 Let's meet. Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's Planning Commission meeting. Today's date is January 26th, 2022, and the time is 9.30. Today's meeting is completely remote via Zoom. And there are a couple of different ways to follow the meeting or participate in the meeting today. To both view and participate, I recommend using the Planning Commission Zoom meeting link, which is posted on the Planning Department's home page at sccoplanning.com. Alternatively, if your computer is not equipped with a microphone, you may provide comment by telephone. Please dial 1-669-900-6833 to call in. The collaboration code for today's meeting is 818-3690-0947. This information is also posted on the top of the Planning Department page. All right, a couple of instructions about providing comment today during the public hearing. For each agenda as public hearing item, time will be provided for members of the public to contribute their testimony. 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, or if calling in by telephone by remotely raising your hand by pressing star nine on your telephone. 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 telephone. Members of the public will be provided three minutes to speak. If at any time you have difficulty connecting to today's meeting via the Zoom link or calling in via telephone, please email Michael Lam, our support staff, at michael.lam, that's L-A-M, at Santa Cruz County dot U-S. He will be checking his email periodically throughout the meeting and is on standby ready to assist you if you have difficulty connecting today. All right, it appears we are situated. I see we have a full commission here with us today. I will now turn it over to the Planning Commission Chair, Tim Gordon. Good morning, Chair Gordon. Good morning, good morning everyone. Thank you, Jocelyn. Welcome everyone to the January 26, 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz Planning Commission. And the time is now 9.33 and we'll call this meeting to order. Can we please have a roll call? Yes. Commissioner Shepard. Oh, sorry, I'm here, thank you. All right. Commissioner Lacypete. Here. Commissioner Villalante. Here. Commissioner Dan. Here. And Chair Gordon. Here, thank you. Excuse me, do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda in the straight? And no, not today. All right, thank you. Moving on to item three, declarations of ex parte communications. Do we have any from the commissioners? And move on to item four of our agenda today, oral communications. Excuse me, Mr. Chair, but Ms. Lazingby had her hand up. Oh, thank you. Yes, thank you, Chair. I emailed a question to one of the objectors who had sent in correspondence. I did not get a response, but that might be considered ex parte. Any others? Now to item four, excuse me, oral communications. Now's the time when the public has the opportunity to speak on items that are not on today's agenda. So Ms. Strait, do we have any members of the public that would like to talk at this time? All right, I will check in with our attendee list. Again, this is a time to raise your hand if you would like to speak on an item not on today's agenda. And if that is the case, we will call on you to speak. You would have two minutes, two minutes to speak. I'll check it again. And all in favor? All right. Bye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Great, the motion passes. Thank you. Ms. Strait, I just got a notification that the recording has stopped. I'm not sure if that's something that we need to take a minute and figure out. I saw that as well. So thank you for pausing. I was just going to follow up with that with our CTV. Recording in progress. So here it goes. Ms. Strait, would you like us to re-vote so that it's on the record as well, while it's recorded? Would that be helpful for you? Let me check in with our staff. Our CTV staff, just a moment. OK. Yes, I'm sorry. We do need to re-take that vote. Chair Gordon. I'm not sure exactly where it cut off. So we'll just kind of repeat the whole section there. Item number five, the approval of minutes from the January 12th hearing. And a motion. I'll move approval. Thank you, Commissioner Dan. And there is a second. I'll second that. Thank you, Commissioner Lays-N-B, all in favor? Say aye. Aye. And any opposed? And any abstaining? Great. The motion passes again. Let's move on then to the next regularly scheduled item. This is item number six, application 201372. This is the appeal of the zoning administrator of approval of a new wireless communication facility located at 675 Rebecca Drive in Boulder Creek. Yes. Sorry, go ahead. No, please go ahead. Thank you. Yes, I was going to ask if we could please promote Sheila as a panelist. So she can make her presentation. All right. And we can go ahead and load the PowerPoint. Good morning, Sheila. OK, can you hear me now? Yes, good morning. Thank you. I'm sorry. My name is Sheila McDaniel, Santa Cruz County Planning Department. Before I start my presentation, I just wanted to inform your commission that there's been a flirty of late communications. We have a revised landscape plan prepared by Helix Environmental, dated January 21st, provided by the applicant with updated landscape recommendations and site plan. And we have communications from Rob Mann, one of the appellants with corresponding arborist recommendations for that landscaping plan that was submitted yesterday. And then we also have communications from Michael Tunic representing the other appellant, Robinson. And I will be speaking to some of those items during my presentation. So the proposed facility is a replacement wireless facility of an existing permitted wireless facility at 653 Rebecca Drive. The project proposes to fill a significant gap in wireless coverage created by decommission, if you will, or demolition of the wireless communication facility there. Next slide, please. The property is located at the end of the cul-de-sac on Rebecca Drive in a rural residential neighborhood in the hills above and southeast of Boulder Creek and northeast of Brookdale. Next slide, please. The proposal is on residential agriculture and mountain residential within the general plan. The use is allowed pursuant to the residential uses chart under 1310-322, subject to an alternative analysis. The zoning administrator staff report includes the alternative analysis that evaluate a potential facility locations in the Rebecca Drive neighborhood, as well as other sites at similar elevations. To ensure that existing coverage to existing AT&T customers is not compromised by the replacement of the current facility, the applicant identified the subject property as the only site available to fill the significant gap created by closure of the existing facility. Next, please. The project site location is shown as the star located to the southwest of the existing tree in the photo. The man's residence, one of the appellants, is located to the west of the subject property or to your left of the project site. The Robinson's, the other appellant, lives to the east of the subject property to the right. Next photo, please. So this is a drone photo provided by the applicant very early in the project, which I felt provided the best vantage point. I had a very difficult time taking photos of the project for your commission. So as you can see, the subject property is 675 Rebecca Drive. That has the trees located there. The proposed wireless facility at 675 is located outside a sensitive habitat. And the property contains two slope stability, a slope stability analysis in a geotechnical engineering both accepted by environmental planning subject to conditions of approval. The site is considered stable. The man's residence, as I noted, is to the left at 655 Rebecca Drive. I thought it would be important to note that the man's bought the property following real estate disclosure of the proposed facility, including a location map of the project. So they were aware when they purchased the property that the facility was going to go at 675 Rebecca Drive. The Robinson's residence, as you can see, is located to the east. And you can also see in this slide, the existing Robinson's facility, wireless facility, is to be removed. And it will be replaced at 675. Next slide, please. So the project proposes a platform lease area approximately 290 square feet in area, approximately 10 by 29 feet, between four to eight feet above existing grade. And the grade is sloped at this location with six 12-foot tall panna antennas mounted to the platform structure. Six AT&T antennas and six T-mobile antennas attached to the mounts. Our four-foot wide stairway is proposed along the west side of the facility. The generator is not proposed and cannot be required by the county. Next slide, please. So elevation draws over all the height is proposed to maximum of approximately 16 to 20 feet above existing grade to the top of the antennas. From the upper grade, elevation height is approximately 16 feet. At the lower grade, elevation facility height is approximately 20 feet. This complies with the maximum 28-foot height allowed by the zone district. Next slide, please. So I have provided you with existing and proposed site conditions. The upper photo again shows the existing condition so you have a reference. The lower photo shows the proposed visual simulation highlighting the location of the proposed project. Should be noted that the access to facility is actually on the west side. That was a very early representation but it's generally in the correct location. No public views of the project are available from Rebecca Drive due to the shrouded vegetation there. And at the bottom right is the existing facility. You can see that will be proposed to be removed. Can you hear me? Yes. Could I just ask, how do you get to that again? I wanna see. It's on Rebecca Drive. Which is, are you showing Rebecca Drive here? Rebecca Drive is a cul-de-sac located behind that group of redwood trees. There's no visible site distance from the end of the cul-de-sac to the proposed location. The only potential views of the project are from both appellants, east and west of the property. So, but I mean, how will they get down on that slope? Oh, there's access from Rebecca Drive as a parking space at the top. We just can't see it. You can't see it, there's a stairway access that goes down the hill from the top of the slope. And then what I just wanted to ask, I might as well ask it now, where are the code violations that are still extant? Okay, so the code violations are on the, Robinson property to the right in the lower photo. They were a result of grading violations, vacation rentals. Gosh, it's been almost two decades of code violations as an active code case and stipulation for rectification of these violations. And then, so if you look at the fencing along the driveway of the Robinson property, the code violations in that general area, there's some erosion and drainage issues caused from grading in that location. It's further down, it's probably to the right of where the proposed facility is along the roadway. So none of those code violations have been cleaned up or resolved? No, they're outstanding violations. There's five open code violations that prevent the county from issuing building permits for ongoing maintenance and repair update, upgrade to the facility at the Robinson property. Well, the conditions of the code violations in regard to erosion, et cetera, impact this facility. No, not, no, the environmental planning staff accepted the slopes ability analysis on the subject property as well as the geotechnical report and they've noted that erosion issues on the Robinson property are unrelated to slopes ability on the subject property. And the Robinsons have continually with sleep on this property. Yes, that's my understanding. Okay, thank you. Okay, so as you noted, Commissioner Shepard, the Robinson facility is non-viable and technically infeasible for these reasons that we discussed. On November 19th, the zoning administrator approved the application with added conditions of approval to require landscape screening trees between the proposed facility and the property to the west, on the man's property to the left of the in the photo and to require that the existing facility be decommissioned within six months of operation of the proposed facility. This has appeared to cause some confusion but decommissioned is meant to mean relocating the equipment from the existing facility to the new facility, shutting down power to the existing facility and then removal of the existing facility and restoration of the existing site as required by the use approval for the Robinson property. On December 2nd, an appeal was filed by Rob. Does someone have a question? Where was the fence that was taken down? Okay, so if you look in the upper, we can look both photos, upper photo. You see the redwood fence to the left of the Robinson house. You mean right by that big shrubby tree thing? Yes, that fence was removed after the public zoning administrator approved the project. It was there until after project approval. And what, from your being on the site, that fence benefits the Robinson's view basically has nothing to do with the man's, really, right? That's correct. And was that a legally erected fence? It's eight feet in height, eight foot high. Fences do not require a building permit. So they're principally permitted. And accept to say I'm not aware if the fence was part of an erosion issue caused by drainage or something. So I can't speak to that issue, but fences by themselves are allowed to be constructed without approval. Right, now, if that fence were still there, how would it in your estimation impact the visibility of the proposed facility? Well, when I did my analysis, I did spend a lot of time out there looking at it. And I was under the understanding from the applicant that the Robinson's wouldn't give them access to provide any visual simulation evaluation. So I did the best I could to evaluate it and debated with myself about how much screening would be provided by the fence and concluded that screening would be improved with that fence location from portions of the dwelling in that area and that it would minimize views of that. However, the appellant has since provided some visual simulations based on the mockup provided by the applicant, showing some pictures from their property, showing that their views may be greater than what I had understood based on the information available to me. But I think that's addressed by the landscaping plan that I'll go into shortly. Okay, and just one more question. The facility to be removed has been leased to the cell phone companies by the Robinson's, right? Yes, so it's my understanding that the Robinson's are leasing that space to Crown Castle and Crown Castle's acting as the head leaseholder with lease sub leases to AT&T and T-Mobile for their wireless antennas. And given, I guess you could say a fractured relationship, they are no longer, the site's no longer tenable for them besides the fact that there's some outstanding violations that make it non-viable as well. So I mean, the applicant can go into that, but that's essentially the reason this application is going forward is that this project, the existing site is no longer tenable. And who exactly owns the property that the proposed facility is on? Okay, so the proposed facility is owned by the Reddingtons. And it's been a lot of conversation about this. So the mans are located to the west and they bought the property. The Reddingtons also owned that property prior to the purchase by the mans' appellants. So they were put on notice when they purchased the property that the wireless facility was being proposed on the Reddingtons other property. They were even provided a copy of the site location map of the facility. So they were made readily aware as part of purchase. It looks from the photo. And I'd like, again, your experience of having been there that the mans visibility of the proposed facility is limited. That is true. I mean, however, the mans did provide what they thought were based on the site elevations. They went out there and took some photos of put their own little mock-up, if you will, photos provided. I actually think they did a fair assessment of what their impacts would be on the applicant did provide the mock-up and then visual simulations was I think really confirmed the mans suspected visual impact. And as I indicated, it would be limited due to screening. However, there are some views and I will get into the landscape plan detail, which I think will fully screen the remaining mans views of the facility as well as the screening to the Robinsons, even though they didn't indicate they had a visual impact issue initially. Okay, good. Thank you. Okay. All right, so moving along. So following approval of the project on December 2nd, the mans filed, I don't know, can we go back please? So the mans filed an appeal on December 2nd and a subsequent second appeal was filed by tunic law firm representing David Robinson. Fundamentally, the issues are the alternative analysis didn't include the existing 653 Rebecca Drive as a viable option. Questions regarding what was considered confusing the decommissioned condition regarding what exactly that meant and visual impact assessment from 655, Rebecca Drive wasn't provided. So as well as some other issues related to RF, heat emission information requested at the public hearing. So next slide please. So the basis of approval, I'm gonna go through the item one first and then we'll move into two and then three. So we're starting with the alternative analysis. The alternative analysis determined that there was significant gap in coverage created by the loss of the existing facility on the Robinson property. The appellants alleged that the alternative analysis does not evaluate 653, but they didn't provide any evidence other than saying that the owner is a willing leaseholder to continue to operation of the facility. But as commissioner Shepard and questioned there are five open code and active code violations on the property that prohibit issuance of building permits for ongoing maintenance and upgrades as well as access has been blocked to the carriers by the property owner as represented by the applicant. And these factors established the facility as non viable and technically infeasible site location. And the county really can't require the wireless carrier to maintain operation of a silly with ongoing unresolved violations or untenable leasehold circumstances that compromise the wire to service. So it was kind of a given that this site is non viable but for the record it's non viable and technically infeasible so that the alternative analysis determined that there are no other sites that are viable technically feasible equivalent or environmentally superior. And that the subject property is the only site that will meet the significant gap in coverage. And that alternative analysis has been accepted as part of the project approval by the zoning administrator. So with regard to item two, when evaluating wireless facilities, visual impacts are evaluated from public viewpoints. There are no perceptible visual impacts to public views. Next slide please. So I wanted to point out to your commission that the wireless ordinance requires visual simulations from various locations and our angles from which the public would typically view the site. Doesn't require visual simulations from private views as the appellants have alleged. Visual simulations included in the zoning administrator stop report demonstrate compliance with protection of visual impacts from public roadways. The following visual simulations that I'll be providing you show there are no perceptible visual impacts as you can see designed in camouflage painted green. You wouldn't even notice it. In fact, you would be trying to maintain your car on the roadway if you drive on highway nine, you know that. So slide one shows views from highway nine and then slide two, next please. The second photo is taken from Brookdale Lodge. Again, as you can see, you can barely see it. And then slide three, next slide. Yeah, this inadvertently, I inadvertently put the first slide in twice and I apologize for that, but your packet includes slide three and it's similar in its views. They're imperceptible. And I did want to add that the late correspondence provided by Robinson, it's attorney tunic, provided photos of the mockup from public roadways that reflect the scaffold and not the socked and tenants better painted green, which as you can see are imperceptible. Next slide please. So getting back to the basis for approval, we're on item three. The wireless ordinance requires that wireless facilities be situated to minimize visual impacts and we're visible to surrounding properties be designed to be camouflaged. So a determination that the project minimizes visual impacts does not mean that the facilities are required to be invisible to surrounding private property. So that's often the issue here is the neighbors, obviously, we're very concerned about protecting property views from wireless facilities, but the test is not, can you see it? The test is, has it been minimized? And in that regard, the project has been located on site to minimize the loss of RF coverage so that it has to meet the coverage objective under the federal law. And in so far as it meets the coverage objective at the location of the site has been minimized, minimizes visual impacts to the two adjacent homes by one location as far down the slope is feasible to preclude private views as much as feasible. So that's the best we're going to get on that in that regard in meeting the RF objectives. And then otherwise it's been designed to include antenna socks to camouflage this vegetation with natural green color to blend in the background landscaping. And then providing landscaping to eventually fully screen from both appellants. So there's additional landscaping as the applicants provided in the packet in your commission that I think will fully screen the facility in a period of years and it won't be an eyesore to either property owner. Next please. So now this the, so the mockup was provided by the applicant and then he provided visual simulations of that proposed facility. So the upper photo show without screening so you can see the facility and the lower photo show what the neighbor would see. This is property views from the man's residence to the West. So as you can see, does glimpse views of the proposed project. I did not include all the visual simulations. So if you'd need to look, would like to look at the rest. There's a couple more in the PC packet. So it should be noted that zoning administrator addressed the man's concern at the hearing by adding a condition of approval requiring the additional screening in the form of tree planting along the Western side of the facility. So during the hearing, Mr. Mann agreed to coordinate with the project applicant in identifying the exact placement of the required landscaping trees prior to issuance of the building permit. So the zoning administrator thought that he was satisfied with that condition and the applicant agreed to coordinate with him to finalize that location of landscaping. So following the zoning administrator hearing, the mock-up was placed. So your commission could see it on site during your site visit. And then these simulations are provided that provide potential views here. So with location design and color, the project is in compliance with the wireless code to minimize visual impacts to surrounding properties. Next please. So your packet contains, now to be clear, your packet contains landscape plans provided by Helix Environmental dated January 14th. That's in your actual packet. The applicant, the neighbor of the man's provided a letter indicating that he didn't think that the plan reflected the current plan. And I agreed with him, forwarded that to the applicant. As you can see the stairways on the left side, this is the updated screening plan. So the applicant provided a corrected plan dated January 21st. That's it in this slide and in your late correspondence. Okay, so I just wanna be clear about that. So the landscape plan in your packet recommended three species on the west side and two species on the east. The updated plan you see here reflects two species providing protection of views to the man's and one species to the right, providing protection of views to the Robinson's. And your packet includes the arborist recommended trees and shrubs native to the area located to the northwest of the platform and then to the east of the platform. Just for quick reference, what page is that on? Oh, gosh. I mean, it's a big packet. If you don't know it, I don't wanna slow you down but does the landscape plan involve planting them and then making sure they get irrigated for a year or something? Yes, the recommended landscape plan includes irrigation until established. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. Okay, so I did wanna highlight that the man's provided their own arborist letter that was provided to you probably yesterday evening or this morning as late correspondence that with their recommending that they have a more collaborative plan prepared, providing species that might grow faster. Their arborist is recommending redwood trees. I don't really have any objections to a collaborative plan to address the appellants concerns about ensuring landscape screening. If we were favorable to a collaborative plan, would this need amending to allow that? So yeah, so my recommendation, I hadn't decided because it came so late. I hadn't decided what I would recommend to your commission. So I prepared a revised condition that would reflect a collaborative plan before building permit issuance and that your commission can consider following testimony. So I have a condition ready for you. I'm gonna recommend that the planting plan that's provided by the applicant just as an opportunity to starting point. And if your commission would like to revise that, I have some language for you to address the man's concerns. And I think everybody will be satisfied, but I didn't wanna make that a recommendation until the public testimony. So you're all comfortable with the decision before you. Okay, thank you. Okay, so then again, I just wanted to point out, so that's with regard to the man's visual impacts. And then so with regard to the Robinsons, the Robinsons or their attorney, Michael Tunick did not provide any oral testimony or written testimony questioning or had any concerns regarding visual impacts. And then following his own administrator approval, they removed the eight foot solid board fence along their property line. And then, but I did wanted to point out, like I said earlier, that Mr. Tunick provided late correspondence noting views of the proposed mock-up from his residents and the Robinson residents, a group of visuals photos, which I would have had the benefit of would have been nice to be honest with you if that had been provided or that had been made available, but the applicant was prohibited from access, so that wasn't available to me. But it does reflect, I think, if you look at that late correspondence, you'll get a good sense of what their views are from their decking and their areas. However, given the low height at 20 feet, the proposed improvements will be fully screened quite easily by the proposed landscaping in this photo here. And so, again, I just wanted to point out to your commission that you could decide to require the applicant to reconstruct the fencing if you wanted, staff's not going to recommend that since they took that out on their own following the decision. But it's an option for you. So with the location design and color of the project is in compliance with the wireless code to minimize visual impacts to surrounding properties. And so with regard to remaining appeal issues, obviously I took it to heart that the appellant had a valid point about decommissioning lax definition. So the conditions of approval and the staff report have been clearly articulated to clarify what that means. So the condition in the language, condition 3F has been stricken and there's proposed language which would allow the new facility to operate until the old facility is permanently deactivated and which allows the billing official to shut off power to the new facility in the event of non-compliance with the required deactivation of 653 Rebecca Drive. And then also another condition is proposed which would require that within six months of the issuance of the temporary certificate of occupancy prior to final, the applicant shall obtain a demo permit for the removal and site restoration of the existing facility at the Robinson property. And that this condition of approval reflects the least terms between the Robinson and Crown Castle that already require Crown Castle to demolish the site upon decommissioning or removal and to restore the site to the pre-construction condition. That language, I think clarifies that nicely. The conditions of approval for the Robinson already have that language in there. So I kind of would have gone without saying unless they brought it up, but so it doesn't go without saying it's now addressed, articulated clearly and how they go about that is the, you know, between the Crown Castle and Robinson's and their lease and that's not our business. Otherwise the RF report was updated by the applicant to show that it still meets the RF exposure limits established by the FCC. And I believe that they also, the man said requested additional information to radiation array and heat emissions. And this was offered as a courtesy by Crown Castle. It is not required for a determination of compliance. So your commission with regard to, you know, your planning commission options, you must take a separate action on each of these appeals. So you'll need to make a motion on the man appeal and make a decision, take an action, take a vote, and then do the same on the other appeal. So if your commission finds that 675 Rebecca Drive is the only location available that meets the coverage objectives, the facility may be considered compatible with the area and that the project proposed to, proposes a camouflage facility design is located in the least visually intrusive location on site from the vantage point of the public view shed as required by the wireless regulation and employees camouflage designed to the maximum extent feasible to minimize visual impacts to adjoining residential properties overall. So staff is recommending your commission uphold the approval of the zoning administrator with revision to the conditions of approval to reflect the revised project plans, now including landscaping to provide additional screen of views from both appellants property and that clarify the conditions of approval regarding decommissioning. So staff is recommending that references in the conditions of approval related to helix environmental planning that would be under the plan exhibits. The currently say the helix plan dated January 14th that's recommended to be revised to January 21st and that's in your late correspondence. That's under exhibit D and then under condition Roman numeral two A nine. Your packet proposes proposed revised findings are attached as one C and the project plans are attached as one E and with the revised helix plans dated January 21st staff is recommending that the planning commission determine that the project is exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and that you approve application two zero one three seven two based on the revised findings or revised conditions of approval and as shown in the revised project plans including the revised landscaping screening plan dated January 21st. And I wanna leave it open for consideration of a revised condition to address the man's concern about collaborative arborist prepared plans. So I'll leave that out there for consideration prior to your action but staff's not recommending that at this time. And then secondly regarding the Robinson appeal recommendation and staff is recommending the planning commission determine the project is exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and approve application two zero one three seven two based on the revised findings and revised conditions of approval as shown on the revised project plans including the revised landscaping screening plan dated January 21st, 2022. And that concludes my presentation unless you have further questions. Great, thank you so much. We appreciate that. I'm Daniel and great presentation and thanks for addressing some comments and questions along the way and did any other commissioners have questions of staff at this plan? I have a couple of questions. Yes, commissioner Lazenby thank you. Thank you chair. I'm a little confused. Is there a homeowners association on Rebecca drive? Not that I'm aware of no. Okay. So according to your presentation the does the lot six, seven, five actually have frontage on Rebecca drive? Yes it does. And that would be a parking lot for utility vehicles? It's not, there's a single parking space proposed for infrequent visits by wireless maintenance vehicles typically a small truck. So there's an off street parking space proposed and then there'll be a walking path down the stairway to the facility for maintenance and repairs. Okay. And another question is from the pictures. It looks as though there is a great deal of foliage between the proposed site and Rebecca drive. Is that going to be any kind of a problem for fire? Not that I'm aware of no. They did not require any landscape clearing. In fact, the project is conditioned to require retention of the trees to provide protection of private views, visual impacts to private properties. So there's no trees proposed to be removed as a part of this application. Okay. In the late correspondence was there something that and I'm sorry, I've been trying to read all of it but it seemed to me like there was something about the location of the staircase. Yes. Very early in the project review process, the plans showed a staircase located on the Robinson front side of the property, which is to the, if you're looking in the slide photos to the right or to the east of that tree next to the Robinsons. But that was corrected to locate the stairway to the west side of the proposed platform next to the man's closest to the man's property because there's a tree there and then that fencing on the Robinson side. So that was corrected in the project site plan. So your project packet, the actual architectural drawing show it on the west side. The site plan that includes the landscaping plan that's attached to your exhibit shows it on the Robinson side. So that was corrected in your slide and that's the referenced revision and the conditions of approval. So it's about consistency with the approved exhibit. So it's all, I think it's been cleaned up, tidied up. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the commission? Sounds good. So we can move on at this time. Ms. Drake, I believe this is the time for the appellant to present. Hopefully we have Jocelyn here still. Sorry about that, I was muted. Yes, Chair, we have two appellants. So I will start with one and then we'll move on to the second one. They each have 10 minutes to make a presentation. I'm seeing that Rob Mann was one of our appellants is with us today. So we'll go ahead and start with Rob. Rob, please restate your name for the record. You have 10 minutes. Good morning, Rob. Can you hear me now? Yes, good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning, Ms. Drake and Sheila. My name is Rob Mann. I'm the owner of 655 Rebecca Drive and I've got 10 minutes. I'll try and keep it short on that. I wanna cover a few things that Sheila raised through the presentation. Apologies for the late addition for this letter. My timing was I didn't receive the planning report until last Wednesday. I immediately noticed the error and in good faith raised that with the county who quickly corrected it. So I only had three days to actually get an Arborist report done. The second point, yes, I was fully aware of the cell tower going into next door when I bought the property. And just some additionals there. I'm not asking for it to be invisible. I just wanted to be reasonably screened and every feasible effort taken to minimize visual impact. And throughout this as well, I've been very happy working with the appellant and the county to try and come up with a reasonable plan. I also want to engage with our Arborist before this hearing but was told there wasn't time and that was gave me concern that in the zone administrator hearing was gonna be collaboration but I wasn't able to talk to the Arborist Firm and Helix. So a couple of the points in the original application there was no visual analysis done from my property. There's one done from other properties but not from 655. I did offer access to both the county and the applicant. The applicant did take me up on this about mid last year, I think it is. And he joined me on my deck and said to me that I wouldn't be able to see the cell tower from my house. And under later conversations, he did say it wasn't quite sure exactly where it is but it should be very minimal. So on the back of that as we got closer to the zone administrator hearing I attempted to do a mock and it was an apron on a 12 foot pole. So it was not very good but at least gave the approximate position of where the tower was gonna be. I submitted those and on the back of the zone administrator hearing the applicant created an actual mock within the correct location. And actually to the county I sent through a PDF of the five photos is it possible for you to present that? You should only take one minute or so. I don't know if you had sent that Rob as a presentation we would have loaded that but I'm not sure if we're able to do that without having done so in advance. Got it, okay. The actual photos are in the full deck from our full document. So I'll try and dig that up quickly in a minute but it has all the photos from different rooms in my house and you can clearly see where the cell tower is. So that sort of leads into my comments on the landscaping plan. But before I get that I also wanted to shout out to the applicant who did a good job with the RF questions that I had. So he put me in touch with some very experienced people and we spoke through some of those concerns and just want to say thank you for giving me that extra information. Okay, so onto the proposal the report from applicant for Helix who was doing a landscaping plan. I got a second opinion on this and there were a couple of issues identified in there for various reasons. The three species of tree that they proposed will have challenges in the location and the independent arborist suggested including redwood on that. So I'm asking here for an expansion of possible options on species there. And ideally that applicants and applicants arborist and landscaping company work with me and my lab is going from my arborist to come up with a mutually agreeable plan. And that was what was called for in the zone administrator's review and furthermore with an onsite review with the county and applicants through my property the county asked for the any plan to be sustainable as in we want to make sure when we plant the trees they stay planted and continue to grow and thrive over time. So the first up just reassuring that applicant and their arborist work with me and my arborist come up with a reasonable and feasible plan for the longterm there. The second comment in the arborist report from the applicant it called for three years of irrigation. It turns out it's going to take longer than that. So I'm asking for applicant to commit to at least five years of tree care and irrigation onsite or until the WCF is adequately screened from the neighbors. Third up, I'd like the applicant to commit to maintaining this screening for the lifetime of the actual installation or lifespan of the installation. And so it is additional maintenance, damage or death of the plants or just generally making sure that that stays in place and we continue that visual screen the next 20 odd years. And the final thing I'd like to add is that I request the applicant starts executing on this planning plan as soon as viable so that we get ahead of some of the growth season here and reduce that period from at least five or six years to something less. And I guess I'd like to close with two points. Five or six years has pretty big impact on us. So it's trees take a while to grow even redwoods. And so we'll have this sitting outside for quite some time which is not great. And the second point I want to add is I had a chance to speak with applicant, a representative of the applicant Tim Page yesterday and on the phone he committed to being flexible on the tree planning program, adding more trees and shrubs as needed and installing whatever species we need to put in place to make this viable. Okay, I think I covered all the things I wanted to cover. Any questions for me? Thank you so much for that. I believe that Mr. Akshay should we do any questions of the appellants in particular or at the end? I think at the end would be good. Okay, great. Chair, may I just make one comment? I would appreciate if the Silt Tower folks respond to what he is suggesting he'd like to see and then we'll know if they're in a court or not or what we're gonna do next. So, okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. I thought that was clear and an explanation of where you are. Thank you. Thank you. And Commissioner Shepard, the project applicant will be provided time to speak so maybe he can address both appellants comments in one shot here after we hear from the next appellant. That would be my suggestion, Chair. That's what I was, I agree. Yes. Okay. All right, so I'll go ahead and move on to our second appellant who has 10 minutes as well. It looks like they are with us today. Michael Tunink, good morning. Please restate your name for the record. You have 10 minutes. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Michael Tunink and I represent appellant David Robinson. If the moderator has the ability to activate my camera, that would be great. Okay, let me promote you. If we can, yeah, can we, can we, there we go. Would you please show Mr. Tunink? I'm not able to see him. We, I can see him. Oh, you can. You can as well. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm just not able to. Okay, can go ahead and resume. All right. We. Great, thank you. Thank you very much, planning commissioners. I appreciate your time here today. Just a moment. Excuse me, Mr. Tunink. Okay. I'm going to interject for one quick second. Can we get the timer back up and started again before he continues? Thank you so much. Okay, please proceed. Thank you. Planning commissioners, thank you very much for your time here today. I will structure my comments in the same numerical order as Ms. McDaniel did in her staff report, which align with my appeal letter. The first issue is the inappropriateness of the Reddington's moving out of the neighborhood, but saddling this neighborhood with a wireless communication facility, the neighborhood, including my client does not want because the existing site is subject to upgrade. And I'll get in a moment to the reasons why it is subject to upgrade, despite the prior now resolved code compliance topics, but there is indeed a revenge motive by, missed by the Reddington's in saddling the community and Mr. Robinson with this site, with regard to appeal issue number two, that Crown Castle has not exhausted other sites. Crown Castle contends and the county partially contends that the Robinson site is not sufficient for upgrade due to code compliance violations. That's actually no longer accurate. There was a compliance lawsuit filed by the county against Mr. Robinson. I represented Mr. Robinson in that and on June 9, 2020, a stipulation for settlement was filed that constituted a global resolution of all those code compliance issues. So that settlement has been in place for more than a year and a half. Their Crown Castle talks about illegal bed and breakfast issues, building permit issues, and erosion control issues. First on the bed and breakfast issues, my client's property is actually zoned for a bed and breakfast. The issues were not related to bed and breakfast, but rather related to short-term rentals, Airbnb type rentals. There have been no Airbnb short-term rentals on this property for nearly four years, since 2018, and that is established in the stipulation. When I refer to the settlement stipulation, I'm talking about technically the lawsuit number was 17CV01480, as I indicated, the stipulation was filed on June 9. I worked very, very hard with code compliance supervisor, Matt Johnson of the Planning Department and with County Council, Ryan Thompson to resolve all those issues, and they are resolved pursuant to the stipulation. The stipulation required a series of permit application filings by Mr. Robinson, all of which have been properly met in a timely manner by Mr. Robinson. The first item related to building permit applications, the stipulation required that we file our permit applications over nearly a year and a half ago on October 15, 2020. We filed those permit applications in a timely manner. The settlement stipulation said the County had 90 days to respond. We're now 15 months past that date and we have not received any response from the County to those applications. Now I understand that County planning is challenged by applications related to the CZU fire in rebuilding. We are sympathetic to that, but the fact still remains that we filed those building permit applications over nearly a year and a half ago and have not received any response from the County. As to the erosion control code compliance issues, the settlement stipulation at section 8B required that we file those erosion control remediation applications on February 15, 2021. We did meet that timeline. That was slightly over 11 months ago. The stipulation required that the County respond to that application within 90 days. We have not gotten any response, but bottom line, we have resolved the code compliance issues by stipulation. We're only waiting on the County to issue those permits so we can remediate those topics. Certainly the County could if it wanted to grant a variance allowing upgrade of Mr. Robinson's existing wireless communication facility if it wanted to considering the settlement framework is already in place. Second item under the allegation of inadequate study into alternative sites was actually Mr. Reddington that sued Mr. Robinson. Mr. Reddington initiated that litigation in 2018. Mr. Robinson tendered the defense of that litigation to his insurer and that attorney, that insurance appointed attorney, not Mr. Robinson, but the insurance appointed attorney did file a cross complaint against Crown Castle to rectify some slope stability issues that Mr. Robinson and Crown Castle have been dealing with since 2011. Bottom line, this is an adequate site. We have resolved all of our issues to the best of our ability under that settlement stipulation. It's a little bit of a circular argument that Crown Castle makes in, hey, that Robinson is not an adequate site. So Robinson is an adequate site. Crown Castle then says, we don't wanna be in contract with you or there's code compliance issues and therefore you're not a proper site. We are a proper site. We have resolved our code compliance issues to the best of our ability and there has truly been no exploration of any sites other than the Robinson site or the Reddington site. In the drone photos, particularly item, I believe it was item two presented by Ms. McDaniel, it shows the proposed site as being far uphill. That's actually not accurate with current data as if the planning commission were to review my memorandum submitted yesterday in response to the Helix proposal. Data submitted the prior day this past Monday, January 24th. I attached photos exhibits one through eight to that supplemental memorandum that demonstrates the visual interference or the visual pollution so to speak is dramatic from the Robinson residents and I would request that the planning commissioners take a look at that. With regard to supplemental, now I'm gonna move on to item three and I know my time is running. As to supplemental condition of approval that was added to the zoning administrator meeting and after some condition of approval, three F and three G, all the objections set forth in my appeal letter dated December 3rd, 2021, still remain. The amended conditions of approval do not adequately define decommissioning. The new proposal talks about shutting off the power and moving of equipment, but it still does not adequately address decommissioning or the verbal conditions of approval that were imposed at the zoning administrator hearing on November 19th. The criteria should relate, well, the criteria that's proposed now relates to removal of equipment, shutting down of power and removal of the existing WCF on Mr. Robinson's property, but it doesn't specifically identify what Ms. McDaniel verbally stated which is restoration to original condition which is requested. As to landscape screening, I refer the planning commission please back to my supplemental memorandum submitted yesterday in response to Helix's proposal of the day before. As for whether or not Mr. Robinson has made this an appellate issue, we have made it an appellate issue and Crown Castle itself has made it an issue if the planning commissioners were to look at pages 144 and 146 of the planning of the materials, Crown Castle has made the visual screening an issue here. The new report from Helix environmental from this past Monday proposes a single shrub on the Robinson side of the property. A single shrub will not adequately visually screen with regard to, and I'm gonna move quickly here with regard to appellate issue item five, I'll go back to item four just real quick and say that we request a collaborative plan with Crown Castle and ask that that the permit not be accepted until that's totally resolved rather than just putting it to a building permit stage. And finally, with regard to moving this proposed WCF downhill, it should be moved downhill. There is a, the proposed one is 40 feet in elevation higher than the existing one on the Robinson property and there's been no demonstration that the coverage would not be adequate if it were moved downhill similar to the current one. And I will just in closing restate all my prior objections on my appellate issue items six, seven and eight. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. We have any questions of the appellants via the commission or comments that we could address right now? Well, I would like to find out the status of these code violations from the county since the attorney is suggesting that this is all resolved and that's not what we were told. So where are we? We do have our code enforcement manager on the line. I don't know if the commission would prefer to hear from the applicant first or hear from Matt Johnston with the county first. Doesn't really matter. And that's up to the chair, but certainly it's a critical issue. Go ahead, Johnson. I might suggest starting with the applicant and then moving on to Matt Johnston just to allow him some time to look into some of the comments were made just now. We just brought them in. Thank you. That sounds good to me. If any other commissioners had questions or comments now, let's hear those. Otherwise we can go on to the applicant. So I do see we have the applicant with us today. He has 10 minutes. It's Tim Page representing Crown Castle. He has 10 minutes per appeal. So we'll go ahead and load 10 minutes and we'll see if he would like to save some time maybe for the end for a battle. We'll start with 10 and see where we get. Good morning, Tim. Will you please restate your name for the record? It looks like he... Good morning. My name is Tim Page with Crown Castle. We'd like to defer this time right now to my colleague, Joe Parker, who will respond to the appellants. So if he could recognize Joe Parker, that'd be great. Okay, thank you. Let's, let's remote him. And if he could restart the clock for Joe's time, that'd be great. Thank you. Good morning, Joe. Good morning. Good morning, Chair Gordon and members of the commission. Is it possible to promote the video as well, please? I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I'm asking for the video to display to be streamed. There we go. Yep, there we go. Okay, thank you. Good morning, members of the commission. My name is Joe Parker. By way of background, I've been representing Crown Castle for 20 years. I regularly support applications of this type throughout the state of California. I've been personally involved with this project since its inception. And I also have personal involvement with the code enforcement actions lodged against Mr. Robinson stemming from 2016. When I became involved after Mr. Robinson began blaming Crown Castle for the code enforcement violations causing us to have to appear at the hearing and rebut those contentions which were readily rejected by the hearing officer. To answer the commission's initial question, we are agreeable with Mr. Mann's requested new conditions. As you can probably see, there's been a long history of cooperation between my client and Mr. Mann with respect to his concerns. And we're happy to address those. And as indicated by staff, Crown Castle's position is the same. And that is we're happy to choose any species of trees that are appropriate and selected by his arborist. And we believe that the zoning administrator's condition of approval with regard to that is appropriate and to the extent that commission wants to add additional conditions to that, to meet his latest requests. We are agreement with that. And Mr. Page did have a conversation with Mr. Mann and confirmed that I believe is latest yesterday. With respect to Mr. Robinson's appeal, I note that in his appeal, he made comments about a late submission of this landscape plan. I just want to point out that that's not accurate. The zoning administrator's condition was that we provide that prior to submission for a building permit. We did that early in an effort to be prepared here for this appeal. And so that the planning commission would have the benefit of our arborist plan. There was an issue with the original drawing about showing the stairs on the correct side. And that was corrected, but the plan remains the same. And of course, we're happy to modify that as requested by Mr. Mann. Present with me is Tim Page. He's the program manager and has primary responsibility for the project. Also Jacob Sparks, also from Crown Castle. He's project manager. We also have Raj Mathur here from Hammett-Nettison. And he is an RF engineer. So to the extent that the commission has any questions about the propagation maps, we're happy to address those. And lastly, Gordon Murray from Applied Imagination who prepared the photo systems is also present to the extent that the commission may have some questions about that. I'll just note very quickly, we have a long history of code enforcement issues with Mr. Robinson. There's essentially five factors that have caused us to relocate this facility. The code violations obviously, which start back early as 1999 and involve my client commencing in approximately 2015. Mr. Robinson has blocked access to the facility which has inhibited our ability to maintain and repair the facility. That's a critical feature for maintaining and sustaining coverage. As the staff notes, we have the inability to pull building permits and that has caused significant interruptions with upgraded the network on behalf of AT&T as well as T-Mobile. We have expiring leases as well. As I noted in my letter to you January 14th, I'm not gonna go through and repeat and reallege everything that's in that submission to you, but I will hit the highlights. And of course lastly, there is litigation involving my client and Mr. Robinson. The Reddingtons did file a lawsuit in response to property damage which they allege as the result of Mr. Robinson's illegal activities. And similar to his efforts back in 2016, they are now trying to blame that again on Crown Castle which is not a meritorious contention. So, you know, there are literally five reasons why we have chosen not to remain in contract and we'll let those leases expire. You know, with all due respect to Mr. Tunick's client, he's somewhat of a moving target with respect to his objections to this project, all of which I suspect are aimed at his efforts to retain the income that is being paid by my client in the form of rent. I will point out that in the spirit of cooperation, my client has always paid the rent and continues to pay the rent to Mr. Robinson, notwithstanding his material breach of the lease and other problems that we've encountered. With respect to landscaping issues, I will point out that as noted by staff, this objection to screening was not the topic of discussion at the zoning hearing. He was largely focused on Mr. Mann's concerns which we addressed there, notwithstanding that, we have called for the installation of a shrub as you can see from the landscape plan. If the planning commission feels that additional vegetative screening is necessary, we're happy to accommodate that request similar to Mr. Mann. I simply ask that whatever the condition is that we modify similar to what the zoning administrator issued for Mr. Mann be issued for Mr. Robinson as well. We did set it up as you note with communications being through the primary channel who is staff in this situation. As you can tell, there's a long history of cooperation with us and Mr. Mann. Some of that will be limited obviously with Mr. Robinson because council needs to communicate rather than the parties given the litigation and therefore channeling these requests through staff makes the most sense. With regard to the existing facility, I'll just point out that the lease itself has removal conditions in it. It essentially requires us to remove the facility, restore it to its original condition, ordinary wear and tear accepted. That's standard condition in the most telecom leases. I also believe that the commission's or the zoning administrator's condition regarding removal of the facility, following full commissioning of the new facility is appropriate. I don't think there's any issue with that. We simply need to maintain on-air service until the new facility is completed and then you do a seamless cutover and the purpose there being is not to interrupt coverage. I will note that this coverage that's provided by this facility for both T-Mobile and AT&T as you note from the propagation map is substantial and the installation of the new facility will substantially improve coverage and bring modifications in network which we've been trying to do for the last seven years. It also includes the installation of FirstNet, which is a network that is entirely dedicated to the use by first responders, which obviously is an important factor in your community. The landscape conditions we've covered, you've seen that my client has been cooperative with regard to the heat maps that provided to Mr. Mann. And I believe he's satisfied by that. In general, we meet the requirements of the conditions of the code with respect to aesthetics. That's covered by 13.10, 0.661 and 0.663. With respect to Mr. Tunex comments about alternative site analysis, I'll just note as confirmed by staff's report that there were more than 50 sites that were analyzed by my client. Frankly, in 20 years of doing this type of work, that is the most extensive alternative site analysis that I've seen. And you will see from the coverage maps in your packet that this indeed is the location that will replace the coverage that will be lost when the site is decommissioned and many of the other locations are simply infeasible to provide that coverage. And so with respect to not only the county's code, but also the federal standards, I do believe we've met the substantial gap in coverage analysis that is laid out by the various cases cited in my January 14 letter. I'll try to move quickly here, understanding that I'm addressing both appeals. Chair Gordon, may I have additional time? Because my assumption here is that I have 10 minutes per appeal and I'll try to wrap it up here very quickly. Okay, thank you. Okay, when we get down to zero, we can just add another 10 minutes on to the timer, I appreciate it. Yes, and I'll be sure not to take up the second half of the 10 minutes in its entirety. Moving on here, notwithstanding the representations by council about settlement with the county with respect to these ongoing code violations, again, I'm just gonna point out we've had more than seven years of conflict, which has substantially impacted our ability to operate this facility. And frankly, given the time, expense, and cost associated with moving the facility, you can be assured that we're at the end of our rope before choosing to do that. I will point out that obviously this new facility is being built in accordance with the county's current standards. It's at a lower elevation, it meets the height requirements. And frankly, with that in mind, I think that the facility as proposed provides much less of an impact than the existing facility. I do find it curious that Mr. Robinson has allowed the communication facility that we erected on its property to exist without any complaints with respect to aesthetics, but now we have complaints from him, late complaints with them with respect to aesthetics. And that includes his own removal of the fence that we were talking about. But in reality, if that is truly an issue rather than a transparent attempt to retain the rents, as I've noted before, we're happy to submit and read the same conditions that were asked of by us by the zoning administrator with respect to Mr. Mann's issues. Simply no problem with that. And I think that the screening capabilities of vegetation are easily met in this circumstance. So if the commission feels that additional shrubs or trees are necessary, we're happy to accommodate that. I do ask though that it just be in the same form of the current condition, and that is to allow us to obtain our approval at this stage and to simply comply with the conditions of approval, which in my experience has been a standard condition that you routinely see from Planning Commission. This particular facility is subject to the shot clock doctrine under federal law. So continuing the hearing past another 31 days creates some issues. And again, that can be resolved quite easily here by simply imposing the same condition that is imposed with Mr. Mann as to landscaping to Mr. Robinson to the extent that you feel that is appropriate. Lastly, I'll just point out that with respect to the substantial gap analysis, you can see from the coverage maps and Mr. Mathur can address those questions. So the commission has that, that we indeed have made substantial effort to make sure that the coverage that's being provided to the community will be the same and frankly will be better. That's only a benefit to the customers here, but to the community at large. As the commission may be aware, these facilities provide both 911 and E911 services, which apply not only to subscribers, but members of the general public and first responders. And of course the added benefit of FirstNet, which is the network for first responders is indeed a substantial benefit in this community. I also will note that our efforts here are aimed at building this facility as quickly as possible in light of the impending fire season. Wireless communication facilities are indeed greatly relied upon by first responders in times of natural disaster. And obviously this is a risk area and one that we're concerned about. Secondly, our client has been on hold, meaning AT&T and T-Mobile and AT&T in particular for the better part of seven years, not being able to upgrade the network. And as I mentioned in my letter, when you do nationwide upgrades, if a facility cannot be upgraded, it affects the network as a whole. So it is a significant issue for us. Lastly, I just point to the fact that there's been a substantial amount of cooperation by my client. As you can tell, staff's report is 233 pages long. We understood going into this that we would be asked to vet this project from a 360 degree view that includes anything from soil and engineering analysis to RF analysis, alternative site analysis. And of course that's that it's, I think in light of the record that's before you and the cooperation that's been extended by my client, we have indeed met all of the conditions required by your code and additionally extended cooperation beyond what is required, certainly to the satisfaction of Mr. Mann as you've heard. At the earlier hearing, we did not receive substantial objection from other neighbors. In fact, we did receive support. I do understand that public officials from the fire department and possibly the sheriff's department also support this project. And you may hear from someone in support of that today. And again, if the commission has any questions about any specifics of the project, if I can't answer it, the members of the team from town council would hear to answer those questions for you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Parker. I appreciate that very thorough response. Thank you so much. And Ms. Drake, at this point, I guess we can have some, actually let me back up one quick second. I apologize. Tim Page has his hand raised and they do have a little time left. So Tim, did you have more to say or? Just really, just really to but for Joe Parker's point, on page eight of the current staff report at the bottom of the page, it has the recommended conditions of approval as exhibit one C. And we fully intend to comply with the first revision. And it says, provide additional landscape screening to both East and West of the proposed WCF. And so that would cover both applicants concerns. And then lastly, we would like to hear from Code Enforcement in response to the questions from planning commissioners. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Ms. Drake, maybe if Code Enforcement is ready, that would be probably appropriate time before we move on to further public comment. Sure. All right. We have Matt Johnston joining us this morning with the County's Code Enforcement Division. Good morning, Matt. Unmute, there we go. Good morning. I can lower my hand there. And is my camera on? I don't see it, but I can speak regardless. We had a stipulation joined as a panelist. Sorry, I promoted him to panelist so he could speak freely. Good to see you. Good to see you all. Hello commissioners and members of the public. We do have a stipulation that was worked out over the course of quite a while with Mr. Robinson and his attorney. In that stipulation, Section 6B requires that the defendant submit all required applications and fees by October 15th, 2020. And this is specific to the dirt patio and the concrete. It's a grating and retaining walls associated with the dirt patio and concrete work. The applications for both of those were late. The application for the, oh, let me pull it up for just a moment. Even just a moment. The application for the retaining wall was submitted on March 3rd, 2021 for the grading permit was just 10 days late on the 25th of November, 2020. In the stipulation, there was acknowledgement that there would be likely a deficiency letter. It's common with applications that it doesn't have all the information necessary. And the stipulation specifically gives 90 days from the issuance of that completeness letter or incomplete letter, however you want to term it, in which to respond to the deficiencies. No submittal has been. So within 30 days of both of those submittals, the county sent Mr. Robinson the deficiency letters to date, we've had no response to those, no resubmittal. So both the initial submittals were after the agreed upon date and the 90 day response has not been adhered to. So that's where we are out of compliance. Thank you so much. Did anyone, any other commissioners have questions? Mr. Johnson? I had a question. So starting at the very beginning, in my understanding, a stipulation is a legal term for a settlement agreement. If all the conditions of it are met, then you're done and things are resolved. Yes. So with a common to our code enforcement practices, when we can reach an agreement with a property owner who's in violation, it sets out some terms under which they will comply. There typically are penalties associated with that. County council is currently looking at the, the stipulation, I believe as we speak, because it's come to light with this hearing that, and so there will be actions by county council to enforce the stipulation moving forward. So what you're saying is the necessary submissions and fees that were part of the stipulation were either, have they ever submitted, but beyond the dates that were in the stipulation for their submission and the county has notified Mr. Robinson and his attorney that these were not received within the agreed upon times. I mean, we're, I'm a little confused as to exactly where we are. So now the stipulation spells out when the submittals should have been done and then recognizes that any corrections should be done within 90 days of receiving that correction letter. The correction letters went out as part of the normal permitting process. So that triggered a 90 day responsibility to correct those corrections. That has not been done. There hasn't been any formal communication between code compliance and Mr. Robinson and his attorney on that measure. That is still out of compliance. And it's one of the many items in code compliance that we need to get to, to bring people into compliance. So normally if someone has to correct something, they correct it, notify the attorney and say, this is done and you say, fine, we'll come out and inspect it and sign it off. And that's what's not happening. Yeah, the correction in this case, I believe one of the corrections was for the soils report that was not associated with the grading the retaining walls, which are six to eight feet tall. And let me actually, I can pull up the grading reviews. And please attach the soils report with the next routing and address the soils report review comments from the building permit, previous building permit, which are also attached. So without an approved soils report, we can't approve the grading or the retaining wall. And what about the status of bed and breakfast being legal or not legal? Do you hear a comment on that? The stipulation agrees there will be no advertising for any short-term rentals. There will be no use of the facility as a short-term rental. So short-term rentals, that was the heart of a lot of the code case. There was the house had been remodeled and recontor it outside and advertised as an event center. That stopped prior to our signing of the stipulation. So as far as we're concerned, we do not have a case active code case regarding a vacation rental on the property. Of course, if we come across any advertising for that use, that would be a violation of the stipulation. Okay, thank you. That's all the questions I have. Maybe other commissioners do as well. Is ours. So right now you're saying that this is going to be referred to the county council? Yes, actually during the meeting, I got an email from county council seeking an update. So I assume he is listening in as well. And this will be moving forward to enforce the stipulation as it's written. All right, thank you. I guess I have one question just from something that I think the attorney brought up that he said in passing, but I just wanted to clarify. He said that the property was zoned for the bed and breakfast, but that would mean that the property is zoned visitors serving. And I don't think that that is the case, but maybe I'm incorrect. The property is zoned residential agriculture, RA. And I believe that RA can allow for a bed and breakfast on it with a permit for a bed and breakfast, but no such permit exists. With permit, right. Okay, thank you, Matt. Appreciate the explanations. I see Commissioner Lazenby has her hand raised, Chair. Thank you. Yes, Commissioner Lazenby. Thank you. Is the ultimate result of all of this that these code compliance violations are still open? Portions of them, yes. So there were various complaints throughout the last several years or decade or so. I believe the cases go back into the late 90s for remodels, for re-contouring, building retaining walls, as well as for the use. Currently, the outstanding violations are for the grading and the retaining wall, as well as the, I believe the upper deck has not been fully improved. Some of the remodel exterior remodels. The grading was of specific concern with the re-contouring of the driveway. It was cut down and the drainage has created a destabilized edge of the access road that goes around the bottom of the property and to the cell tower and beyond. So that is something that we put a high priority on resolving to ensure that if vehicles are gonna drive along that area that they are safe. And without understanding that there is a lawsuit that includes the utilities to resolve the issues around that, it's difficult for us to require that to be immediately addressed. So right now, that is also an existing, there are two different grading issues. One is the grading associated with creating the large raised patio. The other is the drainage and the stabilization of the hillside along that edge. Both of those are outstanding. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? I had one. I was just hoping that staff could read again or just clarify what the additional condition on the agreement of the new landscaping plan. Seems like that was an amenable change, but I didn't quite understand, or I didn't quite catch it all and really just wanna understand whether or not is worded in a way that could cause any future challenges between the applicant and the appellant or if it's something that can, we're making sure it's gonna be streamlined fairly easily. Sheila can address that. Okay, to answer your question, I had proposed that that be deferred until it was taken back to your commission, but I do have a condition as drafted to address that I have found in the past that unless you have a contract for actual maintenance by an arborist or landscape professional that becomes contentious and puts staff in a position of trying to play referee. So what I did is prepared language and indicating the following and I'll read it a couple of times and I'll read it slowly so everybody's following along. The language it's proposed is going to replace language under Roman numeral two A nine in the conditions of approval and the language is proposed to read the applicant shall submit a final landscape and irrigation plan comma coordinated between the applicant's arborist comma the man's arborist comma the Robinson's arborist consisting of landscapes greening along the west side of the facility and the east side of the facility period. Final plan shall include a mutually agreeable planting plan including tree and shrub species selection comma number comma location comma spacing comma size comma and a managed tree care program in parentheses a minimum of five years comma or until the trees and or shrubs fully screened the facility and that includes a contract for landscape management period in parentheses period. Final landscaping irrigation plan shall be reviewed and approved by planning staff. A second condition revision I'm proposing is condition Roman numeral four B which require currently requires retention of all existing trees. I'm going to revise proposed that it be revised to retention of all existing and proposed trees so that once those are in place they're protected in perpetuity that does tend to be a problem. It was a problem in the fire where the trees were removed and there was no such condition requiring trees to be on site after the fire so which presented a problem for the neighbor. So in anticipation I've added those two changes and that's I can read it again if folks would like or I could suggest your commission in acting taking a motion on the project that you adopt staff's language with that language on consent for final adoption at your next meeting or as desired. Thank you. I appreciate that. Unless another commissioner's like it read it again right now I think that we could address that again later as we get to the motion. So I appreciate that clarification. Any other commissioners anything else to add? We could do that now. Otherwise move on to the public comment. I'm just so I'm clear there. Sheila you have two revised or new conditions that you've just made us acquainted for. So in a motion, how would you title them? That one is about the tree selection and planting. Yeah. One is about retention of existing and proposed trees. Yes, that's true. So there's the existing required final landscape and irrigation plan under Roman numeral two A nine. The existing condition is proposed to be stricken and replaced with the language I just noted and then operational condition Roman numeral four B would include retention of proposed trees besides the existing. So the language would add proposed to that. I mean I can finalize the if you want some that's something a little more articulated I could do that but if that's not clear. So your motion would be. Basically you're saying we would want to mention the revised conditions for Roman numeral two A nine and Roman numeral four B. Yes. Okay. How staff recommended. Okay. Great, thank you. Do we have any other members of the public that would like to speak on the matter? Yes. I am seeing some hands raised. So we'll go to the public hearing. This is the opportunity that folks have if they wish to make a comment on this proposed appeal at 675 Rebecca. I see a couple of hands raised. We'll go ahead and start with fire chief Mark Bingham. Good morning, Mr. Bingham. You have three minutes. Everybody has three minutes, including you. Can you hear me all right? Yes, good morning. Morning. If you want to open my video or not it doesn't matter to me. I just wanted to speak to the group today in regards to the importance of the self coverage. Communications are critical for emergency agencies to get public safety announcements out. Like for instance the evacuation notice that came out in 2020 in August. Cellular connectivity also helps us make general and operational decisions like direct use of more resources and getting critical time sensitive communication facts in the field. So we can redirect the resources that came into play during the season of fire again of August, 2020. And it was very crucial when our radio towers started to fail us. We had to transition over to cell and then back to radio as we could. So the coverage is important to me to ensure the safety of our first responders and the firefighters of Boulder Creek Fire Protection District, which also in covers. And would work out. When our radio infrastructure went down during that fire we leaned heavily along onto that cellular network. And during that time period I personally had to drive up their amount to Nina to Rebecca to get to that cul-de-sac to get as close as I could to the remaining cellular that we did have in order to make the necessary communications back out to the rest of the world that wasn't being so impacted as we were. That's all I have to say. I just really want you guys to consider the importance and the need for cellular up on that mountain in a record. Thank you. We'll move on to David Robinson. Good morning, David. Please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Yeah, my name is David Robinson. Thank you, members of the commission. Can you turn my camera on? I can. I would need... I can. I would need to promote you just a moment. To promote you just a moment. Join us. All right, you should be a panelist now so we can see you. His connection sounded a little bit weak earlier. Good morning. Are you still with us? Yeah, I'm with you. They just said unmute the video. There we go. Okay. All right. You have three minutes. Good morning. All right. You have three minutes. Good morning. I think this photo from my deck really tells a great deal about what's going on here. This facility is right up against my property line as close as it possibly can be. And it's like having a giant building and it's like having a giant billboard out there. And these facilities at night, you know, they're lit up when they're working on them. And Crown Castle is saying, oh, they rarely come to the property. They're to my property almost every day. Crown Castle is saying that I've denied them access. I've never denied them access. And right now I have two generators around my property and they come every week to maintain those generators as well. Talking about this deficiency level letter, I nor my attorney have received any communication of a deficiency letter since submitting the permit applications to the county. You know, I do not want Crown Castle on my property. I want them to leave. There have been horrible tenants, Crown Castle saying that I'm fighting to keep them on the property because I want the rent. I don't want the rent. I don't want them on there at all. AT&T in 2014 did an erosion report in 2011, did an erosion report that said that all of these deficiencies need to be taken care of around the cell sites and around their underground conduits that were eroding. The underground conduits were right now stick out of the side of my hill and they were under eight feet of soil and the erosion has never been taken care of. This facility will be on next to my property for the next 60 years. The current facility on my property has been here for 28 years. We should be able to take the time now to get this design correct, get that facility moved down the hill, moved over to the center of the property. Crown Castle is an $85 billion company and I'm a realist. I know that my neighbors and myself cannot win against an $85 billion company. This is the way it is these days. Whatever an $85 billion company wants, they will get. In 2018 AT&T reimbursed me $31,000 for the money I'd spent on cell site erosion, control work. Thus, they're admitting that they understand that there's work that they're responsible for. After reimbursing me, AT&T took over the erosion project with their contractor, contracted engineer, DES builders and committed to correct the erosion repairs called for in the 2011 geotechnical engineering report that they paid for and they started doing all the work including additional surveys and soils reports until Crown Castle called them to stop. Okay, Dave, you're at three minutes. Thank you. You're at three minutes. Thank you. Mm-hmm. All right, I'll go back to the list. And... Straight, can we ask CTV to mute the people that are not speaking into view? That would be great. Dave, that would be great. We can send feedback controlling our day. I am as well. Thank you. All right, so let me see if we have any additional members of the public who wish to speak at this time. Again, you would press star nine on your telephone if you would like to make yourself known and remotely raise your hand. I'm not seeing any at this time, Chair. I am seeing that Joe Parker is raising his hand. He is with the appellant team and he did have five minutes left. So I don't know if you wanted to circle back with him for final comments. He's on the applicant team and they get... Oh, that's right. Sorry, applicant team. Thank you. Okay, yes. Mr. Parker, did you have any further comments? Just briefly, Chair Gordon. You know, frankly, the county's been dealing with Mr. Robinson and his illegal activities since 1999. You know, it's more than 20 years. My client has been dealing with him for the better part of seven years. We are still dealing with problems with compliance. Enough is enough at this stage. This is a private civil dispute between my client and Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson, mostly directed by his action and our defense of claims, which we believe have no merit. And so, you know, his efforts to push us to remain on his property are not in an appropriate condition for consideration here. With respect to his comments about erosion, all of those erosion issues have been caused by his illegal construction activities, the cell carriers, contribution to those amounts. It's very typical in our industry to contribute amounts to landlords, even in situations where we have not been the cause of those problems, simply to move our operations and need to manage and maintain these facilities forward in an effort to provide the coverage that is needed in these areas as pointed out by the battalion chief. With respect to the landscape condition, I just want to point out to the commission that the current landscape condition before you does include straining not only to the east, but to the west of the property, which includes Mr. Robinson's property. I think that you already have an arborist from Crown Castle. You have Mr. Mann's arborist. You've already heard that staff is agreeable with the arborist hired by Mr. Mann's selection of species. We have no objection to that. I don't see why a third arborist or further communication is really necessary if this is already a condition to simply continue the straining onto the locations on the side that has been raised by Mr. Robinson as being a problem. Given his long history of interference and noncompliance, and the fact that he's in litigation with my client, having a dialogue with him rather than just speaking through staff and two arborists seems to me unnecessary and probably a means within which to slow this project down, which obviously we do not have any intention of wanting to do in this situation. So I would simply ask that the commission take that into consideration, but you do have my client's full cooperation to plant additional screening if the commission feels that's necessary, as well as undertake the extended conditions that have been requested by Mr. Mann, which we find entirely to be reasonable. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. And everyone's comments today. This time we'll close the public comment and bring it back to the commission for discussion. Would any commissioners like to start off? Well, this is a complicated one, but just I am satisfied that I am ready to make a motion just to start the ball rolling here since there has to be two motions to just looking at the language so I get it right that we determine the project is exempt from further environmental review under the Environmental Quality Act and approve the application 201-372 based on the revised findings and revised conditions of approval as shown on the revised project plans along with the added conditions so revised conditions to Roman numeral 2a9 and Roman numeral 4b as proposed by staff and I would like to make the same application the same motion as regards to the Robinson approval with the same language. Is that is that a motion on the I think we should start with the man appeal to start with and then move on from there and commissioners are you making a motion on the man? Yes. Thank you. We have a second on the motion. I will second that. We have any other further discussion prior to a vote? I guess you know I'm willing to support the motion to support my colleague and it's in her district I see this as actually pretty straightforward we are very narrow in the scope of what we consider on these wireless applications and that's basically boiled down to visual impacts I felt that the original application to the zoning administrator with the changes that were made by the zoning administrator were more than sufficient in order to meet our requirements in the code so I am less I didn't second the motion because I wasn't really convinced that we needed the change to condition the first condition nine so I'm a little bit wary about putting the applicant in that kind of a position when I felt that the original application had met our code requirements efficiently so that's where I am I thought that the conditions laid out by the appellate man were reasonable the other the other conditions I thought went a little bit more than what our code would require I just want to add I am suggesting we approve those changes simply because the applicant has agreed that they are amenable to himself and willing to go with them I can clarify really quickly as we're talking about the man appeal only right now is the condition going to be the same on both so that in particular the need to have the arborist communicate will be imposed on the man appeal right now and then that will be separately considered for the Robinson appeal is that correct I'd like to ask staff what they suggest Sheila do you want to address that or shall I yeah I think that's a very point well taken perhaps for the man the condition should be revised to say that coordinated between the applicant's arborist and the man's arborist excluding the Robinson arborist in the condition of approval revision so that only on the man's side it be required to be coordinated between the property owner's arborist and then on the east side the same would be said for the the applicant's arborist coordinate with the Robinson's arborist on that side that way we're not holding up you know it's probably easier that way then we have three arborists I agree with the attorney for well in that castle but in that case I would like to amend my motion reflect what staff has just suggested so each motion will be revised to reflect the art so the man's motion is revised to reflect coordination between the man's arborist and the applicant's arborist and the applicant's motion for Robinson would be revised to reflect the coordination between arborist for both parties is that clear so you're still on the man's motion then we are okay so we have amended the motion do we second the amendment to the motion can I just approve it yeah sorry I cut out a little bit there yeah Judith I think you seconded the motion aren't you agree to this change I did and I would I would second the amended motion if it provides and this is a friendly amendment if it provides for written documentation or agreement between each one of these particular parties something memorialized and writing so what staff usually does in this these situations is that I defer to the applicant to coordinate with their respective parties and then I have them submit the agreement with both emails from respective parties agreeing to that submitted document and then it's written it's in written fashion that yes we've accepted what's being submitted and both parties do it and then I don't have to get in the middle of navigating this process for them they just submit that agreed upon plan and they can do it as a combined email or separate emails but I get a written confirmation in the system okay that would work I appreciate that so I will second the motion as amended thank you Commissioner do we have any other comments for clarity needed before we move on to a vote on the man appeal can I just ask for clarification from Ms McDaniel I understand that we're going to vote on here but I'm hoping for clarification and what it is we're going to vote on next and I know it's an odd thing to ask for but are you suggesting that we when we go on to the second one that we have different language in the conditions one that we have requirement that they still coordinate with the Robinsons and they're arborist versus in this one so you're so I guess the reason I'm asking is that if we're concerned that the coordination with the arborist is going to cause delays of the project I'm just curious how voting still having that condition of approval in the present that they coordinate with the Robinsons how that could I'm not having it present here but having it still present would not cause delays so I'm hoping maybe you can speak to that I guess I mean I think your point is well taken because it will be challenging for the applicant to coordinate with on one hand their arborist and the man's arborist separately for agreement on that side of the facility and then to coordinate with the Robinson arborist on the other side of the facility the plan can be prepared by one arborist but the agreement would be to the selected species on each side I mean maybe that would be another way to another tack here to approach that it will be difficult you know get normally we don't we don't require everybody and their brother to agree to a plans but I thought that everyone was in agreement here yeah I'm kind of a little bit out of loss to it to explain it quite frankly because this is very unusual language but it's open to suggestions I'm really glad that Commissioner Vialanti brought that up because that's my main concern as well I mean I think this is critical infrastructure and that is when we have these wireless applications sometimes that always gets lost and especially up in this area I understand we want to do everything we can to screen this infrastructure for the neighbors so it's not to create visual impacts but we do not want to add a condition in here that is going to allow this infrastructure to not be operational so that's my main concern and if that I mean I kind of hear Sheila articulating that that could happen and if that's the case I can't support this mission so one thing that just occurred to me is that you could revise that language to require a third party arborist not hired by anybody and then the agreement is the applicant and man's and the Robinson's agree to the screening and all the detail on it and then that way it's a single arborist prepared plan for that and if they don't though then what don't we usually do we just agree that there's going to be trees planted they're going to be maintained and there it is that's what I was comfortable with with the original kind of proposal like including the suggestion by Mr. Mann I thought his what he asked for was reasonable but so I guess going more than that I just don't want to set us up to not be able to have this critical piece of infrastructure be operational I share Commissioner Dan's concerns that we may be adding something especially since I felt comfortable with the idea that it sounds like the applicant and Mr. Mann have had a so far positive relationship in terms of addressing his concerns and they're willing to have continuing conversations and I almost worry that we're adding a condition that may not be necessary given that we have conversations that it's possible we could simply pass the staff's original recommended language with the revised landscape plans dated January 21st but with the understanding it may not even need to be a condition that Mr. Mann and Council will continue to have conversations about which species it is it doesn't need to be a condition given that they're both amenable I understand that it would be justified if we put it in specifically there are risks continue to have conversation but I agree with Commissioner Dan that I don't want to prevent this project from moving forward especially given that we are meeting our objectives and our direction as a commission by approving this given what I think is dated and then some of the additional languages I'll put in here about more specific language around the decommissioning of the project so I worry we're adding an extra burden where it may not be necessary and especially a delay if you require coordination with parties that so far haven't had a positive relationship and so far have been working to stop this project moving forward also to that effect you guys could your commission could choose to uphold the zoning administrators approved condition of approval which actually very much simplifies it to a final landscape and irrigation plan consisting of landscape screening on the west side of the facility and the east side of the facility and so if your motion were to support the original condition of approval prior to building permit issuance the applicant can coordinate with the property owners as agreed upon in the original decision and that without complicating that I definitely support the direction you're going here okay so in regard to commissioner this would still involve them both agreeing I'm a little confused myself now well so it would go back to the original zoning administrator condition of approval with regard to final landscape and irrigation plans could add adding that language you know unless you want to be specific to the man's request to require redwood trees and require a minimum of five years of irrigation until fully established and a care management plan I think commissioner she can weigh in on this I'm not sure that you actually should water the redwood trees for five years so again this has to be a recommendation for sustaining the viability of the trees that they both and we talked about having the applicant agree to it you want to take another stab at formulating the condition if we're going to change it to reflect that simply goodness I'm taking all that too or do we just go back to the original proposal simply adding that that there is some that both all parties agree to you know a explicit care and maintenance program as advised by the arborist yeah yeah so the language would just be revised to say with all parties in agreement I think all parties in agreement still puts us in the same predicament that commissioner dan and commissioner we're raising um there is an agreed um planting plan and irrigation and care plan four or five years that all parties agree to well if I may interject we cannot superimpose something that we say they will agree to they have to agree to it we can't agree to it for them then all parties will agree to a care and maintenance program for five years well that's pretty open-ended if we said a five-year um what was it watering program and a 20-year maintenance is you know that's that's something that he was asking before so we can't say because they're just going to continue to argue this not having anything in writing before them I think we could ask for the arborist who selects the tree species to submit a care and maintenance program that the applicant would agree to follow and I don't think the 20-year maintenance plans for redwood tree makes any sense to me they don't really need that if they grow they grow a care and maintenance plan as prepared by the project arborist the applicant's arborist is that correct yeah that would be the applicant I wonder Allison and Rachel how do you is that suffice your desires if I'm understanding it correctly I think that it would because it doesn't require the talents to agree I think so I'll take a stab at reading that revised condition in order to screen the wireless facility from the view of adjacent residences to the east and west of the subject property the existing trees on site shall be protected in place and I think we need to include address the screening as well and planting plan implemented in accordance my planting plan implemented and care and maintenance plan implemented in accordance with the recommendations of the project arborist and should trees die they shall be replaced in kind I think that's weird hopefully they won't die they're required to keep the screening in place I think already without saying that I think it's a good point I think I see no reason if something happens and one of the trees dies doesn't hurt to say they shall replace it I agree I think that's good language does my second agree Judy I didn't hear what you said at the end there Renee I said would you agree to that language I would look more for language where we are just stating what it's going to be instead of saying they have to agree to it I believe that that's what Ms. Drake language I think achieved that goal yes they're required to plant the screening and also provide care and maintenance for that screening and the existing foliage in accordance with the recommendations by the project arborist understanding and appreciating that Mr. Mann and Cassel have had a good relationship and have been cooperating in developing this planting plan all along so I would imagine that would continue throughout this finalization of the arborist report before you actually said some language that we could incorporate to be in the motion do you want to try that one more time because we need to see what's actually going to go in not the explanation of it okay I'll have to try and remember what I read before and it wasn't super articulate it was a little bit off the cuff well we got to get through this so let's get through this yep hey let's see what did I say there in order to screen the wireless facility from view of adjacent residences to the east and west subject property existing trees on site shall be protected in place and planting and the planting plan shall be implemented and all what should we say and all vegetation cared for and maintained in accordance with the arborist recommendations as prepared by the project arborist sorry maybe that last part didn't sound good should trees die they shall be replaced let's see I need to fix that last little piece there you want maybe you certainly doing this on the cuff is always difficult do you should we have this come back to the consent agenda for all I mean where do we stand or maybe we can just take a moment for Sheila and I to try and get together we need a little break anyway why don't we take 10 minutes okay yes I think we understand my apologies for the interruption chair Gordon could I just make one suggestion because I think it's consistent with the concerns that are raised by the commissioners if it's now is really the time where public comment is closed but if it's in relation to the motion that would benefit the language of what we're suggesting if I would hear it if it's trying to change discussion I would suggest it's not the appropriate time no it's directly related to the issue in my experience when these issues come up and there are landscaping decisions that need to be made ultimately staff and I think I would suggest that we should approve or disapprove of the plan and my suggestion is that you impose that condition so that we don't encounter a situation which the commission on my client is concerned about and that is continuing interference by Mr. Robinson in an effort to delay this project or delay the construction so it just seems to me it's reasonable they can approve it over the objection of any party and to the extent that the county has a county arborist that can comment on it fine if they required an independent opinion I would ask my clients to fund that if that was a necessary condition appreciate that thank you and so with that for now we're going to take a how long do you need Mr. Robinson? 10 minute break anyhow with staff so let's do 10 minutes so it's 1147 so how about we reconvene at noon? That's perfect thank you so much all right okay thank you thank you okay it's 12 o'clock we can resume got it all right sure so we're reconvening it looks like are we recording it looks like we are do we have Commissioner Shepard back yes sorry sorry great okay perfect do we jump right in or do we need to do um so I think you and Jocelyn are going to give us some language so we can amend the motion again to reflect their language yes thank you thank you for allowing us to take a quick break while we looked at that um I am glad we did that because I was attempting to amend probably the incorrect condition of approval but I think we've got a good one for you to consider and work from and that is an amended condition of approval and it is condition of approval two nine actually because staff had already drafted some pretty great language here in in my view which is um here's a suggested revision to how that one reads and it's a long one the applicant shall submit final landscaping and irrigation plans consisting of landscape screening along the west side of the facility and the east side of the facility consistent with the recommended species with the exception that redwood trees shall be planted along the west side of the facility that was included to address uh Mr. Mann's concern moving on planting location and planting specifications of landscape screening plan prepared by Helix environmental planning dated January 21st 2022 that was that change was recommended by uh Ms. McDaniel further this report shall be revised to include a maintenance plan that addresses all existing and proposed screening planting final landscaping and irrigation plans shall be reviewed and approved by planning staff so that is something you can consider um that operational condition for B which is what I had attempted to amend earlier actually reads well in my view um as it is so there are no further um proposed changes okay I said and you have um you have that written down so if I amend the motion to reflect which I'm going to do we will we can maybe if anybody wants we can read it again otherwise that's what we are going to do so um uh Tim as the chair mayor I asked that we I would like to suggest that we amend my motion which I think I'll just probably read it again um the planning commission determined that the project is exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and improve application 201372 based on the revised findings and revised commission of sorry conditions of approval exhibit C and as shown on the revised project plans exhibit E with the amendment suggestion to Roman numeral 2-9 condition as just read to us and stated um by Ms. Drake Commissioner Lason B okay you lost my whole thought no uh yes I wanted to see language that would kind of dictate to the parties what we expect so that planning doesn't get to be a referee on whether they agree with whatever it was that we decided and I think this is closest to eliminating that and also we don't want to bring any risk to the county so I think I would second this second this motion okay thank you Commissioner Lason B and then did we have any other discussion before we move to a vote thank you sounds like we are ready for a roll call vote right Commissioner Villalante yes Commissioner Shepard yes Commissioner Lason B yes Commissioner Dan yes and Chair Gordon yes thank you so much motion passes on that appeal we have the second appeal okay well I would like to move on the Robinson appeal recommendation that we staff recommends planning commission determine that the project is exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and approve application 201372 based on the findings and revised conditions of approval which is exhibit C as shown on the revised project plans which is exhibit 1E and are we are you suggesting because I'm not quite sure so I better ask that we add this new condition to this particular recommendation yes it's a condition of approval that will be on the project then I am adding as part of my motion that the revised condition of approval for Roman number 29 shall be as read by okay thank you Commissioner Shepard do you have a second on that motion well I could not support that unless we also roll in reconstruction I know that there's been a lot of conversation about reconstruction obligations are in such and such document or but I don't think we have it in ours that the applicant or that AT&T our Crown Castle has to restore the property are you asking you have the second at first before you can ask for a friendly amendment we're not supposed to discuss the motion until it's seconded thank you okay I will second it and I have discussion can staff weigh in on that because I thought that it was my understanding that staff had said earlier that that would be covered absolutely the conditions of approval in your condition F and G as included in your packet articulate that G articulates that the applicant shall obtain a demolition permit for removal and site restoration of the existing wireless communication facility at 653 Rebecca Drive that's already regulated by the use approval for that facility and otherwise would have gone without saying but I added that in because it became an issue of contention by Mr. Robinson so it would be subject to the site restoration requirements of those a condition of approval of that facility but it's there they'll restore the Robinson site but it will be consistent with the use approval for that site and whatever agreements the property owner has with crown and that's not like I said that's not the county's business well no I agree document which we don't know I would just feel a little bit better if there are any parameters that we have or that planning has for restoration well you could add that site under G where it says and site restoration of the existing facility at WCF at 653 Rebecca Drive consistent with the use approval for 653 Rebecca Drive and then that way it knee jerks to that use approval Commissioner Laysenby does that sound right? I can go along with that yes OK well then I will also amend the motion include what Sheila just said Sheila would you repeat that as best you can one so the language condition G at the very end of the first sentence it says at 653 Rebecca Drive at a comma consistent with the use approval for 653 Rebecca Drive OK short and sweet and clear thank you Commissioner Laysenby does that seem appropriate to or an approval of the amendment I second the motion as amended great thank you any further discussion from any other commissioners before we move to above on this part of it great let's do a roll call though please on the Robinson appeal OK Commissioner Dan yes Commissioner Villante yes Commissioner Shepard yes Commissioner Laysenby yes all right and Chair Gordon yes all right motion passes thank you very much thank you Sheila thank you very much I would just like to commend Sheila on the amount of work this took and being able to you know turn on a dime and really be on top of everything I really appreciate the staff on this one it's really first class thank you Renee agreeing yes yeah it's an enormous amount of work you had to do for this appeal both of them thank you thanks all right thanks staff yes thank you to all the staff that worked on this is definitely a challenging one lots of information and moving so quickly to help us work through the amendments is really critical so thank you so much and we appreciate that that'll close out item number six today and we can move on to the next regular agenda items the planning directors report do we have anything to report today I see Paya is with us today good morning Paya or I guess good afternoon good afternoon can you hear and see me I can okay thank you good morning I do have one thing that I would like to bring the commission up to date with and that is that our regional council of governments ambag has completed the first part of the excuse me of the rena process for us that is they have published a draft methodology for determining what the portion of the region's housing allocation will be for each of the jurisdictions in the ambag region as you know it's Monterey County and Santa Cruz County it was an iterative process this year the ambag board had three meetings before they arrived on what the methodology will be for making that allocation the process now is that the methodology is with the state HCD housing and community development they must approve the methodology before it can become final so what I can report is should the methodology be approved what our allocation would be in that case and there were at the end of the day seven options in front of the board what was different this cycle than previous cycles is the the introduction of using an equity lens at all phases of allocating the regional allocation among the individual jurisdictions and that is called the AFFH or Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Perspective so the AFFH had controlled about 42% of the ultimate allocation there were different factors that control different percentages and we received a certain number of units for each of those different subjects so for example well this cycle the factors were looking at the number of jobs in the area the jobs housing ratio looking at the availability of quality transit the agency factor and then there was the AFFH factor and by far the largest factor was the AFFH the result of using that methodology is that the unincorporate counties share this cycle is going to be 4634 4634 units that means that it's going to be our job in our housing element to demonstrate to HCD that we have the capacity that many units given our zoning and general plan and site standards that's going to be that that number is much higher than it has been in the past to compare last cycle we had 1314 and now we have 4634 so you can have a sense of the magnitude of the effort that it will be to find and demonstrate capacity for all of that in our housing element the other thing that's important about that is the way that those 4600 units is distributed among the different income levels that also was a topic of a lot of discussion and work by the ambed board and the summary version is that in the very low and low categories about 53% of that 4634 needs to be in those categories and then the other two categories moderate and above moderate have the remainder so we're going to be focused on finding room for something like 3000 very low and low income units in the unincorporated area over the next housing cycle and it's timely to talk about this today because it's a very important piece of providing that housing the arena number is sort of the basis that we use and then the next step is as you know our sustainability update of the general plan is underway and nearly ready to be brought out and to have its public process begin and when the planning commission sees that and starts to work through it to make a recommendation to the board and then it will you'll be doing that with the perspective of knowing what our arena obligation is so that's my report about that and I'm happy to take any questions we're going up from 1300 to 4000 1300 and 14 to 4634 and what's the period of time what's the next X years or decades or what this is all about what's called cycle six in housing element terms and that is an eight year cycle so that is our allocation over eight years and it's of course really important to remember that it is our responsibility to provide that much capacity we don't actually build units but we have to create a situation where nonprofit and for-profit developers have a situation where they can begin to contemplate and then build and request permits for that number of units last cycle I think we permitted something like 700 units or something is that correct so we didn't quite meet the goals in the last cycle yeah we are currently not meeting the goals in terms of housing production our housing element was approved and accepted so we made a responsibility as far as capacity in none of the categories including above moderate right now are the goals being made if we think about where we are you know in the previous eight year cycle we have made a lot of progress and we've done some affordable units we've done a couple of sizeable projects recently we just finished Pippin 2 which was an additional 80 units and then 57 in capitol and 7th so our recent production as a community has definitely been better and we report on that annually to the state that's called our annual well it's our annual report and it's online in great detail we're about to file this years in April and I think it'll show that we're a significant percentage of the way in each of our categories but I can't predict that we will meet those goals and so once again that's an indication of you know we have a much higher goal to meet next round but I I'm just going to say I think that only three jurisdictions met their goals in the last yes it's a common yes because the the numbers given are frankly unattainable so what we will do is we will rezone to meet the goal but then it's the county is not in the business of developing housing so we rely on developers and our non-profit housing development partners to do that and I mean I will just say that after the county went through this process whatever that was over ten years ago there were a number of projects that got built right away Haftos Blue and now I'm forgetting some of the other ones in South County so I mean I would you know a lot of times we get beat up on but I would say you know did their job in the last housing element quite well and so this will and it was a challenge so this will be an even greater challenge right and and so the next preparing our housing element will be do the bulk of the work next year in 2023 it's due to HCD at the end of December of 2023 and the planning commission and the board are going to be the planning department's partners in determining and creating that capacity and adjacent to that it just emphasizes how important it is when individual projects come through to think about their density and the number of units and their contribution to the overall meeting or getting closer to meeting these targets because the way we get there is one project one development at a time and every unit is going to matter and we'll start to have those discussions about creating capacity when we are talking with you about the sustainability update it's going to include some one in particular new proposed zoning district that we're calling residential flex and that will make it it will make some spaces available for higher density projects and we're going to need those higher density projects to even contemplate making space making this capacity I'd just like to ask are there many other communities facing the same prospect of a huge increase in the allocation do you know yes this is a statewide issue you know well what's happened is that in the past most of the cycles have looked at creating capacity for current population growth and what the state is doing now is saying we must address our existing gap we have to address the existing deficit and that's why these numbers are so much higher population growth is nearly flat in the state but we're trying to address the deficit the existing deficit in housing so that's why the numbers are so high it's about three to four times from last cycle statewide and this is our portion of that so so it's up to the counties to consider what capacity they have for example water the availability of water and so on that's not taken into consideration by this agency well it actually is taken into consideration by this arena process it is um um there are prescribed factors that are considered availability of resources is one of them but nevertheless there is a fixed review that's needed to be allocated um we have our water situation and every community has theirs Carmel for example which is in our region and they can't do any new connections until they have new water supply they also got an allocation so it's considered but it is not controlling what is um the number you get is a function of various factors and um resources is just one well that's an interesting situation I expect all counties are looking at yes and um there are a couple of um regional governments that are ahead of us a little bit in the process the Bay Area ABAD is a bit ahead of us and some of the Southern California COGS are ahead of us and we can see what's happened in their situations um and it's very similar HCD is treating the state in um in similar ways um every community has their constraints we've got ours okay so it's their job to set ambitious goals it's their job to set the goals and and and it's actually more than a goal um Commissioner Shepard it's um it's it's it's mandated right um they we are given a certain share of the state's goal the Monterey Bay Area Government has to find has to allocate that among the jurisdictions we don't get to discuss whether it's higher or lower so um it's it's more than a goal it's a given it's a given so then our goal is to zone appropriately I suppose to meet the need yeah and I think that's the other thing that will be different this cycle is I think um HCD has to prove our housing element is going to be much more um rigorous about uh assessing whether the capacity that we think is there is actually there they're going to apply some market analysis they're going to determine whether a particular property is really suitable for what we're saying its capacity is so um I think we're going to have to give a very good demonstration that we have the capacity because they're going to really kind of subject it to analysis not to do at the end of 2023 uh yes we have to have it today by the end of 2023 actually that's to be proved by our board by the end of 2020 well what is our district you mentioned that Carmel's included in it just what counties are in it Monterey and Santa Cruz we're a two county regional government okay so San Benito is in there for some things but not for housing so basically they say this is your goal this is what you need to me and then yes that board we have representation on the board went through a process of determining what Monterey and how Monterey and Santa Cruz counties total number would be distributed among all the cities and the two unincorporated counties and each of those jurisdictions are represented on the ambag board and the ambag board went through this process and completed their work on January 12 so City of Scotts Valley City Watsonville City of Santa Cruz all have their individual allocations that are not in this number that's right this is just for the unincorporated county this is just for us well it's just understood yeah just living in an area where a good deal of the existing house and my district a very large number of existing structures that burned down I don't know how to think about this yeah and you know one of the things that was discussed at great length you know when we talk about each area having its constraints is that for the unincorporated county we also have goals of preserving our rural environments and making sure that well the city of Scotts Valley City can be a long transit corridors to the extent we can do it all of that and sometimes you're weighing those things because they can come into conflict but the county does have the the USL the urban service line and the area that we have available is well we will continue to try to respect that and concentrate the development and that quite a bit is you know we want our allocation to be an allocation that we can accommodate close to services rather than creating new pressures on the rural areas well I guess I just ask it you know we had over a thousand homes that were destroyed by fire do those count as vacant spaces now when those are rebuilt will they come toward the housing allocation yes actually they will and some of them may even be in the moderate range or they'll be above moderate but we have targets for those categories as well as the low and the very low and do ADUs count as separate counts they do count as units for the purposes of the arena and that's part of our strategy for capacity is continuing to encourage ADUs and make them more and more feasible for people to build because we can accommodate a chunk of it through ADUs so if we were built close to a thousand homes and 25% of those folks decided to add an ADU and could then that would be numbers we could account for toward this allocation yes we'll see how HCD feels about that in the last housing element we were able to count the ADUs we had in the moderate category making an argument that they're more affordable by design because they're smaller and hopefully that will be accepted again well it's a lot to take in and I'm glad we're going to be talking about it a lot yeah and I can actually send each of the commissioners the link to the ambag website where all this material is laid out and the thing to know as you go through material is that what was ultimately approved was option Z there are all these seven options they approved option Z so if you look at numbers if you're looking for the numbers that we have as our draft arena allocation they're the ones associated with that thank you for that that's really important and that is moving and knowing you have a lot of work ahead of you to get prepared so yeah and that conversation is going to be starting fairly soon next time I talk with you I think I'll talk with you about what the public process will look like but I can just say that as we bring the sustainability update forward and we have all of the new tools and policies for the public to look at and comment upon we are going to be really counting on the planning commissioners to engage with that because it's a lot of material and we'll be inviting you to the public meetings and to the extent that you can really participate it will be great and it will be able you'll be able to have a more informed recommendation for the board so we're all going to be working on this does the university have any stake in this whatsoever I'm sorry I missed the first part of your question does the University of California Santa Cruz have any stake in this whatsoever or are they a player in any way right well they're important and how many students they have and how they house what percentage of the housing demand generated with the university has dealt with is really important but they are not a jurisdiction they don't get an allocation and they don't have a vote on the anbag board well if they built more student housing on campus would that come it wouldn't count per se but their student population and the number of units they have is factored in to this allocation and it's factored in Santa Cruz's constraints and characteristics so when the anbag board weighed the city of Santa Cruz they took into account the effects and the performance of the university and across the two counties there are lots of institutions like that so they all get filtered in through the jurisdiction they're a part of and then I just had one more question my district particularly has a lot of uncommitted basically illegal housing but it's been there for a long time if we made a real effort to make you know upgrade or try to reach out have an amnesty try to make some of that housing bring it up to code or whatever it's been done in the past and we were able to do that so that it could be on the books housing would it come every building permit and that new unit counts so how we get there as a community what programs we put into place those are up to us so we do have some programs that point toward that now commissioner shepherd but we do not have an amnesty we've been successful in bringing a number of ADUs that have been built without permits into the permitting fold and then we also through the safe structures program have brought a number of structures that are unpermitted but are being rented we brought them to a minimum standard of safety but some of them are built where they can't they cannot get a building permit because they're they're in a setback or it's the second one on a property and so we haven't been able to get them all the way to a permit but we have gotten some all the way to a permit with specially ADUs and one part of our plan can be really trying to get as many permitted as we can because once they get a permit they're equal to any other building okay yes I think that's something to think about absolutely that will be in the housing element what's the so next steps for us you're going to bring some more information next to and then I think you mentioned and then happy to help obviously I think any opportunity to get involved earlier is usually better you know so that we can have a bigger picture and plan so yeah so the first piece of the puzzle is the rena allocation and then next time we next time we talk I'll be able to bring you the the schedule or the proposed schedule for the sustainability update of the general plan for that public process and and that's where you know we'll be asking you to become involved and start your work of familiarizing yourself with all that material because ultimately there'll be a planning commission hearing where you will make your recommendation and we want because of the schedule we hope to have you know one or two meetings but when you see how much material it is you could think you could have you know five six you know long a large number of meetings and we just can't really do that so that's why we'll be counting on you with our help of course to familiarize yourself with material and and have it so that we can have a you know a kind of a workable public process about it in front of the commission and that's not going to be until you know the summer I think there's an ER that needs to be completed first so that's what's determining the schedule okay so we will work together and we will get there and we're really starting now on on some of the policy underpinnings of the project work that you usually do thank you by I appreciate that great update if you didn't have anything else and we can go to upcoming meeting dates and agendas that's all that I had thank you great thank you yes chair the next regularly scheduled meeting is February 9th and so far we have two items slated for that agenda a tiny homes study session coming back to you tiny homes and then also minor cannabis appears to be minor cannabis amendment amendment to the cannabis regulations and then on the second meeting of February so far we have a reservation for an appeal of a project approved by this and administrator on Bonnie Street we might have an item from environmental health as well a series of code amendments we're looking at that meeting agenda as well so two meetings in February aligning up and that's all I have thank you so much if there was some public meetings on the tiny homes agenda item that I was unable to get to is there recording somewhere that I could access and kind of just listen to how this went if you want to daisy is the project planner that's been working on the tiny homes you can email daisy alan or if you just email me I can forward her your request thank you and am I right in thinking we may need more than one study session on that topic okay so what I'll do is I will just put a placeholder on the second meeting in February as well and we can see how it goes yeah okay any report from county council today nothing to report I just have to say good luck with this one we just finished sounds like we're going to spend some time on that one Ryan Thompson from our office does code enforcement and he has received all sorts of new information about the status of that stipulated judgment okay good thanks Justin great well if we don't have anything else that's it we can adjourn thank you so much everybody thank you have a wonderful afternoon bye bye you too just one thank you thanks