moderate income category than in the very low or low yeah I what I can say is that all of those non-dead restricted units in the moderate and low income categories nearly all of them are ad us okay and that the 40 that 45 number in the above moderate those are all single family dwellings right right right right okay thanks for that clarification commissioner lasenby did you have any comments I have one question about the ad use I thought at one time we had said that they had to be deed restricted and that that included that that provision that the owner had to live on the property which I think has been changed since then but is there some requirement for any of them being deed restricted other than low income there there is not currently no okay yeah in the past you're correct in the past we had um those requirements for owner occupancy and that sort of thing and those were reflected in the permit conditions or the D restrictions but that's not the case now okay I thought maybe it was also prohibiting vacation rentals in the ad use that's right so that would be a restriction okay yes that's a condition of approval okay thank you thank you um so just to clarify so table B is only building permits correct yes building permits issued in calendar year 2021 okay so that's why you're saying this year is going to have a lot more because all those projects that you mentioned right actually getting building permits this year all the construction you don't count it at like rating permit or map approval or anything like that right yeah the state is just looking at building permits issued so um right not not ones that are in in process those are not counted in this table got it okay thank you um maybe a more arena number question but do these numbers as they go up over this cycle over the next couple of years this year in the next I suppose does that have any implications to the next cycle or you know we're going to get closer to that number we're clearly not going to make the goal but we'll get closer does that do anything for us um um no the the numbers for the new cycle are developed according to a separate process that has taken place with ambeg and um I have not followed that process for the new cycle um super closely I certainly am aware that the numbers are going to go up significantly um we do have staff on the line uh Stephanie Hansen in particular that may be able to elaborate a little bit more on the on the next cycle and those numbers yeah good morning planning commission assistant director Stephanie Hansen um I think Paya has uh reported to the commission on um rena um and we are expecting as David mentioned quite an increase in our next rena numbers um and also as David mentioned they'll be calculated separately um that the state potentially makes it even more difficult in that our housing inventory will have to look at new sites so for some of those bigger sites that weren't used up in arena um we'll we won't be able to count those anymore um so it'll be quite a push to kind of get to um um more than three times the number of units in in the next cycle um and Justin and update the um the methodology um we're in ambag distributes the approximately 33,000 units they got for the whole region um they came up with a methodology I think Paya reported and that is now um with the state uh this year for the first time the state has to approve the methodology um they're very interested in um a new factor furthering affordable housing and making sure that um uh numbers were more equitably distributed this this cycle than in past cycles so um well uh as we hear more on it we'll uh report to the um planning commission and we'll really be tackling this next year as we look at our um housing element update thank you for that I appreciate that probably end up asking a lot of the same questions throughout this process so I appreciate you continuing to help us understand this it's complicated so it is complicated you bet I appreciate it um any other commissioners have questions or potentially uh want to make a motion on this Commissioner Schaefer Friedes okay so I will make a motion to approve the or to recommend the actions as listed on page one of the staff report uh we've conducted our public hearing and we I would move that we recommend that the Board of Supervisors hold a public hearing and direct staff to file the report to the State Department of Housing and Community Development Commissioner Schaefer Friedes I'll second the motion thank you Commissioner Lazenby um any other questions or comment be happy to hear it otherwise we could move to a roll call vote for this please Ms. Drake okay uh Commissioner Schaefer Friedes yes Commissioner Lazenby yes and Chair Gordon yes all right great thank you that motion passes and with that we can close item eight of the agenda today and move on to regular agenda items uh do we have a planning director's report today um yes I believe we do I see we have Payah Levine with us this morning as well as Matt Machado so I don't know which one of them would like to kick it off hi would you like to lead the effort or shall I in her absence I think she'll join us here in a second to maybe having some technical difficulties um good morning planning commissioners my name is Matt Machado and I wanted to report a couple of changes in our department recently the county integrated the two departments of planning and public works and so this new integrated department is named community development and infrastructure and so there's some real advantages of these two departments being more closely tied certainly there would be you know some advantages of communication and collaboration there's a lot of synergies here between the two departments I mean even in today's agenda we had a lot of conversation about public works function in the same realm of planning policy so it's a it's a really good joining of two groups together I would also like to share that as part of that change we have looked at the structure of the planning department the planning area and we have developed two distinct groups the first one is we're calling our UPC division our unified permit center and it is being led with a new position assistant director and that position has been filled with Carolyn Burke as the leader of it and then also the other half of the planning area is we're calling it the housing and policy division and that assistant director is a recent promotion of Stephanie Hansen and she introduced herself earlier as assistant planning director which is absolutely accurate so congratulations to to those two individuals for well-earned promotions under the UPC division will be the building department and also environmental planning and development review which is where your group falls and I hope to keep you all informed on any changes and updates and developments in this area and then of course under housing and policy it are the areas of code compliance policy and housing program so exciting times of course we are focused on good communication in this new unified department we'll be working on different communication plans such as an updated website regular quarterly meetings with all managers and supervisors press releases quarterly newsletters and hopefully regular communications with your commission and so I look forward to working with your commission and sharing information and working on changes and issues as you always do you're very good at managing those changes for the county so thank you for your service and I see Paya is on camera so I will give the microphone to Paya thank you you're muted Paya Paya if you're on the phone press star six to unmute I'm not sure yeah good to see you okay how about now yes good morning yeah good morning sorry for the delay I do have two items this morning one is we've been talking so much about the sustainability update and I just wanted to encourage you and remind you again that series of community meetings that I think can really serve to help start to walk you as commissioners through the package the first meeting is next week it is a week from today it's Wednesday in the evening and there was an email last week with the the chart that gives you the location and have signed in and all of that for the community meetings and I just want to emphasize that there's a lot of material there and I want all the commissioners to feel that supported in working through it and there are a number of months in which to accomplish that so starting now with the first meeting which is an overview I think will ultimately be very helpful to you and staff of course is available to help you along the way so just wanted to make sure that you know that that offer is there and that the opportunity to attend those meetings is starting and then the other thing is I wanted to let you all know that I am going to be retiring and that my last week here will be the first week in June so we have a few more meetings between now and then and I'll just take this opportunity to let you know how much I appreciate recording in progress rest is Stephanie and Carolyn as well it's going to be awesome I'm excited to see this new process and see this all come together I'm sure that it is not the easiest thing to do to merge two companies or excuse me parts of the county there and so wishing everyone the best of luck in their new positions and hopefully it all smooth transition and yeah excited to see it so thank you Matt I had a question for you on that so are you well two questions so is there any adjustments or changes for us or maybe like the public that would be helpful to know or how like is there any process change or anything to expect anything like that's all going to be business as usual yeah I know it really is we're trying to be business as usual status quo for most people's day job and so no change to the commission or structure or how it's managed in fact I would probably add that through this change we are also pushing to re-establish planning positions that were lost at the last great recession and so I actually think that you know the workload is so intense right now when we're able to restore some of those lost positions from the past I think the change that you will see is probably an increased throughput of work actually projects and policy ideas and that I think for the past quite a few years maybe upwards of you know maybe almost 10 years the planning department has been rather understaffed in so many ways and we're really working to change that to balance that workload and I think that will result in a bit more throughput just to be honest I mean anyways I think you'll see that at the planning commission but that would be the only change that I see at this point okay thank you and so Matt are you technically planning director that and okay great that's correct and yeah I guess I kind of missed that one so I my working title will be director of community development infrastructure but my official titles will be planning director and public works director by ordinance very good okay understood thank you a lot of work go ahead yes I wanted to say thank you Matt my gosh for what you're agreeing to take on and for what you've done in the past thank you and as one of the longer members of the planning commission I wanted to thank Paya for all the work that she did in stepping in as acting planning director plus her previous years in the planning department I know I appreciated her insight and her leadership and I hope you just have a wonderful time in retirement Paya thank you Melanie thank you thank you thank you thank you Melanie yes I would also echo what Shaefer Freitas has said that Paya you've been an invaluable help to at least to me and I think to the other commissioners and I wish you the best in retirement and congratulations Matt I thought you were trying to reduce the workload and you've doubled yours well that's possible but I know that the planning department is staffed really well with some great leadership and I mentioned a bit of it and there's a lot of great leadership even below those levels and so I think that I think that it's not such a heavy lift for me knowing that we have so many great staff members already doing the work and Paya will have left the department in a really good position and situation and you know we're all very fortunate that she's transitioning out over quite a few months to help us you know hand off some of her duties and so I believe we're in a good position today so but thank you appreciate your your thoughts hey awesome well thanks so much there's anything else on Plan Directors Report happy to talk about it otherwise we can move on so okay have a great day thank you so much guys upcoming meetings upcoming meetings yes sorry yes we have the upcoming meeting dates and agendas so far for April we don't have any reservations it's not too late to submit reservations however so you may end up meeting but at this point in time it looks unlikely that we'll have a meeting on the 13th good thank you so much Mr. Zezweta anything to report today excuse me so we don't have any in April but there's not going to be a meeting on March 23rd either well I'm sorry definitely nothing in March for sure yes okay thank you so the only thing I'll report is that we're all excited about these changes happening I'm excited to work with Matt and we're going to miss Paya tremendously sorry to see her go but I'm sure wonderful adventures are ahead I just wanted to also congratulate David Carlson on a well done job today he had a lot of work on his plate with these two presentations and he met them head on and was just fantastic to work with and I think he did a great job so and I thank you all for your thoughtful comments and your approvals today thank you thank you sir anything else anyone we can close today's hearing thank you so much thank you chair have a great day thanks bye